Episode 80 · May 24, 2018 · 01:51:39

80. Pussy Hatting

This week's challengeRead Vision.

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Tap a timestamp or any sentence to play from there · machine transcribed (mlx:mlx-community/whisper-large-v3-turbo), expect mistakes

AlexThis is Do By Friday, a weekly challenge podcast with Merlin Mann, Alex Cox, and Max Town. This week's challenge, read the vision.

That was a good open. I should have waited until we were recording. Were we recording my good Diet Coke snap?

MaxAlways be recording. You never know when you're going to get a good snap. Hello. Hello. I should not clarify that we're running late, but now it's... It is my fault. It was initially my fault. I was about five minutes late, but then Alex got up to get a Diet Coke, and then Mike One wasn't working, and we had all sorts of problems, and Alex isn't sitting in her normal seat, and the studio is all weird, and I don't like change.

AlexI broke the multi-million dollar studio. It goes up in price every time. It's like Joe's suit.

MaxWell, no, it goes up every time.

Alex$1,000 studio.

MaxIt goes up every time something's broken, because I'm like, oh, we should have spent more to fix that.

AlexNo, no, no, no. Oh, we should have spent more so that you could be on mic one. Don't I sound great, though, Merlin? I sound great.

MerlinYou guys sound a little overdriven.

AlexWait, really? Can you pull us down just in the main mix? Yeah, in the Motu. Oh, not in the headphone mix, in the main mix.

MaxThis is good content, I think.

AlexIt is. if Marco's listening he's gonna be I'm gonna hear about it sorry Marco I can't keep it the same every time people use it differently

Maxshout out to our normal engineer Chris he's out Chris is out with a back injury but wishing him a quick recovery thank you for your service

Alexdo either of you ever have back issues I ask because well Merlin in theory is a bit older but Max you weren't

Maxthat much older A bit.

AlexA bit. Just a bit.

MaxMerlin, is it true or false that our embattled EPA administrator, Scott Pruitt, is in fact younger than you?

AlexOh.

MerlinOh, a lot of people are younger than me. Neil Gorsuch is younger than me. It's very troubling. How old is Scott Pruitt? I think he is younger than me. I don't know.

MaxThe only reason I know that is you brought it up on Roderick on the line and you were very troubled by it. Yeah. Oh, God, yes.

MerlinHe's like my wife's age. My wife. Yeah, I look better, though.

MaxI'm poking fun, but I definitely will lose my mind when there's like a president who's younger than me.

MerlinYeah. Well, you know, the troubling part is you really only get two options. You can either have fun of people. People make funny for being older. You can die. And that's the thing that's going to seem less funny as you get older.

MaxWhat if you become so powerful that no one can make fun of you?

MerlinLike Thanos. If I get some stones from my pretty glove.

MaxYeah it's like oh Max How does it feel to have the secretary Of the interior be younger than you And then you know They're gone

AlexWait that wasn't a good snap Let's snap 3, 2, 1 Okay we got it We got one of those

MaxAlright I'm glad Alex is on the case here well what do you guys want to what do you guys want to talk about this week i don't have anything i i like i'm so i'm i'm the news this week has been so bad and so excited i've i will say i think we've talked about this on the show before but i've definitely turned a corner from it being you know i feel like there were a lot of these early people in the trump administration

like Sean Spicer that we made fun of. And there were these sort of farcical, comical people. And I think maybe it hadn't hit me yet how much damage they could do or how scary things could be. And I really did love the like, oh, Sean Spicer, the gum man. You know, that was a good, remember that bit? Yeah, Steve Bannon has an acid bathtub. It's all just fun, fun stuff. They were all such, you know, Batman villains. And something, I don't know, something just flipped of like, I'm just I'm not laughing anymore like mostly part of it is that I don't really know who nobody I

don't think knows who the decision makers in the White House are because like all these high profile people left and I know they've been replaced right there's still people who are doing work and making decisions but do you know who they are I don't yeah I mean who reads more I had the same

Merlinfeeling I'm I'm uh I'm kind of on a little bit of a break from the political list that's not entirely true i still look at it but like the i don't know it's all uh i don't know it's it's what do you say it's it's depressing it doesn't feel like anything is really going anywhere and just the bald corruption that's just like okay with everybody just doesn't seem to be going away or getting addressed and it's it's like i'll check back in in a week or two there were two

Maxstories that i thought uh that people were you know talking about on on twitter and and there There weren't stories. They were like takes. And I thought they were both – more or less I agreed with both of them. One of them said, you know, it's tempting – I don't remember. I didn't write them down, so I don't know anything about who wrote this or whatever. But one of them was to the effect of, you know, it's tempting to feel like we're getting buried in Trump scandals. Like there's 300 different scandals. I just – is this the Atlantic article?

MerlinI just added this to this.

MaxI think so. It's a very good article. Yeah. The premise was there's only one Trump scandal, and it's a big one, and it's corruption of the government. It's that these people are using the government and the people's money and resources to enrich themselves. And I somewhat agree with that. I don't know. At this point, I almost feel like maybe it's a tactic to have—

MerlinBut it feels like it's a skeleton key. We go back to Josh Marshall's razor about whenever you're wondering why something happened in the Trump campaign or administration, it's always the dumbest possible reason. which was just seemed like it proved itself hilariously over and over. But this article, I mean, it's sometimes it takes somebody saying the really obvious thing where it really is kind of the skeleton key. So this first paragraph, second paragraph is just this litany of all the things that are happening right now. And this is written by Adam Serwer, who I think has I think isn't he the one with the cats?

I forget. The preceding wall of text may appear to some as an abridged list of the Trump administration scandals. But this is an illusion created by the perception that these are all separate affairs viewed as such. The various Trump scandals can seem multifarious and overpowering. He goes on. There are not many Trump scandals. There is one Trump scandal singular. The corruption of the American government by the president and his associates who are using their official power for personal and financial gain rather than for the welfare of the people, et cetera, et cetera. And it's you know, it's like that. And when I say it's like a skeleton key, it's like if you if you boil away a lot of this stuff and like, oh, there's connections.

Well, there's there's not really connections. It's just that every single thing they do is corrupt and or a lie. It's just there's nothing they do that is true and not corrupt. Right. Somebody is making something or hiding something in everything that happens.

MaxThere's a couple of facets to it. There's one is that is the obvious thing is just that there is just bald face theft. Right. Like there there are people just self-dealing and just just stupidly just taking for themselves. And that's that's maybe a smaller bucket. The second category is people who, by virtue of their past and who they are, they're almost incapable of making public policy decisions without being conflicted, right?

Like Rex Tillerson is a good example. Like, how the fuck are you going to make foreign policy decisions as Secretary of State and not have it have something to do with the oil industry or your cronies in the oil industry? Like, almost any decision he makes one way or the other is going to be conflicted in some way to some special interest. And then there's the third bucket, which is the sort of, it's this idea that like Trump, Trump is corrupt and has been corrupt his whole life. And he's into all this probably money laundering and all this petty bullshit,

the small, stupid stuff. But also he doesn't pay anyone. So he has all these other grifters in his orbit, but because they don't get paid by Trump, they have to come up with some sort of grift on their own. Yeah, they need a side hustle. Yes, they're like feeding on the dead whale that sunk to the bottom of the ocean. That's the Trump's grift. And then these people are all the little worms that eat the whale that falls every 20 years.

MerlinYeah, yeah. And I mean, the part about that makes it seem so sad and weird in some ways is that one of the selling points for this guy was that he's decisive and that he speaks his mind and that he is a successful business person. And even at the time, a lot of people said, well, you know, he's not really that successful a business person. He's had these problems and yet he bounces back. But the way he bounced back wasn't by building anything. He basically, he got lucky enough to be on a TV show for a while and started selling his licensing, his name to be on stuff. But then you get this accretion of people with debt and legal problems who didn't bring

more people. The fixtures that they bring in have further debt and legal problems. And it seems like every time legal exposure, every time you bring in a new person, it just introduces more of somebody scrambling for side hustle to cover their debt or in some way trying to ameliorate their legal exposure and it just it there's not that many people who stuck around that don't have that same problem in some form or fashion well the uh the second piece that i read

Maxthat i i thought i most mostly i i agreed with it although i felt maybe it was a little hysterical but it was this idea of like there's this idea that people are waiting for the line to be crossed you know that there's like a line in the sand oh yeah any day any day now they're gonna really they're gonna they're gonna get some jesus don't you hear don't you see people posting like i have a lot of sort of like like like lib friends on twitter and they post like uh they'll post like

Merlina picture people like chuck grassley are eventually gonna be like you know the ones we can really trust and the john mccains they're all gonna eventually like line up and be like oh i can't believe this has been going on this whole time something must be done well no it's not even it's

Maxnot even that it's more of like i i uh it's like uh i see see pictures of of uh friends of our you know like just normal people that we know who are just sort of you know normal like like like liberal people and they're just like if trump fires muller like i'm gonna be out there in the streets and they'll post a picture of like a big sign board and they're like i've got my sign like ready to go you know like that kind of a thing like just try me trump and like i'll take to the streets i've already painted my futile gesture it's like what it's like what more like what like I mean, it's happened, right? The line's been crossed, man.

We talked about last week, they've got these detention centers on military bases for the children. They get separated from their families. There's the gut. This week, they're gutting women's health care. It's like, what outcome are you waiting for?

MerlinThe big one this week that's not getting as much attention, and I don't understand a lot of it personally, but it appears that a lot of the things, the Dodd-Frank-ish things that were put in place after the financial collapse.

MaxYeah, it's the largest financial deregulation bill since the Great Recession in 2008. It is passed or is going to pass this week. I mean, I haven't seen it in a couple of days. But yeah, it's really-

MerlinBut we don't even get to have a treat anymore. For a long time, it seemed like that pussy blaster, Robert Mueller, was really on a path to destruction. We were all really excited about how that was going. And then it's like, well, you know, oh, you know, will this investigation continue? And like, what's going to happen with Rod Rosenstein? and it's like Rosenstein. But it's all going to happen the way it happens.

MaxIt's like, remember what Renato told us, right? And this is now Renato's theory that Mueller and the FBI people believe. They tow the Justice Department line that the sitting president cannot be indicted on criminal charges while he's in office. And so what we know, Renato walked us through this, but now it's been basically confirmed by Giuliani's flapping his fat mouth on cable news, that basically they're going to create a report. Probably aspects of the report will come out to the public so that the people can decide

for themselves. And one would hope that it's before, if not before the midterm elections, that it's at least before the next general election. And they'll refer it to Congress, and Congress is going to have to choose whether to do an indictment or not. But the likely scenario, I think we're looking – I'm more optimistic that we'll win the House than I was a couple months ago, although not – I know it's not a sure thing. I'm not as confident as some people are. But it's looking quite bad that we're going to win the Senate. I mean we're not going to win the Senate. So there's not going to be an indictment.

MerlinThere's an ugly thing in the middle of this, which we should probably just say for another show. But there's an ugly thing in the middle of this that keeps lurking, which is whenever we're out there painting our signs and wondering why everybody isn't pussyhatting and seeing all this corruption. And the thing is, the there is a very strong sense of comedy, not comedy, but there's a sense of community around Trump that has very little to do with Trump, except in as much as it has to do with Trump, which is, you know, that 30 to 40 percent or whatever that's going to be with him. You know, if he takes a shit on his desk, it's going to be fine because he's he's helping the economically anxious.

MaxHave you seen the new thing where they're all mad at Andrew McCabe and they think they're like they're like there was like a tweet yesterday. Everyone was making fun of a former FBI director. And you could be like, McCabe, you better fucking get ready to bite down on that cyanide pill when you have to testify before Congress because you're going down, buddy. Like they think he's the sort of deep state, the central figure in the deep state conspiracy against Trump. But I mean, it's truly parallel universes. And, you know, I'm somewhere in the middle. I mean, I clearly am for more I'm closer to the sort of Mueller cultists than the like, I don't know what you would call it, the like QAnon, Trump, deep state FBI conspiracy cultists.

But they're both but I'm enough in the middle, at least that like from the outside, I can see that they're both deranged.

MerlinHere's what I was going to say is that like this is not fun to say it. This does not feel good to say this is not the answer that I like to keep turning back to. But, okay, so that other 60% or whatever, or that other, however that percent is, there's just not anything that compelling on the other side. There's not a message. There's not a story. There's not a vision. There's not values. I mean—

MaxYou mean— Wait, you lost me. So you mean the 60% of people who are fed up with Trump, who disapprove of him, you're saying we don't have this compelling counter-narrative to mobilize us the same way that their side has a narrative?

MerlinYes. that the presence of opposition to the president is nowhere near as compelling. And what could be very exciting and very unifying is something bigger about the presence of a very strong message from the other side. And I don't feel like that's there right now. I mean, you see bits of this. When you follow people like one person I really like off your list is the woman from Emily's list, Christina Reynolds.

It's really fun to watch her and see her boosterism of female candidates and seeing things like that. You see what's happening in Georgia and all that kind of stuff. Yeah, that's all true and it's all good. But there's not a big unifying message about what we – I almost feel like we need a way to set aside the last, whatever, 18 months and come up with a vision for what we do want that is assertive. and is compelling and persuasive. And I don't feel like that's there right now. I don't think opposition to Trump is going to be enough.

And I don't know what that message needs to be or who should be the standard bearer or the person drawing the sigil on their sign. I don't know who that should be, but I think that's part of the problem is there's this scattershot approach of a bunch of us rolling our eyes over here. And that's not a great look. It's not going to attract anybody from the middle. There's not a vision.

MaxThe question you're talking about of like, is being anti-Trump enough to, and this sort of alleged blue wave, is that enough? Is the hatred of Trump and everything that he represents enough to mobilize people to vote without a strong story? The likes, it reminds me of 2008. I think it's an... Okay, let's just...

MerlinAll I'm saying is we all agree. We all agree we don't like Trump. We wish he weren't there and everything that's happening is horrible. But the way to make that blue wave happen is you're going to have to assert something different that's based on a vision of change and values that is kind of not with regard to Trump. And nobody wants to do that. Nobody can do that because he's the elephant in every fucking room.

MaxWell, let's just posit that that's a fair, that that's like a hypothesis, right? And that you wanted to design an experiment to test it, right? So the question is, the question that we want to know the answer to is, can you win a big national change election where people, based on people disliking Trump, but without really a compelling story on our side, or do people primarily need like a big personality and sort of a hopeful message and something exciting on our side?

What better experiment would you design than the 2016 election to test that hypothesis? Like we've already run this simulation. I'm like, see, I'm like Doctor Strange. Like I've already run the simulation 10,000 times. Yeah.

We tried running without a big, compelling, exciting message on our side. The whole thing— Oh, okay. You see what I'm saying? Like the whole Clinton campaign's premise was Trump is disgusting, and when people went to vote for Trump, they hated him. Even among Republicans, his approval was very low.

MerlinBut the way that he and his campaign and his proxies were able to frame it was— And they did this very cannily, is they know that the American people, I mean, you know, there's a lot of hagiography now around the Clintons. But if you go back to what the Clintons did and went through, they definitely have some bodies buried. Not Seth Rich.

MaxBut there's definitely some shit that went down with the Clintons. Hang on. Let me get my watermelon set up here. Hang on.

MerlinBut it's that, I mean, I don't know. The answer may not be this cult of personality around one person. But there's not even like one message. There's not even an economic – one of the things –

MaxBut I'm just saying like just looking at – I'm trying to not get editorialized too much because I just want to – I'm just trying to represent what I know to be just the facts about that election. But like it is – the Clinton campaign's premise was we want to run hard against Trump and make this election a referendum on Trump. And if you go back and look at the convention and look at the messaging of the campaign, America is already great was one of the main slogans of the campaign after post convention, right?

MerlinYeah.

MaxIt was all about Trump. And when people went to vote, it is true that voters were highly educated about all of the negatives about Trump, including Republicans. And in exit polls and in polls of Republicans, they hold a low opinion of Trump. Like not – most Republicans I don't even think like the guy. But they voted for him. They like got out of bed and voted for him because he was going to give them the stuff they wanted. They knew, OK, well, I'm going to hold my nose and vote for this guy even though it's against many of my values because he's going to give us the Supreme Court justice and Mike Pence was sort of a signal to them and so on and so forth.

MerlinWell, at least part of that message is what he would never do. But what he represented was very important.

MaxYeah. You know what I mean? Yeah, and also it was the grievance of a rebuke of the Obama era too. I think people like that.

MerlinAll the cultural changes of the last 20 or 30 years and people feeling very culturally left behind, that the country that they had the privilege to feel like they ran, even if they were a laid-off coal miner, that all that mythology had gone away. And Donald Trump represented a return to their kind of person who was not going to brook any truck with that bullshit.

MaxBut also like, OK, but also like more to the point, I feel like I've said this 100 times in this podcast that no, there were this whole mythology of these Trump voters who come like crawling up from the sewers, these like mad, these like hordes of like the ice king. Yeah, the Maga Chuds. But it's like I think people have this image of like the ice king, you know, leading all these like Trump voters from like their farms, from their like, you know, pig farms to into the voting booth. And it's like, oh, all these Trump voters, where did they come from? They're sick of identity politics or this or that.

It's like they don't exist. The same people voted, the same number of people in the same demographics voted for John McCain, voted for Mitt Romney, voted for Donald Trump. The Republicans have what they have, which is a very solid, stable base of voters. And they show up to every election, even the school board and all that stuff. And that's who they have. And we have more people than them. The problem is our people don't vote in every election. Like we don't need to do anything. Like we don't need no concession. No concession needs to be made. Like we don't need these people to change and vote for us.

MerlinWhy wasn't Air America a big hit? Why is there no liberal Rush Limbaugh? And when we do get a liberal Rush Limbaugh, it's somebody like Keith Oberman like recording in his basement with a flag behind him and a big echoey sound. It always fails because there's a difference. One difference in those two sides is that the progressive or Democrat movement may not be perfect, but there is an idea that we're all trying to march in this in this sort of better direction, usually with some kind of like positive message and increasingly a cultural message in a lot of ways.

So the problem is that that negativity doesn't work for us and this side, but it does work very well for the other side because that's their basic grievance. Their basic grievance is fed by that negativity. And it's way easier to agree on what we don't like than what we do.

AlexOne of the most telling things was I believe this was an event held by Emily's List. And someone just asked, can anybody say what Hillary Clinton's campaign slogan was? And the room went dead silent. And someone's like, I'm with her. And it was stronger together. Yeah, I didn't know. What was it? Stronger together. What does that even mean?

MaxYeah. And then America is already great. So Merlin, I would say I think you're on the right path here. But I would even say it's more fundamental than that. which are, I think, so I'm kind of into the George Lakoff thing of like there are these two big frames that people use to understand the American family and the American metaphor. And in the conservative frame, hierarchy and obedience to authority are very important. And in the conservative frame, you know, it's related to, it's a reason why Christianity is also, you know, has a big crossover and more like, you know, you'd say like Orthodox or conservative Judaism has like a big Republican crossover.

It's because they like like a hierarchical ordered worldview where you have America above other countries. You have like men above women. You have white people above other races. You have humans above animals.

MerlinAnd there are consequences for disobeying dad.

MaxYeah, and for violating the natural order of things. But in fact, like tolerance for authoritarianism and desire for authoritarianism is like a measurable personality trait that is most highly correlated with support for Trump. So Trump is activating this identity within people, this idea of like fall in line. You know, there's a hierarchy. I'm going to put things back in their order. whereas on the left I think we're right but we believe in and that these hierarchies are socially they they only have they don't have any actual like they're not real right they're they're like

you'd say like they're like it's like a social ontology like they exist but only because we say they exist and we could undo them there have a different if we want right like it is correct in many ways to say like in our society like men have more status than women but that's not like a rule Like we could change it. It's just it's just that way because people decided it was that way. Like we could change it and it would the world would would be better. So to me, that is that is what's that's that idea of like we can make things better. We can have a better world. It's like the nurturing parent worldview of like everyone should have an opportunity.

We can protect people from dangers and give everyone a fair shot and so on and so forth. That's like doesn't fit with the idea of like falling into line and falling. You know, OK, hold your nose and vote for this guy. Like it's like we have or or like you said, like, no, that is not the people who want to listen to an air America and hear a guy yelling at them on the radio about what to believe. Like we are the disordered party where where it's hard to get everyone facing in the same direction.

MerlinYeah. Yeah. Yeah. I remember reading that essay. The rest of the book, I think it's basically an essay that probably should not have been a whole book. It's a very good essay. I've read it many times and I do think about it a lot. And so I'm just looking here at, I wonder if Metaphors We Live By is still a good book to read. That was 1980.

MaxI would recommend. 1980 that came out. If people are, I mean, this is a big important book for me, but if people are interested in this guy, George Lakoff, I recommend a YouTube video, which is a lecture that he gave at Berkeley during the Bush administration called Moral Politics. So if you just go on YouTube and search for Moral Politics, it's like you should, it's just the video is just basically this guy standing at a podium. and I think that's your best bet. I think it's better than reading... As like an intro, I think that that's better than reading any of his books. It's a pretty fun lecture and a lot of what he says about the Bush of Investigation.

MerlinAs everybody knows by now, and as you have just said, in Metaphors... Or not in Metaphors We Live By, and Don't Think of an Elephant, the basic notion is that it plays off of his idea that metaphors... So the idea he first put out, as far as I'm aware, in Metaphors We Live By, which is that metaphors are more than an analogy in culture. And in America, there are certain kinds of metaphors that come to define the reality of things. What are some of the examples? Love is a journey.

Various things end up getting often placed in the context of war and war analogies. Sometimes in business, you'll hear that. But the basic one, as you say, is the stern father and the nurturing family. But one thing that's interesting, if you look at that model, because I am so interested in the people who end up supporting Trump, not in the New York Times profile piece way. But I think there's a lot to be said for that idea of feeling left behind. Yeah, economically, but also just culturally. Who was talking about this? Probably somebody on one of the various GabFests.

But talking about how, you know, the thing that drives a lot of people, Trump supporters, crazy is they feel like they've lost the cultural war. It's not cool to believe what they believe anymore. And on the other hand, all progressives have left is the culture war, however you want to define that. And I'm not saying that any kind of value judgment way. But that idea that like the culture is this evolving thing that's changing and it's more inclusive and that, you know, the person who is the laid off coal miner is not the hero of our story anymore. And that model of the family, though, I'm interested in who you see yourself as in that metaphorical family.

Because I think a lot of Americans, especially a lot of American men, feel like the older brother of a large family. And so on the one hand, you say like strict father. Well, does that mean that I'm being sort of like dominated by this father? No. That father who runs everything and whose values I'm constantly enacting in life, I'm empowered by that father. I'm basically the project manager for America. Like when I go out there doing stuff and making my own particular grievance sign and wearing my red hat, I'm speaking for dad.

Power is conferred to me through dad. So when you attack dad, you're attacking me.

MaxDoes that make any sense? Yeah, it's not quite the same thing that Lakoff talks about in his book, but it's—

MerlinWell, I'm trying to understand the interpolation. I'm trying to figure out when you see yourself—I mean, it's not strictly an Alte Sera thing, but when you see yourself in that Trump world—boy, I'm going to get shit for this. But the other day, it was a classic enactment of the problem. I'm waiting in line at 7-Eleven trying to buy a smart water while three people in front of me are buying lottery tickets. And all I can think is, holy shit, you're in line to get a lottery ticket. And if you had a winner, you get another lottery ticket. And it's all tied up in that larger thing of like, I'm just not a millionaire yet.

I'm just not a powerful person yet. But by aligning myself with this particular person and this particular ideology, it gets me closer by proxy to this success in life that has been taken away from me. Something that was so there for previous generations is now not there for me. I've lost relevance. I've lost money. I've lost a future. And it's hard for me to see how those folks ever become unseated from that idea. There's no pitch that we can make to those folks that's going to make them want to become softer and more open to an idea of a changing culture.

And as long as their job is to be the guardians of the old culture, as fucked up as it may be, it's going to be hard to see any kind of change because that's very personal.

MaxWell, I disagree with you on this point because, like I said, we don't actually need them to vote for us to win elections. In fact, it doesn't matter if they vote for us or not.

AlexWait, what do you mean?

MaxSo you don't win elections. I mean, I just – I pitched that poorly.

MerlinI actually agree with you on this point. There's not a lot of sense in wasting a lot of time and resources on trying to get people to switch from Trump to whoever.

AlexOh, yeah.

MaxBut we don't need those people to win elections because you don't win elections by changing those people's minds. You win elections by getting those votes. And if we just gave people something, if we just gave our side, if you just draw the battle lines as they stand right now in America and gave our side something that they really exciting, that they believed in, that would get them to get out of bed and vote, like a program where they would be like, yes, this helps me in my life. And it's a strong vision for the kind of fair society I want to live in.

We have more people than them. So then we would win. Yeah.

AlexYou're always talking about how to change things, well, to vote and to run for things. But what's that cultural treat? There's never going to be an Obama. Is there anyone that people are excited about?

MaxI'll say I have complicated feelings about Bernie Sanders. But look at the fervor, just the craziness and the cult of personality on Bernie Sanders. I'm not personally, I do not think the guy's a saint. I have my issues with him. But if you look at public opinion polling, he is the most popular politician in America.

AlexWell, does that mean there's a 2020 thing? No, it's not. What I'm asking is what is the upcoming treat?

MaxYes. Well, let me finish my thought here. So think about why are people so crazy about Bernie Sanders? He's the most popular politician in America. But what is likable about him? He's like a disheveled old guy. He's not a particularly great speaker. Like he's he's not he doesn't have it. You know, like Obama, there was this civil rights message. Right. It was like we can elect the first black president. We can live in a in a and I'm not black, but I want to live in the country that would elect a black president.

So I felt very personally and strongly about about the civil rights cause of that campaign. like there's nothing about like and sanders doesn't have that so like there's nothing about bernie sanders that makes him a good candidate it's just that he gave people offered people

Merlinsomething they wanted he's a he's a cipher in a lot of ways like like trump he was he was an avatar of seemingly principled moral agreement that's if you can find somebody that lets you be angry

Maxit's going to be very attractive i actually disagree i mean maybe i i don't know my read on my read on bernie sanders is different i think i'm talking about his i'm not talking about him

MerlinI'm talking about his followers.

MaxMaybe. I think that the appeal of Bernie Sanders to his followers was that he told people that they could have things that they that like like liberal society told them they couldn't have like a $15 minimum wage and health. But by running left of center. It didn't matter. I mean, yeah, sure. Running left of center. But he just he said like you can have he said like let's have these things. Right.

MerlinYeah.

MaxAnd then the Clinton campaign said, well, let's be reasonable. Right. Like I always say, like, to me, the classic story about the Clinton campaign for me was, you know, so Bernie ran on a $15 minimum wage. And, you know, to me, the $15 minimum wage that he ran on, it was a little bit like Trump's wall. Like everyone knew on Trump's side that this wall was never going to get built, that it was an impossible pipe dream. But it was such a great image, right? You could fix it in your mind and it stood for all of this cultural stuff, right?

The taking back of power are going to kick these immigrants out. You're going to get a high-paying manufacturing job because the immigrants are going to be gone. It stood for so much in people's minds, and it was this picture, right? You picture the wall from Game of Thrones, and it was this big visual metaphor that you could just fix in your mind. It didn't matter whether it was realistic or not. People believed in it. That's what it means to inspire people.

MerlinBut it also had those elements of you're building something, and it's a civic project, and it's going to fix this problem that has been in the back of my mind.

MaxYeah, right. Like, yeah, sure. And the same thing with the $15 minimum wage.

MerlinIt isn't like signing something at the UN. This is a very masculine wall that we're going to make.

MaxSure. And the same thing with the $15 minimum wage. It's the symbol that people could fix their minds. People imagine themselves making $15 an hour. They think about how much better their lives would be. It's a big round number. You can hold it in your mind, much like the wall, and imagine how empowering it would be to you individually to have the $15 minimum wage. So now go to the Clinton campaign, right? Clinton, Hillary is a very savvy politician, probably one of the smartest deal, you know, unlike Trump, actually a very good dealmaker and very much understands the political dynamics of our day and age. And she's a pretty cold realist and can get shit done. So Clinton knows that what

she can get through Congress is a $10 minimum wage, but federally, but nobody wants a $10

Merlinminimum wage. Yeah. $15 an hour to do what? Nobody, that very rarely comes up is like, What are you going to be doing for $15 an hour?

MaxWell, so Clinton knows. She knows that what she can get through Congress is a $10 minimum wage. But what people want and what they're holding in their imagination is the $15 minimum wage. So the campaign comes out for a $12.50 minimum wage. And that was their big compromise policy proposal. It was like, don't you want a $12.50 an hour minimum wage?

MerlinIt's like, no. A job to be determined.

MaxBut no, but nobody wants.

MerlinBut for all these people that used to have manufacturing jobs that are Walmart greeters or are working for Amazon now, we're not getting to that thing of like, well, what are you going to do for $15 an hour?

MaxI mean, I hear you. I know that that's an issue, but also like there's an enormous number of Americans who make minimum wage. Oh, yes. Raising the minimum wage. I'm just talking about – I'm not talking about all the different policy things that everyone could do, but just this one issue.

MerlinYou know what I didn't know? I learned on Love It or Leave It. There was a woman on Love It or Leave It. It was so interesting. She works in food service lobbying and activism and basically trying to get all kinds of better stuff for people in food service and trying to get them to vote. And she was a very interesting – she had a very interesting POV. You know what's still like under $3 an hour is still the minimum wage for tipped workers?

Speaker AYep.

MerlinOn top of which they now want a policy. They want a policy where like Sammy on the ABC, Amy's Baking episode of Kitchen Nightmares, they now want owners to be able to keep the tips.

MaxYeah. Well, they did that. In fact, I think, no, wait, that might have gotten pulled out at the last second. It almost passed in the budget. But I think it might have gotten pulled out at the last second.

MerlinI see what you're saying, but you're saying for people who do have jobs, something closer

Maxto a minimum wage. I mean, this is another thing that's used to defeat, I mean, listen, like people want a $15 minimum wage. You polls very highly. Most economists think that there's low, that the downsides are exaggerated or imagined. It's good public policy. We should have a $15 minimum wage. And many states do have a $15, $10 to $15 minimum wage, and those states are doing fine. So it seems to be pretty good public policy. But there's lots of reasons. This is actually a classic tactic that liberals will use to say that they're against a $15 minimum wage.

They'll go, well, they'll do whataboutism, right? Where they're like, well, what about these problems or those problems? Ash, or your thing of like, well, what about people who don't have a job or they miss their old job or they want to manufacture? Sure, that's a problem, too. We should fix that, too. But also, we should have a $15 minimum wage. We can do it all. So anyway, I just think that's like, I don't know why. I forgot the original question.

MerlinYou think that could be a plank in the positivity, the Daniel Bryan yes generation of the future? That's the kind of plank that could work. And that's part of what made it for Bernie.

MaxI don't know. Yeah, maybe, maybe not. Maybe that's not the big issue that it was three years ago or whatever. But all I'm saying is it's I just think it's an instructive example of of the of what appealed to Bernie and why Clinton, why a lot of people didn't show up to vote for Clinton. It's that Bernie gave people something to believe in. And they knew like Trump voters knew that the wall is not going to happen. They knew that it might not be possible for Bernie to get them the fifteen dollar minimum wage. But if you want a fifteen dollar minimum wage, which which lots of people do, are you going to vote for the guy who offers it to you, even though it might not be realistic or the guy who doesn't support it?

Like you're obviously going to vote for the guy who says he'll fight for it, right? You're allowed to fight for it. And here's my other problem with the Clinton $12.50 minimum wage was these things happen in negotiations. So if Bernie goes to Congress, let's say Bernie's president, he goes to Congress and says, I want a $15 minimum wage. And they say, well, we want a $10 minimum wage. They're going to meet in the middle at $12.50. Clinton gets elected. She says, I want a $12.50 minimum wage. Congress says, I want a $10 minimum wage. Now they're going to meet in the middle at, you know, whatever, $11. well guess who got the better outcome the person who asked for more

anyway I just it's just it's just that's I just don't understand the the message of that message that Democrats sometimes will want to run on of like well don't believe in these things because you know the the having water will only what is it it's the

Merlinwhat's the Immortan Joe line right right right don't become like addicted you don't become

Maxaddicted to the water right it's like yeah don't believe in the $15 minimum wage because it's it's It's not likely to pass with the current Congress.

MerlinYou said something last week or the week before that I hate having to agree with so much. But that whole thing of like, well, what are the centrists doing for us? All the like now now people, like how much is that helping at this point? Like what is the flag that you're protecting at this point by having everybody chill out and be cool? And I'm not saying go, you know, run up to the barricades or something, but that that's I'm not I'm not sure how much water those folks are drawing at this point.

MaxYeah. It's like if we lost those seats to republic, let's say the big argument is like, oh, well, if we run a can a risky candidate that supports all these, you know, out there positions that we might lose the seat. Republicans might get the seat. Right. Like if we lose like Joe Manchin. Right. If we lose that seat, Republicans will get it. Well, so what if Republicans get it? Like, it's not doing anything for us now. So, like, I'd rather run a can't. I'd rather at least take a shot with a candidate who believes in the things that we should believe in. That's what the Tea Party movement was all about. Right. They were like, well, what are these people doing for us?

We'd rather run, you know, a funeral director or a hog farmer or, you know, no, seriously, or like fast food franchisees. Like, that was the big thing of the Tea Party was they were regular people.

MerlinYeah.

MaxWith no policy knowledge. and they were like, well, we'd rather run people that are like us and believe in the things we want than have these elite people who tell us what's best for us. But it's not what we want.

MerlinAs long as this episode is unusable and can't be posted, I would like to ask you a question. The phrase that was used a lot during the campaign and seemed to draw a lot of water with people was drain the swamp. And the idea that people like Hillary Clinton and their cronies, the corruption of Washington in general was like a, you know, kind of a big part of the campaign. And in fact, you could argue that a kind of a daughter of that was the whole locker up thing, that basically these people get to, they're running roughshod, they're incredibly crooked,

and they must be prosecuted. Why do you think, do you think that people are just okay with what's happening in the administration? Or why, why is it not bothering those people more?

Speaker AI'm sorry, I'm putting this really poorly.

MerlinIt feels like if you follow the news at all, and a lot of people are going to say it's because, oh, if you watch Fox, you're not going to learn about these things or whatever. But it feels fairly incontrovertible to me that there is at least an appearance of some pretty bad corruption going on amongst so much of this administration. Why do you think that doesn't bother people more?

MaxWell, I have a pretty cynical theory about that, which is why do you think it bothered people when George W. Bush was spying on, was trying to get their library records? but it didn't bother people when Obama was overseeing this massive expansion of, of like NSA surveillance. It's because people have an enormous capacity to, he's a monster, but he's my mom. Yeah. They can bite the bullet, right? It's like, well, he's our guy. So we're going to, you know, he'll people, some excuses I've heard about that where people would say, well, he knows things we don't, or, you know, it's a necessary evil that any

president would have to do or, and these aren't, I'm not saying those are bad reasons. Those might be good reasons. But all I'm saying is people come up with, if it's our guy in there, they come up with some sort of way to resolve that cognitive dissonance, right? They give themselves a way out where it's okay when Obama does the thing we don't like, but it's not okay when Bush does the thing we don't like. Well, you know, it's like, does anyone really think that people, that Trump voters were actually motivated by Hillary Clinton's alleged poor IT security practices?

MerlinIt was less what happened and more who they think did it.

MaxYeah, it's like, right. It's like, did anyone really show up to the polls because they thought that Clinton like didn't follow State Department IT protocols correctly? Like, I don't, I doubt it. I doubt it. I don't think that was a big issue for people. I think it's more of like they hated this woman and they were trying different attacks that worked. What do you think, Alex?

MerlinYour podcast boy should have more women on.

AlexOh, God, let's not talk about that. Oh, it's got like 10,000.

MaxIt's got like 10,000.

MerlinThat was a very popular tweet.

AlexI was.

MerlinYou showed us.

AlexThat was so stupid. but you're gonna go on random track right oh yeah no i was yeah i'm gonna go on random track why do you regret that i thought that was a good no it was just it was literally a sub what what

Maxwhat inspired can you say first of all tell us what the tweet is for our listeners i don't even

Alexremember i was like have more find it read it podcast it was so stupid it was one of those things that make no change whatsoever it doesn't matter it it it was stupid and it was because i was talking to one of my friends at Google who was like, yeah, I would listen to podcasts that women are on if anyone was on them. And I was like, you've lost your mind. It was actually supposed to go on my private Twitter account. It didn't.

MaxYou have a private Twitter account? Nope.

AlexI don't know what you're talking about.

MaxThis is at Alex Cox one day ago. Hey, Podboys, you should have more women on your shows. Women talking about tech. Women talking about Apple. Women talking about whatever. Guess what? I'm a woman. Don't like me. That's OK. I know other women. There are a lot of women. 144 retweets 981 faves

Alex981

Max30 comments of people arguing with you What inspired this?

AlexI told you I was just mad at a guy What did he do? He was just We were arguing about women in the media And he was a ding-a-ling And it was a pure

MerlinWas his position that there's already plenty of women?

AlexThat women don't take action and it's like, well, there aren't women there. So it was...

MaxIt's just a stem all over again. What does that mean, women don't take action?

AlexThat they don't make their own stuff, that they're not... He has the same argument around, oh, the reason that women don't get nominated for Academy Awards is because there aren't enough women directing movies. It was just a purely reactionary dumb tweet. That's the end of that story. There's nothing...

MerlinIt's a good point. Maybe one thing we could do to amplify the signal a little bit. Why don't we talk about some of our favorite podcasts featuring men? Do you guys listen to any podcasts with men?

AlexThose McElroy brothers are okay.

MerlinOh, they're good, good boys.

AlexBut unfortunately, they have some shows with their wives.

MerlinThere's more women than I would like on the Slate podcast, especially the Double X show. There's way too many women on that show.

MaxI like the men on This American Life, but the women have that vocal fry issue. Oh, the vocal fry is so bad.

Merlinyou just made it funny that was good I can't do it Griffin's got a lot of vocal fry how do you make a vocal fry

Alexit's just my groan but when you talk

Really, everybody should just get mono, and then they'll have fantastic vocals. Oh, how are you feeling, buddy?

Speaker AI'm so bad. People are going to think that I didn't get to talk before,

Alexbut I'm just so tired. I feel great at 9 a.m., and then it's like... I'm confused about this. It's a made-up thing that I made up.

MaxOkay, so you do or you don't have mono?

AlexI do have mono. Okay, so it's not made up. No, it's not made up. Are you contagious? No, it's not. If someone were to...

MerlinIf you had more initiative, you wouldn't have mono.

AlexExactly. If I didn't, you know, lick so many people's mouths.

MaxBut wait, but you do have mono, but it's not contagious.

AlexNo. If someone shares a drink with me, or rather, if someone had shared a drink with me in the past.

MerlinWhen you were in the contagious.

AlexCorrect. Yeah. I like the new vocal fry. Correct. That's right.

Merlinokay pop quiz hotshot if you could do a podcast yeah you could say you could do a show but if you could do an episode if you could talk to anybody on a podcast who would you want to talk with Alex

Alexthat's really hard I'm not even doing a bit now uh we're gonna get letters oh I know that I can't even think of somebody it's okay like I say it was a pop quiz probably laura jane grace actually interesting yeah i'm trying to think of like the women who don't talk in public because like that's yeah and she she's out there singing the lady songs but doesn't really

Merlintalk about stuff um i like jill lapore i don't know i like everything she's on what you made a noise what you're making i don't know who that is joe lapore jill uh that's a lady and you gotta you gotta get on the masha guessing train man i'm telling you you should listen to more uh podcasts with women i really should i just really like those

Alexone more question for you max how much you talked about getting people out of bed and i keep thinking about how many gifts there are of hillary clinton versus how many gifts there are of trump and how they are used by both sides. I don't know. I want my treat.

I want a treat.

MerlinYou mean like her falling down and stuff like that, getting hit by a golf ball, that kind of thing?

AlexBut they don't exist. No, I mean, they exist. And like, aha, look at, she's having a seizure. Look at, she's having a seizure. Whereas people on both sides are like-

MerlinThat smile, that smile.

AlexLike the Trump eyebrows.

MaxWell, I think it was more, I mean, I'm not sure what you're asking, but I think it's true that it was more fun to be a Trump supporter than it was to be a Clinton supporter in the last election.

AlexWell, it was more fun to be a Trump hater than it was to be a Clinton supporter.

MaxI don't know about that. Being a Trump, it seemed pretty fun.

AlexI'm not saying me personally. I'm saying that's what it felt.

MaxFrom the outside, it seemed pretty fun to be a Trump supporter. You were part of this empowering social thing. You'd go to these rallies, and this guy would go yell, and you'd get all fired up. There was great merchandise.

MerlinYou wouldn't have to interrogate your differences. You could dive straight into, like, no, we just can all agree that this is a lot of fun, and we love this guy.

MaxYeah, his rallies seemed fun, right? airplanes would fly over the trump airplane would fly overhead and people would cheer there was a whole fashion thing with the red hats like it it seemed it seriously it gave it was it gave people they had chance it gave people chanting and wearing the same hats and going to big rallies it gives people a powerful feeling it activates in-group identities and gives people a feeling of of empowerment and belonging to a movement and it seemed very fun to be a trump supporter Now, please don't get mad at me

I worked on the Clinton campaign I staffed many Hillary events in Chicago I went to the convention with the campaign I worked for the Clinton campaign So I was a Hillary supporter And I did everything I could to get her elected So please don't get mad at me But it was no fun to be part of that campaign It always felt like we were supposed to be outraged And scared And divided

MerlinAnd you didn't even get to be the underdog Part of the problem was everybody just agreed Nobody disagreed that she would win. Everybody knew she was going to win.

MaxAnd so, I mean, he got to be the underdog, too. Yeah, it was this inevitability, right? It's like, if this were—leaving out the politics of it, or the policy or the differences, but just looking at the stories of the campaign, you had this really powerful ruler who's the wife of the previous ruler, right? with a huge, with every institutional advantage and all the infrastructure, and she's got this well-oiled machine, and it's all professional, and all the data says that she can't possibly lose. And then you have this, like, scrappy underdog and this unlikely character

and these people who, you know, all these people who are saying, like, oh, I've never believed in a candidate before. Like, it did have the feeling of, like, one of those, like, fun insurgent campaigns. And, like, I'm not saying, I hope people understand the point that I'm trying to make here. It's just it's not that I think Trump was right. I just think that it was I just think that was the moment in the culture was like it was more fun. Like it was more fun to like be a Trump supporter and get to go online and like say abrasive things and upset people and, you know, be a troll than it was to be a Clinton supporter and have to like educate people and post facts and debunk myths.

And you know what I mean? Like it's way more fun to just be the be the the underground, the underdog and fight a guerrilla war.

MerlinYeah. Yeah.

AlexBoom fingers and torches are much more fun than policy.

MaxWell, I mean, clearly things have flipped and now we get to run a change election, which is much more comfortable for Democrats. Like we're definitely naturally sympathize more with the underdog and it's a good position for us to be in. Like I'd rather be us than them heading into the next couple of election cycles. But, you know, I don't know. I just I get scared listening to popular media and seeing the discourse. I get scared that we haven't absorbed all of the lessons that we should have from 2016.

AlexYou want to talk about furniture? Will furniture make you happy?

MaxYeah, that was fun. So speaking of podcasts with women on it, we were having a little text chain about the most recent episode of Merlin's other show, Reconcilable Differences, with John Syracuse. Do you not want to talk about this? No, I'm just so sad. Why? I'm sad and I'm tired.

AlexWelcome.

MerlinI ate some pepperoni. I should have eaten something else.

AlexWait, it is.

MerlinI ate some pepperoni and a coffee.

AlexOkay, hold. What? like just plain pepperoni at 9 a.m. in the morning yeah yeah get a boar's head it's a nice pepperoni

Merlinum it's it's like it's like a big big land yeager you can just it's you know fist food

Maxso we so follow up so rectifs uh you guys were having a conversation about uh millennials relationship to stuff which i will ask you to summarize in a minute and syracuse was like well you should ask your millennial podcast co-hosts about that. And we had a text conversation about it on our super secret channel last night. So I was just curious, could you sort of set this up for us? And then maybe we can, I actually am dying to know what Alex thinks about this, because Alex is way more in the wheelhouse of this than I am.

AlexOf the neurotic people on this show.

MerlinI mean, I did not mean this as any kind of an edict or overriding observation. It was more of like, hmm, what do you think about this idea? Because I was, I have to say, part of the jumping off point is I'll never understand why Alex cares quite so much as she does about backpacks. That was one of the jumping off points, was just the huge level of agita that you have gone through about backpacks. It seems like you have a lot of things in your life like that that you think a lot about. And I just had this cockamamie theory I was throwing out to Syracusa where I wondered if,

I don't know what you want to say millennial. That's such a silly thing. But people younger than I in particular, for any variety of reasons, some of which Max has pointed out, for any variety of reasons, are interested in acquiring a smaller number of things in their life of higher quality. Everybody said that. There's been a million medium pieces about that part. Yeah, everybody seems to agree that millennials don't have tons of money to spend on lots of junk. But the part that I'm interested in is the thing that seems different is that for a lot of people that I'm aware of, people on podcasts I listen to,

it's not just what they got and then want to make a case that they bought the best ones available. It's more the story, the storytelling that's involved in the process of deciding what to get and the fact that it's an ongoing journey. This is the best backpack for me right now. There's this coffee that's the best coffee for me right now. And with no sense of self-editing or shame, they are very happy to share. I didn't get the best in the world. I didn't get the cheapest in the world. I got the one that's right for me. and the story of how I arrived at what I get

becomes important in a way that used to be, the thing I said to Syracuse off the top of my head was, used to be more the province of what I said was like craftspeople and the very super rich. But even the very super rich aren't always that interested unless you're a collector. And like this particular elephant tusk was acquired in the following way, as against stuff like nerd collectors who just want all of the Funkos or whatever. But I'm interested in the idea of curating not just the things you choose to have in your life, but the storytelling and the process of how you got there

being a big part of what you decide to have in your life. That's what I said or meant to say.

AlexYou were actually very fair in that episode. I was surprised. But the thing that...

MerlinWell, you mean you thought I was going to, as you youth say, you thought I was going to drag you?

AlexYes, I was prepared to be dragged. Drugged? Prepared to be drugged. You're going to say delete my account. I was here for that. yes yes queen but I don't know if it was you or Syracuse who started the point um that furniture was the exact same way it was the same thing for our parents um it wasn't necessarily the super rich it was pretty simple like you had furniture that for whatever reason was special you acquired

it in some way. And you didn't touch it, which is different than I would say backpacks or let's say phone cases or keyboards. It was in, I think you, it's a mix between the think pieces and the people you're friends with who are nerds and really neurotic. Like, yeah, we don't have that much space. So we get Ikea furniture and don't care that much. That said, Max was very nice and years,

literally years ago, got me a gift card to West Elm. And just last month, I bought a chair and I was so stressed about buying a chair that would cost like anything over $50 at Ikea because it's, I don't want to be part of that. It's really hypocritical. I don't want to be part of that generation that idolizes something that is like a throne in their house that nobody gets to walk on. I don't want to have the magic carpet that you roll up

and then there's a line on the floor because nobody has stepped on the other part of the floor. I worded that poorly. And the whole freaking out over backpacks thing is I think more of a neurosis than an actual cultural thing. And the storytelling part is because it's entertaining and funny. Like the last five episodes of ATP of Marco's backpack journey is just as entertaining to people who've bought a series of cars over their lives.

You know what I mean?

MerlinI think that's a defining Marco characteristic in a lot of ways is his sudden interest in a thing, whether that's watches or coffee or being able to play records on an Arduino or whatever it is. That's part of the fascination is like seemingly out of almost nowhere, he suddenly becomes extremely interested in all of the details about something. He becomes a connoisseur of something like fairly quickly.

AlexIt's also a defense mechanism because there's nothing. It's something that you can control.

MerlinCan I make just a suggestion? I want you guys to run this, but I'm just tossing out an idea here because I was turning this over in my mind this morning and what we talk about. But like, I feel like one way to think about this or one way to frame this a little bit, because I do really want to hear what you think about this is, first of all, like, I feel like it might be valuable to separate the is this a thing from why is this a thing?

AlexYeah.

MerlinLike, first of all, am I right in thinking that this is a thing? Because I think there are plenty of arguments to be made that this is not a thing. I think John presented some of those. He talked about things like high fives. You look at like, is this really an age thing? Is this a generational thing? Is this we get into then like is for the like what makes this a thing you get into the economic stuff. But like first of all, do you not feel like I think about things like a couch. Have you ever bought a couch? I'll tell you this. The couch that we've got is super, super old. And you know why? Because we've been in the process of buying a fucking couch for 20 years.

Like it takes 20 years to buy a couch. There's no you've got to find the right couch. And there's so much. That's one example for an old man like me. But like, so can we distinguish, is this a thing versus why this is a thing? Do you think that people of your generation, for whatever reason, do have a more careful interest in the things that they bring into their life and finding the right thing, regardless of whether it's a fancy thing or a simple thing, whether it's a pencil or whether it's a laptop? Do you think that that's a thing? It's okay to say no?

Alexto a degree i think it's actually more prevalent among people who grew up in like upper middle class societies because we saw furniture being rotated in and out uh we saw like this consumerism that made us feel gross and you know we were we saw like the green movement and stuff like that uh and it i mean it took me three years to buy a chair i showed you the chair chair it's very funny to me, Alex. Here's the thing, though.

It looks like a chair. I mean, no offense, but this is not a good chair. It's perfect in every single way. This is the chair

Merlinthat a father sleeps on in a birthing suite. It goes back all the way. It's a birthing suite chair.

MaxYes, this is an institutional chair.

MerlinThis is a hospital chair, Alex. This is the

Maxkind of chair that you would find in a college, in the lobby of a college building.

MerlinOr like when the friendly nurse says, oh, and by the way, that chair turns into a bed. See you later. See, everybody's interested in the story. It doesn't really It never turns into a bed.

MaxBecause here's the thing. This chair expresses no opinion whatsoever. This chair has no qualities. It is a beige. It is somewhere in between beige and gray. It has no right angles on it. It almost has a face, but the face has no expression. It's of no design period or no time period.

AlexThat's why it's perfect for me because I don't want to be the person who's like, look at my bespoke furniture there's nothing wrong you're a super taster you're a super sitter you don't want anything that's too bitter there's nothing wrong with being that person but you don't

Maxwant people to come into your house and be able to make any judgment about you whatsoever i actually

Alexthat is that's a thing that i've always been very self-conscious my furniture with dice

Maxthere's like you alex you remind me there's that episode of futurama where where zap branigan attacks the neutral planet and and they go and they go and they go go to beige alert tell my

Alexwife i said hello anyway you got a chair go ahead no that's that's just it it took okay fine i will tell the story about the the fucking chair it just i went there was this um i have a friend who's very into like upholstery and all that i don't want to call it bullshit but it's just something i don't care about just like i don't care your friend tell me and then edit it That's the only friend I have. It's always Kara.

MaxKara is into upholstery?

AlexShe cares so much about furniture and decoration and bullshit. I thought she liked baseball. Yeah, yeah. She's like a lipstick lesbian.

MerlinSo she's a polymask.

AlexYep, exactly. And about once a month, she drags me out to get furniture. And I'm like, I don't like any of this. I don't care about any of this. Why would I spend money on this? I have a perfectly good couch, despite the fact that it has ball marks everywhere. yeah under a lot of resistance i now own a bed why have a bed uh it's just unnecessary

Merlinthose are amiibos it looks like you got ticket to ride oh those are also my board games wow

Alexthere's a what is that amiibos if i zoom in on the picture so there's some kind of a music stand is that for a ukulele if you'll see there's a howl's moving castle and castle in the sky as well as a 3DS XL Shadowrunner.

Speaker AAlex, it looks like that green extension cord is not grounded.

AlexYep, and oh, uh-oh, it seems like I have left a water bottle cap on the floor.

Speaker AOh, I have concerns about your bottle.

AlexYou'll see the stand from my piano in the bottom right-hand corner.

MaxWait, Alex, why do you own DVDs? That's very funny for me, to me.

AlexBecause it came with the HD. I give away most of my DVDs after I've acquired the, you know, I've ripped them and gotten the DRM HD thing.

MerlinGot all the juice out of it. Yeah, exactly.

AlexAnd then I give them away, but nobody wants my anime DVDs. I can't imagine why. All right.

MerlinSo back to the chair.

AlexI would just go to furniture stores once a month, and then I finally came across this chair and was like, oh, my God, that's it. I didn't, not because I saw it.

MaxYou finally found a chair that has no property.

AlexI sat down in it and the sales lady was like, but wait, and pushed it backwards. And the little thing pops up because I don't want an ottoman because that just takes up more space.

MerlinOh, this is a recliner. Really? You just kick back. You just push the arms and the little foot thing comes up.

AlexIt was delivered at 9.30 a.m. this morning and I've never been so excited for anything in my life.

MerlinIt looks very accommodating.

AlexIt does. It is. It is. I'm really excited about it.

MaxI could draw this chair using only the rectangle tool in Photoshop. Hey, this looks great.

MerlinWhen are you going to do the full rendering? It's eight rectangles.

AlexI just realized I bought the Hillary Clinton of chairs.

Speaker AI'm with her.

AlexDoug Dick, it was Max's challenge this week. Wait a minute. Okay, do you want to talk more about the millennial? I'm editing in my head, mostly because I thought Max had a meeting.

MerlinBecause I thought Max would want an opportunity, and probably if it is a thing, you'd want to talk about why it's that way. Max sent me, I think, a seven-point plan.

MaxMax sent me seven bullets. Hold on. It's really interesting. It's interesting. It's like one of those things of, like, I've never really thought about this before, but when you guys were talking about it, I was like, no, that is a good observation. Like, I do think millennials have a different relationship with stuff than the older generations before us, you know, in some good ways and some bad ways. And I just the more I thought about it, the more I thought there's a I thought of a bunch of reasons why. The main the main one I would say is, like, I just think that being having being on the Internet all the time.

For me, it really changed how I think about stuff. So, you know, I think there's this idea for our parents generation, slightly older than you, I think, Marlon. There's this idea for our parents of luxury. Certainly for my grandparents, they had this idea of luxury. But I think it carried through to my parents. And the idea of luxury is you want to, like, own the right things so that you're comfortable all the time and you have the stuff that you want in your house. And, you know, that's like having – like, an example I think of luxury is like a cabinet of fine dining ware.

You know what I mean? Like serving – like plates that you only use.

MerlinThis was a Twitter moment about this very topic, which is like looking at your parents' houses at all of the collections of things that nobody uses specifically because they're nice.

MaxYeah, but like the nice – yeah, exactly. The nice plates.

MerlinThings like cups. Like nobody ever uses these. They're too nice to use.

MaxWe mostly in my house growing up, we mostly had a room that was pretty much only supposed to be used for like company, right? The living room. And like it was like discouraged for us to like play in that room. Like it wasn't like an off limits room or anything, but definitely we couldn't like tear shit up and leave our toys out and stuff like that.

MerlinIt is a kind of luxury though to have enough house that there are parts of it that everyone agrees not to use.

MaxSure. Yeah. I mean it's also very Midwestern I think to have a room. Oh God, yes. I think that's highly Midwestern that you have a room that's like the nice room that you're not really supposed to use so much. But anyway, then I think the internet came along and it really changed the idea of luxury. And I think it's a combination of that you're on Instagram all the time and you can see these great experiences that people are having. So like experience has become – there's a new vocabulary and a new way to like catalog and think about and ascribe value to experiences.

MerlinI think – I felt glib to say this, but I think you're absolutely right. I don't think it's just Instagram influencers. I think there's something to be said about obtaining an idea of what would be good for me and then being able to show people how you use that or cause that to be in your head.

MaxYeah, well, it's very hard.

MerlinUnboxing, unboxing videos, right?

MaxI mean, stuff like that. It's just hard. I think people, I think experience, the secret of consumerism has always been that experiences are more valuable than things. And that's old wisdom. But now there's better ways to talk about that and give value to experiences. But also, the other thing is just very mechanically, I don't give a shit about stuff. I can get stuff on Amazon delivered the same day almost whenever I want it. So it's like stuff is very fungible. It's like, like I said in the text, it's like, you know, the difference of like stock and flow.

MerlinI wish you I just had to look it up on Wikipedia. But I would love for you to briefly explain that because it's a very interesting concept.

MaxYeah. Let me pull up. I'll do I'll read the Robin Sloan thing about. Let me see if I have it in my notes here.

AlexWell, Max does that. Let's let's look at the floor plan of my childhood home. First floor. There's a dining room, a living room, a kitchen, a playroom and a family room. The dining room and the living room were never to be, you never, ever go in there. The kitchen is where we ate food. And there was a dining area in the kitchen. The playroom was only for when a bunch of kids came over. And then the family room was where there was the TV and most of our toys.

So really, we lived in a fairly large house and hung out in one room.

MaxAll right. Well, here's this article from, this is a post from years and years and years ago by Robin Sloan. He said, I was an economics major in college, and I've been grateful ever since for a few key concepts that it drilled into me, things like opportunity costs, sunk costs, and marginal costs. I think about this stuff all the time in my everyday life. Sometimes I consider the marginal cost of like making myself another sandwich. But one of the biggest takeaways was the concept of stock and flow. Do you know about this? Couldn't be simpler. And really, it's not even that much of an aha. There are two kinds of quantities in the world. Stock is a static value, money in the bank

or trees in the forest, and flow is a rate of change, $15 an hour or 3,000 toothpicks a day. Easy, too easy. But I actually think stock and flow is the master metaphor for media today. Here's what I mean. Flow is the feed. It's the posts and the tweets. It's the stream of daily and sub-daily updates that remind people that you exist. Stock is the durable stuff. It's the content you produce that's as interesting in two months or two years as it is today. It's what people discover via search. It's what spreads slowly but surely, building fans over time. So I just think about that post and the idea of stock and flow all the time,

and I think it's a really good explaining tool for lots of behaviors. But anyway, with regards to stuff, I just think I've definitely started to think the Internet has changed the way that I think about stuff to make way less stuff stock, meaning like it's things I have to have it in the house all the time, and way more like flow. Well, like if I need that thing, I'll get it. And then when I'm done with it, I'll give it away or sell it or get rid of it. Right. It's like it's more of a stream.

MerlinBut it's like ease of access and like accessibility of like how quickly and affordably you can acquire it. Yeah. You can get the information you need about this, whatever, this bucket of bleach. Like you don't need to go research it that deeply, but you could if you wanted to. And then somebody can bring it to your house in two hours.

MaxWell, I think some obvious examples are things like tools, bicycles, cameras, things like that, where it's like it used to be that like there was this crazy thing of like everybody owned like their own set of power tools even though you only use them like four days a year and for the most part like i don't own that stuff i just borrow it from a friend or i rent it from home depot or something you know it's just like i just i don't know like it doesn't help that people keep stealing your cordless drill well i'm on alert i mean they had don't steal it as a matter of fact because my i have a series of booby traps and cameras that monitor it's well it's safety all the time

But anyway. Mysterious potato. Yeah, it's just like, I don't know. It's just like stuff is like, in a way, it's like, I don't know. It's like, oh, so it's just like, it's moved stuff out of this whole category of luxury for me. And I think there's this other, there's this final idea of like for our generation that liquidity is the new luxury. Liquidity means like your ability to, liquidity, like with cash, right?

MerlinAs my friend Dan used to say, my friend back in college, you are your options.

MaxYeah, exactly. Yeah, liquidity is what you can do. And if you have a ton of stuff, like fancy furniture and couches and stuff, it weighs you down.

MerlinWell, you're like somebody in a shark tank that's way overbought. Now you've got all this stuff and you've got to get funding to be able to send out all this stuff you've got. That's not liquid anymore.

MaxExactly. So I think our generation just very much values liquidity. I think some other things like feeding into that that are more obvious are like, number one, our generation is very, very broke. In fact, I think I might have sent an article on our super secret channel yesterday that this idea of millennials born in the 80s are like the lost generation because like we're now know that they'll definitely make less than their parents this might have been in like the wall street journal yesterday but like my like holy shit like when i graduated college like it was fucking grim like nobody i knew had a job like everyone was broke like um i knew people who killed themselves i knew people

who were tons of people who moved back in with their parents like that's not what was promised to us when we like worked the system and went you know got into the advanced math class man you you

Merlinleave a liberal arts education with maybe a couple hundred thousand dollars in debt.

MaxYeah, right, right. I mean, it's suffocating. And it was really, really grim graduating. And I graduated in 2009. And that was really, really bad. Not a good time to be entering the workforce. So I just think that made it so that people couldn't have lots of stuff. And as a consequence of that, as a consequence of all these things I'm talking about, seeing stuff more as flow and valuing experience and not being able to have a lot of stuff. It's just like, you just look at what you can control and you're like, okay, I'm not going to buy every coffee maker on the

market. I'm going to do, I'm going to learn about coffee and get the one best coffee maker. That's going to give me the most capabilities and make me the happiest in my life. I'm not going to, I don't, I'm not going to get the most expensive, you know, leather, you know, like you said, like a, like some sort of like Veblen good bag. I'm going to find what is the most utilitarian bag that best fits my lifestyle and then that's the bag like that's the one that stuff is i i will say like i think a lot about that like to a point that drives people around me crazy of like when we bought silverware veronica and i finally bought silverware for a house i talked about this on my

podcast with pat and he made a lot of fun of me for this but like oh my god i did so much work on getting the right silverware for the house because i i want oh right the spoon the spoon discussion I remember that. But we, yeah, but anyway, we just, we, we thought a lot about what we, what we wanted in silverware and how to get it right. And Syracuse was making some crack of like, I can't imagine anyone having an opinion about silverware thinking one spoon is better or worse. And it's like, I can't. But then he caught himself. Then he caught himself. Interesting. I mean, it's just, I just, I think, I think, could I tolerate my life with silverware that

I didn't love? Absolutely. I'd go, everything would go on as normal, which is one more little friction in it. But the point is, I don't want to buy silverware again. I want to buy it once. And I want to get great silverware that lasts a long time and I'm really happy with. And it's like I'm just looking for ways to, if I'm going to have to own a set of silverware, I want it to be really good fucking silverware.

AlexI just realized talking about this, that's something that a lot of older people don't think about, but my generation does, is that where you live isn't typically stock. It is flow. um like i remember texting guys be like oh my god i'm gonna be living in my apartment for three years and that seems um kind of ludicrous to a lot of people but this is the first time that's ever happened that because you don't you just expect yep i'm gonna have to move out so i might as well take my good backpack and basically leave the rest on the curb for some other kid to get

but I'm taking this damn chair with me. It's very comfy.

MaxYeah, I mean, I didn't live in the same place for more than two years until I bought a house. I don't know that it's impossible in a major city to live in the same place for more than two years.

AlexA dumb landlord who doesn't know that he can raise the rent more, that's how.

MaxBlue lives matter. Yep. Anyway, so those are just my thoughts about it. I think it's weird. I mean, is there some conceit and some craziness of millennials, like, you know, having opinions of, like, you go to a party and people are talking about which brand of candle or shaving cream or pencil to buy. And that's like a, I mean, yeah.

MerlinThe pencil answer is easy. It's a Palomino Blackwing.

AlexOh, of course.

MaxOoh, I would say Ticonderoga Dixon number two if I had to pick. Wait, really? Yeah, that's why we have those at the office. What did you say? Ticonderoga Dixon? Oh, I'm... I think it's the Dixon Ticonderoga, sorry. Dixon Ticonderoga number two pencil is my favorite.

MerlinWere you the one that doesn't like the rectangular erasers? Is that you?

MaxI don't like them.

Speaker AOh, I love them.

MaxThe Blackwing erasers are very tempting for me to pull out and chew on. You know you can pull them out further, right? Oh, yes. Yeah, they're like a little candy. Those are a nice pencil. I don't deny that that's a very good pencil.

MerlinI like the matte finish, and I like the darkness and thickness of the line, the softness of the lead.

Maxbut anyway I think I think a lot of people I think a lot of people do have preferences about this whether they think about them or not I mean there's this great there's a great quote from shit some philosopher I'm gonna say Wittgenstein and he said something to the effect of every day I have a piece of toast and I just realized that I absolutely love lightly toasted bread and I absolutely hate dark

Merlinand you may not realize it for a while yeah here it is yeah yeah here it is

Maxthat's a case for life hacks here yeah here Alex edit this in so I sound smart he said it's truly strange how long it takes to get to know oneself I'm now 62 years old and yet just one moment ago I realized that I love lightly toasted bread simultaneously I also realized that I loathe bread when it is heavily toasted for over 60 years and quite unconsciously I have been experiencing inner joy or total despair in my relationship with grilled bread. So, which is like rings very true to me of like, sometimes I'm, I have those moments of like, Oh my God, I hate this or I love this.

Right. And I didn't realize how happy or miserable it was making me. And I don't know, I think a lot of people have those preferences and I think there's just chilling. It's chilling to realize those things sometimes. Yeah. It's, it's just, but I think it's like, I just think it's like something about the internet and the way that we, that there's a space to talk about all this stuff and you can be a nerd about these things if you want. It's like giving people permission to design their lives more. That's more how I would think about it is you're designing your life. You have more agency. You're not just buying one of the three silverwares available at Crate and Barrel the season that you went shopping for your wedding. You're making a conscious

decision to evaluate all the different qualities of silverware and find the one that's right for you. And you're investing a couple hours now for like a lifetime of living with silverware that makes you, like the Vick machine quote that gives you total inner joy every time you pick up a knife.

Merlinbut that the unexamined quotidian life is like owning an inexpensive dull knife where it still can mostly make things be cut into pieces but when you have a slightly nicer very sharp knife that you keep sharp it changes your game you're like i could never go back i could never go back to like a four pack of walmart walmart pairing knives like it would just make me so sad and and cut up

Maxto have that in my house yeah i mean and is there downsides to it i mean i think to your point on when you were talking about our rectifs of like is it it's like vain and consumerist yeah yeah i didn't say that did i i don't think well it was a subtype i mean i think i think it's more

Merlinvain in an instagram way if it's vain in any way but like you know one distinction i was going to say i was i hold this pencil in my hand is i feel like one difference with me is like i feel like the other part of this there's the story part is i don't know if you guys agree with that but the curation explaining why you chose this particular thing i think is part of the fun for a lot of people. I'm okay with that part. I think the part where I'm different on all but a very few things, software probably being one of them, is that I generally find a point of satisfaction. And then if I'm dissatisfied, I'd look somewhere else. But like, I'm not on a constant quest for a better

pencil, right? I do. I have my story with this is like, I don't know, I got this pencil and I really like it. Interesting. But I think that's part of the difference is you look at somebody like the elephant in the room, the elephants in the room, I'm going to say are Marco and Mike Hurley. Like Mike Hurley seems to have an existential ache for a new version of a thing. Like it seems to like really be, and this is not criticism. Like I think it's one thing that makes him very interesting is he's a genuinely curious and open person who is always, he's very excited

Maxfor what the next thing is going to be. But there's an availability heuristic there of the people that you're describing though, because Mike like has a podcast about pens. So he's been selected, Mike's on your radar because his bizarre, broken personality where he's in constant need of a better pen has led him to publicly talk about it for an hour a week.

Speaker AStop that. Well, here's the thing.

MaxI'm not going to disagree with Max. And Marco's insane field recordings of different microphones. He's like, I ordered 300 microphones and talked into them. It's like that level of neuroticism and whatever it is. It evidences in different ways, though. It's not a trend. You're looking at these people.

MerlinYou're like Alex, right?

MaxYou're looking at these people and you're like, I'm extrapolating a trend. But these people, they're in your little bubble because they're like broken, obsessive people.

MerlinNoticing this is an availability heuristic on my part. So the whole phenomenon of 20-year-old guys with undercuts and beards who are obsessed with artisanal pork. You think that's something I'm just imagining because of podcasts I listen to?

MaxNo, but I think it's different. You're giving it a different character because of the selection bias of the people. You said Mike Curley and Marco Arman. Not me. I cherry picked them. You did.

MerlinBut they represent different poles of that thing. I feel like Mike in some ways is the eternal optimist in some ways. He's always like as soon as something's hilarious sometimes where there'll be like a press release about something. And he really wants to talk about what that could mean. And it's, I mean, I think he's very-

AlexNo, he dragged Duplex like, no, tomorrow. Please.

MerlinDuplex is bad. But then with Marco, I think with Marco, it's very important that he let you know what he definitely doesn't like. I don't think Mike is that into that. With Marco, and he's not going to judge you on it, except with stuff like, you know, there's some kinds of stuff where he's just across the board. On the one hand, it's okay that he's really into fish. But on this other hand, he's not going to hear anything about this whole LP, listening to albums thing. So I think there is a part of that, not just with those, but just in general of how I arrived at my decision and how it affects my worldview.

MaxWell, I can say on my part, I definitely have some of these obsessive tendencies. But I'm very much in the school of I have a problem in my life and I'm looking to solve the problem. And once it's solved my satisfaction, it's over. It's done.

MerlinIt's like my pencil.

MaxWell, I found a backpack that I like. I probably have at my house eight backpacks that I went through. Good God. Because I was trying to find a backpack that solved all my issues. And then I found the one and I stopped buying backpacks. I'm not interested anymore. I have one that is correct.

AlexNever mind. That wasn't a judgment. I have bought and returned over 50 backpacks in 2017.

MaxMaybe this is a difference too. I never return anything. I don't return anything. Why? Because I'm not buying expensive backpacks. I'm buying backpacks in the sub $100 price range. And then if I think of all the work that it would take. And I'm going to use them for a month, right? So they get. It's like writing a check. Who does that?

AlexIt's like carrying cash. Who does that? I don't know.

MerlinIt's like people who don't want to hold up the line just because they want a fucking smart water.

AlexNo, no.

MerlinWait a minute. Don't pull it out yet. You still got to do the chip, and now you got to sign. Challenge. Every time I sign for Apple Pay, I lose a little bit of muscle. Challenge. No, wait. Hold up. I have to explain to the cashier.

AlexHold up. No.

MaxThis is not Apple Pay. This is you. Challenge. Challenge. Challenge. Challenge.

AlexMarco, Mike, I agree with you. except for duplex opinions. Challenge. Max, what was the challenge this week? Cuck, cuck, cuck, cuck, cuck. I am. I'm a Marco and Mike cuck. Hang on.

Speaker APlease like me.

AlexPlease like me. Oh, no.

MerlinWhat about Jason Snell? You got anything to say about Jason Snell? Oh, my God.

AlexThese are all nice people I like. The obvious, which I, Merlin, it's all of your fault. If I was not dragged in by that video of you talking about Quicksilver on MacBreak Weekly's video thing, and I would have not been drawn to this lifestyle.

MaxChallenge this week is to read two comics, the Vision comics from Marvel, and they are Vision, little worse than a man, and Vision, little better than a beast. So it's two different books, but they go together to make one story. And I found these because Veronica got them and the cover, I just like the cover art on the volume one vision, a little worse than a man. And I was like, I am very intrigued by this cover. It looks very unlike the normal superhero bullshit

that you see. And I will start flipping through these pages to see what's going on. And I felt, I just deeply, deeply loved these comics. We're going to spoil them, right? Spoiler? Yeah. Spoiler horn? Yep.

I don't know that they're not, it's not a super plot or surprise heavy comic. So I think you can still read it even if you listen to us talk about it. I can't wait to hear what happened.

MerlinYou didn't read it? Did you peanut butter? Did you peanut butter? Fucking hard, I peanut butter.

AlexWait, you didn't even like look through? Wow.

MerlinI have been wanting to read, I don't want to dwell on this. I want to hear what you guys say. I'll dwell on it as much as you want to. But no, I just managed my time poorly this week. I've been very stressed out. I managed my time poorly and I only got through one issue. Oh, well, you read some of it. Yeah. Oh, I mean, I read the first comic, the first floppy, yeah.

AlexI will say that that's kind of enough, in my opinion, but we'll get to that.

MerlinI kind of feel like it's not going to go well. It was very upsetting.

AlexFirst, I want to hear why you like it, Max.

MaxWell, so what do I like about it? I love the way that it's...

AlexOther than the cover.

MaxSo there's like a complicated, annoying reason that I like it, but then there's also just like small things that I think are cool about it. I don't have a ton of comics knowledge, too, So I don't know that I even have the right vocabulary to talk about this. But I like the way that it looks and I like the way that it's drawn. I think it's like very cinematic and I can really imagine the movie of this in my head when I read it in a way that's very appealing to me. I really like the way that it's written. So sometimes they'll do a device where there's dialogue happening in the panels, but then there's also narration happening in a little square at the bottom of the panel.

Do you know what I'm talking about? Yeah.

MerlinAnd it takes a time. It takes us time. It's not the pacing is good. And but like it also takes its time with like setting up the visual scene while the story is being told sometimes in narration. And it's not annoying. It's really well done.

MaxYeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's what I mean about the cinematic.

MerlinIt's like you really have setting the tone of this suburb.

MaxYeah. Like you really have this feeling of like where they are in every room and everything. And but I just love that.

AlexWait, before we get into this, there are some people who are going to listen to this without.

MaxThen we won't. Then let's not spoil it all the way. Because Merlin didn't read it. Can you just give the overview of what this comic is? Yes, yes, yes. Let me finish. I'll finish. Let me finish my thought here. So, yeah. So I like the way that it's paced. I love the device of there's people talking, but then there's narration. So there's multiple. That's the other thing that really grabbed me about this. I felt that every decision. I felt like they used every part of the buffalo here in a way that I haven't really seen in comics before, at least among the few that I've read, where I felt like there was nothing extraneous.

Like everything in this comic was there for a reason and every little detail was put into every frame for a reason and every word of it has double and triple meanings. And I just – it just blew me away. Like I just felt like it was so clever and so respected my time and my thoughtfulness as a reader that that's what I loved about it. So the story is basically it follows the Vision who's one of the Avengers and he's like a cyborg and he makes a family for himself and they live in the suburbs of D.C.

and the Vision gets a job basically being the liaison of the Avengers to the president in the White House. And so he flies to the White House every day and meets with the president and his family. He has like these two twins, a boy and a girl, and they go to school. And then he has his wife who sits at home and, I don't know, is depressed. And it's him trying to fit in and be normal in this suburb.

MerlinRight. And part of the conceit is that, yes, he's created this family, but his twin kids in particular are not fully formed cybernetic creatures, but their brains still need to develop by exposure to what we might consider normal American culture. They're not like Petri dish finished. They are kids in some sense.

MaxSo in the first scene, literally the first scene of the book, you follow the neighbors who live in the neighborhood who are going to meet the visions. And they're arguing the wife made cookies. And their husband's like, why are you bringing cookies? They don't eat. They're robots. They're robots. And I was just immediately like, oh, my God. Like, this is so interesting. Like, I'm just interested. Like, I want to know everything. And then the visions open the door. And they all have this big goofy grin on their face. And they all – it's just so funny and weird. And they bring them into the house. and there's a kind of tension to it

that it's hard for me to place but the vision gives them a tour and he shows them all these sort of magical superhero items in their house like Captain America's lighter from World War II

Merlinand Wakandan piano with no strings.

MaxYeah, and it's probably not a huge spoiler.

MerlinI love the vase. Oh my God.

MaxThe floating vase and it's probably not a spoiler to say that throughout these books every single one of those items will become very symbolic and important to the story in an interesting way and come to take on different meanings and play into what happens in very interesting ways, which is why they're introduced right at the beginning. And then as the neighbors are leaving, it says the narration, well, here, I'll just find the panel because I'm not going to say it better than they wrote it. Oh, right. The narration just literally says, it says, later near the end of our story,

one of the visions will set George and Nora's house on fire. They will die in the flames. George's last thought will be of Nora, how he found his true love and regret little of what came after. Nora's last thought will be about the water vase of Zen La, which is that magical vase that was introduced. She will wonder why it was empty. And there's just this long, this sort of big frame of them walking home alone on the street. And so I saw that and I was like fucking hooked. I'm in. I'm done. I got to read this whole thing now because it's just so creepy and foreboding and thoughtful and interesting.

And as the story goes on, they introduce all these ethical dilemmas. And there's Shakespeare. There's the Merchant of Venice with Shylock and his dealing with feelings of—is it Merchant of Venice?

MerlinIs he really the bad guy or not?

MaxYeah, right. And his difference, like what does that do to his character? Yeah, so those are all the small things I like about it. And then the big thing I like about it is I just felt like, um, so I complain on this show a lot about superhero movies and how the best thing you can say about most superhero movies is it's almost as good as a real movie. And that they're, and that even the good ones,

Merlinwhich I go see them all like,

Maxbut,

Merlinbut I, you know, I, even, even we fans tend to create on a curve.

MaxYeah. It's just like, I see them all. I just, I feel like they're monotonous and they're boring and they're sort of, they, they only ever, the Marvel movies in particular only ever referenced, themselves. Like they have a completely homeostatic internal world that is referenced and they never bring anything in from the outside or they rarely do. There's very little to think about or chew on after these movies. I don't know. I just feel like they're shallow in a way that's bad. They're like good movie making, I guess, but they just don't leave me with a lot to chew on.

And I thought when I read this and it just stuck with me and I was like, this is what superhero movies could be for. To me, this is what science fiction and genre fiction are for, which is they show us a world that's a little bit different and then ask in light of that, what does it mean to be a human? What does it mean to be a person? What about our morals? What about our social ties? All of that. And by rethinking it in the light of something weird and different, we understand

something more about ourselves. Or another way to put it, the author Mary Robinette Kowal told me this great thing. She's like, literary fiction is people having extraordinary reactions to normal things. But genre fiction is people having normal reactions to extraordinary things.

And that's just compelling to me of like, in seeing what would be the normal reaction to these extraordinary things, you know, like, what would it be like if these cyborgs lived in a suburb and what does that tell us about America and what it would mean to have superheroes and stuff. I don't know. This was just more deep in its, you know, whatever, these two little books than almost the whole, it had more to say than almost all the Marvel movies put together.

AlexWhat do you think it had to say?

MaxWhat do I think it had to say? Well, I would say it's not so simple as that I could like make a tweet about it. I think it's more of like, it's like more of thoughtful. It's like an exploration of of of outsiderness and difference and artificial intelligence and the suburbs

Alexi don't know america superheroes mailboxes male dogs uh the did you get to the dog merlin i can't remember oh yeah the dog was so good well no i don't think so uh so here are the things that i really enjoyed about it. I thought that I would love this because it has all my stuff. Yeah, exactly. Robits, Robits family, Robits put in a different or rather a normal situation, an ordinary

situation. And I wanted it to explore more about this world, but as the first book continued, it felt like a comic that was trying to be smart it was trying to go deeper and but it still attached so much lore to itself like I purposely did not go and um like for uh what's what's the arc in x-men that I like Merlin the one written by Joss Whedon uh Astonishing X-men yeah yeah um reading

Astonishing X-men I did have to be like okay wait there's an emotion happening I don't know why let I mean, go on Wikipedia. Ah, this person was married to this person. Now they're back.

MerlinHe walked a really interesting tightrope of like, on the one hand, what felt like total fan service to people who love the X-Men for years. But you didn't have to have to know every bit of it. You could glean from context that, oh, Kitty has been away and she had this contentious relationship and now she's back.

AlexWhereas this, I...

MerlinYou felt like there was too much needing to read back with this?

AlexWell, it starts off with like the really good like narration. and then there are actually flashbacks referencing, they say Vision has saved the world 37 times, and they list all 37, and there's also...

MaxBut when they're doing that, so the context is... No, I really like that. No, so I just want to say for our listeners, so the context is the Vision, one of his kids gets in trouble, and the Vision gets called into the principal's office, and the principal is sort of scolding him, and in the dialogue bubbles, they're talking about the vision's kid and the discipline thing but in the narration they're saying vision is thinking about these 37 times when he saved the world and it says all 37 in the panels while they're having this conversation so it's this whole subtext to the come it's doing something it's like providing depth and subtext to this interaction that made it just so taught

and filled with tension and really interesting and meaningful in a way where i've never at least I've never seen in a comic before.

AlexI thought that was wonderful because they made a boring scene into this epic inner battle that he's had.

MaxSo the other thing is they tell you, I'm actually looking for that scene, which I think is like, I believe it's coming up soon here. But basically, when Vision's in the principal's office, they're listing all 37 times. And it's like they give a little bit of context for each time. And they're like, first, what was it Vision created? Was it Ultron or something? Yeah, it was Ultron. Ultron again. And then a few later, they mention Ultron again, and then again, and then by the end, it's just times when he's fighting Ultron, and it's like half the times he saved the world, he saved it from Ultron,

but he's clearly in this symbiotic relationship where he's responsible for Ultron, but also he keeps saving the world from him, but would the world need to be saved without the Vision? And then they're, of course, they're in the principal's office talking about this thing his kid did, which Vision also made, so it's this like that he's tied up in the creation and the solution to all of these huge problems. I don't know. But feeling ingrateful for the times when he solves it. I don't know. I thought it was really poignant.

AlexNo, I agree. It was lovely. And then just dark, weird things happen. Like a dog goes and digs up a dead villain, which, okay, so the mom is like super depressed and I don't understand why. It seems like, oh, she is depressed because she's in the suburbs and she is this extraordinary being, but she's like being held back. But she does like psychotic things like murder someone and bury them in the backyard.

And then a dog finds the body and is electrocuted, I guess. The villain is the Grim Reaper, I don't know. And then by the end, Vision is cutting up the dogs. And I don't think I'm missing any steps in this story. Literally, Vision is just-

MaxBecause they're trying to maintain this image of normalcy because their kids are in school. They're trying to be upstanding members of this community, but the superhero shit keeps interfering with their lives, and then they have to go to increasingly extraordinary measures to hold everything together.

AlexIt just goes off the rails in a way that, you know, you have to zap a dead dog's brain, and then they make an adorable little green puppy that looks like the rest of the Vision family because they're all green and orange. And here's the final thing. I could tell that they were building up to who this narrator was. And then the reveal is, I guess she's somebody talking to the Avengers, but I still don't know who that is. And I could tell something important was happening,

but I did not know what I was supposed to feel in that moment. Whereas in Astonishing X-Men, I'm like, okay, I understand. Even if I don't know the full context, I can understand what these characters are feeling. Do you know which page I'm talking about? It's the last one.

MaxYeah.

AlexWhat is going on here?

MaxWell, I don't want to get into the twists in the last end of it, but I don't know.

AlexBut that's what the entire arc is framed in, is this woman's narrating what's going on. And also she eats a panther or something. And I was like, wait, is that Black Panther? Oh, no, it's a cat. I don't.

MaxIt does make sense. It is explained. Listen, I don't know any of this shit. I've never read a superhero comic in my life before. I don't know any of this stuff. and I was able to piece it together from what they explain in the comic. Like you could, I definitely think you could read this and know enough about it, but it's related to Scarlet Witch. Remember that whole plot line? She and Vision were together for a long time.

AlexYes, and that's addressed in the second arc. I don't know.

MaxBut that's also why the Vision's, that's why his wife is miserable because he knows that she was created in Scarlet Witch's image, but he still loves the Scarlet Witch. Like it's interesting. I don't know, it's interesting.

AlexI guess they became increasingly unrelatable.

MaxBecause that's part of the exploration that was cool, because he's trying to be a normal human, but he fundamentally misunderstands parts of the human experience and the tighter that you try to hold on and control things, the more that it slips through your fingers. That's all tragic.

AlexThere were a few...

MaxIt sounds like you're just objecting to the tragic message of the thing, I guess.

AlexNo, no. Oh, the tragedy, there was just stuff that was like super on the note. I just sent you my least favorite panel of the entire thing, other than the dead dogs. It just goes through me. And there's Viv, I believe, is phasing. The daughter is phasing through the ceiling. That's a nitpicky thing. I just thought it was funny.

MerlinShe can tell her hand not to be a hand.

AlexYeah. But I don't know. It got to superhero-y, I guess. And I was expecting something kind of like Hawkeye, I guess, where he's separate from the Avengers. But he's still very much part of the Avengers. I thought it was just going to be like his job in DC.

MaxThere's a whole scene where he calls his wife and he's trying to have a normal conversation with his wife. But they're fighting some huge monster with the other Avengers. And it's very funny the way it's drawn. And you can just picture the comedic beats, you know, the same as if it were filmed.

AlexWell, right. and then the tone just shifts so dramatically. I think that's why it felt like I was in two different books at certain times.

MaxI don't know. I think you're nitpicking. I think it's great because it's allowed to have different tones. Like it's not one note. It felt like it had a lot more. To me it felt like those contrasts and all that interesting nits and that they're not worried about. I don't know that they let it have all that stuff is why I liked it more than normal comic superhero shit. The other thing I like about it that you mentioned was like, you're like, well, there's all the superhero shit that starts to creep into it. Well, the book is very much concerned with like stories and mythology

and the story that Vision is telling about his life and his family and his past and how other people will remember his story. And so the book very consciously like references a lot of Shakespeare. There's some like actual like computer science history. They talk a lot about P versus NP in this. in a way that I thought was very cool, very beautiful and really, really interesting and really spoke to the cyborg kind of aspect of him. But then the book increasingly starts to reference superhero shit. And I think to me, it's undeniable. This is modern, right? It was written

in the last couple of years. 2016, I think. So it's undeniable to me that in this era, superhero shit is our contemporary mythology. It's like the stories we tell ourself to make sense of the world and our it's like so obviously our current you know heroes and monsters and in that way like superhero stuff like represents our our our fears and hopes in in the way that historians look at popular media and you're like oh what did the Iliad tell us about the ancient Romans and their self-conception of their society it's like you could look at this era and be like

what does the Marvel cinematic universe tell us about our self-conception of our society so I think this book is starting to interrogate like the legacy and the meaning of like superhero stories in the same way that it talks about Shakespeare right in the same way it talks about all of this this myth these these different creation myths and mythology and things like that that's why it gives you that whole discourse of like how Ultron was created and um his whole past and then all the times he saved the world like that it's so interesting I think you're you're right I'm

Alexnitpicking um maybe it's because i've read more superhero books and i don't think that this stands out necessarily um and maybe it's because of the dead i honestly think that uh the dead dog stuff genuinely colored my opinion like when there's unnecessary violence um it like in saga i am not bothered like there's there's some gruesome horrific stuff that happens but it's very much like in line with the world and the storytelling.

And I guess I don't necessarily associate very gruesome stuff with the Avengers and especially not Vision, which if they're trying to tell the story of like, this is actually who Vision is.

MaxI mean, you know, he isn't human and he isn't supposed to. The visions are not supposed to be like you and me. They're they are other. And the book is like about their otherness and the way that they want to relate to humanity and they're trying, but they can't.

AlexThey're real bad, though. Like, to the point, why does she kill the dog at the end? Like, I really.

MaxBut I'm just, all the stuff with the dog. The dog's driving me crazy. All the stuff with the dog and violence and stuff, it's that they're, it's looking at their difference in the way that that makes sense. It has an internal consistency to Vision and his morals and his worldview because he's weighing what that dog means to his family and what it would mean for his family to the other people and everything. Like, you're saying what I'm saying, but it's a kind of alien.

AlexI'm talking about the second,

Maxthe second top step.

AlexI get what you're saying. Like, he was normalizing it.

MaxHe's doing a kind of cold, alien moral math about it of like, well, the dog's life is worth less than my daughter's happiness. And then we want to say, well, that's like inhuman, but it's in the service of this very human thing of he'll do anything to make his daughter happy. Like, it's like, I thought all that stuff was interesting.

Just keeping in mind that it's still a comic book, so it still has pictures of people punching each other. It's still a picture book for children where people punch each other.

AlexNo, this is not a book for children. This is no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. This is like if, no, no, no, no, no. Like that's where, that's what I think.

MaxMerlin, didn't your daughter read this? Yes.

AlexOh, no, was she upset by the dog? Am I more upset about the dog than anybody on earth? The regular dog, I can kind of explain away. Is that in volume one? no oh no it is in volume two the mom oh it is you i would say check that yeah okay out

Maxum because there's a sexy scene too there i saw that do you see visions hog no you do not it is

Alexnot a dr manhattan situation i actually expected that to be you know what this is fucked up if they had been like oh here are their sexy robot bits um it it felt at one time both i don't know I wanted them to go deeper with the Shakespeare, honestly. Like, I thought it was going to be throughout the entire, I don't know. It also, this is hard, because Max is also talking me into liking it more if this series continues.

It leaves-

MaxI liked it that it was one little story about his family.

AlexIt's not, though. It's a continuing series. If it was just the first- There's more of this? Not in trade, but it's still a thing. Like, these aren't two contained- Is it the same writers? you know what I will have to check I believe it's the same artist I really really like the art especially because all the thing that Max like that Max is saying I completely agree agree that

Merlinthe art goes with that it's it's kind of a style that can be done very badly but I love the idea of like almost visible pencils like where you can see that it's a drawing combined there's this urgency to it combined with a very painterly quality to the coloring it's such a nice contrast to have great stuff that looks like a drawing, but then it's painted beautifully. That's some of my favorite stuff.

AlexLike during this, the fight, I don't want to say the fight scenes look sloppy, but it's like they were like created really quickly. Like they're not super cinematic in the way that there's like a, I don't think there are any double page spreads, but I did read this on my iPad. So I'm not sure, but.

MaxOh, there definitely were, because there were wide pages.

AlexOh, huh. Interesting. I actually did a couple, I didn't read the entire thing like this, but when I was, I read the second issue a second time because I'm like, do I not like this as much as I think? And I did the single panel thing. Have you tried that where it's like you just do one panel and then it moves? It depends what I'm

Merlinreading it on. Back when I had the giant, giant iPad, I would read full page with the brightness turned all the way up. If I'm reading on almost anything else, I do the panels. It's very

Alexinteresting and well done. I was not expecting it to be well done. Like how sometimes it's just part it's part of the panel and then it expands to the whole frame. I just thought that was very cool.

MerlinYeah, no, a lot of times that's done, like in comiXology, that's done very well.

AlexI don't know. I'm excited to see where this goes.

MaxLook at how good this panel is.

MerlinIs that Carcoa? No, that's not Carcoa. What is that?

AlexOh.

MaxGiganto?

AlexYeah, they, yeah. And I love how.

MaxSo look at some of the decisions here. So first of all, you start up in the upper left hand corner and you read the dialogue bubbles where he's talking to his wife. and he says oh he's the fantastic four bad guy and he says he says no no wife i am listening it's just that i'm also fighting giganto and then you have this huge whole page picture of all the avengers zipping around giganto in one picture you picture the whole fucking boring ass set piece from the marvel movie and then it has the narration in the lower right corner after you've already figured out what's going on like it's just so interesting it's trying i i think it's trying to

Alexbe an adult Incredibles and it doesn't quite get there for me um adult Incredibles yeah like they're they're trying to just be these regular people and but still do their supers job and I I don't know also the mom was such a bitch good lord like I I didn't buy any her entire existence

Maxis so tragic. She was created to be, he couldn't, you learn his whole tragic history with Scarlet Witch, right? And he couldn't be with Scarlet Witch. So he creates this woman to be like Scarlet Witch, like from her image, right?

She's literally built to be his wife and for him to love, but he still likes Scarlet Witch more. And she's just trying to be normal in the suburbs, but she's like a pink robot. Like the whole thing is so, I don't get it. Like how is that not explain why she's sad?

AlexNo, no, it's explained. It just doesn't seem like a compelling reason based on what, how Vision has behaved in the past.

MaxWell, I'm not burdened by any of that, so I'm free to like it.

AlexYes, and that's the thing. I am trying, which is why I tried to not, I didn't. I didn't look up any Wikipedia stuff. I didn't look up like current Vision stuff.

MaxThe only thing I know about Vision is he's got that one thing in his head, the dinghy. Yeah, and in this one, I don't know if he does. He's got the one Thanos in his head. No, the whole family has Thanos' in their head.

AlexThat's what I'm wondering is like, do they all have soul stones?

MaxYeah, and I Googled why do they all have Thanos' in their head? Where'd they get more Thanos rocks? And I don't know. I think I probably found something. It doesn't matter. I don't care. It's a 3D printer.

AlexWell, that's interesting, though. It's like, how did he create his family? Is his family just an extension of himself? Like the mom is Scarlet Witch, basically, or the kid. He almost addressed it. You know what? It feels like they're going to address it later because then he has to he keeps having to rebuild his family, which is a bummer. I don't know. I feel like I'm ragging on this too much, but I am just surprised. You had high expectations. I had very. I mean, it's robots in the suburbs. Like how you I went in there.

It was like me going into the Watchmen movie, I think. Yeah. although I still do like that movie I love that movie I like the title sequence

Maxof that movie

Alexit was very good I liked Blue Penis Man I thought it was very good

MerlinI thought he was so good in that role he's genuinely sad the whole thing when he goes in to get the watch it's a genuinely very sad scene and great use of voiceover it's a very good movie

Maxanyhow well I'm sorry you didn't like it

AlexMerlin And so it was genuinely a time issue with you. You didn't.

MerlinNo, I just hate comics.

80. Pussy Hatting

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