91. Wine of Lies

AlexThis is Do By Friday, a weekly challenge podcast with Merlin Mann, Alex Cox and Max Tempton. This week's challenge, consume the news.

All right, Merlin.

MerlinYes.

AlexHow are you doing?

MerlinI'm always great. This is what I do. This is my fucking living.

MaxI do this for a living. You came here for the friends. Then we got to know the friends of the friends. Gary the privacy clown, Gerald the time guy, the doodler, Merlin's cat. Then we discovered that Merlin gave $500 to Joel Stein's recount. That's okay. And we found others just like us. And just like that, we felt a little less alone. But then something happened. We had to deal with spam, clickbait, fake news, and data misuse. Well, that's going to change. From now on, Dubai Friday will do more to keep your data safe and protect your privacy.

You know how we sold your social security number to Chinese human traffickers? Well, we won't do that anymore. Then we can go back to what made Dubai Friday good in the first place, the friends. Because when this place does what it was built for, then we all get a little closer. God, I promised myself I wouldn't cry.

Have you seen those Facebook ads that they're running?

MerlinThey're so, they're so, so bad. Listen, I know it's hard for many people to understand. I know it's hard for many people to understand why we have not suspended Alex Jones or him for worse. The reason is simple.

Speaker AHe hasn't violated our rules. It's totally fine.

MerlinBut listen, we're going to enforce it if he does. But we will continue to promote a healthy conversational environment by ensuring that everything that happens on this show is not going to be artificially amplified. We don't amplify artificially. It's not a thing we'll do.

MaxCan we do a little segment on the topic? I know you're not on Twitter anymore, and we do need to address that. But can we do a little segment here on the topic of people yelling at Jack about various political issues?

AlexSir! I want to propose. You know how much I love gambling. I am going to say that by the end of this episode, we will discover that Merlin is back on Twitter. And if so...

MaxI think he's done.

AlexOkay. Then if so, if he is back on Twitter, you need to get me a hot dog or send someone to get me a hot dog from Shoppers. I'd love to see you eat a hot dog. And I will happily do that. And if not, I will get some, I think, do you have my card? I will get you some food of your choice.

MerlinDon't make me eat paper. I don't want to eat paper. Don't throw me in the briar patch. Here's a photo of the paper I ate.

AlexOkay. I also want a hot dog from choppers.

MaxSo loser gets the other one, a hot dog from choppers. And in that way, we all lose. Okay. We'll order a hot dog wrapped in paper.

Speaker ASo we're ready for either of them. Merlin's back. Hey.

Maxeverybody so all right first we let's talk I want to talk about at Jack for a second yes please before we lose the thread here so the new thing so first of all I want all right so here's what's happening now Merlin because I know you're not on Twitter and we'll find out when Alex has to buy me a hot dog from choppers choppers so the new thing is that uh all the social medias and companies have banned Alex Jones I think Apple kind of led the way by taking him off of um it It took about a day and a half, and it was like, boom, collapse.

Speaker ACourage. But also learned he has six podcasts? They said they pulled five of his six podcasts? Yeah, well, the one of them is okay. Okay.

MaxThere's one of them.

MerlinOne of them's all right.

MaxIt's mainly tips and tricks. One of them believes that the Parkland kids weren't crisis actors. So that one is cool.

MerlinThat one can stay. We all like that one. Still on the fence.

MaxIs that, you know, I'm sorry. Again, I don't want to go too deep into the stack here, too many layers deep. Stack it in, baby. We've been thinking about, is a podcast network the right thing for Dubai Friday?

MerlinYes. do you see what i'm saying yes oh you're saying you're saying you look for a void and you fill it like a gentleman you go to you go to somebody you go to somebody who might be you know economically needing to really beef up the powders on their podcast now what do we have that alex jones wants

Maxright now you know to get that bargaining leverage very opinionated potentially controversial but even better we're on apple podcasts we're as they say we're available wherever podcasts are found

MerlinThat's true. We refer to people as partners, even though that's problematic.

MaxNow, I would be willing, I don't know what the ad revenue is on being on the Infowars network, but I would be willing to, you know, read ads for supplements. I mean, that's a given, right? We're going to be reading ads for supplements.

MerlinI think, well, I mean, let's be honest, Max. If there's anything we know about podcast networks, you don't bring somebody into a podcast network to increase their traffic. You bring somebody into your podcast network to increase your traffic. And we have already shown the efficacy of the Powder Nation, that if we recommend some bullshit on a podcast, they will kill for us. They will do whatever we tell them. If we tell them to smush this powder into their gob, they're going to do it in a heartbeat. And they'll give us $10.

MaxSo is it going to be more of like a max funds situation where every year we have to participate in the InfoWars membership drive and be like, hey, we've got... InfoWars cruise. Lizardman Adam Waffen on the Jumbotron this week.

Speaker AHe's got a message.

MaxHe's got 14 words for our listeners.

MerlinThis message is for Himmler from Hans. Thanks for being the best D&D daddy I could ever want. Let's gas it up this weekend 24-7. Blaze it, Auschwitz.

MaxOkay, so this...

MerlinDon't mention the word latex where you have to do a make good.

MaxSo basically, Alex Jones has been removed. His podcast got pulled from iTunes. Then all the social media sort of piled on. He lost his YouTube and his Facebook and a bunch of stuff like that. He's been suspended personally

Merlinfrom Facebook. Is that correct? He's 30 days suspension personally. Infowars still has a presence on Facebook.

Alex30 days?

Max30 days in the hole. A lot of this stuff has a turns out because even on Apple, I think Gruber saw that there's still like an Infowars app and they didn't pull the app. So they put most of his podcasts off, but they didn't do the app. So I don't really know how serious it is. But anyway, the party line on this, what people are saying is, oh, Twitter is the last network that hasn't suspended Alex Jones. And then last night, I guess I should probably actually look up this tweet. This looks like a hell of an app. Twitter Jack.

So last night, Jack kind of made a tweet to address the people, all the people complaining to him about Alex Jones. And he said, okay, he said, at Jack said last night, accounts, he said, we didn't suspend Alex Jones or Infowars yesterday. We know that's hard for many, but the reason is simple. He hasn't violated our rules. We'll enforce if he does. How about this, though? Has anyone considered that maybe the rules are shitty? Like if Alex Jones isn't violating the rules, maybe your rules suck ass.

We'll enforce if he does and we'll continue to promote a healthy conversational environment by ensuring tweets aren't artificially amplified. And then he goes on to say accounts like Jones can often sensationalize issues and spread unsubstantiated rumors. Oh, you don't say. So it's critical. So it is critical that journalists document, validate and refute such information directly so that people can form their own opinions. Thank you. This is what serves public conversation best.

Speaker AWhat the fuck is that?

MerlinThat's, in the parlance of our time, a big load of bullshit. That's a way to sound like you're saying something and you're not really saying anything.

MaxWait, what the fuck is that?

MerlinIt's not a thing. That's just a bunch of words.

MaxThat doesn't mean fucking anything. So basically, all these new media platforms like Twitter, they don't give a shit about the businesses of newspapers and journalism. They like actively destroy their business model and do nothing to support them. There's no ad revenue sharing. You know, they do they play games with their traffic. Right. Like we all know those stories from like Matt Howey about about how Metafilter has suffered under Google and Facebook's algorithms. Right. Yes. So all these media organizations, you know, and and trusted sites like Metafilter, they basically get killed off by these like very centralized social networks.

and then these social networks, as soon as they get in trouble, their first thing is to say, oh, the journalists will fix it.

MerlinYeah, I mean, it's almost like you start a mom and pop business and some franchise comes along and like, whether you like it or not, you end up having to join their franchise, change to their rules. They take all the stuff. I mean, I think in that case, like for example, for a long time now, I followed your Twitter list, politics list. I have my own Twitter politics list. And I think it's a lot of that back and forth. It may be the news articles, but it's also a lot of the chatter about the news articles. And using a word like conversation, though, it's such a weasel word, you know, because conversation can mean anything to anybody.

He's not willing to really, like, lay down the fact that's bothering people, which is that there is fictitious. This fake news thing, we've got to stop with the fake news. It's fictitious information. It's incorrect information. You know, when you call it fake news, you're buying into that language. which I know we like to have fun with using Trump's silly phrases, but it would be a really nice time for him to say, like, look, either we're going to go all in on this or we're just going to say fuck it. You might as well, if you're going to say fuck it, just say fuck it. Just say we're not going to control this. We don't have the resources, interest, wherewithal, or investor support to spend large resources

on making sure that people on here are not being intentional dicks. And the way that he's saying that is just, it's weasel words. It's all weasel words.

MaxI just feel like I wish our side would come to terms with the fact that there are no clever Jedi mind tricks that will ever work for us. That the other side gets all the clever Jedi mind tricks. And then what we have to do is like is like have principles and make hard decisions and stick to our and like and like stick to our principles when it matters. And as soon as we create these Jedi mind tricks, like when you said, like what you said, Merlin, like calling things fake news. Like remember how clever that was for like a week after the election?

MerlinFake news started as something, as you say, our side. Yes. It was people saying that they're referring to things like, I think, Infowars, Breitbart. Correct. There's this problem with fake news, which is people presenting things as what, it looks like it's got the bottle of journalism, but the wine of lies. And that was what fake news meant. And now, of course, look who owns that phrase. So it was an attempt by our side after we lost. I blame the 17 to 35 angry Democrats.

Speaker AIt was it was an attempt by our side. It never just keeps going up.

MaxIt was an attempt by our side to say, well, we're not really going to learn any lessons at all from the 2016 election. We're not going to change anything about the party, but we are going to start looking for these external factors that were largely out of our control that we can like blame so that.

MerlinIt's back when we still thought if we just show you the truth factually, it will be incontrovertible. And because you are because really, you know, not only are we right, but we are correct. We are correct and right. And so when you see the truth that we're laying out for you with our little wobbly liberal arms, you can't help but come over to our side. And you're going to see what a jackal this man is and all the people behind him. But now Stephen Miller doesn't want actual citizens to be citizens. Right.

MaxAll you do when you try to do these Jedi mind tricks, they never work. You just create a permission structure.

Speaker AMeh, meh, meh, meh, meh.

MaxYou just create a permission structure for the other side to use them against you. So trust me, I get I fucking gazed in my crystal ball and I guarantee you that within by the by the end of this year, all this Russia investigation stuff will be used to go after Democrats. Like anything that happens, Trump is going to say it's Russian meddling and he's going to tougher guy will always take the knife out of your hand.

MerlinWhen will we learn? Yes. Yeah.

MaxWell, isn't that I mean, I'm the bad guy. I believe in that. But Jesus, fuck. But isn't that literally true about carrying a gun? Like all these people have fantasies if they're gonna stop a mugger with like if they have their number one thing

MerlinYou're gonna do with your gun is kill yourself The number one thing you're gonna do with your gun is somebody in your house is gonna get killed Because because you thought there was a black in your house

MaxBut but more but but also like if you do get if you do get mugged and pull a gun out isn't it like just gonna hit you with it till they're tired Second amendment now they're gonna now they're gonna mug you and steal your guy

Merlinyou should you should have to be it'd be like an obituary you should have to be in the newspaper if you're pistol whipped with your own gun there should this is you know like the there's all that underreporting and there's the laws that you're not allowed to do good gun stats this is i'd like to see a pro publico on this the weekly pistol whip jesus fuck did you guys hear the um there's a front line that went up last night that i'm dying to see um and i'm not gonna go too far on this because I'm sick of talking about it. But I don't know.

I've had my concerns about what happens when we try to employ certain elements of what the other side uses as tactics. And there was a really good fresh air about this that makes me really want to see this Frontline. So Frontline, working with ProPublica, this is the story of outing a bunch of the people at the Charlottesville rally. Are you following this story at all?

AlexNo.

MerlinOne of the guys who was beating the shit out of people turned out to be a Northrop Grumman engineer. Another guy was a Marine. And this Marine is part of this group. you adam walfen you named it right yeah that's one of those that's one of those this like this they are they are basically brown shirts they are they're not they're not showing up with like hockey pads and like you know a helmet from target these are heavily trained street fighters and the guy who wrote this article for did this for pro publican i guess it's on this front line

it said like basically these are the most dangerous people to watch they are super organized they are unapologetically nazi and they're they're basically the essay this is this is the essay this is what we're facing at this point well that this

Maxwas part of the early hit i because i hate myself i've been reading books about the rise of the nazi party and just books about 1940s fascism in general since the election started and like it's like like a lot of the early rise of the nazi party was just like angry gangs of like disaffected teenagers who had no opportunities in life who go around like beating people up in bars yeah like like it is not dissimilar from the idea that there's these like you know whatever the the the khaki guys, the cucks who have the tiki torches or whatever, and they go around chanting and beating people up or whatever.

Like that, that is part of that. Like I said, like that kind of chaos creates like a permission structure for the authoritarianism.

MerlinI think that's closer to like the branding of the, well, this sounds silly, but the branding of the clan where like the clan would do, I mean, a lot of evil shit and they almost certainly killed people. But I think a lot of what the clan served to do was to create fear. That they there was sure there was some terrorist element to it 100 percent. But I mean, a lot of what they were doing was leveraging the violence they had done in the past or could do. And so that they were able to pivot to this idea of the white sheets and the crosses means that you should be scared, even if you've never met us, because you might meet us someday.

MaxWell, and also like it just contributes to like a general feeling of chaos and lawlessness that that creates like the that that that permission structure for the authoritarianism to set in.

Merlin100%. That's the irony of Rome and the SA. I mean, a lot of what they were doing was creating the kind of disorder that could then be used as an example of saying, look at all this lawlessness in the streets. Like, we need people like this in order to bring order.

MaxWell, anyway.

MerlinYeah, that's good reading, Max. That'll keep you pumped up. Yeah, so you quit Twitter. I don't know. Hey, Max. How's it going, buddy? Oh, good. You're not on Twitter anymore. um did you want to tell anybody about something you like no not yet okay i want to know about

Maxtwitter don't deflect did you leave twitter wait a minute should we tease it first i'll tell people about something they like and then you'll tell us why you left twitter the answer might surprise you okay well listen hey max tell me about something you like oh i'd love to tell you about something i like merlin uh finker box

Speaker AWait, it's

MerlinStubhump

Speaker AFinger

MerlinFinger Finger blasters With a Z Spell it out Just like it sounds

MaxFinger blasters Dot US Finger blasters Is not as an FDIC insured And should not be Considered to be Actual investment Advice from a Financial professional Terms and conditions

MerlinApply

MaxOh boy Let's see You know Have you tried

MerlinMaster Fox Have you tried masterfucks.info? You get a box every month, and if you don't like it, you send it back. No, no, no.

AlexMax, what do you like?

MerlinHave you tried instaporn.io? If you don't crank your hog to it in 30 days, you can send it back, no questions asked.

MaxHi, create your free account now. It's a delightful collection of treats and surprises, pornographic treats and surprises, delivered to your door every month.

MerlinYou give us an idea of the kind of thing that you enjoy, shape, length, width, accommodations, and we'll send that to your house every day. Merlin, tell us the theme of this month's porno box crate. It's called Purple Nerple. We're going to be sending you dildos, butt plugs, and nipple clamps of various sizes and types. But our nipple clamps never pinch. Come on out to fuckbitches.io. Terms and conditions apply.

Hi. Hi, I'm Robert Pistol Whip. Have you ever been worried about being hit by your own pistol in your home? It's Purple Nerple, but Nerple is spelled N-R-P-L. So just don't mention latex.

MaxYou want to tell me about something you like? I do. As you know, there's no ads on Dubai Friday. We can do it.

MerlinWe can fucking do it. We'll make up an ad.

MaxWe'll do it if we have to. We'll fucking sell the silver underwear mattresses. Listen, we're one minute away from joining the Alex Jones Podcast Network. What if we create our own payment app?

MerlinThat'll fuck your shit up.

MaxOh, you have to pay us with DBF coin. Yeah, we do an ICO. We're five minutes away from doing an ICO and joining the Outstrands Podcast Network. We'll do it. We'll fucking do it. If you don't pay us, you don't give us your fucking money, we're going to do an ICO on your face. Well, that is, in fact, how it remains independent. We are completely listener supported. And you can go to giveusyourfuckingmoney.com to give us $5 a month. You become a Patreon supporter of Dubai Friday. And what do you get for that? Well, we record a whole second episode every week, and you get the premium feed available only on our Patreon.

Now, also on the Patreon, there is a $10 a month feed. Those are for our official Cox's Cucks. And at the Cox's Cucks level, at $10 a month, we will send you special treats and surprises in the mail. And the new treat is, I'm going to call them, a little collectible print series of Dubai Friday characters and hosts. Beloved characters. Beloved characters, such as Alex Cox, Merlin's Cat, and Gerald the Time Guy. Hey! They're little, what are they? They're these little...

MerlinThey're adorable, collectible prints of what it would be like if there was dolls of things. Yes. But they're cuter than that.

MaxThat's popular culture. There's photos...

MerlinBy Kevin, by our friend Kevin, who does all our identity work and did our poster that you guys have hanging up.

MaxI'm putting a picture of these that I took today in our super secret channel because I have them up by my desk.

MerlinOh, my God.

MaxSo that's what they look like. They're these little sort of four-inch collectible prints, and they're very cute. And we are going to be sending those out with some other treats and surprises to our $10 Cox's Cox at the end of this month, which is August.

So here's what you need to do. If you want the collectible prints, you go to giveusyourfuckmoney.com. You sign up or you up yourself to that $10 a month pledge, and we will be shipping these out at the very end of August. So you should probably get these. I would anticipate that you would get these the first month of September. And this is a one-time mailing.

AlexThe first month of September. First month of September?

MaxYeah. We're the greatest nation in the country. It's called managing expectations, Alex.

MerlinI own six of these books. Sorry, I zoomed in on your live photo. I own six of these books.

MaxWhoa. I zoomed in on your live.

Speaker AIt looks like you're watching CNN. The Dow is down 22.96. I'm livening the photo.

MaxI have concerns about your Trump cologne. Oh, that's a success by Trump. It was discontinued. It was discontinued. I got it in like a fire sale for like a dollar. Okay, yep. How many of these little prints will our $10 boys receive? So you're going to get three prints plus extra treats in the first month, and then in future months we will be sending out future editions of the prints. So this month the prints that you will—

MerlinBut each of the little characters has accessories. Yeah. Like Max has an optical cable and a drill, a cordless drill, and Alex has a scoot-scoot. I have large tennis. I have large tennis.

MaxMerlin's got big tennis. I think you've got a kombucha in there. You've got your peanut butter. The two of hearts. Oh, Merlin's got peanut butter. Mm-hmm.

AlexMm-hmm.

MerlinWhat are the little things on the floor? I can't figure it out. I think I have a hygrometer. Is that a hygrometer? It's a hygrometer, yes.

AlexOh, those are cockroaches and or ladybugs. Oh, they're the ladybugs. Okay.

MerlinWe should put these where people can see it. These are really cute.

MaxSo go on the show notes and you can see a picture of these prints and go to giveusyourfuckingmoney.com and sign up now and you'll get these boys at the end of the month and that's the end of the promotion.

Speaker AAnd one more thing just to cover our asses here.

MaxWe're doing one mailing. We are sending these out once. So if you fuck it up and you're not a patron get on the Patreon because we're not sending them out after this. One time and we're done and we're going to immediately delete your email. and harsh father if you email us after this acting how to get the prints we're gonna i'm

Merlingonna ban you from the podcast no more no more i will send you a dick pic put in images of the

Maxcute boys okay that means all right all right yeah you guys want to hear a funny article yes oh yeah but wait what about twitter though oh let's hear the article first are you are you hoping to just like tire us out are you doing like a muhammad ali here you're I'm just going to dance around.

MerlinIt's called rope-a-dope. I'm doing a rope-a-dope.

Speaker AUntil the end of the episode.

MerlinI just absorb your punches. You know what a lot of people didn't understand about that? This is when he was fighting George Foreman. What he didn't understand is he would hold up his gloves to protect his face. The key part of the rope-a-dope was the ropes. He put his back against the ropes.

MaxHe's taking a hail of blows from George Foreman. Guess who's absorbing the blows? He's just sweating and talking and staring at a clock. And he would keep whispering in his ear, is that all you got, George? Is that all you got?

MerlinYou got the rumble in the jungle. You got the wire. We're here in Zaire. That was the style of the time. All the way. We had onions on our bell. We had to go over to Sheldon to get help from a shoe. Of course, back then, Nichols had pictures of bees on them. All right. I'll do an article, but then you're going to have to talk about Twitter. I know. The only reason I'm avoiding it is I don't have anything very interesting. I'm happy to talk about it. All right. Well, I'm dying to know.

MaxWhat precipitated you leaving? There's so little to say. Then just give me the boring answers. What precipitated you leaving? Was there a straw that broke the camel's back?

MerlinI didn't leave. I'm just not using it. I'm not looking at it. There's nothing. I mean, if you were to really, really think about what I'm not doing right now, it's shockingly dull. And there's really shockingly little to say about it. But like, yeah, last Friday morning I said, you know what? I think I'm done for a while.

Was there something that caused you to make that decision? Everything caused it. What are some examples? I mean, why are you there? There's no reason to be there anymore. It's terrible. Well, it makes me miserable. Yes? I hate myself. It's a constant draw on your attention. And every moment you're not doing something else, you're looking at Twitter.

MaxBut it gives me, it does give me the illusion of knowing what people are saying about me. That's important. That is.

MerlinYeah. So like Friday morning, I was just like, you know what? This isn't making me happy. I'm not sure. I mean, there's really not that much to say about it. The funniest part of all of this is that, A, I'm expected to give an explanation for why I'm not using Twitter right now. and that B, I have to communicate that to people in some way that makes them happy that I'm alive and healthy and well and not doing it for any weird reason. You know what I mean? It's so funny. I would never say to you, why did you stop eating ice cream?

MaxBut it's because I could give you an answer to that, which I haven't stopped eating ice cream, but if I did stop eating ice cream, it's because it... But I wouldn't expect you to go on an ice cream network

Merlinand talk about why you're not eating ice cream.

MaxBut it's because when I eat ice cream too late at night, I get a sugar rush and I can't fall asleep. And also I'm trying to lose weight.

MerlinMy problem is there's only two portions of ice cream. There's either no ice cream or all of the ice cream. I've never not finished a pint of ice cream. If I open it, it's gone. You know what I do? This is how confident I am.

MaxSee, that's a genuine insight about ice cream. Why can't we say that? Why don't you have that? Why can't we ask that about Twitter though? Just asking the question.

MerlinYeah. No, you know, it's, I mean, like if I tried to really dissect it, it would be just all the reasons. All the reasons you know why it's bad. Did you? Well, let me finish. I'll tell you. So, I mean, like, I am, on the one hand, for myself and the role that this has in my life and the time that it takes up. And, again, I know this is useless for me to say things like this. I don't actually have that strong of an opinion about it. I'm expected to have a very strong opinion about this. I don't have that strong of an opinion about it. So, like, I don't have a great exegesis about this.

I'm not telling you to do anything. That would be an exegesis, right? Yeah, your own personal exegesis. Same thing.

MaxTweet at Hot Dogs Ladies with the right way to pronounce that.

MerlinFor myself, it's that I realized that I, probably really because of the political list, I don't know what hit I am waiting for. I don't know. I'm chasing the dragon, and I'm just dragging down on that page over and over and over. It's nobody's fault but my own, But I'm just looking and looking and looking and I'm constantly disappointed by what's not there and I'm frustrated by what is. That's me personally. I'm also just ready for a break from everybody's notes.

I needed a break from everybody's notes. So the internal thing is I still want to keep doing what I'm doing. I love doing what I'm doing. But like there's only so much I have to gain from hearing what everybody wishes was different and everybody's fucking mad on Twitter. Nobody's happy on Twitter.

I mean, again, this is nothing insightful. This is how it has been for years. But at a certain point, 10.56 Friday morning, I just thought, you know, I think I'm done for a while. And so basically I just, and I don't, you know, this is not a big deal. It's not a big deal. But like I logged out, I deleted off all my devices and logged out on everywhere that it's logged in. And I have not brought up the domain. I haven't put it in my host file yet, but I probably will just so it doesn't come up accidentally. I just don't want to see it for a while. I have not quit Twitter. I'm not looking at Twitter. And I don't, if people send me a link, that's fine.

But really, I just need, I need to not use it for a while. I need to not have it in my life. And not having it in my life does make me realize, on the one hand, like how much I was using and overusing it. But then on the other hand, I realized, and so, you know, obviously, like, what's the first thing you do when you pick up the phone? You look at Twitter. Like, that's just what you do, right? Yeah. And I noticed that. I noticed that for several days that just felt like the natural thing to do. This will lead to our topic at some point.

MaxAre you ever, are you ever doing, or did you ever used to do the thing where you're reading Twitter and you sort of get to the end of your timeline and there's like not really any more Twitter to read. And then you like close the app and then you're like, what should I do next? And you open Twitter again and you're like, wait a second.

MerlinYes. Well, I'm also a guy that is added, tried to add articles to Instapaper while I'm reading them in Instapaper. that's that's when you know that's when you know you're really jacked into the matrix i want to super read this put into super paper okay no so anyway that's why so i don't know i don't have it i don't at some point you know i imagine i'll i'll get back in i don't care uh it's it's it's um i've seen the effect that this uh platform has had on people in my life and i've

ignored it for a long time. I'm watching now in Slack secondhand what's happening to somebody who I really like, whose life is being ruined right now on purpose on Twitter. And you can't necessarily blame the platform for that. But I think we are reaching a point where most of the uses in growth that we will see with Twitter are not positive things, at least for privileged white people. I think most of the growth you're going to see is in stuff that's truly heinous. And so I'm just taking a little break. I mean, if you're having fun with it, have fun with it. I literally don't care.

The people you're asking, so I'm saying, I just needed to not be on it for a while.

MaxLast seven days on my phone, Twitter, under the battery settings here, 8.8 hours on screen. That's over an hour a day.

AlexOh, boy.

MerlinI was bummed that I didn't look one last time before I deleted it because when you're looking at screen time, it just shows you the apps and then deleted apps. So it's not really... Screen time's cool.

Maxnow um uh so that's that yeah what do you do anything else any uh follow-up questions what

Merlindo you do when you take a shit bro let's see what do i do when you take a shit this will get into our topic um but um it's just nothing particularly i mean i've been reading a little bit more i'm not going to say like i'm book guy now but i've been reading a little bit more sometimes i'll play pocket pool what's it called pocket run pocket pool pocket run it is pocket run what i'm trying to say is I play with my balls in my pants.

AlexYeah. What else are you going to do in your

MerlinEnglish? Is that what it's called? Pocket Run? Sometimes they'll queue up Pocket Run. Yeah.

MaxSir, we're going to have to ask you to leave the Children's Museum.

Speaker AI like history. And her. Every day she's less beautiful.

MaxDo you notice any, I mean, you've been gone now for about a week. Do you notice any, like, is your life

Merlindifferent in any way? Not really. You know, there's a funny kind of thing. You ever take Lamictal, Alex? Oh, yeah. Every day. Lamictal is a funny thing because when you take Lamictal, you, first of all, you dose into it very, very slowly. I took it a few years ago. But the funny part about Lamictal is, in my case, I noticed virtually no difference when I started taking it, even when I ramped up to a full dose. I didn't notice that much stabilization in mood. It's when

you stop taking it that you notice. And I think there's a lot of stuff in life and health and, as Gwyneth says, wellness. There's a lot of stuff where you don't notice the difference until you stop doing it. For a lot of people, that's working out. For a lot of people, that's the way they choose to eat. For a lot of people, that could be the way they choose to sleep, where I'm not, you know, it's like, you know, it's like people go into shit like meditation, and they're like, I'm waiting to be transformed and clear my mind and shit like that. And mainly, it just has an effect on you that's sort of ineffable, that you only really notice when you stop doing that. So in this instance, I don't notice anything too different. But, and we'll get to this in the

topic but the way that i consume news now holy shit i remember feeling because i was looking at political twitter i remember feeling like there were 40 things happening every day and by by the afternoon you know uh west coast time around public publication time on the east coast shit would just fucking explode and i'd feel like there's 60 things i can't keep up with this is so overwhelming. Every one of these stories is developing so quickly. They've got him this time,

maybe. And then now, the way that I look at news, I'm like, hmm, that's interesting. That hasn't really updated. There's not really that much difference from what happened yesterday. That's fascinating. Unless you're down to the nano level, if you're at the nano level and looking at it for six hours a day or whatever, it feels like there's so much happening, but it's only because you're at the nano level. So there's nothing wise about this. It's just, I needed a break and I'm glad I did it.

And I miss seeing my pals and knowing what's going on. But just even looking at the effluvium and pollution, like we were out camping, as I told you guys, we're out camping for three nights. It's just amazing because like you just go, you look at it and you're like, holy shit. It's more like you see this, you're not in the fire, but you see a lot of smoke from far away. And it's like, holy shit, people are in such a frenzy about something right now. You know, like LeBron James. Like how much of your brain, I don't even know, this is an open question. How much of your brain in some part was eaten up about what somebody said about LeBron James for one day?

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

MerlinThe president said something untoward about a basketball player. Oh, okay. And the reporting on it was heavily about the president had said something, what this means for the Ohio elections. And anyway, I mean, maybe that's not the best example, but the smoke, the smoke, the smoke is very heavy from far away, but it doesn't burn.

MaxA lot is made of how Trump can sort of like hijack the American discourse and like the whole thing with like a tweet and everything has to grinds to a halt. And we all have to deal with his tweet, right?

MerlinIf he says show show where the lie is and prove it or just even discuss it.

MaxThe header on my Twitter account is an MSNBC graphic from the election where they said it was like a huge full screen graphic. Breaking news, Trump tweet. And I just always thought that was a very funny sort of image for our time.

Speaker ABut I don't know.

MaxIt's interesting because it's actually not – as you're saying this, what I'm thinking about is it's actually not that Trump is sort of hijacking our country with his tweets. It's that there's 0.0000001% of our country are like hyper tuned in political journalists who spend all day on Twitter, like glued to their phone. And Trump hijacks their attention. Like he's doing the attack, his little social engineering attack.

MerlinYou can just see it. It's like it's chum in the water. Anytime he says anything about how the press is the enemy or he attacks a given reporter, you know, I mean, how I mean, Jim Acosta really wants to be thrown in that briar patch. I think he really enjoys being in that position and then getting to be the, you know, have you no decency, sir, fella. And if it's anything, especially about the press and reporting, maybe understandably, because it's their profession. It's what they do. They don't like seeing their colleagues and their profession attacked, but that will take them that will take them off whatever the fuck else is going on for a day and a half.

MaxThat becomes the story. And one of the funniest and most obnoxious things about Twitter culture in general is like, I think at the nucleus, the like, you know, they're like, they're like radiant, like nucleus, like the crucible at the center of Twitter is sort of journalists and writers because they're like the culture creators. And they sort of give the platform like a kind of an air of like importance and seriousness just because they're there. Right. Is that does that make a kind of a sense?

MerlinLike, yeah, oh, it absolutely does. But also they're the oracles of today. They're the people who are able to show you in context what happened in the past, what's happening right now, and what it might mean.

MaxAnd you're dying to know what it means. And naturally, if you're going to create a game and an economy of saying things that sound important and get attention, the people who are in journalism and media will be good at that game. They're predisposed to have some talent in that board game of getting the faves or whatever and wording the headline correctly. You know, they know how to A-B test their headlines or whatever. But anyhow, so there's these journalists at the center. But then there's also this sort of like the orbital people. And these are like the sort of verified Twitter accounts that we all know.

And what's so fucking funny is they're just some guy like like there's a guy I'm thinking of that I'll tell you guys after the podcast who like it's like he's a nice dude. But he couldn't be like more inconsequential. He's like me. Right. Like he makes like pop culture and games like he has like no importance to the world at all. Like he's not a journalist or a political figure. It's just a, but he's seen as like a mind or a thought leader. It's just a goofy dude. You probably both have seen him on Twitter. It's just some goofy,

Speaker Ait's just some goofy dude.

MaxAnd he makes, and he makes like huge budget video games and like talks seriously about, about politics.

Speaker AI'm just thinking of this one guy as an example.

MaxAnd what's funny about him is that he has followed, he sort of absorbed from the, looking at that nucleus of like journalist Twitter, all these conventions. And he runs his Twitter account like he's a journalist. And so like what's funny is whenever there's a story like Trump tweets about LeBron James It's like boom got to go to press with my statement Like here's what I'm thinking everyone like issuing my statement in three to one and the other funny thing is like in his Twitter Bio he has this link to a page called I don't know what it is But it's some like resource called like the disclosure and it's the thing that's like a website for like that

Like media people who work in newspapers can put in their Twitter bio and you click on it And it's like a whole long legal form of like the opinions on this Twitter account don't reflect the views of my publication and every time I look at that thing I'm like what fucking publication? You don't have a publication you like work at a video game company

Merlinlike you know what I mean? I sometimes think that about I don't know what do you say anybody from Mike Schur to Talking Points Memo where it's like you go in Twitter moments and there's that area that I get a lot called comedians and it's across it's the same it's the same six people over and over either being publicly depressed or talking about how terrible Trump is and then on the other end you got somebody like Josh Marshall, who I guess he does reporting, but like there's such a vast amount of if you took out AP McClatchy, Washington Post and New York Times, there would be a huge hole in like how the stories got broken.

There's a there's a lot of journalistic hot takes on what four to seven outlets are reporting. But if you really, really get down to it, maybe include what you include MS or you include NBC. There's a few people who do break news. It could be The Atlantic or New York magazine with a story. Right. When Friday they'll have like some kind of a big story that somebody's been working on. But like it's amazing if you were to really distill it. It's amazing how many of the stories that become a story start with, I'll say the AP. AP is where a lot of stuff comes from.

MSNBC per se is not breaking a lot of news. They are promoting other stories.

MaxThey're kind of their own Twitter in a way, right?

MerlinLike they're kind of their own ecosystem of talkers. They're a pundit class, and it's why I think you and I both did not include a lot of those folks in the list. Right. I mean, it's why I'm looking at people like Phil Rucker, Philip Bump, Maggie Haberman, Apuzo. All of those people are out there. There's a reason they won Pulitzers, Ashley Parker. These are all people who have won Pulitzers because they're able to take a story where there didn't used to be a story and explain that these are facts about something you didn't know. But then if you really, really look at that shit, so much of it, I hate to use that phrase hot takes because it's like fake news.

It's another like funny phrase. But it's a lot of people's hmm about what somebody else reported. They put the tiniest little bit of salt and pepper on it and then it gets packaged, you know, first reported in the Washington Post. So, I mean, but, you know, you see this when, and there's so many people like Jonathan Swan. Man, he's on yours. He's not on mine. Jonathan Swan does six tweets for every story he does. for every like 120 word story that he puts out. Be smart. I was smart. I took you off the list.

MaxLast night was the Tuesday election day. So there was like that Ohio race. Yeah, whatever.

Speaker AI was really hoping they'd win.

MaxAll my candidates got crushed. We could touch on this later if you want. But anyway.

Speaker AYeah, but we beat the margin. Yeah, I know.

MerlinIt was a classic Democratic victory night. We lost the election, but we beat the spread. Yeah.

MaxNo, but we lost.

MerlinThat's not how it works. But we lost in a cool way.

Speaker AWe sure did. It's very impressive.

MerlinThey got him this time. His candidate won, but he really underperformed in his victory.

MaxI was watching. I was watching. I had the TV on, and I was refreshing the New York Times, and then I had my political Twitter list, and I was just sitting there all night, refresh, refresh, refresh. And it was a little microcosm. I was able to see very clearly for a few minutes. I was like, this is so fucking stupid, all these people talking about the elections. It's done. Like nothing like it's not actually news because nothing can change. Right.

MerlinLike it's like it's like Sunday night before a WWDC or before the iPhone announcement. And they're like, here's here's here's all the latest information we know. It's like, well, you know what? In 18 hours, you're going to actually know. I know.

MaxLike, really, do you wait 45 minutes and then they'll tell you the results?

MerlinYou got stage four cancer and you're sitting there fucking riding it out. Think about all the Sunday nights you spent guessing about something that will be publicly available in less than a day. Yeah.

MaxYeah, I did. That went a little dark. And then I did a tweet. I'm underperforming. And then in a way, the way that a good example of how that then just becomes toxic for like anything on Twitter. I did a tweet that I thought was very funny where I was like looking at the Ohio results. And it was I think it might at that point it was starting to turn a little bit south for us. And I was like, everybody hang on. They haven't. Cuyahoga County is not reporting that. So I was just trying to do a funny. I was kind of trying to.

MerlinIt's going to come down to turn.

MaxIt's all going to come down. Which is the Nate Silver.

MerlinIt's the Nate Silver version of whoever gets more points on the sports board. Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker ANo shit, it's going to come out to turn out.

MaxJesus Christ. What do they pay you? I want to be one of those sports commentators who's like, well, you know, Merlin, at the end of the day, the game's all about getting that ball down the field.

MerlinYou know? Really, what's going to come down to it today is can the defense stop the other team from making points? And will, in the end, part two, will the offense be able to score more sports points? There's only way to wait and see. There's everything to be gained. Watch the football. Watch it.

MaxWatch it. It's going to move. And I got 500 replies of people telling me, Cuyahoga County's not voting in this election.

MerlinWhat's the Dave Weigel? Dave Weigel has so many great bits. Dave Weigel, it's going to come down to, is it Waukesha County or whatever? Yes.

MaxYeah, I mean, it's probably a slightly of a stolen Dave Weigel bit that I was trying to do. He's running. He's running. Anyway, it's just like- I love him. It's just like, damn, damn, people. You can't even fucking make a joke on this thing anymore.

Merlinno i mean again i want to be i just want to be super clear that like i do not mean this in any kind of a prescriptive i'm not tut tutting you should do what makes you happy um but i mean but it is it is it became very clear to me that everybody not everybody but almost everybody the people that i wanted to watch were getting increasingly angry flustered impatient and raw and i started to feel a little raw too and i don't like feeling raw like that's not a good feeling I got shit to do and I can't walk around

feeling like I'm shedding some kind of outer skin and like the only way I'm going to get it back is to watch somebody else be victorious in something so that I can then be real snotty about how my side won and it stopped, here's that word Alex it stopped feeling wholesome

AlexDo you ever have any fantasies about leaving Twitter Alex? Who says I'm on Twitter? I mean I have posted things on Twitter

MaxOh, I see. So you're posting on it, but you're not on it.

AlexI don't know.

MaxLet's see. Let's look at the Alex Cox Twitter account. I think it was either you or Merlin. Oh, what's this? I'm looking at the likes, and there was a like on August 7th, another one on August 7th, another one on August 7th.

MerlinYou can like from outside the app. This is how they brought down Farad Manju.

MaxThey didn't bring him down. They brought him down.

Speaker ARemember, they're all mad. Man, you didn't really quit Twitter. Now Twitter's mad because you didn't really quit Twitter.

AlexOr someone else might be using my account. Who's using your account?

MerlinMerlin? Is it Tignataro?

AlexWait, is Merlin using your account? Oh my God, how cool would that be?

MerlinDoesn't she, no. Doesn't Tignataro just basically give different people her account every day?

AlexYeah, yeah.

MerlinYeah, that's so good. Wait, so who's using your account?

AlexIs this a bitch?

MaxIs this the news you're breaking? Is this your breaking news?

AlexNo, there's no breaking news.

MaxYou told me there'd be breaking news. Is Merlin still on Twitter, but he's using Alex? He's now tweeting his ad Alex Cox. That's crazy. goofy old Merlin.

AlexIt turns out just goofy old Merlin. No, are we in the is this the challenge? Are we doing the challenge now? I mean, if no one's going to answer my questions in a satisfying

Maxway, then challenge.

MerlinIt's Max's challenge this week. Hey, no, we're not done yet. Also, promote your new podcast, Alex. Oh, it's called

AlexWow, that was exciting. You know what?

MerlinActually, shut up. I'm going to promote your podcast. This is a podcast that you should listen to.

AlexThere's another one coming out. Okay, go ahead.

MerlinAre you going to really sell it or are you going to be all fucking Alex Cox? Sell this fucking podcast because it's fun.

AlexOh, Jesus Christ! I don't like plugging things that don't...

MerlinIs it called... Let me ask you this. Is it called The Robot and the Unicorn? Is that right?

AlexYeah, that's one of them.

MerlinOkay. There's more than one podcast? You're really fucking bad at this. I know. You are very bad at this.

MaxCan everyone just... What is this? What are we doing here? Can everyone just say their shit?

MerlinAlex has a new show with Mrs. Soup with Kathy Campbell called The Robot and the Unicorn. And it's two people. It's two people getting together who just want to spend time together and like each other and be happy. But they're very, very different people. Alex is a robot. And Mrs. Soup is a unicorn. They have very different views of the world and very different ways of conducting themselves and thinking about their lives. But the common thread is they like and respect each other and want to spend time together. And they talk about their differences. And there's only one episode out now, but I would listen to it. I thought it was very good. Alex's voice sounds awesome. I know. And Mrs. Soup.

AlexSorry.

MerlinAnd Kathy is just a perfect delight as a human being. your differences about how you think about interacting with the world and interrogating the challenges of the world are so different and then you hum a lot you make a humming noise a lot and I just thought it was a really sweet show and it's a nice I hope that doesn't sound condescending I just think it's really it made me happy listening to it I think people should listen to it we'll put it in show notes alright what's the other show what's the Earl for it she got a good Earl right

Alexoh I have no robot it's robot unicorn fm which I am. I just enjoy it.

MaxWhat is the other show?

AlexThat's the show with Matthew Castanelli that Apple Podcasts has had in limbo for two weeks. So I don't want to talk about that yet.

MaxI see. Okay. And that will be, what will it be about when it's out?

AlexIt's mostly me asking him questions about automation and like the new iOS 12 stuff.

MaxSo you have like eight shows now.

AlexYeah. And only two in which I do work on. It's great. I'm a bad person.

MerlinSorry.

AlexChallenge. Challenge. It was Max's challenge.

MaxI don't want to talk about the challenge. I'm going to be reticent. I'm Max and I'm still full of bile from Twitter. Everyone should beg me to talk about the challenge. I'm a bile boy.

AlexMeh.

Speaker AI'm a human

Maxdry heave. You guys should have to ring me like a bar rag and I'll give you one word at a time. Like a hint about what the challenge is like.

Speaker AThat would be fun for our listeners.

MaxAll right. The challenge this week was just consume the news. What's your setup? Yeah. You know, just come in and talk about how are you consuming the news because it's actually something I've made a lot of changes recently that I'm excited to talk about. Alex, do you want to, do you want to, well, actually, Merlin, I feel like we kind of already got into a little bit of your stuff. Do you want to lead us off?

MerlinAh, you caught me. I was getting a seltzer. Hey, I'm happy to talk about mine, but I've already talked a lot this episode.

AlexYeah.

MerlinI was trying to get a seltzer.

AlexAll right. Enjoy your seltzer.

MerlinAlex, how do you read the news?

AlexSo I have one Twitter list. That's the only thing I check. And it's called Nice People and Nice Things. But I still follow some news. Am I on it? Yeah. I'm okay with this. Okay. That's the problem, though. You sneak through with the, oh, yeah, we lost another thing.

That wasn't nice. Sometimes you and Matt Howie sneak through with something upsetting.

MaxI was at Gen Con all weekend hanging out with Anita and she mentioned to me that she does not follow any she just has a policy she doesn't follow any white men on Twitter and I was like oh that's cool but what about me and she's like no I don't follow you and I was like this is an outrage

MerlinI hate this system I totally understand where she's coming from but shouldn't an exception be made for us? Right I mean that's kind of what I'm used to at this point

AlexRight

MerlinThe thought of someone I totally it's the ultimate white privilege I'm fine with you

Maxnot following any other white guys but i'm special the thought of someone not seeing my tweets is devastating to me can you even imagine what it's like they might go days without seeing they might

Alexnot see all the things i'm saying yeah especially after you had your espresso oh man we have to talk about espresso so bad uh all right the yeah so i i follow i don't like following news outlets i've I gave up on the Twitter list stuff about like mid, in college I used to just completely like go off the internet in August. And that's not really possible anymore just because of the nature of the world and what I do.

So now I just have this one Twitter list that I don't check that often. And then I feel creepy because I'm like favorite. What is it? Favoriting, liking? I don't know liking tweets from like two weeks ago yeah yeah and then I'm like oh no and then I unlike them and then it's weird and yeah um but I actually don't do any news stuff really anymore except occasionally open nuzzle um because like nuzzle nuzzle super good what is it is such a bit

Maxno no yeah it's a bit what is that what is it I want to tell you about something I like what is it

AlexNuzzle is an app that aggregates your Twitter feed.

MerlinIt looks at the people you follow on Twitter and counts up every link that is shared. And links that are linked to by the most people bubble to the top. It's like your own little personal dig. But you don't have to look at Twitter to use it. You see who a lot of people are linking to that you follow. And then there's a friends of friends, which is people who are friends of people you know that you don't follow. and then there's their best of which is pure shit that's mostly entrepreneur magazine yeah that's actually pretty fun these are the seven growth hacks that are keeping you from fuck you

but nuzzle's great and you could set it for 24 hours or eight hours we had a film crew in last

Maxnight from business insider magazine doing some story about cards against humanity and they asked me mainly jen and maria did the interview but they got me for a little bit they pinned me down and they asked they said one of the questions was like uh they were uh the lady was like uh i have a lot of friends who uh they're tired of cards against humanity they don't play it anymore so they don't actually play the game but they like to collect the cards like they like what you're about but they they don't like the game anymore and i was like that is such a fucking backhanded like boy you don't sweat much for a fat guy compliment right what kind of what kind

of a comment is that so i was so confused i was like i don't know that you're irrelevant it's that you're less relevant yeah or it's just like you think about like the thing that you do but they affect the bad job so it was so it was such a weird comment and and and i and then so i was like i didn't know how to respond so i was like well that's funny because like i have a lot of friends who like don't read the news anymore and they they you know the industry is dying that

Merlinmakes it puts you on the defense yeah well tell me something you do i can make fun of yeah well

Maxit's like what are you yeah no i know but that's exactly what i did and i was like i don't come i

Merlindon't come to your job and slap the news out of your mouth yeah i was like that's that's funny

Maxyour whole industry is dying what do you have to say about about tabletop games and now you're

Alexfighting yeah uh you're interviewing me in our super secret text channel i'm uh putting a photo of something my mom sent me the other day and i'm like why does okay thank you it says uh like cards against humanity then you'll love personality incorrect or personally incorrect personally incorrect. Sure. I'm like, I don't know what to do with this.

MaxI think the sales charts bear that out.

AlexYeah.

MaxYeah.

AlexThanks, Mom. It's called Snapples to Snapples. Go look for another job. What is this? And she's like, I don't know. And she asks, is it a good game? I'm like, I've not heard. Now it feels like I'm, I genuinely haven't heard of, no board games are good games.

MaxYeah. None of them are good. Oh,

Alexboys ruined them. All right. Oh, Nuzzle. I've installed Nuzzle.

MaxTell me what I'm looking at here.

AlexAll right. So, So yours is probably going to look way different from mine because I don't follow a lot of, well, actually, I don't know. You use lists a lot more than I do.

The first little, I don't know, tabby, swipey, like the first page. You can skip the first tab. Yeah, the first page is the newsletters, which is a disaster.

MerlinThey really want you to do this newsletter bullshit. They ask you about it constantly. The second, third, and fourth. Second is the best. Third is the next best. Curate your own newsletter to get 40x the engagement of Twitter and Facebook.

MaxNope, not now. Not now. Can I sign you guys up for my nozzle newsletter?

AlexUh, yes. Hey, it's me. Hey.

MaxWait, is that that thing I see where sometimes I'm at mentioned and it's like new from the like Alex Cox Herald post Herald.

MerlinNo, that's like paper.io. Do you know what I'm talking about?

MaxI do.

MerlinI do. You've got to ban that client.

MaxYeah, what in the fuck is that? Yeah, no, no, no. Get the fuck out of here with that. now in the Merlin Man post-gazette it's like we've got stories from at Max Temkin like what the f-

Speaker Ahey today's top story is from Nuzzle Felch

Alexoh god

Speaker Ahave you tried docking? we sat down with Max Temkin

Alexalright well at the top of mine is EPA is now allocating wow can't read today now allowing asbestos back into manufacturing and that was shared by Max, Claire, Todd

Maxthat story that story is incredible google trump asbestos that story was incredible let me tell you the problem the fundamental problem with this flaw with the flaw with this with this thing so here's the problem with nuzzle i'm gonna i'm gonna just i'm gonna i'm gonna i'm gonna eviscerate this app oh this is a very very hot yeah here we go i just connected it to my twitter and open it up right and now we're all aware of what's happening in the news today right there's that congressman arrested for corruption charges there's the manafort trial there was the

elections yesterday there's big stories happening i'm alex i don't look at whatever i followed the election okay all right there's a big there's lots of big actual big news happening yes i open up nuzzle number one story on the internet kotaku.com inside the culture of sexism at riot games well

Alexthat's because you follow all all of our friends are tweeting about that and i'm not don't mean to

Maxsay that that's not an important story in fact it's a story i think you are it's a snow it's a story that I am going to read. Is it the number one headline of the day? Is that the one that was

Merlinmost linked to by people? That's what this is for. Yeah, that's not what I'm not saying that this is what I'm not saying. It's the most important story. It's saying the one that the most of your followers link to try changing the setting to 24 hours. I'm on. I'm looking at that right now. Okay. If you do it for shorter ones, you get fewer things. You can you can tune that to be about the volume that you want. The other thing you can do is set a push notification. I don't generally do you push notifications? I do a push notification for Nuzzle if more than, I think, five people have linked to it. Yeah. That can be a neat way

Maxto see stuff up. Number two story is asbestos. Number three is Kathleen Turner on Trump's gross handshake and the co-star she slapped. Oh, do you know how she got mistreated by friends? Who is Kathleen Turner?

Speaker AOh my God.

MerlinOh, fuck me gently.

Speaker AShe found the cast of Friends to be very clicky. You've never seen the movie

MaxRomancing the Stone? No. Then the next story is Stephen Miller's next target legal immigrants. And that's a real news story.

AlexIt's almost like we use our Twitter feeds very, very differently.

MaxThat's so weird. And then going down the numbers in the top 10, there's another one. Stephen Miller enraged after discovering cantaloupe he's fucking is from Mexico, which I'm going to guess is an onion headline.

AlexThat's pretty good.

MerlinYeah, it is an onion headline.

AlexOh, boy.

MerlinSo in sum, Alex, you're not looking at the news enough and the news you look at, you're doing it wrong.

MaxCorrect. Correct.

MerlinNext contestant.

MaxAll right, set him up, knock him down. Who's up next?

MerlinYay, you're different from me, and that's bad.

AlexI am interested, though, because I saw a lot about InnoReader, and people have been trying to get me to use that. Oh, well, that's now what I'm using. I'm excited to learn how to read the news correctly.

MaxInnoReader. So I followed the Federico technique, and I am on, so basically.

MerlinThat sounds like a method of child conception.

MaxYeah.

AlexDid you see his thing?

MerlinYou just need to swipe.

AlexYou have to swipe.

MerlinI love the way he says swipe.

AlexSwipe. No, hey lady, set the room to sex. He did, oh my God, okay, this was a while ago. He made a serious shortcut that was like, hey lady, it's sexy time. Oh, right. It's so good.

MaxWhy would you need that though?

AlexIt turns out. Never mind. He's doing it wrong.

MerlinHe's doing it wrong.

MaxIt's shit unnecessary.

Merlinfucking people are so stupid

Maxso alright so here's the deal so the end this is okay I'm not going to say what it's like signing up for an account right now

Merlinsigning up so you're going to need two things it's a little bit like Plex Merlin something I have and something I know

Maxsomething red

Merlinsomething borrowed something I blew

Maxso you're going to need it's a little bit like Plex there's like the layer that you interact with that's like user-friendly and then there's this like awful awful back end full of options that you need to set up one time and then never touch again so your your your front end that you're going to interact with on your device is called liar but there's lots of good rss apps for iphone but oh so this is like feed wrangler basically or like this is your replacement for google reader i can't tell if you're making some of these up but i think so you could be you could be

Merlinsneaking no feed wrangler is underscore david smith um basically it's an rss uh service where you add feeds and then you can read those feeds on the website or inside of one of those supported services and lots of RSS readers. So you can use it as an RSS reader or as an RSS aggregation service. That seems correct. So what I'm using is this app called... I'm not going to sign up for this

Maxbecause I don't need that. Probably not. So I'm using this thing called Liar, which is, it shows me RSS things and it has like a really nice user interface. And then Liar needs to connect to what's called like a sync thing something to sync and then is that a technical term yeah like a sync thing and then the sync thing that i'm using is in a very first time and then in a reader is the thing that that does the syncing so what i've done is i've put all my rss feeds that i care about into in a reader and i put them into folders so the folders i have are apple and what's you use

folders i mean do you actually use them i do yeah absolutely wow yeah so um so between gmail

Merlinand Reader, R-E-E-D-E-R. I have so many folders and I don't use E-E-R anymore.

MaxSo it's not folders like I read a news story and then file it away in a folder. It's that... Topics. Yeah, it's that different feeds are coming to different topics. So, okay, so I have... So just going down the list here. So my first one is Apple News. And I honestly, most of the time, I don't look at this one. But like if there's a big Apple announcement day, what's in there is Mac Stories, Daring Fireball, and The Loop. That's pretty much where I get all my Apple News. Then I have my next one is food, and that is just places like Chicago food, basically, like stuff like the takeout where if I just want to know what restaurants are opening in Chicago, I can look at that.

And then the big ones for me, I have one for local politics, which has the Trib, the Sun-Times, Capital Facts, Block Club Chicago, like all that kind of local shit with the Chicago news and Illinois news that I need. and then I have a big folder called National Politics and the publications I read are ProPublica. I have one that's a custom RSS feed I made for newsletters so I get certain newsletters like Axios sent to my inbox, Mike Allen's Axios morning briefing sent to my inbox. That then goes into the newsletters RSS feed

so I read it in that app instead of in my email. I get Vox Politics, I get Political Playbook, Washington Post Breaking News, Washington Post Politics, 538 Politics and BuzzFeed Politics and that's all the news I read

Alexthat's a whole well do you read the whole thing? I blacked out for a lot of that but you do a lot of like stuff

Merlinthat's been aggregated already sort of ProPublica, I'm sorry I got a little bit lost tell me the original sources of reporting amongst the things like BuzzFeed News BuzzFeed News is original reporting

MaxBuzzFeed Politics is original reporting

Merlinyeah I guess

Maxno it's excellent political reporting it's really really good No, I'm telling you, it's different than BuzzFeed, the website. It's like its own thing. Yes, I know.

MerlinI was incorrect. Okay.

MaxSo what else besides BuzzFeed, ProPublica, what are the other ones? So BuzzFeed, ProPublica, Washington Post, Breaking News, Axios, Political Playbook, and Vox Politics. Okay. So it's all original reporting. Not all. Good. Because they also, a lot of those places, like Vox, for example, they have original reporting and they repost stuff. But I don't know how to get a feed of just their original reporting without the reposted stuff.

Alexhow do you so i know that you so you read it all in a reader in in a reader uh no i read it all in

Maxliar well how do you spell we're just we just can't get anything right today l-i-r-e uh liar yeah liar is like the app that you look at it in it's an rss reader it's like reader r-e-e-d-e-r

Alexreader okay but but i guess i'm wondering because this is how i used to read everything um but now like do you go through do you do you ever have like rss zero yeah yeah basically i i i have it

Maxi i don't know the way it works i actually don't know if this is settings or how i don't know enough about this to say why this happens but after i look at the news it it goes it turns

Alexgrayed out does that make sense yeah it's like marks is red yeah so so it's i guess it's always

Maxat zero like basically when i wake up in the morning i open up this thing and then i scroll down until I get to the gray so I can see all the new headlines.

AlexHow often is it just in the morning? Like is this your like morning newspaper thing or do you pop in when there's a big...

MaxLike when I take a shit.

AlexI guess I'm just trying to distinguish how you use this versus Twitter.

MaxI've been trying to cultivate the habit of like going to this first.

AlexI see.

MerlinLike instead of going to Twitter right away because Twitter is like, there's such a fucking... It's almost the map. This is a dumb example. but it's almost the map versus the territory. Because once you get in the weeds on Twitter, sometimes you need some context for like, what are the five things I really need to pay attention to today?

MaxWhen you go on Twitter, what you're seeing is like, you're seeing like ripples in the water. Like all trees, no forest. Yeah, you're seeing like everyone mad about something and then you have to like do this detective work of like, they're mad about the take some guy had about the news article. And now I'm like six layers away and I need to like, you know, I need to like keep zooming out to just see what the fucking news article is.

MerlinYeah, yeah, yeah. um how how um this is kind of for both of you um it's not i don't mean it as a trick question how do you know how will you know how can you know when the way that you acquire your news is working or not do you have a sense of like when when it's working and if it's achieving

Alexthe effect you think it should be achieving well i follow i saw like the results of the election did not know, or the primary is happening, but did not know about LeBron James. So, uh...

MerlinWell, you sound very genuinely not that interested in keeping up with the news. I think we should stipulate that. It sounds like that's not something... No, I mean, you guys are both being cute, but it sounds like we're asking you to do something, asking you how you process something you don't care that much about. It's like us asking you how you choose the marbling on a ribeye. It just doesn't figure in your day-to-day.

AlexWell, that would...

MerlinYou're more of a pork lady.

AlexI'm not saying this is a forever type thing. It's just such a source.

MerlinAre you on a willful, intentional break right now?

AlexI guess so. There was this thing one guy wrote a long time ago, put in the super secret.

MerlinOh, God, no, please.

AlexOh, you know how you drag me into talking to this little podcast that I just do with my friend? Yeah, you wrote a thing called Better. It's something I read at least once a year.

MaxWhat is this website? Merlinman.com.

Alexno it's just it got to the point where i'm like okay why why is this why basically it's like why um because i know that when it's not not a terrible question to ask yourself from time to time yeah the basically my response was um because i'm sad and i feel like this will if i'm informed it'll make some difference and that's not true like all i can do is I keep drinking this salt water. Maybe I won't be thirsty.

Exactly. And I don't know. I also read a while, whenever it came out, like a couple months ago, like 10 reasons to delete your social media account, which is basically the same thing. It's like, why? Really? Why are you doing this? Why are you doing this to yourself?

And I haven't deleted anything. And I haven't made I haven't written a very long media post about how I'm leaving the Internet because I still I use Twitter to dick around. I use Twitter to make obnoxious jokes that nobody nobody cares about. And that's like, well, no, not nobody cares about my dumb friends. And I like to say also also to promote things.

MerlinThat's why people.

AlexYeah. And like, hey, I did this thing. I hope you like it because I like it. And that's all that I can do right now, I guess. Yeah.

MerlinSo so to get back to my question, which may be a dumb question to take it and turn it. you so your system or your intentionality seems to be working because you're not interested in following the bouncing ball of news and it sounds like you're not doing that and it sounds like it's

Alexnot stressing you out yeah that is that is correct i do wish there used to be an app called breaking news do you remember this oh it was so good it was so good it was it was incredible i use that app all the time man i miss that yeah that's like the honestly if there was just that app, I would be, that would be like my only thing because then I would go, I would know like, okay, I want to go to ProPublica. I want to go to Vox. I would, you know what I mean? Um, yeah. I, because honestly, if the Pope died, it would probably take me a couple of days to find

out. No, no, it wouldn't. I follow enough Catholics on Twitter. Um, but like the LeBron James thing, I guess, um, you know, I found out that the, I, I learned that our friend was being harassed i learned about um like the new york times drama so like that some of that still

Merlinbubbles one of those you learn from a podcast and the other you learn from a slack chat what was the

Alexoh no no no what was the new york times drama um uh they sent barry weiss off to australia on a barge uh see no uh with what's her name being hired and then being then like sort of kind of apologizing for her tweets saying oh because she said like uh ice cream was too spicy for white people or something like that yeah just a bunch of um like so stuff like that bubbles to the surface totally totally out of context yeah yeah um and then yeah so like you know and then and that's that's the problem most of the news stories um that i find out are ones that are still like about

something that happened on twitter which is a little bit frustrating i don't really know how Wow. Right. I'm going to try to like. Well, that's the. So that's the false.

MaxThat's the false decision that capitalism offers you in so many aspects of your life.

MerlinLike it would be like if all the best newspapers were about the price of news. Right.

MaxWell, or it's just like, yeah, that to me, like to me, like the role that Twitter plays in society and why it's so hard for me to even conceptualize not using it in my head and stick to it for any amount of time. is it's like it's you know it's like this is the same like it's like a false choice because it's like well it's like you know that's what capitalism does it's like well do you want coke or pepsi right it's like that's not you're not really choosing like you're still drinking a soft drink

Merlinone of the things you learn when you have a little kid is that you you say your little kid like which jammies do you want to wear to bed like you don't get to decide whether you go to bed your only

Maxdecision is which jammies you get and then you can choose to to even if you don't drink coke or pepsi it's still it's still you're still looking at your decision in the in the you're still thinking about you're still yeah what you're ordering is still in the even if you drink water you're the guy who doesn't order coke right your decision is still completely in the context of coke so like it's like you know merlin like like it's the boy merlin was frustrated when we're asking why he left twitter and you're like can't i just be the guy who doesn't use twitter like does my decision to use twitter have to be like explained in terms of twitter but it does i mean

MerlinWould you call that somewhat of a function of hegemony? Oh, that's the thing right there. It's kind of hegemony defined.

MaxYeah.

MerlinYeah, it's like I used to say, when people would ask me why I'm not doing something, I always found it so perplexing that as a very minor semi-public figure that people would feel entitled to an answer to the question about why I'm not doing something. And if you really think about that, imagine in your life, a couple, three times every week, somebody asks you why you aren't doing something. Someone you don't know, ask you why you're not doing something, why you're not doing something anymore, why you're not doing something that you used to do, why you're not doing something everybody else is doing,

why you're not talking about something that everybody else is talking about. My answer used to be like, it's like asking me why I'm not a potted fern. Like there's not really, there's not a lucid answer to that question that doesn't lead to a bigger conversation that adds a valence to your really, really dumb question. But you're right, that's a Gemini. This is a, who's the hegemony guy? What's the guy, Gramsci? Gramsci.

MaxWell, yeah, there's a lot of people who, that's like a critical theory or like a, a, a, um, Frankfurt, it's like Frankfurt School.

MerlinFrankfurt School, you like the Horkheimer and Adorno.

MaxYeah, I think Selah Benneby was the one who wrote about cultural hegemony.

MerlinThe problem is if you start writing something different about hegemony, it eventually just gets pulled right back into the discussion of hegemony. Real turns out type situation. That's funny to five people, five people.

AlexI held on for a while. Then I got, I was like, well, I'm out. I'm out.

MaxHe wrote it on scraps of paper while he's in prison. Boy, Carl Schmitt's making a big political science comeback. I feel like he's very, he's an awful guy, but he's very relevant to today's political discourse.

MerlinOh, you're talking about Carl Schmitt with two Ts? Oh, 100%.

MaxI think if we did a, you know, there was some people.

MerlinYou're talking about the conservative German jurist and political theorist? That Schmitt? Some people were saying

Maxthat we should do a Dubai Friday book club that were really into that idea. And I think that I should punish them by making them read Carl Schmitt's The Concept of the Political.

AlexNo. I'm going to pick

Merlinthe sickness unto death. I think we need to go deep on some fucking Kierkegaard. We need some Christian existentialism up in this shit. All right. I think we're all depressed. We should probably move on to the after show now.

Speaker AGod. I know.

MerlinI haven't done my part yet. Oh, okay. Oh, right. You haven't said that you're reading the news. Yeah, I didn't peanut butter. I just have very little to say about it. It's pretty much what you guys said, I think. I mean, for the longest time, I would say my very primary source of news was everything. Everything was primary. Everything was important. Everything was a priority. Since I'm taking my little break. But Merlin, if everything is a priority, is anything a priority? Yeah. You just grow another arm.

So what I do is I look at Google News. I look at the Washington Post homepage. I look at the New York Times homepage. I look at Nuzzle. Wait, wait.

MaxCan I just pause right there? So you go on your computer and you type in WashingtonPost.com and then you wait 15 minutes for that page to load? It autofills. And I look at the above the fold article. It's installing like software on your computer. It's like mining Bitcoin and like putting JavaScript trackers.

MerlinCan I tell you a little bit about something called Eero? Yeah. Hi, I'm Robert Eero. I got frustrated with how hard it was to crank my hog to porn in different parts of my house. Now I can get up in the attic. I could be jacking my mean bone while I'm taking a dookie.

MaxYou know, every time you load the New York Times dot com, there's like literally like a guy like writes out. He writes your name, puts it in a pneumatic tube. He's a fast typist, but he is typing. Yeah, and it gets sent in a pneumatic tube down the halls of Facebook, and they put it in a box, and they ship it off to Russia.

MerlinHe empties literally a box of bugs. Looks like you're on Facebook.

Speaker ADid you forget to buy this Google Home unit? It's in ivory the color. No. Hi. You left something in your bass, Dick. hey it's me shopping cart gnome wow shopping cart gnome you bear a striking

Maxsimilarity to a number of popular dubai friday characters that's a good point shopping cart gnome did you used to have a job working at a library before public libraries

Speaker Ano i've always been deep in dildos did you leave a dildo in your basket It's Purple NERPLE week Everything must go

MaxThis guy must love washing machines

Speaker AHere's some ads for washing machines One time you looked at a shoe

MerlinDo you get ads for the totem From Inception Do you get ads for that top The top that spins forever

MaxI'm getting a lot of Instagram ads For the top that spins forever Forever spin so it's not just me no I think they're advertising very and it's always those ads are so fucking weird because they're never from the company they're never from the top company where it's like hey we made this top check it out it's always from these third party things called like the kickstarter third party tops

Speaker Ayeah it's like there's ones called

Maxlike kickstarterfines.com or something like that and they're like we curate the sickest projects and like put them on Instagram ads it's like what yeah there's one called like backer club that I get a lot And they're like, you won't believe the blanket this one dad invented.

MerlinClick the giant foot on the beach. More inside. You won't believe the skin tags for any celebrities. CelebritySkinTagBroker.io Fuck you.

Show notes

Transcript

91. Wine of Lies

Show notes

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