WTW73: Elon Musk Claimed to Be a Top PoE2 Gamer. Turns Out He Was Cheating

Transcript

This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors — the audio is the record.

0:00:41 Thomas: Hello, and welcome to Where There's Woke. This is episode 73. I'm Thomas Smith. That over there is the brains of the operation. Beautiful wife, Lydia Smith. How you doing?

0:00:50 Lydia: Aw, thanks. I'm good. How are you?

0:00:53 Thomas: Great. Now, having said that, this is actually my episode. Now I realize I'm

0:00:55 Lydia: I know, I'm zero brains for this episode.

0:00:57 Thomas: Doing most of the talking. Yeah, but I'm so excited. That's because this is about a video games, something Lydia doesn't, doesn't know about. So, So in addition to having to entertain our son all day, as he tells you stuff about his video game that you don't understand, you get to do that now for another couple hours for double episode.

0:01:07 Lydia: It's fine. You can say it. Yeah. Yeah. With adults.

0:01:22 Thomas: Yeah, but at least in this, your job is to not understand video games essentially so that we don't leave anyone behind.

0:01:29 Lydia: And I'm dang good at it.

0:01:31 Thomas: Yeah, you're a real natural. Just I've worried about losing you actually, because there's such a natural fit for that job. Up. Yeah. You're going to be recruited after this one. We are talking about the funniest, most pathetic thing in the world by the funniest in a bad way, most pathetic person in the world. Elon Musk pretended to be good at a video game. And that's, that's putting it so mildly. Like he, he, it's, it'S so fraudulent. Like, I don't know if I can legally say committed any kind of fraud, but like he might as well. Like it's the most fraudulent thing. This This is so dumb that I needed even more help, and I'm so glad that we are lucky enough to have Noah Lusions, amazing podcaster from Godawful Movies, Scathing Atheist, The Skeptocrat, D &D Minus, Citation Needed. I think that's all of them. I think I got them.

0:02:21 Lydia: I think you guys are tied.

0:02:22 Thomas: Oh, I don't even think in those terms. Noah's always been an avid video gamer, at least retro games, which is not exactly what we're going to be talking about today, but it's still really fun to have someone else on who knows a little bit about this and is excited to go over the situation, to put it mildly. This story is insane. It's absolutely batshit insane.

0:02:45 Thomas: If you think you know how crazy and silly Elon Musk is, there's no bottom. There's always further to go. So buckle up. Lydia, prepare to not know what's going on, except make sure to ask questions if you don't know know what's going on all right well then we'll hit start and if you'd like to support the show please do at patreon .com slash where there's woke very important in this day and age especially as I feel like you know people of our persuasion of our political persuasion are not really welcome as much on a lot of places like twitter and you know now kind of facebook and you know threads for that matter I guess I don't know there's a lot of things and it feels like it could be tiktok any minute depending on how that goes and who owns that eventually so for now we've got patreon and it is vital to us continuing to make all of our podcasts so please consider supporting patreon .com slash where there's woke and please enjoy this double episode on just how much elon musk is a fraud

0:02:57 Lydia: Will do. I'm strapped in. Ready to go.

0:03:50 Thomas: And we are joined by no illusions one of my all -time favorite podcasters and friends how's it going noah

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0:03:56 Noah: It's going great, man. I am super excited to chat with you guys.

0:03:59 Thomas: Oh my god I'm so I'm så glad you're down to do this noah this this is the best now Now, I will say it is unfortunate for me. It's unfortunate because I don't personally play any of the video games, really, that we're going to talk about today that Elon it sucks.

0:04:12 Noah: Yeah, I honestly I if I'd had a little bit more time to prep I would have at least played the game enough to get a sense of the Path of Exile at least to get to get a sense it but yeah

0:04:17 Thomas: And it looks really cool. These are actually more along the games that I play. It's funny. I think it's great to have Lydia on here because she knows nothing about gaming. Yeah, please let us know, Lydia, and ask any questions you don't understand, because it's hard to remember what it's like to not know anything about video games because that only happened for like three years of mine and Noah's lives, probably. But these are my kinds of games. I actually did play Diablo three a lot. I played Diablo two, a bajillion million trillion hours, but there tends to be different kinds of gamers, you know, and, and some people dabble in everything. Some people stick to genre and this is in a genre that I've played quite a bit. What about you? I, my guess was that you don't play these types of games. They're pretty grindy, but I might be wrong about that. What's your type of game that you tend to play yeah

0:04:28 Lydia: I'm the lay person. Okay.

0:04:42 Noah: Yeah, we're right. Exactly. Between the ages of three and six, yeah.

0:05:10 Noah: Yeah, no, this is this definitely isn't my speed You know, I played Diablo 4 a bit, but I don't like I shouldn't say I don' like I don''t have time for that type of

0:05:18 Thomas: I was gonna say these are grindy grindy games and you're too busy pumping out really excellently done podcasts to be able to do that thank you so there's lots of different kinds of games and I want to not position myself as any kind of game expert uh noah knows far more about video games but very basically speaking there's going to be games that are highly skilled games where you're playing against other people a lot like I do play rocket league is one that I play a lot it's just soccer with cars and you can play any amount of that but what determines how good you are at that is your skill at the game there's no amount of me playing that earns me any like gear or points or and and nothing none of that makes you better at the Game what makes you better the game is practicing and getting good at mechanics and other things and then you play against people if you want to test like how good you aren't gaming it's going against other people mostly especially this day and age back in the day it was different because he you know it was mostly played Nintendo by yourself or with your immediate family or whoever was there, you know?

0:05:18 Lydia: Can you explain grind? Yes.

0:05:28 Noah: Game yeah back in the day when we were playing nintendo by ourselves thomas yeah

0:06:18 Thomas: Nope. Mine's still hooked up. No, I don't worry. But there are games that are more grindy games where you play a ton of stuff, especially loot -based games. So these games where you kill just a zillion monsters and they drop stuff, basically speaking. If you collect a bunch of it, or sometimes there's really rare drops and you're looking for those. And nowadays they've gotten really good. They just get better and better at making games. They do some combination of like a gajillion bad items might help you get something or the really good item might drop randomly it's just taking our reward centers and yes yeah exactly and and in very similar way the good items have a different color and like literally in diablo 2 back in the day that one was around 2000 I don't know like early 2000s to now played the shit out of that I haven't played it lately but I played a lot of hours of that and the good items you know what the good atoms are and you know the color that they're going to be when they drop. And you know, even before they're identified, you know like what they're gonna look like. So you play countless hours for those kinds of games because it's just the nature of how they are. In this day and age, at people of our advanced age, playing those kinds OF games is a commitment. It's a commitment and that's important.

0:06:26 Noah: Specifically

0:06:50 Lydia: It's like a slot machine. Okay.

0:07:26 Noah: Though the element that thomas was talking about the grind element of a game means you have to play this over and over and over again in order to get the items that you're going to need to be good at it right like you could imagine somebody sitting down at a game like rocket league and just being really fucking good at like just immediately really being good at because they're so skilled with with video game maneuvers, whatever, right? With a game like Path of Exile 2 or Diablo 4, something like that, there's no way to do that. No matter how good you are at the game, you still have to put in hours and hours of grind, hours and horas of work, just killing more and more bad guys, hoping to get better loot drops before you can conceivably be really, really good at it and compete at a high level.

0:07:38 Lydia: Mm -hmm. Man. Yeah, I would have no interest in a game like that.

0:08:13 Noah: I'm with you, I'm generally don't either. I get why people like it. It's meditative in a sense right

0:08:20 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. So I meant to actually start this with a content note. Everyone in this story sucks. I wanted to do the like any resemblance to any real persons, you know fictional or what. But it's like any resemblance to anyone good is accidental. There are people in this story that accidentally become maybe good by comparison to Elon Musk in terms of the confrontation. That's purely accidental. I assure you, everyone sucks.

0:08:44 Noah: They're all shit too yes right

0:08:45 Thomas: But that's what's amazing. I just want to say, Elon, and another reason I'm so glad to have Noah is because I know that Noah is another person who doesn't entertain fake genius. It's just so infuriating. I can't even be online anymore. I guess it's been a while, but the amount that these idiots worship Elon Musk, and he's been the ultimate emperor with no clothes, only instead of one kid saying he has no clothes and then the whole town is like, yeah, you're right. It's like, everybody keeps saying he Has No Clothes and then a few people realize it, but then a significant chunk of the townspeople are being directly paid by Elon Musk to say like, no, he does. He has great clothes. They're the best clothes. And it's just like, you can never tell if the the townspeople are serious you have someone saying like he has amazing clothes there's the best clothes and they're winking and you're like do you know you're lying or or not you know like that's the entire and you don't know like some of them aren't lying some of whom do seem to have convinced themselves but a lot of them I think they know for one he's obviously the richest person in the world arguably now might be the most powerful person in the world now that we elected him president so there's clout chasing that goes on and in order to do this coverage I've had to watch so much of just the most mediocre fucking white dude podcasts and game streams I I'm sorry to vent to you but I think after this off to listen to some of noah's stuff just to hear like well thought out written scripted stuff because it is the most lowest common denominator stream of consciousness bullshit worshiping elon and he goes on those shows and they know that they need the the clout. And so they're going to worship him and they're going to say the shit and like in continues to enable the cycle of an emperor with no clothes, you know, where it's just like they they have the emperor on their podcast. Like tell us about your amazing clothes. And like, yes, I agree. They're so great. You should see his clothes right now. They're amazing. It's just a bunch of that shit. And it's it's exhausting. I'm going to play a few clips of that. But this is great because I feel like inevitably more and more people have to realize when he bought Twitter and just completely completely exposed how little he knew about how anything works with that. I hoped that that would be an awakening of sorts because then that's nerds. You know, like it's a lot of the same people who I think are the angry gamer gator, right wing online people. It's a Lot of overlap with those class of people who would understand why the stuff he was saying about programming when he took over Twitter made no sense.

0:11:10 Thomas: There was famously, I was almost going to play it, but there was like a call, like a Twitter spaces car, something that he went into. And he was like we need to write rewrite the whole code and a bunch of people are like fans of his were like sorry what what you're not gonna rewrite the full code that's fucking insane stuff like that and with every passing day where he pulls off this bullshit more people who know about the thing he happens to claim to be good about in that day are like oh shit he's not good and this is a great instance of this because this is when he finally went to the exact demographic of people who suck the most and like him and defrauded them and so the worst people are coming to realize that he's lying about this they'll probably still make excuses for something but like that's why the characters we're going to be talking about all suck

0:13:20 Noah: Important caveat yeah because we're going to be citing a lot of sources that I normally wouldn't cite here yeah

0:13:35 Thomas: I don't know how much exposure you have to this noah but I remembered in the course of this when he posted his elden ring build I don t know if you remember that so here's the thing I'm going to sound insane I have avoided all of that because Because I want to someday play Elden Ring and be completely blind about it. Like, I don't want to look anything up. I never do. I'm anti -spoiler. So I know that that exists. But if you have anything more to say about that, please add it. Because I deliberately am like, I'm not going to look into that. Noah, do you want to tackle this one?

0:13:45 Noah: Yeah yeah sure okay so elden ring is a game that sucks I hate it so much no it's it's a yeah no it'S a great it'Sa great game I just don't like that genre of game because because it's incredibly difficult, and it delights in being difficult, right?

0:14:11 Thomas: Ah.

0:14:16 Noah: And I just, I don't have time for that shit in my life. But one of the things that makes this game so difficult is that you have to, like, attune your character in a very certain way to maximize the specific powers of that character, right, so you can play as a mage, or you can pay as a barbarian, or you play as an elf, or whatever, I'm making shit up, I don' t really know what the builds are in this, in the game. But each of these different types of characters has different powers, right right, different abilities, and the types of items that you equip at the beginning of your adventure are going to either help or hinder those abilities. What Elon Musk did was not just put together a build that didn't make sense for his character. He put together an idea that was going to help a build that just didn't makes sense, period. Like, for example, this is a game where, like, everything that you carry has weight, and they amount of weight that you can carry is going to slow down your character in the...

0:15:00 Thomas: That sounds so fucking cool, Noah. God damn, it sounds so cool.

0:15:05 Noah: Sorry, I'm trying to do this without spoilers here.

0:15:08 Thomas: Yeah, no, thank you. I do appreciate that. I really do.

0:15:10 Noah: So you don't want to carry any superfluous items right he carried two shields yeah

0:15:14 Thomas: Too, which I think you can understand, hun, just by knowing what shields are like in all the in all the history.

0:15:18 Lydia: Yeah, I know what a shield is.

0:15:20 Noah: Right yes yeah imagine a battle formation where you're like what I need here is a

0:15:28 Thomas: It's like you're a golfer and you're trying to pick which club to hit. You're like, is this a is this sand wedge shield or?

0:15:35 Noah: You can imagine maybe a witcher has to carry two shields under certain circumstances but yeah it's just dumb it was just like clearly didn't know what he was because in most games right like in most video games you You can carry 37 shields or whatever, and it doesn't make any fucking difference at all.

0:15:49 Thomas: Yeah. That's why I said that sounded so cool, hun. Is that's not common. Like normally you carry infinite things.

0:15:56 Noah: Yeah, yeah. Or not quite infinite. You need to get more Korok seeds to get, but way more than you could carry in any reasonable. Yeah, I bet you are.

0:15:58 Thomas: Well, sure. Yeah, she has witnessed our son and me play Breath of the Wild every single waking hour so yeah

0:16:00 Lydia: Yeah. I'm familiar with that, at least. Yes. Yes.

0:16:08 Noah: Yeah, but that's the kind of, and there's like basic items that he didn't have equipped, which would be insane not to equip for the character type that he had. Like he was a mage, and he didn't have this flask that refills your health. You know, like this obvious thing that you would, that anyone would have. And so he puts this build out, and, like, people who play the game are like, we should do a challenge to see who can get the furthest in the game using this idiot fucking build. It's so bad.

0:16:29 Thomas: Yeah, it's so true it's so true in my googling again I'm trying to avoid spoilers but I was loading up some of that stuff like oh how can I talk about this I'm so glad thank you for taking that no I appreciate it but everything I came up with I wanted to find someone just tell me why it was bad but everything I googled was like I did the elon musk build challenge and I saw how far I could get which is the best like that's the best that's a fun thing about video games especially in this day and age is people are still playing the games that noah and I love from 30 years ago or whatever and they're finding oh god more like almost 40 now jesus christ uh and they'll find yeah

0:17:09 Noah: Yeah, I mean, video games are over 50, right? Like, we've passed over the 50 -year commercial video games in terms of the commercial, the video game industry. I believe that Computer Space, which was the first one, I believe dat came out in 72?

0:17:22 Thomas: Yeah I think you did the citation needed on that somewhat recently right wasn't there I think you talked about the first yeah yeah that's crazy and I

0:17:26 Noah: Yeah, it did the Pong one. So, yeah, I guess 2021 would have been the 50 -year anniversary, I guess.

0:17:32 Thomas: Don't I'm only you know nes is my origin of knowing anything about video games and even that I was gonna say 30 years I'm realizing that's like 40 years now that's we're in 2025 I think that's 1985 right or maybe in japan it might have been 84 I can't remember but in the u .s it was later but anyway people are still finding ways to play those games and they'll do like crazy things like they try to beat games with only no items or this item and it's it's so perfect that this happened I just had a few things ready like for example this reddit post that just says this build looks like it was put together by a literal child it's got just like 3 .5k upvotes yeah yeah and in tears the kingdom yeah

0:17:41 Noah: It is. Mm -hmm. Yep. Yeah, 39? Mm -hm.

0:18:09 Lydia: Like when Arlo does the banana boomerang and like carrot sword.

0:18:15 Thomas: Oh yeah just no you play obviously played tears the kingdom right the other day arlo was playing and I just just heard him say, oh no, my butter shield is gone. And he had fused a stick of goat butter to a shield.

0:18:19 Noah: Yeah. I love that game.

0:18:31 Thomas: And I was like, what? Yeah. I was Like, I didn't even know you could do that. And then he looked at his weapon.

0:18:32 Noah: Oh, really? Oh, I bet you when you do the shield sliding, does it, like...

0:18:39 Thomas: That's what I told him. I actually said like, oh, that would be really good for shield serving. And He did it. And then it wore off instantly. I Was like, ah, that was kind of disappointing.

0:18:45 Noah: Ah. That sucks.

0:18:46 Thomas: But then later I look and he pulls out his weapons and every single one of them has a different like fruit attached to it he's like he has a banana boomerang and like a tomato you know sword I was like what anyway yeah there you go that is like it yeah and I found this one I love this one too because 10 months ago this happened three years ago by the way this was just about

0:18:46 Lydia: He pulls up all of his weapons. Yeah. Yeah, I was

0:18:58 Noah: Yeah, right. So that's Elon Musk playing Elden Ring. Yes. Absolutely. Lydia, you nailed it. Yeah.

0:19:11 Lydia: Just going to ask when it happened.

0:19:11 Thomas: Three two and a half years ago yeah around may oh it was may 23rd 2022 I see the time stamp on the tweet and I just saw it post 10 months ago I still think about the elon musk elden ring build from time to time and mostly how his fans tried to defend it it was just another like you know I looked at the most popular reddit posts you know and that was one that came up point is it was terrible and one thing that I hope noah can help me articulate better is when it comes to this stuff I think it'll come across like just a matter of opinion it'll be like well okay this is us saying yeah this is dumb but you know it's a video game and he's just playing a video game again it's like Like, I don't know how to properly communicate. Maybe now it can help. There are things in this, and we'll get to it, that it's not a matter of opinion. He's a fraud. Like, he just is.

0:19:57 Thomas: Yeah, when it comes to this Elden Ring build, it just objectively was terrible. Like, it's no like, oh, that's a different strategy. It's like, I saw a comment that said, this is the first build I've ever seen where simply removing items without replacing them would make it better. Yep.

0:20:12 Noah: Yes. Right. Well, so the analogy that I like to, so it's going to be difficult for anybody who doesn't understand video games, but think of the thing that you do understand. Like imagine like a musician. I'm not a musician, I'm kind of a musician but I'm really not a musician, but a serious musician could look at a person and be like, based on the amp you're using, I can tell you're not a serious musician, right? Like I can't tell by the way that you put the strap on your guitar that you're not a serious guitarist right

0:20:39 Thomas: 100%. I could tell by somebody starting to play there, like picking up their guitar and like when you get really good at something and I'm not like super duper good at guitar, but I played countless hours of it and there are things and people, especially when you're talking about, you know, not you or I as hobbyists, but people who literally are the best at something like video games or anything, sports, they have put in so many fucking hours, so many fucking hours that like you couldn't fool them for 2.4 seconds. You know like if they're like hey pick up that guitar as though you're the greatest guitar player to ever play and you played countless hours the minute you started doing anything they'd be like no like they could tell instantly and it's and it'S not like you it's not as though it's infallible but also it is it's like if you get enough information from that yes yes yeah

0:21:16 Noah: Well there is a degree to which it's infallible, right? There's a degree to which a person could pick up a guitar and you could be like no this is you've never touched one of those before but that's just the thing with Elon is that you have to be so spectacularly below what you've presented yourself as in order for any of this to happen right like like you remember that this is a little obscure but you remember the controversy a little while back where like the guy who was the best in the world at Guitar Hero it turned out he was faking some of his videos to make it look like he was he was better and he was still like the best of the world but he was like tweaking his videos like he's a little bit better than he was and it took years and years for people to figure out that he was doing that because he was really really good at it and because of that he could easily fake being a little bit better but with Elon Musk it would be like me pretending like altering a video and just speeding it up really fast or whatever people would be like but that's not how fast that level goes though or whatever right

0:22:04 Thomas: That sucks. Right. Right, mm Mm-hmm, mm, hmm.

0:22:27 Noah: You know but that's just the thing is that the extent to which Elon Musk is not what he claims to be is just staggering right it's like he picked up the guitar with his

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0:22:39 Thomas: So, I remembered that Elden Ring thing, and then what happened next in this story for me is I, uh, actually watched the entire fucking Joe Rogan, Elon Musk recording, um, from November. I was gonna, no, it's even worse. No, it gets worse. I watched it to do coverage of it, and, then, we didn't end up doing it. Like, so I just,

0:22:57 Noah: Feet oh

0:22:59 Lydia: You just watched it for the hell of it

0:22:59 Thomas: I just was a Joe Rogan listener for, and I

0:23:03 Noah: God oof oof I don't know if we can hang out anymore man honestly like so well now you're using it now you're using it now so yeah

0:23:05 Thomas: Did, I know, man. No, I've taken a lot, a lot of showers. I've disinfected since then. No, it's okay. It's the only reason we're doing this episode. And he talked about being the

0:23:12 Noah: I'm helping redeem you from that, yeah.

0:23:19 Thomas: Top 20 in the world in Diablo 4 in the beginning of that. And right away, and like I said, I played quite a lot of Diablo 3. I also have ADHD so the minute I quit something I go from knowing like with that game go from knowing everything about it to within a couple weeks forgetting the name of the game I played a ton of Diablo 3 it doesn't really help because Diablo 4 is quite a bit different but the principles are the same and right when I heard that I was like top 20 in the world I know Diablo 4 as we talked about it's a grindy game like there's not I mean yeah there's skill for sure like there is skill for everything like you can come up with anything and there's but for the most part, being top in a game like that means countless hours. And I don't know if you know this, this fucking asshole says he's the CEO of like three companies and he at least, and he starts a new one every day that doesn't do anything. And just like this, this can't be right. Let's play a little bit of that.

0:24:03 Lydia: At least yeah

0:24:12 Clip: We're talking about something that I think is a really good one because people always think that video games are frivolous But what you were saying I think that's really important is it It's so difficult that it requires you to only think about that and it can like relieve stress Yeah, it can take out the rest of the world because it's so hard. Yeah, you can only think that Yeah, I'm gonna finally if I play video game on extreme difficulty Then I have to concentrate fully on the game and it's it's has a calming effect. Yeah. It's sort of chills down And I mean you mentioned I think and many people like if you play martial arts or you play pool Yeah, like something that forces you it's like I think any anything that forces. You to concentrate fully Actually has it as a calming effect. I find it just sort of like Kind of a mental restoring effect. Yeah, it's good. Jiu-jitsu is like that archery is like as well Like when you're shooting a bow you have to it's there's so many moving things and you're trying you have think only

0:25:08 Thomas: Noah, how does that come across to you? Just that little clip about him talking about games. I'm just curious. Sure.

0:25:11 Noah: He's such a dick. I mean, look, I think that Elon Musk is a gamer. I think he plays video games, and I agree that I don't play anything on fucking hard mode anymore, but I agree there's a meditative state that you achieve from playing video games.

0:25:31 Thomas: Absolutely. Or anything. But what came across to me and, and, And I actually mean this, if, if you don't think this is valid please let me know but what came across to me is that like on extreme difficulty because here's the thing about playing games the minute you start a new game that's extreme difficulty there's no like just playing a new you're figuring out the game wherever you are I mean it varies a little bit depending on the kind of game but wherever you are at your skill level is going to be the hardest it is so far for you you know like you don't what I mean to say is like he's just describing playing video games and focusing on it it doesn't need to be extreme difficulty. I mean, you can make, it's not candy crush or something. I don't know. You can make a, maybe you can Make a claim about like some games or you have to pay attention less.

0:26:15 Noah: I've met a lot of gamers in my life, right? Right. If I met a gamer and he like mentioned like he added the addendum on extreme level difficulty, I'd just be like, oh, you know how to kill a man with a comb, don't you? It's like trying to. Well, it's like working your martial arts belt into the conversation.

0:26:34 Noah: Well, you Know, I'm actually a third degree. Yes.

0:26:29 Lydia: Insufferable right

0:26:36 Thomas: It's like a yellow flag. This isn't one of those infallible things. Like I wouldn't hear this and think there's no, he's a fraud, but it's like, when you get into something, there's lingo, there's ways people talk about it. I'm sure there's like musical theater comparison, hun. I can't really think, but if I were, if I'm just a gamer and I'm talking to another gamer, where he's like, yes, I play it on extreme difficulty. I'd be like, okay, that's a weird way to say it.

0:26:57 Lydia: Like certain people who insert where they go to law school as part of the

0:27:02 Thomas: Yes, like people who say where they go to law school, except that does mean they went there because everyone who went to Harvard does say they went to... Yeah.

0:27:06 Lydia: Conversation yeah but it tells you something about the person in.

0:27:11 Noah: Yes, it does. It does. And look, I don't play games, generally speaking, against other players. Right like I I play games where there are online leaderboards right so I compare myself to other players and stuff but I don't generally play pvp or player versus player type games so there are definitely games that I play on extreme difficulty levels but like generally those are games that I've already beat and I'm already really good at and i'M TRYING TO FIND A NEW CHALLENGE that that's generally what the extreme difficulty level is there for right it's it's for somebody who's played through the game and then they're like all right well like I'm so good at it that that there's almost no point in it. Let me crank this up to stupid hard and see if I can beat it there.

0:27:50 Thomas: If you're PVP, this sentence makes no sense. It makes no sens. If you are like Noah, wherever you are in that game is going to be the hardest difficulty for you. Uh, oh, I actually

0:27:58 Noah: Yes. Environment.

0:27:59 Lydia: Wait, what's the E? Okay.

0:28:03 Noah: Player versus environment.

0:28:03 Thomas: Didn't know that. Oh, okay. I don't know why I never thought, when she called me, I was like, fuck, what is E?

0:28:09 Lydia: That's like the first time

0:28:11 Noah: That's why I'm here. That's like...

0:28:11 Lydia: That's ever happened. Electronics.

0:28:11 Thomas: Uh, E, yeah, E computer. I don' know. E, E electric. Electronics. It's PVE electronics. God, that is so funny. I've never thought about that. But anyway, if you are PVE, if I play a level 20 Diablo character and I have level 20 gear and I'm in a level 20 area, that's just as hard, relatively speaking, than if I'm in level 90. I have all level 90 gear and I guess sometimes there's more monsters, but not

0:28:43 Noah: Yeah, no, there are definitely... If you think about the hard mode that they came out with for Breath of the Wild, where suddenly there's the Lynels on the... Sorry, I'm getting really deep. I'm Getting Really Deep into the lore here, but

0:28:47 Thomas: ... Master mode. Yeah. No, Lydia knows this as well.

0:28:55 Lydia: I know a little bit of it. Yeah.

0:28:56 Noah: Yeah, right. Right. So there are a lot of games that have, you know, like, like Ubisoft games tend to have like five different levels of difficulty that you can play it on just a story mode where I'm not really going to die in combat or whatever. And, and, and very often that's what I play, right? Because I don't have time to be like, yeah, exactly.

0:29:03 Thomas: Right, right, right. Yeah, it's more relaxing. It's more about the story and the experience.

0:29:17 Noah: And if the game's 30 hours long already, I don't have more than that to devote to a single game. So I think that there's a legitimate difference between I play video games and I play video games on hard mode even when it comes to what Elon Musk is talking about there the meditative quality of it right how much of because like if I'm playing a game on easy mode it you know I might be half paying attention to it and just chatting with my wife right if I playing a game on hard load I'm probably drilled right into it so I think it's a red flag in terms of is this guy an asshole I wouldn't have seen it as a yellow flag in turns of is this guy a fake game

0:29:39 Thomas: Fair enough, for sur. Sure. Yeah, it could be that I already hate him so much. Like if someone I liked is, yeah, honestly, like if this was an interview with someone I liked and they said that, I'd be like, yeah. Okay. I'd probably forgive it. So somewhere between yellow and beige, we'll say beige flag. I'm going to play a little more just because it's clearly important to Elon to be a good gamer. You can hear him talk about like how gamers are great in different ways.

0:30:02 Lydia: Boring.

0:30:12 Noah: It's a big part of his personality and his his sort of his legend right like it's a big heart of his his uh our persona

0:30:20 Thomas: So a little bit more about him talking about that.

0:30:20 Clip: Oh, I think it certainly would be a very good test to see if somebody can't play video games Well, like that means because you got to move both hands simultaneously, right? They're reactive something very fast then on the screen. So And and if your keystrokes or your mouse clicks or whatever are wrong, then you lose the game, right so

0:30:40 Thomas: Oh, no, I just want to remind you that this guy has 400 million trillion times the listeners that you and I have combined and multiplied together it's just nothing it's just nothing I'm

0:30:44 Noah: Yeah I know I know and it's just it's unlistenable I

0:30:50 Thomas: So sorry I'd like trying to scramble to skip through it but like I'm making it worse because then if I skip the thing but oh

0:30:55 Noah: Know

0:30:55 Clip: So if somebody has a good rank in video games, I would say that necessarily their manual dexterity If you think about StarCraft or any game like Quake, any game where a lot of people are playing, to rise to the top, you have to Be Exceptional, period, There has to be something exceptional about you. Actually, if I'm not mistaken, Quake. Way back in the day, I was one of the world's best Quake players. Yeah, yeah. In my final semester in college, I probably put more time to Quake than all my college classes.

0:31:07 Thomas: This is important so I believe that that last part but he says he was one of the best in the world at Quake he mentions that pin in that so like I said when I watched this whole thing the first time thinking we're gonna use this it was kind of weird and then the coverage came out that like oh wait it's actually true true. There was this wave of coverage that was like, wait, he's actually, it is, look, he is this top number something in the leaderboard on Diablo. And I was like God, that is, that's kind of crazy. That takes a lot of time. And then, so first it was top 20 as you heard. That's what he said, top 20 in the world. And, then there was another like slightly after that, there was another wave of coverager, another few headlines. And have one here. Here's the headline, Elon Musk apparently just became the number one Diablo 4 player in the world I was like what what and then so if you want to know the details of

0:31:40 Lydia: Way.

0:32:18 Thomas: This it turns out he did a run on something called the pit which I guess is just one of the like late -game dungeons yeah

0:32:25 Noah: Like after you finish the game it's like here's an extra challenge for you yeah yeah can you survive the pit yeah

0:32:29 Thomas: And there's different ones are yeah there's different things you can do and it's a real thing to like okay what who's the bet who can finish this thing the fastest that's certainly like a a legitimate way to compete my understanding was because I played diablo 3 I thought he was talking about the ladders yeah so like what will happen is there will be seasons and the seasons will change however many times a year there'll be a month or two months or whatever and with a new season everyone has to start a new character at zero and the latter will be who's gotten the farthest in that time so it's a way to like consistently have a new competition and it's really fun because they like change up some of the skills for the season or there'll Be different seasonal tweaks and my bragging claim to fame is I actually decided for the first time to do a hardcore character in diablo 3 now hardcore hun is when if you die the character's dead forever yeah so like and that's going to become important to what we're talking about yeah and so I always thought that was insane like when I played diablo 2 and I heard people playing hardcore I was like that's insane because for one unless you're going to play just

0:33:16 Lydia: Okay. Okay. Permanent. Okay.

0:33:29 Thomas: On the offline mode there's the internet involved my thinking was there's going be some lag in the internet something's going going to disconnect I'm going to lose my character I put a million hours into and it'll be dead forever I was like I'm never doing this but in Diablo 3 I was like you know I think I'm gonna try a hardcore character and I actually got I did for the they have ladders for each different class or whatever and for that season I got in I can't remember but it was it was in the top like 10 for how high I got for Diablo 4 for Diabo 3 for a hardcore character and that was based on what level of it's not the pit but it's like like that equivalent, like some instance you clear and there's levels that you get up to in Diablo 3. And it's not about time. It's about like what level can you clear? And that was what determined who was on the ladder. And so for Diablo 4, I assumed when he said he was top 20 and then when this article said he's top one, I was like, wow, that must mean that he's at the top of these ladders. No, it's just his time in one specific dungeon. And It's not even an official leaderboard. It's a website. This website, and it's not that this is nothing.

0:34:33 Thomas: Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying this is Nothing. But it's Not What I Would Understand Anyone to be Saying If They Said I'm Top 20 in the World at Diablo.

0:34:40 Noah: So much so that you're lying right if you say you're top 20 so there was a game called pac -man 99 that that came out on the nintendo switch where you wouldn't 98 people would compete in a pac -Man game where like if you get a thing it attacks the other players and blah blah blah there was the leaderboard for that and at one point very shortly after it came out I was number one on that leaderboard if I had gone out right

0:35:02 Thomas: You're number one in the world, Noah! Hey, this just in. We're playing with number one Pac -Man 99 player in the world.

0:35:08 Lydia: What an honor.

0:35:06 Noah: If well that's but that's just the thing right like if I Had gone out at that moment and said I am actually the best pac -man player in the world I'd be lying

0:35:18 Thomas: First question for No Illusions today. Noah, why do you think it makes you a better person to be so good at Pac -Man? Yeah, yeah.

0:35:23 Noah: Well because of the the meditative qualities of yeah my manual dexterity that I get from pushing

0:35:29 Thomas: It must take a real intense, quiet genius to be that good at Pac -Man.

0:35:32 Noah: Buttons but but that'S just the thing right like like when you say I am number four at this game like the games today have like official fucking leaderboards where you can just go and look and you can be like oh here are the top 12 people I notice elon musk isn't there

0:35:49 Thomas: Not only that, but a game like Diablo 4, you can't really cross -compare classes. So, like, there's druids, there're sorcerers, there are whatever, and those leaderboards, it's totally different depending on what class you are. And so, like there's going to be like eight different leaderboards. You could be number 10 on one of them, but you wouldn't say like, I'm top 10 in the world. It's like, yeah, okay. And that's why I was specific. I was in hardcore mode for this given season that I played. I got to like eighth, I think, on one class of character of which there were, I don't know, eight, six, eight ten, something like that in one particular season, which was season like 18 or something, you know, so like there's so many variables there that to say you're not your top 20 in the world is absurd. And furthermore, to not even be talking about the official like ladder system, which is already weird enough to be talking about your time in a run that is only on a website where it, get this, this website grabs these times by whoever has recorded it. So like what they'll do is they'll see in a stream, oh, this person did this run in this time, which again, it's not nothing, but it's just not what he's saying. Yeah.

0:36:41 Noah: Yes so well right so so he wasn't top 20 out of the millions of people that play diablo 4 which is which is what joe rogan specifically said he was the top 20 of get this the 900 entries on this website at this challenge right so there's a game that I love to play in vr called pistol whip it's a rhythm based game so there'S like 40 different songs each song has three difficulty levels and there are a bunch of different variations right uh extra like bullet hell uh you know more life less life double wield whatever and each one has a separate high scoreboard ultimately so there are this exponentially huge 27 000 scoreboards so if you wanted you could go on that game and find some variation of some song at some difficulty level that nobody's ever played and be number one at it and you could be like I'm number one in the world at pistol whip you know that's the basically what he's done here like you said it's more than nothing right because there are other people trying to but but that's but But that's assuming that was actually his video.

0:38:00 Thomas: Yeah. Which, okay. And then another quirk to this is then it said, so his time was two minutes, 50 seconds at the time. And they're like, wow, that is, I think it was 18th or something. And then there was this news coverage that was Elon Musk apparently just became the number one Diablo four player in the world. You might notice that's quite a bit different than being top 20. That was because he submitted a time under two minutes and he bragged on X about, wow. Diablo tier one 50 under two months. And the person's like, it's weird. Cause it's not showing up on the board and it turns out that it's because it was due to a bug like there was a bug temporarily that if you drank a potion it gave you like infinite fucking life for a second and so I looked at that leaderboard and it's that his time of under two is not on it because it didn't count because it wasn't real but he did he did brag about it which what look all this stuff again it's like you could do that you could say it was cool you could post it but this ecosystem that that creates this myth that he is knowingly participating in where, no, it's not that

0:39:01 Lydia: Gotcha.

0:39:01 Thomas: He did a fast run based on a bug that's kind of cool and whatever. No, he's the best in the world now. He's number one in the World. This is Forbes .com that has this thing.

0:39:11 Noah: Well, the idea being that he's superhuman, right? Because you and I, as video gamers, we know how difficult it is to be truly top tier at any video game, right, and it takes an enormous amount of practice, not any video games, any video gaming that a lot of people are playing, right. There are games, VR games, that me and 88 people are paying, and I'm number one at a lot on those. But to be like top tier at a game that a lot of people play it takes an enormous amount of skill and practice and for elon musk to be that good well you know he can't have all that practice he can't Have all the time that the rest of us would have it he must be superhuman to some degree right like that's the myth he's trying to create with all this shit

0:39:14 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. It's insane. Yeah . . . Now, in full fairness, in looking into the Diablo 4 component

0:39:59 Noah: Yes

0:40:00 Thomas: Of this, he does play Diablo 3. He streamed multiple times playing it and he seemed competent enough at it but here's the thing about Diablo 4 and Diablo 3 I think is similar it's pretty much about the gear you have so as Noah explained in the beginning you have to grind a bunch to get that gear once you have the best gear like it's not it's Not that there's no skill don't get me wrong it's that it's pretty easy to just be good enough by looking up the basic guide to play this build if I give someone who's played some Diablo like a decent amount of Diablo the best build and gave them the guide to the build and all had them go the difference between like the top performer with that exact gear and let's say like me like I would be a good example of that I imagine if I played Diablo 4 for like a week I'd be easily as good as Elon Musk I'm pretty sure or around that skill the difference in performance between me with this set of gear versus the best player in the the world with that set of gear, it's not that big because it's mostly gear based. It's mostly about having the gear. And as long as you know the game and you know roughly what the build is supposed to be doing, if I played it, I would look like, oh yeah, I'm playing the game. It would look like I belonged essentially. Now the best player in the world, they would probably, they would find ways to be a little better. They would find countless ways to be a lot better.

0:41:17 Noah: And and they'd probably be able to look at you and go like you're not really that good you just have good equipment it yeah yep

0:41:20 Thomas: Oh yeah, for sure. A hundred percent, a hundred percent. But in terms of sort of the verdict on Diablo 4 at this time was like, all right, he looks like he plays. He streamed with a camera on him playing for a few times. And, you know, it was like all right. He plays Diablo, whatever. Like I guess that's cool. The stuff about the leaderboard is total bullshit. And like Noah said, he is lying about that. But like he played it. And so it didn't really blow up as like a big controversy at that time. There's a component we haven't talked about yet, which is that while it's against the rules, it is possible. To just buy your way to good gear in a game like that.

0:41:57 Thomas: There's something called RMT, which, oh, will I know real money trading?

0:41:56 Noah: I I believe that's correct yeah oh

0:42:03 Thomas: Now I'm questioning every acronym I've ever known. I think so. Yeah. So there's a thing in these grindy games and this depresses me to no end. There's a things in these grinding games where you can either work your ass off and play countless hours to try to get gear. There's one level of it, which is part of the game, which you also trade for gear. And that's part of the game, a legitimate part of the game. You try to get stuff and

0:42:07 Noah: Right deoxyribonucleic acid right because because like uh like you were saying earlier you eventually you get so much crappy loot that you can't use you got to have some value to it yeah

0:42:36 Thomas: You might get an item that's not good for your build, but it's really good. And so, you know, it's like any market trading is a legitimate way to get good gear. But in order to trade and get good year, you still have to have earned something. So like if you're playing totally legitimately, it's not like you can just trade your way into great gear from nothing. Like you still have to earn something to get there. So that's why it's still a legitimate part of game. Like you're still grinding. You might get some good, I guess, good value trades or something, but like you can't trade from nothing to amazing. You have to still earn something to be able to trade, but enter RMT. So there are people for any game that is popular. There is like kind of a black market of people who will try to earn real money for this stuff. And the depressing thing about this is if you ever have done this, and I've one time I looked at the values for some stuff just to see it's depressingly small like that's the thing that's so funny about this is you don't even have to be like rich elon musk if

0:43:32 Thomas: You want to buy your way to a good character in a game it's so cheap because like people in china do it all day you know it's like it's relatively easy like if you look at this thing that takes a hundred hours to grind and would feel like a huge accomplishment if you got you could probably buy it for like a dollar seventy it's Like so there's always the possibility now Now it's the higher you get, you know, it's a little tricky. They do try to police it.

0:43:56 Thomas: You can get caught. Sometimes they do things in games. They make certain gear where you can't trade it. There's usually some mix in these games. Like it's some mix of gear that is tradable versus stuff that's like bound to your account. So you would have to earn it. And I find that really fun. I like it when you, you have to actually, I want to feel like if I'm going to, if I ever going to grind in a game, I don't want to be like, I could also just buy the thing for a dollar 70. Like that, that doesn't work for me. So if it has to be a game where it's like, you Have to earn the stuff, but like some Some people also still like trading. And so there's usually like some combination of both. And so the theory is like, yeah, he could have been like just kind of buying his way into that gear, but he did play. It looked like he knew how to play. And as a part of this, he also was on Noah. Do you know someone named Lex Friedman?

0:44:32 Ad: [Ad break 3 — ad music]

0:44:35 Noah: No it doesn't ring a

0:44:35 Lydia: God. Freaking Lex Friedman.

0:44:39 Thomas: So he went on the Lex FriedMAN and this one I have to play because it's such a perfect example of these very average white dudes trying to appear smart. And Lex FriedMan, from what I can tell, I've listened to so little of it, but But he's entirely that sort of affective genius or thoughtfulness. And so, Noah, here is some of his interview. I'll skip. There's only a few things here. He talks about and more in depth about his Diablo character. And they try to do a thing called metaphor. And I just know Noah will die inside. Noah, are you insured? Do you have life insurance?

0:44:43 Noah: Bell yeah

0:45:15 Clip: You're also, with the Paragon board and the build, are not somebody like me who perfectly follows whatever they suggest on the internet. You're an innovator there. Which is hilarious to watch. It's like a mad scientist just trying to figure out the Paracon board and in the build.

0:45:36 Thomas: Such a fucking kiss ass. I'm so sorry. This is very clearly, I think, designed to soothe Elon's ego over the Elden Ring thing a little bit. Don't you think? I mean, it's like, oh, you don't necessarily follow the, you know, the online builds. It's like it's such a kiss -ass. Everything has to be in the most kiss -as way to Elon. You're a mad scientist experiment. Yeah, you're playing the game like every fucking person plays the game.

0:45:51 Noah: Sometimes you just pick out two shields and then you just say I wonder how maybe I need to be slower when I'm fighting these enemies I didn't think of that yeah want

0:46:08 Clip: You know um is there some interesting insights there about um if somebody's starting as a druid do you have advice um I would not recommend playing a druид in the eternal realm um right now I think the most powerful character in this in the seasonal realm is the sorcerer with the lightning balls so the sorcerers have huge balls in um the seasonal well yeah that's what they say sorcerers have huge balls um they do uh huge balls of lightning I'll take your word for it and it's

0:46:41 Noah: To make sure everybody had plenty of time to laugh at his balls

0:46:44 Lydia: So dumb. Teenagers. Yeah.

0:46:45 Thomas: It's so painful. This is the person in charge of the whole world, everyone. He's in charge of the world. Balls. It's like he has to deal with the round of applause he hears in his own head.

0:46:47 Noah: Joke yeah yep yep balls balls guys did you get it they Okay, so they have huge balls.

0:47:02 Thomas: It's as if he's contending. If you played over it, and maybe I should someday, if you played it over at a massive standing ovation, it would make sense. You know when the comedian hits the great joke live and he's like, yeah, I know, yeah. And you put a couple tags on it. Great ball. Big balls. Yeah. Got a bunch of laughter it's like he has to do that except it's silence big balls yeah yeah big balls yeah lex friedman takes a second oh I have to react to that oh okay yeah yeah Big Balls man god this guy is so fucking dumb I'm sorry he's so he'sso dumb okay we've moved on from the big balls I think

0:47:11 Noah: Right, yeah, yeah. Mm -hmm. You can get the applause break, yeah? Oh. Woo. Let that sink in.

0:47:31 Clip: Actually in the seasonal realm you can you can it's it's like pretty easy to beat uh uber loathe with about because you get these vampiric powers that amplify your damage and increase your defense

0:47:42 Noah: Do the vampiric powers suck?

0:47:43 Clip: And whatnot so um but really quite easy to defeat hatred seasonally but to defeat hate

0:47:45 Thomas: Then no that would have actually taken thought

0:47:51 Clip: Hatred eternally very difficult um almost impossible it's virtually impossible it seems like this is a metaphor for life you know I like the idea that elon musk because I saw I was playing

0:47:59 Thomas: It's a metaphor for life

0:48:03 Clip: Diablo yesterday and I saw 100 level 100 druid just run by I will never die and then run back and there's just some this metaphor is kind of hilarious that you Elon Musk is fighting hatred hatred, restlessly fighting hatred in this demonic realm.

0:48:23 Noah: Fucking what? Makes me want to pull your hair out, too. Well, yeah -yeah.

0:48:26 Lydia: Jeez. His hair plugs out, you mean? Yeah.

0:48:27 Clip: Really, it exercises absurdity and it makes me want to pull my hair out.

0:48:36 Thomas: Yeah yeah he'll just have it surgically put back I can't I it noah please help me please help me describe and and and articulate

0:48:46 Noah: I don't even know. Where are you going? Running around fighting hate? Where are you even coming from?

0:48:53 Thomas: It's a it's a metaphor noah for fighting hate they're

0:48:55 Noah: Oh, that's, I didn't, I didn't understand the literary device that was, right, right because the trolls are the hate.

0:49:04 Thomas: Trying so hard to be geniuses and it they bring it back

0:49:09 Clip: Because it's my primary recreational activity. Um, and yes, beating hatred in the internal realm is the hardest boss battle in life and in the video game. I'm not sure it's possible, but it's, it's I do make progress.

0:49:16 Lydia: What?

0:49:32 Clip: So then I'm like, okay, I'm making progress. Maybe if I just tweak that Paragon board a little more, I can do it. But if I just dodge a few more waves, I can do it. Well, the simulation is created for the purpose of figuring out if it can be done, and you're just a cog in that simulation, in the machine of the simulation. I have a feeling that at least I think it's doable, yes. Yes well that's the human spirit right there to believe yeah I mean

0:49:32 Thomas: 1 1.43 million subscribers to this to this clip this is a channel that's just clips of this guy. And it's 1 .43 million. Now they try to get a little philosophical here. So let's all learn something.

0:50:11 Noah: My fucking God. Oh, Jesus.

0:50:20 Clip: Did prompt me to think about just hate in general which is you know you want to be careful of the one of those things where you wish for something that sounds good but in but if you get it it's actually a dystopian situation so you know you can sort of run a sort of uh have artists of like if you wish for world peace sounds good but how is it enforced and and at what cost is it what at what cost eternal peace it might actually be worse to have eternal peace because of what that would entail the suppression of everyone that might be the suppression progress it might be an ossified society that never changes what I'm saying is that there is an argument that you you that if that if you wish for no war you should be careful what you wish for because what's required in order for there to be no war oh dude elon oh elon elon

0:51:25 Noah: And that's how I want to, I recommend you do a druid build. Right.

0:51:31 Thomas: It's so painful to what, like, I just want to say, I have never heard Elon Musk say a smart thing ever. I've never heard it. Like I'm, I'm not saying it's impossible. He must be smart at something. There must be some, I've just never heard It. Like if I watch a lecture from Daniel Dennett, I said this on dad's the other day, I don't think it's out, but like, if I I watch a lecture from some smart philosopher some anybody scientist they're gonna say something where I'm like oh if whether or not it's an insight or something from their study they did or some way of framing the data something I'd be like oh that's wow interesting thought I have never from the alleged smartest man in the universe elon musk I have never heard anything that gave me a second's pause ever that he's ever said it's he doesn't have any clothes he's no Don't close! It drives me crazy! And these weird fucking worshippers fucking just absolutely blowing smoke up his ass so hard. Oh, Elon Musk is fighting demons in the eternal realm. That's so ironic.

0:52:22 Lydia: It's really bad.

0:52:35 Thomas: Here's a comment on YouTube, on the video. Got chills when Elon said, killing demons in a video game calms the demons in my mind. Ah! It's not... Okay.

0:52:45 Noah: That's the at the back of a 14 year old's trapper keeper right like that is nothing like the whole thing he's saying that whole thing at the end and I'm just like where is he even going with that and then he says a culture that is ossified and I am like oh you were steering this whole thing towards the word ossified weren't you you wanted a chance to use that fucking

0:53:01 Thomas: Minor point, I also think it betrays a worldview view that like the way we have peace is by law enforcement. Like the way, like the way it's not that we need a politics of abundance in which if people aren't fucking dying of hunger and other things and other conflict and climate change, it's not as though that would yield peace. It's that you would just need to have an army strong enough or a police force strong enough to just kill the people who wouldn't be peaceful. Yeah.

0:53:13 Noah: Word right which isn't peace right like thats not even the thing yeah yeah

0:53:31 Thomas: And it's, it just so it's so typical for the richest man in the world to think of the world that way like yeah the you know we can't be exactly it's the

0:53:32 Lydia: Yeah it's oppression. Right.

0:53:37 Noah: Yeah like the path to peace is fascism

0:53:40 Thomas: Only way so bear be careful what you wish for

0:53:42 Lydia: His apartheid background and stuff you know it's like yeah.

0:53:45 Thomas: Yeah I just had to play it because it's so fucking dumb

0:53:47 Lydia: I want to say very quickly Lex Friedman has been on my radar for a bit because he hosted a debate debate between Ben Shapiro and Destiny on wokeness yeah and you know like a lot of people are on come on his show bernie sanders was just on it's it's so tough to see the space that lex friedman has in this world he has four and a half million subscribers he's going to the inauguration like he was invited this guy he's everywhere honestly

0:53:55 Thomas: Oh yeah yeah watch that he's a clout chaser lex friedman my understanding of him is he just tries to not piss anyone off like he tries to make everyone kind of happy so he's sort of kiss ass to everyone while providing I think almost nothing really himself other than being being that sycophant to different people and putting them on his channel and Hey, he's got a massive thing. Like congrats. But like, I don't, I don'T spare a lot of time hating on him. Cause it's not, he'S not like, I don' t think he's like a force for evil necessarily, but like he'S willing to kind of have anyone and everyone on in order to, to chase the clout.

0:54:50 Lydia: Well and he owes his career to elon um because when friedman he he was at MIT. Elon, like, talked about a study that he did, which was not peer reviewed or anything like that, because it was in praise of the self -driving of Tesla. And so Elon was like, oh, check out the study, yada, yadda, yedda. And then that's kind of how he rose to prominence. He, like took that as an opportunity and then just, like went with it.

0:55:12 Thomas: Oh, wow. And there's a lot people like that. And it's, It's how the myth of Elon's genius. There's a ton of that. There's tons of components of it. But we need to get to finally starting the episode because now we come to the latest thing that is, it is the best. It is the Best. Because all this was still like, okay, he's playing Diablo. Yeah, he talked about this stuff, whatever. It's like yellow to beige flags. Okay, yes, he is definitely lying about his ranking as we talked about. But it wasn't enough for anyone to really care that much other than Noah and I being annoyed at how he would lie like that. And a few other people but then the other day he starts streaming a game called path of exile 2 I have never played this I've never played path of exile 1 I actually thought it was diablo 4 when he was doing it because it seems to be a clone of that game to me that'll be an insult I'm sure because my understanding is it's way better than diablo4 it actually looks really cool I I wish I had time like as I was covering this I was like man if I had Time I would love to play this game it looks really cool here's

0:56:13 Thomas: What I also didn't realize it's not even out yet yet. It's out. You can play it, but it's not officially out. This is still in the pre -release of it. Yeah, essentially.

0:56:12 Noah: Mmm yeah looks good the

0:56:22 Thomas: He starts streaming it. And before that, he started sort of bragging about his accomplishments in the game, just on Twitter and stuff. And it was like pretty crazy. It got to the point where he said he had a top character on the hardcore ladder. And I think I've already explained that. And again, hardcore. For a while, he was playing a non -hardcore character and was doing that and bragged about insane accomplishments there, which I'll talk about. Then he started playing hardcore and it got to the point where it's like wow he has like different times somewhere in the top 20 and then like 21 hardcore character in this game and that's kind of crazy and then he streams his gameplay and apropos of what we talked about earlier with the picking up the guitar or the whatever the thing is you're an expert at if you saw someone do it he is so unfamiliar with parts of this game that instantly it's clear to anyone who knows anything that he has not played this game seriously yeah

0:56:22 Noah: Beta

0:57:15 Lydia: My god how embarrassing oh my God

0:57:17 Noah: Well well let's be clear that this is the the picking the guitar up with your feet version

0:57:22 Thomas: Yes

0:57:22 Noah: Of this though right like as I've you and I have never seen this game but you and I could tell like man he's just clicking on that over and over again he does not know how this interface works right or like wow he's dragging and dropping each of those items and there has to be a quicker way to do that right it it genuinely is it it looked like somebody who who didn't even know how to play video games.

0:57:25 Lydia: Yeah oh it's like

0:57:43 Thomas: Let's go through some of these I don't know this streamer this quinn 69 guy but unfortunately his voice is incredibly funny and I have to play it so like I like I said in the beginning this guy I haven't vetted he probably sucks the other streamer we're going to talk about really sucks but this guy he's so fucking funny I I have to play some of these clips because this is a guy who has actually played the game and he watches him. And it's so funny how quickly it becomes clear that he's full of shit. So this is just this guy, Quinn69TV, who I've never heard of. It probably sucks. Who's a game streamer who has played PoE 2. I don't think he's like a best in the world guy or anything, but he's played it. You know, he's playing it. He's a serious player. And he sees that Elon Musk is going to stream Path of Exile 2. and imagine that's probably awesome to enthusiasts of this game like oh cool this guy with a huge platform is going to stream on his like twitter because twitter's trying to do twitch now they're trying to like

0:58:40 Thomas: Do game stream and so this guy tunes in so he's excited that he's going to play the

0:58:46 Clip: Elon I want I just want to see what uh what is what level is this guy and uh what league is he playing is he actually playing hardcore all right okay scrolling around all right oh big juice big juice huge juice two t15 maps and id gear in his bag oh he's cut he's going oh hoa gloves bro Bro, he must be trade league right? Elon says.

0:59:09 Clip: What about the mass in the inventory bro? Like what? What? What about mass in his inventory?

0:59:09 Thomas: Game and

0:59:13 Noah: He's still in the selection menu. Yeah, he seems to be walking through, like, just the, like... looking at his build and choosing his location and shit kind of part of the game.

0:59:25 Thomas: You you could kind of hear that instantly quinn said like whoa big character because when you load the interface again I don't play this game but it's pretty easy as someone who's played any games to see oh he has access to a bunch of stuff or his you know his power level is in the display somewhere so like quickly this guy's like whoa this is a big character this is he's gotten far and we're 30 seconds in he's like he's starting to already get like pretty

0:59:51 Clip: He's trying to click. It's grayed out.

0:59:52 Thomas: Suspicious he's trying to go to a place in the map he can't go third so 45 seconds 45 seconds I want to make clear that

0:59:54 Lydia: Grayed out oh my my god oh my god no

1:00:06 Thomas: This guy was this is not a video in which the guy like you and I know on this show, we're like, clearly we're going to take down Elon. This is a guy who just wanted to watch Elon play. And 45 seconds into this video, he's like, he hasn't played this.

1:00:20 Clip: Bro, He's NOT played this game before has He? He's 100% getting piloted. He's got the management injury So it's really tough That would have taken a long time to get to level 96 Like the game actually mentions When people die on the hardcore ladder

1:00:30 Thomas: It's so good. There's one more thing at 140 here. One sec.

1:00:56 Clip: Clicking a map repeatedly trying to access it. It was clearly not like he was not eligible to enter that map Wait what and he's going into the map with a full inventory right now

1:01:07 Thomas: This hurt me so bad. So you just heard him say he's going to the map with a full inventory right now. I'm just curious, dude. Does that, what does that mean? Does that mean anything to you? Okay. So back to what this kind of game is, As we've talked about, this is a grindy game where you have to beat a gajillion monsters over and over to get drops for stuff, to get items that you then eventually, if you get the right items or you get enough of them, you can slowly convert to better stuff.

1:01:14 Lydia: Uh

1:01:30 Thomas: And he has just started to go on a, they call it maps in this game apparently, but whatever, like he's going to a dungeon, an instance, whatever the terminology would be of a given game. He's about to do a run, essentially, with full inventory.

1:01:24 Lydia: -huh okay literally

1:01:41 Noah: So he can't pick anything up.

1:01:44 Thomas: So you can't pick things up. Yeah like this is where it's now in the infallible mode like it's getting toward now you could say oh he's just playing he's just showing people his thing but like here's where I just want to spend a second to talk about the experience of playing a grindy game like this in order to be one of the top players at this time this game came out December 6th this date when this is happening is January 7th and he's the top but you know how much you have to play to be top level in this game

1:01:55 Lydia: Okay and there's no way just side note there's No Way he has time to play that and also become the most annoying person at Mar -a -Lago that's like driving everyone insane?

1:02:15 Thomas: No Now, it takes work to be as annoying as he is. There's no way. Imagine how much time.

1:02:25 Lydia: He's busy. He's busy pissing everybody off in Florida.

1:02:29 Thomas: What you have to do is grind so much. And this is hardcore character. So keep in mind that you wouldn't have just started the game with a hardcore character you absolutely. And he says as much. Elon says as Much. This is not me speculating. You would start playing a non -hardcore character. You would learn the game. You would eventually get confident enough to want to try a hardcore character and he is level 96 or 7 on this hardcore character at this time which is insane the amount of times you would have to do the exact thing he's doing in this video which is all right gonna do a run clear the inventory click on the map go to the spot I'm gonna do like it's hard to explain if you're not a gamer but like you could do it in your sleep like the games that I've played to this extent you could blindfold me and I would do all the menu selections in a second like I would just like, I know you, cause you've done it thousands of times. If you actually played this character, you've played 10 hours a day, every day. Like you've just, you would know, I'm there. And it's not just, oh, I've learned that cause I played so much. It's also actually, that's the difficulty in being this good this early. Yes, the game is really hard, but when you're playing hardcore, you usually try to stick to like easier areas cause you don't want to risk dying. And so the competition of becoming a really top hardcore player is about skill, but it's also more the grind. So the skill of being good at a hardcore game is actually about the very thing we're talking about. It's about being so efficient that you can do these grinds from December 6th when the game came out to now one month later, as this video is coming, you have to be incredibly efficient. You can't waste any time. That's how you be at the top of these ladders it's not even necessarily game skill like oh I'm good at dodging I'm good at casting it is that but it's also just as much how efficient are you in every part of this fucking gameplay the menus the navigation the inventory this is non -negotiable like it's this isn't an opinion this is true if you have played this character you have

1:04:35 Thomas: Done done all this thousands of times and he cannot do the most basic stuff.

1:04:40 Noah: So on the one hand, the low level of cheating at these games is just buying the items. The high level is just sharing your login information with somebody that you pay a certain amount to go grind the damn game for you, right? So there is some kid in Indonesia playing this game 11 hours a day for 16 cents an hour to up Elon Musk's character. That's the only way, right. Like now, so we should say like Elon Musk is notorious for like playing video games during other shit while he's doing other shit. He's notorious for putting off meetings because he's trying to finish a game session.

1:04:57 Lydia: My God. Oh, my God.

1:05:13 Thomas: And hey, who among us, hey, and hey, you know, who amongst, I mean, let's like, like, let's do, you Know, like totally normal stuff like that part, right?

1:05:24 Noah: I'm playing candy crush as we speak thomas but no but but that's so so like that's the thing is that like there is a certain amount of this shit that you can imagine if this is like your thing right like this game is your thing and you're always doing it you're playing it during your breaks and you'RE playing at night whatever you can Imagine somebody like even you know somebody who has a really busy work

1:05:45 Thomas: Rest assured, if I still had an office job when COVID hit, I would have been playing video games while on work meetings. 100%.

1:05:52 Noah: Schedule yes absolutely and when you're the richest guy in the world you You can get away with that to a degree that you and I can't. So, like, it's not impossible that he actually put in all of those hours. It's impossible that He put in All of Those Hours and then looked so inept during the street, right?

1:06:10 Noah: So the only explanation for this is that He has paid someone else to play His video games for Him.

1:06:17 Lydia: That's so crazy.

1:06:18 Thomas: It's so bad it's so and and it's so funny we have to go through more of these things because it's fucking hilarious this one hurts so bad because it reminded me of Diablo when you're grinding for that item you're trying to get you have to kill the same boss like in Diablo 2 you gotta kill this Mephisto runs but a lot of people listening a significant percentage of the people listening will know exactly what I mean in college I would do Mephisto runs like all fucking night like you're just you're beating the same bus over and over trying to get this drop and so now we're three minutes into well it's edited so we're a little bit he's finally figured out the maps and he's actually playing

1:06:50 Clip: Like dropping the bell that's a nice sound that's nice ring to it

1:06:55 Thomas: I just love this guy's voice it's so

1:07:01 Clip: His loot filter is like no he's just running past chaos orbs he just ran past the chaos orb dude you are not this far in the game and you're running past house orbs you are No, I'm sorry, bro Bro, there's no way you are not leaving castles on a sea trade. I see trade castles of valuable

1:07:08 Thomas: Funny there's also an exalted orb there but he just got a drop that is very valuable like very valid like to the point where there is no excuse and and you heard him mention it this is a trade server I actually didn't understand this at first but I I guess as part of that beta process or whatever this pre -release process is this is is a server it's a hardcore server and it's uh it is a trade server and the way you would have gotten any of this gear is by picking up exactly the item that he just got and it is not as though that item is like oh that's a b plus he has other guys later talk about it but there's one guy who said he's played countless hours of this and he's only seen like nine of these items like in the in the in the countless hours he played this chaos orb is apparently very important because it's It's essentially part of the currency that he could trade to get better stuff. And I don't care if you are just demonstrating something. There's a lot of this where I can say, okay, he's streaming to demonstrate something. He's not caring too much. But I don' t give a shit. If this was real, if this was your real thing and you were playing and you get an item that important, you're going to say, oh, going to get that real quick. And he does try to pick up other stuff

1:08:30 Thomas: That isn't valuable, but completely useless. Useless and it is that just hurt me to my core because like this guy's reaction is so genuine and this chat goes nuts they're like chaos up chaos up because like as a gamer that's you just know that's the kind of thing you're looking for and then he talks about this loot filter which is a new thing for me because this is a crazy amount these games have gotten so crazy with their loot that like this game has something called a loot filter where you can turn it on and it'll only show you important stuff because I guess this particular game the mobs drop so much stuff that it would be really annoying. And Elon Musk is playing with no loot filter, which my understanding, again, from people who've actually played this game is that's insane. You would never, ever, ever, ever do that. It just would make it impossible to do the grinding that you would need to do. God, it's so good. And then I got to play this clip because after not picking up the chaos orb toward the end of this particular spot here, this

1:08:31 Noah: Well, that's useless. That's completely useless. Yeah.

1:09:26 Clip: Knows he knows, you know, he knows about the bosses, you about breach hands Okay, boss fight. Here we go. You know put down the bell. He dressed up the bell Yeah, he's clearly played the character so there's clearly got hours on he has hours of play time He's not even a man of last night if he's not pressing his man of us Now he pressed it. He pressed the man boss He does it's the one thing he brings over the maps he tries to see another still looking

1:09:59 Thomas: Is so good, I'll explain, playing don't worry so it was I know that you couldn't really see so some great things happen for one so he gets to the end boss of that particular dungeon thing and you heard him say he's not pressing his mana flask he's now pressing his manaflask hun do you know what mana is I think you do

1:10:39 Lydia: I don't I would not know how to define it but I've heard the term before and I'm

1:10:45 Noah: Moses eats it.

1:10:46 Thomas: Yeah it's uh she knows even less about that no she knows Even less um in general mana is like your magic resource in games and used to be that like oh only the mage type characters would use mana, like it's only the magical ones. And then I think they kind of adjusted it. So it's usually it's like more of an energy thing that every character will use different, like every class will use for something, you know, just so that it's not something that's like not used by certain classes. But point is, you have usually in these games, you've got your health, which, you lose your health. You die. That's pretty self -explanatory. And that's on the left and that's red. It's very Diablo -esque. And Then on the right, you got your mana, which is blue. And that's what you use to basically fucking do anything if you especially if you're a character that uses it a lot and he continues to try to attack this boss with empty mana for like a while and these games again you've got so many hours into it you know your fingers just do it like you just you know when to hit the mana thing your eyes know exactly what to look at to know and so he's saying he's not hitting his mana flask meaning the potion that like restores his his mana, he's not hitting it for a while. And he's just sitting there clicking on the boss and his like,

1:11:36 Lydia: Familiar oh right right yeah and

1:11:58 Thomas: And nothing's happening for a wild, not like, oh, a second or two. It's like five seconds like that, which if you really have played this much is not possible. Like it's just, it's just not possible and then the stuff at the end when he said is Joe Biden playing that is beyond a hundred percent certain. So here's the deal with that. He starts trying to pick stuff up, stuff up which normally you just click on stuff and it goes in your inventory you don't even have to open your inventory but if you hear he starts trying to pick it up and it makes this sound there let me just play the the sound it makes

1:11:58 Lydia: Nothing's happening yeah yeah

1:12:32 Thomas: See that like that sound like donk donk that's because he's picking it up it's dropping back on the ground and why is that happening huh because his inventory was full when he started going so his inventory is full he's trying to take stuff up and is dropping back down to the floor and then he opens his inventory and he's like okay Okay. And based on the inventory, it's hard to explain, but there's big items that take up a bunch of slots. Imagine a grid and there's items that pick up like, oh, four by two. And then there's items that take one by one, you know? And so you have to kind of fit them in the grid. It usually auto does it, like when you pick them up. So he starts dropping stuff. And then the things he tries to pick up are useless. And the reason is when you don't have a loot filter on the game defaults to highlighting these useless like waystone map things and it makes it look like they're important and so after he kills the boss he just starts trying to pick those up doesn't have room opens in his inventory starts manually dragging them into his inventory like clicking and dragging it in I can't explain like does that make sense like it's it's just not

1:12:35 Lydia: Yeah oh uh -huh oh uh huh because he can't use it oh yeah yeah like he's reacting like the issue is that he just can't pick it up because maybe there's something wrong with the game so he's gonna do this other thing that's also not gonna work because his inventory is full

1:13:50 Thomas: Essentially did you ever try to get your no this doesn't really apply to you did you you ever try to get your parents to do something on a computer in the 90s, hon? Well, your dad was good at computers though.

1:14:00 Lydia: No yeah Yeah. That doesn't apply to me.

1:14:02 Thomas: Okay. If you were of a certain age in the nineties or maybe 2000s and your parents were a certain age and you tried to get them to do anything on a computer, it was agony. That's why he says is Joe Biden playing. It's like, what's an equivalent of this? You just wouldn't fucking do it. I don't know.

1:14:19 Noah: Like your parents trying to program the VCR, right? Yeah. It's, like, I bought my dad an Oculus headset, a VR headset, a couple years back for Christmas and regretted it. Yeah, it's that.

1:14:31 Thomas: I just thought of a comparison. Let's say your parents open, trying to do something in Microsoft Word. And you're like, all right, just copy that sentence to this spot. And they're like okay. And they highlight each word individually and press control C and then go down and hit control V. Like they know control C control V it's not nothing like he knows kind of how the games work.

1:14:52 Thomas: And then he goes to the next word, copy that one, put it down. Oh, he put it in the wrong spot. So then he like tries to hit copy it again. It's not that he's never done it. It's that like, no, you, you are not, you were not a writer. You know, you're not somebody who who has spent a thousand hours using Microsoft Word, yeah, you would just do it in two milliseconds. And the fact that he's picking up the most worthless item in the game, that is 100 % impossible. Like there is no explanation for finishing the boss, skipping one of the most important items in the Game along the way, and then picking up these useless items. This is why I'm just hoping, I know I'm repeating myself, but the thing I'm trying to convey is that this isn't, there's no guesswork here he 100 is a fraud in this instance he is pretending that he's playing this character and he has not done it okay here's one more thing that's kind of funny that I gotta play his reaction to that I just love for a few seconds here

1:15:06 Lydia: Because then you'd be actually efficient at this. Yeah. Okay.

1:15:42 Ad: [Ad break 4 — ad music]

1:15:48 Clip: Okay this is as hard as pretty much as hard

1:15:54 Thomas: He's back in the map interface trying to pick a new thing to play

1:15:56 Clip: So level 16 There are four things there God, dude Four things It's four things, dude Dude, you had not this far in the game Stop, bro He literally can't.

1:16:05 Thomas: Should be right around here so he was picking his map and the things he's talking about are I believe again I don't play this game but I believe they're modifiers and And there are ways that that map that you're about to go into become harder or easier. And so it just it just is part of the difficulty. And the reason you wouldn't say four things is because what those modifiers are really matters. So based on your type of character and based on the gear you have, there's modifiers that are like these monsters will do more damage in this way or, you know, like to try to not get technical, that kind of stuff. And so if you were someone who played the game, you would be very intentional about about what those are to the point where you, you would know to say like, all right, I'm playing with this, this, and this, or you wouldn't even really mention it. Cause it's just kind of like obvious from like, you know what I mean? Does that make sense? So like four things. So that became a meme where people just kept saying four things and later he said, he says, sorry, they, they bring it up again in a really funny way.

1:17:28 Clip: Why have you done this to me, man? I genuinely believe that He was addicted, right? He clearly has no idea, bro, Some guy plays in the camp for him he just logs in to do a map every now and then that's why there's a tab called me on this map that's the way he has no clue how to activate the atlas or put maps this is about as believable as the time snoop dogg was streaming the dog survival game while quote playing end quote unsurprising max difficulty on hardcore oh oh with no live filter and you're just leaving higher difficulty I don't know what it is but there's everything maxed out

1:18:14 Thomas: So the whole chat is going insane and saying max difficulty, LOL kind of thing. So like, suffice to say, it's not quote unquote max difficulty apparently the hard part of the game in this game is fighting bosses and so this is the grind part of a game that like yes it's harder easier but it's not really the dangerous part of the game the dangerous party the game is trying to take on like one very very difficult boss and so that's an insane thing to say and and ridiculous I also I think I didn't mention to get into the the game he pulls up that map interface and there's a tab called Elon's map this guy is like why would you in your own game why would she have a tab that's like Elon's like Thomas's map because that's very clearly the person who's played the account a ton made a shortcut for him to be like all right you can go to this one so you don't kill by the way our hardcore character that I've probably spent 10 bajillion hours on so this whoever actually played this is probably probably made some presets or something and labeled it Elon's map.

1:18:53 Lydia: A separate tab. Yeah that's so crazy. Yeah yeah

1:19:18 Noah: What's so amazing about this to me is that this is clearly a kid giving a book report on a book he didn't read, right, that's what we're seeing here. But what's amazing to me is that he didn'T seem to realize that everyone would be able to call him on it. I feel like maybe like he has bought into this idea that he's a hyper genius, but he's actually just a like, you know, what slightly above average intelligence guy. And so he has to assume that everyone else is profoundly stupid, right? Like that's the only explanation that I can think of, of why he

1:19:23 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah, that's what's so insane. That's what so insane, yeah. I

1:19:50 Noah: Didn't know that this was going to be a meme, that everybody was going to just call him out on this.

1:19:55 Thomas: Don't, it's the gall to think you could get away with something. It reminds me of someone I once knew. There's some level of narcissism that I don - like you could sub me in with all the same horrible qualities as someone else, but I would still be be like, well, I'm not going to get away with this lie. So I won't try that lie. You know what I mean? Like I could be completely bad motivations trying to getaway with whatever I can. But then there's the part where you're like, why would you stream a game where the people are going to be able to see what you're doing? And it gets worse. This is the final, like really, really, really dumb thing that I am. I still I'm dying at. And just for fun, I'll see if Lydia can guess.

1:20:28 Lydia: You don't know what you're doing yeah oh god

1:20:37 Thomas: Yes. So he starts talking about his gear. Why would you, why would you do this? Because people ask, it's so good. It's the best part. I saved it for the end. People are asking him, Elon, like, hey man, what's your build? How, you know, and that, hun, that means like your build usually it could be your skill allocation, but also your, your gear. And so people convince him to show them his gear and so Elon's like, all right. And he starts telling you about what he has.

1:20:43 Noah: This is so good. This is so oh god oh

1:21:02 Clip: Okay what's up for his gear okay fine it is pretty great gear it's uh could be better but it's pretty great oh well okay I mean it's an advanced barrier okay with the tank speed crit damage crit bonus okay yeah just you know 200 divided into two points okay all right so you can see like this is This is a great staff, but it's only a level, you know, 62 staff.

1:21:28 Thomas: Okay, he is I've told you level 90 I can't remember if he's 96 at this point he ended up 97 and he's about to talk about his gear and you know from what we've talked about that this is one of the top characters at this moment in time in the whole world and he goes to talk About his gear he's level 97 and He says well the staff is pretty good but it's only level

1:21:53 Lydia: I don't know then how did you get to

1:21:55 Thomas: 62 I'm just wondering like what do you think could be wrong with that yeah oh there you go yeah I like that no that's a good thought the reason I'm not trying to just embarrass you the reason is I think if you were trying to pull off this lie you would even do better so like if you start looking at your gear and you see well I'm level 97 but this staff is level 62 for him to say yeah it could be better see this staff's only 62 for Him to not make the mental connection of wait a minute I have one of the top characters in the entire universe of this does it make sense that just on the face of it

1:21:57 Lydia: Your level okay yeah that you don't have the gear to have gotten you there

1:22:29 Thomas: That my staff is 35 levels lower than it should be? Does that make sense? I'm so glad you identified it. Like, how would you be there? Here's the key. That's just the minimum level requirement to have the item. That will... In some video games, that does, it depends on how you build your game. In some games, the level is kind of everything. Like, if you are level 60 and you equip, whip yeah like if it depends on how you do the math of damage and combat and all and how you do the modifiers of the weapons like some games that makes sense where it's like yeah if you're level 50 and your shit is level 45 it sucks you can't use it now that's not this game this game and many other games it's more about what the equipment does there's other components put it this way there's others things hun about the gear than the level that are very important and I have have to play a

1:22:42 Noah: That's fucking hilarious yeah in assassin's creed for example yeah you need to upgrade your shit

1:23:27 Thomas: Bit of this because it is so fucking funny and I think it explains it but long story short there's other things besides the level that make the gear good and for him to not know that and for yeah

1:23:35 Lydia: Oh like when arlo talks about

1:23:38 Thomas: There's there's others and you can see when he highlights the item there's like a bunch of text so yeah there is a list yeah

1:23:43 Noah: There's like a list there's a whole big list

1:23:43 Lydia: Damage okay so so he could talk about other specs but decides to

1:23:49 Noah: And it's also it's not like cryptic right like this stuff will say you know like bonus critical damage or something below it or whatever and there's was like nine things

1:23:58 Thomas: But importantly if Noah or I were put into by bad luck were subbed into Elon Musk's personhood and had to pull this off. I wouldn't know what the fuck any of that means. 177 % increased physical damage. Well, okay. I would be able to figure out what those mean. What I wouldn'T know is the context. 176 % increased physical damage, is that a lot? Do items have 150 %? Do item have 200 %? Here's another variable. Sometimes in these games, some of those are pointless. Like maybe I don't do physical damage maybe I only do magic damage I don't know I might know enough about the build because I played it a little uh adds 27 to 49 physical damage is that a lot I don'T know is it should it be 50 should it be 10 should I have no idea but here's what I would know I'm playing literally one of the best fucking builds

1:24:44 Noah: Right

1:24:44 Thomas: In the entire world so whatever this is that I've hired a guy in indonesia or china I think it is to play countless hours I would KNOW that this person has put together the best fucking build that my bajillion dollars could buy. And so instantly I would say, yeah, check out this thing. Oh yeah, that's it. And like, if I were trying to do this improv game of lying, I probably would stay pretty vague because I don't want to accidentally highlight a stat that isn't important.

1:25:10 Noah: Would just go like look at all of the add add-ons on this vest you know look at it look at the stuff I've got on this staff right

1:25:17 Thomas: Check out those modifiers. Pretty fucking crazy, right? Oh, checkout this. Oh man, that one was so hard for me to get. You have no idea. Check out the modifiers on that one. Now, this stuff is so complicated that I would still probably pretty easily be found to be lying but not as easily because like I you know if I accidentally highlight a piece of gear that that like relatively speaking wasn't as good as the others or relatively wasn't it's hard to get as the other that's all stuff I wouldn't know but he just completely blows it and just like to not be smart enough to lie better is what really gets me about this let me play more of this it's so fucking funny

1:25:50 Clip: Like, it's actually very hard to get equipment in Hardcore. So, uh, I don't know. Why did you make TTS? My staff is only level 62. So I haven't been able to find a better staff. Level 95, the staff is level 62? I'm like, yeah, he should say it's an advanced one. Why isn't he saying it's advanced, bro? You know, in over 30 levels.

1:26:16 Thomas: Oh man it gets so

1:26:19 Clip: Oh, my God, bro. My helmet is level 56. It's 400 ES, bro, he's got a 400 ES with Chaos Res and Lightning Res helmet, bro Bro, I've been playing this game fucking giga hard at minus 342, bro. What is he even talking about? That's an insanely good helmet. I guess he doesn't need magic point because he doesn'T actually loot stuff.

1:26:20 Thomas: Better I just want to emphasize on I don't know what all that means either but it is fucking hilarious I can tell that this guy knows what it means and his reaction to to elon just there there is so much text on each of these items and for elon to just isolate the level requirement that might as well be like if I had the best shoes and it was like yeah but it's only a size 10 and a half shoe like someday I'll get to a size 13 shoe but it gets so much but I have to play a couple more bits of this because it's so fucking

1:27:21 Clip: My helmet is level 56. Okay, he clearly has no idea what he's talking about, right? Bro, bro... Ring is only level 48

1:27:34 Thomas: Funny it's clearly the best like possible item this

1:27:48 Clip: Some rarity in this one. Okay. All right, what are you nine? 1.3k evasion It's kind of mid 1.2 k evasion

1:27:56 Thomas: Is the best I love this part so what happens here is this guy quinn does see a piece of gear and he's like okay that piece isn't that great and then he realizes

1:28:08 Clip: Yeah, It's kinda mid that just kind of bit. Yeah, that's just gonna mid my I got Casper's and 1.6 k evasion Wait, it's what I read with a yes. Are you kidding me, bro? Bro, what the fuck? This one's like twice as good as mine. Fuck, bro? What the

1:28:12 Thomas: Something I love it so much because it's just what he realized was like he was looking at one particular stat and then it turned out that this body armor had, uh, it's like a hybrid he's saying, so it can have dual stats, but when you get a hybrid, both those stats are going to be lower apparently. So like, so basically it's even harder to get a good number. So he looks at one number and says, yeah, that's pretty good. Yeah. That's not bad. And then he realizes it actually has two different things. And so it's like twice as hard to get good. Well, actually it might even be more probability wise to get a good like number value for two amazing stats and that's when he realizes like oh no this is even better than he could have possibly imagined so whoever he's paying to do this whoever elon is paying to play this is just out of this world like he's getting the best possible stuff or elon is buying it for real money somehow like he has unbelievably good gear and I could I relate to this guy so hard I relateto this so hard because if you if you're someone who has grinded a game like this for countless fucking hours and you see someone who has impossible to get stuff like truly just jaw -dropping good stuff and is like yeah it's only level 52 it's just like there's no room for error here like there is it is objectively speaking he's a liar and he's continuing to try to pretend that he has this all right here's what I did I took a list of everything he's claimed about this game it might not be exhaustive but it's enough he claimed early early on that he had a soft core character who farmed nine citadels within the first 11 days of launch. Now, I don't know what that means, but the important thing is other people do. And that apparently is very hard. The launch was on 12 -6, like I said, December 6th. And the video where he claims that was recorded on December 17th. So that's a different claim. He claimed that. That's a softcore character. Then he had an hardcore character. He got the 59th best hardcore character level 94 died sometime around january 7th then he had this character that we're talking about now which was the number 21st that was level 97 and then he said he has said he had several other hardcore characters who have died now here's what I did this isn't 100 science but just for fun I plugged all that into chat gpt and I said hey chat gbt come up with a schedule for how you could have done this I even said highly dedicated player with optimized strategies that's one thing that chat gpt is pretty good for is coordinating all that and so to do all those things the first farming nine citadels total time 50 to 60 hours if he had several characters and these are optimistic estimates it'd be like 40 hours of gameplay per character that he got anywhere to like 71 now here's another bit of information hun this uh leveling is exponential exponential so I believe the stat I saw is that level 92 is halfway to level 99

1:31:32 Thomas: So to get from 1 to 92 is the same amount of time or experience it takes to get to 92 to 99 and so keep in mind what that means like getting to 71 versus getting to like 94 is like insane he has this hardcore hardcore character to 94 that dies. ChatGPT says 90 to 110 hours on that at least. And then finally, the hardest hardcore character, 120 to 150 hours at least on that. These are estimates that are very, very generous. And so I said, okay, fit that into the timeline. Because again, it's only been a month. He says, okay. December 6th through 11th, that's at least 10 to 12 hours December 12th through 29th, 12 to 14 hours

1:32:05 Lydia: Yeah, I was gonna say it's a new game.

1:32:16 Thomas: A day. And that's the multiple hardcore characters now across maps. December 30th to January 7th, that's 12 to 16 hours a day because that's just dedicated to hardcore. And then January to January 10th is that last little bit that has to be 14 to 16 hours a day so he is average it's got to be at the end it says at least 450 hours across 35 days which would mean 12 to 14 hours aday and this is fucking minimum this is this is I didn't even gather there might be more things he claimed he did these are just like the the main ones I found so the idea whoa 12 to14 hours a Day this game and yet doesn't even know how these basic things work and is doing all the other things he's doing, it's just a joke, man. It's just a joke. So then we get to what happened like today. Apparently there's this streamer called Asmongold and he fucking sucks. This guy sucks so goddamn hard. I, God, let me just, just here's, here's a recent tweet just to give you an idea because Twitter is, we're going to talk about that with this guy. January 7th, Asmogold says, everybody always always talking about hoflation but it's actually the opposite I used to be able to go to game stopper target and see hot bitches

1:32:39 Noah: Yeah jesus

1:32:40 Lydia: This geez oh my god right yeah yeah yeah

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1:33:31 Thomas: Working there every day now it's just hogs why because those girls are at home doing only fans now instead of working you could it like you're a game streamer you're game streamers the thing they're doing is better and harder than what you do you're game stream and then someone replied with a picture of his room hun I was going to show it it to you but we're low on time it's all takeout and fast food cops it's just apparently this guy is notoriously gross and how he lives like he's really really super gross so anyway this guy wasn't calling elon musk out for a while even though he has hours and hours of video content where he called out some girl who pretended that she did a run blindfolded and so when it was some woman online who yeah was lying about a thing but his somebody nobody's heard of doesn't matter matter and pretended to yeah pretended to do a game blindfolded uh he had like five videos of that that were each an hour or something like that uh when it's the richest most powerful person in the world completely lying about a video game that this guy specifically knows and plays he resisted doing

1:33:54 Lydia: Yeah of course weird yeah Yeah. He goes scorched earth. Yeah.

1:34:33 Thomas: Anything about it for a while and then finally it's like too obvious so he has to do something about it this guy has to do his dream he's a fucking trumper he's at whatever he sucks But Elon is such a liar that even this guy is like, yeah, he's lying. And so Asmongold makes a video about Elon lying. That's how bad it is. And then he issues a challenge to Elon. He says, look, if you prove that this is your real character, I will switch to streaming on Twitter or X for a year, which, you know, because we live in the worst fucking timeline, that's a major thing because this guy's a massive streamer.

1:35:06 Thomas: This guy's massively popular streamer fucking. I can't believe we live this world. World. No, I can't believe we live in a world where these people are so popular. And so this is a major like thing, like that would be a huge boon to Elon's new streaming thing he's trying to do on Twitter. And So apparently Elon did interact with them about it a little bit. And this is all like today, today, uh, that challenge was on like the 12th. And then what happened was I wake up to news today when we're about to do this, that Elon Musk has taken away Asmongold's check mark on X and leaked their DMs. Yeah.

1:35:39 Lydia: Leaked their DMS. Wow.

1:35:45 Thomas: Yes. This guy who's the king of free speech, everybody.

1:35:49 Lydia: Whiny baby.

1:35:50 Thomas: So he leaks this because he messaged Asmongold and we don't get the full conversation. But what we see from Elon is that there, maybe he's going to work out like something, like he's gonna try to prove it or something. They seem to be coordinating on maybe doing some content around this bullshit. And so we see, from this guy, Zach is his real name, the Asmogold guy, the shitty guy. He says, says, I'm going to see if my editors might want to make a second account for it even. And Elon says, sure. Who are these mysterious editors? And then Asmon says, two guys, he names their names. They basically run the entire YouTube account, LOL. So it's basically any content I post is edited or uploaded by them and they just get a cut of the ad rev. It's a super good system, to be honest. Almost everyone on YouTube does it. To which Elon replies, interesting. And then Elon, like I said, does all that shit he does and then tries to get out of it. You know how Elon tries to find the first way to like we did with the buying Twitter when he tried to get out of that and he said like, well, too many bots,

1:35:41 Noah: Christ oh my god

1:36:48 Thomas: You know, but it didn't work because he had signed an airtight fucking agreement on that. He tries to say Asmon is being controlled by someone else. He's a fraud. He has these editors who are in charge of what he does. And so I can't work with him. There's no other way to say it. He is beingcontrolled by other people. And he posts his DMs, like think about how big that is to like post the DM with the guy on your fucking platform where you're the free speech warrior and take away his checkmark. The problem is what he's talking about is the fact that this asshole streams on Twitch like most streamers do. He doesn't run the YouTube because that's redundant. It's annoying.

1:37:24 Thomas: Like I've run into this a little. So what he does is he just has someone else run the Youtube part and they grab his Twitch streams, they edit for him and they upload it in exchange for a cut of the ad revenue. Him. That's all that fucking means. It's all it means. And, and Elon's own, you know, when it's Elon getting caught by his own notes, it says readers added context.

1:37:30 Lydia: Right right and upload it there. Yeah Yeah.

1:37:45 Thomas: They thought people might want to know. Elon Musk seems to think Asmongold is an employee with editors overseeing him. That's incorrect. Asmogold's editors are actually his employees. They edit, upload his content for a revenue share. They don't control what he does. And there's another one where it says under Elon's tweet that says, Asmon behaves like a maverick, independent, but in reality, he has to ask his boss for permission before he can do anything. He is not his own man. Readers added context. They thought people might want to know. Asmongold does not have bosses. He employs content editors to package and redistribute content from his live Twitch streams on other platforms such as YouTube. The editors mentioned in the DMs leaked in Elon's follow -up comment are his employees. And there's yet another one that says he's been completely open about this. Here's a link where where he's talked about it on his own stream. And so that's how Elon tries to get out of this, which is just, it's

1:38:06 Lydia: Mr. Business

1:38:39 Thomas: Just a transparent attempt to find the

1:38:40 Lydia: Not understanding a very like basic business approach yeah yeah and

1:38:41 Thomas: First little thing to like disqualify someone and get out this whole thing that he's gotten into. And so the final, it's juste ridiculous. That happened like literally today. And people are really like, I think this might be, look, nothing's gonna take Elon fucking down, but this is a new milestone milestone in terms of the number of people who have seen through Elon Musk. And I think that's very good news.

1:39:06 Lydia: I also do think it's like a segment of the population that we weren't necessarily going to reach in other ways it's kind of that that bro verse of people who are right -wing adjacent at least and into all the tech bros and stuff and and I don't think conventionally we would have been able to reach them

1:39:24 Noah: Yeah well the thing that you have to keep in mind about that group of people is that paradoxically is as quickly as they are or as quick as they are to glom onto whatever idiotic social shit they've been convinced of when it comes to actual video gaming the gaming community brooks very little bullshit rightly so so you compare it to like musicians right like you guys know a bunch of musicians I'm sure and you'll see you'll meet musicians that have like these ridiculous like monster cables or some shit like that where they it's just it's woo right it's like they bought a high -end cable that costs an extra 150 dollars because of woo

1:39:26 Lydia: Otherwise from

1:39:59 Thomas: Yeah, from Tom. Yeah in the 90s and Best Buy or whatever.

1:39:59 Lydia: Tom

1:40:02 Noah: Yeah exactly so but you generally you generally don't see that in the video game world like there was a famously when the sega genesis and the super nintendo were competing sega started advertising that their system had blast processing which was a nonsense term that they just sort of it it means something but it's it's irrelevant to how well the game worked it just sounded good and the video game buying world was just like oh fuck off right like Like, in a way that very few other groups would be, right? So when it comes to lying about video game shit, like, that's something that, like, I hate to say it, but these people are going to take way more seriously than, you know, lying about, you Know, how a woman got her job or whatever, whatever kind of sick shit they tend to revel in. This is one of those things where, like... Not only do they take it seriously, but they take far more seriously than most other people take their hobbies, right. Right. So like this is the cardinal sin of gamerdom is lying about how good a gamer you are.

1:41:04 Thomas: And it's so pointless. I wanted to talk a little bit about like all the friction. So what you see with this stuff, you see it with Trump and you see a lot with Elon Musk is the excuses that their fans make they they sometimes uh when they run out of excuses and explanations which they very quickly did on this there's just no excusing it then they switch tactics and you see a bunch of different tactics that focus on you so like for example in one of the major posts on reddit about this where it's like elon is clearly paying people to play which is against the TOS. And you get a bunch of comments that are like, did you think the richest man in the world was playing himself? Obviously he would be. So then it switches. So that switches from not the focus on Elon. It switches to you. Oh, you thought that he played this. Oh you thought. So it's like all these little ways that these, I don't think they even noticed that they're doing it. It's very childish, but it's all these ways that they switch. Now the focus is on me or whoever for For being dumb enough to think that he was playing, not focusing on, holy shit, this guy is a fraud, the richest guy in the world. And it's not just like a white lie, the blah, blah, like he tried to pull off a stream where he lied about playing a thing he's never, he's played barely at all, knew nothing. Like that's crazy. That's like genuinely psychotic behavior. They'll do anything but fucking reconcile with what that actually means. There's another one that really burned me so much that just, so the main Reddit post that I got a lot of this from that organized some of these things. It's in the Path of Exile 2 subreddit. And a mod, the top comment is, this is a well -sourced and organized post without antagonistic language. This is how to post when there's a controversy about a public figure. Mods will be monitoring the comments. Try to keep the conversation related to Path of exile and or how anyone would have made it to the end game with level 52 gloves. It was just a joke or whatever. To which someone else commented, and that was my first thought, why is there so much worry about policing the language of how you talk about this

1:41:53 Lydia: That's so crazy. Yeah.

1:43:05 Thomas: Thing like this is a part of the asshole internet infrastructure that goes on into propping people that they don't do for women when a woman is accused of something in gaming you don't see the the same oh you would have thought she actually did the thing with a blindfold you idiot like you know like it no it's just this is an awful person exactly

1:43:22 Lydia: Or any concern about how people talk about it. Yeah.

1:43:26 Thomas: It's Just this is an awful Person that obviously and then just be flaming for you know months to where the then the woman has to never go back on the internet but like all this stuff that they think they're being fair but really they're finding every way to bend over backwards to accommodate like Elon's ego and not piss off the entrenched power of the fucking internet you know oh it's a well so it's this is this is how to talk about it no antagonistic language it's just a bunch of nonsense final note and I promise it's final remember when he said he was like the best Quake player in the world at a time? Well, I dug up an interview from four years ago with like the Best Quake Player from that time that happened to talk about that briefly.

1:44:06 Clip: And so, you know, a good buddy of mine Well, actually, I mean, it was funny, like Elon Musk used, you Know, he's known as a huge gamer. We used to play in the same Quake server. Almost every day, I'd see him on. He'd be playing as Zip2 was his username. And a really good buddy of mine he was okay hold on dennis hold on was elon musk any good he was okay uh I I mean it's you could be honest it's no he wasn't right he wasn t he wasn but right now I think the most powerful character in this in the seasonal realm is

1:44:39 Thomas: There you have it. Fitting way to go out.

1:44:43 Lydia: The truth.

1:44:44 Thomas: Yeah, he's one of the best in the world. And then the actual guy who was the best at that time was like, yeah, he was. I mean, I'm sure he was like OK. He was able to play with that guy, I guess. So like Like, he's probably fine. You could just be fine at games, guy. Elon, you could just be okay at games.

1:44:57 Noah: That's the thing is that the bar for entry here is so low. Just the fact that he played games at all was enough for virtually everyone in the gaming world. Right. But of course, it's not just about his weird quest to be a real boy. It's about his queer quest to become a gamer. It's his weird request to be superhuman one.

1:45:12 Thomas: Yep. He has to be a genius. The thing he has been good at is somehow keeping a group of people convinced that he's a genius and I think it's an ever dwindling group, but it's still way too big. I hope we've done our part here to help get the word out about this one. Noah, I'm so sorry I took so much of your time. I want to thank you so much for coming on. I could name all the shows or I could just ask you to do it.

1:45:34 Thomas: That'd be easier. If you want to hear more, Noah, where should they go?

1:45:34 Noah: So check us out wherever you get your podcasts on scathing atheists, god awful movies, D &D minus, the skeptocrat and citation needed

1:45:44 Thomas: Such a pleasure to have you. And I just can't fucking believe I can't. I'll never stop thinking about this. Like, what a bold lie.

1:45:50 Noah: It's so ridiculously sad yeah thanks thanks for the invite it's been a ton of fun to chat

1:45:53 Lydia: Thank you.

1:46:16 Noah: About so much so that you're lying

1:46:22 Clip: Is the Sorcerer with the lightning balls. So the Sorcs have huge balls in the seasonal. Well, yeah, that's what they say. They do, huge balls of lightning.