DOD227: Is Your Kid "Too Online"?

Transcript

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

0:00:02 Clip: I'm the cool dad, that's my thing I know now what I can offer you that no one else can Complete and under-dependent I'm a man, I'm sensitive I need to feel loved, I need part of being a father that I enjoy

0:00:28 Tom: Welcome to Dear Old Dads, the podcast that's logging off and making you listen. I'm Tom Curry. I'm joined as always by Thomas Smith and Eli Bosnick. Hello, gentlemen.

0:00:38 Eli: Greetings, Tom. I am Cyber Dad. Ah, ah, ah. Ah, aah, aaaah. Because we're doing an episode about the internet. Thought I'd keep it thematic.

0:00:45 Tom: We are doing an episode about the internet, yeah.

0:00:47 Thomas: I don't get it but I'm excited yeah

0:00:49 Eli: On the internet, in reinforcement of the internet?

0:00:53 Tom: Okay,

0:00:54 Thomas: I think we should just get rid of the internet I'm I'm I keep saying it yeah

0:00:57 Eli: When we go full Luddite, yes. Yeah.

0:00:58 Tom: Thank you, thank. People are gonna come around to my way of thinking. I'm convinced of this, yeah .

0:01:02 Thomas: Yeah I don'T i'M NOT GONNA COUNT IT AS THAT TOM I 'LL BE HONEST YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN IT'S LIKE IT'S Like A Justified True Belief Thing You Know It'S Like I Don'T I DON'T WANT TO BE ON THE SAME SCENE AS THE SAMe THING AS YOU ON THAT BUT BUT YES ULTIMATELY YOU'RE you're a hundred percent right. Yeah.

0:01:16 Tom: But as long as we get to the same goal, it's fine. Yeah, I don't, you know, I don't really care how you justify getting there. It's fine. But let's just fucking get there. Right.

0:01:24 Eli: As long as the internet dies by the end of it, yeah.

0:01:25 Thomas: We need to kill most of it. It's just, we're done. We're done, what are we doing in society? It's over, the internet has killed it.

0:01:31 Eli: What would the internet have to do for us to be like, I think it's gone too far.

0:01:37 Tom: Yeah. So if you want the internet to die, all you have to do is go to my dad's house. Because in my dad's house, it's fucking dead. Because I love my dad. I do. I love him. I love dad. But the man is 77 years old. When I say the man, he's not tech savvy.

0:01:44 Thomas: How is he 77? You're 77. What the fuck? Fuck.

0:01:55 Eli: That's weird. Yeah.

0:01:55 Tom: That was awkward for him. Yeah.

0:01:56 Eli: It's just like a Who Ate the Smaller Twins situation, I assume?

0:01:58 Tom: Yeah so he calls me up the other day and he tells me this story which is fucking boring but it was long about how comcast pissed him off he had comcast internet and tv and everything I

0:02:13 Thomas: Who would ever tell a story like that on to anybody on this podcast?

0:02:15 Tom: Know on a podcast right extended like so he and I are cut very much from the same cloth so comcast pissed him so now he doesn't care what happens next in his life as long as he gets to turn off comcast forever and he's like you know my dad's whole thing is like he'slike I'm retired I have have nothing better to do with my time than fuck with Comcast now they pissed him off once and now he needs to bury them forever

0:02:32 Thomas: These are the saints that keep our society somewhat going, you know? You know how they say it's actually a real economics thing that like nobody cares about the grocery store prices except for like five people. Because you and I think about if we go to the grocery grocery store, we buy a fucking carrot. I have no goddamn idea how much that is. Unless it was like a hundred dollars. I'd be like, that seems high, but there's actually like a specific economic thing where it's like, yeah, the only people who pay attention enough to complain are like the five Karens of your community who are like, Hey, this cucumber says 63 cents a pound. And it was 61. You know, like you and I would, I don't think would ever fucking notice that in a thousand years.

0:03:18 Tom: Notice it on the micro level but I do notice it when like I go to the grocery store get seven things and I'm like that was $65 what is happening right now

0:03:22 Thomas: It's a good point yeah but then you have to be take another level to like break down the receipt and be like what what

0:03:29 Tom: I can't I can't do that

0:03:29 Thomas: Happened I'm just like Jesus, I guess I fucking bought a car while I was

0:03:32 Eli: Yeah, because you never find the answer. You're never like, oh, I got a Fujitsu apple instead. This is an air conditioner. No, everything's expensive.

0:03:37 Thomas: There yeah oh

0:03:40 Tom: I refuse to take receipts at places like they I won't lift my arms up when they hand them they go to hand me a receipt I just walk away

0:03:49 Thomas: I'm so I would let you get back to your story but I did a bit 10 years ago that is there should be like the dnr tattoo that you get it is there should be a no receipt tattoo that you have. And I want to put it on my wrist that says no receipt, my left wrist. So that when I'm drive through Taco Bell every day, and then I can just raise it and be like, no receipt.

0:03:58 Tom: Yeah I literally I won't take them I just let them yeah you guys don't have the same problem because you're in in better states than I am but I also like I refuse to take a fucking bag unless I'm buying more things than I can carry like I know you guys have to like buy bags out there but I hear they like you go to the store you buy one fucking thing and they're like here they bag it and I'm like I don't want more shit to throw away stop giving me your garbage to throwaway I don't want I want this thing

0:04:30 Eli: Walking out with a single piece of wood like Ben Shapiro.

0:04:32 Tom: Yeah wait what what is the single piece of

0:04:33 Thomas: I forgot about that.

0:04:38 Eli: Do you not know about this?

0:04:38 Tom: Wood with Ben Shapiro no

0:04:40 Eli: God, this rules.

0:04:41 Thomas: It's so good.

0:04:41 Eli: So, Home Depot did something fascist when Trump got elected. They were like, yay, fascism, or they bought him a hat or something. You know that thing they were like occasionally a company that you haven't thought about? Yeah. Well, it's just a company you haven' thought about as like an entity unto itself does something wildly fascist. And you're like, I don't even know how to adjust my head around the idea that like Dunkin' Donuts had a White Lives Matter party at their corporate office. Fuck. Ah. Ah, so I don't get the hash browns. I do get the it's fucking.

0:04:49 Thomas: Oh, is it the owner yeah yeah yeah so fucking true uh

0:05:14 Eli: So, yeah, Home Depot did some fascist bullshit. And to celebrate, Ben Shapiro went and bought a single piece of wood and then took a photo of himself carrying it. It's a single two by four in a plastic bag.

0:05:14 Thomas: So good I remember now yeah it's the best yeah in a plastic bag and

0:05:29 Eli: Yeah, it's the best. Look it up.

0:05:29 Tom: Bag oh

0:05:29 Thomas: I love it too because my my memory of it is his fucking dumb ass dick ass fucking truck that all these fucking losers have is easily double the height of him so I imagine he has to have a little staircase that leads up to his truck cab to get in with his one bag of one piece of wood. But anyway, your dad makes the world go around because he wants to kill Comcast.

0:05:48 Eli: It's the most. It's best.

0:05:51 Tom: So he calls at &t and he gets all new everything from AT&T right so he switches over over his, his TV, his internet, his cell phone services, the whole, his whole life. He switched over to AT&T.

0:06:02 Thomas: I'm going to ask a dumb question. Isn't that the same company? No, they haven't merged? Oh, okay. I thought they did.

0:06:04 Tom: No, they're very different companies. Yeah, no. But the problem is that they just send him a box.

0:06:09 Eli: Oh, if you're listening to this in the archive, there used to be multiple companies. Sorry. Sorry. Go ahead, Tom. I just didn't want to. People are going to be like, what are they talking about? About disneytron 3000 oh

0:06:18 Tom: Right. So my dad is very pleased with himself until he discovers that they just sent him a big box full of the internet. Right? And he has no idea how to connect any of of this stuff. So he's got a new modem slash router. He's got a SIM card for his phone. And he's got a set of instructions. And He's in a fucking full -blown panic. He has no idea what to do. So He calls me up and He's like, hey, how soon can you get here and help me with all this stuff? Now the problem is I then have to look at my calendar. He calls me on a Wednesday. And I'm like, I can be there Tuesday morning. And there's a long pause. And you can tell that that's not the answer he was looking for, but like, I'm real fucking busy. And even Tuesday morning's a bit of a stretch. So this was last week. So I was like, well, let me do this. Let me send Donovan out there. Donovan owes me. I bought him a computer. He owes me some, some chores to repay me on that computer. So I'm like, Hey, go to my dad's house, hook up his entire digital life. And like, we'll call it even.

0:07:15 Thomas: Love how Tom's like, I'm anti-internet. Anyway, I am getting everyone I know hooked into the fucking interweb in different ways.

0:07:20 Tom: I know, I know. I don't know. So Donovan goes out there and he spends, you know, however much time he spends there. I Don't think it was all that long. And he connects all of my My dad's shit and I don't have to do it. And everything is good, right? So like Donovan worked off his debt. My dad is happy. Everything is good until yesterday. He calls me up and he says, I don' t know what to do. I'm like, well, what's wrong? So my dad has like Alexa smart plugs and they're not working. Like none of his like Alexa Smart Plug things are working. And he's like, can you come help? You were going to come. He called me yesterday and today is Tuesday. He's like can you still come tomorrow morning and help me? And I'm, like, fuck. And on my head I'm , like, fucking not really. Really? Now I have a ton. But yeah, sure. Like I'll do it.

0:08:00 Tom: Cause like my dad also, he can't get around real well. He uses the, the Alexa smart plugs to like turn things on and off. And otherwise he doesn't have to like bend down and like turn them on off.

0:08:07 Thomas: Oh, yeah. Doesn't he famously, didn't he invent a gadget to get out of his bed or something? What the fuck was that

0:08:11 Tom: He invented stuff after he had his hip surgery to put his clothes on for himself. Yeah. He went out to the garage before his hip injury and made a bunch of like woodworking shit to like help him get his like socks and shoes and shit on.

0:08:15 Thomas: Uh, Eli, are you still there? I need you.

0:08:25 Eli: I'm here no no no I'm here

0:08:26 Thomas: He's so we have to imagine tom's dad in a woodworking fucking set it's all wood too it's not machinery it's like tony stark it's tony bark I don't know walnut

0:08:32 Eli: Yeah raw wood not sanded not primed

0:08:35 Tom: No, it's all. That's the funny thing is if my dad makes even like like a little like tool to like grip his sock and like put his it is like it'll look nice yeah it like seriously it'll work so when When he dies there's gonna be all these fucking wooden widgets that are like built for a specific purpose that no one's gonna know what they are yeah they're just gonna be like I don't know that's I don'T

0:08:47 Thomas: That's awesome oh that rules

0:08:50 Eli: That no one will know yeah because you guys never talk you haven't had even one conversation

0:08:55 Thomas: Yeah yeah you'll have it in your house and at night it'll it'll come alive

0:08:59 Eli: You could go to his house and have him walk you through the widgets

0:09:02 Tom: NEED THEM FOR ANYTHING ELI

0:09:03 Eli: Yeah you don't need him that's fine

0:09:03 Tom: THEY'RE FIREWOOD FOR ME FIRE WOOD FOR ME

0:09:06 Eli: What are you gonna do miss him no

0:09:08 Tom: I'LL TAKE A BOOK CASE I DON'T NEED A WIDGET TO PUT ON MY SOCK MAN man.

0:09:11 Eli: It's cool my dad didn't tell me about anything either and now whenever I need to put an air conditioner in my house. I hire a task rabbit. So it's fucking great. I love bringing a full grown adult younger than me into my home to put three screws into a windowsill. Hell yeah. Independence. It's going awesome. I am so surprised.

0:09:32 Eli: I don't want to interrupt your story, but I am so surprised your father is still speaking to you. When You told me, you said, I can't be there until next Tuesday. I was so certain you were going to say, and he has not spoken to me since.

0:09:33 Tom: No, no. Yeah. Yeah, I am. Why?

0:09:45 Eli: And this was going to be the beginning?

0:09:45 Thomas: Kidding

0:09:45 Tom: No, no. He would never get, if I just told him like, Dad, I can't do it. He would be, he would never presume on my time. So like my dad doesn't presume ever that somebody is required to help him just because he asked. Yeah.

0:09:52 Thomas: Yeah let's see I knew that I listened to the show unlike eli just kidding

0:09:59 Tom: There's no way. Like if I was like, Dad, I can't make it down. I just can't help. I don't know what to tell you. And then I didn't solve the problem for him he'd be like Well, I guess Tom can't help And then he would figure something else out yeah he'd build a wooden internet is what he would do he'd go out to the garage he'd built the internet out of walnut and sand it and prime it and it would be beautifully stained it would be a gorgeous

0:10:08 Thomas: Time to build another wooden companion canyon. Ooh, I mean, that's what we need to replace the internet with. Okay. I like that.

0:10:20 Tom: So I was like fuck all right I gotta help him because like his back's all fucked up and he's otherwise gonna like be bending and twisting to turn shit on and off I'm like I would go out and help him so and like he lives an hour away so it's not like I pop over there for an hour. It's like I need three hours to help him for an hour. And I don't have three extra hours in my day. So I get Eamon off to school. I jump in the car right away. I drive over to my dad's house. I sit down. He's like, all right, I got a couple of things you need to help me with. He said, I can't get my laptop to connect to the internet.

0:10:51 Thomas: That should be easy.

0:10:51 Tom: So I'm like, okay, let me see what's going on. I open up his laptop and I was like, oh, well, you have to put in your password for your Wi-Fi.

0:10:56 Thomas: You put an actual router in your house, like the woodworking kind instead. Yeah.

0:11:01 Tom: He's got an actual Dad, you're trying to connect your laptop to a biscuit joiner that's not, it's not gonna thing yeah so I put his password in and immediately connects like it immediately connects he's so impressed he picks up the phone he calls Lynn and he's like dig it's already on you I was like I'm feeling like a fucking superhero in this moment right I'm like fucking a like I am fucking straight hashtag crushing it right now this is great Right. So I'm like, yeah, let me have these smart plugs. Look at this. Look at this shit set up. Well, maybe we can go out and have breakfast. Like I got this, I got this all day long. I've got, but I'm on the clock. Cause I got to come back here and record the show. Right.

0:11:11 Eli: It because there's a bite taken out of it? I love briskets. Hell yeah.

0:11:41 Eli: Maybe you can ask me what I do for a living.

0:11:43 Tom: So, so I have, I have 90 minutes. That's the amount of time I have to fix this problem. And I have a lot of time to do it. And then I have to leave to drive home to do this show. So I'm like the fucking smart plugs will not goddamn connect. So, I look it up and I'm like, all right, well, his, his new router is broadcasting a five gigahertz signal. These need to be on a 2 .4. I got to go into his router and create a 2 ,4 gigahertz channel right on his router. And then this should all just work. So I do that, which by the way, I don't know how to do that. So, I'm just figuring this out on the fly, like, but it's not that complicated.

0:12:14 Thomas: We'll chat GPT. Yeah? Yeah.

0:12:16 Eli: There's so many things that are bad about that process. First of all, why does that need to happen for fans but not computers?

0:12:24 Tom: Thank you.

0:12:24 Eli: I've never once read anything anywhere that explains why there's half the gigahertz required for a smart air conditioner than there are for a motherfucking iPhone. The second disturbing thing about that process is that that's when you realize that all Wi-Fi router settings are accessed by logging onto that router and then going to Wi -FI router settings dot com. And like, yeah, they make you enter something on the back of your router, but just everything is on the fucking Space Jam website for arranging your router around.

0:12:53 Tom: Yeah, man. I know. Like I, I have no idea how to do this, but I'm like, well, I mean, the internet will just tell me. So. I just look it up and I go in and I fucking and fuss with it for a little while. I figured it out. I created 2.4 gigahertz network. It still doesn't work. And I'm like, oh, fuck. That's because all of his Amazon Echoes or whatever around his house are all on the five gigahertz channel. They're on the other channel, right? So everything has to be on the same channel. He's got six of them in the house, right.

0:13:20 Tom: And he's got five gigas. He's got six of them. Well, because everywhere he goes, he fell one time and broke his back.

0:13:19 Thomas: Why does he? Okay. Oh, that's right. Sorry.

0:13:27 Tom: So he uses them as like an oh shit, right, so everywhere he's at in the house, He needs to be able to yell out for help.

0:13:33 Eli: Alexa, tell my son I love him.

0:13:33 Tom: Like, cause he, so I have to go around and I've got to like restart and like put them all in pairing mode and like reconnect them all. And like, it's a whole thing. I get all six of these things. And then I'm like, okay. Then I restart everything over again. I restart the router and I'm like, okay, should work. This should work, none of them fucking work. Not one of those motherfucking things work, but my 90 minutes is up. That's it. And I'm like, well, I didn't fix the problem, dad, but now you have another network in your house called, you know, his initials 2.4. I'm, like, and I gotta go. And, like. That's it.

0:14:11 Tom: So, like I went over to his house for, like elderly guy tech support. All I did was get his laptop connected by entering his fucking password into his Wi -Fi and none of the rest of it is fixed. I want to say, though, like being tech support for your family, being tech support is like fucking exhausting for these goddamn consumer

0:14:19 Thomas: Well he made things different oh

0:14:30 Tom: Products because they just suck. And everybody's like, assumes that you know how to, I don't use these devices. I don't use any of these things. And he's like Oh, you don't, you don'T have these yourself? I'm like No.

0:14:41 Eli: Oh, I love being tech support for boomers and above. Above but gen x and below is a nightmare boomers

0:14:48 Tom: Oh my god. Why do you have to be tech support for them?

0:14:51 Eli: And above, you did a magic spell right when you hook a boomer, I don't know if you have put a smart frame up for an elderly family member and explain that the amount of pictures inside is infinity they're like right they fuck their heads explode like scanners but the other generations fucking suck millennials lie and pretend they know how to do it and it works differently uh for some reason but they actually knew how to do that they were great and they totally would have done it without you but gen x says that it was broken right so you have to start from the insane lie that it was broken and then work around you haveと do like a weird reverse psychology where you're like oh here it is the plug was loose and they're like yeah yeah the plug WAS LOOSE I'M 40 and you're like you are 40 that's right the plug WAS LOOSE then the Xennials the XENNIALS are like Like, return it. Like, they just want to gently paw at every object in their life. And if it doesn't work on the first try, I'll give you a hundred percent real example. One of my students in this first couple of weeks of college came in and she was like, my phone is broken. And she was really upset. And I was like oh, I'm so sorry to hear that. What happened? She was like it was running low on battery and it shut off.

0:14:53 Tom: Right, yeah, that is. 47.

0:16:02 Thomas: Funny

0:16:03 Eli: And I'm like okay, well it's not broken. It's just out of battery. And she looked at me like I said, give me a little kiss. Yes, like the level of betrayal with which she looked at me, 100%, 100%. So yeah, I'm all for being tech support for boomers, but boomers and boomers only when I can be the wizard of Miracle.

0:16:05 Tom: Broken What, well

0:16:11 Thomas: Way that's real oh

0:16:27 Tom: That's why I felt so good when I got his laptop connected right I was like hell yeah I'm like I'm fucking son of the year right now or whatever but then I like I hate being so perpetually like under the gun and on the clock that I like I drive out there because the thing is like I have three and a half hours but he lives a fucking hour away so two hours are burned up and I don't have four hours over the phone oh no no no it will never happen

0:16:39 Thomas: Yeah that's the real problem yeah and you can't try try to talk him through it on the phone that's impossible yeah yeah

0:16:56 Tom: It will he's gonna buy and I'll tell you what he's going to do he is going to buy all new smart plugs

0:17:00 Thomas: Uh and that won't do anything

0:17:00 Tom: That is what he's gonna do next and then he's gonna plug them in and they won't work because I don't know why these don't work and I have no way to fucking problem solve it because there's no time for it and then the poor guy is gonna be just like dottering around the house down on the floor plugging shit in until I can get out there again in a week like it really sucks

0:17:18 Eli: Oh, Alexa, I can't get up. Alexa, oh, Alexa.

0:17:21 Tom: For real though it's like a real problem like he needs a chair a special chair that like helps him stand but he's also like yeah so fucking parents that get

0:17:27 Thomas: Start building out of wood oh

0:17:30 Eli: A giant squeak of hinges as he rises to his feet. But gentlemen, do you know the only thing worse than being tech support for your families? Why it's the auto ads yes we've been talking yes that's right we've been talking for a few minutes now so you've probably heard seven eight fifty

0:17:33 Thomas: Man, no

0:17:42 Tom: Old the auto ads yeah that's the auto ad

0:17:48 Thomas: This is the first fucking break

0:17:48 Eli: Seven auto ads at this point but you can make those go away you can make them all go away you make everything go away over at patreon.com forward slash Dear Old Dads where for as little as a dollar a show you'll get a commercial free extended version of every single episode little parenting story at the end plus behind the scenes bonus extras and our new patron level Guess when the Smiths will put up the bonus episode? Ooh!

0:18:12 Eli: You could win a different prize every month at patreon.com forward slash Dear Old Dads. Rip into it!

0:18:15 Thomas: Went up right on time last time it's right when we said in the schedule

0:18:17 Tom: Yeah all right so

0:18:27 Ad: [Ad break 1 — ad music]

0:18:29 Tom: I wanted to talk about perpetually online kids a little bit because I think with recent and historical examples of shit that has gone down over the last few days since we've a week since we last recorded a lot of what's come out is that the a lot the violence and a lot people that are becoming sort of you know know radicalized into a worldview that then leads to violence one of the things that they seem to have in common is being perpetually online I

0:18:55 Thomas: The leftist professors that are doing it which is what they literally our government's position is that it's leftist professors you know how to leftist

0:19:00 Tom: Know

0:19:03 Eli: Is that what the vice president said? I

0:19:05 Thomas: Professors have a terrorist cell at the college and they train them in weapons.

0:19:08 Tom: It's jesus christ I know I know I know

0:19:11 Thomas: That's legitimately what they're saying. Anyway, that's not real.

0:19:13 Eli: Can't even get leftist professors to agree on a refilling the K -cups position, let alone a terrorist cell. I can speak from experience to tell you, you just run out of K -Cups after the first couple of weeks of school. It's the wild, wild west out there.

0:19:17 Tom: But like I really do I've been thinking about like what does this mean for for parents like Like what what responsibilities are created? Because when I read all these stories about these people who are, you know, engaging in these different kinds of violence, one of the things that they seem to have in common very often is that they are really, really online.

0:19:45 Tom: And I've been thinking about this a lot. And I know that I have predilections against the online spaces and all that. I promise I'm not going to rehash the same talking points, but

0:19:52 Eli: I know Eli has a tendency to make a joke that most people would consider slightly off -color, but...

0:19:56 Tom: I probably won't be the same. So I have different talking points this time. But like there's a real worry that we should have as parents if we have these sort of like perpetually online kids, these two online kids. I think it's something that we have a responsibility as parents to help manage our kids out of. And I think if we don't do it, we are really, really going to hurt those kids. Like if we have kids that are these like perpetually online, constantly involved in the culture of the Internet, and that is the culture that they sort of take with them into real life. And that's really where I think that like dividing line oftentimes is or they cease to be able to function socially in real life and in ways that make sense and in waves that are reasonable. Reasonable. Like my first thought when I was reading this is like, man, if I would literally turn off the electricity to my kid's room and throw their phone away and get them a fucking dial up brick phone thing, you know?

0:20:57 Thomas: I would call Eli and be like, all right, it's time. Set up all this stuff. And Eli would be like I already have it ready labeled with you know Arlo's name on it or something

0:21:01 Tom: Yeah. I seriously, though, I

0:21:02 Eli: It's time to come on over and turn off the internet. Right.

0:21:09 Tom: Would take radical action, radical action. Even if I didn't think that there was violence going on, even if I just thought my kid is too online and they are losing their ability to connect and socialize and have in real real life experiences. You know, I've gotten a lot of pushback before from my sort of like disdain of online life. And I get that. Like, I know a lot of people really, really have genuinely meaningful experiences and friendships online because I don't. I think I have a worldview on that that may be less charitable than it should be. But one of the things that I was thinking about is that we as parents have lived a life where we have had a combination of in real life social experiences and online social experiences. And I'm looking at my kids now and so much of their life can now be lived online. And I think one of the things that we as adults have done is that like when me as a man who's in his forties, when I go online and I socialize with people online, what I'm doing is I'm bringing an established set of social norms that I developed in real Life And I'm bringing them into online spaces and

0:22:16 Tom: I'm communicating with people and I think this isn't so bad. Why is Tom so mad about this? This is perfectly reasonable. But I do see this internet culture and kids and some of the people that are peers of some of my older kids and what they're doing is the opposite. Opposite they are having mostly online experiences and building an online set of social norms and social interactions and then they're trying to bring those into the real world and it doesn't work well

0:22:45 Thomas: Okay old man curry here's the problem is there's not one online there's no one like uh yeah no no no I I uh I think that it's important because the people who

0:22:51 Tom: No I know I'm I have to generalize to have a conversation

0:22:58 Eli: Tom is picturing an AOL chat

0:23:00 Thomas: Are yeah the first off you type in access mainframe and And then it's like, boop, enhance. And then, no, because there's two different problems. And I actually do want to know kind of what you're wanting to talk about, because when it comes to the radicalization, which is a huge fucking problem, it's one of my

0:23:00 Eli: Room from 1992. ASL. I don't even speak Spanish. Spanish.

0:23:20 Thomas: Biggest worries. I don't, I don'T worry about my kids per se. I mean, I kind of do, but it's, it doesn't matter. One of the most horrifying things, the, like I missed the days when terrorism had a point, you know, when they took down those towers, at least they had his fucking something to say, you know? At least yeah yeah I

0:23:34 Eli: I was going to say, I miss 9 -11 is a hell of a take. And I can't believe it didn't come from me, Thomas Smith.

0:23:42 Thomas: Was thinking the other day on the anniversary no there's nothing worse like truly just uh not talking in any specifics but like in general if you were like well do you want to live in a world where people are doing terrorism to achieve like a political end that they believe in or same amount of terrorism let's say hypothetical do you Want to Live in a World where that terrorism is amoral ironic nazi nothing they don't believe in anything they're writing memes on their bullets just just to fucking die and kill people the first one is I can I can wrap my mind around being radicalized for like some sort of fucking purpose but the horror of these male almost always white male killers who are on the 4chan 8chan type things and they're doing it it all because the currency they live in is ironic terror just being awful like ironic identity being as horrible as you can and therefore it's like a meme for them to shoot people sometimes like kids and stuff that's the most horrifying thing that I think exists on our planet there's it's

0:24:44 Tom: I I completely agree with that I I think that that's very much in line with what I was saying Yeah,

0:24:47 Thomas: Oh so uh sorry so to get to the clarification I think there's two things that that I hear in what you're saying that I wanted to differentiate there's one which is just socializing and I do do think that there is a conversation to be had about like learning to socialize on the internet versus in person. I think that's a whole different thing from these radicalized spaces, which are a very specific part of the internet. And I think, you know, obviously it's not like a clean cut thing. I mean, I think you can, one can lead to the other, but I think it's pretty distinct. Like, I thinkthat's why often people have a certain reaction to what you're saying. Ithink you acknowledge that, that you're speaking broadly, because there's a big difference between, between yeah I have people on the internet I talk to like on facebook or something and oh yeah I'm in the 4chan and all I do is post ironic fucking genocide memes like those are very different things

0:25:37 Tom: But I will. I'll push on that a little bit because I was really thinking about why. Why is that? Why is there this disconnect? And I think part of the reason I think that there is a disconnect is that having a conversation with your buddy on on fucking Facebook Messenger, that's what we're doing at our age. Living your life where your social experiences and your entertainment experiences and to some degree educational experiences are entirely online. It's part of what leads you into that path of like, well, yeah, I'm in Reddit and then I'm bopping down these different parts of Reddit that start to get dark and these other areas. The path to radicalization really, I think, starts from having a world that is almost entirely online and devoid of the friction. And this is, I think, the big deal for me. When we have in real life experiences, they are fraught with friction constantly, right? We are butting up against friction all the time. We are budding up against the friction of other people's feelings, their responses in person with physicality to what we say, the look on their face, their body language. We have friction in in real life experiences. When we're online, we simply seek out places that have less friction. We find places where most of the people agree with us because that's more fun, because these are my community. These are my people. These Are My Guys. And we develop these friction -free worlds that then create a vocabulary and a language and a worldview. And this is how we end up with incels. And This Is How We End Up With The Radicalization Of The Right -Wing Nutjobs That that shoot up the schools, because all of that is exactly what you're describing. It's the memification of your life, because it doesn't have to be serious, because there's never anybody holding you to account for what you say.

0:25:54 Thomas: Eli help me out here I feel like those ARE TWO VASTLY DIFFERENT I think I feel LIKE THIS FEELS TO ME LIKE POT IS THE GATEWAY DRUG TO FUCKING CRACK THAT'S WHAT THIS FEels LIKE TO

0:27:36 Tom: I'm not saying that any online space, I want to be very clear. I am not saying any online activity is a gateway to radicalization. So if that's what you're hearing, that's not what I'm saying. What I'm seeing is that if the majority of your lived experiences online, the likelihood of you becoming radicalized in some way, radicalized to be an MRA nut, radicalize to be ultra right, radicalised in any really in any direction. It narrows your worldview. I think it narrows Your worldview really dramatically. And that is what leads it. So I'm not talking about just spending time online. So if that's what you're hearing that's literally not what I'm saying

0:28:03 Eli: Send me mean emails about my very funny jokes. There are all sorts of ways to be a terrorist. Ooh.

0:28:15 Thomas: ME no I I yeah I mean I'm genuinely trying to understand the difference between what I said and what you're saying. I think you're looking at it as a difference between, and genuinely, I'm trying to represent it accurately. So let me know if I'm getting you right. It seems like you're say there's a difference the quantity of time and stuff you're doing online versus we have kind of a background of we've learned to socialize in person kind of thing versus our kids maybe have spent much more of their lives online. And the distinction I'm making is It's just purely like there's something broken in a certain percentage of mainly our male youth that leads them to very dark places that is a such a different thing. And I look at it as you could spend all day on on certain whatever you want. And there's there's bad things about it. Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying it's good. But you could spend all day on Instagram, all day on other apps, TikTok and never go anywhere near the kind of nihilistic terror bullshit that we're talking about because qualitatively it's different things that you're doing online and I think that's vastly different to me. So I think that's the distinction I'm trying to make.

0:29:29 Eli: Okay. So maybe I'm going to hit the middle of the fucking bracket here with the three bears, because I think Thomas's point, which I'm taking right now is very interesting that there's like this one really big internet problem. And unsolvable, that big internet problem, right? Which is that there are just websites that shouldn't exist. And there's like nine guys and two politicians are the reasons they exist, right? Like there's a chicken farmer who, if someone murdered that guy, the next 11 mass shootings of children wouldn't happen. And that's weird. It's weird to live in that world. If I was reading a comic book where that was the case and Batman didn't throw a batarang into his eye, I'd be like oh this is a lame series of Batman right so I think that's really interesting where I'm gonna get I'm going to be like halfway between Tom and Thomas I think is that I actually think no matter how harmless the interaction is right because I do think there are relatively harmless places of the internet but I'm noticing this even with like Max watching YouTube I think it is It is impossible to stay on any part of the internet without at least having seeds planted to bring you into that dark part of the web.

0:30:45 Thomas: Well, I might agree with that, yeah.

0:30:46 Tom: I agree with that completely I'm not saying that everybody who spends time online is going to be radicalized so I want to be clear like most people are not going tobe radicalized but I am saying that like if you are spending I think that likeif the majority of your social life and social experiences which is what is being described by a lot of these these shooters right so they're having the majority of their social experiences, the most important parts of their social experiences are formatively online. I think that's a net negative 100 % for that person. I don't think that that can be done in a way that is going to shield you from seeing some awful, awful shit that I just don't thing as people we're programmed really well to deal with. I'm just convinced of that. I just dont believe that there is any way anybody is going to sell me that if I have the majority of my formative social experiences and the most important social experiences and both of those things, right? And that's the important part. That's the distinction I make between a lot of people who, yeah, they like the internet. That'S fine. They're going to go online and make some friends. That' s an important part of their life. But they didn't form their social experiences, social norms, their expectations in that space when we form our social expectations in that space it's trying to say like yeah when I drive driving is an experience that I think is is almost interestingly analogous if I drive there are people who will like flip you off and scream at you and have road rage that doesn't happen in person right it doesn't have it in person because there's a distance in the car that gives people A different set of social norms and a different set of expectations around violence and a different set of expectations around like what is an appropriate way to talk to other people. It doesn't happen one -on -one with

0:30:59 Eli: Sometimes you've just done way too many letters and fished them.

0:32:40 Tom: People. Road rage is different because that distance is bad for us. And what I'm saying is the distance that the internet necessarily creates between the physicality of one person and the physicality of another person reduces friction enough that that I think it is inherently bad to form your social self there.

0:33:05 Ad: [Ad break 2 — ad music]

0:33:06 Eli: Tom, let me hit you with an even spicier take, right? Which kind of agrees but also wildly disagrees because I think that is not true of the younger generation. I think Xennials, younger than millennials generation, that's not a problem at all. What I see in my high school students and my college students, kids who entirely were raised by iPads and the Internet, is that they are way woker, way more connected, way More Sensitive. I think it's a telephone addiction problem. So you guys know about telephone addiction in the 60s and 70s?

0:33:12 Thomas: Ah go

0:33:39 Tom: Tell me.

0:33:40 Eli: So 60s and 70s, when the telephone first becomes like in every house and not just a sometimes food, there was a real phenomenon of mostly teenage girls. Girls, but it could be everybody, getting addicted to the phone, right? Girls would talk on the phone for hours at a time. You're tying up the phone lines. And you actually see this depicted in popular media of the time. When you go back and watch like Bye Bye Birdie or one of those other musicals that very explicitly condone rape, you're like, yeah, exactly. Yeah. There'll just be like a moment

0:33:39 Thomas: Ahead hmm yeah hi nancy hi helen

0:34:11 Eli: Where it's like, well, she's got me on the phones so much. We ain't made a phone call oh, wait, right. Like it was this understood thing because a new technology tends to break the brains of a generation that adopts it. I think it is not an inherent thing of the internet because I look at my young students and they are for the, and again, I work with arts kids. I work with state college kids. So, you know, take all of my opinions with a grain of salt because I am dealing with a very specific population, but I think It's not a nature of the Internet. I and Gen X were irrevocably damaged by the internet and yeah

0:34:49 Thomas: Well the shooter is 22 so this latest one so I yeah I don't know

0:34:53 Eli: I can talk about the shooter in a second because I actually think that's a different phenomenon but I think the idea of like the internet taking over your life I think that is a thing that is exclusively going to happen to Gen X and Millennials I think we will see very little of that in Xennials

0:35:06 Tom: It didn't. No. Yeah, I would push back hard on that. I think, no, I'm going to take that. I'm gonna push back pretty hard on That. I, I think that's just not the case.

0:35:14 Eli: You said you were taking it back you son of a bitch you just said it again

0:35:17 Thomas: Interesting take that

0:35:20 Tom: I just think that that's objectively not the I don't think that you can say that this is a Gen X and millennial problem,

0:35:27 Eli: Say whatever I want to

0:35:27 Tom: I'm looking at, yeah, I just completely disagree with that.

0:35:31 Thomas: Back it's Eli he'll sell you

0:35:33 Tom: You've got people who are not in that age bracket who are being described as perpetually online. I just watched a documentary, I'll give you another example. I just watched a documentary last week about incel culture in Britain. And it was a pretty interesting documentary. All of the people they were talking to, these were not millennials. These were younger. These were the generation that, what is the Xennials? Is that what's after the millennials?

0:36:00 Eli: Say yeah gen

0:36:00 Thomas: Anything or is it Gen Z is the same thing right oh is it in between them

0:36:03 Tom: No, that answer. Anyway, the Gen Z. Yeah. Anyway, these weren't millennials. They were definitely not millennials like millennials are, are not in their twenties. These are people in their twenties and these people are absolutely living their entire lives. They're living their whole of their lives online in these black pill, red pill spaces. It's a problem.

0:36:03 Eli: Z

0:36:24 Thomas: No that's the key

0:36:25 Eli: Uh gen z is the is the line between z and millennials yeah yeah so that brings me to to what I think is interesting right so I think it's not about being online I think that being online is it's one thing right I think it can be incredibly positive and I actually think there are ways in which being entirely online is probably wildly helpful for certain groups Right. Like I imagine. And again, I'm not part of any group that it's ever been hard to be. Oh, no, I was Jewish. I'm Jewish. OK, never mind. Ah, gotcha. Check your privilege. Beginning of the sentence me. But it's been pretty cash money to be me in every space ever. That said I think that you could probably if you're trans or

0:36:26 Thomas: That's that's the part yeah I was just what happened do you have a procedure

0:37:07 Eli: Queer right you can probably have a much more cash money existence in gay don't mississippi than you could have in the time before the internet what I think is interesting and this is where I think the conversation about the shooters and these young men and this next generation comes from I think the next yeah I actually do would you like a

0:37:23 Thomas: Or the next shooter you know the next one oh okay Okay.

0:37:27 Eli: Prediction about the next shooter I'll give you a prediction about the next 27 shooters Yeah, exactly It will not be a radical leftist professor No, so I think what we're seeing in this generation is these seeds planted all over the internet that by definition go off and entrap a small percentage of our population and turn them into terrorists into literal terrorists Is

0:37:30 Thomas: Let me guess. It also won't be somebody on the left again. Yeah.

0:37:54 Tom: Say but I'll I'll take a step back away from because I don't want to actually focus the entire conversation only on radicalizing people into violence like I

0:37:59 Eli: It because I'm on your lap? It's because I'M ON YOUR LAP

0:38:03 Tom: Think being for a perpetually online kid so we're we're all we're talking about this in the in terms of parenting being a perpetually online kid I'm saying it's bad for you like full stop it's bad for you and like it's bad for because it radicalizes and creates violence but yeah the vast majority of kids

0:38:14 Thomas: Yeah. I think we need to find a truce.

0:38:20 Tom: Right. So I'm I want to set aside those people because I think we all agree that like that is bad.

0:38:26 Thomas: Yeah, oh, okay. We'll have to take a show vote of bears because I was going to say almost the opposite thing, which is why don't we agree to disagree on that? I think I'm coming down pretty firm on it's not about the quantity of time and living your life on the internet. Lydia could spend any amount of time on the Internet. She's not having that problem it's about okay phoebe it doesn't matter like they're not going to turn how many of these of these shooters are women

0:38:44 Tom: Lydia is not a young person.

0:38:48 Eli: Wow get him thomas get him

0:38:51 Thomas: Like how many there's a reason that like there's more going on than just it's a time online thing and and I I was going to say I kind of want to talk about the radicalization thing and what what is that extra ingredient and we can kind of agree to disagree on the uh you know if we set our positions on the quantity versus quality like what would we We do, I guess, if we saw any hints of anything like that kind of behavior in our in our kids and our boys, because that could be a major. Like we all have kids in, you know, the school shooter demographic. Right. I mean, we can all agree we have we have some budding school shooters that we're all raising.

0:39:29 Thomas: Sorry. And so that's where I wanted to go.

0:39:30 Eli: Some of us with better aim than others

0:39:35 Thomas: That's where I wanted to get with it. But if you're wanting to talk about just like socializing online, we can take a three bears vote on that. I don't know, Eli, what do you think? What do you want to do?

0:39:43 Eli: I'm fine to just wander in and out of the punch when are we fucking staying on task I won't be held to a fucking topic you cook tell me to have an organized conversation with thought and reason oh I'd like us to stay on task I'll talk for 20 minutes about italian food if I want to thomas this how dare you

0:40:00 Thomas: I really want to get your thoughts on that because I think you actually know more about this than Tom and I. And I think that like there's some some ingredient, there's something that I think is some fucking ingredient that leads mostly younger men, white men, mainly not always, but pretty much mainly down this this path. And I don'T know. That's the part I was hoping we could try to get at. It's this disaffected bullshit. It's just what I don't know what it is.

0:40:23 Tom: Gonna push briefly and then I know you want to go down this path a lot but like

0:40:26 Eli: I do want to go down this path

0:40:27 Tom: I think that this is just as bad for women they just behave differently in terms of the way I think I think the tendency is for women who become you know radicalized in some way is to internalize rather than externalize that violence

0:40:40 Eli: To start trad wife tiktoks yeah

0:40:42 Tom: Well I mean no but like there's there's huge like pro-anorexia groups, for example, right? That stuff doesn't happen from a casual acquaintance with the internet. Women absolutely find dark places online that hurt them. So like, that's why I don't want to focus the conversation entirely on the externalized violence of a radicalized shooter. There are so many ways that like spending time on the internet in that kind of quantity during the the most formative years of your social life, I think leads you down a path that is just bad for you. And maybe it'll be a level three bad for you instead of a level fucking 11 bad for you like you're a fucking school shooter. I don't think most kids are obviously going to turn into school shooters, but I think that there are people who are going to, if they're spending huge amounts of time online, they're going to be less socially adept with their peers. They're going to be left socially comfortable going out into the real world where it's going to matter if they They have to do something like a job interview or they're going to have to like go out and meet somebody in real life and they're going to be less adept at doing it or they'RE going to find spaces online that reinforce some of the darkest parts of their insecurities. I think that that's a real issue, I guess, as a parent to watch for.

0:41:57 Eli: I think that thomas is spot on with the pot is a gateway drug to crack metaphor I think what I was confused about and I'm not saying thomas was confused About this though I do like sometimes when I say my bad opinion on this show they're just like that's what eli and thomas thought because it lowers thomas's iq by about 100 points it makes me very happy but so I think What I was Confused is that you were saying pot leads to crack right that all these online interactions because you'll be a little bit less adept like you will eventually end up at on the scale from 3 to 11 you will end up at mass shooter and

0:42:14 Tom: That's not true. No, no. I just think it's bad for you. Yes.

0:42:42 Eli: And I think I think the pot to crack metaphor is good because like you ever know a pothead who doesn't know that they speak nonsensically when they're high yeah that's how I feel about perpetually online get like people talk to me about italian brain And I'm like, yeah, this is bad, but it's only pot bad. You know what I'm saying? When someone's like, you're not aware of unga funga manga doonda or someone has like a TikTok hippo I haven't heard of. Terrible example. All the TikTok hippos. I've heard of them, obviously. But I do think there is something interesting. And I am now realizing retrospectively why Thomas wanted to focus the conversation. Will I let him do it? Absolutely not. But I do think there is something particular about that level 11 that is its own phenomenon that is not being talked about. And more importantly, is not Being talked about by trusted sources that I think is fascinating, right? Like, whether or not being perpetually online makes you worse in person, it's tough for me to say, especially as someone who I think Is definitely perpetually on line and had to do like a bunch of mental patient, you know, cutting myself off from the internet because of how bad it was for my mental health. But this notion that there is this tapped series of online landmines waiting for young disaffected men and that nobody anywhere is interested in doing anything about it, that is bizarre to me, right? Like, again, I can't emphasize enough how easy these websites are to take down, how easy it is to

0:44:07 Eli: Fix these problems, right. Right? Just like the most exaggerated problems you could make up, right? Roblox kicking a guy who catches pedophiles off of RobloX instead of the actual pedophils is the sentence I would make up to try and come up with an... Right. Yeah.

0:44:20 Thomas: Instead of making him president of Roblox.

0:44:24 Tom: It's fucking wild.

0:44:25 Eli: It's an example I would try to come up with to exaggerate, and it's just the thing we live in now. And so I think that's really interesting. Although I will say, again, taking my sort of middle position, I don't necessarily think that, like, if you're a perpetually online person, you will be inherently unprepared for real -world interaction because I think society is changing to be so perpetually online.

0:44:48 Thomas: I also think there is there, I I've come to learn. And, uh, I think this is, um, true for all of us that we,

0:44:55 Eli: The names of all the Italian brain rot?

0:44:55 Thomas: I, I don't, I didn't even know what that is. I don'T know what joke you're making. No, no.

0:44:59 Eli: You don't know about the Italian brain rot characters?

0:45:02 Thomas: What, what, sorry, Tom, do you know what That is? Oh, thank God. What the fuck is he talking about?

0:45:04 Eli: Bombardio Crocodilio? Chimpanzini Benannini?

0:45:02 Tom: I don't either. No, I don'T know. These are just that

0:45:08 Thomas: Okay. Uh, anyway, ignoring all that, um. I, now I

0:45:08 Eli: Tra -la -lero Tra -La -La? Burr -burr Papa Team?

0:45:13 Tom: Last one you just made up.

0:45:13 Thomas: Don' t remember what I was going to say.

0:45:15 Eli: I didn't. I actually didn't, and it makes me so so fucking happy. None of the things I just said are made up.

0:45:20 Thomas: Oh man what was I saying god damn it uh oh we have a cherry -picked let's just pan it left yeah the

0:45:24 Eli: Frulli frullia. Take out your right headphone if you would not like to hear Eli say the names of Italian brain rot characters for the rest of the podcast.

0:45:39 Ad: [Ad break 3 — ad music]

0:45:41 Thomas: People we interact with through our shows and what and and honestly even through us I've come to learn it's a very interesting phenomenon where all the neurodiverse diverse people just find each other. That's why it feels like everyone we know is ADHD or autism or both is we all, there's a thing where we all find each another. And especially with things like listening to podcasts of special interests and all that, there just tends to be over -representation. So there's part of me that thinks, I don't know how much of this there is, Tom, but I think many of the people who want to be frequently online and who want spend their time like that are the kind of people who already aren't super big on socializing in person anyway. I think there's There's a big overlap there. And I don't, I don'T think that I almost think it's a correlation rather than causation. I donT think they forget how to socialize or don't learn it because they're online. I think they're on line because they don't know how to socialize, or they don'T let it, in my case, I DON'T really care about it that much.

0:46:19 Tom: I would agree with that. Yeah.

0:46:34 Thomas: And I'm too busy, you know? So yeah, good.

0:46:34 Tom: Yeah, but let me let me let me because this is just to bring it back to parenting. Like, I think the yeah, tell me, tell tell me.

0:46:40 Eli: Tong Tong Tong. Tong Tang Tong. Tang Tang Tang Sahur. That's another name and I didn't get to say it because you guys started saying, yeah, Tong Tong Tang. Tong Tong Tang Tang. Tang Tong Tang Sahura.

0:46:47 Thomas: That whole thing. What is he

0:46:52 Eli: That is another one and I am so sorry.

0:46:53 Thomas: Fucking talking about? Nope.

0:46:54 Eli: The conversation turned in a really interesting direction and I felt like it would be weird to interrupt but it was I was in my head and I had memorized how to say it and so if you hey Lydia if you could just insert that back to when I was saying characters I feel like it'd be better for the flow of the show they

0:46:53 Tom: I want to push out a couple of quick things. When we're talking about this as it intersects with our responsibility as parents, I think one of the problems I see with what you said is that it kind of bakes in this idea that social skills are things that we have or don't have, rather than things that we can learn and that our parents are responsible for helping to to teach us and to reinforce because they're valuable and they benefit us in the world.

0:47:36 Tom: And I think the second is more true than the first. We may never be comfortable socially. I think a lot of people, when they listen to me on this show, they may assume things about me that are maybe not true. So I'll use myself as a little bit of backstory. People have listened to this show will remember I was not a socially well -adjusted kid with lots of friends. Like as as a young person, I was isolated. I was angry. I did not have a friend or social or peer group. I didn't have a girlfriend all throughout high school. I didn't have good social skills. I was not a person who just naturally was an extroverted, socially adept human being. So it's not something that I don't know that I have some experience from personally. I felt really socially isolated. I felt really socially uncomfortable. I was very much the kind of person who might have been really interested in some of those darker ideas that the internet would have had to offer, right? Those ideas really would have appealed to the dark part of me that felt very much like I didn't belong in the world and society because I had no idea how to function properly as a social person. And it wasn't until my late teens, early twenties that I made a very very conscious decision where I looked around and was like, this isn't working out for me. This is not making me happier. Other people are doing this. What are they doing? I literally took notes of what people did when they socialized and then I just mimicked it. And then after a while of repetition and forcing yourself to sweat and be uncomfortable and be nervous and you're walking up and you have no idea how to do this next interaction and maybe it doesn't go well and get made fun of a little bit. I did all that stuff. I did all of that stuff the first time I got a job in sales. I stood in the corner because I was too afraid to greet people

0:47:56 Thomas: Used to beat up dads for fun how many sales you

0:49:26 Tom: Until my boss came up to me and was like, well, I'll tell you what the boss came up and he's like, how is this good? You're on commission. He's like you need to walk up. You need to shake hands. You need a look people in the eye and you need to do this.

0:49:35 Thomas: Make you're poor now you don't yeah

0:49:40 Tom: But the thing is he listed out things to do and the first hundred times I did them. I was fucking scared to do them and then they became second nature. I think we do ourselves no favors by saying social skills are things we either have or don't have. They're skills you can learn. And I know it because I learned them and they've benefited me tremendously, which is why I'm so passionate about it. Because like I went from a place of being really fucking socially dysfunctional to being really socially functional. I just had to do an enormous amount of work to get there and I didn't have anybody helping. And I think about my my kids and I think well I can help them with this but we're not going to help them by saying isolate yourself in some fucking online community where you're going to spend 18 hours in front of a screen all day never having any social friction that I just don't buy that that's good for any kid and I Think we have a responsibility as parents to stop our kids from being like that and living like that because I think it's just bad for them

0:50:36 Thomas: Yeah there's lots of social friction but yeah there's a lot of friction online

0:50:41 Tom: Sure it depends on where you go though you can very easily find spaces where the social friction is reduced well I'll tell you what kind social friction you don't have. You don't have the social friction of physicality. You never see when you say something and it hurts their feelings how their face changes. That's an enormously big deal. It's an enormously big deal so like it's all of that stuff you know what I mean? Like it's all that stuff. It is the radicalization it is the finding you know groups that reinforce the worst parts of our insecurities but it's also like the minimizing and reduction of like these really essential interactions actions that for 250 ,000 years of human evolution, we did. And now we're going to sit in front of a screen and not do it anymore. And I have a hard time thinking like, well, that's going to work out well, you know? And like, as a parent, I would literally turn the electricity off if that was the case. I'd be like, sorry, we don't have electricity in the house.

0:50:58 Eli: Haven't paid for a complex enough fursona so it's just you're still a smiling fox candles

0:51:35 Tom: Like we don't have electricity in your room anymore. Like, I feel that's like, you can't do it. I just don't think you can let But my question to you guys is like, where's your line on it? Because I assume you have a line. I think your line is less quantity. It's more qualitative, right? So like you would wonder if your kid was online 18 hours a day, would that be fine?

0:51:37 Eli: I think we're gonna have to wait until part two to answer that question there's a lot of good topics a lot of things have been raised but a much more important question comes up for me now gentlemen

0:51:58 Thomas: Oh like it will tom turn off the electricity on his

0:52:07 Clip: DEAR OLD DAD

0:52:13 Eli: Did you hear that starbucks is using bears from australia to monitor their hot drink production they're calling it koala tea

0:52:24 Thomas: House I like it

0:53:10 Tom: He tells me this story, which is fucking boring, but it was long.

0:53:15 Thomas: Time to build another wooden companion

0:53:17 Eli: Control alexa tell my son I love him I miss 9 -11 is a hell of a take and I can't believe it didn't come from me thomas smith yeah