CES 2026: Part Four (Wednesday)

31:01There was metaverse, there was VR. Two years ago, we had an AI semen thing. None of that this year. No cum. No cumming. I've never met intelligent semen. Apparently, there were a few years ago. Organically or artificially. Okay. Men are back. Kill all men. Kill all men. More women on podcast. Honestly, female listeners are going to fucking eat this up. All right. We're going to rotate, though. We're going to rotate. Here comes an ad that's specifically only for women. it's pink. I'm I'm I'm I'm

32:18And we're back in the room. Now, we've, of course, got the wonderful Garrison Davis, if it could happen here. Hello. And we're back with Chloe Radcliffe, actress, of course, in the movie Is This Thing On? Yeah. Stand-up comedian. Yeah. Sound-up comedian and host of the Factually podcast, Adam Conover. Hello. And we were just talking about LLM wrappers and why everything is LLM this year and AI this year, more so even than last year and why there are so many things that are just effectively wrapping around the chat GPT API. And what it is, is yes, CES magnetizes the trends. Like it's just it goes wherever the trends are.

32:50We've had our metaverse and VR and AR and like 2015 was very Indiegogo heavy crowds, crowdfunding and such. But I think it's also the funding thing of where venture capital is going. but also it's just fucking easier to build a company on top of it. Now people will frame this as, oh, it's democratizing building companies. No, it's democratizing lazy fucking assholes building nothing. Take that, suckers. No, it really is though. The suckers being venture capitalists and customers as well because it's like, yeah, I built a company. No, you fucking didn't. You built something on top of someone else's company and you're claiming it's yours.

33:27And by the way, those API rates are going the way. They're too cheap. they don't make sense but yeah it's just kind of sad because usually you go to ces i'd say 40 of the stuff will be dead in a year this one is like if things go the way i'm expecting all of it like like maybe 75 of it to be fair but like every llm power thing you're saying even the robot dog especially the robot dog because that has physical no don't kill my robot dog and not how many times we can talk about killing dogs on the show. Every time that Chloe's on. I actually have a whole... Multiple times we've... I have a whole nother product I want to talk about.

34:06Please, please, please. Oh, God, fucking... It is about dogs. Oh, he landed the plane perfectly. He really landed it. So I wandered into a... It was like a consortium of Internet of Things, home products or whatever. And the guy recognizes me. He's like, oh, Adam, I like your show. Great. I'm like, what do you got in here? He's like, oh, I represent all these different companies. He actually said one of the, you know, when someone like accidentally says something that sounds really useful here. He's like, this thing over here will detect if you left your stove on and turn your stove off automatically.

34:39I was like, wow, that's great. Who didn't invent? Why didn't we invent that 50 years ago? It seems very obvious as a product. Then he's like, over here, we got the smart dog crate. Hell yeah. Yeah. It's like a big, like, okay, first of all, imagine if your dog crate was like a Twitch streamer's room. Oh, good. We talked about this briefly, but I want to hear more. No, I think this is a different smart dog crate. Is this a different one? Does it measure the height of your dog? No, I think it's different because the one that I was looking at. So just to catch you up, this is one sentence overview.

35:12there was a little crate that measures your dog's breathing rate, your heart rate, and the height distance between the top of the crate and the top of the dog. And I said, why do we need that? And the guy said, cause if it, if the number doesn't change for a while, maybe the dog has died. And I said,

35:30but wouldn't you know that from the other numbers or by looking

35:39the distance from the ceiling to the dog has not changed in three days. something is wrong my dog's in flux yeah yeah yeah I told my boyfriend Stuart last night about the dog crate that I saw and he was like well you want to avoid the terrifying case of your dog shrinking or worse getting bigger it's like my dog is not in a perpetual state my dog varies at times but wait so Adam you found another one a twitch streamer crate A different one, yes. It had, among other things, it had an iPad in the dog crate so you could show your dog videos and video chat with your dog. It had like a privacy screen that would open and close, like glass that you could remotely open and close.

36:27And because your dog wants to try on new outfits. Your dog wants to pretend it's in a limo. Yeah. Yep, yep. Or like if you had your dog in some sort of like prison visitation situation. I guess if you don't want strangers to see your dog's dick This is a thing I vaguely knew already existed I want my dog to be modest, Ed They said it was some people put a blanket over the crate but now you don't have to do that and again it's one of those things where it's like what was the problem with the blanket over the crate and also the blanket over the crate is to make the dog go to sleep It's to say it's night time now not I need some privacy They called it privacy screen.

37:10And it was cool. Like I was aware this already existed, like a pane of glass that if you like run a current through it, it suddenly turns opaque or something. And that was cool to see go, even though I knew it already existed. But then a big part of it was like, if you are at home and your smoke alarms go off and your house is on fire, you can open the door of the crate automatically. So the dog can run away from the fire. or if you're on your way home and you want to let the dog out a little early. And the thing in my mind is I'm like, who's crating their dog this much? Like when your dog's a puppy, maybe.

37:46Yeah, you're training a dog to stay in the crate and be happy in it. And the whole point is that it can't leave. You kind of train it to like the crate. Why would you let it? I guess if you let it out early. Also, the whole point of a dog is that it knows routine. As everybody knows, the point of a dog is routine. The point of a dog is maximal efficiency. Is optimize your dog. Optimize your dog. But if you let the dog out, if you open the dog crate early, and the dog has no way of predicting when you're going to open the crate remotely. And you are not there. And you're not there. Like, I feel like if you have a dog crated while you're gone, because I do know people who are like...

38:24There are tons of people who do it. Yeah. And do, you know, it's whatever, whatever. judgment aside about whether you should have your dog in the crate that much or not totally setting that aside just dealing with the reality of there are people who do if if you drive home and the dog hears the garage door opening or the dog hears the front door opening or whatever then the dog gets to be excited because the crate is about to open but if you're just randomly opening it it's like do you know those do you know that experiment with rats where they like shocked them where they play they play the buzzer that's a was that the one where they shocked the dog I know they had one with rats that I'm thinking of where it was where they like play a beep and then shock the rat.

39:02Yeah. And those rats survived like two or three times longer than where they just randomly shocked without the beep because the rats who didn't have the beep were so anxious the entire time, were so stressed because they didn't know when the shock was coming. Whereas when they knew it's right after the beep, they could like prepare for it for the second between the beep and the shock. And I feel like that's what you're doing to your dog if the dog's just like, this door could open at any moment. Could a person fit in this thing? Oh, okay. Well, no, we're talking about the cat ear things. You've got an iPad in you.

39:35It's like a Twitch streamer. I've got a few furry listeners. Yeah, I definitely know people that like this. No, that's kind of like the Yiff Maxes who listen. Yes. There's going to be one person who emails saying they love that and another that threatens to kill me. It's going to be great. It was kind of charming. It wasn't that. To your point, Chloe, I think if you were a dog and you're like in the crate all day, and then suddenly the door just like silently swings open, I'd be like, oh, humanity is gone. They've died. And I've been released from my, I'm in like a 28 days later situation. Like it's the beginning of the movie.

40:07I'm going to have to eat my owner. You just come back, the dog fucking kills you. It's too ominous. All right, Gare, what have you seen today? Today I've been to, once again, more panels. I went to the Panasonic booth once. Actually, I would prefer to go over your favorite part of CES. what do you mean which is showstoppers yeah showstoppers who have made war with me yeah because i work at a pr firm uh they've decided i cannot go very unfair very nasty so if you ever go to showstoppers my my request is you eat a lot of horrible food i want you to upper deck every toilet in that place and we turn this into the mos eisley cantina i got it i like when that accent comes out yeah what is that specifically with the consonants like what do you call it cantina it's West London it's West London yeah it goes between my posh accent and the West London and it's all in the consonants like they're tight yeah yeah yeah there's something wrong with me tell me about tell me about Hostoppers it was the worst Showstoppers I've been to in a few years which I'm saddened to say I usually kind of look forward to Showstoppers and could I request a one to two sentence overview of what Showstoppers is Showstoppers is a media event for journalists where a bunch of products, usually from Eureka Park, usually the CES innovation-type products, have boots in a ballroom in the Bellagio, and there's food and drinks, and journalists will walk through, and you can talk to people from these companies.

41:37It's like another condensed version of the show, all in one room, and it's every Tuesday night in CES. And is there... Who gets to be there? Journalists. No, not who gets to look. You have to pay. Who gets to show. Like exhibitors. Who gets to stop the show? But I guess what I'm saying is like, can you just pay enough and be one of those exhibitors? Yes. It's not like, nobody's picked these products as like, we think these are actually the best or the most interesting. There's a degree of that and that's something that's outright fraudulent. They would probably say no to, but probably not. Yeah, because there's not much space.

42:13And so they kind of defer to people who want like the CES Innovation Awards every year. so you got there was like a few of those boots but what was what was made about it what was not what was not it was they changed venues it was in a much smaller ballroom oh that's actually a terrible that's the past few years yeah and i would say about 40 to percent of the show floor was what once again your favorite product smart glasses so many smart glasses boots um interesting There was like three regular smart glasses, all back-ended via LLMs, like the auto-translation glasses I tried on. One was a sound translation where they have speakers in the arm that they were running that translation through Microsoft's AI.

43:00They had another backup translation that you could run through chat GPTs. That's funny because Microsoft is powered by GPT. this is no no but i'm not saying what the guy said i'm not saying you're wrong i'm just like that's just like classic ces brain it's just like what it runs through chat gpt or chat gpt with the other the other ones which were like the visual visual translations as well as like navigation like they hook up to like google maps so they can do right do that sort of thing um if you're like biking but the the the big ones were the rocid glasses the the crowdfunded ai smart glasses did they work they worked better than the sound ones the the sound only ones worked but with a pretty significant delay how long about 10 10 seconds jesus so you can't have a conversation with them they were prettier they were they they look like normal glasses the roku glasses are a little bit more obvious that they're smart glasses but the translation's faster it's obviously it's hard to have eye contact with someone in a conversation when you're trying to text you're Do you have the kind of blurry hologram text?

44:10But as long as you can focus your eyes on multitask, it's like, okay. That one runs through ChatGPT. There's two different in-ear earbuds which listen to and transcribe conversation also run through ChatGPT. The worst part about those, though, they worked really well, and you could whisper. That was the main feature. It was auto-dictation if you like whisper as even like a loud showroom. Yeah, yeah. That's kind of cool. So even in like a loud showroom, the person who had it on could like whisper something. I could not hear it standing like two feet away, but it was like, it was perfectly transcribed and I could like match via like reading lips.

44:52And it was good, but - And is this, sorry, hold on. This is a translation through language and transcription? It does both. And this is, these were earbuds? These were basically, basically like, yeah, like a AirPod style. Cool. But the dictation feature is a subscription model. You have to pay to keep using it. And it's powered by GPT and all that. And it's also powered by GPT. So there's a few things like that. There was smart like swim goggles. There was smart like ski goggles, bike goggles. One question just with the previous one, sorry. So you need a subscription, but do you need an internet connection as well?

45:29Oh, I didn't ask that. That's good. It must connect to your phone or something, which is just like, because... Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. because like ostensibly if you're the dictation needs the phone because you see the dictation like getting updated on your that's not too bad they're gonna it's gonna be synced to your mobile device but you'd want that anyway that one's not so bad but the translation ones it's like if you're in a foreign country you can't necessarily rely like the situations you need translation will probably not be in a major metropolitan area because depending on the country and if it's a country where it's a major metropolitan area and it doesn't have English translation, the cell service might not be good.

46:03You're not, might, might not. It's just. Also the idea of walking up to a person who doesn't speak English, who speaks like literally so much zero, so zero of English that you can't. Yeah. You can't converse. Model through. Yeah. And being like, hold on, let me put in my thousand dollar machine into my head that is going to make me be able to talk to, uh, I mean, a lot of the glasses, at least it's for like putting on so you can hear people like around you, which isn't too bad. It's not necessarily, not necessarily even for conversation, but at least, at least you can like, you can hear someone speaking in a foreign language.

46:36So then you can eavesdrop. So then these people who are specifically, who have switched to a foreign language specifically so that you won't understand what they're saying. This is what I did to me. No, it was really funny when I was a kid and my parents used to speak in French in front of my brother and I to try and avoid us hearing. We didn't tell them for fucking years we could understand. We could completely understand. Totally. What they're doing is teaching you French. No, I've, no, no we were just listening to work out why that were like we're like how long we were going to stay places or if there was something we were going to do we didn't want to do and then eventually i think one of us like laughed at something they said it was like oh shit god damn it years of the scam but okay so it's kind of useful if you are someone who only speaks english talking is talking to someone who's speaking another language but can like understand english but maybe can't like speak it right i do actually that's like the main use case there's stuff like this has been normalized it a little bit too like i've gone to plenty of hotels where there's someone from mainland china trying to check into the hotel and they're using the translation thing and it's like and then they show the phone yes and like that'll get more refined and i i don't know it seems to me like translation is one of the few things that like i was about to say this really good for like it is an improvement yes we're working our way there yeah totally and like it is it is a positive use case.

47:52It is a non-harmful, at least broadly non-harmful use case. I was imagining the setting, when you're in the rural Uzbek mountains and you're trying to communicate with... No Wi-Fi. The setting where you have no Wi-Fi, but you're trying to use these earbuds, which just feels like a set piece in a movie. Although some of these things worked to some degree, the audio one's a little bit slower, these are all stuff I've tried on at CES before. I was going to say, I feel like we had this conversation last year. We've had this exact conversation before. These are not new. And this was like 40 to 50 % of the show floor at Showstoppers was just these, it was like this genre of product.

48:33The only new thing is they put like these smart glasses technology and like ski goggles, like swim goggles, scuba goggles. So you can have like a, you know, heads up view if you're wearing a scuba goggles. And like, that's like new-ish, I guess. I feel like - Why do you want a headset view? I don't know, maybe you need to, play app with gesture controls. Because you saw the Terminator 40 years ago and you're like, it would be cool to see text on my eyes. Damn, look! As pretty as it is to scuba dive, you could also be watching Instagram reels at the same time. Yeah, like brain rot as you're looking at beautiful tropical fish.

49:11Jesus Christ. You're like, hey, do you like to swim laps because it's the one place that you cannot bring your phone? Have we got the solution for you? The whole thing about the phone is that you can look away from it. Like to me, the main reason VR didn't catch on is because when I would play a VR game, sometimes I would enjoy them. But after like 20 minutes, I'd be like, what if my house is on fire? What if somebody needs me? And then I take the thing off and then it's such a big face change. You don't want to go back into it. And just the ability to glance away from stuff is so important. And I just feel like, I don't know, heads up display, I don't want for that reason.

49:48and it fits into the thing of, I've really been struck by how many people I've been walking, if you look at the way people are using their phones at this thing, everybody is on their phones all the time. They're in hunched over phone position, like elbows on knees looking at the phone. And I'm like, I don't see any of these companies unseating Apple and Android. Like it's, we have the, this is where the AI is happening. This is where all the, we've done it. I don't think we're doing it. It isn't even happening there. You can do, like I was just in Japan, you can do translation on your phone. You can type the thing in, you can show it to someone, they can type it back and that's going to be faster and more efficient.

50:24I went to Japan in 2017 and I literally just used Google Translate. And I feel like it would be way more offensive to this man who did not speak a lick of it and went to Iraq and it was amazing. And like, it was way less offensive to be like, oh, I don't understand you. I'm going to use this and being very honest to be like, one second, beep, beep. Now speak. That's what I mean. You imbecile who cannot converse with me versus being like, yeah we're both from different countries like yeah how magical yeah there is a barrier and technology has solved this barrier without removing the honesty of conversation versus i have paid someone 500 and 25 bucks a month so that you and i can pretend we understand each other because we don't and and i do i really do think that like at the at the broadest levels i do think that the translation use case makes yeah makes more sense than almost any other to me and you know why it makes that sense because it's written in English but Adam what you were saying earlier I couldn't miss it anyway but the burden of being a comedian you have to take the low hanging fruit but Adam what you were saying earlier of just a second ago about like we've already like the winners are here the winners are the iPhone and Android phones yeah sort of goes back to what I was asking in the earlier block about which about why are the rappers so prevalent And is it because, Ed, I'm hearing you that a huge part of it is that we're following the trend.

51:44But also, like, is it that there is some degree of the biggest consumer tech gaps have been closed right now? Or, like, the biggest consumer gaps that we can imagine right now. I'm sure in 10 years they will be in a totally different situation. The iPhone was like 90 % of all technological advancements that was possible when it was invented. That's what I mean. Like it sort of picked, it was all the low hanging fruit all at once. It's been refined over 20 years. And they planned for it. Like there was a famous Goldman Sachs analyst called Jim Covello who said like the iPhone, they knew it was going to happen like a decade beforehand.

52:22They just needed Bluetooth to be smaller. They needed GPS to be smaller and modems and such. And like Apple has made the same thing in a dozen other form factors. And they're all less popular than the iPhone. They're just like less the iPad, less the Apple Watch, less the iPhone is like the main thing. Well, obviously the Vision Pro, which is the most successful version. Yeah, that's the popular product everyone loved. I think there's another level of it as well, which is it's follower culture because it's when a big company goes, we're going to try this. and i think the meta glasses because a lot of credulous journalists went yeah wow i could use this to video myself cooking i could use this while walking around i did a content video as a content creator this is now a thing and because that happened everyone goes i'll bet those fucking dumb fuck vcs will buy anything no one and they will and i don't yeah but vcs will but have we seen any proof that consumers will?

53:20No, no, no, no. But it's like, oh, yeah, we can clone the very popular meta Ray-Bans. You mean the horrendously unpopular one? Sorry, the unprofitable, but also not super profitable? Like meta is not... I've never seen them in the real world. I've never seen anybody using them. I've literally seen them once. I've seen one person using them. Yeah. Don Lemon. Don Lemon. Is that real? This is real. Yes, this is real. You could not have said a funnier name Ghislaine Maxwell And that man Was Don Lemon You could tell me a story about anybody doing anything And at the end say it was Don Lemon That's very good He's shorter than what you would think How tall is he?

54:04He seems so tall He's like maybe 5 '7 at most That's a shorter man than I expected For a man that stood up to Elon Musk Kind of I went to the Razer booth, which I know we talked about yesterday. But I did have a good time there. And I actually kind of left going like they're doing it in an honest way. Because, you know, I walk in and most of the stuff, look, they're a second tier hardware company that makes accessories for gaming. And they make good ones. I have a Razer mouse. They had some keyboards. They went clicky, clicky, clicky. Yeah, nice. It was very nice. and then they had like a uh their their llm wrapper was a pair of gamer headphones right with cameras and they're like this is better than glasses because it's like a little bigger and no one can hear you and then they did the same demo as where like literally they had a plastic cutting board full of plastic food and the girl goes what can i make with this and the llm is like spaghetti and she's like wow thanks like it's literally spaghetti and did you see the the wife tube though uh i did i did see the wife tube but just to finish first then they're like look it can connect to claude or opus or any of them and i'm like okay great so razor has gone i know who gives a fuck but razor has gone look we're a hardware company we make hardware this is a thing that people are maybe using here's a hardware interface for it that's like pretty good yeah and like fine and they they called it project makoto which is a little bit over the top okay but like it's functionally a gamer a gamer headset right it's like not that bad now the little tube i thought was funny and this is the holographic tube with the waifu in it it's a little holographic have you seen this chloe you should probably go check this i think you would enjoy it i would like to see you interact with it it's a little so like a little on your desk a little tube and inside the tube's a little anime girl and uh you can talk to it and it's just like talking to chat gpt um but you can say like hey hey uh kit out my gun in battlefield 4 and then she goes okay i added a scope to it did that work this is what the wife tube looks like by the way yeah it's but it's a little avatar in a tube wife tube it can see you and the guy goes hey what do you think of adam's outfit because by the way everybody at in the razor booth that was the most recognized i was all that's a weekend because they're all internet nerds so they're like i saw oh, you are.

56:24They kept going up and saying, hi, Adam. I was like, are you fucking AI? Like, stop it. They paused 10 seconds every time he talked to them. But so the guy goes, he reveals that he knew who I was because he goes, what do you think of Adam's outfit? And it sort of goes like, wow, CES badge on fleek, looking super professional and like a boss. And Jesus Christ. You know, yep. I guess there's some gamers who might need compliments, like a little compliment tube. But it was dumb, but also it was a little toy. I felt like they weren't even taking it that seriously. They're kind of shrugging, going like, yeah, you know.

57:04This is the bullshit we got to do this year. Yeah. It's We're Razor. Hey, you want a mouse or you want a little anime girl tube? You want something useful or do you want whatever the fuck this pervert tube is? Yeah, but they make LED fucking, you know, desktop towers. Nobody needs any of that shit. But the people love it. love it yeah but like i don't know just like if you buy the waifu tube they should fucking put you on a list i'm sorry like if you're like i desire a tube or a where to quote robert from yesterday where like krieger's hentai wife from archer resides you should you should not be allowed to like you should have to introduce yourself to your neighbors like it's just yeah it's just a very worrying product and also who the fuck for like who is yeah because it's not good enough to give you actual like ces badge on fleek wow fuck off just well that's the thing is that like that's one of the things is sure are there a lot of gamers who could use some compliments without a doubt absolutely but like it sort of feels insulting to their intelligence it feels insulting i think the way ai talks the the kind of sycophantic chatter got this yeah yeah feels like insulting to anybody's intelligence and it's sort of shocking to me that we just go yeah that's how it should talk and that's fine and we accept that and aren't like that's humiliating and stupid but it fits into me in the gamer context actually because something that so many games do that I find annoying but clearly people must like is like thank you so much you saved the whole village you're the strongest hero we've ever met that games will compliment you for doing basic things.

58:49I don't even think games do that. I mean, you saved the whole village, Adam. That's more than just a basic thing. You see that in a text box, and it goes away, and you've forgotten it happened. And I'm hammering X. I'm just full autist. I need to get the next fucking bit. Fuck you. I don't care about the story. And it's just, most gamers I talk to would be very annoyed to have any interruption. And just having this demented hentai thing in the corner being like, the badge is on flake and not to be you need to wash did you say you need to wash now look that has a utility if it was mean if it's a wash tube that just reminds gamers to shower i actually this is a use case for ai that i could oh no we're gonna get some emos saying i'm a gamer and i wash but the problem by the way if you email me that i'm asking how often it is funny that like you know it maybe it's the computer from star trek right where they go computer do this or that and it would answer but the computer didn't go what a great idea captain that's sure decisive and a great uh it shows leadership on your part i think that actually is it though it's trying to think of how much better captain would have felt about himself if the computer had said that captain picard had self-respect but here's the thing they're doing gamers they're doing that because you can't just be like do something you can't be like do this because it can't do anything.

1:00:11That's true, yeah. It's like, you can't be like, oh, the Battlefield example, it actually can't do that because it would require it to interact with the game, which it definitely can't do. So it's like, yeah, they add all the sycophancy because you can't actually be like, can you do this for me? Can you find this? Because there'll be a five to 10 second pause and it'll go, Olympia is the capital of Washington. I was like, I needed the fucking time, man. It said that it did it. The guy said, kid out my gun and it said a bunch of stuff about the gun. I didn't know the game well enough to tell if it did.

1:00:38But I asked the dude, I was like, do you think that gamers want this, like a game assistant? Because to me, a video game is like the Paragon thing that you would want to do yourself. Yes. And I asked him this. He was like, well, yes, but sometimes people want to get better at a game like League of Legends or a game like that has a high skill ceiling. And so maybe it can give you tips. And I was like, okay, like a coach. And he's like, yeah. And I was like, all right, maybe that's a use case. as like a training a training ai that's gonna give you because people do hire like like video game like coaches that is a market yeah but if you're good at a game yeah not like a regurgitation of how many game faq pages i'm not even i'm not even being sarcastic like people i've had many people help me with games but people and the whole point is they watch you and go that was wrong that was wrong no do this like you're doing this i see you regularly making this action i don't think you could recognize that through a camera i guess it could maybe be used for like for like walkthrough guides if you're like stuck at a part you don't know how to continue you can ask and it'll like regurgitate some ign article about how to get past the like fourth dungeon i mean playstation already has that built in yeah really yeah astrobot they really brought it in as well yeah i don't know they have a feature the developers have to like build it in but like astrobot has this all done because that's like a super first party game rocks it uh like you hit the playstation button and it has like game hints so literally you know if you're on a level and you're like where's the fucking third puzzle piece and it it'll like show you a little video or give you a hint but that's like basically they just put the game fact in the game um it's i used to write video game guides and the problem is is that the things that people get stuck on can be so deep because it's why they have like yellow things on ladders that you have to climb now because something that seems really obvious to 1 million out of 1 sorry 1.9 million out of 2 million people is really just not obvious to like a thousand people and all of those people post online and they are just like what the fuck do i do here and then you get the people who are mad that it's too obvious but it's like i had this it's yet another thing where it's like a solution in search of a problem and it's just kind of sad and i hate to do this really abrupt thing but we're at 30 minutes and the next thing will solve either all of your problems or cause you more.

1:02:56Your choice, but you really have to give them your money, whatever it is. And if it's a podcast, you have to listen and trust them wholeheartedly.

1:03:18I love you better. That's iHeartAdvertising.com.

1:04:08No, the movie's amazing and I'm very happy to be in it. What I want you to do, can I do a little plug? Please, please. I want you to come to my stand-up shows in either Cincinnati this weekend, January 10th and 11th, or DC next weekend, January 17th and 18th, or my solo show called Cheat in Philadelphia, January 20th, 21st and 22nd. And I saw Cheat. That's what I want you to do. I saw Cheat. It's fucking brilliant. Thank you. I need to do that too. I'm sorry. No, do a plug, please. She plugged. I got a plug. No, no, it's only my turn. This weekend, I'm going to be at Comedy on State in Madison, Wisconsin, one of the best clubs in the country.

1:04:41And then I'm going to be next weekend in Fort Wayne, Indiana, which I will not say, the Summit Comedy Club in Fort Wayne, Indiana, which I will not say is one of the best clubs in the country. But if you live in Fort Wayne, Indiana, it's probably the only club you have access to. And I will be there. So go see me there. And then Houston later this year. And I will be at the Chuckle Hut, Las Vegas, doing my new set, actually. Stolen Valor. And it's me doing the DreamWorks eyebrow for 15 minutes straight. Anyway, we're back talking about CES. Matt Binder has returned. What have you seen recently?

1:05:15I don't even know anymore, Matt. Yeah, it's just a slop. It's just everything all at once in multiple places. I will say that this is very insidery in terms of being here. That's fine. Vegas has very specific Uber pickup points. Yes. And it seems like when CES comes to town, they just decide to fuck with everyone and move them places without telling the Uber drivers. Yep. So, you know, you try to get somewhere and you just can't because the Uber driver can't fucking get to you. West, you have to go to the West Hall and go to the Diamond Lot or you have to go to the Renaissance Hotel. That's the only way to get out of the LVCC.

1:05:49You can also take the tram if you want to be shoulder to shoulder with people who want to die. Today I walked from the LVCC. Great. How long did it take you? LVCC to here, it took me half an hour, maybe a little bit less. Damn, you power walk. Yeah, my priority is speed.

1:06:09What? What a voice. That's like an English thing that I'd see in Eureka Park when your priority is speed and it's just a SaaS product. Yeah. But Matt, have you not seen? No, no. What have you beheld? All right. So I did. I don't even remember the name of it, but I did. I remember the last time I was on this show, I was lauding the fact that crypto and blockchain is dead at CES. Oh, do you find some? I unfortunately found something. I don't remember what it did. It was a mining company. I don't know what their product did, I mean. But one thing. I saw one thing. So we don't got a shutout here at CES when it comes to crypto.

1:06:47But it seems like it is still dead other than that one thing. Right. Yeah. I will also say when crypto was here, and I do remember it, it was so half-hearted. Because first of all, it's the problem all the AI shit runs into, which is it's internet connected. But it's also where AI really doesn't work, crypto really, really doesn't work. It's like, yeah, it's a blockchain game. Great. So what you do is you get the thing. It takes 10 to 15 minutes based on the Ethereum blockchain. And now one thing has happened. Now you'll do another thing. Yeah, you're going to need more Ethereum because every single time you touch this, I've definitely walked around a few of those.

1:07:24I'm like, yeah, so does this work? What's proof of concept? We've got a white paper. I'm like, fucking just everything. That's not good. That's not good. Showcase material for a convention. None of it was. And last year I did see a panel that was a guy talking about quantum and web three. And I thought it would be funny. No, it was just a guy. It sounded like someone with a concussion. Oh, like web three, web three, web three, quantum, quantum fast, but quantum will break blockchain. And everyone going, hmm. You, you, you bringing up web three did make me remember that I did. I didn't go into it, but I did pass by apparently Jason Calacananas, whatever his name is from all in they were doing a live just him was doing a live all in podcast at ces i had no interest in going in but i mean they sent they sent like the the the what the the least successful we've sent our clammiest man our dampest man is here to bring you the dampest coverage of the ces because because the other guy chopped whatever chop whatever his name is he's he's the the most wealthy one i think right and then and there's just david sacks and david sacks too busy melted candle he's too busy with his insidery trading stuff with the trump administration yeah yeah so i mean i guess jason kalakana whatever however you ever say his last name yeah i mean what was his claim to fame again he had that sold uh mahalo yeah the seo uh yeah the seo shop and then weblogs engine right but weblogs which created in gadgets like a weird thing where like he had a hand and so he was also early oh right right right right basically what the fuck is he doing here i he's on the all in podcast he's one of the four hosts right i mean what yeah but i mean i guess i can't really judge someone for being like i'm gonna do a random podcast at ces it's not random i planned it right right no but i mean it wasn't the like this is ed zitron's show and ed zitron is here yes all in is four guys and they sent just the one guy they don't really even like that is really yeah they did a regular episode they're doing one right now it's like yeah jason man he should cover ces yes thank fucking christ okay let's do this let's do the show jason's gone god that would be really i think is that four of them there's four of them i never remember the fourth one uh but because he stays out of the uh the political world i think for the most part they had trump on and he was just like yeah we're gonna the biggest immigrants gonna have the biggest immigrants in the world they're gonna be the largest and they're like that's so great you should do one h1b's i don't like foreigners like yeah we don't like them either but we need h1b's we don't like them but they were the biggest he was looking at chalmuth i'm sure when he said i don't like foreigners i'm sure yeah i'm sure sure that that was fine oh god i can't believe like this is stay this is meant to be actually this is a good segue this is meant to be the consumer electronic show but i keep running into non-consumer like oh eureka park is like full of just meaningful enterprise stuff like sensors and like solar things and like things that when you look at you want to make a joke at it be like okay this is a specific center for like oh it's a wetness sensor for a specific uh like cleaner of something it's like a very specific thing and then just like a cat litter like a robotic cat litter thing that was not available right i mean yeah i was taking a video of just like i was at i was in something that had like a whole lot of signs up like it was a science fair and and i was i videoed just like the the titles because they were baffling to me fleet management with vision ai nice edge ai meets human touch what and then ai native compute for the iot these are not consumer products these are money laundering operations yeah that's just connecting that's just connecting various phrases together to see how many venture capitalists actually read the things they invest in that's classic cds though a few years ago it was every company was a web 3 metaverse interactive uh artificial intelligence on the blockchain.

1:11:15My favorite one was one that was just - I want to buy that. Yeah. No, my favorite one was one that just said, let's see, it was called Sorb. And it just said Solve via Sorb. Let's just bring this up. Yeah. For a second, I thought he said Solve. Solve. Solve. Solve via Sorb. Oh, Solve. Your accent is making this specifically difficult. Yeah, this is really difficult. I just read, Sorve, S-O-R-V, Solve via Sorb. And I will admit, I didn't want to know anything more because mostly that handled it. Like I got, I got it. I, I, my, I'm constantly like, what do I do? And I saw, right. That's I'm sorbing.

1:11:50A side note on the accent. My, this is a completely unrelated. I'm also dating a British man and, uh, I'm dating a man who is also British. And, uh, he tried to make a joke of what's your source on that, but he pronounced it, but he was, the joke was what's your sauce on that. But in a British accent, source and sauce are exactly the same word. Like there is no distinguishing and i made him say what's your sauce on that probably 15 times in a row because i was like i don't understand what the joke is i know you are making a joke this is like i there's a show called p-a-w-n stars now here's my problem if i start saying yeah i was watching porn stars this this leads to more questions than answers for all that the brits are are king of wordplay in America we've come up with a lot of wordplay that absolutely paralyzes you guys and I'm like yeah I'm watching porn stars there's this big guy called Chumlee and then there's Rick and they're like alright he's like yeah one is constantly conning people and they're like whoa this is some weird porno I'm like no I literally was thinking of porn stars like 120 seconds ago because when you were talking about them sending the one guy from all in I was like that's like if it was the cast of porn stars and they only sent chumlee i was like maybe that's a joke i should say and then i let it pass because i was like a pawn star is kind of an old reference and then here you are yeah two minutes later have you ever told anyone added who your favorite character is and then you have to let them know it's the old man yes he is yeah no my brain is my favorite porn star yeah i like the old man that sounds like this in my porn star yeah it's and it but every episode of that show is great because is just Chumlee being like, yeah, I bought a car, a Toyota Corolla for$15 ,000.

1:13:39And then Rick's like, ah, that's terrible. But I scammed an old lady out of a$50 million coin by giving her 300 bucks. It's just an evil show and I love it. But they charge you to go in there now. They should be on the show floor. Why don't Chumlee should just kind of like amble through Eureka Park. They charge you to go into the actual physical floor now. Yes, and they're not there. i've not i've not actually been because i think every vegas resident just stays out of the tourist areas but yeah it's i would love them to come on the show they this is this is back to my pitch about a ces fringe festival yes we could have shit like yeah the pond stars guys have have a booth chumley trying to buy a startup it's a genuine i mean a ces fringe festival would be kind of like like xoxo or another like creative tech festival you could do something like that nearby buy and have like cool people with like their itch.io projects.

1:14:35Yeah. Yeah. Like they're weird hacky things. You know, that would be fun. And, or just like you get the grandma orb and you just fucking obliterate it. You start, you just have a 50 cal rifle that you unload into a computer. Okay. This is actually like a rage room for, you can go to CES and then there's a rage room with all of the products at CES. Yeah. You then get to the walking around the shopping. Like, do you mind if I shoot this? And they're like, what? I just want to, I want to state for the record, if any listener decides to start a CES Fringe, you have to credit me as a co-creator. Oh, okay.

1:15:08But they don't have to pay you. I would like you to pay me. That would be too expensive. It's your IP. It's developed here on the show. Developed on Better Offline and thus owned by iHealth Radio. Fuck, fuck, fuck! The ideas on this show are owned by, I think, me? I haven't really checked. Anyway, it's such a peculiar show and I don't want to repeat myself and just be like, it's useless but it is there are less cameras dildos and batteries companies which is disappointing and there are less practical like i've been looking for anchor and k-e-r right they're like my favorite like i got big fucking anchor battery they make a lot of mobile chargers and yeah mobile chargers and stuff like i like them can't find no like and it's funny the description of the useful product so far stuff that exists so like a a battery for girls like that's that's now that doesn't exist yeah yeah yeah because a woman if you try and picked up this battery it's too heavy you'd be like whoa i go my arms are so weak my tiny my tiny ouchie mister can you lift this for me thank you i don't like this one because it's black but if it had flowers on it then i'd love it then i go that's for me a little mirror on it you can check your makeup oh so you could look at yourself because women do that.

1:16:23I love mirror. You could get so far at this show. Yeah, but as a man, I prefer to have a hologram waifu. Now, I will say, okay, not to be all a woman about it, but the wife tube, I was - You can put a man in the tube. And does anyone. Which one are you talking about? The razor one. Oh, the razor one. Yeah, Victoria was saying there's a man with tattoos you can put in it. Yeah, so I don't remember if we even talked about this when I was on last night. No, we should keep talking about the tube. Okay, so the Razor one is the Project Mokoto or Mokotu or something like that. No, no, that's the headphones.

1:17:03Project Ava is the wife in the tube. Oh, no, you're right. You're right. I was just there and I really learned it. Project Ava is the wife in the tube. You are correct, yes. I'm glad you're on this one. Thank you. Because I'm not. Yeah, but there are weirder ones. because the Razer one actually, they showed it to you, right? So they were like actual, I wouldn't use it, but there were actual use case applications. And you could put a guy in it if you wanted to. And does anybody? You're playing a video game and you're like, oh, is this the best configuration for my character? No one does that. In the marketing material.

1:17:39But that at least is like an idea they got. There's one that I saw from a company. It's a pretty low bar when we're like, they've got an idea. I mean, that's, that's CES. They got an idea. That might as well be the tagline. Another one, CES. They got an idea. I guess. Anyway, wait, wait. That's not really CES. But you've seen alternative tubes. Yeah. So, so this company Lempro has this, this tube called Amy, and it's not as good of a hologram, but it's still, you put a woman in a box, which is weird. A tiny woman in a box is a big thing now, apparently, because a lot of companies want to do this.

1:18:15It's very weird. oingo boingo video but the whole the whole purpose of the amy from lempro seems to be not ai assisting or any ideas like that it's simply you're a lonely guy and you want to talk to this a woman and you don't have a woman you ever thought about trapping a woman and you don't want her to be full size right and you don't want her to be able to go anywhere because they were they were they were talking about it as an AI companion. And my colleague at Mashable was doing a video on it, holding the device, talking about it, saying, you know, if you need a friend, I guess. And while he's saying friend, the little woman in the box starts literally like gyrating her body as if she's like doing a striptease.

1:18:59And I had to be like, buddy, I don't think she's meant to be your friend. I mean, this is - Have you ever wanted the experience of thinking a stripper fell in love with you every day right and it's it's because listen i i i don't want to put a stigma on sex tech c s already did that years ago we already talked about jack enough right right but but like this doesn't feel like sex tech this feels like gunner tech i don't know it doesn't feel like something that like is normal even for like what people should be experiencing sexually in order to want to have it socially you need to be socially stunted in a way that other people perceive as unusual.

1:19:37Like, I remember when I was a nerd and I grew up around other nerds. And then occasionally, I remember - Now he's a cool kid. Yeah, now he's cool. I remember being like 16 and one of my friends would say something about women where I'm like, oh, you really don't see them as people. And not in like even a, you feel so pathetic internally. You have so little ability to communicate that you sort of see it as, you see another person as being a stimulus producing machine for your purpose. and there are people like that. And to buy one of these products, that's how you have to see other people. You have to be like really mentally, socially, emotionally, like disabled in a way.

1:20:16Yeah, and I just want to sort of plant a flag very firmly and we don't even have to analyze this, but just sort of like for posterity's sake, the sort of the broadest and most foundational symbology of a technology where it says, here's a little woman that lives in a box on your desk is just sort of every sentence, every word in that sentence is like worse and worse and worse for gender dynamics. It really does symbolize somebody who doesn't see women as equals. I mean, one of the recommended demo like commands you were, they told you to try was to go up to the box and say, dance for me. I mean that alone is very weird Pretty damning And for people who use this type of thing Are you Jabba the Hutt?

1:21:10Do you want to be like Jabba the Hutt? I've had a long day Dance for me Show me Oh that's good No do it more like I like it

1:21:25Yes that's good Yes that feels good Oh my god But also, I hate to ask, but was the woman white and thin by any chance? There were a few women options. Oh, many women to trap. But you could pretty much guess, yes, that it was like a blonde white schoolgirl and then a Japanese woman dressed in traditional Japanese garb. You know, the type of stuff. It's really bad. Yeah. It's really, really, really bad. For me, actually, making it anime makes it slightly more palatable. But it's not anime. Oh, it's not anime. It's just a white schoolgirl. Yeah, it's just people who fetishize Asian women. They're not like human models.

1:22:13They are sort of like cartoony. But it is like anime style. I was going to say, there's stuff like Genshin Impact, where people collect their favorite characters. They find them sexy. Both women and men do this. and it's like, it's a little, it's sort of like fun fantasy land and I can see a version of this product that like appeals to the Genshin Impact player. Right. Where like the average person might be like, that's kind of weird, but I know enough people who do it where I'm like, you can do it in a fun way. Right. But like in general, The school ghost shit. What they're selling is a companion, which is bad.

1:22:44Right. Like the Raysian one you said, like the model of the woman in there was like an anime character. It was like a known, I don't know who she was, but it was a known person. And while she might've been dressed like provocatively, was the character, but also there's no actions that add to that at all. I'm sorry, I don't, I think it's all evil. I agree, but I'm just trying to differentiate the two products. This one, they were dressed that way and then acting out ways you would fantasize someone in that. Wait, are you saying the Razor one is a real character? Is a character that exists in the world?

1:23:21Yes, yes. And then these are not, these are just their own AI companion creations. And you think about it and you're like, you know, these people, you have, when you're designing a companion, you have a literal infinite number of human characters who you could, you know, like why not pick a 65 year old lady bus driver in the Bronx? Why not? Honestly. Why not? But this is what I'm saying. But the reason that you are laughing at this and look, I'm saying that as a joke. It's because it's not sexualized. But the reason that I'm laughing is because it's not sexualized. Why doesn't anyone want Meryl Streep in a box?

1:23:50Meryl Streep in a box. I'm going to be honest. I want to fuck Meryl Streep. No, not saying that. Okay. What if I just want to talk shop with Meryl Streep about her film career in a little box? But I'm going to be honest. Some of the best conversations I've ever had have been with like random old people at airports. Like a few years ago, I was at a random, I forget where I was like, maybe Salt Lake City. Regardless, I just talked to this guy next to me and he was a former NFL player from like the 60s or 70s. Like it was before it was like a high paying job. And we just chatted shit for half an hour and we kind of talked about it.

1:24:19And I was like, yeah, I'm going through some shit right now. And like, we had an honest conversation. That was probably like, I can't imagine - That was more socially healing. But as far as like, yeah, to your point, exactly, sorry, I didn't mean to talk over you. It's like the actual thing - Yeah, I'm a woman. I know, they're going to get me for this. But the loneliness thing, the isolation, isn't solved by sex. And like immediately placing women in this situation where they are the solution to men's problems is male loneliness bullshit. It's claiming that women are somehow the solution to men not seeking introspection and companionship.

1:24:52And what's funny is that it's not even woman is the solution because there's a 65-year-old Bronx bus driver who would not count as the solution. What it is, is there is a specific checklist of a woman's weight, facial beauty, and social subservience that are supposed to fit into this very narrow range of measurements. And that woman then owes service to a man who is lonely. And I want to be as fair as possible. So say a man is very lonely. A man lives a very isolated life and goes, I can see a use for an AI companion as a like a social, like fill the hole that is in my life that I can't figure out another way to fill.

1:25:50That maybe we would say, hey, what do you like? Do you like chess? Go find a once a week or once a month chess night. Hey, do you like, I don't know, whatever. There's chess playing robots that'll solve that problem. Yeah, you don't have to talk to people. Right? That like, I understand that there are people who live an incredibly isolated life that I would maybe look at it and go, there are ways to solve this. There are analog human-to-human ways to solve this and to take baby steps forward. Sure, I mean, I think that that's the solution, and I'll be all, but I can imagine somebody who goes, that kind of human-facing solution is impossible for me.

1:26:24I cannot imagine leaving my apartment. I cannot imagine going to a chestnut. I cannot imagine whatever. Insert. Sure. Fine. Okay. So I'm trying to be as fair as possible, have as much empathy as possible. And this person, first of all, the idea that this person doesn't have inherent Sorry, I'm really on my lady soapbox now. No, no, this is great. But the idea that that person doesn't already, like hasn't already been inherently soaked in sexist assumptions and standards and a view inherently of women as unequal because that is, we all, I view women as unequal because that is the water that we swim in.

1:26:59That is how we live. That is how we are socialized. So like those assumptions already exist in all of us and particularly in this isolated person. but again, I'm being as fair as possible. Say that those assumptions are not actually surface level. They're inherent. They, they, they operate in how we, we make subconscious judgments, but this person is not, you know, sort of like outright a sexist. They buy wife in a tube and suddenly they're, if we're assuming that they're pretty isolated, suddenly they're a huge bulk of their interaction with what feels like a human is Japanese lady in a kimono who probably has big tits under that kimono.

1:27:42Good for, you know, like a good surprise. She better. And one other thing though is that it's like that suddenly it becomes your only interaction with, with the concept of a woman or, or the vast majority of your interaction with the concept of a woman. Like that inherently is going to poison how you interact with your, your interactions with gender. and I just like that, that to me, that is my fairest take where, where, where I'm not saying it's evil at the top or I'm sorry. It's like evil at the out from the outset. I think the product is evil from the outset, but the person doesn't necessarily have to be like fucked up from the outset, but I just think this product is going to need to.

1:28:25I want to, right. I want to add one thing to that, which is it also inherently connects loneliness with sex and physical validation. because it's like why isn't it guy like why do you have to have a woman you are attracted to to solve your loneliness why is your companion by default the opposite sex and i assume validating how you look and telling you you're a trick why is that because that is not because that's where it gets into the like woman subservience thing for me as well because it's how our woman is service that's that's because all these all these all these products aren't solved if your issue is solving your your social problem yeah none of these no tech product is going to sell it will do yes but the whole point or like exposing like exposure to the outside world right like you just if you have a problem socializing with people then the way you fix that is by forcing yourself to socialize with people yeah yeah like tech can't by definition fix that because tech is not a person yeah i mean i used to be a very awkward but like even like a year and i cloyed but he's cool now but i'm cool now no i am not but like it's like and it took having to have some very harsh conversations with myself and my therapist and just accepting that like yeah i was awkward i was not thoughtful about my conversation style and i was just hated myself and didn't think i was human yeah i've been to fucking therapy now it's great but it's solving that would not be someone validating my every whim you kind of need to hurt a little bit because no one is perfect but it's like saying, oh yeah, a sexy waifu in a tube is your prisoner now and now you won't be lonely because the prison wife is yours.

1:30:00And I can, and again, like being as fair as possible, giving as much credit to the other perspectives as possible. I can imagine somebody saying, when you're saying like, I don't want the solution to be loneliness to be inherently tied to romance. I agree at a philosophical level, but I can imagine that from a pragmatic view, a huge amount of very lonely people are like yeah I would fucking love to be in love it doesn't solve it it doesn't solve it if you hate yourself and you meet someone and you have sex with them and you're with them and you still fucking hate yourself you are going to become dependent on that woman and you are going to be a fucking you're going to be a tumor on them it's just I hate to it's a birthmark I literally you know Chloe I have a huge birthmark.

1:30:49Chloe, my autism is such that I genuinely don't think about your birthmark ever. And you know, I'm like the one person. Oh, no, I 100 % know. It's my favorite joke to make. Oh, no, it fucking rocks. Use the store anyway. For those who don't know Chloe, she's got a big birthmark. For those who are just hearing her via audio. Look, it is, first of all, the loneliness epidemic is real. It does kill people. It's like the discourse about it, whatever. But like it is a real problem. It's also like evidence of such a deep distortion in our society that we have it because the thing that we have the most of in the world is other people.

1:31:29We are literally – We got too many. We are literally the most – Second only to other chickens. And the whole idea of replacing people with technology at all is insane because we've got 8 billion of us up from 6 billion when I was in like high school. And guess what? They're cheap. Like you want one in America, you can get one for seven bucks an hour and they'll do whatever the fuck you want. You know, like that's seven 20. And by the way, even when it comes to like companionship, right, there's a role for people to do that commercially. I'm friends with with women who are sex workers and they see at least a couple of them as like, look, there's guys who like they need love and sex.

1:32:07It's a human need. They like have their neurodivergent or have some other issue in such a way. And I can provide a service and they get something out of it. it's reciprocal. That's the best version of it, etc. I could go into details. But that's a real... That's like an occupation that's stigmatized in our society. But it's a real thing that a human could do better. Even then though. And the idea that we're replacing people is insane. There is a difference though, I think, between the loneliness epidemic and the socialization problem. There are guys who have plenty of friends just have trouble with women so they go to sex workers and that's that's fine and then hopefully they don't you know they are normal people other than that but um you know but the the socialization thing these people who aren't even thinking about you know interacting with another woman even for pay like this these are people who who just want to control something because they they don't even want to i don't think they want to fix the socialization problem because why would you buy a woman in a box if you're like i'm socially awkward i need to talk to someone That doesn't solve your issue.

1:33:10That's not even something that gets you in that direction, in my opinion. I just, I don't think it, it doesn't involve any introspection. Right. It's just about, I got a thing that kind of solves the problem so that I don't have to think about solving the problem. Right. Like meeting people online, like that's a fairly new thing. And you know what? It solved a lot of problems for a lot of people because you actually, it's technology. You use technology to actually enhance your real life, your real world. Every single person in this room who has been on this show, including Phil, who I've known for 14 years, I know through the internet.

1:33:41Right. Every single fucking one. I'm like the drill crying tweet, where it's like my beautiful wife crying, my job crying, my watch crying. Now get the fuck out of my office. But that with the internet. And it's like, it is difficult. I'm not pretending like loneliness isn't like a thing, but I fuck it. I resent the male loneliness thing because women get lonely too. And they solve it in a vastly different way. And there's not just a series of different cons set up to con a woman's being like, you want a husband tube? Right. Do you want the man tube? There is none, right. There's nothing. No one putting in a guy in a box, right?

1:34:16There's no one saying that because women are put in a position where they're meant to work. They're meant to fucking work it out. Women have to fucking work it out. Women are told, it's your fucking fault. You're lonely. Why are you fucking, why are you too emotional? Why are you this? Why are you that? It's fucking, it pisses me off because it's like these whiny fucking men who are like, oh yeah i'm fucking lonely and also i'm gonna become racist and it just fuck off i'm sorry i have some very spicy feelings about this because i went through the actual work and it was very difficult and annoying i know i fully agree with you i think you know i don't think they they consider the fact that women are are can be lonely like it's not because in in a lonely in a lonely guy's world they think and you see this online all the time because you could see how angry they get when, oh, a woman decides to like start an OnlyFans and they are successful and they make money doing that.

1:35:03They're like, oh, it's so easy for women. They just go out there and they could talk to anybody and every guy will want to talk with them. And it's like, you know, but you could just go out there and talk too. Nothing's stopping you. Oh, I'm going to say something really out there. Every guy who says that, get on OnlyFans, start selling pictures of your cock. I'm serious. I'm actually fucking serious. To gay men. Go and, yes. Who they would never allow to purchase pictures Because of their cock because gay is bad because, why is gay bad? Because it is close to woman. It's feminine. You couldn't possibly look at a man's penis.

1:35:36You might turn gay. Yeah. I mean, it just comes down to the like such foundational views. It's the most foundational framing of women in society, which is women are there to be consumed and men are there to consume. and it's so deeply fucked up and it kills women and arguably it kills men too oh it absolutely kills men thank you Adam for sticking up for the men well I think that the point you make is you guys can go and talk to anybody anytime is true to me it's similar to a lot of other social problems like poor nutrition people being in poor shape not exercising right Yes, anyone can eat better and jog or whatever.

1:36:28And also some people grow up in an environment where everything that they're ever told, every product they ever purchased, their entire environment is pushing them away from doing that thing. And they just never get around to it. So like my dad has no friends. My mom has 20 friends. Not because my dad's a piece of shit. Just that's the way American society is structured. And so, yes, my dad has a responsibility. and also society can look at this overall problem and go, what the fuck are we doing wrong here that's causing this demographic problem? And the answer is not waifus in tubes. The answer is connecting people with other people.

1:37:04Third spaces. But also, is your dad lonely? There's some people who just prefer actually just not - Yeah, my father, he's quite happy. My mom, my family. For it to be a socialization problem, you have to be a lonely guy who's upset you're alone. Yeah, you feel like you're owed something. Who's upset you're alone and not trying to change that? Right, right, right. Because there are people who are completely content being isolated and they don't view themselves as that, but they prefer to stay in and then go out and hang out or party. They like their time to themselves. And that's completely fine.

1:37:32But there's people who are inside and are angry they're inside and alone. And that's the difference, I think. So I hate to do this. We're going to rotate again. Coming up, an ad for men and women. Whoa. There are products like that? They got him for both birds and the fellas now. Wow.

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1:38:33We're in the fourth quarter and I haven't had any water. That's actually true. I have not drank a drop of water. I think I've had 11 Diet Cokes. You do have a bottle of water next to me. Yeah, it's mostly. I just like to sit with it. Okay, we're back. It's better offline. and we talked about male loneliness epidemic, I guess. We're back, and of course, with comedian and actress Chloe Radcliffe. We will let you do your plagues. Plagues? Plagues. Do your plagues. Yeah. Do your plagues. Put your plagues on people. Your plagues at the end, and you, of course, Adam Conover, stand-up comedian. Hello.

1:39:01And, of course, the host of the Factually Broadcast, and we're actually joined by Ben, my good mate, Ben Rudolph. It's good to see you, man. He's the CEO of Cartographic, and you did 15 years at Microsoft? I sure did. You did the PR for Windows Vista, you were saying? Enterprise PR for Windows Vista, the worst job in the company. it's honestly though that's the most PR thing you like you all always have one yeah you have one thing I made it though no you made it and you're still smiling I'm here but it's germane to what we're talking about like positive male role models positive male discussions because I brought you here because you're a good mate and we've done a lot like we're friends online and you've talked to me about fitness and being like you've genuinely changed my life like helping me build a workout routine this so like you my relationship with you solved more male loneliness this than any like romantic relationship I've ever had.

1:39:46Are you a, are you a fitness coach or are you just do? Okay. No, not really. No, at all. He's just, and just to give you an idea, Ben is fucking like jacked. It's awesome. I'm trying every day to get a little bit more, a little bit more. Yeah. No, I'm not, I'm not a fitness coach at all. I, I love lifting weights. I try and keep myself in shape. I've got nine kids. So Jesus Christ. Yeah. So I had a lot of people who are dependent on me. Sure, sure. Go lift up love kids, lift nine kids. It's a lot of, exactly, a lot of functional fitness. Oh, but seriously, like, it's great for my health. It's great for my mental health.

1:40:23Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's great for my family. Yeah. You know, and like you had, like, it solves as many mental challenges for me as it does physical challenges. So, like, it's not a career for me. It's just something I really enjoy doing. And it's so deeply ingrained into my day-to-day routine that I really can't imagine living without it. Yeah. And we, we met over X, the everything app and we, the ultimate poster championship with you, me, Caleb and Tatiana. And we just talked fitness and like, I fucked up my body real bad doing connected fitness stuff. Actually, it was like, um, fight camp and tonal.

1:40:56And I was lifting real hard. I was not in a good place. And I kind of went to Ben and I'm like, this keeps happening. And I keep getting this pain. And Ben just sends me a video of him and his son. He's like, I'm going to show you how to throw a punch. And it was lovely. Like your son was like, you ready? And he just threw this perfect like spiral punch. I went, wow, I've been punching wrong for several months because you need to like rotate your hips and such. And it's just like, it's one of the things I cherish because it's like a wonderful relationship over the internet. For sure. Wonderful.

1:41:22A positive thing based with talking to another bloke about something positive. And I think it's really easy to dilute a lot of loneliness to, well, I need a female or a romantic companion. I need someone to make me feel better about myself versus helping me along a journey where I do that work while someone inspires me because you're fucking cute and you've done, you always post the ones where you've got like eight, 89 inch biceps or whatever. I think it's lovely. And also I'm saying, if you're listening to this as a man and you're saying, Oh, I'm lonely as go and talk to another fellow, ask him how he's feeling.

1:41:53Talk to him about how you feel. Don't fucking say I need the wife tube. And now I do think, okay. So again, I'm trying, I'm, I really am keeping central in my vision, thinking about the other perspective and being as fair as possible. So if I'm a man listening to this podcast and I'm like, I'm lonely and Ed's advice is, go tell another man how you're feeling. I think that the gap between where a lot of men exist and being able to tell another man how you're feeling is pretty deep. I'm going to say something simple. It's hard to do. If you really can't email me easy at betteroffline.com. I'm not fucking kidding signal me easy on that 76 if you really want to talk about your emotions and you're too scared because your cowardly male friends are not in touch with their things do it i don't care you cry i cry i cry when i fucking need to i'm fucking sick you solve this by facing the problem by doing stuff with this because i have weight issues and honestly you help me ben turn weight lifting into i lift light now i lift volume it's about completing things it's about building something rather than thrashing my fucking body.

1:42:57But I think we need to, I think we have to start by recognizing that it is difficult for men for some reason that we could get into me and one of my best friends. I've known him for 20 years. I see him twice a week at minimum. We're both in therapy. We're progressive guys. We care about our emotions. He number of years ago, seven years or so got divorced. Didn't tell me for a year, you know, like we were on a hike and he was finally like, I want to let you know me and her are separated. I was like, yeah, man, I haven't seen her around. I know, but we didn't talk about it. Then I went through a big breakup a year and a half ago, and he's had to come to me and occasionally go like, hey, man, how are you doing?

1:43:39We haven't talked lately. For some reason, we have to remind each other, and we do it less than we should. Yeah, you're right. I get that you need to remind people. The solution there might be, ask your friend a question that sounds simple. Yeah. And this is not necessarily like, how do you tell your friends how you're feeling? This likely will open up a conversation. But like your friend saying, hey, how are you doing post breakup? Arguably you, it sounds like you had noticed that something had gone weird in his marriage. You hadn't seen his wife around for a long time, but it sounds like you didn't say like, how are things with you and the wife?

1:44:22Yeah, I didn't say anything to him either. So to me, it's like asking that question, even if that feels so like such a steep hill to climb. Like I've been as a woman with feelings. I've been in conversations with my girlfriends who I'm super, super close with where I'm like, God, it is really fucking hard to be like. Anyway, so how is your marriage doing? It seems like if the answer is good, then I'm opening suspicion into an area that I don't need to be opening suspicion into. If the marriage is bad, if she's not telling me, there must be a reason that she's not telling me. But the answer is actually just we are sort of all socialized to not reveal a lot of that information.

1:45:03And then women have been permitted to be like – we have been sort of saddled with their emotional and their dramatic. but what that, the light side of that is that we are permitted to express difficult things a little bit more easily and a little bit more. Sorry, but we've just dropped you in the middle of this. This is great. It's like you, you and I, I mean, I think men in general are, you know, we're supposed to be strong, physically strong, mentally strong, spiritually strong, all those things. You and I started talking, not just about fitness, but when you were like, Hey, I struggled with my weight.

1:45:35Yeah. Like I was able to say like, I struggled with my weight too. Like, yeah, in 2009 or so on, I lost about 70 pounds. I was big. Which for you is like 1 % of your body mass. Yeah, I weigh 700 pounds. But it's all muscle. More now than it used to be. But that gave us an opportunity to talk over that. And that was like something that we could bond over. It's something we could, you know, you're not the only person who's ever dealt with the weight. I know weakness that we should compare. And like, I still always feel like the fat kid. Oh, same. And I feel fat all the time. I feel fat right now.

1:46:09Like it's weird. Right. And I, I always do. And it's always like weighs on me. Cause I was a heavy kid through my twenties and I didn't really turn it around until it was about 30 years old. And once you figure that out and you find out that other people have gone through the same thing, then all of a sudden you can have a very different conversation about it. And it's not about lifting to go in the Mr. Olympia. And it's not about trying to set a bench press record. It's really just about like, you know, trying to build yourself up as much physically as it is mentally. And other people are trying to, you're just trying to get through the day.

1:46:38And also it's okay. I will say, in my experience, pushing a little further on guys being like, are you really okay? A lot of guys will open up and be like, I'm not. And you have a nice conversation and you're worried. And I mean, the feminization of emotion is disgusting because it's like, oh my God, the amount of times I've cried with my male friends and vice versa. And it's felt so much fucking better. Or when I've cried in front of you, Chloe. I've cried my - I think that's close to how we met. It was like two days later. Yeah, it was two days later. But it's great and it's good. And it's just, it's really easy to find other stopgaps.

1:47:10And I want to be clear, like these companies are taking advantage of that. They're not, because I wanted to say this last episode as well. It's like the reason that there is a loneliness epidemic is there are no third spaces. There are fewer walkable cities and the social networking tools no longer, that is such a fucking like Dennis Leary style. The social networking tool don't let you socialize. But really though, you can't have a chronological feed of the people you want to fucking follow on most platforms. there's obstructions between it there's like random platforms just become racist they're not designed to get people into physical space with the exception of dating apps which are but even then like yeah true and those are all fucked up and gamified but like you know what was the name of the site from like the late 90s or like meetup.com or.org do you yeah yeah me i think they're still around uh maybe it was literally designed it was like sort of pre-facebook designed to be, find stuff to do in real life.

1:48:06There are things called meetups. Yeah, meetups are still around, like that as a branded name. Okay, well, that is not the focus of most social networking tools. In the early days, there were a lot that were like, hey, let's get people to meet up in the real world. And now that's the last thing Facebook wants you to do. And it's just, there are ways that this could be fixed. I'm not an inventor, but I don't know. The problem being that men don't want to talk. That's not something, that's an analog problem. Yes, I'm just saying like the prescription. Oh, no, I'm agreeing. I'm agreeing. A tangible prescription can be ask your male friend a question, any question.

1:48:40Any question. Yeah. And also ask your girlfriend as well. If you have one, more questions. Ask anyone in your life a question. And actually listen. They will love it. No, really. All I want to add to this is I think it needs to start with a recognition that like in the same way that when I started working out, I was like, oh, yeah, everything in my life has been telling me to sit on my ass. and I have to like make an effort to do it. Right. Well, that's even, but it was a little bit easier because yes, men are supposed to be strong. Right. Everything in men's lives are sort of telling them not to open up.

1:49:12It is like a barrier defensive almost. And like, you have to like treat it as like, this is not going to be super easy. Like I have to, you know, I have to like pry it out of myself and out of my male friend, which is why like, you know, again, my friend to me was like, we need to talk. It's been a while. Which is exactly why I'm saying, And it's, I'm glad they did. And that's exactly why I'm trying to point out the gulf between somebody listening to this and going, I feel isolated. And the, the other side of that crevasse of like, just tell, talk about your feelings. And that I do think that there's like an easy concrete.

1:49:46You're intentionally opting into something hard. Yes. Right. Like that's, I mean, and it's, it's, we are, you know, not to get too metaphysical, but like we're nothing if there are not challenges for us to. Yeah. Attack. And doing hard things can be rewarded. Exactly right. And like, it is no harder to learn how to bench press than it is to talk about your feelings. Those are both hard. And with fitness as well, I had to like push past the thing of like, I have to be strong. It was this incredibly negative relationship I had with my body because I was a fat person that didn't, I was a fat sedentary piece of shit.

1:50:15Until I got past that, I could not have a body I liked until it was about building something and recognizing weakness and the fragility of one's body, but also the fact that going about it and beating the shit out of yourself to become strong is unsustainable because it just means that every like a good thing a powerful thing a progressive thing is inherently regressive you were just hurting yourself and where is the end point of that how are you going to go oh i've reached a good point it's just you're a piece of shit if you fall below this level and i've fucking fought with that yeah well and there's i mean especially when it comes out like the body dysmorphia stuff never stops right i mean there's like there's memes and jokes about it like i've been i've been bodybuilding for five years like when does the body dysmorphia stop?

1:50:56I'm like, oh, it doesn't, right? It's like, you're just getting started, man. Like you see the guys even, not that I would ever advocate for this, but like the guys who are like the pro bodybuilders, they'll win shows and they'll be like, what are you doing? I mean, it's very famous, like Jay Cutler, who won Mr. Olympia four times. They interviewed him after he won and they were like, what are you gonna do to celebrate? He's like, I gotta go to bed early because I got cardio in the morning. And it's like, you just won like, you know, the world series of bodybuilding and he's not taking a day off because he was so wrapped into it and so like deep into it that it was just like, it's all he could think about.

1:51:28And like, you know, and, and again, not to be a woman about this, please. I just want to state for the record that I, I love, I am so glad that men are talking about body dysmorphia and the way that body dysmorphia shows up in women is so, uh, much more socially connected with our value. Like that, that like, I do, I do not, I, I want to be like, I totally get it. I, I do totally get it. And I get it. I think probably more than you might think I do. And then just a quick shout out for the girls that like, then it is connected to the women are there to be consumed that like the, the, the extra layer of value when we feel body dysfunction.

1:52:21Well, it gets back to the wife tube thing, which I'm liking saying that phrase, I guess, where it's like, yeah, it's not a overweight woman. It's not a man. It's a sexualized presentation of the idealistic woman for the certain customer of this thing. Because I am not a woman. I experience body dysmorphia every day. But I'm not like me being overweight is not the thing that precluded me from being happy. It was how I felt about myself. To be clear, I want to feel better about myself. but my value as a man is not directly affected in the same way. That's so I, when I was fat, it was not keeping me from job opportunities.

1:52:58Exactly. That's what it is. It's the, it's the, like, I think probably the emotional experience of body dysmorphia is, is very, very similar in women and men. And, and even the like men are supposed to be strong. And so like, there is a social value associated with that, but it is that when men fall outside of what we consider the classically attractive bounds, the way that their lives are negatively impacted tend to be much more minimal negative impacts than the way that women's lives are impacted when they fall outside of the bounds of classical I would say when I was very I was like 350 pounds there was definitely a level of like respect I didn't get but it was not like it wasn't to the level where women are just fucking completely excluded if they do not look like the heteronormative idea of what a woman should look like a certain level of thinness and attractiveness and makeup and all of these yeah it's very it's very different yeah or it's just like a whole nother fun yeah you get like several more layers of i mean look at the look at the people at this conference and look at the you know there's people who are uh there's there's men walking around who are not fitting conventional conventional notions of what an attractive man is and they're powerful successful men at this conference and i think you'd have a hard time finding women are in the same position right we're talking about all the other dimensions of you know of social value and status so much more connected for women absolutely and everything goes with women as well as weight loss and thinness and certain presentations and minutes about a certain level of bigness and the metrics are even different it's just it's I'm glad we're talking about this on the show because I know we probably have more men listening than we do women I hope like I would love that not to be the case but it's about technology.

1:54:45What do you fucking think? And it's just like, it sucks because yeah, they're a lonely man, but it's like, yeah, sadly you bring this shit to a woman before you fixed it. You're now her problem. She needs the key. And you're going to have many of these things about your body that you transfer onto her. You'll judge her the same way you judge yourself until you can get past that. Even the internalized sexual, uh, the sexism of like how a man and a woman is meant to feel. When I was, when I was heavy, like I had to go through a lot of things of just like no one needs to look a certain fucking way at all like i might need to be thin for myself that might be what i need to aspire to but that's no one else's fucking job no one has to look a certain way for me or for like only for themselves and it it sucks i the more i think about these fucking wife tubes as funny as to say the more like angry i get because it's just like reinforcing gender stereotypes but also adding a new layer of like woman prison i mean it's it's like it's it's fantasy subjugation yes and it's it's a a technological fake solution to a real social problem that is like preying on both the customers and the women who are being represented yeah there's this tube where you had like an anime wife you could talk to i probably should have multiple products though i i distilled it from the conversation yeah um yeah that sounds like a terrible idea it's it's a really good band-aid on a multitude of problems because i maintain you want to you want to actually genuinely go talk to a priest like i don't mean it even if you're not religious you just fucking maybe you need some spirituality in your life maybe you need more than just how you look or how you feel and trapped in your own head they'll talk to you for a priest they'll talk to you all fucking day you don't need to be religious i'm not even joking like the monk the the um dominican monk fray gabriel he's sadly not here father Gabriel pardon me he I talked to him for hours I'm not religious at all I'm like agnostic who fucking knows but it's like the problem is if you talk about your problems then you have to recognize your role in them and how they make you feel and when you've never done that this is the sympathy I'll give it hurts it's well there's when you've never done that and also when the technology that is in our world is so effective at like pressing the immediate dopamine button, right?

1:57:06That we are presented with a drug that is more instant and more powerful and more replicable than ever in human history. And so why would you do something that feels bad when you can just do something that feels good right away, even if it feels bad on a long-term scale and you sort of understand that inherently? Yeah, but you can still just do the drug again. You can just press the button again. you can just feel better again and why wouldn't you of course chinese peptides like it really does connect though no but we were talking about these chinese peptides yesterday it's like yeah a quick and easy solution to be clear you use glp1 from a doctor brilliant well however your weight loss journey happens if that's what you need brilliant sadly and ben and i can tell you you can lose all the weight but you're still gonna feel bad about yourself until you solve that until you find a way to carve out your own self you're gonna be you're gonna be in trouble and i say this as someone who has been in trouble, who has taken years to build the internal and external me that I wanted.

1:58:00And it's like all these fitness things, they don't even really try that as well. I think Victoria Sung's made the point multiple times that these numbers, the useless numbers we were talking about. I said that my theme for CES is numbers you don't need. It's just like, there's no substitute for the work. No. I mean, that's it. There's no substitute. But everybody's like, but is this a substitute for the work? Exactly. Exactly. Like we've been trying this forever. CES 2026. But is this a substitute for the work? There's a great, there's a great, uh, I think you and I've talked about it before. Henry Rollins wrote a great article called the iron, the iron and soul.

1:58:33Yes. Amazing. Right. Where he talks about the iron never lies. And at the end of the day, like forget the, I'm going to butcher the quote, but he wraps it up by being like, you can be the biggest guy in the room with the smallest guy in the room. You can have the best body or the worst body. You could just gotten married or just gotten dumped. You know, you fired from your job promoted at the end of the day, man, And the 200 pounds is still 200 pounds. You either lift it or you don't. Like it's the work is there to be done. You change, but the iron stays the same. The iron stays the same. Like the process of lifting heavier or eating better or whatever is like the hard is what makes it good.

1:59:06It's not just about the aesthetics or about how much weight you can push. It's about the process that you go through. You know, and those GLP-1s like and other peptides, like they are miracle drugs. Yeah. They are miracle drugs. and I know lots of people who have gone on them and the people who are successful are the people who go on them. And then also lift the weights and also do the cardio. and also eat better. The people who just take them and then kind of like deflate because they're not doing anything have horrible metabolic problems because they took the shortcut and you get the results of the shortcut.

1:59:40And you feel still miserable about it. And they say this as I've lost, I was 350 pounds. I dropped to 130 pounds when I was 19. I then went back up to 260 something by the end of my, like the midpoint of my thirties and maybe a buck 65 now. that last part was the first time it stayed like i've stayed consistently this way not because i've stayed consistent my face i've been off for the last few months but because i've been more focused on what good feels like than i have on how my fucking pussy punishing beating the fuck i remember texting my friend tachyana friend of the show tachyana uh yeah my arms feel like they're full of broken glass and i was happy and she was like i don't think that's what that's meant to feel like and i was like yes it is i'm good she it wasn't a good day it's not long before i started talking to you ben and i think it's just like it's really easy to fucking hate yourself for for bad reasons and then also not really be critical of yourself for the good ones such as i'm fucking up my body repeatedly so that i can be sexy for women and i want to add another a corollary to it's really easy to hate yourself yes also it is really easy to justify a fairly nihilist point of view go on i think now more than ever i think it's very easy to be like nothing matters and we're all gonna die and so why am i why would i try but i can try or like the world is so fucked up and obviously there's no uh like to to keep to rationalize to justify whatever your repeated choices are and i'm talking to myself more than anybody like i i have i have a million of these ruts and that i get myself into and i think it's very very easy to justify uh self destructive choices particularly the mildly self-destructive choices the ones that aren't like driving causing you to drive your car into a tree at the end of the night you know like what are the minor ones oh just like eat like justifying promising yourself that you'll eat better and then not, even if it's not to a crazy degree, but it's to a degree that keeps you unhealthy in a way.

2:01:49Or like, you know, it's like if you're not getting blackout drunk every week, but you're like, I, when I drink, I wake up the next morning and I feel anxious in a way that cripples me for the whole next day. But I'm just going to have another drink. I'm just going to have one more drink with my friends tomorrow night or whatever. And it's, and again, like this, these are things that I do. These are, this is my own life. This is, nobody saw, uh, Adam just dropped the nihilism thing. I mean, like my favorite gym t-shirt that I lift in all the time is like the counterpoint to that. And it says like, we're all going to die.

2:02:18Might as well get strong. Yeah. Like I think, is it Pascal's wager? Isn't it Pascal's wager? Right. It's like, it's like that, but for life choices. Yeah. Like it's Pascal's wager. You can act as if God exists. Like you might as well act as if God exists because even if he does not exist, living in a moral way, it's the benefit of yourself. I totally agree. I'm just saying, I'm saying like, I think a lot of people easily fall into a justification where it's not even that they, like, I think that there's people listening to this who wouldn't say, I hate myself, who would just say everything is so bleak.

2:02:49Yeah, who gives a fuck? It doesn't matter. Yeah. Yeah. And the thing is. Or, or my, my jadedness is correct. Not even it doesn't matter. Stuff where they're like, it could matter, but like, look at, I, I, I, I think people, people rationalize jadedness. I also think it's really easy for guys to, in particular, I know I take that back. It's not true. Women do this kind of self-harm as well. And where it's like for the beauty standards of both woman and men, where it's, I need to hurt. The pain is necessary. No pain, no gain. Actually, pain is not brilliant. And with woman, it can often be, I mean, they do the same thing with fitness, but like dietary stuff with woman is much harsher.

2:03:29It's like the ways we punish ourselves and they usually fail. like i am generally not in pain when i after i work out i feel worked but i feel good and it's like that's the thing to look for but it's really easy because you got on instagram especially if you'd like start talking about fitness in a dm and instagram's like oh we're not looking but it looks like you need some peptides and you can get this fucking pressure of these guys who are just they're younger than you stronger than you they've gone through crazier journeys they've lost more weight they've done this it's really easy for guys to pretend like this doesn't happen you don't look at another guy's body and you feel in inferior it fucking happens and you're like if i look like that i'll feel better you probably won't mate yeah and woman woman talk about this publicly all the time men don't want to because he's fucking gay they're like he's gay oh he's fucking good lord with the worst thing that could happen to you is that you're gay jesus christ that sounds fun like who gives a shit you're in love with a man it sounds nice you're in love with a woman who gives a fuck yeah but it's like this feminization of anything any kind of pain and emotion.

2:04:32Men are just fucking strong. Go on Wife Tube. Wife Tube will talk to me and I'll lift a million pounds. I don't know. It's nice to have a conversation like this in a scenario like this as well, a very male-dominated space, male-dominated industry. And it's also scary for men to think about this stuff. And it's much easier to blame everyone else. Other men too. That being said, I am going to try and lift a million pounds this year. No, but you do it because it's fucking - A million pounds of volume. That's the goal. No, but that's fucking - You're doing that because - I don't know if I'll get there, but we'll try it.

2:05:02No, but you're doing it for fun. I'm doing it for fun because like it is, it is a therapeutic thing for me. Like the joke of, you know, lift heavy rocks, but it's like, it's true. It is a great physical thing. It's a great mental thing. It's good for my marriage, right? Like I'm a better husband. I'm a better father. I'm better professionally because I'm able to focus. You're energetic and you - Energetic, yeah, exactly. And you build something versus - You can see the results. Patching over something. Exactly right. I'm so glad we're talking. Foundational building. Adam, what do you think about all this?

2:05:34Sorry, Adam. You've been quiet this whole time. Oh, yeah. We've been podcasting for two hours. I'm a little tired. Yeah, no, I mean, I think that it's just the trip that I'm on is like, I do think that we underrate how much society, like all of us together as a society push men down the wrong path on this stuff. And I think at the same time, as we are saying like, you know, men need to step up and like change their attitudes. I also think we need to like create space for other men. Yes. To do these things. That's actually what I'm trying to intentionally do. And women need to do this. Men need to do it.

2:06:17I think with each other, each other. But it is like, you know, a, and I think the thing that because there's so many elements of this you can talk about how sexism and patriarchy and stuff affects men and women and you can almost always go it affects women worse. It's true, right? But a deficiency that I think that the reason I'm glad we're having this conversation is I think a deficiency at least I think that's unequivocally true is that men talk about it less. I grew up watching just the evolving conversation about sexism directed towards women for my entire life and like processing it. Oh, we're developing how we're thinking about this.

2:06:57We're trying to address this process. It all still exists, but we're, and like, we just, we have never had it for men on a cultural level. And when we try, a lot of times people go, you know, like, why, you know? I talk about this on stage sometimes and, you know, people come up to, a woman came up to me and says like, oh, it's kind of like, oh, won't somebody think of the man? And I'm like, yeah, kind of, it is kind of, won't somebody think of me? But the thing is, I get what she is saying in the, it's very, very easy to fall into the trope of like, oh, poor man. But it's like, the actual solution is you can say that, but only if the answer is talking to other guys, not like, and that's where women come in.

2:07:35And that's how having sex. And by the way, I will just say that will not solve your image issues. That will not do it. It's a fucking bandaid too. Yeah. I mean, Adam, to your – thinking about what you were just saying, I think that the solution to – I don't know that there's like a way to really solve gender dynamics, you know, just snap my fingers. We've got 15 minutes left. We've actually only got five. but i you know if i were there listening to the woman say uh that's kind of a think of the men and your answer is yeah it is think of the men that's because the only way that we make any progress is with empathy and kindness yes yeah to the people in to every player involved in this in the scenario yeah yeah and it's but empathy that means men empathy requires introspection sorry i didn't mean to talk yeah no no no no totally and on that point i'm going to end this two hour long episode.

2:08:37Ben Rudolph, where can we find you? I'm on X, the everything app. Oh, nice. Ben, the PC guy. It's my wonderful friend. Or you can go to cartographic.com at C A R T O G R A F I Q.com because we wanted to make it super hard to spell. Nice. Can I just ask Ben a question? Did you see one cool thing at CES? We've been talking shit on tech products and men generally. Is there anything that you were excited about? um so i haven't spent that much time around the floor i've been working with my clients i think there's finally some i mean we could do another two hours should we get in should we get into like the transition from ai hype to like what you can actually do with it that actually matters um i have seen some stuff that i think it's interesting and fun i haven't seen anything that i'm like wow that's going to change my life like there's a lot of like autonomous uh like scooters and stuff like that that seem interesting, but I don't know.

2:09:36That's all I want to know. Adam, why don't you do your call-outs to where you're going to be doing stand-up? Oh, okay. This weekend, I'm going to be in Madison, Wisconsin. Next weekend, I'll be in Fort Wayne, Indiana. Then I'm going to Louisville, Kentucky at the end of January. Then in early February, I'll be in Houston, Texas. And then I'm taping my new special at the Punchline in San Francisco, February 19th through 21st. adamconover.net for tickets. Hell yeah. Chloe? This weekend I'm in Cincinnati, Ohio. Next weekend I am in Washington, D.C. The week after that, not the weekend, January 20th, 21st, and 22nd, I'm doing my solo show called Cheat, which is a completely separate hour.

2:10:15It is not the hour of stand-up that I do on the road. Ed has seen it and loved it. In Philadelphia, Cheat in Philadelphia, January 20, 21, 22, and then the weekend after that. Oh, then two weekends after that I'll be in for a moment at the end of it. And as we end this show, Big shout out to the departed past last year, Sean Paul Adams, friend of the show, friend of the suite. Please donate to the Pediatric Epilepsy Research Consortium in honor of his son who is epileptic. His family would deeply appreciate it. Thank you so much for listening. We've got another two hours for you coming soon.

2:10:53Thank you for listening to Better Offline. The editor and composer of the Better Offline theme song is Matt Ossowski. You can check out more of his music and audio projects at matosowski.com. M-A-T-T-O-S-O-W-S-K-I.com. You can email me at ez at betteroffline.com or visit betteroffline.com to find more podcast links and, of course, my newsletter. I also really recommend you go to chat.wheresyoured.at to visit the Discord and go to r slash betteroffline to check out our Reddit.

2:11:51Thank you so much for listening.

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