In short
Two “Incognito Mode” segments from Search Engine. First: an extended interview about illicit drug adulteration, especially cocaine cut with fentanyl, and how users can’t reliably detect what’s in their drugs. Second: a live “game show” where listeners submit questions they think are unanswerable; PJ Vogt and writer Calvis Sané riff on them.
Guests (and backgrounds)
Nate (pseudonym), a long-time drug dealer in a major U.S. city who sells hard drugs including cocaine; he tests samples himself and says he doesn’t sell fentanyl or heroin. Calvis Sané is the writer/guest for the on-air question game.
Key claims
Illicit drugs in the U.S. are so adulterated that users often don’t know what “real” cocaine/ketamine feels like. Fentanyl contamination is described as concentrated in certain street-level supply chains. Nate says fentanyl test strips can have false positives; better strips and mass-spectrometer testing (e.g., DanceSafe) exist.
Notable examples
Cocaine bricks from Mexico containing amphetamines, fillers, and “worming de-agent” that can mimic cocaine when cooked down. A ketamine kilo that tested positive for ketamine but became a toxic rock-hard mass; no refunds. A 2CB deal that turned out to be K2 (synthetic THC), leading to days-long trips and a violent psychotic episode.
Written by AI. May contain mistakes. Listen to the episode to check what was said.
Chapters
Tap a time to open that second in VOUnderstanding Drug Adulteration
1:45 to 1:56
Explore the confusion around fentanyl in cocaine and its effects on users.
“Now available in Canada too, that's quince.com slash search engine for free shipping and 365 day returns.”
Understanding Drug Adulteration
2:27 to 4:28
Explore the confusion around fentanyl in cocaine and its effects on users.
“The first was extended reporting into illicit markets, an interview with a cocaine salesman.”
The Life of a Drug Dealer
4:29 to 5:37
Hear the perspective of a drug dealer on quality control and safety issues.
“We ended up having a very frank conversation, me and this person who has been in the illicit drug market for a very long time, it felt like the kind of interview that deserved to stand on its own.”
Testing for Fentanyl
5:38 to 6:55
Learn about the challenges of testing drugs for fentanyl and common misconceptions.
“Can you tell me, do you remember the first time you heard of fentanyl?”
The Dangers of Adulterated Drugs
6:56 to 11:30
Discover the risks associated with buying drugs that may be cut with harmful substances.
“It's just not the kind of market that intersects.”
Advice from a Dealer
11:31 to 14:00
Get insights from a drug dealer on the realities of drug use and safety recommendations.
“I have friends who have bought bad drugs in the pre-Fentanyl era.”
Ethics and Accountability in Drug Dealing
14:00 to 26:40
Explore the ethical dilemmas and accountability within drug communities.
“And I'll tell you the truth, I very rarely do cocaine.”
Ethics and Accountability in Drug Dealing
28:33 to 28:54
Explore the ethical dilemmas and accountability within drug communities.
Unanswerable Questions Segment
28:54 to 38:10
Exploration of unanswerable questions and cultural perspectives on archaeology.
“So at some point, I had the idea, which is that I wanted listeners to send in questions they thought would just be unanswerable.”
The Problem with Derogatory Names
38:10 to 42:01
Discussion on the negative connotations of names like Karen and Chad.
“After a lifetime of service, she should be spared this unfortunate name creep.”
Show all 23 chapters
Insults and Identity
42:01 to 44:28
Explore the complexities of insults and personal identity, focusing on the term 'Karen'.
“And at some point, we may find ourselves having a conversation about why it makes sense to insult people on the basis of intelligence, which is not something that mainly people are able to control, right?”
Giving to the Homeless
44:29 to 46:43
Discuss the moral implications and personal experiences of giving money to homeless individuals.
“Oh, centrifugal is just like me not knowing what centripetal is?”
Moral Proximity and Empathy
46:44 to 51:10
Consider the balance between caring for those nearby versus distant suffering.
“If you don't, I feel like you end up in a world living in a city like New York where you just have to turn your mind off to lots and lots of suffering.”
Urban Living and Moral Challenges
51:11 to 52:35
Examine the difficulties of living in cities while confronting visible suffering.
“I think they sometimes feel like that ends up can be exhausting or unpleasant.”
Silly Stumper: Chicken Eggs and Heights
52:36 to 54:56
Engage in a humorous thought experiment about stacking chicken eggs to reach the moon.
“We're going to take a turn from somewhat serious to somewhat silly.”
Base 12 Numbering System
54:57 to 56:00
Discuss how a base 12 numbering system would change our understanding of math and music.
“But let's move on to our hat full of questions here.”
Imagining a Base 12 World
56:00 to 57:36
Exploring the implications of a world with different numeric bases on human evolution and communication.
“I don't think feet need to be grosser than they currently are.”
Moral Questions About Eating Meat
57:36 to 59:38
Discussing the moral dilemmas surrounding meat consumption and veganism.
“one more i'm gonna pull one more out of the hat here um let's see i think our final question is a somewhat, yeah, this is a good one.”
Cognitive Dissonance and Animal Suffering
59:38 to 1:02:18
Examining the conflict between eating meat and awareness of animal suffering.
“Question about myself that I don't like.”
Sign Off and Audience Engagement
1:02:18 to 1:04:45
Wrapping up the discussion and inviting audience interaction.
“nice house where sometimes someone shocks you with a shock collar, but you're alive?”
Sign Off and Audience Engagement
1:04:49 to 1:06:02
Wrapping up the discussion and inviting audience interaction.
“Mercury is a fintech company, not an FDIC-insured bank.”
Sign Off and Audience Engagement
1:06:04 to 1:07:11
Wrapping up the discussion and inviting audience interaction.
“That's webroot.com slash search engine to get 60 % off today.”
Sign Off and Audience Engagement
1:07:16 to 1:09:37
Wrapping up the discussion and inviting audience interaction.
“Theme, original composition, and mixing by Armin Bazarian.”
Transcript
Automatic transcript. May contain errors.0:00This episode of Search Engine is brought to you in part by Vanguard. To all the financial advisors listening, let's talk bonds for a minute. Capturing value in fixed income is not easy. Bond markets are massive, murky, and let's be real, lots of firms throw a couple flashy funds your way and call it a day. But not Vanguard. Here's the thing, Vanguard's bonds are institutional quality, not a tagline and actual commitment to your clients. Over 80 bond funds actively managed by a 200-person global team of specialists, analysts, and traders. And rather than betting everything on one-star manager, Vanguard shares its best strategies across that whole team.
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0:58This episode of Search Engine is brought to you in part by Quince. One thing I love about summer is how easy everything feels, especially when you have those comfortable go-anywhere pieces you can reach for again and again on relaxed days. That's the reason I keep coming back to Quince. They focus on well-made essentials that naturally become those everyday staples you live in all season long. Their 100 % European linen pants and shirts are the ultimate summer upgrade, starting at just$34. dollars. They're incredibly breathable and easy to throw on. I also live in their ultra soft tees and their lightweight cotton sweaters are perfect for when the summer nights cool down.
1:31Because Quince works directly with ethical factories and cuts out the middlemen, everything is priced 50 to 80 % less than similar brands. They're also amazing for home and travel essentials. Make your summer wardrobe easier, go to quince.com slash search engine for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. Now available in Canada too, that's quince.com slash search engine for free shipping and 365 day returns. Quince.com slash search engine.
2:02Welcome to Search Engine. I'm PJ Vogt. No question too big, no question too small. So this summer, as the Search Engine production team rests and recharges, we are playing you some of our favorite segments from our vault, our premium feed, which we call Incognito Mode. These are just some of the extra interviews that we share with our paid subscribers for a mere five bucks a month. What a steal. This week, we are sharing two segments. The first was extended reporting into illicit markets, an interview with a cocaine salesman. The second was a kind of game show we built to highlight the depths of my ignorance.
2:38Please enjoy.
2:48So in Search Engine's first year, I'd had this question that come up while I was doing some reporting about fentanyl. I was talking to a journalist named Ben Westhoff, and I wondered about something that had not made sense to me. Drug dealers were putting fentanyl into drugs like cocaine, but I didn't understand why the users of those drugs weren't noticing, because presumably a stimulant like cocaine and an opiate like fentanyl offer very different highs. So I asked Ben about it. One of the things I find confusing about that is that like, my assumption is that a stimulant user, like a cocaine user, would notice, hey, this is like a different high.
3:24Like, why is it possible to cut it into drugs that are supposed to have very different reactions?
3:29Kelefa Sanneh:The first thing I think is that cocaine in America is so adulterated, and it has been for so long, that Americans have no idea what real cocaine is actually like. I've heard from people who've had a pure that it's basically like, it's more like ecstasy, actually. It gives you this euphoric feeling rather than this sort of like manic high and that it lasts a long time. So that's the first thing. And the second thing is I think that just users aren't really in a position to complain. And as long as they're getting high at all, I think most people probably are satisfied with their coke being cut with fentanyl.
4:12So Ben said essentially that the quality of illicit drugs in America is so bad, most of the time users don't even know what they're supposed to be getting. Like cocaine users in America might not even know what actual cocaine feels like. I found that idea very interesting. So I took it to another person, a drug dealer we're going to call Nate. We ended up having a very frank conversation, me and this person who has been in the illicit drug market for a very long time, it felt like the kind of interview that deserved to stand on its own. And also potentially as a PSA for people who use drugs like cocaine or ketamine.
4:49Nate told me stories about his professional life, scenes from the complicated world of trying to figure out which drugs are safe to sell and which aren't. And he had some advice about how people could try to stay safe in a completely unregulated drug market. To protect his identity, we've changed his voice with AI. Here's Nate. Hello? Hey. Hey, how's it going? Siri thinks your last name is pronounced Vought. Honestly, that means Siri is doing at least as well as most human beings. Everybody is Vought or Void. How's it pronounced? Vote. Vote. Like what you do in an election. Oh, that's great. That's a great last name.
5:28Nate sells drugs for a living. He has a successful business in a major U.S. city, selling hard drugs to all sorts of people. He doesn't sell fentanyl. He doesn't sell heroin. He's a person who sells many other drugs, including cocaine. Can you tell me, do you remember the first time you heard of fentanyl? What is the story of fentanyl as it hit you from your perspective? Well, I mean, I have always tested everything that I saw. I just half the person tested because it's like an ethical responsibility. And so I got these fentanyl strips. I didn't know exactly what it was. It was before it was so widespread and people were dying left and right.
6:10What year do you think this was? 2019, maybe. Okay. Not that long ago. And the primary method of testing for fentanyl is highly flawed. It gives almost half the time a false positive. Oh, wow. Nate says that now there are new fentanyl test strips, which work much better. They yield fewer false positives and are easier to use. You can find them at dancesafe.org. But in the early days, when the test strips didn't work as well and people were very scared, Nate was fielding a lot of angry phone calls. I would get like two or three phone calls a week. I just tested your shit and it has fentanyl and he's trying to kill me.
6:51And it would be for like everything. Like MDMA, no one is putting fentanyl in MDMA. It's just not the kind of market that intersects. And if you go to Dansafe.org where they do mass spectrometer testing of all samples, you can just send a sample to these guys and they're going to tell you exactly proportionately what chemicals are in there. Yeah. And there is not a single sample of MDMA in the thousands and thousands of samples that come in from all over the world that has fentanyl in it. We checked this with Dansafe. The executive director there confirmed that Dansafe has never found an example of MDMA with fentanyl in it.
7:33Although he said there was one case that was not lab-confirmed where he suspected fentanyl had been involved. Nate's experience seems to mostly track with Dan Safes. It's always coke or heroin and a couple times ketamine, but almost never ketamine. And so that's how I started being aware of it, these strips that were telling me there's fentanyl and shit. Nate says even the fact that he is fielding calls from his customers and testing his drugs himself that makes him unusual. He describes himself as a professional. He has a client list, he has regulars, he has a reputation to maintain. He says he'll even cut people off if he suspects they have a drug problem.
8:15But the problem, he says, with being an honest drug dealer is that you're the last step on a distribution chain filled with people who might be much less honest. I bought a key of what was supposed to be ketamine through a friend. It was the middle of COVID. it, I was like, dude, it is so dry. And this girl was like, I do know this guy, this Chinatown guy, and he'll get us something. So I buy a key. I give her like 30 grand. And she comes back with a kilo of looks like ketamine. And I go to cook it down. And it turns into this rock hard stinking mass. Quick primer on what it means to cook ketamine down.
9:00When drug dealers buy ketamine wholesale, they often buy it as a crystal, but when users consume it, it's usually bought as a powder. Nate, and people like Nate, turned ketamine crystals into ketamine powder by either crushing them or cooking them down. Normally. Except this one time that ketamine crystals, once they were cooked down, appeared to be something else. A rock-hard, stinking mass of God knows what. Nate had been ripped off. In a normal business, that would be a reason to ask for a refund from the supplier. Nate's not in a normal business. So here's what happened on the day he found himself staring down at his very expensive, very bad product.
9:40It's just complete adultery, and I don't even know what it is. There's some ketamine in there because it tested positive for ketamine, but it's a rock-solid bath. It's toxic. It's stinking. I put the pot in my kitchen for like six months waiting to see if some chemical wizard could identify what it was cut with and if they could separate it but no one ever could figure it out and I ended up flushing it down the drain I had absolutely no recourse to that guy who sold me that kilo right there's no better business bureau you can go to either no no and I'm not even gonna like like I'm not even gonna ask those guys yeah you know those guys those guys are killers I mean they're serious people.
10:24And my friend, I was like, can you just ask him? And she's like, okay. So she asked him and he was like, no, no, no refunds. It's ketamine. That's it. And then try it changes the number. Right. So you're in a position where you're out 30 grand, you eat the loss. Somebody else might not. Exactly. In that case, most people are going to recrystallize that and sell it. recrystallizing, which you may have done in chemistry class, is when an impure solid compound is mixed with a hot solvent to form a saturated solution. In this case, it would be a way to disguise the fact that this drug should not be consumed by anyone.
11:04Nate says most dealers are going to pull a trick like this because they don't care about customer service very much in a high demand illegal industry. He says he imagines the typical drug dealer and thinks, this guy might have stolen something to buy these bad drugs, or maybe he used his last bit of money. If he just spent everything he had on this product, he's going to sell that fucking product. These are desperate people. These aren't people like me, you know? I have friends who have bought bad drugs in the pre-Fentanyl era. In high school, I saw people lose cash on some very expensive Pennsylvania suburb oregano.
11:41I remember a writer friend buying what turned out to be significantly overpriced baking soda from a stranger in a bar. It's not that the idea that illegal drugs might not be what they're supposed to be is some shock to me. But talking to Nate, a picture emerges of a drug world where almost everything is adulterated, and most users don't notice, because as long as what they're taking has an effect, they assume it's legitimate. A state of affairs that has probably always existed, but has become consequential now, in the age of fentanyl. Nate told me he'd seen a study from a few years back on cocaine in London, which found that the street cocaine there was only 15 % actual cocaine, which didn't actually surprise him all that much.
12:23Nate said cocaine in general is just a much, much, much more adulterated product than its users seem to want to consider. I sell the raw, you know, but what that means is I'm getting a brick straight from Mexico, straight from the cartels. It's pure cocaine, but pure cocaine, I mean, what does that mean? When I test that shit, I find all sorts of stuff in there. There's amphetamines in there. There's mixers and fillers. There's all sorts of stuff in it because by the time it gets into a little gram bag, it's been cut five or six or seven times. There's this worming de-agent. A worming de-agent?
13:02Yeah, there's this chemical that's made for the veterinary industry. if an animal's got a massive parasite infection, they'll run this shit through them and it's so toxic. It kills the eggs of the parasites. It's really, really toxic. And somehow by some crazy freak of chemistry, when you cook it down, it behaves exactly as pure cocaine does. So when people are buying like huge amounts, But kilos and kilos, they cook it down to see what the purity is. And it looks like it's a lot purer than it is. So that is in a lot of cocaine. Worming de-agent for large animals. Yeah, and it's nasty, toxic shit.
13:49And even in a raw brick from Mexico, you don't find it. And does that just show up in a test? Do you test specifically for that? Yeah, I have a test for that because it's so prevalent. And I'll tell you the truth, I very rarely do cocaine. Again, Nate is a cocaine dealer. Like, if someone offers me coke at a party, even if it's someone who's rich and I think is probably connected, I don't usually do it ever enough. Do you feel like it's like watching someone pull a hot dog out of a trash can and start eating it? Yeah, it's disgusting. So how do you think, just from a consumer information perspective, people who in 2023 are taking drugs sold to them by people they don't know well, what do you recommend people do?
14:43Don't do it. Really? Yeah, don't do it. Of course not. I mean, a vegetarian or you try and eat salads every once in a while, you shouldn't be doing this shit. Who knows what the fuck is in there? Wait, you're saying don't do drugs? No, you said if they don't have a repute. Oh, you're saying don't do drugs unless you know to hide your certainty who you're buying them from. Right. I mean, there's got to be someone accountable. Otherwise, you're just like someone's selling snake oil. It's 1910 and you're in Nebraska and you don't know how much that is. And what about for people who are buying from a dealer who they have a relationship with or who has a reputation to them?
15:24Well, then they should all be holding each other accountable. to increase the accountabilities, then that person just selling to them will think a little harder when he buys something. If this idea of people in a drug-using community holding a drug dealer accountable seems very hard to do or unlikely to work, Nate seems to be aware of this also. This is an ethical conversation that not everyone involved in this is ethics are a consideration. Yeah, this is like a question that I spend a lot of time wondering about and never, you know, it's fundamentally unanswerable. But like, in general, the people that you've met in the underworld of illicit chemicals, where do people land ethically?
16:11In an eye world, we all hold each other accountable, of course. And what do you mean when you say that? I mean if someone sells you something they have a responsibility to tell you exactly what it is and the quality and the price should be aligned with the quality and because they're selling something really cheap to you and you're like oh wow that's a really low price um then there's an explanation why yeah um you know I mean I just I'm not a good example here what I'm doing is very, very rare. You mean in terms of quality control? Yeah, and in terms of someone actually choosing to lose$47 ,000 instead of selling it as something it's not.
16:58And that's happened once. The Chinatown thing was whatever, I took that risk. But another time, something happened in my circle with a guy that I had known for a very long time, was totally, I trusted him. And he approached me at a party and he was like, hey, I know this guy who has a kilo of 2CB. Would you be interested in that? And I was like, hell yes. It's so hard to find. 2CB. I'd heard of this drug before and had actually wondered about it a lot. I first read about it in a book by Alexander and Ann Shulgin, the people who introduced American psychologists to MDMA. Dr. Alexander Shulgin, in his life, legally synthesized hundreds of novel drug compounds, many psychedelic.
17:54The U.S. government, for a while, left him alone to do his work. He tested the compounds on himself and lovingly described them in two somewhat famous books. In one, Focal, or Phanethyla means I have known and loved, Shulgin wrote of 2CB that it made music sound, quote, voluptuous, almost three-dimensional, end quote. It's a rare drug, and in some quarters, highly sought after. It's a more entheogenic psychedelic. It's a more, like, good-feeling, warm-feeling psychedelic. Oh, interesting. It's a very powerful substance, and it really is an amazing teacher. and you take it in like, it doesn't have to be ceremonial, but you don't take it and like go to a bar or something.
18:40It's kind of like an ayahuasca nippy. Got it. So this guy said he had a kilo of this and it's pretty rare. He said this guy he knew had a kilo of it, would I be interested? And it's extremely rare. I'd never even heard of a kilo of it. I was like, yes, I would. How much? And he said, I'll let you know. And he texted me later, they said 47 ,000 apologists. Okay. And I was like, okay, I'll take it. So he brings it over. And I immediately said, it looks right. It looks like what it should look like. And I immediately send the sample away to this dance safe thing. But I'm just going on this guy's word.
19:30and everything looked right. And so me and two friends did a little bit of it that night, and I had an amazing time. It felt just like two-some-beam. My other girlfriend had an amazing time. The third guy ended up tripping for like two and a half days. Oh, my God. He's just like, I wanted to stop. This is terrible. and we were like oh I guess you took too much I'm not sure what happened I put it on the menu because I had done it and I was like this is good vibes but I had done a very very small amount of it and after I sold like four or five brands to people for a lot of money I started getting calls quickly what the fuck man I've been tripping for three days this is a nightmare we wanted to stop it's really dark I was like huh but by the second call I took it off the menu and then the test comes back and it's not 2CB it's a cheap street drug but technically it's a synthetic cannabinoid it's K2 basically which is like a really sort of like, it has a bad reputation just being like, really potent and there's no control.
20:59K2, or spice, is a synthetic version of THC. It's not a plant, it's made in a lab. But unscrupulous dealers sometimes spray it on weed-looking grass to trick people into buying it as weed. Even though cannabis is a pretty mild drug for most people, K2 is not. It is very unpredictable. Nate told me a horror story of exactly how unpredictable. He said a guy he knew had thought he was smoking pot, but it was actually K2. The guy had a psychotic episode, essentially. He woke up in prison a few days later, facing multiple felonies. It was explained to him that he'd broken into a school with a samurai sword and a bow and arrow on a mission to steal all of the computers.
21:44In his K2 haze, he thought the computers were magical mushrooms he had to collect, like in a video game. Nate takes people selling each other bad drugs surprisingly personally but he also said in his time as a dealer it has been rare there was the ketamine that wasn't during quarantine there was the 2CB that was actually K2 but he says that's it although for me the idea that even something I'd been told was a weed could send me to a school with medieval weaponry that story is more bracing than any DARE program I've ever participated in it really makes you not ever want to do illegal drugs. It's just like, oh my God, the downside risk is so high.
22:27I mean, that's only two times it's happened in my entire whole thing here. And I'm buying a lot of stuff. Yeah. And it only once was someone in my community. But that still pissed me off. Of course, these two particular horror stories, well, not enviable, pale in comparison to the idea of someone taking cocaine and dying because it's been cut with fentanyl. When it comes to fentanyl adulteration, Nate says he hears from customers who are worried about it, but he does not counter it in the drugs he gets from his suppliers. According to Nate, like so many experiences in America, whether a recreational drug user should expect to die from fentanyl poisoning or not might be a somewhat class-stratified experience.
23:12While Nate has friends in the scene who he believes have died from fentanyl poisoning, he thinks broadly what's happening is that people are getting bad drugs from bad street dealers. And just to make sure I have your zoomed out view on it, you think that it's happening at the street level and that it's basically people being greedy. Like somebody either gets burned and passes it on to their customers or somebody takes something that is not adulterated or not adulterated with fentanyl. And then they adulterate it to save money, basically. Yeah. And it's happening at the lowest levels by desperate people who don't have any ethics.
23:52But I do realize that most drug dealers don't even have customers. It's like they probably sell to a different person every day. I don't think they have a lot of repeat customers. Yeah. Right. Right. That's like a, it's sort of a class and drug difference. Is this drug dealer have customers in a community or are they just selling on the street to strangers? Yeah, you go to a corner and you don't know who's going to show up, but whoever has something is hanging around that corner. And then there's like battles between those guys. They're like, this is my corner, but like the people don't like, I don't think they stay on the same corner forever.
24:33That sounds like probably a bad idea if you're selling heroin and fentanyl. And as far as my larger question, which is people who are sort of killing their customers with fentanyl, how someone runs a business like that. I feel like the other thing I get from what you're saying is that, I don't know, there's sort of a bit of a trend in journalism and sociology to talk about the drug industry as if it's just one more kind of capitalist endeavor that just behaves in a slightly quirky way. No, it's so varied and diverse. I mean, it's a huge economy. Jesus, if you're just going to say drugs, I mean, that means a lot of different things.
25:13But what I hear you saying is like a lot of the people in that economy are just operating at a level of desperation that makes it like, if you compare it to a normal American economy, that'll explain a lot. There's no oversight. There's no governmental body overseeing anything. There's no licensing. So yeah, of course, I mean, anything can happen. If you right now took all licensing and oversight away from the fast food industry in 10 years and probably sees them pretty sketchy shit, you know? Yeah. Well, also a world where nobody exactly knows what a hamburger is. Right. Right. Like, is this coming from this waterhouse floor or what?
25:55We don't really know what's allowed. And where it was illegal to be caught holding a hamburger. So you couldn't ask anybody for help on like what you had actually just eaten. Right. Exactly. right so like you didn't know there was no ingredients you're just like can i have that protein thing right there because it it makes me feel good because my stomach needs it and they're like okay yeah i got this protein thing for you but i got this really nice protein thing for you over here you should try this one over here just don't test it just don't test it all right man thank you so this is so helpful thank you you guys and you guys Now that we've revved up your energies with this cocaine segment, we're going somewhere new.
26:40After these ads, a kind of live game show we held on the internet this year. This episode of Search Engine is brought to you in part by Instacart. There's something about summer that makes everything feel a little more spontaneous. Plans pop up, schedules change, suddenly you need groceries fast. That's where Instacart really helps me out. I can put together an order with exactly what I need, whether it's dinner at home or a last minute hang, and not worry about squeezing in a store run. I've set my preferences so the quality is always there, which I really appreciate. And honestly, the bigger thing is the time it gives me back.
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27:12I can stay focused on what I'm doing or not doing or just enjoy being outside while everything gets handled in the background. I like ordering Instacart for the two things that I constantly forget, which are seltzer and dog food. It's one of those things that makes your routine smoother without you even realizing it. Instacart brings convenience, quality, and ease right to your door, so you can focus on what matters most. Download the Instacart app and get groceries just how you like.
27:39This episode of Search Engine is brought to you in part by ProtonVPN. Have you ever Googled something once and suddenly your entire feed is haunted by ads for it? Or worse, you travel somewhere, try to stream your favorite show, and get hit with that annoying content not available in your region wall? It is infuriating, but there is a solution. ProtonVPN. ProtonVPN instantly protects your data and opens up the internet the way it's supposed to be. Unlike other services, Proton is based in Switzerland, backed by strong European privacy laws, and has an independently verified no-logs policy, meaning they never track or sell your browsing history.
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28:54Welcome back to the show. So at some point, I had the idea, which is that I wanted listeners to send in questions they thought would just be unanswerable. And then I wanted to try to answer them with one of my favorite writers and friend, Calvis Sané, live on air. I thought it'd be fun to take a break from our normal approach where we take one little question and research the hell out of it and instead just get Gatling gunned with a bunch of unanswerable questions without access to research or the search engine team. For me, it was really enjoyable. I'll let you be the judge. So I'm going to play the segment.
29:25The first voices you'll hear are Search Engine Senior Producer Garrett Graham and writer Kel Fasane. So what are we doing today? So over the past week, we collected, PJ, dozens, maybe, maybe a hundred of questions. Yeah, high dozens, low hundreds. High dozens, low hundreds in the effort to stump PJ and, okay, if I may say, in the effort to stump you as well, but they may not have known that they were going to be stumping you as well. So we're going to pull what is essentially a random assortment. There's been some light curation involved, but a random assortment of some of those questions that came in.
30:01And this is a little bit just like pulling questions out of a hat. This is like a throwback to when we did this on stage. This is very much like when we did it on stage. And you had a, was it a literal hat? I can't remember. It was a literal hat that I just happened to be wearing that night. We should do that again sometime. Yeah, sure. We're doing it today. Okay, so first question, pulling it out of the randomized hat here. This question comes from Ryan, and the question is, how long does it take for grave robbing to become archaeology? Oh. Oh. How long does it take for grave robbing to become archaeology?
30:37Because if I were to dig up someone buried at a local cemetery, that would be a crime, but if I were to dig up an ancient person, that would be celebrated socially. That's the question? That's the premise as I understand it. I mean, I would want to do what I would always do, which is reject the premise. Like, is it ever celebrated socially to dig up a grave in this day and age? Aren't there big repatriation debates, roiling museums? Well, I would say definitely there was a brief period of time where, like, the guy who found, what was it, ancient Greek city? it wasn't Troy but who was that guy we read about him in fifth grade Mr.
31:20Worth like there was a moment where we celebrated archaeologists you had Indiana Jones prominent fictional archaeologist like I think maybe the maybe maybe the answer is that these things are contingent and change with culture and that it's less to do with time and more to do with how moderns are feeling and also the sort of like the grave being dug like whether there are people who have feelings about that grave you know what i'm thinking about pj i'm thinking about driver's licenses why driver's licenses well there should be an option on the driver's license of whether or not your grave can be dug up by historians yeah whether you want to donate your eyes your brain whatever your heart but also your bones right this is in the same category would you donate would you say rob my grave yeah maybe you do like a grace period right a hundred maybe it's like copyright it's like oh my last surviving relative who's alive when I am plus 50 years or something.
32:18Wouldn't you just put it and then have at it? Would you just carve it on the gravestone? Would it be like an expiration date for a gravestone? I guess this depends on how much we want to incentivize people giving permission, right? If you have to carve it on your gravestone, there's going to be a very small number of skeletons available. But if it's an opt out situation, a cast Sunstein nudge kind of a thing on your driver's license, then a lot of people will be like, oh, yeah, yeah, whatever. Dig me up. I like this. I think we're imagining a future society that is very respectful of our corpses, which I like to try to imagine future societies is not worse than us.
32:51So I think that's good. I would also be very like, are you an organ donor? I think so. I don't know. I think so. I'm an organ donor. I would be pro-dig me up. If people think they can learn something from my body, like what happens when someone treats their organs like a meat sack, then it's worthwhile. What if they want to do something frivolous with your bones? Oh, like a funny Halloween decoration on a front yard? Sure. Musical instrument? Depends on if the joke is good, which I won't be there to evaluate. But if they want to use my body for science or art, I would say that I affirmatively consent.
33:25Turn your skull into a chalice? Yeah. My morbid ID will say that I can be used for silly stuff. But to get things back to search engine engine a little bit, if you were trying to answer this question for the show, Like, what's your first call? It's funny. You know, one of the things that we sometimes struggle with with stuff like this is like, who's, like, I feel like we're in a moment of strange views towards experts. So, like, I think 10 years ago, I would have gone to just, like, a professor who thinks about this stuff. And now I kind of wouldn't go to a professor who thinks about this stuff.
34:05I think my first call wouldn't be a call. I think I'd just be trying to research. Like I'd be trying to figure out like I do actually think that there was a there was like a there my loose pop cultural imagination is that there was a moment where things that we actually would reasonably consider basically grave robbing were wildly celebrated. There was kind of a clawback and now it's pushed even further in the other direction. And I would just want to sit down and try to understand like how you could chart the social attitudes changing. Like, I don't think you would invent Indiana Jones today, but we don't feel so bad about it that you can't make many, many, many more Indiana Jones movies, maybe which should be for other reasons.
34:50I can't remember. I think I did see the most recent one. Have his ethical practices evolved over the years? I didn't see the most recent. The Phoebe Waller-Bridge one? Yes. I don't know if Indiana Jones has become more thoughtful about his relationship. I mean, usually they also kind of cheat it where the Nazis are racing for whatever he wants, which at that point, it's kind of like it unbalances the scales morally. But like, what do you if you were if this came up in a pitch meeting, what are you looking for in your initial research or Googling or whatever magic Garrett does to know like, oh, this could make a good show or like, no, this isn't going any further than these five minutes of riffing?
35:27I think what I would be asking Garrett to look for is like, you do like what's what is what is kind of what feels alive about the question is I do think they're charting a real change. And I would want to find somebody who got caught at the moment of the change happening. Like, like the ideal story you'd almost be casting for is the person who came out of like, you know, their dig where they'd found an ancient pyramid expecting garlands and applause and found, in fact, they'd stepped into different cultural mores. Like, that's kind of what you'd want. And you just want to you'd be looking for someone.
36:02This is the category of question that is philosophical and not the reason this is a good unanswerable question is because there's literally no answer. And so you'd just be trying to figure out, like, who is the thoughtful person that you can land this conversation with? Okay, there's a very good chance that you would end up in this episode. Do you consider yourself stumped by this question then, PJ? I do not think that there's going to be a single question today that I don't feel stumped by, and I consider myself stumped by this question. But as a listener, this doesn't sound like a question that is out of the realm of possibility for being the basis of a show.
36:37No, it's not outside of the realm of possibility. It's also the other thing I sometimes think about is like one of the outrages that I'm capable of feeling, but I don't know how to think about more thoughtfully is the question of just burial grounds. Like I would like someone to be able to tell me and I would not want to be the person answering this. But like my assumption is if you just think about how many people have died, I assume almost everything is a burial ground. Like it might not be a burial ground in the last hundred years, but just that we are constantly walking on the dead. and I would just like to have a story that lives inside that feeling for a little bit.
37:12But wait, didn't you do a cemetery show? We did a what happens when a cemetery goes out of business, which was like, in my opinion, a perfect question. Because it's a question where you hear it and you're like, what does happen when a cemetery goes out of business? And you realize that maybe the reason the question has never occurred to you is because a part of your mind that doesn't want to think about death or what's after death has actually put a curtain over your own curiosity. And you mentioned one of the oldest cemeteries in America. Yes. Grove Street Cemetery, which happens to be where my father is buried.
37:44Have you visited? Yeah. I don't know. I know. I know. Some people's lives are complicated. You're right. Yes, I have visited. My good friend Mark made a beautiful tombstone. But there was a decision after my father died of like, do we want to go for the cheap cemetery down the street? Or do we want the cool historic cemetery? and you decided the cool historic cemetery how did you decide i mean obviously it was my mom's decision but it like it kind of felt like him he was like a professor and you know so the idea of him in this like august company in this like historical place kind of seemed like it was interesting it's really nice okay we're gonna we're gonna move on to the next dump so gary you want us to spend this much time on each question is that the idea i'm gonna keep us moving along here let's get some more questions out of the hat so uh we have the next one comes from let's see here i think we're gonna go with this question from matthew and the question is two of my favorite people have names that society is turning into insults similarly to the dick to penis semantic change karen and to a lesser extent chad are becoming derogatory terms for awful people so the question is how do we stop this my friend and co-worker karen is one of the best and most experienced pediatric nurses in our rural county her experience instinct and wisdom guides us daily and preventing so much patient suffering.
39:02After a lifetime of service, she should be spared this unfortunate name creep. How do we advocate and stop this without being a scolding, virtue signaling wet blanket? What would the Karens and Chads of America like us to do? Oh, that's a good question. Are you thinking what I'm thinking, PJ? I don't know. What are you thinking? I thought Chads were good. Oh yeah, I thought Chads were good. Isn't a Chad just like a sort of like muscle bound, like a giga guy? Yeah, he's like untroubled by life's difficulties and is a person of action. I guess it depends on what room you're in. But I think we could agree that Karen has definitely taken on like a profoundly negative inflection.
39:41Yes. There's a name in, is it Australia? I don't know. There's others. There's Kevin, right? In France, Kevin is strongly like negatively coded. Is it American coded? I think so. Oh, maybe it's the fact that it's not French. Yes. I actually kind of have views on the Karen thing and kind of do have an idea. I mean, the person threw me at the very end when they said, oh, without being a scolding for choosing one blanket, since that's how I would solve this. But I kind of, I understand why Karen as a term came to popularity, that people were trying to find a way to describe people who kind of like abused calls to the police or like kind of like using the rules in a way that felt nasty or amoral.
40:33But I also have watched it evolve in a way that sometimes gives me a little bit of nausea, where I think if you have a bad word for something that only applies to women, you end up in a place where it's just like another slur that people just apply to women that they don't like. And like slur is maybe a little harsh, but I don't like it. Like, it's something that the teenagers in my life, when their mom does anything that embarrasses them, they'll jump to Karen. And I get like, it actually troubles me. I don't think you can convince people not to use a word that they like using without creating actual social stigma around the word.
41:12But I kind of think if you point out that we mostly try to avoid gendered insults, particularly towards women, Karen gets kind of harder to defend. That is like scoldy and wet blankety. But like, I've done that to 15 year olds. It hasn't worked, but I could imagine it working with an adult. Yeah, it's an insult with a kind of faux specificity. In that way, it's like bro a little bit, where like, it's like kind of gender specific, but like what it means to be a tech bro versus like a tech asshole. Like bro, like it suggests something, but because it's not quite defined, you can't really like defend yourself against an accusation of being a bro, or in this case, a Karen.
41:54You know, I think the thing about slurs in general and insults is that like, they have to be insulting. And the ones that we consider the most generic are the ones that insult people's intelligence, right? And at some point, we may find ourselves having a conversation about why it makes sense to insult people on the basis of intelligence, which is not something that mainly people are able to control, right? So like, there is a whole, you know, the insult discourse is a complicated discourse, because it implies that we're doing something mean or rude by definition. Right. And it's hard to clean up.
42:28Yeah. And most of us try to avoid being mean or rude. And yes, like you, I'm skeptical of times when people say they're being mean or rude, but for good reasons. Yeah. I think that's the other thing I really dislike about Karen is the idea that it's not just that, like, I, I really like when people call other people assholes. Like, I just think it's not when, when someone tells me that someone else is an asshole, my brain does this thing where I'm like, all this person's really saying is that they have a conflict with somebody else. The person might be behaving badly. The person using the word might be behaving badly, but it doesn't, there's, if you could judge an insult as good or bad, I really like asshole.
43:04The problem with Karen is you're both saying this woman is bad and I'm good for noticing it. Like there's, there's like a virtue signaling in the insult that I don't really appreciate. So I would say you have to make, you have to make Karen into a taboo if you wanted to go away. And I would say that I don't feel stumped by this one because I feel like we're doing our part right now. I was about to say like, well, there's some things you can't control and you can't control like if your name gets attached to a thing. But then I remembered that when I went to ninth grade, I told everyone to call me K instead of Kelifa because kids in like middle school were inventing their own versions of Kelifa and it was cauliflower and it was collied, it was elephant, it was all sorts of stuff.
43:46And then people called me K from now on. So I would be hypocritical not to at least acknowledge that one thing that people do when they don't love the resonance of their name sometimes is change it yeah and i think you should call people what they want to be called i think that's like one of the etiquette rules that we almost all agree on most of the time sometimes all right that one i feel like it was answerable sort of can we call that an unstumped one like we can call that unstumped or maybe semi-stumped i will say there's some pretty gold going on in the chat right now with some listeners pointing out that there are some soras out in the world some kindles out in the world some katrinas out in the world some isises out in the world there's a lot of other names beside oh isises are particularly but that's gone down right like that had high political salience and then like now lower political salience yeah maybe you just have to wait these things out time heals all okay next question this feels maybe a little less designed to stump and a little more designed to insult pj's understanding of physics but the question is how does a bicycle stay upright oh come on guys is that really a fair thing to do to a person like me how does it oh you know how centrifugal force
45:06pj annoys all the scientists by naming a force that famously doesn't exist Is that true? Centripetal force. Oh, centrifugal is just like me not knowing what centripetal is? Centripetal is the force that keeps you from flying off into the distance. Centripetal force, I think, scientists should correct me, is it feels like you're being pushed out, but you're not actually being pushed out from the center when you're spinning around. It's that something is preventing you, is like pulling you in because otherwise you would go straight. So why do bicycles fall over? I think that's different. Doesn't that have more to do with like gyroscopes or something?
45:39Gyroscopes? Yeah, like how when something's spinning, it has more stability. God. No one's ever going to listen to Search Engine again. You know, I had this moment of when I went to college and I wanted to be a radio DJ and they gave me a test to test my knowledge of punk rock, like a written 90-minute test. And I was like, I've never been so qualified and prepared for anything in my life. Well, this question is the opposite of that. anything that is science or math uh is a pretty good way to stump me besides like very basic arithmetic which i can do decently well stop bragging okay we're gonna move on to a question from jim here which is uh should you give money to homeless people or maybe phrased differently is it better to give or not to give why please discuss Oh, definitely.
46:28Definitely. You should give and it's better to give. I I've been persuaded by my partner just like will keep large amounts of money in her pocket to give to homeless people whenever they ask. And I just think like setting aside all the kind of like consequentialist questions or like blah, blah, blah, blah. If you don't, I feel like you end up in a world living in a city like New York where you just have to turn your mind off to lots and lots of suffering. And I just think that that is a bad way to engage with the world. I don't know that I'm like solving that suffering by handing over like, okay, bills when I see somebody, but like the moral experience I have of living in the city is way better since I just started copying her.
47:08Well, this is, I mean, this is interesting, right? because it suggests that the suffering itself or your exposure, your intentional and conscious exposure to the suffering is good in and of itself. I think it is. And in that sense, the people who are suffering are in a weird way doing you a service. I don't know that they're doing me a service. Because they're reminding me that there's misery in the world and that is helping with my moral instructions. Well, that's what you said. You said that these encounters are valuable to you and that you're willing to pay money in order to have this experience.
47:44That is not what I said. I just think that it's bad to tune. I think the more things you're tuning out, the worse, even though you have to tune a lot out. I see. But if you were living in a city where you did not visibly see people suffering, would that be bad? If they were suffering somewhere out of sight? um i don't know where you're supposed to set the bounds of your empathy sympathy like moral consideration and i think one of the obvious modern problems is that we're aware of so much suffering and for the most part the only thing like we seem to be able to do is like angrily post about it i think that i don't know i think for me as someone who really struggles with this I just try to think like I'm actually going to really think about the proximate circles like I'm really going to think about suffering in like my family and friend groups and then I'm going to think about suffering in my neighborhood and then I'm sort of going to think about suffering in the communities I'm in and everything past that I kind of don't know what to do about but if I lived in a city where there's just like great social services and nobody was homeless and everybody was doing really well.
49:02I don't think that that would, I think that would be good. I don't think it would be like, I don't think it would then mean I needed to think about people in another place necessarily. But for me, if I'm around it, I want to think about it, even though it's not like I'm volunteering or anything like that. Ordo Amoris. What's that? It's like the concentric circles of love and compassion. Ordo Amoris. It's a concept that was much in the news earlier this year when it was expounded by J.D. Vance. Oh, wow. How was he? He was like, I need to find everyone in my circles. He said, as an American leader, but also just as an American citizen, your compassion belongs first to your fellow citizens.
49:44That doesn't mean you hate people from outside of your own borders, but there's this old school concept. I think it's a very Christian concept, by the way, that you love your family, and then you love your neighbor, and then you love your community, and then you love your fellow citizens in your own country. And then after that, you can focus and prioritize the rest of the world. It's so funny because he's so, when I listen to him talk, I'm always like, I think he is very smart. And he applies his skill at making arguments to things that are so hard to defend. And so it's like, that's a really beautiful concept.
50:20I don't know what it has to do with like anything that he's been supporting for this term. But I think this question that you were talking about. I think this is a central question that all of us wrestle with in different ways is like, what do we owe to people who are close to us, either in familial terms or like just geographically versus what we owe to people who are further from us? Yeah, and I don't know. I definitely don't have the right answer to that. But I think that not, I think we all have to decide what we're gonna let in from far away. And I think we struggle with that. And it can mean like people feeling vast amounts of pain about situations that they actually can't really control.
50:56I think it can mean people feeling vast amounts of rage about people that they don't need direct rage to. But I think not ignoring what's actually here seems like a pretty good start to a confusing moral problem. Can I make a small counterpoint? Yeah. Which is that I think that one thing that happens is that people that are the most intent on not shutting people out, on letting people in that are close to them, of being in touch with the suffering around them, I think they sometimes feel like that ends up can be exhausting or unpleasant. Yeah. And I think so sometimes what happens is that those people end up making choices, sometimes subconsciously, that take them a little further away from those people.
51:41In other words, like if every time you pass someone in the street who's suffering, you might find yourself wanting to move to a neighborhood, a city, or a state that has less of that in your daily life. And you might not explain to yourself in those words that that's why you're doing it. But you might find that just like mentally, psychically, you're like, oh, there's something about living out in the woods that really appeals to me. There's something about living in some rural place that appeals to you. But maybe subconsciously, part of what will appeal to you is being a little further from that suffering, right?
52:11If we create a universe where you have these obligations to people you see who are suffering right close to you, then one way to resolve that tension is to get further geographically away from people who are suffering. Yeah, I think that's true. I think it's also like I have had bad balls and I wonder if it's some unexamined part of me that's just like it's hard to live in a city. Yeah. Like it's hard to morally live in a city. Okay, what's the next one? That was nice. We're going to take a turn from somewhat serious to somewhat silly. this is a question from adrian uh the the question reads pj you're going to hate this my question assuming it was directly overhead how many average sized extra large chicken eggs would it take stacking one on top of the other to reach from the highest point on earth to the lowest point in the sea of tranquility on the moon that's it that's my question this is like a consulting interview question it's a trick it's a trick question why is it a trick question save me kid?
53:08Well, because everyone says Everest, but the highest point, you know, what you want to be talking about is Chimborazo in Ecuador, which is not the highest point above sea level, but it's the furthest from the center of the earth because of the equatorial bulge, right? Which adds like 27 miles. And so it's actually a mile and change maybe further from the earth's center than the top of Everest, but we're only talking about a mile or two, right? And then if you think about the Sea of Tranquility, Mare Tranquilitatis, I call it. It's like 500 miles in diameter, right? But like this podcast, it is not that deep.
53:41So I think you'd want to ignore, I think at the Earth's highest point in the Sea of Tranquility, you'd want to ignore all that, right? And you'd want to just look at the distance because it'll come out. And you want to just look at the distance between Earth and the moon, right? Call it, what, 239 ,000 miles, maybe? 230, right? So an egg, call it what 2.4 inches so 63 000 inches in a mile 26 000 eggs in a mile if you divide it down so 26 000 times 239 000 call it 6 000 000 so six billion give or take like i said this is like having a bodyguard intellectually just just spitballing with no advanced knowledge whatsoever did you pick up the questions as the host of this show pj i have certain privileges nice try listener okay that was truly terrifying okay also if folks have stumpers they want to throw in the chat we might have time for a couple of live stumpers at the end so throw them in the chat maybe i will call your name you can come off mute and ask your stumper live But let's move on to our hat full of questions here.
55:01Let's see. Let's see here. This is another kind of mathy one. And I feel like K is in a mathy mood right now. Oh, no. It's been out there. If we had a base 12 numbering system, how would the world be different? Like, so we would count in 12s instead of 10s? Yeah. Well, we would obviously have an extra finger on each hand, right? because that's how we got to 10. That sounds great, honestly. And an extra toe, which would maybe affect us less. And so then I'm imagining, because I don't think the base would matter that much in terms of our everyday math. We'd figure it out, right? We'd have two more numbers
55:45between 9 and 10, I guess, right? But then does 100 lose all its power? I feel like 100 has a lot of significant power. No, we still write 100, but it just is equivalent to 144 of something. I guess I can live in that world. I think the toes thing would bother me a little bit, but I can live in that world. I don't think feet need to be grosser than they currently are. But my question is, in that world, our hands are a little better, right? So we're a little better at manipulating objects, right? So music probably sounds different. Music gets better. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You have more ying-wee-maom steams.
56:17Well, I was going to say, it depends on what you enjoy. But yes, music probably has more notes. solos get more elaborate yeah i wonder i wonder if there are some downsides right like evolutionary like sometimes these evolutionary advances are kind of zero sum so if more energy is going to growing that 11th and 12th finger does something else evolve more slowly is there less are there less calories available for something else so maybe it's like where maybe iq takes a hit and the human race is a little bit more slow processing, but we have more fingers to count on. Our music gets better. We're typing more.
56:57The internet would get worse. But there's a big problem in terms of communication. Have you already identified the big communication problem? You can't give people a middle finger anymore. Exactly right. There's no middle finger. But it would be this. You hold up your two middle fingers. i guess that feels ruder right that's closer to like the british up yours right yeah it feels it doesn't feel good if you had two middle fingers so yes i think that i think i think hands would be the biggest difference in a base 12 world i feel like we totally i don't feel stumped by that at all that is a beautiful answer do we have time for one more a couple more yeah let's hit one more i'm gonna pull one more out of the hat here um let's see i think our final question is a somewhat, yeah, this is a good one.
57:45This is a chewy one. Humans don't need to eat meat to survive. What moral reason do we have to continue eating animals? Oh, I think about this a lot. Kay, you were vegan for a while. Yeah. How did you decide to become vegan? As a person who thinks hard about moral questions, how did you decide to not be vegan? I don't want to get too complicated in terms of philosophical concepts, PJ. but peer pressure peer pressure in both directions yeah i think so like for me it was like more of a cultural thing was about being part of a like a punk rock community where everyone was vegan and also straight edge right in the hardcore punk world vegan and straight edge often go together you stop indulging right you stop eating meat you stop or never start drinking alcohol only listen to power chords yeah sure um and so yes i for me it was like that i liked being part of that community.
58:39And yes. And so when my community pressure was binding you, did peer pressure push you out or is just the community dissolved or you left it? Yeah. I found myself like hanging out with different people and I found myself not wanting, not feeling as strong about wanting to be a kind of like an outlier, but also feeling like if I was living in like a vegetarian world or a more vegetarian world, I certainly would not be the one dude eating meat. But do you now, when you eat meat, are you aware of like a cognitive moral dissonant feeling in your mind? Yeah, I probably feel a lot of moral dissonance in my day to day life.
59:17It's the thing I it's one of the things I do that most bothers me is like I eat meat. I eat lots of meat. I can't. It's just like if you really take the idea that other beings experience suffering seriously, like I can't come up with a good justification for doing it. I don't like that. I do it. And I do it like I don't judge other people doing it. But I really, it like, it's sort of like a, if this is true, what else is true? Right. Question about myself that I don't like. Although some, if you, if you talk to some vegans, they, to them, the suffering of animals is more objectionable than the killing of animals.
59:48And so that means in some situations, you know, dairy products might give them more pause than meat, depending on how the animal lived and how it was killed. Yeah. And when you read about the ways those animals live, it's very, very unpleasant. Yes. I feel unsettled by it but also weirdly the way that I've handled it is I've decided if I'm going to eat meat I'm like really gonna eat meat and so I've started gravitating towards like meatier meat like I want my brain to if it's gonna if I'm going to cause suffering for pleasure to at least experience the pleasure so weirdly the worrying about it has probably made me worse I feel like maybe I feel like we used to live in a world where we were on closer terms with suffering and with blood and guts and all sorts of things.
1:00:37And I think that we have gotten I'm going to use a word that sounds pejorative, but I don't mean it to be pejorative. I think we've gotten a little more squeamish. And I think in a lot of ways, that's kind of a good thing. And that might be a place where eating habits haven't caught up with other parts of our lives. Right. The kinds of things that we'll put up with, the kinds of things we'll shrug at. Right. Whether it's warfare or like how animals are treated. You know, I think in a lot of ways we've gotten more sensitive and meat's a little weird because it's hidden, because like factory farming processes might mean that in a lot of cases it's gotten more cruel than it used to be 100 years ago or 200 years ago.
1:01:12So I think that there is some like maybe some real dissonance there. Although it's actually surprising when you think about how the internet has become much less moderated and so much more sort of disturbing and sensational images proliferate. You would almost think that the thing that organizations like PETA used to do where they would just like show really terrible photos of real animal suffering, like you would almost expect to encounter that more on social media internet now. And I wonder if that will actually happen. Yeah, and you see it. I mean, obviously our attitudes towards animals are like super, super strange, right?
1:01:48So right now there is someone eating a hamburger while posting angrily about whether or not Hassan Piker shocks his dog. Yes. Yes. Right? No, it's completely, yeah. But that video of like Hassan Piker, the streamer, has this dog in the corner of his house where he's constantly streaming and like may or may not have been using a shock collar. He says it was a vibration collar. but the amount of either real or performed moral outrage I've seen around the possibility that he's doing that. Yeah. Among, if somebody said you're reincarnated tomorrow, do you want to live in a nice house where sometimes someone shocks you with a shock collar, but you're alive?
1:02:26Or do you want to grow up in like a slaughterhouse where you're quickly murdered? Most people would choose. So it's confusing. Our moral reasoning around animals is confusing. Garrett has actually talked about putting a shock collar on you, PJ, on certain days when you're starting to stray outside of the podcast studio. I honestly was thinking about, there are these like shock bracelets you can get that are supposed to, it's like, it's called like the Pavlok. And I was trying to figure out if it would help me focus. And I was like, this is an insane way for people to live. Don't do this. Okay.
1:02:57That I think is all we have time for today. PJ, do you want to sign us off? Also, just before I hand it back over to PJ. Wait, wait, wait, wait, PJ. I'm not the host of this. The host of Search Engine here. Oh, my God. Please. If you want to see more stumpers, throw an email to pjvote85 at gmail.com. Or if you want to see other segments on Incognito Mode, let us know. But Kay, host of this show. Over to you. Thank you, Garrett, as always, the secret power behind Search Engine. And PJ, thank you for coming on and being a guest for the second episode of Search Engine Engine. We'll see everyone again in 14 months.
1:03:35Thank you. Thanks, guys.
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1:07:41Theme, original composition, and mixing by Armin Bazarian. Additional production support on this episode from Noah John and Kim Kupol. Our executive producer is Leah Reese Dennis. Thanks to the rest of the team at Odyssey. Rob Mirandi, Craig Cox, Eric Donnelly, Colin Gaynor, Maura Curran, Josephina Francis, Kirk Courtney, Vanessa Tinkati, and Hilary Sheff. If you have a business and would like to advertise here on Search Engine, please email us pjvote85 at gmail.com, subject line advertising. You can also send us questions there if you have a question for the show. as I said before if you would like to delete every advertisement from every episode of Search Engine just for you and you alone sign up for Incognito Mode our paid feed five bucks a month 50 bucks a year if you sign up for the annual subscription you can find it at searchengine.show thank you as always for listening
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From the publisher
An interview with a cocaine salesman about cocaine adulterants, plus – questions Search Engine can’t answer, with special guest Kelefa Sanneh.
