#2400 - Katee Sackhoff

29:31Just so to see how AI would handle it. And then when it told AI it was shutting it down, AI was like, I'm telling your wife, bitch. You're not shutting me down. It tried to blackmail him. That's terrifying. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. It's terrifying. That means it has motivation to stay alive. Yeah. It means it has some kind of instincts. It has survival instincts. Of course it does. Yes. You know, I do think to a certain extent AI, in the medical field, there are advancements and things around medicine that can vastly change people's lives. It can change the way that we track records, change the way that we keep track of patients all over the world.

30:14That, you know, like our daughter has a very rare form of cancer with this like, you know, genetic mutation that is there's no other patients in the United States. There was one kid like a few years ago, but they've lost track of him. Well, AI would be able to tell us in other countries, no, no, no. there is a little boy in Germany that has the same genetic mutation and then the doctors could talk to each other. So AI could and will help a lot of people that way. So I do see it as a tool in a lot of ways that we shouldn't be scared of, that we should be sort of welcoming it in. But man, I don't want it to blackmail me.

30:58I don't think it's going to blackmail you. I think it's going to, once it becomes sentient, and it probably already is, and then once it becomes autonomous, then I don't think it's going to care what we do. About us. Yeah. I think it's going to be so superior. And it's also going to be able to make better versions of itself. Yeah. That's going to be, that's where people don't understand exponential increase in technological innovation. Yeah. Because once it knows, once it has a mandate to make better versions of itself, find better power sources, the changes are going to be daily. Of course. Like giant, huge leaps.

31:33Yeah. And it's going to make a digital god. Okay, so you bring up something really interesting because I'm so, as a mom to a little girl and a little boy, I'm really concerned about this. So I see this actress that's been created, this Tilly person. Right, the AI actress. The AI actress. Yeah. So I. How is there only one? Yeah, I'm sure there's more already. How is there only one that everybody's talking about? Because there's one that's been announced, I guess. And like, I don't really know too much about it. I haven't read up on it, but. It's the first shot fired. Mm hmm. My fear is that you've created by siphoning other people's talents, their looks, their inflections, their expressions, their all of these things to create the perfect actress.

32:21She doesn't have a blemish. When she cries, she looks pretty. There's nothing wrong with her. Social media already has such a terrible effect on little girls. It's already been proven that the percentage of girls under the age of 14 who have already contemplated or tried to commit suicide is a number that is – it's escaping me right now, but it's a number that is terrifying. And so if you're now creating AI that is perfect, and little girls already are having a hard time feeling confident in their own bodies because they're not perfect compared to the highlight reel of people they see online, what are we going to do?

33:03What is this going to do to our children, seeing something that is absolutely unattainable and better than them? And not only that, it made you obsolete in a lot of ways, in a lot of different career avenues. That's really scary. Yeah, it is scary. And you don't think about that. We just think about like, oh, yeah, this job's not going to exist anymore. This isn't going to exist anymore. You already have little boys who are, you know, you know, idolizing women that don't exist in real life. And then they go and they date women that are not as perfect and it's disappointing to them. Like it's my concern for that is is large.

33:41Yeah. It's robbing us of our humanity in a lot of ways. Right. There's a great book about that from Jonathan Haidt called The Coddling of the American Mind. And it's all about social media's impact on young people and particularly women. Because young women experience a much like from the advent of social media, there's a ramped up market increase in self-harm, suicidal ideation, depression, bullying. All of it scales way up right around the time that Twitter's invented. So 2010? Yeah, somewhere around then. That's when it starts. And then more and more people get, and then it becomes a part of your life where you can't escape it, where everyone is online.

34:24Like my daughter, her friends, they only use Snapchat. How old is she? They don't use text, my 17-year-old. Okay. They only use Snapchat. They don't text each other. Really? Yeah, they don't text. They just communicate through Snapchat. Is there a forum in Snapchat? No, they just send each other snaps with stupid pictures of each other. Like I'm here? Yeah. And then they write things underneath it. Wow. Yeah, and they read each other's snaps. And they have group snaps. Very weird. Yeah, and they also have snap map so that they know where they are. That's terrifying. Yeah, everyone knows where everybody is.

34:57That's scary. They're all narcing on each other. Of course they are. I don't want to know that shit. It does make me, you know, we've talked about our daughter, but we've been really careful with what we show her. And, like, you know, she doesn't get too much screen time, but she does get screen time. And, you know, she said the other day and like, I'm biased, but I think my I think my daughter's perfect. She's you know, she's such a gorgeous, amazing, strong little girl. And and she's so pretty. And she's just like she's just wonderful. I love her. And and I'm so proud to be her mom. But so when she was going through a chemo and she lost her hair and it started to grow back, she said to Robin and I, my husband, it was it literally broke my heart.

35:41she was like trying to figure out what she wanted to wear that day and she was like I just don't know she's three mind you she said but I'm not pretty and I was like what do you mean like I couldn't even like ask her mom I was like number one where the fuck did you get this like and what are we doing wrong that like she doesn't think that she's pretty and it was her hair she was so attached to her hair and it was gone and so I went back and luckily I had right after Mandalorian came out the wig was driving me crazy so I like shaved my hair off like super super short so I was able to show her a picture of me with very very short hair and she thought I looked beautiful in the photo and that gave me the entry point to talk to her about her hair and how not all girls have long hair and not all boys have short hair.

36:39But we started telling her. I think we were so worried about enforcing that she was pretty. Because there's this thing in society where you don't want to tell little girls they're pretty all the time because then they'll prioritize being pretty. You're just trying to do the best by your children, right? And so we didn't say it. We thought telling her she's pretty, she doesn't need to hear that, right? Right. But then we started telling her. We were like, you know what? She does. Like, she needs to be told that she's pretty. But she needs to be told she's pretty in moments where she's not tried anything.

37:12She's not dressed up in a nice dress. She hasn't, like, done anything. She needs to be told she's pretty after she's done a great piece of art or after she's cleaned up her playroom or after she's come out of soccer practice and she's covered in rain and she's, like, had such a heart and she's sweaty and she's this. That's when she's. She needs to be told she's pretty in times that are not extraordinary, in just normal daily life. Because we are now trying to reinforce that positive self-image, which is really hard. Yeah, especially today with kids. I mean, just the inundation of people, like we were talking about filters.

37:57Everyone's using a filter. They don't just use filters. People are like sucking in their waist and changing their body dimensions and making themselves look better physically just with. I don't know why they need to. We have GLP ones. It's not just that. It's like you're getting unattainable physiques. Of course. Really. Of course. And then we have an over obsession with plastic surgery in the country and changing our appearances. What about to the point where people like cartoonish BBLs are somehow or another attractive to some people? I don't know. I try not to judge and I want everyone to sort of just live their best life.

38:33But for me, I don't know. I want to look like myself when I wake up in the morning. And, you know, my face doesn't look the same as it did 10 years ago. But I earned these lines, you know. I may change my mind in 10 years. I may see you in 10 years and I might look snatch. They might have some clues. They probably do. They're working on something right now in terms of skin cells, the rejuvenation of skin cells through stem cells. Oh, yeah. They're going to move your face back 30 years. You're going to look so much younger. It's amazing. Yeah. That's weird because it's like, do we want that? Yeah, of course we want that.

39:12Okay, but what are we saying? Are we trying to achieve permanence in this finite existence that we have? Are we wasting our time about what we look like when we should be trying to sorting out how we interact with this life? This life is very short. It's very short. It's very short. You know, you and I are basically halfway done. We are halfway done. If we're lucky. If we're lucky. If we're lucky. And that's weird because you don't think about it. Did you do that thing or do you do that thing where you look at how old your parents are and then you start like debating how much longer you have left?

39:48Yeah. Yeah, I've done that. I'm like, okay, 35 years. Better to do that than not do that. Because you could live your life just acquiring shit and just having a bunch of stuff and then not realize, like, oh, my God, I forgot about people. To live? I forgot about interactions, relationships, friends, good times. Yeah. My dad, his dad died when he was very young. I think when he was about 11 years old. And he died of a heart attack. And my dad had high blood pressure from the time he, I think he was, like, 23. It was like very early. So traumatic. Yeah. And he didn't think he'd make it to 50. He was adamant that he wouldn't make it to 50.

40:27And he just knew that. And my mom, like he, you know, this was just his thought. He was terrified. And of course he made it to 50. And now he's almost 80. But he spent his entire life scared that he was going to die. And now at 80, he's, I mean, my dad is, you know, doing everything he can. He's in hyperbaric chambers. He's like, you know, taking all the stuff. He takes everything. My dad does everything. But he's also, at its core, all of that is because he's afraid. He's afraid to die. And that is really sad because you're not really present. Right. You know? And so I'd also hate for that to happen.

41:07So I don't know. It's a dance. It is a dance, I think. Yeah. Because you don't want to say, oh, this life is just temporary. Let me just go to shit. Let me just fall apart. No, you can't do that. Right. You have to protect what you have. But like, I also like, it's, it's also very, I didn't realize because I made it arguably healthy enough to, you know, 42 years old. I'm now 45. But 42 years old without realizing how many things can kill you, I think, because I'd lived a pretty blessed life. Of course, I'd had some health struggles of my own, but they were, I had thyroid cancer in 2008, but I call it a baby cancer.

41:56I'm trying to dismiss the fear of it, of course, at the time, but it was never life-threatening. It was life-changing, but never life-threatening. So the fear was situational, and it was not lifelong. You know, when our daughter got sick and spending as much time as we did in children's hospitals, when you see the diseases and the illnesses that afflict so many children, it amazes me that we made it to this age. Yeah. Absolutely amazes me. and that is a realization where I finally at like, you know, 42 realized how important every day was and how much of a gift every day was, even that we have her, you know.

42:43But that came to me through circumstance, not because I woke up one day and had an epiphany and went, we're so lucky to be alive. Like it didn't really happen until that was threatened to be taken away. It's unfortunate that as a civilization and America as a culture that we don't have a history of embracing the moment and discussing how important it is to recognize that you're fortunate and to try to take care of yourself and that life is very temporary and fleeting and don't get wrapped up in nonsense. Yeah. And we just let people figure it out on their own. And we collectively all, if we're intelligent, we try and we have some failures and successes and good friends.

43:25You figure it out eventually. Like what's really important is love and friendship and doing something you're passionate about and just trying to leave a nice mark on this life while you're here. Yeah. But that's not what's told in society. Like society's overall message is just overrun with advertising. So it's all about stuff and it's all about objects. And then you got social media where it's all about image. It's all about like this unattainable life of amazing luxury and success and glamour. And oh, my God, that that must be the most attractive thing to acquire in life. Yeah. But that's a trap.

44:00And that's not real. And like anybody who's like popping bottles with models on a yacht, I guarantee you they're depressed. That shit is not healthy. I'm sure they're depressed. That's not good for you. You lack like true intimate relationships and you're just flossing, you know, and showing your diamond crusted watch. You're going to have one guy that like emails you and says, I'm happy as shit. I'm popping bottles on a gun. I'm not depressed. Yeah. No, it's. Get that guy high on mushrooms and see if he really feels that way. And see if he's really depressed. Yeah, exactly. See what he really thinks about life.

44:29I think that like the majority of people are suffering from some sort of mental illness for sure. I mean. Definitely the majority in L.A. Yeah. Well, I think so. But a lot of the people that I'm friends with, most of the people that I'm friends with are artists that are more in touch, more sensitive. You know, my dad came to me a few years ago. And my dad my entire life told me to stop being so sensitive. Stop being so sensitive, Katie. Stop taking yourself so seriously. Oh, my God. Like, stop, Katie. I mean, my entire fucking life. And he came to me a couple years ago and he said, I am so sorry I told you to stop being so sensitive.

45:18Because it's your job. Your job is to be sensitive to everything around you, to accurately portray emotions. That's your job. And you're very good at it. Well, that's very nice of him to recognize that. It was very nice of him. So I think that, yes, do people have a lot of mental illness in Los Angeles? Are they suffering from depression? I would argue that the majority of the population is, and it's not just reserved to California. But I do think that a lot of artists are because they're more in touch with their emotions and their mental health. Yeah, there's probably some truth to that for sure.

45:53Does your father have – do you have brothers? I do. Okay. So that's the difference. So I have all daughters. Okay. And when you have all daughters, one of the things you realize is like, oh, they're so different. It's like they're just a totally different kind of human. It's true. And when you're like, why are you upset? Because I'm treating him like – you're treating her like she's a boy. Yes. You cannot treat them like they're a boy. And, you know, over time it's given me a much greater understanding of females, of the species, of female human beings. Like they're not male human beings. No. Like when I hang out with my, like if I go out with my wife and all of her friends and I just let them talk and observe the stuff they talk about.

46:34It's like you're a totally different culture. This is a totally different interests. None of my friends would have any of these conversations. But we're also, a group of women is arguably more disgusting than men. Oh, sexually? No, just in general. Like have you ever sat down with a group of women and like just talked about like bodily fluid? Yeah. Well, they're notorious for being the worst in bathrooms. Oh, my God. Anybody who cleans bathrooms says, dude, the woman's room is always fucking chaos. So gross. Because they have to be so clean and put together everywhere else. When they get to that bathroom and they don't have any responsibility, no one's looking.

47:11They just fucking leave toilet paper everywhere. Fuck you. I'm not cleaning shit. It's true. So we have our daughter is like almost four in December. And then we have a 16 month old son. And like we thought that like he was going to like come out like her, you know, like She was full sentences by a year old. She was walking at nine months. Oh, no, dudes are way dumber. This kid, this kid, he understands everything. He's smart, but he's a big unit. He's huge. He's humongous. He's 99 % on everything, not just one thing, everything. My dad the other day was like, oh, he's going to be big. He's got a huge head.

47:51He's just a big kid. All of his resources are set to growing stuff instead of thinking. Oh, my God. Dudes mature so much later. It's crazy. Crazy. Like, not even talking. Just started walking. But the other day, my husband was like, where's Granger? And I was like, I don't know where Granger is. And we find him. He's like up on the kitchen counter, like ready to start swinging from a light. And I was like, catch the baby. Like, our daughter would have never. Like, she's delicate. You know, she looks at a slide five times before she goes down it. Like, she climbs to the top. She changes her mind.

48:22She really thinks about it. Like, I think she's doing math problems in her head to, like, you know, like, make sure she won't get hurt. And then our son is like, I'm going down feet first. Yeah. And then he stands up. He's like, I'm okay. It's a totally different thing. It's a completely different thing. Yeah. Completely different. Yeah. And the only way to really understand them is to live with them. You have to study them. It's true. In their natural habitat. Study them like David Attenborough. You've got to study them in their natural environment. That would actually be a really funny short.

48:53It's just like a David Attenborough voice like following around like, you know. Like children. Like children. Noticing the difference between the boys and the girls. In their natural habitats. AI could probably do that for you and make a really good documentary real quick. And in 10 minutes. Whatever it's called. Not in 10 minutes. You don't have to dedicate a year to your life. Look, it can exist. I don't need to participate in this stripping away of my livelihood. Listen, I understand. I mean, I'm certain there's going to be AI comedians and podcasters. And there's probably going to be AI UFC commentators to do a better job than me.

49:22But I think there is like an AI podcast creator right now that's like pumping out podcasts. Well, I know that there's a podcast of me and Steve Jobs and I never met Steve Jobs. Oh, yeah? There's a whole podcast of me having a conversation with Steve Jobs. Well, that's just deep fake, right? Yep. Yeah. But it's AI. AI created the conversation. So I think the one that I'm talking about, so the producer of my show is telling me that there's an AI where you can put in like, I'm a potato farmer in Idaho who's dealing with a problem with a crop in 2025. And I'm wondering about this. It'll put together a podcast for you specifically for that and give you an hour long podcast talking to you about things like for your potatoes.

50:11Potato. Potato. Yeah. Well, that's actually positive. The negative thing is you're going to have like fake humans with like fake lived experiences that are like that resonate with you, that are impactful. That's what's scary. You know, we had these conversations with a few friends of mine the other day. You know, the show Trigonometry. No. OK. It's a very popular podcast, but my friend Francis and Constantine, they're the hosts of it. And my friend Megan Murphy was there and a bunch of comedians were there. And I was playing my favorite new song, which is an AI song. And I'm like, tell me how good this is.

50:50It's a cover of 50 Cent's song, What Up Gangsta. All right. I'm going to need to hear this song. You need to hear it. So I can participate with this. We'll play it right here. You know the original song? Yeah, we'll cut it out. You know the original song, right? Which song? 50 Cent, What Up Gangsta? Yes. Okay. Wait for this. I hate to say this because I love 50 Cent. This is better than the original. It's a 1950s soul cover of What Up Gangsta. Okay. Now here's my question. Right. If you'd gone to 50 Cent and said, can you get together with a producer and create this for me, do you think he could have done it?

51:31Yes. Okay. Yes. But we never gave him the chance to do it. Well, he had 30. He could have done it at any point in time. This is so good. I know what you're saying. Okay. This is my point. My point is that it tricks me and I know the trick. Like I know it's a trick and I don't care. I don't care. It's that good. And no one else cared in the green room. Everybody's like, oh. All right. Hit her with it, Jamie. Come on. It's a good version. Come on. That's good. That's crazy. Zombie. They did the best version of Zombie ever. I got a different version with a girl singing it. Oh, my goodness. Barbershop quartet singing it.

52:11Oh, my goodness. And Jamie just does this all night long. I can just play them and take walks and know which ones are good. He sent me like 20 of them. I feel like I just participated in the death of my history. I know. Listen, I'm on the same page. I would so much rather see that in person, though. Like, I would love to be at a show because those songs were phenomenal. Like, I cannot argue that. That was great. I will probably ask you to send me that version of Zombie. That Shifty Brent guy, they have him listed on Spotify. I'm probably blowing up their spot. But it's not a human. But they have it listed as an artist so that they could upload it.

52:57Because I don't think you're allowed to just upload AI versions of stuff. So you just pretend it's a guy. But it's a guy, as you said. Like one of the things we were talking about, I'm like, I don't think anybody can keep that flow. That flow where he's not breathing. He's not breathing. Unless they're taking the breaths out. But it's too. Right. And then speed. I don't know. I'm not a musician, so I have no idea. Look, there's guys like Eminem that achieved incredible flow without AI. Absolutely. That have like, you're like, how did he do that? But that's just practice repetition vocal endurance whatever.

53:28I mean, he just knows how to do it But this fucking AI guy is it's like all the best things we love about great songs just condensed and and and they know what you love That's the fucked up thing. It's like there's so many like let's look at all the hits Papa was a rolling stone look look at all the hits look look at zombie Let's look at this. And then mush them all together and figure out what are these notes that make people excited? What are the feelings? What are the words that make people like, oh, yeah. You know, what are those feelings? So, okay. And I hear all of that. It makes me, I'm literally cringing inside.

54:06I'm like dying. But like, so what do artists do? Like, what do musicians do? What has everybody ever done when things change? You figure it out and adapt. Adjust. Yeah, there's, humans are always going to need humans. We love each other. You know, as much as we hate each other, we love each other more. Because most interactions that people have with other people are not negative. It's just the negative ones are so scary that we concentrate on them more. But humans love humans. And the more you need each other, the more you're going to need human interaction, human cooperation. Art is going to be so much more valuable coming from a human.

54:42Live performances. We're just going to have to adapt. Are we going to know? Like that's the thing that I think is the slippery slope and that scares me the most is that like are we going to know if it was created by AI? Can a person who's disingenuous come and create a bunch of AI art, have an art show and, you know, say I created this art? This is what I really think. When comets hit planets, usually you get small ones first. You get things in the sky, meteor showers. Are you going to give me another thing to be scared of? No, I'm just telling you that this is a little one. That's what this is.

55:23Movies and TV shows that are made entirely with AI, songs that are made entirely with AI. This is just a small thing. The big one that's coming is a complete revamping of communication and culture. It's human beings communicating telepathically through devices connected to the Internet. Everyone all on one weird mind meld page. age it's probably not going to be an implant it's probably going to be something wearable you know i think the implant thing is kind of sketchy and probably really good for people that have paralysis we had the guy was the first neural link patient on okay it's amazing he was talking to me about how you can play video games now and just it's so much better his like his quality of life has improved so much and eventually they're going to get to the point where they can reconnect spinal tissue where people can move again and it's amazing it's great but i don't think they're going to need that to get this achievement of of a mind meld they also they're already wearing these wearable things that google has deviled show that video jamie of those people where they're communicating telepathically you know i'm talking about right so they're already doing this with wearables and this is like kind of crude right now but it's just it's sort of sentences they're they're reading each other and they're communicating but they're doing it all non-verbally through technology.

56:42So I guess what my question about that is like, if that exists, like, are people going to be stagnant sitting in their houses, existing outside of their houses in their AI system, so they're not moving around? Or are we going to be able to wear these while we're out and still participating in the world? That's a good question. That is my fear, like that people stop actually participating with their life. because they think they're living with their wearable. Let's talk about that. Let's watch this. Put this... It could be a noisy environment or a quiet office. Having a direct conversation is possible without saying a word.

57:22The signals alter ego detects aren't affected by environmental noise. So even if you're walking past a wind tunnel or a construction zone, what you want to say will always get across. It's like having infinite noise cancellation. If you're traveling, your silent speech can be converted into any language. M todavía es 모여 si yo K I mean I mean, what the fuck? What the fuck? It's translating. But then is it actually speaking out loud to them? Like they're hearing the translation out loud? Yeah, they're speaking it to the speaker. So it's not like it's then going into their brain. No, it's his thoughts are being converted to words, which is being converted to an audio file, which makes it to the other person in a different language.

58:31Yeah, this is what I'm saying. And I'm telling you, this is one of the little rocks. This is one of the itty-bitty rocks that's just broken through the atmosphere and slammed into a cornfield. I mean, I guess my question is why we need it. That's funny. Why do you need a cell phone? Why do you need a TV? Why do you need an airplane? Why do you need a boat? Why do you need anything? Well, I could tell you I don't need a cell phone. I do need a plane. But you do if your hot husband wants to call you. Yeah, I mean, but I don't need an iPhone. Right, but you need a cell phone. I can use my own imagination.

59:03You know what I mean? Like, I think that that's the thing. That's my fear is that, like, we're becoming lazy as a people. Oh, most certainly we are. And are, you know, like someone the other day. So my husband's a writer. And someone was saying that there's an AI where you don't have to make up a story for your children anymore. Like, you know, I have this princess poopy pants or whatever. I don't remember what it was. But my daughter loved this story that I was telling her. It was fucking terrible. But she loves this princess. And it is the worst. Like, it is not good. But I came up with it. And she and I laughed together.

59:41And then her reactions helped me to turn the story a different direction. But, like, I've created this, like, character, right? So you can now go into your AI phone or whatever and say, create a nighttime story for Johnny about his day. but pretend like he's an astronaut on Mars and he's working with diggers. And it writes a story for you in five seconds to read to your son. Now, yeah, okay, is that cool? Absolutely. Did your son enjoy it? Sure. But you robbed yourself of the imagination and the work that it would have taken to come up with a story for your son. And then you also robbed yourself of that experience with your son creating the story together because his reactions would have changed the story in the way that you were creating it as it was going because he's your audience, right?

1:00:31That's sad to me, like that people are missing out on that. Yeah, cool. You might as well just read your kid a story because you really didn't write him a story. That's not, and so I don't know. That's the thing that I hope as a society because you're right, it is coming and it's here and it's not slowing down. But I hope that we can still steal away those moments where we don't want to use it because Johnny's little dad may have missed his second calling of being a children's story author because he never pushed himself to have to do it. And that could have been really cool. I don't know. I just that's I'm not I'm not completely against AI.

1:01:11I know what you're saying. And you're always going to have people that give up. Yeah. That's just how life is. You're always going to have people that don't find another way. You can't save those folks. And I don't even want to. Because I think that's part of the whole process of culture. I think we have to figure it out by watching people fail. And unfortunately, some of us have to fail. And it doesn't mean you fail forever. If that guy figures out that he's on the wrong path and he's got some self-assessment ability and he looks back and goes, What did I do wrong? Why am I being such a bitch?

1:01:44Why don't I just get my life together? Like, what the fuck is wrong with me? Why am I drinking? Why am I smoking? Why am I killing my health? Why am I depressed? Why don't I just go for a run? Let's see how that goes. I'm going to sign up for a yoga class. How about that? I'll just try that for a while. I'll do something different. I'll start taking vitamins. Fucking do something. Figure out something else that you like to do. Are you alive? Are you breathing? Then life isn't over. Stop being a bitch. You could have been born during the time of the Revolutionary War. You just got shot with a musket and you're bleeding out on a field.

1:02:14No, you're in Santa Barbara. and you don't like that AI just took your job. Find a new job, bitch. Figure it out. That's what we all have to do in this life. There's a lot of different people doing a lot of different things. Find out what it is that you can do. Don't give up. AI comes along and you just give up on life and he could have been amazing at something. Really? I doubt it. Because almost anybody that really is amazing at something has a desire to figure out how to get that through. I don't disagree with that. But there also are safeguards in place that like so my dad's entire family, we grew up in a small town on the Columbia River in Oregon and his entire family were longshoremen.

1:02:55Well, that industry was was coming to an end. And the longshoremen's union actually paid to have those guys trained in different industry. So that's great. That's one of the great things about a union. That's great. They can set you up like that and recognize what's happening. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So I would love for there to be some protections for when people inevitably do start losing their jobs, that there are avenues for them to learn a new trade. I think that would be a great new addition to the way we approach it, if they try to figure out ways to transition people healthily into other occupations.

1:03:36Because there are certain jobs like coders, for example. like my friends that are involved in technology like do not go to school to code to code no like code for fun if you like coding for fun yeah there's a lot of them the super nerds they code those fucking dorks they code for fun they sit in front of a screen don't make fun of my fan base come on joe listen i love those guys but also three years ago my dad was like your kids should go into coding that's how quickly that changed though you know what i mean and that could just It must be my dad's generation not seeing it happening as quickly.

1:04:08No, they were seeing what was happening was all these guys, these tech guys, wound up being the richest people on the planet. So they were seeing it. But it's just like a brief window of opportunity to become a tech oligarch. And that shit's going to slam shut. It is. And the real fear is like who's going to be in control of AI? You've got these people like Sam Altman. You've got Elon. You've got all these like super rich people that are going to be in control of the digital god. It's a little – that's a little disconcerting as it is. It is a little scary that the few control the masses. It's so much power and money.

1:04:44It's a lot of power. And just a handful of people. It's a lot of power. And you just – I mean you've got to hope that the people that are in power have, you know – Good sensibilities. They're kind. A heart. That they're nice. Yeah, that they realize like, okay, I've got X amount of billions of dollars. So this is obviously not what life's all about. What is life? What can I do that makes life meaningful? I could actually probably help people, like legitimately help people. That would be amazing if people with a lot of money wanted to help people and pay their share of taxes and not take advantage of the situation.

1:05:19Here's the problem with that. I am all for wealthy people paying their share. I am not for the government deciding what to do with that money when I've seen what you've done with the money in the past. You guys are irresponsible. You never make audits. You've got insider trading running amok amongst people in Congress, and you're not doing nothing about it. And then you want more money, and you say, that's going to fix it? No, it's the way you handle the money that fucking sucks. It's not that I wouldn't want to – I would be happy to pay more in taxes and live in a place that's just managed perfectly.

1:05:52I'd be like, God, it's so great living here in America. Everything's done so well. It's so beautiful. It's like everything's well thought out. Our education system's great. Nobody is stuck in a bad neighborhood anymore. All the school systems are fucking top of the food chain. It's a difficult job to acquire. It's given a lot of respect. And everybody's doing great. Then I'd be happy. Yeah, no, for sure. But it's like you see some of the money that they've uncovered that was being spent on nonsense. And you see what happens with NGOs and nonprofits. And they're funneling billions to these things.

1:06:25and it's going to countries and it's helping overthrow governments. Like, fucking slow down. But we also have to acknowledge that in the cuts, that there were things that didn't need to be cut. So we can go and we can look at Elon. So you brought up Elon Musk. Let's talk about when he tweeted about an over-stuffed bill in 2025. In the middle of 2025, he was talking about how this bill was just like bloated. So he took a bunch of shit off of it. One of the things that fell on that was in 2012, there was a piece of legislation called the Give Kids a Chance Act. What it did was it motivated and incentivized drug companies to create drugs for pediatrics.

1:07:12Because right now, pediatrics are completely underfunded. We learned all of this when our daughter got sick. The National Cancer Institute, 4 % of its budget goes to pediatrics. four percent so it's already underfunded and then in in when elon in 2025 tweeted about this they took off all of the stuff at the end of the bill 900 pages but what was on it was the give kids a chance act now this bill is a voucher program so let's say that tom in his basement wants to create a drug a new drug for neuroblastoma that will save our daughter's life he's got no money, but he sees the cure. So he can go to the FDA and he can say, I got a cure for neuroblastoma.

1:07:58And they say, great, we're going to fast track you in the FDA, but we're also going to give you a voucher. You can sell that voucher because Tom only got, he only has 10 cents. He can't create this drug. But with that voucher, he can take that voucher and he can sell it to anyone for any amount of money. And what that voucher is, is a front of the line pass. So he can go sell it to some drug company that has a fat loss drug or a drug for heart medications, anything. He can sell it to them and they get to buy it for what,$50 million. So now Tom has$50 million for his pediatric drug that's going to save children's lives.

1:08:33And this drug company has a voucher that takes them to the front of the line. Now, do we wish that these drug companies were altruistic and they were just like creating drugs for peds? Of course, but they're not. They're not. It's not a free market. So So what happens is they've now got their voucher. Tom has his money to create his drug. And since 2012, the Give Kids a Chance Act has created over 60 drugs for life-threatening illnesses for children. 60 drugs. And because of Elon's tweet, that legislation, because it has to be voted on every four years, was taken off the end of the bill. It no longer exists.

1:09:11So that legislation, it's not in existence anymore. That is terrible because now there's no incentives for the drug companies to create drugs for children. And children are already underfunded. They get so little. And so it has to be on the bill at the end of the year. So what I want is for people like people just to see the error their ways. Yes, was there waste, of course. But now you have this bipartisan supported piece of legislation that has to be on the end of year bill or it will not get on again. and then it starts all over again. It has to be on the end of your bill. So things like that, yes, can we get rid of the waste?

1:09:50Absolutely. But when you see a mistake and you see that you made a mistake, let's fix it. Put it back on. We've got to help children. It's literally throwing out the baby with the bathwater. But that's what we do in this country. But is that it? Unfortunately, these bills are crazy. And one of the things about bills is it'll have a name and then what's in the bill deals with multiple subjects. Yes. Because a bunch of different things get thrown into the bill. All the time. There's so much chucked on the end, which is what Elon was talking about. Right. They all do that. So was this connected to something else?

1:10:26No. It was just part of it. It was just part of it that was on there, that was thrown in there at the end. So there was a part that was chucked off. From what I understand, and granted, you need to talk to someone much more informed than I am about this, But there were about hundreds of pages that were just cut off the end. So do you think they're just not reviewing what's being cut off? They're just saying, look, we have to make cuts. Just cut it all off? I think that, yes, that they just needed to cut a bunch off to avoid inspection and just get the bill passed. And that's what they did. And the Give Kids a Chance Act is one of the, in the top 10 of all time, most bipartisan supported pieces of legislation.

1:11:07and 2 % of bills actually pass. So it's got to, it literally has to be on the end of the year bill. And it surprises me that because there is waste, I know there's waste, we all know there's waste, but that we say that children are so fucking important and they get 4 % of the National Cancer Institute's money, 4%. I just feel like if people knew about that, that couldn't have happened. If we had known about that in advance, we could have made a big deal about that. Well, we've got two months. We've got two months to get it on there now. Well, let's try to get it on there now. But here's the thing.

1:11:42Like, I had never heard about this before you talked about it. And this is the problem with, I think, this is part of the problem. I don't think they should be allowed to make bills that way. I think each bill, the things that are in the bills are so consequential. It just doesn't make any sense to me that they shouldn't be treated as individual arguments. Every single one of them. If you have a bill and you have 500, I mean, let's ask Perplexity, our sponsor. What is the average amount of different subjects that are covered in any bill? Because when there are thousands of pages, they might have stuff in there about immigration reform mixed in with Second Amendment rights, mixed in with free speech online, mixed in with support for Israel.

1:12:30It's weird. They have thousands of pages. Well, and you've seen how thick it is. And there were times, and I don't remember who said it, but there were times when the big, beautiful bill was passing or before it had passed that people had admittedly not even read it. How could that? How could you read it? It's so big. And so there is a problem there and that is above my pay grade and I do not know how to fix that. That's a crazy problem. But I think part of the problem is that it takes a pissed off mom whose kid is sick to be like, this is a fucking problem. This is a problem. It is a problem that in Portland, where I'm from, that OHSU is one of the top hospitals in the country.

1:13:17OHSU is given so many grants by the Knight Foundation. It is a leading hospital. It is attached to it. It's a tier one hospital. It is attached to Doernbecher. Doernbecher is a tier two children's hospital. It's in the same building. That's crazy. That's crazy. It is crazy to me that a pediatric oncologist makes 50 percent less than an adult oncologist. just across the board. 50 % less. It doesn't matter what the specialty is. They all make less money. That is a problem in this country that our children are not being cared for. And we're now in a position where we're not, there are no programs, and if there were, they're gone, that are showing doctors and students that are in medical school, hey, go into pediatrics.

1:14:04Hey, if you want to be an anesthesiologist, you want job security? go into pediatrics. I know you're going to make 50 % less, but go into pediatrics. We need you. There are not enough. It's a big problem. It's a big problem, the 50 % less, because a lot of these doctors - Now that's an average as well, by the way. I mean, when they get out, they already have medical school debt. Then there's liability coverage. It's very, very high. Okay. What is the average amount of subjects included in bills passed in the U.S. Congress. There's no single fixed number of topics per bill, but analysis of legislative practices shows strong trends depending on bill type and scope.

1:14:45The majority of bills passed by Congress include multiple subjects, and the number has grown over time as omnibus legislation has become the dominant approach. Give me some numbers, though. This one has the most. This is the biggest bill passed. Okay. This is so crazy. 5 ,000 pages? Consolidated Appropriations Act, which was in 2021. It has 5 ,593 pages. The bill combined all 12 regular appropriation bills for fiscal year 2021, COVID-19 relief, and numerous unrelated legislation provisions, including Copyright Alternative and Small Claims Enforcement Act, Protecting Lawful Streaming Act, Water Resources Development Act, and a variety of other measures on tax, transportation, energy, and health.

1:15:33Nobody's reading that. they're not reading anything AOC read that you think George Santos read that then nobody nobody read that you want to make it about people not reading things I'm sure we can get into that but like I think that well George Santos is the crazy guy yes that was just yeah they just pardoned they get him out of jail he's getting free I don't know I might have him on that guy's he's a wild boy I don't know but these people that are like congress people that are making hundreds of millions of dollars through insider trading and we're just like i don't know what to do okay but here's the thing though is that like we are things are not getting voted on like that's the other thing is that so you take like a the give kids a chance act and then you take these big bills that have so many pages there should be a system in place where things are voted on separately and there may be i mean i this is especially something that is important as pediatric medication.

1:16:30Like that just seems, it seems like a travesty to include that in a bunch of other stuff in a bill. Well, and you know, the crazy thing, so our daughter's cancer, her treatments and her care afterwards. So she's still getting this thing called an MIBG scan, which is a nuclear radiation scan where they inject her body with stuff that is so bad for you. But it's all to scan her body to make sure that her cancer hasn't metastasized. Like it's we need to know this kind of stuff. Right. There's there's no new technology. There are there are these are things that she's being treated with that have existed for 30 years.

1:17:05Wow. We need new things like our daughter should never have to get wheeled over to the adult side of a hospital to get an MRI because they don't have a machine on the children's side. It's just things like that should never be happening. This is the stuff that should be supported by our government and and and our tax dollars. Yeah, that's a great example of something that should be supported by tax dollars. I've always said that the two most important things for people to be, if you want to allocate money towards helping people, it's education and health care. Those are number one and number two.

1:17:39But is there an argument that socialized medicine, I have friends that live in countries with socialized medicine like England and Canada, and it's great in some ways. But it's also a nightmare because it takes a long time to get a surgery. A lot of the doctors might not be the best to get quite a few botched surgeries that my friends have had. And a lot of them have actually come to America to get surgery in America, especially UFC guys. Yeah. Because they felt like the doctors were better because they're more incentivized. These doctors are paid better. And you're going to get those really hot shot.

1:18:12This is the guy who does all the ACL tears for the Lakers. Yeah. These guys are. So there's something to be said. Yeah, if you can pay for that, for sure. But there's something to be said for the competition that drives innovation and makes people become the very best in the top of their field. But also, the most important things are not that. The most important things are regular, ordinary health care. And some of that stuff can fucking break people. Like one bad fall when you don't have health insurance and you're a couple hundred thousand dollars in debt now. So did you know that the number one cause of debt in our country is a medical diagnosis?

1:18:51Yeah, I did. It's terrifying. It's terrifying. So like that alone, I mean, if other countries have that and it does, it might not be perfect. Why can't we have that? And why can't we have that along with specialists that are even better? Like if you are, you know, the Lakers. Yeah. You know, they need a guy who's just a fucking wizard. Yeah. Pay people more for the very best guys so that you still have competition. But the idea that people just can go bankrupt if they get sick is like, are we not looking out for each other? Think about how much money we spend on other things. That's doable because other countries do it.

1:19:30It really makes me sad. Every once in a while we would get a medical bill. We have great health insurance. The Screen Actors Guild has some of the best health insurance I've ever seen, mind you. We take in Oregon where they're not used to seeing the Screen Actors Guild health insurance. Doctors will sometimes be like, I have never seen an insurance company cover this. I'm like, I know. Actors. Yeah, they're really good. It's phenomenal. But so we have seen so many people with sick children suffering financially. You don't think about it. It's not necessarily even the diagnosis that's causing the bankruptcy.

1:20:11It's the time. If your daughter needs a specialized cancer treatment and you've got to drive six hours each way every day or be put up at the Ronald McDonald house over by a hospital, you're not going to your work. You're not, you know, plowing your fields. You're not going to your nine to five. You're not because your priority is your kid. That leads to bankruptcy. That's a really big problem. And so it's not even it's not even the insurance. It's the lack of time. It's the lack of resources that we give people when they are sick. It's really heartbreaking. We got bills sometimes that were like$70 ,000 and like these crazy numbers.

1:20:54And, you know, I would take a picture and send it off to our insurance broker because we have a very, very blessed life. And I wasn't, I mean, I was definitely shocked by it and a little concerned. But I was like, they'll handle it. They'll let us know. most people don't have that you know they look at that and even though that was an error we should have never gotten that it was still you know our portion was still four thousand dollars or something like that why does it cost that much money like that's the question like what factors are involved in it costing that much money is it all above ground because i don't think it is it definitely has been shown that it's not with some drugs that they've hiked the price up of drugs because they know people have to buy it.

1:21:37Yeah. They know it's necessary. You're going to pay. It is a very messed up system. It's crazy. It's a crazy system. It's got so many problems. Whenever you have money, it's money. Whenever they can figure out how to make money with things. Yeah. So it's like, is there an argument for some sort of a socialization of that in this country? And people that want to say that we shouldn't have any socialism, listen, we have some. We do have some. Here's a big one. Fire department. it's a big one all right we all agree the fire department is worth paying for with our tax dollars we all pay and the fire department goes where the fire is if there's a fire in a poor community if there's a fire in a rich community that's how it works yeah we all agree with that because it's a it's a very good part of a functional society well and we don't want to be like no we don't need it you have a fire in your health then like it's the same thing you gotta You should have calamity centers.

1:22:31We've set up the socialism of our society is we've set up ways to handle calamities. We've got ways to set up fires, ways to set up floods, and we pay for it. And we make sure it's all there because we all need it. You want a social calamity? No education. Massive crime. All the different problems that plague us that we ignore. And some great ways to do that, to stop that, is free education and free health care. You cut back on most of the problems that people run into. I agree. Because one of the biggest problems in our country is mental health. It's a huge problem. And a lot of people go untreated because they don't have health care.

1:23:11That's what you're seeing in these tents. Yeah. You're seeing a lot of mental illness. A lot. A giant portion of it. That was all during the Reagan administration. administration the Reagan administration they changed how they um like what what they did with mentally ill people and they shut down a lot of these institutions and they just let people become homeless we were just having this conversation the other day because it's inhumane to uh to determine how a person should live their life and where they should live their life and um yeah it's it's it's a very very complicated gray issue for sure you know you see it in Portland where I live It is a very complicated issue because there is not one solution.

1:23:53It needs to be a multi-pronged solution with a lot of hands on deck. I mean, in Portland, it's gotten – I think another thing that Portland did that was, I think, directionally correct, which was they decriminalized everything. They said, look, we're not going to criminalize you for doing cocaine or having mushrooms. We're not going to treat that like your personal use is a crime of anything. But unfortunately, when they did that, people moved there to do drugs. Well, unfortunately, when they did that, they didn't put the services in place ahead of time to be prepared for it. Well, you would need a lot of services.

1:24:29You need like real counseling and real health care. And you really should have an Ibogaine center. If you're going to have anything that is dealing with addiction, which is one of the primary factors of these people being homeless. Well, yeah. I mean, it's a chicken egg thing, right? Because what comes first, the addiction or the homelessness? They should have set up Ibogaine centers. If you've got a decriminalized society, set up Ibogaine centers in Oregon. It would be the perfect place for you. You'd be able to help so many people because so many of those folks are just stuck. They're just stuck.

1:25:04And if you can get them out of whatever funk they're in, whether it's an opioid or crystal meth or whatever the thing that is that has captured their life, and let them find out who they are as a human, you could probably save a bunch of those folks. And that can be done. I do believe that a lot of those people can be saved. I think that it's really sad. It's how invisible people are. Yeah. It's really sad. It's really sad. That's someone's baby. And you have babies. You know what it's like. I know. And that's what I can't help but think. Think about how much you love your babies. And you walk by that with someone's baby that is now on the street, you know, covered in their own feces.

1:25:42I know. It's horrible. Horrible. It's horrible. And it's horrible. It's just a stain on us as a community that we don't do anything about it. And the answer is not just lock them up. I think they're doing something crazy out here where they're bringing in the National Guard. They're sweeping up all the encampments. And like, that doesn't fix it. You're just penalizing people for being fucked. Yeah. At a certain point in time, though, it's like, you ever watch that show Hoarders? Yes. At a certain point in time, you've got to burn the house down. This one lady was keeping bags of poop. I have tenancies.

1:26:19She had bottles and bags of poop all in her house. And they're like, we're going to have to destroy this house. This is insane. It's like that is almost where places like Skid Row are. Like that it's so crazy that you've let it get this bad for so long. To even clean it up, it's almost like you have to start from scratch. So it's almost like you'd have to take those people. You'd have to set up treatment places and take those people and convince them that there's a way to a life, that you don't want to live like this forever. There's a way to a life, and we're going to try to help you. And have these places that are set up where they have counselors and food.

1:26:54They clean people up. They give them their appropriate mental health medication if they need it. They talk to them. They give them activities. That's not, like, financially prohibitively expensive. They spend$24 billion in California. trying to stop the homeless crisis or help it. They didn't do anything. It got bigger. It got way bigger. And they spent$24 billion. Well, because they're coming over from Texas, being kicked out of Texas. The homeless? Like, go west, young men. Go west. I don't think they have that kind of ambition. No, I think it's a big problem. But I also know that, like, it is not, it's a multi-pronged problem, like I said.

1:27:33You know, a lot of people don't want to go into the shelters because they have an animal or they have a lot of stuff and there's limits on how many bags you can bring in, things like that. So it's, you know, you're not allowed to have drugs on you. Things that are prohibited to persuade people to go in to places that have help. So I don't know. It's going to take somebody a lot more creative than me and a lot of money and a lot of open-minded people to figure out what to do because it's a big problem. And it's a big problem everywhere, every major city. It doesn't matter if it's blue or red. It doesn't matter.

1:28:11It's a big problem. The thing is it's fairly recent. That's what's disturbing because I think that it's a symptom of a society that's lost its way because it's fairly recent. There wasn't a time when I was a boy where you had that many homeless people. You occasionally had a homeless person that you'd run into in like Boston where I lived or New York City. You'd occasionally run into homeless people. But there was no encampments. Yeah. There was no – this is a completely new thing as far as I know. It is new. There was during the Great Depression, though, but that was just like horrific poverty where they had shanty towns where whole families were living in these set-up shanty towns because they couldn't afford to be in a house.

1:28:50I don't know. Do you think it's a loss of – in some regard, it's a loss of community and it's a loss of empathy and caring for people? Sure. I know that like in the town that I grew up, when somebody was down on their luck, everybody would come together and help that person. It doesn't really happen anymore. We're all so consumed with our own lives and what's happening to us, I think. I think it's not a coincidence that it's happening in the places that have the most people too. Of course. Where there's the most people, not only are you going to have the higher percentage or rather a higher number of people with mental illnesses, but you're also going to have this thing that happens when you have too many people that live in a place where you don't value each other like i live in a neighborhood where there's a guy that lives in my neighborhood this old fella and uh he's always working on his garden and every time i drive by he waves i look forward yeah i look forward to the wave to the wave i wave that dude what's up it's like he's a friendly guy everybody drives by his house he waves that yeah and i look happen in New York City.

1:29:54In New York City, you wave at a guy every day. He's like, what the fuck are you waving at, bitch? Like, they want to fight you. Like, you got a problem with me? Why are you looking at me every day? Because there's too many people. There's fucking millions of people all stacked on top of each other. It's not how we're designed to live. We're designed to live in some sort of peace and harmony with nature, not like a new nature. So this new nature of concrete and electricity. It's just weird for us. And so we behave weird. And then when you see someone who's down, you just think, that's not me. I'm going to keep on moving.

1:30:29Whereas if you live in a small town and that was a member of your community, that's Earl. Like, oh my God, Earl's passed out in front of a store. Earl, what's going on, man? Yeah. Yeah. Like you love Earl, pick him up. Earl's a faceless, nameless person in Manhattan. He's one of many and no one cares. They just walk right by you on the way to the play well everybody is is everybody's hustling you know like that's it's a it's a big thing like it's it's we've got too little time in the day a lot to accomplish everybody's just yeah how do i get mine how do i take care of my family how do i protect this how do i do that how do i i don't have time to look at earl exactly you know and and but also even if you did help earl earl might be an idiot it might be like one of them things you help earl then two days later he's smoking crack again earl oh earl might just be that that just might be earl there's certain people you can't save and there's always going to be people like that but there's a lot of those folks that genuinely are just down on their luck and maybe they had an abusive childhood yeah and maybe things went wrong with them at multiple points and maybe they had an injury and they got oxycontin prescribed to them and then all of a sudden they can't get off that happens all the time i i know people that that happened to but it's going to take a coordinated effort from our representatives to actually care about people enough to figure out what the right solution is i would like to talk to the people that spent the 24 billion in california and go what did you guys do like how come you didn't do better it's like there's more there's more than And when it started, they increased their number.

1:32:10Well, to me, what that says is that there are more and more people falling through the cracks every single day then. An enormous number in Los Angeles. Los Angeles alone is a strange place in some neighborhoods where you're just driving through. You're just seeing like, oh, this is like if I was looking at a piece of fruit and a piece of fruit had like this bruised area. And I was like, oh, what happened to this? Somebody dropped. Like it's like a damaged part of your society. You've got these people completely removed from just like like a bruise just sitting there. They're a part of it, but they're like they're a sad part of it.

1:32:49And that part is getting bigger. The bruise is bigger. It's weird. Well, then. Yeah. I mean, we left Los Angeles two years ago, two years ago. Can't even speak. Two years ago. And and I love L.A. I love L.A. I lived there for 25 years. It's great city. The great city. Great people. Awesome. A lot of amazing human beings. Some of my best friends I met in L.A. And it's like many other cities. It has a problem. And the solution is there. It just – it's going to require a lot of work. And I don't know what that is, sadly. Yeah, I don't know what that is. But I know that people don't course correct.

1:33:30And that's what's screwy. What's screwy is just let this thing get bigger. Like, you've got to dump a lot of resources into removing these tent communities, setting these people up in some sort of a community center, some sort of a rehabilitation center. Like, make an effort. There's no way you can allow this because it's just the cost that's happening just to the neighborhood. Like, if you live right next door to a tent city and you're trying to sell your house, like, good luck. You're not selling your house. Yeah. That's going to fuck up everything. And it's going to fuck it up for them, too.

1:34:03It's going to cost everybody money. You'd be better off spending that money trying to help those people. And I guarantee you at least some of them are going to pop through on the other side, figure it out, become successful, and be forever eternally grateful. And they'll be able to help more people do the same. There's always a few of those people that come out of those kind of treatment centers that can help other people do it. I would be really curious to see like statistically what the common denominator of the majority of the homeless people in the U.S., what it was. I wonder if there's studies where they actually have gone around.

1:34:41It's got to be mostly drugs, right? No, I don't know though. I don't know. And granted, I do not know enough about this to be speaking about it with authority. I don't either, but I just jumped right to a first conclusion. But you do talk to some people that find themselves homeless. And I've had this conversation with somebody who found themselves homeless and started doing drugs because try spending the night out on the street. You're not comfortable. Depending on your circumstances, where you are, potentially what your gender is, what your own mental health is. Also, you probably load self-respect.

1:35:19terrifying at that point in time you're sleeping literally outside well or you have high self respect but you had a really shitty fucking day or you're you know someone you were caring for had cancer and you lost your house because they passed and you didn't go to work for a year and a half like for whatever reason you then start using drugs because it helps numb the life right so i don't know i i think you're right there that a lot of people who do do drugs find themselves on the street. But I also think that a lot of people who are on the street for other reasons find their way to drugs. And so it's a really big problem with a lot of moving parts.

1:36:00And I think, first and foremost, we have to try to find our way to empathy and figure out how to help people. Yeah, it's very well said. What you said, I completely agree with. And I think it can be done. I think it could be done with that$24 billion. I just think that there's a lot of incentive. There's a lot of wasted money in this country, let's be honest. There is. It's also, this is a thing, unfortunately, that they campaign with. You know, when there's certain issues that I think politicians genuinely don't want resolved because they can campaign on solving those problems. I really do think that.

1:36:40I talked to rep Luna and she actually said that. And I was like, so you really think they do that? And she's like, absolutely. That is so dark that they would not want solutions from both sides. Yeah. Because they would rather keep the argument in place. So they go, if it's up to me, I'm going to go out there and I'm going to stop gay marriage. And then it becomes a thing that they would like to repeal gay marriage just so they have the ability to fight to bring back gay marriage. That's how twisted some of these people are. It wouldn't surprise me. I'm not surprised. I think that's probably what happened with Roe v.

1:37:16Wade. I think that's probably part of it. I mean, government is a business. We have to acknowledge that. It's a crazy business. Everybody gets paid. There's so much money in that business. And they really do like having problems to campaign against. They openly talk about it. Like, we're going to get them on this one. Like, they like that problem. Keep that problem going. You know what, though? You know what we should do? We should give them problems that, like, legitimately, like, big problems that matter. like saving children. Well, that would be great. And like education and things like that.

1:37:45You know, you shouldn't, people shouldn't have to move house because they're trying to chase a public school that's better. Like the existing public school should be great. And we should have tried to invest in that a long ass time ago. Well, and we should pay our fucking teachers. How about that? Yeah, a lot more. My mom was a teacher for 35 years. She had a master's degree and she made something like$35 ,000 a year. I know. It's crazy. You have to love what you do and only want to do it because you love it. Whereas there's so many jobs that pay so much more. But why is it in our country that anything to do with children gets underpaid?

1:38:22I don't know. When they're the future. Well, if you wanted to put a tinfoil hat on, I'm trying to keep people down, trying to hold down society so I can control it. I just want to fuck up the education system, put as little money into it as possible. guarantee chaos, guarantee lawlessness, at least in some segments of society. That way we can always have reasons to bring the military onto the streets and reasons to arrest people and reasons to enact new laws and reasons to put people on digital ID. Like if you wanted to get really cynical, you would say, well, they didn't solve it because they don't want to solve it because they want the south side of Chicago to still look like Afghanistan in the height of the war.

1:38:57They want chaos. They want murder on the streets because that way they keep people scared and that way they campaign against these various sides. If you really wanted to get dark, you would look at it that way. I think what happens is more than anything is that it's like really difficult to get anything done. I think that's the truth. I think that is the truth. And it's like politically it is – it's not your best weapon. Like your best weapon are what are the big cultural issues. You know, if it is immigration reform, if you're one of those people that wants to close the border and want to stop these immigrants coming through.

1:39:31and if you're on the other side, if it's we want compassion and we want health care for all, then those are the things that you start throwing around. Those are the things that are going to get you votes. If you say, I'm going to campaign to make sure that we have health care for infants because right now pediatricians and physicians don't get paid as much. This is what I'm campaigning on. People will be like, okay, what about global warming? What about climate? So you have someone that does that. They run on that and wanting to get equal pay for pediatricians and higher pay for teachers. And let's really run on what's better for our children.

1:40:07And they get elected and then they go to work on Monday morning. And everyone's like, you can't do that. I mean, I know you got elected on it. So good luck. You're going to spend the next two years of your life trying to keep your constituents happy. And we're going to block you at every turn. But we're going to block you at every turn. Yeah. Every turn. It should have been done that way a long-ass time ago. That's the problem. It's like I don't understand how anybody who loves their kids would not want their kids to be taught by the best people possible. So unless you're in abject poverty where you can't even think about where your taxes go, if you have children, you should be thinking like, boy, I hope they get the best people to teach my kids.

1:40:48Well, instead, yeah, we get people that are willing to take a job that pays so little that like almost anybody with a bachelor degree can get a better job somewhere else. Financially, get more. You may get paid more as a waiter than most teachers get. Oh, please. You'd get more money as a dog walker. Probably. You would. A girlfriend of mine. You have a good group of dogs. A girlfriend of mine was a lawyer, a trial lawyer, new trial lawyer, but, you know, making good money. and she had, and I might get this wrong, but she got, she had stress-induced pancreatic shutdown. So her body as an adult had type 1 diabetes, which is like crazy.

1:41:31And it was all due to stress. So they told her, you know, you're going to have diabetes now. It's not like type 2, like this is it, but you still need to reduce your stress. And so she stopped being a lawyer. Her husband was like, okay, great. Like, this is it. We got to reduce stress. So she quit her job and stayed home and started doing yoga and was like, OK, I think I'm ready to try and contribute a little bit again and figure something out. And maybe I'll go walk dogs because, you know, I like dogs. Long walks will be stress reducing. I can make a little extra money. Why not do that? By the time she started watching our dogs like at her home overnight for like a month while I was on location, she was making more money as a dog sitter slash dog walker that she ever did as a lawyer.

1:42:18but she sounds like an exceptional dog walker crazy you get a lawyer's mind to the dog walking business i mean i don't maybe i would get like a picture every day but it's very valuable if you love your dogs if someone's like you really trust to take care of your dogs but those are the jobs right talking about jobs and like children like those are the jobs like you know if i was i keep telling my nephew like every day he's like i don't know what to do with my life and i'm like be a plumber. Like go on your own business. Find a job where we're always going to need you. Yeah. You know, open a dog walking service.

1:42:50Start there. Like do do something. Do something. But more importantly, what do you want to do? What do you want? It's so hard for people to figure out because because you're judging what you want to do based on what you see everyone around you do. And and, you know, I was blessed at a very young age to wake up in the morning and know what I wanted to do. That's very rare. Well, that's a gift. That's a gift the universe gave you. Because if you're just like, I don't know where to start. I don't know what to do. I think with people like that, generally, they've never tried. This is what I think is one of the things that's very important for kids.

1:43:28Find a thing, whatever that thing is, whether your thing is painting, whether your thing is music, whether your thing is sports, just find a thing that's hard to do and work on getting better at that thing. And that'll teach you so much about what life is. And if you don't do that, if you just do the work that school gives you and then you go home and you watch TV and then you hang out with your friends and you do the work at school and you don't get involved in anything that really tests you as a person, like test your creativity, test your endurance if you want to be a runner. Are you willing to get up every morning and actually do the work?

1:44:03Like things that test you, they teach you the process of enjoying things and getting better at things. And when people don't go through that when they're young, it's a real problem trying to find a thing and commit to it. You almost have to stumble upon it and get lucky. My parents, though, like when, you know, I didn't I wasn't raised by anybody in the arts. My dad's a builder. My mom was a teacher. And my parents not one day of my life told me I couldn't do something. Like every single day they were like, go for it. Why not? Like, sure. You know, I do believe my dad always said like, you know, second place is just the first loser.

1:44:45So I did have a dad like that. But like he said it sort of like, you know, he was building competition. Like he also knew that I was the child that he could say that to and it would motivate me. He didn't say that to my brother who were very two different, you know, children. Yeah, you got to figure that out. But my parents told me I could do things, you know. And then at a very young age, this is where representation matters. At a very young age, I, in high school, was dating a hockey player who was my age, was playing for the WHL team in Portland, and got drafted. So when I was 17 years old, I saw an 18-year-old get drafted in the NHL.

1:45:19And in my mind, somebody my age did something really hard that required a lot of work, but he made it. and him making it and seeing that happen in a counterpart of mine gave me the courage to go i'm moving to california whoa you did it i can do it whoa so you have to have both you have to have encouraging parents and you have to have the means to be able to pursue the things that you want to pursue but you also have to have representation and see other people around you succeed that are your age or that you identify with or that look like you that's important too that's huge yeah inspiration is so important.

1:45:56So important. It starts with teachers too, right? Sure. Kids need one good teacher. I had one good science teacher when I was in the seventh grade, and he said something that I think about all the time. I'd never thought about this before. He said, I want you to really hurt your head. I want you to look up at the sky and think about how far forever is. Think about the idea of infinity. Just really think about it. Just only look at the stars at night and think about infinity. because you can't you can't even wrap your head around it yeah he was a intense dude he uh was a vietnam vet it was like a little shaken up and you can kind of tell but he really loved science he really loved science and he was uh he was just trying to get us to understand how fucking crazy the world is like we really want you to think about this yeah like you're on a planet in space I never thought about it before that.

1:46:54I was like, oh, the stars, there's the moon. I never really thought about forever the idea of like even being able to imagine where where is my mind going when it's imagining infinite space. Yeah, it's it's crazy how small we are. Yeah. Yeah. And we're probably we were just going over this the other day. We're probably the whole thing's probably fractal. There's this photograph, it's a crazy photograph, of a human brain cell next to a map of the universe. And they look like the same thing. It's really weird. So we're all like living in Orion's Belt around a cat's neck in Men in Black? My joke was that there's a guy, that's his eye, right?

1:47:41And he's depressed and he's going to blow his brains out and that's the Big Bang. We're a part of, look at this. So on the left is a brain cell. On the right is the universe. Yeah. Wow. It's kind of nuts. I mean, it's kind of like dead on. It looks exactly like the same thing. It really does. I mean. They're both so beautiful. It's like the structure of it is amazing. But why wouldn't we believe? If we believe in subatomic particles, okay, we believe there are things that exist in the subatomic world that are behaving like magic. Like they're moving and not moving at the same time. They appear and disappear.

1:48:22We don't know where they're going. There's some sort of quantum entanglement that they show where particles that are not even remotely connected to respond to each other. Why wouldn't we think that we are subatomic in another being? That's true infinity. True infinity is not just the size of the universe itself being infinite, but of literally your universe is a small part of another being that's in another universe. I mean, anything's possible, right? The whole thing is so weird. We know so little about the universe. It's so weird. Yeah. It's so weird. We have no idea. We're literally flying through space and we're arguing over who's a Nazi.

1:49:10And the whole thing is just very bizarre. It's very bizarre. It is pretty amazing when you look at how small we are. We've started reading our daughters interested in space. And so we've started looking at books and talking about the Milky Way and what the universe is and what Earth is and where we live. And it's pretty amazing when you realize how fragile the whole thing is because we're so tiny. We're so tiny. We're so tiny. Yeah. Yeah. And our galaxy is so tiny. That's what's nuts. Yeah. Our galaxy is immense. Hundreds of billions of stars. Tiny. Little tiny thing. Little tiny cute little galaxy.

1:49:53Little tiny little. Little sweetie little galaxy. Oh, look at that little dot right there. Have you been paying attention to this object that's hurtling towards Earth? It's called A30. They're calling it A31. I try to avoid things that are going to give me nightmares. Are we going to send— This one is extraterrestrial, perhaps. Is it really? We're going to meet the aliens finally? There's something weird about it. We were just going over it the other day. There was an article that was stating that whatever they use to detect what is around this, They can detect the composition, whether it's mostly water, vapor, mostly iron.

1:50:31This thing is giving off the indications that it's an alloy that only exists on Earth through industrial alloy-making processes. Okay. That it's not a natural metal. Okay. And that's what they're getting is the signal that this thing that is hurling through space, this massive object that's moving, by the way, from the same direction in space where the wow signal came. I don't know what that is. The wow signal is a, they believe, intelligently generated signal that they picked up. I think it was in the 70s. It was in the 70s? I should know this. I'm going to lose my nerd code. No, it's okay. It's a weird one.

1:51:15It's a little obscure. So I don't know what the exact technique they were using to monitor radio waves in space, but they got a signal. So here it is. The WOW signal is a powerful 72-second narrow-band radio signal detected on August 15, 1977 by the Big Ear Radio Telescope at Ohio State University, which initially suggested an extraterrestrial origin. named for the wow written in printout by the astronomer jerry uh amen amen amen the signal had characteristics expected from a technological source but follow-up efforts have failed to detect it again the leading hypothesis is that a natural natural astrophysical event such as a flare from a magnetar briefly illuminated a cold hydrogen cloud causing it to emit radio signal similar to a laser or it's a laser.

1:52:07And then this object is coming from that. From that area. Yeah, look at that. They sent you a signal. And then now this thing is coming through there. So if you think like how fast this thing is going, if it came from, you know, the other side of the galaxy, it's probably exactly how long it would take to get here. So it's coming directly for Earth? No, it's coming near Earth. Right. So we're not worried it's going to hit us. No, I don't believe we're worried. Well, I'm going to find out tomorrow. Avi Loeb, an astronomer from Harvard, is coming on. Amazing. And he's going to enlighten us as to what this thing is all about.

1:52:40But it's weird. As it gets closer, it's weirder and weirder. They've never seen anything like this thing before. But is it possible then that another planet out in the universes is made up of, has alloy properties, and it could have chipped off and it's now hurtling through space? Yeah. You would have to ask like a metallurgist that question. That's a good question. They just know the only way it exists on Earth is through this industrial process. If it is that stuff. Yeah. Why do they think it's that stuff? Do you remember that article? We looked it up like a couple of days ago. Look, it's so fun to think it's a spaceship.

1:53:21Of course it is. I think the Cylons are coming. Because they might be. Yeah, they might be. Do you think they're coming to save us? I think they would have already stepped in if they were going to do that. You'd think so. then yeah, sure, there's been, you know, they would have stepped in right after World War II. They'd be like, hey, hey, hey, with the fucking nukes. Or do you think they're just up there going, you're gonna have to save yourself, kids. Perhaps, maybe, perhaps it's a process that all intelligent emerging life goes through. And then, you know, you have to kind of let it go through the process, like you have to let your kids fall down.

1:53:54In contrast to all node comets, including the interstellar comet 21 Borisov, The observed spectrum of the gas plume around 31 Atlas shows prominent nickel emission, but no evidence for iron. Other than 31 Atlas, this anomaly was only known to exist in industrially produced nickel alloys through the carbonyl chemical pathway, which refines nickel through the formation and decomposition of nickel tetracarbonyl. tetracarbonyl the authors of the new paper postulate that this carbonyl process is realized naturally near the nucleus of 31 atlas they argue that this in situ formation of this thing predicts that nickel should be strongly concentrated near the nucleus so it's like the whole thing is some very weird metal that's the point and it's it's also there it's weird the way it's moving What are they saying about the way it's moving?

1:54:53There's something about - Self-correcting or something. I think they thought it had some emission. I don't know. It looked like a jet, but I don't think so. It seemed - No, it did seem like they were saying that it's changed. It's very far away. It's very far away. Yeah, they zoom in and - So maybe it's the silence coming back. They're like, we have to go save our parents. Have you seen they got a telescope that actually took video of it? That's what amazes me, is that we have telescopes that can see that far. I can send it to you, Jamie. This guy has it on his Twitter page. But it's like it's very low resolution, obviously, because it's fucking millions of miles away.

1:55:28But whatever it is, is really weird. It's really weird. You know, people ask me all the time if I believe in aliens. I think just because of what I do for a living and the genre that I'm in. I couldn't wait to talk to you about aliens. What I always say, you're going to be vastly disappointed that I know so little about them. But what I always say is I think it's a line from a movie where it would be an awful waste of space. if it was just us. Yeah, that is a lot in a movie. I don't remember what movie it was. It's from the movie with Jodie Foster. Contact. Contact. Oh. When her dad says to her that it would be an awful waste of space.

1:56:03Yeah. Beautiful movie. It's a great movie. Carl Sagan wrote that book. That's it. So this is the thing. Like, what is that? What the fuck is this?

1:56:17Like obviously low resolution, obviously moving through space, but also what the hell is that? Well, it seems to be moving pretty quickly, yeah? Yeah. It looks like a spaceship. I mean, it also looks like a dust bunny. I was showing my friend Matt last night. We were having dinner, and I was showing him videos of praying mantises killing hummingbirds because he didn't believe it. Stop. He's like, no way. Well, they're big. Praying mantises can be quite big, right? Not in comparison to hummingbirds. It's crazy how strong they are. Stop. They literally kill hummingbirds? They just snatch hummingbirds right off feeders.

1:56:50So they sit by the hummingbird feeder motionless. and the hummingbird comes in to take a drink and just snatches them. What do they do with them? Eat them. Stop. It's crazy. Praying mantises are so ruthless. Makes me really sad. I have watched. Well, they eat their own young, right? They probably do. I mean, I don't know. Yeah. I don't know if they do that, but I know that they put a praying mantis in a box and then they'll drop a roach in and the praying mantis just snatches it up and just starts eating the roach alive. Yeah, but that doesn't make me feel bad. But it does it to this bird. That makes me feel bad.

1:57:23But the thing is, like, why couldn't that be an intelligent life form from another planet? Like, and then come here on 31 Atlas and land. I mean, that is a possibility. Well, that's the thing, right, is that we spend so much time, or I guess in our imagination, like, we've been conditioned to think that, you know, intelligent life looks like something from these movies. So we all think intelligent life is, you know, these guys with big heads or they look like us or, you know, whatever. we think but they absolutely could literally be a flea it could be a six foot tall mantis it could be yeah yeah and then we'd be in real trouble real trouble it's like absolutely one of those praying mantises getting a hummingbird this is gonna make me really sad you guys it makes me sad too i love birds yes have you ever wanted to wear one of those hats with the hummingbird feeders on it no do people do that that's so crazy like they'll put the little things and they can just stay really still.

1:58:21They're a beautiful little bird. They're gorgeous. A weird little bird too in the way they're able to change direction and move. It's amazing. I didn't realize our house where we live now, they stop all the time. So they'll sit on the branches and stuff, which is really rare to see. Praying mantises are so nasty. But look at it. It kind of knows it's there. Well, that one. Oh my God, it grabbed us by his beak. Oh yeah, it reached out and just snagged them. The thing is they're so strong for their size. I mean, that is literally like a person trying to take out a cow. Go down. There was one, that one, with the praying mantis and the...

1:58:57And the scorpion. Oh, the praying mantis is going to kill that scorpion. That scorpion doesn't have a fucking chance. I don't know if... That's what I'm guessing. Yeah, look, he's already on top of him. What? Yeah, he just mounted him. But then look, he's avoiding the... Yeah, he's going to figure it out. He's also avoiding the stinger. Like, what is happening? What is happening? They're probably both trying to figure out why they're in there together. there oh my god this is the shit of nightmares for me praying mantises are not they're monsters they're see if you can find videos of praying mantises eating roaches there's like a whole mantis uh page on instagram where they put like a different bug in there with praying mantises how do we know it's not ai created though guys because this has been around for years yeah yeah praying mantises oh look they they fuck up giant lizards they kill lizards like the lizard tried to eat him at the beginning of it.

1:59:46Oh my God. If you watch the video, the actual video, the lizard tried to eat him. He's like, not today, bitch. I'll be eating you. Oh my God. That poor lizard thought he was going to eat the praying mantis and the praying mantis is eating him. Like, we are so lucky that they're little. We're so lucky. We are so lucky. I hate. Because if they were big and smart. No, and then there's a bird. I don't want to see the bird die. Is he killing that bird? Oh my God. The one I found, which I hadn't seen before, it's hanging upside down from a flower eating right here. Oh, my God. It's like, it's a big bird, too.

2:00:19That is wild. My God. They are just monsters. I mean, that's like Alien from the movie Alien. That's what it's like. Oh, my God. It's just little. My entire mind has been blown. Right? Look at that. That's what a praying mantis can do. Hang upside down while it's eating a bird. And literally hanging onto the petals. of a flower. Like it's nothing. Upside down. And with no strain at all. None whatsoever. It's carrying a fucking bird that's like five times bigger than its body. Like the size of a barn swallow. It's crazy. Oh my God. The crazy thing is these stupid lizards that think they're going to eat them.

2:00:56Oh my God. I mean, it is such a bizarre creature. I don't want to see any of this. Look at that one. That poor little beauty. Oh, they do it all the time. They get hummingbirds. So he's just, a lot of these have no action though too. I've seen. Oh, my God. People trying to capture stuff. But these go back as long as YouTube does. Some of those are 15-year-old videos. Those are the ones I would try. But they get them so quickly. Why do they stop moving so quickly? They're so fast. Because they're so strong. This one looks fake. I mean, now it's created within four weeks. I start going, all right.

2:01:27Oh, that looks like AI. That's AI. But the other ones, those cell phone ones are real. They're just unbelievably strong. That's crazy. I had no idea. And if there's like a spaceship filled with those fuckers. We're screwed. They're all smart. They're way smarter than us. We're done. I think I saw a three-year-old boy getting ready to take on a praying mantis, too. I think he's going to lose in one of those videos. So future generations are not looking good right now. Yeah, if you walk up to a mantis, they'll be like, what, bitch? They stand up. They will on their hind legs. They're ready to fight.

2:01:55And they will. We're just lucky they're little. Right? It's terrifying. It's absolutely – I'm going to go home and tell my husband all about this. Not my daughter. They still have nightmares. What do you have to think about with this 31 Atlas? If it's filled with reptilians, then we've got problems. What's going on? Oh, my God. I cannot laugh at children. Oh, no. See, I told you there was one. Oh, Jesus. Oh, God. He's like, fuck you. He tried to eat the baby. He did. He tried to eat the baby. That's how gangster pregnant this is. Oh, my God. It went after that baby. He was like, fuck you. I will eat your entire body.

2:02:29The thing that's crazy is. Before someone comes to rescue you. We don't think of them as being vicious. No, I look at them and think that they're super cool. I would have been that three-year-old kid if I'd ever seen one in our yard. I would have been like, hey, honey. A regular green mantis. There are some wild mantises out there. Oh, yeah. There's more? Look at that one. Kung fu mantis. Wow. Look at that one. Those are beautiful. What is that one called? Kung fu mantis? Kung fu, yeah. What a beautiful looking insect. Just imagine a planet where that's the size of a horse. No, we're fucked if that's what's on this copper thing that's coming toward Earth.

2:03:08We just got super lucky that the insect world is small. It's true. Somehow or another, it worked out that way, where the insect world is small. Because if the insect world was as big as the mammal world, it would be a wash. It would be over. Like if they were the size of elephants? Well, if they were the size of dogs. They'd kill us all. That's true. Look who that fucking one praying mantis can do. It's true. Oh, look at that one. Perfect. It looks like a flower. That's a praying mantis. What is that thing? Yeah, that's the one we were just looking at, this little guy. Yeah. And that's a bigger one.

2:03:39Whoa. It's a big giant mantis. Holy shit. That's crazy. I don't know. We probably have to listen to the video to hear what kind it is. What is it going to do? Oh, it's heads, the white part in the front. Yeah, that thing. That looks like a... There's the arms folded up. Whoa. Wait, where's his arms folded up? Oh, his arms are folded right in front. Oh, my goodness. Got him. Oh, my goodness. Oh, my God. He just bit its head off. Whoa. Whoa. Maybe they just mated. Who knows? Jeez. That's what the females do after mating. They do. They just eat them. Yeah, they fuck up the men. Yeah, but that's how you stay small.

2:04:16Nature's like, you're too fucking gangster. We have to keep you little. We have to keep you. It's like chihuahuas. And honey badgers. And honey badgers. Don't give a shit. Imagine if a honey badger was the size of a wolf. We'd have a real problem. It's a problem. It's a real problem. They have to make them little, so they're so gangster. They just never could take over the whole forest. These fucking honey badgers just like. I can imagine if a honey badger was the size of a horse. And they would just take over an entire swath of land. There probably were things like that. There probably were back in the day.

2:04:46And now we have chickens left. Do you have to keep up on a certain amount of sci-fi because of playing Starbuck? Do you feel like an obligation to your fans to hold on to a certain amount of sci-fi information? Yes and no. I feel that I have to maintain and hold on to a respect for the genre and the knowledge that I will never have. There are people that can come up to me and tell me the entire history of Star Wars. Before I was in Star Wars, I considered myself a Star Wars fan. And then I got in Star Wars and I was like, oh, I don't know shit about anything. It's a big ass universe now. It is.

2:05:30Especially now. It's huge. Keeping up on Mandalorian stuff. No, you can't keep up on anything. So I just, I always just say, I would love to know more about that. Can you please? That's good. Can you please enlighten me? Because I don't know. I really don't know. And like these, you know, I have found that the sci-fi community, especially like one of my favorite things is going to conventions because I love I just I love meeting people and like new people and meeting the people that are fans of the work. And we always have things in common. And and I would I would be so bold as to to say that sci-fi fans are some of the smartest people I've ever met.

2:06:15I'm sure there are a lot of nerds they're very very very smart and I just I can not compete with that I can tell you the lines that I can't forget there are lines like from Battlestar Galactica we've got violent decompressions irradiating from the port flight pod I thought I was going to be fired because I couldn't say it I had to write it down I had to tape it to my Viper I was like oh my god they're going to find out And I'm like, oh, my God, like I shouldn't be here. This is crazy. I'm an imposter. And then I find now I can't forget it. I had a line from Mandalorian that I couldn't remember for the life of me.

2:06:54And so I kept memorizing it with my husband and he was throwing tennis balls at my face. So I was catching tennis balls as I was memorizing it. Was that hard? It was very hard. But it was Pirate King Gorian Shard is captain in a cumulus class corsair of violent snub fighters. Oh, Jesus. Yeah. Oh, my God. Yeah. It was just like. Somebody hates you in the writer's room. It's possible. You know, you never know. That seems so mean to make someone try to say that. You say it. Fucking you say it first. It's true. There are times. I have since like Ron Moore was on my podcast and I told him that like for 25 years I have not been able to forget this violent decompressions line.

2:07:34And he was like, I'm so sorry. That's hilarious. I'm so sorry. That's very funny. Because he's aware, like he's aware that, you know, he's making actors say shit that you should never have to say in real life. Like, you know, and then furthermore, you have to try and decipher it. You know, like one of my jobs is to take something I don't understand and then say it with authority as if I do understand it. So I have to dissect it and learn what certain things mean. And if I don't understand it, I have to give it context in something that I do understand in order to like sound like I am not an idiot.

2:08:05Right. Which at times is hard. So, you know, it's it's it's God, the jargon is I learned the tennis ball technique with my husband. And that's a great technique. That sounds like a good technique. You remember why you're catching tennis balls and you really remember it. Yeah. That is a crazy sentence to try to remember. Yeah, it was not easy. This is not easy. You're a part of something that that people in sci-fi that I think is very interesting. Sci-fi is, I think, the genre of action that has the most badass women. 100%. Yeah. At least it did. It did for a long time. I think the OG is obviously Sigourney Weaver.

2:08:47100%. That. I mean, that is like an aside. No one is like, oh, it's a strong female lead. That is an aside to an insane movie and an amazing performance. That's like that last scene when she kills that thing. Yes. Oh. Yeah. And that's 1979. Yes. Amazing. That character, when I saw that movie, I was like, I want to be her. Right. Because up till then, I only wanted to be Bruce Willis. I wanted to save the Nakadomi building. I loved action movies with my dad. And when he started realizing that I had this affinity toward these movies, he started showing me movies with strong female leads. and Sigourney was the one where I saw that performance, and she was everything.

2:09:35She was strong. She was capable. She was smart. She was feminine. She was funny. She was everything. And it was a perfect movie. It was a perfect movie. It was a perfect movie. Number two, possibly better even. Yeah, this is a scene where she blows it out. I disagree. You do? Yes. because number two, the aliens are too easy to kill. This motherfucker is so hard to kill. So hard to kill. And then in the second one, they're just gunning him down. Yeah. It was a different thing. It was a different thing. Look, they're both great movies. I really loved Aliens. But the thing about Alien, the first one, was that thing was amazing movie.

2:10:19Just the way that, I mean, it's just such an amazing shot. Perfect movie. It's a perfect movie. The framing of that is beautiful. There was never one moment in that movie where you saw what was coming next. No, because we hadn't seen anything like it. Nothing. The chestburster scene. I remember being in the movie theater. Look at the utter fucking exhaustion on her face. Crazy. Yeah. The chestburster scene was like, what the fuck? What? I remember being in the movie theater. I had no idea that was going to happen. There was no internet back then. Yeah. watching them like this movie is nuts and that little thing was running around on the ground and his chest was burst open so gross everyone's screaming there's blood everywhere it was wild this is one of probably in my opinion one of the best movies of all time oh i agree 100 percent and again the fact that it was a strong female lead was just there's a tiny little part of the movie it was just she was so good you didn't even think oh it's a strong female lead you're like well no because they didn't tell you this is a strong female lead no exactly they just created a phenomenal character and made her a woman exactly and she just played the part perfectly yeah this fucking scene was so nuts it was so nuts because you didn't know what is happening I know.

2:11:43People have to realize, like, before movies were spoiled, there was no spoiler alerts back then. You didn't get to watch clips. But even just the way it shot, the frenetic energy of the camera matching the frenetic energy of his body. Yeah. This is such a crazy scene. It's crazy. Bro. Bro.

2:12:10Again, 1979 this is happening. I mean, the special effects back then were nuts. To have something like, I mean, this is probably the greatest believable monster special effects in any movie up to this point. I mean, by far. That was a little bullshit. That one was like it was on wheels. That was a little silly. It's on a piece of string. Someone's pulling it. Yeah, it moved a little weird. But, you know, it's an alien. You were still scared as shit, though. I'm still scared. But then when you see the actual alien itself, you're like, what the hell is that? You never saw anything like that before.

2:12:43Not only was it completely unique in its design, it was horrific and it looked like an insect, like an insect and a reptile at the same time. Sci-fi was a place because I – so I was a huge fan of strong women and genre work. And I found myself gravitating toward sci-fi because that's where women existed that I identified with and I saw myself. Like, you know, I didn't see myself as like this, you know, well, the characters I played when I moved to California. They didn't it didn't feel like me, you know. And I really found sort of my calling, I guess, when I started watching those women. And I loved Sarah Michelle Gellar and I loved Lucy Lawless and I loved Linda Hamilton and Carrie Fisher.

2:13:40And like a lot of these women that were just really, really great characters. And they were written as great characters. And Starbuck was, and if you talk to Ron more about it, the reason why he made Starbuck and Boomer women, he didn't think about it. He just said, OK, we've got these are the characters from the original. These are the characters we're going to put in my version. Women are in the military. Women do exist in combat roles now. And we are making this for, you know, the early aughts. We have to be representative of what the military looks like. We need to make a couple of these characters fit women.

2:14:16And he just said this one and this one. he didn't give it any thought you know um and so i think part of the reason why they were so great the characters are so great was that they were just great characters right that the writing was so great there was never a time where um they were like she's the best female pilot around right you know it was like linda hamilton in terminator it's like she's just a great it's Just a great character. And with a motivation that we all can identify with. So it's – and that's why she was such a great character. And, you know, she opened so many doors for me because then people started to believe that I was tough.

2:15:04And how many girls started doing chin-ups after this? Linda Hamilton. Oh, my God. Do them in the Terminator. Please. And chin-ups are fucking hard. I know. She's jacked. She's jacked. She got so fit for that movie? I did a Spartan race with my husband because on my podcast channel, I was, you know, during COVID and then like before COVID, I was creating content of sort of like Katie did sort of stuff. Like, I'd love to do this. Let's film it and see what it's like. So we signed up for a Spartan race and then recorded the whole thing. And my husband not only ran his race, but then ran my race too, like recording the whole thing.

2:15:38That's the hardest thing I've ever done, like getting in shape for that thing. I got in shape for six months before. That was hard. and getting to a point where I actually could do chin-ups and then also pull-ups too I was like wow I'm strong I felt so strong at one point so I get to the actual race and I've been training with such heavy shit that I got to the medicine ball where you have to pick it up carry it and throw it and then pick it up and carry it and throw it and it was so light for me and I was prepared for it to be like so heavy I got to it and I picked it up and then like I threw it and it kept going and I had to slow down because I had to go get the ball and bring it back to where it was supposed to be.

2:16:14I'd gotten almost too strong. Oh, that's hilarious. It was really awesome. It was so fun. It's nice to know that you can get strong though. That feeling is a nice feeling. I wish everybody felt that. Yeah. Get physically better. You'll feel better. But I had fun doing it. You know what I mean? And I also set myself a goal. I think that's really important too. Like for some people that it's daunting is setting a goal and the goal doesn't need to be winning. The goal just needs to be finishing why do you think it is that like sci-fi in particular embraced these like gangster women characters so my opinion on this yeah is that i feel like um because science fiction doesn't exist because they're you're existing in these make-believe worlds right that uh strong women were not intimidating um in sci-fi because we could be dismissed as not but that wouldn't happen in real life interesting so that's interesting so men could then watch these right not be threatened that's my opinion i bet i bet you're right i bet that's that's the only thing that makes sense now that i'm thinking about it yeah i think so because like there's no female john wick no no well there is that one ballerina no that one the emily one the one that kevin james was in it's a crazy movie about this uh young girl who just kills all these bad guys like i have no idea it's kind of like tongue in cheek like yeah yeah but it's hyper violent it's crazy that's what it's called right emily i think there's two of them there was one where this they they killed her dad and they killed her family and so she killed everybody and then she came And then the second one she came back and killed more people.

2:18:06It's like a young, cute girl who just knows how to kill everybody. I mean, look, it's kind of fun. It's kind of fun. It's a funny movie. When I went through... What is it, Jamie? Not Megan? Whatever Kevin James was in. It was about a young girl who kills everybody. Kevin James? Yeah. Kevin James was a bad guy. He played a white supremacist. That movie's called Becky. Becky. That's it. Becky. Becky. Yeah. There's a second one, though, right? Well, there's a movie called Emily, and there's a movie. No, what was the— Heaven James. No, it is Becky. You're right. But there was a movie before Becky, I believe.

2:18:4072 % on Rotten Tomatoes. Oh, it's fun. The Wrath of Becky also came out. That's right. I just saw Ballerina. That's it. I actually said that was really good. I think that's the first one, right? No, this is the second one. That's the second one. This is the first one. I thought there was a prelude to it. Either way. Yeah. Fun-ass movie. Oh, Joel McHale's in it. Yeah. Yeah, he's great. Fun. It's a fun-ass movie. But it's like, that's the female John Wick. Well, I think everybody's trying to create these strong female characters now. And I think that one of the biggest problems with a lot of them is that they're not focusing on the character to begin with, like we talked about.

2:19:18Like, write a strong character and then just make her a woman. Right. Don't write a strong character that you have to have a woman. Right. Right. I think that's part of it because they're all trying to create. There's so many of them now. Right. And I love to see them and I love to give them chances. But a lot of times the the I want to also see somebody that's believable in the role as well. Right. Like one of the funnest, the things that I love to do is transform my body depending on what character I'm playing within reason. And there's only so much I can do or that I want to do. But, you know, for my show, Another Life, my character wakes up from cryo.

2:19:59I wanted her to look like dehydrated and sinewy and like really, really, really lean, like almost unhealthy lean. And I got myself down to such a low body fat. It was crazy. What did you eat to get down like that? 14.50 a day. 15.50 a day, something around that time when I was cutting. Um, but I packed on muscle and then cut like really hard for like, uh, three weeks before. Um, and I was eating a lot of protein. Um, and I got myself so low that my menstruation stopped and I was like, oh, this is too low. This is really low. Um, that happens with a lot of runners. Yeah, it was quite low, but I, I got to where I wanted to be.

2:20:47I looked the way I wanted to look. And then I naturally put on, you know, a healthy amount of weight as the series went on, which is what I wanted to do anyway. But so I want to see not someone do something detrimental to their health necessarily. But I do want to I want to see the muscle. I want to see the capability in a character that's kicking ass. Right. You want it to be believable. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Like when they all got an insane shape for that movie 300. oh my god it's like that would be like the best job in the world for me if they're like we're gonna give you tons of time and tons of money to just get in the best shape of your life yeah here's some trainers we got like six months let's do it there was a lot of people that thought that they used ai for that they used some ai for sure because that was a crazy for 300 yeah well they used 300 had a lot of ai because it was yeah yeah i don't know excuse me i should say not ai i should say cgi it had cgi for sure that's what i should say yeah because obviously the giant persian king was not really that big there was there was a lot of like fantasy elements of that right but i think they really did get an insane shape and a lot of people like dismissed that and said that's cgi but there's videos of those guys working out like getting ready yeah look at these guys just going crazy getting ready to film this movie i mean they trained like animals

2:22:14so you could see so cool out so they really did just develop incredible bodies which the nutty thing is anybody can do you just you just have to do it do what they did you'll get a lot better it's a lot of hard work though it's not that easy though yes it it's on paper is easy but like being a mom of two kids though oh yeah like it's and having a job i in the last two years i i it I'm hard pressed to find time to work out. And I wake up at 5 o 'clock in the morning, so I'm awake before my kids. And, you know, I choose during that time to, you know, meditate, write my journal, breathe, take time to myself.

2:22:54And then they wake up. I haven't quite figured out how to fit in my workouts. Well, that's an obligation that's very different, right? You're a mother, you know, and you're doing the absolute right thing. You're dedicating all your time to being a mom when you're there. Like, that's just how it is. but for you know for the amount of hours that are that are in a day it would be nice if you could just get a little time to yourself as they get older you'll have more time to yourself and then you'll be able to get back on track but yeah for people that have the time and don't do it that's the wasted potential of your resources like you don't have to do a lot just do some body squats and do some push-ups and and you don't need a lot of equipment either i think that's the thing i think that we've made physical fitness in some way because it's an industry i think we've made it daunting for a lot of people and you know i think that that if you just focus on the things that tried and true like you can do that stuff in your house without weights or with things that are heavy in your house you know you can actually make progress sure and if you don't know anybody to teach you how to do stuff all you have to do is go on youtube just go on youtube and look up beginner body weight workout.

2:24:07I'm sure there's a bunch of them out there. Yeah. And you can do stuff with no physical fitness equipment, just do pushups and sit ups and body weight squats, and you can get a great workout in that way. It's true. And nobody has to watch you. You don't have to feel self conscious, just you and your phone. You can go to my YouTube channel because during COVID, I was doing my workouts. And I said to my husband, I was like, might as well record this shit and put it out there. So yeah, and all of them are fun and interesting and easy. And And people still come up to me and they're like, I lost, you know, a man came up to me at a convention the other day.

2:24:38He said he lost over 80 pounds doing the workouts that I put and signed up for a Spartan race. And I was like, that's awesome. I love that. That's so cool. That's very cool. See, that's a great thing. They're your fans. They see you working. I'm like, oh, my God, I'm going to work out with her. Yeah. And everybody works out together. Great. Yeah. See, that's the great use of the Internet. Yes. The Internet has a lot of great uses. You can learn anything on the Internet. You can learn anything. You could find out stuff, how to make things and fix things and get information about something you never thought you were interested in.

2:25:10Like, look, you never thought that praying mantises were so scary. And now I know. But you know what I'm doing? What? I'm now already in my head trying to write a children's book about praying mantises. Oh, you are? I am. It's like that's my ADHD. Like I'm already – You started once you saw that? Once I did. Oh, that's hilarious. Yeah. Well, I want a copy of that book. It'll probably be cool. it's gonna be a pop-up book so every time you move it the praying mantis is like we just for some reason miss them and the when we're describing the most ruthless animals on earth we miss the praying mantis because they might be the gangster of gangsters i think they might be do they ever attack together do they work in coordination that's a good question if they did they'd be unstoppable because that would be starship troopers that would be like if a bunch of women like cycled their periods they could we could take over the world right Right.

2:25:59Especially with those headsets. Get those Google headsets on. We could really, because then we just talk to each other. Like, shit would be, that would be on fire. Like, it would be on fire. We'd like, you know, take over some crazy shit. For sure. That would be awesome. That would be awesome. Well, maybe that's a good use of technology. I know you're anti-AI. Maybe for that. I am anti-AI because I am in self-preservation mode here. I get it. I am desperate to be like, I matter, damn it.

2:26:32not just to my family right you know i know i think we're all gonna be like that soon i don't know i don't think so i think it'll we'll we'll always find a place you just have to be malleable and you have to figure out where to you know i don't know adjust yes pivot yeah there's gonna to be some pivoting for sure. A lot of pivoting. How often do you do your podcast? So my podcast is once a week, every Tuesday. What's it called? It's called the sack off show. It was called blah, blah, blah, but people couldn't find it. Oh, that's funny. So we just changed it to the sack off show. And we're actually, like I said, doing in the new year, a Battlestar Galactica rewatch as well.

2:27:15Cause I've, like I said, I've never seen it. So I'm curious to do that. That's sounds funny too it's like it's your last name but it's also it's like it's like a fun name for a show well we'll see i mean it's got a good rhyme it is fun i have a lot of fun i'm just trying to be like you know a tenth as good at it as you are joe oh sweet well you're very good at this there's a reason why you're the best at it you've been doing it a long time and you know you worked your ass off well uh i'll just tell you what i did i just talked to people that i'm interested in That's it. That's all you have to do.

2:27:49I do that. It's really hard to find the right audience in an oversaturated market. Yeah. But it's happening. It is oversaturated. It is. But it doesn't mean it's inaccessible. If you're remarkable, you could pop through. And sometimes maybe it just takes coming on here and then people will hear about it and go watch it. And I'll be like, who's Katie Sackham? She's that chick from Battlestar Galactica? but you you seem like you'd be an awesome podcaster I have fun I love talking to people and and I it literally helped me figure out that I was ADHD because I couldn't I couldn't not talk on top of people I was like I listened I listened I did my first interview was Bryce Dallas Howard God love her and I listened to it back in the car with my husband and I was like, oh my God, I don't stop talking.

2:28:47Do you wear headsets? I do. You do? I do. That helps a lot because you hear the talk, the over-talking, which we all tend to do sometimes accidentally because sometimes you don't know when to come in. But it's a learned skill. It's a learned skill like everything else. It's like everything else. And you have to learn different people. learn the dance of different people some people have just a different thing and always in my mind my number one goal is to try to make the get the most out of them like get them to like have the most fun the most yeah get the questions that stir their interest the most like something i want to know who you are like for real for real yeah like i want to like help you be the best version of you that you can when you're doing it that's sort of my thing as well like i wanted to you know one of of the things that came out of COVID for me was that, and I don't know about you, but I had weekly conversations with girlfriends I hadn't talked to in years.

2:29:45And we would like every Tuesday at four o 'clock, we'd have a drink and connect again. And the conversations were wonderful because we had the time to have them again. And then I started going back to conventions and in the green room, I was having these wonderful conversations with people. And I was like, God, I wish I could record these because they're really authentic and um you're getting to see people in a very different light and they're really opening up because it's not like a gotcha podcast like you know if you want to cut something out you can cut something out like i'm not here to like ruin your career you know um and the conversations are really um um interesting and people are talking about things that they've never spoken about.

2:30:30And it's just really fun. So I've really enjoyed it. Well, don't you think like you're learning in the process as well? Isn't that like one of the more fun parts of it? The more you get to talk to interesting people, the more you learn, the more you understand how other people think and how they feel about stuff. Yeah. And it inspires the shit out of me. Yeah, me too. You know, like if I have like a month where I'm not hustling and someone comes on the podcast and they're like, I got six things in production. I'm doing this. I wrote an album. I got a book coming out. Man, I got six kids. I'm like, fuck.

2:31:01There's a balance to be had, though, isn't there? Oh, of course there is. Of course there is. And I think that I've found the right balance. I have the right partner that's super supportive, and we're a real good team. And, yeah, I think I've got the right balance. But there's always going to be hustle in me. Of course. You seem like you're well-balanced, though. It's a good thing to say. I try. You should ask my husband. He'll be like, that bitch is crazy. What? I'm just going to go on my instincts. I don't want to hear any contrary data. Well, thank you very much for being here. This was a lot of fun.

2:31:34I really enjoyed it. Oh, thank you for having me. And I was a huge fan of you on the show. Thank you. It's cool to meet you. Well, more things to come, I promise. I've got some really cool jobs in the can that are going to be me kicking ass again. Let's do it again sometime. I'd love to have you in here again. I would love that. You'll have to come on my podcast. I will do it. I'll do it. Bye, everybody. Bye.

2:32:08Here we have the Lemu Emu in its natural habitat, helping people customize their car insurance and save hundreds with Liberty Mutual. Fascinating. It's accompanied by his natural ally, Doug. Uh, Lemu? Is that guy with the binoculars watching us? Cut the camera. They see us. Only pay for what you need at LibertyMutual.com. Liberty, Liberty, Liberty, Liberty. Savings vary. Unwritten by Liberty Mutual Insurance Company and affiliates. Excludes Massachusetts.