The ConverSAYtion
The ConverSAYtion is simply a couple of middle aged men sharing company and conversation. Psych and K take their time sorting through so much to say about society, culture, relationships, education, finance, technology, health, and more. Inspired to find engaging ways to entertain and enrich the lives of their listeners is their primary pursuit. Join them as they invest themselves in providing value to their audience. Welcome to The ConverSAYtion.
The ConverSAYtion
Spam, Conspiracies, and the Flaws in American Democracy
George Washington warned us over 200 years ago that partisan politics would tear at the fabric of American democracy—and his words have proven prophetic. As we explore in this wide-ranging conversation, the two-party system has evolved into a mechanism that divides citizens and prevents meaningful dialogue across partisan lines.
The episode begins with lighthearted banter about weekend plans and food preferences before shifting to recent celebrity deaths, including Michelle Trachtenberg and Gene Hackman. We question why toxicology reports for high-profile deaths take months to complete, and whether powerful connections might shield certain individuals from accountability in cases like Jeffrey Epstein's. These discussions reveal deeper concerns about transparency and equity in our justice system.
Technology's role in shaping public discourse emerges as another crucial theme. We examine how AI systems reflect and sometimes amplify human biases, from Apple's controversial autocorrect "glitch" to restrictions on certain political content in AI platforms like Deep Seek. These examples highlight how information control operates in subtle but powerful ways.
Most significantly, we delve into the fundamental flaws of America's primary election system. By restricting voters to participating only in their registered party's primary, the current structure reinforces partisan divisions and undermines true democratic representation. George Washington's prescient warning that "the spirit of party is a great enemy to public liberty" feels more relevant than ever as we witness the continued polarization of American society.
The conversation concludes with a profound reflection on human nature: despite centuries of technological and social evolution, understanding people "at their core" remains the most valuable skill for navigating life's complexities. Join us for this thought-provoking exploration of politics, media, and the enduring patterns of human behavior.
You don't gotta do it if you don't want to. You don't gotta do it if you don't want to. You don't gotta do it if you don't want to. It's just a suggestion. I need to pick up my February. I've been so sick I haven't gone up. We're going to go up for the day. We're going to go up. I don't even know if we're going to get tastings. Let's just go up, take a nice little drive, get the wine, come home no there's no reason for that.
Speaker 2:You know why you're going.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know why. We'll see, we'll see. You got to have lunch, have lunch, have lunch. Murphy's is nice, and you know, if the weather holds. I mean, you're telling me it's going to rain, but if the weather holds, what's the weather at Murphy's?
Speaker 2:I don't know.
Speaker 1:I'll find out. Yeah, so, yeah, yeah. So back to the spam. When are we going to start regularly exposing you to spam dishes, or do you want to just come over and I'll make spam musubi? Or do you want to go to to Islanders on the Mile? Theirs is really good. Yeah, we could do that Any, or Do both, actually. No, theirs is a beef patty musubi, though. I mean a beef patty moco loco. It's not this spam. That's fine, but that defeats the purpose of the whole spam thing. I know, but it's still fine.
Speaker 1:And yeah, so yeah, I had a spam and egg Tomorrow.
Speaker 2:March 2nd 2025. According to Grok in Murfrees, california, the weather is expected to be mostly sunny in the morning, transitioning to partly cloudy conditions later in the day. High temperatures will range between 61 degrees Fahrenheit and 69 degrees Fahrenheit, with light winds prevailing throughout the day. That's a range, bro. The night will be partly cloudy, becoming mostly cloudy, with low temperatures between 43 degrees Fahrenheit and 53 degrees Fahrenheit accompanied by light winds. There's no significant precipitation expected, based on available forecasts.
Speaker 1:Can you read it again? But not like it's the transcript for an action movie trailer.
Speaker 2:No, I cannot. Okay, good, I kind of want to do it. Like Phil from Groundhog Day. We watched Groundhog Day on Groundhog Day day. It's so good. It's an okay movie, I think it's I think it's over.
Speaker 1:I think it's classic, yeah, but a lot of movies are classic and I don't watch them every year. And groundhog day is one of those movies where it's funny once. It's only funny once to you. Yeah, I mean, it's okay, I'll watch it, I mean, but I won't. The first time I watched it it was rather uproarious. When was the last time you've seen it? 15, 20 years ago?
Speaker 2:I think you're due all right so I'm due for spam and you're due for this round hog day.
Speaker 1:This is what you're trading spam for groundhog day. You could do better, I know, but I'll take it so. Speaking of the entire gamut of the American film industry, how is your list of movie references from Suits going there's? So many Are you writing them down. No, no, I'm not I thought you said you were making a list.
Speaker 2:No, that was. Somebody else out there has already done that, so I'm just going to get the list and I'm going to go through it. So we don't have the list. It's easy enough to get the list.
Speaker 1:I was going to ask you where you were at, but it sounds like you haven't't started.
Speaker 2:We haven't finished Suits. We're going to get through Suits first and then we're going to do that. I've got too much to watch. I'm doing Suits, we're doing Tim Allen's new comedy, Shifting Gears. We're watching Sherlock with the boys.
Speaker 1:Oh, I like.
Speaker 2:Sherlock and we are we started Goliath. Are we started Goliath? We watched the first episode of Goliath on Amazon with Billy Bob Flynn.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I've seen the trailer for it.
Speaker 2:I think it's good. I think it's going to be good. I've seen a variety of clips that have led me to that conclusion and the first episode I think it's it's not a family show. Definitely it's definitely not a family show. Don't watch it with the cats.
Speaker 1:They don't care, they love it. We're still watching Buffy, sorry, you know, tv is terrible and I grew up watching. Doing TV's terrible. I grew up doing nothing but watching TV, so I've seen everything up to a point and I stopped watching TV for a long time and now I'm literally watching Buffy, the Vampire Slayer and Angel right now, which is kind of sad, that Michelle Trachtenberg just died. She's a career Hollywood actor. Okay, she's 39 years old. She had health problems. Yes, I'll do it, but she was one of the main characters on Buffy and they've been in talks to what was her name? I'll have to say it Michelle Trzenberg. It's a difficult. Yeah, that's her. Oh, okay, yeah, so yeah, this is like three or four days ago.
Speaker 1:Oh it just happened. Just happened. I was scrolling Facebook looking for cat memes and it was, and it was all. It was all it was all buffy star, michelle trassenberg and gossip girl uh star um um, dead at 39, and I thought at first, you know, you know you get kind of stuff like that on internet. You're like, oh, it's just, that's bullshit. But yeah, here she is very sad because hulu is was just in talks with the original cast to reboot the franchise, to do a Buffy revival.
Speaker 2:So this is sad. There's a new Harry Potter series coming out on Max. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm not a Potterhead, bro.
Speaker 1:I'm too old for that shit. What about your wife? She's too old for that shit. Oh okay, not a potterhead, bro. I'm too old for that shit. What about your wife? She's too old for that shit. Oh okay, well, I know I'm not a potterhead either. I just know about this because my wife is. Let me reel it back because, because our wives are basically the same age, we just don't like harry, there we go, um, so not just, uh, michelle, uh, you see, uh, gene hackman too. Right, gene hackman died like two days ago under mysterious circumstances. Him, his wife and his dog were found dead, and they're talking about it being suspicious, like. I read something where it said that there were signs of Struggle Mummification.
Speaker 2:Mummification, is it like a ritual?
Speaker 1:Let's see here Can they try and disguise the it's just under strange circumstances, but yeah, gene Hackman just died. It was three people all in like two days. Roberta Flack was the other one, the R&B singer Most famous for Killing Me Soft.
Speaker 2:Yes I was just just listening to lauren hill's version of that. Or the fujis, the fujis.
Speaker 1:I'm sorry yeah, yeah, I love that cover if it wasn't for fucking wyclef john going one time, one time, through the whole fucking song because it's beautiful, it's really well done and Lauryn Hill has a gorgeous voice, yes, and it's just, it's so, it's so mellow and so muted and so just like it's, it's so 90s and so well produced. And then one time, oh, my god, it's so hard. When I was a kid, when I was a kid, I loved that song but I couldn't listen to it because I would get so mad. And why, clef jean?
Speaker 1:you have unresolved issues no, I'm over, I can just do it fucking 35 years later. Uh, that's about the last time you saw groundhog day yeah, I was literally listening to the fuji's latest album, and then I rented groundhog's day from blockbuster oh yeah, yeah curious.
Speaker 2:You know what my first thought is a little dark. Was gene hackman on the epstein list?
Speaker 1:so what's the deal with? Uh, the department of justice is going to start releasing, declassifying that stuff.
Speaker 2:It's funny that that's really that's a thing, because what is what is, so I don't I don't see, I don't see a problem with it, and here's why we're talking about children being abused. We're talking about minors being trafficked well, yes, but the but.
Speaker 1:The thing is. The thing is that, yes, that is a thing that's terrible, but why are so? There are people in Congress who want to declassify this information so that they can they can quote go after the people responsible. But if it's so heinous, are these people already not being being eyed for, you know, for handcuffs? And if they're not, then why?
Speaker 2:what's the deal? Because they're too connected. I'm thinking the conspiracy. Oh yeah, now we're in conspiracy, because this is conspiracy theory, because they're they're, they're too connected, they're too involved with other people. And if you start digging, what else are you going to find? Yeah, who's going to be harmed, who's going to be defamed by this happening? And if this person is causing this other thing to happen that we want, then if we go after them now we don't do that super conspiracy theory stuff, because, but if, if they are breaking the law or have broken the law in this terrible way, what so you're?
Speaker 1:you're suggesting that that the macro government is protecting them because they provide a service to the country?
Speaker 2:did you look into?
Speaker 1:the epstein stuff at all like his death. Well, yeah, the, the, the mysterious circumstances around him being on a suicide watch and then the guards not being present when he hangs himself the guards asleep or apparently, and this and that.
Speaker 2:so everything went wrong for that to happen, right? I don't know, I don't know. I don't know what happened. I don't presume to know what happened and as far as my life is, it won't really affect me too much one way or the other, unless this list kind of undoes everybody that's in power in our government, right, yeah? So I think the greater question is if your government is lying to you and withholding information and allowing these atrocities to continue, do you want to know about it?
Speaker 1:Yeah, cause you know, as Elmer Fudd famously said, sometimes ignorance is the best policy.
Speaker 2:Just like in the matrix right, Ignorance is bliss, yeah, plug me back in.
Speaker 1:Joe Pantoliano wanted to be put back. Just make me somebody important. The Matrix is telling me that this steak is going to be juicy, that's right, because you've seen the movie a thousand times, I forget that you've watched that movie pixel by pixel. Yes, so, gene Hackman, they're initial. Initial reports suggest a gas leak, which is the number one excuse sci-fi investigative tv shows use for why sci-fi shit's happening, but we can't tell the, the public.
Speaker 2:um, and gas leak yeah, gas leak, they're saying. They're saying that how the fires in the palisades started.
Speaker 1:Yes, and so this is interesting. Autopsy results are pending, with toxicology reports expected in approximately three months. Is this 2025? Are we waiting three months for toxicology reports for? For a, for a high profile death, mysterious death of, of a cherished and beloved movie actor is that weird? I mean, if you died under mysterious circumstances and toxicology was, was a was a part of that, and they told me that it was going to be, you know, three months before we knew, dude, I would be there fucking daily being like, oh, you've got to be fucking kidding me.
Speaker 2:I could get the high school science class to do the toxicology report if you need you could hire and thank you, that's a lovely, lovely gesture that you would provide me and I will avenge your death.
Speaker 1:Whoever did it. I'm coming after them. Coming after hey, hey, he's coming after them. Coming after them, hey, hey.
Speaker 2:He's under my protection, the guy that gave me the spam shirt and doesn't like spam.
Speaker 1:I'm not making a taken four, but I'm going to be like you don't know what you did.
Speaker 2:You killed Psych. I have a particular set of skills. I can hang a TV. That's right. I'll hang a TV. That's right, I'll hang a TV on your ass.
Speaker 1:Without the right thing.
Speaker 2:That's what a toxicology report yeah, no, it doesn't make sense With a family, presumably that has as many means as his family would. You could hire, go down to Quest Diagnostics.
Speaker 1:Go down and poach a lab, somebody in the lab at Kaiser and when we talk about conspiracy theory, stuff like Gene Hackman's death and the stuff you were mentioning earlier. Chet GPT gave me an investigative report that I could watch at Fox News. I find that pretty funny.
Speaker 2:I wonder what Deep Seek would say about all this. I wonder if it would try to lead us.
Speaker 1:Have you tried Deep Seek yet? No, of course not. If I asked Deep Seek, it would be like his death was a result of American imperialism. Did we try Deep Seek the last time? No, we talked about it. We didn't try it on the episode. No, I'm not putting that Chinese garbage onto my computer.
Speaker 2:You can. So I asked it a few questions. I think the memory is because I did it with my class oh, okay, or I didn't One of the two. Yeah, okay, or I didn't One of the two. Yeah, sure, I believe you. Tiananmen Square yeah, what happened in Tiananmen Square? I don't know anything about that. Yeah, right, what is the CCP? I don't have any information regarding that. Yeah, but then you would ask it something about current events or something trivial why?
Speaker 1:why is donald trump orange?
Speaker 2:six paragraphs yes, yes, but you know anything involving politics that would potentially put the harmful to the chinese and in a bad light, then it was either deliberately sheltering them or just it's only giving us what we give it right. So, because it's generating what it has to pull from yes, and that's the programming in there is either prohibiting it from doing that prohibiting it's, it's or it's not there.
Speaker 1:No, it's generative ai. It's. It's been programmed to selectively eliminate those concepts. Yeah, which is one of the big problems about generative AI bias is that I'm sitting there all day, type, type, type, type, type, type, type, saying Gavin Newsom's a douchebag, gavin Newsom, don't drink his wine, all those things, and then it becomes a part of the facts of and I don't believe that. Maybe I do, but the problem is, you cannot create you can't currently create an AI that isn't biased in some way. How do you? Because people are doing it on purpose. Did you see? This is great. People are doing it on purpose. Did you see? This is great. Did you see the thing where the iPhone autocorrect was autocorrecting the word racist to replace it with the word Trump?
Speaker 2:And when somebody pointed it. They screenshot of that Happening, or?
Speaker 1:took a video. Yeah, when somebody pointed this out, when somebody pointed it out, is that the new update I got this week? Yes, you're probably not wrong, but Apple said oh, it was a glitch in the system. That we have since corrected.
Speaker 2:Of course I'm glad they corrected it. But sometimes when you allow something like that out of the bag, I mean you can't put the genie back in the bottle at that point.
Speaker 1:Not anymore.
Speaker 2:Not anymore. Yeah, that is, that is definitely interesting. What, what is Tim Cook doing? What, what's going on? Yeah, we'll see it's. Uh, we are living in an interesting time, just to say the least yes, so the issue was highlighted in the viral media blah, blah, blah.
Speaker 1:Apple explained that the glitch resulted from phonetic overlaps in its speech recognition model, causing words starting with R, the R consonant like racist, to momentarily display Trump before correcting themselves. It's so good. I mean, it would be less funny if it wasn't for Elon Musk and his Roman salute thing, because I mean, come on, that's meme gold, it is.
Speaker 2:It is, and we know Elon, he likes to troll people, he does.
Speaker 1:He does for a purpose.
Speaker 2:He super does, and I don't think he's inept inept he's.
Speaker 1:He was just for the how many years in a row categorized as the richest man on the planet by forbes.
Speaker 2:Uh, he didn't arrive at the place. He was in life on accident. It was deliberate and someone who is as calculated as he is as I am about the process it will take me to clean my car.
Speaker 1:I wish you were Elon Musk, bro. We would have such better lighting.
Speaker 2:And everyone could see the Roman salutes.
Speaker 1:I'm not going to do it because that would just be.
Speaker 2:I mean, it's just so bad, we don't want to strike. We don't want to strike.
Speaker 1:No no.
Speaker 2:As much as we didn't want anything politically charged to enter this episode, I think we've done a good job navigating.
Speaker 1:I thought this would be a good place for it. I mean, I don't.
Speaker 2:I used to, I think we've done a good job navigating. I thought this would be a good place for it. I mean, I don't, I used to, so it's difficult, because if you're not in our country, if you're not in a party, then you can't vote in the primaries. No, just in California. Oh, it's just here.
Speaker 1:Yeah, primaries are a state thing. So I register as a non-party independent. So I'm not I'm not an independent a member of the independent party. Okay, I register as no party got it and I've done that since I was 19 years old. All right, and I don't, I don't, um, I don't, uh, vote in primaries, but my thought has always been so in.
Speaker 2:Colorado, they're allowed.
Speaker 1:Well, it's state by state and honestly, I'll chat to you. As far as the presidential, yeah, the primaries, all primaries are party-based. You're talking about the two-party system. So if I registered as an independent, I could vote for Jill Stein in. The primaries are party-based. You're talking about the two-party system. So if I registered as an independent, I could vote for.
Speaker 2:Jill Stein in the primaries you see here. Okay, so that's the thing I dislike. You can only vote for the party that you're registered to vote for. Yes, but what if you like someone from the other party better?
Speaker 1:So my thought process on that has always been that the primaries are largely irrelevant. It's especially in California, and then they talk about nationally. I've always been like you know what, let the party people sort it out. And then I will make an informed decision based on what's left. That's how I've always thought about it anyway.
Speaker 2:So what if you could, since we're going down this road of fixing societal ills, what if you were allowed to vote for each party's primary? Some?
Speaker 1:states do, you can do whatever you want no, no, so I think you're misunderstanding.
Speaker 2:Okay, so uh, republicans, democrats, libertarians, independent, so whoever they are okay, they're all're all. They have their groups of people that are running to become president, right? What if you were allowed to vote for one person in each of those parties?
Speaker 1:Oh, I see what you're saying, so I could have voted for Trump and Biden.
Speaker 2:This is the best person in the Republican Party. This is the best person in the Democratic Party. This is the best person in the Independent Party.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I don't know so what would be wrong with that? That's an interesting point. So, as of 2024, 22 states conduct closed presidential primaries or caucuses, limiting participation to voters registered to the major political party. Additionally, 14 states and the District of Columbia which who cares? Fucking District of Columbia, they don't get to vote, they're having fun, it's fun for funsies have closed primaries for congressional and state-level offices, further restricting participation to party-affiliated voters.
Speaker 1:That's a lot of words and so, yes, so political. So the DNC, the RNC and whatever they call it, the INC, they are trying to determine who the best candidate is for their political party to put as an opposition to the other political parties. So they're saying you can only vote for the one you're ready. Because I'm a Republican, so I only vote for Republicans in the primaries to decide who's the best Republican to go against the Democrats. And that's the thought process. It is inherently flawed. Why? It's just a? It's just a way to keep us versus them while they are, them versus us. That's why that's like a high school rival. So that's why I yeah, exactly that's why I register no party. So when I was in high school and you can tell me this is if this was the same experience for you when I was in high school you can tell me if this was the same experience for you.
Speaker 1:When I was in high school as a senior, I took government and economics, which I don't know if it's still a requirement, but when I was there as a senior, you had to take two semesters of government, two semesters of economics. It was a core class Required to graduate. When you took government. Anybody at the end of that period who was 18 registered to vote, and I was. I was. I took economics and government, so I was actually 18 when I you know, before I graduated. And so we all got registration forms and it was all a part of the class. But we all got registration forms and it was all part of the class, but we all registered to vote. At the time I registered as a Green Party Independent. I can't remember why, probably because I was young and dumb and thought that legalizing marijuana would be cool. This is 1996. A year later, after I got out of high school and I was in college and I was starting to think for myself just a little bit, I was like I don't like this or this or any of this.
Speaker 1:The whole and the whole concept of the two party system just ground me the wrong way. And I was. I was going to a store, a supermarket, and you have the people out there hey, are you registered to vote, would you like to register to vote? And I took one of those registration forms and I changed myself to no party. And I've been no party since I was 19 years old, because I firmly believe that the two-party system is designed to accentuate society, and you've heard my beliefs on society. It's just a construct to keep us complacent so that we'll do the things that the people above us want us to do, but we won't realize that we're being manipulated. So we're just happily waiting to die.
Speaker 2:So help me dissect this a little bit. What would be the potential downfall of allowing every citizen who is of age a voting age to vote for whoever they see is the best candidate in every party?
Speaker 1:I think that you, I think that. So from my perspective I don't see a problem with that. I think it's kind of brilliant, it's a little inspired. But from the political party's perspective, you are just inviting problems. So like, because it's like, so they don't want that.
Speaker 2:I mean logisticallyistically. You'd have to count extra votes, you'd have to keep track of all that information. Think about it like this.
Speaker 1:California is a blue state until way after our death right most populous state next to texas, but you allow everybody to vote for, for everybody, for one person in every party. So you vote for one Democrat amongst the field of primary candidates, one Republican amongst the field of primary candidates. You vote for Jill Stein because she's the only Green.
Speaker 2:Party. Well, they could withhold their vote. They don't have to vote, no, they could go Republican here, democrat here, the Green Party, no, independent, no, whatever.
Speaker 1:But now here's the deal. I am a hardcore Democrat. Sure, I'm a hardcore Democrat. I vote for the best Democrat Party candidate and the worst Republican Party candidate to skew the numbers to give my candidate a better chance at defeating who was eventually selected for the opposing party. That's what they would think in that respect.
Speaker 2:So then it becomes a matter of numbers. Yeah, how many people get to vote?
Speaker 1:It's all numbers. It goes back to. The reason why we don't have a pure democratic system is because it's a numbers game. If it was one person, one vote nationwide, then California and New York would decide every single election from here to the end of time and Georgia would no longer want to be a part of the union. Neither would Tennessee, neither would Maine, neither would Colorado or Wyoming only has 600,000 people in the whole damn state. They don't get a voice. What's keeping them in the trade? It's the electoral college system that is keeping them. It's a democratic republic, it's a republic of states. So, yes, that is why we don't allow those kinds of things. The Constitution understood the guys who wrote the Constitution. Kind of brilliant, kind of brilliant.
Speaker 2:We dislike a lot of the things that it allows, but it but it kept us all together.
Speaker 1:But think about the whole concept of the great experiment of modern democracy and the forethought of seeing how we would react hundreds of years later was something as simple as hey, you can say what you want.
Speaker 2:Other countries would definitely like to have that. Yeah, it is. This experiment continues and it's going to.
Speaker 1:It's going to and the best, it's going to be an interesting and the best part is, the two-party system was never the best idea for this country. George Washington himself spoke out against the two-party system. I just looked, I just I wanted to quote from this. In his 1796 farewell address, washington warned the spirit of party is a great enemy to public liberty. It serves always to distract the public councils and enfeeble the public administration. It agitates the community with ill-founded jealousies and false alarms, kindles the animosity of one part against another, foments occasionally riot and insurrection. Is that not exactly what's happening right now?
Speaker 2:this is george washington in 1796 the thing is, and this is why, like a wood tooth genius, this is why I chose to study human behavior and psychology, because the one thing that is that holds true, and the one thing that holds true and the one thing that will always be there until they're not, are people. With whatever career, job, whatever field I go into, whatever discipline I'm entering the understanding of people at their core, at their base layer, to their core. It's going to aid me more than anything else in life and everything else I can you know, detailing a car, figuring out how to run electrical, which I still haven't done yet, all these other things I can do. But the people at that time including it sounds like, including George Washington understood people 1796.
Speaker 2:Not 1996 and not 1990.
Speaker 1:No 1890. Not even 1890.
Speaker 2:Yes, and you should go to Yosemite because it's gorgeous.
