#8 Will Machines Take Our Jobs? Big Rascals Discuss Player Piano!

In Episode 8 of Big Rascals, we discuss our TOP 5 Movie Scores, Derek's spicy HOT TAKE, and the book "Player Piano" by Kurt Vonnegut. There will be SPOILERS!!! So go and read this book that is extremely relevant for today, then come back and listen.

"Player Piano" is a dystopian satire depicting a highly automated America after World War III where machines have replaced human labor. The story follows Paul Proteus, a disillusioned manager in Ilium, New York, who rebels against an elite, technocratic society that has rendered the populace purposeless.

We want Big Rascals to be a community or a "CLUB." So don't hesitate to Subscribe, Like, and leave a Comment or suggestion on what next book you would like us to discuss and we will do out best to accommodate. Find us on Social Media for extra content. We are also looking for Sponsors or Donors. We can be reached at bigrascals.podcast@gmail.com. We are extremely grateful for any and all support! Thank you!

For our next book to read as a club, Derek has decided to do a fan recommendation and picked "The Princess Bride" by William Goldman.

Keep READING, keep WRITING, and stay RASCALLY my friends!

Transcript

SPEAKER_07 0:10

Welcome to Big Rascals where we may be grown-ups, but we will never stop being rascals. We are a boys' book club, not just for the boys, but all those who enjoy reading, writing, comedy, and entertainment. Our purpose is to have fun discovering new worlds, making friends, and finding a cure for dyslexia.

SPEAKER_10 0:30

Affirmative. That is right. Awesome.

SPEAKER_01 0:38

Good stuff.

SPEAKER_11 0:40

Happy to be back here. We're back. Happy to be here and seeing all your lovely faces back on the episode for those of you who watch. Awkward as ever. So no, we're being robotic. I thought that's what it was. I was being awkward.

SPEAKER_07 0:54

I thought that is that just the document.

SPEAKER_04 0:56

Given that we're gonna be awkward no matter what. So no, turn it. Turn it this way. Yeah, twist it. Technical difficulties dumbing us.

SPEAKER_07 1:06

There you go. Now we can see your pretty face, Jay.

SPEAKER_04 1:08

Aww. I don't really want my face in.

SPEAKER_07 1:11

Alright. Cool. We got a fun episode today. Um Indeed. Let's see. I have a little surprise for you guys. Do you want it right now?

SPEAKER_11 1:22

Surprises?

SPEAKER_07 1:24

Before we start anything. Surprise? Yeah. Do you want it right now? Yeah. Okay. I thought you were gonna fart for a second. Close your eyes. Close your eyes. While I get it out of my pocket.

SPEAKER_11 1:37

Oh no. What could it be?

SPEAKER_06 1:41

Where could it be?

SPEAKER_11 1:43

Is it a miniature particle accelerator?

SPEAKER_07 1:47

I got you guys these uh little book wallets. Oh my gosh. Oh my gosh. Jeff, I got you Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Don't panic. Derek, I got you Lord of the Bing. These things are pretty sick. Yeah, they are. And then I am keeping the Hobbit.

SPEAKER_10 2:09

Ooh. This is this is actually kind of funny with my hot take that we're gonna have later.

unknown 2:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_10 2:17

This is actually really funny. Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 2:20

So I saw them online and I was like, oh, I want one. Wait, what does the Hobbit one look like? It's got a smog on it. Yeah, dude. I debated on giving you this one, but I I couldn't.

SPEAKER_11 2:32

Yeah, I could see why I would have kept the one with the dragon on it as well. Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_07 2:37

But Lord of the Rings is a very cool thing.

SPEAKER_11 2:42

And seeing how my current wallet is the Witch King of Angmar and it's Haggard. You're still going on themes. So Haggard, not Hagrid. Haggard. Although I could see Hagrid trying to tame a Nazgul.

unknown 2:55

Haggard.

SPEAKER_05 2:57

And the Eagles, he'd go for all of them.

SPEAKER_06 3:02

Haggard.

SPEAKER_05 3:06

Hey, fits my things. That's awesome.

SPEAKER_07 3:08

Cool. Yeah, I'm excited to try it out. I need a new wallet. Yeah, I need a new one too.

SPEAKER_11 3:13

So this is awesome.

unknown 3:15

Wow.

SPEAKER_07 3:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_11 3:16

Isn't that just neat? Oh, look at it, guys. Look.

SPEAKER_00 3:20

Cool. Isn't that neat? I'm glad you like that.

SPEAKER_07 3:22

Isn't that so neat? Well, back on topic, I guess. Yeah, let's did we ever have one in the first focus like a machine. Yep, we're gonna be automated and do our podcast.

SPEAKER_11 3:37

Efficiency is the goal.

SPEAKER_07 3:40

So, yeah, why don't we get into our top five? Indeed. So I was thinking because we are doing player piano as our um book that we should do a like a music theme for our top five. And I picked um I decided to do our top five scores for movies.

SPEAKER_05 4:06

Now, did you did you mean movies or shows? Or movies. Just movies. Okay. Okay. I uh okay. You did shows. No, I I had a backup.

SPEAKER_11 4:18

My honorable mention is a show, if that makes you feel better. Okay.

SPEAKER_07 4:23

Are you talking about Futurama's intro? No, that's the best intro. That's pretty idea.

SPEAKER_11 4:29

Well, intros are kind of, I feel like, a different beast because it's like a score is more wide and throughout the film, whereas the intro is just that one little segment, it's more introductory than it is for the whole storytelling. Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_07 4:46

I do have some rules with this. I told you guys already. You can only pick one score from a movie or series, so if you can't pick all from Lore of the Rings, just like robots, we got a lot of things. You can only pick one from one movie. And then um I also have rules for we're not gonna discuss it until we're done. Um and you know, we have a time limit on that. So yeah, we're trying to be more concise. We're all about efficiency today. Exactly. So I'll go first. Let me pull my top five. Um man. This was so hard for me, honestly. Um I'm gonna mention my honorable mentions throughout. Uh my number five is Mountains by Han Zimmer from the movie Interstellar. And yeah, it makes sense. It was a close. Um, I think the other one's called Coward. Because those are those are literally the two best parts in the movie. The water world where the giant wave comes, and then the coward is where um oh who's the actor? Um Matt Damon. Matt Damon tries to steal the tries to steal their their ship and uh ends up not docking correctly, and it explodes, and the uh the ship spirals out of control, and the part where he's just like they're like oh whatever the Anne Hathawa's character is like, what are you doing? He's like docking, and the music is so good, and he like matches the speed of the spin. But mountains, oh my gosh, the reason with that one is because uh the uh the music is incorporated to like the science in the movie. I don't know if you guys know, but the every like tick, the clock tick in that song count is a day that passes by on Earth as long as they're on that planet because of the the relativity of time and the increase of gravity because they're so close to the the black hole. Okay. So I think that is just so cool because you the whole time I hear a tit, it's just like every time I'm just imagining the sun rising and rising in. It's just like oh my gosh, that's so insane. So that is just such a cool one. Gotta watch that again. It's been too long.

SPEAKER_11 7:29

It has been too long for me as well. Top five movie for me. Although my wife, she plays Interstellar on the piano, especially the cornfield chase in our home. So, like, I'm prepping my boy to get ready for that movie. Yeah. Because she does a great job. She like does it with so much flair, but I digress. We'll discuss more later.

unknown 7:49

My time.

SPEAKER_07 7:50

Impossible. Uh, my next one is Titan Spirit by Trevor Rabin. Rabin. Uh, it's from Remember the Titans movie.

SPEAKER_01 8:03

Yep.

SPEAKER_07 8:04

Uh it just beat out um tryouts from uh Rudy, which is an incredible score as well. But Titan Spirit just has it's just is so personal to me. I I played football and before the night before every game I watched you kick the ball across the field and goals. Yeah. I kicked the ball. Football? No, football Americano. So before the game, every night, I would watch Remember the Titans. And like it would just get me so pumped. And like the Titan Titan Spirit score is just so good. Just one of the best sports scores. So my number three is The All Spark by Steve Jablonsky. Jablonski from Transformers. Thank you. So good. Um, and it just beat out another score in that movie, Arrival to Earth, which is amazing as well. But the the All Spark with like the jelly. The Allspark. You know, the Spark. So good. Horrible movie. You know, at the time, I gotta say, the CGI is still incredible. They've they've taken step backs with CGI since then. Um but re-watching that movie is so bad.

SPEAKER_11 9:41

The humans are not great. But man, that's they were never the best part of Transformers.

SPEAKER_07 9:48

That score is so good. Umber two, and I think you'll agree with me on this one, Derek.

SPEAKER_06 9:55

Test Drive by blessed man. How to train your dragon.

SPEAKER_07 10:05

That is a good one. Man, it is so good. You know, all these get me emotional, but it I feel like I picked the ones that made me more emotional as my top. And Test Drive is up there. It is gone tier. Yeah. And my number one, and I I get emotional just talking about it because it just brings all the feelings in me. What is it? The white tree or the beacons. Yes. Howard Shore, Lord of the Rings, Return of the King. And it's so funny because my mom, I got her to kind of watch Lord of the Rings and got her into it. She's like, oh, it's all I saw it as is. She's like, I just watch, or I listen to you watching it, and I'll hear these monsters just screaming. But I got her to like understand it. And like she watched the beacon scene, and she's like, I don't understand what's going on, but it's emotional. That's what I thought that was funny. And it's just the music. If you don't know what's going on, you can still feel it, but if you know what's going on, it means so much more. You know, just the the feeling of hope, like dedication, sacrifice. And then you you get it to where Aragorn sees the the beacon and runs in, and then he talks to Theodon, and it's you know, it's like that moment of the silence.

SPEAKER_11 11:45

You know Theodon's opinion on Gondor, right? Gondor calls for an and you just see him sit there, you're like, What's he gonna say? Because Peter Jackson went for a more like I don't want to say angsty, but he's like a younger, more not reckless, but yeah, I wouldn't guess I'd say angsty version of Theodon, and he holds grudges, so you're just like, oh, oh, yeah, and then and Rohan will answer, and then you get the horns playing the Rohan theme, and from the row hair up, it's like, yes, let's do this, man!

SPEAKER_07 12:21

Yeah. I literally cry every time I watch that scene, and then I watched it with my wife, and she's like, Why are you crying during this scene? Like, I wish you would just understand.

SPEAKER_11 12:31

Oh, there's so many memes of like it, of like, uh, okay, this is just a scene where we're just showing some fires on some mountaintops, like nothing too big. Yeah. Howard Shore, hold my beer. And then I'm just like, woo!

SPEAKER_07 12:49

Just like the camera work, you know, like coming over the moon and then like the pan around where it's like it scales over the beacon, and then you see the beacon.

SPEAKER_11 13:01

The scaling of it is brilliant, and you see the little people just running, like, worst job in the world, by the way. Just hanging out there alone. That's what I do with your best friend. But the dedication and Saturn sacrificed those people, and they see that they're not hesitant.

SPEAKER_00 13:16

Yeah, they're just like, oh, oh man, I've been waiting my whole life for this.

SPEAKER_07 13:20

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_11 13:20

Yeah, I've been wanting to light this thing on fire forever.

SPEAKER_07 13:24

Oh, it gives me chills just thinking about it. Oh, yeah. It is so good. It's just it's one of them cinema like perfection where everything just aligned. So perfect to make this.

SPEAKER_11 13:37

And there's just something I think you would agree on. There's just something about a mountaintop over a sea of clouds. Oh, yeah. That just I can't describe it. Yeah, I can't describe it, but it just it has this uncontrollable, like untamable respect to it. Yes, majesty. This untamable majesty to it. Oh, yeah. Oh, it's amazing.

SPEAKER_07 14:02

Yeah, and it just the portrayal of like the distance it covers, too. Because you you're looking that one where it pans around and you see the beacon way off the distance. That's like a whole mountain range over. That's like a valley and then another mountain range, and that's a long distance. And so, yeah, just the scale of it is just incredible, and it has to be my number one.

SPEAKER_11 14:27

It's that's a great number one. So I kind of piggybacked on that right there, but yeah, that was surprisingly not my number one, so yeah.

SPEAKER_05 14:36

Do you know uh Futurama's parody on that scene? No, is it new? It's uh one of the movie ones they did. It was uh Bender's Big Game where they kind of uh make fun of DD and Lord of the Rings, and it's these uh hermaphroditic centaurs are like being called to fight, and they fire arrows, and they're just basically catching the same arrow from mountaintop to mountaintop, and then you get like three arrows in, and then you just hear it owl! Oh man, I have to watch it because I don't think it's a good one, but it doesn't quite live up to the the Lord of the Rings version.

SPEAKER_07 15:21

Yeah, for sure.

SPEAKER_00 15:23

Well, yeah, who wants to go next?

SPEAKER_05 15:26

Cool. I'll go. Okay. I think uh um this is tough for me because I like too many things, and it's really hard to pick a favorite.

SPEAKER_07 15:38

No, it I uh it is hard. That's why I made those rules to kind of help.

SPEAKER_05 15:43

Yeah, I I think I just I hear like even a small tune from something, and I just like I have to find it and pick it out. Like uh uh not to go on too long of a diatribe, but um Sun and Moon, Pokemon Sun and Moon. Diatribe. Word of the day. Dyslexia, slowly recovering from my dyslexia. Um Pokemon Sun and Moon. There's a Guzma, this is I guess an honorable mention, Guzma's theme. When he comes out, and they're just like these weird Pokemon gangsters, but his theme is like so rockin'. And so I just like I scoured the internet for that thing. It took me forever, but I was like, that I want that. Give it to me. So when it comes to picking favorites, I just kind of had to pick like ones I like because I I like too many. So Napoleon dynamite reference.

SPEAKER_07 16:42

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, that totally was. Why don't you try and give that tub of wear a good old tear?

SPEAKER_10 16:55

I can't do it. You look like a big strong I can't do it. Alright. That's strong.

SPEAKER_05 17:05

Alright, let's see. This is a tough one. Okay. I'm gonna go with um starting off, it's not gonna be any particular.

SPEAKER_07 17:17

Just so many scribbles.

SPEAKER_06 17:19

She's got like eight lists.

SPEAKER_05 17:23

I had to I had to have some just in case. And some extras. But Duel of Fates from uh Star Wars, uh Phantom Menace. Hit uh, oh yeah, fantastic. It's a banger. You know, the I that was like my childhood. I I am a prequel uh Star Wars fan. You know, I love the originals, they're there for you know what it sets up, but when it comes to Star Wars, I always go back and watch prequels first. It's always one, two, three, then four, five, six, and then never really nine.

SPEAKER_07 17:59

But uh yeah, Jeff was one of those kids that loved Jar Jar Binks. Yes.

SPEAKER_05 18:04

I dressed up as Anakin for um Halloween. That was fantastic, homemade costume with like off-brand light saber.

SPEAKER_07 18:14

My mom just put him in like a bathrobe.

SPEAKER_05 18:16

Yeah. She cut like a tunic shape out of like some fabric. It's fantastic. That duel of fates, just awful. Yeah, it's a good one. So fantastic. That fight scene between the best Star Wars villain ever. So good. Some of the best choreography for like Sabre Fides, too.

SPEAKER_11 18:35

Oh, yeah. Like the fact that they had to slow down the original footage because they were going so hard. Man, what were they feeding Ian McGregor on that set? Holy moly. I digress.

SPEAKER_05 18:46

Awesome choreography, yeah. So good. It's like a dance. Um, and then I'm gonna go with uh from Return of the King, Battle of Pellinor Fields, when uh Theodon's prepping the army and he gives that speech, and then of course, you know, it's the Rohiram theme. And they're just the crescendo as they're plowing down the orcs and just taking them out.

SPEAKER_11 19:15

I always love like the big crescendo when the sun rises and they're just yelling dance, like as the sun rises. So good. Oh man. Have you guys uh played that scene on your TV screen with your kids on your shoulders and like they have a sword and you're like, alright, yell with me. I'll have to do that. That'll be great. I went too hard. My boy's afraid of that scene. I yelled death too much. But he loved the giddy up part when we're in charge of the orcs.

SPEAKER_05 19:46

That's fantastic. Yeah, that. Oh, fantastic.

SPEAKER_11 19:50

And then you get the different orcs reacting to it, and like the one that goes, Well, that's the one where they're getting ready, like from archers and so good. But I love Gotmog's reaction. Like, you have Aamir, he like flips up the spear and catches it. Yeah! You see Gothmog just oh no.

SPEAKER_05 20:12

They're nothing stopping them, they're coming. It's amazing. Yeah, yeah. You have like the Helm's Deep Charge. I feel like it's the build-up for eventually that, and it's just like, oh, so good. And then the freaking elephants come. Yeah. Elephants? You mean Olyphonts? Proherem charge? The Moomakill.

SPEAKER_11 20:34

What is it, Dick? What do you call it?

SPEAKER_10 20:35

It's originally called a Moomakill, but the Olyphont was the simpler name that I think the Hobbits gave to them. Olifonts? Yes, Olyfonts.

SPEAKER_04 20:43

Olyfonts. Yes, Olyphonts. Oh yeah. Yes. Look must have Olyphont. It's an olifont.

SPEAKER_05 20:49

Thank you. Thank you. Um excuse me. I got uh I got a nasty uh cold going on, so you're gonna hear all kinds of noises come from me. Um man, this is so freaking hard. So I've gotten two down. Sorry. Alright. I'm gonna go with the Studio Ghibli um Castle in the Sky. I I I haven't gotten any of these compos composers, but I'm sure you'll be able to look them up if you want. But The Girl Who Fell from the Sky is like the intro song when they w after she falls from the the Zeppelin blimp thing, and and then it shows kind of the storyboard of like the past of the the world and all how like the cities and the skies began and everything. I mean, it just the imagination that builds in you and the I mean it's just such a beautiful song with this amazing world it's establishing, and you're just like left kind of like, oh my gosh, this is so cool, this is gonna be an awesome movie. And I remember watching it when I was young, and a lot of these you know have influence on me because when I was young I I watched them, but I remember watching this and then just like thinking. I'm gonna love this movie so much, and it was so good. Just fantastic score to start off the movie. Um and that's what was that three? Mm-hmm. This is tough. Alright, I'm gonna pick um Phantom of the Opera by Gerard Butler. Wait. Gerard Butler's the one singing in that one. Uh-huh. He kind of ruined Phantom of the Opera for me. I can't go to see. I mean, I'm sure I'd enjoy stage production, but I can't see like most of the time they have very operatic, which it makes sense. He's supposed to be an opera singer. And most of the time in the stage productions, he's going to be an opera singer. Um, like Pavarotti. But for some reason, Gerard Butler, he just like he was that character, and he played the Phantom, or just the way he sang the Phantom songs. Oh, so good. And that I mean, that's that's one like I can't help but sit down and watch the Phantom of the Opera if it's on anywhere. Uh it's just such a fantastic movie. The music in that one is the musical. I mean, all of them.

SPEAKER_09 23:10

Especially the overture, just oh my gosh, it's so iconic.

SPEAKER_10 23:15

Yeah, it just sets you up.

SPEAKER_11 23:16

You're like, oh, I'm in for a good time. Which is what like an overture or an introductory song should do. Where you're just like, oh man, I am just in for a good time tonight. This is great. Oh yeah. So does that count as a score, though? Yeah, but there's lyrics because a score is usually instrumental, whereas a soundtrack has lyrics. I was gonna start saying that when I started my top five. I obviously didn't get that.

SPEAKER_10 23:41

We'll give you a I thought of score and I thought just just say like the old just say the overture for a fam of the opera. You don't get another pick though.

SPEAKER_05 23:50

Sorry. So I mean it there's a big score in it, and it's got the score of the movie in it, I guess. We'll let us. I I obviously didn't understand the whole word of score. Alright, that's gonna change my other picks. Oh shoot. What have we done? No, it's okay. I got one. Um I'm gonna go with He's a Pirate from uh Curse of the Black Pearl. Great. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 24:22

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_05 24:23

Yeah. Oh yes. That is clever. Something about that violin, just rocking it. Yeah. Same with like Battle of Pellinorphils, just fantastic.

SPEAKER_11 24:33

Oh yeah. I just imagine the violinists just playing and like it's just on fire. Their bowstrings on fire. Because I don't know if any of you guys have seen it actually yet. None of you guys have seen the album cover for Camelot's ghost opera album, but he they have like a violinist who's going, and it's like on fire. Their eyes are like covered because they're going so ham. Like it's such a dope violin. Oh, it's such a dope album cover. That's such a dope album. That's awesome. But that's what I imagine when I just see.

SPEAKER_07 25:08

Yeah. You digress. Yes.

SPEAKER_02 25:12

Yes, I digress.

SPEAKER_05 25:15

We went from like very few comments during Greg's to let's comment on James.

SPEAKER_07 25:22

We're not gonna have to discuss it after.

SPEAKER_05 25:24

No, not too much. But I mean, Pirates of all these movies, I'd say, you know, influence, of course, when I was young watching it, and just shows the power of a score to not only then, but how much it makes me appreciate the movies now. Like you said, with Transformers, you kind of realize it might not have been the best movie, and you're kind of like disappointed by some things with it now, but then you're like, you still looking back on it with the score, with the action, you're like, dang, yeah, there's some things I love.

SPEAKER_11 25:51

The the score is one of the things are like one of my pillars for a good film because it can elevate a film. Oh, yeah. Wait, like you said, with Transformers. That movie's so crude and crass and and worldly at a lot of the times, but when you get that score going, you're just like, I am not watching a piece of crap film. This is this is good. So you're more forgiving when there's an awesome score with it. Wait, was that number five, Jeff?

SPEAKER_05 26:22

I think so. We'll we'll just go with that.

SPEAKER_11 26:24

Uh since you just think so, yeah, we'll just say yeah. Let us know in the comments if it was only four. Okay. So with a score, I didn't know we're it was just focusing on one because I thought a score meant like the whole instrumental factor of a movie.

SPEAKER_07 26:41

See, yeah, I was I had to look it up just to make sure. But it is basically it can be a song.

SPEAKER_11 26:48

Oh, okay. Well, I'll try to narrow it down here. Well, the honorable mention for me is Jeff Williams' work in the TV show or the web series Red vs. Blue, mostly in seasons, um, seasons uh eight through ten. Brilliant work. If I have to pick a song, it'll be spiral, especially that's the one where Agent Carolina is chasing down the guy with the briefcase and the heist. It is amazing.

SPEAKER_05 27:18

It's kind of funny because you haven't played Halo. Yeah, I don't know. But you've watched all of Red vs. Blue.

SPEAKER_11 27:24

And I watch that every year, man. It is my comfort show. I've not watched Red vs.

SPEAKER_05 27:28

Blue, but I've played all of Halo.

SPEAKER_11 27:30

Oh, dude. I need to play Halo because they use the lore in Red vs. Blue with the AI and stuff. So I'm just gonna watch it.

SPEAKER_05 27:38

I know I need to watch it just because it's how iconic it is.

SPEAKER_11 27:41

Oh man, it is so I think it's your just do seasons one through thirteen. Everything after that you can just skip. You can do it if you want, it's still not a waste of time, but 13 had the best ending, in my opinion. Okay, you can end on season 10. That has a great ending as well, but oh my gosh, it's so good. That's an honorable mention because the TV show. Now, my number five is I was surprised by this one. I surprised myself. It's actually a score, the main theme for The Hunchback of Notre Dame by Alan Mankin and Steven Schwartz, with that Roman Catholic just chanting along with it, and it's just in your face. It's loud, it's there, it just has that authority that the Catholic Church had at that time. And sings how the best song from that movie, Hellfire, basically he sings the main theme. That's the only song that sings the main theme outright, and it it's just so good. Um, the YouTuber Sideways, he's a musical, uh not theorist, uh musical major or something. He does a great video dissecting that.

SPEAKER_01 28:48

That's awesome.

SPEAKER_11 28:48

Number four, which I'm very surprised I didn't see any of you guys pick, was Molassus from by Hans Zimmer from Batman Begins. Or or Why So Serious by from The Dark Knights.

SPEAKER_07 29:03

They are they're right up there. Hans Zimmer. It was hard.

SPEAKER_11 29:06

Yeah, like, yeah, the big three composers for me that we had to have on this list, which I think we all had, is Hans Zimmer, John Williams, and Howard.

SPEAKER_04 29:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_11 29:16

Hans Zimmer, I feel like, is the best at majesty and presence. Like those moments he can just really capture how he can just keep coming up with stuff.

SPEAKER_05 29:28

He just goes, it's crazy.

SPEAKER_07 29:29

He's like, I think the best at like theme. Like fitting the theme of the movie.

SPEAKER_11 29:34

Well, I I would probably argue that John Williams is the best at theme. Really? Because after all, his main themes, Star Wars, Jurassic Park, Jaws, they are the most iconic of all time. They're the most recognizable. I feel like Hansimmer just really he goes the hardest. Like Dune. Dune part one, where Paul is just on the beach, ready to go to Arrakis, and that music is going. I'm like, why is he going so hard, man? This is crazy. And he did he did Lion King, he did the Prince of Egypt, which the Prince of Egypt went freaking hard too. Like and just in Kung Fu Panda, when Ugwe ascends, Han Zimmer's work. He's just going so hard in this goofy kung fu movie. It's like, why, dude? Why are you doing this? But molasses, which is that's your ringtone, Greg, is molasses just whatever you call it. And of course, number three, I have already geeked out enough on this podcast about John Williams' score, main theme for Jurassic Park. Yep. Just that beautiful hymn-like and like of resurrection, miracle-like. I love it. Check out our episode on that to see me say more so I don't have to say too much. And number two, I just had the whole score for The Lord of the Rings. But if I had to pick one out of the three movies, the The White Tree is really good because I I I love that. And in fact, that's one of the songs I play with my kid when we're running around sword fighting in the house. But it's kind of a toss-up for me between the breaking of the fellowship.

SPEAKER_06 31:16

Yes.

SPEAKER_11 31:16

Because you get that wonderful the in dreams, the shire, not the shire theme, but like just that in dreams. And that's when you get the sadness of Sam drowning, and then it gets more like hopeful near the end. And then you get the kids singing at the end, which is beautiful. But I also love the bridge of Kazad Doom. Which, you know, you get the main theme, dun dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, and they're running through, and then you get the music of the Balrog just shaking the place, and it is oppressive. You got the drums, and you get those deep, those hard-hitting drums when Gandalf is hanging on the edge, and then it goes silent as he falls, and then it goes to the just the chant of, and it just it just emits sorrow and grief, as if because to Aragorn and I believe yeah, Aragorn Legolas, that was like them watching Jesus die. It was watching the most holy or like ethereal person be defeated. Yeah, like an angel be defeated and die. And Orlando Bloom did such a good job in that scene because he's an elf, he's never seen death, and he's seeing everyone else's reaction. He's like, he looks at such a loss, like he doesn't know how to process these feelings.

SPEAKER_05 32:33

Could have been Orlando Bloom not knowing how to act.

SPEAKER_09 32:37

But like for my personal headcanon, it worked so good.

SPEAKER_07 32:41

Hey, he only got paid like a hundred grand.

SPEAKER_06 32:43

He did the whole series.

SPEAKER_11 32:45

He did. But another great one is the music at I believe it's Aminhen when Boromir is getting shot because you get the the Elvish chorus. And when you translate those lyrics, it's actually the words that Faramir says in the two towers of I do not love the arrow for its swiftness, the sword for its um for the way the sword swings, and nor the whore hero for its glory, but I love them for that which they defend, and the fact that they're saying that when he's defending Marian Pippen and just tanking damage, it it just hits so hard. Like the intentionalness that Howard Shore had in his composing.

SPEAKER_05 33:27

We have to go back and watch this now, dude.

SPEAKER_11 33:29

Yeah, the the intentions that he had with all his musical choices and the work of Leitmotifs as well, because I believe a score needs to have some storytelling factor to it. Like with Rohan, when you first hear its theme, it's it's very sad. It's a single violin because you see Eteras, it's under Saruman's influence, and then it just gets grander as Rohan gets grander. It's a great storytelling theme.

SPEAKER_00 33:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_11 33:53

And like Howard Shore really uses violins perfectly to make us care. Digressing though, because that's not my number one pick. I gotta stop there now. Because I I watched a lot of musical, music theory videos on the score of Lord of the Rings alone.

SPEAKER_07 34:09

Yeah. That's why that's why I made the rule. We can only pick one from that has been. It would probably be my top five would be from Lord of the Rings.

SPEAKER_11 34:20

But yeah, number one is John Powell's, in my opinion, Magnum Opus Test Drive. Yes. From How to Train Your Dragon, which I love so much. Just to capture the feeling of riding a dragon through the skies as no one has ever done before. It's just a good thing. It is amazing. It is, it is amazing. And even with in the middle, when they're falling, you hear the spiraling, you hear the you just get that feeling of they are in trouble. And as soon as they get back on, and Toothless, you know, spreads his wings out, and he's just like trying to stop the air. You see the air current, you feel the weight in the song. Just boom! And you're like, what are they gonna do? And then it like Christian news, it's like, oh my gosh, it just I'm struggling on words because I'm just thinking about it too much. It just erupts into a glorious just triumph as they're weaving through the rocks. He throws the cheat sheet to the wind and just masters the flying. Oh, it is so amazing. Oh, I I love I love how to train your dragon so much. That is a movie I'm so glad they did not go over the books. They were not faithful to the books and it worked for them. Yeah. Anyway, what did you guys want to talk about with your picks? Yeah, no, I think we hit it all.

SPEAKER_05 35:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 35:50

That was that was great.

SPEAKER_05 35:52

Can't say there's much more to touch on, but I mean, just yeah, all those are fantastic. Like I said, with mine, I it's hard to pick any favorites because it really is my mood. You know, if I want something happy, go lucky, I listen to Concerning the Hobbits or so.

SPEAKER_11 36:08

Yeah, that's that's where the score is just so awesome because it helps with the storytelling, it helps with the world building. Concerning Hobbits establishes this is a peaceful place, this is a place where you can relax. And you know, the ticking from Interstellar is so cool, and it builds that anxiety in the headspace without using any words.

SPEAKER_07 36:30

Because it it's like 1.4 seconds every tick, and so it feels like off so it's unsettling, too. Yeah, it's unsettling, uh-huh, anxious, and it's it's so cool.

SPEAKER_11 36:45

Yeah, so like a score is, in my opinion, necessary for good storytelling in cinema because like that, it helps set the mood, it helps set the world building, it sets the tone. It can transcend a good movie to become a great movie.

SPEAKER_05 37:03

Oh, yeah. Now, here's uh I guess a question: Is there any movie? I mean, kind of mentioned Transformers, but is there any movie like you just could not watch, but you would go for the score, or you'd like listen for the score? You guys think of any?

SPEAKER_11 37:18

Uh I know there's one, but I it's not coming to me right now. Yeah, because I bet you there is one.

SPEAKER_07 37:27

Man, trying to think. I'd have to look at my my dirtiest. My playlist, because I have a I have a big playlist with just all scores. Yeah. It's called Chill. Yeah, it's hard to say.

SPEAKER_05 37:43

Um I mean, like you said, it it a good movie tends to follow like with a good score. Um, I would say, you know, there's for me, there's like Studio Ghibli has some fantastic movies and it's got some less fantastic, like Howl's Moving Castle. I know it has great music, but the movie itself I cannot stand. I absolutely hate it. And so it's like I guess now that you'd say that it's not the score per se, but the music.

SPEAKER_11 38:12

I didn't really like the story of the greatest showman. Oh, yeah? Yeah, because the way it was advertised, I thought it was gonna be like a found family film, but it didn't really focus on that. But the the music is great. I'm always listening to the soundtrack, but like I'm never going back watching that film, even though I love Hugh Jackman as a musical artist. He's so talented, but like can be like the greatest showing is like if I want to see a song, because the choreography was amazing too. If I want to see a song, I'll just look up that clip. I'm never gonna watch the movie again. And I'm just annoyed at seeing Zendaya, so I'm so mad she was in that film.

SPEAKER_10 38:53

I don't know what I have against her, but she just I don't know, she's just so meh.

SPEAKER_07 39:01

Yeah. But anyways, I was gonna say it's not really a bad movie, but National Treasure. Okay. The um the Ben, it's actually such a banger, the score in that. I mean, I would also kind of put Pirates of the Caribbean on that as not a great movie. Re-watching it, it's not as it doesn't live up to how it was when I was younger. So funny. I like the opposite.

SPEAKER_11 39:33

Another bad set of films, another bad set of films that does get um transcended because of its music is the Hobbit films because there was some bangers in there, like the Dwarven song. Oh, I'm always chanting that thing. And I might go back and watch the extended editions of the Hobbit films, but I I get so mad with a lot of the choices they made. And there's the animated film from like 1978, I think. That's only like 90 minutes, and it's such a banger.

SPEAKER_00 40:08

And that has a down, down to goblin down. Down, down, down to goblin down. Oh my lad.

SPEAKER_11 40:17

Yeah, that's got a banger soundtrack as well. Like that's what I sing to my son when we go down the stairs. It's like down, down to goblin down. But yeah, that one is the superior Hobbit film so much.

SPEAKER_07 40:29

Your son's gonna be such a big nerd.

SPEAKER_05 40:33

He's gonna rebel, actually, and just be a total joke.

SPEAKER_10 40:36

He just might.

SPEAKER_11 40:37

I don't know. At this point, I have no idea. He's such a sweet kid, so I can't see him rebelling yet. And and my wife watches other people's kids, and we've seen how he is around kids. Like, he turns into my wife's like assistant manager with other kids.

SPEAKER_00 40:53

Like, she tells the other kids, hey, cover your mouth, you go, Oh, oh, you gotta do that, dude. Like they say the old kids.

SPEAKER_05 41:01

Is that the oldest kid becomes the male version of the mother?

SPEAKER_11 41:05

So well, my wife was the oldest, and she's like the most responsible out of all her siblings. And she's all anytime he does something right, she's like, Oh shoot, your uh oldest child in this is showing, dude. Because he'll like put away stuff when we tell him, Okay, time to go to bed. And he like puts it away all nice, and yeah. I'm like, I did not teach him that.

SPEAKER_06 41:24

Nice.

SPEAKER_11 41:25

I did not teach. I'm like, he's too good. So now I'm worried he's gonna be like so good he's like gonna make millions of dollars, just give it all to the homeless and do nothing with it. Anyway, sweet, sweet, yeah. Anyways, well, it's funny that you had these wallets here, Greg, and you chose the hobbit, so it might not be a hot take. But my hot take was bookwise, we're not talking about the films here. Bookwise, the Hobbit is better than the Lord of the Rings. That is my hot take. Which that's not to say that the Lord of the Rings, it's never terrible. Not in any regard. That's what I found it was funny, but but yeah, like The Hobbit is my favorite book, probably of all time. And my reasons for that being is first off, I'd like to call it Tolkien's Magnum Opus, which that is a fancy term saying it's his most important work. A lot of people say Lord of the Rings is because it's his most well-known work.

SPEAKER_05 42:28

I thought it meant like Magnum fruit or something, magnum oranges. No, no, no, no. No, you simpleton.

SPEAKER_11 42:36

No, like the magnum opus is not their most well-known work, but the most important. That being because he developed the concept of hobbits, which everyone loved. And that's what staple of fantasy. Yeah, staple of fantasy now. It's what made the masses just beg for more, and he's like, okay, I'll give you the Lord of the Rings, which this is him just doing a sequel because he was begged to. He works, dedicates 10 years to that. And the four main, like, four of the main characters are hobbits, and you get more lore into the hobbits and to the world building there. That would never happen without the hobbit. Second, it was a children's story at first. For me, simple is always better. If you can convey high ideals and big eye and big factors, big ideas and concepts simply, it is you are a banger. I said it in our I Am Legend episode. If you can do more with less, you are just a fantastic writer. Like, because I'm not against long stories, I'm against bloat. And the Hobbit, since it's simpler, I know a lot of people get deterred when reading The Lord of the Rings because Tolkien describes so much. And he does go on these tangents, which that is a lot more fun to read after you read The Silmarillion because he references a bunch of stuff in the Silmarillion. However, the Silmarillion is also. Very difficult for readers to digest. And so the hobby, it's more focused, it's more whimsical. So I love whimsy. It's just so much fun, which I feel is a staple of fantasy. Yeah. To have that whimsy. And second of all, J well, not second. Why do I keep saying second roll? This is like the fourth. Fourth of all, JRR Tolkien is quoted saying, it is not a story worth telling if there is not a dragon in it. The Lord of the Rings that does not have a dragon. That was the Hobbit does. And it is Smaug, the cheapest and greatest of all calamities. The last true great winged fire drake in Middle Earth at that time. And boy is he great. He is cunning, he is imposing, he is monstrous and prideful, just everything an archetypal treasure hoarding dragon should be. And I love it. I love his cunning as he tries to trick Bilbo into giving clues about himself, as he tries to lay seeds of doubt with the dwarves, and when he just goes out of the mountain with fire, he's described as a monstrous crow. And he just lays waste to Lake Town. And just his monologue of how of how he boasts, I just I remembered oh so much, which best voice for smog was Richard Boone in the animated version. Sorry, Benedict Cumberdoodle. Like Richard Boone had that nice low guttle. However, the animated version of Smog is too cat-like. I do not like the design choice.

SPEAKER_07 45:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_11 45:44

Where he's got fur. Interesting, yeah. Oh man. Let me know if you guys can fight that or you debate it, but if you like the Lord of the Rings more than the Hobbit, I get it. That, like, because the Lord of the Rings, it has the Balrog. Oh my gosh. That is another staple of fantasy. Just a primordial fire demon. Balrog. You have the other hobbits because you have the friendship of Sam and Frodo and Mary and Pippin. You have the heroism of the small folk center stage still, just like the Hobbit, and it's explored more. You just get all the war.

SPEAKER_05 46:24

More like a grown-up like thing. Yes. Growing up thing. Because like, yeah, you're like you said, the Hobbit's pretty whimsical while the Lord of the Rings goes into a lot more serious and like this is like world-altering stuff, kind of things. But I I totally agree. I mean, when it came to reading them, uh, I mean, just the beginning of Lord of the Rings when you're reading like the prequel, like Hobbit history. I was like, did I what did I pick up? I'm like, this isn't Lord of the Rings. What is this?

SPEAKER_11 46:56

It's a history book. Tolkien was a very meticulous man. Like, there are some chapters in the Lord of the Rings where I'm like, he probably had the most fun writing this because he's like, I get to go on a tangent and no one's going to interrupt me here. Like, the Council of Elrond, I think, is one of those where they're just, I want to give all this backstory to stuff. And here's a perfect time to do it. Oh, exactly.

SPEAKER_05 47:18

I I like to think of I mean, I couldn't imagine how it would be if you read Lord of the Rings first and then went to the Hobbit. That would be an interesting conversation with somebody.

SPEAKER_11 47:28

I can't imagine that either.

SPEAKER_05 47:29

Like, how would they feel? Like, would they feel like the Hobbit was actually juvenile? Because, like, for me, it the Hobbit feels very grown up.

SPEAKER_11 47:37

Well, yeah, I don't feel like it's juvenile because I'm pretty much like a lot of people. It's a kid's story that matures with you the more you read it.

SPEAKER_05 47:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_11 47:45

Which, like, I'm always a big proponent for. Let the kids learn about the mature stuff. Let's expose them in small doses to the darkness of the world, knowing that it's there, they don't have to accept it. Like, yeah, when a movie or a book doesn't talk down to the kids, I respect that so much. Because kids deserve great stories too. Hence why many of my favorite films are animated kids' films, because I know I can enjoy it with any of my kids. I don't just have to wait for them to get to a certain age, I can enjoy it with them right then and there.

SPEAKER_05 48:20

Exactly.

SPEAKER_11 48:21

And as well, my favorite Tolkien quote or quote from one of those books is from the Hobbit of Thorin's dying words to Bilbo that if more pood, more pood.

SPEAKER_00 48:30

More pood, more pood.

SPEAKER_11 48:32

If more people valued food, oh shoot, I'm blanking on it. More people valued food, a home, and cheer. Or I'm uh you guys got me on the spot. Now I feel so I'm so embarrassed. You know the quote I'm talking about where he says if more people valued these things over hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world, which is the the book quote that has stuck to me the most, especially coming from Thorin, who was infected with dragon sickness. The whole reason he's on this quest is for the hoarded gold. And he realizes on his deathbed what Bilbo did for him, and it was truly a favor.

SPEAKER_05 49:17

So yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_07 49:20

Well, sorry, not really hot take amongst us, Derek. I am in agreement as well. Like, sorry, the Hobbit, it's just so special to me. Like, not to take anything away from Lord of the Rings and how amazing that is. It might just be that I read The Hobbit first, you know, when I was younger and just fell in love with it, but I just absolutely love like Tolkien just bringing the Hobbit and making what Bilbo was and making him into the hero.

SPEAKER_11 50:01

You know, just the fundamentals in there are awesome because they have challenges, he's bailed out by Gandalf multiple times, but then you get to the spiders, yeah. Stepping up right there, he steps up and you see what he's truly capable of.

SPEAKER_05 50:15

The wood elves, too, and everything. Yeah, it's oh yeah.

SPEAKER_07 50:19

Which I think this came to mind, and this is this is something I've thought about, and this might be a hot take amongst us. So I don't know if I want to even bring it up, but I I have to say it. I think Bilbo is the best hobby of all time. Ooh.

SPEAKER_05 50:36

And I know we got a lot of are we going off of like books, movies, or books and movies, or primarily books? Primarily books, I would say, because that is the canon.

SPEAKER_11 50:47

Ooh, I'm still a Sam wise Gamji.

SPEAKER_07 50:51

I love Sam, but the fact that Bilbo was able to give up the ring after having it that long just speaks volume to his character.

SPEAKER_05 51:01

Yeah, what was it like 50 years? 111. No, it's about 60.

SPEAKER_11 51:07

It was about 60 years. He was 50 when he left on The Hobbit. And yeah, when he gave it up on his 111th birthday. It's about 61 years. If you go with the math there.

SPEAKER_05 51:22

Derek would know.

SPEAKER_07 51:24

But I, you know, not to get off topic, but that's uh that's kind of my reasoning. I also think he's I mean, Sam is so hard because he is that just loyal, perfect friend.

SPEAKER_11 51:39

Yes.

SPEAKER_05 51:40

Yeah, I think I just I just I mean the book, the Lord of the Rings books just didn't stick with me enough that I can't really I mean I just have to agree because I I Bilbo, I feel like I totally he he's a character I totally get, and like I everything in the book, I'm like, yeah, I understand Bilbo. When it came to the Lord of the Rings books, it felt a little disconjointed to really be able to connect as much as I did in the movies.

SPEAKER_11 52:07

So yeah, yeah, I need better hot, we need better hot takes. We're too like-minded guys. Maybe I shouldn't have told you my original idea for the hot take. My hot take was gonna be The Dark Knight Rises is only seen as a good film because of the first two films. But we'll we'll save that for another episode because I know you that might be.

SPEAKER_07 52:32

You had a hot take last episode, Derek. I did, where you said Red Rising, well.

SPEAKER_10 52:38

Oh yeah, Ender game than Ender's Game. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_07 52:42

What did you say? Red Rising could run, or Ender's Game walks, so Red Rising could run.

SPEAKER_11 52:47

I'm just like no no no no. You said Ender's Game ran or walked. I was saying Red Rising could run. We need to draw the takes, we need the instant replay, we got it on video.

SPEAKER_05 53:01

Later on a caption. You did mention and how uh you felt Red Rising could was could be superior to Ender's game in some ways.

SPEAKER_11 53:10

Okay, I'm not gonna try and like double down on my stance here because we have it on video, and I am just realizing I might be wrong.

SPEAKER_10 53:19

So I'm actually gonna like maybe bet you. I don't disagree with that idea.

SPEAKER_05 53:24

I I do think you know Ender's game is special, but Red Rising does have a quality to it that I will die on that hill.

SPEAKER_11 53:31

That Ender's game. I love, love Red Rising. Well, Pierce Brown might agree with you since he had that little homage to Ender in his in his uh in Red Rising Ed. Yeah. Since we were on the Hobbit, he had his Hobbit reference in Golden Sun, which just made me just oh. I was so happy that who says it too. My favorite character. This is awesome. And just give it to him. It's the eye, an eyeball. Gory Damn, who told you?

SPEAKER_07 54:05

Well, yeah.

SPEAKER_11 54:08

I think that'll be you. Well, Jeff's hot take was really good on Instagram, apparently. Everyone thought Jeff was an idiot.

SPEAKER_05 54:14

You say, yeah, you say anything about Aukary No Time, and you're gonna get it.

SPEAKER_11 54:18

There's some bad claims on me because I said Twilight Princess was my was my favorite because it was my first one. I saw so many comments of everyone's favorite Zelda game is the one they played when they were 12. You fool, I didn't get to play Zelda until I was 17. So I had no childhood nostalgia with it.

SPEAKER_07 54:37

The joke's on you, apparently.

SPEAKER_11 54:40

Yeah, I had parents who hated video games, so like I didn't get them often. And I played it on the Wii too, which replaying Twilight Princess on the Wii kind of sucks. You gotta play it on the game boy, man. Not a game boy with a GameCube.

SPEAKER_10 54:54

That would be a downgrade a little bit. Yeah. You gotta play on the GameCube. It's way more challenging.

SPEAKER_05 54:58

I've heard Wii U is the superior because you can use the GameCube controls on the Wii U. Oh, so you get the the improved graphics, improved experience, but with GameCube controls. Okay. Or the Wii U controls, I guess.

SPEAKER_11 55:11

That's our hot take. Let me know. Let me know in the comments if I am just a fool.

SPEAKER_10 55:20

Are we all fools because we all agree with that? Are we just a group of fools? Am I the king of fools?

SPEAKER_07 55:27

Now, come movie. Like, is not a good thing.

SPEAKER_11 55:30

Oh, hands down, Lord of the Rings is way better. Yeah. That's not an argument, and I don't think that's a hot take.

SPEAKER_05 55:36

Granted, I think because of the books, the Lord of the Rings movie is superior.

SPEAKER_07 55:42

So I think you can say that. It's just so it's so disappointing that like the the route Peter Jackson went with the Hobbit movies.

SPEAKER_11 55:51

Well, I think it was a huge mess to begin with because I don't think he was the original director. I think it was um interesting. Who's the one that did the the new Pinocchio movie?

SPEAKER_05 56:02

Oh, Guillermo. Guillermo Del Toro Del Toro.

SPEAKER_11 56:05

I think he was the first one signed on and he started some work. That would be interesting. And then Peter Jackson came in, he kind of tried to like he was on less time.

SPEAKER_05 56:14

Yeah. It'd be interesting to see why he was doing it.

SPEAKER_11 56:16

That could have been, you know.

SPEAKER_07 56:18

Yeah. The studio for pushing for three. I didn't know.

SPEAKER_11 56:24

Yeah, that was an awful choice.

SPEAKER_07 56:27

They there's oh man.

SPEAKER_05 56:28

It's such an easy book to adapt to that takes all three movies and puts them into one and like cuts out everything that shouldn't be in there. So we'll have to have like a movie night review. We need to do that.

SPEAKER_11 56:42

And we can all talk about how they did our boy Bjorn dirty in that in those movies. Golly. Oh, no further.

SPEAKER_05 56:50

They did a lot of movies. I actually have never seen the other two. I've only seen the first part. I can't say I'm doing it.

SPEAKER_11 56:58

Oh man. I was excited to see him join the Battle of Five Armies. Only to see nothing happen. Yeah. He gets dropped from the mother chip from the Eagles, and then that's it.

SPEAKER_05 57:10

With the battle. It's just Bilbo falls out.

SPEAKER_11 57:13

Well, nothing happens to Bilbo, but what you hear a lot happened in the battle. Okay. And it was cool. After the fact Bjord went beast mode. Literally. It was so cool. Oh yeah. Golly. Anyway, let's talk about. Or is there another segment we got?

SPEAKER_07 57:30

I say let's talk about the uh yeah, let's talk about player piano.

SPEAKER_06 57:34

Alright.

SPEAKER_07 57:34

Yeah. Yeah, Jim. All right.

SPEAKER_05 57:38

You picked player piano. Tell us why. Alright, well, first I want to start off summary of the book and give you guys a little uh we're gonna do a little non-spoiler bit. Um just a small section, start us off, but player piano is a satirical dystopian novel set in a near future society where machines and automated systems have replaced most human labor, leaving only a small technical and managerial elite with meaningful work while the majority of people live comfortably but without purpose. The story follows an engineer who begins to question the social order and the cost of efficiency in a world run almost entirely by technology. Through dark humor and sharp social commentary, Kurt Vonnica explores themes of automation, class division, identity, and what gives human life value when productivity is no longer necessary. Awesome. Sorry to distract as usual.

SPEAKER_06 58:52

I was hearing some breathing. What's that you did? Some breathing? Some breathing. Was it me?

SPEAKER_10 59:00

Why didn't me on top of my talking trying to thought I was staying pretty far away from my microphone, so I don't know.

SPEAKER_05 59:10

Well, sorry. We can get back. I want to say I did get that from Chat GPT. So Kurt Monica is really appreciated.

SPEAKER_10 59:20

That actually is kind of on theme, using automation to explain his book that argues against automation.

SPEAKER_05 59:28

Well, uh I would say yes and no. It argues in some ways, yes, but uh we'll get into that. Alright, um for a non-spoiler discussion, I wanted to get into first impressions with you guys. Um I guess in a non-spoiler way. What did you think when you first dived into the book? Was it what you expected?

SPEAKER_07 59:53

No, you know, like when you read the the summary on like Google, it makes it seem like it's because it says it's like satire. So you're I was kind of going into it and thinking, oh, what if it, you know, thinking it's gonna be like Douglas Adams funny. Um but it's very, very like subtle humor, and um it's often his humor is often described as dark humor.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:23

So yeah, I can see that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 1:00:26

Um yeah, it I don't know. It wasn't quite what I was expecting. I was expecting more more like uh almost dystopian.

SPEAKER_05 1:00:41

Okay. More George Orwell style. Uh-huh. Yeah, I can say I was the same way. I I have not read any Kurt Vonnegut. I've only heard a lot about his his books and heard good things about them, but I honestly was expecting like a a bigger, higher action book. This one was it was not anywhere near that. It is it is very much a yeah, like the uh Chat GPT said, a social commentary.

SPEAKER_11 1:01:09

Yeah, uh I never looked up what it was before reading it the first time, and so I had no idea it was satire. And like Greg said, very subtle humor. So a lot of it went over my head my first time. And and I was expecting more of a George Orwellian novel with it, but like I wasn't like like you said, I was expecting more action. The more I read, I was like, oh, this is culminating into like some kind of powder keg thing. I'm gonna there's gonna be a big climax, and there's gonna be a lot of action here pretty soon, and it really stifled that that uh you're just kind of like, oh, oh. Like it does get action packed for those who are I'm trying, I'm trying not to be too spoilery right now, since we're trying to keep this section spoiler-free. But it does it does get action-packed just for a short time. It's it's like a musket.

SPEAKER_05 1:02:08

Yeah. Bam! Exactly. Yeah, that's a good way to describe it. A lot of a lot of smoke. Just that fast. Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_07 1:02:17

But yeah, you know, it was uh it's one of those books that is just not my type of genre. I struggle to kind of like stay focused. If if I was able to sit down and like read it, I'd be able to focus better. But like as I'm listening to it on the audiobook and working, it's so easy for my mind to just wander. Because it is like dialogue-driven. Yeah. The story which I do think his dialogue is really good in this. Um the characters often go on tangents, and so that that's kind of hard. And random characters, too.

SPEAKER_05 1:03:00

Yes.

SPEAKER_11 1:03:01

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_05 1:03:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_11 1:03:03

Which there is, I would say, a suitable cast of characters. Like most of them are they're fine. Like I'm not probably not gonna be the most passionate about these characters in this episode. And they they serve their purposes, I can see. But yeah, not a lot of character development. At least not what I saw my first two times. I could be missing something, like I missed the humor too. Like, I am willing to admit, if I am not seeing the vision of Kurt Vonnegut, but I believe this was his very first novel. So, and a lot of the reviews I saw from other people said, Yeah, this is where he w didn't really nail the dark humor that he's known for. Yeah. So, like, and there is dark humor there, which surprised me.

SPEAKER_05 1:03:50

Oh, yeah. I this here, this is one of the big things with this that I noticed as I read through it, was this book is not it's not going to reach the audience it it's meant to reach. And like for the for who this book is for, it's not really the people that are going to actually need to be thinking about automation. And who is this book for, Jeff, now that you mention that. Yeah, that that was a hard thing for me to to think about because like like who like it really is like a just a social commentary book. And and I'd say, yeah, sure, if you do like George Orwell, you will find this interesting. But it really is kind of um if you're okay with a slower-paced book that does, yeah, you that does build itself on dialogue. Dialogue is its strong suit between characters and like building scenes. Um, if you like that kind of book, great. But and that's the thing, like the people who are ingrained in like actually probably encouraging automation aren't going to be the kind of people that I imagine are gonna read this because they're usually a more fast-paced mind. They're not they're gonna want something more high octane, high action. Uh, well, this book just doesn't have that.

SPEAKER_11 1:05:06

Yeah, I would probably to pinpoint it down. What I think who this book is for is for the rising generation that we have who will want the more high octane, just want action, action, action, or they don't want they want little um opposition in life, which is uh what's the current generation? Gen Z, who are the TikTok generation where we're being trained to have low attention spans with the short form content and everything. This book is the argument against automation, against ease, against machines doing all the little things and giving you all the leisure time that you could possibly ask for. And the problem is it's being explained in a medium that that generation, the people that should be reading this cannot digest or refuse to overcome to digest kind of thing. So it uh like you said, the the people that this book is made for, they probably never will.

SPEAKER_07 1:06:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_11 1:06:04

So yeah.

SPEAKER_07 1:06:06

Have you either of you read Brave New World? No.

SPEAKER_11 1:06:10

That one, um, I think I dived into it like just the beginning, and just the reviews alone kind of set me in a terrified mindset because it was right after 1984. I read 1984 and my dad said you should look up Brave New World and it's all about like I believe in that book they have a way of reproducing kids without you know the natural way.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:35

Okay.

SPEAKER_11 1:06:36

And it just it sounded so terrifying to me. And the fact that oh it it sounds so terrifying. So we may we may jump into it maybe for uh a Halloween episode or next time our government does something stupid that could be our our month for I've I heard apparently um Vonnegut his like his big influence for player piano was Brave New World.

SPEAKER_07 1:07:02

Oh okay he credits you know his idea for player piano from that book.

SPEAKER_05 1:07:07

Which would make it a pretty old book considering what player piano was written in the 50s.

SPEAKER_07 1:07:12

Uh yeah player piano was written 51 I think one holy cow yeah and then Brave New World I think was like 1932 before World War II. That's wild.

SPEAKER_11 1:07:23

Yeah but I think a lot of other books reference Brave New World because there's been like a few books I've read I don't know if you guys read the Michael Vay series. Oh no just there's a monologue in there where the bad guy sells like all his new recruits it's a Brave New World gentleman.

SPEAKER_05 1:07:38

And I just get this tells how much younger Derek is than me and Greg. It's uh how he read Michael Vay.

SPEAKER_07 1:07:45

I I only the first two books okay I am just a year younger than you Jeff shut up we've also learned that Derek is uh also late to the table on a lot of things yes I am yeah I didn't enjoy reading until it was like I really slept on how he got one pumped out before either of us that's true that is true you're winning in life better than no no don't say better it's not a competition okay it's not a competition but yeah if you're counting Greg's winning you've got two I got one on the way yeah if you want to count that up a second on the way I should say no it was a win that was great I love my babies anyways back to brave new world um Kurt Vonnegut I think a lot of his influence is based off World War II because I think he he was in the military. Yeah and well world war two was industry right or that's that's really what sparked it yeah so the book itself is kind of it takes place after World War III essentially that all all the men went off to war and they had to come up with a way to keep industry going and so they came up with these automated machines.

SPEAKER_11 1:09:15

And that was like the big thing that got them to win the war the country could still run just as efficiently with all the men gone off to war and so like it was hard for the other countries to compete with that they were losing infrastructure when they were sending all their men out in the war.

SPEAKER_07 1:09:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_11 1:09:31

So yeah it makes it comes right out of the sh right out of the gate arguing that the automation is a good thing.

SPEAKER_07 1:09:37

Yeah because like yeah the men came back then they didn't need to go back to work because they the machines pretty much did all the work for them and so they are essentially given like a like government benefits to live on you know they don't they don't have to work and but they are given like just enough money to to live on yeah so yeah I don't know if there's anything else non-spoiler there's not really a ton of spoilers.

SPEAKER_05 1:10:13

That really dives into it well enough I think we uh it really is I I think there is an audience for this book but we're gonna dive in and then you can really determine hey if you if this book is uh we're gonna dive into all the details now like do I think it's worth a read for most everybody I do I do think it is um I think there is lessons to learn from it but yeah you know we'll you'll see just as we discuss it more but totally from now on spoilers if you haven't read it spoiled go and read it and come back oh yeah well I I want to really get into um some of the themes in the book and the um what I absolutely enjoyed and I find this kind of appealing about um retro futuristic movies kind of what uh the Fantastic Four film did with its style um where it's like which one you talk about like the newest one yeah where everything is like still CRT CRT TVs tapes and like um audio tape and like um magnetic tape like when he talks about the machines and when Paul is walking through the factory and he goes up to one of the the unit that's basically running all the machines and he opens it up and it's a tape system. Now did you guys catch that when you're reading no no I'll just be honest no I I mean I've been getting into like kind of older stuff right lately. I've gotten a a CRT TV I've picked up VHS Blair and been watching all kinds of VHS movies which it's weird saying it's old but it's like that was our childhood yeah that's that's a long time ago now yeah I mean just so funny to think when you're writing a book about the future and you look at your current technology right like we think about digital like everything we do futuristic now with well most everything we do futuristic wise now when we depict it it's all digital uh which is the technology we have right now back then they had the analog technology and so that's kind of how he Kervanegate decided to depict everything was through analog everything's running on tapes which I I just can't imagine even how that would work it's like I guess he said he recorded you were they recorded the worker doing the task and then uh put it onto the tape so the machine could basically mimic it um which is kind of fascinating like it would be incredible to see this like put in a visual form like how would you even accomplish this in a using analog technology because I can see it with digital I mean we're pretty much doing it now with digital but like how would you even do it with like a VHS tape or a cassette tape?

SPEAKER_11 1:13:19

Yeah I don't know and that's what makes it so interesting with us going into these books that are depicting the future at the time but then like with what we have now we're like oh that's so stupid like let's it's the same discussion we had with the ear, the eye and the arm when like trash man takes the bottle cap, puts it in the vending machine and pulls out you're like, yeah that wouldn't work how does a hyperfuturistic vending machine still accept bottle caps exactly yeah we were like how the heck does it do that but you know at the time that seemed like perfectly normal would probably never change yeah that probably that would probably never change and Kurt Vonnegut going with the analog system thinking you know we would just develop that further instead we went digital and we're now thinking the same thing when we all do our futuristic stuff we're thinking yeah be more digital sleek and just L C D screens or LED screens just glowing brightly giving us that blue light everywhere so I'm starting to think maybe we'll have the same kind of thing 60 years from now where we're gonna have all these futuristic books depicting stuff and we'll be like well well they got that wrong not everyone not everyone can be Orson Scott car and just call out an iPad oh yeah I I would love I like I said I would absolutely love to see it.

SPEAKER_05 1:14:38

I just had a thought um with it uh with the digital crap what was it um must have not been important no it it totally came in brain as you were talking and then as you went on to the Orson Scott carpet it left crap but dang I'm sorry I can't help you there. It was such a good thought too but uh I'll take your word for it yeah so uh yeah um my brain is I'm gonna blame the sickness sorry so yeah Paul Proteus he is he's the main character he's the main character and you know I wouldn't even go as far as to say he's the hero in this story because it there's really no like yeah I wouldn't say there's a bad guy or a good guy Paul is more of the vehicle for which you can experience the story.

SPEAKER_11 1:15:33

And I guess one thing we didn't address in our spoiler free is that the society the people they're kind of dissected into the higher elites they're the engineers the ones who develop the machines design the machines they're basically you know the technomancers of the world and anyone else who just works or you know can't work so they're just put into the army because they can't do anything else. Yeah they call the the army and the reclamation yeah and they're they're which is like construction electricity more of the more of the they separate people into lower IQs to higher IQs and they even put it on like all on public records like you can look up anyone's IQ everyone gets their IQ tested and because of that it kind of determines your future which you know that's a very bleak world to live in as well because if we're going off of my ACT score dang I am in trouble. I it would have been interesting for us all to take to we should have taken an IQ test to see how we would have been placed pretty fun to see where we're at see where we're all at in terms of degrees I got two of them so so I guess that makes you the hotter guy because you got more degrees but Paul Proteus he's he's one of the upper echelon people like even in the first chapter he's described as the highest paid person in Ilium New York right it's in New York I think it's Pennsylvania isn't it no it's New York yeah Ilium New York he's the highest paid person highest paid man there.

SPEAKER_07 1:17:11

He's he's one of the greatest and when he goes like the other side of the river is basically the dividing line between these smart people homestead yes and it's yeah he explains it as like you don't need to go across like homestead doesn't need to come across to the industry side and industry side doesn't need to go over there.

SPEAKER_11 1:17:32

The only reason you would do it is just curiosity to see what yeah you're free to go and go so there's no like oppression there but they usually keep to themselves but because Paul Proteus he's such uh I guess one of the more profound or renowned sorry renowned engineers of his time was known to be like a prominent engineer and so he was kind of following in his footsteps as so he's kind of like a leader and somewhat of a celebrity like even the low IQ people know his name and know who he is.

SPEAKER_05 1:18:03

Yeah I I remembered the thing uh interject here I remember what do you guys think technology would look like so like from dig from analog to digital what would be beyond digital I mean you you're the the sci-fi space person watching Interstellar like you think uh you think what what do you got in mind?

SPEAKER_11 1:18:29

I'm thinking holograms holograms it's all like uh ether based yeah instead of FaceTime you just have a hologram where you have the person stand right in front of you you can just talk like you're having a normal conversation still kind of based on digital things like I guess so see I think it'll be more like telepathic yeah I think that don't say that that scares me that means the government has to put chips in our head chips yep chips in your head and you'll just see it you won't it won't need to be projected okay it'll be uh no we shouldn't electromagnetic or what do you sensory or something yeah yeah like based yeah that'd be pretty crazy however uh Elon must does his uh Neurolink yeah neurolink yeah whatever that technology you'll pretty much have AI in your brain and access to information not like instantly so got like don't they have that in Halo AI and like and a chip in their brain like wasn't Cortana yeah well I don't know if he's built to integrate with it yeah I think is the is the idea is like he can put the or the AI can basically enter into his neural system through his suit.

SPEAKER_05 1:19:46

Yeah yeah doesn't Cortana get like a virus or something in like Halo 4 yeah it's the uh oh no she goes it's like rampant or something like that where she starts kind of metaphysical rampancy or something.

SPEAKER_11 1:20:03

Yeah because they reference that in red versus blue as well yeah yeah they do they do that and like one of the characters gets two AIs. Yeah one of the characters in season I think it's season nine or season ten Agent Carolina gets two AIs and she kind of goes a little bit crazy because she has too many voices. The show goes a lot deeper than I thought I thought it was just kind of dumb surface no no no no you you you're not wrong seasons one through five is basically a dumb puppet show and it is hilarious but season six when up they start to get serious and eight through ten you're like going into the lore and you're just like whoa they look good man like I highly recommend it. It's so good. And seeing how each season's like an hour and a half to two hours, two and a half hours long like you can crank them out pretty quick. Because the all the episodes they started out to be like five minutes and they got to 13 minutes so like it's not a long show. A little short short episode it's not like you're binge watching 45 minute episodes back to back and spending like 15 hours of your life do it.

SPEAKER_05 1:21:14

Although if you go past season 13 you probably will have to we'll have to have a movie night Derek season one through two on DVD so with you than just by myself but so I want to say for my technology and I've been diving a little bit into this like research well kind of surface research but I think it's gonna be quantum technology which like quantum entanglement entanglement style do you guys know what quantum entanglement is no I'm kind of like I'm kind of like Ant-Man when it's like do you guys just put quantum in front of everything just to sound smart? Most of the time they do yeah but uh quantum entanglement basically is the idea that you have two particles um and quantum mechanics is basically the idea that a particle exists in a wave and part of or a material of matter will exist in a in a like an electron or a proton will exist in as a wave or a particle simultaneously until it is observed. And once it observed it will suddenly cease to act as both and act only as one. And so the idea is you you can somehow connect two particles I don't know the exact science behind it but two electrons and they're entangled. Meaning you could put one at the other end of the solar system and one here and you you collapse the wave function of this particle and the one at the other end of the solar system does the exact same thing instantaneously. And so they've already developed that into quantum computers which is pretty insane it's it's they were able to take that those and and integrate into binary somehow which basically makes computing almost instantaneous which if you think about like because going from one end of the un of the solar system to the other I mean that takes hours or what do you like hours yeah so I don't you dare just say hours I'm trying to think of the speed of light in relation to like because speed of light right we're we're most of our technology is light based digital based right so it's it's only uh equivalent to the speed of light um but with entanglement you can do it instantaneously from across the universe so uh I can totally see you know technology is going to progress into that I mean it's already starting to and eventually we're gonna get more and more of that where it's almost instantaneous style technology touched on that with what our army did to freaking Venit was it Venezuela that we took the dictator yeah no doubt that it I mean they did some crazy stuff just 10 to 20 years ahead of all tech of like our current technology and like they had AI like 50 years ago or it was probably like 40 years ago but um no it was probably 50 years ago yeah they pretty much had AI then but I I do also want to say um it is a shame we have left the analog because if you look at like old NASA pictures of the moon you can actually take if you had those original like uh uh what do you call them film reels you can take super high quality um uh images off of those just because of the way video tape or film and and camera tape or camera film works and that that's one thing you just don't get with digital because is the more you use and transfer digital the more it degrades well as long as we have those film reels from like the moon landing and space space stuff um it's we're always going to be able to get those and it's pretty insane how well they're able to pull off high quality images now just from those you know almost 100 year old reels which is pretty crazy. Yeah it would be cool to see I I'm an advocate for going back to some old technology um I think we're we're diving a little too deep and we'll get in more to that as we're we're we're getting to this but um yeah one of the quotes from the book a step back yeah can be a step in the right direction there we go that is a good quote yeah that was a n that was a nice tangent Jeff too bad I'm a plebeian and I didn't understand most of it so dude quantum trial quantum science is like it hurts my brain it is it's insane it it's like sci-fi it's so crazy but yeah you know anyways back to kind of the book you know the book it I just don't feel like we're gonna talk too much about the book what the great thing about this book is it it brings up other like real life subjects like it fits so well with today because of AI development yeah you know it'll a book that'll stay consistent because of the message it's producing uh yeah and so you you brought up technology and I was like I thought a lot of like how would they automate like my job so I'm like my job's like pretty safe from like AI like how hard would it be for them to build a machine to go and you know pull some electrical wire and figure all that out I'm like it talks about it in the book how like everything is pre-fabbed and then assembled by machines and I'm like oh well that makes sense if they just make everything you know not custom everything's pre-fabbed you could build essentially like a like a Lego house where all the electrical wires integrated and just like once you put it together the electrical is there in it doing to an extent with 3D printing 3D printing housing which I think they 3D print like all where the outlets are gonna go but they have like a raceway yeah like a conduit going to each one which I'm like you know that would actually be kind of nice to get a house done where I'm just fish taping all the wire through yeah no kidding you know and this like it brings up the the subject of like is automation could it be awesome because like I I don't know if this the way he predicts that society kind of acts would be the way that things would go.

SPEAKER_07 1:27:42

Oh yeah well yeah yeah go ahead like for me to that too if if machines took over my job and I was given like a a monthly allowance from the government um you know which they say it's generally it's a comfortable living like

SPEAKER_05 1:28:00

Have appliances, which back then in the 50s, you know, having a refrigerator was a big thing, having a washing machine was a big thing.

SPEAKER_07 1:28:07

Yeah. Yeah. Well, part of it, it just it's like flat screen TVs, you know, when they first came out, because they were so hard to make, they were so expensive. Now, like we all got one.

SPEAKER_11 1:28:20

We're sick of seeing them on Black Friday.

SPEAKER_05 1:28:21

Yeah, they're cheaper than um CRT TVs right now.

SPEAKER_07 1:28:28

So they're so extremely easy to make because it's probably all automated, they are super cheap. And so you get amenities and um what do you call it? Um what's the word? Um necessities and necessities and things that you don't necessarily need, but you want. So you get luxuries. Yeah, luxuries, thank you.

SPEAKER_11 1:28:56

Yeah, luxuries.

SPEAKER_07 1:28:57

Yeah, you get a lot of that in life. But for me, like there's more motivation. Like, I do my job, it's not because I I have a passion for electrical, you know. I do my job because it's a means to an end, a way for me to provide for my family.

SPEAKER_11 1:29:15

Yeah, we work to live, not live to work kind of deal.

SPEAKER_07 1:29:19

Yeah, and so like my dream would be to work from home and be a writer, to do this podcast, to do my social media stuff. And so, like, having my job automated and I get that allowance, that would open up my avenues of being able to pursue my changes.

SPEAKER_05 1:29:39

With the that one woman who ends up in the car with a shaw, uh-huh, and she's like prostituting herself to be able to get an income because now her husband has been like blacklisted because he was a writer. Yeah. But because he didn't fulfill his role properly as a writer, then he or he didn't write the books he was supposed to. And that's the that's kind of where the where Kurt really gets it right. Like, sure, like there's these comforts that could exist with automation, but then how far are we taking it, right? Like, how far are we willing to even automate it or willing to let automation control things to the point where now it's controlling us and the choices we make. Yeah. And the ability to even choose for ourselves. Because, like, yeah, you could live or make a comfortable living, but like in in I guess in Kurt's world, like you probably wouldn't even be allowed to write a book. You wouldn't even be allowed to publish anything or produce anything of your own because it's so regulated and so controlled by even like to the point where they talk about the machine. I can't remember the name of the machine. It's like uh it's like the when they when they visit Checker Charlie. When they visit the not Checker Charlie, but it's the big, big machine that makes all the decisions. It's like the one that makes all the decisions for like society.

SPEAKER_11 1:30:58

Uh yeah, based on their IQ and stuff.

SPEAKER_05 1:31:00

It's like not Anthem. Oh, what's it called? Uh I don't remember. I'm so sorry. Uh when the when the Shaw visits the president, they talk about the the machine, it's on the on the seventh iteration of it. But yeah, like I I think.

SPEAKER_07 1:31:14

Before you go on, Jeff, um did you know that Kurt Vonnegut often writes himself into his stories? Yeah. And that author that he wrote in the book is based off of him. Really?

SPEAKER_01 1:31:27

Yeah, interesting. I did not know that. That's pretty wonderful if his wife ended up have to prostitute herself.

SPEAKER_07 1:31:33

That's not uh that's sad.

SPEAKER_10 1:31:35

That is actually kind of sad. Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 1:31:37

But you know, not to go off topic too far, but it does seem like he he doesn't value like uh loyalty within a marriage to like he talked, he writes adultery a lot in this book, and it's like not even a big deal.

SPEAKER_05 1:31:57

But he he writes a lot about breasts.

SPEAKER_10 1:32:01

He's big on those. Yeah, the the the adultery the adultery was like, yeah, but yeah, the adultery kind of like I don't know, I thought that yeah, there was too much of it. And it was very casual, yeah.

SPEAKER_11 1:32:22

It was very casual, and part of it, I was like, it made me think Paul was such an idiot, dude. I'm like, you got Shepard who's always coming over, talking to his wife when he's gone, and his wife just mentioning, yeah, Shepard came over, and my first thought was Paul, my book, my guy, you need to investigate that. You need to spend more time with your wife if you really love her.

SPEAKER_07 1:32:48

And well, this this was an interesting thing. You I don't think they they really didn't truly love each other.

SPEAKER_11 1:32:56

No, yeah, I don't think they did either. One thing that's just seems like so innocuous towards her.

SPEAKER_07 1:33:03

Yeah. I don't know if you picked up on this, but every time they're like his fantasy for her was nothing of actually who she was, yeah. Whenever they said I love you to each other, it was like, I love you, Anita. And then she'd repeat back, I love you, Paul.

SPEAKER_05 1:33:18

Oh, and then when he ended up sleeping with that big-breasted woman, he it said a line something like caught up on the words big-breasted and missed the missed very referencing.

SPEAKER_10 1:33:41

I don't need my wife to think all we do on this podcast is talk about boobs.

SPEAKER_04 1:33:46

She watches these.

SPEAKER_10 1:33:48

Let's move on.

SPEAKER_04 1:33:50

We would just dwell on this cool thing.

SPEAKER_05 1:33:53

So Paul, Paul, this is after he gets fired, right? Yeah, so laid off.

SPEAKER_07 1:34:00

Now that the ladies like says out of the window, hey, you want to come up and have sex with me for a little bit?

unknown 1:34:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 1:34:07

So um, yeah, so you see that Paul and Anita are like, it's just an automatic response. And then he says, after he's uh sleeps with that woman, it says like, and then he said it an automatic response, I love you, Anita, like kind of accidentally. Yeah, and so it just plays into the automation together.

SPEAKER_05 1:34:41

Spot on. Yeah, that's that is great. That that I didn't catch that, but that that totally makes sense. Now I'm like, oh my gosh, yeah.

SPEAKER_07 1:34:50

He totally I can't take credit for that because I didn't pick it up. I picked it up from the some other videos on YouTube. So I'll give them credit. I can't remember who you are, but whatever.

SPEAKER_05 1:35:05

Call yourself out, make yourself known. No, I I think it's it goes to show kind of the complacency that exists when with automation. And I would say how you get to because they make it seem like it happened very fast, from like the the war to to how they were now. Like they even talk about how there were people who literally had been in the factories, and it there not enough time had passed that you know it there wasn't a generation that hadn't worked in the factories. Um but I think about now it's it's we really have gone a slow burn of automation in our society, and that is really how you introduce something into a society, good or bad. Um, because doing something fast, they're going to reject it. And you see in the book that they do reject it as like a mass. And I can see back then in the 50s, there was more pride taken in your work, in what you produced while you worked, and it was there were certain positions seen as yeah, lesser, like the Reeks and Rex and the military, where it's like those those are not as fulfilling as like producing something in a factory. I mean, people were literally making vehicles, making cars, making structures, you know. And so there would be an obvious revolt, but nowadays it is. I mean, I could totally see our society falling right into like, oh yeah, I get an income. And for the most part, that is pretty en masse what is pretty much the case with the lower class, low like the low, low class who's living off of welfare. They generally are pretty much making an income without producing anything, and many of them have no issue with it. It is kind of a lifestyle that they really are fine living, which you know doesn't isn't necessarily saying anything bad about them, it's just kind of pointing out that I think it's how our society has progressed into it slowly that has produced that mindset. Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 1:37:11

Do you do you think AI has been a slow burn?

SPEAKER_05 1:37:15

Oh no, I feel like it's moved in way too quickly, yeah, in my opinion. Compared to, yeah, like and I think that is part of the exponential growth of technology, it's almost unavoidable with these things.

SPEAKER_07 1:37:29

But yeah, it's almost scary to me how fast AI is just developing. Yeah, was it three years ago? You'd watch Will Smith eat spaghetti. It was just so ridiculously bad. And now it's like it's you can't tell the difference between real and AI at some types.

SPEAKER_05 1:37:51

Well, I guess that whole Jim Carrey thing that was going all over the internet that was just annoying my news, my trials, it was all like an AI crap or something. Huh. It was like the person or something about the person who was supposed to be impersonating Jim Carrey was an AI well was an AI generated person themselves or something. It's like it's like an inception style hole that you I didn't want to dive down it, but my my Instagram reels force me to, I guess.

SPEAKER_11 1:38:23

Yeah, I'm not I'm not gonna flat out say AI is evil, but I'm I'm kind of on the side that it's gonna be the destruction of mankind just because of all the virtual girlfriends that are made, and how there are men out there who would rather spend time with their computer girlfriend and not go out, and that's how we're all gonna be neutered.

SPEAKER_05 1:38:46

That was uh Finnerty's wonderful insult towards uh Anita. Yes. She's like, I could make a machine that would do better as a wife for Paul than you, and she just took so much attention.

SPEAKER_11 1:38:57

Ed Finnerty was an interesting character for me because he's the one that kind of introduces like he's the catalyst of opposition. Where you know he had fantastic money, he was a prominent engineer himself, so he was in the upper echelon of the elites, and you know, he gives it up because he was lonely, he was unfulfilled. Like he even talks about how he thought about committing suicide with Paul's gun and then just threw it in the river. It just casually brings it up, which is the dark humor. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:39:29

Exactly.

SPEAKER_11 1:39:30

And so, and he's like the first one to just embrace the idea of a revolution to you know change all this automation. And I think he's the one that put centerfold for me the theme of ease and comfort through automation versus hard work and fulfillment, which is I feel like the big crux that they can meet that this book is trying to explore. So, like, that's what makes this book out I would say a readable book, is that it's enjoyable to see this discussion, to hear these ideas presented in different ways, and to have it be explored. And I felt like it veered ultimately to the side of we need to maintain that hard work and diligence and f and know that life is worth toil and struggle because it brings fulfillment rather than just pursuing comfort and leisure time. Because even with like the shah learning about like all the dishwasher and everything, and he just asks, What like what is she trying to do so?

SPEAKER_10 1:40:41

Yeah, what does she do? She doesn't fold the laundry.

SPEAKER_11 1:40:43

Yeah, that she doesn't fold the laundry now. Like that that could be seen as sexist nowadays, but this was written in what you said, the the 50s?

SPEAKER_02 1:40:51

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_11 1:40:52

And he's just saying, like, why is she trying to be so fast? What's she gonna do with all that free time? And they're like at a loss to explain. Now she can do whatever.

SPEAKER_07 1:41:01

Yeah, talking about watching watching TV.

SPEAKER_05 1:41:04

One of my all-time favorite uh Futurama jokes is when uh Fry thinks he's a robot, and and uh Leela's like, I'm gonna remind him of his human humanity only the way a woman can. And the professor is like, You're going to fold his laundry, and Amy slaps him. It's like I I've noticed more now than ever how like how many sexist jokes come around the professor. It's so funny.

SPEAKER_07 1:41:43

But yes, that's funny.

SPEAKER_05 1:41:44

Uh I uh I going on top of that, the character Bud, he was a really enthusiastic character. I wish we had more of because he uh Paul talks about how he gave him the task of inventing a way for a cat to be able to detect rodents using like an attached apparatus. And he literally like designed it in his free time, and then the very next time you meet Bud, he's he's out of his job because a machine he designed took his job. But then it's it's interesting because despite that, and he even it becomes a part of the revolution, at the end of the book, he is then repairing machines that people use for automation, like that that they talk about the drink machine that everyone is going to, and the idea that, like, you know, even though they've rebelled and they talk about like literally going to like almost no machines, like back to farm work and and hard labor, they talk about how the automation is almost inevitable. Like it's it's literally going to happen just because that's what humans do.

SPEAKER_07 1:42:46

That was one of the more funnier things in the book for me was the drink machines, how one of them has the orange soda that nobody likes, but except like the CEO of the company or something like that.

SPEAKER_05 1:43:03

So they're going to drink it because that's what they got. Exactly. Oh, yeah. It it is a fascinating dialogue, and I I do think it has merit in in how it views things. Obviously, it I mean it has its sh shortfallings where I think he doesn't get everything right, but in terms of like things like that, yeah. I I can totally see, you know, there's just been a revolution, and all we have is, you know, Diet Dr. Pepper. You know, people are gonna light up to drink Diet Dr. Pepper as long as it's dispensed.

SPEAKER_07 1:43:43

Yeah. I mean, talk about like um some of the things I struggled with. What did you guys think of the Shah and kind of his uh involvement in the book?

SPEAKER_11 1:43:57

I I can see the reason why he was there. He he was a great conduit to explain more of the world building and how this country was functioning.

SPEAKER_05 1:44:08

From a perspective who it like of a society that had to be completely devoid of automation. Yeah.

SPEAKER_11 1:44:14

Yeah, and he's like, you know, like we brought up, what does the woman do? Like, why is he he's he's kind of also that voice of reason that Kurt wants you to hear that, or he wants you to ask those questions with all this stuff. Well, he doesn't want you to be sexist. Or who knows, maybe Kurt does, but he wants you to ask, like, what are we what are we trying to do with all this free time we're trying to amass?

SPEAKER_05 1:44:34

Taken within the context of the thing.

SPEAKER_11 1:44:37

What are we trying to do with all this free time we're trying to amass? Like, is it really worth it if all we do is just sit around and be comfortable? Yeah, like so. I I get the reason, the Shah. But those chapters, where it was the Shah, is the most I tuned out my first one, Sydney, with the audiobook.

SPEAKER_10 1:44:58

There a lot of the humor was in the shah part for me with all his translations and calling everyone slaves. Yeah, no tokaru.

SPEAKER_07 1:45:12

Yeah, that was funny. And I do the the barbershop scene, which I do feel like he missed out on a like a really funny to make it even funnier. Um I do feel like that was pretty funny, where the barber just goes on this tangent, he's just talking to the shop. Like, you know, oh yeah, back back in the war, like yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:45:38

That that is one thing I absolutely loved about the book was the just variety of characters. I I will say he Kurt Vonnegut does a fantastic job at just popping in these random characters who seem so vastly different. Like I want to just I want to touch on the character descriptions real quick. Um quote, but like like with the barber, I think I think I have found those. Alright. So this is oh, so when Paul's at the retreat, uh the meadows.

SPEAKER_11 1:46:14

Which was also pretty pretty hilarious. Yeah, I think that was Kurt Vonnegut's way of saying how much he hates those kind of things.

SPEAKER_05 1:46:22

Have either of you worked for like a big corporate company? Like I electrician isn't quite like awful. You never like to do it.

SPEAKER_11 1:46:29

My dad is a mechanical engineer, and his company would have work parties, not a week retreat like that, where it was that extensive, but I remember those work parties being awesome because they gave out prizes all the time. They had booths with stand with prizes for all the kids, and you know, I could play them as many times as I want. I came back with so much cool new junk to play with, and they had like dozens of inflatables, like opselcourses, slides just on a ranch somewhere. It was so much fun. I remember always looking forward to it every year until they stopped. So, like, heck, I don't even know if my dad talked to any of his co-workers there for all I know. But I was too distracted with all the cool stuff to do.

SPEAKER_05 1:47:10

I've I've lived in both worlds where I I've had the corporate experience and like the small business experience. Um, but it is it is, and Kurt, I think, said this in like uh some kind of di discussion at one point in it at the end of the book. Uh there's like a little dialogue about him, but like somebody gives us a bunch of stories about Kurt Vonnegut. But he talks about how the ceremonies were almost cultish in a way, and you can see that a lot in in how he presents the ones in this book.

SPEAKER_07 1:47:41

You know what his where he worked before he became an author? He worked for GE.

SPEAKER_05 1:47:46

No way.

SPEAKER_07 1:47:47

Oh my gosh, he would have he was the public relations manager. Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_11 1:47:52

Oh man. There you go. Okay, I can see I can see his viewpoint.

SPEAKER_07 1:47:57

I thought that was interesting for sure.

SPEAKER_05 1:48:00

So it and I'm leading up to these character descriptions of how much I just absolutely love his the way he wrote these up wrote these out. But the Master of Ceremonies at the work uh conference, he says, a fat red old man with breasts like a woman, sticking through his wet t-shirt, thrust a songbook into his hands. I could picture that. That is a well-written description. And then you got the shaw, the shaw of Brat Brat Bradipura, Brat Bradipur, whatever that is. Spiritual leader of six million members of the Kohiri sect, wizened and wise, dark as cocoa, encrusted with gold, brocade, and constellations of twinkling gems sink deep into his royal blue blue cushions of the limousine like a priceless brooch in its gift box. I mean, can't you just picture? Those are just fantastic. I would love to write character descriptions like that.

SPEAKER_11 1:49:02

I do have to agree that Kurt did a great job with his descriptions and his metaphors to where I was like, oh, because like when he described Kroner, he took very good care of his engineers. He took a like a breeder's interest into their lineage, which did a great job of just like showing how invested he was, but also kind of how creepy Kroner was as a boss. Wow. And the fact that he has them all call him dad and his wife mom, that made me feel so uncomfortable, dude. Kroner creeped me out, and I just hated Bear, just always sagging along. He's like, he's like an introvert's worst nightmare.

SPEAKER_05 1:49:42

There is always someone in a company like Bear and like Shepard.

unknown 1:49:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:49:48

And I just want to say how much I I mean, I've every single company I've worked with, I have known somebody who's like Shepard, and it's just like I absolutely hate them, and it's just like you know, this is that. Person.

SPEAKER_11 1:50:01

Yeah, tell tell our viewers, tell our viewers and listeners more about Shepard. We haven't really described him or talked about him. I mentioned how like he's just hanging around Paul's wife, and I'm like, dude, the sides are obvious. Shepard's a snake. We know that. Oh, total snake. Like even from the beginning, he's kind of trying to get it.

SPEAKER_05 1:50:19

You know, Paul's John to get worked with someone like this. He had to have written somebody like this in the book. Shepard.

SPEAKER_11 1:50:28

So he's basically the tier below Paul who Yeah, but he was also like one of the beginning, like the prominent engineers, because wasn't it Finnerty, Paul, and Shepard? Yeah. Who were like rising up together? So the fact Paul beat out.

SPEAKER_05 1:50:42

Well, Finnerty kind of beat them all out because he went to Washington. Paul, he's running Ilium, and Shepard's kind of right below him. And you just see like everything Shepard does is to irk Paul. You know, like when he's when he's out exercising while Paul is taking Anita to the farm, and Anita's like, hey, Shepard's exercising. And Anita goes on about how she helped Shepard pack his socks. Who is this guy?

SPEAKER_11 1:51:10

Yeah, he is this guy. Just going to another person's wife just to pack some socks.

unknown 1:51:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_11 1:51:18

Oh my gosh. If Paul were a real person, I wanted to grab him by the lapels and just be like, Are you blind?

SPEAKER_07 1:51:27

Well, that's the thing. I don't think he was blind. I think he just didn't care. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_11 1:51:31

You're you're probably now that you brought up the whole like, you know, just the automated, I love you, Anita.

SPEAKER_07 1:51:37

Yeah, and like, you know, like how he confessed that he slept with the that girl at the bar. You know, he's just like, I blacked out, and then he's like, I slept with her. And then Anita's just not even upset about that. She's more upset. Did anybody see you with her?

SPEAKER_00 1:51:56

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_07 1:51:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:51:58

Oh, dang.

SPEAKER_07 1:52:00

So crazy. Yeah, like I think Paul at that point was just kind of like, have you guys seen office space?

SPEAKER_05 1:52:08

Yes, yes, office space.

SPEAKER_07 1:52:10

You know, the main character now when he can't he reach the breaking point and he just shows up and work in like shorts and sandals.

SPEAKER_05 1:52:18

That movie is like the corporate right there. Yeah. I can't tell you how many times I've been like wanting to do that. Everything.

SPEAKER_07 1:52:27

It's such a good movie. But it reminded me of Paul in a lot of ways, the main character. Because he gets a big promotion, right? In office space. Yeah, so the main character, they're they're um being audited from inside the company. They send these two guys to kind of interview everybody and downsize. Oh my gosh. And so the main character at this point is just giving up. He shows up to work whenever he wants, doesn't do anything, and he goes in the meeting with those two guys, and they're like, So tell us about yourself. He's like, you know what? I don't really care to be here.

SPEAKER_05 1:53:06

But pretty much walks out on him or something, and they're like impressed by his apathy, basically ends up promoting him into like a high-paid position.

SPEAKER_07 1:53:18

They give him a promotion because they were so impressed by him. He just doesn't care. We love his moxie. Yeah, and that's that's what I kind of related to Paul. Uh-huh. You know, we that is a great, great reason. They like, you know, later on in the book, when they're like, Oh, we're gonna fire you so you can infiltrate the ghost shirts. And he's like, you know what? I quit. They're like, yeah, we need that. Which I thought was pretty hilarious.

SPEAKER_00 1:53:49

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_11 1:53:49

See, I wasn't thinking of that. My problem was since we read Red Rising before this, and I started reading Golden Sun and Morningstar after this. As soon as I heard, like, yeah, we want yeah, we want you to infiltrate the Ghost Shirt Society. I'm like, I've read this, it's better. Darrow is the one going to do. Like, I've read a better version of this. I want to go to that. So it did kind of hamper my experience of this book that. So blame Pierce Brown.

SPEAKER_07 1:54:21

But it it's funny because Paul goes to the ghost shirts and they he doesn't do anything.

SPEAKER_05 1:54:28

No, he does they automate his part in the revolution.

SPEAKER_07 1:54:32

So he it's funny, he's just kind of like bouncing around. Yeah, and he's just there. He's like the main guy that they're using, but he just doesn't do anything for either group. But they both use him as like, you know, the means to an end to fulfill their purpose and everything, which is which is pretty funny.

SPEAKER_05 1:54:56

Yeah, that totally makes sense. And really, that is the there are so many small like inserts of the theme of automation in the book. And I I haven't I honestly didn't notice most of these that you're bringing up, like the the inserting into the co-shirts thing, and how even even Paul's process in that was automated, and and it's just like yeah, that is it is a part of human nature to essentially make things easier and produce more in the in the same process or produce what we need, and that that's kind of the nature we fall into no matter what, and even then when Paul is trying to get away from it, he still kind of finds himself being put right back into it.

SPEAKER_07 1:55:44

Yeah, it's like inescapable, and you know, like that's kind of how the book ends. On somewhat of a bleak note, like the rebellion just fails completely, yeah.

SPEAKER_11 1:55:57

It like sparks and then just fizzles. Yeah, yeah, that's like what I meant at the beginning, where like it does get action-packed, but it is it's like a musket. It happens. They're like, yeah, we're doing this, and then just they're they're done.

SPEAKER_07 1:56:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_11 1:56:13

And they're like, yeah, like you said, they're in front of a drink machine now, trying to get the orange drink that no one wants.

SPEAKER_07 1:56:20

Yeah. But for me, like, I feel like the most important part was the courtroom scene with Paul, and I feel like that's where he showed you know, actual, you know, motivation to actually do something. And so yeah, it's just interesting because like he's he's in the courtroom scene telling like what he thinks, you know, saying, you know, the the people are should should be the ones that decide what happens with these machines. Like they the machines have ruined our opportunity to for the pursuit of happiness, you know, the whole purpose of it.

SPEAKER_05 1:56:58

He's hooked up to the lie detector, right? And yeah, that becomes part of the issue in the in the within the courtroom scene.

SPEAKER_07 1:57:05

We have to do the test for it, but yeah, and then the ghost shirts just kind of break them out in the middle of the whole process.

SPEAKER_05 1:57:14

Yeah, and well, it it's interesting with the fact that he says or the things he's saying are true or coming out as truth within the lie detector, right?

SPEAKER_07 1:57:24

But it also is funny because it detects half truths, which is funny.

SPEAKER_05 1:57:30

When he's uncertain of something, yeah.

SPEAKER_07 1:57:32

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:57:33

And and that really is, I think, the great message coming from this is we we should be able to make our decisions in regards to our um destiny, right? Where I mean you can choose to sit on your butt and kind of live off of I guess the the labors of others, uh, and that's your choice. And obviously that'll get you somewhere, but when you choose to produce and create and actually benefit, there there are you know ways of kind of uh what do you call it, just the karma that kind of come back. And I but again, the more choices we can make, then the more ability and the more things we produce that help us to make even more choices, and and that's a huge part of agency, right? And the the more choices we have, the more we have agency, and the more we can choose our destinies. The more and and the warning is the more choices we give to machines, which is the whole like there's the big machine that is essentially making all the choices for society, saying, Okay, we need to produce this many crops and this this much of this machine and this part for society. The more choices we give to machines, the fewer choices we can make for ourselves, and the more confined and controlled then we become. And so, in the end, really, I think the great message from the book is we should be able to have choices, even if that is to be able to automate certain things, which in a way kind of can lead to a downfall, but it's like with caution. Yeah, does that make sense?

SPEAKER_07 1:59:11

Yeah, yeah, which I I think Kurt Vonnegut does a good job at kind of leaving it open-ended, where you know, you can kind of decide what you want with the the message of it. Yeah. Um, yeah, whether automation bad or automation good, you know, it's not there's not really a right or wrong answer with this because we can all agree some automation in our lives has been amazing. It has allowed us to have more time with our family, have luxuries in our life, but you know, just like with everything, finding that balance in life, you need to find that balance.

SPEAKER_05 1:59:51

Oh, yeah. One thing I wanted to touch on with you guys is some uh comparisons. Did you have anything else you want to say about? No. Okay. No, but I I I totally agree with that, Greg. I like your idea on that. Um, one thing I want to touch on is some of the comparisons to like other media and where you kind of find similar messages. And again, I'll I'll touch on Futurama. One, because I've been I have been currently re-watching it for the unt time, but hey, that's not a waste of time. It is a fantastic show. The newer seasons, newer episodes, not so much. There, there, there's some cleverness in there, but not quite like bad in the old ones. But I just want to say Futurama gets so many things right in terms of what it's predicting for the future. I totally see it's the creators of the Simpsons, which we all know the predictions Simpsons have done. Drew that, yeah. And we are pretty much already to the point where I think our robots will be like the Bender robots, where they have they have duties, they have programs, but we're not gonna create these thoughtless machines. I mean, we already have personality, but we're gonna have, you know. I'm gonna make my own theme park with blackjack and hookers. Forget alcoholics. Forget theme park. It's like, yeah, you know, we'll we will build machines after our image.

SPEAKER_10 2:01:25

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. And it's already kind of had a lot of people.

SPEAKER_07 2:01:30

And even our flaws and vices will show, yeah. I don't know if you guys have seen some of the AI they've produced, but they are like specifically meant to be human-like, where people get attached to it.

SPEAKER_04 2:01:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 2:01:46

And like they'll go to this AI engine and they'll talk to it, and it talks to them like a human, and it will console them, and and people are like losing their minds talking to this AI thinking, they're like falling in love with it. Yeah, yeah, that's what makes it so scary.

SPEAKER_05 2:02:04

That's why I think it's the downfall of man. Oh, yeah. So there's uh falling on on top of that, Derek, episode of Futurama where Fry wants a girlfriend, and they're like, why don't you just or he wants he's like, Oh man, I wish I could, you know, just pick a celebrity for my time. And and they're like, Why don't you just do that? You can. They hop on the internet, go to uh what is it, the napster or something. The napster of like rope of celebrities, and it's basically uh there's just such a fantastic show. That the amount of like avenues they go for jokes is just so good. But the he goes to a uh build a robot of Lucy Lou, ends up falling in love with this robot, and I just love how the professor always has on hand like these little documentaries about things, and it's like why you shouldn't date robots. Right? Yeah, it's exactly what you're saying about how the I the the taboo of dating robots basically came on because people were dating robots and not actually dating each other and not producing babies, and then humanity essentially collapsed. And and it's interesting how much of s modern science is kind of toying with the idea of artificial wombs and artificial um what do you what do you gestation uh with with ov um with eggs and and uh tur basically turning those into babies in in an artificial womb and growing babies in a in a artificial egg basically, which I again I don't know if that even ever could happen, let alone you know who knows where the ethics where that will end up in the next 20 to 15 years, considering how we are as a society and and everything right now, but it it it is a point where we have to be like say almost no entirely to certain things just to even avoid going in that direction. And that is the that is the big danger with AI, right? Like as much as you even use it and how much of a convenience it is, at what point do we say absolutely no, stop here, because going too far in that direction with AI is going to basically destroy us, right? Yeah, where do we put that block? That's that's kind of the hard thing to decide.

SPEAKER_07 2:04:41

It's scary because I feel like it's snowball that has gotten out of control and there's no stopping it. I agree. Keep snowballing and snowballing, and it's at the point where it's it we can't stop it anymore. My the only hope I had was in Elon Musk stopping it. He's he's joined the team when he's in too deep, man.

SPEAKER_11 2:05:06

Yeah, yeah, like I think this book kind of brings to light the argument of technology and advancement doesn't ultimately bring happiness because America right now is kind of one of the leading like factors, not factors, but like they have like the highest rising of mental illness and depression and everything. Whereas a lot of my friends who have gone like to Thailand or you know on those Peace Corps trips to help out, humanitarian efforts, and they talk to these people and they like hear, wait, what's suicide? And or I'm sorry, I'm probably not allowed to say that. What's uh deleting yourself? And there's like, wait, there's a condition where you're so sad that you just quit at life, like that never happened, like what and they're living in shanties and shacks and living off of farmland, and you know, they're they're happier, so it's like having all the comforts in the world doesn't bring happiness, and it's just really interesting because he touches on that in this book so much, and I think it's something like we said at the beginning, I think the current generation needs to read this book, but they're not going to, yeah, because like the audiobook is probably their only chance, because not very many people like to sit down and read. It's not like we have the time to read, because you know, we're trying to free up that time for leisure time. But here's another argument I like to make to Kurt when you have more getting done with automation, you still don't get free time because people expect you to do more since, like, okay, because now that we have instant messaging and emails, and all the time, people are expecting answers to your office questions or to our like project manager and stuff, they expect answers from us just instantaneously. And it's like, great, I got this new machine. Like, with the excavator, we can now dig so much more, so we should be able to like get more work done faster. No, we can work faster and get more done, which you initially probably thought, cool, now we can do a day's work in four hours and set up eight. No, you're just you're still gonna work eight, you're just gonna get more done in that eight now. So, like all this automation, I don't think will give everyone free time, it's just gonna expect more out of everyone, which is kind of bleak in my outlook of it, which makes me kind of sad, where it's like, yeah, let's innovate, but can we innovate to where we're not expected to just have way more responsibility and stuff? I don't know.

SPEAKER_05 2:07:36

Maybe that's the laziness in me talking and yeah, I want to be sitting with Do you guys know what the what is considered the happiest profession with the people who reportedly are the most happy? Oh no. Tell me. It is farmers, which is kind of crazy that you know Paul, he that's kind of what he ends up wanting to do, right? He wants to go to a farm.

SPEAKER_11 2:07:58

And he buys that farm.

SPEAKER_05 2:07:59

Yeah, he buys a run-down farm where he literally will have to be the one to engage in the labor. And I mean, it makes sense because they are producing something almost constantly. And it my wife will always talk to me when because sometimes I'll be like, Should we just go live on a farm somewhere? And she'll be like, Oh, your wife too? And she'll be like, you know, but what about all the trials and the hard times and the droughts and the lack of water?

SPEAKER_09 2:08:27

Yeah, that's scary.

SPEAKER_05 2:08:28

That is scary, but then how they are still the happiest people in their professions, so it is saying something when you are able to actually engage in producing and building something and um building something up and producing something even for for society in your community. So uh, but on top of that, you know, like the most unhappy professions are the office workers, right? Yeah, yeah, people stuck in the cubicle and and secluded from basically sunlight and everything else in society. So it is a comp quite a contrast between those two careers, and it goes to show really the importance of having something in your life to produce, whether that be writing, right? Because you were talking about how if you did leave electrician and were able to write, you'd still be producing something. And hopefully, you know, we don't get to the point in Kurt Vonnegut's society where writing is so regulated, even though, you know, to a point, you know, yeah, we're gonna head in that direction with all the banned books that we have. The S-word or the R words on online. Um what's the S word? Deleting yourself. Oh, what I said. Ah, I'm so sorry. Okay. I was trying to avoid like this.

SPEAKER_11 2:09:49

Is this stupid? We could say stupid.

SPEAKER_10 2:09:53

Yeah, I guess we'll have to edit out mine.

SPEAKER_05 2:09:57

But yeah, when you can produce something, and and that is really the importance of being able to produce and not be in a stagnant mindset, because when you get when you get into that stagnation of just being a part of the automation, that is where a lot of depression can set in and a lot of um I don't want to say mental illness, but just mental ailments. And I've noticed that in myself too. The times I'm because I I have a very contrasting job where I am either in the out there in the mountains hiking through the wilderness for days on end, for months, or I'm stuck in an office typing at a computer, and my mental health between those changes drastically. When I'm in the wilderness having almost no cell phone service, I become a completely different person. My wife notices it too. She's like, you're happier, you're more energetic, you look healthier, you're more like motivated to do things, and then when I'm in the office, I'm like miserable, I become grumpy, and so it does make a huge difference. And and that's one reason why I've been trying to like I've I've been I've been one of those people that talks about my lifestyle to everyone. Trying to decentralize. I've literally been putting a notebook in almost everything. Like, I have a notebook in my wallet, I have a notebook I carry around in my pocket, trying to just get away from my phone. It's so, and even then be writing something out. I've seen the difference. Writing something out versus typing it or even dictating it on the phone is a huge difference. Like it is mentally a huge difference. I retain it so much better when I write it out.

SPEAKER_07 2:11:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 2:11:41

And so again, it's easy even producing something so small. We kind of go back to Alvin, right? In in the Tales of Alvin Maker, how to stave off the unmaker, he needs to make something, even if it's like a little bread basket. Yeah. And that's that's kind of my way of like, yeah. I'm I'm making I Do a little doodle making my little gas basket. I'm staving off the unmaker in my yeah.

SPEAKER_07 2:12:06

Um, yeah, I mean, I feel like we gotta wrap this up a bit. We've been going for a while. Um, one last thing I'll just quickly touch on, which in the book, the everybody's given like a government stipend. Um, essentially like a universal basic income. Which is a pretty oh that's what you meant. Yeah, UBI. So, which is from the last um, you know, last presidential race with uh Andrew Yin, that became more of a hot topic. I did a little deep dive into kind of learning more about it. You know, like on paper, I guess I should preface it with like, you know, we're we're LDS. We believe in welfare. Our church, I think it was like one point or two point five billion dollars worth of welfare. We believe in welfare to get you back on yes, mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_11 2:13:11

Like we believe in helping, you know, your fellow man, and you know, not to support we it's support life, but not lifestyle. Yeah. So if you want a lifestyle, you have to go and pursue it. But we want to help our fellow man stay on their feet and be able to get to a position where they can pursue the lifestyle they want.

SPEAKER_07 2:13:30

Exactly. Yeah, yeah. So just what I'm saying is like we it's not like we're against welfare or anything like that. So like UBI on paper, and this is the thing, is it's even with economists, like it's just not known enough what would happen with UBI. Um, whether from the little experiments they've done, it's gone well. People have shown more initiative initiative than they initially thought, that you know, they were thinking that people would just use that money and squander it on like drugs or alcohol or tobacco, but it actually shown that people used it for essentials, and then they interesting it allowed them to you to pursue other avenues. But these are were very small experiments, um definitely different on a large scale. So yeah, it's it's a tough thing. It's it's something I'm learning more about it has put me a little bit more on the fence with it, but I'm still there's always part of me that just does not trust the government to do anything correctly. And so that would be my only holdup because really, like whenever someone gives you, let's say, when somebody gives you money, they a lot of times have power over you.

SPEAKER_05 2:15:05

There's an expectation, yeah, even unsaid, yeah, for sure.

SPEAKER_07 2:15:11

Yeah. And I mean, you see that with with government all the time, you know. Anytime there's a handout, there's always something tied to it in a way. So, yeah, that that was just something in interesting that you know, yeah. We don't have to go too much.

SPEAKER_05 2:15:29

I really haven't dived into it too much myself, but I've usually been on the fence of uh, you know, pull yourself up by your britches, get off your butt.

SPEAKER_11 2:15:38

Yeah, I I'm a big believer of you are the master of your own destiny, but it it's not bad to seek help when you need it. And you know, the the church, like I don't know all the facts of figures, and I want to be speak as a representative for them, but they are glad to help us. They that's a big reason why we give our tithing, and no one's judging you for it and everything. Because I know if I were in that state, like first off, the reason I work so hard is because I never want to be there, it terrifies me. But that's because that's a personal pride issue, and pride is a sin. If you're ever in that situation, you are not a bad person, it is not a sin to mess up in life to where you get to that point where you need help. But the reason that I I I think it's so nice to know that that is an option, it does make the future a lot less bleak. Yeah. To know that, you know, as a last resort, I can I can seek for help for a short time to get back up on my feet.

SPEAKER_07 2:16:47

Well, just a point on universal basic income. It not isn't necessarily, I guess, it would take over for welfare, but it is more so like a necessity for people losing their jobs and their professions. So it's it's almost like it's you have to have it. Just like in the book, like all the jobs take job placed, yeah, they had to incorporate this universal basic income. So yeah, you know, even still, like it's it's something that there's just yeah, who knows what would happen with it.

SPEAKER_05 2:17:29

It is it is hard when it comes to figuring out how you would regulate it and how even then what controls could be put into place to prevent it from going out of control. And I I totally agree with you, Derek. Like I I've been in that situation where I lost my job, and and yeah, I was like, oh man, how am I gonna feed my family? How am I gonna keep my home? And having and the church was there as like a backup for me, but luckily I had enough family and people around me to help out.

SPEAKER_11 2:17:57

Which is what the church recommends you turn to first.

SPEAKER_05 2:17:59

Exactly.

SPEAKER_11 2:18:00

Which because yeah, if you are gonna be indebted to someone, I'd rather be indebted to my family because the family is the most important.

SPEAKER_05 2:18:07

That's really why I think UBI works on smaller scales, is and that's that's even shown with like uh like uh holding everything common, uh, not so much communist, but like everyone sharing things in in in it's like the socialist paradise mindset without the mindless, you know, acceptance of the government's laws and regulations that communism kind of requires. It's more like you know, you can pick fruit off my tree, I can get eggs from your chickens kind of thing. That works in a small community because everyone can be close-knit like that. You can trust each other. Um, but then of course, introducing any kind of foreign aspect into it that can cause disruption. And so not saying, you know, or it's more so things can't integrate well.

SPEAKER_07 2:18:56

Well, it's um I'm going to take your eggs and I'll give you some fruit, even though you don't need that fruit.

SPEAKER_05 2:19:05

That's kind of where you know communism loses that Zionistic or I need eggs, but I don't produce any fruit, so I'm just gonna take your eggs. Yeah. Yeah. So it there's there's definitely a balance to it. I think the again the one reason I have become very focused on trying to decentralize is trying to go back to that community aspect to kind of interact with people more. You know, uh we were we were just talking about how we were struggling to plan this a little bit because of the the text aspect and me trying to communicate how to how I was planning the outline wasn't coming across very well because it was in text form. But then of course, when I get an actual person-to-person talking, it comes out so much clearer. Uh well, at least partially clearer, because I I tend to ramble on about all kinds of things, but um it yeah, I think there is importance to community, and and I I guess we can dive into the rating of this book now that we've uh kind of I feel like we've touched on everything.

SPEAKER_07 2:20:10

Oh yeah, yeah, I feel like we've the overall theme, I've hit it all my points.

SPEAKER_05 2:20:16

Yeah, I I want to say I this book has kind of opened up for me um talking with you guys. I my initial and and and again, the that is the importance of this book, generate discussion on this topic, to to get everyone thinking about it, what we're doing, where we're going.

SPEAKER_07 2:20:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 2:20:38

I originally was gonna give this a six, um, but honestly, I will I think I'm gonna bump it up to a seven because of how important I see it is. I don't think I'm ever really gonna go back to it. I've read it, it's kind of like George Orwell, 1984. I don't really have a desire to go back to 1984.

SPEAKER_07 2:20:56

Oh, I go back to that. It's intense. That's a horror story to me. So I go back to it like every Halloween.

SPEAKER_05 2:21:03

Yeah, it's it's beyond spooky. For me, no, no, it's a great one. I I would read, I would read it again, but um, not one I'm like think usually thinking about going back to, but yeah, definitely a seventh. It's well written. The character descriptions to me are absolutely fantastic. I think I'm gonna at least go back to the book for references on how to write my character descriptions because I think they were fantastic, but um it it does leave a lot desiring, and I think being Kurt Vonnegut's first book, it you know kind of shows off some of those weaknesses of a first book.

SPEAKER_11 2:21:42

But there are worse first books out there, like I think he did a pretty good job of jumping into the fray, for sure, throwing his hat in the ring, for sure.

SPEAKER_05 2:21:51

Yeah, yeah, definitely, definitely like I said, I can't, I can't I can go on and on about the character descriptions, but solid seven for me, definitely upgraded because of the conversation.

SPEAKER_11 2:22:03

You know, that's really funny because I was like in the same position. I was like, I'm gonna give this a solid six. But after talking about with you guys, especially with Greg showing like the the subtleness of the automation just taking over, I didn't see that. And now I'm like, oh my gosh, Kurt Vonnegut's actually kind of low-key genius for doing it that way. And there's a reason he's one of them names and has those one of them names, you know, them all them books that I was like, uh we're talking about you guys and having these new insights and just being like, wow, I did not notice that. And yes, the descriptions are very great. He does do a pretty good job there, and knowing that there is satirical humor in there now, and I can see them now, yeah. I bumped it up to a seven as well. So that's that's fine. We're too like-minded. Hot take was terrible, ratings terrible. Greg, uh, be the outlier.

SPEAKER_07 2:23:06

Yeah, you know, well, I I'm gonna stick with my original rating. Um since, you know, I brought all the insights that improved it for you guys. No, but um good job. I do think it is well written. I think it's the struggle through this was solely just not kind of my book, not my genre. Um, you know, one that I struggle with a little bit. So uh that considered, I'm gonna go 7.6, 7.6. Oh I don't even know what that means. I'm too old for that, but whatever. No one knows what it means.

SPEAKER_05 2:23:49

This is generation 21, 69, yeah.

SPEAKER_07 2:23:53

Um 69's got a medium.

SPEAKER_11 2:23:56

69's universal. And the 21 actually has some context to it.

SPEAKER_07 2:24:00

21 41. 41 years. Was that your guys' audiobook? The train conductor guy that's like, I was a train conductor for 41.

SPEAKER_00 2:24:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 2:24:16

I think we I think we should all should have had the same audio book.

SPEAKER_00 2:24:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 2:24:22

But anyways, yeah, I think it's more so just a conduit for a great discussion. Oh, yeah. Um, but well written, like I said, so that's where I'm at. Seven six. Or six, seven.

SPEAKER_04 2:24:40

Not bad.

SPEAKER_07 2:24:43

That's that's my that's my biggest dyslexia is six and seven.

SPEAKER_11 2:24:49

You know what we should do? We should uh do a brain rock, Magic of the Gathering battle, where we just try to get all the six, seven creatures out that we can.

SPEAKER_10 2:24:59

Or all the calendars of me to put six counters on this one. That's people to numbers. No, it's a six-seven.

SPEAKER_11 2:25:08

Actually, I think the command zone might have done a short on that. It's pretty intense.

SPEAKER_07 2:25:14

Sweet. So yeah, that was player piano. Uh, who's got our next pick? Is that Derek?

SPEAKER_11 2:25:21

That is me, yes. Um, yeah. Just trying to figure out where we go here. Like I said, I've also been reading Golden Sun and Morning Star, and that's a big reason why I rated this book solo because it was just I saw it more as a distraction from getting to what I wanted to get to at first. But um, I would I did see us get a recommendation in one of our videos. Yes, so I would like to show that we do read our comments and we listen to our viewers, and it was a pretty solid recommendation. The Princess Bride. I would love to read that, and we can go into some nice, comfortable, whimsical fantasy. We need a we need a cleanser. Yes, I want a cleanser and I want and I want something that's going to just just uh highlight the virtues of man and then just have the simple good and evil kind of deal. Fantastic.

SPEAKER_07 2:26:22

Well, that's that's an awesome pick. Um I will say um I don't think we should require it, but I do think we should consider to also read As You Wish. Yeah, Inconceivable Tales from the Making of Princess Pride by the main actor Carrie Elwes. Oh, okay. Is that how you say how are you gonna say it? I want to know now. Ew Wes. Yeah, it's Elwes.

SPEAKER_10 2:26:54

Wesley. I cut you out, I was like, oh, he's got something good. He's gonna mess it up. I better say something.

SPEAKER_07 2:27:00

So I haven't read that, but my mom has recommended that much.

SPEAKER_05 2:27:06

So just the fact that we have the same mom that I haven't heard from other people.

SPEAKER_07 2:27:11

But of course we're gonna be watching the movie as well. Absolutely. Absolutely. If we want to add that to it, I don't think it's too long, so that could be a good little addition to it.

SPEAKER_05 2:27:21

We probably should also watch some psych since Carrie OS does psych as well.

SPEAKER_07 2:27:27

Well, if that's the case, then we should watch. Well, we should watch Saw because he's in Psy.

SPEAKER_10 2:27:35

I didn't know that.

SPEAKER_11 2:27:37

I guess we're all just watching Carrie El West media now.

SPEAKER_05 2:27:41

Sorry, Derek, don't mean to hijack your thing, but we'll actually be reading.

SPEAKER_07 2:27:46

Spoiler alert. He cuts his foot off. Yeah, I'm excited. Princess Bride. Yeah, that's gonna be fun. Good pick, Dick.

SPEAKER_11 2:27:58

Yeah, well, we'll see. I don't know if you guys haven't read it yet, so we'll see. But thank you for the recommendation.

SPEAKER_07 2:28:03

I sure have.

SPEAKER_11 2:28:04

A commenter.

SPEAKER_07 2:28:08

Yep, thanks for the recommendation. Give us more. Tell us what you want us to read. Yep. Please do.

SPEAKER_11 2:28:14

And I know that this sounds uh rote having to tell it, but statistically, you won't hit that like button or subscribe unless we say so, and we could use your support. So please give us a like and subscribe and give us some more book recommendations. We would love to go where you're at and find those hidden gems that we aren't even thinking about.

SPEAKER_07 2:28:36

Yeah, like, comment, subscribe, and share. We're also looking for sponsors or donors, like I've said in in the past. You can reach out to us uh through our email. It's bigrascals.podcast at gmail.com. So, yeah, anything else, guys, before we say goodbye?

SPEAKER_11 2:28:59

No, I think that's big Rascals hopes you've enjoyed this program. Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_07 2:29:07

For a second I thought you were gonna say Pax Autalomonus. Good news, everyone.

unknown 2:29:16

All right.

SPEAKER_07 2:29:17

This has been Big Rascals. Keep reading, keep writing, stay rascally, my friends. Catch you guys later. I think we lost video, but whatever. Bye.