Hans: We rolling? Friends, hello. This is Never Post, a
show for and about the Internet. I am today's host, Hans Buetow,
senior producer of the show. And you, you gruesome crew, you
screwly ghoulies.
It is now September, which means I've basically transitioned into
a whole new season. I am in spooky season now. And when you
last heard from us a week ago, we were still in a chill time
summer zone. We were still nearing the end of our month
long August member drive. And now here we are looking towards
the future that's all spooky and weird, but it's a good time to
reflect.
It's a good time to look backwards. And that's why you
are hearing this special bonus episode right now. During
August, we had set ourselves the goal as a show of getting 200
new members. This is important for us as a milestone on our
path to sustainability. It is not the final milestone by any
but it's a milestone that means that there's a much better
chance that we are going be able to continue making this program
through the spooky season, into the foodie season, into the
holiday season, into wintery season, into the mid wintery
season, etc.
So our goal was 200 members and going into the August, the final
week of our memo drive, we were at an amazing 154 new members.
That's 154 new people who decided to join with us and
participate in our little community. And in the
intervening week since you last heard from us, we added an
incredible 23 new members, including two more gifted
members that were gifted by incredible members of our
community for folks who might not be in a financial situation
to support us right now, but you would still enjoy a membership.
Those are available to you. This is my reminder to you that you
can email us at theneverpostgmail dot com with
the subject line all caps Gift Membership to claim one of
those.
While they last, send us an email. So where are we at at the
August, at the end of our member fundraising? Out of the goal of
200, we are at 177 new members. It's a mere 23 members away from
our goal, which just happens to be the exact amount of new
members who joined us last week. And so we thought to ourselves,
let's keep the fun times going into this new season and extend
the drive one more week in the hopes that we can reach this
goal together of 200 new members and bring this team chat out
from behind the member wall for you all to enjoy.
This is an example of the kind of cool things we put back there
in the members' hands. Stuff like Never Watch, our watch
along podcast where we just, I guess, watch movies from 1995
together with you. You get to watch along with us as we watch
and discover these amazing internet movies from 1995
alongside us. You can listen to Slow Post, which is a show I
make about falling asleep. Really, we read Wikipedia to you
until you doze off gently.
Post from the Field, which is field recordings, extended
segments, which is long versions of stuff that we put in so that
you can get more of that good stuff. So this episode, this
right here, this is a team chat. This is something we recorded
live while we were on Twitch with our pals in the chat during
our member drive stream week a couple of weeks ago. And
remember that twitch.tv/theneverpost is where
you wanna direct yourself if you want to follow us and make sure
you're there the next time we stream a chat like this because,
spoiler, we're gonna stream something like this because it
was so much fun. We will do more of these, and this recording was
so much fun.
We had such a good time. I really hope you enjoy it, and I
hope that it can help us close out our member drive strong. And
you can be the one to help us do that. You can go to neverpo.st
and become a member for a mere $4 a month. That is less than a
pumpkin spice latte, I think.
I'm actually not sure about that, but I'd imagine it had to
be. $4 a month. You can get access to all the fun things
like this and truly and actually meaningfully make it possible
for us to continue to make this program. So enough of me. Let's
get to me and other people talking about cool stuff on the
Internet.
Thanks for being here.
Mike: Friends, hello, and welcome to team chat. Never post
member drive stream week. I'm your host, Mike Rugnetta. And
today, we have gathered an esteemed group of exactly the
people you would expect to discuss. What?
Well, wait one moment, and we'll tell you. First, introductions.
Joining me in order of how much time I think that they have
spent finely honing their craft as a Brooklyn ceramicist.
Georgia: Oh my god.
Hans: Get cooked.
Mike: Ascending. Are Jason Oberholtzer, never post
executive producer.
Jason: Kapow.
Mike: Georgia Hampton, never post producer.
Georgia: You know what? Fair enough. But one day, I'll get
you.
Mike: Hans Buetow, never post senior producer.
Hans: Wow. Honored that I made it this far in the running.
Mike: And Meghal Janardan, friend of the show and famed.
Georgia: Yes.
Mike: Brooklyn Ceramics.
Georgia: Very recently showcased.
Meghal: A little box.
Hans: Mike Mike, where are you on that?
Mike: I mean, I live in Brooklyn. I have never touched
ceramics. Okay. Not even a finished mug.
I just don't I just don't.
Georgia: Touch clay
Mike: Yeah. Ever. Someone tries to hand me a plate, and I just
smack it out of their hand.
Georgia: Get this away from me.
Jason: Yeah. You're telling me you made this out of the ground?
Georgia: Disgusting. Where the worms are?
Jason: What am I? A peasant?
Mike: Okay. What are we here to discuss? Because I think I do
not remember us deciding what it is, but it I think there is
quorum.
Georgia: Yes. There was a decision. There was a decision.
Okay. Megal, I feel like you're the one who should explain.
Yes. It was your idea.
Meghal: The topic for today's team chat is going over a piece
of technology from an old film TV show that you thought would
exist by now.
Jason: Mhmm. The technological promises made by media when we
were growing up
Georgia: Yes.
Jason: And where we are in relation.
Hans: I mean, can I just say the elephant in the room is flying
cars?
Georgia: Well, of course. That's like that's the free space on
the bingo board.
Hans: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Let's just get that out of way.
Mike: I feel like there are two there are two elephants in the
room. Okay. The room is very full because of both of the
elephants.
Hans: The sneakers from, the sneakers from Back to Future
two?
Mike: Sneakers from Back to the what everybody was is
Hans: that the other elephant? That's what we've all been
thinking.
Mike: The one that I always think of, I think of flying cars
first. The other one that I always think of is the matter
replicator from Star Trek.
Georgia: Oh. Oh. Nice. Yeah.
Jason: So was the proposed tech behind this just at a molecular
level, things are things, and if we can reassemble by molecules,
we can make another one of the things exactly.
Mike: Yeah. And, like, there's you know, we figured out such a
way that our raw materials are no longer inextricably linked to
pulling resources out of the ground. Mhmm. We live in a sort
of Mhmm. Free energy post scarcity society such that we
can just make whatever we want.
Yeah. We don't have to worry about, like, running out of
stuff because we figured out how to either endlessly recycle or,
yeah, just like pull the resources needed from the air.
Yep.
Jason: And you at one point thought we might have that by
now.
Mike: Or some version of it. Right? Like, I think three d
printers maybe getting close, but but still very far. But, no,
I feel like there's this is like a pretty common trope in sci fi.
Right?
Like, the matter replicator, the the printer of, I get food, I
get objects that I need, I get tools. Maybe not with the post
scarcity side of it. Yeah. But at the very least, a thing in
your house that, like, gives you the stuff that you need. What do
Hans: you think was the first what was the first example of
that? Do you do you think it was, like, original Star Trek?
They didn't have matter replicators, did they? I think
of it as
Mike: being very much related to the next generation, but I'm
Jason: not sure.
Hans: I mean, that's where I think of it too. It's very much
a next generation thing. But was the nineties the first time we
really conceived of this sort of thing?
Jason: No way. The books have had this before, certainly.
Hans: Yeah. That's true. That's true.
Jason: I'm thinking of one in particular who does Clifford D.
Simak was all over this with, like, the way station sort of
thing, mostly with, people moving and replicating. But he
was, like, you know, sixties, seventies, I think, particularly
obsessed with this. I think the goblin reservation starts off
with the idea that at a molecular level, you can
replicate a living creature. And so that is how they would
travel.
You walked in a door and were replicated molecule by molecule
elsewhere across the galaxy and sort of begins with that
existential question of, like, is that is that Theseus ship
still you?
Mike: Yeah. This is the Derek Parfitt tell tele transporter
problem. We also we cruised through introductions and forgot
to introduce someone.
Jason: That's so true. Best friend.
Mike: Jason's best friend, Chad.
Georgia: Chad is with us.
Mike: Chad is with us. We are recording this team chat segment
with Chad live on Twitch, and Chad is already making some much
needed a plus contributions to the conversation. Scorching Ray
reminds us that fun fact, the food replicator in Star Trek
fueled by poop.
Hans: Really?
Jason: Now I feel more optimistic we might get it.
Georgia: Yeah. Honestly. And
Mike: Hans Peaches and Streams offers that the original Star
Trek could print food. So that poop food?
Jason: Sooner or later, it all is, man.
Hans: Just a sore. You go.
Georgia: Yeah. We're just eating Yep.
Jason: Food off of dirt cups.
Georgia: Makes you nervous. Boy, do I have news for you about
dirt. And what's in there? You're not gonna like it. So
Hans: yeah, we're talking at least in in in in visual science
fiction at least the sixties, if not earlier. I'm guessing
fifties. I'm guessing there's, like, b science fiction movies
all the way back to the thirties. Arthur C.
Jason: Clarke certainly has touched this.
Hans: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And in books and lore. Yeah.
Meghal: Can you describe the matter replicator in you said
Star Trek or Star Wars?
Georgia: Star Trek. Trek.
Meghal: Star Trek. Yeah. For those who are not familiar.
Mike: Basically, like a little box in the wall and you beep
boop beep, like a microwave, some buttons. And then in a
little box, maybe about the size of a little bigger than a bread
box?
Meghal: Like a microwave?
Mike: Yeah. Yeah. Something small. Yeah. Small microwave.
It would just print whatever it is that you beep boop beeped in.
Hans: Oh, okay. So like you
Mike: could get if I remember correctly, you could beep boop
beeping, like, you know, ask for ice cream, but you would also
get the dish that the ice cream comes from. The dish.
Hans: Yeah. And then you put the dish back in and then it matters
Georgia: some away. To me that so many moments like this in
film and TV are in a kitchen.
Meghal: Oh, yeah.
Mike: I think in a way, some version of food printer, in my
mind, has always felt more likely than flying car.
Meghal: Yes.
Mike: Mhmm. Flying car just seems like especially in The
United States, never gonna happen. Yeah. I'd say so. But,
like, food printer feels like something that, like it feels
like it's always just over the horizon.
Hans: Yeah.
Georgia: In the chat, Gadvoir says the kitchen at the center
of technological innovation, which is true. I mean, think of,
like, Hitchhiker's Guide, think Spy Kids has a whole scene in
kitchens where they're, like, creating food. It's sort of, I
don't know. It it's just this ubiquitous concept. I feel like
everyone thinks of that.
Hans: What I find interesting about that, George, is that it's
a in Star Trek, at least, it's actually decentralized. Like,
nothing is a kitchen. Nothing is a dining room. These things just
exist kinda like bathrooms. They just exist somewhere.
Kitchens don't exist in Star Trek. Oh. There's no
Georgia: That's like a thing. Interesting.
Hans: There's no galley.
Mike: There's no like a globe. There's a
Hans: dining cloud, but there's
Mike: no kitchen.
Georgia: Never not working.
Hans: So there is literally no there's, the new Star Trek in
Strange New Worlds, Kirk in the new one, is a renowned cook, and
he, like, grows. You go into his into his quarters, and he's,
like, growing tomatoes and stuff. And then he's, like, got
a whole cooking setup, and it's really everybody's like, this is
Mike: really weird. What are you doing?
Georgia: I see.
Hans: It's almost the thing they've dispensed with being,
like, we don't have to worry about this anymore.
Georgia: Exactly. I think it kinda still comes back to the
kitchen, though. Right? Because Mhmm. If you have this matter
replicator, then you don't need to cook because you can just
make food.
Yeah. So it's like the replacement of the kitchen.
Mike: Yep. People are pointing out in the chat that, like,
there are people who cook for fun.
Hans: Yeah. Which sure. That's true. Did. Cisco's dad was a was
a Cisco in Deep Space Nine.
His dad was a chef. Famed like, a big part of the plot. Yeah.
That's that's
Jason: not true. Neelix? If you were like a soylent enjoyer or
one of the analogs, does this make you feel like we are closer
to this?
Georgia: Yeah. Interesting.
Mike: No. I don't think so.
Jason: Okay. It's not like a step on the direction reducing
nutrition down to its raw material, and then maybe step
two is recombining that into something tasty?
Mike: I'm look I'm, like, looking off screen because I'm
looking at my, like, shake container thinking about this.
No. Because this feels like the milkshake feels really almost
like primitive to me.
Meghal: Yeah.
Georgia: It's a snare. It yeah.
Mike: It's like really is it maybe is an example of some sort
of progress in that over time, they have gotten more
nutritious, less bad for you, like, with slightly better taste
and, like, cheaper to produce. But, like, there is nothing
about them that is approaching the pleasure of, like, eating a
meal. Mhmm. And none of them are are trying to it's all, like,
hyper convenience. Whereas, like, I think of the the idea of
being able to print food as a time saving mechanism in order
to still make something that is desirable in all of the ways
that a cooked meal is desirable.
Meghal: Mike, if you when you watch this, what what is
something that you want, like, when you were young that you
wanted to print immediately?
Mike: All of it. Anything. Give it to me. The treats. I want
hamburgers.
I want
Meghal: Fries. I think.
Mike: I want fries. I want
Georgia: ice always like ice cream and hamburger. Blankets.
Hans: Oh, yes. Coffee.
Mike: Yeah. I wanna print a coffee. To genius.
Hans: I have another thing to nominate
Georgia: Yes.
Hans: For something I expected. I was thinking about this last
night. So as a team, we were collectively watching the 1995
film Virtuosity, and this reminded me of a thing that I
feel like we've been promised at various stages, which is screens
that are huge and actually other things. So, like, a wall that
you suddenly comes becomes a screen. Oh.
Or, like, screens that can come up in various places, like, kind
of the minority report, like, HUD display kind of, but more
like like, back to the future, like, big like, big wall sized
screens somehow.
Mike: That I can put a picture of of, like, a waterfall with a
mountain vista in the background.
Hans: A 100%.
Mike: Yeah. Because I'm trapped in a space station.
Jason: Or like you walk into a rich guy's office, and they
you're in the middle of a a Glenn. You're in the middle of a
beautiful Glenn. And then he says, like, down to business.
Yeah. And the screens that are the office become an office
again.
Georgia: I see. So not quite the the thing where you're, like,
pinching and zooming on these screens that are sort of
floating in the air.
Hans: Right. The the, like, heads up display, the minority
report. I yeah. I think that cannot
Georgia: almost be like a VR space without the pesky need of
wearing goggles.
Jason: Yeah. Just like a a all hardware space, which is
interesting because I think we have sort of jumped it. It's one
of those things that it almost feels like they would assume
when they were coming up with these spaces in, like, the
eighties and nineties that this is obviously what we would like.
And because it's impractical to get to, we kind of jumped over
achieving that reality to things that are arcing more towards the
pinch and zoom of the minority world. You're kinda like,
actually, your wall should just be a wall.
Instead, let's put like AR space around you.
Georgia: The closest thing I can think of that does exist like
this is that some TVs where people will frame them like a
painting Yes. And they'll have like a painting image on it that
looks matte enough to kind of pass if you're not paying
attention, and then it can serve as a TV. But it doesn't have
that scale that it sounds like you want. That I
Hans: feel like we were promised, like, watching last
night, it's like a bunch of huge TVs all put together into like a
grid of six. But like, actually, without the seams in it in a
full like this my whole wall in front of me should just be able
to suddenly go and become video.
Meghal: What's the the place in Vegas? The sphere?
Hans: Yeah. The
Georgia: sphere. God. My hell. So why
Meghal: are you so here?
Georgia: Say you love the sphere now.
Hans: I love the sphere. Please more sphere.
Jason: I did like Tim had the idea in chat of it'd be nice to
have a wall that could change color at a touch. I think that's
a little bit what we're closer to is, like, very specific
digital needs put into something at large scale. So rather than
your wall should be a screen that could do everything every
other screen can do, your wall should have a little bit of
digital component that alters the pigment at will.
Meghal: It's a
Georgia: hue light. Yeah. I mean, that's why everyone has
those. Yeah. The, like, sunset lamps.
Yeah. I guess.
Meghal: It is interesting though how, like, a lot of this
particular type of, like, technology of, a screen that
looks like you're in the mountains is just, like, why not
just go to the mountains? And it just speaks to, like, how we're
stuck in an office. Yeah.
Jason: Mhmm. Well, I think that most of the future is set
forward where you have like the, you know, the rich guy in his
office that's in the picture of the mountains. It seems like the
assumption being made is that there almost aren't any
mountains left or impossible to be there. And so his grand
luxury is he gets to pretend better than you can, that he's
in a place you can no longer really get.
Meghal: Yeah.
Mike: Okay. With that, we are gonna take a quick break, and we
will be right back.
Georgia: So the way I was approaching this question was
less, what I expected to exist and what I hoped would exist.
And there is a difference there, which is that it's less
realistic.
Hans: Okay.
Georgia: And I need you all to understand that.
Jason: Follow your heart.
Georgia: But the first thing I thought of specifically was the
Babelfish. Mhmm. From Hitchhiker's Guide to the
Galaxy. Universal
Mike: translator. Yeah.
Georgia: It's a little gross. I don't know that I'd want it to
literally be this. But if people are not familiar in Hitchhiker's
Guide to the Galaxy, one of the many fun, weird, little techie
things that our protagonist deals with is something called
the babble fish, which is a little fish that you put in your
ear. It like slithers on into your ear, and it live translates
every language for you.
Meghal: I love it.
Mike: I believe in the book, it is described as the oddest thing
in the universe.
Georgia: Yes. Yeah. Yes, it is. And I think that is so fabulous
and genius. And I think it's sort of largely understood
throughout the story that kind of everybody has these because
everyone can understand each other.
It's amazing. Do I want a little creepy fish that slithers into
my brain? Not really. But the the concept of that, I think, is
incredible.
Hans: You know,
Georgia: it's odd
Jason: to me that you described this as unrealistic, that you
make that proviso. I think we're closer to that than anything
else.
Mike: I agree.
Georgia: With sort of. I think there have you tried to do that
thing that Google has where you speak and then it translates and
you show it to someone? Because it's, you know,
Jason: there's Great. Some problems. It's often good and it
exists.
Georgia: It's pretty okay. I've done it. I use it in Korea when
I was staying in an Airbnb. Yeah. I guess you're right.
Hans: Simultaneous interpretation like they have at
The U UN, I think is very, very, very, very close to.
Meghal: I think we are close to it, but at the same time, we're
battling just like the ever growing movement of making
everything the same and like language colonization and we're
losing languages. And the idea of this fish, it's like, it
wouldn't require the loss of languages. We would just be able
to communicate and it almost like promises a type of reality
where we could live in different cultures but still be one
culture at the same time. Whereas, like, yes, we have that
with translation and transcription apps, but it's
it's just different.
Jason: And, well, I think something you're gesturing out
there and something Daniel Jenna Grauss is gesturing at too is
that, like, part of the meaning of language is the meaning of
itself or the meaning that is captured only by its specific
linguistic usage. So a trans will never get that and will
indeed, like, erase parts of it. Sodad should always remain
sodad. And, like, do you put your relative Babelfish's, like,
the language the words that come across without translation or
that need to in some way.
Hans: I think there's an interesting parallel between
this and the and and the nomination of, food replicators.
Right? Because food replicators let you isolate and get one
really specific thing over and over, and it's not dependent on,
oh, I only have these ingredients, so I'll sub them
out, or, oh, I actually live near this grocery store, which
has this thing, and then that's how, like, recipes and food
evolve is by mixing and mingling components. If you can isolate
all the components and you never have to touch, those things will
never touch, then what happens? Yeah.
The process is the point is what people are saying in in in the
friction, is what's being said in in chat.
Georgia: Danielle Jenna Grouse also makes a very interesting
point here saying, it's once again removing the friction we
find annoying dealing with, but which might be where meaning is
produced. Which I think is kind of the the thing to contend with
with all of these ideas. I think with something like the
Babelfish, I'm curious kind of where that friction is making
meaning and where that friction is so insurmountable that it
just is like a brick wall. Like knowing every single language in
the world, for example, versus learning Spanish.
Hans: It's not knowing.
Meghal: Right.
Hans: It's understanding every language in world.
Georgia: Well, sure. But like, this is what I mean is that
there's like, I I'm curious about tech like this in movies
and TV that is supposed to paint with this a massive brush. Being
like, you can do this with every single language immediately,
perfectly.
Hans: I think what's interesting about drawing it from science
fiction is that it actually is solving a different problem.
What it's solving in science fiction is how can we make every
alien race with just regular English speaking actors legible?
Georgia: Yeah. Oh, sure. Yeah. Of course. We have to have this
thing happen.
Like
Hans: That's what it's actually trying to solve. And so anything
that comes anything that comes downstream from that is our,
like, lumping meaning or anticipation onto that.
Mike: Right. I think I think both we in the call and we as,
like, a culture, like a society over the last maybe fifty years
or so, have a hard time thinking about and looking at some of
this technology outside of our own context, especially right
now. And what I mean by especially right now is, like,
we are just learning, like, in this moment to refuse
convenience. Mhmm. Yes.
There there is a lot to be gained by refusing the
convenience that is foisted upon us by often people who profit
from that convenience. They want us to want it so that we give
them money so that we get it. And I think the thing that's
important about the matter, the matter replicator, the
BabelFish, whatever, whatever, like, the BabelFish doesn't come
to your house and put its fingers up your nose and pull
you across the room anytime you try to sit down and learn
Japanese. It just helps you translate things. Yeah.
It's not removing your agency for learning. It's just giving
you an opportunity to not have to learn a language in a
specific point. We, in theory, a user would retain the agency to
continue to learn a language the old fashioned way. But I think
it's hard for us in this moment because we do not yet have the
personal and cultural skills to say, but I to be confident in
saying, but I would refuse the convenience when it was right
to. Yeah.
As an optimist, maybe you would say in the presence of the
existence of this technology, we would be able to learn how to
have that muscle. As a pessimist, you might say, well,
it would just destroy, you know, the uniqueness of culture.
Meghal: That reminds me. One of my favorite sci fi books as a
kid was The Uglies. Okay. The movie's horrible.
Georgia: My god.
Meghal: I really liked it because in this universe, have
the ability to become beautiful. Everyone can go through a
process where they become beautiful, what have you. But as
you read the series, there's resistance movement, where they
cut up their face to have their genetics like come back. And how
like, the convenience or the option to be beautiful actually
Yeah. Takes away, you know, who you are as an individual.
This convenience or this option to be better is actually quite
horrible.
Georgia: I think the limit of a lot of this tech is that, again,
Mike, to your point, we should have some friction in our lives.
Like, we should still want to prioritize that. It should not
be something we just use ubiquitously.
Hans: Yeah. I I really agree with this because I've been
thinking about convenience a lot as being one of the one of the,
like, principal insidious things that is happening to us recently
and thinking about that on a binary with curiosity. And how
do you have convenience without letting it remove curiosity, I
think, is a thing we to Mike's point, don't know how to manage
it.
Mike: We're figuring it out. Think
Hans: Yeah. We're figuring it out. But I think, yeah, for me,
it's you you saying that, Mike, helps me realize that, like, I
don't trust it yet. I don't trust myself to have convenience
and not abandon curiosity.
Mike: You should be from the Northeast. We're really good at
just looking at something that makes our lives easier and
going, no. Thank you. I will choose to labor more and have a
bad time.
Jason: Deeply concerned without that friction ever present, I
won't know why anymore.
Mike: Gadovoir asked, do have a sci fi want for your youth that
is not about more convenience?
Jason: Oh. Yes. Okay. See? Oh, good question.
Mike: So much of the sort of theorizing of these things is
about what makes life easier.
Georgia: I mean, someone else in the chat, it has long since
passed. I'm so sorry. But saying that, you know, sometimes we, as
people, choose the less convenient option and an example
of that being that we refuse mass transit and drive cars.
There's so many shades of gray with this.
Jason: I think the convenience of not having to see strangers
beats the convenience of getting there sooner and easier.
Meghal: Yeah. Yeah.
Georgia: It's a different kind of convenience.
Mike: Yeah. At the risk of opening a can of worms, crisp
cracking sound, and then from the can issues forth a whisper
that goes, Ronald Reagan. Yeah.
Georgia: Down the stream. He's here. He's here.
Mike: In America specifically, it's like from Ronald Reagan
forward like, it was already really bad. But from Ronald
Reagan forward, individualism has just become virulent.
Georgia: Oh, yeah.
Mike: It is, like, pathological to a degree that will be, I
think, impossible to extract from American society in Return.
The next six or seven generations on top of the fact
that America is built for cars. Literally, like, the
infrastructure is made for cars and not people. Like, New York
City is one of the most pedestrian friendly places in
the entirety of The United States, and I still almost get
killed on the walk to the studio multiple times a week by a car.
Meghal: Yeah. I mean, so so that people live in their cars.
Mike: Yeah. Oh my god. So, like, I I think that's the other part
of it is that it's like, there's a real top down kind of power
structure, that both builds the natural environment to force us
into certain things that we then see as convenient. One, because
kind of they are, and two, because we kinda can't see them
any other way, and there's no social pressure to be like, hey.
We should all work together to make things better for
everybody.
It's like, no. My car has air conditioning. And, yeah, I don't
I don't have to see a poor person.
Meghal: Mhmm. Anyone who says, like, if they talk about why
they don't like public transit is always because they don't
like to see unhoused people. And it's like, okay. Great. Yeah.
Mike: That's a problem we can solve. Yeah. Let's just not
let's not build a bomb for one second. But we like for one
second, and we can solve that problem too.
Meghal: I believe in New York, a lot of the highways were built
over poor neighborhoods, you don't have to see it.
Jason: Either over them or directly through them if they
were getting too rich.
Mike: Through them. Yes. Yeah. Bisecting them to cut the
economic district in half.
Meghal: Yes. Yes.
Mike: Yeah. Which the DOT now is trying to undo, and all of the
people who drive on those highways are like, but my
highway. Oh
Georgia: my god. My beautiful highway.
Mike: Anyways, okay. I sorry to rant at all of you. It drives me
insane.
Hans: Before we move on, per our international folks in the chat,
I need to relay an audio another can. Look what I've got here.
Full of worms.
Meghal: I know.
Georgia: Thatcher. Margaret Thatcher. A bit
Mike: of good.
Hans: So there you go, chat.
Georgia: Big pro Irish
Hans: Chat requesting worms. Worms.
Georgia: I want this is sort of a shift. But there's been this
very interesting conversation in the chat that started with
beauty tech, and especially in Fifth Element and like Total
Recall where I think someone was mentioning the secretary that
could change the color of her nails with a little pen as kind
of an example. Isn't that amazing? I think the nail change
and stuff like that is in a way supposed to also create an
efficiency to shorten of doing something. But then what has
happened in the chat is now a conversation about body mods
Mhmm.
And tattooing specifically as a body mod and as technological
advancement because now, obviously, most people are
getting tattooed with guns instead of like a big long stick
that someone's hammering. Though if you get, for example,
traditional Japanese tattooing, that may still happen and there
are a lot of cultures that obviously still use traditional
tattooing methods. But I think that's an interesting
technological advancement that isn't making anything more
efficient or anything, like, it's it's purely for the self.
Mhmm. But I am I'm like, okay, well, what would like the sci fi
movie version of this be?
To me, it would still kind of fall into that like efficiency
model of like, okay, well, a sci fi thing would be getting
tattoos that can move or that you can change.
Meghal: That reminds me of just like how I I really thought that
we would come a lot further with accessibility like like limbs
and Yeah. Yeah. Robot arms
Georgia: and legs. But
Meghal: Yeah. We got bored.
Mike: So this is we got I don't know if we wanna transition to
this right now, but, like, David Graeber wrote a piece a while
ago about basically, like, why didn't we get flying cars? Like,
David Graber was 40 at the turn of the millennium in February.
And he was like, when I was a kid, I was promised flying cars.
Like, in the fifties, like, I watched the moon landing, and it
was clear to us as a culture that we were going to get flying
cars amongst other things that were, like, already well
underway. The promise of genetic science as well that seems to
have basically, like, if not stalled, then just, like, slowed
down based upon where it was in the mid century.
And, you know, he asks a bunch of really good questions
throughout the whole piece. You can read it in the Baffler.
What's it called? I think it's called of flying cars. Of the
things that he asked is like, well, if we don't get it, like,
where you know, we had all these resources.
Where did all the resources go? Bombs. Yeah. Yeah. Bombs.
Bombs. They just went it went to it went to bombs.
Hans: I I full on expect corollary to that is I full on
expected, like, the the the atomic panic of the fifties of,
like, mutations and genetic shifts and all of that, like
extra tentacles or monstrous things. I don't know if I
expected it, but, like, that's a whole other vein.
Meghal: Like cloning and, like, let me put a tail.
Georgia: Yeah. What's kind of weird about something like
cloning like the fears around that is that there has been
actual stuff happening.
Meghal: Streisand?
Georgia: Yes. Barbara Streisand. She she cloned her dogs.
Mike: Famously did not did not want her dog to die and so made
clones of it.
Georgia: But the what I bring this up because in the same way
that, you know, the the moment I think last year, right, when the
FBI was like, aliens are real. And everyone was like, dude,
whatever. I have so much else going on. Yeah.
Mike: The air force.
Hans: Yeah.
Georgia: We're like some I'm on the phone with insurance. Yeah.
I feel like some of this tech that does end up happening like
Barbara Streisand cloning her dogs, people are like, alright.
Anyway, like, what? I mean,
Meghal: it's very, like, Katy Perry going to
Georgia: To spay oh my god, with her flower.
Hans: The thing I think that's happened is we kept like, we had
this fear of, like, oh, we're gonna grow extra limbs or,
people are gonna get mutated into something or, know, merge
with plants or all these exciting imaginative things, and
it all just turned out to be cancer. Just cancer across the
board.
Jason: Oh, boy.
Georgia: Yeah. It really was. Yeah. Everything just came
cancer. And I
Hans: just like, one disappointment after. Do you you
remember, like, three, four months ago in that somebody put
into the chat, oh, they did definitive studies about e EMF.
Is that right? From phones
Georgia: Oh, like five g?
Hans: Are they bad for us? Yeah. And and the verdict was neutral.
Does nothing. Does absolutely nothing.
And universally, we all were like, I was kinda hoping for
Georgia: wild mutations.
Hans: I was kinda kinda hoping for X-ray.
Mike: Well, because, you know, because everybody lost their
minds, and they're they're on the Internet too much and read
too many things about how five g gives you Brain worms. Brain
something. Yeah. Yeah. All the scientists did exactly what
scientists do.
Do you think they would learn their lesson by now? And they're
like, we exposed something like brain tissue to 10,000 times
more five g signal than anybody would ever experience, and we
see no reason to believe there will be adverse effects. And
what everybody heard was, so you're saying there's a chance?
Hans: Yeah.
Jason: This is why I like the work of Samuel Delaney a lot
because he goes sort of both routes. He goes, like Oh, yeah.
Like body mods as, like, tissue modification and as, like, the
result of exposure to the bizarre world around us and,
like, technological advancement.
Mike: Oh. Wet.
Jason: Yeah. Wet. Future but wet.
Mike: Future but wet.
Hans: What who is this boy? Say the name again.
Jason: Stereo Delaney.
Hans: K. That's not someone I know.
Mike: Hans. Nice.
Georgia: Give us the t l
Mike: d r.
Hans: This is
Jason: very fun.
Georgia: What's his deal? Give me the the sparkling Wet. Okay.
No further questions.
Meghal: So one of my favorite shows as a child was Totally
Spies. Yes. It is so
Jason: good. I'm gonna have to look this up. I was probably too
young for this is what I'm assuming why I don't remember
it.
Georgia: Definitely. Too
Meghal: old for it.
Georgia: Too old? I'm What's that now? I think I'm hearing
too old.
Mike: Do you guys Jason's 24.
Jason: Oh, My parents probably wouldn't let me watch this. It
was too too scary for me because I was so young.
Georgia: Yeah. Jason just got his braces taken out.
Meghal: Totally Spies is a show about three women who were
spies. It's very like Charlie's Angels, but animated, like
Powerpuff Girls, but Like a little more realistic.
Jason: Should I explain Powerpuff Girls to Hans and
Mike?
Georgia: Let me let me step in there, Jason.
Meghal: But specifically, I think one of the most notable
pieces of tech in the show was their pink compact, and it
looked like a makeup compact, but it was like a it's kinda
like a phone with like, you know, video calling feature
where they can, I'm forgetting the main guy that their like
boss who would tell them about missions.
Georgia: They're truly Basically.
Meghal: With him. But the compact could do a lot of things
like Jerry. Yes. Yes. Jerry.
It could analyze material. It's interesting because it is very
similar to a phone. Like a lot of the things that it can do is
what we can do on a phone now. But what I love about, I was
thinking like, why do I still want this even though I have a
phone, is how it looks. So much of the technology in Totally
Spies was extremely girly and extremely feminine and it wasn't
it didn't look like a black box, you know?
And that was part of the technology and why I wanted it.
It was tactile and it was like pink and shiny and purple and
has flowers. But totally size. Let's see.
Georgia: Was the time of the the pink razor and, like, bedazzling
your flip phone, at least when we were in middle school.
Meghal: Jason wasn't born yet.
Georgia: Jason wasn't alive yet. So Jason, a flip phone.
Meghal: Yes, too.
Georgia: But I I have to, like, you talking about this has
reminded me of another thing very similar that is also girly,
that is also gorgeous. That's actually from a pretty recent
movie and not a sci fi one at all. It is the Shell e reader
from It Follows. I'm gonna put it in the chat. It's incredible.
I hear you. There's like no reason That is
Meghal: so so serious.
Georgia: Why it needed to exist.
Jason: Could someone describe this for the podcast listeners
later?
Georgia: So the shell e reader, it's in the horror movie It
Follows. Imagine also a compact. So you just flip it open. It's
baby pink. It looks like a shell.
And both sides of the compact are screens. And she can page
through, like, scroll through from the bottom circle of the
compact and is reading a book that the screens of which sort
of bleed into each other like an e reader. But it's just this
little shell, and it's probably frankly, would probably be very
difficult to read on.
Jason: Yeah. Like as I'm looking at this, this seems like
something that is way cooler than its utility.
Georgia: Oh, I'm sure this would probably be a UX nightmare. But
to your point, Meckel, it has this similar quality of very
very femme and an interesting shape that sure is maybe not
like the most realistic shape. But it yeah. It has this
beautiful still kind of tactile quality despite I mean, the
Totally Spies compact is also screens. Yeah.
Oh, my god. What okay. Just reading this aloud. From Daniel
Jenna Grouse. What if we lived in a world not designed by
several men who misunderstood the point of Bauhaus?
We are here to imagine that very world.
Mike: Like, one of the most, I think, maybe optimistic things
about so much of the technology that's depicted in forward
looking fiction from the past is that it would either be tailored
to the individual person that was using it in some way or
reflect their style in some, like, meaningful way, or it
would more meaningfully evoke the body. I think that was the,
like as we were coming out of the mid century where everything
had corners and we were getting into the end of the century,
there was both a sort of, like, design idea and, industrial
design and construction capability of making things with
curves. So And people were like, woah. Like, what if technology
looked a little bit more biological Mhmm. Which, like, we
can do now and is different.
But then we just went back to yeah. Then we just went back to
Johnny Odds.
Georgia: Yeah. We had that beautiful moment where the iMac,
like all the the colors of the iMac, the sort of clear trend of
having clear plastic, so that you could see the inside of the
technology. Even like the beaut I think beautiful clear purple
Game Boy. Oh, yeah. And then, yeah, like the iMac laptops that
were all different colors and very, like, rounded at the
edges.
Mike: I think probably what happened is that like like
everything else, the people manufacturing those things
realized that that is not so broadly desirable as to be,
like, maximally profitable. So you can't make anything that has
character because not a billion people will buy it.
Jason: Speaking of character What
Georgia: do you have there? I know what it is.
Mike: Is this a Polly Pocket?
Meghal: Someone mentioned the contact was in like a Polly
Pocket.
Georgia: Oh my god.
Hans: And you had that in Yeah. Recent is
Georgia: so sick.
Meghal: Clearly, I love nostalgia. This is a Polly
Pocket I had as a kid that I lost and then I bought it on
eBay.
Georgia: So beautiful.
Meghal: But like, this was like the like, the texture and the
feel of, like, some of this tech. Right?
Georgia: I mean, you're opening it like a flower. Like, you're
Mike: It's also kind bizarrely o Oke Yes. Okefos. Okefos. Okefos.
Meghal: I mean, it is like a lotus.
Jason: Yeah. Like yeah. It's also, like, maximalist. There's
so much going on in there.
Meghal: Yeah. But it's like a little flower that is
technically like, I think it's like a swim pool, but you can
like put water or something and I think it will spout out and it
like pop. You can pump it. And it's like a little water slide
thing. Wow.
Definitely a choking hazard for a child is probably why
something like this you can't buy for a kid anymore. Mhmm.
Because it's so tiny. But like a little whirl that you can put in
your pocket.
Jason: Yeah. It's a little like a compact that opens like a
flower and four petals full of swim gear that has a pump
through the middle that can pump like a fountain and fill it with
lots of chokeable little things.
Georgia: Yes. I even I even think I was thinking of this the
other night. Earlier in the day, was also talking about the
Volkswagen Beetle, and it lives inside my heart always, that
car. I think it's a beautiful sweet thing that is very
different than so many other things. But I don't think it has
this feature anymore.
But at least in the February, the Volkswagen Beetle had a
little vial in the dashboard that you could put a flower in.
Mike: The flower. That's right. I
Georgia: remember this. And I think about it all
Mike: the Quimsical.
Georgia: Such a sweet and completely unnecessary feature
might have been more trouble than it was worth. Because
imagine water there, go over a pothole, and then, uh-oh. But I
think we can afford to have that.
Jason: It's interesting how we started talking about how all of
our our initial ideas were around convenience. And now
we're just talking about things that are explicitly anti
convenience.
Georgia: Yeah. Well, it's just absolute decoration. Like the
the I miss decoration. I miss the equivalent of filigree,
basically. Crown molding.
Meghal: Crown molding.
Georgia: Give it
Meghal: to me. In a
Georgia: white box. Yeah. Yeah. Like, for real.
Jason: I had assumed that the future would be giving us more
things and more customizability and more maximalism. Like, I
assumed that my room would look like the center of that O'Keefe
and Polly Pocket universe. I just have fewer things and fewer
options and more white boxes and a singular screen that occupies
my attention rather than a wall of screens.
Georgia: This is very similar to Hans, the fear that you were
describing of convenience being sort of the the enemy of
curiosity.
Hans: That Curiosity. Yeah.
Georgia: I think we did have that moment and I'm sure part of
this is the nostalgia I have for this kind of technology. But
when cell phones all looked very different and had different
relationships to how they present a keyboard to you
Jason: Yeah.
Georgia: How they flip open, do they spin open, do they push
open, do you flip them open? The way you decorated them was very
specific to you. That there was, I think, and is this desire for
decoration. I want it back. Part of this is also
Mike: this is also Kyle Chaeke's point, right, of like Yeah. When
you can see right, Instagram has provided a united idea of what a
living room looks like. Yes. A coffee shop looks like, what a
studio looks like, what a kitchen looks like. And so
that's, like, invaded some portion of our culture such that
it is maybe even like a little bit harder to make things that
are not that way.
This Even if you want them.
Georgia: Yes. This reminds me. I literally saw this last night.
There's some girl, I believe she lives in New York, who's making
her entire apartment look like the sunken Titanic.
Mike: Like so bad.
Georgia: It's so outrageous.
Mike: Let's get her let's get her on the show. Let
Georgia: to her. And me it's been, like, I saw the finished
product first and then obviously a bunch of videos being like,
have you guys seen this girl who made her apartment like this?
Sure. And then I was getting some older videos of her because
I was watching those. And it was like day 288 of turning my
apartment into the Titan.
There's, I think, also in line this conversation of like,
excellent use of free will to your point again, Hans, of I
think curiosity being very much something you you, in some ways,
have to choose to seek and to even garden.
Meghal: It almost feels like, being able to use your at least
for me, sometimes I feel burdened by the idea that I have
free will and it becomes difficult to use my free will.
And I like, I'm existing in this like phone convenience, and I'm
just stuck here. That's my own personal issue. Yeah.
Hans: But we think that we have now gotten a unified sense of
the future, just like we have a unified sense of a kitchen.
Meghal: More bombs. More bombs.
Mike: What's that?
Jason: No fuss. Unified expectation.
Mike: Yeah. Like yeah. I mean, I think part of what the part of
what David Graeber talks about in the essay is that it does it
feels a little bit like the future got stolen.
Meghal: Yes. Yeah.
Mike: Like, I think it is it is really hard to feel like there
was a possibility space that felt rather wide, I think,
until, like, the early nineties. And David Graeber seems to agree
that it's like things felt really possible from the fifties
through the eighties. It began then it began to taper off. It
feels now like we have to fix a bunch of stuff we've done wrong
over the last thirty years before we can start to progress.
And that's kinda like muted a sense of idealism for future
because we have to fix the past.
Yeah.
Meghal: Yeah. I mean, I think there was still like an optimism
in the, like, twenty tens with like hipsters and also just like
a little bit of an optimism around some of the tech
companies. Like, I felt very differently about Google fifteen
years ago than I do now.
Georgia: Yeah. Same.
Meghal: And that is why like sometimes I'm like, why am I so
obsessed with nostalgia? And I think it's like that I do feel
like the future was ripped for me so I'm going back to a space
where I had
Mike: Yeah.
Meghal: You know, a little bit of hope, a little bit of
excitement about what was to come.
Jason: But I think a similarity in that era of the movement in
tech and the movement of hipsterdom was to reclaim,
readdress the past that Mike is sort of referencing there. The
whole hipster movement was, hey, we're gonna do the past again,
but with a better critical consensus.
Meghal: Exactly. Yeah.
Mike: Yeah. I think of that time as being really present focused
and not future focused. Yes. But, like, I I agree that
they're they're, like, it might have then been the idea of,
like, if we fix this now, then, like, we're gonna set ourselves
on the right path. But, like, I do remember a kind of, like,
really specific future sort of perspective or thinking in the
nineties, then maybe the early two thousands.
But then, yeah, once we get into hipsterdom, it's like, we're
gonna fix now. Now we have to fix then. Yeah. Like, gotta undo
we gotta undo stuff feel
Georgia: like we are in a very odd place. And I know that's
sort of overly general. But in that, there is so much taking
stock of in all directions of the present, the past, and the
future right now. I think the feeling I'm sensing at least is
very much a woah woah woah woah woah woah. Like, in all
directions.
Mike: I think the gut of loss says maybe the problem was that
we thought it would come easy. And I think for a while, we did.
Yeah.
Georgia: Yeah. And I think it did for a little while.
Mike: We thought that, like, there was work to be done, but,
like, we would do it.
Jason: Right. Or at least that it would come linearly. Yeah.
Hans: And it Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's right.
Jason: And it does not.
Mike: Step upon one. Yeah. I also wanna address I think it's
gone by, but someone said, like, isn't this a problem of getting
older? And I don't think it is. Mhmm.
Because I asked my parents this a little while ago. Was like, do
you guys feel like do you ever feel like the world is ending?
And they're like, god, no. Never. Things are getting
better.
Like, everything's always improving. They're like, why do
you? And I'm like, yeah. All the time.
Georgia: Well, yeah. I also think it's a perspective as
well, of course. Because, you know, if you're older, I am also
imagine that you've seen many more iterations and and cycles,
how it feels and then what actually happens and how it
feels.
Mike: I think boomers aren't worried. I think categorically
boomers are not worried.
Georgia: I think
Meghal: that's fair. I I will say though, I I think that
boomers have not been worried for a very long time, but I
think they're starting to really understand the situation that
younger generations are in because like, for the first
time, I think like my parents are like, oh wait, the job
market is unsafe for everyone, including my kids.
Georgia: And like Yeah. There's no like shortcut. There's no
Mike: I think that's I think that's true. Yeah.
Hans: Robert Reich's new memoir is apparently an apology for
boomers getting it wrong. Woah.
Mike: Did they nominate him as
Hans: the That's
Georgia: what you
Hans: were reading.
Mike: He's the Yeah.
Hans: Yeah. They got they had a meeting.
Mike: I mean, they picked a good one.
Georgia: Yeah. Yeah.
Meghal: Because in a yeah. Because in a way, like, my
parents' generation, you know, got to escape the poverty that
my grandparents were in and there was hope you could like
get an education, get a job, have a pension, have benefits
and then, yeah, we know what happened to all of that.
Georgia: Yeah. Home ownership?
Jason: Homo what?
Georgia: At one day. Everyone is gay now. Fellas, is it good old
house? The gender is everywhere.
Jason: Alright. Did we solve
Mike: it? Yeah. Think so. Let's recapture this feature.
Jason: Hell yeah, gang.
Georgia: Shell phone now. Shell phone now.
Mike: Shell phone now. Shell phone now.
Meghal: I'm surprised no one brought up time travel.
Jason: No. It sucks in every direction.
Meghal: I'll stay put.
Georgia: I have so much going on.
Mike: I'm good, dog. I'm good. I'm sorry, brother. Sorry,
brother. I got I got places to be.
That's our team chat for the Never Post Member Drive stream
week. Thank you, Magle, famed Brooklyn ceramicist Yeah. For
joining us once again
Georgia: Of course.
Mike: And for providing the frame for this conversation,
incisive as always. Thank you, chat.
Georgia: Yes.
Mike: For joining us. Thank Chet. And all of your
contributions. They were invaluable. Excellent.
Very, very much appreciated. And I guess, you, Hans, Georgia, and
Jason. Wow.
Hans: I mean,
Mike: it's, Jason, I'm glad your
Georgia: parents let you out for the afternoon. Yeah. Aren't you
late for I'm going to homework to make sure you're late.
Mike: That's the team chat that I have for you today. We'll be
back in the main feed right now.
Georgia: Right now. Bye. Bye? Bye. Bye.