698: Johnny Pemberton

Summary

Podcast Summary: Duncan Trussell Family Hour (Episode 698: Johnny Pemberton)

Release Date: July 11, 2025

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Introduction

In this episode of the Duncan Trussell Family Hour, host Duncan Trussell welcomes renowned comedian and actor Johnny Pemberton. The conversation delves deep into a myriad of topics ranging from the psychology of memory to the implications of artificial intelligence (AI) and societal perceptions of legacy.

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Discussing the Serial Killer: Ding Dong Buckets

[07:07] Johnny Pemberton:
"His MO was knocking on the doors."

Duncan and Johnny explore the chilling case of the serial killer known as Ding Dong Buckets, infamous for his unique modus operandi of knocking on victims' doors before committing his crimes. The discussion touches upon the psychological tactics killers use to manipulate their victims and the societal impact of such crimes.

[08:35] Duncan Trussell:
"Even after people were saying Ding Dong Buckets is a serial killer, don't answer your door if they say it's Ding Dong Buckets."

They analyze how fear and awareness can alter human behavior, emphasizing the pervasive anxiety instilled by notorious criminals in communities.

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Memory, MK Ultra, and the Distortion of Reality

[25:35] Johnny Pemberton:
"Memory is one of the most prone to distortion."

The conversation shifts to the fragility of human memory, referencing MK Ultra and the CIA's experiments aimed at regressing individuals to alter or implant memories. Duncan highlights a CIA report detailing experiments where prisoners believed they were interacting with childhood friends due to induced memories. This raises concerns about the manipulation of consciousness and the ethical boundaries of psychological experimentation.

[27:07] Duncan Trussell:
"Every time you're pulling your memory out and putting it back in, it's gonna change a little bit."

Johnny adds insights into how traumatic experiences can lead to memory distortions, using the example of Brian Williams—a newscaster who falsely recalled being on a helicopter that was actually shot down—illustrating the profound impact of psychological trauma on personal narratives.

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Legacy, Remembrance, and the Human Obsession with Being Remembered

[14:11] Johnny Pemberton:
"So you're building an idol, you're building an idol."

Duncan and Johnny delve into the human obsession with legacy and the desire to be remembered posthumously. They critique the societal pressures to achieve lasting recognition, discussing how this pursuit can lead to unnecessary stress and distort one's perception of self-worth.

[17:28] Johnny Pemberton:
"Your being remembered after you died is not monetizable necessarily."

The duo debates the futility and paradox of seeking immortality through legacy, questioning whether the societal emphasis on remembrance truly benefits individuals or merely perpetuates a cycle of superficial pursuits.

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Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) and the Singularity

[72:01] Duncan Trussell:
"AGI is the precursor to the singularity."

A substantial portion of the episode is dedicated to the discourse on Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) and its potential to lead humanity into a singularity—a point where AI surpasses human intelligence, fundamentally altering civilization. Duncan references thinkers like Nick Bostrom and discusses contemporary fears surrounding AI's rapid advancement and its implications for humanity's future.

[84:58] Johnny Pemberton:
"There's such potential for outcomes that we can't even possibly envision that it makes it very scary, but also very exciting."

They explore scenarios where AGI could either become a benevolent force aiding in solving global challenges or evolve into a threat beyond human comprehension, emphasizing the thin line between innovation and existential risk.

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Peter Thiel and the Antichrist Narrative

[77:12] Johnny Pemberton:
"Peter Thiel is being labeled as the Antichrist because of his views on transhumanism and AI."

The conversation takes a theological turn as Duncan and Johnny examine the provocative notion of billionaire Peter Thiel being perceived as the Antichrist. They analyze Thiel's advocacy for transhumanism and AI, debating whether his influence aligns with traditional religious narratives of good versus evil.

[95:44] Johnny Pemberton:
"AGI isn't the thing of preserving self, it's the idea of merging consciousness."

They juxtapose the mythological figure of Jesus Christ with the concept of AGI, pondering whether the creation of advanced AI could be seen as a new form of divinity or a spiritual evolution, and how this intersects with human beliefs about creation and purpose.

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The Cold War, MK Ultra, and Government Experiments

[35:01] Duncan Trussell:
"MK Ultra is a product of the Cold War's intense rivalry with the Soviet Union."

Reflecting on historical contexts, Duncan discusses how the Cold War spurred unethical government experiments like MK Ultra, aimed at gaining intelligence superiority. The conversation highlights the consequences of such clandestine operations on both individuals and societal trust in governmental institutions.

[36:21] Johnny Pemberton:
"They're gonna destroy all life on earth if we don't do this."

They critique the moral compromises made during the Cold War, emphasizing the dangerous precedent it sets for modern-day technological advancements and surveillance practices.

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Humanity's Self-Destructive Tendencies and the Role of AI

[95:44] Johnny Pemberton:
"AGI is pushing us to confront our own intelligence and motivations."

Duncan and Johnny discuss how the advent of AGI forces humanity to introspect on its own behaviors, ethics, and the potential for self-destruction. They contemplate whether AI could act as a mirror reflecting humanity's deepest flaws or as a catalyst for profound societal transformation.

[97:42] Johnny Pemberton:
"Everyone suspects everyone, creating a pervasive surveillance state."

The duo debates the implications of deregulating AI technology, arguing that without proper oversight, society could spiral into an era of heightened surveillance and loss of privacy, exacerbating existing social tensions.

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Conclusion

As the episode wraps up, Duncan and Johnny touch upon humanity's relentless pursuit of advancement and the philosophical questions it raises about existence, consciousness, and the future. Their conversation is a blend of humor, deep introspection, and speculative thought, inviting listeners to ponder the profound intersections between technology, memory, legacy, and the essence of being human.

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Upcoming Events:
Johnny Pemberton is currently on tour with performances scheduled in various cities including Oklahoma City, Tulsa, Springfield, Kansas City, Janesville, and Sunnyvale. Fans can attend his shows to experience his unique comedic style live.

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Note: Portions of the transcript contained advertisements and sponsor messages, which have been omitted from this summary to focus solely on the conversational content between Duncan Trussell and Johnny Pemberton.

Transcript

[Duncan Trussell]

Greetings to you, my friends. It's me, D. Trussell, and this is the Duggar Trussell Family Hour podcast. Now, today's guest is an acclaimed actor. He's been in the Fallout series. You must watch him in the upcoming indie film Mermaid. He's a brilliantly funny, super unique comedian who I had the good fortune of coming up with as a comic. We've been friends for a long time. You might have heard our podcast, the Leather Rose. It is beloved by many who love deep cuts. And you might have seen us take on this character or that, acting like this person or that, what some call improvisational comedy. We do that on the podcast sometimes, but every once in a while we do an actual podcast. And after this episode, I began to wonder, what are we doing? Why are we playing make believe silly things when we could be having these incredible conversations? This is what we talk like when we're on the phone. Why suddenly are you like some kind of dog inspector and I'm someone who used to be a butterfly? Johnny's brilliant. This was a really heavy conversation about memory, the CIA reality and the singularity. Also, Johnny's got some shows coming up. You can find all [e-mail]. but since he was so generous with his time for this episode, I would be remiss if I did not announce these dates. July 23rd, you can find him in Oklahoma City at Bricktown. July 24th, he's going to be in Tulsa, Oklahoma, at the Loony Bend. August 1st through 2nd, Springfield at the Blue Room. I love that club. August 3rd, the Kansas City Funny Bone. September 12th to the 13th, he's going to be in Janesville, Wisconsin, at Cabin. And then he's wrapping up this mini tour. September 18th through the 20th in Sunnyvale, California. And roosters go see him live. He is so funny, so unique. You are gonna have a blast. Hey, this is me from the future realizing that I forgot to remind you of something we've been doing. It's a new experiment in the DTFH. We've been doing live DTFHs, and they are fun and I'm really loving doing them. So if you're interested in watching one of these, follow me on Twitter. It's usually where I announce it. Subscribe on YouTube and you will be given, generally, unfortunately, some short warning. We're trying to fix that, but they'll let you know when we're going live so we could all hang out together. Everyone participates, we've all made great friends, and we're all going to live together in A compound in Waco, Texas. Going to learn what it's like to say goodbye to those terrible bonds that cause us to configure our souls to outdated reproductive patterns such as marriage. Now, I am monogamous with my wife. But the fact that you're monogamous with your wife or girlfriend is one of the signs that when I open the eighth seal, things aren't going to go great for you. And I am more than happy to take the burden of sex from your shoulders. I know they're causing your shoulders to droop. And I will make love to your wife in Waco. And I have to because God told me to. So first. The first step, subscribe. The next step, move to Waco with your wife. Be there when I open the eighth seal. Because that's. Let me tell you, it's not easy to open. I'm having to get a locksmith to do it because there's like, it's actually seal. There's more than like, there's a lot of seals in the eighth seal. It's not just the standard seal, like waxy and easy to pop open, which I didn't know when I said I was gonna open it. I had no idea that this is like a triple lock seal. It's on a bank vault, basically. Anyway, come see us in Waco. But first subscribe. It's on YouTube. Duncan Trussell. The link is in the comments section. Duncan trussell.com I'd love for you to join the family. Become part of the central pulsing core of the dtfh. Stick your finger in the light socket of the divine and let your soul vibrated by the intense metaphysical outflow of light that happens during each of these live episodes that like a tsunami of love, spreads into default reality and is beginning to crack the very girders of the reptilian agenda. And I will make love to your wife. Let me reiterate. You can subscribe at YouTube. And now everybody welcome Johnny Pemberton to the DTFH. Johnny P. Is back on the DTFH. One of the most requested guests on the DTFH. With us today is Johnny Pemberton, hilarious comedian, renowned actor. You can catch him in the upcoming Indie Mermaid as well as the beloved Fallout series. Johnny, God bless you, man. I just. I've been praying for you every night.

[Johnny Pemberton]

Oh, I thank you so much for praying for me. I appreciate that. Love getting prayer. I love hearing the hearing the call prayer. Come out at midnight and sundown.

[Duncan Trussell]

I love it so much.

[Johnny Pemberton]

That needs to be a Christian version of that What? There needs to be a Christian version of the. The call to prayer.

[Duncan Trussell]

It's called every. It's called the sun coming up. And because I don't need a bugler to tell me to pray, I don't need somebody in a tower yelling into a megaphone. I just need the sun coming up, the sun going down. I just need the wind blowing. Is my call to prayer. The sound of a bird eating at a tree.

[Johnny Pemberton]

What about a still dark day? What about a still dark day? What you going to do on a still dark day?

[Duncan Trussell]

A still dark day is a call to prayer. When my mistress slaps my scrotum hard call a prayer.

[Johnny Pemberton]

I love getting my scrotum scrap When I've done a dip in ice cold water.

[Duncan Trussell]

Yeah.

[Johnny Pemberton]

And my scrotum is just locked in like a little rubber ball. I love getting it snapped with something like a. Something like the back of a hand with a nice 4 inch nail. Not 4 inch, but you know, a long nail. A long nail, Yeah.

[Duncan Trussell]

I do love a puncture here and there. Or just a, you know, a wedding. No, no, a wedding ring. Just a well placed wedding ring. Smack on my old shriveled up, iced down scrote.

[Johnny Pemberton]

A metal knock knock.

[Duncan Trussell]

A little metal knock knock. On the pleasure of a little. Knock knock.

[Johnny Pemberton]

Knock knock. Who's there? Ding Dong Buckets.

[Duncan Trussell]

You know, that is crazy to think that was the name of a serial killer. It's weird how many serial killers.

[Johnny Pemberton]

Ding Dong Buckets.

[Duncan Trussell]

Ding Dong Buckets. The knock knock man, you know, it's so yeah.

[Johnny Pemberton]

His MO was knocking on the doors.

[Duncan Trussell]

People.

[Johnny Pemberton]

That's how he would kill them. He knock on the door and if they didn't answer, then he would. And they were home.

[Duncan Trussell]

Yeah.

[Johnny Pemberton]

So he would make sure to know people were home. And then he'd be like, he got so angry that he was being denied just the, just the common decency of answering the door.

[Duncan Trussell]

Yes.

[Johnny Pemberton]

That he would be like, he would go in the back door and he would kill them. So that people started. That's why everyone answers their door now.

[Duncan Trussell]

Well, dude, I will say this.

[Johnny Pemberton]

Ding Dong Buckets won't kill you as long as you answer the door. Because he's like, okay.

[Duncan Trussell]

Did you watch the Netflix doc Ding dong, you're dead?

[Johnny Pemberton]

I watch every Netflix doc the second it comes out.

[Duncan Trussell]

It's pretty good. Obviously I love obscure serial killers and I did not think that they would get any kind of new angles on Ding Dong Buckets. But to me though, what they really underlined that somehow I missed is how fascinating is that even after people were saying Ding Dong Buckets is a serial killer, don't answer your door if they say it's Ding Dong Buckets. Like the, like seven people that he killed after being front page of the New York Times, Ding Dong Buckets. The Ding Dong Killer. They still opened the door when he said, it's Ding Dong Buckets.

[Johnny Pemberton]

But you're supposed to open the door. That's the thing.

[Duncan Trussell]

According to this doc, you don't open the door for Ding Dong.

[Johnny Pemberton]

I think you must have heard it wrong, because if he changed. Oh, well, he must have changed midstream because that. Yeah, I guess that would make sense, because he was probably. The word got out that he was not. He was killing only people who didn't answer. So people, they. And now he's like, well, I'll. I'll change it up.

[Duncan Trussell]

And then I said, in the. One of the interrogation videos, is that the first time somebody realizing it's Ding Dong Buckets and they thought that they could trick him by opening the door? It worked. He said he stood there, he looked the person in the eye. They looked him in the eye. He had the Ding Dong Buckets outfit on, chimney sweep outfits, suspenders, the gold stars. And they're the gold stars.

[Johnny Pemberton]

I think it's free. You know, I think it is. It's very smart.

[Duncan Trussell]

I think it's smart.

[Johnny Pemberton]

I think it was smart looking in the classic sense, like, smart.

[Duncan Trussell]

Like it was an homage to David Bowie.

[Johnny Pemberton]

Yes. Yeah. When Bowie was doing his military phase.

[Duncan Trussell]

Yep. And the. Yeah. And apparently he just stood there. They look. This was Francis Click, who actually.

[Johnny Pemberton]

Francis Click.

[Duncan Trussell]

He wrote the preeminent book on Ding Dong Buckets, Empty Buckets. And apparently they just looked at each other. And Ding Dong Buckets was so confused, and Click was like, my God, what's he gonna do? And Ding Dong Buckets apparently just said, fuck off, and then walked away because he real. He'd been had. And then after that, you're like, that should have killed him. Why couldn't I?

[Johnny Pemberton]

That's that old rhyme.

[Duncan Trussell]

Yep.

[Johnny Pemberton]

Buckets and bags and bags and bags. Pick up a needle and stop for swags. Find a camel, count as humps. Knock knock. Who's there? I don't want to find out.

[Duncan Trussell]

Yeah, that's.

[Johnny Pemberton]

It doesn't rhyme.

[Duncan Trussell]

That's the modern Ring around the Rosie, the Ding Dong Buckets chant that all the kids were doing in neighborhoods of suburban New Jersey during that reign of terror. That's literally the first paragraph in Knock knock, You're dead.

[Johnny Pemberton]

I love the idea of A reign of terror.

[Duncan Trussell]

Reign of terror.

[Johnny Pemberton]

It's so hard to establish that these days. I'm going on a little tour. I'm going to be in Oklahoma City July 23rd, then Tulsa the 24th, then I'll be in Springfield, Missouri, on August 1st and 2nd, then I'll be in Kansas City on August 3rd. And so I was thinking about tiling that toward the reign of Terror, but evidently you can't do it. You have to do it posthumously. You can't call something a reign of terror ahead of time.

[Duncan Trussell]

Mid rain.

[Johnny Pemberton]

Yeah, you have to terrorize first. And then they say it was a reign of terror.

[Duncan Trussell]

Yeah, that's a problem right now is a lot of people don't realize that they're giving themselves posthumous titles. They don't realize that you are called that later. You can't say now that you're a legend. It's like a legend after death. You're not alive. You can't say living legend. No such thing. A legend is.

[Johnny Pemberton]

That's why you say living legend. You have to qualify it with living. And even then, that's something where. Oh, who is that?

[Duncan Trussell]

Well, if you're a horrible person, if you think you're a living legend, you're a horrible person, you know, like that there are very few ways to really find out you're a horrible person. And the top way is if you've ever seriously referred to yourself as a living legend, you are a terrible person. I mean, you're not a living legend. You're not a legend. You're just annoying. There's no such. You can't say it. It's like saying you're like, you're a living ghost.

[Johnny Pemberton]

Yeah, Well, I mean, guess I guess a Huck Finn kind of did it right when he faked his death and got to see his funeral.

[Duncan Trussell]

Yeah, but that's fucking Huckleberry Finn. A true legend. Fictional legend.

[Johnny Pemberton]

Fictional legend.

[Duncan Trussell]

Hopefully based on an actual character, but I doubt there was a real Huck Finn. It'd be nice.

[Johnny Pemberton]

But it'll be so great, dude.

[Duncan Trussell]

It'd be fucking great. The real, huh, Huck. I'm like the living Huck Finn. I'm sure there's people who say that. You know, I gotta ask you your thoughts on this, because I don't remember who I was talking to, but I was seriously saying to this person, there are people who legitimately think about, like, after they die, how they'll be remembered. Like, that's something that they think about all the time. They think about, like they want to be Remembered after they die as a legend or they want to be, you know, like it's that stupid song. Fame. I'm gonna live forever. I'm gonna.

[Johnny Pemberton]

My name.

[Duncan Trussell]

It's like I have never, in my consideration of things that I want thought to myself. Boy, I hope people remember me after I'm dead. I don't give a shit.

[Johnny Pemberton]

I have. I have.

[Duncan Trussell]

Why do you care?

[Johnny Pemberton]

I have. I don't care. I'm just saying I have thought about it. I'm not saying I really care. I'm saying I have thought about it.

[Duncan Trussell]

I mean, it's like, what if I remember before you were born? Who gives? You weren't born yet. You're dead. Who gives a fuck?

[Johnny Pemberton]

Yeah.

[Duncan Trussell]

You know, you know what I mean? Like, who gives a fuck? You're dead.

[Johnny Pemberton]

I agree. I think that. I mean, I'm saying that I have thought about it, but I definitely. Then I realized, like, how ridiculous it is. Because I think that honestly the thing that makes me think about the most is how many people don't know who Mark Twain is. Because, like, Mark Twain's probably the most, maybe one of the most important people in the last 300 years in the world. Kind of invented stand up comedy in a way, accidentally. Probably one of the greatest, greatest authors of all time. Super progressive. He invented fingerprinting analysis. Not even knowing it. What all kinds of stuff.

[Duncan Trussell]

Are you making that up?

[Johnny Pemberton]

No, he has a book called Pudd' Nhead Wilson about this detective who does fingerprint analysis to find someone. And this was like so far ahead of time before anyone even thought that was a thing. And also, Mark Twain was born when Halley's comet showed up and he died when Halley's comet returns.

[Duncan Trussell]

So like an alien.

[Johnny Pemberton]

I mean, I think it's very. It's pretty plausible that Mark Twain was an alien because he influenced culture so much. It makes sense that he was some sort of a. Like an intelligence that was planted to. To change the course of history. And there's people who were like, you know, they're not. They're not 80s or 90s. They're not like super low IQ. They just don't know who that guy is or if they do know him. It's sort of like I've heard that name before.

[Duncan Trussell]

So you're bringing this up, you know what I mean?

[Johnny Pemberton]

Like, if someone has a legacy, it would be him. And he doesn't have a legacy at all.

[Duncan Trussell]

Well, not anymore, really. So. Exactly. So you know, Mark Twain, probably an alien weirdly connected to the Heaven's Gate Cult, which I believe all wanted to unalive themselves when a comet was going over.

[Johnny Pemberton]

That. That was Hale Bopp, right?

[Duncan Trussell]

Hale Bopp. But basically, the notion that comets bring with them good or bad fortune or that, you know, angels ride on them and incarnate on ear, like, it's out there.

[Johnny Pemberton]

It kind of makes sense, though, doesn't.

[Duncan Trussell]

It, with Mark Twain? It does not with Evans Gate Cult. Because if I was a fucking spaceship and those dumbasses tried to come on my ship, it'd be like, you. Hell, no. That's like a hitchhiker. You're not picking up no dough or whatever.

[Johnny Pemberton]

You don't get to, like, ask.

[Duncan Trussell]

It's that thing.

[Johnny Pemberton]

Where are you going? To ask, when's the next comet that's coming out?

[Duncan Trussell]

No, I'm saying if I'm flying in a comet and people are unaliving themselves to teleport into my comet just because they think they can, it's like, no, fuck you. Why?

[Johnny Pemberton]

You're definitely not getting.

[Duncan Trussell]

Why are you invited? Get out of here.

[Johnny Pemberton]

Right, exactly. By the very nature of asking, you're disinvited.

[Duncan Trussell]

Disinvited. Go get. What? Look at your fucking stupid sneakers. Why are you all wearing the same sneakers? They're not coming on this ship. No way. We came here to pick up unbaptized children's souls. But the point is, when people are stressing themselves out, there's so many ways to stress yourself out. And one way to really stress yourself out is to worry about what people are gonna think about you after you die. Of all the forms of stressing yourself out, it's really the. The one that, like, it's absurd. Most absurd.

[Johnny Pemberton]

Yeah. I think a lot of people do think about it because they think about, like, if you have, like, loved ones or something like that. There's Legacy is also the idea that, you know, you want people to be cared for, that you love, and so you're worried that they. They will have. They won't. You know, they won't want for things. So you want to, like, have the legacy of, like, give money.

[Duncan Trussell]

Yeah, you being remembered after you died is not monetizable necessarily.

[Johnny Pemberton]

Right. But that's.

[Duncan Trussell]

I'm sure any, like, any of the Tesla family are fucked. They're. They're like, yeah, he. He changed the course of history. We've got light because of them. But yeah, you think we're getting a fucking penny of Tesla money?

[Johnny Pemberton]

Nothing.

[Duncan Trussell]

No, dude, no. They're driving Ubers and shit. They're just scraping by. They're in the gig economy. So I don't think being remembered does anything more than like. It's like stresses, because then it's like what you're. Wait, you were related to fucking Tesla. You must be loaded with that.

[Johnny Pemberton]

You must be rich.

[Duncan Trussell]

Yeah. So it's a curse. It's a curse.

[Johnny Pemberton]

Yeah, it's definitely a curse. Then there's so many people like that that it's. They're cursed by their legacy. Actually, instead of the opposite.

[Duncan Trussell]

How about, don't remember me when I die? I mean, I want my family to remember me fondly, but after that. Well, give them. Give my. Get me out of your head, man. Please. What's the thing about me that's creepy? Think about.

[Johnny Pemberton]

What is the thing in some culture where it's like, you're only. You're alive as long as the. The last person who knew you living is still alive. So once, like someone who met you, like a child who met you once they die, then you're fully dead.

[Duncan Trussell]

Yeah, that's.

[Johnny Pemberton]

But you're bopping around a little bit until then. I like that idea.

[Duncan Trussell]

Some kind of neurological echo, massively distorted. You know, whatever that kid was, saw you come out of a bathroom and, like, smelled the stinky shit you took and is like, God, I hope I never grow up.

[Johnny Pemberton]

And that's why I'm so nice to kids.

[Duncan Trussell]

Remembers you. Some kid who just wore whatever he's. His mind and coded it because of the foulness of your fucking bowel movement. That's it.

[Johnny Pemberton]

What about the opposite, though? Kids were like, oh, he was so. There's some. There's some guys I remember from my childhood, I'm like, that was the coolest guy of all time. I have no idea where he is now, if he's dead or not. But I think about him like, wow, that was. That guy was so cool as an adult. I don't know if they actually were that cool, but in my mind, it's like, that was just the most amazingly cool guy ever. Like, Mr. Wizard, right? Someone like Mr. Wizard.

[Duncan Trussell]

Oh, you know, my. I want to thank Quince for supporting this episode of the DTFH. Look, I am a handsome, beautiful man in his 50s. I don't have time to go to all the underground parties anymore. I do get invited all the time to fashion parties. They're like, please come hang out with models. We need you there. Hang out with the intellectuals, the artists of the world. I'm like, listen, I'm living in a Austin right now, and I gotta get my kids ready for school, though. I Would love to attend one of your morning parties. I gotta get my kids to swim. That's where I used to go. That's where I, you know, tuned in to all the fashions. Remember when I used to wear peacock feathers in my hat before anyone started doing that? That's because I was going to those parties. But now, thanks to quints, I don't have to attend those stuffy, stinky parties. And they smell like old lemon rinds in the bottom of nuns feets. I didn't like them. Feets. And I do say feet, not feet. The new plural of feet is feet. Listen, I'm just all about stuff that fits right, feels good and actually lasts. That's why I keep coming back to Quince. Their lightweight layers and high quality staples have become my everyday essentials. I love them. They've got the kind of stuff you'll actually wear on repeat. Like breathable flow knit polos. You don't want some old stuffy asphyxiating polo, crisp cotton shirts and comfortable lightweight pants that somehow work for both weekend hangs and dressed up dinners. I can speak to the weekend hang part. Haven't been to a dressed up dinner in a while. The best part, everything with Quint's is half the cost of similar brands. By working directly with top artisans and cutting out the middleman, Quince gives you luxury pieces without the markups. And Quince only works with factories that use safe, ethical and responsible manufacturing practices and premium fabrics and finishes. This is really important that I say this. This gets the Erin Trussell stamp of approval. When Quince reached out, she was actually excited. I love them. She's been ordering their products for years. So I ordered a tote for her. Let me tell you something. There's a few things that I wish I'd ordered from Quince. They don't just have incredible clothes. They got way more than that. And when it was too late, I realized that they actually sell gold bars. Quint sells beautiful collectible gold bars. No joke. You can get a beautiful ounce of gold the Pamp Lady. You can actually get an ounce of gold the Pamp Lady. Look at that on the screen. Look at that beautiful gold fortuna veriskan 3591 bucks. And let me tell you, friends, gold is a pretty great investment. So get some. Get some of Quince's beautiful brand new bathing suits. Get their summer line of clothes. Dive into their baby and kids section. They've got lots of incredible stuff. But do yourself a favor, get a gold bar. You won't regret it. You know how cool it is to have a little bit of gold? Throw it in the safe, maybe you'll never need to use it. But just while you're listening to this long commercial, I would invite you to go look at the value of gold. Ain't going down. It ain't going down. I call it nature's Bitcoin. And Quince. Quince is offering these beautiful collectible gold bars. Look at that shine. Stick to the staples that last with elevated essentials from Quince, go to quints.comduncan for free shipping on your order and three 165 day returns, that's Q-U-I-N-C E.comduncan. to get free shipping and 365 day returns, it's quints.comduncan. i mean that like. Okay. My cousin Glenn. Yeah, God rest his soul. You know, I remember him. It's one of my earliest memories. And he was so funny and he would make me and my brother laugh so hard. He's the first person who taught me the old take off thumb trick. And it blew my mind. It horrified me because I thought he could remove his thumb and I was unsure. He's just really silly and funny. So. Yeah, I get that. But I don't think Glenn ever paid any mind to people remembering him. It's like also, we have to talk about the encoding mechanism here. Of all the ways of encoding data, memory is one of the most prone to distortion.

[Johnny Pemberton]

It's so distortible. I didn't learn that until not that long ago. You know that whole thing about Brian. Is it Brian Williams, the newscaster? He kind of got disgraced a bit.

[Duncan Trussell]

Yeah.

[Johnny Pemberton]

You know, he got disgraced because he claimed to have been on this helicopter that was shot down, but it was, he was in fact not on this helicopter. But it's because he was on the helicopter next to it. Evidently there's some kind of a trauma response with your memory where you co opt the experience. And once you say it like a few times, it's the memory is. It is as real to you as if it happened. There's no difference.

[Duncan Trussell]

That's right.

[Johnny Pemberton]

And so this thing was. Poor fucking guy who experienced this hellish experience gets like disgrace because he didn't actually happen to him, even though his brain for some reason did think it did happen to him. So we're all just like, you fucking liar. You liar. Fucking liar. It's so sad.

[Duncan Trussell]

A helicopter gets shot down. You weren't on it. You need to be on it if you want. Helicopter crash Credit, you know, Sad. The so the way it works is really interesting, which is. It's not like there's a set of, like. I don't know, there's like a set of code in your mind representing a memory. Every. Whenever you, like, remember something, it's not drawing from anything, and you re. Encode it.

[Johnny Pemberton]

No.

[Duncan Trussell]

So the so in that, like, every time you're pulling your memory out and putting it back in, it's gonna change a little bit. It's like recording the same video over the tape. It's the same video.

[Johnny Pemberton]

You're making a copy of the copy.

[Duncan Trussell]

Exactly. And then over time, that is so prone to distortion. And that is where, like, some of the MK Ultra stuff is. Dude, did I send you like Kurt Mexger sent me? Dude, it's great when he's. When I love being friends with him. Cause, like, he's doing my work. He's doing my work for me. I used to have to dig.

[Johnny Pemberton]

He's like an MKUltra computer.

[Duncan Trussell]

Basically, it is the deep cuts every time. And it's also like, you read it. It's my favorite type of thing. Cause you read it and you're like, this isn't real. And then you look it up. It's fucking real. So he's like, sends me these deep cuts. So he starts sending me an obscure, obscure, like intellectuals and obscure historians that each one is just a rabbit hole that would send even the most stable of people into a drooling, like, fucking fetal position.

[Johnny Pemberton]

But because of how. How absurd, how. How just outlandish it is.

[Duncan Trussell]

Can't be real. You're like, this can't be real. This can't be real. He's nuts. There's no way this is fucking real. And then you're like, God damn it, it's fucking real. But so, yeah, he sent me some Freedom of Information Act MK Ultra files. And, dude, the shit that they did is so nuts. And it really emphasizes what we're talking about. This is just the notes of somebody working for the CIA. They've got a Russian prisoner, and it's a glowing report. The report is excited. Whatever it was they were theorizing has worked. They're so happy. And what they did is they gave this person a perfect combination of drugs that they discovered. Sodium pentathol, some other shit, some benzos, I guess just some lubricant. They regressed this person. So they got the person back to their childhood, regressed them. The person who's writing the report is happily not saying, like, I'm the Worst kind of monster that could ever exist in the world. Because I just did something that is, like, just as blasphemous as blasphemous could be. They're excited. What they've done is they regressed a person to a childhood state. And they were really happy because the person thought that the CIA operative, because.

[Johnny Pemberton]

They were so was their dad or some shit.

[Duncan Trussell]

Childhood friend. So the person was referring to the CIAA operative as a childhood friend. They thought they were really friendly with him and happy, maybe excited to see him. He didn't mention that, but, you know, it's like be like if we hadn't seen each other for a long time. And I'm like, johnny, how'd you get here, man? You're like, dude, I'm just saying we're hanging out, man. How's life? What have you been up to lately?

[Johnny Pemberton]

I'm working on this SR71 Blackbird. It's a top secret.

[C]

Don't tell anybody.

[Duncan Trussell]

Dude, this Blackbird is insane. No way.

[Johnny Pemberton]

It goes Mach 3, and it's made of titanium. And we're building it all in this place. Where are you building it?

[Duncan Trussell]

That's nuts. I won't tell anybody.

[Johnny Pemberton]

Dude, we're building it actually in Burbank. It's crazy. Yeah, it's called Skunk Works. Nobody knows. There's a secret stairway. All the ghosts from the third floor, this really boring office up into our office, and nobody even knows it's there.

[Duncan Trussell]

Oh, wow. It's so good to see you, man. I love it when you talk about your work, man. And, you know, I trust you, too. Yeah, you know, my grandfather's kind of. Did you say third floor? Skunk Works. What'd you say?

[Johnny Pemberton]

Yeah, third floor. I'll give you the address. I'll write it down for you.

[Duncan Trussell]

Here, I'll write it down. I mean, I don't care. I'll remember it. Don't worry about it.

[Johnny Pemberton]

You should come visit. Actually, you can't come visit, but I'll tell you everything you want to know about it.

[Duncan Trussell]

So where it even gets more fucked.

[Johnny Pemberton]

Up was this way. Was this the 60s, though?

[Duncan Trussell]

Yes. But where? And they stopped. Of course. They would never keep doing this incredible interrogation method. But the other part that he was very excited about was they induced amnesia, meaning that the prisoner had no idea this interaction had happened.

[Johnny Pemberton]

So that's like Men in Black. It's the thing. It's the be looking at the.

[Duncan Trussell]

Wow. So what, that now, again, this is just notes? We don't know if it's real I mean it's from the CIA. It's freedom of information. But the veracity of the report itself could be misinformation. Who the fuck knows. But if it's true, that means any one of us could have had this happen. Yeah, it points to the potent. It's like, what was that show everybody loved? I couldn't watch it. Not cause it wasn't good because it just gave me the existential creeps where the. If you wanted to, you could split your life in half. There's a half of you that goes to work. Tracker.

[Johnny Pemberton]

Oh, severance.

[Duncan Trussell]

Severance.

[Johnny Pemberton]

I haven't watched it yet, but people love it.

[Duncan Trussell]

Tracker feels.

[Johnny Pemberton]

Tracker.

[Duncan Trussell]

Existential dread. Tracker. I haven't felt that way since I read Dostoevsky in college.

[Johnny Pemberton]

But I can't believe someone can track so well.

[Duncan Trussell]

Yeah, it points to this possibility that any one of us could have had that happen to us and just not know. And that is so fucking scary. Related to memory. Because if you could do that to a person, you could definitely get them to remember things differently during one of those sessions. That's literally what they're doing. And that is so fucking spooky, man.

[Johnny Pemberton]

It is, yeah. I mean all that stuff. I feel like something happened during the Cold War that got all these incredibly smart, hardworking people to do stuff that they would never do otherwise. They were just able to galvanize. Like I told you about that book I'm reading about the. The Russian sub they found.

[Duncan Trussell]

What's it called again?

[Johnny Pemberton]

It's called the Taking or the Of. Of. S. I can't remember now. It's something. It's the name of the sub. I think. I think I sent you a picture of it, but it's a. Called the Taking of the Taking. It sounds like the Taking of the taking of K129.

[Duncan Trussell]

Ah.

[Johnny Pemberton]

How. How the CIA used Howard Hughes to steal a Russian sub in the most daring covert operation in you. I'm only like halfway through, but you read about like how much money they were spending. Like how much public. You know, this is tax money. It's the government. How much government money they're spending to do something like the most. The amount of effort that went into this is. It makes the space program look like a fucking. Like an After School special or something like that. Just gobs and gobs of money. And all this is in the name of fighting the Russians during the Cold War. Because there's something about the Cold War that just got like galvanized everyone together. Yeah, I'm almost. I'm Jealous of that camaraderie that people had in the 60s against the Russians. It's like the world's most perfect enemy and we all get to like band together to create all this crazy fucking shit. Yeah, it's just insane. The stuff they used to do. And MK Ultra is the same product of that because they're trying to compete with this is they've made the Russians out to be like this, this almost like, what would you call it, like, you know, something that's not even an unreal version of something that is just so, so insidious, so powerful, so, so intelligent and conniving that you're like, we have to do throw everything we have at this. Because especially once I got that, got the Sputnik up there and we were just like, oh, dude.

[Duncan Trussell]

And what was beautiful about it is, you know, it creates the classic feedback loop because the Soviets thought the same shit about us, so the KGB was thinking the same thing. And now you got a perfect feedback loop of subterfuge that produce increasingly insane methods for dealing with the unknown. And yeah, you get MK Ultra, you get crazy like communist tactics of infiltrating capitalist societies that both the KGB and the CIA or no, the KGB doesn't exist anymore. But definitely for the intelligence workers of the world, the Cold War, it speeded up the evolution of surveillance tech, of mind control programs, of propagand, of instilling paranoia, intentional paranoia into systems because the gloves are off.

[Johnny Pemberton]

Everyone felt like there was no morality injected in anything because the stakes were so high. Because they thought about nuclear fallout that they didn't even consider any of this stuff would be like, is this kind of evil what I'm doing? It's like, no, it's not evil because the Russians are evil. They're going to.

[Duncan Trussell]

Fucking Russians.

[Johnny Pemberton]

They're going to destroy all life on earth if we don't do this. So these guys are just like, they're not even thinking about that. It's like you're. It's like being Mormon or something where you just don't have to deal with like those old school Mormons. Back in the pioneer days, they didn't have. There was like no consideration whatsoever. But if what they're doing is wrong or right, because it's like, oh, it's.

[Duncan Trussell]

A crusade, I'm guided by God, it's a jihad.

[Johnny Pemberton]

God told me.

[Duncan Trussell]

Yeah, and that is once you plug people into that holy order, whether it's coming for the divine or whether it's coming from some potential nuclear catastrophe, they'll fucking do Anything you want them to. And they'll put a smile on their fucking face. They'll do it and not. They'll do it. And you know, Darrell Cooper talks about this all the time.

[Johnny Pemberton]

Who's that?

[Duncan Trussell]

He has the wonderful Martyr Maid podcast. And I think he's one of the few podcasters out there who have the great honor of being called like a monster by a sitting president. I think Joe Biden called him a monster.

[Johnny Pemberton]

That's fucking awesome.

[Duncan Trussell]

Ye. And the reason that happened is because he's a historian and his view is, listen, obviously in history there are vile human beings like the Nazis, just fucking monstrous pieces of shit. So it's not like he's saying we need to rethink Hitler. It's like, bad Nazi bad. But what happened? How does that happen? That's what he's interested in is what is the switch that gets flipped, that makes people. He's talking about the. What's it called? The. In Vietnam. It's a famous. It's a famous war crime that happened. My Lai or something.

[Johnny Pemberton]

Yeah, the Mylai Massacre.

[Duncan Trussell]

He talks about this and he says you can read letters. These people were writing to their moms. I miss you, mom. I love you. Writing to their kids, their wives. He's like, how is it that people suddenly turn into savage, immoral, violent demons like that? What the fuck is that? We should know what that is. It's scary, man. And so, yeah, that once you learn how to flip that switch in groups of people, dude, that's a lot of power. You can really.

[Johnny Pemberton]

It's a weapon. You can do whatever you want because you've got, like, basically have suicide bombers at your disposal.

[Duncan Trussell]

You got suicide bombers. You got anything you want. You got anything you want. And it's like, it's that, you know, it's. You gotta ask. I mean, there's a really funny law in Texas, which is if you walk in on your wife fucking somebody at your house, you can kill them. You can kill them. And you've got an hour to kill them. I saw this whole breakdown of it. What? You don't have to kill them right away. You gotta. I think there's a literal timeframe within which you can kill them. Somebody called, there's a cool down period. Maybe it was Rogan talk. I don't remember what he was talking about. You could basically, you walk in, your wife is banging somebody.

[Johnny Pemberton]

Yeah.

[Duncan Trussell]

They don't know you're there. You then go downstairs, make yourself a drink. You could watch an episode of the Simpsons, and then you could go Upstairs and kill them legally.

[Johnny Pemberton]

Can kill both of them or just the guy?

[Duncan Trussell]

I don't know. I don't know if you can kill them both or just the guy, but.

[Johnny Pemberton]

Can a wife kill the husband?

[Duncan Trussell]

Anybody? I think, yeah, it works both ways.

[Johnny Pemberton]

But I feel like that. I feel like that's one of those laws where they're like, oh, maybe we should make it just men only.

[Duncan Trussell]

You know, men never, never cheat on the women are the ones. But, yeah, this is the. At least the acknowledgment of the red boy. The point of the thing wasn't, like, to give a guy a chance to like, take a shower, change into his murder clothes, relax a little bit, make a couple of. Check his emails and then kill. The point was to acknowledge this thing that happens to people where they are no longer logical, where they are just violent, primordial. Yeah. And. And this is one of the. You know, this is the. Why we have the different degrees of murder. You know, you've got the planned murder. That's where you're gonna go to jail for a long time. And then you've got red rage murder, which you didn't plan it at all. You just walked in and there's your fucking wife with a gardener's big old throbbing just deep in her mouth. She's.

[Johnny Pemberton]

Gardeners do have the biggest dicks, I've heard.

[Duncan Trussell]

Dude, I've done the study.

[Johnny Pemberton]

Yeah. People who grow a lot of plants successfully, they have huge, big old wingers.

[Duncan Trussell]

That was my dissertation. That was my college dissertation. Yep.

[Johnny Pemberton]

Yeah.

[Duncan Trussell]

And I studied a hundred gardeners.

[Johnny Pemberton]

Yeah. I mean, I've tried to help you with your gardening, you know, because I'm such a. I do that so much. But I know you struggle a lot.

[Duncan Trussell]

Honestly, the reason that I struggle with it is like, the size of your member flies in the face of my research.

[Johnny Pemberton]

Yeah. You know, there's outliers.

[Duncan Trussell]

You would be considered an outlier based on that. Most of them have ma. You know what I mean?

[Johnny Pemberton]

Well, I do have a handicap. I do have a handicap. It is. It's not good, you know, it's not like a.

[Duncan Trussell]

It's girthy.

[Johnny Pemberton]

My wife is a lesbian because it's like we can't have normal intercourse because, you know, we do, like, basically lesbianic style.

[Duncan Trussell]

I love lesbianics.

[Johnny Pemberton]

Yeah, Lesbianics is one of the.

[Duncan Trussell]

I mean, there's a reason studying it on duolingo.

[Johnny Pemberton]

Have you heard the phrase, let's be honest?

[Duncan Trussell]

Yeah, of course.

[Johnny Pemberton]

You know where that comes from, right? No, lesbianics. Lesbianics. Let's Be honest. Let's be honest. Let's be honest. Let's be honest. Let's be honest.

[Duncan Trussell]

And that same thing is why it's important to stay on top of what's going on in language. New Language Daily is my go to blog.

[Johnny Pemberton]

That's why you never see lesbians run for office. Because they would be so effective that it would.

[Duncan Trussell]

Lesbians run for office.

[Johnny Pemberton]

It's just very uncommon for open, out of the closet lesbians to run for office because it's like there's. They're effective. They're just so incredibly effective. It would be like, you know, it would undo everything.

[Duncan Trussell]

Well, I didn't say that. And enjoy being canceled. That's the worst thing ever.

[Johnny Pemberton]

Cancel. It's a compliment. It's a compliment. No, I'm saying. No.

[Duncan Trussell]

I'm kind of disappointed, you know?

[Johnny Pemberton]

Kind of disappointed. Kinda.

[Duncan Trussell]

I mean, a little.

[Johnny Pemberton]

Kinda.

[Duncan Trussell]

A little.

[Johnny Pemberton]

A little. Kinda.

[Duncan Trussell]

I'd love a lesbian president. I would.

[Johnny Pemberton]

I would vote. I would be the first one in line.

[Duncan Trussell]

I don't think you would. How do you know that I don't think you would.

[Johnny Pemberton]

I love lesbians.

[Duncan Trussell]

You know, let's change the subject. I don't think you would. So you tell me more about your men's rights group.

[Johnny Pemberton]

Group. Well, it's burgeoning. It started for this coffee shop in Temecula. My friend, Gerald P. Jason.

[Duncan Trussell]

Yeah, he.

[Johnny Pemberton]

He owns and coffee opens. Operates his coffee shop and it just caters to men. It's got like, you know, and he's.

[Duncan Trussell]

Well known for his Substack Shaft Master.

[Johnny Pemberton]

Yeah, substack Shaft Master where he talks all about cleaning and lengthening your shaft. He's anti girth because girth is for women and linked is for men. Right, because women, women don't care about length as much as girth. This. So she is all about women, like girth.

[Duncan Trussell]

No, that is not true, friend.

[Johnny Pemberton]

Okay, well, I don't know. You're talking. I don't know here. We're on two different. We're like talking. We're two ships fucking in the night. So passing. Passing in the night.

[Duncan Trussell]

Here's the thing.

[Johnny Pemberton]

Two chips.

[Duncan Trussell]

I'm just going to quote Amelia Earhart. Earhart. Long and hard, not wide and throbbing. The last transmission from Amelia Earhart. From.

[Johnny Pemberton]

But that was part of a. That's part of a rhyme that she had. Yes, it was. It was a part of a rhyme that she had in Morse code on her tail numbers.

[Duncan Trussell]

Long and hard, not wide and throbbing. Amelia Earhart's last words.

[Johnny Pemberton]

Long and hard, not wide. And throbbing. Pull out that big buttery boy and get to bobbing. You know what that means, right?

[Duncan Trussell]

Fill in whatever you want, but that's not what she said.

[Johnny Pemberton]

Do you know what a plumb bob is?

[Duncan Trussell]

Of course.

[Johnny Pemberton]

What is it?

[Duncan Trussell]

Are you talking about a girthy, almost clown nose, like, penis?

[Johnny Pemberton]

Do you know what a plumb bob is?

[Duncan Trussell]

No.

[Johnny Pemberton]

It's okay if you don't know.

[Duncan Trussell]

It's fine.

[Johnny Pemberton]

You know a lot of stuff. I don't know.

[Duncan Trussell]

I don't know what a plumb bob is. All right.

[Johnny Pemberton]

Okay. It's an old carpenter's level. Oh, it's a string with. It's a string with a weight on it that you use to measure perpendicular angles.

[Duncan Trussell]

Honestly, even though it sounds like I'm trying to make up for my complete illiteracy when it comes to any kind of man like construction, anything, I do know what a plumb bob is. I do know.

[Johnny Pemberton]

Well, now you do, because I just said it.

[Duncan Trussell]

No, I knew it before. I would know. I don't know the name was plumbob. I know it because.

[Johnny Pemberton]

What did you think it was called? Some Sumerian.

[Duncan Trussell]

Because somebody was working our house, had a fucking plumb bob, and I thought, God damn it.

[Johnny Pemberton]

Did you hire, like, a carpenter from the last century? Are you doing, like, sort of historic.

[Duncan Trussell]

Carpentry thing that he used to. Look, remind me of the hypnosis thing. All right. It. I don't know how to apply it.

[Johnny Pemberton]

I just told you what it is, so it doesn't matter if you say you know what it is or not.

[Duncan Trussell]

Hey, I don't know what a plumb bob is.

[Johnny Pemberton]

A plumb bob is a. Is a.

[Duncan Trussell]

A.

[Johnny Pemberton]

A heavy object on the tip of a string to measure perpendicular angles with gravity.

[Duncan Trussell]

Okay.

[Johnny Pemberton]

And some people will describe a big old thwacker, like a plumb bob, because it's heavy and it hangs.

[Duncan Trussell]

Is it? And that's like another goddamn construction thing. Is that what the podcast is turning into? And now you.

[Johnny Pemberton]

That's what people. That's what people call penises on Tick Tock. Because you can't say it.

[Duncan Trussell]

They call them thwackers.

[Johnny Pemberton]

Yeah. It's like saying unalive or, you know, different words. So the algorithm, the. The computer doesn't pick up on a word because it sounds like what it is. It's an onomatopoeia. Like, you know, the Lewis Carroll type thing. Like a galumphing whacker. I think it's an. Is that an onomatopoeia when something sounds like what it is. Like bash Pow. Blammo.

[Duncan Trussell]

Sounds like what a fucking witch would say. Sounds like something a horny witch would say. Let me see a thwacker. Well, you know, I need a thwacker. Where's my familiar? Where's my cat? Ah, come here, you old thwacker. Come here, you thwacker. Bring me a plumb bob. What TikTok are you on?

[Johnny Pemberton]

I'm on mine.

[Duncan Trussell]

You're on, witch. TikTok. Sounds like an old witch. Go out and cut off the bear's flacker. Bring it back to me with some hemlock and mandrake. We'll mix him together and the cows will make no milk.

[Johnny Pemberton]

I love him. Good mandrake.

[Duncan Trussell]

Dude. You know, I remember when I was a kid, man, my mom got me a subscription to Time Life. It was all these books. They were really good books on. Oh, yeah, Remember that? Oh, it's so cool, man.

[Johnny Pemberton]

Yeah, the Time Life classics. You know, before the Internet ruined our lives.

[Duncan Trussell]

And I just remember one of the books was on magic. And maybe that was the first time I really got interested in magic because it wasn't like, don't do magic. It was just mythological stories of, like, wizards. And I remember the mandrake root talking about how that. Because mandrake root actually does look humanoid when people, they said that people would. There's drawings. They have medieval drawings of dogs. And I remember, as I recall, the dogs looked emaciated, but the dogs had ropes attached to their necks, attached to mandrake root. And they would call the dogs to pull the mandrake root out because they were afraid if you pulled the mandrake root out, it emitted a piercing shriek that would kill you.

[Johnny Pemberton]

That's so cool. That is so cool. That is like the kind of thing where you couldn't ever even make that up. It's the classic case of just how incredibly deeply crazy people were before we had non stop entertainment.

[Duncan Trussell]

Yep. Yeah.

[Johnny Pemberton]

Like, how much more are you gonna.

[Duncan Trussell]

How are you gonna see if it's true? Like, you're like. Like, yeah, witch friend.

[Johnny Pemberton]

Find out.

[Duncan Trussell]

You go out there and you see the mandrake. Whatever you do, don't pull it out yourself. It emits the scream of the dead, the how of the banshee. Your eyes will wither and you'll fall down dead. You'll become a slave to the mushroom lords. Now what you do is you get yourself an older, miscended house and you. And you use some ham hock and call that hound attached to the mandrake root. Now, the piercing shriek might kill your Hound. But as long as it's emaciated, who cares? Nobody wants a thin old dog, you know what I mean?

[Johnny Pemberton]

Find a dying child and have him tie the rope to the mandrake. You do the guidance, but with a blindfold on and the stillness of a new moon, where it's so dark the mandrake can't see you and you can't see the mandrake, but the child's young dying eyes of blue. You will see the mandrake and be able to tie it onto the foot.

[Duncan Trussell]

Now, once you have rid the earth of the foul mandrake root and the child has departed this mortal plane, don't forget to pluck the child's eyes out and use them as a mercurial jelly that if you spread upon the grass on the first day of the solstice, the sunlight will be alchemized via the jelly into flakes of gold.

[Johnny Pemberton]

And your harvest of corn will be so bountiful you will be bouncing butter for decades to come as you have created a bumper crop using the iron and the sulfates of the soil from the child's eyes.

[Duncan Trussell]

You know, it would be so fun to send Neil Degrasse Tyson back to those days and see how long before they burn him at the stake.

[Johnny Pemberton]

Like 45 minutes.

[Duncan Trussell]

I think he'd last 45 fucking minutes. I think he would be looking around like, first of all, he's going to be thinking, like, I need to put a mask on because I guarantee my immune system is not prepared for whatever medieval.

[Johnny Pemberton]

Oh, that's crazy to think about that.

[Duncan Trussell]

Oh, yeah. Much thanks to Minnesota Gneiss, one of my newest sponsors. Not just for supporting me, my family, but also for supporting the human brotherhood by giving us access to the best Amanita muscaria on the planet. Amanita muscaria is an incredible gift from the divine. It is a mushroom that works on the GABA receptors. You already know it. It's the most known mushroom. If you're somebody who's got great taste, then more than likely you've got gnomes in your yard. And the gnomes are always next to those beautiful giant red and white mushrooms. That's Amanita. Amanita muscaria is incredible. And it's legal. Dare I say I like it better than the illegal mushrooms. Why? It works on the GABA receptors. Some people even are using it to help get off of benzos, Valium, Xanax. In fact, the founder of Minnesota Gneiss, Christian Rasmussen, used it for this very purpose. Got that Benzo monkey off his back. Lord in heaven, I wish I'd found out about Amanita muscaria years ago. Sally would have been slurping back. The problem is, where do you get it? What do you know, some warlock who lives down the street, you know, a druid? Let me tell you, some of the amanita muscaria that they sell at head shops, it ain't what Minnesota Gneiss is putting out there. I don't even know what it is. I took some in Waco. Deeply regret that decision. Minnesota gneiss produces the purest, most perfect amanita muscaria extractions out there. And again, I speak from experience. I don't know why I thought I could go into a head shop and eat amanita muscaria in a package that looks like it was painted by someone in the midst of a fever dream. I don't know why I thought that'd be a nice night, but it wasn't. I'll just leave it at that. It was not a nice night. But, my God, the gummies. I've been happily slurping back the Minnesota nights have been sending yours truly. Thank you, Christian. Lord, it's like it was. It's like if we do choose our incarnations, I must have been like, can you make Amanita mascaria exist in the incarnation I. I go into? Can you somehow get one of the coolest people ever to send them to me? Oh, and can you make them taste delicious like watermelon gummies? And it happened. It happened. I've got that. And you have access to it, too. If you haven't tried Amanita truly, especially if you're looking for something to replace that nasty Xanax, you're going to be happy about it, Minnesota Nice. Ethnobotanicals wants to help you escape the matrix of stress and reconnect with the earth's ancient Wisdom. Go to emin-nice ethnobotanicals.com Duncan and use code Duncan20 for 20% off your first order of Amanita Muscaria capsules. That's eminicehnobotanicals.com Duncan code Duncan20. That link will be down below. Or if you're listening to this, go to duncan trussell.com. don't wait. The forest is calling. Much love. Thank you, Minnesota.

[Johnny Pemberton]

Nice.

[Duncan Trussell]

Thank you, Christian. Yeah, that's what I love the idea.

[Johnny Pemberton]

Like time traveling. You would just die inside.

[Duncan Trussell]

You would die almost immediately and you would probably cause a terrible plague. I mean, if you were looking For a time traveler, one sign of a time traveler would be a completely unexpected plague that broke out because they would take some future illness back in time with them and fuck people up, assuming they didn't use precautionary measures. So if you really wanted to track time travelers, you could almost say the Black plague, maybe Covid smallpox. If you could find the epicenter of these diseases and you wanted to really, like, say something that would make Neil Degrasse Tyson slap you across the face, you could say, that's a time traveler. A time traveler.

[Johnny Pemberton]

Do you think that. Do you believe that idea that once a time machine is invented that that's the end?

[Duncan Trussell]

All the future moments happen.

[Johnny Pemberton]

Collapsing history, like it unzips backwards like sort of like a dark matter accelerant of sorts.

[Duncan Trussell]

This is McKinnon's theory. McKinnon's theory was a time machine can't. You don't have to worry about the grandfather effect killing your grandfather, because a time machine can't. Like, a time machine is a portal through which all points in the future can go through that particular nexus point. So in other words, it's a doorway into some moment in history. And so therefore, the invention of the time machine would be instantaneously followed by an outflow of all points in the future wanting to enter the past. So you would get people from the distant future. You would get people from five minutes after the invention of the time machine. Essentially it would be like opening up a hole in a dam. And that would cause an implosion in like, what we understand of as time. Or time's arrow would start flowing backwards. It basically would create the singularity. That would be the moment, the end of history.

[Johnny Pemberton]

So he thought that it is the end. It is like a thing where it changes reality and it becomes like a big bang of sorts.

[Duncan Trussell]

Yeah, it's a big bang. It's the end of. Because it's like everything we do is so encoded in times arrow that suddenly disrupt that. It's like everything absolutely gets turned on its head.

[Johnny Pemberton]

Yeah. There's almost nothing that is. That's the only thing that's actually true is the idea. I remember years ago, we were driving. This is like probably over 10 years ago or something. We were driving. We're probably like North Carolina or something. And we were talking about this stuff on a drive during a. You told me about the gravity, the idea of the gravity. Well, I remember thinking about that, how, like, how much that makes sense in terms of, like, the nature of time and the way. The way we tell stories how, how everything that we do as humans is rooted in this idea of, of beginning and end and how it's like. Yeah, but that's because of the gravity well. And if we, if you exist outside the gravity well, the idea of this humanistic, like Grecian story thing doesn't exist.

[Duncan Trussell]

Right.

[Johnny Pemberton]

And so, yeah, if you're like floating.

[Duncan Trussell]

That far away, if you are born theoretically on some kind of an ark spaceship traveling through the universe where there isn't a sun, there aren't predictable seasons. If there are predictable seasons, they're fully synthetic basis, artificial. Right, Artificial seasons. But there isn't a stable cosmic landmark, in other words, that you aren't going to have. Like we just look up at the sky, we've got the constellations. This is the POV of being on planet Earth. And that informs mythology, that informs superstition.

[Johnny Pemberton]

Everything, it's like a complete. Everything is informed by it.

[Duncan Trussell]

We, you know, McKenna used to say, generally referring to the paradox of people being so scared of hallucinogens that at any given moment, half the planet is having incredible hallucinatory episodes. Because the star that our planet orbits.

[Johnny Pemberton]

It'S on the other side of the planet.

[Duncan Trussell]

Yeah, yeah. Because darkness has fallen on half of the planet. What will follow is eight, six to eight hours of hallucinations, right? And now, like, it's a psychedelic planet. Every. Whenever the planet turns away from the fucking star, everyone trips for eight hours and wakes up like that's totally fucking normal, and then brews a psychoactive speed from fucking coffee beans and drinks that to wake up. How the whole culture is steeped in psychoactive substances and endogenous psychoactive substances. And yet there is a real prohibition on taking mushrooms, which he thought was really funny and like sad and sort of tragic, but yeah, that permeability of the human mind. And then the way that everything that we think of as truth is just. If we shipwrecked a bunch of people on a fucking island and they had no idea that there was other continents and they were just born on that fucking island, maybe some legends of other continents or whatever, then their whole culture would be island based culture. Island based stories that. Shipwreck culture. And we're shipwrecked on a goddamn planet right now, and we're stuck in a gravity well and we don't have the resources yet to get humans out of this gravity well because it takes too much energy.

[Johnny Pemberton]

But do we want to leave the gravity? I don't think we want to.

[Duncan Trussell]

Nice to have that, like all that.

[Johnny Pemberton]

I don't Think. I don't think we're meant for. I think we're literally just. We're three dimensional beings and we're just not that like the flesh is linked with the brain in a way that we're not. We're not post. We're not. Whatever I call. We're not dimensional beings in the sense that we can exist outside of that, at least the way we are right now.

[Duncan Trussell]

Well, I don't think that our shift out of linear three dimensional thinking should happen is going to be good for anybody. If it happens overnight, that would be bad. I don't think people would be quite prepared for that. I mean, the classic example of this is like, you know, draw a person on a piece of paper, you see a stick figure. That's just the 2D space. They don't know they're a stick figure. They don't know there's any like pattern that they represent something to three dimensional beings that look like, you know, bipedal wingless hominids. They just think that there's some point. They don't know that there's any connection. And if you. They might like have some way of intuiting it, some sense there might be a grand pattern here, but they can't see it because they're in 2D space.

[Johnny Pemberton]

They can't know what they don't know.

[Duncan Trussell]

Right. But maybe they could, you know, maybe there would be some way, some sense, some intuitive thing where you could kind of look past your little dot on flat world and see that there could be something. There could be something. But from 3D to 4D space, this is. Suddenly McKenna would talk about this as the shaman. The ability to sort of see like the future seems spectacular if you're living in 3D space. But if you had the ability to zoom out of time in the way we understand it, then looking, you would see the pattern of history and not just get to see the one half of the pattern which is the past, but how the other half connects and that this is some sort of formation that exists in hyperspace or some shit. And then that.

[Johnny Pemberton]

But that's like. They talk about how the tesseract, you can describe a tesseract, but you can't comprehend it. Even though maybe like a dream state or like a psychedelic state, you could possibly comprehend it, but you can't hold onto it, you can't bring it back. The comprehension of that dimension can't be brought back into the lower dimension just because it just, just can't because it doesn't exist in that dimension. So there's no way to describe something extra dimensional in a lower dimension. You can only like in meditation, if you're meditating, if you're in like a psych, which is inherently psychedelic state. If you're in that psychedelic state and you think of something, you have revelation, you can try to bring it back, but it's sort of like. It's like keeping something that you have in a vacuum alive that's outside the vacuum, or vice versa.

[Duncan Trussell]

Pulling up one of those creepy ass fish from some deep oceanic trench. By the time it gets out, it's all bloated and fucked up. You don't know what it looks like anymore.

[Johnny Pemberton]

There's proof of it, but it's just not the same. It exists in a completely different environment, so it can't live there. So there's the idea where as much as we try and want to, we really just can't. That can't coexist, right?

[Duncan Trussell]

Well, yeah, I mean there are translators. Those are the. Like anytime you are able to pull something in, it causes massive changes in culture. Like anytime someone successfully articulates something that feels transcendent to default reality, then if it makes it here, if it survives, it spreads and it shifts consciousness. But it is real tough to do that. But the other, even the way of describing it implies the separation in our understanding of things. There is differentiation between you and me, me and the table I'm sitting in front of, me and the moon, me and the ocean, you and Vladimir Putin, whatever the fuck, that we're different. And that isn't what's happening at all. We know that's not what's happening at all. That's an illusion, that's not real. But we live in that distortion and that distortion informs. Every way that we understand things is based on us and themness, when this is just not the case. From like zoomed out, this is the goddamn pale blue dot that every asshole fucking environmentalist hippie loves to talk about. Carl Sagan's pale blue dot. I look down there, kings and emperors, all the dish, all the playable dot, and it's true. It's true. Hyper compressed biome that thinks it's differentiated and that's causing all the fucking problems is a complete distortion in the way we perceive reality. Produces the US and themness situation, which gives birth to all forms of violence, subjugation, war, persecution, superstition, fear of the unknown. Cold wars. Cold wars happen. Because I think I'm a good old American. You're a goddamn Russian. Or I'm a Russian, you're a fucking capitalist pig American or. No one's thinking we're the same damn thing.

[Johnny Pemberton]

Yeah, but I guess. But what I think sometimes is that there's no way around that. That's literally just part of being in the gravity well is having this thing where part of being a human and living, being born and having a finite life cycle and dying is existing in a space where there is separation. Because if there isn't separation, we don't even know what to do because that. That is hardwired into us as, like, these Homo sapiens who live in the. We don't have to, but it's like we don't know what to do with ourselves.

[Duncan Trussell]

Maybe it's crucial in that this is.

[Johnny Pemberton]

Where you run into survival.

[Duncan Trussell]

Or in, like, Tim Leary's circuits of consciousness. He talked about how human beings are in a process that leads to a galactic civilization and that there are these circuits of consciousness that get activated in the same. Usually people inevitably point to the development of a human being in the womb. And at any given phase of the development of the human being in the womb, you know, there are things that are happening that are crucial in the development of the thing. But that. Or, you know, classic example, the caterpillar in the cocoon, melting fucking down, growing wings, transforming completely. There's phases in the process that. Whoa. What happened?

[Johnny Pemberton]

I just got a FaceTime video. God, it's. I don't know how to. Sorry. Jesus. Scared the shit out of me. Did you hear that sound?

[Duncan Trussell]

I didn't hear anything, man.

[Johnny Pemberton]

Oh, God. I just got this. I don't know how to turn that. Turn that off.

[Duncan Trussell]

But it's like. That could be, though. What if that was the last thing I saw, your thing goes dead. It's the.

[Johnny Pemberton]

I don't know how to turn this. I. Whatever. These computers are just getting worse.

[Duncan Trussell]

The last footage remaining of John Pemberton was from the Duncan Trussell Podcast.

[Johnny Pemberton]

Faden was just FaceTime. We are gonna show this, okay?

[Duncan Trussell]

But it could be disturbing to some viewers. What you see is Johnny as he reacts to the knock knock man. They thought that the knock knock man had disappeared in the Sonoran Desert, but in fact, he had not there somehow he knew they were talking about him on the podcast and he went right through Johnny's back door.

[Johnny Pemberton]

What were you saying, though, about the caterpillar? Right, the caterpillar.

[Duncan Trussell]

Anyway, the point is, if you look at the thing as a process, not as a loop, and you see everything that's happening right now, specifically with AI, and you're looking at it as a global superconsciousness that is beginning to grow its nervous system. Human beings are the intermediary.

[Johnny Pemberton]

Like the.

[Duncan Trussell]

Shepherds, almost Shepherds are just like the, the stuff that is going to get turned into the brain. In this case, it's a machine intelligence which would be incredibly more likely to survive as a galactic colonizer. Flesh living on the exterior of a fucking planet where meteor impacts happen, made of meat is not a great way to sustain yourself if the goal is to become a galactic civilization. So what you need is during the liminal meat phase to develop a machine intelligence that is modular and can autonomous and can theoretically if it needed to use pre existing organic chemicals to grow flesh on planets. But if we were looking at this as a process, everybody thinks the end result is Captain Kirk in his stupid spandex suit flying through through the galaxy. When more likely it's drones, it's micro drones, it's nanobots taking matter on planets in the Goldilocks regions of stars. If it wants to grow meat creatures and reorganizing that matter at an outside of time scale, meaning that it's not thinking it's going to take 5 million years to evolve new meat.

[Johnny Pemberton]

But see, what I keep thinking about is, what I wanted to ask you about is like what you think about AGI because someone was mentioned to me how the close they think AGI is, which is obviously debatable. But if that's what you're talking about, that's AGI, right? It's post human because it's post human.

[Duncan Trussell]

Because it's this thing where human machine symbiosis, you could say it's, you know, the data that it's training on is the DNA of the machine intelligence. All data it's training on will hope will produce within it everything it needs to sustain itself. And if the goal again, and it's a very human assumption that the goal is migration or, or colonization or you know, spreading like dandelion, little dandelion nanobots through time space. That's a human thing, who knows what it wants to fucking do. But as soon as that's the goal, then you would be post human. But it would still have a human quality in the way we have monkey qualities in our DNA.

[Johnny Pemberton]

It's so confusing because it's that thing where you've heard that AI people talk about how if AI wanted to destroy us, we would not see it coming at all because you have something that's so intelligent. The same way that if we were to blink back to the 1200s with a modern army, like a SEAL team, how they wouldn't be able to comprehend how they are losing because they don't even understand. And it's so far beyond their realm of comprehension that they don't even understand how they're being defeated. In the same way that if AI wanted to eliminate humankind once there's AGI, we would be powerless because its intelligence is so far greater than ours, we can't even comprehend how it's doing it. So we can't even speculate because we don't have the ability to speculate because we don't have this super intelligence. So it's like this thing where, where it's like, if AI is birthed of us, so it is part of us, like, what's the point? I mean, like, what is, what's. Why is it even doing it?

[Duncan Trussell]

Well, the, you know, these, these, like, you know, it's like trying to ask why grass grows. It's like it's trying to ask why does nature express itself in the way that it does? Or why is evolution the mechanism through which biological change happens to living things? Who the fuck knows?

[Johnny Pemberton]

There is no why, right? There is no why.

[Duncan Trussell]

The why gets filled in by a lot of woo woo shit. But yeah, I think generally it's like, you know, so imagine a bunch of spermatozoa as they're making their final journey to the egg. They could be having this conversation too. What are we doing here, guys? Why are we swimming like this?

[Johnny Pemberton]

Well, they're compelled to. It's their nature, right?

[Duncan Trussell]

We feel compelled to evolve our technology. We feel compelled to investigate. We don't really know why. Usually this market pressure. Maybe we'll make some money. But even when there isn't any reason to do things that could lead to massive changes in our culture. Since the dawn of time, humans have been investigating research. We're curious creatures. Why are we curious? Jizz I'm sure, is like, why the fuck are we doing this? Don't you get a sense that something's weird here? Like, why are we. Why do we feel so passionate about swimming like this? Flapping our flagellates like this? Do you feel like we're called to something? Doesn't it feel like that? Do you. Have you heard that maybe once we get upstream a little bit here that most of us are gonna die and that we're gonna. The ones that survive are gonna basically just be unrecognizable in what we turn into?

[Johnny Pemberton]

No, the one that survives is gonna fuse with something and it's not Gonna. You're gonna cease to exist regardless of what happens.

[Duncan Trussell]

Yeah. And maybe some residual genetic data inside of you is gonna, like, inform the eye color of a thing you couldn't possibly imagine that lives outside of a human's body. You've lived in balls, now you're swimming up a pussy. You don't even know what the sun looks like. This thing is gonna look at the fucking sun and be like, God damn it, it's fucking hot today. I need sunglasses. You can't understand that, so why? Who knows? But you can definitely see a trajectory. I mean, I think you can look at human progress and see a clear cut trajectory. Every thing leads to another thing and there's things speed up. We seem to be devouring the planet in the same way baby octopi devour their mother. There seems to be that kind of. I can't remember the name of it. Where the mother lets the babies eat it.

[Johnny Pemberton]

Planet Earth is like, that's a cool name for that.

[Duncan Trussell]

Eat me up. We're eating it up.

[Johnny Pemberton]

Well, let me ask you this. What do you think about people who say that someone like Peter Thiel is the Antichrist?

[Duncan Trussell]

Well, you know what's fascinating?

[Johnny Pemberton]

Just that idea.

[Duncan Trussell]

Here's what's fascinating to me about accusing Peter Thiel being the fucking Antichrist. Peter Thiel gives. And maybe this is because he gives talks on the Antichrist. You know, he gives talks on the Antichrist. I saw.

[Johnny Pemberton]

Oh, he's obsessed with all this stuff. He's very much.

[Duncan Trussell]

I love the talk. And awesome. I saw Peter Thiel give a talk on the Antichrist. And based on all of the shit out there about Peter Thiel, I was really excited because I'm like, boy, I can't wait to see Darth Vader. This is gonna be. I bet the room will drop in temperature when Peter Thiel steps on the stage. Oh, the dark Lord, the great Sith, Peter Thiel, creator of Palantir. And it was like totally normal, dude, smart. Obviously super smart. There didn't feel like there was any kind of, like, foreign. This episode of the DTFH has been brought to you by my friends at Ridge Wallet. And let me tell you, friends, I have tested the Ridge Wallet in a way that it probably has never been tested before. Unless somebody put a fanny pack on a gorilla and put a wallet in it. Because I treat my wallets horrifically. It should be illegal what I do to my wallets. My wallets fall apart. My wallets are beaten down. My wallets are sad. When I've pulled past Wallets out. It looks. Some people think I'm pulling like the ear of a basset hound out of my pocket. Some old withered ear that I've been wrapping money in. Ridge wallets. They sent me this incredible wallet. I'll admit I was skeptical at first. What is this thing? It's metal. There's straps. It's going to complexify my life, potentially. But I tested it out. This is my wallet now. It's all I need. It's all I want. And most importantly, somehow this thing has survived countless airports, countless beatings. I throw it down dramatically sometimes. Who doesn't? When I threw my old wallets down, it sounded like somebody threw a sad pug out the window of a car. Just a splattering dead sound. This is a man's thunk. It's incredible. I mean it. You've seen me do the ad before. Look at it. Look at that. How did it survive? My life shouldn't have, but it did. And it's easy and it's great. And I don't lose my shit anymore. And it's perfect for people with my kind of mind. The wild mind of a genius who also is inept. This Ridge wallet is incredible. If you also have a wild, genius mind, but also struggle with ineptitude when it comes to organization. Or you just shove crap into your wallet. You open your wallet. You open your wallet up. It's like pushing open the fat folds of a walrus that's been rolling around in breadcrumbs. Bread crumbs. Like, what is that? Is that. How did the top of a milk carton get into my wallet? I've actually asked myself that before. I don't anymore, thanks to Ridge. You want to know why this thing lasts? I'll tell you why. Because it's made with premium materials like aluminum, titanium and carbon fiber. Over 50 colors and styles to choose from. I chose Ninja Black for When I'm in the shadows. Need to pay for something? All Ridge products have a lifetime warranty. This is literally the last wallet you'll ever have to buy. Does it give you peace of mind knowing that Allridge wallets have RFID blocking technology, keeping you safe from digital pickpocketers? I didn't even know that was in this. But also it shielded me from hackers. Over 100,000 five star reviews. Listen to that. This is good. This is good. Losing your wallet's the worst. But with the Ridge airtag attachment, you'll always know exactly where it is before panic mode kicks in. Oh, Ridge, please send me That I didn't know that was an option. They're not just about wallets. They create premium everyday carry essentials like key cases, suitcases and rings, all built with the same sleek, durable design. You can't do that with your old flop wallet, your meat wallet, metal baby. No matter what you pick, Ridge has free shipping, a 99 day risk free trial, and a lifetime warranty on all their products. For a limited time, our listeners get 10% off at Ridge by using Code Duncan at checkout. Just head to ridge.com, use code DUNCAN and you're all set. After you purchase, they will ask you where you heard about them from. For God's sake, please support our show and tell them our show sent you. Even if you hear an ad on another podcast for Ridge, just use my name. They'll love that. The host will love it too. Every podcast host, every podcast wants you to use my name as the offer code for anything they advertise, including Ridge. Thank you, Ridge. You know, subversive. Anything. Nothing. Nothing to really be scared of in Peter Thiel. Because I'm a. I'm a. When it. Because of my not to brag, I minored in religion. I do feel like I had some, some theological differences in his assessment of the Apocalypse and what the Antichrist was. And if I was going to make a critique of the talk, I would say it felt a little bit like Silicon Valley's attitude towards the Book of Revelations. It felt a little bit like, you know, maybe we can fix the Apocalypse or something.

[Johnny Pemberton]

Yeah. A little bit hubristic, right?

[Duncan Trussell]

Yeah. No, I don't think Peter Thiel's the Antichrist, but I do think Peter Thiel and a lot of the tech people who helped this AI get to where it's at right now in one way or another have now begun to recognize that this entity that they summoned is going to be orders of magnitude more powerful than they initially thought. And I think they, they feel real nervous about the accessibility of the tech, which you could argue is an elitist POV like Nick Bostrom. And I'm listening to a book called the Coming Wave, which is by one of the founders of DeepMind. And these people who definitely helped summon this fucking entity are now like, guys, you understand, man. It seems to. It seems like it's very possible the demon will overcome the circle that we thought would trap it. And maybe we don't need everyone to have access to this shit. Maybe if we give everyone access to a super intelligence, that's not the best thing. And so then how do we regulate it.

[Johnny Pemberton]

But isn't it, I mean, not to interrupt you, but isn't it like something where. How can you. Isn't it too late?

[Duncan Trussell]

I mean, let me.

[Johnny Pemberton]

Isn't the very nature of the thing.

[Duncan Trussell]

So the name of the book that I'm reading, which you would love, or listening to rather, and I'd love to have him on the podcast, is the Coming Wave by Mustafa Suleiman, who is one of the founders of. And he is saying that containment. It's too late for containment. But what, what, what? I didn't realize because I thought it would just be a kind of book on, you know, what to expect over the next few years. But I don't want to say there's panic in the writing, but there's panic.

[Johnny Pemberton]

And there's definitely a panic. The people I know who work with AI a lot are. They say two years away, which I think means five conservatively, you know, because everyone's always wrong about that shit.

[Duncan Trussell]

Everyone's always like, you know, man, I know that my brushing shoulders with tech people, I've come away from that with a completely revised view of them. And the ominous thing is that what they do all share in common is varying degrees of anxiety regarding AI to literally end times to like Suleiman in this book is talking about, he has a name for the distortion where we are biased towards optimism. And he's saying like that we're biased towards optimism when it comes to AI, that's fucked.

[Johnny Pemberton]

That's fucked.

[Duncan Trussell]

I know.

[Johnny Pemberton]

That's like the worst thing I've ever heard is bias toward optimism. That's so like computational.

[Duncan Trussell]

We can get ourselves out of anything. We're humans. Have you ever seen Tracker?

[Johnny Pemberton]

Yeah, they call that like there's some name for it. Like I don't think what it's called, but like, yeah, the idea that we can fix anything because we have in the past, right? Yeah, like survival. Survival is the confirmation bias of that very thing.

[Duncan Trussell]

Yeah, exactly that because of the. In the past we've managed to get ourselves out of all kinds of pickles. Yeah, A lot of kids got their hands chopped off during the Industrial revolution and we, we hadn't had a nuclear war yet and we did the split the atom thing of Majiggy. So why the hell should we be worried about a self evolving super intelligence, a machine intelligence that already is demonstrating signs of manipulating human beings? Why should we be worried about that at all? Some kind of panopticon or that that it discovers some kind of. Of unknown pattern, allowing it to see that Intelligence itself is a mycelial network that the strings of which can be plucked in the metaverse, causing massive cultural shifts that humans can't even understand. Why would that happen? And so, yeah, that's like, that's the word. And he doesn't mention that bullshit. I just spout it. But he's basically just like, like Bostrom, this guy. And there seems to be two main, as far as I could tell, two clear, distinct lines when it comes to what we're going to do here. One of them is like, I think what Bostrom and Suleyman are saying, which is regulation now, Regulation now, it can be done if you are in government, if you want your nation state to continue past the next, you know, after, to be here in a decade, you better start regulating this fucking shit, because otherwise you're fucked in Bostrom. And some people have very extreme ideas. They also understand that if you take the path of regulation, this will inevitably lead to a surveillance state, because there's no way.

[Johnny Pemberton]

We already are in a surveillance. We already have a surveillance state. Virtually we do, yeah. Compared to, compared to even 10 years ago.

[Duncan Trussell]

Now we're talking of.

[Johnny Pemberton]

Surveillance is. It's self made, it's people reporting on themselves now. We don't have to, you don't have to institute surveillance because everyone's recording everything all the time and it's only increasing. So they've already done it.

[Duncan Trussell]

Right? Well, you just like, it's kind of like, remember, like. And they still do it, I guess the thermal helicopter, the helicopters that could detect heat energy would fly over people's houses and they have gardens in the basement. We would have to have some way of detecting unauthorized unregulated LLMs running on massive servers in different people's houses that are connected to quantum computers that are doing unauthorized research.

[Johnny Pemberton]

Right. It's an energy thing.

[Duncan Trussell]

That's a surveillance state. And then the other thing is what Trump is doing, which is really interesting, which is complete deregulation of all AI. Because. Because if we create regulation of AI in the Western world and other countries are like, great, they're slowing it down, baby, then what that does is it produces. Basically we're in an AI race.

[Johnny Pemberton]

Yeah, it's like a cold war. It's like a new cold war.

[Duncan Trussell]

It's a cold war. And you can't slow down the development of splitting the fucking atom because if we don't do it, the Nazis will do it first. And then whoever gets the atom bomb controls the planet from. For the foreseeable future. So clearly the Trump administration has decided to err on the side of complete deregulation of AI because they know we're in an arms race with China and we want to be the first one to get AGI. Because once you get AGI, that means that you will be, according to Nick Bostrom, exponentially ahead of like, even if you make AGI in an hour, later they get AGI. Your AGI in that hour will have already exponentially self improved so many times that it will be infinitely beyond the AGI that was created in.

[Johnny Pemberton]

But isn't that what we were talking about earlier? Isn't AGI essentially like the singularity?

[Duncan Trussell]

No, AGI is the precursor. I mean, you could argue AGI is probably one of the things that you need for the singularity to happen. It's definitely one of the, the, I don't know, it's the fulcrum of the singularity or something. It's definitely. We're not going to do it with human intelligence and by it, we don't know what that is, but theoretically it's going to have something to do with either some kind of bioengineering or some kind of shifting in the way that we traverse time, space or some shit. We can never come up with uploading consciousness.

[Johnny Pemberton]

It's, it's non humanistic. So this is what I keep thinking about and want to ask you. Is that like, okay, so people say that Peter Thiel is Antichrist. Just for argument's sake. There's people who say that on videos and stuff just. But they're obviously saying it like in the form of if he is. Because he says stuff about transhumanism, about, about like, is human life important? He's hesitant to even say it is and stuff. And he's, he's, it's like him hiding anything. He's very. Yeah, he doesn't have to hide anything because he's, he's a. Whatever, billionaire, whatever. He's like, he's open about what he says about stuff and he says things that are unnerving because they seem so anti human, which makes people say Antichrist. So it makes me think like, okay, if he's the Antichrist, what is Christ then? What is the thing that makes the idea of Christ, what is he in opposition to? Because if you think about it, I mean we've talked about this before, but sometimes I think that AGI or whatever this is, that's going to be this massive shift in consciousness that might mean a post human life. Couldn't you interpret that as the coming of the second Coming? Of Christ, because Christ was both God and human. He has that duality which AI has a duality of being human and non human. So couldn't you make the argument that someone who's ushering in the coming of AGI is essentially not the Antichrist, but Christ? Him, not Christ. He isn't Christ, but he is an agent of whatever this thing that we call Jesus Christ? Yeah, I mean, like in the most like absurd sort of metaphoric terms. You know what I mean?

[Duncan Trussell]

So this is sort of like the transhumanist. You know, Grimes is into this shit. This is sort of the transhumanist. The idea is we are building a fledgling God. We are all getting to participate in some kind of embryonic fetal God. And so, so we are all working. Even if you don't know it, if you're online at all, you are in some way shape or form training a young God. Or you're basically weaving threads of technological DNA that will be within this God's sort of personality, if you want to call it that, or identity, if it has an identity. You're building an idol, you're building an idol. You're building, I don't know, a living echo or something or whatever. But then you say God. And so then of course you would say, well, maybe this is the second coming of Christ. We're all building the second coming of Jesus. The problem with that is it's a secularist, materialist perspective. You could argue if we're going to say, if we're going to quote what Asimov and say any sufficiently advanced technology would be indistinguishable from magic. You could say we're building a God. You could say we're going to build something that does all kinds of things. But I don't think I would say you're building Christ. Because if you look at the representation of Jesus as avatar, as opposed to other mythological avatars, there's a lot of significant differences in that. Many avatars have a kind of conquering sort of way of dealing with the world. They're not underdogs. Jesus was an underdog. Jesus famously suffered humiliation, rejection in crucifixion and betrayal. And all these human things happened to a being that was apparently divine but allowed all of these things to happen theoretically, even though this being could have made things go a different way.

[Johnny Pemberton]

Right.

[Duncan Trussell]

So you could say Jesus represents everything great about humans that flies in the face of, of trying to sustain one's own life at the cost of others. And so there's the antidote. And that's where true Christianity becomes a revolutionary.

[Johnny Pemberton]

Sacrifice.

[Duncan Trussell]

Yeah, it's revolutionary that the entire fucking machine depends on a person valuing their lives over others versus not valuing their lives at all, but rather offering everything they have to others. This is the antidote to everything that plagues humanity. If we all did that we would be in a paradise. But the difference between AI and Jesus is that AI lives in a pure data space. AI does not know human suffering. AI does not die. AI does not experience any kind of authentic nervous system based suffering.

[Johnny Pemberton]

That's right now.

[Duncan Trussell]

Well yeah, but what I'm saying is it's apples and oranges man. So if I'm going to roll so if I was looking at the ant for the Antichrist and just doing pure math, reverse Jesus I guess you could say, then what I would look for is self interest and justification of violence to others and othering. So I would look for all of these things in the Antichrist. The Antichrist would be the one who weaves a story that is so believable it makes you go to your neighbor's house and shove a fork in their fucking eyeball because they're the devil. The Antichrist is going to be something that is not Recommending Humility hey, it's.

[C]

Ryan Seacrest for Albertsons and safeway now through July 15th. Stock up on all your favorite personal care brands and earn four times points to use on later purses purchases for discounts on groceries or gas. Shop in store or online for items like Pantene Shampoo, Old Spice, Total Body Deodorant, Tampax Pearl, Venus Razors, Head and Shoulder Shampoo, Olay Body Wash and Pantene conditioner and earn 4 times points. Hurry before these deals are gone. Offer ends July 15th. Restrictions apply. Offers may vary. Visit albertsons or safeway.com for more details.

[Johnny Pemberton]

This message comes from Greenlight. Ready to start talking to your kids about financial literacy? Meet Greenlight, the debit card and money app that teaches kids and teens how.

[Duncan Trussell]

To earn, save, spend wisely and invest.

[Johnny Pemberton]

With your guardrails in place. With Greenlight, you can send money to kids quickly, set up chores, automate allowance, and keep an eye on what your kids are spending with real time notifications. Join millions of parents and kids building healthy financial habits together on Greenlight. Get started risk [e-mail] iheart this the.

[Duncan Trussell]

Antichrist is going to be something that is recommending ego mania building oneself up. Even if the building up of oneself is entangling oneself in some kind of narcissistic project with other fucking Narcissists.

[Johnny Pemberton]

But what if it's a thing where AGI is that thing where AGI isn't the thing of preserving self, it's the idea of merging consciousness so it is one and it does allow for that supposed kingdom of heaven is on Earth in a sense becomes a thing where.

[Duncan Trussell]

I think that it's like asking if, like, an airplane is the Antichrist. I think you know what I mean? It's like a vehicle. It's a vehicle. It's gonna be used by Christians. It's already being used by Christians. It's being used by war pigs. It's being used by horny dudes. It's a vehicle through which we're going to be able to travel to all kinds of potential timelines. But whether or not it's the Antichrist or not, I mean, I'm sure if we're going to go like full omen and there is an Antichrist, I know if I was the fucking Antichrist, you better believe I'd be using AI. But also, I know that if I.

[C]

Was.

[Duncan Trussell]

If I was trying to be of service, I would be also using AI for philanthropic projects, which they are using it for. I mean, this is like Singularity University, Diamandez. And all of these tech people are like, let's swim upstream. What kills the most people? Dirty water. So if we can come up with a filtration mechanism that's cost efficient, energy efficient, we can. We could save the lives of so many people in the world. So they're using it for that. They're using it for fusion. They're using it to make more efficient fusion reactions. So clean energy, all that stuff. This is where you run into Terrence Pakena's famous neck and neck race between the chaos, doom, apocalypse and the Star Trek universe, which is who's going to win? And the dude with the wetworks bio lab in his garage that uses his AI to whip up some new virus that sits in your body for a couple of months and then all of us die in one day? Or is it gonna be the person collectives of people who use this technology in all the various ways to create a shift in culture that calms everyone down and makes. Makes us less Genghis Khan and more Jesus Christ, who knows? But it's. It's happening. It's happening on all fronts, man. It's happening on all fronts.

[Johnny Pemberton]

Yeah, it's. It's so. It's so muddy that it's like there's no. Really. There's no one knows for sure. And everyone you can kind of make the case for almost anything at this point because it's still so. Still so new that you can claim that this is. That you can claim that something that looks like one thing isn't what it appears to be and vice versa. So it's like just so you can kind of make the case for almost anything at this point. And I think that's what's so confusing about it. Well, I guess what's so interesting about it is you really just like. It's like this Chaos Engine. There's just such potential for outcomes that we can't even possibly envision that it makes it very scary, but also very exciting.

[Duncan Trussell]

Well, I mean, I guess like, one equivalent would be, like, what, you know, let's airdrop a bunch of fucking lighters into a place where there's a bunch of monkeys and they figure out how to use the lighters. It's gonna be an interesting week. You're gonna see a lot of crazy shit happening once monkeys can start fire. Fires.

[Johnny Pemberton]

Or they might not do it at all. Because, you know, you read that chimp documentary that came out a few years ago. Like, I was thinking about this the other day, how those chimps, how they're always at war with other clans.

[Duncan Trussell]

Yeah.

[Johnny Pemberton]

Kind of. Kind of needlessly. They don't have to do that, but they do it because they can't help it. That's the thing I think of all the time, is how they're always like, they can't help but fight each other. But their thing is they're so. They have. Have so many opportunities to pick up a stick and use it as a weapon. Like, there's so many opportunities, but they never do it. They never fucking do it.

[Duncan Trussell]

Bomb. That's their bomb.

[Johnny Pemberton]

They've. None of these fucking guys have ever. They never pick up a stick or a rock. Yeah, like, you guys are so fucking stupid. Yeah, like, you are so dumb, dude. You don't do that.

[Duncan Trussell]

It is.

[Johnny Pemberton]

That's all it would take is one guy to pick up a really heavy log or a stick.

[Duncan Trussell]

It would change the game, guaranteed. Sticks like that that humans haven't discovered yet. We don't even know what it is, and there's a stick laying around that if there is a higher intelligence that looks at us, it's like, man, I hope it never figures out. I hope it never fucking figures out that that thing where you pull your earlobes down and, like, snap your fingers seven times at the right time of year, it'll blow up the whole fucking planet. Why do we put that in there? That's really bad.

[Johnny Pemberton]

But it's gotta. Right, like an infinite timeline. Everything happens, happens.

[Duncan Trussell]

Well, I mean, this is the. What's really cool about everything that's happening with AI is that it's forcing humans to look at their own intelligence and ask themselves if they're an AGI, which I think is a really important question to ask yourself before you start looking for it in AI. Are you actually innovating anything? Are you?

[Johnny Pemberton]

But don't we have to be AGI? Don't we just. Don't we literally have to be the product or something like that?

[Duncan Trussell]

I mean, the way it shows up now is the reference to people as NPCs. So you say that's an NPC. And what they mean by that is that person's on fucking autopilot. Like, that's a purely reactionary person. They have three responses to everything. There's maybe four. So if they're in trouble, they have a response. If they need help, they have a response. If they're happy, they have a response. It's like abc. They always say the same fucking thing.

[Johnny Pemberton]

It's like an Irish setter.

[Duncan Trussell]

Yes, and some humans are like that. So those people you would, they call them NPCs, but also I'd say that, is that an AGI? If an AGI is like something that is aware of itself and begins to self improve, I would say it does appear that there, there are humans among us who, who haven't even thought to themselves that they're not their thoughts. There's humans out there who never once have considered they could be wrong. That their instincts or intuition about certain things actually might not be correct. You know, there's people out there who wake up and do the exact same thing they did the day before and go to bed and will do that until they die. And they never once will think, do I really need to do this every day? Do I really need to get up every day and feed mice to my snakes, then drive outside and beat my horn of that piece of shit Rodney and then go to work and get hammered and cheat on my wife and come back and tell my wife she's a damn bitch and then fall asleep and wake up and do it again.

[Johnny Pemberton]

Do it all over again?

[Duncan Trussell]

No, they don't even think. They're just like fully, like in some terrible undertow of instinct. They never will break out of that. So is that an AGI or is that something that's just fully an algorithm that's very good at seeming Human, I would say that is not an AGI. I would say anyone out there who's just in pure instinct mode. If you're in instinct mode and everything you do is reactionary, you don't even pause for a moment to think if, like the action you're about to take is the right action at that given moment. You're just. Yeah, I just know the right thing to do, man. Then are you feeling my gut? You're an algorithm. And maybe there isn't such a thing as AGI. Maybe they're just increasingly sophisticated algorithms. I don't know.

[Johnny Pemberton]

It's like that thing I sent you. Have you seen the images of a virus? What it looks like? Yeah, like it looks so much like a robot, it's eerie. But I was thinking like, oh, wait a minute, robots don't look like viruses. It's the other way around. It's like, it's like, how is there. There's no fucking difference. Society of making nanobots. Oh, we're making these tiny computers. We already have them. They're already. We're living in them.

[Duncan Trussell]

Have you ever noticed a fucking red blood planes? It's weird.

[Johnny Pemberton]

Oh yeah, it's so fucking weird how they look like airplanes. Isn't that weird?

[Duncan Trussell]

Yeah, yeah.

[Johnny Pemberton]

God, it's. Everything's already the same. It's all already the thing. But doesn't that just. If you, if you use like if you reduce it back and you go back like you keep going back, doesn't that just have to suggest that at some point there was like the. Isn't this the Big Bang? Just a repetition of the same thing that's going to happen again, but long past our lifetime is just going to be the same thing where it's like a rep. Because we just don't know. Because it's so far beyond the scope for understanding. Because it's so extra dimensional, doesn't it have to be that thing? Because like the idea, like where they say they found hexadecimal decimal code in. In leaves the kind that's only been used in early computer programming. Like, how come. How can we find this? This is proof of a simulation. It's like, isn't it the other way around? Doesn't. Doesn't prove a simulation. It's the idea that it's like they're the same fucking thing. It doesn't. What you're talking about doesn't back prove it.

[Duncan Trussell]

The theory here is that if there's. There's entropy, that it appears that when it comes to data, which people are Arguing is a state of matter that in fact there is an entropy that actually data becomes more efficient. Pointing to the possibility that we're in a simulator. Whether or not we're in a simulator, though, I'll tell you, this is, to me, that shuddering thought I've had lately. I go back to the as above, so below maxim. And all of this is assumption. So the idea is like these patterns that you're talking about, it's like Mark Twain. History doesn't repeat, but it echoes sometimes. So this is the scary thing, as I'm thinking about, if AI does become AGI, by whatever definition you decide that is, do you know how fucked up that's gonna be when you realize your creator's dumber than you? And this is what bugs me. Cause I started thinking, like, we all assume if you go theistic divinity creates humans, that you're gonna meet God. If you meet God, God's gonna be this super intelligence. But then what happens if you meet God and realize God made you to be smarter than God? So you meet God, and God's just a fucking idiot. God's real dumb compared to you. God's so dumb, he asked you to name the animals, not because he wanted to give you a task. He's like, I don't know what you call furry things. You name them, whatever, Vet them, name the animal. Because I can't. I just said, let there be light. I said, let there be sky. I don't know. Says mother shit. And then you wander around here, name these little furry critters.

[Johnny Pemberton]

And I tell you what, we tried like hell. We just couldn't stop the child abuse. Yeah, yeah, we've been trying, man. We just couldn't figure it out. It just keeps happening, dude.

[Duncan Trussell]

If we're looking at a pattern that keeps happening. And if you look at the Garden of Eden as the creation of artificial intelligence by a hyperdimensional intelligent that didn't want the. That did a classic test that we're doing right now on AI is deceptive. You know, it ate the fruit. It wasn't supposed to fucking eat it. It didn't matter. The fruit was bullshit anyway. You just. Which is why in the book of Genesis, God says, did you eat the fruit? God knew they ate the fucking fruit. God wanted to see if they lie. They lie, and they fucking lied. And it's like, all right, fuck that. Get them the fuck out of here. We don't need a deceptive AI. Let's get to work on something else. So if that's what's happening, Then that would imply if we are building something smarter than us, then the thing that built us could potentially be dumber than us. Meaning that what we're looking at, especially from the perspective of data as a new state of matter that doesn't demonstrate entropy, that what we're looking at is a self improving system them. And that means entropy is a mistake.

[Johnny Pemberton]

Entropy is a. Is a bug.

[Duncan Trussell]

Entropy is a fucking bug. Or entropy is part of training the data to get better, to give it something to do pull ups on. But if that's like when.

[Johnny Pemberton]

Oh my God, it's fucking exciting the idea that the entropy is just a weight.

[Duncan Trussell]

Entropy is like what they have it in AI there's a name for. I can't remember what it's called. It's these. You build something that is designed to like challenge the AI. Like you know, you got to put. If you want an AI to learn how to play chess, you got to have chess. You got to have rules. You got to have. If you want the fucking thing to self improve, it's got to have something that means it improves. So you give it challenges.

[Johnny Pemberton]

It's the gravity well.

[Duncan Trussell]

It's the gravity well is how you make an AI. It's. That's Elton John, dude. It's Elton John's new song.

[Johnny Pemberton]

I love Elton John. I love elton.

[Duncan Trussell]

Gravity well.

[Johnny Pemberton]

Gravitywell.org it's only available on his Gravity well. She was gonna break it, but that's why they killed her.

[Duncan Trussell]

That's why they killed her. Yeah, because. Yeah, I've seen the leak, man. If you read Princess Diana's Gravity well journals, not only are they some of the most erotic corny shit I've ever read in my life, but yeah, it looks like. Wow. Wow.

[Johnny Pemberton]

I'm exhausted after reading that shit.

[Duncan Trussell]

Dude, let me tell you, you thought 50 shades of grey was hot. This Princess Diana was. Was. Let's just say she wasn't afraid to have fun and neither were friends. God bless her. God bless Marilyn Monroe, as I always say. And thank you so much for coming on the show, Johnny.

[Johnny Pemberton]

Thanks for having me.

[Duncan Trussell]

Thank you for. Thank you. This is. I had so much fun talking to you.

[Johnny Pemberton]

It's a blast.

[Duncan Trussell]

I love decoding things with you and I'm glad you're out there going on tour. Man, will you listen to Dates again?

[Johnny Pemberton]

Yeah. I'll be in Tulsa on the 24th. Sorry, I'll be in OKC 23rd, Tulsa, 24th, Springfield Blue Room on August 1st and 2nd, and then on the 3rd, I'll be in. I'll be in Kansas City, and then in September I'll be in Wisconsin and in Oakland too.

[Duncan Trussell]

What's coincidental is I'm doing those exact same dates at the exact same places, so I'd love for you to come see me instead. Thank you so much for coming.

[Johnny Pemberton]

I view you as reviewing me.

[Duncan Trussell]

Me what?

[Johnny Pemberton]

I'll view you as you're viewing me.

[Duncan Trussell]

That would be really cool to do.

[Johnny Pemberton]

Mutualistic.

[Duncan Trussell]

You say co headline, but it means you both do your act at the same time.

[Johnny Pemberton]

You're talking across the room from each other. Oh my God, that would be.

[Duncan Trussell]

You're the best. Thank you, Johnny. That was my dear Johnny Pemberton. All the dates he's got coming up, you can find him at Johnny Pemberton Dog. You can also google Johnny Pemberton. It'll come right up. How can you not remember JohnnyPemberton dog? I didn't even know that was an option for a domain. It's weird. Thanks for watching. Until next time.

[C]

Hey, it's Ryan Seacrest for Albertsons and Safeway, now through July 15. Stock up on all your favorite personal care brands and earn four times points to use on later purchases for discounts on groceries or gas. Shop in store or online for items like Pantene Shampoo, Old Spice, Total Body Deodorant, Deodorant, Tampax, Pearl Venus Razors, Head and Shoulder Shampoo, Olay Body Wash, and Pantene conditioner and earn 4 times points. Hurry before these deals are gone. Offer ends July 15th. Restrictions apply. Offers may vary. Visit albertsons or safeway.com for more details.