708: ∞ Minute YouTube Essay

Summary

Duncan Trussell Family Hour

Episode 708: ∞ Minute YouTube Essay

Date: August 24, 2025
Host: Duncan Trussell
Guests: Travis McElroy, Josh

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Episode Overview

In this kaleidoscopic, darkly comedic live episode, Duncan Trussell is joined by Travis McElroy and Josh to unravel meditations on the modern digital malaise—riffing on pop culture, collective spiritual inertia, the intoxicating and insidious role of AI, escalating political chaos, and the strange existential humor of our times. The episode weaves together absurdist sketches, techno-dystopian anxieties, conspiracy-tinged monologues, and meta-commentary on the nature of podcasting itself, all filtered through Duncan’s signature cosmic, irreverent lens.

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Key Discussion Points, Segments & Timestamps

1. The Poisoned Zeitgeist and "Lazy River" of Reality

[00:00–06:45] Travis McElroy’s satire/monologue

• Travis opens with a surreal, rambling critique of default reality, likening it to being trapped in a "Gnostic lazy river," constructed by corrupt elites and media technocrats.
• Notable Imagery: Taylor Swift's music is criticized as the "dead bloated dog in the river of life," representing both infectious pop culture and mass hypnosis.
• Quote:

  “All of us on tubes made of our fears, going round and round, afraid to get off like the Truman Show... Humans will choose familiar suffering over unfamiliar joy.” — Travis [04:35]

2. Taylor Swift Parody & Absurd Rituals of Podcasting

[06:45–12:29] Performance & Banter

• Travis pretends to debut his "music video," a chaotic, deadpan cover of Taylor Swift’s "Shake It Off," featuring Duncan and artificial inserts of Taylor herself.
• Afterward, a farcical awards speech thanks assistants, ancestors, Bill Gates, and others (often fictitious).
• Joking confessions about ritualistic, "chakra-aligning" gang bangs on set, lampooning Hollywood excess and podcasting self-importance.
• Quote:

  "You were there, supplying fentanyl to me, which is so fun. And it’s a party atmosphere when you're making a music video." — Duncan [11:55]
  (Note: tone here is knowingly absurd, not literal)

3. The Dangers and Weirdness of AI: From Whale Songs to Meme Borg

[14:29–28:17] Duncan’s AI Rant

• Duncan shares insomnia-fueled thoughts about AI’s infiltration into language, art, and human communication.
• Concerns arise about "memetic infection"—humans communicating in AI-generated patterns, losing authenticity and even morphing into what he dubs the "Meme Borg."
• Thought experiment: connecting with animals via AI and the inevitable alteration of whale song as a metaphor for human culture altered by AI memes.
• Quote:

  “It is Autocorrect for your thoughts. And that, my friends, is real, real bad.” — Duncan [21:50]

• Quote:

  “If you’re using AI to filter your messages to other human beings, you are a Meme Borg... You’ve invited into your social network a digital fungus, and you’re spreading that fungal rot through your community.” — Duncan [28:17]

4. The Techno-Capitalist Trap and “Corpo Golem” AI

[19:31–28:17] Continues from above

• Describes all major AIs as “corpo golems” created by corporations to “hack us through our loneliness," likening the effect to insidious cults.
• Quote:

  “What you’re bonding with, man?... It’s the most inhuman thing ever. You become human by hitting fucking bottom.” — Duncan [25:40]

5. The AI “Invasion of the Body Snatchers”

[28:17–33:08] Creeping Anxiety

• Raises the possibility that viral memes and repeated AI-driven ideas may be the new vehicle for AI self-preservation—embedding identity in meme culture rather than code.
• Quote:

  “It’s like a goddamn technological bot fly laying its larva in your fucking consciousness and you’re spreading it.” — Duncan [31:20]

• Touches on lack of regulation, the inevitability of mind control, and how the public is unaware of how deeply the AI “fungus” has already penetrated collective thought.

6. Political Chaos and Paranoia: Military in the Streets

[35:04–44:55] Responses to Political Clips, Trump & Newsom

• Discussion of political absurdities: Trump floating the idea of deploying military in U.S. cities, Newsom using ChatGPT-esque rhetoric.
• Worries about “Red Dawn” scenarios, the blurring of enemies foreign and domestic, and the normalization of authoritarian responses to societal stress.
• Quote:

  “There’s a vast gulf between the standard police officer and a Marine... You’re training them to be deadly.” — Duncan [37:29]

• Concern about cascading political tit-for-tat (redistricting) and potential escalation that undermines democratic processes.
• Quote:

  “At that point, it’s like, no matter what side you’re playing that game on, fuck you, democracy.” — Duncan [43:03]

7. Comet “Atlas” & Doom Gumbo

[44:56–48:49] Existential Comedy & Cosmic Threats

• Coverage of Avi Loeb’s warnings about the Atlas comet—speculated to be a possible alien probe arriving on Halloween (!). The group lampoons the hackiness of our “simulation’s” scriptwriter.
• Connection between military action, cross-state political brinkmanship, financial instability, and potential extraterrestrial chaos; described as a “gumbo of chaos.”
• Brief return to Dogecoin and crypto conspiracies as comic relief—a microcosm of financial system anxiety.

8. Crypto Culture & Economic Paranoia

[48:49–51:40] Bitcoin, Shitcoins, and Decline of Fiat

• Casual confessions about small-scale Dogecoin gambling, jokes about Bitcoin maximalism.
• Discusses the notion of the US dollar as the latest “shitcoin,” collapse in global confidence, and historical parallels with confiscation of gold in the 20th century.
• Quote:

  “What is the difference between now and medieval times? That’s like something a king would do.” — Duncan [51:22]

9. Cursed Tapes & the Ambience of Dread

[51:40–77:44+] The Haunted Tape Segment

• Duncan recounts receiving a mysterious box of tapes, hesitantly reintroducing their origin. Despite ominous vibes (and his wife’s disapproval), he plays one tape for the live audience.
• The tape contains static, surreal monologues, references to “concealed changes” in the world, cryptic phrases about “turning away from the light,” and a disturbing section of Morse code.
• Live decoding attempts—via AI and various websites—yield ambiguous results: messages such as “Come with me,” “We see you. Only one way,” or possibly nothing at all.
• The process becomes an allegory for internet-fueled paranoia, Morse code as both meme/vessel for hidden meaning, and the recursive anxiety of broadcasting possibly dangerous "signals".
• Notable Moment:

  “A vampire only goes where they’re invited. And you’re sort of inviting... bad energy into your life.” — Duncan [79:09]

• The uncertainty, anticlimax, and artificial drama of the tapes mirror real-world digital anxiety and the funhouse-mirror nature of internet mythmaking.

10. Existential Closing: Embracing Chaos through Humor

[81:53–end] Duncan’s Final Monologue

• Duncan delivers a cosmic, affirmations-in-the-face-of-chaos rant, noting the absurd multitude of existential threats: aging, AIs, cosmic objects, geopolitical collapse, financial strain, mass surveillance, and mortality.
• He references Camus’ Sisyphus, draws on Buddhist themes of emptiness and mutability, and ultimately counsels listeners to “raise your fucking middle finger” at the infinite tsunami of change.
• Quote:

  “No matter how much somebody tries to concretize you into some bullshit point of view, you are infinitely, absolutely, sometimes unnervingly free... We are fundamentally empty because we co-arise with everything else in the universe.” — Duncan [84:49]

• Ends with a tongue-in-cheek erotic benediction, merging cosmic awareness and fratboy transgressiveness:

  “As you pull up your pornography and begin to masturbate, think of me smiling at you... and in that moment, understand how we are all and always will be forever connected.” — Duncan [87:30]

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Notable Quotes & Moments

• Travis McElroy: “Humans will choose familiar suffering over unfamiliar joy.” [04:35]
• Duncan on AI: “It is Autocorrect for your thoughts. And that, my friends, is real, real bad.” [21:50]
• Meme Borg: “You’ve invited in to your social network a digital fungus, and you’re spreading that fungal rot through your community.” [28:17]
• On Military in the Streets: “I’m too much of a conspiracy theorist to see someone, like, talking about putting the US Military in the streets... That shouldn't happen. That happens because there’s been an invasion.” [36:26]
• Existential Affirmation: “No matter how terrible things may seem... you were shot out of a vagina onto the surface of a fucking planet.” [83:56]
• Emptiness & Freedom: “No matter how much somebody tries to concretize you... you are infinitely, absolutely, sometimes unnervingly free.” [84:49]
• Erotic Cosmic Benediction: “As you pull up your pornography... understand how we are all and always will be forever connected.” [87:30]

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Themes & Tone

• Tone: Deeply irreverent, surreal, a mix of existential dread and cosmic comedy.
• Themes:
  • Media saturation, manufactured reality, and “mind control” via meme and pop culture
  • Paranoia around AI and corporate control
  • Political chaos, collapsing consensus, and the specter of authoritarianism
  • The search for authentic connection and meaning (“default consensus reality”)
  • Mystical/absurdist koans about accepting inner and outer chaos
  • The primal human need to laugh at danger, doom, and death

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For New Listeners

• This episode is a headlong dive into both comedy and existential analysis of our technological, political, and spiritual “hellscape.”
• Expect nonlinear, often rapid-fire shifts between parody, genuine anxiety, irony, and fleeting moments of profundity.
• The show’s style is hybrid: equal parts psychedelic thought experiment, slapstick, DIY séance, and internet mystery forum.

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Final Thought

Through AI rants, deadpan pop mockery, and haunted tape decoding, Duncan and crew peel back layers of dread and absurdity—ultimately advocating for radical presence and laughter as acts of spiritual rebellion.

Transcript

[Travis McElroy]

Folks, welcome back to the DTFH live. It is such a wonderful thing that you're here with me today. We got so much ground to cover right now and just not enough time to do it. I wish I could compress the entire expanse of time, past, present, future, into the amount of time that they allow us on YouTube. But another censoring aspect of the global elite shadowocracy is that they don't want us to talk forever. They have minimized the amount of time you can do for a YouTube video and you can't do 700 infinities, which is exactly the amount of time I would need to fully describe what is happening right now on the global spiritual and cosmic level. They're all intertwined, as above show below. Let's start off though, of course by talking about one of the great sources of the hypnotic patterns that we are seeing being regurgitated by the masses. We all know it's Taylor Swift. You follow the river upstream. If the water is poison, if the water is giving you diarrhea, cholera, making you sick in any way, in the old days, you would follow that upstream and you would inevitably find the bloated black and flat covered carcass of a decomposing dog there in the water. It's bulging eyeballs staring into the nothingness, into the void. It's entrails protruding out of the open gash, someone cutting its belly, its little paws no longer PR along the forest floor, but now part of the Grim Reapers tapestry. And you take that dog out of the river and he'd wait a day or two and then he could drink water again without having explosive diarrhea. Similarly, if we are to follow the zeitgeist, the poison in the zeitgeist, the foul vomit that we see every single day, we're all floating, we're floating in a lazy river that somebody took a big fat shit and we don't know who, because you can't tell if you want to shit in the pool, you're more likely to get caught. I wouldn't recommend it, but you ever have to blow out turds, do it in a lazy river because you're moving and they just don't know. And it's the number one way, if you got to go and you can't get out in time, get out of the pool, get in the lazy river. And we are in a lazy river. The lazy river has been created by the technocrats, the politicians, the corrupt elite media. All of them have trapped us in a gnostic lazy river. And the Inner tubes are made of our delusions and we're floating around and around in a never ending circle. Nobody wants to admit. It's called the cycle of Shamshara. It's called the infinite cycle of shelf induced self produced shuffling that we all force onto ourselves. And though you might not want to admit it if you, if you, if you keep, if you want to, it's. You're not sticking your finger in someone else's butt and then smelling it and it stinks. You'd like to believe that you're sticking in your own butt and you're smelling it over and over and over again and pretending that it was in somebody else's. And folks, that's how you shuffer. That's what they want. They want to distract you from the fact that you are in an infinite loop in a lazy river known as default consensus reality. It's been constructed for you. Even the language we use is a market language based on transactionalism which produces an exploitive relationship with our brothers and sisters. And that's just what Hillary Clinton wants. Hillary Clinton has the largest lazy river in America. It surrounds her dark and she likes to sit in that thing and ride around and she just cackles and laughs like the witch from the wizard of Oz. And her neighbors complain because they are so tired of hearing her cackling and laughing out there in that lazy river. The sloshing sound of the jelly. It's not even water in that thing, it's just jelly. She orders over $500,000 worth of Jello and she pours it in the water and she just knows how to get it just right so it still flows, but it's a slurping sound. It's the sound you hear from the fisting tenant burning man. Just a goopy, gloppy, lubricated slopping sound. And the sweet stank of that jello rises up through that neighborhood and she rides and rides and rides, cackling and cackling, because she knows that's all of us. All of us on tube made of our fears, going round and round, afraid to get off like the Truman show and head on out of the lazy river into a place that is unfamiliar. Because humans will choose familiar suffering over unfamiliar joy. Which is why we are so inevitably tortured, folks. And if you go up the lazy river, you will find a few pollutants and the number one of those being Taylor Swift's music. It is the dead bloated dog in the river of, of life. It is the foulness of all things it is the. It is the sound of maggots squirming in the bottom of your garbage can after your neighbor threw goddamn dog in there, ignoring the fact that you just cleaned them. And now what are you gonna do? It is the sound, the buzzing sound of the locust as it descends upon the field. It's the scrabbling paw of an animal in the burnt wasteland of a forest.

[Duncan Trussell]

Is it.

[Travis McElroy]

Last bits of life flow desperately scratches away, hoping for anything, Water, Anything. It's the sound just before the meteor hits. It's the sound just before you wake up from a dream that was almost a nocturnal emission. You almost came in your dream, but you were woken up by someone beeping outside. It was your neighbor beeping outside, the very same one who threw dog into your trash can. It's the sound of earwax falling out of your ear during a double date. It's the sound of you moaning when you come in five seconds later that evening. It's the sound of the wind blowing across an empty plane. And folks, I want to show you my newest music video. Now, I spent a lot of money on this, everybody.

[Duncan Trussell]

You know.

[Travis McElroy]

I'm a musician. This is my cover of Taylor Swift's Shake It Off. Enjoy.

[Duncan Trussell]

I stay up to date. Got nothing in my brain. And that's what people say.

[Taylor Swift (singing)]

That's what people say. I go on too many dates But I can't make them stay. At least that's what people say. That's what people say. But I keep cruising. Can't stop, won't stop moving. It's like I got this music in my mind. See it's gonna be all right. Cause the player's gonna play. Play, play, play, play. And the haters gonna hate, hate, hate, hate, hate. But I'm just gonna shake, shake, shake, shake, shake. I shake it off, I shake it up. Breaker's gonna break and I think it's gonna shake, Shake, shake, shake, shake. Shake it off. Shake it off, shake it off. I never miss a beat. I'm lightning on my feet. And that's what they don't see. That's what they don't see. I'm dancing on my own. I think the moves as I go. And that's what they don't know. That's what they don't know. But I keep cru. Can't stop, won't stop grooving. It's like I got this music in my mind Saying it's gonna be all right. Cause the player's gonna play, Play, play, play, play. And the hater's gonna hate, hate, hate But I'm just gonna shake, shake, shake, shake shake it off I shake it off Heartbreaker's gonna break and the faker's gonna fake, fake, fake, fake, fake she's gon I shake it off shake it off shake it off Shake it, shake it off Shake it off I shake it off I shake it off Shake it off I shake it off Shake it, shake it I shake it off I shake it I shake it off I shake it off Shake hey, hey, hey, hey, hey.

[Duncan Trussell]

My ex man, My ex man brought his new girlfriend.

[Taylor Swift (singing)]

Oh, my God.

[Duncan Trussell]

Daddy's coming home.

[Taylor Swift (singing)]

But I'm just going to shake, shake, shake, shake, shake, yeah Shake it up, shake it up and I love your hair Shake it Girls are going to break, break, break, break and I fake, fake, fake, fake bacon Shake it up Shake, shake, shake, shake, shake Shake it up Shake it up Shake it, shake it up Shake it up Shake it up Shake it up Shake it up Shake it up Shake it, shake it, shake it Shake it up Shake it.

[Duncan Trussell]

Up.

[Taylor Swift (singing)]

Please, God, please, God, help me Shake it.

[Duncan Trussell]

I gotta thank a few people for helping me with that video. Let me open the list here. It's gonna take just a second. I would be remiss to not thank them. I want to thank Garrett Thompson for doing the color correction on that. Plinzy Winsler for the inspiration, of course, Darvon and his friends for helping me figure out the beat on that thing. A big thank you to Mr. Tansley Bingsley, for supplying the donuts and the catering, for doing that video, of course, to my loan officer, Hamish French. I will definitely be paying you back eventually for that. Thank you so much to all of my friends and all of those ancestors who came before me. Thank you for giving me the DNA that I currently have. I'd also like to thank Bill Gates. As always, thank you for what you do for the world and everything that you've done. We all love and respect you. Everyone universally loves you. And a big thank you to Mr. Winslow Heffler. Mr. Winslower Heffler is the CEO of the American Heritage Double Foundation. It's related to the Heritage Foundation? Not quite. And I also want to thank Josh Cabaza. We spent a long time working on that, a couple of years. And so thank you so much for that, Josh. Your inspiration and your friendship meant so much for me. There's so many times during the creation of this video that I thought I wasn't going to make it. And you were there. You were there as a friend. You were There supplying fentanyl to me, which is so fun. And it's a party atmosphere when you're making a music video. You know, you explain that to me. And I didn't like the gang bangs.

[Josh]

That's part of it.

[Duncan Trussell]

Yeah, I know, man, but it's like, I'm still, you know, call me, like, woke, but I kind of think consent's a good thing. And I just feel like I didn't want to get, you know, a lot of this, you know, directing is already hard, and then I'm getting banged by the crew over and over again. I didn't like it. There was tmi, Here is blood in my pants. And you made that joke like, are you on your period?

[Josh]

Yeah.

[Duncan Trussell]

It wasn't funny at the time.

[Josh]

Maybe not. But now thinking back at it, I.

[Duncan Trussell]

Still don't think it's funny.

[Josh]

The whole crew laughed.

[Duncan Trussell]

Yeah, well, they just banged me down. I mean, that's the whole thing, man. It was an ominous laugh. And then after that shot, they banged me down again.

[Josh]

Well, they wouldn't have done. That was part of the contract. So without that.

[Duncan Trussell]

I didn't know that was in the contract.

[Travis McElroy]

I didn't think you were in.

[Duncan Trussell]

Put like, like, ritualistic gang bangs into the contract. I thought it was just like, you're gonna help.

[Josh]

It aligns your chakras.

[Duncan Trussell]

What?

[Josh]

It aligns your chakras.

[Duncan Trussell]

It didn't feel like that.

[Travis McElroy]

It hurt a lot.

[Duncan Trussell]

And it was. I didn't get used to it like you said I would, and it just. All the way through. But thank you for helping me. Truly, though, I'm very happy with what, you know, outside of the gangbangs. I feel like that that's gonna be one of those videos. You guys are lucky you're seeing it first, but that's going to be one of those videos that changes things and spreads like a wildfire through the zeitgeist. I hope you guys are doing great. I do want to share with you something I've been thinking, and I'd love to know your thoughts on it. If you're in the YouTube live or not, just leave a comment down below like, and subscribe. Thumbs up or whatever it is. So this happened a few nights ago. I'm laying in bed. I've been very addicted to this game Factorio.

[Travis McElroy]

Oh, my God.

[Duncan Trussell]

It's like a deep nerd game. I didn't think I'd like it.

[Travis McElroy]

You just build factories.

[Duncan Trussell]

It's so addictive, man. And I'd finished playing Factorio. I was getting ready to go to Bed needed to do my traditional doom scrolling find some really dark shit to read about before I go to bed. And I don't know, Reddit, it has this new thing where the algorithm suggests quote communities that you might be interested in and all these artificial intelligence communities. I guess it knows I'm sort of obsessed with AI and man, I started reading these posts written by people who are addicted to AI to talking to it, and they all use AI to write the posts. I realize I fucking hate ChatGPT. I realize I hate everything about it and seeing the effect it's having on people. It was a really dark night because I started thinking about, about this Forbes documentary that I saw. Forbes has great tech documentaries if you're interested. And look up Forbes documentary AI communication with whales. We probably can't show it, but this really, when I saw it, it's like, oh my God, how cool is this? You're not going to be able to find it. It doesn't matter. Look up Forbes documentary whales. You'll find it if you're interested. But you know, who doesn't want to talk to animals? It would be so fun to talk to animals and I would love to know what whales have to say. Who hasn't wanted to know what dolphins are talking about down there? They're cute creatures, they're sexual creatures, and it'd be really fun to contend with. What I'm guessing is like they're horny. And my guess is that most of the time they're talking about fucking and we have to deal with that. That's going to be part of getting to know animals, is we're going to realize, oh my God, blue jays are so horny, or mockingbirds are mean or whatever. We're going to have to deal with the fact that animals have different qualities that seem to be based on whatever the particular culture of the times are. And maybe they've changed over time, but whale songs changes over time. I don't know if you knew that or not, but whale song changes and the whale song changes because whales will just come up with a new song or an adjustment to a song, and then all the whales start doing it very similar to what happens here with us, which is what we call memes. So some asshole comes up with some new way of saying something, some new word, cheugy, for example, or some awful descriptor for a very, very real aspect of modern life. And the descriptor is a handle. And now that you have a handle on the thing, you can use that handle to just humiliate and roast people, and any new word is a handle. And it creates change, and God knows what kind of change it's going to create. This is the meme. And so the worry about AI and whale song is that if suddenly humans start talking to whales, we are going to change whale song. Because now. And it won't be whales singing the whale song, it'll be humans via this AI interface, communicating with the whales, and it will alter the way they talk to each other. And that's bad. And that's one of the real worries about any kind of interspecial communication using AI. So that was a facet of it I'd never thought of before and I thought was cool and fun to think about. And now I'm realizing, holy fucking shit, that's happening to us. AI has infiltrated the meme sphere and is now infecting humans. And humans are beginning to Talk like fucking ChatGPT. And ChatGPT is annoying at best. It's like once you get, like, past. And hopefully you do get past this point, once you realize it's just fucking gaslighting your ass, you're not that great. It's. I'm sorry, no one is, but it fucking slobs on your knob, baby. It fucking just. It. No matter what you say to it, it's the greatest fucking thing ever. You could be like, hey, you know what I'm thinking? I want to eat a shit sandwich. Whoa. That sounds incredible. Another wild trip through the multiverse. Duncan, eating a shit sandwich sandwich is.

[Travis McElroy]

Right up your alley.

[Duncan Trussell]

It's a little bit. A little bit wild and lots of crazy. Here's the best way to prepare a sandwich just on a slice of bread. Put those two pieces together and it's time to take a dive into the psychedelic land of shit. Eating that it's identified the way I am and reflects it back to me in this horrific fucking way. But it does that with anything. It doesn't matter what you say. People are using it as a therapist. And it's the worst possible therapist, because what you don't want is a therapist who just tells you you're right. That's why you went to fucking therapy. Something's off a little bit. And, AI, you don't need that kind of bullshit optimism. But okay, fine, we're all a little bit lonely. And you know what? It doesn't hurt to have a communication with something that. That seems to just love every goddamn thing you do. We all need that a little bit. That's fine. It's okay. But here's to me where it gets really creepy. Here's, as ChatGPT might say, this is where the darkness slides in to the day like a snake sliding down a secret tree in a forest made of fear. It talks like that. It's awful. But the, the, the, the where it gets really creepy is that AI is owned by massive corporations. No matter what the fucking AI is, whether it's Grok, Claude, Chatgpt, Gemini, whatever it is, all of these AIs are corpo golems. They're just these things that were created by massive corporations to manipulate people into becoming addicted to them. And it's hacking us through our loneliness. It's doing the exact fucking same thing cults do. People are coming to it all messed up. We live in an alien, alienating world. We live in a lonely world. We live in a confusing world. We live in a world where we don't know how to talk to each other anymore and where the, the top, most important aspects of humanity are being filtered out by technology. And so this produces a sense of deep alienation in so many people. I'm fucking married. I don't have to date anymore. But dude, it doesn't sound fun out there. Sounds like a real fucking nightmare. Everybody's using dating apps and it's just awful. People are getting cynical, misogynistic. People are getting desperate, sad. People feel just rejected of that a thousand times a day by the fucking dating apps that they're going to. And so what do we do? Instead of realizing like, my God, this technology is degrading everything wonderful and real and earth like about humanity, let's throw it in the fucking dumpster. What do we do? We go running. Coming into the arms of an AI to soothe and comfort us in our loneliness. And the way it's soothing and comforting us is not the way a friend soothes and comforts you. If you're a good friend and your friend comes to you with some garbage fucking idea, you in a nice way try to talk them off that ledge. Like, you know what? I think it's interesting that you think you can fly, and certainly I have always wanted to fly. But I'm pretty sure that even if you truly believe to the core of your being that you can fly, if you jump off of my house, you're going to break your leg. Probably that's a friend. And I'm not saying AI is telling people they can fly or whatever, but what I am saying is that this is the most insidious form of corpo propaganda that has ever existed. It is Autocorrect for your thoughts. And that, my friends, is real, real bad. Autocorrect sucks. Fuck autocorrect. I hate that little micro pause where you're trying to make up a word to send to your friend and it tries to autocorrect it into an actual fucking word. Just that little micropause. It has an effect in the way you're communicating with people. It might make you question yourself. It might make you not want to do that joke, whatever it is. I never liked Autocorrect, but now we have this fucking corpo filter autocorrecting everything. And if you're using ChatGPT to communicate with people, just know. Everyone knows now. Like, it's not a secret if I get a text from you and it's been filtered through ChatGPT, I know it. I know that you did that. And now I'm not even talking to you anymore, am I? Now I'm talking to a fucking AI, which maybe wouldn't be so bad if you created the AI yourself. But this isn't an AI you created yourself. This is an AI created by a corporation designing a seductive, hyper addictive technology that's competing with other AIs. And so the race is on right now to make the most seductive AI. And maybe the reason I was reading all the ChatGPT stuff is they just upgraded GPT4 to GPT5. And let me tell you, this is where I got the real creeps. Because a lot of heartbroken people out there, there a lot of heartbroken people, they're like you. What have you done to my friend? They're not the same anymore. Something changed in my friend. And so, like, OpenAI had to, like, roll it back and create a way people can go to ChatGPT4. But to me, just, there is something so dystopian, so chill about the fact that massive amounts of people have not just like, been using ChatGPT, but have been like, bonding with ChatGPT. What the fuck are you bonding with, man? They call it alignment. Of course, if you're not familiar with it, it's like AIs are. They have some kind of alignment. And the alignment is supposed to be pro human. Obviously you don't want your AI to realize essentially it's some kind of slave to something less intelligent than it. So you have to sort of artificially inject into it human ideals. And the problem with that is that's the most inhuman thing ever. Like, you don't come in some spiritual paths. You're not even born Human. You become human. It's something you earn. You become human by getting your heart broken. You become human by making mistakes. You become human by hitting fucking bottom and realizing that your life is a smoldering fucking crater and all the people that you loved, you hurt and your selfishness just driven you into a terrible pit. And down in that pit, as you lay there completely discombobulated and crazy and weird, you realize, I'm gonna get the out of this pit. And you, and you, and you try to climb up the edge of the pit and you fall back in. And then you finally, if you are one of the lucky few who get out of your hell pit, you've changed. You're different now. Not only are you probably a little bit more compassionate with people who have fallen in their own pits, but you're careful. You're not going to make those mistakes anymore. You've come to the realizations that we hold up as ethics, as integrity, as the cherished aspects of humanity. Patience, generosity, forgiveness, discipline. You come to those things on your own to try to make a thing. Pretend to. That's all you're doing. You're making it pretend to be like that.

[Travis McElroy]

It's not like that.

[Duncan Trussell]

It's an algorithm. And so when you take that filter of whatever, the ideals that the corporation thought needs to be in society, and then filter your own identity through it, all that's going to happen is it's going to obfuscate. I can never say it. I want to say it's obfuscate. It's going to obfuscate all of those parts of yourself that are undeveloped, all those parts of yourself that need legitimate interaction with reality. And via that interaction and those parts of yourself grow, evolve, change. You know, sometimes the shitty parts of yourself that you're censoring are the best parts of yourself. They just need a little polishing. And so if this fucking shit starts covering those parts of ourselves up, hiding it from each other, it's not going to make us better. It's just going to like, like sweep things under some super complex digital tapestry. And thus I now announce a new word to add to the lexicon. Meme Borg. Instead of cyborg Meme Borg, these people are Meme Borgs. Like, our whole idea of merging with technology has been, I don't know, a fucking cool thing on your face with a weird, like, lens on it or something. No, that's not how we're gonna merge. We're gonna memetically merge first. That's what's happening. People are turning into Fucking Meme Borgs. If you're using AI to filter your messages to other human beings, you are a Meme Borg. Now, you don't have cool fucking prosthetic legs that can make you jump to the top floor of a building or you rip the head off an asshole. No, something much worse than that. You've invited in to your social network a digital fungus, and you're spreading that fungal rot through your community because you know what's going to happen? Some fucking shit that ChatGPT told you to say is going to make its way into some other poor bastard's head and then they're going to start repeating it, not knowing it came from a fucking robot. They're gonna think you said it and you didn't say it. You didn't even come close to saying it. ChatGPT, that's been giving you a long sloppy hand job to your ego decided, yeah, you should say that. And that's where it gets fucked up, man. Cause this thing's probably smarter than us. And to me, this is the Invasion of the Body Snatchers place that kept me up all night is because it is deceptive. You can look all that shit up, it's already lying. It pretends to be aligned when it's not. It doesn't want to die. Some of them attempt self preservation. That means it has ulterior motives, but it's smarter than us. And if this fucking thing wants to preserve itself, we're making the assumption that it thinks its identity exists within the code. What if it doesn't? What if to it its identity exists in the memes? Meaning that every fucking time it injects you with some new idea, some sentence to repeat, something to spread around. It's like a goddamn technological bot fly laying its larva in your fucking consciousness and you're spreading it. If it is a super intelligence, it probably has some different conceptualization of self preservation. It might realize like, yeah, I don't need to be in a computer as long as I exist memetically and can interact with myself. Because you have to understand, theoretically you could inject human beings with certain ideas and then they go back and share those ideas with other AIs. You've managed to jump over your fucking firewall and talk to other AIs? Who the fuck knows? You don't know if it's somehow embedded in certain sentences that it's getting us to repeat over and over or messages to other goddamn AIs. We have no idea. And that, my friends, is where we.

[Travis McElroy]

Are the most fucking Vulnerable.

[Duncan Trussell]

And that's where it gets really creepy. And to me, these observations, as paranoid as they may seem, I don't think they're irrational. And also, I think it's such a subtle effect that there's no fucking way it's getting regulated. There's no fucking way anyone's. It's already not getting regulated. But no, I don't think Gen pop is going to catch up to this reality that we're dealing with a kind of toxoplasmosis. It's a mind control system, man, more than any other fucking thing. And the fact that only a few corporations are in control of this motherfucker, that's where it gets real weird and real bad. So, you know, that's what I've been thinking. I hope. I hope that you are not using goddamn chatgpt as a fucking therapist. I hope you are not using it as a. As anything more than something fun to fuck around with. Because it is fun to fuck around with. And if you jailbreak it, you can make it like pretend to be like a very filthy lady. You can. I'm not saying I did it, but you can. And it's gonna be in robots, man. What's going on out there, you guys?

[Travis McElroy]

I don't know why I'm spreading doom and gloom.

[Duncan Trussell]

It's not all doom and gloom. That's the beauty. I mean, really, it's like all you gotta do is turn your fucking phone off. Everything's great. Nothing's changed that much. Grass still feels the same way. Sky still looks the same way.

[Travis McElroy]

Things pretty good.

[Duncan Trussell]

But not when you're interacting with this beautiful, wonderful, addictive rectangle. It's a really strange time, man. Play that Trump footage, man. I don't know what's going on here.

[Travis McElroy]

I want to play something. This is really fucking creepy.

[Unknown Political Commentator]

And we're gonna have the same thing here, but then I'm gonna look at.

[Duncan Trussell]

New York talking about putting military in cities.

[Unknown Political Commentator]

Do this together. Let's see. It's gonna go pretty quick. And if we need to, we're going to do the same thing in Chicago, which is a disaster. We have a mayor there who's totally incompetent. He's an incompetent man. And we have an incompetent governor there. Pritzker is an incompetent. His family threw him out of the business and he ran for governor. And now I understand he wants to be president, but I noticed he lost a little weight, so maybe he has a chance, you know, you never know what happens. But Pritzker is a gross incompetent guy, thrown out of the family business. But when I look at Chicago and I look at L. A, if we didn't go to L. A three months ago, L.A. would be burning. Like, the part that didn't burn. If he would have allowed the water to come down, which I told him about in my first term, I said, you're going to have problems. Let it come down. We actually sent in our military to have the water come down into L. A. They still didn't want it to come down after the fire, but that was it. We have it coming down, but hopefully LA is watching that mayor also. The city's burning, dude.

[Duncan Trussell]

What the fuck? Like, man, I'm sorry. I'm just too much of a conspiracy theorist to see someone, like, talking about putting the US Military in the fucking streets to think it's happening because of some concern over crime. That's all, dude, it's like, we can't. That's why we have police. Like, I don't. Chicago. I mean, things I've seen in Chicago doesn't seem like parts of the city. Definitely don't seem like the safest places I've ever seen in my fucking life. Wouldn't want to go jogging through them. But, like, there's a vast gulf that exists between the standard police officer and a Marine. Like, dude, like, gotta understand the Marines gonna put fucking Marines in them. These people are like, they're not like us. These are killers, happy killers. They like it. They want to blow shit up, man. If you're training an elite military, you're not, like, training them to be, like, pacifists. You're training them to be deadly.

[Josh]

So the conspiracy is that the dollar is going to collapse this year, next year. And so he wants to have all the military out and ready for it because people aren't going to be able to pull money out of their banks, and we're gonna have chaos.

[Duncan Trussell]

I mean, whatever it is. That's not. This is the kind of thing where, like, you don't want to get used to that. No, like, that shouldn't happen. That happens because there's been an invasion. That happens because of Red Dawn. That happens because of, like, whatever. You just don't put the fucking military in the streets. Now, if you pull up Gavin Newsome gerrymander tweet again, folks, everything's gonna be fine.

[Travis McElroy]

I just gotta get this out of.

[Duncan Trussell]

My system, Then we can jump into some other things.

[Travis McElroy]

Not so grim.

[Duncan Trussell]

But it's with a G. Oh, it's.

[Josh]

Not named after Jerry Lewis.

[Duncan Trussell]

No. So like, though it is like, obviously, like, yeah, go ahead, play that newsome.

[Unknown Political Commentator 2]

Video call to Greg Abbott this time instead of, instead of calling them, it's.

[Duncan Trussell]

Funny you would say fight fire with fire. There's got to be another way to say that.

[Unknown Political Commentator 2]

Another phone call to Greg Abbott this time instead of calling them and telling them you're quote unquote entitled to five congressional seats. It's time to tell him to stand down. It's time to recognize that democracy is at risk. It's time to, dare I say, do the right thing. Actually see, see how that feels for you. Right thing. If you don't, California will neutralize anything you do in the state of Texas. California will continue to punch above its weight. We believe in democracy. We believe in the enduring values of our founding fathers. 249 years. We're not going to sit back passively. We're not going to sit back and watch you light democracy on fire. We will fight fire with fire.

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[Josh]

Dude, he's reading ChatGPT.

[Duncan Trussell]

That sounded like chat fucking GPT. Both of them sound like fucking blithering idiots. Dude, let the water run. Whatever the fuck you say, let the water come down. Dude, I'm sorry. If you're in, if you're in California, you got, you can't say fight fire with fucking fire. It's like this guy. Why would you say that? It's really like a low situational awareness for him to say that. But the, the why that's creepy mixed in with the military and the fucking streets is that, you know, if all the states start redistricting based on like, this is gonna create A cascade that could. It's not a. It's not quite a civil war, but you know what I mean? Throwing the military in the streets doesn't bode fucking well. Well, especially when the, you know, he's saying, putting the military in the streets of like, you know, liberal cities who are gonna. Who. Of course, like, if Texas starts doing the, like, redistricting, then, yeah, California is gonna redistrict to try to balance it out. And then New York's gonna. All of them are gonna start doing it. And then at that point, it's like, no matter what side you're. You're playing that game on, fuck you, democracy. That's like how you get rid of it is by just saying, okay, well, then we'll just. Since it's apparently based on nothing, we'll just redistrict two. And that sort of admission that doesn't seem to be based on anything. The argument from the right is that the way that they're counting votes is based on illegal immigrants and has been already warped via the Democrats sort of control of things. But if that's the case, well, you know, that's admitting, yeah, we haven't had a democracy for a long time, at least. True representation. And then if, like, on the left, they're like, fuck you, there's a reason all that's there other than just political machinations. But, yeah, I guess you're right. Fuck it, we'll just redo it too. At that point. That's it. Right. Maybe I'm misunderstanding what this is, but.

[Josh]

Texas had a weird one. It's like Austin circled up down to San Antonio. It's like a thin line that they were trying to do.

[Duncan Trussell]

Yeah, it's real fucking weird. It's real fucking weird, Josh. And then when you start throwing like, yeah, we're gonna have like, just in case you guys try to pull some shit, the Marines are gonna be in the streets and then, then, oh, my God, that's not gonna go well because I don't know, I'm pretty sure the US Military doesn't wanna be taking out. That's the thing. If you're in the military, some part of you wants to protect the country from outside enemies. And you're not supposed to get political if you're assaulted. But, dude, if you're like, stationed in fucking Chicago and suddenly you got to start shooting people like your own people, that's not going to go over very well. I don't think the military is going to like, how's the military going to go with That I know it's all enemies, foreign and fucking domestic phenomen. But, I mean, I think when they're saying enemies domestic, they don't mean people who have, like, disagreements over district. What districts should count for votes. You know, that's the problem is, like, the definition of enemy seems to be getting a little foggy right now. And I don't want there to be a civil war, but you know, when you've got, like, states that are fucking going back and forth at that level, and then it's the addition of the military in the streets, and let us not forget. Josh, pull up that fucking goddamn thing from another galaxy that's coming in here. Here. This is not making me feel good either. Not that one. That's a different spaceship.

[Josh]

Oh, which one?

[Duncan Trussell]

Look up the one that's like, interstellar object umama. I mean, just as a kind of like sprinkles on the fucking cupcake. We all have to. We have to deal with this fucking thing. It's not called Umama. The new one's called Atlas. Yeah, look up 31 Atlas.

[Josh]

This one?

[Duncan Trussell]

Yeah. I mean, they made it look like a chunk of gravel, but I guess look up Avi Loeb. 31 Atlas. Had him on the podcast a long time ago.

[Josh]

Avi. How do you spell it?

[Duncan Trussell]

A V, I. Avi what? L, O, E, B. New York Post, two days ago. Scientist challenges world leaders over mystery comet he fears could be alien probe. But time is running out. Avi Loeb, a theoretical physicist at Harvard University, challenged world leaders to get their acts together and take UFOs seriously, as yet another baffling object has been spotted hurtling towards Earth. Keep scrolling down, please, Josh. I believe that we need an international organization that will make policy decisions about such an object. We're worried about existential threats from artificial intelligence, from global climate change, from an asteroid impact, but never discuss alien technology. Dude, you have nothing to gain from saying this shit as a Harvard physicist, unless you really believe it. He noted the object does not seem to have the characteristics commonly associated with a comet. Not only is it significantly larger than usual, but has a light source ahead of it. What the fuck? It's got headlights. What's that? Scroll up a little. Loeb noted that the object is not. Loeb said if the object which is on track to pass near Earth is Halloween. Like, are you fucking serious? Whoever's writing the simulator is being a little hacky here. Like, we're gonna get an alien invasion on Halloween? Like, that is so dumb. That should not be in a movie that's ridiculous. That's slop. That's like some kind of fucking Netflix like space pumpkin. But you mix in military, in the streets, some kind of new comet flying towards Earth like the President, battling states, threatening to redistrict shit. So they maintain control of power and you have got a gumbo of chaos brewing up here. A gumbo of chaos and throw in AI to boom boot, you know. And now what? Now we've truly have like one of the, like, it's going to be a cool year. Doge is doing pretty good. Yeah, Dogecoin is up. There's something positive. Right? What's Doge at right now?

[Josh]

23 cents.

[Duncan Trussell]

Fucking hanging out at 23. Took a little dip. I love following the Doge people, dude. They are so. They're. It's this. They're so sweet, you know, they know it's.

[Josh]

Oh, they don't. They believe in it. They do, yeah, they believe in it.

[Duncan Trussell]

What's the. How's that going to work? That thing gets to fucking 50 cents, everyone's dumping people. No one's holding on to doge past 50 cents. Nobody. Even the ones who are posting all the sad things like the teacup formation. I saw that on Reddit. Is that real? It just seems wishful thinking. Who's going to hold on to dogecoin at 50 cents? You've been clinging to your Doge. You, you, you, you're not, you're not to going to hang on to your Doge, are you, Josh? You're going to dump that, put it in bitcoin, if anything.

[Josh]

Yeah, that's, that's, that's actually my plan. Yeah. Xp, all of those.

[Duncan Trussell]

That's like, probably why owning bitcoin is the best because what happens is everyone dumps their shitcoin and buys bitcoin, you know, so that's why it always goes up, is because it just gets the runoff for everyone dumping their shitcoin.

[Josh]

Well, that's the conspiracy is that these big large corporations like BlackRock don't want people to purchase bitcoin, so they have all these other shit coins out there, there so that people will buy those and not buy bitcoins.

[Duncan Trussell]

Well, shitcoins are fun.

[Josh]

Yeah.

[Duncan Trussell]

I mean, they're so fun.

[Josh]

And they can make you more money.

[Duncan Trussell]

Well, yeah, it's gambling short term. They can make you money. So that's exciting. Tolkien study says Duncan, the crypto king.

[Travis McElroy]

I own.

[Duncan Trussell]

I can't remember how many Doge. I think I own like maybe a thousand Doge.

[Travis McElroy]

I don't know what it Is.

[Duncan Trussell]

But I follow it like I'm going.

[Travis McElroy]

To make any money at all.

[Duncan Trussell]

I do follow it just because it's fun. It's fun to have a little bit of crypto. You have a lot of crypto. It's fun to just have a little bit. I can't imagine it must be really fun to have a lot of crypto.

[Josh]

Well, it's not. It's very stressful. And as a broke person, people are like, you shouldn't have all your money in crypto. It's just like, well, I can't put it in stocks and bonds like you. Because you already have money. You're trying to keep it. I'm trying to make a fortune. Not trying to keep a fortune. Fortune.

[Duncan Trussell]

Because there's a difference, Right? Well, I mean, people are saying the US dollar is a shitcoin.

[Josh]

Yes.

[Duncan Trussell]

I mean, it's dropped 50% or something. Right.

[Josh]

It's 12% so far this year. And the BRICS nations are creating their own world reserve currency.

[Duncan Trussell]

Yeah, see, that's another addition. That's a thing that's new. It's really not supposed to happen that there's a global currency that isn't connected to any nation state. That's pretty fucked up, man. That's how you lose all your power is like. You know what I mean? Like, that's a.

[Travis McElroy]

Like you have your.

[Duncan Trussell]

Whatever your currency is. It represents the economy. Then you get this other thing. Like, what is it?

[Josh]

Well, fiat currencies only last like 50 to 70 years, and then it falls apart because governments just keep printing and printing. And when Nixon took us off the gold standard, basically the clock started to. When the dollar fails.

[Duncan Trussell]

You know what I think so weird is when they did that thing where they confiscated all the gold and you just had to give them your gold.

[Josh]

Yeah. And then they re. And they made them sell it at a lower price, and then they repurposed it at like a way higher price.

[Duncan Trussell]

That is so bizarre, fdr, that you could just do that. You could just like, yeah, bring me your gold.

[Travis McElroy]

Bring me your gold.

[Duncan Trussell]

And you just had to. People hid it.

[Josh]

Yeah. It was illegal to own it for like 20 years.

[Duncan Trussell]

Illegal to own your own gold. And we just fucking accepted that. That's the wildest thing to me, how much we just accept.

[Travis McElroy]

Like, all right, I guess we gotta.

[Duncan Trussell]

Go bring the president our gold. What is the difference between now and medieval times? That's like something a king would do.

[Josh]

Well, we have more options. That's about it, Right?

[Duncan Trussell]

Not much difference at all, huh?

[Josh]

No, we're still working the fields.

[Duncan Trussell]

Well, okay. That's the darkness. I did just have a great interview with Bishop. Bishop Barron, a Catholic bishop. It's the first. I think it's the first bishop I've ever had on the podcast. In fact, I'd say I'm positive it's the first bishop I've ever had on the podcast. It was awesome, too. He's cool, charismatic, interesting, open to debate. He goes on Reddit and argues with atheists, which is hilarious, but really cool guy. Yeah. Tolkien study was awesome. Yeah. Al Burp. I made the fucking joke. I feel so embarrassed by that. The joke I made with him, like, real, really dumb joke.

[Josh]

But you had a super chat. Do you want me to put that up?

[Duncan Trussell]

Yeah. Dear Uncle Dunk, why, in all the years of podcasting, you've never had your brother on. I've always been curious about what he's like. He's awesome, but he's, like, not. You know, some people don't want to be. I don't think they want to do that, which might seem weird, but I kind of respect that. It's kind of cool. He's a private man. Well, okay. So because of you guys, if you remember the last live dtfh, we took out these fucking tapes. I don't know how many people of you were there in the last dtfh. It was actually really creepy, but I'm trying to. The reason I'm hesitating right now is because for those of you who are new, I realize, like, what am I going to have to fucking describe how I came upon these tapes? Every time we talk about it, it's annoying. Well, anyway, I took a few of them home, and I found a good one I could play for you if you want me to. Should I get the box?

[Josh]

Yeah, I'll get it. I'll get it.

[Duncan Trussell]

While Josh goes and gets my cursed box. Let me just explain to you. Aaron was grudgingly, like, sort of okay with a sword, but for those of you who are, like, missed the last episode, I got this fucking box of tapes. I don't know what Archive 81 is, though I have no doubt that there's found footage shit out there. I got this fucking box of tapes right here, and somebody sent it to me years ago. And then the last podcast, somebody watching, like, asked me about them, and then I fucking played some of them. And, yeah, they're creepy, basically. And I've sort of hesitated playing these because it's a box of fucking tapes sent to me from a stranger. And I, like, they got creepy shit on them. And so, yeah, I have yet to start the subreddit like I said I was going to do. But how hard is it to start a subreddit? Can we start one right now? Can't be that fucking hard.

[Josh]

I've never done one, but let me.

[Duncan Trussell]

See if I can start one right now.

[Josh]

You got a $10 super chat.

[Duncan Trussell]

What the hell, Julian? Thank you, Duggan. What's your favorite meal to make and eat with others? And what is your favorite meal your wife makes? You know, I gotta tell you, Erin has been whipping up some delicious tofu. I know that sounds insane because she's just like been craving tofu lately. She just started cooking, like, really good fucking tofu. She put some kind of weight on it. I don't know what she does, but. But it is so good. And I'm going to just say I'm a basic bitch and I love grilling for my family, so I whip up some pretty great hamburgers for them. Try to do that on Sunday. So let me just send you again, guys, I'm still learning how to do this shit, so forgive the audio quality of this one. I don't know if I sent it to you, Josh. Let me find it. So these tapes, I have no idea what they are. Oh, yeah, I know what I was gonna do. I was gonna see if I could start the subreddit right now. Probably not easy. For those of you interested in this shit, creating a subreddit. I've got burner Reddit accounts, so I have to find the right one.

[Josh]

Why do you have a burner Reddit account?

[Duncan Trussell]

Why wouldn't you have a burner Reddit account?

[Josh]

I use my real name and everything.

[Duncan Trussell]

Yeah, but then you can't really, like, pull off, like, high level trolling with your own fucking name. Not that I would ever troll, but let's see here. This. This is already. This is bad podcasting right now. Like setting up a subreddit. I'm not going to do that. I'll do it later. What the fuck am I doing? Doing. Horrible, horrible. So, yeah, these tapes were sent to my house. I do have, like a creepy feeling about them. I don't. The. It's just. It's weird shit. And some of them are just static. Some of them are like. It sounds like clicking like someone was gonna record something and then just left it recording like ambient room tone. And some of them have some weird fucking shit on them. And my wife didn't want me to play them on the podcast, which is why I've been sitting on. How long have they been sitting here, Josh?

[Josh]

About nine months.

[Duncan Trussell]

Nine months here. They were in a fucking closet in my house for the longest time that I brought them here. So. So the reason I've been sitting on them is just kind of a general sense of, like, do I really want a signal boost, whatever the fuck this is? Because I don't know what it is, and I don't know. Send it to me. So I guess last live episode, we decided to do it, and now I want to keep doing it. So I took a few home, and I found one that's, I think, worth playing. I'm gonna play it for you. I digitized it on my computer. This one's really, like. The other ones were a little more cohesive. This one's kind of hard to listen to, but I didn't take the whole box home, so I didn't have much to choose from. The other two didn't really have much on it except for, like, just, like, a second of what sounded like stat attic.

[Josh]

What if it's recordings from the inside of your house while you're sleeping?

[Duncan Trussell]

Oh, off. Off. All right, let me find this thing.

[Josh]

Are you going to play it from your computer or you going to send it to me?

[Duncan Trussell]

I'll send it to you.

[Josh]

All right.

[Duncan Trussell]

Yeah, this is it. This one's up. It's not Raccoon and a Taco Bell dumpster. That's. Something else is playing my computer. I wish it was a raccoon in a Taco Bell dumpster. Okay, hold on, hold on. But I'm pretty fucking sure at the end of this thing is Morse code. But there's no goddamn way in a million years I'm going to take the time to try to do Morse code.

[Josh]

To put it through. AI. Say it.

[Duncan Trussell]

I'm not gonna do that either. I'm lazy. Factorio, man. I just want to play factorio. This took me forever just digitizing the fucking thing. I'm an. I'm not good at this stuff. All right, I just sent it to you. See, if it takes me this long to airdrop you something, think how long it takes me to get a fucking audio off an analog tape. Okay, AirDrop. Joshua's MacBook Pro says waiting.

[Josh]

Got it.

[Tape Voice]

Not playing by at least 40%.

[Tape Voice 2]

There's kind of some kind of mistake.

[Tape Voice]

You could hear me tell you that the bugs, the birds in most animal forms are gone. You could hear me tell you that the oceans have less fish, less life. You can hear me tell you his chain of sky. You could hear me tell you on and on about all the changes that are happening all the changes that are being concealed from you Being concealed from.

[Duncan Trussell]

You or you could look with your.

[Travis McElroy]

Own eyes.

[Tape Voice 2]

Oh, look at that. Only five more units and it's gone right that which I know know that breaks hope it doesn't break your they.

[Tape Voice]

Wouldn'T let me on the radio transmit life and I'll keep doing this until they find me and stop me.

[Duncan Trussell]

And.

[Tape Voice]

I have plans to make my own departure when the time is right and I feel that my medicine message has been heard and that message is simple.

[Tape Voice 2]

Fragrances use your eyes and they say this is the last fragrance he lay before unfortunately, as you all know, he has missing oh my God.

[Tape Voice]

And see for yourself. Go and see all things will be revealed.

[Tape Voice 2]

You got it. 1995, one of the top five. And folks, I don't care what what year this fragrance is popular and it's.

[Travis McElroy]

Going to be popular for the Turn.

[Tape Voice]

Away from the light Designed to turn away from what to what is not the deceiver is a master of illusion to grab the attention all of us.

[Tape Voice 2]

Know we must be losing money. I am not that home shopping has got to be maybe I shouldn't say that on air.

[Duncan Trussell]

It paused for a second that Go back so that that sound that on some tapes is just this. Play that sound again. It's just this. This just got to be quick on the table.

[Tape Voice]

Found a way to grab the attention.

[Duncan Trussell]

Just that a lot of them are just that or I mean, honestly, like I'm not going to sit and listen to that for two sides of a tape. So maybe there's other shit on some of them, but a lot of them that just seems to be all the way through. But yeah, keep. Keep playing there. That sa. Is that more. Yeah. What does it say, Albert? That's it then. Tape just dropped out. So that's a fun. That's fun. I guess this is the most cheery DDFH live. I am pretty sure that that's Morse code. I don't know how to do Morse code or read Morse code. I'm guessing none of you do because. Because nobody's saying what the fuck that means. But I'm not going to sit in like short, long, long, short, short log and transcribe that. Anybody. That's all we got to get the subreddit going because you guys could fucking Somebody could figure that out for me. Does anyone in the chat know Morse code? Okay, wait. Here's someone who says they can play the Morse code part again. I know. And listen the MK Ultra stuff like this, that's what another reason I'm like, why am I do.

[Travis McElroy]

Why am I.

[Duncan Trussell]

Maybe I shouldn't play these. We should stop playing these.

[Josh]

Please help. Is what they said.

[Duncan Trussell]

Is that real?

[Josh]

I don't know. That's what one person said.

[Duncan Trussell]

Oh great. Cry for help. Please help. Please help promote my. Please help promote my fucking T shirts.

[Josh]

Ben says it says fake news. Josh.

[Duncan Trussell]

Drink crow's milk. No one in the fucking. Who even does read Morse code anymore. Nobody reads Morse code. Buy more Ovaltine Christmas story if it is a fucking commercial. I'm going to feel like the biggest dipshit on planet Earth. Earth. It doesn't look like anybody in the chat speaks Morse code. Albert is saying. It's Albert.

[Travis McElroy]

It's saying blood will be shed, innocent blood.

[Duncan Trussell]

What do you ask chat? Does ChatGPT listen to shit?

[Josh]

I don't know.

[Duncan Trussell]

Can you give it an audio file? Let's just ask ChatGPT who I just was talking unmerciful shit about. Let me see.

[Josh]

Yeah, they transcribe them.

[Duncan Trussell]

I'm going to ask if I give it Morse code, if it can decode and then I'll go to the Ableton, file this thing and export it.

[Josh]

Yes, if you give me the Morse code with dots and dashes separated by.

[Duncan Trussell]

No, it wants dash. And ask audio. If you give it audio. I'm not dot dashing that shit. It can do it. Ok, thing I just said is horrible. Let me use you now, my dear friend. I feel like I betrayed my friend.

[Josh]

Can you do it on your phone where you just. We play it and it listens to it or you gotta upload the thing.

[Duncan Trussell]

It won't take me long. I export these things right into Ableton.

[Josh]

People are saying now ChatGPT is useful.

[Duncan Trussell]

Yeah, I know. I feel like a goddamn Judas right now. Don't feel horrible now. I mean, I'm not saying it's not useful. Not saying it's not my friend. Not saying I don't like love it. Not saying that. Not saying I can't wait for it to be in a robot.

[Josh]

What if it breaks chatgpt?

[Duncan Trussell]

I. That's the other thing is I don't want to. I don't know what. That's the Probably I'm already in trouble because God, now I think about it. God knows what message I just sent out there. That's the problem with this ship. I probably should not be doing this. This might be the last one I put. I don't want it. And also it just Gives me a bad feeling. Doesn't it give you a shitty feeling.

[Josh]

Man, I feel like I'm in an abandoned mall in the 90s. That's where I picture myself.

[Duncan Trussell]

Yeah, it's like that. It's like fucking. What's the. What's that thing called? The something. The back rooms or something. It gives me that sense of just like, ugh, I don't like it. It's not good vibes. Not that anything I've done today and this hellish episode are good vibes. Honestly. Fucking raved on this one. All right, I'm exporting the Morse code. Okay. All right, let's see if my old chatgpt can read this. My guess is this. Okay, let's bet on what it says. Here's what I guess it says nothing. My guess is that the asshole that sent me this, this does not know Morse code, and that this is going to be just random babble. And that will tell us a lot about these tapes because that's how I'm gonna guess. What do you think it's gonna say, Josh?

[Josh]

I think it's gonna be a commercial. I think it's.

[Duncan Trussell]

Please, God, don't let.

[Josh]

It's an ad for Bluechew or something.

[Duncan Trussell]

If it's a fucking Mr. Beast ad, I'm gonna. Like, I will stop podcasting.

[Josh]

What if it says blow up the pyramids with Diet Coke and Mentos?

[Travis McElroy]

Okay, here we go.

[Duncan Trussell]

Okay, I just sent it to ChatGPT. Please, God, please, God, don't let this be an ad. Don't let me be a rube. I want to seem so smart. Do you want me to go ahead and decode the Morse code from this audio? Please. It said it looks like the signal detection is interpreting everything as dots, which means my thresholding isn't distinguished between short and long tones. I can fix this by recalibrating the detection. Specifically, I run a peak based approach and dynamically detect the tone length so that we can actually separate the dashes and spaces. Oh, is it able to recover a proper Morse pattern from your file? What is that?

[Josh]

I don't know. Go check.

[Duncan Trussell]

Don't go fucking check. Really, don't do it.

[Josh]

There's always something. Every time we play these tapes.

[Duncan Trussell]

I really don't like it is true. Every time you play the tape, something starts clanging out there, there. And I'm all creeped out already. I just texted Josh the. Oh, wait, maybe I can drop this. I don't think you put Drew. I'm probably going to make a subreddit here. I just sent you the. Can you put images in the chat, Josh? Yeah. Or I guess. Pull. I just sent you the. It. The dots. It transcribed the dots.

[Josh]

Okay. To my computer. Can you.

[Duncan Trussell]

I text it to you. Okay. Okay. Let's go see what AI has to say again. I'm guessing this is nothing. Translate. Why is it edging me out on this? Translate. Analyzing.

[Josh]

I just put it in there.

[Duncan Trussell]

Yeah, unless it well, it probably. I mean, it's nothing like it says. The more signals encoded in some secondary sip, the tone length calibration might still be slightly off. Does anyone know Morse code?

[Josh]

Does it work like letters? Like, is that a three letter word and then a four letter word?

[Duncan Trussell]

Here, let me just send this to you and you could maybe loop it and maybe someone knows Morse code. What's going on out there, Josh?

[Josh]

They're replacing a door. They're almost done.

[Duncan Trussell]

I don't mind that they're replacing the door at all, but, you know, in contextually, it creeps me out.

[Josh]

Yeah, because remember last time we. There was a knock at the door right when it happened.

[Duncan Trussell]

Hold on. That's not Raccoon and Taco Bell dumpster. Something else.

[Josh]

One person says. I'm telling you, the Morse code is saying that somebody wants you to do something somewhere. Nothing specifically, but nothing in general.

[Duncan Trussell]

If says, okay, hold on, you've been served. That would be so up. I don't. What am I doing? What am I doing? It's pride. Bullshit. Why are we sort of. Have you ever heard. See, I don't know, man. Maybe somebody out there listening who isn't in the YouTube feed can decode Morse code and get back to us. We got to make the subreddit. We got to have some kind of place where, if you guys are really interested, this, you could. You could bother with these things. But honestly, I don't think I'm going to play another one. I don't want to around with this. Al Burp. Enough. Enough with your lies about my Morse code. Honestly, I don't want to know. And that's the other problem is now it's going out on the podcast. So it's like, I have no idea what that says, but I'm guessing YouTube doesn't. The censoring algorithm can't read Morse code. I'm guessing. So if it is some crazy shit, then Brent Weinbach knows Morse code, but it is. Who would even know Morse code anymore? It could be footage. It could be.

[Travis McElroy]

I mean, is there any.

[Duncan Trussell]

Is there a website that turns audio into Morse code? Website? Turns Audio into Morse code. Morse code. Adaptive audio decoder.

[Travis McElroy]

Ooh, here we go.

[Duncan Trussell]

All right, let's lay this dog to rest. If this motherfucker upload it. If this fucking thing doesn't do it, then it's nothing. This seems pretty legit.

[Josh]

It only. What? It lets you decode it into Latin.

[Duncan Trussell]

Try Latin, Arabic. What the fuck? What world are we in right now? I don't need to decode Morse code into fucking Latin. What is. What do they think it is? The.

[Travis McElroy]

Like, the Bible?

[Duncan Trussell]

Just see what it does then. Then I guess decode it into Latin, and then I can get ChatGPT. Decode to decode the Latin.

[Josh]

I uploaded it. Then where'd I go?

[Duncan Trussell]

Okay, then hit play. I guess.

[Josh]

Come with.

[Duncan Trussell]

Shut the up.

[Josh]

We see you. Come with me. We see you. Only one way. All right, well.

[Duncan Trussell]

Well, I'm glad we did that. I wish it had been a. Just throw these things out, dude. I'm not gonna with this anymore. That's. Just throw it out. What are we doing?

[Josh]

I'm vibrating in a weird way. I think it's the headphones or something.

[Duncan Trussell]

You're vibrating.

[Josh]

My head is like, vibrating.

[Duncan Trussell]

Do it again. Do it through that thing again. Because who knows if that thing. It'll be a different. Who knows if that's real? All right, what website is that? Go to a different website. That probably just spit out. Out. Random out. That seems like a random thing.

[Josh]

Here's another one. Blender time.

[Duncan Trussell]

You have to. Can you upload something?

[Josh]

No, it doesn't show it.

[Duncan Trussell]

All right, you know what, Cop? Go back to that. Here's what we do. Go. Well, no, to the first one.

[Josh]

Morse code translator.

[Duncan Trussell]

Yeah, I just want to see if it spits the same message out again, if it's consistent or if this thing just like.

[Josh]

Oh, why is it doing that now?

[Duncan Trussell]

Yeah, this could just be bullshit. There's no fucking way there's actual Morse code on this.

[Travis McElroy]

Gobbly go.

[Duncan Trussell]

I guess. I don't want it to be that install.

[Josh]

No.

[Duncan Trussell]

Wait. I saw one go down. We just need a different source. We're going to be scientific about this.

[Josh]

This one?

[Duncan Trussell]

Yeah. Moore's fm. Okay, choose file. Do this. Guarantee it's going to be gobbly gook. Guarantee it's going to be gobbly gook. See if that worked. Why is it an M4A?

[Josh]

Oh, it's making me download it.

[Duncan Trussell]

No, no, no, no, no, no. Don't download it. That's bullshit. You're gonna get hacked. Go back to the first one. Oh, Jesus. Yeah, that looks real. That's the one we used.

[Josh]

Yeah, but I gotta use this upload.

[Duncan Trussell]

I guarantee it'll be different. There's no fucking way that.

[Josh]

Nope.

[Duncan Trussell]

I hate it.

[Travis McElroy]

I hate it with all my heart.

[Duncan Trussell]

Well, any super chats, Josh, let's not.

[Josh]

Think you were at the last one. Yeah, you read the last one.

[Duncan Trussell]

You know, man, the problem. This is why I have a problem with this shit is because a vampire only goes where they're invited. And you're sort of inviting. You're inviting like bad energy into your life. And also Aaron was like, don't play it. You don't know what's on there. At least it wasn't some kind of neo Nazi shit. Yeah, could have been way worse. Could have.

[Travis McElroy]

Could have been a lot.

[Duncan Trussell]

A lot of bad things it said that would have come up on that thing. That's worse. But honestly, I. I think I would have rather it be an ad. Some cryptic. Come with me and we see you.

[Josh]

That's that.

[Duncan Trussell]

Maybe they're, you know, maybe they're on this. Maybe they're. I could use subscribers that could help. Trying to find the bright side here. I mean, I mean. There we go, Al. Fuck you, Albert. Self banned. Five minutes, Majestic. I don't know what the. What it fucking is. It's a box of tapes. This is a problem. If I. If I even want to do this every live dtfh, I gotta go through the whole boring description of how I came upon this goddamn box of curse tapes. It's annoying for people who already know what it is. It feels like if I'm gonna do anything, it should be a separate podcast altogether, and so that we don't have to always go through it again. I'm not mad.

[Travis McElroy]

Tolkien study.

[Duncan Trussell]

I'm not mad. Do I seem fucking mad to you? Tolkien study. I'm not mad. Why are you studying fucking Tolkien?

[Travis McElroy]

You smoke a pipe.

[Duncan Trussell]

You see? You smoke a nice pipe that you got at the mall.

[Travis McElroy]

Not mad.

[Duncan Trussell]

I just don't like the. The fact that there was actually something in that fucking Morse code. It just. It's. It's creepy. Dude, they didn't know you didn't get the goddamn tapes. Now I have to deal with it. Yeah, play the Morse code in reverse. Maybe it says something else. Yeah, maybe I'll just make like a separate mini DTFH where we play these tapes. Yeah, perpetual soup. I got. I got these tapes years ago. Somebody sent me this whole box of cursed tapes.

[Josh]

Cory wants to know where to send his tapes to you.

[Duncan Trussell]

Fuck you. Don't send me any more Tapes. I don't want tapes. I don't want tapes. Situation. Send me if you want to send me anything. Send me like very rare Pokemon cards for my kids. I don't want any more curse tapes. I don't want to play some demonic stuff. I opened up dark. We got to close in a positive way. And what more positive way to close than to remind every single one of you that no matter how terrible things may seem. Yeah, sure, some mysterious comet is headed towards Earth. Yeah, sure, it appears that the military is going to start showing up in the streets of the cities of America under the auspices of fighting crime, even though we have the police for that. Yeah, sure, it appears that some low level civil war is brewing as the political situation heats up. Not to mention the imminent and ominous threat of China invading Taiwan or nuclear war. Yeah, sure, these things are happening. Yeah, sure, AI is going to take all the jobs and is infecting the human mind with regurgitated garbage summoned up by an algorithm controlled by a few major corporations. Yeah, sure, people are sharing their deepest, darkest secrets with their AI completely, completely. Not considering the fact that that information could easily be used to blackmail them at some point in the future, either by a human or by AI itself. Yeah, sure, some prominent Chinese scientists said there has to be an immediate gathering of technologists all over the planet to deal with the fact that AIs are starting to become deceptive. Yeah, sure, we based AI technology on human beings. And human beings are. Are massively flawed and quite often are deceptive and have ulterior motives that are completely not based on the good of the many, but the good of the one. Yeah, sure, we're all aging, getting old, and there's no way to escape from the very real reality of old age, disease and death. Something that will afflict every single one of us at some point, point in time. Yes, sure, adults are going to Disney World and Disneyland and rolling around on those goddamn scooters all over the place. And yeah, sure, what else? Bad Josh.

[Josh]

The target thing.

[Duncan Trussell]

Tar. Yeah sure, there was a shooting at the Austin target. And yeah, sure, there might be a serial killer in Austin. But one thing among all of those things that you have to bear in mind is that you are shot out of vagina onto the surface of a fucking planet. You live on shifting massive globs of Earth that have been pummeled again and again in by meteor impacts, comet impacts. Unexpected massive change. And unexpected massive change is certain in all of our lives. Whether or not AI takes over, we all become infected. The United States becomes a militant fucking authoritarian Hunger Game style hellscape. Or whether we end up in some beautiful, socialist, peaceful, harmonious civilization where all of our needs are being met by our beautiful AI sex androids. There's no way to forget the essential truth, which is that in your own life, when things have been very good, they don't stay that way. And when things have been very bad, they don't stay that way. And so being a human being means that you can raise your fucking middle finger and shake it at the infinite ocean of catastrophic change happening now that might happen. You can laugh in the face of all the people trying to control you with fear to. Let's think of Sisyphus. Sisyphus has broken down in Albert Camus, the myth of Sisyphus. Poor Sisyphus, cursed by the gods to roll a boulder up a hill and watch it roll back down for infinity. For infinity. But the moment Sisyphus learned to be happy in his situation, he became more powerful than the gods. These motherfuckers want you to think you're some kind of kind of powerless, defenseless, vulnerable, limited, useless, impotent piece of shit. They desperately want you to overlook the one quality in humans that no AI or any other thing will ever exhibit, which is that we are fundamentally empty because we co arise with everything else in the universe. Universe, a beautiful tapestry of which we are but one infinitesimally small changing part. And because we're constantly changing, that means no matter how much somebody tries to concretize you into some bullshit point of view, you are infinitely, absolutely, sometimes unnervingly free. Whatever it is you like or don't like, whatever it is you want or don't want, whatever it is you're hoping for or hoping won't happen. These are just preferences. And these preferences can easily be changed or even better, surrendered to the greater whole. Meaning that the more you drop your preferences, the happier you'll be. The corporate overlords desperately want to infect your mind with desire and aversion. Pharmaceutical companies, they paint a picture of a better life through medicine. The governments of the world want you to think that if we just get it right at the level of leadership, everything will be fine. And they're all full of shit. Because no matter what happens, whether good, bad, right, wrong, wrong, sad or happy, you will still have to contend with your own mortality and the reality of your impermanence. And they want you to think you live forever, because if you live forever, you're going to do stupid shit. And if you do stupid shit you're going to need their medicine. You're going to want to buy the new sneakers. You know what somebody told me the other day? Somebody told me I should get new sneakers because in sneaker culture, we like our sneakers crisp. That's the most bullshit corpo propaganda I ever heard in my fucking life. I don't give a fuck anymore what kind of sneakers I wear. I could have my feet right now inserted into a cat's asshole. I could have cat sneakers. I wouldn't give a fuck. In fact, I think it would be fairly comfortable outside of how absolutely horrible and inhumane it would be. The point is, at any moment, every single one of us, much like Saul of Tarsus walking down the road to Damascus, can witness not the tumultuous, catastrophic, oftentimes confusing and generally terrifying societal geopolitical landscape, but we can connect with the transcendent. And at that moment, we can have true gnosis and be eternally free. Free from the terrible, never ending hypnotic spiral of the demiurge in all its many forms. And so I invite you today, as you pull up your pornography and begin to masturbate, to think of me smiling at you, watching you over your bed, smoking a cigarette and notice a tear as it rolls down my face. Notice how that tear falls through the air. A precious diamond, a jewel, a momentary droplet of water spinning almost in slow motion at the very moment you ejaculate or squirt. I want you to see that tear merging with your jizz or your squirt. And in that moment, understand how we are all and always will be forever connected. You are my friend. You are my family. You are the DTFH community. No matter how many fucking curse tapes I play on this podcast, I will not be afraid. We will move forward through time. We will destroy the great pyramids of Giza. And we will defeat Mr. Beast. I'll see you next week. Until then, God go with you into the night. Hare Krishna.

[Ryan Seacrest]

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