We're Open for Business | Ep 001 - Lemonade Stand

Summary

Podcast Title: Lemonade Stand
Episode: We're Open for Business | Ep 001
Release Date: March 6, 2025
Hosts: Aiden, Atrioc, and DougDoug

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Overview

In the inaugural episode of Lemonade Stand, hosts Aiden, Atrioc, and DougDoug delve into a myriad of pressing topics spanning global trade tensions, the surge in Canadian immigration to the United States, the transformative impact of artificial intelligence (AI) on the job market, and the evolving landscape of social interactions post-COVID-19. Through their blend of humor, personal anecdotes, and insightful analysis, the trio aims to make complex issues accessible to the average listener.

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1. Canadian Immigration and Trade Tariffs

Aiden initiates the discussion by exploring the recent escalation in Canadian immigration to the U.S., exacerbated by fluctuating trade tariffs imposed by the Trump administration.

• Aiden shares personal insights:
  "I am a Canadian immigrant to the U.S. I was born in Canada... permanently moved to the U.S. in sixth grade" [00:55].

• Atrioc raises concerns about Canada's economic struggles:
  "Canada's real estate market... cities in Canada is pretty out of control... every major city, the prices have gotten astronomical" [18:00].

• Doug highlights the massive increase in Canadian immigration:
  "The last census data shows over 126,000 Canadians immigrating to the U.S. in 2022, a significant jump from previous years" [25:00].

• Aiden connects personal narratives to broader economic trends:
  "My cousin in biotech moved to San Diego and earns three times her pay in the U.S. while paying comparable taxes" [16:06].

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2. Sovereignty and the "51st State" Rhetoric

The hosts discuss President Trump's provocative comments about Canada potentially becoming the "51st state," which has galvanized Canadian national pride and resistance.

• Atrioc questions the feasibility and implications:
  "If Trump refers to Canada as the 51st state, how does that affect Canada's sovereignty and national identity?" [10:43].

• Aiden provides historical context and personal reflections:
  "From a Canadian perspective, it's a good strategy for advocating sovereignty, but it feels dumb and anticipates no realistic path for unification." [29:26].

• Doug compares it to hypothetical scenarios involving other nations:
  "If King George in the UK kept referring to us as the colonies, I would be pretty pissed." [28:41].

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3. Impact of AI on the Job Market

A significant portion of the episode is dedicated to dissecting AI's dual role in both eliminating and creating jobs, drawing parallels with previous technological advancements.

• Doug presents historical data on technological disruption:
  "Personal computers destroyed 4-6 million jobs but created 20-30 million globally." [47:18].

• Aiden shares concerns about AI potentially surpassing human capabilities:
  "There's a point where AI can do everything humans can, leaving no new jobs for displaced workers." [73:12].

• Atrioc adds skepticism about AI being purely beneficial:
  "AI might end up replacing humans entirely, making many jobs obsolete without clear replacements." [72:37].

• Doug counters with optimism, emphasizing AI's potential to enhance productivity and create new industries:
  "AI will make people more productive, allowing them to engage in creative and leisure activities we can't even imagine now." [68:30].

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4. Social Dynamics and Cancellation Culture Post-COVID

Post-pandemic shifts in social behavior and the rise of cancellation culture are examined, highlighting their effects on mental health and interpersonal relationships.

• Atrioc references studies linking increased cancellations to loneliness and anxiety:
  "People are more alone, and time spent alone is at an all-time high, impacting friendships and mental health." [85:49].

• Aiden reflects on personal experiences with social anxiety post-COVID:
  "I developed a sense of dread about attending social events, fearing it might strain my relationships." [85:52].

• Doug underscores the importance of maintaining social connections:
  "Socializing is how you get most opportunities and expand your network, essential for personal and professional growth." [90:01].

• Atrioc and Aiden discuss cultural differences in socializing behaviors across countries, noting that some places recover social fluency faster post-pandemic:
  "In the UK and Australia, young people seem more socially comfortable compared to the U.S." [90:06].

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5. The Future of Work and AI Integration

The conversation advances to envisioning a future where AI seamlessly integrates into various industries, potentially altering the very nature of work.

• Doug posits that AI will not only automate tasks but also enable unprecedented innovations:
  "AI will manage public services, run experiments in genetics, and revolutionize healthcare with customized medicines." [58:43].

• Aiden and Atrioc explore the ethical and societal implications, debating whether AI will complement or replace human roles entirely:
  "There's a risk that AI could replace humans in all aspects of work, leading to a society where human labor is less relevant." [72:37].

• Doug emphasizes the need for societal restructuring to accommodate AI advancements:
  "We need to restructure society and legislation to support those displaced by AI, ensuring a smooth transition." [77:24].

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6. Addressing Audience Concerns and Future Engagement

Towards the end, the hosts encourage audience interaction, inviting listeners to share their experiences and opinions on the discussed topics.

• Aiden urges listeners to engage and contribute feedback:
  "I'd love to read your opinions and experiences with socializing post-COVID or the impact of AI on your job." [88:07].

• Atrioc and Doug reiterate the importance of diverse perspectives to enrich future discussions:
  "We plan to follow up on listener comments in future episodes to provide a more comprehensive view." [101:45].

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Closing Remarks

The episode concludes with the hosts maintaining their signature humor, referencing the ongoing discussion while playfully interacting about lemons and future episode teasers.

• Atrioc jokes about introducing visual elements to podcasting:
  "We have fancy telestrator technology to make it a worse experience for audio listeners." [04:44].

• Aiden wraps up by emphasizing the show's commitment to tackling complex and impactful topics:
  "We're going to cover whatever is going on and whatever we feel like, posting every Thursday." [103:35].

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Notable Quotes with Timestamps

• Atrioc on Canadian economic struggles:
  "Canada's real estate market... cities in Canada is pretty out of control." [18:00]

• Aiden on personal immigration experience:
  "I am a Canadian immigrant to the U.S. I was born in Canada... permanently moved to the U.S. in sixth grade." [00:55]

• Doug on AI being an optimist:
  "I am an AI optimist. I believe the net positive will become extremely high for humanity." [77:56]

• Aiden on socializing post-COVID:
  "I developed a sense of dread about attending social events, fearing it might strain my relationships." [85:52]

• Atrioc on cancellation culture:
  "People are more alone, and time spent alone is at an all-time high, impacting friendships and mental health." [85:49]

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Conclusion

Lemonade Stand's first episode serves as a thought-provoking exploration of significant contemporary issues, blending personal narratives with broader societal analysis. The hosts adeptly navigate complex subjects, offering listeners both depth and relatability. As they continue to unpack the intersections of business, technology, and politics, audiences can anticipate engaging discussions that resonate with everyday experiences.

Transcript

[Doug]

This is what I've been really staying up at night over a track.

[Aiden]

Unreal.

[Doug]

Can you tell me about what's going on with the culture and whether people are canceling?

[Atriok]

Absolutely. Look, I get that is going to be disruptive.

[Aiden]

Way more disruptive.

[Atriok]

Can I ask question about your dad? Because you bring up your dad a lot. We're talking about anything serious. You're like, I talk to my dad about it.

[Aiden]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Atriok]

Your dad is Canadian.

[Aiden]

Yeah, he is.

[Atriok]

Okay.

[Aiden]

And American.

[Atriok]

And American.

[Aiden]

Don't take.

[Atriok]

That might be one thing. That's the big question I have. That's the big question I have. I want to know your dad's thoughts on Canada. 51st state. Where is he? Because that's. That's changing everything in Canada right now. Everyone's freaking out over it. You know better than me.

[Aiden]

Well, you're. He's starting to spoil a topic.

[Atriok]

Oh, you have a topic from our.

[Aiden]

From our new show.

[Doug]

This is still cold open, by the way.

[Aiden]

From our new show, Lemonade Stand.

[Doug]

There we go.

[Aiden]

A new podcast where the three of us talk about business, talk about tech, talk about politics, and. And for those who don't know, I'm Aiden.

[Doug]

And what do you do?

[Aiden]

I also, you know, I have a different. Why I'm getting. I've gotten like six phone calls as soon as we started recording. This is cursed.

[Doug]

Don't worry. This is all part of the culture. Culture of business.

[Atriok]

Fake culture of business. We'll talk about this later.

[Aiden]

For those not familiar, I'm also a podcaster where I talk about very similar things to this show. Definitely tune in to that one if you like business. It's Ed. I'm. We're doing this together with Korean War.

[Atriok]

I'd love to.

[Doug]

Yeah. By the way, we need to give you guys an intro because otherwise we're not eligible for awards.

[Atriok]

Apparently, Aiden pulls us aside at the beginning. He's like, hey, we can't be eligible for podcast awards.

[Doug]

We're in the same podcast bidding this to the office. Introduce each one of our by full name, by the way, and you have to drop Social Security.

[Atriok]

The arrogance of thinking. We're up for a podcast on our first episode.

[Doug]

I'm Doug. Doug. I make videos about things and stuff, particularly with a technology bend. I'm really interested in technology, and you're going to hear me rant about AI all the time. I'm going to be the AI guy. He talks about AI and other things and makes fun of Aiden's dad and stuff that's.

[Aiden]

That actually happens on the other Podcast. We'll be two for two on podcasts that make fun of my dad, so.

[Atriok]

It'S such an easy role. I'm Atriok. I do a lot of this stuff already, normally. But then these two guys had really. I like talking to them about all this stuff. And so we sort of had this idea of doing a podcast, and I think it's going to be pretty fun.

[Doug]

We were going to call the podcast Marketing Monday to said, I read my voice. No, I've already submitted Marketing Monday for an award, and I'm not eligible if we have a sequel.

[Aiden]

Is you're incredibly selfish. I've had that thought about that.

[Atriok]

Yeah. But I'm really excited. I'm excited about it because I think before we even talked about this, we were just talking. I was. I was just messaging you constantly about AI stuff and asking about, like, your thoughts on tech because you're really deep into it. And hey, we've been talking about politics and it's like, oh, this could be fun to do this.

[Aiden]

Yeah. I think the ethos for people, you know, tuning into this first step is we all have a shared interest in these things, like talking to them, talking about them with each other, and kind of wanted an opportunity to bring that together because I think we lack maybe a creative outlet in the rest of our work to be able to talk about this type of stuff. So, yes, YouTubers and said, we particularly.

[Doug]

Aiden and I lack an outlet to talk about these things.

[Atriok]

What are you talking about? You have a massive platform and you do text them all the time.

[Aiden]

Not the same.

[Doug]

That's for fart jokes. Okay. That's for an AI to call me small dick. Okay. That's not for me to talk about business.

[Atriok]

Introducing the AI small dick segment. Yeah, there will be nine pages on that right here. Yeah, it's gonna be fun. It's gonna be good. It's gonna be a good time, I think. And you guys probably agree, so I'm gonna speak for you.

[Doug]

Okay. All right.

[Atriok]

I'm do that a lot. Hearing someone talk about something they're really passionate about is really fun. It's just fun.

[Aiden]

Yeah.

[Atriok]

You guys have all your unique interests. We're gonna bring our own topics and you're gonna hear about things from someone.

[Aiden]

Oh.

[Doug]

Why don't we each say one topic that is gonna happen today to give you an interesting smattering of what we might talk about over the course of the next 90 to 190 minutes.

[Atriok]

I'm going to talk about how. Why Aiden is a massive flake and the damage that causes to people around him. And this is a real, I'm not joking. This is actually a hear here. So we're going to get into that later. It's called cancellation culture, not cancel culture. Cancellation culture. And Aiden's at the forefront.

[Doug]

And now I want to talk in a lighter news. I'm going to talk about the way that technology impacts jobs globally. Yeah.

[Aiden]

So just, I like that one better because it doesn't revolve around criticism of me.

[Atriok]

I like the average user, wants to hear more about Aiden's.

[Doug]

We're going to kind of sandwich. It's going to be Aiden canceling the impact of technology. Aiden's dad. Aiden's dad. Listen, this is pretty much.

[Aiden]

I'm going to talk about my dad, just him and like what he's been up to. Yeah.

[Doug]

We'Ll get a live call, we'll get a live call in and we're.

[Aiden]

Going to get Corwin on the live stream now. I, I, I, the main reason that I bring up my dad at all is I actually do want to talk about Canadian immigration to the United States and also the tariffs that are currently affecting the relationship between the US And Canada specifically. But I think that is a.

[Atriok]

Do you want to open with that? I want to talk about this. I'm interested in it right now. I want to talk to you, I want to hear your thoughts.

[Aiden]

Okay. Well, I think to just like set the backdrop because I think a lot of people know that there are tariffs that have been put in place or had been threatened for a while as like Trump was approaching, I think it's worth saying his presidency. Right.

[Atriok]

By the time this airs, they could be gone, it seems, which is tomorrow, by the way.

[Aiden]

So we're filming this, we're filming this on March 5th, a Wednesday, and it should be coming out on the Thursday right after this. And already in the past three days there's been daily updates and changes. So leading up to this point, there was the threats of tariffs, like incoming Trump gets into office, passes a 20 or through executive order, imposes 25% tariffs on Canada and Mexico.

[Atriok]

Yeah.

[Aiden]

And then almost immediately paused these tariffs in exchange for the fentanyl czar. The fentanyl czar in Canada. And basically more control and effort of the borders from the Canadian and the Mexican side that that's what he's asking for at least. And then he paused for 30 days. And I think something that I didn't quite understand is like when this happened, I thought like he, at least from the Trump administration's perspective, had like met goals that they had in place. And then during that 30 day time period, he said they wanted to see whether or not a final economic deal with Canada can be structured. That's what Trump said.

[Atriok]

Can I just say it's very cute that you have notes because whenever I do this stuff live and I don't know what I'm talking about, I just make it up. But you're referencing.

[Doug]

Well, so actually for the audience, there's nothing in that notebook. It's just blank.

[Aiden]

I memorized the quotes. Interesting.

[Atriok]

That's what Donald Trump said. Aiden's great.

[Aiden]

And I. And he doesn't flake that much. Interesting that he said that. So there was a goal apparently during this time period that out of the initial concessions that he thought he got from Canada and Mexico, or that they did get from Canada and Mexico, which I'll talk about in one sec, that a further deal needed to be made, which I didn't quite understand in the sense that I don't know what like that ideal trade agreement looks like for him. Especially because in the previous administration, Trump had renegotiated aspects of nafta. Like a large portion of NAFTA as it currently, or sorry, as it formerly was, I guess was from his decisions in the previous term. As far as I understand anyway, this Canada puts in place this like quote fentanyl czar in which some. I had seen people saying that this was part of a plan that Canada already had in place. Or like people were saying that Canada was only taking actions that it was intent on doing already, which might be the case. My understanding is that this pushed it forward a bit and they did pick a fentanyl czar.

[Atriok]

Yeah, I mean, so timeline. Everyone's not doing, he's like, he, he asked for tariffs. Right. And then there's 30 days. So it starts out. And then immediately before they, before it happens, Canada says we're going to have more guards on the border and a fentanyl czar.

[Aiden]

Yeah.

[Atriok]

And then Mexico said same thing.

[Aiden]

We're going to similar from Mexico. I think Mexico actually did, did more. Something that I didn't know is like part of this. Mexico sent 29 drug lords into US custody from Mexican custody.

[Doug]

Extradited.

[Aiden]

Extradited people in an effort to like appease the tariffs being frozen. So that's.

[Doug]

Yeah, his messaging has been all over the place, which is initially it's, it's, this is for fentanyl and now, now it's for economic disparity. And then I saw a quote yesterday which is that nobody really knows what he wants. So there isn't anything they can do to like it's not clear.

[Aiden]

That's been the latest, that is the latest like update to this story.

[Doug]

Right. Brendan's only issue with Trump.

[Aiden]

His only issue. You've been really pro Trump. You've been really pro Trump.

[Atriok]

That is coming on, especially in private.

[Aiden]

When you're away, when you're away from your platform.

[Atriok]

Okay.

[Aiden]

But I think that is the frustration from what I can see.

[Doug]

Right.

[Aiden]

Because this 30 day freeze runs out and then the tariffs are just back in place and Canada and Mexico are like, we did what you wanted, why are they back?

[Doug]

Yeah.

[Aiden]

And then, and then the tariffs, apparently there's an Exception. There's a 10% instead of 25% tariff on energy, specifically Canadian energy exports.

[Atriok]

Yeah.

[Aiden]

And they exempt the cars too.

[Atriok]

Right.

[Aiden]

And then the today, that was the update today is that the auto asp, the auto exports or the auto industry gets like a carve out now. And so that's the thing. It changes every morning. The Canadians and the Canadians and the Mexicans seem very frustrated that the goalposts continue to be shifted much like me in an argument. And I'm kind of, that's the kind of the introduction to this topic is that's what's going on with the tariffs. I think it seems crazy inconsistent. I don't fully understand what.

[Atriok]

Okay, well here's the deal. Zoom out. Tariffs are problematic. Right. This is like a weird thing. It's inconsistent. But like for Canadians it seems like the bigger issue is that all of these tariffs seem to be in service of turning the country into the 51st state. He keeps talking about that and like in a less and less joking way.

[Doug]

Yeah.

[Atriok]

So I'm really interested because I don't talk to a lot of Canadians because they're gross and they disgust me. But I would love to hear like, do you have a Canadian POV on like what that means?

[Doug]

Wait, wait, remind me. And I guess everybody watching you born in Canada, came here.

[Aiden]

Yeah. So I a brief backstory on me. I am a Canadian immigrant to the U.S. i was born in Canada. I grew up in Canada. When I was young, I like permanently. I moved around a bunch when I was really young. To the uk, back to Canada, to the US Back to Canada. Permanently moved to the US in sixth grade and I lived in, on a border town in northern Washington. So I literally lived on the Canadian border. Like one of my growing up, one of my cross country practices was they would take us to the border, drop us off at the Border crossing. And then we had to run back to high school.

[Doug]

Awesome.

[Aiden]

And so that. That was a little experience of, like.

[Doug]

Would never let you do that today.

[Aiden]

Okay.

[Atriok]

And this is just a Canadian child running from the border into America.

[Aiden]

You know what's funny is so, like, when people talk about, like, border security and things like that right now, I always joke about what the Canadian border is actually like growing up, because I'm not kidding. The border in Canada, like, the border between Canada and the U.S. like, where I grew up, it's a ditch about the width of this table. Like, I would be running to high. Like, back to high school on this side. And then we're gonna make Canada pay for it.

[Atriok]

We're digging the ditch, and we're gonna make Canada pay for it.

[Doug]

It's well known Canadians can't climb.

[Atriok]

That's a fun fact.

[Doug]

And then if you fall, poor balance.

[Aiden]

And then you're literally a hop away from jumping into. It's very easy.

[Atriok]

Sure.

[Aiden]

Like, if you wanted to hop the border, I guess.

[Doug]

Yeah.

[Atriok]

With a bag full of fentanyl, which I do occasionally.

[Aiden]

And then that's kind of the circumstance that I grew up in. And also, there's a lot of, like, kind of basic economic ties in that area. Like, a really common thing is, like, if you went to the Costco in our area on Sundays, like, 80% of the cars in the Costco parking lot would be British Columbia license plates. Like, it's like they're just driving over.

[Atriok]

The border for Costco.

[Aiden]

And people. People that live in Canada come down.

[Atriok]

I swear to God, everyone.

[Doug]

Fentanyl, they're super cheap.

[Atriok]

Well, you know, that would put the dealers out of business. Fentanyl.

[Doug]

Yeah, that's a parrot. Like, you buy it, you get a free soda on the side. No.

[Atriok]

Oh, my God.

[Aiden]

You get your hot dog, your fentanyl, and then. And then who knows? You go in for the fentanyl, you come out with a T. The cartels.

[Atriok]

Can offer remotely comparable experience to a. To a Costco. The consumer will choose the Costco every time. It's just a better experience.

[Aiden]

Pitching the cartels mean, like, I'm. I'm telling you, man, if you kill a. If you kill a few less people, you put some TVs up front and you sell the. And you give them.

[Atriok]

You put a hot dog for cheap.

[Aiden]

You give them cheese samples, they'll buy so much more. Fentanyl.

[Doug]

Yeah, you give them fentanyl samples, they'll buy so much more fentanyl.

[Atriok]

Costco, fentanyl sample.

[Aiden]

Just people like passed out on the concrete at Costco. It's like an aisle full of people.

[Atriok]

19 disguises on his 30th line.

[Aiden]

I think that. But yeah. So my family's Canadian. Pretty much all of my family lives in Canada except for, except for my parents and like my brothers basically.

[Atriok]

Okay.

[Aiden]

And the. I decided to like call a few people.

[Atriok]

Okay. I was hoping. Yeah. I want to.

[Aiden]

So just to get like a general vibe on what's going on because I think you've talked about this quite a bit and this is like, I think a somewhat well understood topic is like Canada's kind of also in a bit of an economic crisis in general right now.

[Doug]

Yeah. It's not. Yeah.

[Aiden]

Like the dollar struggling. Like I remember growing up there was a period of time my dad got paid in Canadian dollars because he worked out of Canada, even though we lived in the US So there was a time when the Canadian dollar was like worth more than the US dollar growing up that's like for, for like a year and then basically on par for a long time. But now it's like 70 cents to the dollar.

[Atriok]

I made a video game with a Canadian developer and so we got paid. We got our payout Steam and he's like, I need to pay you now. Because every day it sits here you're losing money. As it's Canadian dollar devalues, it is so bad. It's like it was like losing big percentages of what we got paid.

[Aiden]

And I think the like the real estate crisis there is pretty out of control. Like how hous cities in Canada is even more relatively unaffordable than it is in the biggest U.S. cities. And there's all these economic issues in Canada that from loosely talking to my friends prior to this that they're grappling with, they're worried about their prospects of a future and especially if they went to college and have a specialized profession they're supposed to go into. Working in Canada kind of sucks because if you could get a job in the US you could get paid way more.

[Doug]

Yeah. One of the things I didn't know about until recently is the fact that there's the trade agreement where basically if you're a professional in certain categories, but most like good categories, and then you get a job offer from the U.S. you just get to come here. Like you don't. You don't have to like get a visa if you get a job offer. Yeah, there's. This is part of what was previously nafta. And so if you're a Canadian professional and you're like an accountant or a software engineer and you get a job from an American company, you just go to the border, you don't even have to preplan this. And you're like, I'm here. Here's the, here's the job offer. Here's all stuff. You just get let in.

[Aiden]

I didn't know this until really recently.

[Doug]

It's a huge brain drain, like, because it's that easy. And it's just like, oh, if Google in the US is going to pay you three times as much relative, you can just go. Which is wild.

[Aiden]

So like 10,000 trying to deal with this too apparently. Because so I read, I read this article that I pulled up and this was focusing on Canadian to U.S. immigration in 2022. And from the previous year it had more than doubled the amount of Canadians leaving Canada to go to the US in that year. And it seems to be an interesting like split among like age groups and like why people are going. There's a quote from an immigration lawyer in that article where he talks about most of the inquiries he's getting now are from young people that are like looking to move for financial, desperate to get out. I actually tried to call the lawyer today and like ask him about like what it's like right now and they didn't get back to me. But I called my. So my one other relative that lives in the US is my cousin and she works in biotech and she moved to San Diego with her also Canadian boyfriend a few years ago. And I was letting her kind of break it down for me and she's like, at the end of the day it just came to money and my profession. And she says all the people in her field and who studied with her in Canada also wanted to move to the US because she gets 3x her pay down here and she pays like a comparable amount in taxes. So like financially it makes sense. And then even if she wants to go back to Canada and I think a lot of people in her situation sounds like they would want to go back to Canada one day, they can save money faster to buy a home in, in Canada when they go back. And so that's like her experience as someone who's already made the move. Right.

[Atriok]

Speaking of homes, can I show this?

[Aiden]

Are you going to show my actual home and my address?

[Atriok]

Yeah, I'm going to show your home and address and your dad where he.

[Doug]

Lives and you can draw on it.

[Atriok]

This is here at Lemonade Stand.

[Aiden]

I remember this.

[Doug]

Yeah, sure, yeah, here at Lemonade Stand. We have fancy telestrator technology to really make it a worse experience for the audio listeners.

[Atriok]

I just think people don't know.

[Aiden]

You're going to look right here. You're going to look right here. That's actually Atriox real home.

[Atriok]

I commute from Toronto.

[Aiden]

That's.

[Atriok]

I got a $2.5 million shack in Toronto.

[Aiden]

Fun fact, Ari is not allowed to leave the house between 9 and 5.

[Atriok]

That's for religious reasons. But anyway, you know, Canada's real estate market, if you don't know, is like one of the worst in the world. Basically every major city, the prices have gotten astronomical. They had no 2008, 2009 housing bubble. Like, they had it, but they didn't. They didn't pop it the way we had it here. So it just kept growing weird. And it's continued to grow. And at this point, like any Canadian you talk to talks about how they'll just never own a home, essentially at their wages.

[Aiden]

They've, like, given up completely. So this is the interesting thing to me is, like, I was reading this article and I was like, this makes sense. Like, the thing that my parents tell me all the time is like, the reason we moved to the U.S. or the reason we wanted to be in the U.S. was it afforded me, like, job and like, economic opportunity that we wouldn't have had in Canada.

[Atriok]

And this make dick jokes on a podcast.

[Aiden]

Exactly. And I. And I said, mom, you're right. I never could have made it doing this work in Vancouver. And they. But I think that shared story is very similar between all the people I talked to. It's like, it basically like they had some sort of specialized job, like, especially like software engineers. For as an example that I can.

[Doug]

Think of in the tech industry when I was still in the tech industry. So many Canadian software engineers, like, so many companies in Silicon Valley, have a Canadian branch. Like, really smart people. And then again now with these new rules, oh, they've been here for a while. But, like, those people can just come to the US now and just make way more.

[Atriok]

Right.

[Aiden]

And it seems like the financial aspect of it is the key mover on that over kind of everything else. Because I ended up talking to another close friend of mine that still lives. He lives in Alberta, he lives in Calgary, and he's trying to get a job in, like, finance right now. And I was like, what is like for you, who's in Canada trying to find a job in Canada? How do things feel to you right now? And he's like, well, things are pretty doomer. Here in terms of economic owning a home, the job market's really bad. It's tough to find work if you're a young person, even if you're a new college grad. And these things are all shared frustrations among my friends. But then. And a big question I wanted to answer is, like, okay, this trend of people leaving Canada for the U.S. because of pay, like, primarily because of pay, or maybe like, they're the data that I looked into. There's a ton of retirees as well, like wealthier Canadians that want to move, like, they want to live somewhere else to Florida, or they want to move somewhere with, like, lower taxes where they can settle down and it's warmer. The question that I wanted to answer was, okay, so you can see this trend in, you can see this trend in immigration happening, but is it still happening in 2024 and 20 and now in 2025, which was not in this census data? Like, it doesn't go up to that point yet. And I was really curious because, like, politically, things are changing so significantly right now. And then on top of that, it's like not just the general politics of someone like Trump being elected in the first place, but the follow up of the tariffs and the 51st state rhetoric.

[Doug]

Even more of a squeeze.

[Aiden]

And my friend was talking about how even in Alberta, which is a place that's in Canada, pretty conservative and has more people than like, B.C. would that are, like, Trump sympathetic or maybe fans of Trump from, like, the Canadian side, he's never seen this level of anger among, like, all people, people there. My relatives. My friend is saying all of his relatives and his friends. Everybody I talk to that lives in Canada is angry. They are like, this is fucked up that this is happening. Like, fuck the U.S. this is kind of what brings us together right now. And the idea of, like he said, it's like the highest sense of, like, national pride he's seen in a long time, where it's like, you know, fuck the States. It's like, we're Canadians. And that plays into people's idea or the appeal of moving into the US Too. He was like, compared to like a year ago, I think a lot of.

[Doug]

Poison us from the inside.

[Aiden]

They, they used to want to poison us from the inside, but now they don't even want to get in. So maybe it's working. Maybe it's working in that regard. We're keeping, we're keeping the Canadians.

[Doug]

The Albertans are like, how are we going to get over that ditch?

[Aiden]

It's just so.

[Doug]

It's just a big ditch.

[Aiden]

I thought it was really interesting to hear him say, like, if you asked me or my friends a year ago and offered me a similar salary in the US for some type of job, I might have said yes, but now I would definitely say no. And the difference. But then the overarching, like, economic theme here is like, he was like. But I would still say yes if, like, the pay was if it's double or triple, right?

[Atriok]

People are still gonna.

[Aiden]

And that was like, what my cousin was wrestling with too, is that she's like, I don't like the political direction of the country. I don't know how long I want to stay here, but my career and my pay is so high here that I can't leave.

[Atriok]

Money talks, right?

[Aiden]

So that's kind of what's going on, is like, I think my parents are different. They're very proud to be American and they feel like, more obligated to defend to the rest of my family, like, why they live in the States and, like, why they, like, chose to live here, basically. But the rest of my family is, like, dogging them for it just being in America. They're very angry about the 51st state rhetoric, all of the tariffs, and, like, how they're going to suffer economically.

[Atriok]

I've got a Canadian friend and I have been making 50 first date jokes, obvious jokes, right? For a little while now. And then recently, he's like, hey, I don't think it's funny anymore. Like, he told me just privately, he's like, he's like, like, I know you don't mean it, but, like, I don't like it anymore because, like, they're. Because it's seeming more and more serious politically. It seems like, you know, Trump said it was a joke at first, and now he keeps saying, like, he keeps calling it Governor Trudeau. He keeps saying, like, you know, and so they're like, they just don't want to have their sovereignty threatened so regularly by the neighbors south with all the nukes. Canada has no nukes, by the way. So I wanted to bring this up, too. I got two things I wanted to bring up. One is that Canada. This is the craziest outcome that I ever could have expected recently. Like, a few days ago, Canadian politician went to the UK and they're trying to get a deal where the UK's nuclear umbrella applies to Canada.

[Aiden]

I have a. Oh, my God.

[Atriok]

So. So they're going to, like, Canada to UK and France to make a world where theoretically the UK would be threatening the United States with Nuclear war if the United States invaded Canada.

[Doug]

Wow.

[Atriok]

Like, how crazy are things getting? That's how wild.

[Doug]

You know, a major turnaround from like a year ago. Like what? From like two months ago.

[Atriok]

Didn't expect Canada specifically to get involved in this. I didn't expect this to become a Canadian. What are you double gunsing us?

[Aiden]

I'm picking a side.

[Atriok]

Oh yeah.

[Doug]

Okay. A number to reiterate this, which I think is so interesting is like, I think you might have seen this like two decades ago, something like that. The amount of people coming in and out of Canada to the US was like about. It was like a few thousand on either side it net in a given year. And there was even a year to where there's more people going into Canada than out. And then the most recent Track was like 126,000. Right.

[Aiden]

Or like that was in 2022.

[Doug]

2022, right. So like just to give a sense, it is massive the amount of people who are going from Canada to us two years ago. And then you're right, it's like, is that going to increase? Is that going to get like, like in 20, like this year, is that going to get even worse because of economic conditions like it. The amount of Canadians who are immigrating to America now is gigantic. Gigantic compared to any amount in the past for like a two to three year period right after covet. It just like shot way up.

[Atriok]

Well, no wonder things are getting worse here. There's so many damn Canadians.

[Doug]

If they would just stay in their own state.

[Aiden]

I don't think you should make jokes like that anymore.

[Atriok]

The friend was Aiden told you in common. I thought you didn't comment.

[Aiden]

I. Yeah, that's what I'm super curious about is like how that trend is going to hold up in the next like year or two is like what it. You know, there's this convergence of like sovereignty and national pride and being. Wanting to be like, I am Canadian. Like fuck the US converging with like the economic hardship basically.

[Atriok]

So that's, that's great. I want to bring that up. That brings us up politically. So, you know, you flash backwards one year, everyone in Canada is so doomer. It's just like it's over, right? It's people are depressed, housing prices too high, jobs too low. They're mad at Trudeau.

[Aiden]

They're mad at Trudeau because he did Governor Trudeau.

[Atriok]

And you know, there's fuck Trudeau signs everywhere. And it's become a foregone conclusion that him and his party were going to lose that's the idea.

[Aiden]

Yeah.

[Atriok]

And then this 51st state thing starts happening, and it's the most shocking poll. I mean, the Conservative government is still leading, and I think we'll still win, but it's become, like, way closer.

[Aiden]

Okay, this is what I was actually thinking about this, and I'm glad you brought this up, because I didn't. I hadn't looked this up, but I was so curious if polling had picked up for Trudeau's party, because I feel like this is a crazy story where he's, like, defending the sovereignty of the nation. And I think this was in a video you made about how he boxed one of the people from the other party.

[Atriok]

How are you feeling about this?

[Aiden]

And that was a first. That was the first swing in his Liberal Party picking up was him choosing to box someone from one of the other political parties. And it. He won the. He won the fight. And it was kind of like a. It was literally like a Liberals aren't pussies campaign. Like it was. And, and, and his polling dramatically picked up, and then he found himself in a position of Prime Minister, like, a little while after. And I was like, this is when he's been making the tweets and these things that I've seen. It's like, I wonder if the polling.

[Atriok]

Is falling, but he's not running again, so he's getting someone else. I think he's getting Mark Carney.

[Doug]

But yeah, he's just pushing the. The Liberal Party to be. We're against Trump, we're fighting back, and that's like rallying people. Yeah, yeah, it makes sense.

[Atriok]

You know, it reminds me of, you know, George Bush was a divisive president with pretty low polling numbers by the end, but after 9 11, it was like 98%. It was like the country was united.

[Aiden]

Yeah.

[Atriok]

And right now it seems like.

[Aiden]

Or like Rudy Giuliani, post 9 11.

[Atriok]

Exactly. Yeah. So right now the polling is, like, really rallying behind it because it feels like from the Canadians, you know, from my side, I still think of it as, like, it's a little mean spirited, but it still feels like a joke. As an American, I don't. I can't imagine we have tanks rolling in Toronto, but from the Canadian side, it sounds like they're, like, really pissed off, like, really rallying behind this idea of, like, stop calling us a state, you know, and I would love to get more. I'm not a Canadian.

[Doug]

If, If King George in the UK kept referring to us as the colonies, I would, I would be pretty annoyed.

[Atriok]

Yeah, right.

[Doug]

Like if he is dropping that, like, on Twitter every day, I would be pretty fucking pissed. What? We. What? We. We what? Get over it, George. Jesus Christ.

[Aiden]

No, that's a good point. I think about that.

[Atriok]

I got mad just thinking about. Riled up. Just thinking.

[Aiden]

I try to dig into my inner Canadian, but I'm like, I think if. Yeah, like, it would. It annoys me. It's like, it's. It feels stupid. It feels, like, intentionally antagonistic. Because even though I think there's no realistic path for that becoming the case, also from my perspective as a Canadian, psych. Even in the world where it somehow happened, maybe this is a dumb thing to worry about. Psychotic. That it would all be one state. To me, it's like, it's a good.

[Atriok]

It's pissed about logistics, dude.

[Aiden]

Yeah.

[Doug]

The second biggest, like, country in the world. Like, maybe.

[Atriok]

That'S one.

[Aiden]

Maybe if we respect it, it's like, all right, we're adding on nine. Nine provinces as states, three territories. You know, we. We respect the.

[Doug]

And then Trump looks south and he's like, we're thinking of all South America. 52nd state.

[Aiden]

That's what I'm saying. It's the. It would be insane if it was.

[Atriok]

One state in Congress.

[Aiden]

Insane if it was one state.

[Atriok]

40 million new people.

[Aiden]

Not. Not the top priority issue with this. But that's. That was honestly my first thought when I heard about it. I was like, it just wouldn't be worse. Doesn't make any sense.

[Doug]

Trump is probably like most Americans, though, and does not realize you guys have states. It is not just a big.

[Aiden]

Well, we don't have city. We have provinces. Provinces and territories.

[Doug]

I think Trump arguably, like Nobel Peace Prize level stuff here in terms of uniting Canada as a people, uniting Europe as a people, because they're all terrified now of he's uniting the world.

[Atriok]

I mean, I've never seen.

[Doug]

Not in the ways.

[Atriok]

Bad time historically, where Europe wants to spend a whole fuck ton of money on military. I think that historically is always a good thing and it always leads to peace.

[Doug]

And I think. I think Trump's really cooking.

[Atriok]

I know that Germany just got a. They had this thing called a debt break where they. They can't spend more than their budget. They're breaking it.

[Doug]

They're.

[Atriok]

I mean, they're like, finally, after it's been a long debate, they're finally, like, easing the debt break. To spend 500, 800 million billion euros. Sorry, billion, not billion. On military. They're gonna. They're gonna start doing this militarization of Europe. And I Think that's base. That's awesome. It's gonna be great. The more. The more the merrier.

[Doug]

That's no.

[Aiden]

1. What's never gone wrong before.

[Atriok]

Wrong. Dude, I think when Germany militarizes, the world smiles. That's the old saying, right?

[Aiden]

That's. Yeah, I've heard that. I've heard that.

[Doug]

Say.

[Atriok]

I'm not a big student of history. I just sort of go off the vibes.

[Aiden]

The. So the. I guess maybe the. The last thing that I was thinking about with the. The Canada thing is the. The 51st state. Like, I can see why it, like, frustrates people so much. And I've seen something similar with a few Danish friends about the Greenland stuff.

[Doug]

They're, like, interesting.

[Aiden]

It's gone from, like. I think when the initial reaction that I got from talking to friends when these things first hit the news was like, what the fuck is this guy talking about? It's like, this is obviously so dumb. This is like borderline a joke. But then he keeps talking about it, and he keeps talking about it, and now people are angry, like. And I find that it makes sense, like, from. From their perspective. I mean, as an American, I'm also not happy with it. Like, I don't think.

[Atriok]

Yeah, that one's an interesting one, though. It's such a more. Even more complicated because I feel like the people of Greenland keep saying they don't want to be Danish or American. They want. They kind of want their own thing eventually. Right now, they're. They're still Danish.

[Aiden]

Yeah. I think that part is more divisive, though, from my understanding.

[Atriok]

Right.

[Aiden]

Yeah.

[Atriok]

Okay.

[Doug]

Yeah.

[Atriok]

I mean, I don't. I don't know that one. That one's tough. I don't know.

[Aiden]

I think there are a lot of people that are, like, pushing for Greenland independence. From the bit I've read and, like, asked about, it sounds like that is just more. Because there's. There's aspects of Danish, like society or, like, social systems that are, like, so integrated and, like, the Greenland is so reliant on. So people are not. Like, there's. There's a big chunk of the population that's not ready to relinquish those things. Basically.

[Atriok]

Yeah.

[Aiden]

It's a tough one.

[Atriok]

I saw a good video on it. They talked about how, you know, because some of the ice caps are melting, the real estate up there is becoming more incredibly valuable in terms of, like.

[Aiden]

It'S gonna open, like, shipping.

[Atriok]

Open shipping lanes, and there's a ton of rare earth metals. So I feel like there is Some sort of global gold rush. And I don't, I don't fully understand, I don't, I don't know where I stand. I really haven't made up my mind on where I stand on it. But I do think it's complicated given that there's like three distinct parties that all kind of want ownership.

[Aiden]

I think my, my general, my general opinion on these things is that like in this era of like kind of global free trade, like national sovereignty and things like that is like it. The, there's probably some, some other analysis to do here in terms of like the, the costs of that system and like deconstructing like the global economics and stuff. But, but in general I think that you know, this has led to like unprecedented relative peace and things like that. And we're starting to like pull back the like walls of like these, these institutions and rules around like invading and co opting other countries. I think that's bad because it's like, I think that's bad and because it's such a regression of like what global society is like built around, which I think is, you know, we've had in a lot of ways good. And I'm not saying that there's no scrutiny to be had of that sentence either, but it makes me fearful is like okay, well if nobody's following the rules anymore and we're going back to old times of invading and taking right for every situation, sacrificing this like economic system that we've, that we've made. I don't know, the costs of that worry me.

[Doug]

There's a good book by Peter Zahan. I don't know how you say his name, you might but called the Accidental Superpower. And it's basically about how the global order got set up amongst other things after World War II. And basically the US did this. The US could have continued the previous world order after World War II and instead was like, let's do this global thing. We America will basically make it happen and we will pay for all the global shipping to be safe and we will basically institute this order across the world. And then there's Soviet Union.

[Aiden]

The US is like they, you know, I feel like from a short term perspective may even have come across as like generous. But it's like I, but in the long term, like ultimately it was way.

[Doug]

Better for the US People have come out of poverty. The issue and at least what he talks about in the book. And I think that there's value. This is as the, as the world has gotten bigger and more Complex, it is more expensive to do that. So the one area where there is, I don't want to say I agree with him, but there's truth to what Trump is saying is like, it is not feasible for America to, to, to police the world order anymore. And that is particularly true with like Russia doing what it's doing and China doing what it's doing. And so I don't think the extreme of, okay, let's pull back from everywhere and just be internal is good because then the whole thing collapses. But there is, I think, truth to the idea that that order can't go forever. The US is $34 trillion in debt. We cannot afford to police everything in the world. Europe doesn't spend much on military. We do it for them. Same with, you know, particularly Germany and Japan. Right. Like, at some point it's not feasible for the US to go in this direction forever. And so I think this is inevitable to a degree. It's been what, 80 years? Exactly. Basically 80 years exactly of the current world order. And Trump is very explicitly trying to tear it down. But I'm not convinced that like, if he wasn't there, then this wouldn't be in motion. You know what I mean?

[Atriok]

I agree with that. 100% agree with that.

[Doug]

He's accelerating the motion a lot. But that is the motion. Like, we can't afford this. Just straight up, it can't continue in its current position, has to change.

[Atriok]

That's funny because. Let me read my thoughts. Is I think that's super interesting and I like your pov, but you guys talked about it like this was generous or whatever. And in my mind it was like. And I'm, I'm like a patriot, dude. I'm actually like.

[Aiden]

No, I wouldn't say, I wouldn't.

[Atriok]

Stuff has been set up to our benefit.

[Aiden]

No, no, yeah, I agree with that.

[Doug]

It's self serving.

[Atriok]

Yeah, it's self serving. And I don't, I don't think that unwinding it is to our benefit. I think, I think, I think you're right that as these economies, you know, China is now a bigger trade partner with most of the globe than America is. Like, the fact that they're not stepping up to this doesn't make much. You know, Brazil is a much bigger economy. They're always going to bigger economies and they want a bigger say in the world. I think it's going to shift because of that. But I think America trying to unwind it is kind of crazy because it's all helped us. It's all Been to our benefit for so long. Like the system, NATO, United Nations. Like, we say that. We say that Europe is spending too much on or not enough on military because we're spending too much. But it's given us so much power over European decisions specifically. Like, if we're like, hey, we want to build our EV industry outside of China, let's tariff Chinese EVs, Europe just goes along with it. They just do the same thing, right?

[Aiden]

Yeah, that's.

[Atriok]

They do that because we have.

[Doug]

And once. Once we. Once the US Unwinds, if it continues to happen, you know, I don't think you get it back. Like, yeah, there's a particular situation in the world where the US was in this position where all the previous global powers were decimated after World War II, except the Soviet Union. They had all the industry, they had all the trade. They were the sole sort of standing, you know, we, I guess, were the sole standing power and were in the position to dictate whatever. And there was this argument of like, they could have been like, we are going to be the new British Empire. We're going to fuck all y'all. I mean. And instead they. They were very kind, generous people who we are all thankful for. And that's what we're taking away from it. Yeah. And they were, according quotes here. They were very generous.

[Atriok]

Absolutely no meddling.

[Doug]

Yeah, Zero.

[Aiden]

Meddling. Famously.

[Atriok]

Famously zero.

[Aiden]

Show me the documents where we metal one time. No, I think that's the. Yeah, I think that is the pro. Like I. I kind of agree with Brandon is like the deconstruction of. This is why. It's a hard topic to.

[Atriok]

It is hard, by the way.

[Aiden]

This is a hard. Okay, I'll just. I think I'll say it in a more straightforward way. This is a hard topic for me to argue about. Not at like a personal level, but I feel like there is a conflict. As someone who. I think I lean like pretty left on like most. Like most issues in general. And I think there's like a. Maybe a. I don't know if I would call my. I definitely wouldn't call myself a socialist, like outright, but I think there's a socialist viewpoint here where that is also advocating for a deconstruction of this global order, not for American fiscal reasons, but to dismantle the systems of oppression that they would identify exist across the world among this current system. Not that oppression and people being exploited didn't exist before World War II. It didn't. And that, that that level of like American, like empire and like Control is the. It. It's interest. I don't know. It's. It's super interesting because it's like, yes, that has such a demonstrable positive effect if you believe in, I don't know, like getting, getting rid of all these things has like such a harm. Identifiable harm on the U.S. but there's two, there's different perspectives on like why that all needs to be deconstructed and come down. And I think because there's all these different layers of like what people see as the most important outcomes. Who are the people that need help the most. What would, what actions would help those people? The solution is I'm, I feel like I'm a very like solution orientated person. And this problem is so layered. It's like, oh, of course I'm not going to solve. I'm running a lemonade stand.

[Atriok]

Yeah, yeah, we're running lemonade stand.

[Aiden]

So I don't, I don't have the answer because I like, I like a lot of what, like global, like our globalized safe economy and society gives me. I like a lot of those things. And I also, you know, selfishly benefit from a lot of like the power and control that the US has as somebody, especially as somebody who immigrated here and found, you know, got to make.

[Atriok]

A cross the ditch.

[Doug]

Cross the ditch.

[Aiden]

The ditch. Yeah. But at the same time I feel like I'm wary of something like can the debt grow forever? Right. If you listen to that one economist who wrote the deficit myth apparently can.

[Atriok]

Apparently you can.

[Aiden]

Apparently Kelton has interesting ideas or from other perspectives, maybe you have a strong moral stance built in what you'd call socialist values and you want to see the deconstruction of the global order for those reasons. I don't know what path I don't.

[Atriok]

Have that take, but I can respect it. Right. I can totally see it and make sense. You know, maybe a loss here is offset by a greater gain in the world if you're all humans benefit. The rising tide. I get that. I actually have no problem with that. The thing that makes me mad is Americans that don't realize that the reason that a guy Managing a BUC EE's in Texas makes more than a European doctor.

[Aiden]

Yeah.

[Atriok]

Is because of these systems of power that have America at the core. Like they think they can vote to dismantle this stuff. And it's all. I think they're just born better that they're just. They're getting. They're not. And they're gonna, they're gonna feel the punishment from this stuff unraveling as they, you know, are more and more not protected from equal competition with the globe. So, like, I don't think it's fair. I agree, it's not fair. But I'm saying, as an American who wants a certain thing, it's crazy to not understand the consequences of dismantling this stuff. That's all to your benefit.

[Doug]

I do. I definitely agree with that take, which is that it is not to America's benefit to dismantle this. Like, we have benefited from deciding the global order. And then there's. If you dismantle it, there's like. Like you said, there's arguably. I mean, there's all sorts of crazy, complex things. I don't think it's great that American spy agencies have picked winners in various countries over the past 100 years. That's fucked up. Like, we just get to decide, though.

[Aiden]

The thing about it is, like, I can't think of a single time at that.

[Doug]

Right. That's true. That's true.

[Aiden]

The thing about it, it's like, it's. It's just.

[Atriok]

It always worked out so smoothly. So I just really don't see deeply.

[Doug]

Immoral the idea that we do that.

[Aiden]

The CIA simply batted a thousand. Can you say it?

[Doug]

It's a.

[Aiden]

They were kind of the Shohei Ohtani of government agencies.

[Doug]

They went to Venezuela. They pitch and back.

[Atriok]

CIA was the Otani of government agencies. Fire bar. That is fire. They just kept knocking.

[Aiden]

They just keep.

[Atriok]

They just keep it just every coup.

[Aiden]

Because if it blew back, if it.

[Doug]

Had blown back out of the country.

[Aiden]

If it blowed back, I'd be critical. I'd be critical. Yeah. I think that's what I'm saying is, like, there's so many. I think they're. This is why these things are, like, hard to come to. Any, like, solution or determination of, I feel like, is like there's so many little aspects of, like, how your lives are impacted by these decisions, especially over the long term. And it's hard to make confident decisions of, like, this thing should be this way, because I think for the average person, including me, it's hard to identify the costs, like the pros and cons of what those decisions will be.

[Atriok]

I can tell you that it doesn't matter. We don't have to worry about any of that because AI is going to come in and it's going to replace all this. We don't have to worry about the global order.

[Doug]

Organic segue.

[Atriok]

We don't have to worry about the global order because all of our jobs are going to be taken by AI, as Doug's about to explain.

[Doug]

Board of podcasts. You know, you're probably at work. You think these PowerPoints are so exciting. I wish that I could watch a podcast where there was a PowerPoint. Let's go.

[Atriok]

Let's go. We are upgraded podcasting to the first.

[Doug]

Ever lemonade stand present to the future.

[Atriok]

Hot diggity dam. No other podcast has this, folks.

[Doug]

Still the cold open. All right, time for classroom. So what I was interested in is obviously everybody's talking about AI and how it's going to steal a bunch of jobs or that it's going to make the future incredible. And everybody's kind of all over the place on this. What I thought would be interesting as we try to understand what AI is going to do, is to look at some of the recent technological waves and what they did for job creation and destruction, Right? Because it's really easy to be like, oh, AI is going to destroy X, Y and Z job. Which is true. It's going to destroy a shitload. But. But it's gonna create a lot, presumably. And so I thought it'd be interesting to specifically look at real numbers of previous technological waves, like personal computing. So this happened starting in the 80s, let's say, and obviously has continued till now. So personal computing destroyed a lot of jobs. Turns out there's a lot of people who worked on typewriters. Those don't really exist anymore. Lost like, 100,000 jobs typesetting for people who didn't read old newspapers and stuff. You had to manually put, like, type and print and font stuff to make things right. Because you didn't just print it.

[Aiden]

Brandon, you're probably, like, super familiar with that.

[Atriok]

Don't make a Boomer joke. I. It's funny because I watched a movie from 93 yesterday, and one of the main plot points is this woman trying to get a job as a typist. And like, yeah, just. There's a whole office of people just typing up things, other people. It's crazy.

[Doug]

And that's not even what this is. You know, in Microsoft Word, how you can change two words or two letters, and it's just change. You had to physically do that for the entire world operating before a few decades ago. Right. So that's not even the same as a giant amount of people who lost work, clerical and secretarial work. There's 3 to 4 million people in the US who just did what you're describing, just typing, putting in numbers, spreadsheets. Because it's all done by hand. If you think of all the finances and all the accounting and all the paperwork of every company in the world, they were writing all this by hand. Bookkeeping, accountants. Hundreds of thousands are lost due to spreadsheets and all the different software that PCs introduce. Right. Office equipment manufacturers, we lose tons of that because now all this is consolidated into a computer. So we lose a ton of jobs, right, Based on personal computers. And probably a lot of people are really upset and scared at that time, but obviously computers have generated an obscene amount of new jobs. Programmers alone, there's 28 million globally, approximately. These are estimated numbers from like, you know, labor bureau. But it's, you know, 28 million globally apparently are working as programmers right now.

[Aiden]

28 million people to send to the farms.

[Doug]

Yeah, yeah.

[Atriok]

I mean, given how annoying programmers are on Reddit, this is the biggest mistake we've ever made.

[Doug]

So some of these, it's a mix of whether we have numbers, the US or globally. PC and parts manufacturing, millions of people globally, hundreds of thousands just in the US alone of like good jobs of people making parts. And if you think about the actual PC itself and all the chips and all the peripherals and all the sales distribution that goes into all the different pieces, all the different equipment it networking, hundreds of thousands.

[Atriok]

Do you guys know I used to solder the chips themselves when I worked at Nvidia. Like they would send me the parts and I would go in my garage.

[Doug]

And because we didn't have computers then and so. And so the chips were made by hand.

[Atriok]

Yeah, it was actually an American made operation and I wasn't very fast, but I did a really good job.

[Aiden]

And then they outsourced your job to Taiwan. That's why you became a streamer.

[Doug]

Yeah, the story folks, freed you up for creative work, as they say. Video game industry, remember that didn't exist when you were a kid.

[Aiden]

Brendan. Hey, dude, there's 500,000 people who have.

[Doug]

A job working in the video game industry, right? This is, this is crazy. We just take for granted that these things exist, but these didn't even exist. Same with manufacturing support. If you think about the amount of technicians, sales, distribution, I mean, just Apple Stores alone, right? All of these things are based off of this industry that did not exist. The Internet comes in. Internet's even crazier, right? Retail stores. Now let's look at what the Internet has destroyed, right? Retail stores are super bad, right? We're looking at least 700,000 jobs in the U.S. obviously, millions globally, as essentially physical stores get totally.

[Atriok]

Malls get Wiped out.

[Doug]

Right. And so this is, I think more so than the computing one. This is a real, like we've all seen and felt this and it's sad. This is not a fun thing. Right. And this is, this is. Now it's going to continue Halloween because.

[Atriok]

Then you're getting a lot of pleasure.

[Doug]

Spirit Halloween. Newspaper and media. Over half of the people working in newspapers and like news update media lost their jobs globally over the past few decades thanks to the Internet.

[Atriok]

We have podcasters now.

[Doug]

We do as it comes as we'll bring up later. Turns out there used to be way, way more travel agents and you don't need that if you can just look up what you want to do on the Internet. Hundreds of thousands lost. Brokers, financials, advisors. Lots of people where the Internet essentially just, just invalidated their job.

[Atriok]

Can I just say something? Sorry.

[Doug]

Yeah.

[Atriok]

Both My, my dad has worked in the military for 30 years and then he quit and he works at a military contractor now. He doesn't really like him. He's ready to leave. He's always had this dream of being a travel agent and I don't know how to break.

[Doug]

Yes.

[Atriok]

No, no, no, no. Like softly many ways, like, oh, it's cool, but I just don't. Doesn't really exist anymore.

[Aiden]

It's just not based on, based on what I've seen in the, the east part of LA County. If he can speak fluent Chinese, he can make a business.

[Atriok]

Yeah, that's odd, dude.

[Aiden]

There's, there's weirdly a large amount of travel travel agencies like, like the east part of LA county, but they're like in Chinese. Like they're only, they're only in Chinese.

[Doug]

And this is what we call retraining for a new opportunity.

[Atriok]

I'll tell my dad we're going to retrain. Go right now.

[Doug]

Mandarin postal services dropped dramatically, but obviously the Internet has created an unbelievable amount of jobs. E commerce is absolutely massive. Obviously Amazon doesn't have a great reputation, but 1.5 million people work for Amazon 200k for Alibaba alone. Millions and millions and millions across the world in logistics and delivery. Right. Like arguably every industry in the world has been touched and largely benefited from E commerce, cybersecurity and it. These are industries that are created because of the Internet and computing. There's millions globally. Content creation. There are approximately 50 million content creators at least globally. At least 2 million full time. These numbers are very hard because so much of this is kind of interwoven. But if you think about some of the numbers, like TikTok alone has millions of people doing it professionally. Right. So it's hard to exactly say, but the estimate is like it's at least 50 million worldwide who are making content to some degree professionally. That is wild. And that's all. Again, that's 50 million people who weren't doing that two decades ago.

[Aiden]

I think maybe it's, maybe it's time. Maybe World War three is fine.

[Doug]

Well, you say that now, but think about how many people love driving Uber.

[Atriok]

Everybody loves Uber.

[Doug]

And gig platforms. Again, you can, obviously not all of this is sunshine and rainbows, but objectively, demonstrably, there are many, many, many millions of jobs. And if you think about gig platforms like Fiverr or, you know, these other ones where people are just freelancing themselves for different roles, I mean, I probably all three of us have worked with people who professionally make YouTube thumbnails or logos or do art. Yeah.

[Atriok]

But I don't pay them though. You know, it's like, for me, it's.

[Doug]

Always like it's exposure.

[Atriok]

Exposure.

[Doug]

Right.

[Atriok]

An exposure based economy.

[Aiden]

What's the formula for adding exposure to GDP?

[Doug]

Do we have 3.4, 34 trillion in exposure lying around? Right. We can put it on the Treasury.

[Atriok]

What if Trump tweets out everyone we owe debt to for exposure? They call it even.

[Aiden]

She.

[Atriok]

I'm going to make you a star.

[Doug]

We've got, we've got a slot in a new Mr. Beast video. And then what I thought was particularly interesting, even in traditional media, there was about 4.5 million people in the US who now are working TV, film, music that weren't there before. Because the massive amount of additional opportunity that has opened from the Internet, tens of millions of people now are working in media jobs globally that weren't there before. And I'll move through mobile devices pretty quick. This is another very recent tech change. It's the lost jobs from mobile phone. I'm gonna be honest. It's like black people who made BlackBerry and you know, Nokia digital cameras. That used to be a thing that people buy cameras. You don't do that anymore. Used to buy a Zune. You don't do that anymore. Taxi services, people used to have jobs making maps.

[Aiden]

You ever heard about the, the, the taxi tragedy in New York? Do you know how about how you need to buy like a yellow taxi medallion? Yeah. Prices of those like inflated, like super, super high because like there's a limited amount of them to go out and then a bunch of people bought at like peak market. Basically people that are putting like their life savings on the line taking out loans to buy this yellow taxi medallion in New York, and then Uber picks up and the price of them plummets. But all those people are locked into the loan that they took out to buy the medallion. Yeah, just. Just a crazy, crazy.

[Atriok]

We need to add a medallion to become a content creator and then that'll fix the problem for the people.

[Aiden]

We need a limit. And who will hand out the medallions?

[Doug]

You, Doug, Go say lemonade stand. I guess it should be me. Yeah.

[Atriok]

Take on the authority. Yeah.

[Doug]

So going through this quickly, the app economy as it's labeled like jobs and business and economic productivity that comes from apps on mobile devices is absolutely insane. And I'll briefly touch on it later. There's millions of jobs in the US that benefit from this alone. Millions globally. Again, all of this kind of intertwines, right? So it's hard to exactly distinguish what is a phone job versus an Internet job. But smartphone manufacturing, there's millions of people who do this worldwide in wonderful conditions. Social media, again, like millions of TikTok alone, you know, cloud service, there are millions of devs. Speaking as somebody who used to be a software developer and has dozens and dozens and dozens of friends in this industry, these are really high quality jobs. These didn't exist. And that's one of the things to note when thinking about job creation and destruction. Most of the jobs that are destroyed, not all. Most jobs that are destroyed from tech trends are generally not as good as the ones that are created. Obviously big asterisks there. Not everybody would agree with that if you're working in an Amazon sweat house or whatnot. But like programming, for example, is a really good industry to be in. And so overall, just some numbers on this that I think are pretty crazy if you look at these trends. PC personal computers in the US, thanks to PC, estimates are we lost 4 to 6 million jobs and made 20 to 30 million. Right. We're talking like a 20 million increase potentially globally, same thing. Tens of millions of jobs increased. Going to Internet, again, hard to exactly quantify. And there we go, millions of jobs destroyed because of the Internet, right? And then we're making tens of millions. It continues to benefit essentially every business on the planet. Globally, hundreds of millions are likely either directly employed through Internet services or benefiting from them. Mobile devices destroyed millions, made millions. And so what's also interesting about this is when these trends happen, generally they destroy a lot of jobs early in the wave and then they create the jobs later. If you think about mobile devices, right, like it's destroying Nokia and BlackBerry right away. But it took time for Uber to pick up. And it took time for TikTok. It took a decade, two decades for TikTok. So generally the trend is the destruction happens quickly, early on, and then the creation of jobs happens later. Quick other notes that we'll talk about. I'll get back to the desk. You know, new tech obviously affects all industries. There's a McKinsey study that said the Internet has created 2.6 jobs for everyone. Destroyed. That's wild. Mobile apps account for 20% of all new U.S. jobs from 2008 to 2022.

[Atriok]

Crazy.

[Doug]

Mobile apps are like, crazy good at generating new jobs for Americans.

[Atriok]

Like Uber. It's like Uber. And I'm assuming 20. I mean, that's crazy.

[Doug]

Yeah. But if you also think about, like, every single business banks a huge portion of what they're doing with their energy resources. Staff is mobile building for mobile. Right. There's so much that goes into mobile devices. It's not just, you know, oh, some guy made a meditation app. App. Right. It's. It's all of these things. It's games, it's gig economies, and it's the fact that every single business also now has a major mobile app which.

[Atriok]

Would hire some of these people for their mobile app. Because it sucks.

[Doug]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. We created some jobs.

[Atriok]

We created some jobs. Not at Twitch.

[Aiden]

Kind of a big fan of how you just have a 30% success ratio on loading the clip. Just, I open a Twitch clip and it sometimes doesn't.

[Doug]

That's new jobs. The new jobs will fix that.

[Atriok]

Create some jobs.

[Doug]

Obviously. And this is. Maybe we get into this in a future episode or now. But there's a lot of ethical ramifications to new technology. I'm simplifying this to just job creation and destruction for the sake of, like, narrowing the scope of this conversation. But obviously, if some, you know, if somebody in rural Brazil has access to resources, which I believe AI will do, that allows them to access businesses or opportunities that they couldn't before. I think the Internet has largely been a massively positive thing for people around the world. There's also downsides, though. A lot of jobs have been shifting to. Towards gig work, which, you know, I think many people do not feel is nearly as sustainable. And locations of jobs shift as well. Right. It's not like job that's destroyed, like grows in that same spot.

[Atriok]

Like a plant.

[Doug]

Right. In rural Arkansas might have roots them losing jobs in rural Arkansas. A lot of those jobs then go to Silicon Valley. Right. So this is not evenly distributed. And I had some ideas. Maybe AI future there could be virtual worlds and experiences. We don't know what's going to happen with AI yet. I believe there will be crazy ass stuff. AI run public service sectors imagining like traffic, traffic lights and utilities actually being managed by really smart AIs who optimize this. More scientists who can use AIs to run experiments, genetic engineering and customized medicines. Like the. The healthcare industry being far more sophisticated with people and cyberpunk where we all have cool ass additions to our head and our face. If you think about this alone, dude, on a serious note, that is going to happen. And if you imagine that's not good. The number of industries.

[Atriok]

I've seen that show before.

[Doug]

I've seen that in the. I didn't watch the end. I assume it's a happy ending. If you. If you think about the number of industries in our. In the world that are around fashion and people expressing themselves in interesting ways. The millions of people who do little Etsy crafts, the millions of people working in fashion or hairstyling or tattoos, different ways to express yourself. And you imagine in the future as we will get like essentially bionic parts of ourself. The amount of customization and flair and personalization. One of the things that I think is interesting, we all, you know, laugh about the metaverse and stuff like that, but as virtual worlds become really, really sophisticated, people are gonna do crazy stuff and maybe there's gonna be a whole industry where you manage a bar in a virtual world in a way that you couldn't before. Right. So I really do believe that there's gonna be enormous crazy different types of technologies and industries that we can't even imagine right now that come from AI, specifically as part of this product wave that will happen largely after the current wave of destruction. This is oversimplifying things, but I think it is very interesting. And now I will go back to the table and we'll talk and lemonade.

[Atriok]

Okay, I want to talk about it. This is very interesting. First thing I want to say is I think it's cool to have a techno optimist who can articulate your points on this podcast. Because I think the vibe I get from my audience, especially when I'm talking to them and there are younger people in America, most of them is doomerism, right? They're very doomero.

[Doug]

Yes.

[Atriok]

And I don't know necessarily where I stand. I'm going to bring up some, some points they might make. Right. I'm going to. When I talk to You. But I think it's cool that you have this idea because I don't like the idea that everyone is constantly doomer in general. I just think it's like it's self serving, so self defeating. So yeah, it's a bad snowball.

[Aiden]

Yeah, I think the. In the same vein kind of we did like a test recording before this episode like last week and we talked a bit about I think that feeling or that anti AI sentiment maybe among our audiences collectively or maybe young people in general. Being so negative, I think has valid points at its base. I think also what hurts is a lot of people at the forefront of the face of people who are fans of this stuff is often the people who I brought up the tweet that was that guy who is really excited about fully AI movies and we'll be watching fully. It's like that's not really why I consume art. That's not defeating the purpose.

[Doug]

Finally we could delegate art.

[Aiden]

Finally, finally we're offloading art and there's.

[Atriok]

A really big load on our collective human mind for so long.

[Aiden]

There's a really good, there's a really good Stavros clip, the comedian of him being interviewed I think by like Theo Vaughn and he's talking about like, isn't this like. It's like we're like this like the AI is like taking all the art and like we're working in the Amazon warehouses. This doesn't make sense. This isn't what we wanted. And I think when these things get talked about because like the positive outlooks for me, like when I read through, for example, you sent an article from a while back or a substack of the very, very, very good piece of that, all the potential benefits of AI and the first section was all about health and the way it could help help diagnose, diagnose and deal with like modern health issues. And I was like, that is exciting. That is awesome. And I think that's the like when you talk about these things being like sensitive to those concerns or like maybe not. I don't even think sensitive is the right word. Is like being ready to like answer those concerns with like good, like good positive answers. I don't, I don't know those things are important because I feel like the sentiment is so overwhelmingly negative.

[Doug]

Yeah, let me address that really quickly. So I think the part of what I mentioned in my important PowerPoint documentation is the fact that with tech trends, with major technology waves again, you generally see job destruction at the beginning and then the new industries start to Emerge. And so I think that I agree that there's a lot of doomerism with AI right now. And it's justified if you're just looking at what's in front of you, which is right now it is destroying artists jobs. Straight up.

[Aiden]

Yeah, that's what I wrote. I actually wrote this down. Is like, I think that people get really caught up in the short term cost of situations like this because it's very visceral, it's very. It's happening.

[Atriok]

It's hard not to. If it's your job or it's your favorite.

[Aiden]

Exactly. And I'm not saying that people. I can't look. It's like I'm fucking. I'm a podcaster and I can't look at the guy, the guy who telling.

[Atriok]

The writer that's got laid off.

[Aiden]

I think I was listening to a story on the Daily about manufacturing in America. And this guy who had worked at a lock company, like a lock manufacturing company, and after decades of working there, he loved his job. He lost it because they offloaded all the manufacturing or outsourced it to another country and he lost his job. And it was a huge part of his identity that was lost. He lost his income.

[Atriok]

And Aiden was standing outside of the factory.

[Aiden]

Well, that's. And I think when talking about these things, something that I think about a lot is like overall, in order for society. Like a small scale example of this is in business. I remember hearing an anecdote about how a lot of like tech, early tech companies and technology would be worried about their products cannibalizing each other. And Steve Jobs, like notably said when I think the iPhone came out, that he had no, like, he had no fear of this. Like in order to progress the products in the company forward, you cannot be afraid of like cannibalization basically. And I think at like a society level, the idea that like you can't replace old jobs, like, oh, what, we've got to keep the horses in buggies.

[Atriok]

Okay, we can't get into my point though. I want to jump in because. Okay, I agree. Like, I am not a Luddite by any. I don't follow Ludwig nor I'm not a Ludwig fan. I just say this guy.

[Aiden]

Let me just.

[Atriok]

If it was any other technology, my instant response is exactly what you said. I know that if you invent the tractor, some guy loses his job, but the farm gets bigger, we get more whatever. I know always historically, I think people are maybe not correctly and nobody really knows, but are intuiting that AI is A little bit different, that it feels different because it feels like the first time where maybe you just don't need a human at all. Maybe it's like it's not that we're making this thing convenient so the human can do a higher order task. It's like the human has now truly been lapped. And I'm not saying AI is there yet and I'm not. I don't know exactly where I stand on this, but I think it's like this one's different is what I'm trying to say. And I want your question on that. Feels to me different.

[Doug]

I have thoughts if you want to add on it before I respond.

[Aiden]

Yeah, yeah. And that's why there's a CGP grey video from like a decade ago about this. Not necessarily about AI, but about automation in general and like why this leap in technology is different from previous times ultimately. And I think if that is the case or that's something that we worry about, I think something I think a lot about is like, well if it's going to reach that point and you might disagree with that, is how you change society and legislation and things around jobs to accommodate for that. Because at a certain stage it's like the way day to day life works and jobs work. If that's going to be the case, if the human is going to be lapped and replaced for labor, then the structure of society also needs to start changing. So I think I'm curious what your response is to him and also what you think about that.

[Doug]

Yes, again to set the stage for people maybe aren't. I am very optimistic on AI. I do think the net positive on earth is going to be extremely high and for humanity. However, it's going to be more destructive in the short term than any other technology probably. And I think a lot of people are concerned about that, even the optimists like myself. So three kind of categories I think. One, there's this idea of like we're going to destroy all these jobs. This will happen, this is going to happen quickly and there's going to be a time lapse before new industries are created that can fill some of that space. However, I think people are overplaying the amount at which a company will simply fire the people that they can replace. So imagine you have company A, B, ABC, you have company ABC. They make 100 products a day. And then with AI company Aiden and company at company Aiden and company, you know, actually this is good company Aiden and company at. Okay, two different companies. You guys both employ 100 people, okay. You employ 100 people.

[Atriok]

Okay.

[Doug]

And then you realize with AI that each person in your company can be twice as effective because instead of just completely changing their jobs, every person's job, for the most part, in most offices at least, is a mix of different skill sets. And people realize that they can actually replace certain amount of work with AI and it allows them to do more. So each person can now get twice as much done. Okay? You, given just your background and your nature as a human being, you fire half the people immediately. You think, I don't need half of them. AI can replace them, right. If they're all working, fire them. Right? And, and you know, and you go home and you, you get in your, your fancy Toyota Prius and you're very proud of your, yourself.

[Aiden]

Leave them to the dog.

[Doug]

Atrio, you notice the same thing.

[Atriok]

Now what I am a little different.

[Doug]

There's two, there's values, right? There's two options you could do here.

[Aiden]

Yeah.

[Atriok]

I mean, for me, there's only one option.

[Doug]

Oh, it's fire them all. Oh, fire them all.

[Aiden]

Yeah, yeah.

[Doug]

And I'm out. I sell the stock.

[Atriok]

So I sell it to a private equity firm and I'm on Bermuda Beach.

[Doug]

Yeah, yeah. Now what I believe most companies will do is go, my employees are twice as productive. Let's make twice as much stuff, right? Why would your reaction be, yeah, let's fire everybody and do the same amount? Instead of, if you are a material science company or a manufacturing company or a software company and suddenly your employees are twice as effective as they were before, they can produce twice as much. Because AI can do so many of the tasks that simply took time before. Why wouldn't you make twice as many things? If you are a business, you want to make more money, you want to succeed in the market, you can free up some of those people to develop new products to be competitive in these other areas. Why wouldn't you grow? Every company is incentivized to grow. You know, obviously there's individuals who won't do that. There's going to be horrible leaders who are like, yeah, fuck all the human beings. They're going to be profit driven. But in general, even if you take this very, very cynical, capitalistic, you know, it's, they're just doing it for money. Even in that case, I believe the vast majority of the time the incentives are to make more. And that's the hope is that what this does is it enables all people and businesses around the world to be more effective, more productive. I've seen this in my own life, I've talked to dozens of people for whom AI has made their writing better, their planning better, people who are now able to do businesses in a way they weren't before, tackle taxes better. There's going to be so many fewer barriers to people starting businesses and creating things, because AIs will allow everybody to engage with this. It's going to destroy a lot of jobs, but it will hopefully allow people to make more. And that means not just firing everybody, it means doing more stuff and each person is more productive. And of course, this is also going to happen with a lot of job destruction. There's gonna be a lot of people who use this in a very evil way. There's going to be a lot of people in certain areas who then can't recover and get the opportunities that are created. But I think that fundamental idea of if you can replace. If a person becomes more productive, you fire everybody is flawed.

[Aiden]

My. I mean, my first. I think I definitely agree with, like, parts of what you're saying. My first response to the. Your original, original idea is that, like, the demand doesn't necessarily exist for more to exist. Right. So at some point it's like, well, if I can't. If demand does not match this, like, shared increase in output that my company has, and all the other companies in my industry are also choosing to make moves that are similar and increase their productivity. Well, eventually I do have to let people.

[Doug]

So the quick counteroffer. And again, obviously, these things are complex, but compared to five decades ago, people have far more leisure opportunities now. Right. There are literally every day, if somebody's listening to this podcast, presumably you are picking between literally thousands of different options on your TV devices, video games, of what to do every day. The amount of leisure options are massive. And these industries have exploded and we are currently benefiting from it. None of these existed five decades ago. Right. And probably those people were like, oh, if everybody started being five times as productive, what are we going to do with our time? Well, it turns out we as humanity have a huge portion, as I was pointing out.

[Atriok]

Yeah.

[Doug]

Now develop these industries.

[Atriok]

I just want to drill down on the question, though, because I fully agree that if it's like artists versus artists plus AI, that second one's more productive. Yes, I get it. But I don't know what happens when there's the leap of why have the human part of it at all. I just. I guess I don't understand that a human can't be completely lapped to the point where they are cut out and maybe you have one human as a overseer or manager. But I just. I don't see. I see the transitional period. That's what's happening right now. Writers with AI can research stuff really quickly and it's great. They're improved, sure, but. But I don't see what happens when. I don't need to hire a writer. I hire people for videos and stuff. And if they use AI, they can get stuff. But I don't. I don't see what happens when they're like. Because I just feels to me different. That's what I'm saying. It just feels. It feels to me like it's better at all of the human things. So I don't. It's like almost inconvenient.

[Aiden]

Human, maybe.

[Doug]

Maybe I have a thought.

[Aiden]

The direction, the direction that you're thinking in is. Is I could still be small scale.

[Atriok]

You know what I'm saying?

[Aiden]

In the past, like changes in technology or tools or automation free up the time of the human that couldn't do that job before. So they could like, move on and like, do something else. But in this case, if, like, the AI goes far enough or the AI is good enough, whatever task or job that the human could move on to next, the AI would just also be able to do.

[Doug]

Yes.

[Aiden]

And that is like the. Maybe what's different is like the chain you get stuck in. It's like there's no new ship to jump to anymore because the AI can also always do that thing. And obviously there will always be, like, exceptions. I truly believe there will always be exceptions to the rule in that.

[Doug]

I.

[Aiden]

Think there is an underlying desire to connect with people. And I totally agree. There's still that. But that's what I'm worried about as well, is like, there's this point you get stuck.

[Doug]

I get what you guys are saying.

[Atriok]

I want to make a counterpoint to my own point and just argue against myself is that, you know, people said this about chess when computers got better than humans at chess. Completely better. There's. There's no human on earth that can be even like a calculator, not like a phone. At chess, it gets better.

[Aiden]

Yeah.

[Atriok]

Chess has never been bigger. People, you know, at the end of the day, still want to watch humans play. They still enjoy the art and sport of it. And. And the entire industry of chess has never made more money nor been bigger than decades after computers lapped humans. Humans. So I don't think it's unreasonable to say that could happen for a lot of things where AI is Completely better than all of us. But we still want to do human thing. We want to watch a human made play or a movie or, or whatever. I get that. But for the totality of industry, so many things are just profit driven and they will pick the best option. And I'm worried that if humans are not involved in that. I even agree with you that it could be a good thing. But we have to restructure society. We just. Our system I don't think will work in that situation. That's. Yes.

[Doug]

So basically I agree with that and it is possible. I just think broadly we should trust that in the long term we as humans, when given opportunity, find things to do and create new things. So I think that in this case where let's say you describe, well, this writer that you would normally hire is outsourced to an AI and you're not hiring that person at all. Well, what does that person do now? He has free time and energy and you imagine that he's now just adrift in the world. But he's adrift in the world where AI is incredibly capable of doing creative things. Right? And he would have access to the same tools to go make things, to make a new business, to create leisure opportunities, to go find something and build one of these new industries that I think will exist. So I think what is sometimes lost is the assumption that the benefits of AI are only going to go to certain people. But if you assume that every human gets these same things, that even if a person is pushed out of a particular type of market, that we should not assume that we as humanity won't create new ones. And I think I agree society will need to be restructured. There's a possibility it's just a shitload of pain. And I hope that's not the case. And I'm somebody who thinks I'm optimistic because I think the good can be so incredibly good and the bad is very possible and we need to like fight against the bad. But like, do you get what I'm saying though?

[Atriok]

I do.

[Doug]

Like, yeah, that's. I think it's. That world is terrible up until we do have all. Probably a lot of our economic system and what people do is around human leisure and creativity and that I don't think AIs can replace, at least in its entirety.

[Aiden]

That part, I mean that part I agree with. Those are the parts that we want to emphasize and not let go of. I think the issue that I can think of is like a lot of new technology policy and the way society works does not catch up very quickly with the realities or the pace of technology. So what I get worried about in the us, something that I can think of is the cost of the person who loses their job to AI or automation or a factory being moved abroad or anything like that situation is the cost of losing your job in that scenario or the cost of losing your industry on the whole is very dire. Like you lose your, you could lose your home, you could lose your ability to support your family. The social systems in place to support that person are not very good. And I think the pace at which the technology is accelerating right now does not leave a very good safety net for the people that are like, caught in the crossfire.

[Doug]

You are definitely right. We need to restructure things so that we have a way for people to transition to this new world. And we don't have that right now. And if, and if this happens without any of that other support system coming in, it will be very chaos. It will be very bad. Yeah.

[Aiden]

And a lot of the, and I think the incentive structure that is like building AI right now and like building the technology is sort of this, say, capitalist system. Even in China, right, They're using private companies to develop and develop, which I think is a lot of merit to that approach. Right. Giving private companies the ability to explore and innovate. And that's very powerful. I don't think those companies necessarily share the incentive structure that saves the people that are like the externality, basically.

[Doug]

Yes, yes.

[Aiden]

And that's what I, that's what I get worried about basically is like, yeah, I mean, sure, the net benefit in society, in the most idealistic version of what you're talking about, could be really, really good. But the guy who like lost his job to AI along the way, his, like, he might have lost his job, gotten a divorce, gotten addicted, and the.

[Doug]

Government has not caught up.

[Aiden]

I mean, I'm sorry, I'm.

[Atriok]

No, I know you're just making the saddest possible story, but I think, but.

[Aiden]

This is true, right? People who have lost their manufacturing jobs in like middle America and their life crumbles because like, that was their identity. They can't get work. People are attached to like, the places they grow up and they, they turn to things like, like drugs and like drug addiction and like there's a huge spike in like, I don't know, like drug addiction, suicide, like all those things, Right. These things like compile and affect each other. And that externality of the people affected by this race to create technology is what I worry about. And I Don't want to leave. I don't want to leave the cure for Alzheimer's at the door that AI could bring, for example. I don't want to leave that behind either.

[Doug]

I want hundreds of thousands of people get injured or die every year in car accidents in the US alone, which would be prevented by self driving cars.

[Aiden]

By making changes like this.

[Atriok]

There's so many.

[Aiden]

We just. I want there to be a conscious, a conscious recognition of the costs and positives of both things and do our best to manage those.

[Doug]

Yeah. To be very clear, I am an AI optimist. I believe the net positive will become extremely high for humanity and getting to that high could be a super rocky road and there needs to be a lot of support and basically thoughtfulness on how it's done. Absolutely, yes. What you're describing is super possible, frighteningly possible I would say. Even though I firmly believe 30 years from now we're all going to go, holy shit, the world is so much.

[Aiden]

Better because of AI and I hope so. A smaller version of this that I was thinking of. I watched this video breaking down France's relative economic position in Europe right now. And they have very high productivity but also low hours worked per week. So their overall economic output seems lower or comparable to a lot of, a lot of Europe. But when you look into the problem it's actually oh, the French people, because of like the rules and the laws they have set up, they actually just work less and they have like more time in life for other things and their society, like their populace of workers is very productive and uses that time very effectively. Like that's, that's what I would, that's an example of what I would want to push towards. Right, right. Yeah.

[Atriok]

I mean you guys brought up two points that are very interesting which is you talked about saving lives from cars, being able to self drive for example.

[Doug]

Right.

[Atriok]

And crash. And you mentioned jobs and it's like 37 of 50 states. The number one job is truck driver. The number one job.

[Aiden]

Yeah.

[Atriok]

And the second self driving trucks are good. All those jobs going to be instant.

[Doug]

That's, that's probably the biggest inflection point of chaos from all that's going to be.

[Atriok]

I mean it's going to be really, really bad.

[Aiden]

Yeah, that was, and that. And that there was three years of Andrew Yang campaigning basically. That's actually, that was, that was his platform. Right. It's like I don't disagree, disagree with that. I don't know if I think Andrew Yang would have been the best president ever, but I Think that fee accounting for that and knowing that that's coming.

[Doug]

I really agreed with him on it. Yeah. Yeah. He's the only politician I ever donated to. And then I regretted it because they still text me all the fucking time. And I'm like, dude, it's been like.

[Atriok]

It'S been like 10 years.

[Doug]

Stop. Your Andrew Yang is not going to be president. Like, yeah, I mean, obviously there's so much to go into and I'll, I'll keep bringing this stuff up because this is like, talking about these types of things is one of the biggest reasons I am excited for this show and excited to talk with you guys because this is so deeply complex and so impactful and I can see in my own life, like, as an example to the people who are doomers, I employ like 10 to 15 people on a, on any given basis. I do that because AI is enabling to be. Enabling me to be more productive. I'm able to code more things. I'm able to get more creative ideas out the door. And I've used that, I've used that success to hire more people who are now supporting my creative visions. And there are real world examples right now already where AI is allowing creative people to grow and expand what they're doing and hire more creative people and make more stuff. And I think in a lot of cases, that's going to happen. And it's not always going to be the capitalist asshole who's like, and I like capitalism, but you know the guy, capitalism is good at incentivizing people to be shitheads. And the shitheads are going to be shitheads. Right? That's going to happen. And this, we'll talk about another episode. This is why Deep Seek, which is an open source, is, is super important. Because open source is going to prevent companies like Microsoft from hoarding this all themselves and preventing it from benefiting the broader people. Like, I think that is critically important, but it's too big of a topic and I'll stop there.

[Atriok]

Well, I'm, I, again, like I said, I'm glad you're talking about it because I do think there's many, many, many people especially that'll watch the show that don't see that side of it.

[Doug]

Right, right, right.

[Atriok]

They don't even have both sides of the argument. They have one side of the argument and they're really deep into it.

[Doug]

Which makes sense when what you're looking at in front of you is a fire.

[Aiden]

Fire.

[Doug]

There's a fire in front of you. And the guy's like, no, no, no, once the forest burns down, it's going to be vibrant, bro. Like, yeah, no, I get it.

[Atriok]

Like, and it's easier to say, well, we're in good, comfortable positions, so. But I think it's fair and I think it's interesting. And I, and I, I, I want to talk to you more because I want to share that optimism because I don't like the idea that this technology is so different, that I should just be sad. You know what I'm saying? Like, I, I, like I have used AI for research stuff. It's been helpful. Like, I think, I think I'm close to where you're at, but I, I still have reservations because I can just see the pain that it's going to cause. Like, guaranteed going to cause some people.

[Doug]

Absolutely, yes, it's going to, it's going to be more destructive than any previous.

[Atriok]

But I'll tell you, getting more pain than anyone. And that's me. When I invite Aiden to something and he flakes on me.

[Doug]

This is what I've been really staying up at night over Atriok.

[Aiden]

Unreal.

[Doug]

Can you tell me about what's going on with the culture and whether people are canceling?

[Atriok]

Absolutely. Look, I get that AI is going to be disruptive, but I think it's way more disruptive to have an event like a fun dinner or something. And then Aiden cancels on you last minute. And Business Insider did a very.

[Doug]

You tell us straight, right, Aiden on that. Please wait a second.

[Atriok]

Please write, Aiden, this thing on the rise of cancellation culture, which is basically, they interviewed some people, they did some studies and it looks into the idea that people now more than ever have been flaking. They've been, they've been, It's a post Covid thing. People have been more than ever resorting to the, you know, that good feeling you get when there's an event you don't want to go to and then last second you cancel on it. Well, people have called that, you know, self care or whatever. This study goes into the idea that, hey, it's actually kind of negative long term for your mental health, for our ability to form friendships, for our loneliness. Like there's a loneliness academic epidemic. It shows average time spent alone is like at an all time. We had the COVID peak and then it dropped a little bit and it's going right back up. Like people are compared to the decade before COVID astronomically lonelier. They're astronomically more alone. More time at home, more time ordering in, more time. And I wanted to get a sense From a serial counselor like Aiden, like, what? This is actually a joke. I actually want to get your thoughts because you are somebody who I think is the exact opposite of this. You, like, make a point to do all this stuff and do a lot of social events.

[Aiden]

I have a high sense of guilt about canceling, to be honest. Yeah.

[Atriok]

So I wanted to get your sense of whether you thought that was a benefit to you or why you do it. Because I think there's a lot of people who fall into this mindset that they talk about here, which is like, it can feel so scary or anxiety inducing or whatever to just leave your house sometimes. It's so comfortable. We have built really houses to ourselves lately. And why it's worth it to leave. Like, I want you to sort of make the pitch because you're the one I think does it the most. I, you know, I think we hang out, get them out. I go out. But like, I.

[Doug]

Have you tried out video games?

[Atriok]

Yeah, video games are awesome. And I don't know. And I, I like my reading. I like watching stuff. So I want to hear from your POV why you're so against. Why. Why this is not your attitude at all.

[Aiden]

I mean, I've. I think I have actually dealt with this. And this was a big thing coming out of COVID that I thought about personally, because before COVID I think I was a person that had abundant social energy. I got a lot of, like, joy and energy from going to social events and hanging out with other people and talking to other people. And I felt like after Covid, I actually am a different person in that regard. I think it. I developed a sense of. I don't know if I would use the word anxiety or dread about, like, going to social events that I had planned. Even though whenever I go, whenever I get there, it's always good. Like, I've never regretted going to anything that I've like, committed to. And I really, I spent a lot of time thinking about it because I felt like a different person. I felt like I lost part of me coming out of that. And I was like, is this part of getting older or is this because I just effectively spent a year and a half at home? And that was a really tough question that I think I really. I still haven't answered, like, fully. I think the guilt or like, where the desire to show up comes from or why I hate canceling is because I know it's annoying for the other person.

[Atriok]

It, like, it sucks to be canceled on for sure. Everyone knows that.

[Aiden]

You know what's funny is like, I don't mind. I don't mind that at all.

[Atriok]

Really?

[Aiden]

Yeah. But I find that's. That's like, pretty rare. It's like, I know the other person if I cancel is like, probably gonna give me shit or like, will they'll be sad or I think something that I think about a lot is I know that if I cancel on the same like, group or person, like a few times in a row, you'll stop getting invited to things. And I don't want to stop being invited. So being a friend and participating is saying yes and showing up even when you have that feeling of like, not wanting to go. And then, like I said, whenever you actually get there, it's great. There's been so few. Maybe not.

[Atriok]

I agree with this.

[Aiden]

Once you get through the discomfort of like the plan and going that. And I have a bunch of other thoughts related to this topic too. But that's the main thing is like, I. I think about how it would make the other person feel and I also think about the social consequences of what saying no often means. And both of those things, like, are just hurt in the long run. Right. They hurt your relationships with people. And that's funny that the article talks about that because that's underpinning.

[Doug]

What is the like. Or what are some of the theories about why. Because I, like, I'm curious why we wouldn't have bounced back now that it's been a couple years now that Covid is 100 article.

[Atriok]

This, this busyness culture, this idea of like, people feel busier than ever. They feel like they have to climb the economic ladder more. They feel like there's, you know, we're in a spot where jobs are harder to get. Everyone's trying to be a little bit performative, busy, and also is busier. And so the idea that is the first thing you can cut is time with friends. You can cut the. Cut the superfluous stuff that you can always.

[Aiden]

I thought that was a really good. They put it in a really nice ways that we don't. That culture doesn't place your time spent with friends or time spent as leisure as like a prior. As a priority or as an integral part of your life. But it is like that. That is a meaningful part of part of your life.

[Atriok]

And in one way, it might be the most meaningful part.

[Aiden]

It also talks about that. Right. The literal meaning of life coming from that.

[Doug]

Yeah.

[Atriok]

So there's that and then there is more anxiety. So. So again, people just self report, drat, dramatically more anxiety. They Think their friends since COVID you're saying?

[Doug]

Right.

[Atriok]

Okay, so people will report thinking their friends want to hang out with them less than they do. Like, if you ask the friends, they would say 80 to 85% or whatever. The people would say 40 to 40. Like they would. People are generally more in their own heads. They think they're less important to social events they go to. They think they don't need to be there. And they also think that, you know, if you have a friendship with somebody, if I cancel on you, my general thought would be like, we're friends, it doesn't matter. And it probably doesn't, but what this article goes into is like, it sort of does. Like, it does add up over time. All these lost encounters are. Are like deposits in a friendship bank that aren't earning interest. You're just not. You're not paying into that bank. And over time, your, your savings at retirement are a lot.

[Doug]

Yeah, it's like a real financial as well. Like, socializing is how you get most opportunities, you know, it's how you expand anyway. Yeah, yeah. Like all the best things in life. It's not necessarily the party itself. It's the person you meet there that leads to the thing, you know. I'm really shocked by the level of inertia that a year and a half of walk ins has caused.

[Atriok]

I'm so glad I wasn't a student at the time. I just feel like for. Yeah, it feels like it was. It was a dude.

[Aiden]

I think it's gonna be so. I think it already is so bad. Like, it has such resounding negative social effects is like, outlined through something like this, but just anecdotally. Like, I think, and I think about like, what a transformative and like, important part of my life. Like those years were like end of high school beginning and like through college and even just like learning, like, I think I wouldn't have learned very much if I wasn't in classrooms. And then also going out to like, parties and meeting people and like, making friends and doing stupid shit. Like that is all. I don't know. Like, that's how you. That's how I learned things about myself. It's how I like, made mistakes that drastically changed my like, value system and like, how I behave. Like, it's such an integral part of. Of life.

[Atriok]

School in like junior senior, college or high school. You should get your money. It's not fair. You didn't get, you didn't get anything or even close to what, what I think you deserve or what you Earned.

[Aiden]

I don't know if you guys feel this, too, is like. I thought a lot about, like, bringing this up because I feel a little like I'm going into old man mode complaining about X Generation. But I think it's not actually the generation below me. I think it's a lot of the people, like, around my age as well. Like, a little older than me, younger. And then definitely the younger generation, too, is, like, talking to people in, like, public spaces feels like pulling teeth. And, like, the level of, like, conversation. Conversational ability of somebody, like, age 35 and below is so poor. And it's kind of why. Genuinely, it's kind of why I think I've always liked talking to adults and older people like adults when I was a kid and. But older people in general is. Because if you go up to any. I feel like if you go up to any person above the age of 40, they can have a conversation with you. And I think this is also. This is also, like, a cultural.

[Atriok]

Feels too general, but you've done it more than anyone. So.

[Aiden]

No, I think this is also a cultural thing in that I wonder how Covid and things like this and people's anecdotal experiences play into this. But I found, like, going to. Compared to the US and also compared to Canada, going to, like, the UK and Australia, like, the average young person there that you meet is, like, also better at having a conversation with you. Like, they feel more socially comfortable just, like, interacting with strangers, which is a little odd to me. Like, I wonder what it is about, like, the way people are growing up and, like, going through their lives now that makes, like, baseline socializing so difficult.

[Atriok]

It's gotta do with practice because everything is, like, if they're not getting practice and they get more anxiety and it's a snowball. Yeah.

[Aiden]

And it stacks. And like, Covid. I feel like Covid, like, makes something like that so much worse. And it makes, like, the, like, making plans and, like, showing up to them makes it feel like such an ordeal in a way that it wouldn't be normally.

[Atriok]

This. This thing talks about striking up conversations with strangers and how it says, you know, if. If you're thinking about, hey, I want to say something that stranger, you get nervous and don't want to do. They're gonna. They're gonna think I'm annoying. But if someone does it to you, generally, you're like, oh, this is kind of cool. Like, it's, like, fun.

[Aiden]

Exactly.

[Atriok]

So it's a. It's a mismatch reward system.

[Aiden]

I did that At a coffee shop this week.

[Atriok]

You do it all the time. That's why I started. You actually do it too. But you are the annoying. There's not an Uber driver who's not tired of.

[Doug]

People are thinking, I don't want to. I'm upset. This person said something to me.

[Atriok]

Most people hate when Uber drivers talk. Uber drivers hate when you talk. The.

[Aiden]

The one. The one more thing I was thinking about with this was the. I. I feel like a big thing that maybe changed more post Covid too is like. And. And something that, that maybe is really pervasive in like American like work culture is. I feel like the fluidity of socializing matters a lot. Like people used to move less. People used to like just hang out more by default. Like they, I think they talk about it in the article. Like the percentage of Americans that report they have a best friend is like.

[Atriok]

Oh yeah, it's like down 30 year low or something. Or it's.

[Aiden]

Yeah. I think people lack a. I think the making plans and like hanging out with people is increasingly a task you have to do versus how it used to be. That's. That's how I feel is like you. I think a lot of people like grew up or were in community spaces where hanging out happens like very naturally. You're not necessarily making a plan.

[Atriok]

It's easy when you're a kid. Right.

[Aiden]

You just happen to be around each other. Right. And then you just do something together. But now making plans turns it into like a task which I think when people are so busy with things like work, it's not like an enjoying. You don't enjoy making the plans, so to speak. And you don't enjoy the build up to how you get there and like figuring out the logistics and all of those things. You enjoy actually hanging out. So when like we as people have so many barriers between us to hanging out by default and then you built. You add the anxiety and the isolation on top of that.

[Doug]

I just wonder how much of the inertia that is like the difficulty in people ramping back up into the previous lifestyle is the fact that tech has gotten really, really good at keeping people's attention.

[Atriok]

Gotten good, right? Video games have gotten good, stock's gotten good.

[Doug]

Yeah. And you know, and again, I want to be clear. I'm not, I don't, I don't think every tech is good. I think there's plenty of obvious downsides and like the, you know, if you think about COVID it's like a year and a half where every single person making Entertainment on the in the world. Got a chance. They got a shot at everybody, you know, like, everybody is like, all right, I'm gonna take like, me. I captured like 202 million people, dude. I caught him like Pokemon and they haven't left and like, backed him into a corner. And like, probably so many of my viewers are like, would be hanging out with their best friend right now, but they're like, oh, well, Doug, dropping the video.

[Aiden]

They couldn't escape. And now they buy my mugs, they buy my bugs, they buy my mugs.

[Atriok]

I made a new AI character.

[Doug]

This AI character calls me this, calls me bald.

[Aiden]

I. No, that's. I think that's a huge part of it. It's like, it might have, like, it's.

[Doug]

Like, it's like glue. Like we put like caltrops all over the ground and they have to like, crawl over them to get back out to a non digital social life, you know?

[Atriok]

So funny. If you talk about co with anyone who's not a consecrator, they're always universally negative. But then consecrators have to do that thing where they're like, like, oh, yes.

[Doug]

Like all their numbers.

[Atriok]

All their numbers.

[Aiden]

Like 10x.

[Atriok]

Like just 3.

[Aiden]

Just 3 merchants of death at the table. It's like, I talked a little bit.

[Atriok]

About COVID I just don't know. Millions. I mean, you gotta. It worked out so well for him.

[Aiden]

I just don't think the Sacklers should have to pay that much. No, I. I think you're. I think, I think you're right.

[Atriok]

Fentanyl damage panel. And it's all the Sackler families, like three different opinions.

[Doug]

We like, we like put them all in like a mirror maze. And it's like, look, normal, life is outside the mirror maze, but you got to find your way out, you know, you got to get out.

[Atriok]

And we got a lot of pop ups.

[Aiden]

I would like if, like for the people listening, I would love people's opinions about, like, how they've dealt with this and like, how they, they feel about this. Because it's something that is so. Not just like the cancellations themselves, but this, like general topics, like, how did Covid, like, affect you socially? How. How do you feel about socializing now? Something I think about a lot is it wasn't just I tried to dive back in. I was excited to go to big events and socialize and be out again once you could. And I remember feeling so fatigued in a way that I wasn't before. It was harder. Not just. And like I said, I Enjoyed being there, but being there was harder than it was before. And that was a strange feeling to me. And I don't. I don't know why I think harder.

[Atriok]

And I also want to give one more note because we don't talk about this because of being content creators, I guess, but it's also more expensive. I heard this from a lot. I talked to people about it. I talked to my old friend Jay Witz, who is. You used to go to a lot of basketball games. He told me, like, it's. You got a family now. It's just really expensive. Like, it's just everything's like, the prices have gone way up.

[Doug]

Up.

[Atriok]

It's hard for him to get out. And I think when you talk to a lot of young people especially, it's like, every restaurant's expensive. Every. You know, a lot of things that normally would be a good third place have become monetized and more expensive.

[Doug]

And so they're.

[Atriok]

They're running out of spots now. I don't think that. I think that's still a little bit of a cop out in that you can always find something cheap to do. You can always. I think a lot of things, I.

[Doug]

Think it's that drop off the battle bus.

[Aiden]

But that's. That's part of it, even that it's another. It's another layer of friction. It's another. Like it's another work item that you need to figure out instead of just hanging out something. You know what the. The office. Working at the office is really nice because conveniently, working. I work at a company. I work at a company with friends and the people who are around and come to do stuff at the office is like we just hang out and talk and socialize.

[Atriok]

Play Mario Kart.

[Aiden]

Play Mario Kart Wii and play Mario Kart Wii with my headphones on and don't talk to anyone. But I just want to be clear.

[Atriok]

I've been in the office many times. 98% of the time, you are locked in, headphones in, no talking to anybody. Playing Mario Kart weave. It's not a den of socialization.

[Aiden]

I'll show you my. I'll show you my ladder page. I'll show you my ELO on a hot streak right now. But having those spaces is so important. Like, having. Having spaces where you can just be around people to begin with, so the layers of friction don't have to happen between. And I think, like, I'd be curious too, if, if people back this theory up at all. But I feel like a lot of other Countries I've been to even in the modern day of technology, even post Covid like culturally different places don't seem to deal with this problem as much. And I'm sure things like cost and like, like layer into that like. But I don't know. I'm curious about people's like you said.

[Atriok]

It well, I would love to hear some people's responses, especially because we plan to do follow ups on some of the comments in future episodes.

[Aiden]

Maybe that's a good time to bring that up too. I think like everything we talk about, I think a big thing we had talked about on the show is like, I think all three of us like have like have pretty similar like ideals and values and like our good faith in the way we like bring stuff up and like argue about things. And if you guys have thoughts like I like when people engage in that same way, like if you have new information or something relevant to what we talked about and you think it would be good for us to know or like your opinion on something, I want to read that. I think a cool thing about this show is that as we dive into stuff there will definitely be things we like miss or get wrong. And if you bring stuff up in the comments or I think we've talked about more structured ways to do that in the future, I, it'd be nice to like re approach topics or things we talk about here with like new information of mine.

[Atriok]

Absolutely.

[Aiden]

I don't want to pretend like I'm like as I try to like navigate the geopolitics of global trade, pretend like I have it locked down. I spent two hours on Monday making a podcast episode about cream pies. It's just, I, I, I know, I, I know where, where I stand and.

[Atriok]

I'm very all about cream pies.

[Aiden]

Okay, it's not all about cream pies, but it was like a good 15 minutes and it's just, it's we didn't need.

[Doug]

Which leads me to my next topic. So AI Cream pies Porn is going.

[Aiden]

To be, you know, wild porn is going to be. Unfortunately, fortunately I don't click the link.

[Doug]

Below for our Porn Hub follow up episode.

[Atriok]

Yeah, they're paying the most, right? So guys, this is really fun. This is a, I really like this first episode. I had a good time. Want to do a romance?

[Doug]

Oh.

[Aiden]

Damn.

[Doug]

Great stuff. We're going to be making an episode every week. We're going to be covering whatever is going on and whatever we feel like and posting on Thursday, unless we're late, which none of us are ever late. We wouldn't you like that? You just heard how seriously Aiden takes that. I walk in and now this is the part of the show where Atrock eats an entire raw lemon.

[Atriok]

No, that's not me.

[Aiden]

That's you.

[Atriok]

I've been baited.

[Doug]

I forgot lemon. There's one right there. We have real lemons on set. Hock will take a bite up until the skin ruptures.

[Atriok]

This is plastic.

[Doug]

Do you want to see me more lemons?

[Atriok]

Leave a comment in the thanks for watching.

[Doug]

Thanks for watching.

[Atriok]

Thanks for watching.