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0:01Hell yeah. What are your names? Chase. James. Hell yeah. I’m Maceo. This is for We Them Media. And this is actually for poidh. poidh, it’s Pixar It Didn’t Happen. It’s a platform where people can essentially incentivize people to go out and do different kinds of actions. Nice. They think they gave out like $10,000 last year to somebody in South America who did the most kickflips ever in a minute. They broke the world record. No shit. Okay. That’s awesome. Yeah. And so I’m experimenting at how could we use this platform to incentivize people to go out and do guerrilla journalism. Cool. And so the question of today is, do you feel like the internet is making it easier or harder to get access to the truth?
0:37That’s a great question. I feel like it’s a two-fold question, right? Like I believe that it is easier to get access to it, but then the truth kind of ebbs and flows in a way where people assume things are the truth and then it kind of gets blasted And then also it’s like you get the real truth by, you know, going to the library and actually looking up the history that actually happened that you don’t see on social media that, you know, gets, you know, sort of whitewashed and everything as well. Yeah, I think right now truth is kind of subjective in a weird way, so the internet does offer you your truth if you’re looking for it, but it also can offer you the more objective truth, but you just have to go dig a little deeper and find sources that are actually high quality and do their research and not or not, just like some Reddit page.
1:36Do you have a favorite subreddit? Favorite subreddit? I play in a lot of Red Dead Redemption so I’m doing Red Dead Redemption 2 subreddit, they’re showing me all the secrets. Okay, that’s good truth That’s a good one I just got back into old school RuneScape OSRS subreddit’s great and then, I don’t know just a bunch of woodworking stuff and everything too. Okay, and so that’s kind of what I think is interesting, right that we can start to aggregate truth together or like create this spaces for collective sense making like subreddits like do we agree do we not agree right yeah kind of creates a space for discourse and so I’m curious what do you what do you think of the state of discourse it’s it’s insane man especially with the prevalence of social media no like no buddy can be right you know even if it’s like whether it’s actual facts and everything there will always be somebody arguing that it’s just not true
2:37and and discourse is great to have because it’s just opposing opinions and things right but when it’s actually historical facts you it’s it’s true or it’s not and I feel like with how discourse is nowadays it’s like you either believe what I believe or you can just get the hell out of here and I’ll just attack you and it’s just it’s so I don’t know polarized and it’s just awful. Yeah, it doesn’t really seem like discourse is really used to communicate your understanding to another person. It’s more about trying to score points most of the time. Reddit and the internet have kind of turned it into a likes, you know, upvotes kind of thing. And so people just say whatever gets likes.
3:27Are you two from Denver? I’m from Maryland. I’m from Illinois. Okay But then I’ve been here for 10, 11 years already, so Okay Yeah, I’m from here now, you know Yeah, yeah, I know what you’re saying, I know what you’re saying Yeah And so what do you two think about the state of Denver now And like how it’s evolved over the last couple of years How long have you been here? I’ve been living in Denver probably like five years now Okay Boulder before that, but as far as it’s changed It just feels like there’s more homeless people on my block But that’s just my block
4:02Why are there so many homeless people here? I mean, my block has a community coffee house where people can go and get coffee and food And so that’s where a lot of people seem to congregate What’s that called? I’m not exactly sure, honestly It’s pretty cool, yeah, where is it at? 14th and Pearl If you need some food or some coffee, they got you But yeah, like, I don’t know Well, Denver seems like the rest of the U.S. in that we’re all struggling to eat and have a shelter over our heads, and it’s not getting much better.
4:41Yeah. No, I mean, I live kind of closer to like City Park and stuff like that. and I don’t know, it’s just, it’s interesting to see, especially like we’re on Colfax right now, right? So the development of everything on Colfax and you see a lot more homeless population here. For people, like I’m from Philly, like what’s Colfax? Like when, what do people think of when they think of Colfax? Sketchy, dangerous, things like that. But with all the improvements that they’re making, it should, you know, help with that. But then you kind of fall into the other side of gentrification and like property taxes will get more and everything across Denver especially but across Colorado is just becoming more expensive and and the more that people move here and stuff too it’s like a desirable location so it’s it’s kind of tough right yeah that makes sense do you feel like uh you guys both moved here do you feel like people look at you as gentrifiers and how do you navigate that can you say that one time so people look at you as like gentrifiers like being white people moving here probably because I feel like no I like coming
5:45I’ve been here from like Illinois slash Chicago area and then moving here and then being, you know, I just got married. So we have a two household income and stuff like that. So we’re able to afford more. But it’s at the same time. It’s like, okay, we can afford more. But then rent across the city is going up because people like me can afford more and things like that. And it’s just like, it’s just a never ending cycle of everything’s becoming more expensive. And it’s just awful.
6:16I mean, yeah, probably I do make minimum wage in Denver, which is well-paid Cities, I believe now it’s at 19 an hour which is news to me. Yeah
6:34I’m still paycheck to paycheck as far as like paying rent and paying Things are more expensive here to like the Philly yeah But I could definitely understand why somebody might consider me a gentrifier Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah I do want to make, yeah, like on that note too, as you were saying, like things are like super expensive We were, we went to New York last year And we were, everybody’s like, oh yeah, New York prices are insane and stuff too And we sat down at a restaurant and we’re like, these are the exact same as Denver prices Which is insane, right? You think New York prices, like everything’s overinflated, which it is
7:11and then you sit down at like a restaurant here and you’re seeing the exact same type of prices. It’s crazy for a much smaller city too. Extraordinarily smaller city for sure. Oh my God. Yeah, exactly. With not the same resources as New York City. Exactly. Yeah. It’s a completely different ballgame. Yeah. That’s cool. And then I’m curious, what do you guys think about AI? It’s a tough question. I hate it personally because it does drain a lot of our resources, fresh water, all of that stuff, and especially causing electricity prices to increase like tenfold. I will say I’m a small team of one. I do marketing and stuff, so it is nice because I’m a team of one, but at the flip side, I’d rather not use it.
7:57I just feel like it’s either you adapt to using it or you fall behind, and it really kind of sucks because my moral sense is like, you know, it sucks, we shouldn’t use it, we should hire real people, creative people to do the creative things. But it’s just kind of dulling everybody, especially when you see kids growing up in this era, in high school and everything too, you know, just having ChatGPT do their homework, they’re not learning and you’re seeing the results of that happen.
8:31Yeah, you know, I definitely don’t use it in my, like, work, so I can kind of see it separated as being like a useful tool, but it does seem a little overhyped in some ways. Oh, you think it’s overhyped? In some ways, you know, it’s like a bubble in any sense, like Amazon, you didn’t know Amazon was going to be Amazon when the internet bubble first happened, or Netflix, like we used to get Netflix in the mail, and now it’s a totally different thing, so it’s like, I’m sure AI will be useful in the future, we have no clue what that will look like. Currently
9:09And what do you think about crypto? We’re in Donald Trump’s crypto era Oh God I’ve made some money out of crypto But it’s not something I would say Is like a consistent form of income Or something you should like Well it’s down right now So you’d be doing very well Yeah So I wouldn’t say it’s consistent But it’s something if you feel like You can throw a couple of bucks into I’ve done that and I’ve made money Oh yeah
9:37Great question It’s backed by nothing Besides speculation Vibes, really Again, same thing with James Is like, I have some You know, not even like a full Bitcoin or whatever, because that’s just insane But now, you know, it can drop from 120 grand to 60 Grand in like three days If it wanted to, and it’s just not Stable, we should not be Backing anything behind it Besides like gold, which which is tangible, like actual tangible assets, but- What about inflation? Inflation, in what sense? In crypto or just overall? All fiat speculation though. I really, you know, I know what inflation is, but I don’t, I’m not well versed in the whole,
10:29like the actual like definition and everything of it. And that’s on me really of like not putting my, you know, time and effort into like learning all the ins and outs of it. So I really can’t answer that unfortunately. No, it’s all good. I started doing content and crypto actually. And so I came down here for East Denver. It was like the big crypto conference that happened like a week ago. Yeah. You know, and so I’ve been traveling the world going to crypto conferences, Ethereum conferences primarily. This is my third time here in Denver. My longest time around though, so it’s been pretty sick. Like it’s pretty fun to do these honestly. Yeah. And break out of my podcast
11:05background but like you want me to tell you what inflation is yeah it’s like this premise right that these centralized organizations essentially right like the Fed can print as much money as they want in any country around the world they can print money like you say you work for minimum wage there’s somebody somewhere they can print as many hours of your time as they want and when they do that it devalues your minimum wage job because now there’s more money right and so it’s like the premise that everything’s getting more expensive but it’s actually that all our dollars are getting like less valuable inflated but
11:33So our labor is not scaling. And so people envision Bitcoin as like the way to exit the economy so that you’re not holding like devaluating paper. And so while many people say, oh, Bitcoin, like maybe the dollar went up, you know, and actually Bitcoin didn’t move. Or maybe like when it goes, when Bitcoin goes up, the dollar is going down. Right. But I feel like for many people, they won’t really understand that’s what happened. Like if we were to see hyperinflation, I don’t think most people would understand that like Bitcoin didn’t go up, but the U.S. dollar collapsed until it was like, fuck, what do I do now?
12:02Yeah So, does that change your thoughts at all? It does a little bit, right? Like, again, we have no idea what the future holds. Like, you could have asked me like what ChatGPT was like back in like 2020, 2021 era, right? It’s crazy that it was ChatGPT, right? Exactly And now what it is today I think it’s like 2023 ChatGPT, at least that’s when I encountered it Yeah, is when it became more mainstream, right? And then now it’s like Never South Parked in an episode Yeah, exactly You watch the crypto one? Yeah, I just I just feel like I’m hopeful for all like the digital currencies and everything, too. But I would you know, I’m one of those people where I want to see actual tangible assets so that it doesn’t like just, you know, because tomorrow we could wake up and crypto just drops off the face of the earth out of nowhere because it’s really not backed by anything but investors throwing money into it. Everybody could pull out and be done. Right. Whereas like the US dollar is like backed by the gold.
13:01gold standard and things like silver standard and things like that, too. The US dollar is not backed by anything. It’s not? I thought it was backed by gold standard, no? No, not anymore. So that’s one of the advantages of like Bitcoin is you cannot create any more of it. That’s okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So there’s a limited quality or quantity. And like, that’s what we used to do with gold, but we don’t anymore. And so like, it’s made the dollar very speculative. However, just Bitcoin itself is extremely volatile and it can go from 100,000 to 60,000. within a month. And so it’s less consistent, but still an option, I think, for long-term
13:38growth. You just have to be aware of the ebbs and flows. But I got to go eat something. Well, I appreciate you both. Yeah, thank you. Do you have any words for people under the age of nine? Any advice growing up in the age of AI? Use it less and focus on school. Listen Listen to your teachers. Listen to your parents. Get off of social media. You should not be on social media, but before you’re a teenager, and especially as you’re a teenager, I feel like it’s just getting worse and worse and more detrimental to your health. yeah yeah socialize in person try not to get your socializing fix from AI or from just communicating with friends online go to go to parks go outside play basketball do stuff like that appreciate it guys yeah thank you so much yeah thank you guys
