Tag: podcasts

Will The Little Gold Men Question Issue Be My Summer Lull Hijinks For This Year?

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

As I’ve written before, every year about this time of year, a small something happens that puts a twinkle in my life and a spring in my step. Since I lead a very, very, very dull life, it doesn’t have to be much — as me writing this blog post about this very mundane thing is a testament.

Anyway, as I have mentioned before, I sent in a few questions to the Little Gold Men podcast (they kept begging for listener questions) and I have a tiny little hunch that maybe they do a search of my name and found this blog. I don’t know, but…maybe?

Regardless, at least I have something to think about, I guess. And I’m not going to tell you I’m, like, waiting with baited breath for them to potentially read my question on the podcast. There’s a pretty good chance I’ll miss it if they do read one of my questions because I only listen to the podcast in a half-assed kind of way.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s a great pod, it’s just I’m not really obsessed with any pods these days since Pod Save America kind of jumped the shark about a year ago. And this reminds me of my personal belief that before AI takes over everything that there’s a market for a Gawker-like pod that would be really snarky and come out five days a week.

Anyway. I find it amusing that Little Gold Men thought a very, very niche movie like Fire Island would…be a hit? Wow was that a niche movie and there simply no way that movie was going to do anything but arthouse numbers. And, yet, there I was, listening to the Little Gold Men people effuse about the movie as if it was Raging Bull or something.

But I have to be honest with myself — I listen to the Little Gold Men podcast because of it’s snooty point of view and how insiderish it is. That’s the whole point. That’s the fun of it all, listening to what “woke” (wink) snobs think of movies. Lol.

A Niche Complaint

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Before I begin, let me stress that I’m a nobody in the middle of nowhere. I’m just a dude with an opinion and a website that no one reads. And it’s because no one reads this blog — in real terms — that I feel comfortable ranting about something really dumb.

I am not invested in the Vergcast podcast. It’s just a relatively unserious podcast that I listen to every once in a while when I want really long hot takes on gadgets I can’t afford and or would never buy.

The latest episode of the Vergcast took the cake, though. In it, one of the usual hosts talked to his summer replacements for his looming paternity leave. Good God were is replacements irritating as fuck.

When they weren’t laughing nervously at everything going on, they spoke like infants about how their brain couldn’t process this or that concept or how the world would be better if it ran of of Dragon Ball Z technology, of all things.

The fact that those dipshits have a cool job like podcast host and I don’t is definitely enough to give me pause for thought. Where did everything go wrong? The guy’s replacements were the most unserious idiots I’ve heard in a long, long time.

All they wanted to talk about was the social anxiety and how lazy they were.

We need a war. We need something to force people to get over themselves and maybe take life a little bit more seriously. And, yet, I know — I KNOW — I sound like an old and angry, grouchy coot. And maybe I am. I’m envious. I want that job and I know I could do a bitter job than those dimwits.

Anyway. Thankfully, no one reads this blog so I don’t have to worry about the producers of the Vergcast reading this and getting mad at me.

I Should Start A Podcast

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

So many podcasts are very, very bad. Horrible. Take Hard Fork. Those two doofuses aren’t very serious. They are way too breezy for a podcast that could be really engaging if they weren’t so busy sucking their own cocks.

I used to somewhat enjoy the All-In podcast but now that Elon Musk has gone daft, I don’t know. I’ve totally lost all respect for J-Cal of that podcast who used to be that lone voice of reason on that podcast.

Anyway. No one listens to me. Sigh.

So Many Of The Podcasts I Listen To Suck

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I have all of the native ingredients necessary to start a successful podcast — other than maybe my voice is to high. I only think this because of how fucking bad some of the podcasts I listen to are.

Just exorable. Horrible. Dog shit. If I had my druthers — and if I had any friends and people liked me — I would start either a movie podcast or a tech podcast. I fucking hate elements of the tech and movie podcasts I listen to at the moment.

The political podcasts are better, but not perfect — I mean, Pod Save America is way, way too chill for how dark and dire the American political scene is at the moment.

Anyway, no one likes me and I have no friends, so all I got is to pivot to working on some novels. Ugh. I wish I was “normal” and knew how to make friends who would actually help me with something like a podcast.

A Lot Of Podcasts Need Better Editors

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I’m stunned by how poorly some podcasts are edited. While, in general I like The Big Picture podcast….sometimes it has a lot of slack that could be edited out. I want to hear witty repartee about movies, not long, shaggy dog stories that go nowhere.

Sigh.

It makes me think of how I could totally have a pretty successful podcast, but for the fact that I have no friends and no one likes me. Anyway. It’s kind of frustrating how poorly edited some podcasts are.

We Need A Gawker-Like Podcast Network

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

This is kind of moot now, but I suppose that there is still a little bit of a window of opportunity for someone to create a Gawker Media-like podcasting network. Instead of a blog, you would have a lot of podcasts — two a day, five days a week.

You would have morning and afternoon / evening podcasts that ran about an hour that would discuss pop culture events. If you really wanted to be a bit edgy, you might stream them live so they could react to events in real-time.

But, like I said, I don’t know if such a thing is even possible now. We’re kind of just on the cusp of moving into a new media environment where everything gets pulled into the maw of AI and XR (VR / AR) and, well, that’s a whole new frontier.

So, I dunno. It is curious that no one did such a thing while there was still time. I think some of it is that the media landscape isn’t one-to-one to the early days of blogs, so there never really was an opportunity for a new Gawker-like media outlet to be birthed in the age of podcasts.

Eat The Rich: Income Inequality Is Destroying American Democracy

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I’m listening to The Week In Startup and I’m flabbergasted in the mentality of Jason Calacanis and Molly Wood. I think some of my shock comes from something we don’t talk about a lot in America — class. They’re both really, really rich and so of course they would rather think up ways to screw over workers rather than pay people more.

A lot of America’s problems come from income inequality. If we would just tax billionaires out of existence and pay the average person a living wage then I think a lot of our problems would be dramatically mitigated.

But that’s just not what’s going to happened.

We’re going to use, on a macro basis, automation and AI to destroy a wide range of jobs that we assume will always be there. Off the top of my head, I find myself worried about the 3 million high paying transportation jobs that will vanish whenever Elon Musk hooks AGI to an EV semi.

One thing that was touched upon during This Week In Startups is that as long as what AI does is “just good enough” then it will be used. If you hook up AI to androids then virtually overnight the need for a Universal Basic Income is going to become clear.

A UBI solves a lot of problems and yet it would also cause a lot of problems. Most people are lazy and they just won’t do shit if they get a UBI. What’s worse, there are also people who are extremely ambitious and they would demand the right to have SOME job, just to be able to have somewhere to go during the day and have some sense of self-fulfillment. So, it seems as though some sort of “value added” stipend would be included in which if you can do some sort of job that AGI can’t do very well then you will extra momney.

Or something.

The point is — I’m really worried about America’s instability going forward because of income inequality. There seems as though there might be a real risk of the “Petite Singularity” causing a huge pushback involving the rise of neo-Luddites.

These neo-Luddites will demand huge carve outs whereby only humans can do some jobs. Only time will tell.