TWiT+ Club Shows 747 Transcript - Stacey's Book Club #22
Please be advised that this transcript is AI-generated and may not be word-for-word. Time codes refer to the approximate times in the ad-free version of the show.
Joe Esposito [00:00:00]:
This is twit. All right, hold. You want me do it again? All right, hold on. Here we go.
Stacey Higginbotham [00:00:05]:
Yes.
Joe Esposito [00:00:07]:
I didn't realize it was backwards.
Stacey Higginbotham [00:00:09]:
I'm still impressed.
Leo Laporte [00:00:13]:
It's Stacy's book club, y'.
Joe Esposito [00:00:15]:
All.
Leo Laporte [00:00:17]:
I love the pop up. Stacy.
Stacey Higginbotham [00:00:20]:
That is excellent. I love every part of that.
Mikah Sargent [00:00:22]:
That was awesome.
Stacey Higginbotham [00:00:23]:
Yay.
Leo Laporte [00:00:24]:
So the reason Micah is here. We could say this now that we're in public. So is that we're making a slight modification to Stacy's book club without Stacy's permission. We want to make it a media club. And Micah. Well, it was Micah's idea, and I thought we could just incorporate this in. Because you only do Stacy's book club every two or three months, that on the off months, we could do other media. Other media with Micah.
Leo Laporte [00:00:50]:
It's going to be Micah's media with Micah. Other media with Micah. Movies, TV shows. What else, Micah?
Mikah Sargent [00:00:58]:
Movies, TV shows. Books that don't fit into the standard,
Leo Laporte [00:01:04]:
like, because books that aren't cozy.
Mikah Sargent [00:01:06]:
Yeah. Books that aren't sci fi.
Leo Laporte [00:01:08]:
Right.
Mikah Sargent [00:01:08]:
You tend to go sci fi.
Stacey Higginbotham [00:01:10]:
Yeah. The original remit was sci fi by non white male authors, basically, which is
Leo Laporte [00:01:16]:
a good idea because I would have never read a Becky Chambers book in a million years.
Stacey Higginbotham [00:01:20]:
Well, it's just most people pick up a sci fi book and they're just like. They're like. It's old white dudes for the most part.
Joe Esposito [00:01:26]:
And not.
Stacey Higginbotham [00:01:27]:
Those aren't good. There are plenty of good books out, but there's so many cool concepts being explored by everybody else.
Leo Laporte [00:01:36]:
They agree.
Mikah Sargent [00:01:37]:
Yeah. So we're more just broadening the opportunity that. Yeah.
Stacey Higginbotham [00:01:44]:
Not.
Mikah Sargent [00:01:44]:
Not for book club, to be clear, is part of the media. But every. Oh, I get it. I get it. But on those off weeks, we can have a movie. We could have a TV show. We can have, I don't know, a musical, anything that fits in.
Leo Laporte [00:01:59]:
It does broaden the audience because not everybody reads. Not everybody wants to read sci fi. So I think it's a good idea. Although I think our heavily male geek audience probably is very happy with sci fi.
Mikah Sargent [00:02:14]:
Yeah, definitely.
Leo Laporte [00:02:14]:
But they also watch tv. I mean, there's plenty of times on the shows where we end up talking about TV shows. In fact, speaking of which, Lisa told me today that there's this new movie coming out from a TV show that predated Severance. That is basically the similar plot that Severance stole its premise from. I know because I saw. When I saw the teaser for the show, I saw. Oh, you're just making a copy of Severance. Turns out it predates it.
Leo Laporte [00:02:45]:
This is a movie or. What did you say?
Mikah Sargent [00:02:47]:
A movie or TV show?
Leo Laporte [00:02:48]:
Yeah, let me. I don't remember the name. It's like the boardroom or something. Or the.
Joe Esposito [00:02:51]:
Something interesting.
Stacey Higginbotham [00:02:53]:
Oh, yes. Y', all, there's a new Murderbot platform. Decay.
Leo Laporte [00:02:57]:
Now, how many Murderbots are there?
Stacey Higginbotham [00:03:00]:
Eight, Seven. I don't have my Kindle, so I
Leo Laporte [00:03:03]:
can't read the first one. Actually. Did I read the first one? I think I watched the first one, which I loved.
Stacey Higginbotham [00:03:11]:
Oh, you watched the show?
Leo Laporte [00:03:12]:
TV show with Skarsgard? Yeah.
Joe Esposito [00:03:13]:
Yes.
Stacey Higginbotham [00:03:14]:
Which is good.
Leo Laporte [00:03:15]:
I thought it was quite good. And he. He plays it. I mean, he's a guy, but he doesn't play it as a guy. Right. He's kind of agender.
Stacey Higginbotham [00:03:21]:
He. No, he did a really good. He did a good Murderbot. I. I'm not against him being murder, but I just. Yeah.
Leo Laporte [00:03:29]:
Anyway, well, let's. Let's commence the programming. Do you want to play the again or. What do you want. What do you want?
Stacey Higginbotham [00:03:37]:
Well, I just. Okay. Did Micah finish? So it's just. Any media. And is it going to happen every week?
Mikah Sargent [00:03:43]:
So I think we. This is the thing. We're still. I. We're so ironing the details, but the plan is to. Following that idea that you've had of involving the audience in getting to sort of vote on content. And so Anthony and I are working on how to do that where perhaps we put forth, you know, three different ideas of different types of media people can vote on it, and then we end up later in the.
Leo Laporte [00:04:13]:
I'm gonna formalize this. At the end of this show, you will propose three books, Stacey, as you always do, and Micah will propose three other. And we will have polls for both. And since we don't usually do Stacy's Book Club every month, typically every other month, it's like every three months, and it's been every three months. So if you want to keep it every three months, you can. But I. I think it'd be fun to do Micah one month and you in one month, and Micah one month and you one month. But does that work for you? Okay, so let's formalize that, and it can be.
Leo Laporte [00:04:45]:
And so, Micah, I don't know if you're ready to have three. But you have an hour.
Mikah Sargent [00:04:48]:
Yes, exactly. Multitasking.
Leo Laporte [00:04:53]:
You know, my find? If you. If you say we'll do this down the road, it's not as effective as, say, by the end of the hour, you will have three things that we will vote on.
Stacey Higginbotham [00:05:01]:
It's Like ADHD folks unite. Do it now.
Leo Laporte [00:05:05]:
Yeah, I've learned this now from my interactions with AI that if that. A lot of times the AI say well, first we should do this and then later we'll do that. And I always say let's do all of them now. What do you say? Lately Claude has been saying things like, well, it's kind of late, don't you want to go to bed?
Mikah Sargent [00:05:22]:
Oh really? That's funny.
Leo Laporte [00:05:23]:
It's like, what are you trying to save tokens? What are you up to? What are you doing? What's that all about?
Mikah Sargent [00:05:28]:
Interesting.
Leo Laporte [00:05:29]:
Yeah. Actually it's kind of stopped doing that, but it did quite a bit in the month of March and April.
Mikah Sargent [00:05:37]:
Wow. I remember when the. I can't remember which Nintendo device did it, but I think it was the Wii. Would, would pop up and say, hey, how about you go outside instead of sticking around and playing games?
Leo Laporte [00:05:48]:
Yeah, I don't like that. If I want to go outside, I'll go outside. I don't need you to tell me,
Mikah Sargent [00:05:52]:
I don't need a nanny.
Leo Laporte [00:05:53]:
I don't want to touch grass. Yeah, I think Claude's doing it more because they want to save.
Stacey Higginbotham [00:05:59]:
They want to save tokens.
Leo Laporte [00:06:01]:
Yeah, they were really compute constrained until they made that deal with Elon.
Mikah Sargent [00:06:06]:
I was going to say. So they made the Elon deal.
Brandon (Brandroid) [00:06:08]:
Yeah.
Leo Laporte [00:06:08]:
Now they got plenty of. Okay, so that's. That settles that item on the agenda. Yes. All in agreement. Let's say hello. Timothy T. Ingalls in the chat.
Leo Laporte [00:06:23]:
One of our club members, long time. Ta. Engles. Sorry, Timothy. Do you like Tim or Timothy?
Timothy Ingalls [00:06:30]:
Either is fine.
Leo Laporte [00:06:32]:
And is that a rabbit coming out of a hat?
Stacey Higginbotham [00:06:33]:
I was about to say.
Mikah Sargent [00:06:35]:
No, it's the Tim. Oh, it's a rabbit eating. Chewing on a skull actually.
Leo Laporte [00:06:41]:
And it says nom nom nom.
Timothy Ingalls [00:06:46]:
So you know.
Stacey Higginbotham [00:06:49]:
Yeah, that's.
Leo Laporte [00:06:49]:
That's when you said that's creepy as hell. Okay.
Stacey Higginbotham [00:06:54]:
Oh, it's cute.
Mikah Sargent [00:06:55]:
It's cute.
Leo Laporte [00:06:56]:
Cute, creepy.
Timothy Ingalls [00:06:56]:
It's the killer rabbit from Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
Stacey Higginbotham [00:06:59]:
Yeah.
Brandon (Brandroid) [00:07:00]:
Killer bunny rabbit.
Leo Laporte [00:07:01]:
Yes.
Stacey Higginbotham [00:07:01]:
1, 2, 5, 3, sir.
Leo Laporte [00:07:08]:
Oh dear. No, there is no three. Also Brandroid. Good to see you, Brand. What do you like to be addressed as?
Brandon (Brandroid) [00:07:17]:
You can call me Brandon or Brandroid.
Leo Laporte [00:07:19]:
Either way, not your first radio here, but we welcome you back. And of course a regular on all of our shows, Joe Esposito. We love Joe. Joe is a graphic designer. What say your website again so we can all go look at your stuff?
Joe Esposito [00:07:34]:
Ozoneartfoundry. Very simple. I Guess I should say that part.
Leo Laporte [00:07:38]:
Should have that memorized.
Joe Esposito [00:07:40]:
By the way, Tim, I'm in league with you because I have my bloody sheep shirt from Alien Earth on, so we have multiple.
Leo Laporte [00:07:48]:
I didn't get the memo. This is the Maimed Mammals podcast, Joe.
Mikah Sargent [00:07:52]:
I get more compliments for my sweater of that shirt than almost any other clothes that I wear. People love it, and I am. You know, we don't have long enough conversations where they're asking me where I got it, but part of me is like, if they did, would I keep it to myself? Because I feel so cool with this thing that.
Joe Esposito [00:08:15]:
Don't tell you how much that means to me because, man, to know that people actually like my heart.
Mikah Sargent [00:08:19]:
Oh, they do. They do. Yeah. They're like, that shirt is so sick.
Joe Esposito [00:08:23]:
That's great. Thank you. I appreciate that. I really do.
Leo Laporte [00:08:30]:
Yes, I think Friday is our goal for most of our club shows. Watt fan says, can you make it Monday or Friday, guys? It could be Monday, but I think Friday is kind of our target day because we don't have anything else going on Friday.
Joe Esposito [00:08:45]:
Right.
Leo Laporte [00:08:46]:
Saturday we got the weekend early. Thursday we've got Micah's tnw. Monday's open as well, I think. Oh, we have twists on Friday. Oh, okay. Sawyer. Sawee Sawee. We have a lot of interesting stuff coming up in our club, including Tuesday, the Google I O keynote, which Maiko will join me and Jeff Jarvis for staying.
Leo Laporte [00:09:13]:
Come if she wants. She used to do those with us I O. And then we've got WWDC's in a month. I am. Jeff Atwood has been pestering me. The coding horror blog guy who created Stack Exchange and also our forum software Discourse. He's a coder and is also. Wesley Faulkner introduced us because he's doing a rural.
Leo Laporte [00:09:43]:
What does he call it? RG2. It's a rural income UBI kind of thing. Solely. Well, almost entirely funded by his own money because he comes from a rural area and wants to support poor rural people who are suffering in the. In the burbs, in the countryside. Really cool guy. Anyway, Jeff will be back. We had him on Intelligent Machines.
Leo Laporte [00:10:05]:
It was kind of a shit show, to be honest. He says, I hadn't slept in 48 hours.
Mikah Sargent [00:10:10]:
Oh, my God.
Leo Laporte [00:10:13]:
It wasn't a bad SS. It was an interesting SS. I think Jeff and Paris were kind of nonplussed because he was all over the place. Very interesting fellow. Very cool and very much into Alien, the movie. All right, let's talk about the book, A Psalm for the Wild, built by Becky Chambers overwhelmingly voted in by four or five of you. Stacy, kick it off.
Stacey Higginbotham [00:10:47]:
Okay. I was like, I feel like this is a great book for our times because it takes like. I don't know about you guys, but I was feeling really sad and bummed out and this book is like a warm hug to me because it makes me feel faith in both technology and, and people and how we can react to technology and. Or where we can put technology in our lives and how we can react to each other and how we can. Like mutual aid is a big thing of mine anyway, so that's like I. Is this a political book? I don't intend it to be, but it could be thought of as political given where we are right now.
Leo Laporte [00:11:27]:
We should mention. I forgot the disclaimer. If you haven't read the book, there will be spoilers. This isn't a book where spoilers heard it. But just know if you're one of those people who doesn't like to hear anything about a book before you read it to say, I mean, except listen to it later.
Stacey Higginbotham [00:11:41]:
When Mosscap and Dex like went all Thelma and Louise with their bicycle at the end, I mean, that was.
Leo Laporte [00:11:47]:
That did not happen.
Stacey Higginbotham [00:11:49]:
That was really distressing making that up.
Leo Laporte [00:11:53]:
So. So yeah, we are in a post. We're in a post kind of a post industrial society. There was a factory. First of all, it's a moon of an unnamed planet. It's a. Well, actually it's not unnamed. They name it.
Leo Laporte [00:12:06]:
I just don't remember the name. And then it rises every once in a while and they say something about it. This moon is in this kind of post industrial era. There was a factory age and they had AI enabled robots. And at one point, and this is how the book begins, the robots decided, hey, we've had enough of living in man made environments. We're going to go off into the woods. Just leave us alone, if you don't mind. And the human said, oh, okay.
Leo Laporte [00:12:38]:
Which would never have happened, but okay. And then the robots went off in the woods. And then many hundreds of. I think it's hundreds of years later. The book takes up the story of a monk named Dex, a tea monk who sold. He's not a tea monk at first, is he? He decides to give up his vocation and become a tea monk.
Mikah Sargent [00:12:58]:
They decide to do that.
Stacey Higginbotham [00:12:59]:
Yeah, they.
Leo Laporte [00:13:01]:
Now I'm going to say something and I know this is very politically incorrect and I apologize.
Brandon (Brandroid) [00:13:04]:
Oh God,
Leo Laporte [00:13:06]:
Micah's going to hit me. Stacy's going to hit me.
Stacey Higginbotham [00:13:09]:
You never say, I Have no problem
Leo Laporte [00:13:13]:
with people who decide not to have a gender. I don't have any problem with that at all. Gender. I don't even. I'm not crazy about they. Only because it's overloading the collective pronoun. But we don't have. I understand.
Leo Laporte [00:13:28]:
We don't have a general neutral pronoun. We need a gender neutral pronoun in the world. And the reason it bugs me a little bit in this book is because a lot of the book is about
Mikah Sargent [00:13:36]:
two people, a duo. Yeah, right.
Leo Laporte [00:13:38]:
And when they say they, it's not always clear. Are we talking about them or them?
Stacey Higginbotham [00:13:43]:
Yeah, I was about to say they're both they, so it's kind of nice a little.
Leo Laporte [00:13:47]:
Yeah, they're both they, but then they're collectively they and individually they. And I think we need a new pronoun. The other thing, it bugs me. It jars me a little bit. Takes me a little bit out of the story because, A, I'm trying to figure out which they are they talking about, and then B, it feels like a political statement a little bit, which is fine, but it takes me a little bit out of, you know, the flow of the. Of the narrative. I acknowledge there's no solution to this.
Stacey Higginbotham [00:14:13]:
There is, but. Zir. Zer.
Leo Laporte [00:14:17]:
Yeah, we don't have a good. But we need to come up with them because they is not a good one. I don't think. It's just. I mean, you're a writer, Stacey. I. I understand. We both agree it's a.
Leo Laporte [00:14:26]:
It's we need something. But they bothers me.
Stacey Higginbotham [00:14:29]:
I will say I think it might be not necessarily lazy writing if you can't tell. Like, I have an agender person in my life and I identify them very specifically by their name or their relationship.
Leo Laporte [00:14:43]:
That's what I was thinking if they would say to me, but then I thought about that a little bit. So you could say dex. Dex. Dex. Every time you were going to say they, you could say dex, but it doesn't work with the possessive. Well, it kind of does. You could always say dexes.
Stacey Higginbotham [00:14:58]:
Then you would say the tea monks or.
Leo Laporte [00:15:00]:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. There'd be ways to do. Would be as almost as ungainly. Not quite as ungainly as saying that.
Stacey Higginbotham [00:15:07]:
Anyway, I would say it's not ungainly. It's just not familiar.
Leo Laporte [00:15:11]:
Yeah, so. And I acknowledge that is a horrific thing to say.
Joe Esposito [00:15:18]:
Okay. I thought it was gonna.
Mikah Sargent [00:15:20]:
Yeah, I thought it was gonna be much worse. So.
Brandon (Brandroid) [00:15:22]:
Honestly.
Mikah Sargent [00:15:25]:
Yeah.
Leo Laporte [00:15:25]:
No, no.
Joe Esposito [00:15:26]:
Because I'm the same way When I read it's. I have to remember. I have to remember. Okay, this may not be using they the way I think it is. I have to just do it.
Brandon (Brandroid) [00:15:34]:
Yeah.
Joe Esposito [00:15:34]:
So it's, it's. It's a byproduct of years of reading a specific way of people addressing people.
Leo Laporte [00:15:41]:
Well, we have.
Joe Esposito [00:15:41]:
So I understand it difficult and it's just an adjustment. I don't have a problem with it. But I did a couple times go, wait, who. They meaning two or they meaning.
Mikah Sargent [00:15:50]:
I had a two, especially in the audiobook version. That was, that was part of it. But I kind of. I leaned into that being, as you said, sort of a statement. Leo, I leaned into that being part of it because we do have. I think that that's one of the things that bridges the gap between this being that sees itself as an object and being okay with being referred to as it.
Leo Laporte [00:16:15]:
By the way. Yes. Moss back, isn't it?
Mikah Sargent [00:16:17]:
Right, yeah. And then this human being that.
Stacey Higginbotham [00:16:20]:
Oh, wait, we haven't.
Leo Laporte [00:16:21]:
Moss. Cat. Not moss back.
Stacey Higginbotham [00:16:22]:
Sorry, we haven't actually introduced the whole book. We stopped it.
Brandon (Brandroid) [00:16:26]:
Oh, we did, didn't we?
Leo Laporte [00:16:27]:
Okay, sorry. I'm like several hundred years in the future after the factory age. The monk decks. They are right now a monk. But the book begins with them saying to their leader. And it's a very. By the way, the society is a very. How would you describe it?
Joe Esposito [00:16:45]:
Non hierarchical, egalitarian, nice to each other.
Leo Laporte [00:16:50]:
It's a really somewhat cozy and egalitarian,
Stacey Higginbotham [00:16:54]:
almost not agrarian because they're not all farming.
Brandon (Brandroid) [00:16:57]:
But I mean, I thought it was like almost like the ideal of communism if it actually worked in real life.
Leo Laporte [00:17:03]:
Yeah, right.
Stacey Higginbotham [00:17:04]:
Yeah.
Leo Laporte [00:17:05]:
And they gave. Okay, they actually gave.
Stacey Higginbotham [00:17:06]:
Hold on.
Leo Laporte [00:17:07]:
Having robots, right? They said we don't have to have an industrial age.
Stacey Higginbotham [00:17:11]:
The robots left. They were like, people agree to that. And then the book starts out with Dex and he's going on his, I don't know, some journey to find his point out.
Leo Laporte [00:17:24]:
Hold on, hold up.
Stacey Higginbotham [00:17:25]:
We got to summarize the plot.
Leo Laporte [00:17:26]:
I know. And you're going to get to the point that's bugging me.
Stacey Higginbotham [00:17:29]:
Go ahead.
Leo Laporte [00:17:29]:
Because he runs into crickets
Joe Esposito [00:17:33]:
and he
Stacey Higginbotham [00:17:33]:
runs into a robot and.
Leo Laporte [00:17:37]:
Wait a minute. First, the reason he leaves his vocation and becomes a tea monk is he wants to get out of the city and hear crickets.
Stacey Higginbotham [00:17:45]:
Right?
Leo Laporte [00:17:47]:
But he never gets to the crickets. There are never any crickets.
Brandon (Brandroid) [00:17:52]:
Okay, there are in the very. I think it's the very last line of the book. There is, but yeah, it turns out
Leo Laporte [00:17:58]:
there Aren't any crickets anymore?
Stacey Higginbotham [00:18:01]:
No, no, there are. Sibling Dex drank in the wilds outside the sunset and the crickets began to sing.
Leo Laporte [00:18:11]:
Oh, that was in the last line.
Brandon (Brandroid) [00:18:12]:
It's the last sentence.
Leo Laporte [00:18:14]:
You know what? Sometimes I get to the end of the book and I'm so excited that I skipped the last line. Oh man. So the crickets do happen. I apologize.
Timothy Ingalls [00:18:22]:
I listened to the book twice and I missed that.
Stacey Higginbotham [00:18:25]:
Oh, well, there you go, little notes. I missed it.
Leo Laporte [00:18:28]:
Apparently I listened to it and read it. So anyway, he becomes a tea monk. And that's a beautiful part of the book is his transition to the tea monk.
Joe Esposito [00:18:35]:
I thought it's kind of finish.
Stacey Higginbotham [00:18:39]:
I know, I'm like. And he runs into this robot and the robot's name is Splendid Speckled Mosscap. Mosscap for short. And the robot is on his own journey. He just wants to see the world. I like how each of these people are like, one is seeking disconnection away from people and the other one's like,
Leo Laporte [00:19:01]:
it's a good point.
Stacey Higginbotham [00:19:01]:
What's out there?
Leo Laporte [00:19:04]:
Well, he has decided the first of all, no robot human communication for hundreds of years is the first time Jacks is like.
Stacey Higginbotham [00:19:11]:
It's like we walk into a. He walked into the woods and he met a unicorn, right? And there's all these cool kind of like, oh my God, it's a robot. We were so appallingly rude. I don't know rude or whatever, but like you must venerate and respect the robot and all of their needs. And it's such a, like the whole book is such a jarring response to how we normally act when we see things that we're like, oh my God, a precious rare thing that went away from us. Oh, I must respect everything at once. And basically the rest of it is them visiting. It's his journey to becoming a tea monk, to finding who he really is meant to be.
Stacey Higginbotham [00:19:53]:
And they visit various settlements, towns, as they bike through the woods and have this conversation with each other about what they're, what they're each looking for and where they're coming from as people. I mean it's. I think of it as like, I don't know, as someone who's maybe not good with small talk or. It's like the ideal sorts of conversations. I'm like, oh my God, what if I ran into a person I could just have these soul deep conversations with while we drink tea after hiking all day.
Leo Laporte [00:20:28]:
I loved the idea of a tea monk. So this is a guy, he's dressed in saffron robes. I mean, he's a monk and he's chosen the monk, you know, vocation. And he decides he wants to go around. So team monks go for.
Mikah Sargent [00:20:41]:
It is so funny to me that you keep leaning toward male because for me, this person leans toward female. Like even as a they, they lean towards female for me. So I keep hearing he and I'm like, who are you talking about?
Leo Laporte [00:20:54]:
They get a crush on a guy. On this guy who has twin children strapped to his body.
Mikah Sargent [00:20:59]:
Yeah, that was funny. Like, oh, the arms, the face.
Leo Laporte [00:21:03]:
I'm sorry, I apologize. I misgendered the walking away. They decide they want to be a team unknown and a team. Unk goes from town to town in a wagon. They get this beautiful wagon made that he's bicycling around with. And they set up this little area with cushions and little idols and a table. It's just really sweet, this whole setup. They are making their own tea thing.
Leo Laporte [00:21:29]:
I'm going to say Dex, because I don't mean all tea monks. I mean decks has taken three or four months because the first thing that happens is Dex realizes, I don't know how to do it. I can't be a. He meets somebody and he says, I don't know what to do. And there's a great quote. Dex realized with a stomach souring thud, they were standing on the wrong side of the vast gulf between having read about doing a thing and doing a thing.
Mikah Sargent [00:21:57]:
Oh, we've all been there. We've all been. Well, I think I've certainly been there where I thought, oh, I'm so prepared for this. I've done so much preparation ahead of time and I feel like I've got this, I've got this. And then you actually get there and the tiny little things that are different kind of throw you off and make you go, okay, wait. And you know, Dex, not having sort of subroutines to call upon was something that I was expecting to be part of this story going forward. And I know we'll get there, but there is a shocking moment with the robot later where it's like, wait, subroutines maybe don't apply way that we thought. But I don't want to.
Mikah Sargent [00:22:35]:
I don't want to, you know, get into that too soon. But I was, I was sort of ju. Already pre juxtaposing Dex to what I expected interactions with a robot were going to be like. And to have that thrown off later was really. I thought it was masterful. That's where I kind of locked in and said, wait, there's something. I. Yeah, I, I.
Mikah Sargent [00:22:56]:
That's when I was like, I. I like this.
Leo Laporte [00:22:57]:
Yeah, I didn't. I think Mike and I had the same reaction at first, which is. I don't know about this. This is another cozy thing. But it turned out to really be kind of almost this Zen philosophy.
Mikah Sargent [00:23:11]:
Yeah, it is.
Stacey Higginbotham [00:23:12]:
It is not a science fiction. It's like a philosophy book, I think. And, like, how you relate to. I just think of as how you relate to others and what makes a person. Which I think is probably more relevant too, in our era of AI and I. I think it's nice because we've read so many books and I think we've even read them in the book club about, like, AI becomes conscious and how do we give it rights? Like, you know, if you think about, like, ancillary justice. If you think about some of our. I don't know if we read that here or not, but we did.
Stacey Higginbotham [00:23:48]:
We did. Okay. You read these things and there's so much conflict and fighting and, you know, and.
Leo Laporte [00:23:56]:
Oh, yeah, that's why I love that
Stacey Higginbotham [00:23:57]:
these people are like.
Leo Laporte [00:23:58]:
It's just sweet.
Stacey Higginbotham [00:23:59]:
It's not even. I mean, it is part of the plot, but there's. The conflict is not part of the plot. It's. How do you relate to something that is the actual plot? Which I thought, Leo, honestly, that I thought you would hate it because it would be so slow. So I am curious.
Leo Laporte [00:24:13]:
Beautiful. It's very.
Stacey Higginbotham [00:24:15]:
What people thought and took away from this.
Leo Laporte [00:24:18]:
I have some quotes, but go ahead.
Timothy Ingalls [00:24:20]:
Something that was a little bit weird for me the first time I listened to it was. I was just constantly waiting for something to go wrong.
Leo Laporte [00:24:28]:
Yes.
Joe Esposito [00:24:28]:
Like, horribly badly.
Timothy Ingalls [00:24:31]:
I wasn't expecting it to be like, just a nice, gentle, you know, book and, you know, just gently dealing with minor conflicts. And then the second time I listened to it, it was much easier because I didn't have that expectation.
Leo Laporte [00:24:45]:
You know, what's funny is I liked it so much, I immediately bought the second one, A Prayer for the Crown. Shy because I want to. It's clear that it ends with they're just beginning their journey and I'm still expecting something horrible to happen in the second book because of that. You just. That's built into your head. Where's the casual.
Stacey Higginbotham [00:25:04]:
I think that's what makes it cozy, which I think is unusual in science fiction or has historically been unusual in science fiction.
Leo Laporte [00:25:15]:
So nothing happens in any of her books.
Stacey Higginbotham [00:25:20]:
That's not true.
Timothy Ingalls [00:25:21]:
Happened. There was a lot of experiences and a lot of learning.
Leo Laporte [00:25:25]:
But yeah.
Timothy Ingalls [00:25:25]:
But no, it wasn't anything like horrific
Mikah Sargent [00:25:28]:
shots, no ray guns.
Stacey Higginbotham [00:25:31]:
And it's. It's kind of like how sometimes, like, I feel like this is more how normal people experience the world in, like, real world.
Leo Laporte [00:25:41]:
Yeah.
Stacey Higginbotham [00:25:42]:
When you're a teenager picking up science fiction, and this is. Maybe some of us don't graduate from it because there is, like, it's epic universal scale conflict with someone at the center of it. And that's. When you're a teenager, that's what you're looking for. And feeling like. Like everything is, like, a pivotal battle between right and wrong. And this is more like, how do you relate to other people?
Leo Laporte [00:26:05]:
Right.
Stacey Higginbotham [00:26:06]:
Which is like, 98% of the conflicts or mental stress in my life.
Mikah Sargent [00:26:12]:
Okay, Stacy, you've just. That's what this is. So in the. In the chat, I'm only a little embarrassed to admit that I kind of love naval gazy literature because that's what I consider this to be. It is rather navel gazy, but I live for that stuff. But I think that you've touched on something that's so true about this, which is I found myself sort of relating to a lot of this and having even some understandings breaking free that maybe I didn't have because of the fact that, yeah, sometimes I will. Because I. I am constantly reading fantasy.
Mikah Sargent [00:26:48]:
And a lot of times you have a moment where you're like, why is it that the story is focused on this person who just so happens to find themselves in all of this stuff? And it's like, is that really realistic? Because I don't feel like I'm at the center of all of this stuff. And, yeah, you've pointed to something that I hadn't quite captured, which is that as we age, then we sort of realize, oh, we're not at the center of the universe. And what does it mean to just kind of exist as a person? I know that it's toward the end, but something that actually brought some tears to my eyes because it is so at the core of, like, what I need to internalize was, when is it marvelous mushroom cap, I always forget, or splendid speckled mosscap says? Because I know that no matter what, I'm wonderful. Holy cow. Like, how many of us need to internalize that and not have to rely on outer praise to feel okay in the world and feel like we're doing what we're supposed to do, to just have it inside of ourselves that, you know, just existing and being is enough for the robot to be the one to have that observation. Ah, chef's kiss. It was just. It was delightful because this is the thing.
Mikah Sargent [00:28:18]:
This. I'm realizing that this was a little bit more healing than I was expecting. You know, in doing therapy. You, you, especially for those of us, I think we're similar and like our analytical thinking techie people. But what that means is we tend to over conceptualize and over analyze and have. Have too much thinking that goes in when you're trying to work on feelings based stuff. And so to have this logical being. Right.
Mikah Sargent [00:28:51]:
This robot that, that you. That I know I can. I can relate to being robotic at times as like a protective mechanism. So to have logic get you to the place of saying, no matter what, I know that I'm wonderful. Was kind of like we can arrive at that and still be true to those analytical parts of ourselves. And that was just delicious.
Leo Laporte [00:29:15]:
It's really interesting that the robot turned out to be the sensei, the deep thinker, the teacher, not the monk.
Stacey Higginbotham [00:29:23]:
Yeah, I loved that about this because I loved the idea. Well, and I also liked, like, I loved the idea that this robot was robots. Apparently we. We somehow built something that became so wise that they were like, you know what, let's get away from it, the factory. Let's get away from what is clearly so toxic for everybody. And the fact that. And I also think it was kind of nice that humans grew beyond that in this book.
Leo Laporte [00:29:54]:
Yeah.
Mikah Sargent [00:29:54]:
It didn't have to be a negative. Right. That they separated.
Leo Laporte [00:29:57]:
It's kind of amazing.
Stacey Higginbotham [00:29:58]:
Yeah.
Leo Laporte [00:29:58]:
The humans, like, okay, it was a conscious. And life was better without the conscious creature.
Stacey Higginbotham [00:30:04]:
Yeah. I don't know. I mean, was it. I think it was better for everyone. I imagine you could find people in that society who were like, actually, life with robots was pretty sweet.
Leo Laporte [00:30:16]:
One of the things I think maybe the deepest lesson I got from this book is a conversation that Dex has with the robot. There are some. There are actually a couple of really deep philosophical. There were a lot of things. But one of the things the robot says to Dex. Your religion places a lot of import on purpose. Am I right? On each person finding the best way they can contribute to the whole. Dex nodded again.
Leo Laporte [00:30:45]:
We teach that purpose doesn't. Dex says, we teach that purpose doesn't come from the gods, but from ourselves. That the gods could show us good resources and good ideas. But the work, the choice, especially the choice is our own. And I think that's what a lot of us think, that that's our job, is to find purpose in life. And then the robot says, no, no, there's no purpose in life. Your purpose is to be here and observe life. That's the purpose.
Leo Laporte [00:31:09]:
You need nothing else. And I thought that I actually had to kind of stop and think about that a little bit. I thought that was very interesting.
Mikah Sargent [00:31:19]:
Yeah, I think. Go ahead, go ahead.
Joe Esposito [00:31:21]:
Oh, no, sorry.
Mikah Sargent [00:31:23]:
I was just gonna say I think that there were parts of that that I agreed with, parts of it that I had trouble agreeing with. So I very much identified then with Dex where it's kind of like, well, is that true?
Leo Laporte [00:31:37]:
No, I did the same thing. I said, no, I don't have to accept this. Yeah, but it made me think about it.
Mikah Sargent [00:31:41]:
Exactly. It made me think about it. Joe.
Joe Esposito [00:31:45]:
So this is my favorite book in the series so far for a number of reasons. The first one was that line about there's a point where, you know, you have to get the F out of the city. And I went, I know what that feels like because you're stuck at home and you just have to get out. But also this whole book and certain people understand this reference and if you're too young, you won't. But this is the opposite of Second Renaissance. If you ever watch the Animatrix, which was, oh God, it's all horrible, and now we're at war with the robots. Whereas this was, oh, wait a minute, we have to live in harmony. We have to actually have an equilibrium.
Joe Esposito [00:32:15]:
And like you said, Leah, there's lots of little. This is almost, and I hate to use this term, but it really is accurate. It's like woke the book because I could see people reading this and going, I hate everything they're talking about. What is this pronoun usage? What do you mean? Respect the environment? What do you mean? Respect life? We have to dominate. This is our planet, blah, blah, blah. And this is completely the opposite. When you have a person who just travels around as a roaming, drink serving therapist. What a concept that a societal good where somebody goes around and just shows up with no expectations of anything, but you come and talk to them and feel better and they try to empathize.
Joe Esposito [00:32:54]:
Oh my God, empathy. What a concept. And that's this person's whole thing. And the cricket search because yeah, for a while, Leo, I thought, oh, there's never going to be a cricket because you're almost at the end before it happens. But there was a point where I got to. I don't care if there are. That's not.
Leo Laporte [00:33:10]:
No, it's not. The crickets aren't important.
Joe Esposito [00:33:11]:
It's just, it's a drive to to see or experience something that is more a feeling than it needs to be tangible. The sound of crickets can be an aim that doesn't have a resolution. You don't have to actually get to the crickets to be. To go out and experience this. When they're in the temple and they're looking around and discovering it, they're just kind of relating to each other through these different depictions of the gods and everything. It's just beautiful. It's just great to see two living beings that aren't competing, that aren't trying to get something from each other. They're just learning from each other organically.
Joe Esposito [00:33:45]:
What a concept. I adored this book. I loved it.
Mikah Sargent [00:33:48]:
Have you had. Have any of you had that moment where you see someone else trying to be there for you? And even if it's not sort of the most wonderful outcome or the most. The way that it's done is like, okay, that's not exactly how I did it. But you just. You go with it anyway, because you're accepting that there's love or there's care there. I'm thinking of the T, right, that the robot makes and, okay, this is going to be terrible, but I'm going to have a second cup. I could relate to that. Where there have been times where someone's just trying to make you feel better.
Mikah Sargent [00:34:30]:
And the execution. That's the word I was looking for, is not. Not elegant, but you go, I feel loved in this moment. And I've accepted it as is that. That felt very relatable.
Joe Esposito [00:34:40]:
I'm gonna. I'm gonna tell a story. This is why my co host, Lando, I love him as much as I love my siblings and my mother. When our first dog died, I was in such a state. He's on the East Coast, I'm on the West Coast. He said, do you need me to fly out? Oh, that was his first question to me. And I said, no, you have a wife and kids. You can't do that.
Joe Esposito [00:35:00]:
But the fact that he asked, I'm like, man, there is nothing you can ever. I know he's a better friend to me than I'll ever be to him. And I mean it, because I don't know that. That would have been my instinct. And his first thing is, do you need me to get on a plane? Because he knew how much that dog meant to my wife and I. He's like, do you need me to be there? And I'm like, no. But I will never forget that you offered that. That has sealed you in carbonite as the greatest friend I'm ever going to have without even any competition that's nearby.
Joe Esposito [00:35:27]:
So. Yes. That's one of those moments. I always remember that.
Leo Laporte [00:35:32]:
That's super cool.
Stacey Higginbotham [00:35:34]:
Yeah, go ahead.
Leo Laporte [00:35:36]:
Timothy hasn't said anything. Do you have. You have anything you would like to talk about?
Timothy Ingalls [00:35:43]:
But not that I can think of right now.
Leo Laporte [00:35:46]:
Okay. Just jump in. I don't want people to be shy. If you have something to say, do what I do interrupt.
Stacey Higginbotham [00:35:52]:
I. I'm very curious your thoughts on this because I think, as Micah was saying, it is a woke book in. I do think there is. It's a very different style of book. And there's. I. I'm wondering if. How far you like.
Stacey Higginbotham [00:36:10]:
I feel like she took it as far as you could possibly take it and still have something that people would sort of like, want to read. Because you do have to have some sort of agency or some sort of person acting with ambition, I feel, to drive a plot. Right.
Leo Laporte [00:36:28]:
An antagonist and a protagonist, usually. Right.
Stacey Higginbotham [00:36:32]:
Yeah. And so I guess the antagonist here is like. I guess you don't understand. It's yourself. Yeah. It's like man versus themselves.
Leo Laporte [00:36:42]:
They're both protagonists.
Timothy Ingalls [00:36:43]:
I think the antagonist was more or less Dex's struggle with trying to figure themselves out.
Brandon (Brandroid) [00:36:49]:
Yeah.
Mikah Sargent [00:36:50]:
Struggle with purpose and self understanding and self worth. Oof. Again, that's why I think that that was the crux of the piece when Mosscap said. Because I know that no matter what, I'm wonderful so much. I had a question based around that.
Leo Laporte [00:37:05]:
Yeah. So on his wagon, which has a bunch of things painted, including the gods, there's a bear on it. Is that Bosch? I think it's Bosch the bear. Anyway, there's also a slogan. Maybe that's it. Yeah. There's a slogan on it that says Alalea is like the God, but it's the God of comfort, which is the
Brandon (Brandroid) [00:37:28]:
God of small comforts.
Leo Laporte [00:37:29]:
Small comfort. There's a slogan on it says find the strength to do both. There. There is some dialogue around that because I was really. I don't know what. Both. What?
Mikah Sargent [00:37:41]:
Yeah, both.
Leo Laporte [00:37:42]:
And I did. There is one place in the book where they talk about that, but it didn't help me at all. So I'm going to read you that and maybe you can explain how does the strength to do both. What the heck that means? Let me see if I can find this. I have a lot of quotes that I saved from the book. Find the strength to do both. Mosscap said, quoting the phrase painted on the wagon. Oh, this is in Response to Everybody needed a cup of tea, sometimes just an hour or two to sit and do something nice and then they could get back to whatever it was.
Leo Laporte [00:38:25]:
Find the strength to do both. Mosscap says, quoting the Craig's exact painted on the wagon. Exactly. Deck said. But what's both said Mosscap, Dex recited. And so this is I guess from their canon. Without constructs, you will unravel a few. You will unravel few mysteries.
Leo Laporte [00:38:43]:
Without knowledge of the mysteries, your constructs will fail. These pursuits are what makes us. But without comfort, you will lack the strength to sustain either. So I guess the both are the pursuit, constructs and mysteries.
Mikah Sargent [00:38:56]:
Oh, see, I saw it as. Because right there at the end it was. Could you read that last phrase again?
Leo Laporte [00:39:02]:
The pursuits are what makes us, but without comfort.
Mikah Sargent [00:39:05]:
So pursuit versus comfort. Can you pursue, can you do work and can you also have comfort, self care? No, no, it's kind of work, life balance.
Leo Laporte [00:39:13]:
No, it's a three. It's actually tripartite because there's constructs. The both are constructs and mysteries. And then it says but without comfort, you will lack the strength to sustain either. So I think what they're saying is it's the paradox of life is that there is mystery, but there's also explanation. There's constructs, there's the stories, the science. Right. There's science and mystery.
Leo Laporte [00:39:39]:
Maybe that's a better way to put it.
Stacey Higginbotham [00:39:40]:
And without comfort, there's rationalization in spirituality.
Leo Laporte [00:39:44]:
Maybe that's.
Stacey Higginbotham [00:39:45]:
You could, could view it a bunch of different.
Leo Laporte [00:39:47]:
It's the same, right?
Brandon (Brandroid) [00:39:49]:
So my understanding, because I was confused by like their sort of their, their religion and the roles of the gods. So I, I reread some of this a little bit. My understanding is they. There's three parent gods and three child gods. And what they're talking about here are I think the three child gods which do. Which are like constructs, mysteries and small comforts. And my understanding was constructs are basically things, things that you make or things that you do. And the mysteries is sort of understanding and sort of like abstract knowledge.
Brandon (Brandroid) [00:40:28]:
And then comfort is the thing that allows you to pursue sort of both of those. So you can't really build things or do things unless you sort of understand the knowledge. You can't really gain the knowledge without actually building things and doing things. And comfort is the thing that allows you to persevere in pursuing both of them. That's how I took it interesting.
Leo Laporte [00:40:47]:
I make it more generic, which is that life is a paradox and you have to sit in the Paradox. And that's the comfort you have to be comfortable within. The paradox of life.
Stacey Higginbotham [00:41:02]:
Oh yeah.
Mikah Sargent [00:41:05]:
What's paradoxical about life? Life like just that it exists, that it happens.
Leo Laporte [00:41:12]:
So there are many paradox there. There are many contradictions in, in the, in life, in the world. Let me think if I can think of some examples.
Joe Esposito [00:41:22]:
I'll be honest. When it came to this, I literally in my head, I just. Because I couldn't figure out what it was and I just let it go and I transposed that phrase with keep on trucking like a 70.
Leo Laporte [00:41:34]:
Now I get it.
Joe Esposito [00:41:36]:
Keep doing what you're doing and it's great. And I just use that. I'm like, now the mystery floated away. I'm like, perfect. I got it.
Mikah Sargent [00:41:42]:
That was scratched on the other side of the wagon.
Joe Esposito [00:41:44]:
Actually, probably
Leo Laporte [00:41:47]:
there is one. One of the paradoxes is actually in, in the book, which is fear. The paradox is the ecosystem as a whole needs its participants to act with restraint.
Mikah Sargent [00:42:00]:
Oh yeah, I remember this.
Leo Laporte [00:42:01]:
This is the tragedy of the commons, to act with restraint in order to avoid collapse. But the participants themselves have no input built mechanism to encourage this behavior. Why should they be communal? Right. It's better if I act in my own interest other than fear, says Moss Cap. And that's kind of it. That's maybe another restatement of find the strength to do both. I don't know. Both to be act in self interest and act in the communal interest is another one.
Leo Laporte [00:42:34]:
Yeah, there are many. There are many paradoxes in life. The mystery of life is itself paradoxical. You know, it's not.
Stacey Higginbotham [00:42:43]:
And you could even say the desire to go alone and make your own way and be individualistic in the need for a companion or others.
Leo Laporte [00:42:52]:
I mean, that's the paradox. Yep, that's.
Mikah Sargent [00:42:55]:
That is one of the most annoying paradoxes of life.
Stacey Higginbotham [00:42:58]:
I know as an introvert, I hate it.
Leo Laporte [00:43:01]:
It's so annoying as an avoidant. Yeah, it's funny the three of us are that way. I bet you all are that way. Yeah, we're kind of basically introverts who need people. Yeah, it's fucking annoying.
Mikah Sargent [00:43:14]:
And sometimes you're like, why? But then it's almost more annoying though, when those moments click and you're like, man, I'm really loving this, but oh, I wish I could just do it without. Right. I imagine, Joe, that that could have been a part of that co host moment of like, that was a moment where you went, oh my goodness, I like other people are there for me. And that's this, this magic of connecting with others. And then also I think many of us value our self sufficiency, which is another aspect of this too. Right? Like human beings as a species going, we can do this, we don't need nobody. But then we make these robots, right? And at that point then we almost have to reclaim our ability to exist on our own, which was this separation of the two. And now for these two to come together without any.
Mikah Sargent [00:44:11]:
There was almost a clearing of the plate in a way where neither of them need each other per se. And so it's just a pure base level, just being and being. Who can get something from the other person without it being tied to like, I am your creator and therefore you must do for me. No, now it's just this being that, you know, in its previous forms were created by a human, but not this human. And so they get to meet each other on, on a balanced playing field and then to see them just naturally kind of find companionship is pretty magical as well.
Stacey Higginbotham [00:44:54]:
And I think I, I would contrast this. We read the word for world is forest a while back, if y' all remember the. And this is like if I were
Leo Laporte [00:45:06]:
conflict in killing and death.
Stacey Higginbotham [00:45:08]:
Well, yeah, so if I were what Micah was saying the same philosophy. I think this is like a post colonial book in the sense that like the word for the, the word for world is forest had kind of this noble savage kind of thought, like. Right. Like the, the characters, that little aliens in it. I can't remember the, the not monkey things they had. I was like, I don't remember what they are. You had the obvious bad colonizer coming in and like destroying everything and these, these creatures who had this, this like mutual assured, like mutual assistance. This kind of communistic kind of where we are with this book way of life that was totally disrupted and like they were obviously the heroes, but you still felt like this feels like the whole plot of this book couldn't have been written before.
Stacey Higginbotham [00:46:07]:
I don't know, you know, 19 or 2,000, let's just say, because we just didn't. We didn't have a framework for it. I don't know, I'm just trying to think about like, I. That's kind of what strikes me about it. And I wonder if calling it cozy kind of plays into that in the sense that like, are we, are we denigrating what might be the next generation of like plot lines which is like this reflection. I don't know. Probably not.
Mikah Sargent [00:46:34]:
Yeah. Isn't that the idea too? Is you. The universal basic income. The concept therein is that you are freed to pursuits that you are interested in. And, you know, we talk now about how there are more instances of depression, anxiety, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Whether that is true or not, based on not having the records then versus now. There is certainly, again, more opportunity for navel gazing than we've had in the past. Unfortunately, it's paired with other issues like artificial light that affect us.
Mikah Sargent [00:47:12]:
But let's just look at this sort of in a vacuum for this sake, which is the sense that when you are freed to do more, the lizard part of the brain, the base part of the brain, the monkey part of the brain, whatever you want to say, is then free as well to focus on things that it didn't before. And that can lead to positives, but it can also lead to these spiraling moments like Dex has of trying to. To kind of find the self. And so, yeah, I think that this. This is perhaps a look at what a world could be where your basic needs are met, which is genuinely something like, we still. We still do not have that as human beings. It is. It has changed what basic needs are, I think.
Mikah Sargent [00:47:59]:
But ultimately, if I stopped doing what I do, then I would end up in a situation where I couldn't afford anything and my basic needs would not be met. And so what does it look like in a world, in a Star Trek world where you don't have to worry about that? I do think there will be a number of people who turn inward and there are those spirals, because the. The part that's just focused on survival now no longer has anything to do. And again, it can be a positive thing, it could be a negative thing. And I like that there's an exploration of both of those in, as you're pointing out, Stacey, a world where we're past kind of, to an extent, the ugliness of diving into, like, what depression and anxiety looks like when you don't have the need for survival anymore, we kind of got to go and skip over that ugly part part and go, okay, now we're in a place where people have gotten used to what this looks like, and we can make it happen. And that's cool.
Joe Esposito [00:48:59]:
The interesting part is. And the purpose of nothing, it's interesting. The top three blocks are the colorful ones, and now the bottom three blocks are kind of all the same shade of beige, white in terms of this video layout, which is just strange. But I. I think it's intentionally that we. The interesting part about what you're saying, Micah, is I agree that. And Brandon Will make this connection immediately. There's a next generation episode, I think, where these people get unfrozen that were frozen a long time back.
Joe Esposito [00:49:24]:
And one of them was like a stockbroker or something, and all he was concerned about was, what's my money doing? And they kept having to say to him, no, no, there's no money anymore. We've moved past money. We now try to better ourselves. He's like, look, I just need to talk to my lawyer, because my portfolio at this point must have so much interest. I can own this ship and everybody in it, and they just couldn't get through this guy. And I think that's what the book skips over, because that would be a highly disruptive period to just go from, okay, you have to work. Because so many people internalize their careers themselves.
Mikah Sargent [00:49:57]:
Yep.
Joe Esposito [00:49:58]:
And so you take that away, they get fired and they don't know what to do. And other people can adjust because they externalize other things or they have more going on. So, like, well, that's just a job. That's just so I don't end up on the street in the car cardboard box, but it's not me. And so the period where these robots came alive and then they reached this detente or whatever, I can't imagine that happened over the course of a week. I would have to think there was a lot of really rough things happening, and that's why the book is jumping past it. But what would that actually be like? I mean, would it be this?
Leo Laporte [00:50:28]:
There would be a good book about the end of the factory age. I agree. There's got to have been some strife there.
Joe Esposito [00:50:33]:
Yeah, I would think. Yeah.
Leo Laporte [00:50:35]:
The robots said they sent a message. We thank you for not keeping us here against our will. And we mean no. They offered what? Something you could stick around? And we mean no disrespect to your offer, but it is our wish to leave your cities entirely so that we may observe that which has no design. The untouched wilderness. In fact, some of the robots spend years of their lives doing things like watching stalactites grow, because they're fascinated.
Stacey Higginbotham [00:51:03]:
I love the idea that you have not an infinite lifespan, but a much longer than our lifespan. And you're like, what I want to do is understand all of the crazy world.
Leo Laporte [00:51:14]:
And yeah, that was another great thing about the robots is that they are ships of Theseus, kind of. That they. That they are. They don't live forever. That they break down and then a new robot is made from the parts of other old robots. Is so cool.
Timothy Ingalls [00:51:31]:
And they chose that, too.
Brandon (Brandroid) [00:51:32]:
Yeah.
Leo Laporte [00:51:33]:
They didn't want to live forever. Yeah.
Stacey Higginbotham [00:51:35]:
Yeah.
Mikah Sargent [00:51:36]:
And the parallel between epigenetic tagging that we have and the remnants that they have.
Leo Laporte [00:51:43]:
Remnants, yeah.
Mikah Sargent [00:51:43]:
That is so cool, because, yeah, we do. We believe at least that there is some sort of genetic or, again, epigenetic instinct that is passed along. And so to see that play out on the robot side as they're rebuilding themselves. But again, we have these ties back to humanity so much like we can only conceptualize things from ourselves, and we built these things. And I loved that. That's kind of how it played out that the, that, you know. And at first you don't even know what remnants are, per se. And then it's explained.
Leo Laporte [00:52:19]:
Is it in this book or is it in the next, where they come to a town and the townspeople greet them and welcome them? I feel like it's in the next book.
Brandon (Brandroid) [00:52:27]:
It'll be the next one.
Timothy Ingalls [00:52:28]:
I think that's the second one.
Leo Laporte [00:52:30]:
If you like this book, read the next book. Because the very next thing that happens is they go to a town and they welcome Mosscap. And the first thing. And Mosscap, by the way, his mission is to find out what people want,
Stacey Higginbotham [00:52:45]:
which is a hilarious, I have to say, like, tugging in cheek. Most hilarious if you're writing a book about therapy and being like, yes, we're going to put this thing that absolutely does not understand humans and wants to figure out what they want.
Leo Laporte [00:52:58]:
So he, and so he gets this town. Most humans don't know what they want. Yeah, he gets this town. And they say, well, what can we do for you? And he says, well, I just need to know what you need. And then somebody says, well, my front door isn't working very well. I need it fixed. And then somebody says, my plumbing is a working very well. And Mosque says, well, I have a remnant of how to use tools and goes off to fix the door.
Leo Laporte [00:53:20]:
It's hysterical.
Stacey Higginbotham [00:53:21]:
I just, But I, I, I also like the idea, like, service is such an important part of both of these books, and it's where they find happiness, which I think is a really, really good. It's not a message you get very often in our culture that service is how to find happiness.
Leo Laporte [00:53:38]:
But that's Buddhist. That's Zen right there in a nutshell.
Brandon (Brandroid) [00:53:41]:
And the, and the clear distinction between doing. Doing work or doing service out of obligation versus out of choice. Because, you know, Dex is so hesitant at first to let Mosscap do anything at all. Because from from their point of view, this is, you know, robots were Basically like slaves. So Dex is like, I can't let you, like, tell you to do work for me. That would be immoral. But then they have a discussion about, right, well, and Dex wouldn't allow Moscow to do anything. And then they, you know, have this whole discussion about basically, like, choice and willingness to do something for somebody else.
Brandon (Brandroid) [00:54:26]:
And so how that provides meaning.
Leo Laporte [00:54:29]:
Ram Dass has a very famous quote. See, you said this couldn't have been written since the 2000s. I would aver that this could have been written in 1966. But having grown up in the hippie era, I feel very comfortable here. Ram Dass, who was one of a former Harvard professor who became a guru and one of the people I love, he wrote be Here now, said, when I don't know who I am, I serve you. When I know who I am, I am you. And I think that that is one of the most profound people things people ever said. And I think that's the point of service.
Leo Laporte [00:55:05]:
When I don't know who I am, I serve you. But the end game should be burning
Joe Esposito [00:55:10]:
sage and having, like, going up. That's. That's an amazing quote.
Leo Laporte [00:55:14]:
Wow. Yeah, that is amazing.
Joe Esposito [00:55:15]:
That is a 60s quote. 60s, wow.
Mikah Sargent [00:55:19]:
Hold on.
Joe Esposito [00:55:21]:
Was hesitant to kill an animal.
Mikah Sargent [00:55:24]:
Yes.
Leo Laporte [00:55:24]:
Wasn't that interesting?
Joe Esposito [00:55:25]:
I thought that was great. I thought that was where he's like, ah, he's like, skittish about it. I went, ah, yeah. Because a robot looks at all life as unique and wonderful and would not want to harm it from that perspective. And I thought that was a nice little moment in there.
Leo Laporte [00:55:40]:
Oh, and I also love it. John Jimmer B is saying Dex was uncomfortable when he made a meal, not giving Mosscap some of it. Mosscap said, but I don't eat. So what Dex did was give him the meal. Mozcap would sit there and look at it. Dex would eat his meal. Sorry, their meal. And then say to Mozcap, you're going to eat that? And Mozcap said, no, no.
Leo Laporte [00:56:05]:
And he would eat it. He would eat Muscab's meal. I just love that. That's an example of our. How we are stuck in our customs.
Mikah Sargent [00:56:16]:
And I also think it's an example of the advanced nature of these robots. Because that is something that would be hard, I think, for an AI to conceptualize is this idea of. It'd be like, what's the purpose of this? Why are we doing this? And I kind of love that. It's just that lean in moment of, you're showing me your sake. I'm safe because you're giving me this thing. Even though it doesn't make sense.
Leo Laporte [00:56:44]:
It reminded me of Project Hail Mary where he says to Rocky, Rocky says, I need to watch you sleep. He says, I don't want you to watch me sleep. No, I have to watch you sleep. And then you watch me sleep. And what's his name, Ryland, realizes, oh, this is just a custom. And I'm gonna watch him sleep and let him watch me sleep, because it's just. It's the same thing. It's like, I'm gonna.
Leo Laporte [00:57:10]:
Okay. It's a custom. You want to do that? Well, we can do it. Even a little uncomfortable.
Mikah Sargent [00:57:14]:
Yeah.
Leo Laporte [00:57:15]:
I love it.
Stacey Higginbotham [00:57:17]:
Yeah.
Joe Esposito [00:57:17]:
This is first.
Leo Laporte [00:57:18]:
This is a First contact novel.
Stacey Higginbotham [00:57:21]:
It kind of. Yeah, it is. It is a first contact for a lost contact. First contact.
Leo Laporte [00:57:27]:
And they have the same kind of like, as, as Rylan and Rocky.
Stacey Higginbotham [00:57:33]:
Yeah. And there's, I mean, the veneration, I guess, that's in the next book is the absolute veneration for these robots from everybody. It's. I, I. It had me asking, like, man, if, like, how long does resentment last? Right? Like, if, if something, if people abandon you and are like, yeah, you know what? We're not really into this. We're going to go do our own thing and find ourselves. And you let them go. And I have to imagine, even if you did let them go, there was probably a lot of, you know, feelings about that.
Stacey Higginbotham [00:58:05]:
You should write that book.
Leo Laporte [00:58:06]:
You can write a book. And the end of the factory age,
Stacey Higginbotham [00:58:09]:
that's my fan fiction, is the end of the factory age.
Leo Laporte [00:58:12]:
For the factory age, that'd be good.
Mikah Sargent [00:58:14]:
Do we think there's any parallels to parenthood in that? Do parents have resentment toward their children for leaving the nest? Any level of resentment, maybe, whether they want to realize it or not. Sadness.
Leo Laporte [00:58:31]:
Stacy's in this right now.
Stacey Higginbotham [00:58:33]:
Diane. My, my child is off into the. The wild unknowns and coming back sporadically.
Leo Laporte [00:58:39]:
I remember how sad it made me. It was. I was.
Stacey Higginbotham [00:58:42]:
It is. It makes me sad, but it also is so.
Leo Laporte [00:58:46]:
It's happy.
Stacey Higginbotham [00:58:48]:
You can. I feel like you can choose to dwell on the, oh, my gosh, I've made this person. And they're going out into the world, and it's amazing. And who are they going to be? Or you can be my child. My heart is leaving me.
Leo Laporte [00:59:03]:
Yeah, it's both. And they're in a scary world, but you have to push them out of the nest.
Stacey Higginbotham [00:59:08]:
I also think it's a reflection of what a kid means to you. Like, is It a.
Mikah Sargent [00:59:14]:
Yes.
Stacey Higginbotham [00:59:14]:
Is it an extension of yourself? And for me, my child is not really. They're their own person.
Leo Laporte [00:59:19]:
That's a healthy way of being.
Stacey Higginbotham [00:59:21]:
Right. Right. But there's a lot of people who.
Leo Laporte [00:59:24]:
Yeah.
Stacey Higginbotham [00:59:24]:
Don't think that.
Brandon (Brandroid) [00:59:27]:
Yeah.
Timothy Ingalls [00:59:28]:
And then your parents get older and you decide to move to be closer to them instead of further away.
Leo Laporte [00:59:32]:
Oh, yeah. Back to the nest, huh?
Stacey Higginbotham [00:59:35]:
Well, get my. My kid is two years left in college, and I'm not sure if they're gonna find a job. Not because they're not a wonderful person who's willing to work, but because it is very hard to find a job for.
Joe Esposito [00:59:51]:
How do you feel about serving tea from a wagon?
Leo Laporte [00:59:53]:
Yeah.
Joe Esposito [00:59:53]:
Roaming around.
Leo Laporte [00:59:55]:
I wish that job existed. I would do that. That's the other thing that's left really unsaid is what. Is there money in this society? Because Dex had stuff with PEBS in the second book.
Mikah Sargent [01:00:07]:
Yeah. The Tap to Pay sort of pebs situation.
Leo Laporte [01:00:10]:
So there's some sort of exchange. But I don't. It's not clear that I don't.
Stacey Higginbotham [01:00:13]:
It's like Bitcoin for service.
Mikah Sargent [01:00:15]:
It was a cryptocurrency. Do they mine it?
Stacey Higginbotham [01:00:18]:
Well, it's a. It's a system that tracks what you've done. And people put it. And then.
Leo Laporte [01:00:23]:
So Dex gets this beautiful seawag social capital that's made for him, like, gorgeous tea wagon. At no point is it clear that Dex had any money to pay for a tea wagon. So I don't. I don't. Anyway, you just have to leave that. So I guess we'll find out, Timothy in the next book.
Timothy Ingalls [01:00:41]:
They discuss it in more detail in the second book because Mosscap gets pebs from some of the, I guess, people in the town that they go to. And then Dex has to explain to Mosscap what the pebs are and how they're used and what they mean. And I still love. Early in the first book, they talk about the computer, and they're like a reliable computer, like any computer should be.
Leo Laporte [01:01:07]:
Should last forever.
Timothy Ingalls [01:01:09]:
I was just like, no, this is a.
Joe Esposito [01:01:13]:
You have broken my suspension of disbelief.
Brandon (Brandroid) [01:01:15]:
Yeah.
Leo Laporte [01:01:16]:
Dex's family gave them the computer, like, when he went. When they went off to college or whatever. And it's. They're gonna have it forever.
Joe Esposito [01:01:24]:
Yeah.
Mikah Sargent [01:01:25]:
Like, I've been great.
Leo Laporte [01:01:27]:
Yeah.
Stacey Higginbotham [01:01:28]:
I mean, if you have. They have 3D printers. They have. Right. To repair. Think about it. You know, they've.
Leo Laporte [01:01:34]:
But where do the pebs come from? I know once Dex becomes a tea monk, he gets. They get paid for their Tea.
Mikah Sargent [01:01:42]:
Anyone who asks that question actually gets kicked out of the society. Leo, you know, PEPs come from how many PEPs are.
Stacey Higginbotham [01:01:47]:
No, the PEPs, it's. It's their. I mean, it's a current, but it is based on pebbles doing. You can get, you could get PEBs from like fixing someone's door if they want. It's like a thank you. It's like a. It's like a coffee or.
Leo Laporte [01:02:02]:
But he. They must have gotten a loan of a lot of PEBs to get that wagon because they didn't have a job before then.
Mikah Sargent [01:02:11]:
Maybe if you take that role, if you're chosen for that role or you choose that role, maybe you just granted.
Joe Esposito [01:02:17]:
That's what I, that's how I thought it was, that they were like, okay, we're supporting what you're doing. Here's what you need to get started. That's kind of how it felt to me. I don't know. And then the thing with the pebs, was that a requirement that if you showed up and you didn't have any pebs, would you get tea? You could still get tea and talk. I felt like, yes, in this society, to me, that's what it felt like.
Timothy Ingalls [01:02:36]:
So from what I remember in the second book, the pebs sounded more like an optional currency as a way of saying thank you, not a requirement. So if you couldn't afford nothing had a price. People would just give you PEBs based on the value of what you did or gave them. And if you had a lot of PEPs, maybe you give a lot of PEPs to other people. If you don't have a lot of PEPs, you give them what you can afford.
Mikah Sargent [01:03:04]:
It's like, whose line is it anyway? The point's so bad.
Leo Laporte [01:03:07]:
This is a saying.
Joe Esposito [01:03:08]:
People who have more help those who have less. I don't understand the society.
Stacey Higginbotham [01:03:12]:
This is Stacy's tipping strategy right here.
Leo Laporte [01:03:14]:
I'm like, oh, here I have some PEPs.
Timothy Ingalls [01:03:19]:
Reliable computers and people that help each other. It's an.
Mikah Sargent [01:03:23]:
Can you trade PEPs for something?
Joe Esposito [01:03:25]:
What do you.
Mikah Sargent [01:03:25]:
You go to the. The prize shop and trade your pabs for a little ball and cup game.
Stacey Higginbotham [01:03:32]:
I didn't. I feel like he did. I think PEPs are like a more fungible currency, but you can also just barter because in the next book there's some barter that happens.
Leo Laporte [01:03:43]:
Right?
Stacey Higginbotham [01:03:43]:
But I don't know what the going. Maybe people suggest a number of pet
Mikah Sargent [01:03:47]:
humans love to still place things around currency, right? Like it's.
Leo Laporte [01:03:53]:
Well, you need some way of exchanging Energy, Right. You need some. And so currency is just a marker that says this much energy.
Mikah Sargent [01:04:01]:
But primates don't, like, there's no peb.
Leo Laporte [01:04:05]:
They don't have cooperative.
Stacey Higginbotham [01:04:06]:
That we know of.
Leo Laporte [01:04:08]:
And they don't have such cooperative societies. It's not like a monkey's making a house for the other monkey.
Mikah Sargent [01:04:14]:
Yeah, that's true. Because they don't.
Joe Esposito [01:04:16]:
They don't have a lot of stuff that has the monkey version of take a penny, leave a penny.
Mikah Sargent [01:04:20]:
I'm just wondering what it is about higher level cognition that then puts us into this tit for tat space. Like, what if we didn't do tit
Brandon (Brandroid) [01:04:27]:
for tat at all because we feel the need to organize and assign a like, numeric value to everything?
Mikah Sargent [01:04:34]:
That's what I'm saying.
Leo Laporte [01:04:35]:
Well, it's a collective. We are in a collective society that's a much more advanced kind of society. We. Where I don't have to make everything I eat, wear.
Stacey Higginbotham [01:04:43]:
Yeah, it's that it's. We figured out how to store food and get access. And then other people, like when you used to have very low specialization, so you had some. But like if you were like the mill owner, right. People would pay you in chunks of the flour that you ground for them, right? Yes, but it was a smaller economy. You had less stored value. So everyone still had to do most of their stuff themselves.
Leo Laporte [01:05:10]:
But it's a very sophisticated concept that most. I don't think any animal has. There's no plumber. Crows or carpenter crows, May cats, they give you gifts.
Stacey Higginbotham [01:05:22]:
I don't know if they think they're giving you something.
Mikah Sargent [01:05:24]:
I think that there might be a misunderstanding of what. Of the observation that I'm making though, which is that it is interesting. I understand that the plumber has the skill and can go and plumb somebody's toilet. But what is it about us that we have decided that we need to have some sort of exchange for that? What if it was just I come and plumb your toilet because you need it and that's it? Like I have that. See, we were driven by. Why do we learn to plumb? Because we know that we can make money from this skill that we learned. What if we lived in a society where we just were driven by the desire for knowledge and then helping people?
Leo Laporte [01:06:08]:
That's interesting.
Mikah Sargent [01:06:09]:
My observation is more.
Leo Laporte [01:06:10]:
It has to be that way.
Mikah Sargent [01:06:10]:
Yeah. It is interesting that humans and the higher level cognition puts us into this thing where we think that value is driven by this sort of exchange as opposed to just the pursuit of knowledge in and of itself and the pursuit to help other people.
Leo Laporte [01:06:24]:
You'll see that in the animal kingdom, if there's a surplus, if one monkey has many bananas, that monkey will give their bananas to somebody else. Right.
Mikah Sargent [01:06:32]:
That's what I'm saying.
Leo Laporte [01:06:33]:
Yeah.
Mikah Sargent [01:06:33]:
It's fascinating that we've done that. Go ahead. Sorry.
Leo Laporte [01:06:35]:
Stacy.
Stacey Higginbotham [01:06:36]:
You would enjoy her book. She has a series set in space. Becky Chambers, A Long Way From Long Way to a. Five books. Thank you. It was like a small, distant something planet.
Mikah Sargent [01:06:49]:
A long way. What?
Leo Laporte [01:06:51]:
This was an earlier pick in the book club. A long way to a small angry plant.
Mikah Sargent [01:06:55]:
Oh, okay. Yes, yes, yes.
Brandon (Brandroid) [01:06:56]:
Good.
Leo Laporte [01:06:56]:
It's really good.
Stacey Higginbotham [01:06:58]:
And there's a Generation Ship, but now I want to.
Leo Laporte [01:07:00]:
Now I want to read it, like, revisit it.
Brandon (Brandroid) [01:07:02]:
Yeah.
Stacey Higginbotham [01:07:03]:
And in the Generation Ship, they actually. A little of this, Micah is. It was actually the Generation ship coming from, I think, Earth, and it's filled with humans. But they ha. They each take a job for, like, two years in different. Because you obviously have to have. There are worse jobs and better jobs. If you're going to have, like, a society that doesn't have, like, in a.
Stacey Higginbotham [01:07:25]:
Like, if everything's provided right for you, like the needs, who's going to tackle sanitation? Because that is still important. And how do you incentivize that? And so their incentive. Incentive structure on that ship is like, I think some of it is time based, and then some of it is, like, job based. And I can't remember how they're. But you would be interested in that. Possibly.
Mikah Sargent [01:07:48]:
I'll have to.
Leo Laporte [01:07:49]:
You know, there's a wonderful movie, I think it's by Werner Herzog called Perfect Day, and it's about a guy. You don't know the backstory of the guy. Herzog said later that he was an executive, very wealthy, successful executive who got fired for alcoholism. But his job, it's about him, this older fella whose job is cleaning the public bathrooms in Tokyo. And he goes from bathroom to. And he's in. It's. It's a perfect service.
Leo Laporte [01:08:21]:
Right. And he has a beautiful, simple life. And the. The movie is just about.
Mikah Sargent [01:08:28]:
Oh, it's a movie.
Leo Laporte [01:08:29]:
Oh, it's a. If you've not seen Perfect Days. Yeah, it's beautiful movie. And the music, the soundtrack's great. But. But it's beautiful because it's about this guy who's really doing the lowest job. Right. And doesn't mind.
Mikah Sargent [01:08:45]:
Huh.
Leo Laporte [01:08:46]:
And it's. And it's his life. And it's beautiful. It's really. It's It's a beautiful movie. Highly recommended.
Mikah Sargent [01:08:50]:
I've got some great recommendations.
Leo Laporte [01:08:52]:
Yeah, it's a must. In fact, speaking of recommendations. Yeah.
Mikah Sargent [01:08:56]:
I was one of your picks.
Leo Laporte [01:08:57]:
Perfect Days would be a great pick. It's on. It's a Criterion I think has it, but I don't know where else you would get it.
Joe Esposito [01:09:02]:
Sweet. Because I have Criterion, so I can watch it.
Leo Laporte [01:09:05]:
Yeah.
Joe Esposito [01:09:06]:
Oh, I'm a movie nerd. Awesome.
Leo Laporte [01:09:09]:
It's one of the. It's like this book. It's a cozy. It's slow. Not a lot happens. There's no gunfight. One of the things he likes to do at his lunch, he's sitting there with his simple lunch, is take pictures of the trees and then. And he brings them to the developer and he gets them developed, gets them back and goes through his pictures and picks the ones he likes and saves them in a shoebox.
Leo Laporte [01:09:29]:
It's really. It's that kind of movie.
Mikah Sargent [01:09:31]:
It's Perfect Days, plural.
Brandon (Brandroid) [01:09:34]:
Herzog, Jason, on the Discord, said we could do that for Micah's New Media club.
Leo Laporte [01:09:40]:
That's what I was saying.
Mikah Sargent [01:09:41]:
I'm adding it. I'm having Anthony edit to the poll.
Leo Laporte [01:09:44]:
Yeah.
Stacey Higginbotham [01:09:45]:
Who doesn't love a Werner Herzog movie? Good boy.
Leo Laporte [01:09:48]:
He's great. This is very unlike any of his other movies, though. I mean, it's. I guess none of his movies.
Joe Esposito [01:09:54]:
Optimistic and happy. Look how awful it all is.
Stacey Higginbotham [01:09:59]:
Is anyone dismembered by a bear?
Joe Esposito [01:10:01]:
No, I never even watched that. I was like, nope. I.
Leo Laporte [01:10:05]:
That's what's kind of interesting about nothing bad happens. So you can rent it on Amazon prime for $3.59. It's free on Hulu, it's on Disney plus if you have a subscription. Canopy. I don't know what that is. Apple TV will.
Stacey Higginbotham [01:10:22]:
Oh, Canopy. That's. Your library has that.
Joe Esposito [01:10:24]:
Yeah.
Leo Laporte [01:10:25]:
Get at the library.
Joe Esposito [01:10:26]:
People actually have access and don't know it for that.
Stacey Higginbotham [01:10:28]:
Yeah. You guys, if you haven't done that, this is my service.
Joe Esposito [01:10:33]:
Awesome.
Stacey Higginbotham [01:10:33]:
Check and see if your library has Canopy and then register for it. And then you can watch movies.
Joe Esposito [01:10:39]:
There's some weird stuff on there, man. It's great. You can find some bizarre things in there, which I adore. It's.
Leo Laporte [01:10:46]:
Oh, my library.
Joe Esposito [01:10:47]:
For library people.
Mikah Sargent [01:10:48]:
Oh, with a K, everyone.
Stacey Higginbotham [01:10:50]:
Yeah.
Joe Esposito [01:10:50]:
Oh, sorry.
Stacey Higginbotham [01:10:50]:
K, A, N, O, P, Y.
Leo Laporte [01:10:52]:
You know what? I'll show.
Stacey Higginbotham [01:10:53]:
But, yeah, definitely do it. Because in these strained economic times, you don't have to pay for 50 subscriptions
Timothy Ingalls [01:11:00]:
and then give stuff for the recommendation.
Mikah Sargent [01:11:03]:
Yes, absolutely.
Leo Laporte [01:11:04]:
We're going to send you some pebs.
Stacey Higginbotham [01:11:07]:
Like I'll, I'll just. I'll just tell you about it. As long as you support your libraries because libraries are amazing. Do you want your book ideas or.
Leo Laporte [01:11:15]:
Yes. Is it time for a vote?
Mikah Sargent [01:11:16]:
Is it time?
Stacey Higginbotham [01:11:18]:
It's time.
Mikah Sargent [01:11:18]:
Wait, do the votes happen live?
Leo Laporte [01:11:20]:
I'll. No, they happen over a three week period.
Mikah Sargent [01:11:22]:
Okay, good. That's how I was going to do it with Media Club. So I wanted to make sure that it was.
Leo Laporte [01:11:26]:
Yeah.
Stacey Higginbotham [01:11:26]:
Anthony who I make a pitch for it.
Leo Laporte [01:11:29]:
Yeah.
Mikah Sargent [01:11:29]:
Oh, nice.
Leo Laporte [01:11:30]:
And Anthony will write it all down and then he will make a poll on the club. You'll have to go to the Stacy's Book Club section which will, I guess, rename to Media. Yeah, the Micah Media. Stacey and Micah's Media.
Stacey Higginbotham [01:11:44]:
Stacy and Micah.
Mikah Sargent [01:11:45]:
I think I feel like Stacey's Book club is. I hate to even say this, but it's like it's in the umbrella of Media Club, so it's one facet of it. So I don't.
Leo Laporte [01:11:58]:
I don't.
Mikah Sargent [01:11:58]:
I don't want to. Like, I don't. I'm not taking Stacy's Book Club. Like, I, I hope that's clear. It's just we're. We're expanding extra weeks upon the media.
Leo Laporte [01:12:07]:
Yeah.
Mikah Sargent [01:12:08]:
So I think it should still be Stacy's Book Club.
Joe Esposito [01:12:11]:
I'm.
Stacey Higginbotham [01:12:12]:
I'm totally fine with whatever. Like, I don't have ownership of this except for the fact that I really like my little gif.
Joe Esposito [01:12:18]:
Or just call it the Twit Multimedia Explosion. Just put a big graph.
Stacey Higginbotham [01:12:22]:
It doesn't even have to have my name on it. I'm. I'm not. I'm pretty.
Leo Laporte [01:12:27]:
Books that don't blow up.
Stacey Higginbotham [01:12:30]:
Okay. Would you like your book Plants?
Leo Laporte [01:12:36]:
Yes.
Stacey Higginbotham [01:12:38]:
Book Plants. That's not the words I'm looking for. Okay, here.
Leo Laporte [01:12:41]:
Are you a stroke?
Stacey Higginbotham [01:12:43]:
I. I am. I'm kind of. I'm clicking through my things to pull them all up so they're all in the one thing. This. This month's theme is going to be spaceships.
Leo Laporte [01:12:55]:
Can we go back to tea monks? I really like tea.
Stacey Higginbotham [01:12:58]:
We did tea monks. We're now going back to space. Okay. These are fun. Okay. I just started reading this one, but I'm loving it so far, so I hope it doesn't have a terrible ending. This is the Republic of Memory. It is by.
Stacey Higginbotham [01:13:15]:
Who is it by? I'm going to tell you
Leo Laporte [01:13:20]:
my. Oh, it's Mahmoud El Said.
Stacey Higginbotham [01:13:24]:
Mahmoud El Said. Yes. Sorry.
Leo Laporte [01:13:27]:
The first book of the Song of the Safina.
Stacey Higginbotham [01:13:31]:
And it is yeah, it is. Sorry. It's a first book, but these people.
Leo Laporte [01:13:38]:
It's the most anticipated book of 2026, everybody.
Stacey Higginbotham [01:13:42]:
Yeah, I don't. I don't know about that, but it did remind me of. It did kind of remind me of a memory called Empire, which I liked of the Expanse. So it's set on a ship, but it's these people leaving Earth, you know, very common. And they've got their ancestors.
Leo Laporte [01:14:04]:
It's another generation ship. What is wrong with you and your generation ships?
Stacey Higginbotham [01:14:10]:
Why else are we in the space.
Leo Laporte [01:14:13]:
That's true. Good.
Stacey Higginbotham [01:14:14]:
Space is a harsh atmosphere.
Leo Laporte [01:14:16]:
You don't have to party. No, you're right. Yeah. It's a place to party.
Stacey Higginbotham [01:14:20]:
And. And this is very cultural. Like, they. What do they call it? They call it Arab futurism. I don't know if I'm gonna go for that. But it is a. It is culturally very different. So I love, you know, me, that's why I have this book club.
Stacey Higginbotham [01:14:33]:
I. I love exploring. Like, oh, what do other people think about going into space? What are the cultural things that matter to them in a generation ship.
Leo Laporte [01:14:41]:
Wow.
Stacey Higginbotham [01:14:41]:
This is different. So there's. There's moments of that where you're like, huh, Cool. Or that's what I am. Like, I don't know about you. And then the other is Slow Gods by Katherine Webb. Or I think she. Claire North.
Stacey Higginbotham [01:14:58]:
Yes, she. She's writing in. This is just a weird book.
Leo Laporte [01:15:05]:
Okay, you're selling it. You're selling it.
Mikah Sargent [01:15:08]:
This. This is just a weird book.
Stacey Higginbotham [01:15:10]:
It's a cool book.
Leo Laporte [01:15:13]:
I am a very poor copy of myself. One man's impossible life charted against the fate of humanity amongst the stars.
Stacey Higginbotham [01:15:21]:
Yeah. I don't. I don't know how to explain this book. It's cool. I really enjoyed it. And then I'm going to go with Peter Hamilton, who probably you are. I'm going to put a hole in the sky. This is a book book of his that came out, I think, was it earlier this year.
Mikah Sargent [01:15:39]:
I'm not gonna lie. I thought that was a metaphor. I didn't know you said, I'm gonna put a hole in the sky by choosing this guy. I'm putting a hole in the sky because I'm breaking my rule that I have for the book club. And so I was like, oh, wow, I've never heard this. This is a new thing. But now I understand.
Stacey Higginbotham [01:15:55]:
I mean, we've broken the book club every now and again. I mean, I had to read the Bob verse, and that was terrible.
Mikah Sargent [01:16:00]:
You really put a Hole in the sky for that. That one.
Leo Laporte [01:16:03]:
Yeah. That was a great book.
Stacey Higginbotham [01:16:05]:
But we have Adrian Tchaikovsky. We. We do. I mean, I just basically, I don't
Leo Laporte [01:16:10]:
want to read about my author. I mean, this is.
Stacey Higginbotham [01:16:12]:
This is.
Leo Laporte [01:16:12]:
There's no.
Stacey Higginbotham [01:16:13]:
This is. This is a classic, but it. It fits my. My, you know, Generation Ship.
Leo Laporte [01:16:19]:
Book one of the Ark Ship trilogy.
Stacey Higginbotham [01:16:22]:
Yeah. So again, this is a book one. So if you. If you don't want that, I'm sorry. This is. This is where we're going. Because nobody's picking my. I'll just let you know.
Stacey Higginbotham [01:16:33]:
I. So from the book club books that we've read, there's a brand new murderbot book out called Platform Decay. So if you liked our murder books, our Murder Bot books. That's out. And Lecky who did the Ancillary justice series. And we also had another one of her books. Or maybe we didn't do Ancillary justice and we just did that. She has a new book, it's a standalone book set in the Imperial Rada universe called Radiant Star.
Stacey Higginbotham [01:17:08]:
And that is, I think just came out. So I'm just letting you guys know that these books that we have read historically have new authors that we've read or liked, have new books out. So that's my. But those are the books we're voting on.
Leo Laporte [01:17:22]:
This is going to be a hard one. Yeah. Steve Gibson and I talk about Peter F. Hamilton all the time. I was not aware of this book. It just came out. He is prolific. He just finished a very, very long, boring series called Exodus that I could not finish.
Leo Laporte [01:17:37]:
But I love many of his other books are really, really good. So I can't wait to see.
Stacey Higginbotham [01:17:42]:
I have another book that I'm interested in, but I don't think it's out yet.
Joe Esposito [01:17:45]:
It.
Stacey Higginbotham [01:17:46]:
But I really want to read it. It's called Homebound by Portia Elan.
Leo Laporte [01:17:51]:
We'll save it.
Stacey Higginbotham [01:17:52]:
And it's a.
Leo Laporte [01:17:52]:
Next time.
Stacey Higginbotham [01:17:54]:
Yeah. Because it's. It's like a Interpreter the Maladies scale book. I read like two or three books a week.
Mikah Sargent [01:18:03]:
And do you read. Do you eyeball read or ear read?
Stacey Higginbotham [01:18:07]:
I. I do both.
Brandon (Brandroid) [01:18:09]:
Got it.
Mikah Sargent [01:18:10]:
The way that I find. The way that I find time is through audiobooks so that my hands can do other things.
Leo Laporte [01:18:16]:
Sometimes though, it's better. In fact, I liked reading this book on a Kobo because I can select it on the Kobo and then it goes into my Obsidian notes and I have all the quotes and stuff and it's a really nice way, I think. Brandroid, you posted Was it you, Brandroid, or was it Timothy posted a clip from the book from a site. Which one of you did that?
Joe Esposito [01:18:38]:
It.
Mikah Sargent [01:18:39]:
I saw. I saw Jammer B.
Stacey Higginbotham [01:18:41]:
Maybe it was Jammer B. Jammer B was doing it.
Leo Laporte [01:18:43]:
Yeah.
Stacey Higginbotham [01:18:45]:
Oh, no, Brain droid, you did it, too.
Leo Laporte [01:18:49]:
What is that site?
Brandon (Brandroid) [01:18:51]:
Oh, that's. That's just from Kindle on.
Stacey Higginbotham [01:18:54]:
I was about to say a screenshot of a Kindle on your phone.
Brandon (Brandroid) [01:18:56]:
Yeah, it's. It's. It's literally. Well, not on my phone. You can do it in a web browser, too.
Leo Laporte [01:19:00]:
Okay. Oh, yeah, yeah. Kindle Reader.
Brandon (Brandroid) [01:19:02]:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So that's what I do. I. I read it on my Kindle and then highlight stuff. And then when we have the discussion here, I can pull it up in my.
Leo Laporte [01:19:08]:
I do the same thing, but I do it on the Kobo. And then I use Readwise.
Mikah Sargent [01:19:12]:
I'm gonna have to start doing.
Leo Laporte [01:19:13]:
By the way, highly recommend Readwise. Readwise will pick up all of my. And I bet it works with Kindle, too. All of the things and then keeps track of it all. And then I have a sync from Readwise to Obsidian. So all the books I'm reading, nice. If I read them instead of listening to them, I can't. I haven't figured out a way to.
Leo Laporte [01:19:28]:
There is a way to do that, by the way, but I. I'm not sure I'd recommend it. There's a podcast audiobook app called Snipt.
Mikah Sargent [01:19:37]:
S N I P D. What'd you call me?
Leo Laporte [01:19:39]:
Snipt. And what I like about it is you could do. It's snipd.com. it's AI powered. That might scare some people off, but you can. As you're listening to something you can do even in your car, you can tap the screen and it will make a clip, an audio clip of that.
Mikah Sargent [01:19:57]:
Really? That's cool.
Leo Laporte [01:19:59]:
So it's a way of listening to podcasts or listening to audiobooks. It also does AI generated clips. So it's very. It's really interesting. It's a little buggy. I think it's vibe coded. Otherwise I would have interviewed them or recommended it before. But it's.
Leo Laporte [01:20:19]:
But I use it as my podcast now, my podcast app. And you can put books in it. So. Because I really like the idea of going, yeah, remember this quote or remember this bit? So if you get your books at Libro fm, which I do, you can import it or you could. If it's an unencrypted. You can't do it from Audible, but you can also do it with YouTube videos and podcasts or any other.
Joe Esposito [01:20:40]:
Is Libro like bookshop for audiobooks?
Leo Laporte [01:20:44]:
Libro is just like Audible, but the difference is they contribute to your local bookstore.
Joe Esposito [01:20:49]:
Okay, that's okay. That's right.
Leo Laporte [01:20:52]:
It's a small percentage, but I feel better. And it's the same price as audible. It's $15 a month for one book a month. They don't have everything because Audible has a really, I think, predatory model where they tell authors, no, you can't be anywhere else if you want to be on Audible. That's why you see those Audible exclusives. And it makes me very angry. But if it's not an Audible exclusive, it's on here. Most books are on here.
Joe Esposito [01:21:18]:
I have trouble believing that Amazon is engaging in predatory. Shocking. It's just. I'm sorry, I just don't know what you're talking about.
Leo Laporte [01:21:25]:
I can't believe it. Yeah, I stopped supporting Audible, but Libro is great. And then, yeah, of course, Libby or Kanopy or any of your library apps are also good choices.
Mikah Sargent [01:21:39]:
I also want to mention that we have the poll for our first Media Club Media quarter.
Leo Laporte [01:21:46]:
What are our choices? I was giving you time.
Mikah Sargent [01:21:49]:
There are four choices available to you. And I think unless I decide to change this, what I'll do is when one is selected, we'll leave the others on the list and just add another. And so eventually, in theory, we would get around to all of the things, but we'll see. We'll see. I haven't decided that yet, but anyway,
Joe Esposito [01:22:06]:
Fifth Element is on your list. Oh, my God.
Mikah Sargent [01:22:08]:
Right now, the choices are between three of the top animated episodes that have ever been created in adult animation. So Jurassic Bark from Futurama, Total Recall from Rick and Morty, and Marge versus the Monorail from the Simpsons. So we would watch all three of those and talk about.
Leo Laporte [01:22:28]:
Oh, you have to watch all three.
Mikah Sargent [01:22:30]:
Yes, that's the first choice. Because they're short. They're short. And then, yeah, 15 minutes or 20 minutes. But the second option is the fifth element.
Leo Laporte [01:22:40]:
Oh, good choice. Just watched Luc Besson's Dracula last night, which is.
Mikah Sargent [01:22:43]:
Oh, nice.
Leo Laporte [01:22:44]:
Interesting. Let's say the third choice.
Joe Esposito [01:22:47]:
I always vote Mila. Always, always, always vote Mila.
Mikah Sargent [01:22:52]:
The third choice is an interesting film from last year called.
Leo Laporte [01:22:56]:
I highly recommend this as a very exciting film. It's all good. Excellent. Yeah. It's upsetting.
Mikah Sargent [01:23:01]:
It is incredibly upsetting. Yes. And the final film on the list, we added Perfect to Days, so get in your votes for these. And as I said, I think Given the reaction that I just got from all of you. That's why I kind of want to leave them on the list so that we eventually get to all of these.
Leo Laporte [01:23:19]:
Marge versus the Monorail was written by Conan o'. Brien.
Mikah Sargent [01:23:23]:
Okay. I did not know that.
Leo Laporte [01:23:24]:
Which makes it a very interesting.
Stacey Higginbotham [01:23:26]:
That's fine.
Leo Laporte [01:23:26]:
Am I wrong on that? I think that's the case.
Brandon (Brandroid) [01:23:28]:
No, it was.
Stacey Higginbotham [01:23:29]:
Yeah.
Leo Laporte [01:23:30]:
Wow. And it's probably the most famous Simpsons episode.
Mikah Sargent [01:23:34]:
Yeah. And that Futurama episode is.
Stacey Higginbotham [01:23:37]:
That is heart wrenching.
Mikah Sargent [01:23:39]:
Heartbreaking.
Leo Laporte [01:23:41]:
So I've never watched Futurama. I mean, I kind of roughly know the characters and stuff, but should I watch a few episodes so I can have my heart broken?
Mikah Sargent [01:23:48]:
I think you. Yes.
Leo Laporte [01:23:51]:
Because otherwise I don't care.
Brandon (Brandroid) [01:23:52]:
Well, the. The emotional part of that story is really self contained.
Mikah Sargent [01:23:56]:
Just in that episode.
Leo Laporte [01:23:57]:
Okay.
Joe Esposito [01:23:58]:
That's a rough episode.
Leo Laporte [01:23:58]:
It's not like the robot died. Okay. Okay.
Mikah Sargent [01:24:02]:
Yeah. So these are all on the list.
Leo Laporte [01:24:05]:
And you'll see if you're in the club that both of these. Anthony works fast. Or is it AI Leo? One never knows. Works fast. And they're both in the announcements section on the man.
Stacey Higginbotham [01:24:20]:
I'm just. I'm about to cry just thinking about Jurassic Park.
Joe Esposito [01:24:23]:
Damn.
Brandon (Brandroid) [01:24:24]:
I know.
Mikah Sargent [01:24:24]:
It's so.
Stacey Higginbotham [01:24:26]:
Oh, I'm looking at my dog because I. It's because I have a new dog.
Leo Laporte [01:24:31]:
Yeah. By the way, her dog. Very sweet. Highly recommend.
Joe Esposito [01:24:35]:
Jurassic Park's easy if you only like cats.
Mikah Sargent [01:24:37]:
That's true.
Joe Esposito [01:24:39]:
No problem.
Leo Laporte [01:24:41]:
That will break my heart.
Joe Esposito [01:24:42]:
Yeah, it's a. It's a tough episode, man. That's a harsh episode.
Leo Laporte [01:24:47]:
So if you pick a. That's about an hour worth of watching. All the rest are about two hours of movie viewing.
Mikah Sargent [01:24:54]:
Yeah.
Stacey Higginbotham [01:24:55]:
I still haven't seen some of begonia because I can't handle that level of violence. So I closed my eyes.
Leo Laporte [01:25:01]:
Wait a minute. If you haven't watched the whole movie, you don't know.
Stacey Higginbotham [01:25:04]:
I watched the whole movie. I just.
Leo Laporte [01:25:05]:
Oh, okay, you closed your eyes.
Mikah Sargent [01:25:07]:
You closed during G. Okay, so you probably didn't watch Cocaine Bear then.
Leo Laporte [01:25:11]:
Oh, my God.
Timothy Ingalls [01:25:12]:
I couldn't finish that.
Leo Laporte [01:25:13]:
Oh my God, that was so awful.
Stacey Higginbotham [01:25:16]:
There's. There's plenty of like really good, like casino. That whole scene in the cornfield. Never seen it. I'm like, oh, God.
Leo Laporte [01:25:23]:
I see what you're saying. You just closed. You just.
Stacey Higginbotham [01:25:25]:
I. I can't handle people hurting other people.
Leo Laporte [01:25:29]:
Has some brutal, brutal scenes. But
Stacey Higginbotham [01:25:34]:
yeah, there's again, I am. I am really.
Mikah Sargent [01:25:37]:
And oddly, Stacy, it's weird that then your favorite Movie series is Saul. I don't understand why you let all the Saul movies if you don't like violence. Is that your secret?
Stacey Higginbotham [01:25:48]:
It's my secret one. I told you that in confidence.
Mikah Sargent [01:25:51]:
Oh, no, I forgot. It did say off the record.
Joe Esposito [01:25:53]:
You're right.
Leo Laporte [01:25:56]:
Oh, that was fun. Hey, I'm really glad that y' all were here. Thank you, Joe and Timothy and Brandon. Brandon, for joining us. I love doing this. I have to say. It's a lot of fun, and I think it's gonna be even more fun now that it's monthly. So we will put on the schedule.
Leo Laporte [01:26:11]:
So you got two weeks to vote. You get one vote. The good news about Micah's are he's not going to take anything off.
Mikah Sargent [01:26:18]:
No extra votes, people.
Leo Laporte [01:26:19]:
The bad news about Stacy is only one of these will survive.
Stacey Higginbotham [01:26:24]:
Well, y' all are free to read whichever.
Leo Laporte [01:26:26]:
And again, you can read them all with.
Mikah Sargent [01:26:29]:
You don't think that you can't read it.
Stacey Higginbotham [01:26:33]:
I'm happy to do a junk pile. Like, I've put a couple back on, but, you know, I feel like if the.
Joe Esposito [01:26:39]:
The.
Stacey Higginbotham [01:26:39]:
The people spoken.
Leo Laporte [01:26:40]:
There's so many books. We don't need to do that.
Stacey Higginbotham [01:26:43]:
If the people want the Baba verse, the people can have the Boba verse.
Leo Laporte [01:26:47]:
So. Sorry. Look, I apologize. Okay.
Mikah Sargent [01:26:49]:
There's a new dungeon crawler Carl out. Finally.
Stacey Higginbotham [01:26:51]:
There is a new. Oh, I forgot to tell you. Yes, there's a new dungeon Carl.
Leo Laporte [01:26:54]:
How many of those are there?
Mikah Sargent [01:26:56]:
I think it's on the 8th. 8th one.
Leo Laporte [01:26:57]:
There's too many. There's too many.
Mikah Sargent [01:26:59]:
I disagree. I love them.
Stacey Higginbotham [01:27:01]:
You know, when you love a book, it doesn't even matter. You're just like, hey, these people. People. These characters.
Mikah Sargent [01:27:06]:
Yeah, these people I love are Voice again.
Leo Laporte [01:27:08]:
My cat.
Brandon (Brandroid) [01:27:10]:
And Leo and I will be watching the, you know, every. Every iteration of the Babiverse that comes out.
Leo Laporte [01:27:15]:
There you go.
Brandon (Brandroid) [01:27:16]:
14 or 20 or however.
Leo Laporte [01:27:17]:
Actually, it kind of went downhill after the first three.
Mikah Sargent [01:27:20]:
I'm still.
Brandon (Brandroid) [01:27:20]:
I just started the fourth one.
Leo Laporte [01:27:23]:
I'm a little disappointed.
Mikah Sargent [01:27:24]:
I disagree again.
Leo Laporte [01:27:25]:
Really.
Mikah Sargent [01:27:26]:
I think I really like long series, though, because I'm a big the Wheel of Time fan.
Leo Laporte [01:27:31]:
And you finished the Wheel of Time.
Mikah Sargent [01:27:33]:
I've done the Wheel of Time three times, Leo. Oh, wow.
Leo Laporte [01:27:36]:
I'm in the slog, and I never got past the slog, which is book six or something.
Mikah Sargent [01:27:40]:
Yeah, I was going to say six.
Stacey Higginbotham [01:27:41]:
He really. He really, really, really went hard on describing things that didn't need to be described.
Mikah Sargent [01:27:47]:
I agree, But I also love it.
Leo Laporte [01:27:50]:
Well, I want to know what happened So I understand. I mean, I can understand. It's a. It's a wonderful universe. It's very interesting.
Mikah Sargent [01:27:56]:
It helps to have, I think, things that make you feel productive while you're audiobook listening. And then that doesn't feel like as much of a slog. So, like crochet and knitting and stuff.
Stacey Higginbotham [01:28:07]:
I was like. I took up knitting for the winter so I could do audiobooks and.
Leo Laporte [01:28:10]:
Perfect.
Mikah Sargent [01:28:11]:
Yeah.
Stacey Higginbotham [01:28:11]:
You know, but I read fast. I read incredibly fast.
Joe Esposito [01:28:15]:
So that's part of my audiobook. Could get me to actually read the Lord of the Rings, because I don't need to read a 40 page description of a leaf falling from the tree.
Leo Laporte [01:28:23]:
Gotta read that. Every word is a gem. You know what?
Stacey Higginbotham [01:28:27]:
I have not read all of Lord of the Rings. I'm just going to tell you. And I'm the hugest, biggest fantasy fan.
Mikah Sargent [01:28:33]:
I've not read all of the Bible.
Stacey Higginbotham [01:28:36]:
Oh, I've read all of the Bible.
Leo Laporte [01:28:38]:
That's not fantasy, Micah. I just want to say. Oh, shoot. Oh, shoot. Oh, shoot. Be careful.
Stacey Higginbotham [01:28:44]:
I didn't.
Leo Laporte [01:28:44]:
Tread lightly, my friend.
Stacey Higginbotham [01:28:46]:
What are you talking about? There's like a talking sky God. There is like a giant and everybody dies. There's a Generation ship that only goes on for 40 days.
Leo Laporte [01:28:58]:
Oh, my God.
Mikah Sargent [01:28:58]:
There is a Generation ship.
Leo Laporte [01:29:00]:
My daughter and I have fun conversations because she's recently converted to Catholicism and she knows I'm going to hell. But we were talking yesterday, she said, well, you know, probably you'll go to Purgatory, which is a. You know, we're the only religion that has that kind of, you know, midway option.
Mikah Sargent [01:29:15]:
The Mids. The Mids.
Leo Laporte [01:29:16]:
So you can get the waiting room.
Stacey Higginbotham [01:29:19]:
What do they call it? The Good Place.
Leo Laporte [01:29:21]:
The Good Place.
Mikah Sargent [01:29:22]:
Oh, that trip. Oh, no, it wasn't the Medium Place.
Stacey Higginbotham [01:29:26]:
It is the Medium Place.
Leo Laporte [01:29:27]:
That's not the Good place. Not the Bad place. The Medium Place.
Stacey Higginbotham [01:29:30]:
Medium Place.
Leo Laporte [01:29:31]:
Except in the Good Place. Isn't the Good Place the Bad Place? Really?
Mikah Sargent [01:29:34]:
I was gonna say to. Yeah. Oh, wait, that's a spoiler. I was going to say at first, it's interesting that if she's recently converted, it's already, like, making choices about or making decisions about where other people will go. But then she doesn't get there. Catholicism, we say it. It is kind of heavy on the punishment.
Leo Laporte [01:29:56]:
If she's a believer. That's, you know, but you gotta. I mean, that's true.
Mikah Sargent [01:29:59]:
Yeah. And that's why, like, Catholicism in particular is really heavy on the punishment.
Leo Laporte [01:30:03]:
She likes me.
Stacey Higginbotham [01:30:03]:
Because you can pay to get out of the punishment. So you have to have a really nice incentive.
Leo Laporte [01:30:08]:
She likes me. And so she thinks she likes me. She thinks that maybe I can work my way back into God's good graces before it's all over. So there's hope.
Joe Esposito [01:30:18]:
Stacy. The thing about pain to get out. My father, that was always the thing he hated about Catholicism was the pain to get out.
Leo Laporte [01:30:23]:
But he do that anymore? They don't. Do they stop doing that.
Stacey Higginbotham [01:30:29]:
You know, stop with the indulgences. Okay.
Mikah Sargent [01:30:31]:
I thought you paid with.
Leo Laporte [01:30:36]:
That's penance, but that's not paying.
Mikah Sargent [01:30:38]:
Those are PEBs.
Leo Laporte [01:30:39]:
PEBs.
Timothy Ingalls [01:30:39]:
PEPs.
Joe Esposito [01:30:41]:
All right.
Brandon (Brandroid) [01:30:41]:
Religious. Wait.
Mikah Sargent [01:30:42]:
Maybe.
Leo Laporte [01:30:42]:
Maybe I should stop going to hell, man.
Mikah Sargent [01:30:45]:
Yeah.
Leo Laporte [01:30:48]:
I just finished rewatching Brideshead Revisited, which is an excellent British TV show. And it's actually a very big conflict at the end about whether her father, who has become an atheist, will finally embrace the church on his deathbed. It's really good. I could. Yeah. All right, on that note, Leo, can
Joe Esposito [01:31:12]:
I promote something very quickly that's actually pertinent to them, please?
Leo Laporte [01:31:14]:
Joe?
Joe Esposito [01:31:15]:
I did a show with Stacy that will be out on June 1st.
Mikah Sargent [01:31:18]:
What?
Joe Esposito [01:31:18]:
We talk about lots of weird things because my brain doesn't work in a linear line. So it's all over the place. As Micah knows, I can't say that. Where can we find this show that will be on? Well, the easiest thing is. Ozoneshow.com On June 1, the Stacy Higginbotham episode will premiere. And it's a clean one. No swearing, which is unusual for my shows. Anybody can listen.
Joe Esposito [01:31:38]:
The whole family.
Leo Laporte [01:31:38]:
Ooh, that's mine.
Stacey Higginbotham [01:31:39]:
I forgot what we talked about.
Leo Laporte [01:31:41]:
I don't remember.
Joe Esposito [01:31:41]:
We talked about the fact that you're doing Pilates now. Remember that?
Leo Laporte [01:31:45]:
Did you get. Did you get your master's degree?
Stacey Higginbotham [01:31:49]:
I. So I still have hours, but I'm. I haven't tested out, but I'm fully. I've done all my hours for Matt and Reformer. So I am. And I'm teaching a class. I have a good.
Mikah Sargent [01:32:05]:
I think you would be a really good teacher.
Leo Laporte [01:32:06]:
Okay, everybody, we're gonna do the hundreds now, okay? So everybody on your back.
Joe Esposito [01:32:10]:
Back.
Stacey Higginbotham [01:32:11]:
Basically. Yes. I'm like. My class. I'm like, guys, we have to do it. Because not everybody at the studio believes in hundreds. And I do.
Leo Laporte [01:32:17]:
I hate.
Stacey Higginbotham [01:32:18]:
Because I hate people. No, I love people. And that's why they should be doing.
Leo Laporte [01:32:24]:
Anyway, we have a Cadillac Reformer in the basement, and. Which I own, technically. I bought it because I love Pilates.
Stacey Higginbotham [01:32:33]:
I have a reformer in my basement.
Leo Laporte [01:32:35]:
I stopped doing the hundreds because. Yeah, we have that whole. With the fuzzy cuffs and I don't have.
Mikah Sargent [01:32:43]:
Wasn't Monk Martin Luther a reformer?
Leo Laporte [01:32:45]:
Yes.
Joe Esposito [01:32:46]:
Someone who knows nothing about exercise, clearly. I don't know what you're referring to.
Leo Laporte [01:32:49]:
When people see it, they go, either you're into torture or weird sex, but there's something going on down.
Mikah Sargent [01:32:53]:
Why not both? I was actually not mutually exclusive.
Brandon (Brandroid) [01:32:58]:
Yeah.
Stacey Higginbotham [01:32:59]:
All right.
Leo Laporte [01:33:01]:
And on that, off I go. No, it's an exercise machine. Honest.
Mikah Sargent [01:33:07]:
Bye, everybody.
Leo Laporte [01:33:08]:
Bye, Stacy. Bye, Timothy. Bye, Brandon. Bye, Joe. Bye, Micah. We'll see you, Micah. I'll see you on Tuesday.
Mikah Sargent [01:33:16]:
Yes, very exciting.
Leo Laporte [01:33:17]:
Google IO. IO, it's off to work. That's Stacy's book club. A special thank you, by the way, to all of our wonderful club members who make this possible. If you are watching this show illicitly, somehow, maybe you borrowed somebody's login. Join the fricking club. What is it gonna take? All it is is 10 bucks a month. It supports everything we do.
Leo Laporte [01:33:41]:
It gives you access to the Club Twit Discord, which is a wonderful place to hang out. It's where Joe puts up his fantastic Photoshop edits and all the other weird AI slop. But it's also a great place to converse and talk. We also, of course, give you ad free versions of all the shows and all of that special programming, like Micah's Crafting Corners. If you want to know more. Twitter Club Twit, without your support, this show would not exist. So please support the work we do here. It's.
Leo Laporte [01:34:15]:
I think it's more than just saying, like, I like this programming. It's really supporting independent journalism that owes nothing to anybody except you. And as a user, us as a you as users. That's our focus. So, TWiT TV Club, thank you to Anthony Nielsen, who shows up for everything we do. He's a living legend. And we will see you next time on Stacy's Book Club. Bye.
Mikah Sargent [01:34:41]:
Bye.
