Matt Shannon is a security engineer at Amazon and he stopped by the crab shed to talk about cyber-security, the tech industry, the crypto collapse, and his own early life. He graduated from UW with degrees in Information Technology and Philosophy and has worked for high-profile companies like Boeing and Amazon. He spent the first decade of his life traveling the country with his parents, selling Chinese novelty goods from the family van, where they also lived most of the time. His story of success is an inspirational one and I hope you enjoy it.

Other topics include:

• MYSTERY FOOT found floating in the Abyss Pool at Yellowstone finally identified.
• The collapse of FTX, Sam Bankman Fried, and crypto in general.
• Warren Buffet's Berkshire Hathaway agrees to pay 200 million to help remove dams on the Klamath River to save salmon runs.
• Peaceful Daniel Miller dies in glorious fashion.
• Raccoons love kittens.
• Twitter, Elon, and the pros/cons of social media.
• Do we live in a simulation?

Matt is a cool dude and I have always hoped that he would find success in life. He works hard and has a great outlook. I hope you enjoy this podcast!

Ramble by the River Links:

• Website
• Patreon
• Facebook
• Instagram 
• Twitter
• Episode catalogue
• Business: ramblebytheriver@gmail.com

News links:

1. Mystery Foot Identified! Retrieved from: https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2022/11/17/us/yellowstone-national-park-foot-thermal-pool-identified/index.html
2. U.S. Approves Historic Dam Removal. Retrieved from: https://amp.theguardian.com/environment/2022/nov/17/us-dam-removal-endangered-salmon-klamath-river
3. FTX lied about their valuation. Retrieved from: https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/currencies/ftx-crypto-holdings-fair-value-bankruptcy-filing-sam-bankman-fried-2022-11?amp

Music:

• Amber Lights, Chill Cole.
• Reviving, Megan Woford.
• Mountain Brook, Dylan Sitts
• Air Spark, Robert Ruth.
• Success or Death, Ruiqi Zhao.
• Luv, Bomull.
• Still Fly, Revel Day.

Copyright 2022 Ramble by the River LLC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

intro

Jeff Nesbitt: But first I have some exciting announcements for a limited time Ramble by the River. Wants to give you a taste of the Wild. And I don't mean the popular high end dog food, I mean the actual Wild. We have a special promotion going on right now and you can find yourself with a handful of Woodland delights.

Jeff Nesbitt: I'm going to post a link to this episode on Instagram and Facebook. The first 10 listeners that repost that post and tag three friends will be entitled to one pound of fresh picked Wild Golden Chanterelles. Make sure one of the three friends is Ramble by the River so that we can count your entry.

Jeff Nesbitt: I scaled cliffs, I battled rain and wind, and I marched on foot through a dark forest teaming with bears, coyotes, and cougars, so that you might enjoy. Just for a few moments, this gustatory. A couple quick few minutes on a hot dry pan to wake these fairytale fungal fruits, and they become something of a flavor fantasy.

Jeff Nesbitt: Add some onion, some olive oil, salt and pepper. And now you have a meal fit for a king, a meal that is only available to a tiny portion of humans for a very limited time. In mere days, all of the Chanterelles will go back into hiding and will have to wait for their triumphant return next fall. But for now, we feast.

Jeff Nesbitt: This first story comes to us from cnn.

Jeff Nesbitt: Los Angeles resident iro. 70 was identified in the last three weeks using DNA analysis. The park said in a news release on Thursday and his family has [00:03:00] been notified. The investigation determined to the best of our knowledge that an unwitnessed incident involving the individual happened on the morning of July 31st, 2022 at the Abyss Pool and no foul play occurred.

Jeff Nesbitt: Park officials said, based on lack of evidence, the circumstances surrounding the death remain unknown. The Abyss pool has a depth of up to 53 feet. According to the National Park Service, its temperatures can reach approximately 140 degrees Fahrenheit. Water in these hot springs can severely burn visitors.

Jeff Nesbitt: The Park's website says that over 20 people have been killed in the geysers throughout the parks history

Jeff Nesbitt: Stay outta the hot springs fam. Stay alive.

Jeff Nesbitt: Also, some of 'em are full of acid and they will literally just melt you up. Just melt you right up. Stay safe out there.

Jeff Nesbitt: a US agency seeking to restore habitat for endangered fish. Gave final approval on Thursday to decommission four dams straddling the California Oregon border, the largest dam removal undertaking in US history. Dam removal is expected to improve the health of the Klamath River.

Jeff Nesbitt: The root that Chinook Salmon and endangered Cohos Salmon take from the Pacific Ocean to their upstream spawning grounds and from where the young fish returned to the sea. The US Federal Energy Regulatory Commission issued an order surrendering dam licenses and approving removal of the dams. The project has long been a goal of several native tribes whose ancestors have lived off the Salmon for centuries, but whose way of life was disrupted by European settlement and the demand for rural electrification in the 20th century. The Calamus Salmon are coming home. Joseph James, chairman of the U tribe said in a statement, the people have earned this victory.

Jeff Nesbitt: A unit of Warren Buffet's, Berkshire Hathaway.

Jeff Nesbitt: Faced with costly new regulations that included building fish screens and ladders. The company instead entered an agreement with the tribes and the US government to decommission the dam. Pacific Corp is contributing 200 million towards the damn removal project. Paid for by a surcharge on its customers in Oregon and California.

Jeff Nesbitt: I don't know. Who knows? This is gonna be cool though. I think there's a really good chance that the Salmon will come back. From what I have seen in most of these kind of restoration projects where they restore habitat, Salmon come back really fast within just a couple years.

Jeff Nesbitt: So hopefully we can look forward to really increased health of these Salmon runs on the Klamath River also Pacific Corp. By the way, when you said you're contributing $200 million towards dam removal, that means that you are paying. So if you say you, you're contributing that you cannot say it's paid for by a surcharge on its customers in Oregon and California.

Jeff Nesbitt: That means that they are paying for it. You son of a bitch, fucking rich people.

Jeff Nesbitt: Speaking of fucking rich people,

Jeff Nesbitt: You're gonna hear more about this story in the interview, so this is a nice little preface. The FTX Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing is shedding new light on just how bad the internal controls at the crypto exchange were up until it imploded in spectacular fashion last week. A particularly jarring disclosure is that the total fair value of crypto held by FTX International was just $659,000 as of the end of September.

Jeff Nesbitt: Especially, considering that he oversaw the liquidation of Enron Following their bankruptcy of over $60 billion in 2001.

Jeff Nesbitt: Clues were building that the internal numbers were going to be awful, especially given that FTX founder Sam Bankman Freed Caveated multiple Tweet storms about the finances of FTX as approximate and to the best of my knowledge and treat all of these numbers as rough.

Jeff Nesbitt: From compromised systems integrity and faulty regulatory oversight abroad to the concentration of control in the hands of a very small group of inexperienced, unsophisticated, and potentially compromised individuals. This situation is unprecedented. Ray said, wow. So this is continuing coverage on a story that has been unfolding for the last week or so.

Jeff Nesbitt: Ftx, the popular crypto exchange that has been blowing up the last couple years has gone tits. It collapsed. , the founder is now on the run. He was in The Bahamas. I think he's been detained. He has been detained along with his co-founder. They are not charged with anything yet, but it's looking bad for them.

Jeff Nesbitt: As for this, we'll continue the saga. Next week we'll probably give you another update.

Jeff Nesbitt: If you had any money in fdx, I genuinely feel for you. I hope you're able to get it out before the whole collapse. I luckily didn't have anything in there. Sorry to all of you who lost money in there. That's really unfortunate.

Jeff Nesbitt: and that's all we've got this week for news and current events. Ramble by the River is supported in part by the contributions from our generous subscribers. We call 'em the Ram Fam. And this dynamic collection of individuals have decided that they love Ramble by the River and they wanna see it thrive.

Jeff Nesbitt: Subscribers get early access to each free episode behind the scenes, updates about the show, private messaging with yours truly, and best of all, access to Ramble on the Road, the companion podcast to Ramble by the. This show is more personal, more intimate, and I record it from my truck as I drive, so it's full of real thoughts, real reactions, and real life.

Jeff Nesbitt: It's a good time. New subscribers to the Royal Rambler Tier will get a free Ramble by the River T-shirt sent to them in the mail after their third month. So don't forget to put in your mailing address when you. So if you wanna help support this fine local production and become part of a wonderful community of like-minded listeners, go to Ramble by the River dot com.

Jeff Nesbitt: Click subscribe. At the top of the page, . Select your subscription tier, and get listening today. You can reach out to Ramble by the River on social media by going to Ramble, by The River on Facebook and Instagram and Rambleriverpod on Twitter.

Jeff Nesbitt: My guest today is Matt Shannon. Matt is an information technology specialist who works in cybersecurity. He's worked for some high profile companies, including Boeing and Amazon. He graduated from the University of Washington with degrees in Philosophy and Information Technology, and he is a fellow Ilwaco Highschool alum.

Jeff Nesbitt: Matt's a hard worker and a really smart guy. Matt has built himself a very nice life. You'll hear about his humble beginnings traveling the country with his family selling Chinese glow sticks out of the family van, which also doubled as his school and his home. You'll hear about how he became a highly educated and successful IT professional in a competitive tech.

Jeff Nesbitt: Sometimes it was really clear to me as a kid, uh, and teenager that Matt's home life was not that great. That's just speculation. Who knows? Really, I never once heard him complain or even say anything remotely negative or critical. The benefits of Matt's positive mental outlook are obvious and made evident by his successes in life.

Jeff Nesbitt: I've always rooted for this guy and I can honestly say that he deserves every bit of success that he has had and every bit that he'll have in the future. Without further ado, please welcome the security engineer who lives without fear.

main.FINAL.Matt Shannon

Matt Shannon: Yeah, I'll talk . How is that?

Jeff Nesbitt: Pretty good. Pretty good.

Matt Shannon: Your writing set up here?

Jeff Nesbitt: Thank you. Yeah, I've got it set up so I could record video and I, I'm not recording video too because it keeps crash on my computer.

Jeff Nesbitt: Yeah, all right. Right. So let's try to make the mules. I've never made 'em before, but that's what I order in a restaurant.

Matt Shannon: Yeah, they're good. I like them. I also have not made them all

Jeff Nesbitt: right. So I think we do, um, we got ice in the mugs. I'm just gonna look it up. That way it won't taste like shit

Jeff Nesbitt: easy. All right. So we gotta first put in vodka.

Jeff Nesbitt: I got the crystal head vodka that Dan Arod makes. You have me one of those shot glasses.

Jeff Nesbitt: favorite spirit. Oh, okay. That's what I was just gonna ask. Are you a vodka man? Do you drink often?

Matt Shannon: Uh, like once or twice a month,

Jeff Nesbitt: something like that. That's a pretty healthy.

Matt Shannon: Probably less since the pandemic. It was more of a social thing. Oh yeah. For me, So now was pretty much only if I'm going out

Jeff Nesbitt: somewhere. Yeah, me too. I never drink at home unless I'm doing a podcast.

Jeff Nesbitt: God damn it. Making a mess. Sorry Matt.

Matt Shannon: Huh? At least it's alcohol and it'll evaporate.

Jeff Nesbitt: That's looking at the bright side. Okay. So the vodka's in there. Then we do lime.

Jeff Nesbitt: Half a lime for you. Half a lime for me. Squeeze that in there.

Matt Shannon: That's a lot of lime. I didn't realize there was that much in

Jeff Nesbitt: Hopefully it's not too much Lime. I just clicked in Google. I didn't even click one. I just did that bold text that they put at the top. It's like the top hit. Yeah, that thing is almost always wrong.

Jeff Nesbitt: Google seems less and less valuable. I agree. Like it's like an old mall. I heard somebody say this on the internet. I'm not gonna steal it, but I'm am gonna use it. It's like going into an old mall like a few years ago, it was like you walk around for a while, a lot of stores are kind of shitty. Uh, you never do end up finding what you need, you just leave.

Jeff Nesbitt: Uh, and now it's just like totally defunct. None of the things that pop up are something you're looking for. It's all sponsored links and a bunch of I relevant misinformation

I've

Matt Shannon: taken to putting like Reddit after anything. It's like, Oh me, Like whatever I'm looking for. Plus Reddit and usually there's so, Cause it's

Jeff Nesbitt: written by a person, not a corporation.

Jeff Nesbitt: Yep.

Jeff Nesbitt: And then ginger beer.

Jeff Nesbitt: can buy those spots. Yep. It's not

Matt Shannon: really, Even the ones that don't say sponsored are usually like garbage.

Matt Shannon: I don't trust them. Yeah.

Jeff Nesbitt: Because if you put the wrong thing, then you get no, no hits at all.

Jeff Nesbitt: Yeah. Keywords and SEO are all really important. And I cannot make myself care about that stuff. Yeah. It's so hard to

Matt Shannon: like a whole business around.

Jeff Nesbitt: Yeah.

Jeff Nesbitt: Must have more ice. And then the final touch.

Jeff Nesbitt: Beautiful. A sprig of mint.

Jeff Nesbitt: Cheers.

Jeff Nesbitt: So welcome to the show.

Matt Shannon: There's a couple different kinds of mules, right? I

Jeff Nesbitt: think there's probably endless varieties. I believe this is the classic.

Jeff Nesbitt: All right. Let's get this party started, shall we?

Jeff Nesbitt: So welcome to the show. Have you ever listened to it before? I have. Okay. So you're familiar with the chaos . We jump around in general, but um, I wanna hear about, well, a few different things. I've got some questions prepared, but, um, the, just looking over your Facebook, the thing that jumped out at me. Um, how long have you been working at Boeing?

Jeff Nesbitt: Uh,

Matt Shannon: I am no longer working at Boeing. Oh, you're not? How long

Jeff Nesbitt: have you not been working at Boeing? Uh, two years. Oh, it still says it on your Facebook. Man. Gotta update that Facebook . So what are you doing now? I work at Amazon now. Oh, okay. Go The same

Jeff Nesbitt: Awesome to hear because that means now you'll say your real opinions.

Jeff Nesbitt: Yeah. Instead of just saying whatever one things.

Matt Shannon: Yeah, same, same stuff. Um, one of my good friends and coworkers left Boeing and moved to Amazon on the team I'm on now, and I followed him.

Information Technology (Boeing, Twitter, Amazon, Google, Facebook, Meta) Marker

Jeff Nesbitt: So it information technology, what exactly does that mean?

Matt Shannon: Uh, I mean, that's the stuff that makes a world win . Um,

Jeff Nesbitt: I, for a Luddite, somebody who just barely can work a, a smartphone, what, what exactly do you do in it?

Matt Shannon: Sure. So gen it generally. Um, so you manage like corporate. Systems for web servers. So like there's a infrastructure behind websites to keep them up and running. And like if you're a big website, you're going to need to consider traffic coming from all around the world from potentially uh, hundreds of thousands or maybe even millions of users a day.

Jeff Nesbitt: generally, Did you see that Twitter was running a dev build yesterday? No, I missed that . That seems like a major mistake. Yeah, right In the first week of Elon's.

Matt Shannon: It seems like there's a lot of stuff going on with Twitter right now. I

Jeff Nesbitt: bet you that was not a mistake. Mistake. I bet you that was a, Hey, let's make this look bad mistake from somebody who had access but not good feelings towards Elon. The whole thing seems very tumultuous.

Matt Shannon: Yeah. Uh, I don't know. Firing 25% of your staff just off the cuff is pretty rough.

Jeff Nesbitt: Pretty rough. First day. Yeah. Management's hard though. I'm glad I don't have to worry about, I'm glad I don't have the ability to fire that many people. .

Matt Shannon: I would not wanna be a manager.

Jeff Nesbitt: One of

Matt Shannon: my good friend, actually, his girlfriend just got. So that

Jeff Nesbitt: sucks. Yeah. You know what I find interesting is that they're acting like it's because Mark Zuckerberg went all in on the metaverse. They're blaming that almost wholesale. That is not the reason. It's because Apple pulled out their ability to make money.

Jeff Nesbitt: Yep, That's exactly right. They can't make money on those ads anymore, and they lost like 40% of their profits. It's, it's something crazy.

Matt Shannon: It's things is that, and then there's, you know, regulation coming down on them across

Matt Shannon: that time.

Matt Shannon: I mean, also why they renamed,

Jeff Nesbitt: right? . Yeah. They, I think that's the thing. I think the Metaverse was just like a Hail Mary. Yeah. It's like we're, we're on the slide here, we gotta figure something out. This seems hip and people are talking about it. Little did they know that whole bubble was just gonna fucking implode.

Jeff Nesbitt: Mm-hmm. so hard. It's just smoking crater now.

Jeff Nesbitt: Yeah.

Jeff Nesbitt: That makes it difficult. Why, why do they focus on growth

Matt Shannon: over profits? Uh, I mean, it's been the startup culture with Silicon Valley for a while. As long as you can keep people believing that you eventually you're gonna be profitable because you'll cornered the whole market. Uh, people keep investing in your product.

Matt Shannon: I

Jeff Nesbitt: guess it did work for companies like Facebook. Mm-hmm. for, they were. Not profitable for so long until the ad model became a thing and then that was pretty short lived. Really? They made all that money in a very short amount of time. Like

Matt Shannon: Yeah. The last decade hasn't been very

Jeff Nesbitt: Yep. Yeah. Where do you think it goes from here? What's the next big thing? Um,

Jeff Nesbitt: I think they do. That's gonna be pretty cool.

Jeff Nesbitt: Also could have something to do with the reason why they decided to change their, uh, privacy policies. Mm-hmm. towards knowing that would do that to Facebook advertising specifically. Yeah. Yeah. Who's suddenly gonna be a competitor in the AR industry?

Matt Shannon: Yeah. Ar huge potential in that if like, potential to replace like smartphones.

Matt Shannon: The next big thing could be like AR glasses.

Jeff Nesbitt: Yeah. I would, I would wear 'em Sure. If they looked good and, and they weren't like, you know, causing radiation poisoning or whatever, we'll find that out Herell be Yeah. Seriously. The health world is so insane right now.

Jeff Nesbitt: Nobody knows what reality is. Yeah, talking to healthcare professionals versus talking to somebody who just gets their information from TV is a terrifying experience. Somebody who works in a hospital and the things that they say, um, they have a lot more in common with the conspiracy theorists than they do with the newscasters.

Jeff Nesbitt: But we don't wanna ruin our mood with talking about

Matt Shannon: three

Jeff Nesbitt: foot blood clots. Jesus. Yeah. Covid changed the world forever in so many different ways. It seems like for technology it probably had a pretty substantially positive impact overall cuz it forced, it forced a lot of innovation really fast in a fast amount of time.

Jeff Nesbitt: What are the biggest changes you saw that that stuck around

Matt Shannon: from Covid? Yeah. Uh, I mean the work from home thing is huge, uh, across the variety of industries. Like any anybody who, any jobs where you don't have to be in person. We've seen a lot of movement towards work from home. You work from home? Yeah.

Matt Shannon: Pretty much

Jeff Nesbitt: full time. It's pretty nice, huh?

Matt Shannon: Uh, I mean, it's mixed. I miss seeing people in the office, but like, if no one's going in, there's no point for me to go

Jeff Nesbitt: in. Yeah. Who are you gonna play air hockey with yourself? I, I mean, I assume that's a tech company thing, right? They got the pool tables. Uh,

Jeff Nesbitt: Oh, yeah. They make you put a timer when you pee, right. ? Or is that just the people in the

Matt Shannon: warehouse? Uh, no comment. .

Jeff Nesbitt: Oh yeah. No, I won't bash. I won't bash Amazon. I am a big fan. I, I sure they do. They do, uh, have a reputation for being hard asses to their lower level employees, but, um, they are an efficient company.

Jeff Nesbitt: They get stuff to your house so quickly. That would've been absolutely unheard of 20 years ago. Mm-hmm. to think that this would be a viable industry. Like the main way people get goods is to just get 'em on the internet and have him delivered right to your door. Yeah. It's a

Matt Shannon: crazy concept, right? Yeah.

Matt Shannon: Just from like, when we were growing up, you had to go places to get whatever, or you wait like two weeks or for

Jeff Nesbitt: the, or more. Yeah. I, yeah, and just the delivery, like the delivery services alone. That industry has improved so much because of Amazon.

Matt Shannon: Right. It's not just Amazon. It's forced other companies to catch up.

Jeff Nesbitt: days or something. Oh, speaking of non-profitable companies, how does DoorDash make any fucking money? It seems like that would be such an, like, such a money pit of an industry.

Jeff Nesbitt: Like how many times does this food need to change hands before it gets to the consumer?

Matt Shannon: Yeah. Oh, I think a lot of companies like that are struggling

Jeff Nesbitt: right now. Like, how does that even exist? I, I thought the same thing about Uber though, and they seem to be doing fine.

Matt Shannon: Yeah. Uh, they, at least for Seattle, and I'm sure they're high or margin cities where they've passed legislation where they require certain levels of pay for the drivers, They've passed that on to the consumers.

Matt Shannon: So it's like if you order something in Seattle, you get a surcharge that you're paying with the difference.

Jeff Nesbitt: I don't know how much taxis used to cost, but it costs me like 30 bucks to go from a hotel to downtown. It's like less than 10 minutes. Uh, the last time I stayed

Jeff Nesbitt: I never did jump on the Airbnb trade.

Jeff Nesbitt: I, we rented one for a bachelor party, but other than that, I just, I like hotels. I've always loved hotels. Even though they're filthy, they seem clean and like they just, something about it. It's got a nice vibe. I enjoy going. Makes you feel like, I don't know, fancy. It's just nice. Uh, if, yeah, there are some, uh, some cool things about Airbnbs.

Jeff Nesbitt: Little

Matt Shannon: differences you can end up in places where there aren't hotels, I think is Oh yeah, that's true. Both the advantage and disadvantage.

Jeff Nesbitt: Yeah. Yeah. And a lot of people don't wanna sleep in their car. Yeah. When I first got together with Melissa, my wife, she, uh, knowing her now, I would never have asked her to do that.

Travel, culture, and leisure Marker

Jeff Nesbitt: Was this like a camper van or just, Just, just your regular Dodge, like family van. Okay. Yeah. But, um, yeah, now we always get hotels. , she's, she's definitely changed me and I've fancied myself up a little bit too. I used to be fine with a Motel six or whatever, but now I just, I, I think Marriotts are nice.

Jeff Nesbitt: Anything below that, you know, kind of, Do you travel very much? No. Mostly just for kids sports and mm-hmm. and things like that. Mm-hmm. Me and Melissa will go on a vacation once a year, probably a short couple day thing, but nothing, nothing crazy. I saw a picture on your Facebook of you, it looked like you were in the Middle East holding some kind of a sand board.

Matt Shannon: Yeah. Uh, Morocco. Morocco, North Africa.

Jeff Nesbitt: Oh, wow. Is that considered a Middle East? No, it's, it's definitely the hot deserty area. Yeah, it

Jeff Nesbitt: Oh, okay. Nice. What were you doing out there? Vacation. Vacation? Yeah. Nice. You travel a

Matt Shannon: lot?

Matt Shannon: Like every two years we'll go on a larger trip. Um, we're actually going to the Philippines and Taiwan and South Korea in February. Cool.

Jeff Nesbitt: What do you do on vacation? Like how do you vacation? Uh, food. I like food. Oh yeah, dude, me too. That's my favorite.

Matt Shannon: Uh, I dunno. We also do like cultural stuff. I'm not big on museums or sites, but, We'll, we'll you're not big on

Jeff Nesbitt: museums.

Jeff Nesbitt: I would see you as a

Matt Shannon: guy. Okay. Uh, it depends. Yeah. Speaking of, we just went to the Maritime Museum in Astoria yesterday.

Jeff Nesbitt: That was pretty cool. Yeah, That's pretty good.

Early life (van life, homeschool, and living on the road) Marker

Jeff Nesbitt: That's probably nostalgic for you too, just having grown up here and

Matt Shannon: knowing Yeah. I've never been there. Yeah. And that museum's been there forever, so.

Jeff Nesbitt: All that mixed together is kind of. And I wasn't really part of that. I was more part of like, growing up the weird church people. Um, but yeah. You that, Yeah. Were you into the weird church people group too?

Matt Shannon: Yeah. I went to a lot of youth group growing up and part of the Baptist church near Ocean Park.

Jeff Nesbitt: Oh yeah.

Jeff Nesbitt: By the, the Peninsula Baptist. The by the pool. I went there for a while. It was a

Matt Shannon: good church. Yeah. I went to their summer camps

Jeff Nesbitt: quite a bit as a kid. Did you go to Duns Bible camp? Mm-hmm. . Okay. Yeah, my nephew went this year. He was pretty excited. I never went to that one. I enjoyed

Matt Shannon: Mm-hmm. . And if I wasn't there, I was, My parents made work the summer, so it was What were you, what were you doing for work? Uh, I don't know, like, cleaning up around our lot. My dad was eternally building a house, which is still not completed.

Jeff Nesbitt: I was gonna ask about that. Is he still in that same

Matt Shannon: lot? Yeah.

Matt Shannon: Well, they don't live there anymore. They bought a place on Woodby. Oh, cool. Uh, so yeah, it's even less likely to get completed , I think. Uh, I'm gonna inherit it and

Jeff Nesbitt: have to do it. Mm-hmm. , are you handy? Do you like to build stuff? Uh, when it's, when it's for

Matt Shannon: fun, I'm into like electronic building stuff. That way you build your own computers.

Matt Shannon: Yeah. Yeah. Uh, I don't know. I guess I, I wouldn't mind doing it. It's kind of a job though. Full time. Yeah,

Jeff Nesbitt: it's a lot of work. Yeah. It's, it really is. I like just owning a house that somebody else built and having to fix it when it breaks. That's a lot of work on its own. When we bought our

Matt Shannon: house, I was like, I don't wanna fix her up.

Jeff Nesbitt: Yeah. Yeah. Definitely. It's, it's like that everywhere too. You never, nothing ever stays new forever. You just, eventually it all feels the same, like mm-hmm.

Jeff Nesbitt: no matter where I've lived after, I'd say two years, even less one year, it's like, this is just my house again. It's like my, my piles of junker all over the place in the same way I've always left them everywhere else. It's just, it looks like my house. Like, uh, no matter what, it just goes with you. But you always think, especially when I was a kid, I would about how like, oh, things would be so much different if I was in a nice house.

Jeff Nesbitt: And it's not true. You gotta bring that attitude to the nice house to make it nice. Yep. It's all about you. It all starts with you, So you had kind of a unique childhood, um, with your parents building that house, Right. So did you, can you tell me about that a little bit? Because I know it was non-traditional.

Jeff Nesbitt: As far back as you

Matt Shannon: wanna start? Uh, .

Jeff Nesbitt: Sure. When I first met you was probably fifth grade.

Matt Shannon: And you, Did you see that presentation? I did. Which one? We came back from a trip cuz my parents took me outta school for, I dunno, four months. I'm sure I saw it. Yeah. Yeah. They made us do a whole presentation thing with like poster board and Okay.

Matt Shannon: In order to get credit .

Jeff Nesbitt: Was that in like sixth grade? Fifth?

Matt Shannon: I think fifth. I do remember fifth or sixth. I remember it

Jeff Nesbitt: might have been sixth. Yeah. when I, when I first remember seeing you though, I remember cuz you were in my brother's class, they were in fourth, fifth split and you guys were in a play together and um, you and Jake were kind of buddies, right?

Jeff Nesbitt: Yeah. And I remember you were my age. I was like, Oh, I'm gonna know this guy at some point. And that's the first And you, you dressed differently than the other kids and you had a lot of keys and on a necklace and I was like, this guy's got something little possess.

Matt Shannon: Yeah. Okay. I remember that now that you've said that.

Matt Shannon: But I haven't thought about that

Matt Shannon: My parents, my dad especially always has like this gigantic thing of keys. It'll be like a hundred keys.

Jeff Nesbitt: Mm-hmm. just, Does he know what they're all to? No. . I just went through my keying the other day. I didn't know what half of em were to.

Jeff Nesbitt: Yeah.

Matt Shannon: It's weird. I'm not even sure I know what all the keys on my keying are. Two and I only have like 10

Jeff Nesbitt: or less. Yeah. Cause how often do you get rid of keys? Right? Like somebody gives you keys, you might need it at some point. Yeah. You never

Matt Shannon: know. I think I changed the locks. My wife, uh, her car at work got broken into and somebody stole it purse and her keys were on it.

Matt Shannon: So I had to rekey the locks to the That's a pain in the ass. Yeah. I was, I was like, ah, I can do this myself. And so I did it myself. Yeah. But, uh, I had to rekey our garage door and our front door had the, the same key mm-hmm. and so I had Toke 'em all the same. But, uh, I think I still have the previous keys on my key R Oh yeah.

Jeff Nesbitt: Okay. So you were, that was your first time with, That was

Matt Shannon: my first time in, in public school. Okay. Sort of, I went to half of fifth grade in, Whitby.

Matt Shannon: Okay. In Coville, uh, or like first through December

Jeff Nesbitt: or something. So up to up to fifth grade homeschooled. Mm-hmm.

Matt Shannon: Uh, I should say. I think I went to school briefly in third grade in Texas.

Jeff Nesbitt: Were you

Matt Shannon: guys just traveling a lot? Yeah. So my parents, uh, growing up, the way they made money was selling at festivals.

Matt Shannon: I'm sure you saw us selling stuff at some point. Yeah. So like handmade stuff. Yeah. Uh, Some of that. Yeah. And then also like imported toys from like China. Okay. Like, uh, I don't know, uh, like puppets. Those, you throw 'em on the ground, they explode. Or

Jeff Nesbitt: like festival type stuff, Like the guy with all the bubble wands.

Matt Shannon: in that enough to survive in Long Beach ? Yeah. But not enough. I don't know about now. Yeah. I think that's maybe kinda

Jeff Nesbitt: gone away with now. Everything is like that. Everyone's selling anything in this country is selling Chinese stuff. Yep. So you guys are traveling around selling

Matt Shannon: Chinese good.

Matt Shannon: Yeah. So that meant we traveled a lot. Right. Because in the winter up here, there's not a lot of outdoor festivals to sell things at. So, uh, we'd moved to like California or Texas and move out of our van,

Jeff Nesbitt: van life. Yeah. That's very

Matt Shannon: trendy now. And that was up until fifth grade. So that's you. Mm-hmm. . That's why we were homeschooled.

Jeff Nesbitt: You know what's crazy as an adult now to think about? 10 years doesn't feel like a crazy amount of time. Like 10 years from now, it's not gonna seem like that much amount of time, but to my kids it's like huge.

Jeff Nesbitt: This is the, I'm building the lens through which I will see the entire rest of my life. And it's, it's hard to appreciate that when you're in it because either you're the kid and you have no idea, or you're the adult and you're just trying to live, like you're just trying to get by and then in retrospect you can look back and see like where, like what it actually was.

Jeff Nesbitt: Does that make sense? Yeah. Like when I look back at my own childhood and how substantial some of these experiences I had were to me, and they were just nothing to my parents, because they're, it was just part of their everyday life. It's, it's, I don't know, it's interesting. It makes me be, try to be a more conscious parent about the stuff that I think is no big deal, , and then I, I'm like, maybe I don't think it's a big deal, but that maybe affected my kid more than it would've affected me.

Jeff Nesbitt: And I have to be aware of that as well, if that makes

Matt Shannon: Okay. Uh, this was probably fifth grade actually. . Oh yeah. Uh, and it was a big deal to me. But you know, he was, Yeah. He had other stuff. He had work to do. He was like, I gotta finish this up before I go down there. And so we ended up being

Jeff Nesbitt: late. Yeah, that's a perfect example. Cause that's something that I would, and I still remember it.

Jeff Nesbitt: Right. Exactly. Exactly. It's not a big deal now, but, And you even now know that it wasn't a big deal then, but that little boy in there still is still hurt by it. It doesn't matter like what kind of rationalizations you throw on top of it. You have to actually like, acknowledge pain, from the perspective of the little kid.

Jeff Nesbitt: Like, it's okay that, that hurt. Um, which is hard to do. It's hard to do. Do you still have a good relationship with your parents?

Matt Shannon: Oh, I'm so sorry. We're dealing with that. It sucks, but we're visiting a lot now. It was kind of hard during Covid because, you know, didn't wanna get him sick. Yeah. That was

Jeff Nesbitt: shitty. That was a really horrible time. I'm glad people can hug again. Mm-hmm. that has made the world a better place, but still is weird, but it's definitely improving.

Matt Shannon: But like, so now we're seeing them. Every other week or something. Something like that. So

Jeff Nesbitt: how far along is it?

Matt Shannon: Uh, it sounds like he's gonna be okay. Oh, good. Uh, very high chance of survival. 97%. I think that's, that's great. I think it's still gonna be rough on him. Yeah.

Jeff Nesbitt: Treatment and stuff. I've got a friend who's dealing with that right now and he's like, It's yeah.

Matt Shannon: I am very grateful that my parents let me know. Yeah,

Jeff Nesbitt: exactly. Exactly. Um,

Matt Shannon: you know, you kind of think that, you don't think about how much time you have left with people until something like that happens. At some point, you're going to have a moment that's the last moment with them and you probably won't know when it is.

Jeff Nesbitt: I think about that often because, so I got my older kids when they were five and seven, and so I miss the baby, baby stage. I didn't get to do that. So when I had my daughter Amelia, I, I knew and I got a vasectomy when she was like three months old. So I'm like, This is it. This is the only time you get to have a, a newborn.

Jeff Nesbitt: That's the whole zest of life is like being in those moments with people. It doesn't mean anything when you're having those experiences alone, that's not to say you can't have meaningful experiences alone. If anyone's listening to this alone and is offended by that, I'm just saying , meaning is derived from shared experiences.

Jeff Nesbitt: It I really do believe that. And yeah. But it's hard to, uh, appreciate the hard stuff in the moment. Anyway. I think we got distracted. Um, we were talking about your childhood.

Matt Shannon: Yeah. So, so yeah. So fifth grade was, we went to school and we'd be, we lived, uh, in a, like a trailer park up there for a while. Uh, a couple months through the summer.

Matt Shannon: I suppose it was like, cause I went to summer school up there, so I guess that would be fourth grade through beginning of fifth grade.

Jeff Nesbitt: Did you know that you were smart then? Like, because you were in homeschool you didn't have a lot to compare it to? Right. Um, cuz I remember when you showed up in public school, you were like, you knew a lot more than most of the other kids.

Jeff Nesbitt: Yeah, you're one of the smart mats. ,

Matt Shannon: one of the smart mats. We had a few . Um,

Jeff Nesbitt: no, like I, I remember a handful of kids that I, I considered to be my intellectual equals or betters.

Jeff Nesbitt: And you were definitely in that mix. Matt, Bellinger, Matt, Shannon, Laura, Um, let's, there wasn't that many, if I'm forgetting you. You weren't smart enough, . Uh, yeah. But you were definitely a bright kid, so you must, you guys must have actually done lessons and stuff in homeschool.

Matt Shannon: Yeah, yeah. I'm, I was pretty good at self-study.

Books, reading, and literacy Marker

Matt Shannon: Uh, she gave me one of the Red Wall series of books. Oh, Fucking Love Red Wall. And I was like hooked at that point on that. And Manic McGee or something, something like that. There's this book called Bipolar Bob or something. It's this kid who just like runs all over town solving problems. Like he untangles this, uh, knot that nobody had been able to untangle.

Matt Shannon: He's like a MacGyver of, of sorts. Yeah. Nice. Uh, but those two books, and I was like, Okay, I like reading. I'm gonna keep reading.

Jeff Nesbitt: Yeah. It really is, uh, reading is the magic key to take you where you wanna be. It's the truth. It's the. I, I don't think I would be the person I am without reading cuz I, I think that's the only thing that really gave me a leg up is I, I loved to read early and my parents would read to me, as a little kid, a lot.

Art and Artificial Intelligence Marker

Jeff Nesbitt: I was just like, oh, it just like flows outta my head because I've read so many damn books that I know how it would sound in a book.

Jeff Nesbitt: It's almost like that predictive, ai. Have you seen that GP GPC three, Is that right? Yeah. GPT three. GPT three. That shit is amazing. The text generation stuff.

Jeff Nesbitt: Yeah. Which I think is the same structure that they use for the image generation

Matt Shannon: stuff too. They just feed it different

Jeff Nesbitt: data. I got access to that dolly too. Mm-hmm. . Very cool. Very cool. I was on this project about a year ago called Contrastive, which was, uh, same trying to do the same thing. AI image generation from text prompts and um, they ended up going belly up about three months ago, or four months ago now.

Matt Shannon: too, right?

Matt Shannon: Yeah. They were like 40 pixels by 40 pixels or maybe

Jeff Nesbitt: slightly and like pictures of just smears or, or nothing. And now what they can do is just unreal. Like there's the mid journey's really good and uh, cuz that one does faces too. I think I played it with that a little bit. It's really cool. But Dolly too contorts the faces I think for legal reasons.

Jeff Nesbitt: Like they don't want somebody to make

Matt Shannon: fake. I think I played with that and I was like trying to generate like Natalie Portman or something. I'm like, Oh, that, that's a scary face. . Yeah.

Jeff Nesbitt: They won't let you do it. Yeah, they give you horrifying faces. It's not as good, but it doesn't matter. A very short time from now, everything will be fable.

Jeff Nesbitt: It's, it's fable now, but you just kind of need to have a little bit of technical savvy. Yeah, I've seen

Matt Shannon: some, uh, I don't know, like beta builds of voice stuff where they can emulate people's

Jeff Nesbitt: And you can do Morgan Freeman. Uh, every famous voice you can think of, uh, just voice modulator that just put your voice right in it. And it does intonation and like the patterning of the voices too, which is like the most important part cuz you can get the, like the tam. And if you don't phrase things the way that the person does or you don't like, pause where they would pause.

Jeff Nesbitt: It doesn't sound like the person, Yeah. It's crazy what they can do They did a AI podcast with Joe Rogan and Steve Jobs was completely 100% generated from artificial intelligence content as well. Content, everything. Just from listening to Joe Rogan's podcast and then listening to recordings of Steve Jobs, um, giving conversations and having

Matt Shannon: speechs, it's both very, um, promising and also very scary at the same time.

Matt Shannon: Oh, I mean, just like the amount of content that can be generated. Um, there's, well, let me back up a bit. I think what is likely to happen, at least in the short term, is for this to be another tool for designers and creative people freeing up

Jeff Nesbitt: their minds to create more, right?

Matt Shannon: They're gonna be thinking about the prompts to feed into this, to get stuff out.

Jeff Nesbitt: Yeah. That's gonna be a whole new job is a prop, a prompt engineer.

Matt Shannon: Like, and then like picking which of the results you want out. Yeah. And then maybe feeding that back into the model.

Jeff Nesbitt: That's how you get the really good ones, is you take a image that was generated by the AI and put it back into the same AI and tell it how to tweak it and then he gets up.

Jeff Nesbitt: That's really cool.

Matt Shannon: Yeah. So I think that's probably a lot of creative. People who are working on creative endeavors right now are going to start using these as tools. Mm-hmm. and free up a lot of the busy work that they're doing.

Jeff Nesbitt: Like, the podcast is a great example. I just wanted to make a pod. I just wanted to have conversations with people and record 'em and then send it out like that. I thought that would be that easy. Like I thought the podcast would get posted right after I recorded it cuz it's just a conversation that just, you know, gets pumped out.

Jeff Nesbitt: Yeah. It, it was so much different than that. It takes me hours and hours to edit these and, um, I have even almost completely stopped doing social media stuff just because I got burned out. I just like, I can't do it anymore. That might not be the worst thing. . It's just not good for your head. Yeah. It's like I don't even, I have a, a strong desire to not be perceived.

Jeff Nesbitt: And. Why, like, why, why, why make your, And then I'm checking back to see if they like the thing that I didn't even want them to see. Like, what the fuck? That makes no sense. Why would I do that? So instead, I'm just gonna make podcasts because I think it's fun. And then that's all I'm gonna do.

Matt Shannon: I have to say, back to the technical issues with your podcast, I really think your audio quality is really good.

Matt Shannon: Um, Thank you. Thank you. It's very noticeable when a podcast doesn't have good audio,

Jeff Nesbitt: I turn it off right away. Yep. I do not, It's grading to your ears. Yeah. And it's really easy to make one like that. It's like hard not to because yeah. I had no idea how much went into just getting good quality sound. It's like the mics, these mics do a lot of the work on their own.

Matt Shannon: the thing that's noticeable to me, uh, if it's a bad podcast is like clipping up at the, the top end. I think that's the term. I'm not audio engineer, but, um, or like, like a high pitched whistle when somebody talks mm-hmm.

Matt Shannon: whatever the term for that is. But

Jeff Nesbitt: yeah, you can get rid of that with limiters. I didn't know. I just learned about those like six months ago. I've learned a lot about, um, how to make the quality sound just from trying to learn how to produce music. And it's so much harder to produce music, like to get a song that actually sounds full.

Jeff Nesbitt: And balanced is, to me impossible. But I think even to really good producers, quite difficult. It's not just as the, just recording someone playing music. You have to balance it and, and somehow get it to fill the, the whole sound. And it's almost like you're working on a 3D art, like a, a 3D landscape of sound, but it's completely visual in your head.

Jeff Nesbitt: It's confusing as hell. And I had no idea. And I, cuz I like making music. I think it's really fun, but it's hard. Yeah. I'm talking too

Matt Shannon: much . Do you think you notice defects more because you're producing music? Like has it changed how you perceive other types of music

Jeff Nesbitt: that are not your actually Yeah. But, but po in a positive way?

Matt Shannon: a lot of work going into

Jeff Nesbitt: producing it. Yeah, and I think I was, I, for a lot of my life I've been able to look down my nose at pop music.

Jeff Nesbitt: Um, that, that I didn't personally like. Even though I love tons of shitty pop music, the, the stuff that wasn't my style, I would always act like, Ooh, I'm better than that. But now I don't, I don't really think that at all. I think it's all really difficult to make. What kinda music do you listen to?

Matt Shannon: Oh, I would listen to a lot of stuff.

Matt Shannon: Uh, actually a better, that's what I'm doing. It's

Jeff Nesbitt: activity based for me. Whats serviced do you listen to? How do you get your music?

Matt Shannon: Music, YouTube, music? Uh, because I don't want ads on YouTube. Mostly . Yeah. And you know, it's a bundled music service, so I use it.

Jeff Nesbitt: It's fine. Is that the same as YouTube tv?

Is

Matt Shannon: it, is that, No, I think you have to pay X for that.

Matt Shannon: That's, that's the, like you get live TV and

Jeff Nesbitt: stuff. Okay. Like cable

Matt Shannon: networks? Uh, I think so. Oh. I don't subscribe to it, but I think so, yeah. I never know what it was.

Jeff Nesbitt: I just found out about this. This is TikTok for

Matt Shannon: YouTube. Yeah. I've not been impressed by that. They keep, uh, sending you the same thing over and over again. Like, you'll watch something and then like I've seen you go back to watch it and then like a week later it'll be the same short.

Jeff Nesbitt: Yeah. That's no good.

Jeff Nesbitt: I'm sure their algorithm will. They need to get some of those TikTok designers on for their algorithm cuz they are good. Yep. They're, I

Matt Shannon: recently uninstalled

Jeff Nesbitt: TikTok. I have been tempted, It's reading my mind. I don't know how it does it. It's very good. It, the statistical probability of it being able to predict some of the things that it predicts that I have already been thinking about that now I'm watching videos about it is astronomically small, like their model must be so fucking good and it must be taking data points in ways that I'm unaware of.

Matt Shannon: Yeah. There have been, uh, some security issues I think

Jeff Nesbitt: with that. They read all your text messages. They take all your pictures, they take, they can check your email. Like they can go through any part of your phone.

Jeff Nesbitt: That's not good. Yeah. That was

Matt Shannon: part of my choice.

Jeff Nesbitt: But they are the very best at providing a three minute video that I actually wanna

Matt Shannon: watch. Yeah. I was spending, I don't know, 30 minutes a day just watching meaningless videos. So just

Jeff Nesbitt: barely getting your feet wet.

Matt Shannon: Yeah. Yeah.

Jeff Nesbitt: Right. Some people are like five, six hours on there.

Jeff Nesbitt: Like five or six hours a day. Kids. What is that doing to your brain? Like, can you imagine what that's doing to their brains? Mm-hmm. , I think it's doing nothing. I think it's making their brains just go into a frozen. State of animation. Well, it's not like you learned

Matt Shannon: anything from it. Like most of it's just entertaining.

Matt Shannon: But even if it's like some kind of educational TikTok, let's say, how to cook something. Mm-hmm. , it's gone as soon as you get

Jeff Nesbitt: Yeah. It's just taste tastes good for, I like watching this. Yeah. It's not, it's not really healthy in the long run. It's different than YouTube too. Cuz with YouTube you can set an intention and be like, I'm gonna go learn how to play guitar. And then you find yourself guitar lessons and you sit down with your guitar and you play the lesson and do the thing.

Jeff Nesbitt: Yeah. Or

Matt Shannon: you're just like, well maybe there's something to

Jeff Nesbitt: it. And there probably is something, but probably not what those crazy people think. And probably not whatever conclusions your brain is gonna put together based on TikTok videos. Mm-hmm. like. I don't know, , but the world's a different place in it.

Jeff Nesbitt: It was a very short time ago. And TikTok has got a lot to do with it. Yep. Do you have social media in general? Yeah. Yeah. Social media in general. I think Facebook is dead. I don't, Do you ever post on Facebook? No. When's the last time you did?

Matt Shannon: Uh, I have no idea. I don't even have that up on my phone. I only check it for my computer.

Jeff Nesbitt: Yeah. It's, it feels like a waste of time.

Matt Shannon: I can't even, I can't recall the last time I did. It's months at

Jeff Nesbitt: least it stopped giving me dopamine like six years ago. And I really haven't used it.

Matt Shannon: Just made me mad, I think. Do you use Twitter? It's like, Huh? I do for work.

Jeff Nesbitt: Does that make you mad? I don't, Not really.

Matt Shannon: Mm-hmm. and it's just like stuff to make me upset, I think. Yeah. That's, that's what it feels

Jeff Nesbitt: like. That's probably what it is. Yeah. I mean, they've pretty much to get you to interact with it for a long time that that's what they do. Yeah. Outrage makes more clicks than joy or peace or anything that's actually beneficial to society.

Jeff Nesbitt: Yeah. That's a problem. That's a major problem.

Jeff Nesbitt: I thought it was your wife, but it's my daughter.

Matt Shannon: Okay. Uh, well, I, I should make clear that I'm security engineer for corporations. So my experience is focused there, but you're also human. Uh, but, uh,

Matt Shannon: I would say the, the way most people's accounts and personal lives gets compromised is one of two ways. Either somebody fishes you so they convince, they send you an email, probably, uh, or text message these days. Um, and they convince you to click a link and enter your password somewhere. Uh, or some service that you use gets compromised and they get your password that way.

Jeff Nesbitt: Yeah. That's pretty, pretty bad. But everyone's always heard that everyone always don't reuse passwords, but people still do constantly mm-hmm.

Jeff Nesbitt: and, um, they don't feel anything happen because a lot of attacks now happen and you don't ever know. Right. What do you mean? Is it possible for somebody to get your access to your phone? Um, I forget what the name of that virus was that, I don't even think they call 'em viruses anymore, but whatever the malware that it can, it gets a back door to your phone to where they can get in and get basically like a phantom version of your phone and they can see everything you're doing, everything that you're, you have access to, and you will never

Matt Shannon: know.

Matt Shannon: I would say most people don't need to worry about that.

Matt Shannon: that's why. But if they are targets, right? So, so, okay. The, the thing most people should do is consider what is called their threat model.

Matt Shannon: Um, which is who, who do you need to be concerned about? What, what, who's gonna target you? Um, if you're just an everyday person, you don't have political connections, you're not an activist, you probably don't need to worry about somebody directly targeting you and you are then, then you, they shit anyway.

Matt Shannon: Probably. But, but there are, if you are one of those high risk groups, then you're gonna have to make a large number of changes that are gonna mean differences in the way you do things than a normal person would. Right. It means you don't install certain apps on your phone like TikTok. Sure, Yeah. Uh,

Jeff Nesbitt: or face, Face app or whatever that Russian one

Matt Shannon: was.

Jeff Nesbitt: glad I don't have anything people want . That could be definitely problematic. It's, it's hassle enough just to manage passwords as an individual citizen.

Jeff Nesbitt: Mm-hmm. . Just to know like I'm somewhat secure even though I get an email every six months about some big data breach that I was involved in. Yeah. It's pretty

Matt Shannon: regularly these days. It sucks. Um, for me, I just don't know most of my passwords, uh, because I use a password manager like the Apple one. Yeah, Apple one's good.

Matt Shannon: Uh, I use KeyPass. I'm a Android Windows

Jeff Nesbitt: guy. Oh, but Android guy. Huh? Interesting. Just Android? No, not, you're not a both. Uh, I have a Mac for work. Okay, so you're in the walled garden. Yeah. But you don't like it there? No,

Matt Shannon: that is specifically why Yeah.

Jeff Nesbitt: Controlling my machine. Yeah, yeah, Yeah. You don't want to call somebody and take the thing in to get access, so, yeah.

Jeff Nesbitt: That's something that drives me nuts, Aren't they

Matt Shannon: moving to usbc? There's some EU thing that just came out. They're

Jeff Nesbitt: supposed to be, and they're like somewhat moving into that, uh, realm, but I don't know. It almost seems like Apple, they build everything so nice and, and pretty and perfect, and then they just wanna make sure to, to jab you once in a very obvious way.

Jeff Nesbitt: Like not giving you a headphone jack. Mm-hmm. or not giving you like, this has two, not usbc. Yeah, exactly. It's just like, come on. But

Matt Shannon: I don't know. Yeah. I, I hate how few ports laptops have now. Yeah. It's really annoying. This should be like, if you wanna have a mouse, you get

Jeff Nesbitt: one other thing. That's it.

Jeff Nesbitt: Exactly. I, using all kinds of adapters and

Matt Shannon: docs. I think I have that same one or one very similar. It's a

Jeff Nesbitt: good one. The black one. Yeah, it's a good one. You can plug the USBC into that one. Mm-hmm. And then plug it into the computer.

Matt Shannon: It makes people Yeah. I do like that. It, it powers the

Jeff Nesbitt: That is pretty cool. Yeah. I mean, shouldn't complain. The technology's amazing. I can't even believe that it does some of the things that it does. I remember, I mean, when we were in Highschool, you couldn't really. Be on two websites at the same time, it would shut your computer down. Took to load too. Yeah.

Jeff Nesbitt: Its like, talk about having multiple tabs open.

Matt Shannon: Are you crazy? We're very spoiled now. . Yeah, exactly. I'm really bad with tabs. Uh, both at work and at home. I just have like a hundred tabs open. Oh man.

Jeff Nesbitt: That would cause so much anxiety in my, I've got

Matt Shannon: browser extensions where you like, can do tab groups. Oh yeah.

Matt Shannon: And I still have like a hundred tabs in a group .

Jeff Nesbitt: But doesn't that do, like, doesn't that eat up your ram?

Matt Shannon: Um, no. Usually they'll like sleep the, they just keep track of what the URLs are and then reopen 'em as

Jeff Nesbitt: the Oh yeah, that makes sense. Something about like, it's like, uh, it, it feels like tabs in my actual mind.

Jeff Nesbitt: Like, uh, I need to be able to close 'em and delete 'em and close, like everything has to be closed on my desktop. I can't see. I think there's, there's a low

Jeff Nesbitt: you know.

Jeff Nesbitt: Oh yeah. It's like you have a giant junk pile full of tools. Yes. And you just go buy the new tool because you don't wanna dig through the junk pile. That's exactly what it's like. . Yeah. Yeah. That's funny. So how long have you been married now?

Jeff Nesbitt: 2014.

Matt Shannon: Uh, Chicago. Oh, yeah. Um, the windy city, we, we paid for our own wedding, so we were kind of broke. Mm-hmm. . Uh, and so we went to Chicago and Indianapolis for a board gaming convention and hit up the Dunes Park that's like giant sand dunes, uh, right on the Great Lakes.

Jeff Nesbitt: call it a small sea. Yeah. Just call it an inland sea. They're, Yeah. The fact that they have like weather. Do these have to be salty? I don't know.

Jeff Nesbitt: Probably.

Matt Shannon: Cause maybe that's why they don't call 'em that.

Jeff Nesbitt: That makes sense. Don't know. I don't know. I'm not a, I'm not a water photographer. Yeah.

Matt Shannon: Hydrologist.

Jeff Nesbitt: Yeah. Um, yeah, they're, they're cool though. I've never been, I've never been to that part of the country. Period. I forget it exists sometimes, to be honest.

Jeff Nesbitt: It's like, Oh yeah. There's a Minnesota Did

Matt Shannon: I answer all your, uh, what you were asking about growing up? I think we, mostly,

Jeff Nesbitt: my questions are mostly just conversation stimulators. Okay.

Matt Shannon: So wherever the goes. Yeah. I ended up in here in fifth grade.

Jeff Nesbitt: So , fifth grade. Hank the cow dog. You were in a production uhhuh?

Jeff Nesbitt: I was, if I recall,

Matt Shannon: I was an narrator.

Philosophy and Logic (Marker)

Matt Shannon: Yeah. Um, I took, uh, a class my freshman year and like the intro to philosophy class 1 0 1 or whatever.

Matt Shannon: And I just really liked the way you get to structure arguments and like make a point and then support it with facts.

Jeff Nesbitt: It's wonderful. Yeah. It's the best occasion styles ever. .

Matt Shannon: That's great. I'm probably over. I've gotten better, but I think especially like in Highschool, I was fairly argumentative and you know, it's how my dad communicated with me.

Jeff Nesbitt: So you're also very polite though, so you never came off as an asshole, but

Matt Shannon: like, if, if you could support your reasoning, you got what you wanted. And so I sort of learned how to do that with my parents and it's a good skill. Yeah. Uh, but, so then I took a class, I'm like, this is how you do it and you get to back up your, um, your arguments and prove a point.

Matt Shannon: I think that's right. That's why where you're working with letter. Right? Um, a lot of that just like, but it's then Yep. Conditional statements and from this and this, you can prove this. Um, I really enjoyed that and I took all the way through graduate courses, uh, in logic and at that point I was like, Well, if I just take a couple more classes, I can get a major.

Matt Shannon: So

Jeff Nesbitt: do you ever find that in conversations with people who do not have any kind of background in logic or philosophy of any kind, you ever get really frustrated because they don't know how to argue properly? It's like that's a fallacy. You just engage in a logical fallacy right there and they're like, What are you talking about?

Jeff Nesbitt: I

Jeff Nesbitt: Uh, and then they think

Matt Shannon: they won. There's a lot of that. Yeah. Yeah. Um, a lot of people don't have reasons for their beliefs. Yeah. Or they're like poorly supported. But if you point out it, you just end up going in circles. Um, I think it would be really valuable if we taught people like lo logical reasoning or everyone should, how to structure

Jeff Nesbitt: an argument and or just like what the fallacies of logic are.

Jeff Nesbitt: Sure. Like cuz everyone, they're human nature. That's the whole point of why we have identified them is like everyone will engage in these if they're not aware of it. It's just like that's how our brains work, where we pursue self-interest. Yep. And we look for confirming things that confirm our existing beliefs.

Matt Shannon: I've found.

Matt Shannon: It's best to just, if, if you're arguing with someone like that, probably just stop arguing . But, uh, lay out the facts of, you know, how you reach your conclusion. And they'll either follow them or they'll still wanna keep their opinion. And then, you know, conversation's kind of over at that point, you're just arguing with

Jeff Nesbitt: yourself.

Jeff Nesbitt: I don't, I don't like the argument with people who are emotionally tied to their argument. Mm-hmm. , like who, who feel like their identity is tied up in it. I think that's

Matt Shannon: a very valuable skill to have, is to be able to look at the other person's perspective on the argument. Like, instead of attacking like a straw man of the other person's argument, find what their weak or their strongest version of that argument is.

Matt Shannon: How would you make the best case for their argument? And then can you argue it against that? Do you have proof, like, are you able to refute the best version of their argument?

Jeff Nesbitt: It's a lot harder. Yeah. Yeah. You have to have a lot more confidence in your own logical abilities to be able to take that perspective.

Matt Shannon: Well, and for a lot of things there isn't really a a hundred percent correct answer.

Matt Shannon: Like maybe neither of the answers are right. Almost nothing has a hundred percent correct. Right. And then you could realize that and say, Okay, well maybe we're both right here, let's come to some kind of compromise.

Jeff Nesbitt: Yeah. I think a lot of it just has to do with identity people. People get so tied up in being seen a certain way or being, seeing themselves a certain way.

Jeff Nesbitt: Like, I'm smarter than this person. So if, if we have an disagreement, I have to be right. Like my identity, it depends on it because if I'm not, who the fuck am I, if I'm not the guy who's right over this dumb ass, whoever that is, and it's just like, no, we are all dumb asses, but we can all also be right.

Jeff Nesbitt: Arguments are just about finding the truth. Yeah. Yeah. I'm gonna go close that door. I'm cold. Do you

Matt Shannon: mind if I grab a water?

Peaceful Dan (Marker)

Matt Shannon: Yeah, go for it.

Peaceful Dan (Marker)

Jeff Nesbitt: Uh, this is gonna sound like a crazy question, but it's, it just keeps popping into my head. Do you know somebody named Peaceful Dan?

Yeah,

Jeff Nesbitt: I knew it. I knew

Matt Shannon: it. He worked for my dad for quite a while.

Jeff Nesbitt: Okay. We're going down the peaceful Daniel Miller Road. Peaceful. Dan popped into my life when I was probably six or seven years old.

Jeff Nesbitt: We called him Hippie Dan. He wanted to be called Peaceful Dan. Yep. . Um, but we called him Hippie Dan. And, uh, he was a great dude and he like, I mean, he was a severe alcoholic and he, like, he had his demons, but he could balance a full size wheelbarrow on his chin as long as you want, and, uh, not drop it. And, um, he was just like a all around kind of a cool, cool dude.

Jeff Nesbitt: Lived in Van in the woods behind my dad's shop for several years and, um, yeah, he was just one of the colorful characters of my life. Uh, one of like a collection. Six or seven dudes that my dad was friends with, uh, or, or I dunno, friends, but had some kind of relationship that kept them popping in our life.

Matt Shannon: Yeah, so as we mentioned earlier, my dad's been building a house for forever. Uh, and my dad hired him to help build the house, whatever the, the construction task might be. Moved dirt or pour cement or put up balls.

Jeff Nesbitt: Okay. Did you interact with him a lot?

Matt Shannon: Uh, yeah. Moderate amount over, I mean, he worked for my dad for almost two or three years, something like that.

Matt Shannon: Mm-hmm. ,

Jeff Nesbitt: as I've grown, I've noticed that a lot of the adults that I was friends with as a child were fucking weirdos, , um, . And as an adult, I don't just befriend random children, um, for that reason, because that's what we do. You don't wanna be the weird, huh? Yeah. And, um, I think Dan may have been a weirdo, but, you know, he was cool and I, I, I was sad when he passed.

Matt Shannon: That is not my understanding,

Jeff Nesbitt: but Well, let's pretend that he did. Yeah. For the memories.

Jeff Nesbitt: Did you hear he died also? Yeah. They both died. I think so. Son of a bitch. That's way worse of a story. .

Matt Shannon: Sorry. I think, yeah. Yeah. A little morbid. But I think the person who was drowning dragged him under cause he was

Jeff Nesbitt: panicking. That's so sad. One time I found, uh, a bag of kittens and a dumpster and they looked identical to a group of kittens that Dan had been raising.

Jeff Nesbitt: Live or dead? Live. Okay. In a, in a garbage bag soon to be dead. Um, that was, I think, the intention, um, treated as trash regardless. And, um, I was like, peaceful, Dan, my ass. This is not so peaceful. But these were his kittens. Yeah, dude. He threw his kittens in the dumpster and it was so just contrary to everything that he stood for.

Jeff Nesbitt: Yeah, they lived Well, I mean, for a little bit. Um, I dunno, They got eaten by raccoons.

Matt Shannon: I didn't know raccoons ate kittens.

Jeff Nesbitt: Yeah. They do. They love 'em. They love 'em except the pause. They don't like the pause. They leave 'em in a little pile for you. . Talk about gruesome.

Matt Shannon: Well, at least a clean, I guess they pile 'em out.

Matt Shannon: Yeah.

Jeff Nesbitt: Like fucking chicken wing bones. It's horrifying as a child. But, uh, yeah, Peaceful Dan, interesting guy. Do you have any other crazy characters that were in your life as a kid? Oh yeah.

Matt Shannon: These are kind of the people in the, is he still alive? No, I believe he, my understanding is that he was trying to collect insurance money and stood in front of a bus and that didn't go too well.

Jeff Nesbitt: Bus, that's a bold choice. Yeah. I think I'd go with a geo metro.

Matt Shannon: Uber is probably the insurances, Whatever the car owner is,

Jeff Nesbitt: right? Yeah. I'd go with like a, a one of those self-driving Google cars. Oh, you go Waymo, Waymo car? Yeah. Or Waymo or way. Is it Waymo? It is Waymo. I think it's Waymo. Are those, how is that company doing?

Jeff Nesbitt: Are they still putting out prototypes? They were, they had 'em on the

Matt Shannon: road. Right. I just read an article recently that self-driving in general is like harder than all the companies thought it was gonna be. And it's gonna be like another decade and Yeah. Uh, Ford I think just pulled out, they pulled the plug on all of their self-driving stuff.

Jeff Nesbitt: It doesn't seem necess. Like, I mean, eventually

Jeff Nesbitt: So Yeah. It's ideal. But then again, full self-driving, like human driving themselves.

Jeff Nesbitt: They don't get away with not killing people. Right. They kill people all the time. It's like quite common.

Matt Shannon: Yeah. It does seem like the bar is higher for, for

Jeff Nesbitt: self-driving cars. Well, yeah, because we don't want the robots killing people. Yeah. They're not people who's gonna pay . They don't have the right to kill you.

Jeff Nesbitt: Can't imprison a, A robot. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. You gotta find the person responsible. And it's a corporation which is also not a person. Hard to jail. Yeah. Hard to jail. They pay a fine, you get a slap on their imaginary wrist.

Crypto crash and FTX collapse (Marker)

Matt Shannon: I've heard corporations are people,

Jeff Nesbitt: they are legally people.

Jeff Nesbitt: But they involve, they have trusts and corporations and shell companies and they just distribute every, all the risk across areas where it's not actually risky. Yeah. And then they make sure that their assets are not registered to them in case they ever get in trouble. They can't be taken away. It's pretty.

Jeff Nesbitt: It's pretty smart. So now that you've got money, are you doing something? Are, do you have somebody taking care of your money? Are you investing, are you taking, like are you looking to the future? Are you Uh,

Matt Shannon: uh, I mean, I'm risk averse. . So are you save funds? Yeah. Nice, nice. Yeah. Uh, 401k and that's,

Jeff Nesbitt: that stuff is great.

Jeff Nesbitt: Yeah.

Matt Shannon: It's not

Jeff Nesbitt: exciting. It's boring. . Yeah. It is boring, but, but boring is safe. So, Well, you know what exciting sounds like to me, Ftx collapsing. Uhhuh. Have you been following that

Matt Shannon: story? Uh, barely. My wife told me about it. . Billions.

Jeff Nesbitt: Lost forever. And I don't think anyone's gonna go to jail or anything. Sam Bank McCreed is, uh, the guy who's, he was like the

Matt Shannon: golden. How big of a player were they in, in crypto? Big. Really big. Like, so Coinbase must be

Jeff Nesbitt: the largest. I think Ftx probably was competitive with Coinbase. Okay. That big. Oh, okay.

Jeff Nesbitt: They had NFTs before Coinbase and they traded in s d so, and they had their own token. So I'd say they were bigger than Coinbase. Oh wow. I don't know about it's big deal in terms of, uh,

Matt Shannon: market cap. Now why did they collapse? Just cuz of the price of crypto died and nobody's buying it or No,

Jeff Nesbitt: they did. I mean, it was, it's a long story.

Jeff Nesbitt: That's what they did. They, they made a bunch of FTT Token. FTT Token was their, Yeah, I think it was ftt. I don't, I don't know cause I didn't have any. But they made a whole bunch of these tokens and then transferred some value to Alameda Research, which was their other company. This, it's all just this one guy.

Jeff Nesbitt: And, um, he convinced like 20 of the world's top investors to invest in ftx. And uh, basically with clever, , accounting and moving money around between Alameda and ftx, he was able to get loans and, um, not only get loans, but also give loans using money that people had deposited in ftx real money And.

Jeff Nesbitt: According to reports from multiple sources online, Sam Bankman-Freed and co-founder of FTX, Gary Wang, were detained by authorities in the Bahamas on November 14th. They are being held under supervision after it was revealed that they were planning their escape to Dubai. No charges have been filed but some have been calling S.B.F. The Bernie Madoff of crypto.

Jeff Nesbitt: I don't know. But what I like, what I do know is that last night there was a hack too, So some company that they had working on the development of their, uh, their whole system put a backend in and like a hundred billion went missing last night.

Jeff Nesbitt: Uh, unexpected. And it didn't trigger off any alarms or anything. It just, all of a sudden it just, there was just a ma major transfer, several major transfers. So I don't know. It's, I mean, crypto's still very new, so I don't, I don't know what's gonna happen, but it's in, it's in a

Matt Shannon: But that's also what people , that's what people like about crypto. But yeah, until this kind of stuff happens, this

Jeff Nesbitt: is exactly why the s e exists. Yeah. Is for things like this. And so a year ago I would've been like, Yeah, keep the regulation out of it. I like the Wild West is now, And I was just like, I'll just be careful.

Jeff Nesbitt: So it's just like, we're just gonna need

Matt Shannon: it. It's like, like banks have, what is it, the F D I C? Yeah,

Jeff Nesbitt: yeah, exactly. Federal deposit insurance. Mm-hmm.

Jeff Nesbitt: right? Yeah. After the 29 collapse. Yep. And that's [01:09:00] exact same thing happened. The, there was a run on the banks.

Jeff Nesbitt: Everyone wanted their money at the same time and they're like, Ooh, uh, we don't have it. And then so yeah. Fdx is, is no more.

Matt Shannon: Yeah. Which makes more people want

Jeff Nesbitt: the money outta the banks and Yeah. Exactly. Now they're, they, they closed, they stopped doing withdrawals, uh, several days ago. But now the, like the website, they warned people not even to go on the website cuz it's gonna put malware on your computer.

Jeff Nesbitt: Oh, okay. That's bad. It's bad. Yeah. That's what happens when you use fake money, like to inflate an economy, the same shit is going on with a dollar. Mm-hmm. right now. It's like, that's why I just paid 150 bucks for like, one basket of groceries. It's like, it's insane how much prices have just skyrocketed. It must be really bad up

Matt Shannon: north.

Matt Shannon: It's pretty crazy.

Jeff Nesbitt: Yeah. Yep. Do you guys buy groceries in like the Amazon area where everything's expensive? Yeah, we're in

Matt Shannon: Seattle. Um, we're in West Seattle. Uh, it's the west part of Seattle ,

Matt Shannon: a, it's like the oldest part of Seattle actually.

Matt Shannon: Oh, okay. Um, it's a. just, uh, west of the port. So the port is kind of low. Low on the Duwamish. Yeah. That's, uh, and then, you know, downtown is other side sort of built on a hill. Um, but so like West Seattle's kind of its own neighborhood. Mm-hmm. , uh, there's like a very large bridge to get to it, which, uh, you may have seen.

Matt Shannon: But the, I know the one you talked about disabled for two years and it just recently got reopened. Oh, so what, what's that bridge called? Uh, West Seattle Bridge.

Jeff Nesbitt: Oh, okay. Yeah. Good name. Yeah. Yeah.

Matt Shannon: Uh, yeah, it was very expensive to repair, I think. Uh, but they had it entirely shut down and it was the busiest bridge in Seattle.

Matt Shannon: Oh, wow.

Jeff Nesbitt: Yeah. Traffic through Seattle. I five. Terrible. Just terrible. Yeah. The express lanes are pretty nice though. I was, I drive back and forth to Bellingham when I was in college. I used to love hitting it. I would try to time it to get the express lanes. It save you like two hours.

Matt Shannon: I don't either. It's always just, I don't drive north enough to care. But yeah, it seems like they're never open when I'm trying to go north. Yeah,

Jeff Nesbitt: I would like to drive in them with nobody else on the road. Just go as fast as I possibly could. I like going fast. Do you ever, what do you do for

Matt Shannon: fun? Uh, I play a lot of board games.

Matt Shannon: Uh, What's your favorite Aula? Uh, I don't know. That game is gonna sound. Boring, but , it's a game about subsistence farming in the 17 hundreds , that doesn't sound that boring. Okay. Uh, so you like get to build your own farm. You have like a board that's your farm and you get to like, collect cows and pigs and plant grain and you're trying to keep your family alive and maybe build a stonehouse that's like, so you're

Jeff Nesbitt: like playing Farmville on a board board game.

Matt Shannon: Farmville.

Jeff Nesbitt: Yeah. That sounds fun actually. I like those kind of simulation games. They're, they're fun. Yeah. We, we

Matt Shannon: We probably have, I dunno, three, three or 400 board games.

Jeff Nesbitt: Wow. And you play 'em?

Matt Shannon: Yeah. Yeah. Pretty regularly. Wow, that's awesome. We brought some down to play for, we're on vacation for the weekend. We came down on Thursday, but we brought some down to play, but then we got caught off in doing touristy stuff, so

Jeff Nesbitt: I just threw away a stack of board games.

Jeff Nesbitt: Oh yeah. Yesterday. So you don't fuck board games, Matt ? No, I like board games actually, but it was cuz they sat in my garage too long. They get moldy, they got, you know, moisture ruins the boxes, the corners pieces are flying out. Just like, no, I don't want, I don't want this headache. I want, I want downsize, I want to get rid of things I don't want to think about anymore.

Jeff Nesbitt: I just wanna throw him. So we threw away couch today. Just throwing, just purging the garage. We haven't been able to park in there for

Matt Shannon: years. I feel like that's most people, most people don't use the garage for their car. Yeah.

Jeff Nesbitt: I am curious about your opinion on a few more esoteric topics, but I wanna get through any real stuff first, just cuz that can end up going a long time. Uh,

Jeff Nesbitt: we've done fairly well. Actually,

Jeff Nesbitt: I was gonna ask why, uh, you and your wife decided to get married but not clearly. It's cuz you both love board games. Yeah, that's

Jeff Nesbitt: Highschool. 15 years. Yeah. Nice. Did you meet at UDub? Yep.

Matt Shannon: Yep. Uh, freshman quarter at UDub. Wow. In the beginning.

Jeff Nesbitt: And what does she study? Uh, public

Matt Shannon: She also does well. I think they're responsible for pools sometimes. Um, she also, during Covid, she helped with the food response. So like they had to train all the restaurants of how to keep things sanitary. And so she went around and helped them do that. Nice. But primarily she's looking at Septics and Wells.

Time travel, quantum mechanics, movies, etc. (Marker)

Jeff Nesbitt: Right on. Have you seen the movie Everything Everywhere? All At Once? Yeah. I love that movie. The movie's great. Okay, let's talk about that movie. Okay. That movie, not only did I find it to be very fascinating, but it like perfectly explains the way that I see quantum reality. I think that's the way that the universe really works you wanna recap that movie in, in a nutshell?

Matt Shannon: Uh, I have seen it once, but I can try. Uh,

Jeff Nesbitt: It's like the,

Matt Shannon: the multi it talks about the multiverse thing. Yeah. And Hard to, The big bad guy has seen too much of the multiverse and it's turned them,

Jeff Nesbitt: which is such a, a beautiful way to write a, to write a villain,

Matt Shannon: Uh, Nihilistic, I think.

Matt Shannon: Yes. It's basically the whole movie is nihilism versus existentialism is how I would characterize it. And nihilism being like, nothing matters. Do whatever you

Jeff Nesbitt: want. Which is really easy to fall into. So you relate to the villain

Matt Shannon: and existentialism being. Nothing matters, so do whatever you want, but in a positive way.

Matt Shannon: Yeah.

Jeff Nesbitt: Everything

Matt Shannon: matters. Like, everything matters, I guess is probably a better way to put

Jeff Nesbitt: it. I thought. I thought that was a beautiful film. mostly because it puts a practical, it puts practical training wheels on quantum mechanics, like the way that reality is actually formulated in real time.

Jeff Nesbitt: Right.

Matt Shannon: And for clarity in the movie, they can only gain knowledge from universes that are somewhat close to their

Jeff Nesbitt: own. Exactly. Yeah. And it's, and they can, and that the way that they can jump to between these universes is to, uh, do something novel, something completely unique and usually very weird. Which is exactly what, like, I, I love that part so much because I sometimes feel like, uh, it's hard to explain.

Jeff Nesbitt: And I think that we're probably doing those all the time without realizing it because there are so many variables that specific combinations of molecular structures are all pretty new. Uh, it's like every time you shuffle a deck of cards that the chances that the combination, that the order of cards that you have just created may have never been created before in the history of humanity.

Jeff Nesbitt: Like, I don't know, like I'm, I'm having a hard time even thinking of anything right now off the top of my head, but like the. Poke herself in the eye or, you know, eat a pile of dog shit or just something that, stuff like that, that there's no reason to do. So that it is enough to take that timeline that you're on and just drastically alter it because whatever kind of predictive mechanism exists would be radically altered by that event, if that makes sense.

Jeff Nesbitt: But I know, I thought that was really cool. Do you believe in the mini world's hypothesis?

Matt Shannon: Um, it is to me, Yeah.

Jeff Nesbitt: Cause I do see it as a multiverse with, with condensed potentials. Like our three dimensional reality is just lower vibrating and, and it's vibrating at low enough density for it to become matter. Everything else is still in existence in potential, but it's, it's not on a, on a frequency that is, you know, condensed into matter.

Jeff Nesbitt: So we are not experiencing it. But those things are still, and then, and every second of the day that we're making decisions. You're bumped on timelines, Different

Matt Shannon: timelines. Yeah. I'm, I am attracted to the many worlds theory, especially when I think about like, things like time travel. I think that's mostly what gets me there is Me too.

Matt Shannon: The future, you got the timeline changed, but you're not that future you anymore. Yeah. If that

Jeff Nesbitt: makes sense. I, I agree. I think completely, but also the, all the different versions of you are all still you. Mm-hmm. . Right. But you don't get to experience them. That's like the how she kills her clone. Mm-hmm. . Oh, that's a different movie, isn't it?

Jeff Nesbitt: What movie was that? I, I don't, I don't even remember . Uh, but this another one where she finds a time machine and it's in like a tanning bed and she goes, Fuck, I gotta remember that. What was that? It was okay. It wasn't, You're just

Matt Shannon: gonna start talking about final destination or something. No,

Jeff Nesbitt: it wasn't a tanning bed in one of those.

Matt Shannon: And, uh, Oh, I haven't watched that. I, it's on my to watch list. Okay.

Jeff Nesbitt: It was, it was pretty good. And, but she just keeps Reliv.

Jeff Nesbitt: Oh yeah. Kaylee Coco was the, the girl from Big Bang Theory was the girl, It's coming back to me now. Definitely not the same movie. I know the movie you're talking about.

Matt Shannon: I, I haven't watched it yet.

Jeff Nesbitt: But, so she has to kill herself every day. Not like commit suicide, but kill the older version of her from the day before.

Jeff Nesbitt: And so every day she just starts her day by driving. And when the version of her from the previous day is at the coffee stand, she walks across the street and she runs her over in the crosswalk, grabs her body, puts it in the trunk every single day. Like that's just, And then at the end of the day, she goes back to the tanning bed and does the thing thinking.

Jeff Nesbitt: And how does that, like how would we deal with that? There'd be some, some uncomfortable conversations for sure. Like, do you think you could kill a version of yourself? A clone? Like let's say that they made a, the Amazon Labs made like 25 Matt Shannon clones, just so they could get your work done quicker.

Jeff Nesbitt: Um, but things have gone, taken a turn and they're, they're starting to, they heard him talking and they're making plots against the real Matt Shannon. And it's because of some

Matt Shannon: illegal, It's like if

Jeff Nesbitt: it's life or deaths, probably, Yeah. Well, because of some legal loop. The scientists who made them aren't gonna be able to kill them.

Jeff Nesbitt: And you have to do it yourself. Since it's technically made outta your tissue, it won't be murder and you're the only one who can do it. You gotta do it, man. 25, Matt Shannons, could you do it? Could you get the job done? That's a lot of, a lot

Matt Shannon: of killing. Yeah, it is. I would probably try and avoid doing that.

Jeff Nesbitt: Um, They're gonna get you then. Well,

Matt Shannon: I mean, if they're coming at me, Yeah. Yeah. You got no

Jeff Nesbitt: choice. You no choice. You gotta do it. Yeah. One of those clones. I think

Jeff Nesbitt: myself. Even if it was inconvenient to have it in your life.

Matt Shannon: It's like, uh, we're going to like the far extreme of identity theft . I

Jeff Nesbitt: don't think it, it is you. Yeah. Yeah. That's the thing. I would actually love to have one or two of me around, but beyond that, I'd be a little much, I

Matt Shannon: don't think I would wanna live with another me. Really? How come? I think I would irritate that

Jeff Nesbitt: outta myself.

Jeff Nesbitt: What do you think are the things that you do that would irritate you the most?

Matt Shannon: Uh, I am not good about doing dishes when I'm sure my wife would attest to this, but like I just put 'em in the sink and I'm, and they magically get done. I'm not sure it would be, sometimes my laundry works the same way. Mine does not anymore.

Matt Shannon: There was a, a reckoning that happened when we moved to our current house.

Jeff Nesbitt: Yeah. Did she have to have a talk with you?

Matt Shannon: Yeah. It was like, I'm not doing

Jeff Nesbitt: your laundry. She's not your mother. Yeah. Yeah.

Matt Shannon: Right. And, uh, I would just, I hated doing laundry, so I would leave it till the last minute. And I was living in this apartment building at the time and they had washer dryer units in the back, and one of the dryers was out of order. So she, she's like, I'm going to bed. You do your laundry yourself. And I was like, Fine, I'll do it.

Matt Shannon: Uh, and it, I think I started it at midnight or something, and she's like, I'm not staying up till three to help you with your laundry. . Very reasonable looking back. But, uh, I was upset about it. And so the, the dryer, they had two dryers but, and two washers. And so, you know, I washed my clothes. That was fine.

Matt Shannon: Uh, and then one of the dryers was out of order and I'm like, I'll just throw 'em all in. One, one dryer. And the dryer caught on fire. Oh shit. Yep. Burned up like, I don't know, 40% of my clothes at the time. Oh, Burned your

Jeff Nesbitt: clothes. They burn the building.

Matt Shannon: So they're wet again. , and also burnt. Yeah. Uh,

Jeff Nesbitt: and probably smelling pretty

Matt Shannon: bad. Fortunately they didn't charge me for the dryer. I think it probably would've been reasonable for them too. Because you overloaded

Jeff Nesbitt: it. I overloaded it for sure. Yeah. I did that. The laundromat one time. But too many wet blankets in there.

Jeff Nesbitt: They

Matt Shannon: don't, they don't like that. They did not want pay for my clothes . I was like, Hey, they shouldn't be catching on fire.

Jeff Nesbitt: Yeah. This is a defective unit. Yeah. Give some money, Oh, yeah. . I kind of want to go on the simulation thing a little bit more. So there has been more and more talk all the time about the fact that, not the fact, but the possibility that we are already living in a simulation now.

Jeff Nesbitt: It will be indistinguishable from reality. Statistically, if you can make an infinite number of these simulated worlds, it's, it's similar to the, the theory that we are gonna, There has to be intelligent life in the universe because it's an infinite universe. And probabilistically there would be intelligent life at some point.

Jeff Nesbitt: But, uh, yeah, the logic would say that eventually that's gonna happen and we could be in it now, especially because we don't exactly know how old we are, and there's a very good chance that we could have had several civilizations that reached a pinnacle and then were destroyed. Just like people are really starting to think happened right before we kind of popped on the scene with like the, uh, what is it, the younger driest impact theory.

Jeff Nesbitt: The theory that there was an advanced civilization on this planet just a lot further back than we thought just very recently. Like archeological timelines are starting to fall apart just because of different stuff we found, like Gobekli Tepi, the archeological site that has like these giant monolithic structures that were built a thousand years before anyone knew how to build that shit.

Jeff Nesbitt: What do you think about all that?

Matt Shannon: So this is very recent for me, but, uh, I think it doesn't matter. , I finally come around to that. Like, uh, I did not like that argument for a lot of philosophical topic. I, I think it comes up a lot in, in philosophy where you're like, uh, especially around epistemology. So the study of what we can know, like Plato's cave, Uhhuh

Matt Shannon: Uh, but so back to simulation argument, would you behave differently if you, if you knew?

Jeff Nesbitt: No Yeah. .

Matt Shannon: Entirely. Simulation, right? Mm-hmm. . Um, so

Jeff Nesbitt: yeah, how would we ever know? Yeah. I

Matt Shannon: would think that there, I mean, you still exist somehow. You would just exist as a

Jeff Nesbitt: simulation. Yeah. I, it's, it's a, See, that's actually exactly what I think. I thought that from the beginning. I didn't understand what the debate even was.

Jeff Nesbitt: , because pretty much like you said, we are already in a simulated reality because of the way our physical biology creates, creates reality out of sensory. Like there's a computer in there who's taking data and stitching it together into a cohesive narrative that we see as our life. And that's a simulated

Matt Shannon: reality.

Matt Shannon: It's very easy to tell. Right. You just, uh, look at the ways you can interact with the world. You can't see certain types of radiation. You can't see infrared. Exactly. It's very much there. Yeah. And it happens. We can feel infrared, but ultraviolet, we can't, You

Jeff Nesbitt: can't see a bunch of stuff that is actually there, and you see stuff that isn't actually there.

Jeff Nesbitt: Like if you move your head and then move it back in the frame, it will show you what's behind you and make you invisible. But if you just start the filter, it will not know what to put behind you. Like it doesn't, can't see that yet, but Yeah. Can't actually see through you. Mm-hmm. . Exactly. But yeah, I don't know.

Jeff Nesbitt: I think I. It is all a simulation, but I don't know that it was created. And I don't think it's electrical. I mean, other than the fact that our brains are

Matt Shannon: electrical. I mean, it could be, but we wouldn't know. It's indistinguishable. If you get to the point where everything's simulated, there's no way for us to know.

Matt Shannon: Very

Matt Shannon: Uh, climate change. I mean, good

Jeff Nesbitt: one. That's

Matt Shannon: a good one for as far as global concerns, Um, my parents' health .

Jeff Nesbitt: Yeah. Yeah. These are things, these are relatable topics. Yeah. I think we're all dealing with those worries and if we're not, probably not thinking about much

Matt Shannon: importance. I mean, it's been become climate change that is, has become very visible in the last few years.

Matt Shannon: Just like we've, we have four forest fires all the time now, every

Jeff Nesbitt: summer. Yeah. Yeah. I know. And this, the, the rainfall patterns are weird too. Yep. Like we get droughts and floods

Matt Shannon: and the snow's already melted by, uh, like. May all the snow's

Jeff Nesbitt: So I notice, and there has been some irregularities over the past 10 years. Stuff that I wouldn't expect too. Like, I don't know, like a double spring has happened two different times that I can remember where spring started in like January, where it got really unseasoned, like out of season, warm in January and stuff starts blooming, daffodil are coming up, stuff starts blooming, and then it just freezes the entire month of February and everything just shuts off and then just like restarts again a month later.

Jeff Nesbitt: That's fucking weird. That doesn't happen every year. It is very strange. But things like that, and I think it will just continue to this year be more

Matt Shannon: dramatic. So October is like typically my favorite month of the year. I love the leaves changing. We had 90 degree or 87, We had an 87 degree day in October.

Matt Shannon: Yeah. And then from that it went to like, two weeks later it was like

Jeff Nesbitt: And, uh, just like, no matter what I did, we had fans going, trying to suck the heat outta here. It was just like, couldn't do it cuz the, the roof was so hot. The, it's just heat from every direction and now it's just like hard to keep it warm in here. I can feel the cold through the plywood floor. It was like this really, really rapid switch.

Jeff Nesbitt: Yeah, I remember that. That killed some people. Yeah. Like several people in the Seattle area. [01:34:00] Yeah. That's dangerous. The, the overheating is, is no joke.

Matt Shannon: Yeah, I remember walking outside cause we'd walk our dog and it was just like very orange. You couldn't see to the end of the block. It was like, it was a really foggy day, but it was all

Jeff Nesbitt: smoke.

Jeff Nesbitt: Just kind of sad. Cause those are people's homes and people's, Yep. Yeah. Living in the woods is risky. It didn't used to be like, you gotta really think about fire now if you're in that area at all, like you have to have a skate plan ready, like know what you're doing.

Matt Shannon: You probably have to cut back the trees from your house too, right?

Matt Shannon: got water in area too. Worst case scenario. That's

Jeff Nesbitt: something I love about Pacific Northwest, is that we'll be one of the last places with good water, which is kind of scary also.

Jeff Nesbitt: Yep. , because

Matt Shannon: that's where people are gonna be. There's yeah. There's gonna be a lot of migration. Yeah. To this area.

Jeff Nesbitt: That'll probably be like one of the main. Post-apocalyptic battles be the water wars.

Matt Shannon: I think that stuff's already started. It's just not, It's not violent yet. Yeah. Yeah. It's, you know, I think Arizona got its water from the Colorado River.

Matt Shannon: Shut by 75% or something. It was a

Jeff Nesbitt: lot. Yeah. Lake Mead is almost empty. Uhhuh, and that's like, Yeah. Finding all

Matt Shannon: the The millions people, dead bodies

Jeff Nesbitt: in it. Yeah. Bunch of barrels. Full of bodies. The mob just like their favorite. This

Matt Shannon: lake's never gonna go dry. We dump bodies

Jeff Nesbitt: in it. That's so funny. People are all shocked too.

Jeff Nesbitt: It's like you drain any lake in a major city, there's gonna be some barrels. There's some bodies in it. Well, this

Jeff Nesbitt: to Vegas. Yeah. This is probably one of the worst. I imagine there's some places in Chicago and New York. Mm-hmm. that have got some bodies too. But probably everywhere the world is fucked up.

Jeff Nesbitt: Yeah. It's like this is a scary place. Lots of terrible things going on all the time. But you know, that's what we signed up for. I guess. You guys think you're gonna have kids? No, I

Matt Shannon: don't think so. Never. No. We had some health stuff come up a couple years ago that we were already leaning towards now and, and

Jeff Nesbitt: yeah.

Jeff Nesbitt: It's a scary world to try to bring him into. Anyway. You guys have any pets? Yeah. Oh yeah. You have a dog?

Matt Shannon: We have a dog. I met your dog, Satchel. Uh, he's a rescue. Is he still a rescue? He's not a rescue anymore. I guess he's got a home now. Well

Jeff Nesbitt: I think he, you rescued him, right? Yeah.

Matt Shannon: He was a rescue. Yeah.

Jeff Nesbitt: That's a light dog. Yeah. And you got him all fated up?

Jeff Nesbitt: Yeah, he's

Matt Shannon: fat . He's pretty trim. He's pretty lean. He will refuse food when he is just not hungry. Only dog I've ever seen do that. How's his breath? Uh, it smells bad. I've heard Doxins have Kyla washes. My wife washes or brushes his teeth like multiple times a week though, so Wow. That's a commitment. If he's just brushed it's good.

Matt Shannon: But yeah, fresh minty brush, you get a couple days and it

Jeff Nesbitt: smells like you guys use those greenies, those little toothbrush chew.

Matt Shannon: No, I've heard they can choke on 'em. Oh. Um, he, we tried them cuz one of my friends had some extras that he didn't want and, He just chew them. They like tear up his gums and there's blood all over him.

Jeff Nesbitt: That's the exact same experience I had with Daisy. I got some of those, a lot of those dentist sticks and all that stuff would make or bleed. Yeah. But I bleed when I floss, so you should flosser.

Jeff Nesbitt: Flos a lot.

Jeff Nesbitt: Yeah. Um, somehow I've been very lucky. I've never been a huge flosser. I floss like once a month, but I brush two or three times

Matt Shannon: a day. Oh, okay. That's probably makes up for some of it.

Jeff Nesbitt: It must, I don't get a lot of cavities, but doesn't matter. I broke all my teeth with a clenching my jaw anyway. A lot of 'em

Matt Shannon: fucking fell apart.

Matt Shannon: I went through, I have or had a ton of cavities. I had bad brushing habits from growing up without running water. . That'll do it. Uh, and yeah, just never developed good brushing habits and I carried it on into college and you know that Yeah. At some point I just had like a massive toothache my tooth. I bit into something and just like part of my tooth came off.

Matt Shannon: Yeah.

Jeff Nesbitt: We're gonna root canal few these while we're back here. Mm-hmm. ,

Matt Shannon: I ended up going to, uh, so I was at UDub at the time and I went to their dental school cause that's all I could afford. It was cheaper at the dental school. Mm-hmm. . And uh, they basically only take you if it's an emergency or like the student chooses to be like you're their patient Yeah.

Matt Shannon: For all their exams and stuff. Um, so I went to their emergency room and I went a couple times. Yeah. And they're like, Why don't you just go work with one of the students was like, You wanna work with me? Oh, you were the regular? Yeah. Yeah. Nice. He's my dentist now, actually. Oh, cool. Um, not the root canal you have to get.

Matt Shannon: Uh, so And what did that do? I had a very sore throat for a couple weeks. It was very painful.

Jeff Nesbitt: Did it? And was this at the school or was this Yeah, this was at the school. Okay, so you couldn't really do shit about that, huh? No, it's like, Well this is what you signed up for, buddy. Yeah, Yeah. It's not a real dentist.

Jeff Nesbitt: What did you expect? Yeah.

Matt Shannon: I don't know if you've ever gone to like a dental school, but it takes quite a bit longer Yeah. Than a normal dentist. Cause they have to have like, people come and check on their work. Yeah. Because they're, this is a test for them

Jeff Nesbitt: Um, my, the dentist I went to in Olympia just last year had like trainees or something in there, and like two different people came in and did my, did my, my cast for my teeth and they did a terrible job. Got that. It was like this pink, I don't, I don't know if it's like acrylic or whatever, but Yeah.

Jeff Nesbitt: Yeah. The material got in my mustache and beard and um, it was in there for like the rest of the day. I had to cut the shit outta my teeth. Oh, it dried in there? Yeah.

Matt Shannon: And, uh, why were they casting your teeth orthodontics or,

Jeff Nesbitt: and then like right around the time masks were over, I got my braces off. I

Matt Shannon: had 'em in Highschool, and then I was not diligent about wearing my lower, My upper teeth are fine, but my lower teeth kind of went back to the messed up position.

Jeff Nesbitt: Yeah. I have a permanent, um, retainer in the bottom that I, I, I have, I forgot completely that I had a retainer for the top.

Jeff Nesbitt: Like it's been a year now since I've even thought about it. Honestly. You just reminded me. And it's probably somewhere lost, but I'm supposed to wear it every day, all day. And, um, I just can't.

Matt Shannon: They like attach a bar to your bottom.

Jeff Nesbitt: Yeah, they weld that bitch right in because I wouldn't have that one either if they didn't.

Jeff Nesbitt: But that's also why I don't wanna floss down there because there's a bar across my team. Oh yeah. That's

Matt Shannon: probably hard to, You have to like thread

Jeff Nesbitt: sh thread it in and then pull it through every single thing. It's like, well that's a whole thing. I

Matt Shannon: got the like picks now. You can probably just

Jeff Nesbitt: pick it. Yeah.

Matt Shannon: right before you go to the dentist. Just

Jeff Nesbitt: if you're gonna keep cavities out, man, you gotta be praying religiously like daily. But I pray for other stuff too. I'm already in the prayer, so it's cool. You just throw it in. Yeah, just throw it in. Also keep those cavities away.

Jeff Nesbitt: But yeah. Do

Matt Shannon: you pray? Um, occasionally in moments of distress, I'm kind of, uh, Become more and more agnostic.

Jeff Nesbitt: I don't even mean in terms of like religious. I, I genuinely believe that prayer is, uh, one of the ways that you can directly affect in like manifestation. Um, with just using the, our human abilities of creating future futures out of, uh, intention, setting intention and then being grateful.

Jeff Nesbitt: And I don't even think you need to be religious to do it as long as you can appreciate. You have to have gratitude. So I think that if you can, uh, if you can find gratitude in existence without directing at towards God or, uh, some kind of a central being, I like a distributed God. I like my, my I'd like a decentralized God, like a

Matt Shannon: Buddhist concept of God and everything.

Jeff Nesbitt: Yes, Yes. Um, because I don't, humans are way too unpredictable, untrustworthy evil for me to think of, of, uh, a God with an anthropomorphic lens. I don't, no big old guy in a beard. No, that's Santa, that's not God. But I do think God exists. I think God is an intelligence. I don't think God is a figure a person.

Jeff Nesbitt: I got brought up just heavily immersed in it, so much that I hated it. I was annoyed as hell. Every time someone started praying, I was like, Oh my God, I don't have 40 minutes to kill here. But, uh, and even now, I still think that honestly, , I don't wanna sit here and listen to other people pray all that often, but when I do it myself in an intentional way, like I prayed my daughter into existence and, um, I like 100% did.

Jeff Nesbitt: Just reeks of bullshit. If, and if so, if you're, so, it's, it's just so easy to be a skeptic, uh, and a cynic. And those two feelings are a killer of magic. Like you, you wanna do anything that's not like, completely standard. You have to be open to possibilities. You have to let the magic in. You can't just be a, a cynic looking for ways to ruin it.

Jeff Nesbitt: And, um, it worked and my wife got pregnant like a month later. It was crazy. And, um, but what I did was I put myself in the place of, of gratitude for this child that I wanted to exist, and I just treated it as if she already did. And I, I tried to feel the feelings that I would feel if I was really in that place and what that version of myself looked and felt like.

Jeff Nesbitt: I'm not sure exactly what it is, but there is, there is something there, especially when it's multiple people. Like, um, something about consciousness condensed into a, into a shared intention is very powerful.

Matt Shannon: I think there's a lot of, uh, research into the benefits of meditation, Right. Specifically. Oh, oh, yeah.

Matt Shannon: Um, it's something that's very difficult for me. Yeah. I just, the sitting there, I, my mind wanders immediately the moment I sit

Jeff Nesbitt: Mm-hmm. , that actually makes your meditation a lot better because it's less boring. All that becomes is the, the exercise is to recognize when your mind is wandered, acknowledge it and notice what you like. Oh, I was having a thought, like, oh, there goes a feeling just taking over. Um, and then you go back to whatever your object of focus is, whether that's the breath or a mantra or whatever.

Jeff Nesbitt: People do whatever they, they want, but

Matt Shannon: I like the breath some, something that's been helpful for me and I went through counseling or. Recently last year. And uh, one of the things the, the counselor told me is like, go for a walk and like be observant, quiet, the, like, worrying part of your mind and just look at what's around you.

Matt Shannon: Notice what you're smelling, notice how your body feels, all of that stuff. I think that's fairly close to meditation.

Jeff Nesbitt: Whereas a lot of the time we're living in our minds and we're living in the future trying to predict and we're living in the past ruminating and you're not present. So it's, those kind of grounding activities are very helpful, especially if you're a person who has a lot of anxiety, which working in the tech industry, do you experience a lot of anxiety?

Matt Shannon: Uh, my, my stuff's more around family stuff. Um, you know, worrying about my parents and mm-hmm. health stuff.

Jeff Nesbitt: You seem pretty even keeled. You've always seemed pretty even keeled. Do you you ever struggle with mental health?

Matt Shannon: Uh, not, not really . Not until my wife, Hannah and I had a traumatic experience and she had some health issues, uh, a couple years ago, right before Covid actually.

Matt Shannon: That's outta your control. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, at one point I like had a panic attack and Is that your first

Jeff Nesbitt: one? Yeah. Yeah. It was very scary. Weird, huh? Did you think you were gonna

Matt Shannon: die? Um, yeah, I guess so. Yeah. I was like very, very panicked. Um, it's weird how you're, I didn't know how to deal with

Jeff Nesbitt: it. Your body has the reaction first.

Jeff Nesbitt: Like I, before I had ever had a real panic attack myself, I, I thought of it as more of a mental experience. Like, you, you're freaking out on the inside. It's very physical. It was very

Matt Shannon: physical. Yeah. Your heart actually, mentally I was fine. I'm like, No, I'm okay.

Jeff Nesbitt: But your heart was fluttering and, but

Jeff Nesbitt: now.

Jeff Nesbitt: Oh, that's such a bad feeling. Were you in a safe place? Yeah, I was at home. Oh, that's unfortunately, yeah. That's good. Yeah. You can have 'em in a bad place and cause a lot of problems. Yeah. Yeah. But you know, there are ways to get around it. Some people get 'em so bad though. I feel for those people. I've only had a couple my whole life and they sucked.

Matt Shannon: Yeah. It wasn't too long for me. I was able to talk myself down with it. But it was the first time I'd had it and it was like very scary at the moment. So,

Jeff Nesbitt: and there's also, there's always that like wondering, well, like maybe this actually is a heart. Maybe I actually am bad. Right? Maybe it's a heart attack.

Jeff Nesbitt: Yeah. Yeah. Cause that happens too. People aren't always just having panic attacks. Yep. But when you're young and healthy and you're, you think you're having a heart attack, it's usually probably panic attack. That was then again, maybe not anymore. That was before people started randomly dying of heart attacks all over the country.

Matt Shannon: it. I haven't had one yet, so

Jeff Nesbitt: I'm a heart attack. Triple . Neither I'm doubled.

Matt Shannon: I, uh, we're gonna get the most recent booster. I'm waiting until we're go about to go on our trip. I'm so, I want to like not get sick right before we go on our trip, but then can't go.

Matt Shannon: So we're waiting

Jeff Nesbitt: for that. But yeah, the whole vaccine thing is such a bummer, even talk about, but yeah, because I really, I genuinely don't know how to feel about it anymore because there's so much conflicting views and, uh, and good ones. Like there's genuinely we

Matt Shannon: it was triple X and got covid. So yeah, see that's a thing, but I mean, I didn't get really sick, so

Jeff Nesbitt: I don't know.

Jeff Nesbitt: That's a pretty fucking weak argument if you're Pfizer like, Yeah, take this shot. You'll probably still get it, but you won't get as sick. Make a better drug, Pfizer.

Matt Shannon: Yeah, we were like cross vaccinated too. Like we had did Pfizer I think first and then whatever the other one is.

Jeff Nesbitt: That brain shot less effective one. the poor people drug. The poor people vaccination one and done. Um, I got that originally and then I got modern.

Matt Shannon: Yeah. Moderna. That's what we, we got f in the Moderna. Yeah.

Jeff Nesbitt: But so we're GMOs now? Yeah.

Matt Shannon: Yeah. I mean we've been br anyway

Jeff Nesbitt: for the most part. I'm okay with it, but it all kind of depends on where it goes from here.

Jeff Nesbitt: If, uh,

Matt Shannon: if it would you take like wings if like, like grow some wings for you?

Jeff Nesbitt: Uh, are they actually like, can I fly with these wings? Yeah.

Matt Shannon: Functionally that might not be physically

Jeff Nesbitt: ally. That'd so hard to get on a plane.

Matt Shannon: After that you'd have to eat a lot. Right? Cuz you need a lot of energy to Oh yeah. You'd have to grow.

Matt Shannon: You'd be like enormous

Jeff Nesbitt: packs. Your packs would be like the size

Matt Shannon: of i'll or something. Or maybe like another

Jeff Nesbitt: arm. I'll take a jet pack. That way I can take it off when I'm done. That's just

Matt Shannon: a jet pack, right?

Matt Shannon: something.

Matt Shannon: Oh, then they like shed away .

Jeff Nesbitt: Yeah. That'd be pretty cool. Or um, like some kind of a, I don't know, magnetite filings that you put 'em under magnetism and they self construct a jet pack on your.

Matt Shannon: Yeah, that'd be cool. But back to the dental stuff, I was always like, um, I'm excited for when they have, uh, nanobots to, you know, fix my teeth.

Matt Shannon: This is like, kind of delusional. No, I, I should probably take care of my teeth now. . Yeah. Not Wait, wait for the nanobots.

Jeff Nesbitt: Are you still excited about nanobots? Uh,

Matt Shannon: you know, it's like what we said at the beginning of this. It's

Jeff Nesbitt: ultimate promise,

Matt Shannon: ultimate fear. Yep. They could just eat the whole world or . Yeah.

Matt Shannon: They could fix a bunch of stuff. Everything.

Jeff Nesbitt: The way that cars, um, or like a fleet of cars can talk to its each other or, you know, computers or anything else that will happen too. They will both happen consciousness in the cloud kind of, um, or just like more data harvesting capability. I think that's gonna be, I, I, I think money rules the world. So I think that the, the areas that technology will be able to profit from the areas of technology that people can profit from the most, will be the fastest to develop, in my opinion.

Jeff Nesbitt: So like with nanobots and nanotechnology and communication. It would seem to me like data data's the new gold rush. Like everybody wants all that sweet, juicy data. And because they can use it to make decisions and they can use it to basically build on a model of their consumer, which is what they've done.

Matt Shannon: knew what you were thinking like actually doing.

Jeff Nesbitt: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Cause then they could be like, Oh, well he's, Yeah. They'll know when you're hungry. They'll know when you're horny. They'll,

Matt Shannon: And they'll know what you want when you're mad.

Matt Shannon: Not just that you're hungry, but like, Oh, this guy likes

Jeff Nesbitt: strips. Exactly. I'm sure they could already figure out that you like chicken strips. Sure. . Uh, But they're delicious. . Yeah. I don't know. There's a lot of cool stuff though. What about Neurolink?

Matt Shannon: I would be very nervous to, I, I don't wanna be the first guy that does it.

Matt Shannon: I'm not in batch one. No. I mean, give it to me when a lot of people have tested it. Yeah.

Jeff Nesbitt: I'll take, I'll take one. Yeah.

Matt Shannon: Eventually. Eventually. I don't wanna be this batch because what? They're not gonna be able to upgrade you. Probably. Probably.

Jeff Nesbitt: Are they putting him in people now? Uh, I thought they had started.

Matt Shannon: Like the, the one they kind of alien. That guides humanity,

Jeff Nesbitt: right? Yeah, I, I think so. But who knows if he's guiding us benevolently or not.

Jeff Nesbitt: Right? Right. , He can just

Matt Shannon: playing with us.

Jeff Nesbitt: Maybe both. Maybe. But it does seem like he is, uh, something else. Like he's another kind of creature. Just like when does the guy sleep? Doesn't make any sense to me. The, Didn't

Matt Shannon: he name his child something robotic also? Yeah.

Jeff Nesbitt: He's got a bunch of kids. Well, little weird.

Jeff Nesbitt: He's one of the only members of the elites who is talking about, uh, pop population collapse. Mm-hmm. , which sounded so crazy at first until everyone started dying. Now I'm just like, Oh, maybe Elon's right. We should have more kids.

Matt Shannon: I think that's a very self-serving argument out of him. Like it's, I need more workers for my things to buy my things.

Matt Shannon: Yeah. Yeah. Uh, right. Well, why, why couldn't we have a stable population? Uh,

Matt Shannon: economically for sure. Like Yeah, like your stocks probably don't keep going up if you have less, Not

Jeff Nesbitt: indefinitely like we expect them to. Yeah. Which makes no sense.

Jeff Nesbitt: Yeah. But it does. I guess it does. If you have a model that depends on growth, like if the population continuously grows, the stocks could continue to grow. I think

Matt Shannon: it's something we're gonna have to deal with. I mean, Japan's kind of already there. They have a declining population. Houses aren't investments there.

Matt Shannon: They're like a declining asset.

Jeff Nesbitt: India, uh, surpassed China for the largest population. That would just happen. Did they just, That just recently happened? Yeah. That's crazy.

Matt Shannon: Well, China's kind of, they had their one child policy,

Jeff Nesbitt: which has been changed Hamstring. The growth though. Yeah, for sure. And I'm sure it's still culturally probably still pretty prevalent.

Jeff Nesbitt: Yep.

Matt Shannon: There's still people who are alive then that Oh yeah. That were under the one

Jeff Nesbitt: Um, when like, when it became known that only 5% of the plastic that you recycle is actually recycled and turned into something else, nobody changed the way they recycle. Like, we still all do the same shit. You go through all the extra steps to recycle even. Well,

Matt Shannon: I mean, that's really a, a, it needs to be legislated that companies use recycled plastics.

Matt Shannon: Right. That's how you,

Jeff Nesbitt: I think they need to get rid of single use plastics, period. Agreed. Yeah. Or shut the fuck up about it. Like we know that all the plastic is still here. Like it's not going anywhere. So we could, we like, that's a major problem. And we,

Matt Shannon: Or bioplastics also bio plastic are an

Jeff Nesbitt: scenario. I mean they, Yeah, they're great.

Jeff Nesbitt: They, they weren't just

Matt Shannon: as Seattle as band all sing straws. Mm-hmm. or plastic straws. Um, but so they ruined drinks straw. Yeah. It's really annoying. If you, the paper ones, fuck the paper ones

Jeff Nesbitt: suck. The mouth feel on a paper straw is awful. Horrible.

Matt Shannon: I like 'em better.

Jeff Nesbitt: It's the same thing. It's like a smoother plastic. It's not as, I dunno. It's got like a nice texture to it. I like bioplastic. I think it's good stuff. Is it made outta cellulose?

Matt Shannon: I think it's from corn. Oh. It's like corn husks, I think. Or that's probably,

Jeff Nesbitt: some of them are anyway. It's probably cellulose.

Jeff Nesbitt: Yeah. Um, it's like plastic made out of plants. Mm-hmm. , they, I used to buy rolling papers, made out cellulose. They were really cool. You could roll a joint that was See through. Yeah. It was neat. All right, Matt. Well, it's, it's been two hours. Um, this has been really fun. I really appreciate you coming by and chatting with me.

Jeff Nesbitt: Yeah, it was great talking with you. You, you have any more questions or anything else you wanna throw out there before we take off?

Matt Shannon: No, I'm, I'm all good here.

Jeff Nesbitt: Thank you so much for coming. It's been a pleasure. Say goodbye to the people.

Matt Shannon: Goodbye people. Thanks for listening.

Jeff Nesbitt: Thanks for listening, everybody.

Jeff Nesbitt: Talk to you next time.