204: A Penguin Named Hannah

Brett and Christina-1

[00:00:00]Brett: [00:00:00] Welcome to overtired. We used to go back and forth on doing these, uh, these, these intros. And I’ve just been, I’ve just been taking them. I haven’t even given you a chance, Christina.

[00:00:12] Christina: [00:00:12] you haven’t. And you know, I was actually thinking that I was like, I guess this is just the Brett show now. Now I’m kidding. Uh,

[00:00:19] Brett: [00:00:19] always been the bread show. Let’s be honest.

[00:00:22] Christina: [00:00:22] This is true. It has always been the fresh show. Yeah, no, we used to always go back and forth. Let’s try that for next week. I’ll try to, to introduce it again for our long time listeners, but for, for new people.

[00:00:34] Brett: [00:00:34] Why don’t we do? Why don’t we do both this week? Why don’t, why don’t you do it right now?

[00:00:38]Christina: [00:00:38] welcome to overtired. I’m Christina Warren, how are you doing Brett?

[00:00:44] Brett: [00:00:44] I am good. Um, Yeah, this feels better. We should have done this to start with. That should have been the way we started the episode. I, uh, so yeah. Okay. I had some, I had some, uh, some ADHD medication issues this week, but I [00:01:00] need to, I need to complain about,

[00:01:03] Christina: [00:01:03] okay. Let’s get into

[00:01:04] Brett: [00:01:04] so it used to be back in the, in the dark ages of like, uh, three or four months ago, I used to have to call.

[00:01:14] The nurse, the nurse would then call the doctor or email the doctor. The doctor would then mail me prescriptions. And I would wait until the, the clinic told me that my mail had arrived. I would go to the clinic, pick up the envelope and drive that to the pharmacy and then wait for them to fill it a few months back that changed.

[00:01:36] And suddenly my doctor was able to, uh, electronically transfer this script. So I could just call the nurse, email the doctor, and then have the script there. Then, uh, she gave me a number to text her directly taking one more part of the chain out. So I could just text my doctor when I needed a refill. [00:02:00] She would electronically transfer this script and then I would go pick it up.

[00:02:03] Things got so much easier. And then last week I texted on Tuesday that it was time for my refill and I didn’t hear back. So I texted again on Wednesday when I was completely out of pills. Didn’t hear back finally. Uh, no. Then I texted again on Thursday and then it was Friday morning when I was during the, the introductory introduction meditation to a yoga class.

[00:02:30] I realized, Oh shit, I bet you, my doctor quit. And I missed the memo and now I’m, and then I spend the whole class thinking about how. Uh, how I, wasn’t going to have a doctor in Woodenville to get any of my meds. And it was not very meditative.

[00:02:45] Christina: [00:02:45] I was going to say, that seems like the worst thing for realization for you to have during yoga, because you don’t want to have like an anxiety attack during your yoga

[00:02:54] Brett: [00:02:54] Although it could also be the best time since I was working very hard on things like [00:03:00] breathing and centering myself. So maybe it, it like it was a wash,

[00:03:05] Christina: [00:03:05] Yeah. Okay. I can see that. Okay. Anyway,

[00:03:07] Brett: [00:03:07] Right after class, I call and I’m like, Hey, is my doctor still work for you? And they said, yes. And I said, okay, so she’s not responding to text messages.

[00:03:18] And they put me into the voicemail of the nurse who then called me back a couple hours later to say that, yeah, uh, she she’ll email the doctor. We’re back to the old way of doing things, but the doctor hasn’t been responding to emails. And it’s Friday, which is her day off and Monday’s a holiday. So now I’m going over a full week without my meds, which is not great for much of anything.

[00:03:45] But I do have a lot of TV. I could talk about.

[00:03:47]Christina: [00:03:47] no, I mean, that’s good. I mean, I’m, I’m really upset that you don’t have your meds and haven’t had them for a week. I’m glad we can talk about TV. I’m concerned that it, [00:04:00] it, you know, that it took this long, like, okay. So how long have you been trying to get in touch with your doctor?

[00:04:04] Brett: [00:04:04] Since Tuesday.

[00:04:06] Christina: [00:04:06] Okay. This is a question that doesn’t come from judgment because I do this too, but yeah, I am just curious, like, was there a reason you didn’t reach out earlier before you realized you were okay.

[00:04:18] Brett: [00:04:18] So the thing with ADHD stimulant medications is if you seem too eager, You run the risk of them thinking you’re abusing your meds and cutting you off. So you have to be very, or at least around here, you have to be very much like, eh, whenever you get to it, no big deal. Ah, you know, whatever’s fine.

[00:04:37] Stay, you know, if you feel like it, you can fill those meds. I desperately need to continue my way of life. Uh, so I didn’t want to appear over anxious, uh, to a point I’m like super gun shy about it because it’s bitten me before.

[00:04:50] Christina: [00:04:50] Right.

[00:04:51] Brett: [00:04:51] I’m more cautious than I need to be, but it’s still this environment where we’re gonna give you drugs that change your life and make it [00:05:00] possible for you to be a normal person.

[00:05:02] But we’re also going to stigmatize the taking of these meds and make it next to illegal for you to even fill a prescription.

[00:05:10]Christina: [00:05:10] Which I mean, And it’s okay. It’s such bullshit. And it sh it’s so good, different, depending on where you are, who your insurance company is, who your doctor is, which to me is even worse. Right? Like I, not that it would be, not that I would like encourage this because I would then be fucked, but, and a lot of other people would be fucked.

[00:05:32] But if this was at least a consistent thing across the country, like if this was something that all doctors kind of followed, then. You know, there’d be a baseline, but instead there’s this, you know, really fucked up system of hierarchies that we as humans and as people with ADHD, I don’t have any control over and it’s not even strictly something where you can be like, Oh, it’s based on your class.

[00:05:59] And it’s based on [00:06:00] this and that, like, I’m sure that has things to do with it, but it’s not even strictly based on that. It’s literally based on. You know, this arbitrary thing, which is what doctor you can get, who takes your insurance, or what part of the country you live in as far as what rules they’re going to follow to, again, as you say, how they’re going to treat you with the meds that you need to live a normal life, like just for comparison.

[00:06:23]It is, I think this on, on our first show back remarkably easy to the point that it’s probably a little bit too easy for now. This might be changed in Cove at times, but for people who work at Microsoft who go to the doctor’s office, that’s on campus. The way that you could get somebody to just write you a script for some Adderall or Dexedrine or whatever.

[00:06:51] Is, I mean, it’s, it’s laughably simple. Um, I hadn’t, I didn’t have any proof of [00:07:00] anything. I didn’t have like my diagnoses. I mean, obviously they’d contacted my doctor and they saw my chart. They would see my whole history of stuff and it would have been fine, but they wrote me, I think it was three scripts of, of my, um, meds.

[00:07:13] Now. They ha they don’t have refills and it had to be refilled. Right on time or whatever, but they wrote me like three scripts just based on what I told them in like my annual physical first meeting. And I know people who have gone in, and I’ve just talked about what symptoms they have and have been able to walk out with a script for ADHD medicine.

[00:07:35] Again, like if they wanted an ongoing thing, they’d need to get some sort of diagnosis or whatever, but not, not a big deal. And as it seems like, my doctor is not in the state of Washington. And so that does complicate things for refills because technically the pharmacy is supposed to call him, um, or his office and, you know, ensure that I haven’t forged the, um, uh, the script [00:08:00] for the, for it to get filled.

[00:08:02] But I would say it’s probably been about 50 50 if that’s actually happened. And one time, I mean, and that pharmacist, like, she will always be my hero. It was like a Saturday and I dropped it off and I was like, look, I know that this or Sunday or something, I was like, look, I know that this is, you know, I’m coming in late.

[00:08:19] I can get this, you know, tomorrow, whatever sounded big deal. And she was like, no, you need this. Even though it was the end of the day and filled it for me. Like very, very nice. And, and I’ve been really lucky that way that I’ve had that I’ve also been in situations I’m not for it ADHD meds, but for when I used to be on Provigil.

[00:08:39] Which I guess was an ADHD med, um, where that was just a nightmare to get like my insurance stopped covering it. And then it was one of those things where, okay. Unify went over my, um, deductible. I could, even if I met my deductible, um, they would only cover so much with Provigil. And so it got to the point where I was like, Oh, I can’t afford to take this anymore [00:09:00] because this is $1,500 a month.

[00:09:02] And that is not something that I can afford to do. Right.

[00:09:06] Brett: [00:09:06] Buy the generic with Bitcoin from overseas. If you know where to look.

[00:09:11] Christina: [00:09:11] yes. And, and I, I

[00:09:12] Brett: [00:09:12] do that with most stimulants, but with, with Provigil you can

[00:09:16] Christina: [00:09:16] right and I’d actually looked at that and I tried the new vigil twice and the new vigil just doesn’t work for me. Like actually

[00:09:23] Brett: [00:09:23] am the Amarillo version. Yeah. Not as good.

[00:09:26] Christina: [00:09:26] Yeah, no, but like the new vigil, which was the one that they created to extend the patents or whatever, that one just fucks me up and it just doesn’t work for me.

[00:09:36] But, um, so I haven’t been on Provigil in years and years and I used to love Provigil, but that one was like almost impossible to get. So it’s just such a weird, stupid

[00:09:47] Brett: [00:09:47] the insurance requirements around Provigil work crazy. Like you had, you had to have tried Nuvigil first and that had to, you had to have had, like, you had to try for three months and then that had to have not worked. [00:10:00] And then you had to go through all the, uh, What do they call that? When, when the doctor gives you a prescription and you go to the pharmacy, but the insurance company has to call your doctor to make sure they were serious or whatever, uh, pre something authorization.

[00:10:15]Um, yeah, like in, by the time I got through all of that, the insurance company then said, Oh, we changed our mind. We can’t give you this drug. And I don’t remember what the final reason was for it, but I never did get Provigil covered by insurance.

[00:10:30] Christina: [00:10:30] Yeah, I had it covered when I was under my parents’ insurance. And when I moved from that, and then I was on Cobra for a period of time. Um, and I paid for Cobra and this was when I was working at Mashable and I paid for it, even though it was a lot of money because this was before, um, you

[00:10:48] Brett: [00:10:48] cheaper than buying insurance.

[00:10:50] Christina: [00:10:50] Um, uh, well, it was still cheaper than buying the medication.

[00:10:53] Um, so, uh, this was before the ACA my whole fear was, I was like, okay, I have preexisting conditions. I [00:11:00] can’t get insured because I wouldn’t have been able to get insured for less than what Cobra costs. Um, and so until Nashville got health insurance, I was playing for Cobra. Then Nashville got health insurance, and it was decent and it covered my Provigil at first.

[00:11:14] And then I liked. They had some sort of, you know, in the fine print, some sort of hard limit on how much they would pay for medications. And I hit that at like month, three of Provigil and I was like, Oh shit. Okay. And they’re like, yeah, we’re not going to cover this anymore. $1,500. I’m like, Oh, well, that’s, that’s a, that’s a third of my, of my salary.

[00:11:35] I do not have that. I’m not doing it. And then when we tried years later, We were on even better insurance. And it was like, they were like, no, this is just not covered. I think it was the same sort of thing with what you said again, you have to try other stuff. And I was just, at that point, I’d been off it for so long.

[00:11:52] I was like, okay. I’m, I’m just not gonna be on Provigil. I’m just going to take it. He just prescribed more [00:12:00] me more extra train. Um, But, but yeah, I mean, but this is frustrating to me hearing you talk yeah. About this is that you knew you were running out, you do all the right things. Now you’re going to be out of your meds for, you know, a week when, if you reached out a week before you run out, which is not an insane thing to

[00:12:18] Brett: [00:12:18] It’s not.

[00:12:20] Christina: [00:12:20] every other medical that I have actually is set to refill, be like, I can, I can call in the refill a week or two before.

[00:12:30] You know, it, it it’s do. That’s fine. Um, so that’s not an insane thing to do, but because if you dared like reach out, Oh a week before your meds went out, then they would look at you as some sort of drug seeker, because you’re selling Adderall to kids and it’s like, hate to break it to you, but the kids are gonna find the Adderall.

[00:12:51] Brett: [00:12:51] easily than I am actually.

[00:12:53] Christina: [00:12:53] uh, no shit. That’s what I was going to say. I was like, I was like, honestly, if you know, if these were normal times and [00:13:00] college campuses were open more broadly, I would say, you should just go to like, you know, university of Minnesota and like ask the teens. And I’m not even joking because they would be able to like, probably get it to you for like, not that much more than, than, um, I mean more than what you’re paying with insurance, but certainly if you needed like, Oh, weeks worth of pills, you could just go and pay for that.

[00:13:24] Like it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s stupid. And it’s, as you say, like creates the stigma. I read this thing in slate this week about. A woman who had really difficult labor and was refused, um, any form of opiate, like any form of like Oxy coding, even though she literally had like a hemorrhage and was in like unspeakable pain from, um, labor and.

[00:13:52] Just the, the, like I, and there was a whole discussion on the comments from people about how obviously, like the opiate crisis is a real thing [00:14:00] and people need to take it seriously. And yes, for many years, um, opiates were way over prescribed and people got Oxy prescriptions, like it was candy and that’s been very, very bad.

[00:14:10] But now it’s swung to this other side where, you know, people who might genuinely need it. Don’t have a way to get it, even in the hospital. Like they will, you know, treat them with, you know, like, like Tylenol. Um, and, and, you know, when, when you, when you’re, you’ve had like a hemorrhage from, from like, you know, labor and, you know, when, when like your, you know, entire, like lower half has been split open, like, you know, uh, sorry, that’s some Tylenol is not gonna not gonna solve that.

[00:14:42] Like, you know, um, but,

[00:14:45] Brett: [00:14:45] but they give you that special title and all that. They inject in your butt. There I’m serious. There’s one. That’s supposed to be like four times strength, regular Tylenol, and they inject it in your butt. And it’s good for about three hours of a certain amount of pain [00:15:00] relief. Like nothing close to an Oxy, but it helps a little, but I like in that’s when I’ve gone in with like a debilitating back pain,

[00:15:10] Christina: [00:15:10] Sure.

[00:15:11] Brett: [00:15:11] the best they can give me, but that’s nothing close to like major.

[00:15:15] It’s surgical after aftermath or anything like that.

[00:15:18] Christina: [00:15:18] Well, that’s what I’m saying. I’m like, if you’ve had a Csection and you’ve hemorrhaged, I’m sorry, but like some, even some like hospital grade Tylenol is not going to touch that. Like that that’s actually like what, like,

[00:15:29] Brett: [00:15:29] say Costco grade.

[00:15:31] Christina: [00:15:31] no, no. I said, I said, um, I said hospital grade. Costco grade would be funny though.

[00:15:36] Um, no, but like, but yeah, I mean, you know, and I can see that for people who have back pain and like, especially, yeah, you gotta be careful with people who are addicts and whatnot, but like it’s shitty that they, you know, but like this pendulum is now swung the other way where doctors are so incredibly, like afraid to prescribe anything that they don’t.

[00:15:55] And it’s weird because if you look at other countries, They’re not actually [00:16:00] better with stimulants. That’s the one thing, um, they’re actually usually worse with stimulants, but at least with pain meds, if you go someplace like France or other parts of Europe, they’re a lot more chill about it. Um, and I, I, I’m sure people who are smarter than me have done studies and research into why there’s been an opioid crisis in the United States, but not in other parts of the world.

[00:16:26] Uh, and, and I’m sure that a lot of that frankly comes down to the, uh, both the insurance companies and the drug companies and kind of the proliferation of a lot of those things. But it is sort of interesting that so many of the problems that we have in the United States with people getting access to the drugs, they need being able to pay for the drugs they need.

[00:16:46] And also the addictions that we have to, um, prescription medications don’t exist. Other places.

[00:16:52] Brett: [00:16:52] Well, I mean, they do, but they’re treated as medical issues and not legal issues

[00:17:00] [00:16:59] Christina: [00:16:59] okay. That’s fair.

[00:17:01] Brett: [00:17:01] addiction is it’s a human condition, but it’s a medical condition. It’s not a moral failing or legal it, we shouldn’t treat addiction with jail. We should treat it with rehab. That seems pretty basic to me.

[00:17:20]Christina: [00:17:20] Yeah, no, I

[00:17:21] Brett: [00:17:21] find in most of those countries that don’t have major opiate crises, they haven’t criminalized it and they offer treatment options.

[00:17:30] They probably also don’t have a major pharmaceutical companies that have basically, uh, uh, what’s the word when you, uh, subsidized doctors.

[00:17:43] Christina: [00:17:43] I was going to say.

[00:17:44]Brett: [00:17:44] Oxycontin and whatnot, but.

[00:17:47] Christina: [00:17:47] No, I was going to say that I actually do think that’s probably a big part of it because, you know, um, as you say, like addiction is a human thing and it’s not like it’s, it’s going to not happen in, in some parts of the world. But I think when you [00:18:00] get rid of that incentive, that so many doctors have from pharmaceutical companies who will pay them essentially to prescribe and to do things, give them kickbacks.

[00:18:12] When that system doesn’t exist, then you don’t have situations where people are getting scripts for things that they don’t need and more of it and are, um, you know, maybe watching things to be saying, Hey, I’ve been prescribing you, you know, this thing for a while now. And your accident was a long time ago, and I’m concerned that you might be developing some sort of dependency.

[00:18:38] Rather than, you know, what’s happened here, which was that, you know, for many, many years it would just be okay, that’s fine. I’m just going to continue to write this script for you and you’ll become more and more addicted, um, over time and it will devolve into something much more dangerous

[00:18:55]anyway. So hopefully you will get your meds, um, on [00:19:00] Tuesday.

[00:19:00] Brett: [00:19:00] I sure hope so, or it’s going to be a hell of another week. Hopefully she won’t go back to having to mail the scripts. Cause that took like five days to get through the mail. So I would have to call it like, I would time it to be like six days before I absolutely needed this script. And then just pray that the mail showed up on time.

[00:19:20] But anyway,

[00:19:21] Christina: [00:19:21] Yeah, I, I, and this is completely my white lady, like privilege because I can go Karen on people and, and it’s sort of socially acceptable, but, uh, This is the sort of situation where I would call if possible, like the nurse again, or whatever on Tuesday and be like, Hey, I’m really not trying to be a pain, I’ve been without my meds for a week.

[00:19:43] Brett: [00:19:43] Nurses nurses don’t judge me. Uh, and nurses are good because they make the call as to whether or not it’s worth boating in the doctor about, so I find it, I can, I can, any time I can call a nurse and be like, Hey, do you know what’s up with this? And they don’t, they, they’re not the ones [00:20:00] marking drug seeking behavior on your files.

[00:20:02] So,

[00:20:03]Christina: [00:20:03] Yeah.

[00:20:04] Brett: [00:20:04] um, tell me,

[00:20:06] Christina: [00:20:06] sorry. I was going to say, what, what shows have you been watching

[00:20:09] Brett: [00:20:09] Oh,

[00:20:09] Christina: [00:20:09] what you’ve had time to do?

[00:20:10]Brett: [00:20:10] Let’s see, I started watching teenage bounty hunters on Netflix. It’s not good. Um,

[00:20:17] Christina: [00:20:17] That doesn’t sound good.

[00:20:19] Brett: [00:20:19] no. So I went back and was watching, um, scrubs and, um, and Cougar town

[00:20:29] Christina: [00:20:29] Yeah.

[00:20:30]Brett: [00:20:30] Oh, and then a lot of YouTube lately, I’ve just been, I’ve been watching all this stuff about like, The history of the world from like a fossil records and early humans and just weird hour long PBS specials on the first hominids stuff like that.

[00:20:51] It’s been nuts. It’s been weird.

[00:20:53]Christina: [00:20:53] I really I’ve really come to appreciate and enjoy YouTube and ways that I, uh, [00:21:00] I’m sort of embarrassed by sometimes about how much like actual YouTube content I watch sometimes, but it’s, it’s a really good, um, it’s, it’s probably my favorite way to turn my brain off.

[00:21:10] Brett: [00:21:10] Yeah, it, but it’s, it can be educational at the same time. It’s uh, it’s where I go to, instead of trying to get into a 30 minute show. I’ll just dive into a 10 minute YouTube video on some topic. I find, you know, tangentially. Interesting. Do you have a favorite channel?

[00:21:28]Christina: [00:21:28] I will. It varies because I wash so many different things. Uh, and I mean, No, I don’t think I have like a favorite because a lot of the stuff that I watched on YouTube is actual crap. Like some of it is actually interesting. Like I really love, um, like, um, the, the angry video game nerd or whatever, or he does these, you

[00:21:48] Brett: [00:21:48] Angry dad gamer.

[00:21:50] Christina: [00:21:50] No. Um, I think that thing has figured out, um, uh, the angry video game nerd. He he’s put her up. He’s been around for a long time. His channel’s name is, um, [00:22:00] cinemassacre and what he does is he. Finds like old video games and he, um, does reviews of them on the systems and just kind of talks about like how good or how bad they were, usually, how bad they work across all their iterations.

[00:22:16] Like he did one a couple of years ago where he played all of the home alone games with Macaulay Culkin, which was pretty awesome. Um, because all of those games are terrible. Um, but, but occasionally he really likes the games, which is very rare, which is always like really great, because he loves to be super critical and like obviously gets like, you know, like, um, performatively angry about stuff, but would he played earthbound, which is one of my favorite games of all time, probably my favorite game ever.

[00:22:48] Um, like. I love earthbound Soso so much. And I’m, I like, I, like, I can say this about so few games. So I feel like I can actually like, [00:23:00] take, like, be like that asshole. Who’s like I was into it before it was cool, but I genuinely was into earthbound before anybody else cared about it. Like it’s now widely considered one of the best games of all time.

[00:23:12] And people like, talk about how great it is, but almost everyone who says that discovered it, like in the two thousands. And I was playing it in 1995. I bought it very soon after it came out, it was like a 60 or $70 game that I paid for with my own money. I was 12. Um, it came with the strategy guide that had like the scratch and stiff stickers and would kind of give you the walkthrough.

[00:23:35] And before the game even came out Nintendo, cause it was a super Nintendo game and Nintendo power. You know, wrote a lot of, kind of glowing things about it in their advertorial way that. Frankly, I still really liked and appreciated, um, got me super hype on the game. And I was like, this sounds like exactly the sort of game that, that I love.

[00:23:55] Cause it’s this game that takes place in kind of the, not [00:24:00] so distant future. And. It was kind of like a modern RPG and like, you know, you had an ATM where your money would go and you would call your dad to save your game. And it was just weird and it was this kind of Japanese interpretation of like what like, or comma looked like, but there was so weird shit.

[00:24:17] Like you, you get this girl Paulo who joins your team and you say her parents run a daycare center, which is then taken over by a cult. And so you have to like free the town and like the daycare center from this cult. And then there was like a blues band that keeps getting in it with the mob of some sort for money who you have to like pay off them.

[00:24:41] And there’s just all this weird shit. There’s aliens. It’s a weird game, but it’s a great game. And now it’s widely considered like, Greatest game of all time, but I was genuinely like played it like the summer. It came out. Like I bought it. It did not sell well when it came out. Um, but his [00:25:00] episode and earthbound, it’s like a, it’s like a 40 minute episode is just really fantastic.

[00:25:04] And it’s one of those things where even he has to be like, dammit, you know, this is so good. You know, this is such a good game or whatever. But, yeah, he’s one of my favorites, I guess if I had to think, but he doesn’t make videos that often. Um, so that’s, but that’s, that’s one of my favorite channels, but I watch a lot of crap.

[00:25:22] Like I watch a lot of like YouTube drama and, and stuff like that, which, um,

[00:25:27] Brett: [00:25:27] I didn’t know. That was a thing.

[00:25:29] Christina: [00:25:29] Oh, it’s a

[00:25:29] Brett: [00:25:29] Apparently. Apparently my YouTube stuck on historical documentaries, but.

[00:25:33] Christina: [00:25:33] See, this is what’s so great about YouTube. Is that both the good and the bad thing is that the algorithm will determine what sort of content you want to watch.

[00:25:41] Brett: [00:25:41] so, so I, I, I can generally trust the recommendations because they pretty much pull from channels I’ve actually subscribed to. So this one came up about. Early humans. And I thought, Oh, I haven’t seen this one yet. And I started it and it opens up with [00:26:00] the mainstream. Researchers don’t want you to know this. And it was it, the whole thing was about like alien, like ancient aliens kind of stuff. And I didn’t make it very far into it because they kept talking about mainstream science. Like it was the devil and, and I gave up on it. But somehow that made it through the algorithm, I guess it was just related enough.

[00:26:27] Christina: [00:26:27] Oh, yeah, no, there’s, there’s been a whole thing, um, about like how the algorithm can sort of radicalize people and, and it, so actually I’m going to put this in our, in our notes, but, uh, my friend, Kevin, um, and I, I used to work with him. He’s fantastic at, uh, he’s now with the New York times, uh, he wrote this amazing story last year called, um, the making of a YouTube radicle, where he basically was able to, um, Go through the YouTube history of people who’ve become radicalized and like alt-right [00:27:00] or whatever, because of YouTube and going through like what videos they’ve watched and what their history has been in.

[00:27:04] You could just kind of try to like reverse engineer, how the algorithm worked to take them from kind of, you know, standard sorts of topics into getting them into more and more radicalized fare. And. It’s it’s a really fascinating, um, story. And, and I do think that like the algorithm is in general really good, but it does have those offshoots, which are not unproblematic and have been criticized.

[00:27:33] Rightly so. The, the, the, um, the way that the New York times, um, Story was done. Like, just like from a graphics perspective is really, really fascinating because it’ll take you through kind of like the timeline of everything he watched and you can kind of see like the, like visually the way that it, it brings up the content he’s watched is just actually really incredible.

[00:27:56] Like the tech that the, the design and the tech that they did for that [00:28:00] is. Some of their best it’s it’s like, not as good as snowfall, but it’s like snowfall asks like, as that same sort of visual design cue and snowfall for our listeners who might not be aware is this very famous New York times story where they created this visual.

[00:28:18] Addition to the tax that it brought you completely into what happened in this story. And it was kind of a breakthrough in terms of visual journalism and web design, and then everything, every single, you know, like, uh, you know, web publisher wanted to have their own snowfall moments. And, uh, you, you fight, you saw, you know, newspapers and magazines.

[00:28:38] Hiring lots of data journalists and, and JavaScript in front end people to try to bring those sorts of things to the stories because when you do it right, it’s actually really incredible. But,

[00:28:49] Brett: [00:28:49] Cool. Yeah. Put, put some links in for me.

[00:28:53] Christina: [00:28:53] Yeah, you got it. Um, yeah. It’s, it’s good. Um, but [00:29:00] yeah, so. So you’re watching YouTube and finding your historical stuff.

[00:29:04] Usually not being radicalized, but occasionally being led

[00:29:07] Brett: [00:29:07] Occasionally it just slips through.

[00:29:09] Christina: [00:29:09] Yup. W and here’s the problem. I love the subculture bullshit so much, and I love the crazy shit on YouTube and in general. And then that will become what YouTube recommends me to watch for the next few weeks. I’ve been watching a bunch of like, Tech content recently, like a bunch of people who do like PC over clock specs or Mac, you know, builds or things like that.

[00:29:32] And so that’s taken up my recommendations, but there are times when it will be like the flat earthers and like the worst types of people, just because I’ve been like obsessed with that stuff. Not because I believe it, but then that light just ruins my algorithm for X period of time.

[00:29:50] Brett: [00:29:50] I get,

[00:29:51] Christina: [00:29:51] I don’t want to see this.

[00:29:52] Brett: [00:29:52] I get the videos debunking the flat earth videos, which I feel is just a waste of YouTube time. Like why, [00:30:00] why who’s paying enough attention to this shit. That we need to scientifically debunk the idea that the earth is flat. Anyway, you know, who showed up in my recommendations this week was a theme park boy who I’m sure has a name.

[00:30:14] I’m positive. He has a name. I do not know it, but he showed up to talk about all the news coverage that he received for his theme park video. And he went, I didn’t watch the whole thing. He went for like half an hour. But he, he read what was clearly a foreign language article, poorly translated out loud and then took, took a lot of issue with, um, I will say the semantics of this clearly translated article.

[00:30:46] It was entertaining just to watch him get flustered.

[00:30:49] Christina: [00:30:49] Oh, you poor ASPE, wonderful tea. You pour you pour beautiful. Like Aspy Swifty. I’m

[00:30:56] Brett: [00:30:56] Oh, my God. Do you, do you know the history of Asperger’s [00:31:00] like why it’s called Asperger’s

[00:31:01] Christina: [00:31:01] I have no clue.

[00:31:02] Brett: [00:31:02] it’s um, it was this Nazi sympathizer doctor who came up with ways to determine whether or not children were worth keeping alive.

[00:31:15] Christina: [00:31:15] Holy

[00:31:16] Brett: [00:31:16] Yeah, no, it is sorted. It is a very sort of history and it’s part of the reason they don’t diagnose Asperger’s anymore.

[00:31:23] That it’s just part of the spectrum now, but just FYI, like there is some seriously sick shit behind that doctor. Like he wasn’t an out and out Nazi, but he worked with the third. Right?

[00:31:37] Christina: [00:31:37] Uh, no then he was not no Nazi. Sorry. That’s uh, I, I’m sorry. That’s how that, that’s how that works. Like, uh, and I feel okay. Well, I take that back, cause that was a slur that I genuinely

[00:31:48] Brett: [00:31:48] it’s not, it’s not a slur so much as it is a reference to a history that got seriously whitewashed or some color washed.

[00:31:57] Christina: [00:31:57] Well, no, here’s the thing. It is a slur that we [00:32:00] don’t know that it’s a slur, but it is. And that finds its way into the way we use language now, because I wasn’t saying it as a slur in that sense, but I was admittedly like kind of joking in, in a. Not completely kind way. I didn’t mean anything. I didn’t mean anything mean by it because I genuinely loved this kid.

[00:32:19] Like I love him and I love like what he did. And, and I love that you watched his video like three times and how much you thought about it. And like, I genuinely like, love his passion. Um, you know, I’m just like poking fun, you know, the same way you would poke fun. I would

[00:32:35] Brett: [00:32:35] no, I was, I wasn’t judging you. I’m sorry. If it came

[00:32:38] Christina: [00:32:38] no,

[00:32:38] Brett: [00:32:38] way, I got

[00:32:39] Christina: [00:32:39] weren’t. No, no, no, no, you weren’t because, but, but I’m judging myself. Like, that’s the thing I’m like, I, I know that I was like, teasing him with love, but for somebody who’s new and listening to this podcast who doesn’t know me and doesn’t know that, like now I’m like, shit there, dude.

[00:32:56] I’m never, I’m never gonna use like ASPE as [00:33:00] any sort of pejorative ever again because Holy, Oh my

[00:33:04] Brett: [00:33:04] I was reading an article written by, uh, an autism advocate, someone who actually has autism. And she was actually the one who kind of laid all this out historically. And she said that she would miss the. The, the, uh, kind of what you said, almost a loving term, like they would refer to themselves as Aspy is, and she was going to, she was going to miss that term of endearment, but couldn’t use it anymore because of, of what it represented. So you’re not wrong. It was even among, even among the autistic, it was considered a term of endearment for most people.

[00:33:47]Christina: [00:33:47] a total tangental thing, because I guess this is the weird, well, this is our podcast, but, uh,

[00:33:53] Brett: [00:33:53] what are we doing?

[00:33:55] Christina: [00:33:55] I was just going to say, speaking of like weird, like Holocaust things, people [00:34:00] might not know about IBM. IBM was heavily involved in the Holocaust.

[00:34:05] Brett: [00:34:05] How so.

[00:34:07] Christina: [00:34:07] They created the sorting machines and the, uh, like the, the, like the, the machines that would basically figure out, um, the census and we’re what, what, um, religion and, and, and, you know, classification people were and where they were located.

[00:34:22] Brett: [00:34:22] Do you have sources for this?

[00:34:24] Christina: [00:34:24] Yes, I do.

[00:34:25] Brett: [00:34:25] This isn’t some radicalized YouTube video. Is

[00:34:27] Christina: [00:34:27] It is, it is absolutely not. It is absolutely not. In fact, uh, the, the, there were people who were like heavily involved in like working at IBM, um, uh, Europe who were. Flat-out Nazis and people who were very closely associated with IBM corporation in New York who knew about this, and it took them until the late thirties to get rid of their association.

[00:34:52] And there’s a great book that came out 15, 16 years ago called IBM and the Holocaust that’s incredibly [00:35:00] well-researched. Um, IBM has had to actually publicly. Uh, they haven’t toned, frankly, the way they should, but they have had to publicly admit and accept their involvement. In, um, the punch card system.

[00:35:14] Yeah, I know this is, this is not like in any way conspiracy thing, this is something that is, it is fucked up beyond belief. And how it started was that this guy went to the Holocaust museum in Washington, DC and saw one of these IBM punch card machines on display. He saw the logo and he was just kind of struck.

[00:35:32] And he was like, What the hell, what is this? And went into to the history. And it is incredibly, incredibly, incredibly disturbing, uh, that one of the biggest and most important companies in American history and world history was like, Um, I think because for such a long time, this is less true now, but for such a long time, IBM, even when it was a faltered, giant was still such a giant.

[00:35:59] I mean, you [00:36:00] have to think they employ 250,000 people. Like, it’s not like it’s a big company and it’s, and it’s, uh, it’s, it’s, it’s big business. It, you know, as defined a lot of things, uh, I think that it’s. One of those things. A lot of people probably it’s a third rail. A lot of people don’t want to touch and get into that stuff.

[00:36:17] I mean, it’s a similar thing. People don’t like to talk about like Henry Ford and Walt, Walt Disney’s antisemitism,

[00:36:22] Brett: [00:36:22] Well,

[00:36:23] Christina: [00:36:23] you know, like,

[00:36:24] Brett: [00:36:24] I feel like now, now that America is full of Nazis again. I feel like now is the time for companies to really own that kind of history.

[00:36:34] Christina: [00:36:34] I agree. And they have, it came up