Navigating Online Empathy with Robert Rostant & David Rivera [The Zero Dot Podcast #29]

The internet has connected more people than at any point in human history.

So why do we seem to understand each other less?

All that and more in today's episode of the Zero Dot Podcast.

are down and resources are low.

That's when we are our most powerful.

Defenders of truth, powerful together at Zero.

Welcome to Team Human.

This is the Zero Dot Podcast.

Welcome, welcome, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, boys and girls, everyone of all
ages.

I am your host, Sam Kirk.

You know Daniel Prattley, he's in the background making sure that everything is running
smoothly on our end.

Our producer and editor extraordinaire, John Merrick, who's usually with us, is taking a
little bit of a sabbatical as he deals with battles in Johnland.

We expect to see him back here in June.

So folks, as it stands, I feel alone.

I feel like there's no one here with me, but I have a secret to tell you.

All day in the studio, I've heard voices, voices percolating in the background.

And I wonder, if we're quiet enough, will you hear those same voices?

Can you hear us?

Can you hear us?

You heard it right?

You heard it right?

Pay no mind to the voices beyond the wall.

That's right, and gentlemen, I am appointed, I am honored with not one, but two guests
here on the Zero Dot podcast.

We have our dear friend Robert Restante, our dear friend, Patreon support member, the man
with literally no limits, green tea enjoyer and student of exploration.

Hey Rob, how you doing?

hi there.

Sam, I mentioned this earlier, I have, not to brag, I've had a lot scheduled in today and
I've always been told, I've had people tell me my entire life, you can't make everybody

happy.

Today, I'm making everybody happy.

Hell yeah, brother, that's right, we make everyone happy on those days, right?

Please do it sustainably, dear listener.

Yeah.

out all the good stuff, but choose your battles and sometimes you can do that Well, that's
awesome Robert and then of course I have my good friend David our command grab enthusiast

patreon supporter Compliance manager dealing with life sciences and health care and just
overall a very good friend.

How you doing David?

em Good to see you as well, Robert.

Hello, everyone.

I have known Dave by his internet handle and by his lovely photo on Fightcade, which I you
can't you can't look at you can't look at that smile and not be happy.

It's it's hard to do.

Yeah.

I think.

Yeah I think you know.

good stuff.

David and Robert are very good friends of the podcast good friends of us all around and
they just happen to be some of the kindest people I know which is why our subject to our

subject today about empathy a very key fundamental pillar here at the zero dot podcast I
couldn't think of two other people I'd rather talk about that topic especially in the

digital age But before we get into that, I think it's important.

We give ourselves some good news gentlemen What do you think some good news?

Yeah, I I could use some good news so

do it.

This coming up a couple of weeks old, but I think it's still good news here.

Researchers at the University of British Columbia have developed an innovative fruit wash
designed to improve food safety and reduce waste.

Think about that.

How many times have you gone to the produce section?

I know I have.

I get an apple, an orange, a pineapple, a mango even.

It's not quite ripe yet, because you don't want it ripe yet.

You want to just buy it and use it later.

And then...

What, like a day, two days later, suddenly your fruit has gone rotten?

I just, I don't know what it is.

I do whatever I do and no matter what, it just never keeps.

Well, it turns out the researchers at UBC have developed a new solution that's made from a
mixture of starch, tannic acid, and iron.

Key features and benefits of this solution include while rinsing with tap water only
removes about 40 % of pesticide residue, this new solution can remove nearly 90 % by

bonding with the pesticides to lift them off the fruit's surface.

That's kind of wild.

In addition, helps keep produce fresher for longer.

For example, it can extend the shelf life of grapes at room temperature from one week
without the wash to two weeks with the wash.

That's kind of amazing.

And on top of that, the cost is about three cents per apple.

So it's a very cheap, cost-effective way to make our produce last a little bit longer.

uh UBC researchers are working on ways to reduce those costs even further for mass
production and future commercialization.

uh Other products in the market do remove pesticides or extend freshness, but this appears
to be one of the greatest breakthroughs in produce preservation as we know it, especially,

we all know this because food is just costly.

It just costs so much money.

So wouldn't it be nice if I bought fruit knowing it's not going to die on me?

I don't know about you, Robert and David, but I'm always buying frozen fruit because I'm
such a black thumb when it comes to fruit.

Like I get fruit, it's gonna be nice, and before I know it, it's gone rotten.

See, I normally, I would be buying fruit in more preserved ways and I'm really happy to
hear about this, but I'm the kind of person who I, my fruit barely lasts like a day or

two.

I eat something ridiculous, like four or five apples a day.

So it just because I like that fiber, you know?

So yeah, but, but this honestly, I was really happy when I heard about this because like,
I'm gonna get.

less chance of getting sick from eating so many apples.

Absolutely, 100%.

Yeah.

And you know, I wish I was like you.

I try to eat a lot of fruit.

The problem is fruit can be expensive where I'm at.

So I wanna save it for a while.

And then of course, me saving it means it starts going bad very quickly.

You'll notice that I get bananas and they're a little green when I get them and I'll wait
a day or two and then they start going and I start like eating tons of bananas every

single day.

So I don't lose any bananas.

uh But yeah, for sure.

I love fruit.

I'm a big fan of it.

Fun fact for podcasting.

Apples especially are great for getting rid of mouth sounds, unwanted mouth sounds.

Eat an apple right beforehand, you get that mm, mm, mm sound.

It reduces it significantly.

So apples are great.

Big fan, big fan.

I should get another one during my next break, my fifth of the day.

So I'm very basic.

like Granny Smith and Red Delicious.

No, not Red Delicious.

Pink Lady, that's it.

Pink ladies are good.

Red delicious, not red delicious.

What'd you say?

Granny Smith, Granny Smiths are great.

What about you David, what's your favorite out?

And graysmills pretty good.

I don't know if the green apples get quite as many names as the red apples, but those can
be pretty good as well.

I feel like they're more consistent.

I think the red apples hit higher highs but can also have lower lows and green apple I
feel like is a little more.

Yeah.

consistency.

I guess I wonder if it's like Red catches people's eye and like, you say, he high highs
and low lows, they gotta give it a cool name to stand out from the rest.

I'm not a big fan of Red Delicious when you mentioned that first, was like, whoa, but Red
Delicious has a weird, bitter kind of watery taste that I'm not the biggest fan of.

Yeah.

I will say this is where I get real basic in terms of consistency, in terms of when I get
it from the grocery store, I know exactly what it's gonna taste like.

Macintosh apples, the tiny little ones, those always have a.

a Macintosh Apple.

They're a little sweet.

Little sweet, but they're tiny.

they named after the computer?

Okay, okay.

I don't know if we get them in the UK.

We might.

I'm just not the most observant in the supermarket.

Yeah, let us know if you ever see them.

Again, not the best, best Apple.

think, know, apples can vary especially, but Macintosh, if I'm looking to save a couple
bucks and I see Macintosh is available in a big bundle, I'll grab those usually.

So.

I'm writing this down alongside pro Street Fighter 1 player Damdai on my piece of paper.

Robert is a notorious note taker in the best way possible.

on my...

a note taker in school, David?

Were you a note taker or were you someone who just osmosis absorbed everything?

No, I was a note taker, especially in college, because the act of writing it down actually
helped me retain the information.

So I was a very big note taker.

Yeah, I would hardly ever look at my notes, maybe glance at them, but it was just the act
of writing it down, slowing me down, getting me to digest what they were saying really

helped quite a bit, for sure, for sure.

also felt very, there's something satisfying when you've written like two pages of notes
and you look back and you're like, oh, you know what?

I actually remember a lot of that.

It's nice.

Hmm.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, that's some good news.

uh

it was early 2000s, laptops were not all over the place, tablets were not all over place,
so it was all handwritten notes for the most part.

Occasionally, if it was a complicated subject, a tape recorder as well.

that's cool.

I actually, started writing notes in laptop uh uni and I found I would just end up going
to like an emulator or something.

So I actually left my computer at home and just started writing handwritten notes and that
helped a lot.

uh

I definitely had a Sega emulator on my laptop playing Sonic 2 during certain bus rides.

Yeah, for sure.

was playing Shin Megami Tensei on my laptop in a lecture once.

like, what am I doing?

Thanks.

Yeah, yeah, I'm a big fan of doing things analog and manually as much as you can it slows
you down makes you Digest it a bit more we'll get into why that's really important in the

digital age, but good stuff all around You know, I'm I'm a little bit younger than David
but like in my time when I was in college and for my UK people That's uni, but for us it

was called college.

I know it's confusing ah That was like the advent of iPads and I'll never forget there was
a bunch of students in a lecture hall who had an iPad we're using it for

I guess school.

And I was, I was such a ignorant person, still am actually.

And I'm like, cool.

That's that's a neat supercomputer tablet device.

Does it replace your computer?

He says, no, of course not.

why do you, why do you have it?

Cause to me in my head, if it doesn't replace the computer, what's the point, right?

Well, eventually we would.

Now we have super computers in our pockets.

have mobile devices, everything.

The computers in our pockets are what?

Like a hundred.

million times more powerful than the Apple IIGS in the 80s.

I mean, it's just insane.

They are too powerful.

mean, I'd look at the YouTube videos.

I think you were talking about this actually in the past.

You talked about people that try to ridiculously simplify technology, but the releasing
technology is kind of redundant.

And I was watching like uh a uh thing for like a mobile phone that uses kind of E Ink and
can barely do anything.

And I'm like, I like this, but it's...

It's kinda dumb.

Absolutely, now dumb things can be fun, but my big my Yeah, my big thing on that episode
if you remember is like You were you're inventing a thing that has already existed and

that thing was very very very cheap and now you're making it a premium $500,000 product.

Come on.

Come on

that I actually saw this with an iPad that used E Ink and was like it couldn't look at
books.

It couldn't do anything else.

It could just write or draw.

And I was like, that's a cool idea.

It's not a $700 cool idea, but maybe for 200 or 100.

are we going to feed the billionaires?

The billionaires are going to starve if we don't buy those things.

I mean, they won't even be able to eat the paper that was this E Ink.

no paper.

pfft.

Cheese Louise.

Pfft.

note, I saw the other day a typewriter that had an E ink screen on it and it actually
looked interesting before I stepped myself back to reality.

I was like, there's no reason I'm going to ever pay $600 for something like this.

uh It had onboard storage uh for the retaining the electronic information and everything
else like that.

I don't think there was a natural way to print from it.

uh I was a bit of a.

it?

Was that the free write typewriter?

Yeah.

Like it was a little late at night, so like I'd have to look and see what it was again.

It looked neat.

state.

you and I have the same tickle of like, that's neat, that's cool, that's whatever.

then after a while, wait, wait a minute, hold on, this is silly.

This is absolute nonsense.

It looks cool, uh no.

Put the wallet away.

really funny actually you should say this because...

I got this when I was in Japan.

It's got a very funny picture of my friends kissing me in a photo booth there.

But you open it, it's a distraction free keyboard.

Nice!

has but actually you have to use like USB to put things on it.

Now I love this except for the fact the quotation marks are Japanese quotation marks so
you cannot write in English on it and it's kind of pointless but the form factor like the

it's pretty much indestructible and the battery lasts for like something like I don't know
80 hours it's insane.

I had a lot of fun with that.

were all the rage in the like late aughts early nineties or no late nineties, I suppose.

Um, yeah.

an episode you posted the one that you had, which was the keyboard.

We actually had those in my school.

they were something you could use in school to type.

you, like, I remember like when my friends broke their arm and they were given one to type
with and they're really cool.

like a $20 thing or maybe $40 max.

But no, let's go ahead and go to that free ride thing and pay $800 for that fancy schmancy
thing.

Cause it looks like a typewriter, right?

I get the appeal.

Typewriters are cool.

That's the thing.

I could just buy a typewriter for much less and get that cool clackity sound.

Yeah.

That is true.

That's true.

Well, folks, that's been some good news about Fruitwash, but hey, there's some more good
news, especially here in the United States for my good friend Robert and those in the UK.

A couple of weeks ago, there was a school shooting or there would have been a school
shooting had it not been for the valiant efforts of Paul's Valley principal.

Principal Kirk Moore stopped an armed suspect at Paul's Valley High School.

An event that's actually you can watch on YouTube right now if you want to watch it.

It's a pretty

A miraculous thing, the student walks in, literally starts pointing a gun and within
seconds, the principal steps in, stops the gunman, uh the young student from shooting

anyone.

He himself gets shot in the process, but saves, it's often believed, I mean, it's argued,
saved countless lives as a result of that thing.

And we celebrate that.

Yeah, you can't predict like how many like I watched the clip and I was incredibly moved
by how fast he acted and like when watching it like it although you can't really hear

what's going on his body language at first suggests that he's ready to just have a talk um
and he obviously he picks the right moment and the acts.

um Is he okay at the moment?

Like how

And in fact, part of the story is that um he was honored during a community event
organized by two local churches to celebrate his heroism and the fact that no lives were

lost.

The event held at a park in Paul's Valley featured live worship music and was organized by
the house church and Trinity Baptist church in his honor.

He is okay.

He was shot, but he's all right.

uh

I'm really glad to hear these.

All right.

And yeah, he's a hero.

He really is.

And when, when interviewed about the topic, he said, I just knew I was just running to get
to whatever was going on.

He tells CBS news.

ah He said, I think it was just instinct, you know, in 37 years, you go through trainings
and drills and what you should do.

And that all goes out the window.

He says, I'm glad it worked out the way that it did.

And he says, I think God's hand was on all of us, but I can't explain why it happened the
way that it did.

And if I might.

Interject just a bit it might not have been God's hand It was just a human nature in all
of us to protect everyone else So we love hearing those stories Rob in the United States.

We have a serious problem with gun violence everywhere in schools We didn't learn the memo
you guys have learned long long time ago We're still very protective of our gun rights at

the chakran of many many many things So it's happy to hear good people doing the good
thing doing the good fight And if I may I will elect our good friend Kirk Moore

as our Zero Dot Person of the Week.

So thank you, Kirk, for all that you're doing.

Appreciate that.

I've always had this like when writing, um and I know you guys love writing as well, I
have like the idea that you can't predict, the only way you can know of a person's

character is what they do under duress and stressful situations.

And like he didn't know what to do, but he did it.

And that's the...

that tells me a lot about his character, you know?

Yeah, he closed the distance between himself and the shooter.

That's the most important thing, risking his own life, but he saved everyone else.

That's huge.

That's massive.

For sure.

For sure.

mean, David and I were in the era of the Columbine shootings.

That was pretty huge.

And uh unfortunately we didn't wanna do any kind of regulation on gun violence or gun
holding.

Instead we blamed video games.

It's all video games' fault.

I guess like, was Doom, like, I think they've they've found Doom on one of their
computers.

And it's like, surprise, Doom was on probably almost every 16 to 30 something computer
back then, you know.

I had it on PlayStation.

The PlayStation one obviously far less corruptible as a result.

I mean, I'll never forget there was an old, I guess it's old now, to me it was new at the
time, Penn and Teller, the magicians, they had a show on HBO called Bullshit.

um And one of their episodes was called Gun Control.

And their argument was like, hey, you the idea that exposure to violent media makes you
desensitize to real violence, they tried to challenge that.

Now, very unscientifically, they just took one kid who loved

First person shooter games, loved shooting people, just loved it, but never touched a gun
in his life.

And with permission from the parents in a very controlled environment, gave him access to
a rifle to shoot at a target, to shoot at a can of beans or whatever it was.

And you see the kid, he's really excited.

He's just super happy.

Like he loves violent video games.

thinks they're so cool.

And the parents are kind of worried that he's just developing into this sociopath.

uh They give the kid in a controlled environment, a firearm.

There's a specialist and a safety officer there to watch it happen.

The kid pulls the trigger once and the jolt of the rifle hitting his body, it doesn't even
make the target.

The kid is so shocked by that, he starts crying in a very emotional way.

He runs to his mother and his parents and he wants nothing to do with guns after that
point.

And you know, it's kind of a, it's only one case and it's one person's experience, but
Penn and Teller was trying to explain like, look, no, this media that we have does not

make you...

desensitized to violence because violence, real violence, is far different from the stuff
you see on TV and video games and all other stuff.

it's, uh well, yeah, the reason that there's the recoil and how scary and noisy it is, it
must have terrified him.

How old was the kid?

Let's find out.

Let's do that together.

Let's see.

I'm going to guess about 10.

Yeah, that's like, I'm like, when like, if there's a kid, I'm like, oh, they're a kid.

It's like this amalgamation of ages.

I'm like, whatever.

As some child, uh it seemed like pre-teen of some kind.

That's my memory.

But I'll never forget.

And that echoes my own sentiment about violence.

My own personal take is I'll never own a firearm.

have no interest in them.

But I play lots of violent video games.

I think they're fine.

uh to my father's credit, one time he showed me footage that he had on a VHS, like
archival footage of

someone actually dying, like actually getting shot and what that looks and how it feels.

A little traumatic, but it looks nothing like real life.

It looks nothing like how we see in the media, right?

In the media, you watch something hyper violent, there's an explosion, guts everywhere,
blood, you know, whatever stuff.

In real life, it's like you see the life literally leave them, they slump to the floor.

Like it is like, you're literally seeing life die and that is not the same thing.

and yeah.

obviously when it's a person that you could like when it's a person versus a
representation of a person is very different.

Yeah.

And the rules of like cinema dictates a certain windup, a certain action, a certain
explosion, kineticism, and however you want to artistically make that work out is fine,

but in real life, that's not what you see.

It's like instant, like with a gun, it's like instant.

And they want you to empathize with the character doing it.

don't want you to like if the character is is like, OK, let's go after they see someone
slumped down and like someone actually died.

They're not going to look good on screen, are they?

No, no, they're not.

They're not.

also, yeah, I you to be empathetic to all the characters inside and video games have to
slow things down and movies have to slow things down to make you follow what's happening.

And again, that's not real life.

Real life violence is instant.

It's like they are dead.

They're gone.

um But I remember that time.

I know David remembers that time and us like it was just, it was just a weird place to be
because I enjoyed violent video games, still do.

literally being told, if you keep ingesting this, you're going to become a sociopath like
what happened here in Columbine.

And we know that's not true, but during that era, was like video game fever.

Watch out guys, watch out.

Yeah, that must have been like, and also it's like the idea that you can't even buy a
video game without being judged, probably acted quite heavy on you.

Honestly, it sounds like an awful time in general was excuse my ignorance was Columbine
the first high profile school shooting or what?

Yeah.

Yeah.

happened in 1999.

So that was close to me finishing high school.

So like the way schools run now into US where they do these shooting drills and things of
that nature.

I never went through most of that.

So like I was graduating out.

be in high school for you Dave?

It was because like it happened in another high school with like people that you recognize
some of the archetypes that a lot of students fall into and like you could see parallels

in some groups of students as they're everybody's trying to discover their identities and
who they want to be and their friend groups and all that type of stuff.

So it's easy to see parallels and have those types of concerns.

But like it was just more shock uh that something like that had happened at a school
where.

that that that's something that could even happen and that like, again, in terms of
shocking news that was that that was post 9 11.

Right.

Wasn't it pre 9 11?

It's not post pre pre.

So I meant pre I meant pre sorry.

a couple of years later, 9-11 happens and like everyone's at a fever pitch level of
anxiety and that.

It was like, so before, I know Columbine is an isolated incident.

Before that, was there like any kind of anxieties building up in general in America?

Or was it just something?

not around like gun violence or anything else like that.

uh It was something you saw in movies and TV shows and stuff like that, video games, which
I think is where a lot of that focus ended up going into.

But the United States as a whole has a long storied history of picking a medium that is
popular with

young people going back to music, to movies, to comic books.

There's a long story in history there of picking a scapegoat, I'll say.

that, that doesn't just happen in America.

Look, I don't know any of the details because like it's something I heard once and like
the details are so grisly.

I don't really want to remember them, but there was a, someone in the eighties, a serial
killer in Japan who did some horrible things, did some absolutely horrible things.

They found like, uh, that he had visual novel dating games in, on his computer and

They were, there was like a whole thing that if someone's an otaku, they're a nerd,
there's something wrong with them, they could hurt someone.

And that stereotype lasted for a very long time up until the late 2000s where being an
otaku was kind of seen as less stigmatized in Japan.

It's really interesting, but it's really upsetting like the stuff the guy did, know, and
like it upsets me to have like someone try and connect like someone like that to like,

a relatively, I mean, I say relatively innocent hobby because like, you know, there are
stuff in in like in dating games and older ones that was very problematic.

But, you know, it was it's still it's like you don't connect that to that.

Yeah.

I mean, what was interesting about Columbine is I have to look at the data myself, but
like, if, a kid brought a firearm into the school, it was a kid that didn't know any

better, or they forgot that it was in their bag, or they were really nervous and scared
about it they got caught or, know, maybe it was an isolated incident, but Columbine was

two kids that were, they had a plan.

They executed that plan.

They were like, they had mapped out what they were going to do, how they were going to
approach it.

everything was calculated.

They'd been thinking about this for a long, long, long time.

And I believe one of the, they had made a custom map in doom that mirrored the school
itself to help them plan this even better.

Like that's kind of where it all got intertwined and messy.

Yeah.

wow.

Yeah, that's, again, though, it's kind of like, they, they, at the same time, they must
have written stuff down on paper and it's like, if someone uses a notepad and pen, they're

going to do something bad.

Like reload that pen, you know, that fountain pen could unleash a fountain of, uh, of
gore, you know.

Sure, yeah, yeah, yeah.

mean, every responsible gun owner that I know is pro more regulations, pro getting more
steps in place that way not anyone can just grab a gun.

Right now in the United States, the steps you have to go through to get a gun is
significantly far less than other things.

Like you have to go through more tests to get a driver's license than you do to get a
firearm.

Like it's kind of insane here in the United States.

a lot harder to play Dragon Quest X online in America than it is to buy a gun.

uh I personally put more effort into getting access to Dragon Quest X than I did in most
of my exams when I was in school.

Yeah.

So I mean, and I'm sure there's a lot of ways in which people on the UK side are envious
of the Americas.

But let me tell you, for those of us, and I don't want to speak for David, but I know for
myself, I'm envious of the UK and some of the regulation in that space.

that would be nice.

now I

that has some kind of reasonable approach to this because yeah, the US approach has not
been

Yeah.

it and I, you know, I'm just so sorry for like the, it's just like the amount of lives
lost and lives destroyed as a result of this.

It's just like, someone who's, who's worked in a school before, very, very upsetting, you
know, it's, um, and, uh, I, I, I just hear like from friends who have kids, um, I hear

from friends who have kids on Discord in America, they're like, there was another school
shooting today.

I was, I was terrified and I'm like, ah, my heart goes out to you.

I'm so sorry.

Like I'm glad that

was safe, but I'm so sorry that you even heard the word squashing like today.

Yeah.

I mean, what was it like 20, 23?

was like we were getting school shootings every couple of months.

We got, became so desensitized to it.

It's like, yep, there's another one.

It's awful, but it's happening.

I wonder if it's like, you know, I wonder if it's just like, you know, when people are so
tired of something, you know, it's like.

so exhausted, tired.

You see it every day.

You're just like, you just become numb.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So it's an awful feeling.

know, I, yeah, it must be terrible to see these things happen.

But just like, I'm so glad that there are heroes in the world like that head teacher, you
know.

Absolutely.

So once again, thank you Kirk Moore for your valiant efforts.

I'm sorry to put your life in the line, but the world is a better place for it.

So thank you.

And I'm glad you've made a recovery, you know?

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first one to find that out.

You can only find that out though if you're a member for $3.99 or your regional equivalent
at patreon.com slash zero dot media.

Come be a member today and find out what all the fuss is all about.

All right.

Well, enough waffling about that.

Let's talk about our main topic.

Today, I wanted to bring my two friends, Robert and David together.

I want to talk about empathy.

Now we've talked about empathy a lot on the Zero Dot podcast, one of my favorite things in
the world.

I think it's the most powerful force that we have as human beings to bring us together.

But today I want to focus specifically on how we navigate the shores of empathy when it
comes to online discourse, online spaces, all that good stuff.

I'm talking Reddit.

I'm talking discord, I'm talking social media, I'm talking comments sections, I'm talking
gaming spaces, gaming lobbies, of which Robert, David and myself have a bit of experience

on, and why it feels harder than ever to actually understand each other in these
particular spaces.

uh To kind of set the stage for us, know, when I think about the internet, know, it's a
really common thing for people to believe that, because it's the internet, because we're

chronically online, you know, um the internet just makes people less human, makes us less
in...

want to be a human being.

And I disagree with that sentiment quite a bit.

I think, I don't think the internet makes people less human rather, I think it makes it
easier to forget that there's a human on the other side because of all the things that are

missing, right?

Usernames obfuscate what your real name might be, including your faces, which by the way,
it's not the same thing as what user privacy laws at the UK and other places are trying to

do.

That's a totally different thing, right?

But I'm saying just it's obfuscated, right?

No body language, there's a lack of tone.

In fact, this episode is being, is,

being broadcast to our listeners right now and the eternal war versus the video list,
video watchers versus listeners.

I don't know if the listeners might be winning right now.

You have no idea that Robert is holding a plushie of Hulk smashing through Spider-Man's
daily bugle building.

Just kidding.

uh Right.

There's no pauses anymore.

There's constant feed of information.

In fact, any pauses, any disruptions of feed of information is seen as a glitch in many
cases.

And as a result, people are just becoming more abstractions in that regard.

know, online we encounter opinions before we encounter humanity, which is funny because
all human beings have opinions just like they have assholes.

Yet still that does not make us the human beings that we are.

So let me ask you, David and Robert, do you think people are actually meaner online?

Just generally speaking, that's just what happens.

So before I um get into that, I it's interesting that a phrase popped to mind when you're
saying about how lots of things are missing.

I would say internet communication is kind of modal humanity.

You've got a few modes and a few modes are missing.

And I guess when certain modes cannot be seen and you just get someone's opinion, it's
very easy for people.

on internet to lash out at that person and be angry at the opinion.

It's it's it's something like I mean in the fighting game space it it have it's it's very
exhausting it's it's tiring it happens a lot.

Yeah, yeah.

And in the fighting game space, back in the day that I was in and David was in, when it
was in person, was no thing as online.

If you were gonna lash out at someone, which happened a bit, there was a lot of bullying.

You had to go through the first layer of I'm lashing out at you and you could punch me
back for it, right?

You could attack me.

Like I'm going through a layer of obfuscation here to get to this and I'm taking the risk
on that.

Now there's no risk.

It's just, can say whatever I want and you can't do anything about it, right?

And especially with on Reddit, you could have a username, that's still nothing, really.

But people could even just go in and make a new account easily.

It's wild.

Yeah, yeah.

I was talking to uh someone, Robert, you and I both know, who's in a space that you and I
are both in.

And we were on an online, we were in a gaming lobby and they were talking about uh being
excited for the new RoboCop game that just came out and they were going to be playing it

and then live streaming on their Twitch channel.

I bumped at this guy six months later in a different lobby and I Hey, how's a, how's
RoboCop going?

You said you were really excited to play that.

And you know he said?

He says,

How do you know that?

How do you know I was excited to play that?

Like, well, I remember you said it, you said you were excited to play it, I'm curious to
hear.

And he was weirded out by the fact that I paid attention to what he said and that I was
circling back to it as if I was interested.

Like that weirded out to him because we only know each other online and he just assumed he
was talking into the void and no one was listening.

And that was strange.

I would, I would have been so happy if someone like had been like, you're looking forward
to Robocop and I'm like, like, you know, like, but I wonder if this person has had people

not remember what they've said more often than not.

Maybe.

yeah, I, one thing both of you are really good at remembering stuff people have said
online.

And I see a lot of people online that kind of repeat the same stuff.

And yeah, and like, I'm like, I'm like, dude, I remember all of this.

But.

uh I wonder if they, I don't know if they've been belittled in the past or just unable to
conceive that people are actually seeing what they're saying is sad.

Well, does online discourse kind of propagate the idea that, let's not give ourselves a
moment for context.

Let's not look back to see what was said before.

It's only the here, the now.

Here it is in front of your face.

Keep scrolling, keep going.

Do we think that's a part of it?

I so one of the things there's that and I also think people want to I think people want to
judge an opinion before they sit with it I'm guilty of that sometimes too like I you know

like making snap judgments about like games and stuff I I I love it when I'm wrong about
something it's it's very refreshing

Yeah, yeah.

People are more reactionary, right?

People are more, I see a thing and let me react to it right away.

For sure, for sure, for sure.

What about you, David?

When I say that, hey, are people just meaner online?

Is there a root cause you can bring it to?

I think I want to say yes in general, but I think it's more specific to where there are
larger audiences.

think the larger the audience or the larger the platform or the larger number of people in
a particular setting.

like social media, we're saying endless scrolling.

let's use.

I've been on X or Twitter for years now ever since a lot of that occurred.

It's good.

the content is always there.

You can keep scrolling and there's always going to be something else there.

um I think that the broader the field essentially, the more likely you're going to get a
lot of that negativity, that dehumanizing components, that's reactionary components.

uh I'm very particular in the spaces I choose to engage with, especially online.

These days and have been for quite some time.

So they tend to be smaller groups uh more focused maybe a streamer that's with a couple of
exceptions and doesn't have a like a whole lot of people watching them constantly that

type of thing and That tends to be where you get a lot more natural conversation people
engaging with each other and less of that reactionary component at least from what I've

seen

right?

If it scales up too high, then that's just a natural thing that happens.

Let's keep the scale small.

Is that what you're saying?

Yeah.

a large enough news or a large enough surprise or a large enough deal, then it gets
removed from the individual or the person or the group that is affected by the actual

event.

And then that's where it gets out of control.

Yeah.

becomes and also so I found on social media Sometimes people worry like I haven't been on
Twitter for a long time But I in the past even I have gone through this thought process

Sometimes people worry that if people do not see them Speak out about something that
they're going to assume that they agree with the thing if it's something that's bad Or

they're going to assume they disagree with the good thing like I

Sometimes when like you notice when a celebrity has died and people on Twitter are sad
about it and there's lots of replies.

I tend to not write anything and sometimes I tended to not write anything and sometimes I
would think do people think I don't care that this person died and it's a weird thought.

I'm so glad I'm off of Twitter, but as obviously as you can hear it did not do healthy
things for me.

It's...

Twitter also known as X.com, but we will just refer to it as Twitter because that is what
it is.

It's certainly a platform that propagates a certain kind of uh reactionary tendency.

And you just said it, if you don't react, then you feel like you're not doing your job in
the ecosystem of what that incentivizes.

uh For sure, for sure, for sure.

But as Dave mentions, kind of the bigger, it is the less individual factors factor in and
it becomes more of a hive mind, right?

It's wild.

I...

Yeah, the thing about the bigger something gets have you ever have either of you guys gone
into a twitch chat for a popular streamer To just just to see have you noticed how like

fast it scrolls down and like Some of the comments are so mean Like people will be
pointing out the streamers appearance for no reason that they will be talking about like

this game's shit.

Why is he playing this game?

And like, they'll be giving like, needless, unasked for unwarranted, rude feedback.

And I'm like, if you go to a smaller chat, people are like, hello, how are you?

Yeah, yeah.

That actually scares a lot of people off.

There's a friend of ours that Robert and I know.

Her handle name, she goes by the name of Sweet Bree.

She's now getting into the realm of Twitch streaming.

And she was talking to me a bit beforehand about, know, hey, I don't know if I should do
it.

You I'm not very good at video games.

I kind of want to do it, but what if people make fun of me?

And I said, here's your advice.

Go fucking do it.

Go fucking do it.

Well, let me know when you're streaming, I'll be your first person on.

And she streamed it, it was great.

And she has a wholesome community now, small, like David was saying, a small wholesome
group people that are into it.

None of those negative comments, but like, even if she did like, fuck them.

That's my endorsement, fuck them.

Yeah, exactly.

what also one of the, I know it's hard if you're on your own streaming, but it's, it's if,
if you're in a smaller community and someone's being asked how it's much easier to see who

that person is and block them straight away.

Whereas if it's a big scrolling, yeah.

and all of the stuff.

And you have to like, you have to like hire someone who's like looking at the chat for you
to block that stuff.

And sometimes you have to get like a software that does it and sometimes it's not right.

man, that's whole thing's, it's crazy.

like, sometimes people will even spend money so that they would get their chat highlighted
and they'll say something rude and it's like, what the hell you paid for that?

Yeah.

that's yeah, that's the few people that I do watch that have larger environments.

I feel like are.

Pretty good about keeping their environments in their chats and their community positive,
and I think that is something worth rewarding.

Like it's one of the reasons why I watch some of those larger streamers because they have
that positive environment.

because if it was a negative environment, on YouTube I can ignore the chat, the comments,
whatever.

That's easy to ignore.

On Twitch it's a little more inherent in the platform, so it's a little harder to ignore.

It's just constantly always there.

If I needed to, I could ignore it, but more likely than not, if that type of environment
is being fostered or not addressed, I'm unlikely to even engage with it and watch it

anymore.

yeah, that's right.

mean, one of the things I like, I watched the stream of Northern Lion a lot.

He's very entertaining.

He's got quite a big audience.

If someone says something rude to him, he will pause the stream, talk to them.

And like, he usually riffs on it and like, kind of like, pokes fun at them.

But he's also like, that's not acceptable and just bans them and kind of like, I'm like,
yeah, like, giving that time to

to like address it and push a boundary and just say, no, we're not pushing boundaries
today, guys.

I like that.

It just makes me feel like it's a healthy thing to do, I think.

Yeah, absolutely.

think good stuff all around.

And I think we all agree.

It's like, there's a systemic flaw here that just propagates this.

And again, it's fantastic when Twitch streamers, when people can overcome it and there are
skills in doing that, but it's also unfortunate that we have to overcome these things.

Cause I think in some ways it's harder than if you're face to face, right?

uh I was just coming across the work of someone by the name of Sherry Turkle.

Sherry Turkle.

uh who is an American sociologist.

She's the Abby Rockefeller Mousay Professor of the Social Studies of Science and
Technology at MIT, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

She has a BA in social studies and later a PhD in sociology and uh personality psychology
at Harvard University.

She focuses her research on psychoanalysis and human technology interaction.

And she's written many, many, many books about the impacts of the brain and technology and
the interfaces that we deal with.

uh

These books include the second self computers and the human spirit alone together, why we
expect more from technology and less from each other uh and life on the screen where she

discusses how emerging technologies, specifically computers affect the way we think and we
see ourselves as humans, especially if we're looking at a screen all the time.

Her research is really interesting.

talks about how assuming different personalities in like a computer fantasy game can be
therapeutic, like MMOs and so forth.

At the same time, there's problems that arise when using that as a modality for our
primary sense of communication.

um There's a lot of issues in terms of where your identity might come from and how you
interface with that.

And really she focuses a lot on psychological and societal impact of relational artifacts
as social robots and how these and other technologies are changing attitudes about human

life and living things in general.

Specifically, one result may be the devaluation of authentic experience in a relationship
in and of itself.

And that's one of the side effects.

as a result of being in these constantly online kind of interfaces and so forth.

So I'm calling her out right now because that's just tip of the iceberg with her research,
but it seems like she's diving into this quite a bit.

She's won a lot of rewards for that.

I'm recommending people check out her work, especially the one she wrote in 2011, Alone
Together, Why We Expect More From Technology and Less From Each Other.

And I think it's a systemic issue.

And I wonder what we can possibly do about it.

But as I think about this stuff, I'm thinking about what Dr.

John Sular had said.

He coined a term called the online disinhibition effect.

You guys ever hear about that term?

Is it something to do with, like, is it related to anonymity online and how that makes us
less likely to self-censor?

Exactly.

It's the basic, the phenomenon that people tend to feel safer saying things online than
they would not say in real life because they have the ability to remain completely

anonymous and invisible when on websites, social media, cetera.

And as a result, free from potential consequences, such as physical harm and other
punishments, which we just talked about, right?

But speaking about what you're talking about, know, Robert, about that particular
phenomenon, this effect literally allows people, propagates people being more reactive

online, less patient.

They get information and they feel the need.

There's no ramifications for me to pause and listen and think about this and consider it.

I'm just gonna react right now.

You can't hurt me.

You can't fight me.

So it makes us harsher and makes us more certain of certain outcomes when we would
normally not be because digital spaces remove the emotional consequence.

And that's what Dr.

John Sular had been talking about.

A common analogy is it's easier to throw rocks at silhouettes, right?

Because no one's gonna bleed when you throw it at like a silhouette or a shadow of that
kind, which then takes us to like,

gaming, Discord, Reddit, and all that other stuff.

em You see it a lot, Discord pylons, when someone has a quote unquote wrong opinion and
people start shouting at them, Reddit outrage spirals that just go on forever, quote

tweets, quote tweets are everywhere.

Again, David's not on Twitter anymore, neither am I, but it's a big thing to quote tweet
and yeah.

quotes of quote tweets and oh god it's a whole mess.

it's part of the, the engagement that they're looking for as well.

Like you see somebody post like a bad opinion or a bad take on something and they don't
care that they're getting quote tweeted because to them it's engagement.

And unfortunately that's a lot of where Twitter has geared into.

Yeah.

And also, I'm sorry, one second, I'm just gonna turn on the light, but I don't know why I
decided to do that when I started talking.

But I've noticed that there's a lot of irony and insincerity when I was on Twitter, like
four or five years ago, there was a lot of irony and insincerity.

And it's a defense mechanism, I believe, that I'm seeing more of.

on Discord, especially bigger Discords.

And like, I know there was like that kind of edgelord humor in the late 90s, early 2000s.

I think that's coming back.

I worry that it might be coming back to a larger extent on online spaces like Discord and
Reddit.

I've seen a lot of it.

It might be, right?

depending on the social media, I don't think it ever went away.

Yeah.

yeah, yeah, again, I think it went away just because I've been in probably like such nicer
spaces.

But even in some nicer spaces, do see like, I see irony and like, like not irony, I see
people, yeah, people being ironic uh and people being slightly edgier.

it's like, it kind of makes me wonder.

It's like, there's no need for this all the time.

Yeah, I mean, I don't blame them for doing that because the system's in place.

get likes, you get shares, people quote tweet, you get the emojis underneath things.

It sends dopamine to your brain.

It makes you feel good.

And if that's how the system rewards you, then how are you going to keep navigating that
system?

You're going to navigate in a system that rewards your reaction, your speediness, your
cleverness, your funniness, your ability to get that response and not a system that

rewards reflection, pause, and as we say, empathy.

So I don't blame it.

It's just, that seems like that's what the system's geared towards.

Do you have a question that you want Sam, John, or Daniel to answer on the Zero Dot
Podcast?

Well, drop them a line at questions at thezerodotpodcast.com or go to
thezerodotpodcast.com website to drop them a line right there and then.

Any questions submitted might be used for a potential episode for the Zero Dot Podcast.

Feel free to put your information in there as much as you'd like, whether it's about
issues of life, struggling with empathy, workforce challenges, relationship challenges,

mental health, you name it.

Sam, John and Daniel will be happy to discuss those on future episodes.

But that can only be done if you go ahead and drop them a line at either questions at
thezerodotpodcast.com or go to thezerodotpodcast.com website and drop them a line right

there.

Cheers.

I, so I, I'm the kind of person that I want to, if I'm talking to someone, I want to give
them a reply straight away.

And I found sometimes whenever I've actively told them, hey, I'm going to consider that
and get back to you.

And I thought it out.

I've given a more thoughtful response and just felt better about it.

Like sometimes you just need to put things on pause.

Whereas if I'm,

I'm quite an emotional guy, I react to things quite quickly.

When I do that, I always change my mind in the end.

Sure.

We were just talking about this before we started recording, but like, um, I'm seeing it
now in the workplace where you get a nasty email and you should respond to it, but like

you're emotionally charged.

So what do do?

You take a walk, you take a break.

You know what?

Let me respond to it in the morning when I slept on it.

No commerce has decided.

We can't wait for you to do that.

So go ahead and just feed your, what your response is into AI and AI will make it softer
for you.

And that will give the quote unquote performative empathy that you need.

So we can keep moving and keep performing.

Right.

And that's crazy to me because that means that we're only allowing ourselves to
emotionally regulate ourselves when we start thinking that there's a performance or an

audience watching.

That's a whole other level of my mind just blows like

Yeah, there's a lot of levels to that.

I wonder, like, I think there's something uncanny about AI responses.

I think deep down, even if we don't consciously know it's AI, something knows that
something's up.

I think that's more likely to piss off the person on the other end.

Like, there's something about that.

Yeah, I mean, here's the thing about the human brain.

uh If you've played with AI in any capacity, I know David has, or Rob, I'm sure you've
done it every once in a while.

You give it something, spits it back, and it does something.

It says, great idea, Rob.

Oh, great thinking, Dave.

It compliments you, gives you esteem, and even like, it kind of speaks a language that
it's like it understands you.

And unfortunate thing about the human brain is, even though we know it's not real, our
brain does like it.

We do like it when it gives us that little message of something, even though it feels
fake.

The good news is though, yeah.

the brown-nosing piece of shit that it actually is.

yeah, definitely.

like sometimes like I've messed with it before um and like, like I was talking I was into
Final Fantasy 14 and I was joking a little gross joke but I was joking about should I get

a chamber pot so I can continue playing Final Fantasy 14 uninterrupted and it said I
should and like, like it's first it was like please consider the hygienic costs or like

this this and this

However, it would be convenient and it would save you time.

And then at the end it said, happy adventuring hero of light.

And I'm like, this is so stupid.

And then my friend was like, you know, it takes three bottles of water every time he does
that.

And I'm like, I'm so sorry.

uh

cost is crazy.

Just absolutely insane.

like, I'm not messing with this guy.

Yeah.

But I mean, yeah.

before, AI and proof sockets.

That's what South Park taught me.

There you go.

Ha ha ha!

Thank you, thank you Warrior of Light.

Hahaha

Exactly.

That's a great call.

I am also seeing that human beings are really good at detecting patterns and we're getting
better at understanding what AI can look and feel like.

Like four years ago, if I got a response that was AI generated in the way that it is now,
I'd be like, oh wow, that was a really well-crafted hand-responded AI, but we've seen it

enough times now we go, that's AI, that looks like AI.

Which on one hand, I appreciate the human brain for being able to do that.

On the other hand, maybe David can relate to this, I hate the fact that...

The hyphens have been weaponized against us.

You can't, you gotta be careful with the hyphens.

You gotta be careful with the double hyphens.

You gotta be careful with the M dots.

I like that as a writing tool, but now I gotta be careful because if I use too much of it,
it's gonna sound like it's AI.

I hate it.

using hyphens and replied to people and I'm like, oh, no.

Also, also the good old.

to use ellipses, I am going to throw a fit.

I'm going to tell you now.

ah Also like it's not this, it's this every single time.

It's like, come on, come on.

Yeah, it's, it's, and as well it does the kind of, um, if it's telling you, if it's like
opposing your idea, we use the, the shit sandwich, you know?

And it's like, no, this is a, this is bad when humans do it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So I guess, I guess my question is like, what do we do?

What do we do again in the context of empathy?

Cause just to remind our listeners and viewers, empathy is in my opinion, one of the
greatest tools we have as human beings.

And there's a lot of different versions of it.

And this empathy is different from sympathy, but at the crux, there's three components to
empathy.

It's recognizing feelings of the other person.

um If it's not immediately obvious in the context,

bringing that connecting that to some kind of root cause or connection or circumstance.

And then the most important part, which again, online spaces do not do well.

They just don't have a good mechanism for pausing and listening.

Right?

So it's like, Hey, it sounds like you're feeling blank because of blank pause and listen.

And that's a human thing.

People, that's what people respond to.

And there's an interchange of ideas.

And when the systems are stacked against us, how do we, how do we give the system empathy?

How do we fight back a little bit?

What do you think guys?

So I think one of, I found before that I was talking to a really good friend, one of my
best friends.

And em you are also one of my best friends, but it wasn't you in this situation.

And I think he mentioned something about not liking a movie because he thought it was too
political.

And my thought process was, I was like,

Man, I think everything's political.

And that's what I said.

I said, to be fair, I think it's hard to make something that isn't political.

What I think I should have said was, why does it bother you?

Maybe it might have touched on something that really upset him.

I should have asked, I think.

And this is something I'm gonna keep in mind for the future, but it's like, why does my
opinion matter there?

I want to get to the bottom of why it bothers my friend.

like, I honestly, think personally, I believe that movies shouldn't shy away from
politics.

But at the same time, have been in this, have you ever been in a situation where you're
really enjoying a piece of media and you suddenly realize it's propaganda for something

really bad?

Yeah, yeah.

uh And I think some people use the word political in place of propaganda.

That's what they actually mean.

But yeah, yeah, I've been there.

I was watching an, sorry to hijack and talk about anime, but I was watching an anime.

Have you guys, anime, have you guys heard of the anime ranking of, ranking of kings?

Have you seen it?

on the first season.

And I liked it lot.

I liked it a lot too.

However, there was something that made me very uncomfortable when I did a bit of research.

It really, you wouldn't, I didn't catch this.

You probably wouldn't have caught this.

It presents an allegory for Korean refugees during World War II in Japan.

And it's very uncomfortable when it does that.

basically it represents there's another culture in the show and they like it the character
says this culture did not appreciate kindness and they end up killing one of the

characters they are living in huts which eerily if you look at the photos eerily
one-to-one with Korean refugee camps in Japan

um And also like the the the king who is um Like who has accepted these refugees says
they're actually quite profit They're actually doing quite prosperously, which is an

actual quote from a Japanese politician I aimed at this and like I was really upset by it
because it's such a beautiful show with lots of really like empathy and good feeling and

it's like you don't have empathy there it's like

Hmm

sorry to bring it up because it's a good show and I was really disillusioned by it when I
found this.

I was very upset by this.

And it's, is it intentional as far as you're aware?

I mean, if the, the pieces are there, the pieces are there, right?

But I'm just, okay.

And as well, they never humanize that tribe of people.

In fact, one character just kills them all in a rage um and is never mentioned again.

um Now, I might be getting some facts wrong about the time and place, but I saw a picture
and it was very...

related to something related to Korean refugee camps in Japan and I'm not it might have
not been World War Two that was my assumption but it I was like man I loved this anime but

this is just too much like um there's enough

could be unintentional.

It could be an environment that's the creators of the...

I'm not sure if it came from a manga or if it was just an anime, but it could be something
that they grew up with and maybe didn't have the underlying understanding of.

They may be calling back on things or elements that they're aware of and that they see.

Because I know that the show, from what I remember, it's been a few years, from what I
remember, they do touch on a number of things as far as like...

The main character has a couple of disabilities and like despite that...

did such like as a person with disabilities, I was so touched by that and that aspect of
it.

And there's a lot of empathy that goes into the show.

And, it could have been a thing that he picked up a history book, like he didn't really,
he wasn't really thinking about it.

He was like, this would make an interesting setting.

But there's a lot of uncomfortable parallels there.

There are.

mean, part of that, it's the people that I think it is in the show, like the main
character, the protagonist, the friends, somebody from that race as well.

ah So they show a lot of atrocities occurring to those people, but also shows like the
budding of friendship and relationship with across that divide.

Yeah, I think it's the people in the village that tortured that character and they
basically like mutilated the character.

It's gross things to talk about, but like, m and I think like they were all killed by the
king.

I don't know if anyone...

I don't know if they appear again in the series.

They may not.

oh Yeah, I can see the parallels there.

And I might be misremembering stuff as well, I do get that though.

I'm like, why is that in there?

Like maybe something like that bothered my friend who didn't want the film to have
politics in it.

And like, I did him a disservice by like kind of assuming what he meant instead of asking
him what bothered him.

I mean, that's a great call.

And Robert, I've always appreciated your vulnerability and honesty and authenticity there.

um Yeah.

mean, that was my idea here.

uh We got to stop to ask questions more.

Like ask the exploratory questions from a place of curiosity.

I love your humility there.

um I'm the same way, by the way.

I think everything is political and that's okay.

And in fact, I think the greatest crime ever.

uh

was being told you can't talk about religion, you can't talk about sex, you can't talk
about how much you get paid, you can't talk about politics.

I'm like, why?

If we talked about it, we'd all know things.

And if we knew things, we could talk about the issues together, which is what we talk
about here at Zero Dot.

So I understand the lens of trying to not be political in your entertainment and whatever.

I just don't think it's feasible or possible.

I-

and like I could completely understand someone comes in from a hard day.

Reality is hard and you just want to see, you just want to see like something cool happen,
you know.

And like I'm also able to look, I think that's the part of the story is honestly
inexcusable in in Ranking of Kings.

I still think it's a fantastic show and like the fact it presents disability.

in such a moving way.

The main character is it cannot speak or hear and that's his biggest strength.

uh Well, the biggest strength is his heart, but like, you know, um it's a lovely show, but
unfortunately that whole backstory thing wasn't even necessary in the first place.

don't think the story would work really well without it, but I, yeah.

uh

It's, but yeah, again, it was originally a manga.

don't know how much influence was the writer or the subject matter.

I haven't seen the manga, but yeah, it's just a.

But again, I don't want to be a bummer because it was a really good anime, like just,
yeah.

Good stuff.

Um, cause since we brought it up, know, I know David, he is, he has a journalism degree
and he's all about, you know, proliferation of knowledge.

How do you feel when someone says, Hey, I don't like it because it got too political.

What are your thoughts on that?

So I think similarly to you both where I think everything is political, it's just a matter
of, so if we take any kind of work or writing that's being created, those are formed by an

individual or a group of people and those people have their own political leanings.

They grew up in no matter what kind of politics in the world is in, there's some level of
political in this, it?

very much of the mind that yeah, everything is political ah if you look deeply enough into
it.

I where I was going with that, but.

uh

that's good.

eh

it's, and I guess, like, I wonder if like, if people just get like, I real world politics
are so tiring at the moment, maybe there's an element of, I don't want to see real world

politics because it tires me out.

Whereas if it's space, space fantasy politics, that's all cool.

Like, but a lot of the time.

I would argue these space fantasy politics are usually allegories for real politics.

Mobile Suit Gundam is an anime about refugees and a land dispute between two different
forces.

I'm like, okay, this is pretty current and it always has been.

even a lot of these superhero comics, for example,

The original Superman is just like, he is, he's doing, like, he's throwing out corrupt
politicians and ending wars left, right and centre.

It's like...

of the greatest radio dramas was when he takes out the Ku Klux Klan.

mean, come on.

I haven't heard that but I've been meaning to read the comic adaptation of it, And it's
art style as well and it's just, you know, it's that wholesome, real, that's what Superman

represents.

He represents the best parts of you and me, you know.

Yeah.

I think there's a danger though, when we escape too much into, let's say art, fantasy,
creative arts, and we really remove ourselves from politics.

There's a character in comic book fiction that I'm quite fond of, um but any person who's
like a really big super fan of this one particular character for quote unquote, the wrong

reasons, I question myself and I go, are you understanding who this character is?

And the character I'm talking about is the Punisher.

The Punisher,

Really awesome, cool character.

He works when the villains are just so atrocious that whatever he does isn't nearly that
bad.

And it's very cathartic and all that stuff.

But like, I used to live across the street from a gentleman who had Punisher decals,
Punisher flags all over his house.

He had a Punisher truck.

And I've talked to this individual, I've talked to people like him, who just, they
revealed to me like they wish they could be the Punisher.

I'm like, no, that's not the story.

That's not what you're supposed to take away from that story.

even the Punisher doesn't like being the Punisher.

The person who hates himself the most is the Punisher.

uh I will say one positive about the Punisher, he does a good job of writing about his
feelings in his journal.

It's nice.

It's nice.

You may frame it in a...

in a manly war journal way but he's doing it, he's doing it, he's processing his feelings,
it's interesting.

There was an error.

all the listeners out there.

Yeah, if you want to do a journal, just call it a war journal.

Feel a lot cooler.

a war journal.

There you go.

Oh, great takeaway.

Absolutely.

can see, my war journal has characters from Earthbound Muvatoo on it.

It's the Hobonichi.

Nothing more about this.

I love it.

Uh, there was a David, right?

Remember this, there was a period in the Marvel comics during like the onslaught era,
where, where so professor X and I need to merged or yeah, they merged into this mega

onslaught and it was like the age of apocalypse slash onslaught, whatever.

The last boss in Marvel vs.

Capcom,

Yes.

During a very small mini arc of that era, one of the Punisher comics had a mini story
where Punisher Frank Castle loses his memory and he wakes up in a church and he's wearing

like priest clothing.

And so he thinks he's a priest and he thinks that's what he's supposed to do.

But he's trying to reconcile the fact like, why am I so good at like being hyper violent
and why am I so good at like doing this?

And I have a pull towards this direction.

It was a fun, maybe three issue arc that had with that character to see Frank Castle, no
memory, be forced to be the opposite of what he's supposed to be.

like, it was a good question of like nature versus nurture and all of this stuff.

And of course he gets his memory back and he becomes good old Frank Castle again.

like during that couple of issues, it was kind of fun to explore that.

like, if Punisher is your role model.

I know what to say you buddy, I don't know.

Yeah.

a long hard look at why.

Yeah...

And maybe give yourself a little bit of self-care, you know, maybe write...

change...

write in your journal, write, like, you know, process those feelings.

Yeah.

But again, you know, talking back to what Rob was saying about asking those clarifying
questions, you know, specifically trying to avoid the why question, right?

Cause why questions kind of put someone on the defensive.

Why are you doing it this way?

Why is that your response?

Instead of being like,

again, yeah, I did I did also think of a why question to clarify.

And yeah, would something something like, um, what makes you feel this way is is all like,
maybe that might be a bit on the spot.

How would you how would you ask the question, Sam?

Oh yeah, what do you mean by that?

That's it.

you mean by it being too political?

that's it.

I don't understand, let me know.

Clue me in, paint me a picture.

I'm not seeing what you're seeing, right?

And they can tell you a little bit more.

And oftentimes, I'm sure we see this in online discourse.

When you ask them that question, they don't know how to articulate it.

And then in them kind of breaking down, not being able to articulate it, they kind of,
they trail off sometimes.

Yeah.

going back to that whole problem of like people feeling the need to express and react, but
they don't know why.

They don't know where it's coming from.

ah

I wonder if like a good question that would be like, did something in this particular film
upset you or make you feel bad?

Might be good, like, yeah.

But...

um

could be a follow up to like understanding like what they're I think understanding what
they're viewing as political in their viewpoints of it is like the fundamental question to

see what they are thinking of and how it's making them feel.

And then you can expand from there.

Now, we could also take the Metal Gear Solid approach and just ask what they said has a
question back to them political.

Political.

discourse.

And yeah, see what comes up after that.

shaft.

It's the political message is on the back of the box

I'm

ah What do you think of the geopolitical ramifications of the segemony we're in right now?

Five dollar words right there.

So I like that a lot, but I don't wanna close off with the idea that the internet is bad
and online spaces are bad.

So let me ask you both before we start wrapping things up.

What's one thing you think online spaces get right?

All of them, Reddit, Twitter, Discord, gaming lobbies, what do they get right?

hyper-specific spreading of joy about something like whenever there is a thing there are
another five people that like there are at least five other people in the world that

absolutely love that thing like that that character that like like for example Neko Yama
is a side character in the American football manga I Show 21 who

barely does anything.

He's like a member of the team you see in like two panels in like 30 books.

There's probably people, Nakoyama is their favorite character.

And there's probably at least five people that think this and you can find those five
people on the internet.

Any, any hobby, any, well, the joy of Fightcade.

yes, there's probably only one other person or like two other people within connection
distance to me that want to play King of Fighters.

96 and they are going to do infinites on me 11 times in a row but I can I can I can find
those people and I have a good time I it's nice to see let them let them flex the infinite

on me they deserve

That makes me think of, that's a great call.

Like just spread your joy and people will find it, right?

There's a Blue Sky account called the Quest64 official account.

So this account, this guy just loves Quest64.

And for those of you that are listening in and don't know what this is, this is a video
game from the N64 that I wish no disrespect to anyone who loves this particular game, but

it's not a great game.

It is it is it was the first RPG on the N64.

We all bought it because we thought it was going to be great.

It was a video game.

It's definitely not Dragon Quest VIII.

not that, right?

But this guy is such a fan of Quest 64.

If you go to his Blue Sky account, it says, the only account dedicated to letting people
know what's fresh and new in the world of Nintendo 64 and Quest 64, a game that has not

changed in 20 plus years.

This gentleman posts every single day something about Quest 64 and folks has 25.7 thousand
followers on this account.

love this.

like that.

There are probably like I can imagine you you are just picture this you're you're eight
years old Your friends are going on about Final Fantasy 7 But you have an N64 and your

parents maybe can't afford to get too many games.

They a quest 64 it's the only thing you have you are going to you're gonna play that a lot
and Even if you think it sucks, you're gonna love something about it

And I love that like hyper specific scenario.

There's so many people like that and it's great.

um, I it's, it's a beautiful thing.

And, um, like this, uh, one, I don't use Reddit very often because I, it's, it's very
tiring.

One Reddit I love to go on is r slash fight sticks.

Ah, arcade stick porn.

Yeah, as people were talking about their arcade sticks, talking about buttons they like,
talking about what games they like to test it on, it's a beautiful place.

I mean, occasionally you get a little bit of negativity.

It's very rare though.

And people are like, hey, don't be mean to them.

They're posting something cool.

Yeah, yeah, for realsies, for realsies.

I'll have to check that out.

I would say, yeah, just the one thing I think they're getting right for the most part is
connecting people across the globe.

We're seeing that challenge now, unfortunately, with a lot of countries or states
deploying ID requirements in order to access certain sites and things of that nature.

So that's terrible.

If you can help it, try not to have to do that.

um VPNs for now exist.

I know there's

talks of regulations to try and limit those as well.

Yeah, but just seeing being being able to see people connect across the world around
similar interests and their ideas, stumbling into something or a piece of news or whatever

it may be, I think is one of the strongest points around social media insights.

have met you two, like two people very dear to me if I didn't have Discord.

like, honestly, like, I could, so many brilliant, wonderful experiences with you guys.

I remember Smack-Off and I, Smack-Off was like, let's play KOF.

And I'm like, which one is like, yes.

And we just ended up playing.

you

KOF 94 up until 98 and just had so much joy and Scare I remember that time we played
Street Fighter hyper fighting we played 50 games and I liked Street Fighter 2 before I

really appreciate Street Fighter 2 thanks to you and it's like but we've had so much joy
together and like I've shared the good times and the bad times with you and like

You're always there to lend an ear or to give some kind words and it's like, it would suck
if I didn't have you two in my life.

Aww.

Yeah, right back at you, buddy.

Absolutely.

you.

It would like, yeah, I would.

chat and hang out over some video games.

It's always a good time and like, I smack off one of the greatest random select players
you will ever see.

He could just play any game in random select and it's a joyful time, you you'll see
characters.

aren't keeping score, Dave is Smacketh online and I am Scare quotes online.

And I am no limit tea because I like green tea.

I do worry when people see no limit tea.

I wonder if they see tea and they think it might be as in spilling the tea and gossip and
stuff.

And really it's just, I just like green tea.

I like how when you say, worry about this thing and whatever you're about to say, you're
worried about like, man, no one cares.

No one cares.

You're fine.

Every single time.

Yeah.

uh Guys, sorry to um interrupt.

I just wanted to say for the ranking of King's thing, I mistakenly said it was an allegory
for World War Two.

it actually was is it's the story.

People believe it's related to the uh colonization of Korea by Japan in between 1910 to
1945.

There was a really interesting Tumblr post which details a lot of it, like goes into
detail about like how it could be an allegory for for that, Again, it it it it sucks

because like I was really upset when I found this out.

But at the same time,

Not taking away from the rest of the series.

feel like this, honestly, this, this whole history of this like thing could have been
taken out completely and it would have made no difference to the story.

Um, but yeah, it's just wanted to say apologies.

It's not a world war two.

It's, um, the, the, uh, colonization of South Korea.

Good on you for doing your due diligence on that front.

Yeah, I just wanted to mention because I was half remembering it and I'm like, yeah, this
is actually quite important.

I need to know.

Hello, it is me interrupting your podcast just one more time, but this is for a good one
If you don't know we have a patreon and none of this can be done without the help of our

lovely patreon supporters

They are in no order in particular, David Rivera, God of Grunts, Aid, JP, William Kirk,
and Robert Restante, which a few of them are on this podcast as you're listening to right

now.

So thank you to those folks that have invested in the Zero Dot podcast.

We appreciate all your support.

Without you, we couldn't have made this possible.

And that's our show here at the Zero Dot Podcast.

It has been an absolute pleasure to talk to my good friends, Robert and David.

Thanks so much for kind of level setting with me, what empathy means in this digital age.

Until next time, you know where to find us, thezero.podcast.com.

We are available

in all places where podcasts are, including YouTube, Spotify, Amazon Music, and Apple
Podcasts, and even more from there on in.

I'm Sam.

This has been Robert.

This is David.

Until next time, cheers.