Transcript
Speaker: He got us.
Speaker: He got us.
Speaker: He got.
Speaker: That's Daniel Mullins.
Speaker: Fucking Daniel Mullins.
Speaker: Mullins.
Speaker: You got us.
Speaker: Mullins.
Speaker: Daniel Mullins.
Speaker: Mullins.
Speaker: Oh, Daniel Mullins.
Speaker: You got us.
Speaker: Oh my gosh.
Speaker: That's ridiculous.
Speaker: But you know what he didn't get?
Speaker: What didn't he get, Kevin?
Speaker: Hey there, everybody.
Speaker: Welcome back.
Speaker: to pixel it.
Speaker: My name is Kevin, alongside with me as always is Phil.
Speaker: Hello.
Speaker: And today we're talking about more Bioshock Rapture.
Speaker: Bioshock Rapture.
Speaker: Specifically part two.
Speaker: Still, still so very good.
Speaker: very good yeah so very good there's now part two is is is easily the meatiest uh it is part of this book it is the meaty the meaty part of the book where you're really figuring out like oh yeah this is where a lot of these uh the audio journals that you find in bioshock a lot of them are recorded in this era um because they even they even hint at the even they even reference the the audio journal recording devices
Speaker: They make a point of it, which I got a real kick out of because at this point, because it wasn't long after this was I don't I can't speak to whether or not Bioshock was the first game that used the audio journals for like flavor and everything like that.
Speaker: But they were I have to feel like they were definitely the people who really popularized the whole thing.
Speaker: And
Speaker: it wouldn't take long after this first game for that to just be paradised like so quickly.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: So the fact that they even, that they address it, uh, just, I got a real kick out of that.
Speaker: I thought it was fun.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And they, they, cause they do that.
Speaker: It's, it's in Bioshock.
Speaker: It's a, you'll see it in dishonored as well.
Speaker: Um, they use, they use audio logs.
Speaker: Um, and it kind of became, um,
Speaker: a thing and yeah like you said I don't know if Bioshock is the first thing that used it but we definitely ran into it a lot in Dead Space Dead Space is big on the same era of video games Dead Space was big on the audio journal
Speaker: Absolutely.
Speaker: They just they kept popping up because and audio journals were fantastic because unless unless for whatever reason, the game designer, I recall this being a huge issue with a lot of people where
Speaker: A lot of there were not a lot, but there were games out there that you had to sit and listen to the audio files.
Speaker: If you wanted to listen to them, you couldn't just have them playing while you were running around or shooting shit, which is just wasted.
Speaker: Yeah, you can't do that because that was the best part about the audio recordings.
Speaker: You could listen to them and keep the game going.
Speaker: It was fantastic.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And because so in so in Bioshock that you can definitely you pick them up.
Speaker: And it's, you know, you press, what is it?
Speaker: L on the, on the keyboard to play them or something like that.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So, and, and you'd get a ton of them.
Speaker: You got a ton of so many, they really flesh out the story.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Now I, I probably could have looked this up before we started, but I've been playing Bioshock two and I've been noticing a lot of,
Speaker: The only one I had played previously was Bioshock.
Speaker: I had played a bit of Infinite, and I hadn't played 2 at all.
Speaker: So I'm playing 2 now, and I've noticed in part 2 of the book, there are characters that only popped up in Bioshock 2...
Speaker: Appearing now in part two of the book as a means of, I guess, tying both one and two together.
Speaker: I got to say, even with the fact that Bioshock Infinite deals with a very different world, they name drop one particular character in the book who is in Bioshock Infinite.
Speaker: So it really it really crosses the entire trilogy.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: It's it's it's like a linchpin trying to tie tie the three together, even though it is is like 50 years prior or something like that.
Speaker: It's something like that.
Speaker: It takes place.
Speaker: It takes place like nearly 50 years in the past or something like that.
Speaker: And I can't remember.
Speaker: I have years.
Speaker: I need to, I'm I, every time I play Bioshock, something in my computer shuts it down.
Speaker: Uh, and so I'm trying to get through it and, and, and mostly trying to get through it because I've never played Bioshock two like you.
Speaker: And, uh, and I'm just desperate to have an excuse to play Bioshock infinite again.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Bioshock 2 is pretty good.
Speaker: I've been playing it so far.
Speaker: I remember it was... I'm not sure.
Speaker: I think it was a letdown after one from, you know, critical consensus or whatever.
Speaker: Who cares, though?
Speaker: It was...
Speaker: I think it was considered a letdown after one, but it's fun.
Speaker: It's a fun game.
Speaker: I have not much bad to say about it so far.
Speaker: You play as a big daddy in Bioshock 2.
Speaker: I thought that was such a fun idea.
Speaker: It's a fun twist.
Speaker: It's a little weird because you don't think of big daddies as having the agency that
Speaker: you would need for a player character to have.
Speaker: But, you know.
Speaker: It's it is what it is.
Speaker: That's very interesting.
Speaker: That's very interesting.
Speaker: So part two starts with Andrew Ryan giving another there's another little quote here talking about the chain that pulls the society in the right direction.
Speaker: And that's going to be something that he references
Speaker: So much.
Speaker: It's a core tenet of his beliefs.
Speaker: It's a core tenet.
Speaker: The great chain.
Speaker: In free market economics, some people might call it the invisible hand.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: But because I think it's a nice distinction by the lore makers of Bioshock to call it the great chain because Ryan often uses that hand imagery as a negative thing.
Speaker: Yes, exactly.
Speaker: It's smart.
Speaker: It's very.
Speaker: And we're going to see that we're going to see that in this part, too.
Speaker: And I totally agree.
Speaker: I think the most interesting thing about the speech, because the speech is him basically saying farewell to the rest of the world, saying, here's the plan.
Speaker: Rapture is built.
Speaker: We are not going to sit around in your evil society.
Speaker: And we're heading off and doing our own thing.
Speaker: How many pages was that speech, Kevin?
Speaker: Do you happen to recall?
Speaker: I'm looking at it right now.
Speaker: And how many pages are we talking?
Speaker: He's going on for a while.
Speaker: It goes on for a little while.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: It's about two and three quarters of a pages before you get it transitions over to Sander Cohen.
Speaker: Pretty long.
Speaker: Singing a little ditty.
Speaker: Pretty long.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And who could forget Sander Cohen?
Speaker: Pretty, pretty long speech.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: You know, well, I.
Speaker: Count your blessings instead of sheep, my dear friend, because this same speech is also given by John Galt in Atlas Shrugged, and it lasts nearly 100 pages.
Speaker: Oh, my God.
Speaker: One hundred pages.
Speaker: One hundred pages.
Speaker: Has anybody ever read that book?
Speaker: I I have.
Speaker: That's that's that's the thing.
Speaker: It is just and it's an even in that moment when I was in my 20s and very sure.
Speaker: Because the whole thing about objectivism is if you're an objectivist,
Speaker: you probably think you believe that you're a genius because because objectivism is all about the great geniuses.
Speaker: We've discussed the great men.
Speaker: We are.
Speaker: We talk right.
Speaker: And I just like many white men in his mid to late 20s assumed that I was a great man and with a capital G and a capital M. And even in even in the throes of that level of delusional confidence,
Speaker: I still halfway through that speech was like, Rand, you have got to edit, baby.
Speaker: It is just it is.
Speaker: It's the same thing over and over.
Speaker: She cannot stop drilling the same points home.
Speaker: And it's like this is the end.
Speaker: And if I had John Shirley wrote the John Galt speech abridged.
Speaker: Pretty much.
Speaker: I mean, it's just, yeah, this, this is, this is, and this would have done it two and a half pages of like, blah, blah, blah.
Speaker: We're leaving.
Speaker: Goodbye.
Speaker: And as you pointed out, still kind of a long speech speech.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Still could have used some editing.
Speaker: It could have been a lot worse is what I'm, I guess I'm trying to say.
Speaker: And John Shirley, our author seems to know that.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So after we get through the speeches, we get into because this this this chapter is from Bill McDonough's point of view.
Speaker: And he's not a fan of Sandra Cohen.
Speaker: So he's like, yeah, the music was boring.
Speaker: And then he starts just looking around at Rapture at the thing that he helped build.
Speaker: And they comment.
Speaker: This is where it kind of gets into the commentary on the art style of the city, where a lot of the design was from was from the World's Fair of 1934.
Speaker: And then also like Art Deco, where you have human like.
Speaker: people at their peak physical condition.
Speaker: And we talked about that.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: At the zenith.
Speaker: Relief images of men cheerfully pulling chains decorated the walls.
Speaker: Everywhere art decorative trimming, often shaped like rays of light emanating from glistening knobs, intricate borders evoking both the industrial scale of the modern world and the temples of Babylon and Egypt, which is...
Speaker: That's a really great description.
Speaker: That's like a good visual of like absolutely the the way Art Deco, you know, kind of vibes.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's that it's that classical men with muscles on top of muscles on top of muscles.
Speaker: And, you know, sun God paganism, basically.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: In many ways.
Speaker: And but but the God that you're worshiping is yourself.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: For all intents and purposes.
Speaker: I am that man.
Speaker: I am that that great man.
Speaker: If only metaphorically, you don't see as many bodybuilding objectivists as you would think.
Speaker: No.
Speaker: Although I can't speak from experience.
Speaker: There are a few that get really caught up in the physical aspect of it there.
Speaker: I've met a couple that would like that were like,
Speaker: exercise fanatics because they believe sincerely that was part of it.
Speaker: You know, it's like you got to perfect your body and your mind.
Speaker: Like it's almost like the but but I'll say that you get people like Joe Rogan, you know, who?
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: I would not accuse him of being objectivist because that assumes that he has that presupposes that.
Speaker: Yeah, that presupposes that he understands things.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: I feel like I every time I imagine Joe Rogan, I just see a wave of knowledge crashing over him and then the wave pulling back and he is somehow dry.
Speaker: He just, he has to have everybody in the room.
Speaker: He wants everyone at the table and he will gain nothing from the experience.
Speaker: Nothing at all.
Speaker: Nothing at all.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: We also get told in this, this section, a lot of people have died to make this reality happen for a lot of ungenious reasons.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: You know, it's just cheap.
Speaker: They talk about people being lazy and cutting corners and all that stuff, which, uh,
Speaker: Oh, people cutting corners in an unregulated society.
Speaker: Who would have thunk it?
Speaker: But then, but then it cuts to our favorite Fontaine.
Speaker: We get back to fucking Fontaine, man.
Speaker: Fontaine.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Who is actually doing a pretty good job running this fishing business.
Speaker: Yeah, he this guy can just kill his way up the ladder.
Speaker: Yeah, he's he's actually it's like he's you just imagine it's like he must be a really good manager.
Speaker: Like he's actually he's very good at managing people.
Speaker: I mean, if it weren't for the fact that the job is a con in the sense that, like, he is not who he says he is and he stole the job.
Speaker: And he's just an absolutely violent murderer of a man.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: If it weren't for all of that, it would just be the story of a guy who was like, well, I've got my little fishing business and I made good.
Speaker: It's really, really funny.
Speaker: Frank Gorland became Frank Fontaine with we have no idea if he has any real fishing experience before that, but he inherits a business by way of murder.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: He murders his way to the middle, to the middle.
Speaker: He's a, he's a murderous middleman and he's floating around in the North Atlantic and he's been sending letters down to rapture to try to get Andrew Ryan's attention.
Speaker: Um, because basically they do the fishing and then they sell the fish to, uh, the, the rap to rapture, basically some contacts that are got, that go back down to rapture.
Speaker: And, um,
Speaker: he's been sending these letters down and he is clearly finally got caught their attention.
Speaker: Uh, because who, but Sullivan, uh, shows, uh, Sullivan, our, our, our former cap, um, not a cop, no fucking cop.
Speaker: You know, the day that my fiance told me that the departed was one of her favorite movies and that she could watch it day in and day out.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: She didn't care how depressing it was.
Speaker: That was the day that I called my mother and I was like, I think I'm going to propose.
Speaker: I think I've found the one.
Speaker: I think I found the one.
Speaker: But Sullivan, the cop, he, they have a discussion.
Speaker: He warns Fontaine that there's no leaving.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: If you join rapture, there's no getting out.
Speaker: So if you, if you you're in, you're in, if you're in, you're in.
Speaker: And, and then he admits that Ryan has been getting his letters and is kind of impressed.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And so basically they, they, he says,
Speaker: Do you so we're extending an invite Fontaine says, well, when do we start and they go right the fuck now, bitch?
Speaker: Get in and this sub pops up.
Speaker: And so Fontaine is offered a place in Rapture.
Speaker: So he's and he's already made it clear that his whole thing is he wants to ingratiate himself.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Somehow take advantage of the system, get some money and get the fuck out of there.
Speaker: That's his plan.
Speaker: It's a pretty good plan for now.
Speaker: He wants to do exactly what it says on the tin.
Speaker: He has he wants to con the billionaire out of money.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Which is the American dream.
Speaker: That's really, honestly, have you seen Billionaires lately?
Speaker: That's a noble goal.
Speaker: That is what you want to do.
Speaker: Like, Fontaine is still our hero.
Speaker: There's no way around this.
Speaker: He is still the most admirable person in this book.
Speaker: Now, let's be honest.
Speaker: He's a murderer.
Speaker: Oh, yeah, sure.
Speaker: But let's put a pin in the murder.
Speaker: All things being equal, though.
Speaker: All things being equal.
Speaker: We're rooting for Frank Fontaine.
Speaker: I'm rooting for Fontaine.
Speaker: And if you're reading this book now, if you say to me, I'm not rooting for any of these people.
Speaker: All right, fine.
Speaker: Killjoy.
Speaker: But yeah, like, come on.
Speaker: But if you but if you're going to root for any of them, if you say anyone root for the guy, then Fontaine or like one of the random workers who has a pipe wrench and a chance to murder one of the billionaires that I'm calling bullshit, then your heart is in the wrong place.
Speaker: Oh, one second.
Speaker: I'm going to, I'm going to refill this wine.
Speaker: Well, they don't tell you is if you want to successfully cohost a podcast of any stripe, you need lots of right bank Bordeaux.
Speaker: So it's a very important thing.
Speaker: It's a super important thing.
Speaker: The, uh, the, the, the tannins keep your back straight.
Speaker: They keep your back straight.
Speaker: Your, your tongue wet.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Until you've had too much and then they dry that they dries that shit out real fast.
Speaker: But yeah, keep that.
Speaker: Keep that, that wet tongue wet.
Speaker: That's another t-shirt.
Speaker: That's another t-shirt right there.
Speaker: Keep that wet tongue wet.
Speaker: Keep the tongue wet.
Speaker: The way I see it is you're a teetotaler.
Speaker: So I have to make sure to wine for both drinks for both of us, please.
Speaker: I, I, I encourage you.
Speaker: That's what I'm here for, man.
Speaker: And it's worked so far.
Speaker: It is.
Speaker: It's a good one-two punch.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: And that brings us to chapter seven.
Speaker: Yeah, we're in 1948 at Sinclair Solutions down in Rapture.
Speaker: And we're have we met Sinclair yet?
Speaker: I think he's been referenced, but I don't think Sinclair has been referenced.
Speaker: I don't think we've met him yet.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So Tim and him and Sullivan.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Him and Sullivan are talking about Tenenbaum Tenenbaum, who is a very big character in Bioshock one.
Speaker: And Sinclair is actually a one of the protagonists of not protagonists, but so far I've been playing Bioshock 2.
Speaker: He kind of fills your the void as the voice that's helping you.
Speaker: Oh, OK.
Speaker: That's interesting.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker: So he's not he's not dead as of Bioshock 2, which takes place like 20, 20 years after this.
Speaker: And I got to get to that game.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Dr. Tenenbaum is a well, she's a doctor.
Speaker: She's a scientist.
Speaker: And all they know really for sure is that her work has something to do with heredity.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Which to me, anyone and that's just a big old klaxon.
Speaker: Blaring red lights.
Speaker: She's she's a German scientist who's been doing a lot of genetics and heredity research.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Dicey.
Speaker: Yeah, it's it's it's already it's already problematic.
Speaker: It's actually the thing.
Speaker: It's like it's like clearly like like the U.S. government operation paperclip.
Speaker: Just what were you guys doing?
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: But
Speaker: Rapture is like, you know what?
Speaker: We got our own paperclip right here.
Speaker: Dr. Tenenbaum.
Speaker: Yeah, we can.
Speaker: She's the only paperclip we need.
Speaker: She's the only paperclip we need.
Speaker: It's bad.
Speaker: It's real bad.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: But yeah, it's and she hasn't even done anything yet.
Speaker: And you're already starting to feel kind of itchy in terms of like, oh, boy, this could be this could be real bad.
Speaker: So they're talking about whether or not she's worth having on the team.
Speaker: And I, this quote to me is, is kind of important.
Speaker: Uh, I say, but 10, 10 and bomb Sinclair went on, she's taking blood from people by the bucket and more than one of them collapsed.
Speaker: You're afraid you're doing something unethical?
Speaker: This was a word that didn't get too much use in Rapture.
Speaker: Sinclair blinked.
Speaker: Huh?
Speaker: Unethical?
Speaker: Hell, chief, I've been on the same page as Andrew about altruism, all that stuff, for years.
Speaker: Why do you think I was brought in so early?
Speaker: Worrying about ethics?
Speaker: I don't do it.
Speaker: I came here to strike it rich.
Speaker: And that, and that's a big one.
Speaker: That's another thing I keep bringing up the parallels between this and Atlas shrugged altruism is a, one of those bad words.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Uh, you know, because the whole idea is that altruism is charity, uh, that is forced upon you.
Speaker: You're forced to be good.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And that's and that's something that that comes up later is I believe Ryan Andrew Ryan specifically says.
Speaker: Oh, yeah.
Speaker: Charity is communism.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: That's like a literal line.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: He says later.
Speaker: This is then this is and that's the part where you flash the words across the screen.
Speaker: This is what objectivists actually believe.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: It is.
Speaker: It is absolutely insane.
Speaker: So he's like he's he's like so afraid.
Speaker: It's weird because Sinclair is so afraid of of using the word unethical.
Speaker: But then he's also like.
Speaker: But what if she goes too far and be like, well, I don't know, Sinclair, what would you call that?
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And that's the that's the tap dancing that these people in this society have to go through, because on one hand, ethics is not a thing for them.
Speaker: They don't believe me, because if you if you talk about something being unethical, that means that by, you know, just by virtue of it being an ethics situation, you have to do something about it.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And it's a free market society that we don't touch that shit.
Speaker: It's unregulated.
Speaker: And so there is no such thing as ethics for us, but we're worried that this person who is Nazi adjacent could do something bad.
Speaker: And and so he's just playing this.
Speaker: He's doing this funny little dance, trying to get a, get the right words in to express himself without sounding like he isn't a true believer in the cause.
Speaker: That's a great way of getting your ass ostracized and not kicked out because no one's going anywhere, but they could sure as hell fire you and you're stuck down there with no job and no means of supporting yourself and no way of getting out.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So already you're getting that kind of, you know, dictatorial USSR kind of thing going on.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: You're also getting.
Speaker: So Ryan Ryan is worried about the communist infiltrators constantly.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Here's the funny thing is the workers there.
Speaker: They talk about how the workers have started talking about, you know, their troubles.
Speaker: Mm hmm.
Speaker: without any like, without any prompt, without any, there's no, there's no, you know, there's no das Kapital, you know, lying around.
Speaker: It's just like, hey, the workers are unhappy and now they're starting to talk.
Speaker: And Ryan is worried, you know, Sinclair and Sullivan help talking about how Ryan is worried about, you know, stuff like that.
Speaker: They've been hearing things, yada, yada, yada.
Speaker: But it's just funny because like, even in the, it's like,
Speaker: Even in the darkness, like there's like a little pinpoint of light that's just like kind of like no matter how much you try to put it out.
Speaker: Oh, there it is.
Speaker: It's almost as if people will fight back when stepped upon no matter what your stupid, you know, fantasy world creed happens to believe.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: But but you know what?
Speaker: You know what he for all this stuff that Ryan is worried about, you know what he isn't worried about?
Speaker: A coca plant.
Speaker: He's not worried about cocaine.
Speaker: There is a there is a there is a person down there who has set aside a piece of rapture to grow coca leaves and start manufacturing cocaine.
Speaker: Ryan's fine with that.
Speaker: Fine.
Speaker: Make your drugs.
Speaker: Yeah, he's good with that.
Speaker: If people don't want drugs, then they won't buy them.
Speaker: And then they will buy the free market will dictate that.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: That's just, and he will, and he will succeed or fail based entirely on those stats.
Speaker: That is it.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: So that, that takes us to a year later.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: In the scene change.
Speaker: And Frank Fontaine is, has already set up Fontaine fisheries.
Speaker: He is.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: He's established his, his storefront.
Speaker: He's wasted absolutely no time, which kind of makes Andrew Ryan nervous.
Speaker: It won't be the last time that Ryan is nervous about Fontaine's work, but it's definitely the first time with this.
Speaker: And this is the first time that the two of them meet actually.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And so basically what because what happens is.
Speaker: So it's it's almost like Ryan trying to reassert some sort of dominance over Frank Fontaine or assert some dominance because they've they haven't really.
Speaker: gotten to know each other that well.
Speaker: He's absolutely there to remind him who's the big boss.
Speaker: He's the alpha.
Speaker: He is the fake wolf science alpha in this situation.
Speaker: Yes, exactly.
Speaker: That's exactly what he is.
Speaker: And it's kind of hilarious because Fontaine just right off the bat sort of like openly mocks him.
Speaker: If not mocks him, kind of just disdains him.
Speaker: Everything Ryan says, you can just kind of hear Fontaine going, I don't know.
Speaker: They just, you know, Oh, you worried about that?
Speaker: Um, it's, it's kind of hilarious.
Speaker: And in my head, I was like, that might be a mistake, but Ryan actually respects him for it.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: That's stupid.
Speaker: That's stupid.
Speaker: And Ryan says something.
Speaker: Ryan has a decent line in here where he's talking about contraband and even even ideas can be contraband.
Speaker: He mentions, which is kind of setting the tone for where Ryan's character is going.
Speaker: Because Ryan, as he is right now, is not going to be the same man in like
Speaker: in book time in like seven years or something like that.
Speaker: He is he is he he'll believe he is still the pure objectivist.
Speaker: But he is he is kind of fallen far just right into that.
Speaker: That it's mostly basically kind of like a mix of the right wing statist, you know, where he thinks he's objectivist.
Speaker: He's not.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, the same way that that the the the right will say we're all about fewer laws.
Speaker: And then they try to pass a bunch of laws outlawing things that they don't like.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: And he kind of like starts to collapse in on himself like a paranoid flan.
Speaker: He's just, he's just, it just, he's, it's eating him up.
Speaker: The red scare shit is eating him up.
Speaker: Uh, he's surrounded by incompetence, you know, and, and right.
Speaker: And he's just trying to protect himself in a way.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And yeah, as a result, as, as we go along, he starts, um, becoming less, uh, free market and more dictatorial.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: Uh, which is, I would argue is always inevitable.
Speaker: Yeah, it's going to get there eventually.
Speaker: One tends to follow the other.
Speaker: The other thing is Fontaine is like, hey, I should have a seat on the council.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And Ryan's like, no.
Speaker: Yeah, it was kind of like Fontaine's ultimate like, I got to try.
Speaker: I'll shoot my shot.
Speaker: Wayne Gretzky, you know, you miss 100% of the shots you don't take.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: He's like, ah, fucking tried.
Speaker: You know, that guy from the future.
Speaker: I really admire his future game with his stick, with the stick and the puck and the ice.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So another year goes by now.
Speaker: It's 1949.
Speaker: And it's it's a kind of it's it's a conversation.
Speaker: And it's it's between Elaine and Bill, Bill McDonough.
Speaker: And Elaine is voicing her concern.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: And first off, at this point, Elaine is pregnant.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: And she's so that's that's where a lot of the concern comes from.
Speaker: She's like worried about raising a kid in rapture.
Speaker: What's that going to be like?
Speaker: Um, and Bill's like super confident.
Speaker: Everything's going to be great because Bill, as we'll see, he isn't a true believer per se.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Uh, he's just grateful.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: You know, he's very grateful that rock, that Andrew Ryan gave him this shot, you know,
Speaker: That's exactly it.
Speaker: He's just he's grateful for the opportunity.
Speaker: And so he's loyal.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: He's not necessarily.
Speaker: And again, we'll see this more and more as we go.
Speaker: He doesn't necessarily believe fully in all the the politics behind it.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Because when making when presented with an option, when presented with the choice to do the the self-serving profitable thing and to do the the right thing, Bill at his heart is going to do the right thing.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And he does.
Speaker: And he does.
Speaker: There's a there will be a few times where that that kind of comes to play.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: But yeah, so that's there.
Speaker: You know, it's kind of a it's kind of a rough like it.
Speaker: It's like a reassuring.
Speaker: Yeah, things will be fine kind of conversation.
Speaker: And don't you worry, by the way, guys, if you're if you're worried that just because this is like a vaguely futuristic, late 40s, early 50s kind of world and you're worried that Bill isn't going to like talk down to his pregnant wife.
Speaker: Don't you worry.
Speaker: Uh, bill is, don't you worry, bill is totally still a misogynist.
Speaker: Oh my God.
Speaker: The way he talks to her at the time, you're like, and I, and I get it.
Speaker: I don't blame the author.
Speaker: Like he's probably right.
Speaker: Like these kinds of guys would totally talk this way to their wives.
Speaker: Uh, it doesn't make it a hell of a lot easier to read.
Speaker: No.
Speaker: No, we cut over to we're on a train now with Stanley Poole, who is character.
Speaker: He's on the tier list of characters.
Speaker: He's one that's not going to show up that often, but he's here now and he's a reporter and he's there just to do a puff piece for Carson Fiddle, who is designing the amusement park.
Speaker: for for Andrew Ryan.
Speaker: And they're they talk about like the the not animatronics, the yeah, animatronic.
Speaker: Yeah, the animatronics that Fiddle is designing.
Speaker: Fiddle is kind of like a like he would have been a Disney type, you know, an Imagineer type for Disney because he has a lot of a lot of visions for what he wants this amusement park to be.
Speaker: Yeah, there's I totally agree.
Speaker: This is a very Disney character.
Speaker: He's your uncle Walt.
Speaker: He's like friendly and and kind of a visionary and kind of a, you know,
Speaker: a child at heart.
Speaker: Sure, dude.
Speaker: Um, but you can, but he's also very, very much a businessman.
Speaker: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker: But the meat of it is that, uh, pool overhears a conversation between Ryan and Prentice mill.
Speaker: Um, and, uh, basically Prentice mill is complaining that, uh, Augustus Sinclair is trying to like edge him out of the train business.
Speaker: Um, and Ryan's just like, uh,
Speaker: uh but it's you know he's he's just keeping you off balance perfectly normal business tactic blah blah blah it's like and so basically pool is just kind of listening into um into that and um ryan turns to pool and says uh pool you remember our talk nothing unauthorized yeah and it's like
Speaker: Pool can't.
Speaker: It's like a basically the point of this section is it was like, OK, yeah, it's already it's already the foundation is already rotten.
Speaker: It's already rotten.
Speaker: You know, it goes for somebody who's talking about freedom.
Speaker: You know, if if if it if it only if it stuck to if the whole plan stuck to if the worst things that happened were Ryan.
Speaker: finding just people who were essentially his friends and said, he's a genius.
Speaker: I want him down there.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And, uh, and like, if, if it's stuck to that, then, you know, who is, who, who couldn't be, you know, who wouldn't do something like that?
Speaker: Uh, uh, you want to be surrounded by your friends, but already before anything, even marginally heavy happens, it's clear that, uh,
Speaker: He's his.
Speaker: He doesn't really give a shit about integrity in the news.
Speaker: He wants.
Speaker: No.
Speaker: He wants the story.
Speaker: He wants to tell the story.
Speaker: He wants to dictate the narrative.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And what's interesting is he he believes he can because he is the owner of the newspaper.
Speaker: You know, right.
Speaker: He believes that's his right to.
Speaker: He sees he sees nothing.
Speaker: He sees nothing untoward about that.
Speaker: He's not the government.
Speaker: And he's not the government telling him what he can and cannot print.
Speaker: He is the owner of the newspaper telling a reporter, his reporter, what he can and cannot print, which is it's one of those weird, dicey, slippery slope type of things where, OK, well, in the absence of an actual government,
Speaker: It's it's it is it is tech without any context to surround it.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It is technically correct.
Speaker: The best kind of correct.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: Without without any kind of context to guide it, without any mentioning of the fact that this is the only newspaper in the area that for all intents and purposes and rapture, he is the monarch with like all of that other shit.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Without all of that other shit.
Speaker: Yes, I suppose he is right.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: What?
Speaker: So we move on to quite possibly the most disturbing scene so far.
Speaker: Oh, God.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Which is the examination of Elaine, Bill's wife, by Dr. Suchong and Dr. Tenenbaum.
Speaker: It is really upsetting.
Speaker: It's very upsetting.
Speaker: Suchong basically is is examining her as if she's cattle.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: They're both, they both for all, I just kind of imagine, cause the fact of the matter is, is the regular doctor isn't available.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And so,
Speaker: Bill basically says, well, you know, one doctor's just as good as another.
Speaker: One doctor's a doctor.
Speaker: He got his PhD in literature, so he's qualified to give you a pap smear.
Speaker: And that's just, that's basically what happens.
Speaker: And they, I just imagined it as them, like, yanking up her skirt and staring at her private parts.
Speaker: And I wasn't too far off.
Speaker: No, no, you were not.
Speaker: Sushong and Tenenbaum are very, very,
Speaker: uh comically almost uh unfeeling clinical and uh and exactly yes and exactly the team you need for your genetic murder laboratory yeah i mean i cold i would actually go so far as to say is that sushang is is hateful he has like yes hate in his heart for children um children specifically children specifically uh so
Speaker: Yeah, they there.
Speaker: It's not a great examination, but what it leads to is Bill seeing and he's kind of lingering while Elaine is getting dressed and he sees just this grotesque genetic abomination that that Souchong and Tenenbaum and Gil Alexander and and Ryan are just kind of like talking over and they're talking about like the transfer for they're basically getting down into their
Speaker: Souchong and Tenenbaum have a nature versus nurture debate.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: About whether they're correct.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, the plan here, and it was kind of comical in a way, like, he's literally like his wife was literally just kind of like visually violated by these two psychopath doctors.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And then like she goes to get dressed and he wanders around and suddenly the two psychopath doctors are looking into this glass tube with Ryan.
Speaker: It's like, well, on to the next thing now.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And basically the idea is that Ryan's looking for procedures on these, like the person in the tube.
Speaker: There are parts that are the metal.
Speaker: There are metal pieces that seem to be fused with the body.
Speaker: It's basically a proto Big Daddy.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And and Ryan's looking for procedures that will make workers work harder, longer hours without complaining, without, you know, without rest, without food, you know, that kind of thing.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Which is a great sign, which is just a sign that it's a sign that everything's all right, you know?
Speaker: Everything's doing fine.
Speaker: Everything's doing great.
Speaker: He wants what's best for his workers and for society at large.
Speaker: Of course.
Speaker: And yeah, this is great.
Speaker: This is doing great.
Speaker: And OK, so I'm going to pause for a minute and talk about Dr. Suchong.
Speaker: And so the game is not great at it.
Speaker: Uh, I wish the novel was also better at the way Souchong's dialogue is written because yeah, it is not great.
Speaker: Uh, it is not.
Speaker: And it's made worse if you're listening to the audio.
Speaker: Oh, it is bad if you're listening to the audio book for anyone who doesn't recognize what, get what we're talking about.
Speaker: Souchong is Korean.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Um, and, uh, that mostly, mostly in the book, uh, pops up as kind of weirdly stilted, uh, dialogue and a way that is written in such a, in such a way that is clearly English as this person's second language.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: And then at one point they mentioned that he's mixing his R's and his L's up.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Uh, which, uh, not, not great.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: And that's already bad enough.
Speaker: But then with the audio book, of course, the, uh, the reader, uh, chooses to go ahead and do that for the character, even in places where it is not mentioned in the book.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Uh, I guess for consistency.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: I guess it's not great.
Speaker: Like, here's the thing.
Speaker: It's not great.
Speaker: It's just your generic stereotypical Asian accents that anybody would have put on in like it pre 2000s comedy to try to be funny.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And it's not and it's not really for a gag.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: To its credit.
Speaker: But yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's not.
Speaker: And he's also described as having a thin Asian face.
Speaker: I forgot about that.
Speaker: Which, come on, man.
Speaker: Like, there are people who get, like, two sentences of description.
Speaker: And Dr. Sushong, he's got a thin Asian face.
Speaker: Thin Asian face.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: And you know if you've got a thin Asian face, you know what the other characteristics are.
Speaker: Come on.
Speaker: Let's finish this book.
Speaker: Let's move on.
Speaker: And that's the thing.
Speaker: For everything good that this author does, it's still, you know, it's still not perfect.
Speaker: And there are some really rough depictions.
Speaker: We got some problems.
Speaker: We got some problems.
Speaker: And here's the thing.
Speaker: It's the the way that he has some of the men talking to women.
Speaker: In the book, it's fine.
Speaker: It's period appropriate.
Speaker: The misogyny patriarchal thing is rampant, even in a city like Rapture, where everybody's supposed to be, quote unquote, equal.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Well, especially, especially then let's face facts, especially then.
Speaker: But yes, but in this instance, it's just a, it's like a unforced error, you know?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: That no one, no one made you do that.
Speaker: No one made you do that.
Speaker: There's no, there's no, you know, you didn't need to make a character whose English was like stereotypical Cole Porter.
Speaker: Anything goes bad.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: It's it's that's my little musical reference for the evening.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: But it was just it's yeah, it's it's a real it's distracting on top of everything else.
Speaker: Soochong doesn't show up often that I mean, he shows up often, but not often enough to like make it the biggest problem ever.
Speaker: But when he does, here's the thing.
Speaker: And honestly, and this is my privilege, but if it weren't for the, I don't think I'd notice it as much if it weren't for the fact that he's actually a pretty interesting character.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: He's a really interesting character.
Speaker: So you're right.
Speaker: He doesn't show up all that often, but when he does show up, he says some kind of horrifying things.
Speaker: Oh, he is.
Speaker: And he is absolutely horrifying.
Speaker: And it's kind of a great villain.
Speaker: It's a great villain.
Speaker: It's terrific.
Speaker: You know,
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: But he could.
Speaker: But yeah.
Speaker: But so so having that moment in there, it makes it's like it's like trying to drive stick when you haven't done it in 10 years.
Speaker: You're like, oh, I can't get started here.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: It's just a mess.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: But yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I also saw that.
Speaker: Um, so we basically were the, uh, we, we cut back basically bill and Elaine are now at Fort frolic, which is the, the entertainment district.
Speaker: So to speak, uh, Elaine is not impressed.
Speaker: Yeah, she is not impressed.
Speaker: She's not impressed by the strip club.
Speaker: Um, she's not impressed by the gambling hall.
Speaker: She's not impressed by the gambling halls.
Speaker: It's basically just like, uh, uh,
Speaker: Yeah, because it's kind of like the lowest common denominator of entertainment has has started popping up.
Speaker: Nothing against strip clubs.
Speaker: Oh, there's absolutely nothing wrong with either.
Speaker: That's something you like.
Speaker: That's something you like.
Speaker: But it's it's also like basically the ones that drive the most capital are the ones that are popping up.
Speaker: It's not it's not like the artistic entertainment except for Sandra Cohen's bullshit.
Speaker: And that's only because Andrew Ryan happens to like him.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And it's and it's and it's that's the thing for all the talk about the free market.
Speaker: The free market is garbage a lot of time.
Speaker: And, you know, you and you can see that in real life in things like, for example, VHS versus Betamax.
Speaker: That old story.
Speaker: Why did VHS beat out Betamax?
Speaker: Because porn took to VHS.
Speaker: Uh, porn shows where the industry on the whole, for the most part decided we're going to put our products on VHS.
Speaker: And for that reason, because it was a vast majority of people were buying VHS.
Speaker: It was cheap.
Speaker: It was a VHS was a slightly cheaper to produce than, than beta max.
Speaker: And it, and it didn't matter that it was lower.
Speaker: It was a lower quality than beta max was, but who cared?
Speaker: Um, beta mat and then saving some money.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And then the Betamax format and the beta format went on to have professional applications, but was never a consumer application.
Speaker: In fact, I used beta even in film school.
Speaker: I was still using.
Speaker: That's funny.
Speaker: I was not like the Betamax tapes, but I was using beta lineage tapes to lay stuff back to.
Speaker: So yeah, the beta stuff became a professional application, mainly the technology.
Speaker: And it just didn't have a consumer application because VHS ruled the day.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And we're seeing stuff like that with this, where it's like, yeah, you've got your musicals.
Speaker: They go to see shows and that kind of thing.
Speaker: But the vast majority of the entertainment is gambling and tits and ass.
Speaker: They, they passed, I love both.
Speaker: They passed the liquor and drug emporium, Les Marquis d'époque, which was quite thronged.
Speaker: Yeah, that's where everybody is.
Speaker: And the gambling especially is very telling because, you know, you're dealing with denizens who are dedicated entirely to making as much money as possible, striking it rich and that kind of thing.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: So even in their leisure time, they're going to be interested in trying to make money.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Or losing money and not caring about it.
Speaker: It really does say a lot about who you're dealing with here.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: But while Elaine is not impressed, Bill is kind of like taking it in like, yeah, I did this.
Speaker: It's like it raptures alive and it's it's energetic and it's it's vibrant.
Speaker: And this is me.
Speaker: You know, I I helped make this happen.
Speaker: Yeah, he's proud of it.
Speaker: He's really proud of it.
Speaker: And then as kind of like a book into that, they end up going to see another Sandra Cohen musical and Bill isn't impressed.
Speaker: And I don't think anybody would be the.
Speaker: all they, they do a lot of John Shirley does a great job of like showing you the art that these people are creating, that these supposed geniuses are making.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: And it's all very stilted and shitty.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Uh, and, uh, but it's not so shitty that, uh,
Speaker: I like read it.
Speaker: I read the lyrics to these songs and everything like that.
Speaker: And and I want to be I do want to be fair when it comes to good storytelling and that sort of thing.
Speaker: So if he were just taking cheap pot shots or something like that, I would be like, look, I might happen to agree with him, but those that's kind of that's a that's a cheap shot and it's boring.
Speaker: The lyrics and the work is just good enough.
Speaker: that you could absolutely see this kind of thing getting made.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And I know what I'm talking about because it is now November and in November and December, me and my fiance watch nothing but shitty Christmas movies.
Speaker: It's become a tradition for us.
Speaker: And these are some of the worst scripts with some of the worst actors,
Speaker: with some of the, the, the, the laziest, most talentless hack of directors, uh, and they get made, they get made.
Speaker: Um, so, and, and, and this is not as bad as that.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Uh, but it's still pretty bad.
Speaker: So you can kind of imagine it getting
Speaker: So I have a I have a friend who was in talks with Lifetime or one of those channels to direct a movie like that.
Speaker: And apparently it's like they give you they give you everything.
Speaker: And it's like it's like two weeks.
Speaker: And it's like, here's all the here's like the shot.
Speaker: Here's the shot charts.
Speaker: Here's all that stuff.
Speaker: Oh, OK.
Speaker: So there's like no room for the directors to barely even have any artistic like input on it.
Speaker: Like they're just there to keep the keep the train moving.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Well, that makes a lot of sense because they are.
Speaker: You do feel like you're not getting something that's crafted.
Speaker: You feel like you're getting a product.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: So they don't they only takes like two weeks to shoot these things.
Speaker: They get them in, they get them out.
Speaker: They're in editing and they're up.
Speaker: And that's why there's that's why you have there's a few of these networks that make a lot of these movies.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: It feels like there's a thousand.
Speaker: of these types of movies, many of them.
Speaker: And it's kind of hilarious because when we started this last year, because in September and October, we watched nothing but horror films.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: And then in November, Emily said,
Speaker: let's watch some holiday films because we're both as much as we, we both love Halloween and we like spooky shit.
Speaker: We're all also actually total, uh, uh, crazy people for Christmas.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: Uh, as, as, as secular as we are in life, we like the season.
Speaker: We really enjoy Christmas.
Speaker: It's, it's nice.
Speaker: And so we ended up somehow watching two months of these movies and, uh, some of them are offensively bad.
Speaker: Hmm.
Speaker: Um, others are just, you know, boring and just not well made.
Speaker: And every now and then you get one that you're like, actually, that wasn't, that had some, that wasn't the worst, you know, it wasn't the worst.
Speaker: And, uh, it's kind of hilarious because, uh,
Speaker: As we've done them, I have I am I'd never watched these movies before.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Never before last year.
Speaker: And as we've watched them, I've started to broaden my repertoire of what I've seen.
Speaker: And the first few movies we watched are actually pretty popular movies in that world.
Speaker: And they're called Christmas Prince.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: It's a trilogy.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: And they are.
Speaker: I hated them.
Speaker: She made me watch all three of them in a row and I hated them.
Speaker: And now, though, over a year later, I have found myself based on the stuff we've watched.
Speaker: I find myself thinking about A Christmas Prince and being like,
Speaker: You know, that really wasn't that bad.
Speaker: Comparatively, no, it wasn't that bad.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And I start to realize there's an audience for these movies.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And I'm starting to become that audience.
Speaker: You are the audience.
Speaker: It is you.
Speaker: They hooked me in.
Speaker: I think it's, you know what it is?
Speaker: Part of it is it's they're not that expensive to make.
Speaker: No.
Speaker: The money that they probably get on just like the ad runs alone during first run is probably enough to cover whatever the expense was.
Speaker: Every now and then they'll have some sort of, you know, weird B list cameo.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: Although one of the ones it was one of the worst Christmas movies I'd ever seen, but it had Joey Fatone in it.
Speaker: Oh, yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And I found myself and he and I remember going Joey for tone.
Speaker: What the fuck is he doing?
Speaker: But he was actually kind of funny and charming.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: Like he was actually having fun.
Speaker: He was trying his damnedest to have fun.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So any time he got into the scene, we started going, Joey's here.
Speaker: Joey's here.
Speaker: We got excited.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And I gave the movie, I rate the movies and I gave it half a star.
Speaker: And I made it very clear that that's half star belong to Joey.
Speaker: That's that's Joey star.
Speaker: That is Joey star.
Speaker: If you hadn't put that cameo in there, but yeah, their budgets are weird like that because like on one hand, yeah, you're right.
Speaker: They clearly aren't going through these very fast.
Speaker: And it probably is just a shoestring budget.
Speaker: On the other hand,
Speaker: They'll occasionally have these kind of people.
Speaker: It's like this person used to have a career.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Like most of the money must have gone to this.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Or some sort of deal where like they get a they get a percentage.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Something like that.
Speaker: Slide them in there.
Speaker: They had nothing to do.
Speaker: Give them a producer credit or something.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: But anyway, that's our Christmas movie.
Speaker: Christmas movie.
Speaker: Talking about Christmas movies.
Speaker: If you want to listen to a podcast of me and Emily discussing the horrifying holiday movies.
Speaker: Oh, my God.
Speaker: Do you guys do that?
Speaker: That would be.
Speaker: I think we could do that, actually.
Speaker: It could just be a miniseries that runs when during the holiday season.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, we'll run it.
Speaker: We'll run it November through December or something like that.
Speaker: Season after season.
Speaker: That would be amazing.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: Where were we?
Speaker: We were talking.
Speaker: Bill is doing something down in the heat loss monitoring station down in Hephaestus, which is a nice reference.
Speaker: Like calling it Hephaestus is cool.
Speaker: Who is like he's a he's a Greek god of blacksmiths.
Speaker: He was the smithy of the gods.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: He was lame.
Speaker: And he was, and I don't mean, I don't, I'm not passing a judgment call.
Speaker: He, his legs did not work.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: And, and he was the ugliest of the gods and he was married to Aphrodite who cheated on him constantly.
Speaker: Oh,
Speaker: But yeah, we're going.
Speaker: It's a cool reference.
Speaker: It's a fucking cool reference.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And I believe his hammer is you.
Speaker: You find his hammer in Hades.
Speaker: If you're playing Hades, the upgrade, the upgrade item.
Speaker: If you want to upgrade your weapon for that run, it's you get Hephaestus's hammer, I believe, if I recall correctly.
Speaker: I got to play that game.
Speaker: I got to play that game.
Speaker: Anyway, yeah.
Speaker: So what is bill doing down in, um, please with Ryan again?
Speaker: Uh, Ryan wants his opinion.
Speaker: Uh, they've been, it's by at this point it's 1950 and the city's been settled for about two years.
Speaker: Bill's baby's been delivered.
Speaker: You know, everyone's kind of settled in.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: And Ryan is wanting Bill's opinion on just various projects at different points in the book.
Speaker: Bill, basically, it shows Bill's kind of sick of being Ryan's spaniel.
Speaker: Essentially, he kind of like he kind of clicks his heels and Bill's expected to follow along.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Ryan's becoming way more paranoid about, you know, parasites.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, he's hearing rumors of unions.
Speaker: And on top of that, to make things matter, make matters worse.
Speaker: They need more workers.
Speaker: Yeah, because wouldn't you know it?
Speaker: This is not exactly a society where skilled blue collar labor laborers are thrilled to come in and join on the fun.
Speaker: And join on the fun and also not get paid because there's no minimum wage, which will come up later.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: But yeah.
Speaker: So so and this is this is this is hilarious because Bill proposes to Ryan that you can't just tamp down on these ideas.
Speaker: They have to just go ahead and thrive in the marketplace of ideas.
Speaker: And this convinces Andrew Ryan to back off on like forcing down the union talk.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: He uses he uses like he uses like a dark net buzzword.
Speaker: And it actually works like objectivism judo that Bill uses on Andrew Ryan.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And Bill and you get the real distinction that Bill doesn't give a shit.
Speaker: No.
Speaker: He just wants Ryan to shut the fuck up for a minute.
Speaker: Just shut up about the goddamn parasites.
Speaker: Jesus Christ, Ryan.
Speaker: And Ryan actually says, he says how, um, he's talking about, uh, and, and, and Ryan admits to also not liking Fontaine.
Speaker: Uh, he's not happy with, uh,
Speaker: all of his stuff, even though he isn't doing anything wrong as far as he can tell, but he doesn't like him.
Speaker: He claims that he likes competition quote within reason, right?
Speaker: That doesn't sound very free market to me.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Within reason, which is hilarious given some of the later scenes.
Speaker: Oh yeah.
Speaker: Oh yeah.
Speaker: He basically says that he's worried about Frank's connection to the outside world.
Speaker: Because the fishermen are the only ones who technically leave Rapture.
Speaker: It's like the fishermen kind of go outside of the city to catch their fish.
Speaker: And other than Fontaine, the only other person who goes to the surface, I think, is Bill and Sullivan occasionally.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Every now and then.
Speaker: Every now and then.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And only on business kind of trips.
Speaker: And it's it's it's really funny because he's just the idea of people leaving is so distasteful to him, not just because of the aspect of like bringing back contraband.
Speaker: Like he says, ideas are contraband, Bibles, union papers, you know, stuff like that.
Speaker: But just he sees people leaving.
Speaker: as quitters, right?
Speaker: People want to leave.
Speaker: They want to go.
Speaker: That's not working out for them.
Speaker: And he loads them as quitters.
Speaker: But instead of actually letting them go, he forces them to stay.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Uh, so, uh, Bill's trying to like, and, and, and, and Bill's trying to calm him down.
Speaker: It's like you said, he, he tells him like, Hey, we gotta just, people are gonna talk.
Speaker: They're gonna bitch.
Speaker: Just let it go.
Speaker: Just let it go.
Speaker: And Ryan kind of questions Bill's loyalty for a moment and says, who do you, who do you, do you still believe in this?
Speaker: And it was like, absolutely.
Speaker: 100%.
Speaker: I still believe my wife.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And then, and then, and then Ryan comes up with this great idea with a capital G. He says, I plan to start a new program of civic education.
Speaker: Banners, a great many more of them, educational announcements on television and public address and billboards.
Speaker: I'm bringing in someone to help us train them to see that the world outside Rapture is the real prison and Rapture is real freedom.
Speaker: Oh boy.
Speaker: Enter.
Speaker: This is working out great.
Speaker: Enter Dr. Sophia Lamb.
Speaker: Dr. Lamb.
Speaker: Now this is an interesting character.
Speaker: A very interesting character.
Speaker: She is a psychiatrist.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: And she believes the same thing that Ryan believes.
Speaker: That society is sick and she actually believes that were the world a person, she would give the diagnosis of suicidal.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: That was a great line.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: But basically we have Ryan is interviewing Dr. Lam.
Speaker: She was she had been in Japan when one of the bombs dropped.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: So she saw firsthand and that a lot of her, some of her clients, so to speak, were killed in the, in the, in the dropping of the bomb.
Speaker: And she, there's like, there's immediately a little bit of tension between her and Ryan, because while they have these same views of the outside world, that it is poisoned, they have very different points of view on, on,
Speaker: how to fix the outside world or how to fix rapture.
Speaker: Um, and she's also, um, she also talks about like, um, so he goes, it's a pleasure to have you join us in our brave new world.
Speaker: And she goes, brave new world, a reader of Shakespeare, the tempest wasn't not.
Speaker: Um, and then he's like, Oh, are you surprised?
Speaker: I'm familiar with Shakespeare.
Speaker: And, uh, she says, um,
Speaker: She responds, no, you're a wealthy man.
Speaker: You can afford to educate yourself.
Speaker: And it was not an obvious criticism.
Speaker: It's a little jab.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yet somehow it was condescending.
Speaker: But she smiled and he saw a glint of charisma.
Speaker: Um, so yeah, right away they are immediately, immediately a little, a little tense and they're, they talk a little bit more, um, about, uh, the, uh, the Hiroshima thing.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: But yeah, they basically he wants her there as the psychiatrist to talk to the people of Rapture and also help him come up with some of these educational plans, but also like write up a general report of what's going on in the minds of the people of Rapture from her psychiatric point of view.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And it's such an interesting story.
Speaker: Um, it just shows you here's the thing.
Speaker: I like lamb and anyone, uh, on our side of the political aisle, uh,
Speaker: will like lamb on at least for her politics, at least for her stance on economic values, stuff like that.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: But she's a, we will find out she's just as much of a fanatic on a certain level as Ryan is equally narcissistic, I would argue.
Speaker: And on top, but, but despite all of that,
Speaker: Ryan, it just shows you more about how bad Ryan's fucking decision making is right.
Speaker: Or it's like, she is so clearly the wrong person.
Speaker: Totally the wrong person for this role.
Speaker: She doesn't, she, she hides it, but not well.
Speaker: No.
Speaker: And, uh, and he still says he still gives her a crazy important job.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Tapping into the pulse of the people of rapture.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: You know, a man who was so paranoid about ideas, uh,
Speaker: He gives that job to her.
Speaker: And it's just like, at that point, you're like, well, you deserve anything you get.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: At this point.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: This is, this is your, come on, man.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: He really shoots himself in the foot a lot.
Speaker: Oh, yeah, absolutely.
Speaker: This is Jeff chapter eight, by the way, this is how chapter eight begins.
Speaker: This is how chapter eight begins.
Speaker: Yeah, we, we have started chapter eight and now we are at Neptune's bounty, which is where Fontaine's fishery is located.
Speaker: It's kind of that.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: You played by a shock.
Speaker: It's, it's kind of an icy level.
Speaker: It's the ice level.
Speaker: Yeah, it's the ice.
Speaker: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And, and Tenenbaum is interacting with the dock workers out there.
Speaker: It's so fucking weird.
Speaker: Tenenbaum every time Tenenbaum shows up, I get kind of like, Ooh, because what kind of fucking weird shit is she going to do?
Speaker: So it is time.
Speaker: One of the dock workers, um, she was trying to extract semen from the dock worker and the, her method of doing that was jamming a needle into his balls.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And the guy ends up screaming and running out of the clinic with his pants down and a needle in his testicles.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Which is just like not only that, that just shows you how she's a bad doctor.
Speaker: Like that's a, that's for a lot of reasons.
Speaker: Don't get me wrong.
Speaker: She's a bad doctor for like,
Speaker: you know, eugenics style for Nazi reasons.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: But, uh, but that's also just like, that's just ignoring Occam's razor so much that it, it like, just like, Oh, we need semen.
Speaker: I know what I will do.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: A needle in the, in the testicles.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Right in the balls.
Speaker: So she's been let go from that particular position.
Speaker: She's still in rapture.
Speaker: She's still working, but they're not asking her to collect semen samples.
Speaker: No, please stop collecting semen.
Speaker: Please, please stop doing that.
Speaker: The, the, the core of this scene though, is that she sees a, um, she sees a, a guy by the name of stiffy,
Speaker: which just that come on, that wasn't a coincidence.
Speaker: Come on, man.
Speaker: You did that on purpose.
Speaker: Surely.
Speaker: Yeah, you did.
Speaker: Who is playing catch with another guy.
Speaker: And Stiffy had the nickname because his hands barely works.
Speaker: The one hand didn't work at all.
Speaker: The other one only half work, but now he's catching and throwing the ball and Tenenbaum's like, how did that happen?
Speaker: And he tells her the story of getting bit by this sea slug.
Speaker: And wouldn't you know it?
Speaker: He got bit by the sea slug and his hands worked.
Speaker: They healed up quite nicely.
Speaker: And and he happens to have the slug still.
Speaker: He kept it because free enterprising man of rapture.
Speaker: He is.
Speaker: He kept it in on it on a bucket filled with seawater because, hey, you might be able to sell it to somebody.
Speaker: Might be able to sell it to somebody.
Speaker: And that somebody is a recently fired Nazi doctor who is wondering why people looked at her weird for stabbing a man in the testicles to get a semen.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So.
Speaker: So she has acquired one sea slug.
Speaker: Little tenenbaum chibi holding it above your head.
Speaker: You got one sea slug.
Speaker: That is her success.
Speaker: That is her success.
Speaker: She gets that sea slug.
Speaker: And we come back to Dr. Lamb's office.
Speaker: And basically, it's the middle of a therapy session.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: With a worker.
Speaker: With a worker who is regretting, like...
Speaker: He's clearly regretting a lot.
Speaker: Oh, God.
Speaker: He regrets that he brings his kids.
Speaker: He thought this was going to be like a road to riches thing, like the Comstock mine.
Speaker: And then he's really laying it all out there.
Speaker: And then he's like, oh, oh, wait, wait.
Speaker: You work for Ryan, right?
Speaker: And she's like, well, yeah, kind of.
Speaker: But, you know, everything, anything you say is going to be confidential.
Speaker: You know, this is just going to like it'll be in trouble.
Speaker: Yeah, it'll be in a general report, but there's not going to be any names or anything.
Speaker: And he like he buttons up.
Speaker: He buttons up.
Speaker: Right away, he's like, yeah, he's like, oh, no, no, I wasn't misled.
Speaker: They were straight with me.
Speaker: It's perfectly fine.
Speaker: I'm fine.
Speaker: We're all fine.
Speaker: Everything's cool.
Speaker: We're all fine here.
Speaker: Thank you.
Speaker: How are you?
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: And, and this leads to, uh, uh, lambs, uh, the, the, the first sign I mentioned before of like this, this kind of budding, um, leader in her where she starts to become convinced that she believes that rapture is going to fail.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: She does a little dire entry and she's like pretty much convinced rapture is going to fail.
Speaker: And, uh, but after these psychotherapy sessions, she starts to believe, ah, unless I,
Speaker: Unless I can stop it from failing because... Right.
Speaker: Yeah, it's it shows she writes down subjects are typical in mistrust of Ryan and feeling of alienation, social claustrophobia at boiling point for some financial status, a key factor, higher income show less anxiety.
Speaker: Oh, I mean, God damn.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: So so we're getting we're getting a Ryan rifle, if you will.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I wonder how that's going to go.
Speaker: I wonder how that's going to go.
Speaker: I wonder if somebody is.
Speaker: We'll see.
Speaker: Meanwhile, at Pupping Station five.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: McDonough is.
Speaker: This is great.
Speaker: Is doing some cleanup work.
Speaker: And Ryan's like, oh, look, there's a.
Speaker: look, there's a puddle of stuff on the sidewalk.
Speaker: Why is that there?
Speaker: Fix.
Speaker: You got to make sure you fix that up.
Speaker: And Bill is like, well, funny you mentioned that.
Speaker: I wouldn't have to fix it up so often if the factories weren't using such corrosive chemicals.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And Brian's like,
Speaker: that that smells like regulation.
Speaker: That smells like radiation to me, Bill.
Speaker: And Bill, Bill's very, he's doing the tap dance, man.
Speaker: He's, he's doing what he can.
Speaker: And he says to him, he says, well, you know, when you think about it, it's good for us too, because these same heavily corrosive chemicals are polluting the water.
Speaker: And that could be a problem for us down the line.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Fish, we live in that water and all that.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And Ryan, who is a well-known person,
Speaker: scientist well-known scientists like the water just pollutes at all.
Speaker: It's fine.
Speaker: That's not how it works.
Speaker: How it works.
Speaker: Possibly do that.
Speaker: We can't.
Speaker: There's no way you can pollute the water.
Speaker: You can't pollute the water so badly that every fish in existence has a level of mercury in it that might may or may not be driving us all completely insane as we consume said fish slash mercury.
Speaker: That's just not a thing that happens.
Speaker: And then as if to prove Bill's point, they're wandering down the street and there's this storefront that is just flooded with garbage completely.
Speaker: Yeah, it's two grocery stores.
Speaker: There's one flooded with garbage and then there's another one across the street from it.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And they have been diversifying.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: As the book says, which, you know, you mean basically they own more than one business.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Grocery stores, one of them.
Speaker: And the other guy, the guy who one of the grocery store gentlemen also owns
Speaker: the cleanup crews around there that clean up the streets and the and he's charging everyone else a reasonable amount.
Speaker: But his competitor, the other grocery store, he's charging an ungodly amount.
Speaker: I will never be.
Speaker: Yeah, Shep has bought the the the garbage pickup company and Gravenstein, who is who is beset by the garbage, is like he's just trying to run me out of business.
Speaker: And Ryan is like,
Speaker: all's fair and capitalism and capitalism.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And he's like, it's kind of holding his, his, you know, suspenders.
Speaker: The suspenders.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: And it's kind of hilarious because he clearly doesn't like the guy who is taking advantage.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Uh, he sees it as a grotesque, right?
Speaker: He sees it as a personal failing.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And it's like, uh, it made me think of, I had a friend who, um,
Speaker: he believed in the whole notion of, um, he was, he was really into like the manly man kind of thing.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: And he, and he really believed in the notion that like, Oh, well, you know, when two guys fight, it's just a matter of honor.
Speaker: And then when the fight's over, they could shake hands and be friends because they figured it out.
Speaker: through, you know, honorable fisticuffs.
Speaker: And I told, I said, I don't know what kind of guys you hung out with growing up.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: You know, anytime someone I knew got his ass beat or anyone else got their ass beat, they just hated the guy even more.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: They didn't go, well, I lost in the fair, the fair battle of fisticuffs.
Speaker: Now let us be friends.
Speaker: It's not how this shit works.
Speaker: It's not.
Speaker: So Ryan, and it's kind of a similar thing.
Speaker: He believes in this mythology of the gentleman.
Speaker: You know, that seems to be what it is.
Speaker: Like he loathes Shep for being a bore and a dishonorable person.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: But he's not breaking the rules.
Speaker: And the rules are do whatever you want.
Speaker: Pretty much.
Speaker: And and then so he tells the guy, the guy comes to him, says, look, I can't afford this.
Speaker: This isn't fair.
Speaker: I'm doing everything right.
Speaker: And this guy is is fucking me over.
Speaker: This isn't this isn't normal competition.
Speaker: This is this is something different.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And Ryan says, basically, he says, be a man.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Deal with it.
Speaker: Deal with it like a man.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And so the guy Graven deals with it like a man.
Speaker: Gravenstein deals with it like a man.
Speaker: And you know how he deals with it like a man.
Speaker: He goes into a store.
Speaker: He grabs a gun and he shoots Shep.
Speaker: and murders him.
Speaker: Like a man.
Speaker: And now Ryan is frustrated now because you're like, now that is against the law.
Speaker: That's the one thing that you're not allowed to do is murder.
Speaker: Which is so funny to me because it's like, why draw that line?
Speaker: And I can just imagine Ryan throwing his top hat down and stomping on it like, I gotta call a constable now.
Speaker: And then he doesn't have to call anybody because Gravenstein kills himself.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Like a man.
Speaker: Like a man.
Speaker: Like a man.
Speaker: He solves the problem.
Speaker: Yeah, he saw it.
Speaker: Yeah, he, he, he, he understood the assignment and, uh, and, and he kills himself.
Speaker: Uh, and that is how this shit works.
Speaker: Ultimately.
Speaker: That is how the rapture works.
Speaker: Uh, right.
Speaker: Meanwhile, you know, lamb, lamb.
Speaker: That's how I'm going to, that's how I'm going to introduce every chapter section that has lamb in it.
Speaker: Lamb.
Speaker: uh she's she's basically in another another psychotherapy session yeah and um
Speaker: A woman who's been very kind of gaslit by how this world works.
Speaker: So it's a woman named Margie, and it's a nice thematic cut because we get Gravenstein killing himself, and we cut to Margie saying, there's only one way out of this burg, Doc, and it's if I kill myself.
Speaker: And then she's like, but I don't even know if that's true because I think there's ghosts here.
Speaker: And it's like, it is so...
Speaker: overwhelmingly sad like where where this woman is at you know she is she like Sophia is like you know ghosts are just in people's mind and then finally she says well maybe maybe I only have myself to blame
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And it is.
Speaker: She blames herself.
Speaker: She blames herself.
Speaker: And it's like the ultimate in like she has been gaslit to the point where she like everything bad thing that has happened to her down a rapture is her fault.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: She blames herself.
Speaker: So she has she has bought.
Speaker: the company store line hook, line and sinker.
Speaker: Anybody who here, who, who doesn't know what the company store is, by the way, go ahead and do your, I'm not going to get into it at this point because Christ, but like check out the Wikipedia article on look it up country stores and how that shit works.
Speaker: So the company store, exactly.
Speaker: And this is just an, this is a natural extension of that.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Um, if, if, if programs like the new deal and if, and if certain socialistic things hadn't happened, uh, this, this is, this is the natural progression of these things.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Um, yeah.
Speaker: And Sophia writes down, there's a consistent pattern of disappointing expectation and patience.
Speaker: Like everybody who has come to rapture,
Speaker: in that she is talking to is disappointed that they are not that their lives are not better that rapture was not some silver bullet it wasn't a magical cure-all uh not it wasn't a tincture or a tonic that that would make their life better by removing you know church and the government and all this stuff that was just standing in their way because so they could be great people you know
Speaker: Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: And that's how it's sold.
Speaker: That's how that kind of thing is.
Speaker: They always, they always pay lip service to like, oh, there's going to be some work involved.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And Sophia, that's when Sophia just makes the note, the new deal note to herself, basically no recourse for those stricken by bad luck.
Speaker: No WPA, which was the works progress authority.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's like the CCC, the same base.
Speaker: Uh, nothing to catch those who fall enormous potential for social ferment.
Speaker: So, yeah, it's just, it, she's seeing, she's seeing it's, they're good sections.
Speaker: It, it kind of initially you might look at this and go, what does this serve?
Speaker: That wasn't served already, uh, with her last worker.
Speaker: And this, this is the worker who she was talking to is obviously the laborers, the people on the ground.
Speaker: This is somebody who, uh,
Speaker: is even lower on the rung.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: This is, this is, this is a woman who has been forced into prostitution.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Um, and is, and, and is, if you can even believe it somehow lower on the rung than some unskilled Navi out there just trying to make a buck, uh,
Speaker: These people are these people are being taken advantage of and hurt.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And and it and it somehow gets worse.
Speaker: It somehow just keeps getting worse.
Speaker: And and Lamb finishes her thought, a gradual revolution, first in mind, and then, in fact, transforming Rapture from within.
Speaker: So she has her M.O.
Speaker: now for for for dealing with the problems.
Speaker: And then it's back.
Speaker: It's we get we get Frankie Fontaine is back in the action.
Speaker: I need a little more Fontaine.
Speaker: What's he doing?
Speaker: What's he doing here?
Speaker: Well, Fontaine's still digging on Rapture.
Speaker: He still really seems to be enjoying it.
Speaker: And he's scamming him as he planned.
Speaker: He started smuggling.
Speaker: He's bringing in beef because the people of Rapture are getting sick of fish because all there is is fish.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: I love fish, but yeah, eventually you're going to want a steak or some chicken nuggies.
Speaker: And so he's smuggling Mickey D's.
Speaker: Come on.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Why not?
Speaker: He's smuggling that in along with Bibles.
Speaker: Bibles.
Speaker: And he makes a point of saying Ryan hates Bibles.
Speaker: I just laugh at people who like Bibles.
Speaker: It really, he does not have...
Speaker: you know, he doesn't have an opinion on these things.
Speaker: He just knows there's a need for them.
Speaker: He's a businessman.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: So he's like, he's, he's basically filling in the gaps that Ryan refuses to.
Speaker: So here's the thing here's, and I just came, made this connection is that the difference between Ryan and Fontaine is that Fontaine is, is,
Speaker: In actuality, the objectivist who needs like this is if if you want it to be truly objectivist to the prescribed standards of objectivism or whatever, that's Frank Fontaine.
Speaker: I don't know about I don't know if I'd take it that far only because objectivism is still an ethos.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: Fontaine has none.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: To get, to get real Lebowski on you here.
Speaker: Say what you will about objectivism, man, but it's still an ethos.
Speaker: It's still an ethos.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: Ryan is, Ryan is still, he's, he's so Fontaine is more of like a, a, a nihilist capitalist.
Speaker: He's a not, he's an, he's an, he's an anarcho capitalist.
Speaker: If such a thing can even exist, which I'm not sure.
Speaker: Oh, it does.
Speaker: It does.
Speaker: But, uh, he, he is a, yeah, he is a nihilist out to make a buck for himself.
Speaker: Uh, Fontaine, Fontaine, uh, Ryan, as much of a scumbag as he is, uh, at least has a series of rules.
Speaker: His rules are stupid.
Speaker: Oh God.
Speaker: And he ignores them 50% of the time.
Speaker: Uh, but he does have rules and Fontaine has no rules.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: So they're very similar.
Speaker: They are intensely similar people.
Speaker: And the only reason, and you see it in the way that it's kind of hilarious because Ryan regards Fontaine with kind of it.
Speaker: He knows they don't have the proof.
Speaker: We found out they don't yet have the proof.
Speaker: that Fontaine's doing all the smuggling and shit.
Speaker: But they're pretty sure.
Speaker: And even with that knowledge, Ryan kind of respects Fontaine.
Speaker: He goes, he's willing to do what he needs to do.
Speaker: And Fontaine doesn't give a shit about Ryan.
Speaker: He doesn't give a shit.
Speaker: Fuck that guy.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Fuck that guy.
Speaker: And it's like, and here's the thing.
Speaker: They're both despicable people.
Speaker: Totally.
Speaker: But at least with Fontaine, you're like, he's actually living the way he means to live.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: You know, if you're going to live, if you're going to live by some sort of ethos, then fucking do it.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And that's Ryan can't even pull that off.
Speaker: No.
Speaker: All of his money and connections and all that shit.
Speaker: Ryan is too concerned with specifics.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: He's too concerned with that shit.
Speaker: He doesn't care about this.
Speaker: Like, like, we're like, oh, that would betray my one rule.
Speaker: But like, Fontaine's like.
Speaker: Rules?
Speaker: Nah, nah.
Speaker: Yeah, that's exactly it.
Speaker: Ryan has a vision.
Speaker: Ryan has a vision.
Speaker: He is very, Ryan is very into how smart he is.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: You know what I mean?
Speaker: Ryan is very wrapped up in being a great man.
Speaker: Fontaine doesn't give a shit about being a great man.
Speaker: He just wants your money.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: You know, and that's that's where it is.
Speaker: It ego plays no part in it.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: You know, Fontaine kills a guy and takes his identity and doesn't spend an hour and a half afterwards jerking himself off over how smart he is.
Speaker: You know what I mean?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: That's the difference.
Speaker: He's not building statues to himself.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: He's just he's there to take the gems out of the statue's eyes.
Speaker: He is true chaotic, neutral thief.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: You know?
Speaker: And so, yeah, it's, it's a, it's, they seem very similar, but, and they are, but there's a, enough of difference there.
Speaker: Yeah, there is.
Speaker: That's true.
Speaker: There is a little bit of a, yeah.
Speaker: And, and whereas Ryan is lawful evil.
Speaker: I would.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: I would argue.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Lawful evil.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Selfishness is a virtue and I have a code of ethics.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Even though I won't call them.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: But Fontaine is meeting with Dr. Suchong and Dr. Suchong and Tenenbaum and Tenenbaum's like, yeah, I mean, Ryan kept telling us to work on whatever and then like wouldn't give us the money to do what we wanted to do.
Speaker: And there's no money.
Speaker: There's no money to fund.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And Fontaine's like, well, then I would love to, you know, I would love to fuck with Ryan.
Speaker: He's like, Tenenbaum, you're working as a free agent.
Speaker: Yeah, it's a good description.
Speaker: And that's when she mentions the thing about Ryan being inconsistent with the funding.
Speaker: Um, and Souchong is like, yeah, I don't want to make, uh, Ryan angry, but we need more money.
Speaker: We, to do the things that we want to do.
Speaker: Um, and then, and the stuff they want to do is pretty fucking horrible.
Speaker: Like Souchong, this is where we have Souchong going.
Speaker: Oh, they're so fucking, they like, they, we, we want to experiment and we have, we know what we need to experiment on and they're all such babies.
Speaker: We want to experiment on their kids.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And they're like, oh, I got to protect the kids.
Speaker: Like he literally says that kind of shit.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So like, so, oh, this is great.
Speaker: This is like just misogyny and rapture.
Speaker: Oh, here we go.
Speaker: So this is true what you say.
Speaker: Ryan says work on anything, but research costs money.
Speaker: This is this is Tenenbaum saying this.
Speaker: Financial support is what is the word inconsistent?
Speaker: She flicked her eyes at Suchong.
Speaker: Dr. Suchong does not wish to make Mr. Ryan angry, but we both need more.
Speaker: And Suchong frowned.
Speaker: woman, do not speak for me.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's like, yeah, it's, they have a real detente between Souchong and Tenenbaum.
Speaker: It's kind of amazing.
Speaker: They, they outwardly don't like each other and they, they still work together somehow.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Well, they, they, they actually do recognize, they, they don't agree on almost anything, but they recognize the skill in each other.
Speaker: And, and if it weren't for them, they,
Speaker: Uh, cause they, I think they, they openly admit they probably wouldn't be where they are if it weren't for the other.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Cause Souchong, um, Souchong is, I forget what his specific specialty is.
Speaker: Um, but he's really more about the neurosurgeon, neurology, something like that, because he's, he's more about the, how the brain and synapses work.
Speaker: Whereas she's all about genetics.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: So, yeah, they're having a conversation and Fontaine wants to basically take them under his wing.
Speaker: So Chong has a speech about how vile children are.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And he wants to and then he wants to experiment on him.
Speaker: And Fontaine says, well, I can't get you that right now, but I could probably get you some people, some adults who have been very naughty.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And it's like Fontaine's like, what's funny is like there are moments in this story where even Fontaine is given like a gives like a slight pause to what the insane scientists want from him.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And they're like, everybody seems to have a limit in this book, except for the scientists, except for the scientists.
Speaker: Basically he gets to, yeah.
Speaker: He's like, kids, kids are terrible.
Speaker: It's an experiment on kids.
Speaker: And Fontaine's like,
Speaker: I mean, eventually, sure, why not?
Speaker: Sure, you know what, fuck it, I can probably get behind that if the paycheck's good.
Speaker: If the money's good, I can get behind that, but let's start with people.
Speaker: Adults.
Speaker: Adults.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: We can.
Speaker: And, uh, and from there they start discussing, uh, the beginning of, of, uh, plasmids essentially of powers of being able to manipulate the human body, uh, to heal and to do all kinds of things that the body, to make the Uber man.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: If you will.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: The, and this will lead into the Fontaine futuristics and the plasmids and, and all that fun stuff.
Speaker: all that stuff that I know you've all been waiting for.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: So we'll leave it there for this evening because that was it was a lot of stuff in those.
Speaker: That's a lot of stuff.
Speaker: It's the this this part, part two is meaty in so many ways.
Speaker: It covers a lot of ground.
Speaker: It's very long.
Speaker: And it also
Speaker: There's a lot to talk about in this.
Speaker: There's a lot to stop and talk about.
Speaker: There's I wouldn't be surprised if it takes us like three parts just to get to the part two of this book.
Speaker: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker: Because and you got new characters kind of popping in and out.
Speaker: There is so much happening in in part two of this book.
Speaker: It is it is a huge chunk of the book.
Speaker: And so that was that was the first three chapters of part two.
Speaker: The first three or four chapters of part two.
Speaker: And there are how many?
Speaker: I think it's it's part.
Speaker: It goes up to chapter 13.
Speaker: But some of these chapters are much longer than others.
Speaker: Even in the I was looking at the audio book table of contents and several of these chapters alone.
Speaker: The chapter is an hour long by itself.
Speaker: Oh, yeah.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: In the audio book.
Speaker: So they are some beefy chapters in here.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: We're going to, we're covering a lot of ground here.
Speaker: And on top of that, it's a highly political book.
Speaker: And that means that me and Kevin are going to go on rants every now and then.
Speaker: We're going to stop and just talk about the politics.
Speaker: That's fine.
Speaker: And I, and I, and I have to believe here's the thing.
Speaker: If, if, if you've been following us all along and you don't care for our politics, you're not here.
Speaker: You haven't, you haven't been listening around for this one.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: you know, or if you have, you're like, I like the show, except for they occasionally get into a political rant that I don't like.
Speaker: But it's good.
Speaker: The moment you saw we were covering a Bioshock franchise book, you were like, I'm out.
Speaker: I'm out.
Speaker: I'll see you guys in a month.
Speaker: See, see us in a month when we're when we're back on some other bullshit.
Speaker: Right, right.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: If you're, if you're just now joining us and you don't like our politics, bye.
Speaker: It's really as simple as that.
Speaker: I, I, I was thinking about it the other day when I was reading this book and I wrote a, I wrote and made a YouTube video.
Speaker: That was a mini documentary about dungeons, dungeons and dragons and the satanic panic in the 1980s.
Speaker: It's my most popular video.
Speaker: Thank you very much.
Speaker: Check it out on YouTube at El Conquista Dork.
Speaker: It's my most popular video.
Speaker: And I still.
Speaker: And I thought I was being clear when I made this years and years ago, I still get comments from people on there who believe
Speaker: on one hand, stupid and or despicable things and think that I'm on their side.
Speaker: And, uh, and I've always regretted that I wasn't even more bare, bare bones clear.
Speaker: With, with some of the, the people that have that thought pattern, you really got to,
Speaker: Hammer at home.
Speaker: You got to be super clear.
Speaker: So let this be my manifesto.
Speaker: Let us be clear.
Speaker: Let us be very clear.
Speaker: We are not.
Speaker: We are.
Speaker: We are not.
Speaker: We're not the Randians you're looking for.
Speaker: We are not.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Thank you.
Speaker: That's it.
Speaker: That's the one.
Speaker: That's the one.
Speaker: That is like our 19th T-shirt.
Speaker: 19th T-shirt idea.
Speaker: not the randy we're not the randyans you are looking for fucking christ so but this is but the books i mean but it's yeah it is it's a good book it's good so far i'm i'm digging it um yeah i'm already i think i'm already read to just about the end of part two um yeah so i'm i'm i'm a few chapters away from the end of part so i know where it's going i gotta tell you people if you if you've got if you got an audible account or anything like that
Speaker: Um, get the audio book version of this.
Speaker: If you're looking for an excuse to replay Bioshock, there is nothing quite so satisfying as replaying Bioshock while listening to the prequel, like listening to because you're listening to where this world started out while playing through its future and the, the, the, just the, the, the cataclysm that came from the decay of a true Randy in society.
Speaker: You get to just bask in it.
Speaker: It does.
Speaker: It does want a body good.
Speaker: It really does want a body good.
Speaker: It's it's yeah.
Speaker: So it's it's a great book so far.
Speaker: I'm really enjoying it.
Speaker: He would have to really, really goddamn drop the ball.
Speaker: And who knows?
Speaker: I mean, he might.
Speaker: And I've seen it happen.
Speaker: We have covered books and that have done that before.
Speaker: So, yes, we're always ready for exactly the halfway point.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: The half.
Speaker: Hmm.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Oh, oh, oh no.
Speaker: What is, what is, what is this?
Speaker: What's happening here?
Speaker: What do I have on my, oh, oh, that's weird.
Speaker: That's weird.
Speaker: Oh no.
Speaker: It's almost, it was funny when you, you, the, the screen blanked it out at a time to suggest that it was unseeable untoward material.
Speaker: Uh, so, but yeah, so far, so far, basically exactly halfway through the book right now.
Speaker: And,
Speaker: But so far, so good.
Speaker: Yeah, I'm digging it.
Speaker: Yeah, me too.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: Well, that'll do it for today's episode.
Speaker: If you want, actually, I'm not going to say if you want.
Speaker: Please just go and follow us on Twitter at PixelitPod.
Speaker: It is probably the fastest way to get updates on whatever the hell we're doing.
Speaker: Absolutely.
Speaker: Also, go and go to pixelipod.com.
Speaker: That's our website.
Speaker: All the episodes get posted there with the added bonus of having a automated transcript so you can see what a computer thinks we're saying at the very least.
Speaker: Oh, the future is a wide and wondrous thing.
Speaker: It is.
Speaker: It is a wide and wacky Mr. Toad's wild ride of technology.
Speaker: Good lord.
Speaker: So PixletPod.com, at PixletPod on Twitter.
Speaker: Please go check us out there.
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Speaker: It really helps the analytics.
Speaker: Until next time, thanks for listening and have a good night.
Speaker: Night.
Speaker: Bye.
