Pod Insights Better Offline Radio Better Offline: Jeremy Kaplowitz of the Quorators About this episode Welcome to Radio Better Offline, a tech talk radio show recorded out of iHeartRadio's studio in New York City.
Ed Zitron is joined by Jeremy Kaplowitz of the podcast Quorators to talk about Quora, which he describes as “Reddit with a gas leak.”
www.youtube.com/@Quorators https://www.youtube.com/@Quorators
www.patreon.com/Quorators https://www.patreon.com/Quorators
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Transcript 10,338 words · 8 speakers
Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
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1:14 Speaker 03 Call Zone Media.
1:17 Ed Zitron? Live but recorded on tape from New York City, the iHeart Radio Studios. It's goddamn better offline and I'm the chief of pigs, Ed Zitron.
1:37 Ed Zitron? Today, I'm joined by Jeremy Kaplowitz of the Quorators Podcast. I'm so excited to have you here because your podcast has found, I would say, some of history's detritus.
1:49 Speaker 05 Yeah.
1:49 Ed Zitron? It's become one of the worst best places online. But just for the listeners who may have just ignored Quora, what is Quora?
1:56 Speaker 05 Quora is a website where you can ask questions and then people answer it. But it is very much like Reddit meets Facebook, I would say.
2:06 Ed Zitron? Right.
2:07 Speaker 05 So two of the worst websites combined to, you know, sort of. Like a super Saiyan way to create an even worse website.
2:12 Ed Zitron? Wonderful. So how long have you been doing the podcast?
2:15 Speaker 05 We've been doing it like two years since September twenty twenty two.
2:18 Ed Zitron? And why? What brought you to it?
2:19 Speaker 05 Oh, we really wanted to do a podcast that wouldn't be hard to do.
2:23 Ed Zitron? Right.
2:24 Speaker 05 And so we figured Quora has endless degenerates to look at and point at and laugh at.
2:29 Ed Zitron? Right. So what is your favorite one you've found recently? Oh, gosh. Give me a good example.
2:35 Speaker 05 I'm trying to think. Um, there's a lot of like perverts on Quora.
2:38 Ed Zitron? I'm listening.
2:39 Speaker 05 For some reason, people go to Quora to like act out their sexual fantasies, but they don't want to like see it. So they'll, I don't know what it is, although like write down a question that's like, have you ever, uh, had a girl pee on you? And then like, they'll be like, they want to be like, oh yeah, one time it was, I was so naughty. And I guess then they're jacking off to it or something.
2:59 Ed Zitron? Very nasty.
2:59 Speaker 05 We found a bunch of weird, we found a whole community of people who swim with their clothes on.
3:04 Ed Zitron? Okay.
3:04 Speaker 05 Which I, I imagine is a fetish of some kind, but they were all posting photos of it and stuff. It's all these like older guys, like in lakes and pools.
3:12 Ed Zitron? And they dressed, how are they dressed?
3:14 Speaker 05 Normal clothes.
3:15 Ed Zitron? Like, just like walking around.
3:16 Speaker 05 What you're in right now.
3:17 Ed Zitron? Okay.
3:18 Speaker 05 If you were taking like a sexy photo shoot of you jumping into a pool.
3:21 Ed Zitron? Falling in a pool.
3:22 Speaker 05 Yeah. And are there a lot of these perverts on there? I realize we're very pervert. So many pervert. It's like cops and perverts and racists, which could all be the same thing.
3:32 Ed Zitron? I mean.
3:34 Speaker 05 Yeah, it's a weird, it's a very weird website.
3:37 Ed Zitron? So, but wait, the cops, what are the cops doing on there?
3:40 Speaker 05 Cops, uh, they're talking about safety. There's all these like, um, sub Quoras that are like subreddits, but for Quora. And there's a lot of them that are like, how to deal with thugs in your neighborhood.
3:51 Ed Zitron? But wait, so you say the sub Quoras.
3:54 Speaker 05 Yeah.
3:54 Ed Zitron? Is this being people published there as well? It's not just question and answer?
3:58 Speaker 05 Uh, I mean, those are where people are still doing questions, but they're like collecting them in a group.
4:02 Ed Zitron? Like, how do I stop the scumbag from shooting?
4:04 Speaker 05 Yes. And there's a lot of like retired cops who are like writing novels.
4:08 Ed Zitron? Insane.
4:09 Speaker 05 A lot of them literally are writing books of like, cause a lot of people have become famous on Quora. The big one is Jordan Peterson. Jordan Peterson got his start answering Quora questions and people are like, you should put this in a book. And then he.
4:21 Ed Zitron? Those people, we should find those people.
4:23 Speaker 05 Yes.
4:23 Ed Zitron? And stop them.
4:26 Ed Zitron? Like, how, how do I deal with the fact that?
4:28 Speaker 05 Yeah.
4:29 Ed Zitron? That the, the Shrek and Fiona should not be together.
4:34 Speaker 05 Like, right.
4:35 Ed Zitron? But really, he came from Quora? That makes me so angry.
4:38 Speaker 05 Well, Quora created Jordan Peterson.
4:40 Ed Zitron? That is fucking horrible.
4:41 Speaker 05 It's really sad.
4:42 Ed Zitron? What was he asking about?
4:44 Speaker 05 I, he was answering, so he's a big answerer. So he was the guy going in there being like, "Actually, if you swim in your clothes, it's a better fold around your penis." "I, I don't like the idea of pervert. I like to be called a sartorial man."
4:58 Ed Zitron? Yeah, that's horrible. And there must be even, are there any other famous Quora freaks?
5:03 Speaker 05 I think he's the only one who became famous from Quora, but, um, Orson Scott Card is on there a lot.
5:07 Ed Zitron? Who's that?
5:08 Speaker 05 He's the author of Ender's Game.
5:10 Ed Zitron? Oh.
5:10 Speaker 05 Who, he wrote a bunch of sci-fi novels and is like famously a insane crank. I don't know if you know anything about him.
5:16 Ed Zitron? I don't.
5:16 Speaker 05 So he wrote Ender's Game, which is a book about, uh, the government abducting children and making them fight wars against aliens.
5:23 Ed Zitron? Right.
5:23 Speaker 05 Right? Totally normal stuff.
5:24 Ed Zitron? That happens.
5:25 Speaker 05 And then in like the 2000s, he went crazy and he's like very Mormon and he was like super anti Obama. And he was like, "If Obama wins, there will be gangs of black people going around the country, killing everybody."
5:38 Ed Zitron? Oh my god.
5:39 Speaker 05 So he was, you know, obviously right about some stuff, but no, come on. He was crazy.
5:44 Ed Zitron? Yeah, we have cops for that.
5:46 Speaker 05 He, um, he, he's like a super duper like, uh, anti-gay people, even though his books are like very homoerotic and weird. There's like this very famous.
5:54 Ed Zitron? That's very strange.
5:55 Speaker 05 In Ender's Game where Ender beats a guy up by soaping himself, uh, he gets really naked and then puts soap all over his body so that the bad guy can't like catch him. He's like a very strange dude.
6:06 Ed Zitron? That is, but he was a big Quora guy?
6:08 Speaker 05 Yeah, he's still on there to this day.
6:09 Ed Zitron? What's he answering?
6:10 Speaker 05 He's just, I don't know, I can look.
6:12 Ed Zitron? Yeah, you know, but by all means, I just love the idea because.
6:14 Speaker 05 See what he's up to.
6:15 Ed Zitron? Quora seems horrible. Just want to be abundantly clear. Cause I was a Yahoo Answers freak.
6:20 Speaker 05 Oh, yeah.
6:21 Ed Zitron? In the sense that I was, but I was just someone who looked. I just, I was like a, an Answers voyeur. And there's of course the very famous Yahoo Answers, uh, "How is Babi formed?"
6:29 Speaker 05 Right.
6:29 Ed Zitron? "How go get pregnant?"
6:30 Speaker 05 Right.
6:31 Ed Zitron? "I need to do Way and Stay mother who killed their Babbies." I could say the whole thing, but I won't. But Quora feels different somehow. It feels like it's got a degree of LinkedIn poisoning almost.
6:41 Speaker 05 Yeah. But also full names on there.
6:44 Ed Zitron? So it's all like no one's anonymous?
6:46 Speaker 05 Some people are. I mean, we've come across one guy whose name is I am a pizza and he posts every day. He asks, how can I get eaten?
6:54 Speaker 05 Okay, just so he's not. I don't think that's his legal name, but he's on there.
6:58 Ed Zitron? Just my name's I'm in pizza?
6:59 Speaker 05 Yeah, I am a pizza is his name.
7:01 Ed Zitron? And is it just questions around how he can get eaten?
7:04 Speaker 05 Yeah, it's literally what it is. It's all just like, how can I get someone to eat me? How can I get eaten like every day?
7:09 Ed Zitron? It's nothing sexual.
7:10 Speaker 05 I mean.
7:11 Ed Zitron? I mean, perhaps just the process of being eaten is sexual, like, of course, sure. That's are there a lot of bit style accounts like that?
7:19 Speaker 05 There definitely are. There's definitely trolls on there. There's a lot of um, Christian baby questions. That's a big thing on Quora where people be like. Uh, what would you do if you're skydiving with a Christian baby? And the baby says, I'm not gonna pull my parachute unless you renounce atheism and accept Jesus Christ.
7:36 Ed Zitron? Okay, well, the answer.
7:37 Speaker 05 Supposed to be a gotcha.
7:38 Ed Zitron? The answer there is just, I'll say whatever I need to. It's a fucking baby.
7:41 Speaker 05 Exactly.
7:42 Ed Zitron? They're very stupid. Like, just they're not intellectual.
7:46 Speaker 05 Yes.
7:46 Ed Zitron? That.
7:47 Speaker 05 There's hundreds of.
7:48 Ed Zitron? And how are the responses? Do people take them very seriously or do they take them more like they they kind of like, is it like Twitter where you get like 50% honest people and 50%?
7:57 Speaker 05 Yeah.
7:58 Ed Zitron? Being unfunny?
7:58 Speaker 05 Well, it's not Twitter because they're not unfunny, but it'll be 50% people answering it and 50% people being like, how dare you bring this to my question website? Where discourse is meant to be done.
8:08 Ed Zitron? Wait, so there are very.
8:09 Speaker 05 Scott Card.
8:10 Ed Zitron? Oh, okay, okay. So he's answered three hours ago, four hours ago. He's there every day.
8:15 Speaker 05 Get a job.
8:15 Ed Zitron? I know.
8:16 Speaker 05 He's on there, just people being like, well, how do you write a book? And he's like, I wrote Ender's Game in 1975.
8:23 Ed Zitron? And then back then I had the dinosaur that you pack on the head. Yeah, that's that's like, there's some listeners who are not gonna love that.
8:31 Speaker 05 Um, yeah, just a lot of stuff about like, he's just giving like, relationship advice in some spots.
8:35 Ed Zitron? That's not brilliant based on anything you've told me about. Is there a large like, relationship advice?
8:40 Speaker 05 Sure, yeah. There's definitely that kind of stuff. There's a lot of like famously bad ones where it's hard to tell if it's like legit. I mean, there's just children on there who are being like, how do I get this girl to like me or whatever?
8:50 Ed Zitron? Just and in some ways that feels quite honest, like what the internet is really for. But with the perverts and degenerates on there.
8:57 Speaker 05 Pretty bad.
8:58 Ed Zitron? That.
8:58 Speaker 05 There's a place that we have found a bunch of times called like teen fun zone for like teens to hang out and it's just like, how many of these people are undercover cops? Like, that's my question.
9:08 Ed Zitron? And how many of them are teens?
9:10 Speaker 05 Probably a small percent.
9:11 Ed Zitron? And so you've seen the the generative AI aspect, right?
9:16 Speaker 05 Yes. Yeah. So there's this thing now called Quora Prompt Generator.
9:19 Ed Zitron? Oh, good.
9:19 Speaker 05 That is making questions that they think people want to ask in the future.
9:24 Ed Zitron? Uh huh.
9:25 Speaker 05 And it's like very hidden. You have to to even find the question asked or in general on Quora, because it's like the worst UI. You have to like click on like three dots and then go down to question log and then scroll all the way to the bottom and see the question. And now it'll just say like created by Quora Prompt AI or whatever. And it's just these bizarre questions that we've come across every now and then.
9:44 Ed Zitron? You've got any fun examples?
9:46 Speaker 05 Yeah, I have so many of them.
9:47 Ed Zitron? Please, please share them because I think we should both listen to them and answer them.
9:51 Speaker 05 Okay, this is one that we found on our podcast.
9:53 Ed Zitron? Right.
9:54 Speaker 05 Uh, should the Grinch be able to kill a who whenever he wants according to Halloween is Grinch Night?
9:59 Ed Zitron? So that is completely generative.
10:02 Speaker 05 Yeah, that I mean, I don't quite know how it works. Apparently it's like scrubbing these from somewhere. Like I I saw some people suggest because there's no like answer from Quora. They don't tell you like.
10:12 Ed Zitron? Uh huh.
10:12 Speaker 05 They're not saying like we've announced our new AI. It's just like.
10:15 Ed Zitron? Going over that again, Halloween night.
10:17 Speaker 05 Yeah. I think we looked this up. Halloween is Grinch Night was like a movie from like the eighties or something.
10:23 Ed Zitron? Did it bequeath the Grinch with like a license to kill? Like, is this a purge situation?
10:30 Speaker 05 I really, I don't know.
10:31 Ed Zitron? But what were the answers like?
10:32 Speaker 05 So this one had no answers on it.
10:34 Ed Zitron? Why not?
10:34 Speaker 05 And we made sure just to like keep things above board. We wrote, no, Grinches should have to respond to their programming. Just so the computer knows.
10:43 Ed Zitron? Grinches should have to. So this is the suggestion that a Grinch is some sort of automaton like.
10:48 Speaker 05 I don't know. I just feel like.
10:49 Ed Zitron? You take questions very seriously on this podcast. So like.
10:52 Speaker 05 I just don't like that the computer is asking like, is it cool to kill? And then we're like, no.
10:58 Ed Zitron? But under the terms of Halloween night.
11:00 Speaker 05 Yeah, the Grinch, right? Quote, quote, Grinch should not kill.
11:05 Ed Zitron? Yeah. Hmm. Any other good ones? Because I'm gonna be thinking about Halloween night.
11:09 Speaker 05 This is a a continuation of this theme. This is the the computer asked, how can someone live with a decomposed body in the fridge for months without others noticing?
11:18 Ed Zitron? They live alone. Like, that's the answer.
11:21 Speaker 05 But doesn't it feel like the computer wants to know?
11:23 Ed Zitron? Yeah, it does.
11:25 Speaker 05 You know what I'm saying?
11:25 Ed Zitron? If a person asked both of these questions.
11:28 Speaker 05 Yeah.
11:28 Ed Zitron? You'd be like, are you the Grinch? Is that your friend?
11:32 Speaker 05 Are you gonna kill someone?
11:34 Ed Zitron? Yeah. Did you kill someone? Do you have a decomposing body in your house by any chance?
11:39 Speaker 05 Um, yeah, the, the real answer is just that they just tell people that they have a smelly apartment or whatever.
11:44 Ed Zitron? Yeah.
11:44 Speaker 05 That's what all serial killers do.
11:45 Ed Zitron? Just be a loser.
11:47 Speaker 05 Yeah.
11:47 Ed Zitron? Just don't let anyone in your apartment when the body's there.
11:50 Speaker 05 I understand that the AI isn't thinking that it's just a next word generator, but it's concerning that that's the next words that it's generating.
11:57 Ed Zitron? Adam D'Angelo, the CEO of Quora, he's on the board of OpenAI.
12:01 Speaker 05 Yeah.
12:01 Ed Zitron? He was part of the people being like, we have to bring back Sam Altman. We need this technology. We need this technology. We, we need Quora to come up with crazy questions. It, I actually think that this is kind of almost a sign of the future for what Meta is gonna be like.
12:18 Speaker 05 Yeah, I think that's right.
12:19 Ed Zitron? It's, are there tons? Like, does it just spill these out all day?
12:22 Speaker 05 There's like, people have, like, there's a, a community where people like find their favorite ones and share them.
12:27 Ed Zitron? Right, right, right.
12:28 Speaker 05 Um, so there, I found like 10 of them that I put in. There's, this one's just like false info. It's, uh, how much territory did America acquire from the purchase of Greenland?
12:36 Ed Zitron? Okay.
12:37 Speaker 05 So that's just like incorrect.
12:37 Ed Zitron? That's really good.
12:39 Speaker 05 Yeah.
12:39 Ed Zitron? So this is, how much of this is there on the, do you, so you say it's quite hard to find the generator, right? Or is it hard to find these questions?
12:47 Speaker 05 Well, it's hard to find, um, the, if you go to like the generator, it doesn't give you a list of them.
12:52 Ed Zitron? Right.
12:53 Speaker 05 So it's just like, this was made by Quora AI. And to find the actual question, like, it's just a pain in the ass where I can show you.
13:00 Ed Zitron? So they're kind of burying them a bit?
13:01 Speaker 05 Yeah. So like, if this is what the question looks like, it just looks like somebody's asking a regular question and there's all these people answering and there's related questions. And to know that it's Quora AI, you have to go to more, then you go to view question details and then it says prompt.
13:13 Ed Zitron? Oh yeah. So just for the listeners, um, I'll post the link to something like this as well. So what this means is you can get these questions and they appear like they're asked by a human.
13:22 Speaker 05 Yes.
13:22 Ed Zitron? Except they're written like, like someone, a human that has a guessly.
13:27 Speaker 05 Yeah, exactly. And it says it's, uh, prompts are intended to capture questions people may have in the future.
13:32 Ed Zitron? Just me walking around my house being like, oh, what if? The Grinch could kill people on Halloween night. Shit. Well, I don't have time. Well, thankfully, they've already asked it.
13:41 Speaker 05 Yeah.
13:41 Ed Zitron? But no one answered.
13:42 Speaker 05 Right. Yeah, just me.
13:43 Ed Zitron? You know what the best thing is gonna be? When they, uh, just have them answer it. When they have an AI answer it. You just have a autocora.
13:50 Speaker 05 Yeah. I'm sure there are AI answers on there.
13:53 Ed Zitron? Oh, I'm sure as well.
13:54 Speaker 05 We come across some that feel like, I mean, it could just be weird people, but, you know.
13:57 Ed Zitron? That's the thing. It sounds like you've got like a perversion element that really throws the... I am both disappointed and happy to hear about the amount of perverts.
14:07 Speaker 05 Yeah, well, it's the internet.
14:09 Ed Zitron? But, but that kind of means that Quora is keeping going, but actually it sounds like they're really trying to fill, like plummet with this fucking AI shit.
14:18 Speaker 05 Yeah. They, they said that has nothing to do with like, they just want more questions on the site.
14:22 Ed Zitron? Yes, of course they do. So people keep looking at the site.
14:25 Speaker 05 Yeah.
14:25 Ed Zitron? But the UI of the site does not appear to have changed.
14:27 Speaker 05 No, it's terrible. It's really bad.
14:30 Ed Zitron? I will admit, the reason I don't use Quora, other than the fact that I know everything, is every time I go on there, I'll be like, I'll click on it. I'll look for a question. It will be like a question to one else like, I don't know, like, who do you think the best baseball player in this year was? Like, because I only started watching baseball fairly recently. And it will be like, answer, then like an ad of some sort, then like a Wallet Hub sponsored piece of content being like, how do I save $1,000 a month? And it's just 18 affiliate links.
14:58 Speaker 05 Yeah.
14:58 Ed Zitron? This feels like it's the advertising element has taken over Quora, but these don't even seem like they're advertising. They just feel like,
15:05 Speaker 05 it's bizarre. And there's also if, sometimes you'll see an answer that's like really long and you're like, oh, that's interesting. And it'll cut off and be like, you have to subscribe to Quora Plus for $5 a month.
15:15 Ed Zitron? What the fuck is Quora?
15:16 Speaker 05 It's just the better answers are out there, I guess.
15:19 Ed Zitron? Are you fucking serious?
15:20 Speaker 05 It's the worst website.
15:21 Ed Zitron? What the fuck is that?
15:22 Speaker 05 It's really bad. But the good thing about Quora is that you, people put their full names and like address. So sometimes we'll find a guy who's like, you know, every one of their posts is like, I love to shit in a diaper. I get off on it sexually. And then they'll be like, I live in this town in Indiana. Here's my full name and photo.
15:39 Ed Zitron? That's so.
15:40 Speaker 05 It's so weird.
15:40 Ed Zitron? It's like you've got like a combination of AI slop and just the purest old school internet. Disgusting people.
15:46 Speaker 05 Yeah, yeah.
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16:59 Ed Zitron? So, okay, we've got our perverts, we've got our cops. Are there any other weird subcultures you've noticed on there?
17:04 Speaker 05 Um, there's a lot of politics on there. A lot of people arguing with Trump. There's like a bunch of like Trump and, and you know, Democrat spaces that battle it out. People say like, is Obama about to get arrested tomorrow? And people are like, no, he's not. He's our greatest man alive. And they, they go back and forth and there's memes.
17:21 Ed Zitron? So it's not even like necessarily logical questions?
17:24 Speaker 05 It's like, yeah, just total like QAnon stuff is on there and you know.
17:28 Ed Zitron? So it's not particularly moderated then?
17:30 Speaker 05 Not really, no. There's not, doesn't seem to be any moderation on Quora.
17:35 Ed Zitron? Do you see any kind of like hate speech, hate speech?
17:37 Speaker 05 Oh yeah, all the time. People say, there's definitely like swears on Quora. We found a guy recently who said, um, his bio said, uh, we need a white president. He said, Americans for white president.
17:50 Ed Zitron? Jesus Christ.
17:51 Speaker 05 Yeah. And sometimes, sometimes it's both. Like we found one that was like, why did Joe Biden let Obama make him his slave and all this stuff? And then like right after it'll be like, how do I get like my sister to fall in love with me? Like, it's like, they'll be combined, the perverts and the racists.
18:08 Ed Zitron? Oh my God. So. Are there any like, so there must be sports people, are they arguing too? Is everyone just kind of arguing all the time?
18:16 Speaker 05 You know what? None of us on our podcast are really sports people. So maybe there is and we're just not seeing it, but I haven't interacted too much with sports Quora. But I'm sure they're on there.
18:26 Ed Zitron? Or, no, and they must be insane.
18:28 Speaker 05 Yeah, yeah.
18:29 Ed Zitron? I'm still, I'm still blown away that there is a Quora plus.
18:32 Speaker 05 Yeah, it's, it's bizarre. We refuse to pay for it. We're not, I don't want to do it.
18:36 Ed Zitron? You've been doing this podcast a while as well. That's so good. That's so good that you steadfastly refuse.
18:43 Speaker 05 Yeah, no, we're not gonna give five dollars a buck.
18:45 Ed Zitron? To Adam DeAngelo.
18:46 Speaker 05 I have emailed him many times though, asking him to come on.
18:48 Ed Zitron? He does not, he does not get, he doesn't get back to you. Adam DeAngelo, it's a permanent thing. The Quorators will have you on. And you can come on better offline as well, but I only have very specific questions around Halloween night and then you will leave. I have no further questions.
19:03 Speaker 05 I just want to know if a Grinch is allowed to kill a who?
19:06 Ed Zitron? And he said a Grinch, right?
19:07 Speaker 05 I think it was, I can't remember.
19:08 Ed Zitron? Actually, let's check this up. Cause I feel like the proper, like if it's the honor.
19:13 Speaker 05 The Grinch. Should the Grinch be able to kill who whenever he wants?
19:16 Ed Zitron? Because I feel like that question comes down to whether you consider the Grinch a person or a race.
19:21 Speaker 05 Like a real man who is allowed to kill.
19:24 Ed Zitron? Just a very, a person of color harassed.
19:27 Speaker 05 Whenever he wants.
19:28 Ed Zitron? Harassed for his religious beliefs.
19:30 Speaker 05 A person of green color.
19:34 Speaker 05 Yeah, I've emailed Adam, I've emailed Jordan Peters, I've emailed Orson Scott Card, all of them just being like, hello, I have a podcast that celebrates Quora. Like you're my favorite website, just trying to be like really nice, but none of them will bite.
19:44 Ed Zitron? Yeah, I text Sam Altman occasionally. No, I had got his number. I've said it multiple times on the show. I've texted him. And then one time I terrorized a few friends by, I was at a hotel and I stepped on the side of a balcony. And I took a photo and I put it in the chat box, the Sam Altman. And I said, I bet you would love this. But I didn't send it. I really should have.
20:02 Speaker 05 Has he ever answered you?
20:03 Ed Zitron? No, no, he has not, but he's not blocked me.
20:05 Speaker 05 That's good.
20:06 Ed Zitron? I'm still getting blue bubbles. He's, that's the thing. There is a little bit of joy of just knowing that Sam Altman's forwarding these to his PR people, being like, he's, he. He messaged, just, just letting you know about this. He keeps asking me about Halloween night. And, uh, he, he asked me if I am a or the Grinch and I'm not sure how to respond.
20:26 Speaker 05 He's the Grinch.
20:27 Ed Zitron? He's the Grinch. I.
20:29 Speaker 05 He stole our presence.
20:30 Ed Zitron? He's, he's just, I, this is not a tech episode, so who gives a shit? But we're currently in the post-deep-seek world right now. Which I think is really funny. And now you bring that back to Quora is.
20:45 Ed Zitron? Now they're gonna be able to make so many more generative answers for so much cheaper. We're gonna be able to see these demented things. Do you have any questions from, from the AI-generated ones about like life, though? Like life decision stuff?
20:58 Speaker 05 Let me see.
20:59 Ed Zitron? Because I think the, my favorite thing with Yahoo Answers was the more innocent stuff.
21:05 Speaker 05 Sure.
21:05 Ed Zitron? Where people would say like, how do I get a girl to fall in love with me?
21:08 Speaker 05 Right.
21:09 Ed Zitron? My friend is mad at me, how do I deal with that? And then the just most insane, you get like normal, normal, normal, and then someone being like, doesn't sound like much of a friend. Even though the story is about you offending the friend.
21:20 Speaker 05 Yeah.
21:21 Ed Zitron? I was really extremely rude to him, like, no, he's not a real friend. He should just understand you. You were, you were justified in screaming at him.
21:28 Speaker 05 I'm trying to see if we have any like nice, I mean, I, there's certainly a lot, but.
21:32 Ed Zitron? Oh no, I don't mean nice, I just mean, is the AI asking a life question? Because I wanna see how the AI thinks about life.
21:38 Speaker 05 Do any animals refer to their young as baby or child like humans do?
21:42 Ed Zitron? Fuck yes. That's such a large language model ask question.
21:46 Speaker 05 Yeah.
21:47 Ed Zitron? You just like, well, of course, animals act like humans.
21:49 Speaker 05 Right, they're all kinda the same to me.
21:51 Ed Zitron? Yes, fuck it. Does my cat refer, does a cat? That's just, every time I think about these fucking questions, it just kind of begins to boil what's left of my brain. Please, more questions, let's go through these, I wanna know all of these fucking things.
22:04 Speaker 05 Is it common for doctors to keep umbilical cords? Why is, why would an AI write that? Like, I get that it's not a robot at the computer, but it just feels like it being like, what is up with these freaks?
22:17 Ed Zitron? Yeah, it's just, it's just the GPT-4 being like, humans are so fucking weird.
22:25 Ed Zitron? Why do you doctor, wait, just run that question by me again.
22:28 Speaker 05 Is it common for doctors to keep umbilical cords?
22:31 Ed Zitron? Okay, so there it's just like, oh yeah, I bet they do that, but how often?
22:36 Speaker 05 Yeah, and then all the comments are people being like, no, this is a weird question. Why would you ask it?
22:41 Ed Zitron? I would not.
22:41 Speaker 05 But they don't know that it's the robot.
22:43 Ed Zitron? I would not be able to help myself responding to the fake Doctor O'Connell all the time. Throw him in my fucking.
22:49 Speaker 05 Yeah, you could just get a stock photo of you, you know, a guy in a web coat and just feel like I'm a doctor.
22:54 Ed Zitron? Doctor genius, M D. But wait, so more questions.
22:58 Speaker 05 Okay.
22:58 Ed Zitron? I'm excited by these. These are very good.
23:00 Speaker 05 Um, did Adam and Eve celebrate Christmas? If so, how?
23:07 Ed Zitron? It's so good.
23:08 Speaker 05 They're off in like a weird way.
23:10 Ed Zitron? They're off in a way that's like, they have a full understanding of meaning, but not context or history. No, not even meaning. It's just like, these are plausible sentences.
23:22 Speaker 05 Yeah, yeah.
23:23 Ed Zitron? But not state.
23:25 Speaker 05 It makes no sense if you know what any of the words mean.
23:28 Ed Zitron? That's so weird though, because surely it knows that Christmas is.
23:32 Speaker 05 I don't think it, I don't know what it knows.
23:34 Ed Zitron? I wanna know, these are so, the more I think about them, the stranger they get. Cause it's like, these are questions that if you heard someone say them out loud, you go, yeah, I don't know. And then take a step back and like, wait, what the fuck are you talking about? But this is all of them. But let's, let's see what else.
23:51 Speaker 05 There's a lot of answers on this too. Like people are answering, some people are being serious. They're saying like, no, that's not possible because you know, Christmas was after that. And then other people are like, none of it's real. So none of it, of course they can't because they're not real.
24:02 Ed Zitron? Right.
24:03 Speaker 05 There's people just being like silly. But yeah, the people, there's no way to know that it's an AI. And you wouldn't think it was. You'd think it's a child or something.
24:11 Ed Zitron? Well, like someone with a gas leak.
24:13 Speaker 05 Yeah.
24:13 Ed Zitron? It's like gas leak AI.
24:15 Speaker 05 Yeah.
24:15 Ed Zitron? It's the kind of shit that you'd say if you like were walking out of a car, right?
24:19 Speaker 05 Exactly, yeah.
24:20 Ed Zitron? But the more of the, these are, these are, I'm so glad you brought these today because I really wanna.
24:25 Speaker 05 Is it, is it true that astronauts are not allowed to touch the earth?
24:30 Speaker 05 I don't know what that means.
24:31 Ed Zitron? Yeah, I heard this the other day. Someone told me this the other day. And are there any answers on that one?
24:37 Speaker 05 Uh, I have to imagine it's just people being like, how dare you? Um, no, no answers on this one yet.
24:43 Ed Zitron? It's so bizarre. And again, this is, there's no real quick way of seeing this as AI.
24:50 Speaker 05 No, no. Yeah, it doesn't show you on the screen. You have to go into like more settings, answer a question log, and then it'll show you there.
24:57 Ed Zitron? So deeply deceptive. When did you start seeing these pop up?
25:00 Speaker 05 So our whole thing is that, um, we just dox people all the time on our podcast. So if you ask a question, we want to read your full name. So we just started figuring out, like, anytime we read a crazy question, we're like, who asked this? What's their deal? Uh, a lot of people are from like India. We found, uh, quarters really big in India, much bigger in India than the US. Um, but then, you know, every now and then we'd come across a crazy question, like, can astronauts touch the ground? Be like, who the fuck asked this? And we click on it and it's like, the AI.
25:25 Ed Zitron? Touch the earth as well.
25:27 Speaker 05 And it's just more and more has been happening.
25:29 Ed Zitron? Strange question. Is the earth capitalized in that one?
25:31 Speaker 05 Uh, I think so. Yeah.
25:33 Ed Zitron? Yeah, it is. That makes the meaning even stranger.
25:35 Speaker 05 Yeah.
25:36 Ed Zitron? Because I thought, okay, touch the ground, maybe, like if it's earth. I don't know, like, like Americans don't tend to refer to the ground as earth that much, but like in England, I've heard people say that. So this is so fucking cool, though.
25:49 Speaker 05 It's really, it's bizarre.
25:51 Ed Zitron? Any other, any other good ones that's go through?
25:53 Speaker 05 Uh, would horses have been invented if they did not already exist? What factors contribute to the invention of new animals?
25:59 Ed Zitron? Okay. Just run that by me again, would you?
26:03 Speaker 05 Would horses have been invented if they did not already exist?
26:07 Ed Zitron? Uh huh.
26:07 Speaker 05 What factors contribute to the invention of new animals?
26:12 Ed Zitron? There's something wrong with this.
26:14 Speaker 05 This one, like, okay, again, I understand that it's just predictive text, but it does feel like the computer being like, I'm a new animal of sorts. How?
26:22 Ed Zitron? Yeah.
26:23 Speaker 05 We do invent animals. I mean, humans invented dogs.
26:26 Ed Zitron? And there are like ligas and such.
26:27 Speaker 05 Yeah, sure.
26:28 Ed Zitron? You can make two things fuck all the time.
26:29 Speaker 05 Yeah.
26:30 Ed Zitron? Probably should get off that subject or get off it. Really, your choice. The numerous perverts listen to the show. You're loved and accepted. If you make it someone else's problem, I'm coming for you.
26:39 Speaker 05 Ask about it on Quora. They're happy to discuss.
26:41 Ed Zitron? I think what it is, is that this doesn't even sound like ChatGPT.
26:45 Speaker 05 No, yeah, I don't know what it is. I I'm not sure.
26:47 Ed Zitron? It's GPT for sure.
26:49 Speaker 05 I think so, but there's no like, again, there's no, Quora hasn't said what it is. Like, everything I've found about it is people either just guessing, like, in the Quora discuss. Because there's a million questions that are like, what is this and why is it here? I hate it. So people are just like guessing. And then some people will ask, because there's a Quora AI assistant now where it'll, the AI is at the top of every answer and then every question, and it tries to answer every question. So the AI will be like, this is what the Quora prop generator is.
27:16 Ed Zitron? But that's so actually elaborate on that a little bit. So there is the AI on top of.
27:21 Speaker 05 Just like all websites now, if there's any question on the internet, there's an AI answer for it.
27:26 Ed Zitron? Well, but specifically it answers the question.
27:28 Speaker 05 Yes.
27:28 Ed Zitron? Like it generates one.
27:29 Speaker 05 Yeah.
27:30 Ed Zitron? So you go to Quora.
27:31 Speaker 05 It's not on everyone, like these unanswered ones, it wasn't there. But a lot of times on a popular question, the AI will either try to answer the question itself using like GPT, or it'll be like a summary of everyone's answers.
27:44 Ed Zitron? That's so, it feels like at some point the computer is just talking to itself.
27:48 Speaker 05 Yes, it really is.
27:49 Ed Zitron? But these, these questions, they're, they're bothering me. Because they don't even sound like, I've seen the various models, like, I would say Anthropic's Claude, more conversational, ChatGPT, very much like a lobotomy situation. Like, very much like, I have just recently had a lobotomy, but I know everything written in this book I can read. This is demented.
28:12 Speaker 05 It's really weird.
28:13 Ed Zitron? There's something very off.
28:14 Speaker 05 And it's infecting the Google AI too.
28:17 Ed Zitron? How so?
28:18 Speaker 05 Um, you know how if you search something on Google now, it'll, uh, it'll come up with an AI answer.
28:23 Ed Zitron? Yes.
28:24 Speaker 05 Google is sourcing from Quora for a lot of these.
28:27 Ed Zitron? Oh.
28:28 Speaker 05 So like, there was a thing recently where someone said, like, when was running invented? And Google answers, uh, it says like 1945. And that was because of a Quora comment.
28:37 Ed Zitron? Well, I know that, was this where they had the melting egg situation?
28:40 Speaker 05 I think so, yeah. A lot of these are from like Reddit and Quora.
28:42 Ed Zitron? So the melting egg situation for listeners was someone on Quora, I think, asked if you could melt an egg? And then the AI responded with, yep.
28:49 Speaker 05 Yeah. Gotcha.
28:52 Ed Zitron? Of course.
28:52 Speaker 05 Yeah.
28:53 Ed Zitron? That's.
28:54 Speaker 05 It's all very, very weird.
28:55 Ed Zitron? But these questions don't feel like that. These questions feel like Joker.
29:02 Speaker 05 Something you might ask in the future?
29:04 Ed Zitron? Yeah.
29:05 Speaker 05 When you're an astronaut and you can't go home?
29:07 Ed Zitron? The, yeah, or just something the a broken.
29:11 Speaker 05 GPT would like a. Yeah.
29:14 Ed Zitron? Hmm.
29:14 Speaker 05 I don't know if it's like trained on Quora because Quora is already like where the sickos are. So maybe it's just like training on specifically delusional people. I really don't know.
29:24 Ed Zitron? It must be trained on Quora because that's the only way you'd get such.
29:27 Speaker 05 Weird.
29:28 Ed Zitron? It must train on Quora as well because they're running out of training data. Oh, I really need to look into this.
29:33 Speaker 05 I would love for someone to find out.
29:34 Ed Zitron? Because these questions are not just like if I'm sure if I loaded chat GPT and asked a question, it would be a normal one.
29:41 Speaker 05 Right.
29:42 Ed Zitron? It wouldn't be like, so when horse, we all agree that horses were invented. Just like, we all know that, of course.
29:50 Speaker 05 It's really, I don't know. Yeah. Some of them are just like misinformation.
29:53 Ed Zitron? And oh, please, any others?
29:54 Speaker 05 Is Tesla considered a socialist company?
29:57 Ed Zitron? That is the closest they've come to a normal question.
30:01 Speaker 05 Uh, how about this one? What are the reasons for California having fewer natural disasters compared to other states?
30:08 Ed Zitron? Oh, boy.
30:08 Speaker 05 Yeah.
30:09 Ed Zitron? Oh, boy, that one's that one again, closer to meaning, but just like.
30:13 Speaker 05 And just completely nonsensical. I'm trying to see, when was this asked? Uh, this was, I think, asked on January 12th.
30:21 Ed Zitron? Uh huh.
30:21 Speaker 05 So during the fire.
30:23 Ed Zitron? Right.
30:23 Speaker 05 They asked the, the AI was like, California rocks at natural disasters.
30:27 Ed Zitron? Yeah, these guy, these guys really missed these.
30:30 Speaker 05 Yeah.
30:31 Ed Zitron? That traditionally California disaster free. That's really good. Any other good ones?
30:37 Speaker 05 Um, let me see. Uh, I think that's all the ones that I wrote down. I have one more here. What is the term for when a person's brain and physical body are connected to two different people?
30:48 Ed Zitron? Oh. Oh, that's that's a tough one.
30:51 Speaker 05 Yeah.
30:54 Ed Zitron? This is so strange.
30:56 Speaker 05 It's really weird.
30:57 Ed Zitron? This concept is actually really bothering me because the idea of a generative one, sure, it sucks, but sure. But when it's just like, so we all know that boars, of course, have been president. But why can't they be king? And it's like, no, actually, that's too normal. That one made more sense. That's like an understanding of there's a Republic versus monarchy situation, but we could get rid of that in post. This is just, these, there must be something strange. And you're saying that users do not like this?
31:28 Speaker 05 No, no one likes it. I mean, if they can even tell, and there's like questions where people are just like, why is this here? And like, what is it? But on most of these, like, no one knows that it's the AI. Like, if there's any answers on it, people are just like, this is stupid and I hate you.
31:41 Ed Zitron? Right, which is the general response to AI I've found.
31:44 Speaker 05 Yeah.
31:44 Ed Zitron? You don't use AI, I'm guessing.
31:46 Speaker 05 Me? No, not particularly, no.
31:47 Ed Zitron? No, you're not a big GPT. Someone said that to me on the phone. Like, you use ChatGPT every day. I see what it's like. Sure.
31:54 Speaker 05 I know so many people who use it for like emails and all sorts of crazy shit that you would, I mean, I'm sure you're hearing about it.
31:59 Ed Zitron? That's not good.
32:00 Speaker 05 No, it's crazy.
32:01 Ed Zitron? You can write your emails.
32:01 Speaker 05 You can't write an email.
32:02 Ed Zitron? Yeah, I, that's so bad. But you still seem to kind of love Quora, though.
32:08 Speaker 05 I do love Quora.
32:09 Ed Zitron? But why? Tell me.
32:10 Speaker 05 I just like how pure it is. Like, the fact that there are people just like, I don't know, like, you could go on Pornhub and just jack off to whatever you want, and you're sitting here being like, coming up with a situation to be like, what does it feel like to have poop in your diaper? There's a lot of diaper people in there.
32:27 Ed Zitron? Do you have any non-sexual, what, are you just on the pervert zone?
32:31 Speaker 05 I do love the pervert.
32:32 Ed Zitron? The section.
32:33 Speaker 05 I love the perverts on Quora. It makes me so happy to see them.
32:36 Ed Zitron? He really, he really is quite happy.
32:38 Speaker 05 Uh, the fact that they all have their full names makes me really happy. Uh, I'm trying to think, I don't know, there's, people ask like silly relations, it's like, am I the asshole, but like, more like insane.
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33:58 Ed Zitron? Do you get a prevalence of fake questions? Like, I know the
34:03 Speaker 05 I'm sure there are.
34:03 Ed Zitron? Relationship advice is like on Reddit, it's like 90% of people being like, "And time for my fanfiction."
34:09 Speaker 05 Yeah.
34:10 Ed Zitron? "I will do the fanfiction now." But Quora seems more demented.
34:14 Speaker 05 It is, I'm sure there's just as many fake ones, but they're more obvious where it'll be like, "There's one that was like, 'My son wanted an Optimus Prime toy, and I don't want him to, or I didn't want him to have it, so I made him hold his breath for three days. Am I a bad dad?'" And it's like, it doesn't feel like the same as, "Am I the asshole?" Or someone made like a boring relationship problem.
34:35 Ed Zitron? And one like that is very Bean Dad adjacent, where it's like, "You think this is normal, it isn't."
34:41 Speaker 05 Yeah, exactly.
34:41 Ed Zitron? "Your son should breathe." It kind of reminds me from CES, like the Samsung, no, sorry, LG demo where the AI was like, "Yeah, I heard your son cough last night, so I raised the temperature five degrees." It's like, "You fucking insane." And I just, for the sake of argument, opened up Quora and thought, "It can't be that weird. First one, what was the dirtiest country you ever..." Ever visited?
35:02 Speaker 05 Oh, God.
35:03 Ed Zitron? Just.
35:03 Speaker 05 The annoying thing about Quora two is that like if you visit it, if you like really interact with it at all, you'll start getting emails from it.
35:10 Ed Zitron? Oh, God.
35:11 Speaker 05 The Quora digest, they'll send you like an email every day. I'm sure I have a million of them in my email.
35:16 Ed Zitron? Why must farmers wake up at four AM to milk the cows? Why not just wait until a more reasonable time like eight AM? Won't the cows adjust?
35:24 Speaker 05 It's a weird website. It's very strange.
35:27 Ed Zitron? I'm just like this guy. I'm looking him up as well. This is a system analyst.
35:32 Speaker 05 Yeah.
35:33 Ed Zitron? In Brazil.
35:33 Speaker 05 Isn't it fascinating to know his life? Like, it's not just Reddit where it's just like, oh, you slash whatever.
35:38 Ed Zitron? But also, it's not even just that he like, is that guy? It's that he was just like one day like, well, I got over from a job as system analyst. And I thought, why, why do these fucking idiot farmers get up so early? And just, there's a hun- there's um, a hundred and thirty-one different answers. Sorry, no, the original question is from, this is gonna be a fucking AI one, isn't it?
36:05 Ed Zitron? Let's see, who, I think, wait.
36:08 Speaker 05 It's very hard to find the answer.
36:09 Ed Zitron? This is crazy. Sorry. The guy who responded was a systems analyst.
36:13 Speaker 05 Okay.
36:14 Ed Zitron? And he was saying he was talking to his farmer friend. No, you weren't. Wait, so, show me.
36:19 Speaker 05 Okay, so you have to go to view question details.
36:22 Ed Zitron? Uh huh.
36:22 Speaker 05 And then you have to physically scroll through every answer to get to the very bottom of the feed. And then it will tell you who the question is and very often it'll just be like anonymous.
36:32 Ed Zitron? Yeah, the farmers of the world will wake up early to wake up the roosters. You see if the roosters don't wake up on time. Very funny.
36:38 Speaker 05 Yeah.
36:39 Ed Zitron? While I'm not a dairy farmer, I do associate with them. I'm just, I'm gonna close that because I would just read Quora every day. But it is, it does feel like, even though it's being tortured.
36:51 Speaker 05 Mm hmm.
36:52 Ed Zitron? With, with electricity, it does feel like one of the last real parts of the internet.
36:56 Speaker 05 I mean, it's like how we all hated Reddit for so long. And now if you have any question, you have to put Reddit at the end of it when you Google it because otherwise you'll just get AI slop or, you know, SEO slop.
37:06 Ed Zitron? One of fifteen different articles all on Wallet Hub.
37:08 Speaker 05 So it's like, sure, this is gonna be from some asshole. Who might not know, but at least it's a human being.
37:13 Ed Zitron? Have you seen much, because Reddit, I've started to see some obvious spawn con in the spawn con. Like people, like affiliate people, people going in selling their shit. Do you get a lot of that in Quora?
37:24 Speaker 05 There's a little bit of it, but with Quora, everything is more obvious. So like, there was one we read recently that was, we did a whole episode of Hitler questions. Because there's a lot of Hitler people on there. And there was somebody who was asking about like, did Hitler's have high testosterone or something?
37:40 Ed Zitron? How would you know?
37:42 Speaker 05 I don't know. And there were like 10 answers that were like, I think because of, well, you know, this reason, if you look at his male pattern baldness and his mustache. And then at the end, it was like, if you want to learn more about high testosterone, you can take pills from this website. And it was just like, people advertising their pills.
37:59 Ed Zitron? There was some fucking SEO expert was like, all right, let's bring out the Hitler stuff.
38:03 Speaker 05 Yeah, yeah. It doesn't matter where.
38:05 Ed Zitron? My Hitler analysis. I'm scrolling to, I just, the reason I'm doing this on air is I want to be clear how much Quora is burying whether a question is from AI.
38:15 Speaker 05 Yes.
38:15 Ed Zitron? Cause you have to go right to the end of this and there's a hundred answers or so. And it was actually answered by a guy called Tao Dao.
38:23 Speaker 05 This is the question.
38:24 Ed Zitron? Yeah, yeah. And he, he asked, do you have to have a full-time job and high income to take out a loan for a house? That's like a normal question.
38:32 Speaker 05 Very normal.
38:33 Ed Zitron? These are like normal.
38:34 Speaker 05 This is the farmer question.
38:35 Ed Zitron? Yeah. Yeah.
38:36 Speaker 05 It's weird.
38:36 Ed Zitron? This guy's sitting around just being like, huh.
38:39 Speaker 05 Yeah.
38:39 Ed Zitron? You get a house, but I guess this is the pure internet. This is like the normal internet.
38:44 Speaker 05 A little bit. I mean, it's like fucked up, but that's, that's what the internet is.
38:46 Ed Zitron? Why can't people learn from their mistakes?
38:49 Speaker 05 That's a great question. That's a beautiful question.
38:52 Ed Zitron? How can I get out of debt as quickly as possible? I love these, but they're also very sad because it's like, well, there's just a degree of like, no one else you could ask, mate.
39:02 Speaker 05 Yeah.
39:02 Ed Zitron? No one else.
39:03 Speaker 05 And you don't want to Google it. You have, you need someone to answer you.
39:07 Ed Zitron? How much money did Elon Musk have before he became a multi billionaire? I assume less than a billion dollars. There's like a lot of picture. Oh my God, this is a picture of my son and daughter. He passed away in 2015 at the age of 26 from heart failure.
39:21 Speaker 05 Oh my God.
39:22 Ed Zitron? This is posted in good vibes.
39:25 Speaker 05 Well, it's interesting to me, like, the farmer question is one thing, but if this was on the profile of a guy who said, like, what is the dirtiest country? Like, I'm just so fascinated by these people who are like, I'm so racist. And then they're just like, here's a picture of my daughter.
39:39 Ed Zitron? Yeah, and all of their posts are different pages of like, Pete, like, there's a thing with a cop, this, they've got a lot of pictures of couples.
39:48 Speaker 05 This is on Good Vibes.
39:49 Ed Zitron? My daughter Becca passed away one year ago. This is an AI account. This is-
39:53 Speaker 05 You think it's AI?
39:54 Ed Zitron? Well, considering the fact that they've now mentioned two of their children have died.
39:59 Speaker 05 Yeah, it's very possible it's AI or a troll or something.
40:03 Ed Zitron? But this is what it is now. This is, this site makes millions of dollars.
40:08 Speaker 05 I don't know. I, yeah, it must make something. It was made by people who left Facebook. I think, I think it was all people who worked on Facebook. And left to make Quora, a worse version of Facebook.
40:18 Ed Zitron? What should I absolutely not do when visiting the USA? And the first one is do not get out of your car if stopped by the police. They'll assume you are armed. And they might shoot you. And there's a picture of a cop that's AI generated.
40:28 Speaker 05 Oh, my God.
40:28 Ed Zitron? A truly monstrous looking, with like another cop.
40:31 Speaker 05 Three fingers.
40:31 Ed Zitron? With like another cop, but in a, like a gray police uniform. And doing something a cop would not usually do, which is stop a cop being violent. And there's 2,000 responses. This is just, how, was it always this bad?
40:47 Speaker 05 I don't think Quora was ever good. I don't think the, the version of it where Jordan Peterson became a famous author was a better time for Quora. But I mean, maybe it was more usable back then at least.
40:56 Ed Zitron? I used to think that the most shameful thing about Jordan Peterson was his opinions. But I think it's that he got famous using Quora.
41:03 Speaker 05 Yeah.
41:04 Ed Zitron? That should get you, they should take your passport just in case you answer questions in real life. That's so horrible.
41:11 Speaker 05 It makes sense, though, like, thinking back on, what is the name of his book? Like, Five Ways to Live Your Life.
41:15 Ed Zitron? The Crying Principle. Yeah, I don't know.
41:18 Speaker 05 Like, it makes sense that you'd be like, oh, yeah, that guy is answering questions on Quora.com.
41:21 Ed Zitron? It feels like the, kind of like a palace of pedantry. Like, is it, do you get people on there who are just like, um, no, I don't really like?
41:27 Speaker 05 Yeah, you know, it's a big one we find a lot is, um, witches. A lot of like witchcraft people.
41:33 Ed Zitron? Tell me everything.
41:33 Speaker 05 So people will be like, how do I? Like put a hex on someone at school I don't like. And then a lot of people will be like, how dare you ask this question? You don't know anything about being a witch. You haven't read the spells. Open a book. The Necronomicon is free at a library. Like, it's just people getting mad at each other.
41:50 Ed Zitron? Wait, so there were like witches and witch pedants?
41:53 Speaker 05 Oh, yeah. There's a lot of witch pedants. They're all arguing with each other about witchcraft.
41:58 Ed Zitron? Like a lot of them?
42:00 Speaker 05 Uh, yeah, yeah. I mean, not like, I not like, you know, it's not overwhelming, but we've, we've, you know, found a bunch of these people who are arguing about witchcraft.
42:08 Ed Zitron? See, I keep oscillating between terrible and beautiful because I think the idea of people being like, ah, how dare you, man?
42:14 Speaker 05 It's very similar to Reddit, but it's, I don't know, it's more stupid. It is get gas leak Reddit is a good way to.
42:20 Ed Zitron? That's, I like that. And are there any other weird subcultures like witches? I don't know. I must not.
42:26 Speaker 05 Think of there's any other, uh, there's a lot of perverts, a lot of cops. We found a cop who like wrote a book. We like read some of his book.
42:34 Ed Zitron? What was the book like?
42:35 Speaker 05 It was, you know what it was? It was like his life as a cop in London or something.
42:39 Ed Zitron? Oh, God.
42:41 Speaker 05 And we found out afterwards, like, why would anyone write or publish his book? And his brother owns like a book publishing company? So all of his answers were like, whoa, I remember in 1983 in the streets of London.
42:53 Ed Zitron? Okay, so he's a British cop.
42:54 Speaker 05 Yeah. We do have a button. Whenever we find a British person, we press our button, uh, and it says Anglo spotted.
43:00 Ed Zitron? Anglo spotted. I like that. I like that a great deal. And I'll be bringing that on to the shit. No.
43:05 Speaker 05 Please, yeah, take it.
43:06 Ed Zitron? Just hitting it the entire fucking time. Yeah, they, I really, I'm locked on to those witches now. I wonder what they think about the Grinch.
43:14 Speaker 05 Yeah. Though, I mean, not to bring it all back to that, but there are Grinch fetishes. That's a big thing. Yeah. People, not necessarily on Quora, but there are, I know people love Bigfoot. I know people love the Grinch. Any sort of big furry dude. That's, they'll get into that.
43:27 Ed Zitron? Really good.
43:28 Speaker 05 Yeah, that's.
43:31 Ed Zitron? I just, there is something very pure about this, but pure in the way that like, you don't want to look at too often, unless you run a podcast.
43:38 Speaker 05 I will say, a lot of people listen to our podcast and have told us like, I, it's really funny. And I've gone on Quora to be like, I want to see some of this. And they're like, I hated it. And it's like, yeah, that's dope. Leave it to us.
43:48 Ed Zitron? No, I tried to prepare for this episode by looking at Quora being like, and I will bring some bangers of my own. And there was nary a banger to be found. It's just like people, people being like, I don't know. How do I get on a plane and get to have two seats for free? I'm fucking like, why is this person next to me on this flight? And it's like, it's questions that don't even need answer. The, the answer is like, who gives a shit to like 90% of the questions.
44:13 Speaker 05 But we're the ones seeking out.
44:14 Ed Zitron? You find the 15 Hitler questions.
44:17 Speaker 05 Why didn't Hitler use the magical lance to defeat Russia or whatever?
44:21 Ed Zitron? And so first response is like, all right. Which magical lance first of all? And what do you mean by magic? You don't know about my.
44:29 Speaker 05 Exactly. I believe there was one that just on this Hitler episode that was like, would Hitler have liked Princess Diana, uh, Diana? And which is a bizarre question. You're like, why do you care about this? Uh, and every answer was people being like, of course, obviously, or like, no, you idiot. He'd hate her for this reason. And he would, the answer there is obviously, he might because he kind of romanticized England.
44:52 Ed Zitron? Yeah, I don't know. I wanted to live in fucking Whiteley's, this shopping center. It's like a, I'm trying to think of it. If someone wanted to live in like the Westfield Mall in San Francisco, it's so strange that.
45:02 Speaker 05 It's a weird guy, that Adolf Hitler.
45:04 Ed Zitron? But this is obviously an anti Hitler podcast because you need to say that now.
45:09 Speaker 05 Yes, that's true.
45:09 Ed Zitron? We're like six months from Fox News' pro Hitler segment. They're kind of getting there. So to wrap us up though.
45:16 Speaker 05 Please.
45:17 Ed Zitron? So, okay, it wasn't that bad.
45:21 Ed Zitron? Do you, are you going, how long do you spend on Quora a week, would you say?
45:27 Speaker 05 I don't think we're spending too much time. We're lucky that we have a few sickos who will find questions.
45:31 Ed Zitron? They deliver you.
45:32 Speaker 05 Yes, which is very, very helpful. And then sometimes we will search stuff and find it, but it's not, we're not spending too, too much time on there.
45:39 Ed Zitron? I was.
45:39 Speaker 05 Not more than a few hours.
45:40 Ed Zitron? I was wondering if there was like a madness. You'd like, you get into it too much.
45:44 Speaker 05 Maybe our listeners are all going insane and we don't realize it. The ones who are finding these, going into the minds.
45:49 Ed Zitron? Do you involve yourself? Do any of you?
45:51 Speaker 05 We answer a lot of questions sometimes. We used to ask questions and like try to get answers from people.
45:56 Ed Zitron? Did it work?
45:56 Speaker 05 Not really. They were on to us pretty quick.
45:58 Ed Zitron? It doesn't feel like the kind of place that you could fuck with very easily. Because people either be way too earnest or they'll be like, well, this person's making fun of me.
46:05 Speaker 05 And yet there's thousand, literally like thousands of Christian baby questions that are, I must be trolls.
46:11 Ed Zitron? That's.
46:12 Speaker 05 All they're so many.
46:13 Ed Zitron? I think they might just be like thirteen to eighteen year olds who have, who have never spoken to a person.
46:19 Speaker 05 They're all great scenario. There's one that was like, what would you do if you're about to hit the winning strike in a base? That's what they said, winning strike in a baseball game.
46:27 Ed Zitron? Winning strike.
46:28 Speaker 05 And the pitcher throws a Christian baby at you.
46:31 Ed Zitron? Do you hit the baby? Winning strike.
46:33 Speaker 05 It's all bizarre.
46:35 Ed Zitron? So you are about to, okay, hit the winning strike.
46:39 Speaker 05 Yes.
46:40 Ed Zitron? And you are being thrown at.
46:41 Speaker 05 A Christian baby instead of a ball.
46:42 Ed Zitron? So.
46:43 Speaker 05 Which is against the rules as far as I know.
46:45 Ed Zitron? Yeah. Well, also that is, I don't think there are any specific rules around that, but that sounds like.
46:49 Speaker 05 It's like a dog playing basketball.
46:51 Ed Zitron? If you are throwing a strike, you wouldn't be hitting it.
46:53 Speaker 05 No.
46:55 Ed Zitron? Good place to end as any. Jeremy, where can people find you?
46:58 Speaker 05 Uh, just search my name online.
46:59 Ed Zitron? Okay, say your.
47:01 Speaker 05 Uh, I would love if people checked out Quorators. It's very fun.
47:03 Ed Zitron? I will put a link to it in there.
47:05 Speaker 05 Um, yeah, we've done, uh, two hundred episodes. You should come on.
47:09 Ed Zitron? I would love to. Um.
47:10 Speaker 05 Um, yeah.
47:12 Ed Zitron? And it's, it's great to have people chronicling these parts of the internet. Fun. Uh, one of the reasons I've brought you on, other than you're very funny, is the internet is kind of dying when it comes to real people. And it's nice to see an evaluation of real, what real people are really like, which isn't necessarily a good thing.
47:29 Speaker 05 No.
47:31 Ed Zitron? Well, talking about things that are good, this episode's ending now. I'm Ed Zitron, you know where you can find me, and of course, on my left is the wonderful Daniel Goodman, the producer here in the iHeart Radio studios. You've been listening to Radio Better Offline. Thank you kindly, and I swear to flipping Christ, I'm doing a DeepSeek episode. It's, I feel like Jer- fucking Jeff Passan on ESPN, people saying like, "Oh, announce Pete Alonso to the Mets." I don't do that job either, but I'm working on it. Anyway, thank you so much for listening.
48:08 Ed Zitron? Thank you for listening to Better Offline. The editor and composer of the Better Offline theme song is Matt Osowski. You can check out more of his music and audio projects at mattosowski.com. M-A-T-T-O-S-O-W-S-K-I dot com. You can email me at [email protected] or visit betteroffline.com to find more podcast links and of course, my newsletter. I also really recommend you go to chat dot where's your ed dot app to visit the Discord and go to r slash betteroffline to check out our Reddit. Thank you so much for listening.
48:40 Speaker 03 Better Offline is a production of Cool Zone Media. For more from Cool Zone Media, visit our website, coolzonemedia.com, or check us out on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
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