‘funny,’ not funny

Jim starts by talking about his recent substack article about AI and the end of money. Lionel takes off with his ideas about the importance of work in society, and what its end might mean to us all. We talk about how we might move forward in the presence of super-expert thinking machines.

Jim was down in North Carolina last week and recorded this conversation with David Wilcox in his home studio. Lionel joined us from San Antonio. We talk about songwriting, the lightness and darkness behind the songs, emotional buoyancy, and just soak up the perspective of this singular artist.All song samples included with permission from David Wilcox.[contains fbombs]

Lionel and Jim continue their discussion of AI, and move into the idea of human understanding through modeling, Isomorphism, stories, and the importance of forgetting.

In this episode, Jim and Lionel talk about what everyone is talking about, the advances made in AI this month. We tackle questions like “what are we going to do?” and “does it have agency?” and “what is compassion?” and “how do we know what we want?” as well as diving into the cheerful subject of how we are killing the planet. An uplifting listen, if you like to paint your walls a color darker than black.

John Chin is a Jazz musician and composer based in New York City. He has 4+ albums available and is working on a new live album recorded during the pandemic. His recent release “Anything Mose” was recorded with guitarist and vocalist Richard Julian. We dig into that album, as well as two of his other albums, “Undercover,” and “Fifth.” Check out his music at https://johnchin.com.All song clips included with permission from John Chin.References: https://funnynotfunny.bigego.com/links/f/S3~dot~11-John-Chin/

Jim invites Lionel, Sarah Elkins, and Ben Burnes to tear into his novels The Wakeful Wanderer’s Guide series, to his own horror and delight. Lionel, Sarah, and Ben share their reactions to Jim’s novels with honesty and candor. What transpires is a lively discussion about not only the books, but thoughts on meritocracy, villains and heroes, self-deception and forgetting, names and identity, ideas for a cookbook, Wakeful Wanderer fan-fiction, related books and tv shows, and the nature of flawed Utopias in speculative fiction.Jim’s Books: https://wakefulwanderer.comReferences: https://funnynotfunny.bigego.com/links/f/S3~dot~10-Back-to-Humanity/

Jim and Lionel take a moment to dig into the things that keep coming up in our recent conversations. We talk about the nature of money, work, AI, worth, what we want, what we should do, what do we want to be.

Chuck Robinson of Peepers Puppets stops by to talk about the creative side of coding. We get into food choices in New England vs Texas and Georgia, the nature of coding, and the process of building something that works. We end with some discussion of the rise of the machines and end up wondering where the nearest bunker can be found.References: https://funnynotfunny.bigego.com/links/f/S3~dot~08-We-sell-holes/

Recorded February 15 from TónLab studio (recorded on my ipad for convenience). Jim went to Iceland to record a collection of songs with producer Kurt Uenala. We discuss the first three songs we recorded, an ambient music event in Reykjavik, swimming in Iceland’s hot springs, a couple of books, Brian Eno’s process, and more.References: https://funnynotfunny.bigego.com/links/f/S3~dot~07-From-Iceland/[:imgblocks-2x:]

Lionel and Jim talk about Jim’s upcoming trip to Iceland to record a “phonogram” with Kurt Uenala, we talk about The Scottish Play, The All Thing, volcanic gardens, whiskey and the history of that drink, the steam engine, Otto von Guericke, drinking at Iota with Steve Negrey, extremely expensive bourbon, Louisiana cuisine, the music of Mike West, the problem of flying with guitars made with Indian Rosewood, the Milkman “amp,” touring with tubes, The Irish National Stud Farm, genealogy tests, university podcasts, and possible future guests.References: https://funnynotfunny.bigego.com/links/f/S3~dot~06-The-Milkman/