Third Space Podcast

Bennett and Daniel return after a long hiatus with lots of complaints stored up. At least they're interesting complaints! Bennett discusses the trailer for the upcoming movie, Wicked, and with Daniel analyzes its message and relation to modern movie trends (spoiler: they suck). Then Bennett and Daniel compare the experience of using the internet in the 90s and 00s to using the internet today. How has the internet gotten worse, why, and how can we fix it? How have SEO, AI, ads, and bias corrupted this useful tool? Finally, they discuss an AI tool that can analyze podcasts... and generate a podcast from it. They feed this very episode to the AI and include it at the end. 

With the arrival of summer and intense heat, Bennett brings a relevant Mind Your Morals to the podcast pertaining to hot dogs. Not the food; no, the act of leaving dogs in hot cars unattended. When, if ever, is it acceptable, and under what circumstances? Bennett and Daniel attempt to balance animal welfare and property damage, discuss legal and scientific data, and consult internet comment sections for some answers.

The theme of this episode is adventure! That's right, beginning with an adventure... in etymology! Exciting! After that, Bennett shares his experience playing the game Outer Wilds, a game with a neat gameplay gimmick that deals with space exploration. This naturally leads into a discussion of space exploration in the real world; is it worth it? Do the benefits we've gained from space exploration justify the time, energy, money, and lives we've spent in the pursuit of knowledge?

Bennett and Daniel discuss one of the most annoying aspects of travel: airport security. This valiant system costs trillions of man-hours, billions of dollars, and even confiscates Bennett's toothpaste, which undoubtedly really pisses off the terrorists. Or, perhaps, it's just a gargantuan waster of time and money for little or no benefit. The negatives, positives, and possible technological alternatives are examined in this episode.

Daniel makes his transition from dude to dad, as they say, with the birth of his new baby boy, Cosmo, which is the reason for the long gap between episodes (that we will try to remedy going forward). Bennett peppers Daniel with questions about fatherhood, parenting, infants, the medical industry, and more.

Bennett discovers a game that somewhat embodies an old video game idea he had: exploring flooded ruins. Daniel and Bennett discuss this setting, underwater video game controls, human-computer interfaces in general, and then a piece of current tech in the news: Neuralink. How does it work, and how might it be used in the future, either for good (helping the disabled, de facto telekinesis, and music composition) or ill (brain hacking, puppeteering, or ad-beaming)?

Superpowers and Drawbacks returns after some hiatus, and Daniel and Bennett discuss a level 2 set of choices in this episode, debating the merits of various free foods and the economic viability of throwing trash in impressive ways.

Bennett grills Daniel with a very personal but not very tempting Mind Your Morals that deals with the "content creation" site OnlyFans. Would he be okay with his wife posting on the site if it meant a huge boost in income? What about under certain milder circumstances? We also discuss moral topics about purity, harm, self-exploitation, and technology.

Daniel and Bennett discuss rites of passage. In an increasingly digital age, do we even have traditional rites of passage anymore? In a culture that values marriage and families less and less, are we losing our collective ability to establish our identities or encourage identity-building in our children? How analogous are learning to drive a car and learning to use the internet? What possible remedies could we institute in order to get on the "rite" path?

Bennett briefly flexes his professional handegg knowledge in discussing the upcoming Level 3 Super Bowl, then leads Daniel on a somewhat Valentine's Day-themed adventure... an Adventure in Etymology, of course! And lastly, Daniel discusses the Pain Gate Theory, which postulates that pain can be mitigated with what is essentially physiological distraction. Is it real? How does it interact with psychological distraction or mitigation of pain?