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One Leg Up Highlights David Beckemeyer's Outrage Overload Brand POWERED By Podmatch 1-18-25 · OneLegUpAlex Media

0:02
Speaker 1: Here's your host, Alex Garrett.
0:06
Speaker 2: All right, it's another episode powered by Popmatch, of course,
0:11
Speaker 2: so thankful for them for connecting me to all these
0:13
Speaker 2: great guests. And right now on my line is David Beckmeyer. David,
0:18
Speaker 2: thanks for joining the day.
0:19
Speaker 1: Oh it's my pleasure to be here. Alex, thanks you,
0:21
Speaker 1: thanks for inviting me.
0:22
Speaker 2: So I was intrigued by what you're talking about, which
0:25
Speaker 2: is toxicity in the media and basically this outrage overload.
0:29
Speaker 2: Tell us about your brand, David, firstly.
0:32
Speaker 3: Yeah, So outrage overload is about how we are caught
0:37
Speaker 3: up in an environment where there's lots of players trying
0:40
Speaker 3: to get us angry and upset and use our sort
0:42
Speaker 3: of use our own emotions against us and rile us
0:47
Speaker 3: up for one reason or another, whether that's to get
0:49
Speaker 3: clicks or likes on social media, or whether that's to
0:52
Speaker 3: get votes if they're politicians, or whether that's to just
0:54
Speaker 3: get viewers if they're on TV or on other media.
0:59
Speaker 3: So so that we're kind of caught up in that
1:01
Speaker 3: environment where we're being innundated with that stuff, and that's
1:05
Speaker 3: kind of what our brand is about, is kind of
1:07
Speaker 3: just making us more mindful of that and exposing some
1:09
Speaker 3: of the science around why does that work?
1:11
Speaker 1: What about us makes that part of how we are?
1:14
Speaker 3: And then how can we you know, kind of be
1:16
Speaker 3: more mindful of it and cope with it and be
1:18
Speaker 3: more resilient to some of that and and lower our
1:21
Speaker 3: stress levels.
1:22
Speaker 1: And that's kind of what our show is about.
1:24
Speaker 2: Well, you know, I kind of brand the show of
1:26
Speaker 2: society and culture. When I read that you tackle the
1:29
Speaker 2: culture of toxicity, I'm like, yes, that is sort of
1:32
Speaker 2: a lying with what I'm talking about as well.
1:34
Speaker 4: So how do you guys.
1:36
Speaker 2: You know, get rid of that toxicity or pointed out
1:39
Speaker 2: I should say.
1:41
Speaker 3: Yeah, Well, a couple of ways. We bring on experts
1:44
Speaker 3: that have done research in this space, as social scientists, psychologists,
1:49
Speaker 3: even philosophers, other other disciplines and just help us understand
1:54
Speaker 3: a little bit about what's going on. So that's one
1:56
Speaker 3: thing we do is just help kind of explain some
1:59
Speaker 3: of what happening here and how and how some of
2:02
Speaker 3: it works, so that that can help just being more
2:04
Speaker 3: mindful about what it is. Then we also bring on
2:07
Speaker 3: practitioners kind of working in various names for some of this,
2:11
Speaker 3: but some of it's some areas are called like bridge building,
2:14
Speaker 3: h some areas sometimes it's called depolarization, and then other
2:18
Speaker 3: practitioners as well, just working on things like dialogue and
2:22
Speaker 3: UH and building skills for having difficult you know, basically
2:27
Speaker 3: conflict resolution type things.
2:29
Speaker 1: So we also bring on experts to help us build
2:32
Speaker 1: some of those skills.
2:33
Speaker 3: And then we also talk about sort of critical thinking
2:36
Speaker 3: and dealing with misinformation disinformation, recognizing it, kind of knowing
2:41
Speaker 3: it's as a phenomenon that's out there, and and practicing
2:45
Speaker 3: better media habits and things like that.
2:46
Speaker 1: So those are the main.
2:49
Speaker 3: Avenues that we pursue, and then we jump on some
2:51
Speaker 3: other topics as well. So sometimes we talk about technology
2:54
Speaker 3: and how that's playing into it and things like that.
2:57
Speaker 3: But that's a big part of it, is kind of
2:59
Speaker 3: just making people more aware of what's going on, and
3:01
Speaker 3: then also you know, talking about tools and techniques for
3:04
Speaker 3: dealing with it.
3:05
Speaker 2: Well, I want to talk to you about that because
3:07
Speaker 2: you were also in your bio of founding CTO at Earthlink,
3:11
Speaker 2: and how did you go from that to this?
3:14
Speaker 4: I want to ask you about your journey.
3:17
Speaker 3: Yeah, so, for I was in tech for a long time,
3:19
Speaker 3: I mean that was my career for quite a while,
3:22
Speaker 3: and I went from you know just basically, you know,
3:25
Speaker 3: early just developed software developer program or line programmer kind
3:28
Speaker 3: of thing work, you know, then got into management work
3:33
Speaker 3: my way into management, and then ultimately was in senior
3:37
Speaker 3: management with at the corporate level. And and that's where
3:41
Speaker 3: you know, the Earthlink experience comes in. So I helped
3:45
Speaker 3: Earthlink get started and helped spread internet in those early days.
3:49
Speaker 3: This was modem dial up days, right, Remember the punky
3:51
Speaker 3: sound g ggos, you know, all.
3:53
Speaker 1: That stuff, and get got that out there in a
3:56
Speaker 1: in a way.
3:57
Speaker 3: And and folks may not, you know, may not remember
4:00
Speaker 3: or maybe don't even aren't even aware that.
4:01
Speaker 1: You know, those early days, you.
4:03
Speaker 3: Had these garden, walled garden type services, like AOL was
4:06
Speaker 3: a walled garden back then, and they were popular. And
4:09
Speaker 3: so what that means is you sort of got into
4:11
Speaker 3: the AOL world and then you just.
4:12
Speaker 1: Did what AOL the way AOL let you do it.
4:15
Speaker 3: And some of those had gateways off to normal internet
4:18
Speaker 3: email and things like that, so you could do some communications,
4:20
Speaker 3: but they were still kind of in their little world,
4:23
Speaker 3: but it was easy. So they had these discs you
4:24
Speaker 3: could take a CDF and were of cd is you
4:27
Speaker 3: stuck that in your computer and actually before that, I
4:29
Speaker 3: think it was floppy discs if anyone remembers what those are,
4:31
Speaker 3: and you could put that in your computer and it
4:33
Speaker 3: would kind of set it up and you'd be on AOL.
4:35
Speaker 1: Well, what we did is we.
4:36
Speaker 3: Made that same experience easy like that where you could
4:39
Speaker 3: take a disc and stick it in your computer and
4:42
Speaker 3: set up sort of the real open Internet. And in
4:45
Speaker 3: those days, to set up the real open Internet, it
4:47
Speaker 3: was a lot of work. You had to install drivers
4:50
Speaker 3: and fiddle around with settings all over the place and
4:52
Speaker 3: do all this stuff. And we made it, as you know,
4:55
Speaker 3: as easy as like an AOL walld garden type experience,
4:58
Speaker 3: where we did all that work, like we put all
5:00
Speaker 3: those drivers on there, we downloaded everything, so you know,
5:02
Speaker 3: you could get that disc, you could stick it in
5:04
Speaker 3: your computer and you could be online in like five minutes,
5:07
Speaker 3: whereas before this would be hours of fiddling around and
5:09
Speaker 3: set up setting up things. And so that made it
5:11
Speaker 3: accessible to just regular people, made the real Internet, not
5:15
Speaker 3: a walled garden Internet, accessible to just regular people. So
5:17
Speaker 3: now you had access to the open Internet. So you
5:20
Speaker 3: had open email, you had open websites, you had all
5:24
Speaker 3: the stuff and the technology back then that you could
5:27
Speaker 3: get on the real open internet as easily as these
5:30
Speaker 3: walled gardens. So that's and also the pricing. So early
5:32
Speaker 3: internet service pricing was pretty expensive, right. Everybody was kind
5:36
Speaker 3: of charging by the hour, a couple dollars an hour
5:38
Speaker 3: or something like that. You'd buy ten hours for thirty
5:41
Speaker 3: bucks or something like that, and if you went over,
5:43
Speaker 3: you had to pay another hour. So if you got
5:45
Speaker 3: really into something and wanted to use it a lot,
5:47
Speaker 3: you could really end up spending a lot. So we
5:49
Speaker 3: were one of the first companies to offer a all
5:51
Speaker 3: you can eat plan, so back then, like twenty bucks,
5:53
Speaker 3: you get all you can eat internet, right, so you
5:56
Speaker 3: can go on as long as you want, as often
5:57
Speaker 3: as you want, and you never know, you just pay
5:59
Speaker 3: that one, right, And so that seems so silly now,
6:02
Speaker 3: this is how it works everywhere, right, But that was
6:04
Speaker 3: a big deal back then, and so that that really
6:07
Speaker 3: helped spread the real Internet as opposed to these walled
6:09
Speaker 3: garden internets out there, so that regular people, you could
6:12
Speaker 3: just be a normal soccer mom and get on the Internet.
6:14
Speaker 3: You didn't have to have a lot of tech experience.
6:16
Speaker 2: And you know I love about that is you're giving
6:18
Speaker 2: me a behind the scenes. Look at the commercials. I
6:20
Speaker 2: remember Earthlink, You saw all those marketing campaigns. Now you're
6:23
Speaker 2: taking us fine the scene to that. So that's kind
6:25
Speaker 2: of how I got familiar with earth Link as well.
6:27
Speaker 1: Yeah that's cool.
6:28
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, No, I mean it was a big deal
6:30
Speaker 3: and we had a lot of deals with that, right,
6:31
Speaker 3: I mean that you would buy a computer and we
6:33
Speaker 3: we were like as bad as aol right anywhere AO
6:36
Speaker 3: was putting on a disc, we wanted to get a
6:37
Speaker 3: disc too. So like if you bought a motem, you
6:39
Speaker 3: got an earth Link disc. You bought a computer, you
6:41
Speaker 3: got an earth Link disc. You know, you bought a
6:43
Speaker 3: sound card, you got a Earthlink disc. I mean like
6:45
Speaker 3: we wanted that those discs in everybody's hands everywhere.
6:49
Speaker 2: Well, let me ask you this, David, because it sounds
6:52
Speaker 2: like this summer when President Trum you know, had against
7:00
Speaker 2: was that sort of the impetus to know only either
7:03
Speaker 2: start outrage.
7:04
Speaker 4: Overload or to launch it even more?
7:06
Speaker 2: Tell us how that affected you and also why you
7:10
Speaker 2: started this podcast.
7:13
Speaker 1: Yeah.
7:13
Speaker 3: For me, it goes it's it's a bit before that.
7:15
Speaker 3: So if you look at that the history, we've all
7:17
Speaker 3: seen things ramping up, and if you talk to experts,
7:20
Speaker 3: they've sort of seen this ramp up over like a
7:21
Speaker 3: sixty year period, finding depending on how you count. But
7:25
Speaker 3: if you think about the twenty sixteen election, that got
7:27
Speaker 3: people pretty riled up and mad at each other, and
7:29
Speaker 3: you saw people disconnecting and canceling each other on Facebook
7:33
Speaker 3: and even in real life, right, I mean there was that,
7:36
Speaker 3: and then you had the pandemic happen and you know,
7:39
Speaker 3: the lockdowns, and then that created more people getting in
7:42
Speaker 3: the vaccine fights over vaccines and other things, until you
7:45
Speaker 3: saw people disconnecting with their online friends plus disconnecting with
7:49
Speaker 3: real life people. I mean, one thing about this show
7:51
Speaker 3: is everybody seems to have a story like that, Like
7:55
Speaker 3: you know, Uncle Larry is not allowed Thanksgiving anymore.
7:59
Speaker 1: You know this kind of thing.
8:00
Speaker 2: How insane is that? I mean right, It's just it's
8:03
Speaker 2: insane family.
8:04
Speaker 3: Right, And that's what was by that, Yeah, exactly, And
8:07
Speaker 3: that's what was kind of a big trigger for this.
8:08
Speaker 1: Everybody has a story like that.
8:09
Speaker 3: You have all this going on, and I'm like, wait
8:11
Speaker 3: a minute, let's what's happening here, Like you're losing long
8:14
Speaker 3: time lifeline, lifelong friends, You're losing you know, obviously family
8:18
Speaker 3: members over this. You know, can't talk to my brother
8:21
Speaker 3: in law anymore of this kind of stuff. All these
8:22
Speaker 3: everybody has a story like that, and so like, okay,
8:25
Speaker 3: what's happening here? And that's what got me sort of
8:27
Speaker 3: looking at it. And so that was sort of the
8:29
Speaker 3: lead up to it. And then and then you know,
8:31
Speaker 3: started happen more in my own life and in closer,
8:34
Speaker 3: closer and closer circles, right people, I know, disconnecting people,
8:38
Speaker 3: you know, disconnecting me, being getting in Twitter fights with
8:40
Speaker 3: people and stuff and just going, Okay, that's it. That's
8:42
Speaker 3: my I've reached out my personal outrage overload. And that's
8:46
Speaker 3: what really got me looking into this more and saying,
8:48
Speaker 3: you know, there's something going on here. We should really
8:51
Speaker 3: understand this better, and it's not good for us.
8:55
Speaker 2: So when people feedback to the show, right, are they
8:57
Speaker 2: getting that feeling of, hey, you know what, you're right,
9:00
Speaker 2: should just calm down, We shouldn't let anything divide us.
9:02
Speaker 2: Is that the feel you're getting in response you're getting.
9:06
Speaker 3: You know, it's it's interesting. Yeah, So it's a little bit.
9:10
Speaker 3: You know, I think the show I get a lot
9:12
Speaker 3: of feedback. You know, I did a lot of work
9:14
Speaker 3: I did a lot of research work in the beginning
9:16
Speaker 3: as I was doing it, and I was doing a
9:18
Speaker 3: lot of interviews with regular people on the street about
9:23
Speaker 3: just like their experience of social media, their experience of
9:25
Speaker 3: of of a lot of this kind of toxic media
9:27
Speaker 3: and things like that. And you hear a lot of
9:30
Speaker 3: people saying, yeah, I don't like the animasya, this kind
9:32
Speaker 3: of stuff. So you know, there's I think it's a
9:34
Speaker 3: misperception that that people want it like this, right. I mean,
9:39
Speaker 3: I think that there are those people that are that
9:43
Speaker 3: have fallen in so deeply that it's just become so
9:46
Speaker 3: deep with their identity and and they're out there. But
9:49
Speaker 3: for a lot of a lot of folks, they really
9:51
Speaker 3: don't want that. So but then at the same time,
9:53
Speaker 3: we still fall into it, right because the other side,
9:56
Speaker 3: you know, whatever the other side means for you, the
9:58
Speaker 3: other side is so evil and so ad that we
10:00
Speaker 3: really buy into that rhetoric. And once you fall in
10:02
Speaker 3: that fall into that, you kind of feed on it,
10:05
Speaker 3: you kind of like it. So it's it's it's, uh,
10:08
Speaker 3: you get two sides of that. But you know, in
10:10
Speaker 3: terms of direct feedback I get with folks. So it's
10:12
Speaker 3: interesting so I definitely get a lot of positive feedback about, Hey,
10:15
Speaker 3: your show has really helped me kind of understand better
10:18
Speaker 3: I can and I'm building a relationship with my uncle again,
10:21
Speaker 3: and you know, and and you know, when this thing happened,
10:24
Speaker 3: I didn't expect to happen. I was much more prepared
10:26
Speaker 3: for that kind of stuff. So I get a lot
10:28
Speaker 3: of that that kind of feedback. But then I also
10:31
Speaker 3: get I still get even people that have been longtime listeners,
10:34
Speaker 3: you know, they're just frustrated. They're they're still angry, they're
10:38
Speaker 3: they're they're having a hard time when when things, you know,
10:42
Speaker 3: when things send of don't go the way they.
10:44
Speaker 1: Wanted, and and and.
10:46
Speaker 3: So it's challenging because you know, it's it's you know,
10:49
Speaker 3: we're out here trying to give a message and it
10:51
Speaker 3: doesn't always land, right. I mean, we're trying, we can
10:54
Speaker 3: try to get it out there, but it's just people
10:56
Speaker 3: are going to take away what they take away. So
10:58
Speaker 3: I mean, I know, for me person, I think even
11:01
Speaker 3: just doing this show, talking to all the experts that
11:03
Speaker 3: I've talked to over the last couple of years and
11:07
Speaker 3: learning so much more about this whole environment, I know
11:10
Speaker 3: it prepares me a lot more for you know, the
11:12
Speaker 3: reality of life. Right when maybe things don't go your way,
11:15
Speaker 3: an election doesn't go your way, a policy issue doesn't
11:18
Speaker 3: go your way.
11:19
Speaker 1: It's like, that's the reality we're in.
11:20
Speaker 3: And it doesn't mean that you're not going to maybe
11:22
Speaker 3: still fight for what you want, David.
11:24
Speaker 2: When people don't get their way, they start crying. Like
11:26
Speaker 2: that election, there were a lot of I had to say,
11:28
Speaker 2: the liberal tiers. But did that drive you crazy or what?
11:32
Speaker 1: Well, it's sad kind of right.
11:33
Speaker 3: I mean, it's like, especially when it's listeners, you know,
11:38
Speaker 3: it's it's tough because we've sort of we've been talking
11:40
Speaker 3: about this for two years, you know that. So it's
11:44
Speaker 3: kind of sad when folks aren't don't have more resiliency
11:46
Speaker 3: to these kind of things. I did an episode, a
11:49
Speaker 3: documentary episode last summer over the summer, you know, called
11:54
Speaker 3: Democracy on the Knife's Edge, talking about how we are
11:58
Speaker 3: so divided, we're so equally divided, so bitterly divided, and
12:01
Speaker 3: we both sides somehow still have this myth in their
12:05
Speaker 3: head that the solution to the problem is our side
12:08
Speaker 3: dominating the other side, somehow, somehow building a coalition that
12:12
Speaker 3: will stand for decades or whatever, and we'll win by
12:15
Speaker 3: some major majority and we'll take over everything and we'll
12:18
Speaker 3: control everything, and that's the solution to this toxic divide.
12:22
Speaker 3: And it's like, okay, well, that's just my point of
12:24
Speaker 3: that episode was that's not a realistic way of looking
12:26
Speaker 3: at the world. You're going to find yourself very disappointed
12:30
Speaker 3: because that's not how.
12:31
Speaker 1: The world works.
12:31
Speaker 3: We're bitterly divided, we're evenly divided, and these elections are
12:35
Speaker 3: close and they're going to be They've been closed for
12:37
Speaker 3: twenty five years. There's no indication that that's not going
12:40
Speaker 3: to change. And so at any time any elect every
12:43
Speaker 3: election is going to be close, particularly presidential elections, and
12:46
Speaker 3: so you know you're.
12:47
Speaker 1: Not going to get your way all the time.
12:49
Speaker 2: Well, you know when she read off, when Kamala Harris
12:52
Speaker 2: read off the election totally, it wasn't that big of
12:54
Speaker 2: a margin, to be honest, I know they made it
12:56
Speaker 2: seem like it, but three twelve to two twenty six
12:58
Speaker 2: was still a pretty good you know, I thought that
13:01
Speaker 2: was a good race.
13:02
Speaker 4: But when people listen to your show, right, David, do
13:04
Speaker 4: you feel like you give off this? Hey, you know what,
13:07
Speaker 4: we still got to be a community.
13:08
Speaker 2: No matter what Washington's going through, right, it's everybody uh
13:13
Speaker 2: looking up for each other in.
13:14
Speaker 4: Their own communities.
13:15
Speaker 1: Do you feel the same, Well, I get a yes,
13:18
Speaker 1: yes and no.
13:19
Speaker 3: I want to be a little cautious there about kind
13:21
Speaker 3: of you know, I definitely do promote the idea of
13:26
Speaker 3: you can have more impact in your local community. Like,
13:28
Speaker 3: we get fixated on national issues, right, and that can
13:30
Speaker 3: be really frustrating because we can't have that much. We
13:32
Speaker 3: don't often have a lot of impact. It's harder to
13:34
Speaker 3: have impact on these big national issues or even global issues, right,
13:39
Speaker 3: And so.
13:39
Speaker 1: You can, you know, you can do what you want
13:41
Speaker 1: with them.
13:41
Speaker 3: You can do what you can with those maybe you
13:42
Speaker 3: can donate to a cause, maybe you can you know,
13:45
Speaker 3: work for a candy or something like that. But you
13:47
Speaker 3: can really only have so much impact if you know,
13:49
Speaker 3: you can have a lot more impact and also get
13:52
Speaker 3: a much better perspective on the world if you get
13:55
Speaker 3: more involved locally. So I do encourage folks getting involved locally,
13:59
Speaker 3: whether that's running school boards, or whether that's just working
14:01
Speaker 3: with local candidates, or whether it's even just paying more
14:04
Speaker 3: attention to local politics and local news and spending a
14:07
Speaker 3: little less energy on all these national issues. You know,
14:09
Speaker 3: we've lost local media to a large degree, so you know,
14:13
Speaker 3: we have this national media all the time trying to
14:15
Speaker 3: feed because they don't they can't talk about the stuff
14:17
Speaker 3: going on in every town, so they talk about these
14:19
Speaker 3: national issues because that's what they can and so then
14:21
Speaker 3: we get just fixated on these national issues. So I
14:23
Speaker 3: do do that, but I'm not, you know, saying that that.
14:28
Speaker 3: I'm not in the camp of like we should ignore,
14:30
Speaker 3: we shouldn't have government. We want to anti government and
14:33
Speaker 3: anti you know, and full on you know, libertarianism, we
14:36
Speaker 3: should you know. And of course I don't really preach
14:38
Speaker 3: issues anyway. I mostly preach the basic idea of we're
14:42
Speaker 3: going to have to coexist to get anything done, and
14:47
Speaker 3: we have to learn how to live within people that
14:49
Speaker 3: we may not like that much and we may not
14:51
Speaker 3: agree with, but we may not even like them, and
14:53
Speaker 3: but the real world, you're going to have to work
14:55
Speaker 3: with those people too.
14:56
Speaker 2: So you know, the best part I've ever seen is
14:59
Speaker 2: New York City. Despite all the differences that you might
15:02
Speaker 2: have politically, we still got up and went out and
15:04
Speaker 2: did our own thing.
15:05
Speaker 4: The day after the election.
15:06
Speaker 2: I thought that was so inspiring to see that people
15:08
Speaker 2: were not stopping because of the election.
15:10
Speaker 4: I think that is where I come at it.
15:12
Speaker 2: You know, when you first started Outrage Overload and you
15:15
Speaker 2: left the corporate world, tell me about that.
15:18
Speaker 4: Were you scared, were you nervous? And how did you
15:20
Speaker 4: have one leg.
15:20
Speaker 2: Up in your own world leaving that that job in
15:25
Speaker 2: creating your own company.
15:28
Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure.
15:28
Speaker 3: And you know, and I've done those cycles in the
15:31
Speaker 3: past because I was an entrepreneur at different times throughout
15:34
Speaker 3: my career. So I've kind of gone back and forth
15:36
Speaker 3: from the corporate W two job too, you know, independent entrepreneurship.
15:42
Speaker 1: So I've been there before.
15:44
Speaker 3: Now in this case, it was my wife talks about
15:47
Speaker 3: and we both talked about I guess the idea that
15:48
Speaker 3: I've tried to retire a few times and I keep
15:50
Speaker 3: failing at it, so maybe this time it'll stick. But
15:53
Speaker 3: but so with Outrage Overload, as a retired person, I can,
15:58
Speaker 3: you know, probably look at this from a little different perspective,
16:00
Speaker 3: Like I don't have to focus on clicks and views
16:02
Speaker 3: and and monetization and sponsorship and all that kind of
16:06
Speaker 3: stuff as much, right, so I can I can do
16:09
Speaker 3: this as an independent journalist and as an independent worker.
16:12
Speaker 3: But in terms of like the fear and trying the
16:14
Speaker 3: one leg up thing, I mean that the thing is that,
16:17
Speaker 3: like here you're talking about, I was in a world
16:18
Speaker 3: in tech. I was sort of known. I'm not that much,
16:21
Speaker 3: but I had a reputation there. I had a background,
16:23
Speaker 3: I had, you know, this kind of stuff. So I
16:24
Speaker 3: was kind of in a world where I had a
16:26
Speaker 3: following and kind of was kind of known in that space.
16:29
Speaker 3: And I'm jumping into this world where I'm sort of
16:32
Speaker 3: a budding journalist. I'm a podcaster. I'm you know, working
16:36
Speaker 3: in a space I've never worked in before. So here
16:38
Speaker 3: I'm a nobody, right, So that was a you know,
16:40
Speaker 3: that's that was a big, big switch, and it's been
16:42
Speaker 3: great to experience that acceptance into that world. I mean,
16:47
Speaker 3: I'm talking to world renowned experts. I'm not an expert.
16:50
Speaker 3: I have a little bit of a background in STEM
16:53
Speaker 3: and I worked in a research corporate research lab, so
16:56
Speaker 3: I have a little bit of background there. But I'm
16:57
Speaker 3: not an academic. I'm not a PhD and some in
17:00
Speaker 3: any of these fields. I'm just a reporter, a science reporter,
17:04
Speaker 3: trying to bring some of that science to make it
17:08
Speaker 3: approachable to or accessible to ordinary folks, and so to
17:12
Speaker 3: be accepted in that world of the sort of bridge building,
17:15
Speaker 3: depolarization space and just the sort of scientific community a
17:18
Speaker 3: little bit at large has been fantastic. And then also
17:22
Speaker 3: to be accepted, you know, in the podcaster world as well.
17:25
Speaker 3: I mean, I've found that to be you know, podcasters,
17:28
Speaker 3: even larger ones, are very gracious and helpful most of
17:31
Speaker 3: the time.
17:32
Speaker 2: We'll get to how pop Matches helped you, you know,
17:34
Speaker 2: launched this even more. But I want to ask you
17:36
Speaker 2: about two outrageous outrages that are going on right now.
17:40
Speaker 4: TikTok's going away supposedly.
17:43
Speaker 2: Have you been following the outrage there, and do you
17:45
Speaker 2: feel like people are losing focus on their own lives
17:48
Speaker 2: because of this band?
17:49
Speaker 4: I mean, I feel like everybody's obsessed with it.
17:51
Speaker 3: Actually, yeah, I mean, you know, I have my own
17:55
Speaker 3: personal opinions about it, and certainly, you know, tic Tac
17:58
Speaker 3: just TikTok, just like everybody else, all the other media players,
18:03
Speaker 3: you know, is sort of part of the problem in
18:05
Speaker 3: some sense, right because they're if you're on those platforms,
18:07
Speaker 3: they're all they have algorithms, and they're also fed feeding
18:11
Speaker 3: us stuff to try to get us upset, right, I mean,
18:13
Speaker 3: they feed us stuff that will cause us to become engaged.
18:15
Speaker 3: And how do you get engaged? Will you get engaged
18:17
Speaker 3: by getting your motions riled up?
18:20
Speaker 1: Right?
18:20
Speaker 3: So they've learned that, and so they leverage it, right,
18:25
Speaker 3: just like other social media does. Whether it's Twitter X,
18:28
Speaker 3: whether it's so, Facebook, Instagram, whatever, they all do it.
18:32
Speaker 3: So we're susceptible to these algorithms on all these platforms.
18:37
Speaker 3: And we talk about that a lot on the show
18:38
Speaker 3: about how to become more mindful of that and have
18:40
Speaker 3: a better media diet, stuff like that. So certainly TikTok
18:44
Speaker 3: is part of that, part of that part of the problem,
18:47
Speaker 3: just like every other social media. But I do have
18:49
Speaker 3: my own separate issues. I don't really raise these issues
18:53
Speaker 3: on the Outrage Overload show because again, we don't typically
18:56
Speaker 3: push a lot for specific issues. But I would probably
18:59
Speaker 3: talk more about this topic because it is one I'm
19:01
Speaker 3: a little bit more passionate about, you know, in the
19:04
Speaker 3: TikTok case, you know, I know, you know, again, I
19:07
Speaker 3: have background from the other side, right, I was the
19:08
Speaker 3: guy operating these kind of.
19:10
Speaker 1: Services before, right, So so I.
19:12
Speaker 3: Know that side of it, and I know a lot
19:13
Speaker 3: of the technology underneath it all too. And you know
19:17
Speaker 3: with TikTok, you know, I think that the case for
19:20
Speaker 3: banning it I'm in favor of because because of the
19:25
Speaker 3: security risk. I mean, that's that's not the argument that's
19:27
Speaker 3: winning with the Supreme Court. The argument that seems to
19:30
Speaker 3: be winning with the Supreme Court has to do with privacy,
19:32
Speaker 3: which I think is a concern, but that's not my great,
19:35
Speaker 3: my great concern, having you know enough enough exposure to
19:39
Speaker 3: experts in global politics that the fact that ByteDance is
19:44
Speaker 3: owned by it operates in China, and the communist Chinese
19:49
Speaker 3: Communist Party China is an adversary, and the Chinese Communist
19:53
Speaker 3: Party is well known for, you know, leveraging propaganda and
19:57
Speaker 3: mind control, and so so.
20:00
Speaker 1: I think that aspect of it that you have.
20:02
Speaker 3: You know, they have this vehicle that can approach into
20:05
Speaker 3: the minds of millions of people. And what are they
20:08
Speaker 3: going to sell. They're going to sell CCP propaganda, right,
20:10
Speaker 3: They're going to try to sell the American way is
20:12
Speaker 3: not good, and not only just the American way, but
20:14
Speaker 3: like democracy in general around the world.
20:15
Speaker 2: Well, let me, let me, let me incorporate your experience.
20:18
Speaker 2: Did Earthlink try and interrupt those kind of interferences? Did
20:23
Speaker 2: you guys find it Earthlink? Oh my god, there is
20:26
Speaker 2: that outside interference that's trying to impact our business as well.
20:31
Speaker 1: Well, we wouldn't do no, I mean generally no.
20:34
Speaker 3: We we were a platform that was more of a carrier, right,
20:38
Speaker 3: so we operated more like a carrier. Now, obviously, you know,
20:42
Speaker 3: you you cross the line when you start getting into
20:44
Speaker 3: things that are technically illegal, right, so child trafficking and
20:49
Speaker 3: things like that, or any other even just dealing in
20:52
Speaker 3: illegal substance and stuff like that. Then if a if
20:55
Speaker 3: a entity has a if a law enforcement entity has warrants,
21:00
Speaker 3: we would have to we would comply comply with those warrants.
21:03
Speaker 1: But otherwise, we saw ourselves as.
21:05
Speaker 3: A carrier of information and we didn't inject that kind
21:10
Speaker 3: of We didn't play that part.
21:13
Speaker 1: Now, we didn't play that role of mediating that content
21:19
Speaker 1: at Earthlink anyway.
21:22
Speaker 2: So you were going back to this whole idea of
21:26
Speaker 2: the CCP and whatnot, and so you believe they were
21:29
Speaker 2: spying on us, and are you are? You said that
21:33
Speaker 2: Americans sort of just let it happen. I guess I
21:35
Speaker 2: would say by going with it and logging on and
21:38
Speaker 2: talking so much.
21:40
Speaker 3: We have to live our lives, right, We're all just
21:42
Speaker 3: trying to get through this thing called life. So how
21:44
Speaker 3: many of us have time to really understand and research
21:47
Speaker 3: all this and really understand it. I do think that
21:49
Speaker 3: there's been a failure to communicate this, and you can't
21:52
Speaker 3: put that on the users, right, I mean, the folks
21:56
Speaker 3: that understand this stuff need to be better at communicating it.
22:00
Speaker 3: And I think that, you know, I'll conclude myself in that.
22:03
Speaker 3: I mean, I'm not out there preaching all this stuff,
22:06
Speaker 3: but I mean I'm you know, I am a communicator
22:07
Speaker 3: and I'm trying to do it too. But but I
22:09
Speaker 3: think that's a big feelue and we have to be
22:11
Speaker 3: really introspective about that, like why are we not able
22:13
Speaker 3: to communicate this message better? So I'm disappointed from that
22:19
Speaker 3: from both regards, right, I am disappointed in the American.
22:22
Speaker 1: People a little bit.
22:23
Speaker 3: But we have to be realistic, Like I say, people
22:25
Speaker 3: are trying to live their lives, like they don't have
22:26
Speaker 3: time to really do this heavy lifting to go understand.
22:29
Speaker 1: A lot of this stuff.
22:30
Speaker 3: And obviously, you know, the players don't want them to
22:34
Speaker 3: get that information either, right, because they are.
22:36
Speaker 1: They want to win the argument.
22:37
Speaker 2: Right now, real quick, let's say of America, because you
22:40
Speaker 2: have the techs of Americans buy this app, do you
22:43
Speaker 2: see a sort of difference with the app or while
22:47
Speaker 2: they still try and collect our data? I mean, I
22:49
Speaker 2: guess they will, right no matter who?
22:51
Speaker 3: Well, right they certain yeah, yeah, they certainly would no
22:53
Speaker 3: matter who owns it. But at least if it's an American country,
22:56
Speaker 3: or even any country with sort of compliance with international law,
23:00
Speaker 3: at least you have then legal standing, right, and you
23:02
Speaker 3: have and they have to be accountable.
23:04
Speaker 1: To to world laws.
23:05
Speaker 3: With the with it being in China, there's a there's
23:09
Speaker 3: no visibility, right, they can do whatever. We don't know
23:11
Speaker 3: what algorithm is doing, and b you know they we
23:14
Speaker 3: can't hold them accountable like you arrest somebody and y,
23:17
Speaker 3: it's not going to happen, right, They're not going to
23:18
Speaker 3: be extradited, you're not going to get evidence, you're not
23:21
Speaker 3: going to collect evidence and use it in quart or
23:22
Speaker 3: anything like that. So but you know, I will say,
23:25
Speaker 3: that's obviously not going to happen, because the whole point
23:27
Speaker 3: of the thing is to is I mean, the fact
23:29
Speaker 3: that they won't sell it tells you that it's obviously
23:33
Speaker 3: doing stuff they care about, you know. I mean I
23:35
Speaker 3: think that pretty much gives you your answer. Like if
23:37
Speaker 3: they didn't, Yeah, as much as they say they didn't care,
23:39
Speaker 3: they wouldn't care about selling it.
23:41
Speaker 1: But they're not going to sell it because they're not
23:42
Speaker 1: going to.
23:42
Speaker 2: Do that staying in the tech space X obviously, and
23:46
Speaker 2: I think of Starlink, Earthlink, you know, they're just proaction
23:49
Speaker 2: my brain, uh Elon and the what he's done with
23:53
Speaker 2: X everyone following that as well. And is there a
23:55
Speaker 2: toxicity there that you'd like to see root it out?
24:00
Speaker 1: Yeah?
24:00
Speaker 3: I mean there's a lot of facets to all of that, right,
24:03
Speaker 3: I mean I think that I talk to a lot
24:06
Speaker 3: of experts that have done a lot of research about
24:08
Speaker 3: social media in general, so we know we have this
24:11
Speaker 3: general I mean, it's a sort of toothpaste out of
24:13
Speaker 3: the tube, but we definitely social media has its downsides
24:16
Speaker 3: for sure, and I don't think we know what the
24:19
Speaker 3: right answer is to I don't think we've as a
24:21
Speaker 3: society really adjusted to this sort of psychology aspect of society,
24:26
Speaker 3: aspects of societal aspects, Like we may understand the technology,
24:29
Speaker 3: but I don't think we really understand that the overall
24:33
Speaker 3: impact to this sort of zeitgeist in the world, right,
24:36
Speaker 3: And I think so Exit and Twitter is just a
24:39
Speaker 3: player in that. I think with Musk in particular, you know,
24:42
Speaker 3: he obviously has global aspirations, you know, kind of world domination,
24:47
Speaker 3: kind of aspirations.
24:48
Speaker 1: That are interesting.
24:49
Speaker 3: Like I think he's got a lot of strange connections
24:52
Speaker 3: and I find him, I find him a little scary
24:54
Speaker 3: as to what his big picture you know, aspirations, you know,
24:59
Speaker 3: beyond just Twitter slash X. But but overall, so you know,
25:02
Speaker 3: I think he's kind of a dangerous character where he
25:07
Speaker 3: wants to take things in general, and I think a
25:09
Speaker 3: lot of it is the hubrist that he has, where
25:11
Speaker 3: he really believes he's smarter than all the rest of us,
25:14
Speaker 3: and he knows what's best for us. He doesn't have
25:16
Speaker 3: to ask us for our permission or our input. He
25:19
Speaker 3: knows what's best for us, and he's going to just
25:21
Speaker 3: do that for us, whether we want we want him
25:23
Speaker 3: to or not.
25:26
Speaker 2: David Beckmeyer fascinating perspective. And what else is up for
25:32
Speaker 2: twenty twenty five, Like what Texas You're going to try
25:34
Speaker 2: and root out through your podcast or you know, shine
25:37
Speaker 2: a light on I should say.
25:40
Speaker 3: Yeah, a lot of it's going to be more or
25:42
Speaker 3: less like a continuation of what we've done, because, like
25:44
Speaker 3: I say, a lot of times these messages aren't landing.
25:46
Speaker 3: So it's going to be you know, sort of saying
25:47
Speaker 3: similar things, but maybe in new ways. Find a way
25:49
Speaker 3: to get some of these messages to land. And some
25:51
Speaker 3: of those big messages are to be more self reflective, right,
25:54
Speaker 3: and also to be more critical of your own side,
25:57
Speaker 3: because you know.
25:58
Speaker 1: It's easy.
25:59
Speaker 3: We're always critic We get in our groups, we talk
26:01
Speaker 3: about how bad the other side is. Right, Well, okay,
26:02
Speaker 3: that's easy to do it. We can do that all
26:04
Speaker 3: day long. It doesn't really get us anymore. We're going
26:05
Speaker 3: to change anything. We're gonna do anything. So look more introspectively,
26:10
Speaker 3: like can you maybe think of yourself, how much are
26:12
Speaker 3: you contributing to this problem?
26:13
Speaker 1: Ah?
26:14
Speaker 3: And how much am I falling into some of these
26:17
Speaker 3: these traps and habits? And secondly, are people on my
26:20
Speaker 3: side exacerbating these problems?
26:22
Speaker 1: Right? Be critical?
26:23
Speaker 3: It's like I said, it's so easy to be critical
26:24
Speaker 3: of folks on the other side, but look at folks
26:26
Speaker 3: on your side, Like, you know, is there somebody on
26:28
Speaker 3: your side that's riling this up for no reason, maybe
26:31
Speaker 3: you can now engage with them, Like you're going to
26:33
Speaker 3: have more influence with somebody on your side than somebody
26:36
Speaker 3: on the other side. So if there's a politician out
26:38
Speaker 3: there that seems like they're just riling things up to
26:41
Speaker 3: rile things up, you know they're going to listen to
26:43
Speaker 3: you more than they're going to listen to somebody from
26:44
Speaker 3: the other side. Right, So, and I think also it
26:47
Speaker 3: will help you have a better perspective on the world,
26:50
Speaker 3: because a lot of these problems that we're in are
26:52
Speaker 3: because we have misperceptions about the other people on the
26:55
Speaker 3: other side, and we have misperceptions being fed by this
26:59
Speaker 3: toxic media environs and this toxic political landscape, and we
27:03
Speaker 3: fall into it because it sounds good, like, yeah, that
27:05
Speaker 3: person is terrible. You're right, they're terrible, right, But maybe
27:07
Speaker 3: I'm not getting the full story. So that's a message
27:10
Speaker 3: I'm just going to keep trying to send, is that
27:12
Speaker 3: look at your own side, ask yourself, ask yourself off,
27:16
Speaker 3: and ask yourself that one big question is am I
27:19
Speaker 3: getting the full picture here?
27:21
Speaker 4: All right? Two more things.
27:23
Speaker 2: Obviously things will change Monday at two o'clock or so
27:26
Speaker 2: when a new present takes over.
27:29
Speaker 4: Will that affect the tech space?
27:30
Speaker 2: You see it affecting the tech space when a new
27:33
Speaker 2: administration is in. And should there be concerns? Are there
27:36
Speaker 2: concerns that you have?
27:38
Speaker 1: Well?
27:38
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean I think there obviously are concerns. There's
27:42
Speaker 3: a lot of people out there that are pretty freaked
27:43
Speaker 3: out about what may or may not happen. And I
27:46
Speaker 3: think that's the key to it is, you know, try
27:50
Speaker 3: not to catastrophize, like, you know, deal with what happens.
27:54
Speaker 3: You know, sure you can have contingency plans for maybe
27:57
Speaker 3: some of these you know, frightening scenario years that people
28:00
Speaker 3: have come up with, But how much do you want
28:03
Speaker 3: to obsess over that? What's the right amount of energy
28:05
Speaker 3: to put into these hypothetical scenarios? And and it's gonna
28:09
Speaker 3: be tough because you know, this is an administration that
28:12
Speaker 3: kind of does like chaos and they like to stir
28:14
Speaker 3: the pot and so there's gonna be a lot of
28:16
Speaker 3: stuff being thrown at thrown at the wall, and people
28:19
Speaker 3: are going to have to figure out where how much
28:21
Speaker 3: energy to spend to spend on all those and and
28:24
Speaker 3: I think one way of dealing with some of that
28:26
Speaker 3: is focusing more locally. Again, let some of those things
28:29
Speaker 3: do what they're going to do and how, and and
28:31
Speaker 3: keep asking yourself how much does this involve me? Or
28:34
Speaker 3: how much has involved the people I love? And how
28:36
Speaker 3: much do I want? How much energy do I want
28:38
Speaker 3: to spend on this thing? And particularly these things that
28:41
Speaker 3: haven't happened yet? Like how much energy do you want
28:43
Speaker 3: to spend on things that haven't happened yet? It may
28:45
Speaker 3: never happen, So I think a lot of that's going
28:47
Speaker 3: to be part of it. I think in terms of
28:48
Speaker 3: influence to tech, Yeah, I mean you're going to see
28:51
Speaker 3: you know, changes, new administrations have new.
28:53
Speaker 1: Ideas, They're going to see impact for sure.
28:55
Speaker 3: I mean how much and how and how it's gonna
28:58
Speaker 3: how it's going to play out, It's yet to be told.
29:00
Speaker 3: I think a lot of these these catastrophizing out their
29:03
Speaker 3: stories aren't helping anybody at all.
29:05
Speaker 2: It's it's just got to be a wait and see
29:07
Speaker 2: and see what happens, because the speculation is just horrible.
29:10
Speaker 2: I hate speculation with sports just as much as I
29:12
Speaker 2: hate for politics. You know, to one last thing, independent journalism.
29:18
Speaker 2: You're a independent journalist how important is that going to
29:21
Speaker 2: be we move forward. I feel like independent journalism even
29:27
Speaker 2: was the episode that we saw not too long ago,
29:31
Speaker 2: oh the Nola killer, the Nola terrorist attack, I felt
29:33
Speaker 2: that independent journalists, we're giving us more information than your
29:37
Speaker 2: mainstream How valuable is the independent journalist going to be,
29:40
Speaker 2: especially as we move into this quarter of a century.
29:42
Speaker 4: You know, we're already done one quarter. How about this one?
29:47
Speaker 1: Yeah?
29:48
Speaker 3: No, I mean I think you're seeing this a lot.
29:50
Speaker 3: I mean you're seeing a lot of information about this
29:52
Speaker 3: research on this that's you know, people are trusting things
29:55
Speaker 3: like podcasts for instance, just you know we're on a podcast.
29:58
Speaker 3: People are find people getting more information and more feel
30:02
Speaker 3: like they're getting better information and more in depth information
30:04
Speaker 3: from things like podcasts. It's a little bit of a
30:07
Speaker 3: double edged sword because you know, there isn't really the
30:10
Speaker 3: kind of accreditation for journalists that there is for like
30:13
Speaker 3: a doctor or something like that, So anybody can kind
30:16
Speaker 3: of put a journalist hat on and say they're a journalist.
30:18
Speaker 3: So it does mean there's a lot of you know,
30:20
Speaker 3: probably quite a variation of skill and quality of information
30:24
Speaker 3: out there, and that could be a real challenge and
30:26
Speaker 3: a heavy lift for for those seeking information. But yeah,
30:31
Speaker 3: I mean, I do think independent journalism is a huge
30:33
Speaker 3: factor here. The traditional media, even when they're trying to
30:37
Speaker 3: be good, they still have to put everything in two
30:39
Speaker 3: minute bite sized chunks and stuff like that, so you
30:41
Speaker 3: don't see as much in depth the reprogram mind there
30:44
Speaker 3: are things there's like Frontline, there's sixty minutes. There's other
30:47
Speaker 3: things in mainstream media that do have you know, sometimes
30:50
Speaker 3: some good information, sometimes a little fishy so so, but
30:54
Speaker 3: a lot of it is Also if you want to
30:55
Speaker 3: get more in depth, some of these alternatives are the
30:58
Speaker 3: only way to do that. Like I can do a
31:00
Speaker 3: show where I don't have to tell somebody they have
31:02
Speaker 3: to give me a two minute answer. If they want
31:03
Speaker 3: to give me a seven minute answer, they can. And
31:05
Speaker 3: also we can spend you know, forty five minutes instead
31:08
Speaker 3: of instead of two minutes on a topic.
31:10
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, and then god we don't need for you know,
31:12
Speaker 2: there are no really commercial breaks, so you and I
31:14
Speaker 2: can go for three hours if we want to, you know,
31:16
Speaker 2: So that's great too. One last thing, how has podmatch
31:19
Speaker 2: helped you launch? Or outrage overload?
31:22
Speaker 4: Even more?
31:22
Speaker 2: Like, how has it helped you advance what you're trying
31:25
Speaker 2: to do with this with the brand.
31:29
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean I think with pod match it it
31:32
Speaker 3: has been good for I mean, I use a lot
31:34
Speaker 3: of tools to connect with people. Podmatch has a couple
31:36
Speaker 3: of things that really helped me. No One is that
31:38
Speaker 3: maybe one people don't think about as much as they
31:40
Speaker 3: have this thing called workflows on there, which is a
31:42
Speaker 3: great tool for managing episode workflows. So it's like a
31:46
Speaker 3: kind of a project management almost kind of mini tool,
31:49
Speaker 3: but it's focused and catered and streamlined down to just
31:53
Speaker 3: sort of really functions that are more appropriate are applicable
31:58
Speaker 3: to podcasting. So that too, all of people don't even
32:01
Speaker 3: know about that comes with podmatch. But you know, otherwise,
32:03
Speaker 3: you know, I'm out there in the academic world a lot,
32:06
Speaker 3: so it doesn't get me as many on the guest side,
32:08
Speaker 3: but I have connected with some great guests through podmatch
32:11
Speaker 3: for my show.
32:13
Speaker 1: And then also it.
32:13
Speaker 3: Really helps for for outreach to shows like yours, where
32:16
Speaker 3: I can go and go talk about these kinds of things.
32:20
Speaker 1: On other folks podcasts, So that it's been great for that.
32:24
Speaker 4: Well, I love when you said that you like how
32:26
Speaker 4: on scripted this is. We didn't come in with.
32:27
Speaker 2: Any question, just was you and I going back and
32:30
Speaker 2: forth on this and I think it worked out really
32:32
Speaker 2: well for our first episode.
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Speaker 4: Would love to have you back on.
32:35
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, it's great. Yeah, I really appreciate it. Yeah,
32:37
Speaker 1: I worked out, it worked out currific. I enjoy it.
32:39
Speaker 3: Hopefully, hopefully the audience will enjoy it too, and then
32:42
Speaker 3: they won't like tune out after two seconds like what
32:44
Speaker 3: this idiot?
32:44
Speaker 1: What's this idiot talking about?
32:47
Speaker 4: No?
32:47
Speaker 2: No, and we'll push you out everywhere, so don't worry
32:49
Speaker 2: about that, uh. David Beckmeyer, thanks so much for joining
32:52
Speaker 2: Outrage Overload.
32:54
Speaker 4: Thanks for joining us.
32:55
Speaker 1: It's great to be here, Alex