SPEAKER_02 0:00

If we're in a simulation, they don't exist, man. I'm gonna do something else. I'm gonna start flying around the world.

SPEAKER_00 0:09

You get rid of your you'd say, oh sorry.

SPEAKER_01 0:12

I'm done. Done. Sorry, daughter. Sorry, wife. Sorry, mom. I I gotta go. You know what?

SPEAKER_02 0:19

I'm not gonna pay these bills anymore. I'm out.

SPEAKER_01 0:23

Welcome to another episode of Smells Like Humans. This is the podcast where we explore the curious things that people do, the very human things that grab our attention and cause us to wonder and why. I'm Ross, your host, and today's guest is someone who is always in fine metal and regularly maintains a jaunty disposition. Ross! Ross! How the heck are you, sir? I'm good. We haven't had you on for a minute. It's good to have you back.

SPEAKER_02 0:57

I'm excited, and this is a topic that I can sink my teeth into.

SPEAKER_01 1:01

Oh, you have no idea. And welcome everyone to the show. Uh, thanks so much for following the show and supporting us. And remember, the best way you can help us right now is just to tell people about the show. If you like it, share it, tell people about your favorite episode. That really makes a difference and we appreciate it. We'll talk more about that at the end, but let's get going on this. Yeah. Okay. So, Rob, we know that ever since people have existed, we have wondered about our purpose here on earth. Philosophers, scientists, religious scholars, witch doctors, precocious toddlers, and many, many others have thought about the fundamental existential question, why are we here? And yet, in my view, we still don't have any really solid answers. So, my first question, which I know you were not expecting, is why do you think we're here? What is man and woman's purpose?

SPEAKER_02 2:07

What's our purpose? Man, this might be a dinner. I don't, I think it's just all random. Like, I don't feel like we have a purpose. Do you feel like we have a purpose?

SPEAKER_01 2:15

Well, you know, it's funny you asked that question. I read a couple of articles that were summarizing the thinking that's been going on for actually several years, that this whole experience of life that we're all living may just be a computer simulation. Oh, yeah. And that the probability of this is much higher than most people, certainly I, would have thought.

SPEAKER_02 2:43

You know, that's funny that you say that. Um, you know, and I, for one, believe everything I read and watch on the internet, but recently I've I've dug into TikTok a little bit, and I for whatever reason, and this is just random, or is it, lately, past two or three weeks, my feeds have been all like this we are in a matrix and this is a glitch, and it's just a bunch of like, you know, you see a cat hovering in the air for two seconds longer than it should, and you're like, oh, maybe we are in the matrix, a computer game, if you will.

SPEAKER_01 3:19

Yeah, this this kind of thinking is out there and it's getting a little more play in different ways. I've read different articles kind of covering it in different ways, but it's not something I really ever gave much credence to. But um, you know, people who think about this and are a lot smarter than I am say that the probability is probably at least 50-50. Whoa! That we are in a simulation.

SPEAKER_02 3:42

Do you are we like plugged in? Are we like sacks of meat plugged in, or are we ourselves programs?

SPEAKER_01 3:49

Yeah, so the the thinking is that what we have essentially is you know, billions of algorithms running that are generating qualitative experiences that are being viewed by someone or something else.

SPEAKER_02 4:06

If if we are living in a simulation, do you want to do you want to know? Yes. I don't. I don't want to know. My ignorance is bliss.

SPEAKER_01 4:17

Yeah, I would want to know. I think it's I think it's a fascinating idea for for a couple different reasons. Um one is that uh it makes a lot more sense than any other theory I've ever heard. It makes a lot more sense that it's a game. And just looking at some of the problems that we face over and over again, a simple one, low-hanging fruit, war. We're always at war, somebody is always at war with somebody since the beginning of time, right? Someone's always beaten up on somebody else. And it's frustrating. It's like, why? You know, really? We're still doing this that we can't figure out a better way to do it that doesn't result in such breakage and bedlam and mayhem. And but then if you think about these games, and again, I don't play them. I don't know if you do, these shoot-em-up games like uh, you know, the war games and the murder game, whatever those games are, you know what I'm talking about? Uh murder games, got it. The murder games, you know, where that's the point of the thing is to be killing people all the time. Like that's the game. And then if I thought that this was part of what the design is, that this part of the simulation is that that has to happen, well, that just makes a lot more sense to me than any kind of religious explanation. Because why would a benevolent God continue to allow this to happen? And we get the point, right? Like the point has been demonstrated, so why do we have to keep making these same mistakes? Why can't we solve like simple problems? Why can't we do it? We just live with these problems, they never get better, and we just keep kind of noodling around the edges, but they never get better. But if that's the point of the thing, well, that just makes me feel a lot better.

SPEAKER_02 6:10

What is the end goal of the simulation? Just entertainment for something else? Well, that's there's no way of knowing. Right.

SPEAKER_01 6:19

Well, let's hypothesize a little bit. Like, what would it be? I'm assuming that there's someone is deriving value. Well, I have a couple of thoughts. One is that it was designed as an experiment, and there might be a billion experiments running at the same time. It's just a hardware question, right? So it there this could just be one experiment. Um, it could have been designed to create these experiences that we all have that are then viewed by someone else, like we view characters or a sim character in a game. Could just be for entertainment, could be a scientific experiment. I've even allowed to the fact that it could have been designed for any of those reasons, and then just it's running in the back of somebody's workshop, like in a dusty, like burnt out part of town. And somebody is just running and just it was forgotten about.

SPEAKER_02 7:16

That's sad. That seems like I think it's great. What? Then we're in some we're in the back of someone's shed on some old computer that is probably gonna it's gonna stop working any day now, and we're just a we're just a simulation run. That's great. That's like some sad black mirror stuff. Like I can't.

SPEAKER_01 7:33

No, it's not sad at all. See, here's why I like it. So if if if if I believe in a benevolent God, then nothing makes sense to me. It's like, why would God allow this? Why would God do bad things to good people? Why would God allow children to suffer? All those questions, right? Those classic questions that people raise whenever they're you know questioning the existence of God. All that goes away. There's no dissonance. You don't have to rationalize that. Also, this frustration that a lot of people feel about humanity and what's wrong with people, and why don't people, why aren't they nicer to people, and why do we always have to be selfish and greedy? And why is there violence, all this stuff? Oh, that's in the that's the design of the game. Just like the shoot 'em up game. Like no one's gonna play it if everybody just kind of like shakes hands and plays cards. So I don't know. It takes all the, it takes all my dissatisfaction away. And it's like, oh, this is just how it is. The last and really only person I discussed is what they say. Well, that's just the same as religion saying it's all part of a plan. I said, not for me. Because because it with the religion, you have to constantly deal with the dissonance of why is this part of what kind of plan it this doesn't sound like a good plan if it's a plan. But if it's uh a computer simulation, well then it's none of it's real anyway.

SPEAKER_02 8:56

I mean, it's real for us. It is real for us. And here's my problem with this. Like, I you know, I'm not saying that I dis disagree, but this freedom, like, let's say, all right, I this is what it is, and now blah, it's being shared with me. This freedom, I feel like in the hands of other people, would make my particular simulation crappy, meaning that they well, if we're if we're just a computer simulation, then nothing matters. There's no morals. I'll do what I want. Uh, I don't know that I want somebody like that running through my, you know, Super Mario Brother world.

SPEAKER_01 9:32

Well, yeah, I understand that argument. It's an argument that's been made to me before in other contexts, particularly when I've discussed with people the purpose of religion, and they say, well, without religion, then there would be no moral code, and people would just do whatever they want. So my response to that is, well, we're still all in this together, and we still have, from whatever the source is, we have our basic humanity, and most people are pretty good humans when it comes right down to it. There's not that many, there's all, I mean, there's bad people out there, and there's evil in the world. I'm not denying that, but most people that you meet and hang out with, they're pretty good and their motives are decent. And I don't think we would lose that if this became if we became aware it was a simulation. But the other thing is that whatever it is, the best thing we can do is just live it, right? Yeah. Even if it's all, you know, somebody's design, because that's kind of all we have anyway. All we have is our experiences and how what we make of them. And I don't think really a lot of people are gonna go suddenly start murdering everyone. It's not gonna become like the purge or whatever that show was, where people one night a year go out and kill everybody or whatever that premise was. Yep. So um, but yeah, I think that's a good thought. I mean, it's like, what would people do with that knowledge? Um, and then how would they behave? I kind of feel like fundamentally people are good, and so they they wouldn't run amok, but a few would, yeah. A few would be like, what difference does it make? But you still have the same consequences. So if somebody says, I'm gonna go out and go crazy and do whatever I want, they're still gonna deal with the same consequences that anyone would deal with when they go out and do whatever they want. It doesn't really change.

SPEAKER_02 11:16

Let's say that you today, right after the after this recording, heck, maybe even during the recording, got confirmation somehow that you are indeed in a simulation. Would your day-to-day change?

SPEAKER_01 11:29

No. Except I would feel better, I would stop stressing out over all the problems that we face in the world and all the evil and cruel things and violence. I would stop worrying about it. It's like, okay. I don't like it, but I now don't feel like this is something that we can or need to change. It's part of it. It's all part of it. It's just part of it. There's no God that's looking out for us. We're running on a like an old machine in the back of a garage somewhere underneath an oily tarp, and there's lawnmower smell. And, you know, nobody's watching. Maybe somebody's watching, but maybe we just got forgotten. Either way, I don't have any more stress about it anymore. It's just like, oh, okay. I feel I think I'd feel a lot better. I'd live my life. I'd still hang out with my friends, I would still try to find a girlfriend. Here's another thing I thought was cool because I was thinking about, oh, you know who this really would help? It helps people, you know, people are always wondering why do why are we so into conspiracy theories? Why do so many people find it so easy to believe that there's somebody like pulling the strings behind the scenes and that there's plots and schemes against us? Well, maybe that's kind of part of our programming because we're simulations, we're an algorithm. We kind of like have this vague awareness that maybe there's something going on here because there is something going on. It's the ultimate conspiracy. We are being manipulated. Nothing is factual, nothing is true. It is all fake news after all. I think those people would love that.

SPEAKER_02 13:16

So, you know what? And if you watched the movie The Matrix, in one of the movies, in one of the movies, and it is Matrix 2, they also mentioned that this is this explains all kinds of things. Not even conspiracy, but ghosts, bigfoot, like random aliens, all the things. It doesn't exist. It's just it's just something that got messed up, or you know, or you know, a glitch or a random rogue program or something like that.

SPEAKER_01 13:43

Well, I remember so I used to play certain games with my kids. We never did the shoot-em-up ones, but we did, um, I can't remember what they were called. I think they were sim-related, and one was like a farm. One was like you had built your own carnival or amusement park, and you had variables you could play with. But I remember the one about the farm or whatever it was, like you would make certain changes and then random events would occur. And I remember just this one thing would like you'd get these little notes and that about a development, and I remember this one that said, the cows have mutated to fly. And I just thought, like, yeah, so weird stuff can happen, you know. Like, you know, things, things there can be glitches or they can just be strange, like random variables within the program where things happen that maybe no one intended.

SPEAKER_02 14:35

So this is why I wouldn't want to know, right? Because if I didn't if I did know, I would I would think that things that I feel like should matter would automatically stop mattering. And then I would, you know, well name one thing. Name one thing that would stop mattering to you. I mean family. You know, if if if if we're in if we're in a simulation, they don't exist, man. I'm gonna do something else. I'm gonna start flying around the world.

SPEAKER_00 15:10

You get rid of your you'd say, oh sorry.

SPEAKER_01 15:13

I'm done. Done. Sorry, daughter, sorry, wife, sorry, mom. I I gotta go. You get it. You know what?

SPEAKER_02 15:20

I'm not gonna pay these bills anymore. I'm out.

SPEAKER_01 15:24

You are so that's why. Oh, I should have figured this. That's why you were asking me the question. What happens? What happens to people's moral fiber? Because you yourself would let go of the you'd let go of the wheel, wouldn't you?

SPEAKER_02 15:37

Yeah, yeah. And I would, I would let Neo take the wheel, so to speak. Like I would just go do I would do I would do it all. Like, and I don't care. Like it's a simulation, right? So I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 15:48

This is a this is good to know. I this this kind of honesty is exactly what I was looking for. Let me let me run one more of these uh theories by you. So I've been reading a lot about this, and I've been reading about virtual reality, which I still haven't tried yet, although I did just reserve a VR machine. What I when I was reading about virtual reality, I stumbled across um the whole simulated sex world in VR. Yeah, all right. Okay, have you ever tried that?

SPEAKER_02 16:20

No, here's why. I I bought this is a huge fear. I bought uh an Oculus for the family, right? Oh, okay. Yeah, and I don't know what you've reserved, but that's the one that I got. And uh it's mainly used uh by my daughter who plays uh beat saber and she climbs mountains and goes on the moon and runs from dinosaurs or whatever.

SPEAKER_03 16:43

Right.

SPEAKER_02 16:44

So, you know what? So I'm like, you know what? I'm gonna put this on and explore the internet, but then my biggest fear is that I won't completely close something or delete something or whatever. And then my wife's like, oh, I want to put something on, and then she puts this headset on, and it's like, wow. Um, that's why I haven't done it. Like if I I would have to have my own VR machine just for me.

SPEAKER_01 17:06

Yeah, yeah. Well, my thinking is kind of related to that, and in that is, I think that virtual reality will be the end of our species. And I'll explain my thinking. Wow. Okay. So the virtual reality that they're already able to do and that they're thinking about in the very near future will be able to access. You know, you can create all kinds of interesting experiences. And um, I I know you read the book or books or book, I don't know if it's just one book, the Ready Player One. Was that a book or where there's a series? I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 17:40

It's a second book called Ready Player Two, but yep.

SPEAKER_01 17:42

Okay. And but I did watch the movie, which may or may not have been a good representation. You thought it was a bad representation.

SPEAKER_02 17:48

Oh, it really was a bad one. It was a point. Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_01 17:50

Well that's good.

SPEAKER_02 17:51

The book is great. You should read the book. The book is great.

SPEAKER_01 17:54

But the idea that I took away from the movie is like we're all a lot of people are living in this dystopian environment in their little cubes, and their real experiences are online. That's where they get their VR experiences are much more fulfilling than their real life. They, you know, inhabit characters that are much more thrilling and their adventures are more thrilling, and they meet people that they hang out with. And I see this all coming down the pike for all of us. Like we'll be able to eventually afford to access this technology. And much like people spend tons of time with other algorithms like TikTok or anything else they can do online, right? They'll be spending time in a VR world, uh, in you know, a VR space, and they'll be interacting with a lot of real people and also um some, you know, uh uh artifacts of the program. And that will become more fulfilling. But the reason I think it'll be so, I think a lot of people will just stop interacting because it's especially with the pandemic, this whole idea of like the cost of going and being around people seems high. And you know, people have fears and they have risks already, you know, they they perceive there are risks, there are people that are introverted, there are all kinds of things going on that kind of keep people from interacting already. And this will be like, hey, I can live in this world. This is where I get my validation. But the reason, so part one is it just reduces the amount of human contact, real human contact. You may be, I may be interacting with you virtually in a virtual space, but we aren't actually together. But the thing that I read that said, oh, this is the end of our species, is the VR sex stuff. I didn't even know about this.

SPEAKER_02 19:36

Maybe I don't know what VR, you know, the sex stuff is. Like I'm thinking like VR porn, where you are basically in a movie and you can like look around and see stuff, but there's no like physical sensation or anything. Oh, no, you're wrong, sir.

SPEAKER_01 19:51

So let me just pick out one that you can play with on your Oculus. So it's called Virtua Dolls. So it's bundled with a video game called Girls of Arcadia, in which users carry out missions to rescue girls. This I'm reading a quote off the internet, and are rewarded by the end of the missions and having sex with them. Now, you along with this, you buy a mechanized gripper for that provides, quote, intelligent stroke movement, unquote. Love it. It allows for the Virtua dolls controller to sync up the sensation to the action. It's an immersive experience. So I'm thinking once people get there, and they're and some of these programs allow you to like to put together a 3D partner in whatever shape, size, look that you want. Um and you know, people get uh get attached to their um to their Alexa as it is, this I think people are gonna create basically the sexual physical world that they want virtually, and they'll just stop dealing with real people. And then there ain't gonna be no more babies.

SPEAKER_02 21:20

I was trying to figure out that. I was trying to figure out, I was like, well, that's a pretty big leap. Like, how do we get from VR to the end of civilization? Ah, I got it. No one's having babies. I feel like there's first of all, it's gonna plateau, right? And then, you know, there's gonna be like a yeah, but I don't think that you know, because we got a lot of people on this world and we have a limited amount of resources. So, you know, we're gonna get to a good place, and then I think they'll figure out something. Like, hey, by the way, we need to make babies. I don't know, I don't think it's gonna stop. Like, I don't think that we'll stop. I think that uh they'll come up with some way, something.

SPEAKER_01 22:00

Yeah. Well, you know, maybe, maybe the pendulum will swing back. You know, maybe it'll be it'll become in again to be with real people. But I mean, I gotta believe that the the chemical experience of being in this thrilling world where you can create your own storyline and you can be a hero and you can be important and you can find the love of your life or the loves of your lives or the sexual encounter of your lives. Um man, I just think a lot of people would get addicted to that, just like they get addicted to playing video games, you know, where you have kids playing, you know, 24-7 and uh with square eyeballs, zombies walking in their house, you know, they just stop being in the world. That's what happens to those kids, and that's just like a game. People are deeply into it, and I think it's we're we're closer to people just kind of deciding, you know, real life isn't that great, and it's hard and it's stressful, and if I can just stay in my little cube and have all these great experiences every day, and I can change it up every day, that they're gonna vote for that.

SPEAKER_02 23:12

Huh.

SPEAKER_01 23:13

So it's a little it's a little startling.

SPEAKER_02 23:16

All right. Well, let's get a little meta. So we're in a simulation, and this simulation is so crappy that we're gonna go into another simulation to avoid all the crapness in this. Well, it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter, so why not go into another simulation?

SPEAKER_01 23:31

There you go. That would be one way to look at it. Take your hands off the wheel and just put your oculus on and tell your family to beat it. I'm sitting in the oculus closet. Leave me alone. Get the hell away from me. So, um, and I think I I I would come to visit you, Rob, and I'd bring you a candy bar. So I thought this theory would appeal to you because you're a big you, I mean, you're a big time game guy.

SPEAKER_02 24:00

I'm a big time board game guy, but I mean I do play some video games and stuff of that nature. But do you do any of the uh DD?

SPEAKER_01 24:10

I do do some of the uh DD. And you know, role-playing games, uh Magic the Gathering?

SPEAKER_02 24:17

Uh yep, I do all of those things. Uh I have a you know, I cut my teeth pretty early with some uh Dungeons and Dragons and Magic the Gathering. You know, as an adult, I play a lot of board games, and those are addicting to buy. So, yes, it is a type of you know, because I sometimes I'll drive around, I'll think about, you know, why do I do these things? It is a bit of escapism, a little bit, especially for role-playing games. It's it's like VR but with dice.

SPEAKER_01 24:45

Yeah, so I was around uh I was around before they had skin. No, I was around when uh D first started being a thing in the 70s. And I remember I was in college and there were a couple of guys on my uh dorm hall, the floor that I lived on, who were like, hey, we're playing DD. You want to join us? And they looked exactly what you would expect DD guys to look like in the 70s. And they asked you to they asked you to join them. Yeah, so I remember sitting in and watching, and I just remember it seemed pretty arbitrary, and there's like a dungeon master. Well, I don't know what they're called. What are they called? They're called a dungeon master or a game master. Game master, and I just remember the big die, uh, the multi-sided whatever it is, and that they would roll it, and then the they would say, Oh, your troll just lost an arm in a fight or something. And and I was just like, Well, who says he did? Like, how do you know that? So I just felt like I don't know, this seems kind of arbitrary. And the people over the years have said, Oh, Ross, you're exactly the kind of person that would like to play a role-playing game. I don't think I am, actually.

SPEAKER_02 26:03

I don't think you are either. I don't I can't see you playing it just for that reason, right? So it's not so arbitrary because a lot of the role-playing games, they have a system in in play there. So as you're playing, there's rules, you're rolling dice, there's percentages, there's a lot of math, right? But uh, you know, and then at one point you roll something, and then the game master is the one that kind of interprets uh the tea leaves, if you will. Like, you know, they'll say, All right, well, you've rolled this, you didn't get it. This is how it plays out. So they paint this story together. You wouldn't like that part. You're like, wait a minute, why did that have to happen? Why couldn't it happen this time? You know, and they're like, all right, Ross, I'm the game master. Well, who says? Like, I want to be the game master. Well, actually, Ross, you don't know the rules. I don't I don't there are no rules.

SPEAKER_01 26:50

It's a simulation. We can do whatever we want. I I think maybe I would like being the game master. I think I might enjoy that. And then everybody's troll would be losing arms right and left. It would just happen.

SPEAKER_02 27:04

You would love it, but you would have to, but your players would want you to be in the the rule set, right? You're and you're like, you know what, today we're uh we're not gonna play, we're not gonna play in the rule set. Everybody's gonna get up from the table. Like, ah, I'm out of this.

SPEAKER_01 27:16

Everybody has a hamster head. Okay, let's no, they I know people would be frustrated, but that I could see doing that. But I just so I when I watched this way back when I remember thinking, yeah, I love making things up. I love the idea of you know, just these um fan fantastic worlds that are created, you know, it's kind of cool. The character stuff I think is cool, but I don't there's something about the structure that kind of triggers me in a weird way.

SPEAKER_02 27:49

So my uh my daughter, who's 11 now, um, she recently came to me and said, and I do care about her, I don't live in a simulation, and she recently came to me and says, like, Dad, I want to try uh Dungeons and Dragons. And so I started being a game master for my own daughter playing Dungeons and Dragons Proud Papa.

SPEAKER_01 28:12

Yeah, yeah, no, that's great. That gives you all kinds of control.

SPEAKER_02 28:17

I know. Well, I'm sorry, your character didn't do the dishes, so so there goes your arm.

SPEAKER_01 28:24

There goes your arm, there goes your dish arm. Yep. Um, so I was reading about how D D is now considered cool, which I don't I still am not convinced of that, but you know, uh apparently Tiffany Haddish is playing. Anderson Cooper is playing again. Does that make it cool? And I'm not sure what cool means anymore. Stephen Colbert says it's hip to be a nerd. Is that true? Has that really happened?

SPEAKER_02 28:54

Uh yeah. No, I mean, I mean, I'm it's we're we've always been cool, Ross. It's just now the the public is starting to get wind of it. Vin Diesel plays some Dungeons and Dragons. Yeah, you can't get any cooler than Vin Diesel.

SPEAKER_01 29:07

I see. I wouldn't put him in the cool category. Say what now? I would put Steve Buscemi in the cool category before I put Vin Diesel in the cool category.

SPEAKER_02 29:16

But that's because you're an older gentleman.

unknown 29:20

What?

SPEAKER_01 29:20

Vin Diesel's the fast and the furious guy. Come on. Like he's How old is he? He's got to be in his 40s by now. Oh, he might be at least. Yeah, I don't know how old he is. Everybody's older than you think. When I think about games, board games in particular, we're not talking about video games. We're talking about board games because that's your jam. Yeah. So I think there are people who like complex games that are hard to learn. Like they have lots of rules, they have lots of structure. You can't just sit down and play. You're not going to just wheel this out at 9:30 on a Thursday evening and say, hey, let's try this new game and then go to bed by 11. Then the last category is simple games that are simple to learn, the kind that you can pull out with a mixed group. Like ticket to ride is one that you taught, uh brought to me that I thought was a lot of fun. Simple to learn, not complicated. Um, anybody can play. You don't have to be, you know, you don't you don't have to have a uh a list of rules that you're constantly referring to. So uh, and I think most of the old timey board games were like that. They were designed so that anybody, almost any age, anybody could sit down and play.

SPEAKER_02 30:35

It's funny, I gotta say, going into this, I'm like, okay, so someone who's not a heavy gamer has broken up the classes of people that play games. Like I already went in kind of skeptical with these categories. What I'm not, but I'm the game, I'm the master, I'm the podcaster.

SPEAKER_01 30:52

Game master, right? Right. I would the dice and you lost a freaking arm.

SPEAKER_02 30:56

Oh, it's my arm, my my dish, my dish arm. All right.

SPEAKER_00 31:00

I would say what you're saying there for a minute.

SPEAKER_01 31:03

It's my it's my D arm. You have a mechanic mechanized gripper over there right now. I it'd be great.

SPEAKER_02 31:10

It'd be great. Uh I mean, you know, I I would have to read some like Amazon reviews, but if they if it was good, I might get. Uh, I would have to say uh that I would be the like complicated games. And uh I enjoy complicated games that are complicated.

SPEAKER_01 31:28

I don't know if you still do this, but in the past, you would get a group of like-minded people and you would go off into the wilderness to a cabin somewhere that had like no running water, no electricity, no indoor plumbing, and you would play for like three or four days straight with no sleep.

SPEAKER_02 31:49

Yep, I still do that. I still do it multiple times a year.

SPEAKER_01 31:53

And if you're willing to commit that kind of time, then you can afford to play some pretty complicated games.

SPEAKER_02 31:59

Yeah, yeah. Like we there's a game that uh it takes an entire day to play, right? But there's other kind of games too. There's narrative games. Now, I guess this would fall into your uh easy to learn, but there's not a lot of rules. It's just you sit down and together you narratively play the game. Like there's I like that.

SPEAKER_01 32:18

I like the time to that.

SPEAKER_02 32:20

You would like stuff like that. Um, there's also uh a category of game. I'm just gonna throw this at you real fast. It was kind of a tangent, but it's called a legacy game. This is my favorite type of game at the moment, which is as you play the game, the game changes permanently. You're tearing stuff up, you're putting stickers on the board, the rules are changing. So like not only is the other rules complicated, they're also constantly changing as you play the game. Like, that is my favorite.

SPEAKER_01 32:50

Okay, yeah, that's cool. I like the sound of that. Now I've read that doing the complex games, especially the ones that you you get involved in, really does help with your creativity. And uh it there's a nice uh uh brain chemical situation where you get uh bathed in nice brain chemicals when you play the games. It has a psychological benefit or benefits.

SPEAKER_02 33:14

So I agree. I'm not gonna tell you the exact minute that this, like whatever, whatever uh kicks off those chemicals in my brain, the exact minute it happens as I'm playing a board game. If uh in my podcast, Blue Peg, Pink Peg, uh, I talk about this all the time. I love the reveal. And what the reveal is, it's it comes in a lot of different shapes and forms, but as the game is laid out onto the board and all the pieces are put into uh play, I like that reveal that my brain immediately goes into I have to solve this puzzle. Same kind of thing of even like in a simple card game. You're playing a trick-taking game, the reveal of the card being played, and then all the possibilities lay out in front of me, and I'm trying to figure out percentages, and the best way to do that, I that I get off on that. Like that is just something that I really enjoy. It's the reveal. Uh so you do have this podcast, it's called what?

SPEAKER_01 34:12

Blue peg, pink peg, like the little pegs in the game of life. How many board games would you say are in your possession right now? Just rough estimate.

SPEAKER_02 34:24

Um I'm gonna say five hundred, uh five to seven hundred.

SPEAKER_01 34:30

Oh my gosh. And where do you keep all these board games? Oh, that's why you want to get rid of the family. You need more space.

SPEAKER_02 34:39

More space. I've hit my capacity. So uh as uh a podcast that's been around for 10 years, we get a lot of games sent to us. It's like Christmas every week. We get home, there's boxes outside. So, but I'm at a port part now that I have no more room. So if I keep a game, I'm giving a game away to someone on the podcast. Like, so we I've hit the limit. So I've got some custom-made shelves in uh my office, our kitchen table is sort of a uh a prepping area for stuff that we have to play or stuff we're shipping out or whatever. There's some stuff down in my studio, but other than that, I can't I can't keep any more games. Like we're we're at our max.

SPEAKER_01 35:21

You are the Amil Demarcos of board games. So how now the next question is how many board games would you say you have played? Thousands. Wow. Thousands, yeah. Wow.

SPEAKER_02 35:38

I recently played this game that I think ties in to the the overall kind of theme of this episode. And I wanted to talk about it, right? So there's a game out there called King's Dilemma. And in this game, it's uh it's one of those games, it's a legacy game, right? So in this game, you're basically uh counselors to a king of a particular era. And it takes place, it takes place over I I don't know, 30 years or until one king dies. But during this time, as you and and you all have every player has their own agenda. So what you're doing is you're voting and you're going up tracks and you have different types of influence, whether it's be in the church or economic or with the people or military or whatever. And the the points while you're playing the game, you don't know how to win the game in the long run because this game is played over many, many sessions. So that's the that's the step, and so how it works is in the game, you're playing, you're making decisions, you're opening up envelopes that draw uh drop more uh mechanics into the game, more cards into the game, more things that happen into the game. So we're playing it, we were halfway through the game, and we got to this one king that at one point went insane. And what he said, and what he said was we're all just pawns in the game right now. This whole kingdom is on a table and people are playing us right now, and then the the land ended up killing him because he was clearly insane. But I loved that meta, like I loved like the game was referencing us playing it, and I thought it, you know, I thought that was amazing.

SPEAKER_01 37:11

So, was that the thought of a person playing that character in the game, or was it built into the game somehow? It was built into the game. Now, my question to you is I'm playing this game, King's Dilemma, which sounds really fun. All right, and I present the king a mechanized gripper.

SPEAKER_02 37:31

It's not that freeform, there is no mechanized gripper. Uh, you know what? I'm gonna, you know, I I definitely want a mechanized gripper.

SPEAKER_01 37:38

Like I just to see, just to see. Put it in your Oculus closet and you know, just put a sign on the door or a sock on the doorknob. I think that still works. Um, so so this is fantastic, and um uh people should check out your podcast. I know you have many followers and listeners and so forth, but um, people who are interested should check it out. Uh this guy, Rob, actually knows exactly what he's talking about. He is the business, but my question is how did you get here to be a game game expert?

SPEAKER_02 38:13

I enjoyed doing it. It there was a little bit of escapism. My childhood wasn't the best, and this was a way that I could hang out with friends and have laughs and and experience, you know, especially with the Dungeons and Dragons, experience something that I wasn't doing in my normal life. Yeah. You know, one of the ways that that what our podcast does is we also uh our listeners are it's it's almost like a we've met tons of friends that we've we've made tons of friends through the podcast, and we have some die hard fans. We'll go to conventions and people are wearing our shirts and you know they just want to hang out and and have uh an adult beverage and and play a board game. And like our fan base, they're amazing, and they're just really tight, and they go and do conventions um you know together. You know, it's just it's great, it's great.

SPEAKER_01 39:05

That's awesome. I think it's really excellent. Years ago, when Rob was just starting to ramp up as a gamer, he uh we used to live in the same place, and so he said, I'm I'm I'll come over uh and bring a game that I think is fun to play and that you will like. And so I I was married at the time, he brought his wife, we had dinner, and I made uh probably knowing me, I probably made a bunch of sidecars, which is an alcoholic drink. Oh god, I loved your sidecars. We used to, yeah, that we used to be a thing for uh for a second. We used to do that a little bit, and so I was probably overserved. And we it got time, we finished dinner. I remember there was some cake or something for dessert. It was chocolate cake, Ross. It was chocolate cake. Yeah, see, I knew you'd have a good memory of this. And I just remember we started playing, and my instinct is always to when people start telling me rules, I start thinking of how to break the rules. Why do we have to do this? What else can we do? At some point in the middle of this, somehow I spread cake on things, on the cards, the game, and I just my memory is pretty dim at this point, but I just remember you kind of saying, All right, that's it. Like, did anybody have per quacky? We'll just do that and just call it a night. Give me a sidecar, I'm done with this guy.

SPEAKER_02 40:30

So um, and I don't I don't think that I brought like uh a big game because some of these games are pricey, um, but gamers are very protective of their game. Like the whole industry of sleeving your cards is huge. Like so sleeving your cards. Sleeving, yeah, putting your cards in a sleeve to get those nasty fingerprints off your cards. Is it like a gripper? Yeah, it's exactly like a gripper, but for your cards.

SPEAKER_01 40:58

Okay, just I'm trying to make it real for me.

SPEAKER_02 41:01

So if if you would have done that to anyone else's game, friendship over. Like it was an accident. No, it was not. It was not so yeah.

SPEAKER_01 41:14

So after that, we we you never tried to um bring a game to my house or include me. I was never invited to the cabin. I was never part of the cabin club. I I even think uh I said to you once, it's like, even if I were to come, you would not be happy.

SPEAKER_02 41:31

I don't think you would enjoy it.

SPEAKER_01 41:32

I think that you would chocolate cake everything and I would have my own kind of fun, which isn't always what everybody else wants. You know, there'd be banging on the house.

SPEAKER_02 41:41

There would, you don't bang on the house. He'll come to your house and bang on it.

SPEAKER_01 41:46

So thanks for joining me, Rob. I appreciate it.

SPEAKER_02 41:49

I'm gonna be thinking about that gripper. Like I'm gonna have to report next time I come on, I'm just gonna talk about the gripper.

SPEAKER_01 41:55

They'll figure out a way to make this kind of available for everybody somehow. Yeah. And it's gonna work, and it's gonna work. And I think it's gonna take people off the streets, and uh, we're gonna see uh, you know, you'll go you'll go out to your convention instead of like 5,000 people milling around, there'll be like four guys because everybody else is in the Oculus closet and there's a sock on the uh doorknob. So um, I hope that uh people will help us out by sharing the show. You can follow us on Instagram, uh, you can rate the show, that helps us. You can support us on Patreon, you can send us encouraging emails, you can ask questions, we'd love to hear from you. And we do respond. And we hope you will tune in to another episode because whether you are just an algorithm running endlessly in a simulation, or maybe a mad king missing an arm, but also using a mechanized gripper, it's important to remember that we all smell like humans. Goodbye, everybody.