How Dan Olson (Folding Ideas) hunts internet grifts
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- Опубліковано 6 тра 2023
- #DanOlson #FoldingIdeas #BetaKit #nft #metaverse #FixC11 #youtuber
"We have industrialized grift in a way that is kind of unprecedented in human history."
Canadian UA-camr Dan Olson (@FoldingIdeas) explains his battle against internet grifts, how his career changed after a viral video on NFTs, why Bill C-11 is a "legislative mess" and the future is a dead mall.
Sponsored by Goodlawyer, your one-stop-shop for all your corporate, commercial, and IP legal needs: bit.ly/3AXHOin
Recorded live at @startwell Studios, Toronto's best location for corporate meetings, events, and media production: startwell.co/
Folding Ideas videos clipped in this episode:
Line Goes Up - The Problem With NFTs - • Line Goes Up - The Pro...
In Search Of A Flat Earth - • In Search Of A Flat Earth
Contrepreneurs: The Mikkelsen Twins - • Contrepreneurs: The Mi... - Наука та технологія
Hi everyone,
Firstly, it's very obvious that many of you are here as Dan Olson fans, and we wanted to thank you for being so polite and thoughtful in the comments. It is very cool seeing you share your favourite Folding Ideas videos!
Secondly, it is highly unlikely that we'll be able to interview Dan Olson *every week* so we hope you stick around more conversations about Canadian tech and tech from a Canadian perspective (next video: does the Canadian government have an innovation policy?).
To help bridge the gap, we'd love for you to suggest guests or topics you'd love to see on the podcast as a reply to this comment. The constructive criticism has been amazing so far and we want to book more conversations you want to see.
Thank you!
Okay, I'll bite. :)
Compared to other countries, does Canada's tech infrastructure and tech culture make it better or worse off when it comes to implementing UBI?
@@joshhakey7705 asking in good faith, is there anywhere to find information about these allegations? Like is this substantiated anywhere?
@@kindadumbkindastrong4429 yeah, or even just elaborated on. I did a web search and found something talking about some sort of controversy on 8chan at some point, which... maybe is related?? but "Dan helped hide sexual abuse done by one of his colleagues" doesn't really fit with what I read, so I'm not sure. Anyway, would definitely like to know about any allegations that may exist, because I like to withdraw support from folks who have even remotely plausible allegations... but I'd need more to go on than this, I think. Josh, can you say more?
Also, @@joshhakey7705, I will just say that given what he's saying (granted, about something else) at 45:49, it would be.... a bit ironic for this to be the case. (Which I _do _*_not_* take as an indication that it's untrue, mind you. Just pointing it out, and noting that I could easily see reasons to motivate a false flag (I'm probably not quite using that term correctly, but hopefully you get my drift) attack here, so... hence wanting at least a little bit more here.
@@DavidLindes second question who are dan's colleagues ? like did an editor of his chanel do something ? i'm confused.
I love that dan thinks Line Goes Up was "a big hit" and not "a Peabody worthy cultural phenomenon that single handedly destroyed NFTs in popular conversation and caused a series of crypto crashes".
The crash would have happened anyway, but yeah, "a big hit" is an undersell.
I sent it to my crypto-bro brother-in-law and it made him stop pressuring everyone to “invest”, so if Dan ever needs a kidney or something I owe the guy. 👍
Reminds me of an anecdote Ben Stiller has about how Gene Hackman did a movie he liked and it got him into film making, and when he told Hackman that Hackman's only response was the movie was a good paycheck.
It's not entirely off base! Since irrational hype is literally the only thing NFTs ever had going on for them, something that changes public perception of NFTs is going to have a measurable effect!
@@midimusicforever yeah if dan didn't do it dan with a hat would have. he's truly the Gavrilo Princip of our generation.
As some native kid who has been handed down a continent's centuries of grief, hearing "we need someone to remember that there was a place named Tuvalu. That people lived, grew up on, loved, and left" fucking broke some floodgates.
That line didn't just hit, it fired for effect with a whole battery of feelings. Holy shit. The sadness that it brought...
... and then turned to anger and frustration to hear that some crypto-grifters perverted that into trying to hype their stupid worthless piece of shit 'metaverse'. Nothing is sacred to those ghouls.
I wish nothing but the best for you and your loved ones from back home.
It's not as extreme as the one that happened to your home, but I lived very close to another flood related disaster: Hurricane Katrina in 2005. I was a kid and we lived 20 miles from New Orleans.
I am very grateful we did not live in the city, as the amount of strife, trauma, and pain that people and their families had to endure was extremely upsetting to even just witness it before my eyes.
And then of course the media has to come and spin that tragedy as feel-good story -.-
"We've indirectly destroyed this culture, but it's okay because now there's a VR experience! We don't have to change anything at all"
Exactly! It's a memorial service, and therefore not something that should be receiving tech hype spin
"In search of a flat earth" literally changed my life. I knew the earth is round. That was never in question, but when it shifted to Qanon and MAGA, I was floored. I am STILL trying to recover. I watch that video at least once every 3 months. Its THAT good.
That twist, with the song that cuts in, floored me at the time. It's so good.
It was very awakening for me. As someone who has been on 4chan for like 6 years since I was a teen (Haven't gone on there since like 2015) - I knew these ideas were around - I knew there were basket cases on there that went on and on discussing and proselytizing it (this was when /pol/ was a very recent addition to the site).
I generally treated that board as radioactive - def on the short list of no-go boards for me. So that isolated me from its growth and amplification - and then I stopped using the site after losing interest.
Then BAM, seeing it again after that chapter change in Dan's videos and seeing that it had grown up into a giant monstrous phenomenon and that it had burst into real life in an extremely alarming fashion.
Imagine that someone makes a video about flat earth, about how the misinformation spreads through an insular supportive community, and then at the end of the video starts to talk about the myth of many genders and how the disinformation about the nonexistence of bimodal sex is spread by the insular LGBT community through cult-like positive reinforcement and rejection of outsiders.
I think it's a bit childish. To tackle an issue, then turn around and say "...and you know who ELSE is wrong? My political enemies!"
what always amazes me is that he made that vid pre jan 6th, it was like he got his script from the future lmao
as good as “Line goes up” is, I’m always a little disappointed to see it sitting at like 12M views while “In Search of a Flat Earth” is at 3M. everyone should see it at least once.
My favorite character arc of a UA-cam content creator in the history of the website will always be Dan Olson going from "here is why bad editing causes problems for [X Large Budget Movie]" to "Each and every man under my command owes me one hundred grifter scalps. And I want my scalps."
hero rising arc
The seminar scams are rough too, all three of us siblings saw our mum run into a dropshipping scaminar and beg her not to do it, show her its a scam, and she just thought we were shooting down her dream. They had one testimonial and she kept bringing it up whenever we criticised it. It was actually soul crushing.
How did that turn out in the end, can you give a follow up? I hope it eventually righted itself...
Love the "I was going to be in some documentaries about NFTs, but then they fell apart because the NFT market was crashing now" ignoring the fact that he was a big part of finally popping the bubble.
Ah, the "if the damned kid hadn't said anything, we'd have been just fine with a naked Emperor" argument. I hope you're being sarcastic, but if not, a market for what is essentially digital cartoon cels is an absurdity.
@@miskwaad I don't think that's sarcastic, but I don't think its in support of NFTs. His point sounds to me like "Dan doesn't even realise how good his video is."
I think the first Dan Olsen video that really hit me was "The Art of Storytelling and the Book of Henry". That was a fantastic and funny look at a very strange movie, and I really enjoy how he applies that level of analysis and thoughtfulness to big social issues now.
That’s my favorite too.
That one and the snowman video are so good
ive watched his entire video catalogue 3-5 times and flat earth, line goes up, 50 shades, decentraland 30+ times
it’s so good
His videos are just too good. Even the super old ones with the puppet etc, everything is so rewatchable
sort of related, but I personally get similar enjoyment from Action Button, if you're more into video games. long, thoughtful, surprising essays.
We’re going to be playing whack-a-mole with conmen, techbros, techmen and conbros until the end of capitalism and maybe a bit after, but with people like Dan working hard in the research mines might help it go a little faster.
We need to find a way to scale Dan somehow. Maybe a Folding Ideasverse...
there will likely always be con men, unfortunately. there will always be people who lie, cheat, manipulate others, even for zero personal gain (for example: cheating in video game speedrunning)
^^ Feminists be like "capitalism"
@@chainswordcs sure there may well always be people lying for clout, but if a society is built where everyone’s livelihood is guaranteed (such a society has not yet been perfectly built and I don’t have answers about the logistics of building it, this is not the point) then there won’t be people cheating other people out of their livelihoods
@@mintybidness6614 what does feminism have to do with anything
Looking forward to hearing Dan's eventual 8-hour epic on the impact of AI
He was just on Adam Conover about AI.
@@colin1259 Yeah but I'd have to endure Adam Conover and that's not worth it
@@jongarzamxI’d never heard of Conover b4 watching that podcast and thought he came off pretty well. Funny and knowledgeable, had good chemistry with Dan. Would I watch his podcast if the guest wasn’t someone I wanted to hear from anyways? No, but he wasn’t annoying.
@@jongarzamx I can see someone finding Adam to be a little much but it was a good episode
@@jongarzamx It's pretty good, tbh - Adam's high energy works well with Dan's calm energy
As a watcher of Dan Olson, the video I recommend most to get Dan's flavor of personality along with his knowledge base, I recommend "The Snyder Cut Does(Not) Exist".
It talks about the process of how reshoots and editing goes into movies, what kind of conversations are had behind the scenes to get this edit, and the ramifications of creating and releasing a competing edit of the same film.
Great video, even if you don't really have any interest in DC or superhero movies.
This was the one that got me into his content to begin with, perfect introduction
it's so wild that even though based on the title you'd think 'ha! he's been proven wrong' and then you watch it and... no he's totally right
I forgot I watched one excellent vid
@@idontneedaname318 yeah, with the "Snyder cut" basically being an entirely different movie that was reshot and re-edited exclusively because people thought it existed. I went into that video being curious about that too- I had already watched several other of his videos and understood that he and I have very similar viewpoints on many things, so I was interested in watching a video where the title could be taken out of context to call him wrong, but he wasn't. Dan is probably one of the smartest content creators on the platform in his ability to systematically tear down false perceptions of media.
Dan really deserved the W of Line Goes Up. He's been consistently putting out top tier content for years.
Been watching Dan Since the days of Foldy (whom i still want to cosplay, I just need the right tie) and he's always done great work. The Gig economy, which wraps around SO much of this grift crap, is the most damaging thing for people in first world nations right now. Particularly in the US where there is effectively no social safeties.
If there is easy money to be made somebody who knows how is NOT gonna share that with you. That is the only lesson you need to know to not fall prey to grifters.
If they're sharing it, it's because they plan on making their easy money FROM you.
@@vaiytor they plan on getting money from other people by showcasing their charitable work. (Ads are an example of this, as is popularity)
There are a few, though, that have good hearts and really do provide valuable info just for free for anyone to learn.
@@nagoshi01you're right but also your comment isnt very relevant. Money doesnt grow on trees, it has to be taken from others, typically in exchange for something. So by definition, a real trick for "easy money" is a scam taking advantage of someone else
so yes, honest people want to help out others by giving away honest advice. but "easy money" cannot ever be honest advice, easy money by definition is dishonest.
I love how you let your guests talk and elaborate on their points instead of trying to constantly butt in with one liners and off color jokes. It makes the listening experience extremely pleasant and coherent while making each response actually have an effect on the conversation. Keep it up!
Thank you very much for the kind words! I do my best in these 1:1 interviews to let the interviewee speak for themselves. When you're interviewing someone you're a fan of, it's difficult to hold back the urge to 'prove' you're a fan with references and whatnot. I'm glad you thought it worked out!
*cough cough adam conover*
@@litarogers3984 100% yes
i have all of dan's series on 50 shades of gray because dan's pacing and analysis is great to listen to on long flights with no Internet, but there is something compelling about his approach and love for garbage where he rescues a lot of what may seem like dogshit to people, but being able to disassemble dogshit and make a coherent argument is such a strange and positive outlook in a website that mostly promotes lengthy negative views on things without further insight.
That's why I need him to occasionally dissect trash movies still! Or even mediocre ones. I love the insight he provides. As much as I love his debunking videos and think they're a public service, it's so rare to see good movie breakdowns that I miss his other stuff.
So I was going through the catalogue of a UA-camr who shall not be named but who's most recent video on a completely unrelated topic, ended with them shilling nfts. And I wondered if they had back tracked because said creator was famous for normally having a reasonable level of integrity when I looked it up on their other socials all I found was a screed talking about how nfts were the new satanic panic and they referenced Dan's video. The only criticism being that they thought it was too "I am very smart". But it made me think about how much line goes up genuinely influenced the space. So many references to adjacent nft stuff do just link his video because of its quality and the critiques of it I've seen in response have universally been surface level and honestly just examples of piss pour reading comprehension. That video might actually end up in the history books for its influence because it so quickly sunk the idea for those on the fence.
*piss poor
This correction has more depth and credit than any towards Dan's videos.
Which UA-camr?
It was the Blender guy, right?
I was under the impresion that the new satanic panic was the new satanic panic
My boss is an NFT bro and he insists that Line Goes Up is irrelevant now because NFTs and the crypto world have evolved so much since the video came out.
I first became aware of Dan from a Sideways video about the music in Shrek. He referenced Dan's video about Suicide Squad, particularly the bit about the soundtrack, and linked the video in the description. So I checked it out.
His Suicide Squad video taught me more about the importance of editing in film than I ever realized. I mentioned it to my mom, who used to be an editor for the news but also some local TV, and she confirmed everything Dan was talking about. I gained a new appreciation for what my mom did and for the behind-the-scenes people in general.
the suicide squad editting video was one of the first ones that really grabbed me. Then I think his video about annihilation was where I subscribed. Anyone here who hasn't seen annihilation, and his video about it, should probably go do so.
Both are great. Very instructive in the language of film and what filmmakers are trying to communicate shot by shot.
The one that made me really pay attention was "The Snyder Cut Does(Not) Exist".
I like Zack Snyder, flaws and all, but I didn't think the Snyder Cut had a snow ball's chance in hell.
@@GreaterSeraph that one continues to impress me, because at the end, he lays out the circumstances under which a Snyder cut might be produced, and he actually got very close.
I also found him through his suicide squad video and instantly subscribed. Shortly after that I watched his annihilation video, and it genuinely changed my relationship with media. I was a very impressionable teenager around that time, and I was coming across a lot of the hyper literal, watchmojo-adjacent “media analysis” content that youtube’s algorithm was pushing.
The number of NFT and crypto adds I got after watching Line Goes Up was ironic and hilarious. Great job algorithm, way to misunderstand what I was watching. I really appreciated that video because it crystallised a load of thoughts and feelings about crypto and NFTs so well. It was obvious very accurate considering the absolute death of NFTs that we have since seen.
Same thing happens to atheistic UA-camrs and weird religious propaganda ads.
My only hope is that the same logic drove people genuinely investigating to get into crypto right into Dan's video and convinced them to walk away from the scam
UA-cam's algorithm has always had a hard time distinguishing between different views on the same subject. Before i aggressively curated my youtube experience, every time i watched certain divisive people on youtube my feed would be full of videos from their haters.
@@esr1412 I mean, NFTs have basically died so....
I think Line Goes Up provides an engaging, digestible presentation of a lot of ideas that the tech and economics literate have been trying to articulate for more than a decade now.
The development of the Grift-Industrial Complex over the last decade or so has been deeply strange. Grifts becoming common knowledge used to be the extinguishing factor in old cons, forcing conmen to develop new twists or new grifts entirely before they stopped working. But now instead, every time a grift begins to pall, we have an entire army of grifters developing grifts about selling HOW TO GRIFT to would-be grifters. Just two years ago I saw someone running an internet course grift about how to sell how to grift courses to people to sell on. I don't know if people are more desperate or if access to wider networks of people has made it easier to find people you can dehumanise, but something has meant that learning of grifts has gone from a chance to do a service and be seen as a good community member has become waiting until mum says it's your turn on the grift-machine.
That's one interesting point, the Con in Confidence scam is now warped to where, you know this grift sucks and you hate it, the people who see this grift know it sucks and they hate it, and the only reward you get is the money from people more desperate than you, where as before, being a conman was almost prestigious, with enough skill, you were the miracle worker in the town and everyone loved you for taking their money (until they realized what was happening) like, even the art of conning people has been standardized, industrialized, and broken down by modern day society
Two of my favorite things. Dan is a Canadian treasure (and I LOVE that he takes time to dive deep into a subject, rather than churning out a regular thing regardless of whether it's satisfying.) We talk about long-form posts; I like long-think videos.
Doug, you're pretty good too. ;-)
The medium is the message my man. We have to have you back on now that we have video technology.
My favorite of Dan’s videos has to be the Fifty Shades trilogy, and the longer form videos he’s been making about crypto and grifters have all been phenomenal. Great job with this interview, lots of great insight and commentary here!
I do miss him dissecting movies though...
It's sort of a personal philosophy of mine that you should never have to tell someone "I am smart". If you have to say that, it probably means that you aren't. Truly smart people just say what they have to say, and those that listen will recognize the substance of their words.
Dan feels like a textbook example of this. Dan would never have to tell anyone that he's smart. Dan could talk about just about anything and you'll just know this is one of the most intelligent individuals you've ever spoken to
I feel the same way about positive attributes in general. Sure, you might have to in a job interview, but I consider that a sign of how fundamentally broken the job interview system is.
@@SnakebitSTI also if someone feels the need to activiliy sell themselves to you (like in a job interview) thats just kind of a red flag in general.
@@quinnkaplan172I get what you mean. It kinda depends - certainly saying 'I'm smart' is a braindead move in any kind of job interview.
When I graduated and started job hunting as an electrical engineer, I felt I had to sell myself bc I had to make myself stand out from the other million grads with 0 experience.
Nowadays, after a couple years of experience, I try to tread the line between selling (stuff like 'I'm a fast learner' or other personality traits that are good for an engineer in a team) vs reciting the things I've done and letting them speak for themselves.
I imagine once you're a senior level or a wizard with 20 years of experience, you just don't sell at all. Tell them what you've done, in a very matter of fact kind of way. Hell, sometimes the wizards won't have to do fuck all to land a job besides attend a call as a formality, as his/her reputation precedes them
@@nagoshi01 posted late last night so don't fully remember what i was referring too but i think i meant that if someone is acting like their in a job interview in casual conversation that is a red flag.
@@quinnkaplan172 yeah that's straight up psycho behavior there
If I'd realized this was an interview, rather than just you talking about Folding Ideas, I would have watched it much sooner, so you might want to think about changing the title.
This is really great feedback! Thank you so much. Very new to the UA-cam game. If you have other feedback on the video or interview, I'd love to hear it.
@@DouglasSoltys I would try to have the guest talking as much as possible, and you as little as possible, in videos like this one where people are likely to come because of the guest.
@@goodlookingcorpse idk, i don't dislike more casual podcast interviews generally speaking
@@goodlookingcorpse 100% agreed. Our panel episodes are much more back and forth.
Same, was suggested a few times but panned on the assumption it was an hour long video essay, ha
I know this is a fairly serious and genuine conversation, but can I take a second to talk about how good Dan looks? Like I've been watching Folding Ideas for 7-8 years now and he was always cute but his beards greying nicely and he's a lil thicker and his voice has a lil more gravel and hes keeping us all safe from grifts and I just think its safe to say he's hot as fuck. I hope he's aware.
I'm a straight dude - that said - I'm glad someone said it.
I like to imagine him in remote Canada with just a log cabin, a shotgun, and his cat, being like the internet's night watchman
yeah dan's a hottie 😂
oh for sure, he's really aged well
The miklleson twins video was the first folding ideas video I saw. That earned my sub, which led me to several other videos. Line goes up, which is an absolute masterpiece of that style and subject type, was probably the 10 video I saw of Dans. That was followed by “the future is a dead mall”, which again, is a masterpiece.
He has so many masterpiece videos, it's insane
Dan Olsens content in 2017 helped me be less a of a douchebag in high school. Then he started crushing movies, and now grifts. The dudes been ahead of the game the whole time
That's what happens when you are commited to adressing problems you notice and are invested in helping people. Basic trend chasing always leaves you in the dust.
Dan Olson playing trash games from a place of love and morbid curiosity is what initially got me into his work, and the past couple years have seen this absolutely phenomenal evolution to his work that i really appreciate. However, i would not mind getting an alert one day of a video of his on some obscure terrible movie/tv show tie in video game that you can only really get these days from a charity thrift shop because even used game shops refuse to stock them.
Same. I want an Elden Ring video in the form of a recounting of the online narrative that's been told over the last ~12 years as FromSoft release game after game
That part where mister BetaKit assumes Dan Olson didn't suffer through much bullying, and him revealing he was bullied so hard his family had to change him schools, that was very embarassing and honestly heart-breaking. I'm sure mister BetaKit regretted mentioning that, so I don't have any I'll feelings. I hope it's a lesson for others to not assume these things; this is the first time I see this happen in an interview.
53:23 setting up a business email is "work" in the sense that it is tedious drudgery. The efforts to make the videos are also "work" in the sense that they're a productive economic activity but clearly you can tell that Dan finds this work deeply engaging in an intellectual and emotional level.
I love this guy.
But there are days that I still kinda wish he'd bering back his cardboardsona from his early videos, just as a treat. :)
Lmfao cardboardsona, that got me
it's weird hearing "in search of a flat earth" being described as just about debunking flat earth because it's so much more than that.
Couldn’t agree more, the transition to part 2 was buttery smooth and very eye-opening
I'd love to hear him say some shit like '...there was a book, Moby Dick, in which a ship captain has an arch nemesis whale - and he sets out to kill it'
I take issues with the description of what Dan does. He doesn't attack anything. He simply exposes them to the light.
42:20 We were all wondering when Dan would get to the meme stocks.
I have a friend that tipped me off to Dan's videos, so I asked them what they wanted me to ask Dan. Glad we got it in the episode!
I'm here for the Folding Ideas content and never heard of your channel before. The YT algorithm must have suggested your video because of Dan Olson. I have stumbled on to a lot of Canadian Left-ish content creators somehow through the algorithm; We're in Hell, Jose, Step Back History, Thought Slime, Just Write... all Canadian (and mostly GTA based) but largely related to my interest in progressive issues and mass media analysis. How I stumbled into those content creators is worthy of it's on exploration of the yt algorithm, their content and their geographical proximity to me. I'm all for more progressive Canadian content and forcing UA-cam to do more work because companies are not my friends.
I've been following Dan Olson for years because of Lindsay Ellis and Chez Apocalypse. My basic understanding of How "bread Tube" evolved was because when Ellis was making video essays critiquing pop culture, she sometimes focused on the socio-cultural issues surrounding a movie. Like it's easy to bring in a discussion of capitalism when talking about Transformers movies because the cartoon would never have existed without Ronald Reagan relaxing regulations about advertising on TV. And when Dan Olson was talking about movies and media early on in his YT career he also spent time analysing the socio cultural issues surrounding works.
All art is political. Your interest in Olson may have been in his "takedowns" of NFT's and web3 but those things were also about art and media. Web 3.0. is a form of media. The mikkelson twins and their guru workshop scam is media that uses media. The Man of Steel movie is both overtly political but and subconscious shaped by sociocultural and political forces. It's all media, media is an artform and all art is political.
I remember being in grad school and talking about low laying atoll nations are being threatened by global warming and some dingus undergrad was like, that's not a thing. Dude, the oceans are rising whether or not your dad works for an oil company.
Dan is easily the best video essayist on UA-cam. Nothing even comes close.
the only one whose videos ill rewatch
Dan's videos have been absolute bangers lately
My favorite video series dan made is the fifty shades of grey trilogy, the first video was my intro to dan so it holds a special place in my heart, but also the videos are just really fun and interesting.
I really love that trilogy, too. I hope we can see some of those more fun and unserious videos come back time to time.
I know this is a very small part of the overall podcast (which was great btw) but I do find the Bill C-11 stuff interesting. I'm Scottish, specifically in Glasgow and we do have a very specific and unique style of culture and being. And I've noticed having grown up alongside the internet (I'm 27 now) that it's really easy for me to lose a lot of the parts of our speaking and culture as a result of homogeneity down to so much content being made by white Americans. I've been making a conscious effort to try and hold onto and bring back for myself some of these things, because I think it would be a shame if a lot of the stuff that makes us Scottish was lost. So I can totally appreciate where the C11 bill is coming from in terms of trying to hold onto and preserve Canadian culture against the onslaught of what is mostly US-based online content, and I hope it can be fixed to stay closer to that type of vision.
As an American who has spent time abroad and that engages with other citizens on a regular basis, I'm surprised how dominant and influential American culture is on the outside world, and I understand wanting to preserve your own culture more so it doesn't get lost to the passage of time.
However, the C-11 bill strikes me as profoundly ignorant of the internet at best, and downright asinine at worst. I'm all for knowing corporations down a few pegs when it's warranted, but trying to make external websites, platforms, etc. try and promote Canadian content is just dumb. If the bill only applied to Canadian entities on the internet then maybe we could have a discussion, but trying to tell the internet at large that they should treat Canadians differently not for the sake of those individuals well being (like GDPR) but for the well being on Canadian business interests is just preposterous
@@jinxed7915 I suppose the problem is that the American hegemony on the internet is so strong that you basically have to use it to try and regulate US entities, because there just aren't really that many other big ones that people use. My understanding is that they don't want UA-cam to promote Canadians full stop, but promote Canadians to users based in Canada, which I can understand.
Although I do still agree that I don't think it's well thought out on enforcement and how it would work for those large sites in practise. I think the funamental problem is the monopoly that these big companies have over their markets (UA-cam on videos, Twitter on communications etc). Personally I have been making more of an effort to find Scottish UA-camrs for example, but it has been an *effort*, because despite UA-cam plainly knowing my location it's just not one of the things they select for to maximise retention time.
I didn't really catch this during the initial listen to this when it first came out, but I really, _really_ like how Dan describes the ghost writing grift as a "machine" and that they get people to "get inside the machine". It may not have been intentional, but it paints such a vivid picture of what it is. It's not a job, it's not part time task, it's not a contract position, it's a device that has been purpose built to take input of people who are desperate, who need money, who are looking for an opportunity to make ends meet, crunches them, crushes them, grinds them down, and outputs slop that can be served up to try and fleece more people. And it's horrifying. And now even the people who have managed to scrape by with the crumbs that these grifters have given them are being tossed aside because why pay real people to output this slop when you can get an LLM to output a larger volume of slop faster and at less cost?
I think it's more that he hunts trends in grifts. He's not like Coffeezilla where he latches onto a particular scheme. Dan covers patterns in culture and there are few on this platform who do that as critically and thoroughly as he does.
"Went into Hell and came back with receipts" I like that line.
Thank you I try!
Such an upside down world where humans are degraded into doing the work of machines while AI are utilized to replace human creativity.
Damn, good point
The best part is, you can see how bad we are at each other's jobs. AI has to train for the equivalent of all of modern history only to be confused by the simplest things, while humans get ground down into pulp because we aren't very sturdy cogs in the machine, being made of flesh and not steel
This interview is excellent. So many thoughtful insights, and a great discussion. Hopefully this gets more traction because more people need to see this!
The Grifterverse is continuously expanding
I've listened to a few Dan Olson interview podcasts, and this is by far the best one.
Thank you so much for the kind words! Is there something specific our video you enjoyed? I'd appreciate any and all (constructive) feedback.
Very pertinent. So many people have been duped into living online instead of simply using it for research. Brick and mortar institutions which made it harder to exploit people anonymously are mostly gone, irl social interaction is seen widely as replaceable or somehow inferior to being on twitch.
IRL interactions force you to have a connection with a local community, to be civil and reasonable, to have to listen to people (your unable to just block or ghost people), not to mention you have to dress up.
LMFAO the look on Dan's face when he's suddenly interrupted by being interrogating about pulling his personal info off the internet
Even despite my years of listening to this man, I have never been compelled to take him 1110% seriously until I noticed the Alolan Vulpix on his bookcase.
Man likes Best Pokemon. I now automatically trust his word.
I feel like the interviewer is spending a lot of time telling dan how he was/is feeling rather than asking him
19:09 One of the most fascinating and illuminating aspects of Dan's work is looking at the incentive sets, the business processes, the blind spots and filters that shape and inform the myths being synthesized, whether they are explicitly stories or internet phenomena.
The application of DevOps to grifting ensures continuous deployment and automation of grifts
I love doing multi branch and nightly grifts toot toot!
So happy to see you’re doing so well since I became a fan for the 50 Shades videos
it is weird having like grown up watching dan olsen, i was 14 when i started watching his videos on things end of evangelion and m nights avatar tla. and now i’m 23 and he’s like a name that other adults know for completely different reasons. great interview.
Yea man I'm old enough to remember when getting a picture in a few minutes was mindblowing..now we can stream 4K video games wireless. I remember so much optimism as the promise of the internet became tangible...then corporations took over. Then the entire economy became influencers and attention seeking trash. And after 2016, even a search engine I used to think of as a librarian became a cascade of click bait trash.
I remember dreaming of being able to play double dragin and Mario Kart with anyone at any time...now gaming is a lonely nightmare
I still think about the remark about that digital monument of Tuvalu and the mind-bogglingly tone-deaf media reaction to it. Honestly I can't add anything more to it as Dan had already put it together so well, but it's still so frustrating that this desperate attempt to produce some sort of lasting cultural memory in the wake of the physical annihilation of an entire island nation from global warming is just as framed as... "wow! country in Metaverse! :)"
I don't know how to tell you this but Tuvalu is still there. Could you give some kind of date for when climate change is supposed to physically annihilate it?
fun interview, good on you for having pertinent questions prepared and letting the guest answer. Good presentation 👍
Thank you so much!
9:51 I love dan's brief pause before he says "...and laughed" knowing what he just said.
I'm not hearing the "and laughed" bit here. Is that the right timestamp? You might have confused laughed for left.
I love folding ideas. He lifts the UA-cam essay sphere up on his own
Dungeon Keeper?
Ah, I knew he's a gentleman as well as a scholar.
Dan is obviously Canadian, and provides CanCon to the globe. 😉 I am excited for more interviews: I'm happy I've found your channel!
In one of the first seasons of Folding Ideas (back when it was run by a puppet and hosted in seasons), Dan talks about GamerGate, and I think that is a great place to start to see how his brilliant analysis of media was always bigger than just bad games or movies, but much more about society and communication in general.
Yeah exactly. It really is key that people keep in mind that his videos are about narrative, which is inherently sociological and communicative
The meme stock video he mentioned working on is gonna be lit
I 'liked',' subscribed' (without even looking through you channel first), and now I'm commenting, which is something I never do. that was just too f**cking perfect. 2 top bois having a nice chat, no ego, all interesting, often hilarious. You go Canada!
My guess is that he'll focus on AI image/text generation for his next major project, but I'd love to see him tackle fast fashion or "get buff/thin in a week!!!" type industries. Tik Tok could be a good topic, too!
AI is really only a grift when it's being put into shit that doesn't need it.
@( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) Yeah. That's why I hope Dan focuses on image/text generation specifically, because we don't need AI "art" when it should be _people_ making art.
I've found _one_ person who makes ethical AI art; they fed Midjourney public domain photos, vintage illustrations, and their own hand-drawn stuff and use it to make clipart sets. Otherwise, I've only seen people trying to mimic a specific artist, or they aim for a generic "realistic" style and sell it without being upfront about using AI.
@@ShayLaLaLooHoo I don't think copying a style is really unethical considering when a human does it that is fair use. I do think trying to sell AI art without saying that it's AI could be a bit shady. I use MJ but I would never try to say I made what it produced. I wouldn't mind if it was decided that you can't copyright AI art.
I would love to hear what Dan has to say on AI art.
@( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) I'm going to use writing as an example: a writer could look at a piece by Edgar Allen Poe and figure out how his style works: the meter, the rhyme scheme, alliteration, etc. A human can understand imagery and symbolism. They can then use those fundamentals to write a poem following these rules and using their own words.
On the other hand, an AI program _might_ be able to identify nouns and verbs. A good one might even be able to figure out the meter or how he uses rhyme or alliteration. However, it won't figure out when, why, and how Poe "breaks" those rules (usually to create a sense of unease at a specific point) and whether the poem it's generating should too; most likely, those "broken" rules will act as junk code, disrupting the program and creating, well, junk.
However, the worst things are that, firstly, AI will _never_ create imagery or symbolism that truly evokes emotion in the reader. Code can only interpret data literally, not figuratively; it can only pull from other sources, which will either be trite and overused, or is something that another poet carefully made to be particularly effective in its originality. In the latter case, the AI user has stolen it; the writer put effort and thought into evoking a certain tone and meaning,, which the program took out of context, which the user will claim as "their writing" because they coded the program.
Even then, the AI will likely never be coded to do much more than identify nouns and verbs and switch them out according to its input commands. Otherwise, it's essentially copy-pasting everything. You wouldn't turn in an essay by copying a Wikipedia article and using the Find/Replace function to change a few words, or turn in a completed MadLibs for a short story.
I've heard AI users say that if it's like copy/pasting, then AI art is just like a collage. However, a collage is meant to look like several different pieces connected. An AI image isn't--even if they say "it's inspired by Van Gogh," it will not be clear how many or which other sources the generation pulled from.
I've been trying to put this into words for a long time, and I think this finally helped me put the pieces into place. Sorry this is so long 😅
It just occurred to me. Would that book scam video easier now that we have chat GPT or other AI writing programs? Or will that part of the video shift in a different direction or be cut out entirely ?
New to the channel, really liked your interview style and insightful questions. Look forward to more!
Welcome aboard!
Griftbusting is a beautiful thing.
5 minutes in and Dan's first interaction with the Internet makes me worried that I've been on the Internet longer than he has. Terrifying
His intro took me back to when 28.8 came out. Holy crap
Like most here, I saw this just cause Dan was on it, but as a terminally online canadian I am looking forward to listening to your coverage on C-11
I've been following dan since he was a cardboard robot puppet. I dont get to brag about being a long time sub often XD
I always appreciate Dan's backround in theology and history.
The bit about people labelling others on the internet as sin eaters they can use and abuse is very eye opening.
Humans are incredibly good at thinking better technology fundamentally changes who humans are, but that is such a falsehood.
Sin eaters were used in towns as a way to clear people of their sins so they could go to heaven if they died unexpectedly.
The fact that people can kind of use them in a similar way to get all of their frustrations out, and then maybe go about their days without a thought that another real person read that vitrol is fascinatingly sad to me.
what happened to Dan’s audio?
my personal folding ideas comfort watch is Cooking Food on the Internet for Fun and Profit
For me, it's the shadow of the colossus video. Or the Fortnite one
@@nagoshi01 i must've watched the shadow of the colossus one recently-ish, because it still has a red bar at the bottom, but i sure don't remember it, so i guess it's time to watch it again!
@@gorimbaud highly recommend! Sadly I never got to play the game. But it's still a great video
@@nagoshi01 the fun thing is i own maybe six ps2 games, and _two_ of them are shadow of the colossus, because the first one i got didn't work. then i bought it a third time when the remaster hit ps4. i have still never beaten the game, but i've played a bunch of it.
So excited to hear about the meme stocks
We love you Dan, keep up your great work.
Thought-provoking interview! I'm here from Dan Olson's fan base (lol that sounds weird) but I'll definitely check out more from this channel!
Thank you! If you have any suggested guests or topics for the podcast, we'd love to hear them!
i kinda miss the dumb box puppet he used to use for his videos way back in the day
Personally I'm so glad it went away. I think him being in the videos added so much to their quality. IMO a faceless voice, in comparison to being on camera, is much less suited to talking about narrative, sociology, and communication.
Also just art in general, like his movie and video game vids.
@@nagoshi01 i just thought it was cute
There is something a lil funny about asking someone who is critical of capitalism about their business strategy
If he wants to pop off he should hit the ai craze
Ngl his "bet on green!" "Sir, this I'd blackjack" bit makes me want a Bobby broccoli video on gamestocks
Re C-11 I really think the biggest issue isnt c-11 but the definition of cancon and who gets to decide cancon on the fly. It should be a concrete scale of what is and isnt cancon that anyone can understand and abide by. Canadian content is content made by canadians, and or for canadians, and or about canadian concepts, locations, history, people etc. Not just "oh this board will look at each case."
I'm also in the camp that agrees we need this law but really feels the government didnt even try to do the law properly. I dont think "canadian content, and canadian identity" arent actual things, just saying canadians are americans but further north really ignores canadian history and experience for modern pop culture being the end all be all. Essentially almost saying that canada, in the social sense is just an american puppet.
If Dan was anyone else, I would say an AI video would just be a sign of 'All I do now is ride off the back of whatever the big social topic of this year is'.
But for Dan, there is a ton to explore in terms of sociology and the social narrative(s) that are circling about its future, or its current issues etc.
I agree with Dan about superhero saturation in media. I personally vannot wait for the superhero bubble to just burst snd hollywood finds a new trend to pick up.
As far as im concerned andnim not saying this as somr fanboy but the MCU started and ended with Iron Man and ive not bren st sll captivated or interested in any mainstream superhero works post end game with the exception of Invincible and The Boys but even then i still havent gotten around to bothering to watch S3 of the boys
i forgot about the writing mill stunt he did. that one was epic
Yep. On the dial up modem at 2 AM in the morning on the landline. Using a program download chunks of an .mp3 or .avi daily.
The bullying part man, that was SO wrong. Dan did a good job making a point without being rude.
I love this video but I also love the comments. Like this is the most civil comment section I've ever seen, gives me hope.
Don't sort by new.
I did, expected the worst, read like two braindead comments. That's pretty tame imo
I think my top three Doug videos which I recommend to everyone is, "In Search of a Flat Earth," "Comfortably Doug" (It got me into listening fully to the Wall which I had embarrassingly done despite knowing about it most of my life, and the roast of Doug Walker is to this date one of the deepest roasts I have ever seen in my life), and "That time a bunch of Geocentrists tricked a bunch of Physicists."
I also read the Skeptic's guide to Hypnosis and enjoyed it a lot honestly XD The Future is a Dead Mall and the one on Ralph Bashki are up there as being some of my faves tho.
He opens youtube and within 5 minutes a paid advertisement is there waiting for him to see…
Dan was talking about such an interesting topic with the dissapearing land and the host interrupted him ;;
The Snider Cut video by Folding Ideas is great critique.
Interesting discussion.
I've never heard diaspora pronounced quite that way before.
Damn a few of your questions are so good. Some are a bit "I wrote this ahead of time" so the conversation does get a little bit interview-ish...but that's alright when those questions are that good.
It just so happens that the background for my desktop for the last 12 years has been a picture taken from the lake where he shot the flat earth video and just a few feet away from where he actually shot.
would be interested in the impact of ChatGPT with the writing experiment
Based on how prior job automation has gone, it will just raise the bar for expected productivity. If you used to spend basically all your waking hours writing books, now you're spending basically all your waking hours writing prompts for AI services. Or you don't have a ghost writing job anymore.
18:09 Dan says "outlier" the same way I want to every time.
29:00 Huh, so by killing NFTs Dan also killed several documentaries about NFTs, and was apparently well paid to do it by the people selling NFTs.
I really do hope this is a joke
@@Lugnal Yes lol.
That timestamp has nothing to do with anything you said though?
@@GPoh_99 Sorry, 28:45
43:00 Watching after the release of his latest video and he really did sum-up the entire vid in this one description.
We may have noticed a theme!