Theory Of Everything

S-Coin (False Alarm! part iii)

May 1, 2018 Andrew Callaway false alarm, Theory Of Everything 1 Comment

S*Coin ( False Alarm! part iii)

Our investigation of the real and the fake continues as your host hunts for a way to monetize it! We ask Alex Goldmark from Planet Money and Bitchcoin artist Sarah Meyohas for advice and author David Golumbia explains how bitcoin really works. Lyn Jeffrey takes us to China to learn about the multi level marketing craze of the mid 1990s and Jed Rothstein tells us about his new movie The China Hustle. Journalist Zeke Faux explains why scammers love Facebook and Toe’s Andrew Callaway visits Supreme to learn how to get rich off Streetwear. PLUS… the ToE coin!

Illustration by Jordan Crane and new series logo by Val Dorito.

Monetizing the Fake

We’ve been talking to an artist and a podcaster looking for advice, so this week we hit up Alex Goldmark from Planet Money and Sarah Meyohas, the creator of Bitchcoin. This time, instead of getting tips on how to deal with the fake, I wanted to learn how to monetize it!

Technology that doesn't work

David Golumbia believes that bitcoin is classic snake oil. It doesn’t even work as a currency! He sees the fanatical faith in bitcoin as making it like a cult — a cult that’s backed by right wing ideology.

How can you face the real if you can't handle the fake?

A recent ICO in China that was supercharged by MLMs led me to Lyn Jeffery to tell me about her experiences in China so I can understand how to make people believe in the fake. I also spoke to Jed Rothstein, director of The China Hustle about reverse mergers and the inherent fakeness of the global financial system.

Finding the suckers.

I sent ToE’s Andrew Callaway to the Supreme store to find out how to become a millionaire off of street wear — and Zeke Faux explains how Facebook helps affiliate marketers find the suckers.

Plus: sign up for the newsletter to get exclusive access to the first round of our ICO

Fake Nudes (False Alarm! part ii)

April 17, 2018 Andrew Callaway false alarm, Theory Of Everything 5 Comments

Fake Nudes (False Alarm! part ii)

The future of face-swapping! The REAL deepfakes speaks! Artist Lynn Hershman Leeson tells us how technology has transformed the way she plays with fact and fiction. Dipayan Ghosh warns us about AI powered ad-targeting. Criminal’s Phoebe and Lauren drop knowledge on the untrue in true crime. Plus your host meets STORMY DANIELS!

Illustration by Jordan Crane and new series logo by Val Dorito.

Age of American Unreason in a Culture of Lies

When Susan Jacoby published her book on anti-intellectualism and public ignorance The Age of American Unreason in 2008, it was timely — so now that she’s updated it for 2018, we settled on this new edition being… bigly timely.

The new edition is subtitled “In a Culture of Lies.”

Susan is not a technologist or even a technology critic. She is a scholar of ideas, a scholar of culture. In 2008, she told me she felt like a technophobe. The main reason she updated her book was a realization that she gets culture better than the real technologists and the real technology critics. 

The real deepfakes

We have an exclusive interview with the one… the only… deepfakes. I’m not even sure how to describe what went down… but this meme from 4chan will give you the basic idea.

Building a fake you can believe in

The blurring of fiction and reality is central to the art practice of Lynn Hersman Leeson. You will find a reference to it in almost everything she does, including her latest film Vertighost.

Vertighost was made for San Francsico’s Legion of Honor — an important location in Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo. Lynn uses archival footage of Kim Novak along with interviews of several woman discussing their relationships with the real and the fake. Natasha Boaz is an art critic who explains that we’re not at war with the fake: we prefer it.

Being a San Francisco Artist, Lynn Hershman Leeson has taken full advantage of the technology booms. For example, she made dolls with webcams in their eyes that were livestreaming onto the internet… in 1996!

In 2000, she made Agent Ruby and Dina, chat bots that could do more than Siri, which didn’t come out til 2012. For example, Agent Ruby’s mood would be affected by how many people were talking to it at once and Dina ran for election!

But perhaps Lynn’s most famous invented person was analog. When one of her pieces was kicked out of a gallery show for using sound (!!) in 1966, she decided she needed a space of her own, safe from the closed minds of curators. She filled this room with artifacts of a fake person. This was the birth of ROBERTA BREITMORE.

There were some similarities between Lynn and Roberta but they were totally separate people. Roberta went to her own psychiatrist and worked her own job as a secretary to pay her rent at her own apartment. Roberta had bank accounts and a driver’s license. She even went out on dates!

Lynn also created a few male alter egos. Art critics! Hebert Goode, Prudence Juris and Gay Abandon. These men would write reviews for journals and newspapers — of her work! She also made a series of fake fires… sometimes the fire department came, even though Lynn says they had permits.

Pieces like that I have a hard time imagining being possible to do today — but Lynn thinks Roberta would be the hardest piece to do today… because of computers.

Targeted advertising is the sun

Dipayan Ghosh is a fellow at New America where he studies disinformation and internet platforms, but unlike pretty much everyone — he’s NOT focused on bad actors like Cambridge Analytica or Russian Trolls. He’s focused on the digital advertising infrastructure that makes disinformation campaigns possible. He’s recently co-authored a report called Digital Deceit on the technology – the tools and services both real advertisers and fake disinformation campaigns use to get their message out. As platforms like Facebook augment these tools and services with AI, we warns that the good the bad and the ugly will all use them to target us.

AI makes it so easy to not only target, but to create custom content for individual users. This was once called a “dark post” since it didn’t show up to anyone except for you, but they prefer to call them unpublished posts.

Since he wrote a paper warning us about AI enhanced tools, I figured Dipayan would agree with me that Mark Zuckerberg’s faith in AI tools to battle fake news and misinformation was ridiculous… but he didn’t! He felt that AI was essentially inevitable– that for these companies to use AI  like that is as natural as a plant reaching for the sun. 

Murder Podcasts

Phoebe Judge and Lauren Spohrer are the producers of Criminal, a widely loved true crime podcast — which is why i was surprised to hear that some true crime diehards aren’t into their show. These people prefer, “murder podcasts” — where they can confirm that fucked up things actually happen.

I too have listeners who complain — who are confused about what’s true and not. Phoebe and Lauren told me how they deal with the unknowns in their stories: admitting that they’re unknown!

But Phoebe ultimately doesn’t believe that the true part of the crime in her show matters… people just like crime.

I believe Stormy Daniels

A few weeks before Stormy Daniels got her new awesome lawyer and went on 60 Minutes to tell the world about her relationship with Donald Trump she went on a tour of stip clubs across america — the Make America Horny Again tour.

We were disappointed to find the place was full of journalists. They all were hoping to find a real Trump supporter. We weren’t looking, but we did end up finding a Trump supporter– Toni-Ann who was opening for Stormy Daniels. She loved Trump because he understands how to lure people into the world of fantasy and then run away with their money. According to her, Trump would have made an excellent stripper.

Finally at Midnight, Stormy Daniels strode out on to the stage in her little red riding hood outfit and as she took off her cape and then her cap… I realized all of my hopes are riding on this woman!

Which is unfair I know… but if an unabashed, unashamed exibitionist can’t make us see that the emperor has no clothes… then who can???

This Is Not A Drill (False Alarm! part i)

April 3, 2018 Andrew Callaway false alarm, Theory Of Everything 4 Comments

This Is Not A Drill (False Alarm! part i)

Our New ToE series on the battle between the real and the fake begins with a text alert sent out to everyone in Hawaii on a balmy Saturday morning. We also hear from the man who has written the text alert that will go out to all New Yorkers in the event of a real emergency. Photographer Stan Douglas shows us how to reconstruct a future that makes sense, and your host turns to fellow podcaster Jody Avirgan for advice on how to own the “real-ish” podcast genre. Plus the little boy who cried wolf meets the Emperor with no clothes!

Read our Medium page for details on the entire episode

Illustration by Jordan Crane and new series logo by Val Dorito.

Utopia (part v)

March 22, 2018 Andrew Callaway Theory Of Everything, utopia 2 Comments

Utopia (part v)

Our search for Utopia comes to an end at Christiania, an Anarchist haven in the heart of Copenhagen. In 2012 this Utopia went legit, the squatters become property owners. But now they must figure out how to preserve their alternative community, preserve the historical buildings they are now responsible for, and preserve their future. Plus your host loses his Utopian tinted glasses during a musical theater performance of one of his favorite dystopian novels (Octavia Butler’s Parable of the Sower).

Utopia (part iv)

March 6, 2018 Benjamen Walker Theory Of Everything, utopia 0 Comments

Utopia (part iv)

Our search for Utopia takes Andrew far from Mundania to the magickal Den of Iniquity in a pagan community called The Valley of The Dragons. Plus, your host takes a tour of FDR’s New Deal Utopias in search of a future that is possible.

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Time Travelin’ Trump

February 14, 2018 Benjamen Walker Theory Of Everything 9 Comments

Time Travelin' Trump

Donald Trump says all his ‘nuclear knowledge’ comes from his favorite uncle John G Trump. According to ToE special correspondent Chris, Uncle Johnny also gave Donald a time machine ring. Learn all about how John Trump acquired this ring (from Nikola Tesla) and how Vladimir Putin stole it (from Robert Kraft) and what Donald Trump is prepared to do to get it back (nukes).

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Utopia (part iii)

January 22, 2018 Benjamen Walker Theory Of Everything, utopia 1 Comment

Utopia (part iii)

Artist and Filmmaker Ruth Dusseault tells us about how the internet has changed the American Commune. Plus ToE’s Andrew Callaway lets us in on an internet joke about  Socialist Dolphins.

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False Flags

December 30, 2017 Benjamen Walker Theory Of Everything 3 Comments

False Flags

Underneath a giant American Flag in a Midwest Airport Your host takes a knee in order to tie his shoe. Trouble. Big Trouble. Plus False Flag meets Dictionary.com  

Utopia (part ii)

December 20, 2017 Benjamen Walker Theory Of Everything, utopia 4 Comments

Utopia (part ii)

Our series continues with ToE’s Andrew Callaway reporting from an off the grid fully sustainable little piece of heaven called Earthaven. Plus Will Wilkinson on Libertopia and the limits of Ideal Theory.


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Utopia (part i)

November 16, 2017 Benjamen Walker Theory Of Everything, utopia 3 Comments

Utopia (part i)

A new ToE mini series on technology, society, work, art, love (the ToE basics) but this time your host dons a pair of Utopian tinted glasses, and sends Toe Producer Andrew Callaway on the road to visit Utopian communities. Plus Basic Income. ********** click on image for more information and links***********