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Deep Space and Dragons
Paradox Pizza: Serving Up Time Travel with a Side of Funeral Invites
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Richard and Karl explore the philosophical implications of time travel narratives in fiction while weaving through personal anecdotes about funeral invitations and professional boundaries.
• Karl shares a story about receiving a funeral invitation for an ex-employee from the employee's grandmother
• Richard discusses his recent academic adventures and collecting promotional swag from campus events
• The hosts break down five frameworks of time travel in fiction: fixed timeline, dynamic timeline, multiverse, time loop, and non-linear time
• Analysis of time travel execution in various media including Steins Gate, Back to the Future, Dragon Ball, and Marvel's Avengers
• Discussion of why some approaches to time travel storytelling succeed while others inevitably create plot holes
• Exploration of philosophical questions including whether decisions made under emotional manipulation are truly free choices
• Hypothetical scenarios including which animals would be most sarcastic if they could talk and societal impacts if the moon became a mirror
• Debate about whether to accept a job as a lottery-winning friend's personal chauffeur
Make your funeral interesting enough for us to attend - perhaps with a Super Smash Bros tournament where the winner gets your belongings.
Follow all things Richard and Karl, and check out "The Minuet of Sorcery"
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Welcome to Richard and Carl present Deep Space and Dragons. I'm Richard, but you already knew that.
Speaker 2:And I am Carl, and I'm not sure if you knew that or not, because I didn't say anything up to this point. That's reasonable.
Speaker 1:And, I guess, welcome to Deep Space and Dragons. You're over 100 episodes in, so if so, kudos, and this is the first episode you listen to Immediate Technical Difficulties, immediate Technical.
Speaker 2:Difficulties. Oh, you just cut out for a second there. I'm sure that's fine as being part of the podcast.
Speaker 1:Oh, lovely To be fair, though, since I've updated my setup and they can just hear this on the live recording, since I've updated my setup and they can just hear this on the live recording, my mic is on a different line than it used to go through, so it's entirely possible that it only has technical difficulties to you. Oh yeah, that's possible, cause technically my audio is going into the thingy, my jigger, very technical stuff, me absolutely putting like on my resume being oh yeah, I have knowledge recording, I record a podcast, I know recording technology.
Speaker 2:Sure Very technical knowledge.
Speaker 1:So what's new with you, sir?
Speaker 2:Well, OK, so Fair warning Going to be just going to be a little bit dark.
Speaker 1:Oh, but OK.
Speaker 2:I'm morbidly curious. First things first. I call it six degrees of separation. The number doesn't really matter, but there's a theory that you, anyone, has a friend of a friend of a friend, and so on and so forth that can connect them to anyone in the world, and the theory is that the number of connections it takes to connect any two people in the world is surprisingly small. I'm going to need you to pause for one second.
Speaker 1:Attention viewers. If you're playing, what Is Carl Gonna Say Next Bingo at home on your bingo card? Good luck guessing where this is going. You may now resume.
Speaker 2:So the theory is that that number is surprisingly small, as in less than 10. So like up to nine friends of a friend of a friend could connect you to say the president of India, reasonable could connect you to say the president of India.
Speaker 1:Reasonable.
Speaker 2:Right. I mean not that you'll ever actually be able to use those connections, because they're kind of vague and tenuous, but Says you, I'm low-key internet famous. Yeah, so, but See, part of the reason that I said that's going to be dark is because in 2022, a terrible tragedy happened. It was absolutely awful. There was a mass murdering spree in Saskatchewan.
Speaker 1:It's like the one of the sixth largest murder spree in Canadian history, or something like that we really need to get around to getting that disclaimer installed that we're of the sixth largest murder spree in Canadian history, or something like that. We really need to get around to getting that disclaimer installed that we're a parody podcast and people shouldn't sue us. Please continue.
Speaker 2:But interestingly enough I personally have worked with several of that mass murderer's relatives.
Speaker 1:That makes sense. It's Saskatchewan.
Speaker 2:Well, I mean just thinking about that just for a second. It's like I know that guy's relative, you know me, you know me, uh. And then it's like that opens this mass murderer up through six degrees of separation to like everyone in a huge number of people in ontario and then from there it goes across the world because ontario has lots of international people and it's like that's. It's crazy how uh few connections it takes to connect people to famous people or infamous people or whatever. That's not really the point of the story. The point of the story is that one of these relatives of the mass murderer he I'll call him Mr Mustard.
Speaker 1:Okay, Colonel Mustard.
Speaker 2:He started working. He was inard, so he started working. And he was in high school when he started working and summer comes around and they're like hey, what's your availability for the summer? And he's like, oh, I can't make more than like $300 a paycheck because I'll mess with my grandma's social security. And I look at him and I'm like, okay, I will mess with my grandma's social security. And I look at him and I'm like, okay, you do realize you could just work full time and make more money in one paycheck than your grandma makes on social security for the month. Like, yeah, just work hours instead of trying to limit your hours so you don't mess with your social security.
Speaker 1:Like it's a whole thing. Just it's a whole thing. Our system has flaws. It's like when I recently learned that when you go to services ontario to apply for jobs, they put into the database how many people are searching for jobs, because that can affect the number of people you could import as workers when people claim people aren't looking for jobs. So like our system is interesting, to say the least.
Speaker 2:Well, in any event, the idea that he could just work and make more money than social assistance blew his mind and changed his life. It was we as a business. We didn't really do anything special for him. We just hired a young kid, gave him hours, paid him reasonably, but for him it was like this life-altering thing. That was the stepping stone for him and his family to start getting out of poverty and he could actually start to support his family. And, quite honestly, he probably had too much responsibility for a kid his age because, like I said, he was still in high school and then he was basically the breadwinner, winner of his, of his family but oh no, that must be terrible I'm just saying I feel for young people who have yeah, I'm still a firm believer
Speaker 1:in trying to make the world better for people after you.
Speaker 2:So instead of giving a soliloquy, I'm like no, I just agree, despite my sassiness, I do fully agree with that statement um, but you know so, to us he's a regular employee. To him we're we're a lifesaver, um, and you know he works with us. He's a decent employee, he's a nice enough guy, but eventually he has, to like, move somewhere else and he can't work with us anymore if this story ends with him being a mass murderer.
Speaker 2:No, no, no, um, but ends with him being a mass murderer. No, no, no. But several years go by, I get a phone call that someone complained that their food is cold. And they're like, oh yeah, and I'm Mr Mustard's grandma. And I'm just like it really bugs me that the grandma, Mrs Plum, we'll say Good motif. So, mrs Plum, it really bugs me that after well over a year of him not working with us anymore, that she throws around his name like it has a year of him not working with us anymore. Uh, that she throws around his name like it has some sort of weight, like again to us he was just an employee and he hasn't worked there in years. And it's like well, that's nice that you're mr mustard's grandma, but like we don't, that doesn't mean we're going to give you a special service, anyways. So I was actually slightly annoyed with Mrs Plum.
Speaker 1:So I'm going to give a hot take on that one before we get back to your story. As someone who's worked in academia the last four years, I went in for a meeting yesterday and ran into three people I just knew through synthesis. And then I was meeting with my professor. He's like wait a minute, you're not a student anymore. Come to the back of the office and grab a coffee through like synthesis. And then, yeah, I was meeting with my professor. He's like wait a minute, you're not a student anymore. Come to the back of the office and grab a coffee, because now you're just an employee so we're chilling in the back of the office having a coffee, and then he's like I'm like I, I'm like I'll finish up my.
Speaker 1:He ran out of time for a meeting. He's like, oh, just take the mug, it's a free giveaway mug anyway. So i'm'm just like leaving, walking out of the office, having like stolen slash, been gifted a mug, and where I'm going with this is like I'm fine with people I've worked with years ago getting a special favor. That's fine. If it was Colonel Mustard directly being like yo, it's me, colonel Mustard I'd absolutely give him a staff discount on a pizza. Or, in my current life, give him a free discount on a pizza.
Speaker 1:Or, in my current life, give them a free mug from a department that no longer exists, because what are we going to do with that merch anyway, but it's when people try and claim other people's friendship as their status, where it's like, yeah, I would absolutely give redacted student I tutored who's now working as a tutor themselves a free thing. If I have free things, sure, but tutor's uncle gets nothing right like right like I get a free mug. Go like someone walking, be like oh, I'm richard's mom, can I have a free mug? No, don't give my mom a free mug, she can earn her free mug okay, but so probably another year passes.
Speaker 2:Get another phone call.
Speaker 1:I'm still scared with your disclaimer, like how tragic the story is going to get, but please continue.
Speaker 2:Well, so this time is Mrs Plum, and she introduces herself like I should know who she is, even though I've only talked to her like twice in the past three years or whatever. Um, well, then she says that she's, uh, mr Mustard's grandma. I'm like, oh, mr Mustard? Well, how's he doing? Not good, he died. Oh yeah, and she called our store because, uh, again to us he was just an employee, to her and Mr Mustard, we worked closely with him and you know, like I say, it was a life-changing experience and I just I really had no idea what to even say to this person, because they're calling to be like yeah, we know that you and your boss, side note, he has decided they're calling to be like yeah, we know that you and your boss, side note, he has decided that he wants to be called Angry Bird for the purposes of our podcast going forward.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:I think Emperor Palpatine would be a better name, but that's neither here nor there.
Speaker 1:I mean to be fair. If someone listens to our podcast and submits random questions, they can get mugs, but also I appreciate them suggesting code words. If someone listens to our podcast, like, actually I'd like a code name. I strongly respect that.
Speaker 2:Anyways. So she's like, yeah, mr Angry Bird and his wife and you worked with Mr Mustard and I just want to give you all the details around his funeral and viewing and service and whatnot, because you guys might want to come. And I'm like, yeah, that's tragic. I take down all the information. Looking back, I realize I didn't even. I don't know if it's appropriate to ask how they died, I don't know but like, but I didn't even ask what happened. Thanks to the power of my autism, I absolutely would have asked how they died.
Speaker 1:I don't know, but I didn't even ask what happened. Thanks to the power of my autism, I absolutely would have asked how they died, because I don't have the ability to read, that kind of social interaction.
Speaker 2:Yeah well, I don't know. Is that actually inappropriate to ask? I think so.
Speaker 1:Out of the moment. It's weird because for me I've absolutely had people like I don't know if anyone's ever actually directly asked, because for me I've, like, absolutely had people like it takes I don't know if anyone's ever actually directly asked me that obvious question.
Speaker 1:So it's like like it's like how'd your dad die? I'm like we'll read the story in the globe and mail. But like people don't normally ask that I normally volunteer I think it's the protocol is to wait till the information is volunteered willingly. But also I don't have tax. So I would literally be like how do you bite?
Speaker 2:it. I mean, I was trying to be professional and take down all the information. Oh yeah, if I'm on the clock, I'm a different human being.
Speaker 1:What I do is I click mute on the phone and ask my boss what I'm allowed to say. I deal with students and sensitive information all the time. I am so happy to move it up the chain like I have like my respectful researching certificate. That's like don't pressure people for information. Let them know how information will be used. I'm like I work in pr. There is no way I'm letting people give me unsolicited details of their information without looping in my boss first right, right, uh, so I take down the information.
Speaker 2:It's like 11 30 at night when she actually calls. So, miss, mr angry bird is not in in the store, obviously reasonable that's for grunts like you but then he comes in the next day and he's like oh hey, did you hear that?
Speaker 2:you hear that Mr Mustard died? I was like, yeah, I put all that information on your whiteboard. He's like, oh, mrs Plum called today and I was like, oh well, she called last night to tell me the same thing. And so, like I know my boss, I'm like I don't really think that he actually, like we respect human life, you know, and every human has value. Do you make pizza? Yeah, we make pizza.
Speaker 1:It's like you don't work a life or death field, if that makes sense. Like I literally went through a training for a research project I'm on and it was about like we went through a whole lecture about when dealing with heavy emotional topics, the weight on them and the guilt they can have when you're trying to enforce the tough parts of your job on people to help people by restricting their freedoms and the actual PTSD that causes. Yeah, you make pizza. This should not be in your wheelhouse right and and so I.
Speaker 2:I'm like I'm pretty certain that he does not go to funerals for his ex-employees. So I just I outright ask him, because it's like, yeah, do you normally go to funerals for ex-employees? Like it doesn't seem like something you would do. He's like, oh, oh, no, I don't normally do that. I'd go to your funeral, though that makes sense.
Speaker 1:Like he listens to your podcast, like, yeah, he would go to your funeral, he's the one with the carl tattoo, allegedly that would be awkward. There is no way that's true and that would be the best plot twist of all time at that point it would be mildly concerned. We were actually gods manifesting things.
Speaker 2:He does have a tattoo that I've never seen, so At that point I'd be mildly concerned.
Speaker 1:we were actually gods manifesting things he does have a tattoo that I've never seen, so I don't know. It's definitely your face on an eagle, an eagle's body with your face Yet again. No way, that's actually true.
Speaker 2:But yeah, it's just like there's not really much of a point to the story. It's just like, um that I mean there's not really much of a point to the story, it's just like well, the question was what's?
Speaker 1:new with you and this was definitely what's new with you. This wasn't an impromptu movie review. If anything, this is more on topic for what's new with you than a lot of our what's new with you sometimes I'll be like what's new with you and you're like, have you read Ender's Game?
Speaker 2:that's funny, but yeah, it's just like. It's very strange. Like you say, it's a pizza place that I work at and it's these sour, sour topics don't really aren't normal for pizza places and I understand why Mrs Plum thought that, like because the interaction, the relationship is very one sided, where we were a huge, huge benefit to them, but they were just like a little blip on our radar because, like they just they did a job and we paid them.
Speaker 1:So it's wild to think about, right? So my first thought was I don't go to funerals anymore, just full stop. It peaked. Unless they're giving me chicken wings and paralyzers, why would I go? Right, but it's like, do you then cater pizza to this funeral?
Speaker 2:Oh, I mean, that was actually my first thought was that they're asking, going to ask us for, like donations or something. I was just like I probably would have asked my boss, and I actually think that my boss might've said yes, cause I mean, he word of mouth is the best for is our favorite form of advertising.
Speaker 1:I mean it's true, it would not cost your place much for us to advertise it as a sponsor of this podcast. I'm pretty sure we low-key. Do it because I never throw shade at the pizza from your pizza place.
Speaker 2:Employees, sure, but never the food uh, but no, he was just genuinely thought that, um, that we would be interested in attending this funeral People go to weird phases of their lives.
Speaker 1:When I first moved out and was working at Robin's Donuts, it's like that would be a place people would have thought to reach out to if I mysteriously vanished when current me has a much more structured social circle Right right. Vanished where current me has like a much more structured social circle right right. So it's like a lot of it too is like the stage of somebody's life. How much of like work is their social circle?
Speaker 2:but so to bring the whole story full circle there, so miss plum calls, tells me about the funeral. Then she calls back like two or three minutes later and she's like oh yeah, there was this other guy who was working there as a driver. Does he still work there? Because he's Mr Mustard's relative and we don't really want them to find out about this. Huh, and I'm just like, and I happen to know for a fact that there's a relative on the side of the mass murderer. We don't really want them to find out about this. Huh, and I'm just like huh and I happen to know for a fact that there's a relative on the side of the mass murderer. I don't know if that's actually related, but I thought that was just like huh. I wonder if he was like living with his grandma to avoid a potential life of violence and crime. Not saying that everybody in that family would be a criminal, but I mean it's crazy that yeah, that's some wild pizza drama.
Speaker 1:It's kind of funny to me that your like day-to-day life is more dramatic than mine and I'm in toronto uh, well, yeah, so I mean long and short.
Speaker 2:Well, tldr, I guess I did not attend the funeral, um and uh, for us, life goes on, I'll.
Speaker 1:I don't imagine I'll ever hear from mrs plum again yeah, like funerals are interesting, like I would never want to be in charge of planning one because it's like who do you invite to a funeral? But also it's like funerals are for the living, not for the dead, and I don't really care about the living. So, like my thoughts on funerals are like I understand why you guys need to do this, but it's like not for me, which I'm not sure is a stance I'm allowed to have for funerals, but I'm having it Like not for me, which I'm not sure is a stance I'm allowed to have for funerals, but I'm having it.
Speaker 2:So what's new with you there?
Speaker 1:Richard. Well, I kind of like bullet pointed it where I've been doing a lot of like working on my freelance, going to meetings, working on this research project and stuff, finishing books and things. So I've been very like scatterbrain productive. Like I said, yesterday I was meeting with a former professor having a coffee in the office talking about business, uh, campus restructuring and possible opportunities for me in that learning that I'm actually qualified to teach a certain uh, some one-on-one level classes if they were looking for jobs, which is interesting. See, I don't actually know like what powers my degree gives me. So some of my meetings are literally hey, I have this degree, what powers does it give me? It's like you could probably teach college success.
Speaker 2:I'm like well, that's cool oh, so it's like a like a green lantern degree kind of gets you, of course.
Speaker 1:Well, I mean to quote what I said to my mother earlier today. I did a four-year course in professional bullshittery, like it's creative writing and publishing, aka professional bullshittery, and then posting it places for people to read it, but like when you compress it down.
Speaker 1:It's like, well, what jobs did it let you do? I'm like, what jobs need to invent stuff and then print it so people can read it? I don't know all of them. Literally all of them need one of me, right, right, yeah, it's like uh but your, your master's program is at a different college slash university.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, so colleges can do four-year degrees, even though they're mostly one and two-year programs, and then master's programs basically have to be out of a university. Okay, so I have to upgrade. Yeah, I'll be mean about it. I have to upgrade to a university from a college.
Speaker 2:I'm still a little bit confused about what the difference is, because universities just seem to be a collection of colleges, but that's neither here nor there it also like really depend like canada's, just setups a little different too.
Speaker 1:Where it's like I'm pretty sure the difference between college university and canada is the like number and level of programs they offer. But I'm not actually 100 on that, but I do know to get a master's or a doctorate you've got to go to university, university and it used to be. To get a bachelor's you had to as well, but then more and more colleges started offering bachelor's programs. It's a whole thing. But yeah, tldr on that one is, my life has been a lot of meetings, sunshining birds singing me, having to get free coffee and scones while I listen to people talk.
Speaker 2:It's pretty great. No one offers me scones.
Speaker 1:Like actual scones are great. So, like this was a relatively uneventful week for me, although I did meet up with a friend of mine this weekend and we started going through LEGO Horizon Zero Dawn. Horizon Zero Dawn so it's ago game based on another video game which I've never seen before, but lego is really up their game with this one so you know how we played lego city undercover and it's like not every accident just um so zero the horizon.
Speaker 2:I believe that was a playstation exclusive game which then got legified and published multi-platform, including on the switch.
Speaker 1:Yes, yeah, okay so the thing that impresses me about is remember lego city undercover how like most of the game was lego but the ground wasn't lego, the particle effects weren't lego. Da, da, da, da da. Yeah. So for this horizon game they're. One of their goals was to make it a playable lego movie. So every part of that game is lego. When you take steps, there's the one square tiles flipping in the air. Everything from the confetti to the ground to the lighting is done lego movie quality. So like we're playing our co-op lego movie quality lego game. But having never played horizon zero dawn, it's like it'd be like what an only knowing ruby from ruby chibi.
Speaker 1:So like the idea that the version of the story I know is the legified version is like objectively funny it's pretty funny.
Speaker 1:As I'm just being like impressed by the graphic fidelity on this 4K TV watching a Lego game being like this is like extremely well crafted. I think the one that got me was when the robot T-Rex fired its death laser. You could tell it was made out of stacked transparent bricks being launched at you and I'm like, yeah, this is super committed to at you. And I'm like, yeah, this is super committed to the bit. Also, I just love me a good LEGO game Like LEGO City Undercover is probably in my top 10 games.
Speaker 2:LEGO City Undercover was a great game Like it entered.
Speaker 1:I have a certain love for games that you can actually beat from start to finish. Like a game where, like you and a friend can just play through it at a reasonable rate, is a good design to me. Right Between that and living my life, that's what's new with me. I really enjoyed LEGO Horizon Zero Dawn. We had a lengthy conversation of what products would be best when LEGO-ized Right and I've done a bunch of meetings Gotten hella free coffee cups recently Got like five water bottles over the last week and like six mugs.
Speaker 2:Why are you getting so much?
Speaker 1:free swag. Well, I went to the Indie Authors Conference, which gave me a swag bag, a bunch of business cards. I went to another, uh, so we had the fold festival happening in bradson, which is the festival of literary diversity, which is a whole lot of panels and events and things. So it's like it was basically book week out here, and when it's book week I try and go to as many events as I can and most events have swag. And then meetings at the campus, because 30% to 60% of program offerings got reduced due to budget, which means there's programs that no longer exist that have swag, and I'm like hey may.
Speaker 2:I have swag please.
Speaker 1:I even got a USB power bank that's branded.
Speaker 2:A branded USB power bank Right.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, no free swag. I have so many tote bags you can't possibly imagine. Imagine because every injury publishing house, every event, every panel, every arts, like every arts organization, because Toronto's like the six cities or whatever, and like there's a Brampton dark organization, when they have event they'll have swag. The Mississauga arts organization will have swag. The Toronto arts organization will have swag it.
Speaker 2:The Toronto Arts Organization will have swag. It sounds like maybe your microphone got jostled a bit.
Speaker 1:Testing, testing, now that sounds better, excellent. So yeah, I collect tote bags now pretty much. If I had sewing skills, I could probably just keep my wardrobe up to date by disassembling and reassembling tote bags. However, shall we pivot into this week's topic, which tragically isn't? What games would you like to be legofied? And instead is time travel, because I, so we've done some time travel stuff on this podcast before. I'm not going to go through 100 episodes to make sure we don't talk on the series we've already talked on. But time travel is also like one of the most common things, so it's like as a writing device, as someone, people in the fantasy and sci fi space, like we usually are.
Speaker 1:Yeah there's a lot of time travel. Yeah, there's a lot of time travel, like I'm certain at some point I've talked about Steins Gate and just how brilliantly like, balanced and wrapped up that show was.
Speaker 2:But I'm curious to see why you're going into time travel, so I can follow along on this journey well, um, the very first thing, uh, main reason I thought about time travel is that there's a um the actress that plays Penny from the Big Bang Theory, kaylee Cuoco.
Speaker 1:I believe so. She has the voice as Harley Quinn in the animated Harley Quinn show.
Speaker 2:Can I give a?
Speaker 1:side tangent that I gave in my body horror sci-fi identities class. Okay, so, creating a backwards time machine? We haven't figured out how to do it yet, but we already have a forwards time machine and it's called hitting someone unconscious with a brick. Yeah, okay, that's it. That's how you travel forward in time. You just hit someone with a brick and they'll wake up the next day, hopefully. Moving people into the future is real easy.
Speaker 2:So yeah, kaylee Cuoco, c-u-o-k-o.
Speaker 1:I don't know how you Kind of the podcast probably.
Speaker 2:Hopefully, but whenever I see a movie with her in it, I'm always curious what role she's playing. That isn't Penny, or that. 8 Simple Rules, and the last one was called Roleplay. I didn't really like that one. It wasn't that good.
Speaker 1:No Dungeons or Dragons.
Speaker 2:There were no Dungeons or Dragons, just Kaylee Cuoco. Being a Cuoco, she was a super spy. Actually, I believe that one also actually launched an episode about tropes. That we did because it's the fish out of water story, where the one family member is the super spy and the other one finds out.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah yeah. I am going to say, though, she has surprising range, and by range I mean the Metacritic scores of movies. She's in ranges wildly. She'll do a movie, and be like this is a perfect 10 out of 10. And she'll do a movie like this is is a perfect 10 out of 10, and she'll do a movie like this is a three. And I'm like you. Just, you don't determine whether this movie succeeds or fails by yourself, and I don't know how I feel about that good or bad?
Speaker 2:uh, you know, oddly enough, role play is from 2024. The movie I'm actually wanting to talk about, which is about time travel, is called meet cute. I thought it was, but apparently it's from 2022.
Speaker 1:Should I hit you with a brick so it comes out in 2025?
Speaker 2:Anyways, but the movie Meet Cute. She is an absolute psychopath. She finds a time machine that looks like a tanning bed. Then I don't. There's something in the story about how you can go back in time, but you can only be back in time for 24 hours at a time, which is kind of a weird and confusing plot point. That doesn't.
Speaker 2:Time travel is difficult, but like when Dragon Ball Super gave you a flowchart she goes back in time to have a first date, a meet cutecute with this one guy. She goes on this meet-cute with the guy like 365 times, like the entire year. She just keeps going back 24 hours to meet this guy again and play through this first date, the Groundhog Day method yes, I'm familiar.
Speaker 2:And then she gets tired and stale date, the Groundhog Day method yes, I'm familiar. And then she gets kind of tired and stale because she's always living the same night, but she's scared to move on because her life sucks. So then she decides to travel back in time even further and spends every day, every Sunday, for three months of her meet-cutes childhood. She dresses up into disguise, names herself like Uncle Charlie and plays catch with him so that he'll grow up to like sports more, so that when she goes back to do the meet-cute because even though things change she still shows up at the same bar at the same time.
Speaker 1:There's things on the time stream we call plot points, and sometimes you just have to put those in so your movie can happen.
Speaker 2:Well, yeah, I mean that's true. But then she doesn't like the new version of him and Charles is back in time to knock herself out in the disguise so that they don't play sports with the kid. And then it turns out that she had told him about this nice cable guy when she was younger. And then on the final night of the meet cute, he takes the time machine and he is the nice cable guy from her childhood, and so it's like a self referencing loop where obviously he must have found the time machine in the first place because she mentioned it in one of her time loops, but then it caused her to find the time machine. My first question is do self-referencing time loops like that bother you? Do self-referencing time loops like that bother you?
Speaker 1:So to go to Steins Gate, which has a kind of self-referencing one, the core premise of Steins Gate being they accidentally, with a microwave, build a time machine that lets them send text back in time. The text moves you into an alternate timeline. That alternate timeline results in his best friend dies and then, like the second half of the series, is him effectively undoing each of the time travel messages that were used, like one was one person used one to alter their father's death, so they had to, like let their death father die to save this one person. Another one managed to change their gender via message, which was an interesting concept. For it's like I learned that if you eat these while pregnant, it can affect the gender, and I don't like my gender, so I'm going to send a message. I'm like okay, anime, I think you handled trans issues gracefully. I'll get back to you on that one.
Speaker 1:Steins Gate, but like the idea was that it was the classic messing with history is bad. And then Steins Gate was a series of OK, I have to undo all these things that seemed like they were good messes with history, but then the final thing was having to scam history effectively where it's like OK, in the original loop where it looked like my love interest died. I just had to scam myself into thinking my love interest died, so everything played out. The hard thing is a self-registerential time looping thing like that. I've only seen one series success. Two series successfully do it because it's hard to do.
Speaker 1:So Steins Gate succeeds where, when it was originally a visual novel, the only way to get the ending was to undo all the emails and make the final painful choice to let the person die to then save them.
Speaker 1:And another series that did the time loop well was actually Attack on Titan.
Speaker 1:Of all things, the name of the first chapter is, to Myself, 20,000 years in the 5,000 years in the future, and the other one was like To Myself the last chapter. First chapter had opposite names and you see him wake up with tears in his eyes in the first panel and it's like, yeah, the the time looping nature of attack on titan, where he knew he had to write, he was going to wipe out humanity, thus ensuring he wiped out humanity, was fascinating. Now there's a lot of things that went wrong after the time skip of attack on tit, like following characters they didn't care about, Right, but it did the time travel well, so I don't mind it, but you're so likely to shoot yourself in the foot doing it. It's like how the original Fate Stay Night trilogy were technically three separate time loops because he kept getting the bad ending of becoming a hero and then getting summoned back to this war to have memories of himself going through it until he reaches the final conclusion of Screw it, which breaks the loop.
Speaker 2:Right, hmm. Well, so did you dislike Fate?
Speaker 1:stay night's time loop. Oh, I love fate stays night's time loop. It was. He went through three alternate stories and you think there are standalone stories of, oh, here's three alternate routes on my visual novel. And then you learn actually it's, it's a time travel story. Oh then, because it's like, oh, it's, you go through this one story arc and then go through the next one, and then by the third one you realize, oh, wait, each story arc, because it's like, oh, it's, you go through this one story arc and then go through the next one, and then by the third one, you realize, oh, wait, each story arc, all it's basically every route in this visual novel actually happens right.
Speaker 1:So instead of like picking your choices and choicing matters, like, no, no, every choice technically played out, it's just really hard to do, like a looping time travel uh, a looping time travel story is just tricky to do. Good luck, but I don't hate it fundamentally. But then we get to like Doctor who and Star Trek that can't do a looping time story to save its life, or CW's Flash to save its life, or cw's flash, where it's like people always want to do the time travel story, where it's like, yeah, the time travel is a closed loop and the means for the time travels to stop the time travel and there's no paradoxes. And I wrote this perfectly and then they don't ever write it perfectly and you end up with like literally the flash, having to have ghosts come deal with it and the timeline's just broken and doesn't make sense. It's like, yeah, it just is broken. It's bad.
Speaker 2:Well, okay, so I mean, like it really like the, the simplest way to do time, time travel, is just to travel back to the past and never go back to the future. Because when you go back to the future, because when you go back to the future, that's where the paradoxes start to occur. Hashtag back to the future.
Speaker 1:Or, like I love to rant about, in Marvel infinity war, they straight up explained that we don't actually travel into the past, you're going into an alternate future, and they explained it perfectly. And they kept. America ruined it.
Speaker 2:Oh, I knew that was going to come up because that was like they had it. They were good to go.
Speaker 1:They won.
Speaker 2:It was so good until they decided that they needed to give that meta ending to Chris Evans for his character Right, and it's like no, the meta ending is ruined. You're almost perfect time travel movie.
Speaker 1:Because when we look at the five main frameworks of time travel first, we have fixed timeline where it's deterministic and it will always play out the way it's going to play out and anything you do will always happen. Right, I'm struggling to think of some specific examples, but it's usually along the line of fate's a bitch.
Speaker 2:Right, the very thing that when you, it's the idea that when you try to prevent something Through time travel, that causes the thing.
Speaker 1:And I'm trying to think of examples when that happens really well, like there's examples where it happens Like I think Terminator for the most part is fixed and there's like it still happens. But I'm trying to think of other examples of fixed timeline stories, because usually the way you would tell that story is, like the character coming to terms that they can't fix it. They usually have to just accept that they've been defeated. Right and yeah, nothing's coming to mind right now. But it's also a great way to write a time travel story. If I travel, travel back in time, and this thing I tried to prevent can't happen because I travel back in time, it's fine. Then the next one is the dynamic timeline, like the Back to the Future butterfly effect. You're going to ruin your series. You can't write a good Back to the Future.
Speaker 1:Good luck, the idea that you travel back to the past and to the present. That is easily the one that breaks the most often, Like the one you were talking about just now was a dynamic timeline.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's the one where you have to have plot points for your story to make sense. For example, with Back to the Future, he goes back in time, he changes the way that his mom and his dad meet and that causes his siblings to have a much better life, but somehow does not cause any changes whatsoever to his life, such that he still meets Doc Brown at the exact same time in the exact same parking lot and Doc Brown still gets attacked by the Iranians. But like exact same parking lot and doc brown still gets attacked by the iranians. Uh, but like like how, how did his time travel affect his siblings and his parents so much? But then somehow not affect him? And then what happened to the him that actually was in that timeline? Like, do you overwrite people in timeline? Like, uh, back to the future is is a great series of movies, but a lot of that is nostalgia.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and then when you look at Steins Gate, steins Gate had a dynamic timeline, but its big point was the little branches all meet back up to central things unless you manage to shift it and divert it enough. And the whole premise was they did change the timeline, which causes and also steins gate for the most part had like small changes if we sent one text back right, but it was like, yeah, no, it was. This made things worse. This resulted in time travel being a thing, cern going evil and then them all being machine gun down because they invented time travel and the only way to like get fix that timeline was to not invent the time travel right. So it was an interesting way where it's like there's still going to be some flaws in it. So it's like the dynamic timeline is probably the most interesting one but would be the hardest one to write right.
Speaker 1:So next we have multiverse. That's the easy one. That's how come dragon ball just successfully did time travel, despite being written by Akira Toriyama, who once forgot what Super Saiyan 3 was in an interview? Cause, yeah.
Speaker 2:I think a more interesting multiverse example is the Legend of Zelda uh fine.
Speaker 1:But like the Dragon Ball, one's a good example, though, because you can easily go like trunks made time machine and move to an alternate timeline. And he just straight up goes yeah, nothing I change here will change my future. That wasn't work, so I came for a different reason. I'm like you know, you're right, okay, you just you win, you're right. Every time you use the machine, you're just creating an alternate reality, and it's literally just dimension-hopping, you Right? And I'm like, yeah, that's fine.
Speaker 2:I just find it super interesting, the Legend of Zelda example being, that when you travel to the future, in the length of the Link to the Wow.
Speaker 1:Ocarina of Time. Yeah, I was thinking Link to the.
Speaker 2:Past. No, that was Ocarina of Time, where you travel forward into the future, and then that creates a timeline where the young hero never returned.
Speaker 1:So it's interesting because the Hyrule story is like we're going to make these things that were never written to go together go together. Right, right, right. But if we look at Orchid Rite of Time, in a vacuum not counting sequels, prequels or any of that nonsense it still works for the way they have it set up, except for one exception, which is the Song of Storms. The Song of Storms. So you teach him the Song of Storms as a kid that you learn from him as an adult.
Speaker 1:Okay, so that is just one of those time remnant situations of. That's just a paradox, because everything else of like, oh yeah, what you change in the past, really doesn't change what happened in the future much, except for, like, planting bean plants. So it's not really alternate timelines for that one, it's actually dynamic timelines, which is a shame because if they committed it to being alternate when you go to the past, but when you change in the past, in the chain, you defeat him in the future and then it gives you the knowledge to the past and you make a good timeline and then it never happened, would have made more sense, would have succeeded, but no, they went dynamic. Then we got the Groundhog Day, the time loop the edge of tomorrow, where you're stuck in a loop till you break the loop. Unlike our PAL dynamic timeline, the time loops is much cleaner.
Speaker 2:Yeah, groundhog Day, groundhog Day, Happy Death Day, edge of Tomorrow. They're all very interesting movies.
Speaker 1:And there's one of these episodes in every long-running sci-fi series. Star Trek has one. I'm sure Star Wars running sci-fi series, star trek has one. I'm sure star wars has one somewhere. Stargate absolutely had one. Stargates was really funny uh, actually.
Speaker 2:So actually here's something. Um, one of my asked my friends about time loops, whether or not he uh what he liked about them, and he's, like you know, my favorite time loop isn't actually a time loop. There's a series that's called Person of Interest and there's an AI that the good guys are using to track down criminals. And then the criminals have their AI that they're trying to use to track down the good guys, and the good guys are all trapped in a room and you see a sequence play out all the good guys die and then it rewinds, like the classic videotape, and starts over and it goes through it and it turns out this AI is just processing all the potential possibilities and playing through them.
Speaker 2:And you watch the AI. It turns out this AI is just processing all the potential possibilities and playing through them, and you watch the AI think through all these possibilities and it's not exactly a time loop. But every time all the heroes die, it replays, goes back to the beginning and then, as the AI starts running out of time, it starts taking shortcuts, be like insert witty quip here. That is amazing. It's like it's not a time loop, because it's actually just all this processing happening at the same time, but it is time loop-esque, which is very interesting, yeah and then the last one is non-linear time, which is like a rival.
Speaker 1:Good luck. It's like past, present, future all coexist time is a stacked dimension. Rather, it's nonlinear time, which is like a rival. Good luck. It's like past, present, future all coexist Time is a stacked dimension rather than a flowing one. You're looking at different points of the timeline simultaneously.
Speaker 2:Yeah, good luck, well, I mean. So to me that kind of seems like it most closely aligns with our actual scientific knowledge of the time-space continuum.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but I'm going to put this out there. You can't write a fourth-dimensional movie. Arrival got real close, but like if you can't physically perceive it because our brains can't perceive it, it's kind of hard to write a compelling character-driven narrative where the rules of it are only equations on a board because, yeah, the non-linear time is static. Free will may be an illusion because you're just observing different parts, but the observation changes the outcome sometimes, and other times it doesn't. All right, now write a book and I'm like characters, right?
Speaker 1:So then you have things like Arrival, which was like almost more about them processing the death of their son than the time travel. Because, yeah, travel. Because, yeah, as someone super genre savvy, arrival took some effort when I had to write a paper on that to be like, okay, so how does this work? And it's like, oh yeah, there's tense just slips in this story deliberately, like mad tedang is a lunatic, but that's unrelated. But yeah, so those are the ways At least my class had it sorted For different kinds of timeline travel. Did I get them all? Did I like miss something? Because really, it's probably actually, like I said, five, but it's probably four. And Groundhog Day is technically Either fixed or dynamic, depending on how it's set, but the time loop comes up enough that I called it its own yeah, well, no, I'm pretty sure time loop is its own thing, like time loop is a like its own genre.
Speaker 2:There are so many time, like you say, time loop, sci-fi episodes, time loop movies, and they, a lot of them, actually do put interesting twists on it, but at the end of the day it's just you reset back to a specific point and then you have to live through that day of sorcery on sale on amazon.
Speaker 1:Use the time loop where I think I told you I had a character that can basically set a five second save point and go back to their save point and try again infinitely. But we're stuck in a fight that their ass got kicked in so many creative ways that they lived in this time loop until they just eventually gave up and stabbed themselves. And the next chapter starts where they walk up to this guy who draws their blade and then just kills himself and they're like, why did that happen? And one of them's like I don't know, know, I guess that was just a freebie. But you go through the chapter it's like, yeah, they kept trying and it's just every time they thought they won, they just lost in another horrible way because they're incredibly busted power of rewind time and try again. There was just no win condition in this fight they just couldn't rewind time far enough.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So it's like oh, there's one bit where they catch an arrow in their teeth, jump off a sword, do a spin kick, and then they pull out a gun and just shoot them. Basically it's like oh, I didn't even realize they had a weapon. I never got this far. It's like a Dark Souls boss where it's just like oh, this is just. I see, once you defeat one, the other one powers up. That's unfortunate, okay.
Speaker 2:A certain magical index. Yes, I recall there being a point where the main hero, his hand, stops magic attacks or whatever. But he goes into a battle and then things get reset and then he keeps like he ends up actually remembering parts of the reset and gets further and further along in his ability to actually fight this battle.
Speaker 1:Was that actually a time loop? So here's how the time loop went. It was each time he fought this fight the villain was trying to break them. Specifically, their win condition was I need this person to give up. They forgot every time what happened because they're in a time loop, but their muscle memory remembered, so is their mind like they like reset it, but their reflexes got better to what was actually happening in the fight until they eventually won Right. So it's absolutely a time loop, and I'm not sure like even how good my recollection of it reading a translated light novel was.
Speaker 2:Right, right right.
Speaker 1:But, like, the thing that makes the whole time loop work is that you're stuck in the loop is an abnormal setting and you're stuck in it until the thing breaks it. So there's never a paradox really, because it's like the paradox is the loop. So it's like, yeah, you just have to break the loop, that's the goal. So break it and then nothing that happened in the loop ever actually matters until you get all the pieces you need to get out of the loop.
Speaker 1:Ie Majora's Mask was one of the best time loops ever made, because the entire point is like, yeah, everyone's exact man. The fact I actually programmed like a working groundhog day into that where everyone was in their locations with their dialogue and then you'd loop through. I really enjoyed the time loop scam. That guy wrote down on your hand a stamp for how much money he owed you with his own sorting system because he couldn't keep track of people, and it's like the only reason you kept your money through each time loop was he could see the logo on your hand saying how much money he owed you because he drew it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, okay.
Speaker 1:Although we'll say one thing Steins Gate did that made their time loop slash, dynamic timeline work really well is they're only sending memories back, not stuff. For the most part, because when you send back stuff, paradoxes happen easy. When you send back memories uh.
Speaker 2:so then, like, what do you think about, uh, days of future, past, with that kind of time travel?
Speaker 1:Days of Future Past is the dynamic timeline travel where it's like, yeah, we sent back his consciousness, which to me feels more like in line with how time travel would actually work. Right, but like Days of Future Past if we're going the comic or the episodes, sure, but the number of plot holes Fox Studios' Days of future past introduced into that series is unfathomable. Like they literally changed a character from being a six foot tall black man to peter dinklage. So like when you're doing a movie and you're doing movies that are years apart and then trying to be like time travel is a thing, it's like your movies already aren't consistent. If you're not playing the time travel game, why would you even mess with that? That's true.
Speaker 1:And then you get the marvel nonsense being like we have world lines and we prune the lines, and then there's Keystone people. I'm like just stop inventing MacGuffins, just say your time travel doesn't work. You have a new MacGuffin every time travel movie. Because it doesn't actually work, because it gives the obvious question of why not just choke out baby Thanos? Oh man, it's just so funny because they had it and then gave up um the uh one.
Speaker 2:One of my favorite uh time travel movies, uh is, uh, the butterfly effect. It's not dr strange, no, I, I really I can never remember if this was actually the theatrical release or not because there was an alternate ending, but it really like. Firstly, it's a character-driven drama and I don't watch a lot of them, but I do enjoy character-driven stories and so like the main character played by Ashton Kutcher, which is another. He's such a doofy actor and then he played this serious role, which is another reason it's interesting to me. But anyways, he realizes that I don't remember exactly how he triggers it, but he can go back into the past to change things, and then he comes back to the present and the changes start to materialize. He's trying to create a better life for the person that he loves, and everything that he changes makes their life worse, until he realizes that the only way to fix things is to go back in time and choke himself out in the womb. That seems correct. I was just like I love it because I can't believe that it went there.
Speaker 1:So what's really funny is like that's technically the final boss battle of Earthbound. If you pay attention, Is you're absolutely fighting the final boss, at the time when he's the most weakest. And when you pay attention to the visuals, you're like no, no, that is actually what's happening. Yeah, so Earthbound went there Also, I think.
Speaker 2:Chrono.
Speaker 1:Trigger would count as a dynamic timeline.
Speaker 2:That's a dynamic timeline.
Speaker 1:Where it's like Chrono Trigger. It was like there wasn't fixed things that were guaranteed to happen at all.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's true.
Speaker 1:Hmm, chrono Trigger's a weird one, though, because it's like you don't think too much about the time travel in Chrono Trigger, like it's there, but it's more set dressing than anything.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I don't know. Chrono Trigger might be more static than you think Because, like you say, it's like set dressing rather than an actual integral, like you're not actively trying to change the timeline.
Speaker 2:Like you are, but you aren't you go somewhere to like retrieve something? But I do really love Corona trigger. The kernel trigger is probably the game that I played the most endings. I've games, multiple endings. I don't think I've ever actually hundred percent of any game that has multiple endings, but I think chronic trigger I got close probably because crow trigger was a reasonably length game yeah, it was a reasonably length game.
Speaker 2:I think I managed to run through it like five times because I really wanted to get the crazy prism armor for all the characters and then you get to Final Fantasy VIII, which is the worst time travel story ever written.
Speaker 1:It just doesn't work, no matter how you think of it.
Speaker 2:Okay, so full disclosure. I have played through and I think I've actually beaten Final Fantasy. I through VI, correct. And then I just dropped off the map. I just dropped. I have not played anything Final Fantasy VII or up.
Speaker 1:You did the right thing. I'm proud of you. That's correct. So people love Final Fantasy VII or up.
Speaker 2:You did the right thing. I'm proud of you. That's correct.
Speaker 1:So people love Final Fantasy VII because their brains were still developing at the time. But Final Fantasy VIII has one of the most nonsensical bullshit, nonsense plots of anything ever.
Speaker 1:It's like the more that you think about it, the less sense it makes and it hurts my brain. Okay, it's just not. And then, like the fall fantasy, 7, rebirth, re, whatever are doing like multiverse, timeline, dynamic, linear, where, like literal ghost things, you could see we're trying to enforce you to follow the timeline, but then you break the ghost things so anything can happen. Now and I'm like this game's so far up its own ass. It's coming out its own mouth. It's very pretty though, very gorgeous game.
Speaker 2:Okay, but so Final Fantasy VIII? It had time travel.
Speaker 1:So how can I put this? So you would pass out and have dreams and during your dreams you would pass out and have dreams and during your dreams you would junction your abilities and stats into characters that were operating 20 years in the past. It was kind of vague whether or not you were controlling them or not from your present characters. Okay, and then the main villain is in the future, trying to send themselves into the past, to then send themselves further into the past so they can go back further enough to conquer the world. I see which sounds good on paper, but then you see the way they tell this story. You're like no, Hmm.
Speaker 1:Yeah, okay, because, yeah, it's like the main villain is possessed by a sorceress from the distant future whose goal was to compress all time into a single moment, a plan called time compression that would give her godlike power over existence. Okay, and then to defeat the sorceress in the past. You were sending your dreams to the past. Then you meet the person you sent it to. It just doesn't work. I tried, I tried so hard. I it's like here's a richard hot take and it's gonna be an arrogant statement to make, but if I can't follow the plot of something with my literal training and skill set, it's it's fault, not mine. I I firmly believe that if Richard tries, he reads the articles, the Wikipedia, plays the game, finishes the book and tries to understand it and can't. It's broken. It's just broken at that point.
Speaker 2:Just fundamentally broken.
Speaker 1:Can't be done. No sane person can do it. Someone tells me oh no, final Fantasy 8's plot's simple. I'd call them an idiot and I stand by it. But with that we're reaching the end of our episode, so I should probably pull up our random questions of the week. Unless anyone in the streets handed you a vanilla envelope, no, it's truly.
Speaker 2:I did not get a random question for someone in the streets, but I do actually have a random question you do have one from the streets excellent from the ghetto Anyways. So the question is, if you could drive Rude and a friend Won the lottery and one of the ways that they want to spend their money Is to hire you as a chauffeur, do you Accept the job without question, accept the job conditionally, or decline the job because you're worried it will ruin the relationship?
Speaker 1:Accept the job with four specific conditions. First question which friend won the lottery? This is very important.
Speaker 2:Yeah, see, I mean hypothetically, it would be me, because I spend a lot of time imagining what I would do if I won the lottery.
Speaker 1:And that was one of the things For you conditional acceptance, because here's my specific terms and conditions for this lottery that you totally won here. Yeah, okay, so I'd absolutely A get my license specifically for this purpose and then drive you places, but first you'd have to pay for me to get my license, right, and I'm only your professional full-time driver monday to friday, eight to four, and then you have to specifically request me to drive you places outside that window because I'm a writer, right. So if I have guaranteed income from my millionaire friend, then, yeah, driving is my day job. Sure, I'm on call to drive. You're paying me full hours Because you're not actually going eight hours a day driving places, so like yeah.
Speaker 1:I'll work two hours and you can pay me for eight so I can work on my book in between or on the car, because it's like, yeah, I'm driving you in a nice vehicle and you're like committing crimes or something, or like throwing hookers at each other or playing one-to-one scale dnd. I could just be working on my book on the laptop and when you come back in, put my laptop back under the seating to continue driving you places. So yeah, absolutely, but I have to put in the conditions that it's a regular job, because I do not live that life where at two in the morning you're like, if you're like I was an emergency, help me. I'm like, okay, but I'm taking not just, I'm on call 24-7 and my life is to drive you to places. Standards brah, but I would move back to Saskatchewan for this.
Speaker 2:Oh, wow, I mean I guess I have enough money to move you and pay you to learn how to drive. Yeah, and who knows, maybe your certificate is still good, that you're super close to getting a Saskatchewan license. Let's be honest, if you're like a lottery winning millionaire.
Speaker 1:I'm just paying a better driving school and they're probably just going to bullshit my way through this.
Speaker 2:Okay, but I mean, I don't have to name names, but are there friends that you would refuse to be a chauffeur for?
Speaker 1:So there's a friends that you would refuse to be a chauffeur for. So there's a few friends I would refuse. They're simply too whimsical and unreliable.
Speaker 2:There's not very many, though they wouldn't respect your uh nine to five workday or eight to four workday, whatever you would prefer correct.
Speaker 1:Then there's people like you, directly in the middle, where I would do it, but I have to put down some terms and conditions, right, right. And there's three people. I would just say yes and not question it, because there's that responsible and reliable of people like, for example, jeremy jeremy, I would just say yes, because he ain't going anywhere.
Speaker 1:I'm driving him to school and picking him up. No, no crimes are happening. No chaos is happening. It's a safe bet. My friend redacted yeah, she's the most sensible human being I've ever met. I'd absolutely agree to that. They're only hiring me because they want me to want what's best for me in my life.
Speaker 1:It'd be a very reasonable situation right now I have a couple more friends that are closer on the Carl spectrum where I'd be like you. You seem like safe, but there'd be a few times I'd have to pick you up at three in the morning and hold back your hair as you vomit in a bucket. That's who you are as a person, and I'd have to put some rules in place just in case when this inevitably happens.
Speaker 2:Right, Right, right.
Speaker 1:Uh, right, right, right. And for the record, I don't think you're the cause of my reasonable request. I need to put rules on you because you have people who are chaos in your life. That you're using your driver to save them, that is very likely I get a text at two in the morning. Be like huh, we need to save my brother and and I'm like okay, fine.
Speaker 2:Me personally. I was just. I've been thinking about this and most of the people I've asked, at my workplace at least, have just said yes, that they would accept the job. Most of them have said there would be some conditions. One person outright refused because they were worried that it would ruin the relationship. Most of them said there would be some conditions. One person outright refused because they were worried they would ruin the relationship. It's like I was thinking about it. I was like I said this once already in this episode. But it's an unbalanced relationship. But then, as you say, you're not actually spending that much time driving a person around, so it maybe would actually be okay Also this is worth noting for me driving a person around, so it maybe would actually be okay.
Speaker 1:This is worth noting for me as a person. So as a grad student, I'm a mooch to my friends because of the life I live. It is a not well-kept secret that I right now will do work for people for money, because I'm a broke student who needs gig work. That's like the situation. So if you're like, hey, I'm offering you this job, in my brain you're helping me, like if you were to be, if you lived here and said, hey, vlad, I'll give you 20 bucks to mow my lawn. Yeah, I'm a student right now, I would take you up on that offer. 20 bucks will help me probably charge you 50 because of transport. So that's kind of like I'm. For me as a grown-ass man in my 30s, the power dynamic of doing gigs for people isn't a power dynamic. I'm a freelancer. There's not much difference between you paying me to drive you places as you paying me to write you a memoir.
Speaker 2:That's just how the change works.
Speaker 1:So I don't find it to be an unbalance of power, because my exit's simple you stop paying me, I stop driving you.
Speaker 1:You're a dick, I quit okay, so like I'm not indebted to your money really at all, which is the perk of being a grown-ass adult. Now, hot take, if you made this offer to your girlfriend, that would get fucked up Because you're like oh, I will pay our living expenses, but you have to drive me places. That becomes an unbalanced power dynamic Because she can't really say no. In that situation where you're like, okay, I'm a millionaire, so do what I say, that becomes questionable, right right. Situation where you're like okay, I'm a millionaire, so do what I say, that becomes questionable, right, right. Where I could theoretically, if you like, went mad with power, punch you in the face with knuckles that say resign on them, and then when you wake up in the morning and see resign punched into your face, I've resigned. So that's how I view the power dynamic. On that one, I'm like, oh yeah, I'm already a suck up right now, so sure yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 2:I, like you say, a lot of my actual friends are pretty chaotic, chaos incarnate. So I would definitely be worried about that power dynamic and I think for the most part I might actually refuse to be someone's chauffeur right, but you wouldn't refuse to be mine because I'm actually really boring.
Speaker 1:In practice, I have complete faith you would actually do it, no questions asked. Probably, yeah, probably. Because you're like oh, what's vlad gonna take? Do have me drive him to the bookstore.
Speaker 2:Sure, I'd install a nintendo Switch in the backseat, like okay, did you use this time to find another random question?
Speaker 1:oh yeah, I just enjoyed this one so I have a funny one, a philosophical one and a strange one. Okay, so here's the funny question. It's similar to one we've gotten before, so we might have to skip over it. But if animals could talk, which species would be the most sarcastic?
Speaker 2:which species would be the most sarcastic and why?
Speaker 1:so the obvious answer is cat, but I don't actually think it's true. I think the most sarcastic animal like in real life would probably be something that's self-assured and confident, so it can get away with being sarcastic as fuck. So my money is on something like a like in real life would probably be something that's self-assured and confident, so it can get away with being sarcastic as fuck. So my money is on something like a platypus, where it's like toxic and could kill you, but it's also doofy. But I also feel like and call me if I'm wrong I think polar bears would be extremely sarcastic because, like they've lived such a rough life but are also could just crush you into a ball.
Speaker 1:It'd be because, like they've lived such a rough life but are also could just crush you into a ball and be like hey, polar bear, how are you? He's like so good with the ice cracking. So my money's on polar bear. They have that mix of. I could kill you if I wanted to, but also you guys have screwed over my entire life, but also I'm a bear I think, uh, raccoons, raccoons would be very sarcastic yeah, although I feel like sassy records would be absolutely.
Speaker 1:I don't know if they'd be more sarcastic, like. I think they'd be more like quippy, like, but yes, I agree. So our, that was a funny question. Here's a philosophical question. Is the decision?
Speaker 2:truly yours to make if someone forced you to feel emotions before making the decision.
Speaker 1:Is the decision truly yours to make? If someone forced you to feel emotions before making the decision, if it was based on emotions, you didn't choose to feel.
Speaker 2:If it was based on emotions, you didn't choose to feel.
Speaker 1:It was based on emotions, you didn't choose to feel so, like for example someone's like hey, will you be my chauffeur, but you just learned they had cancer.
Speaker 2:Did you? Was that decision really truly yours to make?
Speaker 1:Well.
Speaker 2:I mean yeah, I'm going to say yeah too.
Speaker 1:It's an interesting question to be like. If you're emotionally manipulated and you make your decision in court, you can argue I was emotionally manipulated, but I still think you fundamentally made the choice, whether it was under duress or false presenses aside. But then if it's like straight up under duress, like I was afraid for my life so I made this decision, it wasn't really yours, that was extortion at that point.
Speaker 1:We have words for that hmm, no see, I think that you still made the choice to call their well, to not call their bluff yeah, but like having lived in the rough streets of downtown Calgary, I don't think it was really my choice when a person pulled a knife on me and said, give me your money, well. I guess it was really my choice when a person pulled a knife on me and said, give me your money, well.
Speaker 2:I guess it was, but, like I mean, sure it was incentivized to be one way or the other, but ultimately, you know, if you just say no, and then it turns out like with gun violence, a lot of the times someone will pull out a gun and they actually are just as afraid of that gun as you are and they won't use it. And so, like I don't know if I've told this story on the podcast before or not, but there was someone in a parking lot or a store. They had a gun, they had it in a baby carriage for some reason they see some people walking across the street, they call them over, they want to like fight or whatever, and then they pull out the gun and they're pointing at this person, right and the other person, without batting an eye, they just slap the gun away and deck the person in the face.
Speaker 1:You know that's so action movie coded though.
Speaker 2:Like but it's just like the person who had the gun, they felt like they were in power, but they didn't actually intend to use the gun. And so it's like, yeah, this person was under duress to make a choice. But ultimately they're like, yeah, I'm gonna call your bluff. Yeah, I'm probably not calling the bluff with a gun Me neither.
Speaker 1:I think the safer choice is to not call the bluff, but I mean on my to-do list, though, is for someone to pull a knife on me and me cut their arm off with my cane sword I don't actually own?
Speaker 1:a cane sword for legal disclosure on this podcast. Alright, and our final question the moon suddenly turned into a giant mirror. What weird societal or psychological changes do you think would happen? So the moon is just a giant mirror and if you look up, you see your own reflection in it? Huh, my brain's like, my brain wants to go physics with it. Right, but the question is societal or psychological changes to the moon? If the moon's just a giant mirror Because my brain wants to know logistics more than anything Like, if I look up, do I see my own reflection in the moon mirror? Hmm, Well.
Speaker 2:So I don't know how big an issue this is with wind turbines, but I have heard that some wind turbines, the fans are very large and they end up creating a lot of reflection to the point where it could actually be. You have to have a certain distance between the turbines and roads to make sure that reflections don't get in the eyes of drivers and whatnot. And the moon, surprisingly Well, not surprisingly If you think about it. It makes sense. And the moon, surprisingly well, not surprisingly, if you think about it. It makes sense. But the moon actually is in the sky during the day roughly half the time that you can see the moon. It's actually in the daytime that you'll be able to see the moon. So the moon cycles for daytime in particular would be like that would be insane. How much that would affect people being able to drive or affect people being able to work in tall buildings with beams of light just blasting in through the windows.
Speaker 1:Werewolves would have to retire and the poets would revolt.
Speaker 2:Feng Shui would have a whole new meaning, because you literally have to have your windows facing a specific way so you minimize the amount of reflection you get from the moon mirror.
Speaker 1:Honestly, you know what would probably happen we would destroy it. Mankind would not let that moon mirror look up and know that, like earth, is being reflected on us. We'd lose our bloody minds and we'd blow the thing up, complete faith that that's the outcome. It wouldn't even take long like earth would unite on the singular goal of smashing the moon mirror. Really spray painting it, yeah, but with really spray painting it, uh, yeah, but with that. Thank you everyone for tuning in. Send us random questions. I don't know.
Speaker 2:Drink water, I guess yeah, yeah, self self care. You know, make sure you go see a doctor when, when it's necessary.
Speaker 1:I'm gonna here's like a bit of some questionable advice in the episode with plan your funeral to be interesting. If you want me to attend it, like, like I don't know, make everyone wear fun hats or something. Liven it up a bit.
Speaker 2:Geez, it's not like someone died around yeah, you gotta plan your own funeral to make sure that it's interesting enough for me to come yep, that is the takeaway of this episode.
Speaker 1:Oh man, yeah, I'm gonna just stop recording on that one. I'm happy with the final closing thought being make sure your funeral is interesting enough for vlad and carl, or richard and carl, to attend your funeral. Because we go into no boring funerals, I still vote Smash Bros Tournament. The winner gets your belongings.
Speaker 2:A swag pile of your belongings.
Speaker 1:There's so much more fun ways, although I still kind of want to get launched into space so I can be used to smash the moon mirror. Well, yeah, and episode done. Go live your lives, bye. Oh, we were still recording, yeah, but now we're not.
