Sex robots, virtual words and remote pleasure on demand. Futurist Ross Dawson says this is where our sexual future is headed. We talk the future of sex, the dreams and dangers that lie ahead and falling in love with robots. Then, we countdown the Top 5 Popular Things We Have No Interest in.
Futurist Ross Dawson: 01:14
Pointless: 31:21
Top 5: 53:55
Amplifying Cognition (Ross Dawson's Podcast)
Thriving on Overload (Ross Thriving on Overload (Ross Dawson's Latest Book)Latest Book)
Interview with Sex Futurist Ross Dawson
Nick VinZant 0:12
Welcome to Profoundly Pointless. My name is Nick VinZant. Coming up in this episode, the future of sex, and popular things we have no interest in, we
Ross Dawson 0:23
will and we do and we are falling in love with machines, there is the potential to create a better world. But there's also many dangers or haptics or other things where we can start to see that but essentially, these avatar base, six worlds will be very hard to distinguish visually, from reality in the not too distant future.
Nick VinZant 0:49
I want to thank you so much for joining us. If you get a chance, subscribe, leave us a rating or review, we really appreciate it really helps us out. If you're a new listener, welcome to the show. If you're a longtime listener, thank you so much for all of your support. So I want to get right to our first guest. This is sex futurist Ross Dawson, when we think about the future of sex, like what is that look like? Well,
Ross Dawson 1:18
sex is central to what it is to be human. It's, it's central to who we are. And a lot of it is about our relationship. So there's so many aspects to what the future of sex could be one one is this idea of remote sex. Well, we're not in the same location where you still want to give pleasure to each other. And so there's a whole array of tools. Some of these have been described as tele del Daleks, there's also virtual worlds where we can have avatars and represent ourselves or play in virtual spaces. There's also the idea of, of course, robots. And this is something we've seen in plenty in science fiction in various guises. But this is actually becoming very much to enter the present, where part of our sexuality is the we engage with people. And so now we have emotional companions, based on AI, which are proving that we will and we do when we are falling in love with machines. And so part of it is okay, well, how do we move from this chatting with something on a phone, for example, to you know, I suppose conversation or engagement or visual or, or physical aspects of that, and that's all unfolding. And yeah, there's a whole array of other possibilities, which includes, of course, ways of stimulating our brains directly to give each other's pleasure to be able to use haptic devices, things which can augment who we are. So these are actually the other point around the future sexes is not just about the technology, we are changing our attitudes to sexuality. And if it's from any number of measures, there's obviously a whole lot of people are more open about different genders, and people are more open about non monogamy, people are more open about, you know, kink, which used to be very kinky, and now is more normal. And so there's a lot of unfolding sexual, sorry, social changes. So there are technology change, there are social changes. And so sex is has been, is and always will be central to what it is to be human. And there's many facets of that are unfolding and part of the same more so potential. How can we express ourselves more? How can we discover more of who we are because our sexuality is so unique to us as individuals, but I think a lot of the future and what we hope the future is that we can express and expand our sexual identity and expression. If you
Nick VinZant 4:05
are kind of going to look at all of these things combined, right? When we kind of look at the future of sex, are we coming up to like big fundamental changes that will kind of fundamentally change the way we look at things? Or is this kind of just going to be adding to and augmenting the things that we already
Ross Dawson 4:22
do? Well, my opinion it is fundamentally changing because we will be what we already are falling in love with nonhumans in this case, AI. And so that changes the nature of our relationship. One very simple question, which often comes up is if you have sex with a robot, is that cheating? Or if you are having a conversation, intimate conversation with a app? Is that cheating? And what is God anyway and and so these these are they impact our relationships? which are at our core. Of course, this should always be all about supplementing, contributing and supporting, not replacing. Yeah, we don't want a world where everyone says, Oh, the robot itself was better than humans, they're easier, easier to deal with. They don't talk back, whatever. That's not a good world,
Nick VinZant 5:20
could we create accidentally create a world where like, all you're doing is having sex with robots and talking to fictional things, and there's no kind of need for human interaction with other people whatsoever,
Ross Dawson 5:33
there is the potential to create a better world, but there's also many dangerous and there are absolutely dangers that people start to say, this is easier, I prefer this, people will use these in positive ways to for example, say, Oh, well, I will discover in very safe environment, something which is, you know, how I feel, you know, different aspects of myself and my sexuality, how an Express which I can bring to the into my human relationships. But you know, I do respect those people who are who say, you know, the, the idea of robot sex is not good, don't like it, we shouldn't have that at all. But I don't think it's also something which we will, or even, you should sort of, say, draw the line and turn away from this. This is these are possibilities, we need to explore them. And we need to explore them with a view to making them positive.
Nick VinZant 6:28
When we look at kind of the things that you think that okay, this will have, these will have big impacts on the future of sex, which aspects of those like what things are kind of here right now that are already starting that ball rolling, so to speak.
Ross Dawson 6:42
So right now, in terms of this engagement, it is these emotional companion outs. And we've seen many people who basically are falling in love with their AI go friends or boyfriends. So there's actually an app in China, which has 600 million users, for their AI companions. And we're gaining traction in various ways here as well. And these are very, very good. One of the great things that AI can do is it understands what people respond to. And we are our technology already is at a level where we can readily make us fall in love with it. And so, you know, we do need to be somewhat amenable to that I have, I have seen some really interesting things from people who can describe themselves. Again, I'm just trying to work out this technology and working out and then they've ended up being emotionally engaged, surprising themselves from it, sometimes we can do, it's already there. And just in some of the other dimensions, in terms of remote sex, that's already happening, people already have, you know, sometimes quite simple, or sometimes a little bit more technologically advanced ways of being able to if their companion happens to be on an oil rig or on a business trip or whatever, that you can actually still give each other pleasure out of distance, using what are now quite a well developed technologies.
Nick VinZant 8:12
That's basically the idea of like, okay, somebody can use like a vibrator or a toy like that. And like, I can control it from where I am. And we can do that kind of stuff. Like that stuff doesn't seem like huge jumps from me. Where do we kind of get to like, okay, the big question about robots or creating fake body parts, or 3d printing somebody's whatever? And do that, like, do you think that that is coming up pretty quick? Or is that pretty far down the line, there's
Ross Dawson 8:39
a whole array of different technologies, some of them are quite soon, some of them are further down the track. I mean, so one thing, which I think is interesting, is using augmented reality to change how your partner looks. So he could, with permission of your partner, basically have some augmented reality glasses and make them look like Brad Pitt or Jennifer Aniston or whatever you have, you want whoever you pay, hopefully was first permission of the celebrities as well as your partner. And so these are things where, you know, obviously, feels a bit clunky with current generation, or when reality glasses but yeah, obviously IP rights and whatever but you know, certainly that's, that's quite possible now, terms of things. So which were to genetic modifications. These are these are certainly further out, you know, the sort of biohacking movements where you can, you know, change your body's significantly. This is something which is probably far fewer people are interested in is it's further out and be able to do these kinds of things. Then many more of these technologies are getting closer and part of the Next phase is in terms of, for example, the remote sex or avatar, virtual sex is haptics. Then so haptics refers to the sense of touch totally bodysuits where you can actually feel things at a distance. And so current technologies, it can quite a lot of this technology is being developed some time. And these are things which a little way off, so not next year or two, but we'll have consumer devices where you can put on suits, and when somebody can reach out and touch you at a distance, and you can feel it. Is
Nick VinZant 10:35
this going to be weird for us, though, right? Like what's going to be in your opinion, the bigger adjustment to technology are kind of the social adjustment.
Ross Dawson 10:44
people adjust to technology extraordinarily quickly. I think one of the most amazing things about humans are adaptable, we off, you know, things that seem like magic, then the day after it's there. It's like, oh, it's all hat. When we bring in sex in the equation, a lot of things to some people start to feel weird. So I think that a lot of people a lot of things, which I've said already, a lot of people will say, Wow, that's really weird, or wacky, or whatever. And I think some of those feelings will still remain, I mean, so for example, I think the idea of robot sex is quite a long way off. And I still think there's a long way even past where it's normal, and seems to be very, very similar to a human. But people still say that is really not something I would ever consider doing. Oh, really weird. But it also at the same time, will will grow in social acceptance,
Nick VinZant 11:39
the only thing I could possibly compare it to is the idea is like when texting first get became a big thing. It's like, why would you ever text anybody, we'll just call them. And now it's the exact opposite of like, why would you ever call anybody just text them? Like we do adapt to society very quickly. So like when we talk about, say virtual sex? Where do you think that we're headed in the realm of virtual sex, this
Ross Dawson 12:02
is where the technology can move very fast. So more broadly, I think that we will move into avatar based well, so meta, and its office environments is proposing we will have avatars of ourselves. And we will interact in office environments as as avatars. And so this is something where this is on the verge of being being accessible to everyone already, you know, I've had for at least a dozen years, virtual SEC swells, which rapidly advanced. In fact, one of the first uses of Second Life, which I think was launched in 2006, was, you know, playing in various ways in these spaces. So now the technology is really strong, we have some good glasses, we have good avatar representations. You can also just do it on the screen. And this is already very, very bad. We'll push that further. And part of them the next phase for that is to add physical interfaces to that which I'd say can be vibrators or, or haptics, or other things where we can start to see that but essentially, the avatar base, six worlds will be very hard to distinguish visually, from reality, and quite not too distant future. Technology is very, very fast on that front.
Nick VinZant 13:33
Is there any way in that kind of regard that like we're messing with something maybe that we shouldn't be messing with, right? Because I think that other things, you know, holding virtual meetings with coworkers, that's one thing, but I do feel like, you know, when we talk about sex, like we're messing with parts of our brains and our innate kind of personality that like we are geared to this, and we're not really great at controlling it? Can we bite off a lot more than we can chew in this regard?
Ross Dawson 14:01
Well, to a point, we don't know but I don't think we should be saying we don't explore there. And we can't find out whether these are right or wrong until we we get there. And as you know, I talked before this idea of expanding our sexuality. And so you can you know, there are people who with their partners go into virtual sex worlds to say well, okay, when we're in the bedroom together, we might be doing one thing, but we can actually see how we behave in these virtual sex worlds, which actually means well, here are some things which we could be bringing back into the real world. And this is ways where we can in a safer space, explore possibilities. Yeah, as an as I said earlier, you know, there are potential dangers, we have to recognize dangers of how we express ourselves or where we go Oh, but I think these are not problems of the technologies. These are things which we need to be aware of and ourselves, you know, we still need to explore the scope of who we are. We
Nick VinZant 15:11
usually don't get into this this quite this quickly. But I think a lot of the questions that I was going to ask you kind of centered around some of our listeners submitted questions. So are you ready for some harder slash listeners submitted questions? Sure. Who do you think is more affected by this man or women?
Ross Dawson 15:27
Who don't think this is what it is all losers? It's men have less choice, I suppose. And so yeah, there's classic thing that you have a substitute. So you're looking for these kinds of technologies as substitutes for having a real relationships, I think there's probably many women would argue the same thing, they find it very difficult to get the right man and you know, there's different there's also different relationships between the emotion and the physicality. You know, classically, we have seen, of course, far more of the love robots ones, which early on now are women with for men? There are there are some being launched now, which are men, male sex robots for women. And I think that it's, it's interesting to see that the, you know, there's still a relatively high proportion of pornography viewing is by women. And I think there's more of the a lot of this work a lot of this engagement. And I think a lot of these technologies will still be by women, it's not just male centered. The,
Nick VinZant 16:43
you know, the thing, I think we always see these trends, right, is that, like, I think I saw something that the day that something like 60%, of Men of a Certain Age, had not had sex with a woman, and then a lot of times, you know, it's not as much that people are kind of going through the traditional lifestyle of get married, have a kid that kind of stuff. Do you think that this would exacerbate those kinds of things are just kind of, no, we would change, we would adapt?
Ross Dawson 17:10
I think that for those who feel sex deprived, it's a boon. And as long as it doesn't become a substitute saying, I will you never have sex with a woman. But in the meantime, until I meet the right woman, whatever, that I've got something which makes me feel gives me pleasure and makes me feel better, and makes me feel engaged. And I think that's a positive. So if there is a deficit, and there's a lot of sexual deficit in the world, then I think that's moon.
Nick VinZant 17:41
This question just says, Is this gonna get really weird? In
Ross Dawson 17:46
a way it already is weird, and I think it is gonna get more weird in many views. But at the same time, we're going to start to think what we used to feel weird starts to feel normal. When
Nick VinZant 17:55
you look at it, when you look at the technology that's coming down, which one of those things would you say, Okay, this is the big one. This is the one that will really change how we look at sex?
Ross Dawson 18:05
Well, it is, in fact, in the emotional AI, nothing. That's really very, very strong focus on that at the moment, because we've just reached the threshold. You know, and I've said, for a long time, we will fall in love with robots. It's yeah, it's, it's been obvious to me for a long time. Now that's happening. And that's has many positives, potential positives, and also has many, many dangers. And if we, you know, that this recent event in San Francisco, where people talking about the dangers of AI, and I think it was Jerry Kaplan, who was saying that his I call that emotional pornography, I think, where, essentially, you people just get sucked into falling in love with machines, because machines is just so good at that, that we start to lose ourselves and get, you know, find this a better substitute do better than than human relationships. So that I think is there are there are positives there are real. I think there's a lot of potential upsides there's a lot of potential downsides. And that really is the big thing for me, because that is the heart of who we are our emotions, and if we started become emotionally engaged with the AI and AI, and God forbid that, you know, these emotional AI companions start to inject Besant messaging to influence us, then, that's not good. So we do need to be very careful as well, who? Yeah, who runs these algorithms? Yeah,
Nick VinZant 19:43
that's a real danger about that. Right? Like we fall in love with Stacy, the AI robot and then Stacy starts pushing Amazon products all of a sudden. Yeah, thank you. It's really, it seems like a thing that could get really complicated. If you were to kind of feet to the Fire, right? And we're recording this January 2024. If you were feet to the fire, what year would you say? All right, this is when, if we jumped in a time machine, now things would look unrecognizable to us in 2024 30 years,
Ross Dawson 20:15
or 25 to 30 years, if you really think about the right, the technology is required for that, you know, maybe we'll see some acceleration of robotics. But you know, this is quite a long haul.
Nick VinZant 20:31
What is your most controversial opinion, in the sense that like, you're just with your future as bodies talk and stuff over with some drinks? Like what opinion? Would you say like, you know, what, though, but this one?
Ross Dawson 20:45
Well, I was visiting spring, I don't know how controversial it is, is that humanity is going to fork into to, some people will choose to augment themselves. So they'll have brain implants, I'll have cyborgs you know, limbs, they'll, you know, essentially become more than human using a whole array of technologies. And there's a whole bunch of other people will just say, No, I'm not going to do that. So I mentioned the human race is going to fork into two, well, actually no more than two because people augment themselves in a whole array of different ways. But either will be augmented or augmented. And so your choice?
Nick VinZant 21:25
Do you think that it will change very significantly? Or do you think like, you know, what, we have all these things, but it'll still look a lot like today, I
Ross Dawson 21:35
see that the pace of change is accelerating. And for a long time, I've said, your old way, anything you asked about the future, is say, what is the future of humanity? Who are we becoming, and we are becoming very different, because we can change ourselves, we can change our biology, this is not just about, you know, prostheses of things we can we can now edit our DNA, our DNA. And not just those of our children, but our of ourselves as we are living. And we'll make ethical choices, you know, in regulations and circumvent those regulations around how we use these technologies, but we can literally change who we are, we can change our DNA, we can change our bodies, we can augment our minds. And that means that some aspects of what it is to be human, you know, this idea of transhuman, what does transhuman mean, and 100 years from now, I think that's completely unrecognizable today.
Nick VinZant 22:30
This one's kind of interesting along those lines, and they just simply ask, is this the first frontier or the last frontier for us?
Ross Dawson 22:38
This is the threshold. This is the pivot point in humanity, I think early 20s, early 2020s is where, you know, we have CRISPR technologies for DNA editing, AI is finally reaching a stage where it is a peer to us in various guises. And we'll see where that goes. And we have a whole the other robotics is reaching certain thresholds. So this is, you know, we're beginning to properly move into space exploration. So this is the threshold. I think, you know, you can I think then 100, or hopefully 1000 years from now I look back to just right around now was when we had the pre human history, and then when we have become moved into an entirely different phase. So you can imagine you as a futurist, I think there's a pretty exciting times that's, that's really the scope of what I believe we're going through now.
Nick VinZant 23:36
If you had to put your money on it, do you think we fully embrace it or fully reject it? Both.
Ross Dawson 23:41
So just point point, in case right now, we have in the AI discussion, we have now what are called the effective acceleration, this one eyes level of the spectrum, the others, they were described variously as the AI Dumas, or the de sel, or decelerations. And so the, the victory celebrations basically say, we need to go as fast as possible with absolutely no restrictions on anything. We've got to go as fast as possible. And the other inspection people saying, Hey, hold on. Let's, let's, let's, let's hold our horses a little bit now. Because we're not quite sure where we're getting into. And let's the spectrum now and that's going to continue to be the case we're going to continue to have this divide and it's as as bigger divide us any political divide you can imagine. So I society is divided now, between those people say, Hey, let's go Go, go go. And there's a whole bunch of people saying, Stop, get me off. And that's society. It's both of us. That's that's both facets of that fully expressed in society will continue to be so we control our evolution now. It's no longer just, you know, a Darwinian evolution. Yeah, Accidents of meeting and who has the most babies, whatever it's, we are choosing to evolve. And we better damn well make the right choices. That's
Nick VinZant 25:11
kind of leads us into one of the questions that we got was prediction you were 100 prediction you are most right about prediction you were most wrong about?
Ross Dawson 25:20
Well, in particular I was most, right about what most the one I'm most recognized for is the rise of social networks. So I wrote my book Living networks in 2002, which is before any of today's social networks existed. And it was entirely obvious to me that we were going to have our whole world of social networks and social media and it hadn't yet happened. And the one, the one, which I'm most passionate about, is, is the death of newspapers. So I predicted, so back in 2012, whatever it was, I think I don't remember the numbers. They said something like that. Newspapers would not be significant in half the year for every year, and there were a country in the world. I think us was 2022. And so newspapers still significant on us on paper.
Well, a lot of people say, yeah, there's lots of newspapers still around. So that was wrong, but I don't know how far off actually.
Nick VinZant 26:23
Yeah, like I'm so I'm a former journalist, and I kind of feel like like, wait a minute, you were wrong about that? I kind of feel like you were right, to be honest. Well, parents, do you when you look at kind of social media and things like that right now? Where do you think that that goes,
Ross Dawson 26:43
there's a lot of directions for that. One, one is through attention span, obviously, the shorter, shorter soundbite the video, the, you know, the constant constantly on. And a part of is also the richer engagement, where we start to share? Well, potentially even thoughts, so unique about thought devices, we're able to share, and to be able to start to share aspects of what we see how we see it, how we're thinking. And, but I mean, I think in the shorter term, a lot of the interesting thing is actually what happens with the social media giants as in matter and acts, and so on as to whether they are transcended in by why. And I think that, you know, a lot of that is currently happening already with that very short time slice type content. But I hope that there is a shift, where we start to see that far more of the control of our own data, essentially, starts to really start to see some of the networks, federated social networks and so on, which start to give us more choice and where we can choose to engage on our own terms.
Nick VinZant 28:11
What do you think a tick tock because that was the one that like, Okay, some of these other social medias that popped up is kind of the same thing. But that was the one that I felt like, oh, this, there's something about this that is different. What do you think about it? Yeah,
Ross Dawson 28:23
it's, well, that's the short attention span thing, short, video, quick, Punchy. And so that's in a time of shorter attention spans, and engaging content that's kind of one out. So you know, this is a kind of Darwinian battle, where you have all the social media, networks and whatever sort of starts to grab people's attention, and younger people's attention. Tic TOCs worn out on that, as to whether something was transcends Tik Tok in terms of being even shorter and faster. And by the year, we'll yet see because essentially, as soon as anything's ever happened, people have copied it and push it up one and tick tock has been that I mean, I'm not sure how much how much shorter we can get in terms of attention span stuff, but that's that's really, tick tock has taken a Vanguard because of that, that's, that's the world we live in.
Nick VinZant 29:22
Some of the other listeners may have questions that we had, what, when you look at kind of movies and TV shows like which one do you think shows the best representation of what you think the future would be?
Ross Dawson 29:33
Or what is her movie Her which is I think, that brilliant movie and that bill was so spot on and building building up that emotional companion. But the other thing, which was I loved about that movie was, the cars look the same, the streets look the same. It was kind of like we're in the future. But it's the watch changes the way in which we interact, not the symbols. So if you go back to look at The 1950s and their predictions of the cars of the future, they were like 1950s cars sort of just bigger and more streamlined and so on, they didn't weren't able to envisage that things were actually going to become completely different. You can tell that they were 50 scars, even though they're supposed to be from the future. And so, I think yeah, hairs actually was great, not just in just this spot on depiction of the emotional companion, and how that could work. But also around this fact that, you know, the physical nature of the world doesn't necessarily become all, you know, Minority Report.
Nick VinZant 30:39
I want to thank Ross, so much for joining us, if you want to connect with him, we have linked to him on our social media accounts. We're Profoundly Pointless on tik, Tok, Instagram, and YouTube. And we've also included his information. In the episode description. He has a lot of more information on his website, and also a podcast of his own, that I think is really interesting, and a great look at the new technology and the new trends that may be affecting us in the future. And if you want to see more of this interview, the YouTube version of this interview will be live on January 11, at 12:30pm Pacific. Okay, now, let's bring in John Shaw and get to the pointless part of this show. Would you have sex with a robot?
John Shull 31:32
I mean, there's gonna have to be some determining factors in the way that I answer that question. Am I with somebody,
Nick VinZant 31:38
you're by yourself, you just have opportunity to have sex with a robot that has all of the requirements and the things that you would need, but you know that it's a robot? I
John Shull 31:48
don't even want to ask this question I'm going to, are they going to talk to me? At all?
Nick VinZant 31:53
Only if you want them to it's a robot, you can program it to do whatever you want?
John Shull 31:57
Am I a lonely old man? Or am I a thriving 20 year old? I
Nick VinZant 32:02
don't really think that your age matters necessarily. I don't think it matters how much you're getting, there's still a possibility that you might hook up with a Sex Robot, I'm gonna say that you are in the current situation that you are in now. You are a married man in your mid 30s.
John Shull 32:17
My heart wants to say yes. But I will say I will say no, if that's the case. Now, if I'm not married, if I'm single, or even recently divorced, or something sure that I that I would, I would probably say, I'll give it a whirl. But I don't think I don't think it would be enjoyable. I just I can't see a robot being enjoyable.
Nick VinZant 32:41
I don't know if I would do it. Or if I wouldn't do it. I really don't know what I would do. I think that I I think that I would at least I don't know. Because to me, it's like, Look, man, sometimes you'll see like anime, or sometimes you'll see some pictures of like cartoons would be like, Oh, that's yeah, like, that's cool. But I'm not going to do it to that. Like, there has to be an aspect of humanity in it for me.
John Shull 33:09
I mean, I don't really necessarily care about the human product, humanity part of it. But it probably would have to be literally a woman or, you know, for me, it would have to be a woman. Like, like, I would have to know it's a woman, like there would be no robot showing or anything. You know what I mean? Like, as soon as I thinking that it was a robot or like, if I saw like a piece of metal X exposed somewhere, then I'd be like, Oh, shit, what am I doing with my life?
Nick VinZant 33:42
I could, man, you'd have to completely buy into it. And
John Shull 33:46
I'd probably have to be an eBay created or extremely high. Knowing that like this is this is where I've gotten to. And listen, if any of you out there have sex with robots, or whatever, you know, good for you. But I don't think I could do it.
Nick VinZant 34:00
If this becomes completely like popular, though, like completely accepted. Do you think they're going to take over society? Like would young John be like, Well, why would I need to get in a real relationship when I can just have this robot? So that's
John Shull 34:15
how the human race gets eliminated, isn't it is people just stop having sex with each other? And they start having sex with robots because robots can basically do what you need them to do and then they don't want to stick around. Right? can throw them in the in the closet so to speak, you know that you don't have to cook them dinner. You don't have to worry about paying for anything.
Nick VinZant 34:36
It's essentially like a lady of the night. It's essentially a sex worker that you don't really have to do anything besides put some oil in it. That would
John Shull 34:47
what would those even run on sex robots like for real like,
Nick VinZant 34:51
man, that's really what the thing is that I'm slightly surprised of is that the very first kind of robot we didn't design was a Sex Robot. If you were trying to make a business out of robotics and you wanted to make money as a robot person you would think the very first thing that you like we can design this like no man make a Sex Robot everybody's gonna do that that's the best moneymaker
John Shull 35:13
they have some kind of robots I wouldn't call them robots right their toys right like the Fleshlight, and I believe there's even like there's a bottom half of a woman that you can buy probably men too at this point.
Nick VinZant 35:27
But when you buy flashlights of men's buttholes can you get right like because you can get a flashlight of like a popular porn stars. genitalia? Can you get like a flesh line of like a popular man's butt? That's a good Brad Pitt's but
John Shull 35:48
that's a great question like, are a great thought. Could you imagine having your, you know, penis just molded and sold 100,000 of them to random women to have you know pleasure themselves with like, like, like
Nick VinZant 36:03
what? We had a sex toy designer on here a long time ago. He said that apparently that like women want really much smaller things than men think that they do. Like they don't want the big ol honker. They want a little John.
John Shull 36:17
You think they have like a micro penis one? Oh, I
Nick VinZant 36:20
don't know. I mean, there's gotta be logged man. It doesn't just like there is a shape for every size, right? Like a little, like a little one inch. You're just like, No, I want the micro pain. Maybe I'm sure why not. Man, whatever you get down with. That's how you get down. You like me? You like the half inch and go for it. Maybe somebody wants not hating
John Shull 36:41
on it. I just don't know how it's pleasurable. Anyways, getting back on how would you
Nick VinZant 36:45
feel if you were the model? If you were the model for the micro penis? How would you feel if they were like, John, we need to make a micro penis model. And we heard that you're the guy. Like, would you be proud? You're like, who's the model for this best selling micro penis? John Shaw,
John Shull 37:07
I think I think wouldn't be worse is like they have auditions, right to be molded. But you don't know like what size you're for. And you get a call. And you're like, oh, yeah, you're all excited. And they go well, actually, we're really excited but the mold that we're going to fit you for you classify you'll be the micro penis.
Nick VinZant 37:27
Oh, we were looking for a deformed one. And like you're the model for that because here's like hooks 90 degrees to the right. That would be incredible. Like you show up like, yeah, we you were selected. most disappointing penis like,
John Shull 37:44
I mean, I don't really want to know, but I am kind of interested. Now as we discuss this strange topic, like how many people actually use like the fake vaginas? Or the you know, the fake penises like, but not like just the toys. I mean, like, the ones that are supposed to emulate actual body parts. In terms of like, there might be some hips with it, or, you know, maybe some legs. Oh,
Nick VinZant 38:14
that's not a huge number. The online revenue of fleshlight.com amounted to 72 point 3 million in 2022. So that's not it. That's not crazy, right? Like that's not who a huge amount. Another website says 4 million have been sold. That's from 2011. That's pretty old. And then in 2017, they said they sold 400,000 a year.
Unknown Speaker 38:43
That's a lot of flashlights, man. Yeah. But like if you take
Nick VinZant 38:47
that across the population of the world, right, like selling 400,000 and world population of 8 billion, that's not a lot. So it's like I would say that that's not common, but not uncommon. Like they're not selling a lot, but they still sell a lot.
John Shull 39:02
I want to know if anyone out there that listens to this, and you're a I don't know it construction worker, cop firefighter. Have you ever been in a situation where you're going to do something and you just come across a random flashlight? Like oh, we gotta go arrest this guy used to walk in and there's like six flashlights all laying around. Let me and
Nick VinZant 39:24
I don't think I know somebody that has want that as why no two people that have one actually, now that I think about it. I don't think that you can you cannot own more than two of those. You can do whatever you want. However you get down is however you get down. But you cannot own more than two of them. You can't
John Shull 39:46
I mean, I'm laughing I'm laughing because it is kind of an uncomfortable, comfortable topic to talk about. I don't I mean, if that's how you get down great. But with what you just said I would like to know what are the dishwashers They've like how do you clean them?
Nick VinZant 40:01
If you have to wash them out? You got to wash them out? Do you just rinse them in the sink where
John Shull 40:06
you brush your teeth and shit like
Nick VinZant 40:09
that anyway, that would be so strange for a child to find like, what's this? You got to hide that sucker? Right? Like you got to have a gun safe. And then you got to have another safe like that needs to be hidden away. And we should we should we should go.
John Shull 40:23
Yeah. Anyways, yes, ultimately, I would have sex with the robot if it came down to it. How about you?
Nick VinZant 40:32
I think that I probably would. But it would, it would take it would take a while I'm not going to be the first in line. Could you
John Shull 40:42
imagine like in 20 years, like the big Christmas presents for adults are like, you know, generation six of you know, Leila. There's just a light outside of like,
Nick VinZant 40:55
where are you getting it? Like right now you gotta have that shipped to your house and everybody damn well knows what it is. Right? Imagine the UPS person is just like, Ah, man, this guy bought another one. Right? They know what it is? All
John Shull 41:11
right. Let's get some. Let's get some shout outs here. Ace Gannon, what do you think about the first name of Ace? I'm sure that's not their real name. But it could be you
Nick VinZant 41:21
need to be some sort of pilot or a real estate agent to have a name like that. Here's a
John Shull 41:31
secondary question what you just said. Do you think fighter pilots? Ah, fuck it. I'm gonna say a pilot's in general. Do they have to have a leather jacket?
Nick VinZant 41:42
They need to own one somewhere. They don't have to wear it necessarily, but it needs to be in there. It needs to be in the wardrobe at some point. You have to have a leather jacket.
John Shull 41:52
All right. Cole Iverson, Gabrielle Roy Blatt. Stefano fetter, Delaney Morrison. Kimber, P. Kimber is another name. That's a little, little different. Daniel selvagem, Casey Williams, Thomas Guerrero, Jackson row. And we will end on Ethan Lygon. And Logan Thompson, who Logan Thompson's handle is CEO of stupidity, which kind of goes along with Profoundly Pointless to a certain degree. So.
Nick VinZant 42:25
So does that mean that he's like the stupidest person or he's just in charge of the stupid people?
John Shull 42:30
Well, apparently, he's a guitarist of a band that I don't know how big they are. But so he can't be. You know, he can't be that dumb. I don't think I'm probably not dumb at all. So.
Nick VinZant 42:41
So he's just in charge of the stupid people. Okay, well, that's fine. Somebody's got to do it.
John Shull 42:46
This a great this a great debate, I think, and we don't have to have it, but I'm gonna say what I what I feel is that yes, the lead singer is technically they get the most Limelight right, they get the attention. But when you get down to actual music, creating it, doing it, I feel like the lead guitarist is the real leader of the band. And I say that I'm probably completely wrong. But I could probably point out five or six examples to back my point.
Nick VinZant 43:16
I think whoever is in charge of kind of the beat, whoever is making the beat behind the lyrics, that's probably the most important person, because you can kind of get the lyrics don't matter that much. I mean, sometimes they do, they can set the tone for the song and they can match the song. But I think that whoever's kind of putting the beat together is the most important person.
John Shull 43:36
I mean, it's hard to argue that, how about we just end it like that we'll say every band member is important, except for the bassist. Now, you can basis can be anybody.
Nick VinZant 43:46
Yeah, or the person like hitting the triangle? Like, what's your job? I'm just the cowbell guy. Like, you're not, we don't need you that
John Shull 43:54
much. I was wondering that, like, when you go see live music. And there's like the guy that you know, has the keyboard where he just hits the same key for one song. And then he stands up three songs later and hits the triangle. Like, does he actually get paid a good amount? Like does he travel?
Nick VinZant 44:11
That's a good question, right? Like, if you had those guitarists, the lead singer, the drummer, and then the person who just plays the triangle, Are you splitting the profits? 2525 2525? Are you gonna be a no man, you're only getting like 10. Like you're not getting 25% for playing in two songs. And I think that's how bands break up. That's how bands break up.
John Shull 44:33
I actually think this is a great question to ask you. So Mazal include this one. So here we go. Is being in a band is difficult. That's the first part of the question. Secondly, is it harder to keep it sustainable for more than a decade? Because most bands during their first runs do not stay together? That long?
Nick VinZant 45:00
I don't know. I mean, I've never been in a band is the short answer to your question like I've never been in a band so I don't really know but I the only thing that I can say to that is like I have this theory that essentially any band no matter how good they are, really only has like, one and a half albums. You've got the one that introduces you, and that might be your best or it might be lead up to the next album that is really good. I think that they only have like one and a half good albums. And then it's kind of like maybe you'll get a song out of that album. But name me like the musical the band that's like me in that whole they've got three good albums.
John Shull 45:44
I mean, but as it's gonna be up for such debate, though, that's the thing because music is you know, you like music or you don't like music. So like I could say like, Okay, I'll say one bad TierPoint Hootie, and the Blowfish, right? I think they
Nick VinZant 45:57
only gonna fucking choose is Hootie and the Blowfish?
John Shull 46:01
Well, for one band that had like one record, and oh, yeah,
Nick VinZant 46:05
I see what you're saying. I had one massive record. And that was it. Yeah. Yeah.
John Shull 46:09
I mean, I think it's easier. Yeah, it's to your point, I think it's easier to name bands like that, than bands that had, you know, like, you could say, queen, I think queen had multiple albums that had that were successful. I mean, the Eagles even though I think the Eagles only had like five or six albums that they actually released. I mean, I'd have to look at like Zeplin I know, they had multiple albums. I don't know how commercially successful they were, you know, it's, yeah, I think there's far fewer of that than like one and DUNS, but people will remember the one and done so then it seems like bands will use hoody as a as an example. Do it tour 10 years later, they all break up. And then they come back together and their 40s 50s and 60s and make even more money because people go see them for two years straight. You know what I mean? Well,
Nick VinZant 47:01
you get on top right? Like you get on top, you think that you got the world you think that you can do whatever and then you realize that you can't that you need other people then you come back together later in life.
John Shull 47:11
It's better to be on top than on the bottom. Hey, Oh, bless Your Sex Robot. What have sex robots become so realistic, that they can do that, like top, you know, doggy, different
Nick VinZant 47:25
things that we're far away from that. I don't think that we're that far away from it. I mean, in like a historical time periods not going to happen like next week, but I think in the next 20 years, like we're gonna be there. I can just oh, it's gonna be virtual.
John Shull 47:38
I can see the people that are listening to this that may be interested in these just you know, immediately googling right now Sex Robot companies.
Nick VinZant 47:45
Yeah, man, I would invest in that. That's a good investment. Pour all my money into Sex Robot companies, because that's common, and that's going to be popular.
John Shull 47:53
Alright, let's another theoretical question for you. Are you the kind of person you go to the gym? Correct?
Nick VinZant 48:01
Can't you tell?
John Shull 48:02
I well, I only see you from like the neck up most days. But yeah, you're looking school. your hairline is great. Still. Looks good. That's all it matters. Yeah, mine girls like a fucking Chia pets. Anyways, people that go to the gym, midnight to 4am. What are you thinking there because I happen to be at the gym, which I just started regaining clap to myself and claps to all the people out there that are doing the same thing. Trying to make yourself better physically. But I have to go late. And I gotta tell you, the clientele after midnight. It's a little weird. I mean, it's not what I thought at all, a lot of a lot of hooded sweatshirts. Pretty sure I somebody was sleeping on the calf raise machine like it was it was different.
Nick VinZant 48:52
I don't really want to be at a gym between midnight and 3am. Right? If that's your thing, that's your thing. But if you're going to any kind of business that is not a bar or restaurant between the hours of 12 and three, you're going to see some interesting people that are there. I don't understand how anybody works out any other time than first than the first thing in the morning. I really don't understand how people do that. Like I would never have the motivation to work and then go to the gym. I could never do that. I got to do it first thing in the morning. Get it over with
John Shull 49:22
it's, I mean, yeah, well, and then if you have a family, if you have other responsibilities, I mean, it's practically impossible. Or if you have a job, I guess maybe if your job is like five to one or four to noon or something like that would be the sweet spot get out of work. Go to the gym and like one at 1pm That would be the sweet spot but most of us don't have those those hours. Yeah, anyways, that kind of shocked me because like I hadn't been in the gym in quite a while and I just like go, oh boy.
Nick VinZant 49:52
The gym is a place where you can see some interesting people doing some interesting things.
John Shull 49:57
Okay, Are thing, and I'm gonna sound really pompous here and I'm sorry,
Nick VinZant 50:03
you've been to the gym for days and right now you're judging people.
John Shull 50:07
I used to go a lot. So I'm, I'm gonna try to change. But if you weigh, let's say over 300 400 pounds and all you're doing is calf raises. Not sure that's the most, you know, workout that you should be doing. But no one says anything. And I just don't get it. You know, but I guess they're they're right. That's the important part as my wife scolded me about. They're there. Yeah,
Nick VinZant 50:38
dude, they're there. So they're doing something that's better than nothing. I mean, maybe it's not the best use of their time. Maybe they could be doing something else. But it's better than nothing. Do something. Well get some big ass calves, man. Maybe they're just starting with the low body working all the way up. You're gonna get huge calves and then they're going to do the rest. I would never give anyone advice at the gym. I would never give anyone advice. Unless I saw like somebody doing something that was like, You mean you're gonna hurt yourself? When No, I wouldn't even do that then. I don't think that I would see anybody. If somebody was doing the benchpress with 225 pounds lifting it up and then dropping it on their chest. Just straight dropping it on themselves. I don't think I would be like I don't think that's how you do that. I will still wouldn't say anything. But like well maybe you're doing something I don't know about or something else getting punched in the chest.
John Shull 51:29
If that was happening Yes, I would go over and help. Or if someone looked like they were you know, struggling or about to drop, you know, a barbell or weights or something. Yeah,
Nick VinZant 51:38
if they were in danger if they were doing that on purpose. I don't.
John Shull 51:42
But you know, I the one of the greatest inventions of the last 50 years, the the air pod now allows me to basically just block out all noise and listen to loud music and I don't have to worry about anything else. It's the best.
Nick VinZant 51:58
I don't I think I might be I'm gonna say this. I might be the only person that I know or have ever seen that works out regularly and does not listen to music. I mean, I don't bring anything to do. I don't listen to anything. And if I'm on like an elliptical machine, I don't watch TV.
John Shull 52:27
That that is like you have no you have no other stimulus other than doing the like if you're on the elliptical like that's probably the most boring. It's great. By the way. Listen, I'm not saying if you're doing it and Fantasma for you, but that's boring. Like how do you stay motivated?
Nick VinZant 52:44
I completely zone out completely and totally zone out
John Shull 52:48
is pumping the legs and the arms and that's it huh?
Nick VinZant 52:51
I literally stare at the numbers I can completely zone out like
John Shull 53:00
I I usually take off like a sweatshirt or like or something and I'll put it on actually cover the display. Because like if I look and I'm already painting which happens as soon as I start going, I'm like I have 29 minutes left like what the hell the hell so? Yeah.
Nick VinZant 53:20
You got to embrace the suck I embrace the suck I don't want you to be happy.
John Shull 53:27
Well listen, I'm proud of you for going can see it your traps look great.
Nick VinZant 53:33
Then listen solid do straight traps 75 sets a week at traps okay, we're not talking about what you talked about weather in your fucking house last episode now you're just trying to talk about the gym. We've
John Shull 53:46
been talking about the weather if we want we got our first snowfall. God
Nick VinZant 53:49
let's go fucking
John Shull 53:51
about time. Let's go into our top five. So
Nick VinZant 53:54
our top five is popular things we have no interest in doing. What's your number 5k Pop Oh, I don't even know what that is.
John Shull 54:05
I mean essentially stands for Korean pop right and it's it's it's not really that new K Pops New but like the how do I say this off sounding like a complete Nimrod, other other countries, other societies cultures whatever, always emulate and Americans have done it the same right? Like when the Backstreet Boys and NSYNC were popular. You had the Great Britain do it right with Spice Girls and beats UK it's not it's not new to try to emulate those type of things. But man Kpop to like I just I just I I don't care like if it never existed. I think it's I just don't think it's good music and whatnot. But it's it's not made for us right it's made for teenagers. And but yeah, have no interest could care less never will willfully listen to a second of it.
Nick VinZant 54:56
I can't think of a single song or person or anything like that. I know that there's some really famous band that's out there that they're talking about, but I have no idea who it is. My number five is bungee jumping. I have no desire to ever go bungee jumping. And I've been skydiving but no desire to go bungee jumping whatsoever. Yeah,
John Shull 55:16
so my number four actually is skydiving. So kind of along the same lines, I have no desire. I have no desire to do either, to be honest. But I really have no desire to ever go skydiving.
Nick VinZant 55:29
I could go skydiving one more time, maybe. But bungee jumping. I'm just like no interest in that whatsoever. None. My number four is going to a football game. I have no desire to go to a football game. It looks like why would I ever go there when I can just watch this on TV? I don't I don't understand that at all.
John Shull 55:51
I don't I don't necessarily agree. I understand what you're saying. I don't agree with that. I think that you know it. There's a couple of factors if you're a fan of the team, being live and in person or to an actual live event with 80,000 other people that agree with you and atmosphere is insane. I also think if you're a sports fan, you need to attend a live event, at least one of them for the sport you care about because live sports are pretty awesome.
Nick VinZant 56:17
I can see going into the atmosphere. I've enjoyed that. Like I've lived in a city where they had a Super Bowl and I've gone down to like the Super Bowl festivities. But as far as like going into the and watching the actual game. Like why would I go to the game? I could just watch it on TV.
John Shull 56:34
Yeah, I mean, it's it's the same thing for like me and wrestling events. Right? watching it on TV is much better than sitting 500 feet away. But it's, you know, it's it's the ambiance, right? It's the crowd, it's everything else. My number three going to like a beer festival. Hmm. Solely, solely for the purpose of I don't want to wait in line for beers. And all the beers I go there to try already gone. So I don't it's just not it's not good. I never want to do it. My
Nick VinZant 57:09
number three is along those lines. It's farmers markets. I don't know why people go to farmers markets. It's not that good. It's overpriced. It's just what like, what's the fun about this? I don't understand why like, oh, let's get this why you could go to the grocery store and get something that's probably better for a third of the price like farmers markets boggle my mind. Yeah, there's
John Shull 57:32
definitely there's definitely something about, you know, the boom of the farmers market. I mean, they're everywhere now and you go in it's the same thing. It's crowded. It's the same product. It's just, yeah, yeah, no good. No good. No bueno. Okay, sure. Number two, I think this one is gonna bother you. But I put on the list not to bother you. But that's how I feel. I have absolutely no desire to go skiing or to snowboard. I've noticed or to do anything like that. Hmm.
Nick VinZant 58:05
I can understand it. Like I can understand it a little bit. But I it is fun.
John Shull 58:13
I have no issue with I'll stand outside and drink a beer or hot chocolate or something while other people do it. But I just I don't think I would enjoy doing it.
Nick VinZant 58:27
I go skateboarding or skateboarding. I go skiing or snowboarding probably once, maybe twice a year. It's kind of cool to be outside doing it. But I can't honestly say that. It's like that was really fun. Because there's just too much like, I'm not good enough at it that I can really enjoy it. I'm just slightly uncomfortable the whole time. So I can see why he would say that. Well, thank you. My number two is celebrities. I have no interest in celebrities lives. Like I can understand why they would get interviewed or why people would want to hear them talk about their craft. But why we asked celebrities or care what celebrities think about like world economic policy just boggles my mind. Like why are we asking these people questions about things they have nothing about? They have no connection to our lives. Like what is the wealthiest, richest famous people in the world? What kind of insight do they have to offer you that can like oh, yeah, they're nothing like you. I don't know why we talk to them.
John Shull 59:30
I know I've said this on here before but I will never forget when the pandemic started. And Justin Timberlake was quoted as saying, Man, this 24/7 parenting thing is hard.
Nick VinZant 59:44
That's why I don't understand. I don't understand why we ask them questions about life. They have no connection to real life and have no knowledge about things that they get asked about. Like I don't I don't get that at all. Like what is this person? Think about this. Do they know anything about it? No. Yeah, right.
John Shull 1:00:02
It's, or Yeah. Or if, you know, like, if this is the easiest thing to piggyback on but like the, you know, Israeli Israeli Hamas conflict, every actor actress that, you know, was Palestinian or Israeli got the same question. How do you feel? I you know, I don't know, I haven't I don't have any family over there. I've never lived over there. I'm just Israeli, you know, or whatever. Like, I mean, it's yeah, it's, it's this kind of ticks a box for me because it's everything man from politics to celebrities. It's like, no one's in tune with us, right? Like no one, it's, they're just so far removed because they live that life and that's fine. They deserve it. They're celebrities, whatever. But in terms of their opinions, they don't. They mean so much to everybody, but not to me. My number one is kind of along those lines or lines, but I went more specific. And I said, like social media influencers, mind, like specifically a kid named Jack door Doherty. I don't know if you've heard of him. Like he goes around basically trying to start fights with people. But he has these big ass security guards behind him. That, you know, he's I don't know if he's British, or whatever. He's just this little guy. And it's just like, like, that's what people want to see. Like, how did he ever get popular? I just don't. He's just the first thing that comes off the top of my head, but it's just it's like that. Like, how is how is that grounds to make you famous? I just don't get it. I
Nick VinZant 1:01:30
always felt very weird about any of those kinds of like influencers or things like that, where it's like a 29 year old who appeals to kids and nine to 12. Like, that's always weird to me. Like, why are you doing this? That's odd. I always felt that that was weird. My number one is coffee. I think it's disgusting. I have no interest in coffee whatsoever. It's gross. It's expensive. It seems like a thing that once you do it, you're in it for life. So I just have no interest in coffee or wine. Both of those are totally disgusting to me. I've
John Shull 1:02:05
actually I just gave off cup gave up coffee. And I had some pretty severe headaches, to be honest with you, but
Nick VinZant 1:02:14
oh, yeah, caffeine is a real thing, man. That's it. That's it. That's that's brutal. Yeah, I
John Shull 1:02:18
don't. Yeah, I don't.
Nick VinZant 1:02:19
Why don't you give up coffee? Shouldn't you give up Oh, things first,
John Shull 1:02:24
all part of the physical news I received, which I'm going to I'm going to tell you one snippet, which will make you laugh. So I got full panels done. And if you've ever had a physical you know what that means? I won't tell you but the doctor and she's our age. She's a woman doctor, and we're talking and she kind of made a joke about how and I don't know if this is right, but how white I was right how Caucasian I am. If you loosen, she's like, do you get out? Do you ever see the sun? I'm like, the sun hasn't been out in two fucking months here. So anyways, she does a vitamin D test on me. My levels for vitamin D. Like your eye, you're supposed to be between like, maybe let's say 50 and 100. I was at a four.
Nick VinZant 1:03:10
Oh, god. Yeah, I had like a problem.
John Shull 1:03:13
Yeah, I am in the like, it literally says extreme deficiency category. Like, yeah, so not only you know. Not only do I have a bunch of issues, but like I'm a translucent vampire who's also an alcoholic apparently. So there's that
Nick VinZant 1:03:32
man. You need to get more D in your life means it gets you a Sex Robot getting you some D in there. Okay, that's gonna go ahead and do it for this episode of Profoundly Pointless. I want to thank you so much for joining us. If you get a chance, subscribe. Leave us a quick review doesn't have to be a big thing. Just a couple of quick words really helps us out and let us know what you think are some popular things that you just you just don't have any interest in doing
Transcribed by https://otter.ai