Gadgetory

welcome to the debut episode of far sighted on seen it i am your host Eric Mack in Taos New Mexico and also joining us today there in POV in San Francisco we've got Terry Collins from cnet and we've also got Bonnie Burton and kelsey Adams and Stephen Beecham behind the board and as well from Hillary Clinton's headquarters here on this election day in new york city tech republics dan patterson is going to be joining us in just a minute but to to start things off I should let you all know we're going to be talking about the election what what got us here exactly what got us to this day in history what role did technology play in getting us to this historic election and what role is technology going to play in our democracy going forward if you want to join the conversation as it unfolds we're on twitter at cnet and i'm at erics emac will be monitoring those tweets there's also a couple of chat rooms going on if you want to get in on the conversation at livestream.com / cnet / far-sighted and also at youtube.com slash cnet there's a chat room there as well but to get things started I'm going to take a little bit of a point of privilege as the host and do a little introductory rant here to set up our discussion as the future of our democracy hangs in the balance so I'm going to start with a prediction and then a couple of anecdotes and no i'm not going to pick a winner instead what I'm going to say is that this election is historic for a reason that isn't yet being acknowledged uh yes the candidates are historic but when we look back on the insanity of 2016 we will realize I think that this was the first truly online election I mean past campaigns were defined by online fundraising sure social media started to play a major role in 2012 but this has been a pivotal election in which I submit what happened online matter just as much or more than what happened wine whether it was the conversation and organizing around social media viral videos featuring the likes of ken Bohn and billy bush or even the really weird role played by WikiLeaks and apparently Russian hackers whatever it is this Lex this election has been driven by the internet I mean a really weird thing happened in 2016 in my personal life as a result a lot of my favorite shows maybe you guys experienced this suddenly became less enjoyable like house of cards and black mirror were a little less entertaining because the truth of this election has been even stranger than those fictions I mean 20 years ago it seemed like the internet was destined to be a unifying force that would bring humanity together instead it seems like it's allowed us to build alternate universes and be more divided than ever so today we're going to talk about 2016 whether or not you guys agree with me that it's the first election to really take place online and then later we'll look forward to future campaigns you guys see where I'm going here so um let's say hi to everybody everyone a chance to say hi how we doing there in the studio we're doing good cool yeah awesome why I brought my Hillary Clinton prayer candle I made it I mean I figure at this point I will do any kind of crafting that will generate positive vibes towards towards you know one candidate in particular I tried to be objective but I'm sorry I can't well one of you guys at the poker table has to show your card exactly to get things started let's uh let's kick it out to dan patterson really quick you can do that for me Stephen cuz he's at the Hillary Clinton headquarters there in New York City we want to find out what's going on there on the ground as we're about to probably start getting the first results back in an hour so all right so i am at the jacob javits center here in Manhattan and it's a crisp night we can from the west side here we have this view through the glass building of the Empire State Building and the new yorker hotel and if I pivot a little bit here you can see me doing kind of an empty stand up here I'll show you everything except me we are on the second mezzanine level and you can see there the media is my credential stop at that door the media is preparing to do full-on broadcast that starts in about an hour behind me here you can see stand-ups from most major news organization we are the press reporters are down there in the press file but for right now we're up awaiting it sounds like it sounds like we're awaiting some early ballot closures here in about 15 minutes hey Dan what's the vibe like right there people excited are they tired what's going on yeah so the vibe is as you can hear in the background it's noisy and I wouldn't say it's it's excited it's a different vibe from the DNC there is a sense of relief there is a sense of jubilation here there's a sense of tension but also kind of professional you know the whole campaign the Clinton campaign has been very machine-like they've been very efficient they've done everything from geo TV that's that's the get out of the boat ground game stuff all the way to the big data stuff that we've been covering over at techrepublic they've done all of those things really efficiently and I would say this is no different it's vastly different than the scene at Trump Tower I was over there earlier today and forget about accessing that building it is literally barricaded off by massive dump trucks full of sand it really feels I'm not taking a partisan position to say this it feels like em today isn't there a drill our huh down here it kind of feels like well the city is sparkling over what may be an early night here and thank everybody kind of hope so it's so weird to see the Javits Center without like cosplayers because I only go there for near comic-con so when you like show that view I'm expecting to see like at least one Batman does anyone dressed like Hillary that's exactly right it's you know the last time I was here I checked in on facebook to a DC Comics panel and I think to a Green Lantern event and man I kind of wish I was checking into that same event a different kind of nerd here tonight but it's it's like there's different costs players to everyone's dressed up just a different type of cost can't see nation yeah I hope there's at least one pant suit I'm seeing lots of pant suits dan let's see you we haven't seen you yet our audience opposed to see who you are there's yeah the the stand up I need a shooter you know you still you can take the tech reporter at attack i'm still gonna wear a hoodie I'm not gonna may have a blazer and a collared shirt on still gonna write on Stephen asked AHA Stan to give you know kind of his final thoughts of the role that you know the online world played in this election okay what are people thinking and feeling in Silicon Valley hey Dan so uh Eric just had a question what do you think the final role of the internet played in this election this time around I think that in 2008 we kind of had this emergence this glimmer of a thing that we call social media today in 2012 there was this merging of big data and in social media you know in Ohio famously the Obama campaign in southern Ohio in 2012 the Kennedys did they they almost knew that they would win those those last few counties there this campaign the role of the Internet is paramount not just from messaging and communication distribution which we see the social media but with what's called micro targeting and gotv get out the vote that is into the people if you live in a swing state or a battleground state you know the Canvassers that knock on your door you know the the mail that comes to hear the direct mail isms your inbox the email the phone calls all of that micro targeting it's very old media kind of stuff all of that is driven now by big data companies like l2 analytics l2 lets me not just look at a model of people like me it lets me look up me and see my income level my security number my voting history and with that kind of data campaigns can target messaging for individuals not just excuse me not just models of individuals so the role of the Internet is that technology drives everything now and especially big data cool anyone else have any questions it's funny because I was hoping with the Internet age I would get less mailers and it seemed like every single day my mailbox was crammed with a ton of fliers for every single candidate every single ballot issue and we've in California we pretty much covered the entire alphabet that we had to double up letters to like get everything on the ballot so everything it was just I was like and I was kind of hoping okay maybe in the Internet age I'll just get emails and texts but we won't have this but nope still as many mailers and it was kind of crazy how that old school door to door policy with you know Canvassers still happen so yeah and in fact it's amplified by big data in social media so when I say they can see a profile of you I mean they can literally like I can login to l2 or another one Cambridge analytica that had Ted Cruz's data they also did the Donald Trump state operation I can log into a dashboard and and look up you so the mailing that comes to they they think three seconds of exposure means enough so that a candidate or an issue becomes top of mine they're all about this thing called Toma top of mind awareness and just putting something in your hand it's kind of the same thing is you know you can type a note never knowed and it's a little different than when you jot down notes by hand that like physical action kind of lodges stuff in your memory and the same thing with direct mail so the stuff that jams your inbox all of that stuff they hope they get three seconds of exposure so that they can be top of mind awareness so that when you go to the ballot box you may not actually know what you're voting about but you know that you're voting for something that you saw and Terry you know it seemed like more than ever with this election you know you've been covering the role that you Twitter and so other social media platforms have played it seems like whenever you know the campaigns or anyone wants to take the temperature of the electorate these days the easiest way to do it is that is on Twitter does that seem right to you oh yeah definite I mean cuz how many of us you know we watch the debates we we had our smartphones or we had a screen we were we were on Twitter you know we were you know looking to see what others were saying and trying to get the pulse and it just became yeah I just became second nature we were group watching the debates yeah yeah we go me yeah because we weren't alone we all had similar sentiments and some of us whether we didn't have to really treat if we watch because someone else and thousands of others were doing it for us yeah at this point I feel like we're group watching everything on Twitter and Facebook live and whatever so it's like I don't even have to watch award shows because I know who won based on like what's happening on Twitter and same with watching season finales of shows like Game of Thrones are walking dead or whatever and I think the big thing with this election and Twitter are the hashtags that have come out of it like the nasty woman and the bad ombres and like all of these like tags that come out you know just everything that Trump said earlier before that everything that Trump says or Hillary says in the debates has turned into some sort of hashtag t-shirt slogan so it's almost like social media is driving not necessarily the propaganda but the bite-sized like you know sound sound points of everything that the candidates have said and I mean I mean obviously what Trump did I mean basically Trump won the GOP nomination using Twitter I mean yeah Twitter was his setup and then by the time he got to debates he was knocking the other candidates down you know and then it and then when he was done with that he would act the Twitter and knocked him down some more yeah ironically Trump is already like basically broken Twitter's terms of service when it comes to bullying and he still has a Twitter account so I pretty much right and then Twitter was a big news story this week where his campaign made him get off Twitter for the last week of the election he was banned from Twitter withdrawal right then Obama's using Twitter as like if he can't tweet if his own campaign can't trust him tweet how can we trust him to have nuclear codes so twitter is like such a big argument in this in this whole election the abutments have actually been talking about Twitter and quite a negative way I've watched several of their speeches and they keep saying like you know don't just tweet oh do you trust a man who just tweets as if that in itself were bad you know they spun it around on on on Trump and I couldn't i can imagine his campaign taking the you know taking them off twitter because we would have we kind of missed out because he would have been tweeting all night about anything and everything you know leading up he'd probably been you know round-the-clock campaigning if he he could just what it would have allowed to do that unless he was tweeting a three in the morning or something yeah and also you have to keep in mind i feel so bad for both sides us like campaign people because especially the social media person I've been a social media person for different companies I know how sometimes companies think of that as an afterthought or a joke or just an extension of marketing they don't really see it as its own thing and in this campaign I always feel bad for the campaign managers who are that part of the social media team they have to deal with this and they have to figure out like what's going on with Trump and whether or not and thing to it like you have to keep in mind a lot of celebrities and politicians have an actual writers room that's in charge of their social media or his Trump I think it's a lot of just him tweeting and maybe a couple other people night you know what night yeah bad yeah so instead of him you know thing of his next business deal or whatever he turned the Twitter for his campaign oh one thing I just want to bring I think what the most striking things that I came across this year when we're all were not in Cleveland for the RNC you know and I and I ran a new game Burton in which is flat-out said you know Trump basically you know won the nomination of social media that was I was you know it was something i would expect to have heard from somebody younger or even even I was younger made with millennial or smile attack but to hear from Newt Gingrich it was it was striking I and had one of the things that just stands out to me how Trump used the platform use social media to his advantage well in also tearing up I think what you just said tori is is such it illuminates how the two candidates really use technology in the web Trump would just tweet by himself in just really raw emotion away whereas the Clinton team had what they called snack size or bite size bed teams that were creating vertical social media for specific platforms just like in put in a moment ago you know there was a team that was creating snapchat videos and Instagram pictures and tweets were real tightly composed as though they were from professional writers because they were by professional writers whereas what Trump was it was just crude and raw and visceral yeah exactly yeah exactly exactly but that's also like part of trumps charm though for a lot of his supporters is that they think he tells it like it is that he talked off the cuff like he doesn't have things pre-written and even though some of us like some other like his non supporters are probably like well yeah that makes him sound crazy you know there is something to be said of not having a writers room like having a politician say what they actually think is kind of a novel idea because most politicians have spin doctors most politicians have writers most politicians don't write their own speeches so I think for a lot of Trump supporters it's this is part of his appeal is that you what you see is what you get and that could be good or bad but there's not a lot of like spinning going on his Twitter account exactly he forced he ports Hillary Clinton to respond back on Twitter I mean she had to Bob where's you know some of the Republican candidates were hesitant and by the time they thought about doing it it was too little too late but he also gave her one of her big social media successes by calling her nasty woman in the debate suddenly everybody's like yeah we're fired up we've got a hashtag yeah it worked a lot better than things they had tried to create how quick did that turn into to instantly is it like Dan remember you remember that night when you know you just like DD just say that and we had to like go back you're doing stories good to go back and make sure you know that was said we looked into a started trending things like I me to go back and capture that and put it into our story to make sure we reflect at the moment cuz if you have a good setup because you just want says you ask you won't lie cool what you know I was watching and I was just laying I was retweeting that in seconds you know I bought the t-shirt like in 10 minutes like it's so funny like how much merchandise has been made just based on Twitter hashtags of this campaign right o Shanter can't make any money off you did it's funny because he also gotten a lot of trouble for tweeting stuff like in the past thick years ago right cuz he said something like the Chinese or what was it a global warming as a is a specially by the Chinese and then in the debate he's like I never said that I never said that and then everyone's like yes you did use your tweet yes I'm happen to a lot of Internet is forever I think that's why a lot of politicians are not that interested in posting things on Twitter because they know it might come back and bite him like later in a campaign or something but it was almost like I felt like I was sometimes with Trump it's like watching live action Nixon tapes or something like he's saying stuff that most of us wouldn't think politicians would say but again like I said with twitter I think he's just writing things off the cuff and he doesn't really necessarily think but then again people want honesty and maybe that's what they perceive as honesty yeah and Terry you covered the Hillary for prison a hashtag you remember that one that wasn't it yeah yeah that you know I yeah you know and and uh not now look back make sure that wasn't a misspelling too but then you start seeing just it was just exploding throughout throughout the day and just inescapable because they were just trying to find another way see if they could you know take aim take shots at a Clinton so look at create creativity that I guess you know Trump supporters or anti-clinton backers uh the limbs that they went through you know this is what social media brought upon because I really don't remember seeing this for years ago with the Obama and Romney to this level now you know for all you know just just just like really just like a better work just brought out me yeah yeah I remember from the 2012 I remember binders full of women and I was under the one thing that took off but this time around it's it's like every single day and and the what the one who's talking about the story what if i'm correct was they were trying to get the hashtag Hillary for is to trend but Twitter had flagged it and so then they deliberately misspelled it and got that to trend aneta yeah oh yeah that's what happy any hatred had a good good run right um right you know I don't know if you guys have experienced this but it feels to me like this election cycle you know we're in the media so we're you know cut we're probably on social media and different media outlets more than anyone but if you go and you talk to a kind of a normal person who's not in tech or not in media I I have noticed that for this election the gatekeeper for you know their information about the election it's not really the networks or the editors of any particular media outlet this time around the gatekeeper for their information on this election is the Facebook algorithm and that seems to be determining what information people are taking about this election do you see that too yeah can't say this it on up dance till date around you can hear you yeah so so I started and I did when I um in Cleveland what would you what we saw was the transitioning of um I guess what was what was dead like press row at the convention to like meteor row and we saw how much big presence that that facebook twitter youtube you know google how they all had so right now they're like working with the traditional networks on this for years from now I swear you at Danny group facebook is going to be its own network alphabet is going to be its own and I probably have come sells out there call themselves something but they're going to be networks in their own right whether it's a foil orbits give me the likes of how when Fox first started I just built for you sir no they're gonna have more of an impact on election and a bit bigger saying that outside the four years ago is called an eight years ago and actually you know 30 years ago it's called a radio row right you never it's like like this like a conveyor belt of radio station hosts who are all there to deliver the news you have guests come in they go down like like you can bear about now it's called meteor row and I think Terry everything that you just said is kind of summed up by by that shift that we will continue to see it is not just that the old guard might go away they're they're going away and the new guard is here the they are at the door yeah we're going to be glued to stymie we're going to be watching this on our toes remember we're gonna be odd it's giving our laptops or tablets smartphones we're going to it's going to be so so mobile and so portable to where if we thought I was inescapable now it's going to be more than knowing the other like last night I watched Hillary Hillary's a big event in Philadelphia with like thousands i watch that on Facebook live I didn't watch it on television was like staring at iphone watching it so I mean it's just it seems natural now like that's just how we get all our information so well also like you're saying the gatekeepers are going away so like with the you know what's happening with the pipeline and the Native American tribes and all that I learned on Facebook live there wasn't any hardly any media coverage I saw about that like the media jumped on at after yes you also have to remember media is a company like all these news outlets newspapers you seen it obviously I mean we're all beholdin to what we'll do well traffic wise also you have to remember advertising is still always going to be important to all these people so you it's interesting to see how there's more citizen journalism going on and because of that after it gets a certain amount of trending or buzz then the major news outlets jump on it but then again I mean that's kind of the world we live in now we're news is now driven by YouTube captures and you know keeping checks and balances with police and politicians and government all of this is happening because people are getting out their phones and recording video and they're capturing evidence of wrongdoing or evidence of what's actually happening in real time it's not doctored video it's live so so yeah we're going to we're going to view evolutionist up where you know can't be debating you're gonna have unscheduled unsupervised abase but they're like pop-up pop-up to be pretty much every square i'll get each other whether it's could be through social media or another another medium yeah you know it's you know it's going to happen so if you follow like these candidates it's going to be a 24-7 job if you thought it wasn't who you thought was already enough you know it's gonna be more it's gonna take multiple people looking at them around o'clock I mean I mean it was 11 stretch with with Trump just a few weeks ago where I didn't I didn't sleep almost on the guy nah-uh debate night you know I just stayed up because you know when Trump I thought he lost you gonna run the Twitter and start saying something ya know to add on I know there's a lot of tired journalists out there I mean here's the thing i think as a journalist and I think anyone that's watching this that's reporting for a media outlet or something even if blogger you just know that it's kind of up to journalists to find the facts and the mess because we're totally overwhelmed with information with tweets with interviews with video and it's kind of up to us to go through it all and find out what the meaning is you know what the why as opposed to the who what where when so I am excited to see how this election turns out but i think the reporting after the election is going to be just as crazy to see okay well what happens because whoever wins there's going to be a protest maybe a riot it doesn't matter at this point people are so amped up on both sides that'll be very interesting to see the outcome you know six hours from now of hopefully we're not in an apocalyptic state but you never know so I'm hoping it goes well for whoever wins I hope there's peace that's that's all I care yeah I'm not worried about the any riots any major riots always but let's go a little further down that road that you were you were going there Terry in terms of you know where things are heading because I mean if we're looking at future elections now for eight years down the road you know obviously the mobile revolution and the social media revolution the data revolution will continue to progress but on top of that for eight years from now we could have some pretty interesting things in terms of machine learning and artificial intelligence and you know even weird robotics and you know genetic engineering I mean these are actually technologies that are nascent right now how does that how does head of things like that begin to play a role on our democracy and how we vote even even just for eight years from now maybe damn I maybe one a little gay like this cannons are gonna start having their own channel I mean trouble troubles right Trump is experimenting right so he's gonna things up being a pioneer cans are going to have their own channel they're gonna be there and go on whenever they want to they're not gonna not going to have that sit down with us or or any other media they're gonna they're going to spout and pontificate whenever they whenever they want to and it's going to be like either Your Honor you miss it you know you'll have to replay it I just you know not so much we're gonna be the middleman they're just gonna have another platform to say their messages whenever whenever they want to and you still there because I know you did a lot in regards to to what Eric was referring to in terms of the bottom in the AI and how that's going to play a row ah you know regarding candidates following the message I think maybe this is the first game paper we've seen that happen in force or in mass and I think that like as much as we joke out at Trump may start as a team member you know they are kind of what I was talking about earlier with the Clinton campaign creating vertical social media for different specific platforms just like we saw a convergence with devices we will see more and more convergence with immediate types on platforms by that i mean like live streaming and more immediate types of consumption and i think that like not only can that unify base it can atomizer base and i think that we're seeing that right now with the republican party where there are just and we saw that during the primaries with the democratic party you know they're there are underserved portions of the basis of both parties that were able to and I I don't know rise up isn't the right word it's 2 hyperbolic but they we were we heard we've looked under a different part of the rock if you use the the Rossi mother Rock metaphor and I think that we're going to hear and see things that we may not always like and once you've atomized something can you congeal it can you bring it back together is there any way we can unify people or are you just going to get especially with algorithms and AI and stuff like you know the UN is working with Google to to work on more positive search results in marginalized places facebook is doing similar stuff are we going to see AI and algorithms have a kind of dark impact in the future I don't know I think maybe it may not be as ugly as as this this election season all right but I think a tone has been set to know how far you know cannons can possibly go and they'll dope they'll they'll do heat checks to see you know when to Ratchet it up and when it when it tone it down yeah I think I think that's where I think that's where it's going to go from here on I think the bow is gonna be pushed in there won't be sibilities going to have a new term so here's here's a little insight into side or exciting oh good sorry sorry Terry Eric Eric stalking right I'm sorry good Eric so here's a little tip it into the some insight into the the dark side of AI that Dan was mentioning there so this is a study that just came out this week from some engineers at the University of Southern California and they used a state-of-the-art bought detection algorithms apparently to analyze election related tweets from about a month period in September and october and they found that BOTS produced 3.8 million of the election related tweets on Twitter or nineteen percent mmm that's that's like black pure in real life man haha yeah that's guys just think just think what's gonna be from here huh hey so I mean should we uh should we cut damn loose since he's walking around with the phone like this for Dan yeah what what our dance final thoughts you have any final thoughts Dan don't hate this is your belly better brutal campaign but like must speak with each other you know the only final thoughts I have is that you know seen it and in collaboration with tech Republican ZDNet it was just a true pleasure to work with you guys hosting the show with Terry Andrew mag get the conventions Oh Laura on cybersecurity stories I mean the team seen it is most well known for technology reporting and I think it was very courageous of everybody to jump on something that was kind of outside of the vehicle house and do just badass reporting all year so thank you guys for having me and Terry man go cats go thank you all rights pleasure for the pleasure when I done yet dude so all right I'll jump vodka all right let's take care fine you in a bit hey thank you guys yeah umm so so kelsey i'm curious to hear your thoughts on where you think the future of elections might be headed well one thing I've definitely noticed is that getting my news from the internet which is what I primarily do these days is really eroding my sense of what's real yeah because everything is I'm just looking everything on Twitter I don't have time to research it all and i watch fake news programs you know so I'm used to evaluating something is probably probably true probably not true dicey look at that later eighty percent true but I don't care because I agree with them so that's good enough for me you know and so the effect of that is I'll see something i'll be watching a news program and they'll be like well Trump says he said this here's video if I'm saying this other thing and your first reaction is kind of like oh so it's a toss up no no you actually saw video proof of that happening but but we're becoming kind of fun word from reality now with this kind of national gas lighting I mean but even not just him but just the whole abstract nature of it but on the other hand we did used to photoshop we did all kind of learn that a photo just because you see it doesn't mean it's real and we learned how to deal with that and still make intelligent decisions right so I think we can adapt to this hopefully it is very you pointed out to me Kelsey that apparently Adobe's working on an app that could make it easier to to fake spoken words like so it's like Photoshop for audio like inserting that fast yeah yeah inserting words that people didn't say in da like video clips audio clip sins which is anarchy on the way right i mean again we're gonna have to find other ways of judging what's real or white as they saw the news source yeah at this point it's like the only thing i consider real now is live so either I'm seeing it with my own eyeballs and I'm a first-person witness or it's live on the internet because I don't know if they've figured out a way to dr. live video well you can see something that had been live earlier alright then it is a live thing but then somebody could add spoken words to that I feel like they're making it harder for us to determine what's real what's not and that's a scary thought not just for us but for the courts you know when video evidence is no longer going to be considered real evidence you know cuz obviously doctored photos are always an issue in court trial so who knows what's going to happen with that but I I don't have a heavy heavy pre pre trial screwed I know it's it that's the problem too with something as that is as important as an election you know I talked to my parents you aren't very tech savvy at all and I think they get the majority of their facts from talk radio which is a whole other problem um and I don't even know if I should be saying that because we're kind of talk radio right now so I'm being a hypocrite but you know everyone gets their facts from what they think is a trusted source which may not be a trusted source it may be just a very opinionated slant and but that's humans that's how we are so it's an interesting election to see how its folding out on social media the problem two is that Hillary wasn't a social media star like Donald Trump was at the get-go I mean Donald was already a reality TV star wars hillary was a politician and so it's basically seeing a politician up against a Kardashian that's what it felt like for me at least where it was you know public public opinion and popularity were the mainstay of social media not necessarily facts public opinion colas is so fast on social media exactly exactly so we'll see I mean we've been stories on cnet though I think it was this week about a goat that can predict the winner that's right Scottish goat yeah so I'm kind of going with the goat like on this like I feel like at this point I don't even want to trust a human I'm gonna destroy scouts from the game just from the goat sure get go sharks pick Trump though you see that I don't trust arks I seen circuit I've seen all the sharknado movies I know what can happen do you mean yeah there it is Eric sir that's ironic it's Trump in the goat take Clinton so yeah this is what we've come down to now is just talk about sharks and goats because we're just overwhelmed with information and suffering election fatigue that's fine um Bonnie I assume you would support a robot um yeah I said that many times I'm getting to the point now where I've just fed up with humanity like this is a whole other podcast we could be shocking but I you know again we you know mentioning AI and whether or not maybe we should just give up and just let a I take over uh I don't know like I honestly I at this point i'm so tired of the election I'd vote for a self-driving car I'm just i I think robots they were very logical they just don't have compassion but there's something to be said about us being so desensitized to daily violence and daily everything that we're kind of robotic in a sense and we are either overly passionate or we've just given up so I I don't know I I don't want to I don't want my last thoughts about the election to sound like such a downer but honestly I'm just I want it to be over one way or another and I think though seriously though in the near maybe not the near future maybe black mirror future we could see maybe you know a lil possible elected that's not human that's an robot we just give up we just give it up to an algorithm I know that sounds really futuristic and stupid but at this point I have no idea what the future holds and I humanity better you now shape up and we're going to replace each other with robots that can do a better job well it better start campaigning in the next year that's how that's how it's going out candidates campaign for like two years so midway through someone's term they're already campaigning so is there something we should look out for to see like who's being set up for future yeah can you predict any don't say Kardashian but can you maybe GOP maybe maybe maybe Ryan I think Bryan's gonna be pushed to to uh do something you know he's the only gonna be like the last man standing I mean look at from I guess the start of Obama's second term like when the GOP can you think of you know what I'm thinking in order to do for another actor cuz we you know Ronald Reagan was an actor and he was an Arnold Arnold an actor and I feel like you know you're spoiling my card sure like well I mean a real actor not reality star uh you know like I've been binge-watching west wing on netflix and I'm like God I would have liked voted for him in real life if Martin Sheen Ryan like I would totally be and here's the thing like we definitely joke about this but Ronald Reagan I mean he acted with the chimp and he still got to be President like I feel like a lot of people want to believe in kill the debates people that can make us believe their president and in a way that takes a lot of acting and good acting and you have to be personable and you have to be able to have some charisma on camera and I mean we've always I mean even all all the way back to Kennedy it was all about charisma on camera so I think maybe tougher a robot to win because they might not well yeah it's my now they might have get to me I go I know unfortunately that's wasn't that the reason a lot of people hated Al Gore as they thought he was too robotic so our 22 has charisma and like a personality cuz no one knows what he's saying yeah he's just beeping an attitude that everyone just projects what they think he's saying I know a lot of people wanted to hang out with a lot of those Cylons for quite a while battlestar like hang out yeah faster ways to like did you think like today to there's possibility that maybe you know some hacking could oh yeah oh yeah like oh yeah I'm brushing off my high school Russian language books just in case like I don't know what's going to happen but I was honestly I thought because you remember the attack that we had a couple weeks ago where the internet went down I honestly thought that was a test run for today I thought for sure we were going to get hacked and maybe I'm jinxing it and we're about to get hacked right now but I I honestly thought that we were going to get some sort of hacking action happening during election day but then again there was a lot of hype you know and and scare tactics going around about that on the internet of whether or not hackers were going to decide the election and a mr. robot kind of way but I I don't know i I don't I haven't heard anything about it yet but there was a headline earlier that a lot of the voting machines in Utah were offline all at the same time so I haven't heard a follow up on that voting machines a lot of the moderate swing these days yeah well cheers a weird thing where they could vote for Evan McMullen the Mormon guy who's a third party all right we'll see I mean at the end of the selection whoever wins the other person is probably gonna say it's rigged so we'll find it bi if the internet and like all streaming TV show down for half an hour picture the panic I know or maybe the calm cuz we have one hour of no one yelling at each other but I don't know like I during the debates I kept posting animated gifts of cats being friendly because I just couldn't stand all the constant bile that was happening on social media back and forth so I don't know it speaking of which um I could like bring it real quick I like a story I'm still working on today about whether if social media can call the election so we're going to see on that we've been working with a spread patent spread past insights to get a sense of based on social sentiment from voters can we get a better sense of which came a win and one of the things that they pointed out that you know since this has been kind of like the anti election and it been kind of like all this negative sentiment your name so you can we've all written kind of storage of that negative negative tone suddenly the tightest turn where it was kind of like positive sentiment today because people were voting for person that they they want in the bashing it kind of like society because ty gets a rosier candidate maybe somebody he'll catch on and their underside maybe though they'll vote for them too I think it's also has to do with relief everyone yeah yeah yeahs think i will say there was a positive article going around last night and noticed that was trending on on facebook and twitter that susan b anthony is grave the cemetery kept the cemetery opened late because people were putting i voted stickers on her tombstone which i thought was so poignant and lovely and cool that a cemetery was like well yeah let's let's keep it late open late and let people do this to show their appreciation because obviously having a female candidate for president really resonates with especially us of the female gender because a hundred years ago we weren't allowed to vote so there were live streaming it yeah there are live streaming the grave so it's actually i don't know if we I I don't know if we covered and seen at by definitely do we okay good thank God we covered in on cnet um but yeah things like that like i like seeing positivity of just being appreciative of democracy in general instead of just having it be bashing from both sides so hopefully we'll see more articles like that of people celebrating the fact that we can even have an election where there's still countries out there that are through so much tour monal and corruption that can't the live stream i found how cool so Terry 538 or Princeton wait in terms of have you been looking at it like to have a favorite model for a prediction or do you think you know what um you know the goat isn't it no you know honestly I was um I glanced I glanced at both the sunday cuz I the sending news shows and saw you know nate silver but I've been inundated no I'm gonna come down off of me so far I've been inundated from all the other platforms sending me stuff and using them in the stories and things like that that I've kind of relied on them because they've been been accurate you know they've been accurate since like even with the debates you know with this thing with with with Trump and and then on the Democratic side you know with the Bernie Sanders may never kind of like spot-on on the sentence in some of that stuff was resonating in with voters you no neighbors they were doing what they were saying you know with with Trump uh he was waiting he was wasn't winning like by he was it was landslide mid stuff was playing out in the debates and he's playing on social media and I'm you thought conversely was gonna happen maybe to a degree with with with burning it did for a little bit but you know Hillary you know what we can pull pull it out but I'm social he was winning you know leptin right but you know the debates in a lot of people's eyes didn't translate to two votes you know but but he he also woke up voters to you know and i think you know to that in the Democratic Party and realizing what I guess they they need to do you know if they want to try to stay in office oh so these prediction models are taking an account both the online world we're all participating in and more moral ground based phone poll based other other factors in other I mean there's other stuff yeah I think yeah I think they're better than the phone poles I think this is just pure Ramos because they're they're telling you directly no no middleman I mean they're they're going to social media to it's the gift and a curse maybe with twitter is that you have this at your disposal where you just let out how you feel right there and sometimes you may think oh I just do that no but well people were doing it was contain eous it was it was a impactful and you know one of the reasons I guess why while we were here but that said I'm when covering like the first debate like in you know all of last year and seeing where it's gone now just like God I did this all kind of kind of have we saw it happen but didn't think it would just go as far as what Eric's had to lead off the show how you know campaigns are never gonna be the same again because we're going boating is like the very last step to several steps into campaigning now it feels like the worst episode of American Idol ever like the worst evening because I mean a lot of people are saying to like wouldn't it be great if we could just vote via text why do we have to stand in the long lines even male voting sometimes people forget that they're you know they can mail in ballots they don't do it the right time whenever and we've become a country that we vote via phone so quickly that we want everything streamlined like that so if for me it feels like I know election is a crazy year depending on how funny Saturday Night Live has become because right because it feels like everyone i was watching the debate I was like okay I know exactly what you know Alec Baldwin as Trump is going to do especially we know the hovering behind her during the debate and getting close and then you know people adding the jaws theme song you know and it just became I feel like people were starting to watch the debates not to glean some sort of political evidence of what the candidates stand for but for pure entertainment value and it was people were watching the debates just to see what hashtags would come out of it so it's almost become more of an entertainment reality show which Trump already has mastered with the apprentice than an actual serious election like it felt very much like am i watching SNL or am i watching real life and we had that problem with palin for sure where Tina Fey was actually doing Palin better than Palin I don't know it's Alec Baldwin has done Trump as best as trying i think trump still better as himself but it's just interesting to me like how we deal with stress through comedy and sometimes comedy gives us more information than the actual candidates i mean you mentioned that you watch fake news shows kind of like with Stephen Colbert and I miss Stephen Colbert I wish he was a lot I wish he hadn't gone straight and he was still like doing comedy because now I just you know go to why should we say CBS I missed that political angle because he was kind of like the conservative folly you know and then we do have like other shows clearly but the last month he would've yeah I just I I'm it i guess i miss when you sometimes humor and comedy can bring out the facts you know they can bring out things that we didn't think of or a different point of view so thank God we have comedy going strong full force during the election because not only does it take off some of this dress but also gives us insight into our own he behavior but yeah it's it's been a crazy election to the point where I'm glad it's going to be over soon but like scared people are scared I know I mentioned iron apocalypse like in a in a fun way but I mean I don't know what's going to happen after the election I just hope that people know that this is a democracy and what happens happens because of people voting merriam-webster's website know what happened right there Twitter header I guess Stephen did you see the merriam-webster Twitter header their word of the day was Gotterdammerung what is that that's like basically what apocalypse oh you know fairy destruction what do they know we don't write that's that's an algorithm that picks that word of the day right so everyone is kind of like thanks for the help chilling out yeah I am Webster well I i I've kind of got see some words oh yeah Eric but what it what I've got some words of reassurance okay get some some final thoughts but does stephen kelsey you guys have anything else any final words dad before we go or before democracy ends I just can't wait for it to be over hey it's over yeah a lot of people keep saying that to where you Kelsey final thoughts mandan I'm am okay well um I guess so so my final words for for farsighted today I guess are you know it does sometimes seem that the Internet has not turned out to be the unifying force for global understanding enlightenment and prosperity that many Gen Xers or senior Millennials like myself thought it was going to be back in the 1990s I mean you know so the Internet has always had its sketchy and more disturbing corners but in 2016 I feel like those corners really kind of went mainstream like we've been talking about it's it's like that really terrifying scene in the ring and all the internet crazy has crawled right out of our screens and become flesh and blood and a couple of quick stories I saw this on both sides of the spectrum when I was in Cleveland along with Terry for the republican national convention over the summer while i was there i spoke with a man who was selling truckers for Trump t-shirts outside the convention he told me about a cabal of secret Muslims DC provisions for imprisonment in Obamacare all kinds of easily demonstrably false assertions but you know you can look this up this stuff up online he would tell me it's all right there on google and right it is but the very next day i was speaking with some activists associated with black lives matter these were definitely not Trump voters and one of them quickly steered the conversation toward another vein of easily falsifiable assertions including the conspiracy theory that the world is flat and again it is all right there on Google so these are two of the people who are in Cleveland at the convention playing an active role in our democratic process today and they're being misinformed reaffirmed of their misinformed opinions and organizing real-world actions around those opinions and it's all happening online and this is to say nothing of the other multitudes of people on the internet that are just simply trolling harassing and threatening one side or the other all day long and after those two encounters in Cleveland I actually lost a lot of sleep I mean I was really worried that the internet might be destroying democracy but so but then on the final day of the RNC I just was kind of milling around downtown where the protesters were on both sides there had actually been worries at in Cleveland that there was a contingent of bikers for Trump who were showing up to do security and there were worries that they might clash violently with some of the anti-trump protesters but there was a massive police presence and there were a lot of no shows by the protesters so to be honest it actually produced a kind of chill atmosphere in the protest zone and so on that last day as the Sun set behind Cleveland the minor skirmishes and shouting matches that had gone down had all subsided and I was actually drinking a beer at a sidewalk cafe and watching one of those bikers for Trump play a friendly game of ping pong with an anti-trump protester so ironically after two decades of being a booster of everything online like I've been I realized that as the online world might be threatening democracy the truly decent people that most of us are offline maybe what saves us I so last thing I want say we're going to get through this day we're going to get through this election whatever the result is because it's a lot harder to troll someone offline face to face our offline super-ego will save us from our online it this time around but we've got to figure out how to clean up our online behavior otherwise the 2020 race and here's the candidates bunny the 2020 race is coming between Kanye West and Clint Eastwood is going to be even more ugly than this was yeah I'm writing I'm already writing in r2 d2 rjd2 is my Bernie alright so that's farsighted everyone um if you didn't vote and you're on the west coast you might still have a chance so so get out and vote it's probably too late on those three hours three hours um so that's farsighted hope you enjoyed it we'll be back next month for Terry Collins dan patterson Bonnie Burton Steven Beecham and Kelsey Adams there in the studio and we also missed you Jeff Sparkman we'll see you next time on merrick back Chris Oh you