041 Futurist Joel Comm on AI, Metaverse, and the Future of Sex Tech
Heather Shannon 0:02
So it was really fascinating to kind of feel like you know, it’s a it’s a machine, right? It’s not like empathizing with me. But I was like, oh my god it like captured like, who I feel like I am. That’s so crazy. And so I can see how people would start to like, have some sort of emotional feelings or attachment to the AI. This is the ask a sex therapist podcast, helping you change the way you look at sex. I’m Heather Shannon, and in a world full of sexual censorship, I’ll give you the raw truth about pleasure, intimacy, in your relationships and enjoying your body, because it’s time for you to ask a sex therapist. Everybody, we are back this week with what I think is a pretty interesting topic, maybe a little unexpected. We’re gonna get into sex, artificial intelligence, and the metaverse and just how all of this technology in AI is going to change relationships, including sexual relationships. Before we get into that, I am going to read our review of the week. So this one says great show Heather approaches this somewhat taboo topic with authenticity, realness, and openness, such a refreshing podcast highly recommend. So thank you so much, and I’m glad it’s refreshing for that. So this is your review. Reach out to us. You have won a bundle of sex and relationship books. We’ll hook you up. So I have a guest with me today since I am not yet an expert in you know, AI and the metaverse. I know a couple things. So joining us today is Joel Comm. So Joel was my neighbor when I lived in Puerto Rico where he still lives. And he just also happens to have written like 14 books, one of them New York Times best seller, at least one I don’t know, I could be getting this wrong. So he’s loving me just like ad lib his bio. Um, he I also found out when I was looking at something he was talking to me about that he has a Wikipedia page. So instantly, I was like, damn, Joel is pretty impressive. He also is an ENFP. So if you’re into the Myers Briggs, Joel and I are both ENFPs. And I think that we’re just very open minded people. I think we’re both a little ad Libby in general. And I’m very excited to have Joel because his expertise, he has three podcasts, you guys, which is kind of crazy. So he’s like, legit podcaster. So he has one called the bad Crypto Show. And that one, as you might expect is about crypto and blockchain. And then he has one called the nifty show. And that one gets into NF T’s. I’m guessing some Metaverse stuff in there, too. And then he has a new one. Super New right like last couple months. Maybe
Joel Comm 2:45
Naresh? Yeah, three months now called the baddie Ayesha
Heather Shannon 2:50
or the bad AI podcast. So and that’s obviously all about AI, right? It’s kind of this new technology. And I love how, you know Joel just kind of gets out ahead of things when when kind of the culture is shifting in terms of new technology. And so I thought he was the perfect person to help us kind of anticipate, like, what is this going to be like when, I mean, it’s happening?
Speaker 1 3:14
It’s happening. We’re here, and that was very, very ad libbing of you. I am ad libbing. So you did a great job.
Heather Shannon 3:22
Thank you so much. UNFPA is united. So yeah, so I’m happy to have Joel here. What do you think are some of the things are already out there that are starting to change the ways we relay we communicate that kind of thing?
Speaker 1 3:36
Well, even before AI, there are smart apps that have been developed that kind of learn our behaviors, right, our shopping behaviors and to know what it is we’re looking for. And we’ll serve up Facebook and Google will give us ads based on the things that we search for. I know, they say our phones aren’t listening, but how many times they’ve even been talking with somebody about a topic and all of a sudden, you get an ad for that thing. It’s super creepy. We were way over the creepy line. And so even though that’s not necessarily artificial intelligence, it is intelligence. It is data mining, then put into an algorithm and saying, Okay, we think this is what you’ll like. Okay, and it’s not too far. You know, there’s probably a couple times during this show that I’ll refer to the movie Minority Report, which I just viewed again, recently. Have you seen it? I don’t think I have seen that. It’s a Tom Cruise movie from probably, I don’t know, 1518 years ago, and it’s a great science fiction film that takes place in a future where there are three people that are gifted with pre cognitive abilities, and they’re able to tell if a crime is going to be committed before it’s committed. And that’s why and the Department of pre crime can then have an officer go arrest that person both For a while you’re going to commit a crime, and we stopped it, but you’re under arrest Yes, in any way, because it’s futuristic. There’s all kinds of interesting things that happened in the film. And one of them in particular is he’s walking through a shopping mall. And the different displays are talking to him as he’s within, you know, earshot of them, oh, we have your shirt in and that you like in this size. Hey, come on over here and see us we’ve got some new items on the menu, John, like, Whatever, whatever it is, you know. So we already have that near frequency type of ability, based on geolocation to serve up data that that we’re looking for. And of course, in the area of sex, there’s all kinds of interesting things that have happened in relationships and sex, right? Dating apps, learn your preference, right? And you try to train it. Okay, I’m looking for, you know, between five foot two and five foot six and brunette, and you know, this age range. And in that’s what it’s gonna give us? Yeah,
Heather Shannon 6:06
some apps do that better than others? Yes.
Unknown Speaker 6:10
Some learn?
Heather Shannon 6:11
Some don’t eat or people.
Unknown Speaker 6:12
Is that right?
Heather Shannon 6:14
It does. Like, I don’t know how I was actually thinking about that. The other day, I was like, do the apps like, look at your facial symmetry? Do they just notice, like, how many you swipe right on how many people swipe right or left on you? And, you know, do they give you kind of people get similar percentages of swipes, but then do they have to change it by gender? I don’t know, I’m just pretty curious about
Speaker 1 6:35
it. Well, let’s just say the number of data points, they have our number far more than what you said what you’re giving them, right in terms of when you fill out your profile, they know more about you there is data on your phone that is shared between apps, when you agree to terms of service, you don’t know what you’re actually agreeing to. And you can just assume that based on usage of your phone, that the government knows everything about you.
Heather Shannon 7:04
This is scary. So I will also add you guys, since I know Joel, Joel is very good at not giving people his data when he doesn’t have to. So maybe you can also like as we go, let people know, hey, if you want less invasiveness, you use like the brave browser and you like have certain kind of more private email addresses. And you’re just very conscious about that. Well, let’s
Speaker 1 7:25
just go there, as long as you brought it up. First of all, you should try it, try and avoid all things Google very difficult, because all of their stuff works really well together. I have not yet been able to completely extricate myself from their system yet, and still use Gmail, because so many people know this particular address.
Heather Shannon 7:46
But calendar, what about my Google Calendar? Yeah.
Speaker 1 7:49
So there’s no alternatives that are as sophisticated as Google Calendar. But proton proton mail.com now has a suite of tools. I do use protonmail. It is secure. And it is your data is safe from prying eyes. And it has the suite of documents. So like Google Docs, and drive for storage, and calendar. Now, it doesn’t necessarily play well with your Google Calendar. So you have to, you know, it’s a trade off, right? We want privacy, or do we want convenience, and I’m slowly making the move. That means you got to get rid of Google Chrome brave browser, this is the easiest one to do. Go to brave.com Download the brave browser. It’s it is a privacy browser, you can control. You know whether or not you see ads, whether or not your data is saved, or whether or not is private to you. And you can import all of your Google bookmarks. It’s faster than Chrome, it’s the easiest thing to switch and having your browsing, you know, profile away from big tech that wants nothing more than to treat us like the commodities we
Heather Shannon 9:02
are not thinking about all the porn sites everyone visits to, oh,
Speaker 1 9:05
gosh, they know everything. They know, everything.
Heather Shannon 9:13
Like now that everyone is scared, we’ll have to give them counseling.
Speaker 1 9:17
rediff.com Go get the brave browser. Simple, easy switch.
Heather Shannon 9:21
Yeah. But you’re right, like the point that you’re making that? In my mind, I think it has kind of been like, Oh, my God is going to be this abrupt super fast change where like AI is taking over the world. We are right, like, there have been data points and there are algorithms and it’s not like the first time that a software is learning us.
Speaker 1 9:39
No. Now in the realm of AI specifically where machines are able to learn and think for themselves. That’s what artificial intelligence is right to be able to come up with solutions to problems based on the models that they’re coded with. Chat G pte is the fastest growing application technology ever they hit it took it took Spotify, something like, I don’t know, five months to hit a million users and Instagram was like a couple of years, it took Chet GPT and open AI five days to reach a million users.
Heather Shannon 10:22
My dad’s even heard of it.
Unknown Speaker 10:25
I’m sure it’s hard to you can’t miss it.
Heather Shannon 10:27
Break it down for people like what it is in case some people are like, I’ve heard of it. But I don’t know what it is. Yeah,
Speaker 1 10:33
so open ai.com developed this, this artificial intelligence model. It’s not the only one that’s out there. But basically, it’s able to scour all known information that’s on the internet, and create a sense of understanding about the world. Think of it as a sophisticated search engine that doesn’t give you results and pages, gives you results in data. And you can teach it and it can learn. So people are writing code who have no ability to write code, they’re using chat GPT to say, write me this WordPress plug in or write me this game. And then it’ll give them actual code, and then they can test it. And they can say, hey, this didn’t work, please, you know, make it so this item now does what it’s supposed to do. And really, the skill now is not encoding. It’s in learning to prompt learning how to give the AI models, the information that it needs in order to deliver the results that you want. And so whether it’s, you know, give me 10 ideas for off the beaten path, things to do while vacationing in Bangkok. And it can do that. And you’ll be like, Wow, those are great ideas. I don’t need a travel agent, I don’t need to go, you know, get brochures, there’s 10 great things, or whether it’s going to a site like mid journey, and telling it, I need to create an image of a unicorn on Jupiter. With a cat writing its back eating a piece of bacon, you can go to MIT journey, be very specific Intel it to do that. And it will come up with images that would take an artist you know, days, perhaps somebody
Heather Shannon 12:18
I did try my journey and I’m like, I’m not getting what I want. But maybe I wasn’t good at prompting yet. But trashy BTW I am training him to write my email. So like I put in some emails that I liked my writing style. So I asked him to make a paragraph like for itself. I was like chat, GPT make a paragraph that like I can use to tell you how to replicate my writing style for like future email sequence and
Unknown Speaker 12:40
how that work. Good. And well. So
Heather Shannon 12:43
this is what we start to get into the fascinating part. I think like people developing relationships with their AI, I think is super fascinating. So my friend Marcus is really into AI. And he’s done some sessions with me, like helping me on like developing prompts and stuff like that. But he sent me like some of the feedback about how I would describe my writing style. And it was kind of like, oh, this person is like, open and warm, but still has credibility. But so I was like, Oh my God, I feel so understood. So it was really fascinating to kind of feel like, you know, it’s a it’s a machine, right? It’s not like empathizing with me. But I was like, oh my god, it like captured, like, who I feel like I am. That’s so crazy. And so I can see how people would start to like, have some sort of emotional feelings or attachment to the AI. Well,
Speaker 1 13:28
and that’s happening with artificial intelligence. Apps like replica, you know, we talked about this offline briefly. And I guess it’s really popular. I’ve dabbled with it just a little bit. There’s a paid version, that I don’t know exactly what it does. But it’s you basically create your own boyfriend or girlfriend, and you talk to this thing, he or she that’s in the app, and it talks back to you and it becomes like your companion. That’s what they call it.
Heather Shannon 13:58
It’s like a companion. So I’m curious how many people use it like for romantic purposes or just for like having a buddy or something. But it’s supposed to, like learn you right? And I think it’s most to learn, hey, like you can, the replica can be romantic with you.
Unknown Speaker 14:14
So they say sex. I
Heather Shannon 14:16
think you’re gonna use it for sexting.
Speaker 1 14:17
I mean, I guess I am not exactly sure how that works.
Heather Shannon 14:22
But clear neither Joel nor I is using replica to sex. Yeah.
Speaker 1 14:29
I do have to show you this though. There is a witness in the mid journey. A unicorn flying past Saturday.
Heather Shannon 14:36
on its back. Hopefully you can see this. I’m going to screenshot it too.
Speaker 1 14:40
And the cat is eating bacon. Oh, that’s Hang on. So there you go. There we go. Okay.
Heather Shannon 14:44
Wow, that’s really cool, you guys. So it’s giving like four different versions if you’re just listening. So it’s got like one where there’s like a doughnut or a burger.
Speaker 1 14:52
It’s kind of like a unit cap. It didn’t really do it specifically like in two of them. It’s a cat right? Hang on the back of a thing. This isn’t really a unicorn but or it’s made a unit cat. Yeah. And it’s riding on a hamburger. It’s, you know, it’s this is how learning to prompt is so important because you want to give the in. There’s people who make amazing artwork. I’m not some
Heather Shannon 15:20
of those on an Instagram. I was like, damn, this is cool. A lot of people are doing the like fat, cartoony animals. I’m seeing some trouble with that. Nothing. I guess they’re being shown to me because the algorithm has learned that I like that. But that cartoony animals, okay, yeah, and then I like some of the kind of like black and rainbow colored. Almost like other worlds that people create. Those are kind of cool, too. I did have chat TPT write a poem for me. Oh. And that made me think about relationships, too. I was like, people can totally cheated, being romantic and just like, tell chat GPT to just like, write a poem. So the poem? I don’t know, let me see if I can find it. The poem is. I said, write a poem about finding the clitoris in the style of Dr. Seuss.
Speaker 1 16:12
Oh, my. Okay. Sure, read it. I think you do at this point. Point. It’s yeah. Okay. Gotta
Heather Shannon 16:21
find it, though. All right. By
Speaker 1 16:24
the way, while you while you’re doing that, I asked mid journey to make a gang of fat Cartoon Animals For you, I got this so fun. Oh, they’re, they’re just about done. And this is what’s amazing to me is it is pulling from all known images at all styles. And if I don’t give it a style, it goes, Oh, I think you want this and I did say cartoon. But I could tell it I want it photorealistic. Or I can tell it, I want it you know, black and white. You know, like it was from the 1980s. I could tell that I want it Pixar style. Or whatever I tell it, it’s going to it’s going to create a you’re gonna get a kick out of this. It gave me four different options of the fact cartoon animals and they look like this.
Heather Shannon 17:10
There you go. Hope you guys can see this on the YouTube. Oh my god, they’re so adorable. And
Speaker 1 17:15
then I can go in and I could say Oh, number two is my favorite. Give me variations on that. Yeah. And then I can go in and say, you know, give me a high res version of it. I’ve got the the art that I’m looking for. And I’ll tell you what, what this means to creators, if you’re a content creator, if you are a writer of any kind. If you are an artist of any kind of photographer, if you do anything in a profession, for example, an actuary anything that can be replaced by a computer that a computer can do that job. If you look at the proficiency curve, it kind of goes like this, right? This you got your people who don’t know what they’re doing here, then you got your average, and then you got the best or over here. Unless you live east of 90% You’re not going to have work. Only those that excel in those particular disciplines are going to continue to get paid for it because everybody else can be replaced by AI
Heather Shannon 18:18
is getting wild, you guys. I mean, luckily AI has a lot of limits when it comes to talking about sex. So I feel like that gives me a little job security. But even so, like I asked it about situations with friends and like it gave me great advice and it had like great advice about communicating and I was like damn, I gotta make sure I’m not out of a job. Alright, did find my my poem, so I’m going to do a dramatic interpretation. Okay,
Unknown Speaker 18:42
here we go. Okay. Do you need music behind it?
Heather Shannon 18:45
That’s not a terrible idea. I’ll bout the prompt was, Can you write me a poem about finding the clitoris and the style of Dr. Seuss. Here we go. And the land of the bodies where the secrets reside, there’s a treasure to find not a thing to hide. It’s not about conquest or a game to be one, but a journey of care under the warm sun. In the Valley of Venus, past the hills of the thighs. A pearl of pleasure in secret lies, not a button to push nor a switch to flip, but a flower to tend on a loving trip. Oh, the Places You’ll Go with the touch so lights in the land of the bodies in the soft moonlight. With a map in your heart and a guide and her size you’ll discover the pearl where the treasure lies. It’s a journey of patience, of love and of trust in the land of the bodies were explorations of must. So take your time and remember to play in the land of the bodies where the secrets lay. And when you find it oh the joy it brings like a song that’s a body in pleasure sayings. So remember this tale as you embark on this quest in the land of the bodies where love is expressed ah
Speaker 1 20:00
GPT, Chet GPT will actually not get, it won’t use words that it doesn’t deem appropriate. It did it in a class. That was kind of like almost Shakespearean. Right in terms
Heather Shannon 20:15
of it. Yeah, I wouldn’t do it. It just that was its first try the job,
Unknown Speaker 20:20
Dr. Seuss was the way to go.
Heather Shannon 20:28
So yeah, you can entertain yourself, but it made me think like someone could write a love poem for their partner using chat GPG.
Speaker 1 20:35
It’s kind of like Cyrano de Bergerac, right? Yeah, you’ve got somebody doing the heavy lifting for you. And I guarantee that they are what you know, used to be, whatever, you’d go to a friend, what do I say to this girl?
Heather Shannon 20:46
profile with it? Yeah.
Speaker 1 20:50
Yeah. And use mid journey to make pictures that are actually you. A gang of fat Cartoon Animals profile.
Heather Shannon 21:00
People might know, you’re not a gang of Cartoon Animals,
Unknown Speaker 21:04
I identify as a gang of Cartoon Animals.
Heather Shannon 21:08
I support you with that. You
Speaker 1 21:09
can’t tell me that? I can’t be 2023
Heather Shannon 21:13
That’s right. Um, so I am curious, though, about, like, the ethics, you know, and, and I think it was shortly after, I think, you know, seeing ads on Instagram even about like, you know, use this AI voice tool, right. And obviously, it’s podcasters, or some AI tools now for podcasts, and like creating shownotes. And, you know, that can interpret voice. And then there’s also, you know, AI video stuff, and it can replicate your specific voice too. So that’s making me like, freak out. And then I called my bank shortly after that, and it was like, Whoa, blog voice verification. And I was like, well, we’re gonna have to get rid of that. You know, I was like, Hey, you’re gonna be able to fake everyone’s voice.
Speaker 1 21:53
So my question for you is, with the tool we’re using here? Can I share audio as well? Because if I can, I
Heather Shannon 22:02
know no one has ever tried. But I know you can hit the share button. And we’ll just see. Okay,
Speaker 1 22:06
let me let me try something here. So for example, I took some text from Hamlet, and I imported it into a tool that I use called 11. Labs, yo, and I have synthesized my voice. Now, I assure you that I have never read this text. Yes. I’ve said to be or not to be, but I’ve not read this. And what I’m going to play for you right now, is the cloned, digitized version of my voice reading this. Are you ready? I was scared. Or not to be that is the question. Whether tis nobler in the mind to suffer The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, or to take arms against a sea of troubles, And by opposing end them, to die to Sleep No More. And by asleep to say, we end the heartache and the 1000 natural shocks that flushes air to visit consummation devoutly to be wished to die, to sleep, to sleep, perchance to dream. That was me. That was me. It
Heather Shannon 23:09
sounds a lot. It’s a little bit lifeless compared to the real job. But it sounds like for sure, 90 plus percent like Yeah, and that,
Speaker 1 23:16
but that’s without like making any adjustments. So I could go in here. And I could say, give me a little more intonation here. And be more of a pause here. This is without any adjustments. So just I can do this with you too. I can go I can grab one of your podcasts. I can take 60 seconds of you just talking to one of your podcasts. And now I’ve got your voice that I need to create.
Heather Shannon 23:40
I feel like we’re gonna run into copyright issues. I feel like we’re gonna run into people like pretending to be someone else’s boyfriend or girlfriend and like leaving a message in their voice.
Unknown Speaker 23:50
It’s worse. It’s worse than that.
Heather Shannon 23:53
Okay, tell me tell us.
Speaker 1 23:55
We’re going to have people there was already a story, which I think you know about where somebody called a family member and said they were being held ransom. They the voice on the phone sounded like the person and they had no idea that this was a fake. I mean, somebody could take anybody’s voice and make you say, whatever horrible thing. Yeah, you want it to, and the damage could be done long before it’s found out that this, this has happened. And so you know, right now we see especially elderly people being preyed upon by IRS scam, Social Security scams. Now, what’s going to happen when it sounds like their son or daughter is calling them say, Hey, Mom, I need you to, you know, send you that account. You’ve got I need you to send $5,000 Over here, or else they’re going to they’re going to repossess your house. Right? Right. This stuff is going to happen and people are going to fall prey to it. I actually have a secret word A safe word, if you will, with family members. And I told them if anybody ever contacts you in my voice, and it’s sounds like, you need to test it, ask them this question. And there’s a question they’re supposed to ask. And then there’s an answer, which will be given an answer, then you know what’s fake. Okay,
Heather Shannon 25:22
so everyone listening do that. I feel like now’s a good time to do that before this becomes too prevalent. It’s so fascinating, because I normally think of safe words, not necessarily doing very sexually adventurous things. But I mean, now just to know someone’s real. I’m also curious now, like, do you think this is? Because Because it’s like, we’ve been moving more towards digital for so long. And some people would argue that it’s kind of creating less connection, right? And kind of further distance forms of connection. But do you think this will push people more towards in person just because there’s more of a sense of trust when you can, like, feel in touch someone,
Speaker 1 26:01
I hope so I really do. Look, technology in and of itself is amoral, it’s neither good nor bad. It’s what we do with it. Right. And, and unfortunately, I feel like where social media started as a really good thing for people to connect and reconnect and find groups. And, and now I feel like social media has turned into a net loss for society that is causing more harm than it is good. And I think human beings have a tendency to do that. Unfortunately, you could have a whole room full of people, and most of them have good intentions, but you’ve got this few bad apples, who can really mess it up for everybody. In those cases, the bad apples are the scammers, you know, that use the site that are malicious, and the tech companies themselves, that they’re not good people, their technology is amazing. But they are not run by good people. They are run by people who see you and me as products. That’s all we are. We’re just data to them. They don’t care about us. They never have and they never will care about us. We are just data to be sold. Remember, if you’re not paying for a service, then you’re what’s being sold. Yeah, sorry. Don’t mean to be.
Heather Shannon 27:15
Yeah, I’m having a positive my own emotional reaction of just like, you know, I like I’m glad we’re talking to you, because I feel like the more we can be mentally prepared for how this can impact not only like our relationships, but just like our mental health and like us as individuals, which you know, of course, affects our relationships, too. I think the more we can be intentional and conscious going into it, and not just sort of have things happen to us, you know?
Speaker 1 27:45
Absolutely. As a result, you know, I’ve written books on social media. I’ve taught about social media since the early days, I was on MySpace, I am mostly off of social media. And I’ve been off of Facebook for almost two and a half years. I hardly do anything on Twitter, I post a little bit on Instagram, but not much. And my mental health is better as a result of not being part of the algorithm feed than what they’re feeding us. Right. They say they give you what you want. But no, they’re stirring up conflict. They’re trying to create engagement. And you do that by pushing people’s buttons. And I got I’m just done with it.
Heather Shannon 28:28
Yeah, if people haven’t watched the social dilemma, you guys should watch that. And then talks about that about how you’ll purposely kind of be polarized which, like, look what’s happened in our country? Yeah,
Speaker 1 28:39
and tick tock is the worst. You know, tick tock is a Chinese company. And the Chinese version of the app is not like, the US the Western version, the Chinese version. They don’t feature dances, and you know, all the controversial political stuff. They feature educational items. They teach them science and math and reading and foreign languages. That’s what their kids spend their day. So meanwhile, what are the Chinese feeding us while they’re feeding us content that dumbs us down and pits us against one another. So tick tock is poisoned. It is toxic, and I recommend everybody delete it. Okay.
Heather Shannon 29:22
All right. There you have it, guys. So I mean, and I tell people also to like stop watching the news all the time for their anxiety. Oh,
Speaker 1 29:28
gosh, yeah, the news is not the news. Oh, it’s not the
Heather Shannon 29:32
news for sure. Not and can I say where that was, like extra proven to me. And we’re getting slightly off topic here. But of course, when Hurricane Ian hit, right, so like, you guys have just had hurricane Fiona and in Puerto Rico and I’m like, I’m so smart. Florida gets less hurricanes. Do we weeks later or something like that? We have you know, category four, almost five hit pretty much exactly where I live and then I decided to go south and it followed me south so I was in Naples when it hit it, but the news and everything I could find in TV because I had never like lived through a hurricane before. I was like, What do I do? Where do I go? Nothing on the news is actually helping me. Nothing was like, hey, those millions of you who will be actually personally impacted by this hurricane, we don’t really care so much about you. But we want to be dramatic. We want to be sensationalist. We want to like scare your families, that you’re not so
Speaker 1 30:23
much worse than that, though, Heather, it’s so much worse. Corporate media is controlled by literally a handful of interests, they are controlled by big pharma, Pfizer and others give a lot of money to them. The news is not the news. You know, when I was growing up, I remember them telling us that provde the state paper in Russia was pure propaganda people were fed nothing but this state official narrative on news. And and we thought, Oh, well, our news is free. And our journalists are unbiased. And largely they were until about 10 years ago, something happened. And now if you watch the news regularly, I’m talking about any mainstream media. Yeah, any of it. If you read it, if you’re watching it, if you’re listening to it, you’re being lied to and mind control to degrees that you won’t even believe in fact, a lot of people when they’re confronted with the reality of it, refuse to their cognitive dissonance. They disconnect emotionally because they can’t grasp that oh, my gosh, I have been so lied to. And I believe that I’ve bought it, right? It’s not real gang. They are feeding you prefab narrative that they want you to believe. And there’s a lot of people that are breaking free of that. Now, you know, regardless of what you think of different people, people like Tucker Carlson, who was on Fox got fired by Fox, he had like three or 4 million viewers a night, which was the largest of anybody on Well, now he’s off and he’s broadcasting his stuff on Twitter, and he’s getting 6070 80 million viewers. And he’s saying what he wants to say uncensored by the media. And so, and people are going, wow, why did we hit? Why didn’t even this you didn’t say on the news? Because they wouldn’t let me say it on the networks. And I think we’re entering into a new era, this battle of centralization via decentralization of the citizen journalism is really becoming more and more. Like, that’s pretty great.
Heather Shannon 32:34
Yeah. So I’m glad there are some good things that we can focus on. Because you’re right. I mean, like, I haven’t watched the news in many years. But like, when I go visit my mom, for example, she watches the news a little bit. And I’m like, Oh, my God, like, it is a lot of pharma ads. I was like, How many things have they said could be wrong with you in the last hour. And when you multiply that by hours and days, and just you know, I know a little bit about how the brain works. Given my profession, it’s like, that is not good.
Speaker 1 33:03
And the meeting is a three pronged beast, it is the government, it is big tech, and whether you know this or not, it is the unit party Mart largely made up of the Democrat Party, and many Republicans that are two sides of the same coin. They interesting, they play off each other in ways to make it look like they’re getting things done. But they thrive off the conflict and they’re not. And so it’s, it’s really scary. And but once you see it, you can’t unsee it. Once you know and more and more people are waking up it is kind of this matrix like analogy that many people were sleeping. That’s
Heather Shannon 33:40
my next fear. So why don’t we just dive into the matrix? Sure. And I’m just gonna apologize. I hope this does not give anyone a panic attack. If you’re getting really anxious, contact me and I’ll try and help you but
Speaker 1 33:53
it’s just a little red pill. That’s all we’re doing a little red pill? Not Neo.
Heather Shannon 33:57
Yeah, it’s just like a little broader today than normal. But normally I am trying to Red Pill everyone for we’ll
Speaker 1 34:02
get into the sex and relationship stuff, I promise. But so I
Heather Shannon 34:06
think about things like the metaverse right in virtual reality and how we’re gonna have like goggles on or who knows how they’ll do it eventually. Maybe it’ll be like a contact you put in at some point. Yeah, like right in your eyeball and I don’t know we’re gonna get microchipped I don’t know but I’m like I can see it getting to the point where it feels so real and our brain perceives it is so real, like, do we forget to come out? Are we just kind of hooked up to like catheters and feeding tubes and we just kind of exist in that like, you know, it’s, I could just see it becoming very matric. Yeah,
Speaker 1 34:37
I mean, we’ve you’ve watched a lot of movies. Technology is advancing to Yes, there will be a contact lens device after there are lighter glasses. You know, right now, Apple coming out with the Apple vision, which is a lighter headset, which isn’t VR, it’s augmented reality. It looks amazing. Yes, I want one because I like it. Ultimately, I do think that, you know, if people are always going to crave connection, even if they don’t understand what it is that they’re craving, and they’re going to find a way to, to get that I’m not saying that relationships in the metaverse can’t be real relationships, there’s a lot of people that I’ve met in online games like fortnight and World of Warcraft, they’ve gotten, they’ve gotten married IRL, right? They’ve had weddings, in the games, and they they’re together. And so look, technology can be used for for beautiful things. And I agree.
Heather Shannon 35:35
And like some of the podcast guests I’ve had on, you know, as much as I agree with a lot of your points about social media, I’ve just started them on Instagram, and I’m like, Oh, this is a cool person, let’s see if they’ll be on my show. You know, so like, and now I kind of have some friends I’ve never met in person. And
Speaker 1 35:50
that’s because you’re choosing to leverage it for good. But it’s not. It’s not all like that. If you take a look, there’s no all you know, always and never right. The great in between. And so you have people in extremes that are using it for unhealthy purposes. And then you got a lot of people that are attempting to use it for healthy purposes and sometimes get sucked into, you know, the vacuum that’s pulling from either side. That’s
Heather Shannon 36:17
the issue that I run into, because it’s like, I might go on there with a good intention. And I’m sure we all do this to some degree. It’s like we open up our phones intending one thing, and then it’s like all the distractors dopamine hit. It’s like, oh, let me just check my text. First. Let me just check. You know, this DM are like, Oh, we’re
Speaker 1 36:33
all addicted age, just in case anybody thinks they’re not. Odds are you’re addicted to your devices, you’re addicted to your phone. Sometimes, I’ll put my phone down, and I’ll get up and I’ll walk up, you know, and I’ll have this moment of panic. And it’s funny, but it’s almost like, oh, my gosh, where did I leave my penis? Right? It’s like, you have this sense of I’ve left something really important behind. And it’s like, okay,
Heather Shannon 37:01
anxiety thing.
Speaker 1 37:02
Yeah, it really is. We’re addicted. So, you know, as long as you know, yeah. Hey, this is my name is Joel. And I’m a technology addict. And I pick up my phone first thing in the morning, and I set it down and turn it off last thing at night. And my, the amount of screen time I have is embarrassing to me. But I do remember what life was like without it. And sometimes I pined for that for all of us. If I fear for anything, it’s for this generation that has been raised with them from cradle who we’re never going to have the experience of wrapping hyperconnected. And I think this is one of the reasons we have as many as much anxiety and as much emotional disorders as we have today. For
Heather Shannon 37:45
sure. Yeah. Yeah. I think a cell phone till I was 20. I think. So it’s, you know, now it’s kind of like, should I give my seven year old cell phone? No.
Speaker 1 37:57
No, if I was raising kids, there’s a lot of things I would not do with my kids today. If, you know if I was raising them today.
Heather Shannon 38:06
Empathy, let’s get into the maybe some good sides.
Speaker 1 38:11
Well, I think it’s all good. You know why? Because education and knowledge is power. And there might be some people listening to this that are some people might think he’s not, that’s not true. That’s fine. You believe whatever you want to believe. But there’s gonna be others that are going to go down the rabbit hole and go, Oh, maybe I should look at this. Maybe that what the news is feeding me is bias. Maybe social media isn’t good for me be the monitor themselves. And so how am I feeling when I do this? Maybe this
Heather Shannon 38:37
is super important. Yeah. But yeah, I think for me, and I think more people will have the experience I did with the hurricane where you’re like, what is being reported is not matte, like I’m here in it. I don’t, you know, this is not matching. Right? I think more people will have that experience, too. But one application I was thinking would be kind of cool is like people in long distance relationships. Like I feel like they’re gonna have so many more options to feel more connected. Like, how do you see that?
Speaker 1 39:02
Yeah, well, absolutely. I mean, VR does that there’s a lot of apps right now, if you have an Oculus quest, or the HTC HTC Vive you and go in and apps like alt space VR and VR chat, you can go and you can have conversations and sit in our stand next to the avatar of your loved one. And, and be together and hear their voice and spend time together and play games or just talk or be in a group or watch a concert is like, is it this? Excuse me? Same as being there? No, it’s not. But is it the next best thing that we didn’t have before? Yeah, it is. Yeah. Before a long time, a long time ago, a long distance relationship meant you’d write a letter by hand seal it up, give it to the Pony Express guy and they’d ride it you know, across the country. In months later. The loved one would receive it and read it write you back and then months later, you know now and then we could pick up that telephone or we can do an email. Now we can actually enter a virtual space with another person all the way on the direct opposite side of the world and be with them. Have you not tried it yet?
Heather Shannon 40:13
I haven’t tried it. I mean, it seems like way more fun than zoom. Oh,
Speaker 1 40:17
yeah. Well, it’s different in zoom, you get to see your real face, real flesh real expressions. But VR is getting more sophisticated. And if there’s a feeling that you can’t read from somebody’s face in VR, they can send a little emoji that says they’re happy or sad or clapping or whatever. So, yeah, if if you don’t have an Oculus quest, maybe find a friend that does or next time you’re in town, I’ll I’ll show you a mic. Okay,
Heather Shannon 40:44
that’ll be fine. We could do like an addendum to this atmosphere. So what about sex? Like, what do you think is gonna start happening with sex? Because I’m just so curious. Have you ever seen this show upload on? Yes,
Unknown Speaker 40:55
Prime Amazon? Yeah, it’s been a while
Heather Shannon 40:58
to watch that. If they haven’t, I think it’s just a great show, period. But it’s this idea that your consciousness is effectively uploaded to like a virtual reality, Heaven type of thing. So it’s kind of like they they capture your consciousness, like right before you die. And they do kind of like keep you kind of like, semi alive and your consciousness goes like, into the
Speaker 1 41:20
cloud. It’s the head and the jar, symptoms head in a jar. I
Heather Shannon 41:24
know. But it made me think there was an episode well, actually, it was multiple episodes, where the ex girlfriend puts on this whole like body suit, where then she can kind of appear in this virtual reality with the kind of like, semi dead boyfriend guy. And it seems totally real. And it just made me think like, is that what sex is going to turn into? Like? Are we just going to have like a body suit with a bunch of sensors like what’s going to happen
Speaker 1 41:49
yet? Well, so let me refer back to Minority Report. Again, there is a scene where he’s running through again, it’s a commerce center, and he opens a door. And it’s basically a futuristic brothel of some kind. And there’s a guy laying on the table who is in a full body suit, and he is being pleasured. And you see on the screens around him, all of these women, and he’s feeling everything everywhere. That’s actually now I believe that they make something that has sensors like that, because there’s all kinds of sex toys, right to stimulate both male and female genitalia. And in they’re getting more sophisticated, they’re getting smart, where, you know, your partner can control it with the phone, the intensity, and, and all of that. So I think, and I’ve not shopped for one of these, so I don’t know for sure, but I’m pretty sure that this type of technology, if they can make something that is specific, you know, for the genitals, they can make something that you can wear. I don’t know, you know, how far along they are with that, but technology moving at the pace, it’s, that wouldn’t surprise me if they have it, and it’s gonna get more and more sophisticated. Now, is that intimacy? Well, I suppose if you are with your significant other, and you’re experimenting with these toys, and it could be, you know, hard to believe that anything can replace just human touch, you know, one on one, in terms of intimacy, but in terms of fun in play, I think that there’s a lot of things to experiment with.
Heather Shannon 43:30
Yeah, for sure. I think that’s a good attitude to like, you know, if you’re sharing it with a partner, yeah, it’s still intimacy. Also, if it’s just yourself, solo sex, intimacy, you know, like, that’s also valid. Intimacy,
Speaker 1 43:42
though, you’re with yourself. I mean, who you being yourself. I mean, I’m always intimate with I’m here I am. I’m in my body. I’m having an intimate moment. You know, before I came on in here with you, I’m reading I’m writing is very, I mean, I don’t know, I think to be intimate, you need to have someone to be intimate with. But I could be wrong.
Heather Shannon 44:05
But I do think that there’s like a, like, degrees of intimacy with yourself. Like, we can be dissociated, and like not really present in our body at all. Yeah, yeah. Well, we can kind of be doing like a, like a walking meditation, where we’re just like, noticing and feeling like the movement of the foot with each step. And we’re just like, hyper present. There can be sort of, like the intentional experience is like touching your own skin and kind of like noticing sensations. So I think there’s kind of like, like, How present are you with yourself, but certainly what you’re saying of like, well, I’m always like, kind of in my body experience of being me. But I do think that that. I don’t know, I think a lot of times we’re not present with that. Yeah,
Speaker 1 44:50
I mean, I’m looking here on the search engine, and I can’t find anything that’s not about being intimate with another but I suppose. I do agree. worry that there are moments that we are more in touch with what’s happening with us. And if we want to call that intimacy, because it’s an understanding where we are, oh, allow it
Unknown Speaker 45:16
like, I need her permission
Heather Shannon 45:21
was a good question, actually, but, and I’m sure people will have different opinions, but we’re just here to make them think this was so much fun. little scary at times for me, but I feel a little more prepared now. So I hope that people listening feel a little more prepared for some of the changes that come. So you know, reduce the social media, if not eliminate to have the safe word new type of safe for everybody say a word with your family and
Speaker 1 45:47
pepperoni. No, I just want pizza. Really?
Heather Shannon 45:52
I liked your specific question, too, is a specific question. And a
Speaker 1 45:55
specific Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Because nobody else would know the question I’ve given them. Nobody would think to ask it. And I’m the only one now they who know the answer. So yeah, let me Yeah.
Heather Shannon 46:09
And then we’ll link to some of the stuff we mentioned to like the Oculus stop and some of the apps in the replica if you’re just curious how GPT you’re just curious to check some of it out. And I will mention the new the paid version of chat GPT is like wildly better and I think very worth the $20 a month so we’ll link to that to any if you’re a
Unknown Speaker 46:29
curious
Heather Shannon 46:34
good new orientation. So do you want people to find you Joel normally I ask people I’m asked people how can people find you and I’m like, I don’t know if you want to be found.
Speaker 1 46:47
If you look for my name, I’m on so many web pages because I’ve been doing this for 28 years doing online business so you can find me just don’t stalk me Don’t be weird but happy to hear from you. If you want to DM me on Twitter I do check those from time to time there’s so much spam in there it’s crazy if you go to my blog Joel comm.com form there that you can write me and they either come and say that’s fine.
Heather Shannon 47:12
He has a thick skin you guys so well yeah we’ll link to your Twitter and your your website then in the show notes but thank you so much for doing this episode with me this was a fun one and just kind of a different out there one but I think it was awesome.
Unknown Speaker 47:24
Did I hit the G spot with it or not?
Heather Shannon 47:30
You guys can decide that’s what you can DM Joel about let him Alright, Thanks, Joel. If you are loving the show, and you don’t want to miss another one, make sure you hit follow at the top of the screen from the Show page and if you’re on an episode page, just go to the little three dot menu, select Go to show and then hit follow at the top of your screen. This helps us show up on the Apple sexuality charts. It helps more people find the show and it helps spread the message of sexuality. So thanks guys, and we’ll catch you next time.
