See, I believe that all the mysteries of the
universe, all the answers to life’s questions
can be found in a Spielberg film. I've been
afraid for all of my life. Why doesn’t somebody
just shoot me in the head? Right up until the
day I knew my life was ending. You look bad.
No, man. You smell bad. I'm pretty fucking far from Ok.
Really, I feel like I'm sharing a very precious- Look at my shit. I had an affair.-
moment with you. There are no nations. There are
no peoples. Are you threatening me, dick? You
don't approve. Fake. Well, too bad. Totally fake.
Did, it seem fake? You look like a damn crackhead.
When my best friend was bitten in half in front of me? I found
this cover story personally embarrassing myself. Plenty of sausage and pepperonis.
Everything but the little fishies. Alright, alright.
Welcome to Everything But The Little Fishies.
I'm Evan. I'm Mike. And today we're talking about
2001, A Space Odyssey from 1968 and The Right
Stuff from 1983. This has been a long time coming.
The idea of doing a 2001 episode, I guess it's
kind of hard to know what to say about 2001 that
hasn't already been said. It's probably one of
the most overanalyzed movies in existence, like
many Kubricks, obviously. 2001, The Shining,
Eyes Wide Shut, these are movies that you can
find endless YouTube videos coming up with all
these conspiracy theories about what they mean
and all this kind of stuff. It kind of feels
like there is one aspect to 2001, and there might
be many more aspects, but at least one aspect
that you, Mike, were able to hone in on and introduce
to me. And it's an angle that you kind of realized,
maybe independently of, but also through the
film The Right Stuff and what that had to say.
Yeah, I think The Right Stuff sort of reveals
a lot. about what 2001 A Space Odyssey is really
saying. Sure, sure. Or at least one of the things
it's saying. Kubrick movies, you know, contain
multitudes. But I really like this angle, so
we're going to do something a little bit different
this time. We usually go chronological when we
talk about the movies, but this time I think
we're going to talk about the right stuff first
so that we can kind of create a context for the
conversation about 2001. Does that sound good?
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Sounds good. Sounds good. I'll
start with the right stuff then. Yeah, so the
right stuff. I think one of the things that's
very interesting about the right stuff, the movie
and the book. The book was written by Tom Wolfe
in 1979. Right. Who also wrote The Electric Kool
-Aid Acid Test, which is like one of my favorites.
Yeah, yeah. Tom Wolfe is one of the great...
New journalists? I guess you wouldn't call him
a beatnik writer. Yeah, like one of the great
new journalists. He's kind of part of the Gonzo
movement, although I don't think most of his
stuff doesn't really have him as a character,
except, like, I think in Electric Kool -Aid,
he's sort of there. Yeah, at least in the bookends
and whatever. But The Right Stuff is a book about
the first astronauts in the late 50s, early 60s,
and it's... I want to say, like, the book is
almost a kind of satirical work. Tom Wolfe's
writing style is very fun and funny, and he likes
to poke at things, and he's very humorous. And
it's very clear when you're reading the book
The Right Stuff that Tom Wolfe doesn't exactly...
He's trying to demystify and disillusion the
idea of astronauts. and the space race as this
kind of heroic, righteous kind of endeavor. Right.
And I think that's very clear in the book and
not quite as clear in the movie, but the movie
also does a pretty good job at creating an irony
around this subject. Totally. I mean, I think
it's still very clear in the movie, personally.
I think, you know, Philip Kaufman does a really
good job of... bringing that irony into the movie
without kind of making it so on the nose that
it's annoying. But I feel like a lot of the time
when the movie puts, you know, these people on
the pedestal, it's, you know, ironically. Sure,
sure. I wouldn't say the book is annoying about
it, but the book is very, very, the book is not
subtle about how it's trying to portray this
whole scenario. I mean, there's even a section
of the book called The Lab Rat. And that's the
whole sequence where the astronauts are being
subjected to those tests. Right, right. And so
the book is like Tom Wolfe is very clear in his
prose about all these ideas that the space program
was kind of just a testing grounds for a bunch
of scientists to do their thing as opposed to
a bunch of pilots being able to do their thing.
Because, you know, when the book and the movie
open, we're introduced to pilots like Chuck Yeager,
test pilots who are flying these high -precision
vehicles, and it's like this incredibly dangerous
thing to do. I mean, when the book opens, the
book and movie both open with kind of like a
funeral sequence, you know, to sort of convey
the idea that, like, pilots die, and they don't
necessarily die in combat. They die. doing test
flights for new types of planes and engines.
And, um, the book is even more explicit about
how often this happens. Like the ratio is insane.
I mean, in the movie they say one in four chance
of dying. Yeah. Yeah. And I think that's probably,
I think that's what it says in the book too.
I can't remember exactly, but the book opens
with this character, Pete Conrad. And like the
whole first chapter is about the wives and how
Pete Conrad's wife, Jane, is not really certain
whether her husband's going to come home alive
or not. There's a rumor that an accident's happened.
And talking to the wives over the telephone,
she's not really sure whether or not Pete is
the one who's died. And it kind of gets whittled
down to either being him or one other guy. And
it turns out not to be Pete. But the whole beginning
is kind of just to convey this sort of... neuroses
that the wives have to go through because like
at any given moment that happens at the beginning
of the movie as well where yeah yeah it happens
without looks out and then turns out it's not
her husband and then he ends up being one of
the first nominees to become an astronaut and
then pete doesn't make the cut right and it happens
right in the first chapter well it's the first
couple chapters there's the first chapters about
pete and the wives and then it moves on to jaeger
and jaeger is a big part of the movie Because
Jaeger is the guy who broke the sound barrier.
He was considered the greatest pilot of the time
and whatever. And Edwards Base was the place
that every hot pilot wanted to be doing. And
that's where you had to be to climb the ziggurat,
so to speak. They call it the pyramid in the
movie, but in the book he always refers to it
as the great ziggurat. It's the thing that every
pilot wants to climb to be at the top. And to
be at the top, you need to have the right stuff.
And the right stuff isn't something any pilot
talks about. But it's all understood. And it's
this thing about bravery and whatever. But it's
more than that. It's just the ability to hook
yourself to a hunk of metal and hurtle through
the sky. And then as things go wrong at the last
moment, pushing outside of the envelope and being
able to pull yourself back without dying. That's
what the red stuff is. It's suicidal abandon.
Yeah, suicidal abandon. But also, there's lots
of skill involved in being a pilot. The thing
I think that's amazing about this early part
of the movie is these are fucking men. They ride
horses, they fuck their wives. You know what
I mean? They get drunk all the time, they fly
planes with broken arms, and they're fucking
men. They're cowboys. They're the most alpha
of alphas. For sure. That I think is like one
of the things that this part of the movie, like
the beginning part of the movie with all the
test pilots and stuff. I don't know. That to
me, I think is like the thing that's super interesting
about it. No, yeah, for sure. And yeah, I guess
a lot of what the book and movie about is this
transition from this very manly kind of enterprise
where you're pushing the envelope and going to
the edge and the suicidal abandon. you know,
like what that puts on your family and just like
all the loyalty and dedication involved in all
of that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. To an enterprise where
you basically just become a lab rat. You're like
a specimen that gets experimented on and you
get put in a tin can. Well, it's a different
type of suicidal abandon now, right? Yeah, yeah,
yeah. But it's one where you give up all of your
control. Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But it's all
like... Gordon Cooper sitting sitting in the
isolation tank with like all of that, like all
the alarms going off and like, you know, the
guys in there with him. I forget which other
restaurant it is in there with him, like going
insane. He's like, open up, open up. Like Gordon
has the right stuff because he could just like
sleep through that shit just because he's like
basically like, yeah, not even there. You know
what I mean? That's something that's very different
than what Chuck Yeager, you know, has. It's like
a very different value system. you know? Yeah,
exactly. And then that's, that's what, that's
the crazy part too, is like what it means to
have the right stuff in the space age is very
different from what it meant to have the right
stuff in the high precision piloting age. And
that's, I think, you know, Chuck Yeager, as soon
as he's offered the job to be this astronaut,
he's like, what the fuck are you talking about?
Right? No, you guys are idiots. That's not, that's,
you know, it's a retarded job. Chuck Yeager understands
that it's not a. it's not a piloting like you're
not going to pilot the thing right right and
of course you know the book is more explicit
about basically everything and more detailed
about everything but in the movie this is all
sort of presented as a heightened fantasy sequence
where we go into the white house and jeff goldblum
is like running into the room and saying like
the russians just sent a man into space or whatever
you know right right they're like we know sit
down And they have this conversation about like
who the test pilots for the Mercury Project is
going to be. And the Mercury Project is the project
for sending a man into orbit or whatever. Right.
And in the book, they're really explicit about
the idea that literally anybody could do this.
You know, like it doesn't need to be an experienced
test pilot. The whole point is that it's supposed
to be apes. But instead, they're putting somebody
in there as a figurehead. But the scientists
are like, dude, an ape should be in there. That's
what we're doing. It's like, no, no, no, we're
not putting an ape into space. Well, they do
put an ape into space. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Not sure. Right. That's the point. They put an
ape into orbit first, and the ape accomplishes
everything that the humans do afterwards. Right,
right. The ape is the test subject, but the humans
are also the test subject. But now there's a
face to it. There's a publicity thing that can
be gained from it. Right. But, yeah, like basically
anybody could do this is like what they're trying
to say. But Eisenhower steps in and says, no,
this is like every fucking Tom, Dick, and Harry
in the country is going to be applying to this
if we do that. So I want test pilots. Right.
You know? Let's whittle this down. And not only
do they want test pilots, but they have to be
test pilots that graduated college with a bachelor's
degree. They need to be the all -American. What's
his, like, Dudley Do -Right or Dickie Do? He's
got, like, four of these Dudley Do -Right lines.
But that's what they're looking for, John Glenn,
like a Dudley Do -Right, somebody that everybody's
going to like. There's a little bit of a difference
in the movie and the book. In the movie, they
kind of try to present that idea a little bit
more straightforward, that, like, they're looking.
for the right faces and the right image up front
whereas in the book I think it's more like we're
just trying to find we're trying to whittle down
this list so much so that it's just a little
bit easier to deal with and we do that by saying
only test pilots you have to be a certain age
you have to have like very specific physical
characteristics and that's not necessarily like
there's no consideration of whether or not they're
Christians or whatever If there were, that's
not written in the book. It's not until the press
conference when John Glenn speaks about, I don't
know if any of us could do this if we didn't
have the support of our wives and children at
home or whatever. In the movie, that's not really,
that comes off as being sort of part of the plan
or something. But in the book, you're in the
heads of the other characters. And in that moment,
they're like, dude, what the fuck? They're looking
at John Glenn and being like, yo, John Glenn
is basically just taking the stage here. No one
asked him to do this. None of us asked to be
like... portrayed this way but john glenn is
setting the tone right and then and i mean this
happens in the movie too and then and then gordon
cooper tries to stand up and say something he's
like oh look at john glenn taking the stage all
right well fuck you i'm gonna say something and
then he says an even more banal version of like
the same speech of exactly well we do the things
that have to be done because those are the things
that are good to do and i it's like I think that
we should stand. And I love America. It's just
the dumbest shit. He's so much worse at doing
it than John Glenn is. But it's clear that John
Glenn is like doing this thing. And they're like,
dude, look at how dumb it is what you're doing.
All right, well, I guess this is what we're doing.
I got to do it too. Oh, fuck. I mean, I'm not
even as good as he is at doing this stupid thing.
Like, you know, that's part of the competition
as well. Yeah, and then Al Shepard is one of
the least pious of them. He's a way more secular
dude, but he has to kind of just pretend he's
also a guy who goes to church or whatever. They
all have to be good. As for church, I attend
regularly. Yeah, yeah, exactly. That's for church.
I attend regular. That's kind of like a fib.
He's like sort of, you know, I guess I should
say that's also more clear in the book. But you
can kind of hear that in his voice. The subtext
is there. But I think I think that's like there's
a locus of identity thing happening there where
like once these guys are in this position, how
they have to answer these questions is no longer
about who they are as individuals, but who they
are supposed to be becoming for America and whatnot.
And like these people are people who are like
the blankest canvases to begin with. that's the
thing that i think is so interesting they're
the dumbest blankest canvases and like we can
project our all of our values onto them or whatever
yeah and i wouldn't say they're all like dumb
i mean some of them are pilots you know or were
pilots yeah but it's not like the seven of these
guys are necessarily the best pilots they're
not all the most experienced pilots they're just
the guys who could pass all these tests right
and meet all these like arbitrary criteria that
like the government set up and i also think it's
it's the ones who are like in the movie at least
what's emphasized is the ones who are willing
to do it yeah it's it's the ones who are willing
to have a big piece of metal shoved through their
hand and then have electrodes shot through it
until their arm just like falls dead like just
For no reason other than, well, it would take
too long to explain it to you. Well, also very
demeaning shit, like having rectal thermometers.
Yeah, yeah, exactly. Like during the tests and
stuff like that and having to give themselves
enemas every day. Right. You know, like they're
being subjected to the most like dehumanizing
shit. Exactly. You know what I mean? Exactly.
They're being dehumanized. Yeah, yeah. But they're
being turned into a piece of a machine. They're
being turned into an object. They're being dehumanized.
And that's why they have the right stuff is because
they're blank enough to begin with that they
are willing to do something where one in four
people... The thing is, Chuck Yeager was willing
to do something where one in four people die
because he was a fucking man. You know what I
mean? And because he was good at it and he was
a war hero type of the cowboy that we all look
up to and want to be. These guys have the right
stuff because they are willing to let the government
put enemas in them to the point where they are.
emasculated and dehumanized into being an object
sure but of course the other thing that the book
talks about more explicitly than the movie is
the idea that the pilot has an incredibly huge
ego that there's just like something about being
a pilot that leads towards this gargantuan ego
like it describes like when you're flying in
the jet and you're miles above the earth how
you just see yourself as, like, this godlike
entity or something. That, like, you see the
world below and you just say, look at all those
ants. Look at all these tiny -ass people. These
people who are going to get into their cars and
drive to work and go through these routines.
Like, there's something, like, omnipotent or
whatever about being up there and looking down
on everyone. And I think, like, the pilots really
want glory. Like, Jaeger, like, doesn't take
extra pay. to be the guy who breaks the sound
barrier. It's not about the money or whatever.
He wants to be known as the guy who broke the
sound barrier. There's something about achieving
these feats and being the next one to push the
envelope that is a really important part of having
the right stuff. In the movie, it feels like
it's less emphasized that he wants to be the
one that's known as breaking the sound barrier
as much as it's emphasized that he wants to be
the one. who broke the sound barrier. You know
what I mean? Like the movie seems to emphasize
much less, you know, him and the wanting to be
interviewed and the fame of this thing or anything
like that. And much more just like, he wants
to be like, no, I'm a God on earth. I'm the fastest
man, that sort of thing, which to me seems very
like bronze age idea of masculinity. You know
what I mean? That sort of thing. Well, sure.
Though, though I would assume in real life, there's
some of the, you know, fame and whatnot involved
in that too. No, sure. So I think like the, way
tom wolf describes it is that like a pilot doesn't
really want to be bothered on a day -to -day
basis they want the kind of acclaim that is given
to like the pope right they want to be able to
like do their thing but then every once in a
while go up onto a balcony and have the crowd
scream at them and they wave and then like they
go back right and keep doing their thing like
that's the sort of acclaim they want and the
kind of thing that you can achieve by like breaking
these records and getting press written about
it But like Chuck Yeager, even though he was
the first person that broke the sound barrier,
like they made a movie called Breaking the Sound
Barrier after that in like the 50s. And Chuck
Yeager is not even the person who breaks the
sound barrier in the movie. Right. It's like
some other pilot who died before Chuck Yeager
broke the sound barrier. And it was a pilot that
just like was more of a household name that people
were aware of. OK. So they just made him the
guy who broke the sound barrier in the movie.
Yeah. And the way he. the way he gets out of
the situation that Chuck was in is like the exact
opposite of what you would do and stuff. So like
Chuck Yeager after the movie is just like, yeah,
basically everything about that was wrong. And
like, if you did that, you would destroy the
plane. And like, I was the guy who did this too.
Not this guy. But there's, like, that is also
a big component of the story is, like, the press
and the story and narrative that is sold to the
public about the pilot and eventually the astronauts.
So, like, a lot of these pilots who are, like...
really doing these kind of impressive things
like they're piloting these pieces of metal they're
in full control they're the ones who have to
make these like split second decisions that are
life and death in the moment and things can get
hairy really fast and being able to pull out
of those moments is like what makes you a man
you know and these pilots are like continuously
breaking speed records altitude records stuff
like that but like nobody cares they're just
not really getting press especially once the
astronaut program starts because essentially
what's important about the mercury project is
the space race and the cold war right so you
have russia launch a satellite into space and
it creates this kind of panic among Americans
that like Russia is going to be able to like
launch nukes from orbit and that like being able
to send a man into space is actually like a cold
war effort. And the way Tom Wolfe describes it
is that like these first seven astronauts, they're
essentially single combat warriors throughout
history. You know, like you have David and Goliath,
you have all these scenarios where these two.
warring factions instead of like sending their
armies at one another they would do a single
combat thing where they'd have just like each
side would you know volunteer their best fighter
and they would go at it and whatever the results
of that single combat fight would be would either
determine the outcome or would just be like a
preface to a bigger war or something right and
One of the defining things about being a single
combat warrior is that you get all the goodies
up front. Is that you're going to get all the
women. You're going to get all the riches. You're
going to be showered with fame and fortune. Because
you're not going to have a retirement. Because
you're not going to have a retirement. It's very
possible that you're going to die. And you're
doing this very important thing for our nation
or our people or whatever it is. So we're paying
you now beforehand. So we're paying you now.
And that's the reason why these seven astronauts,
before doing literally anything at all, All they've
done is volunteer their bodies as specimens.
Yeah. And they show up for a press conference
and the whole entire nation is going gaga over
them. Right. You know what I mean? And that's
like something that like no pilot before then
had ever been anointed with. Single combat warriors.
Yeah, I like that idea. But it's like it's almost
as if. Instead of sending the king's greatest
gladiator, it's like sending the king's greatest
eunuchs. You know what I mean? Instead of sending
the Chuck Yeagers or whatever, you're sending
the John Glenns. No, no, sure. But I think that's
the thing. It's not really that. In single combat...
Throughout history, you would send your best,
but that's what's ironic about calling the seven
astronauts single combat warriors is because
they're being treated like they're the best or
like they're these single combat warriors. But
the reality is kind of different, right? They're
not Chuck Yeagers. And this idea of being single
combat warriors is actually the narrative. That's
the thing that's kind of sold to people, even
though in reality it's like... It's the meta
context of the person, not the person themselves.
It's like the locus of identity. Because in reality,
Russia's not going to drop nukes from their satellites.
This whole Cold War danger, I mean, it could
have been, but it turns out to not be. Ultimately,
the Cold War ends. Relations between Russia and
America smooth out. The red telephone direct
line to the Kremlin is put into the White House.
There's a nuclear proliferation or testing ban
that happens between countries. That's right
before Kennedy is assassinated in 1963. Like
this whole entire story, all of this happens
right before he's assassinated, essentially,
the years leading up to it. And that's when it
ends. That's when the single combat warrior status
ends. That's when... They're not giving parades
to these guys anymore because it was all about
this fear over Russia and the fact that these
guys are at the forefront of a war. And even
though NASA is a civilian organization, it's
treated more like a military operation. Right.
But that's the point. It's all a lie. None of
it's actually real. What's really happening is
that, like, this civilian organization made up
of, like, civilian engineers and scientists and
shit are just, like, making technology and, like,
using these astronauts as guinea pigs to, like,
shoot rockets into space and do tests while they're
up there. To create a spectacle. Just figure
out information or whatever. And they're creating
this spectacle with the pretense that it's about.
And it's a spectacle that wars with the spectacle
that the USSR is trying to create. Exactly, yeah.
It's info wars. It's like a battle that happens
in the sphere. of human consciousness or whatever
it's it's yeah it's a battle of ideas exactly
but the amount of resources put into a battle
of ideas like and the amount of suffering put
into the battle like the fact that we have to
stab these people in the hands and we have to
you know all it's so silly like it's so funny
you know no yeah it's really silly it's like
a very funny that's the thing too is like They
also don't have this scene in the movie, but
early on, Wally Shearer, who was like one of
the more experienced, actually one of the more
experienced pilots of the original Seven Astronauts,
he like brings all the guys into a room together
before the selections are made. Pete Conrad's
still there at this point and stuff. And he's
just basically like griping about like, yeah,
but like, what is this going to do to our military
career? They're weighing out these things of
like, we're not actually going to be pilots.
Like, they know this going into it. They're like,
we're not actually going to be pilots. This is
the deal they're making with the devil. Yeah,
what if this project fails? Yada, yada, yada.
But they end up signing up and doing it because,
on the other hand, they understand that, like,
if this works out, then this will be at the forefront.
This will be the new frontier. This will be,
like, the top of the ziggurat. And all those
pilots who are, quote unquote, the true brethren,
they're going to be left behind. No matter how
ridiculous they think this is, no matter how
hard they laugh when they see a monkey got sent
up first, they're the ones who got left behind,
whether they like it or not. When they stand
in front of a crowd, they don't cheer anymore.
Yeah, exactly. They're not the ones who are getting
paid up front anymore. And they've never gotten
paid as well as these guys. Like, the seven astronauts,
even before any of them get set up in space,
they get, like, an exclusive life contract. And,
like, all these articles written about them from
first -person perspective. So, like, all the
articles are written by John Glenn. And, like,
the wives are all involved, too. And there's,
like, stories written by the wives. But, like,
none of the stories are actually written by the
wives, except for Scott Carpenter's wife. I think
she wrote her own bits, and they just got edited.
But the life deal paid them out enormously, and
then they ended up getting really, really cheap
mortgages on beautiful houses and all this stuff.
They got so much riches and goodies out of this
deal up front, which is part of the single combat
warrior thing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Even though
there's very little they've actually done, just
because it's captured the imagination of the
country. But that's what it's there to do. That's
what it's there to do is to capture the imagination
of the country. And it is just an imagination
-like thing. I mean, they also are sending something
into orbit and whatever. I mean, there's a technological
superiority to that or whatever. It's just like
it dehumanizes. It's not about the pilot or the
human. It's about these scientists and these
engineers and these mathematics and all this
technological stuff that allows this feat to
happen. Competing like... coding and shit like
you know what i mean it's like a bunch of nerds
in a room coming up with some sort of equation
that does something better than the nerds in
the other room that are coming up with that other
equation and they're battling through but those
are the people who are actually battling like
are the nerds in the room like these guys who
are these figureheads they're not doing anything
more than an ape and that's like I don't know.
And those guys in that room are also just fucking
nerds. Like they're not. Yeah. Really. It's a
battle between the, the Soviets chief scientist
or chief designer, which is funny. They actually
like, he was anonymous. They like, didn't actually
know the name of the person who was designing
Sputnik or any of these things. Okay. He was
just referred to as the chief designer builder
of the integral. Okay. And, um, It's like actually
a war between him and Wernher von Braun, basically.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. In the movie, they've got that
great line where he's like, is it their Germans
doing this? And they're like, no, no, our Germans
are better than their Germans. Yeah, yeah, our
Germans are better than their Germans. And then
he says spacemans, but it sounds like he's saying
specimens. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But that guy, that
German scientist, he's just called the chief
scientist in the movie, so that's kind of ironic
that he's kind of like a Wernher von Braun stand
-in, but he's not actually playing Wernher von
Braun. Right, right. He's just like chief scientist
for NASA. Right. And then also James Webb, the
leader of NASA, is also not really in the movie,
but is also just kind of like portrayed by a
character who has no name or whatever. There's
like a few characters like that in the movie.
And, you know, like, Jeff Goldblum and Harry
Shearer aren't in the book at all. They're just,
like, made -up characters. Oh, okay. I figured
that was, like, a stand -in for Tom Wolfe. Yeah,
they're sort of stand -ins for delivering stuff
that Tom Wolfe writes in his prose that wouldn't
have been said by anybody. Right. So it works.
Yeah, and they're funny. Yeah, and they're funny.
I like that stuff. But back to the our Germans
are better than their Germans thing, like, that
to me, I think, is one of the sort of keys where
we're talking about, like, These guys on the
spaceship are just monkeys, not really doing
anything. And we're pretending like these are
our heroes or whatever. But really, the people
who are doing battle are these nerds in this
room. Like, the nerds in those two rooms are
both Nazis. You know what I mean? Yeah, exactly.
Basically, what we're talking about is, like,
a Nazi versus Nazi battle with, like, these all
-American boys up front and whatever. But, like,
it's concealing the actual, like... evil fucking
nerds that are doing this shit and I mean when
you're talking about the nuclear non -proliferation
treaty in what 63 what was it 63 63 like that's
that's like the reason that we agreed to that
at like the height of the the cold war is like
that the amount of damage in the like the atmospheric
radiation levels had risen so much in such a
short period of time that like cancer was like
rising in such a like They did huge permanent
damage to the Earth in a very short period of
time, like 20 years. And they agreed to stop
doing that. The USSR and the United States agreed
to stop doing that because they had realized
how much damage they had already done. That's
crazy how much damage they did. And that's just
because two tribes of warring Nazis were in control
of both of our fucking governments through the
space program. That's why it was actually like
a nuclear test ban because it's not like anybody
was using nuclear weapons than anybody else,
but we were both testing our weapons and releasing
so much radiation in the atmosphere. So yeah,
and like none of that had anything to do with
the space program really. It was like there was
a connection made between the two. Well, of course.
It's the rocket scientist that came from the
V2 program, the Nazi V2 program and stuff that
are in charge of both of these things, like von
Braun and I don't know. Well, I guess Oppenheimer
wasn't a Nazi, but it's kind of like the other
side of the coin or whatever. Right, right, right.
This is true. Oppenheimer was not a Nazi. He
was fighting the Nazis. I don't know nearly as
much about the Russians or who developed the
nuclear bomb on their side or whatever, but...
And, like, I don't know. We probably know the
chief designer's name now. It was those two spies.
The married couple. Those two spies? The Rosenbergs?
Yeah, the Rosenbergs. Yeah. Who... I forget what
it is. Either they totally were evil spies or,
like... Are they the ones that 20 years later,
the USSR, when the fall of the Berman Wall happened
or whatever, they were just like, oh yeah, we
don't even know who the fuck the Rosenbergs are.
Just for real, that was not... Yeah, I don't
know. I don't really remember what their story
was. I learned it at one point. I don't know.
Whatever, whatever. But no, yeah, you've gotten
to the heart of it at this point. The idea that
this is not actually about the astronauts, it's
about the scientists behind it, and those scientists
are fucking Germans who used to be Nazis. That's
the weird undercurrent thing that's going on.
There is a connection between the nuclear program
and the space program in that the bombs at Hiroshima
and Nagasaki had to be dropped out of planes
that flew above. The whole idea was rocket launching
nuclear weapons and stuff, which comes from the
Nazi V2 program. It really does just get to the
heart of this. I don't know. This is still something
going on today. I feel like the thing that the
right stuff is really grappling with is something
that humanity continues to grapple with. It's
like this idea that technology and automation
and science, all these fucking nerd -driven enterprises
are trumping the human spirit and turning men
into redundant components. overly -technolized
world. And devaluing masculinity, like Chuck
Yeager. Yeah, for sure. But also devaluing the
women, too. Oh, yeah, sure, sure, sure. It's
just like, it affects everybody. Totally. But
it's a devaluing of the lifeblood. The thing,
I don't know, the thing that makes us human.
The thing of single combat, the glory of a single
combat warrior, or whatever. Yeah, I mean, that
glory being put on something that is just pure,
you know, acceptance of terrible conditions,
which is literally all that Gordon Cooper has
to go through. You know what I mean? And like,
I mean, the thing is like, and also like knowing
that they're going to die. I mean, I love the
final scene of the right stuff where it's just
like. For one day, like, Gordon Cooper was the...
Or, like, three months later, like, they all
died. But for three months, Gordon Cooper was
the fastest man or the highest man in the world
or whatever. And it was just like... He was the
greatest astronaut in the planet. Yeah, the greatest
astronaut to ever fly or whatever. It's like,
yeah, yeah, yeah, you had three months. You got
three months, and then you died because that
was what, you know, the deal was. Like, you were
just dumb enough to do that. Yeah, for sure.
For that. Like, what do you get out of this?
Like, these lame barbecues with your wife outside
of... the zone where all your friends are dying
like it's all well no the idea the idea is that
you get the idea is that this is the other thing
the book like gets into more than the movie but
the book is much more explicit about the goodies
like the movie doesn't even mention the life
contract i'm pretty sure it doesn't really talk
about the houses they get it doesn't really talk
about actually all the stuff that they get out
of it so like a part of the thing is that like
Once all this fame and acclaim starts coming
to these astronauts, they fucking eat it up,
dude. That's what they're there for. They love
it. They don't care that they're going to die
in a tin can or whatever. I'm sure they love
it. I'm sure their wives love it. I'm sure they
all are the type of people who are willing to
live this life. But that to me is so banal. Yeah,
Al Shepard is a... the first man, the first American
in orbit. Sorry. He's the first American to fly
a suborbital flight. And like after that, he
gets this huge parade. He gets to meet John F.
Kennedy and like his wife and they're having
dinner and there's all this stuff. But it's like,
it's similar. It's very similar to the spoils
of war in the zone of interest. You know what
I mean? For sure. You can live this like totally
banal, like family life, like right outside of
this, you know concentration camp but like you
get like really nice clothes and you get to talk
to hitler no for sure like it's almost the same
job even it's almost the same job of like the
job is just like putting blinders on to the point
where you can get through something that is like
this dumb like and horribly dumb you can watch
all your friends die versus like kill people
like it's all just like And what you care about
is being promoted and getting the better house.
And like, it doesn't matter what is going on.
It doesn't matter that you're going to die. It
doesn't like, yeah. And yeah. I mean, zone of
interest. What matters is that he's not going
to be remembered as the, you know, but I don't
know. Yeah, exactly. Not to get into the zone
of interest, but that's a good one. It's a good
one. It makes the point very succinctly. Yeah.
Like Alan Shepard gets all the goodies. But then
John Glenn is like, he does the third. He's the
first guy to go into orbit to do like an orbit
around Earth. And when he comes back, he becomes
like a national hero. John Glenn ends up being
like number one and the one who gets the most
goodies. kind of, like, is remembered as one
of the greatest astronauts and stuff like that.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, I remember he flew
some other flight when we were kids, and, like,
we cared about it for some reason in America.
It was like, oh, John Glenn's going back up.
So I knew John Glenn's name as a kid for whatever
reason, like, even in the 90s, like, which I
don't remember what his flight was or why there
was an astronaut going up for anything, but it
happened. Sure. Didn't it? Yeah. Or maybe he
just died. I don't know. I don't remember. He
might have just died in the 90s or something.
I don't know. I mean, I feel like he probably
made it into the early 2000s or something. A
lot of these guys did. But not Gus Grissom. I
wanted to make a point about the sadness of Gus
Grissom. He's the guy who goes through all the
same shit and does all the same things, but for
whatever reason, he doesn't get the goodies.
Because the hatch blows or whatever. He blows
the hatch. In the movie, well, it's generally
accepted now that it was a malfunction. Oh, really?
You can now read about that. Oh, wow. Yeah, because,
like... Well, in the movie, they do say, like,
we dropped it from, you know, 500 feet, and it's
never done this. Yeah, they say that in the book,
too. And I'm like, yeah, yeah, you dropped it
from 500 feet? Like, you know, it came out of,
like, a billion feet, right? Like, you know,
it fell from, like, way higher than that through,
like, the entire atmosphere. Like, that doesn't
seem like your tests have actually done the thing
that he just did. No, yeah, they say in the book
and the movie... the same thing like it's it's
most likely he blew the hatch and he just doesn't
want to admit it and he got panicked or something
or he accidentally bumped it or whatever but
the the theory now in hindsight is that like
it was a malfunction that like if he had blown
the hatch he would have a bruise on his hand
that wasn't there and one of the later pilots
proved that like when you blow the hatch it'll
put a bruise on your hand and like that there
was a specific component latch thing on the outside
of the door that had failed, that they improved
upon in later launches or whatever. So the consensus
now is that Gus got fucked. It was a technical
malfunction, but as we know, these things are
always due to human error. Right, right. I am
flawless. I will never make a mistake. Right,
of course, of course. And that's the age -old
excuse for any pilot who sort of, like, fucks
up in the plane crashes is, like, something happened
with the machinery. And, like, this goes back
to, like, the initial brethren of pilots and
whatever is that, like, whenever a pilot dies,
it's always the pilot's fault. Like, it's never
going to be a mechanical error. It's like, nah,
man, it's like it's because you didn't have the
right stuff. It's like if things fail. you still
have to have the right stuff to pull yourself
out of the situation. And like, they have no
real like empathy for their, for their dead brothers.
They like kind of talk about them like, well,
they fucked up and I guess they didn't have,
they couldn't cut it and whatever, you know,
and they won't directly mention like the right
stuff, but they all know what they're talking
about. That's the whole point is that like, it's
not the machine that fails. It's the human. And,
like, I'm not sure if that's a fair way to frame
it, but that was the mindset. That was the way
they all thought. And that same ideology is on
display, I'd say, in Only Angels Have Wings.
A classic Hollywood movie about pilots. It's
great. Same ideology. Yeah, I haven't seen that
one. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Tough guy, like, you know,
he died, he died, you know? Yeah, like, you're
in control. Like, it's not some, there wasn't
something out of your control, and if there was,
you have to have, like, the right stuff to pull
out of that. Right, right. You know? And, like,
if you buy the farm, that means you just didn't
have the right stuff and whatever. And that continues
to be true with the astronauts, too, even though
literally everything is automated and, like,
it's all determined by a machine. And, like,
what, they can't blame the machine if it malfunctions
or whatever? Right. He's literally just an ape.
Yeah. It's not their fault if the hatch blows
or whatever. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So Gus gets really
fucked over because, like, You know, like publicly
his flight is presented as a success. Tom Wolfe
calls this as the unscrewable pooch. It's like
no matter what happens, these astronauts aren't
going to fuck up in the public eye because they
need to keep getting the funding. But everyone
at NASA and all the other pilots know that Gus
fucked up. He panicked or something and he hit
the button. And that's why Gus doesn't get a
parade. Like his wife is so upset about it too.
Like they – he like lands. and all he gets is
this little ceremony on an Air Force base with
James Webb gives him a medal instead of John
F. Kennedy and whatever. And literally every
other astronaut after him gets a parade, gets
to meet the president, all this stuff. Gus is
the only one who gets shafted. Just him. And
then Gus is one of the three astronauts who dies
in that fire in Apollo 1 in 1967. So he would
have been one of the first guys to go to the
moon, too. He was the unluckiest dude. And that
might not be his fault. That's what I mean. It's
not really that Gus didn't have the right stuff.
No, it's that his mission was retarded. And he
was very, very unlucky. And things were actually
out of his control. And if he had control and
his entire life wasn't to the whims of these
engineers and scientists, he might have actually...
made it as a pilot or something, but instead
he's just getting strapped into these technolized
devices and they're malfunctioning on him and
he gets fucking screwed over because of it. He's
playing Russian Roulette. Yeah, exactly. For
America. I mean, it's basically the same movie
as The Deer Hunter. It's basically the same movie
as The Deer Hunter. But yeah, so... To go over
the other flights just real quick, because the
movie shows Alan Shepard's flight, Gus Grissom's
flight, and then John Glenn's flight, and then
it skips ahead to Gordon Cooper, who was the
last one. So it skips over Scott Carpenter's
flight, and he was actually perfectly happy to
be a lab rat. He did incredibly well during the
testing sequence where they're shocking your
arm. He was the one who was buddies with John
Glenn, right? Yeah, he was buddies with John
Glenn. Yeah. Yeah. And he's the one where like
John Glenn and him, he's the one who wins like
the ball air competition. Good job. He's happy
to be a lab rat. He does really well on the tests.
And on his flight, he is the one who is tasked
with doing the most experiments. And he's perfectly
happy to do it. So he goes up and he's like just
doing all these things in the pod. for the benefit
of the scientists so they can do research and
find out all these things. But in the process,
he gets distracted by all the experiments and
runs out of fuel. So he has a pretty rocky ending
to his flight, but he still succeeds and he lands
it and all this stuff. But despite that fact,
everyone at NASA is pretty pissed off about how
it went. And on the next flight that Wally Shearer
does, They basically advocate for not doing any
more fucking experiments. Like, we're just going
to fly the same. Because the reason we're sending
this up is to do orbital flights, not to do experiments,
you know? And, like, Scott Carpenter was supposed
to do more orbits than he did, but he ran out
of fuel, so he had to come down earlier. And,
like, Wally Shearer ends up doing six orbits
just by sitting there and floating and not doing
anything, not running experiments, not fucking
around, conserving fuel. and just, like, letting
the orbit take him and whatever. And his entire
flight is perfect, quote -unquote, by the standards
of the mission, right? It's the perfect operational
flight, they call it. And Scott Carpenter kind
of gets, like, really butthurt about the fact
that, like, oh, I see how everybody sees me now
and all this stuff. Like, I was a joke, you know?
Yeah, yeah. And then after Wally, it's Gordon
Cooper. And Gordon Cooper... is the first one
to do like a 34 -hour flight. So he's up there
for over a day. He does like 22 orbits. But Gordon
Cooper's flight, literally everything goes wrong.
Not by anything he did, but basically all the
systems just start failing. The automatic systems
fail, and he has to actually pilot. the thing
back into the atmosphere and he lands it perfectly.
And then he is known as the guy who has the right
stuff, right? Like he actually, all the automatic
systems fail and he actually gets to pilot the
thing, which is what they always wanted. And
he proves that like under duress, like, you know,
his heart rate stays down. He like falls asleep,
like on the launch pad, just like in the movie
and all this stuff. But the movie doesn't show
Carpenter's flight. It doesn't show Gordon Cooper's,
flight really like he goes up but then it like
goes to the bookend where it's like and he was
the best astronaut it does like i feel like in
the book gordon cooper actually does kind of
achieve the pilot status and like is able to
take over and show that he is the right stuff
whereas in the movie sort of admits that and
it becomes a more ironic statement right Same
with the other two that you just mentioned. All
of those would be about a different type of movie
because this movie is talking about basically
how these guys are just monkeys and then they
die. And yeah, there are exceptions to that rule
in which, well, these guys actually were pilots
so they actually did sometimes have to pilot
and this happened once to this guy and it didn't
happen to this guy and this guy fucked up in
this way and that way and whatever. The movie
kind of gives you the, like, yeah, Gus Grissom's
the one that gets blamed for fucking up, and
Dennis Quaid's the one that gets put on a pedestal,
and then, you know, they're all dead in the end.
It doesn't matter. You know what I mean? It's
the end of Barry Lyndon, where it's like, they're
all the same now. Yeah, it's true. No, it's true,
because you're only at the top of the ziggurat
for a little while until someone... replaces
you right right or you die it's like yeah you're
like it is like you're doing all this for literally
your 15 minutes of fame or whatever right right
which is what's more American than that you know
the other thing that doesn't come up in the movie
is that like they choose the second group of
astronauts and like Neil Armstrong is one of
the the next nine right and Neil Armstrong is
basically described as a robot person right right
like in the book in the book it like says like
Like, you would say something to Neil Armstrong,
and then he would go blank as if, like, he was,
like, doing some computational process in his
head. And it would take, like, a minute, so sometimes
you'd, like, ask him again as if he didn't hear
you. But then he would, like, come out with this
very calm, collected, well -thought -through,
like, statement, almost like a computer would,
like, beep, beep, beep, boop, boop, boop, boop,
boop. Well, I think that this means this or that,
you know? Yeah, yeah. You're not really talking
off the cuff or whatever. And Neil Armstrong
actually flew with Chuck Yeager at one point.
And there's an anecdote where Neil Armstrong,
where they're going to do a flight, but Chuck
Yeager is like, nah, man, it just rained. The
desert is going to be complete muck. We can't
do that. The landing gears are going to get stuck
and shit. And Neil Armstrong was like, well,
the weather report says that the conditions are
going to be fine and whatever. And Jaeger's like,
I don't care what the report says. I've been
flying these deserts for 14 years. Like, I know
what it's going to be like out there. And, like,
eventually Jaeger gets pressured into doing the
flight, but as a passenger because he doesn't
want to be responsible for what happens. So Neil
flies the plane and Jaeger's the passenger. And
just as Jaeger predicted, the plane gets stuck
out in the middle of nowhere in the mud. And
then he talks to Neil Armstrong, just like, all
right, buddy, like we're stuck out here in the
middle of nowhere with like no radio contact
and blah, blah, blah. Like, what do you want
to do about it? And then like Neil Armstrong
competes an answer, but then has nothing to say.
It's just like, and yeah, he's the guy, first
guy I walked on the moon. He's the one that's
even more banal than John Glenn. Yeah, exactly.
Like he's even beyond, like he's already not
really a human. I mean, what's his name? Director
who, uneven, but I liked the First Man movie
about Neil Armstrong. Damien Chazelle. Yeah,
Damien Chazelle's First Man. I thought it was
an interesting, similar take on this of just
like, yeah, this guy is this empty vessel with
basically nothing going on behind the eyes. And
that's why he can be a component in this thing.
Yeah, yeah. And it also portrays the death of
Gus Grissom dying in the fire in Apollo 1 and
whatever. There's a few people who die. So really,
you're right. I haven't actually made that connection,
but I guess it's because when I saw First Man
in theaters, I hadn't seen the right stuff yet.
Oh, yeah. But yeah, First Man is basically the
right stuff. Yeah, I mean, First Man has the
right understanding of the space program. It
feels... It's a little more misinterpretable,
I think, that it can feel as if, like, look at
this guy's, like, suffering. It's also way more
self -serious and cynical. Yeah. I mean, it can
feel more self -serious and whatnot and more
kind of. Because, like, the right stuff is kind
of funny. It's, like, goofy and fun and, like.
Yeah, the right stuff is basically a comedy.
Yeah. First Man is basically the same thing.
But, yeah, it's done in such a self -serious
way. Yeah. Like Whiplash, you know. Yeah, yeah,
yeah. Which I think works. It's fine. But it's
like I prefer The Right Stuff, obviously, and
it came first, so it kind of already did it.
Yeah, that's true. I appreciated First Man as
well. I thought that was pretty good. I mean,
you say The Right Stuff did it first, but we
could say even before The Right Stuff, there
was another movie that had done it first. Ah,
you're right. So are you good on The Right Stuff?
Do you want to move over to 2001 and Space Odyssey?
Yeah, totally, totally. All right, let's take
a little break. Take a quick break. All righty,
so we're back. We're back. Have a nice pee? Have
a nice little tinkle? Yeah, it was nice. Cigarette
break? It was wonderful. It was good? Cool. So
let's get into 2001, Space Odyssey. It's been
a long time coming to talk about what's probably
one of our favorite movies. I would say it's
my favorite movie. Yeah, man. But as a way to
lead up into it, I wanted to reiterate the thematic
arc of the right stuff as a way to lead into
this. We talked about how the right stuff sort
of portrays this trajectory for humanity that
is dehumanizing, that technology and automation
and all this stuff is kind of replacing the human
spirit, and how this is sold to the public as
not something to be afraid of, but something
to be championed, something to be proud of, something
that brings people to tears when they see these
astronauts or whatever. I wanted to focus on
Chuck Yeager because I never really finished
talking about his arc in the book and the movie.
He has more of an arc in the movie that's dramatized.
So I'll focus a little bit more on that. In the
movie, we kind of see Yeager have a bit of a
change of heart. You can sort of tell that the
longer the space program goes on, the more he
feels left behind. And in the movie, he even
gives Gus Grissom credit. right like when gus
is in the water jaeger's like nah man like the
monkey doesn't know that he's strapped to a rocket
gus knows and that's something like right you
know what i mean like he gives him credit for
like putting himself through something that he
knows is so dangerous or whatever um that's not
but it's very much like i don't support the war
but i support the troops exactly exactly you
know like we maybe we shouldn't be in vietnam
but this guy's a hero yeah you know And he actually
knows. He actually is somebody who knows because
he's been there how much that takes. There's
something there. To face that fear. Though I
think it's still a goofy thing. Yeah, but this
isn't something Jaeger says in real life. It's
something that's put into his mouth in the movie.
In real life, Jaeger is pretty cool -headed about
the whole thing. It's not really conveyed in
the book that Jaeger is really losing sleep over
not being part of the astronaut program. He's
a pilot. He wants to fly planes. Even after he
broke Mach 1, he set numerous other speed records.
And he was one of the few pilots who was actually
lined up to be one of the first pilots to fly
a plane into space. And so in the book that eventually
happens, Jaeger flies a plane above the atmosphere,
but then he loses control and his plane spins
out and like it becomes a disaster. In the book,
it's actually like really explicit. He has to
jettison from the plane and like he fires his
parachute. But then the seat that he was detached
from. basically has like a molten lava dripping
out of the bottom of it. And it like, and like
he gets hit in the head by the sea and this molten
lava, like the drips into his helmet and on his
eye and shit like that. And like, I see in the
movie, I thought that it was that he was falling
so fast from like so high in the atmosphere that
he shouldn't have parachuted at like, you know
what I mean? There wasn't enough air to open
a parachute and he had to fall down. Yeah, they
don't really go into all this. In the movie,
he gets mangled. He gets horribly burned. The
oxygen system in the suit fires, and then it
makes the molten lava actually start to flame,
and half of his face and helmet's on fire. And
then he has to break through his helmet and put
his hand into the fire to create an air pathway
to his mouth. And his glove melts into his finger
and stuff like that. And eventually he gets the
helmet off, and it, like, relieves him or whatever.
But, you know, and he got really lucky. Like,
blood poured over his eye and crusted, and it,
like, protected his eye. But, like, yeah, so
it's, like, a really horrific thing that he goes
through. And after that, he's not interested
in, like, setting records in planes anymore and
stuff like that. And there's, like, no reason.
And the whole entire, quote, unquote, space program
for the pilots is pretty much shut down after
that. There's no more attempt to fly. jets into
the atmosphere because basically once you get
there there's no aerodynamics and like you're
just you're just gonna fucking auger in you're
gonna fucking you know spin out because there's
really no way to control it at that point so
it's just like not a safe thing to do it doesn't
really make any sense but in the movie it's more
romanticized to portray a mindset that mitt jaeger
has that he's sort of been left behind like in
the movie he essentially steals a plane and does
like an unauthorized flight right right And it
looks like it's a flight straight up. Yeah, so
it's presented as this thing of like Jaeger feels
like he's left behind. He also wants to be an
astronaut. He wants to accomplish this thing
and do this thing. And it's by his own volition.
It's not like a planned flight or any of this.
And so they do it much more dramatically in the
movie. But this kind of like... This kind of
does convey this idea of where the trajectory
and the culture went. Like, tons of pilots signed
up to be astronauts after the first seven. You
know, like, everyone wanted to be an astronaut.
At some point, it wasn't a joke anymore, and
it became, like, the place you wanted to be.
That was the top of the ziggurat. That's where
all the hottest pilots went, was to become an
astronaut. That's where you get into, like, the
age of the Apollo astronauts and whatever. Like,
a lot of these guys were pilots too, including
Neil Armstrong. But it really gets to the heart
of this notion that at some point, the technology
wins out. At some point, the automation wins
out. At some point, the scientists win out. And
they convince everybody that this is the way
things need to go. And you either get with the
program or you get left behind. And that is,
like, continuously the story. of technology in
our society the idea that like well now social
media is around nobody asked for it nobody thought
this was like the most righteous thing or the
way things should go but now we all just accept
this there's all and like cell phones and whatever
like you have to do you have to do you have to
have a car you have to have the internet you
have to yada yada yada it's always these scientists
and techno -utopians winning over humanity and
like real human interests. And now we have all
this. Even the value systems of those. Yeah,
yeah, yeah. Even the value system of Chuck Yeager
is defeated in the end. Yeah. And so I think
this is like a pretty good groundwork or premise
for getting into the conversation about 2001
and the kind of people that like. haywood floyd
is and uh david bowman and frank pool and their
sort of reliance on technology in in the case
of 2001 very specifically ai which has become
a very hot topic these days right right of course
and yeah so i think when we talk about the right
stuff and this idea of the dehumanization of
people we're sort of talking about a similar
trajectory in 2001 where we kind of Start with
the dawn of man and man as an animal and the
sort of introduction to technology in the form
of a tool that then eventually leads to the space
age in which people are basically a bunch of
robots walking around deferring to a bunch of
robots. Right, right. Well, so to me, I think
the most interesting connection here. To start,
2001 was a project that basically Stanley Kubrick
wanted to adapt a novel of Arthur C. Clarke's
called Childhood's End. And basically they decided
not to do that and said they got together and
co -wrote this novel and movie script and whatnot.
It was a really weird arrangement in which basically
the novel is theoretically based on an early
draft of the movie where... Clark does not even
have final cut on the novel. Kubrick has final
cut on the novel. Clark did not know about changes
Kubrick made to the movie and the movie script.
There's all sorts of really weird incongruities
there. But originally, what Kubrick wanted to
do was to adapt Childhood's End. And Childhood's
End is a... I'm going to spoil Childhood's End
here, unfortunately. And it sucks because Childhood's
End is a spoilable... Yeah, if you haven't read
Childhood's End, it's worth reading. And if you
don't want to spoil it, then sign off now. Or
skip ahead to this time code. But basically,
Childhood's End is a book where basically it's
the day before the space program gets to outer
space. It starts. You know, the rocket takes
off and it gets to the atmosphere and whatever.
And then as soon as it leaves the atmosphere,
nobody gives a fuck anymore because what happens
is all of these spaceships show up and a new
age dawns in which like there are these giant
spaceships above every nation of the world. And
first these spaceships basically show up and
don't say anything. Everybody's just like, what
the fuck's up with these spaceships? And they
like sit there silently and they like. There's
no way to damage them or touch them or anything.
They're just these giant floating spaceships.
And then one day they interact first with the
humans. In Barcelona, they're doing the bullfights.
And as soon as... The bull gets speared. Everybody
in the audience feels the pain of the bull. And
then immediately from that point on, no bullfights
are ever had anymore. Like they're just like
these spaceships force people to feel this and
that changes them. And so there's no longer bullfights
and there's no longer wars and there's no longer
poverty and there's no longer anything because
of the influence of these aliens. However, we
can't see the aliens. The aliens only talk to
one guy on Earth, and they talk to him from behind
this, like, hidden screen. And so all of the,
you know, humans are like, yeah, we want to see
you guys. Like, I mean, it's nice what you've
done for us, and everything's much more convenient
and less violent and things are good, but we
want to see you. We can't trust you if we can't
see you. And they're like, no, no, you're not
ready yet. You're not ready yet. Like, well,
when are we going to be ready? And they say,
well, in 50 years. In 50 years, you'll be ready.
And so the book follows and 50 years go by and
the world becomes a much safer place and everybody's
happier. There's no war. There's no poverty.
Everything is getting better for humanity in
a outcomes sort of way. Everything's becoming
more convenient. Everything's becoming more,
it's, you know, but then. Eventually, 50 years
later, when this original generation is super
old, everybody who was around when these spaceships
showed up and lived the life where they watched
bullfights, they're all dead now. 50 years later,
it's the children who have been raised by these
aliens. That new generation that has been raised
by these aliens are the ones that these aliens
are willing to reveal themselves to. And when
they reveal themselves, it's obvious why they
didn't reveal themselves. It's because they are
Satan. They basically they reveal themselves
and it's a demon with horns and it's sitting
there like Baphomet with a child, a child on
his right arm and a child on his left. Like he's
sitting there like as the symbol of like, oh,
no, it's always been Satan. And like that's now
your God. And that's good because like the whole
point that Arthur C. Clarke is making is like
all of your religions, all of your things have
feared this thing. But really, this thing is
good. That this thing is technology and convenience
and science and all these things that religion
and all of your, you know, childish superstitions
have guided you away from. Yeah, it's the snake
in the garden. It's the apple. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
exactly. But Arthur C. Clarke is saying like,
no, no, the snake in the garden is good. And
you just need 50 years of... being normalized
to satanism to understand that satanism is the
true light he is in this book saying i mean he's
connecting these ideas he's connecting the ideas
of futurism and technology and satanism and anti
-god like a an atheism or whatever but like a
satanic atheism of technology and science and
futurism and all of them are tied together and
clark sees that as a good beautiful thing and
that you know religion's stupid and clark's the
type of guy who you know when the hippies were
out and and you know during the summer of love
and stuff he was like you should all just fucking
kill yourselves because you're not contributing
to society so like kill yourselves you know what
i mean it's like if you're not if you're not
doing a job that contributes to the bottom line
if you're not a component in the system then
to Clark you are disposable there's no humanity
there's no spirituality there's no god there's
no religion there's no any of that it's just
the convenience that comes from technology which
also is you know what we've always been afraid
of satanism which is our real future like that's
that is Clark's belief system it's a it's transhumanism
it's a transhumanist um religion and it's become
far more prominent sense um obviously and through
things like the you know love of the nasa program
and things like that but i think that this is
something that 2001 is like really really sort
of doing without doing i think that 2001 is well
basically 2001 takes place 33 years after 68
so instead of this 50 year gap we're talking
about a 33 year gap but in that 33 years We're
talking about a future in which we are totally
inhumanly, like we're talking about everybody's
the astronauts from the right stuff. You know
what I mean? Everybody has been dehumanized to
the point where they are components in a machine.
And they accept that dehumanization because they
get all these cheap. consumer goods the goodies
or whatever because of convenience yeah yeah
because of convenience and and yeah yeah exactly
we see in the first scene why the apes adopt
technology as their you know new religion or
whatever and it is because it allows them to
kill other apes and get more food like that's
yeah you know the first thing they do with it
is they just use it to gain the upper hand Yeah,
and killing their own kind. But I think that
the thing that really connects the idea of 2001
to the idea of the right stuff and the ideas
of Childhood's End is what we were talking about
with Chuck Yeager's story, the death of this
one type of man and the one type of value system
and a new type of value system replacing that.
Basically, the death of the Chuck Yeagers of
the world. and the birth of the Neil Armstrongs.
Neil Armstrongs, exactly. And those are like
the new generation in Childhood Zen. They're
the generation who has been raised on these machines
and raised on these, you know, ideas and don't
believe in God and don't believe in humanity
or anything that they're missing. You know what
I mean? They don't value family. You know what
I mean? We see Haywood Floyd in the first scene
talking to his daughter and it's like the most,
you know, sad, distanced, phone call to your
kid from a business trip or whatever like i'm
gonna miss your birthday and that's just the
way it goes and have fun yeah yeah and what do
you want for your birthday she wants a telephone
like why because you desperately want to communicate
with your father yeah this is the only human
connection you have is through a telephone you
want something more special you already have
a lot of telephones maybe like a bush baby like
it's at least something alive it's something
that's Kubrick's daughter. Yeah. But I think,
I think, you know, we're seeing dehumanized people
in this movie. And that's one of the things that
I think you were saying earlier with the right
stuff. Like, I think, I think, um, it is possible
for somebody to watch the right stuff and not
kind of see the irony in the right stuff to,
to think that this is a movie that's glorifying
the astronauts or something. Like, I think it's.
kind of clear that it's not i think especially
in the very end with like you know they died
three months later but he was the best like is
yeah very obviously satirical i think a lot of
other parts of that last piece of narration is
so ironic and silly for sure yeah yeah yeah and
it like leaves you with a bad taste in your mouth
kind of like you know what i mean it's uh it's
falsely i don't know a false positive like an
over the top Positivity that can't be serious.
It's sarcasm almost. Right. But I do think that,
yeah, some people could watch the movie and miss
that and be like, well, no, these astronauts,
like, it's funny and it's weird that it was like
this, but they're all, you know, heroes and they've
worked against this and it's heroic that they
tried to get the windows put into the plane.
Like, you know what I mean? Yeah, like they're
talking back to the scientists and being like,
we want a window on the thing and we want to
be able to actually control it and we want to
be able to override the automatic systems and
yada, yada, yada. It's like, look at them taking
the power back. Oh, it's about their triumph.
But, like, really, it's like, no, the only reason
they're asking for that is because they're doing
the job of monkeys. Like, that's, you know. So
the underlying thing is, like, inherently ironic
and funny. But I can see people missing it. But
2001, I think, is the movie where most people
have missed it for the majority of the time that
2001 has been out. I think the way, I mean, I
don't know exactly. I think that there were people
probably when it first came out who understood
what this movie was about. But when I watched
it in the 90s and looked at internet forums on
IMDB and whatever, people very much saw 2001
as a movie that was a glorification of the space
program. It was talking about the beauty of this
futurism and the excitement of interstellar travel.
the mysteries that await us on the new frontier.
You know what I mean? And I think that's exactly
what this movie is not doing. You know what I
mean? I think the whole thing is like, people
watch this and they're like, oh, the technological
precision and the whatever is so beautiful and
blah, blah, blah. And it's like, I think that
it's boring on purpose. Like, it's not, it's
not like, I think when you're watching these
astronauts just like running in circles and stuff,
it's not. the glories of space travel that we're
watching. It's the banality of living in a tin
can. Yeah, for sure. It is very much, like, depicting
the same thing. How slow everything is. The right
stuff's depicting. Yeah. How just, like, slow
and not action -packed. Everything's so slow.
Everything's so boring. They never actually do
anything until, you know, until things malfunction.
But Frank Pool, like, never does anything. You
know? He just plugs shit into shit that... he's
like when they're checking on the AE 35 unit,
like how tells them something's wrong with it.
Then they take it inside to another machine that
they just plug in to different spots on it. And
then it tells them that nothing's wrong with
it. Like there's, they're not doing any analysis
or thinking or processing of anything. They're
not, there's no problem solving happening. They're
literally just doing like, put this here, put
this there. Like they're reading off the script.
Even when mission control. tells them that their
HAL 9000 unit could be malfunctioning, they say
it was R2 HAL 9000 units that told us this. Right,
right, exactly. Yeah, the twin, the twin 9000
unit that told them. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah,
I think that sort of dehumanization is the thing
that people don't really highlight and understand
the irony of what Kubrick's doing in 2001. And
I think that that's like, it's more obvious when
you look at the... the project itself where like,
I mean, during the premiere, Arthur C. Clarke
was so upset that he left like at intermission,
um, or, or at least during intermission, he spoke
to somebody and said that he was upset. Basically
that all of the narration that Clarke had written
for this movie had been removed and that the
movie that he had written about this, the glories
of interstellar travel had been reduced to a
movie about 10 minutes of a guy running in a
circle. Now, apparently during the, premiere
the running sequences were significantly extended
like that Kubrick cut those down for the final
cut but that I think there were like literally
10 full minutes of just running and like Clark
was just like no fuck you are you fucking doing
this that's literally a guy in a hamster wheel
it's literally a guy in a hamster wheel and and
making it be as boring as possible and as like
there's there's yeah he this is not a guy that
you look up to Yeah, it's... Yeah, so Arthur
C. Clarke was disappointed. All the narration
was taken out. Yeah, well, exactly. Well, the
narration made a lot of things a lot clearer,
what was going on, and taking out the narration
kind of makes what the movie is doing very different
than what Clarke thought the movie was doing
and what the book was doing and things like that.
Because if you think about it, if you're talking
about... childhood's end and then you were to
remove the narration it would have a very different
sort of point you know what i mean if there's
a if there's a movie about like these aliens
that turn out to be satan but then you explain
that like well no satan is actually a good guy
and blah blah because of these reasons blah blah
whatever and that's your whole point but then
you take out the whole explanation it's like
oh wait The whole point is that what this guy
believes is Satan, and that this guy is evil.
You would see the imagery of Satan, and then
that would have an emotional effect on you that
tells you, oh, this is wrong, because that's
fucking Satan. Right, right. And Clark was imagining
a movie where you would see the Satan, and then
the... voiceover would explain oh well this is
satan but you've always been afraid of it but
really it's the real truth and that god is not
real and instead kubrick's like no let's take
that part out we'll just show them satan and
like it still means what you think it means clark
yeah it's still but Really, it's like taking
a piss. It's like totally like everything that
you believe in and everything that you value
is banal as fuck. It is just a bunch of like
the most boring guys in the world sitting in
a tin can doing nothing for no reason. I mean,
maybe not for no reason. Maybe the real reason
is for a bunch of weird, evil Nazis in a room
like millions of miles away. You know what I
mean? Yeah. the the it's it's very much the same
thing that happened in the right stuff it's a
parody of the space program um yeah and i think
that what's really interesting is that people
often think that this is kubrick talking about
how he filmed the moon landing right like this
is the conspiracy theory about 2001 is that well
2001 is kubrick did all of these special effects
and whatever as like a test because he was filming
the moon landing or something or he got he got
money so that he could film the moon landing
for them or whatever i you know i I think the
idea that somebody filmed the moon landing is
not totally ridiculous. However, I don't think
that's necessary for... It's Occam's razor. He
doesn't necessarily need to be a guy who filmed
the moon landing to be talking about how the
moon landing is just a ridiculous spectacle.
That it's basically television and it has nothing
to do with reality. This is what we were talking
about with the right stuff, like the amount of
resources and not just monetary resources, but
like the press, the emotional thing, like every
all of the resources put into this space program.
Like, what were we getting out of it? Theoretically,
there's some sort of science of, you know, rockets
and nukes and whatnot that we're learning. Um,
but there has never been an intention to take
people off of the earth to make more space or
like, there's no, like the idea that we're going,
going out to space to like enter this science
fiction reality in which we're an interstellar,
like race of people. Like that's insane. Like
it's, we're so far from like how many, how much
resources it takes to get something off this
earth is not a sustained, like, I don't know.
It's absurd. It's pure absurdity because it's
not about the actual outcome. It's about creating
a spectacle. It's about a big fireworks show.
Similarly, what is the purpose of the pyramids
in ancient Egypt? If you were a peasant in ancient
Egypt and you saw those pyramids, you'd be like,
oh, I am nothing. Whatever it is that built these
pyramids is great. You know what I mean? Like
maybe they're gods, maybe they're whatever, but
like, but it is, it is a spectacle of the greatness
of the thing that built this. And what, what
it is, what all of the resources that built that
pyramid are actually going towards is that spectacle.
It's not towards like some, like the pyramids
are actually a portal to some other dimension,
but the aliens gave up. It's like, no. It's a
big pile of rocks that's so impressively big
that like nobody could imagine that anybody could
have ever done it. And so because you can't imagine
the steps taken to doing it, it's like godly
power. Like any, this is an Arthur C. Clarke
quote, any sufficiently advanced technology would
be indecipherable from magic. Yeah, yeah. Right.
And that is what they're doing is they're creating
magic. They're alchemists. And they're alchemists,
they're Nazi alchemists in a room creating this
magical spectacle. Well, that's what a filmmaker
is doing in a lot of ways. Exactly. It's postmodern.
It's not about the thing. It's about the spectacle
of the thing. It's not about the value. It's
about the sign value. Yeah, and so when we talk
about the right stuff, we're talking about how
important the propaganda of the space age is
and the single combat warrior thing and all the
goodies and the whole status of the astronauts
thing that helps push. and helps push the space
program forward. It needs the support of the
people, and they're being manipulated and propagandized
in order to do that. And when you fast forward
to 2001 and Kubrick, like you were saying, it's
not a movie that actually glorifies the space
program, but everybody thinks it does, including
NASA, including IBM. Well, including IBM up to
a point. Well, up to a point. But essentially,
Kubrick, in the eyes of NASA and most of the...
powers that be kubrick is creating a piece of
space age propaganda and the year and a year
later we go to the moon you know and that's why
all these companies are involved with the project
like in clark's novel you know howard johnson's
isn't mentioned ibm isn't mentioned pan america
isn't mentioned you know But all these corporations.
GE isn't mentioned. Yeah, but all these corporate
logos are in the movie. And they're kind of subtle.
They're not like super in your face or whatever.
But clearly the movie had funding in the way
that the space program had funding. And Kubrick
propagandized all these entities to give him
funding to make his movie. Right. There's a really
interesting connection between the space program
and the creation of 2001 in a propagandic sense
and getting the funding and selling the idea
that something is what it actually isn't and
whatever. Wernher von Braun worked on 2001. They
were consultants. We had full support of the
U .S. military to make 2001. It is a propaganda
movie for the U .S. military at the height of
the Cold War. Budget was insane. There's something
really interesting about this propagandic aspect
and how much that ties into Kubrick's... production
of 2001 and then like what 2001 is itself as
either a piece of propaganda or a piece of anti
-propaganda or whatever. And what the moon landing
is itself. I mean, all three of these, I think
are, we're talking about pyramids. We're talking
about monoliths. We're talking about something
that huge amounts of funding are put into to
create a spectacle that pushes the masses in
some sort of direction. And that, I mean, the
same direction of, you know, We support you.
We are in awe of your greatness. You are the
greatest country in the world. Yeah, and you
could say that that's what the monolith is to
the apes. Exactly. exactly well the monolith
is the beginning of this power structure right
like the monolith is what introduces the power
structure because it introduces technology and
before technology there was just apes going up
to each other and whoever scares each other more
whatever but the technology introduces deception
and introduces i don't know it's the thing is
when the apes use the bone it feels like a cheat
it's not like oh, they've figured out this glorious
thing. It's just like, oh, you did this gross
thing. Yeah, yeah. You just fucking killed him?
That's one of your own. That's fucked up. But
it's like, no, we're the ones with the technology.
They're the ones without the technology. Yeah,
it's the beginning of hierarchy that's determined
not by nature, but by the human mind or whatever.
Exactly. Well, by technology. Well, sure, but
I don't know. The technology of language and
thought. Yeah, yeah, but it's an evolution that
happens within the human mind represented by
the monolith. I mean, that's the thing. In Arthur
C. Clarke's book, nothing is vague. Everything
is explained. The monolith is like an alien teaching
machine that came from an ancient alien species
that put these all over the universe. It was
an experiment that they were running to create
intelligence around the universe and help usher
in evolution to a species or whatever. Whereas
in the movie, all of that's removed, so the monolith
ends up just being this enigmatic symbol of a
step in our evolution where we essentially start
thinking logically. And in terms of mathematics,
the monolith has a perfect... you know, one to
four to nine ratio. And, like, it's all these
straight lines. It's also perfectly smooth. It's
perfectly smooth. It's perfectly smooth, like,
geometry. Yeah, it's perfect geometry. It's got
angles. I mean, like, everything else for the
whole opening is totally natural. It's got all
these rough edges. There's no... And then this
one thing that is just one shade of black. Well,
two shades because there's, you know, sides that
you can see. But, like, just... this pure thing
i think like i i think what's what's interesting
to me is when i first saw the movie i didn't
even think of it as aliens or anything i literally
just thought of it as like it is this thing that's
here and it's a black slab and that's enough
to create all of the language and technology
and the idea of using that bone i thought it
didn't come from some sort of psychological manipulation
connection that this monolith was manipulating
him into understanding i thought instead it was
just like he had only seen rough stuff and as
soon as he saw something that was smooth he was
like oh wait things can be smooth things can
be different than the way that they are things
can be mathematical and like whatever and that
that that itself was just enough to open this
door to all of these ideas because it like because
before you had seen smooth there was no way of
conceptualizing something that was like the platonic
ideal. Like that's, it's, it's introducing the
idea of the platonic ideal, the realm that exists
elsewhere in which things can be perfect and
sweet. Like, and then you're working towards
that platonic ideal. Like before you see smooth,
there is none of that, but it also like, I think
in the book, it's much more like. This is a television
screen that is showing you, oh, you pick this
up and then you do this. And then it gives you
pain if you don't do it. And then it gives you
an orgasm if you do it. And then they figure
out how to do it. And then, you know, it's very
straightforward conditioning. Yeah, it's essentially
operant conditioning, which is what they're doing
to the monkeys and the right stuff. which is
something we glossed over, but in the right stuff,
the first apes that they sent up or whatever,
they achieve that by operant conditioning, which
is like if the ape doesn't do what they want,
they get shocked in the feet, and if they do
what they want, they get nice banana pellets
or whatever. And over time, the apes have to
accept their circumstances and go along with
it the same way the astronauts do in all of humanity,
is that it is a long -form operant conditioning
where the longer you're subjected to something
and the less you can actually, do the other thing
without being punished or left behind you just
have to go with it and this is also how the aliens
deal with the humans in Childhood's End which
is through direct operant conditioning to everybody
on the planet and this is something that Clark
believes in that Clark doesn't see as negative
because he believes in Satanism and in dehumanization
and he is an evil Satanist transhumanist but
I think that Kubrick is not. I think that's kind
of clear from the removal of some of these things.
Yeah, that's what's interesting about both the
movie and the book for both of these movies,
that 2001 and The Right Stuff, the movies, both
end up being more enigmatic. I mean, like you
said, it's hard for us to watch The Right Stuff
and not get the point. It's just like it's a
little more obvious than 2001. The book, The
Right Stuff, is completely explicit about the
point it's trying to make. You can't get through
the book and not get the point. And the same
thing is true with the 2001 book. You can't read
that and not get the point. It's all laid out
and explained for you. But I think the point
is different. I think that's probably also why
the reception of the movie was so, or the point
of the movie was so obfuscated because there
was a book to go along with it. And that anybody
who didn't get the movie Because of course they're
very distracted by the enigmatic nature of it.
Like what the hell is the monolith? What the
hell is even going on in this movie? What the
fuck was that ending? Why is he in that room?
Yada, yada, yada. And it's like, oh, well there's
also, but there's this accompanying novel I can
read. And then you go read the accompanying novel
and it's like, oh, that explains the whole movie.
And then you think that the book explains the
movie essentially. And now like it's very common
for you to hear. That explanation of 2001, that
the monolith is an alien teaching machine. It
teaches them how to use tools. That's the next
step of human evolution. There's basically no
difference between that bone and the spaceship
flying through the air. That's what the jump
cut means. And now that they've reached this
level, they find another monolith because they've
reached the point in their evolution where they
can read this gravitational signal that's coming
from the moon. and they find this other monolith.
It sends a transmission to Jupiter. We go to
Jupiter. We find another monolith there. It sends
us to the Stargate, and it leads us to our next
step of evolution, which is beyond our current
understanding and is represented in an abstract
way in the movie. Right. Yeah, yeah. That's the
very straightforward explanation that Kubrick
gives to the Japanese journalist that Clark writes
in his book. But... A thing that is really, really
emphasized in the movie, even more so than the
book, is the cover story, right? The idea that
there is a cover story obfuscating the true meaning
of the thing. Right. And the way it's dealt with
in the movie is so much more enigmatic than the
book. The book just, like, just over -explains
literally everything. Everything in the book
is the minutia of science fiction and how all
the technology works and how the gravitational...
shit works and what the astronaut food is like
and chapters about approaching Saturn. It's the
type of stuff that an autistic transhumanist
is interested in. Yeah, exactly. How all of this
technology works. I'm going to nerd out about
this or that. Because what's cool about this
is the hard sci -fi elements of it where it's
like the movie is not a hard sci -fi thing at
all. It's not interested in explaining anything.
It's not about like... how the technology works
because it's like, this is, that's the point
is that like, this is all a fantasy. The movie
comes off more as an enigmatic fantasy than a
piece of hard sci -fi. Right. I mean the, the
floating space spinning space station, right?
Like you could say that's, you know, that was
Von Braun's idea and it's, you know, that's how
you create artificial gravity is through centrifugal
force and blah, blah, blah. Yeah. Or you could
say, you know, it looks like a fucking film reel
and. the whole thing's a fantasy, you know? And
I think that part of the thing is Kubrick's a
guy who would say one thing to one person and
then actually do the other thing. Like, you know,
he's somebody who's willing to put that in the
movie and be like, oh no, it's because of Von
Braun's brilliant idea of how gravity works.
But really it's also like, yeah, but it's all
film reels and cameras and eyes and, you know,
it's trying to take you out of it. Yeah, and
this is something that, you know, I have to give
credit to Rob Yeager for opening my eyes to.
is a lot of these details about the movie, about
the monolith as the cinema screen, and cinema
as a form of propaganda and a mind -teaching
tool and whatever, and how cinema can open your
mind or close your mind and stuff like that,
and a lot of stuff about the production of the
film and that weird 90 -degree angle turn thing
that Kubrick is doing with his camera that he
makes the cameraman... in the taiko crater do
and how there's a weird 90 degree angle turn
that that like leads into the stargate or whatever
you know what i mean like there's like yeah and
and every time every time anybody's docking that
90 degree angle turn yeah exactly exactly stuff
there's a lot of yeah um that specific idea is
referenced in the book in the 39th chapter called
into the eye where bowman is basically floating
around the moons of Jupiter with the monolith.
Actually, in the book is the moons of Saturn,
but he's floating around Saturn with the monolith.
And basically, here's how it describes what he
was seeing. Just a minute, that's odd. Bowman's
voice died into silence of utter bewilderment.
He was not alarmed. He literally could not describe
what he was seeing. He had been hanging above
a large flat rectangle, 800 feet long, 200 feet
wide. made of something that looked as solid
as rock, but now it seemed to be receding from
him. It was exactly like one of those optical
illusions when a three -dimensional object can,
by effort of will, appear to turn inside out,
its near and far sides suddenly interchanging.
I think that this shift, this visual shift, you're
talking about the 90 -degree shift and whatnot,
but there is also a two -dimensional to three
-dimensional shift happening. This is called
a... Gestalt shift. It's like when you see the
faces... A gestalt shift. When you see the faces
instead of a vase. Right, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's
like that. Or like an inside... But I think that
for me, the most significant moment of this in
the movie happens a couple of times. It happens
first with the apes when the monolith shows up
and it cuts to the shot from below the monolith
looking up at the moon. Mm -hmm. And you see
the monolith there. And this monolith that used
to be a rectangle is now a triangle on the screen.
It's basically a pyramid. A pyramid. And at the
top of the pyramid is the moon. And it has a
closed eye. It's the bottom sliver of the moon
that looks like a closed eye. And this is a three
-dimensional shot looking up at the sky at a
rectangle. But if you flatten the image, it's
also a two -dimensional. depiction of the pyramid
and eye on the dollar bill yeah um masonic symbol
um except in this case instead of the light coming
from the eye how it is on the on the dollar bill
instead the light is coming from the lower part
of the pyramid and the eye itself is closed now
i think that this is this is one of these things
that i think is super awesome because it's it's
using this It's using this concept that Clark
gets into in this very end of the book. Part
of what's interesting about the book is that
Kubrick had Final Cut. So the things that are
in the book are things that Kubrick approved
of. However, Clark was not totally let in on
the point of the movie or of the book necessarily.
So things like that that are in there that are
super significant in the book that aren't translated
are translated in other ways and stuff. And I
think that... Just like how Kubrick is translating
these ideas of childhood's end and the 50 -year
gap into this 33 -year gap, the 33 is also a
Masonic number. And this three -dimensional to
two -dimensional shift, this concept of a three
-dimensional thing becoming a two -dimensional
symbol is also this sort of Masonic thing. And
throughout the movie, there are a lot of these
hidden symbols. They all interact with each other
in so many really fascinating ways. There are
so many different things that are the same shape
as the monolith throughout the movie. It continues
to make this repeated point of it all is the
monolith. It's just like those hard edges and
those rectangles. Hal is a rectangle. Their iPads
are rectangles. Even their food trays are rectangles.
Just like, yeah, all these hard edge, rectangular,
geometric shapes everywhere. And I mean, when
it comes to this specific theme, I think one
of the most significant themes in the movie is
the scene about the cover story, the scene on
the moon with the press conference. Yeah, where
the cameraman comes in and he does that rotating
90 degree shift with the camera over and over.
That takes place in a room where all of the walls
are just like these big white, like it's the
most weird set design ever. Um, if you actually
think about it, it kind of passes as normal and
futuristic or whatever. But if you think about
it for a second, it's like, why would you, this
is fucking weird. And it's just, you have three
white walls that are just monoliths tilted on
their side. Yeah. Um, instead of black and vertical,
they're white and horizontal, but they're just
three monoliths. And then above each of them
are little Hal nine thousands that like are.
theoretically cameras or projectors or something.
Yeah, they look like cinema screens. They have
curtains on the sides. And I guess there are
projectors. They probably are meant to be projection
screens that are just not being used at the moment.
That's also not the way it is in the book. In
the book, he describes that room as having lots
of stuff on the walls and posters. I mean, even
the astronaut food in the book is described as
being like real food. It looks like it and stuff
like that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Kubrick's making
points in these changes. But basically the points
are the book is from a transhumanist, Satanist
perspective, and the movie is from the perspective
of, you know, a New York Jewish intellectual.
Well, the movie makes everything seem cold and
lifeless, you know. Whereas the book tries to
inject more humanity into the characters and
gives them more to say. And you're inside their
heads so you can hear what they're thinking.
And the book clearly comes from a perspective
of, like, these are normal people like you and
me. And this is all just cool stuff. This is
just the next stage of things. And when you're
reading the book, you don't really get the sense
of that roboticness, of that coldness that everything
has in the movie. Right. I think that the author
of the book is not aware of the banality of the
things that he is describing. Yeah. Whereas Kubrick
is underlining that banality. But I think back
to back to the room, though, with the projector
screens, like the three of them or whatever.
And you get Dr. Floyd up front. And when he stands
and he stands up front, all of the tables are
arranged. As a rectangle or whatever, but we're
at an angle, the same way that we're at an angle
at the base of the monolith in the earlier scene.
And instead of the top of this triangle, instead
of the top of this pyramid having the closed
eye of the moon, instead it has Dr. Heywood Floyd.
And he is the enlightened one there at the top
of this pyramid or whatever. But as the earlier
sort of symbol showed. The guy with the right
stuff. The guy at the top of the pyramid has
his eyes wide shut. You know what I mean? The
eye is closed at the top of this pyramid. And
Heywood Floyd, the guy with the right stuff,
is at the top of this pyramid. And what is he
doing? He's just lying. He's just lying to people
about creating a cover story. And he had just
lied earlier. He is a nothing vessel. He is the
most satanic of characters. Who is nothing. And
his relationship with his daughter scene is nothing.
It's as nothing as Frank Poole's family calling
him with his birthday card where they're explaining
that like, oh, they're going to figure out his
finances for it. Oh, we figured this out for
you. So you'll be getting more monthly. It's
like monthly. He's not going to be back for years.
You're talking about how you guys are living
off of him, right? Basically. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
You're talking about like you figured out how
to get more money out of NASA. Like nobody gives
a fuck about anybody. There's all these birthdays.
It's all like they're so. See you next Wednesday.
See you next Wednesday. It's all. Yeah, I don't
know. Why the fuck does he say see you next Wednesday?
It's haunting. It is haunting. I don't know why.
It's like a haunting moment. It got under my
skin this time. It really creeped me out. It's
terrifying. It creeped me the fuck out. I was
like, dude, that is so scary. I don't really
know why. It's so creepy. Because it's not real.
It makes it feel like it's not real. What if
Hal is just AI generating that for him? It's
not actually a real message from his family.
I don't know. I don't think it would make any
difference because I think his family is basically
AI, too, because they've been raised by AI. Or
at least they've been raised by computers that,
you know, came around in the late 60s. But 33
years later, yeah, those people are less human
than the people who were around in the 60s who
would have said, like, fuck this. And all they
talk about is this banal shit about how we, like,
got your finances together. And then he's like,
well, I can't think of anything else to say.
Right. Just like, yeah, there's nothing going
on here. Yeah. And he's just like not even lifting
his head to look at it. It's just like everybody's
disinterestedly like going through the motions
of pretending like they're calling. Yes, true.
There's like no emotion on Frank Paul's face
at all. He's like not reacting to this. It's
like. Yeah, there's nothing. He's just a component
in a machine. He's a soulless vessel. He's a
redundant component. He's been raised as one.
And I think that what's interesting is. In Childhood's
End, there's the idea that these aliens need
to show up to do this. You know what I mean?
To raise this next generation, to make them these
post -human creatures. But in 2001, Kubrick posits
that that's not necessary. That instead that's
happening instead through technology. And I think
that like people will look at 2001 and talk about,
oh, well, the monoliths are aliens that are doing
this or whatever. I don't think that's, I think
that's a stupid question. Like whether the monoliths
are aliens or God or whatever, it's like, that's
just this thing that doesn't matter. You know,
like the point is the monolith is technology
and that's the enemy. Like that is the thing
that is the religion of the... anti god that
satanism you know what i mean it's the the snake
in the garden it's satan and clark thinks it's
satan like it's not there's not even like a question
about what both of these people think satan is
it's just that clark thinks satan is a great
thing whereas kubrick thinks it's not hippies
should go kill themselves exactly exactly And
by removing all the explanation, it's like, well,
we're not going to explain why the Satanism is
somehow good. Instead, we're just going to show
that everything you believe is Satanism. And
I think that that goes without saying that we
all understand that like the hippies shouldn't
kill themselves. You should kill yourself. Stop
fucking building these, like putting all this
money into this spectacle. And like, I don't
know. And Clark is also like, I think what's
really interesting about him is that like, like,
like we were saying in the last episode, like.
In Star Trek, they say space is the final frontier,
and I think it's, no, science fiction the final
frontier. Like, Clark is as important to the
space program, as is Kubrick, like we said. Clark
is as important to the space program as Von Braun.
Yeah, yeah. That is, it's, what Von Braun is
creating is a spectacle for the people. What
Clark is creating is a spectacle for the nerds.
Like, it's, they work in, they are achieving
the same thing. Exactly, yeah. They're going,
they're trying to do the same thing. They're
achieving the same thing. They are the same thing.
A movie about landing on the moon is the same
thing as landing on the moon. It's selling this
idea. The difference is how much you sell the
spectacle that it actually happened. But like,
other than that, that is the same thing. Sure.
And that's why I think people get it confused
with like saying, oh, well, Kubrick's saying
this was faked or whatever. It's like, no, Kubrick's
not saying it was faked. Kubrick's saying it's
fake. You know? Yeah, just like a movie is fake.
That's some fake -ass shit to give a shit about.
Like, it's like... No, no, I'm not saying, like,
it didn't happen. Maybe it happened, but it's
just like, look at that fake shit. Like, who
gives a fuck about, like, some random dude in
a tin can who's pooping in his pants in fucking
outer space? Like, this is retarded, dude. Like,
and if it's not retarded, it's actually very
evil and, like, you know, a bunch of Nazis figuring
out how to, like, have a more powerful nuclear
program. But, like... otherwise it's fucking
retarded like those are the two options it's
retarded or it's satan yeah and that is what
2001 posits and i think like we were talking
earlier about the some of the stuff that rob
bager really you know talks about with the investment
and whatnot and we didn't even get into you know
the ibm investment where just before the release
of the movie ibm asked that they you know remove
the ibm references and stuff and they removed
some of them apparently but there's still i mean
you really couldn't see them at all back when
this was on dvd yeah now um but on 4k you can
see ibm and general electric everywhere and shit
And by the time, yeah, by the time the movie
came out and they found out, it's like, oh, it's
about a glitching IBM computer that's like killing
people. And like, OK, like, no, we don't want
our name on this. But you already gave us 10
million dollars and whatever. And you already
like, you know. Yeah. And also like H .A .L.
are the letters before IBM and whatever. Right.
Right. And people have explained this away because
Kubrick in a interview said like. Yeah, we never
think about stuff like that. It would really
take a code cracker to figure that one out because
to notice something like that would be so, it's
so weird and specific. Only a code cracker would
ever notice it. And it's like, that to me is
such a sarcastic statement. Like I can't, I can't
see Kubrick saying like, you mean the letters
right after IBM or HAL? yeah that would take
a that's i would never have thought of that only
a code cracker would think of that he's like
no if he had never thought of that he'd be like
oh shit that's crazy like that i should have
seen that that's great like you know instead
he's like only a mathematical like phd in this
could ever figure that out yeah yeah so it's
like i it's so obviously it was hal after ibm
like it's not after heuristic algorithmic like
it's that was a excuse to do hal which is ibm
yep and i think ibm knew this to a certain extent
and that's why they removed their names from
it and removed as many logos as possible but
you know right before bowman says open the pod
bay doors it says ibm on his face and then When
Hal says, I can't do that, it says IBM on his
face. Like IBM is on his face for most of that
whole scene where he's just talking to the computer
and it's just saying like, sorry, I can't do
that. Sorry, I can't do that. There is a projected
eye over his eye, a B on his nose and an M over
his other eye, like through the whole scene.
If you really want to get into the weeds, there's
a Hitler mustache under his nose as well. Well,
I've heard that one, too. I don't really. I don't
know. I've looked for it. I don't really agree.
Oh, it's there. That one, it goes all the way
to one side. It's not just a Hitler mustache.
It's a wider mustache. It's a perfect blue square
under his nose and happens twice. Yeah. All right.
Well, maybe. Whatever. The Nazi IBM connection
is there. To me, what's more significant is that
it says. Yeah. I mean, what's more important
is to me, it says IBM and then it's got this
target on his head and the computer is just saying,
like, I'm sorry, I can't do the thing that I'm
programmed to do for no reason. And I think part
of the thing that was removed from the movie
is why Hal does that. And that, I think, is kind
of the very significant explanation. It's like
removing the explanation for the Satanism. in
uh childhood's end would be you know what i mean
where if you have this thing glitch out and then
have an explanation for it it's like oh well
it was human error the humans did this thing
in the book in the book it says his integrity
is destroyed by a conflict between truth and
concealing the truth because he has to hide the
mission right from the astronauts and that's
like a that's like a paradoxical contradiction
in his circuitry right that That's a paradoxical
contradiction in his circuitry that was introduced
by humans who gave him contradictory inputs.
And so it is all attributable to human error
in the end because that is what Clark believes.
Clark believes that computers cannot glitch.
I don't know if he's ever seen a computer before,
but he has this belief that somehow every single
time a computer makes a mistake, it's attributable
to human error, which is, actually true because
it was an error to make the computer that made
that glitch however like the point is computers
fucking glitch like i think that this is what
like you can there are many different theories
for why the the how glitches in the movie um
you can say yeah it's that that contradiction
you could say that maybe the monolith the aliens
that control the monolith are creating this as
a test for Dave Bowman or something, and they're
controlling Hal's mind or whatever. You could
also say that he sees the humans as redundant
components and he alone can complete the mission
without them and all that stuff. Right. Yeah,
yeah, yeah. That's like the Tron legacy thing
where, like, the Jeff Bridges copy is, like,
I was programmed to just, like, do this job,
and so I'm going to remove the human element
because it just gets in the way. Right. And,
I mean, or you could even say that he... wants
to remove the human element because he wants
to be the one that meets the aliens and transcends
to the next stage of humanity. Sure. Yeah. That
like, he actually knows what's at stake and that,
that however, like, I don't think it's any of
those things. I think that what's awesome about
removing any of those explanations is that the
point is you don't need any of those explanations.
The point is that this is a bad product because
it was put out by IBM. Yeah, that's like I think
that's the thing that's awesome about this is
this movie took IBM's money and made a movie
about a computer that glitches for no reason.
And it's awesome. And it's the same with like
he took GE's money and there's on the microwaves
when the astronauts cook their food. The first
thing they do is Bowman grabs the food. He burns
his hand. He shakes his hand in the air. He's
like, fuck. And then he takes another one out
quickly and another one out quickly because he's
burning his fingers. You you see the physical
pain. that the GE microwave is causing to the
consumer in that shot. And this was like advertising
in like advertising psychology was like new at
this time. And like psychology and advertising
was like, I mean, it had been around since the,
you know, thirties, whatever, but it was still
something that not everybody understood, like
in a, like just like totally key way. So I think
that you could say like, Oh, we're putting your
stuff in outer space. That means that you're
going to be the type of company that survives
for 50 years. Isn't that great? That's like we're
showing that your company is great. And they're
like, yeah, and that's enough explanation. Like
they're not like, OK, well, we're going to have
our consultant come in and make sure that our
product is only associated with the right associations
so that like you can't put this in if you're
going to have somebody being raped. in front
of it. You can't put this in if you're like,
you know what I mean? There are certain things,
if you're going to use a Coca -Cola product,
you're not going to have a Coca -Cola product
with a rapist raping a child and drinking Coca
-Cola. Like it's not, you can't do this. That's
a pretty extreme example. At this time, advertising
was, yeah, no, I know. But specifically like,
The worst thing you could ever do in advertising
would be to recreate a physically painful experience
that all of your consumers have with your product.
And that is what he does with the GE microwaves.
That is the most powerful thing. That sounds
very connected to Clockwork Orange and the operant
conditioning they're trying to do to him. Of
course. The unexpected. result of it and the
connections that get made between the music and
his pain and all that instead of the images and
whatever totally totally and I think that's something
that Kubrick was interested in earlier than other
people yeah in 2001 really capitalized on the
ability to do that sort of subliminal advertising
stuff without people kind of picking up on what
he was doing And I think he was doing it in the
exact opposite direction. I mean, you see a Howard
Johnson's on the on the totally empty space station.
You see all of these like the. The Pan Am flight
is like, look at how much fucking fuel they're
wasting to fly one asshole to the moon. You're
not seeing any of this stuff helping anybody.
You see a bunch of really expensive bullshit
doing nothing. And then you see the IBM computer
just kill everybody. All of the GE microwaves
hurt them. Everything is bad. Nobody who funded
this movie is portrayed in a good way at all
in a... subliminal advertising sort of way. It's
like everything is the opposite of what they
want on purpose. Like, and it's the same with
what he's doing with Arthur C. Clarke's ideas.
It's like, well, I'm gonna depict exactly the
book that we talked about, but like, it's just
gonna show how fucking retarded you are and how
evil everything that you believe is and how you
are a piece of garbage. Like, you know what I
mean? Yeah, yeah. That you and the Nazis are
the same and you are, there's a great Rob Ager
theory that, that uh how is clark and kubrick
like maybe maybe how is kubrick and i don't know
there's some there's something about the the
chess game between clark and kubrick and whatnot
we've brought this up in previous episodes too
plenty of times and now we're finally here to
like talk about 2001 and make the treatise of
why we've like applied this mindset to other
that we've done, but like what Spielberg is doing
in Ready Player One against Ernest Cline or whatever,
the chess match that is kind of continuously
happening between Kubrick and the authors he
adapts. Right. I think I recently rewatched Lolita
and Strangelove. And those projects are projects
where he's collaborating with somebody that I
believe he respects. I think that in Lolita,
And Nabokov was on the same page with Kubrick
where they were like, how can we pull this trick
on the censors? And like, how can we make this
even more edgy than the book in certain ways
without like, you know what I mean? How can we
say like. How can we put this in the movie and
then look at the censors and say, oh, yeah, what's
perverse about that? Why don't you tell me what's
perverse? Why does that turn you on? Like, oh,
okay, it's fine. Okay, I thought it was fine.
Okay, good. You know what I mean? Lolita is so
much like him working against somebody, but he
is on the side of his co -author, I believe.
And I think same with Strangelove, where Strangelove
is a really brilliant piece of the darkest fucking
satire ever. But I think Terry, what's his name?
What's his name? He wrote blue movie, Terry Southern,
like who wrote it with him and stuff. Like, I
think that's a guy that Kubrick respected. Um,
I think that he's not working against these people.
However, 2001 is a project that I think it's
very clearly like Arthur C. Clark is a guy who
is the opposing ideology to everything that Kubrick
stated in strange love. he literally like found
the arch nemesis of the guy working in the sphere
of human consciousness, creating this fantasy
of futurism. And he took him and then did the
subliminal advertising thing against him too.
And just took all of the wind out of all of his
ideas in the most brutal way. And that I think
was something that slowly built over the course
of those three movies of him having to deal with,
you know, the, the satire and the, and not saying
what you're actually saying and dealing with
higher -ups that you're, I don't know, supposedly
collaborating. I mean, when you were dealing
with censors on Lolita, you're collaborating
with them. He was disparagingly calling him Superman
behind his back, right? Yeah, yeah. Apparently,
he referred to Clark as Superman to his family
and stuff. Now, I don't know. The point is, yeah,
I think I think there is a certain irony to the
way that that Kubrick dealt with Clark in his
personal life and stuff. And that like, you know,
referring to him as Superman, like this nerdy
little weird guy is very inherently ironic. Yeah,
exactly. Especially because the Superman is then
is like the Ubermensch. It's the Nietzschean
concepts. right right like oh yeah look at this
the man of the future man of the future here
yeah yeah yeah big superman here yeah superman
coming today special little super boy like you
know oh yeah he's dealing with a weird autist
who's like yeah yeah superman's coming over all
right yeah and there's definitely like uh there's
definitely a nichian way of framing 2001 as well
and like the the progression of an ape towards
a star child as being like an ubermanshian journey
or whatever yeah yeah of course of course but
i think that i think that clark sees that as
something that comes through technology whereas
in the movie technology has to be like literally
defeated and left behind in order to move forward
right right i mean i guess that's true of the
book too uh it is it is but it's it's like a
i don't know It's a stepping stone towards this
thing that is Satan. Like as opposed to in the
movie, it seems to be like the star child. It
seems to me to be almost a return. You know what
I mean? So it was, I don't remember how long,
but it wasn't for many, many years until I kind
of really felt like I understood the ending of
2001 where he's in the room and he points at
the monolith. Yeah. so you know in the book there's
just like the explanation that you know yeah
well he's in a zoo where the aliens are watching
him they're giving him all the food that he wants
and they're letting him watch tv or whatever
like i don't know yeah the trough amadorians
it's just like he passes his life in the realm
of the platonic ideal of technology that's like
that to me is what that room is is it's not it's
not like super gadgety and and futuristic or
whatever um but it is the platonic ideal where
you know yeah sure the space station is far more
futuristic but there's nowhere to take a nice
big bath like you know what i mean like the room
that he ends up in in the end is the most ideal
room with the greatest bathroom and the beautiful
art and the like it's just this sort of Tremendous,
you know, Baroque Renaissance sort of. I don't
even know. It's some sort of futuristic combination
of all sorts of eras. I mean, I feel like in
the movie, it's a lot more weird and alien than
it's described in the book. In the book, he describes
it as basically being like the exact replica
of a hotel room. Yeah, but that's not. But but
see, this is to me. The idea is that this is
the realm of the platonic ideal that first occurred
to that ape when he saw smoothness. Or maybe
the full thing didn't occur to him, but like
the opening of that realm occurred to him. Where
you could live in a place where all needs were
provided for and all of your, everything was
satiated and everything, like you had no want
and no desire and no anything. That perfect world
that our children will inhabit. A brave new world.
Exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah. world of technology
but that that basically you know perfect technology
would not be ugly and and would not have big
tv screens all over the place whatever perfect
technology would have space and there'd be the
perfect little table with the perfect little
meal and the nice little wine glass and the like
the floor lighting that's bright but not too
bright and like you know what i mean everything's
just like there's no harsh lighting there's no
it's just everything is soft and everything is
ideal in the most soulless way I mean what he
realizes is there's no sort of conflict there's
no anything like what is it that we've been reaching
towards is this and now he's here and what is
there you know yeah and like you might as well
you might as well pass through your entire life
that's like why he just gets old and just passes
through his whole life because like yeah that's
it that's all there is because he's living with
technology nothing changes he's got he's got
he's got his you know, Netflix and his Uber Eats.
Every day is the same. He is living in the year
2025, I guess, you know, 2001. But I think that
in the end, when he points at the monolith, I
mean, well, I guess when he cracks the glass,
you see the entropy of this. You see the introduction
of, like, this doesn't exist aside from time.
Time still exists. And so, like, this... Thing
that you have achieved is still temporary. What
are you like? You're not working towards anything.
You're not doing anything. Yeah, you might as
well just pass your whole life and break and
die and whatever and then in the end when he's
actually dying he points in the monolith and
he realizes like To me what I feel he realizes
like oh, it's been you all along This has been
the thing that I've been fighting against all
along. It wasn't it wasn't Heywood Floyd. It
wasn't Hal. It wasn't Heywood Floyd. It wasn't
any of these things that I've been fighting this
whole movie or whatever. The real thing has been
the monolith has been technology, which is everything.
You know what I mean? Yeah. I think, I think
what's interesting is also like by the, by the
end, once, once Hal doesn't open the pod bay
doors, every time I see Bowman after that, he
looks a lot more ape like. to me i don't know
if he's like doing a face or something but like
his face looks a lot more like he's got more
of a forehead going on and he kind of reminds
me like of the man apes at the beginning and
i think that part of the thing is like what happens
in the second part of the movie is what happens
in the third part of the movie again is like
you can live in this convenience in this in this
sort of womb and not be a human not exist not
not be asleep essentially Um, but as soon as
that thing happens, then, then you have to awaken
that animal that's inside you. That is the thing
that's alive. That's the only thing that's alive.
Um, is conflict. The needing to deal with conflict,
the need to survive. That is, that is when this
character becomes alive. And then he goes back
to the room and then he's like, I guess I finished
it and whatever. And it's like, no, dude, you're
still, the point is you've eliminated. being
alive. Well, I also think there is a difference
between the early stages of technology and the
late stages. I feel like we're in this like late
stage thing, which is what the movie kind of
predicted. I think when the ape picks up the
bone and uses it as a tool, that actually does
give that ape more control over its environment.
You know, it does allow it to have the one up
on the other tribe. It's not necessarily something
that has enslaved the ape yet or whatever. And
like, even when you talk about... No, it makes
the ape a killer of his own. No, sure. It changes
the ape into a cannibal. It changes the ape into
something inhuman. It takes away the ability
for the ape to sit next to the tapers. It takes
away a lot is lost. And what it's going towards...
It certainly does all that. But it also makes
the ape like... It's the difference between the
pilots and the astronauts, man. The pilots are
using a piece of technology to have control over
their ability to fly up into the atmosphere and
whatever. They still have control over that thing.
It doesn't have complete control over them. And
yeah, there's something that's lost and those
planes are used in war and killing their own
kind and that's still just... an extension of
the bone. But I do think there is some switch
that's happening there, some transition into
a later stage where the human becomes a redundant
component and becomes fully enslaved by the technology
and has no more control over it. I mean, Bowman
turning Hal off is like a final revolutionary
act against the thing that has enslaved him.
Totally. I think like... Like you said, yes,
the bone takes something away, just like the
pilots. The right stuff doesn't really make the
point that the pilots are already enslaved by
the technology. It makes the point that they're
in control of it still, that they have agency,
and that they chose to be there. They chose to
be of service. They chose to fly these things.
They had to be a very specific kind of person
to do this. a very rare kind of human being.
And then that's the breed that dies out once
automation completely takes over. And there's
no reason for human input anymore. This is the
conflict of the second part of the movie. And
I think that in the end, we see just like, which
one was it? Which astronaut was it who you said
his, was it? It was Gordon Cooper. It was Cooper,
right? Who you said had the problem where he
had to actually fly actually manual and he actually
landed and he figured it out after all the technology
failed. Like that's, yeah, he was still, there
was still an ape in there. There was still a
man in there who like could take the reins and
land this thing or whatever, just like Bowman.
Bowman, he's out there with no fucking helmet
because he, you know, didn't think about it,
I guess. still just didn't think that Hal was
deliberately murdering Frank and shit you know
like yeah yeah yeah but he then you know figures
out how to play not by the rules like I mean
Hal has to play by the rules there's there's
no Hal can you know take all of the air out of
the whole plane spaceship and he can you know
turn off the anti -gravity drives if he wants
to or whatever but like he can't just like break
any of the like he's limited whereas I guess
you could say that's breaking the rules because
he's not really supposed to kill the astronauts
but like he's doing well sure but I just mean
he's doing that in service of the mission ultimately
like which is in hit but Bowman Bowman is doing
something messy is like what I'm saying like
he's not plugging something into something else
he's not pushing the button that does the thing
he's blasting the thing and going through an
airlock and like choosing to like he's fighting
like you know what i mean he he's achieving a
physical feat that gets around the set rules
of the chess game you know what i mean like the
chess if we're playing a chess game then like
hal wins because he is in control of the whole
board but like this human doesn't have to play
he can flip a chess board he can he can fucking
he can say fuck this i guess that was a detail
i guess that was a detail yeah I forgot to mention,
but Hal didn't really win that chess match. He
just propagandized to Dave that he won it or
whatever. He told, I think it was Frank, but
he told, wasn't it Frank Poole? I think it's
Dave that's playing chess with him. It doesn't
matter. It's one of them, but either way, yeah.
He didn't really have checkmate. He says what
Dave. I think it's Frank. But he says what Frank's
next move is going to be. He's like, well, you're
going to do this, and then I'm going to get checkmate.
So that's it. And it's like, turns out he could
have made a different move. Exactly. Hal says,
oh, well, your next move is this, and then my
next move is this, so that's checkmate. And it's
like, well, he had two options there, and of
the two options, that was the wrong one. And
you... implied to him that he needed to make
that and he didn't double check it because he's
not double checking anything or thinking for
himself because all he's doing is plugging it
in and asking another computer if that is how
it works. He would never know if it was malfunctioning.
This is one of the number one things, I think,
is when we're talking about the AI versus human
thing today. Just like AI writing of sitcoms
or AI art or whatever. The reason that this AI
stuff is impressive to people is because actual
I, actual intelligence, has been so devalued.
Diminished. Divalued. It's diminished, yeah.
Essentially, it's not competing with actual intelligence
anymore. It's competing with people who were
raised by the internet. So it's basically like...
A bunch of artificial intelligence thing that
was raised on the Internet versus like a bunch
of actual intelligence things that are raised
through AI programs. So like they're not really
it's not competing with the same fucking thing.
You've diminished the thing. It's not you've
moved the goalposts. Yeah, we've deferred to
technology for so long that like it is like childhood's
end. We've been born and raised in the age of
Corellon. The demon. Yeah, exactly. Like nobody
now can be a Jimi Hendrix or a John Lennon or
an Albert Einstein or whatever. And this was
true by the year 2001. Like this was true by
the year 2001, by the time the internet was popping
up and people were on chat rooms or whatever.
Like this was all, that was the 33 years later
that a generation needed to be raised with the
ideas of this futurism and these astronauts and
this technology and whatever to buy into that
and then get the internet and then... basically
lose all humanity and then when the internet
has ai programs that are doing better than them
at humanity it's like well yeah because you fucking
these are all like autistic people you can compete
you can do better like at like a computer can
do a lot better than rain man at counting all
of those uh uh toothpicks you know what i mean
that's true but like we're not that's not what
intelligence was before the year 2001 like you
know what i mean in in the 80s that was a weird
psychological disorder nowadays that's just a
great coder who's going to be very successful
but or a perfect astronaut until he's replaced
by a computer yeah yeah so so we're all like
we're all we're all dave bowman's existing in
that room at the end and our lives might as well
just fast forward you know yeah basically i mean
I mean, at least in the first world or whatever.
I think right now we're all Frank Poole doing
that chess game where, you know, the computer
is telling us, like, oh, yeah, so your next move
is this and then it's this, so checkmate. It's
going to be the singularity or something. It's
like, dude, why are we buying into what this
computer is telling us the future is? Like, what
are we talking about here? Like, nobody's checking.
Nobody's doing their own, like, analysis of anything.
And so, like, the computer outputs that are telling
us that... transhumanism is the way of the future
is just like, that's taking over to the people
who have most of the power and the money and
the, you know, Twitter and the whatever. These
are, you know, weird, evil people who are running
the whole. No, sure. Conversation. I mean, it's,
it's, it's actually kind of gone to a comical
degree. I feel like there is an underlying, like
discomfort about it though. I think like, I I'd
like to give people more credit. We didn't ask
for this. This stuff just happens to us. And
I think in a grand societal sense, like, yeah,
eventually people just have to accept it. It's
like there's no one around today that's agonizing
anymore about like cars being around. But like
the people back when the car was first being
created who were agonizing about what that would
do to us, they were right. And eventually they
just kind of died out. They're right every time.
The people who are like, dude, the telephone,
fuck this. Like every time they're right, but
it eventually just takes over and then everyone
has to accept it. And I think, I think right
now people are, because of how fast the AI thing
is happening, I think like a lot of people are
incredibly uneasy about it. Like deep down, even
if they don't totally understand it or really,
I mean like not even the people creating it can
tell us what it's going to do. No one gives a
shit. There's like no real conversation being
had. It's just kind of like, it's because there's
no longer an infrastructure of actual intelligence.
The infrastructure of actual intelligence that
should be making a counter -argument to this
AI stuff is just like people looking up shit
on AI. Well, it could destroy humanity, but in
the meantime, we'll make a lot of money. That's
like what Sam Altman literally said. A lot of
those guys actually do believe that it could
destroy humanity, and they just don't care. Oppenheimer.
Yeah, man. Maybe we did. Maybe we did destroy
humanity. Maybe we did destroy the world. I mean,
they're saying now that artificial general intelligence
is going to come within Trump's presidency and
stuff. And it's like, I don't even know what
that means. I don't even know or care what that
means. Yeah, exactly. What they say it means
is that that will be the kind of AI that actually
does just completely replace all intellectually
human work. um you just won't have white collar
workers anymore you won't have anything and it's
like you know what fine then give us ubi or whatever
just like then like let us just not work and
like whatever if that's the way it's going to
be if it's all going to be automation and dark
factories and like all this shit like why you
know the social contract has to change at that
point they're going to give us universal basic
income so that they can like what They don't
need to enslave us except for what sexual favor.
What are you talking about? The whole idea of
like, I just, I don't know. Hey man, if no one
can get jobs and no one can work and no one can
make any money, that's going to be like a horribly
disastrous situation for this country and the
world. You know? Yeah. Like that's just not sustainable.
That's not going to work. You can't just like
automate everything and reduce every human being
on the planet to a redundant component. Like,
what do they fucking expect is going to happen?
You know? Well, I mean, they know what's going
to happen. They'll do it over the course of 33
years. Well, no. I mean, they're trying to do
it in the course of a decade. That's what's going
to be so destructive about it. They're doing
it a little too fast. That's probably a problem.
Let's move fast and break things. That's the
whole fucking ethos of Silicon Valley. Yeah.
But, I mean, we've had a whole generation of,
you know, living on social media to prepare them
for a world of... living in a postmodern, like,
noosphere. Not a world where you can't... False
reality. Not a world where, like, you can't actually
work or make money or pay for your basic needs.
That's when shit starts to break. Oh, yeah, yeah,
yeah. Oh, sure. But people can't do anything
about it. It's not... If there's a different
way to get our basic needs and a different social
contract that comes about because of that, fine.
But I don't know what that looks like, and I
don't think anybody does. And, like, that's also
just, like... It looks like Satan. but no but
that looks like satan but i think even that like
that is a continuation of this path like that
is literally us just being in the room that dave
bowman's in not like figuratively anymore like
everything's run by a computer everyone has their
needs met it is the brave new world idea like
no one has to work yeah it's the wally idea or
whatever you know yeah yeah yeah and wally is
Basically 2001. From this movie, obviously. I
mean, not to mention Toy Story and all these
other ones. There's many movies based on 2001.
Yeah, it was an incredibly impactful movie. At
least the philosophies therein. Yeah, yeah. But
I think a lot of movies that are discussing the
philosophies therein are, you know, like 2001,
misunderstood and whatnot. I think that a lot
of this sort of... I think that the futurist
nerd thing has just won in the culture. And that
the idea of people who think that that's fucking
gay and retarded, like... they're basically gone
now. Like I think it may be coming back and there's
always, you know, man, there's plenty of them
around. They just can't do anything about it.
Like you and I, like we don't have a voice, you
know, if you really look for it, you can find
the dissenters. There's plenty of people talking
about how fucked up this is. And like, How wrong
it is or whatever. It's already at a point where
nobody... Nobody can do anything about it. It's
already at a point where nobody can do anything
about it. And it's just like, yeah, well, it's
not even interesting to talk about how bad it
is anymore, dude. Yeah, I know. It's not even
clever. Remember back when people would say,
oh, yeah, I call it fake book because everybody...
It's like a lame uncle joke. Oh, yeah, I like
to call it fake joke because everybody has their
fake lives on there and whatever. Yeah. Yeah,
no, it's like literally everybody is living fake
lives on like not Facebook anymore, but Instagram.
But like it's everything is like as bad as everybody
always said. And it's not even cool to say it
anymore. Yeah. I don't care about people who
say it anymore. I would rather listen to somebody
who talks about how it's awesome. No. And hear
the wrong take. No. Then hear the right take
again. I disagree. It's like it's like why I
listen to Red Scare. It's like I like to listen
to people who have the wrong thing to say just
because I would never. you know i mean sometimes
they're right or whatever it's just like because
i'm not listening to things for the right take
it's just like the right take is fucking boring
dude like i know it's miserable and everybody
literally is living in a way that like idiocracy
made fun of like but now it's not even a funny
like it's no i get it's so post -modern it's
insane i get what you're saying man but like
ultimately i disagree i think we need the people
who are speaking out against it No, I mean, me
too. That needs to continue. What grosses me
out more than anything are these people who like
welcome AI with open arms and say, you know,
you got to get with the program because it's
just going to happen. It's like the same shit
that Mark Zuckerberg says about. Anything he
does. It's like, well, if I didn't do it, someone
else would have done it. This is just the way
things are going. You got to get with the program.
This is what people were saying about the television.
It's what all scientists have always said. It's
what the scientists said in Akira. Yeah, yeah,
exactly. It's like, if we don't do it, someone
else will. That's why we have to go to the moon.
That's why we have to create rockets. That's
why we have to create nuclear weapons and whatever.
Yeah, it's fucking gross, dude. And, yeah, there's
literally never been a lamer, more fucking stupid
group of people having control over things. Like,
they're the biggest, nerdiest loser fucks ever.
You know what I mean? Like, they're just like,
look at that dais behind Trump at the fucking,
you know what I mean, at the inauguration. It's
like, dude, what a bunch of fucking clowns. What
a bunch of autistic losers. It's like so gross
that that's like... It's fucking disgusting.
Yeah. It's so gross that that's what's taking
over our society. That's the best we've got.
You know what I mean? None of them are men, dude.
It's like... Yeah. They've got the right stuff,
though. All of them. They've got the right stuff,
though. In this day and age. They've certainly
got the right stuff. They have made it to the
top of the fucking... What's it called? The ziggurat.
The ziggurat. Yeah. That's... Musk at the top
of the fucking ziggurat there. Oh, man. Yeah,
again, it's not the emperor sending his greatest
gladiators. It's his emperor sending his greatest
eunuchs. Yep. And the emperor has no clothes.
Yeah. Well, you got it. Yeah, well, getting back
to the symbolism we were talking about earlier,
the three -dimensional, the two -dimensional
shift, the pyramid. In the beginning, what we're
seeing... is the eye on the dollar bill right
but the eye is closed this is a symbol that the
enlightened people have their eyes shut that
the elons of the world that like all these people
who have the power in this new paradigm the paradigm
of technology these are not the truly enlightened
people um that instead the the the symbol on
the dollar is a masonic symbol that is talking
about the enlightened people at the top of the
pyramid that the They're the masses down at the
bottom and that in order to... In fact, give
me a second. All right, so... It's the first
chapter of Morals and Dogma. Force, unregulated
or ill -regulated, is not only wasted in the
void like that of gunpowder burned in the open
air and steam unconfined by science. but striking
in the dark and its blows meeting only the air,
they recoil and bruise itself. It is destruction
and ruin. It is the volcano, the earthquake,
the cyclone, not growth and progress. It is Polyphemus
blinded, striking at random and falling headlong
among the sharp rocks by the impetus of his own
blows. The blind force of the people is a force
that must be economized and also managed as the
blind force of steam. Lifting the ponderous iron
arms and turning large wheels is made to bore
and rifle the cannon and to weave the most delicate
lace. It must be regulated by intellect. Intellect
is to the people and the people's force what
the slender needle of the compass is to the ship.
It is its soul, always counseling the huge mass
of wood and iron and always pointing to the north.
To attack the citadel is built up on all sides
against the human race by superstitions, despotisms,
and prejudices. The force must have a brain and
a law. Then its deeds of daring produce permanent
results and there is real progress. Then there
are sublime conquests. Thought is a force and
philosophy should be an energy, finding its aim
and its effects in the amelioration of mankind.
The two great motors are truth and love. When
all these forces are combined and guided by the
intellect and regulated by the rule of right
and justice, and of combined and systemic movement
and effort, the great revolution prepared for
by the ages will begin to march. The power of
the deity himself is in equilibrium with his
wisdom. Hence, the only results are harmony.
It is because force is ill -regulated that revolutions
prove failures. Therefore, it is so often insurrections
coming from those high mountains that domineer
over the moral horizon. Justice, wisdom, right,
reason. built of the purest snow of the ideal
after a long fall from rock to rock after having
reflected the sky in their transparency and been
swollen by a hundred affluence and majestic path
of triumph suddenly lose themselves in quagmires
like a california river in the sands the onward
march of the human race requires that the heights
around it should blaze with noble and enduring
lessons of courage deeds of daring dazzle history
and form one class of the guiding lights of man
they are the stars And coruscations from that
great sea of electricity, the force inherent
in the people, to strive, to brave all risks,
to perish, to persevere, to be true to oneself,
to grapple body to body with destiny, to surprise
defeat by the little terror it inspires, now
to confront unrighteous power, now to defy intoxicated
triumph. These are the examples of the nation's
need and the light that electrifies them. All
right, maybe that last paragraph doesn't matter.
But the point is, that is the ideology that Arthur
C. Clarke, the 33rd degree Mason Arthur C. Clarke,
believes in. He believes in this idea that there
is this enlightened class of people, these intellectuals,
that need to fight against the superstitions
and religions of the past to guide the dumb force
of humanity. And that these enlightened people
are the only ones that matter. And everybody
else is basically just fucking... you know cannon
fodder that they're all components in a machine
and that humanity itself is not important it's
the results it's the the science and progress
and the onward progress of the human story or
whatever it is that um and kubrick takes that
philosophy there the symbol of that philosophy
and he inverts it he gives you the symbol with
the eye closed and the enlightenment Not coming
from the eye, but from the lower part of the
pyramid. That these people that we've put in
the power, the people in power in the technology
paradigm, these are people who are asleep. These
are people who are totally bought into this thing.
Eyes wide shut. Eyes wide shut. While the elite
sleeps with their eyes wide shut, the revolution
rises from beneath. And is that not the greatest
symbol of the 1960s? I mean, you have to remember
that 2001 is coming out at a paradigm where,
like, film itself is changing. Like, the French
New Wave is a thing that, like, just happened.
And the anti -fascist film is, like, I mean,
either you're making fascist films or you're
making anti -fascist films. That's kind of the
paradigm of the, you know, 60s avant -garde.
And Kubrick very much is making, you know, a...
propaganda film, but he's doing it in this very
French New Wave -y sort of way. I mean, it's
not a French New Wave -y way, but with the philosophy
of the revolution, with the philosophy of an
anti -elitist philosophy and creating a symbolism
of anti -elitism and saying that the elites sleep
with their eyes wide shut. I mean, it's a thing
that he continues to say for his entire career.
Um, but he says it here to Arthur Clark, like
damning his own philosophy with a symbol of his
philosophy that he can't even say, like, like
the Freemasons can't come out and say like, oh,
you've misused ours. It's, it's a, it's a secret
society. It's not, it's just something that has
to be there and they can't address and it's there,
you know, a bastardization of their religion
and all of their futurist philosophies and everything
that Elon Musk and the rest of them all believe,
all this transhumanism and everything. That it's,
these are people with their eyes shut. And it's
only, you know, yeah, I don't know. Well, amen,
brother. Amen, amen. Well, would you say that's
that? That's that. That's that. I should have
said matches. I thought you were going to say
matches, man.