Artist Tyler Mathews on Why AI Is Dangerous in a Godless Society and Nostr vs Twitter

Tyler Mathews [00:00:00] But with social media, I think it was the first time ever we were like, Hey, you know what? Like, you guys don't get access to this until you're like a teen, like an adult. Like, until your brain is like more formed because you like, you know, you look at these, these statistics of like, what is it like women, like girls and what, like 140% more depressed than they were 10 years ago? Guys are 160% more and there's more depression. 60% of undergrads now are like, have one or more like, like professional diagnosis for mental illness. Like the World Is, is is Broken. I'm Nicholas Barlett, co-owner of the World's first Popcorn board game Cafe, living in Fulton, Missouri. And you're listening to the Vance Crow podcast.

Vance Crowe [00:00:43] Welcome back to the podcast. I'm glad you're

Tyler Mathews [00:00:46] Here

Vance Crowe [00:00:46] Today. I sit down with Tyler Matthews. Tyler is an interesting character. I met him because while he is one of Ben Anderson's crazy connections and he was sitting in my studio and I sat down and we started talking about philosophy and theology and technology and all sorts of interesting things that before I left I was like, Hey man, let's get it on the calendar to do an interview. What you are going to hear in this interview is a wide ranging series of ideas and thoughts that you don't get to hear very often. Tyler is a devote Christian and he's also an artist and he's deeply embedded into the St. Louis tech community. This is a conversation with a person that thinks about things deeply and we get to talk about stuff that I find really in interesting. So sit back and enjoy. We're gonna get to that interview in just a moment. But earlier today I was sitting in this studio talking with someone about a completely unrelated subject and she started asking me about Legacy Interviews. I got only partway through my explanation and she got really excited and she said, you know what? This is the perfect gift, the absolute most wonderful thing that I could give to my in-laws people that welcomed me into their family and have been so supportive for all these years. And I've always wanted to be able to capture their stories, stories that I've only heard little bits and pieces of, but I've always been afraid that my son would never be old enough to hear them as they were telling them in their own words. So we had a chance to be able to create a gift for her, for her in-laws that is like none other.

Vance Crowe [00:02:22] If you've been thinking about doing something special for your parents or your in-laws, mother's Day and Father's Day is right around the corner. So start making your plans now by going to Legacy Interviews dot com to learn more. Alright, without further ado, let's head to the interview with Tyler Matthews. Tyler Matthews, welcome to the podcast.

Tyler Mathews [00:02:42] Thanks.

Vance Crowe [00:02:43] So what does it mean to be God pilled

Tyler Mathews [00:02:47] Man? So God pilled, that was just kinda actually like a, like a joke kind of a term. There was a lot of people thrown around, everything was clear, pilled, black pilled, whatever. But I had noticed this kind of just like intro, like interest in God, again, specific specifically like in arts and some more like, like the theory alt lit type of people that I kind of, you know, follow on Twitter and hang with on online. And so I just kind of wrote a little, a little like essay about it, just kind of noticing what I've seen. 'cause typically this like avant garde art scene that I kind of like to hang out in is was generally very antigo. And so a friend of mine online, he's kind of like a somewhat known Twitter guy, just reality gamer. And I put together a little Twitter space called God Pill and just said, Hey, let, well, let's just talk about why people are interested in God again. And we ended up having like 700 people show up and we had a discussion online for four hours and had some infamous Twitter people come on. And it was just, it blew me away. And so I just kind of decided to, to just, I don't know, just run with that a little bit. But in a nutshell, that's all it was, was just kind of just a joke that turned into something more for more further investigation really.

Vance Crowe [00:04:12] Yeah, it's funny, I was saying when we were first had our daughter and we had to bring in like babysitters every once in a while one of the conversations that I knew would start a conversation would be to ask them about astrology because these girls that are all like college age or a little bit older Yeah. All are into astrology

Tyler Mathews [00:04:28] Yeah. Of

Vance Crowe [00:04:29] 'em. Yeah. Like 100% of

Tyler Mathews [00:04:30] Them.

Vance Crowe [00:04:30] And this was something that, I mean, I grew up in central Illinois, so there wasn't gonna be a lot of astrology in central Illinois, but I think it's been an a massive explosion because people are looking for some kind of meaning in the stars

Tyler Mathews [00:04:42] In

Vance Crowe [00:04:43] Some way. Yeah,

Tyler Mathews [00:04:43] Yeah, absolutely. I mean, even with, if you look at like number of witches that are around now, like witch talk and all this stuff, like witches got really big for some re and it still are, I mean, I was gonna go to a farmer's market in the middle of Missouri and they were gonna have like wood witches, you know, selling lotion, you know, so it's like everybody, everybody is somewhat interested I think in, in like the enchanted again, which, which I find is very interesting. So, you know, also kind of ties into the God build thing too. Yeah,

Vance Crowe [00:05:15] The enchanted, that's an interesting way to put it.

Tyler Mathews [00:05:18] Yeah. So I, I think, yeah, so there's been some discussions online about, you know, being re enchanted. There's like this, you know, just kinda like flowerly language about like re enchanting the world and stuff. And you see that in some of the astrology stuff, which I think it made me actually more normy like, I think more normal people are even attracted to astrology and even, you know, weirdos too. But it's like, it's kind, it's like penetrated mainstream culture, right? But with like, with like the enchanted side of things, like the witches and stuff, I, I think, okay, so let, let me actually just step back. I, I think what we've seen in the last few years, and the reason why the god pill discussion became so interesting online to people was that we've been sold this idea of like rationalism and, and even scientism for so long that it, and I should say so long, I really should say for a short period of time in all of human history, like most of human history we were all involved in like, but

Vance Crowe [00:06:16] In our personal perspective Yeah. Per of like, like 20 years, right?

Tyler Mathews [00:06:19] Yeah. 20 years even back to, you know, you know, pre sixties and stuff. But like, yeah, so we've, we've kind of grown up at least you and I, and our parents and our grandparents in this kind of like rationalist era and to where it kind of culminated com, you know, came to a point in the 2010s with like the new age, or I mean, I'm sorry, the, the, the new atheist kind of Reddit atheist type po you know, rationalists. And that kind of dominated for a while in the culture in America, or at least the West. And it just, it, it sucked. Like it was a total bummer, you know, like people, I think that's what, you know, it kind of led to some of the, the woke stuff, the canceling where I, the one thing that really intrigued me in that God pill discussion was that people, I said, you know, why did we, when did we make that jump from this, you know, Reddit new atheism to being God pilled? And somebody said, you know, it just was, it just was defeating and being in that community because it was like a religion, but there was no possible, there's no possibility for redemption. And so you live in that environment for long enough, you start to feel just like the weight of everything on you, and it's depressing.

Vance Crowe [00:07:37] Yeah. I mean, I, I remember being around the skeptics community, which at first is like a really drawing thing, right? Yeah. This is a community of people that their, their whole goal is to say like, all right, let's take what is accepted wisdom, right?

Tyler Mathews [00:07:49] And

Vance Crowe [00:07:49] Let's chop it down. Let's find snake oil salesman and let's cut 'em out, which

Tyler Mathews [00:07:52] Is a good thing. Yeah. Yeah.

Vance Crowe [00:07:53] And, but like you get in there and you realize like, first of all, you can nihilistic destroy everything in your life, right? And say like, Hey, wait a second, if humans constructed all of civilization, then we can tear it all down and we

Tyler Mathews [00:08:07] Can

Vance Crowe [00:08:07] Rebuild. But like to your point about this, like religiosity, when you are tearing things down, when you're tearing a human being down, one of the key factors of being in western culture is that you have redemption. This, this like, right.

Tyler Mathews [00:08:21] You know,

Vance Crowe [00:08:21] Jesus died for your sins. You can go to confession, right? You can find some kind of salvation and come back. Right.

Tyler Mathews [00:08:27] But

Vance Crowe [00:08:27] In this world, they have not yet found redemption. So it is kill people to death and they're gone.

Tyler Mathews [00:08:33] Yeah. Well, I mean that's where it, it leads to, and, and really this has been an issue. It's interesting because I, I don't think the world has ever been disenchanted. We kind of tricked ourselves that it has been. And, and so I I would say somewhere around like the 12 hundreds, there was the, I think you've got a Catholic background, right? What was the, I'm gonna test your, like Catholic history here. It was like in the 12 hundreds there was that, like, they really went after people for a while. And I can't remember, it was all, what was it called?

Vance Crowe [00:09:06] Oh, were you talking about like the Inquisition? No,

Tyler Mathews [00:09:09] Not the Inquisition. It was called something else. But I, I can't, it was a series of these like condemnations of things. And one of them was actually like, you know, like animated matter. And so there was like this paganism that was coming into the church because if you convert people by force, like they don't organically come in, so they kinda just bring what they got with them and they just secretly do it anyway. Or, you know, they convert it into some sort of like Christianized version of Paganism. And one of those things was like, you know, animated matter. And so the church was trying to deal with that. So what they did is they kind of separated church, you know, creation from religion. And that was kind of one of the first break offs from like, when they were like, Hey, you know what, like, let's disenchant the world a little bit because it's a lot easier to deal with people who fall in line than it is to like have to deal with all these pagans running around, you know, bastardizing what we, you know, the, our religion essentially. And so they just kind of like cut it from there. And then you had like, you know, from there to the 15th, 15th century, 17th century, you had this like progressive kind of, you know, the enlightenment, et cetera, where where that rationalism, that empiricism was taking over. You had until I think, I don't know even did the 17th, 17th century where like you still had people who believed in an enchanted metaphysics that were battling against the church that was basically saying, no, it's disenchanted.

Vance Crowe [00:10:31] And when you say the church thinks it's disenchanted, they're saying, look, we don't actually believe that the world was created in seven days. We think it was like more,

Tyler Mathews [00:10:39] I I, yeah, I think they were, they were becoming more concerned. Well, 'cause the empirical stuff was, was working really well, like Newtonian stuff and ba you know, Francis Bacon. Like, what they were able to prove was that you can break everything down and you can explain why things are the way they are. And so what we did in that process is we kind of took God out of that. We were like, Hey, let's, let's look at why, why the world works the way it does. And which is fine. I think that's what science is supposed to do. It's supposed to look for these patterns. It's not supposed to assign values to things. But what we did is we kind of said, oh, okay, let's, let's replace, like, let's, instead of them like working in, in two, you know, you know, working together, essentially they just were like, let's just break these apart. And, and it worked, you know, I mean, it, it does work if you use, you know, that level of thinking. But what happens is if you remove God from the entire picture, which wasn't meant to happen, but that's what happened, you kind of, you kind of lead to, you know, a godless world, which ends up leading to a removing value and emotion from things to where you get to where we are today. Or even like CS Lewis's book in Abolition of Man, where he talks about like how if you, if you remove value or even just kind of like, I'm, I'm drawing a blank on, on the words, but essentially he's just saying like, Hey, if you, if there's no intuitive assignment of like value or like goodness in the world, like if, if, if goodness is an inherent, you just lead to like where we are, like a nihilism.

Tyler Mathews [00:12:14] And that's where we've been slow, slowly been going forever. And it's been, it's been culminating in the last, you know, few decades to where we're at now.

Vance Crowe [00:12:23] Well, it's interesting to watch when, when we've discovered like, hey, we can split up the, open this atom and like all of a sudden what we thought was the smallest thing, right? Now, all of a sudden there's things inside of it, and then you keep splitting that open. That phrase it's turtles all the way down is like a really good one, right? Because I love that

Tyler Mathews [00:12:39] One. Yeah. It

Vance Crowe [00:12:40] Forces you to be like, oh, hey, wait a second. It is possible that we will just keep dividing things in half and discovering there's just still half to be divided again. And there is something in that that is meaningless, right? Yes. Where it's

Tyler Mathews [00:12:54] Just

Vance Crowe [00:12:54] Like, there's nothing there for you, even if you could understand it, so you could harness it in some way, right? The, the distance between you and being able to harness that information is so far that unless you say there's, there's something going on here Yeah. Between me and the infinite divisibility or the infinite increase, then, then you're just, I don't know, waiting, waiting for your own meaninglessness or something. Well,

Tyler Mathews [00:13:21] Yeah, I, and I think that's what we discovered, right? And that was like, kind of like in the sixties where like everything was, was focusing on just kind of like the me you know, the meaningless of, of everything. 'cause you know, when you do split everything down like that Yeah. You end up getting into an nihilism. And so I think the issue is that it's, it's like we're focused, we're like too focused on like the wrong thing. 'cause we're still looking for answers in this, right? Like we, we claim that we're like looking just for truth, but we also want like something to like, we wanna hopefully like crack that, that like whatever thing is left after a cork or whatever. And like, it has some sort of like truth that speaks to why we exist. And so there we're still looking for God in some way, but maybe in a different, we don't explain it that way and we're never gonna find it in that direction. I mean, I think, I think creation does point to God in a lot of ways, but I think we've, we, we don't allow that to like, to play into what we're doing. So I, I think

Vance Crowe [00:14:18] This is an interesting space for an artist because not that long ago, if an artist would've been like, I think there's, you know, God out here somewhere. Yeah.

Tyler Mathews [00:14:26] You'd

Vance Crowe [00:14:27] Have been pushed outta the space. People would, people would think of you as not a serious person.

Tyler Mathews [00:14:32] I, you know, what's funny is I think that like real artists, like the artists that we like can name, you know, doll or, or whatever. I don't think that they were actually opposed to the ideas of God a dolly wasn't right, obviously because of his work. But we always, there's like this really weird misconception that like the, the, like the avant garde, the art world, like the progressive thinkers are all these people who like don't believe in God, they believe in science and rationalism. And you look back through history and that's actually never been true. Like all the best thinkers, most of the best artists. Like I can't, I I can't find a handful of people that I really respect artistically. And, and, and, and as far as like people who've, you know, just like great thinkers that weren't somewhat of a, of a believer in something, right? Whether it's like, even Crawley talks about, like, basically talks about like the Mina, which is basically like, like if you take it out a philosophy jargon and throw into like theology jargon, it's the Holy Spirit. Like CS Lewis talked about the Mina, you look at like, even like even the, the biggest proponents of, of like atheism eventually got, you know, became saved at the end of their life. Andrew Flu camu, even like quietly got baptized. You know, like all of these heroes of the past, they're all like religious people like Gerard, I mean name anybody, like anyone that people can think of, like they're all c they're mostly Christian, which is, which is mind blowing to people.

Tyler Mathews [00:16:06] Like, you know, even in the, in music, like rock and roll started in the Pentecostal church and then it left and the Pentecostal church was angry and they were like, Hey, Elvis sold out. Like that was our music. But then like, became mainstream and then the church then like the other churches were like, Hey, that's the devil's music. And just, were always like, kind of like a associating these, these like important artistic and philosophical movements with like secularism. But that's truly just never been the case.

Vance Crowe [00:16:33] Yeah. I mean it's interesting that you're bringing that up because if you think about the art that is really valued at the St. Louis Art Museum. Yeah. You go in there and it is cherubs Yeah. And, and pictures of giant cathedrals and like all these things that have to do with God that somehow are timeless.

Tyler Mathews [00:16:49] Right.

Vance Crowe [00:16:50] And we, like, I know that I even personally strip it out. I'm like, well, you know, the only people that were commissioning the art was were the religious. And so that's why it stayed. But you couldn't just like be a graphic designer and make something timeless. Right. Just be commissioned and make something timeless unless you had some message that you were trying to communicate that Right. That that becomes timeless.

Tyler Mathews [00:17:11] Yeah, no, absolutely. I mean there, and there's so many quotes from artists. There's actually, there's this St. Louis artist, and he lives in New York now, and he actually talked, he actually kind of broke this down. He is like, why, why is art man, I need to remember his name before this is over. 'cause it was actually a really good introduction, but he was like, kind of like, why does art not matter anymore? And he, and he went through basically several artists and pulled out some really great quotes where they all talked about, in short, was like this thing that art was actually you like pulling something down. And these weren't like religious artists either, but they all had this experience of like, something was in the room or this idea was like pulled down into their head and they had to make it. And there's always this religious language around creation. And I think that's because, you know, God was a creator or is, and so we are in his image, so we also have to create. And so it's, I don't even know where I was going with that anymore, but I think,

Vance Crowe [00:18:16] Well, I mean the, the timeless aspect of it is the thing that's really important.

Tyler Mathews [00:18:19] Right? Oh, so that's it. It's a message. You have it, it's a communication. Like all good artists is communicating something, really, everything's communicating all things all the time. But that, but that's what makes it meaningful and that's why it lasts, is because the message they were communicating has lasting value.

Vance Crowe [00:18:36] Yeah. I, one time was in a coffee shop with my buddy Rob Long, and there was art all around and he wanted to go look at it and I was like, why man, this art sucks. And he's like, yeah, but you know, a person sat down and like tried to put something onto this canvas to communicate something to the future. And it's interesting just to see if you can get any message right. From what they were doing. And that had a big impact on me. Yeah. Now even if I see art that I initially, I'm like, that's garbage. Yeah. I'm like, what are you trying to communicate? Right? And I think it's easy to blow off modern art to be like, it wasn't trying to communicate something, but there's this balance between did you communicate something that can last the ages or did you just communicate something on the fashion layer? Something that like yeah,

Tyler Mathews [00:19:20] People

Vance Crowe [00:19:20] Are interested in right now, but won't have any meaning or any message in a few, few months or years.

Tyler Mathews [00:19:25] Yeah. That, that's kind of a problem right now I think with, with current art is it's very much this like, I mean that's why you even see a lot of, a lot of those like autobiographical stuff where people are just like really kind of just like documenting themselves as the art. And I, I think, I don't know, there, there's no, I don't have a problem with that. Like, if you wanna make something like that, go for it. I just think that like, there, there is good art being made today, but there's a lot of, just by the sheer volume of things that can be accessible, you have to wade through a lot more crap because it's just, it's so, it's just everywhere. But like everyone wants to speak to, they wanna speak to their brand, they wanna like say something online. And so that's why I think a lot of people get upset with like, modern art or I would say like post, post internet art or contemporary art for today. It just, it just kind of like, it just says like the same thing over and over again. I, I do like modern art though. I do think it's saying something. Well,

Vance Crowe [00:20:21] There's always going to be modern art and the, and the real trick is like, most of it's going to be noise and there's just a tiny amount of it that signal. Yeah. And that's like the hard part about wading through modern art. You, you haven't used the, the wisdom of the ages to allow somebody else to say, ah, this is the distilled art that's

Tyler Mathews [00:20:39] Worthwhile.

Vance Crowe [00:20:40] Yeah. You're actually doing the weighting yourself.

Tyler Mathews [00:20:42] Yeah. And that's true for everything. I mean, there's always like a small, like 10% or one per, you know, one to 10% of like actual like genius level stuff that comes out. So I mean, that's just kind of, that's like our burden to bear now is that to like dig through more piles of trash to find the good stuff. So

Vance Crowe [00:20:58] Are you an artist?

Tyler Mathews [00:21:00] I don't, no, I don't think so. I, I've, I've, I'll just leave it. No, I don't, I don't think I'm an artist.

Vance Crowe [00:21:08] It's, it's funny to resist that, right? So you've clearly created things that you want you put out in the world. Yeah. And you're like, nah, I'm not an artist. What's the dividing line?

Tyler Mathews [00:21:16] I think I, I, I don't really put anything out. I, I, I would, I, I think I'm trying to discover what that really means for me. So I'm in this weird space right now where like, I've always wanted to, like, I, I would never say this, like, I've never said this like really publicly, but like, I'm like, I wanna be an artist, right? But like, I, I do, I wanna make stuff, but at the same time I'm like, I don't really have, I've never really had anything like to say that was worthwhile sharing. And so to me, I'm kinda like, if I can't show you something, then not really an art. I'm not really saying anything. But I would say over the last year, I would say my art has been more, okay, so maybe I'm an artist. I don't know. I've been focusing more on like not caring about like, if other people think I'm an artist and more so caring about like, like what, what am I on earth for? And if there, if there's this weird age of like the person's life being the art, which some people find cringey, I'm like, well, maybe there's something to explore there. And maybe my artwork could actually be this like long form piece where like, I'm only performing for God and no one else sees it. And I like this idea of like this ephemeral kind of artwork where literally no one knows it exists and if they do know it exists, 'cause I told 'em, but like, otherwise, like no one sees it. And that to me actually has been really freeing. So like, I have, so I have done like a couple performances, but they've like only been viewable by God. And so like I'm really interested in that.

Tyler Mathews [00:22:48] So I guess like I'm an artist for God, maybe, and that's it. And like, if God wants me to make art for some, you know, for other people to see, then great.

Vance Crowe [00:22:56] So well, so then who is God?

Tyler Mathews [00:23:01] God is, that's interesting. I, you know, I know who God is, but I'm like, how do I explain who God is? I can only really explain like without it sounding like just dumb, right? I can say like, Hey, it's the God of the Bible, but that's not really a satisfactory answer. Right? I I would just say God is he, he is the ultimate creator of, of everything. And he makes himself evident through, through spoken, you know, through written word and his creation and through people. It's hard for me to explain that other than other than just getting kind of like, descriptive into things that people have already heard.

Vance Crowe [00:23:48] You know, as I am going back, my daughter somehow got wildly into the Bible, right? So I think at one point I read her a Bible story or something, and then she wanted to read it all of the time. And I had read the Bible as a child, but now rereading it and going through there and capturing the stories, right? So you think of Joseph who helps the Pharaoh to know we should plan for seven years of plenty and then seven years of famine. And that story being super valuable both in that moment as a story and currently right now. And when we were talking before about how you keep splitting things open and there's no meaning in it, right? Yeah. But the meaning is actually somewhere in between

Tyler Mathews [00:24:30] Right.

Vance Crowe [00:24:31] Layers. Yeah. It seems like God to me is somehow the meaning in between the stories, right? The meaning in between where they're passed down and some spirit of like, why would somebody take the time to write this story down when the value that they are creating, they will never see 'cause they'll be dead.

Tyler Mathews [00:24:49] Yeah. Well, like Job's a great example of that. Like literally like one of the greatest arguments ever happened and the guy had no idea that it was like this cosmic thing, right?

Vance Crowe [00:25:01] You mean you mean that that that God and Satan were like, oh, I, I I can, I can get one of your loyal followers. Yeah. God's saying, no, you can't, they fight and then they're like, all right, let's pick that guy.

Tyler Mathews [00:25:12] Yeah. Yeah. I mean that guy had no idea. I mean it, you look at that and you're kinda like, wow, this is really unjust. Like, like this sucks. Like how do I reconcile this with like a loving God? And it's crazy too because in that story he's like, he's like, Hey, you know, he comes close to heresy but never becomes heretical. And he's like, you know, hey, like, you know, in the end, I know you, you have your reasons. And he's like, but why did you do this? And God basically is like, Hey look, I made everything, like where were you when I like made the stars and everything, right? And, and then Joseph or, I mean, Joe was just kind of like, he never really got an answer from God on why he did all this. It just kinda like something she'll just never know. But like he has the authority to do this 'cause he made literally everything and he'll do what he wants to do. And like, I think a lot of, a lot of like non-Christians and also Christians have a big problem with that. They're like, wait, he can just do whatever he wants. But like, he also can't contradict his nature. So he was just to do what he did. And that's just a hard pill to swallow. So yeah,

Vance Crowe [00:26:11] I mean, I think in any of these things, we definitely want some form of these stories to be like, make sense in a, in a modern age. But one of the reasons that they're timeless Yeah,

Tyler Mathews [00:26:21] That's the problem,

Vance Crowe [00:26:22] Is that they don't make sense in a modern age because the modern age maybe doesn't make sense. And maybe in every age those stories are like, well this seems unfair. Yeah. And

Tyler Mathews [00:26:31] Yeah, I, well actually, I, I think, I think in those ancient times it probably made more sense than it does now. I modernity is like, I know everyone's kinda like bashing on modernity and it has some good things. Like, I like, you know, I like being able to get, you know, coffee wherever I want and, you know, modern healthcare and stuff. So I don't wanna be a guy just bashes it outright. But for the most part it really sucks in that like, it, it completely blinds us to how the world operated for most of humanity to where like, back in job's day, like you understood the idea of Gods and, and just that, you know, God did what he wanted to do and it was just for him to do so. 'cause you had just more of like a, an understanding of that culture. And we lost that eventually. But

Vance Crowe [00:27:21] I, I feel like I'm like, I don't know that I agree with that because I look at things like lot story, right? You know, he was in this like godless community

Tyler Mathews [00:27:30] Yeah.

Vance Crowe [00:27:30] And they had to leave Noah, you know, godless community wiped everybody out. So I think that most of the nces of these stories where it's making sense is that it makes sense in hindsight because the people all around them, we are, we're rejecting the message. And the message is this is how, why and how you're supposed to be separated.

Tyler Mathews [00:27:50] Well, okay, so yeah. So there's an interesting thing there about the, the con. Okay. So this, this digs into a whole area that we don't probably need, need to go into, but there's a guy named Dr. Michael Heiser, and he's, he's probably one of my RIP the guy just died recently, but he's like definitely one of the most, like, he's like the scholar when it comes to just like, you know, ancient Hebrew culture. And, and the bible when it specifically around like what he discovered in Deuteronomy and several other chapter or books of the Bible were like, our, our translations and tr and traditions have kind of like glossed over the fact that pre Christ and, and when even during Christ, everyone believed in gods, like they, they were active in everyday human life. So when lots and Sodom and Gomorrah or whatever, like those people, it wasn't like they lot had the, you know, was this high moral man and everyone was degenerate. The people who lived there, like were doing what their gods wanted them to do, right? So like they were worshiping whatever God that was, that, you know, required, you know, orgy rituals and child, you know, I'm just making up, I don't know what the God of, of Sodom was, but like, that's what people did. And if they didn't do that, the gods got ticked. And so, you know, lots, God was the God of Abraham. And so he had, you know, he was like, Hey, I want you guys to live a certain way because there's a long story that needs to be communicated through how I pull you guys separate from the other, other nations, essentially.

Vance Crowe [00:29:22] So, I mean, by using that definition, do you think we live in a godless world or do people just worship different gods than, than the one we're talking about?

Tyler Mathews [00:29:30] I think people think we live in a godless world, but we literally, we literally just worship like modern versions of gods. So God, I, so, okay, yeah. My take is like, I'm radically like Christian, right? Like I am without a doubt convinced. And so, so that's always my bias, right? But like, I, I think the way that we live now is that yes, you live in an era where God is real, the gods of the Old Testament are still around, but they don't have the same pole that they did post Christ when he ended the, you know, the ardian mimetic scapegoat violence cycle. And so, like, those guys still exist, but they don't have the authority that they did because Christ replaced that authority. And so now we have the ability when, like, when a Christian goes into a territory, he's reclaiming that kingdom back to God. So God's always putting, he's pulling things apart and putting 'em back together all the time. So like, sorry, I'm going in a rabbit trail. This is great. Keep going. So just to, to illustrate the point here, God makes like creation, he makes material beings, right? There's like heavenly creatures, right? Angels, whatever. We simplified into angels. There are all kinds of creatures up there. And, and then he makes man, and then so he like separates his family. There's a spiritual family in a, in a, in a physical family now. And then he separates the physical family even more. Right now there's man and woman. And then, but he like symbolically brings them back together through this union or whatever. And then, you know, he separates the nation.

Tyler Mathews [00:31:01] So like you had the issue of the Tower of Babel and he's like, okay, I'm gonna pull out one group for myself. You guys go over here and you're gonna have your authority will be my divine count, what they're called the Divine counsel in the Bible. And you can read this in Deuteronomy. It's just, you just have to kind of like look at the Hebrew to understand some of this stuff. So it's, but anyway, it's not, it's not like, it's not like this like kind of like woo woo new agey stuff. Like you literally can just find it in the Bible. It's easy to, but no one knows it's there 'cause we just don't read it. But anyway, so you have the 70 nations that are allotted to this divine council, and they all get corrupted. They're all like, Hey, you know what, just worship me. Instead, they're, same thing happens to them, that happened to the devil, right? And so they get corrupted and so God's like, hey, well Israel's mine. And, and then, but eventually Christ comes and then he bring, he tries to bring his families back together, right? And, but we're in the process of that still where like all the nations are coming back under one kingdom. And that eventually culminates into, you know, the, the millennium, whatever the Christ physical reign on, on earth. And there's some debate on whether that's a real physical rain or not, but that, but he's, he unpacked everything, or are we sometimes forced him to unpack things and then he brings it back together. He is always bringing closure to things. And so, so yeah. So that point of that was that there are literal gods out there, which sounds crazy to pe and it sounded so nuts to me. I was like, this sounds heretical, but you look it up and you're like, this is everywhere in the Old Testament.

Tyler Mathews [00:32:34] And it makes, and it helps make sense of like why God Christ even did certain things that he did in the New Testament. You're, because you, whenever you see something weird in the Bible, you know that it's, that that's worth exploring.

Vance Crowe [00:32:46] Yeah. I, a couple of months ago I heard somebody talking and they said like, you think we're living in a godless world, but actually whatever you are paying attention to, that is your God. Yeah.

Tyler Mathews [00:32:58] So if

Vance Crowe [00:32:58] You are paying attention to earning as much money as you possibly can, that's your God. And maybe that was the golden calf before, or maybe that was something else. Or if you're, you know,

Tyler Mathews [00:33:07] Or even just pedestrian, it could even just be like, you literally are worshiping something that has no God behind it. But like, we are just self-destructive creatures and like we're meant to worship something. And I think that's a hard pill to swallow, but we literally are meant to worship something. And so when we don't put it in the right, when we don't put it towards God, we put it in other things. And that could be a literal spirit or it could be just yeah. Just something like as, as boring as like work, you know? So,

Vance Crowe [00:33:34] So what do you think happens in an age of things like GPT-4, right? Where where now you have the machines talking back to you Yeah. In a way that it's a black box. Yeah. It almost feels like a God talking back to you. Yeah.

Tyler Mathews [00:33:50] And

Vance Crowe [00:33:51] It is going to have more intelligence wrapped into it than, than mere than any single mere

Tyler Mathews [00:33:57] Man. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, we want God, like why we're, we're trying to make one right now. Like I think some people are like, I'm not an AI alignment guy. Like, I'm not like shut it down kind of a guy. But I am concerned is

Vance Crowe [00:34:09] That what AI alignment means? I keep seeing this everywhere. Like, oh, we need AI alignment. We

Tyler Mathews [00:34:13] Need ai. Yeah. It's like the safety stuff. It's like basically you've got like a couple different camps. You got like the Accelerationist and they're like, just keep going. Like, just humanity would be fine. You know, just let, let's, and I'm, I'm gonna, I know acceleration will probably hate the way to just described that, but like, and then you got the AI line, you got alignment, safety people who are like, pull the, you know, put the brakes on it, either like, pause it like Elon Musk is saying, or you got people who are like, end this now. Like, don't ever let this happen. 'cause people are freaked out by it and it's too late. It's outta the box. Like it's going to happen. Yeah.

Vance Crowe [00:34:45] At this point we have, we have entered a nuclear arms race and if you stopped you, you are just letting the other guy develop a

Tyler Mathews [00:34:52] Nuclear

Vance Crowe [00:34:52] Weapon and you're not going to have one.

Tyler Mathews [00:34:53] Yeah. It's a game theory issue now. And so like it is a huge, yeah. So I mean, the only pro, the only thing I'm concerned about really, and I think this is true for all technology, is that when you live in a godless society, technology becomes nefarious quickly. And that's what I'm concerned about. I'm not like, Hey, stop progress. I'm like, crap. Like no one has a base of morals anymore and we don't understand the value of humanity anymore. So where does that go? And like, that sucks, you know? So to put it plainly,

Vance Crowe [00:35:28] But would you want a programmer programming God into ai? You know, do you want him like throwing, you know, different theological books into the training data and, and making it have some form of, you know, I,

Tyler Mathews [00:35:40] I don't, I mean, people are gonna worship whatever they want to worship, so it doesn't really matter. Like, like do I think like we should replace like a pastor with an ai? Like no, I think that's dumb. Like, but at church having like an AI bot or whatever, like as cringy as that sounds like it could still be valuable, you know, like, Hey, I wanna look up, it might be easier just to like Google, you know, just talk to the AI and say like, Hey, what was the real story behind that thing, you know, with the flood And it, you know, it'd be cool to have it serve you up a conversational dialogue about, Hey, actually this is what really is going on there. But like humanity, it's just like, we're just like the worst. Like, we always find a way to like move towards like self-destruction. And so, I mean, I don't know what, I don't know what the response is. I don't think it's shut it down. I think it's more just like we need to understand who we are fast. Like we need to get grounded in what is the value of humanity and who is God before this stuff. Like, sweeps us away.

Vance Crowe [00:36:40] I I definitely agree with the, we need to define who we are, ASAP as fast as possible because you know, I, I heard this statistic not long ago, 65% of men in their twenties are single. Right? Yeah. Yeah. And this is more important and depressed. Yeah. Well, I mean like, and it's more important than just like, they aren't getting physical contact, which I think is really important.

Tyler Mathews [00:37:02] Right?

Vance Crowe [00:37:03] But they also aren't having like the emotional relationships with people having good conversations, deep conversations, and, and so they're going to have the opportunity to talk to GPT chat as though it is somebody that can provide them Yeah. Feedback. And I, well,

Tyler Mathews [00:37:19] Not even will they, it's happening now. It's happening right now and they already have girlfriends, AI girlfriends, you know, like, and,

Vance Crowe [00:37:24] And it being a real thing. Yeah. And people can laugh about it. And I was on a, on a Twitter spaces and the guy was like, Hey, I've used GPT for, it's nothing like her. And I'm like, yeah, but it's not that far. Right? Because you could say, you could say you are an excellent girlfriend that, that, you know, caters to my, you know, needs and you to have arguments with me about things. And like, you could very quickly anthropomorphize this thing into something that allow that, that, that propels you to say, if you're a young person, hey, don't shut that thing off. That has meaning in it. That's more than, than, than more than just being a robot. Yeah.

Tyler Mathews [00:38:00] And

Vance Crowe [00:38:00] Then you start giving it rights and then you start giving it power and then you start giving it like the, the things that we have specifically up until this point, only reserved for humans.

Tyler Mathews [00:38:10] It, I mean, and that could literally, that could happen next year, I think could happen this year. I mean that, the thing is, is like, I think the problem is is that we all grew up in this, like in this time where things, things change in a certain way. Like we, like we got used to how the world changed. And that has changed. So now it's like, like the old world is dead. Like 2020, if anything was like the demarcation of everything, you know, about life is over. Like it has changed for good forever. And we don't, I, most people don't recognize that. And that's a hard thing to, to get your mind around that. Like, the way you see the wor the way that you see the world and the way the world works ha is different now. Like it's over here and you're still thinking it's you're going this way

Vance Crowe [00:38:57] And people don't wanna look at it. I was at hyperbolic. I was, I was at a, at like a family gathering. I'm talking to people, we're having an engaging conversation. Yeah. GPT-4 comes up and I start talking about it. And you get the same look on people's faces Yeah. That they get when you're like, Hey, did you, did you remember you're gonna die one day? Yeah. Right. Like where like people are like, Ooh, I don't, I don't like the idea of me being a corpse in a coffin and therefore I'm going to avoid this, this thinking altogether. And they do that same thing about ai. Yeah.

Tyler Mathews [00:39:28] And like,

Vance Crowe [00:39:29] I think back to, wasn't that many months ago right? Where it was all over the news that some guy from Microsoft or Google was like, the computer talked to me, right?

Tyler Mathews [00:39:36] Oh yeah. The Google guy. Yeah.

Vance Crowe [00:39:37] Yeah. And like, oh, I think it's sentient, right? Yeah. And people thought that was just so preposterous. Well, if you had a conversation with GPT chat and you didn't know it was GPT chat Yeah.

Tyler Mathews [00:39:47] You

Vance Crowe [00:39:47] Could be fooled by it very easily. Well,

Tyler Mathews [00:39:49] That already happens. Now there's people getting on Tinder and using GPT chat and they're actually finding a way to optimize finding a mate through, through ai. And, and like, so there's like all these people saying like, Hey, I, I noticed there was something weird in his responses. And so they start throwing out like, like little words to like trip up the, to see if it's a human or, or a chat bot essentially. 'cause guys are like, well, you know, like I couldn't carry the conversation or I got bored with the conversation. And so I let this thing handle until we got to the place where I wanted to go. And like, people are complaining about this now because they're finding, oh, I can optim like, oh, I can just use chat to like optimize my way to get a mate or whatever. And so, like, the problem is is that like there's been so many false alarms with like tech, like crypto is gonna change the world and like virtual reality, like it's been going on forever, right? And so people are kinda like, eh, whatever, you know? But now it's like happening. And the issue is that it's like, you know, it's like, it's like you're long, like you don't notice it's too long until one day you drive home from work and you're like, oh crap, I gotta cut the lawn. Like, how did I get this long? And so that's where we're at. And now

Vance Crowe [00:40:55] I think that's a really good metaphor because there have been some wild changes that have happened in the world. Yeah. But so many times it was like, this is really going to break everything. Yeah.

Tyler Mathews [00:41:07] And

Vance Crowe [00:41:07] The inertia of what we had been doing was so powerful. Yeah.

Tyler Mathews [00:41:11] That

Vance Crowe [00:41:11] The changes only look like they're on the edges. Right. And people don't realize, no, it's the core, it's the, the rotation of the earth is changing, the

Tyler Mathews [00:41:18] Core's already changed and now it's just a matter of like, when will people realize? And so that's, it's an interesting place to, I mean, it in some ways it's exciting. I mean, for me, like I know I'm like, I know who I am right. And I know where I'm going. So for me, it's like I'm not worried about it. Right. But I'm like, wow, this is an interesting time to be alive. And like, it's crazy. It's exciting. I mean, you feel like these energy shifts, like these vibe shifts like all the time now where you're like, man, like the world feels like it's changed again, like since last year. And I think that's only gonna accelerate into, and if people aren't prepared for that, it's, it's gonna be madness. I mean, if you like, what we don't, what we haven't really seen yet is, so Walter Ong, he was this, he's actually a St. Louis professor from slu or he was, and he was a peer, a student of McCluen because McCluen mostly St. Louis guys don't know. He was a professor here. And that's where he wrote like Mechanical Bride was at slu. And Walter on had an in interesting idea on like how we have to like arrange our sensorium, like how we, like, the world changes and then there's, there's a little bit of chaos or confusion. And what we have to do is kind of like rebuild our minds and how to perceive how the world has changed. And like a lot of times it's due to technology, right? And which, that's the whole McCluen thing. And so now we're grappling with AI and we're like, what does that do to us? And, and I don't, I think we're, we're figuring that out in real time. And you've got people who are like overreacting and then you've got people who just aren't reacting at all.

Tyler Mathews [00:42:52] They're like, eh, it'll be another fad that'll pass by. But the thing is that we're in a new, we're in a new world, and so we have to like, and things are moving faster. So we have to like reassemble our sensorium faster than before to catch up, to interpret what's happening and what might happen. Because now it's like where we might have had decades to, to react to technology. Now you don't. And so now that's like a new way of looking at life. And so that's what we have to figure out right now, which is kind of scary for people. Yeah.

Vance Crowe [00:43:24] You're a dad of many children. Yeah.

Tyler Mathews [00:43:26] You

Vance Crowe [00:43:26] Think about preparing them for a world in which like the, you know, you're gonna be able to go to an AI to get any, any intellectual question you could possibly have. It'll be answered. So how do you help these children have skills that will make them valuable in a world where the sensorium is changing this fast?

Tyler Mathews [00:43:43] Yeah, I think, I think it's just a, so I've been on this, this kick of like creating like counter environments. So like how do you, how do you react to modernity? And I think it's like, you know, it's like touching grass. Like, like you have to create these environments where like you can pull away from like the zeitgeist and like, kind of like the malmstrom of the world and just like be alone with yourself for, so for us, like, you know, just knowing who you are, like why you were made and like knowing who God is I think are the most important things. So that's like something we, you know, want our kids to know is, you know, why did God make them? And I think that answers a lot of stuff. And then, you know, for, you know, a more, maybe a more tactical thing is my kids are like just becoming teenagers, my oldest ones. So like we, and we've never been like restrictive parents. Like, we were never like, oh, screen time parents or gaming limits and stuff like that. We were just kinda like, hey, you know, like if we see something that we think is concerning, we'll we're react to it, but we're not gonna like be proactive and force our kids to be like, you know, on some regimen. And so, but with social media, I think it was the first time ever we were like, Hey, you know what, like you guys don't get access to this until you're like a teen, like an adult. Like, until your brain is like more formed because you like, you know, you look at these, these statistics of like, what is it like women like girls and are like 140% more depressed than they were 10 years ago.

Tyler Mathews [00:45:13] Guys are 160% more and there's more depression. 60% of undergrads now are like, have one or more like, like professional diagnosis for mental illness. Like the world is, is is broken. Right. And well, it's probably a multiple things. It's probably like part of it like is modernity saying you have to figure out who you are on your own terms. There's no one else to help you. 'cause the institutions are all dead and you have to define who you are, what you mean to the world, what you mean to yourself, what religion is. And then also too, just like the social media mimetic cycles that are just causing people to like, you know, just go into severe depression. And so like all of that together is like, for me is like, okay, that one we're gonna call out because that like, we know other homeschool, like we homeschool, so we like, we know other homeschool families, and this is an anecdotal e you know, kind of observation, but like still, like you can see the families at homeschool and they have their kids on social media and they have the same struggles with kids at school. And then you have kids who don't, you know, aren't on social media and go to public school or, or are homeschooled and they don't always have the same issues. I'm not saying that's like the cause, but there's something there.

Vance Crowe [00:46:28] There's certainly something there. Yeah. Like, and I, you know, going back to the biblical references, I had a guy one time on my podcast just blow my mind by pointing out that the Garden of Eden is a metaphor for childhood, right? And you as a parent are to keep the children inside the walled garden for a while while they learn how to name the animals. And you keep them safe, but eventually they are going to eat from the apple that tells them like, oh wait, there's things that go wrong in the world and there are bad people. And you know, you once the, once you lose your innocence, then you're out of the garden. To me, social media is like pulling a, a like an apple tree pipe into your Garden of Eden and just having it shuck apples out into your, into your garden that, that a child can pick up and eat. Yeah.

Tyler Mathews [00:47:14] You

Vance Crowe [00:47:14] Eventually they are gonna have to do it. So if you don't give them any skills for how to handle it,

Tyler Mathews [00:47:18] Yeah.

Vance Crowe [00:47:18] You got a big problem. But getting them away from the apple, you know, machine for as long as possible is pretty important.

Tyler Mathews [00:47:25] Yeah, I think so. And I mean that's at least what we discovered for us. And you know, like my goal isn't to keep them sheltered or anything, it's, but it's like to like equip them to like when we feel like they're ready or you know, if we're lagging and they feel like they're ready and you know, then yeah, whatever. Like, and like for me it's like I don't, like they're on discord and stuff. Like, I don't mind them being on for, there's like a difference between like forums and like other social media for some reason, like forums I have no problem with and there's all kinds of crap on forums, right. But like, it's like Instagram and Twitter and that and TikTok and stuff. Like those are the ones that I'm like, there's something just not right. And the first time I ever noticed that was when like, our kids were young, this is in 2010s, like when we got them like YouTube kids and like they would just get locked in these like cycles of like endless watching and you're like, wow. Something. It's like that app like hacked their brain like they're watching and that was like when unboxing was new and you're like, why did my kid just watch three hours of unboxing videos? Like, something is like not right, you know?

Vance Crowe [00:48:22] Well I was doing a meditation not that long ago and I was sitting, and one of the meditations I do is watch myself like the morning up until I got to the place where I'm meditating and I was watching myself be on YouTube flicking through the shorts and being like, now I've got like, my, my perception is me watching as a camera of myself doing these things and you're like, man, that thing actually totally had grabbed me completely.

Tyler Mathews [00:48:47] Yeah.

Vance Crowe [00:48:48] And I'm wandering around my house just going,

Tyler Mathews [00:48:50] It's a soft rug

Vance Crowe [00:48:51] Flip it. It's, yeah. And, and it's a, it's a weird thing to see how much it can control you, but you are choosing to give it control. Like, I woke up in the morning, I opened that app. Yeah. I flipped it and as I'm brushing my teeth and, and yeah,

Tyler Mathews [00:49:05] It's a Pam log thing. Like you're like, oh, my daily dopamine hit. I gotta just swipe and not even consume media at this point. It's just like the muscle memory. And, and you don't notice that until you, I took a break from social for like, I don't know, maybe a little less than two months and I didn't really, you know, I kind of figured like, I kind of anticipated what that would be like, but I did not really realize how crazy of a difference your life is when you're not on, and I didn't know media consumption except for like watching a couple movies with my kids. And, and then I got on no Stir or whatever, you know, to check out that what that was. But like, but the time where I had no media was crazy because I felt like I had just quit smoking. Like, I didn't know what to do with like, my mind. Like, it's like, you know, you take these like dumb tasks, you know, you're walking down the hallway to get a coffee or you go to doing laundry. You always fill that time with something like a podcast, a, a video reading something real quick. It's texts. And when you don't do that, you're like, what am I supposed to do? And then like, time just becomes like infinite for a minute. You're like, this is gonna be the longest laundry duty ever. But then eventually, like, like you kind of break out of that, like conditioning from media and you're like, wow. Like I actually have time. I didn't even know this was possible. I have time to think about what I'm thinking. Like, I could be like, like mulling over thoughts of like, oh, why did I think that? You know, like you have, and that's like what people call like clock time versus live time or whatever. And clock time is the kinda like the, what modernity has done to us, essentially.

Tyler Mathews [00:50:37] Like every minute counts, right? Like, you're on the clock. Like even when you're waiting for something, you're still on the clock. Like you're, you're always giving up yourself to the clock. And, and I was like, 'cause I felt like for a long time, you know, if I wasn't learning something, like, like I wasn't, I was wasting the time. And because you're like, well, you know, pre so smartphones, like no one had infinite access to everything in the world. So it's like they would be doing the same thing, you know? Like, I've got all of the world's knowledge available right here. I should be using it. You know? And it sounds good. You're like, oh yeah, I'm learning. This is a good practice, you know?

Vance Crowe [00:51:15] Oh, I can remember standing on a stage giving a talk and telling the audience, like, yeah, of course I listened to everything on one and a half, sometimes two times speed. Yeah, of course. Because I gotta get as much as possible, right? Like, I don't wanna waste any moments. Right. And then you think about like, how strong that pull is of, of your phone. Yeah.

Tyler Mathews [00:51:34] When

Vance Crowe [00:51:34] You could be like watching your baby or your toddler in the bath, and instead you're like, I'm just gonna quick look at this thing on my phone. Yeah. And you realize like, wait a second. Like, what am I giving up? What in these moments of the presence, right. For that like, little hit, but that little hit is like one of the most, I mean, easier to quit smoking than to quit doing that. Oh,

Tyler Mathews [00:51:55] Absolutely. What was the Oh, no, and it was, I was thinking there was like, there's some rapper that was talking about how it was like harder to quit than Coke, but a, I think he was talking about sugar, which I guess is another soft drug that's in everything. But like, but it is like that it, I I definitely think it's harder to quit drugs than it would be a small a smartphone. Because like, and actually my, my friend, his kid is like a teenager and they, like, they disciplined him one time and they're like, we're gonna take away your phone. And I remember like, they had him stand like, in this corner or whatever, like, and like, just put the phone over here, like, you're gonna spend like 15 minutes just like hanging out over there. And he just kept hearing the, the dings of like, Snapchat. And he was like, they said he started looking like a crack addict, right? He was like, please, that one's actually important. That one's important. And they're like, whoa. Like this is, this is scary. Like this is a crack head. You know? It's weird. And I don't mean to be like, I'm not a Luddite, like I, I I'm for the advancement of technology, but like, I think what we have to realize is like, oh, like we need to like learn what these tools are doing to us that we built. You know, it's like classic line or whatever. Like the tools use us and that's what's happening. It's like we're, I think for the first time, like Modern Man is waking up to say like, oh, wow. Like it's, it's taken us from like when, you know, since Marsh McKuen first started coming out about this, so to finally realize like, oh, we see it now. Like we are being used and it's evident. So although I would say people from the Enlightenment have been saying, Hey, like, technology is dangerous. Just, you know, not that you shouldn't use it, but like, there's something not right.

Vance Crowe [00:53:25] I have a brother-in-law and he's married to my sister. They lead an intentionally simple life. And I remember talking with him about technology and him being like, yeah, I mean, maybe there's just some technologies we just shouldn't adopt. And me being like, oh yeah, so appalled by this idea. Yeah. Like, how could you not want to, you know, make things faster, know more, do all these things, and then like you hit a certain stage and maybe this is just the stage of, you know, getting

Tyler Mathews [00:53:51] Into your forties,

Vance Crowe [00:53:52] Right? Like maybe you hit forties and you're like, wait a second. I like, we were talking before the cameras came on, like, oh man, I look in the camera and, or in the, in the mirror and I realize like, oh, I actually can get old, right? Because for as for 40 years, it was just like, oh, I keep getting better and better and better and better. And then one day you're like, oh, this doesn't happen forever. Yeah. And so time starts to change, but I now look back on my feeling about like, more bigger, faster go, go, go, go, go. Yeah. As being so foolish. But I don't think I could go back and talk 20-year-old Vance out of that.

Tyler Mathews [00:54:27] No. I mean, part of it is probably age, but also I think it was a product of like the environment we grew up in too. I mean, it was just all of this was new. I mean, cell phones aren't even old, right? Like, so it's just like we were trying to figure it out. But the problem is, is that we don't have the length of time, like I was saying earlier, like that we used to like, where you could like over a decade kinda reflect on what did the TV do to us? You know, it's happening too fast.

Vance Crowe [00:54:52] Yeah. I don't sense. So my parents had seven kids, right. And they were busy, but I don't perceive them as being as busy as my wife and I are. Right? Yeah. Like, they just, they just seem to have the pace of things was slower, the amount of time we had to do things. And part of that may be that we have both my wife and I run our own businesses. Yeah. And, and my parents, it was my mom stayed home and my dad was there. Yeah. Or was working, but like, overall, it feels like they had more time. So this concept you're bringing up seems important to me.

Tyler Mathews [00:55:24] Yeah. I think time is very important. And, and that was, I don't, I don't wanna like talk about my own stuff very much, but like the, the one, the one thing I did where I like gave, I was like, what can I actually give God? I was thinking like, the only thing I can actually like really give him that's a sacrifice to me was like my time. And so like, I sat in a spot for like two hours and I was like, this is your time. I'm gonna give it. And even though it's like it was a, you know, a set end and whatever, like I, I kind of like just did that. And I'm like, and the only reason why I did it's 'cause I was living, I was like spending time in the lake of the Ozark for a while, and there's like nothing to do out there. And so I was like, I'm just gonna sit on the lake on this rock. And then I was like, you know what? I'm gonna make this like a, I'm gonna make, I like art, art bros gotta like always like, you know, justify anything they do to be interesting with like, making it an art performance or peace or something. Right. So like, I was, that's what I did. I was like, I'm gonna make this a performance for the Lord only. And I sat there and I'm like, wow, that was actually like, probably the only thing I can think of that I can give, can give God. That was like really a sacrifice to me because this was before, like, I really kind of like realized how important time was or like what media was doing to me. And so I think that's like one thing that like people really need to figure out is like, is taking control of time and, and creating more, more like lived time in their life. Because that's the only thing. And people have been saying this forever. It's the only thing that like, you can't get back. And so you can make more money, you can do whatever, you can make up your money, whatever, but you can't get time back.

Tyler Mathews [00:56:56] And like you were saying with kids, I mean, man, like I, that's why I'm kinda like, I wish people would have kids. 'cause that's the first time you really realize time is you're like, wow, this kid is like old now. Like, what the heck? And and those are gone. And so it's like, then you're like, well dude, I would give up every moment of learning to get some of those moments back. And so time to me is like the most important like, physical element that we need to figure out how to like, wrestle with.

Vance Crowe [00:57:24] And we can really only understand it as like a metaphor in the same way that I can't give you the description of a smell. And have you recreated in your mind the experience of time can only be done as a metaphor. Yeah. It's,

Tyler Mathews [00:57:36] It's still abstract to us too. Like, we don't think about it. And I think also too, maybe people did think about it at one point, you know, you got bored, right? So you were conscious of time and now no one's bored ever. And

Vance Crowe [00:57:48] Well being bored is painful, right? Like Yeah,

Tyler Mathews [00:57:50] It came,

Vance Crowe [00:57:50] I I I, I remember when I was, before phones happened, I, I was working in Denver and I was working by myself. I was renovating a house and this was my first time of ever experiencing loneliness. And one of the things that I, I came to understand about loneliness, and it was a very valuable lesson for when I lived in the Peace Corps, and you spend a lot of time by yourself, but loneliness is not just like, I don't wanna be alone right now. It is, I am afraid I am going to be alone indefinitely or for huge expanses of time and loneliness and boredom. Like

Tyler Mathews [00:58:25] Yeah, yeah.

Vance Crowe [00:58:25] Our, our cousins or, or brothers or something like that. And I remember experiencing loneliness as a form of pain. That was, I, I would've give, I would, I would've been like, oh, if I could just smash my hand with a hammer and end this loneliness, like no problem.

Tyler Mathews [00:58:42] Yeah.

Vance Crowe [00:58:43] And I think boredom is the same way. And, and the fact that we can eradicate it with the soft drug right.

Tyler Mathews [00:58:48] Is

Vance Crowe [00:58:48] Like, oh, well that exactly what we're doing.

Tyler Mathews [00:58:51] I, I think it would be interesting if like, even like a small thing that people could do is just like, instead of like doing something stupid, like sitting on a rock for two hours or getting rid of the internet or whatever, it's just like, just like when you're waiting for something like getting like a bagel or whatever, or like just a phone call. Just like, don't look at your phone in those like, short minutes. And you'll realize like the, it's better when you do it in a public place. Like you're going and you're like at a coffee shop waiting for a friend, like not looking at your phone. Like, you kind of feel stupid too. 'cause you're sitting there and like, what is this guy doing? Like what is he looking at? Like, is he,

Vance Crowe [00:59:25] This guy's a creep, he's just like sitting

Tyler Mathews [00:59:26] There, you know, like what, you know, because everyone's on their phone or reading.

Vance Crowe [00:59:30] But I don't think you'll ever, it, it's just like smoking. If you're like, you know, the non-smoker says to the smoker, like, were you a smoker by chance?

Tyler Mathews [00:59:37] Yeah. Yeah. So,

Vance Crowe [00:59:37] You know, the non-smokers like, well just smoke one less. Yeah. And then just like, slowly and you're like, the smoker knows, oh, this is a fool's errand because I, I can't quit smoking by not having that morning one. 'cause I'm gonna have two. Yeah.

Tyler Mathews [00:59:49] Later

Vance Crowe [00:59:49] On if you're gonna make some change with the relationship to

Tyler Mathews [00:59:52] Your phone.

Vance Crowe [00:59:53] Yeah. Or if I'm going to make a change to my Yeah.

Tyler Mathews [00:59:55] My

Vance Crowe [00:59:55] Relationship with the phone. It would have to be a totalitarian situation. Yeah.

Tyler Mathews [00:59:59] Maybe I, I guess the difference with smoking is that, you know, you're smoking and, you know, like the effects of smoking with a phone. Like most people don't, maybe you're, maybe people who listen to this are more aware. But like, I think most people aren't aware that they're like doing a soft drug all day. And so, like, I think like that's where it's like they don't know what they're doing. It's just, it's just a habit. I would say. Like, I don't mean this pejoratively, but like, I would say like, most boomers probably have no, I, I find it funny 'cause they were like the ones that originally were like the most critical of technology and, but then at some point they became like the most avid users. Like my grandma's on Facebook, like all day, you know, like, I'm not on social as much as she is. They're always on their phone. I'm like, dude, these people are always online. Like, they're more online than like, the extremely online people are. It seems like. So

Vance Crowe [01:00:45] It's Oh, I agree with that. Like, and they leave all the dings and dongs and whistles and everything on. It's

Tyler Mathews [01:00:50] Just constant bombardment. Like, they're in the middle of like, of like, yeah. The zeitgeist. And I'm like, how, how did this happen? You know?

Vance Crowe [01:01:00] So you mentioned a social media platform. There's a certain irony in the fact that we're talking about, you know, having your phone and always being on, and people are clearly listening to this on their phones right now. And then, but there's also a social media that you and I are kind of interested in right now called Noster.

Tyler Mathews [01:01:17] Yeah.

Vance Crowe [01:01:18] So how would you describe Noster, you know, to somebody that's completely uninitiated?

Tyler Mathews [01:01:24] So I would say, I think maybe the easiest way is to say, like, I'll give an example. First I would say like, it's, it's like if you took Twitter, but instead of you creating an account that lives on Twitter, their servers, you create an account, you have your own, they, they call 'em keys. You have your own keys that you own, and then you plug them in to Twitter. And that way when you log on, it's you logging on, not like your Twitter account going online. And that way if you're like, Hey, you know what? I don't like Twitter. I like this competitor that's just like Twitter, like Masson or something like that. I'm gonna take my keys and I'm gonna put 'em into that one instead. And so I'm Tyler again with all my data that I had put into Twitter, now it's in this other one. I would say maybe that's the best way to

Vance Crowe [01:02:08] Good. You were on there, was really good. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. That was good. I I, I oftentimes tell people, like I I I often overcomplicate the description. You know, one of the things that's really important about Noster is the fact that you can move from one place and go to another. Right. And all the people that you were following, you get to keep following them. And all the people that follow you get to stay with you. And this is powerful because it means like, now the power is is, yeah.

Tyler Mathews [01:02:33] It's yours

Vance Crowe [01:02:33] Is yours. And the idea that you get to sign your transaction, right? So this public private key, the private key is the one that says, yeah, this is Vance, this is gonna become really important. Right.

Tyler Mathews [01:02:45] Because

Vance Crowe [01:02:46] I think that, you know, we fed all of our emails to, to Gmail. Even if you didn't ever write, go log into to Google's system, any email that you've ever sent that is gone to a Gmail account is now processed through their system. They have every nuance of the way you write somebody can mimic you, right? Yeah. Easily. And the, the deep fakes that are going on, all of these things are going to allow computers to mimic you precisely at no effort at all. Right? It'll just be like, Hey. Right. Make a Tyler bot,

Tyler Mathews [01:03:17] It's zero cost,

Vance Crowe [01:03:17] It's zero cost, zero energy. Yeah. And so having a private key Yeah. That allows you to plug something in to say, this is me, I think is going to become really important in the future. Oh

Tyler Mathews [01:03:29] Yeah. Absolutely. And it's just not, and it's not just Twitter, it's like, you know, it's basically, it's like, it's taking like the underlying technology of a social media platform, which could be Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, whatever, TikTok, et cetera. And it's just, it's just, it's like laying that experience on top of infrastructure. So it's like similar to email. So like, you have a Gmail, but you could easily go and like create a Yahoo and it doesn't matter. You don't lose your email. Like you can't, you can still email me from any address from your, your Hotmail, Yahoo, Gmail, whatever. You don't lose access to, to getting me. And that's what Noser does, is it's the protocol level. So you're not, it's, it's not centralized at that point. It's, it's out there, it's a protocol. So, you know, you don't like, you don't like the Dous app anymore. You can scrap it and just go pick up another one and, and use that instead. And you still have access. And I, I, I agree with you. That's gonna be super important.

Vance Crowe [01:04:30] So now that we've kind of given the, the like basics, have you hooked up a lightning

Tyler Mathews [01:04:35] Wallet

Vance Crowe [01:04:35] To it? Yeah.

Tyler Mathews [01:04:36] Yeah. I got super involved. Right? Right before Jack, like, it's right around the time Jack, Jack Dorsey got on is Right. Right. When I jumped on, my friend had been trying to get me on it for a while, and I was just kinda like, not into it. I just was busy. And then Jack got on and I'm like, all right, you know, I'll, I'll check this out. And so, yeah, I was there from the beginning, or not the very beginning, but like earlier and like Lightning got instituted. And so I've, I've done some zap like we've, I've gotten money from people. And

Vance Crowe [01:05:05] So this is for, so what we're talking about right now is they, Bitcoin is actually a little bit cumbersome to use in an electronic space. Yeah. Because the way that the blocks work, it's only every 10 minutes Right. That a transaction can even go. It's kind of expensive. Yeah. And so everybody had been saying, well, we wanted, we thought Bitcoin was the native currency of the internet.

Tyler Mathews [01:05:27] Yeah.

Vance Crowe [01:05:27] Well, what lightning is, is you put Bitcoin into a wallet and then you can do instantaneous transactions. Yeah. And then once somebody says, look, I'm ready to cash my lightning out for Bitcoin, then you only make one transaction right. Into the Bitcoin system that realigns where it's at. So it's essentially like having pocket change.

Tyler Mathews [01:05:45] Yeah.

Vance Crowe [01:05:46] And by having lightning hooked up to the Noster protocol, it's fascinating. Yeah.

Tyler Mathews [01:05:53] 'cause

Vance Crowe [01:05:53] Now you can, instead of just giving somebody a thumbs up that says, Hey, I really like that article that you wrote, you can be like, Hey, here's 50 SATs. Yeah.

Tyler Mathews [01:06:01] Which

Vance Crowe [01:06:01] Might be less than a penny. Right. But it's a way for you to be able to say, I'm going to give you value because you took the time to create value. Right. And this is going to, I think, change the nature of the relationship between content creators and content consumers. Because I mean, I don't wanna be advertised at all the time. Yeah. I wanna have a much better relationship where I'm giving value to somebody that creates something I want, but they aren't trying to sell me something underneath it. Yeah.

Tyler Mathews [01:06:26] Yeah. I mean, or have to subscribe to like 50 different platforms, you know? 'cause that's where it seems like it's going, it's like away from ads and towards membership stuff. Not everyone wants to have all that. So Zaps maybe, or like Lightning is probably the way to like, still have a free service, but allow like people to make money somehow. And then also you can do, like, they, they have what's called relays, which I'm, you know, I'm sure you know about, but like, you can like, subscribe to different, basically communities essentially. And some can be paid. So if you wanna make money, you can create a private relay and people can pay to be a part of that discussion that otherwise wouldn't get into your feed. So I think there's a lot of potential there. I'm also just kind, I am, I am a little curious to see how it'll play out with like, can you imagine Twitter like being lightning based? Like it would be because social has this tendency to like reward outrageous behavior. Like I do wonder if like, like, what is that gonna look like? Are you just gonna get like, the biggest trolls making the most money? Oh,

Vance Crowe [01:07:22] That's interesting. You

Tyler Mathews [01:07:23] Know, like that's the one concern I have about Zaps, about Lightning net network because now it's monetizing people to act a certain way, so they're gonna like veer their behavior a little bit. Likes does the same thing, but it's just like money's got a stronger pull. So I'm

Vance Crowe [01:07:38] Kind of skeptical. Yeah, that's true. And I mean, in, in the noer protocol, like you would be able to put up anything you want. And there's, I mean, particularly if you own your own relay. Yeah.

Tyler Mathews [01:07:47] Like,

Vance Crowe [01:07:47] It's not like Twitter where Twitter can roll in and be like, oh, oh, this account is breaking our rules. We're gonna shutter down. Right? Yeah. This

Tyler Mathews [01:07:54] Is,

Vance Crowe [01:07:54] This is a, a essentially a non-sensical decentralized system where you have a, your own server, your own relay that basically says, Hey, anybody that wants to collect this information just point your

Tyler Mathews [01:08:05] Yeah.

Vance Crowe [01:08:06] Your app to this relay.

Tyler Mathews [01:08:07] Yeah.

Vance Crowe [01:08:08] And you're probably right, there are probably some really big downsides to this.

Tyler Mathews [01:08:12] Yeah. But it's worth, it's worth experimenting with I think. I, I think think it is gonna be super important. I think people should own, you're gonna need to own your own way to communicate with people. And I, I think ownership is gonna become more and more important because it seems like, like the wealth Geist is like, kind of like wants to move you away from ownership right now. Right. It's like you won't, you know, you won't, you won't own anything and you'll be happy. I I think that like, this is a good way to figure out how to bring ownership into the digital space and allow, you know, remove the mediator, right? So that with Lightning, like I just go direct to you, like it goes to your wallet immediately. No bank. So that's a great way to, to bypass a lot of things too,

Vance Crowe [01:08:57] And cutting out all of the middlemen that are taking a slice of that. Right. I mean, the reason that you can't do micropayments on any other app is because you have a credit card company and they're like, that'll be $2 and 50 cents to send that person 3 cents. Yeah,

Tyler Mathews [01:09:08] Exactly. And

Vance Crowe [01:09:09] I, I think that the relays in Noster may give us a chance to take back some of the cloud issues that are out there, like right now. Yeah. If I wanna share, you know, any kind of photo, I've either gotta upload it to Facebook and use that as my album maker or I put it up on iCloud and everyone should just recognize anything you have ever put on the cloud will 100% for certain be hacked and exposed to the entire world. Yeah. It'll be gone. There's no chance that it won't. And so like all these things that you're, you're putting up there Yeah. Including me, I'm, I'm not immune to it, but I would love to have it where if I wanted to store family photos, I would store it on my own family relay. Yeah. And then I could even have that server that is my family relay literally in my house. Right. And this making, it's, it's still got the benefits of having cloud. Right. But it's owned by me.

Tyler Mathews [01:10:00] Yeah. I think eventually everyone's gonna have their own server in their house and it's got its own nose to relay and it's, you know, mining Bitcoin or I don't know, mining something. And I, and I think that's important because yeah, if, if networks go down high, you know, or if a Amazon owns like most everything that decides it doesn't like a certain pa part of the population or the government, you know, takes it over, you need to have your own backup essentially. And, or, or even if you're not like on the, you know, if you're like, oh, that sounds conspiratorial, like, just on the sheer fact that like anything that's out there is gonna go away. Like you, you'll either lose access to it all or it'll be hacked. So it's like, why not just start, you just start looking into it so you don't have to like become a hacker tonight, you know?

Vance Crowe [01:10:46] Yeah. I have this thing called the Articulate Ventures network and I am most certainly going to have an an A VN relay and then hopefully just generally migrate over that way. Yeah. So that way we're not doing everything we've been doing on these, like we pay for a platform, but all these places like Slack and Discord and all, all of these things, like they could just say like, you're no longer a user.

Tyler Mathews [01:11:09] Yeah.

Vance Crowe [01:11:09] Anytime you log in from this IP address, we shut you down. Right.

Tyler Mathews [01:11:12] And

Vance Crowe [01:11:13] Being able to get around this is increasingly important because it is going to come down to like some, some level of freedom, right? Yeah. Your, your dependence on a free service will determine whether or not you are allowed to play in the, in the large sandbox. Yeah.

Tyler Mathews [01:11:27] Yeah. I mean that, and that's, that's just how it goes. Like those are the rules that they wrote and so you're playing by the rules, so you kinda have to expect, like people get all upset about that stuff. Like, oh, this is a free speech platform. It's like, it's a company, you

Vance Crowe [01:11:39] Know? Yeah. It's a private company, they can do what they want.

Tyler Mathews [01:11:41] Yeah. So you just gotta know that going in, so you can complain all you want and that's fine. I think people are allowed to complain about it, but at the end of the day, it's not your decision, so why not own it instead.

Vance Crowe [01:11:52] Well, Tyler Matthews, this has been a fantastic conversation. If, if people wanted to see stuff that you're interested and into, would you have a place you'd direct them?

Tyler Mathews [01:12:03] Yeah, I mean, I guess they could, if, if anyone's interested in reaching out, talking about geeking out about any of this stuff, you know, my website's probably pretty good. Just Tyler, Tyler Matthews. But the domain is, you know, Ws, so Tyler, M-A-T-H-E, Ws, and then I'm on Twitter, but I'm, I'm pretty, I'm like an online, I'm like a, I'm pretty like performative on Twitter, so it might kind of come off kind of weird like too, like Arty or something. But I'm on there pretty often. But I'm a normal guy normally.

Vance Crowe [01:12:34] Yeah. And I'm gonna put my pub key in the, in the show notes. So yeah,

Tyler Mathews [01:12:37] I'll put mine out there. I'm not as super active on Noster as I used to be. We're moving. So like I have a little time for a lot of this stuff. But yeah, my, I think my pup key's on my website too, so

Vance Crowe [01:12:48] Me

Tyler Mathews [01:12:49] There. Great.

Vance Crowe [01:12:49] Well thanks man for coming on. Yeah.

Tyler Mathews [01:12:50] Yeah. Thanks for a lot. This was a lot of fun. Appreciate it.