Hello and welcome to the political orphanage, a home for plucky misfits and problem solvers.

I'm your host, Andrew Heaton, and I'm very excited about today's guest, Jason Pargin.

He's very, very funny. He's a former writer for crack.com and the author of the book John Dyes at the end, which you may have heard of. And I'm bringing him on the show for two reasons. First, hosting a podcast is a great excuse to meet authors you like. And I am availing myself to that opportunity.

Second, his latest book hit all sorts of themes which are very pertinent to the time that we're living in. Alienation, gender wars, in cells, even Bitcoin. I read his book and thought, this guy would make a good chat,

and I was not disappointed. Now, the main thing that we're going to discuss today is algorithmic

horror. People who are chronically too online, how being addicted to the internet can warp your worldview,

how computers and the media ecosystem make your smartphone a little insanity device,

which lures you deeper and deeper into echo chambers of filth and madness, all the stuff we deal

with here in the 21st century. But before we jump into that,

I would be doing a disservice to Jason if you only heard us talk about those heavy concepts.

Because while the book has some depth, and that's what we're going to explore in our chat,

it's also very, very funny. In fact, it's one of the funniest books that I've read in our chat. It's also very, very funny.

In fact, it's one of the funniest books that I've read in several years.

So in a moment, I'm going to bring on my guest, and we'll talk about internet psychosis and the sheer terror of living in the age of cancellation mobs and somebody pulling a phone out at Walmart because you say something

inopportune and ruining your life and all the algorithms that drive everything to the

utmost degree of crazy.

We're going to get into that momentarily.

But before we do, I want you to appreciate that the book we're using as the touchstone

has a lot of comedy slopped on top

of those meaty concepts.

So I'm going to read you some of my favorite lines before we get into it.

Here we go.

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