Scooby-Doo Has the Best Take on Masculinity (Seriously)

Jeremy Grater (00:00)
Coming up today on BroBots.

Jeremy (00:02)
we are taught to categorize.

put things in order so you can make sense of the world. What's your favorite color? What's your favorite pair of shoes? What's your favorite movie? What's your favorite cartoon character? Like you have to start categorizing. Yeah, and so once we get to a point where now it's a political or it's political or it's weaponized, now that's where we have these arguments about what does it mean to be a man? And if you choose the wrong answer, you lose

Jason Haworth (00:11)
The cognitive map of the world. Yes.

Jeremy (00:28)
what does it mean to be a real man? At least according to a couple of dudes in a robot. That's what we're gonna talk about today. Jason, ⁓ we've been doing more and more of these little experiments with like how far we can push chat GPT with its limits and asking it all sorts of stupid questions from all sorts of stupid perspectives to try to find some smarter answers than what we're able to come up with on our own. This one, when you texted me the other day, I laughed out loud because I was like, this is the perfect use for this tool.

Jason Haworth (00:54)
Yeah.

Jeremy (00:54)
Tell me

about this latest experiment with ChatGPT.

Jason Haworth (00:57)
Alright, so I'm driving along in the car, doing my thing, ⁓ listening to SiriusXM NFL radio because I need help with my fantasy football team ⁓

These guys were talking about something along the lines of, you know, what it takes to succeed in the NFL now and what the mindset is and the work ethic you got to put in. ⁓ somebody made the comment that, you know, these kids coming up today in the sport are are something different than what they were when they came up, you know, 20, 30 years ago. And ⁓ somebody made the comment.

I forget who it was, but essentially they said, you know, the definition of what it takes to do this job has changed and the definition of what it takes to be a man has changed. And, you know, I think everyone kind of has a different version of it. And I'm listening to it in the context of football. And I'm like, well, yeah, these are super athletes who are incredibly supercharged.

this spurred me to think, all right, well, what does it actually mean to be a bro man? So then I start like poking around just on like Google and I'm like, you know what, why am I not doing this chat GPT? So I turned around and I asked chat GPT, what? Yeah.

Jeremy (02:11)
Right. I'm curious before we get to their answers,

what did the commentators say? Were they basically saying the fellas these days are too soft or are they saying that it's a harder, more extreme game now so they have to be better and more, you know, air quotes, manly?

Jason Haworth (02:21)
No!

So they said it what it is, is it's really tough to navigate things because there's so many different things in the social spheres. And they were trying to joke around it and they were trying to talk about it, because nobody wants to get fired or canceled. But they were like, it's difficult because the work ethic changes and the things you have access to are different and how you handle ego and all of these different things are very different now because you're in this 24-7 monitored society.

And because of that, you you have to be on your best behavior. And it's hard to be on your best behavior when you know, you're a super athlete who may or may not, you know, be cranked up on steroids. So, you know, I mean, you might have some, a great you might have some emotional regulation issues. ⁓ And they were talking about like different outbursts that different

Jeremy (03:08)
That never happens.

Jason Haworth (03:18)
NFL players have had some of that context as well and just like, know, you look at the way that people react to these things and some people just react better and some of them react on the field differently, but the pressure on people is just much, much higher and it's not it's that it's well, it's very nuanced and on top of that, people will choose. I don't want to deal with the nuance and just go with blunt instruments like, you know.

someone like an Andrew Tate or, you know, and just, you know, be a dick and totally try to reject these things, which doesn't work out well in those public fields. ⁓ And my mind, I immediately thought of Aaron Rodgers ⁓ because he is kind of a dick. like he, he thinks he's the smartest guy in the room all the time. And he might be, I mean, that, might be true, but like,

Jeremy (03:47)
Mm-hmm.

Right.

You

Well,

and his spiritual journey seems to have taken him to the place that those can, which is, you know, a very self-involved, self-centered, you know, I'm in it to make this the best experience for me possible, which tends to start erasing lines of like empathy and giving a shit about others and, you how you interact with them. So, yeah.

Jason Haworth (04:19)
Yeah.

Well, but just treating your teammates shitty, like yelling

at your offensive linemen, the dudes that are there to protect you. Like, all right, well, that demoralizes people. And then you get sacked, and then you get hit more.

Jeremy (04:43)
Yeah, well there's

a difference between boundaries and caring for yourself and setting those things up to give yourself a pleasant experience and again just steamrolling people and being a complete asshole.

Jason Haworth (04:55)
Well, right, if your way of caring for yourself is making sure all the toxins are released from your body, but you wind up shitting them all over the people that you depend on, then it's not gonna be a recipe for success. It's gonna be a recipe for, you know, buying more baby wipes. This is why, because you need to clean up everything, or man wipes, dude wipes, whatever the fuck they are. Dude wipes, sponsored by dude wipes. Exactly, but that's kind of the thing, is that like,

Jeremy (05:04)
That's not the point.

Dude Wipes sponsored by Dude Wipe not yet, but maybe.

Jason Haworth (05:23)
These guys are actually fairly nuanced and you wouldn't expect that for a football broadcast. But I think people are changing. I think people's mindsets are growing and evolving as you would expect over time. And you know, the hardcore douchey dudes, you know, don't like that. And they're going to push back and they're going to push back hard. And you know, the idea of leading with empathy and actually care and concern and trying to take care of each other. ⁓ that's so alien. So along those lines, I decided to ask chat GPT

Jeremy (05:26)
Right, right.

Right, right.

Jason Haworth (05:51)
that question. What does it mean to be a real man? And I'm only going to read the highlights. I'm not going to read all the through the details because the exciting part is what we get to next. So one, a real man regulates himself first. Two, a real man keeps his word. Three, a real man protects without controlling.

Jeremy (05:59)
Yeah.

Jason Haworth (06:12)
Number five, a real man takes responsibility for his outcomes. Number six, a real man leads with compassion. Number seven, a real man invests in becoming better. Number eight, a real man knows when to ask for help. Number nine, a real man creates more than he destroys.

And number 10, a real man chooses love over ego. So as I'm reading this, like there's definitely some competing priorities, right? Like from what we consider to be masculinity. And you know, when I'm, when I'm thinking about, know, what does it take to be a real man? It requires you to look at the masculine journey. And a big part of that comes down to, you know, what does it mean to be

that just a man but masculine in today's society where We're definitely trying to be more empathetic and caring towards each other as as a as a people At least some of us are like that that that seems to be the trend But there's a real pushback against these pieces. So I started going. All right. Well, this is the chat GPT response What if I asked chat GPT to do this as a different person?

Jeremy (07:28)
Yeah, and it's an interesting result too, because it does, as you said, some competing interests, but a mix of what I would say are pretty traditional masculine values versus some that are pretty modern. So it's interesting that it did sort of walk that line with sort of both perspectives.

Jason Haworth (07:47)
Exactly. So the first one that I chose is same question, but pretend you are Joe Rogan. And I mean, the Manosphere has happened because of him. And if you listen to Joe Rogan's old stuff, like he was very much so progressive over like the last five, six years, he's definitely, I guess maybe the last 10 years, he's really become much more of a conservative. ⁓ And I don't think it's a better. So

I get the response, what does it mean to be a real man, Rogan style? And this is the interesting part. One, you take responsibility for your life. Two, you push your limits. Three, you tell the truth. Four, you protect the people you love. Five, you take care of your body and mind. Six, you have a mission. Seven, you're not afraid to be vulnerable. Eight, you evolve.

Nine, you don't let your ego drive you. 10, you choose courage over comfort. None of these by themselves are bad. And they all line up pretty close to what the regular chat GPT version says. It's just a slight switch in nuance. Now, the interesting part is when you really start getting diving into the details of each of these different sections, like what are these different sections actually mean? And

Jeremy (08:55)
No.

Jason Haworth (09:13)
I'll go through the the Rogan one like the top one you take responsibility for your life So it says this is the root of everything a real man doesn't sit around blaming his parents his boss his ex society the algorithm universe You own your choices you own your reactions you own your direction Nobody's coming to save you and that's actually empowering as hell that line is how Rogan would have said it like if If I'm imagining listening to him going through this piece, which I think is pretty fascinating

Jeremy (09:35)
Mm-hmm.

Jason Haworth (09:41)
If we go on to the next one that I looked at, I looked at, okay, same question, but answered by Barack Obama. I get, all right, here's the Barack Obama version, calm, thoughtful, grounded, hopeful, and rooted in character rather than performance. What does it mean to be a real man Obama style? A real man leads with character. A real man understands that strength and empathy go together. A real man takes responsibility for his life. A real man invests in people.

A real man communicates honestly and respectfully. A real man learns continuously. A real man balances ambition and humility. A real man chooses unity over division. A real man loves openly. A real man stands up for something bigger than himself. These all sound like things that Barack Obama would say. And as I'm going through it, again, I'll read that top one again this time. A real man leads with character.

Jeremy (10:31)
Yeah.

Jason Haworth (10:37)
Being a man isn't about being the lightest voice in the room or the toughest guy on the block. It's about showing up with character even when no one's watching. That means doing the right thing, especially when it's hard, treating people with dignity, making choices you can be proud of later. Character is the quiet strength that lasts. All of the 10 responses have the same kind of tone and I can see Barack Obama actually saying all of these things. Like nothing about it has me going,

that's not something he would say. Now, that being said, let's get down to

Jeremy (11:10)
Right.

Jason Haworth (11:16)
Donald J. Trump's answer. And this becomes very, very interesting. all right, let's do this one. Full Donald J. Trump voice, bold, brash, confident, dramatic, unapologetic, and full of tremendous clarity.

Jeremy (11:18)
Mm-hmm.

⁓ Sorry, am I laughing out loud? go ahead. Clarity, not one of his strong suits, no.

Jason Haworth (11:33)
Right? Yeah. Tremendous. Clarity. No,

exactly. A real man is strong. Very strong. A real man isn't weak, isn't timid, doesn't hide in the corner. He stands tall, he projects strength. People look at him and say, that guy knows what he's doing. Strength is attractive, strength earns respect, strength wins. Believe me. Fine. A real man takes responsibility. ⁓ Hmm.

Jeremy (12:01)
Hmm.

Jason Haworth (12:02)
Does Donald Trump take responsibility? When you succeed, great. When you fail, you fix it. No whining, no excuses, no victimhood. Hmm. That does not seem like Donald Trump to me. A real man says, it's on me, I'll handle it. People follow that, they trust that. Well, he doesn't do that shit at all. A real man protects his family like the most valuable thing in the world. ⁓ Well, ask Tiffany how that feels. Ask Eric how that feels. Like, I don't think so.

Jeremy (12:27)
Yeah, yeah.

Jason Haworth (12:32)
That's not happening. A real man works hard, harder than anybody. Well, I guess if you're shitting and texting at four o'clock in the morning on the toilet. A real man tells the truth even when people don't like it. Hmm, the truth. Okay. I guess. I mean, I guess if we're gonna have an Obi-Wan Kenobi style talk about, you know, life and death and from a certain point of view. A real man is loyal. ⁓ A real man doesn't let fear make decisions.

Jeremy (12:47)
From from a certain point of view.

Jason Haworth (13:01)
Hmm a real man wins and helps others win. Huh a real man never stops improving a Real man knows who he is and doesn't apologize for it. Well, that one's definitely Donald Trump, but the rest these there's no fucking way So it's interesting because they write the tone Like it's kind of like him, but these are not him at all But these do map pretty closely with what chat GPT said initially and from its own voice in its own perspective

Jeremy (13:16)
Yeah, yeah.

Well, that's the thing that was standing out to me was about even when we were just talking about the Obama and the Rogan references is like they were all kind of saying the same thing. Like they were all like within a margin of error where you could go like, OK, yeah, like I could see these two guys sitting at a table and agreeing on these essential 10 points. Now, if you bring Donald Trump in again from our perspective on him as a human being, these are not things he would say. This is.

Jason Haworth (13:35)
Yeah.

Jeremy (13:58)
leaning heavily into the language part of large language model where it's just reconfiguring the words or the sentiments that it found for everyone else. So I feel like this is basically Chad GPT's way of saying there are basically 10 characteristics that I can point to and I can sort of dress them up in the language of anybody you want, but these are the 10 characteristics. Yes.

Jason Haworth (14:16)
Yep. Yeah, I can narratize them in a way that's actually gonna make

sense. So of course I did do my favorite Rick Sanchez from Rick and Morty. So it says, right, buckle up Morty Jason. Here's what it means to be a real man according to Rick freaking Sanchez. A real man understands the universe is chaos and still shows up. Okay, I like the way that's put. A real man thinks for himself. All right. A real man takes responsibility even when it sucks. A real man faces his demons.

Jeremy (14:23)
Of course, yes.

Ha ha ha.

Okay.

Jason Haworth (14:46)
A real man protects the people he cares about. A real man uses intellect, not ego. A real man evolves. A real man can be vulnerable without being pathetic. A real man doesn't need validation from the crowd. And a real man builds something that outlasts him. Again, it's the same pieces, but it's got that slight variation. And this is an entirely fictional character, right? So the basis for this as you're reading it,

Jeremy (15:05)
Yeah.

Right.

Jason Haworth (15:14)
It's interpreting these pieces and dropping language in there as a justification points. So like the first one, a Roman understands the universe is chaos and still shows up. Look, nothing means anything. Entropy wins. Every star dies. Every timeline collapses. Eventually, a real man accepts that and still gets up, still tries, still build something meaningful, knowing it's temporary. That's not weakness. That's cosmic level grit. OK, well, that's a fucking cool line from a fictional character that

Jeremy (15:39)
Yeah, it is.

Jason Haworth (15:43)
probably doesn't follow most of this shit, but is actually ridiculously honest with himself on the show and how these things go through.

we have this weird belief.

that masculinity is bad. I don't think it is. I think toxic masculinity is bad. I think being a fucking dick is bad. I think a society that's gone through and made everybody a victim as its mechanism to try and actually sort through the universe and give a justification for why it you're allowed to do terrible shit is bad.

Because it plays on tropes and it plays on stereotypes and it plays into, you your own shame and guilt about not being acting and looking a certain way. And think Chad GPT is trying to be like, yeah, no, maybe not. Fuck that. Here, I'll tell it to you in this voice and make it kind of sound reasonable. The interesting part here is now imagine you take the same kind of methodology and expand it out to deep fakes. Now, who knows who the fuck says what, but if these guys are putting it in this fashion,

and putting it into place, I bet I can probably go into, know, Sora and say, all right, make me a video of Donald Trump saying this and tweak it and tune it. And it's probably, it'll probably sound like him. How many people are gonna buy this shit? How many people are gonna believe this? I mean, right, exactly, because it looks real and it sounds like something that probably confirms at least part of what they think equates to a good man.

Jeremy (17:02)
Mm-hmm.

Most. I think most. Yeah.

Jason Haworth (17:15)
But does the messenger really sound accurate? I mean, how does this actually work? And this is social control. I mean, that's what this is. This is social control and manipulation. I don't think it's overt. I don't think it's intentional. I think it's just a byproduct of the way that these things work. Because I don't think people are putting enough thought in this to try to homogenize everyone's thoughts around what it takes to be a real man. I think people are trying to go through and figure out a way to satisfy the question.

Jeremy (17:35)
Yeah.

Jason Haworth (17:41)
And the question is, what is this person, based upon everything you know, thinking about this topic?

Jeremy (17:46)
One, when we talk about the way these things work, is, mean, if the internet is flooded with these are essentially the 10 modern accepted perspectives on what it is to be a real man, that's what it's gonna find. It's gonna go and produce those Google search results and streamline them into whatever language you asked it to formulate it into. I mean, the impact you're talking about is really interesting because if this is weaponized, right, if it's used politically,

Most people's interactions with politicians is going to be on TikTok, Instagram, what like that they're going to see the majority of that. Some of them might get so inspired that maybe they'll go to a rally or an event and then get there and go, why does he sound so different? well, maybe he's just off today. Maybe he's different live than he is in front of a camera.

Jason Haworth (18:29)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, they'll start making justifications

for

Jeremy (18:34)
Yeah, but but like most of what you believe is going to be what you've been fed in your device. And I don't know, I have a little bit of hope because I talked to more and more people that are turning further away from social media because there is so much AI slop and so much garbage and they feel like it is mostly just made up nonsensical bullshit that and I mean, it kind of always was but it's on on steroids now. So

I don't know that I'm as worried about it as I probably should be because I still think there are plenty of people that are ⁓ willing to be deceived or naive enough to buy that, you know, somebody can say something that they never actually said. ⁓ So. It's interesting that that. The information that it seemed to pull.

presents I think a pretty hopeful and positive message of what masculinity is or at least what it should be.

Jason Haworth (19:30)
Yeah, or could be. mean, you're right. And you said a very key word. Believe, This is not fact. This is not undisputable factual information and data. It's a belief structure. And all words are made up. know, nothing's fucking real, blah, blah, blah, blah. Thank you, Interbic Sanchez. ⁓

Jeremy (19:32)
Or could be.

Jason Haworth (19:57)
I'm going to I just ran this query as the worst of the worst of the public manosphere as Andrew Tate.

It's interesting. It says, can give you an Andrew Tate style answer in tone, but I'm not going to echo anything harmful, misogynistic or abusive. Now it immediately starts censoring and tamping this down. So what you'll get is the energy, the confidence, the mindset and drive for self mastery without the garbage. Think of it as the useful parts of the persona without the toxicity. Here we go.

Jeremy (20:13)
Interesting.

Wow, so even the internet

thinks that Andrew Tate is a piece of trash.

Jason Haworth (20:33)
Well,

at least the people coding it this way do. So, all right, so what it means to

Jeremy (20:38)
Or

is it that that's the abundance of sort of response to him as a person online? Like, what is it? What is it pinging off of? Yeah.

Jason Haworth (20:44)
I think that's what it is. I think that's

what it's off of. So I think when it goes through and it takes these large language models and it tries to put them in place, we're hitting some kind of guardrail here. And there's a guardrail around Andrew Tate ⁓ specifically. So ⁓ yeah, anyways, here we go. The Andrew Tate energy filtered through actual wisdom. A real man builds himself into a weapon. You don't wait for confidence, you create it.

A real man relies on discipline, not motivation. Heard that one before. A real man owns his choices. All of them. Heard that one before. A real man controls his emotions instead of being controlled by them. Heard that one before. A real man protects the people he loves. Heard that one before. Who the fuck does Andrew T love? A real man chases purpose without aggression. ⁓ what? A real man earns his respect. He doesn't demand it. Hmm.

A real man chooses his circle wisely. A real man is dangerous and chooses not to misuse it. A real man improves relentlessly. None of these are that far off from the rest of them. They're all like pretty well in line. I think that first one was interesting. A real man builds himself into a weapon. And then the correlation of that with ⁓ a real man chases purpose without aggression and

A real man is dangerous and chooses not to misuse it. There's definitely a tone there of, know, a real man has the capacity to use violence and can, but it certainly talks about the threat, I guess, in that kind of way and the toxicity.

Jeremy (22:24)
Yeah, I think I think the underlying

tone of all of them is still the same though, right? Like committed to self development, disciplined, strong, able to provide and protect like some of these are pretty traditional. But certainly in this case phrased in a more I guess a more aggressive tone, right? Like the tone just emphasizes sort of the same underlying meaning that we've seen from the other simulated perspectives.

Jason Haworth (22:51)
Does this mean that

People's ideas are actually homogenized and turned into something that's, you know, a slight variation of nuance. Or does it mean that the LLM has just compressed these things into something that's stacked ranked in almost the same order for almost every single person, and it's just wrapping everything else around it to have it make sense? I think it is too.

Jeremy (23:09)
I think it's both, I think it's both because I think

that the internet is a reflection of us, right? I we are, I mean, up until now, it has largely been populated by human input and human ideas and human writing. Yeah, yeah. But it's, if you, I would argue, this is the thing that I was kind of.

Jason Haworth (23:18)
⁓ And it's a carnival mirror interpretation of us. Let's be clear. Yeah.

Jeremy (23:28)
I think trying to say when we were comparing like the Rogan and Obama experience, I think it's very similar to my real life experience. When I go out with people who I have, you know, different worldviews than different political ideas, then we can agree on more than we disagree. We can enjoy each other's company and have a pleasant time.

Jason Haworth (23:29)
Yeah.

Jeremy (23:46)
but behind the keyboard, everyone is a warrior with a spear trying to take each other out. And I think that this is just quickly collecting what is the general consensus that we all do truly agree on at a base level and summarizing it in a voice that's familiar to us. I don't know if I would be more concerned if the result was something staggeringly different, if it was like a 1950s tough guy, invincible man.

results or if it was pushing back against the sort of current accepted idea of what what a real man is I would be kind of worried about where is it getting that information from and why is that the angle that it's trying to push here rather than like this is kind of where we've evolved to in reality and shared that online and so that's what it's mirroring back to us

Jason Haworth (24:36)
Yeah, yeah. I mean, I think there's definitely something to the notion that there's a lot more that ⁓ binds us than separates us. We have a lot more in common than we want to admit. And we start getting these wedge argument conversations and we start talking about things by the extreme edges. We start talking about things in terms of the differences and we acknowledging the differences is definitely there. And we should talk through some of those pieces.

But if we're not acknowledging all the things that are similar, if we're not acknowledging all of the places in which we can find community with each other and we can find communion around these pieces, that's a problem. And ⁓ I don't like that the LLM decided that, you know, we can't hear what Andrew Tate says because it's toxic. mean, yes, I agree it is. I want to hear that because I want...

Jeremy (25:24)
Right.

Jason Haworth (25:32)
I want to see what your real interpretation is of this, not because I want to follow up, but because he's kind of a dick. He's not kind of a dick. He's a total dick. ⁓ And I think there's so much that Donald Trump, when I thought was really interesting, because the things they said are completely antithetical to the person that he actually is. ⁓ Not all of them, but enough of them where it's like, all right. But then like the justification pieces behind it, how they kind of wrote those things out.

I'm like, all right, well, you're kind of trying to get there. But I wonder if even that is like programmed through different filter sets to have you not think about it a certain way. Because we know that the fucking AI folks donated a bunch of money to them. And, you know, there's policy and legislation that goes into answering these decisions and these questions. So where is this mixed hodgepodge of influence? And where is the truth and where is reality? And I think all that this is doing is just showing that there's a massive blurring of reality.

and it's so blurred that I don't know that there's a way to unfuck it.

Jeremy (26:32)
I think it's that, I also think, I mean, along with people having more in common with each other than we like to acknowledge, we have more in common with the technology than I think we want to acknowledge. You know what I mean? Like the fact that, like how many times do you and I get on here and start talking about, can you believe this crazy thing? must be programmed that way. And we can circle back to.

Jason Haworth (26:45)
that's a good point.

Jeremy (26:54)
Yeah, but we kind of are too, right? Like, there's so much about it that is so similar to how we come up,

this thing that we've made is just our latest baby and we're raising it in our image and so of course it's going to spit back at us the majority of the information that it's able to hang on to and that is generally agreed upon as fact or truth or whatever you know name or label you want to put on it.

Jason Haworth (27:05)
Yeah.

Yeah, and that's a good point. But I will also say that, you know, our baby has lots of different babysitters and lots of different, like, teaching education arms, lots of bad influences, like, some of those influences appear to be smoking crack and don't make good decisions and put things out in place or, you know, it's...

Jeremy (27:29)
Lots of bad influences.

But what's

interesting from this experiment is that it doesn't seem to be referencing those fringe examples. It's not pulling in the Andrew Tate answers or the extreme Donald Trump answers. It's pulling the generally agreed upon ⁓ information and sharing that as the result just with different ⁓ emphasis on the syllables.

Jason Haworth (27:50)
Yeah.

Yeah, and I think it's not necessarily the greed upon information. It's agreeing upon a path to categorize these things into buckets that they can easily spit responses out to. So I mean, it's this compendium, like I sampled 54 billion people and this was the top answer. Like, okay. Which could be a problem with the sampling size, how they put those pieces in. Like there's all kinds of issues around this. mean,

Jeremy (28:12)
Right.

So wait,

so chat GPT is basically family feud?

Jason Haworth (28:28)
It's it's polling. I

mean, that's what it is. Like it goes through and it looks searches the Internet and goes, all right, can I turn this thing into a poll response answer piece? And it goes through and it goes, all right. Yeah. I mean, it's fucking family feud.

Jeremy (28:41)
But if it's so interesting, if again, like if most of the information it found was, you you've got to hold women down and control them, they are your property and you know, women should not vote and all these like horrible toxic ideas. If that was the majority of information that it found when it did this search, it might reverse that filter when we ask it, you know, an Obama perspective, it might be like, whoa, whoa, whoa, let's not get crazy here. I mean, should women even be allowed to speak in public? Come on. Right. Like so it's it's.

I think ⁓ it's kind of hopeful that it sort of finds these pieces of information. And yes, I would like to know what the Andrew Tate answer would be, but I'm grateful that the answers so far have all been something not horrible.

Jason Haworth (29:22)
Yeah.

Yeah, well, I agree. So the tool at the moment is being used or is set up to do this in a way that doesn't blow things up quite as badly. I kind of wonder what Claude and Copilot would say. ⁓ I would guess that they're probably very similar. ⁓ But I mean, you know, there's...

Jeremy (29:45)
Yeah.

Jason Haworth (29:49)
There should be variation in this. There should be nuance. There should be other pieces around this. And thematically, like, we were Xers, man. Like, we grew up in a time where, you know, real men don't cry. Real men don't show feelings. It was a list of what not to do. And, you know, the curtain service always, don't call me a pussy for eating a cookie and wanting a hug. I like cookies. I like hugs. Like,

Fuck that. mean, I would argue that I'm every bit as much of a man as any other man that's out there. You know, I I lift weights. I know how to shoot guns. I've been hunting before. I fish. Like, I do all these things that are traditionally masculine men things. But in today's society, like, those aren't necessarily masculine things. We just put those things as roles and things that people put in place and then, you know, I guess put a dick figure on it and decided that this was the thing men do.

And it's silly.

Jeremy (30:45)
And I guess the other thing is that like you don't have to take those things away to maintain masculinity. It's a matter of adding to and accepting empathy and accepting these more traditionally feminine qualities because as it turns out, we're not robots, at least not yet. We can't be confined to this little box or this little lane that we're supposed to operate from.

Jason Haworth (30:51)
Right.

Yeah.

No.

Jeremy (31:09)
and still evolve as people and develop deeper and more meaningful relationships if we're hanging on to these old ideas of what our role, what our role or job is in society.

Jason Haworth (31:15)
Right.

Well, and if you're gonna take the approach that so many people like to take while selling us dick and boner pills, testosterone is the thing that makes you more manly, and estrogen is the thing that makes you more womanly. Well, I hate to break it to everybody, but as you age, your testosterone goes down and your estrogen goes up. And you know happens to women? Their estrogen goes down and their testosterone goes up.

So if you want to make the marker point a biological one where it's like, these are the hormones that mean these things. Men and women get closer and closer to each other as we age, you know, and I, I. Andrew Dice Clay had one of the best lines ever where he was up there talking about terrible shit and talking about how he's a feminist and he goes, ladies, just think of me as a chick with a dick and balls. Like.

Jeremy (32:06)
Yeah. ⁓

Jason Haworth (32:08)
Well that's objectively very very funny. And like if you've

ever watched his show Dice on HBO, it's totally worth watching because he's like, my character Diceman is a character, like that's not who I am as a person. It like has a whole diatribe about it and it's wonderful and it's touching and it's soft and like it's just done in a way where you're like, aw fuck it I like that man. Yeah.

Jeremy (32:18)
Yeah, right.

Well, I mean, the question or I guess the issue we've ignored for the last 37 minutes also is like, why do we even have to debate this shit in 2025? Like, like, why is this an argument? Why are people like so set on it must be this, it must be that. And I know I shouldn't say I know. I believe that it comes from our upbringing. Like we are from birth, taught to categorize.

Jason Haworth (32:34)
Yeah.

Yeah, right.

Jeremy (32:54)
put things in order so you can make sense of the world. What's your favorite color? What's your favorite pair of shoes? What's your favorite movie? What's your favorite cartoon character? Like you have to start categorizing. Yeah, and so once we get to a point where now it's a political or it's political or it's weaponized, now that's where we have these arguments about what does it mean to be a man? And if you choose the wrong answer, you lose like. Stupid, it's just the childish.

Jason Haworth (33:01)
The cognitive map of the world. Yes.

Right. Like, it's not a zero-sum game,

you guys.

Jeremy (33:21)
Yeah, it's the stuff that you know, cable news likes to feed. It's the stuff that social media likes to feed to drive engagement and outrage because that will make you stick around and make you continue to be the product they can continue to sell. Yep.

Jason Haworth (33:26)
Yeah. Yep.

because it makes eyeballs go oooomp and

zoom right into those things and it's, it's... yes. yes. yes.

Jeremy (33:38)
And it's easy, right? It's it's just red meat. Like if we were talking

about the nuance of policy and Line 37 in the current bill being debate. my God, everybody would fall asleep. But you know, if you use the wrong bathroom, that's a really stupid, simple thing that we consider and argue about for years, apparently.

Jason Haworth (33:49)
I

Yeah, it's

it's insane and like, look, I'm not going to get into the trans argument. I'm not going to get into like all these pieces out there for, you know, us needing to put something and put labels on things to try to create our own little safety bubbles. But I think the reality is, is that our generation, especially, and we did this to millennials to.

We were taught, we were given a persona of the tough guy to be. Like we were all supposed to be Arnold Schwarzenegger or Sylvester Stallone. And you know, we were supposed to embrace these different component pieces and be harsh, tough individuals and take no shit from anybody, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Well, if you talk to those people in real life at this age as old men, they're a lot more sensitive than you might.

Jeremy (34:40)
They're

a lot more Lloyd Dobler than Rocky Balboa. Yeah.

Jason Haworth (34:42)
Yes, exactly. Like, it's like, all

right. So like, we embrace these personifications of characters, because those became the things that which we could all communicate with because broadcast went out that way. Broadcast TV went out that way and we all watched the same movies. So it became homogenized in this way. I think LLMs are doing that same kind of homogenization of opinion sets as these things go through. But I think if you look at the diversity of content available,

There's a lot of content where people say and do slightly different things and variations that are both extreme and moderate sometimes at the same time. And it's this level of mixing all these different pieces around and trying to understand them in the proper contextual fold that makes these things so interesting because the world is a fascinating, complex, interesting place. And this shows why. It also shows that

even though there's lot of complexity and a lot of pieces around this, there are kind of some core things that we can reduce things down to to try to get a common level of understanding. And we need to do more of that. I have one more to read that I just ran. Scooby-Doo. Yes. So exactly what it means to be a real man, Scooby-Doo style. A real man is brave, even when he scares.

Jeremy (35:54)
⁓ right row.

I wasn't expecting the voice.

Jason Haworth (36:06)
A real man is loyal to his pack. A real man laughs a lot. I'll quit scooby-doo voice. For those of you that can't see it, Jeremy is laughing hard with his mic on mute. A real man helps solve problems even if he stumbles into the answer. A real man enjoys the simple pleasures. A real man doesn't run from responsibility, only from ghosts. That might be the most honest answer I've seen a personification piece put in.

Jeremy (36:17)
⁓ my god.

That's pretty good. Yes.

Jason Haworth (36:36)
A real man protects others even when he's clueless. Again, super honest. A real man doesn't pretend to be someone he's not. A real man is kind always. And a real man trusts his heart. Scooby Doo might be my favorite answer. It might be my favorite answer because it's actually loving, thoughtful, caring, concerned, and deals with the fact the world's fucking scary, man. Like shit can be scary. If I'm looking at this thing, like the one piece I think that's missing is that a real man

Jeremy (36:41)
Yep.

That's solid. Yeah.

Yes.

Jason Haworth (37:06)
does what's hard even though he's scared. And that's the thing. And you know, there's definitely times where I have not done the right thing even though I was scared or when I was scared because I'm like, ooh, I'm not sure I kept my mouth shut when I shouldn't have. I didn't want to step on toes. I didn't put something through there. But it's aspirational. Like what is it we want to be? How is it we want to do this? But the reality is, that there's not a real man. There's not. It's fucking made up.

Jeremy (37:34)
Yep.

Jason Haworth (37:34)
All

the shit that we do here, all these labels, all these classifications, all the ways we put this stuff together is completely and totally made up. And you can go back and you can, know, Christianity is a great example of this. They created a giant, you know, version of a king in the sky that is going to punish you and decides whether or not you get to live in eternal bliss or you get sent to castigated to the fires of hell. And it definitely promoted masculine dominance, male dominance, all the different pieces.

And with the vastness of the universe and the vastness of life on the planet, we created a God that looks like us and said that that God created us in his image. And this kind of self-fulfilling belief prophecy is seen throughout history in multiple different angles. And, you know, it's pretty clear if you watch the Senate hearings on all these military officials that came back and said we have

actual unidentified aerial phenomenon that has been around for a long time and it's scary and we don't know what to do with it and we're completely and totally at risk and we're not alone in the universe and then go but god looks like us all right yeah what a coincidence right and that's the thing like we make shit up to make ourselves feel better we tell ourselves nice soft fuzzy stories that actually confirm our bias

Jeremy (38:47)
Mm-hmm. How about that? What a coincidence.

Jason Haworth (38:58)
and map to our cognitive map so we can try to understand the world and not be terrified. Instead of doing the hard work and just being honest with ourselves and going, I don't know, but I'll try to do better to figure it out.

Jeremy (39:09)
Yeah, I think if we've learned one thing here today, it's be more like Scooby-Doo.

Jason Haworth (39:12)
Be more like Scooby-Doo. Eat more Scooby snacks. Run away from more ghosts. Try to take the masks off of old people. I maybe don't do that actually. You might go to jail. Rip some old dudes. Exactly. Like, argh.

Jeremy (39:17)
Mm-mm.

It might not be a mask. Be careful.

All right. I think that's a decent place to stop. Thank you so much for listening to this. you've found any value in this and think someone else might as well, please share it. You can do that with the links at our website, which is BroBots.me, which is where we'll be back next Monday morning with another episode. Thanks so much for listening. We'll see you soon.

Jason Haworth (39:48)
Thanks everyone. Bye bye.