09-14-26 Part One - Gary and Eric Return

Red Eye Radio

Gary McNamara and Eric Harley return from vacation on Red Eye Radio to critique social media platform X for its overwhelming football conten

Key takeaways

• X (formerly Twitter) is criticized for prioritizing football content over meaningful discourse, disrupting user experience.
• Misinformation spreads easily on platforms like Threads, with users sharing false headlines without verification.

Main topics

• Critique of X (Twitter) for football overload and misinformation
• History of technology: air conditioning, plumbing, refrigeration, electricity

Notable quotes

'X stinks right now because it's the first Sunday of football. Everything is football. Cowboys suck. This team sucks.'

'90% of what you read on Threads is not true. If you go to Threads, and you will see these people commenting on it, and it's stuff that is absolutely false.'

Conclusion

Gary and Eric use their vacation insights to highlight both digital di

Transcript preview

Speaker 7 (0:06) Now, it's Red Eye Radio. Gary McNamara and Eric Hurley talk about everything from politics to social issues and news of the day. Whether you're up late or you're just starting your day, welcome to the show. From the Relief Factor Studios, this is Red Eye Radio. Speaker 3 (0:26) All across America, we are Red Eye Radio. He is Eric Hurley and I'm Gary McNamara. Good morning. What? What? You know why X... It stinks right now. Speaker 1 (0:37) X stinks right now because it's the first Sunday of football. And normally, just because I have, you know, the majority of what I have are all new services. So I can just scan very, very quickly. And it's like my last scan when I come in. Speaker 3 (0:54) It's the Speaker 1 (0:54) last scan that I do. It's like, okay, what are some of the news items out there? Who's saying what? Does some new service have a great audio cut out there? I can't get by the insane football talk. Everything is football. Cowboys suck. This team Speaker 3 (1:10) sucks. For Speaker 2 (1:12) me, the exclamation point, if you want to call it that, it wasn't really that big of a deal because I knew it hadn't happened, is my wife comes in and she goes, and I have a Facebook account. I never go there. I probably visited my MySpace account since I visited Facebook last. No, I've probably gone to LinkedIn since I've gone to Facebook. But my wife comes in and holds up her phone. Speaker 2 (1:44) And it was a false headline. And I said, you know, and she knew it was a false headline. She goes, did you see this? And what she was saying is, did you see what, you know, I mean, because they're putting out, they put out anything and everything, you know, and it's usually a homemade meme or, you know, and you can tell when it's not. Well, you and I know when it's not true. And that is, you know, because we follow the news and we get our phones would blow up as something. Speaker 2 (2:14) Like this happened, and it was Sarah Palin had passed. Speaker 1 (2:21) If you want to know, one thing I have discovered. By the way, for Speaker 2 (2:25) those that may not know, she has Speaker 1 (2:26) not. Speaker 2 (2:28) No, no. And she goes, but my wife's point was, I mean, what do they think they're getting away with when they post something like this? Well, Speaker 1 (2:36) but that's one of the things that, and it's basically threads that, what's an offshoot of Facebook or something? Yes. Threads completely different because, I'm not kidding. 90 % of what you read on threads is not true. If you go to threads, and you will see these people commenting on it, and it's stuff that is absolutely false. I mean, there's no basis in truth whatsoever in it. But for me, I couldn't get past the football stuff Speaker 6 (3:05) on Speaker 1 (3:06) X. I just Speaker 3 (3:07) couldn't get past the football stuff. But I'll tell you one thing that I did a bunch of stuff over vacation, talked to a ton, a ton. Speaker 1 (3:16) of Trump supporters. People I didn't even know that Speaker 3 (3:19) I found out were Trump supporters and people that I know, acquaintances, friends, whatever, about, you know, what they thought about everything over the last couple of weeks, which we'll get to here in a little bit. But Speaker 1 (3:29) one, and I got to do, I got to do recreational reading that was great, which I never get to do. Went down to Florida for a little bit for a couple of days. Yeah. But one of the most interesting things. Speaker 1 (3:44) that I did. Again, it came from YouTube and it was just the algorithm knocked out something. Speaker 3 (3:51) And Speaker 1 (3:52) so everything, I watched one thing and then it knocked out a bunch of different things on the same, on things about history, technology and history. And I had already known all the stuff, but to go through in these specific details and then again, verify going, is it? Is that one true? Okay, let me check. That's true. That's true. That... The American child, the young person, needs to learn history in the United States. And I'm not talking about just the history of the Constitution of the United States. Speaker 2 (4:30) The Speaker 1 (4:31) history of technology. We take so much for granted that we have. The first one I saw was this whole documentary on air conditioning and refrigeration. Right. And how that changed the entire world. Speaker 1 (4:51) The next one was how they built houses and fireplaces and went to the iron stove and, you know, why houses were built the way that they were. That was the second one. Speaker 2 (5:05) Yeah, Speaker 4 (5:05) yeah. Speaker 1 (5:05) The third one was plumbing and toilets. Speaker 2 (5:09) Yeah. Speaker 1 (5:10) And then the last one was on electricity. Speaker 2 (5:13) Mm-hmm. Speaker 1 (5:14) And it's unbelievable when you just think that... 140 years ago and even going up as recently as you know post-world war ii going into the 1950s i didn't know for example one thing i did know that the wpa in the 1930s you know what their second biggest project was building outhouses in the south Speaker 2 (5:40) Yeah. Speaker 1 (5:41) Because so much plumbing, especially in rural areas, I think it was over 2 million outhouses that WPA built. Now, the people, if you wanted a new outhouse, you had to pay for the materials. WPA back then paid for the labor on it. And what they did was they took, you know, basically concrete tanks and they put a concrete tank into the ground and the outhouse there because one of the problems was. with all outhouses throughout history Speaker 3 (6:09) because they went all the way back, you know, to the very beginning of how people did stuff. Bears are still using them. Speaker 2 (6:16) And one of the problems, Speaker 3 (6:18) well, the contamination of groundwater. Speaker 2 (6:22) Yeah, yeah, yeah. Speaker 3 (6:23) And it went through Speaker 1 (6:24) what they used before toilet paper. I mean, it was just amazing. And electricity was amazing. And remember I said Speaker 3 (6:35) that, you know, one of the things that when... My old dentist, who's now a sleep therapist, but he was still in the sleep therapy part when he was a dentist, he had told me he was always worried about circadian rhythms and everything else. I told him when I slept, he goes, you might have a beat. And he told me that Neanderthal Speaker 1 (6:55) man slept twice a day, Speaker 2 (6:56) all Speaker 1 (6:57) the way up to electricity, just to what, really, 100 years ago. People were sleeping twice a day. They said when it was maybe more than 100 because cities had Speaker 8 (7:09) lights at that point in 1910, whatever. They were moving from the gas lights, whatever. Speaker 1 (7:14) They said complete darkness. It was complete darkness. People don't understand that even the ambient light from cities lights up rural areas everywhere. Everything was complete and total darkness. So people didn't do anything. In the dark. So when it got dark, they went to sleep. And then they woke up in the middle of the night and they did a ton of activities all the way up into the early 1900s. Starting with the outhouse. Starting with the outhouse. Yeah. But that was another thing. The outhouse had to be 50 to 100 feet away because of the smell. Speaker 2 (7:47) Right. Yeah. Speaker 1 (7:48) And then I learned about the night soilmen Speaker 2 (7:50) that Speaker 1 (7:52) were, you know, when cities started being built, there was no plumbing. Right. They would basically go in containers and put it in the back, in a cesspool in the back, and then the night soil people would come and once a night or once every week, whatever, and then, you know, but these cesspools in the summertime would just sit there and they would. Yeah, Speaker 2 (8:14) right, Speaker 1 (8:15) right. So when you look at just all this, and refrigeration, how refrigerated, I mean, the fact that one of the biggest trade items that was going on. in the 17-1800s was cutting ice from rivers and transporting ice all over the country. And it wasn't clean ice. And we know that's where the icebox came from. And they went through just the entire concept of refrigeration. One thing I did not know, I did learn this. I did not know. That the summer, you know, where the summer blockbusters movies came from? The culture of the summer blockbusters? Because when, what's his name, Willis Carrier invented air conditioning, it was for industry. So industry got it first, and then business got it, and then movie theaters got it. And they would advertise, you know, air conditioning. People would go to the movies because air conditioning was there. And that started like in the 1920s and 1930s. And Speaker 2 (9:19) now, with the lack of creativity, I'd rather sit outside in 108 degrees. Speaker 1 (9:24) Exactly. And that's where the summer blocked because they figured out that's when, since people are coming in. Let's do all the great summer blockbusters. And that's where the culture of the summer blockbuster Speaker 3 (9:37) came from. But my overall point, because I'm not going to go through every single thing. So Speaker 2 (9:42) the $20 for popcorn goes to air conditioning, just to be clear. Yeah, now, yeah, exactly. Now it does. Speaker 3 (9:48) It's a Speaker 2 (9:48) big bill. Speaker 3 (9:48) Well, in New York, well, in the liberal states where they're not trying to produce any type of extra electricity. Speaker 2 (9:54) Right, right. Speaker 3 (9:55) where their goal is to skyrocket electricity prices. Now, the thing back Speaker 2 (9:57) then when it first started is that in many of the towns, you still had to go outside to go to the outhouse. So it took longer. You know, you missed more of the movie that way. You Speaker 3 (10:07) know, that's a great point. They didn't get into that, but that would have been a great point. Did they have to go out? They probably had to go outside. Speaker 1 (10:12) Yeah. You know, because, and they talked about the fact of that the bathroom changed the culture of privacy. There was no privacy. You'd go to an outhouse, and there'd be four or five seats. Speaker 2 (10:24) And Speaker 1 (10:24) there was no bathroom. Speaker 2 (10:26) And Speaker 1 (10:26) so the whole thing of privacy when you go to the bathroom came with modern plumbing. And what was the biggest thing? The S, Speaker 3 (10:35) what is it, the S-pipe? Speaker 2 (10:37) What Speaker 3 (10:37) do they call that in the toilet? Speaker 2 (10:39) Yeah, yeah. That fills with water. Right. Speaker 3 (10:42) And I never thought about this one. I Speaker 2 (10:44) once Speaker 3 (10:44) called Speaker 2 (10:45) it a pee trap, but that's not actually what that is. Speaker 1 (10:47) No, it's to keep the gases from the sewer. That's Speaker 2 (10:50) something Speaker 1 (10:50) under the Speaker 2 (10:50) sink. Speaker 1 (10:51) It's to keep the gases from the sewer coming up because there used to be explosions in houses. The houses would smell like crazy because the drain went right down into the sewer. Speaker 2 (11:00) It's still the case. Speaker 1 (11:01) Exactly. Speaker 3 (11:02) The Speaker 2 (11:03) explosion thing may not be the problem. The problem, but the gas entering, reentering the home. Speaker 3 (11:10) Yeah, the gas. Speaker 2 (11:10) Backing up into the home. Right. And that, yeah, so that's still. And Speaker 3 (11:15) they said that's where they really, and they talked about, you know, Thomas Crapper. Speaker 2 (11:18) Right. Speaker 3 (11:19) You know, and that's like, and his name is now immortalized, which it is. Like, what are you going to Speaker 2 (11:24) do for a living? I don't Speaker 3 (11:25) think I can do anything else, really, if you think about it. Now, he didn't invent the S-pipe, though. Speaker 2 (11:30) No. Speaker 3 (11:30) But yeah, but in talking about the Speaker 2 (11:32) seat part, Speaker 3 (11:33) talking about Benjamin Franklin, Speaker 1 (11:35) inviting and inventing the the cast iron stove because fireplaces weren't efficient enough. But I guess my point is we take so much for granted here. We've got a generation that believes that socialism will work. They are completely and totally ignorant. And I started thinking, I don't know why, but I was driving in going, you know, Dickens was right. In Scrooge, the things we had to worry about. Ignorance and want. Speaker 2 (12:02) Yeah. Speaker 1 (12:03) And you think about it. Well, a lot of Speaker 2 (12:05) people actually, well, according to John McNamara, we can turn this around. A lot of people want ignorance. As your dad has always said, want to be BS. They want to buy the lie. So we can bring this full circle. Yeah. And this is how it goes. You know, I experienced a number of young people. Actually, everybody is young now. Speaker 2 (12:33) My father is in the hospital, and he's doing okay. He's been battling cancer since 2022. And it took a turn, and I've been with him bedside for about half of the vacation, which is I would be nowhere else, of course. But meeting the young people in the medical field, and I met a young man by the name of Ryan, 23 years old, and he's going to be trying to become an RN, then he wants to become a doctor. Another young man, I didn't get his first name because this guy worked fast. I mean, everybody that this entire team at this hospital that's taking care of my dad, every single one of them. When we got him to the ER, we went, I mean, they went straight to work. We had an x-ray and a CT scan, like, within minutes. And it was unbelievable to watch the technology that people in that field understand. But if you're not in that field, you know, you don't understand what goes into. Speaker 2 (13:43) The cost, I mean, we all complain and it is very high cost when it comes to medicine. But the fact that we can get it down to and they were able to, you know, it had his history right there on his phone, by the way. I logged into his app, had his entire history, his entire chart right there. He handed it to me and said, here, log into my app. We went through the entire history. The hospital had it. They pulled it up. All of this technology that we take for granted. You know, my dad being in the condition he's in, my mom's in the condition she's in. They get all of their groceries delivered. Things that we take for granted. For me, I've always seen it as people with limited ability that today you can get it, boom, delivered to your door, even in their small town, very quickly. And you don't have to expend the energy. I mean, we're talking about outhouses of having to go, you know, 30, 50 yards away just to do your business. Well, one day they'll say. You know, you used to have to go to stores. And then we had something called a cart. And you would have to walk around endlessly and fill it in all of this. But all this technology they take for granted. But these young people in this field, and I told each one of them that I had any time to spend with, and Ryan was one of them, I told them, I said, stay in that field because we'll all need health care, me especially. Put me on your list. But, you know, it's... And there is that, you know, that back and forth, the tradeoff. But... To that, to your point, on the other side of it, I could probably sit down and do a roundtable with them. And these are all knowledgeable, very smart people. Some of them are registered nurses and doctors and nurse practitioners. And I mean, they are on top of their game. But then you ask them, let's have a talk show, right, about what's the, can anyone here tell me the three branches of government or what? how much the national debt is approximately right now, why it matters, all of these things. I'm not saying they don't know that, the people that I met, the young people that I met. But I was curious as to how many might know or might not know. Speaker 8 (16:03) Well, the one thing I thought of, and I wanted to add on, you know, besides the Constitution, just the history of technology, because there's this sense from not all, but from a significant portion of young people. that they live in horrible times. Speaker 2 (16:18) Yeah, right. Speaker 8 (16:19) And the Speaker 1 (16:19) point is when you think about what it was, and my father's 100 years old, 100 years and five months now, and he was at the end of that. Speaker 2 (16:30) Yeah. He Speaker 1 (16:31) was at the end of where technology came. And we haven't even gotten to medicine. When my father was born, there was no antibiotics. You still got an infection. You could die Speaker 2 (16:39) on Speaker 1 (16:40) things that we would even think of today. Speaker 2 (16:43) Right. Speaker 1 (16:43) And so you've got young people walking around. But when you have a