Academics are arguing about the ethics of sex with aliens, dogs have evolved literal “puppy eyes” just to manipulate us and StaffCop is quietly transforming your workplace into a digital panopticon. This week, we’re plunging into a world where interstellar romance is a genuine debate, canines have evolved to become emotional con artists and your boss might be watching more than your timesheets.
Intergalactic Intimacy: Consent Across the Cosmos
Forget Star Trek’s casual cross-species flings. What happens if first contact gets… intimate? The academic world and internet fan clubs are already tangled in debate: is interspecies romance with aliens ethical, or just a sci-fi fever dream? Consent is the cosmic crux. Can an alien truly give it? Would Captain Kirk’s adventures count as mutual fun, or something far more questionable?
Predictably, opinions orbit wildly. Conservatives call it unnatural, liberals say it’s about happiness and mutual agreement, and then you’ve got folks like David Huggins swearing they’ve already had a close encounter of the intimate kind (with full consent, allegedly). Until E.T. lands and hands us a signed permission slip, the verdict is: fascinating, unresolved and best kept hypothetical. For now.
Dogs: Masters of Eyebrow Manipulation
Back on Earth, your dog’s puppy eyes aren’t just adorable. They’re evolutionary genius. New research shows dogs have developed unique facial muscles that wolves lack, all so they can nail that “please feed me” look. Fast-twitch muscle fibres let them pull off those heart-melting stares faster than you can say “walkies.”
It’s a symbiotic love story: we bred dogs to be emotionally expressive, and now they’re experts at reading and manipulating our feelings. Wolves never stood a chance. If evolution keeps going this way, don’t be surprised if your next pup comes with built-in emoji eyebrows.
StaffCop: When Your Boss Becomes Big Brother
It’s time for a dose of workplace dystopia. Meet StaffCop, the employee monitoring software that turns your computer into a surveillance nest. Every keystroke, every screenshot, every website logged and analysed in the name of “productivity.”
Sure, bosses love the pitch: more accountability, more security. But let’s be honest, it’s also a fast track to paranoia, resentment and creativity-killing micromanagement. If you feel like someone’s always watching, it’s probably because… they are.
Turns out the biggest ethical debates are happening in outer space, dogs are manipulating us with weaponised cuteness, and the office is starting to look a lot like 1984. Science is weird, technology is weirder, and your boss might be the weirdest of all.
CHAPTERS:
00:00 Introduction
00:47 Ethical Dilemma: Sex with Aliens
03:27 Exploring Alien Reproduction
07:53 Human-Alien Sexual Encounters
13:46 Ethics and Consent in Alien Relationships
19:07 Dogs Using Their Eyebrows to Manipulate Humans
23:01 Employee Monitoring Software
27:16 Ethical Concerns and Privacy
31:47 Conclusion and Listener Engagement
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[00:00:04] WILL: It is time for a little bit of science. I'm will grant an associate professor in science communication at the Australian National University.
[00:00:13] ROD: and I'm Rod Lambert. I'm a 30 year science communication veteran with a mind of a teenage boy.
[00:00:19] WILL: and today. Well, we've been at the Beach Large Hadron Collider.
[00:00:23] ROD: Yeah. Drinking in swimming cocktails. In fact, I'm still there. I dunno where you
[00:00:28] WILL: are of, uh, isotopes and science and stuff like that. So rather than giving you our regular pile of science, we've
[00:00:35] ROD: saved you something delicious. We've been scrolling away little snippets throughout the millennium and you're gonna get a bunch of those right now.
[00:00:42] It's gonna be fab.
[00:00:43] WILL: Enjoy. So I've got an ethical dilemma for you. Um,
[00:00:50] ROD: really good at
[00:00:51] WILL: And, and this is one that, um, strangely the internet has, has commented on quite a lot, uh, the academic literature, perhaps not quite as much as it, it should have, but there are some papers, so you were talking to me just the other day, about some people that were.
[00:01:05] basically bringing the Star Trek universe into life, you know? Yeah. They're doing the, they're doing the cutting edge science with, you know, all sorts of way out there equipment. And, you know, I don't know if it's, it's, uh, transporter technologies, but,
[00:01:18] ROD: know. Oh, but scanning people, like they're scanning people in ways, like if we did the scanning of you today, it'll take 10 minutes to find out what it was 10 years ago.
[00:01:23] It took 48 years. Totally.
[00:01:25] WILL: Totally. So there are scientists that are doing cutting edge stuff, but obviously, you know, juvenile me thought, oh, the Star Trek universe. Obviously the big question is having sex with aliens. And
[00:01:36] ROD: not a question, it's a yes.
[00:01:37] WILL: It's a, well, so here's my question. I thought, is it ethical?
[00:01:42] Is it ethical? So I went
[00:01:44] ROD: for them or for us? Well,
[00:01:45] WILL: there's some interesting dimensions here. I thought I would explore the literature and find, is it ethical to have sex with an alien, obviously pending your other commitments.
[00:01:55] ROD: It's true if you're busy, but also, so I'm guessing consent doesn't come into it.
[00:01:58] WILL: Well, no, of course it [00:02:00] bloody does.
[00:02:00] ROD: It's sex. Of
[00:02:01] WILL: course
[00:02:01] ROD: it
[00:02:02] WILL: it sex. Jesus. Ah, Jesus. Education time here folks. So I had a look, and of course the non-academic works, uh, uh, you know, you find 'em all over Reddit and Quora and YouTube, um, and some vice
[00:02:18] ROD: You have four Chans Your Truth socials, you name it.
[00:02:20] WILL: And, and no doubt there are, well, there's other things that are not sex with aliens, but leaning towards sex with aliens out there on the internet.
[00:02:27] ROD: oh. That's your excuse. No, sweetheart. I'm researching a
[00:02:30] WILL: There are, there are a few academic works. Yeah. So there's alien Sex, the Body and Desire in cinema and theology by Lachlan,
[00:02:37] ROD: Ah, it's social science.
[00:02:38] It's not like, you know,
[00:02:39] WILL: oh look, of course it's fucking social science. Like,
[00:02:41] ROD: I thought you were gonna gimme the hard stuff, so
[00:02:43] WILL: Like someone who's done the well. Well, we will come to someone who might do the research in a bit. Uh, sex and Alien Encounter, rethinking Consent as a rape prevention strategy by Meredith Minister,
[00:02:52] ROD: Rethinking Consent as a rape prevention strategy.
[00:02:55] Yes, indeed. Indeed.
[00:02:55] WILL: Uh, it draws on, it draws on Octavia Butler's, Xeno Genesis novels. Well, obviously, um, there's another paper that draw that looks at Octavia Butler, uh, alien Sex Octavia Butler and delusion guitar is poly sexuality. This is so humanity stuff. I'm just like, you guys, you guys rule. This is
[00:03:11] ROD: is the word interpenetrate used often?
[00:03:14] WILL: So I'm gonna come to the ethical question in a second. Uh, but first
[00:03:19] ROD: keep hearing titles
[00:03:20] WILL: first. We, we gotta explore it. Well, I'll give you some other titles in a sec that are, that are a bit sier than, uh, than the academic ones. Okay? So first, would aliens have sex?
[00:03:29] ROD: Yes. I dunno. Maybe.
[00:03:31] WILL: possibly, probably. So, obviously,
[00:03:34] ROD: based on what,
[00:03:35] WILL: let's assume, let's assume first that, uh, alien species are likely to reproduce. They're not like some sort of static, uh, ever living life form that they might exist
[00:03:43] ROD: They they might, yeah.
[00:03:44] WILL: but within the, within the concept of reproduction, it's highly likely there's, there's basically, you can have sexual reproduction or asexual
[00:03:51] ROD: reproduction. I, I'll take the first one, sir.
[00:03:53] WILL: There you go. Thank you. Asexual reproduction. You know, that's the stuff where. You don't have sex to have [00:04:00] babies. You might, uh, you might drop a seed or you might, uh, well, things like sponges and sea, an enemies and starfish, they do things like they split off a bit of their body and, and that's their baby.
[00:04:09] And it's like,
[00:04:10] ROD: what'd you do last night? I don't know. Got nine kids and half my limbs are
[00:04:13] WILL: There are some bigger animals, invertebrates and things like whiptail, lizards, um, some sharks, Komodo dragons. They can do asexual
[00:04:21] ROD: reproduction. Komodo dragons.
[00:04:22] WILL: dragons. Komodo
[00:04:23] ROD: No shit.
[00:04:23] WILL: Typically they, they just have like a, a virgin egg birth.
[00:04:26] Like they can, you know, just pop, pop out one of their own
[00:04:29] ROD: so they can clone. Self clone.
[00:04:31] WILL: Yes, I think so. Yeah.
[00:04:32] ROD: No shit.
[00:04:33] WILL: Yeah. Uh, there, there are def you've told me before, there are definitely cloning animals.
[00:04:37] ROD: Yeah, there are, there are there? Sorry.
[00:04:38] WILL: just, just to say, in the alien, in the alien universe, definitely we can imagine, um, there, there's the plausibility of asexual reproduction Yes.
[00:04:47] And versions of that. Yeah. But there's also, it's highly likely that sexual reproduction is evolutionary beneficial. Like basically what you're doing is mixing genes. And it's been beneficial on earth for billions of years long way, long way before us getting, uh, multiple genes together.
[00:05:04] ROD: your diversity helps
[00:05:06] WILL: now bait.
[00:05:07] So let's assume there will be aliens in the, in the universe out there if there are aliens. Okay. That sexual reproduction would be part of what they would do. I think that's a I if, if there are aliens, I think, I think the chances are there would
[00:05:19] ROD: It's not crazy to think that, mate. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
[00:05:21] WILL: Would we be able to do it with an alien?
[00:05:24] ROD: now do you mean like, could you get aroused enough? Uh,
[00:05:26] WILL: Uh, well, could you get aroused enough and could you get to whatever your stage that you require
[00:05:31] ROD: And as a, as a gentleman with an appendage that is for going into things, would you be able to tell which thing you should go into?
[00:05:37] WILL: Well, there's a couple of questions. Would you be able to do the enjoyable, the physical bits of it? Yeah. Uh, would you be able to conceive? it's, it's very un very unlikely that concept like that that's not happening. But I, I don't know. The conception point of mixing, mixing DNA are highly unlikely.
[00:05:55] But
[00:05:57] ROD: you said, you said sex, not reproduction.
[00:05:59] WILL: No, exactly. I did [00:06:00] say sex, not reproduction. Seeing, I'm basing this on James Kirk, uh, having sex with aliens.
[00:06:04] ROD: a lot of kids in Kirk's life. No,
[00:06:05] WILL: exactly. He's,
[00:06:06] ROD: oh, there was one in one of those spinoffs and that, that was implausible
[00:06:10] WILL: Just on this. I, I, I didn't, I I've never done the story.
[00:06:14] Um, but I don't even know how to do it. Have you, have you seen the, the worst Star Trek episode ever?
[00:06:19] ROD: I, I can't, I don't know. But
[00:06:21] WILL: It's it's the, it's the story where, um, Jane away in, uh,
[00:06:26] ROD: Oh, okay. It's always gonna be Voyager because No,
[00:06:28] WILL: no, but it's a Voia one fucking lame. And, and she, and like, I've only heard this, told to me 'cause I'm not a Trekkee, but
[00:06:33] ROD: is it she and Kote?
[00:06:34] WILL: uh, no.
[00:06:35] Uh, she and another main character get turned into No, he, he gets turned into a salamander and then kidnaps Jane away. They go and have a whole bunch of babies as salamanders and, and then, and then, and then they never talk about it ever again.
[00:06:52] ROD: It was definitely Koto because there's always this weird sexual tension between, you know, that guy and his mum.
[00:06:57] WILL: don't know. but the key thing obviously. Uh, we humans have evolved with a standard method of sex. Mm. But the standard makes
[00:07:06] ROD: Speak for yourself. Speak for yourself.
[00:07:07] WILL: no, in the sense of the sex that typically leads to procreation, but there are plenty of other ways for people to have intercourse that don't lead to procreation.
[00:07:15] So
[00:07:16] ROD: are we gonna list those?
[00:07:17] WILL: that, would suggest that it, it, it's plausible, yeah. That there would be aliens in which you could have an erotic sexual encounter. Yes. It doesn't mean, you know, conceptions are much higher bar, but being able to, you know, do the thing Now, obviously depends a lot on the alien. If the alien is like a, a, you know,
[00:07:34] ROD: not, not in your taste,
[00:07:36] WILL: an energy consciousness that's like a star, probably not.
[00:07:40] Um, or bacteria, probably not. But you know, in there's, yeah. In your taste. So the next question, have people had sex with aliens? Yes. Well, there are definitely quite a lot of people that claim to have had sex with aliens.
[00:07:57] ROD: you know, fanfiction is everywhere.
[00:07:59] WILL: No, [00:08:00] not just Fanfiction. No, not just Fanfic.
[00:08:01] I'll come to Fanfiction in a second. Okay. so, well, here's one story. David Huggins. this is an article on Vice. he claims, his first encounter with anyone, human or not human, was he lost his virginity to a female alien when he was 17. He was out in the, out in the woods. She came to him, and that's all I have can say about it.
[00:08:22] he,
[00:08:23] ROD: love to, it's definitely a female alien.
[00:08:26] WILL: indeed. Well, I was wondering about that. I mean, um, I, I do think that. Whilst there would definitely be different conceptions of gender out there. and you know, egg laying versus sperm providing or something like that. It's hard to draw boundaries on that in an alien sense.
[00:08:42] It's not unlikely. There might be versions of, gestation bearing a pregnancy like
[00:08:47] ROD: male possibly.
[00:08:48] WILL: Sure. So, so there may be things that, that associate female and associate male, I don't know. I dunno. No,
[00:08:54] ROD: beyond our brief.
[00:08:55] WILL: Beyond our brief. But, but that's not impossible. But anyway, he's gone and he, he's continued to have sex with aliens and has painted them.
[00:09:01] Continued to, yeah. And he's 74 now and so,
[00:09:04] ROD: so he has a lot of access. Alright.
[00:09:07] WILL: These visits from extraterrestrials and his sexual relationship continued into adulthood. he last had sex with, Crescent the Alien. Um,
[00:09:14] ROD: yeah, yeah.
[00:09:15] WILL: His name for the alien. I dunno if they talk or if they, it was six months ago I was sitting down in a chair and the woman Crescent was behind me and she put her arms around me and that's about it.
[00:09:25] Anyway, he drew a painting of her that has an alien face with human hair and a very human body like, no pubes, but otherwise there's definitely
[00:09:33] ROD: a place. To go otherwise
[00:09:35] WILL: Yeah. Um, there's also plenty of other, you, you can find plenty of people claiming that. Like there's, I saw a video 10 people who claim they have had sex with aliens.
[00:09:43] So lots of people are out there.
[00:09:45] ROD: and it's cool 'cause they obviously have evidence.
[00:09:50] I, I hope it's true for their sake. I hope it's true for, what was his name?
[00:09:53] Albian. Ponsonby. Like it's good for him.
[00:09:56] WILL: So wood people, um, wood people. Well, look, looking at the internet, [00:10:00] it seems very clear that people would be keen, uh, to have sex with aliens. I can find.
[00:10:06] ROD: Are you,
[00:10:07] WILL: me
[00:10:09] ROD: ignoring, being married and stuff committed long-term relationship, ignoring being married. If you are like,
[00:10:13] WILL: No. Gimme, gimme, gimme at the end.
[00:10:14] Gimme at the end. I, I'll, I, I, you
[00:10:15] ROD: Okay. Yeah. We, we, we can warm up to it. Okay. Yeah.
[00:10:19] WILL: there's a lot of, uh, I don't wanna say the discourse is gendered, but it's gendered Interestingly,
[00:10:24] ROD: Yeah. Dudes banging. Female aliens
[00:10:27] WILL: well, there is, there is the version of dudes banging female aliens.
[00:10:30] This is quite common. Mm-hmm. There's a lot on, there's a lot on Reddit. There's a lot all over the
[00:10:35] ROD: place. Mm.
[00:10:36] WILL: Um, fuck me. There's some sad stuff. here's someone who's saying, yes, I would have sex with an alien. The question, uh, yes. For two reasons, because I'm a xenophile and don't discriminate.
[00:10:47] ROD: Oh, yeah.
[00:10:47] It's, it's a moral decision.
[00:10:49] WILL: Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Also, because human women, women are generally stupid, don't know what they want, and it's just hard to talk to girls in 2022, like they choose to forsake what it means to be a woman and wait for the right man. You,
[00:11:02] ROD: There is a lot to unpack in
[00:11:04] WILL: Like, oh, like goes into some full incel stuff and it's like, oh my God. Okay.
[00:11:08] ROD: You could just say, I find it hard to get the intercourse. So if an alien came down that would really help me
[00:11:14] WILL: there's probably an alien race that their woman would tend to my needs and make li my life worth living probably.
[00:11:22] ROD: That is sad though, actually.
[00:11:23] The, the, the mocking part of me, of course, and the ancient bully in me wants to abuse the crap outta this human. But that is tragic.
[00:11:31] WILL: Ah,
[00:11:32] ROD: is tragic.
[00:11:33] WILL: look, I mean, there is a lot of tragedy in the incel world and a lot of ter a lot of terrible as well.
[00:11:37] Yeah. But if, if, I think there was definitely this view that someone from outside anyway,
[00:11:42] ROD: Obviously a non-human entity would actually give me what I want and because I deserve it, and human women don't. And, and that's not fair.
[00:11:48] WILL: Now, while it's terrible now, while women were not quite as forthcoming in the same way, there's a whole lot of erotica, that, uh,
[00:11:57] ROD: gonna read me some,
[00:11:58] WILL: Yeah, I'll, I'll read you a little bit. Um, a [00:12:00] whole lot of alien, Alien human encounter tends to be alien, man, human woman. Uh, so I'll just, I'll just read a couple 'cause there was a great, uh, someone on good read said, I'm looking for some great alien human sex encounters. Can you gimme some recommendations?
[00:12:15] And there's a whole bunch of voting out there. People are like, these are the best ones.
[00:12:17] ROD: A
[00:12:18] WILL: whole bunch. A whole bunch. A whole bunch. Well, there's a, there's a whole bunch. Like, so number one in the list was venomous by Penelope Fetch Fletcher. abducted from earth and transported to a slave planet in an unknown galaxy
[00:12:29] ROD: Oh, so hot
[00:12:30] WILL: Lumen find finds herself shackled, naked, and put on display before an alien. Hoard told the males we'll battle. For the right to slake their lusts with her body, she would become the slave of slaves. Venomous one, a proud warrior also enslaved, has given up hope of returning to his home world and finding a lifem mate.
[00:12:50] When a female is tossed into the arena, his soul demands, he claim her winning his mate. By right of might he vows to protect lumen and be a good provider, no matter how ugly her human appearance rescued by venomous as people, the couple faced space pirates, the condemnation of an alien government, galactic war, and a deadlier threat from within the Ki Warrior's own Kindred.
[00:13:12] So,
[00:13:14] ROD: so. Okay. You have your, your submissive dominant, you know, variations of fantasies. Yeah. That's just that.
[00:13:22] WILL: Well, that, yes, I mean, but you can have multiple things going on in a novel,
[00:13:25] ROD: but it's aliens.
[00:13:26] WILL: But
[00:13:27] ROD: So it doesn't mean I'm, you know, lack self-esteem or really wanna be submissive. Just say you wanna be submissive.
[00:13:32] That's cool.
[00:13:33] WILL: Well, no, but it
[00:13:34] ROD: wanna be enslaved.
[00:13:35] WILL: fun. so all I'm saying is that yes, there are clearly people on the internet saying yes, there would, but also people clearly are interested in the
[00:13:43] ROD: concept.
[00:13:44] Well, they're clearly actually doing it.
[00:13:46] WILL: Ethics, why is it ethical? Yes. Is it ethical? So there's a couple of ways to think about this.
[00:13:52] ROD: Mm-hmm.
[00:13:53] WILL: So the first one, for conservatives. The question is, you've [00:14:00] got, you've got a morality type question. Mm-hmm. And they're tending to draw on species boundaries. you know, I, I did,
[00:14:06] ROD: ah,
[00:14:07] WILL: ah, I, you know, so here's, here's one comment.
[00:14:09] Yeah. This is on a, um, Quora, would you ever wanna date and marry an alien? Why or why not? Now, this is marry slightly different thing.
[00:14:15] ROD: Oh, like date, date first, too. Yeah. We're going a few dates and
[00:14:18] WILL: this guy's like, this is a prosperous idea. Would you date and marry an octopus? Yes. Uh, and, and so for him, there is no category in which alien could be marryable.
[00:14:29] ROD: If non-human, then
[00:14:30] WILL: if non-human, no matter what. And so, so from a conservative perspective, it's like there is a, there is the species human. Mm-hmm. And you've gotta stay within that. Yeah. And you're breaking that boundary.
[00:14:41] ROD: I've been less sympathetic to more of their views than this one. That one I kind of go, I get what you're saying.
[00:14:47] WILL: Look, I mean, I guess the interesting thing is it kind of draws on old tropes of you gotta stay within your race. Sorry, you gotta stay within a narrow category. Sure. And
[00:14:56] ROD: It's like within the family cousins only Charles.
[00:15:00] Indeed. Exactly.
[00:15:01] WILL: liberals turn it around and go and go different and say, this is all about consent.
[00:15:05] ROD: Ah.
[00:15:06] WILL: and hence why the first, the first interracial kiss on TV was Star Trek. I remember the first, uh, inter species kiss, I guess. Well, inter alien kiss was Star Trek as well.
[00:15:17] ROD: Yeah. 'cause Kirk was not green and she was
[00:15:19] WILL: Yeah, indeed, indeed. But they're, they're all about like liberal autonomy.
[00:15:22] If it makes you happy.
[00:15:23] ROD: happy,
[00:15:24] WILL: Uh, then what's the problem? The key trick is, can you consent to this? Can they consent
[00:15:29] ROD: do you know?
[00:15:30] WILL: now, so here's the thing. I was thinking about types of aliens, not just would you have sex with them, but can they consent to this? And so I thought one category and one, you know, there are people listing different types of aliens they would have sex with.
[00:15:45] ROD: what is this? Like a litany of holes, makeup holes in cells, what would you put your dick
[00:15:50] WILL: And, and it's like there's the Han Solo version or the, the avatar Prometheus, you know, like the, the not avatar? No, no. Yeah. So avatar like a big blue person and people are like, I can handle a big blue person.[00:16:00]
[00:16:00] ROD: Some of those Avi were pretty damn hot.
[00:16:02] WILL: Or a xenomorph
[00:16:03] ROD: who could be anything you want.
[00:16:04] WILL: No. Xenomorph being the, the alien in alien, like the, the, the face hugger. The ripper rip.
[00:16:09] ROD: not sex.
[00:16:10] WILL: sex. No. No, you're not. I think that I didn't see many people saying yes, I would, I would, I would go there.
[00:16:14] some people said Yes, I'd do the predator. which to me, the predator is cut except for the weird face. Um, not
[00:16:21] ROD: very weird face, not a lot of kissing going on.
[00:16:24] Sorry.
[00:16:24] WILL: Um, but here's, here's my que this is the interesting one. Yeah. You never see, you never see inter, inter human alien kissing in Star Wars.
[00:16:34] Um,
[00:16:34] ROD: no, you
[00:16:35] WILL: They are much more. Well, so I'm, I'm, I'm not canon on Star Wars these days. I have missed a few of the more recent shows, but you never see that. No, but here's the question, Ewok.
[00:16:45] ROD: what would I do in Ewok?
[00:16:46] WILL: No, like is that WW Wouldn't Ewok be able to consent to Sex with a human? I don't believe
[00:16:52] ROD: they, could I be up?
[00:16:54] WILL: because I'm like, I'm like, like you can clearly see the bit where the Ewok is nursing the baby.
[00:16:58] So there's adult ewoks, but I'm like, that is off the chance. Like no thank you. Like
[00:17:02] ROD: no that, well, they're an infantalized species, it's fair to say.
[00:17:06] WILL: but so I, I think
[00:17:07] ROD: interspecies sex with Ewoks is essentially pedophilia. There's no question in my mind.
[00:17:11] WILL: there was a version where I was thinking, okay, there's three types of aliens.
[00:17:15] There's hot, no, no. Well, no. Uh, well, yeah,
[00:17:18] ROD: Different criteria
[00:17:19] WILL: can do, this is a
[00:17:20] ROD: criteria. Different, right.
[00:17:21] WILL: But this one would be aliens that have come to our planet. And so this is old mate, Dave Huggins. Um, he was in the woods and the alien came to him and I'm like, Dave seems okay with that, and I don't want to marginalize his experience.
[00:17:34] No, but. I don't know if he can fully consent to that encounter. Like does he know what he's getting into? Yes. I don't know.
[00:17:42] ROD: Dave did,
[00:17:42] WILL: uh, aliens that we meet mutually out there in space.
[00:17:46] ROD: at the LaGrange point.
[00:17:47] WILL: Yeah, indeed. Or, or out there on Deep Space nine. Or if we go to their planet. and that's like a colonial sort of encounter.
[00:17:55] Like we, they're their Ewok equivalents and I think
[00:17:59] ROD: [00:18:00] fucking Ewok. You went straight to Ewok. Would you root a teddy bear? I'm not telling, I
[00:18:06] WILL: just
[00:18:07] ROD: I'd feel bad
[00:18:08] WILL: just saying like, clearly there are adult ewoks, but there's a, there's something gross and wrong about that,
[00:18:14] ROD: about being a teddy bear.
[00:18:16] WILL: So can we consent? Can, can we consent?
[00:18:20] ROD: Can we, yeah.
[00:18:21] WILL: Can, well, what about diseases that we might catch that might cause problems for a lot more people?
[00:18:26] Do we know what's going
[00:18:27] ROD: That's after you've gotten laid, dude.
[00:18:29] WILL: after you've gotten
[00:18:29] ROD: yeah, exactly. Men's don't
[00:18:31] WILL: so, there you go. Uh, obviously more research is needed to know about the ethical dilemmas of having sex with aliens.
[00:18:37] ROD: So let's be clear. Very hard to research.
[00:18:40] WILL: We could talk to the, well, the people that claim they've had sex with, aliens obviously believe they consented too.
[00:18:45] ROD: different kind of research.
[00:18:47] WILL: Yes, indeed. Indeed. We're
[00:18:48] ROD: talking DSM five and EGS here. I think
[00:18:51] WILL: we can research the ethics of it. And I think, I think a key thing there is, is knowing about consent and, uh,
[00:18:57] ROD: fantasy ethics.
[00:18:59] WILL: Fantasy ethics. There you go. Well, all ethics is fantasies. Like, you know, here's your hypothetical
[00:19:03] ROD: big call.
[00:19:04] WILL: There you go. Big. Cool. There you go.
[00:19:06]
[00:19:07] ALEX: So, um, I just had a, a, an interesting piece that I found about, um, puppies, about dogs.
[00:19:13] WILL: Ah,
[00:19:14] ALEX: So today's dog canine is familiaris or whatever evolved from wolves, right, 20 to 40,000 years
[00:19:21] WILL: We we softened them up.
[00:19:22] ALEX: so some, some wolf roam too close to a human camp and thought the food's fantastic. Here.
[00:19:27] ROD: Turn me into a Labradoodle.
[00:19:29] ALEX: maybe I'll give it a go and then fast forward a bit and humans have just, you know, selectively bred and But, but, um, yeah. But the dogs seem to be evolving at a pretty rapid rate, um, as evidenced by some research into their facial muscles.
[00:19:44] ROD: Oh,
[00:19:44] ALEX: And so,
[00:19:45] WILL: tell me more. 'cause I'm, I'm fascinated in this topic. I haven't read anything in it, but I always wonder if dogs smile.
[00:19:51] ALEX: well this is, more about their eyebrows
[00:19:55] ROD: Oh.
[00:19:56] ALEX: and then a bit more generally about their ability to. Express their [00:20:00] emotions using their evolving facial muscles. So it's been shown that that wolves, uh, sorry, that dogs possess an eyebrow muscle that wolves don't possess that allows them to do puppy dog eyes. So they've evolved this newly functioned specific muscle to do puppy dog eyes because of the manipulative effect it has on their human owners. they've also found that the sheer percentage of fast twitch fibers like fast twitch is obviously fast reaction. Smaller movements sustain for less amount of time. So that's like facial reactions, you know, so you can express your facial reaction second to second basis, slow twitch, eh, your big old like back trunk muscles holding you up all day, big loads, that sort of stuff.
[00:20:38] So wolves, a quarter of the fibers in their face of fast twitch. Today's dog is up around the 66 to 95%
[00:20:47] ROD: Seriously. That's
[00:20:49] ALEX: amounts of fast twitch facial muscle fibers. So huge. Many more emotions are able to be conveyed by puppies to
[00:20:57] ROD: yeah,
[00:20:58] WILL: I've, I've long thought though that, um. Of all species. Like they're the ones that we are choosing to, it's not evolved. I mean, it is a fitness to our environment that we're setting
[00:21:08] ROD: up.
[00:21:09] WILL: But we're, we're, we are breeding them towards something much more than any like cows. Nothing. Yeah. Okay.
[00:21:15] We might choose the fattest cow or the milk iest or something like that, or, or species out there in the wild, like Komodo dragons and stuff like that. Like they're not changing very much.
[00:21:23] ROD: And I'll take a milky Komodo dragon
[00:21:25] WILL: Dogs? Dogs? We are changing so quickly.
[00:21:28] ROD: No, they're changing themselves, man.
[00:21:29] They have self uh, self-determination. Everyone says so.
[00:21:33] WILL: Well.
[00:21:33] ROD: The fast witch is fascinating that.
[00:21:36] WILL: I do think though, you know, it, it is also one of those give it 10,000 years into the future
[00:21:40] ROD: and where the, where the dogs, I
[00:21:42] WILL: don't know about that, but it's like, it's like, who knows? Like accelerated so much in the, in, in the last 200 years and definitely even in the last 30 years, like,
[00:21:53] ROD: I already know all dogs will be some kind of doodle. We are, we've discussed this in
[00:21:56] WILL: don know, or, or post that like it's like the, it's like [00:22:00] the Russian guy that was saying, yeah, I can breed a fox that will have no, it was, I can breed the fish that will have eyes on top of his head or, you know, or the, the fox breeding, fox breeding Russian guy like we have, we have an industry like that that is oriented towards making something that we want.
[00:22:15] Yes. Dogs are evolving towards that as well. And we, we are very, like, it's
[00:22:19] ROD: absolutely. I want a fluffy little thing that lives for about 10 years so I can keep updating it with a new, fluffy little thing that looks me with love and is like a human infant.
[00:22:26] WILL: Yeah. But also then we can communicate with it and
[00:22:30] we Ewok.
[00:22:31] We'll turn 'em into Ewok. 'cause they're off the
[00:22:33] ROD: this is one of your weird sexual
[00:22:35] WILL: No, no, They're off boundary. No one wants sex with Ewoks. No one like Ewoks. No one, no one.
[00:22:39] ROD: As I've told you before, if you can think of it. Someone's into
[00:22:42] WILL: Well, okay. Yes. but dogs will become ewoks. They'll have their own little society and, you're like, it'd be so adorable. you're so adorable. Funny
[00:22:50] ROD: little leather flying
[00:22:51] WILL: fight on our side against the empires.
[00:22:53] ROD: Yeah. You can beat lasers with your rocks.
[00:22:57] WILL: Alright.
[00:22:58] ROD: This is, uh, this is okay because it will keep you safe. I just wanna show you a logo of a company I'm gonna talk about. Is this familiar to you?
[00:23:06] WILL: Staff
[00:23:06] ROD: cop. Staff
[00:23:07] WILL: cop, staff cop. okay. it's either inside an organization, it's like a military police or inside an organization.
[00:23:14] Yeah. Or it's a weird, it's a policing of penises inside some sort
[00:23:18] ROD: of, uh, not staff Cock.
[00:23:20] WILL: no staff. Like
[00:23:21] ROD: Staff cock. Oh, your staff being the, the euphemism
[00:23:24] WILL: for Yeah. I dunno. Like, I just wanted to
[00:23:26] ROD: see if there was something. I'm just gonna show it to Alex. So what I like is the little logo there. I mean, you look at the logo like, is it like a little emoji? Police?
[00:23:33] WILL: dude? It's got
[00:23:34] ROD: a sunglasses. Sunglasses. It's sort of cute but sinister. Yes. That, that
[00:23:38] WILL: be my description. I think that's what most police logos
[00:23:40] ROD: go for, isn't it? Cup but sinister. You know, us. We are just having fun guy. So I was reading a, a book about stuff as I do, 'cause I'm a read stuff. But, um, this thing came up as just an aside, a small example. So staff cop, just to give you, here's what it is. It's employee management software.[00:24:00]
[00:24:00] WILL: Oh,
[00:24:02] ROD: I know it effectively tracks all activities employees in, in a comp in they're company owned computer units up to 25,000 of them. Okay. So big. It apparently is ideal for businesses with strict security policies. Uh, but what's more fun to me, businesses that want to improve employee productivity will also find staff cop
[00:24:24] WILL: greatly better.
[00:24:25] So is this to stop, you know, staff sending out secret files to, uh, rival companies, which I,
[00:24:32] ROD: I get Yeah,
[00:24:32] WILL: know, uh, you know, industrial espionage is a, is certainly a problem, is a thing. And you might, or is it to stop people looking at porn? Or to stop people just slacking off and I get looking at porn is slacking off un unless you're in a porn producing
[00:24:46] ROD: company.
[00:24:46] In which case Yeah.
[00:24:47] WILL: case business.
[00:24:48] ROD: Yeah. But so is it, is it to protect solitaire cheeky files? Is it to not look at porn? Is it to stop slacking off your questions? And the answer
[00:24:55] WILL: is yes. Okay. Yeah,
[00:24:57] ROD: Absolutely yes. So it can monitor the fidelity of files, folders, and emails. So things about, you know, security, which you know, fair enough, some things are commercial in confidence, et cetera.
[00:25:06] It also has specialized tools for activating, for activity monitoring, like screenshot recording, key stroke logging, process monitoring, Skype tracking. This is a few years ago. This, this review and it can monitor employee activity on social network
[00:25:19] WILL: sites.
[00:25:20] ROD: So there are pros and cons, it's fair to say. And I confess because there's so much of this shit out there.
[00:25:27] I went, okay, chat, gimme a summary. So I've got the summary about the pros and cons, and then I went through them and actually double checked. And there's so much material out there. It's very easy. It's a good spread. So here's some pros. Productivity and accountability. So you know, clear performance metrics, that's what we want.
[00:25:43] Managers can see what employees are doing in real time. Reduces slacking. Reduces
[00:25:48] WILL: slacking.
[00:25:49] ROD: I'm already angry. I'm already fucking clenching my teeth and wanting to
[00:25:52] WILL: scream. What if you wanna reduce slacking in your employees? I do not.
[00:25:57] ROD: Slacking is called
[00:25:58] WILL: think time,
[00:25:59] ROD: [00:26:00] Focus on goals. It keeps remote and distributed teams aligned and
[00:26:03] WILL: accountable. Yeah.
[00:26:05] ROD: That security and risk management, data protection, compliance, assurance, incidents, response. So that one, it provides logs and screenshots can be reviewed if there's a breach or misconduct.
[00:26:15] WILL: AKA
[00:26:16] ROD: Tracking everything. Uh, management insights. Mm-hmm. I love these approaches. Workflow analysis. It reveals bottlenecks.
[00:26:24] Inefficiencies or overburdened staff. Yeah. Just to help you. It's just to help you task prioritization. Objective records. That's one of my faves. It's hard data in full quotes to support HR decisions. It's objective. 'cause it's a computer, it's a program. where do we go from here? We've got employee development. shows where employees struggle with task and might need training, highlights, top performers. So you, the data can reveal these hidden
[00:26:49] WILL: stars. So are people
[00:26:50] ROD: this Oh yeah. There, there are fuck
[00:26:53] WILL: Of which companies? Well, I, big companies. Like I, I'm, I, I'm, is it getting done
[00:26:57] ROD: to me.
[00:26:58] WILL: Well,
[00:26:59] ROD: I don't, I doubt it, but I don't know. 'cause it, I'm not sure there are any rules that say you have to be told.
[00:27:05] WILL: Oh,
[00:27:06] ROD: And it goes on and on and on. I mean, like one of my favorites that lets cost saving of course, blah, blah, blah. Peace of mind for employers. Yeah. Well,
[00:27:13] WILL: but the
[00:27:13] ROD: cons, those weren't the cons.
[00:27:16] Privacy and trust. It's intrusive. It could erode. Trust signals that management don't trust staff, which could hurt morale
[00:27:22] WILL: and loyalty. Ah,
[00:27:23] ROD: Can you imagine always being watched.
[00:27:25] WILL: effect. It
[00:27:26] ROD: creates anxiety and stress reduces creativity and natural collaboration. Workplace culture, micromanagement culture, reduced autonomy, resentment of course, managerial dependence over reliance on monitoring.
[00:27:38] So managers might stop engaging with employees directly. They'll just rely on the data. Um, also one of the ones I like a lot is a. There's no context to this. So you just get a bunch of numbers on a screen. You could just get a little table of stuff that talks about whether this
[00:27:50] WILL: person is x contextually I was looking at porn because,
[00:27:54] ROD: calms me and I'm a better worker
[00:27:56] WILL: I'm calm.
[00:27:56] There you go.
[00:27:57] ROD: There you And when I was doing a call to try and sell, what is, I don't know, [00:28:00] printer cartridges. They said, have you seen Gina
[00:28:03] WILL: Yeah, I, I wanted to connect, I wanted to, you know, empathize.
[00:28:07] ROD: in the mind of
[00:28:07] WILL: the, of the, yeah, yeah, exactly. It's basically sales. You
[00:28:10] ROD: know, but look, I just wanna close on this. Don't worry, don't worry. 'cause there's a lot of advice on ethical monitoring,
[00:28:16] WILL: you
[00:28:16] don't have to worry. Is this given by the companies?
[00:28:18] ROD: No, no. This is a, a sideline, a productivity consultant called, uh, Ash
[00:28:22] WILL: Grover.
[00:28:23] ROD: Great name Ash Grover or Mr. Superhero, but actually not also a business process auto automation expert. So you know Ash is the guy, he rates staff cop as the sixth best ethical employee monitoring software tool of 2025. The sixth, obviously the first one. And you would know this, but others might not work status.
[00:28:41] WILL: Yeah.
[00:28:42] ROD: Ethical monitoring is vital for companies. He says without the right tools, they face invading employee privacy, losing trust between bosses and workers problems, following laws and rules and making the workplace unhappy and less friendly. But it's okay 'cause here's a solution and I'm gonna give you the TLDR version in front of everything.
[00:28:59] Or just after everything you say that might or might not be a problem, just add the phrase, ethical
[00:29:03] WILL: monitoring. Just
[00:29:04] ROD: it's ethical. Yeah, so like maintaining trust and fairness will ethically monitor
[00:29:08] WILL: the
[00:29:08] things that might be, look, I, you are railing against this and I, I, and I don't like
[00:29:12] this.
[00:29:12] but I love it.
[00:29:13] I, but you know, you know, you are, you are an old fashioned person from an old fashioned world. You want autonomy
[00:29:19] ROD: fax machine watches
[00:29:20] WILL: me.
[00:29:20] I
[00:29:20] don't think
[00:29:21] ROD: need them.
[00:29:22] WILL: you, you, you want autonomy in your work and you want to do
[00:29:25] a
[00:29:25] good job and bring
[00:29:26] ROD: I don I don't want creativity. I, I want
[00:29:28] WILL: care. I'm sorry.
[00:29:29] The, the workplace is a monitored, uh,
[00:29:32] monitored
[00:29:33] ROD: design, uh, makes me sick.
[00:29:35] Look, the only, the only thing I'll, I'll, I'll say is okay, like, what I admire, particularly in, in horrible monsters and people who want to fuck you up, is honesty. So if they said, look, we're gonna call our software, I don't know, big brother or dear leader, or we'll just call it oral, be a little more subtle.
[00:29:51] Like, just, just be honest about it. We're just gonna watch everything you do. We will judge
[00:29:54] you with
[00:29:55] WILL: or without context. No, no, but this, you're in a contractual situation here. Like this
[00:29:59] ROD: is
[00:29:59] not, this is not,
[00:29:59] WILL: [00:30:00] not on this. No, no. This is not coming into your house.
[00:30:02] And there's plenty of
[00:30:03] ROD: technology doing, is
[00:30:04] WILL: This it not?
[00:30:05] no, but this,
[00:30:06] ROD: this, you imagine Henry Ford, if he had his
[00:30:08] WILL: hands
[00:30:08] on this shit. Yeah, no doubt. But this is, you're in a contractual relationship with your employer, and the employer says, okay, I pay you to answer these emails and not look at porn.
[00:30:17] ROD: And I have never had a contract that says that
[00:30:20] WILL: ever.
[00:30:21] Are you saying, are you saying that people should have, be, be free in their
[00:30:25] ROD: jobs?
[00:30:25] No, no, no, no, no. That's not what I'm saying. What I'm saying is, for starters, in a country like ours, there is so much fat in the system that you can afford for people to be dumb and hopeless.
[00:30:34] WILL: Yeah. I was just a bit worried where you were going. There's so much fat in the system. That sounds like a, a neoliberal, let's chop, chop, chop.
[00:30:39] ROD: But you were going, I'm gonna the reverse Keep, keep, keep this. Yeah. This is an example of our wealth and prosperity. Okay. Fair enough. We're the lucky, happy country because like, you're a blushing shit and you get 95,000 bucks a year.
[00:30:48] WILL: Good
[00:30:48] for you, champ. I mean, sh don't, don't, don't tell. I mean, don't, no, I meant the, I mean, sh don't tell the bludging shit. Bit
[00:30:56] ROD: Like, but like, I think it's okay. But what bothers me more is that the fucking sinister garbage. look, I, I take your point, but I don't like it because then you know this and you're just being a, a troll because, you know, most people are monsters if they have power except for
[00:31:08] us.
[00:31:09] And what I love about is the, the, the language of this, like the, the fricking framing is we're protecting you. It's the classic. Like we're just worried that you could be better and we're not recognizing how good you are. That's why we wanna get all the
[00:31:21] WILL: yeah, yeah, yeah. So, so, so you don't, you don't want them to say You're all shits and you're gonna steal our secrets, and we're stopping you from
[00:31:27] ROD: stealing our secrets.
[00:31:27] I'm not worried about that. Of course you shouldn't. But I don't. It's just, it's sinister and it's garbage
[00:31:32] WILL: and I hate it.
[00:31:34] ROD: But, you know, thanks to
[00:31:35] WILL: starve God for
[00:31:36] ROD: a little bit of
[00:31:36] WILL: Oh, modern world. Modern world.
[00:31:38] ROD: moment they come to us and say, we wanna sponsor you, I will of course, acquiesce immediately and put my key straight logger on, on full
[00:31:43] WILL: power.
[00:31:43]
[00:31:47] WILL: Well, that was your little bit of science for the week.
[00:31:50] ROD: holiday edition. You're special by the pool wearing a bikini edition.
[00:31:53] WILL: But because you're on holiday, you know that you still have the power to give us the rating that you need [00:32:00] to give us. Yeah,
[00:32:00] ROD: seven stars on every app. Even things that don't do podcasts.
[00:32:03] Yeah.
[00:32:04] WILL: Go out there and write it on like a recipe app
[00:32:06] ROD: an Uber and Yelp. Is it Yelp still a thing?
[00:32:08] WILL: I think so. I'm
[00:32:09] ROD: I don't know. I'm at a restaurant where Don't ye
[00:32:11] WILL: listener, if you've got some topics that you want us to explore,
[00:32:15] ROD: tell Will.
[00:32:16] WILL: How would you tell Will his
[00:32:17] ROD: number is? 0 4 0 5 oh. Uh, cheers. At a little bit of science Do com
[00:32:24] WILL: au.
[00:32:24] ROD: au
[00:32:25] WILL: Do that. We want your stories.
[00:32:27] ROD: we wanna hear from you.
[00:32:28] WILL: Lovely listener. Enjoy the pina colada.
[00:32:31] ROD: Oh and the
[00:32:32] WILL: col. Pin colada.
[00:32:34] ROD: Pini Kaia Pina Pia
[00:32:35] WILL: Pina Kaia of
[00:32:36] ROD: of the Clade
[00:32:37] WILL: Penai. Cate.
