Episode 558: Zone Time

**Yung Chomsky** (0:00)
The main thing is what we call schedules of reinforcement. Reinforcement is what the layman calls reward, and you can schedule it so that a reward occurs every now and then when a pigeon does something. We usually use a response with a pigeon pecking a little disk, a little spot on the wall, and you can reinforce with food. But you don't reinforce every time, you're every, perhaps every tenth time, or perhaps only once every minute, or something like that. There are a very large number of schedules, and they have their special effects. And there is a good example of how you can move from the pigeon to the human case, because one of the schedules is very effective with the raptor pigeons, is what we call the variable ratio schedule, and that is at the heart of all gambling devices, and has the same effect. The pigeon can become a pathological gambler just as a person can.

**Brace Belden** (1:14)
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Players Club.
I'll be your host, your dealer for this evening, your croupier, Brace Belden. And I'll be your server of... No, what is it? Luck ambassador. A little luck ambassador.

**Yung Chomsky** (1:31)
Yeah, I'll be your luck ambassador, Yung Chomsky.

**Brace Belden** (1:32)
Here to whisk you away to a beautiful Tomahawk steak for one, perhaps a buffet made up only of various kinds of crab legs of... Not too frightening sizes, but you know, because when the crab legs get too big, you're like, what monster did this come off of? Yeah. These are the kind of things we think about here in Las Vegas. At the Players Club. At the Players Club. Well, we have relocated this podcast because Liz, you know what? If she's doing it remote, we can do this from Vegas. The legal regime is slightly more friendly to some of our special... Extracurricular acts, some of the new merchandise that we're selling here.
I did have the idea to record a podcast in the new casino that opened up here. Where is that?
I don't really remember. I think it's in Brooklyn, right? What have they got? Is there a theme? They got all the games. I like it when they, like Natasha goes on to say later, when they have some kind of, it's like, oh, it's the rainfall or the Venetian. You've been there? Yeah. You look up, I was there on mushrooms and it was like a real experience. You've been to Vegas?

**Natasha Dow Schüll** (2:40)
I spent way too much time in Vegas quite some years ago.

**Brace Belden** (2:44)
Why? Because I was planning a tour with my band at the time, and my bass player in that band was a poker pro living in Vegas. So I camped in Vegas for, not literally, but for three months booking this tour. You lived in Vegas for three months? It was a dark period.

**Natasha Dow Schüll** (3:00)
It was in the summer too.

**Brace Belden** (3:01)
Were you up? No.
At the end of this tour, I certainly was not. Did you gamble? You didn't gamble? I didn't gamble. Spoiler alert, he says that later in the episode. I gambled on my band and lost quite a lot. Really? Yeah. This is the thing. That means you're not a real player, right? That means you're somebody who's out there, you're rolling the dice, but the player always wins. Yeah. Win or lose, you win. You know what I'm saying? That's what makes a real player. That's what makes a real player.
I've been to Reno way more than I've been to Vegas. I've been to Reno. But we went to Reno together. Yeah. You didn't gamble there? No, but I shot guns. Yeah, that was awesome. I shot a P90, dude. That was fun. I think it was a P90. I think I took pictures of that. Yeah, we shot something. I can't remember something in 300 Blackout. They make guns so quiet now. You shot a Galil, which you- Don't say that. Which you have a lot of experience with from your time. No, I wasn't. It's not a Galil. It's just the same, but it is many similar mechanisms to an AK.
I think they use that and the Indians use that, no? The Indians have their own domestically produced rifle.

**Yung Chomsky** (4:17)
India is also lying.

**Brace Belden** (4:19)
It's true. It's very much also lying.
Maybe I'll just do this myself and spare it for you, but I wanted to spend an entire night on the floor of the casino down here. What do you think you're going to find there? Listen, we have Natasha on this episode. I gotta be honest, it's kind of my dream job. I don't want to do all the stuff that you have to do to get to that job, but I do want it to be my job where I just go and talk to people at the casino. You just want to hang out. Yeah, I want to hang out.