Episode 2750 CWSA 02/14/25

I guess it's uh just about time for a show you are so punctual good work on that the stock markets up a little bit Tesla's down nvidia's up now let's get our comments going here soon as we got comments we got a show there they are good morning everybody and welcome to the highlight of human civilization Valentine's Day Edition I don't think you get any better than this but if you want to try you can take this experience up to possibly levels that nobody can even understand with their tiny shiny human brain and for that all you need is a cuper m a glass of tanker chel Ain a Cen Jugger flask a vessel of any kind fill it with your favorite liquid I like coffee join me now for the unparallel pleasure the dopamine here the day the thing that makes everything better it's called simultaneous zip that's right go oh that's so good so good all right people let's see what's in the news today besides Valentine's Day everybody got big plans for Valentine's Day yeah me neither you know uh it's not optimal to not be in a relationship but at the same time it does save a lot of effort on Valentine's Day it's hard to get Valentine's Day wrong but uh given this Valentine's Day you might be interested that Gwyn pelt's company it's called goop that's the name of her company goop they're selling a sex pillow $200 H $200 for a sex pillow now I think the pillow is meant to give you extra control during sex with another person however there's no prohibition against having sex with the pillow itself if you don't have a partner so partner no partner the pillow can fill in uh the only question I have is how do you get the goop off the pillow sorry that whole thing was just a set up for that bad joke that's all it was put it on your mind you can't sell a sex pillow and call your company goop and then let me just ignore that I'm not going to ignore that no no that's a responsibility as a professional humorist I have to I have to comment on that well there's a a fascinating news study in s poost Eric Dolan is writing uh you you'll never guess this but thanks to science we know this now there's a study that suggests that the Afterglow of sex can boost your relationship satisfaction for at least 24 hours while and here's the surprising part while sexual rejection creates negative effects for several days huh huh I wonder how many people they had to survey to get that answer because if it was more than one guy they worked a little too hard just go to any guy uh do you feel better about your partner after you've just had sex yes uh how do you feel when your partner rejects you for sex terrible and we're done here if you can find even one man who says you know I kind of like it when she rejects me for sex and it's kind of creepy when we have a good sex no never happened next time just ask me I can save you a lot of time well according to the Federalist and John lot Jr is writing um he says that the FBI doesn't just have a transparency problem they're actually distorting data now what kind of data would the FBI want to distort it's weird isn't it why would they distort data well here's an example um the the data about how many how many situations are solved by citizens who have guns very political if it turns out that it's rare that a citizen could stop a crime or save any lives with their own personal handgun if it's rare well that would be maybe a strong argument for not having guns some would say I wouldn't say that but if the number of people or the percentage of time that people with a handgun kept a crime or a murder from happening if that was a big percentage well that would really change everything wouldn't it well it turns out that the FBI was reporting that uh only about 4% of the time the person with the handgun makes a difference the real number according to whoever the cprc is is closer to 35 to 40% 35 to 40% of the time if somebody has a personal handgun it stops a crime or prevents somebody from getting killed except maybe the per so remember what I told you that the I told you something that is really hard for anybody to accept the first time they hear it and it goes like this all data that matters and the the matters part is important all data that matters is fake and it has to be it's not an accident it's because the people who control the data always have an interest always and so they just shave the data and change the assumptions and decide what source to use and which one not to use until they get the right answer it's always the foxes counting the chickens if you're going to have the foxes count the chickens don't tell me that it's accurate who who who trusts the foxes to count the chickens no it's never accurate the the only stuff that's accurate is when nobody really cares one way or the other then it might be accurate even that's probably sketchy so a perfect example of that even the FBI faking data or at least choosing the data they like well according to a Irish study the Irish examiner Shan Murray is reporting that the methods that they tested to reduce people's belief and conspiracy theories have no effect now if I hear that a bunch of researchers tried to deprogram people from their conspiracy theories and it didn't work you know the first thing I think is well whose method did they use what was it a professional Persuader who tried to talk people out at their conspiracy theories or was it somebody who doesn't know how to do it if if you put me in the study and said all right we're going to see if Scott specifically can talk people under of their um conspiracy theories I think you'd find that I would do better than average because it's something I've studied right I'm a specifically I'm I'm a trained hypnotist and I write about and talk about and use persuasion all the time so in theory if it could be done at all I'd be a little better at it than a person who doesn't practice but there's a bigger problem did you see it what's the bigger problem when you're running a study to see if you can talk people out of believing conspiracy theories there sort of a built-in problem it kind of assumes that the researchers know what is true and what isn't and you know what how do they know how do they know what's true because if they had the wrong opinion their own research showed that they wouldn't know it because you couldn't talk out of it so if the researchers thought something was true that wasn't or something was untrue that was true how would they know since that their own research showed you can't change anybody's mind if they're wrong about a conspiracy theory so it looks like nonsense to me total nonsense um there's here's a few stories in a row that kind of make a picture so Fox News is reporting David Spectre is writing there's a former Marvel executive you know the Marvel superhero uh universe so the Marvel executive is suing Disney because he was allegedly denied a promotion for being an old white guy now here's the fun part the reason he knows he was denied a promotion for being an old white guy is they said we can't promote you because you're an old white guy they told him directly so lawsuit now here's what black Americans have never understood about um what you call I don't know Reverse Racism or just racism I guess they don't believe that when white men are told they can't be promoted and this has been true for decades because remember it was you know decades ago that I was told in direct language you're a white male you cannot be promoted here and then I changed companies and next company told me this same thing direct words not no beating around the bush said it just that directly this has been happening all over the country for decades and the white men just don't talk about it in public because if they do you know what happens the black men call them mediocre said no you're lying you didn't get the promotion because you're a mediocre white man that's what happened to me yeah the the the black citizens poured into my comments and say well no you're lying they didn't tell you that directly you just are sore because you didn't get the pro promotion because you're a mediocre white man in other words they were really racist all right uh meanwhile attorney general uh Missouri attorney general is uh Andrew belly is suing Starbucks because they have some kind of a a uh race and sex based hiring practice which would be of course illegal so so now you've got Disney which just actively discriminating against white men you've got Starbucks being sued for actively discriminating against white men and then you've got Goldman Sachs that just decided to scrap its policy that said it wouldn't help take a business public if they had an all-white board members so they said you you got to have some diversity and you got to have at least one woman on the board or we won't work with you which is of course racial discrimination and gender discrimination and U the good news is that they changed so they're not going to be that way but here's the bad news I'm not going to forget that if you think you can just change from discriminating against white men to not no I'm not going to forget it you know I don't have any business to do with Goldman Sachs but every one of you you can you can drop dead all right Adam Cora is talking about uh the progress in cleaning up the LA fires guess what the progress is in cleaning up the LA fires and getting rid of the debris and moving people back in doesn't appear to be any according to Adam Corola uh who's got a house there he says remarkably no progress has been made in the clean up oh no his actually words are a quote zero attempt at cleaning now over a month no cleanup attempt no official government website you can go to for any kind of timeline when the power is going to be on when can you get when can you get back to your place the answer is no GD idea now let's compare that this is California's performance now let's compare that to Doge doge is already spinning up a website in which they will be reporting everything they're doing it's all going to be there it's already it's already up so Doge consistently does the thing you expect and want them to do and California seems to only be able to fail it's like we don't have as a state we have no capability of doing anything and I think it's always the same problem I think it's the the state just necessarily needs to inject eject corruption into every big move and cleaning up La is a big move they probably are just holding out for diversity and getting their their cronies the jobs and figuring out some way to monetize this for the government itself so I don't trust anything about the California government they have they have not earned any trust I assume that the reason it's not happening rapidly is just pure corruption uh it could be incompetence well bet it's corruption and the corruption is they're trying to f figure out okay how are we going to make it look like it's not corruption all it is I think that's probably what's slowing him down I have no trust whatsoever in my state government well here's a story that I seem to wake up to every single day it's like Groundhog Day here's the story there's a federal judge who blocked something that Doge wants to do how many times has that story been in the headline how many s has some judge done that so here's what it should say presumed crooked judge blocks Doge progress now we don't know that they're all crooked but it seems like it takes about a minute to figure out that somebody bought their bought their uh appointment or their daughter or their wife is working on something with usaid or there's just some nefarious connection or they've got a history of being you know a rogue judge these are not normal judges and one of the things that uh Elan mus says is if if any judge anywhere can stop anything that Doge does doesn't matter where the judges anywhere in the country he says you don't really have a government if any judge anywhere can stop really be stopping Trump the president and that's a good point how how can we have a government when people who were not elected you know these appointed judges I think mostly they're appointed um can stop anything from happening and they can just keep doing it all day long so somehow we have to figure out how to get Freedom From The Crooked judges um destroying the reputation seems like a good start but only but only if it uh is honestly destroyed as if if they have a conflict of interest they're not admitting to and not recusing themselves yeah you have you have to go after that pretty hard so I don't know what can be done but we can't run a country if corrupt judges can stop everything you just can't so I would I would love to hear an alternative like what can you can't really you can't even impeach them because you need two-thirds and there's no way you you're going to get that so I don't know um Governor Nome made a what's being called an about face according to the New York Post so California governor um he's ready to veto a bill that's coming from his own party that would force uh the prison system in California to um it would keep them from cooperating with ice or the immigration people so there is a bill in California that says the prison system can't coordinate with the people who want to deport um the non-documented immigrants but the good news is nome's going to say no now is that because he's preparing to run for president and he's just trying to look like he's a little bit interested in the Border that's what it looks like because otherwise I thought he was all in on spending $50 million to you know Trump proof the state but if instead of Trump proving it is making it easier for the immigration people I don't know now I will uh uh I have the I have the voice of Mike CERN Vision in my head reminding us not to say good things about uh Democrats who can't be trusted whatsoever even if they get one right so don't be too excited if a Democrat gets one right it doesn't mean anything you know you you still can't have them in charge well of course RFK Jun got sign got uh um fully nominated he got approved he got all the votes he needed it was tight but JD Vance made up the difference and uh he's in um what did uh Schumer say about that so Chuck Schumer goes in public Kelly means pointed this out that uh he goes in public and he says just minutes before the vote for RFK Jr.

Schumer said um that RFK wasn't qualified because she was never a pharmaceutical or insurance company executive as the other former health and H Human Services secretaries were uh did he really say that in public he said in public that the head of the chicken coup should be a fox really uh we'd like to put a fox in charge of the chicken Coupe no no maybe not don't put the fox in charge maybe somebody who is exactly the opposite of a pharmaceutical or insurance company executive like RFK Jr yeah how about the opposite of that is there anything that Democrats can get right they actually are on record wanting somebody who would be the worst choice you know even generically somebody who was a for executive that's the the problem not the solution he can't tell the difference between the problem and the solution no that's the problem that they're too connected to Pharma weird all right um here's a thing I didn't know about did you know that uh president Trump appointed RFK Jr's um daughter-in-law to to be part of the president's intelligence Advisory Board now that's interesting because um amarillis Fox Kennedy is her name in middle name Fox she's a former CIA officer she left in 2010 because she was disillusioned by the corruption within the CIA now how much do you love the fact that somebody who is disillusioned by the corruption of the CIA is now on Trump's presidential intelligence Advisory Board I like it she must know where the bodies are buried I like it right so that's good news and she wants massive intelligence reform well Trump's going to put on the reciprocal tariffs today I assume he's also doing some targeted ones um but it's a little unclear so the reciprocal tariffs are that if any company or any country is tariffing us uh he will tariff them back in the same exact amount now I don't know if that really works because usually they pick our you know tariffs are usually strategic to an industry where there's some imbalance in the industry so I don't know if that works but on paper it makes sense um and I think uh Dana Pino said this on the five that the whole tariff thing we don't as individuals we probably don't know where it's going but it's going to be real fun to watch so that's kind of where I'm at I'm like H reciprocal tariffs and then I I searched my brain bank for whether that's a good idea or a bad idea and I end up with I don't know I don't know you know I I know a little bit about economics and business I mean that's my educational background but I don't know I have no idea where that ends up but I do like he's pushing the button I do like is messing with it so something probably could come out of it one of the things that Trump does right and just consistently right is he'll shake the box when there's something that's not quite working doesn't mean he knows how to solve it but shaking the box is usually the best first thing so this reciprocal tariffs everybody gets a tariff you're not exempt that's a pretty big box shake so it might turn into a bunch of little negotiations with countries that maybe give us some Advantage Maybe not maybe it's all we need maybe just keep us simple you tear off us we tear a few end the story I don't know so uh I'm gon wait and see on this one could be good meanwhile the house budget now this is the budget um that's been pushed forward by the house the Senate still has to weigh in but it's a $4.5 trillion budget and it extends the 2017 tax cuts for 10 years I like that part um and it's going to be uh let's see the but it also increases the debt ceiling by $4 trillion so does that mean that the debt is going to go up $4 trillion or are they just thinking ahead and it might be you know one trillion per year which would still be bad um but it might get to four trillion so all this work with Doge but at the same time we're looking at raising the debt ceiling by 4 trillion can anybody explain what's going on here because I don't understand and again I'm somebody who watches news every single day you know I like dive into things pretty deeply I have no idea no idea what's going on here but it doesn't look good um it says they they would try to get their congressional committees to find at least 1.5 trillion in spending cuts really are those committees going to do something that Doge isn't doing how does any of this fit in with Doge are the Doge numbers already baked into these estimates or do they fix them later when when the Doge Cuts become you know more uh let's see more transparent and we know what's going on this doesn't make sense it looks to me and I'd love to be wrong but it looks to me like Republicans are going to drive up the deficit and that they know it and that they've just all agreed to do it what world am I living in now I you know the first time I brought this up I got a little heated about it but I decided let me let me back off a little bit I want to see what Elon says because he's better at math than I am if musk says yeah you know the budget that they passed out the house makes sense because if you consider the Doge Cuts everything's going to work out maybe I I would love to hear him say that but so far correct me if I'm wrong Elon Musk has been silent on this has he not I haven't seen a I haven't seen a comment if musk is silent about about the budget that the Republicans have passed that could only mean one thing because musk is not silent on anything that is big and matters and what would matter more than this I mean if you're working on cost cutting and then the Republicans are worth are working on making it all a waste of time because they spent the money you saved this is what I think's going on I fear that Congress is so broken that when they hear that uh musk can find a way to cut a trillion dollars out of the budget instead of saying yes let's bank that reduction and that'll reduce our deficit here's what I think I think our politicians both Republican and Democrats say oh we just got another trillion dollars and then they got to spend it which is the opposite the opposite of what you should be doing but that's what it looks like it looks like they're taking the Doge Cuts as a way to spend money on other things in the same amount as the cuts now I'm just saying it looks like it I'm not saying that it is so can somebody in the government who's good at explaining stuff could be JD Vance could be Elon Musk could be you know vake if he's if he's dug into it enough I want somebody smart to give me a whiteboard and say this is what we're going to spend this is what we're going to cut here's how Doge Works into it here's your your deficit for one year and then this is the deficit as it will go forward you need to tell us that because correct me if I'm wrong if I don't understand it as much time as I put into understanding things like this and and I have a background in this domain if I can't understand it there's no way that the the average you know barely interested person understands it so yeah we need we need some help on this one please so I'm going to give a little grace period and I'm going to I'm going to back off of my heated cursing anger over this because I might be wrong I might be wrong it's happened before so I'd love to find out I am well John Bolton is in the news I love the fact that once you know the players then when they talk everything makes sense but not until you know the players so John Bolton says that Trump is a Russian agent working for the Kremlin or at least he acts like it he acts like a Russian agent working for the Kremlin and maybe he is it would have surprised you to know that John Bolton used to be involved in usaid there there are no coincidences yeah Bolton was part of usaid um or he got funded by it or somehow he was involved with it so how many of you think that Trump is an agent of the Kremlin I don't think so well one of the things that Trump's getting done is that the military uh in anticipation of Jo Doge coming for them are putting together their own list of things to cut now I don't trust it I don't trust it but it's interesting that they're get trying to get ahead of it so apparently there's some weapon systems that even the military thinks they don't need you know that might be outdated or whatever and so they're putting together a list of outdated drones and vehicles and things that you could cut billions of dollars to now I think it's a trick because they might want to be trying to head off Doge it's like oh Doge yeah you you don't really need to dig into this we we've already done the work for you uh thanks for setting us on the right track uh we've already found 20 billion dollars to cut out of the B budget we're good but Doge might find a lot more than 20 billion so I don't trust the military finding their own Cuts because it's never worked before it's probably probably more of a trick than an actual you know good thing but we'll see so the uh the Trump administration's buyout offer to get rid of government workers uh I think they were hoping to get 100,000 people to sign up for the early early package to leave their work um but they got 75,000 so far I don't know if the window closed yet but 75,000 that's pretty good if if you're shooting for 100 and you get 75 that's really good because how in the world could you estimate how many people will take an offer it if you estimated it this well you said 100 and you got 75 that's pretty impressive I don't know if you if you've never done this kind of work where you're estimating things that are impossible to estimate this is kind of impressive if you got within 25,000 so that's good um that's reported by Dylan Burrows at rsbn um but the other thing the Trump Administration is doing is getting rid of what they call the prob probationary employees so I guess if you get a job with the government I don't know if this applies to the whole government but you're on a firste prob probationary period so if you don't work out in the first year then I guess it's easier to fire you so after the first year there might be some protections that kick in make it harder so they make sure that the first year you got plenty of time to find out if you're bad at your job and they can get rid of you but the Trump Administration will use that same um the same fact to find the people who just Jo joined and they're typically the easiest to fire for a variety of reasons now you might say to me Scott the reason they hired these people is because they needed them yes that's true and let me say again the Doge process does assume that they will cut too much it's just built into the process it's not a mistake if they cut too much it's the process so the only way you can tell what really matters is to get rid of it and see how loud the yelling is there is no other way if you think you can study it and then scientifically and surgically get rid of only the important stuff you know you're you're only removing the tumor but the the the healthy skin around it is left intact that's not a thing that's not a thing nobody can do that it's just not doable and no company would do that they would do exactly what elon's doing they would cut too far too far and too fast and then when the yelling started they say whoa whoa what' you say and they'd listen to it and if they had a good argument they put it back let let me tell you what happened when I was working for Crocker National Bank in San Francisco and it was a about the time that the um Wells Fargo was doing a takeover so Wells Fargo was going to take over that bank now it happened to be just by luck that that's that was one of the times I got told that I could never be promoted because I'm a white white male so I had just quit just at the same time that Wells Fargo bought my former employer and what they told all the employees because I stayed in touch of course what they told all the employees is don't worry about losing your job because we're going to look at each individual employee and each individual duplication of effort because two Banks if you put two Banks together you have all kinds of duplication so they said don't worry if you're one of the good ones you'll be still with the combined uh entity but you'd only have to worry if you're bad at your job so that made it easy because everybody thinks they're good at their job so nobody complained in advance too much because they're like oh well I'll be fine because I'm good at my job so then the the transaction goes through do you know what the first thing Wills faru did after the transaction was complete they simply eliminated completely everybody working in the duplicate duplicate areas of the company they bought all of them they got rid of all of them and they just said we already have people who do that and we're the winning company we're the company that bought you you're the company that got bought the company that got bought you just lost all of your duplicated stuff you're all unemployed and will just keep all of our people so it was a complete lie it was a big lie super lie but but some of us were smart enough to know they're not going to be able to talk to every employee and sort out which ones to keep and then combine these two weird apart departments that aren't exactly the same of course they're just going to fire the people in the acquired Bank of course they are and sure enough now it didn't didn't bother me because like I said I just left to another company but uh yeah there's only one way to do this you cut too far you make Dr it cuts and then you adjust if you need to no other way to do it um and it's also common to get rid of first first year employees That's Not Unusual well uh Trump has again um got outside of the box when he's talking about the uh military budget and he suggested that the US Russia and China could possibly all agree to cut our mutual budgets by half now the first time you hear that you just laugh at it go okay you're not going to nobody can convince their adversary to cut their budget by half and you're certainly not going to convince China who would like to become the dominant world power militarily economically in every other way you're not going to get them to cut their budget right that's the same thing I thought when Trump said let's make Canada a state and I said to myself okay that's not real he's just playing with them you know maybe it's a negotiation you know maybe he would like to do it but you know clearly that's never going to happen but already it looks like it's possible the candidate becoming a 51st state I still wouldn't bet on it if I had to bet I'd bet against it but watching it go from a ridiculous idea to huh how would that work you know I'm a little bit interested and then it turns out I I don't know how official this is but I I have it on good authority that if you're not looking at the politicians and you're talking to the public there's a lot of openness in the Canadian public because Trump says there would be benefits for you I could lower your taxes tariffs would go away you'd be well protected and the Canadians are looking at their own government and saying okay under normal circumstances this would just be insulting under normal circumstances but they can see that their own government is so toxic that whatever it took to get rid of their own government looks like a good deal become a state yeah if we can get rid of this government because the government is destroying us so Trump took the Canada 51st state from the most ridiculous idea that maybe you've heard in 10 years to already it's huh I don't know maybe we should flesh this out a little bit what exactly would it look like you maybe we should do some kind of a suggest some kind of a poll in Canada to get some real numbers see how close we are that now to me that's that's just mindblowing it's just mindblowing that that could go from crazy ridiculous to maybe I don't know wouldn't rule it down and so that's the context in which I give you Trump saying that you could reduce the military budget of the three big Powers first impression come on they're not going to do that that'd be ridiculous here's my second impression because I'm already up to my second impression if you wanted to do something really big there's never been a better opportunity so I'm going to throw out just some ideas these are the bad ideas so nothing I say should be taken too seriously it's just to get your mental process maybe working at a different level the weird thing about Russia China and the United States that I think makes it us all unique is not one of those countries would ever want to attack the mainland of one of the other countries China would never want to attack Russia or the United States United States would never want to attack Mainland Russia like with an invasion or something or mainland China it would be crazy now has that ever been true in history I don't know that it has where we have a situation where you you know the only border is China and Russia and I don't see any chance that either one of them wants to change that border there's that's not even a conversation so what happens if you've got three powers that coincidentally all have the same problems this is where it gets fun all three countries have the same problems one is demographic China's got a big demographic lots of old people not enough young people it's almost unsolvable it's like a you know Doom heading their way United States much the same we've got that demographic problem Russia demographic problem so we've got a bunch of countries that are going to have severe economic problems and you could argue that we all three already do it's it's harder for us to know exactly what's happening in Russia or China because the information is not reliable but there's good reason to think that they might have as much debt problems as we do growth problems as we do we might be in very similar situation the only thing you need is a common enemy what if you had a common enemy that's really the only way you can get adversaries on the same page common enemy and you know how uh Trump started out with when he talked to Putin he said yeah we talked about the history of World War II which was the the cleanest example of Russia and the United States being on the same team for a while and it worked out saved the world in a sense so if we could find a way to be in the same team there might be something here it might not be crazy so imagine if we could say this and again the these are not good ideas so when you jump on me and say but you forgot this you forgot that I know I know these are not good ideas it's just to sort of deepen the thought suppose Trump said to the the other big countries how about this forget about the United Nations why don't the three of us agree that we will never under any circumstance uh invade or attack the homeland of the other now I think they would all say yes yes if there's any way we can make that happen yes we will never attack the Homeland all of our problems are about smaller countries there's Taiwan there's Ukraine you know there are other countries on the border of Russia probably some other areas in the border of China and then the US has its own interests you know Greenland and Panama and maybe Canada and could it be that they could reach an agreement now this will scare you but could it be that we'd reach an agreement where we'd say all right all of the remaining property disputes let's just settle them right now let's just say if taiwan's your next door neighbor and there's no doubt where it's going in thew long run why don't we just say all right Taiwan is yours no not today not today the very minimum we need to do is get the the chip making facilities out in Taiwan but suppose suppose we said why don't we make a 100-year plan and that at the end of a 100 years Taiwan and China will be the same country because in 100 years there's going to be you know Ai and changes and robots and who knows if the chips will even be made there anymore and everything will be different so nobody really worries about a 100 years but suppose you just say to China we don't want to fight you but if you go in and and get rid of our chip access we have to so let's just take it off the table let's just say for a 100 years we absolutely will not fight over Taiwan and at the end of 100 years you guys work it out you know I'm I'm not saying that it gets absorbed but you guys work it out in 100 years now again it's not a great idea it's not a great idea I'm just helping you think it through then suppose we said uh each of us have our own interests so why don't we just take care of our most local interests so we'd say you guys don't fight with us over Greenland or Panama and China maybe should you know put a smaller footprint on South America because Monroe document you know the Monroe do I mean says you know this this is sort of our domain over here but in return we'll we'll stay out of your business as long as it doesn't go you know crazy in Taiwan too soon and then you say to Russia all right what's your biggest problem now here's the trust problem you know you think they're going to try to take over all their neighbors and of course they might so could you say how about if we can just at least solve Ukraine and agree not to move NATO any closer how if we do that could you get a deal on that maybe maybe you'd have to do something to make sure they didn't use uh you know uh their their uh let's say they're clever ways to take over the governments that they want to take over on their borders but I feel like if you if you made it zero risk of them being attacked by NATO which you could do I think I think you can get down to it if you can get down to zero risk that NATO wants to attack you then suddenly their need to control the other countries goes way down goes way down so could you do some big deal where you just settle everything at the same time and some of them just have a a long-term plan and others maybe don't need a long-term plan now then you say look we also have a common enemy now I hate to put it in those terms but uh because I'm not talking about Islam in general because there are plenty of moderate excellent Islamic people but the radical version of Islam which can spread if you let it is a mutual risk to all three of the big countries so China Russia and the United States all have an interest in keeping the radicalized part of Islam controlled so you say to them we work together to take care of that and we also do something to work together to worry about our demographic problem perhaps maybe something about our debt problems that are the same and the best way to get rid of your debt problems would be to reduce your military spending by half so as crazy as it is to imagine that we would negotiate with adversaries about cutting their budget for the military you know and you you'd expect both sides would cheat and they would hide their budget in secret places so it looked like they cut it but they didn't you know that's that would be a real problem but could you get to the point where where China Russia and the United States feel like they're on the same team meaning that if China destroyed the United States they would lose their biggest customer but they would also lose the their ability to control external risks such as radical Islam um could you find a way that we just feel like we're the the three Horsemen of the future and that um we do have a responsibility to keep the smaller countries operating and make sure that we all have access to resources as needed you know in the free market sense and maybe the the old United States that was very colonizing and we like to control other countries um as Mike Ben says you know if you don't control the small countries you can't make pencils because we don't make pencils in the United States just one example so you have to sort of control of markets so you have access to the raw materials what if we didn't what what if the the world has changed and you don't need to overthrow a country just have access to their minerals you just make an offer if China has a better offer they get it if we have a better offer we get it but maybe we say if it's in if it's in our universe over here maybe you guys can't be part of that but there should be places where everybody can get everything you know you can get your raw materials for anything so question is can Trump do something that big and I'll just remind you that things that didn't seem possible before suddenly look a lot possible now I'll tell you what the uh the bad guy guys are saying about Trump talking to Russia they're already saying oh he's he's a Russian puppet you know sort of the John Bolton thing uh he's uh if he they're already saying about Ukraine that if Trump decides that the current Borders or what will be the final borders and that NATO doesn't um include Ukraine in the future that would look like giving Russia everything they want which would look like Putin winning which would embolden him you don't want to embolden your adversary and I say that's the wrong frame I don't care if Putin thinks he won I only care what I want why do I care what other people want I care what I want what I want is the Ukraine uh War to be over so that you know there's no argument about the Border countries we're not sending you money nobody's dying that's what I want um if we decide that NATO will not include Ukraine that's what I want I want that so why are we talking about pu what Putin wants let's just get what we want everybody who's talking about Putin winning and getting everything he wants why are you even care what he wants other than negotiating but your happiness can be disconnected from his happiness I just want what I want I want to be out of this war and not pay for it I don't care about the rest not really so yeah the first reframe is don't care what Putin feels he won or didn't win you only just just get what you want as a as a taxpayer anyway I guess uh there's some fake news in the Wall Street Journal somebody saying suggesting the advance means that under some conditions the uh the US military would get involved in Ukraine what Vance did say was that uh all options are on the table which we always say right so I think that was taken out of context all options on the table is just what we always say because it makes sense to we say it it doesn't mean we want to put military there that's not going to happen anyway um according to the Daily Mail Health and Human Resources spent 22.6 billion giving migrants cars homes and credit cards from 2020 to 2024 cars homes and credit cards now I think what that means is it helped them get home loans uh made it legal for them to own a car maybe there's some financial help stuff like that um but it looks like they uh yeah looks like they were putting America last if you know what I mean but here's what I would caution you um I think we've seen already that some of the early claims about who spent money on what have been so easily debunked for example the condoms to Gaza really condoms to mosm Beek now I agree that we should cut it no matter where it was going but the original report had even the wrong country which is a pretty big deal um and you know it goes from giving condoms to terrorists to helping reduce the spread of AIDS in a country that doesn't have the resources to help itself I mean that's a pretty big difference to know where where it was aimed at um but again you know I would be against that asending either way and uh let's see we saw the the Reuters story there was a story that Reuters was being paid by our government for uh massive information deception that they use different words but was something was right on right on the invoice and people jumped to the assumption that we were paying to have Reuters brainwash people I think the real story was that Reuters was being paid or some some element with the name Reuters somebody said it's a different company then reuter is the news agency but it might be the same parent company I'm not clear on that but the but I think the real story was they were being paid to study it now studying it's real different than doing it you would study it to try to reduce it happening that's that's the opposite of paying for to somebody to do it now do I think we should have had huge expense to study that no the the expense is still wrong and you know not really supportable in my personal opinion but you've I think you've seen enough examples now where the original reporting of how crazy it is about some expense don't assume these are true I think you can assume the big picture they're crazy expenses that we can get rid of most of them that's true but when you see these really just two on the nose like condoms to Gaza to Hamas that was way too much on the nose like you should have spotted that right away I think I did I think I called that out as a you know don't believe this one so just don't believe all the stories but they might be useful for making the case but don't believe them um Doge apparently has penetrated the IRS I don't know how much money they're going to or corruption they're going to find in the IRS but I'm very interested so I love the fact that the IR s is being audited we we went from the IRS is going to audit you we've got 85,000 people to track you down all the way to how about we audit the IRS yeah how about that so that makes me happy I saw uh John Stewart on his podcast talking to Jen Saki and he had a really interesting question which suggested his own thought process and he asked her does management at MSNBC tell you what to say because she has a show on MSNBC and she said no no they don't tell us what to say no no we we have Independence so we just look at the news and decide what to say now you might say really and then every one of you decides on the same the same take so you all independently just all by yourselves came up with exactly the same take on every story because they never vary they all have the same take on every story and and even John Stewart wasn't buying it so I think he was willing to accept that leadership does not give them a memo every day say cover this this way and I think that's true but he pointed out that Roger ALS also did not tell people what to write but they all kind of agree on Fox News don't they yeah there there's not going to be anybody in Fox News who comes out against Doge or against Trump being president and as John Stewart pointed out you don't need to tell people what to do they know what Their audience is they they know what the other people are going to say they know what they can say to fit in where they work you don't need to tell them specifically they they just sort of working out with each other so even John Stewart see to be suggesting although he didn't say it directly but his line of questioning suggested that he thinks that MSNBC is part of the problem meaning that it's such obviously propaganda that you can't not notice it can't not notice it so he was actually without using the words he was basically accusing them of being worthless propaganda um but politely and I wonder if she I wonder wonder if Jen saki believed what she was saying that they have Independence and just coincidentally all have the same opinion I don't know anyway um let's check and see how uh how did MSNBC cover the US Aid story well if they were independent I would expect they would cover it in all of its elements uh they they hit every variable so you'd have a good understanding of both sides of that story if they were real news let me ask you if you watch MSNBC when they covered us Aid did they ever give you the Mike Ben's version of the world you know the one where usaid has never been a real charity it's always been only only not in addition to but only a statecraft tool for overthrowing other countries or at least controlling them do you think the msnpc ever fully fleshed that out even if they said it's not true because how in the world do you have a story this big the main headline story and not mention what the other argument is I don't think they've ever mentioned it they're treating it like it's a bunch of Charities and uh people are going to die if you cut off their funding they already have some example of somebody who was cut off of oxygen and died I don't believe the story but you know so no if if MSNBC doesn't even cover not just the other side of the story but the really really important part of the story they're not news so don't imagine that they are well Thomas Massie representative Massie had Michael shellenberger in to talk to uh some part of Congress and uh uh Michael shellenberger says about that um he said that USA this is him not at the event but talking about it on X later he said USA said it was a charitable group it wasn't it was a tool for regime change after 2016 it turned its guns inward in 2019 a front group it created fabricated the evidence used by the CIA and moles in the White House and house Democrats to impede Trump that's treason now you could say but but that didn't happen you know if you had some evidence it didn't but how does MSNBC not cover it isn't it just screamingly obvious they're they're not going to have Michael shellenberger on to you know question his thinking they're not going to have Mike Benz on to say all right we've got some different opinions but we want people to hear yours so we can you know have somebody debunk it or something nope they'll just act like there's only one opinion it's a charity and mean old Trump is cutting the charity and children will die Thomas Bassie um said at the event I think he said uh maybe this was an x no it was at the event he said USA funded an organization that fabricated evidence which was used to impeach president Trump which is what uh shellenberger said and the Deep State frequently funds regime change efforts abroad but when it uses taxpayer money to undermine our own government isn't that treason so we have a member of our own government who's looking at a part of our government that we know a lot more about this week than we did you know last month and he's saying if you just look at what they did just on the surface they use taxpayer money to try to impeach an American president in a totally illegitimate effort using the same tools that we used to run coups in other countries isn't that treason and the answer is hell yes hell yes it's treason this is not a debatable point how could it not be treason of course it's treason it's the most treasonous thing you'll ever see in your life so meanwhile Bill Burr the comedian um he's got a podcast and apparently he said uh he went off on billionaires and he suggested that there were like rabid dogs who need to put down so he believes that the billionaires are the reason that there are poor people now I'm you know I'm summarizing him these are my words not his but he thinks that if the billionaires were not hoovering up all the money then there would be money for other people how dumb do you have to be to have that opinion that's that's really dumb like I'd love to say oh he's not looking into this context or something but that's just dumb now he seems Smart in general because when he does his comedy it's very clever and so it suggests a high intellect but do you really think the billionaires stole the money does he not know that Mark Zuckerberg wouldn't have any money if he hadn't created Facebook and created tens of thousands of jobs and a tool that's used around the world how much money would he have do do they think that Elon Musk would have any money at all if he hadn't created multiple startups that added value to the country electric cars that nobody else could build a spaceship to Mars he wouldn't have any money if he didn't do those things what were the poor people going to do it on their own let let's see the Poor People's rocket oh wow I guess uh mean old Elon Musk is hoovering up all the money for the poor people because they were going to build a rocket to Mars the poor people were and you know according to Bill bur now they they got shut out so I guess I guess they can't build their rocket Tom Mars now old mean old musk just sucked up all the money basically stole it from the poor people and you could just go down the list which billionaire did not create the wealth that the billionaire has a small part of and most of these billionaires don't even own the majority of their own companies you know by the time investors get their part and stuff I don't know what what percentage does Zuckerberg control of Facebook I think he has some kind of voting special shares or something but it's less than half isn't it so this is a complete lack of understanding how anything works and yet he's unembarrassed to have a public opinion about it I went and checked uh what AI said was his net worth so so according to perplexity and these net worth numbers are always garbage because nobody really knows what anybody did with their money or what investments they made that's that's not public information but they they estimated he's a net worth of $12 million he makes a million per Netflix Netflix special now if he has a if he believes that wherever there's wealth that's out of line with you know the Baseline that that's an indication that somebody's stealing money from the poor how does he explain himself how does he explain that does he not understand that when he does a special on Netflix Netflix makes money and a bunch of people get employed to put on the event and then a bunch of people are happy that they watched it and they pay money and the economy improves because Bill Burr made you know cumulatively $12 million how does he not get that the does he think he's also stealing and if he just keeps it up he'll be a billionaire too but he'll be bad person how in the world do you come to the opinion the billionaires stole the poor people's money now maybe it happens in some country but the only way it happens in this country is if you make you make some value that's way way more than you're keeping all right uh so here's Chuck Schumer again being pathetic and again I think about John Stewart who who said in public the other day on one of his shows please please stop sending Chuck Schumer out there because every time they send Chuck Schumer who's like their best guy right now it's so embarrassing to be a Democrat because you're like God no can you send anybody but Chuck Schumer no not the super villain lady no can you not AOC no no they they just don't have anybody who isn't embarrassing at this point there's no embarrassing people non- embarrassing people so this is what Chuck Schumer said about Doge um he said uh everyone knows there's waste in government oh okay so he's agreeing there's waste in government he goes that they should be cut but doge is using a meax doge is using a Mex and I'm adding it to my list so my list is generic empty stupid that Democrats say about Trump and musk all right here's the list so far Trump is going to steal my democracy doge is stealing my privacy Trump is forming a kleptocracy uh he's got dark Inc Senator motives it's a constitutional crisis look at all the chaos it's chaos um he's a co-president musk musk Is Not Elected doge is a hostile takeover he's Trump is rewarding Putin and then doge is used as a Mex do you know why Schumer doesn't want to use a meax too masculine yeah the Democrats don't like masculine stuff like a meax oh that's pretty masculine maybe a teaspoon so I think chuck would say maybe maybe not the meex how about a teaspoon and make sure your pinky is up speaking of masculinity I forgot to brag so I don't want to lose that option today I told you the story about clay Travis was at some event he was on stage and he made the point that the Democrats have a problem with the the male vote because they don't have uh masculine Role Models now your first thought is it's not about the masculine Role Models it's about policy right they if if men are moving to the Republicans is because they like the policies but it turns out that that with young men they're not much less liberal than they ever were that hasn't really changed so policy-wise young men still like Democrat policies you know they're probably more pro-abortion than the average Etc but they're still moving Republican so the policies actually are not what what's driving young men to start to lean right and heavily lean right it's probably the role model and I think clay Travis is completely on point that when when he asked he actually said this uh who is the most masculine Democrat right now in America mayor Pete mayor Pete now immediately the Democrat Karen who was on stage said oh is that an anti-gay thing to which I say why would you even say that what kind of anti-gay question is that because if clay Travis doesn't mention the gay part at all it's not part of it it's just that mayor Pete doesn't doesn't jump out as a super masculine character now there are plenty of masculine gay guys right I don't need to name names but it has nothing to do with gay there are plenty of masculine gay guys tons he just isn't one of them so they couldn't leave their frame their little frame is you're a sexist you're a racist they just can't get out of it they're so locked in it's all they can see so Clay did a good job of saying has nothing to do with that I mean do you look at him and say he's masculine I mean he had a better argument than that but the reason I bring this up is that I wanted to remind you and maybe get a fact check around 26 I started saying there seems to be two parties forming and it's going to be the woman party and the man party now doesn't mean there won't be both in each but the dominant the dominant let's say policies and and approach would be very female in the Democrat Party and very male in the Republican party and the Republic Republican party would be you know masculine men and people who like masculine men and Democrats would be mostly women and people who are happy to follow the lead of women and that's exactly where we are I couldn't think of a masculine Democrat the closest I can get is uh is Governor Nome Newsome at the very least he's you know tall slick hair uh heterosexual looks like he goes to the gym I would call him masculine wouldn't you is that fair I would call him masculine so uh but I think he's he's too degraded as a candidate I don't think he has a I don't think he has a chance of rising up there's he he's going to have some skeletons I don't think he can make the make the move but yes I would like to claim credit for seeing this trend years in advance so the reason I point it out is because I make predictions it's a big part to what I do if I get them wrong you should remind me to say it publicly which I'll be happy to do if I get it right um I'll probably remember to tell you and it's all part of trying to figure out who's good at predicting if if I got it wrong I think I'd tell you but uh got that one right all right people keep ask me what would be the best way to persuade a liberal to become a conservative or a Democrat to become a Republican or an anti-trumper to be a prot Trumper and people always ask me that question and I always I always feel I don't have a good answer because on one hand I think you know maybe if I spent a lot of time with somebody I might be able to move him a little bit but I've never had that experience I've never experienced changing anybody's mind like while I'm talking to him I don't think words work words don't really talk anybody out of anything most of the time especially in politics when you're locked in but then I saw uh a suggestion from a user on X called uh Bill hind Daytona and bill says I've recommended to my liberal friends to lift weights testosterone goes a long way toward curing liberalism that's actually scientifically true if you increase the testosterone at least in men if you increase their testosterone they do become more conservative they do become more Republican that's a fact so my new answer to the question how do you persuade a liberal to become a conservative if it's a man see if you can convince them to lift weights or do what Zuckerberg did you know get into MMA fighting or just do something that's going to build your testosterone and the rest will take care of itself because I think the Democrats are large l ly the party of I can't do it by myself I need some help and the Republicans are largely I can do it by myself just get the government out of my way so how you feel about your own confidence and abilities completely determine if you'd be better off getting helped or better off getting the government out of your way and the testosterone is completely determinant of whether you feel confident and Powerful to make things happen on your own so yes the more you can get people to lift weights the more likely they're going to be Pro Trump that's absolutely true scientifically that's a very clean um approach Elon mus said something interesting um well he always does but apparently he's had top secret clearance for years I guess Biden gave it to him in 2022 we don't know why I assume it's because of SpaceX um but here's what he said that is really interesting he said I've had top secret clearance for many years and here's the fun part and have clearances that themselves are classified what there's something higher than top secret he's seen things that even people with the top security clearance in the government haven't seen and not only did they not see it they didn't even know there's a higher classification what what do you know what that makes me think I don't believe that we've captured any alien technology I don't believe we have but when I hear this I go huh suppose you had just hypothetically suppose you actually had an alien spacecraft with alien technology who would you want to show it to to see if there's any possibility of reverse engineering it right there's one person in the world you would be most interested in showing it to to see if he could reverse engineer and it's Elon Musk so immediately when I hear that he has you know extra top secret clearances Beyond clearances that ordinary people can't even have it's not about the Kennedy assassination right it's not about I know just some normal Secrets it's not about oh the CIA is doing this that would be normal clearance to have special extra Deluxe clearance that's got to be some good stuff we don't know what that domain is but given that he's the space and Technology guy maybe they have a ship I don't think they do I think I think we have zero space spaceships but wow this made me this made me wonder I had to question myself a little bit I'm going to stick with it we don't have one anyway according to the UAE zero edges reporting this uh the UAE Ambassador says the Arab world has no alternative to Trump's Gaza plan that's the plan where the United States takes control of Gaza but Israel and other countries rebuild it um which is pretty surprising because you'd expect that the Arabs would come up with a plan that was also practical to compete apparently not um and he and the UAE Ambassador says directly that removing all the Palestinians and then rebuilding it is probably the only thing that would work that's what I think um he said it's difficult but inevitable that the Trump plan of removing all the Palestinians and rebuilding is the only way anything could go now that's exactly my opinion it's been exactly my opinion from the start there is one and only one way this can go they're going to clear all the people out of Gaza now can you confirm that I've been saying this the whole time am am I imagining that I've been saying the whole time the one and only way this will end is with all of Gaza being um depopulated I want to see if I really said that loudly and clearly enough that anybody heard it all right just confirmed okay so some of you heard me say that well so again if you're looking for who predicts well this was a pretty shocking prediction because remember I predicted that it would be depopulated and rebuilt and that the Palestinians may not even be allowed back in uh long before anybody even suggested that was a Poss possibility so that that's a that's a a win for me on that one now if I know for some of you it drives you crazy when it looks like I'm bragging about what I got right but remember I make predictions so if I don't tell you I got one right you know you're you're losing half of the value you you should know when I get one right and what domain it is because maybe that's a domain I can guess better than other domains there there are some domains I can't guess for example uh I can never predict who anybody's going to pick for a vice president I have no visibility experience knowledge I can't do anything on those but stuff like this you know what is what is a logical plan you know how can you get from here to there I'm pretty good at that pretty good at that anyway um meta has some kind of breakthrough according to tweak Town tweak Town that's really the name of a publication um apparently they can strap some sensors on your head and they can successfully read 80% of your thoughts now the the 20% they can't read is still big enough that they can't do much with this technology but what happens if it keeps getting better what happens when the AI can predict what you're going to do before you know what you're going to do because here's the joke we already know that so without Ai and without these fancy sensors we already know from brain Imaging and other lots of experiments that the part of your brain that handles rational thought doesn't even activate until after the decision that that's one of the most well understood things for many decades they' every once in a while they retest it and they're like y yep sure enough the rational part of your brain is a rationalizer it rationalizes the decision it doesn't make the decision what makes the decision is some combination of irrational impulses but then after it's made your little rationalizer says oh it's because I could see the greater opportunity in that direction and maybe sometimes it's true too but it's usually not why you made the decision so we're going to have a big problem with believing in free will once AI can tell you what you're going to do before you do it that will be the end of the Free Will argument and that's coming you know I've I've long predicted if you like my other predictions you'll like this one too I've long predicted that the belief in free will will be destroyed it's just a matter of time because there's there's just like an obvious path until it happens and AI is probably the last the last leg of the trip so that that's ahead of you now what all of you want to say is but but but how can you say that unless you have free Free Will and then I say no I had to but but how did this other thing no you had to but but how did I choose this you had to but but but I thought I had Choice yeah you had to think it it's always the same answer you had to you didn't have a choice all right that's all I got for now ladies and gentlemen this Valentine's Day is kicking off just great my neighbors is getting noisy doing some construction so I'm going to say goodbye to the folks on You.

Tube and x and Rumble and I'll talk to the locals people privately for a moment but 30 seconds until private with locals e e e e

I guess it's uh just about time for a

show you are so

punctual good work on that the stock

markets up a little bit Tesla's down

nvidia's

up now let's get our comments going

here soon as we got comments we got a

show there they are

[Music]

[Music]

good morning everybody and welcome to

the highlight of human civilization

Valentine's Day

Edition I don't think you get any better

than this but if you want to try you can

take this experience up to possibly

levels that nobody can even understand

with their tiny shiny human brain

and for that all you need is a cuper m a

glass of tanker chel Ain a Cen Jugger

flask a vessel of any kind fill it with

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me now for the unparallel pleasure the

dopamine here the day the thing that

makes everything better it's called

simultaneous zip that's right

go oh that's so good so good

all right people let's see what's in the

news today besides Valentine's Day

everybody got big plans for Valentine's

Day yeah me

neither you know uh it's not optimal to

not be in a

relationship but at the same time it

does save a lot of effort on Valentine's

Day it's hard to get Valentine's Day

wrong but uh given this Valentine's Day

you might be interested that Gwyn pelt's

company it's called goop that's the name

of her company goop they're selling a

sex pillow

$200 H $200 for a sex pillow now I think

the pillow is meant to give you extra

control during sex with another person

however there's no prohibition against

having sex with the pillow itself if you

don't have a partner so partner no

partner the pillow can fill in uh the

only question I have is how do you get

the goop off the

pillow sorry that whole thing was just a

set up for that bad joke that's all it

was put it on your mind you can't sell a

sex pillow and call your company goop

and then let me just ignore that I'm not

going to ignore that no no that's a

responsibility as a professional

humorist I have to I have to comment on

that well there's a a fascinating news

study in s poost Eric Dolan is writing

uh you you'll never guess this but

thanks to science we know this now

there's a study that suggests that the

Afterglow of sex can boost your

relationship satisfaction for at least

24 hours while and here's the surprising

part while sexual rejection creates

negative effects for several days huh

huh I wonder how many people they had to

survey to get that answer because if it

was more than one guy they worked a

little too hard just go to any guy uh do

you feel better about your partner after

you've just had sex

yes uh how do you feel when your partner

rejects you for sex

terrible and we're done here if you can

find even one man who says you know I

kind of like it when she rejects me for

sex and it's kind of creepy when we have

a good sex

no never happened next time just ask me

I can save you a lot of

time well according to the Federalist

and John lot Jr is writing um he says

that the FBI doesn't just have a

transparency problem they're actually

distorting data now what kind of data

would the FBI want to distort it's weird

isn't it why would they distort data

well here's an

example

um the the data about how

many how many situations are solved by

citizens who have guns very political if

it turns out that it's rare that a

citizen could stop a crime or save any

lives with their own personal handgun if

it's rare well that would be maybe a

strong argument for not having guns some

would say I wouldn't say that but if the

number of people or the percentage of

time that people with a

handgun kept a crime or a murder from

happening if that was a big percentage

well that would really change everything

wouldn't it well it turns out that the

FBI was reporting that uh only about 4%

of the time the person with the handgun

makes a difference the real number

according to whoever the cprc is is

closer to 35 to 40%

35 to 40% of the time if somebody has a

personal handgun it stops a crime or

prevents somebody from getting killed

except maybe the

per so remember what I told you that the

I told you something that is really hard

for anybody to accept the first time

they hear it and it goes like this all

data that matters and the the matters

part is important all data that matters

is fake and it has to be

it's not an accident it's because the

people who control the data always have

an interest always and so they just

shave the data and change the

assumptions and decide what source to

use and which one not to use until they

get the right answer it's always the

foxes counting the chickens if you're

going to have the foxes count the

chickens don't tell me that it's

accurate who who who trusts the foxes to

count the chickens no it's never

accurate the the only stuff that's

accurate is when nobody really cares one

way or the other then it might be

accurate even that's probably sketchy so

a perfect example of that even the FBI

faking data or at least choosing the

data they

like well according to a Irish study the

Irish examiner Shan Murray is reporting

that the methods that they tested to

reduce people's belief and conspiracy

theories have no effect

now if I hear that a bunch of

researchers tried to deprogram people

from their conspiracy theories and it

didn't work you know the first thing I

think is well whose method did they

use what was it a professional Persuader

who tried to talk people out at their

conspiracy theories or was it somebody

who doesn't know how to do it if if you

put me in the study and said all right

we're going to see if Scott specifically

can talk people under of their um

conspiracy theories I think you'd find

that I would do better than average

because it's something I've studied

right I'm a specifically I'm I'm a

trained hypnotist and I write about and

talk about and use persuasion all the

time so in

theory if it could be done at all I'd be

a little better at it than a person who

doesn't practice but there's a bigger

problem did you see it what's the bigger

problem when you're running a study to

see if you can talk people out of

believing conspiracy

theories there sort of a built-in

problem it kind of assumes that the

researchers know what is true and what

isn't and you know what how do they know

how do they know what's true because if

they had the wrong opinion their own

research showed that they wouldn't know

it because you couldn't talk out of it

so if the researchers thought something

was true that wasn't or something was

untrue that was true how would they know

since that their own research showed you

can't change anybody's mind if they're

wrong about a conspiracy theory so it

looks like nonsense to

me total

nonsense um there's here's a few stories

in a row that kind of make a picture so

Fox News is reporting David Spectre is

writing there's a former Marvel

executive you know the Marvel superhero

uh universe so the Marvel executive is

suing Disney because he was allegedly

denied a promotion for being an old

white guy now here's the fun part the

reason he knows he was denied a

promotion for being an old white guy is

they said we can't promote you because

you're an old white

guy they told him directly so lawsuit

now here's what black Americans have

never understood about um what you call

I don't know Reverse Racism or just

racism I guess they don't believe that

when white men are told they can't be

promoted and this has been true for

decades because remember it was you know

decades ago that I was told in direct

language you're a white male you cannot

be promoted here and then I changed

companies and next company told me this

same thing direct words not no beating

around the bush said it just that

directly this has been happening all

over the country for decades and the

white men just don't talk about it in

public because if they do you know what

happens the black men call them mediocre

said no you're lying you didn't get the

promotion because you're a mediocre

white man that's what happened to me

yeah the the the black

citizens poured into my comments and say

well no you're lying they didn't tell

you that directly you just are sore

because you didn't get the pro promotion

because you're a mediocre white man in

other words they were really

racist all right uh meanwhile attorney

general uh Missouri attorney general is

uh Andrew belly is suing Starbucks

because they have some kind of a a uh

race and sex based hiring practice which

would be of course

illegal so so now you've got Disney

which just actively discriminating

against white men you've got Starbucks

being sued for actively discriminating

against white men and then you've got

Goldman Sachs that just decided to scrap

its policy that said it wouldn't help

take a business public if they had an

all-white board

members so they said you you got to have

some diversity and you got to have at

least one woman on the board or we won't

work with

you which is of course racial

discrimination and gender

discrimination and U the good news is

that they changed so they're not going

to be that way but here's the bad news

I'm not going to forget

that if you think you can just change

from discriminating against white men to

not no I'm not going to forget it you

know I don't have any business to do

with Goldman Sachs but every one of

you you can you can drop dead all right

Adam Cora is talking about uh the

progress in cleaning up the LA fires

guess what the progress is in cleaning

up the LA fires and getting rid of the

debris and moving people back

in doesn't appear to be any according to

Adam Corola uh who's got a house there

he says remarkably no progress has been

made in the clean up oh no his actually

words are a quote zero attempt at

cleaning now over a month no cleanup

attempt no official government website

you can go to for any kind of timeline

when the power is going to be on when

can you get when can you get back to

your place the answer is no GD

idea now let's compare that this is

California's performance now let's

compare that to

Doge doge is already spinning up a

website in which they will be reporting

everything they're

doing it's all going to be there it's

already it's already up so Doge

consistently does the thing you expect

and want them to do and California seems

to only be able to fail it's like we

don't have as a state we have no

capability of doing anything and I think

it's always the same problem I think

it's the the state just necessarily

needs to inject eject corruption into

every big move and cleaning up La is a

big move they probably are just holding

out for diversity and getting their

their cronies the jobs and figuring out

some way to monetize this for the

government itself so I don't trust

anything about the California government

they have they have not earned any trust

I assume that the reason it's not

happening rapidly is just pure

corruption uh it could be

incompetence well bet it's corruption

and the corruption is they're trying to

f figure out okay how are we going to

make it look like it's not corruption

all it is I think that's probably what's

slowing him down I have no trust

whatsoever in my state

government well here's a story that I

seem to wake up to every single day it's

like Groundhog Day here's the story

there's a federal judge who blocked

something that Doge wants to

do how many times has that story been in

the headline how many s has some judge

done that

so here's what it should say presumed

crooked judge blocks Doge progress now

we don't know that they're all

crooked but it seems like it takes about

a minute to figure out that somebody

bought their bought their uh appointment

or their daughter or their wife is

working on something with usaid or

there's just some nefarious connection

or they've got a history of being you

know a rogue judge these are not normal

judges and one of the things that uh

Elan mus

says is if if any judge

anywhere can stop anything that Doge

does doesn't matter where the judges

anywhere in the country he says you

don't really have a government if any

judge anywhere can stop really be

stopping Trump the president and that's

a good

point how how can we have a

government when people who were not

elected you know these appointed judges

I think mostly they're appointed um can

stop anything from happening and they

can just keep doing it all day long so

somehow we have to figure out how to get

Freedom From The Crooked

judges um destroying the reputation

seems like a good

start but only but only if it uh is

honestly destroyed as if if they have a

conflict of interest they're not

admitting to and not recusing themselves

yeah you have you have to go after that

pretty hard so I don't know what can be

done but we can't run a country if

corrupt judges can stop everything you

just can't

so I would I would love to hear an

alternative like what can you can't

really you can't even impeach them

because you need two-thirds and there's

no way you you're going to get that so I

don't know um

Governor Nome made a what's being called

an about face according to the New York

Post so California governor um he's

ready to veto a bill that's coming from

his own party that would force uh the

prison system in California to um it

would keep them from cooperating with

ice or the immigration people so there

is a bill in California that says the

prison system can't coordinate with the

people who want to deport um the

non-documented

immigrants but the good news is nome's

going to say no now is that because he's

preparing to run for president and he's

just trying to look like he's a little

bit interested in the Border that's what

it looks like because otherwise I

thought he was all in on spending $50

million to you know Trump proof the

state but if instead of Trump proving it

is making it easier for the immigration

people I don't

know now I will uh uh I have the I have

the voice of Mike CERN Vision in my head

reminding us not to say good things

about uh

Democrats who can't be trusted

whatsoever even if they get one right so

don't be too excited if a Democrat gets

one right it doesn't mean anything you

know you you still can't have them in

charge

well of course RFK Jun got sign got uh

um fully nominated he got approved he

got all the votes he needed it was tight

but JD Vance made up the difference and

uh he's in um what did uh Schumer say

about that so Chuck Schumer goes in

public Kelly means pointed this out that

uh he goes in public and he says just

minutes before the vote for RFK Jr

Schumer said um that RFK wasn't

qualified because she was never a

pharmaceutical or insurance company

executive as the other former health and

H Human Services secretaries

were uh did he really say that in public

he said in public that the head of the

chicken coup should be a

fox really uh we'd like to put a fox in

charge of the chicken Coupe no no maybe

not don't put the fox in charge maybe

somebody who is exactly the opposite of

a pharmaceutical or insurance company

executive like RFK Jr yeah how about the

opposite of that is there anything that

Democrats can get right they actually

are on record wanting

somebody who would be the worst choice

you know even generically somebody who

was a for executive that's the the

problem not the solution he can't tell

the difference between the problem and

the solution no that's the problem that

they're too connected to

Pharma

weird all right um here's a thing I

didn't know about did you know that uh

president Trump appointed RFK

Jr's um

daughter-in-law to to be part of the

president's intelligence Advisory Board

now that's interesting

because um amarillis Fox Kennedy is her

name in middle name Fox she's a former

CIA officer she left in 2010 because she

was disillusioned by the corruption

within the

CIA now how much do you love the fact

that somebody who is disillusioned by

the corruption of the CIA is now on

Trump's presidential intelligence

Advisory Board I like it

she must know where the bodies are

buried I like

it right so that's good news and she

wants massive intelligence

reform well Trump's going to put on the

reciprocal tariffs today I assume he's

also doing some targeted ones um but

it's a little

unclear so the reciprocal tariffs are

that if any company or any country is

tariffing us uh he will tariff them back

in the same exact amount

now I don't know if that really works

because

usually they pick our you know tariffs

are usually strategic to an industry

where there's some imbalance in the

industry so I don't know if that works

but on paper it makes sense um and I

think uh Dana Pino said this on the five

that the whole tariff thing we don't as

individuals we probably don't know where

it's going but it's going to be real fun

to watch

so that's kind of where I'm at I'm like

H reciprocal tariffs and then I I

searched my brain bank for whether

that's a good idea or a bad idea and I

end up with I don't know I don't know

you know I I know a little bit about

economics and business I mean that's my

educational background but I don't

know I have no idea where that ends up

but I do like he's pushing the button I

do like is messing with it so something

probably could come out of it one of the

things that Trump does right and just

consistently right is he'll shake the

box when there's something that's not

quite working doesn't mean he knows how

to solve it but shaking the box is

usually the best first thing so this

reciprocal tariffs everybody gets a

tariff you're not exempt that's a pretty

big box shake so it might turn into a

bunch of little negotiations with

countries that maybe give us some

Advantage Maybe not maybe it's all we

need maybe just keep us simple you tear

off us we tear a few end the story I

don't know so uh I'm gon wait and see on

this one could be good meanwhile the

house budget now this is the budget um

that's been pushed forward by the house

the Senate still has to weigh in but

it's a $4.5 trillion

budget and it extends the 2017 tax cuts

for 10 years I like that

part

um and it's going to be uh let's see the

but it also increases the debt ceiling

by $4

trillion so does that mean that the debt

is going to go up $4

trillion or are they just thinking ahead

and it might be you know one trillion

per year which would still be bad um but

it might get to four

trillion so all this work with Doge but

at the same

time we're looking at raising the debt

ceiling by 4

trillion can anybody explain what's

going on

here because I don't understand and

again I'm somebody who watches news

every single day you know I like dive

into things pretty deeply I have no idea

no idea what's going on here but it

doesn't look good um it says they they

would try to get their congressional

committees to find at least 1.5 trillion

in spending cuts really are those

committees going to do something that

Doge isn't doing how does any of this

fit in with Doge are the Doge numbers

already baked into these estimates or do

they fix them later when when the Doge

Cuts become you know more uh let's see

more transparent and we know what's

going on

this doesn't make sense it looks to me

and I'd love to be wrong but it looks to

me like Republicans are going to drive

up the

deficit and that they know it and that

they've just all agreed to do it what

world am I living

in now I you know the first time I

brought this up I got a little heated

about it but I decided let me let me

back off a little bit I want to see what

Elon says because he's better at math

than I am if musk says yeah you know the

budget that they passed out the house

makes sense because if you consider the

Doge Cuts everything's going to work out

maybe I I would love to hear him say

that but so far correct me if I'm wrong

Elon Musk has been silent on this has he

not I haven't seen a I haven't seen a

comment if musk is silent about about

the budget that the Republicans have

passed that could only mean one

thing because musk is not silent on

anything that is big and matters and

what would matter more than this I mean

if you're working on cost cutting and

then the Republicans are worth are

working on making it all a waste of time

because they spent the money you saved

this is what I think's going

on I fear that Congress is so broken

that when they hear that uh musk can

find a way to cut a trillion dollars out

of the budget instead of saying yes

let's bank that reduction and that'll

reduce our deficit here's what I

think I think our politicians both

Republican and Democrats say oh we just

got another trillion

dollars and then they got to spend it

which is the opposite the opposite of

what you should be doing but that's what

it looks like it looks like they're

taking the Doge Cuts as a way to spend

money on other things in the same amount

as the cuts now I'm just saying it looks

like it I'm not saying that it is so can

somebody in the government who's good at

explaining stuff could be JD Vance could

be Elon Musk could be you know vake if

he's if he's dug into it enough I want

somebody smart to give me a whiteboard

and say this is what we're going to

spend this is what we're going to cut

here's how Doge Works into it here's

your your deficit for one year and then

this is the deficit as it will go

forward you need to tell us that because

correct me if I'm wrong if I don't

understand it as much time as I put into

understanding things like this and and I

have a background in this domain if I

can't understand it there's no way that

the the average you know barely

interested person understands it so yeah

we need we need some help on this one

please so I'm going to give a little

grace period and I'm going to I'm going

to back off of my heated cursing anger

over this because I might be wrong I

might be wrong it's happened before so

I'd love to find out I

am well John Bolton is in the

[Music]

news I love the fact that once you know

the

players then when they talk everything

makes sense but not until you know the

players

so John Bolton

says that Trump is a Russian agent

working for the Kremlin or at least he

acts like it he acts like a Russian

agent working for the Kremlin and maybe

he

is it would have surprised you to know

that John Bolton used to be involved in

usaid there there are no coincidences

yeah Bolton was part of

usaid um or he got funded by it or

somehow he was involved with it

so how many of you think that Trump is

an agent of the

Kremlin I don't think so well one of the

things that Trump's getting done is that

the military uh in anticipation of Jo

Doge coming for them are putting

together their own list of things to cut

now I don't trust it I don't trust it

but it's interesting that they're get

trying to get ahead of it so apparently

there's some weapon systems that even

the military thinks they don't need you

know that might be outdated or whatever

and so they're putting together a list

of outdated drones and vehicles and

things that you could cut billions of

dollars to now I think it's a

trick because they might want to be

trying to head off Doge it's like oh

Doge yeah you you don't really need to

dig into this we we've already done the

work for you uh thanks for setting us on

the right track uh we've already found

20 billion dollars to cut out of the B

budget we're

good but Doge might find a lot more than

20 billion so I don't trust the military

finding their own Cuts because it's

never worked before it's probably

probably more of a trick than an actual

you know good thing but we'll see so the

uh the Trump administration's buyout

offer to get rid of government workers

uh I think they were hoping to get

100,000 people to sign up for the early

early package to leave their work um but

they got 75,000 so far I don't know if

the window closed yet but

75,000 that's pretty good if if you're

shooting for 100 and you get

75 that's really good because how in the

world could you estimate how many people

will take an

offer it if you estimated it this well

you said 100 and you got

75 that's pretty impressive I don't know

if you if you've never done this kind of

work where you're estimating things that

are impossible to estimate this is kind

of impressive if you got within

25,000 so that's good um that's reported

by Dylan Burrows at

rsbn um but the other thing the Trump

Administration is doing is getting rid

of what they call the prob probationary

employees so I guess if you get a job

with the government I don't know if this

applies to the whole government but

you're on a firste prob probationary

period so if you don't work out in the

first year then I guess it's easier to

fire you so after the first year there

might be some protections that kick in

make it harder so they make sure that

the first year you got plenty of time to

find out if you're bad at your job and

they can get rid of you but the Trump

Administration will use that

same um the same fact to find the people

who just Jo joined and they're typically

the easiest to fire for a variety of

reasons now you might say to me Scott

the reason they hired these people is

because they needed them yes that's true

and let me say again the Doge process

does assume that they will cut too much

it's just built into the process it's

not a mistake if they cut too much it's

the process so the only way you can tell

what really matters is to get rid of it

and see how loud the yelling is there is

no other way if you think you can study

it and then scientifically and

surgically get rid of only the important

stuff you know you're you're only

removing the tumor but the the the

healthy skin around it is left intact

that's not a thing that's not a thing

nobody can do that it's just not doable

and no company would do that they would

do exactly what elon's doing they would

cut too far too far and too fast

and then when the yelling started they

say whoa whoa what' you say and they'd

listen to it and if they had a good

argument they put it

back let let me tell you what happened

when I was working for Crocker National

Bank in San Francisco and it was a about

the time that the um Wells Fargo was

doing a takeover so Wells Fargo was

going to take over that bank now it

happened to be just by luck that that's

that was one of the times I got told

that I could never be promoted because

I'm a white white male so I had just

quit just at the same time that Wells

Fargo bought my former employer and what

they told all the employees because I

stayed in touch of course what they told

all the employees is don't worry about

losing your job because we're going to

look at each individual employee and

each individual duplication of effort

because two Banks if you put two Banks

together you have all kinds of

duplication so they said don't worry if

you're one of the good ones

you'll be still with the combined uh

entity but you'd only have to worry if

you're bad at your job so that made it

easy because everybody thinks they're

good at their

job so nobody complained in advance too

much because they're like oh well I'll

be fine because I'm good at my job so

then the the transaction goes through do

you know what the first thing Wills faru

did after the transaction was

complete they simply eliminated

completely

everybody working in the duplicate

duplicate areas of the company they

bought all of them they got rid of all

of them and they just said we already

have people who do that and we're the

winning company we're the company that

bought you you're the company that got

bought the company that got bought you

just lost all of your duplicated stuff

you're all unemployed and will just keep

all of our people so it was a complete

lie it was a big lie super lie but

but some of us were smart enough to know

they're not going to be able to talk to

every employee and sort out which ones

to keep and then combine these two weird

apart departments that aren't exactly

the same of course they're just going to

fire the people in the acquired Bank of

course they are and sure enough now it

didn't didn't bother me because like I

said I just left to another company but

uh yeah there's only one way to do this

you cut too far you make Dr it cuts and

then you adjust if you need to no other

way to do

it um and it's also common to get rid of

first first year employees That's Not

Unusual well uh Trump has again um got

outside of the box when he's talking

about the uh military budget and he

suggested that the US Russia and China

could possibly all agree to cut our

mutual budgets by half now the first

time you hear that you just laugh at it

go okay you're not going to nobody can

convince their adversary to cut their

budget by half and you're certainly not

going to convince China who would like

to become the dominant world power

militarily economically in every other

way you're not going to get them to cut

their budget

right that's the same thing I thought

when Trump said let's make Canada a

state and I said to myself okay that's

not real he's just playing with them you

know maybe it's a

negotiation you know maybe he would like

to do it but you know clearly that's

never going to

happen but already it looks like it's

possible the candidate becoming a 51st

state I still wouldn't bet on it if I

had to bet I'd bet against it but

watching it go from a ridiculous idea to

huh how would that work

you know I'm a little bit

interested and then it turns out I I

don't know how official this is but I I

have it on good authority that if you're

not looking at the politicians and

you're talking to the public there's a

lot of openness in the Canadian public

because Trump says there would be

benefits for you I could lower your

taxes tariffs would go away you'd be

well protected and the Canadians are

looking at their own government and

saying okay under normal circumstances

this would just be

insulting under normal circumstances but

they can see that their own government

is

so

toxic that whatever it took to get rid

of their own government looks like a

good deal become a state yeah if we can

get rid of this government because the

government is destroying us so Trump

took the Canada 51st state from the most

ridiculous idea that maybe you've heard

in 10 years to already it's huh I don't

know maybe we should flesh this out a

little bit what exactly would it look

like you maybe we should do some kind of

a suggest some kind of a poll in Canada

to get some real numbers see how close

we are that now to me that's that's just

mindblowing it's just mindblowing that

that could go from crazy ridiculous to

maybe I don't know wouldn't rule it

down and so that's the context in which

I give you Trump saying that you could

reduce the military budget of the three

big

Powers first impression come on they're

not going to do that that'd be

ridiculous here's my second impression

because I'm already up to my second

impression if you wanted to do something

really big

there's never been a better

opportunity so I'm going to throw out

just some ideas these are the bad ideas

so nothing I say should be taken too

seriously it's just to get your mental

process maybe working at a different

level the weird thing about Russia China

and the United States that I think makes

it us all unique is not one of those

countries would ever want to attack the

mainland of one of the other countries

China would never want to attack Russia

or the United States United States would

never want to attack Mainland Russia

like with an invasion or something or

mainland China it would be crazy now has

that ever been true in history I don't

know that it has where we have a

situation where you you know the only

border is China and Russia and I don't

see any chance that either one of them

wants to change that border there's

that's not even a conversation so what

happens if you've got three powers that

coincidentally all have the same

problems this is where it gets fun all

three countries have the same

problems one is demographic China's got

a big demographic lots of old people not

enough young people it's almost

unsolvable it's like a you know Doom

heading their way United

States much the same we've got that

demographic problem Russia demographic

problem so we've got a bunch of

countries that are going to have severe

economic problems and you could argue

that we all three already do it's it's

harder for us to know exactly what's

happening in Russia or China because the

information is not reliable but there's

good reason to think that they might

have as much debt problems as we do

growth problems as we do we might be in

very similar situation

the only thing you

need is a common

enemy what if you had a common

enemy that's really the only way you can

get adversaries on the same page common

enemy and you know how uh Trump started

out with when he talked to Putin he said

yeah we talked about the history of

World War II which was the the cleanest

example of Russia and the United States

being on the same team for a while and

it worked out saved the world in a sense

so if we could find a way to be in the

same

team there might be something here it

might not be crazy so imagine if we

could say this and again the these are

not good ideas so when you jump on me

and say but you forgot this you forgot

that I know I know these are not good

ideas it's just to sort of deepen the

thought suppose Trump said to the the

other big countries how about this

forget about the United Nations why

don't the three of us agree that we will

never under any

circumstance uh invade or attack the

homeland of the

other now I think they would all say yes

yes if there's any way we can make that

happen yes we will never attack the

Homeland all of our problems are about

smaller countries there's Taiwan there's

Ukraine you know there are other

countries on the border of Russia

probably some other areas in the border

of China and then the US has its own

interests you know Greenland and Panama

and maybe

Canada and could it be that they could

reach an agreement now this will scare

you but could it be that we'd reach an

agreement where we'd say all right all

of the remaining property disputes let's

just settle them right now let's just

say if taiwan's your next door neighbor

and there's no doubt where it's going in

thew long run why don't we just say all

right Taiwan is yours no not today not

today the very minimum we need to do is

get the the chip making facilities out

in Taiwan but suppose suppose we said

why don't we make a 100-year plan and

that at the end of a 100 years Taiwan

and China will be the same country

because in 100 years there's going to be

you know Ai and changes and robots and

who knows if the chips will even be made

there anymore and everything will be

different so nobody really worries about

a 100 years but suppose you just say to

China we don't want to fight you but if

you go in and and get rid of our chip

access we have to so let's just take it

off the table let's just say for a 100

years we absolutely will not fight over

Taiwan and at the end of 100 years you

guys work it out you know I'm I'm not

saying that it gets absorbed but you

guys work it out in 100 years

now again it's not a great idea it's not

a great idea I'm just helping you think

it through then suppose we said uh each

of us have our own

interests so why don't we just take care

of our most local interests so we'd say

you guys don't fight with us over

Greenland or Panama and China maybe

should you know put a smaller footprint

on South America because Monroe document

you know the Monroe do I mean says you

know this this is sort of our domain

over here but in return we'll we'll stay

out of your business as long as it

doesn't go you know crazy in Taiwan too

soon and then you say to Russia all

right what's your biggest problem now

here's the trust problem you know you

think they're going to try to take over

all their neighbors and of course they

might so could you say how about if we

can just at least solve Ukraine and

agree not to move NATO any closer how if

we do that could you get a deal on

that maybe maybe you'd have to do

something to make sure they didn't use

uh you know uh their their uh let's say

they're clever ways to take over the

governments that they want to take over

on their borders but I feel like if you

if you made it zero risk of them being

attacked by NATO which you could do I

think I think you can get down to it if

you can get down to zero risk that NATO

wants to attack you then suddenly their

need to control the other countries goes

way down goes way down so could you do

some big deal where you just settle

everything at the same time and some of

them just have a a long-term plan and

others maybe don't need a long-term plan

now then you say look we also have a

common

enemy now I hate to put it in those

terms but uh because I'm not talking

about Islam in general because there are

plenty of moderate excellent Islamic

people but the radical version of Islam

which can spread if you let it is a

mutual risk to all three of the big

countries so China Russia and the United

States all have an interest in keeping

the radicalized part of Islam controlled

so you say to them we work together to

take care of

that and we also do something to work

together to worry about our demographic

problem perhaps maybe something about

our debt problems that are the same and

the best way to get rid of your debt

problems would be to reduce your

military spending by half so as crazy as

it is to imagine that we would negotiate

with

adversaries about cutting their budget

for the

military you know and you you'd expect

both sides would cheat and they would

hide their budget in secret places so it

looked like they cut it but they didn't

you know that's that would be a real

problem but could you get to the

point where where China Russia and the

United States feel like they're on the

same

team meaning that if China destroyed the

United States they would lose their

biggest customer but they would also

lose the their ability to control

external risks such as radical Islam

um could you find a way that we just

feel like we're the the three Horsemen

of the future and that um we do have a

responsibility to keep the smaller

countries operating and make sure that

we all have access to resources as

needed you know in the free market sense

and maybe the the old United States that

was very colonizing and we like to

control other countries um as Mike Ben

says you know if you don't control the

small countries you can't make pencils

because we don't make pencils in the

United States just one example so you

have to sort of control of markets so

you have access to the raw materials

what if we didn't what what if the the

world has changed and you don't need to

overthrow a country just have access to

their minerals you just make an offer if

China has a better offer they get it if

we have a better offer we get it but

maybe we say if it's in if it's in our

universe over here maybe you guys can't

be part of

that but there should be places where

everybody can get everything you know

you can get your raw materials for

anything

so question is can Trump do something

that big and I'll just remind

you that things that didn't seem

possible before suddenly look a lot

possible now I'll tell you what the uh

the bad guy guys are saying about Trump

talking to Russia they're already saying

oh he's he's a Russian puppet you know

sort of the John Bolton thing uh he's uh

if he they're already saying about

Ukraine that if Trump decides that the

current Borders or what will be the

final

borders and that NATO doesn't um include

Ukraine in the

future that would look like giving

Russia everything they want

which would look like Putin winning

which would embolden him you don't want

to embolden your

adversary and I say that's the wrong

frame I don't care if Putin thinks he

won I only care what I want why do I

care what other people want I care what

I want what I want is the Ukraine uh War

to be over so that you know there's no

argument about the Border countries

we're not sending you money nobody's

dying that's what I

want um if we decide that NATO will not

include Ukraine that's what I want I

want that so why are we talking about pu

what Putin

wants let's just get what we want

everybody who's talking about Putin

winning and getting everything he wants

why are you even care what he wants

other than

negotiating

but your happiness can be disconnected

from his happiness I just want what I

want I want to be out of this war and

not pay for it I don't care about the

rest not

really so yeah the first reframe is

don't care what Putin feels he won or

didn't win you only just just get what

you want as a as a

taxpayer anyway I guess uh there's some

fake news in the Wall Street Journal

somebody saying suggesting the advance

means that under some conditions the uh

the US military would get involved in

Ukraine what Vance did say was that uh

all options are on the table which we

always say right so I think that was

taken out of context all options on the

table is just what we always say because

it makes sense to we say it it doesn't

mean we want to put military there

that's not going to

happen

anyway um according to the Daily Mail

Health and Human Resources spent 22.6

billion giving migrants cars homes and

credit cards from 2020 to

2024 cars homes and credit cards now I

think what that means is it helped them

get home

loans uh made it legal for them to own a

car maybe there's some financial help

stuff like that

um but it looks like they uh yeah looks

like they were putting America last if

you know what I mean but here's what I

would caution you um I think we've seen

already that some of the early claims

about who spent money on what have been

so easily

debunked for example the condoms to Gaza

really condoms to mosm Beek now I agree

that we should cut it no matter where it

was going but the original report had

even the wrong country which is a pretty

big deal

um and you know it goes from giving

condoms to

terrorists to helping reduce the spread

of AIDS in a country that doesn't have

the resources to help itself I mean

that's a pretty big difference to know

where where it was aimed at um but again

you know I would be against that

asending either

way

and uh let's see we saw the the Reuters

story there was a story that Reuters was

being paid by our government for uh

massive information deception that they

use different words but was something

was right on right on the invoice and

people jumped to the assumption that we

were

paying to have Reuters brainwash

people I think the real story was that

Reuters was being paid or some some

element with the name Reuters somebody

said it's a different company then

reuter is the news agency but it might

be the same parent company I'm not clear

on that but the

but I think the real story was they were

being paid to study

it now studying it's real different than

doing it you would study it to try to

reduce it

happening that's that's the opposite of

paying for to somebody to do it now do I

think we should have had huge expense to

study that no the the expense is still

wrong and you know not really

supportable in my personal opinion

but you've I think you've seen enough

examples now where the original

reporting of how crazy it is about some

expense don't assume these are

true I think you can assume the big

picture they're crazy expenses that we

can get rid of most of them that's true

but when you see these really just two

on the nose like condoms to

Gaza to

Hamas that was way too much on the nose

like you should have spotted that right

away I think I did I think I called that

out as a you know don't believe this one

so just don't believe all the

stories but they might be useful for

making the

case but don't believe them um Doge

apparently has penetrated the

IRS I don't know how much money they're

going to or corruption they're going to

find in the IRS but I'm very interested

so I love the fact that the IR s is

being

audited we we went from the IRS is going

to audit you we've got 85,000 people to

track you down all the way to how about

we audit the IRS yeah how about that so

that makes me happy I saw uh John

Stewart on his podcast talking to Jen

Saki and he had a really interesting

question which

suggested his own thought process and he

asked her does management at MSNBC

tell you what to say because she has a

show on

MSNBC and she said no no they don't tell

us what to say no no we we have

Independence so we just look at the news

and decide what to say now you might say

really and then every one of you decides

on the same the same take so you all

independently just all by yourselves

came up with exactly the same take on

every story

because they never vary they all have

the same take on every story and and

even John Stewart wasn't buying it so I

think he was willing to accept that

leadership does not give them a memo

every day say cover this this way and I

think that's true but he pointed out

that Roger

ALS also did not tell people what to

write but they all kind of agree on Fox

News don't

they yeah there there's not going to be

anybody in Fox News who comes out

against Doge or against Trump being

president and as John Stewart pointed

out you don't need to tell people what

to do they know what Their audience is

they they know what the other people are

going to say they know what they can say

to fit in where they work you don't need

to tell them specifically they they just

sort of working out with each other so

even John Stewart see to be suggesting

although he didn't say it directly but

his line of questioning suggested that

he thinks that MSNBC is part of the

problem meaning that it's such obviously

propaganda that you can't not notice it

can't not notice it so he was actually

without using the words he was basically

accusing them of being worthless

propaganda um but

politely and I wonder if she I wonder

wonder if Jen saki believed what she was

saying that they have Independence and

just coincidentally all have the same

opinion I don't

know

anyway um let's check and see how uh how

did MSNBC cover the US Aid story well if

they were independent I would expect

they would cover it in all of its

elements uh they they hit every variable

so you'd have a good understanding of

both sides of that story if they were

real

news let me ask you if you watch

MSNBC when they covered us Aid did they

ever give you the Mike Ben's version of

the world you know the one where usaid

has never been a real charity it's

always been only only not in addition to

but only a statecraft tool for

overthrowing other countries or at least

controlling them do you think the msnpc

ever fully fleshed that out even if they

said it's not

true because how in the world do you

have a story this big the main headline

story and not mention what the other

argument is I don't think they've ever

mentioned it they're treating it like

it's a bunch of

Charities and uh people are going to die

if you cut off their funding they

already have some example of somebody

who was cut off of oxygen and died I

don't believe the story but you know so

no if if MSNBC doesn't even cover not

just the other side of the story but the

really really important part of the

story they're not news so don't imagine

that they

are well Thomas Massie representative

Massie had Michael shellenberger in to

talk to uh some part of Congress

and

uh uh Michael shellenberger says about

that um he said that USA this is him not

at the event but talking about it on X

later he said USA said it was a

charitable group it wasn't it was a tool

for regime change after 2016 it turned

its guns inward in 2019 a front group it

created fabricated the evidence used by

the CIA and moles in the White House and

house Democrats to impede

Trump that's

treason now you could say but but that

didn't

happen you know if you had some evidence

it didn't but how does

MSNBC not cover

it isn't it just screamingly obvious

they're they're not going to have

Michael shellenberger on to you know

question his thinking they're not going

to have Mike Benz on to say all right

we've got some different opinions

but we want people to hear yours so we

can you know have somebody debunk it or

something nope they'll just act like

there's only one opinion it's a charity

and mean old Trump is cutting the

charity and children will die Thomas

Bassie um said at the event I think he

said uh maybe this was an x no it was at

the event he said USA funded an

organization that fabricated evidence

which was used to impeach president

Trump which is what uh shellenberger

said and the Deep State frequently funds

regime change efforts abroad but when it

uses taxpayer money to undermine our own

government isn't that

treason so we have a member of our own

government who's looking at a part of

our government that we know a lot more

about this week than we did you know

last month and he's saying if you just

look at what they did just on the

surface they use taxpayer money to try

to impeach an American president in a

totally illegitimate effort using the

same tools that we used to run coups in

other countries isn't that

treason and the answer is hell yes hell

yes it's treason this is not a debatable

point how could it not be treason of

course it's treason it's the most

treasonous thing you'll ever see in your

life

so meanwhile Bill Burr the comedian um

he's got a podcast and apparently he

said uh he went off on billionaires and

he suggested that there were like rabid

dogs who need to put down so he believes

that the billionaires are the reason

that there are poor people now I'm you

know I'm summarizing him these are my

words not his but he thinks that if the

billionaires were not hoovering up all

the money then there would be money for

other

people how dumb do you have to

be to have that

opinion that's that's really dumb like

I'd love to say oh he's not looking into

this context or something but that's

just

dumb now he seems Smart in general

because when he does his comedy it's

very clever and so it suggests a high

intellect but do you really think the

billionaires stole the money does he not

know that Mark Zuckerberg wouldn't have

any money if he hadn't created Facebook

and created tens of thousands of jobs

and a tool that's used around the world

how much money would he have do do they

think that Elon Musk would have any

money at all if he hadn't created

multiple startups that added value to

the country electric cars that nobody

else could build a spaceship to

Mars he wouldn't have any money if he

didn't do those things what were the

poor people going to do it on their own

let let's see the Poor People's rocket

oh wow I guess uh mean old Elon Musk is

hoovering up all the money for the poor

people because they were going to build

a rocket to Mars the poor people were

and you know according to Bill bur now

they they got shut out so I guess I

guess they can't build their rocket Tom

Mars now old mean old musk just sucked

up all the money basically stole it from

the poor

people and you could just go down the

list which billionaire did not create

the wealth that the billionaire has a

small part of and most of these

billionaires don't even own the majority

of their own companies you know by the

time investors get their part and stuff

I don't know what what percentage does

Zuckerberg control of

Facebook I think he has some kind of

voting special shares or something but

it's less than half isn't it so this is

a complete lack of understanding how

anything works and yet he's

unembarrassed to have a public opinion

about

it I went and checked uh what AI said

was his net worth so so according to

perplexity and these net worth numbers

are always garbage because nobody really

knows what anybody did with their money

or what investments they made that's

that's not public information but they

they estimated he's a net worth of $12

million he makes a million per Netflix

Netflix special now if he has a if he

believes that wherever there's wealth

that's out of line with you know the

Baseline that that's an indication that

somebody's stealing money from the

poor how does he explain

himself how does he explain that does he

not understand that when he does a

special on Netflix Netflix makes money

and a bunch of people get employed to

put on the event and then a bunch of

people are happy that they watched it

and they pay money and the

economy improves because Bill Burr made

you know cumulatively $12 million how

does he not get that the does he think

he's also stealing and if he just keeps

it up he'll be a billionaire too but

he'll be bad person how in the world do

you come to the opinion the billionaires

stole the poor people's money now maybe

it happens in some country but the only

way it happens in this country is if you

make you make some

value that's way way more than you're

keeping all right uh so here's Chuck

Schumer again being pathetic and again I

think about John Stewart who who said in

public the other day on one of his shows

please please stop sending Chuck Schumer

out there because every time they send

Chuck Schumer who's like their best guy

right now it's so embarrassing to be a

Democrat because you're like God no can

you send anybody but Chuck Schumer no

not the super villain lady no can you

not AOC no no

they they just don't have anybody who

isn't embarrassing at this point there's

no embarrassing people non- embarrassing

people so this is what Chuck Schumer

said about

Doge um he said uh everyone knows

there's waste in

government oh okay so he's agreeing

there's waste in government he goes that

they should be cut but doge is using a

meax doge is using a Mex and I'm adding

it to my list so my list is generic

empty stupid that Democrats say

about Trump and musk all right here's

the list so far Trump is going to steal

my democracy doge is stealing my privacy

Trump is forming a

kleptocracy uh he's got dark Inc Senator

motives it's a constitutional crisis

look at all the chaos it's chaos um he's

a co-president musk musk Is Not Elected

doge is a hostile takeover he's Trump is

rewarding Putin and then doge is used as

a

Mex do you know why Schumer doesn't want

to use a

meax too

masculine yeah the Democrats don't like

masculine stuff like a meax oh that's

pretty masculine maybe a teaspoon so I

think chuck would say maybe maybe not

the meex how about a teaspoon and make

sure your pinky is

up speaking of masculinity I forgot to

brag so I don't want to lose that option

today I told you the story about clay

Travis was at some event he was on stage

and he made the point that the Democrats

have a problem with the the male vote

because they don't have uh masculine

Role Models now your first thought is

it's not about the masculine Role Models

it's about policy right they if if men

are moving

to the Republicans is because they like

the policies but it turns out that that

with young men they're not much less

liberal than they ever were that hasn't

really changed so policy-wise young men

still like Democrat policies you know

they're probably more pro-abortion than

the average Etc but they're still moving

Republican so the policies actually are

not what what's driving young men to

start to lean right and heavily lean

right it's probably the role model and I

think clay Travis is completely on point

that when when he asked he actually said

this uh who is the most masculine

Democrat right now in America mayor

Pete mayor Pete now immediately the

Democrat Karen who was on stage said oh

is that an anti-gay thing to which I say

why would you even say that what kind of

anti-gay question is that because if

clay Travis doesn't mention the gay part

at all it's not part of it it's just

that mayor Pete

doesn't doesn't jump out as a super

masculine character now there are plenty

of masculine gay guys right I don't need

to name names but it has nothing to do

with gay there are plenty of masculine

gay guys tons he just isn't one of them

so they couldn't leave their frame their

little frame is you're a sexist you're a

racist they just can't get out of it

they're so locked in it's all they can

see so Clay did a good job of saying has

nothing to do with that I mean do you

look at him and say he's masculine I

mean he had a better argument than that

but the reason I bring this up is that I

wanted to remind you and maybe get a

fact

check around 26

I started

saying there seems to

be two parties forming and it's going to

be the woman party and the man party now

doesn't mean there won't be both in each

but the dominant the dominant let's say

policies and and approach would be very

female in the Democrat Party and very

male in the Republican party and the

Republic Republican party would be you

know masculine men and people who like

masculine men and Democrats would be

mostly women and people who are happy to

follow the lead of women and that's

exactly where we are I couldn't think of

a masculine Democrat the closest I can

get is

uh is Governor

Nome Newsome at the very least he's you

know tall slick hair uh

heterosexual looks like he goes to the

gym I would call him masculine

wouldn't you is that

fair I would call him masculine so uh

but I think he's he's too degraded as a

candidate I don't think he has a I don't

think he has a chance of rising up

there's he he's going to have some

skeletons I don't think he can make the

make the move but yes I would like to

claim credit for seeing this trend years

in advance so the reason I point it out

is because I make predictions it's a big

part to what I do if I get them wrong

you should remind me to say it publicly

which I'll be happy to do if I get it

right um I'll probably remember to tell

you and it's all part of trying to

figure out who's good at predicting if

if I got it wrong I think I'd tell you

but uh got that one right all

right people keep ask me what would be

the best way to persuade a liberal to

become a conservative or a Democrat to

become a Republican or an anti-trumper

to be a prot Trumper and people always

ask me that question and I always I

always feel I don't have a good answer

because on one hand I think you know

maybe if I spent a lot of time with

somebody I might be able to move him a

little bit but I've never had that

experience I've never experienced

changing anybody's mind like while I'm

talking to him I don't think words

work words don't really talk anybody out

of anything most of the time especially

in politics when you're locked in but

then I saw uh a suggestion from a user

on X called uh Bill hind Daytona and

bill says I've recommended to my liberal

friends to lift weights testosterone

goes a long way toward curing

liberalism that's actually

scientifically

true if you increase the testosterone at

least in men if you increase their

testosterone they do become more

conservative they do become more

Republican that's a fact so my new

answer to the question how do you

persuade a liberal to become a

conservative if it's a man see if you

can convince them to lift weights or do

what Zuckerberg did you know get into

MMA fighting or just do something that's

going to build your testosterone and the

rest will take care of itself because I

think the Democrats are large l ly the

party of I can't do it by myself I need

some

help and the Republicans are largely I

can do it by myself just get the

government out of my way so how you feel

about your own confidence and abilities

completely determine if you'd be better

off getting helped or better off getting

the government out of your way and the

testosterone is completely determinant

of whether you feel confident and

Powerful to make things happen on your

own so yes the more you can get people

to lift weights the more likely they're

going to be Pro Trump that's absolutely

true scientifically that's a very clean

um

approach Elon mus said something

interesting um well he always does but

apparently he's had top secret clearance

for years I guess Biden gave it to him

in 2022 we don't know why I assume it's

because of SpaceX um but here's what he

said that is really interesting he said

I've had top secret clearance for many

years and here's the fun part and have

clearances that themselves are

classified what there's something higher

than top

secret he's seen things that even people

with the top security clearance in the

government haven't seen and not only did

they not see it they didn't even know

there's a higher

classification what

what do you know what that makes me

think I don't believe that we've

captured any alien

technology I don't believe we have but

when I hear

this I go huh suppose you had just

hypothetically suppose you actually had

an alien spacecraft with alien

technology who would you want to show it

to

to see if there's any possibility of

reverse engineering

it

right there's one person in the world

you would be most interested in showing

it to to see if he could reverse

engineer and it's Elon

Musk so immediately when I hear that he

has you know extra top secret clearances

Beyond clearances that ordinary people

can't even have it's not about the

Kennedy

assassination right it's not about I

know just some normal Secrets it's not

about oh the CIA is doing this that

would be normal

clearance to have special extra Deluxe

clearance that's got to be some good

stuff we don't know what that domain is

but given that he's the space and

Technology

guy maybe they have a

ship I don't think they do I think I

think we have zero space

spaceships but wow this made me this

made me wonder I had to question myself

a little bit I'm going to stick with it

we don't have one anyway according to

the UAE zero edges reporting this uh the

UAE Ambassador says the Arab world has

no alternative to Trump's Gaza plan

that's the plan where the United States

takes control of Gaza but Israel and

other countries rebuild it um which is

pretty surprising

because you'd expect that the Arabs

would come up with a plan that was also

practical to compete apparently not um

and he and the UAE Ambassador says

directly that removing all the

Palestinians and then rebuilding it is

probably the only thing that would work

that's what I think um he said it's

difficult but

inevitable that the Trump plan of

removing all the Palestinians and

rebuilding is the only way anything

could go now that's exactly my opinion

it's been exactly my opinion from the

start there is one and only one way this

can go they're going to clear all the

people out of Gaza now can you confirm

that I've been saying this the whole

time am am I imagining that I've been

saying the whole time the one and only

way this will end is with all of Gaza

being um depopulated

I want to see if I really said that

loudly and clearly enough that anybody

heard

it all right just confirmed okay so some

of you heard me say that well so again

if you're looking for who predicts well

this was a pretty shocking prediction

because remember I predicted that it

would be

depopulated and rebuilt and that the

Palestinians may not even be allowed

back

in uh long before anybody even suggested

that was a Poss

possibility

so that that's a that's a a win for me

on that one now if I know for some of

you it drives you crazy when it looks

like I'm bragging about what I got right

but remember I make

predictions so if I don't tell you I got

one right you know you're you're losing

half of the value you you should know

when I get one right and what domain it

is because maybe that's a domain I can

guess better than other domains there

there are some domains I can't guess for

example uh I can never predict who

anybody's going to pick for a vice

president I have no

visibility experience knowledge I can't

do anything on those but stuff like this

you know what is what is a logical plan

you know how can you get from here to

there I'm pretty good at that pretty

good at

that

anyway um meta has some kind of

breakthrough according to tweak Town

tweak Town that's really the name of a

publication

um apparently they can strap some

sensors on your head and they can

successfully read 80% of your

thoughts now the the 20% they can't read

is still big enough that they can't do

much with this

technology but what happens if it keeps

getting better what happens when the

AI can predict what you're going to do

before you know what you're going to do

because here's the joke we already know

that so without Ai and without these

fancy sensors we already know from brain

Imaging and other lots of experiments

that the part of your brain that handles

rational thought doesn't even activate

until after the

decision that that's one of the most

well understood things for many decades

they' every once in a while they retest

it and they're like y yep sure enough

the rational part of your brain is a

rationalizer it rationalizes the

decision it doesn't make the

decision what makes the decision is some

combination of irrational

impulses but then after it's made your

little rationalizer says oh it's because

I could see the greater opportunity in

that direction and maybe sometimes it's

true too but it's usually not why you

made the decision so we're going to have

a big problem with believing in free

will

once AI can tell you what you're going

to do before you do

it that will be the end of the Free Will

argument and that's coming you know I've

I've long predicted if you like my other

predictions you'll like this one too

I've long predicted that the belief in

free will will be

destroyed it's just a matter of time

because there's there's just like an

obvious path until it happens and AI is

probably the last the last leg of the

trip so that that's ahead of you

now what all of you want to say is but

but but how can you say that unless you

have free Free Will and then I say no I

had to but but how did this other thing

no you had to but but how did I choose

this you had to but but but I thought I

had Choice yeah you had to think it it's

always the same answer you had to you

didn't have a

choice all right that's all I got for

now ladies and gentlemen this

Valentine's Day is kicking off just

great my neighbors is getting noisy

doing some construction so I'm going to

say goodbye to the folks on YouTube and

x and Rumble and I'll talk to the locals

people privately for a moment but 30

seconds until private with

locals

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