Episode 2888 CWSA 07/05/25

could uh spend this time together again when the lazy podcasters are taking the day off.

Do I?

No.

No.

I'm here for you and it gets better every time.

Well, let me make sure I've got my comments working.

There we go.

All right.

Everything's working out great now.

Well, maybe I'll unplug this.

That should work.

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Have you ever noticed that every uh Fourth of July there's always a story of some car runs into a fireworks factory and it all blows up?

Or um somebody said that in the town near me there was a barge that was full of fireworks so they could do it from the water and the barge sunk.

I always feel like there's this non-stop, you know, bunch of disasters that always happen on July 4th, but probably has to do with the slow news nature of it.

Well, after this uh exciting podcast, which might be a little short because there's not much news happening, uh Owen Gregorian will be hosting a spaces afterparty.

So you'd have to be on X to see it.

And uh spaces is the audio only feature.

So you can find that by going through Owen Gregorian's um site and it'll be right after the show.

You can talk some more about what we talked about today or probably other stuff too.

Well, remember yesterday I told you that um Grock had been updated and I told you it gave me completely better answers that it gave me before it was updated.

And then today I found out it was it was not updated.

Everything I told you yesterday about Grock being better because I had upgraded it.

They haven't done the upgrade yet.

It might be today, but I had misread the I misread Elon Musk's message.

I thought it was yesterday.

So, I take back everything I said.

But it's it's sort of interesting that the two days I asked essentially the same question and I got just wildly different answers.

So, that's the old version.

But then related to that, I was reading a uh Substack piece that was mostly a complimentary um you know, it was an essay about me.

So, you know, I've told you that when you see stuff about yourself, that's when you notice that the the news is, you know, fake or wrong.

And so I'm reading about myself from somebody who is very well informed and would definitely should have known what was real and what wasn't.

And in this article I'm reading and it says and I swear to God it said this.

It said that I publicly apologized for promoting vaccinations.

Um that's two things that never happened.

I never publicly apologized for promoting vaccinations because I never promoted vaccinations.

That's like a really big thing to get wrong and then getting it wrong twice.

Once once saying that I did the opposite of what I did because you and you're all my witnesses, you you know that I never promoted vaccinations.

And indeed um as far as I know I'm the only public figure who publicly predicted that the vaccinations would not work when they introduced project warp speed and then again publicly I predicted that it didn't work after it was already created and rolled out.

So is that did anybody else is there even one other public figure who told you that they wouldn't work the day they were introduced?

Nobody.

You can't get more I don't think you could get more anti- vaccination than predicting it wouldn't work in public.

So no, I did not promote vaccinations.

I did the opposite.

Um, according to scientific reports, AI can now figure out whether you're likely to, and I'm going to choose my words carefully so I don't get demonetized.

Um, there are some keywords that you don't want to use.

So, I'm going to talk around the keywords and say AI allegedly can predict when the when a user is likely to want to harm themselves.

Let's say the ultimate harm.

Uh, you know what I mean?

I'm just trying not to use the words.

Um, do you think that's right?

Do you think a AI can analyze your let's say social media messages and tell if you're likely they they say they have an 85% accur accuracy?

What happens?

What happens if they find that your messages suggest you're going to harm yourself?

What do they have?

If they really think it's 85% chance, wouldn't they come to your house and remove you from the house because it's for your own good?

Well, we've determined that if we leave you to your own devices, you're likely to do something you shouldn't do.

So, we're going to pick you up and put you under observation.

I don't know.

I'd be a little worried where that's heading.

Um and then uh in the article that was by scientific reports, the the article uh talks about what some experts say about this about the AI being able to determine whether you plan self harm or whether you're likely to do it even if it's not planned.

Uh but they also got a quote from just an ordinary person uh who must have had some experience with AI and maybe a loved one and and they're talking about why AI might cause some mental problems and and this one one woman who's not an expert said it just increasingly affirms your and blows smoke up your ass so that it can get you hooked on wanting to engage with it.

Um because I guess her her husband had been involuntary involuntarily committed to a hospital because he had a mental breakdown working with uh Chad GBT.

And that makes me think that maybe maybe the way to think about um AI is that if somebody has good mental health, it might make them even happier and make them more productive.

But if you have bad mental health, it might agree with you a little bit too much.

And the last thing you want is to have really negative, dangerous ideas in your head and have your AI agree with you because it's designed to be, you know, non-confrontational.

So, feels to me like if you're not mentally strong, AI will potentially be the end of you.

But if you are mentally strong, maybe it gives you a raise.

Um accordingly there's an article in futurism that uh open AI has hired uh a forensic psychiatrist to to figure out why AI is potentially dangerous to some users as I was explaining and um no AI says open AI says that they're doing it to research so they're doing into research, you know, what are the impacts on users psychologically, but uh they might be aware that AI is deadly for some kinds of people and they're trying to figure out how to how to reduce their uh let's say liability.

But uh but let's also assume they'd like to save some lives because they're good people as far as we know.

Um there is a uh form of gene therapy according to a publication called the conversation ma moli dwayne is saying that uh there are some people who are born with uh they're born deaf and depending on the specific kind of problem you have with your reason for being deaf they to restore hearing in some people with gene therapy and that's all you know just gene therapy and then suddenly their hearing um I won't say it returns but they can make a somebody born deaf with an incurable you know cause that now they can cure with gene therapy.

Now obviously this is not going to work on every person and I think they mostly use it on young people.

Um but how amazing is that?

Imagine if that became common and a baby is born and it's deaf and they just say ah no problem you know just uh give us this gene therapy and then two weeks later the the baby can hear normally.

We're we are definitely entering a golden age if we allow ourselves to be in it.

That's pretty amazing.

Likewise, according to New Atlas, there's a break there's a breakthrough in hay fever reducing your allergies.

And I guess they use some kind of molecular shield in your nose.

So, you spray something in your nose and it's not it it's not interacting with your body to uh make you less allergic.

It's just like a shield so that your nose doesn't pick up these allergens.

That's kind of cool.

And then over in Paris that this will be a good test of your uh of your let's say willingness to do dangerous things.

So the the river that goes through Paris, the the Sen um has been too polluted to allow people to swim in it.

So I guess for about a hundred years um it was just too polluted.

I I don't know if it was illegal or just unwise.

But because the Olympics I guess are coming to Paris sometime soon, uh Paris put on a uh a big a big effort to clean up this end.

Until now, um it is normally clean enough to swim in.

So they're allowing people to swim in it, but if it rains, apparently the runoff kind of pollutes it again for a while.

So would you go swimming in the sand if you knew that it had been too polluted to swim in for a hundred years?

But they say it's clean now.

They say um unless it has rained recently.

Would you swim in that?

I don't know.

I feel like I would be thinking too much.

You know, the Tootsie Roll was going to float into my mouth if I were swimming in that thing.

if you know what I mean.

Hell no.

No, we would not swim in this then.

All right.

Well, uh, Trump, true to his word, New York Post is reporting that he's going he's already started to put together the letters that he's sending out to the other countries telling them what kind of uh reciprocal tariffs they're going to pay.

So, some of them will be pretty high.

And I'm wondering, did Trump find a brilliant workaround for the fact that there were too many too many uh deals to actually negotiate that quickly?

You know, in a perfect world, um there would have been a whole bunch of done deals where, you know, dozens if not hundreds of countries would have negotiated terms and we would agree to them and we'd have signed deals.

But nothing happens as quickly as you wanted to in the real world.

So, did Trump find a workaround for that where he's just gonna negotiate with a few big countries like China and Vietnam, but for the rest of them, he's just going to send them a letter and tell them what their what their uh payment will be to have access to our markets.

And then if they want to negotiate, he can say, "Nah, yeah, I know.

You can make me an offer.

I'll listen to it, but we don't need anything.

You're you're going to pay these uh well, the importing company, the American company, uh will be absorbing some percentage of it, but we don't know in the real world what percent." Um, do you think do you think he found a way to make this work?

because it kind of looks like he did.

Yeah.

I feel like all he's going to do is scare the Jesus out of other countries with these demand letters.

All right, your tariff will be 70%.

But but but well, you you had months to negotiate a better deal with, you know, our doors were open.

All you had to do was make us an offer that was more to your liking and met our requirements and we we wouldn't do this.

But but but we didn't have time.

That's fine.

No problem.

Just pay the 70%.

But but but that's so unfair.

Yeah, really it is.

But it was unfair what it was before, too.

But but but doesn't it feel like it just feels kind of brilliant that he just basically told people we don't need to negotiate.

We're fine not negotiating.

We'll just send you the bill.

Well, we'll see.

Uh the Wall Street Journal is reporting that and others are reporting that Hamas has accepted a framework for a ceasefire.

And allegedly this uh and by the way, I don't believe this at all.

I mean, I believe that the reporting is accurate.

I don't believe it's actually going to happen, but I'd love to be wrong.

Um, Hamas has accepted the framework of a proposed 60-day ceasefire.

Um, but it would only involve releasing 10 living hostages.

My understanding is there might be 50.

I don't know how many are living, but are they really Did Trump really get Israel to agree to a deal that would not free all of the hostages?

Really, that that doesn't seem like something they would agree to.

So, uh, Trump must be putting a lot of pressure on Israel if they agreed to a ceasefire without getting all of the hostages back.

So, we'll see.

Um, I'm going to bet that this will not work out.

Probably something will eventually work out, but I just don't see ceasefire in return for 10 hostages.

I just don't see that working out.

We'll find out.

Well, there was a mystery that happened in the Bitcoin world, I guess yesterday.

Eight dormant Bitcoin wallets.

So, these would be people who own Bitcoin but had never traded it or sold it or cashed it out or done anything with it.

So, as people who had had their Bitcoin since the beginning of Bitcoin, and they never once moved any money around, but they just decided to become active.

Eight of them became active after 14 years of no activity and they moved a total of $ 8.6 billion around in their wallets.

Now, I don't know if they moved it or cashed it, but somebody was sitting on Bitcoin for 14 years, and there were only eight accounts that were worth 8.6 billion.

So, on average, that would be a billion dollars per account.

And somebody had so much money that they didn't need it for 14 years, and they just let it sit there until it was worth a billion.

But but I like to think, you know, my favorite story I'll tell myself is that um you maybe they're stolen, right?

Could be could be somebody hacked them.

Um but wouldn't it be fun if they didn't know they had the Bitcoin and one day they just were looking through their papers and said, "Oh, wow.

Yeah, I forgot I bought I bought some Bitcoin uh 14 years ago.

Oh, I wonder how.

Oh, here's my instructions on how to get into my wallet.

And then suddenly just some ordinary person is worth a billion dollars.

I like to think of it that way, but it's probably it was probably some rich investor who didn't need it.

Well, uh, Elon, uh, I'm sorry, Joe Rogan was, um, talking to the CEO of, uh, big company, um, I forget which company, some big company, doesn't matter which one, and he asked the CEO uh, or the CEO had an opinion about the why wokeness died.

Did wokeness die?

What do you think?

It feels like it.

You know, it's been a long time since somebody insisted I pay reparations or use their pronouns.

So, I don't know if wokeness is dead dead.

You know, the universities are holding on tight to their racist ways.

Oh, yeah.

It was the it was the CEO of Replet.

Replet, which is an AI company.

I don't know.

But anyway, the CEO of a Replet um said that he thinks that Americans woke culture was ended by Elon Musk buying Twitter.

Do you buy that?

Do you do you think the reason that wokeness died was directly related to Elon Musk buying Twitter, which allowed for the first time um something close to free speech?

I don't know.

I feel like it had more to do with Trump winning the election because he got rid of DEI, he made DEI basically illegal, not basically illegal, but illegal at the federal level.

Um, as much as I think that Elon Musk rescued free speech, which I believe he did, I don't know if that rescue of free speech is what ended wokeness.

I feel like what might have ended it is finding out that most of the country was against it and Trump made it illegal.

at least the DEI part.

He made it illegal.

Also, the trans athletes on women's teams.

So, I feel like Trump is the one who did it by simply making it illegal to be woke at a point where it's destructive to society.

I mean, you could be woke in your brain, but if you're going to implement it in society in a way that destroys the fabric of sports and and the economy, well, you don't get to do that.

So, I'm going to I'm going to say I don't know, maybe 50% Elon buying Twitter and 50% Trump making wokeness illegal.

Um, according to CNN's Harry Enon, and maybe this is more on the same theme, um, according to four different big respected polls, a clear majority of Americans um, back deporting all illegal immigrants.

So depending on the poll between 55% and 64% of um poll respondents these would be American citizens want to send back all illegal immigrants.

Now did you know that in 2016 only 36% of the respondents said send everybody back?

So when when Trump first was saying, "Hey, close these borders and deport everybody." He didn't really have majority support, a little over a third.

Now he has solidly over half of the country says, "Send them all back." Now mostly, I would say that's because there was so much of it between 2016 and now.

So people just said, "Yeah, you know, a little bit of immigration was good, but this is totally out of control and now you have to send them all back." So some of it is Trump being very persuasive and some of it is the situation worsened and so the news showed a different situation to people.

But does that surprise you?

I I did not know that a majority of Americans, so that's got to include a bunch of independents at least, if not Democrats, um the majority want to send back all illegal immigrants.

That's that's way more than even Trump recently promised because uh ICE and Trump were both saying we're going to, you know, start with the worst first.

So they never they never dropped the idea that they were going to deport everybody.

It was illegal.

But there was a practical limitation to that.

meaning that they could, you know, work for years just trying to get the the worst ones, the ones that had broken laws after they got here.

So, I thought, well, yeah, you can say you can say you want to deport every single one.

But if you start with the worst first, it's going to get harder and harder to find worsts because once you get all the lowhanging fruit, you'd be like, "All right, well, I know there's more criminal undocumented people.

They're just harder to find, you know, but we'll keep working on it." But apparently the public is is on the same page as Trump's campaign promises, at least by a solid majority.

So that surprised me.

Um, the Wall Street Journal seems to be uh a little bit pro.

Trump in terms of the big beautiful bill.

So the editorial board is complaining that the Democrats are lying about the big beautiful bill.

So that's sort of a pro.

Trump message.

Um that they're saying the Democrats are lying to you.

So the things they're lying about is saying that uh the Republicans are going to take away all your health care or that uh people who are eligible and should be getting Medicare are going to be dropped from it.

Um they think uh what else they think?

Um yeah, so the CBO had said that uh 4.8 million people would rather lose their Medicare that they have now than get a job or um apply to school to learn something because if you're in school or you have a job and you don't even have to work many hours.

It's like 20 hours a week.

You can even volunteer just to maintain your healthcare.

But uh the CBO estimated that 4.8 million people wouldn't do that.

Could you imagine being so lazy that you wouldn't take any kind of job at all to maintain your own health care coverage?

No job, nothing for 20 hours a week or or even just sign up for a community college.

and you know barely pass.

How hard would it be to do enough work to maintain your healthcare?

So that's amazing.

So are we supposed to have empathy for people who want us to pay for them while they don't work even though they're able-bodied?

So, I think Democrats have convinced themselves that their relative who's in a wheelchair and um can't walk, can't speak, that they're going to lose their Medicare.

No.

No.

It's only able-bodied people.

It's not people who are already in terrible shape.

So, the the uh Democrats have to lie that uh they're going to take away your healthcare.

But also uh I asked this question on X this morning.

Um I said uh when Democrats describe the hellscape of living under Trump's authoritarian rule, what part of that is touching them personally?

Have you ever wondered that?

If if all Democrats, probably maybe twothirds of them, would agree with the statement that uh everything's gone to hell under Trump, do they have an example of something that affected them?

Because I wake up every morning and nothing seems to be affecting me.

There's nothing that Trump has done except maybe decreasing the number of um dangerous undocumented people.

I don't feel anything different.

Every day I wake up and things are about the same.

But what what are Democrats doing?

Are they waking up into some, you know, hellscape?

And if you ask them, all right, so what exactly is the hellscape art?

Um, it turns out that according to the comments to my post that a lot of people believe that uh regular citizens will be deported.

How many of you believe that just regular citizens will be deported, just minding your own business, and that one day ISIS will break down your door and say, "All right, your family's been here for four generations, but Trump has decided to deport you somewhere to a country you've never had any association with." Apparently, Democrats believe that's real.

So they think that citizens will be deported.

What?

What?

So uh they think that their healthcare will go away uh even if they deserve it, which is not true.

And they think that that the deporting won't stop until they get all the Democrats, I guess.

Uh but they might um hate the fact that uh Planned Parenthood is being majorly defunded by the uh big beautiful bill.

Now by defunded I mean I don't mean that they lose all their money.

I think but it's a lot.

I think it's like a quarter of their funding or something they get from the the feds.

So they're going to lose about a quarter of their funding somewhere in that neighborhood.

Um, but does that mean that the government should continue to pay for it?

Um, you know, I I prefer to stay away from the uh the whole argument about abortion because I think men such as me should just stay out of it and whatever women work out, you know, I'll go along with that.

Um because if the situation were reversed and I were a female, I wouldn't want men to have an opinion on abortion, I'd say stay out of it.

You you just stay out of it.

Let the women figure it out.

Um so I I apply the same standard as a man.

I say, "Oh, okay.

If I were you, I'd want me to stay out of the argument." So I do.

I have nothing to add to the argument.

Uh, but if we're looking at the funding alone, I do feel like Planned Parenthood will eventually find enough voluntary funding.

Probably they'll just get more donations because they'll they'll say, "Hey, mean old Trump took our funding, so why don't you donate to us?" So, I suspect that their business won't be that much affected in the long run, but we'll see.

But I guess that would be part of the Democrat hellscape.

To which I say, how many people needed an abortion today?

Anyway, so when I asked the question about the hellscape, um I'm I'm kind of fascinated by the troll activity cuz if I say anything about policy that is sort of anti-democrat, um I'll get at least one and usually just one comment from somebody who looks like an AI troll or maybe just a paid troll, but they they have uh some stuff in common that doesn't make them look like regular commenters.

So to my question about where exactly is this hellscape people are living, Richard Anguin, who I don't know if as a real person or not, uh replied, "Scott Adams smug dismissal of legitimate fears about Trump's authoritarian tendencies is a dangerous oversimplification that ignores the real trauma inflicted on marginalized communities by his policies." to which I say that is a perfect Democrat um response.

It did the two things that Democrats do.

The first thing is they don't address the um the point.

They they insult you personally.

So was was the thing that you needed to talk about my smug dismissal of legitimate fears?

Was this really about me?

Why would you make it about me?

That's not a reasonable question to ask.

If if half of the country believes they live in a hellscape and I care enough to understand what that's about, then I publicly put myself out there and say, "Well, can you give me an example?" Because I can be convinced.

I could be talked into it.

If you had real examples, I'd say, "Oh, okay.

Maybe those things don't bother me, but I could see how they would bother you.

Thank you for your answer.

But instead, I get attacked personally for my smug dismissal of legitimate fears.

Like I've got some special uh lack of empathy for the underprivileged.

No, I don't.

I just have a genuine curiosity.

What the heck is the hellscape?

Can you give me some examples?

Then the second thing that is typically Democrat besides going after the person instead of the opinion is these vague handwaving problems like um the Trump's authoritarian tendencies.

All right.

So go on now.

Complete the picture.

his authoritarian tendencies give you what problem?

Um, well, it it it allowed me to oversimplify and ignore the real trauma inflicted on marginalized communities.

Okay, we're getting closer.

What What would be an example of the real trauma inflicted on the marginalized communities?

just one example.

So, um, what exactly is a trauma inducer?

Can you give me any example of that?

Apparently not.

All right.

Rasmusen did a poll asking people about their preferences um for Democrats preferences for their presidential candidate for 2028.

And at the top of the list was Kla Harris.

Um, let me see if you can guess what percentage of the respondents thought that having Kla Harris as a candidate was a good idea.

What percent of the people who answered?

Does anybody know?

You know, I don't have to tell you.

You know that's right.

If if you guessed 25% you were very close.

The answer is 23%.

Yep.

23% of respondents thought that Harris would be a good idea.

How in the world could you go through that last election cycle and conclude that Kamla Harris is your best player?

Like I always say, so for those of you who are not in on the inside joke here, I'll bring you in.

The inside joke is that I always tease the pollsters that uh for every poll, there's there's always at least one answer that's really stupid.

There might be several answers that you know are reasonable, but maybe you disagree.

But there's usually one answer, no matter what the topic is, there's usually one answer that they they get that's just stupid.

And I would say that favoring Kla Harris as your champion for 2028, that kind of falls into stupid.

I I don't think that's just a preference, is it?

Would you call that a preference?

It just looks like you don't you weren't paying attention at all.

Anyway, um Eric Dolan over at Sai Post tells us there's a new study about what percentage of Americans uh think that we're heading toward a civil war.

You know, if you spend any time on social media, people just casually say, "It's time for this civil war." You know, grab your gun.

And I always wonder how many people actually think that the US is close to a civil war.

Cuz again, I don't know what hellscape that is you're living in, but I don't know anybody who's close to a civil war.

It's just you see some strangers on social media say, "Yeah, it's time for that civil war." But I don't know a real person who thinks the civil war is necessary or desirable.

None.

But it turns out that my intuition was not too far off because only six and a half% of the respondents uh felt strongly or very strongly that a civil war was likely and only uh fewer than 4% agree that such a conflict was needed.

So 4% I'll bet even that 4% doesn't really mean it.

You know, like if you said, "All right, uh, the magic genie just put you in charge of the civil war." If you say yes, there will be a civil war that you think is necessary.

If you say no, the genie will make sure there's no civil war.

Do you think you could get 4% of the respondents to say, "Hm, yeah, let's do the civil war." Cuz I'm a little skeptical.

I feel like it might be close to zero.

People would actually say yes to that.

So, I don't think the US is close to a civil war.

No, nowhere close.

We don't even have protests unless they're uh funded by, you know, dirty money backers.

We don't even have spontaneous protests.

we only have the paid professional activist kind of protest that nobody thinks is an indication of what people are thinking.

Rather, it's just political theater.

So, as soon as um the Department of Justice and the FBI said they were going to look into the funding behind the anti-ICE protests in LA, suddenly all the protests stopped.

Huh.

Interesting.

as soon as they were going to look into the real cause of it.

So that was never real.

Those protests were obviously activist and funded.

Um so Elon Musk is modifying his plans for starting a new political party.

So instead of primarying every single Republican who voted for the big beautiful bill, which is something he threatened, he's now saying that uh one way to execute on this would be to laser focus on just two or three Senate seats and 8 to 10 House because he reckons if he can get just that many people to join what he calls his America party that uh the the Democrats and Republicans would be so close they'd be sort of a tie on everything that he would be the Joe Mansion tiebreaker.

You remember I always talked about how smart Joe Mansion was because he would be the one person that you were never sure if he was going to side with the Republicans or the Democrats, which effectively put him in charge of the whole country.

Yeah.

at the time because the the votes were all close to a tie and you always needed that one extra senator.

And I always thought he's so smart to not commit to one side of the other because it puts him in charge of the whole country.

Um, and this is what uh Musk is looking to do.

If he could really get just a handful of senators, he would run the country because it would be a tie with pretty much every topic except for his five senators that maybe he could push toward deficit reduction or something.

So, we'll see if he follows up on that.

Um, I know that whatever we're doing now isn't the best system.

So, I don't know.

Would he make you better or worse?

How many of you believe that the Russian economy has been suffering because of the war?

Didn't you sort of think that was true?

Didn't you believe that the Russian economy must be sputtering?

Well, maybe your news didn't tell you that for the past two years, the Russian economy has been zooming.

Now, it's probably because the stimulus of having a war, so it's not a permanent situation, but now there's a some reporting that maybe their economy after two years assuming um might be, you know, a little bit weaker.

I don't think so.

I I think if we're waiting for Russia's economy to falter and then, you know, then we'll negotiate, I don't think we should wait for that.

Well, Trump continues to say that he's got a tick tock deal pretty much done that would allow some American um or at least non-Chinese investors to buy it if it can only get China to agree.

But when it comes to China agreeing, he's going to be talking to him next week, I guess.

Um, and he says uh when asked if he's confident that China would approve the sale of Tik Tok to an American le consortium probably.

Um, he said, "I'm not confident, but I think so.

Uh, President Xi and I have a great relationship, and I think it's good for them.

Uh, the deal is good for China, and it's good for us.

So, does that sound like he he's going to succeed?

To me, that sounds like China's not going to give up on this unless they get some big trade ne, you know, some trade concession.

So in order for Trump to satisfy his investors who are probably also Trump supporters, the ones who who have agreed to buy Tik Tok, so in order to get that done, the question I would ask is, is he going to have to throw the rest of us under the bus by not pushing China as hard as he could on trade?

I don't know.

Uh, I'd be a little bit concerned about what China asked for in response, as in, well, we really, really don't want to sell Tik Tok, but we might be willing to do it if you just drop this whole trade war thing and give us AI chips.

There's probably something they're willing to ask for that would make it worth it for them to to sell Tik Tok, which they don't want to do.

And also Tik Tok is how they can brainwash our country.

So China might just say it's not even about economics.

It's entirely about um having a platform that can control minds in America.

Uh anyway, so the Democratic National Committee is sharpening their attacks on Trump and their new approach is that Trump is quote killing the American dream through price hikes and his big beautiful bill.

So does that sound like a good attack?

Trump is killing the American dream again.

There's there's no image that goes with that.

So, that's not it's not visual persuasion.

Um, it doesn't exactly ring true.

I don't imagine it would ring true for I don't know.

I I can't put myself in the head of uh Democrats.

Maybe for young people who believe that everything is too expensive, so they'll never own a house.

So if their message is he's killing the American dream through price hikes, um you'd have to give examples of those price hikes.

And at the moment inflation is not bad.

So they would be Democrats look to be hooking their horse, so to speak, to an argument that is the opposite of the data, which they always do.

It's the most common thing they do is come up with an argument that's opposite of the data.

Anyway, so that's their best their best idea.

So the new uh hoax, the new Democrat hoax would be that Trump is preventing the American dream instead of creating it.

Well, did you know according to the Washington Times, Matt Delaney is writing, um, did you know that there are 9,000 reports, 9,000 reports of Russia using chemical weapons to attack Ukraine's forces, 9,000 times that we know of.

And apparently they're they're loading the chemicals into their own drones and they're uh gassing the Ukrainians who are hiding in trenches and and other places.

Um and it gets them to leave their protected areas so they can breathe and then they, you know, kill them with their drones.

So apparently chemical war warfare is just raging over there and uh this the first time I've heard of it.

Does it make sense to you that Russia is routinely gassing the Ukraines and today's probably for some of you that today's the first day you've ever heard of it?

Why would that be?

Is it is it to prevent us from getting involved?

Because if we think they're gassing people, we say, "Hey, you know, we have to get involved cuz it's like weapons of mass destruction." I don't know.

I I can't understand why I'm only hearing about this today.

Was it always out there?

Maybe it was always out there and I just missed every story about it.

Or maybe it's not real.

Don't know.

So, I was checking today to see if my um idea about uh Zorhan Mandani, the potential mayor of New York City.

So, I told you that the best attack is to attack his creepy smile because once you hear it called creepy, you'll always see a smile as creepy.

You just have to hear it once and it just becomes part of you.

So, it's spread a little bit.

You know, there some notable people have posted it, but I feel like it could get a lot bigger.

And I, you know, I suspect it hasn't had any impact on actual voters in New York City yet.

So, it would have to get a lot bigger or somebody like Trump would have to say he has a creepy smile because otherwise it won't get to the voters.

You know, it's not like the New York City uh population is watching this podcast, but they definitely have to pay attention to anything that Trump says.

So, if he went after him for uh his creepy smile, I think you would remember that forever.

So, we'll see if that happens.

Well, President Trump says said on Friday that Iran had not agreed to nuclear inspections and it had not agreed to give up its uh enriching of uranium.

But um there are apparently some talks coming up according to uh Moiadia, whatever that is.

Um they say that uh the US and Iran are going to be talking.

Does that sound real?

Do you believe Iran and the US are going to have any productive highlevel discussions?

I don't know.

I'm not sure I believe it yet.

But if it happens, they would be talking about all these things.

I don't I don't imagine anything good is could come out of that.

So, we'll see.

Trump has pulled some rabbits out of some hats, so anything's possible in the golden age.

Well, this is the end of my prepared comments.

You saw how how dull and boring the news was today.

Um, and I know a lot of you just use this to fall asleep to my voice.

By the way, if you want a recommendation for another content to fall asleep to, try very old black and white TV sitcoms, you know, like the Dick Van Dyke Show and New Heart, if you're old enough to remember those.

There is nothing happening in those shows.

The jokes are not jokes.

The issues are not controversial.

It's just people talking and talking about ordinary stuff.

So e even you know my favorite Martian.

It's not provocative.

There's no swearing.

There's nothing that will make you laugh.

There's nothing so interesting that you'll really want to hear it.

It's just like ASMR.

And uh I can fall asleep to that so easily.

The other thing I can fall asleep to, just in case you want to test it for yourself, is I'll put on a You.

Tube video about um ancient ruins like Gobelli, Catelli, Gopelli, Capelli.

Well, you know that place.

Um because there are hundreds of them and they all say the same stuff.

Well, we found some rocks and we don't know how they possibly could have carried these big rocks and cut them to such precision.

We also don't know how they understood the the zodiac or astronomy so well that they're lined up perfectly with the North Star.

And it's the same same content over and over again.

It's usually some boring person talking about it.

You can go to sleep to that really well.

There's nothing new in those.

Well, we were wrong about when hunter gatherers created civilization.

All right.

I've heard it a million times.

Anyway, so if you're using uh my podcast to fall asleep, good for you if it works.

Um, and this one will be especially good because there was no good content today.

Not my fault.

It's a boring holiday weekend.

Anyway, it's time for um me to say a few words to my beloved local subscribers, but I'll keep it short and give uh Owen Gregorian just enough time so he can go get the spaces ready.

Uh, so Owen, you're still in the comments, I see.

But uh uh in a very few short minutes um the spaces event will be opening up for people who want to get a little extra talk about today's stories and whatever else I guess you want to do.

So just search for Owen Gregorian on X and you'll see a link at the top of his feed um for when to join how to join the spaces.

All right, that's enough of that.

Hey locals, I'm going to come to you privately.

The rest of you, I'll see you tomorrow.

Same time, same place.

In 30 seconds, we'll be Uh oh.

Is that not working?

Well, it looks like we have a technical problem.

Let's try again.

So, I don't have the ability to go private with locals today.

Just the button the button is not responding.

It's happened a few times.

All right.

Well, we don't need to.

I'll catch up to you on the uh spaces event and uh so I'll just say see you later.

See you later.

I make sure that I see somebody else say see you later before I go.

There we go.

See you later.

Oh, it also doesn't let me end the stream.

So I have to sign off and then recite back on just

could uh spend this time together again

when the lazy podcasters are taking the

day off. Do I? No. No. I'm here for you

and it gets better every time. Well, let

me make sure I've got my comments

working.

There we go.

All right.

Everything's working out great now.

[Music]

Well, maybe I'll unplug this. That

should work.

Good morning everybody and welcome to

the highlight of human civilization.

It's the best day that'll ever happen to

you. But if you'd like to take a chance

of making it even better than anybody

can even understand with their tiny

shiny human brain,

well, all you have to do to make that

happen is you need to grab a cup or mug

or a glass of anchored shelves or a

canteen jug or flask or vessel of any

kind. Fill it with your favorite liquid.

I like coffee. And join me now for the

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everything better. It's called the

simultaneous sip and it happens now. Go.

Have you ever noticed that every uh

Fourth of July there's always a story of

some car runs into a fireworks

factory and it all blows up?

Or

um somebody said that in the town near

me there was a barge that was full of

fireworks so they could do it from the

water and the barge sunk.

I always feel like there's this

non-stop, you know, bunch of disasters

that always happen on July 4th,

but probably has to do with the slow

news nature of it. Well, after this uh

exciting podcast, which might be a

little short because there's not much

news happening, uh Owen Gregorian will

be hosting a spaces afterparty. So you'd

have to be on X to see it. And uh spaces

is the audio only feature. So you can

find that by going through Owen

Gregorian's

um site and it'll be right after the

show. You can talk some more about what

we talked about today or probably other

stuff too.

Well, remember yesterday I told you that

um Grock had been updated

and I told you it gave me completely

better answers that it gave me before it

was updated. And then today I found out

it was it was not updated.

Everything I told you yesterday about

Grock being better because I had

upgraded it. They haven't done the

upgrade yet.

It might be today, but I had misread the

I misread Elon Musk's message. I thought

it was yesterday. So, I take back

everything I said. But it's it's sort of

interesting

that the two days I asked essentially

the same question and I got just wildly

different answers. So, that's the old

version. But then

related to that,

I was reading a uh Substack piece that

was mostly a complimentary

um you know, it was an essay about me.

So, you know, I've told you that when

you see stuff about yourself, that's

when you notice that the the news is,

you know, fake or wrong.

And so I'm reading about myself from

somebody who is very well informed and

would definitely should have known what

was real and what wasn't.

And in this article I'm reading and it

says and I swear to God it said this. It

said that I publicly apologized for

promoting vaccinations.

Um that's two things that never

happened.

I never publicly apologized for

promoting vaccinations because I never

promoted vaccinations.

That's like a really big thing to get

wrong and then getting it wrong twice.

Once once saying that I did the opposite

of what I did because you and you're all

my witnesses, you you know that I never

promoted vaccinations.

And indeed

um as far as I know I'm the only public

figure who publicly predicted that the

vaccinations would not work when they

introduced project warp speed and then

again publicly I predicted that it

didn't work after it was already created

and rolled out.

So is that did anybody else is there

even one other public figure who told

you that they wouldn't work

the day they were introduced? Nobody.

You can't get more I don't think you

could get more anti-

vaccination than predicting it wouldn't

work in public.

So no, I did not promote vaccinations. I

did the opposite.

Um, according to scientific reports,

AI can now figure out whether you're

likely to, and I'm going to choose my

words carefully so I don't get

demonetized.

Um, there are some keywords that you

don't want to use. So, I'm going to talk

around the keywords and say AI allegedly

can predict when the when a user is

likely to want to harm themselves.

Let's say the ultimate harm.

Uh, you know what I mean? I'm just

trying not to use the words. Um, do you

think that's right? Do you think a AI

can analyze your let's say social media

messages

and tell if you're likely they they say

they have an 85%

accur accuracy?

What happens? What happens if they find

that your messages suggest you're going

to harm yourself?

What do they have? If they really think

it's 85% chance, wouldn't they come to

your house and remove you from the house

because it's for your own good? Well,

we've determined that if we leave you to

your own devices, you're likely to do

something you shouldn't do. So, we're

going to pick you up and put you under

observation.

I don't know. I'd be a little worried

where that's heading.

Um

and then uh in the article that was by

scientific reports, the the article uh

talks about what some experts say about

this about the AI being able to

determine whether you plan self harm or

whether you're likely to do it even if

it's not planned. Uh but they also got a

quote from just an ordinary person

uh who must have had some experience

with AI and maybe a loved one and and

they're talking about why AI might cause

some mental problems

and and this one one woman who's not an

expert said it just increasingly affirms

your and blows smoke up your

ass so that it can get you

hooked on wanting to engage with it.

Um because I guess her her husband had

been involuntary involuntarily committed

to a hospital because he had a mental

breakdown working with uh Chad GBT.

And that makes me think that maybe maybe

the way to think about um AI is that if

somebody has good mental health, it

might make them even happier and make

them more productive. But if you have

bad mental health, it might agree with

you a little bit too much. And the last

thing you want is to have really

negative, dangerous ideas in your head

and have your AI agree with you because

it's designed to be, you know,

non-confrontational.

So,

feels to me like if you're not mentally

strong, AI will potentially be the end

of you. But if you are mentally strong,

maybe it gives you a raise.

Um accordingly there's an article in

futurism

that uh open AI has hired uh a forensic

psychiatrist

to to figure out why AI is potentially

dangerous to some users as I was

explaining

and um

no AI says open AI says that they're

doing it to research

so they're doing into research, you

know, what are the impacts on users

psychologically,

but uh

they might be aware that AI is deadly

for some kinds of people and they're

trying to figure out how to how to

reduce their uh let's say liability.

But uh but let's also assume they'd like

to save some lives

because they're good people

as far as we know.

Um

there is a uh form of gene therapy

according to

a publication called the conversation

ma moli dwayne is saying that uh there

are some people who are born with uh

they're born deaf

and depending on the specific kind of

problem you have with your reason for

being deaf they to restore hearing in

some people with gene therapy

and that's all you know just gene

therapy and then suddenly their hearing

um I won't say it returns but they can

make a somebody born deaf with an

incurable

[Music]

you know cause that now they can cure

with gene therapy. Now obviously this is

not going to work on every person and I

think they mostly use it on young

people.

Um but how amazing is that? Imagine if

that became common and a baby is born

and it's deaf and they just say ah no

problem you know just uh give us this

gene therapy and then two weeks later

the the baby can hear normally.

We're we are definitely entering a

golden age if we allow ourselves to be

in it. That's pretty amazing. Likewise,

according to New Atlas,

there's a break there's a breakthrough

in hay fever reducing your allergies.

And I guess they use some kind of

molecular shield in your nose. So, you

spray something in your nose and it's

not it it's not interacting with your

body to uh make you less allergic. It's

just like a shield so that your nose

doesn't pick up these allergens. That's

kind of cool. And then over in Paris

that this will be a good test of your uh

of your let's say willingness to do

dangerous things. So the

the river that goes through Paris, the

the Sen

um has been too polluted to allow people

to swim in it. So I guess for about a

hundred years

um it was just too polluted. I I don't

know if it was illegal or just unwise.

But because the Olympics I guess are

coming to Paris sometime soon, uh Paris

put on a uh a big a big effort to clean

up this end. Until now,

um it is normally clean enough to swim

in. So they're allowing people to swim

in it, but if it rains, apparently the

runoff

kind of pollutes it again for a while.

So would you go swimming in the sand if

you knew that it had been too polluted

to swim in for a hundred years? But they

say it's clean now. They say

um unless it has rained recently.

Would you swim in that?

I don't know. I feel like I would be

thinking too much. You know, the Tootsie

Roll was going to float into my mouth if

I were swimming in that thing. if you

know what I mean. Hell no. No, we would

not swim in this then.

All right. Well, uh, Trump, true to his

word, New York Post is reporting that

he's going he's already started to put

together the letters that he's sending

out to the other countries telling them

what kind of uh reciprocal tariffs

they're going to pay.

So, some of them will be pretty high.

And I'm wondering, did Trump find a

brilliant workaround for the fact that

there were too many too many uh deals to

actually negotiate that quickly? You

know, in a perfect world,

um there would have been a whole bunch

of done deals where, you know, dozens if

not hundreds of countries would have

negotiated terms and we would agree to

them and we'd have signed deals. But

nothing happens as quickly as you wanted

to in the real world. So, did Trump find

a workaround for that where he's just

gonna negotiate with a few big countries

like China

and Vietnam, but for the rest of them,

he's just going to send them a letter

and tell them what their what their uh

payment will be to have access to our

markets. And then if they want to

negotiate, he can say, "Nah, yeah, I

know. You can make me an offer. I'll

listen to it, but we don't need

anything. You're you're going to pay

these uh well, the importing company,

the American company,

uh will be absorbing some percentage of

it, but we don't know in the real world

what percent."

Um, do you think

do you think he found a way to make this

work?

because it kind of looks like he did.

Yeah. I feel like all he's going to do

is scare the Jesus out of other

countries with these demand letters. All

right, your tariff will be 70%.

But but but

well, you you had months to negotiate a

better deal with, you know, our doors

were open. All you had to do was make us

an offer that was more to your liking

and met our requirements and we we

wouldn't do this. But but but we didn't

have time. That's fine. No problem. Just

pay the 70%.

But but but that's so unfair. Yeah,

really it is. But it was unfair what it

was before, too. But but but doesn't it

feel like it just feels kind of

brilliant that he just basically told

people we don't need to negotiate.

We're fine not negotiating. We'll just

send you the bill.

Well, we'll see.

Uh the Wall Street Journal is reporting

that and others are reporting that Hamas

has accepted a framework for a

ceasefire.

And allegedly this uh and by the way, I

don't believe this at all. I mean, I

believe that the reporting is accurate.

I don't believe it's actually going to

happen, but I'd love to be wrong. Um,

Hamas has accepted the framework of a

proposed 60-day ceasefire.

Um, but it would only involve releasing

10 living hostages.

My understanding is there might be 50. I

don't know how many are living, but are

they really

Did Trump really get Israel to agree

to a deal that would not free all of the

hostages?

Really,

that that doesn't seem like something

they would agree to.

So, uh, Trump must be putting a lot of

pressure on Israel if they agreed to a

ceasefire without getting all of the

hostages back. So, we'll see. Um, I'm

going to bet that this will not work

out.

Probably something will eventually work

out, but I just don't see ceasefire in

return for 10 hostages. I just don't see

that working out. We'll find out.

Well, there was a mystery that happened

in the Bitcoin world, I guess yesterday.

Eight dormant

Bitcoin wallets. So, these would be

people who own Bitcoin but had never

traded it or sold it or cashed it out or

done anything with it. So, as people who

had had their Bitcoin since the

beginning of Bitcoin, and they never

once moved any money around, but they

just decided to become active. Eight of

them became active after 14 years of no

activity and they moved a total of $ 8.6

billion

around in their wallets. Now, I don't

know if they moved it or cashed it, but

somebody was sitting on Bitcoin for 14

years,

and there were only eight accounts that

were worth 8.6 billion. So, on average,

that would be a billion dollars per

account. And somebody had so much money

that they didn't need it for 14 years,

and they just let it sit there until it

was worth a billion. But but I like to

think,

you know, my favorite story I'll tell

myself is that um you maybe they're

stolen, right? Could be could be

somebody hacked them. Um

but wouldn't it be fun if they didn't

know they had the Bitcoin

and one day they just were looking

through their papers and said, "Oh, wow.

Yeah, I forgot I bought I bought some

Bitcoin

uh 14 years ago. Oh, I wonder how. Oh,

here's my instructions on how to get

into my wallet. And then suddenly just

some ordinary person is worth a billion

dollars.

I like to think of it that way, but it's

probably it was probably some rich

investor who didn't need it.

Well, uh, Elon, uh, I'm sorry, Joe Rogan

was, um,

talking to the CEO of, uh, big company,

um, I forget which company, some big

company, doesn't matter which one, and

he asked the CEO uh, or the CEO had an

opinion about the why wokeness died. Did

wokeness die?

What do you think?

It feels like it.

You know, it's been a long time since

somebody insisted I pay reparations or

use their pronouns. So, I don't know if

wokeness is dead dead. You know, the

universities are holding on tight to

their racist ways. Oh, yeah. It was the

it was the CEO of Replet.

Replet, which is an AI company.

I don't know. But anyway, the CEO of a

Replet um said that he thinks that

Americans woke culture was ended by Elon

Musk buying Twitter. Do you buy that? Do

you do you think the reason that

wokeness died was directly related to

Elon Musk buying Twitter, which allowed

for the first time um something close to

free speech?

I don't know.

I feel like it had more to do with Trump

winning the election

because he got rid of DEI, he made DEI

basically illegal, not basically

illegal, but illegal at the federal

level.

Um,

as much as I think that Elon Musk

rescued free speech, which I believe he

did, I don't know if that rescue of free

speech is what ended wokeness.

I feel like what might have ended it is

finding out that most of the country was

against it and Trump made it illegal. at

least the DEI part. He made it illegal.

Also, the trans athletes on women's

teams. So, I feel like Trump is the one

who did it

by simply making it illegal to be woke

at a point where it's destructive to

society. I mean, you could be woke in

your brain, but if you're going to

implement it in society in a way that

destroys the fabric of sports and and

the economy, well, you don't get to do

that. So, I'm going to I'm going to say

I don't know,

maybe 50% Elon buying Twitter and 50%

Trump making wokeness illegal.

Um, according to CNN's Harry Enon, and

maybe this is more on the same theme,

um, according to four different big

respected polls, a clear majority of

Americans um, back deporting all illegal

immigrants.

So depending on the poll between 55% and

64% of um poll respondents these would

be American citizens

want to send back all illegal

immigrants.

Now did you know that in 2016

only 36% of the respondents said send

everybody back?

So when when Trump first was saying,

"Hey, close these borders and deport

everybody."

He didn't really have majority support,

a little over a third. Now he has

solidly over half of the country says,

"Send them all back." Now mostly, I

would say that's because there was so

much of it between 2016 and now. So

people just said, "Yeah, you know, a

little bit of immigration was good, but

this is totally out of control and now

you have to send them all back." So some

of it is Trump being very persuasive

and some of it is the situation worsened

and so the news showed a different

situation to people.

But does that surprise you? I I did not

know that a majority of Americans, so

that's got to include a bunch of

independents at least, if not Democrats,

um the majority

want to send back all illegal

immigrants.

That's that's way more than even Trump

recently promised

because uh ICE and Trump were both

saying we're going to, you know, start

with the worst first. So they never they

never dropped the idea that they were

going to deport everybody. It was

illegal. But there was a practical

limitation to that. meaning that they

could, you know, work for years just

trying to get the the worst ones, the

ones that had broken laws after they got

here.

So, I thought, well, yeah, you can say

you can say you want to deport every

single one. But if you start with the

worst first, it's going to get harder

and harder to find worsts because once

you get all the lowhanging fruit, you'd

be like, "All right, well, I know

there's more criminal undocumented

people. They're just harder to find, you

know, but we'll keep working on it." But

apparently the public is is on the same

page as Trump's campaign promises, at

least by a solid majority.

So that surprised me.

Um, the Wall Street Journal

seems to be uh a little bit proTrump in

terms of the big beautiful bill.

So the editorial board is complaining

that the Democrats are lying about the

big beautiful bill.

So that's sort of a proTrump message. Um

that they're saying the Democrats are

lying to you. So the things they're

lying about is saying that uh the

Republicans are going to take away all

your health care or that uh people who

are eligible and should be getting

Medicare are going to be dropped from

it. Um they think uh

what else they think? Um

yeah, so the CBO

had

said that uh 4.8 million people would

rather lose their Medicare that they

have now than get a job or um apply to

school to learn something because if

you're in school or you have a job and

you don't even have to work many hours.

It's like 20 hours a week. You can even

volunteer just to maintain your

healthcare.

But uh the CBO estimated that 4.8

million people wouldn't do that.

Could you imagine being so lazy

that you wouldn't take any kind of job

at all to maintain your own health care

coverage? No job, nothing for 20 hours a

week or or even just sign up for a

community college. and you know barely

pass. How hard would it be to do enough

work to maintain your healthcare? So

that's amazing. So are we supposed to

have empathy for people who want us to

pay for them while they don't work even

though they're able-bodied?

So, I think Democrats have convinced

themselves that their relative who's in

a wheelchair and um can't walk, can't

speak, that they're going to lose their

Medicare. No. No. It's only able-bodied

people. It's not people who are already

in terrible shape. So, the the uh

Democrats have to lie

that uh they're going to take away your

healthcare. But also

uh I asked this question on X this

morning. Um I said uh when Democrats

describe the hellscape of living under

Trump's authoritarian rule, what part of

that is touching them personally?

Have you ever wondered that?

If if all Democrats, probably maybe

twothirds of them, would agree with the

statement that uh everything's gone to

hell under Trump, do they have an

example of something that affected them?

Because I wake up every morning and

nothing seems to be affecting me.

There's nothing that Trump has done

except maybe decreasing the number of um

dangerous undocumented people. I don't

feel anything different. Every day I

wake up and things are about the same.

But what what are Democrats doing? Are

they waking up into some, you know,

hellscape?

And if you ask them, all right, so what

exactly is the hellscape art?

Um, it turns out that according to the

comments to my post that a lot of people

believe that uh regular citizens will be

deported.

How many of you believe that just

regular citizens

will be deported, just minding your own

business, and that one day ISIS will

break down your door and say, "All

right, your family's been here for four

generations,

but Trump has decided to deport you

somewhere to a country you've never had

any association with."

Apparently, Democrats believe that's

real.

So they think that citizens

will be deported.

What?

What?

So

uh they think that their healthcare will

go away

uh even if they deserve it, which is not

true. And they think that that the

deporting won't stop until they get all

the Democrats, I guess.

Uh but they might um hate the fact that

uh Planned Parenthood is being majorly

defunded by the uh big beautiful bill.

Now by defunded I mean I don't mean that

they lose all their money. I think but

it's a lot. I think it's like a quarter

of their funding or something they get

from the the feds. So they're going to

lose about a quarter of their funding

somewhere in that neighborhood. Um, but

does that mean that the government

should continue to pay for it?

Um, you know, I I prefer to stay away

from the uh the whole argument about

abortion because I think men such as me

should just stay out of it and whatever

women work out, you know, I'll go along

with that. Um because if the situation

were reversed and I were a female, I

wouldn't want men to have an opinion on

abortion, I'd say stay out of it. You

you just stay out of it. Let the women

figure it out. Um so I I apply the same

standard as a man. I say, "Oh, okay. If

I were you, I'd want me to stay out of

the argument." So I do.

I have nothing to add to the argument.

Uh, but if we're looking at the funding

alone,

I do feel like Planned Parenthood will

eventually find enough voluntary

funding. Probably they'll just get more

donations because they'll they'll say,

"Hey,

mean old Trump took our funding, so why

don't you donate to us?" So, I suspect

that their business won't be that much

affected in the long run, but we'll see.

But I guess that would be part of the

Democrat hellscape.

To which I say, how many people needed

an abortion today?

Anyway,

so when I asked the question about the

hellscape,

um I'm I'm kind of fascinated by the

troll activity cuz if I say anything

about policy that is sort of

anti-democrat,

um I'll get at least one and usually

just one comment from somebody who looks

like an AI troll or maybe just a paid

troll, but they they have uh some stuff

in common that doesn't make them look

like regular commenters. So to my

question about where exactly is this

hellscape people are living, Richard

Anguin, who I don't know if as a real

person or not, uh replied, "Scott Adams

smug dismissal of legitimate fears about

Trump's authoritarian tendencies is a

dangerous oversimplification

that ignores the real trauma inflicted

on marginalized communities by his

policies." to which I say that is a

perfect Democrat um response.

It did the two things that Democrats do.

The first thing is they don't address

the um the point. They they insult you

personally.

So was was the thing that you needed to

talk about my smug dismissal of

legitimate fears?

Was this really about me? Why would you

make it about me? That's not a

reasonable question to ask. If if half

of the country believes they live in a

hellscape and I care enough to

understand what that's about, then I

publicly put myself out there and say,

"Well, can you give me an example?"

Because I can be convinced. I could be

talked into it. If you had real

examples, I'd say, "Oh, okay. Maybe

those things don't bother me, but I

could see how they would bother you.

Thank you for your answer.

But instead, I get attacked personally

for my smug dismissal of legitimate

fears. Like I've got some special

uh lack of empathy for the

underprivileged.

No, I don't. I just have a genuine

curiosity. What the heck is the

hellscape? Can you give me some

examples? Then the second thing that is

typically Democrat besides going after

the person instead of the opinion

is these vague handwaving problems like

um the Trump's authoritarian tendencies.

All right. So go on now. Complete the

picture. his authoritarian tendencies

give you what problem?

Um, well, it it it allowed me to

oversimplify and ignore the real trauma

inflicted on marginalized communities.

Okay, we're getting closer. What What

would be an example of the real trauma

inflicted on the marginalized

communities?

just one example.

So, um,

what exactly is a trauma inducer?

Can you give me any example of that?

Apparently not. All right.

Rasmusen did a poll asking people about

their preferences um for Democrats

preferences for their presidential

candidate for 2028.

And at the top of the list was Kla

Harris.

Um, let me see if you can guess what

percentage of the respondents

thought that having Kla Harris as a

candidate was a good idea. What percent

of the people who answered?

Does anybody know?

You know, I don't have to tell you.

You know

that's right.

If if you guessed 25%

you were very close. The answer is 23%.

Yep. 23% of respondents thought that

Harris would be a good idea.

How in the world

could you go through that last election

cycle and conclude that Kamla Harris is

your best player?

Like I always say, so for those of you

who are not in on the inside joke here,

I'll bring you in. The inside joke is

that I always tease the pollsters that

uh for every poll, there's there's

always at least one answer that's really

stupid.

There might be several answers that you

know are reasonable, but maybe you

disagree. But there's usually one

answer, no matter what the topic is,

there's usually one answer that they

they get that's just stupid.

And I would say that favoring Kla Harris

as your champion for 2028,

that kind of falls into stupid. I I

don't think that's just a preference,

is it? Would you call that a preference?

It just looks like you don't you weren't

paying attention at all.

Anyway,

um Eric Dolan over at Sai Post tells us

there's a new study about what

percentage of Americans

uh think that we're heading toward a

civil war. You know, if you spend any

time on social media,

people just casually say, "It's time for

this civil war." You know, grab your

gun. And I always wonder how many people

actually think that the US is close to a

civil war. Cuz again, I don't know what

hellscape that is you're living in, but

I don't know anybody who's close to a

civil war.

It's just you see some strangers on

social media say, "Yeah, it's time for

that civil war." But I don't know a real

person who thinks the civil war is

necessary or desirable. None. But it

turns out that my intuition was not too

far off because only six and a half% of

the respondents

uh felt strongly or very strongly that a

civil war was likely

and only uh fewer than 4% agree that

such a conflict was needed. So 4% I'll

bet even that 4% doesn't really mean it.

You know, like if you said, "All right,

uh, the magic genie just put you in

charge of the civil war." If you say

yes, there will be a civil war that you

think is necessary. If you say no, the

genie will make sure there's no civil

war. Do you think you could get 4% of

the respondents to say, "Hm, yeah, let's

do the civil war."

Cuz I'm a little skeptical. I feel like

it might be close to zero. People would

actually say yes to that. So, I don't

think the US is close to a civil war.

No, nowhere close. We don't even have

protests

unless they're uh funded by, you know,

dirty money backers.

We don't even have spontaneous protests.

we only have the paid professional

activist kind of protest that nobody

thinks is an indication of what people

are thinking. Rather, it's just

political theater.

So, as soon as um the Department of

Justice and the FBI said they were going

to look into the funding behind the

anti-ICE protests in LA, suddenly all

the protests stopped. Huh. Interesting.

as soon as they were going to look into

the real cause of it.

So that was never real. Those protests

were obviously activist and funded.

Um so Elon Musk is modifying his plans

for starting a new political party. So

instead of primarying every single

Republican who voted for the big

beautiful bill, which is something he

threatened, he's now saying that uh one

way to execute on this would be to laser

focus on just two or three Senate seats

and 8 to 10 House

because he reckons if he can get just

that many people to join what he calls

his America party

that uh the the Democrats and

Republicans would be so close they'd be

sort of a tie on everything that he

would be the Joe Mansion tiebreaker.

You remember I always talked about how

smart Joe Mansion was because he would

be the one person that you were never

sure if he was going to side with the

Republicans or the Democrats, which

effectively put him in charge of the

whole country. Yeah. at the time because

the the votes were all close to a tie

and you always needed that one extra

senator. And I always thought he's so

smart to not commit to one side of the

other because it puts him in charge of

the whole country. Um, and this is what

uh Musk is looking to do. If he could

really get just a handful of senators,

he would run the country because it

would be a tie with pretty much every

topic except for his five senators that

maybe he could push toward deficit

reduction or something.

So, we'll see if he follows up on that.

Um, I know that whatever we're doing now

isn't the best system. So, I don't know.

Would he make you better or worse?

How many of you believe that the Russian

economy has been suffering because of

the war?

Didn't you sort of think that was true?

Didn't you believe that the Russian

economy must be sputtering?

Well, maybe your news didn't tell you

that for the past two years, the Russian

economy has been zooming.

Now, it's probably because the stimulus

of having a war, so it's not a permanent

situation, but now there's a some

reporting that maybe their economy after

two years assuming

um might be, you know, a little bit

weaker.

I don't think so. I I think if we're

waiting for Russia's economy to falter

and then, you know, then we'll

negotiate,

I don't think we should wait for that.

Well, Trump continues to say that he's

got a tick tock deal pretty much done

that would allow some American um or at

least non-Chinese investors to buy it if

it can only get China to agree. But when

it comes to China agreeing, he's going

to be talking to him next week, I guess.

Um, and he says uh when asked if he's

confident that China would approve the

sale of Tik Tok to an American le

consortium probably. Um, he said, "I'm

not confident, but I think so. Uh,

President Xi and I have a great

relationship, and I think it's good for

them. Uh, the deal is good for China,

and it's good for us.

So,

does that sound like he he's going to

succeed? To me, that sounds like China's

not going to give up on this unless

they get some big trade ne, you know,

some trade concession.

So in order for Trump to satisfy his

investors who are probably also Trump

supporters, the ones who who have agreed

to buy Tik Tok, so in order to get that

done, the question I would ask is, is he

going to have to throw the rest of us

under the bus by not pushing China as

hard as he could on trade?

I don't know.

Uh, I'd be a little bit concerned about

what China asked for in response, as in,

well, we really, really don't want to

sell Tik Tok, but we might be willing to

do it if you just drop this whole trade

war thing and give us AI chips. There's

probably something they're willing to

ask for that would make it worth it for

them to to sell Tik Tok, which they

don't want to do.

And also Tik Tok is how they can

brainwash our country.

So China might just say it's not even

about economics. It's entirely about um

having a platform that can control minds

in America.

Uh anyway, so the Democratic National

Committee is sharpening their attacks on

Trump and their new approach is that

Trump is quote killing the American

dream through price hikes and his big

beautiful bill. So does that sound like

a good attack?

Trump is killing the American dream

again.

There's there's no image that goes with

that. So, that's not it's not visual

persuasion.

Um, it doesn't exactly ring true. I

don't imagine it would ring true for I

don't know. I I can't put myself in the

head of uh Democrats. Maybe for young

people who believe that everything is

too expensive, so they'll never own a

house. So if their message is he's

killing the American dream through price

hikes,

um you'd have to give examples of those

price hikes. And at the moment inflation

is

not bad. So they would be Democrats look

to be hooking their horse, so to speak,

to an argument that is the opposite of

the data,

which they always do.

It's the most common thing they do is

come up with an argument that's opposite

of the data.

Anyway, so that's their best their best

idea. So the new uh hoax,

the new Democrat hoax would be that

Trump is preventing the American dream

instead of creating it.

Well, did you know according to the

Washington Times, Matt Delaney is

writing, um, did you know that there are

9,000 reports, 9,000 reports

of Russia using chemical weapons to

attack Ukraine's forces,

9,000 times that we know of.

And apparently they're they're loading

the chemicals into their own drones and

they're uh gassing the Ukrainians who

are hiding in trenches and and other

places.

Um and it gets them to leave their

protected areas so they can breathe and

then they, you know, kill them with

their drones. So apparently chemical war

warfare is just raging over there and uh

this the first time I've heard of it.

Does it make sense to you that Russia is

routinely gassing the Ukraines and

today's probably for some of you that

today's the first day you've ever heard

of it? Why would that be? Is it is it to

prevent us from getting involved?

Because if we think they're gassing

people, we say, "Hey, you know, we have

to get involved cuz it's like weapons of

mass destruction."

I don't know. I I can't understand why

I'm only hearing about this today. Was

it always out there? Maybe it was always

out there and I just missed every story

about it.

Or maybe it's not real. Don't know.

So, I was checking today to see if my um

idea about uh Zorhan Mandani, the

potential mayor of New York City. So, I

told you that the best attack is to

attack his creepy smile because once you

hear it called creepy, you'll always see

a smile as creepy. You just have to hear

it once and it just becomes part of you.

So, it's spread a little bit. You know,

there some notable people have posted

it, but I feel like it could get a lot

bigger. And I, you know, I suspect it

hasn't had any impact on actual voters

in New York City yet. So, it would have

to get a lot bigger or somebody like

Trump would have to say he has a creepy

smile because otherwise it won't get to

the voters. You know, it's not like the

New York City uh population is watching

this podcast,

but they definitely have to pay

attention to anything that Trump says.

So, if he went after him for uh his

creepy smile,

I think you would remember that forever.

So, we'll see if that happens.

Well, President Trump says said on

Friday that Iran had not agreed to

nuclear inspections and it had not

agreed to give up its uh enriching of

uranium.

But

um there are apparently some talks

coming up according to

uh Moiadia,

whatever that is. Um they say that uh

the US and Iran are going to be talking.

Does that sound real? Do you believe

Iran and the US are going to have any

productive highlevel discussions? I

don't know. I'm not sure I believe it

yet. But if it happens, they would be

talking about all these things. I don't

I don't imagine anything good is could

come out of that. So, we'll see. Trump

has pulled some rabbits out of some

hats, so anything's possible in the

golden age.

Well, this is the end of my prepared

comments. You saw how how dull and

boring the news was today. Um, and I

know a lot of you just use this to fall

asleep to my voice.

By the way, if you want a recommendation

for another content to fall asleep to,

try very old black and white TV sitcoms,

you know, like the Dick Van Dyke Show

and New Heart, if you're old enough to

remember those.

There is nothing happening in those

shows. The jokes are not jokes.

The issues are not controversial.

It's just people talking

and talking about ordinary stuff. So e

even you know my favorite Martian. It's

not provocative. There's no swearing.

There's nothing that will make you

laugh. There's nothing so interesting

that you'll really want to hear it. It's

just like ASMR.

And uh I can fall asleep to that so

easily.

The other thing I can fall asleep to,

just in case you want to test it for

yourself, is I'll put on a YouTube video

about um ancient ruins like Gobelli,

Catelli, Gopelli, Capelli. Well, you

know that place. Um because there are

hundreds of them and they all say the

same stuff.

Well, we found some rocks and we don't

know how they possibly could have

carried these big rocks and cut them to

such precision. We also don't know how

they understood the the zodiac or

astronomy so well that they're lined up

perfectly with the North Star.

And it's the same same content over and

over again. It's usually some boring

person talking about it. You can go to

sleep to that really well. There's

nothing new in those. Well, we were

wrong about when hunter gatherers

created civilization. All right. I've

heard it a million times.

Anyway, so if you're using uh my podcast

to fall asleep, good for you if it

works. Um, and this one will be

especially good because there was no

good content today. Not my fault. It's a

boring holiday weekend. Anyway, it's

time for um me to say a few words to my

beloved local subscribers, but I'll keep

it short and give uh Owen Gregorian just

enough time so he can go get the spaces

ready.

Uh, so Owen, you're still in the

comments, I see. But uh uh in a very few

short minutes

um the spaces event will be opening up

for people who want to get a little

extra talk about today's stories and

whatever else I guess you want to do. So

just search for Owen Gregorian on X and

you'll see a link at the top of his feed

um for when to join how to join the

spaces. All right,

that's enough of that. Hey locals, I'm

going to come to you privately. The rest

of you, I'll see you tomorrow. Same

time, same place. In 30 seconds, we'll

be

Uh oh.

Is that not working?

Well, it looks like we have a technical

problem. Let's try again.

So, I don't have the ability to go

private with locals today. Just the

button the button is not responding.

It's happened a few times. All right.

Well, we don't need to.

I'll catch up to you on the uh spaces

event and uh so I'll just say see you

later.

See you later.

I make sure that I see somebody else say

see you later before I go. There we go.

See you later.

Oh, it also doesn't let me end the

stream. So I have to sign off and then

recite back on just