Episode 3055 CWSA 12/27/25

What just happened?

Good morning, everybody.

I'm here.

We're back.

Come on in.

We've got a slow news day, so we're going to have to make the most of it.

But, you know, we can.

We got funny news stories.

We've got reframes.

We've got drama.

We've got trouble.

It's going to be awesome.

So, uh, I'll remind you, I guess that's the wrong word because I haven't told you yet, but it's Saturday and, uh, there will be a spaces event, uh, hosted by Owen Gregorian immediately after this podcast.

So, if you didn't get enough of what I'm going to give you, you can go get a little extra.

So, spaces is the audio feature within X.

If you're not on the X platform, you probably should be because it's got a lot of good stuff.

All right, people.

People, you know what we should do?

The simultaneous sip.

That's probably why you're here.

And all you need for that is a copper mug or a glass of tanker child inside a canteen jugger flask.

A vessel of any kind.

Fill it with your favorite liquid.

I like coffee.

Enjoy me now for the unparallel pleasure.

The dopamine of the day.

The thing that makes everything better.

It's called the simultaneous sip.

It's going to happen right now.

Go.

And if you subscribe to Owen Gregorian's X feed, you would get extra spaces as well.

So think about that.

Well, I would be I'm making a mistake if I didn't remind you that the Dilberg calendar is still slightly for sale, meaning that we're getting close to selling out, which is both true and a mechanism of persuasion to tell you that there are shortages, but it's actually true.

there there is a risk that if you wait a week or two we might have sold out.

So get your Dilbert calendar while they still exist.

All right.

I like to start my show talking about science.

So apparently there's a new study in the UK that says that polar bears are undergoing rapid genetic change to adjust to climate change because climate change would wipe them out except that they may have rapidly changed their own genetic nature to adapt.

Now, why do you think there would be a research about the genetic structure of polar bears and then and then blaming that on climate change?

Could it be because everything else they blamed on climate change turned out to be BS?

The coral reefs are recovering.

The ice seems to be recovering.

There doesn't seem to be any any important change in sea level.

and we had no major storms reach landfall in the United States this year.

So, pretty much all the stuff that the climate people tried to scare us about turned out not to be true.

So, they're running out of stuff.

So, if you still want to be a climate change person or this was reported by ABC News, if you want to still keep with the climate crisis, you're going to need some new stuff.

So, I think the new stuff is, wait, look what's happening to the polar bears.

Oh, surprise.

They survived by self evolving their genetics rapidly.

Now, one of the things this makes me wonder if you were a scientist, and I'm certainly not, do scientists believe that, well, do scientists think that the worst other scientists are climate change scientists?

If you were a physicist, would you say to yourself, "Oo, those climate scientists are the smart ones." Or or would you say that the people who can't be good scientists become climate scientists?

Like if you're actually a scientist, would you think that climate scientists are as serious and talented as other scientists?

Or would you say or or would you say that they're the laughingstock of scientists?

I don't know the answer to that question, but when I see stuff like this, I think, hm, I don't think that was the most serious science that was happening.

All right, here's some more science from Eric Dolan.

He's writing about this in Cypos.

Uh the headline says some men may downplay climate change risks to avoid appearing feminine.

Do you think that do you think that there apparently there's a big difference in opinion between men and women on the risks of climate change?

Men are less likely to think it's a existential risk and women are far more likely.

Do you think the reason for that is that the men want according to the study that the men are trying to avoid looking feminine?

So they think it's just sort of tougher to not be afraid of climate science.

Well, that might be what's going on, but that's an interpretation.

Is it also possible that this was written by women or men who were married to women?

because it's a little bit a little bit biased.

The other possibility is that men are better at evaluating physical risk and seeing through the BS.

So, are men trying to be less feminine or are they just better at evaluating risk?

Well, I think you put this in either frame, but it does suggest that whoever wrote the opinion that the real problem here is men trying to appear less feminine.

That looks like it was written by a woman or a man who was married to a woman and wanted to stay that way.

Just guessing, speculating.

So, Barbara Lucky, the billionaire head of Anderil, he seems to be doing a lot of public podcasting and interviews and stuff lately, and I always enjoy reading his opinions, but he seems to be part of what I'm seeing as a growing billionaire trend.

And when I say billionaire trend, I mean the billionaires I seem to like the most.

that the billionaires need to use their their power and their money to make the world a better place.

Now, not being forced to do it, not being forced by the government to do it or taxed or something, but simply because they're the best at allocating capital.

So, if you had a billion dollars floating around and you said, "What are we going to do with it?" Would you rather give the billion dollars to oh, let's say Tim Walsh in Minnesota or Gavin Newsome in California or somebody like Elon Musk who definitely knows how to deploy capital?

Um, so I saw Chimath from the Allen pod saying that the billionaires need to do a better job of providing obvious benefits to the public the way the old billionaires used to do and turn of the century, the other turn of the century.

And uh that's probably good advice because I think if they're doing things like creating public libraries, you know, the old billionaire stuff, or in today's world, if they're, I don't know, building cities that could make people happier, or maybe they're helping to, you know, treat problems that the government is not treating.

Maybe they're making health care affordable.

Uh maybe they're making transportation affordable.

So that the billionaires need to step up and the alternative would be um you know being taxed out of their money and then the the money goes where it would not be well employed.

So apparently uh Palmer Lucky is trying to convince some of his other billionaire friends uh to spend less time on their yachts and more time trying to deploy capital and what makes sense.

So if you see Elon Musk and Chimath and Palmer Lucky all on the same side of a topic, it's probably something you should pay attention to.

Yeah, there are smartest people.

Speaking of smart people, I saw Brett Weinstein give an opinion on childhood vaccines that I thought was very close to my own opinion, but he does such a good job of communicating.

I thought I'd tell you how he explains it.

So Brett said, quote, I believe the adverse events from regular old vaccines, so we're not talking about COVID, just the vaccines that kids get are the that the adverse effects are far more common than we imagined, including things like allergies.

So he thinks his weed allergy might be because of something called aduants.

that uh were in his early childhood vaccinations.

He said one of his sons has seasonal allergies uh that are pretty bad.

The other has an allergy to dairy that's pretty bad.

Um, and then he says given all that education that I've now painfully received, meaning he's done a pretty deep dive on the the vaccine world and he is, you know, qualified to understand that stuff scientifically.

If I had to do it all over again, I would not end up giving any vaccines to my newborn children.

Wow.

I am so glad that I don't have newborn children because this would be I mean this is a big decision.

It used to used to feel like it was automatic like of course you get vaccinations.

You know the scientists all say you should do it.

Of course you would.

But here's what uh Brett says.

He says this this is the important part.

He says,"I not saying it's impossible that any of them are more beneficial than they are harmful, but now I note that I cannot trust the safety testing." So his opinion is based on the fact that that we now know that the safety testing has been inadequate forever.

So be being very careful here.

He's not saying he knows that these are the problem.

He is saying he knows that you can't tell and that his personal decision if he had to make it now would be to not vaccinate children.

That is pretty extreme, but also I would say perfectly backed up by observation.

And I'm I'm obviously not qualified to do a deep dive on vaccinations, but he is and he has.

And so it's pretty shocking uh development.

So how much did you used to trust science and how much do you trust it today?

Was there ever a time when you thought the climate scientists were nailing it and that they were totally legit and that the big pharma must have been forced to do good science or else the stuff wouldn't be approved?

And now it kind of looks the opposite, doesn't it?

Now we know that at least half of all scientific studies are not reproducible.

We watched the pandemic pervert science like we didn't think was possible.

And now we're coming to understand that even climate science, you know, one of the biggest most important domains we thought was probably full of the least qualified scientists who are not exactly being scientific.

that they may have just been following the money if you know what I mean.

So that goes all the way back to do you vaccinate your baby.

That's a big difference from even what I thought.

I mean I've been skeptical about the power of science and how much might be fraudulent.

I've been skeptical for a long time but not this skeptical.

I mean, I've just fallen off a ledge in terms of trusting science.

Probably some of you, too.

Well, remember I keep saying that if robots were going to be launched in 2026 and if those robots would be the uh general kind, they could learn something and be your butler that we would already see them in the lab.

Well, interestingly, uh, Sawyer Merit on Ax is reporting that Tesla has, you know, bunch of new job openings for their Optimus robot program.

And Elon Musk was saying that the Optimus version three, which must be the version they're working on in the lab, um, has a new hand.

That's an incredible piece of engineering.

So apparently I've heard Elon say this before that that the Optimus robot hand has finally broken through to be like just super sensitive and and good.

And if you can't get the hand right, you'll never have a proper robot because and apparently all the robot companies can make a robot that walks and you know lifts heavy objects but it's really hard according to Elon to get a hand but they believe they have now achieved you know the sensitivity and the and the dexterity of a human hand.

So what Musk says is the new hand is an incredible piece of engineering and then he says we'll have a production intent prototype meaning they intend it to be production ready uh to show in February or March of this year 2026.

So they'll be able to show you a prototype then.

And then he says, "We're going to build 1 million unit production line and they hope production will start by the end of 2026." So, uh, remember my caution that if it's not already as smart as it needs to be, how do we know it will ever get there in one year?

because I don't think LLMs, you know, the current technology can get you a general purpose general intelligence robot.

But is there something happening in the labs at Tesla that they know that we don't know that suggests that within a year that that they're so certain they'll have that that they would already start on a production line?

I don't know.

I can't tell how much of that is optimism and the fact that Musk might think, well, even if I don't know how to do it today, a year is a long time in AI and by then I will know how to do it.

Now, keep in mind the minute they figure out how to do it and the it in this case is making a general intelligence robot.

The moment they know how to do it, all the robots will have that ability.

because it's just a download.

It's just software.

So again, I don't want to bet against Elon Musk on robots or technology or anything about the future.

Uh he has a good track record of prediction, but maybe I would disagree with him on the timing.

It would be really hard that by the end of 2026 we invented this thing that I don't think anybody has an idea how to invent.

You know why?

Why would it be this year?

If we went all this time without knowing how to do it up till now, would the current AIS tell us how to make a better AI?

I don't know if that's possible.

Would the current AIS be able to iterate all the different ways you could create intelligence until it hit one?

Maybe.

I don't know.

But by now, I would have expected to see general intelligence if they're going to start selling it at the end of the year, end of 2026.

So, we'll see.

Well, Greg Abbott, governor of Texas, is going to create a chief state prosecutor to prosecute the criminals that the lefty prosecutors refuse to prosecute.

Um, so Texas is pretty serious about their crime and everybody knows that if you got rid of the worst of the criminals, the worst of the worst, I'm not even talking about immigration now, just crime.

If you got rid of the ones that are the repeat offenders, your your violent crime rate would go down by 80% immediately because 80% of the crimes are the same criminals doing one crime after another.

But if you had Sorosf funded prosecutors, they're making things worse instead of better because they'd be releasing the criminals, you know, and maybe they shouldn't.

And the workaround that Greg Abbott is proposing is to have a chief state prosecutor that would go after those people that the regular prosecutors had decided to release.

Is that a good idea?

What do you think?

Will I take a sip of water here?

I think one of my meds is making me dry mouththed.

Well, it feels like a good idea to me.

All right.

So, you know that on the political right there's been some drama among the influencers and you know that I've tried to completely stay out of it because I don't find value in that kind of drama.

But yesterday or recently little thing popped up that I thought I could add a reframe to that would be useful.

And it starts with the story of um I guess the background is people like Jack Basobic and Mark Leven have some kind of drama background disagreement or something.

And that part I'm not interested in.

But there was an event recently where uh at the Turning Point USA where uh a number of public figures were giving selfies because that's sort of what you do at an event like that.

You get a number of public figures.

The public wants, you know, we we don't do autographs anymore.

We public figures.

We mostly do selfies.

So, there were a lot of selfies and uh I guess somebody who was a had a Nick Fuentes inspired t-shirt had a selfie taken with Jack Porobic and then Jack was challenged to, hey, you know, why are you taking a selfie with somebody with such a terrible meme on his t-shirt?

Now, that's the sort of problem that nobody needs.

And uh I I'll give you a little uh context on that and then my opinion of what's the best way to handle it.

Now the first thing you need to know is who the hell is Nick Fuentes?

And I would I would frame it this way.

He's not on the left.

He's very popular uh podcaster, very provocative.

I'll tell you why.

So he's not on the left because he's conservative, but he's also a Trump hater.

So he's not really on the MAGA right or the mega left.

So what is he?

Because he's got a large and growing audience.

I feel like the best way to understand him is the turd in the punch bowl analogy.

So I'll give you I'll give you a little mental model here.

Let's say you went to a party and it was a mixed party.

There were old people and young people and people of all type with the party.

And somebody put a turd in the punch bowl.

Like not a not a joke turd, like an actual turd.

And they put it right in the punch bowl and then ran away and nobody saw them do it.

Well, what would happen?

Well, first of all, the women attending the party would say, "I'm out of here.

This is not the kind of party I want to be at.

There's a turd in the punch bowl.

So women all leave.

The older men would say, "Oh god, who did that?

You know, we're going to have to find who did that?" And you know, there has to be consequences.

So they would also leave the party because they don't want to be a part at a party with a turn and punchable.

But the young men, the young men would think it's the funniest thing that happened to them all week.

And even if the party shut down, they would gather in the in the parking lot and they would laugh aoriously at the fact that somebody put a turn in a punch bowl at a respectable party.

Now, what you need to know is that uh Nick Fuentes, who is verbally gifted and very good at the whole, you know, public speaking thing, is closer to a turn in the punch bowl than he is to any of the attendees.

So if you if you think of him as sort of a train wreck where you can't look away then you would understand why his audience of mostly young men is growing and enthusiastic.

Then if you add on top of that that young men feel feel not they feel like they're not served by the current system then it's not unusual that they would have a you know burn down the system kind of approach to life.

They they wouldn't respect the system but they would like a good prank when they saw it.

So they'd actually be attached, not attached to, they would be attracted to the fact that somebody put a turd in a punch bowl because they're they're not respecting the system.

The system doesn't respect them.

And it's not that they're in favor of turds.

That this is the important part.

They're not in favor of turds.

They're not drinking the punch.

They're just can't look away because it's a it's a show that is a spectacle.

All right.

So, with that in mind, if you imagine him as the turd in the punch bowl, um, someone who had a a t-shirt meme that was, I understand, inspired by Fendes that involved the worst thing you could imagine, which obviously I disavow because, you know, I'm an older I'm an older man.

Obviously, I disavow it.

uh which had some kind of cookie monster connection to the Holocaust.

And don't don't make me spell it out.

It's just where whatever is the worst thing you can imagine.

So that was unsure.

So this fellow asked for who is also an influencer, it turns out asked for a uh selfie with Jack Sabic who gave it to him.

uh along with lots of other selfies that he was doing that day.

And um it would be unusual for any normal person to have known that that t-shirt was connected to Fuendes or even what it meant.

It it wasn't an obvious uh connection, but if you were deep into that world, you might have recognized it, but normal people would not have known what it was.

So, it caught my attention because Mark Leventitten, who must have some prior bigger disagreement with Jack, wrote a what looked like a drunken uncle rant about, "Wow, you need to explain, you know, explain this." Basically, I'm summarizing.

Now, I'm not saying that Levid was drunk when he wrote the message, cuz I don't even know if he drinks, but it came off that way.

If you had just been introduced to him for the first time, his content, and you and the only thing you knew is why he wrote on that one post, it would look like maybe the eggnog was involved.

Uh, so it was it seemed like it was pretty extreme and I imagine that had to do with their background, not so much with this specific event.

But I would like to give you a reframe uh in my typical goals versus systems way.

You know, I often tell you, uh, you know, sometimes it's useful to have a goal, but it's not going to be useful unless you've got a system that makes sense.

So, I would argue because I I got some feedback from people with comments when I weighed in on that.

Um, somebody said that they they needed to know and here they would be talking about Jack that they needed to know what he believed because he was one of the people asking for unity.

So if somebody's going to ask you to unify with them, is it a reasonable goal to know what it is you're unifying with?

To which I say yes.

as a goal.

It would be good to know what people believe if they want you to join them in their belief or or even in their activities.

You don't have to join them in the belief, but yeah, that would be a worthy goal.

However, it would be a terrible system to use a stranger's t-shirt as a starting point of that conversation, especially if you had a Charlie Kirk inspired event.

The the main thing that Charlie Kirk inspired in my opinion and one of the things I respect the most about him is that he tried to turn everything into a civilized um debate in which anybody could ask anybody anything and you would get an honest answer to it.

That's pretty much what he was doing.

he was going places and say ask me anything and I'll give you my honest you know opinion.

So if you happen to be in an event in which the entire vibe is that you can ask anybody their opinion and they will give you a respectful opinion.

You don't need to start the conversation based on a turd in the punch bowl and the shirt he's wearing because if you start there, you're just automatically going to, you know, open up this side conversation that you don't need.

It would be far better to ask somebody about a shirt they were wearing.

So, if in fact, you know, I'm wearing a shirt that offends you, it certainly makes sense that you should ask, "Do you believe what's on your own shirt?" Of course.

But don't ask me to defend someone else's meme on a shirt that normal people wouldn't even recognize as being offensive.

That's not a good starting point.

The starting point is you just ask Jack, "Jack, what is your opinion on this or that?" and he would give you a respectful reply.

Anyway, so I don't think anybody needs to apologize or explain someone else's shirt just because they took a selfie with them.

And I would also say there will always be a audience for the turd in the punch bowl.

Now, if you're in my category, which is people who don't like turds and punch bowls, what do you do about it?

Is it your job to fix it?

And if it is your job to fix it, let's just say from a social perspective, you don't want to identify with something that's, you know, so bad.

Well, I kind of I think it kind of depends who you are.

Uh I have the arrogant opinion that if someone who is young and had a very bad opinion that's just way over the line you know just way over the line into inappropriate that if they associate with me that over time they would moderate their opinion because I would have a positive influence on them.

What I don't believe would ever happen, and maybe this is just my own arrogance, I don't believe that if I took a selfie with or spend time with or tolerated someone who had a wholly inappropriate opinion that somehow that would rub off on me.

I think it only works in one direction in my case.

So in my case being an influential type person you know by by practice and by nature I guess I I feel that young people would sort of drift on their own without me being heavy-handed about it to eventually be like an older man's opinion and you start being less impressed by the turd and the punch bowl and and more interested in being part of the solution, you you know, sort of the Palmer Lucky thing, be part of the solution.

So that's my my reframe is you can certainly ask a person their own opinion, but it would be a bad system to start with.

What do you think about that stranger's shirt?

Bad way to start.

All right.

Now, I'm trying desperately, not desperately, but I don't want to get dragged into the actual um debate.

You know, I I think there's plenty of room for people to have different opinions, but different opinions is not what the turd and punch bowl's about.

That's more about the spectacle.

Um, so I don't have to be yes or no on the Fentes question.

I simply have to be a good job of being me and maybe that will have some influence on some of the younger.

All right.

Next.

Next.

I saw uh on the X account arch archo histories.

Um I always wondered about this the origin of the Dunning Krueger effect.

Now, you've heard of Dunning Krueger, right?

That's where people who know the least often have the most confidence about the rightness.

So, the less you know, the more confident you can be.

Well, apparently that was based on one or at least it was triggered by one story that back in 1995.

There was a bank robber who believed that if he put lemon juice on his face when he robbed the bank, the bank cameras wouldn't be uh wouldn't be able to see him.

And his his thinking was that since lemon juice was a component of invisible ink that therefore logically if you put lemon juice on your face uh it would make you invisible on camera.

Now that is not the case it turns out.

and he actually smiled at the camera because he was so sure that he would be invisible.

So he easily got caught because his face was quite identifiable on the camera and he was surprised and he exclaimed reportedly quote but I wore the juice.

Now I guess there were some researchers who heard that story and thought we have to look into this.

What's up with that?

And then through research they discovered that it is common for people who know the least in this case he didn't know much about cameras or invisible ink to be the most confident and indeed he was confident because he actually robbed the bank think he was safe.

So, I just mentioned that because I think it's fun to know where that came from and it's a slow news day.

Uh, I'm looking in the comments to see somebody had a Tony Robbins comments here.

Let me see that if I can make that.

Tony Robbins, if you I can't stop the comments.

If you're if you just ignore problems with your thinking blah blah blah blah blah blah blah, then you get in trouble.

No, I I don't think ignoring problems is always the right way to go.

I'm not sure I understand that comment, so I'm going to let that go.

Anyway, according to newsbusters, Craig Bannister is writing that uh facts flip voters view of the Trump economy.

So the thesis here um is basically the fact that Trump did an address to the nation recently and he mentioned all the economic successes and apparently the mainstream networks seemed to have somehow locked out the graphics that would show how right he was about the economy being better in all these different different ways.

So, that would explain why some of the public still thinks that the economy is bad.

Um, it could be because they're just being blocked from seeing the evidence that is good.

Now, I don't know if you've had this experience yet, but if you watch news from the right leaning places, it will universally say, "Man, this economy is good." from inflation to employment to GDP can't beat it and they'll have numbers to back it up.

Weirdly, Democrats could do the same thing and do with their argument that the economy is actually bad.

So, they've got their own set of uh their own set of alleged data that would show that the economy is bad in a bunch of ways.

So is the economy good or is the economy bad?

Well, um if we uh if we let's let's say put a pin in that question and rather we look at the the fact can people be persuaded by being told real facts about the economy or will they be so dunning Krueger and so biased that even if they had access to really reliable information that was the opposite of what they had currently believed, would they change their minds?

And the research suggests that they would change their minds and that if they had seen what they believe to be accurate information that said that the economy is doing well, that fairly drastically people would say, "Oh, I guess the economy is doing well." But if they do not have access to that new better information, then they would not change their mind, which would suggest that the mainstream media might know that and that's the reason that they don't emphasize uh Trump and his graphics showing everything getting better.

Now, that's that's let me use some numbers.

uh in a survey conducted in uh mid December 56% of US voters surveyed said they believe the economy is getting worse while only 37% said it was getting better and this is mid December then uh once voters were informed of the facts and again you could debate whether these are the real facts or not but uh let's let's say the Trump facts the number slipped And the percent who said the economy is improving jumped 25 points from 37 to 62 while pessimism plummeted from 56 to 33.

So that um and so the the allegation here is that the mainstream media has to hide the truth because the truth would tell people that the economy is doing well.

Maybe, maybe.

The other possibility is that the Democrats have some data of their own.

And since most data is fake, even if you agree with it, most data from the left, most data from the right, it's hard to trust any data.

And in 2025, 26, it feels like no matter where you're looking, you're getting weird data.

I'm seeing in the comments, where do you get your news, Scott?

Um, I I gave a long description of where I got my news the other day because that's a good question, but I do sample, you know, CNN and MSN now and um I always listen to Jessica Tof on the five.

So, I try to get both sides and especially clips, you know, so I get clips that show both sides.

Uh, that was a good question.

So, the answer is I I sample both sides or try to.

So, um, an online I don't know if he'd be an influencer or a independent journalist or what you call him, but somebody called Nick Shirley put out a video in which he went to Minnesota and looked for fraud on his own because, you know, there have been allegations that the the Somali especially have been stealing mass amounts of money.

And I guess he was trying to find figure out how hard it would be to spot the frauds.

And the answer is it is alarmingly easy.

So he went to a number of places that alleged that they were uh taking government money and using it for charitable reasons.

and almost every one of them was a storefront or an empty store and very obviously not in the business of helping anybody.

So the shocking part is that he alleges he found $110 million in one day of what looked like fraudulent money transfers to fraudulent fake entities.

And if he could do it with just his microphone and his camera and a plane ticket, how hard was it for Minnesota itself to know that that was going on?

If you could uncover it that easily and it's what I'm I'm not adding to the story that the fraud exists, that part we knew.

What he added to the story is that anybody could have seen it.

It was just right out in the open.

I mean, you had to ask a couple questions and walk around a little bit, but you didn't have to be like Sherlock Holmes.

It was right there.

So, Elon Musk commented on that video uh with just three words.

Prosecute Governor Tim Wolf.

Prosecute Governor Tim.

Four words.

Now, do you think that you could prosecute the governor um or that if you looked into it, you would find evidence so you could because there's no way to believe that he was unaware?

Well, here's the weird thing.

Governor Walsh does not have obvious signs of wealth, does he?

Does it look like he, you know, made millions of dollars?

because he he doesn't live any kind of a lifestyle as far as we know that would suggest that he's you know spending a lot of money.

He could be packing away if in fact he's criminal he could be uh maybe he had been blackmailed or threatened so he had to keep it quiet so he could stay safe.

I have no evidence of that.

But uh Elon Musk of course has dug deeper on all these things than you and I have.

So when he says prosecute Tim Walsh, some of that might be that it seems obvious that he couldn't have not known.

Some of it might be that Tim Walls has tried to prosecute Elon Musk and tried to destroy his companies.

tried really hard to destroy his companies and he did it publicly that uh you're just seeing an obvious kind of response to that.

But I am curious if Tim Walsh was massively incompetent or was he threatened to stay quiet?

He might have been threatened.

Might have been too dangerous to be even a whistleblower himself.

Oh, so incompetence, crime, or is he a victim himself?

I doubt he's a victim himself.

So, according to Wall Street apes, also an X, Portland, Oregon spent 1.5 billion in the last two years on homelessness and yet the homelessness population rose by 60%.

So, that's bad result.

And by comparison, Houston, Texas, spent only 72 million, so we're not talking billions, just millions, on homelessness.

And their homelessness went down by 60%.

All right?

So, Democrats spent a massive amount of money and things went the wrong direction.

Texas spent a good deal of money, but just a fraction, and things went strongly in the right direction.

How do you explain that?

Well, uh, a reasonable assumption is that Democrats are laundering money and they're a criminal organization and they did not do the things that you would obviously do to reduce uh, homelessness, but rather they stole it.

Now, I'm not sure that's what's happening, but it sure looks like it, doesn't it?

It looks a little steely.

Anyway, um apparently over in China, according to interesting engineering, China did some kind of demonstration with robots and hackers and found that one hacked robot could infect other hack could infect other robots just by being near it.

So, one robot could, if it had been hacked into doing something evil, could co-opt another robot uh without using the internet.

Because the thing we worried about is if all the robots are on the internet, somebody would hack the ball or or the bad robot would have access to the other robots and they all go.

But it would make this awesome movie where if one robot got near another robot, it could instantly hack it and co-opt it into being evil.

And so I asked the following question.

In order to create robots that smart, you're going to have some kind of form of AI.

Could the AI or a version of AI be the thing that protects the other robots from hackers?

In other words, can you build a robot that would have sort of a separate AI brain that did nothing but watch the rest of the robot to make sure it had not gotten hacked?

And is that the only way that you could pre prevent a high intelligence robot from hacking another robot is to have AI that's just like a a sentry.

So that's what I predict.

I think humans would not be fast enough to respond to a hacker robot hacking other robots.

But if the robot that's being attacked has its own AI sentry built into it that you can't get to with any kind of AI and it notice some change happening in the rest of the robotic shut it down.

So I think that might be the model.

Just guessing.

Speaking of China, interesting engineering says that China is turning some of their uh cargo vessels of which they have massive numbers because China does so much shipping that they just have massive numbers of cargo ships.

It looks like they found a way.

And this is not confirmed, but videos are showing it looks like they're putting some kind of weapons platforms on the commercial ships.

And the idea is, and again this is just speculation, that China is trying to create a situation where if war happened, um, they could quickly militarize their massive fleet of of commercial ships.

Now, that would be a really good strategy.

It seems to me those ships would be a little bit vulnerable to attack, but they have so many of them that if you imagine that war breaks out and suddenly suddenly China has 10,000 ships that are warships, that would be presumably an interesting military strategy.

But again, I feel like those ships would be so vulnerable to attack from, you know, unmanned missiles and drones that they would get sunk quickly.

Unless some of the military hardware you're putting on their ships is some kind of amazing, you know, anti-missile, anti- drone lasers uh on top of the offensive weapons.

So, I just thought that was interesting.

Well, there's some teacher, according to Breitbart, there's a teacher in the UK who has been referred to the UK terror program.

I didn't know they had a terror program because he shows them Donald Trump videos.

So apparently if you're a school teacher in England and you even show a video of Trump, uh you could be you could be accused of being a terrorist and referred to some kind of terrorist handling thing.

And I guess this program was established to stop people from becoming radicalized.

So, the UK is so afraid of Trump that they make it illegal to show young people Trump videos.

Now, I suppose it it might matter which video you're showing them, but what has Trump ever done that would be so dangerous that it would radicalize the youth to become terrorists?

That's pretty crazy.

Speaking of Trump, let's see what's happening elsewhere in the world.

I guess Netanyahu is going to visit Trump on Monday for what's called a crucial um conversation about what's going to happen in Gaza.

Now, if you have a situation, and I think we do, in which what's good for America and what's good for Trump is that the Gaza thing is fixed in some way that's acceptable to, you know, uh, at least America, right?

But Netanyahu does not represent America.

His job is to represent Israel.

And it seems pretty clear that Netanyahu does not want to, let's say, give up his um military control of Gaza, which might be a requirement to get to whatever the peace plan calls for.

So let's say you have a situation which we do in which the interests of the president of the United States and arguably America itself is to get this thing settled and and to do that they need some things that Israel with its current government would never agree to.

So they're never going to agree to a to a safe solution when Netanyahu is in charge and they're never going to um agree to give up security in Gaza.

So how would you predict how that turns out?

Well, if I were Israel, time would seem to be on my side because eventually Trump will be out of office and he might be the only president strong enough to, you know, move Israel in a way they don't want to move.

So, if Netanyahu, and again, I'm just speculating because I can't read minds, but it seems to me that Israel has time on their side and they can outweight Trump unless Trump puts so much pressure on him that like pressure they've never seen before that uh Netanyahu caves.

But even then, it feels like Israel could wait him out.

Because even if they agreed today to do XYZ and even if they did those things, they could reverse it, they just have to wait three years.

So the thing I'd be looking for in these conversations is whether Israel agrees to anything that looks like it would solve this problem in a way that Trump would be happy.

And I'm thinking that the only logical way this is going to go is that they will not agree or Netanyahu will agree in a way that he can so kick the can down the road and change his mind later.

I remind you that I don't have opinions on whether Israel is good or bad or any of that.

I simply observe them as a foreign country that is an ally of the United States.

My interest is in the United States and uh I'm an observer when it comes to Israel.

Just an observer.

They don't need nobody needs no one needs my opinion of what they should be doing.

Uh but I'll give you an opinion of what you maybe is the predictable future.

>> >> Well, there's a report from British scientists that they they think they have a cancer vaccine that could be available within 10 years.

To which I say, every year of my life, there has been a cancer vaccine that could be available within 10 years.

So far, not so much.

All right, ladies and gentlemen, that is the end of my prepared remarks.

And I believe you need a simultaneous sip.

If you joined us late, there's still time.

Simultaneity go.

Very good.

And I remind you that there will be an Owen Gregorian themed, not themed, um, hosted spaces event right after this.

You should give them a few minutes to set up whenever he's ready and you can continue the conversation.

If you happen to be on X, then spaces is available to you as audio only.

And if you don't know where to find it, search for Owen Gregorian.

It'll pop right up.

You'll see it.

It'll be at the top of his feed on X.

All right.

Was there anything you liked or didn't like about today's show?

I will take your comments now.

you find yourself quoting me consistently, you know, I'm going to do a an ex post in a little while, not today, but sometime soon in which I'm going to ask you to give me some feedback on who I might have influenced uh be it you or somebody notable because I wonder about that myself and I would love to know your opinion of who I've influenced.

You know, one of the things I'd love to influence is the Trump pirate ship approach to building a coalition.

I've always loved the fact that Trump could ignore how much he disagrees with you if you're willing to be a pirate on his ship.

And that's really worked well.

I I think people respect being included even if you disagree with some of their some or even all of their views as long as you're not um listen as long as it's not personal.

And if he says, "Hey, you're a pirate.

I'm a pirate.

Um we can both be in the pirate ship.

I influenced Trump by prepping him that Kamla was his future opponent.

Well, I did predict she would be his future opponent, but I doubt I influenced him in some important way about that.

Uh I did not invent the term Trump derangement syndrome.

That was Charles Crowhammer, I think.

And it was first introduced not about Trump, but I think it was Bush.

I think it was Bush derangement syndrome first.

Um, I'm definitely a booster of it, but I did not invent it.

All right.

How did you like my turd in the punch bowl analogy?

Did that Did that clarify?

I think if you try to take somebody like Nick Fuentes and jam them into existing uh buckets that you just confuse yourself because he he definitely doesn't fit in any existing bucket.

turn is a word.

So, you like the analogy?

Yeah.

The the other thing I' I'd love to add is that young men especially are attracted to inappropriate content.

And sometimes you just have to wait and they they just grow out of this.

I see what you're saying.

There will always be an audience for whatever is the most inappropriate thing you could say in public.

But that doesn't mean that people will have that opinion all their life.

So, I believe that the guy who got the selfie, someone named Myron, was wearing a t-shirt that is allegedly inspired by Fuentes.

So, that that would be the connection.

Um, and I don't know much about the background of any of that.

I just know that there's a meme that ordinary people would not have recognized as being what it is.

My gain is Yeah, I think that's who it was.

I'm not too familiar with him except that he's provocative and does some podcasting.

Beyond that, I don't really follow him.

He likely denies the Holocaust.

You know, I don't even want to get into that.

it, you know, sort of like uh there's some topics that you can't add to, but if you get involved, it sticks to you.

So, I don't need that anyway.

All >> >> right, I'm just looking at your comments, hanging out with you, and I'll give uh Owen some time to set up his spaces.

Some of you like the turn the punch bowl analogy or another way to say it is you don't really have to spend your time debating whether you do or do not agree with the turn in the punch bowl.

That's really not what that's even about.

Yeah.

All right.

Yeah.

The punch bowl is very visual, isn't it?

It's like I've done this before.

There you love you.

Thank you.

All right.

I think I've added all I can add today.

Change the world.

So, don't blame people for their shirts that they take with that somebody else is wearing during a uh selfie.

That's my lesson for the day.

All right, everybody.

Have a great day.

Join Owen if you feel the urge.

I might be there myself later.

I'm usually anonymous when I when I join that chat because I don't want to be taking away the attention.

But you should know that I'm often in Owen Gregorian's spaces.

I just do it anonymously so I could listen to you guys and not be the not be the focus of attention.

All right, bye for now.

What just happened?

Good morning, everybody.

I'm here.

We're back.

Come on in.

We've got a slow news day, so we're

going to have to make the most of it.

But, you know, we can.

We got funny news stories.

We've got reframes.

We've got drama.

[snorts] We've got trouble.

It's going to be awesome.

So,

uh, I'll remind you, I guess that's the

wrong word because I haven't told you

yet, but it's Saturday

and, uh, there will be a spaces event,

uh, hosted by Owen Gregorian immediately

after this podcast.

So, if you didn't get enough of what I'm

going to give you, you can go get a

little extra. So, spaces is the audio

feature within X. If you're not on the X

platform, you probably should be because

it's got a lot of good stuff.

All right,

people. People,

you know what we should do?

The simultaneous sip.

That's probably why you're here.

And all you need for that is a copper

mug or a glass of tanker child inside a

canteen jugger flask. A vessel of any

kind. Fill it with your favorite liquid.

I like coffee. Enjoy me now for the

unparallel pleasure. The dopamine of the

day. The thing that makes everything

better. It's called the simultaneous

sip. It's going to happen right now.

Go.

And if you subscribe to Owen Gregorian's

X feed, you would get extra spaces as

well.

So think about that.

Well, I would be

I'm making a mistake if I didn't remind

you that the Dilberg calendar is still

slightly for sale, meaning that we're

getting close to selling out, which is

both true and a mechanism of persuasion

to tell you that there are shortages,

but it's actually true. there there is a

risk that if you wait a week or two

we might have sold out. So get your

Dilbert calendar while they still exist.

All right. I like to start my show

talking about science.

So apparently there's a new study in the

UK that says that polar bears are

undergoing rapid genetic change to

adjust to climate change because climate

change would wipe them out except that

they may have rapidly changed their own

genetic nature to adapt.

Now, why do you think there would be a

research about the genetic structure of

polar bears

and then and then blaming that on

climate change? Could it be because

everything else they blamed on climate

change turned out to be BS? The coral

reefs are recovering. The ice seems to

be recovering. There doesn't seem to be

any

any important change in sea level. and

we had no major storms reach landfall in

the United States this year. So, pretty

much all the stuff

that the climate people tried to scare

us about turned out not to be true. So,

they're running out of stuff. So, if you

still want to be a climate change person

or this was reported by ABC News, if you

want to still keep with the climate

crisis, you're going to need some new

stuff. So, I think the new stuff is,

wait,

look what's happening to the polar

bears.

Oh, surprise. They survived by self

evolving their genetics

rapidly.

Now, one of the things this makes me

wonder if you were a scientist, and I'm

certainly not,

do scientists believe

that, well, do scientists think that the

worst other scientists are climate

change scientists?

If you were a physicist,

would you say to yourself, "Oo, those

climate scientists are the smart ones."

Or or

would you say that the people who can't

be good scientists become climate

scientists?

Like if you're actually a scientist,

would you think that climate scientists

are as serious and talented as other

scientists?

Or would you say

or or would you say that they're the

laughingstock of scientists? I don't

know the answer to that question, but

when I see stuff like this, I think, hm,

I don't think that was the most serious

science that was happening.

All right, here's some more science from

Eric Dolan. He's writing about this in

Cypos. Uh the headline says some men may

downplay climate change risks to avoid

appearing feminine.

Do you think that do you think that

there apparently there's a big

difference in opinion between men and

women on the risks of climate change?

Men are less likely to think it's a

existential risk and women are far more

likely. Do you think the reason for that

is that the men want according to the

study that the men are trying to avoid

looking feminine?

So they think it's just sort of tougher

to not be afraid of climate science.

Well, that might be what's going on, but

that's an interpretation.

Is it also possible that this was

written by women or men who were married

to women?

because it's a little bit

a little bit biased. [laughter]

The other possibility is that men are

better at evaluating physical risk and

seeing through the BS.

So, are men trying to be less feminine

or are they just better at evaluating

risk?

Well, I think you put this in either

frame, but it does suggest that whoever

wrote the opinion that the real problem

here is men trying to appear less

feminine. That looks like it was written

by a woman or a man who was married to a

woman and wanted to stay that way.

Just guessing,

speculating.

So, Barbara Lucky, the billionaire head

of Anderil,

he seems to be doing a lot of public

podcasting and interviews and stuff

lately, and I always enjoy reading his

opinions,

but he seems to be part of what I'm

seeing as a growing billionaire trend.

And when I say billionaire trend, I mean

the billionaires I seem to like the

most. that the billionaires need to use

their their power and their money to

make the world a better place. Now, not

being forced to do it, not being forced

by the government to do it or taxed or

something, but simply because they're

the best at allocating capital.

So, if you had a billion dollars

floating around and you said, "What are

we going to do with it?" Would you

rather give the billion dollars to oh,

let's say Tim Walsh in Minnesota

or Gavin Newsome in California or

somebody like Elon Musk who definitely

knows how to deploy capital?

Um, so I saw Chimath from the Allen pod

saying that the billionaires need to do

a better job of providing obvious

benefits to the public the way the old

billionaires used to do and turn of the

century, the other turn of the century.

And

uh that's probably good advice because I

think if they're doing things like

creating public libraries, you know, the

old billionaire stuff, or in today's

world, if they're, I don't know,

building cities that could make people

happier, or maybe they're helping to,

you know, treat problems that the

government is not treating. Maybe

they're making health care affordable.

Uh maybe they're making transportation

affordable.

So that the billionaires need to step up

and the alternative would be um you know

being taxed out of their money and then

the the money goes where it would not be

well

employed.

So apparently uh Palmer Lucky is trying

to convince some of his other

billionaire friends

uh to spend less time on their yachts

and more time trying to deploy capital

and what makes sense. So if you see Elon

Musk and Chimath and Palmer Lucky all on

the same side of a topic,

it's probably something you should pay

attention to.

Yeah, there are smartest people.

Speaking of smart people,

I saw Brett Weinstein

give an opinion on childhood vaccines

that I thought was

very close to my own opinion, but he

does such a good job of communicating. I

thought I'd tell you how he explains it.

So Brett said, quote, I believe the

adverse events from regular old

vaccines, so we're not talking about

COVID, just the vaccines that kids get

are the that the adverse effects are far

more common than we imagined, including

things like allergies.

So he thinks his weed allergy might be

because of something called aduants.

that uh were in his early childhood

vaccinations. He said one of his sons

has seasonal allergies

uh that are pretty bad. The other has an

allergy to dairy that's pretty bad.

Um, and then he says given all that

education that I've now painfully

received, meaning he's done a pretty

deep dive on the the vaccine world and

he is, you know, qualified to understand

that stuff scientifically.

If I had to do it all over again, I

would not end up giving any vaccines to

my newborn children.

Wow.

I am so glad that I don't have newborn

children because this would be I mean

this is a big decision. It used to used

to feel like it was automatic

like of course you get vaccinations. You

know the scientists all say you should

do it. Of course you would. But here's

what uh Brett says. He says this this is

the important part. He says,"I not

saying it's impossible that any of them

are more beneficial than they are

harmful, but now I note that I cannot

trust the safety testing."

So his opinion is based on the fact that

that we now know that the safety testing

has been inadequate

forever.

So be being very careful here. He's not

saying he knows that these are the

problem.

He is saying he knows that you can't

tell

and that his personal decision if he had

to make it now would be to not vaccinate

children. That is pretty extreme,

but also I would say perfectly backed up

by observation.

And I'm I'm obviously not qualified to

do a deep dive on vaccinations, but he

is and he has. And so it's pretty

shocking uh development. So

how much did you used to trust science

and how much do you trust it today?

Was there ever a time when you thought

the climate scientists were nailing it

and that they were totally legit and

that the big pharma must have been

forced to do good science or else the

stuff wouldn't be approved?

And now it kind of looks the opposite,

doesn't it? Now we know that at least

half of all scientific studies are not

reproducible.

We watched the pandemic pervert science

like we didn't think was possible.

And now we're coming to understand that

even climate science, you know, one of

the biggest most important domains we

thought

was probably full of the least qualified

scientists who are not exactly being

scientific. that they may have just been

following the money if you know what I

mean.

So that goes all the way back to do you

vaccinate your baby.

That's a big difference from even what I

thought. I mean I've been skeptical

about the power of science and how much

might be fraudulent. I've been skeptical

for a long time but not this skeptical.

I mean, I've just fallen off a ledge in

terms of trusting science.

Probably some of you, too.

Well, remember I keep saying that if

robots were going to be launched in 2026

and if those robots would be the uh

general kind, they could learn something

and be your butler that we would already

see them in the lab.

Well, interestingly, uh, Sawyer Merit on

Ax is reporting that Tesla has, you

know, bunch of new job openings for

their Optimus robot program. And Elon

Musk was saying that the Optimus version

three, which must be the version they're

working on in the lab, um, has a new

hand. That's an incredible piece of

engineering. So apparently I've heard

Elon say this before that that the

Optimus robot hand has finally broken

through to be like just super sensitive

and and good. And if you can't get the

hand right, you'll never have a proper

robot because and apparently all the

robot companies can make a robot that

walks and you know lifts heavy objects

but it's really hard according to Elon

to get a hand but they believe they have

now achieved you know the sensitivity

and the and the dexterity of a human

hand. So what Musk says is the new hand

is an incredible piece of engineering

and then he says we'll have a production

intent prototype meaning they intend it

to be production ready uh to show in

February or March of this year 2026.

So they'll be able to show you a

prototype then. And then he says, "We're

going to build 1 million unit production

line and they hope production will start

by the end of 2026."

So,

uh, remember my caution

that if it's not already as smart as it

needs to be, how do we know it will ever

get there in one year?

because I don't think LLMs,

you know, the current technology can get

you a general purpose general

intelligence robot. But is there

something happening in the labs at Tesla

that they know that we don't know that

suggests that within a year that that

they're so certain they'll have that

that they would already start on a

production line?

I don't know.

I can't tell how much of that is

optimism

and the fact that Musk might think,

well, even if I don't know how to do it

today, a year is a long time in AI and

by then I will know how to do it. Now,

keep in mind the minute they figure out

how to do it and the it in this case is

making a general intelligence robot. The

moment they know how to do it, all the

robots will have that ability. because

it's just a download. It's just

software.

So again, I don't want to bet against

Elon Musk on robots or technology or

anything about the future. Uh he has a

good track record of prediction, but

maybe I would disagree with him on the

timing.

It would be really hard that by the end

of 2026 we invented this thing that I

don't think anybody has an idea how to

invent.

You know why? Why would it be this year?

If we went all this time without knowing

how to do it up till now,

would the current AIS tell us how to

make a better AI?

I don't know if that's possible. Would

the current AIS be able to iterate

all the different ways you could create

intelligence until it hit one?

Maybe. I don't know. But by now, I would

have expected to see general

intelligence if [snorts]

they're going to start selling it at the

end of the year, end of 2026.

So, we'll see.

Well, Greg Abbott, governor of Texas, is

going to create a chief state prosecutor

to prosecute the criminals that the

lefty prosecutors refuse to prosecute.

Um, so Texas is pretty serious about

their crime and everybody knows that if

you got rid of the worst of the

criminals, the worst of the worst, I'm

not even talking about immigration now,

just crime. If you got rid of the ones

that are the repeat offenders, your your

violent crime rate would go down by 80%

immediately because 80% of the crimes

are the same criminals doing one crime

after another. But if you had Sorosf

funded prosecutors,

they're making things worse instead of

better because they'd be releasing the

criminals, you know, and maybe they

shouldn't.

And the workaround

that Greg Abbott is proposing is to have

a chief state prosecutor that would go

after those people that the regular

prosecutors had decided to release.

Is that a good idea?

What do you think? Will I take a sip of

water here? I think one of my meds is

making me dry mouththed.

Well, it feels like a good idea to me.

All right.

So, you know that on the political right

there's been some drama among the

influencers and you know that I've tried

to completely stay out of it because I

don't find value in that kind of drama.

But yesterday or recently little thing

popped up that I thought I could add a

reframe to that would be useful.

And it starts with the story of um I

guess the background is people like Jack

Basobic and Mark Leven have some kind of

drama background

disagreement or something. And that part

I'm not interested in. But there was an

event recently where uh at the Turning

Point USA where uh a number of public

figures were giving selfies because

that's sort of what you do at an event

like that. You get a number of public

figures. The public wants, you know, we

we don't do autographs anymore. We

public figures. We mostly do selfies.

So, there were a lot of selfies and uh I

guess somebody who was a had a Nick

Fuentes inspired t-shirt had a selfie

taken with Jack Porobic and then Jack

was challenged to, hey, you know, why

are you taking a selfie with somebody

with such a terrible meme on his

t-shirt?

Now, that's the sort of problem that

nobody needs.

And uh I I'll give you a little uh

context on that and then my opinion of

what's the best way to handle it. Now

the first thing you need to know is who

the hell is Nick Fuentes?

And I would I would frame it this way.

He's not on the left.

He's very popular uh podcaster, very

provocative. I'll tell you why. So he's

not on the left because he's

conservative, but he's also a Trump

hater. So he's not really on the MAGA

right or the mega left. So what is he?

Because he's got a large and growing

audience. I feel like the best way to

understand him is the turd in the punch

bowl analogy.

So I'll give you I'll give you a little

mental model here. Let's say you went to

a party and it was a mixed party. There

were old people and young people and

people of all type with the party. And

somebody

put a turd in the punch bowl. Like not a

not a joke turd, like an actual turd.

And they put it right in the punch bowl

and then ran away and nobody saw them do

it. Well, what would happen? Well, first

of all, the women attending the party

would say, "I'm out of here. This is not

the kind of party I want to be at.

There's a turd in the punch bowl. So

women all leave. The older men would

say, "Oh god, who did that? You know,

we're going to have to find who did

that?" And you know, there has to be

consequences.

So they would also leave the party

because they don't want to be a part at

a party with a turn and punchable. But

the young men, the young men would think

it's the funniest thing that happened to

them all week. And even if the party

shut down, they would gather in the in

the parking lot and they would laugh

aoriously at the fact that somebody put

a turn in a punch bowl at a respectable

party.

Now, what you need to know is that uh

Nick Fuentes, who is verbally gifted and

very good at the whole, you know, public

speaking thing, is closer to a turn in

the punch bowl than he is to any of the

attendees.

So if you if you think of him as sort of

a train wreck where you can't look away

then you would understand why his

audience of mostly young men is growing

and enthusiastic.

Then if you add on top of that that

young men feel feel not they feel like

they're not served by the current system

then it's not unusual that they would

have a you know burn down the system

kind of approach to life. They they

wouldn't respect the system but they

would like a good prank when they saw

it. So they'd actually be attached, not

attached to, they would be attracted

to the fact that somebody put a turd in

a punch bowl because they're they're not

respecting the system. The system

doesn't respect them. And it's not that

they're in favor of turds.

That this is the important part. They're

not in favor of turds. They're not

drinking the punch.

They're just can't look away because

it's a it's a show that is a spectacle.

All right. So, with that in mind,

if you imagine him as the turd in the

punch bowl, um, someone who had a a

t-shirt meme that was, I understand,

inspired by Fendes that involved the

worst thing you could imagine, which

obviously I disavow because, you know,

I'm an older I'm an older man.

Obviously, I disavow it. uh which had

some kind of cookie monster connection

to the Holocaust.

And don't don't make me spell it out.

It's just where whatever is the worst

thing you can imagine. So that was

unsure. So this fellow asked for who is

also an influencer, it turns out asked

for a uh selfie with Jack Sabic who gave

it to him.

uh along with lots of other selfies that

he was doing that day. And um it would

be unusual

for any normal person to have known that

that t-shirt was connected

to Fuendes or even what it meant. It it

wasn't an obvious

uh connection, but if you were deep into

that world, you might have recognized

it, but normal people would not have

known what it was. So,

it caught my attention because Mark

Leventitten,

who must have some

prior bigger disagreement with Jack,

wrote a what looked like a drunken uncle

rant about, "Wow, you need to explain,

you know, explain this." Basically, I'm

summarizing. Now, I'm not saying that

Levid was drunk when he wrote the

message, cuz I don't even know if he

drinks, but it came off that way.

If you had just been introduced to him

for the first time, his content, and you

and the only thing you knew is why he

wrote on that one post, it would look

like maybe the eggnog was involved. Uh,

so it was it seemed like it was pretty

extreme and I imagine that had to do

with their background, not so much with

this specific event. But I would like to

give you a reframe

uh in my typical goals versus systems

way. You know, I often tell you, uh, you

know, sometimes it's useful to have a

goal, but it's not going to be useful

unless you've got a system that makes

sense. So, I would argue because I I got

some feedback from people with comments

when I weighed in on that. Um, somebody

said that they they needed to know and

here they would be talking about Jack

that they needed to know what he

believed because he was one of the

people asking for unity.

So if somebody's going to ask you to

unify with them, is it a reasonable goal

to know what it is you're unifying with?

To which I say yes. as a goal.

It would be good to know what people

believe if they want you to join them in

their belief or or even in their

activities. You don't have to join them

in the belief, but yeah, that would be a

worthy goal. However, it would be a

terrible system

to use a stranger's t-shirt as a

starting point of that conversation,

especially if you had a Charlie Kirk

inspired event.

The the main thing that Charlie Kirk

inspired in my opinion and one of the

things I respect the most about him is

that he tried to turn everything into a

civilized

um debate

in which anybody could ask anybody

anything and you would get an honest

answer to it. That's pretty much what he

was doing. he was going places and say

ask me anything and I'll give you my

honest

you know opinion.

So if you happen to be in an event in

which the entire vibe is that you can

ask anybody their opinion and they will

give you a respectful opinion. You don't

need to start the conversation

based on a turd in the punch bowl and

the shirt he's wearing because if you

start there, you're just automatically

going to, you know, open up this side

conversation that you don't need. It

would be far better to ask somebody

about a shirt they were wearing. So, if

in fact, you know, I'm wearing a shirt

that offends you, it certainly makes

sense that you should ask, "Do you

believe what's on your own shirt?" Of

course. But don't ask me to defend

someone else's meme on a shirt that

normal people wouldn't even recognize as

being offensive. That's not a good

starting point. The starting point is

you just ask Jack, "Jack, what is your

opinion on this or that?" and he would

give you a respectful reply.

Anyway, so I don't think anybody needs

to apologize

or explain

someone else's shirt just because they

took a selfie with them.

And I would also say there will always

be a audience for the turd in the punch

bowl. Now, if you're in my category,

which is people who don't like turds and

punch bowls, what do you do about it?

Is it your job to fix it? And if it is

your job to fix it, let's just say from

a social perspective, you don't want to

identify with something that's, you

know, so bad.

Well, I kind of I think it kind of

depends who you are.

Uh I have the arrogant opinion that if

someone who is young and had a very bad

opinion that's just way over the line

you know just way over the line into

inappropriate that if they associate

with me

that over time they would moderate their

opinion because I would have a positive

influence on them. What I don't believe

would ever happen, and maybe this is

just my own arrogance, I don't believe

that if I took a selfie with or spend

time with or tolerated

someone who had a wholly inappropriate

opinion that somehow that would rub off

on me. [laughter]

I think it only works in one direction

in my case. So in my case being an

influential type person you know by by

practice and by nature I guess I I feel

that young people would sort of drift on

their own without me being heavy-handed

about it to eventually be like an older

man's opinion and you start being less

impressed by the turd and the punch bowl

and and more interested in being part of

the solution, you you know, sort of the

Palmer Lucky thing, be part of the

solution.

So that's my my reframe is you can

certainly ask a person their own

opinion, but it would be a bad system to

start with. What do you think about that

stranger's

shirt?

Bad way to start.

All right.

Now, I'm trying desperately, not

desperately, but I don't want to get

dragged into the actual

um debate.

You know, I I think there's plenty of

room for people to have different

opinions, but different opinions is not

what the turd and punch bowl's about.

That's more about the spectacle.

Um, so I don't have to be yes or no on

the Fentes question. I simply have to be

a good job of being me and maybe that

will have some influence on some of the

younger.

All right.

Next.

Next.

I saw uh

on the X account arch archo histories.

Um I always wondered about this the

origin of the Dunning Krueger effect.

Now, you've heard of Dunning Krueger,

right? That's where people who know the

least often have the most confidence

about the rightness. So, the less you

know, the more confident you can be.

Well, apparently that was based on one

or at least it was triggered by one

story that back in 1995.

There was a bank robber who believed

that if he put lemon juice on his face

when he robbed the bank, the bank

cameras wouldn't be

uh wouldn't be able to see him. And his

his thinking was that since lemon juice

was a component of invisible ink that

therefore logically if you put lemon

juice on your face uh it would make you

invisible on camera. Now that is not the

case it turns out. and he actually

smiled at the camera because he was so

sure that he would be invisible.

So he easily got caught because his face

was quite identifiable on the camera and

he was surprised

and he exclaimed reportedly quote but I

wore the juice.

Now I guess there were some researchers

who heard that story and thought we have

to look into this. What's up with that?

And then through research they

discovered that it is common

for people who know the least in this

case he didn't know much about cameras

or invisible ink to be the most

confident and indeed he was confident

because he actually robbed the bank

think he was safe. So, I just mentioned

that because I think it's fun to know

where that came from and it's a slow

news day.

Uh,

I'm [snorts] looking in the comments to

see somebody had a Tony Robbins comments

here. Let me see that

if I can make that. Tony Robbins, if you

I can't stop the comments.

If you're if you just ignore problems

with your thinking

blah blah blah blah blah blah blah,

then you get in trouble.

No, I I don't think ignoring problems is

always the right way to go. I'm not sure

I understand that comment, so I'm going

to let that go.

Anyway, according to newsbusters, Craig

Bannister is writing

that uh facts flip voters view of the

Trump economy.

So the thesis here um is basically the

fact that Trump did an address to the

nation recently and he mentioned all the

economic successes

and apparently the mainstream networks

seemed to have somehow locked out the

graphics that would show how right he

was about the economy being better in

all these different different ways.

So, that would explain why some of the

public still thinks that the economy is

bad.

Um, it could be because they're just

being blocked from seeing the evidence

that is good. Now, I don't know if

you've had this experience yet, but if

you watch news from the right leaning

places, it will universally say, "Man,

this economy is good." from inflation to

employment to GDP can't beat it and

they'll have numbers to back it up.

Weirdly, Democrats could do the same

thing and do with their argument that

the economy is actually bad.

So, they've got their own set of uh

their own set of alleged data that would

show that the economy is bad in a bunch

of ways. So is the economy good or is

the economy bad?

Well, um

if we uh if we let's let's say put a pin

in that question and rather we look at

the the fact can people be persuaded

by being told real facts about the

economy or will they be so dunning

Krueger and so biased that even if they

had access to really reliable

information that was the opposite of

what they had currently believed, would

they change their minds? And the

research suggests that they would change

their minds and that if they had seen

what they believe to be accurate

information that said that the economy

is doing well, that fairly drastically

people would say, "Oh, I guess the

economy is doing well." But if they do

not have access to that new better

information, then they would not change

their mind, which would suggest that the

mainstream media might know that [gasps]

and that's the reason that they don't

emphasize

uh Trump and his graphics showing

everything getting better. Now, that's

that's let me use some numbers.

uh in a survey conducted in uh mid

December 56% of US voters surveyed said

they believe the economy is getting

worse

while only 37% said it was getting

better and this is mid December then

uh once voters were informed of the

facts and again you could debate whether

these are the real facts or not but uh

let's let's say the Trump facts the

number slipped

And the percent who said the economy is

improving jumped 25 points from 37 to 62

while pessimism plummeted from 56 to 33.

So that

um and so the the allegation here is

that the mainstream media has to hide

the truth because the truth would tell

people that the economy is doing well.

Maybe, maybe. The other possibility is

that the Democrats have some data of

their own.

And since most data is fake, even if you

agree with it, most data from the left,

most data from the right, it's hard to

trust any data. And in 2025, 26, it

feels like

no matter where you're looking, you're

getting weird data. I'm seeing in the

comments, where do you get your news,

Scott? Um, I I gave a long description

of where I got my news the other day

because that's a good question, but I do

sample, you know, CNN and MSN now and um

I always listen to Jessica Tof on the

five. So, I try to get both sides

and especially clips, you know, so I get

clips that show both sides. Uh, that was

a good question. So, the answer is I I

sample both sides or try to.

So,

um, an online I don't know if he'd be an

influencer or a independent journalist

or what you call him, but somebody

called Nick Shirley

put out a video in which he went to

Minnesota and looked for fraud on his

own because, you know, there have been

allegations that the the Somali

especially have been stealing mass

amounts of money. And I guess he was

trying to find figure out how hard it

would be to spot the frauds. And the

answer is it is alarmingly easy. So he

went to a number of places that alleged

that they were uh

taking government money and using it for

charitable reasons. and almost every one

of them was a storefront or an empty

store and very obviously not in the

business of helping anybody. So the

shocking part is that he alleges he

found $110 million in one day of what

looked like fraudulent money transfers

to fraudulent fake entities. And if he

could do it with just his microphone and

his camera and a plane ticket, how hard

was it for Minnesota itself to know that

that was going on? If you could uncover

it that easily

and it's what I'm I'm not adding to the

story that the fraud exists, that part

we knew. What he added to the story is

that anybody could have seen it. It was

just right out in the open. I mean, you

had to ask a couple questions and walk

around a little bit, but you didn't have

to be like Sherlock Holmes. It was right

there.

So, Elon Musk commented on that video uh

with

just three words. Prosecute Governor Tim

Wolf.

Prosecute Governor Tim. Four words.

Now, do you think

that you could prosecute the governor

[clears throat]

um or that if you looked into it, you

would find evidence so you could because

there's no way to believe that he was

unaware?

Well, here's the weird thing. Governor

Walsh does not have obvious signs of

wealth,

does he?

Does it look like he, you know, made

millions of dollars? because he he

doesn't live any kind of a lifestyle as

far as we know that would suggest that

he's you know spending a lot of money.

He could be packing away if in fact he's

criminal he could be

uh maybe he had been blackmailed or

threatened so he had to keep it quiet so

he could stay safe. I have no evidence

of that. But uh Elon Musk of course has

dug deeper on all these things than you

and I have. So when he says prosecute

Tim Walsh, some of that might be that it

seems obvious that he couldn't have not

known. Some of it might be that Tim

Walls has tried to prosecute Elon Musk

and tried to destroy his companies.

tried really hard to destroy his

companies and he did it publicly that uh

you're just seeing an obvious kind of

response to that. But I am curious if

Tim Walsh was massively incompetent

or was he threatened to stay quiet? He

might have been threatened. Might have

been too dangerous to be even a

whistleblower himself. Oh, so

incompetence, crime, or is he a victim

himself?

I doubt he's a victim himself.

So, according to Wall Street apes, also

an X, Portland, Oregon spent 1.5 billion

in the last two years on homelessness

and yet the homelessness population rose

by 60%.

So, that's bad result. And by

comparison,

Houston, Texas,

spent only 72 million, so we're not

talking billions, just millions, on

homelessness. And their homelessness

went down by 60%.

All right? So, Democrats spent a massive

amount of money and things went the

wrong direction.

Texas spent a good deal of money, but

just a fraction, and things went

strongly in the right direction.

How do you explain that?

Well, uh, a reasonable assumption is

that Democrats are laundering money and

they're a criminal organization and they

did not do the things that you would

obviously do to reduce uh, homelessness,

but rather they stole it.

Now, I'm not sure that's what's

happening,

but it sure looks like it, doesn't it?

[snorts] It looks a little steely.

Anyway,

um apparently over in China,

according to interesting engineering,

China did some kind of demonstration

with robots and hackers

and found that one hacked robot

could infect other hack could infect

other robots just by being near it.

So, one robot could, if it had been

hacked into doing something evil, could

co-opt another robot

uh without using the internet. Because

the thing we worried about is if all the

robots are on the internet, somebody

would hack the ball or or the bad robot

would have access to the other robots

and they all go. But it would make this

awesome movie

where if one robot got near another

robot, it could instantly hack it and

co-opt it into being evil.

And so I asked the following question.

In order to create robots that smart,

you're going to have some kind of form

of AI.

Could the AI

or a version of AI be the thing that

protects the other robots from hackers?

In other words, can you build a robot

that would have sort of a separate AI

brain that did nothing but watch the

rest of the robot to make sure it had

not gotten hacked?

And is that the only way that you could

pre prevent a high intelligence robot

from hacking another robot

is to have AI that's just like a a

sentry.

So that's what I predict.

I think humans would not be fast enough

to respond to a hacker robot hacking

other robots. But if the robot that's

being attacked has its own AI sentry

built into it

that you can't get to with any kind of

AI

and it notice some change

happening in the rest of the robotic

shut it down. So I think that might be

the model. Just guessing.

Speaking of China,

interesting engineering says that China

is turning some of their uh cargo

vessels of which they have massive

numbers because China does so much

shipping

that they just have massive numbers of

cargo ships. It looks like they found a

way. And this is not confirmed, but

videos are showing it looks like they're

putting some kind of

weapons platforms on the commercial

ships.

And the idea is, and again this is just

speculation, that China is trying to

create a situation where if war

happened,

um, they could quickly

militarize their massive fleet of of

commercial ships.

Now, that would be a really good

strategy. It seems to me those ships

would be a little bit vulnerable to

attack, but they have so many of them

that if you imagine that war breaks out

and suddenly suddenly China has 10,000

ships that are warships,

that would be

presumably an interesting military

strategy. But again, I feel like those

ships would be so vulnerable to attack

from, you know, unmanned missiles and

drones that they would get sunk quickly.

Unless

some of the military hardware you're

putting on their ships is some kind of

amazing, you know, anti-missile, anti-

drone lasers

uh on top of the offensive weapons.

So, I just thought that was interesting.

Well, there's some teacher, according to

Breitbart, there's a teacher in the UK

who has been referred to the UK terror

program. I didn't know they had a terror

program because he shows them Donald

Trump videos.

So apparently if you're a school teacher

in England and you even show a video of

Trump,

uh you could be you could be accused of

being a terrorist and referred to some

kind of terrorist handling

thing.

And I guess this program was established

to stop people from becoming

radicalized.

So, the UK is so afraid of Trump that

they make it illegal to show young

people Trump videos.

Now, I suppose it it might matter which

video you're showing them, but what has

Trump ever done

that would be so dangerous that it would

radicalize the youth to become

terrorists?

That's pretty crazy.

Speaking of Trump, let's see what's

happening elsewhere in the world. I

guess Netanyahu is going to visit Trump

on Monday

for what's called a crucial

um conversation about what's going to

happen in Gaza.

Now,

if you have a situation, and I think we

do, in which what's good for America and

what's good for Trump is that the Gaza

thing is fixed in some way that's

acceptable to, you know,

uh, at least America, right? But

Netanyahu does not represent America.

His job is to represent Israel. And it

seems pretty clear that Netanyahu does

not want to, let's say, give up his um

military control of Gaza,

which might be a requirement

to get to whatever the peace plan calls

for. So let's say you have a situation

which we do in which the interests of

the president of the United States and

arguably America itself is to get this

thing settled

and and to do that they need some things

that Israel with its current government

would never agree to. So they're never

going to agree to a to a safe solution

when Netanyahu is in charge and they're

never going to um agree to give up

security in Gaza. So how would you

predict how that turns out?

Well, if I were Israel,

time would seem to be on my side because

eventually Trump will be out of office

and he might be the only president

strong enough to, you know, move Israel

in a way they don't want to move. So, if

Netanyahu, and again, I'm just

speculating because I can't read minds,

but it seems to me that Israel has time

on their side and they can outweight

Trump unless

Trump puts so much pressure on him that

like pressure they've never seen before

that uh Netanyahu caves.

But even then, it feels like Israel

could wait him out. Because even if they

agreed today to do XYZ and even if they

did those things, they could reverse it,

they just have to wait three years.

So

the thing I'd be looking for in these

conversations is whether Israel agrees

to anything that looks like it would

solve this problem in a way that Trump

would be happy.

And I'm thinking

that the only logical way this is going

to go is that they will not agree or

Netanyahu will agree in a way that he

can so kick the can down the road and

change his mind later.

I remind you that I don't have opinions

on whether Israel is good or bad

or any of that. I simply observe them as

a foreign country that is an ally of the

United States. My interest is in the

United States

and uh I'm an observer when it comes to

Israel. Just an observer. They don't

need nobody needs no one needs my

opinion of what they should be doing.

Uh but I'll give you an opinion of what

you maybe is the predictable future.

>> [snorts]

>> Well, there's a report from British

scientists that they they think they

have a cancer vaccine that could be

available within 10 years.

To which I say, every year of my life,

there has been a cancer vaccine that

could be available within 10 years. So

far,

not so much.

All right, ladies and gentlemen, that is

the end of my prepared remarks. And I

believe you need

a simultaneous sip. If you joined us

late,

there's still time. Simultaneity

go.

Very good.

And I remind you that there will be an

Owen Gregorian

themed, not themed, um, hosted

spaces event right after this.

You should give them a few minutes to

set up whenever he's ready and you can

continue the conversation. If you happen

to be on X, then spaces is available to

you as audio only.

And if you don't know where to find it,

search for Owen Gregorian.

It'll pop right up. You'll see it. It'll

be at the top of his feed on X.

All right.

Was there anything you liked or didn't

like about today's show?

I will take your comments

now.

you find yourself quoting me

consistently,

you know, I'm going to do a an ex post

in a little while,

not today, but sometime soon in which

I'm going to ask you

to give me some feedback on who I might

have influenced

uh be it you or somebody notable because

I wonder about that myself and I would

love to know your opinion of who I've

influenced.

You know, one of the things I'd love to

influence

is the Trump pirate ship approach to

building a coalition.

I've always loved the fact that Trump

could ignore

how much he disagrees with you if you're

willing to be a pirate on his ship.

And that's really worked well. I I think

people respect

being included even if you disagree with

some of their some or even all of their

views as long as you're not

um listen as long as it's not personal.

And if he says, "Hey, you're a pirate.

I'm a pirate.

Um we can both be in the pirate ship.

I influenced Trump by prepping him that

Kamla was his future opponent. Well, I

did predict she would be his future

opponent,

but I doubt I influenced him in

some important way about that.

Uh I did not invent the term Trump

derangement syndrome. That was

Charles Crowhammer, I think. And it was

first introduced not about Trump, but I

think it was Bush.

I think it was Bush derangement syndrome

first.

Um, I'm definitely a booster of it,

but I did not invent it.

All right. How did you like my turd in

the punch bowl analogy?

Did that Did that clarify?

I think if you try to take somebody like

Nick Fuentes and jam them into existing

uh buckets that you just confuse

yourself because he he definitely

doesn't fit in any existing bucket.

turn is a word.

So, you like the analogy? Yeah.

The the other thing I' I'd love to add

is that young men especially are

attracted to inappropriate content.

And sometimes you just have to wait

and they they just grow out of this.

I see what you're saying.

There will always be an audience for

whatever is the most inappropriate thing

you could say in public.

But that doesn't mean that people will

have that opinion all their life.

So, I believe that the guy who got the

selfie,

someone named Myron, was wearing a

t-shirt that is allegedly inspired by

Fuentes. So, that that would be the

connection. Um,

and I don't know much about the

background of any of that. I just know

that there's a meme

that ordinary people would not have

recognized as being what it is.

My gain is Yeah, I think that's who it

was. I'm not too familiar with him

except

that he's provocative and does some

podcasting.

Beyond that, I don't really follow him.

He likely denies the Holocaust.

You know,

I don't even want to get into that. it,

you know, sort of like uh there's some

topics that you can't add to,

but if you get involved, it sticks to

you.

So, I don't need that

anyway.

All

>> [snorts]

>> right, I'm just looking at your

comments, hanging out with you, and I'll

give uh Owen some time to set up his

spaces.

Some of you like the turn the punch bowl

analogy

or another way to say it is you don't

really have to spend your time

debating whether you do or do not agree

with the turn in the punch bowl.

That's really not what that's even

about.

Yeah.

All right. Yeah. The punch bowl is very

visual, isn't it?

It's like I've done this before.

There you

love you. Thank you.

All right. I think I've added all I can

add today.

Change the world.

So,

don't blame people for their shirts that

they take

with that somebody else is wearing

during a uh selfie. That's my lesson for

the day.

All right, everybody. Have a great day.

Join Owen if you feel the urge. I might

be there myself later. I'm usually

anonymous when I when I join that chat

because I don't want to be taking away

the attention.

But you should know that I'm often in

Owen Gregorian's spaces. I just do it

anonymously so I could listen to you

guys and not be the not be the focus of

attention.

All right, bye for now.