Episode 3062 CWSA 01/04/26

All right, sound is now turned on.

As it turns out that when I lean I got it.

I got it.

That was a terrible way to start.

When I lean my phone against the screen, which I do before the show is sometimes hits the microphone button off.

the the only button that you wouldn't want to turn off.

All right, does everybody see me?

Everybody hear me?

Sound is back.

It's back.

I was just teasing you, although you couldn't hear it.

That I've got a mindblowing thought today that I've never seen.

I've never heard, but it blew my mind and it might blow your mind, too.

So, wait for that.

But first, how many of you would like to do a simultaneous sip?

Is it time?

Yeah, let's do that.

Um, because I know why you're here.

You're here for the simultaneous sip.

All you need is a cup or mugger, glass of tankers, jealous sign, the canteen sugar, flask of vessel of any kind.

Fill it with your favorite liquid.

I like coffee.

And join me now for the unparalleled pleasure of the dopamine here of the day.

The thing that makes everything better is called simultaneous.

It happens now.

Oh, extraordinary.

So, so good.

Well, speaking of mind blown, uh some of you know, but if you didn't know, yesterday Owen Gregorian held a spaces event.

That's the audio.

That's the uh the audio feature with an X where people can volunteer to talk and it's audio only.

And the topic was despite the fact that Venezuela had just been taken over um the topic was about me.

So he Owen generously did a entire spaces uh that lasted and here's here's the amazing part.

It lasted six and a half hours.

Uh, and people wondered, Scott, did you actually listen to that?

Yes, I did.

Now, I couldn't listen to it all live.

I was dipping in and out because I had I had people coming in and out and nurses and a bunch of medical stuff.

So, uh, but after it was done and I had, you know, some serious pieces of, uh, of my own time, um, I listened to the whole thing and I was blown away.

Um, people saying very nice things, there were tears, there were compliments.

But I wanted to especially call out some people I'm really proud of.

And that's the people who were terrified about public speaking.

And here's the key.

They did it anyway.

They did it anyway.

Now, I hope I may have been part of your journey to realize that embarrassment or freedom from embarrassment is a superpower.

And I saw a number of people mention that as a superpower.

And I will tell you, I was watching people who have obviously acquired that superpower do things that they were clearly uncomfortable with.

And it all worked out.

It all worked out.

So to those of you who were frightened but did it anyway, here's to you.

Second sip.

And if you were concerned about reciprocity, uh, another thing I talk about a lot, uh, boy, did you pay it off?

Wow.

Well, anyway, um, Owen is planning on a another different topic.

Uh, he's going to follow after the show.

He'll do another spaces.

And by the way, Owen was amazing.

If if you want to hear somebody be a good host, if you want to see how it's done, listen to listen to Owen.

Just amazing.

Anyway, he'll do a second one after the show.

Uh but this one will be more about not about me.

It'll be about Venezuela.

I think probably some other things will come up, but Venezuela will be at the top of the top of mind.

All right.

I'm going to start by blowing your mind.

Now, here's my challenge.

That's a pretty big claim, right?

And I'm going to add a thought to the universe that, as far as I know, has never been there before.

It goes like this.

Oh, I should also warn you.

The topic I'm about to talk about, a lot of you do not like.

But I'm going to convert the people who don't like it.

the topic I'm about to introduce.

I'm going to make you like it.

So, that's my second challenge.

You're gonna like something you didn't like before.

You ready?

All right.

So, as I've been telling you, AI may have reached some kind of plateau in how well you can train it with just brute force and giving it more training material.

And uh I was reading in uh some publication, let's see, in Tech.

Crunch that this is the year that maybe AI people figure out that they've reached some kind of a plateau and they can't get much better just by adding more training material and more more data center.

So the response to that which is already happening is some startups trying to create virtual digital worlds that look and act like our world so that an AI can live in it and learn to operate the way a human would and also learn general intelligence the way a human would.

Now that necessarily means that these digital worlds will include characters based on humans because if you want the AI to be a uh intelligent like a human, the thinking is that you have to train it in an environment in which it experiences the world like a human.

But because you can't, you know, unleash a bunch of stupid AIs into the real world, um, they'll build an AI virtual world and the characters within it almost certainly would have to be programmed to believe they were not characters.

So, they would have to be programmed to believe they were original base reality.

Right?

So, I believe this will be the year that AI um and these virtual realities will make it really obvious that if we're not if we're not already a simulation, the odds are tremendously high that we probably are.

Can't know for sure.

No way to know for sure.

But the odds will be a billion to one, trillion to one that we're we're not real now.

So, my next question, I'm getting to the good part.

I haven't got to the good part.

You're going to like it.

So, people say to me, "But Scott, what does that imply about a creator?" You know, the obvious question is, "Who made the original?" And I've been saying for years that obviously there was some advanced intelligence.

Don't know what it is.

It might be it might be your version of God.

It could be just a higher civilization, but definitely it would have to be an advanced civilization that was smarter than us that knew how to create this simulation.

Now, you ready for the good part?

Is it true or not true that in what we think is our base reality, we're trying to create an form of intelligence that would be smarter than us?

smarter than us.

So, this this actually opens up the possibility that we're a simulation created by a species or entity that's not as smart as us.

That's what I'm adding.

It's obvious that something that was more intelligent than us could create a simulation that that fooled us into thinking we're real.

But since we know we're already trying to create an AI that's smarter than us, it's entirely possible that we're created by an entity that has advanced intelligence but not as smart as us because we've already surpassed it.

I'll bet I'll bet nobody said that before.

All right, it gets better.

Um, so if it's true that the AI experts are going to make these various training worlds, don't you think there will be lots of them?

There's not going to be one because every every uh AI startup that wants to create its own little environment will have to do their own.

So very quickly you would have more simulated environments might be two or three but it would be more than whatever your base reality is.

Now the other thing people ask me is uh why is this not compatible with Christianity?

And I say probably is there there's probably nothing I said that's incompatible with Christianity.

Um, you know, you could imagine God created was the base reality and created it all and there's nothing to rule that whatsoever.

And other people will say, "What does that imply about souls?" Well, I don't think we know what a soul is.

So, it kind of depends how you define it.

If you defined it one way, um, you know, it probably is real and we have one.

If you defined it some other way, maybe not so real.

What about free will?

Well, here again, it depends how you define it.

There's a definition of free will in which it definitely exists.

If you just say free will is the ability to make a choice.

If you stop there, yeah, it definitely exists because we well the ability to make a choice and not know why, you know, not know the the real mechanism of it.

So that could easily be true that you have free will if you define it that way.

If you defined it another way, maybe you wouldn't.

And then lastly, here's the part you're going to like.

Um, whenever I talk about this simulation and especially when I talk about my own, uh, impending, uh, death, um, many of my Christian friends and Christian followers say to me, "Scott, you still have time.

You should convert to Christianity." And I usually just let that sit because that's not an argument I want to have.

Um I'm I've not been a believer and uh but I also have respect for any Christian who goes out of their way to try to convert me because how would I believe you and believe your own religion if you're not trying to convert me.

So I have great respect for people who care enough that they want me to convert uh and then go out of their way to try to convince me.

So you're going to hear for the first time today that it is my plan to convert.

So I still have time, but my understanding is you're never too late.

And on top of that, uh any skepticism I have about reality would certainly be instantly answered if I wake up in heaven.

Um, I do believe that the dominant Christian theory is that I was I would wake up in heaven if I have a good life.

You know, I don't necessarily have to, you know, state something in advance.

And so to my Christian friends, yes, it's coming.

So you don't need to talk me into it.

I am now convinced that the riskreward is completely smart.

If it turns out that there's nothing there, I've lost nothing.

But I've respected your wishes and I like doing that.

If it turns out there is something there and the Christian model is the closest to it, I win.

So with your permission, uh I promise you that uh I will I will convert, but I probably won't spend much time in that phase.

So don't expect it to happen today.

Okay.

But uh argument made, argument accepted.

All right, let's talk about the news.

Is your mind blown yet?

Did I blow any minds?

We'll find out about that later.

I saw a post by Chimath uh Pelatia, whose name I have trouble pronouncing, and he was pointing out that back in September, there was a uh it was a bipartisan unanimous bill in the California legislature to require more reporting on the cost and income data for the homeless.

So the idea is that uh both every single Democrat and every single Republican in California um agreed.

How rare is that?

Can you think of any other any other time that every Democrat and every Republican in California agreed?

and they agreed to do this more rigorous testing uh or rigorous auditing I guess or or checking on the expenses and this is obviously based on the alleged fraud and then as Jimoth points out uh Governor Nuomo uh vetoed it.

Now his reason for vetoing is that he believed that there were already existing laws that would cover it.

Now, are we supposed to believe, and by this, by the way, this is back in September, he vetoed it.

Um, are we supposed to believe that that Nome was the only Democrat who knew that the laws already existed and nobody talked to him?

They went through all that work.

You know, the Democrats went through all that work to be behind this 100%.

And then he vetos it.

And Shimoth asked the the obvious question.

Why?

Now I saw post response to this from a post on X called problem problematically non-compliant.

And uh in this post he said this is the evolution of a Dilbert filter complexity laundering.

So this is based on something that maybe I inspired in terms of the thinking.

He said, "Gavin's pretending other complex bills that nobody will understand, much less enforce, already accomplish the same thing." How many times have I told you that uh fraud always hides it in complexity?

So here both the Democrats and Republicans tried to come up with this, you know, way to control expenses that would be easy to understand.

But Gavin Newsome hid behind the complexity of the other things he thought would do the job.

Is this a case of it looks exactly like what it is?

Like you don't have to wonder why he did it.

They did it obviously to cover somebody's tracks.

Well, I think we're in a phase of, you know, civilization where the smart assumption is that he's doing this to cover some kind of fraud.

Don't know.

Don't know for sure.

And the reason I don't know is that hiding things behind complexity works.

It works really well.

Yeah.

Can you predict the fraud?

You can.

Well, here's a story, non-story.

So, Mayor Manni, the so-called communist mayor of New York City, he said he called Trump to file a complaint about the the arrest of Maduro.

Who would do that?

So, he called Trump and he said, he quote, "I registered my opposition.

I made it clear.

We left it at that." Now, is that just performative?

Is that purely theater?

And is it purely for the purpose of making it look like, you know, he can fight back against Trump?

There was no value in that whatsoever.

I'm kind of surprised that Trump took the call.

But so you watch on one hand, you watch Trump pull off this amazing military legal operation, which was probably very well, not probably, it was very hard to pull off and everybody in the world's impressed.

But you got this one communist mayor who wants to register his opposition.

I made it clear.

You did nothing.

All right.

There's two quotes of the day.

Uh I'm going to call them my quote of the day.

One from Eric Weinstein and he posted on a This made me laugh this morning.

He said, "I've never been entirely sure if international law actually existed.

Isn't that a great way to put it?

I've never been sure if international law actually existed.

Well, my observation is that whoever has the power gets what they want.

So, yeah, on some theatrical performative level, there's something like international law, but anybody who can ignore it does.

So if anybody who can ignore it does ignore it, is it really an international law?

It's a funny question.

And then I thought that was going to be the court of the day, but I saw one by ombre also an X and uh Bad Ombre posted this.

Has Kamla set up a bail fund for Maduro yet?

Has Kabla set up a bail fund for Maduro yet?

Now, those are just good comments.

So, I love I love a war that no Americans get killed and it generates a bunch of good memes and funny quotes.

These are two two of my favorites today.

All right.

Um, here's what I keep saying is working, which is that Trump creates assets out of nothing.

And one of the assets he's creating out of nothing is the idea that um he does what he says he'll do.

If you watched the press conference yesterday, you saw Rubio, he just kept hammering that one point.

We have a president who does what he says he'll do.

He does what he says he'll do.

And I thought he was maybe maybe hitting that one point too much.

But uh if Rubio is learning persuasion either by just association or whatever else from Trump, he knows that repetition is persuasion.

So he just repeated and repeated.

This president does what he says.

This president does what he says.

That's probably not because Rubio is a bad public speaker because he's a good one.

It's probably because he understands the value of repetition and he's watched Trump do it a million times, a million times.

So, uh, and then of course other people pick it up.

You know, the conservative independent media, the the people who comment on stuff like me, we pick that up and it's just automatic because we've been persuaded that that's an important thing to think about.

Um, so think about how this created an asset.

So Trump has already threatened Iran that if they shoot protesters that we would get involved.

He wasn't specific, but has suggested that yeah, we'd put enough uh maybe military or CIA muscle into it that it would take out the regime.

Now, if Trump had not already created this asset, the asset that people believe he does what he says he's going to do, and he's really he's done great on that, uh would would Ran maybe think twice, or would Iran say, "Ah, it's another Joe Biden.

He created an asset out of nothing." That's one of the things I always teach you be before Trump goes into any negotiation.

It feels like there's this point where he always creates that asset.

If you think about the tariffs, for example, um he created an asset out of nothing.

It became a tool weapon that just didn't exist before.

You just made it.

So that's a good persuasion.

I would guess, and I hope I'm not wrong about this, that China will not attack Taiwan as long as Trump is president.

Now, maybe it wouldn't have happened anyway, but when when China watches uh our military take down the entire country in 10 minutes, they're going to think twice about doing something with Taiwan that uh Trump would, you know, be violently opposed to.

So probably this is having a big difference.

Now he's also extending this new New York Post is reporting that maybe you heard this already.

He's he's already threatened Colombia and what he say uh oh sorry one of the side effects of whatever I'm doing is I get burpy.

Um, so he's talking about Colombian President Pro who also has some kind of cartel connections and he says, quote, uh, he has cocaine mills.

Talking about the president of Colombia, he has cocaine mills.

He has factories where he makes cocaine.

And yeah, I think I stick by my first statement.

He's making cocaine.

And then he says, and here's the kill shot.

He says they're sending it to the United States, so he does have to wash his ass.

I I tell you often that Trump is so good with swearing that he only uses it judiciously, but when he does, it really makes you focus on that thing he said.

So instead of instead of saying a boring thing like yes, you know, I hope he cooperates in the future, he says he has to wash his ass.

As soon as you throw ass in the sentence, people pay attention.

And I imagine that uh the Colombian president is uh practicing his run to a safe room.

Yeah.

They probably got a stopwatch.

They're like, "All right, uh president of Colombia, can you make it to the safe room in 37 seconds?" Because unfortunately, that's all the time you're going to have.

And Maduro, I guess, almost made it, but he didn't.

Then Trump says about Mexico, um, talking about the president of Mexico, Shine Bomb, he goes, "We're very friendly with her.

She's a good woman." Trump told, I guess Fox and Friends, he said, and quote, "But the cartels are running Mexico.

She's not running Mexico." Okay.

Again, would Mexican presidents be afraid of Trump if he had not created this asset of if I say I'm coming for you, I'm coming for you?

Probably not.

So now it creates the the option at least.

I don't know how this would work, but at least the option that we could somehow work with Mexico to get past the fact that their leader is a cartel plant.

I don't know.

We'll see.

So I would call this as Trump called it the Donro doctrine.

He was trying to see if he could make that sticky.

So instead instead of the Monroe doctrine which basically said the United States will dominate our hemisphere, stay out of our hemisphere, uh he suggested that should be called the Donro doctrine which I kind of like.

Now, the big surprise to me yesterday about Venezuela is that Trump says we, meaning his military and uh well, we mean the United States, let's say, uh are going to run Venezuela.

What?

How are we going to run Venezuela?

But if you recall, one of the biggest mistakes in Iraq for the second Iraq war um was that we took out their entire government and then everything fell apart.

And so people say if you had left some of the corrupt government in place, there would at least be stability and then maybe you could work toward, you know, a better government or something.

So, I don't think that if if it were anybody but Trump, I don't think that they would have the assets, going back to prior conversation, I don't think they would have the assets to um to run the country uh without using the locals.

So, one of it looks like the current vice president who would have been Maduro's vice president, the person you could probably trust the least, uh, is going to be under the, let's say, under threat from the US.

So, Rubio and Hegsth and uh I think Raisen Kaine, General Kaine, uh I think they're going to be working with working with the existing corrupt um Venezuelan government.

Now when I say working with surely that means co-opting meaning it's not an equal it's not an equal uh situation that whatever Venezuela does they do at the risk of the US sending in more military and taking out the vice president.

Now, if you were the if you were that new vice president or not new, but the person running the country, at least on paper, um wouldn't you assume there would be a bad play to just reproduce the Maduro um situation because surely you would be taken out because Trump does what he says he'll do.

So by now uh there have been some threats I assume like really really good threats and that maybe even some bribes but it's probably the only way that we can get to some kind of a stable pro-American Venezuelan government.

So, it seems to me that Trump has learned from the Iraq experience.

And I don't know if anybody's tried it exactly like this where we say, "Yeah, we're going to work together." But really, you're going to do what we tell you to do.

It might work.

Um, so I I would say it's the best play.

We don't know if it'll work or how it will work, but I think I think it's the best play.

Now the remaining question I have is do we leave any military assets uh around the government buildings?

In other words, is the VP of Venezuela already under the gun?

You know, is is the is the I guess there's probably some kind of presidential palace or something.

Do we have military presence where the actual physical people of the government work?

And could we control them?

If we had removed all of our military, even the special special forces, etc., would we be able to control them?

So, nobody's asked this question yet.

The press is not asking the right questions.

The right question is do we have any physical assets as in special forces that are now the security security for the uh new vice president.

Now remember we'd been told that uh Maduro was being protected by Cuban um military.

Am I right?

I I'll take a fact check on this if I'm wrong.

But my understanding is that Maduro didn't even trust his own people enough to have them be a security and that he did trust Cuba because Cuba and Venezuela have a symbiotic relationship.

So could it be that the first thing the Americans did is say Cuban gone, Cuban gone, Cuban gone until there was no security and then they said we we are now your security.

So if you don't do what we want, you got no security.

So I think that might be what's happening, but that's speculation.

Well, you'd not be surprised to hear that there are leftyle leaning protests about the Venezuelan action in four different states.

And as Wall Street apes um post on X that uh immediately at least the independent journalists figured out that they were all paid and organized by the same entity because they had the same signs, different cities.

It's obviously organized protest by somebody.

And then Wall Street apes also um points out who it is.

So, it didn't take long.

Um, so apparently the Hands Off Venezuela protests have been funded uh by an NGO.

Of course, funded by an NGO that hides that hides the uh the badness you you launder through an NGO.

But it's an NGO called the People's Forum, which has received over $20 million from one billionaire.

Now, the billionaire, it turns out, lives in China, right?

So, the money is coming from a pro-Chinese billionaire.

Do you remember when you would have thought, "Wow, I'm surprised a lot of people disagree with this Venezuela thing because it worked out so well." Now, we instantly know that it's a fake demonstration and that some billionaire or billionaires are behind it.

Boom.

So, that didn't work.

And we're in a whole new world, people.

Uh, again, thanks to the Elon Musk, the Mike Benz, the uh, and the other players who have uncovered how the NOS's work, we can just instantly go to the answer.

Is it real?

No.

Is it being paid for by a billionaire?

Yes.

What What country backs the billionaire?

in this case, China.

It's only takes 10 seconds.

But as I've said before, you know, you and I are probably in a bubble where this is easier.

The average normal person or voter still probably thinks it's real.

And that's what we got to do.

We got to got to fix that.

uh you heard me speculating and wondering uh what if there's a real reason behind the uh behind the attack on Venezuela.

So the legal justification is drugs and I do believe that Trump is serious about stopping drugs.

But the real question is is that the only reason and I don't think any of us thinks it's the only reason.

some would say is because of oil um etc.

But I saw an opinion by cynical publicist on X um who I think captured my thinking.

Well, no, I'm not going to say that it added to my thinking.

Um, I don't want to pretend that I had this thought as clearly as a cynical publicist, but he said he's monitoring the Venezuelan situation and there's so many questions.

Yes.

Um, but the strategic reason for bringing down Maduro has become abundantly clear.

Um, it wasn't abundantly clear until I read the next part of his opinion.

He said, "While we ostensibly captured Maduro based on legitimate and withstanding US drug charges from 2020, the real reason for the military operation this morning is that neutralizing Maduro's Venezuela had become a strategic imperative for the USA, meaning that Maduro and Venezuela um were becoming a central hub for all the people we don't like." So he was nurturing relationships says cynical pub with Russia Hezbollah and ran and uh and was already be going to be part of China's uh belt and road initiative.

So if you were looking for the one reason that we went after Venezuela, you would miss it would be one of those missing the forest for the trees.

The forest is that we can't have somebody who's actively anti-American and actively courting our enemies while also being a presence in our hemisphere.

You don't need more reason than that.

that under the Donro doctrine, you don't need a better reason to take down Venezuela.

That they've just simply become a um simply become too important to our enemies to let them, you know, have free reign.

Um but I'm seeing in the comments you're you're prompting me, but that was the next thing I was going to talk about.

Apparently, uh, Rasmusen poll notices this that Trump has posted, um, he's posting videos of allegations of Venezuela being part of, uh, rigging our election.

And what Rasmusen Paul points out is that's not the sort of thing he was doing before.

And it could be that the bonus on top of the bonus uh beyond the strategic and oil and everything else is that Trump can say to the new regime, "Hey, new regime, here's the deal.

If you help me prove that Venezuela was behind the rigging of our elections, you're going to have a much better time of it as America figures out who's in charge.

and we work with you to, you know, rebuild Venezuela.

So, once again, it seems that Trump has uh built an asset that didn't exist.

So, uh if you went back a year, Trump could not have asked Venezuela to help him figure out did uh Dominion or anybody else through some kind of uh connection with Venezuela, did they make any difference to our elections?

But now having taken control of the government, he can say to that government, "You're going to help me find out what happened." And they'll probably have to do it because the people who he'd be talking to would not necessarily be guilty, like personally guilty, but they would know that if they work with him, they'd be giving up something that didn't have any value to them anymore, which is some knowledge about something that may or may not have happened.

But if they give that up, things are going to go a lot better for them.

Nobody else could have done that.

He created the asset out of nothing.

I mean, not nothing.

He attacked and over overthrew the country.

But if this is a signal that Trump is going to go hard at the election integrity and he's going to go hard at it through this more control of Venezuela, that would be quite a 2026, wouldn't it?

That would change everything.

And I think that's coming.

I saw a post today on ex by Fischer King and he said it's striking that in the realm of foreign affairs where pus has real power big things can get done.

Meanwhile domestically we keep running up the debt and everything is broken.

Um, that's a good point.

Where Trump has the most authors are always on him for domestic stuff, it's hard to get anything done.

And that would work, you know, no matter who's the president.

The other team is going to stop you from being effective.

Um, so case in point, apparently Unusual Wales was reporting that the US raid to capture Maduro was actually leaked to the Washington Post and the New York Times, but both publications decided it would be too risky to publish it um because it would be dangerous for the troops.

However, somebody put very large bets on the day that Venezuela would be uh attacked and they placed them on Poly Market where I believe I'll take a fact check on this, but I believe Poly Market allows you legally or another way to say it was there's no reason you couldn't make an insider bet.

So, somebody who had insider knowledge made a ton of money by picking the exact day of the attack.

That probably is related to whoever was leaking as well.

All right.

You all know Michael Shelonburgger, one of the best independent journalists in the country, an amazing writer, amazing uh does amazing work.

But he's warning us, and I don't think we're watching this closely enough, that we're in an absolute free speech crisis.

So, apparently the EU, Australia, and Brazil uh had a meeting of Stanford recently to coordinate global censorship strategies against Americans.

What?

What?

We we know that they had a meeting and that the the deal was they're trying to censor American free speech.

Well, the reason this is a big problem is that censoring free speech is probably the beginning of every, you know, anti-democratic thing you could imagine.

It's the most authoritarian thing I could imagine because everything bad comes after censoring free speech, right?

If you tried to do something bad, but free speech was still in existence, there's a good chance you could catch it and get enough people involved to stop it.

But if you stop free speech in America, you can kind of control America and you would have to, you know, make it look like you're trying to uh do the opposite.

You have to make it look like you're improving free speech by getting rid of the bad parts.

The bad parts.

Now, the bad parts are what the free speech is for.

The bad parts are the part where people don't like it.

And often this isn't true.

But if you don't have the freedom to to speak, uh, all bad will happen.

And as Michael Shelber points out, here are the approval ratings of some of these countries involved.

So Macron has Mcronone of France has a 1515% approval.

What?

And he's going, this guy with a5 approval in his own country is going to come and tell us, you know, what kind of free speech we have or don't.

How about Germany's MS?

Their leader has a 20% approval.

Britain's prime minister, 25% approval.

Now, these are the clowns that are trying to figure out a way to have European pressure on American platforms to the point where the American platforms have to say, "All right, all right." You know, we'll go out of business if we don't deal with you.

So, we'll have to start censoring our own people.

And uh that's like the beginning of the end.

So, uh, as Shelonburgger points out accurately, uh, we are in a free speech crisis because they might be able to pull it off.

You know, I don't know what the response is.

I think the response is if you have Trump as a president, he will say, um, at some point, if he hasn't already, here's the deal.

You clowns need to stay away from our free speech.

And if you don't, all bets are off.

All bets are off because I would consider this one of the biggest um strategic defense issues in the country.

It's a bigger risk than China attacking us.

It's a bigger risk than Russia attacking us because I don't think they will.

But this is definitely happening.

So, you know, the thing you have to worry about is not the one that sounds worse on paper.

is the one that's actually going to happen and it looks like they're coming after us.

So, I would expect at some point Trump to use his asset, which is he does what he says he'll do, to at least postpone this.

But my god, you know, and and the the the weapon that the uh these other countries have is that they can find us.

They can find an American company like X.

I think they're trying to find X $140 million or something.

So, they do have a tool, but their tools are the leaders of their countries, too.

In other news that I find fascinating, but you don't uh China's got this gigantic effort to try to improve batteries.

So, you China big country.

So they they've got this massive new project is governmentbacked uh but also some big companies and they're trying to advance um solid state electrolyte batteries.

Now uh I tell you all the time that different laboratories in different countries they're all working on better batteries.

But imagine if if there was some big breakthrough ideally from an American company.

It really changes everything.

It makes your your robot last a lot longer, makes your car go farther.

But more importantly, think about the national security benefit of getting as many people as we can off the grid and onto batteries.

So if you have a battery that's good enough and economical enough, then every every residential house and every business too could be off the grid.

Um at least where the sun shines enough.

So imagine if we get into some kind of war and the first thing the enemy wants to do is turn off our power.

If enough residential um entities, if enough of them have battery, then they can't turn us all off.

So maybe you don't have a battery, but maybe your neighbor does, so you don't have to freeze to death.

You know, you can still charge your phone.

So at some point, the economics of batteries are just a major major security issue.

And then this makes me wonder.

I I never really hear what Tesla is doing with their plans for next generation batteries.

Uh I hear stories about incremental changes, but it makes me wonder if Tesla and I assume it's true actually.

Wonder makes me wonder if Tesla has some secret project that would leapfrog all these other battery wannabe people because that would be huge.

Speaking of Tesla, makes me think of Elon which makes me think of this story that apparently um that Neurolink is going to enter mass production in 2026.

So apparently the neural link that's the I'll loosely say it's a chip that they put in your brain.

That's not really the right explanation but loosely it it will do things like respond.

It will restore function to people who are disabled in a variety of ways.

So they might be paralyzed but then they would be unparalized.

They might have vision or hearing problems but that would fix it.

And I imagine there'd be a whole bunch of things that could be fixed by Neuralink, which apparently they've sort of gotten to the next level of development on.

But here's my insight.

What happens when the people who have the Neuralink chip are not just restored back to as good as the normal, I'll say the normies.

I don't want to insult anybody accidentally.

Um, what happens if you've got the chip and you only got it for fixing one problem?

Let's say your problem was hearing.

So, you get the thing and you could hear.

Now, that would bring you up to what the sort of the average baseline human can do.

But once you've got the chip in you, what would stop it from adding extra powers?

Why not connect it to AI?

Why not allow you to control things at a distance just by thinking it?

Are we entering a stage where you would rather hire somebody with a chip in their head because they can do everything a normal person can do but a whole bunch of things that norm normal people can't do?

You know, if you were hiring a programmer, would you rather have one who has a chip in his head and can just think the code and the code disappears or do you want to stick with somebody who has to type it in, run it by AI, test it?

That's a bad example, but um it seems to me it's inevitable that the people with the Neurolink implant would be better better than employees who didn't have it, right?

What what would be the counterargument to that?

And then do we get to the point where uh and this wouldn't happen right away, but a point where people just optionally get a chip because they too want to get the full cyborg power.

Probably won't be legal.

You know, probably there'll be some regulation that says you can only do it if you're trying to fix a problem.

But eventually eventually it's going to be do you have a chip or do you not have a chip?

Oh, I wouldn't even want to marry somebody who didn't have a chip.

That's coming.

Remember, you may have heard me doubt the uh the story that murder is at a 20-year low or went down 19% or something.

So, Zero Edge has an article that uh is likewise, as I did, questioning whether the real the real thing is bad data.

So, did murder go down because Trump did a good job?

How?

Um, or is it the cities were manipulating the data and it's all bad?

Uh, I've been saying for some time that all data that's important is fake.

And murder rates is kind of important data.

So, according to the Scott's rule that all data that's important is fake.

I think it's just fake data.

>> >> I just don't think he's real.

So, I'm glad there's at least one entity that agrees that we don't know if that's real.

All right, here there's a couple more uh Tesla things.

So, apparently Tesla's Optimus robot, and I think this is coming from Elon, is going to be uh active in law enforcement.

Now, the robots would not have weapons and they would not do violence.

Uh, but they would somehow assist human um crime fighting.

So, he doesn't say specifically how, but he says no guns, no tasers, you know, completely unarmed.

Uh, it would focus on humane containment and nonviolent intervention designed to deescalate, not dominate.

uh and it would be AI powered patrols with zero aggression.

So it' be a way to sort of control things.

So do you think that um Optimus will be a uh a guide let's say an assist in avoiding crime?

I think it would be because if you look at human psychology, it seems to me there's a high likelihood that if you put a robot into a dangerous situation, that the criminals would say, "Uhoh, that robot is watching us." So, if the only thing the robot did was say, "Go into the dangerous place and look around," that alone probably would decrease the amount of crime.

So, it could be that the robot is more like a uh security camera that can walk, right?

The problem with existing security cameras is that they're in one place.

Um, so if you needed the the visibility to be behind a door or something, well, maybe it can knock down a door and just walk in and start to start taking that video.

So, I do believe that this is a doable thing, but um I want to clarify something that I said at a at a prior podcast.

Um I said I didn't think that robots were ready to be like butlers where they could learn any skill and then you can just teach them what you want and they can go do it.

uh and somebody clarified to me I think this is correct that the initial wave of robots will be single purpose and probably factory.

So the uh the optimists robots that they're going to start building at scale is not because they is not because they're smart enough to do what robots should do if they were you know ideal.

They're just smart enough to do a single purpose thing such as learn what to do in a specific warehouse or factory.

And then that would make sense with this idea that the optimist could also be good for security.

It' be closer to a single purpose than it would be to a general purpose.

Uh then Elon says he said this in an ex post that optimist will eliminate poverty and provide universal high income for all.

Now do you think he learned to talk like that from Trump?

Right.

because doesn't that doesn't that sound more like something that Trump would say because it feels like an overclaim?

It feels like a salesperson approach.

Uh but it's also optimistic as hell.

And I think that this is an example of how Musk is learning from Trump just as Rubio is.

So, we're we're starting to see people pick up the Trumpian way of communicating where it doesn't have to be, I don't know, 100% true.

It just has to make you feel a certain way and ideally act a certain way that is productive and good for the country.

And I'm all for it.

So, you know, the old me would have said, "No, come on.

That's too much of a claim.

Eliminate poverty.

Eliminate it.

Really?

Really?

But now I think it's just a style of communication that's very effective and making me feel right and act right.

And I'm okay with that.

It works.

All right.

Um, as I said, after the show, which is basically now, um, Owen Gregorian will be firing up a new spaces and this will be more about the news, more about Venezuela.

And, uh, you should all join.

If you don't know how to find it, go to my feed on, uh, on X.

I'm pretty sure I re reposted it this morning.

or just do a search for Owen Gregorian and you'll see it at the top of his X feed.

You'll see the link to go to the spaces and I remind you that spaces is a feature on X that allows people to speak but not be seen.

And uh you'll see one of the best hosts you've ever seen.

Um Owen Gregorian does an amazing job.

All right, people.

Uh, let me go back to my first talk about the simulation.

Did I accomplish my goal of blowing your mind?

Yes or no?

It'll take me a minute for your comments to catch up.

But I want to see if I accomplish my goal.

I think there's a delay of maybe a minute between you posting the comment and before it shows up here only because there's so many of them.

What do you think?

Mind's blown.

Yes.

There we go.

Your comments just caught up.

Absolutely.

Yes.

Yes.

Good.

Yeah, I got a few nopes in there.

More yeses than no.

That's That's the most you could hope for, right?

Well, you'll be thinking about that.

I I think it's hilarious once you realize that we could be created by a less intelligent entity than us and that the that were the AI and were already smarter than our creator as was intended to be.

What lower intelligence you're watching it right now.

I if if we succeed, meaning the startups, in creating a virtual environment in which the AI learns to be smarter than us, and that's the whole point.

We're not creating we're not trying to create an AI that's dumber than us.

So if we have the infrastructure which is these virtual worlds then we already see like right now we see that what we think is our base reality will be quickly uh less intelligent than what the the outcome of the AI researches.

So you don't have to ask um could it happen?

It's happening right now.

It's happening right now.

That's the whole point.

The whole point is to build an a virtual reality in which the characters within the reality, our future AI, uh, is smarter than us in whatever this is.

Does that make sense?

But once you once you gro that, not literally grock, but understand it, it's kind of mind-blowing.

And again, it does not rule out God.

It doesn't rule out uh that we're created by a superior intellect.

Doesn't rule that out.

It's just, you know, the point of it is a less intelligent entity creating a more intelligent entity.

God is the author of the simulation.

Can't rule it out.

Yep.

Depends how you um accept that it's possible that the God is less smart than us.

Well, that would depend how you define God.

So, if you do it in a traditional way, then uh there's nothing to prevent the God created the the entire thing.

Cannot be ruled out.

All right, I know that's all you need of that.

Um and I will uh I'm going to go private with my beloved local subscribers.

The rest of you, I hope you got something out of this and remember to join Owen on spaces.

All right, locals coming at you privately.

All right, sound is now turned on. As it

turns out that when I lean I got it. I

got it.

That was a terrible way to start. When I

lean my phone against the screen, which

I do before the show is sometimes hits

the microphone button off. the the only

button that you wouldn't want to turn

off. All right, does everybody see me?

Everybody hear me? Sound is back. It's

back. I was just teasing you, although

you couldn't hear it. That I've got a

mindblowing thought today that I've

never seen. I've never heard, but it

blew my mind and it might blow your

mind, too. So, wait for that. But first,

how many of you would like to do a

simultaneous sip? Is it time? Yeah,

let's do that. Um, because I know why

you're here. You're here for the

simultaneous sip. All you need is a cup

or mugger, glass of tankers, jealous

sign, the canteen sugar, flask of vessel

of any kind. Fill it with your favorite

liquid. I like coffee. And join me now

for the unparalleled pleasure of the

dopamine here of the day. The thing that

makes everything better is called

simultaneous.

It happens now.

Oh,

extraordinary.

So, so good. Well, speaking of mind

blown,

uh some of you know, but if you didn't

know, yesterday Owen Gregorian held a

spaces event. That's the audio. That's

the uh the audio feature with an X where

people can volunteer to talk and it's

audio only. And the topic was despite

the fact that Venezuela had just been

taken over um the topic was about me. So

he Owen generously did a entire spaces

uh that lasted and here's here's the

amazing part. It lasted six and a half

hours.

Uh, and people wondered, Scott, did you

actually listen to that? Yes, I did.

[laughter] Now, I couldn't listen to it

all live. I was dipping in and out

because I had I had people coming in and

out and nurses and a bunch of medical

stuff. So, uh, but after it was done and

I had, you know, some serious pieces of,

uh, of my own time, um, I listened to

the whole thing and I was blown away.

Um, people saying very nice things,

there were tears, there were

compliments. But I wanted to especially

call out some people I'm really proud

of. And that's the people who were

terrified about public speaking. And

here's the key. They did it anyway.

They did it anyway.

Now, I hope I may have been part of your

journey to realize that embarrassment or

freedom from embarrassment is a

superpower. And I saw a number of people

mention that as a superpower. And I will

tell you, I was watching people who have

obviously acquired that superpower do

things that they were clearly

uncomfortable with. And it all worked

out. It all worked out.

So to those of you who were frightened

but did it anyway,

here's to you.

Second sip.

And if you were concerned about

reciprocity,

uh, another thing I talk about a lot,

uh, boy, did you pay it off? Wow.

Well, anyway, um, Owen is planning on a

another different topic. Uh, he's going

to follow after the show. He'll do

another spaces. And by the way, Owen was

amazing. If if you want to hear somebody

be a good host,

if you want to see how it's done, listen

to listen to Owen. Just amazing. Anyway,

he'll do a second one after the show. Uh

but this one will be more about not

about me. It'll be about Venezuela. I

think probably some other things will

come up, but Venezuela will be at the

top of the top of mind.

All right. I'm going to start by blowing

your mind.

Now, here's my challenge. That's a

pretty big claim, right? And I'm going

to add a thought to the universe that,

as far as I know, has never been there

before.

It goes like this. Oh, I should also

warn you. The topic I'm about to talk

about, a lot of you do not like.

But I'm going to convert the people who

don't like it. the topic I'm about to

introduce. I'm going to make you like

it. So, that's my second challenge.

You're gonna like something you didn't

like before. You ready?

All right. So, as I've been telling you,

AI may have reached some kind of plateau

in how well [clears throat] you can

train it with just brute force and

giving it more training material. And uh

I was reading in uh some publication,

let's see, in TechCrunch that this is

the year that maybe AI people figure out

that they've reached some kind of a

plateau and they can't get much better

just by adding more training material

and more more data center. So the

response to that which is already

happening is some startups trying to

create virtual digital worlds that look

and act like our world so that an AI can

live in it and learn to operate the way

a human would and also learn

general intelligence the way a human

would. Now that necessarily means that

these digital worlds will include

characters based on humans because if

you want the AI to be a uh intelligent

like a human, the thinking is that you

have to train it in an environment in

which it experiences the world like a

human. But because you can't, you know,

unleash a bunch of stupid AIs into the

real world, um, they'll build an AI

virtual world and the characters within

it almost certainly would have to be

programmed to believe they were not

characters. So, they would have to be

programmed to believe they were original

base reality.

Right? So, I believe this will be the

year that AI um and these virtual

realities will make it really obvious

that if we're not if we're not already a

simulation, the odds are tremendously

high that we probably are. Can't know

for sure. No way to know for sure. But

the odds will be a billion to one,

trillion to one that we're we're not

real now.

So, my next question,

I'm getting to the good part. I haven't

got to the good part. You're going to

like it. So, people say to me, "But

Scott, what does that imply about a

creator?"

You know, the obvious question is, "Who

made the original?"

And I've been saying for years that

obviously there was some advanced

intelligence. Don't know what it is. It

might be it might be your version of

God. It could be just a higher

civilization, but definitely it would

have to be an advanced civilization that

was smarter than us that knew how to

create this simulation.

Now, you ready for the good part?

Is it true or not true that in what we

think is our base reality, we're trying

to create an form of intelligence that

would be smarter than us?

smarter than us.

So, this this actually opens up the

possibility that we're a simulation

created by a species or entity that's

not as smart as us.

That's what I'm adding. It's obvious

that something that was more intelligent

than us could create a simulation that

that fooled us into thinking we're real.

But since we know we're already trying

to create an AI that's smarter than us,

it's entirely possible that we're

created by an entity that has advanced

intelligence

but not as smart as us because we've

already surpassed it.

I'll bet I'll bet nobody said that

before.

All right, it gets better.

Um, so if it's true that the AI experts

are going to make these various training

worlds, don't you think there will be

lots of them? There's not going to be

one because every every uh AI startup

that wants to create its own little

environment will have to do their own.

So very quickly you would have more

simulated environments might be two or

three but it would be more than whatever

your base reality is. Now the other

thing people ask me is uh why is this

not compatible with Christianity?

And I say probably is there there's

probably nothing I said that's

incompatible with Christianity.

Um,

you know, you could imagine God created

was the base reality and created it all

and there's nothing to rule that

whatsoever.

And other people will say, "What does

that imply about souls?"

Well, I don't think we know what a soul

is. So, it kind of depends how you

define it. If you defined it one way,

um, you know, it probably is real and we

have one. If you defined it some other

way,

maybe not so real. What about free will?

Well, here again, it depends how you

define it. There's a definition of free

will in which it definitely exists. If

you just say free will is the ability to

make a choice. If you stop there, yeah,

it definitely exists because we well the

ability to make a choice and not know

why, you know, not know the the real

mechanism of it. So that could easily be

true that you have free will if you

define it that way. If you defined it

another way, maybe you wouldn't. And

then lastly, here's the part you're

going to like. Um, whenever I talk about

this simulation and especially when I

talk about my own, uh, impending, uh,

death,

um, many of my Christian friends and

Christian followers say to me, "Scott,

you still have time. You should convert

to Christianity."

And I usually

just let that sit because that's not an

argument I want to have. Um I'm I've not

been a believer and uh but I also have

respect for any Christian who goes out

of their way to try to convert me

because how would I believe you and

believe your own religion if you're not

trying to convert me. So I have great

respect for people who care enough that

they want me to convert uh and then go

out of their way to try to convince me.

So you're going to hear for the first

time today that it is my plan to

convert.

So I still have time, but my

understanding is you're never too late.

And on top of that, uh any skepticism I

have about reality would certainly be

instantly answered if I wake up in

heaven.

Um, I do believe that the dominant

Christian theory is that I was I would

wake up in heaven if I have a good life.

You know, I don't necessarily have to,

you know, state something in advance.

And so to my Christian friends, yes,

it's coming.

So you don't need to talk me into it. I

am now convinced that the riskreward

is completely smart.

If it turns out that there's nothing

there, I've lost nothing. But I've

respected your wishes and I like doing

that. If it turns out there is something

there and the Christian model is the

closest to it, I win. So with your

permission,

uh I promise you that uh I will I will

convert,

but I probably won't spend much time in

that phase. So don't expect it to happen

today. Okay. But uh argument made,

argument accepted.

All right, let's talk about the news. Is

your mind blown yet?

Did I blow any minds?

We'll find out about that later.

I saw a post by Chimath

uh Pelatia, whose name I have trouble

pronouncing, and he was pointing out

that back in September, there was a uh

it was a bipartisan unanimous bill in

the California legislature to require

more reporting on the cost and income

data for the homeless. So the idea is

that uh both every single Democrat and

every single Republican in California

um

agreed.

How rare is that? Can you think of any

other any other time that every Democrat

and every Republican in California

agreed? and they agreed to do this more

rigorous testing uh or rigorous auditing

I guess or or checking on the expenses

and this is obviously based on the

alleged fraud

and then as Jimoth points out uh

Governor Nuomo

uh vetoed it. Now his reason for vetoing

is that he believed that there were

already existing laws that would cover

it. Now, are we supposed to believe, and

by this, by the way, this is back in

September, he vetoed it. Um, are we

supposed to believe that that Nome was

the only Democrat who knew that the laws

already existed and nobody talked to

him? They went through all that work.

You know, the Democrats went through all

that work to be behind this 100%.

And then he vetos it. And Shimoth asked

the the obvious question. Why?

Now I saw post response to this from a

post on X called problem problematically

non-compliant.

And uh in this post he said this is the

evolution of a Dilbert filter complexity

laundering. So this is based on

something that maybe I inspired in terms

of the thinking. He said, "Gavin's

pretending other complex bills that

nobody will understand, much less

enforce, already accomplish the same

thing." How many times have I told you

that uh fraud always hides it in

complexity?

So here both the Democrats and

Republicans

tried to come up with this, you know,

way to control expenses that would be

easy to understand.

But Gavin Newsome hid behind the

complexity

of the other things he thought would do

the job.

Is this a case of it looks exactly like

what it is? Like you don't have to

wonder why he did it. They did it

obviously to cover somebody's tracks.

Well, I think we're in a phase of, you

know, civilization where the smart

assumption is that he's doing this to

cover some kind of fraud.

Don't know.

Don't know for sure. And the reason I

don't know is that hiding things behind

complexity works. It works really well.

Yeah. Can you predict the fraud? You

can. Well, here's a story, non-story.

So, Mayor Manni, the so-called communist

mayor of New York City, he said he

called Trump to file a complaint about

the the arrest of Maduro.

Who would do that? So, he called Trump

and he said, he quote, "I registered my

opposition. I made it clear. We left it

at that."

Now, is that just performative?

Is that purely theater? And is it purely

for the purpose of making it look like,

you know, he can fight back against

Trump?

There was no value in that whatsoever.

I'm kind of surprised that Trump took

the call. But so you watch on one hand,

you watch Trump pull off this amazing

military

legal operation,

which was probably very well, not

probably, it was very hard to pull off

and everybody in the world's impressed.

But you got this one communist mayor who

wants to register his opposition. I made

it clear. You did nothing.

All right. There's two quotes of the

day. Uh I'm going to call them my quote

of the day. One from Eric Weinstein and

he posted on a This made me laugh this

morning. He said, "I've never been

entirely sure if international law

actually existed.

Isn't that a great way to put it? I've

never been sure if international law

actually existed. Well, my observation

is that whoever has the power gets what

they want. So, yeah, on some theatrical

performative level, there's something

like international law, but anybody who

can ignore it does. So if anybody who

can ignore it does ignore it,

is it really an international law? It's

a funny question. And then I thought

that was going to be the court of the

day, but I saw one by ombre also an X

and uh Bad Ombre posted this. Has Kamla

set up a bail fund for Maduro yet?

Has Kabla set up a bail fund for Maduro

yet? Now, those are just good comments.

So, I love I love a war that no

Americans get killed and it generates a

bunch of good memes and funny quotes.

These are two two of my favorites today.

All right. Um,

here's what I keep saying is working,

which is that Trump creates assets out

of nothing. And one of the assets he's

creating out of nothing is the idea that

um he does what he says he'll do. If you

watched the press conference yesterday,

you saw Rubio, he just kept hammering

that one point. We have a president who

does what he says he'll do. He does what

he says he'll do. And I thought he was

maybe maybe hitting that one point too

much. But uh if Rubio is learning

persuasion either by just association or

whatever else from Trump, he knows that

repetition is persuasion. So he just

repeated and repeated. This president

does what he says. This president does

what he says. That's probably not

because Rubio is a bad public speaker

because he's a good one. It's probably

because he understands the value of

repetition and he's watched Trump do it

a million times, a million times. So,

uh, and then of course other people pick

it up. You know, the conservative

independent media, the the people who

comment on stuff like me, we pick that

up and it's just automatic because we've

been persuaded that that's an important

thing to think about.

Um,

so think about how this created an

asset. So Trump has already threatened

Iran that if they shoot protesters that

we would get involved. He wasn't

specific, but has suggested that yeah,

we'd put enough uh maybe military or CIA

muscle into it that it would take out

the regime. Now, if Trump had not

already created this asset, the asset

that people believe he does what he says

he's going to do, and he's really he's

done great on that, uh would would Ran

maybe think twice, or would Iran say,

"Ah, it's another Joe Biden.

He created an asset out of nothing."

That's one of the things I always teach

you be before Trump goes into any

negotiation.

It feels like there's this point where

he always creates that asset.

If you think about the tariffs, for

example,

um he created an asset out of nothing.

It became a tool

weapon that just didn't exist before.

You just made it. So that's a good

persuasion. I would guess, and I hope

I'm not wrong about this, that China

will not attack Taiwan as long as Trump

is president. Now, maybe it wouldn't

have happened anyway, but when when

China watches uh our military take down

the entire country in 10 minutes,

they're going to think twice about doing

something with Taiwan that uh Trump

would, you know, be violently opposed

to.

So probably

this is having a big difference. Now

he's also extending this new New York

Post is reporting that

maybe you heard this already. He's he's

already threatened Colombia

and what he say uh oh

sorry [clears throat]

one of the side effects of whatever I'm

doing is I get burpy. Um,

so he's talking about Colombian

President Pro who also has some kind of

cartel connections and he says, quote,

uh, he has cocaine mills. Talking about

the president of Colombia, he has

cocaine mills. He has factories where he

makes cocaine. And yeah, I think I stick

by my first statement. He's making

cocaine. And then he says, and here's

the kill shot. He says they're sending

it to the United States, so he does have

to wash his ass.

I I tell you often that Trump is so good

with swearing that he only uses it

judiciously, but when he does, it really

makes you focus on that thing he said.

So instead of instead of saying a boring

thing like yes, you know, I hope he

cooperates in the future, he says he has

to wash his ass. As soon as you throw

ass in the sentence,

people pay attention. And I imagine that

uh the Colombian president is uh

practicing his run to a safe room. Yeah.

They probably got a stopwatch. They're

like, "All right, uh president of

Colombia, can you make it to the safe

room in 37 seconds?" Because

unfortunately, that's all the time

you're going to have. [laughter] And

Maduro, I guess, almost made it, but he

didn't.

Then Trump says about Mexico,

um, talking about the president of

Mexico, Shine Bomb, he goes, "We're very

friendly with her. She's a good woman."

Trump told, I guess Fox and Friends, he

said, and quote, "But the cartels are

running Mexico. She's not running

Mexico."

Okay. Again, would Mexican presidents be

afraid of Trump if he had not created

this asset of if I say I'm coming for

you, I'm coming for you? Probably not.

So now it creates the the option at

least. I don't know how this would work,

but at least the option that we could

somehow work with Mexico to get past the

fact that their leader is a cartel

plant.

I don't know. We'll see. So I would call

this as Trump called it the Donro

doctrine. He was trying to see if he

could make that sticky. So instead

instead of the Monroe doctrine

which basically said the United States

will dominate our hemisphere, stay out

of our hemisphere, uh he suggested that

should be called the Donro doctrine

which I kind of like.

Now, the big surprise to me yesterday

about Venezuela is that Trump says we,

meaning his military and uh well, we

mean the United States, let's say, uh

are going to run Venezuela.

What? How are we going to run Venezuela?

But if you recall, one of the biggest

mistakes in Iraq for the second Iraq war

um was that we took out their entire

government and then everything fell

apart. And so people say if you had left

some of the corrupt government in place,

there would at least be stability and

then maybe you could work toward, you

know, a better government or something.

So, I don't think

that if if it were anybody but Trump, I

don't think that they would have the

assets, going back to prior

conversation, I don't think they would

have the assets to um

to run the country uh without using the

locals. So, one of it looks like the

current vice president who would have

been Maduro's vice president, the person

you could probably trust the least, uh,

is going to be under the, let's say,

under threat

from the US. So, Rubio and Hegsth and uh

I think Raisen Kaine, General Kaine, uh

I think they're going to be working with

working with the existing corrupt

um Venezuelan government. Now when I say

working with surely that means co-opting

meaning it's not an equal it's not an

equal uh situation that whatever

Venezuela does they do at the risk of

the US sending in more military and

taking out the vice president. Now, if

you were the if you were that new vice

president or not new, but the person

running the country, at least on paper,

um wouldn't you assume there would be a

bad play to just reproduce the Maduro

um situation because surely you would be

taken out because Trump does what he

says he'll do. So by now uh there have

been some threats

I assume like really really good threats

and that maybe even some bribes

but it's probably the only way that we

can get to some kind of a stable

pro-American Venezuelan government. So,

it seems to me that Trump has learned

from the Iraq experience.

And I don't know if anybody's tried it

exactly like this where we say, "Yeah,

we're going to work together." But

really, you're going to do what we tell

you to do. It might work.

Um, so I I would say it's the best play.

We don't know if it'll work or how it

will work, but I think I think it's the

best play. Now the remaining question I

have is do we leave any military assets

uh around the government buildings? In

other words, is the VP of Venezuela

already under the gun? You know, is is

the is the I guess there's probably some

kind of presidential palace or

something. Do we have military presence

where the actual physical people of the

government work?

And could we control them? If we had

removed all of our military, even the

special special forces, etc., would we

be able to control them? So, nobody's

asked this question yet. The press is

not asking the right questions. The

right question is do we have any

physical assets as in special forces

that are now the security security

for the uh new vice president.

Now remember we'd been told that uh

Maduro was being protected by Cuban

um military. Am I right? I I'll take a

fact check on this if I'm wrong. But my

understanding is that Maduro didn't even

trust his own people enough to have them

be a security and that he did trust Cuba

because Cuba and Venezuela have a

symbiotic relationship. So could it be

that the first thing the Americans did

is say Cuban gone, Cuban gone, Cuban

gone until there was no security

and then they said we we are now your

security. So if you don't do what we

want, you got no security.

So I think that might be what's

happening, but that's speculation.

Well, you'd not be surprised to hear

that there are leftyle leaning protests

about the Venezuelan action

[clears throat] in four different

states. And as Wall Street apes um post

on X that uh immediately at least the

independent journalists figured out that

they were all paid and organized by the

same entity because they had the same

signs,

different cities.

It's obviously organized protest by

somebody. And then Wall Street apes also

um points out who it is. So, it didn't

take long. Um, so apparently the Hands

Off Venezuela protests have been funded

uh by an NGO. Of course, funded by an

NGO that hides that hides the uh the

badness you you launder through an NGO.

But it's an NGO called the People's

Forum, which has received over $20

million from one billionaire.

Now, the billionaire, it turns out,

lives in China,

right? So, the money is coming from a

pro-Chinese billionaire.

Do you remember when you would have

thought, "Wow, I'm surprised a lot of

people disagree with this Venezuela

thing because it worked out so well."

Now, we instantly know that it's a fake

demonstration and that some billionaire

or billionaires are behind it. Boom.

So, that didn't work.

And we're in a whole new world, people.

Uh, again, thanks to the Elon Musk, the

Mike Benz, the uh, and the other players

who have uncovered how the NOS's work,

we can just instantly go to the answer.

Is it real? No. Is it being paid for by

a billionaire? Yes. What What country

backs the billionaire? in this case,

China. It's only takes 10 seconds. But

as I've said before, you know, you and I

are probably in a bubble where this is

easier. The average normal person or

voter still probably thinks it's real.

And that's what we got to do. We got to

got to fix that.

uh you heard me speculating and

wondering [snorts] uh what if there's a

real reason behind the uh behind the

attack on Venezuela. So the legal

justification is drugs and I do believe

that Trump is serious about stopping

drugs.

But the real question is is that the

only reason

and I don't think any of us thinks it's

the only reason. some would say is

because of oil

um etc. But I saw an opinion by cynical

publicist

on X

um who I think captured my thinking.

Well, no, I'm not going to say that it

added to my thinking. Um, I don't want

to pretend that I had this thought as

clearly as a cynical publicist, but he

said he's monitoring the Venezuelan

situation and there's so many questions.

Yes. Um, but the strategic reason for

bringing down Maduro has become

abundantly clear.

Um, it wasn't abundantly clear until I

read the next part of his opinion. He

said, "While we ostensibly captured

Maduro based on legitimate and

withstanding US drug charges from 2020,

the real reason for the military

operation this morning is that

neutralizing Maduro's Venezuela had

become a strategic imperative for the

USA,

meaning that Maduro and Venezuela um

were becoming a central hub for all the

people we don't like." So he was

nurturing relationships says cynical pub

with Russia Hezbollah and ran and uh and

was already be going to be part of

China's uh belt and road initiative. So

if you were looking for the one reason

that we went after Venezuela, you would

miss it would be one of those missing

the forest for the trees. The forest is

that we can't have somebody who's

actively anti-American and actively

courting our enemies while also being a

presence in our hemisphere. You don't

need more reason than that. that under

the Donro

doctrine, you don't need a better reason

to take down Venezuela. That they've

just simply become a um simply become

too important to our enemies to let

them, you know, have free reign.

Um but I'm seeing in the comments you're

you're prompting me, but that was the

next thing I was going to talk about.

Apparently, uh, Rasmusen poll notices

this that Trump has posted,

um, he's posting videos of

allegations of Venezuela being part of,

uh, rigging our election.

And what Rasmusen Paul points out is

that's not the sort of thing he was

doing before. And it could be that the

bonus on top of the bonus uh beyond the

strategic and oil and everything else is

that Trump can say to the new regime,

"Hey, new regime, here's the deal. If

you help me prove that Venezuela was

behind the rigging of our elections,

you're going to have a much better time

of it as America figures out who's in

charge. and we work with you to, you

know, rebuild Venezuela. So, once again,

it seems that Trump has uh built an

asset that didn't exist. [snorts] So, uh

if you went back a year, Trump could not

have asked Venezuela to help him figure

out did uh Dominion or anybody else

through some kind of uh connection with

Venezuela, did they make any difference

to our elections? But now having taken

control of the government, he can say to

that government, "You're going to help

me find out what happened." And they'll

probably have to do it because the

people who he'd be talking to would not

necessarily be guilty, like personally

guilty, but they would know that if they

work with him, they'd be giving up

something that didn't have any value to

them anymore, which is some knowledge

about something that may or may not have

happened. But if they give that up,

things are going to go a lot better for

them.

Nobody else could have done that. He

created the asset out of nothing. I

mean, not nothing. He attacked and over

overthrew the country. But if this is a

signal that Trump is going to go hard at

the election integrity and he's going to

go hard at it through this more control

of Venezuela,

that would be quite a 2026, wouldn't it?

That would change everything.

And I think that's coming.

I saw a post today

on ex by Fischer King and he said

[clears throat] it's striking that in

the realm of foreign affairs where pus

has real power big things can get done.

Meanwhile domestically we keep running

up the debt and everything is broken.

Um,

that's a good point.

Where Trump has the most authors

are always on him for domestic stuff,

it's hard to get anything done. And that

would work, you know, no matter who's

the president. The other team is going

to stop you from being effective.

Um,

so case in point,

apparently Unusual Wales was reporting

that the US raid to capture Maduro was

actually leaked to the Washington Post

and the New York Times, but both

publications decided it would be too

risky to publish it

um because it would be dangerous for the

troops. However, somebody put very large

bets on the day that Venezuela would be

uh

attacked and they placed them on Poly

Market where I believe I'll take a fact

check on this, but I believe Poly Market

allows you legally

or another way to say it was there's no

reason you couldn't make an insider bet.

So, somebody who had insider knowledge

made a ton of money by picking the

exact day of the attack. That probably

is related to whoever was leaking as

well.

All right.

You all know Michael Shelonburgger,

one of the best independent journalists

in the country, an amazing writer,

amazing uh does amazing work. But he's

warning us, and I don't think we're

watching this closely enough, that we're

in an absolute free speech crisis.

So, apparently the EU, Australia, and

Brazil uh had a meeting of Stanford

recently to coordinate global censorship

strategies against Americans.

What?

What?

We we know that they had a meeting and

that the the deal was they're trying to

censor American free speech. Well, the

reason this is a big problem is that

censoring free speech is probably the

beginning of every, you know,

anti-democratic thing you could imagine.

It's the most authoritarian thing I

could imagine because everything bad

comes after censoring free speech,

right? If you tried to do something bad,

but free speech was still in existence,

there's a good chance you could catch it

and get enough people involved to stop

it. But if you stop free speech in

America, you can kind of control America

and you would have to, you know, make it

look like you're trying to uh do the

opposite. You have to make it look like

you're improving free speech by getting

rid of the bad parts.

The bad parts. Now, the bad parts are

what the free speech is for. The bad

parts are the part where people don't

like it. And often this isn't true. But

if you don't have the freedom to to

speak, uh, all bad will happen. And as

Michael Shelber points out, here are the

approval ratings of some of these

countries involved. So Macron has

Mcronone of France has a 1515%

approval.

What? And he's going, this guy with a5

approval in his own country is going to

come and tell us, you know, what kind of

free speech we have or don't. How about

Germany's MS? Their leader has a 20%

approval. Britain's prime minister, 25%

approval.

Now, these are the clowns that are

trying to figure out a way to have

European pressure on American platforms

to the point where the American

platforms have to say, "All right, all

right." You know, we'll go out of

business if we don't deal with you. So,

we'll have to start censoring our own

people.

And uh that's like the beginning of the

end.

So, uh, as Shelonburgger points out

accurately, uh, we are in a free speech

crisis because they might be able to

pull it off. You know, I don't know what

the response is. I think the response is

if you have Trump as a president, he

will say, um, at some point, if he

hasn't already, here's the deal. You

clowns need to stay away from our free

speech. And if you don't, all bets are

off.

All bets are off because I would

consider this one of the biggest um

strategic defense issues in the country.

It's a bigger risk than China attacking

us. It's a bigger risk than Russia

attacking us because I don't think they

will. But this is definitely happening.

So, you know, the thing you have to

worry about is not the one that sounds

worse on paper. is the one that's

actually going to happen and it looks

like they're coming after us. So, I

would expect

at some point Trump to use his asset,

which is he does what he says he'll do,

to at least postpone this. But my god,

you know, and and the the the weapon

that the uh these other countries have

is that they can find us. They can find

an American company like X. I think

they're trying to find X $140 million or

something.

So, they do have a tool, but their tools

are the leaders of their countries, too.

In other news that I find fascinating,

but you don't uh China's got this

gigantic effort to try to improve

batteries.

So, you China big country. So they

they've got this massive new project is

governmentbacked

uh but also some big companies and

they're trying to advance um solid state

electrolyte batteries.

Now

uh I tell you all the time that

different laboratories in different

countries they're all working on better

batteries. But imagine if if there was

some big breakthrough

ideally from an American company. It

really changes everything. It makes your

your robot last a lot longer, makes your

car go farther. But more importantly,

think about the national security

benefit of getting as many people as we

can off the grid and onto batteries.

So if you have a battery that's good

enough and economical enough, then every

every residential house and every

business too could be off the grid. Um

at least where the sun shines enough. So

imagine if we get into some kind of war

and the first thing the enemy wants to

do is turn off our power. If enough

residential um entities,

if enough of them have battery, then

they can't turn us all off. So maybe you

don't have a battery, but maybe your

neighbor does, so you don't have to

freeze to death. You know, you can still

charge your phone. So at some point, the

economics of batteries are just a major

major security issue. And then this

makes me wonder.

I I never really hear what Tesla is

doing with their plans for next

generation batteries. Uh I hear stories

about incremental changes, but it makes

me wonder if Tesla and I assume it's

true actually. Wonder makes me wonder if

Tesla has some secret project that would

leapfrog all these other battery wannabe

people

because that would be huge.

Speaking of Tesla, makes me think of

Elon which makes me think of this story

that apparently um that Neurolink is

going to enter mass production in 2026.

So apparently the neural link that's the

I'll loosely say it's a chip that they

put in your brain. That's not really the

right explanation but loosely it it will

do things like respond. It will restore

function to people who are disabled in a

variety of ways. So they might be

paralyzed but then they would be

unparalized. They might have vision or

hearing problems but that would fix it.

And I imagine there'd be a whole bunch

of things that could be fixed by

Neuralink, which apparently they've sort

of gotten to the next level of

development on. But here's my insight.

What happens when the people who have

the Neuralink chip are not just restored

back to as good as the normal, I'll say

the normies. I don't want to insult

anybody accidentally. Um, what happens

if you've got the chip and you only got

it for fixing one problem? Let's say

your problem was hearing. So, you get

the thing and you could hear. Now, that

would bring you up to what the sort of

the average baseline human can do. But

once you've got the chip in you, what

would stop it from adding extra powers?

Why not connect it to AI? Why not allow

you to control things at a distance just

by thinking it?

Are we entering a stage where you would

rather hire somebody with a chip in

their head because they can do

everything a normal person can do but a

whole bunch of things that norm normal

people can't do? You know, if you were

hiring a programmer, would you rather

have one who has a chip in his head and

can just think the code and the code

disappears or do you want to stick with

somebody who has to type it in, run it

by AI, test it? That's a bad example,

but um it seems to me it's inevitable

that the people with the Neurolink

implant would be better

better than employees who didn't have

it, right? What what would be the

counterargument to that? And then do we

get to the point where uh and this

wouldn't happen right away, but a point

where people just optionally get a chip

because they too want to get the full

cyborg

power.

Probably won't be legal. You know,

probably there'll be some regulation

that says you can only do it if you're

trying to fix a problem. But eventually

eventually it's going to be do you have

a chip or do you not have a chip? Oh, I

wouldn't even want to marry somebody who

didn't have a chip.

That's coming.

Remember, you may have heard me doubt

the uh the story that murder is at a

20-year low or went down 19% or

something. So, Zero Edge has an article

that uh is likewise, as I did,

questioning whether the real the real

thing is bad data.

So, did murder go down because Trump did

a good job?

How? Um, or is it the cities were

manipulating the data and it's all bad?

Uh, I've been saying for some time that

all data that's important is fake. And

murder rates is kind of important data.

So, according to the Scott's rule that

all data that's important is fake. I

think it's just fake data.

>> [laughter]

>> I just don't think he's real. So, I'm

glad there's at least one entity that

agrees that we don't know if that's

real.

All right,

here there's a couple more uh Tesla

things. So, apparently Tesla's Optimus

robot, and I think this is coming from

Elon, is going to be uh active in

law enforcement. Now, the robots would

not have weapons and they would not do

violence. Uh, but they would somehow

assist human um crime fighting. So, he

doesn't say specifically how, but he

says no guns, no tasers, you know,

completely unarmed. Uh, it would focus

on humane containment

and nonviolent intervention

designed to deescalate, not dominate.

uh and it would be AI powered patrols

with zero aggression.

So it' be a way to sort of control

things. So do you think that um Optimus

will be a uh a guide let's say an assist

in avoiding crime?

I think it would be because if you look

at human psychology,

it seems to me there's a high likelihood

that if you put a robot into a dangerous

situation, that the criminals would say,

"Uhoh, that robot is watching us." So,

if the only thing the robot did was say,

"Go into the dangerous place and look

around," that alone probably would

decrease the amount of crime. So, it

could be that the robot is more like a

uh security camera that can walk, right?

The problem with existing security

cameras is that they're in one place.

Um, so if you needed the the visibility

to be behind a door or something, well,

maybe it can knock down a door and just

walk in and start to start taking that

video. So, I do believe that this is a

doable thing, but um I want to clarify

something

that I said at a at a prior podcast. Um

I said I didn't think that robots were

ready to be like butlers where they

could learn any skill and then you can

just teach them what you want and they

can go do it. uh and somebody clarified

to me I think this is correct that the

initial wave of robots will be single

purpose and probably factory. So the uh

the optimists robots that they're going

to start building at scale is not

because they is not because they're

smart enough to do what robots should do

if they were you know ideal. They're

just smart enough to do a single purpose

thing such as learn what to do in a

specific warehouse or factory. And then

that would make sense with this idea

that the optimist could also be good for

security. It' be closer to a single

purpose than it would be to a general

purpose.

Uh then Elon says he said this in an ex

post that optimist will eliminate

poverty and provide universal high

income for all.

Now do you think he learned to talk like

that from Trump?

Right. because doesn't that doesn't that

sound more like something that Trump

would say because it feels like an

overclaim? It feels like a salesperson

approach. Uh but it's also optimistic as

hell. And I think that this is an

example of how Musk is learning from

Trump

just as Rubio is. So, we're we're

starting to see people pick up the

Trumpian way of communicating where it

doesn't have to be, I don't know, 100%

true. [laughter] It just has to make you

feel a certain way and ideally act a

certain way that is productive and good

for the country.

And I'm all for it. So, you know, the

old me would have said, "No, come on.

That's too much of a claim. Eliminate

poverty. Eliminate it. Really? Really?

But now I think it's just a style of

communication that's very effective and

making me feel right and act right. And

I'm okay with that. It works.

All right.

Um,

as I said, after the show, which is

basically now, um, Owen Gregorian will

be firing up a new spaces and this will

be more about the news, more about

Venezuela.

And, uh, you should all join. If you

don't know how to find it, go to my feed

on, uh, on X. I'm pretty sure I re

reposted it this morning. or just do a

search for Owen Gregorian and you'll see

it at the top of his X feed. You'll see

the link to go to the spaces and I

remind you that spaces is a feature on X

that allows people to speak but not be

seen.

And uh you'll see one of the best hosts

you've ever seen. Um Owen Gregorian does

an amazing job. All right, people.

Uh, let me go back to my first talk

about the simulation.

Did I accomplish my goal of blowing your

mind?

Yes or no?

It'll take me a minute for your comments

to catch up.

But I want to see if I accomplish my

goal.

I think there's a delay of maybe a

minute

between you posting the comment and

before it shows up here only because

there's so many of them.

What do you think? Mind's blown. Yes.

There we go. Your comments just caught

up.

Absolutely. Yes. Yes.

Good.

Yeah, I got a few nopes in there.

More yeses than no. That's That's the

most you could hope for, right?

Well, you'll be thinking about that. I I

think it's hilarious once you realize

that we could be created by a less

intelligent entity than us

and that the that were the AI and were

already smarter than our creator as was

intended to be.

What lower intelligence you're watching

it right now. I if if we succeed,

meaning the startups, in creating a

virtual environment in which the AI

learns to be smarter than us, and that's

the whole point. We're not creating

we're not trying to create an AI that's

dumber than us. So if we have the

infrastructure which is these virtual

worlds then we already see like right

now we see that what we think is our

base reality will be quickly uh less

intelligent than what the the outcome of

the AI researches. So you don't have to

ask um could it happen? It's happening

right now. [laughter] It's happening

[clears throat] right now. That's the

whole point. The whole point is to build

an a virtual reality in which the

characters within the reality, our

future AI, uh, is smarter than us in

whatever this is.

Does that make sense? But once you once

you gro that, not literally grock, but

understand it, it's kind of

mind-blowing.

And again, it does not rule out God. It

doesn't rule out uh that we're created

by a superior intellect. Doesn't rule

that out. It's just,

you know, the point of it is a less

intelligent entity creating a more

intelligent entity.

God is the author of the simulation.

Can't rule it out.

Yep. Depends how you

um accept that it's possible that the

God

is less smart than us.

Well, that would depend how you define

God. So, if you do it in a traditional

way, then uh there's nothing to prevent

the God created the the entire thing.

Cannot be ruled out.

All right, I know that's all you need of

that.

Um and I will uh I'm going to go private

with my beloved

local subscribers. The rest of you, I

hope you got something out of this and

remember to join Owen on spaces.

All right, locals coming at you

privately.