's talk about the minor stories and then toward the end I might say some more about my little brouhaha. There are updates. There are updates.

All right. So a tweet from Mike Solana that he was asking why young people seem to watch TV with the, what do you call them, the subtitles on. Have any of you noticed that? The use of subtitles even if you speak the same language. Captions. Captions, yes, not subtitles. Captions. And Mike asked quite reasonably, like, what changed? You know, what is the reason for it? And I have to say I've noticed it myself and I didn't know what it was about, but I have a hypothesis. One hypothesis. Three, actually.

One hypothesis is that sometimes the young people want to keep their headphones in or they want to turn the sound really low but just have something on and maybe check in once in a while. So it might be a little bit of that, but it's definitely not just people with earbuds in. The other thing I think is that movies and TV shows are so insensitive to what their consumers want that they stopped making clear speaking. It's not my imagination. Allow me to give you a demonstration of a movie from the 40s. You ready? Here's a movie from the 40s.

"What were you doing at the scene of the crime?" "Well, who else was there?" "Well, you'd better talk to the police department."

That was a 40s movie. Now let me give you an impression of every person trying to win an Academy Award in the modern time in a movie. Oh, it's just that. It's just that the movies have so disrespected their audiences that they literally don't even think the audience needs sound anymore. Well, you don't need sound. Why should you be concerned about listening to the voices of the people? Oh, now I think part of it is also that background noise has been elevated, you know, just because they can. Like they can add some background noise, you know, some street sounds or whatever, and then everybody's mumbling. And between the two things, I will tell you that as far as I know my hearing is fine last time it was tested, but I can't hear a dialogue on TV. Can you? It's just all mumbling. And if it's anything British at all, I don't have a chance. Yeah, British mumbling is like, oh, it's just nothing like. I can watch an hour of a movie and not pick up a word at all. And I think my hearing's fine as far as I know anyway.

The other possibility is that young people are used to seeing captions on Reels and TikToks, so it just seems more natural. That's possible.

All right. Germany, as Michael Shellenberger tweets, he says the Germans say they care deeply about climate change and yet Chancellor Olaf Scholz is proceeding with plans to replace Germany's last three nuclear plants with coal next month over the objections of his finance minister. And then here's the final phrase that Shellenberger adds to his tweet: because witches or something. Because witches or something. There's literally no reason. The anti-nuclear people literally have no reason left. The pro-green people, the ones who would know what they're talking about, are all pro-nuclear. Even AOC is pro-nuclear. There is no argument left on the other side. We now know what to do with the waste. You know, we know how to build nuclear sites that are either not going to melt down, the newer technology, or ones that have never melted down. Right? If you're going to build a nuclear plant today, you would build either a generation three that's never had a meltdown or you'd build the newest generation of four that can't melt down. Like it's designed so it can't. And still, still there's just nothing you can do to change minds. You know, once people get something in their head they just can't get it out. Just can't get it out.

Now there might be a timing issue, so I want to make sure I'm not losing the context of this one because I might be. It might be that they need to do something quick and nuclear isn't as quick as it could be. You know, maybe they need to fix something to keep those plants open, something like that. I don't know. But I might be missing some context. But there is no argument left against nuclear. You know, if we're looking at a climatic catastrophe, you could have like 10 nuclear plants melt down. Well, let's see if this makes sense. There have been zero meltdowns of the new kind of plant. If you were going to build one today, zero. Never been one. And what does the left think is the risk of climate change? Total catastrophe, right? The risk according to the left, I don't buy this, but according to the left the risk is total catastrophe. Suppose everybody put in a bunch of nuclear power plants and in some period of years, if it isn't too much, 10 of them melted down, would that have been a bad idea? If 10 of them melted down unexpectedly, because the new technology has never melted down, it's literally never happened with the new power plants, it would totally be worth it. Yeah. If you were to compare it with any objective measure, you could have 10 meltdowns and still save the world. The meltdowns are going to affect a few people around it and even they would get out of town, you know, as soon as they got the alarm they'd just be gone probably. So you could have, if everything went wrong with nuclear, it would still save the world according to the left. Again, I don't buy into the disaster narrative, but they do. They do. And if they think the disaster is coming, they could have all kinds of nuclear disasters, which would be zero actually in all likelihood. It would be zero because like I said the technology that you would build one today is the technology that's never melted down. We're pretty good at this now. So, and like I said, the new plants won't melt down at all. They don't have the option.

All right. I'm going to throw out a theory, a conspiracy theory option. Maybe it's a conspiracy theory in the sense that I haven't heard anybody talk about it, but it's not one I believe. It's one that might be true. I'm just going to put it out there. Suppose Putin doesn't believe he can win in Ukraine outright. Or what would be his option if he couldn't win? And let's say he's reasonable enough to not use nuclear. I mean he might threaten, but let's say he's not going to use it. What would Putin do if he didn't want to lose exactly? He doesn't want to lose but he can't win. What would he do? Here's my theory. He would have to sue for peace. Well, not a super peace. He would often negotiate some kind of a deal. Now we don't know if the Ukrainians would negotiate anything. I mean not productively. We don't know. But suppose that's, you think it's an option. If you were Putin, what would be the most dangerous thing you could do? I'll tell you. Negotiate peace and keep the Wagner group intact. Because the head of the Wagner group doesn't seem as pro-Putin as you'd like him to be, you know, if you're Putin. It feels like he's getting too much power and he commands his own army. The most dangerous thing for Putin would be to end the war and let the head of the Wagner group stay on the job. Now since you can't do much about that at the moment because the Wagner group is the only one who's doing anything useful in the war, so you can't take him out. But I'll tell you what you could do. You could order him to have his forces do really, really dangerous stuff until they're so degraded that you can negotiate for peace and then the Wagner group would not be strong enough to defeat your loyalist forces.

If you tell me that the head of the Wagner group is not actively thinking about taking over Russia itself, I think you're nuts. Of course he is. And you think Putin doesn't know that? Of course he does. Now why do I say that about the head of the Wagner group? Who even does that kind of a thing unless they're power hungry and not afraid of anything? If you're the head of the Wagner group, you're not looking to be a wallflower. You're looking to conquer some stuff. You're looking to be in charge. No, I think that his job history is enough that this is not mind reading. I think there's enough that's obvious about the situation that you could say that he's a person who wants power because I think it's just true. If everybody in this situation, he wants power and he probably doesn't want to be Putin's much longer and he might be in a position where he could just take it himself, just take over. So I think Putin has to send him into harm and have the Wagner group as degraded as possible before he talks peace. And then he can get both things. He can get the peace and he won't get overthrown.

Now is there anybody here who believes that's even possible? Does anybody think that's even possible? That theory that he wants to grind down his own troops, only the Wagner troops? Yeah, I think it's at least possible because, and the reason I say it's possible, is that it's probably what I would do. Yeah. If I were an evil dictator, I didn't care about anybody but myself, I would make sure the Wagner group was at least taken down by half before I ended the war. That's what I would do. So I just assumed Putin would do what I would do because it seems smart. But so far Putin doesn't do what I would do, so I wouldn't put high odds on that theory. But don't you think it's worth being in the mix? Don't you think it's at least feasible enough that it should be in the conversation? I think so.

All right. Apparently Congress just turned down some ESG-promoting thing for your 401ks. I guess whoever managed your 401ks would have to have an ESG plan in order to be able to do that. I don't know if that's just for government pensions or what that was, but Congress turned it down. Congress turned it down. So there were enough Democrats to join the Republicans to turn down an ESG-promoting bill in Congress. Did you imagine that that would happen? Now that's not the good news yet, meaning that it might not be good news because Biden said he'd veto it. So he's vetoing an affirmative action to get rid of ESG. So he's vetoing the getting rid of ESG, which would keep ESG in this context. Now just the fact that Congress as a whole turned it down, you know, it didn't take too many Democrat votes. It wasn't just one. I don't know. And then we're also missing Fetterman, right? So the balance in the Senate is kind of wacky at the moment. Is there anybody else missing besides Fetterman? I assume he can't vote. He's just missing, right? Yeah.

All right. So this is something that Vivek Ramaswamy said about that ESG story. He said on a tweet, he said Democrats are the ones who used to be skeptical of undue corporate influence on politics. ESG is that on steroids, meaning undue corporate influence for a political party that loves to ritually bemoan threats to democracy. It's funny that they teamed up with the likes of BlackRock to create the biggest one of all. I feel like the problem here is that nobody can handle nuance or any kind of context or any kind of detail. Because if you just say ESG, equality, then of course you salute that. Who doesn't like equality and stuff? Sounds good. But as soon as you get into the fact that BlackRock is promoting it and it's like putting an anchor on freedom and it puts other people in charge of your business, it's crazy. It's equity, not equality, right? Yeah. But even equity is one of those words that people reflexively say yes to. Yeah, equity, without thinking through what that means or what it would take.

All right. Rasmussen has a poll. And as you know, there's never been a Rasmussen poll that's ever gotten me in trouble. I think you'd agree on that. No, slow down. It's not going to be one of those. Not going to be one of those. But according to it, 61 percent of voters, American voters, believe it is likely that undercover government agents helped provoke the Capitol riot. 61 percent. So clearly that's picking up independents and also Democrats. I'm very surprised at that result. Are you? Because usually I would expect that more down like 40 percent, you know, where it just goes along party lines. But 61 percent believe it is likely, you know, not that it's a fact, but likely that the undercover government agents helped provoke the Capitol riot. Wow. 39 percent say it's very likely. So that's probably a along party line sort of thing. And only 18 percent say it is not at all likely. Now the 18 is the one that's the closest to the 25. So we're at least consistent in directional sense. I always say that 25 percent of the people will answer every question wrong. It doesn't matter what the question is. And it's not the same 25 percent, but every poll question, 25 percent of the public will just have the most dumbass answer. It'd be like, is oxygen good for people? 75 yes, 25 not so sure. Not so sure about this oxygen.

All right. My favorite story by far. Now I introduced this story by saying you all know that I've been a big supporter of the trans community as well as LGBTQ whatever in general. And I love people's reaction to this story. My own reaction is only about other people's reactions, right? So I don't have a reaction. So let me tell the story. So to kick off Women's History Month, and this is an important part of the story, Women's History Month, the Hershey Company did an ad where they were honoring women and they featured primarily a trans woman. And that was their look for Women's History Month. So it's sort of like honoring Rachel Dolezal for Black History Month. It's like a little off. Some people think it's off point. Now I remind you that if it sounds like I'm making fun of any trans people, that's not what's happening. Here's what I think is funny. I think it's funny the reaction that they got. Like people are really pissed. And especially women, let's say biological women, people who identify as women, were born that way, are kind of pissed that their brand, they think their brand is being a little diminished by having somebody who was born a biological male and transitioned to a woman. And am I wrong that that's just funny? And I'm not making fun of trans. I really am not. Am I wrong that that's just funny that they did that? If you just, they got tons of attention. I'm not sure if it's going to sell more chocolate, but they did get a lot of attention and they were on the right side of the social narrative at the moment. But here was my biggest take. What was the discussion in the boardroom or wherever they made this decision? Wouldn't you love to see a Dilbert comic in which they walked through the corporate decision of having a trans woman as the face of Women's History Month? Like I feel like I could make that funny. Again, not picking on anybody. So it's not about trans. It's not about trans at all. It's only about the decision process and how awkward it would be because there's no winning answer. Like you can't not do it and you can't do it. Like it's just wrong in every way. So I'm guessing that there were probably some activists within the company who brought this idea to management and then management said, oh, what the hell are we going to do now? Because we can't win if we say no, right? If people within the company came to you and said, hey, I think this is how we show we're progressive and you know we'd be really bad if you don't consider trans women women, and then management is like, uh, I think half of the country who wouldn't like this are not going to buy as much chocolate. Do you think that would stop anything? I think they'd have to do it anyway. I think the internal pressure would be so high that they just have to do it. Now I kind of like that they did it. I like that they got everybody all charged up and we're talking about it and you know the conversation is deepened and people are mad and I just kind of like it. Maybe I like provocative things.

All right. Remember I told you that I thought that a number of programs are backwards-looking such as ESG and CRT and etc. And they're backwards-looking in the sense that they depend on a narrative of white people being racist and continuing to support systemic racism. So in my opinion a forward-looking philosophy would look like this. There would be optimism, right? Maybe some affirmations, maybe some manifesting. You'd have to use strategies for the future or you'd make plans and stuff like that. You'd have systems, maybe even more than goals. So there's a number of ways. But there's one thing that's future-oriented that I'm seeing in play this week. Reciprocity. Reciprocity as an operating system is just a killer and it's all future-focused. And reciprocity has to be future-focused because you're doing something without any sense of reward. You know, the reciprocity might come to you in the future. So you're prepar