nerated will be solar.

All right, okay. So everybody good on that? I mean, I assume you all understand the Kardashev scale. Wait, what? You don't? Oh, come on. I thought everybody knew the Kardashev scale.

All right, well I looked it up for you just in case you didn't know. According to Google, the Kardashev scale, which I still can't pronounce smoothly, is a method of measuring a civilization's level of technological advancement based on the amount of energy it is capable of harnessing. So now it all makes sense. So it's a scale of the advancement based on the amount of energy. Okay, now that we understand that, once you understand that, it becomes utterly obvious that essentially all energy generation will be solar.

Oh, okay. Got it. Everybody got it? I have no idea what any of that means. Yeah, no idea.

But apparently when you dig into it a little bit and you look at the arguments, the argument is that it wouldn't take much space in the United States to generate all of the power we'll ever need. Now I don't know if that calculation was done before AI said we'd need 10 times as much power. I also don't think that they had the ability to compare solar power over the next, I don't know, 50 years versus nuclear power, because you'd have to make all kinds of assumptions that nuclear power doesn't do so well but solar power keeps improving. I don't think that's true. It has been true for 20 or 30 years but I don't think it's true now because there's a lot of attention to the nuclear field. So if Rolls-Royce or somebody comes up with a really good, economical, small, portable new nuclear energy thing, that changes everything. So I'm not sure that this is as true as it might have been before nuclear got a renaissance.

Well, here's something that's amazing. Possibly according to Nature, the publication, not Mother Nature but the publication Nature, there was an experiment in which they used stem cells to treat a woman's diabetes. And not only did it work, she can eat sugar again and she's making her own insulin. This is somebody who couldn't make insulin and they did stem cells and now she can make insulin and she can eat normal food. What? How big a deal is that?

Now again this is a limited test. It's not proven for any large population. But if you can get even one diabetic who could not make insulin and you can make them make insulin with stem cells, holy cow. Wow. I mean that's like a wow. That's as big as the biggest wow. Now is it true? Well I guess we'll find out. So I can't go so far as to say it's a done deal. But I can't imagine it would ever work for one person and not work for other people. You know, my brain can't calculate that because it created an ability that didn't exist. It's not like it cured a disease. If the only thing you'd done is cure a disease, then I'd say well maybe somebody would have gotten over it anyway on their own because that happens sometimes. But I don't think anybody with diabetes has ever regenerated the ability to create insulin. Has that ever happened naturally? So it looks like a pretty good sign.

Science. Here's a fun little study. New Atlas is talking about it. Very different than the old Atlas. This is a publication, New Atlas. And they tested a specific video game to see if it would make people feel good. Now this is not generalizable to first-person shooter games or anything like that. Now we know people like playing video games. That's why it's so big. But would it have any lasting benefit on your happiness? And of all the things that they could test, they picked the smartest one. Yeah, you think about all the different video games that would have an impact and exist. They picked one called PowerWash. Now apparently PowerWash, I've never heard of it, but it's a video game where you come upon dirty objects and use a power washer to clean them off. And that's kind of it. You just power wash things until they're clean.

Now apparently people who do that have some kind of lasting, small but lasting improvement in moods. More than 70% of the participants became happier because they used a video game to wash dirt off of an object. Now do you think they needed to do that or could they have just asked me? Well if they had been testing something like generic regular games I wouldn't have had anything to add. But if you came to me and said hey I've got a video game where with very little effort you're going to feel that you accomplished a task, do you think that'll make people happier? I would have said oh, hold your horses. You don't need to do that study because one of the things we do know is that people are happier when they have the sense of accomplishing a task. And then they would say to me but Scott they're not actually accomplishing a task. It's just a video game. To which I would say hold on, hold on. You're talking to a hypnotist. No difference. I would have been able to predict that would make you happier. I guarantee I could have gotten that one right just based on the hypnosis and the fact that fiction and truth will have a similar, directionally not as powerful but a similar directional effect. Very well understood. And we definitely are happier when we complete things.

I think something similar probably could have happened with Tetris. Do you remember Tetris? You had to get the little falling blocks right in line so they line up and stuff. To me that was a bunch of accomplishing tasks. And I'll bet you if you did the same study on Tetris you would find that it made people happier because they were completing tasks. Now I do understand that a regular video game where there's more, a story, an adventure, you know there's still completing of tasks. But I feel like those are more about feeling like you're never really done. So if you're doing sort of a war game with levels and stuff, aren't they trying to make you feel like you never completed it? I'm not sure that would make me happy. But if you tell me you've completed the cleaning, the power washing of that dirty car in that driveway, I would actually feel like I did something because I don't have to do that again and it's not connected to a larger mission.

Anyway, there's another study that says that eating fish is linked to lower risk of cognitive decline. That's right. You will get less dementia if you eat fish, suggests the study. Now when I say suggests I'm going to compliment them. This is in its post publication because the way they worded the headline is "eating fish linked to lower risk of cognitive decline." Thank you. That is the correct way to put that. It is not a cause of better mental health. It's linked.

Now can anybody come up with anything that would be a reason that eating fish would be linked but not a cause of better mental health? Well it took me about one second to go to Grok and say is there any correlation between income and dementia? And of course there is. The richer you are, the less dementia you get. Surprised? Well is there any correlation between intelligence and income? Well yes. The more intelligent you are, the higher your income. The higher your income, the more likely you're going to be eating sushi instead of fast food at McDonald's. Now I know that McDonald's can give you a fish stick or some damn thing but basically if you're eating fast food you're eating other stuff. So it seems to me that smart people are less likely to get dementia because they're going to be using their brains more. That's what smart people do. So they become rich and then the rich people eat a lot of fish because rich people eat more fish. They go on vacations to Hawaii and eat fish and they live by the beach and they fish and they can afford more to get fish. So it doesn't surprise me. But it's not a correlation. I think it's a correlation without causation is my best guess. Although it might be causation. It just you can't tell by the study.

According to Daily Wire there are some big donors like Bill Gates and other liberal mega donors and they're funding some plan to make sure that the newsrooms around the world have greater, the Daily Wire says hysteria, but literally there is a funded program to try to convince the news to talk about climate change a lot more. And they literally say to try to work it into every conversation. So you know you always joke about the news says it rained all because of climate change. You're like really? It's not. Everything's not about climate change. There's a war in Ukraine. Well it's going to get worse because of climate change. And you say really? Really? How are you jamming climate change into the Ukraine war? I don't see it. And trade routes are going to change because of climate change. Really? International trade? You work climate change into that conversation. It turns out that's a strategy and it's highly funded and is from people who definitely have an influence on the news. So that's terrible.

Now the way you would look at this story is if you believe that climate change was a genuine existential risk you might say well it's about time we got more serious about this with our news so that we'll convince the people to be more serious. But if you think it's not true and you think that even if the temperature is going up it's not an existential problem then this would be nothing but fake news and propaganda. So since I'm closer to that second view where I don't know if the temperature is going up from human activity or not but I'm pretty sure it's not going to kill me and they're not going to be an existential threat, so that's where I'm at. So to me it looks like propaganda not helping the world.

Well here's some good news. Thank God finally California apologized for slavery. They did it in writing and Joel Pollak and Breitbart is writing about this. Here's the actual apology. Resolved, the state of California apologizes for perpetuating the harms that African-Americans faced by having imbued racial prejudice through segregation, public and private discrimination.

So have I ever explained what a husband apology is? Have you ever heard me say that? If you've never heard this perhaps you've never been in a marriage with a man and a woman. Husband, you stupid husband, doing that thing you did. Whatever the thing is you did, you owe me an apology. What did I do? The thing you did. Now you're thinking to yourself I wasn't even in that room and I didn't have anything to do with it but I definitely don't want to be in this conversation any longer. So what do you think I did? Well you moved the scissors from the good drawer into the other drawer. And even if you didn't, what do you say? You use the husband apology. Oh I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I shouldn't have moved those scissors. And then you're done because you said the apology. Did you mean it? No of course not. Does it matter? Not much. You just made the problem go away. So it's really about just making the problem go away.

So California apologizes for its role in slavery which was basically close to nothing because it was not a slave state. But it did have some sketchy behavior to be fair. For example I believe that California would return escaped slaves. That would be supporting slavery. So that's part of the apology.

Governor Newsom, whatever you want to say about him being slimy and lying and any of that other stuff, he is really good at the politician stuff. And from the very beginning it was obvious that they weren't going to get money and that he was just setting them up for a husband apology. He just wanted to send them away for a year so he doesn't have to deal with it because the main thing is I don't want to deal with it. So he buys a year or so because they go study it then they come back and say oh we like a trillion dollars or whatever it was, something ridiculous. And then he says yeah that's great but we don't have that money so I can't give that to you. It's politically impossible. Oh well go back and study some more. See what we can do that doesn't involve giving you a bunch of money. They go back and study it some more and in the meantime Newsom has solved his problem because they're not talking to him. Then they finally come back and they've got this idea for what I call the husband apology for slavery and Newsom says husband apology can do. Sure yeah. And on behalf of all the residents of California I would like to offer my insincere apologies as well. So to all descendants of slavery and everybody who was impacted by systemic racism, on behalf of California you have my insincere apology. I'm sorry I did that to you. I really am. I won't do it again. I swear I will not introduce slavery again. And if any escaped slaves ever come into my state I'm not turning them over. I promise you that.

So anyway racism has been solved in California. The rest of you loser states need to catch up. You wonder why I live in this state. People say why do you live in California? It's the only state that solves racism. I'm not going to move to your segregated stupid ass states with all your racism. Come to California. We've solved that. We're way ahead of you.

Here's an interesting factoid related to this. Did you know that when Newsom first signed the authority for the committee to go study reparations, when they came back among their reparations were separate schools for black kids? What's that called? Segregation. Segregation. That's what it's called. So that's what California is apologizing for because the racial prejudice was imbued through segregation they say in the apology. So we're apologizing as a state for something that the reparation committee wanted to do more of because the segregation would solve the segregation of the past. Okay maybe I don't fully understand this but there's one thing I do understand and it's this. I apologize. I apologize for all that. I'm so sorry. Are we cool now? Will you leave me alone now please?

All right well we've got the new numbers. It's time to celebrate because the inflation numbers came in at 2.2% which is, we can celebrate this, it's below expectations for that. We're 2.3. Oh standing ovation. We came in at 2.2 instead of 2.3.

And let me give you some advice. Once you're done accurately measuring the temperature of the entire Earth from the atmosphere down to the bottom of the ocean, which we've been told we can do otherwise climate change would just be a big joke and we know that's not true, so we can measure the Earth. But did you know you can look at every transaction in the United States and determine the inflation rate and you'll get it right the first time and you can get it to within one tenth of a percentage? So no you can't measure inflation this accurately. No it's going to be revised and it's right on the cusp of being on target which means a tiny little revision would make it from less than you expected to more than you expected. The tiniest revision. Do you think that they can measure inflation accurately enough in any given month I guess that they can know it's off by a tenth? No that's not a thing. But of course we'll pretend it's a thing. And people say that interest rates may be lowered by the Fed because of that and the stock market's already dancing around because of that a little bit.

Meanwhile Hillary, the most despicable person in the world, has doubled down on calling Trump supporters deplorable. And she said that for some of them it's too kind of a word. So what I love is that she pulled out the deplorable thing right before the election which some people including me thought may have been the reason she lost her election. And so she just saddled Kamala Harris with the deplorable thing because we're going to think it's sort of a general Democrat feeling if Hillary Clinton is willing to say it out loud. So that might make a difference.

Meanwhile Mark Zuckerberg has allegedly identified as a libertarian because you know we keep wondering is he going to endorse Trump? I mean he doesn't seem as anti-Trump as we'd expect but we don't know. So he's found this weak middle ground of being a libertarian and he's hired a Republican strategist to help with his relationship with the political right. But I think he's described himself privately as a classic liberal meaning a Democrat like the old days. That would be me. I would say that I would be like an old school Democrat which is not too far, with the exception of abortion, it's not too far from Trump actually right today. So it would be anti-war and a willingness to help the people who need help but don't go crazy about it. That's about where I am. But at the moment if you are in that category of classic liberalism or something like an old school Democrat, Trump is by far closer to your view. By far. It's not even a conversation really. So that's why somebody like RFK Jr. and Nicole Shanahan and Bill Maher and Elon Musk and me, that's why we could be lifelong old Democrat farts and say you know what the closest to that view is Trump right now if you're just looking at common sense.

So we'll see where that goes but I would say that Zuckerberg is playing this correctly. You know you can say to yourself I wish people would be different but that's just your wish. But if you watch somebody who says I got a problem, I'm putting some resources toward fixing it and something worth fixing which is his relationship with the political right, I applaud that. I think if he can make a better case that he's just here to help both sides and he doesn't do anything that would be negative for the political right, good. I've said for a long time and I'm sort of cribbing from other people who know him better, Zuckerberg will go down as one of the best CEOs of all time. Would you agree with that? I mean you may hate some individual things he's done but it's going to be tough to find a better CEO in the history of the United States. So let's give him that. And if he's moving in the right direction of just trying to see the whole field, good. Anybody wants to see the whole field, excellent.

All right I say the same thing about Jason from Y Combinator. You watching today Jason? Your name keeps coming up. No matter what you think of his current arguments he is clearly making a public attempt to understand both sides of the argument and see the whole field. Where that ends up who knows. It doesn't need to end up in any place for my purposes. But anybody who's willing to say let me take some pain, let me admit I don't know everything, let me accept a little pain to figure out what's going on on the other side and I'll integrate that, 100%. I'm so down with that point of view of just trying to understand both sides.

Meanwhile Ashley St. Clair reminds us that in 2020 there were 82.2 million women who voted but only 72.5 million men voted. So nearly 10 million more votes for women in 2020. Now I don't think that that will be much changed unless the gap is even wider, especially since abortions on the menu for the election. It's not really but people feel like it is.

So let me add to this conversation. If it's true that there are 10 million more women voting than men, I assume that something like that applies to every state. Is that a fair assumption? Do you think there's any state where the men are voting in greater numbers than the women? Kind of doubt it. There might be a special case. It might be a place where there's a lot of male jobs but not as many female jobs. Maybe Alaska something like that. But generally speaking I would say if there are 10 million more women voting than men, can the women, I just have one request from the women and this will be mostly a request for Democrats and left leaning women. Can you stop bitching to the men about something you have complete control over? If you have 10 million more voters, men have nothing to do with the abortion laws. All you need to do is convince other women that you're right. If women don't agree with you, don't put it on me. Right? And by the way I consider myself not part of the abortion argument because I don't have babies and I think women should work it out and then tell us what they decided on the laws. I know you don't and I'm not going to try to change your mind. I'm just telling you what my position is.

But really this would be the strongest argument for Trump. Mr. Trump you know why are you blah blah blah you put abortion at risk. The correct answer is 10 million more women voted than m