Iran and Israel Exchange Attacks & LA Election Results Are In

Key Takeaway

When building trust in democratic systems, avoid creating opportunities for impropriety—even when nothing wrong is happening. California's voting structure (no ID requirement, 85% mail-in ballots, signatures don't need exact matches, ballots accepted without voter signatures) creates易 exploitable gaps. Whether fraud occurs or not, these gaps erode public confidence. The lesson: Design systems that make fraud difficult and transparent, so losers can accept defeat knowing the process was fair.

Episode Overview

Tom Bilyeu discusses the controversial California mayoral primary results, where unusual voting patterns sparked fraud allegations. He analyzes the state's voting infrastructure—including no voter ID requirements and widespread mail-in balloting—and argues that while there's insufficient evidence of actual fraud, California has created a system vulnerable to exploitation that undermines public trust in elections.

Full Transcript

Transcript of Iran and Israel Exchange Attacks & LA Election Results Are In from Impact Theory. Auto-generated from episode audio; may contain minor errors.

Good morning everybody. Welcome to another episode of the Tom Billy Show live. I'm excited that you guys are here. It's been a pretty wild weekend. If you pay attention to what's going on in the elections or to uh Trump Amita press or to Israel and Iran because they were exchanging strikes. Uh Trump told them both to chill but they were continuing to go after each other. So we'll see if anything resembling a peace talk can actually move forward. Trump got mad as hell and stormed off the set of Meet the Press when talking about the election integrity.

It started with his comments about the California election, which is looking more sus by every passing second, but the question is, is it actually sus? So, we're going to be diving into that. Half of the S&P 500 right now is trading at more than 10x revenue. revenue. revenue. People are going to be tempted to be excited by that. You should be terrified. We're going to talk about why. The Supreme Court rules to let parents opt their kids out of lessons that they think may be damaging.

I'm making up the word damaging. It's hard to encapsulate all of the stuff around that. Humans are now rating AI above humans in customer satisfaction surveys, at least according to one major one. So, is it all beginning? And speaking of it's all beginning, Pump Fun is proving that the dark side of the internet is downright dystopian. I am very worried about that. It'll be fun to talk about, but it's pretty wild if you guys are paying attention to the tattoo drama over the weekend. It was wild.

So, yeah, there we are. All right, shout out. We've got our sponsor with us today, Calshi. Thank you guys so much for supporting what we're doing. There's a QR code on the screen. Also, if you guys want to know what's going on, how are things polling? Like in the California race, you had Kelshi and others calling it ahead of time that Nitia Ramen was going to surge uh which seemed crazy, but the prediction markets got it right. So, I think these guys really are super valuable in terms of getting a heartbeat of what's going on in the culture.

Drew, you managed to get sick again, but you're here. you're here. you're here. Hey, man. I slept in my bed like five days the last four weeks, so my immune system is getting decimated. Um, but we're back and just like uh Nithia Ramen's mailing votes, you know, just when you thought I was out, I'm back again, guys. again, guys. again, guys. You're back. You're back. I'm back again. I rose from the dead. I like it. Well, welcome back, man. Uh, it's been pretty crazy the way that things have been going lately.

Um, the mayoral race is certainly taking over my algorithm. Now, the thing that I found interesting, so the setup for California is absolutely ridiculous. In California, you can vote without ever showing your ID. In fact, here this makes me mad. It is illegal to ask for ID in California. So, it wasn't enough to say you don't have to have it. And the difference between these two things is gigantic. There's one where, hey, you don't have to have an ID. There's a whole another where it is illegal to ask for an ID.

And by the way, that was a very specific change that was made to the law after Huntington Beach decided that they were going to require ID in their local elections. So then Newsome was like, "We can't have that." So they changed the law to make that abs um actually illegal. That drives me insane. Now we're seeing all hell breaking loose in the California primaries, and this is just the primaries. It has big consequences, but it is just the primaries. Trump was freaking out on Meet the Press.

As I was saying earlier, uh the reporter just would not acknowledge his claims that the California election was being stolen in real time. She's like, "What evidence do you have for that?" And he was just saying it was self-evident. And we'll go through some of the data as to why people are taking this as just a self-evident fact that we have a problem here. Um do we have a problem? I think we do. I'm not sure that it's what people claim. I'm not sure that the change is as people are saying that this has never happened before, which isn't true.

Um, I was able to find examples of this. They might not be uh big examples of primary candidates, but you do see things like this happening in city elections. The big question that everybody's going to ask is, do you only see this pattern because there is fraud? That I'm not going to be able to answer for you. We are going to need some sort of uh audit to be done. But I want to try to even though this winds me up, I want to try to give you guys as balanced of a take because there are ways that this could happen and they are completely legal.

Uh now whether they should be legal is a different question. Now, no one should be surprised by everybody watching this all lose faith given that you can just walk in, give a name, vote, and nobody's going to check to verify that you are who you say you are. people are not exactly going to have a hard time going, hm, maybe there are people that are having votes cast on their behalf that are not actually voting. Nick Shirley, I haven't seen any sort of extended thing here, but he did release a clip of him knocking on somebody's door.

It says, uh, according to the data, the state's data, you're 126. The woman was like, I'm definitely not 126. It was the right name. it was the right address, but she wasn't 126 years old. Uh he said, "According to the state's data, you voted 51 times." She's like, "That's also not true." So, that is one small piece of anecdotal data, but you start getting this stuff and people just start to get very unnerved, especially given that we've had four years of a wide open border. And from where I'm sitting, the most important thing, there is an incentive structure that would inspire immigrants, legal, illegal, and everywhere in between, to vote for more financial aid from the government, not less.

When you look at the rate of immigrants on financial aid from the government, it is just a trend line that is up and to the right. Uh so, as Charlie Mer said, show me the incentives and I'll show you the outcome. So, none of that is a surprise. Now, on top of all of that, it takes California forever to just count the votes to give an answer. And so, you put all of that together with a following data structure, which by the way, if you can pull up there is I think I said uh all of the fraud complaints in one graph, something like that.

So, what I think people would intuitit is that Yes. So if you look at your screens, you will see that. Okay. I think what people will intuitit based on national elections is that when you have candidates, as the votes come in, a trend line appears across all of the different candidates. And they tend based on the way the averages work, they tend to just continue to get that same number of votes. So where what you see happen with Karen Bass, okay, cool, she hits her trend line and then she just stays.

But that's not what we see with either Nithia Ramen or Spencer Pratt. their trend lines are changing, meaning the later it goes with the ballots being counted, the more of the count they get. Now, Now, Now, you see this pattern in California voting a lot. So again, it's not that this is unprecedented. It is that it's the find the votes phenomenon. So the question becomes, is this pattern just the way that California voting works? because we do basically exclusively mailin ballots. 85% of Californians vote by mail, which is already weird, but it doesn't mean that it's illegal.

In fact, it's not illegal. That is how California law works. So unusual compared to the way that the rest of the country works, but very normal for California. So the question is, are these trend lines what you would expect just based on the way that the California voting system works or is this trend line repeated in California? Because what you have is a one party state where they can the Democrats control all of the voting apparatus and they create a scenario where this kind of fraud can happen.

So, the people who believe that this is fraudulent, and I will say very plainly, we from where I'm sitting, we do not have the evidence of that. We have things that definitely warrant looking at, but I don't think anybody can truly say that we have evidence. It's unusual, but we don't have evidence that any fraud has happened. I'll talk about the two ways that this could, in fact, we're describing one of the ways that this could legally be happening. There's another one. But the legally happening thing, it's just this is how California voters work that the younger, more progressive people uh vote on the day of, like late in the day, whatever, or they're, you know, farther away from the city centers, so it takes longer for them to come in.

So, it's possible that this is just a natural um trend that you would expect in California. Okay? So, put that on the table. All right? But these trend lines do not match what most people would intuit it, which is that the average just plays out and it's going to hold steady. So no matter when you get your votes that there's going to be a rough percentage that you can begin to count on um as things come in. So in the beginning it's hard to tell because you don't have enough votes, but by the time you get say 30 or 40% of the vote, you would expect, all right, cool.

We've locked in what the percentages are going to be as a whole, and that's just going to play out across the whole thing. And we see the exact we see that for Karen Bass and we see the exact opposite for the second and third place positions. So all right that is why people are screaming bloody murder at least the people who don't feel their vote is being reflected. Let's be clear about that. I don't think you hear Democrats screaming uh that. But certainly on people that are voting for Spencer Pratt, you're going to see a lot of that freakout.

So that's where uh that's sort of the context in which everything is happening. Now, to make this even more weird, the whole um safeguard is meant to be that you have a signature on the envelope that says, "Okay, cool. This really is this person voting so that you could go back, you could check everything, make sure that it's all good." By law in California, the signature does not need to be an exact match. That's already for me that's a little weird, but hey, let's presume that they're just trying to make sure that this isn't somebody trying to weaponize, oh, your signature is 4% off and so we're going to throw it out.

Election workers are instructed to presume the signature is the person's uh and give the benefit of the doubt. Now, that I could get behind. Fine, fair enough. Now, the part that I find problematic is that there's a way for a ballot to be submitted without the voter's signature at all. Now, that for me is crazy. That's just crazy. You should not there's no way there's no universe in which that should be illegal. Uh illegal. Uh illegal. Uh someone right now, the way that it is, can sign on your behalf.

So, that creates the opportunity for people to uh ballot harvest in an illegal way. Now, ballot harvesting, believe it or not, in California is legal. So, you can send a horde of people out to say Skid Row. This is one of the accusations. I don't know that this has happened, but this is one of the accusations that the DSA or Democrats in general cuz Nithia Ramen uh reportedly take this as rumor and conspiracy theory right now, but reportedly has like an unexpectedly large support base in Skidro.

So, it's very possible that you've got people going to ballot harvest in these areas. Now, that's legal and so they can absolutely do that as long as those people actually are uh who say who they say they are, that their vote is being counted based on who they say they are. But when you create the opportunity for them to just sign on their behalf, all of a sudden you can imagine a world where you go up to somebody who's fentanyl leaning over and you're like, "Hey, you wanted to vote for Nthia Ramen, didn't you?" And so that's where all of this becomes incendiary is people just they're making the assumption that that's actually happening.

Now I don't think you can do that based on the data. I don't think given that we have not proven that that's what's actually happening that these trend lines have become these trend lines because of fraud. Um so you've got to do some sort of audit before you can start making those claims. So, right now, uh, I think people need to be very level-headed and say, "All right, I see a pattern that seems unusual. It's worth looking into. Let's look into it." I don't think people should have the default assumption that this is fraud.

Worth looking at to be sure. Um, and certainly when you want a certain outcome and you're not getting it, I understand why people immediately leap to there must be some problem in the universe. Um, but I think there's enough incentive structure in other ways that this could actually be just a way that California works. Again, we've created an incentive structure where we have a lot of immigrants who are going to be, uh, incentivized to vote for whatever party is going to promise them more free stuff.

That happens to be Democrats. So, uh, you put all of that together and I think that you can get to this without having to do, uh, something where somebody is printing out a ballot and just completely faking everything. So anyway, those claims are flying all over the place. Um, I would beseech California to clean this up so that there is no look of impropriy. Uh, and sometimes, this is the same way I feel about what's going on with the Trump administration, they put themselves constantly in a position where even if nothing were uh being done that were improper, it looks like it.

And you should do the exact opposite. You should put yourself in a position where it can't even look like you're doing something dodgy. Now, is Trump doing dodgy things? It certainly seems like it to me. So, that was not some uh side door to say, "Oh, he's probably not doing anything." No, he probably is. I don't know that. I don't have evidence, but uh nonetheless looks wacky, and we should avoid things that look this horrific. Um you said something earlier. Show me the incentives. I'll show you the outcomes.

What incentive does Trump have ahead of a midterm where it's looking shaky that it makes sense for him to cast out on California elections? So, a lot of times when we say, "Show me the incentives and I'll show you the outcomes." We think of the outcome that we wanted to happen, why it didn't happen, and then we find incentives on why it's a conspiracy that it didn't happen. I think it was Bamonte that says, "Sometimes it's the simplest uh answer that will get you the um it's sometimes it's the simplest reason that will get you the answer." So, I pull up this tweet.

Um, everybody who's mad about Spencer Pratt, this is like if AOC ran for governor of Alabama and lost and we tried to argue it was fraud. Like Spencer Pratt is a reality TV show star who's trying to run for governor or for mayor. Um, we are running that that experiment right now live on a national level and especially people in California aren't on page on on board. So, while the internet, which is not a real place, was very gung-ho about him, in real life, the real people um didn't didn't show up.

Uh secondly, I voted in person. I have a very complicated last name. There's a period and a space. Some systems allow periods. Some systems allow space. Some systems don't allow either way. So, when I went to go register, I said, "Hey, my name is Andrew Blank." They said, "Okay, cool. Um what's your address?" I gave them my address. Oh, okay. Can you give me your b your um date of birth? I gave them my date of birth. Okay, cool. Well, here you are, sir. And they gave you my ballot.

I didn't need to show ID, but there was more questions. I didn't just walk in. Hey, my name is Andrew Blank. Here you go. Go vote it in and fill it out and make sure you only vote for Nia Rottman. So, I just wanted to make sure like the whole voting in person. The it's illegal to ask ID. It's a open door. They're just fanning people in the voting centers in California. That's not the actual experience. I'm an oldfashioned voting p person type of uh guy.

So, I can't talk about mail and ballots. I can't talk about signature matching. But when you are in there IRL, you do have to have some type of verification, whether it's your date of birth, whether it's your address, and they match both of those together. Um, so the bad news on that is 85% of Californians vote by mail. So 15% of people would have that level of scrutiny. Um, everybody else does not. Going to the uh vote by mail thing. Um, we are surprised that the person that wants to give everything away for free, your words, Nia Ramen, she's uh California's mom, Donnie.

Yep. Why would she get overwhelming support from a bunch of homeless people? I feel like that's not a Scooby-Doo mystery. I feel like that's like a layup. So, of course, you would have support in Skid Row because they don't want to work. They want to get stuff for free. And and according to Spencer Pratt, they're passing out needles and drugs, right? So, why would I vote for the person that's going to stop that? I would vote for the person that's going to give that. So, I say all these things because we wanted there to be this red wave in California.

And again, it was all internet driven, but when you actually are on the local level, people weren't actually voting for Spencer Pratt. People actually weren't showing up. He was storing events. The uh appearance was scarce. He was he threw an event in Watts and tried to say, "I'mma show the black agenda that I'm here for you." Somebody killing the answers when it came to actual reporting black boots on the ground. So, while again, is voter ID a great idea? Yes. Should election day be a holiday?

Yes. Should d jerry mandering be illegal in all states? Yes. I'm all for rotary reform, but just this because my person is losing, it must be cheating. I feel like we have to get past that. Uh I agree with you. I think that people seeing the um trends and immediately assuming that it's fraud, that's a mistake. mistake. mistake. Um I do think that handwaving away all the things that California has done to um make it possible for voter fraud uh seems crazy. So to go to bat for that or to say that that isn't stupid um or weakening the foundations of democracy, all of that to me is wildly problematic.

So while I agree with you that people acting like the data is proof, I think that's a mistake because to your point um we are a state that votes something like 5 to one blue. So on that I don't think anybody should be surprised. The thing that I think surprises people is that not the thing that surprises people, the thing that is surprising is that we have a um a pattern that is atypical and we have a structure that is atypical. And so then people start trying to explain why would you make it illegal to ask for ID?

Why would you make it possible to um have everybody do mail-in voting, not require the signatures to match exactly? not require the person themselves to sign. Make it uh a thing where you can go ballot harvest. I feel the same way about ballot harvesting that I feel about money and politics. It's like you make your case to the public and then you step the [ __ ] back and you let people make their decision. When you ram money into it, you're basically running these massive um manipulation campaigns.

And the same thing with ballot harvesting. you go up to somebody who doesn't necessarily have an opinion and you say, "Hey, this person is going to do a lot of good things for you. You may be a lowinformation voter. You have no idea." And so you're like, "Yeah, cool. Whatever. I'll just sign that off." Um, so the odds that, and I don't want to overindex on the um, Nithia Ramen doing well in Skid Row being real, I don't know that it's real. So that's like online reporting.

I would rather run it as a thought experiment. If that thought experiment is true, do we actually think that the people on Skid Row have the wherewithal to say, you know what, I've really been weighing the issues and they're going to provide me more support and so I'm going to vote for them. I would say the odds of that are effectively zero. This is somebody who does not have their life together in any way, shape, or form. This is precisely why they're on Skid Row. The odds that they're mentally ill and or a drug addict border on 100%.

It's not 100% but it's going to be excruciatingly high. So they don't deserve to vote. They That actually is a very good question. I'm not sure. I would really have to think about that. Yes. Do I want It's very interesting because I remember a couple months ago you were a proponent of the dumb voter problem and you said that as soon as we start saying who should and shouldn't vote that is the end of democracy. Correct. Because I don't think people should get to decide who's dumb.

I definitely think that there is a reality to be faced about mental illness. If you have schizophrenia that's a real thing. you should not be on the streets. You should be in a hospital. Do I think that they should be going to people in mental institutions to pass out a vote card? No, I do not. If they can't afford health care, should they still be in the hospital or should they? they? they? Yes, you're going to have to get mentally ill people off the street. So whether you whether you whether you So you're okay with free healthcare for mentally ill people in a Los Angeles?

I am very okay with putting them in effectively a prison. Yes. Copy that. Copy that. Copy that. I mean, you're institutionalized. You don't have the option to walk out. So felons in Florida can't vote. So, that's one way that they're getting rid of it. So, maybe that's something we can spread nationally that if you go to jail for whatever reason or in uh institutional uh facilities, then you shouldn't be able to vote. Well, so what is the law on if you've if you're convicted of a felony, can you still vote still vote still vote in certain places?

Yes. In certain places, places, places, but in certain places, no. Yeah. So, on that one, I certainly haven't thought through it. It does not depending on the crime, it does not immediately strike me as a bad idea. But so the reason that I say dumb voters, I'm perfectly willing to subject myself to is because I know how that will be manipulated. Um, but if you have been incarcerated, institutionalized, you've already gone through a process. Now, if I mean, we're going to derail here on mental illness and all the fears that people had back in the day of being put in a hospital against your will, which does seem to be happening in Canada.

There's no doubt that there are uh ways that can be weaponized. So, I'm going to set that aside for a second and just say that my beef is with ballot harvesting. So, sticking straight to that, you're ballot harvesting to you is like fair game. No, balance harvesting. So, I'm not quite sure what you and I are disagreeing about the allegations that there's evidence for fraud. Uh but I just said people should not assume that this is evidence of fraud. Yeah. And then you went one by one about how you don't have to vote and how they're doing certain things that doesn't make sense and how Skidro people have a say and how so it's like it it's kind of like saying I'm not saying that you should quit your job but you're kind of bad at it and last week you showed up late and I know everybody talks about you but I'm not saying that there's evidence that you should quit your So it's like you were talking around the interesting because that's a perfect example.

I'll take that. So let's say that I tell somebody hey you shouldn't quit your job. Um, however, you want to look at all these things that are making you bad at your job, making you even be in the situation where you would wonder if you should quit your job. Start addressing those. addressing those. addressing those. That's exactly what I'm saying here. I'm not saying that we see evidence of fraud. In fact, I would say you cannot see in these patterns whether this is fraud or not.

And so, acting like you can see that this is fraud is a mistake. It's going to make you start processing things emotionally. You're not getting the thing that you want. You slide into your emotions. you're now in a frame of reference that isn't grounded in reality. However, there are enough things that have weakened the um the integrity of the voting process. We should address those. And so my what I'm saying is dear California, stop making asinine decisions around the integrity of your elections because even if you're not using it to uh make sure that Democrats stay in power, you are nonetheless creating a lot of opportunity for people to take advantage of the situation.

And so to say that we shouldn't be like I think everyone is a default stance should have the uh base assumption that the smartest thing is to make sure that the elections are high integrity that we know exactly who that person is to make sure that the will of the people move forward. This is my dumb voter thing. What I'm saying is I want to be subjected to the will of the people. I don't want my beliefs just I believe it. Therefore, it should be ramroded through.

I do not trust myself. So I I am putting that same distrust on everybody else. I'm saying nobody should trust themselves to see the situation correctly. Everybody should say, "Yeah, I want to be a part of a large group that there's going to be wisdom in the masses, but we have to get the incentive structure right because people will follow their incentives." So that but we're gonna debate everything out in the open. Then we're going to make sure that we have uh laws around who can vote, how we protect and make sure that they are the only ones voting, that the vote is happening in the right way.

So that if I lose, I know that cool, this was the very thing that I wanted. I wanted to be a part of a democracy. I do not want authoritarian rule. And so yeah, cool, I lost. Fair enough. And that to me, I think everybody should feel good about. I was on the losing side, but I lost fair and square. What I'm saying is they the way that California structures the actual act of voting, it has made it possible, not only possible, it has made it very easy for people to defraud the system.

And I don't know why you would ever make those decisions unless you want unless you're dumb and you actually can't see the problems that you're creating or you want those problems. So, I don't think they're dumb. I think that they see the problems that they're creating and I want to see them shore that up. So that would be um that is my direct call. direct call. direct call. Copy pulling up the KOHI trade of the week. Now they have Karen Bass at a 57% chance of winning versus Nitney Ramen at 40%.

Um she is still getting the surge and again this is the primary. They do have the ramen. Who do you think is actually going to take it? I would assume Bass, but when you look at Nithia Ramen, [clears throat] she's got that DSA energy. It is very possible that just like we saw in New York, if she's a charismatic enough candidate, that she could come from behind. [cough] I don't know where um Mom Donnie was at this same time, if he had to come back from a crazy deficit like she is.

Uh, but look, Bass has the um she is the incumbent, so that's obviously she's got a lot of energy with that behind her. Uh, but I really think that the future of the Democrat party is the DSA, much to my dismay. So, we'll see. I'm trying to find her campaign ad. Did you guys see it where she just keeps walking? walking? walking? It's just cut scenes of her walking up steps, down steps, walking left, walking right. Have you seen it? I'm just like, where are you going?

It it's it's h well so the that playbook is actually smart. So it's when you um this is something I should be saying directly to Ryan. When you're cutting clips, you want the person to be moving. It's just the visual engagement locks people in. So what I see when I look at that is the DSA is very socially savvy. Very socially savvy. And when they get the right candidates, they're just they're just better at campaigning than No, but when I tell you the entire ad is just her walking like it's but it's like she's walking in different places and it's it's it's so you're saying they're doing it badly.

It's not an accident. I assure you of that. that. that. It's like a caricature almost cuz it's like walking up steps, walking down steps, walking, and it's just like I'm going to do this. You don't feel that way when you look at mom Donniey's stuff. Mom Donnie stuff is to me he's like stationed. I'm thinking, no, he's always coming around a corner, stepping down off uh the budget thing when he was in like the library and he like opened the thing and then found. So, it's like I've seen other iterations of it.

Got it. He's more subtle to me. He's a not a caricature because I will do this same stuff when I was actively recording ads for ITU. The team would be like, "Yo, we did that one video. You came walking around a corner." And it just absolutely crushed. And so, for a while it was like me getting up, me walking me. And so it I totally understand the social media of it all. It is very effective. It feels weird and I hated doing it, but nonetheless, it's effective.

So, I've got no beef with that. If they're going to outplay and outperform, then that just is what it is. And if the right doesn't get their [ __ ] together and learn how to make good content, they will lose just on content alone. So, that that's whatever. Yeah. Uh, all right. I feel like we got the LA mayor race. I don't know if there's any there's any there's any Is there anything big in chat that we should address before we move on? Not really. No, nothing crazy for this one.

one. one. Um, cool. We got to talk about the renewed beef between Israel and Iran. Um, Um, Um, yeah, yeah, yeah, clapped back then reclapped, then clapped again. Um, this has to do with Hezbollah. Beirut set the table for us, Tom. The situation in Iran erupted into violence again over the weekend as Israel and Iran returned to directly attacking each other. Now, this is the first time the two have traded direct fire since the ceasefire in April began, but now they are legit back at it.

It started in Lebanon. Israeli war plananes struck the southern suburbs of Beirut. They said it was retaliation for Hezbollah firing towards northern Israel, but Iran wasn't having it. So they answered with their own attacks which they have said multiple times in the uh negotiations that hey I get it you guys don't want what Israel is doing in Iran to be a part of the negotiations but it is and so if they keep going we are going to strike. So they did multiple barges of ballistic missiles aimed straight at Israel.

Trump got on the phone, told Netanyahu within hours, just calm the [ __ ] down, do not retaliate, and endlessly tried to remind everybody that Trump calls the shots. He said that over and over. Netanyahu doesn't call the shots. He sounds so ridiculous. Uh when he says that stuff, but nonetheless, he does over and over. So, uh his message to all sides was just look, come back to the table. Come back to the table. I think one of his things was, okay, you shot your rockets, now come back to the table.

I have to say for as ridiculous as Trump has come across in these negotiations to me, he actually is when it comes to that, like he is single-mindedly focused on getting the deal done. So, it's like, yeah, yeah, yeah, okay. Yes, you guys just blew each other up a little bit, but let's forget about it. Come back to the table. Uh, from that perspective, he does try to keep people out of their emotions, which that part I like a lot. Whether he's going to be able to do it though in the grand scheme does not look good.

We will see. By Monday, Iran's armed forces announced they were ending military operations against Israel. They just came out and said it. So, you've got Trump screaming, telling them both to get back to the table. And at least Iran is saying, "All right, cool. We shot our shot. Now we are ready to come back to the table." But if you look a little bit closer, Tyrron has still tied the staying in a ceasefire position is completely conditional. Israel has to stay out of Lebanon. I've seen reports, although I don't know the veracity of them, that Israel is still planning to go after um Hezbollah in Lebanon.

So, we'll see if they cross that line, then Iran is promising that they're going to, and this is a quote, uh deliver harsher and more devastating attacks. So, um are we actually getting closer to a peace deal? That I don't know. I kind of doubt that we're actually moving towards anything that would even remotely resemble a peace deal. Uh but we'll see how it plays out. Trump told Israel to chill. They said they're chilling specifically at Trump's request. So people are saying the right things, but there is this large looming question of whether or not we're actually going to be able to get it over the finish line.

Trump has said so many times that we're close to a deal and then you just get this fire back and forth that uh it seems very unlikely. Oh, also as a bonus, you've got the Houthies saying they are now that they have now, not going to in the future, but have now closed the Red Sea. Uh, so we'll see if that holds, but lots of drama. I'm trying to navigate everything that's going on. Um, it it seems like this is just circular at this point, and I'm trying not to just turn my brain off and other the entire like Iranian war, but I thought we were done, but we're not done.

And then is this Israel being the aggressor again? Uh I don't want to sound anti-Semitic and criticize Israel's uh foreign policy, but it's a safe space, Drew. You know, then now Iran is stepping up again. So it's one of those things where it's like, can we actually trust that Israel wants a deal done? Hell no. Hell no. Hell no. That come fast enough? They do. They do. They do. Yeah. So I don't think the only person that you can trust actually wants to get a deal is Trump.

I don't know that Iran wants a deal. In fact, I'll say they probably don't. Mhm. Uh, I don't know that Israel wants a deal. In fact, I'll say they probably don't. I think that Israel Okay, I'm mind reading, so the odds of this being right are virtually zero. But let's see if I can get the direction correct. I think there really is a desire for the Greater Israel Project. If for no other reason than they don't want to get attacked anymore, they know that they're stronger and if they could just do an all-out military campaign and just [ __ ] kill everybody, they would win.

The problem is, as I've said many times in the show, every country is constrained by international opinion because it ends up affecting trade and sanctions and things like that. Uh, and in the case of Israel, their ability to acquire weapons and their internal moral compass. And so, Israel has that battle inside where they've got people that are like inside the country saying, "Uh, the Lud party is a bunch of maniac criminals. We've got to [ __ ] arrest uh Netanyahu, put him in prison forever and ever." And so Israel is not a monolith as you would expect.

Now I've seen all the same reports that there is a ton of support for them to be far more aggressive and cool. But the reality is that they are not a monolith. They are not just going to be able to move forward even from within their own country. But internationally they've completely lost support. Like it's just dead and gone. If you're young even in the US you have turned against Israel. Other countries were already against Israel. So these guys are just further and further isolating themselves and thank the Lord that we have entered a new era where we don't get total war that the interconnectedness of the globe the desire to trade with a lot of people who may not be your allies keep people from going the kind of crazy that humans have tended to go to historically.

Uh, I for one am very happy to see that we don't do total war, but not being able to do total war creates this weird [ __ ] that we see right now uh going on between us and Iran, between Iran and Israel, between Hezbollah and Israel. Israel and Hezbollah. Hezbollah triggering Israel to fight Iran. Like it you just see this madness where it's like, well, I'm going to do as much as I can without then spilling over into some new era of hatred. It's [ __ ] crazy.

So, I don't expect this to clean up anytime soon because here's what used to happen. It ended in World War II, but what used to happen was you killed somebody so dead that they finally just said, "Okay, we give up." Look at what happened to the Nazis. Obviously, killed them so dead. Hitler goes into a bunker. It's like, "Fuck, they're going to get me, so I'm just going to kill myself or escape to Argentina, whichever story you want to believe." Uh, then you've got Japan. It was like those [ __ ] were so hardcore.

Boys and girls, do yourself a favor. Research Japan, especially post World War II. Anyway, I digress. They were so hardcore that they would like suicide themselves uh to stop from just being taken. So, as we're trying to like clear the uh beaches in Japan, it becomes a total shitow. You get uh our guy Truman decides, "Ah, [ __ ] this. We're just going to drop nukes on them." One nuke didn't do it. They still didn't surrender. We had to nuke them again. But that's total war.

That's hundreds of thousands of people killed with a single bomb. And finally, people go, "Fuck, I don't want to keep doing this." And so they quit with no conditions whatsoever. conditions whatsoever. conditions whatsoever. Then because they have had they have to totally concede defeat, then you can go in, occupy, help them rebuild, and move forward. And we got on the other side of World War II. But after that, we all said and again, thank God that we're not going to do that [ __ ] anymore.

And so, we don't ever want to see something like that play out again. And so far, we have held to that. But it does create this other thing, which is these much lower casualties, which is why we should all be very happy. But it drags on for extraordinary lengths of time. And so, here we are. Kit in the chat asked, "Is this officially a quagmire? Something that we can't get in because it seems like you just said Israel doesn't want a deal. Iran doesn't want a deal.

Trump seems to be the only one who wants a deal." deal." deal." You will be in a quagmire forever if you take total war off the table. Which, thank God, quagmires are way better than total war. But oo buddy, are they not fun. And so the bad news is the way that humans work, you either have to show them how to get rich with you, Abraham Accords, and then you can find peace because people just love being rich, or you have to kill them so dead that they don't want to fight anymore.

And we all agree that's a moral monstrosity and we don't want to end up back there. Other than that, you get the third option, which seems to be the most likely, is that you end up in this quagmire where it's either asymmetrical warfare with a um I mean, depending on how you want to paint Gaza, a open air prison camp, a concentration camp, uh whatever, whatever. It's obviously not a good thing. Um, but you get that where you have this stalemate where you have a civilization that's basically stuck in time and the only way for them to move forward would to be to go, we're going to raise the next generation to um, let go of all the grudges and just move forward.

And so what we're going to do is we're going to show Israel, Israel, we want to have economic relationships with you. We understand that you have a long uh, list of reasons not to trust us. uh we have a long list of reasons not to trust you, but we're still just going to move forward. Uh just this is all about economics and so let's put a plan together on how we earn trust and get our way out of this and then never abuse that trust, not even once.

And then you would get on the other side of this. That's not human. Humans don't do that. And so at scale just it's a done deal. Never going to happen. Now are there also confounding variables along religious lines that make it even less likely? Maybe. But it's like I don't even think you have to get there. I just don't think humans are prone to doing that. And so, um, you're going to end up in this situation. Somebody has to like extend the trust first and say that we're going to build something economic and then the other side has to reciprocate.

If nobody takes the lead or they take the lead and don't get reciprocation, you will forever be stuck in this. And so, the only way out of this is either total warfare um or the situation that I just laid out. and they actually just finally one day are like, "Yeah, [ __ ] it." Like, "Let's move forward." forward." forward." Yeah. Uh, have you heard reports that the Pentagon is raising concerns about Israel's counter intelligence? They're surveying like US officials. That's been going on forever. So, every country surveills every other country.

Um, the US is doing it to everybody that they can. Israel, everybody. Everybody like they dude, every country that can has all of your data at all times in the off chance that you might do something down the road and they need to leverage it against you. Make no mistake, they are only throttled by what they're able to do. They are not throttled on that one. They're not throttled by morality because everybody hides behind, well, we have to do this to protect ourselves. But is that a bit concerning being on the back of we officially announced a partnership with the Israeli military merging?

merging? merging? It depends on how we're I I don't know enough about that situation, but given how I know the internet uh the way that the internet freaks out is they make it sound like um we're just right there. There's an Israeli person telling Trump go blow this up. Uh that there's Israeli leadership taking our troops and running sordies. There's no way that's what's happening. They're not in some secret vault inside of the Pentagon with access to everything. Now, are we doing something to more highly coordinate?

And again, I want before I even finish that sentence, I have not looked closely at this. It is entirely possible. I look at it and then I'm just mortified. But I just the odds of that are very very low. So, um I do think it is telling and America should be very thoughtful that literally the week that we're doing something to have some sort of more tightly integrated relationship with the Israeli army, we're at the same time having Netanyahu just do whatever the [ __ ] he wants, even though Trump is telling him to knock it off.

So, think through that before you start giving people too many access codes. Uh so that's why I doubt very much that we are in like some super super integrated thing. But full disclosure, my take on all of this is not that um Israel is some uber like powerful god of a nation that controls a whole world. That is not my frame of reference. I know that's becoming a decreasingly shared frame of reference. reference. reference. Uh so but that is my frame of reference. I don't think that they are um god tier.

Yeah. I mean it's it's one thing to say that yes all countries spy on each other and stuff like that. That's valid. That's true. But it's another thing that we are also providing the military aid to spy on ourselves. So when the espionage espionage level um is the same as our enemies and then we cut them a check. That's where I'm like this might be something here. This is why Putin shows up and tells you the sorry, not Putin shows up that men in black suits show up and tell you this is how the world really works.

And I think everybody gets that cold splash of water. water. water. And when you're, let's say you want to take the moral high ground on that. And so you go to Israel and you say, "Hey, we just found out that you guys are spying on us." And then Israel goes, "Yeah, [ __ ] We've got a whole laundry list of all the people you have spying on us." And so it's the one thing where it's just like, yeah, you don't really go there because you both know you're doing it to each other.

Now, if you catch them, you obviously have to say something, but uh unless keeping it a secret works better for you, but that it it that one is that stalemate of everybody's doing it to everybody else. Every time it gets talked about, it's going to sound horrific and absolutely grotesque. And by the way, it is horrific and grotesque, but it is what humans do. Um, so on that one, you're never going to see that come to a head, I don't think, because everybody would have to stop doing it.

It It is game theory. This is why I want to um sit uh Bernie Sanders down and be like, "Do you know what game theory is?" Because when he's going on and on about the need to stop developing AI, it's like, "Bro, you do understand that countries will say, yeah, yeah, yeah, we sign up as well." And then they don't adhere to it. So it's like, yeah, I don't understand. So anyway, that one it the reason it will never come to a head is uh everyone does it.

Everyone would have to stop and game theory tells you they'll say they're going to stop and not stop. And so everyone just keeps doing it. And so you're back where you started, which is everyone says, "No, no, no. We would never do that. That's horrible." And everyone does it anyway. Um Trump has a different had different like iterations through this war. It was bomb to the stone ages. I just want to make a deal. People revolt. uh we're gonna take the uh car Car Island. Do you think there's a certain like Trump needs to kind of shift gears and say, "Okay, the whole let's make a deal thing isn't working.

I need to be Batman now." Or is there anything that you would like to see more of Trump um in this moment? I think Trump is startlingly consistent and people just don't map him at the level of what he's consistent at. He's going to say and do whatever he has to say and do to get the deal done. he will only do a deal that is in his best interest personally and as long as that's aligned with the US then the US will um at least have somebody that's trying to do the thing to um get the deal done.

The problem is he overestimates um America's strength. He overestimates everybody's willingness to do what he says. He certainly overestimates people's um he thinks that people have his frame of reference and he is routinely confused by people who act in a way that he wouldn't act in their same situation. But you put all that together and he is consistent. So if he needs to say um I'm all for war to get what he wants, he'll say I'm all for war. If he needs to immediately about face and say I've never said I'm about war, you guys are misreading me.

um if that's what he has to say to get what he wants, then that's what he's going to say. Like he he is so consistent. He is trying to get the deal done. He will lie, he will cheat, he will steal, he will bomb, he will kill all of it. Uh that is he he is very consistent. Now, if he doesn't need to do any of that to get what he wants, he won't. I think he actually doesn't like to see people die. he'll do it because he is gonna get what he wants or attempt to get what he wants before he'll like protect all of that.

But I think he actually does like as a third or fourth thing on his list is really like I don't like to see people die. I really that is very distressing to me. I'm going to do it because I have to to get what I want, but I don't feel good about it. And so I'm never looking at Trump being like, uh, wow, you're suddenly a different person. I look at Trump and go, "Oh, fuck." Like, you've got to just about face on that thing that I actually really liked because now to get what you want, you've got to do said other thing.

That sucks. That sucks. That sucks. Okay. So, which the which one of the about faces, I guess, would you would like to see him lead with in this? No new wars was dope. He should have stuck with No New Wars. And now we're in a war and that's what he Now, I don't know what the intel was. Uh, and so is it possible that I would have looked at the intel and gone, "Oo, Iran really is about to get a nuclear weapon and we really do have to step in." But the way they muddled that announcement leads me to believe it wasn't that clean.

And so then I'm like, well then I don't know why we're doing it. I'm not saying there isn't a reason. I'm just saying I can paint you one. It's really distressing. It's almost entirely economic. It has everything to do with getting the GCC countries to invest in the US. has everything to do with the new world order and Trump wanting to control the Middle East, wanting the US to uh control the Middle East. And the thing is on a chessboard, it's a great move. Like if we go back, and I understand how this stuff drifts over time, but if you go back to what my take was at the beginning of this, I still think it is what was going on at the beginning, which is ah rising China, we're going to have to let go of that sphere of influence.

The US is a declining superpower. How do we shore that up? We shore it up by acknowledging that we are a financialized nation. That is the thing that we do well and the GCC has been able to accumulate basic some ungodly percentage of the world's wealth. Um again at one point when I looked at this it was like seven of the largest um largest um largest um like funds with funds under management were in the Middle East in and not just Middle East Abu Dhabi specifically if I remember correctly.

And so Trump being somebody who's plugged into international capital goes, "Okay, the US is a financialized nation. We've got to have some way to combat China's rise, which is now the manufacturers of the world. So cool. I'm going to go broker peace deal." Goes and does the Abraham Accords. He's trying to normalize all of that to get all of the Middle East behind him. Iran has been pissing him off since the 80s. So he's like, "Uh, basically, [ __ ] these kids. They're on his [ __ ] list, but if he can get an economic deal done, he will.

Starts building up troops to let them know, hey, new sheriff's in town. You need to acquies. They don't because he does not understand that they don't think like he thinks. And so now he's essentially bluffing, but he knows he'll actually go through with it. But he's like bluffing, bluffing, bluffing. He's coming off the back of what he did in Venezuela. He's trying to get the economics from the GCC to pump our tech sector. He can see what AI could become, but he needs the GCC dollars to build out the infrastructure.

Like when you map it according to that, it all like every puzzle piece clicks into place. The problem is he just did not understand what Iran was prepared to do. And so I've been [ __ ] saying this since the second I heard it. The moment Steve Witoff said, "I don't understand why they won't capitulate." I was like, "Uhoh, we're in [ __ ] trouble. These guys are mapping them." I say this to my wife all the time. Lisa will get mad at me because I say something.

And I will say you're mad because of what those words would mean if you said them. But they don't mean that when I say them. This is what I mean when I say it. So now step inside my shoes. Assume I'm not lying to you. Now do you see why when I say that it does not carry the same weight, connotations, all that of when you say that? Yes. Cool. And often times we can diffuse the situation by I'll go to her and say, "Hey, that thing you said, if I said it, it would mean this.

What did it mean when you said it?" Oh, cool. [ __ ] I Okay, I didn't have that frame of reference. Now I get it. He can't do that. And so he goes builds up the [ __ ] military and is just assuming that, yeah, if somebody did that to me, this is how I would respond. And when they do the exact opposite, he cannot build the the mental model of where they're at. And so he then makes a mistake and he just thinks I'm going to overwhelm them with what I'll call World War II military methodologies.

That doesn't work anymore. And so they're just like, "Yeah, we're we're not going down like that." And then again, I'll layer the religious component on this, which carries some weight. Could be a lot of weight, but it's enough weight that if you can't map to it, then you're going to be eternally confused. Yeah, definitely gives him the cover story for sure. Um, all right. Let's jump into some super chats. Yes. First up from Marushia Dark. Super chat. Super chat. Super chat. Oult take. Body equals hardware.

Mind equals software. Soul equals user outside of simulation. Brain damage equals broken. Glitchy connection between avatar and player. Many are NPCs. Some might be PCs. Purpose. Enjoy game. Aliens equals DLC. I don't agree with it at all, but I love it. I absolutely love it. Uh, that's a very fun way of saying that if for no other reason than just the way you worded all of that. I thoroughly enjoyed it. Um, I don't think it makes any sense to think of there being a mind outside of the simulation because you can only interface with the thing that can break.

And so once you acknowledge, oh, I can only interface with the thing that can break, you realize, I'm completely beholden to what we refer to as biology. Once you're completely beholdened to biology such that you can break the biology and no longer communicate effectively with the thing outside of the simulation, you realize I was never communicating with the thing outside the simulation to begin with. I'm always just communicating with the translation of the biology. So I don't think that's what's happening. But even in that scenario, that's the only way to perceive that.

So uh but aliens is DLC. God, I love that. Rushia Dark again, thank you for the 40. Says, "Hacking the simulator might involve insane, suicidal, unintuitive behaviors. Eg. In Zelda, you gain speed and fly by blowing Link up during frame perfect back flips with specific items equipped. IRL, you only get one attempt at that." Yeah. I mean, look, it's possible that what we discover the thing that we call physics is that that like the game engine is just wired in this really weird way. And as soon as we discover what that really weird way is to your analogy, the frame perfect backflip uh to send yourself flying, then we can then do extraordinary things.

Um as an analogy, I don't think it will be game mechanicy in the backflippy way. But the universe does work. It it is uh procedurally generated in the extreme. And so this is all physics. This is all just rule sets. And once you understand the rule sets, you can do anything within the rule set. Uh and we don't understand the full rules, which mean that there are aspects to the quote unquote game. Uh that we're not yet uh we have not acquired that skill point. Uh so we're not able to do the thing.

That is for sure true. And so when you hear people whether it's a Donald Hoffman or it's an Eric Weinstein like those are people that are telling you if we can learn what the actual rules of physics are we are going to be able to do new things and those things could be extremely dramatic. Now how dramatic I don't know but wormholes is certainly on the menu. Uh so they could be very very dramatic. dramatic. dramatic. Two-parter super chat I'll read it as one. Thank you for the 40 question things says you nearly verbatim quoted chapter 10 in my last book on the illusion of free will.

I feel your pain. The oops sorry the chapters on predestination and free will I get the most push back on. Forgive me never asked anyone this but would you consider having me on the show? I'm a former English teacher and an army CA/SIOP specialist. Been writing critical thinking books for 20 years. It would be great for your audience and your staff. Ryan thinks the BBC is balanced. which it is. That was that was a call back to something Ryan and I disagree on pretty vehemently. Uh, okay.

So, one, I love somebody who shoots their shot, but you will have to go through uh the standard process, which is I need to see if you're a good talker. Um, so you might have extraordinary ideas, but you also have to be that rare breed of somebody who is going to teach me something that I don't already know. Uh, and that when I put you in front of an audience, the audience is going to respond to you. Um, but if that's you, man, and we're about to find somebody new, that would be amazing.

Um, so yeah, send in your stuff. Put it in the Discord and, uh, but send us examples of you talking. Sending the books aren't going to help. Send me the you talking part. Uh, Chaos Ballads says, "Almost sounds like someone performed necromancy on Drew. On a related note, I posted an interview video with the black incarnation from N MTG in the creative sharing on Discord. Tom sounds like him so much it's concerning. Uh I don't know. So MTG is Ma Magic the Gathering. I don't know Magic the Gathering well at all.

Uh so I don't know what that means, but um I love that we're slowly getting people at the edges that are into gaming and TCG and all of that stuff. You guys have no idea. You have literally no idea how eager I am to launch Kaizen, which then I'm hoping becomes not a Trojan horse, but a way for us to begin to tell stories inside of that universe. The story I so want to tell. And I I never get to talk about it here because it's terrible TV for this audience, but uh Coyotes of the Air Gap.

Boy, do I want to tell those character stories. Anyway, I'll stop there. Uh but shout out to a fellow TCGer. And that's it for Super Chats. Nice. All right, we got to talk about uh Donald Trump crashing out on Meet the Press where he got up and stormed out. Um Um Um this is wild. You got to play the end where they start talking about the election. This is So, let me preface this by saying don't don't be like Trump in this moment. Thi this is somebody whose um intuition is telling him something and he is so convinced that his intuition is right that he is completely close-minded to there being other solutions other answers and as Drew was talking about with the elections.

Um there are explanations other than fraud and if you do not open your mind to that you may find yourself getting surprised over and over and over and over because you're not addressing the real problem. Now again, I've made my position very clear. I think that they've created a situation where if there isn't fraud, I would be beside myself with shock. I did a whole deep dive on this. I believe that there is fraud. We need to find it. I'm just saying the things that we see playing out in the election right now isn't proof of that.

And so people acting like those trend lines are proof of that are going to stay at this level of just like bitching about the wrong thing. You need to go in, you need to audit this stuff. You need to get the Supreme Court to uh pass laws that stop certain things from happening. Now, remember, you're going to do it as a matter of policy. And if you think of it as how would I want my own party restrained if we were in power? Put those laws uh in place because they will one day be used against you.

And so, right now, that's not what you're about to see. What you're about to see is Trump taking a feeling and pushing it forward as if it's fact. And the reporter gives him like three or four chances. She's like, "What evidence do you have?" He goes, "Ad homonym." So, just do not let this be you in real life. I understand that really strong emotional reaction to this thing must be true. For the same reason that I say all the time, the thing that I worry about developing a blind spot on the most is mom Donnie.

That is the one where I am constantly checking myself to see like okay is this just me caught up in my emotions or am I still following cause and effect. That is what anybody should do in this moment. Trump has a lot of emotion uh that just make him utterly convinced that he is right that the election was stolen from him that this election is just another example of that. Cool. You've got a hypothesis but now how are you going to actually get in and look at that?

You should set a fail state. So if I go in and I audit and I see the following things and I will believe that we simply lost the election. So that you know going into it what that looks like. If there is no fail state that no matter what you find, you are still going to be convinced. Then you are locked in your frame of reference. You're not going to be able to escape that trap. Uh so all right with that, let's take a look at this clip.

Do you think it's appropriate that they have an election and 5 days later they're nowhere close to picking? Local officials acknowledge they are slow. They're urging No, they're crooked. They They're urging the votes to be counted quickly. That's how they vote in California. Just like you're crooked. Your press is crooked. And meet the press is crooked. To be fair, I'm not crooked. But let's Well, you play right into their hands. You're either crooked or uh let's say that even if she quote unquote plays right into their hands, that doesn't make her crooked.

And so th this is why I hate a populist moment. There will come a day, by the way, where this it may be a hundred years from now, but there will come a day where that will just be seen as absurd that you would dialogue in that way, emotionally inflammatory, inflammatory, inflammatory, um going on the attack, not being what we call presidential, where there's like a certain level of decorum that is just completely absent. Now, I want to remind everybody, he is not creating that moment.

He is a product of the fact that we are already in that moment. uh we get in that moment for economic reasons that I won't derelis on now, but like he he switches so effortlessly that if you love him, you just go on the switch with him because it all feels so true. But as a reminder, dots or sorry, feelings make dots feel like they connect that don't actually connect. Okay? So just because you feel something doesn't mean that it's actually true. Uh, and then if you already hate him, you're not trying to figure out why do so many people on the right feel that this is true?

What is triggering that? And is there a there there? If there's not a there there, how do we diffuse the emotional bomb? Uh, because you don't want the other side. This is how I feel about um socialism and communism. There is something that is making people feel like that solution is correct. I want to know what that actual thing is so that we can address that actual thing because that leads to somewhere so nightmarish that I don't want that for them. I don't want to be like in it being like, "See, I told you so." Like, I don't want to escape to Singapore and then laugh as people on the left have to deal with the murderous reality of socialism and communism.

That's not fun for me. That's not interesting. No matter what ends up happening in my life, if I'm safe on the moon or Mars or what, like, that's not interesting. So the goal is to figure out ah what's the underlying thing that's causing this emotion to put that off ends up being a problem. I'll say this is also very good advice for your marriage. If your spouse significant other is absolutely derailing emotionally and you're just like huh they're being illogical right now and I'm just going to stand 10 toes down and be like you're not being rational and therefore I'm just going to keep pushing forward.

You're going to either be in an absolutely horrific loveless relationship or that relationship is going to end. If on the other hand, you go, why does this person feel like this? I need to find my path to this to understanding that a gigantic breakthrough awaits on the other side. So anyway, he's not doing that. Uh, and let's keep going because it gets more fun. fun. fun. Stupid. You play right into their hands with this rep. You know that these elections are rigged. Your network knows that they're rigged.

You know that I won an election in a landslide and I got 94% bad press. bad press. bad press. But Mr. President, you know that presented because you have no credibility. credibility. credibility. But you've never presented evidence that it was rigged. Let's keep talking about I want to talk about Todd. You have more evidence. There's more evidence than ever presented. Your elections in this country, we're like a third world country. Your elections are crooked and you're crooked and Meet the Press is crooked and so is ABC and CBS and CNN.

Mr. President, your one-sided crooked network. Let's call it quits cuz I've had enough. Thank you, darling. Have a good time, Mr. President. Let's please I traveled all the way to Wisconsin. I've sat in the rain all I know. I've sat in the rain with you for an hour on and off in the rain and I've given you enough time. You ought to straighten out your press because you know what? country can never be great with a dishonest dishonest dishonest Listen, we traveled all the way to Wisconsin.

Wisconsin. Wisconsin. I will give him that the press is unhinged when it comes to reporting him. There's no doubt about that. There is no doubt that the quote unquote mainstream media is really left-leaning. So, I understand that he's got beef with all of that. However, this is somebody who's clearly having a very emotional reaction and not sticking to the facts. What you need is somebody that can be calm, cool, and collected and just walk you through the data. the data. the data. And if he had data, that would be very easy.

But as far as I know, we don't have data to back up the stolen election hypothesis. We got vibes, but we don't have data. And by the way, if somebody in chat is like, "What the [ __ ] We have all kinds of data. Send it to me because Trump is not doing a good job of sating saying what the data is." Uh, and so I'm perfectly happy to go down that rabbit hole only to find that there is hard evidence. Um, but I certainly have not seen it.

seen it. seen it. It's it's I'm I'm trying to just I don't even know where to start. Um, because when you sing, you begin with do reay me. me. me. Like April in the chat, I think like encapsulated it the best. She was just like, I miss boring politics. And it's like like like Trump stormed off of that interview. I can understand if she tried to get a gotcha with an Epstein question. I can understand if she accused him of being something he wasn't. But But But but even now, can't we both agree that's still dumb?

still dumb? still dumb? Like yes, but at least it's like that's a personal tech. Like, you know, that's an integrity thing. But like you're mad and then he's saying your elections like it's not his like he's in charge of the country, isn't it? Your elections, too. So it's it's very you're crooked, they're crooked, he's crooked. Like CBS just paid you. Like they're literally trying to change report. I want to talk about that story, too. that CBS story is crazy. So, it's like I don't I just don't get it and how people are like, "Yep, you did it, Trump.

Go." Like, I I don't understand how to put these two like how to square that. that. that. It goes like this. Mhm. Mhm. Mhm. In a moment like this, the populace feels feels feels very insecure. very insecure. very insecure. They're not sure where their next meal is coming from. They feel like their country is going to hell in a way that is outright dangerous. Mhm. Both sides feel this. And when you're feeling like that, you're looking for shelter. Like it we as humans have this extremely strong impulse.

Get safe. This is why the game Minecraft works. You drop somebody into an environment. It turns hostile at night and you suddenly are like, "Fuck, I have to find a way to protect myself." Like the the game designers don't have to tell you anything. And they literally don't. And your impulse is just I have to find a way to get safe. And so once you're in that, you're looking for numbers. Are there other people here that could help me? Like if you're in a crowd of people and you're being attacked, the first thing anybody's going to do is call for help.

And so it it's just ingrained in us because it is the winning strategy. Get other people to join you, to be on your aid, outnumber the other side. It's way way way safer. And so in that, your feelings get you to take the right actions. you're scared, stay there. Get very aggressive in getting help. Mob up, turn, attack. Now, we don't like the feeling of weakness. And so, we will transmute that into anger. It is a really cool thing that our brains give us. It's called the psychological immune system.

And its job is to stop us from being paralyzed. And so, it's like, hey, hey, hey, you're going to win this. Even if that's delusion, you're going to win. You got this. Let's go. But you're going to have to attack all these other people. You're going to have to take them down. And so that's why you get there because the populace feels like that for economic reasons, but they feel like that. They team up. They know being on a team is much safer. And by the way, it actually is safer.

So they are correct. And so now we're team ball. Now when you're in team ball and you go to vote for somebody, you're only going to vote for the person that's like, I'm on your team. [ __ ] these kids. I'm going to go get them. And then you're like, yes, I want, this is why they call it the strong man. I want to vote for a strong man who's going to go slap the other side around because remember remember remember even if people don't articulate it like this, it starts to feel existential.

Like I may actually die. My side may die. Like a very very bad thing is going to happen. And so now it's like really is all is fair and love and war. It's like uh we're at war. And so yes, these things, the way that I'm behaving, I might not consider moral or right in normal times, but these aren't normal times. And so you elevate these very aggressive, very crude people that will fight on your behalf, but the other side sees them as perpetuating the danger.

And so, oh my god, you just elected an accelerant. And so now everybody thinks, "Oh, I can get more unfair. I can do crazier stuff because you did the bad thing. You elected that bad person." And then that bad person starts really getting attacked. I mean, they literally tried to assassinate him multiple times. And so now they're like, "Well, it's even more justified that I go even more ham on you." And if he does the downshift that I want him to and just walks everybody calmly through cause and effect, um, he's going to lose power because that's not where the cultural energy is.

And this is where people have to understand, this is something that I teach entrepreneurs is trends are not a dirty word. Trends are merely a reflection of cultural energy. And no business will ever fight cultural energy. And so you ride the waves of cultural energy. And this is why when the LGBT community had the cultural energy, everybody in June was doing something for Pride Month. Now the LGBT community is losing the cultural energy. And so people aren't doing it. And so it's like that's what companies should do.

Like they're trying to stay the [ __ ] business. And the same with politicians. That's what they should do. So uh if they want to get re-elected. So that's what you're going to see. So that's why people do it. That's why these guys lean into it, much to my dismay. dismay. dismay. Uh I want to tie this to the Scott P um firing that happened at CBS earlier this week and he kind of came out and did a couple interviews saying that when Barry Weiss was installed as a new head of news, she did some things that were favorable to the administration that went against his journalistic integrity.

Um this is specifically talking about Minnesota and like the Renee Good trial. I'm using this as a setup to kind of talk about the larger populist movement that's happening um in the division that we see in America. Barry Weiss sends an email to my boss, Tanya Simon, Tanya Simon, Tanya Simon, two of the things in the email include, "Can we make the protesters look more violent?" violent?" violent?" Now, I'm paraphrasing. I don't have the quote, but that's what was communicated to me. to me. to me.

And the other thing was Renee Good's car. You need to describe her as driving toward the officer. [snorts] This uh is not what you see on the video. on the video you see uh the officers standing slightly I don't need I'm not trying to like relegulate the Renee good thing I think this sets a precedent to kind of what Trump said so as he stormed out that interview America can't be great with the crooked media and then we already have um an established pattern that certain institutions lean left certain institutions lean right that's cool if he if Trump says he's doing this tax policy one person says it's the worst thing in the world.

Somebody says it's the best thing in the world. That in mass balances it out. I'm okay with that generally. But when we have certain cultural moments like with Ice, like with Renee Good, and we're changing what happened at the story. Um it was also the same thing that happened with um the uh George Floyd thing. Um some people are trying to spin the Harry Noak thing in the same way. When we are starting to change facts of the investigation to become one thing versus another, that literally then sews discourse.

When we covered the Renee Good thing, there were so many people that were adamant, she's trying to kill him. She was trying to run him over. Whereas, let's say that this is not a disgruntled employee. Let's just take him from face value and say that he's actually still in integrity. He's not just trying to get them back. Isn't this something for a larger issue that's a bit bigger than the populist moment? That's a bit bigger than the left and right. This is something that I think as America we need to kind of contend to.

I mean, internationally, too, but I'm American. that we need to contend to that when we start changing facts of certain stories when the media becomes an actor in the news versus a representation like displaying the news, we can have these second and third order consequences. Um, and I've even seen in our chat sometimes I can hear you say something and people will attack you as if you said the opposite of what just came out your mouth. mouth. mouth. Yes. Yes. Yes. You know what I mean?

So like but this is all coming from the same place. The manipulation of the media, the angry stormouts and stuff like that. You're wrong. I'm right. Like what if there isn't any California fraud? What can't we just be okay? Like there's so many other issues in America that we really need to dive down. Why do you think it's important for media to change facts about a thing instead of taking like the Fox News approach where when something is really bad happening with Trump, they're over here covering dogs in West Westminster or something like, you know, I mean, just change the like move the camera, but don't try to change what's in front of the camera.

Why do you think they're starting to take that tactic versus just like the deny it approach? We we are all locked inside of a frame of reference. That's the o when when it comes to this, that's the only conversation to have. My advice to everybody is assume that an honest, well-intentioned, smart person believes the thing that they're saying. And so now you have to contend with, whoa, that's wild. Because of their frame of reference, they're looking at the exact same footage I'm looking at, and they see something different.

And that's why I always say your frame of reference controls what you look at. So in your example, where you point the camera and what you see. So I saw the car moving towards the officer or that this was just a woman trying to get away. The hard part about the quote unquote truth is the vast majority of the human experience is merely interpretation. And once you understand that, it gets scarier because you're going to have a very hard time convincing people of your truth. And that's why when I started hearing during the peak of the woke movement this idea of my truth, I was like, "Yeah, that's actually real." Unfortunately, we are all interpreting what we see.

the the stat that I or the the fact of physics that I try to remind people of and I expect it to change their lives and it never does uh but is the fact that humans only see 0.0035% of the electromagnetic spectrum. Bro, that is so wild. You basically don't see the world as it actually is. you see this tiny tiny tiny tiny sliver of what's actually there. So, for instance, we watch the Renee Good thing play out. The only thing that really matters is the playback of her thoughts and feelings and all of that so we could know what she was doing.

Was this somebody who was merely panicking? Oh, and by the way, we need to know the same thing inside the mind of the cop who ends up shooting her so that we could know what we're trying to get to, which is intent. Did the cop actually fear for his life? Did he think the only way to stop her is to shoot her? Um, did she try to hurt him? Was she like, "Fuck these guys. Was she just scared?" Like all of that. We're never going to get that.

So, all we're going to get is the interpretation of people that are all locked inside of a frame of reference. You show them something and they're going to see truly see something different. Then on top of that, you've got people have an agenda. And so now they're like,"Well, I kind of see both. Which one am I going to present?" Because I can only have so many words come out of my mouth. And so now I'm going to choose the one that I think maybe has more long-term viability for a thing that I'm trying to do.

And you put that all together and you get the endless madness of the human experience. And when you can say, "Oh [ __ ] the way that I saw this isn't probably objectively true." objectively true." objectively true." It's my reading on the situation, and so I'm going to put myself out there, and I'm going to argue for my position as hard as I can. But if you're me, you're going to say, "But I know [snorts] I'm locked inside of a frame of reference. So I'm going to say I should be read as one voice.

I'm going to give you my best logic. I'm in fact going to hold myself accountable to cause and effect. I'm going to try to lay that out. I'm going to say all the things that are my blind spots, etc., etc. But this is why when people say I should run for office, I'm like, you do not understand how terrible a strategy I deploy is. My strategy has one aim. If the world turned against me and they hated me and I'm up on the gallows and I have a noose around my neck that I'm like, I I have my own respect.

It doesn't matter that the world turned against me because I have no interest in being on a pedestal and being celebrated by everybody and not respecting myself. So, I optimize for that self-respect. Period. End of story. That just is what it is. Um, so when you get that people have agendas, they're stuck inside of a frame of reference, you end up in the situation that we're in. But what bothers me to no end is when people mistake their frame of reference for truth. And the only thing that we can all say is true is physics.

But the vast majority of the human experience isn't physics, it's emotion. We make decisions based on emotion, not logic. And so why why does why does Trump need for there to be voter fraud in California? Like why Like why Like why emotionally? emotionally? emotionally? Yeah. Like why do you think that that like like like cuz he would have to accept that he lost? He can't in 2020. He cannot accept that. It violates his worldview. It violates his sense of self and what he represents to the country.

Like again, I'm mind reading. So the odds that this is precisely right is effectively zero, but directionally it's probably pretty close. close. close. Is for him to do what he's done to withstand everything that he's withtood, all of the attacks, all of that. He has to believe I'm doing whether he believes in God is irrelevant. Just follow the intensity of what I'm trying to convey. He believes he's doing God's work and that if he wins, he will make life better for everybody. And the people that are attacking him are doing the devil's work.

He wouldn't think in these religious terms, but you get the idea. I'm the good guy, they're the bad guy. I represent right, justice, um, morality, and they are all the evil things that are trying to stop that. And so, the very thing that puts you on the left is being evil. And so, there's no way that I, the good, the right, the light, the just, lost an election because of my missteps. Uh, I don't buy that. My emotions tell me that it isn't true. My emotions are telling me it's not true.

I know it's not true. I can feel it in my bones that it's not true. And because I feel it in my bones and I do not recognize how the human mind works, uh because I feel it, that is evidence that it is true. And if I say anything other than the election was stolen, it feels so wrong. I feel like I'm lying to people. And so, well, I'm not going to lie. And so, even though I get a lot of hate and backlash and all of that, I'm I'm going to say what I think is true.

and he just cannot see that what's governing his thinking is emotion. All right. Interesting. Uh all right, we got more topics to get to. Uh half of the S SNP 500 is trading way above uh 10x revenues, which when people say that, it's like, okay, I kind of get what you're saying, but I don't think people understand the magnitude of like the ROI that's expected on that. So, help us understand about this inflated stock market. If AI revenues don't catch up to the dollars that are being spent soon, it is going to be an absolute bloodbath.

bloodbath. bloodbath. This has played out historically. Boys and girls, please look at the history of this stuff. These bubbles form all the time around a revolutionary new technology. The revolutionary new technology is extraordinary. It's as good as you think it's going to be. But the difference in time scale becomes the problem. Now, there's a lot of complexities here. We have to like really tease this stuff out. Right now, roughly a third of the S&P 500's entire value is trading above 10 times revenue. That's not profit, that's revenue.

And it's the biggest names that are dragging that number higher and higher every month. So, a third is already crazy. It's going higher. And where we're at right now is a record. So, we blew past the dot bubble peak and have just kept going. Now, back in 2002 when we saw the same thing happen, Sun Micro Systemystems, the CEO, uh, ends up talking about it, but they cratered from $64 down into single digits. And the CEO, Scott McNeely, gave a really honest autopsy about what had happened.

and he was saying this to paraphrase, but at 10x revenues to give you a 10-year payback, I'd have to hand you 100% of revenue as dividends for a decade straight, assuming zero cost of goods, zero expenses, zero taxes, zero R&D. It it is a scenario that is so fake. He said it leaves you or leave him asking the question, what were you as investors thinking? We're back there again, but nobody's asking that question today. Now, I understand these people aren't being stupid. Outside of tech, the economy is not getting more productive and people have to be honest about what it takes to really grow an economy.

Now, I think AI is going to be that technology. I think AI really is going to grow the economy, but given the amount of money that we've had to put in on debt to build out the infrastructure, people should be very, very uncomfortable. Now, just ejecting out of the system, unless you're a very sophisticated investor is not the play, but you've got to be thinking now given these numbers, the way that you're invested, you've got to be thinking a 20-year time horizon. If you're not on a 20year time horizon, you are going to find yourself in a very difficult position.

If all of your money is tied up in volatile stocks, the odds that they come back are very, very high. Historically, over a 20-year period, it's like you can't miss. But 20 years is a long [ __ ] time, man. You can go from my child was born today to my child is about to graduate college before you're back into profit. Okay? That is a long [ __ ] time. But we all know how this movie plays out. The printer is going to turn on. Okay?

If and when, not if and when, we're running a $2 trillion a year deficit. Unless we balance that budget, we are going to print money. Now, the reason that matters is if you go, I [snorts] don't like these valuations. I got to get out of the stock market. So, you exit out of the stock market. Then your money is just getting inflated away. And let's say that you get out, stock market crashes, and you think, "I'm a genius." And then they crank that [ __ ] money printer back on.

And now the stock market rallies like super fast, but you're not in it. Now you miss that climb. Now you're just getting inflated by all the money pouring into the system causing it to rise up. Now you really are a genius. If we stay in uh like a great depression and they don't money print or they money print at a very low level and then you just buy back in very quickly because you've got the balls when everybody else is bleeding to death. You get in at the crazy depressed rates over the next couple of years, odds are that it's going to start coming back and now you come out the other side just ridiculously wealthy.

If you play it like that, do not get me wrong, you will have been a genius. You will have made yourself wealthy. But basically, nobody does it. Nobody has the ability to convince themselves when it's just going down and down and down to buy in. So, I don't trust myself to do it. Maybe you guys do. And you're going to be far wealthier than me on the other side of this. God bless you, by the way. If you can pull it off, I will do nothing but celebrate you.

I do not trust myself to do that. So, I'm just 20-year time horizon diversified against economic forces. forces. forces. But that's why people are just buying and buying and buying in one because in these bubbles, it just feels like you can't lose. People are so convinced AI is going to work, which by the way, it almost certainly is, but they're not getting that mismatched timing of the debt is going to come due before the revenues come in. And so missing it by six months or a year, honestly, missing it by a day if you're doing it on leverage, you get liquidated.

It's game over. So people pour in thinking it's a sure thing. There's never a sure thing. Not even the 20-year thing, but that's a far more sure thing. And we're all stuck in this position where we have to hide from inflation because we know what's happening. So, we're going to be invested if you're playing smart at all. You're going to be invested, but investing is now in shaky ground because of what we just walked through with these uh historical like ratios are just way way out of whack.

We're paying way too much for our companies. It's going to take them a long time to deliver on that promise. And so, everybody's baking in, including Kevin Worsh by the way. Everybody's baking in that AI is going to deliver on an acceptable time frame the productivity growth the productivity growth such that 10 years doesn't become 10 years the 10 years compresses and it becomes two years or something like that and then you really would win but if AI doesn't compress that fast enough then the first wave of investors get completely obliterated and the second wave of investors who do come in when the prices are down.

They're the ones that end up winning and it plays out over and over and over. And I just did Oh, is it the deep dive that comes out tomorrow or is it the one that came out last week on this topic? Uh I think it's tomorrow. Tomorrow. Okay. Hey, so uh stay tuned boys and girls. I cover in depth this exact phenomenon uh coming out tomorrow. So yeah, it is wild and I think people are being very reckless as they are constantly. Uh so please at a minimum do not be invested in debt and make sure that you're just poised for the long haul.

Even if I can't convince you to diversify across economic um forces, at least understand that this probably can and will dip and it will take time to build back out unless AI really does become that productivity miracle in a very short period of time. Otherwise, you're going to be in trouble. trouble. trouble. Um, some people are asking in the chat. I know you guys talked about it last week, but just to put a pin on it, do you are you team uh SpaceX IPO or team its exit liquidity for?

It's exit liquidity. It's obviously exit liquidity. Now, listen, it may also win in the long run. I'm never going to bet against Elon Musk. I'm just talking about timing, timing, timing. This is a timing question. You've had these guys that have written it up on risk, by the way. You should want them to do that. You should be very glad that there are people willing to do that. But they've ridden all of that risk. Now it's time to diversify and they're going to get out. You're the exit liquidity.

And so often you'll see a dip afterwards no matter what. So you can expect that. Then though oftentimes it will build back up at a relatively reasonable clip and get back to somewhere around where it IPOed. But it won't if we see that mismatch in the investment dollars for the infrastructure. And I I cover this in great detail in the deep dive that's coming up. Um so I'll just give you sort of a cursory glance now. But what ends up happening is um you you get the mismatch from having to invest all of this stuff upfront on debt to get in.

We're actually seeing a pullback in spending from corporations on AI, which means that you're going to get all the people that are doing this on debt. They're going to get completely obliterated. It's going to be gnarly. And the most terrifying thing is that historically when this has happened like with railroads, the internet, uh what you see is the infrastructure that's built, it's built on debt, those people get wiped out. But the infrastructure lasts for a very long time. With AI, it's not true. It's two to three years.

And so now you've got the most expensive part of the infrastructure just poof goes away. And so that's devastating for how long it may take to build back to get to these um justifications. And the SpaceX IPO isn't 10x, it's like a 100x. It's crazy. It's crazy. It's crazy. So on that one, I would just say uh SpaceX probably crushes in the long run, but it's probably going to be very rocky and it might be rocky for years. So just be thoughtful. I can't see the future.

I can't see the future. So I just try to approach all of this from a hyper paranoid perspective. Um, a couple people in the chat are saying that this is the precursor to like the end of money. Maybe they've been watching too much Simon Dixon, but it's very much that we're going to get phased out once the robots hit that uh point. Once money is no longer needed, everybody's just going to go to a social credit system. All true. All true. But again, timing is the real question.

So, remember, there are two things that have to be true for us to get to the other side of money. Energy costs have to hit zero. Right now, we're watching energy prices go up because of the crisis in Iran. So, keep that in mind. Energy costs have to go to zero. And then the when the energy costs go to zero and we have the first wave of self-replicating robots, then and only then will labor costs go to zero. So, you've got basically artificial super intelligence standing between you and that.

And so, when do you think that's going to come? depending on your bet on that. If you think that's in the next three or four years, great. Then you might not have to hold out very long. Uh but if that's more like 10 years or 15 years or 20 years, um now all of a sudden it is dire because you've got to go through all of the madness that we're living through now. You are far more likely to see the end of the uh as the US dollar as the reserve currency and all of the madness that that will entail than you are to get to the other side of money before that happens.

That's pure gut instinct on my part. So, um certainly don't take that to the bank, but that's I would imagine that is true. Uh all right, let's jump over to the Supreme Court where in a stunning 63 decision, the US Supreme Court ruled parents are allowed to opt their children out of being indoctrinated with LGBTQ plus propaganda. Now, see, don't don't click on anything yet. All right. just in that headline, I know that we are in somebody's frame of reference. Now, I hadn't looked yet to see that this is Fox News.

I was just going off the words he read. So, first of all, stunning 63. I'm like, "Okay, is this going to be stunning, good or bad?" But they're really trying to elevate this. Um, this. Um, this. Um, once we got to indoctrinated, I was like, "Ah, got it. I know where this is coming from." And then propaganda. I know where this is coming from. Now, I happen to agree, but it's like I can tell that we're in somebody's frame of reference. So anyway, just as like a uh a reminder to everybody, everybody is trying to sway the way that you see the world.

They're trying to control your frame of reference. Just be aware of it. Regarding religious liberty and whether parents should be informed and be able to opt their children out from reading books in the classroom that go against their faith, Shannon Bream is at the Supreme Court. We were watching for this one. What's the verdict? We were Dana. So, this brought together a coalition of parents of different religious faiths and backgrounds who said there used to be a rule in this particular school district that would let them know when there were books that dealt with issues that may be in conflict with their religious faith.

Well, so many parents were opting out that the school board and the school district quit doing it. Well, 6 to three today and a justice a decision by Justice Alto. They said these parents have earned at least a preliminary injunction. So, while this case plays out, they said the board has to notify them about a book that's in question or anything similar um so that their kids can be excused if it's in conflict with their faith. He says, um, as with I don't even think it should have to be in conflict with your faith.

So, for me, I the LGBTQ stuff, sure, like I think that that stuff can get way too unnecessarily racy. Also, man, I am really developing a uh hypothesis about how influencable how influencable how influencable kids like sexual identity and even to some extent what they're attracted to can be shaped in the early years. when I started researching um how on earth Athens and Sparta and uh some Roman um societies had so much like pedarasti and um just like gay sex. I was like, "What the fuck?" Like, "How?" Uh, I don't know.

I haven't done enough research. But when you look at the historical trends, it's like a whole society can just like be like, "Yeah, we do like a ton of gay sex." There there's a flexibility somewhere either hiding in epigenetics or something. So, I was like, "Whoa, if that's true, I don't know. I don't know." Just know. I don't know." Just like crazy caveats. But if that's true, then it's like, yo, we got to be real thoughtful about what we're deciding we want our kids indoctrinated with.

Now, make no mistake, being a parent is about deciding, I'm going to shove these beliefs and these values into my kids' brain. brain. brain. Simple as. Now, whether you think the parent should be the arbiter of what values and beliefs get shoved into your kid's head or you believe the government should be the one deciding what values and beliefs get shoved into your kid's head is going to be where you break on this. I believe it should be parents. Now, I fully acknowledge there are terrible parents out there in the world.

But holy lord, I much more trust a distributed approach, a decentralized approach to raising kids than a centralized one. [ __ ] that noise. in all capital letters. I do not want the government deciding uh what my kids are going to be exposed to. I want as a parent, I want parents, since I'm not a parent, I want parents to be able to make that decision. So, um if I had kids, I would be way on guard for things around agency, personal sovereignty, um that you can do anything you set your mind to.

Like, all of those things would matter to me a lot. And if somebody were trying to indoctrinate my kids with like weak [ __ ] no personal responsibility, I would become a raging lunatic at the school board, uh, I would I would be the unhinged lunatic insisting that Jaco Willink control all of the literature that my kids encounter. Uh, which by the way, he's actually written books for kids. They're good. Uh, at least if you have my belief system. So, uh, yeah, th this one to me is a big W for the way that things ought to be.

Parents ought to be making these decisions. decisions. decisions. Um, Brutus Luga, what about schools teaching about evolution? Should kids sit those out if it goes against their religion? religion? religion? Of course. Of course. Of course. Thanks, Thanks, Thanks, dude. I'm super consistent. If you want to tell your kids, yo, all these lunatics that are trying to convince you that God did not create the world, uh, that it's more than 6,000 years old, they do not understand what they are talking about. Evolution is the devil's brew.

Great. If that's what you believe, like, you should be able to tell your kids the things you believe. Now, look, the adult world is going to come for all of our kids. And so, if you teach your kids something that they deem to be stupid when they get to be an adult, they're going to have beef with you. And so that could be a kid turning against someone like me and being like, "No, Dad, you totally [ __ ] this up. That personal responsibility is some bullshit." I'll be like, "Hey, I did my best.

I did my best sincerely in my soul to give them something that would make their life joyful, would give them agency, would allow them to lead a life that they find fulfilling and all of that. But hey, as an adult, they're going to parse the world the way they're going to parse the world. There's nothing that we get to do about that. So be aware of that. Parents that overrestrict their kids tend to have very rebellious kids. That's just how nature made all of us. Uh so be thoughtful about that.

But of course, like dude, I'm not a like, well, as long as I get what I want out of it. I make rules assuming those rules will be used against me. So now I want kids to learn about evolution, but this law will be used against me. Now parents can be like, "Nah, [ __ ] all that evolution talk." Yep. Cool. Perfectly happy. I want parents to be able to decide in no uncertain terms. uncertain terms. uncertain terms. Nice. Uh Nice. Uh Nice. Uh Verizon CEO says the company's new AI customer service agent scored 1280 basis points higher on customer satisfaction than humans.

Andrew Yang retweeted it. It's happening. There are about 2.9 million customer service workers in the US. I thought they already took the customer service workers out. Like I thought all those uh automated calls and stuff was stuff was stuff was they've certainly taken a lot. Like there's no doubt that this industry has already been hit. Um, but it is very interesting. Now, it's just like we've done the survey, you guys lost. Like, if let's say I don't know that this is true, but if Verizon, we're doing that survey and and it was like we're either going to stop this initiative because it's losing it's losing it's losing or we're going to keep it going because it's winning, but we're going to let actual customers tell us.

You have your answer. People, according to Verizon, people want AI. They are more satisfied. AI is infinitely patient. If it's educated well, um, then it probably really can get you to where you want to go. Like AI, dude, I don't know if people are different than me, but like take when I'm gaming for instance. instance. instance. I'm not that guy that's going to bang my head against something for six hours trying to solve it because I feel really good about solving it. Like I want to know, I want to do the thing.

So I'm trying this new game called Lay of the Land. PS. By the way, if you like Minecraft, you must try Lay of the Land. They've done some things visually and procedurally that are breathtaking. But anyway, I just want to play the game. So, I don't want to be stumped on how to do [ __ ] XYZ thing. So, I just keep AI open next to me and I'm like, "Cool, playing lay of the land. Uh, how do I do this thing?" And it's like, "Cool, you do this.

Awesome. Now, I go do the thing. I I just want to do the thing. I don't want to be stuck on it." So, if I'm and [snorts] and I do that because that is the fastest way to get the answers. I'm not calling friends. I'm not watching YouTube videos. I am just asking the [ __ ] thing what do I do? And so the fact that that has become so efficient tells me AI is getting real good now. There are still certain things that I will go I want to watch a YouTube video on something maybe it's too intricate AI doesn't quite understand whatever.

Um but as AI gets better and better and better. I think I'm just going to turn to it for more and more things because it is the most efficient way forward. In fact, now that I'm talking efficiency, you got to show the Todd McFarland thing. I don't know if you guys know who Todd McFarland is. All right. Todd McFarland. Now you could Todd McFarland is an artist extraordinaire. This guy is one of the greatest comic book artists of all time. Forget living. He is one of the greatest comic book artists of all time.

I could give you a whole diet tribe. Trust me, this guy, if you know anything about comics, is excruciatingly influential. So for him to have the take on AI that he has, I think really says something. Now, for anybody that really wants to know what the argument against this will be, Todd's already made himself fantastically wealthy. So, it's like, yeah, sure, Todd, this is coming along at a time where you've already been successful, you didn't have to come up. But, I will say Todd is one of the guys you could, he's so specific, his style is so recognizable, I guarantee you could tell AI, "Give me something in the style of Todd McFarland." Which means this is a guy whose very style is being stolen by people that take that thing and he doesn't give a [ __ ] So, all right, let him explain why.

Because I think this is the reason for everybody to chill out. I I don't get what the big why people are so worked up. I don't get it. it. it. You don't get why people are upset about it? it? it? Yeah. I I like I don't And here's why. Like it there are tool it's a tool and I and and and we can break down this tool in a minute and I will. But but if we just look at it has an efficiency. It's a tool that's efficient.

Every tool that's come along in the history of mankind put somebody out of business. Right. Somebody along the line was selling a lot of buckboard wagons and then somebody said, "I'm going to vent a car car car and then it's [clears throat] like out of business." of business." of business." Okay. Why don't we worry? Why don't we cry for them? Right. every so then the then all of a sudden the word processor came came up and now they're selling less pencils right because like why we don't need pencils anymore we can just do it on here matter of fact we don't even need paper we can just do it on here and and send it in digital like and we didn't cry for them right so so there there used to be VHS's and then it went to DVDs and now you can just stream it right the people who are making DVDs are out of business for the most part 90% of them don't exist why don't we cry for So there's he he's going to make another deeper point about efficiency in a second.

We definitely want to hear it. But a little bit of context about him that I think makes this really important. So he ends up being one of the original founders um that started Image Comics and um Image Comics has gone on to be one of the biggest imprints in the world. It was completely revolutionary when they did it because you had a monopoly of Marvel and DC and that was just it. and he felt like he was being abused by the basically the suits. And so he wanted to break out on his own and he felt like you guys are trading on my talent, my initiative, my creativity.

I've revitalized because he took over Spider-Man. I've revitalized this brand. You're making all this money off of me. But you also keep trying to tell me I can't do this, that, or the other. So this is a guy who made his career by taking one of the biggest risks in the world, alienating himself from the powers that be. And if his gambit failed, he would have been done, finished. That's it. And instead, it ends up paying off. And so what he's getting at is the efficiencies of the tool are going to allow a lot more people to say, I don't need these money, guys.

I don't need these suits. Now, I think it's going to make a lot of people real uncomfortable to know there's no excuses anymore. You just don't have it. People don't care about the thing that you're making. And so, all of us have to face that now. Like, I'm able to make Kaisen the way I want to make it. And so, if it doesn't go well, it's like, well, I haven't done the things I needed to do. to do. to do. And so, um, all right, let him because he goes deeper on the efficiency thing.

Yeah. So at so if if there's an efficiency efficiency efficiency the problem the problem with any tool new tool is it can be used for both good and bad. and bad. and bad. Mhm. Mhm. Mhm. So I can give you a hammer and you can either build me a house or you can bludgeon me over the head with it. Same tool. Right. So I think what the people maybe at times are getting a little bit upset are that that they're thinking that they're stealing artwork or something like that.

I I I but it's an I swear to you there's an efficiency there. We are just talking to a couple people in the animation. I still need to hire you and I need you to do uh some some gun designs for me. If you want to use that tool, you don't have to. If you're great, you don't have to, but if you want to use that tool, you can now give me 20 options. I need you to show me at the end of the day your weapons.

You can give me 20 options and I got 20 to look at and I can pick the two best. If I leave it to you and you got to handdraw every single one of them and you don't got any kind of guidance, you're going to give me three. And if all three of them are mediocre, I am stuck with mediocrity from you. But if you can give me 20 with a little So that's all true. And then one thing that people don't talk about enough is nobody's stopping people from hand drawing.

drawing. drawing. If you still want to go hand draw, go hand draw. But what I think you're going to find over time is that people just stop doing the thing because it isn't efficient. You're not able to keep up. And so one of the things as a just absolute anime um fan, I am extremely sad that young Japanese people no longer go into the anime industry. And the question is why don't they go into the anime industry? And the answer is because there's no money. And so they work these insane hours and they get paid virtually nothing.

The anime companies are always at risk of going out of business. They have to diversify. So they'll get like two, three, four different companies will come together to do one anime project because they know the money is only if this becomes a monster hit and we can get toys and all that and then actually start making money. So we all want a piece of it and it becomes like this portfolio strategy because the anime industry is just going to die. It's too expensive. It's too laborious.

And as the economics have changed, as we moved away from TV and there's no advertising, it's like it just becomes a completely different game that will just go away or you have to find efficiencies. And so my hope is that we see a resurgence of incredibly creative people going into something like anime because the efficiencies are there because now people aren't beholdened to the suits. They're not being worked into the ground. they can create something that they really believe in without a lot of other people [ __ ] them up or creating cost structures that make it impossible for that art to live on.

And so the way that people are looking at AI right now in this panic mode um definitely makes me sad because they're just going to get replaced. If you panic about it, you will lose if AI actually is more efficient. And right now we're in the greatest of all worlds, which is you've got this technology that is still not good enough to do it without a human that has really good taste. And so right now people should be celebrating. We're in this incredible age of like if you have taste, you have access to this tool that'll create these insane efficiencies.

If you don't have taste, everything you output with AI will be garbage. And so what's the problem? AI is not elevating the bone head. The bonehead is just putting out a bunch of stuff that everybody's going to ignore. There was a tweet about a guy that was like, "I've already made five apps using uh vibe coding." And he was like, "I'll save you some time. I've made zero dollars. Nobody's using these things." Because he hasn't built something that somebody wants. And by the way, the world's moving away from buying software off the shelf because they can vibe code their own thing.

So it's like, cool, the world's moved on. It isn't that anymore. So what are you going to use AI for? And so I just heard this big lamentation of this guy saying the game industry is changing. Uh there's this game company that's saying that we're crashier now than we were back in the 80s. Meaning like the industry is about to really struggle. People aren't able to get the funding that they were getting during the COVID era. We're seeing these studios close left, right, and center. And the only way that 20,000 indie games get made every year.

Dude, that's insane. There's no way to even look through that. So you you're in this position where okay, there's too much of this thing. So how are people going to compete? And literally, as I'm saying to myself, the way you have to compete is as an indie team like we are, you have to build something that's of a scale that will really get people's attention. And then he goes, people are going to have to build something that's of a scale that will really get people's attention.

And I'm like, yeah, exactly. And guess how they're going to do that with AI. Guess what industry is like vehemently opposed to AI? Gaming. So, there's an online cadre of people that are viferously are viferously are viferously against AI and gaming. I guarantee they all go the way of the dodo bird because you just won't be able to make the games that people want to play at a budget that people are willing to pay without using AI. So, anyway, this these trends play out again and again in history and we respond in these very similar ways.

It's very sad. Man, it's interesting how he's bringing up the specific examples about, you know, the wagon and the car and stuff like that and the lite fantasy that you said in the deep dive a couple weeks ago. So, it's it's interesting that we're going through that cycle again and we don't realize it because we're right in the middle of it. Yep. Yep. Yep. Um, all right. Let's talk about this pump fun thing. Oh my god. The tattoo on the forehead was kind of the kind of weird.

This is dystopian. If you guys haven't seen this, like, yo, I love the internet. I love social media. I'm so glad it exists. I love the fact that people can spend their money on anything they want. I love that people have agency. have agency. have agency. Bro, this is for people that don't know what this is. So, Pump Fund is a thing that takes the gaming idea of um bounties and says, "Okay, go do this thing and you get a reward for it." And now they're bringing that into real life.

And they're saying, "Okay, go um parachute." This is a real one, parachute into um I think it was one of the World Cup games. So, dress as a mascot. uh crypto mascot, I think. So, it's like if you do that, then you make whatever it's like $54,000. So, uh if you do that, you can make a ton of money. Okay. Now, one comes out for like $2500 bucks or something. Go tattoo on your head, your forehead. Hash like uh bounty work, I think. And so, I was like, "Oh god." So, now you've got somebody that's got money and they can just [ __ ] troll people.

So, this is now this guy. You guys want me to believe he has free will. So, he has free will and he can go do whatever the [ __ ] he wants. But you will notice that what you're gonna see, pause it for a sec. Oh god, if you guys are watching this, he's actually getting the tattoo. Uh that what this will end up being is you're arbitrageing somebody that's really struggling. So, we're living in this wild K-shaped economy in a wildly K-shaped world, meaning there are other countries for whom $2,500 might be the equivalent of $25,000.

It might be absolutely game-changing. getting that tattoo on his forehead, which if he's smart, he knows he can remove. He can maybe put a down payment on a house or he can clear medical debt up. Who knows? But it could be absolutely life-changing for him. And so now we're going to see people do this kind of freakish arbitrage either to somebody in, you know, their own hometown that's on the wrong side of the K or to another country, uh, where the dollar arbitrage is insane. It's just, this is so gross.

And it's one of those things where I believe people need to have the option to do this, but I still [ __ ] hate it. Yeah. Um, isn't this where like I don't know. I feel like [clears throat] this is like late stage capitalism, right? Like this is just where we go. Like there's certain people with a a bunch of resources that in this specific example, they know that they can take advantage of people who don't have those resources. So, they're going to say, "Hey, let's do it." And they talk about it as fun and quirky.

And then to your point, you have somebody like here who probably is really struggling and it's like, hey, that 2500 can make a change in my life, so let me go do this thing. I want to be very clear, this is not latestage capitalism. And the reason the the fact that people keep calling that is one of the biggest scops in the [ __ ] world. This is what hap if if you want to know what happens when capitalism goes wrong, you always have to get a governmental agency involved.

So if you want to see capitalism cronied up with the government to the point of like completely deranging, you've got two options. You can look at uh Hitler's Germany and fascism and the way that they integrated with corporations uh and you can look at like the Dutch East India Company, but again it always takes the government. Somebody has to build a military and use violence against you. When you have a stable government that is detached from commerce, puts a gentle set of rules to keep the um capitalists from abusing you, you get a totally different system.

A totally different system to get the system where now with a K-shaped economy, the government has to steal money from you through inflation. They have to. Now, in capitalism, the goal is to make the pie bigger. You're innovating. So, anyway, I won't have my beloved capitalism bismerched. uh it is because we have deranged things and done all this crazy [ __ ] to get away from that. Now uh there are probably other things you can talk about from cultural derangement that we don't have people just putting so much cultural pressure on people.

Some of this is the anonymity of the internet. If you knew what [ __ ] were doing this, there would probably be a ton of pressure on those people to not be a dick. Anyway, dick. Anyway, dick. Anyway, so he gets the tattoo. Now, this thing drama spirals. By the way, I don't know if people paid attention, but he misspells it. And so, they deny him the payout, which is evil in my opinion. Uh, but nonetheless, they do. Then somebody, I don't know if it's a GoFundMe or whatever, but they start person who gets the payout of the trading fees.

And so, he ends up making at the time I saw it like 15 grand instead of the 2500. So now he's like going on social media. Hey, shout out to all my uh Pump Fund fans or not fans, family, I think. You know, thank you for this. Oh god, it like literally death spirals. So he ends up making even more money, but off of a memecoin, which is if that's how people want to play, fine. Like people should have the right to do it. But nonetheless, like this this is a level of um dystopia that makes me sad.

It needs to be checked culturally. I'm not looking for a whole bunch of government regulations to come in and tell people what they can and can't do with their money. But man, from a cultural perspective, this is icky. Do bounties. That's rad. But do cool bounties. Do things that do something positive. That would be cool. We got super chats. Two super chats. So, Coyle Hall says, "Trump is full-on dementia behavior and spiraling just like my 89year-old Fil. Seems they are progressing at the same rate. His patience is zero, which is a key indicator." indicator." indicator." So, I don't have that read on Trump.

I I think a dementia read on him is is not the right play. I don't think you have to go there to see somebody who's trapped in their emotions. I see people behave like this all the time that do not have any excuse for age related dementia. So I unfortunately I think it is very easy for a human to end up where he's at without any mental illness, without any dementia. It's just I think I'm right. Uh my feelings tell me I'm right and so I'm going to go completely ballistic.

ballistic. ballistic. Um Sequoa Hall is one of the most amazing human beings. Such a lovely human being. I met him in person at the mastermind. So so cool. And I found the backstory of the Mindy Pel thing during the fires thing. He gave you warm regards like it's nice when you meet like people in real life and they're actually good people. So shout out to Sequoa Hall. Sequoa Hall. Sequoa Hall. Shout out to Sequoa. Thanks Sequoa. Thanks Sequoa. Thanks Sequoa. Facts. Facts. Facts. Uh Southeastern Venom says Tom.

AI does your work to generate money, freeing you to go to do things that truly bring you joy. Whether art, construction. Yeah, I agree. AI. I don't know if I did. Yeah. Whatever. Whether art, construction, carpentry, or whatever you name, you do it purely for the happiness it gives. not to make money. Thank you. Yeah. I mean, I don't know that anybody does things purely for the happiness. Like, if you actually want somebody to pay attention, because I've thought about this a million times. Um, the storytelling thing that I'm really trying to get to as that was the core thrust of my life from the time that I was 12.

Uh, but I know that I still have to market it. And so, you have to do a lot of overhead things. And once you're marketing, unless you're going to do everything yourself, which becomes very hard to sustain, then like you need some people on your team. Even if it's like you've got a um the old days an editor and you've got a publisher and they're going to handle a lot of you still have to deal with them. Uh so there's going to be always overhead. Nobody until we are truly post money.

And if you don't care about anybody ever seeing the thing you create, I just don't think that's real. I think I think on the other side of money, life is going to be distressingly similar to what it is today. That's my prediction. People are still going to try to make whatever the thing is that we leverage to get scarce things. They will still do it. They will still play status games. It's all going to be very, very similar. And we're going to be very distressed how there's still a sense of inequality.

And there are still people that are outraged. Even though the government is paying for universal high income, I think you will still find people just derailing. Now, hopefully it'll be on a lesser scale because there'll be plenty of people who are like, "Well, as long as my little community respects me, I'm happy." Um, but but but humans are human until we change that, which we may be able to with brain computer interfaces and genetic engineering, but until that day comes, humans are still going to human.

But at that point, we're no longer humans, right? We're just bots. And who's programming us necessar? Well, hopefully you're programming yourself, but um you're not. They got kill switches in cars. You think they're not going to have a kill switch in a brain chip, Drew? I hate how possible that is. I really hate how possible. Maybe it's me. Let me put my pills down. My bad. My bad. My bad. Uh and last super chat for the day. Truth Devin Tom, what do you think about the new Xbox CEO?

She's making good strides. She says she can make Xbox number one. Do you think making a woman the CEO of a gaming company is an issue? Do you think she can beat Sony? but she seems good. seems good. seems good. Okay. So, um I'll give you two answers to that. Whenever you take somebody as an individual, you will find very quickly that no matter what, you could find somebody that can just execute and they are utterly brilliant. Um it's my understanding that Pepsi under forget her name, but the female CEO of Pepsi was murdering it.

So, uh you get somebody who's smart enough, driven enough, they can accomplish anything. It literally doesn't matter. um if if they know what the right things are to do, they can crush it. The CEO of Take 2, which is the parent company uh behind um Grand Theft Auto, doesn't play video games at all. And he's absolutely smashing it. So, I I think that for sure any individual with the right level of intellect, the right talents can absolutely take a company anywhere. Now, when you play the averages, I think that you will find that the majority of successful gaming companies have a creative at the helm that really understands this thing.

There is a reason that Steve Jobs was just a once- ina generation entrepreneur because he came up actually working in tech, uh, working with what's his name, um, Waznjak to actually build the first computers. Like, he really understood this stuff. And so, he wasn't a coder. He wasn't going to be the engineer that actually built it, but he came up in that. He like understood it at a very very very intimate level and had extraordinary taste, understood artists, understood the pirate mentality, all of that, all the things that end up making um Apple phenomenal.

So when you take averages, if Xbox has a male demographic, I would be um very surprised if if you did a hundred CEOs, I'd be very surprised if the majority of them were women. But that does not in any way, shape, or form mean that you can't bring in a woman who just absolutely becomes the greatest leader they've ever had. So the fact that they've hired a female CEO for now, I'm going to say, "Cool." They recognize incredible talent. They're putting her in a position that she's going to absolutely murder in.

And then you watch and see how she does. Now again on averages uh it may not play out that you'll see a whole bunch of women that end up being the right person for creating a product that is specifically aimed at at men but that doesn't mean that you can't have a totally generational talent that isn't actually the demographic. So I'm like until she gives me reason to be skeptical I'm not going to be skeptical. Uh, as an Xbox longtime fan, after yesterday's showing chatter, I think Asha Chararma is better than what we've had with Phil Spencer for the last five years.

Phil's a great guy, but he did not understand Xbox. And to answer the PlayStation thing, I don't think Xbox will ever beat PlayStation just cuz they fumbled the Xbox One so hard, but that's a whole different gaming story. gaming story. gaming story. There it is. Respect. So, yeah, let's let's let her cook, man. Don't don't be mad until we see what she actually does. Uh, so yeah, I'm I'm excited to see what she does. she does. she does. I feel like the cultural energy is swinging though.

But yeah, we got uh thank you Ky for the sponsorship. Facts. Mad love. QR's on the screen. Uh they've been a phenomenal way for us to figure out where polling is going. Again, I will point you guys to the fact that uh polling via these sites have been way better at predicting some of the crazy things happening in the California election that uh certainly the noise on social media was telling you it was going a different direction, but they called it much much earlier. Um so there's I think a lot to learn with where people put their money because that tells you they really believe that thing.

All right, so again, shout out much love to Kelshi. Uh, I'm doing another AI master class for Impact Theory University this Thursday, June 11th at 1 PM Pacific. Link is in the show notes. Do not miss this. If you are at all thinking about building a side hustle and you want to know how to use AI to do it, you are living in a spectacular moment. I'm going to walk you through exactly how to do it. It's completely free. Free, free, free. Join me. We also have a special bonus for anybody that shows up live.

So, make sure you show up live. You're not going to want to miss that. All right. Again, that's this Thursday, June 11th at 1 p.m. Pacific. All right. Love you guys. See you on Wednesday. Peace.