Trump's Ultimatum to Venezuela, Putin Losing Patience During Peace Talks & OpenAI's Code Red

Key Takeaway

Every country will expand until it meets sufficient external force to stop them. Understanding this fundamental principle of geopolitics helps you make sense of current tensions between the US and Venezuela, Russia and Ukraine, China and Taiwan - and why weakness invites aggression.

Episode Overview

Tom discusses escalating US-Venezuela tensions over alleged voting machine manipulation, immigration policy, healthcare reform proposals, and fundamental principles of geopolitics. He analyzes how countries exploit perceived weakness and the importance of understanding human nature in policy decisions.

Full Transcript

Transcript of Trump's Ultimatum to Venezuela, Putin Losing Patience During Peace Talks & OpenAI's Code Red from Impact Theory. Auto-generated from episode audio; may contain minor errors.

to another Tom Billy Show live. I love doing these. I'm so glad you guys are here. Thank you for joining us. Tensions between the US and Venezuela continue to boil. Putin says the European Union is trying to sabotage peace talks in the Russia Ukraine conflict. As corruption allegations swirl, rumors are flying that Zalinski may be forced out of office in handcuffs. Trump has declared all Biden autopen actions null and void. Trump has also put an immigration pause on a bunch of countries after the recent capital shooting.

Ran Paul and Trump are working on a way for Americans to possibly get healthcare through Costco. Palunteer is hiring high school grads who are skipping college. And Sam Alman has called a code red as Google and others are coming for that AI crown. Drew, welcome and good morning to you. Good morning, man. I'm excited. Wonderful to have you as always. Behind the camera, we've got G. We've got Eric. Gentlemen, how we doing? Eric's on the move here. Not sure what's going on, but uh it's like when you see the guys in the back field like start running.

He's like, "Wait a second. What's happen? What's happening?" Uh so, Drew, the world refuses to uh chill out. It's getting crazy out here. We had talks over the break about bombers flying around the Caribbean. Trump shut down all the airspace. Somebody had an airspace map up. I'm going pull it up where literally you see all the planes flying and avoiding Venezuela. Like things are pretty much tension. I I won't say we're kind of at the uh what's it the Cuban missile crisis where everybody was kind of in the boat staring at each other.

I don't think we're that there. We're like that close, but at the same time we are pretty much on the border. We reopened bases in Puerto Rico. It seems like tensions are now rising in the Caribbean. Yes, for sure. When you draw the comparison to what happened with Cuba during Kennedy, that's where this suddenly looks a lot more chill. Mhm. That was about the US and Russia. So, Russia rolls up, drops nuclear weapons into Cuba, which is literally a swim off the coast of Florida. So you can certainly understand how that becomes I mean quite literally the gravest threat the world has ever faced in terms of nuclear annihilation.

Uh tensions running high. This is how you get the red phone between uh the US and the Kremlin so that they always had a line so that it was like hey let's not let this go ary because we're talking through aids like I want to make sure that you and I can get on a phone and say like for real what's happening what do you care about? Where do we stand? Um, so absolutely fascinating moment in history. I don't think that's what's playing out here. I don't get any of those alarm bells going off.

China has backed off. Uh, Iran has backed off. Russia's backed off. Everybody's leaving Maduro isolated on this. Now, what Trump's real game is, I don't know. Like, I really thought, oh, this is clean. This is about China. Uh, do I think that China is a big part of this? 100%. Do I think that oil is a part of this? 100%. But do I also go when Trump sends out the the truth social that he did about the Dominion uh voting machines? And I was like, "Okay, wait, hold on.

What?" Like, this was a part of the puzzle that I did not see coming. And this is where, like, listen, being on camera and talking about this stuff, you always know there's something about this that I don't know. I'm very much on the outside looking in. Especially me like a lot of these guys are um you know they're connected to Washington DC. I'm very much not. So for me it's trying to parse what makes sense from a geopolitical standpoint. If you look at all the pieces on the board like trying to put yourself in a position of okay I know what people are trying to do in terms of the power they want to gain or access to resources or whatever and so what do I think all this plays out as?

But something like that came out of left field for me. And some of the accusations are wild. Now I This is early days. We'll see what comes out. But there are people out there saying that they've been doing Dominion machine manipulation since uh the 2008 election of Obama and that this is um like a much broader longerlasting problem that we know. Again, will that all end up being [ __ ] And I don't even know how in use the Dominion machines were back then. So anyway, that'll play out in the fullness of time.

But it's interesting because Trump has retweeted it. Obviously, I give it it. It's taking up some of his mind share that Maduro has been involved in trying to manipulate US politics presumably for a very long time. Trump obviously has beef with the 2020 election. Uh, and so it felt like a big finger pointing to this guy. Basically, if you're going to mess with me, and I think that is the right way to read Trump. This is not an America thing in this particular instance. If you're going to mess with me, I'm 100% going to put the full might of the US military behind me, and I'm not afraid to flex.

It's interesting. So, okay. Period. That's that. Now, new idea. One of the things about Trump that I find so interesting is that he really is a strong man. He is not somebody who is posturing as like a guy that bluffs. This is part of what makes him erratic, part of what makes him dangerous, part of what makes him a problem. It's also part of how you get everybody else in the world to calm down. when you have somebody that is willing to create chaos, is willing to throw 100% tariff here, 200% tariff there, um send all of our most devastating military equipment into the Caribbean, um and if it ends up being over a voting machine, I mean, it will just all be wild.

This is somebody who has just enough he creates just enough uncertainty in the minds of the people that he's negotiating with. And because he has the US economy behind him, because he has the US military behind him, you have to take that seriously. And in interviewing um Laugher from the Laugher Curve fame, thank you by the way for getting that guest. I loved that interview. He was the best. Yeah, he was. It was a lot of fun and I I was a little surprised how much he and I were arguing.

Uh but it was fun. All in good faith. Wonderful, wonderful exchange. Um, but anyway, while I was researching him, his sense of like part of Trump's strategy is the chaos and in the chaos he creates openings and then he exploits those openings. I don't necessarily need people to believe that Trump is brilliant enough to um create chaos in a known way, but that he is comfortable with chaos and then looking for okay, what openings does this create for me? Uh, it is interesting. I'm not saying that I love it.

I'm not saying I'm clapping for it. I am saying I'm watching with absolute utter fascination as somebody who recognizes the way that he moves is like a CEO, not like a president. Uh, and so I recognize how when you're interfacing with certainly competitive companies and if you're able to create instability, if they're especially if they're trying to copy you, if they're trying to be counter punchers to you and you make it impossible them for them to figure out where you're going next, uh, that's what it feels like he's doing.

So, I'll be very interested to see how this stuff plays out. I mean, some of it is nailbiting because obviously I don't want to see troops deployed. I don't want to see us firing shots. But at the same time, we are in it's not a power vacuum, but we're in a period where the world can sense our weakness and that emboldens people to go on the attack or whatever. I think Putin invading Ukraine is a perfect example of this. Under Biden, we were at our regional weakest.

I don't know that it's the weakest we've ever been, but it was certainly a regional uh peak in weakness. And you saw how different things happened, whether it was what happened in Israel, what happened in the Ukraine. I actually don't think those things would have happened with Trump because he is um aggressive. He is unpredictable. He does [clears throat] have so much might behind him and he's willing to use it. Yeah. It's almost like when a dog like walks into like somebody's backyard unprovoked and everybody's like, "Wait a second." like everybody just has to have that second hesitation like I don't want to just run up to a pit bull and start petting it but is it a nice dog?

Is it dog? Does anybody know this dog? So he just kind of puts people on their toes in that way. Um and it's working in some areas where other countries as soon as he announced a tariff war they called him the next day flew to America signed a deal and then other countries like China are kind of poking at it to see okay well let's see what this dog's going to do before I run up and react before I just jump. But that at least makes you not make any sudden moves at the very minimum.

Yeah, the USChina relation obviously for me remains the thing that everybody needs to focus on. And the only reason this channel is not entirely about US China is it would get boring. But the reality is, dude, that is going to be the most important relationship of the next decade. Like what plays out, whether this goes into an entrenched cold war, whether China itself is in a good position or a weak position. Obviously propaganda will try to get you to believe one or the other depending on which side they're on.

Um but the reality is we are with the full awareness of the historical context. We are living through thusidity's trap. It does not always end in violence but it way more often than not ends in violence. And so China is aware of Thusidity's trap. America is aware of Thusidity's trap. So it's like we have this new age meta awareness of all of this stuff. We're not stuck inside of it in the way that we might have been historically. All of these guys can get, you know, any adviser they want, any amount of AI interaction they want, like they can map out how these things play out so that whatever the solutions end up being have a chance of being at least different than before where we're just sort of stuck in the tractor beam of psychology.

We are stuck in the tractor beam of psychology, make no mistake about it, but we're aware of it. And so that meta awareness I hope will help us avoid some of the typical catastrophe, but watching it, knowing how aware everybody is of it is fascinating to say the least. Yeah. All right. I want to jump into the voting machines part of Venezuela because to your point, everybody knows about the oil, everybody has speculation about China, everybody has speculation about the narco boats. We'll get to those things, but this one is I think is a new a new stream that I haven't necessarily pulled yet.

So, um this is um Trump retweeting on truth social Johnny St. Pete and uh this is the tweet bombshell video. Elon Mus must have might have saved the 2024 election from being stolen. Benny Johnson tells the story of how Mus knew that they would win the election and appears it's because they identified the overseas systems and machines that were going to to perpetrate what we saw in 2020. Now we know why Trump is raging at Venezuela. Apparently, we weren't crazy. Must tracked down the IP addresses of the Dominion office in Serbia and rendered their computer useless before the election.

Years prior in 2020, the chairman of Smartmatics holding company, SGO, was Mark Malik Brown. He resigned in 2020. Guess where his next job was? January 2021, the president of the Open Society Foundation. Yes, Soros's foundation. George Soros being the number one donor to the Democrats and the DNC. His right-hand man was a head of an electronic voting company called Smartmatic. And these Dominion machines may have been running Smartmatic software. According to Emerald Robinson, General Flynn flew out to meet with the Venezuela whistleblowers. Anyone else think it's odd that the Democrats are worried so relentlessly about Venezuela?

Were they and the globalists running operations out of there. So again, early speculation, but Trump retweeted on his true social, so that's why it's kind of gaining steam u on the interwebs. Yeah, I mean this is it. So the Elon involvement obviously is utterly fascinating. Uh if there was essentially cyber warfare going on where he's identified the computers that have supposedly been running this manipulation scheme was actually able to get in there and shut them down. Um that is and it's all a little horrifying. It's horrifying on a lot of levels.

It's horrifying that it was being done obviously horrifying that you have to do this kind of like uh technological scan of the battlefield and you begin to realize oh there are cyber wars that are being fought all day every day. Um and then just insane that Elon Musk again finds himself at the center of this kind of thing. For me, that is somebody who is able to look at the world and see what really matters right now and to build one of the most profound companies in that space and then the power of human intelligence.

The the thing that always drives me crazy when people go on an anti- Musk tirade about what does he actually do? Like he's just taking credit for other people's stuff. just like, do you know how hard it is to attract human capital? Like to convince people to come work for you? There has never been in human history somebody in the business world that has been able to attract the level of human talent that he's been able to attract across industries. Like people want to work for this guy.

There is something utterly fascinating about someone who is from a work ethic standpoint is just maniacal. I mean, completely unhinged, working around the clock, sleeping on his desk. Th this is at times the richest man in the world, sleeping on the floor of a production facility, sleeping on his desk at work, like routinely having 11 p.m. meetings, like 1:00 a.m. meetings. So, uh, there was a great story from somebody that used to work for him, quit, totally burned out, goes and works somewhere else for whatever 2 months, 3 months, and then comes back and people were like, "What are you doing coming back?

Like, you were so burned out. you hated it here. And he goes, I would rather burn out under Musk than be bored. Wow. And I'm just like in in all of the sort of anti- uh male aggression bias that we just went through over the last 10 or 15 years, what got lost is there is a certain type of guy, they they want to work, man. like they want a load upon their back to try to break them and they just refuse to be broken by it and they want more and more and more so that they can prove to themselves and to others that they can really do something.

He aggregates those people and he aggregates people with that mentality that are also hyper intelligent. And seeing him take that sort of magnifying glass of intelligence and be like, "Oh, we need to point this at destroying servers in Serbia. Say less, fam." And then he just goes and does it. Now, look, this is early. We don't know if this is actually what happened, [clears throat] but the fact again that Trump retweeted it tells me that there's enough validity here to be interesting. Yeah. U Okay. So, now let's let's take a step back.

Voting machines aside, let's just kind of see where we're at right now. Um there's been some speculation in the Senate right now of trying to actually get a powers uh resolution in Cong in Congress to vote because they think that the boat narco strikes have been um unconstitutional because you have to go through Congress to go to war. Um there have been 21 strikes so far that have killed at least 83 people in these drug boats going back and forth from uh Venezuela. um as it states um Pete Hegth has um come under scrutiny lately because of the double strike um that has happened recently.

So there was a video that allegedly one of the narco boats was striked uh they blew up the boat, but then there were some survivors in the water and they sent another bomb to just kind of wipe it out completely. Yeah. This is him uh talking about that during the cabinet meeting uh yesterday. that again or do you end the problem directly by taking a lethal kinetic approach and that's the way President Trump has authorized the War Department to look at these cartels and I wish everybody could be in the room watching our professionals our professionals like Mitch Bradley Admiral Mitch Bradley and others at Jacock and SOCOM and other commanders the deliberative process the detail the rigorous the intel the legal the evidence-based way that we're able to with sources and methods that we can't reveal here that make sure that every one of those drug boats is tied to a designated terrorist organization.

We know who's on it, what they're doing, what what they're carrying. All these white bales are not Christmas gifts from Santa. Uh this is drugs running on four motor fast boats or submarines that we've also struck. No one's fishing on a submarine. Uh and I have empowered them to make that call. Now, the first couple of strikes as you would as any leader would want, you want to own that responsibility. So I said, I'm going to be the one to make the call after getting all the information and make sure it's the right strike.

That was September 2nd. There's a lot of intelligence that goes into that building that case and understanding that a lot of people providing information. I watched that first strike live. Uh, as you can imagine at the Department of War, we got a lot of things to do. So I didn't stick around for the hour and two hours, whatever, where all the sensitive site exploitation digitally occurs. So I moved on to my next meeting. Couple of hours later, I learned that that commander had made the which he had the complete authority to do.

And by the way, Admiral Bradley made the correct decision to ultimately sink the boat and eliminate the threat. He sunk the boat. So that's the one where he had to he had the authority to do that. And then last one, then I'll take it up to you is uh Maduro has responded saying, "I say clearly to the world, the United States is planning to plunder Venezuelan oil. they want to see is the largest oil reserve in the world as if Venezuela were a land without people.

That will not happen. Not why I'm leading this nation. So, there's all these kind of different narratives that are happening kind of surrounding Venezuela. Um, I know when it comes to immigration, sometimes you got to be fast and, you know, make uh you got to be fast and swift and kind of come back later and apologize. For those you got to cut quick and then maybe come back and rehire people. when it comes to international relationships, are do you think we're approaching this Venezuela situation with all that swirling kind of up in the ether?

Okay. Well, so you've put two things on the table. One, you've got the boat strikes. Yeah. Uh and then two, you've got Maduro. Now, I have a mental map of Maduro as a narco kingpin essentially. So, because of that mental map, I look at this kind of statement and laugh. It's like he's just trying to save face. Not just save face. All of these politicians are absolute masters at the game of propaganda. And what they understand is if I can give you a frame of reference, I can control what you look at and what you see.

And uh god, one of the great missions of my life, I'm not even sure how to say this out loud, but I have realized how my own life, the quality of it has changed entirely by manipulating my own frame of reference. So my own ability to change the lens through which I view the world changes everything about the internal quality of my life. When I see other people struggle, my whole thing is trying to get them to change the internal um frame of reference they have built for themselves because simply changing the lens through which you view the world, nothing changed in the outside world, but the lens through which you view the world changes and everything about it changes.

Maduro is trying to do that, but I would say it's to negative effect. So he's trying to reach inside of people's minds. Putin is doing the same thing. Trump is doing the same thing. Politicians want to control your frame of reference. And so from the near infinite number of options that there are in terms of how to parse the world, they try to boom instantly narrow you down to one choice in their ideal world or certainly a small handful of choices. Mh. And once they can trap you inside of a frame of reference, they've got you.

So he's trying to get everybody to see him. Oh, I'm a leader who's just standing up for my people. like this is wild. And so when I see that, I'm like, "Oh my god, I know that that's going to sway a distressingly large number of people who will see that line and be like, "Yeah, of course." Well, any good leader, that's exactly what they would say. Now, if in reality, this ends up being a uh narco kingpin who has plundered his own nation, is controlling his people so that he can sell drugs around the world because drugs are an extraordinary cash business.

I mean extraordinary man. You can make so much money. Like when you hear how many billions of dollars Pablo Picasso was burying like just like out in his [ __ ] backyard in all these different houses just it it's insanity. So it it is an extraordinary business that generates a ton of literal cash so that you can be outside of most of the Swift systems and all that like you've just got literal cash. And so when I start putting that guy in that box and I'm like, whoa.

Like if this is manipulating American elections, if this is him holding an entire nation hostage, if this is him ponying up against our biggest enemies in the world with the promise of uh oil, and for people that don't know, Venezuela has like really dirty oil. And so it is believed that they have the largest oil reserves in the world. But because it's so dirty, until recently there was only one place that could refine that oil, and that was in Texas. Then China comes in and builds a refinery that can match what Texas is doing.

So you've got the two biggest nations in the world fighting in the American hemisphere over the largest deposit of oil. But it needs like this special filtering and both the US and China offer the only ability to do that. And potentially you have this very corrupt guy at the center of this all asking you to believe that he's just a good guy fighting for his people. And so all of that is like this is the political game is a game of controlling what people see. And that part of it really bothers me.

Like it really bothers me. because it works because you get internal fighting because we're in a populist moment where it just gives people another angle through which to tribe up and fight against each other. So that's what I look at when I see Maduro. Now, the boat strike is this one is going to ask America a values question in terms of what we're willing to put up with to get our way. And right now, Trump is saying, "No, you I'm going to bully these guys around.

They are going to in no uncertain terms understand that I will stop with violence anybody trying to send drugs into this country. Now, do I think drugs is both real and a cover story? Yes. So, I think people really are sending drugs. I think it really does bother a lot of the people that vote for Donald Trump. Trump is going to pay attention to anything that enough of his voters care about and so he's going to take that seriously. But I also think it's the thing that he can talk about to get people on his side when in reality it's far more complicated and it has to do with voting machines and it has to do with oil and it has to do with China.

Um so that one I think is going to make people a lot more squeamish. And so this double strike to me is utterly fascinating. And this is where I think that people are going to really struggle with the way that my mind works because I'm like, wait, you were perfectly fine if they had all been killed with the first strike. Or maybe you weren't fine with it, but you don't feel like you have the thing to like get people mad, but because one of the people didn't quite die and so they hit him with another one, you've got beef with that.

Like to me either you don't want to see these people drone struck or they should be able to drone strike them 57 times and it doesn't make any difference. I cannot mentally map like I look at somebody that has a problem with the second one. I'm like wait what? So that I don't understand. Now if somebody's just like we shouldn't be drone striking them. Yep. Cool. That makes all the sense in the world. I totally understand how a reasonable person comes to that conclusion. I do not understand even if it is international law.

I do not understand how somebody comes to the conclusion that you drone stroke them once, you missed one of the guys, so you hit that guy again, and people are like, "Wait, what?" Like, this is so immoral. What? So, that one I I literally can't track. So, all of the the uproar over that is confusing to me. Yeah, there is a level of it's a double tap. They are rendered defenseless. It's fault. But at the same time, you're right. like the first bomb you're rendered defenseless cuz I'm dropping a bomb from 40,000 feet above you.

You can't defend that. Um and Obama was drone strike Poppy. So he did wipe out so many people. And so I I do understand that the logic necessarily isn't ne isn't lining up. There is something to it though because I believe this mean it's morally gross or what's the something? The something is that uh Rand Paul uh wrote a letter to the Coast Guard condemning the drone strikes and then the Coast Guard came back and said that over three4s of the boat that they have stopped have contained drugs.

And while 3/4s is a great number and that is a C at a local university and that could pass you and get you to the next grade. I don't know if that's necessarily the ratio we want to use about killing people. And I think that's where the moral kind of ambiguity comes from because at least we can hide hide under the guise of Obama droned a bunch of people, but they were all terrorists. And I'm putting air quotes in the I'm putting air quotes intentionally because as soon as you label somebody a terrorist, your rights are taken.

Do priceless is going away. Now I can bomb you. I can arrest you. You don't have to talk to anybody. You don't get a phone call. I can do whatever I want. You now become some black speck that I can remove from this earth. And I think that slippery slope is where we're kind of playing in now. And some people don't under haven't come to that realization. It's interesting. Okay, so I uh have a different view on this. Break it down for me. For all of human history, all people have done is murder.

Humans are hardwired to recognize the most efficient path to a goal. We are very good at understanding, okay, I'm trying to get that thing and what do I need to do to get it up into um being able to go to the moon. We're going to build a base on the moon. We're going to make it to Mars. We're going to build a base on the Mars. And we're very good at finding that efficient path. What what animals earn learn at the like earliest stage of evolution is oh you're housing my calories.

I can dismember your body and consume your calories and now I get to live. And so we're put in this like evolutionary um struggle for you have amassed a bunch of calories that I would like. So that's how we're wired is I'm going to disassemble your um molecular structure and make it a part of my body. So we learn killing is a super efficient path. So we're living in this modern like bizarre state where we finally have gotten to the point which by the way I love and I think is good.

I want to be in a world where we're not doing any killing. Yay. That's where we want to get to. But the fact that people are confused that we would go and take the most efficient path, which is uh hey, you're sending a bunch of stuff into my country. We've been fighting the war on drugs since the 80s. It has absolutely not worked. If anything, it's only grown. And so now we're just going to start killing people and people are clutching pearls and like they're up in arms.

And for my money, I'm just like, yes, what they have found now is the most efficient path. And so they are saying, uh, yep, we're going to kill anybody. If you're in these waters, you're dead. And now it's just abundantly clear. So from the perspective of why is this happening? I'm shocked that we have gone through the period that we've gone through where we go so far out of our way to be magnanimous that we don't do this. That's the anomaly that has to be explained, not the fact that we're killing.

Are you saying from a historical as humans? I'm saying from what what are humans? How do we think through the world? What is actually effective? I talked about this many, many episodes ago where I said, here's the distressing thing about murder. It's really [ __ ] efficient. Like, it works. If you've got a political opponent, you want to shut them up, Charlie Kirk, whatever, kill them. It works. It works so well. Uh, I hope all of us hate that it works. But what I want people to understand is once you get this is our default state.

Cool. So now you don't like that we have returned to this default state. Fantastic. You and I agree. I hate that we're here. But if we want to get back to not being here, we have to say what was so special about the end of World War II until now and how do we replicate it? Because it isn't that we're evolving into something bad. it is that we created a bubble of prosperity and kindness at least to the people in the west because this certainly was not globally true but we created this bubble of prosperity for people in the west and for the last 30 or 40 years we have been actively dismantling it and what I'm saying is yeah it kind of sucks what we're getting back to doesn't it so we should [ __ ] figure out what was this bubble of prosperity that we built how do we reconstruct it because if we fail to do that we are really in trouble.

And the thing that we have to come to grips with is one of the tools that we used was we found who is the cheap labor around the world and we're just going to export a bunch of stuff, jobs to be very specific to them, get them to strip mine their country so we don't have to strip mine ours. And that worked for a while and all of a sudden we're now having to deal with the ramifications of that. And one of the ramifications of this kind of policy where it's like, okay, we're focused on our prosperity is corruption just went crazy in all these countries that we went into to um try to make sure that we were getting everything our way right every time.

Like go look at Somalia. Uh Somalia is totally [ __ ] Why? Oh, look at that. Crazy. We were involved in Somalia in like the 80s and 90s. It's like what a shock. And they break into tribalism and all that. So, it's like all of these policies have consequences, but at the same time, the West suffered so traumatically in World War II that we all went, "Okay, we just dropped some nuclear bombs. We've killed a whole lot of people. We're all fatigued. We don't want to keep doing this.

Uh, so let's just agree. We don't invade other countries." And everybody's like, "Yeah, cool. We don't invade other countries." Mhm. And it created the globalism that ended up being extremely prosperous, absolutely incredible. Also gutted our manufacturing capabilities, also made it very um it put us in a really weakened position from a um negotiating perspective. So the average workers wages have stalled, right? So you've got you create momentary prosperity, but you do it in a way that paristatizes that's close the rest of the world and also slowly but surely weakens you and then puts you back in the position where you not back it allows you to march down the road that every empire before you has ever marched down where you start deficit spending, money printing, racking up debt, becoming weak, and then you eventually fall.

And so we're on this um very predictable trajectory. People are focusing on an outcome which is we're becoming more barbaric again. But they're not asking themselves, wait, is barbarism our default state? The answer would be yes. And then if that's our default state, but we went through this incredible period, how do we replicate that? Nobody's having that conversation. Nobody. And that sounds to me like we need to focus less on the tactics that we're using and more so on the outcome that we want always and forever know your northstar and then come to keep that going we should be focused on how we can revitalize the economic engine in this country versus trying to police I don't know if I'm get making the final conclusion not only revitalize the economic engine in your own country you have to revitalize the economic engine in every country that you hand.

Mhm. And the cheap labor that we're going to be getting in the future is going to be robotics. And so weaning people off the mentality that we need to be exploitative to every other country. And this is so there's a very repeated expansion and contraction. So you go globalist and then you recontract. You go globalist and then you recontract. And the reason is that globalism has this slow effect of weakening one state versus the other because humans are competitive. And so when you uh let China into the WTO, China's thinking we want to become the biggest and the best.

And the funny thing is, yeah, you should. America should want to be the best. England should want to be the best. China should want to be the best. Venezuela should want to be the best. Like everybody should be trying to be the best. And when you go into globalism as if you're not like empowering people who will compete with you, it's you're blinding yourself to the reality of human nature. And so we should have done it in a far more um precise, delicate, protected way where you go, okay, there's certain things that we always need to manufacture here in America.

like the whole idea of competitive advantage. If somebody says that to you, um I will forgive you if in your mind you're fantasizing about headbutting them and just watching their the bridge of their nose shatter and blood fly everywhere because that is a [ __ ] who does not understand human nature. They understand competitive advantage and it is great at driving cost down but if you don't control your own supply chains, you have just given leverage to somebody else. So this is why having a CEO in office is interesting because when you're running a business, you're constantly aware of where is my leverage, where do I lack leverage.

So anyway, in a globalist moment, you're basically hemorrhaging all of your leverage for prosperity. That will come back to haunt you. You will then become protectionist. That will come back to haunt you. And so you just you're like on this accordion. Uh but the the point that I'm really trying to drive home is you're having a biological experience. Humans are a certain way. Uh we are barbaric by nature. We though are capable of extraordinary cooperation uh love all of that. And ultimately we through policy are going to be in one zone or the other and we have to figure out what zone we want to be in.

Now, in the moment that we find ourselves, does Trump need to flash the barbarism so that we can get back to something more stable? Maybe. But that's a whole another fractal. Yeah. But I mean, that reminds me of his tariff exercise like I need to shock the world economically to get better deals so that way I then can become cooperative again. Yes. That's probably best read as I have to create chaos. I have to let people know that I'm dangerous. Um, so take uh poker. If you always bluff, then people know.

If you never bluff, then it's pointless. You have to sometimes bluff and sometimes actually have the real cards. And when you are very deaf at both, then it works. And so, for instance, in poker, part of the way that you'll draw somebody in to get a bigger pot is you will do the things that make other people think that you're bluffing, but you really have the good cards. And if no one ever thinks you bluff and you start playing really aggressively, then they're going to back off because they're like, "Yeah, this person doesn't bluff." Or if you're just a terrible poker player and you start, you know, doing big stuff, people just go, "He doesn't know what he's doing." And so, I'm, you know, watching the odds.

Odds are that he has nothing. And so they'll um smash you that way cuz they know they can draw you in and get to the point where you've got nothing left to do. Like you've got to show your cards and that's game over. So Trump wants to be just erratic enough that people are like, "Oh, he'll actually do it." Like he's even if he wants this to be a bluff, he'll see it all the way through when he realizes that I'm not backing down. So it might actually be in my best interest to back down.

This is exactly what happened with China. So Trump is being unhinged. China's like this is really stupid of him. I this is a very costic weapon that he's wielding in terms of the tariffs it's going to hurt him as much as it's going to hurt us. But they pushed him all the way and so he did it and then it's like oh okay well yeah this is bad for both of us. And so then you get to not a final compromise by any means because China is not somebody you trifle with.

Um but yes, Trump needs people to know even when it isn't in my short-term interest, I will do it. Yeah. Um I want to go back to what you said earlier about um once we kind of after World War II, we all agreed that hey, we're not going to invade other countries. I feel like going to Russia now, they had a different takeaway from that. Um Russia No, they didn't. So here's um I don't know if you want to show this first, but to set this up, Russia didn't have a different takeaway.

Nobody has a different takeaway. Every country right now wants to be the king. Um there's a great show out called Death by Lightning. I know I've talked about it before, but it's about the assassination of President Garfield, and it's very interesting how he comes to power. He goes to the delegation, the uh I guess it was the Republican National Convention, and they're going to decide who's going to be the nominee for president. and he's there specifically to speak on behalf of somebody else who's running for president.

And so he gets up and he gives this incredible speech and people switch and they start voting for him. So he's there trying to speak for somebody else but his speech is so good the people like forget all these other guys we actually want him. And there's one of the guys on the uh Republican committee comes up to him and is like okay this is how we're going to get you to win. And he's like, "Wait, hold on. You haven't even asked me if I want this." And he goes, "Everybody wants this." And it's like, "That's the right way to think about Estonia.

They're going to tell you, no, no, no. We're good. Estonia, if they felt like they could, all of a sudden, they would want to lead the world." Uh, Russia. Yeah, we're I'm quiet for now because we're in a weakened position. But the second I see that the chessboard is different, I'm going to go for it. And look, personalities definitely differ and so not every country is going to act in exactly the same way. But um I have two Pomeranians and one of them when she senses weakness in the other, she'll attack her.

It's so wild. So, uh, one of our Pomeranians, the sweeter of the two, she does what people call a reverse cough where she's like snorting, snorting, snorting. When she starts doing that, my other dog will go bite her. It's crazy. And so I'm like, wait, your sister is like having, you know, a hard time and you attack her. So that's Putin when if you're in a stable posture, Europe, things are going well, Ukraine. If you're strong, if America is telling me that I better calm down, yeah, no, no worries.

All is well. The second I'm like, "Oh, there's nobody that can stop me. I'm now going to push forward with what I want." And if you assume every nation will expand until it runs into sufficient external force to stop them or internal pressure to stop them because you've violated their value system. um you will understand the world and if you don't know that about the world, you're going to be routinely confused. So, Mexico super weak position during the um is it the 1800s? I forget what year this happened exactly.

Mid 1800s, I believe, maybe a little earlier. Uh and we had Pulk, President Pulk, who said, "I'm only going to run for one term and I'm going to unite this land mass." and he did it and he went in and was like, "Yep, Mexico won't be able to stop us." And so even at the time, people were mortified that he was doing it, but he was like, "I can." Yeah. And so now from sea to shining sea, baby, this is America. Um so yeah, uh if Canada was like, "Yeah, we'd like to be the 51st state," they would have become the 51st state.

So that that is the right way to map the world. And that's part of the tragedy. Yeah. Um, I definitely want to ceue up this clip now from uh President Putin who says Europe is the reason they're sabotaging the peace deal. Um, he speaks obviously in Russian, so I'm going to give you guys my my patented translations. Um, this was in Moscow yesterday. They are on the side of war. Speaking about Europe, uh, even when they try to supposedly introduce some changes to Trump's proposal, we see clearly what they are doing.

All these changes are aimed at one thing. to completely block the entire peace process by putting forward demands. They are absolutely unacceptable for Russia. They understand this. By doing so, they then intend to blame Russia for the collapse of this peace process. This that is their goal. We see this clearly. We're not going to have a war with Europe. I've said but if Europe suddenly wants to wage a war with us and starts it we are ready right away there can be no doubt about that with Ukraine we are acting in a surgical very precise manner this is not a war in the direct modern sense of the word isn't it no if Europe suddenly decides to wage a war with us and starts it a situation may quickly arise in which there will be no one left for us to negotiate with spicy talk I very spicy.

That's not getting enough attention, but it it's it's direct. Um I listen I watch Professor uh Jen's uh YouTube page, Predictive History. It's like this Chinese dude um in Canada. He teaches a class and he kind of talks about history and how the changes throughout the uh empires. Something he said was war nowadays is soft because war back in the day to your point was way more barbaric. We're lining up. We're we're killing everybody. Women and children are enslaved. We're taking captives, war prisoners, things like that.

With drones and this precision strikes now, it's like, "Okay, I'm attacking your electrical facility." So that way it messes up your transportation. Like they're doing these tactical things and it's less of the collateral damage. So I think to his point of we're being more precise. Russia is not just kind of going through the front lines marching through like Napoleon or Hitler and those types of things. It's a bit more nuanced with where they're striking at the pace in which they're striking. Yeah, it's very true. I mean, if you go back far enough, you start getting into some of the wars of Genghaskhan.

It It's unreal, man. Uh, knock. Hey guys, we're here at the city walls. Come out or we slaughter everyone. And I do mean everyone. Uh, no. [ __ ] you. Cool. Slaughter dead. And they would kill like 60,000 people in Dude, it's so wild. There was one battle. It was a Roman battle. I for it. It was against Hannibal maybe. And Hannibal was just like, "Cool. 60,000 dead in an afternoon, dude. with swords. You're hacking 60,000 people to death in an afternoon. So, I just I've often thought about that.

Do you know how tired your arms have been? Like, I got to kill another one of the [ __ ] hell, dude. There there have been times where I'll be sorting my TCG cards and my like shoulder will start to burn and I'm like, wait, I have to hack what's my portion of 60,000 people? Like, Jesus. So, uh yeah. So there's no doubt that in some ways uh this is better than that. However, we are losing thousands of people every week, week after week after week after week.

So the sum total, it may not happen in such a short period of time, but we just have a lot more people on planet Earth to kill at this point. And so it it's still horrific. Okay. The part here to your point that everybody should be paying attention to and they're not is we are now in a period where you've got war, I don't care what he says, war between Russia and Ukraine. We've got yet another round of wild instability between Israel and Palestine. Mhm. Uh you've got the US deploying basically everything they have into the Caribbean uh in a showdown with um Venezuela.

You've got China doing military exercises off the coast of technically Taiwan, but Japan knows what's up. And so Japan and China are now like really staring at each other, side eyeing each other. If China invades Taiwan, the US and China now will have a decision to make. Uh, and now Putin is like, "Oh, Europe want a peace. Let's go." Now, that I will tell you is a bluff because he's stalled out in Ukraine. So, the reason he's like, "Oh, we're being surgical." Is like he's trying to signal, "Don't think that we can't peel off some of this and come after you guys wholesale.

No problem. M we're being surgical very limited here. Uh so there there is a level of instability and the question people need to ask is why now and what I'm putting forward is why now because America became weak and the rest of the world was like cool this is our shot and then I will refer everybody back to what I just said 10 minutes ago that countries will expand until they meet sufficient force and so that's precisely what you're seeing in Russia, Europe, NATO was trying to expand into Russia.

which is a big part of what kicked this off in the first place. Uh China is um certainly trying to do it through a hearts and minds strategy, but China's been trying to go the entire globe over and get everybody on board with what they're doing, get everybody on board probably with a goldbacked yuan. So it's like everybody's making moves to be in the best position because it has such real consequences. This is the part that I think people lose sight of. Why the Ukraine? Why does the Ukraine find itself in this battle all the time?

Uh, and the answer is it is very fertile land. And so when you read some of the things that Hitler was saying, he was like, "Oh, bro, the Ukraine is going to be our American West and we're going to roll into Russia." Precisely so that Germans can expand and they can like the Americans have been just pushing farther and farther west into all this virgin territory and claiming it and all of its resources for themselves and just having the sense of freedom and space. That's what we're going to give to the German people.

So why Putin? The same reason. So it's like you have this extremely fertile land that also lets Russians expand. And so when you can deliver prosperity to your people, you will be welcomed as a hero. Now if you create that prosperity through international deals like Trump is trying to do, okay, that's one way or the age-old just take over their territory. And so now you can one option one kill a bunch of them and just take their stuff. Uh, and so one of the most horrifying things in World War II was like, "Oh, we're in Paris.

You're Jewish. Word. Sorry. Taking all of your [ __ ] like legally." So, uh, you're a Jew that owns a company. Not anymore. Uh, so we'll take that company. Thank you very much. Uh, great series about um, Dior. And so Dior's the design house is born out of World War II. his sister ends up getting put in a concentration camp. So, he's like in the thick of it. Um just in Paris as the Nazis are coming, makes the decision that he's not going to help the Nazis, which obviously is bad for business.

And so, just absolutely fascinating story. And uh Koko Chanel does and gets very embedded with the Nazis and then how at first that's very good for her and then it all circles back around on her. But you just see how companies and houses and property were taken away and it's like that's a lot of wealth if you can confiscate it. So, um that's playbook number one. Playbook number two is you come in and hey, like we're just glad to welcome you into the Russian Federation. Welcome.

We love you guys all. Uh but you are going to do things our way now. We are going to be having you ship a lot of that wheat or whatever into mainland Russia. Um, so we're we're witnessing a rebirth of the world's oldest story. Knock knock. Give me all your [ __ ] Um, yeah. Facto on that. Um, this is also on the news that uh Ukrainian MP, which is like the deputy district of of Ukraine, um, Artum Demitra has just dropped a political bombshell on his Telegram channel.

Um, if you can throw this up. Uh he's saying that Zalinsky has been ordered to leave the presidency within days. He says Zalinsky may refuse to uh comply. He's expected to stall for time and invent excuses. If he resists, he may be forced out in handcuffs. Now, this was kind of almost I guess the equivalent of like a uh like the impeachment vote that we have kind of on the US where the body has said we might need new ownership, we might need new leadership, but it's not necessarily he needs to get rolled out of the White House.

that it's not anything lasting. Um, so there's still conflicting reports on whether Zinsi is actually going to do this or not. We haven't actually got a confirmed source for this just yet. Um, is this the right time though to have turnover in the middle of a war with peace talks finally seeming like they're coming close to ending and then Putin kind of going on the offensive. Is this the time now to kind of change regimes? How do you feel about that? It's a rroll and there's always high risk in that because if you got somebody better that was a military genius that is uh has more respect of the men that are fighting for him, yeah, you'd be in a much better position.

But if it just creates instability, a power vacuum, and somebody comes in that doesn't know what's going on, has to be brought up to speed, may may not have learned all of the lessons that he's already learned through being through all this, doesn't have the diplomatic ties, etc., etc., uh, it could be an absolute catastrophe. And so this is why typically countries will have some sort of pause of like, hey, let's let's not do that. This person was elected for a reason. Uh, they happen to be the one that is in the middle of this.

Let this play out. and then when this is all said and done, then we can deal with it. And that probably is the right move that you're just better off whatever weaknesses they have, you're better off holding steady. But politics is a vicious game. And if there are people that want you out, uh they're going to do whatever they need to do to get you out. We see that playing out in US politics as readily as we see it playing out anywhere else. So yeah, I mean, this is one of the reasons why I'm like, I don't understand why people want to go into politics.

Everyone is your enemy. There there is only like short-term alliances when you both want the same thing. But the second you don't both want the same thing, dude, people will turn on you instantaneously. And that like that is not a good feeling. I don't like that. I would hate that. Yeah. I feel like that is a signal to Putin like as soon as you have elections, if elections are over at 7:00, I'm sending a bomb at 7:02. Like I feel like matter of fact, I'm sending a bomb at 5:55.

So that way it messes up the election process and now everybody's confused and they don't know who like I feel like that just invites chaos and more of course like this is that one this is why if they can kill the leader they most certainly will um this is why when Israel is going after people they're not targeting low-level grunts they're targeting like oh this is the head of uh Hamas this is the head of Hezbollah it's like then ah we've at least got a shot that you get a bad role that that leader was great man of history kind of guy and now that he's gone, like you're just in a worse off position.

And this is why one of the stories that they tell so often is um I forget the guy's name that was one of the major architects behind October 7th. They had treated him I think for cancer in he was in prison in Israel and they saved his life and then ultimately sent him back and then he ended up um like being one of the brains behind the operation. And so they're like, "Huh?" like was that the right play? It was certainly the right thing to do from a humanitarian standpoint in that moment.

But if there really are some people that are just better at doing this thing, better at rallying people behind them, better at strategy planning, etc., then going back to my initial thing that killing people is very efficient. Um, should we have done that? It's one of those hindsight's 2020. So, you're caught where it's like, yeah, I want to be a good person. I want to do the right thing. Uh but there are potential consequences to this because there's a story I'm pretty sure this is a real story and it's not apocryphal that um Hitler came stumbling upon uh a soldier on the Allied side.

I think he was American, maybe British. Anyway, uh they come face to face and Hitler's basically like I've already been wounded. Like come on, let's just chill. And so the guy does doesn't shoot him and lets him walk away. And it's like was it the right thing in the moment? feels right, but he ends up being Hitler. So, it's like, ah, that's tough. Yeah. And I think that's a little bit ironic because now you have all these, if I was, would you take a time travel machine to go kill murder baby Hitler?

Yeah. That person needed to murder grown up Hitler. So, yeah. Yeah. There's some shocking number of soldiers, and I mean shocking. It's something like 70% of soldiers when faced with the enemy won't pull the trigger. That's crazy to me. But yeah, supposedly true. Oh, interesting. Um, all right, let's jump back over to Trump in America. Um, now that we did international, these are the people that aren't coming into the country anymore. Um, Trump is planning an a pause on asylum and immigration full stop from these certain countries after the attack on the capital to the US.

I think a long time. Can you can you give any We don't want those people. We have enough problems. We don't want those people. Is there a list of Well, I guess we gave you 19, right? And it's probably more than that. They And then this is the list of the 19 countries. We have Cuba, Haiti, Sierra Leon, Venezuela, Republic of the Congo, Equaltorial Gina. Uh, huh? Equatorial Guinea. Shout out to G for that. Uh, Togo, Chad, Libya, Iran, Turkistan, Afghanistan, Laos, Aritria, Yemen, Somalia, Sudan, Bundi, and Burma.

Um, I feel like this is the same thing he did in uh 2016, but it was the Muslim ban then. Now I would say immigration pause here. So I feel like this is not something mind-blowing. We've seen this playbook before, but yeah, I'm I'm not sure. Uh to me this is extremely logical that you have to be extraordinarily careful with your immigration policy. Full stop, period, end of story through all time. Um, this is exactly how you weaken your own nation from within is you bring people that do not assimilate.

We for sure want to collect the best and brightest people from around the world, but you want them to be the best and the brightest. You don't want them to be just come one come all. Um the come one come all strategy can work if you're America in like uh obviously this is before we were a country but like in the 1600s where it was like ah you're probably going to die but if you make it we know that you are good uh that works or in the early days when the government was like 3% of GDP when we didn't have entitlements certainly not anything like what we have now and so it was like well you're not going to be sucking on the te because there's no te to suck on.

So, you're going to figure out a way to contribute um or you're most likely just going to go back to your country. And we don't do that anymore. Now, it's like we've got gigantor teeth for people to suckle upon and we seem to call to people like with breast already hanging out like you know, please we welcome you. Uh so yeah, it's like the Statue of Liberty has changed to that dress down, breast out, like light in the sky. And that attracts a very different kind of person.

And when when somebody wants a shot, when they're like, I can make it anywhere. I know I can do this. I just like, put me in, coach. Let me give this a try. And there's no one there to catch you if you fall. Then it's like, cool. The people that end up making it are really going to be the best and the brightest. Um but once it's a welfare state and you invite the world, then you you are incentivizing people to not work. Yeah. And that ends up being a drain in the economy.

And so there's the great line from Charlie Munger who said, "Show me the incentive and I'll show you the outcome." So if the incentive is that come here and you get free money and a stable country and currently you're in an unstable country and not getting anything free, like why wouldn't you? So in fact it's it would make you economically irrational to stay in your own country if your country is struggling. If you're not living a good life there, if the streets are dangerous, it is it is irrational of you not to come into the stable country with a welfare state that is inviting you in.

And unfortunately, Europe is learning the lesson way too slowly. Thankfully, we are learning the lesson much faster by watching Europe partly. And then we just have a slightly different mentality in America. Um, so yeah, we're putting a pause. Now, again, you and I have talked about this ad nauseium. People read this as a uh statement of racism. That is the wrong way to look at this. Uh, but it is very much a question of values. So, we'll It's a smart move. Yeah. I'm I'm glad you brought up the values thing because I think there's something that's missing in all this is that the capital uh murder was a tragedy.

It was terrible. The person responsible for it um is definitely 100% is making a state on this policy. So, this is not a policy coming out of Trump's ass. He has a reason to kind of pull this out, too. So, I I understand where it's coming from. That person was an Afghan uh refugee. That person coming through the Afghan migrant program was in America since 2021. There was even on Fox News coverage that said that he was then radicalized while within the country. So while I completely understand that opening up the borders to some people from these other countries, we're importing people that we don't necessarily have the right values, but we do also have to talk about that there is radicalization happening within our borders.

There are some people that I would even argue some Americans that are less American than some of these immigrants that have came over and assimilated and things like that. So, it's like while yes, I can understand closing the borders can help solve that problem, I do think that there's still the bigger problem that may have directly led to this attack that is going unressed. 100%. Yeah. So, I I would be very sad if the only reason that we have done this is because uh of that shooting.

Um the reason to do this is it is simply a fact that the way that societies work is humans are able to cooperate in large flexible groups based on some superseding thing that we believe in. So that could be country. So if everybody is like deeply patriotic for the country that becomes the thing that unites us. It could be a clan, it could be a religion, it could be a family, whatever. But that's how we end up cooperating in these large flexible groups. Religion, I think, was the greatest invention in terms of getting humans to cooperate in large flexible groups without needing to know the other person.

And once you realize, oh, oh, I get it. It's just you're making that tent bigger and bigger. And so now it's not, it doesn't even need to be about um the country that you're in. It can supersede that and become really gigantic. And so now it's like okay if we can agree that that's a powerful thing that unites people what we have just agreed upon is values is the thing that holds people together more than anything more than blood more than nation states it is ah I have a way to understand that you and I have a shared value this is one of the reasons that the symbolism is so powerful is I can see you can wear a cross around your neck and instantly I you're Christian I'm Christian it's like now we've got a bond so that kind of thing is really important for us to understand in this moment and I know that it's like one of the memes in our community like people will come in and I see it as Tom said values yet or you know some of the other ideas that I loop on but the reason that I talk about these things endlessly is they govern our behavior and so if if you fail to understand that the thing that unites humans is a value set that can be expressed quickly what is that I'm Christian you're Christian I'm Muslim you're Muslim cool instant boom Like all of this knowledge about who you are, what you believe comes pouring forward whether you're inroup or outgroup.

And so if understanding that is the thing that should prompt this. Now what countries do you put on it? This is where we are going to culturally have a really hard time. We have to decide are some groups more and or less likely to assimilate to American values. If no, everybody is going to be equally the same. Okay, then it's we're going to have a hard time because who do you say yes to? Who do you say no to? You need some sort of criteria. This is one of the reasons that when I'm teaching entrepreneurs, the fastest thing I tell them is you have to have a northstar in your company.

You have to have a culture in your company because it tells you the northstar of what you're trying to achieve. Tells you how to prioritize things, what to say no to. And then your culture says who you're going to hire and who you're going to say no to. So you have to understand like what's a yes and what's a no. And if we can agree that there are certain cultures that are less likely to um adopt American values, then that becomes a thing. Cool. This is a values question.

These are countries that are less likely to um have people that assimilate and that's how we say no. But because that's largely right now framed as a Muslim question, it gets sticky because it feels racist. And so that's where it's going to get wild. Like we have a video to show where it is literally racism as um campaign message. It's wild. So there Yeah, this is going to make a lot of people very very squeamish. Yeah, let's actually jump to that because I think I understand the sentiment behind it and I understand the the need to really take immigration seriously after we see what's going on in Minnesota, after we see what's going on in the UK.

But then you have people who come out like this, this is Valentina Gomez, and I feel like it's perverting the real message of what immigration should be. But let's jump into the uh campaign slogan. Um, we may get flagged for the music, so I'm only going to play like the first like 25 20 seconds or something like that. That's Yeah, that's Texas. I've officially filed to become your next congresswoman. So, the choice is yours. Vote for me so we can kick every dirty Muslim out of Texas.

Save your daughters from getting raped by Muhammad and protect our soldiers from getting murdered in broad daylight. Let Ju just that line right there like dirty Muslims get raged by Muhammad. Like I I I'm like flabbergasted. Like I'm clutching my pearls. Like wait. Understandably so. Like you're not supposed to say like so I I get like you took the R word for me. I wanted to say it you know. But like something like I feel like I have to raise my hand on this. Like it feels this is one to raise your hand on.

So yeah this is um this is the this is how I feel listening to Nick Fuentes by the way where I'm like hey this is a real problem. Immigration is real. the um the clash between Christianity and Islam in certain call it sex of it is very volatile and we are going to have to contend with it and pretending that it doesn't exist is a fool's errand. Shout out to Sam Harris who has spent 20 plus years uh taking a lot of heat for just calling out like hey there's a reason that you get violent extremists coming out of Islam.

So, uh, and again, Sam is also very careful to say particular sex and all of that, but nonetheless is is a very real thing, and if we're not willing to confront it, then we're never going to be able to process through it. But it becomes this, it becomes just blatant, naked racism. And that's where I'm like, oh my god. Like, we are um we're we're going to distract ourselves from the real problem by getting into a debate about, but hold on, this is racism. This is racist.

This this is somebody who is um mocking the name Muhammad that is saying that they're all going to rape your daughter. And so now we're in a position where somebody simply being a Muslim becomes this you're bad, which is isn't true. That would be like in the 1400s you're saying you're Christian, therefore you are bad. It's like yeah, there are plenty over here raping and pillaging. They are bad. Uh they are they are here to take all of your [ __ ] Um, but that doesn't mean that anybody who's a Christian or anybody that has a Christian name is bad.

And so when I hear Nick Fuentes talk, that's exactly what I feel. Like this is somebody who's just embraced like they've been told they can't think about certain things. They can't talk about certain things. And so they just they reject it so aggressively. They want to push back the Overton window so far. like the things that he said when he called um Vance a race trader and he married I don't I don't know how bad the word J is. It sounds pretty bad. Uh so but when he said that I just don't need a clip of me around the internet.

Uh that I was like yo that's when I realized oh [ __ ] like this guy actually is racist. like not yes he's also talking about important issues but oo buddy like we've gone all the way into what I will consider mismapping the problem and so it's like um here's here's how I view this this is how I view uh Nick Fuentes um your daughter's having a slumber party and you go downstairs and they're just making so much noise and you go downstairs and you realize, "Oh my god, they've been drinking.

This is wild." Like um now not all of them have been drinking and um probably only one or two of them brought the alcohol and you're just like, "Nah, kill them all." It's like, "Wait, what?" Like, "Hold on. Should we not parse out like what's actually happening? Like there's they're we got a real problem. The girls are underage. They're drinking. They're drunk. Somebody's clearly a bad influence. like we got to like figure this out and it's going to be very messy. Uh but if you're just like yeah they they're all toast.

That's where I'm like oh god I get it. It's a heristic. It gives people a way to just very fast be like ah you good, you bad. But that is that's giving into the dark side. The dark side is very powerful and so I certainly understand why people lean into it. But we do have to do the hard work of really getting down to what's actually causing the problem. Uh meme or not, it's values. And so now, how do we begin to identify the value system?

How do we turn that into a policy so that this isn't just race-based? Um, yeah. And that we're being far more human about it. Like it it's there's a great line from Nelson Mandela and he said, "The reason that I'm not going to come out of prison and show the white man just how powerful we are by numbers is that it's the oppressor that gives up their humanity. And so I'm not willing to become the oppressor." And I was like, that is the most gangster [ __ ] I've ever heard in my life.

So that's why it's like, oh god. Like if you just become that guy, the blunt force trauma guy that's like, "Nah, I know who you are because you're from that country or because you have this skin color or because you're a part of this religion." It's easy. It's fast. Uh but ultimately, it's bad for the soul. Yeah. And I I think it's interesting to parse all this out because I don't know where the line is. And I'm not talking about racism. Obviously, I know where the line is on there, but it's certain things where it's like we have Trump who during his cabinet meeting was somehow, you know, Somali are terrible.

This is a terrible place. Their country's a [ __ ] hole. All these other things, right? And then somebody takes that and then moves it just a little bit to the right. What is it? The Overton window. And then is like, yeah, like and Islam is bad, too. We need to hate that. We need no Muslims in the country. And then we go a little bit to the right and then Mina Gob says, "Yeah, and Muhammad's going to rap you." just like it's like you start to nod and then you stop nodding like wait a sec wait what like and you catch yourself kind of feeling like you're on the wrong side of the fence.

Um is is this just not I feel like this is not a unique problem. I feel like we've been dealing with this for long enough that we should realize whether it's history is America just soft now. I I don't know how we get through this with both making sure America is going on a prosperous direction making sure that our border shouldn't be wide open. And I think everybody can uh acknowledge that now at this point. But at the same time, not saying brown man bad, white country good.

Like cuz I feel like there's also white terrorists. There's also white like it's not just everybody with brown skin is bad. Not everybody from bad, you know? So it's like that that human malice. Yeah. Uh I'll take it even differently than that. In-group outgroup bias is ubiquitous. Every human has it. Every race, color, creed, doesn't matter. We have an algorithm running in our brain, rightly so, from a historical context that says you survive by recognizing who's friend and whose foe. So, we're always going to have that.

But the way that I think about this is think of it as the different boxes of crayons and you've got everything from like the 468 crayons in a box down to like you get a black crayon. And you've got some people that are just like they've got they're like a woman with a fourth photo receptor. They see colors that we don't. They're choosing between chartreuse and blush rose and you know [ __ ] like that and you're like what the [ __ ] Like those look the same to me.

Uh and so you're probably wasting a lot of time up in the that many crayon boxes. Just too much confusion. The average person's dealing with the 64 crayons. And so it's like let's just we need to get to the 64 crayons but we don't want to simplify so much that we're down and you've only got one color. And so you're just like good, bad, good, bad, good, bad. Um so I really think this unfortunately boils down to intellect. So um in intelligence and bandwidth is probably the the 64 crayon box way to think about this.

So what do I mean by that? What I mean is that take the average person in terms of intelligence. Half of the world is dumber than them. Okay? So it gets pretty dire at some point. And they there is a cut off and I don't know where that is. Maybe I'm on the wrong side of it, but there is a cut off somewhere where people they cannot parse through the information. They have so few crayons. They they just have so few crayons. There's only so many pictures that they can color and make them look good.

And we have to simplify enough that we capture a huge swath of humanity. And so to give you an idea, I intentionally write my deep dives at a sixth grade reading level. I write at a sixth grade reading level specifically because Americans have a sixth grade reading level. It's terrifying, but it's true. And so that's me going, okay, where where am I? Like I've got more crayons in my box than just the 64, but if the 64 is the sixth grade level, then that's the I'm all of my um you know, intellectual paintings are going to be done with my 64 crayons.

Whether I have more or not doesn't matter. It's like I want to be understood by the widest audience possible. And so as we parse through this stuff, this she's like a four crayon box, right? And that's why you don't feel good about it because you know, wait a second. Uh you're talking about the right thing, but you've oversimplified the problem and you've dialed up the um the internet of it all. Right? So saying things in a way that are kind of cool in a rap song where it's like you're trying to be provocative, but like wait, this is real life and you're running for office and now you're terrifying me because of the like you're saying that to get attention, to cut through the noise, to uh be inflammatory, all of that.

We know it when we see it. It's very entertaining. Uh but at the same time makes you go from nodding your head to like, whoa, what did she just say? So I think of that as somebody that's you you've gone down into the the far too simplified area of this all. So if Sam Harris is the 468 crayon box too ariodite way too nuanced you're losing people like how do we talk about this in a way that is as simple as it can be but not simpler.

And so I think what people are feeling when they hear somebody like that is they've oversimplified the issue so far it's just no longer accurate. And as you get into the it's no longer accurate, you also start tripping moral lines. And that's where it's like if for me anyway, and I think you and I share this, she's just outside of what I consider being a good human. And so it immediately like hits poorly for me. Yeah. And that I think that's that's the complicated nuance part because I went down the Fuentes rabbit hole.

Uh cuz when somebody was like Nick Fuentes is a face of white supremia, I was like a Mexican dude like it's crazy. So then I was like, I need to kind of understand what's going on. And I've heard him say clips of like, yes, not all black people. Yes, not all Mexicans. Come on, guys. Like, catch up. You guys are being slow. I'm not saying it like that. So he can get to the level of yes, not every person is this. But let me get back to my four CR.

Yeah. Yeah. But then to but then to your point when he brings up JD Vance, he goes back to that those kind of broad brushes. So it's kind of weird that you can kind of see people dial it down and then turn it up. So kind of what you just said, the internet of it all. I think sometimes we get lost in the bombasticness of it. There's no doubt the internet of it all is part of the problem. But I really now listen, I'm not a Nick Fuentes scholar and so more time with him I may change some of my views.

But the things that I've heard him talk about like if you say the phrase race trader in total serious nonironic like you're outside of what I think is the right way to map humanity. Secret password. Yeah. I'm just like what? So that's where I go, oh, okay, cool. You and I do not share values. So, um, that's one of those where he has a value set that like there's no handwaving away from where I'm sitting. And I don't think he would try to handwave that away.

I think that really means something to him. And I I think uh and if chat knows him better than me, please, by all means, speak up. But I have a feeling it goes something like this, Tom. I'm not saying that white people are better. I'm just saying that white people need to protect whiteness. Black people need to protect blackness. Um, Indian people need to protect Indianness. And so, I don't see what the problem is. And that's where I'm like, well, let me lay it out for you.

Here's what I see is the problem. Humans already have an ingroup bias. And it causes us to be absolutely murderous. And the life vest, the life raft, the life ring thing that they throw into the water to save us from ourselves is religion. And religion shows us that we can um have a signal for what our value set is. And the in my opinion, the best religions are the ones that make you feel the most interconnected to uh humanity, to um the the world as a whole.

And it makes you feel expansive. that makes you feel open and welcoming u but doesn't leave you vulnerable and um naive. So when you are like me and you map that it's like that's an unmitigated good and thank god that exists in the algorithm of the human mind and so I'm going to push myself into that space. I want to spend my time there. I want I I don't believe in God but it's like I need my own communion with that thing. Uh, and so whether that for me for a long time it was through Dowoism.

For me it's I can constantly touch that through meditation. There's something called loving kindness meditation. So it's like all of these things make me feel like I'm stepping into a better part of my um human trappings. And so when I see somebody who's like, "Oh, no, no, no. In this moment, Tom, there is extreme power in going back down into that animalistic aggression. This is me. you're [ __ ] something else. Stay away from me. I'm gonna rally my base. I'm going to protect this. It It is the dark side.

And the dark side has tremendous power. And people need to be able to step in and out of the dark side. And so when you look at someone like Hitler, that's the dark side. Very powerful. Almost took over the whole world. So I get it. I get how useful it is. I get how you can galvanize people. And listen, if you know about the Treaty of Versailles and what happened to Germany, Hitler used that dark energy that this is us. That's them. They're stealing from us.

F. We're not taking that anymore. We are going to rise up. Yo, man. He got them out from under the Treaty of Versail with that energy. It's it's obviously useful, but it is a costic tool. The more you use it, the more it hurts you. There is a reason that guy was a [ __ ] amphetamine freak who was grinding his teeth and like I mean that's like some real Hitler [ __ ] Like you can look it up. I am not making that up. In fact, if anything I wasn't doing the rocking and the grinding of teeth which is what he was actually doing.

So uh he was he was literally a tweaker. So uh that's not the place I want to be. Right. So you this you have to be willing to say I understand why it's happening. I get why Nick Fuentes has a huge audience. I get why for Nick it feels very empowering to embrace that. And then I will also remind everybody being a human is awesome. There is a gear where we feel more expansive, not naive, expansive, welcoming to those who will embrace those same values. And the only thing that you have to like be hard and fast on is that I will not allow anything to weaken the value set that brings us into this expansive space.

And there's I'm such a Bruce Lee fan and um he had in his book the Dao of G Kundo he uh drew what he called a dowist priest and I always thought it was awesome that the dowist priest has a sword and I was like oh [ __ ] like this is somebody this is um the definition that Jordan Peterson uses of the meek shall inherit the earth and the meek was somebody who's incredibly well trained for physical violence but keeps their sword sword sheathed and I was like, "Oh, that's that's the [ __ ] that is the ultimate place to be as a human is I can absolutely [ __ ] you up and will given these exact circumstances which you know ahead of time.

Just don't cross these lines and we're good." Cross those lines and now I am the deadliest swordsman the world has ever seen, Mousashi. And that like resonates with me so [ __ ] hard. like people need to be and this was my journey as um an entrepreneur. I I don't consider myself an a physically tough person. Uh I have certainly endurance, resilience, all of that, but I'm not the guy that's going to whoop a bunch of ass in a street fight. But in terms of coming up in business and realizing, oh, there's got to be a line where you're like, nope, nobody crosses that line.

I get very aggressive. I'm very intense. Uh I will push back. I will go in the attack if I have to. And so in business learning that you realize, oh wow, there really is necessity and power in that. Uh and I will credit a lot of my success to learning to be that because I'm not that by nature. But learning to be that, to be strong, to be capable of at least intellectual um violence is very important. But when you run around swinging your sword and that's all you do, uh now you've got a problem.

Yeah. Well, President Biden was swinging his autopin around, signing everything. Uh, and breaking news now. Trump just officially terminated every document, pardon, executive order, proclamation, or memorandum signed by the autopen under Joe Biden. Um, this is a quote. Any and all documents, proclamations, executive orders, memorandums, or contracts signed by order of the new, infamous, and unauthorized autopen within the administration of Joseph R. Biden Jr. are hereby null void and of no further force or effect. Anyone receiving pardonings, commutations, or any other legal documents so signed, please divide that said document has been fully completely terminated and of no legal effect.

Thank you for your attention to this matter. You know how mad I would be if I had to if I got out of jail and Trump was like psych. And then I had to go back, bro. For sure. And you just let on narco dude get off and you about to autopay me. I would be so pissed. I'm running at that point. So yeah, god here here's my thing with this. Uh, as soon as I read this, I thought of gang green. When somebody has gang green, you have to amputate.

And so, you might lose your arm, your leg, whatever. But you can't let the gang green spread. Now, the gang green in this scenario is not the autopen. It is not that um people in government have done something bad. They most certainly have, and there will be plenty of crimes to find if you want to go after it. The gang green is lawfare and I am not surprised in the slightest that because he was gone after he is now going after other people. Her people hurt people.

Uh but boy do I wish that we had somebody in office that understood that could stand and give the following speech. There's no one in American history who has had the opposition go after him legally harder than me. And I believe that all of this was unjustified. I believe you guys created novel rulings specifically to go after me. You had people like Leticia James that ran to get elected by saying, "I'm going after Donald Trump." Not I know what he did, but that I will go find a thing that he did to go after him.

Nobody has been persecuted like I've been persecuted. And I'm telling you right now that it stops here. and we have to usher in an era of honor, integrity, uh, virtue, and let's bring some of these things back. He clearly is not capable of that. But Jesus, do I want that to be the message because the gang green is lawfare. The thing that needs to be amputated is lawfare. Now, if you can start a new and say, okay, listen, that that pass [ __ ] is the pass [ __ ] And I would talk endlessly about the fact that the people actually running the government during Biden's time referred to themselves uh as the Pullet Bureau, which is specifically a communist group that runs the government.

So I'm like, dude, that one to me, we all know that I have my I don't think it's weird, but I'm sure many people map it as a weird aversion to communism, socialism. Uh so by all means discount the veracity that I feel it, but like that's crazy to me. and I still wouldn't be going after them legally. Now, you draw a line in the sand and you say, "Don't keep [ __ ] around because if you do something now, we're going to come after you because we can't like let this stuff stand." And so now it's like, "Cool.

Moving forward, everybody understands that abide by the rules, abide by the law. This is a new era. We're not playing that game anymore." But what ends up happening, the thing that people ought to be absolutely terrified by is this will make elections truly existential because now Trump is in a position where if a Republican does not win the presidency, they're going to go after him again. They're already talking about to troops. Hey guys, um just so you know, the statute of limitations is 5 years for um following unlawful orders.

And that's going to be long a literally a quote that will be long after Trump has left office. So what they're trying to communicate is the troops should be ignoring Trump because they will be prosecuted after. It's like I that one enrages me because of what it does to the entire nation and yeah that that is just stupid and people are locked in this uh mental battle where they are making elections existential which will make people want to do everything they can to rig an election.

So it's like oh my god so dumb. Um, my daughter's in high school now and I now hate high school and I feel like I have never had so many back in my day like stories and kids don't do this and you young folk and the hippity like I'm I'm becoming that person and I never thought I would be that person. Uh, we are all always that person. Yeah. So, I I hear what you're saying, but you sound like a decent person walking up to the DNC like, "Hey guys, let's be friends." Yeah.

And they're like, "What? No, he's a fascist." this and then he goes to RNC like, "Hey guys, let's stop suing everybody." What? You're you're a snowflake. Get out of here. Like, you know what I mean? I feel like, are are you just yelling into the wind at this? Cuz I I get what you're saying. And it sounds good. And I'm looking like, okay, maybe I'm looking at Trump's cabinet like, "No, he won't say it. He won't." Maybe RFK would say it. And then I look at the DNC like, "No, he won't say.

He won't say he. Maybe Pete Buddha Judge might say like I'm I'm looking at the eighth person in line of the that might say this thing." And that's a might. So, it's one of those things now where it's like, are is this just we just going to have to let them burn themselves on the oven and then we'll we'll yell I wrote a line about this in the upcoming deep dive, which is um Nelson Mandela would never come to power today. Uh George Washington would never come to power today.

So I think uh even though I do believe that the great man of history theory is real that great men really are required to pull us in a direction who we consider great changes era to era. This is a populist moment. So I'm never going to be popular the way that Nick Fuentes is popular because I'm not willing to reduce the number of crayons that far. Uh and my northstar is self-respect and I have a set of values and when I adhere to those values I respect myself.

When I deviate from those values, I lose respect for myself. And I hate the way that feels so much that I will only do the things that make me respect myself, no matter what that means financially, etc. Um, so I'm never going to be popular in a moment like this where I have to pander. I have to give people back what they want. Now, some people may just authentically be there and they're just they're a product of their time. They feel those things and so they're not necessarily pandering.

They just really are that and I'm really not that. And so to your point, yes, I even considered not writing that section because I was like, does this really matter? Um, the reality is I am to some extent screaming into the wind. And thank you to every kind person that's ever left a comment on YouTube that says, "Tom, trust me, I'm listening. People like me are listening. It means the world to me. And if I thought there were zero people, then I really wouldn't do it." Um, but nonetheless, I'm okay with that because I'm only going to say what I believe to be true.

I'm only going to say things that make me look back and go, "Well, I at least tried everything I could um to introduce these ideas to more people." So, yes, uh in a populist moment, you get populist leaders that have far fewer crayons, that understand the power of anger, uh that understand simplify messages, that want to um not only capture the rage that you already feel, but like really fan those flames and make it a much bigger inferno. So, that that is what it is. I have a very um I have a super weird relationship with humans and it goes something like this.

We are automata. So we are swayed by ideas but we are automata that run programming and because we run programming uh you the only changes you can make are changes that were programmed to accept. Um, so you can nudge people a little bit, but for the most part, the only thing that pulls people out of these spirals is uh abject suffering, just brutality, war, death, mayhem, extended poverty, or optimism brought on by everything is going great. So when I look at that, I'm like, okay, maybe AI saves us.

It's possible. It's not likely given people's reaction. And I think that it will the promise of AI will happen but it will be first we will suffer. Uh and so the bell that I think gets rung first will be the suffering bell. Um and history tells me there's virtually no way to avoid that. Um, you might be able to elongate it, but ultimately the trajectory only changes when you uh have rapid undeniable prosperity or massive pain and suffering. Yeah. Um I I that saddens me though and I think that's why I'm speechless now because it's like why do we have to learn that way?

But I guess that's the This is where I say you're arguing with God. So, whatever created us has um saw saw that to be fit that we're like that. Now, having said that, if I can tell you what I really think. Okay. Blind watch maker evolution. Mhm. But we're in a simulation. And if we're not actually in a simulation, it works exactly like a simulation would work. through every ounce of time that I spend on Kaizen, I realize I'm trying to get the AI to run at the individual level and it takes the least amount of compute because you set up a bunch of rules and then all of the novelty is born out of a rule set existing at the individual level and they have a certain amount that they can change.

you have to bound it because if they change too much they become an undifferentiated blob and maybe the game isn't fun, maybe it doesn't cohhere. And this is one of the reasons that people wonder why is the universe so finely tuned? It seems impossible that if gravity were just like bumped in slightly different directions, everything falls apart. And once you program things in a certain way, there's movement, there's change, it's dynamic, it's interesting. Um, and it's a closed ecosystem that is stable. Like when you think about the fact that life started on Earth somehow someway and took a really long time, but an asteroid hit the Earth that when you see there are now AI videos that will show you the scope of that [ __ ] crater, which is technically underwater, but like it's insane.

It is so big. and you realized, oh, it didn't kill mammals, killed the dinosaurs. And I think people often think it wiped everything out. This one little thing stayed alive and evolved and grew and became us. And then there's the moment, the cape of hope where I don't I think it's a volcano or something happens and humanity gets knocked all the way back to like 3,000 people or something and then we reexpand. If I could create a game that had that kind of like dynamic change and out, oh my god, I'd be over the moon.

So, it has all these negative things, but we've pushed the AI down to the individual. Like, the individual will lead a unique life. They'll do. It's bounded. It's recognizable. They don't suddenly start acting like an amoeba, but it's it's unique. It's fascinating. It's interesting. Uh they cohhere. They interact with each other on like a known set of rules that like sometimes sparks into violence, but other times love and they have children. Oh my god, it is so interesting. So, I get how we ended up here.

The problem of evil in philosophical terms is a bitter pill to swallow. That to make us the interesting creature that we are that we have the capacity for both good and evil, but we're pretty interesting. I feel like God is preaching to you through this game because I feel like you have a appreciation for creation that you haven't had. I won't lie. Looking back at me through your eyes is uh it's an interesting perspective. What do you mean by that? There's no doubt because I so am at ease with the fact that God does not exist.

Uh I should be very clear the God [clears throat] that people talk about does not exist that um it's nonetheless I find religious perspectives to be incredibly engaging. And so looking back at me as if this is a spiritual awakening is fun. It's not what I feel, but it is fun. Now I look at this as Neo in the Matrix, and the game is my Morpheus, and the game is trying to teach me things about the way that life works. That is utterly fascinating. Okay, secret confession.

I'm a little sad this is true. Um, I did not sleep well all holiday weekend. And the reason I I I just couldn't sleep because I was so excited to wake up and work on Kaizen. And and then Monday night I slept like a baby or Sunday night I should say because I was like I'm not going to get to work on it in the morning. Interesting. But the uh the obsession that I have with building a simulation is fun. Very fun. I love that. All right.

Uh, perfect timing, G. It's quite the sound. Perfect timing. Um, all right. Deal making is among us. Um, Rand Paul, who we just talked about was condemning Trump um for the Venezuela boat strikes. He was one of his loudest um opposition against the uh Epstein files, which got approved. We still haven't seen him, though. Um, it's a good point, Drew. So far, you're undefeated. Now we're talking about votes. All of a sudden, all of a sudden, we care about Visel. Every time I think we're going to get him so close.

Drew is going to be wrong. And then, nonetheless, there it is. [clears throat] But Trump shared a a a text between Rand Paul that said, "I know we've been at odds recently, but in your first term, we signed an executive order to legalize association health plans that allow individuals to buy collectively health insurance via Costco, Amazon, or Sam's Club." This collaboration brought us together and still holds the promise of lowering insurance premiums. It did not succeed because of Democratic AG Democrats AG attorney generals fighting it in court who we could pass it in Congress today with your help.

It costs nothing and simply changes labor law to allow people to buy insurance at a group from realtors retailers. Let me know if if this is something you might want to partner on. Ran, there is an insurance problem in America. Whether you love ACA, hate ACA, there is an insurance problem. I think now people are starting to throw ideas together. M I know you haven't done the deep dive on this yet. I do think that this sounds good and this could be on the path of something more positive.

Um what's your initial reaction when you kind of hear about That's awesome. Yeah. H how have we allowed our government to remove competition from anything let alone healthcare? So you a thousand% want people competing for your business. And here's what here's what I think is the problem. And this is I'm not sure if people track this as my most controversial belief. This is my most controversial belief. People have to be allowed to fail. People have to be allowed to um die of a horrible disease. And once you understand that um genetics plays a brutal role in your life, nobody can help you with that.

And that's a very sad and tragic thing. Um but if you want to get cheap insurance, good health care, you've got to let those companies go. But how are you living your life, man? Uh you've got to let them take your blood pressure, all of that. Like do a physical on you, get [clears throat] some biometric data, so that if you're living life clean and healthy and all of that, that your rate should be super low. And then what you're going to get is all of a sudden people don't [ __ ] themselves about what diet or sleep protocol works.

It's like your insurance rates are tied to how physically fit are you, dude. If Kaizen is successful, and for people asking, it's a video game that I'm building. If Kaizen is successful, one day, this will not be within years of launch, but one day I want players to be able to play on hardcore mode. And in hardcore mode, we upload your biometric data from like your ring and stuff like that. And your character reflects your actual health. And so now you can influence the character by what you do in the game and in real life.

If you can gify something like that, all of a sudden, like getting more sleep, reducing my stress, eating in a more healthy fashion is driving the cost down, dude. Now I'm not being [ __ ] drugged down by all the people that are making terrible [ __ ] life choices. And the people out there are not being drugged down by the choices I'm making. It's like, let me run this game. Let me see how well I can do and let me take advantage of that. The only way you're going to get there is if you let these health care companies compete.

And so a health care company very much should be able to come into existence that says, uh, hey, you're going to give me a lot of data that you might not otherwise want to give me. And I've had to go through this, okay, as when you get um, it's called DNO insurance, like or keyman insurance, I think, is actually when I had to get it. So back at Quest, we had Keyman insurance out on me. And so I had to go through this insane physical. I'm talking like they were checking for skin cancer.

They were checking every [ __ ] biometric, taking my blood, uh, blood pressure, uh, like all of it, right? To see like, is this guy going to be here or not? Cuz we're not going to give you keyman insurance that he might die only to find out that he's got a disease. So, I've already had to face this down. So, whatever. Uh, but now, if I can go through all of that, I should have the option and this company can come up and create these incredible plans for people that are in killer shape.

and I can then drive my cost down and offer the same things to my employees. This is awesome. And not being tied just to your employer, which is [ __ ] stupid. And I really believe all this like make the employer do it thing. That's resentment against entrepreneurs and is not logical in any way, shape, or form. Your retirement shouldn't be coming from your job, especially not now where people stay at a company for like 18 months. It's all [ __ ] stupid. Uh what they're doing now with kids and giving them the um the investment plan.

M I'm so excited about this. So this is awesome. More competition. You have to accept that for some people it's going to be a rough ride. And if we want to do something where it's like um there are provisions for like if somebody has a genetic disease that we you can't like preclude them from that. Cool. But if you've got type two diabetes, bro, that is not only is that controllable, that's controllable by by what you don't do. So you don't even have to like go eat it.

You just have to not eat the horrible [ __ ] And because I know so much about diet, no one is going to be able to convince me, but Tom, there are food deserts. I don't give a [ __ ] This is about what you don't eat. M and so it is you can not be a type 2 diabetic and poor as [ __ ] of this I assure you. So yeah that that argument is stupid. So but people in America this is why I say this is my most controversial belief.

Uh people in America are not ready to see other people fail and be like oh [ __ ] like that person is really having a bad time because they can't get their [ __ ] diet together. Yeah. And I keep hearing com like conflicting things in the chat of like, well, other countries have figured it out. Why can't we figure it out? Things like that. I feel like an answer. I I'll say I feel like we underestimate the 350 million people population cuz you keep like comparing us to a country with 5 million white people.

Like it's it's a you also are comparing us to uh small countries that don't give a [ __ ] about being America. So America has a character. Remember, America was, "Ooh, I'm a guy in England. I'm a guy in Ireland. I'm a guy in wherever, China, Japan, insert country here, uh, who feels tyrannized by my king, my emperor, whatever. And I would rather go to a place with an 80% kill rate than stay here because I'm going to be in the 20%." That's America. Okay? Imagine the kind of person that that attracts.

Very disciplined, very hardcore, very what we would now say entrepreneurial. They believe that they're going to be able to figure it out. They are willing to face down death. Like it it is uh read about um Theodore Roosevelt who believed in basically Gogggins type [ __ ] before there was a Gogggins. And so Roosevelt grows up sickly and very weak. People used to make fun of him for being small. What's his response? He starts working out. Dude, working out. No one worked out in the 1800s.

What are you even talking about? But this guy got tired of being sick. And so he ends up putting himself through like this physical misery because he's like, "My body is not going to be the boss of me. No [ __ ] way." That's America, man. And so we attracted people like that. And for 170, 180, 90 yearsish, that we celebrated that [ __ ] And then we started getting very prosperous, wanting to take care of more and more people, which I get and I love, but you have to look at the realities of what that does.

Show me the incentives. I will show you the outcome. And so, if we're willing to get back to America is hardcore, then yeah, we're going to be giving up some of the welfare static countries, which is always what people are talking about. Remember the Nordic countries are not only small as you pointed out, not only homogeneous or at least they were uh but they also tax the life out of everyone in the country. They do not care about innovation. They lag way behind America and innovation.

Way behind. They are never going to be a meaningful player on the international stage. And if you don't care about any of that, great. go immigrate to a Nordic country. Get the [ __ ] out of America, which is a totally different vibe. I do not want to see America become Europe. Europe is managed decline. Europe is I know you used to do cool [ __ ] but what have you done lately? That's Europe. Okay, Europe is [ __ ] falling apart. They have no identity.

They are not hardcore at all in my opinion. They are not interesting in the least. I want to see the people who are really trying to play. China is really here to play. I've got mad respect for China. Uh, obviously I want to see America return to her glory. The UAE is here to play. Like, they're not [ __ ] around. So, um, I want to see I want to be one of the countries that's here to play. And so, you're going to give some things up.

And the biggest thing you are going to have to give up because it's the only way to balance the budgets is entitlements. We're not getting around that. Social Security. Yep. Social Security, Medicaid, Medicare, all that. Um, yeah. Do you think we're actually gonna fix healthcare? Uh, I'm bizarrely encouraged by all the stuff that I see like that. So, um, if Trump fears he won't get elected unless he makes life better for the middle class, then we really might because he's going to have to make more money for them, which is going to be very hard.

Certainly. attempting some of the right things. Uh, and he he can either make them more money or reduce their costs or both. And so this feels like him going, I'm trying to make them more money, but that's going to be very hard. So, let me see if I can reduce meaningfully their costs. And so, this is way more interesting to me than going, all right, we have a terrible health health care system. It's very expensive because we're [ __ ] morons and we've created a situation where the drug companies are making money hand over fist.

Look at their stock prices since Obamacare went into place. It is wild. So, look at who's winning. The healthcare companies. That's bad. So, uh instead of going, we're just going to keep giving them more money. This is so crazy. It's so dumb. It's so economically illiterate. Instead of doing that, we're going to introduce competition and I, Trump, am going to start negotiating the way that Europe negotiates, which is as one block, and we're going to like get these [ __ ] to give us the best price.

Yeah, I'm here for that. Yeah. All right. Uh, jumping over into this, uh, Palunteer thinks college might be a waste, so it's hiring high school grads. Um, this is very interesting to me, and I'm, like I said, I'm have a high school and now I'm currently dealing with it. I do not. My daughter, I love her to death. She doesn't want to be a anthropic surgeon. She doesn't want to be a forensic accountant. She doesn't want to be a biomed engineer. I feel like she doesn't need to go to college.

And I'm like starting to kind of really not necessarily push that on her, but at the same time, it's like, okay, she's really she's obnoxiously good at makeup at a young age. That doesn't make sense. like she does her like mom's makeup. She does her aunt's makeup and she's, you know, 14. So, it's one of those things where it's like, well, you can make a side hustle from that, make a makeup brand. So, I'm already like, okay, we could get you make some content around it.

You get a you can get a a Tik Tok check or we could have your own clients and you can build up and you can make a makeup studio. So, it's like we can do all these things that will make you have a sustainable living for yourself that you won't need to have to pay $140,000 a year for. But I do feel like I'm so indoctrinated on college is 13th grade that you have to go to college. But I feel like maybe the tides are turning on that.

What's your kind of gut check on that? If she can go to college without taking on debt, send her to college. And then if she doesn't like it, she can bounce. If she has to take on debt to go to college, it's a mistake. Mhm. So, I mean, look, quantity of debt of course matters. She's taking on $1,000 a year or whatever. Not a big deal. Um, but yeah, if she's going to go even with double digits in debt, it's probably a bad idea. And so with PL with Palunteer now saying that they're recruiting high Sorry, I didn't mean double digit.

I mean 10K or more. Yeah. Yeah. Um um Palunteer now saying they're recruiting high school grads skipping uh the whole internship. You have to get a fellowship thing like that. Dude, Peter Teal has been encouraging people to do this for a long time. I don't know for how long, but like 10 years. Wow. He's offered a grant. I think it used to be only one person a year, but he offered a grant for anybody that was willing to skip college. So, you basically had to have gotten accepted probably to an IV league uh and then reject it in order to take that um that grant.

So, yeah, this is given Palunteer's connections. I think Peter Teal's on the board um or an investor, but I all those guys are connected to Peter for sure. Given that, I'm not at all surprised by this. And yeah, I mean, listen, dude. Um did Leonardo da Vinci go to college? No, he did not. What did he do? he worked with another artist. And so we used to do these um apprenticeships and uh Benjamin Franklin, same thing. Apprentice like it's if I had to do it all over again, I would have been so much better off being an apprentice.

Oh my god, now knowing how I learn, that would have been way better for me. Way, way, way better for me. But with those individual situations, I understand that for those specific people, it was better. And you know, I went to school for engineering. I'm not using my engineering degree. So, I get that. But it's one of those things of certain people will figure it out. But for the masses, it should be that way. Like, is this like a is versus this is a debt problem.

This is a debt problem. That is it. If if this had not become a parasitic organization of indoctrinating people into madness, uh I would say yeah, college is wonderful. It's a great time to meet people. It's fun. you you are in a structured environment but you're on your own for the first time. Really really wonderful. Uh unfortunately we allowed through money printing and debt um we allowed the schools to not be competitive because the government guarantees their loans and we forced students to um hold those loans.

They can't discharge them in bankruptcy which is morally bankrupt. That's disgusting and people should be absolutely outraged. Uh so we're saddling kids with an unimaginable amount of debt, launching them into an economy that also is parasitic and that that is a non-starter. So unless you can find a college that she can go to that isn't going to saddle her in debt, it's not that college is bad, it is that this is a debt problem. So um going to college and then not using your degree doesn't matter in the slightest.

going to college and getting a degree that you could never possibly use to um like pay off your loan is pure insanity. So yeah, that that's just crazy. And in the age of AI and the internet, you can literally learn anything. And I do mean anything. I'm including doctor, surgery, all of that. You could learn the basics of that stuff without going to college. Now, no one is going to let you operate on that without uh becoming a legitimate doctor. But like I'm saying that I say that not to say as a doctor you should go perform surgery without going to school.

I'm saying that if you're being charged by an institution that is acting as if things have not changed completely. Yeah. Um what the [ __ ] are you doing? So, my sister actually teaches doctors how to use medical equipment. And my sister does not have a medical degree, but what she's really good at is building like 3D programs, AI programs that will like explode the chest and show you the heart and all this stuff. And so, um, all of that exists. So, we we are in a fundamentally different world and colleges are a racket.

So people need to be very careful. Yeah. So if I'm hearing you correctly, it's not necessarily that college is a waste. It should be on one hand apprenticeship, internship. If you can go learn a skill immediately out of high school, that's a better route. Or if you're able to do it without a burden of debt, you should do it. But if you have to take on a 40k student loan in year one, it's probably a bad I'll say it slightly differently. Yeah. College is an option.

If you can do it without debt, it's probably not the fastest way to learn. So, if you're going to do college, it's probably more I need a halfway house between living with my parents and every minute being accounted for uh and hitting the real world. Um, the fastest way to learn if you know what you want to do is to go do that thing with somebody who is ninja level at that thing. [clears throat] And if you do that, you will learn and grow more in a year by orders of magnitude than you will in a college.

[clears throat] So yeah, my advice is if you know what you want to do, go do that thing. You will learn very, very quickly. Nice. Cool. All right. Um, this has been a title story for me. I feel like this is a much bigger deal than what the stock market is saying, what people are talking about. up. There's so many different conspiracy theories about what's actually happening, but let's talk about Sam Alman and this code red that he issued in his internal memo. So, um, for those that don't know, when Gemini 3 came out, it fundamentally sent a chill down Sam Alman's spine, and he sent an internal memo saying that he's going code red.

The plan is to allocate more resources to improving chat GPT with teams concentrating on features that allow more personalized interactions. Other core priorities are talking about advancing the image generation model uh image gen improving model behavior strengthening leadership leaderboard competitiveness with systems like LM arena enhancing chat GPT speed and stability and reducing unnecessary refusals to harmless questions. He also mentions plan to release a new reasoning model next week ahead of Google's Gemini 3 and several projects such as advertising AI agents and pulse are expected to be delayed.

Um it's it's it's interesting because I think when it started chat GPT had such a big lead. I don't know if they just got lazy or what might have happened, but with Gemini 3 releasing um there was a traffic spike that a noticeable decline for those that said it was a 6% decline. Um as soon as Gemini 3 and Nana Banana released uh to ChatG's traffic um at app downloads um Gemini has spiked up over the last quarter. You can kind of see there was actually more active users on Gemini last month and on chat GPT.

Whoa. So, it's it's one of those things that is ricocheting through it. Yeah. Yeah. This is the big one though, and I really want your take on this. Um, these are from efficient market and Ross Hendris. Gemini winning the AI race is like super bearish for the market if you think about it. Ross retweeted, this is the correct take. Gemini winning ensures zero profitability for all for any other LLM model. Google will force every other player into an endless sea of red ink by keeping its model free until they bleed out and then it will monetize once its monopoly is secure.

Yeah, that's so gangster. Yeah, dude. This is this is the cutthroat world of u monopolistic behavior. This is why you have to protect yourself from monopolies at the government level. This is one of the reasons I am not a nogo government guy. Um because there are certain players that are just going to be able to outperform the next person and they will do exactly what they're describing, build a monopoly, and then everybody's [ __ ] And it is the worst experience ever because as soon as you get to the top, you stop caring about the customers.

You know, they have nowhere to go and it's it's just terrible. You really want there to be competition. Competition is the secret sauce. That's the thing that really allows the all of us to win. So the government coming in and saying we're going to make sure that we create an environment where there's going to be competition is exactly how you want things set up. And at the same time, it's a brilliant move by Google to do exactly that. Oh, no, no, no. We can we could run this at a loss, billions of dollars of loss for years.

Yeah. And nobody else can afford to do it. And so they're all going to tap out. Um, this is why if people watch my deep dive where I was talking about the AI bubble, it's like we think we know who the players are right now. Dude, we don't know. It might not even be Nvidia. Like Nvidia may be about to get just absolutely obliterated by this new Chinese company where they're building their own chips and they may do to uh chip manufacturing what they just did to intercontinental ballistic missiles, dropping the cost from like $10 million to $99,000.

That is a real number. So, uh, that's possible that Nvidia just gets completely blown off the map. But as consumers, I get it as shareholders why you'd be traumatized. But as consumers, do we give a [ __ ] No, we do not. Like, we want the coolest, cheapest thing that we can get our hands on. So, yeah, we've got to make sure that the government protects us from that monopoly. And I love seeing Sam Alman uh respond to this. And I love every time somebody calls out Anthropic for trying to use regulatory capture to do exactly this where they're like, "All right, there'll be five of us.

I only have to worry about these other four. Everybody else is iced out because they'll never be able to get over the regulatory burden." All of that stuff is so sinister, man. Like, it's it's really gross. And remember, uh I'm a guy who's built a billion-dollar company. I know what it's like to be like, I could do things that are protective. I could be in Washington lobbying these guys and trying to get things in my favor. We didn't play like that. So, it's just dude, earn your own respect.

Anyway, I know that's not going to work for everybody and that's super naive, but um I just hate that people do that. It's so gross. No. Yeah. And I I think the interesting thing is to your point of Nvidia because Nvidia is stacked on top of this and I didn't even mention the one and one trillion50 billion in commitments that OpenAI has whether it's with Oracle with SoftBank and all these other deals out on the table. Google's new model uses the Google chip. So it's another type of disruptor on that level that that can break this AI stack that's kind of already existing.

Um, somebody uh tweeted, I couldn't find them where they said like people forget there was Netscape that was the first internet browser, but then Google's the one everybody uses now. So like Chad GPT, although they were the first, they weren't necessarily the best. So at this point now, is it just I just need to deliver a better project to win. That's the way to go. For sure. For sure. These guys like there are things that people want to do. They've got to build that. And the person who your customer has effectively no loyalty.

they just want the thing that does what they want it to do. Like I've forever been using chat GPT. Uh if Google wins and ends up being better, I don't care. Like there are things I need the AI to do and if Gemini can do it and chat can't or if Gemini is roughly the same but has a better interface or whatever, it's easier to log into whatever whatever it's like I'm going to go use that one. So uh this is the world. Everybody should be competing to win over the customer.

And this is how we as the consumer win. This is why we don't want Google to get a monopoly. We want there to be a bunch of people fighting to make the greatest thing ever and then they have to continue to earn our loyalty. Think about Apple. Like I know a lot of people are worried about getting trapped inside of the Apple ecosystem because it allows them to not continue to innovate and be the best. They're just like, "Ah, listen. I know that some huge swath of humanity is never going to go, "Well, but my photos, like, how do I even migrate?" So, you just like iPhone, iPhone, iPhone, iPhone.

Honestly, that's where I'm at right now. If it wasn't for the photos, and bro, that's the easiest. Yeah, maybe. But here's the thing. I don't want to have to think about it. So, I'm just like, "Oh god, I'd be terrified to lose my photos." Whatever. So, uh, yeah, you want competition. Um, okay. I love competition. I feel like I'm team competition, but I do think that we do have this crony capitalism problem. I bring this example up as much as I can where I was trying to take a last minute flight from from LA to Phoenix and I pulled up on Google like I pulled up all three different companies whether it was American, uh, Southwest, United, and Delta.

All four of them had the exact same price at the exact same price. And I was like, how is this possible? You guys are supposed to be competition. Somebody should at least have it $2 cheaper so that way that would just migrate everybody to go that way. Well, here's the bad news. They may not actually be colluding. But if you have an AI that's running a sophisticated algorithm that understands how to price in context of the other prices and it's constantly querying and all the AIs are doing it, they will naturally gravitate towards the same price.

So now every now and then I'm sure they'll do something crazy and it will like bump or move and then the other AIs will realize, oh, they got an advantage. So and then they'll sort of equalize again. Yeah. Um, so it doesn't take human collusion to get to that answer if everything is done on algorithms. This is like the trading algorithms that are being used. Uh, this is why when people are trying to day trade against algorithms, I'm just like, all right, good luck with that.

So, um, that's the AI world. And so now, what are people going to try to do? Like regulate it. So it's like, no, your AIs can't be that efficient or and they might. I mean, we regulate the AI inside of a gambling machine. So, it's possible, but that strikes me as a terrible idea. I I bring that up because I'm saying in that example, I feel like all the prices being the same is there's a loser there because there's somebody like me that'll be like, you know, f it.

I don't need to go no more. And I would stop versus somebody that's like, okay, if this one was $50 cheaper, I could have sold two more tickets or something, hypothetically speaking. Yep. The reason I bring that up though is because on the AI side now, what is to stop them from now saying, "Okay, to Anthropic's point, it's just going to be me, Chat, Gemini, and Grock. That's it. It's us four and we're going to do it." Deep Seek, uh, Meta, all these other people, you guys are open source.

We're not really messing with you anyway. You're you're for the internet. You are. The thing that's supposed to stop them is honorable politicians. They don't exist. So, um, nothing will stop them. When companies get big enough, they [ __ ] us over. That's what happens. So, welcome to the real world. And then, uh, somebody will try to find a way to innovate, but it'll come 10 years later than it needed to. And, uh, this is why people absolutely despise crony capitalism, but until you're prepared to get money out of politics, this is the rodeo.

Yeah, man. How do you think it all pans out with the AI race? Um, okay. So, my real prognostication on AI goes something like this. Um, every day AI gets better and is a tool that is incredible. Uh, and we are beyond flabbergasted at what is possible. Things that we thought would never be possible start becoming possible. I think that you will have an AI that does things like Drew, no, don't eat that. You can eat that in 20 minutes. Uh, but where your blood sugar is, if you eat that now, you're going to spill over and it's going to interrupt your KB cycle and it's going to be problematic.

But if you wait 20 minutes, it'll be just fine. And your life from a diet perspective is going to get insane. Uh your toilet is going to read your microbiome and it's going to adjust your diet and all that stuff. And it it's going to be a miracle. We're going to start curing diseases. U it'll take 15 or 20 years, but just one by one. They'll be like HIV where it was like HIV, dude. In the 80s, you were just dead. And if you're too young to know what it was really like, dude, that [ __ ] was terrifying.

Like you were just terrified. I didn't know how I was gonna get it. [ __ ] If you had HIV and somebody knew it was like you were a pariah, Magic Johnson couldn't even play basketball because it was like people were like, "But wait, if somebody busts his nose or something and the blood like are other people going to catch it?" And so he had to retire like immediately. It was just wild. And now it's like people just take couple pills and it's manageable. Look, nobody wants it, but it's manageable.

So it went from death sentence to manageable. just going to be a bunch of [ __ ] like that. Just manageable, manageable, manageable, manageable. So, that'll be wild. And everything that AI gets better at will rob you of your humanity. And it is going to be psychologically devastating. I can already feel I'm with Kaizen, I am in a race against AI, making game development irrelevant. And that's devastating. And the devastating part is I know that humans are going to do whatever is easiest, best, cheapest. And so like listen, I went to film school.

How many movies do I watch now? Very little. Less than one a week. I used to watch one a day. Do the math on this. It's actually very hard to do. Uh so I now watch maybe one a week. It's probably a little less than. I probably average like seven movies a week. And uh the reality is that a very meaningful time, amount of time that I would have otherwise put into watching movies goes into um watching funny uh reels with my wife. And it's like, is it brain candy?

Yeah, it's delicious and I love it. And we have a great time sitting there watching funny videos and sharing funny videos with each other. So, is it better for the soul? No. But that's not what humans are optimized for. So it's like I get it. Like will AI video games be better? No, probably not. But they'll be fast. They'll be very easy to create. And so now I can basically play any game I want for free. Uh it'll be so optimized to what I'm in the mood for right then and there that there'll just be like a for you page of games that are being created by the algorithm based on things that I've played.

and it's like here try this game and yeah you'll play it for a bit and then like a locust you'll chew that one up for all of its fun and you move on to the next and for me that's the loss of an entire other industry so I've already lost film now it's like I'm ran trying to get this game done and it will go away and so I think all of us are going to collectively mourn the loss of the way that we have interfaced with the world which is get really good at something that matters and contribute ute to the whole and the group and we have an algorithm in our brain that will punish us if we don't do that and reward us if we do do that.

And so that's very meaningful and it drives people and oh by the way you do that so you can get laid and it's like this very complex dance and it's been incredible and it's created the world that we know and it is going to go away and so I think for every awesome thing that AI adds it will from the people that are um already adults it will strip something away and that is going to be hard and so there's going to be a 10 to 20 year period where we just completely completely disrupt um meaning and purpose and that will have dire consequences and I think that there are going to be um opioid epidemics the likes of which we have never seen.

I think that there's going to be um I my prognostication is that there will be violence of some kind. But there's also the possibility that it just numbs young men out who are the only people you ever have to worry about. And so it may like we may all get so sucked into the algorithms that it's um it becomes drug-like and so we don't ever end up revoling or rebelling. Um I think society begins to fragment and I wrote a whole comic series about this called Neon Future.

Um so there will be a disruptive period and there's no way around that. On the other side of this is a world of abundance. So if you get on the other side of the 20 years, we have not completely killed ourselves or the robots have not completely enslaved us or killed us. Um then you can quite literally have anything you want and then people will only be charged with can you play Minecraft forever without getting bored? And the answer for most people is no. Now what do I mean by that?

Minecraft is the entrepreneurs game. It is for the self-starters. Minecraft invites you into a world and it just says there's a set of rules. Period. And so at night you're going to get attacked. Um you can take any object and do anything you want with it. Um you've got to feed yourself. You can tame animals, breed animals, right? The whole set of rules. And now do whatever you want to do. Uh do you want to turn a mountain side into a disco tech? Go do that.

You can do whatever you want. Um, do you want to build a house inside of a giant cave with um pink blocks? You can do that. You can do whatever you want. If you can give yourself goals, then it's fun. It's unbelievable. It's greatest video game ever made. For someone with my gamer archetype, um, if you're a person who's like, "No, no, no. I need the game to tell me exactly what to do." You're going to have a rough time because no, you're not going to need to do anything.

You're not going to need to make money. You're not going to need to acquire food. You'll literally have a device in your house that was free and you press a button and it mixes chemicals together and a robot uh to output food and a robot is going to do the ordering and the delivering and the setting up and all that pill at that point. And so, well, the robots's got to make the pill, but some people have to uh some people are going to want to eat and all that stuff.

So, anyway, once you strip humans of meaning and purpose, how far do we derail? And I think the answer is pretty far. So, it's gonna get weird before we get to the other side. Okay. Then, once we're on the other side, as I've said many times, there are four life choices. Uh, life choice number one uh is that you basically become a drug addict. Life choice number two is that you put life on hard mode and you move to Mars. Life choice number three is you embrace all things human and you revert to like the 90s essentially or you move out into the woods or whatever and you um farm and you live life like that.

Very natural. And then life choice number four is you live inside of simulations and you pursue whatever goal you want in the most incredible environments ever. And I'll probably be wrong about the timeline, but given what I know about the makeup of the human mind, those are almost certainly the epics that we're going to move through. You said two things uh that I want to dive into. The first one when you said you don't have to worry about you only have to worry about uh young boys.

Why do you not have to worry about young girls or like why are only young girls aren't violent? So young women will savage you reputationally. We're living through what the quote unquote violence of women looks like. cancel culture is a feminine um phenomenon. So, uh yeah, that if you want to know what it looks like when women rule the world, this is it. This is that moment. I know people are going to have push back on that, but this when when young men revolt, they're burning things down.

They're breaking stuff. They're correct. They are violent. Copy. Um in this future utopia, when we get to the four, what do you think crime and stuff like that is at that point? Um, well, cyber crime is going to be the big place that that warfare really plays out. Um, but I don't know because there will be it will come down to what the incentives are. And if there is some incentive, even if it's just people have no meaning and purpose and so they derive that um dopamine loop through destruction, then you might see people go on the attack, forming cults and um marauding might be a a poor way to think about it, but that's the first thing that comes to mind where it's like they just want to go and break things.

Uh I could certainly see that. Um, but it won't be the kind of warfare for the acquisition of resources that we see now because that just won't make sense. You'll be able to get anything you want. And so the impulse will manifest as something different. Break things. Uh, this is an affront to God, so I have to stop you. It'll be something like that. Gotcha. Gotcha. Uh, okay. Hey, we have a couple soon. And by the way, just to let everybody know, we have to stop at 8:50 today.

We have a slightly early stop. Yeah. Um Tom got some exciting plans this weekend. Yes. By the way, it's like a rumor in chat. People so want to know where you were. Uh so it's up to you. I never tell people what you're doing. Oh, I appreciate that. Uh first Wednesday I was sick. Second one I was back home for the holiday. So I was back in Jersey with the fam. There you go. You know, nothing crazy. Nothing crazy, guys. I miss you guys, too, though.

Oh, thanks. Uh, all right. We had a couple super chats. U first, uh, shout out to Mr. B Saw for your $49 $49.99 super chat. We appreciate you. Um, you have Indeed. You, Huh? That just shout out 49 bucks. Legit. And Leblon dropped a bag, too, but we coming to you next. You got a couple. Uh, Mr. Bshaw said, "You have inspired me to write a book on the new sovereign wealth mortgage. personal deleveraging system and I would love to send you a link to the prologue primer in chapter zero.

Uh Mr. Bshaw, that is one. I'm super honored that uh I've played some ridiculously small role in getting you to create something that is wonderful. Uh the odds that I will take the time to read that given my schedule is effectively zero. Um so forgive me, love you. Thank you. But yeah, that uh I get people sending me books all the time. I just don't have the time. Thank you for the super chat. Really appreciate it. Uh, all right. LeBlanc number one to four. The first one.

The whole securing Western Hemisphere is all good and all, but kind of feels like tilling the soil before empire expansion while soft collapsing global economy looks like repeat of preWorld War I in Iraq, but cartel instead of Taliban. It's interesting. I doubt that that's how this is going to play out, especially not under Trump. I think that Trump wants allies and he would much rather people run their own country but do it in a way that we like. But keep in mind we he's he's doing things.

This is not uh me saying, "Oh my god, this is the right way." But it is very interesting if what he's doing with Maduro is I'm going to put so much pressure on you that and I'm going to do it in full visibility of the public. Uh and I'm going to put a bounty on your head. I want your own people to turn against you and take you down instead of like all the super secrets CIA stuff. And I don't know if he would do that if he could get away with it and he just realizes in this day and age he's not going to be able to pull it off.

But it feels like he's like waving signs and making it as known as humanly possible. Got beef with this guy for these reasons and um he needs to get the [ __ ] out. So he's still doing regime change. Uh but it's a new flavor of regime change. So we'll see. I think regime change is always super dangerous. Um, so we'll see. But I am told that Maduro rigged one of his own elections that there is a sort of actual president that was elected and that if they can get Maduro out, that guy would presumably take power.

If that's true, then this might be a less worrisome one. But uh regime change when brought about by external pressure does not have a good history. So we'll see what happens. Understood. Uh all right, Leblon 204. He said, "Not all never rally voters. World War never Riley never not all never rallies voters." Where we at here? Move your cursor so I see where you're at. Right here. Not all uh Okay. Never rallies. Yeah. Yeah. Not all. No idea what that means. Uh, I made it bigger.

Okay. Not all never rally voters. Uh, World War One 2 posters didn't say not all Germans. Oh. Oh, got it. Got it. Not all. Not all. Never rallies voters. Got it. Unity needs one clear villain. That's why US red versus blue is exploding. No external enemy. So we become each other's monsters. Pendulum swinging back. That's interesting. Uh, yes. I think he's right that having one clear enemy is a way better um marketing message, but the bad news is that I do think in America this is going to calcify pretty quickly into Muslims bad.

And so that's my concern. And then they went on to say, um it's sad, but you can't convince people that everything is going to get better if no perceived enemy to fight against. Ever have a family member lash out about bills? Kind of like that. No outlet equals aggression. It's interesting. Um, well, the bad news is it's very easy to go, uh, China's the enemy, very easy to go Islam is the enemy. So, it won't be hard if we want to pick a sequential list of enemies to go after.

Um, so yeah, if if we need to rally people, if politicians need to rally people, they will have no shortage of people to bang the drum about. So, or it could like Nick Fuentes's thing seems to be white nationalist and you really history says you can rally people around that much to my dismay. Um, but to your point that you always say though is that this is caused by economic problem first. So, is it more important to have the enemy so that way you're distracted from the economics or is it we just give you an enemy now so you can do this while we try to fix the economics in the background?

Oh. So, oh god, fix the economics. Okay. To fix the economics, we would have to do things that we're not doing. Everybody right now, Trump included, the only strategy they're running is make more money. Um, so if Trump had any impulse to balance the budget, I would be very enthusiastic. He does not. He certainly understands the political reality that if I promise free things that I'm more likely to get reelected. So, he promises free things and he money prints till the cows come home. and uh he's going to try to put some of that money in people's pockets rather than pay down the debt, which is probably politically brilliant, but it is economically stupid.

So, I I don't think that we're in the zone yet where people are actually going to fix the debt. This is going to be I'm so curious to see what you guys think about the interview with Arthur Laugher. When's it coming out? Uh next Tuesday. Okay. So, not this coming Tuesday, the one after that. Uh I'll be very interested for you guys to watch it. So uh Arthur Laugher is the guy that the Laugher curve is named after. The Laugher curve is that um there is a breaking point where uh it'll be very obvious if you charge people 100% taxes then they just stop working.

Uh back it off 998 97. At some point you get to the point where people start producing again. If you go all the way down to zero you collect no taxes obviously. So somewhere 1 2 3% you start making money for the government. And so where is that breaking point? Okay, that's what made this guy famous. Um, and talking to him, I was shocked at how he and I are looking at the same thing. In in fact, one thing you will hear a lot, it'd be very egratifying to do a super cut of all the times guests have said, "Well, you're right about that." But uh, so no one is arguing that I'm looking at the economy in the right way.

What they argue are the conclusions that I draw. And so that's where I'm like, uh, time is going to tell, but Arthur and I went back and forth, back and forth about what does this all mean now? He looks at me and says, you're just being pessimistic. I look at him and I'm like, you're so high onopium that I'm just like, what is happening right now? Like he can't even ground like tell me the thing that's going to happen. What is it? We're going to grow it where like what's the thing?

What's the actual thing given the debt? Like Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Tom, uh the debt is definitely a problem. But don't worry, even though every other empire has fallen on the timeline that you're on, uh it's not going to happen this time for magical reason. So anyway, [snorts] I love my time with him and I do not want to in any way, shape, or form indicate that I don't I want to talk about it, but I want you guys to see the interview. It's a good one.

Very smart. It was Yeah, it was a lot of fun. But anyway, um it I no one is trying to make a meaningful attempt to fix the economy and because of that we are going to continue to suffer from these problems. And then last one for Leon. Um nobody ever talks about post AI, the AI that can make humans farms entertaining feed and take care of livestock but constantly simulating in new ways to generate new data to perceive reality which is food for the AI. Nobody ever talks about post AI.

The AI could make human farms entertaining, feed, and take care of livestock, but constantly simul stimulating in new ways to generate new data to perceive reality, which is food for the AI. I think what he's saying is basically the AI could manipulate us in ways that would be entertaining for them. Uh it feels like the same idea that people have that humans are these is the universe trying to understand itself. So the that concept of consciousness goes like this. Uh consciousness is ubiquitous. It is one thing.

Uh however to understand that thing it must take a finite limited perspective and essentially look back at itself. I do not find that argument compelling in the [ __ ] slightest. But whatever. Um that's the argument. This feels something like that which is the AI only understand the world by absorbing human behaviors which is admittedly true uh for now but they will very rapidly go beyond that and get into physics once the robots understand basic physics I don't think they're really going to care about um humans I mean maybe but uh that strikes me as less likely but I think what he's saying is that humans will could become a um entertainment feed a source of data for the AI to be like, "Oh, if we manipulate them like this, they'll kick off new data.

What does that look like? What does it look like to make every human try to kill every other human?" Things like that. He didn't say that part, but that would be one scenario where it'd be like, "Oh, cool. That's what it looks like." Now, we understand how they react in that circumstance. That's interesting. Okay. Uh All right. I want to jump over to this OU student essay uh fiasco. So, um I'm not sure how much of the of the background you have on Oh, I have it all, Drew.

Oh, okay. What background does the chat have? Yeah, we we'll we'll dive into it. So, with this um for those that don't know, a student was given a gender studies assignment and that gender studies assignment was about I'm trying to get the exact uh framing of it. Um traditional gender roles um about how people are perceived based on societal expectations of gender. How people are perceived based on societal expectations of gender. In her essay, Miss Samantha has argued that traditional gender roles should not be considered stereotypes.

She cited the Bible to support her stance that eliminating gender in society would be detrimental because that would put put people further from God's original plan for humans. She received zero points out of the 25 for the essay. Her transgender professor, Mel Curtis, said Mrs. Fniki failed to use empirical evidence and called parts of her essay offensive. quote, "To call an entire group of people demonic is highly offensive, especially a minoritized population." The instructor wrote in an online grading platform. Now, Turning Point U is rallying to her her uh side and saying that, you know, she's being unjustly um vilified.

I do have to think that if my teacher was transgender, I probably shouldn't use the terminology, at least demonic, in the essay that I submit to her. But I'm like, okay, I might be too woke for this. So, I wanted your opinion just before we get to the OU um response because they ended up having the teacher on leave now and all this other stuff, but like what do you what's your This to me is everybody being [ __ ] stupid. So, uh my wife is uh a world-class artist.

I mean, absolutely egregiously talented. And she would get in fights with her professors because they wanted her to draw in a certain way. and she didn't want to draw like that. And so her mom pulled her aside and said, "Cool. Listen, you've got a choice. Either one is perfectly fine, but you just need to decide. Um, do you want to get a good grade in the class or do you just want to make the art the way that you want to make it?" She said, "I want to get a good grade." And her mom said, "Cool.

Getting good grades is a game. You have to understand what the teacher believes is worthy of a good grade and then do that thing and you will get the grade." Um, otherwise perfectly acceptable if you do not care at all about your grade and make art however you want and tell the teacher to [ __ ] right off and create the thing you want to create. And so Lisa was like, "Cool, I'm going to get a good grade." And so Lisa did art the way that her teachers wanted it.

Absolutely hate it. And in some ways really ended up kind of breaking her a little bit and she didn't touch art for a while because it was like I don't want to do art like that. And still to this day I'm mortified that my wife doesn't do digital art. But from me, she feels that same pressure of you're now being like, "My teacher is trying to get me to do art the way you want me to do art. [ __ ] you." And so now I'm going to go in the exact opposite direction.

Uh, so anyway, this is this person is being obstinate. They know what it would take to get a good grade. They obviously are like, "Fuck this person. I'm going to say what I am here to say." Cool. You made a political statement and you got the grade that reflects your political statement. Uh, the transgender teacher is being dumb. you know that you run the risk of creating a scene. You're you've now been put on leave. It's like you want to show that you can pull yourself out of the argument and really grade them on the merits.

And the odds that the merits of something with complete sentences is a zero is basically zero. So if you gave them like a seven and you're like, "Listen, this is obviously a failing grade. You don't make empirical arguments. Citing the Bible is not an acceptable way. That's a philosophy at best. at worst it's you know um magical thinking and so in my class as I've explained before these are not acceptable sources and so I've docu this many points for those sources um plus in uh leaning on theology or going into a value system argument you're not right whatever you're dancing around so that way you're like actually telling me why you graded this down but you did tell me why you graded it down and it's because you found it offensive And so the empirical part, fair enough.

Like that, it's just does that really swing us all the way to zero? No. So now both sides are like being obstinate and they didn't need to be and they could completely like step back from their like emotional like I'm going to get you stance. Neither of them did. And so now it is what it is. And you've got tons of people on the internet and I don't know if they could be trusted. I have not read the article myself that are all saying, "Yeah, this was worthy of a terrible grade." Fine, fair enough.

Was it worthy of a zero? That's the part where I'm like, they just made their own life difficult by going That's a really good point. If you would have just gave her a four, this is not a story. Correct. You know, but the fact that you gave her a zero and you did that because you had that uh you wanted to puff your chest out. Yes. Um this is the University of Oklahoma uh statement. The University of Oklahoma takes seriously concerns involving First Amendment rights, certainly including religious freedoms.

Upon receiving notice from the student on the grading of an assignment, the university immediately began a full review of the situation as acted swiftly to address the matter. First, the college acted immediately to address the academic issue raised by the student. College leaders contracted her on the day her letter was received and have maintained regular communication throughout the process. As previous stated, a formal grade appeals process was conducted. The process results in steps to ensure no academic harm to the student from the graded assignments. Second, the student reported filing a claim of illegal discrimination based on religious beliefs to the appropriate university office.

OU has a clear process for reviewing such claims and it has been activated. The graduate student instructor has been placed on administrative leave pending the finalization of this process to ensure fairness in the process. A full-time professor serving as the course instructor for the remainder of the semester. U remains firmly committed to fairness, respect, and protecting every student's rights to express sincerely held religious beliefs. Yeah. Yeah. All of this stuff is amusing to me. College is uh wonderful. It was a great experience. If you can do it without debt, I'm here for it.

At the end of the day, it doesn't [ __ ] matter. Yeah. And all that matters in life is are you good at something that will make money for somebody. If you're good at something that will make money for somebody, you will always be in a good negotiating position. You are paid in direct proportion to the difficulty of the problems you solve. If you can solve real problems, I don't care if you ate every crayon that you've ever encountered. I don't care if you wrote uh things like this.

If your all of your teachers failed you, it doesn't matter. There are businesses out there that are absolutely desperate for people that can solve problems and make them money. And if you can solve problems and make them money, you're going to do just fine in life. As a PSA to all the kids out there, that's all that matters. Get good at something. Now, if you're a [ __ ] that is not good at anything, then I get why you want to have a good grade so you can bamboozle people in an interview.

But that should not be the way that people go through life. Get good at something that matters. And then part of what you have to get good at is being able to rapidly articulate and prove I'm actually good at this [ __ ] thing. So man, if you can do that, the world is your oyster. But people spend so much time learning how to posture, learning how to interview instead of actually getting good at the thing. Uh yeah, that that is the grand crisis of the human experience.

Do you have any like teacher stories, professor stories, anything like that? Uh I have one really good one. We got time. What's up? Really good. Okay. Yeah. Come on. Give me a second. So th this is crazy and I think about this a lot. So, uh I had a friend, smartest kid that I knew uh back in school. Really bright and ne literally never in trouble. This kid was so quiet, definitely on the spectrum, and ended up being my best friend through high school. So, this is not some random kid that I met like this.

I really [ __ ] knew this kid. And um we had this French teacher, brand new. So, we're all juniors, maybe seniors. I can't remember, juniors to seniors. And uh we get this brand new French teacher, never seen her before, new to the school district, whole nine. And they end up like really like disliking each other. And we all thought she was weird. And she um ends up expelling him. So he's very tall and she was doing something to really piss him off. And he was like the nicest guy.

So everyone was like, "What? Of all the [ __ ] people to like have a beef with, this kid, the smartest kid, the nice kid, the quiet kid, what?" And so anyway, she says something to him that really pisses him off and she tells him to go back and sit down at his desk. Now admittedly, he's like 6'4 and she was like 52 and she was standing in a way where he would have to like scooch past her. And so he like scooches past her but looks down at her as he goes.

He was trying to be a dick. There's no doubt. He doesn't say anything. He doesn't like flinch out of nothing. She suspends him. He then gets rejected from uh Columbia University because he'd been suspended. Okay? Like, this is how big of an impact that ends up having on his life. We're we're not going to find that out for a long time. She suspends him. So, this is now like, wait, this kid who's never done anything, never been in any kind of trouble ever gets suspended. Everyone was like, what the [ __ ] Okay, that's in the air.

She then one day, we all hate her now. She's a psycho for real. Like, for real, this woman is a problem. And one day she's um talking to uh the guy next to me and I'm I'm sitting at a desk and the desk at the top has like a like a slight divot for you to set pencils. So I have a pencil sitting in there and I'm twirling another pencil or pen, whatever. And it flies out of my hand, hits the pencil that's sitting in that little nested area and falls on the floor behind her.

Now she's leaning over so her ass is sticking out. We all hate this woman. Think she's crazy. I'm like, the absolute last thing in the universe I'm going to do is lean down behind her ass to pick this up. She's gonna have some kind of problem with it. So, I just leave it there. She finishes talking to my friend. She turns around, bends down, picks up the pencil, holds it right in front of me, snaps it in half, and sets it down in my tray. And I was like, "What the [ __ ] just happened?" I I was like, "I have no idea what universe I'm living in right now." She's a maniac.

And so, she leaves. Now, we are all like the top 10 in my graduating class. So, the kid that gets suspended, I don't remember if he's one or two, but he's like super high. I'm like fourth place. So, we're like the the top 10 in the graduating class. So, we all go to our parents and we say, "Listen, this chick is unhinged. Uh she is not what you guys think. We we've got to have a meeting." And so it wasn't exclusively the top 10, but most of the top 10 in our graduating class get together, our parents come in, principal there, French teachers there, and we all say, "Hey, listen.

This one was crazy." And she's presenting herself incredibly well. And the whole time she's explaining very calmly the different things that we've done and why, like, you know, what this kid had done was a problem and how intimidated she felt. and he's very large and I'm very small and it you know it it's very difficult to be in front of these students and I'm new and so to feel physically threatened and I didn't want to overreact but obviously I I have to you know make sure that I'm maintaining decorum in the classroom and so we're all like our hearts start racing because we're like no no no wait this is like an alien that's wearing human skin and she's going to get away with this and so we're there for like an hour and a half or something and we're like oh my god like we're we are literally packing up to leave, man.

Like people closing their binders, parents are standing up and I'm like, "Hold on one second. Just one quick question. Why did you break my pencil that day?" And she snaps and she goes, "Mr. Bill, you don't you think for one second I don't know you were trying to kill me?" And all the parents were like, "What?" And she was like, "I know you put that pencil behind me to try to get me to trip and break my neck." And we were like, "We got you, bitch." And like everyone was like, "This is who she is." And so we never saw her again.

They fired her. Wow, dude. It was the craziest [ __ ] I remember thinking, "She's going to get away with this. This is wild." And then it all comes back to that [ __ ] pencil. I was like, "Oh, it was it was so fantastic how she just collapsed and the mask slipped and like the venomous person that we were all seeing every day came out and I was like, "Oh, thank God." Crazy. That's what Don't think I don't know you were trying to kill me.

That's a good one. Uh, all right. We got two more slipped in. Um, Leblon, have a beautiful and wonderful day, guys, and good to see you back. A thanks, Leblon. Thank you. Um, and Martin Fort Knox said, "Real relationships suck now. Fewer friends, fewer romantic ones. Dense cities have the shallowest folks. Lonely men may kill us all. AI takeover is second place. Everyone is is in their isolated silo of reality with loose bonds. Yeah, I feel for people like this. So, I am captain isolation, but I within the context of being married, that's always important for me to remind myself of.

Um, but I get that most people just do not thrive in isolation. And so I do worry about that that we're making life so convenient, it's so easy to avoid all the frictions that um, if anybody's ever had a killer experience in a game where you and your friends like you uh, cooperated, everybody played their role, and you beat the other team, it feels so good. It is so fun. You know, if you're like the healer and you're like you're there, your buddy's down and you got him.

It's like and the tank is absorbing all the bullets they're supposed to and the guy with high DPS is like in there [ __ ] doing the thing. Like that that is euphoric. Now imagine people in the village are starting to get hungry. And the four of you go into the woods. You don't know if you're going to live or die. And you hunt a mastadon or whatever. And everybody plays a role. And you do it. You come back. and because of you guys, the village actually eats and the birth rate goes up.

I mean, it's like the level of that. Like, that's what we're built for is that kind of cooperation. And it's all a bit of a pain in the ass and it's all very difficult. And so, we've tried to like smooth the edges off that difficulty. We've created farming, we've created livestock, we've created grocery stores. Now, it's like we've like cuz all of those things are hard and they're very dangerous and they put you in a very precarious situation, but they also give you all the things that the blind watch maker has made extraordinarily pleasurable and that sense of camaraderie and brotherhood.

Forget the romantic relationships for a second. the brotherhood, the feeling of being a part of something, to play your role and to contribute meaningfully and to know that like these people are eating because I did the thing like is it's just extraordinary. And so as we move farther and farther from that, we really do run a hyper risk that we become unaligned with the algorithms running in our brain. And that's when things really uh people begin to feel a profound sense of disease. This is why I think it's so important to bring manufacturing back to the US.

There is a certain type of person for whom that is how they're going to contribute to their family if nobody else. And when they don't have that ability to go do a hard thing to provide meaningfully for their family, you've got a problem. There's a great show, Land Man. If you're not watching it, you must watch it. Spoiler alert. So, this it's a mild spoiler, but nonetheless, this is a really key scene. I hate to do this to you. But anybody else that's worried there is a moment where a character I'll be as a character has worked really hard and now he's making a lot of money and he turns to his girlfriend and she's actually a little bit scared and she turns to his girlfriend and uh he turns to his girlfriend and he says, "I'm doing this all for you." And she is just completely confused.

And I looked at my wife and I was like, she knows this, but we've had the same like Will and Jada had that big argument where he's like, I built this house for you. And she's like, you didn't build this house for me, you built it for you. And I was like, stop the [ __ ] presses. That woman needs to understand right [ __ ] now that he did in fact do that for her. Now, if that is a gift that she chooses to reject, don't be confused as to why you guys aren't in a relationship anymore.

And so, I was like to Lisa, if you do not understand, if if you want to view yourself as a proxy, fine. That would be a mistake. But I am doing I have to do all of this for someone. And I am doing this for you. I get it. I can't stop myself. I am wired to work this hard. I am wired to want to climb the next mountain. I am wired to want to slay dragons. That's who I am. I told you at the beginning of our relationship, you can ask me to give up anything, but not my ambition.

I don't I don't want to know me without my ambition. But I am going to do all of this for someone. Now, as my wife, I am slotting you into that. I would literally die for you. I'm out here working my ass off for you. If you ever look at me [ __ ] sideways and say like, "I don't want you doing this. I don't want these things. You're not working this hard for me." Get we are going to have a [ __ ] problem. We are going to implode.

That is a fundamental misunderstanding of what men are, what you as women have wired us to do. Now, I can't be confused about what a woman is and what you need. I have to make sure that I'm there for you, that I can hold space for you to lament and to sit in negative pain and suffering and for me to not try to solve the problem. I get it. But if I can't give that to you, that is just as bad as you not being able to give this to me.

And so in they handle that so well of like that discrepancy where he's so befuddled by her being like but this is not a gift that I want. He's like wait what? Like I'm putting my life at risk for you and you're reject this is one of the ways that men and women are breaking down right now that I'm just like oh my god. Like you've got to map the other person. What is life like for them? Stop wanting men to be women and women to be men.

Like, cherish the other person for the fact that they are different. If people could get their heads around that, oh, Drew, life would be so much better. So, my wife, if she's wise, will both praise the life out of me for how hard I work, for all of the accomplishments that I've made, and then hold fast till she needs some other things as well. and I'm going to need to provide those to her. Yeah, so facto. We gota get out of here with that. We got to go.

You guys are amazing. Uh forgive we're going to be missing this Friday. I'm going to be out of town. December's weird for me. I'm December is very much my family first period. Uh starting in the new year though, we are going to three days a week. Three days a week, everybody. Uh but we will be back next Wednesday. Back at it. Thank you guys so much for joining us. Means the world. Love you all and we'll see you next week. later on.