Bill Meyer Show Podcast - Sponsored by Clouser Drilling www.ClouserDrilling.com - 05-29-25_THURSDAY_7AM

Episode Date: May 29, 2025

05-29-25_THURSDAY_7AM

The Bill Meyer Show podcast is sponsored by Clouser Drilling. They've been leading the way in Southern Oregon well drilling for over 50 years. Find out more about them at www.clouserdrilling.com. Six minutes after seven, 7705633, it is the Bill Meyer Show on Conspiracy Theory Thursday. Now there is talk that the Trump administration did keep the no tax on tips in the big beautiful bill. If that happens, how would you change your tipping behavior and why? Now, if it becomes free, I mean, do you have to, I mean, they started 17 and a half percent now.

That's what I've noticed there, when they give you the little card swipe thing, you go there and you go 17.5 percent. What? You know, let me go to Francine. Francine, good to have you here. What are you thinking this morning on a Conspiracy Theory Thursday to grab as much money from us for every service? What are you saying? Well, gratuity, I looked at the etymology and I'm having trouble finding what I was looking for

because I was assuming that gratuity was a derivative of some sort from the word gratitude because essentially that it's your, the original idea of leaving a tip was to show that you appreciate the service you received. Agreed. Yeah. So, and now they've been turning it into a requirement, or a social requirement, so that if you don't leave your tip, you're like, ew.

Yeah, big meaning, that sort of thing. And then you read about people that are involved in DoorDash, UberEats, things like that. You read all the stories about, now not everybody does this. And by the way, my son, by the way, I think is driving for Uber Eats right now, in between the gigs at the moment over in the Bend area.

So I kind of, he hasn't confirmed this, but it has been well known. They will actively talk about sometimes if somebody doesn't tip, or if they don't see a big tip, they'll grab a piece of the pizza and then they'll shove the pizza together to make it look like it's still whole, that sort of thing. And I think to myself, you know.

Now, I'm not saying that all that all are doing this, but it's like, you know, it's like holding your service at ransom almost is what it seems like. But what would you think though, if it becomes a tax-free gift then, would you change? I don't know, because to be honest, I'm not one who goes out very often. I don't go out to eat a lot, you know, so I'm not really involved in that at this point in my life. But as a one-time recipient of tips, I know that I really did appreciate them. And I was always, I mean, I'm basically pretty nice to most people, it's just kind of the way I am.

But when I was working at a restaurant situation, I really hoped people would appreciate how nice I was. I mean I really did go out of my way to help people out. All right, what do you think is an appropriate tip here? Because it's kind of funny, you go to McDonald's or other fast food drive-thru, nobody expects a tip, although sometimes they put a little can out there, but still. What's the proper amount you think? Let me put it this way.

A tip to show appreciation should be totally up to the person who's leaving the tip. There should be no social limitations or whatever. I mean, if somebody leaves a hundred dollar tip because they're just, you know, really wealthy and trying to be really super nice and all that, everybody doesn't go, oh that was way too much, do they? Okay, so... No, but we are talking about the tipping which is kind of getting to the point of being expected. It's like, or else.

Well, that's what I'm saying. It's like, you know, you shouldn't have to be expected to leave a certain amount. I mean, even if all you have is a buck or two to leave at a, you know, a $20 dinner, like the dinner costs more than you expected and you're down to your last few bucks, so you leave them a couple of dollars. That seems really cheesy, but you're still trying to show that you appreciated it You know, I mean it's when you don't leave anything at all. That's when you're saying Hey, I didn't like your or you leave a penny right you leave a penny to make a point the old days

Nobody does that anymore, you know We'll run out of pennies. There's only like 300 billion of them left They've quit making them and how are we ever gonna get by? But yeah, I don't know, Bill. I mean, it's, you know, I really think all this pressure about tipping is just completely over the top. It's out of control. And it really, it isn't a society's place to tell everybody how and what to tip. All right. Francine, we give you a whole lot. you for the call. All right. All right. 7705633. So that was someone who used to be, used to, you know, survive or work on tips.

How would you change? If it becomes tax free, will you change? Why or why not? I think it's a pretty simple one. Another question this morning is that Dan Rayfield was successful in stopping the tariffs. So the tariffs are done. International Trade Corps ends up saying that the authority just doesn't, is not there with President Trump.

He's not allowed to use this authority to unilaterally go out and do all of these tariffs. So, is that good? Is that good? Is that a proper restoration of constitutional law and authority, and this is something that should go with Congress? Or do you think that President Trump should have had that authority to work the tariffs? Ray Field was a leader on this one. About a dozen other states ended up getting on him, and so he was successful.

The court agreed. Now the Trump administration is going to file an appeal. We don't know where this goes. Trump hasn't had a lot of luck in the courts lately. What do you think? Tariffs down in flames? Markets seem to like that. That doesn't fix the hollowing out of the middle class though, does it? I mean the whole purpose of the tariffing was supposed to encourage more reshoring.

I mean, the markets may like it, and maybe the judges like it this way, saying, hey, you don't really have the authority. But do you think Congress would be willing to do what President Trump has done to get the reshoring going on back here? Was it a win then for the Oregon AG to do this? 770-5633-770-KMEDI, are we winning? This is the Bill Meyers Show. The Montana Ruby Marketing Department

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peak of the heat sunshine in 93. O 93 overnight lows in the mid 50s and for Saturday high of 83 Sunday 75 quarter after 7 7 7 0 5 6 3 3 open phones on conspiracy theory Thursday if tips become non-taxable just complete gifts at this point will you change and Dan Rayfield Oregon's Attorney General has a win And Dan Rayfield, Oregon's Attorney General, has a win. Smacks President Trump in the face, no tariffs. Those tariffs that he put in there, the Liberation Day tariffs, not happening. Is that a win for us or not? Let me talk with Matt.

Matt, what's on your mind? Go ahead, on the road. Hello, Matt. Hey. Hi, Matt. What's going on? I just feel like the tax tip situation is a way for the employers to not say to employees what they should be getting and having us put the bill. So you'd rather us go like some countries do and no tipping and you just increase overall pay? Is

that what you'd prefer? I don't see why not. Okay. Now if it becomes tax free, will that change your tipping behavior or not? I already tip accordingly. I usually do the 18% as recommended on the bill. You do the 18%, all right. Hey Matt. Appreciate the call. Just wanted to ask As I mean kind of irritated on tip creep. I've been seeing everywhere here. Let me talk with Michael. Hey Michael. It's on your mind Well, I got a pretty good Conspiracy theory but uh, go ahead. Let me know want to make a comment on the

You care thing. Yeah. Yeah. Do you think that it's a win for Dan Rayfield, our attorney general in Oregon, with his lawsuit, joined by a bunch of states, ended up stopping the Trump tariffs? Yeah, I think it actually is because to throw these emergency declarations out there like willy-nilly over national security threats, right? And I'm like, okay, you and me may be a national security threat, but there's no threat with AI. And my conspiracy theory is AI has already blackmailed half of Congress, if not more, and they're just playing the game. That's a really interesting conspiracy theory, Michael.

Yeah. It's not exactly a conspiracy. They did a test study and closed case or whatever. I can't remember the name of the company. But being threatened with shutdowns, the machine actually got to the point where it actually blackmailed everyone. Yeah, yeah, and started threatening. Yeah, good point.

Thanks for making that, Michael. Don's here too. It's Conspiracy Theory Thursday. Good morning, Don. Thanks. It's lovely to be here, but we're surrounded by Marxists. Anyone claiming... Oh, you just noticed that? Really? That's an opening problem I'm addressing, because even in Oregon especially, anyone getting into those halls of authority is only schooled in Marxism. So when you have Wisconsin trying to ship dairy products to Canada, which is just over the border, Canada has a 300% tariff on American dairy.

So why can't we play at the same level to even the playing field? And I will show you even somebody as innocent as Dennis Richardson. I know he can't defend himself. He is solely responsible for the Confucius schools being brought into Oregon public schools, Oregon public school dollars,

subsidizing Marxism to our youngest students. I agree with you and that is something that I took issue with with Representative and Secretary of State Richardson. I know he's no longer with us and that was very sad but but point well taken. Yeah I agree with you on that. Yeah. So concerning tips and gratuities, why do we have bracket and inflation creep with gratuities? Go back 50, 70 years, 10% was a tip. If you gave more, give more. That's fine. But now it's compulsory, 20% in many places, because 10% is 10%.

Why is there inflationary bracket creep with tipping? That is so stupid. Well, it makes no sense as you've seen the incredible increase in the cost of meals out. The tip also goes up, commensurately with it. No. Inflation does not affect percentages. See, 10% is always 10%. Yeah, but there's definitely been a tip creep. You can agree that. You see it everywhere now. Okay. It's becoming mandatory. That's wrong. All right. Thank you for that, Don. 7705633. I'll grab one more here before, Hannity. Hello. Who's this? Welcome. This is Al in the Applegate. Hey, Al. Welcome.

Hey. So if 25% of my tip is going to the federal government as taxes and I no longer have to pay that part of the tip, then rather than paying 15 to 20% of my bill as a tip, I'm going to give 12 to 15% as a tip because I'm not going to be paying this tax anymore. All right. So I was wondering if that would change some behavior because you can do that figuring. Yeah, 25% if that tax goes away. Sure, why not? Why give more? Why not? Okay, alright. Thanks Al. Good going. By the way, do you think that the AG that ended up stopping the Trump tariffs,

is that a win for Oregon or not? What's your opinion? Oh, he took off. Alright. Well, what's your opinion then too? 7705633. Oregon Truck and Auto Authority is the Rogue Valley spray-on bed liner leader for 20 years running. We are excited to upgrade our spray-on bed liner product to legacy protective coatings and join the fast growing nationwide network of dealers. Our new legacy bed liners are the latest innovations and improvements in spray-on bed liner technology. Stop by Oregon Truck and Auto Authority and let our seasoned team of professionals give your truck the protection it needs with a legacy spray-on bed liner.

This is an emergency alert from Jackson County Emergency Management. Imagine if instead of this ad, you were receiving an evacuation notice. Would you be prepared or call 855-815-GOLD. Welcome to the Bill Meyers show on 1063 KMED. Give Bill a call at 541-770-5633. That's 770 KMED. And we'll get to your calls here in just a moment. Representative Duane Yunker text messages me that the Oregon Citizens Day at the Capitol this coming Tuesday, 11 in the morning, there's a floor session. Observe the Oregon Legislature in session and see your legislators in action.

I'm sorry, the cynical side of me says, and watch the ones other than Duane Younger help pass Democrat legislation. Duane, I appreciate that. But there's also going to be a Oregon Citizens Rally, 1230 to 130, this coming Tuesday also with a bunch of speakers there, including House Leader Christine Drazin, who, by the way, is very upset that they're bringing up cap and trade, and she's asked to come on the show, and I would love to have her on. I would then say if you're really concerned about cap and trade and you're concerned about the

drunk, the gun bills and all the rest of them, I would then say, Leader Drazin, why are you providing quorum? But that might be uncomfortable for her, I guess. Also, Representative Younger put out a note last night blasting the OSAA, letting boys steal girls' medals at this week's Track and Field State Championship violates federal law. He issued a strong rebuke ahead of the OSAA State Track and Field Championships. BioMails expected to compete in the events at Hayward Field. Yep, we are into the delusion here big time. He says, let's be clear, this is cheating, it's not inclusion. Representative Younger,

Representative Younger gets the real American salute. Okay. And you would think that everyone else would join with him on this, but they're probably thinking, Dwayne, Dwayne, come on, you have to get with the program because after all we might get some park funding or something if we go along with the Dems. That's probably what they're saying to him, even right now for all I know. Let me go to Wild Salmon Steve. Hello Steve, good to have you on here. Let me go to wild salmon Steve. Hello Steve

Good to have you on here. It's conspiracy theory Thursday. It's on your mind Well, the giant conspiracy is starts out with the fact that we all live and we all die So we're gonna we're gonna find out someday what it's all about and I know crazy G and called about Some YouTube channel he's watching with some guy claims to go back and forth to the other side and back. Okay, well great. I'm glad he's happy with that. I guess. It doesn't really fit in the description of the world that we live in, but taxes are taking

from one person and giving to another. They're actually against natural law. And tipping is not, it cannot be a tip if it's required. And here's another perspective. The world is getting more and more expensive. Each of us lives in the prison of our own experiences. And so you don't know what it's like to be 10 years older or 20 years older or 30 years older or 40 years older because you've never been there.

When you get there, you've got it, right? Sure. You can try to put yourself in another person's shoes, but it's impossible to be perfect about it. It absolutely is. You don't understand. And, you know, I'm not wealthy. I guess I would say that I feel blessed. But actually the cost of going out and getting a hamburger has doubled. It's cheaper to buy a piece of meat and cook it on the grill. I mean, we go out to eat much less, partly because of the cost, but the other part is they make everything so salty that it doesn't taste good. You've noticed that too. I was astounded that, especially in the fast food world, it's like how salty can you make it? And also, you know what really offends me is the sweetness of all the buns.

As if everything has to be...and maybe this is just an American thing, but this idea that your hamburger bun has to be sweet like the King Hawaiian buns that they sell in the grocery stores, it kind of offends me. It really does. Well, yeah, but see, it's actually a form of addiction. You get used to that sweetness, and then it kind of owns you. And then you turn around and you try to buckle your pants, and you need another buckle, and you don't have any place to buckle. And they were complaining about where do we go with these GLP drugs, the Ozempics and things like that. You know, mommy, daddy, why is my blood sugar so high? You know, all that kind of stuff, right?

Sure. Absolutely. You know, I've been dealing with this stuff with my wife here for quite a while. Yeah, you were mentioning that yesterday. A lot of people feeling for you. I know. Well, thank you for that. I appreciate it. I'm just dealing with from minute to minute, basically, because, you know, at a certain age, and each of us is different, we don't know what age it is. And, you know, biblically it says we don't know the time and hour, but we're all going to pass on to something. And what if we are all immortal? There is pretty much good evidence

from the writings of history to say that we might be, and we are here in a test to see how worthwhile we are here in a test to see how worthwhile we are. Yeah, and to experience the drama, I think, of life too is part of that. Well, you know, God's creation is beautiful. It's wonderful. And what humanity has done is labor under the sun to make it better for all of us. And laboring under the sun is what God said to Adam and Eve once they were thrown out of the Garden of Eden. But what happens to humanity here?

This is a question I might pose to you, to my next guest here too. But what happens to humanity when we no longer labor under the sun and artificial intelligence then does the work, as even Axios is talking about? They're looking at a 20% bloodbath coming next year. What do you think that does for humanity to no longer work for sustenance? And I think this is maybe why they were going for universal basic income to condition us for that. What do you think? Yeah, I think you're probably right, but that's evil because it takes away from each of us the ability to honor our Creator and you know the first two commandments, love God and honor your and you and treat your neighbors yourself. Those are the things that really are important. All right. Steve, I appreciate your take on it and thank you very much for the call. It is 732.

Joining me here in just a minute is Jeff Dornick. He's the founder and CEO of Pickaxe. It's another social media platform about freedom of speech and I have a feeling that Jeff is a little bit concerned about the tech bros out there saying, yep, not only do we have your AI right here but we have the the perfect control grid. We'll find out more about Pickaxe and what he's thinking. Next. We've all done it. You approach your vehicle and see a scratch or a ding, grimace and think, that's new. When did that happen? Well

that's like... Secure and protect the cargo in your bed from the elements. Styles from Truck Gear, Mac Industries, Undercover and more. Oregon Truck and Auto Authority. Your one-stop accessory and protection shop. The Bill Meyers Show on 1063 KMED. 736, Jeff Dornick joins me. Yeah, we'll take a little bit of emphasis as John Mellekamp plays guitar and more. Jeff Dornick is the founder and CEO of Pickaxe. Also host of the Jeff Dornick Show. Jeff, welcome.

How are you doing this morning? Doing really well. Thanks for having me on. OK, now the Jeff Dornick show is at Terrestrial Broadcasting online. Give me the spiel, tell me where people can find it. Oh yeah, definitely. So I actually run a podcast network called Maverick Broadcasting Network.

And so the Jeff Dornick show is on there. I actually just launched a brand new show with my buddy Matt Couch called Unsanctioned. And we have interesting conversations with very interesting people. Yesterday we just had a Pfizer employee Karen Kingston. Later today we've got Shannon Joy, who hosts the Shannon Joy Show. We have some amazing guests coming up, so that's the brand new show that I just launched.

All right. Very good. Now, you've also co-authored and published books like Church and State, How the Left Used the Church to Conquer America, and Social Injust and social injustice exposing the false gospel of the social justice movement. And do you have a forthcoming book coming out too? Yeah, I do. It's actually called Following the Leader. I'm actually kind of finishing it up right now. It's taking a lot longer to write than I originally anticipated, but it's really about how, you know, I would say the powers that be or the intelligence agencies or the deep state or whatever

it is, they use this kind of cult of personality and cult and just overall cult mentality in order to manipulate the masses. And so they're trying to get you to just play follow the leader that's happens on the left, happens on the right. And it's really important that people understand that it's happening and how to make sure that you don't get sucked in. Would you even say that with President Trump, we're experiencing that too, because you say it's the right and the left?

What do you think overall? Yeah, definitely. So when it comes to President Trump, there is a certain sector of his supporters that it's basically based on their worldview, based upon whatever Donald Trump says. That's not everybody by any means, but there is a group of people that it doesn basically based on their worldview, based upon whatever Donald Trump says. That's not everybody by any means, but there is a group of people that it doesn't matter what Trump says, he is right. Yeah, no one's infallible though.

And I continue to insist, Jeff, that I gave Trump my vote, but I did not give him my brain. And so we can still think about things and talk about it. Hey, before we get into pickaxe, I want to talk more about this. What do you think about our attorney general in Oregon, Dan Rayfield, having, I don't know if it's single-handedly, but a bunch of states join him. They smack down the tariff trade hard. I guess that's gone.

Now, he's going to appeal. President Trump will appeal. But it's been a pretty big defeat. I mean, the liberation day tariffs have been declared illegal, unlawful. What are you thinking about this? Does that work for you? Yeah, I feel like the whole tariff situation is a difficult one for me. In my opinion, I think that the state's challenging it and getting it struck down. I think that's definitely the wrong move. I think that Trump should have the ability to implement these. At the same time, one of my thought processes

that we definitely should be implementing tariffs, especially if it's like China and other places to employ labor in order to undercut American workforce and all that. At the same time, these tariffs are affecting small and medium sized businesses that run on very slim margins. And I know several businesses that are contemplating closing shop because they just don't have the margins in order to basically incorporate these additional fees with tariffs. Yeah, you don't have the price flexibility then to be able to add another 10, 15, 20% to the cost of your product in the United States, right? That kind of thing? They just don't... Exactly. 15, 20% of the cost of your product in the United States, right?

That kind of thing? They just don't... Exactly. A big business definitely can do it. Some of these small and medium-sized businesses can't really do that. And I think specifically I wish, especially for these American businesses that are kind of getting screwed by this policy, I wish that what Trump would have said is, hey, look, I'm giving everybody 10 months to set up manufacturing here in the United States and then we're gonna have like a hundred percent tariffs and that

way gives everybody the opportunity to actually bring willingly bring jobs or bring manufacturing back here to the United States as opposed to just implementing the tariffs and then it's kind of chaos and a lot of these small businesses don't even know what to do about it. Alright, Elon Musk has left the government down he's going back and working on tech on Tesla, rather, and SpaceX. And he was disappointed with the big bill, I think because he didn't see a lot of the Doge cuts in it.

However, Congress is talking about implementing Doge cuts and actually having some rescissions coming forward, which I think is a positive thing. But you have Musk and you have Bill Gates, a couple of big people when it comes to the future as they see us. What is your take on this? We've been talking a lot about AI.

We even have AI for Good conferences here in Southern Oregon over the last couple of days here. When I see all those tech bros up there with the president, my Spidey sense goes a little strange. What about yours? Yeah, no, exactly the same. I was shocked and somewhat appalled when I think it was day two of Trump's presidency, you know, he announced Stargate with Sam Altman and Larry Ellison basically to use mRNA technology combined with artificial intelligence to quote unquote combat cancer.

They noticed they didn't say cure cancer, they said do quote unquote combat cancer, whatever that means. Well, the thing is though, in today's business model, you never cure anything. You manage a symptom or you manage a disease. Have you noticed that? It's been a relatively recent thing.

That is a very good point. I think even with guys like Elon, I've always said I like Elon, but I don't necessarily trust him, not because I think that he's sinister, but because I disagree fundamentally with his worldview. He's not a Christian, doesn't believe in God, more of an atheistic libertarian worldview, but then additionally, he's also a transhumanist blending technology with human biology, and that's definitely a concern. And then you have Bill Gates that's kind of going down that world too, in which all we have to do is just manage you with the right vaccines. We'll have nirvana on Earth, really. Just get us the right medications. Oh, and by the way, let's geoengineer the skies too, while we're at it.

Yes, we have to reflect the sun's rays back in outer space because that makes perfect sense. But what's crazy is that, you know, both Bill Gates and Elon Musk have been talking about the next 10 years of artificial intelligence. And what they're both saying is that within the next 10 years, the human workforce, the everyday people that actually have jobs in this country, basically will be replaced by AI and robots and technology. Basically, we have no more need for work. That's definitely very concerning. And in addition to this, on this, the big beautiful bill that we were just talking about, there's a clause in there that bans states from implementing any regulation on artificial

intelligence or the development of it. Which is extremely concerning to me when you when you think that you know both Elon and Bill Gates and Sam Altman and all these guys are talking about how the American workforce is going to be replaced by AI and technology but then states are not able to protect the rights of the individual citizen because the federal government is saying that they no longer have the authority to do so and so, you know during this time we're gonna be looking at this transition period where Humans are going to be replaced by robots and technology and there's quite literally

Nothing that we can do about it unless the president of the United States or the federal government decides to actually step in Which do we really think that they're gonna stop it step in and stop this? I government decides to actually step in, which do we really think that they're going to step in and stop this? I disagreed with that take on it too, and I was talking with our Congressman Cliff Bench the other day about it. And the way he ended up relating it was that, well, you don't want a patchwork of states getting involved with it, having to have a different regulation or protection in all the various 50 states. But I know 10 years is a long time to sit around there and stay with a hands-off kind of thing, wouldn't you say? 10 years?

Yeah, well, and additionally, when you think about the way that our founding fathers established this country, they established this to where the preeminent governance is the most local. So the more local you are, the closer you are to the individual, that is supposed to be what has the most power. But then you have the federal government that's basically saying states, you are not allowed to protect the rights of your citizens while artificial intelligence has the ability to basically

dox people to use your likeness and your image in videos as we just saw Google roll out. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And that you the states just need to be lay downs then for federal government artificial intelligence technocratic problems. And maybe that's it. Maybe that's it. Maybe that's really what this is all about. Is this about bringing in the technocracy in your opinion? I've wondered about this because you see all these people that have been in favor of the technocracy, the scientific dictatorship, the control of people and energy and things, there has to be a... it's a clue, isn't it? Well yeah, and I think that there's this idea, especially when you're looking at AI, and I've been diving into a

lot of this, you know, building my own company, is that, you know, as AI progresses, it's going to be in the power even more into a few elected. Multi billionaire oligarchs you know these these whoever controls this technology basically have the ability to control all of this because they'll have it

will be able to use a I. In order to know all of our all of our desires all all of our you know even subconscious behaviors. Because they're going to be able to absorb all the information put into the large language models and then and then guess what they have data on us they will know us better than we know

ourselves and then you look at things like Stargate where quite literally they're gonna have all of our biometric data basically in real time plug it into artificial intelligence and it's like they're gonna know everything about us and that is terrifying because they're centralizing the power so much. So yeah, it's at a certain point we're going to have to do something about this. And I don't think the answer is just letting AI go unregulated for the next decade. Jeff Dornick is the founder and CEO of Pickaxe. And let's talk about that next year because you have done this social media network and

I took a look at it and thinking about getting an account and seeing what's going on. But what is the purpose of Pickaxe? Of course, now hopefully it's not like a pickaxe like the pickaxe into Leon Trotsky's skull, you know, back in the day. But tell me what you're thinking here. No, yeah, definitely. So basically, the whole idea was that, you know, obviously, we've all seen censorship happening. Big Tech is basically, you know, has been censoring people for

a very long time. I was permanently suspended on Expert for a period of time before Elon bought it. And then Elon buys X, and they literally write into their policies. You can look it up right now. They have a policy that says, freedom is speech, but not freedom is... Hey, could you hold on just a minute here? I'm just losing a little bit of your phone, Jeff. I don't know if you're by a window or anything like that. You're just kind of cutting into that. I want to hear this, okay? Let's see if that works better.

Oh, that's better. Yeah, thank you. Perfect. Yeah, so EXCEL has this policy called freedom of speech but not freedom of reach, which means they'll basically allow you to say whatever you want, but that doesn't mean that they have to allow anybody to see it. And I was like, that's still censorship because the foundational principles of the first amendment is that there's no restriction, uh, you know, you know, from the government when it comes to the first amendment.

But if you're going to say you're a free speech platform, you can't restrict people. Um, and so, so really, what, what's really happened with pickaxe is I developed this and built this from the perspective of how do we give people their voice back how do we get technology out of the way. And be able to connect people the people again- as of as opposed to you know having

algorithms and the platforms kind of get into the middle so. The way that we build- pickaxe specifically is that it's kind of a hybrid between X and sub stack and the- you've got your state you've got your social media stuff. You also

have the ability to write articles- we're rolling out a really cool feature where you be able to social media stuff. You also have the ability to write articles. We're rolling out a really cool feature where you'll be able to send out email newsletters and be able to build your email list and all that kind of stuff. So we've got a lot of really cool stuff, but everything that we're trying to do

is try to give you more direct access to your following and you as a follower or a user to be able to have more direct access to your favorite content creator or a radio show host or podcast host or things like that. I'll agree with you that, hey, just because you're allowed to say something on a social media channel,

if the social media channel then restricts your ability to be seen or heard, then what's the point? You're just talking to the wilderness, you're talking to the algorithm, I guess, as the case might be. My question for you though, as a CEO, you being the CEO, how do you make that pay though? Because part of the whole aspect of restricting

is that, okay, well, you get verified on X or whatever it is and then, hey, now you'll have the special badge and then you get seen by more, there's a financial deal going on with this. How do you make it with a pickaxe? Yeah, so we do have a verification process and a lot of that is that way we can weed out the bots and the trolls and the bot farms and all that. And so we do have a verification process but it is absolutely free because this is our way of dealing with that situation. And so if you get verified, then you get your blue check mark and then you can actually get seen trend,

all that kind of stuff. From a financial perspective, one of my core principles is that making sure that we're not collecting data. We're not this big, massive data collection scheme. Well, the current way that everything works though is that you collect the data and you sell advertising with that. So how do you do this?

How are you gonna make it work? So instead of targeting based upon your personal, basically stalking you and seeing, okay, which websites do you go into? Where are you shopping? What are your likes? What are your interests? All that kind of stuff.

We're actually able to target our advertising, not based upon you the user, but based upon the content creator and the content that they're creating. And so we're targeting ads around the topic of discussion as opposed to stalking you all over the internet. Okay, all right.

So yeah, cause I knew there had to be some way because you can't pay for the server farms and do all the rest of this kind of stuff. It's not cheap, right? You'll be the first to admit that I would imagine. Oh yeah, no, it definitely had to get a big investment to build this thing out. But I would wrap my brain for the longest time and figure out, okay, how do we do this without this massive data collection strategy? And then I figured out as long as we can target based upon the topics being discussed, you know, it's like, you know, if you're talking about COVID-19

or the vaccines or whatever it is, it's like, okay, we'll run an ad for the wellness company. You know, okay. Yeah. And of course, when they hear my phone callers on Conspiracy Theory Thursday, which in which all the weird stuff comes out, then mental health service ads will pop up, right? There you go. There you go. I say that affectionately. But you know how it goes sometimes. That's interesting. Now, is it actually out and available or is it kind of in a beta form? You know, where is this? Because anything that allows the reach to be unfettered would be really good for a lot of people, I'll bet. Yeah, definitely. So right now we are web-based only. So if you guys go to picaxe.com, again it's P-I-C-K-A-X.com, you guys can sign up, you can hop on there.

We're in the process of developing an app that's taking a little bit longer because of our commitment of being a free speech platform, we had to jump through some extra hoops in order to be able to get approved in the app stores. And so that's being developed right now and that should be out probably in the next six to eight weeks or so. It's an interesting time that we live in. There's a lot going on, a lot we're not supposed to talk about. The only thing that's going to save us, if we can be saved, Jeff, is the ability to vigorously

criticize and defend the good stuff and criticize the bad stuff. Maybe Pickaxe is another way, another tool in the toolbox, so to speak. What's next for you? Yeah. After this huh? What is next for you after this once you get this all fully up and running? Oh yeah for sure yeah no yes we're just gonna keep developing coming out with new features and all that so we've got a game plan and a roadmap for the next several years. Just again more features that we can implement that gives that basically gives you more direct access to people. And so we're actually going to be planning on doing an in-person tour around the country

with a lot of our top content creators. And then that way we can kind of bridge that gap between the online world and in person and you know, that's going to be able to meet face to face and all that kind of stuff. So we're planning that probably for the fall or so and so that's kind of kind of our next big venture that we're gonna be doing with Pickaxe. Jeff Dornak, the founder and CEO of Pickaxe. I'll get all your information up here. Final question I have for you. Do you see our world turning into almost two parallel societies in which they'll be the enhanced brain implant world of the of the tech bros and the

singularity and The authentic human do you see it going in that direction? Yeah, it's definitely going to go that direction I just I just had a really interesting conversation with Nicole Shanahan a few months ago We held a summit on AI and transhumanism. We discussed for about a half an hour that very topic of how do we maneuver a world that is going to be dominated by AI and transhumanism and the combination of technology and human biology.

For those of us that don't want to go down that route, we're almost gonna have to create our own ecosystem because in my opinion, we're going to fall behind because we're not gonna have access to all the same information if we don't have the brain chip that connects to the Internet with instant you know recall of information-

using AI we're gonna fall we're gonna fall behind in an AI dominated economy. So we need we need to begin to set up our own parallel economy that's human centered- that's what we're trying to do with pickaxe is use technology in order to

build up humanity as opposed to the other way around but then also. How do we how do we connect with each other- and have local communities where we can actually support each other kind of have our small little ecosystems you know maybe

beginning to far maybe be maybe it's figuring out how to grow your own food maybe it's figuring out a new trade or something that you can. You know partner with other people on and so- we're definitely it's definitely gonna be a massive change.

And for those of us that don't want to become a hybrid with technology, we're going to have to figure out how do we survive and how do we create our own parallel economy, basically. Jeff Dornick, founder and CEO of Pickaxe, very thought provoking. Thanks for being on. We'll have you back. And I'm going to check out your site. OK, you be well. Thank you. Very thought-provoking. Thanks for being on. We'll have you back. And I'm going to check out your site. Okay?

You be well. Thank you. 755. This is KMED 993KBXG. The following preview has been rated immature for all audiences except metal roof enthusiasts and small children. On 1063 KMED. Hi, this is Mark from J. Austin, and I'm on KMED.

All right, we've had some heavy duty conversation on AI and a bunch more where the high-tech world is going to be taking us whether AI is for good or for profit. Not that there's anything bad with profit, but who's going to own it and control it? I don't know. I'm going to talk more about that, this being Conspiracy Theory Thursday with Charles Hugh Smith. And he wrote a very thought-provoking book.

I think it's worth picking up a copy I did a few weeks ago. The Mythology of Progress, Anti-Progress and the Mythology for the 21st Century. In other words, he's kind of blowing up our preconceptions. We all have myths, and the United States, of course, operates on myths too. And of course, one of the myths is that it doesn't matter what is going on. Technology will dig us out of whatever problem that we see. Is that true?

Is AI going to dig us out of that problem or not? I don't know. But given all that serious talk, we get a dad joke too. A palate cleanser. So let's do the palate cleanser, and we have a dad joke of the day. Dad joke of the day is actually sponsored by Two Dogs Fabricating.

It's on Bryanway off Sage Road in Medford. Now, if you have a good dad joke, something, you know, gentle humor, just go ahead and go to twodogsfab.com and submit that, all right? Two Dogs Fabrication is a local dealer for Iron Bull heavy duty trailers made by Northstar. They have a line of Northstar light duty trailers lots of trailers in stock and priced right in 10 12 14 and 20 footers tilt and dump trailers to do good work over there at two dogs fab and today's dad joke

Cheeseburger walks into a bar bartender says sorry. We don't serve food here That's the kind of thing you got a better one go? Go to twodogsfam.com. All right? All right. I wanted to do some emails of the day too. Emails of the day. In fact, before news, let's do this because you got a lot of people have been writing some good thoughts this morning here.

Emails of the day are sponsored by Dr. Steve Nelson in Central Point Family Dentistry. Central Point Family Dentistry is one of those places where they have a beautiful waiting room, but you're not going to spend a long time in the waiting room because they are just like, they're like a machine. It's a human deal, but it's machine, man. You get in there, you sit down for a couple of minutes and then boom, you're in for your cleaning or you're getting your crowns. And by the way, a lot of times they get the crowns in one day. They can actually make crowns while you wait.

They have the lab right there. Really cool stuff. All right? Get your appointment today, centralpointfamilydentistry.com. Paul Princeton writes me for Conspiracy Theory Thursday. He says, Bill, last Friday you did a fascinating interview with Mark Beckman on the subject of artificial intelligence, highlighting the pros and cons of the technology. That same day, Jeff Childers of Coffee and Covid fame published an article on the same subject,

but going more into the bolts and nuts of the tech. The tech's roots are in the search for a system that could predict the next word in a sentence using complex math and statistics. Childers continued, then in 2017, something, nobody's sure what, shifted. According to the public-facing story, Google researchers tweaked the code and they produced what they are now calling the transformer architecture. It was a minor, relatively simple software change that let what they are now calling language models omnidirectionally track meaning across long passages of text.

In fact, it was more that they removed something other than adding anything. Rather than reading sentences like humans do, left or right, the change let the software read both ways, up and down, and everywhere all at once, reading in a 3D parallel instead of sequentially. The results were immediate and very strange. The models got better, not linearly, but exponentially, and they kept rocketing its capabilities as they fed it more and more data to work with. Put simply, Bill, when they stopped enforcing right-to-left reading or left-to-right for

some inexplicable reason, the program stopped just predicting the next word. Oh, it predicted the next word alright, and then with literary panache, but then, shocking the researchers, it wrote the next sentence, the next paragraph, and it finished the essay, asking a follow-up question, and wanting to know if it could take a smoke break. In other words, the models didn't just improve in a straight line as they grew, Paul writes, it was a tipping point. They suddenly picked up unexpected emerging capabilities, novel abilities. No one had explicitly trained them to perform or even thought was possible.

What really caught my attention was that no one can explain how or why it works. That's very concerning to me, he writes. If we don't know how it functions, how can we control it? The core of AI is just a few thousand unremarkable lines of software code that nobody fully understands. Everything else is peripheral. Did we inadvertently stumble into the metaphysical, even the demonic? Immediately Stanley Kubrick's masterpiece movie, A Space Odyssey, comes to mind where HAL 9000, the supercomputer,

starts killing the humans, or even earlier, The Sorcerer's Apprentice, where The Sorcerer's Apprentice unleashes a spell without knowing how to restrain it. Are we building a whole new technology around a high-tech Ouija board? I'm asking for my children, grandchildren and so on. Paul. And Paul gave me the article. I'm going to have to post that article too. Paul, thank you very much. Very thought-provoking. And yeah, there's a lot of these questions being asked and it also is boiling down to is what is progress? And why aren't we being asked if this is the future that that we're looking for or wanting to take part in? Right? It just seems to be like, well, here it is. It's just the reality. You will be assimilated and there's nothing that you can say or do about it.

And does that make sense to you in this world? Maybe we talk about that and other things too. There are some other emails I'll try to go over those and may have to take till tomorrow with a more extended one. We'll continue the calls though on Conspiracy Theory Thursday, 7705633. My email by the way, bill at BillMeyersShow.com. Town Hall News coming up, more of your calls. And then at 8.30, the great writer Charles Hugh Smith, very thought-provoking guy, also

going down what the progress is in the AI and the landfill economy and a bunch more.