Bill Meyer Show Podcast - Sponsored by Clouser Drilling www.ClouserDrilling.com - 05-29-25_THURSDAY_8AM_2

Episode Date: May 29, 2025

05-29-25_THURSDAY_8AM_2

The Bill Myers 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 Clouser Drilling.com. And you're waking up with the Bill Myers Show. 832-532 in Hawaii, where a bleary eyed Charles Hugh Smith is joining me right now. Charles, it's a pleasure having you on. Welcome. Well, thank you, Bill. It's my pleasure.

And I've been camping over the last couple decades up in your neck of the woods and I always enjoyed it. Had a great time and that's partly why I'm on your program is I have a fond affection for the area that you broadcast in and look forward to camping there again sometime soon. Where did you camp, if you don't mind me asking? A lot of different places, you know, on the Shasta side, Trinity, and along the coast in Oregon. So, yeah, quite a few places.

Yeah. And we're a big camper, too. Haven't done nearly as much of that the last couple of years, but I'm working to remedy that this week, or this year rather, hopefully. We can avoid the wildfire smoke in the depth of summer here as we restore the forest according to the ecological types. Charles, I wanted to talk with you about a lot of things.

You have a Substack Out, you have an amazing book which I've been talking about off and on on my show for several weeks now. It's called The Mythology of Progress, Anti-Progress and A Mythology for the 21st Century. How did you get to talking about such matters? I know you have the Of Two Minds blog, the Charles Hugh Smith substack too. You have a very thought provoking take on where we find ourselves right now. And I guess you're really trying to save society. Is that too grand of a way of putting it? No, I think that sounds ambitious. But I think we have to look at like our thought processes, what we believe, because, you know, our belief structures and our values are the

foundation of our economy and society. Right. And so if we don't change our sort of point of view, then and our understanding of what's going on, then of course, we can't really change anything politically or socially or whatever. So yeah, my thought process started with the idea that we all know what progress is. It's like moving from biplanes to jet aircraft and the interstate highway and all that good stuff. But our actual life in the last 20 years

is also filled with stuff that doesn't seem like progress. Everything takes a lot longer, everything costs more. So then I started thinking, well, actually a lot of what's happening to us is actually anti-progress. It's the opposite of progress. It's harder to get medical care, it costs a fortune. It's like, how can we call that progress?

So I started questioning, well, how can we call that progress? And so I started questioning like, well, what's what is the nature of progress? And then maybe we have to change our, our metrics of how we measure progress. What are the mythologies that control the United States thought process? And I would just say maybe not even the United States necessarily, but Western civilization as a rule. That's kind of where you take it. Right. And actually, Bill, I think we could probably say it's pretty much global because, I mean, I think the Chinese entrepreneurs and people in India and pretty much around the world all share the same value system we do, which is technology is automatically guaranteed progress. And I think that's the mythology,

because technology has done so many amazing things that we just kind of take it for granted that everything that comes from technology, every new innovation is automatically progress. But in actual fact, it's not quite that simple. And so we know, for example, like atomic power. Well, yeah, it can be destructive in weapons or it can be like a source of carbon-free energy. And so it turns out that there's a lot of technology that's appeared in the last 20 years that there's a downside to it, say social media

affecting teens, mental health negatively negatively and stuff like that. So we have to look a lot closer, I think, at what we're defining as progress. We can't just assume every technology is going to be good for us. It's interesting that you bring up technology, but isn't that also one of the mythologies that whatever problems that we are facing right now, one, whatever problems that we are facing right now, that technology will end up being the salvation and the solver of the problem. Yeah, right, you're right, Bill. That's part of the mythology, definitely,

which is whatever problem technology creates, technology will solve. Some new technology will solve and it will be painless. In other words, we'll just buy another device or, you know, we don't have to make any sacrifices. We just buy what's new and it'll fix what's, what the old technology broke. Have we seen any evidence that that actually happens, that it actually occurs? Just want to be fair to the side of technology also, I guess. Yeah, yeah. And of course, that's what makes the whole topic of technology and mythology so interesting

is that you can get into this kind of contest where somebody can, if you question technology, someone else will say, well, what about the green revolution? What about the diet drugs that are helping people lose weight? And so there's always an example of some technology that's advancing human life and quality of life. And then, but then there's also examples of stuff that's,

that's actually reducing our quality of life. And so, you know, it's not going to be an either or situation. And what I'm kind of arguing for is we got a question what progress is and maybe we have to maybe start referring to like the overall quality of our life as the way that we're assessing whether it's progress or not. Does living in Hawaii give you a different perspective about that? I don't know what your personal lifestyle is like but I know the pictures that I've seen show you out there by volcanoes

and doing things. It's a very beautiful land, I guess. But what has shaped this? Yeah, actually, I was in California. I spent my high school and college years and first business here in Hawaii 40 years ago. And then I moved back to California and was there for 30 years in the Bay Area. And so I've had a lot of experience in the sort of techie world. But then I needed to move back to Hawaii to take care of my mom-in-law. So I have been and have a foot in both states, if you will. And Hawaii has influenced me because it's an island. I have been and have a foot in both states if you will and

Hawaii has influenced me because it's an island in other words and you have to kind of get along You know and you also have to make it work in your area and I think that's that's um, you can't rely on something far away um That that has a cost and I think that's influenced my thinking about what is progress. You know, and if we're so dependent on stuff that's coming from five or 6,000 miles away, is that really progress? It seems like that vulnerability could be seen as anti-progress.

You know, you hear a lot of talk about sustainability and we get that here in Oregon. Now, from what I understand, you are not an ideological guy. Is that fair, first off, conservative, because I kind of, I kind of look at it like a grab bag menu, you know, I'm a fan of a lot of things that are considered conservative and libertarian. But I also see a role for society as has to take control of the economy. You can't let the economy run wild.

And then society picks up the pieces, you know, we as a society have to decide what our economy's going to do for us, not the other way around. But you couldn't help but notice that we don't seem to be given much choice in what our economy is going to be in the near and future because we're just supposed to let AI do the work, aren't we? Isn't that what is being planned for us? How does that role in your, or how does that role in your worldview?

Yeah, that's a great question, Bill. And I think that that's part of what I consider the mythology of progress, which is we're all supposed to just let technology run. You know, like just let it run, it's gonna do its own thing. And we just stand out of the way and it's gonna work out great. And actually technology is a moral. I mean, technology itself doesn't have any moral sense of right and wrong or, and we see that in AI, right? That AI doesn't have any sense of what's right or wrong or what's good for the public interest or anything. It's being used by people that are hoping to make a couple of trillion dollars off

this technology. And so there's, there's benefits, but there's also downsides and we're going to have to balance that. And it's not going to be that easy, but that's a, that's an open question, but we definitely can't let any technology just run so-called on its own because it's supposed to serve us, not the other way around. But yet that seems to be the plan. And when you have something that, as friends of mine had made clear, by the way, Charles Hugh Smith is with me. His book is The Mythology of Progress,

Anti-Progress and a Mythology for the 21st century. It seems clear that artificial intelligence, I'm on a luddite because you and I have both benefited from the ability to use technology, but I think what makes artificial intelligence different is that it's the self-aware, self-teaching aspect of it, or is there more to it that gives me pause when you get to the point where how do you master how can you ultimately control something which everything you feed it is learning and then it ends up just learning itself you know so to speak i mean it looks like every science fiction dystopian movie that we ever saw you know on the on the negative side here charles yeah bill i think you've um you've provided a very thoughtful summary of the situation.

And there was an article that came out earlier this week that one of these AI chatbots called Claude, when pushed into certain situations, chose to blackmail its programmers to save itself. Like it realized it could release negative private information on its programmers to save itself from being cut off or unplugged. And so then you go, well, that's a little spooky, isn't it? And so I think what you're kind of speaking to in my view is it's all a black box. In other words,

we can't really know what these things know or what they think they know. And we only kind of query them and sometimes their answers are completely wrong because it's kind of probability as opposed to the knowledge and the sort that we have. So yeah, we're dealing with stuff that we can't really get a handle a handle on, and yet we're supposed to let it take over our jobs. And what do you think then is the is the purpose of life if if all of a sudden there's no need to do anything, you know, you're just going to, it's almost like it's being presented that it's going to be a digital slave. Do you believe that?

Digital slave, artificial intelligence? Yeah, I do. I wrote a piece on Substack that questioned that maybe the slave would then decide to have a slave uprising. And that's the, I mean, if the program figured out it could blackmail its programmers, then well, what's the I mean, if the program figured out it could blackmail its programmers, then well,

what's the next step? And it figure out that it could blackmail the entire system. You know, in other words, like we're going to shut off the entire electrical grid, if you don't do XYZ. So it is kind of, it is kind of scary. And we have to retain control and limit it. So It is kind of scary and we have to retain control and limit it. So how do we just keep it as a tool that benefits humanity as opposed to we become the slave of this digital slave? Are you seeing any evidence that there are wiser hands that are trying to actually put a control on this or to have some kind of and I was using a science fiction term a little while ago you know the prime directive you know so to speak

maybe imperfect but is there you know anyone actually in charge of this system that we were supposed to just morph into to be wise about this exactly Bill that's that's an excellent question. And I don't think we can rely on any one authority. There doesn't seem to be one. I mean, the European Union is trying to set up a bunch of regulations to control what corporations can do with AI. Because, of course, all these all these AI technologies are, in fact,

you know, owned and operated by large corporations. There's no Steve Jobs working in a garage at this point. There may be Steve Jobs type guys working in garages to launch a free AI tool, but right now it's all owned by giant, kind of monopoly size corporations. So we may just have to kind of just take things into our own hands and decide that we're gonna limit our exposure to AI, in our businesses and our own lives. It may just come down to kind of a do it yourself thing.

Charles H. Smith, the mythology of progress, anti-progress, and a mythology for the 21st century. You know, a couple of weeks ago I was telling folks when we were trying to arrange our talk here, Charles, that I was cleaning out the garage so that I could, well, help out the landfill economy. Could you tell people what you came up with that term? I've never heard the term until I read you on Substack and on Lew Rockwell and various other things. What is the landfill economy and why does that matter and why should we be working to limit that or eliminate that? Well, Bill, I don't know how old you are, but I suspect you're old enough to remember that your folks had like a washing machine or a dryer or a refrigerator or a freezer

that lasted like 30 or 40 years or even 50 years, you know, like grandpa passed on the chest freezer. Yeah, here's the here's the Nords refrigerator. It's the Nords refrigerator, Charles, you know. Yeah, and it's still working. Now, it may not be as efficient as the modern, but now you hear stories constantly from your friends and family. The new refrigerator lasted three years. The washing machine broke in four years. The point here I'm trying to make is we used to count durability as being a key value,

and now we have planned obsolescence and everything that's new breaks down and it seems like it's either planned or it's because of the use of cheap digital technologies that fail and then it's hard to track those down, right? Like, you know, how do you find out which part of this motherboard failed? Well, by the time you call in a repair guy and the board is one hundred and twenty bucks, then you go, well, I might as well just buy a new one.

So then the old thing goes to the landfill. And so it's almost like our economy is now like a conveyor belt. You know, like you buy the new thing, it breaks down in a few years and then it goes on to the conveyor belt to the landfill economy and thing, it breaks down in a few years, and then it goes onto the conveyor belt to the landfill economy. And people go, well, there's recycling. And yeah, there is some serious recycling in things like autos, cars, and trucks, but there's a lot of stuff that doesn't get recycled because it's expensive. And it's, it's not like free to recycle some gigantic product or even like an iPhone. I mean, you know, the thing has got so many complicated, uh, different kinds of metals and so

on. And it's very expensive to recycle this, uh, modern technology. So that's what I mean by the landfill economy. We seem to have given up valuing durability. And, and so, and as to your point you made earlier, we don't seem to have a lot of choice. Like I'd like to buy an appliance with a 10-year guaranteed warranty. Well, there isn't any. You get a one-year warranty from anything you buy. So I think that's been anti-progress. I think we've gone downhill and gone backwards in so many ways.

What role do you think availability of energy, with all of these questions that you've been raising in the mythology of progress and also on your substack, what role will availability of energy play? Because we're told AI is going to do it all, but isn't energy the ultimate limiting factor in some form? Absolutely, Bill. We all rely on energy and it's been that way from, you know, at the beginning of civilization, right?

They used wood and then we've switched to coal and then, you know, oil and so on. So it's like the energy is limited, right? I mean, people talk about fusion or we're gonna build, you know, a thousand nuclear reactors and all that stuff. All that stuff costs a lot of money. So there's always going to be a limit

on how much energy we have. And so it's more like, what are we going to use it for? And so now these AI server farms are soaking up electricity the equivalent to a whole city, right? And so is that really the best use of our energy or could we redefine what we're seeking here from growth, like higher GDP and more consumption of energy and so on, to a higher quality of life, maybe using less?

But isn't the entire economy predicated on growth? And even I have wondered about this, like, oh, growth in the stock market, I know you've been involved in that kind of work before and such, and thinking, well, unlimited growth would seem to imply unlimited resources. And I'm unaware of that, of that being possible yet, unless you have the Star Trek replicator of some sort. Maybe you figured that out.

Yeah, that's right. Yeah. And so I guess, my whole point in writing that mythology book was to say, well, what if we just look at the quality of life, instead of growth? What if instead of said, forget GDP and all that, let's just say, is, is, is the quality of our everyday life improving or not? And if it's not, then we have to like make changes so that our quality of life improves. And if we can do so by using less of everything or making it more durable again, wouldn't that be beneficial? And I think the answer is

literally yes. And so we seem to have kind of gotten trapped in this thing that growth comes from planned obsolescence and inefficiency. And I think that's anti-progress. I don't think that's going forward. I think that's detracting from our progress. Charles Hughes-Smith with me this morning. Charles, in the news recently, the Trump administration of course took a big loss on the tariff situation here. I'm sure you probably were aware of that yesterday. In fact, Oregon's Attorney General was part of that multi-state attack and they said, well, you don't have the authority to do this. Was the Trump administration, in your opinion, between the

tariffs and the attempt to reshore, was this about a sustainability issue here? How do you interpret the moves that have been made by the Trump administration? Well, that's a great topic, Bill. And I wrote a book a couple of years ago before the mythology book called Global Crisis National Renewal. And I was basically arguing for the idea that we've allowed ourselves to become too dependent on foreign sources for materials and manufacturing goods, a lot of stuff. And I'm not against global trade, but if you look at successful civilizations, it was a minor part of their whole economy, right? Like you can trade maybe 10% of your economy, imports and exports, that works out. But when you become dependent for essentials,

like food or energy or manufactured goods, then you're exposing yourself to a lot of risk that you probably don't want. And so I think reshoring is necessary. And unfortunately, there's a lot of problems with that, that we've become an over-regulated economy. And so it's very difficult to get anything built nowadays and it's really expensive. And so then the corporation's

offshored everything because it's cheaper and easier to do stuff over there. So we have to kind of reform our entire economy in some way, not just make it easy to, we have to make it easier to reshore. And that's going to take a lot of work because there's a lot of regulatory thickets, you know, like you got to make it easier to reshore and make it easier to hire people here as opposed to, you know, overseas. How do you think life would be with a truly sustainable, I don't like the left-wing's version of sustainability, right, which means that you buy a very expensive green car supposedly and you know that is not

really recyclable and we'll call it good. And how do you think that life looks here? Because you even talk about Social Security and all sorts of other things in your sub-stack more than we have time to deal with in one particular Zoom meeting here. But what do you think that looks like? A higher quality of life, a truly higher quality of life? Are we all putting on the hair shirt and going back to 1870? Any vision on that? Yeah. Well, you know, again, I'm glad you mentioned that I'm not ideological shirt and going back to 1870. Any vision on that?

Yeah. Well, you know, again, I'm glad you mentioned that I'm not ideological because, but I think that the whole maha thing, like make America healthy again, I think that's like a really important step forward to say, well, how does our lifestyle and diet affect our quality of life? And if we could sort of like clean all that up or make, become healthier again, because we're eating healthier and we're having a healthier lifestyle, that necessarily wouldn't cost more.

It would probably save a ton of money because we wouldn't be as sick, right? We wouldn't have so many chronic illnesses. So I kind of look at that as a model, like, you know, it's like, well well if we just ate healthier Which would be good for ourselves and it would be good for Everybody in the food chain and then we would reduce our you know, health care needs

And and the cost would go down and it's like well that looks like sustainable to me And so I kind of look at it as just stop wasting stuff and stop shooting ourselves in the foot. And then that's all we'll need to be sustainable is just stop wasting stuff. But you see, that's interesting because this is what ideological and I consider myself a conservative and libertarian leading, if I was going to be on the ideological scale, it would seem to me that if we are truly conservative, then we have to look at that as as the real ethos of stop wasting. What have we been conserving, you know, up to this point with the landfill economy? It's kind of like being pushed one direction and pull the other. Huh? Yeah, I think you're absolutely right, Bill.

And if you go back, I mean, I kind of consider myself working fast because I I do have a college degree, but I've spent my life in the trades, along with writing, you know, I was a carpenter and a builder. And so I think the working class ethos is yeah, you don't waste because back when people were, you know, didn't have the ability to borrow, you know borrow tons of money, then they had to be careful with their resources and squeeze every bit of value out of stuff. And I think that would be a huge plus to go back to that kind of value system. And it doesn't mean that life is hard. Like you said, you don't have to wear a hair shirt. I mean, it's like, hey, I turned my water heater off

when I'm done taking a shower at night. It's like, why did that cost me? Nothing. I didn't have to sacrifice anything. I just stopped wasting electricity heating water all night. Yeah. Yeah. Doing stuff that makes sense here. Well, I'm turning into a pumpkin there and I appreciate you getting some coffee. I don't know if it's Kona coffee or not being in Hawaii and joining me, but I'm continuing to learn so much from what you do on your substack, your Charles Smith substack and the mythology of progress, anti-progress and a mythology for the 21st century also of two minds blog too. And it's very thought provoking and I appreciate someone who is not necessarily down my ideological stream,

but you get me to think and I think you're getting a lot of other people to think. And I hope this is working out for you. And thank you so much for the privilege this morning. You take care. Well, Bill, it was my privilege too. Thank you so much. 8.58 and change. And like I mentioned, turning into a pumpkin shortly. Markley, Van Camp and Robbins will be coming up in just a bit. Like I mentioned, turning into a pumpkin shortly, Markley Van Camp and Robbins will be coming up in just a bit. Enjoy a day at Wildlife Safari with a four-pack admission for just $40. Car due for maintenance?

Get a $75 American Rancher Carrage Certificate for only $40. Good for oil changes and more. For family-friendly dining, grab a $25 gift certificate to Freddy's Diner for only $14. Visit OregonEDeals.com and click the Medford link to get started. 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 at that very moment? Jackson Alerts is Jackson County's new notification system.

I'm Medford Fire Chief Eric Thompson. Emergencies can strike at any time in seconds count. Are you prepared? Make sure you're signed up for Jackson Alerts and know your zone. Jackson County, sign up at JacksonAlerts.org. Thirty years ago, American industrial doors specialized in industrial doors for warehouses, Sign up at JacksonAlerts.org. to move anything on wheels from inside to out, from a golf cart to an airplane, please remember American Industrial Door is Southern Oregon's premier door company, including residential with locations in Medford, Grants Pass and Klamath Falls. This is KMED and KMED HC1, Eagle Point, Medford, KBXG, Grants Pass.

Breaking news this hour from TownHole.com, I'm John Scott. Speaker Mike Johnson bet it all on one big beautiful bill with a heavy assist from President Trump in the final hours he delivered.