Chapo Trap House - 959 - The Bopper’s Lair (8/11/25)

Episode Date: August 12, 2025

We begin by reading the last will and testament of Anas al-Sharif, a 28-year-old journalist for Al-Jazeera that was among those slain in Gaza by Israel yesterday. We then resume our Epstein coverage, including a look at his Manhattan lair and celebrity dinner guests. Then, two pieces on venture capitalists driven insane by The Computer and a story by Pamela Paul on conservative women…with careers? Stick around until the end for another Stroke of Genius and a special announcement from Chris. Pre-order Seth Harp’s book The Fort Bragg Cartel here: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/730414/the-fort-bragg-cartel-by-seth-harp/  And check out his book launch with TrueAnon at the Bell House this Wednesday: https://www.ticketmaster.com/an-evening-with-trueanon-and-seth-brooklyn-new-york-08-13-2025/event/300062F5CD8E3E2D

All right All I'm going to be is they'll jump on All I want to be is a joke Hello, baby chap, yes, it's the big chappos. Oh, you sweet thing. You know what I like. Chantilly. Yeah, no, that was, I haven't done my big bopper intro to the show in a long time.

You want me to, what? Is that Mr. Ed? I don't do a podcast. Oh, well, Oh, baby Yes, indeed, you all know what I like And I'm busting out the bopper Because today is, of course, one of those special episodes

We're joined again by the God King, Matt Christman. Hey, hello. How's my big bopper? Fine, hopefully. Good. Have you guys watched Surviving Big Bopper on Lifetime? It's really harrowing. I was thinking the big Bobby right is like a like one-hit wonder.

I mean, that's not fair. Oh, come on. He was killed at a color revolution when he was like 23. I think I would prefer to be dead and a one-hit wonder than have my life and legacy immortalized in that awful Don McLean song. That is true. That's terrible. I can't stand that song That's my nomination for the worst song

Ever written is American Pie I've never seen a picture of Big Bopper before This was like a sex symbol This was like the sexiest man in America He looks like if a Like one of those like Fly by Night Korean Sweat Shop animation studios

Tried to do Hank Hill He's a classic doughy guy Yeah He's not like He said like the crew cut, too. I love that he has like a crew cut as like a rocker, you know, the early rock and roll. I feel like you mentioned the lifetime,

the harrowing Lifetime series, surviving the Big Bopper. How about a series by the Big Bopper called Surviving Air Travel? How about that one, folks? Be a short series. Yeah, he looks like, you know how you like, you can look at some people and be like, that's a guy with a urinary tract infection.

Like I always, there was a computer key. at my school who is one of those like white-haired guys who was unfortunately like very red a very early computer nerd look and i thought that this guy is suffering uh every time he pisses uh big bopper is that way for constipation he is one of those guys where you look look at him and you go every morning when he wakes up he is engaged in a battle anyway uh let's let's let's start the show today uh look uh look uh i'm plan to keep things a pretty light, pretty fun episode today. But I, unfortunately, at the

beginning of today's show, as we have done so many times of recent note, I do have to turn my attention and our attention to Gaza. And I would like to talk about the massacre of basically an entire bureau of Al Jazeera journalists in Gaza City yesterday, the most prominent of which is Anas al-Sharif, who was assassinated along with his whole crew yesterday in Gaza by Israel. I won't belabor any of the absurd calumnies levied against him to justify his murder. Or that of his crew, I won't be labor, the continued silence and just sort of total turning of the back by every Western journalist about the ongoing mass murder of their colleagues, provided they are Palestinian and it's Israel doing the killing.

But I would like to begin the show by reading basically his final will in testament. If these words reach you, Israel has succeeded in killing me. This is something that he wrote in June just a few months ago. And I would like you to keep in mind when you hear this that he was 28 years old. And I would just like invite you to try to imagine a context in your life where you would consider writing something like this before you even turn

30. So I'd just like to read a selection of his basically final will and testament. This is Anas al-Sharif. This is my will and my final message. If these words reach you, know that Israel has succeeded in killing me and silencing my voice. First, peace be upon you and Allah's mercy and blessings. Allah knows I gave every effort and all my strength to be a support and a voice for my people. ever since I opened my eyes to life and the alleys and streets of the Jabalya refugee camp. My hope was that Allah would extend my life so I could return with my family and loved ones

to our original town of occupied Ascalan al-Majdal. But Allah's will came first and his decree is final. I have lived through pain in all its details, tasted suffering and lost many times. Yet I never once hesitated to convey the truth as it is without distortion or falsification

so that Allah may bear witness against those who stayed silent those who accepted our killing, those who choked our breath, and whose hearts were unmoved by the scattered remains of our children and women, doing nothing to stop the massacre that our people have faced for more than a year and a half. I entrust you with Palestine, the jewel in the crown of the Muslim world, the heartbeat of every free person in this world. I entrust with you its people, with its wronged and innocent children

who never had the time to dream or live in safety and peace. Their pure bodies were crushed under thousands of tons of Israeli bombs and missiles. torn apart and scattered across the walls. I urge you not to let the chains silence you, nor borders restrain you. Be bridges towards the liberation of the land and its people, until the sun of dignity and freedom rises over our stolen homeland. He continues, and I just like to say that he closes with, Do not forget Gaza and do not forget me in your sincere prayers for forgiveness and acceptance.

So, you know, once again, I wish I didn't have to start the show on such a sombre. note, but I just want to keep those words of his in mind when I just, you know, when you consider this ongoing carnage and the ongoing complicity of our government and particularly politicians who are now looking for a way out of this, and by way out, I don't mean to stop to this, a way out for their own future political prospects and credibility. I mean, I'm thinking of Pete Buttigieg, who just appeared on Pod Save America this weekend. basically saying I think that we as Israel's strongest ally and friend

you put your arm around your friend when there's something like this going on you know as Israel's closest friend I think it's time for us to put our arms around them and say hey maybe this is too much and I'm just thinking like imagine you had a friend who killed one person you know would it be a time for you to put your arms around them

and say I don't know hey what can we work on together to make this better like the Gillette commercial Like if that commercial took place in Dachau and you're like, okay, enough's enough. I also saw Ruben Gallagow who just voted against the amendment, the Sanders Amendment to suspend all arms sales to Israel. Well, he wasn't there for the vote and said he would have voted against it. But he said, well, actually now I might have voted for it. And it's, I know that we've repeatedly referenced the, I think very true sentiment that every day. everyone will have been against this.

But it's kind of shocking to see just how naked it is in real time. I mean, Boudigieg is an interesting insight because he's an obvious 2028 candidate. And he's trying to ride the fence of being of like not correctly identifying Joe Biden as the perpetrator of a genocide while also I guess trying to acknowledge. reality, but not really? I don't know how any elected Democrat, short of someone like Rashida-Talib, can reconcile any of this. Well, it's because, like, they're still trying to have it both ways. They still think that there's, like, some possible compromise or third way or nuanced, complicated position that they can hedge for themselves that will cover every angle of their ass in all future inevitabilities or outcomes. And there isn't. And, like,

We all know this, and we all know the reason that they've been killing, they killed Anas and his entire crew, another journalist and three photographers, basically I said, like Al Jazeera's entire bureau in Gaza City. We all know why they killed them and why they've killed hundreds of other journalists before this. They're removing witnesses before they, you know, engineer their final solution, before they engineer their occupation of Gaza City and the entire Gaza Strip and kill everyone in their way. We know this.

They've been doing it openly. and they've claimed credit for this. So there's no need for an investigation into any of this. There's no need to ask them to, you know, account for themselves. They are doing this all quite openly because they've gotten away with it up until this point and they expect that they will continue to get away with it. And I have no reason to think that they won't,

given at least in the short term. And as far as any like someone like Pete Buttigieg who's auditioning for 2028 or any politician who wants to weigh in on this, I mean, the only way to stop this is at the very, very least, a total economic, military, and cultural blockade of this feral genocide state. And very likely something much stronger than that,

military action of some kind. Like, at the very least, if you can't stop sending weapons to these mass murderers, then you saying, I think they've gone too far, or this is, quote, a humanitarian catastrophe, really doesn't mean anything. and you know it. There's just no way to acknowledge reality

and not conclude that we need some type of like occupation and reconstruction of Israel, frankly, that there's just no future where you can allow the people who did this to operate unsupervised in any part of the world. Yeah, I just, like I said, when you see an encounter the continued defenses of Israel or like the increasing,

farcical lengths to which they have to go to maintain a lockstep policy in the United States of unequivocal support for everything it does. I mean, like, I'm thinking, like, I don't know you saw it over the weekend. They were arresting, like, 80-year-old pensioners and, like, blind people in wheelchairs in the UK for holding just a placard that says, I support Palestine action, arresting them off the street. And I guess, like, the maintenance of this consensus, or the maintenance of this policy by Western governments will continue to require, ever more farcical and totalitarian measures to basically restrain the will of the populations of these countries and the force of the moral opinion of the world and like I guess in some sense

I think you should be encouraged by the lengths that they which they continually will have to go to keep this going and I think the only thing left for us is to force them to do it because if you don't if you see this and you don't use the freedoms that you currently have like you're not going to have them in the future and I can't guarantee that you exercise them now is any protection against their future removal, but if you don't use them and you don't make these people do every last fucking thing that they do to criminalize any kind of protest, boycott, or just simple acknowledgement of reality, then I don't know what to tell you. Yeah, this is going to be a stain on all of us for as long as we live.

This will be a stain on this country for as long as it lasts. even just for purely selfish reasons you do not want to remember this time and remember your actions in it you don't want to remember yourself as having done nothing and having not exercised that option when you had the chance like I said I don't want to make I don't want to make the whole show about this but I I felt at the top of the show it was very very important to you know read the last will and testament of a guy who you know in my opinion displayed like really unparalleled bravery and heroism in doing his job being a witness and being a voice for the people of Gaza and that's very much the reason he was killed and yeah I don't I don't have much more to go off of than that so I will just say I'll awkwardly now and sheepishly shift gears or at least attempt to to a lighter topic which is, of course, is Jeffrey Epstein and the ongoing corruption of our government

by a sexual blackmail network. Matt, let me ask you, what have you made of Donald Trump's ongoing attempts to, I don't know, close the book on Epstein and sort of declaim any involvement of himself or his minions in this troubling legal case?

I mean, they're dabbing on it. Just straight up. They are dabbing. hard. It's a cosmic end zone. It's like you you think of power you fucking suck you idiot. Oh yeah Trump you will expose the

corruption. Ha ha ha ha losers hitting the gritty in the end zone very much. I did enjoy this article or there were some reports from over the weekend or last week that basically the Donald Trump brain trust was being assembled at like a weekend retreat to sort of

I don't know strategize about what to do about this. This is from CNN. Top Trump officials discussed Epstein at White House meeting Wednesday night. A much anticipated meeting between Attorney General Pam Bondi, FBI director Cash Patel, Vice President J.D. Vance and others was moved from Vance's residence to the White House Wednesday night after intense media coverage. They discussed a number of topics, including the Jeffrey Epstein case, and potential next steps. The administration's handling of the Epstein case, as well as the need to craft a unified response, was expected to be the main focus of the dinner.

What a brain trust to assemble. Like, I need to get my, I need to get my attorney general and head of the FBI in the same page here about, what's the company line on all of this? He's getting brain trust. I mean, like, this is partially related,

but like, it's only recently dawned on me that Cash Patel had, like, the only experience he had of law enforcement before becoming director of the FBI was being investigated by the FBI which I suppose gives him some insight into law enforcement but like how did this goggle-eyed freak

like what was his deal before he became director of the FBI because I feel like everyone else in the Trump orbit no matter how farcical their nomination to a cabinet position is I feel like I kind of knew who they were but like who the fuck where the fuck did this cash Patel guy come from

Felix do you have any idea well yeah he he was like a lawyer for I think someone on the Trump NSC or a lawyer for like the NSC itself and his biggest claim to fame before this was oh he was chief

of staff to to Trump's Secretary of Defense his last one Chris Miller for like two months at the end of Trump one but his main claim to fame was that he was at like

a federal trial or hearing for January 6th and the judge yelled at him for wearing a vest and not a suit and then told him to go upstairs and put a tie on and cash went yes sir so I don't know I guess that made a really good impression on people I don't know why but

yeah now now he he gets the grand prize of going on Joe Rogan and being like hey you trust me right you have all the reason the world to trust me I would tell you if something weird was going on here I think I was like Sean Hannity

He was a big fan of his And I think he was one who recommended him For the National Security Council Yeah I mean he he didn't have a he didn't have a he didn't have a He didn't have as big of a profile as Dan Bongino Who was yeah yeah Yeah no He's a star

I want to be like Dan Bonchino Yeah he's not the A list Why isn't Bongino The head of the FBI? Why isn't he the director of the FBI Cash Patel should be in the basement working on the fucking X-14 balls or something. Like, this guy's a nobody. Get damn Bongano in there. Bangano, Bondi, Vance, just a little dinner party to discuss, hey, what are we going to do about our boss? And his, you know, his past associations and friendships. But like I said, I have been enjoying

like all of the stuff that they're throwing out there to like sort of move on from this. Like, Trump's going to send the National Guard to Washington, D.C. or something because big balls got carjacked or something like that. So now he's like, today they said all crime in Washington, D.C. is over. It will end now. Which I think is,

that's always a good metric to set yourself up for success. Like if even one crime happens in Washington, D.C. over the next week or so, I think they will be conclusively revealed as frauds. And I expect everyone to abandon

their and sort of give up on their support for this criminal fraudulent administration. I mean, like everything. with Trump. It's a repeat of a repeat. We already saw, I mean, I know it's different with like the question of D.C.'s

statehood and federal status, right? But I feel like we already saw this entire thing with like deploying the National Guard and then the Marines in Los Angeles. In that instance, it just sort of ended with a whimper because like neither the Marines nor the National Guard really wanted to be there. And it just really isn't in their purpose.

review to act as like, I guess now like judge dread for major American cities. I don't know, it's just hard to, like, that is the curse of the Trump administration now is that just like anything they do, whether it was like previously planned or not, it is going to look like they're trying to distract from like Donald Trump going to like a dedication ceremony at the tomb of the unknown soldier and just screaming, I'm not a pedophile during the moment of silence. Yeah. Well, one thing is certain, Epstein ain't going away. And the ongoing coverage of this has led to some good articles. Like, I wanted to highlight this one from just last week. This is sort of from the real estate perspective. You know how, you're like when you're walking around in a neighborhood, you like to look at the houses and then go on Zillow and see like, gee, I wonder how much that house costs. I mean, I would say you would say you would do that if, you know, you're a girl.

I've never done that personally, but I've noticed that girlfriends and wives love doing that. So I would like to share it now with you. This is from the New York Times from last week. A look inside Jeffrey Epstein's Manhattan layer. Always good when the place you live is described as a layer. You know that you're being remembered well. You're probably a good guy.

You've certainly done nothing wrong. It says here, in his seven-story townhouse, the sex offender hosted the elite. displayed photos with presidents and showcased a first edition of Lolita, according to previously unreported photos and letters. As a gift for Jeffrey Epstein's 63rd birthday, friends sent letters and tribute to the wealthy financier and convicted sex offender. Several shared a common theme,

recounting the dinner gatherings that Mr. Epstein regularly hosted at his palatial townhouse on Manhattan's Upper East Side. Ehud Barak, former Prime Minister of Israel and his wife noted, the great diversity of guests. There is no limit to your curiosity, they wrote in their message, which was compiled with others in January 2016. Yeah, he's chai curious. You are like a closed book to many of them,

but you know everything about everyone. By the way, you don't operate a blackmail ring for our country's intelligence agency, wink, wink. I guess you could say a little bit of ooter is inside all of us, right now. In fact, you might even say we just ate ooter and he's in our stomachs right now. Wait, scratch that way. The media mogul Mortimer Zuckerman suggested ingredients for a meal that would reflect the culture of the mansion.

Soylent green, and a simple salad and whatever else would in, quote, in his Jeffrey's sexual performance. And my favorite of these reminiscence, and the director, Woody Allen, describes how the dinners are among the him of Dracula's castle, where Lagosie has three young female vampires who service the palace. What the, come on, man. You might as well just be like,

by the way, that roast child we had earlier was delicious. Falling off the bone. Wait, Will, did you actually read the entirety of the wooded Allen letter? No, I didn't. I do have to point out that a big portion of the letter discusses both how the food was very bad and then a little later, it was about his wife complaining about how there were so little portions.

Man. Sometimes Jewish people do stuff where I'm like, can you like bring it down a little? Like other people can see this. Yeah. Woody writes here, dependably a fine dinner, but this was not always the case. In fact, the first time we came over,

it was a very different story. We were invited with a list of accomplished types, men and women in journalism, TV, and even royalty. We were ushered up to the living room where everyone sat around prior to dinner being served and chatted. No drinks were served. You could get one if you asked for one.

That should have been the first clue. Yeah, the first clue. When the meal was put out downstairs, it was meager. So meager, my wife, the one sitting next to her, kept mumbling. Is this it? is this all we're getting after i leave i may have to go to a restaurant we didn't want to say

anything that when we came the next time but when my wife did say in a tactful way that she has there is going to be more food isn't there under her badgering the situation gradually improved and subsequent dinners offered buckets of chinese food ordered from a local restaurant and placed on a buffet where one could get in line and help oneself that's a that's really sick buckets of Chinese food? That's perverse. Back to the Times article, though, which includes this letter from Woody Allen.

Since Mr. Epstein's death in federal custody in 2019, which was ruled as suicide, many mysteries about his life have remained unsolved. How did he amass a nine-figure fortune? And why did so many powerful men continue to fraternize with him long after he became a registered sex offender? At least one other Magaluminary also visited the townhouse. Stephen K. Bannon, a former advisor to Mr. Trump, an online media personality,

who has said that he videotaped hours of interviews in the mansion with Mr. Epstein in 2019. Framed photos of Mr. Bending, including a mirror selfie snatched by Mr. Epstein, were kept in at least two rooms in the mansion. The townhouse was one of five properties around the world owned by Mr. Epstein. After his release in 2009 from a Florida jail where he served 13 months for soliciting prostitution from a teenager, the mansion served as both a personal hideaway and a salon where he could hold court with accomplished

intellectuals, scientists, and financiers according to legal records and interviews with people who frequented the home. The visitors considered Mr. Epstein fun, smart and curious. Another perk, getting to mingle with the young attractive women who roamed the property and worked as his assistance.

Like, they roamed the property, like they were like buffalo on a ranch or something. Yeah, free range. sex slaves, I guess. Now, now we all know, I remember talking to you guys about this years ago, but it says dozens of framed prosthetic eyeballs

line the entryway. A sculpture of a woman wearing a bridle gown and clutching a rope was suspended in a central atrium. The, yeah, the prosthetic eyeball collection is really, really curious. And like, especially considering all the allegations that everything was videotaped in this house

and that there were security cameras everywhere, the sort of, the entry rate of the house showing you, dozens and dozens of glass eyes looking at you. Once again, a little on the nose for Mr. Epstein. But then again, like you said, like all of his dinner parties and like the birthday messages were like, we had such fun doing all the secret things together, Jeffrey. Life is indeed an enigma and a wonderful secret that we all must share. Yeah.

There was Mr. Epstein smiling alongside Pope John Paul II. Mick Jagger, Elon Musk, and Fidel Castro. Also pictured All the stars are here Castro That's it He doesn't have the internet thing You know

Like we got to Yeah I don't know Like maybe he thought It was like Frank Vincent Or something I don't know Like I

Yeah I don't want to He thought it was The Shah of Iran You mean Yeah Yeah Well Pope Sean Paul

Definitely Has access to the internet though Yeah that one that is um he's got to take accountability for that put if he's in heaven right now put him back in purgatory noam chomsky was also in one of these photos he like he was like he definitely was he was definitely at the apartment one time i guess it was so like the MIT or harvard connections i'm not sure a coming linguist yeah uh nearby was the photo from 2000 showing mr

Epstein with Mr. Trump and the future first lady. Mine is Ms. Maxwell. Next to that was a framed dollar bill signed by Bill Gates, possibly as payment of a bet. I was wrong, the Microsoft co-founder wrote over George Washington's face. I wonder what the bet was. You know, trading places. It's classic. Yeah, the $1 bet. I was just thinking about that. I was just thinking about the brothers. Were they Mortimer and, uh, yeah. Up a grand staircase is Mr. Epstein's wood paneled office featuring a massive desk. Photos show a taxidermied tiger lounging on a lush rug. In the office, according to photos reviewed by the Times,

Mr. Epstein showcased a green first edition of Lolita, the 195 novel in which an intellectual develops a sexual recession with a 12-year-old girl and repeatedly rapes her. Atop a wooden sideboard were more framed photos, including one of Mr. Epstein with Saudi Arabia's crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman. Okay, this one hurts, guys. This one hurts.

This is like finding out Matt Graining was on one of those flights. Yeah, this is, your faves will be implicated. Yeah. Another flight up on the third floor was Mr. Epstein's sanctum, a suite that included his bedroom, the mansion's infamous massage room, and a cluster of bathrooms. Several of Mr. Epstein's victims have said

that the mansion was outfitted with a network of hidden video cameras. In the massage room were paintings of naked women, a large silver ball and chain, and shelves stocked with lubricant, according to photos reviewed by the times. Mr. Epstein regularly directed teenagers, age girls, some recruited from middle schools in Queens, to massage him while he was naked. No surveillance cameras were visible in the photos of the massage room.

Going on here, it says here, the Times reviewed seven birthday messages given to Mr. Epstein in 2016. In addition to those from Mr. Zuckerman, Mr. Allen, and Mr. Barack, there were letters from the linguist Noam Chomsky and his wife, Joichi Ito, an entrepreneur who later would resign from MIT and the board of the New York Times Company because of his ties to Mr. Epstein. And Lawrence M. Krauss, a prominent physicist, Martin Noek, a Harvard biologist, contributed a science-themed poem. Oh, that's good.

Can we hear the, like, can the New York Times isn't going to publish the poem? But not for the millions of Americans who love science? You know, young Sheldon just ended and people are kind of hurting. Do you think Neil DeGrasse Tyson was, like, offended. He wasn't at any of these shindex? Yeah. I've always wanted, like, is Neil deGrasse Tyson do other science? science guys consider him, like, entry level.

Because he's kind of like a character of a scientist. Because he just gets on Twitter and he's like, oh, I was just reading the periodic table like I always do. Or like I hate when he does these like pedantic corrections of movies. Like when like the movie Gravity came out, he was like, a more accurate title for this movie would be lack of gravity. And it's like, shut the fuck up. I hate science. I hate science. I hate everything about it.

That's just engagement baiting, though. Like, yeah. Neil DeGrasse Tyson, posting like a diagram of like a hydrogen atom going like, how many y'all remember this? That is, yeah, that is basically what his output is. Just the last detail here from the letter writing collection in this article.

It says, in their typed letter, Mr. Barak and his wife, Neely Priil, held Mr. Epstein as quote A Collector of People The letter concluded May you enjoy What the fuck? The letter concluded

May you enjoy long and healthy life And may all of us Your friends enjoy your table For many more years to come I think that was sort of a threat By the way, see you at the Child Zoo I like this detail though It says

The Town House A Stones Throw from Central Park was sold to Mr. Epstein in 1998 by Leslie H. Wexner, the billionaire owner of L. Brands. Mr. Epstein renovated and redecorated the mansion in an eccentric style. Yeah, it's Willie Wonka. And that eccentric Epstein style. Yeah. Never mind the Oopalupas. Don't ask what happened to Verruca Salt, by the way. And Violet Boregard.

Yeah. Like, I don't know, like, Matt Felix, I'm just going to like, what do you think will happen if he pardons Jolay and Maxwell? At this point, I kind of just want to see it happen. Oh, well, yeah. I mean, to legally protect the show, I will use a euphemism. I think one of his supporters will get bored again. remember uh remember stewart roads the oath keepers like yeah yeah yeah you know the i pass or whatever yeah yeah uh he like throwed the book on here like insurrection or whatever he's riding

in the jail cell as we speak and he's reached down the power of the pardon and fucking pardoned at gislay Maxwell that is dabbing the height of never seeing That is amazing. It's like Michael Jordan. It's like unbelievable. We have greatness. We are witnessing greatness. Yeah, exactly.

Do you think that it would be, because there would still be guys who are like, nope, still on the Trump train. Like a lot of people. Well, most of them, to be honest. Yeah, yeah. One of them may get bored. One of them may need some stimulation, you know,

in a video game. I think that some of the people who get bored, they're still going to be like coping and it will be like, clearly President Trump got possessed by a pedophile. And we have to do an exorcism on him. Hey, I'm only directing my boredom at one of his clones. The real Trump is still out there.

Yeah. Well, speaking of boredom and things you can do with your brain, I have a, like, two articles. here that have been compiled over the last couple weeks that like, okay, like obviously we've seen a lot of reporting and like we talked about this on the show

of people who have driven themselves insane by talking to the computer like through AI, right? But most of these people are just, you know, random oaths, nobody's who think that like, you know, the angel Gabriel is sending them messages through their, you know, AI therapist or something like that.

But I have been encouraged to encounter two stories of like the actual people designing and creating and making money off of all this bullshit who are also driving themselves insane by talking to a computer. And like there's just two quick articles I want to do of two different tech CEOs who seem to have given themselves

some sort of madness from some sort of computer madness. And I would like to preface this by saying out of all of the ways that you can lose your mind, like you know, trauma, drug addiction, brain injury, late onstage schizophrenia. Driving yourself insane with chat GPT is the most ignominious of all of them. It's the most embarrassing.

Like, there really is. There's no excuse. And if this happens to you, it's because you're spiritually and mentally weak. I would like to make that very clear. Yeah, no, I don't know how this hasn't happened sooner if that happened to you. Like, if you're a real, like, I don't know,

it's like if you, it's like if you had a parrot that drove you insane. Yeah. Like, that would be more... It's like if you killed your family because Clippy told you to. It's like the fact that this is happening to CEOs, like that's how you know the economy is all flimflam. But it's interesting, though, because it's like class line, right?

AI, you know, classy rich, whatever, you know, and lumping, you know, like a working class, middle class, and just feel of terror of like, they're going to get me, oh my God, you're just, just skis. You know, there's just bedtime stories. Flashlight under the chin, can't fire. It's AI, again, high income, and MS-13. Yeah, at least MS-13 are like real people that could potentially cut off your

limbs with machetes or throw a grenade and roll a grenade into your front door. Yes. But, Chad, GPT. Okay, like, I'm going to begin here with, this is a, this is the formal. receiver of Uber, Travis Kalanick. He says on a recent episode of the All In podcast, Travis Kalanick, who resigned from the ride hailing company in disgrace in 2016, 2017, spoke rapturously about his experience using chatbots like chat GPT and GROC. That's when he revealed his sincere conviction that he, a mere college dropout, was on the verge of achieving a breakthrough in

physics just by probing the AI models. Quote, I'll go down this thread. with GPT or GROC, and I'll start to get to the edge of what's known in quantum physics. And then I'm doing the equivalent of vibe coding, except it's vibe physics, Calenick says, as spotlighted by Gizmodo. And now, Felix, actually, one of my favorite things that you've talked about is one of the best ways you can lose your mind is by doing math, is by being smart enough to understand advanced mathematics that it drives you insane, like, you know, John Nash or something. But, like, Travis Kalanick is a fucking high school dropout.

You are not you are not unlocking the secrets of quantum physics by talking to the computer, bro. There is always thing as vibe coding. You don't understand the math. You can barely do long division. So you're not Albert, you're not fucking Oppenheimer here, you know, fucking creating the atom bomb by talking to the computer. Yeah, this is like the stem equivalent of the guys who say they've come up with a foolproof way to disarm an armed attacker. like that they've sought like that they've unlocked the secrets

of the 21 foot rule he goes on here and we're approaching what's known he enthused and I'm trying to poke and see if there's breakthroughs to be had and I've gotten pretty damn close

to some interesting breakthroughs just doing that how would you know yes you know what I think yeah like do you know how much math you have to know to like even begin

to understand quantum quantum physics the robber barons of centuries past they at least like they would actually go insane trying to learn this stuff and then but they would end up like building building a library or like contributing their entire fortune to this study of like nascent quantum physics

these guys just like sit on an iPad and they're like yep solved it unified field theory of everything I did it the fucking arrogance of this nitwit who's like, claim to fame was becoming a billionaire whose genius idea was like, what if we got rid of, what if we made taxi drivers

like more expendable than they already are? You know, like, he invented taxis that you can get on your phone. Like, you know what I'm saying? Like, Da Vinci, Oppenheimer, like, you know, he's not approaching anything close to that. But, uh, he goes what to say? What does he think is like the obstacle

that prevents, like, actual renounce physicists from doing this? Well, they're not using GROC. They're not talking to. They're not unemployed in using grok on their iPad. Well, yeah, well, no, like, he actually answers this question. He says, Kalanick appeared to have a special affinity for Elon Musk's grok, which was embroiled in controversy earlier this month after making posts calling itself Mecca Hitler.

It says, here, I pinged Elon on it at some point. And I'm like, dude, if I'm doing this and I'm super amateur hour, physics enthusiasts, Kalenek said, per Gizmodo, what about all these PhD students and post-thought? that are super legit using this tool. He did not leave us hanging in suspense. Grock 4 could be this place where breakthroughs are actually happening, Kalanick said. New breakthroughs.

Kalanick appears to be pirating the spirit of claims made by Grock's creator, Musk. Upon the release of Grock 4 last week, the smartest AI in the world, Musk promised that Grock would not only discover new technologies within the next few years, but new physics. Incredibly, this was only a minor escalation

in his original promise that Grock will be a maximum truth-seek AI that will unlock the true nature of the universe. The Big Bang all started when a white farmer was killed. Shoot the bar, shoot the boar, shoot the farmer. You know, by the way, when that whole kill the boar stuff happened, I looked at, I finally saw footage of like those like big political values in South Africa where they're like, kill the farmer, shoot the boar.

And I got to say, it was awesome. And, like, we need that here in this country. Kill the AI. Shoot Grock. That's what I'd like to say. Yeah, I watched a really great interview. I've seen so many great interviews of white EFF members. Those are my guys.

I love those. Love those people. All right. The next one here is prominent open AI investor appears to be suffering a chat GPT-related mental health crisis, his peers said. It says article begins, earlier this week, a prominent venture capitalist named Jeff Lewis, managing partner of the multi-billion dollar investment firm Bedrock, which has backed high-profile tech companies, including

Open AI and Versal, posted a disturbing video on X, formerly Twitter that's causing significant concern among his peers and colleagues. Quote, this isn't a redemption arc, Lewis says in the video. It's a transmission. For the record, over the past eight years, I've walked through something. thing I didn't create, but became the primary target of a non-governmental system, not visible, but operational, not official, but structurally real. It doesn't regulate, it doesn't attack, it doesn't ban. It just inverts signal until the person carrying it looks unstable. I mean, like, I actually, I think I need to revise this a little bit. Like, it's saying, like,

chat GPT or AI drove him insane, this just sounds like he's smoking meth. I mean, this just sounds like he's a tweak. Yeah. It's like plus methamphetamine, of course, times roco basilisk equals just mental breakdown. It says here, in the video, Lewis seemed concerned that people in his life think he is unwell as he continues to discuss the non-governmental system. It doesn't suppress content, he continues. It suppresses recursion.

If you don't know what recursion means, you're in the majority. I didn't either until I started my walk. And if you're recursive, the non-governmental system isolates you, mirrors you, and replaces you. It reframes you until the people around you start wondering if the problem is just you. Partners pause, institutions freeze, narrative becomes untrustworthy in your proximity. Lewis also appears to allude to concerns about his professional career as an investor. It lives in soft compliance delays, the non-responsive email thread, and we're pausing diligence with no follow-up, he says in the video.

It lives in whispered concerned. He's brilliant, but something just feels off. It lives in triangulated pings from adjacent contacts, asking veiled questions you'll never hear directly. It lives in narratives so softly shaped that even your closest people can't discern who said what. I mean, this is just drug addiction. Like, this is kind of sad, actually.

This is like, yeah. Yes, all your friends are talking about you behind your back. The system I'm describing was originated by a single individual with me as the original target. And while I remain its primary fixation, its damage is extended well beyond me, he says. As of now, the system has negatively impacted over 7,000 lives through fun disruption, relationship erosion, opportunity reversal, and recursive erasure. It's also extinguished 12 lives, each fully patterned traced. Get a job. Shut the fuck up and get a job.

Like a Walmart reader or whatever Yeah Would anyone with a real job Have the time to do this shit And discuss the recursive non-government entity Dude, this is just mission impossible He's talking, Matt, he's talking about the dang entity Yep, it's true

It's an entity We live in the... Ethan, we're living in the entities reality now And it's a non-governmental system That's using recursion to soft block me On all social media platforms Well, you know, you know, all TV basically all movies you know just it's like just you're scaring yourself it's okay just

take a deep breath i'm sorry you got fired i'm that's a bummer but you know just go for a walk yeah i think you're right matt anphetamines plus computer equals badness yep and like yeah there should there should be a warning label on every bag of meth you purchase do not use in conjunction with chat GPT. There are no secret vistas of reality that the computer will unlock for you, unfortunately, especially if you are the former CEO of Uber. Now, to close out, my portion of the show here,

I chose this one because it will make Felix mad, but also because I think it is a perfect pairing with what we discussed at the end of Thursday's episode, which is the ongoing trad-wife neo-Nazi flame war that is embroiling a racist white woman. in Twitter. Matt, if you're unfamiliar with this, the trad wives have gone feral and they're accusing

each other of miscegenation, having AIDS, and just generally being broke ass hoes who give it away for free and getting fingered in the hotel in a Marriott Hotel Lobby during TPSA convention. So just with that little preface I'd like to read this

by Pamela Paul featured in the Wall Street Journal. The conservative women who are having it all Yeah, they're getting finger blasted in hotel lobbies. By Dominicans and whites. God, I remember back in my former career, I managed to alienate Pamela Paul, who was then head of the New York Times book review

by referring to her as a neo-conservative on Twitter. So that's what I knew I was probably not long for that career path because I had already managed to, as an editor at a New York City Publishing House, alienate the head of the New York Times book review by accurately describing her politics. And like, keep that in mind about Pamela Paul is that also she was used to be married to Brett Stevens. She's the former Ms. Brett Stevens. But but she is, she, she claims that she is in no way a neo-conservative and can't be can't be tarred with that brush by an obnoxious

editorial assistant. So this is from the Wall Street Journal, Pamela Paul, the conservative women who are having it all. According to the gospel of TikTok, conservative women are a mix of... No, no. Uh-uh. Abort. According to the gospel of TikTok, conservative women are a mix of trad wives, pronatalists, and wide-eyed aspirants to the princess treatment. But a very different ideal looks more like May mailman, an over full-time working mother whom others on the right speak about with awe. At 37, Mailman is the deputy assistant to Donald Trump and his senior policy strategist at the White House.

Pregnant with her third child, she flies home to Houston on Friday nights to spend the weekend with her family. Once, she gave a major interview one week postpartum, terrified she'd leak on camera. Her first child, not yet three. Can I have some? Has already been on 14 flights. People say to me,

when you're home, I hope you can really connect to their kids. And I'm like, you're crazy. When I'm home, I'm constantly attached to my phone, mailman said in an interview. Oh, good. So, okay, it's good to know she's still getting some mothering in there and not just, you know, sort of alienated from her three children.

During the week, her nanny and her husband, David, who owns a tree moving company, get the kids out of business. What else? That is like a caveman small business. We need Moved Tree. Who own Tree Mover? Me Moved Tree.

Me make three shiny rock a year from Moved Tree. Mailman's husband who owns a fire starting company. Quest for Fire Industries LLC. Mailman's husband who's employed is the loudest shouter in his clan cave. uh yeah it says uh during the week her nanny and her husband david who owns a tree moving company get the kids out of bed change their diapers bathe and feed them and put them to bed while making sure to run the dishwasher yes mailman is missing out on much of her kids early years but she doesn't second guess or feel guilty about her choices she feels lucky i don't have a victimhood mentality

she said you have to exert a certain locus of control and focus on the things you can handle without obsessing over what you can. In theory, I would love to be a trad wife, male man said. When I wrote down qualities I wanted in a husband, one was to make more money than me because I wanted the freedom to stay home so that I wouldn't have felt trapped. And that's who I married.

Maybe conservative women don't feel as conflicted as progressive women because we structured our lives from the get-go so we could potentially do both. All the while, structuring everyone else's lives, so that's impossible. I love like he says, mentality when the central question is kind of it should be more like hey are you just like fucking around on your phone instead of raising your kids no that's not like feeling bad about

that isn't a victim mentality it's just a basic concept of shame the thing you should have says here uh the much heralded and often disputed idea that women can have it all is often seen as a liberal ideal while being a housewife or as it's known now a stay-at-home mother is upheld as a conservative one. But while opinions on how the other side things can veer towards caricature on both ends of the political spectrum, real life is more complicated. For most women, whatever their politics, housewifery is a non-starter. Outside a wealthy elite, the two-income household is just economic reality. But another reality is that many women, conservatives and liberals alike, genuinely want a career, whether for their sense of self or their desire to contribute

financially or as a way to pursue their passion. Conservative women tend to to see their lives in a different light in interviews with over a dozen high-powered conservative women. They said that the trad wife lifestyle was never a choice they seriously consider for themselves. No shit. Wow, that's fucking shocking.

You don't want to be churning butter all day when you can be on TV? This past decade has seen the rise of many conservative women in high-profile jobs and government, the media, and corporate America. There is Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney-Barrie. former South Carolina governor-in ambassador to the U.N. Nikki Haley and Senator Katie Britt of Alabama

all have high-pressure jobs while raising a family despite having financial resources that gave them the option not to work. Senator is a high-pressure job. John Federman does it. It's his second job ever. Late last year, White House Press Secretary, Carolyn Levitt, returned to work just four days after giving birth when Trump announced his candidacy. I would reject that you can't be a good mom and be good at your job,

Leavitt said on a recent podcast. It's not for everyone. And it takes a lot of work and will and faith and prayer. And it's hard, but it can be done. You're not doing it, though. Like you're fucking on your tablet while your kid is sprinting into a wood chipper. Carolyn Leavitt is one in particular because, like,

she brought her kid to the White House. And, like, I saw a lot of conservative accounts promoting it. and being like, finally, we're like, we're not demonizing motherhood. And there was another post that, like, it was Tim Tebow, and there was a recent photo he had of his infant, his newborn child, like, on his chest while he's, like, typing on the computer. And the comment was, finally, someone is humanizing fatherhood, like, and making it cool to have kids again.

I'm like, at what point was, like, was motherhood or fatherhood not, like, demonized or, like, not humanized? I don't get what they're talking about. And also, Felix, your brother made a very good point where it's like, Tim Tevo's job is throwing a football, not being on computer. So it's really not that impressive. If he had the kid on the field with him,

that'd be one thing. I mean, a lot of his coaches probably wanted to resort to that by the end of his career. And this article goes on for a long, long time. I'm not going to read all of it. But it says here, conservative women are firm in their belief that childbearing is a big part of women. To their mind, feminist, progressives, and contemporary gender theorists have de-emphasized, even denied

sex differences in a way that don't reflect their lives or worldview. According to Carrie Lucas, president of the Independent Women's Forum, a conservative think tank, and mother of five, conservative women don't tend to wring their hands over how their roles differ from those of men. In lieu of the gender neutral parent, they reflexively use the words mother and father. They believe that the maternal impulse fundamentally shapes women's priorities. But like the previous 10 paragraphs to this article were about these women who see their kids like twice a week for a few hours when they're when they're when they're oh but while they're also on their phone catering to the whims of donald trump yeah it just they just sound like the like the lib career women they hate but exactly so so that so just like through osmosis their kids have a good childhood by absorbing like their like racism radiation yeah there is absolutely the only difference in the rhetoric between this and like girl boss like corporate feminists is the word mother and father and like some vague stab at traditional gender roles. But like the general, you know, like the traditional gender roles would require you not to be a

senator or have a podcast or be on TV or be a fucking influencer or be pitching anything on TikTok without the approval of your husband. Or I mean like even then, like even if you do have those jobs, not just like spending every waking moment on candy crush or like talking to a. guy in Malaysia who's pretending to be Jennifer Aniston. In the governor's office in Little Rock, Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders recently implemented

a Bring Your Baby to Work program that allows mothers and fathers to bring their kids to the office during their first six months. The goal is to help ease the transition back to work so that employees don't feel like they have to constantly choose between work and parenthood. State employees get 12 weeks of paid

maternity leave. So the Bring Your Baby to Work program is basically a way to get out of giving people maternity leave. You just bring your infants to the office. Didn't Arkansas just also like re-legalized child labor? Yes, yes. Indeed they did. Indeed they did. Great. Well, you can send your kids to the minds or take them to work.

Either way, we're going to get those babies in the office. I don't know much more about the conservative women having it all. I just find that they're like now that they have like taken advantage of all of the opportunities that feminism or just like the women's rights movement have afforded women to be like, full members of society and not only seen as mothers or caregivers or housewives. They want to take full advantage of that while also claiming that they are also like housewives and mothers and traditional. And it's just like, I don't know, I just like, the hypocrisy of it is all a bit calling to me. Like, there's nothing wrong with being a mother.

There's nothing wrong with working if you're a mother. In fact, most people don't really have the option, you know, to only stay at home. But it just seems like, it's just they want maximum like, I don't know, thanks and gratitude from everyone for working all the time and not being around their kids but also demanding other people do differently. I just don't get what these women want. What do conservative women want? I guess is my question. I need this to have an article written about it.

All right. Well, I don't have anything worth for this episode. But I would like to turn things over to you, Matt. Matt has prepared another poem for us this week based on the what we discussed today. So without further ado, I'd like to turn things over to Matt Christman for another, another poetry reading.

Thank you. So, Will ask me, you know, what do you make of it? The dabbing, you know, a tough to,

you know, put it into the words, the, just surreal and, uh, mocking. So fortunately, I written a poem.

A collection of people. an eerie paul reaches out with bony talons scratch it out drawing opening veins flowing north to ply to seduce a murmur of commerce draining the waters in the atlantic the canine bites to drain the vitality to drink the life of trade there stands dracula castles a stately townhouse decree a cabinet of curiosities wait that's not it how about disembodied eyeballs to hold security cameras wait that's not it how about the taxidomy tiger posed in a monument to mastery to trap young things wait that's not it in fairness it's hard to conjure a metaphor for a draculous fucking castle the hanging bride hanging at the atry Atrium? As a heart? Come on. Top minds, journalist, physicist, financiers, writers, Chomsky, Woody Allen. All were hard at work to create the perfect metaphor. Because what is metaphor? But a symbol. A symbol to build. Fueled by funding for Black Rock. Black Rock? Are you kidding? How can you top that? The dance of capital. revitalizing. No wait, that's not it. Fuck! Bolsheviks would be buffaloed. The scalpel frozen. Undecided where to cut first. The scalpel lowered into the weight of the symbols. The sound of mocking laughter echoing in the dark. Sign of dollar sign. Illuminati winking in the darkness.

The massive metaphor groans the pages, a mute testament, an anemic testament. The power to joke. Trump, the defender of a youth, the defender of Maxwell. The joke is on you. A collection of people. A poem by Matt Christman. Just one more, two more quick things before we close out today's episode. On a week from today's episode, we will be talking to Seth Harp about his new book,

The Fort Bragg Cartel. This is one that we are really looking forward to. This book is jaw-dropping. But I would like to just, on Seth's behalf, remind you that that book hits stores tomorrow. So be sure to check out Seth's book, The Fort Bragg Cartel, and start reading it in advance of our interview a week. Read along, if you don't mind. And also, if you were in New York City on Wednesday of this week, Truenon will be doing an event with Seth Harp at, Chris is at the Bell. Bell House?

Yes, the Bell House. The Bell House in Brooklyn. They're doing a book launch event, Truenon and Seth Harp at the Bell House in Brooklyn. So come check that out if you are so inclined and buy Seth's book to prepare for Monday's episode. Now, and finally, finally, one last announcement of which I will turn over to our good colleague and friend, Chris Wade. Yes, hello, everybody. Speaking of normalizing fatherhood,

I just wanted to tell all of our listeners that my wife and I... Well, I have for it. My wife, Molly, and I are expecting our first child, a little girl, in the next few weeks. Baselpop. Thank you, Matt. And so, you know, we've been semi-public about this, but, you know, I feel like we should let our listeners in a little bit to what's going on with us. Mostly just to say thank you for supporting the show for so long to give me, Matt, all of us. stability to build families and lives off of. And also, more importantly to say that when the baby comes,

I will be taking some significant time off. The first and most I've stepped away from the show since, I don't know, November 2017 when I came on. So I think I've set up some systems to leave you guys all in good hands. But if things do stray, wobble, fall apart. Do not get in touch with me. Do not message. Do not email.

I will be off in baby land. my best to normalize fatherhood for all of us out there. So that's my little announcement. Thank you guys all so much for listening and supporting the show for so long. You know, it's hard work, you know, like having a baby. Trust me, it's hard work. But if you ever, you know, down and out, remember this. At least you had another stroke.

Yes. I will be doing my best not to have a stroke before the baby comes. That's the main thing that I'm concentrating on right now. Avoid the stroke for the love of God. it's ironic because you need to make strokes to make the baby there we go all right everybody all the loving congratulations in the world to chris and molly i can't wait to meet the new person yes all right everybody

till next time cheers and oh sweetheart you know what i like chandelier lace chandelier lace All right, it's the big bopper, the big chopper, signing off. Until next time, everybody, bye-bye. Bye-bye. On the big...