Chapo Trap House - 975 - Like a Virgin feat. Séamus Malekafzali

Episode Date: October 7, 2025

Séamus joins us to talk about Trump’s proposed “Gaza peace plan” and what horrific policies it would actually entail in practice, as well as the Democratic Party’s desperate attempts to triangulate on the issue. We also wade into the increasing possibility of regime change in Venezuela as well as ICE’s pillaging of Chicago apartment buildings. On the lighter side, we talk about Bari Weiss being given the keys to CBS news and Tyler Cowen’s Humbert Humbert-esque ode to an AI actress. Follow @Turbulence_pod on X for updates about when Séamus’s pod drops. NEW MERCH IS OUT NOW! Go to https://chapotraphouse.store/ and buy a new hat or shirt, especially our great new “Carousel Club” design. AND be sure to pre-save the date of October 28 for Will and Hesse’s LIVE WATCH PARTY of Re-Animator! Tickets available now – use the promo code CHAPO20 for 20% off! https://checkout.stagepilot.com/collections/chapo-trap-house

All I'm going to be is a trouble All I'm going to be is there are trouble Hello, everybody. It's Monday, October 6th, and this is your choppo for today. Joining Felix and I on today's program is our old pal, Seamus Malikov-Zeli. Seamus, welcome back. Good to be back. As Hakeem Jeffries once said, Gen Z is in the house. Seamus, how's it going?

It's going all right. I'm happy to be 26 years old. and still alive. That's right. I'd like to begin today's episode with just discussing what is the latest round of ceasefire negotiations and ceasefire proposals in Gaza and Israel. Seamus, if you follow this over the weekend, like Trump did the thing where he came out and he said, like, we've got peace. It's going to be great.

It will be a lasting peace in the Middle East. And he requested in a post, Israel to stop bombing the Gaza's trip. immediately. They have certainly not done that. But like what can be said about like this round of ceasefire negotiations? Like what is the proposition on the table? What has Hamas agreed to? What is America said like they're going to do? And what is Israel doing in all of this? What can be said about this latest round of ceasefire negotiations? Well, the proposal on the table right now is different from the one that was offered up in January of this year. Back in January, I mean, the IDF withdrew to a very thin buffer zone. People in the south were allowed to move back north. Hamas retained its

governmental functions. Aid was restricted, but a lot more of it was letting. Growth disorders began to be filled, the famine conditions eased. What is on the table right now is obviously a much more severe conditions that are being placed upon, upon Gaza. There's supposed to be three phases of withdrawal. The first one is a a freeze to the operation to take Gaza City, which I wanted to complete before October 7th, and obviously that didn't happen. Then they were going to move toward a slightly wider line outside of Gaza City, in which they would remain up until an international peacekeeping force would be established. And then at some point in the future, after a transitional government

has established a board of peace led by Tony Blair and Donald Trump himself, it would be handed over the Palestinian Authority after significant reforms were introduced. As it might sound, this is, it's weighing on a lot of different factors and it doesn't look like Israel wants to abide by any of them, mainly because one of the reforms that it is suggesting for the Palestinian Authority before it would hand over sovereignty to it was that the Palestinian authority stop inciting against Israel in any form, to throw out any textbooks that have anti-Israeli messaging, to stop supporting terrorism in any sort of way. And of course, the definition of terrorism is extraordinarily expansive in the Israeli mindset. So that's not happening. What seems to be advocated

for at the moment is an eternal foreign stewardship of Gaza. Once Hamas supposedly leaves, disarms, it would be placed under the jurisdiction of the Board of Peace. for God knows how long, uh, Palestinians would eventually be dispossessed of all their land into some sort of AI hellscape. Um, it would be bad. It would be bad. Um, as for Israel even abiding for, uh, I mean, what Trump was asking for with stopping all of the bombing. Israel would say, well, it's only engaging in defensive bombing at the moment to protect its forces inside Gaza. So they're bombing whatever they see as a threat to their forces, which has included a school for the blind and other Palestinians who have just been moving around the area. They're fulfilling no obligations, and I don't think there is an expectation that they will follow through with any of the final conclusions to that proposal.

And what has Hamas agreed to in this latest round of talks? I mean, they've agreed to a partial approval of the deal. The way that they, their understanding of how Trump sees negotiations is that if he is brown-nosed significantly, then he will agree to, I mean, basically anything that anyone says to him. So Hamas worded the response to proposal in a way that made it sound like they were agreeing to it and that they only needed to work out certain details. And then Trump was, of course, you know, completely celebratory about it. J.D. Vance and him posted the full text of it. They agreed to a technocratic, independent government, which is something that they've always advocated for in the peace deals throughout this war.

But they did not signal that they agreed to Tony Blair taking over the government or Donald Trump taking over the government or Israel remaining in a significant portion of the territory indefinitely. And Israel has been talking about even under any sort of withdrawal plan that they would stay on the border. They would stay on strategic hills. They would stay in a buffer zone. So that they haven't agreed to. No. Is the issue of disarmament still being negotiated? Are they holding out on disarming? They're holding out of disarming. I mean, what they've said is that they are willing to give their weapons to a future independent Palestinians. In the same way that has been, I said it will disarm if Lebanon has a comprehensive plan to defend Israel so that there's

no point to it. Since that it's not on the horizon, then Hamas has no reason to disarm. And that's what they've continued to say. And as far as the Israeli side goes, like how has, I mean, how has Netanyahu reacted to this and how has like the sort of settler cabinet parties and ministers reacted to this plan? Is it still not good enough for them? I mean, Netanyahu has been touting this as a victory because he can at least say that, of course, he's not going to abide by any of these requests that Hamas is making. There'll be a new government. There'll be a Palestinian authority that never takes over. Smotlich has been going along with it as well because he sees, you know, the obvious benefits that could come with a deal that they, you know, pull the rug out from under.

But Ben Gavir has obviously taken this as a defeat. He's certainly to leave the government again. he's going to be satisfied with nothing less than the full dispossession of the Palestinians, their expulsion, their extermination. He exists as that weight on the cabinet to continue to demand more and more of the Palestinians until they can, you know, there's no reasonable way for them to abide by any deal. And like you mentioned, you mentioned previously this idea of sort of a semi-permanent permanent, permanent foreign stewardship. of Gaza, like, led by Tony Blair of all people. Is that like, like, how can that possibly be serious? I mean, forget the foreign stewardship, like, how has Tony Blair been the guy who's tapped for this? And, like, is there any idea of what that will look like and how, I don't know, how they will administer law and order in Gaza under the watchful eye of the former British prime

minister? I mean, Tony Blair has been sort of enmeshing himself in the Saudi space, the AI space, all these different evil tech industries and golf industries since he left office in the 2000s. And now that's all coming to a head in which now, I think his NGO was called the Tony Blair Peace Institute or something along those lines. So he can tout himself as someone who is obviously a trailblazer in government and now he could be a trailblazer for other governments seeking to achieve peace in some manner. When this was initially suggested back in, I want to say, May, the model that they were looking at was Paul Bremer and the Iraqi occupation that America did. Paul Bremer at the time, for what's reason you may not remember, when Iraq was initially invaded, Iraqi sovereignty was completely usurped and the entire government was placed under the former ambassador to the Netherlands, Paul Gramer. He ruled by decree. He had full judicial, executive, legislative authority for more than a year.

And it allowed him to shape Iraq into what America wanted, which was a free market democracy that didn't function. What is being suggested here is a much more severe example of that, mainly in that Tony Blair isn't even going to be, if this comes to past, God forbid. He won't even be in Gaza. What they're suggesting is that... Yeah, I mean, that's going to be my next question. Like, is he going to be, like, managing this from a Zoom call in London, probably? He's... Well, what they're saying is that they are going to maybe base this in El Arish,

which is an Egyptian village, Egyptian town very near to Gaza, which was where Palestine and Airlines was based out of when Israel destroyed Gaza Airport. So he would be nearby, and then eventually the activities of the government would move into Gaza as it becomes more reconstructed. But there doesn't seem to be any mechanisms for governing it that have been outlined in any way. What it seems, the main focus of it seems to be about de-radicalizing the Palestinian population. That is the main focus. Okay, and that's the thing that I've been, you know, fascinated and repelled by.

Like, you mentioned about, like, the Palestinian Authority has to commit to, like, I don't know, Persian textbooks of anything that they regard as anti-Israel. but I've heard a lot of stuff about like, oh, like, part of this transition into whatever authority is going to be running Gaza for the foreseeable future under this plan is this idea that Gaza's population needs to be de-radicalized and that basically like until they can prove that they don't hate Israel, Israel or Israelis anymore, like they need to be under some sort of vice right. And it's just like, once again, I have to wonder like, what does that look like? And like, how can you like, How can you expect people who have been killed en masse nonstop for two years to, like, I don't know, like develop friendly or passive feelings towards the people who have been killing them nonstop for two years? I mean, forget, no, two years. Killing them nonstop more or less as long as anyone in Gaza has been alive. I mean, what's interesting about this is that in the original 21 point proposal,

there were suggestions for a joint Israeli Gaza, like quasi-de-radicalization program at both societies and that they would learn to like coexist in some fashion. And then once then Yahoo got his hands on that, that part was completely stricken out. So it was exclusively on the Palestinian side in order to de-radicalize. And how would they, what I was like,

how would they demonstrate that they have become de-radicalized? Well, I mean. So what, like, how would you gauge that? It seems to be, you, like, you sever the, um, the specific to Palestinians, they have this problem. They get mad when you kidnap their children. That's a problem with their culture that they would have to get rid of. Obviously, like, you know, we live in a very advanced Western civilized, you know, Western civilized country ruled by, you know, enlightened values.

So like, you know, we don't have that problem in this country. Right. You know, when someone kills your children, you just sort of said, you know, that's okay with me. No, no, no, you're open to diversity and you're open to all these, everything. So why would you have an issue with that? This is, an interesting thing is that, like, they talk about, okay, we want religious

coexistence to on Palestinian schools. You want them not to hate. And what that seems to look like is right now in southern Gaza, in the entirely Israeli occupied areas of southern Gaza, there is this gang trying to form this anti-Hamas administration, yes, Abu Shab. And, Barry Weiss has out with the free press and the Supreme Israeli NGO have been running positive news

about this group and they did a video of a school that's there and supposedly it's the image of the future of Palestinian education and in that school they were teaching them basically just like oh you see a Jew they're your friend if you see a Christian they're your friend they're just like you and that was it it's an entirely facile understanding of how Palestinian education works, of what the roots of it are, it's purely for a show to, I mean, depict like, oh,

if we can get this at a basic level that they were taught from birth that they hate the Jews, then maybe this can change. But of course, they're doing this in a bombed out classroom, something that would, in a neighborhood that's been demolished by the Israeli military. Under this future education regime, when they get to the part of the curriculum, that, I don't know, has to address what happened to your relatives? What happened to some of your limbs? Like, why is the school that we're teaching in just a bombed out crater?

What, like, what is the curriculum that's going to address that? They're just sort of like, hey, a bad thing happened and it was our fault. Yeah, fuck the final. I mean, what works for the curriculum inside Israel is that, of course, they remove any mentions of Palestinian history of Palestinian residents before the Jews got there, for Jewish settlers, I should say, got there. That can work on a population that has not had its entire civilization uprooted within living memory. I don't, I can't imagine the purpose is to actually convince anyone. I imagine it's purely for PR and then they can continue

the objective of expelling the Palestinian population so that it's not even not even a matter. They don't want these people to actually be educated in any sort of way. I don't think even they expect brainwashing to work. I think they just expect that, okay, they'll remain illiterate, they'll remain their education system has already been eviscerated. It can remain eviscerated. People who want to become collaborators, they don't have to believe this, but they can still work with us.

It's pure, like, something that interested in me, when I read about the proposal for this new government is that transition government is that there's Palestinian technocrats suggested, but none of them are named. And they're supposed to be apolitical, apolitical technocrats in a conflict that is unabashedly political. And this is the same thing that they're suggesting in refugee camps in the West Bank, in Janine, that the only people who can return are people who promise, never to engage in political activity ever again.

They want an entirely servile population that doesn't think, that doesn't speak, that is going to be content to let themselves die out as a society. Well, I mean, yeah, if they want to produce a society where people are unable of speaking, thinking, and are content to let themselves die out, I think AI is a good solution. I think we need to open some data centers and I think we need to get AI very much involved in this new education program, because it's done wonders in this country cultivating exactly that mentality. If you're, if you're, now, of course, AI is a huge part of this, I should also say.

Of course it is. Yeah. Of course it is. Tony Blair, I mean, there was an initial thing in the Wall Street Journal where they had AI generated images of what Gaza could look like in the future under this transitional government. And of course, it looks like Dubai, because I assume that's what the prompts looked like. But they were also suggesting, okay, the keys.

know, this is left unsaid, but the keys that Palestinians hold to their homes that they had before the Nakba, 98, that's a powerful symbol. But it's also a threat to Israel. This is something that the Israeli government has said very, very recently that when the Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas wears a key, that that's a threat to the against Israel. So they need to remove the key somehow. How do they do that? So all these people in Gaza have had their homes destroyed, now they can have a digital token

for which they can hold their residency papers. And then they can get that home back when it's reconstructed. How that works, who knows? But it's, it's new, it's novel. It incorporates revolutionary technology. And it's going to be a revolutionary society in terms of, you know, whatever. I don't think it's meant to go anywhere. But it's something to, yeah, chew on.

That's sort of a bizarre thing that I've noticed about everything. everything really since Tony Blair has become like formally involved since his since his presence in any future plans or negotiations has become an officially acknowledged fact that their their designs

their stated designs are to create to basically do Singapore where Gaza used to be obviously not even I don't even think like Trump himself believes that is what's going to happen and I think a lot of that

a lot of the stuff about like making beachfront hotels and shit there that is just his brain vulgarly interpreting that and spinning it back out but it's it's very emblematic of the types of policies

that are suggested now which is these things that like no one not the least of which the people proposing the policies believe that this is going to happen or that this is a possibility but you you're they still go through the entire song of dance song and dance of putting it out and even this incredibly like like fictitious bullshit thing that can't happen even even in the most managed presentation it still sounds like something out of a fucking david deep illustration.

It's still fucking horrifying. No, no, no. They can't, they can't, they don't envision a society in which anyone actually lives. I mean, the point is that, I mean, what did Trump say that it would be, the Gaza Riviera would be a place for the world's people. He does, even in these sort of fantastical visions, Palestinians are not included in this. It is purely supposed to be an experiment for the Americans and the Israelis, too. produce a supposedly good society out of nothing or the nothing that they created.

Seamus, I want to get your thoughts on like, at least something to like the Americans' perspective and what I'm seeing in this country as of late, and like we hear a lot and we see a lot of polling that shows that at least as far as a lot of the country and particularly Democratic voters are concerned, there has been this kind of seismic shift away from sympathy for Israel towards sympathy for Palestinians and I don't know I'm wondering about like a de-radicalization program for this country because

as it gets as people get closer and closer to saying the G word which is you know more and more and more undeniable I'm wondering if you saw the comments by I forget who it was but I think it was a congressman who said over the weekend the genocide that Israel is doing to the Palestinians is the fault of Hamas

which I thought was like a brilliant innovation in how to sort of like acknowledge the genocide and also like find a solution that like lets Israel off the hook for doing it because it's just like oh to be clear they are doing a genocide to Palestinians but it's it's Hamas's fault for making them do it and not surrendering or giving the hostages or just provoking them into this action because like I felt for a long a long time now that like within the next six months to a year or something the defenders of Israel and Zionism in general will just in the West or in America, we'll just eventually end up saying, of course it's a genocide,

but it's good. Because I think that's really all they're left with. But like, what do you make of like this sort of rhetorical shift in American politics right now? I mean, I do notice the change you're talking about. With Hank Johnson in particular, he's interesting because, I mean, he caused a lot of controversy for calling West Bank settlers termites years ago. And he also said that Guam would tip over if they put too many people on it. He is just kind of odd like that. Like, he doesn't know what he's saying. That's a very polite way to put it.

I mean, I think he's literally ill with something, but that's a different story. There's an interesting thing going on, like, within the Palestinian political discourse that is similar to what you're talking about, wherein, of course, there is no open support for Israel within either, you know, Fat, Fat, or Hamas, obviously, or any of the groups. They'll collaborate and such, but no one is actually going to come out and shake hands with Netanyahu and talk about how much fun it is to be in Tel Aviv. What they will say is that, of course, there are these horrible things that have happened to us, unspeakable evil, but Hamas caused all of this.

Hamas did this to me. Hamas killed my son. Hamas killed my father. Hamas killed this and that. I think that is going to be the main mode of discourse coming out of Israel and the United States within the next two years. I don't think they will ever get to a point in which they can say, at least in an English-speaking context. Obviously, in Hebrew, they'll say whatever. But in English-speaking context, they'll say that we needed to kill one million people, two million people, God forbid, because they were going to kill us all.

What they'll say is that, of course, all of this was terrible. All of this is so awful and horrible. A society was lost, but they did it to themselves. They brought it upon themselves. How can you expect Israel to have responded in any other way than the way it did? Hamas caused these bottlenecks. It stole the aid. It did this.

It did that. They can't deny what's in front of them anymore. We're past that. That's the thing that only really happens in, you know, Republicans. circles are in the German discourse. But they will go to, this is so horrible, but it couldn't have happened any other way. You saw how the Palestinians acted. They did this to themselves. I mean, I think a good example of that, I don't know if you saw recently the interview that Pete Buttigieg did with, what's it, Andrew Callahan. And like, when he asked him about Gaza,

Pete Buttigieg had this like this very slick and like seemingly reasonable response that I think was like very well crafted from his perspective and basically what he said is like look like here's a couple of things that I know are true like every day what we see happening in Gaza

are more like unrestrained war crimes and atrocities but on October 7th we also saw unrestrained war crimes and atrocities and like these two things I know are true and it's just sort of like well the good thing we're Yeah, good thing we're funding both sides of this atrocity. You know what I mean?

Like, maybe we should just stop giving money to all these atrocities. It's just like the fact that they're weighed in the same and it's like, it's not ever remarked upon that like one of the sides doing these war crimes are being funded entirely and armed by the United States, like would seem to like one would outweigh the other in terms of both the scope of it and our moral and physical culpability. Funded entirely, I mean, the casually count is so much more severe by this point. I mean, they dropped, I mean, when October 7th first happened, what did we see from Biden? And this was, you know, four 9-11s, 10 9-11s, 29-11s, in contrast, Israel's population.

I mean, once it became clear that it had to have been countless more for Gaza, considered his population, that they dropped that line. But they still have to maintain that what happened on October 7th was equal to what has befallen, uh, Palestinian society itself. I mean, just today, uh, they're doing that a Paramount plus show about October 7th. That is his early government approved. Um, I mean, they're posting about how, how beautiful this show is and how important this show is, uh, coming on the same day that Barry Weiss has been appointed as, as that editor-in-chief of CBS news by Larry Ellison. Um, no, they're going to fight as much as they came.

to avoid actually adjusting their viewpoints in any sort of substantive way. They have to because to actually change their view, I mean, it would require an entire rethinking of the liberal order, of how we got to this point about the U.S. as a relationship, and that's, that's not possible. That's not going to happen. Not as long as Larry Ellison controls everything. The thing that I found like very notable. about Pete Buttigieg, his repulsive answer on that show was, um, do you notice how

this preamble was, it was something to be effective, uh, well, you know, no matter what you say on this, one side's going to yell at you because they're like, you just made their thing. Pete, Pete, you're saying this because when you were on Pod Save America or Pod Save the World or whatever fucking podcast that was, you got yelled that because you were an idiot. I do think that is how liberals in America and probably for most of the EU that's how they have that's what they figure is their way out of this that they're in fact taking a cue from the right if you recall in the first like six months of this the rights line on this was just it was fucking incoherent I saw that the dumbest shit I have ever seen like I I you would see pictures you would see

you would see things that were like uh you know it was like a a meme where it's supposed to be like rockets being fired by Hamas or PIJ and then missiles being fired by Israel and it's like America has to find both of these

and this this generalized like idiotic line of like what what like who cares leave us out of this as if we aren't like as if we aren't like the main reason this is in its current form like as if we are not the the thing that is propping up Israel and has shaped this shaped everything leading up to this fucking point but that is going to be the liberal line going forward like oh I mean you know I'd love to come up with a great technocratic solution but people will yell at me no matter what yeah yell at you

in a matter what, I mean, how can we be invested in such a granular Middle Eastern issue that has no effects back home or on any other foreign policy venture that America is engaging with? I mean, what frustrates me also is, like, I see certain Democratic politicians, they realize that this issue is toxic, that even if they don't personally care about it, that other people care about it, and it pisses them off to no end. So they have to find different ways of triangulating talking about it. Like Ruben Galego, Galejo, the Arizona senator, I think, when he was questioned by a constituent about Biden's and the Democratic Party support for Israel in this war, he started talking about how Trump was responsible for the entire thing.

He had to find a different way of speaking about it. And when he was called out about it, he refused to back down on that point. It's they know that they have to change in some fashion or another. in ways of talking about it or whatever on this one issue, but they don't want to budge on anything else or else that whole pack of cards starts tumult down. I have to care about other things that America is doing abroad. Well, it's so weird. I mean, it's equally weird whether it is from like, you know, the fucking right wing guys

who just vote for any fucking mainstream Republican at the end of the day, support anything any mainstream Republican do and are in fact like the mirror image of the people who had a left liberal patina on them for the entirety of the first Trump administration and just reverted to mean the second that it became clear that they were going to have to vote for Biden again. But these people trying out like specifically people who held cabinet positions in the Biden administrations and fucking senators trying out this line of like, it's this ancient conflict that we don't have anything to fuck to do with it. And it's like, There's a photo of you from like a year ago, like helping the, helping the ghost of Sheldon Aedelson circumcise like a child.

No, not telling me there's a photo. There's like a photo of you like living in a giant menorah. Like what the, how are you like how are you trying to put this line out there? Like, what the fuck? I hate the fucking term gaslighting. But like, isn't that like fucking gaslighting? Like every year, all these people go to the APEC conference. And then suddenly when there's just like an ounce of pushback, oh, it's this crazy religious thing that we don't know anything.

What do we have to do with it? Now, Trump's saying it's like a 3,000 year old conflict that he's about to put to rest finally. It's like, if you sound like that, if you sound like this, this syphilic moron, that like, maybe reevaluate a little bit, but that's just me. In terms of novel and exciting new rhetorical strategies for liberals to deal with this issue or address it, I got to, I got to mention something that happened over the weekend that I saw that was like, so dumb. I had to look this up to make sure it was real.

And indeed it was. And I'm talking about Van Jones's comments on. real time with Bill Maher from this Friday that were like jaw-dropping. And now, this is in the context of a debate, attempting to explain why young people have so, you know, overwhelmingly abandoned Israel or turned on Israel. Now, Bill Maher, his take on this is that it all has to do with DEI and critical race theory. But luckily, liberal commentator Van Jones was there to, you know, he was there to correct that, you know, sort of foolish and somewhat racist point of view. you.

He said... Palestinians are like when a 17-year-old goes to community college and everyone yells at you because you said, well, she's in college. But yeah, liberal commentator Van Jones was there to correct him. And he said, the reason why is he said basically it's because Qatar and Iran are using the algorithm to like inundate people's social media feeds with, end I quote, if you open your phone and all you see is dead gaza baby dead gaza baby dead gaza baby did he said jones on real time earning laughter and applause dead gaza baby dead gaza baby that's basically your whole feed and it's just like

what i love about this idea is that like okay let's let's let's let's let's let's let's let's let's credit like what he's saying as true that like oh it's cotter and it's it's it's codder and they're nefarious foreign influence over social media algorithms that are keep showing young americans dead gaza baby dead gaza baby so and that that in fact has led them to turn on the people killing all those babies which most normal people are opposed to like it's never the thing itself it's the representation of that thing or the documentation of that thing that's the problem and it's just like they can't ever face the reality that like no people have turned on Israel to the extent that they have because of the things it's doing

which is killing hundreds of thousands of people it reminds me of the like Russia gate shit when they would go like oh like this this you know this stuff Russia is why people hate Hillary Clinton all this stuff that Hillary Clinton has publicly said and said of private correspondences and you know talks with uh you know the like big four bulge bracket investment banks it looks bad but like that's just because like Russia is is putting it is framing it in this way to make you hate her and it I it I It was always like, Russia's economy is like smaller than Texas is. Like if Russia, if Russia can make, if Russia is the reason that Hillary Clinton, this incredibly like well funded, this project decades of the making, why it falls apart, then yeah, it was never going to last when the rubber hit the fucking road.

And like, and also implicit in Van Jones's comments is in no way did he try to deny the reality of all. those dead babies. He wasn't even saying that they're fake or AI generated. He's just saying we're seeing too much of it. And it's just like, yeah, if Carter can overwhelmingly turn American public opinion on Israel by, by, how are they doing this? How are they approaching the strategy? By showing people the reality of what this, this genocide looks like every single day, you know? It's, they never, they never even say that cutter is like lying or presenting things. Yeah, exactly. I mean, only the most deluded people do that. It's always just like, The fat, like, they just say that anyone, anyone with any voice who's opposed to any of this is funded by Kotar, and that just automatically invalidates all of it, which like, okay, then what, what does that say about, like, 85 to 95% of, like, U.S. media that.

In that case. This way that Van Jones is saying this in particular is really getting to me, like using Gaza in that ways. like an adjective like dead gaza baby as if it's this this like inanimate object right yeah that he's seeing that it's not just a dead baby it's a dead gaza baby and then and then throwing in like like you know just like the little bit of humor he injected in there dead gaza baby dead gaza baby did he and then i said to the laughs and applause from the audience like man he he has since apologized for this oh i'm sure and he's like great guys guy ah that was my bad guys like i shouldn't of like, you know, made light of all these dead infants. But, like, he didn't apologize for, like,

the essential point, the credulous and point he was making that, like, Qatar and Iran are responsible for this because they're interfering in our democracy through defarious social media algorithms. By, like, you know, it's like, once again, it's not the fact that Israel is killing so many people, many of them children. It's that people in this country know about it, and they know about it too much. It's like, or it's like, it's like, it's not that they know know about it. It's that they know about it too much because they see it too often. And like, that's the problem. What's weird about it is that Van Jones, I mean, he used to be a Maoist. He was a rapper. He rapped specifically about the Palestinians. He is aware of these issues and he is

aware of these issues how they were before. I mean, Generation Z, the generation everybody keeps complaining about with their support of the Palestinians. He was aware of these things. So he's made this change. So now he is adopting these same viewpoints. I mean, I mean, Herta Mueller, the German author whose father was in the fucking Waffen SS, she makes this almost exact same point about how Hamas is distorting the images that we see out of Gaza and that we're seeing too many images of dead people that aren't a full representation of the situation. Oh, yeah, because there are many people that are still alive there. Yeah, no, no. Oh, my. God. I mean, it used to be that when, like, when there was accusations of famine, is we

post images of like, oh, there's a grocery store that's still active here. There's a bakery that's still active here. There's food that you can see here. We're not going to tell you when these images were taken, but clearly this isn't true. People are still alive. Food is still being eaten by certain people. None of what you're seeing is accurate. No, it's what's what's like when Mitt Romney, when Mitt Romney, when Mitt Romney, when Mitt Romney, talks about, like, last year when he was still in office, they were discussing TikTok and the algorithm. And specifically, he was talking about the reason that it needed to be shut down was

because it was antagonizing young people against Israel. The algorithm was responsible for it. It wasn't an accurate representation of events. And now you're seeing that come to pass. I mean, again, Larry Ellison, you know, putting his fingers into the pie, making the algorithm U.S. owned and almost certainly going to be used to direct pro-Israel content into people's feeds, as if people saw a post from the Israeli foreign ministry in their feeds or from Netanyahu's office that they would change their, that their minds are such group

that they would forget everything that they see and not see that something has obviously been tampered with in self-adish. I mean, I think it's a reflection or sort of like a projection of like how they see other people or how they see people which is just like somewhat like just goo that you can propagandize more or less at will just by pressing a button and giving them the good messages

and they're like oh that's what Qatar and Iran are doing and they're just brainwashing people and they think it's that easy and like this the slate of hand here is like the rhetorical shift is like not that the images that you're seeing are inaccurate it's that they are accurate but you're seeing too much of it

and it's causing antagonism People are dying in as many numbers as you think they are. You know, you're probably seeing the same infant over and over again. It's, you can't possibly, look, oh my God. Like, perfect example of this is when I saw this one comment on Reddit last year, where somebody was saying that you, like, saying that cities in Gaza were leveled, was like saying that BLM leveled cities. Like, that's a, that's the pure democratic mindset.

You're rarely articulated in such a clear fashion. Like something, you know, Russia is, is interfering with things. You're not seeing what's actually their social media distorts everything when you, but then you hear testimonies from doctors saying, like, it's so much worse than you're already seeing. There's so many things that aren't filmed. And we are already, I mean, I'm tapped into this pretty closely. I assume many people listening to this are as well as you guys. it is an endless stream of not just the same videos.

They're all distinct. They're different. They're people dying, casualty counts that are oftentimes 70 people dying in a day, 80 people dying per day. And they get blown over because the next day is even deadlier. It's not a distortion. There's so many data points about this. But Van Jones and people like that, they get this filter. They get all this stuff filtered.

And they think, oh, okay, I must, this must not actually be how it is. Really? It can't be. Going back to the sort of like the, the problem is that the Democrats are having with their voters and how APAC in particular has become a liability for them. The New York Times covered that, covered this this weekend in an article by any carne and the headline is Democrats pull away from APAC reflecting a broader shift. And I just wanted to read a couple paragraphs from this because it deals with our good friend, Hakeem Jeffries. But in all those years of relationship building, Mr. Jeffries never sought the group's endorsement.

They speaking of J Street, he was more closely associated with APEC, the hardline pro-Israel lobbying organization that has long supported him financially and has in the past discouraged lawmakers from aligning themselves formally with a group that holds a different stance on Israel. That changed last month when Mr. Jeffries was,

when Mr. Jeffries for the first time was open to and accepted, J Street's official support. It was a coup for J Street, which is highly critical of the current Israeli government and seeking to establish itself as a mainstream voice about Israel on Capitol Hill.

I mean, I'll pause here for a second and say that if J Street becomes the mainstream voice for Israel on Capitol Hill, that's a lateral move as far as I'm concerned. Good Lord. But just like here's the...

Yeah, what fucking year is it? Yeah. I want to get to the money graph here, though. It says here, Mr. Jeffrey is so closely aligned with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee that the radio host Charlemagne the God recently mocked him as, quote, A-PAC Shakur. So the fact that he would take such a step

and it is a symbol of a broader sea change occurring in Congress when it comes to Israel and the clout of what it has for decades been the most powerful pro-Israel group in American politics. Then in parentheses, I just got to read this part. Mr. Jeffries, in a statement, said that Charlotton the fraud has no idea what he's talking. about as music industry luminaries like Birdman, Beanie Siegel, Fradro Starr, and NBA young boy have repeatedly made clear.

I get that that's what I wanted to bring up. The first guy he named is Birdman. Yeah, the first guy he fucking named like the Jimmy Seville of rap. Yeah. Like that's the first guy. Yeah. You're like, okay, who's a cool guy I can associate myself with who, okay, um, who has who has groomed the most people ever in the history of rap?

I'm like him. Yeah, he's like, hey, to Charlotton the fraud, I got to say like my good, good friend Birdman once said, put some respect on my name. Charlottetton the fraud is like, it sounds like Bill Cosby would say. Like, call Charlotte Bedford. Like, who is running his comms team?

Yeah, well, we'll see a little Wayne's comments on this. I'd like to know what he feels about. about all this. Is Birdman pro-Israel? What is... I mean, he does a lot of pro-Israel things. In terms of...

He does a lot of things that you have to do before you take a lifelong vacation to Israel. Yeah. To shift gears for a second here, I really want to talk about another story here in the United States that I read this weekend. And this is like certainly of a piece of the interview I did over the weekend with

Memo Torres of L.A. Taco. And I would really recommend to you check out that interview about basically the ongoing just, I don't know, siege or even just outright war that's being waged on American cities by the Department of Homeland Security and ICE. I don't know you saw like these videos that the Department of Homeland Security has been posting on Twitter. But like there was one that was just one of those like sort of grainy. VHS-style clips of, like, cool things from the 1980s in Donald Trump, and they were like,

this is what America was like before the illegal alien invasion. And it was littered with, like, neo-Nazi memes from, like, 10 or 15 years ago, like, Mac Tonight. And, you know, they've been posting copy on their poster that says, like, secure our future, you know, like, not very subtle here. But, like, I read this article, this is from the Chicago Sun Times here, about this, like, like a military style. ice raid on an apartment complex in Chicago. And I just like, I really, I just want to read here like just like the first couple paragraphs because it was so chilling to me. And this is from the Chicago sometimes. It writes here, Dan Jones was jolted a rake around 1 a.m. Tuesday to the sound of

federal agents trying to break through his apartment door. They couldn't get past his double lock, so he went back to bed. But when he woke up hours later for work, he walked out and found broken doors littering the hallway and his neighbor's missing. Jones, 27, is among the residents left at 7,500 South South Shore Drive, who are trying to piece together what remains after an early morning high-powered federal immigration raid led to the rest of dozens of their neighbors at the South Shore apartment building. Armed federal agents in military fatigues busted down their doors overnight, pulling men, women, and children from their apartments, some of them naked, residents and witnesses said.

agents approached or entered nearly every apartment in the five-story apartment building, and U.S. citizens were among those detained for hours. When he got home from work, Jones said, he entered his unit to find all of his electronics and furniture missing and all of his clothes and shoes thrown on the floor. Jones said he had no idea who took his belongings and hadn't received answers from Chicago police. I'm pissed off, Jones said. I feel defeated because the authorities aren't doing anything.

on Wednesday toys shoes and food were still in piles in the building's hallways property managers were seen throwing mattresses and broken doors into dumpsters uh like you know i i don't know where to go with this but like this to me was like i you know like i i know it seems quaint and a bit naive to reference our wonderful constitution or our bill of rights but like this seems like just such a flagrant just desecration of not only the fourth amendment but the oft forgotten about third amendment when I think about that guy coming home to his house that's just been looted like all his shit gone his furniture and electronics missing and the cops won't tell him who took it that seems to me a violation of the third amendment of the constitution prohibiting being forced to quarter soldiers in your houses

and I guess I don't know like Felix are you familiar with this neighborhood in Chicago because like I know Chicago is like yeah yeah yeah yeah this this was um i mean this is like a not a very fucking well-off area and what happened in this building is something we've seen happen more times than we can count with ice which is a slum lord like the piece of shit that owns this building wants to offload his property uh it's hard it's hard for him to get everyone out of there in uh you know within the time that he wants to do it at his convenience. So he calls ICE

and says, oh, I think there's human traffickers or fucking trend to Agua or fucking undocumented immigrants in here. And they will, you know, regardless of anyone's legal status of anything, will rob,

humiliate, beat, and detain everyone in the fucking building. And who do you call after that? There's no one that you could call that will give a shit. Or lift a finger to try to fucking help you. J.D. Pritzker said, record them. And send it to who?

Send it to who? The fucking, the state's attorney, the Chicago Police Department that is helping them? Like, it's, this entire thing, like this has happened before the thing that happened in this building.

A billion fucking times. It's happening a lot more now. Obviously, this one was particularly it particularly struck a nerve because this is not this is a few blocks away

from that disgusting fucking monstrosity of a presidential library. Obama's presidential library. Wow. Think about what the things that have gotten Obama off his ass to release his statement over the years. It's the times where he has been

motivated to weigh in, it was when they thought basketball, there might not be any more basketball that summer. Oh, yeah, yeah, like in reading in the labor dispute in the NBA, yeah, he told LeBron and the players to go back to work, yeah. I seem to remember him interjecting recently to tell everyone to calm down and just get behind the abundance agenda. Yeah. And telling everyone that he's listening to Chaplerone.

Yeah. Well, look, Felix, Felix, Felix, you're, I, like, I don't like Obama. But like this misrepresentation of, of him, I can't agree with. I mean, right here, he's mourned Jane Goodall. He said he just had his anniversary with his wife. I mean, you can't expect him to comment on a military operation being directed. Message message from the office of former president Barack Obama. Recently, I've been playing rage shadow legends.

It's completely free. And there's a new champion you can download. if you're worried about not leveling up it's double XP weekend type in code Obama that's like that's like the tip but he's like not a fucking word it's insane like

I obviously hate the guy but like he is a widely admired figure in American politics and having having him come out and say like hey what the fuck would actually be worth something But, like, God forbid, that might engender the viewership of American Factory season five.

Well, he can't weigh in too much because, I mean, a lot of these people in ICE right now, he appointed. I mean, Tom Homan. Tom Homan was his appointment. Yeah, executive associate director of enforcement. Like, all of these things, these bricks were laid by Democratic presidents. And you can't just, like, come out and say, actually, we need to abolish the DHS or abolish ice or anything like that because you were complicit in that process not it just complicit you actively aided the situation that we are now in so no he

can't comment on operation midway blitz midway blitz god no no no he's got a military raid they used a black hawk helicopter on like in in this apartment complex raid and it's just like fuck like i forget like you know forget Obama or whatever, like the people that they arrested, but like the vast majority of people in this apartment complex and the people who were detained for hours, including with like their children, I separated the vast majority of the people that they just handcuffed who are black American citizens from the handful of Venezuelans that they were ostensibly there to deport or arrest. A trend de Agua. Yeah. Yeah. Or whatever the fuck. So it's like something

that really worries me here. And I'm sure other people have spoken about this. The fact that, like, militarily, we're supposedly going after Trendaagua inside the U.S. And also we're bombing these boats in the Caribbean, which are supposedly like Trendaagua boats. And now Trump is talking about how they've stopped the boats. So we're going to have to attack them on land, these Trendaigua guys. It really feels like it's being set up for, like, a building in America to just straight up be bombed. Oh, 100%. 100%, 100%.

Like a fucking airstrike or some shit like that. And then the American citizens who were killed in that air strike, well, unfortunately they were being used as human shields by the dangerous Venezuelan gang Trende Agra, or whatever the fuck. They captured the apartment building. They did this.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. They were holding the military shields. Pave the way for this stuff. And now you can easily, I mean, I think about like the bombing that happened in Qatar. Like, originally the IDF the Mossad. They would have done a clandestine operation. They would have kept it, you know, secret. They would have kept it quiet. But now in this era where international law doesn't mean a goddamn thing, sovereignty is a myth. Any sort of laws at all are disrespected. Sure. Bomb the fucking negotiating team in a country that has never been bombed by Israel before. Like this, all of these things that get broken over. And also a country that's like a U.S. ally where there's a gigantic U.S. military base. Yeah, like, oh, no, all of this stuff, like people who relegate Gaza to a minor issue that they can't understand why Americans talk about, all of these laws that get broken over in Gaza, all of these presidents that are shattered in the execution of that war, all of this stuff comes back to the United States, inevitably, and it's coming back at a record pace.

all of this stuff will eventually be utilized against American citizens who become unpersoned in the in the major political discourse. Yeah, it is from the beginning. It is to see what you will put up with. What you what you can can pass before your eyes and you can just blot it out with whatever white noise. And they have figured out that is a lot of fucking things. I speaking of people who were complicit

in funding eyes all these Democratic senators have they have come out and said you know how awful this is that this is unconstitutional

etc etc all of them voted for that stupid fucking bill where they were going to double the size of ice and remember that bill

in 18 months ago or something well also Lake and Riley Act that was earlier this year but the the one before remember that I spill under Biden during Biden's last year in office where it was like oh we're doing we're putting all of Trump's immigration things in a law and voting for it and then we're going to show that they're obstructionists when they when the Republicans vote against it yeah yeah yeah they're like we're going to we're going to give this like the the fascist apparatus of ethnically cleansing

America. We're going to give the people behind that exactly what they want in an effort to show how what they really, they're actually hypocrites because they won't because they, then they're like, it's like, oh, what a brilliant strategy there. It really worked well. As you can see, Donald Trump lost the election. Yeah. It's like, yeah, I mean, that even if like all, you know, the next two like federal elections, the midterms and the presidential elections, even if they. occur unobstructed and the bottom falls out of the economy, blah, blah, blah, et cetera, et I don't even think they would have to worry about, you know, resting power back in a coup of some type because if Democrats do get back in power, they will not punish anyone

involved in this. No one will even lose their fucking job. And that is the bare minimum. The bare minimum of what you can do to make sure that this doesn't happen again for at least 10 fucking years is to put people in prison. None of them, none of them have the fucking courage to do any of that. Not Newsom, not fucking any of them. No, Brazil has much stronger institutions about this. I mean, separate case, but I mean, the whole thing with Yar-Bosanaro and overthrowing, trying to overthrow the government. I mean, Bolsonaro has been sentenced. Supreme Court justice are going after people who are involved in this kind of

insurrection, absolutely none of that is going to happen. You're correct, because that would involve breaking norms or assessing that America is, its system is in trouble beyond what can be repaired by a midterm election victory or a presidential victory, if that will, you know, happen. No, no, no, no. They still are unable to admit things are truly. broken in a meaningful way. Well, you know, at least I'm going to fantasize.

Like, I mean, like, is there, is there any Democratic candidate out there for president who's going to run on a platform of like, you know all the things that you're seeing happen right in front of you of like people being like pulled off the street zip tied and thrown into a van by like these obese peanut headed morons wearing Marvel t-shirts? You're going to still see that, but it's going to be done to the people who are currently carrying this out. Like, you know, we're like, we're like, we have, I want to see some of some raids. on the homes of whoever these idiots who work for ICE are currently residing.

I'd like to see some arrests of the people in charge of the Department of Homeland Security. That is the bare minimum to show that you're serious. Everyone who has, you know, tried to browbeat everyone into voting in the last three presidential elections with how fucking important they are, how, you know, now is not the time. This is, this is the destiny of America that is at stake here. Show us that you mean it. Would Stephen A. Smith support this? I will vote for him if he does.

I don't care about anything else he believes in. All right. One last thing for today. I got a reading series for you. And just follow this under Moore. unspeakable horrors on the horizon. And now, Seamus, you know, we mentioned several times during this episode

that, like, we're now on the precipice of the Barry Weiss run CBS News era. Interesting to see that. Not on the precipice. It happened today. Just before we're going. Just before we're going. We'll see what their news output.

And you're like, I can say confidently. Everything I said about how public opinion has turned against Israel in this country, Barry's going to turn it around. Yep. They got TikTok. They got 60 minutes. and they got the free press.

But, you know, right as she endogorates her new reign controlling all of American journalism, I think it's important to check in on what the free press has been up to. And I got an article here from a free press contributor, Tyler Cowan. Oh, God, yeah.

This is, this guy is, I mean, I do not think he's a sex offender. It has not been legally. proven but he really like every picture of him looks like he's getting his picture taken for registry and like felix you bring that up he would admit that hold on hold on let me look up a photo of this man an important thing to know about tyler cowan is that he is an he is an he is an university economics department is the world's largest sex offender register that is your i don't mean that i have ever seen the

The George Mason Economics Department is a freak factory of unspeakable proportions. There's that guy Robin Hanson works for them to get, works for them as well. And like, if I had to describe the intellectual and sort of academic output of the George Mason economics department, it would be using like economic formulas to try to determine when exactly is the best time to marry a 12 year old. Yeah, yeah. The, the mutual, like, free trade advantage of a 59-year-old marrying a 12-year-old. Yeah.

And he gets right into it. This is, the headline is, my favorite actress is not human. And the subheadline is this. Tilly Norwood doesn't need a hairstylist, has no regrettable posts. And if you wish to see a virgin on screen, this is one of your better chances. That's because she's AI. Okay, if you wish to see a version on screen, like that, that came out of nowhere. That one hit me like a fucking uppercut because I was just like, is this a thought that

people have when they see actors in movies? I don't even see. I would love to enjoy the latest Margot Robbie movie, but unfortunately I'm aware of the fact that she's engaged in intercourse before. I haven't even seen like Rod Dreher hasn't even complained about that. Like, even he is like, that's a little weird to want. This went through editors. For all actresses to be virgins.

God damn. This went through, like, I'm trying to imagine, like, if I were to include this in any article whatsoever, like, you would see an editor's like, what does this mean? Why did you include this? Like, so that multiple people approved that deck. That's crazy to me. And it's so bizarre, too, because, like, A, he is, like, covering the fact that, like, I really do wish to see virgins in film, you know, like, what,

What adult human are you watching on TV that you can't reasonably assume male or female has had sex sometime in their life? And even more baffling about it is like, Tilly Norwood is not a virgin either. She's not a human being. She doesn't exist. Her sexuality is not an issue because she's not real. Here's the article, though. Here's what Tyler writes.

Tilly Norwood is the actress I most want to see on the big screen or, perhaps the little screen if she gets her own TV show. She is beautiful, but not too intimidating. She has a natural smile and is just the right amount of British, a touch exotic, but still familiar with her posh accent. Her Instagram has immaculate standards of presentation. If you do not already know, Tilly is not an actual human being. She is, she, it is an AI creation. I like that he's like, she's the actress I most want to see in movies. She's my favorite actress. what what quote unquote acting has tilly done thus far because all I've seen is just like

a shitty AI generated image of a woman like in some sort of just I don't even know what described it in some sort of shitty like slop Marvel looking action scenario yeah this is not a thing by the way yeah like all the articles about this are the shitheads that put money into this going oh we're actually talking to multiple agencies and there's talks for a movie there's always talks for a movie or a series that never fucking happens this is the people that foolishly invested in this

trying to get anything back at all but but but like okay he says she's beautiful but not intimidating like fear like when he see when he sees fucking uh who's who's the girl in the fallout show oh you know what I'm talking about yeah I know exactly talking about her name escapes me at the moment, but yeah. Ella Pernell.

Yeah, yeah, that's right. With Ella Pernell, like with, when he, when he sees her in a show or a movie, he's like, yeah, I mean, she's just out of the range where I might have a chance with her. Like, is that what he's like, okay, if you play your cards, right, you know.

Nice little. It's good to be realistic, you know. No, no, no, you can tell for, like just in this first paragraph, like this man is so hard that he is getting lightheaded. And this woman is not. It's not real.

Like, it's, I, I haven't seen, like, this has happened a couple times before, I feel like, in which there was, I think, like, an AI generated musician that they were trying to push for a while who had like a made up story about being, like, within her narrative she had been sexually assaulted. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It was crazy to me. See, a CGI influencer named Michaela who, I think it was like the, like the Weinstein company was invested. in that project. That was and like when that came out that came out on like 2017

and that like people then were like projectile vomiting like get this the fuck away from me. We hate this. And then you didn't see you didn't really see it. The only people I this is

an experiment you can do. Whenever you want to prove that something can is not salable to the general public. If the only comments you see on the page of whatever person, entity, or organization this is. The only positive comments

are from Dutch people. As was the case with Michaela. That was the case. I have nothing against the Dutch. The amazing contributions to kickboxing and organized crime. There are huge parts in the movie Layer Cake.

Great. But some of the worst said they have made some of the post ever. And if you went to a Michaela post, you know, it was her being like, uh, they asked me if I'm real. And I said, 300,000 polygons of real. And then just nothing, nothing. And then, you know, York Smith von Ungersmith. Wow. Wow. You are pure sass and you don't even need to be recharged. You know, like that, that was. But now everyone is so beaten down that they don't And they don't even have enough fluid left in their body to projectile vomit.

So you are just getting all the same things that the average Dutch person would enjoy shoveled down your gullet like foie gras. Returning to Tyler, he says here, not everyone is happy about this gorgeous innovation. Sag after the union representing performers in the U.S. entertainment industries protests. They state the union is opposed to the replacement of human performers by synthetic. they also claim that Tilly's makers are ripping off human actors because presumably the creation of Tilly involved training on their performances. Or, in SAG Afters's words, it creates the problem of using stolen performances to put actors out of work, jeopardizing performer livelihoods in

devaluing human artistry. In the same breath, they insist that A, Tilly will put human actors out of work, and also, B, audiences do not want the product. Namely, audiences aren't interested in watching computer-generated content untethered from the human experience. If that is the state of your logical thinking these days. You have problems well beyond competition from AI. There's nothing about those two statements that are contradictory, by the way. Because whether audiences like something or not is obvious. I mean, AI is the perfect representation of whether something is wanted or needed by people is no barrier whatsoever to thus threatening the jobs of people otherwise doing those things.

Businesses are fully willing to sabotage themselves, waste exorbitant amounts of money, on AI ventures that they want to force my people. And Mark Zuckerberg was talking about, we might base like, I may have blown several hundred billion dollars on AI. We'll see. Yeah. And like that money had to have, it could have gone somewhere else. And with studios, I mean, you only have to look at what Zazlov has been doing

to see that, of course, they could run themselves out of business attempting to make this work. Nobody, like, people will pay for. Chat GPT, they'll pay for, there's that new video app, SORA. They'll pay for that because they can create things with it. Even if it's, you know, they're not actually creating it. They're still creating something. Why would I pay to see a film that I did not have any hand in making with an actor that's not real where there was no craft or anything put into it?

I don't understand what is what's the market for it other than this very creepy old man who wants to see this. There doesn't need to be a market for it because it's like that yeah, that is it completely like that then there's it takes out everything that's interesting about art. It's like if you saw a screensaver and you were like Hollywood's in trouble because this is entertaining me. Like I that that argument he makes do about how like, you know, well, if people don't like it, then it will. go away like that is really that that is the upper limits of this like GMU free market bullshit this idea that like the consumer desires uh that it it can it can stop companies from committing trillions of dollars to horribly shitty ideas like if that was the case then you there would be like you know at least like some functional printers in America that

you could buy your refrigerator would not need a fucking software update there would the the market is bloated with bullshit that no one enjoys and doesn't fucking work but it's just for for lack of another option and because people are already they've already committed so much to it you have no other option yeah exactly your only your only option again is to you know with your smart TV or smart whatever is to say that you were taking care of an old person with a pacemaker and they give you a code to your it off. That's it. Yeah. What I was going to say is like there doesn't need to be a market for Tilly Norwood

or any of these other monstrosities because every single corporation in America is currently propping up a multi-trillion dollar AI bubble that is not profitable and no one wants. So if you're the consumer, you don't really have a choice in any of this and your objections or feelings about whether you like it or not are irrelevant. No, I can't wait to see a virgin on screen. Listen to this Listen to this next sentence And please try to tell

Please explain to me What he's talking about He says There's also something strangely karmic About actors yearning to become influencers Only to compete with influencers And then saying the game is rigged That's not what karma is you fucking cunt

I'm so sick of this Karma is It determines if you're an asshole In your life Like if you're a shitty county official you get to be a locust in your next life because you were such a bad county official it happens in the next life

it's not like you were rude you were rude to the AI that you jerk off to and then she she like post pictures of your urethra the next day it doesn't happen in the same life cycle you fucking punt I'm imagining Felix are you doing this

you're saying all this in like a Shinto temple in 12thine I'm interested in like the psychology of this because it seems like he really, I mean, not just like a woman who doesn't have sex. He really wants a woman that he can just fully project himself onto. Fully, has no emotions, has no independent life of any kind.

Well, yeah, listen to this next paragraph. Now, maybe you think there is something strange about how she does not quite look like a woman, you would expect to see on the screen. That lies in the eyes of the beholder. Plastic surgery is nearly universal in Hollywood, and to many of us, the current crop of actresses

do not quite have the dignity, beauty, and grace of Ingrid Bergman or Grace Kelly. Currently, I think Hollywood is failing us. The quality of movies has never been lower in my lifetime. Most of the top hits are boring and predictable tent pole franchises. Fight and chase scenes are overdone and laden with CGI at the expense of good dialogue and dramatic content. If you watch an older movie,

such as Alfred Hitchcock's rear window or Stanley Kubrick's Barry Lyndon you may be shocked how much the art of movie making has declined yeah you may be but then like why are you chilling for this slop that's gonna make it a billion times worse you're saying like oh good movies

like rear window or Barry Lyndon but like he's saying like those movies are good because they have like real human artistry and like writing and something real but he's like but you know what though if only Ryan O'Neill could be replaced with Tilly Norwood I think Barry Lyndon would really be even better than it already is.

Again, and like all, all of his criticism about like how shitty movies are now. Okay, if those are so bad, why aren't market forces taking them out? Yeah. And also, like, these celebrities, like, they were fucking, these celebrities that he's talking about. They were fucking all the time. They had very, like, illicit sex lives. I don't, ugh.

We need to bring back. strong heterosexual men to movies like Carrie Grant I'm going on here it says the difference is that this time the technology is especially powerful and flexible

if four years ago you had shown me a tape of Tilly I would not have believed she is a real woman the other key difference is that technology soon enough will be at the disposal of many people not just AI experts

such as Van der Velden you notice the name there Felix Van der Velden is the creator of Tilly Vander Veldin is the creator of Tilly Norwood is created by a Dutch woman Yeah That yeah He like Dutch guys

Every like every Instagram influencer Like all the guys who are saying Like telling them good morning Like they're on a WhatsApp chat It is this guy got banned From too many influencers pages And he made his own Very terrifying

I skip this paragraph But yeah it is very relevant especially given your dead-on fucking observation, Felix. Tilly was concocted by actress, comedian, and technologist Eileen van der Velden, working through her AI company

Jishoka, Vandervilden is quite real. She's a Dutch actress and has a master's degree in physics. Oh my God. This is... From what university? Like, think about what we're doing.

We're letting, like, we're letting the Dutch take authorship of world culture. That's not okay. No. The other key difference is that the technology soon enough will be at the disposal of many people,

not just AI experts such as Vandervelden or the well-financed Hollywood studio. This week, OpenAI released demos for their new video service, SORA 2, which generates very realistic short videos, synchronized with sound as well. I don't have early access, but the demos in advance buds

for the service are impressive. Soon enough, I expect... And I've already told the library they can't kick me up because none of this stuff is actually happening. Soon enough, I expect to be making the 15 seconds

surrealistic clips I long have dreamed of producing. I'm a Maya Daron fan. And then one minute segments, five minute segments, and so on. It's not just open AI. We were

expecting new AI video production offerings from meta, Google, and others as well. The competition will intensify the race for quality and affordability. You can see where this is headed. Yeah. Again, why did not, okay, then why isn't there a race for quality and affordability and movie? The thing you were just fucking complaining about? Or is that like the one thing that according to you is independent of market forces?

When I look back on the history of culture, I see that new technologies often proceed major creative breakthroughs. The printing press and cheaper paper were needed for the novel to flourish. Oil paint made possible many of the breakthroughs of the Venetian and Florentine Renaissance. And the electric guitar and recording studio were essential to the development of rock and roll. In each case, there were competitive losers along the way. Like, who is the loser in the oil paint war? I think cavemen.

Egg to egg tempera. Many observers, many observers hate short form video, which they consider to be kind of a slop that ruins our minds. I do not dismiss such claims, but I will proudly report I will not let it wreck me just as I currently avoid TikTok. I will hold out for the grand and glorious AI-drenched cinematic creations at first, short, then long later, that are headed our way. Great talents are going to draw inspiration from these new AI technologies, and so you will get some very interesting in original outputs. If the package deal is your slop plus my beauty, I say bring it on. Hollywood and TV and popular music brought us lots of slop too

and that is the devil's bargain we all need to live with. Learn how to rise above it. In other words, take responsibility for your own level of taste. If you feel like you can talk about slop, you also ought to be able to avoid it. If nothing else, just ask your friendly large language model, which are the best movies to watch on Amazon or the Criterion channel? It will recommend some with enthusiasm.

Much like Faust. If you were presented with a devil's bargain, You have to take it. Tyler, you are beyond, you're so deep below the surface, no sunlight has ever hit you. I like that he's saying, I like that he's saying that like, yeah, if you're an adult, if like slop bothers you, just avoid the slop and you should take responsibility for cultivating your own tastes by asking chat GPT what movies you should watch. And he says, God, like, this is the most, I take back everything I've ever said about

about Anne Prims. Like this is, if you're an end prim, you should be just like shouting this article verbatim and you will see your movement swell like it never has before. I'll give up my glasses. Like, it's fine. We don't have to deal with this anymore. Oh, me to gouge my eyes out. Oh, sure.

He says, in any case, you probably will not have much of a choice. I was like that just directly contradicts everything he just said. He says, in any case, you probably will not have much of a choice. The Online attacks on Tilly will not succeed. At least not if people wish for watch and listen.

Maybe she is not the girl, but someone else will be. No, no, someone else will not be. None of this is real, Tyler. She's not a virgin. She's not a girl. And the attacks on her will fail. We have to stop people from jerking off. The Tilly hive is coming after me.

After I said I don't like her new AI generated video. have you have you noticed how people are engaging in character assassination against clippy what are you fucking talking about you know like you parted it out but it's like his like his like hard on for her it's the same thing he's like uh joseph fritzel his dream is ultimately like just a captive woman and this is like the closest thing that he can buy at this point.

A captive woman that he can protect. Felix. Felix, Seamus, thank you for that perfect setup to this last paragraph. Keep in mind what they just said. Oh, come on. I suspect, it goes, I suspect that Tilly is easy to manage, has no past political post to regret. Oh, okay.

All right. Sorry, I got to take this one from the top again. I suspect that Tilly is easy to manage. Has no past political post to regret. and if you wish to see a virgin on screen, this is one of your better chances. She needs neither a hairstylist nor a sushi lunch and she is not going to walk off set

because someone offended her. Tilly will stay young forever, at least if her followers want her to. In the meantime, I am in the market for some live theater and stand-up comedy too. So if you're a frustrated actor, maybe I will see you there. Like, I just...

What the what? Yeah, okay, okay. A couple things of note. A couple things of note. Fuck, okay. He thinks Tilly is superior to any human actress because she is aversion, easy to manage, will stay young forever, and doesn't have political opinions that could be, uh, make you uncomfortable or she won't talk back.

She won't talk back. She doesn't know how to use the stove. She doesn't know how to ask adults for help. She doesn't know how to unlock her box. She doesn't know how to, yeah, do anything. Oh my God. Now, she doesn't know there's an air tag in her bag. and it's just like

it's like god it's just a cliche to say now but like economics professors and everyone them and everyone else promoting this giant AI bubble that is going to consume our economy and probably destroy it within the next year or two

the boundless hatred and contempt that they have for human culture and particularly people who create human culture who write a song who act in performance who do anything real that produces art that people like or is of value in some way to create some emotional feeling or emotional like they despise them to their core and wish to eradicate them entirely so they can be replaced by they can be replaced by eternally young and eternally compliant tilly norwoods now the comment about this will be your best chance

to see a on-screen virgin. Luckily, Spencer has set this along for me, said this along to me. Tyler Cowan has been writing about how to find virgins for years now. This is from his blog, Marginal Revolution, from September 24th, 2009. This is the headline.

Where to find virgins. Go to urban churches. He writes here, The man who would be Thursday, O'Pines, and this is quoting from one of his commenters, look for someone at a church in an urban area. For example, evangelicals in downtown Toronto are there because they really believe, while those in rural Alberta, perhaps less so.

He also adds and explains why. Find yourself acute but not spectacular 22-year-old with a bachelor's degree. Then Tyler writes, P.S., the biggest indicator that a girl is a virgin is her insistence that she wants a guy who is a virgin himself. Hat tip goes to Robin Hansen, who discusses Thursday more generally. Is he also a virgin? Yeah.

Oh my God. Aren't you guys like supposed, isn't your thing supposed to be like prices and the monetary supply and the business cycle? I've had some fucking crank economics professors, even some GMU guys. Tyler. But they were just really into like the gold supply. they didn't talk about this shit there is like it's not just that he talks about this shit but he's like I actually have a friend

who also should be killed as much as I should be who has his own thoughts about those if you are an adult man who is concerned with the virginity of a potential sexual partner I think you should be just sent away

sent away somewhere like there's you want to thought like oh there is no better indication that a woman is a virgin than if she wants a virgin, they wants you to be a virgin as well. If you have these thoughts as an adult, I don't, just read her, listener, fill in the gaps in your own mind. It's just like, well, like, what, like, I, sorry, Tyler, Tyler, I hate to break this to you. Grace Kelly was not a virgin when she filmed the rear window. Nor are any of those other bygone starlets of the golden age of Hollywood, nor are most adults past the age of 18 or 19.

So if you want to see versions on screen, what you're really asking for is to see minors on screen or AI generated facsimiles of them. There you go, folks. The George Mason, the leading lights of the George Mason Economics Department. You know, Branson from E1 had this great idea a few years ago. He called it Hohe Island. And the idea was basically that there are these people who are like, they're fascinating. They give us this great and horrifying insights into marginal personality types, which are often rarely or never repeated.

People like Brian Pumper, Mikey Miles, Dan Quinn, etc. But they're like, but they're just too much of a danger to like have in society. Like they're going to, they're going to cause society. and personal harm left in society. What we can do is we can put them on an island of some type with actors and professionals so we can still study them but they don't harm society and we are able to take in even more data. I think Tyler is the newest entrant and his friend.

They're both they are both ready for whole island. general population they must they must live under the rule of the probable ruler of Ho Island Brian Pumpper yeah obviously he is the strongest

he will rise to the top yeah Ho Island he is kind of like the Isaac Hayes character in Escape from New York the Duke of Ho Island the Duke of Ho Island yeah like Brian Pumper

awful guy we don't want him in society but it's we can't have the glass too much in Ho Island he's in charge if you were cracking eggs on Tyler Cowan's head I would support it yeah I mean that is why Whole Island exists

it's better that he does it to Tyler and the other fucking freak that talks about this shit with Tyler than you know a real person one last thing of note to bring this back to Bovine Barry in the free press

just last week in his comments about Barry in the New York Times. Ezra Klein said, Barry is an insane talent spotter. And her recent hireer of Tyler, Tyler Cowen to the free press is a great example of that. This is his first article?

Yeah. I don't know what this is the first article or not. No, no. It's not his first article for free press. I don't think. But Tyler Cohn is like for decades. He's been like, you know, the conservative that like Ezra Klein.

Oh, Ezra and Matt love this guy. They love it. Like, they're like, that's a smart conservative. And it's like, again, I, fucking Ross dude had, and, uh, even, even, um, even the biggest freaks we could think of. They have not written anything this alarming. Like, Rod has not freaked me out as much. Yeah.

Not even close. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Not even close. Like give, like, if I'm in a situation where it's like, okay. you know, there's a five-year-old in your family and you need to hire a babysitter.

Your choices are Tyler Cohn and Rod Drayhart. Rod 100 times out of 100. I'm not even thinking for a second. Rod has never openly speculated on where to find virgins or that like that would be like a desirable thing as an adult man. Like, uh, hurting someone and having bad sex. Ross is like, like,

Rod, like the worst thing that would happen after you like let him look after a younger family member is, you know, they're like, what's the Nicene creed? Rod made me take it. But nothing like, nothing like permanent. I just like, I have to go back to like, why does he need to see them? Why is, why is this a consideration when he's watching a movie? I want to see a version on screen. Not just him, not just him, but like he he wants other people. He wants the whole reality to like fold a around the notion of this woman, this fake woman being on screen and everybody has to see it. Like, that feels like so much of the world right now.

Not just that everybody can create their own realities, like, functionally through AI, they could do that. But everybody else needs to be, have that reality foisted on them into the world. Yeah. It's not enough for me to have it. You have to like it. You have to see it and you have to like it. I like that thing about her being a virgin, I almost was like, okay,

maybe that's just a weird thing that's in the sub. Like sometimes editors add things in the subheader. That's what I do. That's what I thought too. That's what I thought too. But no, it's like, it's like it's his sum, it's in his summation paragraph, he mentions it again.

Yeah. Like for a second, it was like maybe like his editor is Edward Tuttle from True Detective Season 1. Like, you know, maybe, but no, no, he's, there was, think about like, if this got edited at all, there was way more stuff about how like, you know, even if she failed the Hyman test, they could just make her a new one. Oh. Oh, boy.

All right. All right, guys. Yeah, that's enough of that. Time to wrap up today's show. Uh, some to you a little promo, though, starting with, uh, with you shimishimis. What's this I hear about you starting a new podcast? Yes. I fell for the siren call that every male writer eventually falls into.

If any of the listeners here listen to Trunan, they will likely be familiar with Dylan Saba and the great work that he does. Him and I are joining up and creating turbulence, which is a podcast where we analyze the disintegration of the liberal order since October 7th. You can find a Turbulence underscore pod on Twitter and on Instagram, and it will be dropping our first couple episodes at the end of this month. It is the only podcast dedicated, it is 5% about what you just said, the other 95% is about the Steve Aoki and little John, 2011 club hit Turbulance. The only podcast about that song. Warren Zevon's song, Turbulance.

No, we interview all of these illustrious artists, all these people you're describing. Do you know that what Warren Zee, well, actually Warren Zeevon's last words is he heard the Steve Aoki song Turbulance. It's actually, it's a cover of his song. And he said, it's his now. I always thought that was cool. Well, Seamus, I'm definitely looking forward to this project. Dylan is great.

Dylan and Seamus together. Can't wait to hear it. I will be collecting my cut though as long as I can wet my I will give my tribute to the done as is instructed This is yeah this is like Like this is one of the

One of the podcasts coming to the world That actually like should exist Yeah absolutely I appreciate that The reason why people should have a podcast Because they have They have genuinely fascinating insights And I'm very excited to listen to this

bless you both now to do a little business on our end i got two things to promote here today the first is we've got a new merch drop that is live now on chopotrapehouse dot store uh their pre-orders are up now uh you can pre-order for two weeks we got some cool new merch for you once again at chopotrapehouse dot store including a uh a choppo trap house your dad hat the classic reaper t-shirt the classic reaper hat in a trucker uh hat thing we got reissues of the sapato oil t-shirt and hat in black. And my personal favorite, we got a new Carousel Club t-shirt

that I think is, I'm definitely going to get a couple of those. The Carousel Club, if you'll remember, fans of Jack Ruby, will remember that August establishment. So, yeah, once again, chapotrapehouse.

Dot store. You can pre-order our new merchandise, which is available, yeah, available to pre-order now. Next up, circle the date, October 28th. On October 28th,

for your Halloween. enjoyment. Hessa and I will be doing a ticketed live stream event where we will be watching the classic film on its 40th anniversary, Stuart Gordon and Brian Yunza's reanimator. There'll be a Patreon discount code, give you 20% off tickets with the code Chapo 20. We'll have a link to pre-order those tickets or place those tickets. Place your ticket orders now. We'll have a link up in the show description. But once again, October 28th, Heson I joined us for a Halloween screening on the 40th anniversary of the classic horror film reanimator, join Hessa and I as we watch one of our favorite Halloween movies together,

MST3K style, October 28th. Check it out. All right, everybody. Until next time, bye-bye. Turmoyal back in Moscow brought this turbulence down on me. Turmoy back in Moscow brought this turbulence down on me. Thank you.