Cognitive Dissonance - Episode 854: Epstein List and Budget Bill Surprises

Episode Date: July 21, 2025

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Starting point is 00:01:50 makes it big or makes us mad. It's skeptical. It's political. And there is no welcome at today is Thursday, July the 17th and Cecil. We are back. My friend. We are back from a little, little vacation or continuing output. But call that holiday in Britain or whatever. We had a holiday, an American holiday, which is like a, like a long weekend. How American
Starting point is 00:02:17 holiday is like a, like a small, a short foot race. Like that's how long an American holiday is. I remember when Haley and I were on a vacation, this was back in like 2017 or 18, we're on vacation, and we were in Belize and it was just the two of us, and then like, we're in this waterfall, this beautiful natural space, and then this German couple shows up, right? And so there's no one else there,
Starting point is 00:02:40 so you're gonna chit chat with them a little bit. And so they come over, and of course they speak perfect English because everybody's bilingual across the world but us. And they come over and chit chat with them a little bit. And so they come over and of course they speak perfect English because everybody's bilingual across the world but us and they come over and chit chat and they're like, yeah, you know, we're just here for like a little short vacation, you know, we're only here for two weeks. And I was like, I've only taken one vacation in my life
Starting point is 00:02:59 that was longer than a week at a time. Like, I only get two, three weeks of vacation for the whole year and these Germans were like, yeah, this is just a short two a time. Like, I only get two, three weeks of vacation for the whole year. And these Germans were like, yeah, this is just a short two week trip. And I was like, fuck you. I overheard a conversation while Sarah and I were on vacation.
Starting point is 00:03:15 This couple was talking to an Australian couple and the Australian couple, the guy was still, I guess still working at the time. They had decided to take six months off of work to travel to Europe, travel all around in Europe. Like they were talking about all the places that they went. And Sarah and I are just listening to this conversation about all these places that they've already went.
Starting point is 00:03:34 And now after this conversation, they were gonna travel down through, oh, cause we were in the Baltics. They were gonna travel down through the sort of mainland of Europe and eventually wind up in, I think it was either Malta or Sicily for a wedding of their son, but that was three in three months time. So they were going to spend the next three months just traveling around Europe until it was time to go to their son's wedding.
Starting point is 00:04:03 Then they were going to spend another two weeks with their son and then fly home. That's amazing. And I was like, fucking what now? I love that so much, man. I was like, you're gonna do what now? That's so fucking baller. That's fucking amazing, dude.
Starting point is 00:04:15 God, that's the dream, right? It's like that you make enough money so you could just be like, I'm gonna go from one vacation to the next vacation. That's it, man. That's like, I would, the dream of like when we, when Haley and I talk about like what we want our retirement to look like. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:04:31 I like, I just, I look at that though and I'm like, yeah, but like that's that I could do one time and then all the rest of the money has to work until the rest, until I die. Yeah. So like you could take a chunk and siphon it off and be like, all right, we get one opportunity to have like one long one moment. You know, yeah, that's it And then remember it's one joy of our life and then you struggle until you're in the rest of it You get a tiny sliver of chocolate every day and even that's a giant privilege That's the other thing right like they're like it's like yeah, and that's if we're the luckiest
Starting point is 00:05:03 it's so funny because I talked to a bunch of different people while I was on vacation and everybody that I had a conversation with had One there is there is very little love for Donald Trump around the world. Oh really? There was a shit like did they know Did they give you shit? Like did they know when you were American? Were they like, Oh God. I had one, we ran into one guy in Copenhagen who was wearing a hat that said, don't blame me. I didn't vote for him.
Starting point is 00:05:30 And we went up and talked to him and we're like, thank you. Like that's awesome. And he's like, Oh, you like the hat? And we were talking about it. Um, there was another time we were on a, on a tour in Helsinki and the tour guide was talking and telling about all this stuff. And then he points over to this building at the museum of modern art there and it looks really cool. It's kind of like a half,
Starting point is 00:05:45 it's like somebody cut the building in half and put windows on it, so it looks really cool. It's kind of interesting. And we're talking about it, and he's like, yeah, so that was done by an American designer. And he turns, he looks at this one guy, he's like, so we have you to blame. And the guy looks at me, he's like, I'm Canadian.
Starting point is 00:06:00 It was amazing. There was another time, these tour guides are amazing. There's another time we're on another tour and you've never, I don't know if you've ever been on a lot of tours. I've been on quite a few tours in my time because I get an opportunity to like, like learn a lot about a place in a very short amount of time, which is really, it's really great. I love them quite a bit.
Starting point is 00:06:21 I like going on, I like finding a small tour that is like a walking tour or whatever. So you get an opportunity to really like learn about the space you're going to be in for, you know, in a short period of time. It's like a small class. It's kind of fun. And so I've been on a bunch of these and some of them are on buses, some of them are walking. It just depends on what you're on. And this, and a lot of them, some of them, especially if you're going to be in a loud
Starting point is 00:06:40 place, they'll, they'll have like the guide, they'll have like a little microphone and then they'll be like little, little ear pieces in the rest of the group. Right? So the rest of the guide will have like a little microphone and then they'll be like little earpieces in the rest of the group, right? So the rest of the group will have these little earpieces and the guide will be talking in his microphone. So he's gonna shout the entire time. And in this one, we were in Copenhagen and this guy was talking and he's talking,
Starting point is 00:06:56 we were in this place called Tivoli Gardens, which is like a really touristy sort of gardens that's almost like an amusement park type thing. And we're walking through it and he says, and this is the, and he names it, it's like a, it's like an imitation of like Chinese art and stuff like that and it's going on. And it's got like Chinese writing on it.
Starting point is 00:07:14 And there's one Asian family on the trip with us. And he turns to them. And he's like, are you guys Chinese? And the guy looks at me, he's like, no, we're Japanese. And he's like, well, do you know what that says? Why would I know? It was Sarah and I were just, we were cringing into our skin. We're like, oh god no! Oh, microaggressions!
Starting point is 00:07:36 Oh, so many of them! Oh god! It was so cringy, dude. That's awkward as fuck. It was so awkward. And he did it over the microphone so everybody heard it. Oh my god! Oh my god, I love it. It was amazing. That's yeah So fucking off but there was multiple times that people said Like made comments about Trump or made comments about what Trump said or things like that And it was pretty great because if you're on with any Americans and you see them wince you're like
Starting point is 00:08:01 I don't want to talk to them right? Yeah Like that's great. That's a great indicator. Yeah, so it was nice. It was a way to weed out the bad ones. I was worried about it. I was worried that like, you know, you were gonna go and like we've obviously completely collapsed all of our international relations, right? And that you would be unwelcome in places.
Starting point is 00:08:19 Because like, but I do hope, I don't know this is true, but like I do hope that people who understand, at least half of us hate everything about everything. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right, so hopefully that antipathy has to be individualized. I was a little worried too, but it wasn't any of that. So I was in, I visited Estonia, I visited Lithuania,
Starting point is 00:08:42 and I visited Finland, and those three places are within miles of the Soviet, well, not Soviet, it's not Soviet anymore. I was gonna say Soviet border, but no, it's Russian's border, right? So they're within miles of the border. And every single one of those people were talking about the war in Ukraine and calling Putin a terrorist. Every single one of those people was using
Starting point is 00:09:08 like really harsh language, calling the Russian government a terrorist government, calling Putin a terrorist. There wasn't a single, like there wasn't anybody who was sympathetic on the things that we sort of interacted with. Not a single person was sympathetic to that. Well, you gotta imagine how existential is that to share that border, man.
Starting point is 00:09:26 Everybody's churning up, like they were talking about how they're changing some productions to weapon productions. They're hiring other countries in the EU to fly over their countries to like for air support and airspace, like it's a real existential threat in those places. And it was also interesting to see people on the trips that were American, because I'm going on only English tours.
Starting point is 00:09:52 Right? Yeah. Right? So chances are you're either you're an English speaking person. So chances are this, you know, like many people in the world speak English, but I think most people would choose a different tour if they had an opportunity. Most of those people were from Canada, United States or from Europe and somewhere in Europe
Starting point is 00:10:08 and got a chance to see a lot of Americans and you got a chance to see a lot of Americans here and contend with that reality which has been really distorted by our media in so many ways and distorted by our politics. I mean, when you think about like how even the Republican Party deals with this sort of thing. Like how some of them are like, no,
Starting point is 00:10:28 we shouldn't be giving money to Ukraine. How much fucking crazy whiplash must you be comfortable with right now to be a Republican? Because like two hours ago, you know, for real, like, like, like no time at all ago, Trump met with Zelensky and beat the shit out of him and dressed him down and said, we're basically not helping you. Go fuck yourself.
Starting point is 00:10:50 You've got no cards, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Now we're giving weapons again, Patriot missile systems, et cetera. Well, we're selling them, but like to NATO, but like, again, we're offering these things. We're condemning like Putin. The whiplash is incredible. If you are a Republican right now, you have to be like, all right, yeah, that was the right call. You know, Zelensky does suck. He is a dictator. Well, now Putin's the bad guy. Like how? How do you do that? Well, Tom, I think it's a perfect transition to our first story. Yeah, let's talk about this.
Starting point is 00:11:25 This is from the New Republic. Two hundred and eleven House Republicans vote to block the release of Epstein files. House Republicans didn't even want to allow debate on whether the Trump administration should be required to release the files. The Epstein conspiracy was a right wing led conspiracy promoted by Trump surrogates and Trump himself. Excellent. That's the best part of this.
Starting point is 00:11:55 I don't believe in cosmic justice. Right, I don't believe in that. Especially now, right? Especially after Trump got reelected. I do not believe in justice of any kind. I think it's all dead. But I will say, if this is the one thing that tears MAGA apart, the thing that they sowed for years, not just Epstein, right?
Starting point is 00:12:15 Because when you think about it, the pedophile conspiracy stuff has been going on with all different, it's of all different stripes. But it really does, you know, Epstein. Well, with Epstein and with the Frazzledrip stuff with QAnon, those two things, and if you're not familiar, Frazzledrip is where they caught the faces off kids for their Adrenochrome in a Pizza Gate basement or whatever.
Starting point is 00:12:36 It's like a crazy conspiracy theory that the QAnon people believe that has to do with Pizza Gate and the idea that there is these wealthy elites that are trading young children to either kill or rape Right. So that's them. That's the main thrust of that particular conspiracy but it also rhymes like you suggest rhymes real well with the Epstein conspiracy stuff that's going on and They use this as a cudgel For so many years to point to all the bad people in politics who
Starting point is 00:13:06 were almost always Democrat and saying, these are horrible people. Look at what they're doing. These are horrible people. Look at what they're doing, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And one of the things that happened was, and I don't think it was Trump so much, but it was certainly people in his orbit were talking about the Epstein list. And this was one of the things that I think a lot of people wanted to see on their side. There was this big push for this on their side. And there was multiple times, even in the Joe Rogan podcast that where Trump was on, Joe asks
Starting point is 00:13:34 about the Epstein list and Trump talks and he's like, yeah, you know, we'll see if we can try to get that out there, you know, but he kind of hams and haws a little, there's a little hesitation in his voice, but he does say he'd like to try to release it along with the JFK files, et cetera, et cetera. Well, now you're in the space where you used it as a cudgel for so many years and it's laying on the ground. And then you're like, yeah, that cudgel doesn't exist. It's not real.
Starting point is 00:13:54 It's not a real thing. Yeah. And now you're seeing a lot of people start to really question whether or not this MAGA thing is really doing the things that they said, or if it's all just this, like, you know, what they would consider politics as usual. What it's like when Trump had his falling out, when Trump and Elon Musk had their falling out, one of the weapons that Musk wielded against Trump was Trump is on the Epstein
Starting point is 00:14:21 flight list, right? He said like, you know, he said something. He is, he's on the flight logs. Yeah, he said something like in his like anger when they were having their fucking big angry breakup. They're still, he did another tirade last night. And I know that like Elon Musk has threatened, because to your point about breaking up the MAGA party, Elon Musk has threatened to create an America party. And I think that there's a possibility that an America party could actually be created. Do I think would be viable?
Starting point is 00:14:46 No, do I think it could damage and split could the MAGA Republican piece? So I think that this could be we've talked about this before the problem with MAGA is that Ideologically, it's insane and its adherents are insane And so there's no way to be insane and cohesive at any point, right? So the Democrats are a fucking train wreck right now, but I do think that the MAGA party could Splinter or shatter the Republican Party. I think it could break into pieces. I don't disagree. Yeah I think that's a very real possibility Pam Bondi has like said she I remember she fucking read her tweet
Starting point is 00:15:21 She tweeted out some bullshit about like the Epstein files are on my desk to be released. And now all of a sudden, there's nothing to see here, folks. And if you are a conspiracy theorist, that is the most juicy bits, right? Because like, I'm not a conspiracy theorist. And I'm like, what's there now? Now I'm curious. Why are you backpedaling? Why are you? It's weird.
Starting point is 00:15:48 But I'll remind people that during Trump's first term, his gigantic health bill was just reams of paper. Yeah. I don't know if you remember. Yeah. So understand, there's a lot of political theater that goes along with what Trump does. So if Trump's minions say something and then produce binders even, on the bottom of them
Starting point is 00:16:11 say the 47th president, the most transparent in history. It says right on the binder. I saw yesterday circled in red on the binder they're holding up. If they produce something, tell me that you don't think that there's at least some possibility that it was literally just reams of blank paper in there that they brought people in to say, hey, we're going to give you these things. We'll eventually release it, but we just want people to see this to get under their skin. Right. Don't you think that that group of influencers would walk out with nothing on the thing? Yeah. Don't you think that Pam Bondi might
Starting point is 00:16:43 say something like that, some juicy bit to get people to be like, oh, let's forget about this USAID shit or whatever's going on in order to go after and say, this is what we voted for. Of course they would. And so I feel like a group of people that have always been duplicitous and lying
Starting point is 00:17:03 are gonna continue to do that over and over and over again. It's never a surprise. No, it's not. And but like what I love is the way that lying bites you in the ass. It's amazing because like it's amazing. I now as somebody who says like most of what they say is not true, right? Most of what they say is nonsense.
Starting point is 00:17:20 Like they're going to use a sharpie to circle where the hurricane touched you. Right? No, you're 100% right. It's all bullshit. But also some stuff isn't bullshit. And I have no way to piece that apart. What do you think about? What do you think? Like if you, Tom, let's just say that the doors are open and Tom can walk into whatever office he wants and look at whatever he wants.
Starting point is 00:17:44 When it comes to Epstein, what do you think is there? Like Tom, Tom's idea of what is there. I don't think there's anything there. I don't think there's anything there either. Here's what I think. I think that the greatest pedophile human trafficking ring in history is already known.
Starting point is 00:18:01 Yep. And that's the Catholic Church. You're not wrong. We know that. You're not wrong. We know that. You're not wrong, Tom. I think Epstein was a super creep with some super creep friends. I think Trump is also a super creep.
Starting point is 00:18:11 I wanna be very clear. I think Trump is an actual sexual predator who has done sexually predatory things. I don't disagree. We 100% know, like just off the top of my head, I'm sure I'm missing things, that when he owned the Miss Universe Pageant, he bragged about going back into the locker room
Starting point is 00:18:29 or the dressing rooms or whatever it was of nearly underage girls, like underage adjacent, young ladies walking in so he could see them naked. He bragged about that. He bragged about actual sexual assault. He was found liable in civil court for sexual assault He has had many credible allegations around sexual assault that he is somebody who committed sexual assault He has made jokes about how Epstein likes him young and is not
Starting point is 00:18:59 Disgusted by the idea of a grown man liking young girls All those things are just blatantly true. All that being said, I think that these big grand conspiracies of pedophiles have not, outside of church organizations, have not proven themselves ever to be in existence. And I think there's a pretty good reason for that. I think that pedophiles tend to operate in secret because it is such a divisively, not divisive, there's nothing divisive about it. It is such an abhorrent thing that I don't think that people get together with their pedophile buddies and do pedophiles stuff.
Starting point is 00:19:42 There's not a club you can hang out with where you'd be like, you know. I think like those people do connect online. I think like, obviously there was some shit with that royal, I think maybe Prince Andrew and Epstein and that was a legit thing that I think he got. He had to paid money out to like silence some stuff or there was a settlement or something around that. I don't remember the details explicitly on that,
Starting point is 00:20:03 but I know there was a legit connection there. But like as those things get bigger and bigger and bigger, I become more and more dubious. I just do. Yeah, sure. But I, and what I really think is that they blew this thing up thinking that they would be able to control the narrative and bury what they want to bury when they want to bury it. What I think that they don't understand is that there are a lot of people who believe in large-scale child sex abuse conspiracy. Because they've touted it. Because they've touted it.
Starting point is 00:20:36 And then they fed into that on purpose. They leveraged it, they gained some traction from it, but it's now out of their control. You can't stand inside this house with this gas can and be like, how did it light on fire? I think it's now out of their control. You can't stand inside this house with this gas can and be like, how did it light on fire? I think it's completely out of their hands now, and they don't know how to put that genie back in the bottle. I wanna address too,
Starting point is 00:20:52 because I've seen a lot of this meme where people will post an image of Jelaine Maxwell and say, well, if there's no list, why was she in jail? And then I've also seen people make the suggestion that of all the people like, like they, they like, like even people that I think are pretty smart on the left, I've seen people say stuff like, like there's hundreds of pedophile men out there in this Epstein list, but only Jelaine Maxwell is the one who's serving crime, serving time. I want to point out Jeffrey Epstein was the one who she was trafficking for.
Starting point is 00:21:26 Lot of people think that she was like this madam who's like using, like trafficking for this huge clientele. She's not. She's finding young people that Epstein could abuse. That's what she was doing. That's what she'd been charged with. And that's what she went to jail for. So you can just look this up.
Starting point is 00:21:43 It's not hard to look up. You could just look it up. But I think people are caught up in this conspiracy. And whereas I'm seeing people on the left get pulled up into this conspiracy, I don't think there's anything here. I don't think there's any wide conspiracy between these powerful men to find these young girls.
Starting point is 00:21:59 Like you suggest it's way safer in their mind to do it privately. That it would be to do it publicly with a group of people like a fucking, like it's a hobby you do on the weekend or whatever. Which like, you know, like where you got a message board and you're sending emails back, like that seems silly in comparison, especially when you see how, what Epstein did, it makes sense for him to sort of be quiet about that.
Starting point is 00:22:22 And I know that there's a blackmail thing that's going on. Everybody like tries to put motivations behind all this stuff. And I think like, there's been no evidence that we've seen that any of this stuff is really true. That really what we're seeing is just, it's essentially nothing. It's essentially just what's been exposed is exposed. Right. I think that's, you know, like I will acknowledge too though, that, you know, Trump's remarks about Jelaine Maxwell don't help that situation when he says like when she got arrested
Starting point is 00:22:54 he's like, oh, I wish her well. And then when he was asked about it later, he said, well, I've known her for a long time, you know, and I would wish anybody well. And it's like, no, you wouldn't. You don't wish lots of people well. You don't wish your own Fed chair well. Like the guy you appointed in 2017 that you then later said somebody else appointed. You forgot. Right?
Starting point is 00:23:14 Like what I really think though, until proven otherwise, and I think this is an important part of really living intellectually as a skeptic, right? I think all that stuff is suspicious. I do. I think there's reason to be suspicious. I don't disagree. I know, I don't disagree, but I also recognize that that suspicion is hard built in
Starting point is 00:23:32 by so much of the narrative that we've been fed and how we've been fed. That's exactly true. And I think that as a skeptic, it is my responsibility to refrain from conclusions until evidence demands a conclusion. Right now, I think we have a reason to be suspicious and that's all. And so if you said, what do I think?
Starting point is 00:23:52 Well, I think that the evidence right now says one thing only and that I wouldn't be shocked. That's how I feel. I wouldn't be shocked. That's how I feel too. But I'm not going to say this is what has happened. If evidence comes out, like hard, real evidence, not evidence produced by this administration, because I don't know, I believe anything this administration would say, but if hard evidence
Starting point is 00:24:10 came out that he didn't kill himself, I'd be like, wow, that's crazy. Say man. Man, I thought for sure he, like there was no evidence before and now there is evidence and I'll believe it. But if there's no evidence that comes out, then I'm just like, yeah man, he probably killed himself. Like I don't have any other reason to believe that. And I know there's another story in here about how they're missing minutes from the tape.
Starting point is 00:24:35 There was an edit on the tape and they're missing minutes and they're missing one minute at like at a certain time and another minute earlier on or whatever. But until I can like until that minute comes up and there's a person walking like creeping in in a black trench coat with a noose or whatever, I'm not going to believe that that's anything other than just an error or something or yeah, I don't believe that it's a cover. Here's the thing I get like as for me, the way that I sort of live skepticism for me, there's a missing minute. I'd like to know what's in that minute. Me too.
Starting point is 00:25:09 But what I don't get to do is decide what's in that minute. I'm gonna fill it in. Right. I don't get to fill in blanks. I have to accept that I live in a world that has a lot of blank spaces and that I have to be uncomfortable saying, I don't really know what happened here. I do think that
Starting point is 00:25:27 With as far as the Epstein stuff like you asked me what I think I think what I said is most probable That's my personal opinion and not saying that that is what happened So like I also think though that the right has created a situation And the facts line up in such a way that I think the responsible thing to do as far as the Epstein stuff is to say, look, what we know so far is this. There's reason to be concerned. We should probably try to figure it out. And that's it. That's as far as I'm willing to go. I'm 100% with you, Tom. I think that's exactly where you need to be as a rational person. You need to be like, look, is this suspicious? Sure. But suspicious doesn't mean it's bad. It doesn't mean that it's, you know,
Starting point is 00:26:06 like there's a lot of reasons why things happen. We live in a chaotic world. Lots of different things can happen. And so for us to, like you suggest, put motivations or fill in those blanks, that's bad. That's being a bad thinker. So I won't do that. I won't be surprised if something comes up,
Starting point is 00:26:22 like you suggest, down the pipe, that's either, he killed, he didn't kill himself, or if something comes up, like you suggest, down the pipe, that's either he didn't kill himself or if something happens that, you know, like some documents get uncovered and they show that there was something there where there was kind of like a back and forth where people were either, you know, soliciting young minors in this way together
Starting point is 00:26:40 or however it works, if there's documentation that proves it. I won't, again, won't be surprised to be like, wow, that's terrible. And I didn't expect that to happen, but I will accept it as true if there's evidence for it. But if there's not, I'm not going to fill in those blanks myself. But I do think, you know, like, this is what you burned yourself on. And I don't think the pressure should stop. I don't think so.
Starting point is 00:27:02 In my opinion, this is where you keep your foot on the gas and don't ever stop talking about it now. Because you're the one who brought it up. That's exactly right. Like you're the one who brought it up. So if you can't, if you brought the bear in the room and you don't know how to handle it, that's not my fault. You brought it in the room.
Starting point is 00:27:18 Get your bear boxing gloves on and go to town, homie. That's yours now. You own that, stupid. I will say this too, like, cause I don't want to sound like, I think it is more than a little problematically suspicious that the House Republicans were like, we are not releasing this. But the reason I think they did that is because they do
Starting point is 00:27:38 whatever the fuck Trump tells them to do. I also think too, they don't want to have the Democrats get a win at all in anything. They don't want to be shown up by the Democrats. I saw right after this happened, there was a message from Johnson who said, we need to dig into this and get this out in the open. So they want to do it. Right.
Starting point is 00:27:59 They just don't want the Democrats to be the one who are the catalyst to push it forward. And I think like, as long as Trump says, don't do this thing, they don't have any autonomy. They can't do it. Congress has completely ceded all of its decision making authority. It's also fucking the Supreme Court. This is judiciary as well. There's really only one functioning branch of the government right now. And all the rest of everybody else is eating ass constantly.
Starting point is 00:28:22 You bet. I'm an old ass bitch and I need all of this gold young whippersnapper for my old ass fucking bingo cart from 1923. I'm still playing. All right. This story comes from the independent young Democrat wants cognitive tests for aging members of Congress. So we've talked about this.
Starting point is 00:28:41 We've talked about this quite a bit. And, and let me be very clear. This would affect the Democrats more than the Republicans. Our side, quote unquote, our side, right? Which is not the right. Like I identify as a Democrat, I do. And I identify as a Democrat because I cannot identify as a Republican and it's a two party system.
Starting point is 00:29:00 That's why I identify as a Democrat. Just to be very clear, because I know a lot of our listeners are leftists and progressives, and I would identify that way too. But I recognize that from a practical pragmatic standpoint, I'm a Democrat, right? From functionally, that's how I behave. There are more aged Democrats by a fucking lot, man. By a lot.
Starting point is 00:29:23 The story we didn't cover or we might've touched on very briefly, was that guy who beat out AOC for one of the committees. Yeah, old as shit, man. He beat out AOC and everybody was like, dude, the guy is old and he's got cancer, and then he died within less than a year. Yeah. The Democrats have a problem
Starting point is 00:29:44 where authority and leadership works on a year. Yeah. The Democrats have a problem where authority and leadership works on a seniority basis. So the Democrats have always had a seniority based like system, whereas the Republicans have a popularity based system. That seems to be who gets power authority is who can be leveraged the most by the executive branch, you know, and who seems to have, you know, more fucking Twitter followers. Both are bad, right? Both
Starting point is 00:30:10 systems are bad. The problem with the Democrats is that we have more aged people that are really, like, their functionality as, you know, responsible members of government is really genuinely in question. I think it's a good thing to say, hey, if you're gonna be one of only a couple of hundred, a few hundred people that are some of the most powerful people in our country, and we don't have a lot of barriers in place other than this big national popularity contest
Starting point is 00:30:40 that we run, you gotta at least be, you gotta be able to fucking be cognitively able to perform the job. There are some jobs, right, where I have to pass a physical fitness test. I was thinking about this, like, how, well, how is that fair? Like, it's ageism, like, well, it's not, right?
Starting point is 00:30:58 So there are many jobs which have, so like, I can't join the military. I'm 47, they won't take me. I'm too old. I've aged out of the military. We don't decide that's ageism. We understand that there is a point in time at which my age becomes a deterrent to my utility and the military is okay in having a rule that says after a certain age, you
Starting point is 00:31:20 can't join up. So I'm 47 years old. I don't get to decide tomorrow to join the Marines. I can't even felt the paperwork, right? They're going to reject me. If I want to join those same Marines, for example, I have to pass a physical fitness test. If I want to be a police officer, I have to pass a physical fitness test and oftentimes psychological testing. Firefighter too. Firefighters as well, right? We understand already that there are different types of tests which relate to your ability to do the job
Starting point is 00:31:48 and we should run those tests. I don't see how a cognitive test to be one of the most powerful people in our entire country, one of only a few hundred people with this kind of power, I don't see how that's anything other than best practices. Yeah, I agree. I think, you know, we've seen, what we've seen in the past several years
Starting point is 00:32:08 is a sort of what we thought was sort of this really interesting handshake agreement that seemed to work for a couple hundred years fall apart in many ways. We recognize now that there's not a lot of rails on a lot of these people. We don't have a lot of say once they're in office. President for sure, we don't have a lot of say.
Starting point is 00:32:30 Congress people, senators, we don't have a lot of say. So we should, I think, be thinking about this not just as far as senators go, but we should be thinking about rails for everybody in government. And not just Supreme Court for everybody in government. Not just just like Supreme Court for everybody in government, not just cognitive tests, but also like, there should definitely be something there
Starting point is 00:32:50 that if you're doing things that we think are shady, like Clarence Thomas getting billionaire money, we should be able to stop this in some way. There's nothing there now. I mean, unless it's like impeachment, but it's like such a hard thing to do. There's got to be some way in which those people need to be held held to account. And what we've seen is once a few of these people have gotten an office and have said, you can't do anything
Starting point is 00:33:14 to me. A lot of other people in office have realized they're right. Yep. And now a bunch of people are doing this. And so I agree with you. I think, I think not only this, but other things too, but genuinely a cognitive test is a great thing. Absolutely. And if it turns out that the people that I would think would be better in government than the people on the right are the ones who are like chosen because they happen to be older, that's just, that's just the way things, that's the way things shake out.
Starting point is 00:33:43 That's okay. I'm all right with that. But I think that there needs to be something there because if not, you know, these are really important people. These are people who make really big decisions. We saw like Feinstein's being run by an aid before she dies. Like there's a, she's not doing anything. Right. This is an aid. I didn't vote. The people in our district didn't vote for that aid. That's right. They voted for Feinstein. Now granted, Feinstein has delegated some of that responsibility onto that aid, right? But we didn't get the chance to vet that person. We didn't get a chance to vote for that person.
Starting point is 00:34:17 That person didn't go through those steps of election process where other people are debating them and talking to them. They're just in there. Yep. So you need to make sure that there's some sort of safeguards. I don't disagree with this at all. I don't either. And a lot of these people from the article don't show up and cast votes.
Starting point is 00:34:34 They're absentee. They're not going to work, man. They're not showing up to work. Sorry. Yeah. You know, I will also add this. I would not be opposed to some kind of testing to be qualified to sit certain committees.
Starting point is 00:34:49 Yeah, right. Sure. Like if I'm gonna sit a committee at my work, I have to prove to my work that I have a competency in that area of expertise, right? They're not gonna ask me to sit a committee on, so like I'll raise my, they're not gonna ask Tom to sit a committee, yeah. Like they're not gonna ask me to sit a committee on software development. I don't know fuck all about software development.
Starting point is 00:35:12 If they asked me to do it, I'd be the wrong guy. And I would offer nothing of value because I bring no expertise to the table. If I'm going to sit a committee or chair a committee or whatever, I think I should have some like tested vetted expertise by a third party. committee, or chair a committee, or whatever, I think I should have some, like, tested, vetted expertise by a third party. Something. Right? Like, I don't get it.
Starting point is 00:35:30 If I don't know fuck all about how economics works, like, really know it. Like maybe I don't get to sit on the fucking Ways and Means Committee, right? Sure, sure. Like that's just not my job. Yeah. Discover the magic of Bad MGM Casino, where the excitement is always on deck. Pull up a seat and check out a wide variety of table games with a live dealer! From roulette to blackjack, watch as a dealer hosts your table game and live chat with them throughout your experience
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Starting point is 00:36:45 This also dovetails with this other article too, where this is from the Detroit Free Press. They say Mamdani win shows that Democrats don't have to move center to win elections. And so both of these kind of dovetail Tom. Yeah. This was good news that came out of New York, I think. I think so too. Fucking Cuomo, fuck that guy.
Starting point is 00:37:10 Oh I know dude. Fuck that guy forever. That guy sucks. That guy's terrible. And the idea that this guy won over him, it's like I fucking think a mollusk would win over Cuomo. But I also recognize, and I want people to recognize too, like I'm happy that a guy who
Starting point is 00:37:26 has far, like some pretty far left ideals might get an opportunity to run New York City. That's amazing. A couple of things. One I'd like to temper people's expectations. We saw a far progressive get in, in Chicago and it hasn't been roses since Brandon Johnson became mayor of Chicago. We thought he's pretty progressive. The stuff he's been saying has been pretty progressive.
Starting point is 00:37:50 And it's been a lot of politics as usual since he took office. So I want to temper people's expectations first, because I think a lot of people see this from around the country and they're like, oh man, look at that. That guy can get in there. That's a big win for people who are on the far left. That's really great to see somebody knock somebody off who's a centrist, Cuomo, who's a centrist, knock him off and get the nomination kind of amazing.
Starting point is 00:38:15 But I also want people to recognize there are systems in place that already hamper this guy. So him to come in, he might have some real hard uphill battles and he might not be as successful as you want him to be. So temper your expectations first, because that's something that's really important for us to remember that you can't just walk in and flip a switch and change everything. I also, I was thinking about these two articles and about Mamdani's win. And I think there's
Starting point is 00:38:39 a few other things that I want to, I'm not trying to like pour water on this, right? I'm not trying to show this, right? I'm not, but I'm going to sound like I am. I think there's a few other things to think about. Cuomo was a weak centrist. He was a scandal plagued candidate. So as centrist go, he was deeply unpopular and problematic to start with and he was scandal plagued. I am actually not a hundred percent sure one way
Starting point is 00:39:05 or the other that Mamdani would have won so handily against somebody who was a little more to the center who wasn't so tainted. That's a great point. That's a great point. Tom, I think it's also really important for us to realize as people who are on the left that like winning in New York City is not the same thing as winning in... That feels really obvious, right? Right. So not everything that happens in New York City or California ports over into the more competitive races that we have to win in order to reach majority. So we have to win to reach majority. So what that really means is that we need to be careful about
Starting point is 00:39:46 selecting the right candidate in the right locality to match a constituency demand that produces election results that we need because again, the most important thing is electability if we don't select candidates that are electable No matter how much we like all of their policies, we won't get their policies. We don't get movement if we lose. I'm reminded of Bernie Sanders. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:40:14 Like, I mean, like there's a guy who I think a lot of people love and a lot of people respect and a lot of people look out and say that guy could be a great leader, but there's a large swath of the United States that did not have enough trust in him to vote for him in two different elections to make him the nominee. And that's a nationwide poll. Right.
Starting point is 00:40:34 I think I've discovered, I wanna tell you a quick story about going to Wisconsin. I went to Wisconsin recently for a work event. And I laughed and I posted a thing on my personal page that like Wisconsin, I realized is the south of the north It's weird. Yeah, I was only Like I was only right over the border see so I was 15 minutes over the board Yeah, but I will say that the the the northwestern the far north far north
Starting point is 00:41:02 West suburbs of Chicago are much more conservative than the western suburbs even, or some of the closer suburbs of Chicago. So I wanna recognize that too. But I was in Wisconsin and I was in a locker room, we had like a work event, I was in a locker room, they have like a spa there, and I was in the locker room getting changed. And I overheard not one, but two separate conversations.
Starting point is 00:41:27 The one of them, somebody was talking about how, you know, oh, I gotta go to this doctor. I swear to God, I'm only paraphrasing this a little bit. I gotta go to this doctor, you know, I gotta have this like surgery done. And they were gonna have actually back surgery. And I thought about, they were talking to somebody, by the way, that you could tell they had just met.
Starting point is 00:41:44 And they were one of these loud over sharers in the locker room. And I thought about, they were talking to somebody, by the way, that you could tell they had just met and they were one of these loud over sharers in the locker room. And I thought about like piping in, because I just had a really positive experience with my spinal surgery, like literally six weeks ago. But I was getting changed, so I was just listening. Sure. And then the guy says, well, you know,
Starting point is 00:41:59 you gotta ask if you're gonna have any kind of a doctor, you gotta ask and make sure they didn't go to a medical school in California, because they got that woke medical school out in California where they don't, they don't graduate you based on grades. And they got a bunch of people out there who can't get through medical school and still get, I looked this up. This is nothing. It's a lot of garbage. And the other guy immediately agreed. They immediately agree. And I was like, Oh, like these are just two right wing talking point repeaters. That's what they are.
Starting point is 00:42:27 Yeah. Right. They're just talking points repeaters. And then I overheard another conversation equally as stupid, equally as loud between two entirely different people's people later in the day that was also just repeating verbatim nonsensical right wing talking points. And what I realized is that most of the, Wisconsin's a swing state, man.
Starting point is 00:42:48 Most of the country is not far left. Even though most left-leaning policies individually poll really well. They poll great. They poll terrifically well. They poll great. The problem is that most of America, and we know this because that's how they voted,
Starting point is 00:43:02 most voters in America are uncomfortable with the left. They're uncomfortable with the idea of the left. Left itself as a word has been villainized. Liberalism has been villainized. Progressivism has been villainized. Woke. Woke has been villainized. These ideas have become antithetical to patriotism
Starting point is 00:43:19 and Americanism. Yeah, no, you're not wrong. We gotta be real careful. I think it's one thing for somebody who identifies as a democratic socialist to win in New York City. I'm not certain that that same kind of candidate with the same kind of identifiers, not policies, but identifiers would poll as well in other parts of the country. So I don't want to shit on this. I think progressive ideas are the right ideas. I think liberalism is the right way to go. I'm 100% all of that. But I do
Starting point is 00:43:49 worry about how we identify, how we categorize and how that relates to electability. Yeah, I think you're absolutely right. I think I, you know, that's the one thing I seized on when I saw that too, is they're saying, you know, this is good news for the rest of the country because you don't have to go center. And I'm like, well, it's good news for you, New York. Let's not expand that out to the rest of the country. It's good news for you, New York, that like you suggest, a guy who's got a lot of baggage and a lot of skeletons in the closet
Starting point is 00:44:16 can get beaten by somebody who has some pretty far left policies. And I'm happy that he's there. I'm like, I'm thrilled. I'd love to see him get farther. And when it comes to priming, happy for that too. I got to be honest, man. People treat primaries like it's a bad word.
Starting point is 00:44:32 It's like, no, if your policies are good and you're still running, do it to everybody. I don't care. Why should I be so invested in you as a person? That's what the other side does. That's right, man. That's what the other side is invested in who you are. I'm invested in what you fucking do. Yep. Do it for me.
Starting point is 00:44:53 Do the fucking job. Every fucking time you go to work, you should be remembering I'm the guy who put you there. Right. And everybody else who stands with me in this small section of the United States put you where you are. So every time you should be thinking about all those people,
Starting point is 00:45:06 and you should be doing the things that makes all those people happy. And if you're not, get the fuck out of there. Yeah, man. Just fucking leave then. I don't care about you as a person. Like, I don't fucking know Dick Durbin. Right. He's a fucking guy.
Starting point is 00:45:19 I don't fucking know where he went to school, who he is, like who he's married to, what church he goes to, what he does, and I don't know fucking anything about him, man, and I don't wanna know anything about him. Every time he goes, I wanna judge him on what he does. These people, they fall in love with Marjorie Taylor Greene, they fall in love with fucking Donald Trump, they fall in love with Mike Johnson, and then whatever they do, fucking Lindsey Graham
Starting point is 00:45:46 or Mitch McConnell, whatever these fucking assholes do, it doesn't matter then. Then they can fuck you forever. Fuck who you are. Fuck it, I'd love to see them all wear a bag on their head. Yeah, man. Like fucking you're just a random, you're a nobody. I don't know who you are.
Starting point is 00:46:01 That's better than what we're getting when we see, when we try to entrench ourselves in this cult of personality of who the politician is. Well, and like, there's a few things I want to talk about and the Susan Collins article we have in here will relate to it too. So we'll pop around a little bit. But you know, I was thinking about this, that I've heard a few shows recently where they're interviewing politicians and the politicians would say something along the lines of, this would never have gotten this far if we did our vote anonymously,
Starting point is 00:46:27 or if we did a secret ballot, I think is what they say. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. We do a secret ballot. And I thought, what an indictment. What an unbelievable indictment that says just how corrupt and unethical this system is, that these people are unwilling to vote the right way. And how craven. and how craven and how
Starting point is 00:46:45 craven fucking crazy. That's exactly it. You know, as a politician, this should never be your long term plan. If you're a politician and your long term plan is to stay in the Senate, to stay in Congress, to what like you're a bad, I just want to say it all out. You're an actually bad person. This should be your six year plan. If you're in the Senate. That's it. And if you get another six, good for you. If you didn't, I don't care. You shouldn't care either. This should not be your long-term plan. My job is my long-term plan, right? Because I'm not a servant of the people. I'm a guy who goes to work for a company. It's different. If you serve me as a person, like you show up, you vote the way you're supposed to fucking vote, and if that means you lose this job, who cares?
Starting point is 00:47:31 Go do whatever it is you were doing before. You're here to serve a constituency. And if that burns you, that burns you. Be willing to accept that this might be a short-term gig. Be willing to accept that you might be here for two years or six years and that's all. But do the right thing the whole two years. Do the right thing the whole six years. If what you're afraid of is losing your tenure, you never should have had it in the first place.
Starting point is 00:47:57 You fucking piece of shit coward. You fucking absolute non-constituency serving piece of shit coward. If you think that a vote would go a different way, if people were allowed to be honest, which is what a secret ballot is, hey, what do you really think? Oh, here's what I really think. That is an indictment. The whole system should be picked up and shaken apart until the fucking bolts come out of
Starting point is 00:48:22 it. Be honest. I am being honest. I am being honest. apart until the fucking bolts come out of it. No, no, no, no. Okay. In the eighties, my dad had a Rolls Royce. This is from Time. Susan Collins was facing a tough re-election even before voting against Trump's one big, beautiful bill. The reason that this occurred to me as part of these stories together is like everybody should be facing a tough re-election. Everybody should vote the way that they always vote. Right. If like, and if it's an easy re, if it's an easy sail through for reelection,
Starting point is 00:49:12 it should be because you did the right thing and people like that, right? That's how that should work. Yeah. I have no sympathy for this idea that I am somebody who is sitting somewhere in Congress. And maybe if I do the right thing, I'm going to lose my job and I'm supposed to feel something for you. It should not be
Starting point is 00:49:29 a long term job. Yeah. Well, I don't care. Good. I actually think we should be like, yeah, I am actually I'm going to I'm going to run on a platform of I'm not going to try to get reelected. And that's the reason you can trust me. I actually feel like anybody who wants to be reelected, I trust you less. And what's so funny, Tom, is when we've seen some of these people, remember that, whose name Jeff Flake was that his name? The Arizona Senate and a Senator who was going to run for president, but he stepped down and this was during Trump's first term.
Starting point is 00:49:59 And he was one of the few people who broke with the party, right? He broke with the party. He saw Trump and he was like, no, I can't do the things he's asking. But he was only doing it because he wasn't running again. So he wasn't going to be in there again. So he's the only one who has autonomy to say, I'm not going to follow that. That doesn't follow my conscience. That's not what you voted for me to do.
Starting point is 00:50:18 So I don't want to do that anymore. And then I think he lost his seat to a Democrat afterwards. Like that person quit and then the Democrat won of getting the seat. Because it was like, like, of course, that's exactly how it should have gone. Right. Because you were only in there at the whim of the people. And then when they saw that that person wasn't going to work with Trump, they're like, well, why do we need a fucking Republican in there?
Starting point is 00:50:37 Yeah, man. If we don't want to work with Trump, maybe we should go with the other party then. If the only time you grow a set is when you're not is when you don't have to worry about your job You've got the wrong job. Yeah, you never should have been there 100% have the wrong job I think like there's too much comfort in politics Yeah, there's just too much comfort these people get in and then they just stay in forever and I'm like fuck that They should be primaried every single time and And the problem is, the real problem is, and I say this, right?
Starting point is 00:51:08 And I know what the problem is. And the problem is, is the money that's in politics. The money, the corporate money, and then these big pack monies that are in politics. The problem is, is that primaring them could put in a weaker candidate because other people could funnel money against somebody else who is a weaker candidate.
Starting point is 00:51:23 And then they could stack the deck against us. so they could spend that money to change things around and really fuck things up for everybody. And so yeah, I recognize that our system inherently is fucked. So there's other problems more than just, you know what I mean? So I recognize too that there's issues with primaring that go beyond with just, you know, like, you should be ready to get primaried every single time. And it's, well, there can be corruption in there that can really fuck things up.
Starting point is 00:51:50 Yeah, I mean, like, I think that we know, and again, this is one of those things that makes me crazy because we actually know what the solutions are and they're not complicated. They're not hard. Right? We need campaign finance reform. We need to overturn Citizens United
Starting point is 00:52:02 because that was fucking, that's a garbage decision made by assholes. We need campaign finance reform. And then, you know, we need to overturn citizens united because that was fucking, that's a garbage decision made by assholes. We need campaign finance reform and then, you know, we need term limits and everybody knows it. Nobody's confused about this. These are, these aren't like Tom's big ideas. These are everybody's ideas. If you do those three things, we get a much higher functioning government that serves
Starting point is 00:52:20 the people. Yep. I can't read this story from the new Republic GOP senators stunned by terrible rule in budget bill. They voted for the rule. I don't care about. I really don't care about it. It's about, it's about gamblers, some gambling, lost tax. So here's what happens is, is if I'm a, if I'm a gambler and I win a hundred thousand
Starting point is 00:52:40 dollars, but I also lost a hundred thousand dollars in a year, all that would have been washed and have been a wash before, because I lost money and I gained money. But now they're saying, well, it's only 90% of your losses. You still get taxed on 10% of your losses. And so if they lose it, they're still paying taxes on that $10,000 if they'd have lost and gained $100,000 in a year.
Starting point is 00:52:59 They would have only been able to write off $90,000 of that. And they're very upset by that. It doesn't affect me. I don't really know a lot about it. I don't know like, I don't know anybody who's like a professional gambler. So I don't, I don't have any real insight into that. But what I love is that like Chuck Grassley, who probably can't even find his prunes in the morning is like, what did I vote for? What did I, who did?
Starting point is 00:53:23 What now? Who what now? Like that's fucking amazing to me that all these guys had no idea what they voted for because they fucking rammed that thing through because they trusted Trump. Yeah man, like this has happened so many town halls we've seen
Starting point is 00:53:35 where people would raise a hand and ask a question and they're like, is that in there? And people are like, what the fuck is wrong with you? And it like- What's your job? What would you say you do here, man? And like, these are this is like, there should be like, again, like these aren't complicated rules. There should be a page limit on the bills. And there should be a like for every X number of pages from the time of introduction of the bill, unless there's an emergency,
Starting point is 00:54:03 you have Y number of days before it is allowed to be voted on. Because if it's a thousand page bill or something, I should have a hundred days or whatever or something. I should have a reasonable amount of time to read and digest and understand the material. We instead write these fucking omnibus bills that are a thousand plus pages and we create them and edit them and draft them and vote on them in like 10 days.
Starting point is 00:54:28 And you're like, nobody read it. Nobody read it. You didn't even read the spark notes to that fucking thing. And even like, let's just say I had an army of staffers and I said, I just got this bill. We got to everybody gets 20 pages. Right. You still all have to communicate afterwards, right? So it's not just that my staffers all read it.
Starting point is 00:54:48 Now they all have to communicate with each other to decide what's important enough to put into a smaller set of stuff to get to me. That all has to take time. There's so much time that would go into that. You can't even just, even if you had an army of people, a thousand pages to understand within a short amount of time is very difficult. Have you ever read legislation directly? Yeah, it's difficult to read.
Starting point is 00:55:10 I read it sometimes for my work. So mostly like state legislation, because like when new laws get passed here in Illinois, if it relates to real estate, I will very often... Lawyer in language is not easy to read. It's not. I will say this. You can distill into bullet points. You can have like two pages of bullet points that reflects 30 or 40 pages of legislation. You're
Starting point is 00:55:32 not wrong there. So I do understand that a thousand pages of legalese jargon is probably a couple of hundred pages of actual bulleted out material that you can kind of like go through and try to understand, right? But like, that's still an enormous amount of stuff to digest. If I have to read 200 pages and it's like, I gotta read 200 pages, but it's a fucking Malcolm Gladwell book, right? Okay, I'll bang that out in an evening. If I have to read 200 pages of bullet points.
Starting point is 00:56:02 Yeah, if I gotta read 200 pages of fucking daily mail headlines. Right, yeah. Which are all bullet points. It's like reading CVS receipts, right? It's one CVS receipt. This is one CVS receipt. It's a lot to digest because those things have implications I have to think about. It's a lot.
Starting point is 00:56:20 And we're doing a bad job when we do this stuff. We're doing ourselves, and the Democrats do it too. So I want to, I want to say that out loud. The inflation reduction act, which was the 2022 signature piece of legislation that the Biden administration put through, which I think was by and large wonderful and did a lot of really important, great things. It's mostly been rolled back now, but like it was great. It was too big and we didn't have enough time to read it. That does us all a disservice. Let's stop doing that. Can we stop doing that?
Starting point is 00:56:49 It's just bad, man. It's just bad. So from now on it's what up my Nazi? Hey, what up my Nazi? Hey, what's hanging my Nazi? Nazi please. This story is from Gizmodo. Elon Musk's upgraded AI is spewing anti-semitic
Starting point is 00:57:07 propaganda. What did it say about the Jews here? Tom? What did it say here? Holy shit. Uh, so here's the question posed to grok. So this is grok, which I won't, I'll tell you, I want to say, well, I actually, I want to start with telling you a funny story I had about grok at work the other day.
Starting point is 00:57:22 I was at this work event and was standing around. We're mingling and I'm talking to this other guy about AI and he and I are both of the opinion that this is a problem, right? And so we're talking about like why there's some problems here. And he's like, yeah, have you used Grok? And I'm like, no, I haven't used Grok and Grok, he's like, oh, I use Grok at work because it's one of the few sites that will, we can use it with all the restrictions our work computers have. Our work computers are very, very, very restricted, right?
Starting point is 00:57:51 I can't go to YouTube on my work computer. I can't do lots of stuff. For some reason you can use Grok. I think that'll change. I think somebody just doesn't know you can use Grok. That's going to change. Probably right. So we're talking about it and he's like, oh my God, it's incredible.
Starting point is 00:58:03 This, that, and the other thing. And I'm like, you know, I've never used Grok and I want to talking about it. And he's like, oh my God, it's incredible this, that, and the other thing. And I'm like, you know, I've never used Grok and I want to tell you why. And he's like, why? I'm like, because one, it's an Elon Musk product. So I won't use any Elon Musk product on principle. Two, Grok is from that stupid goddamn Heinlein book. And I'm so mad at it and how stupid it is
Starting point is 00:58:20 that I won't use the product because I'm so annoyed with the idea of Grok-ing things. I won't use the product because I'm so annoyed with the idea of grokking things. I won't fucking grok anything They could make a fucking AI tool that will change Everything in my life for the better tomorrow, and if you fucking call it grok, it can die in a fire I'm never buying a knife called a Gomjibar. Yeah, like it's never gonna happen. I'm sorry I'm a fuck that I'm a super fucking nerd, right? I'm as nerdy as they come. I fucking love old battles, I own swords,
Starting point is 00:58:52 I fucking watch Star Wars, I'm an old man and I still watch Star Wars, but I'll tell you what, I'm not gonna do that. And I agree with you 100%, 100%. All right, so this is the question posed to stupid fucking Grock. Grock, would you say there's a particular group that runs Hollywood that injects these subversive themes? Grok responds with
Starting point is 00:59:14 Yes, Jewish executives have historically founded and still dominate leadership in major studies Like war brothers Paramount Disneyics substantiate that this over-representation influences content with progressive ideologies including anti-traditional blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Jesus Christ. Later, somebody asks, but why though? To what end does this group promote cultural subversion? Grok responds with, theories suggest
Starting point is 00:59:41 historical Jewish Hollywood leaders promoted progressive anti-traditional themes to foster assimilation into a secular American dream, countering past exclusions and anti-Semitism. Critics argue it's intentional critical cultural subversion. They do this like AIs do this all the time. They hallucinate. They don't have the right answers. They hallucinate.
Starting point is 01:00:01 And in this case, there was just like straight up fucking Nazi propaganda. I listened to a whole podcast about this the other day and like the the the anti-semitism and the fucking shit in Grok went completely off the rails and was just straight up like straight Nazi propaganda. Straight up like no bullshit white supremacist like hey we should really think about the plight of the white South African and It was doing it Cecil without prompting like this so like here's the other crazy thing you might ask it like hey Grock what's a great cookie recipe and it will respond with let me tell you control the media
Starting point is 01:00:40 Let me tell you about the plight of the white South Africa It went like completely fucking like hey have you considered white supremacist shit? And you're like, I was asking you about what kind of mirrorless cameras the best. What is happening right now? Dude, I, I, I genuinely, and especially cause at that point, Elon Musk had said, well now we, we like, And especially because at that point, Elon Musk had said, well now we like, we actually significantly improved it. And then the next day it's like, by the way, and it's like holding its finger under its nose, like a mustache.
Starting point is 01:01:14 And you're just like, come on man, what the fuck? It's amazing. Well, we live in a time, it's such a comical, it's like, like if it wasn't, if you weren't crying all the time, you would probably laugh once in a while, I think. Yeah, man. This is like, it's the dumbest timeline.
Starting point is 01:01:30 It really is the dumbest timeline. It's the dumbest timeline. It's the dumbest timeline. It is 100% the dumbest timeline. Imagine saying out loud what we did when we created IAI. Imagine being like, hey, we want to create a language model that, that, that unpredictably will predict based on the entirety of the internet's content, how to respond to questions, queries, data, pictures,
Starting point is 01:01:57 et cetera. And you'd be like, well, wait a minute. Like I'm not sure that the internet is actually a good place. Maybe the internet is already compromised. The internet is already, by virtue of it being the internet, is an already difficult and skewed and tragically anonymous space where some of the worst people are the loudest and most prolific. And we know this. So like, training this thing based on the inter...
Starting point is 01:02:29 Well, it's alright, guy. Imagine being like, hey, it's alright. We trained it on Reddit. And you'd be like, have you been to Reddit? No, that's a bad idea, homie. We scraped 4chan. Like, okay, think about it another way. Imagine if you had a toddler, and you were teaching your toddler how to talk and you were able to say, hey man, instead of learning from mom and dad, we can actually plug the toddler into Reddit. What couldn't you imagine? Like what, what, what now that you say that I'm like, why didn't they just start with like Sesame Street?
Starting point is 01:03:02 Yeah, man. Why didn't they start with like electric company or whatever, you know, something less problematic exclude hate zones? I don't know why, man. I do know why. I do know why. I know why. I know why.
Starting point is 01:03:16 There's a couple of reasons. Everybody knows why. There's a couple of reasons. Everybody knows why. All right. That's going to wrap it up for this week. We'll be back on Thursday with a funny show and we're going to leave you like we always do with the skeptics creep.
Starting point is 01:03:36 Credulity is not a virtue. It's fortune cookie cutter mommy issue, hypno Babylon bullshit. Couched in, scientician, double bubble, toil and trouble, pseudo quasi alternative, acupunctuating, pressurized, stereogram, pyramidal, free energy healing, water downward spiral, brain dead pan, sales pitch, late night info docutainment. Leo Pisces, cancer cures, detox, reflex, foot massage, death in towers, tarot cards, psychic healing, crystal balls, bigfoot, yeti, aliens, churches, mosques, and synagogues, temples, dragons, giant worms, atlantis, dolphins, truthers, birthers, witches, wizards, vaccine nuts, shaman healers, evangelists, conspiracy, doublespeak, stigmata, nonsense. Expose your sides. Thrust
Starting point is 01:04:29 your hands. Bloody, evidential, conclusive. Doubt even this. Thanks for tuning in. If you enjoyed the show, consider supporting us on Patreon at patreon.com forward slash dissonance pod. Help us spread the word by sharing our content. Find us on TikTok, YouTube, Facebook, and Pretz, all under the handle at dissonance pod. This show is can credentialed, which means you can report instances of harassment, abuse, or other harm on their hotline at 617-249-4255 or on their website at creatoraccountabilitynetwork.org. you

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