Lemonade Stand - Will The Peace Last? | Lemonade Stand 🍋

Episode Date: October 15, 2025

On this week's show... Aiden answers a question, DougDoug talks of peace, and Atrioc brought some rocks. We launched a Patreon! - https://www.patreon.com/lemonadestand for bonus episodes, discord a...ccess, a book club, and many more ways to interact with the show! Episode: 033 Recorded on: October 14th, 2025 Clips Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCurXaZAZPKtl8EgH1ymuZgg Follow us TikTok - https://www.tiktok.com/@thelemonadecast Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/thelemonadecast/ Twitter - https://x.com/LemonadeCast The C-suite Aiden - https://x.com/aidencalvin Atrioc - https://x.com/Atrioc DougDoug - https://x.com/DougDougFood Edited by Aedish - https://x.com/aedishedits Produced by Perry - https://x.com/perry_jh Segments 0:00 Announcement 4:28 Shutdown Watch 9:26 The Nobel Peace Prize 18:30 Gaza Ceasefire 35:04 US Israel Recently 47:21 Rare Earth Minerals 1:03:13 China and US Relations 1:13:04 Something Lighthearted 1:27:44 Outro New takes on Business, Tech, and Politics. Squeezed fresh every Wednesday. #lemonadestand #dougdoug #atrioc #aiden Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript
Discussion (0)
Starting point is 00:00:00 Ladies and gentlemen, we're starting this episode with the number one story. Is the government still shut down? Yes. Doodoo do, do, do, do, do, do, all right. It is still shut down, Doug. 14 days, folks. Two weeks, we're headed towards, I don't remember what our bet was, but we're getting, we're halfway.
Starting point is 00:00:18 Do you remember what each of our numbers were? I picked 45. 33 days. I think it's going to be 33 days. And I was like with 34 or something. I tried to one up you. Yeah, you tried to one up. That's, I think you're, I think you're, you guys are really in the pocket there.
Starting point is 00:00:30 Yeah, there's, government's not looking great. We're going to be giving a little update on that. We're going to be talking about the Nobel Prize. We're going to talk about the updates with Israel, Palestine, and the ceasefire there and the progression of that, as well as rare earth minerals and tariffs with China and all sorts of other fun things. And maybe, if we've got time, erotica.
Starting point is 00:00:45 Yes, ideally some erotica. From Chad Cheapteeat. Before we get to the erotica, we have a little announcement that you may have already seen. We are officially partnered with Vox Media as of last week. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, and this is sick. This does mean there will be ads on the show.
Starting point is 00:01:05 But to give you guys context for what specifically that means, as a typical podcast, we're going to start to do brand integrations. That'll kind of ramp up over the next three months. As part of that to sort of compensate, we're going to be phasing out the ads that are built into the YouTube videos. So if you're on YouTube, that way you aren't getting served a bunch of YouTube ads. Instead, it'll be like us delivering the ads, and we are going to try to make them entertaining and fun.
Starting point is 00:01:26 And honestly, Vox is like a great partner. that we're really excited about. This was our number one choice of people to work with. And it's not just people serving us ads to make money. It's like this is a group that has a ton of connections with other creators, with like interesting news and journalists development stuff. They want to support us with our trip to China that we're going to do and other things like that. There's events that they run that we're going to be able to be a part of,
Starting point is 00:01:48 a ton of support they're offering, other stuff as well. But we are like, this wasn't the most lucrative option we had. It's the option we were most excited about. So I'm genuinely stoked that this happened. To give you guys some context, we always knew that ads were going to be a part of the main show eventually, but we took our time picking a partner that we really liked and had a lot of confidence in. And that's why it took so long to get to this point to begin with. And yeah, if you want to hear maybe a longer winded explanation behind the changes that are happening right now with the types of ads that'll be on the show,
Starting point is 00:02:23 the way they're going to be rolled out, the way this interacts with like the Patreon, other questions. you might have. Very understandable. We released a little like 15 minute video on the Patreon that anybody can watch. You can, you don't need to be a member. You can just load the page and watch it. And it's basically like a 15 minute frequently asked questions on everything that
Starting point is 00:02:42 people have been asking and related to this. So go check that out. If you, if you have more questions about this. Is this you? Yeah. You recorded a 15 minute direct-to-camp video. Yeah, I just learned about this.
Starting point is 00:02:53 Because everybody was 10 minutes ago. Well, everybody had so many of the same questions. I was like, I'll just answer them. And we're not going to spend 20 minutes on the podcast episode talking about it. Well, apparently we are now because you have to explain yourself.
Starting point is 00:03:04 There's a mystery episode that went up without us. You're just upset because we want to talk to Gavin Newsome. You have to jam in some Q&A. So I need some time for myself. I need some time because I'm getting slowly pushed off of the show for Gavin time. Gavin, wait, not yet.
Starting point is 00:03:19 I honestly think this is great. It's like the best partner I could have asked for. I think there's a lot of great stuff is going to come out of this. So thank you all for supporting the show. Otherwise, it wouldn't happen. And like a lot of guests, like Steve Isman, for example, as somebody who we were able to connect with through these conversations.
Starting point is 00:03:35 Like there's going to be a lot of cool opportunity through this partnership. So we are stoked. Yeah. I have to say it's pretty surreal coming from like the more gaming and Twitch space to even get the opportunity to work with a company like this. And, uh, yeah. So supporting the show up into this point is, dude, I was sending them for examples of ads I've done.
Starting point is 00:03:55 And I sent one where I went into my, like, friends room naked and tried to sell them factor. We'll see, guys. This deal might not last because they've seen now Aiden's yard ads and your ads. And they're getting cold feet already. I sent the team at Fox.
Starting point is 00:04:13 I send them the factor adderee we did at the yard where slime is Hannibal Lecter and I'm Jody Foster. And I'm like, yeah, we want to do it like this. So anyway. So shut down watch. Shut down watch. Two weeks in. Is there any updates
Starting point is 00:04:31 you guys have heard about? I mean, it sounds like it's still will they, won't they? I mean, the big action, I don't know about this ending or not. I have not heard anything on that front,
Starting point is 00:04:39 but the Republicans, Trump specifically, have started to follow through with their threats of laying off huge portions of the federal workforce in retaliation of the shutdown. And if you could maybe quickly Google the department's affected
Starting point is 00:04:53 because they're not coming of mine right now. But this was the threat on the table from that side of the aisle. Like if you move forward with this, we're going to, we're going to cruise through and cut more agencies and federal jobs.
Starting point is 00:05:06 And my understanding is there is an efficiency in this process now because of the amount they already did it earlier in the year. With Doge? Yeah, when we were hearing about the Doge cuts, right?
Starting point is 00:05:17 There was this big air of confusion around how these are going to be executed. You know, what is legal to do and what is not legal to do? but now, because they went through that process early in the year, getting rid of federal employees is a little, unfortunately perhaps,
Starting point is 00:05:35 they're a little more familiar with the process now. And this action is a little easier to take. Yeah, the White House is saying it's going to ride out the shutdown by continuing layoffs, but troops and law enforcement will pay. That doesn't make sense, whatever. It doesn't make sense.
Starting point is 00:05:52 It's not like you're saving money right now because you're not paying anybody anyways. It doesn't, that doesn't make sense. You're not riding. out the shutdown by doing this. I will say it has gotten more confusing to me over time. How, how, and I was reading some of the comments on our last one, those people were like, yeah, it is just a mismatch of things.
Starting point is 00:06:05 There's a bunch of rules that don't fit together that have been pushed together and it just happens. Yeah, we should just clarify based on the last episode that yes, it is the case that everybody who is furloughed right now, the government employees who aren't working, are going to be paid. They're supposed to be. Yes, yes.
Starting point is 00:06:21 Barring some sort of breach of protocol, which that wouldn't happen under Trump. like they're you know they're supposed to be paid so we're not saving any money we're we're just not running the government which is just a crazy solution that we've come to Trump did say on true social quote we have identified funds to pay military troops I assume it's just the tariff basket I don't know what he's he's found an extra source of funds and eight like in the couch have you noticed he finds tariff revenue like it's in the it's in the cracks of your car yeah it's like a rich kid finds money
Starting point is 00:06:55 Digging in between the backseat of your Jetta and finding $10 billion in tariff revenue that is just laying around. Found $8 billion of unobligated research development, testing, and evaluation funds that will be used to pay the military. All right, I guess. Well, look, last week we talked about
Starting point is 00:07:10 the critical functions of the government that would really hurt people day to day. That stuff is still running. You know, airplanes are still running. There's been delays, but I know a bunch of people have still been flying. Nobody's died. So it's functioning, right?
Starting point is 00:07:23 And none of the really painful stuff has happened. But like we talked about, the one month mark is when the pain really ramps up. And that's why I think all of us are of the belief that this is going to last 30 days. Like no, there seems to be no traction whatsoever in the last week, which means probably it's going to the 30 day mark. And then tensions really rise as people don't get paychecks and they can't afford rent. Yeah. Again, everything I see, there's, there's been absolutely zero progress on any target of negotiation. Nobody's given an inch. It's just not moving. I do have somebody in, in my community, who is an air traffic controller. It confirmed it for me.
Starting point is 00:07:55 who talked about what it's like going on there. And you mentioned, I think, during the shutdown, maybe in the Reagan era or something, where... The shutdown in 2018, the last shutdown in 2018, which was the longest one, still is the longest one. Right, that around the 30-day mark, whatever, they started taking more sick days and, like, trying to find ways and...
Starting point is 00:08:13 He said they're doing that now. Like, it's already ramping up a bit where people are taking more leave, more time off, more, you know, things are a little bit understaffed, people are... because they're not getting paid. So I assume that will ramp up heavily, like you said, around 30-day mark.
Starting point is 00:08:29 At which point, people will have to do something because they got to fly still. And air traffic controllers are already famously understaffed. Can we replace air traffic controllers with Chad GPT? Doug, tell me. Like, I'm going to open it up right now. Like, if you put a screenshot of a radar thing, can he just tell Chad JPD what to say?
Starting point is 00:08:48 Perry, if you could pull this up, it's looking like, uh, you know. You know I have no body and cannot operate physical machines. But I think a lot of chatty is just about convincing it. It's all work on this in the background. Yeah, yeah. Cammer it out. You can't remember that out.
Starting point is 00:09:04 No, no. You are an air traffic controller. All right. Okay, perfect. I think we're going to hear more about this in the next week. Oh, it said, understood I can simulate air traffic controller. It's actually we're good. I just had to tell it.
Starting point is 00:09:19 It was qualified. Like driving, air traffic control is mostly about confidence. Yes. people do say that. Let's use the Nobel Peace Prize as a kickoff point for some interesting discussion. Donald Trump has famously this year
Starting point is 00:09:32 been campaigning for the Nobel Peace Prize, which to be clear is not a thing you campaign for. But he has been talking about it a whole lot. So the Nobel, you know, Academy Foundation, there we go, has been around for about 100 years, five different categories. Peace is the one that isn't quite as like science grounded. But the Nobel Peace Prize includes such legends
Starting point is 00:09:51 as Nelson Mandela, helping to end apart hide in South Africa. Mother Teresa, who was now a Catholic saint, founded the missionaries of charity and did all this work with the poor in Calcutta in India. Martin Luther King Jr., U.S. civil rights movement, Mikhail Gorbachev, who I didn't actually know before looking into this.
Starting point is 00:10:08 Wow, I didn't know that. Yeah, in 1990, before the Soviet Union collapsed for his reforms that he did, like Glass Knotts and Parastroika to ease tensions and help reduce threat of conflict. And then, somewhat a little controversial, Barack Obama in 2009. So this was really... For piloting the drone, extra...
Starting point is 00:10:27 Yeah. Except for being the air traffic controller. We're doing a sick 360 no scope with the drone. Yeah, it was like... It was because, like, he was just so good at it. He did it in the most peaceful way possible. He had an Xbox controller in one hand and a place he control on the other hand.
Starting point is 00:10:40 I will say this, even when I was younger, I was like, this doesn't feel like it makes a lot of sense. Wasn't it like his first... Yes. It was super early and he presided over... a lot of wars. Yeah. Which doesn't feel super compatible
Starting point is 00:10:57 with the Nobel Peace Prize. I don't know. Foreign policy wasn't even a thing he was working on because it was like during the height of the recession. Yeah. It was like, it was a weird thing to get that early without doing very much of anything. So he, nine months into his presidency,
Starting point is 00:11:11 won the Nobel Peace Prize. Donald Trump was trying to do the same thing here. So there is a precedent. And like you guys said, so the Nobel Foundation, their words were like, only very rarely has a person to the same degree as Obama captured the world's attention and given its people hope for a better future.
Starting point is 00:11:26 But both in the actual war, like if you pull this up, and the way people talked about it, and even what Obama then said, which is that he was like, literally in his acceptance speech, he's like, I am at the beginning and not the end of my labors. I haven't done very much. Like, so...
Starting point is 00:11:40 I do like the idea of like him getting the award and him being like, this doesn't even makes sense. No, literally, okay. Quote. And yet I would, be remiss if I did not acknowledge the considerable controversy that your generous decision has generated and then listed other people like Nelson Mandela or Martin Luther King Jr. and said like, I'm not in that camp yet. And so he was like, this is not something I deserve. And so what did he
Starting point is 00:12:07 actually do? He, uh, as he became a president, he went to Cairo in Egypt and was like talking about restoring relations with Muslim countries with the West because, you know, that is sort of fractured over the Middle East wars. He set in plan a motion to withdraw the U.S. troops from Iraq. Technically, Bush did that, but he also then reaffirmed it. You can't give it to Bush for Iraq. You can't start a war and then make a plan to get out of it and then get the Nobel Peace Prize.
Starting point is 00:12:36 Yeah, he also, just be clear, he's done it again. He then sent them back in for ISIS. Called for nuclear disarmament, you know, broadly set the tone for global peace and cooperation. Oh, and then also sent 30,000 more troops into Afghanistan, yeah. But the only thing I can really credit him with that would is years later the Iran nuclear deal. He, he, that was his. I'm reading this right now, and it seems very much about like the vibe.
Starting point is 00:13:06 Like it's like, it's vibes. It's vibes. He advocated dialogue. He helped, you know. Look, no disrespect to the campaign, but it's like he put hope on a poster and then he got the Nobel Peace Yeah, strength in international diplomacy and cooperate, but yet nothing actually physically happened. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:13:22 So this one was a little weird. And because of this and because of how much Trump has, let's say, pushed himself into all these different situations that have been going on, I think there's a real legitimate shot that Trump would win it. And instead, as of last Friday, he did not win. Instead, the winner is Maria Carina Machado
Starting point is 00:13:40 from Venezuela. Quick primer. Venezuela is currently being led by a dictator. Oh my god, I'm blanking on the name. Maduro. Maduro, right. And Maduro has not exactly been doing fair democratic elections. They've been hiding the results.
Starting point is 00:13:53 And so Machado is basically one of the leaders of the resistance who is trying to push for actual democracy. She is like in hiding. Her life is threatened. But she hasn't left the country because she's there fighting like really, really impressive woman. Somewhat interestingly, Marco Rubio nominated her in 2024 for the Nobel Peace Prize. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:14:12 So you can nominate people. And so before he became, you know, part of it. of Trump's team. Rubio even was like, called her like the iron lady of Venezuela as badass. And so I actually, so I did some research and I found the actual top secret document that the Nobel laureate foundation made to analyze Donald Trump's candidacy for Nobel Peace Prize, right? Some research. So they did, they just did a classic pros and cons here. All right. So pros, Venezuela democracy. Trump has been very pro democracy in Venezuela. And he's been talking about Maduro and his abuses. And they even put out a bounty on Maduro to try to like get him
Starting point is 00:14:50 arrested. So the, the actual winner, uh, this woman, Machado, she called him out and said Trump deserves part of the honor of this. Like she personally thanked from, he is the best thing you could get, right? The closest, the best best thing to getting it is having it. And so he loved that. Now the cons of the Venezuela things. He keeps blowing up boats without any evidence. So I was going to bring this up. Right. Yeah. And so they're saying it's drug boats, but they haven't said any evidence. And so he keeps blown up. Okay, but that's like a small thing. There's a couple boats.
Starting point is 00:15:18 Israel-Iran ceasefire. Remember in June there was a war between Israel and Iran? It's called the 12-day war now because it ended thanks to Donald Trump and the U.S. mediating an end to it, unironically. The problem is that he did also bomb Iran first. It's a give and take with the Nobel Peace Prize. People do say that about it. Yeah, it's not about always peace.
Starting point is 00:15:40 The name is misleading. The name is misleading. The name is misleading. It's a misnomer. It's very vibes-based. You have to have some peace in there. There's a lot of peace at the nuclear facilities after the bombs went off. Right, after.
Starting point is 00:15:52 Well, you bond them to keep the peace. Yeah. I mean, technically, yes. Yeah. Ukraine, Russia. He's made a big deal about how much he's going to solve the Ukraine-Russia talk. And he's been talking a lot to Putin. Unfortunately, the war is still going.
Starting point is 00:16:07 But Pakistan India ceasefire. Remember this? A couple months ago, Pakistani group basically killed, did this horrific terrorist attack in Indian Kashmir, or killed 26 people, India starts responding with missile attacks. These are two gigantic world powers who are about to go to war and Trump actually gets
Starting point is 00:16:24 in there and negotiates a ceasefire. He apparently, according to his own words, threatened a 200% tariff on the countries unless they would go to the table and negotiate. Which is a sick way to do peace, which is that you threaten them with tariffs on your country unless they behave. And that's actually like a pretty
Starting point is 00:16:40 sick achievement, except then India came out and said it wasn't Trump. they just talk directly with the military leaders. Yeah. I did, I did see that too. Wow. To be clear, I mean, this is an interesting one. You know, he claims full credit for ending it.
Starting point is 00:16:53 India says he had absolutely nothing to do with itself. And then Pakistan, who kind of wants to drive a wedge between India and America is like nominating him. Right, right, right. The Pakistani leader was like, Trump was great. He was instrumental. He was awesome. He's like, he threatened us so hard. And then we get to Gaza Sea's fight.
Starting point is 00:17:13 We're going to be talking about this in a lot more detail in a second, but this is a huge development where the U.S. has mediated this 20-point peace plan. Hostages were exchanged a huge, huge development, which is incredible and honestly amazing, and I think this does deserve some flowers. Obvious downside here, too early to tell. It's like we're a couple days in, and so we're going to talk more about this, as well as the fact that arguably a lot of all of what's been happening has been funded and supported by the United States up until now.
Starting point is 00:17:41 And so as they looked at this, apparently it was dead. even, but then the final thing that pushed them into the not awarding it to Donald Trump camp, he has pissed off the entire world with tariffs and threatening them constantly, pulling out of NATO and generally being extremely aggressive across the entire world. When did he do that? It's just that one thing. Almost clutched at the end. And I do unironically think he has done more than Barack Obama did in his first nine months.
Starting point is 00:18:06 Sure. His vibes are atrocious. And so clearly that is a bad thing when it comes to winning the. Nobel Peace Prize. Yeah. Trump decimating the vibes. That's why I would say Obama had like basically an empty pros column and an empty cons column so you could go off vibes.
Starting point is 00:18:23 If you have this many cons, it's hard to be like this is the guy. Though I do want to say the guys of ceasefire, we're going to talk about it. He, you know, Trump had a speech about Machado's win where he's like, hey, they should have given it to me, but, you know, she's pretty good. And then he says, you know, they gave it for what they did in 24. So who knows, Nick? Like he's like talking about. Right, right.
Starting point is 00:18:41 He could theoretically, if this ceasefire were. to hold for a year, not only could he win it, he might deserve it. Like, given this is the one he's been, of the seven wars I looked into him, there's really, it's very circumstantial on the seven. This is the one where he has the most actual impact, which is the Gaza ceasefire. So I'm interested in hearing more about it from, from your research, Aidan, but. Yeah. Let's, let's get into it. So this is a huge development and the Gaza Israel situation. Yeah, I mean, it's a ceasefire deal that is the potential end to this war, right? And I wanted to recap a little bit of the past month and a little bit in the past year. So, you know, the war has been going on since October 7th of a couple years ago.
Starting point is 00:19:24 In that time, Israel has killed 68,000 people in Gaza, mostly civilians. And over this time, many of people have called for a stop to this violence, right, over the course of this two years. and a lot of people or organizations like Human Rights Watch Amnesty International have called it a genocide. And then most recently, a UN commission of inquiry in September of this year released the first definitive statement from the UN calling it a genocide as well. And I would say at a personal level, the vibes in the past six months to a year, just reading news and like seeing people's broader opinions about this, I think as this has dragged on, there's been a pretty distinct turn in terms of the collective view
Starting point is 00:20:14 of Israel having gone too far. It feels different than it was like a year ago or a year and a half ago when you look at like the percentage of people who are saying that. And I think this pressure and this context of more and more countries and people feeling that way
Starting point is 00:20:28 is sort of building up to the moment in the past month and a half that we're in now. So the big development, that have led to this ceasefire specifically. On September 9th, Israel launches a strike in Qatar, targeting some Hamas leadership that they are currently negotiating with. There's an ongoing like just...
Starting point is 00:20:51 Hey, worked in Iran. There's an ongoing negotiation between Hamas and Israel to sort of figure things out for the future, right? And as they're negotiating with them, they attack them in Qatar. The same representation. Again, you know, I think what you said before about the opinion shifting is important as context for this because Israel has become more and more isolated geopolitically. Yes.
Starting point is 00:21:15 On its one major ally of the United States. And the United States is ally with Qatar. So this strike is like, you know, I don't remember the exact thing, but Trump himself, who's been a pretty pro-Israel guy and still is, was like pretty furious publicly about this attack in Qatar because it crossed a line of, you know, we're the only ones on your side you just crossed the barrier. Absolutely. It's crossing a significant line.
Starting point is 00:21:38 And, and... It's like if we went to Vox's headquarters and threw bricks through the windows. Well, I did it right yesterday, but only just to keep them on their chair. Just to keep them on their chair. And then you call for peace. And I asked them to raise our ad rate.
Starting point is 00:21:50 And then in reaction to this, or I imagine it was getting organized or spoken about prior to this as well, a block of Arab countries, including places like Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Qatar. present a peace plan to the U.S. in New York
Starting point is 00:22:08 ahead of the UN General Assembly that happened in September. And the U.S. is like, all right, this looks good. This is our chance to create a ceasefire or potentially end the war. Let's bring this to the Israelis in New York. And they go through all of these negotiations and they come out with this like 20-point plan
Starting point is 00:22:27 that Israel agrees to that admittedly, at first, the Arab countries aren't happy with. But after these negotiations play out, one more thing happens, which is there's a public photo shoot with Netanyahu in the White House where Trump gets him to phone Qatar in front of the media and apologize for the strike. Really? In this sort of, the pictures are pretty crazy, honestly. He's kind of like sulking.
Starting point is 00:22:55 Yeah. Netanyahu doesn't look happy in the photo. And Natanyahu looks like a yelled at child, to be honest. I mean, can I say one thing about the U.S.? because you mentioned the UN. I think that was a pretty key moment. Absolutely. That UN meeting,
Starting point is 00:23:06 because that was like a public display of how isolated they had become when Netanyahu got up there to speak and talk about... Yeah, there's two things happening in tandem at the UN Assembly, right? When Netanyahu goes up to speak, almost all of the room steps,
Starting point is 00:23:23 just walks out of the building, right? Symbolically, like, we will not tolerate Israel any longer. And then the other big thing that happened was France, Canada, the UK, Australia, Belgium, and a few other countries recognize Palestinian statehood for the first time publicly, which is this gigantic
Starting point is 00:23:39 public recognition of hey, we, Israel becoming increasingly isolated on the world stage, right? These are major economies. It's like almost all the major economies of the world were. Yeah. And at this point, right,
Starting point is 00:23:56 Israel really has only the U.S. as a significant player on its side, albeit the U.S. is the party with the most sway and influence over which direction like Israel goes on these things. And with this deal that they had negotiated with Israel at the time, they, they agree to this 20-point ceasefire, which is seen broadly as something that favors Israel more than the Ghazans and Hamas. Here, if you pull up this, I hadn't seen this before. This is, it's like a parent scolding a child. They like gave Netanyahu fucking corded phone
Starting point is 00:24:34 and make him read a script. In front of the public. In front of the cameras. That's insane. It was crazy. Man. So there's a note here in that there's kind of a theory that Israel agreed to this 20 point plan
Starting point is 00:24:49 because they didn't think Hamas would agree to a lot of the details of it. Like the idea that there's aspects of this that Israel wasn't super happy or Netanyahu isn't super happy with. but it was so, from their perspective, so unlikely Hamas would agree to the stipulations around disarmament and no longer governing the Gaza Strip. Point 13, they cannot, Hamas cannot have any role in the governance of Gaza in any form and they have to shut down all military and like they need to agree to this for the ceasefire to hold. But Hamas follows up and does agree.
Starting point is 00:25:23 So this, this begins to take shape in a reaction to both sides agreeing to this and Trump, you know, announcing that this is. officially agreed upon, Hamas releases, this was as of Sunday this week, Hamas releases the 20 remaining live hostages that they have to the Israelis. And then there's a prisoner exchange that also happened earlier this week of about 2,000
Starting point is 00:25:48 Palestinians prisoners and detainees being released back to Gaza. And then the other beginning stipulations of this are aid is allowed to like flow freely in and out of Gaza again. there's going to be increased economic support to Gaza to help them rebuild Hamas has an opportunity
Starting point is 00:26:08 like Hamas officials have an opportunity to decide whether or not they're going to like stay or leave and be like set up residents in like other countries Gazans also like Gazans broadly are like free to return to their like cities and towns where they used to live in
Starting point is 00:26:23 you're seeing like a lot of pictures right now right people walking long long distances back to their homes that are now destroyed from what happened. And, Kai, two other ones I thought were interesting in this 20 point plan. One is no one will be forced to leave Gaza, which sounds obvious,
Starting point is 00:26:39 but months ago Trump had been floating this idea of like moving Gazans to a different country or something. And so that is like baked into this peace plan that like that is not happening. And then point 16 is that Israel will not occupy or annex Gaza. So it's a very explicit like they have to leave. Yeah. And I want to, so I want to come back to that specific point and also a few other of these.
Starting point is 00:27:03 The two other things that has happened like over the course of the weekend is Trump flew to Israel, makes a speech, and then Trump goes to Egypt for this like Gaza Peace Summit where they're with a bunch of other countries from around the world, showing their approval for this agreement, announcing what the future is going to be like and how this plan is going to play out. But I think one important thing is that Trump, in the, build up to this or around these things has said that he's saying the war is over. But Netanyahu has not said that at any point. And also at this Egypt summit, Israel wasn't there. Israel didn't go.
Starting point is 00:27:45 And neither was, you know, Hamas or like any form of like Palestinian representation from what I saw. So it's weird to have this like giant summit around this deal, but not have either party present and just have. and just have it be all the other countries that help negotiate said deal. So where does this leave things right now, right? There is absolutely an immediate sense of relief from whether or not you're like Palestinian or Israeli for maybe different reasons.
Starting point is 00:28:16 There are a relief of just the violence being over, right? For Gazans to like no longer be under attack in this war and for presumably this genocide to be over, you can like return, you can safely. return home. I mean, aid is now allowed to flow in. Eight can flow in. There's some relief there no matter what. But now we're at the rest of this where the beginning stages of this plan are being put into place and Israel is like falling back their lines of occupation on the Ghazan territory, but the territory is still currently occupied. And this 20 point plan has a bunch of stipulations of
Starting point is 00:28:50 the follow through both on Israel's end and Hamas' end that need to be like continued to be followed through with. And Netanyahu's lack of recognition of the war being over sort of indicates that, you know, Israel might just start this up again. Because there have been previous ceasefire agreements where Israel, like, agreed to a ceasefire for a period of time. And this just launched, you know, launch a missile and then continued it. Now, I want to say, if you, the geopolitical situation is such that it would be tougher for them to break it than they have in the past. Exactly. Because the reason they negotiated to begin with is because they're so isolated. They're defended on the United States.
Starting point is 00:29:26 And I'd say, finally stop backing them or at least push them into doing something. Yeah. And now they don't have the hostages as a, I don't use the word excuse,
Starting point is 00:29:33 but like as a, as a cause. They can't be like, we have to go save our citizens. If there's no more hostages under, they can't begin rebombing Gaza and try to, it just further isolates them.
Starting point is 00:29:45 And it would be a violation of what is a publicly recognized pretty good, not a pretty, a positive peace deal. There's also weird, I mean, maybe just weird from my perspective
Starting point is 00:29:54 of reading it, stipulations in the plan. So point nine is Gaza will be governed under the temporary transitional governance of a technocratic, apolitical, Palestinian committee responsible for delivering the day-to-day running of public services and municipalities for the people in Gaza. And then one of the people that it says
Starting point is 00:30:14 who's going to assist with this is Tony Blair, the former prime minister of the UK. And I think there's just, what I have been reading, because there's so many different ideas and opinions and sources. And even the way this was agreed to feels like, uh, like,
Starting point is 00:30:30 uh, feels like there, there may not be a follow through or a full agreement with all the aspects of this plan. It, it's very, it feels like there's a lot of details that, uh, won't be committed to.
Starting point is 00:30:47 If there's one thing the Palestinian region has needed, it's more British influence. We need to bring that back. Okay. Everything was so good. They drew the borders well. They set this all up well. We need to bring Tony Blair back in.
Starting point is 00:31:01 Well, actually, Tony, we might not be aware is Tony Blair is, he's knighted. He's a sir. So we actually need to do a new the crusade. He's like,
Starting point is 00:31:08 I'm going to run that. I'm going to fix this situation just like I fixed the NHS. We're going to send him, Sir Patrick Stewart, Sir Elton John. We're going to send a new crusade over. As many British people as we can.
Starting point is 00:31:18 Peaceful knights. To solve the Middle East. I do want to say, you know, you talk about the, tenuousness of this deal. It's only been a few days. Yeah. Or a day four or five or something like this, really early. And Israel is already threatening to re-block aid because they did not get the bodies of the deceased hostages. Which they're supposed to get from- They are supposed to get. And I guess
Starting point is 00:31:43 they've been trickling out. They got four additional deceased ones today, but they haven't got them all. So they're threatening to cut the aid. So it's on a razor's edge of like, but that's, that is a and I feel like the primary thing maintaining this is just the U.S. pressure and influence. The fact that they have finally caved to like a small degree
Starting point is 00:32:03 and pressured for this deal to be the case that's like the biggest thing that makes this different from anything in the past but it's still a question of whether or not it will hold together.
Starting point is 00:32:14 Like the, you know, just because the 20 point plan says the occupation is supposed to end doesn't mean that it's going to end. And then one thing I was thinking about is even if it did, right?
Starting point is 00:32:25 None of this has anything to do with the West Bank. The West Bank's not mentioned at all. The settlements in the West Bank aren't mentioned at all. Like, there's a whole other section of this issue that even if everything in this agreement was fulfilled perfectly, right? Yeah. It's not like Israel, Palestine, as a, you know,
Starting point is 00:32:46 as the issue is like solved, right? Palestinian liberation. The worst. Yeah. It's, it's, uh, so, it all feels so precarious. That was what I walked away with. It feels confusing, precarious,
Starting point is 00:33:00 and I'm happy that the violence is over in the short term, but is this something that is followed through with. So that's what I want to say is like, obviously I've been a bit of a critic of Donald Trump. For a lot of episodes and a lot of big and clips. But if this held, let's say, through a full year of next year, it would only be because, yeah, he has to keep his attention on this thing.
Starting point is 00:33:22 Oh, it would require Donald Trump to actually continually think about this, put pressure on it. If he turns his attention and gaze somewhere else and stops carrying, this will fall for it. So if he did it, I would actually say that is more than what Obama did it could be earned. Like, I wouldn't mind him getting the Peace Prize for that. This is going to take significant focus. Imagine Tony Blair gets the Nobel Peace Prize next year. That's fucking crazy. So what you're saying, I think a critique I've seen pop up a lot.
Starting point is 00:33:52 is Trump has this way of doing business. Is he announces a change that he sees himself as involved in. And to his credit, he is involved here, right? And then he makes it very grandiose. He's like, the war is over. It's one of the great moments in civilization. He said he ended 3,000 years of war in the Middle East. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:34:14 He's like, but he has a history of doing one, he said that. of doing something or saying something like that and then kind of moving on and going to the next issue or the next toy without, and leaving the follow through and the details to others, right? Yeah. And I think with a situation like this,
Starting point is 00:34:34 that seems like an approach that isn't going to be sustainable. That's my opinion. Yeah, I mean, we don't know. I agree with you. It seems tenuous. It seems like there's a lot of things that could break it.
Starting point is 00:34:47 Any small action. even by an individual actor could domino effect, could escalate. I mean, anything could cause someone to feel like they don't need to do their up into the bargain and then escalate and then goes back and like it. Okay, so I have a question that falls up on this. I feel you guys follow this more deeply than I do.
Starting point is 00:35:06 So I would like to think I somewhat represent the average person who is, I think it's safe to say the average person also doesn't like what Israel's been doing and is not happy about what Israel's been doing and thinks this is a shitty situation and that Israel shouldn't be supported with the way they've handled this.
Starting point is 00:35:22 Why is the USA the only ones still left supporting them? Do you guys understand? Like every other, because it's like you said, it was in the past couple months, it went from other countries being like, we really don't want this to like full on Palestinian statehood. This is a genocide. I mean, it's a major ramp up.
Starting point is 00:35:38 And this is like France and Germany, right? And like, what is happening in the U.S. that we are so steadfast with this? I don't get it. Hi. So my girlfriend also asked me this question. and I'm a 20-year-old podcaster, I'll give it my best shot.
Starting point is 00:35:52 And before I answer this, please, just relax. Just relax. I'm just, just relax. My understanding is that Israel has spent a long, long time like crafting support within America and the American government, and they are trying,
Starting point is 00:36:15 like they need like one big party to exist as they are now, like in the safe or like stable fashion that they are. And then in the U.S.'s interest, this is a country in the Middle East that's like a relatively unstable region for U.S. relations and has other threats like Iran.
Starting point is 00:36:36 So it's important to have a deeply tied U.S. ally in the region in order to like combat that potential threat. Right. That's my very loose understanding. is there's a mutually beneficial arrangement here and like deep historical political ties between the two countries now that are hard to just snap a road
Starting point is 00:36:57 because you can see, I would say, especially this year and past two years, a huge disparity in the level of like political support for Israel in like the political establishment versus the support for Israel from the average citizen right now, right? That's what's deviating like around the world. Yeah, I want to give this,
Starting point is 00:37:17 Same caveat, but older podcaster, but same thing. But I want to talk about it. So my understanding is that, you ever seen that old clip of Joe Biden from like literally 40 years ago where he's like early term senator? And he's like, if Israel did not exist in the Middle East, America would have to invent in Israel for its interest. Like, you see that quote? General idea is that it's like an unsinkable aircraft carrier in the Middle East.
Starting point is 00:37:41 And because of the conflict there, because we did a previous episode where I kind of showed the trade routes that go through the Middle East. and the abundance of oil is that America needed a strategic military intelligence ally. The same way that Russia got really deeply in bed with Syria and the same way that China is getting close ties with Iran. You just need, as one of the big bros, you need a little bro in that region to make sure that your interests are protected. And that's how it worked.
Starting point is 00:38:08 But then the tail began to wag the dog over the past decades, as Israel used focused political pressure and, you know, they have political lobbies in America. Right. To sort of, instead of becoming the thing of America's interest, America became sort of subservient to Israel's interest. And they flipped it, which has been kind of going on until really this Qatar bombing.
Starting point is 00:38:32 This Qatar bombing is like the first time I've seen a big shift where it felt like even in the Trump administration, they were set, even like Tar Carlson was like, this is not like, Netanyahu was playing us like a fool. And so they flipped on that front. is my understanding. From a pure geopolitical statement, I feel like that is what's been having
Starting point is 00:38:50 was Israel was kind of flipping their relationship to their benefit. And then now after Qatar, Trump kind of... Yeah, it's like the left politically, I mean, not even the establishment. The left outside of the political establishment has been obviously extremely vocally critical. And then it feels like recently,
Starting point is 00:39:05 even politicians who are elected are starting to be like, eh, not a fan of this. You know, just such a massive departure. The actions, the actions they've taken, and also the level of media that you have to display them, right? There's so many cascading little things that have shaped opinion outside of,
Starting point is 00:39:24 in a way that could never exist before. I think also one interesting point I saw come up is Netanyahu was meeting with, I think it was like a Christian religious group in the US, and he was talking about how they could maintain support from Americans. And he was talking about like, moderating TikTok or moderating American platforms, like censorship on America media platforms
Starting point is 00:39:56 to help shape people's view of Israel. And I think when you're a Tucker Carlson, right? You hear that and I, you know, not a Tucker Carlson fan. Well, but he, don't say wow. You listen to do it a lot. Don't say what. But even like Tucker is somebody that hears that and is like foreign government influence
Starting point is 00:40:17 my free speech and media consumption. Yeah. For their benefit. For their benefit, I don't fuck with that. So I think this past two years is this, Israel has taken a bunch of actions and said a bunch of things where people are like revisiting the like cultural or like historical idea of their country's support for them.
Starting point is 00:40:36 And they're like, wait a second. I don't like this. Yeah. And that's, and so they're kind of paying the price for their own actions here outside of the, you know, the moral implications. Yeah, you know, on a moral front, too, it's like, you know, October 7th is a horrible attack,
Starting point is 00:40:51 but I don't know how many people died, 2,500 or something, I don't actually do remember. It was like, it's like a little over 1,000, I think. But so if you're immediate retaliation, whatever, for defense, okay, you get that. But if it's two years later and you've killed or starved 68,000 people, it becomes more and more,
Starting point is 00:41:07 like displaced a million, it just becomes more and more apparent, very obvious to the rest of the world, that this is not an act of defense. It is not, you know what I'm saying? It's so clearly beyond that. And so, and I think they were willing to put up with that until it became so isolating economically. I think now that like, I think a lot of deals were getting cut off with major European Union countries and things that made them very dependent on America.
Starting point is 00:41:34 And then America flipped. And once Trump flipped, that's it. They have nobody left to, yeah, it won't work. A friend mentioned, like, there's little things that add up over time too. Like, you know, Netanyahu flying on his point. he doesn't get to, he has to do like a weird route that takes longer to get to the UN now.
Starting point is 00:41:51 Or like I'm an Israeli citizen and like when I travel abroad I have to lie about where I'm from because everybody hates me. Oh true. And I'm, I think little frictions that are the result of this conflict existing add up over time.
Starting point is 00:42:08 The inconveniences have to be addressed at some point because they affect you know, Israel has to, Israel has to reconcile with like all of the reactions of the world around them and how that affects like not just their government, but their citizens. I like the idea of Netanyahu stopping a genocide because he wants no layovers. It's just I can't. I can't.
Starting point is 00:42:30 That's funny. I didn't mention it. Two of the most prominent people who nominated Trump had said he should have won the peace prize, Netanyahu and Putin. Wait, Putin? Putin said he deserved it for his work in Gaza. Wait, no way. About Trump? Donald Trump deserves a Nobel peace price. That can't be true.
Starting point is 00:42:48 I don't believe it. Says Donald Trump. I mean, let's fact check. Putin praises Trump's peace efforts as really doing a lot to resolve global crises. Putin,
Starting point is 00:43:00 maybe he said it after he didn't win and said, well. Sorry, yeah, yeah, sorry. He did not officially nominate. But both Netanyahu and Putin both expressed support for him being an advocate for peace.
Starting point is 00:43:11 That's your advocacy group. Which is awesome, right? Like you're, both of them are doing war together. Yeah, they're active. Well, active. Like the two people causing the most war and destruction. Yeah. Outside of Sudan, I guess.
Starting point is 00:43:22 That's even like the thing is like, I get what you're saying or not with you. I get the idea that you communicated, which is that America needs some sort of like base of some kind of safety that in this giant region where there are antagonistic countries like Iran. But then if the base you've set up pisses everybody off all the time, that's not actually helpful. Like that makes everything. worse, man. I think that's what they figured out. I think, I mean, Trump was probably the last, took him, you know, he got there the last possible second, but I think that is what it's again, it's like the bombing I ran before doing the peace deal type of thing. It's like, you know, at some point proactively doing all this violence. One thought I want to close this out on is if you
Starting point is 00:44:03 are interested in hearing more about this, like, I encourage you to read more, I encourage you to look out more than like just listening to the show. I thought reading through the full 20 point plan was particularly helpful. So if you have some time, just look it up, like just Google it, full 20 point plan. And I think it's very illuminating of what like the goals are at least. And it gives you a framework of how successful this is as it plays out. Yeah, I want to add on two things. So you can just on Wikipedia, it's just Gaza Peace Plan is the thing and that it has the 20 points listed there.
Starting point is 00:44:40 It's a pretty quick read. This is not, you know, tons of pages. Yeah. And then the second is an article that I think is phenomenal. And this is, if you're somebody like me who has tried to follow this conflict, but feels like, holy shit, there's so much going on. It is so hard to parse what's going on, what's exaggerated. Isaac Saul is the lead of a publication called Tangle, where he like puts out daily newsletters. I think it's phenomenal.
Starting point is 00:45:04 It was turned, I was turned on to it by a friend. So he made an article called, I think I'm leaving Zionism or Zionism is leaving me. So he's an American Jew that then went to Israel as birthright. and spent, I think, like a decade living in Israel and is now back here, longtime staunch supporter of Israel. And then he basically talks about his reckoning and frustration with this over time
Starting point is 00:45:23 and how he has now basically views this as a legitimate genocide and goes into detailed explanations of why you could classify it as that. This is by far the best thing I've read and it's very much like tries to understand both sides. So if you want to hear more from somebody who's really participated in both sides of this,
Starting point is 00:45:41 excellent article. Highly recommend. One thing I really do want to learn more about, and I didn't have time to read more about it, was the internal political situation of Israel. My understanding is that Netanyahu is like part of a farther right group within Israel, who also was being investigated, you know, that he was able to declare like emergency powers for this conflict
Starting point is 00:46:01 that allowed him to extend his term as leader of Israel and avoid persecution for things that he had done before the past. So I don't fully understand that line. I don't understand the other factions within Israel who are trying to do different things and what they, are their chances of winning or, I don't know that. I tried to follow that actually a bit more
Starting point is 00:46:20 because I think my understanding on that was really foggy as well. What I found out is he is struggling a bit politically within Israel. Like he isn't well liked by a lot of people, but it's not for, it's because of those corruption reasons rather than...
Starting point is 00:46:38 Rather than the genocide. Rather than the genocide. Like nobody's like, most people in Israel are not like, he's committing these like human rights atrocities and this is why I don't like him. They like him for different reasons. And there is, I mean, I don't have it pulled up right now. I was going through some like public polling in Israel
Starting point is 00:46:56 and how they view like the war and how they view Palestinians in general or like how Palestinians are being treated in the war. And it's pretty heavy handed in one direction of like, they think it's fine that it's this way. not literally everybody, of course. But I think with stuff like this, you can read, read, read.
Starting point is 00:47:18 You know, there's more and more to learn about it. Just one thing I want to learn more about. Well, interesting. You know what else is a war? The trade war. Let's go to a lighter war. That doesn't involve a lot of guns. But, you know, who knows where I'm going to leave.
Starting point is 00:47:33 The thing is, it could get some guns involved eventually. That's why I'm wearing my goats. That's just, it can't be our lemonade. Stan Kerr. By the way, if we eliminate Stan Curse World War III-Aided, you bite your fucking tongue. I'm wearing this as a message of peace to Xi Jinping, all right? I'm wearing my Xi shirt to bring the American Xi Jinping.
Starting point is 00:47:53 Inside of you, there are three Gis. Yes. Yes, there are. And the trade war is escalated. And I want you to give an update on, you know, a real line has been, I would say, crossed in the trade war recently that is leading to massive movements. on both sides.
Starting point is 00:48:11 So I brought this special top secret container of rare earth metals that I shipped in from China, which is the only place where, no, you can't look at it. I can't look at it. I can't look at it. I'll show you there. We all know that there's been a trade war
Starting point is 00:48:27 between the United States and China, pretty much kicked off by the United States. They were the ones that first put on the tariffs and have been trying to reshore manufacturing from China. And they've also been doing restrictions on AI chips and data center chips and, you know, top, top level technology stuff to prevent it from getting the Chinese hands.
Starting point is 00:48:46 Okay? So that was the impetus, but it's been sort of at a standstill. They've had negotiations, but nothing has really changed. Recently, China, like a few days ago, China announced what is a massive, massive escalation in this war, which is a restriction of rare earth metals to everyone else in the world.
Starting point is 00:49:05 You know, I'm going to get to it. So this is a rare earth bombshell. Now, if you don't know, a little context, China accounts for half of, the global rare earth mining and 90% plus of processing, which means essentially in, in effect, if you make anything that use rare earth metals, you will be working with China. It will be going through. Yeah. I have a question. Yeah. They're called rare earth minerals. Are they rare? We're going to get to that. Thank you for setting that up, but you do it in three slides.
Starting point is 00:49:30 Okay, all right. All right. Yeah. Set me up again later. Okay. Ask it again. The United States, for example, we have one rare earth mine in California, Mountain Valley. Um, and, no rare earth processing. So this is how the United States get rare metals from its own California. They mined it out of the ground. They get big lumps of dirt and rock and they ship it to China
Starting point is 00:49:50 who then processes it and then ships it back. That is how we do it. And that's how most countries do it. Yeah, sure. They're called rare earth minerals. No. Is it actually rare? Okay, look at this graph.
Starting point is 00:50:02 You can see very easily that China is dominant in global output of rare earth minerals, United States. And this is after refining, right? Yeah. Okay. So this is 70% of the actual
Starting point is 00:50:11 usable stuff. Yes. Okay. Yes. Yes. Yes. Okay. So there are a number of rare earth minerals.
Starting point is 00:50:17 Actually 12 that China have put import or export restrictions on. But I want to talk specifically about these seven. They have absolute leverage, absolute dominance over these minerals. We basically cannot build things that use them. So this right here, Doug, is samarium. Okay. Do you know what samarium is used for? That's right.
Starting point is 00:50:39 Nuclear reactors, electronics. magnets, okay? This is gadolinium. You can't eat them. Okay. Did you just lick it? This is used for data storage. Again, nuclear reactors, MRI high frequency contrast agents.
Starting point is 00:50:56 And of course, defense, like sonar and sensors. This is terbium. It's used for fuel cells. LED lights, smartphones, TV screens. Again, requires China. This is dysprosium. And they have 99% market share in this. Disprosium used for electric vehicles for wind turbines.
Starting point is 00:51:17 For again, nuclear reactors, EV transition. It's critical for an EV transition for any country. And you cannot do it without dysprosium and you can't do that without China. So they put one of these in my car. That's right. They stick it in there. And it turns on. It's like the reactor in back to the future.
Starting point is 00:51:32 This is lututium. I don't even know. Lute etium. Letium. Medical imaging, catalyst, high electronics. Etrium. LEDs, superconductors, medical, ceramics. I can see why this one is worth a lot.
Starting point is 00:51:46 This is a cool looking mineral. And of course, finally, we have the one everyone's trying to get into Scandium. Okay? This is for creating light aircraft, like light high-tech aircraft. It's used for, again, fuel cells, 3D printing, a lot of high-tech stuff.
Starting point is 00:52:02 Okay? Strategic takeaway, yeah. You want to raise your hand? Is they're called rare earth minerals. But I don't understand why so many people are trying to get into Scandia, but not the others. That's a great question. First of all,
Starting point is 00:52:14 all of these rocks are not what I said they were. Just rocks from around the town. Oh, dude. Wait, what's the one I licked? I'm sick of YouTube. Can I say, can I derail for a second?
Starting point is 00:52:24 I'm sick of you too making long-winded presentations where you rug pulled. Little bait and switches. Yeah, this is just a box full of rocks that I found. Just fully believed him. Yeah, no, I did.
Starting point is 00:52:34 I did, yeah. However, however. Come to think about, I don't know how you would have gotten all of this in three days. is actually very difficult. You can only get them in like school level sizes because China will not export them to you via Amazon. To prove my point about how China won't export this, here's a box of rare earth minerals. Yeah, but all the things I said were correct. So obviously,
Starting point is 00:52:56 this has thrown Western companies and basically anyone who's not in China into chaos. This is what a rare earth mine looks like. And these are the elements. Okay. So again, these are actual elements that are fundamental to the earth around us. China has restricted the world from using these elements without their permission and then recently added five more. So now there are 12 elements that essentially China has declared sovereignty over, which means, I want to explain, I read through the Mothcom announcement. If you want to make anything that uses these and has even 0.01% from a Chinese source, which they pretty much all do, you must send an Apple to the Chinese government, get it approved.
Starting point is 00:53:41 You cannot resell what you make to another country without proven China. They're not just selling you the rare earth. They are selling you the right to use it in anything and anything you make with it, you cannot sell to someone else. They have declared total authority over these minerals they have 90% control over. They've like trademarked rocks.
Starting point is 00:54:00 Yeah. So it's a pretty big line in this stand. Like it's got people freaking out. Now, where did they learn how to do this specific plan and ideas? Let me show you an example. So this is ultraviolet technology developed in San Diego. And it happens to be used at ASML in the Netherlands to make their gigantic lithography machines that are used to make gyps.
Starting point is 00:54:22 Because they use this tiny part from San Diego in this massive machine, America has said you cannot export to anyone else in the world because you have a point, you know, you have a 1% American product in it. And so we will ban you from selling it to any of these countries in red and we will make you get approval for any other countries in blue. All right in yellow, I'm sorry. This is the exact model that China is now rolling out for their dominance of rare earth. It is between America and high-end tech and China and rare earths, and they are both
Starting point is 00:54:51 restricting how anyone else in the country and in the world acts based on their original input. So ask me a question. Ask me the question. Doug. Rare earth mineral name is it? Great question, Doug. That's a really wise question.
Starting point is 00:55:04 So rare earths are a bit of a misdomer. They're not that rare. In fact, every single day, you will see a new announcement from some country saying, oh, we discovered millions of tons of rare earth minerals. Kazakhstan found 20 million tons. Even China just found another. 20 million tons. I looked like barely any.
Starting point is 00:55:22 They're really heavy. They're really heavy. Sweden, you might talk about this, Aden, said they found the largest deposit of rare earth metals in Europe. And then right after that, Norway said, no, oh, we found the largest deposit of rare earth metals. earth metals. And I was thinking, are these the same deposit? You guys are right next to each other. But no, they are a 15 day walk apart. Okay, there's Aden right there saying, wow. Wow. Um, so every country does it. Uh, Wyoming has said they just found a massive, everyone does it all the time. And the comments in all these videos are like, oh, well,
Starting point is 00:55:57 get fucked China. Now we have our own. But the truth of the matter is they've never been rare. They exist in huge quantities all over the world. The hard part is refining them. Okay. And countries that do manufacturing like Germany are really. realizing how risky it is because they use this stuff all the time and now have to go apply to China for everything. And if it has any defense impact, China automatically denies on principle. That's what they said. So yeah. And the initial concern with why a lot of these countries didn't want to refine them in the first place or develop the supply chain to do so was environmental, right? Yeah, it's two part. One part is environmental. This stuff is pretty rough on the environment. You have to get massive quantities of
Starting point is 00:56:36 essentially dirt. And then you filter them. through with like very dangerous chemicals that often seep into groundwater. And then that brings out the tiny trace amounts of the rare earth metals that you then refine enough to have enough to use. So it's like it's really raping the environment. I don't know the better where it's like bad. It's like really bad. Like every area that does this has problems with like rivers getting tons of toxic chemicals in them. The land looks completely ravaged. But like this is how you get rare earth minerals. And you just need to find a mind that is far enough from. human activity to do it because it is required for literally all the latest tech and defense stuff.
Starting point is 00:57:15 That's how it works now. Okay? And so most people just offshore, they're refining to China. They just like they don't look at it, but they get the dirt and they send it there. And it's now become concerned not only to Germany, but all of Europe. Europe's entire manufacturing base is dependent on this and China can cut it off at will. Now, I want to say that China is not currently threatening to just cut it off. They're basically saying, you apply to us.
Starting point is 00:57:38 We're going to approve pretty much everything. If it has anything to do with defense, we're going to say no on principle. If it has anything to do with high-tech AI stuff, we're going to say no if you're touching America. That's sort of what they've said. And it's put, you know, everyone at high-ler. That guy looks like he's going to go burn down the Navi's tree.
Starting point is 00:57:55 It looks like he's about to pop a blood vessel. I can't get some scandium. He looked upset that there's any trees left near the rare earth minerals. So in response to this high-tech threat, But you know, we talked about this before. America closing its grip on high-end AI chips has caused, you know, things to slip to their fingers, as in China is now full speed ahead trying to get outside of a building their AI checks. This is exactly what's happening in reverse with China.
Starting point is 00:58:23 They have chosen this moment to draw the line and make their stand, but they are sewing the seeds of their own undoing because everyone is working full speed now because they know the risk. So France, which has huge nuclear power capabilities, and, deposit of rare earth is investing a ton in making their own rare earth. Refining plants. Australia has seen that, you know, their president,
Starting point is 00:58:44 Albanese, Prime Minister, came out and said, like, this is our greatest opportunity. We're going to do a trillion-dollar deal with America. We have a ton of rare earths. We have the ability to work on it. This could be a huge growth industry for Australia. That would probably be huge for Australia too
Starting point is 00:58:56 because their mining sector is so gigantic and it's sort of a drag in the sense that it's, they are so reliant on that sector for like economic growth. So if you could develop the supply chain a little more and add on to that, long run for Australia, that probably has to be so. Exactly. So the big thing, it goes back to the book, we read Breakneck, is that this stuff is hard
Starting point is 00:59:19 and it requires a lot of expertise. All that expertise is located in China, you can't just one-off throw money at it. You really have to build up this process knowledge of doing it a lot for a long time. And if you try to just half-heartedly do it or throw a factory here and there, not only will you not be good at it, but you will be uncompetitive competitive. to China who can do it at a bigger scale and cheaper. And in the past, every time someone's tried to set up a competing rare earth production facility,
Starting point is 00:59:44 China just lowers the prices, undercuts them, makes them not economical, and they go out of business. So they've been, it's been a multi, almost a decade long plan to set up this total control of rare earths
Starting point is 00:59:55 that they are now like putting into play as a way to like punch back in the trade war, which, you know, they have it right to do because they're being attacked and they're trying to like, but it's what's happening. So real quick, do you know,
Starting point is 01:00:05 it sounds like because so much of the world sends their rare earth minerals to China for refinement, that in theory, a country like Australia could set up a just ton of refinement plants, for example, in the desert, because they have so much open space, right? So in theory, countries that are willing to, I don't know, designate a lot of land that doesn't need to be like that environmentally maintained, it could in theory get very successful. In theory, of course, like there's anything unique about China that makes them able to do this, but they have just done it so consistently for so long and I'm such a domic.
Starting point is 01:00:35 that it's hard to break in. But that's why this move is big, because before this move, everyone that tried to do it was like, guys, this is important. China has too much dumb as we need to do it. Everyone's like, yeah, okay. But then when push came to shove
Starting point is 01:00:47 and it wasn't profitable, they were like, well, you lose. Yeah, yeah. But now it's like seen as a strategic threat. So governments are willing to prop up companies that aren't yet profitable to make sure that the rare earth supply chain
Starting point is 01:00:58 works outside of China. It probably helps that all of these countries are interested in doing this around the same time as well, right? A wave of them doing it at once rather than one country trying to break in on its own. Yes, it's kind of becoming public. Everyone is now realizing at once what a threat this is, what risk is. Because they cannot have their own fighter jet program.
Starting point is 01:01:18 They can't have their own high, you know, there's a lot of high end EV program. They can't do that anymore without China's approval and they can cut it up in any moment. And to be clear, also semiconductors, which power AI, which is powering our entire stock market and economy. 100%. Like, it's everything. It's the same thing that like China and Russia and, a lot of those red countries are realizing about semi-connectors,
Starting point is 01:01:38 which is that American cut off at any moment. Okay? And so they have to get out of that thumb. So what does this mean? It means, number one, that stupid fucking Aden is going to win our stock competition, for sure. I was about to tell you guys, I don't know if you've checked the metals company.
Starting point is 01:01:58 That shit has broken $10. I bought this at one. Yeah. 948% gain this year. And it's because, companies like the metals company. And I'm not talking to me to just your, like literally 150 different companies
Starting point is 01:02:10 that are in the rare earth space are all skyrocketing. Because everyone around the world in the past five days has realized all at once, we need our own rare earth minerals and money is flowing from governments into this. Atriac actually took this presentation
Starting point is 01:02:24 from my personal hard drive from nine months ago. You planned this. Why did you invest in TMC? He saw a vice documentary. Dead ass. I watched. I went,
Starting point is 01:02:35 I, wait, is this one about undersea mining? Yeah, yeah, God damn it. Yeah,
Starting point is 01:02:39 it's not even the right reason for investing. I went back and found the video of the one I watched. It's like a 10-minute like MSNBC piece about the company or something
Starting point is 01:02:49 and it just really stuck with me because I saw follow-up articles and then when we did the draft I was like, I can only think of one company that I've actually researched and then I just picked it. And because in my head it was like energy
Starting point is 01:03:04 electric cars minerals, surely that'll go up. And then, and you just backed me up. And it fucking did. All right. This has become the most important thing in the world this year for almost every developed economy. And so it's happening.
Starting point is 01:03:18 So in response, you know, we talked about the follow up where Trump, you can take that off the screen. Trump is doing 100% tariffs on China because of this escalation. And now he's counter escalating. And he walked it back a bit after the market reacted poorly. And there's going to be a meeting in South Korea between Xi and Trump, in a few weeks where they hopefully talk this down from the ledge because it's now getting insane. But I wonder what you guys think because I actually think China may have played their hand too early on this one.
Starting point is 01:03:45 It feels like they had this dominance and they might still have it for years to come. They will have it for years to come. But this is because they're even walking it back. China's like, hey, guys, we're going to approve almost everything. Like the first thing they said really was tough. And now they're like, don't worry. Unless your American defense will be fine. But everyone is not reacting with panic.
Starting point is 01:04:07 I know we have this show. Yeah. But it feels awkward as the guy who played Counterstrike for five hours last night to step up to the plate and be like, China played their hand to it. You know, it's hard for me. It's hard for me to say.
Starting point is 01:04:23 I think that's fair. But you have read, you read the book, Breakneck, and you seem to come to a conclusion that America's attempt to restrict China's AI stuff is kind of backfiring. Is that where you're at or no?
Starting point is 01:04:36 I think, yeah, it backfires no matter what, right? It doesn't matter when they make this play. Maybe there's a more critical moment. You could argue where the short term benefits you in some sort of higher stakes conflict. Like say we were actually at war or something, right? And then you play these cards because the stakes are so high.
Starting point is 01:04:57 Maybe there's a more opportune moment. But regardless of when you do it across all of these issues. As soon as you make a move like this that is heard so widely, everybody is going to react and start developing the tools to like combat the leverage
Starting point is 01:05:15 that they have over you. It doesn't matter when it's leverage. Well, that's what I'm saying is you... The longer you wait, the more your dominance entrenches and the more you can have that leverage unsaid. You know, use it when you actually
Starting point is 01:05:30 actually need it. I think to pull it out so. I would ask is how much more entrenched do they do they need to be? Like if you gave them five more years, 10 more years, I don't really know the answer that question. But it seems like from what you were walking through, their strategic position is as powerful as it basically could be. I think that's a fair point. I mean, they think so. As in like this is not an ad hoc plan. This didn't just come together. They have been planning for this. In fact, there's one mineral, one element, helium. that America had a dominance on. America was like the primary exporter of helium.
Starting point is 01:06:05 And China needed a lot of helium. And before, I think years ago, they were thinking about pulling this trigger in 2020, and they realized that America could counterstop helium, you know, and they planned for this. They said, we're gonna completely get off dependence of American helium over the next few years. And they did. And now there is no, you know.
Starting point is 01:06:24 And they could have birthday parties all they want. Yeah, exactly. Xi Jinping wanted to have this huge balloon birthday party and he was worried that Trump could cut him off. but now he can't. I have a question about the helium. Forgive me. Yeah, I might not know this one.
Starting point is 01:06:38 Isn't helium really common? Why is it so... Isn't helium the next most common one? Or I don't... There's like a limited amount. I don't know if the time... I don't know. I have this a limited amount of helium.
Starting point is 01:06:49 The sun be making helium. But I know that sounds silly. It's like maybe we just can't get it. Maybe we just can't get it. I don't know enough about this topic. I don't know how we could, like, collect I used fake locks. I don't understand how elements truly work on a fundamental level.
Starting point is 01:07:04 I just know that they're naturally occurring and China says they own 12. Yeah. There's a finite amount of helium on Earth. It's not a thing. You just have an infinite amount of. Shouldn't we just go to the sun and get it? I'll scoop it up. Shouldn't we just be scooping it up at this sun?
Starting point is 01:07:24 I'm asking Chad GBT. Sometimes. Sometimes on the show, sometimes on the show, I have more. Sometimes on the show I have to let my inner child run wild and ask the questions like, shouldn't we just go to the sun? Sometimes you have to explain Israel, Palestine, we can scoop up the only from the sun. I think this just a position is important
Starting point is 01:07:39 because it means if you're listening to the show, it's like you should go, you shouldn't just be listening to this show. Nah, you're good. Because in my head, it's like helium, the sun be making that. A lot of it. I'm going to push back.
Starting point is 01:07:52 What are you suggesting specifically that we go to the sun? Okay. The sun doesn't deliver. it here. The sun disperses it. Stop saying the sun be making it. Just that last time you should say that. That's true though. That's true. You know that's how it works
Starting point is 01:08:06 right. The sun is a hundred and 50 million kilometers away. Yeah, but it's gonna make it to us, surely. And then you can scoop it up. I feel like the sunny scene where he's like about stars. I don't know about stars to dispute it. Like I don't know.
Starting point is 01:08:22 I know for, look, if I know anything, I know for a fact that the sun be making it. You're no. part is correct. Korean from the sun has not reach earth in usable form. That can't be true. That can't be lying.
Starting point is 01:08:35 That's, I can't trust it. Come on. Okay. So any, anything else you wanted to wrap this up? I want to say this is just beginning. It feels like this is like this is gotten everybody both in China and in the rest of the
Starting point is 01:08:50 world on high alert as to this trade war being, you know, it feels like it goes like a, it's like a heartbeat or something trending down. It gets a little better, and then something happens, and it gets worse. The tensions are clearly deteriorating between these two countries. If I were to reach back into the Israel-Palestine section, we just did, right?
Starting point is 01:09:09 I was talking about how all of these things that you do add up into these little layers of friction that compound on each other over time for citizens of your country, right? Or maybe for your government's ability to take action. And I think here, right, the beginning of this trade war, as it continues to play out, as these things pass over time, they affect our lives individually in like little inconvenient ways that add up and add up and add up over time
Starting point is 01:09:37 that put pressure on presumably the American government to make a decision of whether or not they can continue to hold strong or if they need to cave in order to make the political base happy, right? And this is the same thing. I don't, I need enough time to play out and see what, How is this going to affect me in my day-to-day life? Because it surely will with enough time passing.
Starting point is 01:10:04 Well, the immediate thing is the tariffs. So, again, the way it immediately affects people is that Trump, in response to this, said, 100% tariffs on everything from China starting November 1st. And like for normal people, you might have ordered 12,000 mugs. Right, right. And the average per, again, speaking as like the kind of every man on the podcast, I have $100,000 in mugs arriving in a few weeks. and I might be fucked because what am I going to do when they're like,
Starting point is 01:10:30 hey, come get your mugs at the border and give it. Anyway, I, so this is, this is problematic. And then you might have already said this when I was researching whether we can go to the sun. Is, so there's this Apex summit. So Trump and Zier meeting on October 31st, it's in two weeks. So in theory, this is saber rattling from both sides where they will then go meet in person in South Korea at this yearly summit, and then they will both go, oh, we've come to an agreement. Because they've already done that, like five times this year, right? They keep doing this up and down
Starting point is 01:11:01 heartbeat, like you said. So in theory, this all goes away. And it was just a whole bunch of dick swinging, but it's concerning. That's the last part. I have a big question for you. So maybe you go ahead. Okay. I'll say is that, you know, I was re, I was researching for this last night. And I ended up on a real rabbit hole on what Taiwan has been saying about all this, which is very interesting. Because they're kind of caught between the two. Again, they make chips. They can't export because America says so, and they import rare earth that China says you can't make things with it. They go to America. Like, they're really caught between two worlds.
Starting point is 01:11:32 And Taiwan is extremely afraid that at this meeting, there is going to be a deal. We kind of talked about it before. There's going to be a deal where Taiwan uses a bargaining chip to get rid of this rare earth. Like America is going to withdraw support from Taiwan, you know, maybe not publicly, but like ease back from any protection as a way to get out of this rarer thing. and de-escalation and tariffs and a normalization. That is like on Taiwanese news.
Starting point is 01:11:58 They are talking about this pretty regularly. It is something that is like worried. And that's an interesting angle going into this because it feels like China's ultimate goal is not dominance and rarest. It is to reunify China and Taiwan. And they're willing to throw some things around to get that.
Starting point is 01:12:15 And so I don't know. That's interesting. Yeah, I don't know if that was your question or what. You almost exactly my question. We had touched on the idea of the U.S. China positioning themselves to actually get along and kind of not deal with these disputes anymore, where does that stand? But I think this is the exact answer.
Starting point is 01:12:31 And again, I don't know. This is just what's speculated in Taiwan. Of course, they're going to say that in Taiwan. It's like very refreshing relevant to them. But there's some credibility to it, especially given recent actions. So again, like a Taiwanese leader wasn't able to land in America recently. Like, yeah, like they were going to have a meeting and they blocked and they said, just keep going, just as a weight of simmering tensions.
Starting point is 01:12:52 with China, and then obviously Trump blocked the sale of some arms to Taiwan that were supposed to be sold. So it's like, clearly something's being discussed, and this could be a part of it. What else is going on? Well, I figure we could pivot to something light. Okay. I could give you my- like Sudan, bro. I could give you my 10-minute explainer on the Sudan Civil War. Dude, this episode's been so dark. Okay, hold on. Is that, good? That or AI erotica, okay, which is, that's lighthearted. You could write, and, you know, you could write, and, you, you, You could have Chad JVT write erotica about the Sudan war.
Starting point is 01:13:26 I won't do that. Doug, I'll tell you things I won't do and it won't be that. I think, you know what, actually, I think this deserves maybe a little more air time in the future. I've been following up and I,
Starting point is 01:13:37 maybe just to preview, I had a really good call with someone who's been living in Sudan, still lives in Sudan for 20 years. And we had talked about the war on Patreon. And I just did like preliminary research, reading articles of what's going on, and then talk to him for an hour. Very enlightening.
Starting point is 01:13:58 I think it's a massive conflict that a lot of people either forget about or flat out don't know about. I've stressed this every time I brought up. It's not a... These wars are not a competition, but this scale at which the Sudan civil war is unfolding at,
Starting point is 01:14:17 and the number of people who have died either a famine or directly from the war is just at a scale that I was so far beyond me. So I'm putting together some things on my end to bring it up on the show, explain it as best I can, and talking to people who actually live there. So I want to a little preview for the future.
Starting point is 01:14:39 Why do we talk about something light? A little AI erotica. Yeah, so in equally important news. sex is fun. Sex is fun. Is this going to be, is this like Sora erotica? Kind of, I mean, this isn't so, like, the actual story itself is, is interesting, but not incredibly impactful. If you pull us up, Perry. So Sam Allman, head of Open AI, said, Chad, TBT is going to soon allow erotica for adult users.
Starting point is 01:15:11 So the main point of this is not really about being able to write cool porn. it's more that there is a general question about how restrictive these AI models should be. And as most people are aware, especially recently, Chachabit and Sora, the hot new video model, right, are both incredibly restrictive as they currently stand. When Chachabit 5 came out, one of the big criticisms is it stopped feeling like a kind of personal type of friend and became a much more like clinical objective person. And they've talked about how that was essentially to avoid the challenges they were having, like people being told to commit suicide by character AI or, you know, these other things
Starting point is 01:15:49 where people become really deeply, emotionally dependent on this thing to an unhealthy degree. So they essentially, there's a pendulum that is swinging where they release a product and it's either way too overly restrictive or not restrictive enough. Case in point last week, they released Sora or two weeks ago, they released Sora. Tons of copyrighted content out the gate. And then they swung it way back and everybody's pissed off because it barely makes anything without getting upset at you. I can't make my full SpongeBob episodes anymore. Yeah.
Starting point is 01:16:16 People are actually saying that. That's what on the Sorrow Reddit. They're like, I made, last week I made SpongeBob. It was fucking great. Now I can't. Fucking Sam, I'll let you tell yourself.
Starting point is 01:16:24 I hate you. That's unironically what is being said. Okay. And this is a response to that. Yeah. So he is basically acknowledging in the last few months, we have been too much on the side
Starting point is 01:16:35 of censorship over control. It's not going to help you. It's not going to personalize. We are aware of this. We're swinging it back. And we're going to pair that with more verification of age. So if you verify that you're an adult, we're going to allow you to make sexual content,
Starting point is 01:16:47 which if it's not abundantly clear already, this is going to be an absolutely enormous use case for chat chit and for all these AI companies, right? There's going to be so much AI porn and AI erotica and all this stuff, right? And so far nobody's really known how to navigate it, but what they're suggesting is, okay, if we allow adults to verify that they are adults, then it's okay. We're also going to be stricter around trying to find kids and try to gate how the AIs will actually act with them and not make them this sort of like, you imagine that tweet though? It's like I found this tweet to be so insane because,
Starting point is 01:17:22 uh, we, we talked about maybe a week or two ago. We pulled up the SORA blog and we showed like their, their mission statement and how we're going to be, we're going to be safe and our number one priority is creativity and not. And, you know,
Starting point is 01:17:36 I made the case on that episode was that like, on, that sounds good until there's a profit mode. whatever. There's something else that you need to do. And this post basically just says, like, we made it very restrictive to be sure we were careful with mental health issues. We realized it's made this less useful or enjoyable people without no mental health problems. But given the serious issue, we wanted to make it get this right. And now that we've been, basically now we've solved the mental health problem, but they haven't. They're just going to bring it
Starting point is 01:18:01 back because people are mostly upset. It's not, the idea that they've mitigated it or have new tools is crazy. It's just going to be, they've just realized that the competition is heating up. GROC, you know, Elon Musk is tweeting about AI erotica all day every day. Yeah, yeah. And GROC is coming, you know, for part of their lunch, and they just want to head that off. So I don't know. I can see the other side of this. I mean, so these models are being updated all the time.
Starting point is 01:18:27 Having safeguards in place to make sure, to be able to pick up on the idea of, okay, somebody is now talking about suicide in a way that clearly relates to them, you can train the models to learn how to identify this stuff better. So they've been fine-tuning this and doing this work. you can update models substantially after the core foundation is in place. So if you take him at his word, they have behind the scenes, they started really restrictive, and they've tested internally and shown, okay, we feel confident that this is actually not going to do weird things to mentally vulnerable people. I don't think it needs to be as cynical as what you're saying.
Starting point is 01:19:01 Are you confident that it's not going to do that to mentally vulnerable people? I think it'll be better than it was and it'll still be bad. And it's going to be an ongoing pendulum forever because everything is. That's what the internet is. That's what video games. That's what everything is. I sort of agree with that part of it, where I think all of the internet and all of technology is sort of preying on the vulnerability.
Starting point is 01:19:23 Everybody is going to find a way to abuse the new thing. You have to make adjustments. Sometimes you overcompensate for the abuse and then people find out how to abuse that new thing. I mean, this is how, you know, hacking and this is how everything works, right? With scams, it's like it's this never-ending battle between things like banks and hackers. or your fucking, you know, aim bots in CSGO and Valve trying to push back against aimbots. And so it's always changing behind the seeds.
Starting point is 01:19:47 You just don't see it. I'm not saying you're wrong, but I absolutely could see a world where they just are improving it. I don't know. I mean, I just, I have a hard time not seeing this. You know, it feels like there's a new announcement every week. And if you read it through the lens of,
Starting point is 01:20:05 we are going to do whatever is most profitable for us to get the money we need to pay for all the things we've promised, then it makes sense. but everything else it feels very... But this isn't necessarily... I mean... Do you think it's... I would ask,
Starting point is 01:20:16 do you think this is praying on anybody's vulnerability in like a really a new way? I would argue, if we're talking about the use of it for sexual content, then is that any different than the way people are treating this
Starting point is 01:20:30 as like their boyfriend or girlfriend, like they're emotional or like romantic confidant already? These are lumped together. It's going to do both of those things, what they're really saying is here is we have, we have sterile
Starting point is 01:20:41 sterilized the chat GBT. We have made it bland and lack of personality and extremely restrictive on what it is willing to do. We are going to pull back on that in a variety of ways and that's going to include it. You can be more parisocial with it. It's going to include sexual stuff. The sexual stuff, that's probably for money.
Starting point is 01:20:58 Like, I'll concede on that. I want you to make a J-O-I. Yeah. I read this far more as we are allowing this to become a personalized thing that feels like a friend again and take on the weird mental health challenges around that rather than we're trying to lock in on porn.
Starting point is 01:21:15 And here's another way, just real quick, of what you said of like, they're trying to make money. Like, yes, but also that is, that's hand in hand with make a better product. Like this is, what they're describing as a product that I, as a normal person, will enjoy more. I'm fucking sick of current Chad GBT. It's not fun to use anymore and feels overly restrictive. So if from their perspective of how do we make a better product, this will do that.
Starting point is 01:21:37 It's just whether they are actually mitigating the mental health or saying they are. Yeah. I just feel like this is them waving a white flag on even trying to stop that. This is them realizing that like the cost of customer satisfaction is not worth them trying to protect people from the most dangerous aspects of what this can do. They're saying fuck it. But like they should never try. Like they should just be overly restrictive forever. I'm reading this as them saying we're making another attempt to allow it to do these things and we think it'll be better this time. I feel like they should keep trying. Well, are they?
Starting point is 01:22:12 What I'm saying is like this post would be written exactly the same if they were giving up on that fight and just go all that is. Yeah, that's true. That's true. We just don't know. I got you. We don't know. But I just, I have a hard time trusting him because I don't think he's earned it.
Starting point is 01:22:26 I don't know. I don't think the actions of Open AI have been anything deeper than trying to maximize their own. The power in the AI ecosystem has been profit, which it's fine through for a company, but they keep putting out these posts where it's like, aiming for a higher. Yeah, it's very aspirational. But I don't think it's what they're doing. I hear you and I
Starting point is 01:22:52 and I can very much understand that perspective. I think part of why I lean the other direction is because I have watched as this company over the past three years has made my life better every couple months as these models have improved and just continue to do bafflingly impressive things. Like last week, I used their new coding model codex to program. this chess app where I had every chess piece controlled by an actual Twitch chatter. So it's 32 individual people on the board yelling at each other telling me what to do. It was fucking awesome. And one of the more complex apps I've done and almost it was like 90% vibe coded.
Starting point is 01:23:27 And it did it phenomenally well. And it couldn't have done that six months ago. So I'm like seeing these progressions of wow, this is really or the way it helps me like practice a new language or something. Yeah. I mean, I use it too. But those those features are, we're fully capable within the you might call safe version. It not acting like a friend I found to be, like I was kind of annoyed when it was a very sycophantic. You know, you're so fucking great.
Starting point is 01:23:56 Bringing that back feels like a cave to people that really wanted that thing. And I don't know. I found it to be useful for, like, if it's something that's on Wikipedia, chatty is incredible to talk. You can talk to Wikipedia. It's fucking awesome. But the idea that it needs to be.
Starting point is 01:24:12 be your boyfriend and girlfriend and giving you erotica sounds like dangerous. And it's something they don't care anymore because they're on a full speed mission because they've made now $1.3 trillion in promises for money they don't yet have. And they need money. That is true. I definitely, definitely acknowledge that that is a, yeah, absolutely factor. I would like to believe it's both. I would like to believe they want money and they're genuinely making it better.
Starting point is 01:24:35 There's going to be a lot of, there's going to be a lot of Harry Potter fan fiction writers that are out of a fucking job. Think about that. Think about that? What happens when you don't need a real human being to write about how Sonic fucks tails? How is the industry going to absorb these seven people? You watch out in the next jobs report.
Starting point is 01:24:58 You'll see it. You'll see it. You'll be sorry. The worst part of since the government shut down, it's just to be one big category of erotica. We won't know if it's Sonic and Tails fucking. We won't know it's Halo Master Cheats. fucking Mario.
Starting point is 01:25:11 I want details. Not while it's shut down. There's a team and they're all furloughed right now. Oh, our government was strategic SMUT initiative. I mean,
Starting point is 01:25:28 interesting story. Yeah, we'll see how it plays out. I would actually be curious. This is a comment farming. I really sincerely am curious. For people in the audience, what your take on this is.
Starting point is 01:25:38 Presumably a lot of you engage with AI tools in some way. I'm more talking about chat, Chibee, right? The ones you're using with on a daily basis for helpful things, not, you know, meta-AI jamming random shit in your feed, right? If you are a chat-tube-user, do you find the at least option for it to be more personalized, to be more human to, and potentially erotica doing, you know, going all to that, to that height? Does that sound appealing to you? Is that something that you want? Or do you feel like this, I'm fine with this not even being an
Starting point is 01:26:06 option for the sake of safety? I would be curious, like what people's use cases. Do you guys know the story of VHS and Beta Max? We heard that? Yeah. Do you grow up with VHS tapes you watch? So VHS was a standard and there was a better standard called Betamax that was headed by Sony, which at the time was like with the biggest tech company in the world, it was the most powerful tech companies in the world and well beloved by the American people.
Starting point is 01:26:27 And people thought Betamax is going to win. There was a better technology. It was better for movies. It ran better. And the story goes that VHS won because these early Betamax players and VH players were very expensive and VHS had porn. So the early adopters were people that were like, I'm going to spend a lot of money to get a VHS player
Starting point is 01:26:43 so I can watch porn. And BetamX was banning porn. And that allowed VHS to become the standard early and then eventually take off, even it was the worst format. And that apparently repeated with HD DVD and Blu-ray, where Blu-ray, Sony learned their lesson, made sure porn was allowed,
Starting point is 01:26:57 and Blu-ray players were bought. So I think there's an idea on the Elon Musk side that I am GROC, I am behind Open AI, and I'm going to lean all in on erotica because that will give me early adopters that make GROC better than tech. And this is Sam Altman trying to head that off by saying, oh, we're going to have porn, too. Don't worry about that.
Starting point is 01:27:15 And there's a bit of like a business case there. And I wonder if there's, you know, I feel like there's a connection to Elon Musk here on Sam Olman's side where this is so clearly a response to what he has been constantly hammering home. And now we're in like this weird porn race because they don't want to be the guy that doesn't have porn in this. I don't know. That's a good point.
Starting point is 01:27:35 That's a good point. In a weird way, gooning is holding up the entire SEP. And wow, that's time, isn't it? It's our time with a great wacky world. Oh, thank you. A lot of crazy stuff. Thank you for joining us on Lemonade Stand. If you want to check out that frequently asked questions
Starting point is 01:27:56 about our Vox Media partnership and the ads in the future, you can check that out on our Patreon for free. You can watch that for free. If you want any of the extra content we do, we do extra shows every week. You can go to patreon.com slash Lemonade Stand. we're planning our trip to China
Starting point is 01:28:11 for earlier next year. We hit the 10,000 patrons. We're going to China. We have a pretty cool guest. I'll keep it a secret now lined up. Thanks to people a box. And we also are doing, can we talk about Japan or no?
Starting point is 01:28:24 Oh, yeah, I'm down. Yeah, we're going to Japan. Doug's going to Japan on vacation and we were like, let's ruin Doug's vacation. Let's follow him and make it work. Let's make it work while he's there. Guys, I need some time here. Oh, we'll go with you.
Starting point is 01:28:35 We'll go. We'll go. That's the thing, Doug. You don't have to worry. We'll break the podcast to you. But we're gonna have a few guest episodes in Japan, where we're gonna get to talk about the political and economic situation
Starting point is 01:28:47 unfolding in Japan right now, which I think are gonna be really good. So you have a lot, I'd say you have a lot to look forward to you right now. We're pretty excited about the coming in weeks. And we're gonna do a Patreon episode this week where I jam an entire lemon in my asshole. Yes.
Starting point is 01:28:59 And then we're going to the sun. Wait, wait. The new lemon party. Fact check from last week, because I do want, it's in the comments. But I was off by a factor of 10. It is not one trillion dollars.
Starting point is 01:29:08 on SNAP a year. It is a hundred billion. And I what I realize is I got that wrong. I was pretty embarrassed by that because I saw a number by Chatsubit and Google Gemini's thing. And I was like, I don't want to trust these numbers. Let me go to the actual source. I went to the actual source. I found the government website, looked it up, saw the document. I was like, cool.
Starting point is 01:29:27 I know this with 100% confidence. And I fucking got it wrong. And I did the math because it was 100,000 millions. And then I multiple, anyway. So a hundred billion a year on Snap tariffs at the same time is closer to $200 billion. So the points remain, but do want to correct that number because that was pretty off. I also, I totally forgot about this. I also had a correction from last week.
Starting point is 01:29:49 I had said that there was a quota on like green card transitions to citizens and that whole block that people experience off their H-1Bs. It's not you're stuck on your green card. It's actually worse than that. You're stuck on your H-1B. There's a limited amount of green cards that can be given out to each nationality per year. So you can be stuck on your H-1B for decades, potentially, if you're Indian. So I just wanted to correct that really quickly.
Starting point is 01:30:14 There's a small thing. I saw pop up. But the important thing is even though we got it wrong about those things, our broad point was still correct. And that's all that matters. And that's all that matters. And in fact, the small details, they don't matter at all. I mean, the sun do be making helium, I think.
Starting point is 01:30:27 Right, right. And now that I think about it, never correct me again. Small details getting to the sun. Yeah. Okay. Thanks for watching. Oh, thanks for everybody.

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