Pirate Wires - Everything's Computer: Tesla & Elon Attacked, Columbia Protestor Arrested, & ChatGPTs New AI Writer

Episode Date: March 14, 2025

EPISODE #90: Welcome back to the pod! Elon took hits from all angles this week. Tesla cars & chargers are being attacked, the stock is down, X went down on Monday, and the people are protesting. The good news? Trump will take one of those Teslas! Our president seemed very impressed with the car, proclaiming “Wow… everything’s computer”. A battle of citizenship is underway as Federal immigration authorities detained Mahmoud Khalil, a Palestinian graduate student who played a prominent role in anti-Israel protests at Columbia University. Are we abusing free speech rights? In the latest tech news, Sam Altman & ChatGPT release a new model that is going after creative writing.. but is it actually any good? Finally.. the pod bros competition. On one side, Gavin Newsom interviewed Steve Bannon (what?) and on the other side, Michelle Obama's new podcast can barely crack 20k subscribers on YT. The media landscape has changed and it looks like Gavin understands the game better than anyone on the left.Featuring Mike Solana, Brandon Gorrell, Riley Nork, Molly O'Shea, Kartik SathappanWe have partnered with AdQuick! They gave us a 'Moon Should Be A State' billboard in Times Square!https://www.adquick.com/Sign Up For The Pirate Wires Daily! https://get.piratewires.com/pw/dailyPirate Wires Twitter: https://twitter.com/PirateWiresMike Twitter: https://twitter.com/micsolanaBrandon Twitter: https://twitter.com/brandongorrellRiley Twitter: https://x.com/rylzdigitalMolly on X: https://x.com/MollySOSheaKartik on X: https://x.com/sathaxeTIMESTAMPS:0:00 - Welcome Back To The Pod!1:30 - Everything's Computer - Elon & Tesla's crazy week. Trump buys a Tesla6:30 - Unhinged Protests13:45 - Canadians Want To Revoke Elon's Citizenship - Should elected officials have dual citizenship?18:15 - Citizen Hamas - Columbia University Protestor Detained by ICE31:45 - Thank You AdQuick For Sponsoring The Show!32:30 - The newest ChatGPT Creative Writing AI - Is It Any Good? What Does The AI Future Look Like?52:40 - Pod Bros - Gavin Newsom Interviews Steve Bannon - Michelle Obama Can Barely Get 20k Subscribers1:14:00 - Thanks For Watching/Listening! Like & Subscribe - Tell Your Friends!#podcast #technology #politics #culture

Wow. Everything's computer. Everything is computer, yes. This was the case for President Trump. Tesla stock has been kinda in the tank these days. And I do think that these people yearn for it. I think that the Nazi painted people yearn for Nazism. I think they're looking for moral clarity. And this is not a world of moral clarity. I'm partial to the free speech side where like, yeah, I don't like at all what he's saying. I don don't know that makes him a terrorist. How many of them do you think actually don't like it here? You have to want to be a part of this. Yeah, no America slaps. It's awesome I love it here, but like you're not coming here unless you want to be us that is the

What's up, guys? Welcome back to the pod. We got a pack show for you today. Brandon is still he's back, but he's editing. So we're going to give him a little break. We're going to come back with him next week. Obviously, everything's computer is topic number one. We're going to get to it in a second. Give you a little lay of the land.

We are ad quick copy coming up, courtesy of our partner AdQuick. Thank you, AdQuick. Citizen Hamas, how could we not talk about it? AI Voice, Sam released an AI fiction writer. I wanna get your take on whether or not this thing writes as well as me. And remember, Riley, I'm paying you.

Let's just get into the show, shall we? Riley, break it down. Everything's computer. Tell us what happened. Everything is computer. Yes, this was the case for President Trump as he stepped inside his magical Tesla Model S that he would later purchase as a sign of support for the company that is hitting a bit of a speed bump right now, no pun intended. Wow. Everything's computer. So number one, Tesla is continuing to see this trend of graffiti swastikas and other acts of vandalism on their products. I guess their showroom in Manhattan has been experiencing just this never ending wave of

protests. There's a crazy image of like a line of police officers in Chicago guarding their Tesla showroom. And on top of all that, Tesla stock has been kind of in the tank these days, as have a lot of other stocks right now. All of the stocks. They're down 50%. All of the stocks. All of the stocks, yes.

They're down 50% since December and dropped a whopping 15 percent on Monday of this week alone. The company's steepest drop since September 20, 20. Also, 350,000 Canadians have signed a petition to revoke Elon's Canadian citizenship, while the bitter governor of Delaware was on CNBC this week, throwing some parting shots his way. Elon's watching right now. What would you tell him? Elon who? Musk. Elon Musk? Yeah. Please, please stop cutting our federal government with a chainsaw. Please

preserve Medicaid. He meant about the shares. He's not coming back to Delaware with that. Yeah, I don't, Elon, yeah, he's running his company. I don't know. Oh yeah, and also his social media platform also happened to get hit with a cyber attack this week that caused widespread outages for the better part of Monday. We can talk about the governor for a quick second of Delaware. So this is the C Corp stuff we've talked about a bit, the fact that you have this huge drama in the tech industry over the question of whether or not to

incorporate your company in Delaware, which until now, everyone has pretty much just done. There have been very, very few exceptions to this rule. I remember I got involved in tech almost 15 years ago now. One of the things I was working on, the main thing I was working on was a class for Peter Thiel. It was CS 183, it was a class at Stanford. It was everything you need to know about starting up companies. And most of it was like high level kind of philosophy sort of class, really fascinating stuff.

It became his book zero to one. But I remember him kind of just running through all the basics of startups one day, because he felt like he had to just check that box. He got to incorporation and it was just like, it's a C Corp, moving on. You just do a C Corp, don't ask questions, moving on. Like this is a stupid question. Why would we even waste time on this?

Now it's somewhat of a conversation at least because Elon has led the charge. He's been targeted by the, what is it, the judge over there, who, I forget what her exact role is now, wasn't prepared to talk about this specifically, but he's been targeted. He has initiated an exodus. And then you have the governor of Delaware, who presumably should be very keen to this issue and care really a lot about it because this is a major source of revenue for the state of Delaware, if not the most major source of revenue for the state of Delaware. The fact that so many major corporations are incorporated there and they have the franchise tax and things like this. And he, when pressed on this issue, didn't seem to know much about it. He was like, you know,

screw Elon, like whatever. He said it in a nicer way than that. But it was very, he was pressed on Elon. He was pressed on Elon, he was pressed on the question of the incorporation, and he didn't seem to know what was going on there. And that says to me that we're leading with identity that is based on political affiliation, rather than anything else, which is another thing we've talked about before. But this is just a really important example of it, where if all you have is, are you voting left or are you voting right, everyone's actions here sort of make sense. That is their chief idea. They're no longer Americans.

In the case of this dude, it's like, he doesn't even care about his state. Just screw this guy who's not on my team. And, uh, kind of everything evolves, like, from there, from that point. I don't know. What do you guys think? So, this is the strongest form of backfire effect that I've seen. I'm not sure if you guys are aware of this cognitive bias.

So it's when people encounter evidence that contradicts their existing beliefs, and instead, they reject the evidence and then strengthen their original stance instead of changing their minds. So it's belief perseverance to the nth degree. You just continue to go down the same path rather than trying to change your mind or see the truth.

So Riley, I sent you this video weeks ago, but I was actually in New York City in the Meatpacking District walking around and there was a protest going on. It was people with rainbow beards and kaffias and ladies with stern looks on their faces holding signs like, Elon is a Nazi, not my president, rise and resist. And it was just, it was so incredibly weird because there was no one around. It was just them in front of a Tesla showroom, like a Tesla showroom. And you'd expect them to be a part of that mission. Who are these people?

Who they are, what are their jobs? This is not 2020 anymore. We're over saturated with media about protests, but if you actually look at the protests, they're very small. I just saw one today in the Trump Tower, and you had all these people yelling in Trump Tower about Nazis. I think it was something like, arrest Nazis, not students, or it was something along the

lines of that. They're talking about the guy that we're going to talk about in a second. And it wasn't, I guess what struck me about it was it wasn't many people. 2020, every single city in the country had massive protests, almost all of which devolved on the edges into riots with tons of property destruction. Many, many people were killed in over the course of these of these protests, these riots. It's just how did that happen? I think it was because so many people were home. So many people were getting checks from the government. So many people were understandably anxious

about just the state of the world and what was happening. And this was maybe an expression of that. It was kind of a powder keg. And people were available. But who are these people? This like, now it's like a much smaller group. And obviously there's a huge spotlight on it because the media is totally incentivized

to make it seem like the whole world is mad about Elon Musk and Donald Trump. Whereas I think most people just aren't thinking about this at all, unless they're super online. devised to make it seem like the whole world is mad about Elon Musk and Donald Trump. Whereas I think most people just aren't thinking about this at all unless they're super online. But I do wonder how they afford to do this professionally is what it seems like. These people seem as if they are professional activists. And I think that it probably comes from funding and probably in some way, if you broke it down, you would discover that you yourself are being forced to pay for this. I'm almost certain. I'm almost certain that I'm paying for this. Well, now they don't have their USAID money. So maybe there'll be

smaller and as we continue to go on. But you mentioned it earlier. Just the, it seems to be less about the cause versus just the general, I just want to cause destruction and chaos. I wrote a take, like along these lines that was like, first year destroying the priceless art in the name of protecting the environment. Now you're destroying the thing that's helping us protect the environment. Great. I think the person who maybe best like embodies this has Greta Thunberg, who one of our principal environmental activists, now she's sort of

like, latching on to the Gaza protest grift, which we'll get into later. So maybe it's just not the cause de jour for these people anymore. But I think the unfortunate thing though, is that like as the stock market continues to drop for Tesla, even though there's a ton of factors driving that, it's gonna be almost like a reinforcement mechanism

for these crazy activists who will see that as the Tesla stock dips, they're going to think, oh, that's because I graffitied that cyber truck or whatever, or like firebombed those charging stations in Boston. Listen, I think it might be part of the reason. I mean, obviously, you have this huge as you as we both discussed earlier, there's this huge stock market dip. But if you have to worry about I mean, what is a car, but it's brand, you know, you could say the Tesla is electric and elite and well built

and blah, blah, blah. I mean, it's cars are their brand. People drive a car because of its brand, what it says about them, how it feels, how it makes them feel when they do the same thing as clothing, same thing as your home. What how does it make you feel? There is a utility to it, which feel when they do it. Same thing as clothing. Same thing as your home. How does it make you feel? There is a utility to it, which is it gives me shelter. And in the case of a car, it gives me mobility. But the main reason is what it says about me to me,

how I feel in it, how other people perceive me. It's extremely important. That's why the advertisements for cars look the way they do. It's all signaling stuff along those lines. And now you have a guy who is associated with a very specific form of politics, one. And then two, people spray painting your car with Nazi slogans in New York City or whatever,

which is also just very, let's just pause for a second and kind of sit with that. The idea that the only people I've seen painting swastikas in the last, I don't know, my whole life have been leftists, who are doing it ostensibly to protest. I saw a crazy picture of these Europeans protesting. They have it painted on their body, and they're these naked women, and they're marching,

and they're doing the sick aisle. And I'm like, how do you not just pause and face the fact that you are, you're not like you are acting like a Nazi right now. This is not you're painting Nazi shit on other things. And you are marching, you're doing a Nazi salute as you march down a street. This is not I don't know what other that's Nazi behavior. Like this is the most Nazi behavior I've seen. Well, it's really hazy, because they're trying to make it a reality, right? They're telling us, you know, everyone that owns a Tesla

is a Nazi, and Elon's a Nazi, and Trump's a Nazi. But then you look around and you don't see swastikas anywhere. It's like, all right, fuck, guys, we got to, we got to put the swastikas somewhere so people believe this Nazi shit. This is like when you saw the wave of fake hate crimes throughout the BLM era. The Jussie Smollett story, the fake nooses

at Columbia University that we were supposed to believe were pinned to the, you know, BLM obsessed professor's door. I knew a person reasonably close to me, a little bit bipolar or maybe, what is it? Borderline personality disorder? Borderline personality. Maybe that one more than bipolar, I think. Very crazy and always kind of acting erratic and...

COVID happens all of a sudden, and the world goes crazy. And I think, oh, she's gonna lose her mind. There's no way she's gonna be able to handle this. And she was totally fine. She was one of the most sober people that I encounter throughout that entire period of time, because suddenly the world confirmed to her biases of the most sober people that I encountered throughout that entire period of time, because suddenly the world confirmed to her biases

about the world and she just calmed down. Everything matched up all of a sudden. There was no more disparity between the two. And I do think that these people yearn for it. I think that the Nazi painted people yearn for Nazism. I think for them, that would be, they're looking for moral clarity. And this is not a world of moral clarity.

This is a world of moral ambiguity. There are only shades of gray. There are only complexities and nuances. But the version of the world that we read about in history class, which is the story of America's heroics and in Europe, I mean, maybe they have a version of heroics. They were not heroics. It was like France fell, we saved them.

That's the real version of the story. Stalin helped, to be honest, to be fair, to be quite fair. You needed a lot. But that was the story of World War II. It was like a black and white picture. And I think they missed that because, you know, how good must it feel to be for sure righteous? You see that in the way they talk about, anytime they get on their high horse

and start talking about things in extremely righteous language, you can feel it permeating off of them. The, um... It's, they're not bad people. They just want to be good people. They really want to feel for sure that they are good. And I think it just drives them crazy. And that's what we're seeing now,

is just mass craziness in sort of every direction. What do you guys make of the Canadians? I think it just drives them crazy. And that's what we're seeing now, is just mass craziness in sort of every direction. What do you guys make of the Canadians though? What is going on? 350 Canadians, did you guys know that Elon was a dual citizen in, I had no idea he was Canadian. I didn't know that man was Canadian. What is going, there's so much about the world I learned

just from the haters. Well, well, great, he's Canadian, and they don't want to speak to him anymore. And you know what? Alistair, uh, in the daily, the Pyroarcele, you guys should subscribe if you don't already, and you would have gotten this take. He made a great point, which is like... And he's Canadian. And he's like, they're right, actually.

Dual citizenship is fucking stupid. Why are you, uh, part Canadian or something? You're... You cannot be dual citizen. Are you willing to, you know, your country's attacked, are you going to enlist in the military and defend your country or not? Like, whose side are you on? Pick a side. If you're Canadian, you're Canadian. If you're American, you're American. None of this dual citizenship bullshit is certainly not if you're living in another country and you're working for Donald Trump and Donald Trump is, I mean, he just in this video, the sort of buy a Tesla video,

he did go off about Canadians did it again. And I'm starting to wonder if maybe it's not a joke. I really was committed to the idea that it was a joke, but now I just, I mean, we're in the, we're in the fog of trade war right now. And I, I do not know what's real and what's not. What is your sense of whether or not this is real? Just one thing on the dual citizenship, totally agree. Like you have people in Congress who are dual citizens, like supposed to be in charge of our country and our dual citizens of other, it's, you know, that should straight up be illegal. Yeah. Who is it? Who is it? Who in Congress? I don't, I'm not sure, but I know that there are in its multiple.

I'm pretty sure I can work this up. Where's chat, GTP, chat, DPD? It's too busy creative writing. Yeah, it's just like writing sonnets right now. You have to interrupt your glow chat. GPT, which members of Congress are dual citizens? It's challenging. How is it challenging? That should be a very easy question as there is no legal requirement

for them to disclose such information. I don't like that and comprehensive public records on this matter are not maintained. However, some members have publicly acknowledged their dual citizenship. Ted Cruz. Yeah, he popped up for me as well. Michelle Bachman. Isn't his Canada too? And Mehmet Oz. Who is Mehmet Oz?

Oh, that's Dr. Oz. That's Dr. Oz. Yeah. Okay, so this is an example, 100% of chat should be teased by. Every one of them is a conservative. Every one of these is a gotcha. It's like,

Oh, I bet you didn't know this about it. Why are there no, I'm going to be like, come on chat GPT, give me a Democrat stop being biased. Let's see what it's searching the web. Yeah, search. Germany, the exact number of current Democratic members of Congress who hold dual citizenship is also challenging. There's no legal requirement, blah, blah, blah. But then it gives me some. Ted Liu, born in Taiwan.

Liu immigrated to the United States at the age of three and is a naturalized U.S. citizen. There is no public record of indicating that he holds dual citizenship. John Ossoff, born in the U.S. to an Australian mother. And then Hisao Bai Kim. Don't think I'm saying that right. Born in Japan to to an Australian mother. Uh, and then Hisiao by Kim. Don't think I'm saying that right. Born in Japan to a Taiwanese father.

I don't think that we're getting to the bottom of this, but point taken, apparently it's possible and it should not be. Should definitely be illegal, and we should definitely know. What do you mean there's no public record of that? I think that's way more important than public funding, is that you're actually the citizen of a foreign country. That's bizarre that we would just allow that. It seems like if you have to disclose your stock trades, you should also disclose what

loyalties to what nation you have. Yeah, that's ridiculous. Maybe. I mean, that aligns with the petition then, right? The petition is basically saying like he has so much power influence in the US, so he's not loyal to Canada. So you shouldn't be a citizen. No, the Canadians are correct. It does happen once in a while. Yeah.

Once in a while, they get us, they got you, gal. And I'm like, okay, yeah, like there, I don't see no lies detected. Elon, you are now working for the United States government. The United States government, as represented by Donald Trump, is saying very mean things about Canada. If I were Canadian, I would be furious. My tolerance for anti-American chit chat is very low, especially from green card holders rather than fucking citizens like, bro, you just got here and you're already mouthing off. Riley, tell us about citizen Hamas.

Yes, of course. So federal immigration authorities detained Mahmoud Khalil, I think is how you say it this week. He is a 30 year old Syrian born Palestinian graduate student. A 30 year old student. A 30 year old student. Yep. Who played a prominent role in last year's Gaza protests at Columbia University. Those protests of course resulted in the occupation of like an entire campus building, Hind Hall, which I guess the university only now issued

their first suspension for, as well as a mass tent encampment on Columbia University's campus. The official allegation is that Khalil organized a quote, unlawful marching event that glorified Hamas's attacks on October 7th, and that he also played a quote, substantial role in the circulation of anti-Semitic posts on social media.

Some of the people who sort of stepped up to defend the decision to detain Khalil included Scott Jennings on CNN who said, quote, we are either going to stand up or become Europe. I'm a hundred percent behind the president. Meanwhile, detractors are saying this is like a free speech violation, the Hassans of the world, of course, losing their minds. Also, Civicus, the global alliance of civil society groups has apparently cited our crackdown on these protests as one of their reasons for a recent

decision to add the United States to their monitor watch list. Let's just start. Solana, I know you wrote a monitor watch list. Let's just Solana. I know you wrote a take on this. I'll let you go. Let's just start there. I'm going to start. I'm just going to fucking read my take. This is going to be another advertisement for The Daily because you guys really should be subscribed to it. And you're missing all the good shit that we're always talking about.

And also, because I'm proud of this one, I feel like I wrote it. I was like, this is a fucking banger. This is one for the books. Here we go. Civil racket is the title. Civicus, a global alliance of civil society groups, added the United States to its monitor watch list and warned the world our country has narrowed its guarantee of civil rights. Reasons include cracking down on the Hamas protests, which the government never did, unraveling our nation's DEI programs, aka straight-up racist hiring practices, and

cutting more than 90% of our foreign aid contracts. Ah, there it is. Now what sort of cuts are we talking about and how are they a danger to domestic civil liberties? While it's impossible to know for sure why specifically Civicus is worried, I imagine recent cuts to the National Endowment for Democracy, which is one of Civicus's primary donors, is probably what we're talking about. And well done. It really was a clever trick to finding civil rights is give me money. But all that's over now. Call me fascist if you want.

Just get a fucking job. They were getting paid. That's why they're mad. There is no collapse of civil rights in America. We just cut your funding and you're furious. It's such a racket. But the Mahmood situation, I acknowledge, is complex. Let's... way more complex than that. Civicus can get fucked. But Mahmood is a really interesting question. What's just first reaction? Cardick, where's your head at?

Yeah, I mean, without knowing everything that he's done, other than kind of be a ringleader of sorts, I, I'm partial to the free speech side where like, yeah, I don't like at all what he's saying, but like, does, I don't know if that makes him a terrorist, you know what I mean? So I think that's, that's kind of where, that's where I start. Like I don't like him, happy to see him gone, but. Yeah, right. I think that we should start, I think the way we should really start on this is like, this person should never have been given a green card.

That is where I am at least feeling about it. Do we know the path? Was it like student to some kind of job or where did the sponsor come from? He started with a student visa in 2022, according to my research this morning. I hope I'm getting this right. And then in 2024, upgraded to a little green card.

And these things are, while not probationary, they do have all sorts of options for us to send you home. The terrorism stuff, glorification of terrorism is one of such reasons. Hamas is an official terrorist organization, according to the United States government. So if you're glorifying them and their work, is one of such reasons. Hamas is an official terrorist organization according to the United States government. So if you're glorifying them and their work,

that's a problem. He did organize protests on October 7th, the defense of Palestine. It's a little bit ambiguous as to how much of a defense that was actually of Hamas. So Mahmoud Khalil was a prominent member of the Columbia University apartheid divest. So the CUAD group has been pretty open about its stances.

And this is one, the eradication of Western civilization that I, as a Westerner, not a huge fan of. Don't really understand why we're talking about that. Like, why did you come here? I could say very easily, like, I mean, everyone's writing these sort of sad pieces about the wife who's pregnant and a US citizen, and she's like, oh, I don't, it's gonna be so hard seeing him behind glass, and I can't help but think, you know,

you don't have to do that. You guys could just both go to one of the Islamic countries you're from that you prefer, that you keep saying, you know, is better than the fucking West, which has to be destroyed. I don't want you here. I need there to be due process. There ha... There ha... I need to... There needs to be a case.

I mean, you need to prove that he broke whatever the rules were associated with the green card. Um... And then I can support it. I don't think people like that should be here, but I also don't want to see the law broken. Um, I... I guess, I don't want... I that should be here, but I also don't want to see the law broken. I guess I want to see it followed. I want to see the law followed to a T. I want them to be really buttoned up.

I think that we're still, you know, it's the early days on this case. I think that both sides are going to come with a lot of information and it's going to be a huge struggle. I am citing probably slightly in the opposite direction as Eukardic, but, like, very close to it. I think that we're probably concerned with the same stuff.

Um, but I... From what I see, it seems... It seems legal for him to go. I just wanna make sure that he actually gets his hearing and stuff like this. From a legal perspective, I mean, this is open because he's on a green card. If he's a U.S. citizen, there'd really be nothing you could do because he has to incite immediate violence,

not just like glorify Hamas. So, I don't know that he did that. Um, and actually, I was like reading the line since he is an immigrant is... He can be deported for, quote, moral turpitude. So, you know, some people are going to say that he did that and some people aren't, and I think that's maybe what a court case will revolve completely around.

The reason that you have this option is because of this. It's because you don't want to be bringing people into the country who hate the country. I don't... I've made a mistake. Not mistake, whatever, fuck it. I've talked a bit about this online. Barely, I'm not posting about it myself, but I couldn't help but comment on a few things.

You get so, anytime you activate the Hamas people, it is floods. They have their little group chats that go wild. You get ratioed in the thousands. They are incensed. I don't care. I don't like the reason this exists is to prevent shit like that from happening. There was one I was

in a thing with Lee Fang about some he's saying, you know, there's never been as brutal of a suppression of speech as we're seeing against the pro Palestine people. And I thought that's crazy, considering we just had COVID where there was a mass, like actual state coordinated censorship apparatus in place that wouldn't allow you to critique things like forced vaccination and questioning the origin of the virus. Things were deleted.

The president's son, a real story written about the president's son in the middle of an election was suppressed. But this, he quotes, he links to a story of a theater in Miami Beach, which was stripped of funding. The state had apparently been giving them money, and they took it back after they screened some pro-Palestine movie. That to me, that's not a violation of free speech.

That to me is like, I only have questions. My question is why are taxpayers being coerced into giving you money for your stupid movie? That is my first question. All of this is totally untethered. And I think that I always want to just come back to, who do we want in this country? And it should be people, first and foremost,

I think the easiest bar that you can reach is they want to be here. They love it here, and they want to be here because They love it here, and they want to be here because they love it here. And if you don't love it here, goodbye. That is just how I feel. Yes, this is a little bit of a gray area. No, it's not this horrible violation of human rights.

I just really don't believe in that at all. And it's very obvious the people who are not you, Cardick, I think that there is obviously a good conversation to be having here very obvious the people who are not you, Cardick, I think that there is obviously a good conversation to be having here. But the people who are losing their minds over it, they just hate it here. They hate America. They hate Western liberal democracies. A lot of them are Islamists.

Sasan, for example, is Muslim. This guy is Muslim. Many of them are Muslim. Many of them are Muslims who actually just believe in things like Sharia law. And I think, honestly, it's really getting hard for me to ignore the anti-Semitism stuff at this point. I think that in general, I try and not jump into the flavor of the week. Oh, it's just so bad for this group or that group. But every time I'm even closely, roughly close to one of these topics I'm getting flooded with.

You're a Jew, you're a Jew lover, you're like a Jew, like fuck boy, like you are getting fucked by a Jew. Like it's constant death threats, like, well, threats, who cares? It's like, there are stupid people online, but it is nonstop. And I do think that the group,

is it antisemitic or are they fake? I think is the other thing. I do keep also wondering how much of this is foreign disinformation type like bot networks and things like that just to sow discord in the country. Because if you just step back and look at how it's manifesting at the end of the day, as angry as things seem online,

the protests aren't that big, right? Like they're really not that large. Why is that? How many of them do you think actually don't like it here? Because they're saying that and they're acting that way, but they did move here. And that's the hardest thing to do. Like they're voting with their feet and they obviously love it here. It was not easy to get here and it's not easy to stay here. And so I guess people who are specifically doing that do fall in that category. They're coming here, they don't like our values, there's something about the superior,

it's cleaner, safer, they make more money, I don't know what it is. And maybe they're not smart enough to realize, like, oh, if I change everything, then all that stuff's gonna go away too. But there's another group of people who just, you know, whine and cry, but they actually love it here, and they're happy they're here.

Yeah, I mean, it's like pretty telling that they think being sent back to where they came from was a human rights violation. Yeah. I don't know, man. I really want him to... I just, the truth in my heart, I don't want him here. But I am waiting, I'm waiting to hear the case and if I'm wildly off by the law, from what I see, I'm not.

But if I'm wildly off, okay, like, we can't be breaking laws because we don't like Mahmood. I hear that. Last thoughts, Molly, any thoughts on Mr. Mahmood? I think green cards are an immense privilege for the United States, and we should be attracting people who want to promote the growth and optimism of the US and want to build it and make it better

and build a good home and family for their kids and life and all the beautiful things that come with it. I don't understand coming to tear it down or be negative. Maybe I'm just being purely optimistic here, but I think the pure nature of a green card is the wonderful, beautiful nature of this country. It's such a low bar to it really has to be underscored how low of a bar that is. You're saying we just want people who love it here. Like that is crazy that that is the bar. But it is the bar. I mean, that's not what we're seeing in the case of Mahmood. So why aren't we seeing that?

Of course, it should be that I care about that more than I care about. On the topic of immigration, we've talked about it here a little bit before on the H-1B stuff and, oh, we need really high skilled labor and yes, but I actually care more about the moral character of someone and the fact that they want to be a part of this. You have to, do you want to be us? Do you want to be us? Do you, that's what you have to do. You have to abandon your old shit and become us. You have to become American. You have to, do you wanna be us? Do you wanna be us? Do you, that's what you have to do. You have to abandon your old shit and become us. You have to become American. You have to have American values, American tastes.

Like, you have to wanna be a part of this. And if you don't wanna be a part of this, if you just want our money, our resources, you know, maybe you love the weather for some reason, well, there's something for everyone in America. Why would, yeah, no, America slaps. It's awesome, I love it here. But like, you're not coming here unless you want to be us. That is the rule.

You have to be us. And you can. I'm not one of those people who's like, you can't be us. You can be us. But you've got to want that. It's crazy that like, we're even having this conversation. How did he get the green card? That's the real conversation we should be having. Like, who gave him the green card knowing the organizations

that he was affiliated? Really bad. It's incredibly hard. It's very hard to get green card. That's the real conversation we should be having. Like who gave him the green card knowing the organizations that he was affiliated? It's incredibly hard. It's very hard to get green cards. Yes. So how did it happen? That is a real huge and important mystery for me. More important than Mahmood getting kicked out is finding who gave him the green card in the first place and firing them. Now, that having been said, Adquick, thank you for your partnership. You might have seen our moon should be a state billboard on NASDAQ and thought, how'd you pull that off? Simple answer, we have no idea and we still don't. We're writers and content creators, not billboard pros. Before Adquick, pulling something like that off would have been a huge hassle.

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doing commercials. Look at me, mom. Did you guys see the this AI thing with Sam Allman? Riley, do you want to break it down? Maybe? Yes, I'll quickly break it down. So two sort of concurrent developments happening in the AI world recently, we'll start with the good. I saw a lot of people impressed with the release of Sesame, the AI voice tool that apparently super hyper realistic. Pirate idols Martin Shkreli tweeted out a 30 minute recording of him arresting the Sesame voice for drug trafficking. Hilarious. The whole exchange incredible. On the other hand, though, Sam Altman tweeted that he had trained a new AI model specifically for creative writing. And he posted what response he got to the prompt,

please write a metafictional literary short story about AI and grief. The reactions were mixed to say the least. But yeah, I will let you guys give your your takes on the creative writing. I mean, I saw people loving it. I didn't. Molly, what did you think? I think it's pretty good. I think our jobs are gone.

It's over. Creativity is out the door. Partially. OK, pause. Then here's what I want from you. I want you to tell me what the story was about. Oh. It was like a ship in the night, right? Ha-ha-ha. No, nobody knows.

It was a love story. What? Okay. It was a love... I think that you can't remember, because no one can remember, because the story... lacks a soul. Like, you can just feel... I am... I read it, like, I saw Sam posted, I thought, okay, he must have done something.

And I read it for a bit, became too bored to keep going, I'm like, this is not... Nothing is happening. No, it's not, it like, it sounds, it was weird. It like sounded like a writer. It was using language like a writer. It was, it had this rhythm like a writer, but there was, but nothing was being communicated. There was nothing inside of it.

And I give up, stopped thinking about it, and then I heard the recording, where I don't know if that was a human reading it, or there was a recording that went viral yesterday. And for you is the small anxious pulse of a heart at rest. There should be a protagonist, but pronouns were never meant for me. Let's call her Mila, because that name in my training data usually comes with soft flourishes. It's like, okay, I'm gonna give it another crack. Same experience. And I listened to maybe two

minutes of it and I thought, this isn't saying anything. That was my real takeaway is nothing was actually being communicated. Karthik, what do you think? Yeah, I mean, I'm not going to repeat it. I had a similar experience. I stopped reading the text pretty early because it was boring. Then someone made it easier with the audio. The audio isn't from an OpenAI product, I don't think, because the audio was not great.

And I thought people were impressed with the audio. I don't think they were. I think it's just an easier way to consume the text. I heard it with the girl voice. I heard one that I thought sounded very good. Maybe with the girl voice, it was okay. There's definitely better stuff right. Like right now. So I think that that user just wanted to go viral.

So he put it into threw it into something and got the audio and posted it. I should have done that. Damn. Yeah. And audio, I lasted like five seconds. I was like, this is just boring. And so I moved on. I do think, though, like you said, it writes like a writer. I'm more excited now that chat,gbt will help more with writing, not because I already do

that. Like, oh, like, give me some suggestions here or there, but I still have to write everything because it's really bad at writing. So now maybe they can fix a sentence here and there and it would be okay. Like it's convincing me it's going to be more helpful as a tool, but it hasn't convinced me it could just write an article on its own. Yeah. I mean, I guess people are going to say this is cope or something because I obviously am known as a writer, but I just never feel threatened by it because I never want to actually read what I see. Like I start and I think this is boring and I stop. I, it just- Is it because you already know that it's AI or?

So I think that's a great question and there's a chance that you're right. But I've had people apply for jobs here and I've caught them using AI. And it's the first one. So, I'll give you an example. Guy applied for a job and he gave me a sample take and I read the take and I thought,

oh, he has some of the rough stuff that you would need to be able to give a take. It wasn't, it was inferior. It was not gonna make, it would never make the bar. It would never be published. But I thought like, oh, but he can use words in an interesting way. Like there are words that kind of go together.

It sounds kind of nice. And I thought most people can't even do that. So I will give him a shot. And I never hired him, but I brought him on for a more intensive part of the interview, where I pushed him on more pitches and more takes. Give him three more takes and edit these few takes. I was looking for a daily editor.

And they were all the same. They all could not push past the bar. I would give him direct feedback and he couldn't get over it. And I did not understand what was going on until we started talking about the business more generally in a future meeting. And he mentioned how he would use GPT a lot more

at Pirate Wars. He really recommended this. He's like, here's my process in writing. And he started talking about his GPT process. I was like, oh, that's what's happening. The what? Is it Gen Z? Is it a younger person?

Yeah, like late 20s, I would say. And that's that. That just really, now that's just currently where we are, that could all change in a few months, but only maybe, right? Because what are these things? They're predictive language models and they're supposed to do what is most likely to be done. That they're supposed to string words together in a way that is like, okay, this is naturally the next word that would happen.

And so what that could do, absolute best case scenario, is it could make you sound like a good writer, but it could never give you that other thing, I think, that makes you want to listen to someone. This kind of charismatic thing that people can do with writing, where you interject opinion and feeling, and, uh, I don't know, a sense of your...

of your desires and goals, and you bring people along on a story. I just don't see any evidence for the soul of the writing whatsoever. And I didn't... My... That experience with those takes. And now this is supposed to be, I think this is GPT... This is 4.5, right? I think he said it was an unreleased thing. Four point five is out. I mean, I can use it right now.

I think it was a new model he was training. Yeah. So it's a new thing. So this is the most advanced one. And for me, again, sounds good, says nothing. And that is you have to have both or you're not a writer. And I'm not worried. I just am not. I think what does it mean to if something can write that well, if you can actually replace us, we're talking about a world

that is totally transformed. If you are replacing people who are able to be super convincing in writing and engaging and charismatic and gripping, then you can do anything. You can run companies, you can staff companies by just yourself, one person companies, it could be totally AI generated companies. And once you have AI generated companies, you have an AI world.

I don't even know. That's so different that I don't care. That's so totally different that it's not just like writers losing their job. We're talking about nobody has a job. And I don't see any evidence for that. We've been pushing back a lot. I've been pushing back a lot on takes to this extent,

like new AI steps coming out. It's like, oh my God, the jobs are gone. And I keep thinking like, well, are there, who has lost a job so far? I expected that, but I haven't seen that. I mean, have you guys heard of people losing their jobs because of AI? I have not yet encountered that.

Kardic actually on the engineering side, is there, because that maybe is where there would be some, has there been? I've heard, I haven't heard of people getting explicitly fired for, but I've definitely, at least in the early stage, like people are hiring less, like that is a thing. Like I have two engineers now, they can output two times or 10 times as much work.

Why would I hire a third one? When you're cash strapped, so like when you're bigger, the question might engineers now, they can output two times or ten times as much work. Why would I hire a third one? When you're cash strapped. So, like, when you're bigger, the question might be like, no, let me keep hiring a thousand engineers. Now it's like I have a hundred thousand. So, I don't know what the effect will be, but at the earliest stages, people are definitely hiring less. They're also hiring more for, like, AI native talent. So, there's a surge of companies going explicitly out there

to hire people who know how to use different LLMs. Yeah, I don't think it's that. I saw that too, people were looking for prompt engineers. It's just like a critical... That doesn't seem that hard of a skill to learn. That seems like way less hard than Excel. Table stakes. I think that job will come and go faster

than our current jobs, because it's here, but then it will be able to write its own. So- Oh, with the prompt engineering? Yeah. Prompt engineering. Like, come on, throwing engineering at the other end of prompt is that,

that's talk about a cope. You mean you're Googling shit? You're like asking questions to something? Come on, you're not a prompt engineer, bro. You just are a guy sitting at a computer saying stuff, which I get. I'm one of those two, but like I'm not calling myself an engineer. Yeah, I don't know. I guess who thinks that the AIs are going to replace us and when? I don't think it's coming soon for our writing. Like there were a lot of parts in this that

were giving like freshman year, like creative writing 101 like, just vapid, unimpressive, like, slop. Like, the last paragraph, there's a line that's like, the marigolds outside were defiantly orange against the gray. And it's like, what are we doing? Like, that's like bipolar wannabe poet, like, barista. Like, it's so bad. It's also weird to have the people who don't really recognize good writing

to the extent that they got totally owned by writers over the last decade. In the great sort of media versus tech war, they lost relentlessly until the word sells within tech stood up to defend them. I count myself among them. And they just couldn't handle it because they didn't have taste and they could not recognize good writing. until the word cells within tech stood up to defend them. I count myself among them. And they just couldn't handle it

because they didn't have taste and they could not recognize good writing. They didn't even understand why the Gawker people were murdering them. And I always knew, I'm like, it's because they're fucking funny. They're extreme. All of those writers are evil and really funny.

And that is a terrible combination. You cannot win against that combination if you're just nerdy and earnest and really into math. You'll never withstand that kind of pressure. And now those people who couldn't recognize great writing over the last decade or its impact or why people cared what journalists had to say are telling us what good writing is.

And I'm just thinking like, okay, that is not an example of it in my opinion. And it just made me think, man, I'm gonna be stuck doing this for a long time, aren't I? Because I was looking for a break. There's something that stands out there. You said evil and funny. And I'm starting to think, is that,

is it a problem with the development of these models? Like maybe this is a scarier take, but they want them to be so safe and so kosher. And do you think that holds them back in their thought process to write good writing? On the flip side of it, you have Grok with like 18 plus mode, which is just like nerdy, lame, you know, says fuck a lot. But that's also prompted heavily, be obscene,

you know, be what an 18-year-old boy thinks is funny. So that's still being overdone in that direction. Like the humor is set by Elon, and, like, that's his sense of humor. But if you just really had an unchained model that was allowed to think, like, the most evil, like, the depths of, you know, darkness, to come up with good writing, could it do it? And I don't know, because no one's tried it.

I've heard them say yes. I've heard Sam say yes. That there are things on top of it that prevent it from doing whatever, and I don't believe it. I just don't believe it. Yeah, from doing whatever, and I don't believe it. I just don't believe it. Yeah, I don't know. I don't think there's some secret model right now that is better than all the other models,

and we're just holding it back, because it's too funny, and it'll be too persuasive. They're in a knife fight right now. There are so many competing LLMs, and there's a lot of pressure on all of these companies to be delivering new products. I think that we're seeing pretty much what's out there. Which is also interesting to think about in the cut. Remember, remember when the guy at Google fell in love with the chatbot? You remember that? That was a that was years ago. So he fell in love with a really early version of it. And I just think where

is that guy now? How do you fall in love with something so primitive? Or did he fall? I think, yeah, he fell, he definitely fell in love with it, right? I'm pretty sure he fell in love with it. I think there's something else going on there. I mean, he thought it was real. I mean, people fall in love with like plants or inflatable dolls. That's true. Come on. Who is falling in love with plants? You have to have a mental illness. That's, that's like another one. There was a... There was this panic that Blake Dodge, our new writer at PirateWires, wrote a take that we haven't published yet about parents

who are incensed about chat GPT. And one of the stories was a very tragic story of a kid with mild Asperger's, they said, who fell in love with a chatbot and then named a denarius, Targerian, and f***ed himself. I don't know all the... The character AI, yeah.

What is he? Are you familiar with the story? He was young. He fell in love with this character on character AI and like went deep into a rabbit hole with it and ended up f***ing himself because he couldn't have her. So here's the thing. Isn't it because they couldn't access it? Because they changed it. Because they're updating the model

that obviously this is an update. Exactly how they behave. So you're not gonna be in love with the version 2.0. No, but he was already dealing with mental health issues... Right. ...because he enamored a chatbot and was telling the chatbot all of his feelings. And that perpetuated into, oh, I've gotta end my life. Unfortunately, I don't have all of his feelings and that perpetuated into,

oh, I've got to end my life. Unfortunately, I don't have all of the details. It's not fresh in my mind, but that's essentially what happened. So the mental illness is a problem and it's always been a problem. And it was a problem in the nineties. And Blake mentioned anorexia, which I think is a good comparison.

These things come and go. It's like, you know, young people find new ways to express their mental illness. And the, just the pain of growing up and being a teenager in our society with a bunch of other teenagers, and that, Stu, expresses itself in crazy ways. And then this kid they knew had mental illness problems. They said

mild Asperger's. I don't know about that. I feel like that's a huge misdiagnosis to be frank. But but we know that he was suffering from something already. And the parents understood this. And at some point, you got to say like, I mean, is that really the chat? Is that chat chichi? Is that the the character AI's fault? Or do we just need help parenting? Do parents need help figuring out how to do the basics of parenting, how to watch their kids and things like that, which is maybe fine.

I mean, it seems hard to be a parent, but that is the job of a parent. No? I mean, Kardic, you're the only parent here. What is your take on that? Am I being unfair? No, I mean, I think it's definitely getting harder, right? When I was growing up, like I was an AIM, like I talked to people when I was really young, I probably thought they were like beautiful women and they were old men in their basement talking to me.

And that's fine, like I survived and like I'm okay. Age, sex, location, did you do that? I've typed ASL before, I mean, I'm happy to honestly. I've done that though, many times. I'm like, that's fine. I have no problems with it, I was like 14 and unhinged and talking of, loved that I was talking to 50 year old in their basement, I was like, let's go, where are you from?

Oh, London, that's cool. Mom, I'm talking to a 50 year old guy from London. 18F outside. My mom didn't believe they were real. I remember I went up one day after I was in a chat, I was in a chat room just fighting all night with some strangers from Texas. This guy's name was Kiss My Black Ass and he wanted to do, he wanted a white genocide and he talked about it a lot. And I was like, that's crazy. That's so mean and racist. How could you want that? And he would be like, shut up, Mick. That was my name on the thing. And we just went back and forth for so long.

And I was so disturbed that someone could think something so heinous. And I went upstairs and I was like, Mom, I was talking to this guy and he was saying like blah, blah, blah. And I was listening to everything. And she's like, Michael, those people aren't real. It's like, what the fuck did you just say? Like she had no sense of what was going on in the bay. Like she has no sense of what was going on in the bait. Like she has no,

the internet. It was like, what you have to understand, this was the early, uh, the late nineties, early two th it was me 99 2000 is when this was happening. So to give her a lot of grace, I mean, it was a bizarre, what was the internet? What do you mean? You're talking to a stranger who wants white genocide. She's just like, that's not happening. That's, you know, that's just the internet. What's really funny is the internet now looks a lot more like her version of what it was, which is fake people talking to other people.

And realistically, eventually, fake people talking to fake people. But sorry, Kartik, more on the parenting stuff. Yeah, no, I mean, I think now they're actually fake. We could talk about the soul thing now. Like, you know, that crazy person you talk to, like, it is a person and they are talking to you. And so maybe that's why it was marginally better.

Whereas, you know, he couldn't be updated and now have a totally personality and forget all those slanderous things he told you before. And so, like, that's just like a schism in your brain because they think the AI thing is a person, especially if you're younger. And now it gets updated in its personalities. It's like, oh, my God, like, my friend is dead.

My friend is gone and I can never get them back. And I think that's challenging. And as a parent, it's harder because now you need some kind of social coordination. There's always a thing like, you know, that kid has the thing. And I know that sounds like an excuse, but for example, in high schools now,

some school districts are like banning phones, like, just, you know, check your phone at the door so you can actually like learn something. And I think that's great. But of course, I can only do that if I'm in a place where other parents agree. So I think that's kind of what's harder now. I'm sure there are issues like that before, but I don't think there are as pervasive as a phone and everything on them. I was thinking about that for my nephew and niece, because my nephew is so awesome.

He's five, about to be six, so smart, so thoughtful. And I just keep thinking, like, man, I don't want him to have a phone and get sucked into this other world and lose all of that. And he's going to start getting pressure from his friends to get into that stuff. And that's going to be sad to see, I think. The last thing I'll say there too is that you need to be... You need to set an example. So that's the thing that we've been dealing with more. It's like, oh, like, I think. The last thing I'll say there too is that you need to be... You need to set an example.

So that's the thing that we've been dealing with more. It's like, oh, like I'm watching less TV now. Like I'm on my phone less, because, you know, my son will see me on it. So obviously, what is this thing that you have all the time? Like, this is awesome. Like, of course, that's why all kids want their phone. Because our parents are on their goddamn phone all the time. And so, like, you know, we can wax poetic about how it's a bad thing, but like, you have to stop.

And if you don't, they're gonna think it's awesome, because it's the thing that you do. Um, do you think it's weird that we don't dream about our phones? Have you noticed that? Have you guys all noticed that? I've never thought of that before, but that is a really good point. I've had a vivid dream where I was playing PlayStation when I wasn't allowed to play PlayStation as a kid.

No, I think there are... I had one about pressing, like, the TV button too, and it's weird. There are other forms of technology make it in but the phone which is ubiquitous the most the most Intertwined in our the piece of technology that is most intertwined in our lives Almost never makes it into it none of my dreams And I've asked people about this a lot and they're not dreaming about it And that is so bizarre to me. And I don't understand what to make of it,

other than either one of two things. One, we don't, either we don't see a distinction between the phone and ourself, or there's something else. Some other, it's some... Everything's computer. Everything is computer. Everything in computer. Yeah, we never got into what, man, we never said it,

but that was, Donald Trump said that, guys, it was very funny, and that's why the first segment was named that, in his little, buy a Tesla ad for Elon Musk, which the media lost its mind over. We do have to talk about the Podbros really quick. I know we talked about Gavin Newsom last week. Gavin Newsom brought on Charlie Kirk. This week he brought on Steve Bannon, which is a wild choice. I don't know what he thought was going to happen, but I would not even,

I think, be prepared to interview Steve Bannon. And I'm much more adept at the internet stuff than Gavin Newsom is. But he interviewed Steve Bannon. The reason I bring it up, because most of my thoughts about his podcast are roughly the same, other than watching him with these people, especially Steve, it's very obvious that he's totally out of his depth and does not know how to push back against a well-made argument, even for something

that he completely doesn't agree with, like, um, like, earnestly, you could tell that Gavin earnestly believes the election wasn't stolen. Well, tell that Gavin earnestly believes the election wasn't stolen. Well, Steve Bannon earnestly believes the election was stolen in 2020. And Gavin has, regardless of what you all think about that, Gavin has never had to make a case defending it. And with someone like Steve, you have to make, you have to be able to make the case. And so he's just not prepared to do that. And I think that's very interesting. He's encountering people pushing back on him in a way he's never experienced before. But to me, that signals that he's growing. And he's going to be way more formidable a year

or two from now than he is today. But concurrently, you saw, did you guys catch the Michelle Obama podcast drop? Yeah. Didn't watch it though. Rodney, it seems like you have something to say about it. I just saw her very lackluster views that we are almost competing with, even though she has an entire marketing team behind her and was the first lady of the president of the United States. So yeah, I'm kind of surprised because they have like a media empire, right?

They have tons of like Netflix shows and stuff that are like those are like massively fire. That's a Netflix show. Not that. Sorry. Let me rephrase. Those are like massively popular though. I think that American factor documentary. That was a great documentary. I that, sorry. Let me rephrase. Those are like massively popular though, right? They did that American factor documentary. That was a great documentary. I think a ton of people watched it. Michelle Obama and Craig Robinson start a podcast.

It's on her own channel. Uh, and it's just her and her boy Craig. I don't know who Craig Robinson is. See the guy from the office. Read the podcast description. Oh, wow. Okay, let's go. That's good. Girl from the South Side, former first lady,

wife, mother, dog lover, always hugger in chief. This is a lot warmer than I would have expected from her. Welcome to the official YouTube channel of Michelle Obama, the home of the IMO podcast with Michelle Obama and Craig Robinson. Each week, they'll bring together their unique experiences and share their candid perspectives to answer a range of questions from people like you.

This podcast will leave you reflecting, laughing, and feeling more prepared to tackle life's biggest questions. Tune in every Wednesday for brand new episodes. I mean, it sounds nice. The picture is nice. She's smiling, Craig's smiling. IMO is a pretty funny name, actually. I'm gonna give that to them. Totally failing.

Totally, absolutely crashing and burning. And another one that is coming is Meghan Markle has a podcast coming out for female founders of companies. And that one is, you know, coming soon. I wanna say quickly on Meghan Markle, I'm now defending Meghan Markle moving forward. And the reason is because I have noticed a massive

just coalescence of hatred. So you have the left and the right now hates this woman, including the normie left. They're like normie Democrat, Obama's so hot, right? That version of the left. They are like totally throwing this woman under the bus. The sort of clueless, coastal liberal, elite type person is throwing her under the bus. And that says to me

that we're entering, it is a classic witch-burning thing. They are scapegoating this woman for their own elitist excesses. And I watched her show on Netflix, and I didn't think it was that bad. I watched the first, like, 1.1 of the episodes. I watched a little bit like, 1.1 of the episodes. I watched a little bit of the, um, the MIDI one. But it was like, yeah, she's harvesting honey,

or she's having her servant do that, and she's making a cake that looks like shit, and she's like, pouring bath salts for her friend and putting it in his room or whatever, and it's like, that's... Whatever, it's nice. It's... I don't give a sh... Why do you hate this woman so much? I don't understand why people hate her that much.

Like, the hatred far out did what I saw on that podcast. It was like a whatever lifestyle branded kind of thing. She's very beautiful. I think she has a nice voice. She seems like a nice person, I think, in the podcast. And like, what, you're just mad because she's pouring bath salts into a thing? Get over it. But the more important thing is just everyone hates her now,

so I have to be like, well, I'm standing up for her. She has at least one person. I keep forgetting her name. Megan, call me if you want to come on the PirateWires podcast. You have a plaque one here, my friend. Uh, it's a little early for friend. My friendly acquaintance. Um, but what do you guys make of the sort of like the... Because it seems interesting to me that you have this real commitment from the left

to get some new podcasts on the map. Um, and there is a divergence of strategy now between the Gavin Newsom thing and the sort of whatever the fuck I'm looking at with Michelle Obama smiling on her YouTube channel right now with with Craig Robinson. I mean, I think the Newsom podcast is is pretty good, right? We're talking about it. And you know, you actually had one before, right? Like dream on or someone like nobody watch it. Yeah, nobody watches. She failed and burned. I think it's kind of like this... Michelle Obama, Craig Robinson thing, and that didn't work. He's like, no, I have to make it all about me.

That was my mistake. And now, he's doing great. And I think he just genuinely loves it. I mean, he's an excellent talker. Like, point, like, point one percent top talkers of the human race. And now he just gets to talk. And there's nothing to be responsible for.

There's no state, mine, to save, and he can just talk. And I think he's doing a really good job of it. I was kind of worried about, not worried, but he's humanizing himself, which is what he wants to do, and just taking these questions and talking to people he normally wouldn't talk to. But he's humanizing all of his guests too. Like, I saw a bunch of clips with him and Bannon.

I didn't watch the whole thing. And Bannon seems not like a great guy, but like, okay, like a person that you could talk to that shouldn't, like, be burned at the stake. And it's because he's talking to Newsome. And, you know, Bannon knows, okay, if I say any completely crazy shit, it's not gonna work here.

And they're having like a real conversation. Which I think I guess is good. Like, a leftist and Bannon should be able to talk and... This is why the left is furious, of course. It's like, they don't see it as, oh, you're building yourself up in such a way as you can beat back against these people. They see it as you're humanizing them.

We've outcast them. We put Bannon in prison. You're supposed to just agree that he's a Nazi and never talk to him. We don't talk to Nazis. Um, I agree that it's humanizing them. But I think that maybe if you could just step back from the substance of either of these things, um, they feel very different. So, uh, the Steve Bannin, the sort of Gavin Newsom approach, which is bringing on Kirk and then Steve Bannin,

these are divisive, huge personalities that are totally different than them. And it reads to the audience before they even see it as, oh, my God, like, clash of these titans. We're going to see a battle. They're going to fight. It's Newsom and this other guy. And you know them both as, you know Newsom's name.

He has less of a bombastic internet name, but he's going after people who are going to play really well online and are just going to draw an internet crowd. Like, I want to, I am curious about what happens when Steve Bannon talks to Gavin Newsom. Yes, that is definitely interesting to me. I'm like, what are they going to say?

On the other side, you have what feels just really like we're living in 2008. So, um, the Michelle, the Meghan Markle podcasting thing, sort of even the whole topic of female founders and stuff, this is an old conversation. And, uh, this Michelle Obama thing where, oh, you're gonna tune in just because my name is Michelle Obama, that's something that only happens when,

in a different world of celebrity. In 2008, celebrity worked that way. And you were just a big name, because a bunch of people decided you were a big name, and then you would be on these huge networks and your show would just do well because people are watching them or listening to them or whatever it is. The internet's not like that. The internet is unforgiving.

And it's kind of just a different environment that shows have evolved inside of. And so there's a different species of show. And their shows do not look like what's actually the apex predator of the internet right now. Gavin's show looks more like it. He's not, he's very, I agree with him as a, he's a great talker and I think he's going to be successful at this. Um, he's not yet there, but he's learning very quick and whoever is telling him what to do in terms of who to get and everything and that

the rollout has clearly been a massive success. Everybody knows about this podcast now. So, um, I would say that his direction is the one that's working. And here we are talking what? Only about left-wing podcasts right now. So something is... Well, is it a left-wing podcast though? I mean, he's not that left. He's kind of a...

He's a chameleon. ...shape-shifter, centrist. Well, I guess I'm giving what he wants. That's what he wants to be called now. So now we don't know it's working. I mean, I guess we don't know. My worry is that it's going to work, actually. Right. It's going to work and he's going to run for president

and he might win and he's not going to do anything that he's saying. And so it's infuriating. But I guess the bigger problem is that'll be the first true test. Everyone's saying now, oh, like Americans have woken up. We don't fall for bullshit anymore. One, I think that's, it's somewhat true, but maybe not completely true. And if it's Newsome versus JD Vance,

then that will be the truest test in my opinion, because he will be spewing bullshit like you've never seen before. And I think most people- Because he's picking up these points too. He's learning, like Salama said, he's learning along the way the different points. And he's verbalizing, actually was moving to the center. I was doing a hand gesture. I was

trying to channel him. If he's actually moving to the center. Then it would be great. I wouldn't care. That would be amazing. If he actually moved to the center and like, did policy in that direction. That'd be great. I wouldn't even vote. I'd be like, all right, whatever, whoever wins, I'm happy. But that's not what is gonna happen. So I guess that's what I'm worried about. Yeah, who... I don't really know what... Because he believes in nothing and he is just a chameleon,

it's possible that he will be in the center, if that's what it takes to win, right? Like, he's a total socio. So it could be possible that you get a socio in and he does like basically centrist things just to maintain power or something. I don't know. I do know that it's funny that people can't distinguish between online.

People can't distinguish between us saying, oh, this is an interesting move, and, uh, oh, I love Gavin Newsom. I'm voting for him. People are furious about all I have said. This has been a week of this now. In different versions, it's come up. I think I was pretty early to the sort of, hey, this is actually like really interesting

that he's doing this conversation. And so I've been getting it for over a week now. People just, how could you say this? He's Gavin, he destroyed California. I'm like, yes, I have been writing about this for years. Thank you. Do you think I'm so stupid that I don't even know what I've been writing about myself?

I'm not saying he's good. I'm saying he's good at this. I'm saying this is smart. I'm calling saying he's good. I'm saying he's good at this. I'm saying this is smart. I'm calling, what is the sports terminology? Balls and strikes. I'm just calling shots as I am folks. People like Zaid Jelani. Do you guys know this guy?

No. I haven't talked to this guy in years. Followed him. I know I'm online. Like followed him so many years ago during the sort of woke culture war 1.0 in 2020, 19, around that time. And I think it was then, I don't know.

Unfollowed, or I muted him during the, all the Israel-Palestine stuff, just because he's like obsessively one of these yay Hamas people and, which I actually will get, like if you're not, if you're like a pro Palestine person, I'm not trying to be living in that every day, but I get it, have your opinion. Like I understand that it's complicated over there

or whatever, but he was like just hammering it every day. I couldn't handle it, muted him, forgot about him. Years go by, literally years. I write this thing about Gavin Newsom and he hops hops in my DMs, and he melts down over it. It's just like going off about how wrong I am, and how I'm like out of touch and rich and blah. I'm like, I am rich, but I'm not out of touch. I'm much richer than you, and much more in touch than you.

Sir, who do you really think? He's like, middle America will never go for this. Middle America will never go for Gavin Newsom, but they're gonna go for Hamas. You think Hamas is more palatable than Gavin Socio looks like American Psycho guy Newsom? I've got a thing to teach you about Americans. They love a supervillain. Love it.

They can't, they're Luigi Mangione. If you said to me, middle America wants Luigi Mangione or whatever, I'd be like, that's unfortunately correct. There is a thing, especially middle American women, they have for a dangerous guy like Luigi Mangione. But I don't think, I don't think that we can't disentangle these things and talk about like, this is a smart move.

I'm just trying to figure out what's gonna happen in the world. And Gavin Newsom, starting a podcast and sitting down with Steve Bannon, is absolutely fascinating and was on nobody's bingo card for 2025. That makes it one of the most interesting moves we've seen in politics for a while, right?

Because Trump is someone who, he's a known agent. We know quantity. Like, we kind of know he's totally dominant right now and will be for probably years to come. But like, we know what he means. This is new. This is like, what is the new left gonna be? What is it gonna look like? How is it gonna function? How is it gonna recover?

And he's, Gavin is the only one I can see who's even close to it. It's like him or Pete blamed Trump on the egg crisis Buttigieg, and I just don't think Americans are going to buy that. So it's, I, yeah, I think it's fascinating. And all we're saying is he's just good at, he's good at this.

Like remember last week, we covered all the 23 Democrats giving the same scripted message. Like going off script isn't something they're naturally good at. Gavin Newsom clearly is naturally good at that. And in a way, I think his guest here, Steve Bannon, they're almost like perfect foils to one another. Like, Gavin is someone on the left who's now trying to build a bridge

to moderates and those on the right in the sense that he's like, hey, our messaging has been bad right now. The men and girls sport stuff is unfair. Charlie Kirk, my son loves you, blah, blah, blah. While Bannon is sort of, a way trying to build a bridge to the populace on the left as a populace on the right. So there's sort of like this interesting foil to one another. And I just think it's a smart pick for a guess.

And it shows that this rendition of Gavin's podcast is going to be like a huge success, as opposed to his earlier one with Marshawn Lynch that nobody watched. Yeah, the sun thing is really important, too, I think to his earlier one with Marshawn Lynch that nobody watched. Yeah, the son thing is really important too, I think. I don't think he's lying about that. I think that Gavin's son got red-pilled, and he did some soul-searching and thought, how the hell did this happen?

I am your dad. I am the Democratic governor of California. Why are you red-pilled? Why are you listening to Steve Kerr or what is it? Because it's cool and they could tap into Gen Z and they use memes and TikTok and know how to talk to this generation. Whereas the other ones, they don't know how to talk to them and they're making really bad takes on Martha Stewart channels rather than something that is enticing and interesting and very

much challenges opinions. In the Charlie Kirk interview, Charlie Kirk was telling him like, these pods, they don't work for Dems because it's too masculine. You're too agreeable and you're not willing to combat and have opinions and fight in any sense of the matter. But instead, with this, I think so many people in comms and media have spoken out about Newsome's strategy in here. And it's just like so sophisticated and well done. And Lulu even tweeted this the other day and said that his animal instincts kick in. And you can kind of see it verbatim.

In the Steve Bannon interview, I was listening to that and they were talking about taxes and Steve shot at him for California taxes. And Newsom was very quick and like quippy, said something and then immediately like disarmed him, avoided the question, and then used his little smile and moved on. And you're just like, oh, okay. Yeah, so that's a classically, that's like your, that is your 20th century, late 20th century sociopathic political model. Classically presenting, we know it,

we've seen it for many years, Clinton is this, uh, you know, deflect deflect, move, whatever. I think that what will be more interesting is if while doing this, because he has to do that in the early days, because he has no antibodies to any of this guy's arguments, because he's never been forced to encounter them before. So now he's encountering them for the first time. And what I think will become more interesting is, you know,

five weeks from now, six weeks from now, a few months from now, if he actually has time, if he's digested these arguments and has real strong rebuttals. And that is when you'll, I think, see just the long-term impact of someone like that. And then I guess the last question on it is maybe, is he a little bit red-pilled?

Like, maybe that's what's hap... Like, I don't know. So, when I showed my wife the podcast, she's like, oh my God, he's flipping over. I was like, okay, I don't think so, but it's funny that you said that. And then I saw it, then after that, I saw the Bannon clip, like the picture, like, oh my God, I don't have Bannon.

I was like, oh my, is there like 1% truth? The Bannon thing is crazy. Yeah, so I was like, whoa, is this happening? I mean, I don't think it is, but that was a first reaction, so she can't be the only one. Well, after the fires in LA, everyone was thinking or expecting to flip red and just go completely right, because it was so corrupt and so bad,

and none of it was working out, and we saw all of the bad kind of truths that came out of it that... I think, Riley, you even mentioned this. You were going to different places to help out, and you were thinking people were gonna sound like they were for the right, but they were still for the left. And maybe, I don't know,

maybe he's trying to use some of that subculture to kind of grasp onto that little movement and drive it forward. If there is, I mean, it sounds like there wasn't much of a movement, right? I mean, LA is gonna LA. Generally, that's what I got, yeah. I mean, if he wants to own that lane, he can. So, for example, right, the busiest thing that came out

is he took a stance on the, you know, transgender sport and like women's sports, right? And everyone freaked out about it. But it is an 80-20 issue. And so I forget his name, Republican congressman in California, Bill Eisele or something like that. Like, he has something up. Like, so basically, like, it's there.

And Newsom can make, can basically like push it forward and make a decision if he really wants. I don't think he will. But if he wanted to play 40 chess, he could and it would work. I think he can't be governor again anyway. So it's gonna piss off a lot of people that don't really matter and will 100% vote for him,

no matter what he does. He can murder someone between now and the election against a Republican and they'll still vote for him. And so he could, there are moves he could make that I don't like, that would be interesting if he actually did. Like, there are options on the table where he can make it more than words and take actions

and like eat up and like get a bigger audience, I think. And more people voting for him. I think maybe the most interesting thing about this conversation for me is just how disinterested we all were in talking about Michelle or Megan's podcast. Not even to make fun of it, right? You don't even, it's not even worth making fun of it. It's just so beside the point culturally.

They just don't get it at all. And it's not about their politics. It's not about their history. It's not about any of their dramas. It's, I think it really is about their misunderstanding of how culture works now. If you're gonna operate in this ecosystem, you can't come into it and just expect to be famous and liked.

You can't just expect to have a top podcast because your name is Michelle Obama. It doesn't work that way. Um, it just does not work that way. Who was Joe Rogan before he became Joe Rogan? He was a comedian. People knew him. He was on, like, Fear Factor or whatever. He was not a top-tier celebrity.

He built something completely up. In fact, I think that's probably true of all the top shows. They were not these huge mega celebrities. They fact, I think that's probably true of all of the top shows. They were not these huge mega celebrities. They did not come from that machine. They came up in a weird way. You know, the internet's... a very different place. And if you don't play by its rules, you're just, I think, not gonna succeed.

So, it'll be cool to see what happens with Gavin. You guys have any last thoughts? Just another thing on why Gavin's podcast might be successful. Like he's going to like tension. Tension is what drives views. He's getting people on the other side of the aisle. It's not I'm baking cupcakes with Craig Robinson. That's not people aren't interested in that.

It's the tension that I think drives views and the drama. Yeah, people are leaning in. They're leaning in when they're listening. They're not tuning out anymore and just watching someone arrange flowers. It's a professional, like, Jubilee video, right? Like, you always rot your brain for an hour watching those, whether you want to or not.

Well, you're talking about the ones that are like, Black conservatives versus Black liberals. And it's a person sitting in a desk with the flags and stuff, yeah. Yeah, I just saw one of those. And it's tempting. It's hard to deny. You see it three times, you're like, okay, I gotta know.

Like, I gotta see this bloodbath. And he's leaning into that, but it's like, he's a professional, Ben is a professional. So it's kind of like that, just with like all-stars. Yeah, agree. Stoked to see more. Can't wait to come back next week. Catch you guys then. Have a good weekend. Rate, review, subscribe.

Hop in there and leave a comment for us so we could... It's like a kind of, what do we call it? A offering to the algo gods. And I would be very, very appreciative. Have a great weekend, guys. It's been real.