The Ricochet Podcast - The Digital Cloud and a Faint Silver Lining

Episode Date: March 4, 2023

Are you faring well in the digital apocalypse? Did you even know it had already arrived? Fret not! Our old friend James Poulos is here to help. His latest book Human, Forever is the guide to protecting your incommensurable humanity from the technologies that threaten to make us interoperable and mechanical. It is indeed good news to be human! The challenge of the 21st Century will be for us to... Source

All right, I gotta, you guys gotta go because I gotta record this thing and I gotta run. I'm late. Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country. Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall. Read my lips. It's the Ricochet Podcast with me, Rob Long. I'm with Ida Robinson and Charles Cook, who's filling in for James Lilacs. And today we talk to another James, James Polis, about the coming digital apocalypse and who and what might prevent it. Stick around.

I agree. You'll never get bored with winning. We never get bored. Hello and welcome to the Ricochet Podcast. This is number 632, which every time I say a number like that, I can't believe that we've lasted this long. Where did we go wrong? Just health-wise. I am Rob Long, joined as always by my co-founder of Ricochet, Peter Robinson in Palo Alto. Hello, Peter. Hello, Peter. Hello, Rob. And we also have with us Charles Cook.

Charles, what is it? Settle it down. Settle this now. Charlie, Charles, what is it? Either one is fine. No, no, no, no, no, no. Charles in England and Charlie in Florida? No, it's just different people call me both, and I just have run with it.

I just tell people it's not Chuck. It's not Chuck. And speaking of not being Chuck, it's also not Jim not chuck it's not chuck and and speaking of not being chuck it's also not jim it's james lilacs and james is not here james is i think is on the high seas somewhere maybe he's in mexico i whenever whenever james actually goes on vacation and goes someplace warm i always feel like that should have been covered by his health insurance just because he lives um uh we are of course um coming to you from the ricochet the the master servers at ricochet uh please um and i mean in the computer sense not in the on pc sense if you like what you're hearing please come and join us at Ricochet.com and be part of the conversation as it continues.

So there's still a lot to go on, a lot to talk about, and I'm unused, as you know, to more of a disruptive force. That's my normal job here than actually as a leader, conversational leader, but I'm going to try. Because in the Lenten season, one of the, I, uh, one of the things I chose not to give up was my evil, mean-spirited glee when bad things happen to people who richly deserve it. so it and as an exercise of that of my non-goodness i'm gonna say didn't laurie lightfoot's defeat in the chicago uh mayoral and the first mayoral runoff

election before the runoff didn't that just like kind of make your day oh i'm still in a good mood. It made my week, it turns out. Just made my week. Why? Why? Because, of course, because justice was done in some basic way. But Chicago is a town where democracy has always been optional, where it as little experience of real democracy as Argentina, say. So, in the old days, when the Dailies, I mean the real old days, when the senior mayor Daly ran the place, very interesting. He lived in a modest house. He seemed never to engage in any personal aggrandizement. On his way to City Hall each morning, he stopped at church for morning mass and he ran that thing with the tightest fist imaginable. A buddy of mine here in California grew up. He was in the Lithuanian neighborhood. He was the grandson of immigrants. And he once went to

the ward boss and said, you know what? Can I get a job just sweeping or stacking chairs in this big convention that's happening, the 1968 convention? He was a kid and he just wanted to see the convention. And they did give him a job stacking chairs. But do you know who had to sign on that job? Mayor Daley himself. Right, right. All that said, there's a difference between a man and a regime, the democratic machine that was based on neighborhoods, that was based on some sense of what was a decent life and what wasn't a decent life, what was

lawful and what wasn't lawful. There's a difference between that machine and a machine that permits a murder rate. If you live in a black neighborhood, good luck to you. Good luck to you, especially on a weekend. So you don't want to get shot. You don't want your kids shot. Stay indoors. to you especially on a weekend well so you don't want to get shot you don't want your kids shot stay indoors that under a black mayor an african-american she needed to go start again so charles isn't this just one more confirmation that

this what are you gonna say this is a an aftershock many a series of aftershocks that came after the the riots of 2020 it seems to me that this is part of of of that move the the the progressive city governance movement went too far and bad things happened now the people are pulling it back but isn't this also the sign that like um i mean it made me happy it made me think of oh yeah that's what mayors stick to your knitting like stick to your knitting yes should be um the new uh it's the economy stupid don't you think no i have a different view on this than you that's good i'm not all right i'm not thrilled and gleeful in the way you are rob and i don't we being naive charlie, I don't think this has restored democracy in any way. My read on this is that the city of Chicago is about to replace one interchangeable left-leaning cog with another.

Of course, Lori Lightfoot had to say, but I'm black, but I'm a lesbian. That's the only thing that distinguishes her from the other 20 people lining up to take her job, whether it's in this election or the one after or the one after. And it's not hyperbole to suggest and the one after that, because the last time that Chicago had a Republican mayor was 1934. I don't see this as a victory because I don't think anything will change. I don't think anything will change because the unions in Chicago are untouchable, because the piety is that every single person who is apparently eligible to make it through as Chicago mayor has to promise failty to have not yet been

collapsed. There's no Giuliani moment here. That's true. There's no doubt. No, I'm not. I'm not suggesting that. But if you if a if a if a mayor is tossed out because crime rates are too high and the person who seems to be the front runner is the person saying, hey, we got to get the crime rate down.'t that a small incremental benefit i mean i agree that he's i'm sure he's a progressive weirdo in all sorts of ways but you know he he's he the ashes the smoke is still uh in the air from the auto defay of the previous mayor don't you think that's gonna matter i suppose what i'm saying is to me this looks a little bit like a polity saying taxes are too low.

We have to get rid of art laugher. Who do you want? We'll take Paul Ryan. It's just not a material change. And yeah, she's not going to be there, but Chicago does not seem to me to be serious about fixing what are extremely serious and extremely sad

problems and the fact that they've got rid of her is good but i don't so you're just better than me charles you just saw this you didn't laugh and cackle gleefully i'm not better than you i like nothing more than to cackle gleefully at people's misfortune when they deserve it. But I just don't think that this is quite the cathartic moment. Okay, so here we go. Here's Illinois, and in particular, Chicago. The schools are no good. Taxes are punitive, and the regulatory regime is driving businesses out of the city. And crime is out of control. We have a mayoral candidate who says, well, let's see, I'll take on one of the three. That is not good enough. It isn't a fundamental change in outlook. I agree.

This guy ran the Chicago schools. That means he is clearly in bed with the teachers' unions. The schools are not going to get better. He hasn't said a peep about cutting taxes. And in fact, it seems likely that he's going to ask for more time the business community has to fund the police that we can all we can see it coming but at least he has you know what I can tell you have argued Rob and me into this miniature kind of de minimus position I'll take miniature I'll take the minute it's bad Charlie cheer up it's not as bad as it was the day before she lost. That's about all we can say.

Every time a Lori Lightfoot goes down, an angel gets his wings. It's the incremental steps here. We're not going to win World War III. But is it also, and we want to get to, obviously, to our guest here, who's an old friend of Ricochet.

Before we do, isn't it part, am I now seeing connections where there aren't any? So disabuse me of this. The D.C. City Council, Washington, D.C., which is about as perfect a progressive Eden as you can come up with uh they came up with a um a result they came up with a set of laws that would essentially turn um dc into a lawless state much like chicago um all those things have to go through congress because of the way dc is governed uh the republican um republicans passed in the house passed a resolution uh saying that congress would nullify those laws the bill is now in the senate biden has come out essentially to support the i'm trying to get this right so i'm not

confusing he said he won't veto it he won't veto the bill He will not veto the actions of Congress to stop the D.C. City Council from essentially tossing out what we would consider to be just standard law and order procedures. Isn't that a small incremental little stream of light in your dark universe, Charlie? It's like when you look on the horizon and see nothing but storms and storm clouds and orcs isn't this i don't want to be i was going to say i don't want to be that guy but we are crime writers at a 50 year low and i think that in florida yeah and i think that that is important but i do think that you're right that yes there is a de minimis as you put it pushback and there is a pattern of de minimis pushbacks.

I suppose what bothers me, and I know we need to move on, but what bothers me is that we know how to avoid getting into these positions. We know better. We really know better. And we, therefore, have at our disposal, and I'm saying our, on behalf of people who live in different places than me, we have at our disposal a set of tools that have been proven to work again and again and again, and we're not doing it. And that is a choice. and I just look at this Laurie Lightfoot situation and I think well it's great that she's gone because she's a terrible terrible leader and a weirdo but I don't see people pulling the lever to change this across the board but you do see Chicagoans you do see

Chicagoans moving to Florida well right welcome to america at least we do have red states here you can vote for your feet uh and you can sleep soundly in florida or you can sleep soundly wherever you are that is a good segue so just you both can stuff it right right uh if on if you got the right sheets uh it's freezing here in new york city um actually i'm weirdly rainy too uh and i know it's cold in los angeles is it cold where you are peter that's cold gray skies rainy yeah i'm gonna breeze right by where charlie's whatever weather he's experiencing which seems rather um you know anyway look uh but there's one thing that we all enjoy which is a good night's sleep and you can stay cozy all winter long or you can stay relaxed and cool all winter long if you live in florida with a set of buttery soft sheets from

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That's how you know Ball & Branch is a great product. Make the most of bedtime with Ball & Branch sheets. Get 15% off your first set when you use promo code ricochet at ball and branch.com that's ball and branch all one word b-o-l-l-a-n-d branch.com the promo code is ricochet and we thank ball and branch for sponsoring the ricochet podcast and they've been sponsored for a long time it's a it's kind of nice to see this like you know like i kind of want to buy sheets again even though i have ball and brand sheets and they're excellent um so moving on i there's one more thing i want to talk about we're going to put it to the end uh i want to i need to talk about the new blogger law in florida because it seems to be lighting up uh everyone and it

seems like the stupidest thing i've ever read look who's going to be on the defensive now exactly but uh before we get there so i give you time now to come up with contrarian view about why actually it's a good thing um uh before we talk about that let's introduce or reintroduce our old friend james paulos james is the editor-at-large of the american mind at the claremont institute he's the author of human forever he's founder of the online publication return he was an editor in chief and one of the early founders of ricochet.com and we welcome him back to the ricochet podcast james how are you well first of all where are you well how are you good so where

are you now are you in uh in southern california i am in glendale california where it is sunny and clear it's a beautiful day. Oh, man. Yeah. Okay. You and Charlie can. So, all right. So, okay.

I'll show myself out. Yeah, exactly. The book is called Human Forever. The subtitle is The Digital Politics of Spiritual War. What does that mean? Well, it means a couple things. Technology has developed to a point where, as I think more and more people are noticing, fundamental questions are being raised about why we humans should bother to do much of anything why should we get a job why should we

participate in public life as citizens why should we get married why should we have children why should we have sex why should we leave the house why should we leave our beds why should we ever put on long has been asking just these questions like you've been but reading my dream journal. Et cetera, et cetera. So, you know, these are the ultimate questions about who and why we are who we are as human beings. And they have ultimate answers. They have theological answers. These are sort of theological questions and that's what the great religions of the world have been wrestling with from the beginning and what the philosophers ponder and um and so in the face of these great questions uh there are competing answers um if you you know if you look at what our regime has become just since the uh since the the

the debut of the iphone and the the uh development of the smartphone into a commodity. Our regime is moving in a direction where it has very clear and to many Americans, very alien and bizarre answers such as, well, we're going to create a social credit, social justice system, and we're going to onboard everyone into it and everyone is in some sense a cyborg uh whether it's digital id or or cbdc or or a combination of all the above uh the great heroes of our society are those who are at the frontier of transhumanism uh whether they call themselves transgender or trans whatever um and uh the not just the tolerance or the acceptance but really the adulation the celebration the worship of these figures uh and of the kind of borg that that unifies them all together is going to be the new uh state religion established religion

uh constitution doesn't extend into cyberspace um and that's their answer uh that's what's supposed to get our lives meaning that's what's supposed to order our lives but is anybody but is anybody arguing in favor of this it seems like every time i turn around it's like mostly people arguing i mean overwhelmingly people arguing against all this i mean yeah um what is it they did now know that you know the um suicidal ideation i guess what they call, and the depression and anxiety in young people has zoomed up, not since, you know, Greta Thunberg is telling us we're all going to die. It's not global warming. It's none of these big things. It's just the fact that Instagram makes people miserable,

or Facebook before it, or Twitter, or TikTok, or Snapchat. And yet, we seem to be on a runaway train to do all that and to use all of that. I mean, we're talking on Zoom right now, James. We didn't have a podcast in 2008 and 2007. Actually, we did. We've done 632 of these. Are we contributing to the general dehumanizing cascade? Well, it's difficult because the point of the spear here is the weaponization of our communications technologies. And we live in a society where people are very accustomed to speaking their mind, to having opinions, to thinking that if they kind of get it right in speech, then it's only a matter of time before they get it right in action. And what's, I think, demoralizing a lot of Americans is discovering that the regime has moved in a direction where you can sort of flap your lips all you want and it's really not going to change anything. People in charge are folks that you can't

vote in, you can't vote out. They control the technological infrastructure in a way that is impenetrable and inaccessible to the practice of citizenship. It's bad stuff. But you're right, there are a lot of people who are who are reacting against it could I double back on Rob's question a little bit no not a little bit sort of reframe the whole the repeat the question actually so I can see we can all see it we can all feel it that this move in the direction of AI of a surveillance state, of social credit. We can all feel it happening. I got censored for 10 days during COVID. We all know people, Jay Bhattacharya's story is horrifying. We can see it happening. We can feel it happening. Is it happening out of sheer inadvertence,

or are there actually people who do indeed make have convinced themselves that the argument you just put is the correct argument and that we ought to be doing this and do those people inhabit the deep state i exchanged example of question or sort of illustration i was exchanging emails the other day with david galantner who knows a thing or two about this the yale computer scientist who he's not an old man, but he was sort of a genius very young. He helped to invent the discipline of computer science. And he said that within a couple of decades, we won't even have the option of driving our own cars. But that's because there will be planners, city planners, people in New York. Suddenly, it will become the argument, if you're in Manhattan and they can actually take control of traffic, accidents go down, the city becomes much more livable. really are there journals and people online i'm sure actually exchanging ideas and saying you

know what the ccp has it right we should have a social credit in this system oh yeah i think you can see it openly whether it's world economic forum or other fora uh you've got you know the the five eyes is uh working as a single unit and that you know that might be uh comforting at a time when there's a serious great power conflict. But when you look at the way that that power has been wielded over the course of the pandemic and beyond, whether it's in Australia or Canada or New Zealand or the UK, the boot comes down at home before it comes down on anyone abroad. And that's a serious problem. The indications are everywhere. And because these are the theological stakes here, any powerful answer that's going to come forward for how we

should, you know, do a great reset or refound society, it's going to be rooted in some kind of theological propositions. You look around the world, the Chinese are doing this with Daoism, the Russians are doing it with Russian Orthodoxy, the Vatican wants to be a big player in how the EU regulates technology. The Israelis have their own thing going on. Every civilization state that is trying to assert and secure its digital sovereignty is doing so by trying to reorient public life and governance on the basis of their oldest religious roots.

If those are my choices, I wish to be ruled by the Vatican because the ineptitude will create all kinds of freedoms for us. Well, I think it's interesting. You know, you'll see sort of which of these models is capable of doing what it promises. And then I think you're right. I think as some of these gray areas of sovereignty open up, you're going to get all kinds of weird and unusual alternatives cropping up where they're able to do so. So first off, I just want to congratulate you for the amount of wine that you have over

your right hand shoulder. That is impressive collection to rival my own. I have an extreme question. I'm going to put it in extreme terms. What you're describing is dystopian. What you're describing is something that any free person should want to avoid. Should we want to destroy the technology that's enabled this? Because usually you hear people say, here are all the good things about the internet, and here are the bad things.

But if you're right, the good things will not offset or outweigh the bad things. Should we want to destroy this digital environment we've created? Well, I think that I would answer that in a couple ways. There are some things which are likely to destroy themselves. I think if you look at the course of human history, you will see that there is something of a pattern where terrible ideas that are pursued fanatically tend to implode on themselves, and I think some of that is going to take place. However, at the same time, it seems clear that unless there's a real sort of planetary cataclysm, much of this technology is not going to go away and it's not going to be destroyed simply because it's very difficult to destroy it, whether in its own right or because it's so powerful

that some sort of sovereign organization is going to be there with guns and whatever and prohibit it from being destroyed um and and it's true that you know even on the level of like well maybe if we just got rid of the bad guys everything would be okay it's very difficult to destroy uh that class of people um even if they were all sort of terrible and needed to be got rid of um there are going to be evil people at every level of society so you know your mileage may vary I think the important thing is that we need to understand and live out ways of interacting and using our technology that actually strengthen our way of life, strengthen our form of government, strengthen our humanity. And that can be done. Americans used to be very confident with regard to their technology,

getting their hands dirty, rolling up their sleeves, putting their hands on their tools and their machines. And at some point, that has changed. It's been to a degree surrendered and to a degree taken away. And now many Americans feel alienated from their technology, intimidated by their technology, subservient to their technology, enslaved by their technology. And the reality is that there are some tools out there that are very powerful that you don't need to be, you know, an electrical engineer or a Silicon Valley nerd or a blue check or anything else. You can put your hands on them right now and start using them to do those things that strengthen us.

I published Human Forever on Bitcoin. It's encrypted on chain. It's for sale in Bitcoin. Worked out financially, which was a proof of concept for me. But really, I wanted the medium to be the message of the book. You do not need to be some kind of super expert nerd in order to do this. The technology has advanced to a point where, yeah, you can do an end run around the New York publishing industry or around the, you know, around Wall Street and just do the stuff yourself. Yes, the regulators are circling. But that's all the more reason why, you know, Americans really need to become adult about this and be willing to take one step in what might be an unfamiliar direction in order to reclaim some of the power that they have.

So there's nothing Luddite about you. You're using technology to combat the technology. Well, I mean, if only it were technology well i mean if only it were you know if only it were as easy as just uh driving a truck up to the data center and there's a kaboom and everything goes back to normal well i'm getting back to brother charles here down in florida who seems to be coming very close to suggesting that if there were a button he could push to eliminate the smartphone he'd do it well i'm asking given the conclusion, he'd do it. Well, I'm asking, given the conclusion. Oh, now he's just asking. He's just asking. Well, look, I'm obviously very much pro-technology.

I co-own a technology company. I'm just asking that, you know, if I believed what James is saying, I would wonder whether the whole thing ought to be nuked. Well, if that were an option, maybe more people would be trying it out. But I think the fact that no one is trying reflects that it's not really an option. The root of the issue is us. And if we become obsessed with trying to create an alternate universe of our own device, if we become obsessed with becoming as gods,

if we become obsessed with destroying or obsolescing our own humanity things will continue to go in a dark and horrible direction uh right the problem you gotta get us to put our finger on you gotta get us to give up some of the good stuff like i'm on the subway you're on the subway um everyone's on their phones it's nice people on their phones they just they're not making noise they're not even looking at each other they're just on the subways and everybody's nice and in their own cocoon I like that I understand there's probably a benefit to having everyone as part of a civilized group, we're all in a subway

car together and we're all going to be humans together and make eye contact, I don't want to do that in New York City, I like it, I like when people are very busy themselves with their, you know games or whatever it used to be paperbacks yeah, it was always kind of like spooky eye contact with a weirdo. Now the weirdo's got an iPhone.

I don't have to worry about him. It's very hard to stop a weirdo from looking at you. Oh, you weren't the weirdo yourself. Sorry. I'm assuming that I'm not the weirdo. So let me pitch this to the group here. It's something a friend of mine, very smart, very accomplished, technological tech entrepreneur,

very successful tech entrepreneur, told me recently, is what he tells his children, and they're, I think, teenagers, or maybe older teenagers. He says, there are three things you need to know about the future. Three crucial things for the future. One, blockchain.

Two, machine learning. Three, Jesus. Because if you have the first two and you don't have the third i mean he he sort of i mean he he said jesus but he sort of he means it in the this is not an episcopalian i gather this is in fact it was an episcopalian really and he said that the last one is what yeah that's. The last one is what makes the first two tolerable, not dystopian. And if you have the first two and you don't have the last one, you don't have the spiritual piece, the human piece, I'd say, right? Then the first two are inevitably going to turn bad. Is that what do you think? Yeah, that's where this is going. I mean, look, we need to catechize our bots.

If we're not catechizing our bots, someone else is catechizing theirs to tell us what to do and how to live and who we are as human beings. all this technology, you know, that's this innumerable, invisible, instantaneously communicating entities until, you know, 20 years ago, 15 years ago, the only entities that people, human beings thought could do these kinds of things were angels and demons. So the spiritual stakes are baked right in. And the form of all that technology, which most people interact with as something that's invisible, is like a big swarm, a swarm that is engulfing the planet. And so, when you're thinking theologically, when you're thinking about Jesus, you're thinking about religion, yes, you're thinking about, you know, the message of the ancient church, which is, if you put your faith and your hope in your senses and your passions, you will be led astray and

destroyed. And these are devices that encourage us to do that or give us greater temptation than ever before. Does this explain Asbury, Kentucky? The revival? An amazing story. Do you know what I'm talking about, Charlie? Yes, I do. And to a degree, I think it does. But I also also think you know that that religion quote unquote is not enough um in order to uh assert some kind of real mastery and authority over something like the digital swarm you need a kind of human body a kind of spiritual body um that is that is bigger that has that spiritual authority and i think that's going to be the church. If everyone's just kind of randomly gathering together and standing in rooms and praying a lot,

obviously that seems like a step in the right direction in some sense. But I don't think it's going to be organized or powerful enough. Now we need to go to the house atheist. Charles? Well, I wonder why you think now is different. I'm not suggesting that it's not. But if you look at, for example, the Pessimist Archive account on Twitter, I don't know if you've seen this, but it has all sorts of warnings that were issued in newspapers and from religious authorities and from speakers and critics and politicians throughout history, from the invention of the printing press to the radio to video games in the 1970s. What is it about now that makes this so

complete? Is it that the internet is all-en encompassing in a way that the radio was not? Is it the acquiescence of politics? What's the difference? Well, I think that the difference is one of scale. And this is something that scales up to the level of encasing the earth in a sheath of satellites all the way down to the molecular level all the way down to you know okay we're gonna immortalize some brain cells and hook them up to some wires and turn them into organoid robots like it is saturating every level of life at a scale that is super either that is that is unhuman and and I think often anti-human.

But look, we can do this with any kind of technology. And it's true that during the Industrial Revolution, it was the latest and greatest way of dehumanizing people. And if you go back to the new Soviet man, the Russian communists, they were trying to do just this. They were trying to get to post-humanity. They were trying to use technology to leverage us out of our human condition, out of our given human being, and create a kind of cyborg superorganism. That's what they wanted to do then.

That's what's going on now, that same kind of effort. And so none of it should really, you're right, be that shocking. If you do sort of go back and read the ancient church, the ancient church and the desert fathers and all those guys and the saints, none of them would be surprised by what's going on right now because it all fits the pattern. And the pattern is the arrogance of man and the desire to become as gods and the hope of using our tools, dead matter, the material world, to create a sort of, you know, to become the demiurges of a new universe that we can disappear into forever. So, to Charlie's point, what's different now? Two questions for the house. Well,

one question for the house and one for Charlie. Here's the question for the House. If David Gellertner is correct, and I can see no way to gainsay him, that the interior political dynamic of self-driving vehicles is that we will no longer be permitted to drive our cars, if that's correct, does that feel like a loss of freedom? Does it feel—to me, it does. Oh, yeah. Okay. So that's item one. And then item two, Charlie, you'll correct me on this. You'll actually know this. I have a vague impression from reading over the years this piece, that piece on Britain. As far as I can recall, in the Western world, Britain has... The police in Britain have

more cameras in public places than any other country in Europe and far more than we have in the United States. Are you, has that changed the feel of everyday life in Britain? Does it mean anything to walk the streets of London and now to know that the police are watching you and there's facial recognition technology scanning the crowd for the original idea was terrorists but who knows what all kinds of categories people are being put into does it feel different yeah there's a poem I forget who it's by it has this line in it all watched over by machines of loving grace, which is creepy as hell. That's what I feel like walking through London. I've written about this a lot.

The British comfort with mass surveillance of all sorts is bizarre to me, especially given that nominally it was supposed to be the precursor to American liberties, including the Fourth Amendment. On your first question, cars, I've actually called pizza for a 28th Amendment to the Constitution that prevents the government from passing laws that force people into vehicles over which they have no control

because keep your hands off my golf cart well certainly golf it'll be the first line of the amendment but the difference now with with cars that drive themselves is that you cannot have a car that drives itself without that car's being tracked. Yes, correct. A car has, by definition, if it is to drive itself, to know where it is. And to know where it is, it has to be connected to the GPS network and probably to the internet. And as a result, there is no way of doing that without surveillance and so although i don't object if people want to turn on their gps i do it myself the idea that they would be forced to i find extraordinarily creepy and so i i mean i think there's a massive loss of liberty and one one that i would oppose yeah well i mean i was gonna say when they when they come to take

your liberty i mean normally and not in totalitarian regimes, but in these kinds of regimes, it comes as a form of a present, right? I mean, the technology behind GPS isn't map technology. It has the missing piece of data for traffic has always been the central brain doesn't know where you're going. And once the central brain knows where you're going right i mean it used to be you get in the car you get in the in the car you drive somewhere only you behind the wheel and any of your passengers know where you're going now of course the central brain does if you use gps because you've told it where you're going and so it can you know it's only a matter of a few steps from that was the one missing piece of data that they needed because that's the one piece of data that's

inside your head everything else is public i just um but it makes life easier right so so what i'm saying is that when i come to take your take your liberties like this i first give you a gift that you really prize well a gift but then there's also a lot of moral bullying that's involved i've tried to game this out and i i think you're. It will be sold as an advantage to you. But all of the rhetoric we hear around, say, gun control is instantly transferable to driving. I mean, driving is far, far more deadly in the United States. True. Right. Than, say, mass shootings are. And so we will hear how many more have to die. We'll hear sob stories about people who died in car accidents, which is, of course, horrible. It is part of a free society.

We will be told that human beings are irresponsible and that they can't be trusted. Of course, if America gets to the point at which it's trying to do this, at least federally, some other country will have done it first. So they'll say, well, they already did it in Sweden and Germany. And look at these civilized nations who, when they had car crashes, Congress acted. I just think every single trick that we already have will be applied to this. I guess what i'm saying is that there's there's something about gun control that's clear to me that it's the state imposing a regulation on an unwilling population especially gun owners right but i think what james talked

about james jump jump in is that is that there's a complicit like it's i don't know like maybe i kind of don't mind it like you know rich people during covid were like, like, it's, I don't know, like, maybe I kind of don't mind it. Like, you know, rich people during COVID were like, yeah, you know, lockdown's not so bad. I get my food delivered from somebody. He's outside. I get to work on my laptop. It's a regulation, but it's not the worst thing in the world. I get to hang out at home and I don't have to go to work. And when they come and they start ebbing away at your human freedoms, isn't the biggest piece of that our acquiescence to it? Because it comes like candy. Like, oh, this is going to be easier.

The worst fight. Human freedom is nothing if you don't care about your humanity. If our humanity itself is totally disenchanted, if our connection with the divine has been totally severed, and if people think that human beings suck, that the existence of humanity is an injustice, that we're obsolete, that we deserve to be replaced, then we will be replaced. It's like, you know, John and Yoko saying, like, war is over if you want it. Well, like, humanity is over if you want it. And unless we muster the spiritual authority to insist once again that actually, yes, the body is sacred, that it is inviolable, yes, the soul exists, yes, we are not just organisms that have appeared on this rock that's twirling through space, then we're going to get rolled. It's that simple. James is real in my, this is subjective. This is just points of evidence, but I sit in,

I work in the middle of Stanford university, which is the go-go spot for tech, right? And has been for three, four decades now. And and particularly with this chat what it was the thing called the chat bot it's called what is it called gbt thank you very much chat gbt the kids there's a kind of scooby-doo moment there's a kind of raw tech maybe maybe the humanities have something to say to us after all. Maybe, of course, I'll do my major in CS, but maybe I'd better minor in history or philosophy. Maybe we need to discover not only how to parallel process, but what it means to be human. There's just this sudden, the suddenness of the things just stuns me. And I'm sure that James is onto it. There's a kind of pulling up short and saying, maybe before we go

too much farther with tech, we ought to stop and think what the traditions have to say to us about what it means to be human. Kind of thrilling for an old English major like me. And you too, Rob, yes? Well, maybe. I mean, I guess I sense the opposite. Anyway, I sense it. I sense it among the kids. Yeah, to quote the great philosopher Bob Dylan, you know, everybody's got to serve somebody. Human beings are worshipful creatures, no matter what the atheists like to tell us. And if we are not worshiping God, we're worshiping something else, whether it's a device in our hands or an abstract idea or a cyborg entity that swallows up the earth. And so, you know, yeah, it's great to, you know, be literate and to remember that there are thousands of years of written record of intelligence and excellence and human flourishing and sensitivity and love and all that. But if if we're not kneeling in the right direction, then we're going to be kneeling in the wrong direction.

OK, I can't top that, but I can ask you this question. How hard is it to get your damn book now? Now that I know I can't go to the bookstore and get it. Is it like a thing where I got to go and have a digital wallet? I could get a coin base. It's very easy. You don't even need You don't even need to leave your house. Just go to canonic.xyz. That's C-A-N-O-N-I-C.xyz. The book is Human Forever and Canonic, founded by a friend of mine, they just opened up their beta to the public, which means that anyone, yourself included, can hop on and upload your manuscript and have it encoded onto the Bitcoin blockchain. And you yourself can sell it in Bitcoin for any of the major Bitcoin chains and start making money now. He speaks the truth.

I just did it. I just did it. Canonic.xyz and boom. Human forever by James Cullen. Well, Peter did it. I got to tell you, it's got to be easy. I'm the test case, baby. I'm the test case.

It may be too easy. I think you should put in a few more thresholds there. Hey, James, it was great to talk to you. Such a pleasure. Thank you, guys. I'll see you soon. James, take care. Congratulations.

We'll see you in the dystopia. Yes. All right. See you in the present. Thanks, James. You know, you keep thinking that you're old, Peter, but the truth is that you might live to see this, because it is possible to extend your lifespan and feel younger at the same time. According to a

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youth switch w-i-t-c-h-m-d.com slash ricochet order youth switch today you know i just got my bottle um two weeks ago and so i'll report back it sounds i already i already think i'm smarter um i don't know about living longer but we'll find out uh we thank you switch there we will well i will find out you won't you know you won't it doesn't work that's true that'll be the last thing i'll find out um but we thank you switch they're a new uh sponsor and we thank them for joining us and sponsoring the rickshay uh podcast so wait um i was gonna ask you charlie about this stupid blogger law so the law is in florida has been proposed it sounds dumb it sounds kind of pointless but it sounds like the kind of thing that everybody's getting in there upset about um essentially what does the law say okay uh well peter said i had

some time to think up my my pushback i actually wrote about this this morning. So I'm already committed to that position. And that position is this is an unbelievably dumb idea. It is unconstitutional federally, and it's unconstitutional under the Florida State Constitution. The idea is that if you are a blogger, whatever that means, who wants to criticize the executive branch in Florida and everyone in it, then you have to register with the state within five days of doing so. Presumptively unconstitutional, it's bad on the merits. But here's my defense of it well not of it but here's my caveat this one guy

it's not a bill it's not DeSantis it's some lame brain this is being reported because it's Florida as if this is part of the legislative session the

truth is it's one guy from Seminole County who's a state senator who just won for the first time, who wrote this bill, sponsored his bill, said, hey, is there anyone who wants to come along with me on this? And met with silence and tumbleweeds. This happens. Florida is only in, the legislature is only in session for two months every year. And as a result, the majority of the work that is done, that is going to make it into legislation and then into signed legislation after that is done before those two months start, pre-filling it's called. The bills that are going to make it somewhere, the bills that people ought to be

thrilled by or worried about, are already a matter of public record. There's one guy in Seminole County with an IQ of about 17, who has decided that it would be a good idea if we registered bloggers. Now to give you an indication of why I'm not the slightest bit worried about this, there is another bill at the moment in Florida that is also going nowhere that was written by one person and that has only one sponsor the author this one by a democrat that would ban floridians from allowing their dogs to stick their heads out of the windows in cars this is crazy state legislator stuff there's a bill in texas from some republican who's i think said the more kids you have the more money the state will send you that i'm sure there are crazy bills in iowa there are always crazy bills in california in the other direction that have one

or two sponsors i am happy to condemn this i think the statement put out by fire was absolutely right it is presumptively unconstitutional and this guy in Seminole County should be ashamed of himself but it's not a thing as the kids say right but is it a good politics I mean I'm assuming he doesn't I'm giving him the benefit of it but I'm giving him the benefit of a doubt like he doesn't have an IQ of 70 but he's looking around he He's seeing, oh, it's all this. In my district, I can make a lot of hay and be a crusader against the... The Constitution. Yeah, but I mean, something's behind this. I guess I should take him at face value.

He really wants people to start... He wants to register First Amendment. Register for First Amendment rights, but it seems to me that um that there's a political calculation here which is sort of interesting i mean maybe it's dumb but it seems to me that if anything it's gross sycophancy toward the governor yes yes yeah probably unprompted and unwanted sycophancy but sycophancy nonetheless nonetheless rob would be familiar with that he gets it all the time on the subway which is why i'm so in favor of smartphones exactly bearing yourself a smartphone all right uh and i i wait and we want to wrap up before we do um you wrote charlie you wrote a pretty blistering piece about um biden's uh magic wand, his gift to his subjects.

It's almost like one of those, like, on the feast of the goddess of fire, I eliminate your debt. How much trouble are we in if this thing isn't struck down by the supreme court and then how much trouble are we in politically if it is i don't think we're in any trouble if it is i'm afraid i'm not sunny on this question i think that this is a constitutional crisis and i use the term consciously and advisedly i think this is a constitutional crisis of joe biden's making and i think that if this is upheld on standing grounds which is the only way it can be upheld beyond the merits argument is preposterous right and has no chance in any court. The standing ground is essentially that the people who've challenged this law in court

have no standing to do so. They are not party to it. They have no harm. Right. And yes, that is the way of looking at it. Although I would point out that it's a threshold issue. I mean, clearly, the people in question have been harmed, but the court often narrows its standing window because otherwise it would be overrun by cases. But what if you say it's, you know, anything under $400 billion is not harm, but anything over half a trillion, we're talking about half a trillion dollars, right? the Supreme Court will have ratified a massive hole in the Constitution and will have signaled that under its standing jurisprudence, if the executive branch can find a law somewhere that has some vague reference to any topic.

Right. And if the executive branch can find a way of using that law to do something that is ostensibly benevolent, then there is no judicial role to play in superintending separation of powers. And I don't see a limiting principle there. I assume that this will become the norm because every time in the last 30, 40, maybe even 80 years, the executive branch has discovered a new way of aggrandizing itself

within our constitutional order. It has taken it and it has pocketed it. And the example I always give is of a rogue Republican administration that decides for a year not to collect taxes. If the argument here is, as it seems to be, that the harms that are caused by a given action have to be direct and discrete and identifiable. If the argument is that no one is really harmed by the federal government giving away $400 billion from the Treasury, and that taxpayers don't count because their claim is too attenuated then it's actually hard to see who would be harmed if the federal government for example said well we're just not collecting any income taxes even if congress has told it to right and you know i know that after a certain point, Congress would probably wake up and start changing the law or issuing a writ of mandamus or impeaching the president if it got too far.

But the risk here is that these actions are limited only to behaviors from the government that are generally perceived to be friendly. And the reason I go down that rabbit hole is that if you go back to the founding, what the founders are mostly worried about is tyranny that would be recognizable by anyone. They're worried that the government will smash up the printing presses. They're worried that the government will take away the guns or imprison people without due process. They're worried about the rise of a Julius Caesar. What they had not countenanced, or at least not provided for, if this standing doctrine holds, is the who behaves like oprah and says everyone under your seats there is right here is a car for you and then turns around and says well who was harmed

by that oh no it doesn't count by the way that the people who are on the hook that doesn't count i'm very worried about it uh rob as usual it falls to you to find a cheery note on which to close out the show. Yeah, I can't accept that. Yeah, I can't. I can't. Charlie, by the way, in my own humble reading of this, Charlie is completely right. The court has backed itself into a position in which the standing, the jurisprudence of standing has now become an absurdity you get to do anything unconstitutional you want mr president as long as nobody has standing to sue you and incidentally taxpayers ordinary americans ordinary american citizens don't right it's an absurdity which it seems has to occur to at least clarence thomas but he's only one of nine clarence thomas and it seemed like i can get it up to two yeah they did seem um or just from my reading of the transcript they did

seem skeptical did they not yeah but what they should have said was get the hell out of here are you kidding they should have said go i'm not saying by the way that this isn't going to come down in the right way i'm just saying that the way that this is covered as so often is limited to whether or not canceling student loans by which they mean transferring student loans to the people who didn't borrow and spend the money correct is a good idea and i'm saying that i think that this is an inflection point in american constitutional law that That's why I'm so worried about it. Right. I mean, the counter, not the counter argument, but one of the things people say is, well, listen, we bailed out all the banks in 2008.

Well, Congress did. Right. So Congress can do this, Rob. I would be livid because I oppose the policy, but it would be absolutely legal if Congress decided to pass a bill that instructed the executive branch to remove $10,000 from every student loan holder's balance. That's legal. Congress has that power. It issued the loans in the first place. I think taxpayers should be angry and vote them out if they do that. But that's not the question here the bailouts that the cavillers don't like were congressionally passed the tax subsidies to business or rich people or the middle class that the cavillers don't like are passed through congress and if this is going to be done it has to be as well i'm trying desperately to find something cheerful, but I don't know if I can. Set up. Can we go back?

Maybe you can change your mind, Charlie, about Laurie Lightfoot. It was good, right? We can end on a good, you know? Yes, it was good. It was good. We were all thrilled to see the end of that. At least one of the little tiny Caesars fell. This is the moment when Cliff pipes up

and says something so complete, some total non sequitur. Yeah. Everyone finds it irresistible. No, but this is real life. So before we go, do we have anything? I mean, I'm breaking a rule here and talking about 2024. It's so early. But we are seeing. It's the only way out of this conversation, baby.

Right, exactly. But we are seeing, you know, the beginnings of, you know, stirrings of a campaign. Mike Pompeo's out. Nikki Haley's out. The governor of Florida is not in Florida. Am I wrong to be optimistic about this it seems like it's going to be sort of an interesting um an interesting race on the republican side with some compelling candidates who have messages and things to say one of whom we've heard from many many many many many many

many times and i think we might be bored of the others are new and fresh and seem interesting um i'm done with all that seem like yeah democrats seem like they've made their peace with joe biden as a as the as the presumptive nominee um yes what am i missing well we do have to get through the books we just have to somehow or other transcend the books pompeo's book is out it's entitled never give an inch pompeo's tough he's smart he's a remarkable man but the only blurb on the back cover of the book is by Mike Pompeo. And here's the blurb. Here's the blurb. My new book reads like a thriller with stories from my heart.

Oh, no. That's impeachable. He's not even – he blurbed his own book. It was a blurb written by a chat bot or an editor that no difference between the two that's an impeachable offense and the man hasn't even elected thriller but this is stories from my heart that doesn't seem he seems like mixed metaphors there yeah it's a romance with stories from my heart it's a thriller with stories from my past um poor guy all right so for the first weird weird mistake of the 2024 these guys there's

work to be done here these guys need to tune up in my humble opinion charlie i think it's going to be really interesting primary as long as there aren't too many people if you get to 12 13 people you have the same structural problems you had last time and it will be impossible to hear anyone speak for more than 10 seconds if it sticks at six or seven i think it'd be great yeah it seems like it could be really interesting um all right so that's that is that positive enough for you peter yeah yeah that'll do that'll do although it's not very funny stay tuned i think i think his blurb is pretty funny by the way oh actually there i give that to you for free there's your next column for nr Stay tuned. I think Paul Mahers' blurb's pretty funny, by the way. Oh, actually, there. I give that to you for free. There's your next column

for NR. Exactly. Self-blurbs. Yeah. A riveting read. A riveting read. You'll laugh, you'll cry, you won't put it down. Charles Dickens blurbing Nicholas Nickleby or something. Right, right.

I was out of my seat and applauding, you know, William Shakespeare on Julius Caesar. Um, all right. That's enough of a laugh. Um, we should, before we go,

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