TRIGGERnometry - Andrew Tate, Elon Musk, AI Girlfriends and the Immigration Crisis - Ashley St. Clair

Episode Date: June 19, 2024

Ashley St. Clair is a cultural commentator and contributor to The Babylon Bee satirical news website. She is the author of ‘Elephants Are Not Birds’, a children's book that approaches the topic of gender identity from a conservative, Christian perspective. Available here: https://bravebooks.us/products/elephants-are-not-birds?_atid=4z02HnQW7x5kcLWzZQNq45XNMKtajH You can follow Ashley on X (Twitter) here: https://x.com/stclairashley Sponsor: Use our code TRIGGER to get $5 off your delicious, high-protein Magic Spoon cereal by clicking this link: https://sponsr.is/magicspoon_trigger_0624 Join our Premium Membership for early access, extended and ad-free content: https://triggernometry.supercast.com OR Support TRIGGERnometry Here: Bitcoin: bc1qm6vvhduc6s3rvy8u76sllmrfpynfv94qw8p8d5 Music by: Music by: Xentric | [e-mail] | https://www.xentricapc.com/ YouTube: @xentricapc Buy Merch Here: https://www.triggerpod.co.uk/shop/ Advertise on TRIGGERnometry: [e-mail] Join the Mailing List: https://www.triggerpod.co.uk/#mailinglist Find TRIGGERnometry on Social Media: https://twitter.com/triggerpod https://www.facebook.com/triggerpod/ https://www.instagram.com/triggerpod/ About TRIGGERnometry: Stand-up comedians Konstantin Kisin (@konstantinkisin) and Francis Foster (@francisjfoster) make sense of politics, economics, free speech, AI, drug policy and WW3 with the help of presidential advisors, renowned economists, award-winning journalists, controversial writers, leading scientists and notorious comedians. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Andrew Tate's not the problem because if you take Andrew Tate away, you still have this massive group of young men who were clinging to that message on shows like the Whatever podcast. They're bringing them on for this humiliation porn. I think you're going to be really surprised at the number of people, the number of men who do have options who are choosing to have AI girlfriends or live in this digital world. I don't think people realize how historic it is.

For him not only to spend $44 billion for free speech, But to have someone who goes and tells Disney and their mountains of money, fuck off. I don't need you. I think that's monumental. Illegal immigration, which is something you've been focusing on a lot, I mean, it's insane. So we have more people, almost more people coming here illegally just under the Biden administration than the entirety of Ellis Island. Ashley Sinclair, welcome to Trigonometry.

Thank you for having me. I'm excited to finally sit down with you guys. I'm a big fan. We're both big fans of all the stuff you put out, you're very funny. We met a couple of weeks ago, so we thought we'd sit down and have a conversation. For a woman, right? Funny for a woman. Now, we, you know, this is actually one of the things that we wanted to talk a little bit about because women. Yeah. Because the online conversation, certainly in our space, about women, has kind of gone a little bit crazy. I think you said it really succinctly when you described the sphere, you called it the retardo sphere. And I think that's exactly what it is right now. And it's, for whatever reason, so much of the right is devolving

into these Andrew Tateisms, which good or bad, I just think there's a lot more important conversations we could be having than whether or not it's been a good thing that women vote. And that's... Yeah, well, that obviously not. But I also think a lot of these people who say, and for those unfamiliar, there's a lot of discourse eating up the right on the 19th Amendment, whether or not the 19th Amendment, whether or not the 19th Amendment was a good thing. If we repealed the 19th, if women didn't vote, we'd always have a Republican president. Well, you could apply that to other groups as well, besides women,

but it's just acceptable to hate women and say these things about women. Yes, if only white men voted, we would always have a Republican president. But that's not the reality. We're not going backwards. Women vote more than men. That's just the reality of this situation. So I think it's such a pointless conversation, but it's taking up so much of the dialogue that they want to blame women for all of the ails in society, which I just think is absurd. Why do you think it's happening? Two questions. A, do you think it reflects in any way like the normal person on the street? Because I'd probably argue it doesn't. In a way, I want to say it doesn't. I don't think most people would say we should repeal the 19th.

But I think most, especially young men, I think if you ask them, who's Andrew Tate? They would know that answer. I think they've seen his content. They've digested this content. And so often when the topic of Andrew Tate comes up, I always say, Andrew Tate's not the problem, because if you take Andrew Tate away, you still have this massive group of young men who were clinging to that message because I think for whatever reason, men do not really have role models or anybody to guide them in any way. So Andrew Tate is the loudest in saying these things. And then I think there's these folks in the right wing like Charlie Kirk who are clinging on to it because they see it's popular and they're grifting off of that narrative. So all of a sudden,

Charlie Kirk, who runs one of the most important organizations on the right, you know, they're bringing in millions and millions of dollars. All of a sudden, he's repeating these entertainisms that, you know, women should just not work. They should stay at home, even though his organization was built on women sacrificing their 20s and working at his organization. It's fundamentally absurd, you know, that he's spending his time as someone who's that important on the right to say, well, you know what, women, if you don't get married in your 20s, you're less desirable at 30. This is a man who married his wife at 31. Yeah.

And the fundamental thing that I think we can all agree with is when people have these conversations, I go, I think to myself, number one, you're a moron. Let's be brutally honest about it. And number two, you're not a serious person because we have got very serious problems within our society that need dealing with. You've just touched on one of them, the cultural element of very. young men lacking role models, lacking direction, feeling purposeless. Why are we not talking about that? And why are you talking about the fact that if a woman doesn't get married by the age of 30,

she's barren, dry, and all the rest of it, and fundamentally undesirable. Don't clip that. It's not what I think. Because it's attention porn, right? It's more attractive to watch. And very much, society hasn't changed that it's really fun to watch a witch be burned at the stake, right? It's really fun to watch this humiliation of women on shows like the Whatever podcast. Jesus Christ wants you to do only fans work, just so that we're clear?

Yes. If God wanted you to do only fans, then what would Satan want you to do? To stop doing only fans? Yeah. Why do you think he'd want you to stop? Because I love making sexual content. Yeah, that makes sense. So you think that God, his preference would be that you continue to make sexual content on your only fans?

Yes. he wants me to do it. You have these women who they know, they're just only fans models. They're not exactly the brightest bulbs in the bunch. They're not bringing them on for intellectual conversation. They're bringing them on for this humiliation porn. And I think that's become really attractive and rewarded in algorithms.

This sort of nastiness, this division of the sexes, is rewarded a lot more than talking about what you or I or so many people might find more important. You know, for example, what's something you might find more important in the gendered divide? You can name a plethora of things. The issue in this country and the world and the West is not the division of the sexes. We're not going to look back and define this era by the division of the sexes or by the female era. We're never going to call it that.

Our times are defined by technology and our innovations. So we should be focusing more on that, what's going on in terms of technology as opposed to whether or not this woman's a three or four. or whatever it is, I think that's fundamentally absurd. This is the question I was going to ask you. For me, I've said this for a very long time, and I said this about there was a moment probably five or six years ago when sort of like these really dumb feminist narratives were rampaging through the culture.

You know, the air conditioning in office buildings are sexist. And likewise, now when you see the opposite thing, where it's like anyone who wants to put a wedge between men and women is not a healthy influence on our society. So the question for me is where do you think this male thing is now coming from? I just again, I think it's really attractive to a really dumb population. I think men and especially those who are, you know, men are having less sex than ever, it's really easy to blame women for things that are going wrong right now.

It's really easy to point to that and say it's women's fault that the country's going down the toilet. It's women's fault that I'm not getting laid. It's women's fault that I'm alone. I think it's a lot easier to say that than to self-analyze what they're not doing right. What, you know, what society as a whole is not doing right? I think there's a lot. We have a loneliness epidemic. We have, you know, a confidence epidemic. I think there's more people than not on both sides, whether it's men or women, who are just fundamentally crawling out of their own skin. They have no sense of identity. It's not. really, I think especially my generation, Gen Z, and even millennials, they're defined by narcissism,

which I don't think that's accurate at all. And Bo Burnham, if you're familiar with Bo Bermen, he speaks about this. And he puts it really succinctly. He says, you know, it's not narcissism. It's actually this generation is like a hyper-consciousness of self. It's the first generation that has social media and this performative nature where it's like, you want to perform, this is the market's answer. Now perform everything all the time for everybody. And they're sitting back and watching their life as a satisfied audience member, which is so dystopian. So it's not like this narcissism. It's hyper-consciousness of self. And I think we're more insecure than we've ever been, despite, you know, looking in the mirror more than we ever have. I completely agree with you.

But just to touch back on what's going on with the right, part of the problem that I have is the left overuse these terms, racism, misogyny, to the point where they don't mean anything. And actually, people who are genuinely racist and misogynistic go, I'm not misogynist because you said Exeter was misogynist because he said there's two genders, right? But what I see on the right is actual genuine misogyny. Yes. It's a hatred of women.

Yes. And I don't know that that's organic. And I may be stepping into my own conspiracies here, but I don't. think it's coincidental that right before the election, the right becomes the exact caricature of what the left had said the right was for years. And it wasn't. You know, many of us on the right knew that the right was not, you know, this anti-Semitic, a misogynistic group of folks. And now all of a sudden we're seeing this rise in misogynistic rhetoric and people who fundamentally believe that women shouldn't vote and people who fundamentally are signing with the people

taking over our universities right now. I think that's, I don't think that's organic. I I think there's a lot more foreign bot farms and outside influences boosting these people in the retardo sphere than we've, then we have any idea about right now. And it's also in order to. In order to cause that division, because if you look at it and whether people agree with it or not, what is the top issue going into this election? Immigration and the economy would be the top two. Maybe for a Republican, but generally it's the issue of abortion and women's rights. That's what the left is focusing on. That's what they're running ads on.

Yes, the left is running ads on abortion. They're hyper-fixating on this abortion issue, on women's issues. That's what they're hyper-fixating on. I don't think Republicans have really put enough emphasis on how much the Karens in Wisconsin or Pennsylvania are running the election. And whether they like it or not, women are voting, and they vote more than men. You know, they're doing more activism than men. They do more volunteer hours than men. they are making more of a political difference than men are whatever men want to say about that on the left or the right.

I think it's fundamentally really damaging to allow this rhetoric to go on, this misogynistic. I'm just trying to delve deeper into the conspiracy. Are you saying this is kind of deliberate to get Republicans to look dumb and offensive so that they lose the election? I believe so. I really believe that this is boosted by things that are inorganism. because when you look at the engagement on some of these accounts, it is bananas. I really, at least I don't want to believe that that many people truly hold those sentiments, and maybe I'm just too optimistic about humanity and people,

but I don't think it's organic at all, that all of a sudden this is sprouting up, and we have this many people who genuinely believe that women should vote. I don't believe that's the case. Do you not think that every political, every side of the political spectrum has a shadow. The left has a shadow, which is the anti-Semitism in particular. They've got their own version of misogyny, which we've seen, and to the right do as well.

Normally, you see with people who are far to the right, it's a hatred of, you know, LGBT people, and also misogyny as well. Do you not think that this is just an unmasking? I think there is some of that. And I think there's some people who really truly, believe that. I think there's some people who truly believe women are just objects. They really don't have the same value as men. They don't even have an understanding of women's roles throughout

history. They don't understand how impactful women have been throughout all of history. Even when they were at home, they were running, you know, our society. They were running the schools. They were raising the children. They were running all of our philanthropic issues and volunteerism and activism. They were really fundamental throughout society. And those people won't recognize that. But I think that's a small subsection. I really do think there's something worse going on because why is all of this content allowed on YouTube? YouTube who has been, you know, at the forefront of we need to protect those who are, you know, a protected class. And women typically fall into that class.

So why all of a sudden is all of this content allowed on YouTube that is terribly misogynistic, that's terribly degrading to women, calling women 304, saying they shouldn't vote? when I don't think that would have been allowed, you know, years ago. I just don't. I think that would have been removed from the platform swiftly. Do you not think, okay, we're just stress testing this idea because it's interesting, right? So one of the obvious challenges that I think some people would put to this is that we've had, and this isn't even a devil's argument thing. It's genuine, I think.

It's fair to say that over the last 20, 30 years, you're too young probably to remember the Gillette ads of the 90s. But it was all about men being good. It was all about men looking after their kids. It was all about men going out to work. It was all a celebration of healthy masculinity. And then fast forward a few years and Gillette ads are about, you know, you're a piece of shit by a razor. That's kind of the message, right? So, and then men are increasingly struggling in education comparatively to women.

And we know statistically speaking that women want to be dating men who are on their level or above in all sorts of different ways, including financially. So the opportunity for men to find a mate are reduced, they're being told that they're toxic and this and that and whatever. You put all that together, I'm not condoning it because I don't think it's the right response. being resentful and bitter about that for a man. But do you don't think that some of it is just an organic reaction to the demonization of men over a decade or two or however long as they're going on? Yes, I think that's also part of it. I think men have been demonized. I think there's a war on

masculinity because it threatens any system of power. But I think when we dive into, okay, well, women are more likely to graduate. Women do better in school now. Those are all facts. I also think Women are just better at being oppressed and turning into these because who created the school system, the modern school system, as we know it today. That was the Rockefellers. And why did they do that? That was because they wanted better workers, not better thinkers. And women are really good at that.

They're like, oh, okay, I'm going to do this. And boys are not. As soon as they're, you know, eight years old, seven years old, they're like, oh, well, you have an attention disorder. We're going to put you on riddle in. Or you're going to, you know, you're in trouble in the classroom for not sitting there, and being a good little worker be. And I think women are just taking better to that.

I don't know that that has necessarily, you know, I think in... Women are better at following orders. Yes. They are better at following orders. You know, naturally, I think they are. And so men have, you know, gotten the short end of the stick when it comes to that. And when it comes to those systems that we've created and normalized, I also think there is a fundamental war on masculinity and just gender as a whole.

Yeah. I think what that is is a war. on the natural world. I think we're so completely divorced from the natural world now, and gender's kind of like that last stronghold, that there's a war not only against masculinity, but femininity. I've been told, and women in my generation have been told that the only way for us to be equal is to become you guys, is to become men. We have to work like you. We have to fuck like you guys. We have to do this. It's everything that makes us equal is destroying things that made us different. Well, if once you start insisting on this idea that equals means the same,

yes. Then you're going to erode all the natural differences between men and women, which are the source of the strength of human society, not weakness. Men and women being different and complementary is a source of strength. Yes. Right? Once you start to erode all of that, you get to the position we're now in. Yes. And so my question to you coming back to is, do you not think that rather than this being as much of a conspiracy, to undermine the rights electoral chances. It's just a more naturally occurring backlash against that demonization of men

and the erosion of femininity and masculinity that's been happening. It's probably a combination of both. And I think there's, again, you know, that has us go into algorithms and big tack and what they allow and don't allow. And they're really deliberate with what they allow and don't allow. As we've seen throughout, you know, since really like 2015, they're really deliberate.

So maybe some of that conversation started happening organically because of this tension, because, you know, naturally men and women are both feeling more disconnected than ever from their biology and the world and each other. And then it's pushed into the algorithm at these insane rates and then pushed by what I've seen is it looks to be inorganic. And that's really important to consider. What is the algorithm feeding people and why is it feeding people that? And Big Tech has been really pivot. pivotal and what's pushed in these algorithms, especially before elections. How much of this as well do you think it's pornography as well?

A lot of the time, if a man is not having sex, the only access that he has to sex is pornography. And let's be fair, pornography, I think we can all agree the image of women is less than optimal in that type of content. Eventually, you start to see women through that lens. Yes, and I think we're underestimating the number of people and men who would rather that digital world and who would rather watch pornography than have a real connection with people. I think especially as we have, you know, these AI girlfriends and this and that, I think you're going to be really surprised at the number of people, the number of men who do have options, who are choosing to have AI girlfriends or live in this digital world, as opposed to this genuine human connection.

I think for whatever reason, it's more of a dopamine rush for them to watch for them to watch porn, as opposed to have a genuine connection and actually have to work on themselves. Because guess what? As you know, you're married, right? It is not an easy thing to be married. You actually have to put in the work. And so often we're watching people replace what is good and better for our souls with what's comfortable and more of a dopamine hit. And I think we're seeing that fundamentally. I don't know that there is this return to tradition, return to traditional marriage and, you know, general monogamy.

I don't know that that's possible in the digital world because, again, we've replaced what's good for our souls with this dopamine rush, with this digital era. with this. Everything's at our fingertips as opposed to, I want to be in a marriage. I want to work on myself. I want to understand another human being at the most intimate level possible. No, it's all very fast and swipe and this dopamine hit. I think it's just we've fundamentally changed the way the sexes interact with the digital age. And I think pornography is a piece of that. But they're also making that choice to do that. This is just more attractive to them. Focus features in Blumhouse present obsession. When I have a crush on a guy. No one knows.

Be careful. I wish Nikki love me more than anyone in the entire world. Who you wish for. Obsession is 96% fresh on rotten tomatoes. I love you so, so, so, so much. It's blood-soaked nightmare fuel. Rock Congress Bulletin put on her. You have been warned.

Obsession, rated R. Under 17-90Mita without parent. Only theaters May 15th, with special engagements in Dolby. It's also, as well, if you think about it, what the internet does in many ways is encourage isolation. We've been fed this narrative that, oh, social media connects people. It doesn't connect people. It connects them in certain ways, of course. But actually, the ultimate form of connection is people sitting down and having a conversation, which is not what the internet is actually about. And I know from being a man, I'm writing a book at the moment, if I'm isolated

writing this book for certain periods of time, I come out of my room really fucking angry. And that anger has to go somewhere. And if you have a... We need to get your new girlfriend, right? We need to get him in my high girlfriend. Yeah, exactly. But if you're angry and you're not, and you're young and maybe you don't understand where it comes from, that has to be directed somewhere. And what it's going to be doing is funneled wherever you spend most of your time. And if most of your time is spent online, that anger is going to be funneled right back there.

Yes, absolutely. I would agree 100%. But that's, well, we have to understand, especially the older generations have to understand. That is the new normal. We have the older generations, by the way, Matt. Just saying that young. But especially the generation above you and the boomers and there's a lot of fish shaking at the cloud like that Simpsons me. You know, old man yells at cloud.

And that's very much, that's characterizing a lot of, you know, especially our policies around technology. There's not really an honest discussion about what the hell is happening in this new world that we're leaving our kids. you know, even 16-year-olds now, they are not getting driver's license at an alarming rate. They don't even want to go meet their friends. They don't need to. They're doing it all online. And we're seeing this for, you know, exactly. That's the eye roll. That's the world they're in. And so how do we navigate that? You used to be a teacher, correct? Right. That is my brand. Yes, actually. Whenever I... That's the first episode in which someone else is brought out.

Exactly. Exactly. So whenever I talk to school teachers now, especially ones that may be a bit older, they always say, you know, the kids didn't used to be this way. They didn't used to have so much anxiety and depression. And it's like, of course they do. They're living in a whole new world and they have not a damn person to help them figure out how to navigate it. Instead, we're like, well, you should get off that phone. What? You didn't have that when you were a kid. You'd probably be on it too if you were at their age. It is this infinite, an awesome world where anything is possible and you have access to everything all the time. Of course they're going to be on it. So how do we navigate that? And I don't think there's

enough valuable conversations around that. We're just like, well, we shouldn't do this. Probably not, but we are. And it seems so to go back to the porn thing, if you're a kid watching hardcore pornography, you think you don't understand that what you're being presented with is fantasy. Yes. You don't understand that what this is entertainment for one of a better term. So you think that this is how men and women interact. So then when a woman does not present herself or doesn't interact with you in the way that a porn star does, you feel cheated and angry, which is why you then lash out. Yes, they do. I mean, they want this woman who's like pregnant and barefoot all the time, but also, you know, a porn star on the sheets. It's this really

terribly idealistic version of women, but, you know, men have that too. Men have that, women have that for men. And I think everyone just needs to lower their standards. I don't know. Well, there's a title of the episode. Lower your standards. Ashley Sinclair, lower your standards. That would be your cashphrase. You're not that great. Thanks for looking at me whilst you say that. I appreciate that. You're not that great. Thanks. I'm happily married, so you're the only one with that. And she settled for you. Exactly. Exactly. That's find the one that will lower herself to your level. Yes. Lower your standards. You're not that great.

But this interesting. So what are the unrealistic standards that women have for men? Because we've spoken about the unrealistic standards for men and women, that women have for women. What's the inverse of that? Men have for women. That's the one. I think the inverse is that especially for women, there's this expectation that men are kind of going to be like your emotional support dog. And they've kind of, you know, put their girlfriends to the side and what we used to get from community and women just being in the village and talking all the time. We now need that from men. We need you to be our confidant, our gossip, you know, our girlfriend in a way that lives with us all the time.

It's like we have this expectation that men are supposed to be like our emotional support teddy bear as opposed to what they are. And that's, you know, our providers, our soulmates or, you know, whatever it is. And not necessarily on top of each other like we've come to be. I think this cohabitation and this connection to our partner all the time that's really perpetuated by women. really jealous men, but women really like being connected to their partner all the time, bothering them at work, sending them a million texts. And I think that's probably not healthy. And I think women probably need to examine the behaviors that they have that are maybe a bit clingy or not innate to men's. Men don't want to be on top of you like that unless they're controlling

or jealous. It's so interesting you said that. My wife and I were just having this conversation because we were on holiday together for a week after I've been away for a bunch of time, and we really were reconnecting and talking a lot. And at one point, I was like, okay, I'm really enjoying this, but I need to go and sit in the bar for an hour. And when I came back, we talked some more, and she was like, yeah, I really need to connect with more of my girlfriends. Because if I'm trying to get all my, this particular need satisfied by just you,

it's too much for both of us. And it's not what actually I need. That's the best way to put it. They try to have all of their needs met by one person. And then they're leaving the person that gives them 80% for someone that gives them the other 20%. And, you know, it's this constant thing. You're never going to get it from everybody.

As long as they're not, you know, abusive or controlling, you know, there's a lot that you can look past and just settle for. But, you know, men used to go out and hunt for weeks at a time and we'd be by ourselves or in the village or with our girlfriends. And now it's all the time. We're just around each other all the time. And I think it's really rather toxic. Well, it's funny you say that because whenever I'm going away on a trip or whatever I say to my wife, like, I'm out hunting.

I literally will say that to make myself feel better. But I was going to ask you, I mean, one of the things that I think you're very good on is tech. And we've alluded to it earlier. When I was in Australia, I did a few talks. And in the Q&A, someone would always ask me if I see any positive signs. And I would always mention that Elon Musk taken over Twitter really changed everything. And this is an audience of people who I wouldn't necessarily have thought of as like these young hip tech-aware people necessarily. It would always get a round of applause from people because it's genuinely something that I just think a lot of people genuinely fell.

This was a big step in the right direction. The single, this cabal, and I use that term very advisedly. I'm not someone who thinks the world's run by a cabal of paedophiles in a pizza parlor or whatever the story is. But you saw the collusion between big government and big tech, particularly during COVID, and it was scary because you go, well, they're all sitting down in a room together going, what's the right censorship policy on this, all getting together, and no one's thinking independently and no one's thinking from first principles. So what you've had, I certainly would argue, I don't know if you agree with this,

is one guy with just too much money to give a shit, come in and just upend the whole system. I've been very excited by that. Not to say that Elon's perfect, because he's definitely not, because he's human, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. What do you think the impact of that particular thing is? I don't think people realize how historic it is. For him not only to spend $44 billion for free speech,

but to have someone who goes and tells Disney and their mountains of money, fuck off. I don't need you. I think that's monumental. To encourage courage and bravery, I think we don't have enough people who are brave enough to give a middle finger to the system, especially when, surting in like 2015, and Mike Benz, if you're familiar with him, he speaks about this a lot,

this essentially internet death star that they built within big tech and all of these companies. And I think everybody gives you the round of applause because everyone's online. We're essentially already cyborgs. We are, you know, like transhumanism is already here. You said the longest you went without your phone was two hours late. I'm very proud of that. It's like when I sleep. And even then it's like by my head in case anyone needs anything.

And so we're already there. And so what Elon did was historic. I think that's something we're going to look back in the history books as historic. But we need more of that. There is such an empty space, especially with people who are even just right of center or hard Republicans in the AI and tech industry, because this is fundamentally going to change our entire world. The value of free speech is not just really important.

for the constitutional value anymore. It is arguably more important because for the AI aspect, for the technological aspect, because if we're feeding the system a dishonest and filtered and biased version of humanity, you know what's going to happen?

It's going to spit out recommendations based on a dishonest and filter version of humanity. Well, right, I've been saying this for ages because if you think about it, the way that the AI is learning is from online. Yes. And we all know that what happens online

is not reflective of like going, and talking to people on the street. Correct. And they know this. Right. So we're feeding it a false picture of reality. And part of the reason is people can't say what they actually think. And that's very deliberate.

And so what was so, and I think this is so illustrative of the right and just how much of a retardo sphere they are. There was a clip of Kamala Harris, and I don't know if you remember this, but months ago or last year, and she's talking about AI. She was named the A.R. Cesar. And again, you know, it's like humiliation porn for the... them to make fun of people. So this clip of Kamala comes out and she's like, AI is a fancy word. It means artificial intelligence. And it gets millions of likes and millions of Republicans and people on the right are making fun of her for saying this. She doesn't even know what it means. If you watch the full clip, she says, ultimately what it is is it's about machine learning.

And so the machine is taught. And part of the issue here is what information is going into the machine, that will then determine, and we can predict then, if we think about what information is going in, what then will be produced in terms of decisions and opinions that may be made through that process. What you teach the machine then impacts the decisions and opinions. And that to me is the scariest thing that possibly could have come out of her mouth is that this terribly biased administration is saying, we're going to take a focus on this machine that impacts decisions and opinions of and for humanity. And the fact that Republicans aren't making that their focus, and we know more about Charlie Kirk's

opinion on women working in their 20s, is a disaster. We are going to look back and they're going to shake their fists and say the left just control all of this, while Sam Altman, who most of them can't name, most of them could show you 47 photos of Hunter Biden's corn dog before they tell you, who Sam Altman is. Sam Altman is the guy asking for $7 trillion and giggling online about asking $7 trillion for these AI projects, for shaping all of humanity and the recommendations for this system. And he's in Congress walking in there every day, talking about the regulations for AI and trying to kick the ladder out from under him. And the fact that we don't understand how much of a focus the left is putting on AI is really terrifying. That's what they're talking about

at the World Economic Forum. We can make fun of the World Economic Forum all day. Do they have any idea what they're talking about there? They're talking about AI. They're talking about AI being a human right. This is verbatim. They're talking about the democratization of the access to AI. And they are talking about UN Special Envoys for AI. And the right has no discussion about this, no presence in the industry at all. And that is... That is more dangerous than anything going on, in my opinion. Do you think part of it as well is that people who are older tend to skew Republican and conservative? And people who are older, know less about this stuff.

They shake their fist and the old man yells at cloud. That's exactly right. Because when you have these old boomers in Congress and Senate that are asking the TikTok CEO, if TikTok uses Wi-Fi, I think you should be removed from office. That actually happened, and we can laugh. And we're laughing as it all crumbles, and they grab these institutions by the balls. Because this is what happened. These people should be removed from office.

I think if you can't name the top five people in the race to AI, you should be removed from office. Mark Zuckerberg is a super villain in my eyes, not just because of the censorship, but because the potential for this data and this technology that he has, has the power to absolutely destroy the world his AI capabilities. And when you look at the technology he has, and when you look at the data he has, and meanwhile, he is in Hawaii, raising Wagovief and picking Macadamia. If I had that much data and power

and the potential to destroy the world and I'm picking mecha Damiena, that's a supervillain in my eyes. And they just don't care. They're more concerns that, you know, this thing about the COVID job, was censored on Facebook, which is a big deal. But there's a bigger problem.

And that this guy is in, and these other people like Bezos and Zuckerberg and Sam Waltman, they are building the system that makes recommendations for all of humanity and filters everything. And they know not a damn thing about them. So what would you like to see happen on that? I think we need to. So also at the World Economic Forum, one of the people on stage at one of these panels discussing AI was Governor J.N. Inslee. Do you know who that is? No, I don't. He is, I don't know how much you know about the state of Washington here, but you can't really get further left than the state of Washington in Oregon. This is

Antifa left is central. And Jay Inslee, who's the governor of Washington, is on the stage talking about the University of Washington partnering with Microsoft and a Chinese university to go into machine learning and all of this stuff. He's also talking about the apprenticeships that they're guaranteeing for coders. The left is doing this, and the right should absolutely be doing this. They should be guaranteeing apprenticeships for coders. They should be guaranteeing that we're in these industries, that we're in AI, that we're in gaming, that we're in all of these tech industries that are absent anybody outside of the Bay Area

in Silicon Valley. Why are they not doing that? Well, part of the reason, psychologically speaking, is that people on the right tend to have a different psychological profile. They tend to be pretty good at like running an office, not so good at being creative. This is generalization, obviously, but that's kind of... So the reason a lot of professions that involve creativity don't attract as many people on the right is people on the right generally generalization, but are not as creative in that way.

Well, so the people running the AI industry, they don't necessarily have to be creative. They can be very logical. They can be very math-centric, whatever it is. It doesn't need creatives at all. You should have some. But I also reject that idea that we also need to encourage people to be more creative on the right. I think one of the worst things we did was mock the liberal arts and say, well, it's so stupid to get a liberal arts degree. It's so stupid to care about those things.

Well, guess who fucking runs it now? Not a damn Republican. And the same thing with a we mock it and shake the fest and whatever it is. I just guess what I'm saying is people like you and like us who are different and funny and like the like look at it. But look at us like none of us is. I don't know about you, but most people who I find who are like you will tend to find a lot of things that they disagree with on their own side. Whereas what the tribe wants is a good little worker bee who's going to, you know, hold the right flag and say the right things and vote the right way and not. Do you see what I mean?

And pop out a few kids. Yes, but fundamentally, it's still, no matter what I disagree with, yes, I think it's ridiculous that they're talking about these entertainisms and that's become like a pillar in our attention economy on the right. Fundamentally, we all agree on the same things, right? Mass migration is a really big problem. Free speech is a core fundamental value. We haven't really diverted on those core fundamental values.

I think all of this is just noise. Well, if we focus, sorry to interrupt, if we focus. on those things that you'd find the overwhelming majority of the country actually agreed on. Yes. If we focused on those things. That's a bigger threat. Mass migration is a bigger threat. I mean, historically, throughout history, again, you want to go back to the Roman Empire

and the mass migration of the Hans and the Germanic tribes. I mean, it's going to lead to what I believe is the fall of the American Empire, is this mass migration and the fall of the West. Yeah, I also see as well, like the right, and you've touched on it, but I sometimes see the stuff the right talks about and goes. why are you banging on about this all the time, all the time? Look, the trancing is important, and of course protecting kids. Yeah, we'd never have lots of people to talk about it. But they constantly talk about it, like it's the only thing to talk about. And you go, it is important,

but it's not the most important. There are other things that we need to discuss. But they have their very set topics, and they kind of don't deviate away from that. And you want to say to do you not think that there is other things here to discuss? But they can't seem to do that because it's like they've applied these blinkers and like, no, we are just going to talk about this. Because it's the attention economy. That gets eyeballs. That gets this.

And we need like a Dave Ramsey for the attention economy. You know, like stop spending. You need to budget your attention. You need to have it here or there or whatever it is. And when you turn on Fox News and there was one time I was on Fox and they had me talking about Dolly Parton. And like, why are we talking about Dolly Parton right now? We're talking about Dolly Parton's outfit like this is E?

This is ridiculous and absurd. But we keep giving these people our attention. We keep giving these people our money. No matter how many times we see what they're doing is fundamentally horrible and bad. Because at the end of the day, as much as we want to say we're principled and we believe these things, I think we're actually lazy and will sacrifice all of our morality and our morals for comfort. absolutely it's like when you had all of these republicans who were cheering on the bud light boycott as they're having amazon packages arrive at their door and it's like okay so you boycotted bud light because of dylan Mulvaney while you're giving jeff basos money this guy who like fundamentally

um is is ideologically different to everything that you're doing who has a monopoly on government contracts it was a monopoly on web services and AI and owns the washington post you're going to give your money to him day in and day out all of these people have amazon just coming to their door as they're boycotting but, like, because I think that's, that is a really big ill of capitalism is the consumerism that follows and the comfort that follows. We've, we've essentially put a lot of people in like consumerist hospice. Like, they're paying just to be comfortable. And the only place typically that you would see that is hospice. Like, you'll pay to be comfortable until you die. And that's, that's kind of what people have chosen willingly just to be

comfortable and they're sacrificing their life and their morality and the life of our children and the future of humanity for this comfort and consumerism that I think is just, it's going to be our downfall, I think. Yeah, that craving for comfort is the enemy of growth. Yes. Personally and spiritually. Yes. And it disappoints me that the right have gone this way because the right traditionally

have always been about personal development. They've always been about taking responsibility. for your actions, you know, self-fulfillment, all of these things, and you look at kind of the way they're going now and you're going, you're just a different form of moron to the left. Yes. That's all it seems to be. Not all of them, of course. No, it's a fringe.

It's why I call them the woke right, because it's a fringe on the left and the right. But what they are is they're becoming disproportionately more powerful. Well, louder online, I think. No, I think it's actually just becoming really, it's becoming harder to criticize them. Yes. Because they've conflated criticism with them to criticisms of like principles and ideas. Yes. So if you criticized, you know, someone on the right in the petite bourgeoisie for the way they spend their money or this or that, well, now you're an enemy of capitalism.

Well, you know what? I get to spend my money however I want. And it's like, no, you're actually like a greedy son of a bench that we should probably shame into oblivion. But they've, they've conflated criticisms of themselves with criticisms of themselves. a movement or principles that's just not true. So I think it's just become a lot harder to criticize those who really need to be removed. It's so funny you say that. I've told the story of Francis heard it a few times because it just amused me so much. So you know how I wrote an article about Tucker? Yeah. I praise him for some things, but I criticized some of the things that he did in Russia on a factual basis. Like I just said they weren't true. I was uninvited from a party that I'd been invited to for that. And I was just like, you guys don't see, like you've spent six years talking

about the importance of diversity of opinion? How dare you? How dare you? He's our God. You know, he stuck it to Fox News, right? Like, that's, no, you're not allowed to do that. Let's talk about one issue that I think Tucker would agree with us on, which would be an issue you just talked about, which is illegal immigration. Because mass immigration is it somewhat separate conversation for me. Like, I think Elon is right that having lots of talented and driven people come into a country, particularly like the U.S., where there is space and there is land and there's the ability to build infrastructure quickly, if you put your mind to it, et cetera, et cetera, separate conversation. But illegal immigration, which is something you've been focusing on a lot,

is, I mean, it's insane. It's out of control. And I don't think most people understand the scale of it. For example, I think it was like 12 million immigrants who came through Ellis Island, like over the 60 years that Alice Island was operating. And just under the Biden administration, they're estimating between 7 and 10 million illegal immigrants have come in. So we have more people, almost more people coming here illegally, just under the Biden administration, than the entirety of Ellis Island. And, you know, just from an infrastructure standpoint,

we can't sustain that. New York City alone. We're going to spend $12 billion into fiscal year 2025, dealing with this migrant crisis. And most people, they don't understand just the volume of people coming in and where they're coming in. There's this misconception that they're all coming from Mexico or wherever. And it's not. Our southern border is an open border to the world.

We've seen a 900% increase in Chinese nationals. We're seeing immigrants from Africa, from the Middle East, from all over. They're flying down to these South American countries and being aided by a lot of American NGOs to come here. But again, it's not just unique to America. They had this playbook in Europe. It happened in Europe. Every time I go to Europe and I talk to people like in Italy, it's the same problem. It's these NGOs that are funding this mass immigration of illegals into the countries

and the NGOs are helping them and they're all doing it under the claim of asylum. But see, the NGOs are going to, there's a bunch of dumb people who are really motivated by compassion and blah, blah, blah. And by the way, some people are refugees and do need help. the problem is the government's supposed to be in charge of this. But I think that's dangerous too. I have to stop you on, well, you know, there are some people who need help. Well, where do you draw that line of what help we should give? Because what the left will do is they'll say, okay, well, that comes from a point of privilege.

Basically, the whole world needs help if you compare it to America. The whole world is hungry. The whole world is this. No, no, I'm not talking about economic migration. I'm talking about generally speaking when people are fleeing persecution, But what does that mean? Persecution. It means when someone is trying to kill them.

Yes. But what does that mean? Because they blurred that line, is why I want to get an exact definition. Fine. Well, what I'm saying is, for example, people fleeing Hong Kong because they're pro-democracy protesters. People fleeing Ukraine because they're fleeing war, right? I don't have a problem with people who are aligned to our culture

who don't hate our societies who are going to come and integrate, learn the language. In limited numbers that we voted to have, right, there's a democratic mandate. There's a lot of history in accepting refugees in those small numbers. A lot of the Jewish community here in New York are a product of that sort of system, right? So I think a small number of people who are carefully selected because they genuinely are, A, fearful for their lives and be beneficial to the societies that they're going to come to.

I don't have a problem with that. What I have a problem with is you open the border and you don't check who's coming. As you say, most of those people are not fleeing genuine. persecution at all. And we don't know who they are. And as you say, in Europe, we have exactly the same problem in the UK, in France, in Italy, in other places. But anyway, we got sidetracked because you were saying what I said is dangerous, which I don't think is true. I think eroding that boundary is dangerous. I think allowing a small number of people in because they're genuinely in fear of their lives. Well, we have to be really precise and say in fear for their life. Or, you know,

They're fleeing violence or whatever it is. Yeah, they didn't convert to Christianity two days ago suddenly. Because when we say they need help, we want to help people, that is really dangerous and has been weaponized by the left to this help. We need to help people. Yeah. What does that mean? What people do we help and where do we draw that line?

What I'm saying is I don't think that line is at zero. I think there are some people that we might choose democratically to say, you know, we as a rich country will happily welcome, I don't know, 30,000 Christians fleeing persecution in the Middle East a year? Well, I would agree. And again, I'm also not, I'm pro-legal immigration as well. I've always said this for years. But again, the issue is this asylum, we're not vetting them. We don't actually care if there are genuine claims for asylum. And because there's international treaties for these refugees and whatever, it's really hard to stop it. Right. So that was my point, right?

NGOs are going to NGO. It's the government's job to set the rules and then to enforce them. the rules. Why do you think that isn't happening? But who funds the NGOs? You tell me. The government. I mean, most of these NGOs are heavily funded by the United States government as well. Right. Or, you know, international agencies, international government agencies. So I don't even know why most of them are called NGOs because they're really, they don't really exist. They're geos. Yeah, they're geos. Because they don't exist without the funding of the government. And it's become, especially NGOs and nonprofits have really become a vector for the government to do unspeakable and horrible things with a lack of transparency.

Because guess what? I get to hide so much with a 501c3 or an NGO. That is the best way to hide whatever the hell I'm doing. And they know this. And so they do this. And we don't really have some nationwide audit of, you know, hey, are you actually charitable? Hey, where is all your money going?

Why do we allow people who are at charitable 501c3s to be paid $2 million a year? That's fundamentally insane when you think of the purpose of a, 501c3 or charity or anything like that. So I think the NGOs are a really big problem because it's essentially money washing. They're money laundering a lot through these NGOs. There is so much money in NGOs. That's why every billionaire, you know, has a 501 3C or a non-profit or whatever it is. There's so much money washing and laundering that goes on through these NGOs. Yeah, it's, I would also say as well, there's another point which I think America does have a moral obligations and taking certain types of refugees. For instance, let's look at Afghanistan.

There's a lot of Afghanistan people in Afghanistan who actually risk their lives to help America because they wanted to see a positive change in Afghanistan. They wanted, they wanted to see the Taliban eradicated and taken completely away from power. America withdrew. Some of these people were murdered and actually by the Taliban because they saw them as being traitor. And I really think America should have done more to help those people. Yes, I agree. But however, when you think from a technical standpoint, right, you're like, well, we should let in all these people who were actually really good to America and they actually believe these things. Well, how do you vet that?

Well, if they were translators for the U.S. forces. But technically, what do you do? At what scale do you have to increase our legal immigration facilities and bureaucracy and whatever? And how do they vet that? Is it because someone told a good story? Do we need an investigator to go down and see if they're actually telling you? If you were a translator that was attached to U.S. forces, you probably shouldn't be left to your own advice as once the Taliban takeover. But I just think it's at scale really hard to vet a lot of these claims.

It's almost impossible to vet a lot of the sincerity of a lot of these claims. So I don't know that even that. I would agree with you. Yes, that ideally sounds awesome. But practically, that's kind of how we're in the situation that we're in now. Because there's just not a way to vet that at scale. There's not a way to vet millions of people at scale, which it ends up becoming. If you say there's not millions of people in the world who are fleeing violence,

there definitely are. There's millions of people. So at scale, if we're actually thinking practically, how do we implement a system to vet these people? You don't. It just doesn't happen. So, you know, again, where do you draw the line? I think what you need to do is have a full, frank and honest conversation

where there are people who decide who go, look, we can't take everybody in, looking at our infrastructure, looking at our economy, we can take X amount, certain percentages of them are going to be refugees, we're going to prioritize people who've actually worked with, helped and supported the US in places like Afghanistan, they're going to take priority. and you just have to accept that you wanted to be in government and part of being in government, in fact, a large part of it

is actually making unpleasant, unpopular decisions. And if you want the part where people know you and you're the one making those decisions, then you've got to accept that part of what you do is going to be unpleasant and you're going to be hated. And the fact that people are going to call you racist and white supremacist, I'm sorry, that's just an excuse, get over it. That would be really easy if we didn't make careers out of being politicians and bureaucrats.

They're not incentivized to do that. They're actually incentivized to do the opposite. Politicians and bureaucrats, they need us to like them for as long as possible. Or they're thrown to the dogs. They need us to like them. That is actually a fundamental part of their entire job is being likable. We don't encourage courage or bravery, like I said, because they have to be liked. Their entire livelihood depends on being liked.

Do you know what, Ashley, I think more and more people are starting to move away from that. I think, you know, the number of people that I spoke to, you know, in places like Texas, and even in New York, where people are going, look, I don't like Trump. I'll be honest you, I think he's an asshole. But he was better than what we've got now. And that's why I'm going to vote for it. I think we're getting to that point. I think people are sick of media.

Milly-mouthed politicians who essentially have no backbone and are not prepared to make difficult decisions. I think people are starting to get to the point. Maybe I'm wrong where they're going, you know what, I just want someone to be a leader. They don't have to be the nicest person in the world. I just don't want 100,000 people dying from fentanyl. You disagree with this, though. You think Republicans are going to lose the election? I'm not as optimistic as some people that Trump is going to win. And part of that is the way that the media is talking about Trump is that, you know, you had these people who were fudging poll numbers all throughout 2016, 2020. And now all of a sudden, and I think I spoke briefly about this recently, but especially with the Iowa caucus, they're calling the caucus for Trump within a minute of voting. By all professional standards, we've never seen that before.

So when you have the New York Times, MSNBC, CNN, all of these people calling it for Trump and showing people. where Trump is leading by double digits, I think this is another form of voter suppression because they know that if Republicans think they're leading by double digits, they're going to be fat and lazy, and they're not going to vote. I think they know that if Republicans don't feel some sort of exigency and like there's some eminent threat, they're not going to vote. They're like, we got it in the bag. Of course, nobody wants four more years of Biden. I think that's my concern going into 2024. I would say maybe that's true. but then how much power do these organizations have now?

Is it that they're still ultra-powerful, or is their power radically diminished? Which organizations? Like the New York Times, MSNBC. I mean, they're nowhere near as powerful as they used to be, is my point. So they're not going to have a generational stronghold like they may have before. So, you know, the boomers kids are not going to find as much sincerity in the New York Times and CNN as maybe previously before Trump, you know, blew the lid off of it.

And we're like, oh, you guys don't tell the truth all the time. But they do have a stronghold on the older voting generation. That's what they're watching and reading every single day is these mainstream media outlets. And these are the people who vote. Because as politically charged as Gen Z is in activism, historically, the younger generations just don't vote. They vote. They vote, but not in the way that the older generations and the boomers do. They're just out of the world.

Yeah. Yeah. They have the world at their fingertips on their phone. They're busy out there not having sex. Not having sex, playing video games, you know, posting on Instagram, making TikToks. And watching other people have sex. Yes. Yes. So I just, yeah, they still do have a really strong hold on the boomer mindset. Like, especially when I talk to my grandmother or, you know, my parents, they'll say,

oh, I saw this on the news. And we might scoff at that and say, well, why are you reading that? They still very much find these, you know, that's where they get their news. Where else are they going to go? to. They are going to have a brain aneurysm opening acts. You know, they're like, what is happening? It's like, they're walking into a casino and they're on drugs. They're like, they're on LSD in a casino is like, boomers opening social media. They're like, what's going on? So they're still very much, oh, look, my top five headlines for the day. They love that. Angry boomers in the comments. The boomers are going to be so mad. They're like, I'm on X just fine. But, you know, they're not on TikTok. They're not on Instagram. They're not on these. I'm not on

TikTok. Exactly, because it's, it's too much for so many people. So yeah, they still have a, to go back, yes, they still have an instrumental amount of power in terms of voting. You know, when I have my grandmother asking me if

Elon Musk is really a Nazi, yes, I think they have an instrumental amount of power as it in terms of voting. That's really interesting. And one of the things I actually really wanted to talk to you about actually, is, you know, I kind of thought 10 years ago, we're kind of done with the conversation about anti-Semitism. And now it seems on the left, we've just seen it, you know, absolutely

come back from full force. But I'm starting to see it on the right as well, where I'm going, I didn't expect it from your guys. I've always said anti-Semitism is a bipartisan position. Yes, and especially what's characterizing it now. First of all, we just can't catch a break, can we? But what's characterizing it now is really Marxism. And it's hard not to laugh at the institutions like Columbia being taken over by these people. And you have the Jewish professors. I think it was David Shea or one of them who, you know, he had his card turned off at Columbia.

And if you go back and you see his tweets and his books. post from during the height of the BLM riots, he's saying, well, we don't need police and we should defund them. And all of a sudden, he's like, where are the police? The Marxists have taken over the institutions that I raised them in, you know? And it's fundamentally to me, yes, there are some people who think it's actually the Jews that, like, run the world and this and that. But I think it is inherently anti-white and anti-West rhetoric. That's really, it's Marxism at its core. It really doesn't, the Jews are just really easy to say it about because, you know, they do

run so much. It's like, oh, look, it must be them. They're at the top. In the same way, it, like, it mimics a lot of the DEI conversations. It's like, well, the problem must be white men since they're a majority of CEOs. It mimics that in a lot of ways. But I don't think the issue is fundamentally

this circa 1930s issue. I think it really is Marxism. I think it really is this anti-white rhetoric, this anti-opressor rhetoric that we need to redistribute everything. Because again, at all of these institutions, it's happening at all the universities, that they're being the perfect little Marxist soldiers that you train them to be. Of course they are. The woman who, if you saw the video, there was the video of the woman who's like,

we need humanitarian aid after they took over Colombia. We need water. We need food. This woman, I shit you not. She is her focus. She was an assistant teacher, something like that. PhD student with an emphasis in poetry through Marxian lens. That's not a joke. That's not a Babylon B headline. That is reality. This woman had a, you know, she was a PhD student for poetry and imagination through a Marxian lens. That is exactly what's happening because I'm watching the same people who are riding and looting through BLM and destroying my city.

Now they're sitting here and they're saying, you know, from the river to the sea. It has nothing to do with Palestine. just like it had nothing to do with the black community and what they were going through either. And I actually think the actual issue is being completely obfuscated. The real issues in the black community were completely ignored and obfuscated.

The real issues for the Palestinians are completely obfuscated and ignored. And you have these spoiled little rich kid brats asking for humanitarian aid at Columbia University where they're paying, you know, an ungodly amount of money. All right. Well, all this humanitarian aid talk is making me hungry.

We need some humanitarian. We led sort of some from Uber Eats. You've been in America too long, my friend. I'm very hungry. So, Ashley, it's been great having you on. We will ask you a bunch of questions from our supporters that they've already submitted that only they will get to see on locals in second.

But we always end our conversations with the same question, which is what's the one thing we're not talking about that we really should be? AI. Absolutely, AI. And how we can have our principles, especially as it relates to free speech and liberty, how we can apply that to this new world that's run by AI and robots. So I think that's what we absolutely need to focus on.

Awesome. Well, head on over to locals where we continue the conversation. How does fear of losing subscribers handicap people at the Babylon Bee when they're satirizing people on the right? The right window treatments change everything. Your sleep, your privacy, the way every room looks and feels. At Blinds.com, we've spent 30 years making it surprisingly simple to get exactly. what your home needs. We've covered over 25 million windows and have 50,000 five-star reviews to prove we deliver. Whether you DIY it or want a pro to handle everything from measure to install, we have you covered. Real design professionals, free samples, zero pressure. Right now, get up to 50% off with minimum purchase, plus get a free professional measure

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