Weekly Skews - S6 Ep17: Weekly Skews – Melania Makes a Robot Friend

Episode Date: April 1, 2026

The White House has horny pun fun with sex-working farmers. Marco Rubio wants you to know he listens to rap music while various prediction market fiascos continue to surround the non-war with Iran. Also, Iran hacked the FBI director’s emails and we learned that he pays for porn? Yeah, Kash Patel pays for porn. Then we get into the overlords’ obsession with replacing teachers with A.I. ,which somehow led to the first lady having to hang out with a Roomba with feet.

What's up everybody. Welcome back. Happy Skues Day to you. It's March 31st, 2021, 26. We're recording this March 30th at about 1.30 p.m. on the West Coast. I'm trying. That's Mark. How you doing, Mark?

We still have a king, I noticed. It's Monday. Yeah. I don't know if you know, but there was this big call for us to no longer have kings on Saturday. And I guess it didn't work. But maybe we can, you know, do that again. I'm not trying to be a smart ass. I went to one.

I was in Burlington. and, you know, so you have to. They make you go to that in Barley, Denner, let's say, deport you out of town. Was it 8 million people nationwide? That's pretty cool. A.W.8 million people to do. We can leave their house to do anything in America.

It's a pretty big accomplishment. I did see that, like, the same day of the No King's protest, CPAC's going on in Dallas, and the biggest event they had was for Reza Pahlavi. So they don't just love Trump. They just love the idea of a king. They just want to be ruled. even if it's by the former Shah of Iran.

Oh, Jesus Christ. It's Easter week, Trey. I hope everyone, happy Easter to all to, you know, all the believers out there. Hope you're looking forward to your ham, your Lord's Pork. Before we get to the show, I want to talk about the White House roll that launched your new website this week. Had a big event with farmers at the White House to celebrate it. It's onlyfarms.com, Trey.

Which Corn Hub was right fucking there. Um, yeah, it was especially, you know, because farmers only is already a thing, or at least it was. I don't know if, I don't know if farmers only survived the dating app wars, but it was the thing for a while there. So, you know, I'm saying this is even more likely to engender confusion, I feel like, than, um, then perhaps corn hub would have been. Yeah. So I guess the point of this is for farmers, it's an insurgable map where you can click on

your state to see the average amount that they've saved due to Trump's farm. agenda. So yeah, you might think you've been screwed because of no customers because of the tariffs and no fertilizer because of the war, but we don't believe your bank account or this fucking website. I know. That's what I was saying. It's like, presumably it's for the people who are being screwed or feel screwed by these things. So I, you know, hard for me to imagine if you're one of those people and you just, first of all, even finding out about the website or going to it in the first place, but you're like, oh, okay, well, I guess everything's fine. I guess I'm not hemorrhaging money and we're on the,

of collapse here as a, you know, as a business entity. This website says so. Although, you know, way Trump supporters are, wouldn't surprise me, I guess. Like, he just says something. And they're like, oh, okay. Now I'd feel totally differently about that than I did right before you said that thing. You just said. I just like, because like, the reporter felt they need to ask whether this was an illusion

to only fans. They're like, yes, absolutely. So it's like, yeah, the whole idea is like it's a twist on only fans where you can, like, farm kids can go and watch their dad get fucked. I don't know. Right. Yeah. My stepdad has his head stuck in a hay bale.

It's railed by entire government, you know, or whatever. Oh, these people have no idea. Like, I know that Scott Besson, the Treasury Secretary, tries to make himself like a farmer because he owns a humongous ranch. You know, as a billionaire, has a humongous ranch in North Dakota or whatever. But, like, look at this announcement. They had the picture on the cover of the brochure. If you pull this up, Matt.

It's a guy. See, if you zoom in, Matt. Zoom in on the guy. He's giving a fucking hay ride here. So their idea of what a farmer does is give hayrides. So did your grandpa kill himself after the soybean market disappeared? Try giving hayrides for money. So this is a pretty common move for farms.

You know, you can't really make it as a farm concern anymore. You sell a lot of the land. You use the rest to build like a, you know, a corn maze, a pumpkin patch, a Christmas tree farm. You turn the barn into a wedding venue. Not knocking it. Sometimes you can build a vineyard, make a little, like, wine tasting area. all good business ideas, but the entire Midwest cannot be a fucking wedding venue. It doesn't feel like a good economic model.

So I want to read, read you hear some of the language from the website. Trump, uh, not steps meant to ease some of the burdens Friday, including a new small business administration loan program that will increase guarantees to 90% for lenders who work with small businesses in the agricultural industry. This sounds like a policy idea from Kamala's fucking website, dog. They're so cooked. They're doing centrist dim shit about like 40% of 30% of 90% of 10% if you live in a small business exclusionary zone. Like, if you wanted how fucking cook they are, no ideas. Yeah.

Yeah, I don't, I mean, what, like, is there anything substantive that could improve? Didn't the Supreme Court, like, strike down the tariffs or whatever? like and then Trump was like we're just going to do it anyway but I don't know whatever you know so what's up because a lot of the terrorists were fucking them right and I know that the war in the Middle East because of the fertilizer is a new problem that I'm sure they're thrilled to have but like is anything actually easing you know the ways in which they fucked them over or they just or is it just a website that says you guys are doing great bro we talked about importing importing a bunch of Argentinian beef a couple months ago right? which fucking over American beef produces beef farmers. But, like, China just banned the importation of Argentinian beef because it has, like, plastic in it or something. And so we're just not checking. Like, everybody getting fucked here. But I want you to read this quote here.

This is from Trump's speech at the event. Apparently, he said, and rain or shine, you don't mind. One thing about farmers, they don't care about that weather. The only thing farmers care about is the fucking one. Yeah. We had a whole like almanac about it and everything. One of the first ever almanacs, I think, was like their entire, I mean, the agriculture as a concept was like from the very beginning of it was pretty dependent on the weather. And try, you know, back then they'd like do sacrifices and shit to appease the weather gods for a good harvest or whatever. but they've been thinking about weather since we, you know,

hoed the first row or whatever the fuck. Imagine you're a virgin about to be sacrificed to the sun god for a good harvest. And like, you know, we don't actually care about the weather. This just cut this version's heart out for the fun of it. But speaking of religious idolatry, they had a gold tractor there, Tray. They gifted Trump. We got this photo, Matt.

A golden tractor, they're not beating the Antichrist allegations. I tell you that much. All you think it was like, behold, a golden tractor and the one who sat on him was named to death. Yeah. Where is that going to go? Martin Lago's parking lot? How many different things is he going to be given?

Do you know what I mean? Like everywhere he ever goes, they have to give him a gift, an award, a present, or something to appease it. They're having so many events for him. I didn't pull it for this because I didn't ever talk about. Last night they had one where he was gifted like a sword and he was dancing to YMDCA and waving the sword around.

Like, what is this event? What is this? It's like they're doing a make-a-wish because his brain's gone. Everything gets a trophy. You got like three different trophies last week. I don't know, man. Cheers. All right, with that said, you know, if you've been following the past few weeks,

you don't do the plugs anymore, I will hit you with them at the end. But since I'm not doing that, we're just going to go ahead and start with the Daily Dumbass Mac graphic, please. Today's DD Marco Rubio for listening to public enemy, but not being able to hear public enemy. This has been an incredibly successful operation. Every day, it may not get covered because, you know, unlike them, we're not bombing embassies and hotels. We're hitting military targets. But every day, the Department of War lets the drummer get wicked over every portion of Iran that has these military capabilities. Let the drummer get wicked.

Other rappers have used similar lines, but I mostly think they're saying. associated with Welcome to the Terodome, but public enemy. But, like, it's basically like, we have our allies to stop collaborate and listen. I, like, like, okay, we tried a couple, a couple versions of this. We didn't tell Spain we're using the airspace because

real G's moving silence like lasagna. All right? I just, like, I think speaking, like, like, as elderly and millennials, like, as millennials get old and JetX gets old, approaches, you know, JetX is already middle age. Millennials are approaching 40. When we had, like, a conversation about to police each other

and egregious luce of rap lyrics. Because he's in public enemy to justify a war of profit. It feels like extremely gross to me. Yeah, no,

100%. Yeah, but I mean, good luck with that. I don't know that we have a lot of self-awareness around our,

you know, the judicious employment of millennial rap songs. I see a lot of like, you know, millennial moms drunk at a four-year-old's birthday dead and like,

you know, move bitch on the karaoke and stuff. And that's the fun version of it. I mean, you know, you can laugh at that. I mean, if you're that kid probably looking back on it

that's unfortunate but everybody else can laugh at it and you know and yes this was a glimpse into Corey's future I assume but anyway we probably thought that like one thing that happened with our generation is no age of which mom stopped

stop twerking guess is what we've invented right yeah right yeah but like speaking of hip hop the White House that posted this like we're basically doing Like, the White House has cut off, like, independent satellite imagery. So, like, maybe with it being honest with us about how it's going, but we don't have any other way to know other than for, like, what Iran says,

what the media in Iran and Israel says is going. And then what the White House tells us, the rest of the war is being inducted via memes. So, yeah, the White House account posted this if you got it, Matt. And I see this. I like, it's so incredible. Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. Okay. So I guess the straight's open now or what? What are we supposed to take? The White House posted that?

Yes. I don't know. I mean, I'm not surprised, but my God, dude. A Rand could have posted that. It would have just as much sense. Yeah. Because it looks like they're making fun of how weak and impunity is. All I can do is fucking write stuff on the map, right?

Right. So, but like, how are we losing the fucking meme war when, like, this is what the sexless four chain insoles are supposed to be for? Mm-hmm. like what do they bring it to the White House not doing that but speaking of the sexist four-hand losers Iran apparently has those two uh cash Patel's emails

was hacked by something called the Hamdala hack team which I guess is run by Iran they said they were used like this anonymous type rhetoric that was very granddad is like we have defeated your impenetrable defenses type shit but it was a fishing attack right they just tricked cash into giving them

his password right yeah what we learned from cash Patel's private emails is he apparently likes to go to Cuba a lot and smoke cigars. You got this photo Matt? Cool.

When did like cigars become a status symbol again? It feels like a very recent turn, right? Yeah, it's definitely, yeah, I think so. In the past 10 or so years for some reason, I don't know. Joe Rogan, I think, has something to do with it. Or maybe he just jumped on to it. But I know that, like, dudes like that, it's a thing.

You know, you smoke cigars. I never, I don't know about you I'm like, cigars never hit for me because I'm a dirt bag and I can't not inhale something that I smoke and you're not, and furthermore

I've always been like, okay, so but you're not supposed to inhale it. And they're like, no, no, you're not. And I'm like, well, what do, then what? Like, I don't get the point of them. I never have. It's like, if I'm going to smoke something,

I'm going to fucking smoke it. I'm going to get all the way in there. fucking really hurt myself with it, you know. I just hold it in my mouth bullshit. Fucking, anyway, whatever. What's the point of doing something that's not going to kill me? Right? It's not good nor bad to me.

I think it just won't hit ever and then finally kill you. Yeah. No. Other things are learning cashed his private email is that he apparently pays for X videos. He's not only paid for X videos, but if he, Matt pulls this up, when you look at the date of which he signed up, Trey. uh January he created his account or

well the other version I still said January 6 but I was got really excited it was January 6 but he's January 6 20 20 so it was a year ahead of time but yeah this version says it's January 5th so maybe I misunderstood my own joke but also Spider cash yeah that's his name Spider cash I was like what it because like he has this pins he hands out

with his logo one at the KS8 the KS8 the K dollar sign H logo I was like but that's that's the Punisher but if you look close to the Punisher logo if you pull that up Matt like inside the eyeball that's a spider. So he's invented like a hybrid Spider-Man Punisher logo

that's Spider-Cash. So the spider thing is not just for his porn account because I thought that might be a like, you know, shooting webs thing, you know what I mean? I don't know if that's where he was

going with that. That thing you just showed that you just put up there. He gives those out to people like a business card type thing. It's part of, I think it's like a challenge coin type thing is a gift to people,

but like it goes, according to his personal merch brand, the K-a-dollar-Sign H thing where he gives out, like he has his sweatshirts and hats and stuff. This is when he was basically the podcasting it, right in Donald Trump-themed children's books when he was out of power when Biden was president. Yeah, so as far as the actual,

like the kid continued building troops up in the Middle East, and a bunch of Marines got a letter that was clearly drafted Bay AI from their commanding officer telling them to get their affairs on order, basically. But the brass are leaking to Natsack reporters, not Washington politics reporters. People actually know what they're talking about, saying that there's no plans for ground invasion.

It's all a bluff. Nobody, no boots on the ground. So somebody's lying to somebody. Somebody's bluffing something, right? I don't know what's going to happen. But consider this the first war on our modern technostopia, tons of money is moving based upon guesses on this stuff on the, you know,

prediction markets. I wanted to note this. An Air Force major was just charged with using classified information to place bets on politics. market. This is related to a case. This is based upon the last Iran war, the 12-day war last summer. Okay. I thought that was like encouraged that type of thing. It is by polymarket.

Right? That's the thing. It's like, thought that made you smart or whatever. I thought that was, you know, the new philosophy about all that insider trading and any type of shit like that is like, it's all good to go now, I thought. Right. It's supposed because it's more accurate information because you're actually because they, this is how the government is. That's what separates you from all the fucking suckers that live. lose the money or whatever. Yeah.

Right. Right. So, like, I'm telling you, I can't tell what's happening because everyone's lying, but someone who's not lying is someone inside information betting on it, right? Which is why I can't believe the governments haven't cracked down on this. Like, they're just now getting around to cracking down on this guy from last year's war when he leaked basically the dates of the attack and withdrawal, starting end dates of the war. And they, like, they didn't do much to rein this in.

Like, like, all the, like, so this is in a world where a bunch of people bet millions of dollars on Ayatollah Khomeini, the last Ayatollah Kamani, being removed from power by a certain date. They had been removed from power, and Kalshi refused to pay out $54 million because they said they don't deal in death. So his death did not equate to being removed from power, and they did not pay out $54 million. Now, I want to say, I just want to spend a little time on this directly tied to death thing, because that's utter bullshit. any version of Ayatollah committee to be in a remote from power would inherently involve

a bunch of people dying. Right? But they're saying they want you better on a specific person dying. And they keep acting like it's a morality thing and it bugs me.

Because what they're trying to talk around is they've created the perfect website that's a murder-for-hire platform and they don't want to admit that's what they did. And because like, sometimes, when I explain criminal stuff to you on here,

I do a very poor job of it because what I've realized is I have the brain of a criminal and most normal people don't. So if I wanted, say I wanted, say I wanted, I wanted, I wanted to trade dead. All right? What I do, I want you dead by next Friday.

I go to place a $50,000 bet the tray will be alive next Saturday. And the free market takes care of the rest. I applauded with my I literally bet that you would be alive. It's just a hitman that's taking the other side of the bed than killing you. Right?

And I'm not sure how, like, even if they did catch me, they tried to prosecute me. I'm not, like, you would have to explain to jurors that I ironically did a murder for hire. Do you know what I'm saying? Right. And then, so, and the way these work, you would then, when the hitman does kill me, you lose $50,000. Right. I paid $50,000 to have you killed. Right.

Yeah. But you bet that. I would live and ostensibly you want to win the bet. Who would be, who would want to lose a bet? Your Honor, what do you say? I wanted him, Dad. I literally bet that he'd be alive. Yeah.

Right? So what Calci is trying to prevent is being involved in geopolitics. Because realistically, all the United States had to do is like literally put a billion-dollar contract that that total of Kamanii will be alive in two weeks and see what happens. Calci just doesn't want to be involved in that shit for pretty obvious fucking reasons. And they're acting like it's because they're too decent to trade on death. But like, so, but, like, yeah, so I always think, I was thinking about, like, like, you just put a billion dollar bounty betting he'd be a liable and whatever. And then, like, like, I was trying to pitch movie ideas about it. It basically be day of the jackass, you know, like a high end.

It's just random Iranians trying to kill him. But so, yeah, but the real danger in this stuff is not people profiting off inside information and betting on events, but altering the course of events to make bets pay off. Right? Like, what if this Air Force of General have been in charge of actually deciding the dates? not just revealing them, but he gets to start a war and get paid for it, not just from his salary. Do you know what I'm saying? Right. Like, this case is pretty dystopian.

This is a story out of Israel from a week or two ago. A military correspondent for the towns of Israel named Emmanuel Fabian wrote a story about an Iranian missile landing in Israel. Then he started getting a bunch of messages and threats from people who bet on the event online. Basically, he wrote a short piece on the newspaper's live blog, just like in a day in the life of his neighborhood, about an Iranian. a missile that struck the hit near Jerusalem and he wrote the sirens went off loud explosion shook people's windows that story was posted normal then he got started receiving weird emails it was something asking him to update the story that it's to say that instead of a missile impacted the area they wanted to write that there was a fragment an interceptor fragment not a full

missile and he could not figure why it was so important to them from to update his story with maybe they were right technically he doesn't know he's just a reporter writing about what happened and why does it matter what he said right then he went on polymark and I found there's a bet did Iran strike Israel on a certain day. And according to the rules of the bet, if a missile hit Israel, then that counts as Iran striking Israel. But if a missile's intercepted and the fragments fall down, that doesn't count as a strike.

Okay. But that's determined by a reporter publishing a, like, slice of life thing. Like, that's the determining factor in deciding that bet. You know what I mean? It's evidence. It's evidence. But like, who makes the call, though, in a case like that?

Like, that's one account that this did happen. Who says, who calls it? It says, okay, missile happens. Like, they don't have, like, anonymous count of, like, anonymous, like, an anonymous, like, counsel of crypto, cryptocurrency wizards. You literally buy onto a certain amount of crypto holdings in your account, and you get to decide whether or not they did, whether or not the bet's paid off. But, like, you use stuff like news coverage, you decide it.

Yeah, I don't. As someone who bets very casually on sports and stuff, I would never, you know what I mean? Like with sports, there's like scores that happen. You know what I mean? Like a touchdown either ultimately counts or it didn't or whatever. They make this many points or they didn't. It's objective.

It's supposed to be part of the whole point of, I can't imagine gambling on things that are that wishy-washy. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. Like that seems insane to me. This is like emailing your sports editor trying to get them to change the Ravens Titan score so that your bet pays off. Right.

This is sort of what's happening here. So let me quote here. He started getting messages like this one. This is from email he received. I would believe that we have the capabilities. And after you make us lose $900,000, we will invest no less than that to finish you or you end this with money in your pocket and also earn back the life that you had until now. So I'm sure you're aware of like what's happening to athletes, to college athletes. So they have to close their DMs and a social media and shit because they, they, I can't imagine what Caden Boozer's fucking Instagram comments look like after the Duke game.

But now we're doing it with straight with war of reporters getting death threats because a fucking bet didn't pay off. And if you think we had a fake news problem before, we've turned random news consumers into mafia game-fixing goons. The only good news part of this

is maybe we've stumbled onto a new news financing scheme because polymarking cows you literally can't exist without trustworthy news. So maybe they should fucking pay for reporters. But yeah, the real danger of this is someone could cut out the middleman and just bomb Jerusalem for profit. Like, why isn't Iran putting money on this and launching a bunch of missiles? Right. They can make the money they're not getting a fucking war on.

If you had the capability to bomb somebody and want to do it anyway, why not somehow game these markets to, you know, make money doing it? Or what about, what if you're in the IDF and you're guys in charge of launching the interceptors? what if you just don't push the button or unplug your computer for 10 seconds say you had an error let a missile hit and fucking collect the you know more money never make your life time you don't like anyway you may have two million on it and fucking run off or whatever and then you're yeah yeah and uh I was talking to my mom and sister about this but like the uh this is sort of like we talked a lot at the beginning of the Russian invasion of Ukraine about how they went to start up their vehicles and like there were like wheels missing and fucking Cadillic converters gone no batteries and shit because of corruption. it was just all gone. And like, you really can't let go, you can't run a society based upon nothing but graft or shit's going to get a fucking wild.

And I'm thinking about that in terms of like how much profiteering is going on with like Silicon Valley and Jared Kushner getting paid $5 billion from Saudi Arabia to do whatever he's doing now. There's just a ton of people violating their oath

with no obligation to, you know, God country, their neighbors, family, or whatever. And this, a Marine was arrested a couple days ago in Arizona. I bring this up, I mentioned that stuff to bring this up. He stole a bunch of ammunition and a $250,000 javelin missile system, which is a shoulder-mounted, a shoulder-mounted anti-tank missile.

Quarter million dollar anti-tank missile. I'm not sure where he was going to sell it. But this guy got arrested. And my thing is, how are you telling this guy he can't fucking steal? Do you know what I'm saying? Everybody else is fucking good rich. Yeah, right. Like Trump did this thing this morning and again where he pretended.

they were close to a peace fire with Iran for the half an hour before the market's open. The Dow went up 400 points. Somebody made a bunch of money and it turns out the war is still going on which a fucking course it is. Right. But this guy is just a regular guy though. Yeah. Like regular people need,

regular people should understand by now that they can't do that. Right. You know, they're the suckers that lose from the, you know, the betting analogy earlier, you know, but not because of,

not because of honor or an oath for the constitution or anything. sort of fucking code or the Ten Commandments or anything like that, it's just because you can't do it. But Donald, but if Jared Kushner had told this, it'd have been like, who's going to do anything, right? Right. Yep.

All right. Honorable mention for Daily Dumbass Robots at the White House. For not being totally sure, which one of you is the robot? Play it, Matt. All right, so they just walk for like 10 minutes, but like, wouldn't it be funny if that robot just ripped me off?

his arms out of the rossackets right there. It's been berserk. Yes, absolutely. Chess lights up red. It just throws her through a wall or whatever. Jumped out. jumps through the ceiling. What is it?

The thing said in Robocop is a citizen. You have 30 seconds to comply. Yeah. So what this is about? They had this event where I got to play this clip because it takes a while to make sense of it. You got this next video, man. Imagine a humanoid educator named Plato. Access to the classical studies is now instantaneous.

Literature, science, art, philosophy, mathematics, and history. Humanity's entire corpus of information is available in the comfort of your home. Okay. And that's already pretty much the case, isn't it? I mean, do you know what I mean? Yeah. You got Google. You can look that shit up.

Human teachers can look that shit up anytime they want to, you know. Yeah, but she's to do with what they're pitching is like, so this is a robot called Figure 3. It's a humanoid built in the United States. It's, he told the group they're speaking to, which is the fostering the future together global coalition, that it was grateful to be a part of this historic moment to empower children with technology and education. I need to emphasize that its maker, figure AI has average. this model on launch as a household robot that can carry out tasks like laundry cleaning and doing dishes but they apparently have rolled it into like an AI education thing and they're going to have

this robot made also homeschool your kids uh-huh what they're pitching it as is basically a trad wife bot 2000 right and then and this would also be accompanied by i assume like public schools shuddering all over the country there you go yeah right and then only like rich families can afford the teacher bot or whatever, which probably sucks anyway, I would assume. But, uh, but yeah. No. One of the many, one of the many freakouts we had during COVID about school closures was, was when teachers wore masks, it was that kids couldn't see social cues from the teacher's faces and

therefore weren't learning like to be socialized correctly or learning, we're getting a full learning experience. And now you've got literally a robot with no face. You're going to say it's going to teach your kids. Right. Um, and I'm, pivoting to that because they couldn't. and figure out the laundry part.

Because that's, like, way harder than they thought it would be, apparently, laundry and dishes and stuff, because we don't think about it as human being, using dishes as an example. As a human being, like, will you pick up a cast iron skillet to wash it or whatever, and then you pick up a wine glass to wash it, you don't have to think about not shattering the wine glass immediately, or the difference, the differences between those two materials. and how to handle them differently and how, you know, the pressure and your fingertips,

how you squeeze it. Like, we just do, we just do all that without thinking about it. But a robot has to be programmed how to do all of that. And that shit's, like, really fucking hard to do, apparently. So, let's just have them teach all the kids instead. We just have it run YouTube videos on its face for fucking eight hours a day. And that'll be pretty cool, too. That's close enough.

I'm laughing because I realize what the robot they've made is basically Lenny from Mice and Men just choking rabbits While at the same time The first thing they're trying to do with it is they'd let it give them a hand job Yeah So Like yeah

So basically it's a They've been bootstrapped Educating your kids on this robot made On top of its programming And pretending that that's what it was originally made for But it's like I don't Basically I don't want to read the kind of to the kids have the robot made to it.

But like I, I, this stuff baffles me because I feel like people think kids go to schools to get downloaded information into it. Right. No. The socialization and all that shit is so important. That's why, that's why COVID was such a huge problem with kids and education and stuff was because of that. Like, some of the kids got set back and stuff because of like just not even, because they were still being given the information via Zoom or in a Google,

classroom or whatever, like virtually, but they're just sitting at home and they're not actually there at school anymore, and it fucked a lot of them up because the actual being there with other kids, their age and everything is hugely important. Everybody on, everybody on plant, look, sorry, no offense to anybody out there. But, you know, you all know a homeschool kid when you see one, I feel like, you know what I mean? It's like, you know, they got, there's a stereotype for a reason. They're, they're sweethearts, but they're a little off. They're a little strange, usually.

They're not like the rest of the kids. They got a weird energy to them homeschooled kids do. And they're just trying to homeschool the entire, you know, an entire generation. That's not a good idea. Yeah, I was like, my sister's a teacher. We were talking about this.

It's like the, a lot of where kids go to school is to learn how to be human. Yeah, right. And then you're going to have a robot do the job. It's like, no, it doesn't, you literally can't do the job. But you brought up COVID schooling.

I think it's a good, good to bring it up, because, like, kids missed, like, a year and I, maybe, a lot of them didn't even miss a full year, maybe a semester of, like, in-person learning. And they literally have a large social movement among kids in the early 20s, hitting themselves in the faces with hammers to look better. Yeah, right, yeah. You know what I'm saying? Yeah.

Like, I feel like, you know, like, I feel like maybe, maybe, maybe has some lingering effects. So, like, but basically, like, I want to get into, like, the rights obsession with A. ed tech, but it's basically just this if you have this next video, Matt. It's just the normal things where we're all just cogs in a machine and we should be cheaper. This room is filled with extraordinary human capital. All right. Have you ever looked at, next time you're on stage, trades, be like, this room is full of extraordinary human capital. Just like, if you want to talk about just like, like, you know, feedstock purposes, you guys are great egg beef.

Right. But I do want to mention they've given Maloney the weirdest side quests in Trump, too. And this version of, they seem to have given her like an Elon firmware update. So, yeah, everything's going great

over there. So they really don't allow more people to homeschool, right? That's kind of what this boss for. It's not going to work, but that's the idea here. They're trying to offer something to talk about. And they want to complete the,

replace the woke public school teachers from system and stuff like pushing social emotional learning and various of the progressive agendas. The whole idea is based that Plato, this fake bot she's imagining will never end up on lives of tech talk right and the thing about that also is how many different times has Elon gotten pissed at grok because grok said some woke

shit because it was you know programmed to interpret uh reality in that way so he has to reprogram it to be less woke and now it's just a Nazi so it's like but you know how's that going to happen with plato the teacher bot or whatever it's either going to be woke if it's honest about like the history of the Civil War or whatever, right? Or it's, you know, going to be saying Hitler was pretty rad if you think about it. Like it's going to be one of those two things. And I know, I guess a lot of them probably just want the second thing. That's a feature, not a bug.

But yeah, I just, you know. It's also the part where they, the AL the AS keep generating nude images of underage kids. So like if you leave this thing, a robot along with their kids, is a 50-50 for chance their kid gets molested by a fucking robot. Like, this whole thing is so horrifying. So this did lead to a backlash from the homeschool movement, even the maga wing of it, because obviously it would. They could have just asked somebody why they homeschool their kids.

It's not just to get away from the wokeness. It's to personally teach their kids their values. Right. And also to spend more time with their children because they do love their children. And it's just like, it's just insanely inhuman. Like, let's give, like, they think anybody would be into this. Let me quote here. The introduction of Plato comes as a backlash

against the use of screens and educational technology in schools has begun to get real on both the left and the right. The backlash against the omnipresence of iPads and Chrome books in public school has resulted in lawmakers in the reddest and the bluest states looking at legislation to change the situation. Like, even like, it's a comical version of this.

Josh Shapiro got a bunch of shit online last week. He was trying to promote the fact he was pushing it back against the, like, the prevalence of screens and classrooms. but one of the things he signed was mandating the kids learn cursive. And he got a bunch of shit for it. Not because learning cursive is bad.

I'm not against learning cursive. I don't really understand the point of it. But like, it's just so small. Right. Like the Trump administration is like, we're going to fire all the teachers and give you a robot made. And you're like, I'm going to make them learn cursive. It just feels like, bro, what are you doing here?

You know, I don't know, but cursive's fine. So, technology education is, you'd be quoted here from historian Audrey Walters. Technology education always arrives making utopian noises and leaves behind mixed results. We're talking about like one of the claims about putting, like, it was a big liberal thing. Mark Zuckerberg, remember when Mark Zuckerberg was a huge liberal donor? He basically supplied laptops to all the kids in a New Jersey school district. It was hailed as a liberal icon. Because the idea was like one laptop per kid is going to fix inequality in school.

Right. Yes, right. Yeah, I remember all that. Intercity schools and stuff. They don't have computers and all that shit. Yeah, we got to, yeah, good computers in every school and everything. I know. I was just about this the other day. I know we've sort of talked about this before, but it's like, I'm sure you're going to push back on this,

and I'm sure you're probably going to be right. But I feel like there was a period of time there, and perhaps it was just a naive time, but when there was this, like, advancement happening or whatever, and it seemed like most of the things that happened that you could see how they could be good, or they did like improve people's lives. I was thinking about this because of GPS. Like with like GPS that came out and all of a sudden GPS is on your phone and it's free and you're like, this is fucking incredible.

Like for somebody with no sense of direction like me, what? Holy fuck. And you just take it for granted now. And there was a period of time where most technological advancement sort of felt like that. Right. And then a shift just happened just like a, you know, a shift in our entire culture and society and everything about it. And I guess it's just in stage.

capitalism or something, but like, and we finally cross some sort of Rubicon or something, but it just happens, and now it's like, it just goes the other way. It's like every, it just gets more and more dystopian and every new advancement is just like, you know, frightening and dangerous and shit or whatever. And it's like making people's lives worse and stuff. And it's like, I don't know, it's just been a hard, hard turn into. I was going to bring this up later. I think the GPS is a good analogy because GPS is great.

but GPS works for you. Do you remember, if you listen to GPS too much, it'll get you in trouble. And there's a very funny episode of the office where Michael Scott follows the GPS to he drives into a lake. Right. Yes. The fundamental dynamic here is they're flipping it from like where GPS is a tool you use to you being a tool that the GPS uses. Like your kid now listens to the robot teacher, right? they were about to talk about a school district where teachers aides work for an AI teacher.

It's just like it's a fundamental. I'd say this to talk about sometime in the future, but there's a new company that just launched that basically is a task rabbit that lets AI agents hire human beings to do tasks for it. The basic idea, if you like ask an AI agent. When they need a flesh bag for something. Yes. Yes. Yeah. So if you have.

your AI agent, like I need this stuff taking care of for me. One of them is like, for example, I don't know, dropping off and picking up your dry cleaning. So you ask your agent to take care of that. It's like on it, sir. And then now the AI agent can hire like somebody via task rabbit to come pick up your laundry and drop it off.

Right. Right. But I don't want to work for a robot anyway. It's fucking undignified. Yeah. Like, it's just like, yeah, yeah. So I want to talk about one example of the utopian promises of AI schooling. I go in depth on it. This is about a school in Chicago that's opening this fall.

It's a new location of a chain of school called Alpha Schools, opening in Lakeshore East. And it says this AI-driven model can help students learn core academics in just two hours a day, freeing up time for workshops, unique projects, and learning various life skills. And I'm guessing if you're working two hours a day, learning two hours a day, and then doing other stuff for a tech company for the rest of the day, I'm assuming it's slave labor to make microchips, but maybe they let them have fun and play outside. that alpha boasted its model helps students excel in learning while gaining a general affection for school in 2425 year-in reflection alpha founder mackenzie price said that in a survey of a thousand k through 12

students at 13 schools around the u.s 94% said they quote love school with 60% saying they would rather go to school than on vacation that's a huge red flag to me if you like your kid like school that much. They're not doing enough fucking school, I think. Right. Probably. Yeah. This is, this is already happening. This has been happening. There's a fully AI school in Chicago that operation. This is the new location. We're going to another location of this. We'll get to in a little bit. But like, this is the chain of schools that is growing rapidly called alpha schools. Yes. Wow. With a tuition of $55,000 a year, it will be one of the most expensive private schools

in Chicago to let your kids play on a vibe code to chat. being kidding me? I, who is doing that? If you're paying $55,000 a year, you should have like, you know, fucking PhDs

should be teaching your kids fucking finger painting and shit. Like, that's what the, like, you know what I mean? Like, people with like some credentials and shit,

but like just people, not a fucking computer program or whatever, you know, like you just put on like a headset and just, you know, that should be cheaper.

Like, that should be the cheaper option. I don't think anyone should do it, but it should be like, you want the private school experience, but you don't have that kind of money. For only this amount, fraction of the amount,

because we're not paying any teachers. We're not doing it. It's all AI. This is the miracle of AI. And, you know, your kid fucking turns 18 and doesn't know algebra or whatever, but that's,

you've had to work, that's a tomorrow problem. But if you'd think that would be the, the pitch, The idea that it's that, but it's the most expensive option, that don't even make any fucking sense to me. I'm sure it's being sold as like, well, it's so superior to everything else.

You will have Uber children if you do this. But I just don't get that. That's crazy. Like, the thing that killed me is like, they're apparently, like, so the AI teacher, the kids on a screen with an AI teacher or the program teacher stuff or whatever, but they are teachers, they call them guides.

They call them their paraprofessionals or teachers' age or whatever. They call them guides. They're hiring for that at $100,000 a year. You do have to have a college degree, but no teaching experience or certification. So they're paying more than teachers make. I don't know what Chicago teachers make, but definitely more than what most American teachers make. To be an unqualified teacher who works for a robot, which makes me think people get this is undignified and they don't want to report to a robot.

They have to pay some sort of premium for it, which is probably the reason. What does that person do? So there are humans involved? Yeah. And they do what? I guess to usher the kids around the school because the kid's robot doesn't want a physical being. Just make sure the kids don't get into trouble because the kid, the robot is a screen. It can't stop kids from hitting each other.

Yeah, right. Okay. But my thing is like they, they, the $50,000 dollars, like this company tops their test scores. That the kids get better test scores than kids in regular school? I'm like, a fucking course they do. They got rich parents who care a lot about their kids' education. They would be getting good test scores no matter what the fuck they were doing. The biggest indicator whether or not a kid does well in school is whether or not its parents keep up with stuff and read books to them.

Yeah. So it's also like it's debatable heavily, but just how much test scores really indicate anything. You know what I mean? Like you could teach to just to prepare a kid to do well on a test and it doesn't mean that they actually were educated well or whatever. Right. You know, so like there's also that. Yeah. So the curriculum combined software developed by the school with licensed third party educational applications.

like Khan Academy, Mimbian, Mintava, and Mobymax. So you go to your parent-teacher night. It's like, this is my son's teacher, a formless E-spector named Mobymax. So many of the projects they do after their schooling are entrepreneurial in nature. They have included students opening and managing their own food truck, participating in TEDx U-Talks, creating apps and even managing their own Airbnb. We're teaching your sixth grader how to manage an Airbnb. Newark our fucking society from orbit, dude.

14. You know that's great class at fucking running at Airbnb and I have friends like like I think Airbnb is a bad concept

but I have friends who do it you get to operate economy living and I'm not showing anyone who runs an Airbnb but I'm saying

that like the running at Airbnb is not a sixth graders dream yeah my niece is in sixth grade

she wants to get a college volleyball scholarship to a school with a good marine biology program. That is a sixth graders dream. It's a beautiful dream. If she said she wanted to run an Airbnb, I would try to get custody of her and wonder what my sister was doing wrong. I don't know.

Sounds like she might not be enough of a hustler, Mark. I'm not sure if she's grinding hard enough. You ask me. This part killed me. This is the story about the benefits of this school. A 2026 Stanford review of more than 800 academic papers

found that while evidence shows that AI can help improve students' performance, the benefits are less clear when students are later asked to work without AI support. No shit. So when the AI is giving them the answers, they just do it for you.

I know. I thought that was like, I thought that was like the most immediately evident problem with this out of the whole thing, meaning like as soon as chat GPT came out It's like, oh, we got an epidemic at colleges and shit because kids are just using chatGBT to do their, you know, to do their work. And professor, it's new so people aren't prepared for that and whatever else.

And they're having to catch up. And it's like clearly a problem. So, you know, that's, I always love it whenever side. I know that, you know, you got to do it and codified at some point. But whenever scientists, whenever a study comes from the halls of like, you know, no shit Sherlock, you know, that field of branch of science. It's always fun. It is worth looking into it. When AI feed you an answer, do you remember it later?

No. You're trying to judge whether it works, but obviously it doesn't. So, anyway, the, I guess it's worth double checking, but it's right. It's no, it's like you had to confirm, but we all suspect it, but obviously, like, no fucking shit, right? It's like, it's like an open book test is better, it's better because you used to find the information yourself. But, like, I watched a viral video from a teacher was talking about how a student had reported him to, to, to, to, to administration, had to have a meeting with her parents. because she asked him a question and he responded with a series of questions

to lead her to figure out the answer and she got so mad she went to the principal but they had explained her the Socratic method and what she was frustrated with is like when I ask chat GPT it tells me the answer right yeah and he had done that because he was actually teaching her

she lost her shit how to think critically or whatever yeah right that's the whole point of that Oh, so yeah, the point of Chicago is opening, but I wanted to talk about the experiences of a student at a location that's been around for a few years in Brownsville, Texas. Brownsville, Texas. This is from a story last fall. The headline is, parents fell in love with Alpha Schools promise, then they wanted out. It's about a woman in Christine Barris's nine-year-old daughter who got stuck on a lesson in a program called I-X-L at this Alpha School.

I-XL is a personalized learning software that served as her math teacher. what the program asked her to do was to multiply three three digit numbers without using a calculator, right? And then she had to do it again more than 20 times. This kid was good. The nine-year-old kid was good at math. She could do a bunch of three, like three-digit times three-digit-multification in her head. But what the program was asked her to do, and she had to get 20 in a row correct before she could move on. She missed one.

That's only 95% correct. She had to do the test over again. I was thinking back to There was a guy I played the NBA in the 90s called Mahmoud Abdul Raul Rao. He converted to Islam. That's what his name was, I forget it was when he played in college,

when he was Shaq's team at LSU in college. But when I read profiles of him, they talked about his OCD, like it was a superpower because he was a point guard he shot. Like, I think this set the NBA record that time for free throw percentage in a year. Because he practiced free throws. He had to make 20 in a row

swish with the net snapping just correctly before he'd let himself go home from practice. Yeah. that was his brain the disease he had to deal with. This computer is given this girl OCD as a condition of her education. She got so much anxiety. Let me read here, sorry. She could do three-digit multiplication correctly most of the time,

but whenever she made an error in I Excel, the software were determined she needed more practice and assign her more questions. She told her mom that she asked her guide, who's the human in the room, the adult supervisor of classroom in lieu of a teacher, to make an exception to let her move on. the guy's reply was that she needed to get it done because the robot fucking says so. The guide works for the robot. This theme is going to come back to that.

Over the next weekend, her mom says she and her husband sat with her daughter for hours each day until she finished the multiplication lesson. Even as she broke down and sobbed, she'd rather die than keep going. This is a nine-year-old doing her math homework for multiplication. You're not supposed to want to die while looking at a calculator until you're 40 to do in your fucking taxes. right this is school that claims they're doing Montessori school computers they're making learning more fun right so she fell behind trying to please the robot

and started skipping lunches to try to make up to meet the robot's deadline deadlines and shit so she lost weight to the degree they took the daughter to a pediatrician who prescribed snacks throughout the day that weren't part of the school's normal routine and curriculum

right there you go say that doctor prescribed snacks That's what I'm talking about. It's like, no, the doctor's orders these Cheetos. I'm supposed to have Cheetos at 2P. There you go. I'm sure they were healthy snacks and that's less fun. But, you know, anyway, good for the doctor.

I had a buddy in other than Dallas. These families, Indian, which is relevant to the story, because his dad didn't drink. But he had some sort of like high blood pressure or something where the doctor prescribed him one beer a day, which really hit for him. But he didn't want to drink in front of his wife. So his one beer a day would be a 40 ounce. You would drink it alone in the bathroom. There you go. Still counts.

Doctor says. So what you want is that guy's doctor. So this nine-year-old, nine-year-old girl just trying to learn multiplication tables. And she has to get 100% 995, right? So one afternoon, she came back with her medically prescribed snacks still in her backpack, uneatened. The mom alarmed, asked Alpha if it was providing different food instead. and the nine-year-old said no they weren't. She told her mom the staff of the school and said she didn't earn her snacks and wouldn't get them until she met her learning metrics according to the robot.

We have a nine-year-old slaving in a multiplication table coal mine. The robot says your child has not earned her a lot of nutritional paste yet. Right. Yeah. Like, I do not understand what this is for. Like, I understand the problem they're trying to solve is America has their teachers. teacher shortage crisis. Because parents got insane, started burning books and accusing every teacher of being

part of the trans agenda. Right. And they never got paid well anyway. So why the fuck would you want to do that job? And, you know, now that half the country hates them for no good reason or whatever. My sister was telling me that like this older neighbor they have was talking to her about how all the kids have litter boxes in schools, right? That old thing.

and my sister was like try to be nice this 80 year old guy because what's the point in fucking correcting him he's going to be dead soon but he thinks he can't have these stupid fantasies or whatever and she's like I can only tell you what's happening at my school I've never seen a litter box

and I don't think that any janitor whatever they make would be cleaning out human poop out of a litter box like in the United States I just don't think that's the case and the guy who basically is like a wink in a nods like I know the truth but I understand why you can't say

yeah right dude oh my god the cabal is going to have my sister like Epstein if she tells the truth about the litter boxes in her fucking elementary school classroom uh yeah so the teacher short of short shortage crisis

is about 110 10,000 teachers nationwide in 2324 according to the learning policy institute with projections indicating this could grow to nearly 200,000 by the end of this year their fear is the problem will be compounded by recent cuts to federal funding which have only exacerbated this fucking problem.

So Alpha's promise to replace teachers, you know, a teacher who never calls in sick, who you can teach to be not woke, only teach your kid what it wants to learn, and also is so efficient to get your kids eight hours with learning done in two hours they can start learning how to run their own Airbnb, right? This is the promise of Alpha schools,

and their promise is propelled it from a small Texas private school into a budding educational empire and a darling of the Trump administration, and rich assholes everywhere. And here's Lyndon McMahon being asked about it last week. And what is your take on these alpha schools that are new to the backdrop? Well, I've actually visited the office school in Austin, Texas, and was so impressed by that.

And one of the things that you explained is, you know, absolutely being able to double down for a student in the seizure proficient in. But the alpha school that I visited in the first two hours of every day, every student is getting AI instruction and a different subject. When you see Linnam and Man talking about other stuff,

she's not nearly this well-versed on it. Like six months ago, she called AIA1. Remember that? We showed the clip. Yes. She thought it was a steak sauce. Now she knows all the talking points for why everyone should be going to AI schools,

right, which is like the step between here, the home-boschooling version is the Melania bot. Right. So as far as Alpha Schools, the guy named Joe Lamat, who's a Stanford dropout, turned top.

founder whose billions come from selling automation software is the school's principal. This past summer, hedge fund manager Bill Ackman, big Trump supporter and anti-Mundami guy in New York, promoted the old school or X and hosted a panel about it in the Hamptons. Reed Hoffman, the big Democratic donor and founder of LinkedIn has had proponents of Alpha schools on his podcast and said on X that, quote, the best news is that Alpha's AI tutor approach, quote can be a reality for every student anywhere but I bet not your fucking kids read um

and listen here I don't doubt this hits for some kids right it is a real problem for schools that one size doesn't fit all for kids in any sort of way shape or form yeah it happens that's why you want smaller classes in general which is why you should invest more in teachers

so kids are teachers are having to deal with 20 to 30 25 kids with different learning approaches rather than 40, right? But like, I don't think we should be creating schools that are customized to the most independent only self-starting kids

who can learn how to do their homework on their own and also emotionally able to handle the pressure of being able to do homework under you don't get to eat if you don't get it done. Yeah, yeah. So I don't want to, you know, I don't want this to sound how it might say. But, you know, I was a huge, huge dork, big fat nerd as a kid.

So I always made good grades and stuff. So my sons, they also are nerds. They make good grades and everything. And during COVID and they were like elementary school kids and they were all this. They really, they did pretty much fine with it. Right. But like, so I was shocked to hear later. You hear all these horror stories about like all these kids that are their age like can't read when they're now in fifth or sixth grade or whatnot.

And it's because they got like so far behind. or whatnot. And I was like, damn, I'm glad that didn't it because I was just, I had my own shit going on Mark. I was gaining 40 pounds. I was fucking learning to bake bread. I was checked out, dog, you know, but that, not checked out. I don't know what the right word is, but I was, you know, I was all, I was going through

it too. Okay. So I was like, I'm glad mine were just good with that, you know, because it could have been a real disaster. But that's like, like you said, they're, they're very different. That's what makes a good teacher in the first place has been able to understand and recognize the different kids respond to different things or whatever, you know, even like a human teacher that does like a one size fits all or a blanket approach is not going to be as

successful. So you can't just apply this same thing to every kid out there. Right. It's like what really got me here is like I mentioned earlier this is in Brownsville, Texas, the school Alpha Scarred in Brownsville and what else is in Brownsville? SpaceX, right? Okay. So the way it would asked why Alpha had chosen to open a school in Brownsville. Parents say they recall that Lehman responded, as a guy as a principal said, for SpaceX. So you're asking what plans for your kids are if they're not Airbnb owning SpaceX engineers.

I guess those kids will need janitors, provided those janitors are cheaper than humanoid robots that are also doing your laundry and homeschooling someone else's kids. So I just like, I don't think any of these people's plans are going to come true, but my God, their plans to the future fucking bleak dudes. That's what I was about to say, too. It's like, especially with the robot maids and stuff, like, if they suck, which we'll just assume that they'll suck, then it won't, you know, it won't work.

I don't care how many, like, rich people they worship tell them you should be doing this. Like, if it don't, if it doesn't actually do the job, if it isn't good, especially if it's expensive, rich people ain't going to do that, they'll be like, just, you know, get my Mexican staff back in here. You know, that I hit under the floorboard. when ice came by or whatever. Wouldn't let them take my, you know, indentured servants. I'd rather have those than this bullshit. So that's kind of what I'm clinging to, I guess.

Dude, like, like, Rumba uploads your fucking data of the maps at your house to the cloud and shit. I don't know what good, where my, like, where my coffee table is to the, the overlords, the oligarchs, but they have the information.

And so, like, do you want a robot, like, walk upstairs, with the capability to record video that has LIDAR, knowing, when you and your wife go in the bedroom and shut the door? Like I was thinking about if it had a robot made that worked what I want one, even if I had a big, like, I don't want a robot fucking following me around doing shit.

Like how hard is doing your goddamn dishes? Jesus Christ. Right. All right. Well, thank you guys for listening. That's it for this week. Here come the plugs. Come see me on the road.

If you were in Burlington, those were all great. Thanks for being there, everybody. Coming up next is Philadelphia. That's right. Philly and then Riley, then Phoenix, all in 8. April. Those would be fun. Then we've got Brooklyn and May and San Francisco, Portland, Seattle, Orlando, Florida, a bunch, bunch, bunch more, all at traycrowder.com. If you would like a pallet cleanser, you could check out producer Matt's audio exclusive called

Good Skews, Good People Doing Good Things, Find out on the audio feed for this very show. And speaking of this show, if you would like more of it and you want to support the show, you can sign up on Patreon. For $5 a month, you get now, add free versions of all the primary episodes, but also two additional bonus full-length episodes per months, including roughly quarterly, multi-part Q&As we do, skew-n-as, we call them. So get some more skews in your life. But either way, if you keep watching on Tuesdays,

we'll keep being here for the knots anyway, until everything goes up in flames. See you, bye. Love you. See you.