Latest / Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar / 5/12/26: Bibi Blames Social Media For Anti-Israel Criticism, Derek Thompson On Billionaire AI Takeover

Transcript

5/12/26: Bibi Blames Social Media For Anti-Israel Criticism, Derek Thompson On Billionaire AI Takeover · Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Hey guys, Saga and Crystal here.
• 0:01
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• 0:34
  Speaker 4: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netsan Yahoo, in his splashy sixty
• 0:37
  Speaker 4: minutes interview on Sunday Night, which Crystal and I covered yesterday,
• 0:41
  Speaker 4: also made some comments in regard to what he sees
• 0:43
  Speaker 4: as rising anti Semitism, and he has a theory of
• 0:47
  Speaker 4: why this is apparently happening. It is related to you
• 0:51
  Speaker 4: guessed it, social media. Let's take a listen to this.
• 0:54
  Speaker 5: First thot.
• 0:55
  Speaker 6: We have seen the deterioration of support for Israel states
• 1:01
  Speaker 6: almost I would say it correlates almost one hundred percent
• 1:06
  Speaker 6: with the geometric rise of social media, and that by
• 1:10
  Speaker 6: itself is not what caused it. And I don't believe
• 1:13
  Speaker 6: in censoring them or anything, but I'll tell you what happened.
• 1:17
  Speaker 6: We have several countries that basically manipulated social media with
• 1:23
  Speaker 6: the bot farms, with fake addresses to break the American
• 1:30
  Speaker 6: sympathy to Israel, to break the American Israeli alliance because
• 1:33
  Speaker 6: they think it's in their interests, and they do it
• 1:36
  Speaker 6: in a clever way. You know. It's like you hear
• 1:38
  Speaker 6: a text message I'm a red blooded text and I
• 1:41
  Speaker 6: always supported Israel, but I can't stand what they're doing.
• 1:45
  Speaker 6: I'm turning against Israel, and then you trace the address
• 1:47
  Speaker 6: to some basement in Pakistan, you know. And that's that's
• 1:51
  Speaker 6: something that has hurt us badly. While we were fighting
• 1:54
  Speaker 6: the physical military battle on seven battlefields, seven Front War,
• 2:00
  Speaker 6: we were completely exposed on the Eighth Front the media war,
• 2:04
  Speaker 6: really the social media war.
• 2:06
  Speaker 4: In a healthy political climate, he would be asked to
• 2:09
  Speaker 4: apologize for those comments, because he is implying that the
• 2:12
  Speaker 4: American people are so stupid that dumb little text messages
• 2:16
  Speaker 4: are what swayed them to start. Especially he's talking about
• 2:19
  Speaker 4: the American right you can hear because he talks about
• 2:21
  Speaker 4: this red blooded American Texan. That's his way of talking
• 2:24
  Speaker 4: specifically about Republican voters. Conservatives right leaners in the United
• 2:29
  Speaker 4: States are just so dumb that their opinions can't possibly
• 2:33
  Speaker 4: be informed that if they have lost, if they are
• 2:36
  Speaker 4: their support for Israel is declining, it's because they are misinformed,
• 2:40
  Speaker 4: ill informed, disinformed, or too stupid to actually just have
• 2:45
  Speaker 4: an opinion that differs from Prime Minister Netanyahu's. As Americans,
• 2:50
  Speaker 4: by the way, people who believe their country's interests, their interests,
• 2:52
  Speaker 4: their family interants, interests, their children's interests are out of
• 2:57
  Speaker 4: line with the party that the Laku Party essentially, and
• 3:01
  Speaker 4: Sager going to toss this over to you with also
• 3:03
  Speaker 4: the news that Israel Is now is bragging basically about
• 3:07
  Speaker 4: banning Tyler Olivera from entering the country. This is the
• 3:10
  Speaker 4: next element. It's a Laura Lumer exclusive.
• 3:14
  Speaker 5: She posts.
• 3:15
  Speaker 4: Israel's Minister of Diaspora and Combat Combating Anti Semitism exclusively
• 3:19
  Speaker 4: tells me quote it was his pleasure to make sure
• 3:22
  Speaker 4: Tyler Olivera could not enter Israel today. Upon landing in
• 3:25
  Speaker 4: the country from the US. She mentions. Of course, also
• 3:29
  Speaker 4: that Tucker just completed an interview. Tyler just completed an
• 3:31
  Speaker 4: interview with Tucker Carlson in which which they bashed Israel
• 3:35
  Speaker 4: with lies, and then Tyler hopped on in l al
• 3:38
  Speaker 4: flight to Israel.
• 3:40
  Speaker 5: Sager.
• 3:41
  Speaker 4: So it's all just an op from foreign countries manipulating Americans,
• 3:47
  Speaker 4: manipulating Tucker Carlson, using him.
• 3:50
  Speaker 5: He's all, this is all from foreign money.
• 3:52
  Speaker 4: It couldn't possibly be American people saying this is what
• 3:56
  Speaker 4: is in my rational interest, based on the best information.
• 4:00
  Speaker 5: That they could come up with.
• 4:00
  Speaker 3: Yeah, you really should read actually what this guy said,
• 4:03
  Speaker 3: the Minister of the diaspora.
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: He says, the party is over.
• 4:07
  Speaker 3: Anyone who comes here with the aim of spreading hatred
• 4:10
  Speaker 3: will be sent back where they came from. This follows
• 4:12
  Speaker 3: the implementation of the new policy. Entry into Israel or
• 4:14
  Speaker 3: activity within Israel will not be permitted for anyone who
• 4:18
  Speaker 3: disseminates anti Semitic content, supports BDS, or insights against the
• 4:21
  Speaker 3: State of Israel and the Jewish people.
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: The rule is simple.
• 4:24
  Speaker 3: Whoever incites against us simply will not be here. And
• 4:28
  Speaker 3: of course, Tyler Olivera, to my knowledge, you know the
• 4:32
  Speaker 3: video which they are the most upset with him about
• 4:36
  Speaker 3: is the one about I think it is a Hasidic
• 4:38
  Speaker 3: Jewish community I think in New Jersey. Okay, listen, go
• 4:41
  Speaker 3: watch it, you know for yourself, go watch it. You
• 4:43
  Speaker 3: can decide, you know, whether it's anti Semitic or not.
• 4:46
  Speaker 3: I would say it fits within the broad catalog of
• 4:50
  Speaker 3: the work that he've done. And that's I mean to me,
• 4:52
  Speaker 3: that's the hypocrisy. Like if he does a video about
• 4:55
  Speaker 3: like illegal migrants in Europe, everybody loves him, right, yeah,
• 5:00
  Speaker 3: at least right wingers.
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: But they love som Alians. They love it.
• 5:05
  Speaker 3: Oh no, you can't do that, right, And see that's
• 5:07
  Speaker 3: the problem. And that's, by the way, why that guy
• 5:09
  Speaker 3: has what like nine million subscribers on YouTube. This is
• 5:13
  Speaker 3: We're just a politics show. This is like a cultural phenomenon.
• 5:16
  Speaker 4: It is My favorite Oliver's video was when he went
• 5:19
  Speaker 4: to like Alabama and tried to find people who had
• 5:21
  Speaker 4: kissed their cousins, Like this is the contest for America needs.
• 5:26
  Speaker 3: This is like culture you know what I'm saying, culture
• 5:29
  Speaker 3: era stuff like this is a YouTube tier which we
• 5:32
  Speaker 3: are never going to be in.
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: I don't want to be you.
• 5:34
  Speaker 4: We send Ryan Graham out to Alabama and try to
• 5:37
  Speaker 4: find cousin Kissers.
• 5:38
  Speaker 3: Could be interesting you send Ryan Graham to find Fishman's
• 5:40
  Speaker 3: in Alabama.
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: Just it'd be like uniting the brothers.
• 5:44
  Speaker 3: But I think the point, you know, that remains here
• 5:47
  Speaker 3: is they view it as a social media problem, not
• 5:52
  Speaker 3: a reality problem.
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: Yes, and you know, look, it's trite and it's funny.
• 5:55
  Speaker 7: Tyler OLIVERA, ha.
• 5:56
  Speaker 3: Okay, that's not serious. What's serious are stories like the
• 6:00
  Speaker 3: one we're about to show you, which actually really do
• 6:04
  Speaker 3: shock the conscience and make you go, huh is this
• 6:08
  Speaker 3: something that you want to be either complicit.
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: In or supportive of?
• 6:14
  Speaker 3: And or you know, it makes you just think, is
• 6:17
  Speaker 3: this the country which we were told that it is right?
• 6:20
  Speaker 3: And I think for a lot a lot of younger
• 6:22
  Speaker 3: lefties humanitarians, what happened in Gaza is really shocking from
• 6:27
  Speaker 3: a right wing perspective, it's also been the humanitarian But
• 6:32
  Speaker 3: the biggest discomfort comes from the level of control over
• 6:36
  Speaker 3: discourse in our own country, right is because you really
• 6:38
  Speaker 3: start to be like, well, hold on a second, you know,
• 6:41
  Speaker 3: not some bleeding heart liberal, but you don't get to
• 6:44
  Speaker 3: tell our bleeding heart liberals what to say and or do,
• 6:46
  Speaker 3: and you definitely don't get to throw them in prison, right, Like,
• 6:48
  Speaker 3: that's our business, it's not your business. And that's what
• 6:51
  Speaker 3: I think really starts to great, I think, and it
• 6:54
  Speaker 3: becomes something that's now happened all together. It's been almost
• 6:57
  Speaker 3: three years since October seven. It just blew the doors.
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: Really off of this.
• 7:01
  Speaker 3: And then you know, finally this long winded way of
• 7:03
  Speaker 3: getting to the New York Times story. But I do
• 7:05
  Speaker 3: think it's important because the reaction now from the pro
• 7:08
  Speaker 3: Israel diaspora or the Israeli government to the story pales
• 7:14
  Speaker 3: in comparison to the way that they reacted when Ryan
• 7:18
  Speaker 3: and many others started investigating the claims over mass rape
• 7:23
  Speaker 3: on October seven. And look, this is the most difficult
• 7:26
  Speaker 3: and uncomfortable thing to talk about, but so be it.
• 7:29
  Speaker 3: You know, it's become a major part of the discourse
• 7:32
  Speaker 3: around this subject. The point remains of the New York
• 7:35
  Speaker 3: Times story which they published about mass rape on October
• 7:39
  Speaker 3: Screams without Words had several holes within it that did
• 7:44
  Speaker 3: not hold up to serious journalistic scrutina. And I'm not
• 7:48
  Speaker 3: saying necessarily it didn't happen, but many of the claims
• 7:51
  Speaker 3: that they made within that that were investigated again just
• 7:54
  Speaker 3: by Ryan, by many others that looked into them systematically.
• 7:58
  Speaker 3: Many of them did not hold up over time. Okay,
• 8:01
  Speaker 3: so then let's compare that, and I'm gonna let you
• 8:03
  Speaker 3: set this up to this now New York Times story
• 8:05
  Speaker 3: from Nick Christoph about rape of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli custodery.
• 8:10
  Speaker 4: Well, yeah, and let's just also, I mean, Ryan is
• 8:12
  Speaker 4: always very careful to say this. He thinks the chance
• 8:14
  Speaker 4: that there was no rape on October.
• 8:16
  Speaker 5: Seventh is zero. It is not.
• 8:19
  Speaker 4: It is unrealistic to say that there was no sexual
• 8:23
  Speaker 4: violence or rape on October seventh. Almost certainly there was,
• 8:26
  Speaker 4: and there is evidence. The question is whether these claims
• 8:29
  Speaker 4: were inflated for the sake of propaganda and then misreported
• 8:35
  Speaker 4: by outlets who had lapses in journalistic ethics. Essentially, And
• 8:41
  Speaker 4: now this is being turned around against New York Times
• 8:44
  Speaker 4: columnist Nick Christoph. He is on the opinion side of
• 8:47
  Speaker 4: the paper and he ran this story just yesterday. We
• 8:50
  Speaker 4: can pop it up on the screen here D four.
• 8:53
  Speaker 4: The headline is the silence that meets the rape of Palestinians.
• 8:58
  Speaker 4: He started by saying, it's simple proposition, whatever our views
• 9:02
  Speaker 4: of the Middle East conflict, we should be able to
• 9:04
  Speaker 4: unite in condemning rape. Supporters of Israel made that point
• 9:08
  Speaker 4: after the brutal sexual assaults against Israeli women during the
• 9:11
  Speaker 4: Hamas led attack on Israel on October seventh, twenty twenty three.
• 9:14
  Speaker 4: Now he's very clearly starting on a point of agreement
• 9:18
  Speaker 4: with many of the people who are now his detractors.
• 9:22
  Speaker 4: He goes on to say, Yet, in wrenching interviews, Palestinians
• 9:26
  Speaker 4: have recounted to me a pattern of widespread Israeli sexual
• 9:29
  Speaker 4: violence against men, women, and even children by soldiers, settlers,
• 9:35
  Speaker 4: interrogators in the Shinbet Internal Security Agency, and above all
• 9:40
  Speaker 4: prison guards. Now, people took issue with the fact that
• 9:43
  Speaker 4: Christoff cited a report from the Euromed Human Rights Monitor,
• 9:48
  Speaker 4: which people who are pro Israel see as anti Israel
• 9:51
  Speaker 4: and biased. For that reason, Christoph in the piece, I
• 9:55
  Speaker 4: will say, he does describe it as quote a Geneva
• 9:57
  Speaker 4: based advocacy group often critical of Israel. So in the
• 10:01
  Speaker 4: PC caveats the evidence with that identifier descriptor of Euromed.
• 10:07
  Speaker 5: But we can go on. Probably the biggest.
• 10:10
  Speaker 4: Piece of information that he included in the piece where
• 10:13
  Speaker 4: allegations of trained dog sexual abuse. So this became an absolute, uh,
• 10:23
  Speaker 4: this became an absolute attack against him on X from
• 10:28
  Speaker 4: people like Deborah Lipstat. We can put this next element
• 10:30
  Speaker 4: up on the screen.
• 10:31
  Speaker 5: This is D five. This was Lipstat saying the New
• 10:37
  Speaker 5: York Times.
• 10:38
  Speaker 4: So she's she's a premier Holocaust scholar who's also was
• 10:43
  Speaker 4: the Biden administration's anti Semitism very very big supporters center
• 10:49
  Speaker 4: center Left, Yep, yep, exactly so they Adam Luis Klein
• 10:53
  Speaker 4: publishes this graphic that says the New York Times published
• 10:56
  Speaker 4: the anti Zionist dog rape libel, and doubl Lipstack quote
• 11:00
  Speaker 4: tweets this, have they the New York Times no sense
• 11:02
  Speaker 4: of decency and journalistic responsibility? The Adam Lewis Klein post
• 11:07
  Speaker 4: compares the New York Times to dere Sturmer uh and
• 11:11
  Speaker 4: includes the Striker yes, and includes the reminder as one
• 11:16
  Speaker 4: New York correspondent from Haretz notes that Striker.
• 11:19
  Speaker 5: Was quote hanged.
• 11:21
  Speaker 4: I mean the fire Nick Christoff. Social media graphics were
• 11:26
  Speaker 4: blazing all over X yesterday jan this morning, continuing this
• 11:30
  Speaker 4: morning from.
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: The Israeli government too.
• 11:32
  Speaker 3: Let's be clear, it's not just about commentators or something
• 11:34
  Speaker 3: about the government of Israel, like the Prime Minister of Israel.
• 11:37
  Speaker 4: Yes, and there there have been efforts to debunk over
• 11:40
  Speaker 4: and over again the Christoff story, and Sager, I just
• 11:43
  Speaker 4: want to test this to you. I read the story
• 11:45
  Speaker 4: after reading the backlash to it.
• 11:48
  Speaker 5: So I read the.
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: Yeah, all the caveats in your head. Yes.
• 11:52
  Speaker 4: So I read the story and I expected it to
• 11:54
  Speaker 4: be much different based on the debunking, because the thinking
• 12:00
  Speaker 4: of the story is actually really a debunking of a
• 12:02
  Speaker 4: couple different pieces of it, but not the broad picture
• 12:06
  Speaker 4: of the story. Yes, so they're not about Euromed being cited, but.
• 12:10
  Speaker 3: Actually there's like one particular account that they call into
• 12:13
  Speaker 3: the question the motives of the print.
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: Now, why are we going through all this?
• 12:16
  Speaker 3: Because what they're saying is that that's evidence that the
• 12:18
  Speaker 3: entire thing is made up and at the end of
• 12:20
  Speaker 3: the day, it's first hand account from what is it?
• 12:22
  Speaker 3: Fourteen Palestinian men and women, lawyers, human rights workers, family
• 12:26
  Speaker 3: members to detailed account of rape and sexual assault with objects,
• 12:29
  Speaker 3: general abuse for stress searches by mixed gender groups, threats
• 12:32
  Speaker 3: of rape, us to intimidate detainees into silence or cooperation
• 12:36
  Speaker 3: with intelligence services, victims, including men, women, and children as
• 12:39
  Speaker 3: young as fifteen.
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: And yeah, go ahead, Well.
• 12:42
  Speaker 4: It's not just Euromed, it's also bet Selema. There are
• 12:45
  Speaker 4: other groups that are cited in here. There are other
• 12:47
  Speaker 4: people than the person who has the story that is
• 12:51
  Speaker 4: horrific about being raped by a dog who is as
• 12:55
  Speaker 4: a prisoner. That the identity of that person who goes
• 12:58
  Speaker 4: on the record is then being called into question by
• 13:02
  Speaker 4: people who support Israel and are trying to debunk the
• 13:05
  Speaker 4: story because they say this person is supportive of terrorism,
• 13:09
  Speaker 4: and they are again on the record in this New
• 13:11
  Speaker 4: York Times piece, but they are not the only source
• 13:14
  Speaker 4: in the story. And when I went to the piece
• 13:15
  Speaker 4: after reading all of the debunking, I expected it to
• 13:17
  Speaker 4: be a story that was mostly based around the Euromed
• 13:20
  Speaker 4: report and this one person's this one person's claim. No,
• 13:26
  Speaker 4: as you just pointed out, it is multiple human rights
• 13:28
  Speaker 4: organizations reports, and it is fourteen different people that Christoph
• 13:32
  Speaker 4: interviewed and then the New York Times obviously vetted in
• 13:35
  Speaker 4: their editorial process.
• 13:36
  Speaker 5: They have attorneys. So do I think the New York
• 13:39
  Speaker 5: Times gets a lot of things wrong? Yes? Same, this
• 13:41
  Speaker 5: is a very hot story.
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: How about this? Sue them? Then go for it.
• 13:46
  Speaker 3: You know, that's my critique is look Israel and everybody else,
• 13:50
  Speaker 3: you say it's all fabricated. Yeah, go for it, all right,
• 13:53
  Speaker 3: sue them. Let's let's open it up for discovery. Open
• 13:56
  Speaker 3: yourselves up for discovery. Do it in US core and
• 13:59
  Speaker 3: New and New York State. All right, let's go. Fine,
• 14:02
  Speaker 3: let's see what you've got, sue Nick Christoff, and let's
• 14:05
  Speaker 3: see what you've got. And if what you've got is
• 14:08
  Speaker 3: if you can open up all your files and you
• 14:10
  Speaker 3: can prove in each of these individual cases that what
• 14:12
  Speaker 3: they're saying is not true, then you will win and
• 14:15
  Speaker 3: you are correct that this would be some fake blood
• 14:18
  Speaker 3: libel and or hit job. And what Christoph can do
• 14:22
  Speaker 3: is he can reveal what he was told, the fact checking,
• 14:25
  Speaker 3: you know, and all that stuff that went behind it,
• 14:28
  Speaker 3: and then we can see for ourselves, or they can
• 14:31
  Speaker 3: job oone on social media and we will continue to
• 14:33
  Speaker 3: see basically you know, calling this up blood libel or
• 14:36
  Speaker 3: any of that, but any sort of like actual you know,
• 14:40
  Speaker 3: ability to quote debunk. Doesn't you know you said something
• 14:44
  Speaker 3: about there about oh this is not just human rights.
• 14:47
  Speaker 3: I would put all that out of there, and I
• 14:49
  Speaker 3: would say to not just look necessarily at that, because
• 14:52
  Speaker 3: that's the other problem. These people are often such an
• 14:54
  Speaker 3: information vacuum that this is the only first time they've
• 14:57
  Speaker 3: ever ever heard anything. Do we not all remember the
• 15:00
  Speaker 3: case of the Israeli shoulders who were literally on camera
• 15:03
  Speaker 3: being caught bingness to post and prisoners who then were
• 15:06
  Speaker 3: jail broken out of by their own citizens and celebrated
• 15:09
  Speaker 3: that was level No, that's true though, that actually happened, right,
• 15:13
  Speaker 3: and it is. Here's the thing, it was a scandal
• 15:15
  Speaker 3: inside of their country.
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: All you need to do is read Israeli media.
• 15:19
  Speaker 3: So if you were to read that and have knowledge
• 15:21
  Speaker 3: of that and then read this, you're like, okay, well
• 15:24
  Speaker 3: that kind of makes sense, doesn't it. And if you
• 15:26
  Speaker 3: were to read not even just about the conditions or
• 15:29
  Speaker 3: some of these other things that happened, you know, with
• 15:31
  Speaker 3: a lot of Palestinian detainees in Israeli prison now at
• 15:34
  Speaker 3: the end of the day, why do they care so much?
• 15:36
  Speaker 3: The reason that they care so much about this story
• 15:39
  Speaker 3: is because it makes them look like the same people
• 15:44
  Speaker 3: that they're fighting, right, And that's the problem for them.
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: The more high ground is so important.
• 15:49
  Speaker 5: We get the predicate for USA.
• 15:51
  Speaker 3: It's the predicate not just for USA, but for this
• 15:53
  Speaker 3: declaration of we are a Western country, We're just like you,
• 15:57
  Speaker 3: we're blood brothers. Right, that's what they try to say.
• 16:00
  Speaker 3: It's not true. Okay, they don't operate like that. They
• 16:03
  Speaker 3: haven't been like that a long time now. Are there
• 16:05
  Speaker 3: a lot of people like that over there?
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: Absolutely?
• 16:06
  Speaker 3: Don't get me wrong, But that does not mean that
• 16:08
  Speaker 3: the government itself, with Bengavier's and Smoatridges and all these
• 16:13
  Speaker 3: people like you know, listen to these liberal Zionists will
• 16:15
  Speaker 3: even tell you these people are in a different league.
• 16:17
  Speaker 3: And they combine this with let's say, how they operate
• 16:20
  Speaker 3: in the West Bank and some of these lynchings and
• 16:22
  Speaker 3: other things that happen, these killings of either US citizens
• 16:26
  Speaker 3: or others in the settler movement. And then you've got
• 16:29
  Speaker 3: this treatment of some of these Palestinian prisoners or detainees,
• 16:33
  Speaker 3: or this new law they just passed about execute. You've
• 16:35
  Speaker 3: got to add it all up in totality, and you
• 16:38
  Speaker 3: would say, wow, you look a lot like Saudi Arabia actually,
• 16:41
  Speaker 3: which you claim you're a lot better.
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: Than, but maybe you're just the same.
• 16:44
  Speaker 3: And if you are the same, well that's going to
• 16:45
  Speaker 3: change the security calculus, because then we're going to start
• 16:48
  Speaker 3: being like, oh, this isn't an emotional relationship, this is
• 16:50
  Speaker 3: like what's in it for the both of us?
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: Argument? And yeah, maybe not a lot.
• 16:53
  Speaker 4: Actually, well, and this is why Natanyahu is right now
• 16:56
  Speaker 4: working to convince the American government to further crush cripple Iran.
• 17:01
  Speaker 4: It's why he said in that same sixty minutes interview
• 17:03
  Speaker 4: that his plan is to help Israel be weaned off
• 17:08
  Speaker 4: his words US support within the next decade. Now, Zager,
• 17:12
  Speaker 4: you could take the dog elements out of the story,
• 17:14
  Speaker 4: and you could take Euromed out of the story, and
• 17:17
  Speaker 4: you would still have a strong piece from Christoph, who
• 17:22
  Speaker 4: also cites, for example, the Committee to Protect Journalists, which
• 17:25
  Speaker 4: has surveyed fifty nine Palestinian journalists who were released by
• 17:29
  Speaker 4: Israeli authorities after October seventh. Three percent said they had
• 17:33
  Speaker 4: been raped and twenty nine percent twenty nine percent said
• 17:36
  Speaker 4: they had entered other forms.
• 17:38
  Speaker 5: Of sexual violence.
• 17:40
  Speaker 4: You can remove the elements of the story that are
• 17:42
  Speaker 4: being most the most high profile elements of the story
• 17:45
  Speaker 4: that are being picked apart right now, and you still
• 17:48
  Speaker 4: have a story that can't really be picked apart in whole.
• 17:54
  Speaker 4: And this is why there's a significant these back backlashes
• 18:00
  Speaker 4: like this one are actually counterproductive for Netnyahu's purposes. And
• 18:06
  Speaker 4: I really mean that for people who support Israel, backlashes
• 18:09
  Speaker 4: like this one actually backfire because what they do is
• 18:14
  Speaker 4: people see the backlash, then they go read the story, right,
• 18:17
  Speaker 4: and that's an experience for them where they can contrast
• 18:21
  Speaker 4: and compare what they're being told with then what they
• 18:23
  Speaker 4: see in the story.
• 18:24
  Speaker 5: And it's one of those things.
• 18:26
  Speaker 4: I think one of the big reasons, Sager, that support
• 18:28
  Speaker 4: has declined for Israel in the United States is that
• 18:32
  Speaker 4: people because of social media, not because of foreign ops,
• 18:35
  Speaker 4: but because of a lot of accurate information that is,
• 18:38
  Speaker 4: bypassing the media gatekeepers. Because of a lot of that,
• 18:42
  Speaker 4: they have been able to compare what they were told
• 18:45
  Speaker 4: for a really long time with some actual videos, some
• 18:50
  Speaker 4: actual testimonies.
• 18:51
  Speaker 5: And listen, people can make up their own minds.
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: Yeah, read it.
• 18:55
  Speaker 3: Go ahead, you know, if you think it's read this
• 18:57
  Speaker 3: Emily presented, the what they said is the creticism.
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: You make up your mind for.
• 19:01
  Speaker 3: Yourself, all right, I'll present you know, look at these
• 19:05
  Speaker 3: really governments response and all that.
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: You might find it very revealing.
• 19:08
  Speaker 3: I certainly do take my own thoughts out of it,
• 19:10
  Speaker 3: take her thoughts out of it. You can go read
• 19:11
  Speaker 3: it and you can decide what you think for yourself.
• 19:14
  Speaker 3: All right, let's move on. We have Derek Thompson standing
• 19:17
  Speaker 3: by to talk about AI.
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: Let's get to it.
• 19:22
  Speaker 3: Very excited now to be joined by our friend Derek Thompson.
• 19:24
  Speaker 3: He's the host of the Plain English podcast and the
• 19:26
  Speaker 3: author of the Derek Thompson substack linked down in the description.
• 19:30
  Speaker 3: Thank you so much for joining us, sir, appreciate.
• 19:31
  Speaker 7: It great to be here. Thank you, Derek.
• 19:33
  Speaker 3: You're always a very thoughtful person and challenges some of
• 19:36
  Speaker 3: the preconceived notions I have here on AI. I thought
• 19:39
  Speaker 3: it was a bubble for a long time. Let's put
• 19:42
  Speaker 3: this up here on the screen. You recently just pointed out. Actually,
• 19:46
  Speaker 3: you say if you thought that, the odds that AI
• 19:48
  Speaker 3: was a bubble in twenty twenty five were greater than
• 19:50
  Speaker 3: fifty percent. I don't know how you can look at
• 19:52
  Speaker 3: this and not shift your odds. The best time to
• 19:55
  Speaker 3: flip flop is when reality changes. A leading AI company's
• 19:59
  Speaker 3: run rate quad TS roupling in six months is some
• 20:02
  Speaker 3: kind of change. You are looking specifically there at Anthropic
• 20:05
  Speaker 3: which has reached a forty five billion run rate one
• 20:08
  Speaker 3: month after reaching thirty billion, a continuation of the tripling
• 20:12
  Speaker 3: per quarter and one hundred x annualized growth that we've seen.
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: So first, let's just sit with that.
• 20:18
  Speaker 3: It does seem currently as if it's not a bubble.
• 20:21
  Speaker 3: What does that mean? And how certain are you?
• 20:26
  Speaker 8: I think I'm not certain at all. I mean, look
• 20:29
  Speaker 8: like it would be crazy to be certain. It would
• 20:32
  Speaker 8: honestly be clinically insane to feel strongly about how the
• 20:36
  Speaker 8: next five years are going to play out. I mean,
• 20:39
  Speaker 8: I this is a cliche, but it's it's always appropriate
• 20:41
  Speaker 8: to begin with, like the basic facts here. You have
• 20:44
  Speaker 8: private sector companies spending six hundred to seven hundred billion
• 20:48
  Speaker 8: dollars every single year on a technology that is still
• 20:51
  Speaker 8: in its infancy. I mean, we haven't seen anything like
• 20:53
  Speaker 8: this ever. My favorite statistic to share here is that
• 20:57
  Speaker 8: the Apollo program spent between the nineteen six he's nearly
• 21:00
  Speaker 8: nineteen seventies about three hundred billion dollars in inflation and
• 21:03
  Speaker 8: justed dollars. So now you have not the governments which
• 21:05
  Speaker 8: was funding the Apollo program, but private sector companies like Microsoft,
• 21:09
  Speaker 8: Open Ai, et cetera. Spending as much money is the
• 21:13
  Speaker 8: Apollo program every five to six months.
• 21:16
  Speaker 7: It's absolutely nuts.
• 21:18
  Speaker 8: It's nuts, and if you're certain how this is going
• 21:21
  Speaker 8: to turn out, you're crazy. That said, I think the
• 21:23
  Speaker 8: basic reason to think that something is a bubble is
• 21:26
  Speaker 8: to boil it down to basics.
• 21:27
  Speaker 7: Spending is out running revenue.
• 21:29
  Speaker 8: Right in the nineteenth century and the eighteen hundreds, the
• 21:32
  Speaker 8: reason that the railroads were a bubble is that they
• 21:34
  Speaker 8: were taking on debt to build rail that was not used,
• 21:37
  Speaker 8: and so that they would take on debt, they would
• 21:39
  Speaker 8: spend all this money to build out the rail and
• 21:41
  Speaker 8: they couldn't get money coming in because no one was
• 21:44
  Speaker 8: living at the other end of the railroad, and as
• 21:46
  Speaker 8: a result, they went belly up over and over and
• 21:48
  Speaker 8: over again in the panics of the nineteenth century, or you
• 21:50
  Speaker 8: look at say the dot com bubble, where a bunch
• 21:52
  Speaker 8: of five optic cable was laid in the ground hoping
• 21:55
  Speaker 8: that demand would materialize. It didn't materialize on time. Instead,
• 21:59
  Speaker 8: the netflick of the world and the youtubes of the
• 22:01
  Speaker 8: world that use that fiber optic cable didn't really come
• 22:04
  Speaker 8: online until like fifteen years after it was put in
• 22:06
  Speaker 8: the ground, and as a result, it was a short
• 22:09
  Speaker 8: term bubble. So the critical question that we should ask
• 22:11
  Speaker 8: here when we're trying to understand if AI is a bubble,
• 22:14
  Speaker 8: is is the demand Is the revenue going to show
• 22:18
  Speaker 8: up on time last year? I think the wise answer
• 22:21
  Speaker 8: that question was no, This is simply way too much
• 22:24
  Speaker 8: money to materialize before these companies are going to realize
• 22:27
  Speaker 8: that their cash flows are absolutely destroyed by spending all
• 22:31
  Speaker 8: of this money on data centers and chips and electricity
• 22:35
  Speaker 8: and all of that. But if you're living in a
• 22:37
  Speaker 8: world where we're watching the fastest growing companies in the
• 22:41
  Speaker 8: history of modern capitalism quadruple their annualized run rate every
• 22:46
  Speaker 8: six months, well that has to make you less certain
• 22:49
  Speaker 8: that it's a bubble, even if it's moving say your
• 22:51
  Speaker 8: overall like you know, bubble percentages as it is for me,
• 22:53
  Speaker 8: from like fifty five percent, yes it's a bubble to
• 22:56
  Speaker 8: like forty percent, it's a bubble. So that's basically where
• 22:59
  Speaker 8: I am. I'm moving a little bit on the margins
• 23:01
  Speaker 8: by trying to answer, like a question based on first principles,
• 23:04
  Speaker 8: is the revenue going to catch up to spending last year?
• 23:07
  Speaker 7: I thought no? Right now I think yeah, maybe wow.
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: Interesting.
• 23:10
  Speaker 4: Well, speaking of data centers, we have this video that
• 23:14
  Speaker 4: we can start rolling. It's going to be this is
• 23:17
  Speaker 4: a data center and you can hear the noise.
• 23:21
  Speaker 5: People may have.
• 23:21
  Speaker 4: Seen some of these videos going viral on social media.
• 23:24
  Speaker 4: But I'm going to ask a little bit about what
• 23:26
  Speaker 4: this could mean for the bubble question. Actually, let's roll
• 23:29
  Speaker 4: the clip, so, Derek, Obviously, what we've seen is a
• 23:37
  Speaker 4: creatoring political support for data centers around the country. And
• 23:41
  Speaker 4: we could debate whether or not people are correct in
• 23:44
  Speaker 4: some of their assumptions about water and electricity and the like,
• 23:47
  Speaker 4: but the fact of the matter is these are becoming
• 23:50
  Speaker 4: political albatrosses for the companies that have pushed them time
• 23:54
  Speaker 4: and again in different localities. And I'm curious what you
• 23:57
  Speaker 4: make of the question of how much that matters for
• 24:00
  Speaker 4: these companies' ability to deliver if there starts to be
• 24:03
  Speaker 4: a real uphill climb just to build these data centers
• 24:06
  Speaker 4: and to get them in action. And secondly, how important
• 24:11
  Speaker 4: the intense political support that these companies are getting from
• 24:14
  Speaker 4: this administration actually is to their ability to deliver and
• 24:17
  Speaker 4: prevent a potential bubble pop.
• 24:20
  Speaker 8: I have asked a version of this exact question to
• 24:24
  Speaker 8: executives at the top of open AI and anthropic, and
• 24:28
  Speaker 8: I've put it in almost the exact same words that
• 24:30
  Speaker 8: you put it. I said, you may not realize this
• 24:33
  Speaker 8: living out in California, but here in DC, I can
• 24:37
  Speaker 8: tell you that there is a populist wave that wants
• 24:40
  Speaker 8: to shut you guys down, that wants to make it
• 24:42
  Speaker 8: politically impossible to build data centers in the United States,
• 24:45
  Speaker 8: that thinks that artificial intelligence is frankly as the executives
• 24:48
  Speaker 8: often promise a kind of demonic force that is guaranteed
• 24:52
  Speaker 8: to displace or disemploy or destroy tens of millions of jobs,
• 24:57
  Speaker 8: and they're going to try to stop you. What are
• 24:58
  Speaker 8: you going to do next? One answer that I've heard
• 25:02
  Speaker 8: is that what they're going to do next is build
• 25:03
  Speaker 8: the data centers overseas.
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: Period.
• 25:06
  Speaker 8: And like the data centers can be built overseas, some
• 25:08
  Speaker 8: of them are being built overseas. And if you look
• 25:10
  Speaker 8: at the backlog of data center construction in the US,
• 25:13
  Speaker 8: it's quite significant already. So I do think I do
• 25:18
  Speaker 8: think that a data center moratorium, or even maybe less
• 25:21
  Speaker 8: officially a kind of point to list populist backlash of
• 25:26
  Speaker 8: data centers that makes it hard for them to be
• 25:28
  Speaker 8: built in parts of the country, parts of the rust Belt,
• 25:31
  Speaker 8: parts of the Midwest where a lot of them are
• 25:33
  Speaker 8: coming online, even parts of Louden County near where I
• 25:36
  Speaker 8: live in Washington, d C.
• 25:37
  Speaker 7: Sort of data center alley.
• 25:39
  Speaker 8: It's absolutely possible that they could find it harder to
• 25:42
  Speaker 8: build those data centers in the US and they're going
• 25:44
  Speaker 8: to have to shift data center construction overseas. I'm not
• 25:48
  Speaker 8: confident that that alone is going to stop the scaling
• 25:54
  Speaker 8: of artificial intelligence. I think it's going to make it
• 25:56
  Speaker 8: harder for it to be built in a place where
• 25:58
  Speaker 8: we control and might have of some unforeseen consequences. If,
• 26:05
  Speaker 8: for example, data center construction is shifted to a country,
• 26:08
  Speaker 8: let's say in the Middle East, where we don't have
• 26:11
  Speaker 8: the kind of security over those data centers that you
• 26:14
  Speaker 8: would hope to have in the US, what kind of
• 26:16
  Speaker 8: crisis does that create five years down the line. That's
• 26:18
  Speaker 8: an interesting sort of second go to consequence. But the
• 26:21
  Speaker 8: answer that I've gotten from the executives is the economic
• 26:25
  Speaker 8: principle to build this stuff is so great that if
• 26:28
  Speaker 8: we can't build it in Kansas and Ohio, we're just
• 26:31
  Speaker 8: going to look at the UAE and Cutter.
• 26:33
  Speaker 3: Yeah, Derek, how does this fit with your abundance framework.
• 26:36
  Speaker 3: I'm really cured that I've seen this huge debate play
• 26:40
  Speaker 3: out online you just mentioned loud in They're like, hey, look,
• 26:42
  Speaker 3: we're getting all this property tax revenue from these data centers.
• 26:46
  Speaker 3: But we've also seen much of the backlash. If we
• 26:48
  Speaker 3: were to put it together, comes down to a few things.
• 26:50
  Speaker 3: It comes down to electricity, It comes down to localism,
• 26:53
  Speaker 3: and really what that means.
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: Is just control over your area.
• 26:57
  Speaker 3: I also think it comes back to failed promise and
• 27:01
  Speaker 3: failed specifically like promises about Oh okay, Northern.
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: Virginia where we're both residents.
• 27:07
  Speaker 3: Amazon HQ two, it's gonna come in, it's gonna do
• 27:10
  Speaker 3: a the way, We're gonna throw all these tax breaks.
• 27:12
  Speaker 3: Oh didn't work out. Actually, we just ended up kind
• 27:15
  Speaker 3: of being a boondoggle. None of it really materialized. It's
• 27:18
  Speaker 3: almost like we've heard this from you so many times.
• 27:21
  Speaker 3: It also comes at a time of deep dissatisfaction with
• 27:25
  Speaker 3: the very same companies that are actually building this out,
• 27:28
  Speaker 3: either from social media or others, in terms of the
• 27:30
  Speaker 3: way that consumers feel about this. But you know, from
• 27:33
  Speaker 3: a pure monetary perspective, let's say either abundance or in
• 27:37
  Speaker 3: terms of let's say, long term cheapening energy. I could
• 27:40
  Speaker 3: see why somebody who's operating within your framework would be supportive.
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: So how are you thinking about it?
• 27:46
  Speaker 8: It's a great question, and the truth is that I'm
• 27:48
  Speaker 8: not exactly sure that i'd have the perfect answer here,
• 27:50
  Speaker 8: But and I'd like you to hold my feet to
• 27:52
  Speaker 8: the fire if you feel like this first answer is
• 27:54
  Speaker 8: not sufficient. But I would like to begin to answer
• 27:58
  Speaker 8: this question of what do we do about artificiallytelligence within
• 28:00
  Speaker 8: the abundance framework, not by looking at a specifically, but
• 28:03
  Speaker 8: rather by looking at the first two chapters of our
• 28:06
  Speaker 8: book are about housing and energy at the end of
• 28:08
  Speaker 8: the day or at the beginning of the day.
• 28:10
  Speaker 7: At the beginning of the book, what we.
• 28:11
  Speaker 8: Want to do is make housing affordable and abundant, and
• 28:13
  Speaker 8: we want to make energy affordable, abundant, and clean. So
• 28:18
  Speaker 8: what's important to me on energy policy is are electricity
• 28:22
  Speaker 8: prices going way up? Or are they stabilizing and going down?
• 28:26
  Speaker 8: And right now they're going way up. Well, why are
• 28:27
  Speaker 8: electricity prices going way up? The best economic research that
• 28:31
  Speaker 8: I have seen suggests the data center construction, while an
• 28:34
  Speaker 8: ingredient in the Jumbalaya of why energy costs are going.
• 28:37
  Speaker 7: Up is not the primary ingredient.
• 28:39
  Speaker 8: The primary ingredient is not the exciting thing of artificial intelligence.
• 28:43
  Speaker 8: It's the boring stuff that the guts of the electrical
• 28:47
  Speaker 8: grid that are necessary to carry electrons for the point
• 28:51
  Speaker 8: where the energy is produced to say a solar farm,
• 28:54
  Speaker 8: to the point that it is being used, say your
• 28:56
  Speaker 8: living room. Those parts are getting more expensive and they're
• 28:59
  Speaker 8: getting more scared. It's becoming more expensive to build transformers,
• 29:02
  Speaker 8: it's becoming more expensive to import copper wires. It's becoming
• 29:05
  Speaker 8: more expensive to build the electrical grid in.
• 29:07
  Speaker 7: The first place.
• 29:08
  Speaker 8: And as those costs go up, as the infrastructural costs
• 29:11
  Speaker 8: go up for building electricity in a way that has
• 29:14
  Speaker 8: nothing to do with data centers, yet that is the
• 29:17
  Speaker 8: primary reason why energy costs are going up. So I
• 29:19
  Speaker 8: would want to solve the energy problem. I would want
• 29:22
  Speaker 8: to meet people where they are and say, do you
• 29:23
  Speaker 8: want your energy costs to go down? If you do,
• 29:26
  Speaker 8: then let's solve for the bottlenet that exists, rather than
• 29:30
  Speaker 8: the bottleneck that is sexiest to talk about, which is
• 29:33
  Speaker 8: data centers. To me, that make it easier and faster
• 29:37
  Speaker 8: do with build and site transformers and the.
• 29:40
  Speaker 7: Guts of the infrastructural.
• 29:43
  Speaker 8: The infrastructure of the electrical grid that's on energy, on housing,
• 29:47
  Speaker 8: I have become really concerned by stories like the one
• 29:50
  Speaker 8: that I read in the Wall Street Jurnel recently that
• 29:52
  Speaker 8: suggests that certain parts of the country that were previously
• 29:55
  Speaker 8: allocated for residential development, for building housing are being bought
• 30:00
  Speaker 8: up by data centers. That to me gets a little
• 30:04
  Speaker 8: bit close to taking land that was previously going to
• 30:08
  Speaker 8: go to people and giving it to silicon. And that's
• 30:11
  Speaker 8: where I do think there might be some tensions between AI,
• 30:15
  Speaker 8: which I'm not like wholeheartedly against, and abundance.
• 30:19
  Speaker 7: I would like.
• 30:20
  Speaker 8: To find ways to write local laws that make it
• 30:26
  Speaker 8: more difficult for data centers to buy land that was
• 30:30
  Speaker 8: previously allocated for or is in hot demand for necessary housing.
• 30:35
  Speaker 8: That's a place where I think AI in housing might
• 30:37
  Speaker 8: be at cross purposes. But again, I hope you hear
• 30:40
  Speaker 8: in my answers something that's sort of like I hear
• 30:42
  Speaker 8: that you want to ask one question, which is how
• 30:45
  Speaker 8: does AI fit with abundance? But I really want to
• 30:48
  Speaker 8: focus on what is abundance trying to do? What are
• 30:51
  Speaker 8: the outcomes that we're interested in. We're interested in affordable
• 30:54
  Speaker 8: and abundant housing. We're interested in affordable and abundant and
• 30:57
  Speaker 8: clean electricity for people so that they don't to worry
• 30:59
  Speaker 8: abou energy costs. And I want to solve those problems
• 31:02
  Speaker 8: directly rather than get distracted by AI policy and try
• 31:08
  Speaker 8: to answer the problems by going into the backdoor artificial Yeah.
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: I actually read before I let Emily answer.
• 31:13
  Speaker 3: I remember reading a Chinese analyst who was like, we
• 31:15
  Speaker 3: don't care about data centers because we just have cheap power.
• 31:17
  Speaker 3: He's like, we don't care, dude. He's like, we have
• 31:18
  Speaker 3: cheap power everywhere, and so as a result, it's not
• 31:20
  Speaker 3: a problem for us. And I think that fits very
• 31:23
  Speaker 3: much in your framework. But I know Emily ask a question.
• 31:27
  Speaker 4: Well, I was actually just going to ask, like, if
• 31:29
  Speaker 4: Matt Stoller were here, Derek, he would want to also
• 31:31
  Speaker 4: push on the question of corporate power and how as
• 31:34
  Speaker 4: it was talked about your co author, as your client,
• 31:36
  Speaker 4: has talked about this a bit lately as well.
• 31:38
  Speaker 5: There are several AI companies.
• 31:40
  Speaker 4: We're not talking specifically just about monopoly, although regionally I
• 31:43
  Speaker 4: guess that might be a different question. But how do
• 31:45
  Speaker 4: you think the issue of concentrated power in the market
• 31:51
  Speaker 4: either under minds or confirms basically the abundance theory that
• 31:56
  Speaker 4: you laid out in the book.
• 31:58
  Speaker 8: Well, artificial intelligence is interesting from a corpord power standpoint, because,
• 32:03
  Speaker 8: on the one hand, it is absolutely clear that if
• 32:06
  Speaker 8: you look at the stock market, stock market returns are
• 32:09
  Speaker 8: overwhelmingly driven by AI companies.
• 32:12
  Speaker 4: Yes and mag seven.
• 32:15
  Speaker 7: And that feels like Corvid concentration.
• 32:18
  Speaker 8: But when I look at AI specifically, I see an
• 32:22
  Speaker 8: industry where there are a lot of companies trying to
• 32:27
  Speaker 8: race to the frontier. It's not yet entirely clear to
• 32:31
  Speaker 8: me that what we're seeing with INAI is monopoly power.
• 32:35
  Speaker 8: I see a lot of companies spending an enormous amount
• 32:38
  Speaker 8: of money to make a product that is currently quite
• 32:42
  Speaker 8: subsidized for many consumers in terms of final token prices.
• 32:45
  Speaker 8: And so I don't yet see in artificial intelligence that
• 32:49
  Speaker 8: which we are used to seeing in a classic monopoly
• 32:52
  Speaker 8: And therefore I'm not sure that sort of anti monopoly
• 32:55
  Speaker 8: frameworks the perfect frameworks to deal with the power of
• 32:59
  Speaker 8: artificial intelligence. I'll tell you what I'm more concerned about,
• 33:02
  Speaker 8: sort of scoping out beyond frames of abundance versus anti
• 33:05
  Speaker 8: monopoly andthropic in secondary markets looks like it's valued somewhere
• 33:11
  Speaker 8: between one and one point four trillion dollars. Open AI
• 33:15
  Speaker 8: has talked about going public at near one trillion dollars.
• 33:19
  Speaker 8: All of the companies that are building artificial intelligence are
• 33:23
  Speaker 8: worth trillions of dollars.
• 33:25
  Speaker 7: We're walking into a world that's going to have a
• 33:28
  Speaker 7: lot more billionaires.
• 33:29
  Speaker 8: And while I am not ideologically anti billionaire, and I
• 33:33
  Speaker 8: am not ideologically of the position that all billionaires earn
• 33:37
  Speaker 8: their money through theft and illegal and extra legal means,
• 33:41
  Speaker 8: I do think that the concentration of income among billionaires
• 33:46
  Speaker 8: is very likely going to slow walk us into a
• 33:48
  Speaker 8: world or race us into a world where billionaires are
• 33:51
  Speaker 8: going to account for something between twenty and fifty percent
• 33:54
  Speaker 8: of all political spending in national elections. The amount of
• 33:58
  Speaker 8: attention and political will that can be bought with that
• 34:02
  Speaker 8: kind of money should make people concerned. It should make
• 34:06
  Speaker 8: us feel at the democratic process is being concentrated among
• 34:11
  Speaker 8: a small number of people who are determining the kind
• 34:16
  Speaker 8: of issues that we debate and the kind of issues,
• 34:18
  Speaker 8: the kind of topics that people choose to run on.
• 34:22
  Speaker 8: That concerns me, and I'm not sure where we should
• 34:26
  Speaker 8: begin to solve that problem. I'm not sure how we
• 34:27
  Speaker 8: should where we should end to solve that problem. But
• 34:29
  Speaker 8: I do think I know where we should begin, which
• 34:31
  Speaker 8: is that one of the first things that the Trump
• 34:33
  Speaker 8: tax credits did is that they reduced the corporate tax
• 34:37
  Speaker 8: rate on c corpse and escorps, sort of sole proprietor companies.
• 34:41
  Speaker 8: An enormous number of millionaires and billionaires essentially saw their
• 34:45
  Speaker 8: overall effective tax rate declined by something like three hundred
• 34:49
  Speaker 8: thousand dollars on an annual basis because of that law.
• 34:51
  Speaker 8: The first thing I would do is roll back that law.
• 34:54
  Speaker 8: And the second thing that I would do is really
• 34:56
  Speaker 8: think hard about the reality that we have right now,
• 34:58
  Speaker 8: which is a lot of billionaires paying a lower effective
• 35:01
  Speaker 8: tax rate than your typical plumber, your typical Starbucks worker.
• 35:05
  Speaker 7: Let's fix that.
• 35:06
  Speaker 8: Let's create a new minimum basic tax rate for billionaires
• 35:11
  Speaker 8: to speak up to the fact that, yes, we're walking
• 35:13
  Speaker 8: to a world where the economy is growing, we're making
• 35:16
  Speaker 8: these new technologies, it's minting billionaires. Those billionaires, I think
• 35:20
  Speaker 8: certainly need to pay up rather than a world where
• 35:23
  Speaker 8: they account for fifty percent to political spend and oh
• 35:26
  Speaker 8: look what just happened. The new political regime just cut
• 35:28
  Speaker 8: their effective tax rates. Find other twenty percent. That seems
• 35:31
  Speaker 8: like a world that I don't want to work, that
• 35:32
  Speaker 8: I don't want to live in.
• 35:33
  Speaker 3: My last question for you, Derek, You're always very thoughtful
• 35:35
  Speaker 3: on this is how people are feeling. Let's put E
• 35:37
  Speaker 3: five up here on the screen. This is from your
• 35:39
  Speaker 3: newsletter about how how the twenty twenties broke our brains.
• 35:43
  Speaker 3: It's the tragic twenties and Americans cannot stop feeling a
• 35:46
  Speaker 3: lot hot garbage. You point out the University of Michigan
• 35:49
  Speaker 3: Consumer Sentiment Survey Job Satisfaction Survey is the lowest on record.
• 35:53
  Speaker 3: The General Social Survey and the World Happiness Survey found
• 35:56
  Speaker 3: happiness plunge in the twenty twenty since's been mired at
• 35:58
  Speaker 3: level significantly below previous decades. This is part of where
• 36:02
  Speaker 3: I start to link AI and where a lot of
• 36:04
  Speaker 3: existential fear comes from. In my opinion, just my own
• 36:07
  Speaker 3: general observation, as people definitely do feel like the you know,
• 36:11
  Speaker 3: being online more and being hyper you know, fixated and
• 36:15
  Speaker 3: or beholden to technology has definitely been worse for them.
• 36:19
  Speaker 3: Maybe not materially but emotionally, and this is where a
• 36:22
  Speaker 3: lot of the backlash starts to come from. This is
• 36:24
  Speaker 3: the same thing I talked about with localism. So how
• 36:27
  Speaker 3: are you thinking about that? You know, also within this
• 36:29
  Speaker 3: AI framework, not just these new billionaires. And obviously that
• 36:33
  Speaker 3: leads to the notion we're like, wow, we're really being
• 36:35
  Speaker 3: controlled by all of these people who have just become
• 36:38
  Speaker 3: minted from all across the United States, but also the
• 36:41
  Speaker 3: very technology that they got rich off of.
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: These two things.
• 36:45
  Speaker 8: Yeah, I think this is a really really important question,
• 36:47
  Speaker 8: and it's important in answering it that I don't suggest
• 36:50
  Speaker 8: there's any one answer. Like what we have seen in
• 36:53
  Speaker 8: the twenty twenties is basically every single poll suggest that
• 36:56
  Speaker 8: Americans are telling posters that they're more miserable than they've
• 36:59
  Speaker 8: been in the fifty to seventy his Modern History of Bowling.
• 37:03
  Speaker 8: And you know, one way you can frame that question
• 37:06
  Speaker 8: is to say, if America is so rich right now,
• 37:08
  Speaker 8: and we are richer overall than we have been in
• 37:11
  Speaker 8: any other decade.
• 37:11
  Speaker 7: Then why are we so miserable?
• 37:13
  Speaker 8: And you know, I think that the answer as to
• 37:16
  Speaker 8: why we're miserable has to do with at least several things.
• 37:18
  Speaker 8: There's several things that were linked both in that tweet
• 37:20
  Speaker 8: and the underlying the underlying essay. One is that I
• 37:23
  Speaker 8: think the pandemic never really ended. I think the pandemic
• 37:26
  Speaker 8: never really ended biologically. There's still a lot of people
• 37:28
  Speaker 8: who live with long COVID. I don't think it ended
• 37:31
  Speaker 8: economically because one legacy of the pandemic was inflation, and
• 37:34
  Speaker 8: we still live with inflation. I'm talking to you now,
• 37:36
  Speaker 8: I think, just an hour and a half after a
• 37:38
  Speaker 8: new CPI report found that inflation hit its highest level
• 37:40
  Speaker 8: since twenty twenty three and is still going up, and
• 37:43
  Speaker 8: expectations of inflation are still quite strong. We're living in
• 37:45
  Speaker 8: a period after which interest rates, in order to combat inflation,
• 37:48
  Speaker 8: rose by their fastest level ever. And one thing that's
• 37:51
  Speaker 8: done is make it significantly more expensive for young people
• 37:53
  Speaker 8: to buy a house if they're coming into the market
• 37:56
  Speaker 8: after mortgage rates went up, rather than boomers who often
• 37:59
  Speaker 8: lived in homes where they're paying an interest rate that
• 38:02
  Speaker 8: was achieved or you know, the end of the mortgage
• 38:07
  Speaker 8: rate that was that they got in the twenty tens.
• 38:09
  Speaker 8: So I think there's a lot of envy and a
• 38:11
  Speaker 8: lot of a lot of hurt about that. And then also,
• 38:14
  Speaker 8: I don't think you can rule out technology, you know,
• 38:16
  Speaker 8: I think that there were a lot of people in
• 38:17
  Speaker 8: Silicond of Valley that promised that our phones and social
• 38:20
  Speaker 8: media were going to connect us in new and wonderful ways,
• 38:23
  Speaker 8: and I think that they connected us in new and
• 38:25
  Speaker 8: horrible ways. I think that phones are bad for us.
• 38:30
  Speaker 8: I think that they are compulsive. I think that they
• 38:32
  Speaker 8: create negative social comparison. I think we have very clear
• 38:35
  Speaker 8: evidence that for young people and especially young women, they
• 38:38
  Speaker 8: are really bad for anxiety. And for other people, I
• 38:41
  Speaker 8: think they just kind of make us feel like what
• 38:43
  Speaker 8: did I say in the tweet? Kind of like hot garbage,
• 38:45
  Speaker 8: Like I don't know a lot of people who spend
• 38:47
  Speaker 8: hours on their phone and then look up into the
• 38:49
  Speaker 8: real world and say, God, I'm so happy that I
• 38:51
  Speaker 8: spent all that time on my phone. I think we
• 38:52
  Speaker 8: live in like a regret economy where we regret a
• 38:54
  Speaker 8: lot of our leisure rather than feel good about it.
• 38:58
  Speaker 7: And that's not good either.
• 38:59
  Speaker 8: Finally, that AI, and I think, you know, even if
• 39:02
  Speaker 8: use of AI isn't making people miserable, I don't really
• 39:05
  Speaker 8: think it is yet for the most part, look at
• 39:08
  Speaker 8: the way that the people who are building the technology
• 39:10
  Speaker 8: you're talking about it, you know, Dario Amide and Sam
• 39:13
  Speaker 8: Altman making this technology are promising us that it's going
• 39:16
  Speaker 8: to disemploy tens of millions of people. This is an
• 39:18
  Speaker 8: extraordinary way for a technologist to talk about the thing
• 39:21
  Speaker 8: they've chosen to devote their lives to build. And it's
• 39:24
  Speaker 8: freaking out a lot of people, and at a time
• 39:26
  Speaker 8: of low hiring rates, it's making a lot of young
• 39:29
  Speaker 8: people feel unbelievably anxious about not only will they get
• 39:32
  Speaker 8: a job in the next you know, five months, what
• 39:34
  Speaker 8: about the next five years, what over the next ten years?
• 39:36
  Speaker 7: If artificial intelligence is just going to destroy the bottom
• 39:38
  Speaker 7: of the corporate ladder.
• 39:40
  Speaker 8: So there's all these reasons to feel like the twenty
• 39:42
  Speaker 8: twenties has been one fucking thing after another, right, just
• 39:45
  Speaker 8: war after war after war, and existential crisis after existential crisis.
• 39:49
  Speaker 8: It's a pandemic, it's climate change, it's artificial intelligence. So yeah,
• 39:53
  Speaker 8: I think we feel like hot garbage. And I think
• 39:54
  Speaker 8: people are often right to feel like hot garbage. And
• 39:57
  Speaker 8: I'm not going to say they should quote unquote feel
• 39:59
  Speaker 8: beat there just because we're overall richer, but I do
• 40:02
  Speaker 8: want you, both commentators and political leaders, to speak to
• 40:07
  Speaker 8: this sort of portfolio of concerns, not to lay all
• 40:11
  Speaker 8: of this at the feet of just artificial intelligence, or
• 40:14
  Speaker 8: just smartphones, or just whatever the interest rate. I do
• 40:17
  Speaker 8: think that the reason the twenty twenties have been, as
• 40:20
  Speaker 8: I said, the terrible twenties or the tragic twenties, is
• 40:24
  Speaker 8: just the accumulation of a lot of difficult things that
• 40:28
  Speaker 8: have broken our brains. And I hope that people, when
• 40:31
  Speaker 8: they really try to answer the question why we're miserable,
• 40:33
  Speaker 8: speak to all of it.
• 40:34
  Speaker 3: I agree we kept him longer than we originally promised,
• 40:37
  Speaker 3: but he's just so good.
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: Derek Thompson.
• 40:38
  Speaker 3: Derek Thompson substacked down in the description and listen to
• 40:41
  Speaker 3: the Plain English podcast as well.
• 40:42
  Speaker 1: Always enjoy talking to you man. Thank thank you, appreciate it.
• 40:45
  Speaker 3: I guys, we went a little bit longer with Derek
• 40:48
  Speaker 3: than originally plan. So the economy segment, Chrystal and I
• 40:51
  Speaker 3: can cover that tomorrow. We'll see you then, Crystal and
• 40:53
  Speaker 3: I on a Wednesday, So get ready for that.
• 40:55
  Speaker 1: Thank you. Emily O wait no, no no, and you
• 40:57
  Speaker 1: can glued down on the table, all right, see you later.
• 41:00
  Speaker 5: Say you guys
• 41:19
  Speaker 8: H