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Episode Two Hundred Eighty Seven: Social Media Addiction · The Death Of Journalism

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Welcome to episode two hundred and eighty seven of the
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: Death of Journalism podcast. My name is John Zigler. I'm
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: your host of the Today's show. President Trump keeps claiming
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: the Iran War is near an end, but there is
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: still no clear path to get there. Tiger Woods gets
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: in yet another serious car crash that is clearly his fault.
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: The NCAA basketball tournament finally gets another iconic March Madness moment,
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: the NFL takes yet another major step towards ending tackle football,
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: And some unique thoughts on the TV event of the
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: year so far, the JFK Junior Love Story mini series.
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: We begin this episode of the podcast with a sad
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: personal note. My mother in law, Valerie Kallik, mother of
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: my wife Allison, passed away on Tuesday at the age
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: almost of eighty four. Her birthday was to be two
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: days later. She apparently passed away in her sleep at home,
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: which is about as good an end as you can
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: possibly have, especially when your Valerie Khalik, who has endured
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: about twenty four years of dodging death because of various
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: health problems. My mother in law was maybe the toughest
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: person I've ever met. It was a miracle that she
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: lived to just about eighty four years old, and it
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: is a blessing that both of my daughters, Grace and Diana,
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: are old enough to remember her fondly forever. Obviously, any
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: mom's passing is always exceedingly difficult. You only get one mom,
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: But in my wife's case, it's going to be horrific,
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: even at eighty four, and even when there were years
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: and years and years of preparing for this, I mean,
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: there were so many false alarms about Valeries impending death
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: that she somehow dodged. I mean, this woman made more
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: comebacks than Brett farre And in fact, the shocking part
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: of her death was that she was in the midst
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: of what seemed to be another comeback. I mean, she
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: had really been at death's doorstep, seeming he had lost
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: her mind. They put her in a nursing home for
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: quite a while. It was an enormous strain, and my
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: wife was exceedingly close to her mom. I mean closer
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: than anybody that I've ever seen to their mother. My
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: wife and her mom would speak at least twice a day.
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: I mean I'm not exaggerating, at least twice a day.
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: And so it would looked like it was going to
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: end a few months ago in a horrific fashion, and
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: then she made this remarkable comeback, was able to get home,
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: was in tremendous spirits, was looking forward to celebrating Easter
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: at our house this coming Sunday, and having a birthday,
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: although she really didn't care very much about her birthday.
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: And then all of a sudden she passes in her sleep,
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: and my wife is going to be in a really,
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: really rough spot. I mean, it's going to be years
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: and years before we get in close to back to
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: normal in our family, because that's how big of a
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: hole has been left for my wife. I mean, she
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: loved her mom more than anybody I've ever seen love
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: anyone else, and even at eighty four, losing her is
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: going to be exceedingly difficult. She's handling it okay so far,
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: but I know this is going to get really, really bad.
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: And on top of that, now we have the situation
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: where her father, who no one really expected to outlive
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: her mother. Her father Yan, who of course is just
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: devastated by this. You know he's going to end up
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: passing soon as well. This was always inevitable, but when
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: it happens. It's exceedingly difficult, and my wife is going
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: to bear a lot of the burden in all of
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: this situation. She he's the executor of their estate, and
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: there's siblings involved and lots of moving parts. But my girls,
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: Grace and Diana are handling this pretty well so far. Grace,
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: of course, the emotional one, is very upset, but hanging
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: in there. Diana's cold as ice and upset, but she's
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: moving on already. I think, for better or for worse.
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: From a personal standpoint, I will miss Valerie greatly. She
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: was a tremendous woman. The thing I'll always remember about
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: her was that she had great instincts. She was a
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: classic like from a political respective. My wife and I
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: used to joke about this all the time. She had
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: terrible facts, a conservative, grew up in South Africa, by
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: the way, still spoke with a South African accent, you know,
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  Speaker 1: very much a Fox News viewer, but believe a lot
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: of things that were not accurate. So it was always
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: amazing to me when she would almost invariably get the
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: right answer. So she had really bad data, but she
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: somehow had great instincts about what the right thing was
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: or what the truth was. And she was a champion
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: of mine because you know, obviously I would get into
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: some spats or difficulties or whatever, but she seemed to
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: always understand what the truth was, and she liked it
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: when I would cause particular problems that she felt needed
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: to be highlighted. And so I will miss that, and
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  Speaker 1: I will miss her from a personal standpoint with their
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: guard to death. This is now the fifth person that
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: has been very close in my life who has passed away.
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  Speaker 1: And I find it interesting that in none of those
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  Speaker 1: five situations did the person die in a hospital. I
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: don't know why I find this weird, but somehow I
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: grew up believing that that was the normal course of
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: events that you grew old. You get sick, you go
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: to a hospital. Everyone's usually get some semblance of a
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: chance to say goodbye, and then eventually you pass. Now
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: I realize it's a small sample size, and I'm pretty lucky,
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: at the age of fifty nine now to only have
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: experienced five significant deaths. But none of them involved hospitals.
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  Speaker 1: All of them were complete shocks. Interestingly, in both the
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: situations involving a mom, my biological mother and my mother
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  Speaker 1: in law, I was pulled off the guard golf course
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: to be informed about the death, and my situation with
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: regard to my mother in law was terrible. I happened
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: to be playing golf with a senior pro buddy of
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: mine in Bakersfield, California, which is at least two hours
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: plus away from where I live, and I hadn't even
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: checked my cell phone because we were walking and the
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: phone was in the golf bag, and my wife was
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: furiously trying to contact me. But that was the remarkably
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: similar situation that occurred when I found out that my
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: mother was killed in a car accident back in the
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: dark ages before cell phones, and I was pulled off
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: the golf course during a time period where when you
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: got pulled off the golf course, you knew it was really, really,
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: really bad. So that was kind of weird. But more significantly,
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: I think, you know, at least in my life, the
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: way people die is much more sudden and much more unpredictable.
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: And then I ever anticipated, and this one, even though
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: she was almost eighty four, was still shocky because she
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: had made this great comeback. I had a birthday the
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: previous weekend, and every single year my birthday a Valerie
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: and her husband Jan would call me to sing Happy Birthday,
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: and I mean, I don't think they ever missed a year.
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: I can't remember if they ever did. We've known each
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  Speaker 1: other now for twenty years, and I had a great
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: conversation with him. I was not expected to have a
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: great conversation with him because Valerie had basically lost her
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: her sense of sense of humor, maybe even her marbles.
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: But in recent weeks that had returned after she got
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: back home from being in what I guess you would
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: call a nursing home after spending some time in the
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: hospital for extended period of time. And she was great.
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: And I do remember very distinctly as they were singing
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: Happy Birthday to me, and Yan goes into that second
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  Speaker 1: verse that I'd never heard it before before. He would
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: sing Happy Birthday every year. I remember as it was happening,
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: knowing that this was the last time that this was
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: going to happen. I was morally certain, just from a
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: statistical perspective, there's no chance that by next year both
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: of them are going to be alive and kicking and
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: singing Happy Birthday. But I had no idea they would
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: only be a few days later when Valerie, just before
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: her birthday, just before Easter, and seemingly in good spirits,
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  Speaker 1: would end up passing away in her sleep. From my
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: perspective the way I view death, that's almost as good
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  Speaker 1: as it gets. Not perfect. You're never going to get
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: a movie version of death, but with regard to all
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  Speaker 1: the possibilities, in my view, that's as bad as good
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  Speaker 1: as it can get. To die at home in your sleep,
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: almost to eighty four years old, having lived an incredible life,
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  Speaker 1: having lived far longer than you know by all accounts,
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  Speaker 1: you should have given all the physical and health challenges.
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  Speaker 1: But that's not going to change anything with my wife.
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  Speaker 1: I mean, I'm in a situation where I can't do
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: or say anything correctly because I understand it. I mean,
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  Speaker 1: she's lost the most important person in her world by far,
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: and you only get one mom and once she's gone,
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  Speaker 1: there's nothing that can possibly replace that. So it's going
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: to be a rough time in the Zigler household and
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: for my wife, and I want to reserve the opportunity
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: to maybe revisit this as we have the funeral and
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: other events. It's probably gonna be a little while because
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: there's a lot of people that need to get into town.
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: My wife's a little bit hesitant about me speaking extensively
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: about this publicly, and so I'm going to respect that.
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  Speaker 1: But it's a rough time in the Zigler family, and
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  Speaker 1: I wanted to acknowledge Valerie calyx passing not just because
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  Speaker 1: of the impact that it's having on me and my family,
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: but because she was a great person who will be
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  Speaker 1: sorely missed. Now moving on to the news of the
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  Speaker 1: week once again, the Iran war is still at the
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: forefront of everyone's minds. It is still exceedingly difficult to
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: determine what the heck is actually happening here. We've got
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: President Trump making ultimatums and then pulling back ultimatums with
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: regard to the strait of our moves. We've got alleged
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: negotiations for ceasefire that Iran keeps denying is even happening,
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  Speaker 1: and we don't even know with whom those negotiations should
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: take place. We've got rumors or potential of ground troops.
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  Speaker 1: We've got the market convinced that this thing is close
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: to over. As I take this on Wednesday morning, the
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: stock market, at least the dal Jones is up well
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: over a thousand points this week, based largely on the
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: word of Donald Trump, which I think is always a
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: very bad bet, especially when his self interest is very
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: much in getting people to believe that things are going
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: to turn out okay here. That's, to me maybe the
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: most frustrating part of this whole thing, and having Donald
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: Trump be president. Any other president in my lifetime I
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: would have had strong confidence that what they were telling
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: me about a military situation was at least largely true,
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: or they believed it to be true. I don't have
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: that kind of confidence with Donald Trump. That doesn't mean
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: everything he's saying is a lie, it's just I have
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: no reason to necessarily believe it. And when the opposition
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: is the what's left of the Iranian regime, I'm still
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: not sure who to believe. That's a pretty damning indictment
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: of presidential credibility. I still despite all this, this has
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: been my theme from the beginning, where I was very
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: open minded about this operation and very hopeful that it
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: would turn out well and very willing to support it.
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: I'm still somewhat optimistic that this is going to end
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: up okay. Now we're at the point now where there's
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: clearly damage being done. There's clearly economic and political damage
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: being done. How much of that can be restored or repaired,
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: I don't know. We're close to the point now where
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: the economic damage could get really, really bad. There's a
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: lot of so called experts that are claiming, which I'm
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: always hasn't it about the so called experts. They're claiming
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: that if this continues on for a few more weeks,
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: we're going to see catastrophic impacts economically throughout the world.
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: I don't know if that's true or not, but I
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: certainly we're seeing it at the gas pump, and you know,
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: the gas pump does impact virtually every aspect of our economy,
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: that's for sure. And politically, I mean, it's starting to
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: look really, really, really dim for Republicans in the midterm elections.
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: I mean, it is hard to imagine, really difficult. If
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: you if you said, okay, zig, give me this scenario
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: where Republicans hold the House, or I can't come up
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: with one. I mean, I don't know what that would
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: be there would It would take something of a black
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: Swan nature to to go against the tide that seems
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: to be rising on almost a daily basis. I mean
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: at every single turn, every single metrics points to a
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: Democratic victory, and potentially a massive Democratic victory that could
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: even bring them the United States Senate, which would just
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: be in my view, total disaster. I mean, if Democrats
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: win a huge victory in the House and take over
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: control of the Senate. First of all, now you know
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: you've got two Supreme Court justices and Thomas and Alito
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: that are at retirement age that can no longer retire.
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: You'd have a totally lame duck President Trump that would
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: be very willing and potentially able to turn left at
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: every turn just to save his own hide and basically
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: turn into the Democrat that he has always been through
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: the vast majority of his adult life. There's all sorts
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: of terrible scenarios there. And I'm not making any predictions yet.
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: It's too early to make predictions. But you know, this
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: Iron War has got to end fast so that it
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: is forgotten. Even though the Iran War, I will say
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: from the polling, is not as catastrophically unpopular as the
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: media and a lot of on the left would have
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: you believe that that I don't think is inherently the problem.
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: I think it's the economic impact of this, and putting
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: on top of the fact that, you know, the economy
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: in perception wasn't going that great to begin with with
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: regard to affordability, and you have rising gas prices, which
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: is a massive, uh component of inflation. I mean, rising
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: gas prices causes inflation in almost every single area. So, uh,
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: this has got to be stopped and it's got to
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: be reversed to have any chance for Republicans to hold
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: their own in the November elections. And I don't know
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: what the time limit time limit on that is, but
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: it's getting short. We're talking probably weeks at most a
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: month before we got to get this thing back to normal.
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: And I just don't know how you do that because
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: I don't even know who you're negotiating with. I mean,
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: just this morning, Trump posted that the new regime president
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: has has asked for a ceasefire something to that effect.
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: And there is no new regime president. The person he's
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: referring to has been there since twenty twenty four, So
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: who the hell knows what's really going on there? And
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: so I don't know why I'm still optimistic. Maybe it's
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: because I'm just hope against hope that this somehow isn't
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: going to be a complete disaster. Mainly, I think it's
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: because you've got to believe that having military superiority is
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: eventually going to have some value or merit or impact.
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: Maybe that's the most frustrating part of this is it
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: doesn't seem as if Iron cares that we're beating the
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: shit out of them. That's the perception I have. So,
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: I mean, this might be the first war where the
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: people that clearly won militarily don't end up winning when
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: all is said and done and the dust settles. We're
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: not there yet, but that could be the case simply
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: because Iran is effectively willing to do a i'm a
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: Kazi attack on the rest of the region and the
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: world's economy, simply because they know eventually will cry uncle,
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: which Trump is certainly giving every indication is already the case.
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: So I still have some cautious optimism then in the
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: long run, we're going to get out of this without
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: it being a disaster, and it might even be somewhat
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: of a positive with regard to the situation in Iran,
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: But I don't feel greatly confident about that. By the way,
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: with regard to the ground troops situation, and that, of
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: course is a red line for a lot of people, understandably,
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: so a couple things happen on that front, not directly
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: related to Iran, but I think are still worthy of mention.
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: The United States military has increased the age of eligibility
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: from thirty four to forty two, partially, it seems, because
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: it's very difficult to find younger men who are even
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: eligible to serve in the military. There was a report
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: that Pentagon estimates indicate that only twenty three percent of
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: young Americans defined as seventeen to twenty four years old,
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: are even eligible to serve in the US military, mainly
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: due to poor academic performance on testing, obesity, and criminal records.
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: Only twenty three percent. Forget about what that means to
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: building a military. And I'm one of these people that
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: believes that manpower in this day and age. I'm not
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: a military expert, but I'm just going on my perception
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: and my understanding of the real world in which we
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: now live, manpower really doesn't have nearly the same impact
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: that it did even twenty thirty forty years ago. I mean,
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: we're living in a technological age and we're seeing with
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: regard to a roun that most of this is done
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: through the air, and so it's not really a matter
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: of massive amounts of manpower. But still, from a cultural
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: and social perspective, it is extremely disturbing that it appears
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: as if seventy seven percent of young American men are
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: not eligible to serve in the military, even if they
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: wanted to. And it's not as if the standards are
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: exceedingly high. I mean, basically, if you're not a delinquent,
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: or if you're not fat, or if you're not a
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: complete imbecile, you're eligible to serve, and that eliminates seventy
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: seven percent. I mean, there's a lot of reasons why
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: we are cooked as a society, but this one is underrated.
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: Moving on to media related issues, and one of my
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: biggest concerns has always been about Trump two point zero
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: was the whole issue of acting like a king and
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: the precedent that it would set for future Democrat administrations
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: and what they would be willing and able to get
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: away with thanks to what the Trump administration tried to
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: get away with, and specifically when it comes to the media.
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: The FCC Chairman Brendan Carr is a guy who I
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: am very very concerned about. Now I realize he's just
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: trying to please Donald Trump. I don't think this guy
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: is necessarily evil. I just think that he is in
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: a situation where he gets to do a lot of
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: things to make Trump happy, and he's addicted to that
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: love and that attention, and unfortunately a lot of people
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: fall prey to that. And it seems to me as
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: if frend and Carr has absolutely fallen into that trap.
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: And that's being as charitable as possible. The chairman of
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: the SCC is not supposed to be an overtly political possession.
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: It's just not. I mean, in fact, it should not
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: and cannot be if you're gonna live in a world
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: where fairness matters, and really the First Amendment matters, because
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: inherently the FCC is able to regulate most media outlets,
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: although I have to say I'm still confused as to
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: why broadcast outlets are still so terrified of the FCC. Yes,
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: they have the ultimate theoretical power of revoking licenses, but
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: I don't even understand what the FCC's authority is now.
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: Because over the air airwaves, if you think of it
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: that way, that's how this all began. I understand the
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: FCC has the authority to regulate the airwaves because they
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: belong to the public, But the airwaves are almost meaningless
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: in today's era of media, with streaming and Internet and
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: everything else, and I guess you can claim that the
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: Internet is part of that. But regardless, the media outlets
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: still seemingly have a fear of the FCC chairman, and
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: they have good reason to fear Brendan Carr because he
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: is doing the bidding of Donald Trump. And he made
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: an appearance at Seapack, which inherently is absurd, completely ridiculous,
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: and an extremely dangerous and bad precedent for the FCC
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: chairman to making an overtly political address at Seapack, the
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: allegedly conservative political action conference that I used to be
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: part of many many years ago and hang out with
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: the Andrew Breitbart and others back when it was at
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: least plausibly conservative. Now it's I don't even know what
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: do you call it. I guess it's MAGA, but it's
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: lost all its credibility and much of its impact. But
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: Brendan Carr was there, and he was being interviewed on stage,
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: and he went through a litany of accomplishments by the
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: Trump administration when it comes to the media. Now again,
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: I'm someone who's dedicated much of my career to attacking
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: the mainstream news media and media bias and media malpractice.
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: That was the title of my documentary film about the
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: two thousand and eight presidential election media malpractice, Howbama got
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: elected and Palelin was targeted. So I'm totally on board philosophically,
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: But what I'm not on board with is that the government,
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: through regulatory power, is dictating changes, not just in philosophy
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: with regard to the media, but with regard to specific personnel.
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: I mean, when the head of the SCC is at
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: a conservative political conference championing the firing of people, which
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: by the way, also substantiates these liberal narratives that Trump
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: is behind some of these firings, it's completely I mean,
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: there's inappropriate, there's very inappropriate, and then there's whatever the
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: hell this is. So this is FCC Chairman Brendan carr
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: at Sepack taking a victory lap over the alleged Trump
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: administration led defeat of the news media. To give you
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: such a shout out.
• 25:21
  Speaker 2: Look President Trump. When he ran for office, he ran
• 25:23
  Speaker 2: directly at.
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: The fake news media.
• 25:27
  Speaker 2: So many other politicians and Americans simply gave way to
• 25:31
  Speaker 2: the legacy national media. They let the legacy media set
• 25:34
  Speaker 2: the narrative. And President Trump smashed the facade. He said,
• 25:37
  Speaker 2: you don't get to decide what we say, what we think,
• 25:40
  Speaker 2: how we're going to vote inside the voting booth. President
• 25:43
  Speaker 2: Trump took on the fake news media, and President Trump
• 25:46
  Speaker 2: is winning.
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: Look at the results so far.
• 25:48
  Speaker 2: PBS defunded, NPR defunded.
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: Joy Reid gone from.
• 25:53
  Speaker 2: MSNBC, Sleepy Eye, Chuck Todd gone, Jim Acosta gone, John
• 25:59
  Speaker 2: Dickerson gone, Colbert is leaving, CBS is under new ownership,
• 26:04
  Speaker 2: and soon enough, CNN has got new ownership as well.
• 26:07
  Speaker 2: So we're not.
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: We're not.
• 26:11
  Speaker 2: We're not on the point yet. You know, we're raising
• 26:13
  Speaker 2: the mission accomplished flag. But President Trump is taking on
• 26:16
  Speaker 2: the fake news media, and President Trump is winning.
• 26:20
  Speaker 3: And this is significant because now it should be noted
• 26:24
  Speaker 3: that at least one of the victories that Brendan Carr
• 26:29
  Speaker 3: was taking credit for.
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: There the defunding of PBS and NPR has at least
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: temporarily been put on hold, as a federal judge has
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: declared what the Trump administration did regarding the funding of
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: NPR and PBS to be unconstitutional. Now that Trump administration
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: is saying that this decision is ridiculous and will eventually
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: be reversed, I think that's probably true. We've seen that
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: happen before. But you know, for the record, at least
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: currently there's a legal ruling against that. But in the
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: bigger picture, this is not the way it's supposed to
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: be done. It is not supposed to be done via
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: threats from the government regarding regulation and potentially even pulling
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: of licenses, which car does reference later in his Seapack interview.
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: I mean, that's the death penalty for a lot of
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: media outlets, at least in perception. And this is wrong.
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: It's not the way this is supposed to be done.
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: And you know, if you're a conservative, you know why
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: you should be concerned about this, not just because it's
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: wrong philosophically, but because think about what a FCC chairman
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: appointed by Gavin fucking Newsom is going to do to
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: the conservative media. They are going to go way beyond
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: what the Trump administration is doing. There's zero doubt about that.
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: And from a moral or philosophical perspective, Conservatives won't be
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: able to say anything because if you didn't condemn what
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: Carr is doing, you're not going to have any credibility
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: condemning whatever Newsom or whatever other Democrat ends up in
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: the White House what their FCC chairman is doing the
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: conservative media, and it's gonna be worse. I guarant d
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: MT it's gonna be worse than what the Trump administration
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: is capable of doing in their four short years. With
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: regard to the news media, the conservative movement is going
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: to rue the day when they did not condemn Brendan
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: Carr for what he is doing, if only because of
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: his public statements, because I don't even think he had
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: that much to do with a lot of this. Yes,
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: you can argue that the Jimmy Kimmel suspension happened directly
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: because of comments from Brendan Carr and Disney caving and panicking. Again,
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: I don't even understand why they're so afraid of the FCC.
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: I'm being naive, but you to me, I think it's
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: remarkable that we still live in a world where these
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: these media outlets are so terrified of any statement from
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: Brendan carcass I think a lot of it's bluffing, but
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: it doesn't matter because that's not the way you get
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: this kind of impact through an overbearing government regulator that
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: it's way outside their bounds, that's doing things that are
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: completely inappropriate that were never intended to be the case.
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: The head of the FCC was never intended to be
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: an overtly political person, and it was never intended for
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: there to be no firewall whatsoever between the President and
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: the head of the SEC. But that's where we are now.
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: And there's another I mentioned the court ruling with regard
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: to the defunding of NPR and PBS. There's another court
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: ruling that I think is actually more significant that is
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: also related to the issue of media that happened in
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: the last week, and that is that a Los Angeles jury,
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: now right there. You know there's going to be a
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: problem when you hear the phrase los Angeles jury, because
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: a Los Angeles jury is inevitably going to be a
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: bunch of liberal morons. That's what a You know, it's
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: obviously going to be the case in almost every area
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: of Los Angeles, a bunch of liberal morons. The people
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: that are not going to be able to get out
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: of jury duty in Los Angeles that are going to
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: be chosen for a significant trial are going to be
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: imbeciles at best, And based upon the verdict I'm referring to,
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: I think that was obviously the case. You probably heard
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: that there was a three million dollars civil trial verdict
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: against social media companies Google and Meta e Facebook for
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: causing social media addiction. Social media addiction is now the
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: fault of Google and Meta to the tune of three
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: million dollars. This is just one case. It's not a
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: class action suit. This is one case of social media addiction.
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: And to me this I am a huge believer, huge believer.
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: That's the most underrated problem we have of all the many,
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: many problems we have in our society, is out of
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: control jury verdicts in civil cases because we've completely left
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: the gravitational pull of the rational earth. These idiots on
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: these juries. They think that these rich companies have money
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: that's grown on trees. They think there's no negative implications
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: whatsoever for you know, massive verdicts, because they're not an
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: understanding of the impact of this. This has massive impact. Look,
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: is it possible that that in an isolated situation, a
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: media company could be held responsible for addictive qualities of
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: their product. Yeah, fine, but not to the tune of
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: three million dollars. That's the problem. I mean, if it
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: was you know, thirty thousand dollars or whatever, Okay, fine,
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: that doesn't dramatically incentivize an entire generation of people to
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: file lawsuits real or not real or somewhere in between,
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: claiming social media addiction. You've just created a fucking industry. Now, yes, Google,
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: the meta will appeal and maybe the judgment will be reduced.
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: But I'm sorry, this is massive in theory, massive because
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: there's no possible way for these companies. First of all,
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: it's wrong. Whatever happened to parental responsibility? I mean, you
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: really think these companies are completely responsible for the fact
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: that a young person gets addicted to social media? No,
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: it's not. Look, there are there things that they should
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: do to try to mitigate that, absolutely, and I'm in
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: favor of that. But the idea that you're holding them
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: responsible for three million dollars in one particular case completely
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: acidine and people have no idea the impact that this has.
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: We are living in a world where when you drive
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: through any major city, at least half the billboards you
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: see are from plaintiff's attorneys saying if you've been wrong,
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: give me a call. I mean, they are commercials that
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: get run It drives me crazy, especially because it's in
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: the realm of sex abuse. There are commercials that are
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: routinely run about. I mean, there's one I've heard recently
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: involving a gynecologist who is being accused, hasn't been convicted
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: of anything, being accused of sex abuse, and the entire
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: commercial is you know, if you were a patient, you
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: were probably abused too. You're not alone, and you'll only
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: talk to a female lawyer and call us. It's basically saying, hey,
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: there's free money if you ever went to this doctor,
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: even though they've never been convicted of anything. I mean,
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: this is it's an entire industry now. And guess who
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: pays for all that? All of us? All of us.
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: I mean, it's got to be one of it's got
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: to be the most underrated driver of inflation insurance costs
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: because of liability, because there's no reason to trust these
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: crazy juries like this one in Los Angeles. And I mean,
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: so it's way beyond just the social media social media
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: addiction issue. This ghost too I honestly don't even know
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: how our society functions give a and that the American
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: dream is now to be screwed over in perception by
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: a deep pocketed corporate entity. That's the American dream. And
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: I'm not exaggerating, And so I don't know what's gonna
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: end up happening here. Hopefully that verdict will get reduced,
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: but I think in a larger picture, it's an indication
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: of just how completely screwed we are because of our
• 35:24
  Speaker 1: civil jury system. Civil juries have lost their minds and
• 35:30
  Speaker 1: plaintifs lawyers know it, and so now we see this
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: kind of thing on a regular basis, and we all
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: pay for it. That's the part that drives me most
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: crazy is that people do not make a connection. They
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: think it's just from the money tree. No, we all
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: pay for verdicts like this and this one. If it
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: sets a real precedent, it's going to cause massive costs
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: for all of us based upon a bullshit premise that
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: somehow these social media companies are completely and totally to
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: blame because somebody gets addicted to social media. Now, I've
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: not talked about artificial intelligence in a while. It's not
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: because I haven't been thinking about the issue, we're studying
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: about it, or there hasn't been any sort of developments
• 36:18
  Speaker 1: in the topic. I'm not going to talk extensively in
• 36:21
  Speaker 1: this episode about it, but I just wanted to share
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: a few thoughts about where I currently am on AI.
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: If you remember, I have this fear factor rating on
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: a scale of one to ten, the AI fear factor
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: is seven point five. My general view of AI has
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: been that if we reach Agi, we're screwed as a society.
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: I just do not see how we can possibly survive
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: AI reaching Agi. I've gone through in the past, and
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: I'm sure I will again in the future. Exactly why
• 36:56
  Speaker 1: that is. But I think we're completely cooked, and in fact,
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: I am more convinced that we are cooked if AI
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: reaches Agi then i've ever been in the past. However,
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: I'm slightly less convinced that we're going to reach Agi. AGI,
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: meaning that artificial intelligence surpasses all human intelligence. I'm not convinced,
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: and I've been skeptical of that entire premise for quite
• 37:25
  Speaker 1: a while. I mean, if you listen to Elon Musk,
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: who frankly I've lost a lot of respect for on
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: the AI issue, I really have, for reasons that are
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: a bit complex, some of which I'll get to momentarily.
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: But I mean, Elon Musk is predicted we're going to
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: reach AGI either this year or next year. Of course,
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: he's notoriously bad and overly optimistic about his predictions, but
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: he's not alone in that. But I'm not convinced we're
• 37:53
  Speaker 1: going to reach Agi. I'm not confident about that part
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: because I know that's what I'm rooting for, and whenever
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: there's a result I'm rooting for, I'm very hesitant to
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: be confident in my instincts because I'm a human being.
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: We all want, you know, what we're rooting for, right,
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: and so I hold what I'm rooting for to a
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: much higher standard. And again, I'm not saying we're not
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: going to reach AGI. I'm just saying it's not nearly
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: as certain as the conventional wisdom, especially in the so
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: called expert class, has pretended that it is. And part
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: of why I'm in that camp that AGI is not
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: a sure thing is my own personal experience with AI. Now,
• 38:39
  Speaker 1: to be clear, I am nowhere near an AI expert.
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: I'm you know, if you put it in golf terms,
• 38:45
  Speaker 1: I'm a you know, I don't know a six handicap
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: or something like that, but I'm good enough, knowledgeable enough
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: to be dangerous. I'm not dealing with it on a
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: professional level, and I'm fully aware that there's a difference between,
• 38:59
  Speaker 1: you know, the AI that most average Americans use and
• 39:03
  Speaker 1: professional AI. I fully acknowledge that. However, I am continually
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: unimpressed by what most people would be perceiving as the
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: AI that the average American uses, and I actually purposely
• 39:20
  Speaker 1: like to keep my usage in the realm of normalcy
• 39:26
  Speaker 1: so that I have at least, I think, a decent
• 39:29
  Speaker 1: perception of what most people are going through. So, like
• 39:32
  Speaker 1: a lot of Americans, I use Chat, GPT, I use GROC,
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: which is part of x owned by Elon Musk, and
• 39:42
  Speaker 1: I use Imagine for video creation and editing, which is
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: also part of X. Rock and Imagine are basically the
• 39:50
  Speaker 1: same thing. An occasion, I'll use Google AI, and I
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: think that's puts me pretty much in the mainstream of usage.
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: And look, I realized that this is all in its infancy,
• 40:03
  Speaker 1: and there's absolutely amazing things, amazing things that would have
• 40:07
  Speaker 1: been inconceivable two or three years ago, that all of
• 40:11
  Speaker 1: these entities can do chat, GPT, Rock, Imagine, Google AI,
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: So I'm not downplaying the sometimes amazing nature of artificial intelligence,
• 40:26
  Speaker 1: and yes, even the addicting nature I've admitted, which is
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: kind of ironic given my commentary on the Social media
• 40:32
  Speaker 1: Addiction Verdict in Los Angeles. I'm borderline addicted, not totally,
• 40:37
  Speaker 1: but I'm borderline addicted to creating videos on Imagine, and
• 40:42
  Speaker 1: I have to say I am increasingly unimpressed, not because
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: it's not capable of doing amazing things. Now. Part of
• 40:52
  Speaker 1: why I'm very unimpressed with Imagine, and part of why
• 40:55
  Speaker 1: I'm losing faith in Elon Musk, is that I think
• 40:59
  Speaker 1: he made Imagine, which he constantly is shilling for on X.
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: I mean, he almost on a daily basis, is trying
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: to get people to make videos on Imagine. The constant changes, updates,
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: greater regulation, greater moderation, the restrictions on content, it's nonsensical,
• 41:23
  Speaker 1: it's ever changing, it's inconsistent with his public statements. I mean,
• 41:28
  Speaker 1: it's almost changes on an hourly basis, and it's incredibly
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: frustrated even understand what the rules are, the implementation are
• 41:37
  Speaker 1: is completely nonsensical, totally inconsistent, I get in fights with Groc,
• 41:44
  Speaker 1: which is stupid since Groc is an AI about Imagine
• 41:48
  Speaker 1: all the time. But I have to say, part of
• 41:50
  Speaker 1: why I get into these fights with Groc about Imagine
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: is I'm trying to see what Groc the AI that's
• 41:59
  Speaker 1: clearly to Imagine. I mean, it's in the same app
• 42:03
  Speaker 1: Imagine and Grock, and I'm a subscriber, like a mid
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: range subscriber. If there's one thing that Groc ought to
• 42:10
  Speaker 1: be an expert at, it's the inner workings of Imagine
• 42:14
  Speaker 1: because it's literally their operating system. And yet Rock is
• 42:21
  Speaker 1: constantly constantly wrong, I mean not just a little wrong,
• 42:26
  Speaker 1: catastrophically wrong, and constantly changing its mind about what's actually
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: happening with Imagine. And it's always making shit up to
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: try to come up with an explanation that it can't
• 42:39
  Speaker 1: obviously explain, saying things that I know are completely untrue
• 42:45
  Speaker 1: about what it's like to use the Imagine video editing system.
• 42:52
  Speaker 1: And my theory on it is it is built to
• 42:55
  Speaker 1: be authoritative that it can't comprehend. It doesn't have an answer,
• 43:02
  Speaker 1: so if it doesn't have a really good answer, it
• 43:05
  Speaker 1: just makes one up. And if it says whatever it
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: comes up with in an authoritative enough manner, then somehow
• 43:14
  Speaker 1: that'll be bought. I mean it basically, at times, GROC
• 43:18
  Speaker 1: is like you know, the drunk know it all at
• 43:20
  Speaker 1: a bar. Occasionally they're right, but oftentimes they're completely full
• 43:25
  Speaker 1: of shit, or just you know, the drunk guy that
• 43:28
  Speaker 1: only watches Fox News channel or only watches liberal news networks.
• 43:33
  Speaker 1: They got a bad data set, but they're authoritative about it,
• 43:39
  Speaker 1: which is actually way worse to me, because the authoritative
• 43:44
  Speaker 1: nature of AI and check ept does this too, causes
• 43:50
  Speaker 1: this false sense of security and really, even someone as
• 43:55
  Speaker 1: skeptical as me can be caught into buying something that's
• 43:59
  Speaker 1: not true. And I've had this happen with chat GPT
• 44:03
  Speaker 1: quite a bit. I constantly asked chat GPT basic questions
• 44:08
  Speaker 1: that I know they got the answer wrong on, and
• 44:11
  Speaker 1: I will correct the chat GPT, and the chat GPT
• 44:14
  Speaker 1: will then say, oh, yeah, you're right, thanks for pointing
• 44:16
  Speaker 1: that out, with no self awareness. I realized it's an
• 44:20
  Speaker 1: AI no self awareness to wait a minute, how are
• 44:23
  Speaker 1: we supposed to take you seriously? How are we supposed
• 44:25
  Speaker 1: to trust anything that you put out when you can
• 44:28
  Speaker 1: make such incredibly simple mistakes and I'm talking about on
• 44:32
  Speaker 1: a regular basis, And many of these mistakes are simple
• 44:37
  Speaker 1: basic math. I mean, I'll give you an example. I
• 44:41
  Speaker 1: was trying to figure out, you know, this particular NCAA
• 44:45
  Speaker 1: basketball tournament, how it related to previous years with regard
• 44:48
  Speaker 1: to higher seeds being more likely to win than previous years,
• 44:53
  Speaker 1: and what the margin of victory was, and it was
• 44:57
  Speaker 1: making the chat GPT was making basic mathematical mistakes. And
• 45:03
  Speaker 1: so if you have to check even basic shit, and
• 45:07
  Speaker 1: you know, forgetting stuff, not realizing things that had happened
• 45:10
  Speaker 1: like late, late results or whatever, then if you can't
• 45:14
  Speaker 1: rely on it and you have to double and triple
• 45:17
  Speaker 1: check it at all times, how is that worth anything?
• 45:21
  Speaker 1: I mean it's basically like you know, asking your buddy, hey,
• 45:27
  Speaker 1: what do you think The answer here is that where
• 45:31
  Speaker 1: you can't be one hundred percent sure that they know
• 45:34
  Speaker 1: what they're talking about, you still have to double and
• 45:36
  Speaker 1: triple check it. And I actually got caught in this.
• 45:39
  Speaker 1: In the last episode of the podcast, I did an
• 45:42
  Speaker 1: interview with my old high school basketball coach, Tony Chapman,
• 45:46
  Speaker 1: who coached for forty five years at MIAMA. Manter Holy
• 45:49
  Speaker 1: Ghost Prep won nine hundred and twenty eight games, and
• 45:54
  Speaker 1: I knew that that was one of the highest win
• 45:57
  Speaker 1: totals in the history of boys high school basketball in Pennsylvania,
• 46:01
  Speaker 1: and I checked with Chat gpt. In fact, I didn't
• 46:04
  Speaker 1: even think at the time that he was the winningest
• 46:08
  Speaker 1: coach in the history of high school basketball in Pennsylvania,
• 46:11
  Speaker 1: because I'm thinking I would have known that. I mean,
• 46:13
  Speaker 1: that would have been something that everybody at our school
• 46:15
  Speaker 1: would know. And so I simply asked for, okay, who
• 46:19
  Speaker 1: were the winningest coaches of the history of high school
• 46:23
  Speaker 1: basketball in Pennsylvania, And it gives me a list, and
• 46:27
  Speaker 1: Tony Chapman was I don't know, I think third or
• 46:30
  Speaker 1: fourth on the list, and I asked for a breakdown
• 46:33
  Speaker 1: on how many of those wins were boys basketball as
• 46:38
  Speaker 1: opposed to girls' basketball, and a few of the biggest
• 46:43
  Speaker 1: numbers I think had both boys and girls. And my
• 46:47
  Speaker 1: only guests. The only guess I have as to why
• 46:50
  Speaker 1: chat Cheap screw this up is because I specifically asked
• 46:54
  Speaker 1: about Tony Chapman, and I think that the thing is
• 46:56
  Speaker 1: designed to basically give you the answer that you want,
• 47:01
  Speaker 1: and so it knew that I was interested in Tony
• 47:04
  Speaker 1: Chapman and in the chat GPT on multiple inquiries told
• 47:10
  Speaker 1: me that if you count just boys high school basketball
• 47:14
  Speaker 1: wins in Pennsylvania, Tony Chapman was the winningest coach in
• 47:18
  Speaker 1: the history of the state. And I'm like, wow, that's
• 47:20
  Speaker 1: that's new information to me. I even checked with one
• 47:24
  Speaker 1: of our star players from my era. I said, do
• 47:27
  Speaker 1: you ever hear did you ever hear this? And they
• 47:29
  Speaker 1: said yes. Now, I don't know if they were bullshitting
• 47:32
  Speaker 1: me or or what the source of that was. So
• 47:35
  Speaker 1: I figured I'd had multiple interactions with chat GPT that
• 47:39
  Speaker 1: must be the case. And then I referenced that in
• 47:42
  Speaker 1: my interview with Tony Chapman and he didn't correct me,
• 47:45
  Speaker 1: so I thought, all right, this must be true. Well,
• 47:49
  Speaker 1: then we put out the interview and someone sent me
• 47:52
  Speaker 1: information that indicated that there was one other guy that
• 47:56
  Speaker 1: it actually won more games in high school basketball in
• 47:59
  Speaker 1: the state of Pennsylvania than Tony Chapman. And I checked
• 48:01
  Speaker 1: with CHATCHPT and chat GPT, which still remembered the previous
• 48:07
  Speaker 1: long conversation about Tony Chapman said oh, yeah, that's right. Sorry, yeah,
• 48:12
  Speaker 1: I missed that one, Like, well, Chief, thanks, you fucking idiot.
• 48:18
  Speaker 1: You're supposed to be your artificial intelligence is supposed to
• 48:22
  Speaker 1: change the fucking world. How can you get something like
• 48:25
  Speaker 1: this so obviously wrong? And then again not even really
• 48:30
  Speaker 1: think it's that big of a deal. So I realized
• 48:34
  Speaker 1: that we're still in the infancy, and a lot of
• 48:37
  Speaker 1: this stuff is, you know, allegedly going to get a
• 48:40
  Speaker 1: lot better in short order. But to me, I don't
• 48:43
  Speaker 1: think we're even close. I don't even think we're even
• 48:46
  Speaker 1: close right now to AI being able to take over
• 48:51
  Speaker 1: the world, because it's to me, in my experience, it's
• 48:56
  Speaker 1: just not good enough. And as far as the video
• 48:59
  Speaker 1: creation elements of this, a lot of what seems to
• 49:02
  Speaker 1: be happening is is legal elements. You know, maybe going
• 49:06
  Speaker 1: back to this this jury verdict, they are so afraid
• 49:10
  Speaker 1: of their own shadow with regard to video and both
• 49:14
  Speaker 1: a PR and a legal vulnerability that it's almost impossible now.
• 49:21
  Speaker 1: I mean, the rules they're creating in order to prevent
• 49:26
  Speaker 1: lawsuits or bad PR from people creating videos that are
• 49:29
  Speaker 1: too risque or whatever you want to call them. I
• 49:33
  Speaker 1: mean Elon Musk has claimed that there's an R rated
• 49:36
  Speaker 1: movie standard for creation of videos, and imagine, in my experience,
• 49:40
  Speaker 1: that's not even close to true. But the worst part
• 49:43
  Speaker 1: is that it's it's completely inconsistent, sporadic. You know, it's
• 49:50
  Speaker 1: it's basically just luck as to what gets through what doesn't.
• 49:57
  Speaker 1: You know, one moment of prompt will work, no problem,
• 49:59
  Speaker 1: the next moment the prompt will get completely shut down
• 50:03
  Speaker 1: because of some sort of alleged violation of these very
• 50:06
  Speaker 1: incredibly vague rules that no one seems to understand what
• 50:10
  Speaker 1: they are. It's very, very frustrating, and it's very you know,
• 50:14
  Speaker 1: as a chilling effect on creativity because you don't even
• 50:17
  Speaker 1: know what the hell you're allowed to do and what
• 50:18
  Speaker 1: you're not. And then there's the issue of how much
• 50:21
  Speaker 1: time you're wasting on something that never even gets made.
• 50:25
  Speaker 1: And there's no rhyme or reason to any of this.
• 50:27
  Speaker 1: I mean, if the rules were clear cut, I'd be like, Okay, fine,
• 50:30
  Speaker 1: that's that's great. Whatever. There ought to be rules, but
• 50:33
  Speaker 1: that's not the case. And you know, with regard to
• 50:36
  Speaker 1: the video creation Realm open Ai and it's kind of
• 50:41
  Speaker 1: amazed me that this didn't get more publicity, but open
• 50:43
  Speaker 1: Ai shut down Sora, which my sense was mainly because
• 50:49
  Speaker 1: of all the legal implications that Sora was creating they remember.
• 50:54
  Speaker 1: We may recall we talked about Sora, all these amazing
• 50:58
  Speaker 1: videos that were being created involving historical figures that were
• 51:01
  Speaker 1: dead that theoretically, you know, were fair game to use
• 51:06
  Speaker 1: in satirical or comedic videos, and then Disney made a
• 51:12
  Speaker 1: deal with Open Ai for a billion dollars. Well, Disney
• 51:15
  Speaker 1: backed out and Sore is being shut down. I mean,
• 51:18
  Speaker 1: it was only a few months ago that Sora was
• 51:20
  Speaker 1: going to change the entire fucking world, and now it's
• 51:23
  Speaker 1: essentially gone. I mean, I'm kind of amazed. I'm kind
• 51:28
  Speaker 1: of amazed that the issue of whether or not and
• 51:32
  Speaker 1: if you want to call this a bubble or whatever
• 51:34
  Speaker 1: is not getting more traction right now, because I still
• 51:38
  Speaker 1: think that that is a viable scenario. Again, I want
• 51:43
  Speaker 1: to be clear, AI is real. AI is going to
• 51:46
  Speaker 1: be a huge thing into the future. But is it
• 51:48
  Speaker 1: going to be fundamentally earth shatteringly significant, like to the
• 51:55
  Speaker 1: point where it changes the entire structure of the world
• 51:58
  Speaker 1: in five years. I certainly hope not, and I don't
• 52:03
  Speaker 1: know what the percentages are, but I'm not convinced that
• 52:06
  Speaker 1: we're going to get there yet. If we are, we
• 52:09
  Speaker 1: got a long way to go. Let's put it that way,
• 52:11
  Speaker 1: we are a long way from the whole idea of
• 52:16
  Speaker 1: AGI and AI being reliable enough and economically and legally
• 52:23
  Speaker 1: viable enough to do all of what many people are
• 52:28
  Speaker 1: claiming is going to be the case with regard to
• 52:31
  Speaker 1: its world changing impact. Not downplaying it. It's an amazing
• 52:35
  Speaker 1: technology and it's absolutely going to be huge into the future.
• 52:41
  Speaker 1: But in order for it to do some of the
• 52:44
  Speaker 1: things that are being predicted, especially in the realm of
• 52:48
  Speaker 1: doom and gloom, in this dystopian universe where we're all
• 52:52
  Speaker 1: forced to go into a universal basic income, which is
• 52:56
  Speaker 1: the worst, most catastrophic idea maybe in the history of man.
• 53:00
  Speaker 1: And it's absolutely it's appalling to me that Elon Musk
• 53:05
  Speaker 1: is in favor of this. I mean to me, it
• 53:07
  Speaker 1: has completely changed my view of Elon Musk that he's
• 53:10
  Speaker 1: in favor of what he calls universal high wage and
• 53:13
  Speaker 1: does not seem to understand the catastrophic impact that would
• 53:18
  Speaker 1: have through every aspect of society, that we would be
• 53:22
  Speaker 1: completely and totally done if AI, through massive job loss,
• 53:26
  Speaker 1: forces us to go in that direction. So my view
• 53:29
  Speaker 1: of Musk has changed pretty significantly, especially since he used
• 53:33
  Speaker 1: to be very skeptical of and pretty much against AI,
• 53:37
  Speaker 1: and now he's completely embraced it for whatever reason, whether
• 53:41
  Speaker 1: it's the technology, it's the economics, what's the cool kid
• 53:46
  Speaker 1: club is all obsessed with right now and he doesn't
• 53:49
  Speaker 1: want to be left behind. I don't know what it is,
• 53:52
  Speaker 1: but my experience so far has been much more frustrating
• 53:59
  Speaker 1: than has been fulfilling with regard to AI. And you know,
• 54:04
  Speaker 1: I don't know whether or not that's going to change
• 54:06
  Speaker 1: in short order. I'm sure it'll get better, but that's
• 54:08
  Speaker 1: where I currently am. So I'm gonna stick the going
• 54:11
  Speaker 1: to keep the fear factor rating at seven point five,
• 54:14
  Speaker 1: mainly because I'm more convinced than ever that if we
• 54:17
  Speaker 1: do reach AGI with AI, we're done. It's over. But
• 54:21
  Speaker 1: I'm less convinced that we're ever going to do that,
• 54:24
  Speaker 1: but it's still a major concern, and I will keep
• 54:29
  Speaker 1: the AI fear factor at seven point five. Now, I
• 54:34
  Speaker 1: want to talk a little bit about something that's related
• 54:37
  Speaker 1: to AI. I don't know that it's technically AI, but
• 54:40
  Speaker 1: it's happened in baseball. Now that baseball has started up
• 54:44
  Speaker 1: a new season, I'm referring to the ABS system for
• 54:49
  Speaker 1: calling balls and stripes. I do think this is at
• 54:53
  Speaker 1: least culturally related to AI. Now, I don't know whether
• 54:56
  Speaker 1: or not you would call the ABS system artificial intelligen
• 55:00
  Speaker 1: or not. I mean, to me, it's certainly in that realm,
• 55:03
  Speaker 1: but I don't know if you would technically refer to
• 55:05
  Speaker 1: it as that. But but from a cultural and social standpoint,
• 55:09
  Speaker 1: it absolutely is within that family. And I think some
• 55:13
  Speaker 1: really interesting and significant things have happened with regard to
• 55:18
  Speaker 1: the reaction of the media and baseball fans to the
• 55:22
  Speaker 1: implementation of this ABS system. Now, if you're not familiar,
• 55:27
  Speaker 1: for you know, a bazillion years baseball balls and strikes
• 55:31
  Speaker 1: were called by a homeplate umpire. It was a very
• 55:35
  Speaker 1: inexact science. Almost every umpire had their own strike zone,
• 55:40
  Speaker 1: you know. To baseball purists, that was part of the game,
• 55:44
  Speaker 1: trying to figure out what the umpire's particular strike zone was.
• 55:49
  Speaker 1: Arguing balls and strikes was forbidden. It was understood that,
• 55:53
  Speaker 1: you know, that was a slippery slope that if you
• 55:56
  Speaker 1: start arguing balls and strikes, you know there's no going
• 55:59
  Speaker 1: back from that. And lots and lots of players and
• 56:03
  Speaker 1: managers were kicked out of games for even mildly arguing
• 56:07
  Speaker 1: balls and strikes. Well, now the pendulum has swung dramatically
• 56:13
  Speaker 1: in the other direction because we've got this system where
• 56:17
  Speaker 1: this computer, this ABS system determines whether or not a
• 56:23
  Speaker 1: pitch was actually a ball or a strike, and there's
• 56:26
  Speaker 1: a challenge system. Now. Now the first part of this
• 56:30
  Speaker 1: that I have a problem with, and I can't stand
• 56:32
  Speaker 1: this in football. But it's a little bit different in football,
• 56:36
  Speaker 1: because a touchdown or even a long game in football
• 56:41
  Speaker 1: is in my view way way way more significant than
• 56:47
  Speaker 1: one ball or strike in a one hundred and sixty
• 56:51
  Speaker 1: two game regular season for baseball. But I can't stand
• 56:56
  Speaker 1: the fact that when I'm watching a football game, invariably
• 57:00
  Speaker 1: you have to hesitate to react to any play, good, bad,
• 57:04
  Speaker 1: or indifferent because you're not one hundred percent sure one
• 57:07
  Speaker 1: is there going to be a penalty, but two, if
• 57:09
  Speaker 1: it's a close play with regard to a catch or
• 57:13
  Speaker 1: getting a foot in bounds or whatever it is, you
• 57:15
  Speaker 1: have to wait for the replay. To me, that kills
• 57:19
  Speaker 1: an enormous amount of the joy and sometimes anguish related
• 57:24
  Speaker 1: to watching sports. But I at least someone understand it
• 57:28
  Speaker 1: because in football, you know, you play far fewer games,
• 57:34
  Speaker 1: and one play in football can impact an entire season
• 57:38
  Speaker 1: on a fairly regular basis. That can almost never happen
• 57:42
  Speaker 1: in baseball. I mean, one ball or a strike in
• 57:46
  Speaker 1: one hundred and sixty two game regular season in baseball
• 57:50
  Speaker 1: is basically like a dollar on the national debt. That's
• 57:56
  Speaker 1: no impact at all. I mean, in the current system,
• 58:02
  Speaker 1: there are often Major League Baseball seasons where there's only one, two,
• 58:07
  Speaker 1: or maybe even less than that, specific games that have
• 58:13
  Speaker 1: a real impact over who makes the playoffs and who
• 58:17
  Speaker 1: does not. I mean, you can theoretically go through an
• 58:20
  Speaker 1: entire baseball season without one game being the make or
• 58:24
  Speaker 1: break for a team making the playoffs. Now, sometimes you'll
• 58:27
  Speaker 1: have a handful of games, but the reality is it's
• 58:31
  Speaker 1: a minuscule number of games that really really matter in
• 58:36
  Speaker 1: the end in the regular season, and then you consider
• 58:40
  Speaker 1: how many of those games turned on one ball or strike.
• 58:43
  Speaker 1: I mean, it's theoretically possible, but it's exceedingly, exceedingly rare,
• 58:50
  Speaker 1: almost to the point of being ludicrous. So to me,
• 58:55
  Speaker 1: there's a cost benefit ratio here that we've completely forgotten. Okay,
• 59:02
  Speaker 1: because I've seen this on social media. Oh, I want
• 59:04
  Speaker 1: to get it right. Why wouldn't you do everything you
• 59:07
  Speaker 1: possibly can to get it right. And I'm like, well,
• 59:10
  Speaker 1: there's a cost. I mean, there's a massive cost here.
• 59:15
  Speaker 1: You can no longer celebrate a borderline called third strike
• 59:20
  Speaker 1: in baseball. You can't do it. You have to now
• 59:22
  Speaker 1: wait for whether or not there's a challenge, and then
• 59:26
  Speaker 1: whether or not the challenge goes in your direction or not.
• 59:30
  Speaker 1: And that, to me, there's a cost in that. There's
• 59:33
  Speaker 1: a time cost, but there's also the essence of being
• 59:38
  Speaker 1: a fan gets diminished because of that, all because you
• 59:42
  Speaker 1: want to make sure every fricking borderline ball er strike
• 59:46
  Speaker 1: is supposedly accurate based upon a computer system that is
• 59:52
  Speaker 1: inherently flawed. That's the other part of this that drives
• 59:55
  Speaker 1: me crazy. The computer system, the ABS system inherently does
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 1: not account for what the rules of baseball are. The
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 1: rules of baseball clearly state that the strike zone is
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 1: three dimensional, but the ABS system does not determine whether
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 1: or not a pitch is a ball or a strike
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 1: based upon those rules. It's determined based upon essentially a
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 1: one dimensional view of where the ball was according to
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 1: the computer. At the location that the computer is set
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 1: up to determine is what matters. Well, again, this might
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 1: I might not be explaining this to a non baseball fan,
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 1: but here's the bottom line of it. Effectively, pitchers that
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 1: throw a really good sinker are screwed by this system
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 1: because in the past the sinker might be a strike
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 1: where the home plate umpire was calling it, but by
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 1: the time it gets to where the system is dictating it,
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 1: the ball is sunk to where it's just below the
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 1: strike zone. And we're talking only you know, it only
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 1: needs an inch or two to make a huge amount
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 1: of difference. Here. There's all sorts of great pitchers that
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 1: would be completely screwed by this system because balls are
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 1: pitches that would have rightly been called a strike by
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 1: the rules were a strike, are now all of a sudden,
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 1: too low to be considered a striker, being called balls
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 1: on challenges. And by the way, there are teams that
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 1: are already figuring this out that if you're going against
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 1: a pitcher that is throwing a sinker of some sort
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 1: and it's borderline low, you might as well challenge. So
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 1: that's another part of this. People are relating this to tennis,
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 1: and that is fundamentally wrong because tennis is a one
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 1: dimensional situation. Did the tennis ball hit the line or
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 1: not in that one specific spot that I have no
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 1: problem with in a computer system at the highest levels
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 1: of the sport. But that's totally different than a three
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 1: dimensional strike zone. But even more importantly, the tennis example,
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 1: which a lot of people have used to me, exposes
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 1: the biggest problem with what is happening with regard to
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 1: i'mpiring in baseball that nobody else on this planet has
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 1: mentioned that I'm aware of other than me. And by
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 1: the way, I feel pretty confident that that's not hyperbole
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 1: because I actually mentioned this to Bob Costa's NBC legendary sportscaster,
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 1: basically the soul of the sport of baseball, and he
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 1: told me that this is a really great point that
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 1: he's not heard before, knowing he's never thought of before.
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 1: The tennis situation actually illustrates what I think is the
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 1: biggest problem with his ABS system long term for baseball.
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 1: In tennis, you can take away the power from the umpires.
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 1: There's usually you know, one umpire, there's lines people. But
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 1: for the lines people are now basically completely irrelevant. I
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 1: don't even know if they still exist at all levels
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 1: of tennis. But you've got the umpires sitting under an umbrella, relaxed,
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 1: you know, completely comfortable at center court, and they have
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 1: very little power anymore. But you know what, that's not
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 1: a big deal because people are still going to want
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 1: to be a tennis umpire because it is a cushy
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 1: gig and there's a lot of prestige to it, and
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 1: so taking away all the power from the tennis umpire
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 1: is not going to have any impact on the lower
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 1: levels of tennis. Why because at almost every level of tennis,
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 1: the players call the lines themselves because obviously they cannot
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 1: afford a computer system to make the calls. So at
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 1: the college and high school levels, the players generally, not always,
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 1: but generally they make the calls themselves. So there's no
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 1: downside to effectively eliminating the umpire. Because the umpire had
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 1: no real impact to begin with, you could play the
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 1: game without an umpire. Well, where I'm heading with this
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 1: is that is not the case in baseball because a
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 1: lot of people, and this is a slippery slope, are
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 1: now wanting to eliminate the home plate umpire. They love
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 1: the fact that these idiots, these arrogant assholes, and a
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 1: lot of them are arrogant assholes in major league umpiring.
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 1: I hate umpires, not defending umpires, even though I was
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 1: once an umpire in Little league for quite a while,
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 1: so I have a little bit of understanding of being
• 1:04:51
  Speaker 1: an umpire and how difficult it is to be a
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 1: homeplate umpire. But people hate umpires and they love that
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 1: they're getting embarrassed. I think that's a huge part of
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 1: why fans love this. They love having the homeplate umpire
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 1: get embarrassed, especially the really bad ones, by getting a
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 1: lot of their calls overturned. And I get that from
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 1: a human standpoint, even though you know, I'm not real
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 1: thrilled with it, but I get why people have that impulse.
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 1: But the problem becomes that if you get rid of
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 1: the major league home plate umpire, which is where this
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 1: is headed. In short order, this is what I told
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 1: Bob Costas. In short order, high school and colleges will
• 1:05:37
  Speaker 1: not be able to find home plate umpires. You will
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 1: not be able to find them. People will not do
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 1: the job. Why because for anybody who is a halfway
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 1: decent umpire at the high school or college level, the
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 1: reason you get into it, not always, but in many cases,
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 1: the reason you get into it is you think it
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 1: might be a career that ends up making it to
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 1: the show. That it's some at some level you're thinking,
• 1:06:12
  Speaker 1: that's the dream, that's the pot of gold at the
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 1: end of the rainbow, that making it to the show.
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 1: Being a major league umpire, you make a lot of money,
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 1: you travel around the whole country, you get on television.
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 1: There's prestige, there's power. By the way, a lot of
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 1: these guys are power hungry assholes because of it. But
• 1:06:33
  Speaker 1: that is a legitimate dream. If you want to be
• 1:06:37
  Speaker 1: an umpire, you take that away. And now good luck,
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 1: especially at the high school level, finding someone that's going
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 1: to endure being a homeplate umpire, because again, you're not
• 1:06:49
  Speaker 1: gonna be able to afford this abs system at the
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 1: college or high school or certainly not little league level.
• 1:06:56
  Speaker 1: So why the fuck is anybody worth their salt gonna
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 1: put on that umpire's uniform on a hot day, crouch
• 1:07:07
  Speaker 1: down behind the catcher, you know, uh, maybe two hundred
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 1: or fifty times on that afternoon, get yelled at by
• 1:07:16
  Speaker 1: coaches and players and fans for a very little bit
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 1: of money when there is no pot of gold at
• 1:07:23
  Speaker 1: the end of the rainbow. There's not even if it's
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 1: just a dream. I talk all the time about how
• 1:07:29
  Speaker 1: having even a one or two percent dream is a
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 1: remarkable motivator for human beings. People will do all sorts
• 1:07:36
  Speaker 1: of things even though statistically there's very little chance of
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 1: it ever turning out the way they're dreaming of. But
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 1: it doesn't matter. The dream is the fuel. You take
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 1: away the dream, nobody's gonna be a fucking umpire, And
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 1: I mean, or you're gonna have to pay people a
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 1: ridiculous prohibitive amount of money to be an umpire at
• 1:07:59
  Speaker 1: the high school and college levels. And so I'm sorry,
• 1:08:04
  Speaker 1: that's part of what you got to put up with.
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 1: You got to put You have to put up with
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 1: major league umpires in order to keep the entire system
• 1:08:12
  Speaker 1: of umpiring alive throughout every level of baseball. But nobody
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 1: understands that. Nobody understand They all listen, Oh, well, I
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 1: want to get it right, and fuck those umpires. They're
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 1: always getting it wrong. So to me, this is dumb
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 1: in the long run. It's wrong from a sports perspective,
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 1: both from the rules standpoint as well as the true
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 1: fan experience. And yes, it can be you know, it
• 1:08:42
  Speaker 1: can feel good to have an asshole. Umpire look like
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 1: an idiot because they're called out for making a bad call.
• 1:08:48
  Speaker 1: But there is a massive cost for that that and
• 1:08:51
  Speaker 1: this is why it matters way bigger than baseball. This
• 1:08:54
  Speaker 1: is why I think it relates to the entire AI issue.
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 1: When I raise this on social media, I got so
• 1:09:01
  Speaker 1: much hatred, so much hatred from people that love this system,
• 1:09:06
  Speaker 1: And to me it was an indication of why we're
• 1:09:09
  Speaker 1: so cooked with regard to AI, because for some reason,
• 1:09:14
  Speaker 1: people just don't get it. They do not understand. They
• 1:09:18
  Speaker 1: really do not understand the implications. They don't understand the
• 1:09:22
  Speaker 1: slippery slope, they don't understand the law of unintended consequences.
• 1:09:27
  Speaker 1: They don't They just see this in the very short run,
• 1:09:30
  Speaker 1: and to them, this is good. Make bad umpire look bad,
• 1:09:36
  Speaker 1: get call right. I mean, it's a cave band philosophy.
• 1:09:39
  Speaker 1: To me, you're not thinking this through. And I don't
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 1: know whether Bob Costas is ever going to raise this
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 1: issue publicly, but based upon our text exchange, I think
• 1:09:50
  Speaker 1: I at least opened his eyes to the long term
• 1:09:53
  Speaker 1: implications of this if they in fact get a rid
• 1:09:57
  Speaker 1: of the homeplate umpire and by the way, keeping the
• 1:10:00
  Speaker 1: umpires around the bases that ain't going to do it,
• 1:10:02
  Speaker 1: because once that happens, the union loses all its power.
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 1: I mean, base umpires make maybe one or two calls
• 1:10:09
  Speaker 1: a game that matter, and even they can be overturned
• 1:10:12
  Speaker 1: on a regular basis. Now, so you know, umpires, the
• 1:10:17
  Speaker 1: pendulum wolves swung so far from umpires being way too
• 1:10:21
  Speaker 1: powerful to umpires having no power, no leverage, and all
• 1:10:28
  Speaker 1: that incentive to become a major league umpire goes away,
• 1:10:31
  Speaker 1: and all of baseball will be in peril because you
• 1:10:35
  Speaker 1: can't have a situation like tennis where what the catcher's
• 1:10:40
  Speaker 1: going to call the balls and strikes? Good luck with
• 1:10:43
  Speaker 1: that all right. Now, keeping within the realm, very loosely
• 1:10:47
  Speaker 1: of sports, I have to at least address the issue
• 1:10:49
  Speaker 1: of Tiger Woods and his latest DUI car crash. I'm
• 1:10:55
  Speaker 1: sure you're aware at this point that Tiger Woods got
• 1:10:58
  Speaker 1: in a very serious car crash where his range rover
• 1:11:03
  Speaker 1: almost turned over completely when he caused a crash with
• 1:11:07
  Speaker 1: a truck. Seems as if he was speeding, Seems as
• 1:11:10
  Speaker 1: if he was stupidly passing in a situation where he
• 1:11:13
  Speaker 1: should not have been doing so. He clipped the truck
• 1:11:16
  Speaker 1: his range rover almost completely flipped over. It turns out
• 1:11:20
  Speaker 1: that he was driving under the influence of what we
• 1:11:24
  Speaker 1: don't know. It was not alcohol. He took a breathalyzer
• 1:11:27
  Speaker 1: test and passed that, but he refused to take a
• 1:11:29
  Speaker 1: blood or a urine test, and there's all sorts of
• 1:11:32
  Speaker 1: reasons why that might have been the case. The conventional wisdom,
• 1:11:36
  Speaker 1: although we don't know that, is that he was on
• 1:11:40
  Speaker 1: drugs or painkillers, because obviously he has been recovering from
• 1:11:44
  Speaker 1: yet another serious surgery, and from a legal perspective, this
• 1:11:50
  Speaker 1: is going to be a significant problem for him. But
• 1:11:53
  Speaker 1: much on a much larger level, this now raises very
• 1:11:57
  Speaker 1: serious questions about where he is in his life, whether
• 1:12:01
  Speaker 1: or not he's ever even theoretically going to play golf again.
• 1:12:05
  Speaker 1: He is announced that he's taking a leave from basically
• 1:12:10
  Speaker 1: plub public life. As soon as this happened, and I was,
• 1:12:15
  Speaker 1: I mean, obviously as a huge Tiger Woods fan, you
• 1:12:18
  Speaker 1: followed my career. You know that I've been somewhat associated
• 1:12:23
  Speaker 1: with Tiger Woods' career for over thirty years, having created
• 1:12:26
  Speaker 1: a website back in nineteen ninety six before he turned
• 1:12:30
  Speaker 1: pro that was entitled actually, I guess that wasn't I
• 1:12:34
  Speaker 1: did the first church of Tiger Woods back in nineteen
• 1:12:37
  Speaker 1: ninety six. I did a website called Tiger Woods's Good
• 1:12:40
  Speaker 1: dot com was before he exploded in the year two thousand.
• 1:12:44
  Speaker 1: That was in nineteen ninety nine. It was written about
• 1:12:46
  Speaker 1: all over the world. Sports Illustrated said that it was
• 1:12:49
  Speaker 1: one of the three best things ever written about Tiger Woods.
• 1:12:53
  Speaker 1: I mean, I've been obsessed with Tiger's career for well
• 1:12:56
  Speaker 1: over thirty years, all the ups and downs. My daughter
• 1:13:01
  Speaker 1: Grace first knew of Tiger Woods as the man who
• 1:13:04
  Speaker 1: broke Daddy's heart because of the massive scandal that erupted
• 1:13:08
  Speaker 1: after his first car accident when he hit a fire
• 1:13:12
  Speaker 1: hydrant after being chased by his wife with a nine
• 1:13:14
  Speaker 1: iron when she realized that he had been cheating on
• 1:13:18
  Speaker 1: her in dramatic fashion on a Thanksgiving night. But this
• 1:13:23
  Speaker 1: now appears to be at least the fourth that we
• 1:13:25
  Speaker 1: know of car accident that Tiger Woods has been involved with,
• 1:13:29
  Speaker 1: And as soon as I heard about this, I'm like, Okay.
• 1:13:32
  Speaker 1: The first problem I'm concerned about this not just because
• 1:13:36
  Speaker 1: of the description of the car having been rolled over
• 1:13:39
  Speaker 1: that's obviously serious, but the lack of details in those
• 1:13:43
  Speaker 1: first couple of hours indicated to me that there was
• 1:13:47
  Speaker 1: a big problem. I didn't know if that meant that
• 1:13:49
  Speaker 1: Tiger was seriously injured or something else, because otherwise I
• 1:13:53
  Speaker 1: think we would have heard details immediately. But eventually we
• 1:13:57
  Speaker 1: find out that it's Tiger's fault on multiple levels, and
• 1:14:00
  Speaker 1: that he's arrested and he's in jail. And at that moment,
• 1:14:04
  Speaker 1: I knew he ain't playing in the Masters. I mean,
• 1:14:07
  Speaker 1: there was no chance he was going to play in
• 1:14:09
  Speaker 1: the Masters, because that was already borderline to begin with,
• 1:14:12
  Speaker 1: because of his comeback from back surgery. He hadn't played
• 1:14:15
  Speaker 1: in any tournaments. He tried to play in this one
• 1:14:19
  Speaker 1: TGL event that's made for TV thing where his team
• 1:14:22
  Speaker 1: got slaughtered, you know, and it's very very difficult to
• 1:14:25
  Speaker 1: determine the state of his game from that. I mean,
• 1:14:28
  Speaker 1: he had decent power, but it didn't look to me
• 1:14:32
  Speaker 1: like he was ready to be competing in a serious
• 1:14:35
  Speaker 1: way in the Masters, especially without any tournament reps for
• 1:14:39
  Speaker 1: well over a year at least. Not that mattered, And
• 1:14:44
  Speaker 1: there's just no way he could play in the Masters
• 1:14:46
  Speaker 1: because for him to do that so close to this
• 1:14:51
  Speaker 1: event where he was obviously to blame for this major
• 1:14:54
  Speaker 1: car accident and was arrested, he'd have to answer questions.
• 1:14:59
  Speaker 1: That would be a whole thing. He would be very
• 1:15:02
  Speaker 1: vulnerable at Augusta National because of all the media there
• 1:15:05
  Speaker 1: and because of the way the tournament is run. Yes,
• 1:15:08
  Speaker 1: they'd be able to protect him in some ways, but
• 1:15:10
  Speaker 1: I don't think he would have been able to avoid
• 1:15:12
  Speaker 1: the press. But most importantly, he could not possibly play,
• 1:15:16
  Speaker 1: even if he was in theory physically and mentally ready
• 1:15:19
  Speaker 1: to do so, which he clearly would not have been.
• 1:15:22
  Speaker 1: But even if he did so, the dui took away
• 1:15:26
  Speaker 1: any semblance of being able to maintain a decent narrative
• 1:15:32
  Speaker 1: if he tried to play and played poorly right before
• 1:15:35
  Speaker 1: the accident, If he tried to play and he played poorly,
• 1:15:38
  Speaker 1: the narrative would have been, well, he gave it a try.
• 1:15:42
  Speaker 1: What do you expect. He hasn't played really over a year,
• 1:15:46
  Speaker 1: and so you know this isn't a surprise, This is
• 1:15:51
  Speaker 1: not does insaye anything about Tiger Woods. Let's wish him
• 1:15:54
  Speaker 1: the best as he tries to come back one more time.
• 1:15:57
  Speaker 1: Now of he's a senior golfer at the age of fifty,
• 1:16:00
  Speaker 1: that's a narrative that would at least been viable, But
• 1:16:03
  Speaker 1: post dui arrest and car crash, playing like shit would
• 1:16:09
  Speaker 1: have been a horrendous narrative. There would have been nothing positive,
• 1:16:15
  Speaker 1: nothing to withstand the negative media barrage of that. And
• 1:16:21
  Speaker 1: so it was at that moment I realized, Okay, he
• 1:16:23
  Speaker 1: ain't playing the Masters, And clearly when he releases a
• 1:16:25
  Speaker 1: statement a few days later that he's taking a leave
• 1:16:28
  Speaker 1: of absence, who knows if he's ever going to play again,
• 1:16:32
  Speaker 1: because now we're at the point where, okay, where does
• 1:16:36
  Speaker 1: he make a comeback? I mean, he's got to do
• 1:16:38
  Speaker 1: whatever he's doing. Let's say he's addicted the painkillers. That
• 1:16:41
  Speaker 1: seems to be the most logical explanation. I mean, it
• 1:16:46
  Speaker 1: was just a couple days before when he did that
• 1:16:49
  Speaker 1: TGL event. In the post game press conference, he actually
• 1:16:53
  Speaker 1: referenced that his body does not recover like it used to,
• 1:16:56
  Speaker 1: and that's partially why he's on the fence about whether
• 1:16:59
  Speaker 1: or not to play in the Master. Well, you know,
• 1:17:01
  Speaker 1: if your body's not recovering the way you like, it's
• 1:17:05
  Speaker 1: not a stretch to think that you're you up the
• 1:17:08
  Speaker 1: painkillers doing after having done something at TGL that you
• 1:17:11
  Speaker 1: probably shouldn't have been doing because your body wasn't ready
• 1:17:15
  Speaker 1: and you pushed it, and now you know, in the
• 1:17:17
  Speaker 1: middle of the day you're completely out of it, and
• 1:17:20
  Speaker 1: for some reason you're driving your own range rover, which
• 1:17:23
  Speaker 1: no one can understand. I mean, it makes absolutely no sense,
• 1:17:27
  Speaker 1: even without Tiger's long history of being a terrible driver
• 1:17:31
  Speaker 1: and having all these accidents, and I think it's reasonable
• 1:17:34
  Speaker 1: to presume that there's probably been incidents we don't even
• 1:17:37
  Speaker 1: know about. There's four incidents that we do know about.
• 1:17:40
  Speaker 1: How in the world you can make the money of
• 1:17:42
  Speaker 1: Tiger Woods and not have a full time driver is
• 1:17:45
  Speaker 1: just completely beyond my comprehension. I do not understand it.
• 1:17:50
  Speaker 1: No one understands it. I doubt the Tiger. I don't
• 1:17:53
  Speaker 1: think Tiger's ever been asked the question, and I doubt
• 1:17:55
  Speaker 1: he ever will be asked the question because the golf
• 1:17:59
  Speaker 1: media is just so unbelievably pathetic. But that that, to me,
• 1:18:03
  Speaker 1: is the most confusing part. But with regard to Tiger himself,
• 1:18:07
  Speaker 1: let's hope that it's it's just painkillers. I think that's
• 1:18:10
  Speaker 1: probably what it is. I have no idea what the
• 1:18:13
  Speaker 1: nature of the recovery for that would be but from
• 1:18:17
  Speaker 1: a golf perspective, at a certain point, you just can't
• 1:18:21
  Speaker 1: come back. There's too much damage to the body. It's
• 1:18:25
  Speaker 1: been too long since you were a legitimate tournament golfer.
• 1:18:29
  Speaker 1: You forget what it feels like, what your swing feels like.
• 1:18:34
  Speaker 1: You don't have any reps. So when do you come back?
• 1:18:37
  Speaker 1: And the problem Tiger is always going to have, and
• 1:18:40
  Speaker 1: I've said this previously, is he can't come back at
• 1:18:46
  Speaker 1: the lowest level, right, I mean, he can't. He's not
• 1:18:49
  Speaker 1: going to go Let's see go. Say he goes to
• 1:18:52
  Speaker 1: the Senior Tour. I mean that, you know, there's been
• 1:18:54
  Speaker 1: a lot of speculation that maybe he tries to save
• 1:18:57
  Speaker 1: the Senior Tour, and I have even talked about it out.
• 1:19:00
  Speaker 1: One of my goals this year, although it's not going
• 1:19:02
  Speaker 1: well for a number of reasons, was to try, against
• 1:19:06
  Speaker 1: all odds, to qualify for the US Senior Open this year,
• 1:19:09
  Speaker 1: partially because I'm very familiar with the site, sayoua country
• 1:19:12
  Speaker 1: club in Columbus, Ohio, where a million years ago I
• 1:19:16
  Speaker 1: was sixth in the Ohio Amateur there in the greatest
• 1:19:20
  Speaker 1: four round event in my life by far, but also
• 1:19:23
  Speaker 1: mainly because I presume Tiger Woods would play, and my gosh,
• 1:19:27
  Speaker 1: if you qualify for a tournament where Tiger's playing, that's
• 1:19:30
  Speaker 1: like a dream come true. Well, Tiger had signed up
• 1:19:33
  Speaker 1: for the US Senior Open just before this car crash.
• 1:19:37
  Speaker 1: But I would be shocked if Tiger plays now in
• 1:19:41
  Speaker 1: the US Senior Open, even though that's a few months
• 1:19:43
  Speaker 1: from now, partially because if he goes to the Senior
• 1:19:47
  Speaker 1: Tour and plays like shit, it's too humiliating. He can't
• 1:19:53
  Speaker 1: do that, and so there's no place for him to
• 1:19:56
  Speaker 1: go because he's Tiger Woods. To try to find a
• 1:19:59
  Speaker 1: game under competitive circumstances, you can't, especially after all this time.
• 1:20:05
  Speaker 1: You cannot at your home, you know, driving range and
• 1:20:11
  Speaker 1: practice putting green. You cannot duplicate a competitive situation. So
• 1:20:17
  Speaker 1: you can't possibly get your game to the level it
• 1:20:21
  Speaker 1: would need to be yet, and you can't even know
• 1:20:23
  Speaker 1: for sure your game is at that level, even if
• 1:20:25
  Speaker 1: you're able to make a comeback, even if your body
• 1:20:28
  Speaker 1: is able to do it. So I just don't know
• 1:20:31
  Speaker 1: how he gets back in the water at this point.
• 1:20:33
  Speaker 1: He's been out of it too long, and so you know,
• 1:20:38
  Speaker 1: it's an incredible shame he's going to miss this year's
• 1:20:41
  Speaker 1: Masters because this is the fortieth anniversary of Jack Nicholas's
• 1:20:45
  Speaker 1: nineteen eighty six victory, and it would have been great
• 1:20:47
  Speaker 1: to have Tiger there. My guess is he's not even
• 1:20:50
  Speaker 1: going to come to the Champions dinner, which he had
• 1:20:52
  Speaker 1: said previously he absolutely was going to be there for
• 1:20:55
  Speaker 1: the Champions dinner. It wouldn't if I were him, I
• 1:20:58
  Speaker 1: would actually go to the Champions dinner because that shows
• 1:21:01
  Speaker 1: him in some semblance of normalcy, and he can totally
• 1:21:05
  Speaker 1: avoid the press there. But so to me, if he's
• 1:21:09
  Speaker 1: even close to being functional, he ought to be at
• 1:21:12
  Speaker 1: the Champions dinner. But I have no reason to believe
• 1:21:15
  Speaker 1: that he will be. Who knows, but that I think,
• 1:21:17
  Speaker 1: actually from a pr perspective, would be fine. His picture
• 1:21:20
  Speaker 1: will go viral with all the other champions at the
• 1:21:23
  Speaker 1: Champions dinner. He'll get in and out of there, no
• 1:21:26
  Speaker 1: questions asked. But for him not to be there, you know,
• 1:21:29
  Speaker 1: and fully play and what is going to be historic
• 1:21:31
  Speaker 1: Masters is depressing. And you know, from a historical perspective,
• 1:21:37
  Speaker 1: it's it's upsetting because we're running out of time here, folks.
• 1:21:41
  Speaker 1: And I've said many times with regard to Tiger, there's
• 1:21:44
  Speaker 1: not going to be a soft landing, although the landing
• 1:21:46
  Speaker 1: has even been less soft than I presumed. Jack Nicholas
• 1:21:49
  Speaker 1: gave us an incredibly soft landing. He was competing, you know,
• 1:21:54
  Speaker 1: almost all the way to sixty years old and very
• 1:21:58
  Speaker 1: slowly faded away, never humiliated himself. Unfortunately, that's not been
• 1:22:03
  Speaker 1: the case with Tiger, largely because of injuries. And I
• 1:22:06
  Speaker 1: would like to believe that the injuries are a direct
• 1:22:08
  Speaker 1: result of whatever this substance abuse issue is. But if
• 1:22:13
  Speaker 1: you put a gun to my head right now, I
• 1:22:16
  Speaker 1: think I would probably tell you that Tiger Woods is
• 1:22:19
  Speaker 1: never gonna play golf again. I don't know that even
• 1:22:24
  Speaker 1: close to for sure, but I would say that it's
• 1:22:27
  Speaker 1: more than fifty to fifty that he's never gonna play
• 1:22:29
  Speaker 1: in a major championship again, because I just don't see
• 1:22:33
  Speaker 1: how he can make that happen, even if he gets
• 1:22:36
  Speaker 1: everything straightened out again, because of who he is, he
• 1:22:41
  Speaker 1: cannot go someplace and shoot seventy eight seventy eight, you know,
• 1:22:46
  Speaker 1: because that would be too humiliating, And I just don't know.
• 1:22:51
  Speaker 1: You know, that to me is the downside, and a
• 1:22:54
  Speaker 1: lesser golfer who had been injured and out of the
• 1:22:58
  Speaker 1: game for a couple of years wouldn't have nearly an
• 1:23:00
  Speaker 1: evening close to the attention that would be on Tiger
• 1:23:03
  Speaker 1: Woods if and when he ever tries to play again.
• 1:23:06
  Speaker 1: So you could get away with playing in a shit
• 1:23:09
  Speaker 1: tournament and missing the cut by ten shots and no
• 1:23:12
  Speaker 1: one's gonna really say anything about it. But with Tiger Woods,
• 1:23:16
  Speaker 1: it's a totally different deal. And that, to me is
• 1:23:18
  Speaker 1: the biggest part of this from a golf standpoint, the
• 1:23:21
  Speaker 1: biggest part of this equation. And I'm not optimistic about it,
• 1:23:26
  Speaker 1: but he's awfully lucky to be alive. I mean, because
• 1:23:29
  Speaker 1: if there was another car coming in the other direction,
• 1:23:31
  Speaker 1: he'd be dead. And obviously, anytime you flip over a
• 1:23:36
  Speaker 1: range Rover, you were obviously in a very serious accident.
• 1:23:39
  Speaker 1: But get a goddamn driver. I mean, my god, how
• 1:23:43
  Speaker 1: I mean, it's just unbelievable. It's unbelievable that Tiger Woods,
• 1:23:47
  Speaker 1: even well before this point, was still driving his own car.
• 1:23:51
  Speaker 1: And unfortunately, you know, the ramifications could have been catastrophic.
• 1:23:56
  Speaker 1: They were already bad. You know, his previous car accident
• 1:24:00
  Speaker 1: effectively ended his competitive career because it just destroyed his legs.
• 1:24:06
  Speaker 1: I think this one might have destroyed what was left
• 1:24:08
  Speaker 1: of his psyche, and so I'm hopeful that this is
• 1:24:11
  Speaker 1: not the last we've seen a Tiger. But tell me when,
• 1:24:15
  Speaker 1: tell me when he makes a comeback and how that
• 1:24:17
  Speaker 1: would work, because I just it's hard for me to
• 1:24:20
  Speaker 1: grasp that. Of course, he's done a lot of things
• 1:24:22
  Speaker 1: in the past that were hard to grasp, but I
• 1:24:24
  Speaker 1: don't think he's that same guy anymore. Unfortunately, it's very sad,
• 1:24:27
  Speaker 1: and this is not the way I thought that this
• 1:24:30
  Speaker 1: story was going to come to an end. Although I
• 1:24:34
  Speaker 1: although I'm often reminded by my family, this is a
• 1:24:39
  Speaker 1: true story that on Thanksgiving night of two thousand and nine,
• 1:24:45
  Speaker 1: my brother in law and I were talking about Tiger
• 1:24:48
  Speaker 1: Woods and I said to him, quite definitively, that I
• 1:24:51
  Speaker 1: always felt like Tiger was going to die in a
• 1:24:55
  Speaker 1: car accident. Now this was well before he had ever
• 1:24:57
  Speaker 1: been in any car accidents. This is an actual statement
• 1:25:01
  Speaker 1: I made. I have no idea, you know why, I
• 1:25:03
  Speaker 1: just I just it's the you know, kind of the
• 1:25:05
  Speaker 1: history of of people like Tiger. They tend to die uh,
• 1:25:10
  Speaker 1: you know at an early age. Uh, you know, geniuses, savants,
• 1:25:14
  Speaker 1: uh and people that are too good to be true
• 1:25:16
  Speaker 1: either get injured or or die, whatever it is. I
• 1:25:20
  Speaker 1: just had this bad feeling. And the reason why that
• 1:25:22
  Speaker 1: date is significant is that that was the night of
• 1:25:25
  Speaker 1: his first car accident where Elan Norgre and his wife
• 1:25:28
  Speaker 1: was running after him with a nine iron and he
• 1:25:30
  Speaker 1: hit the fire igant. So when the next morning, my
• 1:25:33
  Speaker 1: wife and I then girlfriend and I were we're perusing
• 1:25:40
  Speaker 1: the news and we hear that Tiger Woods has been
• 1:25:44
  Speaker 1: in a major car accident. She looked at me like,
• 1:25:46
  Speaker 1: oh my god, what what the hell is going on? Now?
• 1:25:49
  Speaker 1: He didn't die, but a big piece of his career
• 1:25:52
  Speaker 1: did at that time. So anyway, that's the Tiger Woods story,
• 1:25:56
  Speaker 1: and it's it's sad, and I'm not optimistic about where
• 1:26:01
  Speaker 1: we're heading from here. Thanks for listening to today's free
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