Latest / The Joe Rogan Recap / Brian Redban (2025) - Quantum Multiverse, Cobalt Slaves and the AI Simulation

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Brian Redban (2025) - Quantum Multiverse, Cobalt Slaves and the AI Simulation · The Joe Rogan Recap

• 0:00
  Welcome to the Joe Rogan recap. Great to be here and you're
• 0:03
  joining us for, well, a deep dive into what was a really
• 0:07
  dense, like 3 hour conversation. It was a whirlwind, honestly.
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  Yeah, it really was covering just about everything.
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  Bleeding edge tech, media ethics, and let's be honest, the
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  general chaos we're all swimming in.
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  Absolutely. So our mission today really is
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  to take this huge chunk of information, which is kind of a
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  snapshot of how fast things are changing, and pull out the most
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  crucial bits for you, the stuff that really makes you think.
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  And to kick things off, we have to talk about speed, but not
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  like normal speed, computation speed.
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  Right. And the starting point here is
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  this claim that sounds almost, well, impossible.
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  It's about a new quantum computer supposedly from China.
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  The numbers they're throwing around are just hard to believe.
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  This thing apparently solved some super complex equation in
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  what, 4 minutes? 4 minutes and here's the kicker.
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  Our current best supercomputers? They'd need something like 2.6
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  billion years to craft the same problem.
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  Billion with AB that's I mean that's longer than the sun
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  supposed to last, right? Exactly, completely shatters how
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  we think about tech getting faster.
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  It's not just step by step anymore.
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  It feels like it jumped into hyperspace.
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  OK, so let's call this the quantum leap.
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  This insane speed, it led the guys in the source material to
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  ask, you know, how is that even possible?
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  If a computer can solve problems that should take longer than the
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  universe exists, what's going on?
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  Yeah, and that's where things get really wild.
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  It pushes the discussion into some pretty massive, almost
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  philosophical territory. The hypothesis floated was maybe
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  it's proof of the multiverse. The multiverse like alternate
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  realities. Sort of the idea, or the
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  speculation really, is that maybe this quantum computer
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  isn't just working here. Maybe it's collaborating somehow
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  with other quantum computers in other dimensions, Outsourcing
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  the work basically. OK, hold on.
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  That sounds convenient, like it's so fast we can't explain
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  it. So dimensions, is there any
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  actual basis for that in the source or is it pure like sci-fi
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  speculation because the number is so big?
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  Oh, it's definitely speculation. Yeah.
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  It shows you how much this kind of potential breakthrough messes
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  with our heads. Right.
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  We're grasping for explanations outside normal physics because
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  the result seems to demand it. If the claim is true, the how
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  must be something completely new.
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  OK. All right.
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  But let's bring it back to Earth for a second.
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  Even if this God machine exists, who actually knows how to build
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  it or fix it if it breaks? And that's where it gets kind of
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  scary from a human perspective. The estimate mentioned is well,
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  it's incredibly low. Maybe only 30 to 100 people on
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  the entire planet possess the very specific knowledge to
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  actually recreate a machine like that. 30 people globally.
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  That's wow. That feels incredibly fragile.
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  The key to this potentially universe breaking tech rests on
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  a handful of specialists. It's the ultimate bottleneck,
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  isn't it? Specialized knowledge.
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  And if something happens to those few people, the
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  breakthrough vanishes. Yeah, the machine becomes a
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  very, very expensive brick. Exactly.
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  And this ties directly into the next big issue they raised, the
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  power paradox. Because if we do build tech this
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  powerful, this demanding, can we even run it?
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  The sources were pretty blunt about that.
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  They basically said the current electrical grid can't sustain
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  AI, not long term anyway. The power needed for these
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  systems, for the data centers, it's already pushing the limits.
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  And there's a perfect, almost comical example of this
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  disconnect right here in the US Remember California?
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  They passed that law. All new cars have to be electric
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  by 2035. Ambitious.
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  Yeah, very forward thinking. And then like the next day,
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  they're putting out alerts. Hey, please don't charge your
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  electric car right now. The grid can't handle.
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  It right It's the perfect contradiction, demanding this
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  futuristic green tech while admitting the basic foundation
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  the power grid is already creaking under the current load.
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  So you've got this world changing tech, potentially
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  arriving stuff that needs immense power right when we're
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  realizing our basic infrastructure is kind of shaky.
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  Which is a good transition, actually, from the physical grid
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  to the digital leash we all have.
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  Let's talk about privacy, data, and how tech marches on.
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  And Speaking of tech in your hand, they touched on the
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  hardware itself. Things like the new Samsung
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  Fold. Apparently it's gotten really
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  good. Feels like a normal phone then
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  bam opens into a mini tablet. Look a little iPad in your
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  pocket. Pretty cool technically.
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  Pure tech luxury, yeah, but it also represents that constant
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  connection. The sources look back at the
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  BlackBerry moment. That was the turning point,
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  wasn't it? Suddenly you could answer work
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  emails anywhere, anytime, on the fly.
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  Which sounded great at first. Freedom until people realized oh
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  wait, I don't want my e-mail following me everywhere.
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  I kind of liked leaving it on my computer at the office.
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  That convenience came at the cost of always being on.
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  It blurred everything. And that initial annoyance, that
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  feeling of being tethered, it sort of evolved, didn't it, into
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  this modern understanding that our data is the real prize.
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  Exactly. Your e-mail address, what you
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  buy, where you click online, that stuff is incredibly
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  valuable now. Yeah, this is where the source
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  material use that colorful phrase about sleazy
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  motherfuckers. The idea being that people
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  collect this data. Maybe you clicked on a dodgy
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  e-mail link. Maybe you just signed up for a
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  mailing list and then they bundle it up and sell it.
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  They sell you, basically, yeah. Profile your habits.
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  It becomes a resource for scammers, for targeted ads, for
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  anyone who wants to know exactly who you are and what buttons to
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  push. Privacy is the product.
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  And the level of tracking possible now is just intense.
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  They mentioned a court case apparently, where investigators
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  knew some unbelievable details. Yeah, get this, they knew the
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  suspect had looked at a specific photo on Instagram for precisely
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  2.3 seconds 2. .3 seconds they have that level of granularity.
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  That's wow near perfect insight into your digital life it.
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  Really is. Which naturally brings us to the
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  bigger picture global conflicts over technology and the ethics
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  behind it all. Right, so global tech conflict
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  and ethics. We see this playing out with
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  governments getting paranoid, especially about tech from
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  certain countries. Like the whole situation with
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  DJI, the Chinese drone company, the US banned them, right?
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  Yeah, and the claim in the source material was that this
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  move actually set American drone tech back by maybe 10 years,
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  just halted progress because of security fears.
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  And while that's happening, you see these incredible displays
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  coming out of China, like those drone shows, thousands, even
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  10,000 drones perfectly synced up doing complex stuff like a
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  Kung Fu moves in the sky. It's a stark contrast, one side
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  hitting the brakes, the other showcasing massive coordinated
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  automation. But the source argues the really
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  deep conflict isn't just about nations competing.
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  It's more fundamental. It's moral.
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  It's about where the stuff for this tech actually comes from.
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  Yeah, this part was rough. They focused heavily on cobalt,
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  which is essential for batteries in, well, everything.
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  Phones. Electric cars.
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  And most of it comes from the Congo.
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  The descriptions in the source material were harrowing minerals
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  being quote hammered out of the ground by people who live in
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  dirt floors. Including women with babies on
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  their back. Just brutal primitive
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  exploitation powering the most advanced things we own.
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  It's this insane disconnect, isn't it?
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  Our sleek, futuristic gadgets are literally built on the back
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  of human suffering in the most basic, awful ways.
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  And the source then kind of pivots from that asking, OK, if
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  this profit over humanity dynamic exists for raw
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  materials, does it show up elsewhere, like in powerful
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  institutions, maybe even medicine?
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  Which led them straight into some really controversial
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  territory around the AIDS crisis.
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  They brought up Peter Duesberg's theory, the idea that for some
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  groups, AIDS might have been more about immune systems
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  wrecked by drug use than just HIV itself.
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  Very contentious stuff. Yeah, but the really explosive
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  part was the discussion around that old Spin magazine article
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  about the drug AC2, right? ACT originally a failed cancer
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  drug apparently brought back by its maker Burroughs Welcome for
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  AIDS treatment. The claim cited was that it made
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  huge profits. But the allegation in the source
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  referencing the article was that the drug itself was incredibly
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  toxic, that it was quote worse than the disease and killed
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  faster. Yet it was supposedly pushed
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  hard, and the host pointed out something pretty specific, the
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  claim that Doctor Fauci promoted it back then, using the phrase
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  safe and effective. The exact same phrase he
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  apparently used decades later for something else entirely.
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  That parallel was definitely highlighted.
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  Yeah, so this whole sequence from exploitation for minerals
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  to alleged profiteering in healthcare, it really paints a
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  picture of deep distrust and institutions, which sets up the
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  next big theme perfectly, the erosion of truth and political
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  warfare. Because if you can't trust these
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  big institutions, whether it's mining companies or health
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  organizations or even the news media, then what can you trust?
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  Reality itself starts to feel shaky.
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  Exactly. And they zeroed in on
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  journalistic integrity, or the alleged lack thereof.
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  There was a specific, pretty shocking claim about the BBC and
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  how they supposedly edited footage of a Trump speech from
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  January 6th. The allegation was quite
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  detailed. They claimed the BBC took a
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  phrase we fight like hell, which was apparently said much, much
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  later in the speech, like 52 minutes later.
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  And they supposedly spliced it right after completely different
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  line where he's telling people to cheer on our brave senators.
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  Making it look like he was inciting violence at the exact
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  moment he was actually encouraging peaceful support for
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  lawmakers. A deliberate manipulation of the
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  timeline, according to the claim.
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  If that's true, I mean what does that do to your faith in an
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  institution like the BBC or PBS, which was also mentioned?
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  The reaction the source was basically these respected bodies
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  are acting like propaganda arms, like they've been quote,
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  infected by zombies. It speaks to that feeling of
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  institutional collapse, doesn't it, that the mission has been
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  totally corrupted by politics? It's not just a mistake, it's
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  perceived as intentional distortion.
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  And that fuels the fire, right? The polarization gets worse.
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  People feel like the system is rigged, that the truth is being
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  hidden or twisted. Which leads to more extreme
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  reactions. They talked about the intense
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  pushback against woke shit, as they put it, sometimes leading
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  to its own kind of overcorrection and instability.
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  And they use a really chilling example to illustrate how bad
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  things feel, this hypothetical scenario where people, like,
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  celebrate hearing that someone like Charlie Kirk got shot.
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  Just the idea that people could celebrate political violence
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  like that, it prompted the question in the source, Are we
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  like at a 7 on the scale to civil war?
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  It's dark territory when cheering for harm against your
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  political opponents becomes even remotely conceivable.
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  You know, things are getting dangerous and technology seems
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  to be amplifying all of it. Which brings us nicely, if it
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  may be terrifyingly, to the final section, AI, deepfakes and
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  maybe the biggest question of all, the simulation.
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  Right, because generative AI is just exploding.
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  It's moving so fast. There's no real consensus on
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  control or ethics. Yeah, they mentioned how
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  different AI image generators have different rules.
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  Like Grok might be more spicy, as they put it.
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  They tested it with that ridiculous prompt.
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  Kanye West with huge tits on Kanye.
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  Just to show the absurdity and the lack of clear boundaries.
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  Yeah, it can create nonsense just as easily as it can create
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  art. And the artistic side is static,
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  staggering. They talked about generating
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  this really specific image. Conan the Barbarian, but older,
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  scarred, long black hair, fighting heavily armed
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  skeletons. And boom, the AI spits it out.
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  Something that would have taken a skilled artist hours or days,
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  now generated in seconds from a text description.
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  So you put it all together, you've got potentially God like
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  computing power emerging with quantum, you have AI that can
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  generate literally anything blurring reality, and you have a
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  media and political landscape that feels deliberately designed
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  to confuse and divide. It leads you back to that
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  ultimate philosophical question they grappled with at the end.
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  Looking at all this, the immense power, the overwhelming
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  information, the deep society, idle madness, and makes you
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  start to wonder about the nature of reality itself, doesn't it?
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  And that's where the simulation theory comes back in.
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  The source is connected the dots.
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  AI like ChatGPT seems to appear almost overnight even though
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  sure it had years of development but it's public arrival felt
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  sudden powerful. Combine that sudden leap with
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  the general feeling that everything is just chaos,
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  madness, confusion everywhere. And the final thought experiment
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  was basically this. Isn't this exactly how you
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  design A simulation? If you wanted to keep the
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  inhabitants from figuring it out, keep them confused and
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  chaotic. Distracted by the noise, the
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  conflict, the sheer weirdness of it all, so they never look too
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  closely at the walls of the cage.
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  It's the perfect setup, isn't it?
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  Limitless computing power potentially running the show and
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  limitless chaos keeping the subjects busy.
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  A pretty chilling place to end up reflecting on all this tech
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  and media mess. So yeah, we've gone from
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  computers that might talk to other dimensions down to the
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  dirt floors where the cobalt comes from and landed on whether
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  institutions are lying to us while AI possibly traps us in a
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  simulation. Quite the journey.
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  It really covers the extremes and maybe building on that
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  initial point about the power grid failing under a IS demand,
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  maybe the final thought for you with Listener is this.
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  It's not just the electrical grid we should worry about.
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  What other crucial parts of our societal infrastructure might be
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  the first to truly buckle under the weight of all this
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  exponential tech data overload, eroding trust?
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  What breaks first our mental health?
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  Global supply chains. The very idea of shared truth.
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  Something to think about. Thanks for joining us for this
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  deep dive. We'll catch you on the next one.