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Episode Two Hundred Ninety Five: The Boy In The Shower Is Dead · The Death Of Journalism

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Welcomed episode two hundred and ninety five The Death of
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: Journalism podcast. My name is John Zigler. I'm your host
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: on today's show. Ending the Iran War continues to feel
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: like the Groundhog Day movie. Pope Leo tries to rescue
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: humanity from artificial intelligence. There was a hilarious Taylor Swift
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: Travis Kelsey sighting there are two significant developments in the
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: Penn State Sandusky case, and signs from my own life
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: that the foundation of society may be crumbling. President Trump
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: seemingly never ending efforts to end the war with Iran
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: have seemingly gotten nowhere, although that could change at any moment.
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: I referenced already that it seems like the Groundhog Day movie,
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: where it's repeat and repeat and rinse and repeat. Trump
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: makes threats, and then there's a claim of a deal
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: being closed, and then Iran shits on the entire process
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: and we're back to square one again. And this thing
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: has gone on too long. The impact of the closing
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: of the straight or removes has not been as catastrophic
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: as a lot of the so called experts predicted, at
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: least not here yet in the United States, but it's
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: clearly had a negative impact on inflation. It's clearly had
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: a negative impact on the perception of Americans of the
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: economy as well as the Trump presidency, and I think
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: we're now at a point of no return. I'm not
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: going to claim I'm an expert on this. I'd rarely
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: ever talk about things where I don't consider myself to
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: be at least somewhat of an expert. But I think
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: common sense would dictate that we're at a close point
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: to no return when it comes to trying to turn
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: this around before the midterm elections in November. It's hard
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: for me to imagine that this thing could end in
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: a way that was successful enough to where by November
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: it would not only be forgotten, but we would see
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: improvements in the inflation numbers and the perceptions of the
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: public when it comes to the economy and the Trump administration.
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: And frankly, I think there's a better chance that this
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: thing continues to languish and that whatever deal Trump is
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: forced to eventually take is so horrendous that it actually
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: gets worse from a public perception standpoint than it currently is.
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: And there have been signs even Senator Ted Cruz from
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: Texas has expressed outrage over some of the indications of
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: what a potential deal with the United States and Israel
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: and Iran would look like. And I completely agree that
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: if this is anything close what has been put out
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: there in the public. Now, you always have to be
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: very very skeptical of anything, especially if it comes from
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: the Iran side, But if the proposed deal talking points
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: are anything close to what ends up getting agreed to,
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: this is an unvindicated disaster because it will appear to
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: me and a lot of other people that know a
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: lot more than I do, that Iran won this conflict,
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: even though they lost militarily, they lost the battle, but
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: they effectively would have won the war. Now we're not
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: there yet. I'm not going to make an eight declarations,
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: but I do think that we're very very close, if
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: not already passed the point of no return when it
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: comes to ending this soon enough to where the midterm
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: elections are in no way, shape or form impacted negatively
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: from the Republican perspective. And when it comes to the
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: midterm elections, I have been very very skeptical of this
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: narrative that somehow Republicans were going to dodge a bullet
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: where They've got an incumbent president who's on the verge
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: of being a lame duck with record poor approval ratings,
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: where you have the double whammy of Democrats desperately wanting
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: a vehicle so that they can vote against Trump, and
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: Republicans not all that enthusiastic about Trump in general except
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: for the base, the cult, and a lot of Republicans
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: who are Trump bans feeling like they have no obligation
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: to vote for the non Trump candidate on the ballot.
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: To me, that is an almost perfect storm for Republicans
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: in the midterm elections. And I've been skeptical that somehow
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: this redistricting battle would save the day when it came
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: to Republicans and how they fare in the midterm elections.
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: Now there's been some minor data points that have vindicated
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: me on this, because even with the most recent Supreme
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: Court ruling seemingly being a boon to Republicans, especially in
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: the South at least so far, that has not been
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: the case. In both Alabama and South Carolina just this week,
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: Republicans were rebuffed in their efforts, at least temporarily to
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: redraw the maps. And I've always felt like this is
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: asking an awful lot in a very short period of time.
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: And I've also been very skeptical the idea that redistricting
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: alone could save Republicans from what seems like a blue
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: wave for the reasons that I've already given you. I mean,
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: every single poll indicates that the generic balloting is very
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: very much in favor of Democrats, and redistricting or gerrymandering
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  Speaker 1: can only hold hold that back to a certain degree.
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: And in fact, I still think the nightmare scenario for
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: Republicans is on the table because some of the gerrymanderin
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: could come back to haunt them, where they end up
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  Speaker 1: taking very safe Republican seats being forced to make some
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: of them less safe in order to have enough Republicans
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: in new districts to try to squeeze out more seats
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: in their favor, and in a wave election. Now all
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: of a sudden, they've taken safe seats and made them
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: very not safe seats. Now we're not close enough to
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: November to be making predictions like that, but that's still
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: a scenario that would make sense and I think could
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: very well end up coming to fruition, especially when you
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: have this phenomenon of many many candidates, some high profile,
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: some less high profile, who are either winning or losing
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: based solely on the fact that a very unpopular president
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: has either endorsed them or endorsed their opponent. I correctly predicted,
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: because we taped a little bit early in the last
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: episode of the podcast, that Thomas Massey would lose in Kentucky. Now,
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: that's not a situation where Republicans are likely at all
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: to lose that seat. Massey lost because he bucked Trump.
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: I would have ordinarily been extremely upset that Massey lost
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: in a Republican primary because Trump endorsed his opponent in
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: a basically a pissing contest. But to me, the way
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: Massey reacted to it, lying and virtue signaling about the
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: entire Epstein situation disqualified him. To me, he showed his
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: true colors. He even showed his true colors when he
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: lost and immediately blamed it on the Jews. And so
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: I have no even though I used to love Thomas
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: Massey as the last Libertarian congressman in the United States
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: House or Representatives, I did not shed any tears at
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: all when Massy lost, even though I'm obviously no fan
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: of Donald Trump. But There's been a couple of other situations,
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: specifically in the Senate. Now again in Louisiana getting rid
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: of Bill Cassidy probably not going to cost Republicans a
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: seat in Louisiana, but just last night in Texas. In Texas,
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: John Cornyn lost to the Trump backed challenger Ken Paxton. Now,
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: Texas is a different situation. I think Republicans are a
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: little bit vulnerable here to getting a false sense of
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: security that Democrats have been claiming for many many election
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: cycles now that eventually Texas is going to fall and
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: in the end it never ends up happening, and Republicans
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: end up generally out pulling them what the perception of
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: the race was going to be in the final moments.
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: And I think it's built into this idea that well, yeah,
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: Democrats are holding onto a pipe dream in Texas. There's
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: nothing Republicans can do to lose a Senate seat in Texas.
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: That may still be the case, but I think they're
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: playing with fire here and no one seems to understand
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: why Trump did this. Trump's endorsement is absolutely still gold.
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: John Cornyn actually won the first round of the primary
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: barely against Paxton, but then lost badly last night. And
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: the only thing that happened in between those two results
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: was that Donald Trump decided to endorse in the race.
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: And unfortunately, Donald Trump controls the party. And you know,
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: there's already one, I think probably not very reliable poll
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: showing that Republicans are now losing that race in Texas.
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: The Democrat is a nut job. I think Trump was
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: probably a bit overconfident realizing that Democrats are going to
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: put up a complete, super progressive nut job and that
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: couldn't possibly win in Texas. But the way the Hispanic
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: vote is trending away from Republicans when it was trending
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: in Republicans direction in the twenty twenty four election is
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: a very dangerous situation in Texas. And of course, if
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: you lose Texas, if this is a wave election, if
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: things don't get fixed real fast in Iran and public
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: perception continues in anything close to the way it currently is,
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: Texas could be in play. And you lose Texas, I
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: don't know how you possibly hold on to the US Senate.
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: So Trump is playing with fire for reasons that don't
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: seem to make any sense other than his own ego
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: or whatever his personal agenda might have been in getting
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: John Cornyn, who's been a very good Senator for Republicans
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: in for a very very long time, now ending his
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: career for reasons that no one seems to understand. So
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: to me, I am still in the camp of this
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: is going to be bad for Republicans in the midterms
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: and could still be catastrophic. I'm still hopeful that somehow
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: Republicans hold on to the Senate and and you know,
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: I think the House has already gone. But and frankly,
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: it doesn't really matter to me once the House is
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: gone by how much Democrats hold the House. I mean,
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: it does matter as far as what kind of controlled
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: Democrats would have and you know how many criminal referrals
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: there would be about members of the Trump administration and
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: what have you. But I would been a lot of money.
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: Right now, the Democrats will control the House of Representatives
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: at the end of the twenty twenty six mid term elections.
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: There's one other element of Trump and his endorsements that
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: I at least want a reference, because by the time
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: we do the next episode of the podcast, we will
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: hopefully know the results here in California. Though California takes
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: so long to count that you never know for sure
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: whether or not you're going to have that kind of information.
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: But Donald Trump effectively essentially endorsed Spencer Pratt for mayor
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: of Los Angeles. And he did so, you know, in
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: kind of a tepid sort of way, but he did
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: so enough to where I think it ends any real hope,
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: if there was any real hope that Spencer Pratt was
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: going to pull off this massive upset and somehow become
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: the next mayor of Los Angeles. And Trump continues to
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: do this kind of thing, I would love to know
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: whether or not Trump understands the negative influence he has
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: when he endorses or says something nice about a candidate
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: in a very blue jurisdiction. I mean, his endorsements are
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: obviously gold and red jurisdictions, but they have the reverse
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: Midas touch when it comes to deep blue areas like
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: the city of Los Angeles. And Spencer Pratt admitted in
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: an interview with Alec Michaelson on CNN that he is
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: a Republican. His explanation for why he's a Republican had
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: to do with guns and his safety. I'm not sure
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: that was the best answer on that but okay, fine,
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: But you know, there's a pretty darn good chance that
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: Spencer Pratt will make it to the November election. There
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: may not be a November election. If the current incumbent,
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: Karen Bass wins over fifty percent of the vote, that's it.
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: I don't think that's going to happen. There's no good
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: polling on the race. But you know, the most likely
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: scenario is that it's going to be Bass and Spencer
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: Pratt in the November election. And all Bass is going
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: to have to do now is play two clips in
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: a commercial. They will probably fit perfectly fine, fifteen seconds each.
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: You know, you got Spencer Pratt admitting he's a Republican
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: and Donald Trump saying that Spencer Pratt is maga. That's it, game,
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: set match, I'm sorry. Nothing else is going to matter.
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: And they will have plenty of money to make sure
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: that every voter who could even theoretically vote against Bass
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: will understand that Pratt is a maga Republican, at least
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: in the words of Donald Trump. And so much like
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: Trump did when it came to the California governor's race,
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: where he endorsed a Republican, Steve Hilton, ending any chance,
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: any chance of pulling off a miracle, because the only
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: scenario where a Republican could ever win governor of California,
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: especially if they're not a massive, massive celebrity, and I
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: don't even know who would qualify in that kind of situation.
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: But in today's era twenty twenty six, the only way
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: a Republican could possibly win is if both Republicans, because
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: of mathematics and a fragmented race, end up as the
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: top two vote getters and they're the only two candidates
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: on the ballot in November. Trump ended any chance of that,
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: ended it. It was never going to happen. It was
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: probably less than a one percent chance. Who knows, maybe one,
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: maybe two percent tops chance that was ever going to happen.
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: But Trump ended that because it weighed everything towards Hilton,
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: and now he's basically Trump has forced me to vote
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: for Steve Hilton because I want there to be a
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: Republican on the ballot, because I think we got to
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: beat the billionaire's tax and without a Republican on the
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: ballot in November, I think that would be very, very
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: difficult to do. So in the California Governor's race, it
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: looks to me as if it's a three horse race.
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: Now you got Javier Pishera, you got Tom Steyer, and
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: you got Steve Hilton. Two of those three are going
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: to make it into the final two in November. I'm hoping,
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: even though I don't like Steve Hilton, that it will
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: be Hilton for the reasons I've already stated. But it
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: might not be. It's still possible. I think the most
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: likely scenario is Butchera and Hilton. That's going to be
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: my official prediction because it seems to me as if
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: the more money that Tom Steyer spends on commercials, it
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: doesn't seem to help him at all because he's such
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: so obviously a douchebag that he's kind of hit a wall.
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: And the more people see of him and the more
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: it looks like he's trying to buy the election, it
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: doesn't seem to work for him. But you know, name
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: recognition matters. So but if I had to guess, I'd
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: Sayeshera Hilton will be in the final two, and then
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: Bishera will be the next governor of California Because, much
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: like everything else in this upside down world, Trump's endorsement
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: ends any hope Trump endorsing Hilton, not that a Republican
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: had any chance anyway, but the fact that he's endorsed
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: by Donald Trump makes it exceedingly easy to defeat Hilton
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: in a general election in California. Now, I want to
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: move on to another topic we talk a lot about
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: on the death of journalism podcasts, and that is artificial intelligence.
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: And something rather dramatic happened this past week where Pope
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: Leo in his first encyclical basically went all out against AI,
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: saying that a quote should be disarmed as if it
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: is a nuclear bomb, and announced that effectively, it sounds
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: like he and the Vatican are teaming with anthropic because
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: the AI company that brands itself is having a conscience
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: teeming with anthropic to try to come up with solutions
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: to save humanity when it comes to this onslaught of
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: artificial intelligence. Now, because of what has happened to the
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: Catholic Church over the last couple of decades, specifically with
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: the Catholic Church scandal, but also with the loss of
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: the power of religion throughout our society, at least here
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: in America. What the Pope says doesn't have nearly the
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: same kind of impact then it would have, say, thirty
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: or forty years ago. However, there's a caveat here, and
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: that is that this is the first American pope. So
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: the fact that it's Pope Leo, an American, and the
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: fact that he's kind of teeming with anthropic I think
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: does make this significant. And it's a forty two thousand
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: word encyclical. I've not read the whole thing, but I've
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: read summaries of it, I've watched what Pope Leo has
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: said about it. I'm generally in favor of this because
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: my perspective on AI is that this is a threat
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: to humanity in all sorts of different ways. I mean,
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: to me, I'm most concerned about what a massive amount
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: of job loss will then create as a domino effect
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: where we try to fix that and we destroy the
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: essence of our society. But I think there's all sorts
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: of other elements of this that are incredibly significant. You know,
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: how human beings relate to each other, Isolation, loneliness, not
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: being able to tell what's real and what's fake, the
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: fact that AI could overtake us, it could kill us.
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: In theory, although to me, that's way down on the
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: list of concerns, not that it isn't a concern, but
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: I do think it should be considered. I'm also a
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: big believer that AI is going to allow for a
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: police state. The government will have way, way, way, way
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: too much power in all sorts of different ways. I'm
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: not sure that that's really at the top of Pope
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: Leo's lists of concerns, but I'm totally in favor of
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: Pope Leo making this as his number one cause, and
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: I think he could have some significant influence here because
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: of the fact that he's the first American pope. So
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: I applaud what Pope Leo is doing here. And there's
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: some more evidence that what he's doing is needed because
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: there were a couple of statements by Sam Altman, the
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: head of Open AI, the guy who is by far
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: the creepiest of all these already very creepy tech billionaires
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: that are behind the AI boom, but Sam Altman is
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: the worst. I mean, Sam Altman is a weird dude.
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: He appears to be a liar, He's admitted to being
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: a liar. He says all sorts of crazy things, some
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: of which he seems to be serious about. And I'm
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: gonna play two clips here for you. The first one,
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: I think kind of deals a little bit with what
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: Pope Leo was talking about, although this statement I think
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: was made before pope Leo's and cyclical was released, and
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: it deals in very very broad terms about what Sam
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: Altman refers to as a social contract, that AI is
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: going to be so powerful and so dramatically and fundamentally
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: change everything about our society that it will force us
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: to alter the social contract. And here's specifically what Sam
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: Altman said about that.
• 19:32
  Speaker 2: I still expect, although I don't know what, and this
• 19:35
  Speaker 2: is over a long period of time. This is not
• 19:37
  Speaker 2: like next year or you know, the year after that
• 19:39
  Speaker 2: kind of thing, but over a long period of time,
• 19:42
  Speaker 2: I still expect that there will be some change required
• 19:47
  Speaker 2: to the social contract, given how powerful we expect this
• 19:51
  Speaker 2: technology to be. I'm not a believer that there won't
• 19:53
  Speaker 2: be any jobs. I think we always find new things
• 19:55
  Speaker 2: to do. But I do think like the whole structure
• 19:59
  Speaker 2: of society itself will you know, be up for some
• 20:03
  Speaker 2: degree of debate and reconfiguration.
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: Now that's a really dramatic statement. The balls on Sam
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: Autman to say, yeah, you know this product we have,
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: it's going to force us to reconsider the entire social contract.
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: And this gets me maybe my number one issue in
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: the entire AI topic, which is, nobody signed the contract.
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: No one is unsigning the contract. Whatever this social contract is,
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: however you define it. We know no one voted on this,
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: No one decided. I mean literally nobody, not even our
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: legislative leaders, as if they're representative of us anymore. But
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: nobody voted for this. It's an incredibly small group of
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: very weird, super rich people who are very much incentivized
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: in making sure that AI is the be all end
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: all because they're making ridiculous amounts of money from that perception.
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: Who are making these and it's people like Sam Altman,
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: who's i mean literally one of the worst people in
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: the world to be in charge of whatever this social
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: contract is going to be in the future, saying, yeah,
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: we're probably gonna have to rewrite the social contract. Boy,
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: I'd love to know what the hell that actually means.
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: But most importantly, nobody voted for us to change the
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: social contract. Nobody voted for us to end the current
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: foundation of our society, which is clearly imperfect, but could
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: be a hell of a lot worse. I guess that's
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: probably the essence of my greatest concern, because I've seen
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: this happen in other areas of life. I'm probably the
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: only person on the plant that keeps relating what's happening
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: with AI or what might happen with AI to what's
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: happened with college sports. College sports, and specifically college football,
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: let the pursuit of utopian perfection get in the way
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: of the very very good, and it resulted in a
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: situation that's far, far worse than what we have before. Well,
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: I think AI could do exactly the same thing they're
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: promising utopian perfection. We're not going to have to work.
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: We're gonna have abundance of riches. Everyone's gonna be rich.
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: And I don't buy that for a second. And no
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: one is more of a critic of what kind of
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: society we currently live in. But I'm also well aware
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: it could be way, way worse than it is. We
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: saw that during COVID. The COVID panic I think was
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: a not a conscious but effectively a test run for
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: what could happen with AI if you weren't awake during
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: COVID and realize how human beings respond in this kind
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: of a situation. Then I'm sorry, I can't help you,
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: because you should understand after what we saw in the
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: COVID panic, especially in the Blue States, what will happen
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: in an AI dominated world, And it's not good. It's dystopian,
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: and so that social contract comment should set off red
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: flags everywhere when it comes to people's perception of AI. Now,
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: the positive part of this is that the messaging by
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: these tech overlords, and specifically by Sam Altman, has been
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: so bad that public perceptions and opinions about AI is
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: basically in the toilet, especially weirdly among younger people, which
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: we've seen constantly at these graduation ceremonies where these clueless
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: graduation speakers are referencing AI and not realizing that they're
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: going to get booed out of the building, and that
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: continues to happen, giving me some hope that there is
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: now a building backlash or pushback against this idea that
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: we're just going to change everything about society based upon
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: what a very few incentivized people want to have happen.
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: And as far as specifically what AI is selling or
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: what Open AI is selling, Sam Oltmon and made another
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: statement that also got quite a bit of attention online
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: and went viral for the way that he described what
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: AI is and the way he describes it here. He
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: makes it sound like essentially, well, he says a lot
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: of things here, but in my opinion, the essence of
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: this is, Hey, look, AI is going to be the
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: source of all the intelligence you need. You can be
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: an idiot now and you're just gonna buy intelligence and
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: guess who you're gonna buy it from. You're gonna buy
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: it from us. And that's not an exaggeration here. Specifically,
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: what Altman said.
• 24:38
  Speaker 2: Fundamentally, our business, and I think the business of every
• 24:40
  Speaker 2: other model provider, is going to look like selling tokens.
• 24:45
  Speaker 2: You know, they may come from bigger or smaller models,
• 24:49
  Speaker 2: which makes them more or less expensive. They may use
• 24:52
  Speaker 2: more or less reasoning, which also makes them more or
• 24:53
  Speaker 2: less expensive. They may be running all the time in
• 24:56
  Speaker 2: the background trying to help you out. They may run
• 24:59
  Speaker 2: only when you need them. If you on a pay
• 25:00
  Speaker 2: less they may work super hard. You know, spend tens
• 25:05
  Speaker 2: of millions, hundreds and millions of someday billions of dollars
• 25:07
  Speaker 2: on a single problem. That's really valuable.
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: But we.
• 25:13
  Speaker 2: See a future where intelligence is a utility like electricity
• 25:19
  Speaker 2: or water, and people buy it from us on a
• 25:24
  Speaker 2: meter and use it for whatever they want to use
• 25:26
  Speaker 2: it for the demand that we see for that seems
• 25:29
  Speaker 2: like it's going to continue to just go like this,
• 25:33
  Speaker 2: and if we don't have enough, we either can't sell
• 25:38
  Speaker 2: it or the price gets really high and it, you know,
• 25:41
  Speaker 2: kind of goes to rich people, or society makes a
• 25:45
  Speaker 2: bunch of sort of central planning decisions that I think
• 25:47
  Speaker 2: almost always go badly about. You know, we're going to
• 25:49
  Speaker 2: use our limited coipute supply for this and not that.
• 25:52
  Speaker 2: So the best thing to me throughout all the history
• 25:56
  Speaker 2: of capitalism, innovation, whatever you want, is to just flood
• 25:58
  Speaker 2: the market.
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: Again. The audacity here, the audacity to say we now
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: own intelligence, you don't need to worry about intelligence on
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: your own, you can just buy it from us, is
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: so ridiculous. First of all, where are they getting that intelligence?
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: They're stealing it. Essentially, they've stolen the Internet. That's effectively
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: what's happened. They just stole the Internet. So now they
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: own all quote unquote intelligence, and now they're gonna be
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: willing to sell it back to us. I mean, it's
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: just so ridiculous. However, I think Altman is so bad
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: at this and so transparently dangerous that I don't think
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: it's working from a pr perspective. And that's giving me
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: a little bit of tiny glimmer of hope that maybe
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: there is a path to avoid total destruction here. I'm
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: saying maybe. And as far as the level of that intelligence,
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: there's been some consternation. I know, Glenn Beck went on
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: a tirade some consternation about whether or not we've already
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: reached AGI. AGI is something I've talked a lot about
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: on this podcast, where essentially that's where artificial intelligence exceeds
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: human intelligence, and that's the point beyond which I think
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: we're completely screwed. I agree that reaching AGI is a
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: huge deal off or happens. Glenn Back thinks that it
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: may have already happened, because a guest on The Joe
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: Rogan Show implied that it might have already happened. And look,
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: I don't have a big thing against Joe Rogan other
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: than the fact he's not that bright. But I can
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: assure you, I can assure you that when we reach AGI,
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: if it ever happens, and I'm still hoping that it won't,
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: but I'm recognizing there's a very good chance that it
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: will eventually happen sometime in the future when we reach Agi.
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: It's not going to be announced on the Joe Rogan Show, folks,
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: That's not the way this is going to happen. Just
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: like announcing that space aliens have visited Earth is not
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: going to be really on a weekend news Nation show.
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: It's not going to happen that way, all right. If
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: anyone actually reaches Agi, they're going to have a massive
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: incentive to tell the world, and they're going to tell
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: the world in very dramatic fashion so that they can
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: take the greatest advantage of it from a financial perspective.
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: So I don't believe that we've actually reached Agi yet,
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: and I'm still hopeful that maybe we won't. Now, there's
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: another aspect of the whole AI situation that I don't
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: think has been getting nearly enough attention that has happened
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: in just the last couple of weeks, and that is
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: that there are companies announcing, and not just one but Microsoft,
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: probably in the most dramatic fashion, but there's been companies
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: that have been giving indications that they now believe that
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: AI may be more expensive, maybe more expensive than you
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: human workers, at least currently, And if that's the truth,
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: if that becomes accepted as the reality, to me, that's
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: a huge problem with regard to this entire AI boom
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: because it's all predicated on the idea that AI is
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: going to be less expensive than human beings, which is
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: the whole fear of massive job loss. And here's a
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: CNN segment. This was kind of put together in a
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: rather I thought, jovial and not particularly professional way. But
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: that's not why I'm going to play the clip, because
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: it kind of reviews where we are on this issue
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: of companies suddenly realizing, wait a minute, AI actually isn't free,
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: it's not close to free. It's very very expensive, at
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: least right now, maybe more expensive than human workers. And
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: here's what that sounded like on CNN.
• 29:59
  Speaker 3: I spoke with a VP in video who first flagged
• 30:01
  Speaker 3: this to me. He said, oh, yeah, for months, our
• 30:03
  Speaker 3: costs for my team have been more for AI than humans.
• 30:06
  Speaker 3: So that was the first flag. And then we started
• 30:08
  Speaker 3: to hear this coming out in droves. Uber's CTO said
• 30:11
  Speaker 3: he already blew out his whole budget for twenty twenty
• 30:13
  Speaker 3: six just on AI related costs, and obviously that means
• 30:17
  Speaker 3: he's spending more on that than he's spending on human workers.
• 30:20
  Speaker 3: And now I'm starting to here, especially from startup founders,
• 30:23
  Speaker 3: they're bragging about their AI bills being high because kind
• 30:26
  Speaker 3: of this sign of like, yeah, I'm really ahead of flags.
• 30:29
  Speaker 4: Like I'm blowing so much gosh all this way exactly.
• 30:32
  Speaker 3: But the whole point of this was supposed to be
• 30:34
  Speaker 3: that it cut down on costs expanded profits, especially for
• 30:37
  Speaker 3: public companies, but it's unclear if that's going to be tenable.
• 30:40
  Speaker 4: Yeah, when when is that curve? I guess this is
• 30:43
  Speaker 4: one big quay. But you have some of the data
• 30:46
  Speaker 4: you have in your report is kind of fascinating. Worldwide,
• 30:49
  Speaker 4: IT spending is expected to be up thirteen and a
• 30:52
  Speaker 4: half percent this year compared to just last year, over
• 30:57
  Speaker 4: six trillion dollars. Where is oldest money going to?
• 31:01
  Speaker 3: Well, a lot of it is going towards token costs,
• 31:03
  Speaker 3: which is basically like the currency of AI use. Also,
• 31:06
  Speaker 3: of course subscriptions if you've got an enterprise contract with
• 31:10
  Speaker 3: open AI, with Anthropic, so a lot of it is
• 31:13
  Speaker 3: going towards these AI labs. The thing is, though, the
• 31:15
  Speaker 3: queries that I'm putting into AI, those don't cost very much.
• 31:18
  Speaker 3: It's for the people who are coding or using an
• 31:21
  Speaker 3: autonomous agent overnight. But at some companies, especially the tech
• 31:25
  Speaker 3: ones like Meta, they're encouraging that high token use because
• 31:28
  Speaker 3: again they want to see and seem like they're really
• 31:31
  Speaker 3: ahead in the AI.
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: Now. To me, I thought that was going to be
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: a huge news story, especially when it's more than just
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: one company, because when you start to get companies that
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: are against self interest really acknowledging that wait a minute,
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: there might be a miscalculation here that has the potential.
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: I like expected it to be a significant stock market
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: drawback because of this. That has not happened this of yet.
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: Because the entire premise of this massive stock market explosion
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: in AI stocks over the last year or so has
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: been the premise that job loss is going to occur,
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: that job expense is going to be reduced by these
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: companies because AI is less expensive than human workers. That's
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: at the bedrock of the entire situation. Now, to be clear,
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: this is not a unanimous view at all. In fact,
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: the Anthropic CEO made another comment just earlier this week,
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: still in the realm of we're going to have massive
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: job loss, still sounding the alarm that what's going to
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: happen to our society when there are no jobs and
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: people lose jobs because AI is replacing them. That seems
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: to be contradictory to me. I don't I have a
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: good explanation for why the contradiction. Maybe there's isolated situations
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: where the the cost benefit analysis doesn't work. Maybe this
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: is temporary. Maybe once the data centers get built up,
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: then the costs will eventually go down. But my understanding
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: is the data centers go obsolete very quickly, so they're
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: going to have to continue to be rebuilt. So to me,
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: this is not getting enough attention based upon my perception
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: of this issue, because I've always been most concerned with
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: the topic of Okay, if we have massive job loss,
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: that's going to spark a domino effect that is going
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: to send us into not just socialism, but government controlled
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: dystopian communism. That's to me, the only end result that
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: is logical if we have massive, massive job laws, not
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: to mention all sorts of short term harm to people
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: have lost their jobs, disruption of everything that we thought
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: we understood about the nature of our society and our
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: culture and our economy. I mean, there's all sorts of
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: disruptive elements to this, but I think it very much
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: leads to a very bad place. And so I've always said,
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: we don't have too many good options here. Either we
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: have this dystopian socialism government controlled life, or we don't
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: reach AGI and the economics don't work and the stock
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: market ends up collapsing, and which is going to cause
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: a domino effect in a different way. And I'm not
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: you know, in the short run, obviously the economic collapse
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: would probably be worse, but maybe that's the best case
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: scenario because I'd rather have that than in the long
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: run end up in a world that no one wants
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: to live in. And so I've had this AI fear
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: factor rating for quite a while now on the podcast.
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: Currently the AI fear factor rating is eight point zero.
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: I'm going to lower it to seven point five simply
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: because of two things. The Pope coming into the battle
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: and I thought a very strong way and related to that,
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: the clear backlash, especially among younger people, against AI, and
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: that the lack of popularity of AI within most of
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: the American public, and then this idea that we're finding
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: out that the economics don't seem to work, that there
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: may not be an incentive for some of these companies
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: to ditch workers. Now the proof is in the pudding.
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: A lot of these companies are ditching workers, these technology companies.
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: But there's a school of thought there which I don't
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: think is irrational. The two things are actually happening. One,
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: they overhire during COVID and so now they're just going
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: through the natural process of getting rid of people that
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: didn't really need And Two, they are benefiting from the
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: perception that it's AI related that if they can create
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: this narrative that we're getting rid of jobs because of AI.
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: These are AI related companies, right, so they have a
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: vested interest in the perception that, hey, look, AI is working,
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: We're not going to need as many workers, which is
• 36:18
  Speaker 1: going to probably help their stock price on multiple levels. One,
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: generally your stock price goes up when you get rid
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: of workers anyway, but particularly if you're an AI company,
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: you're proving that the whole AI model is based upon
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: reality by claiming that these job losses are due to AI.
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: I think there's some rationality to that now. I don't
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: know for sure that that's the case, but I do
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: think that that makes some sense, which is why I'm
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: only going down to seven point five. Seven point five
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: is still pretty damn high. I'm still very much in
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: the very frightened realm of the fear factor on artificial intelligence.
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: But just for the sake of argument, I'm going to
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: lower it from eight point zero to seven point five again,
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: if you're keeping track at home. Now, there is another
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: element to this that I don't one hundred percent know
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: how to interpret, and that is what Google has done
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: over the last week and effectively, Google, which contradicts a
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: little bit of my theory on why I'm becoming a tiny,
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: tiny bit more optimistic. Google is now putting everything into AI.
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: Google has essentially become an AI company, and they've now
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: even radically altered their famous search engine to make it
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: primarily AI based. Now, as I've tested it out myself,
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: I think this has been a little bit overrated because
• 37:45
  Speaker 1: there were a lot of people I saw online saying
• 37:48
  Speaker 1: this is the end of the Google search engine, and
• 37:52
  Speaker 1: this is completely radically altered everything. I don't really like it,
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: but at least in my cursory investigation, I was still
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: able to find actual, real links to actual real articles
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: made by actual, real human beings. And the AI search
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: engine on Google has been around for a while. Interestingly, Google,
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: I talk all the time about the magic. You got
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: to protect the magic in everything, right. If you get magic,
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: it's so rare you must protect that at all costs.
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: And for Google, the search engine was magical, and it
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: was way better than everybody else's and it's amazing, And
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: I totally understood from an advertising perspective why people would
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: spend money advertising on Google. So I never had any
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: problem believing that Google really was a very, very valuable company. Conversely,
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: I've never quite understood why meta is supposed to be
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: so valuable. Facebook. I think Facebook is crap, even though
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: I still use it for posting pictures of my kids,
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: although they're not cute enough to post very often about anymore,
• 39:03
  Speaker 1: and occasionally some stuff on the on the Penn State
• 39:05
  Speaker 1: Sandusky story, and obviously our podcast. But in general, I've
• 39:10
  Speaker 1: never understood that the quote unquote magic of Facebook. Google
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: I totally get, and the fact that Google is messing
• 39:18
  Speaker 1: with that in a very significant way I find to
• 39:22
  Speaker 1: be odd. Now I give Google you know a lot
• 39:26
  Speaker 1: of the benefit of the doubt because they're clearly a
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: bunch of geniuses there. They figure this out better than
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: anybody else. So it's it's I'm very hesitant to say
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: these people are idiots, they don't know what they're doing.
• 39:36
  Speaker 1: I think that, in fact, I give them credit. They
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: must know something that I don't know, or understand something
• 39:42
  Speaker 1: that I don't understand until proven otherwise. However, this is
• 39:48
  Speaker 1: not directly related, but somewhat related. I think this is
• 39:51
  Speaker 1: indicative of what a fucked up world the Internet has become.
• 39:55
  Speaker 1: But you know, the Google search engine, and this has
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: essentially been admitted to by Google, was made worse by
• 40:03
  Speaker 1: Google on purpose in recent years. And you're probably if
• 40:08
  Speaker 1: you haven't heard this, you're probably what what are you
• 40:10
  Speaker 1: talking about? Zig, Yeah, Google figured out that their search
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: engine was so good that it was giving results on
• 40:19
  Speaker 1: the first try that were so effective that it was
• 40:22
  Speaker 1: actually leaving money on the table in their metrics. Because
• 40:27
  Speaker 1: you know, numbers are all that matter. Now doesn't matter
• 40:30
  Speaker 1: if you can figure out a way to make your
• 40:32
  Speaker 1: product worse but make more money, kind of like the
• 40:35
  Speaker 1: National Football leg the National Football League. Here I am
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: relating AI to football, but nobody has not a better
• 40:42
  Speaker 1: job of making more money with a worse product than
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: the National Football League. Well, Google figured out the same
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: thing that if they made the search engine worse, people
• 40:52
  Speaker 1: would have to search more often, which would then create
• 40:56
  Speaker 1: for them in the end, more clicks, more money, more traffic,
• 41:01
  Speaker 1: what have you. And so I think that, to me
• 41:04
  Speaker 1: is pretty symbolic of the Internet in general and where
• 41:09
  Speaker 1: our economics are headed. But I at least wanted to
• 41:12
  Speaker 1: mention that the Google shift because it certainly goes against
• 41:17
  Speaker 1: the idea that I'm still holding on to that maybe
• 41:21
  Speaker 1: this is all still at least somewhat of a miscalculation.
• 41:24
  Speaker 1: It's hard for me to understand how Google would miscalculate
• 41:28
  Speaker 1: this dramatically, and that's why the fear factor is still
• 41:31
  Speaker 1: at seven point five now. One of the things about
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: Google going to almost completely AI that has set off
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: alarm bells is in the news media. See I've talked
• 41:44
  Speaker 1: a lot about on the Death of Journalism podcast how
• 41:46
  Speaker 1: the news media business model has completely collapsed in many
• 41:52
  Speaker 1: different ways. And one of the ways that it's now
• 41:56
  Speaker 1: currently collapsing is that even when we went to the internet,
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: when we went to the Internet, it essentially killed the
• 42:03
  Speaker 1: newspaper right for you know, we got Craigslist, killed the
• 42:07
  Speaker 1: classified ads, and you know, people got used to free content,
• 42:13
  Speaker 1: so they were many people were unwilling to actually pay
• 42:17
  Speaker 1: for a newspaper subscription, even though it used to be
• 42:21
  Speaker 1: you know, normal when you got it delivered to your house.
• 42:24
  Speaker 1: But just for whatever reason psychologically, a lot of people
• 42:28
  Speaker 1: just weren't willing to do that. And so news media
• 42:32
  Speaker 1: outlets and specifically newspapers relied a lot on traffic on
• 42:38
  Speaker 1: on trap literally traffic if you think of you know,
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: like you know, tributaries from a river, uh and and
• 42:47
  Speaker 1: that's where you're gonna get your your water supply from. Well,
• 42:50
  Speaker 1: Google was at the epicenter of where the water was.
• 42:55
  Speaker 1: And you know, because of the way Google was set
• 42:58
  Speaker 1: up before it became a I dominated, they sent a
• 43:02
  Speaker 1: ton of traffic to news outlets, mostly newspapers if you
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: even want to still call them newspapers. And slowly but
• 43:12
  Speaker 1: surely that has been dissipating, and these tributaries have been
• 43:16
  Speaker 1: drying up, and the perception, and I understand it is
• 43:21
  Speaker 1: that with Google Search Engine now going mostly to AI,
• 43:27
  Speaker 1: that that's going to get even more dramatic that that's
• 43:29
  Speaker 1: going to be an even bigger problem for news outlets
• 43:33
  Speaker 1: of all sorts than it was previously. Now we don't
• 43:36
  Speaker 1: know for sure that that's going to be the case,
• 43:38
  Speaker 1: but that is clearly one of the great concerns in
• 43:42
  Speaker 1: the news media that they're not going to get a
• 43:44
  Speaker 1: free lunch from Google anymore, and now they're already broken.
• 43:49
  Speaker 1: Business model is going to be even more in peril
• 43:51
  Speaker 1: than it was previously. And in that context, I thought
• 43:55
  Speaker 1: there was a really fascinating and telling interview with Jeff
• 43:59
  Speaker 1: Bezo obviously the guy who founded Amazon, but he also
• 44:04
  Speaker 1: owns the New York Post. Now he did this interview
• 44:07
  Speaker 1: with CNBC. He doesn't do a lot of interviews, and
• 44:09
  Speaker 1: so this one got a lot of attention. But I'm
• 44:12
  Speaker 1: just gonna play one clip from it because to me,
• 44:15
  Speaker 1: this one belongs in the Museum of the Death of Journalism,
• 44:20
  Speaker 1: if there ever is one, and there obviously should be,
• 44:22
  Speaker 1: regardless of the name of this podcast, because Jeff Bezos
• 44:27
  Speaker 1: just does not get it. He looks at the Washington
• 44:32
  Speaker 1: Post purely as a business, and especially in this day
• 44:38
  Speaker 1: and age, you cannot do that if you want journalism
• 44:43
  Speaker 1: to survive. But the disconnect The blind spot that Jeff
• 44:49
  Speaker 1: Bezos has is exposed in this clip is as dramatic
• 44:53
  Speaker 1: as I've ever seen it from a major news outlet owner.
• 44:58
  Speaker 1: And the subject is layoffs at the Washington Post. And
• 45:02
  Speaker 1: I have said this previously that I don't understand this
• 45:05
  Speaker 1: is before I heard Bezos explain his side of it.
• 45:09
  Speaker 1: I do not understand why someone as rich as Jeff
• 45:11
  Speaker 1: Bezos wouldn't just look at the Washington Post as a
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: public trust, as a loss leader, and have it as
• 45:21
  Speaker 1: its goal. Have as its goal great journalism. Now, sometimes
• 45:27
  Speaker 1: great journalism, if you get lucky, can be profitable. But
• 45:30
  Speaker 1: a lot of times great journalism because it's very expensive
• 45:33
  Speaker 1: and oftentimes requires you to piss off a lot of
• 45:36
  Speaker 1: people because at its core, at its core, especially in
• 45:40
  Speaker 1: this day and age, unpopular truths cannot make a profit,
• 45:46
  Speaker 1: and you're going to be incentivized to promote popular lies
• 45:50
  Speaker 1: because they can be very easily monetized. Well, that's not journalism.
• 45:56
  Speaker 1: Bezos doesn't seem to understand about that, or doesn't care
• 46:00
  Speaker 1: if he does understand. And so here was this incredibly
• 46:03
  Speaker 1: telling exchange between CNBC and Jeff Bezos over what the
• 46:10
  Speaker 1: role of the news media in general and specifically the
• 46:14
  Speaker 1: Washington Post is when it comes to economic viability.
• 46:18
  Speaker 5: Talking about markets, I was gonna asking about the news market. Yeah,
• 46:23
  Speaker 5: because you own.
• 46:24
  Speaker 1: The Washington Post. Yes.
• 46:25
  Speaker 5: And one of the critiques, by the way, and this
• 46:27
  Speaker 5: is this is maybe the wealth critique, and everything else
• 46:29
  Speaker 5: is you know, we just said the company laid off
• 46:32
  Speaker 5: about thirty percent of its staff. And there's a lot
• 46:35
  Speaker 5: of people out there who said Jeff's super wealthy. He's
• 46:39
  Speaker 5: talked about this being a public trust is something that
• 46:42
  Speaker 5: he bought early on.
• 46:43
  Speaker 1: How much you care about that.
• 46:46
  Speaker 5: Piece of it?
• 46:48
  Speaker 1: Why lay people off?
• 46:49
  Speaker 2: Why fire people?
• 46:50
  Speaker 1: Why don't you stepsonize the business?
• 46:52
  Speaker 6: In fact, the Post needs to be a profitable enterprise
• 46:57
  Speaker 6: of stands on its own two feet.
• 46:59
  Speaker 1: It does be, But yes, it's.
• 47:00
  Speaker 5: A question gonna be able to educate, and let.
• 47:02
  Speaker 6: Me tell you why, because it's a measure of its relevance.
• 47:06
  Speaker 6: If people won't pay for our product, we're not doing it.
• 47:10
  Speaker 6: It's not good enough product. It's like, you know, doing
• 47:16
  Speaker 6: it would be like poetry without rhyming.
• 47:18
  Speaker 1: It's too easy. So we want it's.
• 47:21
  Speaker 6: Got to be something that people will pay for, because
• 47:24
  Speaker 6: that's a signal. Right, it's a signal that we're providing
• 47:27
  Speaker 6: a relevant service.
• 47:28
  Speaker 1: Your pay for the New York Times.
• 47:29
  Speaker 6: You guys make a ton of money. You guys are
• 47:32
  Speaker 6: doing very well financially, and you're providing a service that
• 47:34
  Speaker 6: people are willing to pay for.
• 47:37
  Speaker 1: We can do that too. And guess what I told them.
• 47:39
  Speaker 6: You know, when we were planning those layoffs, right, I
• 47:41
  Speaker 6: didn't take who was going to laid off or which departments.
• 47:44
  Speaker 6: I said, follow the data, follow the data. And I said,
• 47:48
  Speaker 6: there's one exception to this.
• 47:50
  Speaker 1: What's that?
• 47:51
  Speaker 6: Don't follow the data on investigative reporting. The heart of
• 47:55
  Speaker 6: the Post is investigative reporting.
• 47:58
  Speaker 1: And guess what.
• 47:59
  Speaker 6: Our news today, even after the layoffs, is still larger
• 48:05
  Speaker 6: than when we did Watergate and the Pentagon.
• 48:07
  Speaker 1: Papers and so, and we just won.
• 48:10
  Speaker 6: The Pulitzer Prize for Public Service, the most prestigious prize,
• 48:14
  Speaker 6: but most prestigious poets are for our investigation in a doge.
• 48:18
  Speaker 6: The Post is going to continue to be an important institution.
• 48:22
  Speaker 6: In fact, it's going to be a more important institution
• 48:24
  Speaker 6: because of this financial discipline. It needs to be relevant
• 48:28
  Speaker 6: to readers. It needs to stand on its own two feet.
• 48:31
  Speaker 6: I don't want it to be a charity.
• 48:33
  Speaker 1: It doesn't need.
• 48:33
  Speaker 6: To be, and it shouldn't be.
• 48:37
  Speaker 1: I get from an economic perspective what Jeff Bezos is saying,
• 48:41
  Speaker 1: but he's wrong. He is totally wrong if you actually
• 48:45
  Speaker 1: care about journalism. I've said many times in this podcast
• 48:50
  Speaker 1: that the way that corporate America now views the world,
• 48:55
  Speaker 1: which is you must show growth in your next quarterly
• 48:59
  Speaker 1: statement or you have failed and you might lose your job.
• 49:02
  Speaker 1: It doesn't matter, doesn't matter what the cost of that
• 49:05
  Speaker 1: growth is, what you have to give up, what you
• 49:09
  Speaker 1: might be creating with regard to problems for the future,
• 49:13
  Speaker 1: or where you might be pissing off your core audience
• 49:16
  Speaker 1: or your customer base in the future. It does not matter.
• 49:19
  Speaker 1: All we care about is growth in the next quarter.
• 49:22
  Speaker 1: It's destroying a lot of sports. By the way. I
• 49:25
  Speaker 1: mean sports is I think, right at the epicenter of
• 49:28
  Speaker 1: this problem. But it's not just sports, it's everything, entertainment,
• 49:32
  Speaker 1: everything is being in. Journalism clearly is extremely vulnerable to this.
• 49:37
  Speaker 1: And I just wish that the CNBC reporter, who obviously
• 49:43
  Speaker 1: is a smart guy and you know, probably understands this
• 49:46
  Speaker 1: but didn't get a chance to reference it, would at
• 49:49
  Speaker 1: least ask Bezos. Okay, so think about what you're saying.
• 49:53
  Speaker 1: If you're only going to evaluate the product of the
• 49:58
  Speaker 1: Washington Post based upon how popular it is instead of
• 50:02
  Speaker 1: how good it is from a journalistic perspective, does that
• 50:06
  Speaker 1: not incentivize the Washington Post to do things that are
• 50:13
  Speaker 1: not journalistically sound, especially in this fragmented era where you're
• 50:18
  Speaker 1: desperately trying to appeal to an audience that is all
• 50:23
  Speaker 1: sorts of other options. They can find what they want
• 50:26
  Speaker 1: to hear elsewhere if they don't like what you're telling them.
• 50:30
  Speaker 1: That's why popular lies are so dangerous. That's why you
• 50:36
  Speaker 1: have to get off on a tangent here. But that's
• 50:38
  Speaker 1: why we're seeing so much UFO coverage under the guys
• 50:41
  Speaker 1: that the government under Trump has suddenly released all these
• 50:45
  Speaker 1: UFO videos of blurry stuff that somebody got freaked out about.
• 50:49
  Speaker 1: It clearly doesn't result in any sort of evidence at
• 50:53
  Speaker 1: all that we've been visited by space ailiens. But the
• 50:55
  Speaker 1: reason why every single major outlet, every single one, every
• 50:59
  Speaker 1: single television outlet has done major stories CBS, NBC and CBS,
• 51:06
  Speaker 1: which normally would never have given credibility to such a
• 51:09
  Speaker 1: bullshit topic, have done so. Why because they know it's
• 51:14
  Speaker 1: popular and I've said many times on social media, you know,
• 51:20
  Speaker 1: because the UFO people think that the coverage that they're
• 51:23
  Speaker 1: getting is an indication that their cause has become more credible.
• 51:28
  Speaker 1: And I'm like, no, no, no, no, no, your cause
• 51:30
  Speaker 1: didn't become more credible. It's just that journalism decayed to
• 51:35
  Speaker 1: the point where they now understand that there's a large
• 51:39
  Speaker 1: enough audience of morons who believe we've been visited by
• 51:43
  Speaker 1: space aliens, and under the guys that because the government
• 51:47
  Speaker 1: is releasing this, they have some cover to go ahead
• 51:51
  Speaker 1: and appeal to these morons by promoting a narrative that's
• 51:55
  Speaker 1: a popular lie. That's what the whole UFO thing is now.
• 52:00
  Speaker 1: I would have no problem you want to show some
• 52:02
  Speaker 1: crazy videos or isn't this weird? As if you made
• 52:05
  Speaker 1: it clear that there's no evidence or logic that we've
• 52:08
  Speaker 1: ever been visited by space aliens. But no one wants
• 52:11
  Speaker 1: to do that because you're pissing off the very audience
• 52:13
  Speaker 1: you're appealing to. So to me, the UFO space alien
• 52:19
  Speaker 1: issue is a classic example of this, and there's so
• 52:23
  Speaker 1: many examples on the other side. Because the Washington Post
• 52:26
  Speaker 1: is a subscription model and they need to appeal to
• 52:31
  Speaker 1: a specific demographic, generally progressive, rich white liberals. And of course,
• 52:38
  Speaker 1: you know, some people made a very good point that
• 52:40
  Speaker 1: Bezos is condemning the Washington Post because their product isn't
• 52:45
  Speaker 1: popular enough. When Bezos himself made a decision of the
• 52:49
  Speaker 1: twenty twenty four election cycle to not endorse Kamala Harris,
• 52:54
  Speaker 1: to not endorse anybody, which cost the Washington Post a
• 52:57
  Speaker 1: lot of subscribers. Why because that's their subscriber base. So
• 53:03
  Speaker 1: Bezos is actually partially to blame for why the Washington
• 53:07
  Speaker 1: Post is not as profitable as it might be, because
• 53:11
  Speaker 1: they lost subscribers based upon a decision he made. Well,
• 53:16
  Speaker 1: that entire business model is broken. I mean, I've talked
• 53:20
  Speaker 1: often about how I hate the fact that this podcast
• 53:24
  Speaker 1: is now a subscriber based podcast, the only fans model,
• 53:29
  Speaker 1: as I joke about it. Now. The difference here is
• 53:32
  Speaker 1: I think that this audience understands that I have no
• 53:35
  Speaker 1: inclination whatsoever to change my views on things or to
• 53:39
  Speaker 1: shift content based upon what I think the subscriber base
• 53:43
  Speaker 1: either wants or doesn't want. I'm more than willing to
• 53:47
  Speaker 1: say things that I know that are going to probably
• 53:49
  Speaker 1: piss off subscribers and I'm just gonna let the chips
• 53:51
  Speaker 1: fall where they may. But this is a very small
• 53:54
  Speaker 1: time operation. This is not the Washington Post. They're not
• 53:58
  Speaker 1: going to do that. They're gonna make this visions based upon, Okay,
• 54:01
  Speaker 1: what does our subscriber base want? What's going to maintain
• 54:04
  Speaker 1: and potentially grow our subscriber base? And that equation is
• 54:09
  Speaker 1: not in any way, shape or form consistent with basic
• 54:13
  Speaker 1: journalistic principles, which is to find out and expose the truth,
• 54:18
  Speaker 1: come what may. That's what journalism was supposed to be.
• 54:21
  Speaker 1: That's what a lot of the legacy of the Washington
• 54:23
  Speaker 1: Post was supposed to be, although I think a lot
• 54:25
  Speaker 1: of that legacy is based on a fallacy and false narratives.
• 54:30
  Speaker 1: I mean, most famously Watergate. This isn't aside, but it
• 54:33
  Speaker 1: just happened to see the video recently. One of my
• 54:36
  Speaker 1: favorite videos involving any entertainer talking about a serious news
• 54:40
  Speaker 1: story is Bill Murray on the Joe Rogan podcast. Since
• 54:45
  Speaker 1: I've pissed on the Joe Rogan podcast a few minutes ago,
• 54:48
  Speaker 1: this was a great moment to me, where you know,
• 54:51
  Speaker 1: Bill Murray, no conservative, was reading a book about his
• 54:55
  Speaker 1: good friend John Belushi that was written by Bob Woodward
• 54:58
  Speaker 1: from Woodward and Bernstein fame, and in the first few
• 55:01
  Speaker 1: pages he realized what a total and complete fabrication the
• 55:06
  Speaker 1: book was because he knew John Belushi very well from
• 55:09
  Speaker 1: his Saturday Night Live days, and he blurts out on
• 55:12
  Speaker 1: the Joe Rogan Show, my God, they framed Nixon, which
• 55:19
  Speaker 1: I think is so tremendous and probably true that because
• 55:23
  Speaker 1: Woodward has really exposed himself in many ways after Watergate
• 55:27
  Speaker 1: as not being anywhere near as credible as everyone thought
• 55:31
  Speaker 1: he was back when Richard Dixon was taken out over
• 55:33
  Speaker 1: the Watergate scandal. But that is a huge part of
• 55:37
  Speaker 1: the legacy of the Washington Post, and at the time
• 55:40
  Speaker 1: they thought they were doing truth to power. So look,
• 55:43
  Speaker 1: I'm certainly in the camp of those that are actually
• 55:48
  Speaker 1: celebrating the death of a Washington Post or the dying
• 55:52
  Speaker 1: of a Washington Post or other news outlets that have
• 55:54
  Speaker 1: been way too liberal, way liberally biased, not been good
• 55:58
  Speaker 1: for the country. But I'm all the belief that the
• 56:01
  Speaker 1: Washington Post is an important institution. The nation's capital ought
• 56:07
  Speaker 1: to have a strong politically based newspaper. We need that,
• 56:12
  Speaker 1: regardless of how liberally biased the news coverage is, and
• 56:16
  Speaker 1: so I guess I'm a realist, and I understand that
• 56:20
  Speaker 1: the bias is a significant issue, and I wish that
• 56:23
  Speaker 1: something could be done about that, but the economics that
• 56:27
  Speaker 1: we live in don't allow for it, because whether you're
• 56:31
  Speaker 1: on the right or the left, you have to appeal
• 56:34
  Speaker 1: to your target demographic to get them to subscribe and
• 56:39
  Speaker 1: to keep them subscribing, especially now that we're living in
• 56:42
  Speaker 1: a world where even traffic doesn't really help you, and
• 56:46
  Speaker 1: the traffic value has gone down, and as I've referenced
• 56:48
  Speaker 1: with Google, the amount of traffic you get to your
• 56:51
  Speaker 1: website has gone down very significantly in recent years. So
• 56:56
  Speaker 1: now you're left with just subscribers. And to me, the
• 57:00
  Speaker 1: subscriber business model is inherently contradictory to any sort of
• 57:07
  Speaker 1: good journalism, and Jeff Bezos clearly does not understand that,
• 57:12
  Speaker 1: and that, to me is a really great example of
• 57:16
  Speaker 1: why journalism is dead, because in a rational world, in
• 57:21
  Speaker 1: a world where journalism was not dead, Jeff Bezos would say,
• 57:25
  Speaker 1: you know what, Yeah, we didn't make as much money
• 57:29
  Speaker 1: last quarter as we did the previous quarter, and or
• 57:31
  Speaker 1: maybe we lost money a little bit, but you know what,
• 57:34
  Speaker 1: I can handle that because you know, Amazon is worth
• 57:38
  Speaker 1: a gazillion dollars, and I understand how important the Washington
• 57:42
  Speaker 1: Post is, and I want it to be as fair
• 57:45
  Speaker 1: and responsible as possible. I want it to be a
• 57:48
  Speaker 1: good journalistic organization. If that makes money, fantastic, We're going
• 57:52
  Speaker 1: to do things to try to, you know, be responsible
• 57:55
  Speaker 1: with how we allocate our resources. But the most important
• 57:59
  Speaker 1: thing is our journalism, our reporting, and the truth. He
• 58:05
  Speaker 1: didn't say any of that. He didn't say any of that.
• 58:08
  Speaker 1: It was all about the bottom line. And unfortunately, that
• 58:12
  Speaker 1: perspective has pervaded everything, not just in journalism, but in
• 58:19
  Speaker 1: entertainment and in sports and in virtually every walk of life,
• 58:24
  Speaker 1: which is why we can't have nice things anymore, because
• 58:27
  Speaker 1: it's all about the bottom line. It's I get the
• 58:31
  Speaker 1: bottom line matters. I'm not naive, I'm a realist. I
• 58:35
  Speaker 1: get it. But it used to be part of a
• 58:38
  Speaker 1: larger equation. Now it's the only thing, even when it
• 58:42
  Speaker 1: comes to The Washington Post. Now. Somewhat related to the
• 58:47
  Speaker 1: issues involving the Washington Post is what's been going on
• 58:51
  Speaker 1: in entertainment and television and fragmentation and how that has
• 58:55
  Speaker 1: destroyed the business model and We saw that once again
• 58:59
  Speaker 1: with the end of Stephen Colbert at CBS Late night
• 59:03
  Speaker 1: television and his seven month martyrdom tour, where somehow the
• 59:09
  Speaker 1: world became convinced that he was being fired because Donald
• 59:12
  Speaker 1: Trump won him fired, a narrative that never made any
• 59:15
  Speaker 1: sense to me, because if Donald Trump was really telling
• 59:19
  Speaker 1: paramount that you got to get rid of Stephen Colbert
• 59:22
  Speaker 1: for your mergers to be approved of Stephen Colbert would
• 59:26
  Speaker 1: have been finished immediately at most, he would have been
• 59:29
  Speaker 1: given a week at most, But instead he was given
• 59:34
  Speaker 1: seven months and carte blanche and full promotion and every
• 59:39
  Speaker 1: guest he wanted and clearly no restrictions on content, and
• 59:45
  Speaker 1: this became one of the biggest entertainment stories certainly of
• 59:49
  Speaker 1: the year, if not the decade, when it didn't warrant it,
• 59:53
  Speaker 1: because all this was was the end of a show
• 59:56
  Speaker 1: that was losing a lot of money. Now, this is
• 59:58
  Speaker 1: not journalism, obviously, it's a comedy show, although the lines
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 1: have been getting more and more blurred, and clearly part
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 1: of the problem for Colbert from a ratings perspective is
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 1: that he had become overtly political, something that Johnny Carson
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 1: never did, something that Jay Leno never really did something
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 1: that David Letterman didn't do during the first parts of
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 1: his career, although he's now clearly a left wing hack,
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 1: especially in retirement, and the ratings indicated that now. The
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 1: ratings were in the tank for a lot of reasons,
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 1: partially because of fragmentation, partially because of changing habits, especially
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 1: of young people. The fact that we can just tape
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 1: things now, we're used to seeing things whenever we want to.
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 1: Staying up late night is not the same as it
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 1: used to be back in the day. There's all sorts
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 1: of reasons, but at the core, the product was not
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 1: as good, and it was essentially telling half the country
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 1: don't even bother to tune in because we don't like you.
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 1: And that's not an exaggeration because that's how overtly political
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 1: and very liberal Stephen Colbert was. And I'm talking to
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 1: someone who I used to like Stephen Colbert. I thought
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 1: he was a genius on The Daily Show and then
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 1: his own show, Colbert Report, where he played a right
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 1: wing talk show host and did so in a brilliant fashion,
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 1: but that did not translate to him being a real
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 1: person on the Late Show on CBS. Well, even actor
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 1: seven months of build up, the liberal media industrial complex
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 1: promoting him ad nauseum, all these celebrity guests, having Jimmy
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 1: Kimmel and Jimmy Fallon, paved the way by airing reruns
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 1: so they would not compete with the finale for Stephen
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 1: Colbert's show. You know how many people actually tuned in
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 1: for the Colbert finale six point seven million people. Six
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 1: point seven million people. That's nothing, nothing for a finale. Now, yeah,
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 1: it was the largest audience he'd had in a long time,
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 1: but that's nothing for that level of build up. And
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 1: just to give you a point of comparison, Letterman's finale
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 1: got almost twice as many people to watch, thirteen point
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 1: eight million people with a smaller general population, and Johnny
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 1: Carson's finale fifty five million people, again with a much
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 1: smaller general population. When Johnny Carson retired, Carson fifty five million,
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 1: Letterman just under fourteen million. Stephen Colbert six point seven
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 1: million people for the finale. I mean that, If that
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 1: doesn't tell you why he was canceled, I don't know
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 1: what does. And it wasn't because of Donald Trump. Now,
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 1: did Trump have some influence, sure, I'm sure that Paramount
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 1: when they figured this out, thought, okay, well, one of
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 1: the benefits of finally getting rid of this, the show
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 1: that's losing a lot of money, is that we'll probably
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 1: be pleasing to Donald Trump, whose help we might need
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 1: on these mergers that were involved with or might be
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 1: involved with when it comes to Warner Discovery. That is
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 1: certainly possible. But I just can't get over and I
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 1: went on News Nation Television and I said this directly.
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 1: I said, how in the world can you conclude that
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump caused Paramount to fire Stephen Colbert when they
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 1: give him a seven month martyrdom full sendoff and simultaneously
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 1: they are approving and promoting a show called South Park.
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 1: The same company Paramount is South Park, which is featuring
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 1: not just showing once or twice, featuring Donald Trump with
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 1: a very tiny penis and a guy who literally sleeps
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 1: with Satan. That's a huge part of of the South
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 1: Park series that debuted at the same time period as
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 1: Stephen Colbert's alleged firing for political purposes. That doesn't make
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 1: any sense to me, and because it's not logical, so
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 1: to me, I think Trump took credit for things that
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 1: didn't happen. By the way, you know, there's is typical
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 1: of Trump. So he posts an AI version of him
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 1: throwing Stephen Colbert in the trash bin, which is fan
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 1: base loved, which got way more views online. Of course,
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 1: it's always difficult to tell what views are and what
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 1: impressions are, but by every measure got way more views online,
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 1: even as dumb as it was, because I think it
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 1: was taking credit for something that doesn't help Trump and
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 1: for which he probably had very little to do with.
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 1: But from a ratings perspective, that clip got more views,
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 1: for sure than the finale for Steven Colbert on CBS,
• 1:04:56
  Speaker 1: which is really telling about the world in which we
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 1: now live. I want to shift now to something that
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 1: happened I guess you would call it in the NBA.
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 1: And there's a couple of reasons why I'm gonna delve
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 1: into this topic very briefly. But I don't not pay
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 1: attention to the NBA playoffs anymore, although now that the
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 1: New York Knicks are back in the finals, I find
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 1: the next to be at least somewhat interesting, partially because
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 1: they haven't been there in so long, partially because of
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 1: the multiple Villanova players that they have on the team,
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 1: So I'm mildly interested in whether or not the Knicks
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 1: are finally going to win an NBA championship for the
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 1: first time in forever and ever. But the Knicks were
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 1: playing the Cleveland Cavaliers in Cleveland, and who showed up
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 1: to the game to sit courtside? But Taylor Swift and
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 1: Travis Kelcey. Of course, Taylor Swift and Travis Kelcey are
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 1: gonna get married at some point this year. By the way,
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 1: for the record, I don't think anybody knows when they're
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 1: gonna get married. There's been rumors about Fourth of July weekend.
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 1: To me, don't trust anything you hear about their wedding
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 1: plans because it's obvious clickbait because there's an enormous amount
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 1: of interest and a built in massive audience for any
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 1: story involving Taylor Swift and Travis kelce getting married, and
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 1: there's no rational way for how any information would actually
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 1: be credible because this is obviously a very tightly run operations,
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 1: basically a CIA MUSSAD operation to keep this as quiet
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 1: as possible, and so far they've been very successful at
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 1: doing that. So it was it made a lot of
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 1: News and got a lot of attention that they made
• 1:06:37
  Speaker 1: a public appearance sitting courtside at the Cleveland Cavaliers New
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 1: York next playoff game. And the reason why they were
• 1:06:45
  Speaker 1: there is that Travis Kelce is from Ohio, originally from
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 1: just outside of the Cleveland area, and so plausibly although
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 1: I never knew he was a Cleveland Cavaliers fan, but okay, fine,
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 1: so he's a Cleveland guy. And he's there with obviously
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 1: the most famous woman in the world, Taylor Swift, there
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 1: sitting court side, and ESPN does something that I found
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 1: to be utterly hilarious. I thought it was one of
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 1: the rare golden moments in modern sports guesting, because I
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 1: think modern sportscasting is boring. I think they're so afraid
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 1: to take any risks, partially because of social media. We've
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 1: talked with Bob Costas on this podcast multiple times about
• 1:07:31
  Speaker 1: how risk adverse people are in this day and age
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 1: because they're terrified of how they're going to be responded
• 1:07:37
  Speaker 1: to when social media and clips will be taken out
• 1:07:39
  Speaker 1: of context, and you know, essentially play by play announcers
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 1: have become stenographers, and analytics have taken over everything and
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 1: there's no real drama or narrative building, and no one
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 1: wants to try to make a joke because it might
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 1: not work, so it becomes boring to be Well, we
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 1: had this what I thought to be hilarious moment when
• 1:08:01
  Speaker 1: ESPN announcers they reference the fact that Travis Kelcey is
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 1: on the sideline and they specifically do not use Taylor
• 1:08:11
  Speaker 1: Swift's name, And it's obvious to anyone with a brain
• 1:08:16
  Speaker 1: what they're doing here. They're making a joke, which I
• 1:08:20
  Speaker 1: thought was hilarious, referring to Taylor Swift as his girlfriend
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 1: and his fiancee, when obviously the reality is that she's
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 1: at the game and he just happens to be accompanying
• 1:08:34
  Speaker 1: her because he's from Cleveland. But they switched that completely
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 1: as a way of, I think, making a joke in
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 1: a weird way, complimenting Taylor Swift because that's how big
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 1: she is, and maybe trolling the Swifties a little bit.
• 1:08:53
  Speaker 1: And here's what that sounded like on ESPN. Travis Kelcey
• 1:08:59
  Speaker 1: at his fiance hear of the game. Oh, Travis kelce
• 1:09:02
  Speaker 1: that's good to have him here. A Ohio native, a
• 1:09:04
  Speaker 1: Cleveland native, take her heights he's an Ohio boy. Need
• 1:09:09
  Speaker 1: listened to say. The ovation was particularly entered Furina. Yeah,
• 1:09:12
  Speaker 1: as Travis and his girlfriend are in the building, that's
• 1:09:14
  Speaker 1: always great to see. You think their wedding plans are
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 1: done and they're in good shape. Now, when I saw that,
• 1:09:20
  Speaker 1: I laughed. I thought that is genius, that is perfect.
• 1:09:24
  Speaker 1: And my presumption was that everyone was going to get it.
• 1:09:27
  Speaker 1: That virtually, at least everybody who mattered was going to
• 1:09:31
  Speaker 1: understand that this was not a diss at Taylor Swift.
• 1:09:34
  Speaker 1: This was actually a compliment to Taylor Swift, that she's
• 1:09:38
  Speaker 1: so big and it's so obvious that she's bigger than
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 1: Travis Kelcey, that we're gonna make fun of that. We're
• 1:09:46
  Speaker 1: in a weird way of making fun of Travis Kelcey,
• 1:09:49
  Speaker 1: because you know, we're going to only focus on him.
• 1:09:52
  Speaker 1: We're not even gonna say her name. And even as
• 1:09:57
  Speaker 1: dim of you as I have of society and humanity
• 1:10:02
  Speaker 1: and commentators and how stupid I think people are, even
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 1: I was frankly stunned by how many people clearly did
• 1:10:11
  Speaker 1: not get the joke. Now I get that Swifties are
• 1:10:15
  Speaker 1: effectively cult members, and they are basically designed to attack
• 1:10:20
  Speaker 1: anybody that does anything that seems to diss Taylor Swift
• 1:10:25
  Speaker 1: even a little bit. I get that, So I'm kind
• 1:10:29
  Speaker 1: of putting that reaction off to the side. Although I
• 1:10:32
  Speaker 1: test ran this past my almost fourteen year old daughter, Grace,
• 1:10:37
  Speaker 1: who's a big swiftie, and she thought it was funny. Now,
• 1:10:40
  Speaker 1: she didn't think it was as funny as I did,
• 1:10:42
  Speaker 1: but she got it immediately. I thought, Okay, if Grace
• 1:10:45
  Speaker 1: is getting this, then everyone has to be getting this right.
• 1:10:49
  Speaker 1: That was not the case. There were even some male
• 1:10:53
  Speaker 1: commentators sports commentators, including one guy I respect from barstool,
• 1:10:57
  Speaker 1: Jack Mack. I think he's a very good copy. He
• 1:11:00
  Speaker 1: seemingly did not get this at all. He thought that
• 1:11:04
  Speaker 1: ESPN was trolling Taylor Swift or just simply omitted her
• 1:11:10
  Speaker 1: name for reasons that were inexplicable, and I just I'm
• 1:11:16
  Speaker 1: flummoxed by this. Now I realize that there is something
• 1:11:19
  Speaker 1: called a sarcasm gene that some people just literally do
• 1:11:24
  Speaker 1: not get sarcasm. They literally don't They have a blind
• 1:11:28
  Speaker 1: spot to it. I think there's probably a correlation there
• 1:11:32
  Speaker 1: with lack of intelligence when you don't have the sarcasm gene.
• 1:11:35
  Speaker 1: But that's another story. For another day. But I was
• 1:11:39
  Speaker 1: really quite taken aback by how many people were outraged
• 1:11:44
  Speaker 1: by this and did not seem to get the joke.
• 1:11:47
  Speaker 1: But I wanted to applaud ESPN because I thought that
• 1:11:50
  Speaker 1: was one of the rare moments of true humor. And
• 1:11:53
  Speaker 1: I referenced Bob Costas because Bob would often do things
• 1:11:59
  Speaker 1: on the airs of play by play announcer, including in
• 1:12:02
  Speaker 1: the NBA, that were legitimately funny. Now, not everyone loved
• 1:12:06
  Speaker 1: his sense of humor. I did. I thought he was
• 1:12:08
  Speaker 1: very funny online. In fact, in a weird coincidence, there
• 1:12:13
  Speaker 1: was a clip of the last time the Knicks made
• 1:12:16
  Speaker 1: the NBA Finals of Bob Costas going through all the
• 1:12:20
  Speaker 1: celebrities that were courtside, and he was making jokes about
• 1:12:24
  Speaker 1: several of the celebrities that were there. One of them
• 1:12:27
  Speaker 1: was Billy Crystal, And I thought the clip was really
• 1:12:30
  Speaker 1: interesting because you know, almost all the celebrities are not
• 1:12:34
  Speaker 1: going to be those same people in Spike Lee and
• 1:12:36
  Speaker 1: maybe Billy Crystal, I don't know, are not going to
• 1:12:39
  Speaker 1: be around or are not going to be Knicks fans
• 1:12:42
  Speaker 1: all these years later. I actually sent it to Bob
• 1:12:45
  Speaker 1: and he said he sent it to Billy Crystal, but
• 1:12:47
  Speaker 1: it reminded me that there was a time period where
• 1:12:52
  Speaker 1: humor was a part of the equation here and it's
• 1:12:54
  Speaker 1: no longer part of the equation. I think this situation
• 1:12:57
  Speaker 1: might have been the exception that proves the because the
• 1:13:00
  Speaker 1: backlash was significant because people didn't get the obvious joke. Now,
• 1:13:06
  Speaker 1: when we're talking about Taylor Swift and Travis Kelcey, I
• 1:13:09
  Speaker 1: want to mention one other thing that happened during this appearance.
• 1:13:13
  Speaker 1: I have in the past, I've been all over the
• 1:13:15
  Speaker 1: map on the Travis kelce Taylor Swift relationship. I fully
• 1:13:18
  Speaker 1: acknowledge that my general view was at the beginning, this
• 1:13:22
  Speaker 1: is real. I did not understand why people did not
• 1:13:25
  Speaker 1: think it was real, and I was vindicated on that. However,
• 1:13:28
  Speaker 1: I've gone back and forth on whether or not it's
• 1:13:30
  Speaker 1: a good idea, especially from Taylor's perspective, for them to
• 1:13:34
  Speaker 1: get married. I have said unequivocally Travis ought to nail
• 1:13:37
  Speaker 1: this down because while Taylor Swift isn't perfect, I think,
• 1:13:41
  Speaker 1: you know, when it comes to people who are in
• 1:13:44
  Speaker 1: her position, she could be a hell of a lot worse.
• 1:13:47
  Speaker 1: And I didn't like her role in the Blake Lively lawsuit,
• 1:13:49
  Speaker 1: and I've got issues with her politically, but people could
• 1:13:54
  Speaker 1: be a hell of a lot worse in her position
• 1:13:56
  Speaker 1: of power. We could do a hell of a lot worse.
• 1:13:58
  Speaker 1: I've said many times, you know, I'll take Taylor Swift
• 1:14:01
  Speaker 1: as a teenage girl idol over Madonna any day of
• 1:14:05
  Speaker 1: the week. And so from Travis's perspective, I have said,
• 1:14:09
  Speaker 1: you know, go ahead, nail this down. This is going
• 1:14:13
  Speaker 1: to be, at least in the short run, good for you.
• 1:14:15
  Speaker 1: Although I've also said I think there's a very very
• 1:14:18
  Speaker 1: good chance they end up getting divorced and he gets
• 1:14:20
  Speaker 1: eviscerated in an album somewhere down the road. There's a
• 1:14:24
  Speaker 1: very good chance of that happening. And I've also said
• 1:14:28
  Speaker 1: that I perceived Travis Kelcey as white trash adjacent, and
• 1:14:36
  Speaker 1: what I mean by that is, I think it's pretty
• 1:14:39
  Speaker 1: self explanatory, but I don't think he's white trash, but
• 1:14:43
  Speaker 1: there's some strands of white trash DNA that are within
• 1:14:47
  Speaker 1: Travis Kelcey, and I actually think that if it wasn't
• 1:14:52
  Speaker 1: for Jason Kelcey and his amazing wife, Kylie, I'm not
• 1:14:56
  Speaker 1: sure Taylor would be marrying Travis Kelcey if Travis Kelsey
• 1:15:01
  Speaker 1: was an only child and Taylor didn't look at Jason
• 1:15:07
  Speaker 1: and Kylie and see what a great dad Jason appears
• 1:15:11
  Speaker 1: to be and how funny Jason is. I think that
• 1:15:14
  Speaker 1: Jason is really the reason why Taylor is willing to
• 1:15:18
  Speaker 1: marry Travis, because I think Travis would be perceived totally
• 1:15:21
  Speaker 1: differently without Jason and Kylie in the mix. And part
• 1:15:26
  Speaker 1: of that is because I think he's got some issues
• 1:15:29
  Speaker 1: with alcohol and his behavior when he gets a little
• 1:15:33
  Speaker 1: bit drunk. We saw that after the Chiefs won their
• 1:15:36
  Speaker 1: last Super Bowl. But during this game with the Cavaliers
• 1:15:40
  Speaker 1: and the Knicks, and I understand what Travis was doing.
• 1:15:45
  Speaker 1: You know, the Cavaliers ended up losing the game. He
• 1:15:48
  Speaker 1: wanted to rile the crowd up, so during a break
• 1:15:51
  Speaker 1: in the action, he stood up and he pounded a
• 1:15:55
  Speaker 1: beer and the crowd went wild. And there's been a
• 1:16:00
  Speaker 1: lot of attention to Taylor's reaction to this, and she
• 1:16:04
  Speaker 1: was play acting foe embarrassment and then she applauded him
• 1:16:08
  Speaker 1: and what have you. But I gotta believe somewhere deep down,
• 1:16:14
  Speaker 1: Taylor's a little bit worried because this is a guy
• 1:16:17
  Speaker 1: who's still playing for the Kansas City Chiefs. Now, I
• 1:16:19
  Speaker 1: think the Chiefs are making a mistake by keeping Travis
• 1:16:24
  Speaker 1: in the mix, because he goes, they're going to have
• 1:16:26
  Speaker 1: to start him because he's mister Taylor Swift, and I
• 1:16:29
  Speaker 1: don't think he's nearly as good as he used to be,
• 1:16:31
  Speaker 1: and I think that he's probably gonna weigh down and
• 1:16:33
  Speaker 1: already you know, decaying Chiefs offense. But anyway, the point
• 1:16:38
  Speaker 1: of this is, I think that Taylor Swift has got
• 1:16:41
  Speaker 1: to have some doubts about Travis Kelcey and what he's
• 1:16:45
  Speaker 1: going to be like after football, because this is what
• 1:16:49
  Speaker 1: he's like now while he's still, you know, allegedly an
• 1:16:53
  Speaker 1: All pro NFL football player. What's he going to be
• 1:16:56
  Speaker 1: like when that's gone? And that, to me, is not
• 1:17:00
  Speaker 1: gonna wear well over time. That's gonna get old, especially
• 1:17:03
  Speaker 1: for someone like Taylor Swift. So I saw some warning
• 1:17:07
  Speaker 1: signs in that appearance. I still think obviously they're gonna
• 1:17:11
  Speaker 1: get married. I hope they actually have kids because I
• 1:17:14
  Speaker 1: think Taylor Swift having kids might have a huge social
• 1:17:18
  Speaker 1: impact when it comes to young women wanting to get
• 1:17:21
  Speaker 1: married and having kids, which I think we need in
• 1:17:23
  Speaker 1: our society. So I think there still could be some
• 1:17:26
  Speaker 1: positive things out of this, but I still see warning
• 1:17:29
  Speaker 1: signs in the long run when it comes to how
• 1:17:31
  Speaker 1: this will all end between Taylor Swift and Travis Kelcey.
• 1:17:36
  Speaker 1: Thanks for listening to today's free drop of the abbreviated show.
• 1:17:40
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• 1:17:43
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• 1:17:48
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• 1:17:58
  Speaker 1: name is Jochen z I E G L e R.
• 1:18:02
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• 1:18:08
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• 1:18:12
  Speaker 1: how you can subscribe.