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The 50,000 Dow · Stuff Keeps Happening

• 0:00
  Hello. I chased the weasel around the cobbler's
• 0:03
  bench. But stuff still happened. So what's up?
• 0:08
  It's been a very normal go of it for the U .S.
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  government. Let's just take a look at some of
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  the things that are going on around our esteemed
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  administration. We'll start with some aerial
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  acrobatics. Last week, the FAA just randomly
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  announced a 10 -day closure of the airspace around
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  El Paso. El Paso, Texas. It's on the border,
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  like the restaurant. And no one knew what the
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  hell was the reasoning for this. Like it was
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  just a sudden closure. 10 days. No air travel.
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  Out of El Paso, sorry guys. And then that 10
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  days ended a few hours later. They were like,
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  so about that 10 day airspace closure, nevermind.
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  Why did we do it? The government was asked why.
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  They didn't have a good answer. First we were
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  told that there was some kind of security threat.
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  Then we were told that they shot down a cartel
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  drone. Then we learned it was a balloon, like
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  from a party. It turns out the US military used
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  an anti -drone laser against a balloon and didn't
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  tell the FAA about it. So the FAA was like, um,
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  there's anti -drone lasers being fired in our
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  airspace, we should shut this down. But then
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  when the FAA was asked, they were like, we don't
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  fucking know what's going on. And then the DoD
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  was like, we didn't shoot a balloon down, what
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  are you talking about? Very competent stuff all
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  around. But let's move on, we've got a lot of
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  stuff to get through. Hey Google, narc on me.
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  Investigative journalists from whatever's left
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  of the Washington Post found the Department of
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  Homeland Security is pressuring Google to give
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  over user information on a whim. A 67 -year -old
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  man from outside Philadelphia sent an email to
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  the Department of Homeland Security pleading
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  with them to be lenient on a deportation case
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  that he had read about in the news. Quite literally
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  just a citizen emailing a public office saying,
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  hey, I'm voicing my opinion here. They then subpoenaed
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  his Google account. The man opened his email
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  and found a notification from Google that said,
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  hey, just so's you know, we just gave your account
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  information to the Department of Homeland Security
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  after they sent us a subpoena. And no, we're
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  not gonna give you a copy of it. So, from receiving
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  an email from this guy, the Department of Homeland
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  Security drew up a subpoena, didn't say anything
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  to the guy, sent it to Google, got his account
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  information, and he had no way to stop this from
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  happening. The information that they handed over
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  included his home address, and his location history,
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  and his contacts. And then... DHS agents showed
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  up at his house to question him until they ultimately
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  found that he didn't do anything wrong, because
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  obviously, as a reminder, with any corporate
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  tech infrastructure, that includes Google, that
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  includes Google Docs, do not use it for anything
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  that you wouldn't be comfortable shouting into
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  your local police precinct. This is exactly why.
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  We've got more stuff, though. Great jobs, y 'all.
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  Great jobs all around. Got the jobs report coming
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  in, coming in hot. Got new jobs, like 80 ,000
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  new jobs. from non -farm payrolls. Amazing. Good
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  job, guys. Over the last year, we lost almost
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  900 ,000 jobs. So obviously the jobs report is
• 3:02
  hard to trust because Trump fired the person
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  who was in charge of producing the jobs reports.
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  because he didn't like the numbers. And obviously
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  we can't trust that. And also, also, it doesn't
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  take an advanced economics degree to look around
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  at the current U .S. landscape for the job market
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  and assess that it blows. It's pretty frequent
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  for jobs reports to have these big corrections.
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  What we saw was the month come in for the jobs
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  report and then a correction for about a year
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  long period with more data to actually use as
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  inputs to get actual accurate numbers. Whether
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  or not those numbers are accurate still, we don't
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  know. but they say that we lost about 900 ,000
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  jobs in the past year, which very, very much
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  tracks. So yeah, there's that. We're going into
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  a shutdown. Again, kind of, partially. The US
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  government is shutting down the Department of
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  Homeland Security. Fucking rejoice, everyone.
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  Democrats and Republicans did not manage to come
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  to an agreement to pass a budget for DHS, whose
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  budget is through the fucking roof right now
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  because they wanted to fund concentration camps.
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  Cool cool stuff guys in the midst of the whole
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  ice rounding people up into detention camps and
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  killing citizens on the street thing The Democrats
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  have said they want to reform ice and and they're
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  not gonna they're not gonna fund to the DHS Until
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  they get common -sense reforms for ice Also abolishing
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  ice is the popular position now. Anyway, they
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  they did not do that They didn't fund it and
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  now the DHS is closed For how long? I don't know.
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  But it's not like a full -scale government shutdown.
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  It's not like everything is going away. It's
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  just subdivisions of DHS. Except for the TSA.
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  It is at this point that I'm realizing that if
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  you're not a member of the freest country in
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  the world, you have no idea what the fuck I'm
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  saying. Department of Homeland Security. It's
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  the people who run border control. And the TSA
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  is airport security. The TSA is apparently mostly
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  considered essential, so they're largely going
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  to be in operation unchanged. So no worries there.
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  But also, TSA is fucking bullshit too, so. How
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  could I forget? This should have been the headline.
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  The Dow is over 50 ,000. or at least it was recently,
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  Pam Bondi was testifying in front of Congress,
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  being grilled about a whole bunch of things,
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  including the Epstein case. The hearing started
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  off ridiculous and just continued to get more
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  so, to the point that we now have historic record
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  of a sitting attorney general of the United States
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  of America saying to a representative of Congress,
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  and I quote, you're a washed up loser lawyer.
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  Bondi was essentially being asked questions that
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  she couldn't answer, such as, why are you protecting
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  pedophiles? And she didn't want to say because.
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  So instead she just went into full -on deflection
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  mode, to the point that she started saying just
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  absurd shit. For example, the Dow is over 50
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  ,000, and that's what we should be talking about.
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  The head of the justice system in the United
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  States of America was like, why are you asking
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  me questions about justice? We should be talking
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  about the stock market doing well. Not a whole
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  lot came from this, aside from just a bunch of
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  screaming and everybody trying to get clips for
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  social media, but God damn, Pam Bondi was a mess
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  in this hearing. But you know what wasn't a mess?
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  The Dow. It was over 50 ,000. For those who don't
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  know, the Dow is like a common reference point
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  index of the stock market. Finance stuff. We're
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  not done with just this fucking clown car of
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  an administration because we need to talk about
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  RFK Jr.'s cocaine toilet. Robert F. Kennedy Jr.,
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  the somehow head of Health and Human Services
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  in the United States of America, I cannot believe
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  that statement. He went on Theo Von's podcast
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  and said that he's not afraid of germs because
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  he did cocaine off of a toilet seat. I just want
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  to fact -check real quick. This is actually the
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  most relatable that RFK has ever been. I'm not
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  a cocaine off the toilet seat kind of guy myself,
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  personally. But I get the energy. I understand
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  it. But here's the thing. That's not the kind
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  of energy that I want from the head of Health
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  and Human Services. overseeing multiple measles
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  outbreaks, while advocating against getting the
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  measles vaccine. Or vaccines. A few health agencies
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  are calling for him to resign. That's not gonna
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  happen. But hey, bring back having elected officials
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  not talking about their cocaine usage off of
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  a toilet, and then turning around and setting
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  our health policy. We've got more! We're still
• 7:23
  going! While all of this is going on, over the
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  past four weeks there's been a massive sewage
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  spill in the surrounding area around Washington
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  D .C., as sewage has been pouring into the C
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  &O Canal and Potomac River. At time of recording,
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  there's been an estimated 240 million gallons
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  of raw sewage that's made its way into the Potomac,
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  and apparently was made worse by a bit of the
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  equipment that they've been using to try to clean
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  everything up, getting destroyed by a huge wad
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  of flushed wipes. Do not flush wipes, especially
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  if they say flushable. They're not. At time of
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  recording, there's not an issue with potable
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  water from municipal systems, but they do say,
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  hey, maybe don't go swimming in the sewage. And
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  also, it smells pretty bad around the sewage,
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  apparently. Which I would assume this is an honestly
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  massive ecological disaster, and the cleanup
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  is expected to take basically the rest of the
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  year at least. Last thing for government, and
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  I did cut a few things for time, we're also posturing
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  for war with Iran, still, again. Trump has sent
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  a second aircraft carrier to intimidate Iran
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  during talks about nuclear stuff and Israel.
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  The same fucking things that we're always talking
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  to them about. And bombing them about. The things
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  that we're always bombing them about too. There's
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  a lot of rhetoric going around about free Iran
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  and like, yes, in the context of what the people
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  there want. I don't think it's the United States
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  job to go in and do regime change in Iran. Again,
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  again. So that's just a quick summary of some
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  of the quirky little things that our little goobers
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  are up to these days. I don't even know anymore.
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  Let's move on. Artificial intelligence. Do I
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  get money now? I said the words. You may have
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  heard that there's a few companies out there
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  trying to do AI stuff. They're advertising it
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  a little bit. But I want to talk through the
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  growing trend of these companies talking about
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  their products as if it's some massive threat.
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  to humanity and an existential crisis for the
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  world. I wanna start real quick by just saying,
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  when I say AI, I'm not actually referring to
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  real conscious intelligence. It's just a shorthand
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  to refer to these things that we're all kind
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  of just labeling AI at this point. I hate that
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  this stuff is called AI because it's not intelligence,
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  but it's just easier to say AI. So let's just
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  agree on that. OpenAI and Anthropic. They are
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  the creators of ChatGPT and Claude respectively,
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  two of the biggest names in the AI space right
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  now. Both of these companies are racing to an
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  IPO. That's when a company is listed on the stock
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  market and they get a huge payday. Think about
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  how much money is currently flying around in
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  all the AI spaces and then think about how much
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  money they have to gain from going to market
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  and letting people buy in from the public. But
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  also also think about the risk of not being able
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  to deliver on all of the promises that they've
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  made. And so if you want to cash out, you got
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  to be the first one to get to the market, because
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  if you're the second and people already know
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  that it's not worth investing in, you're fucked.
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  So we're seeing a whole lot of bluster from these
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  companies about how powerful their systems are,
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  to the point of being an existential threat to
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  humanity, and yet these random CEOs are supposed
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  to be the ones that we trust to manage these
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  things. We've seen engineers thinking that these
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  systems are sentient. Google fired someone over
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  that. Anthropic even put out research about model
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  welfare, you know, worrying about the experiences
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  and emotions of AI models. These are computer
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  programs. This is not consciousness. There are
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  two things happening here. One is marketing,
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  and the other is genuine psychosis. So like a
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  lot of this is marketing. You're gonna see headlines
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  from journalists that either don't understand
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  what they're talking about or took a big paycheck
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  from one of these companies to write a big thing
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  about how there's belief that these AIs are sentient,
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  and it's always in the passive voice. There is
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  belief that there is sentience here, not AI is
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  sentient. It's a really effective marketing strategy
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  if you're trying to get a ton of people to invest
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  in your company. If you say, my company is so
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  important that it cannot be ignored, otherwise
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  it's a threat to humanity. So like, yeah, obvious
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  marketing is super obvious, but the other part
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  of this is kind of scarier. which is the genuine
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  psychosis. You're maybe familiar with the stories
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  of people, like, falling in love with an AI chatbot
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  or being driven to kill themselves by one. OpenAI
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  recently pulled down ChatGPT 4 .0, which is,
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  like, the model that most people were dating.
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  It was the most intimate and, like, malleable
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  model until people were able to craft a partner,
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  like, a character that they formed an unhealthy
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  relationship with. And then the subscription
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  tech service company took down their subscription
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  service, and now people are experiencing genuine
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  pain. That is a form of psychosis on the user's
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  end, but on the other side, some of these developers
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  truly believe that they are building God. It's
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  a religion to them. It's the next phase of humanity.
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  It's their version. of colonizing things. They
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  believe, truly, that they are building the next
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  evolution of humanity, somewhere between Peter
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  Thiel with uploading our consciousness and so
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  it's the intersection of marketing and genuinely
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  profiting off people's confusion and psychosis
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  and that's terrifying and gross. At the end of
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  the day, these are just computer programs. They're
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  just rolling a bunch of dice, taking random numbers,
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  and then checking a big ol' reference sheet,
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  and trying to produce output that's somewhat
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  congruent with the input, both a bunch of randomness
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  thrown in. It's a bit more complicated than that,
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  but ultimately, that's basically all that's happening.
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  It's not making decisions based on anything but
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  prior inputs that it's been given to try to follow.
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  Anyway, uh, it's not intelligence. It's just
• 12:59
  software. Lightning round! Iraqi Customs detained
• 13:02
  a package that they thought might have had ancient
• 13:04
  historical significance. It turns out that it
• 13:06
  was a collector's edition of Claire Obscura Expedition
• 13:09
  33. The CEO of Salesforce made a joke about ICE
• 13:13
  monitoring his employees. His employees were
• 13:16
  not very happy with that joke. An AI feature
• 13:19
  update for Notepad on Windows 11 added a massive
• 13:23
  security vulnerability. Yet again, it seems like
• 13:25
  Omega 3 is very good for you. It now seems like
• 13:28
  there's a link between Omega 3 and a reduced
• 13:30
  chance of early onset dementia. MrBeast acquired
• 13:34
  a banking app. MrBanks. Not content with just
• 13:37
  staying in the US, North London now has an outbreak
• 13:40
  of measles with at least 60 children in the area
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  being infected. After 88 years, Gallup will no
• 13:46
  longer track presidential approval rating. They
• 13:48
  say this has nothing to do with political pressure
• 13:50
  from the presidency. And finally for today, it's
• 13:52
  Britney, bitch, as Britney Spears has sold the
• 13:55
  license to all of her music for about $200 million.
• 13:58
  I am also selling the license to all of my music
• 14:01
  for $200 million, if anyone's interested. Thank
• 14:04
  you so much for listening to today's episode
• 14:05
  of Stuff Keeps Happening. Head to skh .news for
• 14:08
  sources, bonus content, and the entire library
• 14:12
  of Britney Spears music, because I bought the
• 14:15
  license. My name is Endeavorance. We'll talk
• 14:17
  again soon. Take care and be well.