Category: Podcast

[Music]

I am enjoying the new theme song.

That’s the second time
we’ve done the theme song.

I’m pretty happy about it.

I think just having a theme song with
my own name in it makes a big difference.

That is Stone’s Mo-Yo,
a rapper from Zimbabwe.

He will essentially write and produce
the entirety of the song for you.

So if you have a
project that you need a

little rap song to, reach
out, look out, search

for Stone’s Mo-Yo, you’ll get
his Facebook and some other stuff.

Very happy about that.

I got him when my friend Nigel
made a song for the old podcast.

I kept forgetting to
say him and his things.

I was like, I got to do this right
and give credit where credit’s due.

Stone’s Mo-Yo.

That’s not what we’re talking about.

In his new Japan story a
couple weeks ago, there

was a story about the
Coke is going to start

testing vending machines
that have surge pricing.

Surge pricing to me is the
new subscriptions of the future.

So we, I did an episode
a while ago and it was

about how everything is trying
to be a subscription service.

That’s their way of getting a little bit
of money from you all the time forever.

You end up with a billion
subscription services

you don’t need, but
you forget to cancel

them or they make it really hard to
cancel or any other number of things.

The end of the day, you’re subscribing
to things you don’t need or don’t want.

Coke is taking it a slightly different way.

I think surge pricing is the model
they’re going to have going forward.

If it’s a busy time, the price goes up.

So this is essentially
just speculating this

is this is just stocks only
it’s with every day item.

So you want to buy a Coke.

You can’t buy a Coke during a busy time
because the Coke’s going to be 200, 210, 250

yen, whereas if you
wait till it’s like four

o’clock in the morning, that price is
going to drop down to 150, 140 yen.

And so you’re really just going to be,
what is the best time to short Coke?

Because I’ll buy Coke’s
and then resell them

to people at a slight
profit out in front

of the machine again
or something like like

people made jokes
about this on the internet,

but this is exactly what is going to happen
is people will buy Coke when it’s cheap and

then sell it for a small profit when it’s
expensive and make money off the Coke’s.

This came up last week
because of Wendy’s and

I used to like Wendy’s
I used to have a very

fond feeling for memories
of Wendy’s and it’s

because Dave Thomas founder of Wendy’s
was a significant influence on my life.

You might be like, well, that’s
weird and I’m like, yes, it is weird.

When I was in high school,
it was grade 11, grade 12.

So sort of those
initial proper rebellious

years, early rebelliousness
years, I think you’re

like 15, 16, 16’s when I
got my first motorcycle.

So I’m driving motorcycles.

I think I’m pretty cool.

And again, amongst 16 year olds, having
a motorcycle does make you pretty cool.

I really was like a tiny
125 CC motorcycle

that I rode to and from school, but $5 of
gas would last me for the week and more.

So it was like a great thing
to have as a young teen.

It’s also meant it
was the time when my

friends and I were
skipping a lot of school

and there was an
McDonald’s and a Wendy’s.

McDonald’s was the
big company and Wendy’s

wasn’t even though Wendy’s
is still a massive company.

Wendy went there
regularly to spend what little

money we had on the
dollar menu for lunch.

So one day we’re skipping school.

We’re in Wendy’s, it’s about
five blocks away from our school.

We could walk there.

This man walks up to our table
and he says, hey, boys, how’s it going?

And it’s Dave Thomas,
founder of Wendy’s and

he wasn’t, she needs
to us because we were

clearly skipping school
and he just sat down

and he actually sat down
on a table next to us.

He goes like, so what
do you guys want to do?

What are you thinking
about and asking about

our lives and stuff and
talk to us like equals?

Or at least it seemed
that way to us at the time

because every other
adult had talked down to us.

So Dave Thomas, founder of Wendy’s is
having a very nice conversation with these.

He goes, you know what?

I’m Dave Thomas, founder of Wendy’s.

Why don’t you go up to the
front, get whatever you boys want.

And we’re 16, 17 year old even
eating machines, we’re like, what?

We’re going to go up and
it like as a joke, we’re like,

we’re going to go up and order
one of everything on the menu.

And Dave Thomas founder of Wendy’s looks
at us and goes, I think you should do that.

And so I think there were
three of us at the time.

I remember me and my
friend Chris were there.

There might have been another guy
with us, but Chris was a football player.

He was gigantic at 16
years old and he could

have eaten the whole menu
two, three times over, no problem.

So we go up to the front
and we say, Dave Thomas,

founder of Wendy’s said
we could get anything

we want off the menu
and the poor staff behind

the place is looking
at us like, if Dave

Thomas founder of Wendy’s says that
at a Wendy’s, that is pretty much true.

So what would you like?

And we’re like, well,
as a joke, we said, we

want one of everything,
which would be two

of everything on the menu to take back
to our table and we’re going to eat it.

And she said, well, if
that’s what Dave Thomas

founder of Wendy said,
that’s what’s going to happen.

So over the course of an hour, they
just brought us food and food and food.

And again, eating
machines, we ate all of it.

And we actually felt like obligated and the
whole time Dave Thomas founder of Wendy’s

was sitting next to
us telling us that we

should, you know, not
in a harsh way, but saying

like, we got to take school
seriously, school is very important.

Dave Thomas, founder of
Wendy’s didn’t finish high school.

He opened his Wendy’s and then
he made this company and then he

finished high school, then he
went to university as an adult.

And so he valued education.

So I, from that
day, it wasn’t a quick

change, but there was
a click, a little switch

or something in my head that had me going,
I’d want to graduate university and I high

school, and I actually, I think
I want to go to university.

And I think if Dave Thomas founder of
Wendy’s hadn’t sat down for basically an hour

or something plus in
an afternoon and just

talked to some high
school boys, I don’t know

if I would have gone to university or not,
I would have done something else, maybe.

I don’t know how my
life would have turned

out, maybe better, maybe
worse, but education

became a valuable thing to me because
of Dave Thomas founder of Wendy.

So when I see this
kind of behavior from

Wendy’s, it makes me
feel less about that fond

memory I have, or like they’re sullying
what Dave Thomas founder of Wendy’s.

Take a shot.

Every time he says
Dave Thomas founder, if I

just say Dave Thomas, Dave
Thomas is a relatively bland name.

It’s like my name,
my actual name.

If you said it, it’s almost has no meaning.

So it has to be Dave
Thomas founder of Wendy’s.

That’s who he is.

He’s Dave Thomas.

He’s not just Dave Thomas.

He’s Dave Thomas founder of Wendy’s.

No, I’ve never said his
name without putting

founder of Wendy’s on it because
that is how he introduced himself.

Hey boys, I’m Dave
Thomas founder of Wendy’s.

Yeah, you could do a drinking game.

If you give me a talk
about Dave Thomas founder

of Wendy’s, I will
always say the entirety

of his title, Dave Thomas
founder of Wendy’s.

There are certain
people that if you say

their name, you want
to say the whole thing.

If I was ever on the Joe Rogan
podcast, I would say Joe Rogan.

I would never say Joe.

I would always be like, hey, Joe Rogan.

I don’t know why.

I don’t even like
particularly like the guy,

but that’s just the reality
is Joe Rogan is Joe Rogan.

He’s never anything
but Joe Rogan.

And Dave Thomas founder of Wendy’s is
always Dave Thomas founder of Wendy’s.

Dave Thomas founder of
Wendy’s proposed surge pricing.

They had like a stockholder call thing.

They’re talking about their profits
and how amazing they are as a company.

They’re trying to get people to
give them more money to invest more.

So this is about stakeholders and
they said we got this a great idea.

We’re going to get these new digital menus
up and these digital menus mean that we can

change the prices very easily,
which means we can do surge pricing.

We can have an algorithm,
some people in place.

They’re going to make sure the
algorithm doesn’t go too crazy.

But when it’s busy, we
can increase the price

when it’s not busy,
we can lower the price.

Now a Baconator,
which I guess is now the

standard Wendy’s fair, is
$12.24 in New York City.

My feeling was surge pricing
always has a floor, but no ceiling.

So they’re always going to get a minimum.

And that minimum right
now is going to be $12.24.

If I go to a Wendy’s
at four o’clock in the

morning, if with this surge pricing,
I could get a Baconator for $12.24.

But if I go during
lunchtime, dinner time, it’s

going to be $13.14, $15, who knows
how much in demand the Baconator is.

But that’s what the surge pricing is.

It means one of the
jokes that was on the

internet was I could
literally be in line and

the Baconator up on
the screen would say $12.

24 for the Baconator
plus a set or something.

And then by the time I got to the
register, the price has changed to $14.

So that put a sort of bit of
into everybody’s, what is it?

Something in your crawl.

I don’t even know what a crawl is.

But there’s another example
of how this doesn’t work.

And it was the Canadian dollar
versus the American dollar.

So I’m Canadian.

I grew up in Canada
and every book in Canada

has the American price
and the Canadian price.

And the Canadian price was always,
let’s say, let’s say it’s a $10 book.

The Canadian price would be, so
it would be $10 US, $12 Canadian.

And you got used to it, $5
book, American, $750, Canadian.

There’s always kind of like
two bucks, something like that.

And they said the reason for this
was because of the dollar exchange rate.

Now, they couldn’t
fluctuate, but they’re

like, we always add
on, let’s say, $2 to the

price of a book for the Canadian exchange
rate so that these people make their money.

I’m not against publishers
or writers making money.

I am against gouging.

Now, the thing is, there
was a very short period.

I think it’s when I was
in university, where

the Canadian dollar surpassed
the value of the American dollar.

I think it lasted for about a week.

And during that week, they
didn’t switch those prices.

It didn’t alternate back and forth.

When the Canadian dollar was
more valuable than the American

dollar, they didn’t lower the
prices of books in Canada.

The only reason I know it was books because
that was like, it stamped on the book.

It’s a constant.

And they didn’t go
into bookstores and like

put a sticker on them all,
making the American price $12.

50 and the Canadian price $10.

No, they just took all that extra
money and tried to run away with it.

And that’s again, where
consumers are cautious

or concerned or see that
surge pricing is price gouging.

And that’s the other thing
that people are actually calling it.

The surge pricing isn’t surge pricing.

It’s price gouging.

What this company, what Wendy’s is hoping
is that because you’ve gotten used to this

idea because of Uber,
you’ve gotten used to

this idea in certain
situations that’s become

normalized enough that they can try it
and you’ll just think it’s a normal thing.

This is something you talk about
like a microtransactions in video games.

When I grew up, there was no such thing.

DLC was already a very suspicious thing.

I bought the DLC for
rock star games for like

Grand Theft Auto games because
that was always worth the money.

But like a lot of DLC was not
worth the money, so I didn’t buy it.

And then microtransactions were introduced.

My kids have grown up with microtransactions
just being part of every game.

So for them, it’s
normalized so they don’t see

it as a disgusting
horrible thing that I do.

I’m very anti microtransaction
because I didn’t grow up without it.

So what they’re hoping
is they can get surge

prices into place and
get people used to them.

When people are used
to them, they won’t

actually question that surge
pricing is actually price gouging.

Only 2% of consumers
consider that dynamic

pricing, which is the
way they actually call

it, is actually just some
form of price gouging.

And like I said, this
is the normalization of

subscription services,
which is the thing I was

complaining about, I don’t
know, maybe two months ago.

The most offensive
version of that right now

is Hewlett Packard
is actually making use,

or wants you to,
subscribe to your printer.

So let me get the details up
and actually read the details.

It’s called the HP all-in-one plan.

It’s essentially an
extension of HP’s instant

ink, so instant ink was
when you subscribe to ink.

So when the printer gets
low, they’ll send you more

ink or they’ll just send
you ink on a regular basis.

It was just the price they’re charging like
per print was actually the bit I was most

shocked by.

You have ink sent to you as
you approach empty, but unlike

it, your monthly fee also
covers the printer itself.

So the HP all-in-one
plan, you get a printer

and ink that you do not own, you are
subscribing to you, essentially renting it.

They started $6.99 per month
for 20 pages worth of prints.

So you can do the math.

I mean, technically
you’re getting the printer

and the prints, but you
only get to print 20 pages.

So there are some
months I would print nothing

at home, but then
there are some months

if I was going to print something,
it’s going to be essentially a book.

The HP envy model, sorry, it goes up
to 30, 30, it goes up to 35.99 a month.

They can get you an office
jet pro and 700 pages of printing.

But if you go over your
page, a lot of my HP

will add more for a dollar
per block of 10 to 15 pages.

So basically, if you print
your maximum and you

go over, you now have
to pay another dollar.

You get like 10 more pages,
20 more pages, that kind of stuff.

So if it’s a busy month, you’re going
to end up accidentally paying more.

That’s fucking disgusting.

I don’t know where printer
companies got the balls to do all this.

Each plan has a two year rental.

So it’s not a lease to own.

So you don’t own it at the end.

So at two years, you have to give it back.

And if you decide HP
only one isn’t for you,

after all, you’ll have
to return the printer

and go back to rubbing
elbows with everyone else at

FedEx or whatever, do
you want your print stunts?

It’s fucking ridiculous.

Because I’m still at that point where when
they want me to buy printer ink, I will

sum like I actually
had this problem where

buying a new printer with ink in it was
cheaper than buying more printer ink.

Where they got the idea that
this was going to work long

term, because it’s actually
worked longer than I expected.

And that’s the bit
that I actually think it

sets me off, is that how
has this gone on for this long?

I want to own a printer.

I barely use it.

I use the scanner a lot
because I’ll scan stuff

in, but again, we’ve
hit this digital point.

And I get, they’re
trying to squeeze out the

last dollars from the
idea of physical printing.

But because they’re
being so aggressive about

it, it actually would
turn me off printing more.

That’s likely to print
from this point going

forward in the hopes that
I don’t need a printer at all.

It’s a whole thing.

There’s software
that runs on printers at

offices to keep people
from printing too much.

Because at my job, I have to, like, when
I print stuff, it’s for a hundred people.

So it’s one sheet for a hundred people
and sometimes it’s two, three sheets.

I have no choice because
we have a hundred employees.

I might have to give stuff to you.

I worked at a school
where instead of giving

out new ink, we just
replaced the printer.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

No, that’s exactly what I mean.

Like, I had a printer
and I could pay, it was

like four, five thousand
yen for replacement ink.

And then I was on
Amazon and it was like three

thousand yen for a
printer with ink in it.

So whenever they tell me,
like, how much it cost to print my

first thought is there’s no
way that’s what it actually costs.

I mean, that might be what you’re being
charged, but that’s not what it costs.

Then the meeting that Wendy’s has, sort
of leaks that we have this dynamic pricing.

We have these new digital
boards up on the wall.

We’re going to be able to change the
prices essentially from a home office.

We’re going to have an algorithm do it.

It’s going to be amazing.

Then that gets out one day later.

They start walking it back and
they start walking it back really hard.

Actually we never said that.

We just wanted, we were just saying
that the boards give us more flexibility.

The flexibility, I assume,
would actually be on the pricing.

The one thing they talked about.

This was misconstrued.

This was misconstrued by media outlets.

We have no plans to
do that, that being the

search pricing, and
would never raise prices

when customers visit
us the most, which is the

most fake corporate
statement I’ve ever heard.

So here’s Wendy’s full statement.

Earlier this month,
we issued our fourth

quarter and full year
2023 earnings results and

included an update on investments
we are making in our digital business.

I was like, “I should do
this in like a regal voice.

” Oh, sorry.

Dave just got it.

Dave just went a little absent on my lab.

Earlier, there’s
two, so if I do this in

different voices, it actually
changes the tone of the message.

I could just read it
normal, but this may

be, I got to try out
some voices and I think

I got to start doing
some voices, especially

because this is primarily
an audio podcast.

It’s actually video
is not a big part of it.

Earlier this month,
we issued our fourth

quarter and full year
of 2023 earnings results

and included an update on investments
we are making in our digital business.

One initiative is digital
menu boards, which

are being added to the US
company-operated restaurants.

We said these menu
boards would give us more

flexibility to change the
display of featured items.

This was misconstrued in some media reports
as an intent to raise prices when demand

is highest at our
restaurants, it was ridiculous.

If I read that same thing in a hillbilly
voice, it actually sounds way more sincere.

So that’s the first thing he said is like,
“Hey, when we said we could change stuff

on the board, we weren’t
talking about prices

even though we did definitely
say dynamic pricing in that call.

” That’s not what
we were talking about.

We were talking about the things
we wanted to display, promote upfront.

We would never, we would never as a large
corporation, large corporations don’t think like that.

When people come to us most, we want to be
most generous with them and hear the thing.

Dave Thomas founder
of Wendy’s probably would

think that way because
I believe Dave Thomas

founder of Wendy’s is a good guy because I
met him, I spent time with him, very short

time, he had me ensnared in his, his loving
gaze, he, he made me want to be Wendy.

But back to our, uh, sycophans, we have no
plans to do that and we’d never, we’d never

never know what to raise prices
when our customers are visiting us most.

Any features we may
test in the future would

be designed to benefit
our customers and

restaurant crew members,
never us or the shareholders

or stockholders or
investments or anything like that.

Those people are disgusting.

Digital menu boards
could allow us to change

the menu offerings
at different times of

day and offer discounts
when value offers to

our customers more easily,
particularly in the slower times of day.

We would never raise prices when it’s busy.

And we would only
lower when it’s not that

busy ensnared in Dave
Thomas founder of Wendy’s gaze.

Yeah, I might actually
end up writing that book.

They did the, the KFC romance novel.

I still want to actually kind of get a copy
of that and read it, but Wendy’s has always

been about providing high quality food,
already a lie, the food is pretty rank.

The only reason I went
there is again because

of my fondness for the
men and the reminiscence

and the memory that I
have and frosties, frosties.

I don’t know what’s in them.

It’s probably just sand and ice
cream, but they are awesome.

Have you played?

I love you, Colonel Sanders.

I have seen it.

I have not played it.

I should play it probably
Wendy’s has always

been about providing
high quality food at

great value and customers continue to
expect that from our brand conclusion.

Always be suspicious of companies.

That statement cannot
be taken at face value.

That statement cannot be taken
at face value because he is lying.

He is lying because
consumers were angry and

he didn’t want Wendy’s to
look bad and lose market share.

That’s the only thing
that matters, but it does

demonstrate that
consumers do have a certain

amount of power that they
probably don’t think they have.

Not going to Wendy’s, punishes
Wendy’s for practices we don’t like.

Not buying things, punishes
companies we don’t like.

I have said I did it podcast years and
years ago and was about how to break telecom

corporations and
essentially the concept was,

I don’t remember the
name, there’s two big

ones in America and Canada, they have two
companies that basically split between West

and East and they’re
technically not monopoly

because they don’t
cover the whole country,

but obviously it’s two
companies that essentially

price match, so they’re always charging
the same so you can’t get a better deal.

Anyways, a giant
telecom, if everyone would

commit, there you go,
tell us is the example

I will use, tell us is
a giant telecom, if

everyone, and everyone
would commit to going

a week without internet
without phone service.

So we just choose a
week in the year, maybe a

holiday, something like that, a
really inconvenient time for them.

Everyone start canceling
their service during

the same week and I don’t mean like a bunch
of people, I mean literally everybody.

They would start
changing their price to get

everyone back as quickly
as possible and they

make it sound like it’s
impossible, they make

it sound like they can’t
make improvements,

they make it sound like the network
can’t be upgraded or something like that.

The amount of service,
the amount of discount

they would put forward to get you to not
quit, once they hit a 30, 40% loss rate of

customers, like we don’t
even have to get everybody

is just as that number
climbs up day to day, as

people see the momentum,
they would change prices.

This story shows,
nothing actually happened,

they said, hey, we’re looking at dynamic
pricing, surge pricing, people were like,

fuck Wendy’s, Wendy’s
is fucking disgusting,

the next day they’re
in there going, oh no,

we never said that,
the pions misunderstood,

the media outlets lie
to, we at Wendy’s, we

are trustworthy because
we do not cut corners.

That’s the thing, when they have square
patties, Wendy’s we don’t cut corners.

Be aware, I went, fuck,
I should just end there,

I don’t, I don’t have a
conclusion conclusion,

but we can’t fuck
companies, but the thing

is we need to fuck
companies together, which

sounds really dirty, but that’s
maybe dirty is where we need to be.

[MUSIC]

[BLANK_AUDIO]

(upbeat music)

• So last week I talked about
  how I enjoy Senate hearings.

My immediate thought was like, whoa,
I’m a boring person who does boring things

and I have a boring life.

But then I think anything
that pretends to be one thing

and then is another thing.

I sort of an inherent entertainment to it.

As you scrape away the layers
of the onion and try to find

the truth therein, this week
they did a Senate hearing

and it was the CEOs of
social media companies

and it was supposed
to be a harming children.

And this was to me,
pretty significant issue.

This is an important thing.

If social media is found
as be harming children,

should be protected, I
think that’s a pretty fair thing.

I immediately thought about how, if,

you really wanted to
turn this whole Senate

hearing on its head,
the first step would be,

if a social media company is responsible
for a child’s harm, as a result of these,

a host of media, this
primarily online bullying.

So kids use a social media
site to bully another kid,

that other kid harms themselves, the
social media company is responsible.

If we take that, that
was the Senate’s stance

in the way they were
primarily attacking these CEOs.

I don’t have a lot of sympathy for CEOs.

If you’ve listened to a
bunch of the most recent

Seamick bees, I’m not
a pro-CEO kind of guy.

I don’t mind if these guys
get their comeuppance.

But I also have the same
feeling towards politicians.

So I was like, first thought is, how do
I turn the Senate hearing on its head?

If the CEO of a social
media company is responsible

for the harm committed by
a user towards another user,

would not therefore then,
would not then therefore,

would not therefore, a
gun manufacturer president,

be responsible for the
harm of a gun being caused

by one user towards, in a very broad
sense, the end user of the weapon.

Now, ’cause most of
the people attacking this

were Republicans and they’re
very pro-gun anti-social media.

It’s an interesting dichotomy

because if social media is
dangerous, guns are dangerous.

And then one is more
viscerally factual sort of

in your face because
what they’re talking about

is the possibility to get harm
and mental wellness and stuff.

They’re suddenly
pretending to care about that.

It’s interesting,
whenever they try to argue

against gun control, they
talk about mental health.

Mental health in America would
fall under the purview of socialism

because it would have to
be a government program.

Suppose states could do it,
but then it would still be like,

taxes go towards the health care of people.

They need to come a long way
before they can resolve that dichotomy.

I don’t think I use the word
dichotomy correctly anymore.

I think I just use it
whenever I mean something

that doesn’t agree
with something else.

That might be the correct definition.

I had a couple cocktails at lunch.

Had a bad day at work yesterday.

Came home, had a couple cocktails.

We woke up, did a news
news Japan completely sober.

If you listen to the two episodes,

you probably might notice
a difference in the way I talk.

One, I’m now leaning way
forward into the microphone

in my eyes or about half open right now.

Whereas in the news Japan, I’m fully aware

and trying to try to try
to actually do a good job.

Not to say I’m not trying
to do a good job now.

I just don’t care as much.

I kind of wanted to just
talk about happy stuff.

No, whatever.

So what I actually was
interested in in this Senate hearing

is how the Senate
hearing is about child safety

and how little they
talk about child safety.

They really ran Zuckerberg
through the ringer on

this one, which I found
that kind of interesting.

But we get to Mr. Chu,
he’s the CEO of TikTok.

And I kind of like this guy.

I don’t know if TikTok is good or bad.

I’m pretty sure it’s bad.

I think all these things are bad.

But I think of the tech CEOs, I
don’t know if he’s the best one,

but he’s probably the smartest one

or the one I would most be
amenable to speaking with.

It’s very hard to say.

This is the way he handles himself
and these things is interesting.

So I thought it’d be
interesting if we went through

just a couple of minutes of the
most famous bits of testimony

that have absolutely
nothing to do with child safety.

I think they then had the
lawsuit and it was overturned.

I can’t remember that.

No, no, it’s the other kind of– Biden
administration that reversed those sanctions

just like, by the way, they
reversed the terrorist designation

on the Houthis and Yemen.

How’s that working
out for them? Do enjoy.

So this is Senator
Khan, he’s a Republican.

He has now taken one
issue unrelated to child safety.

Connected it to a second separate,
unrelated issue to child safety

to try to take a shot at
the Biden administration.

Not a terrible thing to do.

I mean, again, I don’t really have
any feelings one way or the other,

but none of what was just said
has anything to do with child safety.

But it was sanctioned as a
Chinese Communist military company.

So that’s interesting
because this is the opening

of the door to where he’s
going because he wants to.

Just like in the last hearing,
they wanted to prove that,

I think, ByteDance was a
member since a Chinese company

that then equates to TikTok,
which I believe they’re partners

or ones like them, but the
parent company or something.

TikTok is basically based in Singapore.

Mr. Chu is based in Singapore.

He’s Singaporean.

But they desperately want
to connect him to China

so they can then say that TikTok
is a Chinese communist conspiracy,

something like that.

And then they can attack him on that front
still has nothing to do with child safety.

So you said today, as you often
say, that you live in Singapore,

you said today as you often
say you live in Singapore,

it’s going to be surprisingly
self-evident as to where someone lives.

Because it’s going to be the
place that go to most often.

I would say that is pretty much
the definition of where you live.

So it’s not like a supposedly,
it’s not like a possibility.

And I am what I want is the person
who’s being haranged on one of these

Senate hearings to talk back or explain
what the disingenuous senators are doing

and see how they react,
because if you pointed it

out, I think again, this
puts it all on display.

Really, all these Senate hearings are
about let’s make speeches on behalf of my

party to try and gain political points.

They don’t often seem to be
trying to solve any actual problems.

Of what nation are you a citizen?

Pretty self-evident.

You would actually know that
going into this if you were smart.

Singapore is it?

Are you a citizen of any other nation?

No, Senator, have you ever
applied for Chinese citizenship?

Senator, I serve my nation as Singapore.

No, I did not.

So that’s pretty definitive.

He says he served his nation.

What he’s actually saying is that Singapore
has two years mandatory military service.

He’s done military
service in Singapore.

Korea has the same thing as a few
other countries that have the same thing.

It’s a pretty significant commitment
if you literally go into the military

for your country and then to turn around an
accused of being a Chinese communist agent.

I mean, I’m not to say
it’s impossible, but Mr.

Cotton, the Republican representative
here, he’s stuck with thinking that if he

keeps asking directed
questions that eventually

Chu will make a mistake,
but Mr. Chu is not.

He’s just going to say no, even
if he’s lying, even if it’s not true.

He’s smart enough to go,
no, I’m not a Chinese citizen.

Do you have a Singaporean passport?

Yes, and I served my military for two, two
and a half years since you have any other,

do you have any other
passport from any other nation?

No, Senator, your wife is an American
citizen, your children are American citizens.

That’s correct.

Have you ever applied
for American citizenship?

Not, no, not yet.

See, Mr. Cotton believes that, you
know, everyone wants to be American.

Everyone given the opportunity
would become American.

He doesn’t realize there’s a broader
view in the world that maybe the American

passport isn’t quite as valuable
as you might think of me.

Okay.

That okay, I love.

I’m finding that one of the more
satisfying aspects of this whole thing.

Okay.

I asked you a bunch of questions.

You said no to all of them.

Pretty pretty effective deflection.

I wasn’t ready for that.

I actually kind of want to go
back and hear that little, okay again.

Not, no, not yet.

Okay.

Have you ever been a member
of the Chinese Communist Party?

Even if he was, he knows enough.

He’s smart enough to say no.

Senator, I’m single poet, no.

Have you ever been associated or affiliated
with the Chinese Communist Party?

No, Senator, again, I’m single poet.

Let me ask you some hopefully
simple questions you said earlier.

In the thing, if you’re
listening to the audio version,

Mr. Chu, the CEO of TikTok, is
basically laughing at this point.

He’s like, this is ridiculous.

How do you keep saying like, you’re saying
vaguely different things in the hopes

that at one point I’ll
mess up and go, yes, I am.

Oh, no, no, no, no, no.

You’ve gotten me, I’m a communist.

And there’s foster question that what
happened at Tiananmen Square in June of 1989

was a massive protest.

Anything else happened in Tiananmen Square?

Yes, I think it’s well documented.

It was a method.

I love that.

I think it’s well documented.

Like, we all know what happened, even
though it’s like Chinese state media leaked

that we all know what happened in
Tiananmen Square, it’s well documented.

So he was really hoping
he would deny the massacre.

And he just comes out
and says there’s a massacre.

Tim and Square in June,
Chinese Communist Party.

No, Senator, again, nice thing to play.

Let me ask you some hopefully
simple questions you said earlier.

Hopefully simple questions.

The sarcasm that
everyone puts on is amazing.

I actually think that is one of the reasons
I enjoy Senate hearings is because these

guys do sarcasm, but they’re
not actually good at sarcasm.

In response to their
question, that what

happened at Tiananmen
Square in June of 1989

was a massive protest.

Anything else happened in Tiananmen Square?

Yes, I think it’s well documented.

It was a massacre.

There was an indiscriminate
slaughter of hundreds or thousands.

So, Mr. Chu has just said there was a
massacre and he’s trying to reiterate it.

Like he didn’t just say that.

Let me ask you this.

Joe Biden last year said
that Xi Jinping was a dictator.

Do you agree with Joe
Biden as Xi Jinping a dictator?

Senator, I’m not going to
comment on any world leaders.

It is interesting that he says he
will not disparage any world leader.

And he’s not going to
disparage any world leader

because that would
actually make it harder

for him to sell his product,
TikTok in this case, in that country.

And he’s not going to
cut off a billion potential

customers to satisfy
one senator in America.

Now on to lighter news.

I don’t know if this has
turned into a new show.

I don’t really know what I’m doing anymore.

Since I’ve had cocktails,
this is kind of drunk news.

I had some, you know, good stuff set up.

I’m wondering if I’m doing a disservice
by doing it in this state of mind.

If I should just talk about
something else that’s a bit sillier.

This.

Fuck me, it’s science fiction, it’s
science fiction and it’s terrifying.

A Chinese lab has created a
mutation of the coronavirus.

It’s called gx_p2v.

Already, what the fuck, guys, come on.

You have the
coronavirus and you’re like,

let’s, let’s mutate that
and see what we can do.

I mean, they’re, I understand
they’re not going to go as

simplistic as just straight
up calling it the T virus.

But why would you make a new
mutated strain of coronavirus?

The more terrifying aspect
of this new mutated strain

of coronavirus that they
created in this Chinese lab

was it causes 100% death in humanized mice.

So then we get to the second, what the
fuck, what the fuck are humanized mice?

Are we killing Stuart Little?

Is Stuart Little running around in a
little, little cage and then the Chinese

scientist coming up and like,
hey, we have this new coronavirus.

Would you like to take it and
Stuart Little being innocent,

goes, oh yes, I’d love
to help out and then they

give it to him and then he gets sick
and dies because it has a 100% death rate.

Why would you want to create
a virus with a 100% death rate?

This is bad science fiction
writing science fiction.

Like when they talk
about anything in science

fiction, they always
has to, it has to be like

perfect 100% murder death stuff.

T virus infects 98% or
99% of the people and

they turn into zombies
and then in like few

1% mutate into a higher
species or something.

That’s not a good idea.

I mean, from any aspect
scientifically, it’s not a good idea.

Economically, it’s not a good idea.

If you’re a company
president, it’s not a good idea.

Don’t, don’t do that.

Stuart Little, I have to think, I actually
have no problem with killing Stuart Little.

Stuart Little is a piece
of shit and I hope he dies.

The reason though is back
when I was young, I went

to San Jose and I went,
I flew down to San Jose

from Vancouver for a job fair and I
actually been lied to by a recruiter.

So the recruiter said, come on
down, we’ll be able to get you a job.

Of course it’s not that simple.

So I fly on down, call the recruiter,
I’m like, I’m here and they’re like, what?

I’m like, I’m here.

You said, if I came down,
you’d be able to get me a job.

Recruiter then just ghosts me.

So I’m going around San
Jose trying to find something,

but the level of depression
is super deep at this point.

Then the second day, I’m only in
there, I’m only in San Jose for like three,

four days because I’m supposed to be
in my mind doing a series of interviews

like day after day after
day, did not happen.

The second day there’s a
chemical plant that has a leak.

The chemical leak, we
get a message with the

motel, not fancy hotel
stuff because I’m poor.

We get a message in the motel that we’re
not really allowed to go outside anymore.

So I have to stay inside a motel.

Now this is back when HBO was
a new channel, HBO at that time.

Basically for about 24 hours, we would
put on two or three movies on repeat.

So within the order of 26, 30, 40 hours, I
don’t know, however long I was essentially

locked in that room so that I wouldn’t go
outside into the toxic wasteland that was

America and get poisoned to death,
I watch Stuart Little multiple times.

Weirdly, I can remember very
few details about Stuart Little.

I don’t know a lot about
what happened Stuart

Little despite the fact
that I can honestly say

I’ve seen it at least four
times, probably five or six.

I know that my brain
has reorganized itself.

So I’ve put a block on the
time that Stuart Little existed.

So as far as I’m concerned, Stuart
Little is only pain, it’s only suffering.

Stuart Little, if it had never existed, I
think my life would be better somehow.

So I blame weirdly Stuart
Little for most of my problems.

But back to China, GX
underscore two P2V, a corona

related virus found in a
Malaysian Panagolins in 2017.

So they’re hunting
around, they find panagolins.

These are these cute little
bird things from correct.

Actually, I’m going to look that up to
make sure I’m not just talking at my butt.

My butt does do a lot of talking though.

Sorry, it’s a little armadillo-like thing.

So I need to back up.

In 2017, I thought they were little birds.

In 2017, these Chinese scientists
found in Malaysian Panagolins, a new virus.

And they’re like, we’re
going to take that virus.

It’s like a cousin to corona virus.

We’re going to mutate
it, fuck with it a little bit.

And we’re going to
make it so that it kills

every humanized mouse
it ever encounters 100%.

And then we’re going to make it the freakiest
fucking science fiction we can make.

All infected mice died within eight days.

Why are you hunting for
armadillo-like animals and

extracting stuff and trying to
see what viruses they have?

Why?

This is maybe a question of science.

There are lots of things
that I can understand.

Why do we do something?

It seems difficult to comprehend
to the average lame in like myself.

I’m a lame and I don’t
understand a lot of stuff.

I’m kind of dumb.

Let’s find new viruses
and mess around with them

so that they are
designed to kill everybody.

Seems like bad science.

It’s, again, I think we’ve
gotten to the bad guy

in a James Bond film
level of ridiculousness.

When we’ve hit that stage.

All infected humanized
mice still freaks me

out every time I say that
word humanized mouse.

Died within eight days.

Their eyes became completely
white the day before they died.

Which is literally the most
science fiction shit you can get.

It’s almost like the Chinese government
went to these scientists who were like,

find a disease that is the most sci-fi
thing horror movie shit you could ever find.

And make it real.

Why? Again, nothing.

I don’t know.

There is a gentleman, a Francois Balois.

He’s the University College of
London Genetics Institute said,

“I can see nothing of value or interest
that could be learned from force infecting a

weird breed of humanized
mice with a random virus.

” Now, when I say it, it doesn’t
have a great deal of impact.

This guy, it does.

He, he, he studies this stuff.

He’s dead serious about viruses
and he’s like, I don’t see the point.

When I say I don’t see the point,
you’re like, well, chunk, read, chest.

You’re too stupid to see the point.

Why can I actually have it backed up this
time by saying, no, this guy, Francois.

He doesn’t see the point.

Me and Francois were on
the same page and he’s smart.

Conversely, I could see
how such stuff might go

wrong, which is the most apocalyptic
statement a geneticist could make.

And then this, this severely
fuels the conspiracy theory.

So like I heard about all the theories at
the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic,

that it was a virus designed to kill off
old people to stem the aging population

in China or Japan or something like that.

That it was designed
to kill people to a degree.

If you have a disease and now you’ve made
it that it’s 100% fatal to humanized mice,

it’s really fueling that
conspiracy theory a little bit more.

And you might, just as a general
thing, maybe just PR, not want to do that.

Feel bad stories.

Maybe that’s where we are today.

The other story that caught my interest
this week was a 40 year old English man.

It was in Thailand, you
know what, 48 year old

English man in Thailand
do, they have a good time.

So he’s living the life.

And then of course like
every 48 year old man

who doesn’t have a job and is
just in Thailand, he ran out of money.

So he calls up his family and he says,
hey, can you send me more money?

His family’s like, fuck off.

That’s the short version.

I don’t know how the
actual conversation went,

but I’m betting it was
something either British.

So piss off might have been
more the phraseology they chose.

So of course what he
did was just packed it up

and he went home and
he got a job and he lived

a quiet life or he could
do something more exciting.

He could pretend he got kidnapped and then
it tried to extort his family for money.

Now before I continue
with the story, can you

think of all the ways
this could go wrong?

Because I did reading
the title of the article.

I was like, I can see how
this does not work out for him.

Because if you are a 48 year old man and
you spend your time in Thailand partying,

you haven’t really sort
of set a stabilized aspect

of your life so that you look
towards future consequences.

That’s what I’m going to say.

I’m going to predict that for this man.

He really committed to the plan though.

And that’s actually something I
complain about criminals on the industry.

Not committing to the
plan or not following through.

We’re not doing all the things.

This guy, he did it.

So he has three friends and he has those
three friends beat the shit out of him.

So he has bruises and stuff all his face.

If you’re one of these
guys friends, this is

probably the best night
you’ve had in a while.

It’s like, hey, we got this guy.

He’s in the friend group.

I don’t know if he’s a
friend, but he’s in the

friend group and he
just literally asked us.

To beat the shit out of him.

So he looks like he’s been kidnapped and I
would be like, you know what? I’m on board.

I’m going to call Dave.

I’m going to call everyone else.

We’re going to show up.

We’re going to beat this guy.

It’s going to be a great night.

We’re going to have cocktails after them.

Then they need deposes gangsters
and demand money for his release.

So they do some FaceTime videos.

They record some videos.

They send to his family
of him looking beat up

with guys in the
background saying he’s been

kidnapped, send money or
they’re going to finish them off.

The family does what I would consider
the most logical and obvious next step,

which our gentleman friend, the
hero of the story, had not considered.

They called the police.

The police then call Interpol
because this is an international

police issue because it’s
between multiple countries.

Interpol.

I don’t know enough
about them in real life, but

I know what I’ve seen in movies
and they do not fuck around.

Actually, most of the Interpol
movies are a bit ridiculous.

So I bet that’s not very realistic.

I spend a lot of, they spend
probably a lot of time on

computers, following money
trails and stuff like that.

But realistically, when Interpol says we
need a SWAT team strike team or something,

I bet they get what they
want and it’s pretty hardcore.

So the family is called the police.

The Interpol then track
him down at a hotel.

They don’t say what that means.

I would be interested
to know what that means.

Maybe he’s credit card
where he was staying.

They have a strike
team and breach the door.

Now, when you use the word breach,
as opposed to break down or kick in,

you know there was a small explosive
involved, which again, I do love.

I love that how far this has gotten
out of hand with him, not even realizing.

At this point, the
guys in the room, he

thinks my family’s going
to send money any day

now and we’re going to be able
to keep partying for however long.

And then I’ll just do it again.

I’ll just recycle my kidnapping scheme.

My family keeps sending money.

They’ll never catch on because
he thinks there is dumb as he is.

The police breach the door.

They do not find him kidnapped.

They find him drinking and doing
drugs with the supposed kidnappers.

Who are all his friends?

The arrests are going
to include illegal firearms.

So the ex-ed guns, which is surprising,
illegal ammunition, a variety of drugs,

possession of drugs, doing
drugs, whatnot, and expired visas.

Most likely he’s actually just
going to get deported to the UK.

The interesting thing to me is now
to think about the aftermath of this.

So he’s been deported to the,
so he’s faked his kidnapping.

He’s been arrested by
Interpol who’s probably

going to charge him,
if not for a crime,

for the money that it costs to, you
know, get the strike team and save him

from his fake kidnapping.

He has to go home to
his family because I’m

going to guarantee this guy
doesn’t have his own place.

He doesn’t have a job. He doesn’t
have, he’s not taking care of himself.

He was using other people’s money to
go party in Thailand. He’s 48 years old.

He’s not got a
handle on his life.

He’s not, you know, figured
out how the world works,

especially because he thought
this scheme would work in 2024.

I’m trying to imagine.

I don’t know his family, the first
night home where he’s having dinner.

Realistically, they should probably
disown him and not let him in,

but they’ve obviously like fostered
this kind of behavior in the past.

So I actually bet he comes home for dinner
that night, which is just off the chain.

This is like just buck wild stuff.

Now, yeah, I mean, conclusion.
I didn’t write a conclusion.

Doing multiple stories, I want a
conclusion that ties them all together.

So this is going
to be a new skill.

I’m going to have to work on, and I
shouldn’t work on it on four drinks.

Let’s put it that way.

Senate hearings need to be
focused on the actual issue at hand.

Don’t make viruses
that are going to kill

everybody on the planet and
don’t fake your own kidnapping.

Is that where I am? That’s
a very weird place to be.

And here we are. This is where we are
in the world. So having heard that though,

at least you know
you can do better.

And if you’re feeling like
you’re not doing a good job,

you didn’t fake your
own kidnapping this week.

You didn’t create a virus that could
potentially kill the entire planet this week.

And you didn’t do a
fucking weird Senate hearing

where you didn’t even
focus on the issues this

week when you were just
like political grandstanding.

You woke up and you
did your job and you

tried to be a good person and you tried
to live your life. And I appreciate you.

I don’t appreciate senators who
are just political grandstanding.

I don’t appreciate
scientists who are

creating megaviruses
that are in kill everybody.

And I don’t appreciate
fake kidnappings.

It’s a really, today’s
topic is kind of

discourse, and how
discourse is changing, and also

God.

But we’ll get to that.

That’s the second part.

There’s two stories.

One is there’s been
a study of some of the

language that’s being
used in climate denial

arguments, and it’s a
new kind of discourse.

So it used to be climate
change is not real.

Climate change is not
man-made, it’s just a natural thing.

Nothing to worry about, just keep going
on with the status quo, everything is fine.

The obvious changes
in the actual climate,

climate disasters being
more frequent in the

stuff, have made it
very hard to actively

dispute the reality, the
facts of climate change.

In my lifetime, I have seen the
difference, the effects of climate change.

It is hotter in the summer,
the summer is lasting longer.

It is winter shorter, but it’s actually
much colder for a shorter period of time.

It’s actually funny because before climate
change, I forget what they called it.

Global warming, when
they were calling it

global warming, every
winter, some news anchor

from a conservative
channel would make a joke

about, “Moo, where’s
global warming now today?”

But actually, the colder winter snap is a
result of more extreme weather changes, and

so that always just to me
demonstrated how dumb they were.

The Center for
Countering Digital Hate, I

originally wrote down
as the Center for Digital

Hate, not a group you
want to be involved with.

The Center for Countering
Digital Hate did an

analysis of the way people are
trying to dispute climate change.

Now, actually since 2023, so instead of
saying climate change isn’t real, what they

do is deny the benefits
of clean energy, so

they’re saying like solar power doesn’t
give you as much energy as you want.

Wind power is ineffective because
the wind isn’t blowing all the time.

The benefits of clean
energy don’t outdo the

current benefits of the
system we have in place.

They will attack
policy, they’ll attack

governmental policy,
saying that this policy doesn’t

address all the issues,
and this is actually

the bit that struck me
why this became something

that I was thinking about, because what
they’re saying a lot is this policy makes

a small change, that
small change doesn’t fix

the entire problem,
therefore why make that

change at all, let’s just keep
everything going the way it is right now.

It’s the core argument of if you cannot fix
100% of the problem immediately, then there

is no point in trying to fix the problem
at all, because we can’t fix the problem.

So there is no incremental
change or benefits that can be done.

The other way is to malign
scientists and advocates.

And this has now become 70% of the
denial content on YouTube since 2023.

So they’re no longer attacking
climate change as a thing.

They’re attacking the scientists and the
people who talk about it in positive terms.

They talk about it in terms of government
policy and how it’s not effective enough.

They talk about it in terms of clean
energy and how that’s not effective enough.

So there is no benefit to actually doing
those things in the first place, renewable.

This is actually
interesting because what it

does, it gets around one
of the policy guidelines

of YouTube and a
lot of these big social

websites, what they say
is if you say something

that is factually incorrect,
they’re going to take it down.

So if you come out and
you say climate change

is not real, that
YouTube is then obligated

by their own terms and services to actually
take down that video, whereas if I say this

policy is not good and
it won’t make enough

change and it won’t do all the things
I like, that gets to say on YouTube.

So this is not, this
actually has a dual purpose.

It keeps your videos up and it still kind
of attacks the issue of climate change, but

without actually
attacking it directly so

you don’t get, you
know, there’s no violation

so you can keep your voice
active, maybe is what I want to say.

Renewable energy
generally is now basically

cheaper than fossil fuel,
something interesting

that I learned, if we
had stayed on the path

of nuclear power, so
we had seven mile island,

kind of turned America off a lot of nuclear
energy and then we had Fukushima, which

is made Japan a
little, but if all countries

had maintained the
progress in nuclear energy,

we wouldn’t be having
a climate crisis right

now because overall nuclear
energy is cleaner than the alternatives.

And I think if we kept
up with our engineering

practices and safety
standards, I actually

think that would have
been the thing that makes,

because Fukushima,
that power plant that failed

was about 60 years old and it hadn’t
been really upgraded in any real way.

If they had continued
to upgrade, I mean this

is me, you’re going
to put money into it,

but if they put modern
engineering practices

into place, I think it
would have survived

without a meltdown,
without any problems at all.

I have a lot of faith in
engineering, something

I don’t know anything,
it seems like magic

to me the way engineers
can make things work

and that’s something
I have a lot of faith

and that engineers can
fix problems if you let them.

Now, often letting
them fix problems is

expensive, but if it means
no nuclear meltdowns

in the future and we no longer
have to even think about the

climate crisis, that seems
like a pretty good deal to me.

Of course, I’m not a policy
maker, I don’t have any money.

So they had now, then
they did a survey in America

of 1,000 teenagers and
30% of teens because

they get a lot of their information
from TikTok and YouTube now.

Say that climate policy
does more harm than good.

So the one that’s
famous right now is the

Green New Deal because
it has kind of a catchy

name and people can say it very quickly.

And what they’re
saying is the Green New

Deal, if we do that,
it will actually damage

the world in the future
more than not doing it.

Yeah, I’m not attacking that part directly.

So Jay just said the
problem is that it would

take money away from oil
companies and that’s a big no-no.

All right, I’m not even talking
about oil companies directly.

I’m actually talking about the way
people are attacking the arguments.

So it’s the discourse is what
I’m actually trying to get into.

There was a Senate hearing, I
was watching a Senate hearing.

This is how you know
I’m a party dude because

I just said I was
watching a Senate hearing.

I was actually, I was watching bits of it.

I don’t watch whole Senate hearings.

I’m not that bad.

You can tell I’m
getting up in years when

Senate hearings are
vaguely interesting to me.

And it was about, they had some people who
were in renewable energy and this one woman

was very anti-plastics, she said
we should basically stop using plastic.

And it was the way they
spoke back and forth.

It was almost disingenuous on both sides.

This is something I found very interesting.

I don’t actually understand
the point of Senate

hearings anymore because
what they do is they

come out and they make a statement and they
badger the person and they shout at them.

And they don’t ever actually ask
a question and wait for an answer.

This is all just a show.

And the show is, hey,
listen to me, I’m making

this person look bad, not
actually dealing with the issue.

This was the start of the bit.

I was very interested in it.

She want to end all plastic manufacturing.

So that’s it.

The first question.

Do you want to end all
plastic manufacturing?

And the answer is going to be yes, but it,
he’s going to say, like I already, without

even seeing the rest of it, I
actually know what’s going to happen.

She’s going to say yes, I do want
to end all plastic manufacturing.

He’s going to go, well, that’s impossible.

We can’t do that and
she’s going to say, you

know, we could try
or we could start or we

could use less plastic and he’s
going to go, everything’s plastic.

We can’t like I mean, if we look at my desk
right now, keyboard is plastic, microphone

is plastic, web cameras,
plastic, the monitors,

plastic, the computer
has plastic in it.

Yes, plastic isn’t everything.

That doesn’t mean we can’t
transition away from it in some way.

The Senate hearing,
what he’s saying is

basically if you do not
give me a 100 complete

full solution immediately,
then there is no

point than even
furthering this conversation.

And again, I don’t even
need to watch the rest of it.

I’ve seen parts of this clip, but I don’t
need to watch it to know what they’re going

to say because I’ve now watched enough
Senate hearing to know what they’re doing.

He’s, they’re holding people to a standard
where you have to come up with a perfect

complete solution or
you have no solution at all.

So the idea of let’s use less
plastic bottles isn’t enough.

If let’s use less plastic
overall, let’s use lighter plastic.

Let’s inject air into the
plastic we use so that the

plastic is lighter and we
use less plastic overall.

That’s not enough because it
doesn’t erase plastic completely.

So we’re listening to
a bit of this and then

again, I’ve already said I
know I’ve seen bits of it.

And I already know,
but I knew as soon as he

opened his mouth and
said that first sentence,

I knew where this was
going because this is the

quality of discourse
we get in congressional

hearings and Senate hearings and it’s part
of what they’re attacking on the internet.

They’re using this kind of argument.

I don’t know if it’s
an argument in fallacy

that has a name it probably
does, but I just don’t know it.

But essentially it’s
saying if you do not, you

can’t do anything in
stages or transitional,

you have to do everything
in a complete 100% or zero.

There’s no like one, two,
three, four percent improvement.

She want to end all plastic manufacturing.

I said the plastic
industry must be stopped.

So does that mean end
plastic manufacturing?

I mean in my dream world’s shore.

So there you go.

He’s saying he wants you to make a definitive
statement and plastic manufacturing.

She said, yeah, in my dream
world, she’s more reasonable.

She understands that we’re not
going to get rid of plastic tomorrow.

We’re not just going to shut down
every plastic company in the world.

And then he’s going to
go on the offensive and

say, I know it in this
case he actually says

your glasses are made of plastic
and that bottle’s made of plastic.

He starts explaining like how
much plastic is in the world.

She knows.

I mean, she knows how
much plastic is in the world.

But I think that um, oh, oh, God.

So I don’t mean to be kind of sitting here.

I just point out what I don’t
mean to be condescending

here, but he’s absolutely
being condescending

because he’s talking
to her like she’s a child

because again, he’s going
to hold her to a standard.

He would never hold himself to whenever he
is tasked with coming up with a solution.

He probably doesn’t come up
with a 100% complete solution.

I mean, if you want
to start talking about

politics, there are standards
that need to be put into place.

Like I actually think a retirement
age, I’ve said this a bunch of times now.

I don’t know if I’m
just like beating a drum.

Both Trump and Biden are in their late
70s and going to be in their early 80s.

Why are these men even
up for running the country?

If the government decides
that they’re retirement

age 65, then politicians should
have to be have to retire by 65.

If politicians then
decide to move up the

retirement age, then it should be
across the board and they can stay on.

But you have to be, I think it’s
30 or 35 to become president.

That’s the minimum.

There should be a maximum.

Like that just seems self evident.

If you cannot complete your
tasks, you should be fired.

The problem I think
in American politics,

politics, probably all
over the place, is that

a lot of places you cannot remove
politicians who aren’t doing their job.

So if you do not come to an agreement within
a set deadline, you all lose your job.

And I bet deadlines get met really quickly
in every branch of government everywhere.

Because people don’t
want to lose their jobs.

This is their power and they
want to hold onto that power.

So I think most recently
at the end of America,

they’ve been talking about
government shutdown.

Again, this is something
that’s come up in the

past and they don’t want
to come to agreement

because the conservatives want a government
shutdown to make the liberals look bad.

But I would actually say, if you guys don’t
come to an agreement, you’re all fired and

then bring in a whole new group and
they make it seem like that’s impossible.

It’s not.

Like you could always
have someone second,

third, and row and they just like move
up and then, okay, you guys are out.

You don’t get reelected.

You don’t get to run
for re-election if you’ve

lost your position in
power and government.

That would change the
dynamics of what government is.

I bet a lot of people
wouldn’t want it anymore

because they’d be
held to a standard that

they wouldn’t be used
to because they’d actually

have to get things done
within a certain time frame.

But I, sorry, back to this.

That was all just a tangent about
how to make government work.

I think I watched some rich guy say it.

There are smart rich guys.

There was this rich guy and he said,
like, I could fix the budget in a month.

And he’s like, basically just fire
everyone if they don’t fix the budget.

And I was like, that would work.

They would come to a plan to
improve things and it wouldn’t be 100%.

It would be transitional
and it would be step

by step in stages and we’re going to
improve this and we’re going to fix this.

And that would be it.

And again, this is what this man in this
hearing is demanding of this woman, give me

a 100% complete
solution to replace all

plastic in the world
right now, or you have no

argument that you can make
here in front of me right at all.

And if she had called him out on
that, I think it would be interesting.

I don’t see a lot of these
congressional hearings

where the person
being spoken to actually

makes a claim as to
what’s being done to them.

I watched the TikTok hearings.

I was very interested in that.

He was clearly smarter
than everyone in that

room when it came to
computers and phones

and apps and all this
other stuff and he would

say stuff and they
just didn’t understand.

I mean, that was just
the first actual breaking

communication is he
would say things that

they clearly just didn’t
understand what he was saying.

In this case, he’s
holding this, I assume,

just activist to a
standard he wouldn’t hold

anyone else in the
world to in a realistic way.

Classes.

Um, so I do know, they’re made of plastic.

Maybe.

And it’s a when she starts
to speak, he interrupts her.

So she’s not going to
actually get to answer.

That’s another sort of secondary
issue, but that really bugs me.

Once you ask, as a senator,
once you ask a question,

you should be forced
to listen to the answer.

And even if you don’t like it.

And what they do is they ask a question.

When the person starts to
speak, they interrupt them again.

They reiterate their
question, sometimes not

very rude, but this is a
power play that people do.

It’s a psychological
tactic because if every

time I go to speak,
you interrupt me and

I stop, then you’re in this weird situation
where they’re interrupting you and it puts

you sort of off balance.

This is one of these like old, the really
shitty, busy business psychology books.

And it’s, it’s a tactic you
can do to people on purpose.

You ask them a question.

When they go to answer, you
reiterate or you interrupt them.

And then you finish speaking.

And then when they go to speak again, you
interrupt and you do like five, six times.

It’s a power move and it’s done on purpose.

And the counter to that is to just stop.

And then you have a huge silence
and then go, do you want me to answer?

And they have to either say yes or no.

And then when they say yes, you go, because
they’re out there, of course, I want you to answer.

I want you to answer
honestly and that kind of stuff.

Then you say, are you
going to interrupt me?

And the instant there and there, there’s
now like an unwritten agreement that if you

interrupt me, you’re actually breaking
your own rule that you’ve just established.

I didn’t keep track
of it the first time, I

should have actually, how many times
he interrupts her while she’s speaking.

They’re me not out there.

So, and I just point
out some things here

because I just want to
be realistic when we’re

having conversations because
when statements are made like this.

So there you go.

She’s gone to speak again.

This is at least the second
if not third interruption.

And after he’s asked his question of,
what are you going to replace plastic with?

And he’s, when she went to
speak, he’s like, what do your

glasses made of and he’s going
to speak and he’s going to do it.

So we’re not having a conversation.

He’s giving a speech
and he’s interrupting

you so that you can’t
answer in any real way.

They will.

Okay.

That’s easy to say, but what’s
the solution? So he’s there.

You go.

He’s saying,
what’s the solution?

He’s not letting her speak though.

So she’s not often able
to offer up any solution.

And again, the solution
can’t be 100% right away.

So it’s this disingenuous
attitude of something.

Apparently this is really
happening on YouTube,

70% of the climate
denial is actually going

through this form of
secondary attacks that

current things you’re
doing aren’t going to work.

So why even bother to do them?

If the government
asks you for a solution,

if you don’t come up with 100% solution,
then there’s no reason doing it at all.

It’s one of those
things that now that I’ve

become aware of it and
I hear it, these dialogues

become more interesting to listen to.

This is a different story.

It’s a different kind of
discourse we’re talking about.

So what you are looking for
was Nirvana perfect solutions.

Ah, thank you.

Yes, I knew there must be this is
not like a new way to attack arguments.

So the Nirvana perfect
solution fallacy as I

guess what I actually
like, I actually could

have come to that conclusion of myself
because that is what they’re always asking.

It’s ridiculous.

It’s ridiculous to want that.

And then if you
speak in realistic terms,

like, yeah, let’s let’s
focus on water bottles first.

We’re at a water like plastic bottles
and replace them with something else.

Or again, in Japan,
what they’ve been doing

for a lot of bottles is
making them 50% less plastic.

Well, that’s 50% less plastic.

Let’s do that.

Let’s do try to do
50% less plastic in

everything, make the
plastic thinner or, again,

I think my glasses are made of plastic,
but they’re the lightest frames ever made.

And I think the idea is that the
plastic is actually injected with air.

So there’s less plastic
overall, less weight,

which is they’re
selling the weight, but

they’re actually probably
way cheaper to produce.

Oh, wow.

Okay.

Thank you.

The perfect solution
fallacy is an informal

fallacy that occurs when
an argument assumes

that a perfect
solution exists or that a

solution should be
rejected because some part

of the problem would still
exist after we’re implemented.

But thank you for that.

Thank you for the fallacy thing
because I knew there was one.

I just didn’t know what it was called.

That’s the story of my life.

I know stuff, but I don’t
know what it’s called.

Like people.

I know you, I don’t know your name.

There was a Colorado pastor called Eli,
how man Peter, Regal Lando, whatever.

It was called Eli, my
handwriting’s so poor in this.

I got this.

I actually stuff.

I have to start typing up notes.

I did notice there was a thing, Elgato
has made a teleprompter for web stuff.

And so it goes around your
webcam and it just prompts up.

And then I would just sit here and
like, like a newscaster and just read.

And it would look like I was
looking at the camera the whole time.

I’m always looking slightly down
because I’m actually reading my notes.

I’ve learned to hold
my notes up under the

camera so they don’t
like wave around in front.

That’s the techniques
is how they’re coming.

There’s a Colorado
pastor named Eli and he

launched a cryptocurrency
called INDXcoin index

coin already not a great
name, I mean, not inspiring.

If this is supposed to
be like funded by God,

because he’s a pastor,
it’s already suspicious.

Pastor and cryptocurrency are not
two things I put together to be successful.

But there was
nothing behind it, it was

basically worthless
because usually you launch a

coin with a certain
amount of fiat currency

behind it or something
behind it, some way you

could exchange it, something
like that, to make it have value.

So you could actually say the same thing
about Bitcoin, Bitcoin has no actual value.

The value is injected by our
perception of it and all that other stuff.

That’s also how money works.

But I could trade out cryptocurrency,
Bitcoin, let’s say, for cash.

Whereas this didn’t have
anything to support it.

People maybe had to buy it,
but there was no foundation.

The first, let’s say, thousand coins
that were created had no foundation.

So buying them actually meant buying the
source, not the actual value of the coins.

You could only, this was again, the
second part that’s very suspicious.

You could only buy index coin through
the crypto exchange that Eli created.

So not only was it a
coin that had no value,

it couldn’t be traded
in any real way with

any other exchange to either create or grow
in value, because you couldn’t trade it.

So you could, and he
called it the kingdom

wealth exchange as
American pastors and these

like mega churches and
stuff and they’re always

like, it’s almost a joke
to me because I live so

far outside of that culture.

But it’s just, I see it and I’m
like, it’s not real, it’s not real.

If you said, hey, I have
the kingdom wealth

exchange with a coin
made by a pastor and you

can only trade it on
the kingdom wealth

exchange and you can’t
trade it anywhere else.

I’d be like, look, I’ve been scam
before, but this seems like a real scam.

He shut the exchange
down last year and in

his defense, he said it
was God’s idea, maybe

he misinterpreted what
God said, which would

imply that God is not a
very good communicator.

Because, okay, I was
thinking about the times

God in the stories I
know, because it’s very

shallow knowledge of a
relationship, let’s be honest.

The times God has communicated with people,
so the most famous one to me is Noah.

He took this guy.

He’s like, hey, no, buddy,
I want you to build a boat

and I was like, dude, I don’t
know how to build a boat.

He’s like, oh, God, you’ll build a boat.

It’ll be fine.

I want you, when you
build the boat, this animal’s

going to come, they’re
all going to get on board.

It’s going to have to be super big.

He’s like, dude, I can’t do that.

He’s like, dude, you can’t do it.

And then Noah built a
boat and the boat was

big enough to house
all the animals and then

the flood happened and all those
animals repopulated the earth.

I mean, it worked out.

I don’t even know if Noah was a carpenter.

If he was a boat builder,
if you knew anything

about it, but through
God, God communicated

enough to him to build
this boat, apparently

God’s communication
skills have dropped since

then, or maybe just cryptocurrency is too
complicated for God to really get his head around.

That’s actually certainly
maybe the other issue.

I think the interesting
bit here is that God

sends you a message
and you didn’t understand

or interpret the message
properly, throws up

a lot of questions about God that
maybe you don’t want answered.

In October of 2021,
God brought this crypto

idea to me and he said, take this
to my people for a wealth transfer.

God wants a wealth transfer.

Now, again, God being God, I never
thought God would be that into money.

I never thought that
money would be kind of

the focus of God, but
there is like all these

wealth churches now
and where they’re like, if

you give us money, you’ll
get blessings in return.

That’s not a new thing.

That’s actually been around.

You could buy forgiveness
at some point and had a name.

Again, I don’t know.

I need one of my friends who actually knows
religion on here to actually like shout in the back.

This would be really cool.

I sit here and I make
vaguely incorrect

statements because I don’t
really know what I’m talking about.

And then I have
someone, an expert in the

back who just shouts the
correct answer over my shoulder.

Would actually be
a really good show.

I’d really enjoy that.

I’d have to end up with like a
panel of experts of different things.

So everything I talk
about, they’re just

like different people are
shouting at me from the back.

Anyways, so God wanted
this for a wealth transfer.

I want you to build this.

Now, the thing is, that’s
actually pretty clear.

God said, build a cryptocurrency, build
an exchange and create a wealth transfer.

Indulgence says, that’s not it.

It does.

Jade, man.

You’re awesome.

Paying for forgiveness is indulgences, yes.

I will never remember the actual terms.

Thank you.

The thing that is, okay.

So if you look at this statement,
God said to me, create a

cryptocurrency, take this to the
people, create a wealth transfer.

That’s actually really clear.

So God’s communication on
this, there’s not a lot lacking in it.

He successfully built an exchange.

He successfully built a cryptocurrency.

He’s actually very hard
things to do anyway.

And then he did it and then it collapsed.

And so they made me think that
maybe God wanted you to go to prison.

This was God’s
roundabout way of putting

you in prison because
you’re a bad person or

to punish you in this
life or something like that.

There’s always the secondary
part when this stuff falls apart.

And these people said
that God told me to do

this, they’re not taking
into account, maybe

God wants you to fail
in this to learn a lesson.

Maybe God wants
you to go to jail, maybe

there’s a third one, I’m not
going to say until the very end.

So Eli said to God, I
do want the explanation.

So the pastor, I’m going
to assume is praying.

And that’s when God’s voice comes to
him and he says to God in his prayers.

Is it a voice?

Is it a feeling?

To know, because when if I say, if I’m
laying in bed, let’s say, if I’m laying in

bed and I hear, do I
hear a voice that says,

hey, make chunk coin,
make beef bucks, and

then create the chunk, exchange, is
that God or is that just me having an idea?

I do, like I want to
know a more perception

oriented version of what
happens when they hear

the voice of God, because these
pastors and stuff do hear the voice of God.

So they claim, what is that like?

Just give me an
explanation of that because

then I’ll know if God’s
talking to me because

I actually, a lot of times, I’m like,
did I have that really messed up idea?

Because I have had the
idea of killing my own son.

It’s pretty dark, but I didn’t
because I didn’t believe the voices.

So I said, Lord, I don’t want to do this.

I don’t know how to do this God is
giving you hard times to forge you for him.

Just like stealing the
fire, if times never got hard,

if things never get hot,
how can you get stronger?

Oh, God is giving you
hard times to forge you

for, Eli said God is in the business
of doing new things and breaking seals.

Is he, I mean, that’s
actually another thing

that he’s using business terms
to describe God’s actions now.

So anyways, he got to $3.2
million dumped into this exchange.

He claimed a malfunction and he
exchanged closed the whole thing.

So it wasn’t that he did something wrong.

It’s not that he
just like drained it all

of the money and kept
all the money himself.

There was a malfunction and that closed it.

He did actually admit, and I think
I’m going to be able to find the video.

I have a couple of videos saved.

I’ll cut those in here.

He said, yeah, I took a bunch of the money.

I took one point, oh,
wait, wait, one point three

million dollars was
used for personal benefit.

That’s what the IRS says.

The charges are that
Caitlin and I pocketed

$1.3 million dollars and I just want to come
out and say that those charges are true.

He took out it as work
and sold a cryptocurrency

with no clearings or that
cryptocurrency turned out to be a scam.

And so the Lord says,
give that to him, but

also give them a 10x and I’m like, well,
where’s this liquidity to get a come from?

And the Lord says, trust me,
a $500,000 went to the IRS.

He renovated his house
because God said, take

the wealth exchange
and put it into your house,

put it into your assets
because that’s important.

God said, you know,
redo the bedroom, buddy,

where the action
happens, where you make

more babies to glorify me.

He bought a Range Rover.

So God said, buy one
of the worst rated cars

on the road because God
doesn’t care about safety.

Range Rover has
a good reputation.

That’s from decades back.

The current Range Rovers that come
out now, absolutely pieces of garbage.

You’re buying them for the status symbol.

Sure, God in this
situation seems to be all

about status symbols,
not about actually taking

care of people because
if you wanted to take

care of someone and
you wanted to spend an

expensive car, you
get a Mercedes like it’s

as much higher safety rating
on Mercedes than a Range Rover.

Just keep that in mind.

God might be trying to kill this guy.

God said, you know, take some of the money
and buy handbags and jewelry because what

glorifies your wife, glorifies me,
no, I might be getting good at this.

If I keep this going, I might start my own
little cult because we’re calling it beef nation.

We’ve decided that we’re
going to go a fan of the

chunk we’ve you just
in any format is a chunk.

And so I got to I didn’t do it.

I got to start going.

What up beef nation?

Hello, all you little
chunks out there, like

and subscribe, a set
of phrases I’ve never

used before, but I mean,
if I can put them into

practice, if I can make
that sound natural,

I think this is the cusp of my fame
when I say, what up beef nation?

Some money was put into
boat rentals, I’m leaving.

Whoa, I hit the keyboard and
the the transition went off to that.

That would be awesome
if I said, what up beef

nation and then just know
whatever, download it again.

Because I measure this
off podcast downloads.

I don’t look at I YouTube, I
get like maybe six, 10 views.

I know it’s not really that’s not
really why I used to doing this.

There’s a couple other like video websites,
I get like 20, 30 views or whatever.

This is a audio podcast first.

If the week after I said
what up beef nation,

no one ever downloaded
again, all the message

would have been very clear, God misinformed
me of what I was supposed to do.

So some of the money went to boat
rentals smart enough not to buy a boat.

God was saying boats are bad investments.

They’re money saying
don’t buy a boat rent a boat.

At least in this one case, God was right.

God was saying you
don’t want to buy a boat.

You just want to rent a boat.

It is a way better deal.

And then the final
one, which I loved the

most for some reason,
God said, you know what

you need, you need a
snowmobile adventure.

I would love when Noah
again, the only really

direct form of communication I can
remember from the Bible in any real way.

Noah, he’s like build a boat.

This is going to be
like incredibly difficult

for you because we’re
talking about a massive

boat, you know, 10 stories high, no qubits
or whatever it was is going to take so much

of your life and energy, your family and
everyone’s going to think you’re crazy.

You got to do this.

And then with this guy with Eli, he’s
like Eli, man, snowmobile adventure.

That’s what you need.

That’s going to glorify me.

That’s going to save the
earth if you have a snowmobile

adventure and then bring
that back to your congregation.

So I came to three
conclusions or three possibilities.

God is giving you bad
advice, but being God,

he’s giving you bad
advice on purpose so

that your life gets fucked up.

The second one, which I would actually kind
of hope to be the real one is God is just

fucking with you because
God doesn’t like Eli.

But what a way to
figure that out is that, oh

shit, God’s just fucking with me
because he’s enlightened me very much.

Or and the last one I wanted
to save is the big finale.

Maybe you’re not actually hearing God.

[MUSIC]