How AI, Media & Addiction Rewire Our Minds

0:00 So you can get you can get a person, right? Like, oh, you got to see the, 31 seconds. You got to see the three frames of the video from when you know, from their perspective when when Rene Goode was shot, right?

0:11 Yeah. You got to see it. You got to see. You got to go see it. Right. Video was nine minutes long. Yeah. Right. And then you know you know this this like someone gets laser focus puts their brain their energy behind you know something that they're, they're not associated with really in a way besides getting triggered by it.

0:27 And then you take that person aside and you say, explain to me exactly what vitamin A does in your body. Explain to me exactly why you need vitamin A and what Vitamin Aid does throughout the course of your body. Yeah. I mean no no no no no. Hear, hear what? I'm just hear what I'm trying to say here.

0:45 Right. Is that the average person out there right now will be pulled in this direction and worried about this thing that they have no control over for the moment. And then next week they'll be on to something else. But they don't know why we made golden rights for the developing world. Right, right, right. Something absolutely critical to your health and wellness.

1:01 That is a need to know information is not present because it's other information that's garbage and otherwise doesn't really, truly affect your life, has displaced the important information that we all need to function and live properly. Why you should eat carrots for ourselves and our children. You see what I'm saying? So what I'm saying is that maybe a countermeasure to this is to begin to focus back down on the basics for ourselves and our children and our families and our focus begin to have a re a conscious, intentional focus on a core set of things that are vitally important, right?

1:34 And that will, by default just by positional like crowd out or force, you know, this propaganda at bay. And it really comes down to pretty much Chris, is ten domains are really just focusing on yourself rather than the rather than the hype. And in propaganda machine, what's the Christian thing? Take the whatever out of your eye or on your forehead or removed.

1:58 What mote from your eye before you worry about removing the plank from someone else's or something? Oh, I think you're actually dead, mass. First. Yeah, kind of thing. Yeah. That's right. It's really the best. I've used that metaphor. It's it's really. It's not the oxygen mask. First. It's the worry about what's wrong with you before you worry about what's wrong with somebody else, make sure your hands clean before you point fingers.

2:18 Damn right. I think that, the point earlier really kind of bring us in to a point where we can touch on one of your points here. Chris. The AI generated disinformation. Because I think that's huge. And I think a lot of the AI that we've been seeing pushed so fast, so quickly within this last year has is really telling of what's happening in our world and in our country.

2:42 The fact that so many, powerful people within this country have just really pushed AI to come out and are really investing in the AI, and there's so many things that I can do, and that would be so incredibly awesome for humanity. Yes. And we're making fucking pictures. We're making fake pictures were taken away business from small artists, from photographers, from painters, from things like that.

3:07 But they're able to take this thing that now people, everybody has to question, is it AI? Is it not right. Yeah. And that's where we have a totally, almost fully verified phone call leaked from Trump. About I don't give a shit what you have to do. Start a war, don't release the files. It's been verified by almost every possible outlet that it is not AI generated.

3:32 But you have a massive population of people who are now so fucking confused because they can't tell anymore. Sure, you now have the it's AI defense. Yes, they're like, no, that's definitely AI. There are people that are saying, oh no, that's totally AI. Are also the people that posted the video of the dogs jumping off a diving board and doing flip.

3:52 I mean, or the bodies on the trampoline is so cool that you have some real. The raccoons on the trampoline. It really upset me that the bunnies I know the raccoons on the trampoline weren't real. That one got me in for a second. It did get me for about four seconds. So it's like, this is so cool.

4:10 And then I'm like, fuck. It's funny trying to translate, but so you have, the so you have a whole community of people being like, I don't know if this is real. I don't know if this is real. And so now you're able to have the big billionaires, the president, the administration be like, it's like I they have a scapegoat, a built in scapegoat.

4:32 So I and that's why they pushed it so fucking hard. Boom. They funded it. I mean, I tell you, I literally like teach my kids. It's all three of my kids. I've said the same thing over and over and over. Right. And, I just keep saying it like a broken record. As they grow, I tell them if it's on a screen, it's fake.

4:49 Yeah. Because that's the default reality that we have to take. That's the position we have to take in our minds by default. And really how we were, most of us were raised by people don't don't believe everything you see on the internet. And here they are believing everything they see on the internet. Exactly. Because the corollary to that is, okay, if you see it on the screen, you need to try to verify it some other way.

5:13 Well, yeah, since that coming so fast though, and that's not possible. We have to just default state that it's fake, like it's sunscreen. It's propaganda. The weather person is standing in front of a green screen. That shit's not really there. Just go. Just go and watch how anything is produced and you'll see it's all. But all of this really dovetails with a trust collapse in institutions, as Chris has outlined in, in our, you know, materials here because we, we can't believe anything coming from any outlet.

5:39 We have to question it and we question it through the lens of our own personal biases, which could be left wing, right wing, libertarian, whatever. We're filtering it through that lens and we end up with some half assed version of the truth, and none of us quite agree on it. Well, that's how everybody watches the same video. And then you have completely different, like what people see from that video are completely different.

6:03 What they believe that video. Well, you have actual eye videos. Your interpretation. Yeah, right. You have actual I videos coming out to that. Obviously, we all know Fox News is not a reputable source. They have had to settle, lawsuits where they had to actually admit we are not an actual news source. I don't know what you're talking about.

6:23 It says fair and balanced. Think and it's not Fox News. I watch entertainment, I watch Fox and Friends, I watch Fox and Friends, show a fucking I doctored video of the renew, of the remnant of the Rene. Good shooting. It was an eye doctor video that made the cop. They made it look like the guy was standing in front of the car much longer.

6:48 And that the car never turned, the wheels never turned, things like that. So this is being spewed out to their 40% of the people in this country that are watching it, and they have no idea how to fucking tell the difference. Even though you have 17 different angles of this video going around, we have three different, what, 3 or 4 different videos, right?

7:08 You have the administration putting out clear air videos of our president giving an address to the nation. I don't know if y'all caught those videos where he's sitting there like this at a desk, never moving his hands. Just Hershberger. And the thing is, he's got too many fucking fingers. Got one extra finger. They are the last. Like this.

7:28 All that new stuff doesn't have that problem anymore. Yeah, but but but in this particular video, he did have too many fingers. And so from, from the last like four presidential addresses, he's done like that. It is so clearly a I, I think the 19 minute screed that he interrupted my TV for the last up. Yeah, that was that was real.

7:52 That was real. Yeah. And you can you can tell the difference between because his ramblings. I swear that it's just the. Oh, yeah. I'm sorry, I just gave away. It's the weave. It's the weave.

8:03 But like that they're they're forcing out these AI videos and I'm just like, are y'all not. See this? This is. They're normalizing the AI so that they can automatically brush off things as AI that don't fit a specific storyline or narrative. They're trying to push. Right? Right. And I mean, it's it's ultimately we end up with we end up saying we throw up our hands.

8:30 We say we're helpless in the face of all of it. What what the hell can we do? We're awash in a sea of lies, propaganda and bullshit. But there's a path out. There is definitely a path out. So the fatigue state is actually the suggestive state. So when you're in a state of fatigue, you're actually more vulnerable to suggestion.

8:49 Believe it. So hey, we have a we have a term for this when, colloquial term from the past, if someone's watching TV for many, many hours and that's. What are you doing on vegging out? I'm watching TV. Yeah. So, like, they're getting in a vegetative state, you know? Is the idea here? Watching TV? It's a colloquial, you know, ism, but it's it's suggestive of what actually is happening in the brain.

9:08 The brain actually goes into a suggestive state after a certain amount of consumption of this material. And that's very prone to suggestion like ad influence in this kind of thing. So the very thing of like we're I think the intention of people doomscrolling social media is they want to know what's going on, they want to be informed and all that kind of stuff.

9:27 What's happening is after that is is dual fault. One is they're being put in a suggestive state and you're, you're you're in a state where the, the propaganda is actually more effective on you. Right. And then two it gets it clearly the data on this is overwhelming at this point it's and it's undeniable. That's what's happening with a serotonin dopamine you know epinephrine cycle in your in your body is very measurable and and proven time and time again.

9:54 So there's a 100% addictive quality to these components. So basically we are getting hyper addicted to propaganda engine to propaganda engines. Right. That ultimately in no way whatsoever really do serve our best interests. Well, it's this balancing between that helplessness, propaganda, helplessness, sort of the truth, moral panic, outrage. It's this it's this whole, you know, just cycle of, you know, I'm fatigued, I feel helpless.

10:23 Oh, I'm in a panic. I'm in a rage. Do do do do do do do do. Jen in the in the, the front loaded effort to to the access is zero. Nearly zero. I mean, it's literally a matter of flipping on your phone, right? And so that barrier to entry, like in the past, let's say if I wanted to go listen to somebody talk right before all these technology tools were available, that was a legitimate effort to get myself ready to go somewhere, go to some location.

10:50 Right. All this stuff would be involved. Now, the barrier to for this consumption is zero. Like you do, like taking a shit like. Yeah, right. I mean, any time 100% always on right. Could have done it six hours ago. You're catching it later. There you go. Yeah. And so and so now we're faced with this, genie in a bottle that's like, right there.

11:11 All we can do is we don't even have to rub the lamp. Just swipe once. Right. And the genie comes out of the bottle, and then here we go. We gotta look at it. Just. Yeah, here we go. For six hours. Right. And then the only other thing I would say about that is that these, phones do have tools that we can start to track and monitor and at least gain awareness of our consumptions.

11:31 Right. And then put legitimate, calculated boundaries for ourselves, not lose control. We have to get more in control and say, I am going to put a legitimate boundary of two hours per day max across all social media. In the path out. Is that the path out is more inward focus. Focus on our own habits. Focus on our own consumption, our ourselves and our community.

11:57 Yes. You know, ourselves and our community. Yeah. And if we can find the volunteer act in the community, a mutual aid, if we can't find the fortitude to put the, controls on ourselves, we can then meta we can we can pull out one, you know, level and say, wait a minute, I have children. I'm role modeling for these children.

12:15 These children are going to emulate my behavior. They're going to use me as a as a model for how to behave as an adult. And I'm sitting here, I'm not in control of my own emotions. I'm scrolling for all fucking day long. Right? What am I teaching my kids? So harming myself and ultimately I'm harming my children do.

12:31 So I'm teaching them that this is normal behavior when it is absolutely not. Yeah. You're modeling being on an outrage roller coaster, right? Yeah. And this is not a normal mental health journey for any, any person. And I wouldn't want to bestow that on my children. And so for my children's sake, I'm going to get off this roller coaster.

12:46 You saying I'm saying. Oh, yeah. I'm not going to be taken for a ride anymore because I'm ultimately responsible for more than just myself. Well, that's to help give you the fortitude to make the change. Yeah, yeah. Well, speaking on that, like back in 2017, 2018, I was working for a cleaning company and I was, a night manager that cleaning up after concerts and basketball games, things like that at the Hornets arena and out of the amount of people that worked for me, or worked for the company that were under me, overwhelmingly African American.

13:24 And during that time you looked at the news, you looked at Facebook, you all your social media platforms. It basically made you feel like I should have been able to survive that. They made it feel like walking around in uptown Charlotte. There were gangs around every corner, right? And that me as a white man wouldn't have been able to survive that and vice versa.

13:51 It made all of them feel like there were neo-Nazis walking around the with the restaurants and, and the tiki torches. I mean, that was what was going on at that time. But talking to you about just talking about what Sean was on with the, getting involved in the community. Once you actually unplug and get involved with the people around you.

14:12 Yes. What is being spewed on these, platforms, it doesn't ring true. Yeah. It doesn't hold as much weight. It doesn't feel as it feel is true. Yeah. There's a there's another, really interesting wrinkle in quality of this too, is that since we as adults are putting ourselves in this, in this, like, line of fire all the time and taking in social media, on constantly taking this and and taking this on it more normalized it for our kids, like I said a second ago.

14:38 But it also normalizes this idea of putting your kid in front of some type of electronic to occupy their time, to keep them occupied while you do your social media scrolling or whatever Instagram, whatever it might be, it's your business. What I'm saying is that there's this weird phenomenon. I was, some of the stuff I was doing Gray Jackson with the Heel Charlotte program is that he was dealing with at risk youth, and one of the mothers had made some bad choices and got locked out of her place, and the kids had nowhere to stay.

15:03 So it was over the summertime. I was like, I'll take them for the night. And then while he figures out provisions for them. So there's two kids here, two young boys. And, I pulled out a book for a bedtime story. It's time to go to sleep. And so I read. Did my boys in there read to them at the same time?

15:18 And the younger boy was like, he's like maybe 12 or 13, right. And, of the two boys and one was like 15, 16 they're brothers. And the younger one, like, starts crying during the story, right? And I'm like, what? It's just a normal story. It's not like intense reading the normal bedtime story. You're reading other people's history of the United States.

15:39 Yeah, I'm reading about the tragedy of, you know, some the Trail of Tears, the Trail of Tears on some historic tragedy. Something. Yeah. It's just normal everyday kids book. Right. And, come to find out, no one had in his entire life ever read them. Oh, it's Tara. Like fucking crazy 12 year old. Never, never had somebody read to him.

16:00 Can you once before you kick me in the field? No, no, no. So so. Right. It's like I tripped. And because Phil's in in whatever situation that that kid is in, it was like, just here's a tablet, right? Here's what's watch some YouTube. Yeah. And, the, the affable quality between those two things, the effective quality of the human exchange between those two encounters.

16:22 Here's a tablet. Watch some YouTube versus being read a story. Or the quality of those two things are wildly different. And he felt the enormity of it. Yeah, right. And he felt that he felt the difference between he felt that quality time and the effort of making it. Yeah. That's. Yeah. And so through that lens we can then look at our own lives.

16:41 You can say, wait a minute. If I'm sitting here, you know, for four hours, 5 or 6 hours, shit. Sometimes eight hours, you know, scrolling TikTok or whatever the hell I'm scrolling. You know, the same thing is happening. I'm missing out on a potential human experience, a much more human experience. And so there's like a double payment that your triple payment, you know, there's like so many things that you're paying here.

17:01 You're paying the cost of like, not getting proper sleep. You're paying the cost of the, the dopamine in the psychological rollercoaster that the fucking platforms bring you on, and you're missing the human connection at the same time. And you're you're not modeling correct behavior, and you're going to be useless the next day because you're so fucking tired, you can't even.

17:18 Yeah. And then you're going to self-medicate. You're going to use and something to, like, go to sleep or, or wake up because of this. You know, it's a domino effect, right? It's it's a growing. Yeah. Right. But that might be why the drugs are needed. That might be why the drugs are in play. Oh yeah. You said I'm saying I'm because.

17:36 Because it's a compensation for mother. Now deficiency that was created in. You know the brain is the brain and the body are machines and they have certain, you know, input outputs that are predictable. Oh I used alcohol for a long time to disconnect. There we go. And so then you know ultimately if you have that if you, if you touch it makes it easier right.

17:57 I mean, you know right now I go I used to we used to disconnect for a long time. Like you just got to same here. So we don't need to destroy boats coming from Venezuela to, to block fentanyl from coming into this country. We need to figure out why people are taking so many people are taking fentanyl. And in the figure instead of I'm saying and fix those core underlying issues, you fix the societal ills, you fix the problems.

18:20 I mean, with minimum guaranteed income, we would fix a lot of it. That's what I was just talking. I had an argument with the bot on Facebook. I wasn't led nowhere. Oh yeah, they led nowhere. But it was I normally I get I got to a point in life where I just don't engage in comments. If I feel like I want to leave a comment, I leave the comment.

18:42 Don't engage with the responses that come back. I only started doing that because your brother right? He's a well, it's hard not to comment on those. It's hard. He died five years ago and the bot is taking off. He's actually about, he's a bond. That's beautiful. But to touch on that, you have the you have a place like Denmark, right?

19:05 It's considered the safest, happiest place in the world. Wow. And somebody on the comments I had mentioned, you know, because I think it was Adam was talking about Denmark and Greenland situation happening. And I was like, does anybody, like, not realize that Denmark is like, the happiest, safest place to live right now? It's hitting us. It's probably because they're, 90%.

19:26 What's the word? Oh my. Oh my goodness. Homogenous. Thank you. How much, how much we're getting is And I'm like, I would say no. I'm like, even though I know you're a bot or a troll and I don't know why I'm responding to you, I'm like, I'm going to do this. I'm going to say this for anybody who is reading this and wants to listen, because it's not that.

19:48 Yeah, it is the fact that Denmark has over decades and centuries, made sure their people are taking care of paid parental leave, education, access to their education, free college, free health care, child care, mandated time off, mandated time off, their prison systems, or actual rehabilitation and recovery like crime that I'm not even sharing. You, my retirement plan is go to a Scandinavian country, commit a crime, right?

20:13 And like, have everything just taken care of, to fix myself. Yeah, right. So you have a society that took all these things that a lot of people in the U.S and, like, left us are begging for, and now they have a thriving society. They have the lowest, common, lowest crime rate, I believe. So in the world. You can leave your baby outside to take a nap by itself.

20:34 Why you go eat in a restaurant like it is? It's incredible. And it's because they implemented these things that allow their society and their civilization to thrive. When you have an educated and cared for math, it's the other things are going to be taken away. The large amounts of crimes that are happening. You're not having to steal food, you're not having to have drugs to escape your reality.

20:58 You're not having to do this. So if you have these other basic needs met, science shows, when the basic needs are met, the other things go away. And then another thing, another wrinkle that we haven't talked about is their business owners. They're they're captains of industry. And Scandinavia. I saw an interview with someone from Finland and it was a well, it was a trio of C-suite people from their top corporation, and they were like, yeah, we make enough money, our company makes enough money.

21:30 We don't need to chase the market. They're like, why would we? Our employees are happy. Our company hits. It's hits its targets every year. They don't need another new boat. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. They built their own boats, and they don't need to buy everybody else. Exactly. And they talk little it they. What the fuck? Yeah. So. Well, it's possible that we have this other angle that we haven't discussed, and we need to get closed up here because I know y'all have, like, babysitter and stuff like that in places.

21:58 Oh, no, we got a baby sitter, so we got time. Oh, okay. We'll keep it going. Yeah. But anyway, so, there's this other idea that that came up throughout this conversation, to my mind at least, is that, it's ideas, facts or allegations spread deliberately to further ones cause. Right. Perhaps there's a, there's a model that could be used where propaganda is used beneficially.

22:20 Yeah, like propaganda that's used to further the cause of a nation. And that causes to have a population that's healthy and. Well. Yeah. Right. So health and wellness propaganda to perpetuate. So like you might have seen some of these things like I think the obviously the Germans in World War Two is a is the quintessential model of propaganda.

22:39 There's always that's always toward the Jim Crow era. It's almost impossible to have a conversation about propaganda and not think of the, you know, what was the German World War two? I think of the Germans and I think of Jim Crow era. Well, every time you hear a propaganda, I think negative. Yeah. Correct. Yeah, yeah, that's right. I'm throwing out the sprinkle.

22:57 Yeah. Let's have that double. Yeah. Connotation positive. That's true indeed. And the food pyramid for the for well before. All right. And then what's the food pre RFK. Yeah. The food ice cream. Oh what is it now. What is it now. Ice cream. Butter and stage. Is that straight from South Park. Just throw that out. Yeah I turn it upside down.

23:16 Oh Aunt Jemima was saying turn it upside down or something. So anyway, food butter or butter and steak. I remember seeing it was like on the, the Nazi channel, I mean, the History Channel where they were, they had showed like this propaganda where they showed the Nazi youth, like being really fit and focused on their fitness.

23:36 And, you know, they showed all these clips. I remember seeing it in my mind's eye about like, these young people being really fit and healthy. They showed up running and participating. Lots of active, you know, sports. Sidenote podcasters Chris looks like Hitler's ubermensch movement. It definitely area.

23:56 And so, it's okay. He can talk about Nazi, I think. Yeah, I think that if you were I think it's in their laws and like you can now in Germany, I don't know, probably not. I mean, there's a lot of things you can't say. So we'll look it up and put it in the air. They even show Ellen's inauguration so you can think, oh wow.

24:15 In Germany they had to black it out. Yeah, they have some kind of like, you know, speech, control laws around it. They have free speech. But that is not one of those things. Right? I mean, which makes it to look it up. It's hate speech that people we should all ban, people are arguing don't exist. There we go.

24:33 Yeah, but but to this idea, you know, I'm trying to get out this idea of this, like potentially positive and useful and good causing versions of propaganda where like, people are inspired through that propaganda to, you know, engage in certain actions. So resilience building, community building, that sort of thing. Yeah. So I think that the default is that propaganda is perceived as negative because I think probably in its majority it is it's used to be coercive.

24:57 And, you know, it's used by powerful people to obtain a indygo. But like 60. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. When the oppressor propaganda children out. Yeah. I didn't even think about that. Yeah. And how they're aligning with the NFL and all these other organizations. Right. So I just think that there's an advocacy avenue here to where we can start to advocate for more positive propaganda, like say, hey, if the government is going to sit tight and never if these industries are going to put time and effort into, you know, Jerry Hall is propaganda, hey, why not advocate towards, you know, putting it in the positive domain, fake propaganda with propaganda.

25:32 So like, there's a consumerism and so on. I talked about that on another one of our podcasts, too, where you can maybe have a blend to where it's like the, the, activity with the soft drinks, the soft drinks, trying to do the saying, like, be active, you know, on these soft drinks as a, as a part of your balanced lifestyle.

25:50 And you know that's that sounds great. You know, but it is kind of like propaganda moving in a better direction than just like, you know, cold beer commercials. Here's this beer. Have fun. Please drink responsibly. Right. Yeah I know Michelob Ultra. There's all these like really fit, you know, triathletes hanging out, you know, in this like, you know, perfectly clean bar.

26:09 Everyone's happy smiles. You never see a Natty Light commercial like the or of Milwaukee's Best or beast attacks by my grandparents. That propaganda can have some powerful, useful tools utility for humanity. Well, yeah. Yeah, because consumerism is ultimately you take a cause that is worthy of people's time, energy and effort, and you align it with some sort of purchase.

26:31 You align with some sort of dopamine hit and, you know, it's it's really getting people to finance the cause through buying some neat trinket like, in the light. It's like, oh yeah, subscribe to NPR or be a monthly sustaining gift to NPR. And you get a public radio nerd. Sure. You know, what was it? Feel like you're talking about yourself here?

26:54 Oh, yeah. You have a public radio? No, I don't think you definitely have one. You know, you'd see it, I if I had. It's okay. I don't oh, if you see it in like with the propaganda, with the negative side of it, it's kind of like, I know I equate a lot of things back to movies. Know, like, look at look at monsters, Inc. and for so long in monsters, Inc. they ran their city off of Fear and Scream.

27:23 Yes, because that's what sells, right? And turn around and all of a sudden laughter and happiness is actually creating more. And it's like a problem in society these days. And all these large propaganda machines are pumping out fear and hatred, and that's what our economy runs, and that's what it runs on, right now. And what you're telling me is John Crystal or Billy Crystal and John Berman need to come and just fix this great.

27:53 So, that's all that ties in nicely to what I just said, right? About the good propaganda. Is that, like, if the knowledge comes, it comes to light that like, you know, pulling on people's hopes and their positive values and their positive aspects of their empathy and their human nature, drawing that out and using that as a as an enhancement to society could be way more productive and way more benefit collectively end to the whole system than this amygdala driven fear responses.

28:20 You know, do propaganda like like, you know, Ice agents be, you know, if we instead of Ice agents crawling around the whole country, what if we had people from around the whole country that were, health ambassadors that I can imagine, like with government employing thousands and thousands of health ambassadors to try to see how they can improve the health and wellness of communities.

28:40 And what are you guys going to say? I think, yeah, I think a really good example of something that wasn't meant to be but turned into positive propaganda was was the monks, the monks doing the peace walk that turned into a positive piece of propaganda. It started off as, you know, just the monks walking, but through social media and exposure and people going and visiting and TikTok, it became this almost positive propaganda where people are like, look at this, they're walking for peace.

29:08 We need to pay attention. The monks don't leave like, hey, this is a warning. Look, they're walking for peace. They don't do this unless there's something really bad, right? Right. So we have in the notes for today, we have this idea of debunking. So like the, the getting ahead of the propaganda. And I think that there's actual like a possibility for a channel or some type of social media outlet that emerges here where it heads off the news cycle, if you will, by helping people debunk the propaganda they're about to get hit with before the propaganda hits.

29:39 I feel like some factors. So it does, possibly does. But what what you see now is you see all these talking heads, just more and more amplifying the propaganda. And they're getting their their two bits out of it too, like they're getting they're cashing in on it. And I made that video. Trump train video. Yeah. Right where that was the idea here.

29:55 There's all these talking heads that are just amplifying the same propaganda message, just putting a some type of spin that is targeting to their audience. And so they're saying the same crap, this this came out, they're going to say it in their way and put their spin on it for their audience, which in most of the cases that I see is a left audience.

30:12 Right. And so what they're doing is they're just ultimately just amplifying the message, and they're getting their payment, too. They're getting they're cashing in on it because the ad revenue that comes up for them, some of it gets allocated to them if they're getting the attention. So they're taking the same propaganda engines and they're just tapping into some arm of that propaganda engine, putting their spin on it and getting their payment to.

30:33 So they're writing the same train, they're giving the actual propaganda machine, even more fuel. Right. But they're getting their payment and they laugh all the way to the bank. Right. And then everyone sits there and doom scrolls and pays attention to these people because they're interesting, they're compelling. They have a they have a they have a theme, they have a shtick.

30:49 And we get comfortable with these certain talking personalities. And then in our algorithm, they become in our feed. But ultimately let's look at what they're doing. Are they really out there advocating for be on the right side of these causes? No, they're just cashing in and riding the same train. As I've said, I don't think that is the whole of it.

31:07 I do think that there are these people who do that. And but I do think that there are people who are trying to combat it and give you something else to do, something else, some other, not just a different viewpoint, but what can you do? Hey, you can, I agree, what your next step is, is this or right?

31:27 I think what happens is they get seduced. They go into it thinking like, you know, I have something to say about this, right? This propaganda is bullshit. And I'm going to expose it. And they go out and they do. They start doing that. And then people started listening to it. And I like what you have to say. They start listening to them and then they can then they can read and then they keep doing this over and over and over.

31:45 And the next thing you know, the cash is coming in and then they just start following the algorithmic right. They ride the algorithm and they get more and more followers, more and more cash. And now they're just another part of the same machine. Yeah. You see what I'm saying? Right. And so their intentions might have been great. They're into it.

31:59 But there's this seduction of this, you know, popularity know there's there's there's always an ego. There's always a motive. You know, we have these realities in life. And so I think that without even thinking about it, you know, the default is that they get railroaded as well into the same train ride. And they say, you know, it's just this giant propaganda machine pumping out money, you know, left and right, but power.

32:19 But how do you know that it's someone who actually gives a crap and is connecting to people is they don't just give you the outrage, they give you the path out. They give you the next step as a consistent theme. Yeah. What they say and I don't see that very often. That's what I think. That's what I had to make sure to delete from my algorithm.

32:37 Like when I was scrolling through and I fucking love that guy. How much do I love the jolly good, the jolly good ginger, jolly good, jolly good ginger. Yeah. You, the, his buddy, the marine. And then. What's that? Can't remember the black guy's name. That's what you have. Consider the people who on social media are consistent in what they put out.

33:00 And you have people like, I would say, what's his name? Dean Withers. Yeah. Yeah. And you send me some of his great stuff. Adam Toffler, they are very intelligent young guys. I love to see like, people taking their intelligence and using it in specific ways like they are. But it's also they are going to eventually have to stay with the algorithm and what the algorithm wants them to do.

33:25 I mean, Dean Withers, his shtick is, okay, let me illuminate let me give people a platform to get their ideas out there, but then let me intelligently and kindly counter them, take the emotionality out of it, let them get it out. But Dean Withers is also very performative. He is very, very, very good point. A lot less so than I would say, like out of my bar or something.

33:48 But he and that was kind of shown after the whole Charlie Kirk thing is he was a very, very performative, a performative left wing person. Yeah. And it is about the show and the drama. Yeah. It is. And so, like, I feel like it's up to us to kind of. And people don't always have the ability to do this, but to change our algorithms in our brains and on our social media, to not accept these performative things as the truth on either side.

34:22 You know, you have to be able to again, think critically and be like, okay, this this guy in his last 30 posts has been extremely consistent with what he's saying. He's not following an algorithm. He's just fucking talking to you. And, you know, like it's he's not doing it for views. He's doing it to get the information out.

34:42 And so I think it's it's really it was a hard thing to vet and judge. But yeah. Yeah, it's it is but I think to with your own research and information that you can gather on it, you can, you can make these judgments or assumptions to a point about these people that you're watching. I forgot where I was going with the trade left.

35:08 Well, Netanyahu was talking about TikTok being the most important weapon, that he didn't look up a direct quote like, but Netanyahu was saying that, like, of all the weapons systems there is, is that the social media are the now the new ultimate weapon systems? Absolutely. Is the public. Yes it is. The 2016 election is perfect. The beliefs and the beliefs of the people translates into action.

35:30 And then action is determinant. It determines our outcomes. And so then ultimately these social media engines become like a very big components of those fundamental underlying belief systems. And then actions resulting actions. So tell me that the people that are out there honking their horns and beeping and disrupting ice procedure proceedings, right out there all around that are don't have that model behavior modeled by the social media platform before they go out and do that, commit that acts of actual behavior.

35:57 Like who thinks to do that if it wasn't to see other people doing that, a large a large portion of them. Yeah. So I would agree with you. There are that there is that small collective that actually follows and knows the Constitution and is realizing the organizers. This is wrong. Well, the organizers that are paying people, that's why we forget about that.

36:18 Yeah, yeah, they're all getting paid well. So, you know, if you're getting paid, we we can we can like go through a really interesting kind of, intellectual journey with this whole ice thing. It's, you know, it's it's obviously in the public consciousness right now. What's going on is that we have for years and years and years, there's been people coming to this country outside the legal channels that quote unquote, illegal immigration.

36:41 And so it's been a problem, if you will. Any kind of illegality, you could argue, is a problem, at least in terms of the law. And, there's clearly the law. If we were to say the law on the books is the law of the land, and then we need some type of way to apply that way.

36:58 But I want to offer a clear violation now, even done. Okay. Right. So like if we if we if we decide, if we decide as a nation that we're going to abide by the laws that we have in this nation, if we make that that is the I'm saying that is the, the the starting point. We say we are going to, abide by our laws.

37:19 We now have to come up with some type of way to ensure that that law is met. If we first agree that we're going to abide by law, like we can agree that the law is bullshit, we need to change it. But, you know, we have to start from some premise. So let's start from the premise that we're going to take the laws that are on the books, and we're going to abide by them.

37:36 Okay, let's let's say that's our starting point. Then the next step is to do what with all the people that are outside of that law. The next step is for one to have punishments that are commensurate with what the actual fucking crime is. The crime, because the crime match. Yes, the crime and punishment must match because this is a fucking civil crime, not a goddamn drag.

37:59 You out of drag, you out of your fucking house! Smash your windows, fucking kill you crime. Arrest U.S. citizens when you have, you know. And. Yeah, and then we also have the law. Do fucking we also. That's what I was going to say. We also have the law in the book that's in due process. So is is there a mechanic to where we say that we abide by the law on the books, which is illegal immigration and needs to be dealt with.

38:19 And if you're here legally, you're then deported after a due process. So yeah, you know, thing happens, if we were to commit to that, the resource drain on the nation would be overwhelming, okay. Because the number of people there's been a broken system for so long, the sheer number of people in this country, we don't even really know, but it's around 30 to 50 million, right?

38:41 So if you have 30 to 50 million people in this country and you have to, apply due process and abide by our own laws and then do this, you're talking about a complete whole society endeavor, like everyone would be engaged in this activity to make this happen. That reality is impossible. And so what you see is this draconian now nonsense, right?

39:03 As a as a knee jerk reaction to try to do something. It's just a, it's just a show. It's a pretext to control. It's not even actually trying to follow a law. It's a pretext to control us, to put us in a fear machine, to control the situation, trying to do that. So the Obama administration, they tried to do it and they failed horribly.

39:23 Let's just say thing. Obama reported it. Tremendous. He did. He did. He absolutely deported a tremendous amount of people. That was at the border. It was there was most of the debris stations were directly at the border, which makes sense. Get them before they come in. Right. That that is that's what's illegal coming over the border illegally. Yes.

39:42 Overstaying a visa is a civil offense. Yeah. So and that's how some a large number of the immigrants I don't know the exact number are here today. And, and when you also have to look at is there members of our society that actually offer an economic benefit, a net economic benefit does. Right. They pay fucking taxes and help us out.

40:02 But let's be clear. Well, in Texas when Obama did it, there we fucking go. Right? You did your mouth, I think. Yes, I think that I think it's economic, considering what they spend in the economy. I think that those economics have changed. And I think that's why we see the deportations probably, you know, there's been a whole new in the last decade, the last decade, there's been tremendous, tremendous innovation in farm processing, the food that to.

40:27 And so the hands that are needed now to do a lot of dirty work is reduced dramatically. But we're talking a lot of service industries still really count on them. Construction industries count on them. You know, these things that it's hard to automate, putting a roof on. It's hard to automate fixing a road rain as soon as the automation of the roof occurs.

40:48 Now immigration becomes a problem again, right? Like so. So long as we have other ways to do the dirty, backbreaking work, when new innovations occur to where we now have different methods to do the dirty, backbreaking work, those people will be discarded. Well, this is like the right time in history. This has happened like in our recent history.

41:08 If we look at our recent history, this is in like the last like 400 years, we'll say recent wise, this happens all the time. The government, regular U.S. government regularly does this. When we first obtain what is now known as Texas and New Mexico and everything like that, they kicked all of the indigenous people out. They kicked them out.

41:27 They sent them over the border to what was then. Now they're like, This is America. Now go to Mexico. Wow. They kicked them out. Economy failed. Failed. Completely crumbled. Jesus begged them to come back. Well, begged him to come back, gave them incentives, ended up using them essentially as slave labor. They were treated for the horribly inhumane labor, right?

41:47 Underpaid, not paid. So that's the propaganda. And then this happened over and over and over again throughout the centuries. They continuously they'd be like, get the hell out of my country. Oh, wait. Come back. We need you. Get the hell out! Oh, wait. Come back. We need you. Then you had the Italians and the Irish coming over and they're like, you're not white enough.

42:06 Yeah. So they didn't know what you were. The definition of white has changed, right? So. Right. Like the goalposts moved once again. Yeah. So I was I Irish and Italians building the entirety of New York City for absolutely nothing, being treated like shit, getting no pay, all of the railroads. And then they tried to kick them out again.

42:24 And then you have the, at the same time, you had a large amount of Asian immigration happening at that point. And, the Asian and Black communities ended up starting to, like, just historically come together because the Asians could a work in the black community to help there and have grocery stores there. But they were also accepted in the white community, so they were able to have their grocery stores there.

42:45 And the white people accepted them because they were providing goods and services that were necessary. Right. So my what my boy, my children are going to be working on roofs and they're not going to be picking crops. Right. But the propaganda gives me a tool by which I can morally wait for your son to come in and be like, don't tell me how to live my life.

43:02 The propaganda gives us all. I'm going to work for Dole Fruit.