January 8, 2025 • 35 mins
Hour 2 of A&G features...
- Popular kids around the world are the smart ones... not in the U.S.
- F you Elon!
- Facebook is banning fact checking & more on Zuckerberg
- Reasons you'll fail your diet & cancelling subscriptions
Stupid Should Hurt: https://www.armstrongandgetty.com/
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Broadcasting live from the Abraham Lincoln Radio Studio the George
Washington Broadcast Center. Jack Armstrong and Joe Ketty, I'm strong
and Jay and he I'm strong and Getty.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
We have fires almost almost three sixty around us here
are different properties just on fire for hours. These winds
definitely from when we first came here have picked up
a lot. It seems like this has been burning just
I think, I believe since last night. And so fire
writers trying to do their absolute best. But as far
as a reporter's perspective, out here, while we are safe
(00:48):
and we do have protective gear, it is very difficult,
very smoky out here, a lot of ash. You know,
we have protective gear to cover our eyes and our mouth,
but it is just impossible to be out here if
you do not have here.
Speaker 1 (01:02):
That makes it tough.
Speaker 3 (01:03):
Thirty thousand people evacuated their homes so far in the
LA area, starting yesterday morning and going all throughout the day,
in the night and expecting the one hundred mile an
hour winds to continue.
Speaker 1 (01:13):
Throughout the day.
Speaker 3 (01:15):
It says there on Fox, as I look at the
TV screen with some giant mansion burning behind the guy,
I mean an enormous house that looks to be burning
to the ground.
Speaker 1 (01:27):
That's quite a deal.
Speaker 4 (01:28):
Yeah, I don't know where Fox is getting that number.
The winds are very high and there are some extraordinary gusts. Anyway,
Joe downplaying the thread of the fire in La No.
Just the idea that they're one hundred mile for hour
winds all day is just I don't think that's so.
Speaker 1 (01:45):
I don't know.
Speaker 3 (01:46):
I'm not there with a measuring thing, but I've heard
it on like four different outlets so far today because
I know it's.
Speaker 1 (01:52):
It's going to be very, very windy.
Speaker 3 (01:53):
Yes, So maybe you missed this during the two week break.
Speaker 1 (01:57):
This was.
Speaker 3 (02:00):
The moment that a whole bunch of MAGA people turned
on Elon, and from what I can tell from when
I dip into those circles, it has continued. And that's
an interesting thing, and it's all around the whole immigration thing.
As you know, Elon himself is an immigrant, came to
(02:23):
this country as a rocket engineer, and he has talked
at length about this and many many interviews and how
he came here because it's a land opportunity where he could,
you know, start a business and do its thing in
a way he can't anywhere else in the in the world,
and that's why the United States is the greatest country.
Blah blah blah blah blah. And the guy that's working
with him on Doge, vivivive Aramaswami, has got a very
(02:44):
similar story. Also became a billionaire. And when Trump was
talking about deporting people in the immigration situation and everything,
Elon was talking about how we need, you know, talent
here in the United States, so let's, you know, let's
come up with a way to make sure we have people.
And then there was a big pushback from some of
the MAGA crowd because they want they don't they want
(03:04):
to really restrict immigration a lot. So Vivek puts out
this tweet, this really really long tweet that I won't
read all of and then we'll discuss it a little bit.
Speaker 1 (03:12):
But it came out, I don't know, two weeks ago.
Speaker 3 (03:16):
The reason top tech companies often hire foreign born and
first generation engineers over native Americans isn't because of an
eight American IQ deficit, a lazy and wrong explanation. A
key part of it comes down to the C word culture.
Tough questions demand tough answers. And if we're really serious
about fixing the problem, we have to confront the truth.
(03:37):
Our American culture, I like him calling it our Our
American culture has venerated mediocrity over excellence for way too long,
at least since the nineties and likely longer. That doesn't
start in college, it starts young. I gotta say before
I get back to Viveks, we've been talking about this
for a long time. It bothers me a lot. I
think that's a huge problem we've got in the United States.
(03:59):
Don't don't know how at least that part of it
is controversial at all.
Speaker 4 (04:04):
Right, and part of it's the whole equity crowd that
or disparate impact. If anybody does better than anyone else,
that's absolute, irrefutable evidence that somebody cheated or wronged somebody,
or there is racism afoot. And so that turned very
quickly into demonizing or being suspicious of any sort of
excellence or success, which is a terrible way to look
(04:25):
at life.
Speaker 3 (04:26):
Back to Vivek, A culture that celebrates the prom queen
over the math Olympiad champ, or the jock over the
valedictorian will not produce the best engineers. A culture that venerates. Now,
you're not going to get all these references. I only
get some of them. A culture that venerates Corey from
Boy Meets World, or Zach and Slater over Screech and
Saved by the Bell, or Stefan over Steve Erkele and
(04:47):
family matters will not produce the best engineers. Fact, I
know multiple sets of immigrant parents in the nineties who
actively limited how much their kids could watch those TV
shows precisely because they promoted media I and their kids
went on to become wildly successful STEM graduates. Then he
mentions a couple more movies, TV shows and cartoons that
(05:10):
he doesn't think is good for our culture. We need
more weekend science competitions, fewer Saturday morning cartoons, more books,
less TV, more creating, less chillin', more extracurriculars, less hanging
out at the mall. Most normal American parents look skeptically
at those kind of parents. More normal Americans could view
those kind of kids with scorn. If you grow up
(05:31):
aspiring to normalcy, normalcy is what you will achieve. Now
close your eyes and visualize which families you knew in
the nineties or even now, who raise their kids according
to one model versus the other, be brutally honest. Normalcy
doesn't cut it in a hyper competitive global market for
technical talent, and if we pretend like it does, we'll
have our asses handed to us by China. This could
be our spotnik moment right for Vacan, then I will stop.
(05:54):
We've awakened from our slumber before and we can do
it again. Trump's election hopefully marks the beginning of a
new golden era in America, but only if our culture
fully wakes up, a culture that once again prioritizes achievement
over normalcy, excellence over mediocrity, nerdness over conformity, hard work
over laziness. Tremendous amount of pushback to that, I mean,
(06:14):
people went crazy interesting. I didn't really follow the pushback
over the criticizing of American culture that way. And then
it got into the H one B visas and all
that sort of stuff, and then you get down to
the nitty gritty where it's very, very complicated, and I
don't know much about it, but we have had many
people tell this over the years whenever this topic has
(06:35):
come up. Hey, businesses, hire these people from other countries,
because there's all kinds of tax advantages to hire in
the foreigner over the American with the same qualifications, and
you can't get rid of them where they can't leave,
so you have all kinds of leverage over them because
of the way the visa system works.
Speaker 4 (06:52):
And I remember it was about a decade ago there
was a big controversy over this in Silicon Valley and
we got the word directly from a bunch of people
who worked in that Look, these guys will work for
half what an American engineer will work for, and they
will live in a dorm with eight of their fellows
and sleep in a bunk bed and blah blah blah.
That's whither so attractive. It's not that they're better or
(07:13):
work harder, it's that they're cheaper. Now, that was a
while ago. I haven't heard directly from anybody for some time.
That is certainly a factor. Yeah, an EH one B thing. Yeah,
and I just found this out yesterday.
Speaker 3 (07:24):
Part of the agreement with the H one B thing
as you stay with your employer for a certain amount
of time or something like that, so you're stuck there,
so you know they don't have to give you raises
or whatever. Another advantage you can't quit.
Speaker 1 (07:35):
You can't. So that's a separate question from a separate question.
Greater point.
Speaker 3 (07:40):
Yeah, so they all got tied together and just a
lot of people being butt hurt, I guess over American
culture being disparaged.
Speaker 1 (07:46):
It doesn't bother me. I think it's absolutely true.
Speaker 3 (07:49):
I worry about it with my own kids, and and
I know plenty of my kids have friends who are
growing up with parents from other countries, and they are
way more serious about edge than I am with my kids,
and I am embarrassed by that.
Speaker 1 (08:05):
Yeah, you know, it's funny.
Speaker 4 (08:07):
I was thinking about this in a different context, specifically
the Mark Zuckerberg Facebook fact checker censorship thing, and how
everything's either got to be entirely good or entirely bad.
I'm either for it or against it. In our politics
a lot too, there's very little recognition that everything is
(08:27):
a trade off. Everything in life practically and in this
deal in Vivex screed, there's a good deal of truth there,
a whole lot. Now, is that some sort of I
hate America and every kid should be a hard driving
tech student. Well, no, of course, not take it with
a grain of salt. Seek the truth that's in his statement,
(08:50):
and the part you don't like you can toss, but
you don't have to hate him for saying it. I don't, Well,
everybody's so mad all the time.
Speaker 1 (08:57):
I don't have any way of knowing how true that is.
Speaker 3 (08:59):
I do know some people from Asian countries where it
is absolutely completely true. They've explained it to me on
how you are the rock star of the school, if
you're the math kid, the science kid, to whatever, you're
the coolest person in the school. We all know that's
not true in the United States for the most part,
but I don't know is that true in Europe or
(09:19):
is that limited to like Vietnam and South Korea in
places like that. I don't have any idea of that.
Speaker 1 (09:26):
I don't either.
Speaker 4 (09:27):
I'm thinking about Europe probably Europe has its own problems
culturally speaking, certainly don't want to imitate them.
Speaker 3 (09:33):
A high school in France. Are you better off being
the soccer star than the math nerd or like the
United States?
Speaker 1 (09:39):
Or is it more like in.
Speaker 3 (09:42):
Other countries I was mentioned were it's an academic thing.
I don't know the answer to these things.
Speaker 1 (09:47):
But.
Speaker 4 (09:49):
It is odd that that's what we have gravitated toward.
And I wasn't familiar with some of those pop culture
references either. I didn't watch that stuff very much. I
was too busy studying my physics and computer sign learning
to code.
Speaker 1 (10:03):
But I tell you what does ring true, and it's
food for thought. At least.
Speaker 4 (10:09):
What rings true is the idea that in popular culture,
the quick witted, wise acre guy and I do it
for a living. So believe me, I'm not denigrating communication
ability or certainly leadership ability, the ability to draw people
around you, the ability to charisma. In short, it's not worthless.
(10:31):
But in popular culture that person is revered, and the
fairly shy may be socially not as capable technical wizard
is an object of mockery. I don't know how much
that means, but it does mean something.
Speaker 3 (10:48):
Yeah, it bothers me a lot. Like my son, my youngest,
we play chess a lot. He's pretty good at chess,
and I've been really pushing him.
Speaker 4 (10:55):
It's actually not pronounced chess to Michael. There's no tea there,
and I've been pushing him to try to like get
into chess.
Speaker 3 (11:01):
And I happen to live in a town where they're
like chess coaches and stuff like that. And he said, dead,
every TV show you ever watch, every movie, the chess
kid is the nerd. I'm not gonna do that. And
I just I hate that that's the culture. I've been
trying to talk him out of that, but I just
I just hate that that's the case.
Speaker 4 (11:19):
Which brings us back to my grand unified theory of
the modern world, and that is that ninety nine percent
of everything we observed which formed our thoughts and beliefs
in all of human history up until like ten minutes ago,
was direct personal experience, your eyes, your ears, your senses.
(11:41):
And then once in a while you'd get a letter
from your aunt in New Jersey and that would be
the only significant input. Maybe maybe maybe you'd watch the
evening news and you'd flip through a newspaper, But the
vast majority of your experience was your personal experience. Now,
the vast majority of it is virtual, it's elect And
so how I think about different sorts of people and
(12:06):
where they are in the pecking order is affected in
an outsized way, in an unhealthy way, through the very
stupid pop culture we're talking about, in a way that
it wasn't in you know, the twentieth century, even.
Speaker 1 (12:21):
All I know.
Speaker 3 (12:22):
Is this the idea of a meritocracy? I am one
hundred percent for I want the smartest, best people to
be on a different track. And who cares if that
makes your kid feel bad or my kid feel bad.
My kids aren't going to be that at least so far.
Take the best talent prize them from all countries and
(12:43):
in our country, anybody that wants to come here, that's
the best, smartest people, let them come.
Speaker 4 (12:49):
I can't imagine being against that. Yeah again, you get
back to the visa thing. It gets a little commentated. Yeah,
but yeah, excellence. We've got to get back to saluting
and respecting excellence of this country or we will be doomed.
We will become, as we've been saying for a very
long time, Europe.
Speaker 1 (13:07):
We don't want to be Europe.
Speaker 3 (13:08):
If anybody wants to weigh in on that with your experience,
our text line four one five nine five KFTC.
Speaker 5 (13:17):
Well, guys, the country is still dealing with freezing temperatures
as millions of Americans are getting slammed by an.
Speaker 1 (13:23):
Arctic blast alcohol.
Speaker 5 (13:25):
It's so cold this morning, President Biden had chains put
on the tennis.
Speaker 1 (13:28):
Balls of his walker's should. Chain them up.
Speaker 3 (13:34):
Yeah, so I left something out of the big dust
up that happened over the last two weeks that most
of you probably didn't even know about, over immigration and
top talent from around the world coming here. And some
of you, I don't know if it's you, but some
people on the right seem to be anti anybody from
(13:54):
other countries coming here. And I definitely not with you
on that. I want the best talent from all countries
to come to the United States.
Speaker 1 (14:01):
That's the way we dominate.
Speaker 3 (14:02):
You gotta sign on to our beliefs though, Yes, and
you got to have a fair playing field for competing
for jobs. You can't have some sort of advantage over
You know, my kid who grows up wants to be
an engineer. But Elon a different attitude on the H
one B visa. This tweet is what turned a lot
of people on Elon a week or so ago. The
reason I'm in America along with so many critical people
(14:23):
who built SpaceX, Tesla and hundreds of other companies that
made America strong is because of the H one B.
Take a big step end in all caps after yourself
in the face. I will go to war on this issue.
The likes of which you cannot possibly compremend comprehend. And
he spelled out the word so it was spelled out
yourself in the face and all caps.
Speaker 1 (14:45):
Wow, that's you know what, that's rude.
Speaker 3 (14:49):
So a lot of people are a lot of the
maga wites split on that, and it was all f
you in the face, elon over this, no more, blah
blah blah blah blah.
Speaker 1 (14:58):
So it's it's that's some harsh rut rick.
Speaker 4 (15:07):
Right right, Yeah, online is just not where you go
for Well, that seems harsh and I don't understand his
point of view, but I have respect for him, so
I want to find out.
Speaker 1 (15:19):
What he means. I mean, that's just that practically doesn't
exist on Twitter. No, no, it does not.
Speaker 4 (15:25):
And all anger hitting back to the thought of you know,
excellence and that sort of thing, and this, I guess
this has something to do with race, I suppose, but
not at its core. I came across these statistics medical
school acceptance race. These are your doctors who are going
to be trading you. Okay, trust me. When you get
a little gray in the the hair, it becomes a
(15:47):
bigger part of your life. But these are and I
won't tell you the actual MCAT scores. That's the grad
school score for getting into medicine. But in the below
average range, only six percent of Asian people and eight
percent of white people in that range get accepted six
(16:09):
percent and eight percent Black folks in that range, fifty
six percent get accepted. In the average category. If you're Asian,
twenty one percent you get in, twenty nine percent of
white people, eighty one percent of Black people get in,
and it actually continues in a lesser way in the
upper ranges. Of course, my problem with this always is
(16:33):
that this is a band aid on the terrible wound
of lack of black achievement in schools and the reasons
for it, and the idea that you attack it at
the level of medical school as opposed to in neighborhood schools,
kids sociological problems which exist. You want to blame it
on racism or slavery, fine, let's talk about the sociological problems.
(16:55):
The idea that you solve it at the end by
promoting people who are clearly not qualified is idiotic.
Speaker 3 (17:02):
Well, that's bad for society. And then just on the
level of we want the best people, we want the
best people. I don't care where they came from or
what color they are. It's crazy.
Speaker 4 (17:13):
Mark Zuckerberg censorship fact checkers.
Speaker 1 (17:16):
We will discuss next day, Armstrong and Getty.
Speaker 5 (17:20):
Mark Zuckerberg announced that Meta will no longer fact check
posts on Facebook and Instagram, and users will now have
to correct any false posts themselves.
Speaker 1 (17:31):
I'm a little concerned.
Speaker 5 (17:32):
I mean, this is like Chipotle announcing that it's ending
health inspections.
Speaker 1 (17:35):
You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 5 (17:37):
If you're keeping tracks, fact checking is gone from Facebook
and Twitter right now. Wikipedia's like, how did we become
the responsible one?
Speaker 1 (17:43):
I mean, yeah, Joe didn't. Don't like that joke? No,
I didn't. Last part was all right, But yeah.
Speaker 3 (17:50):
Before we get back to the Facebook thing, one stat
we've left out of.
Speaker 1 (17:56):
The fires.
Speaker 3 (18:01):
In the LA area that are completely out of control,
and we personally know people who have had to flee
and their homes may have burned down already. All of
those fires are zero percent contained, zero percent.
Speaker 1 (18:14):
Yeah, and growing.
Speaker 4 (18:14):
Yeah, whipped by the winds at least through today and
probably endo tomorrow. It could be cataclysmic. Let's certainly hope
it's not. At least the lives are spared, If not,
the structures. So, yeah, getting back to Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook.
Maybe you heard the announcement yesterday. Probably we talked about
it a little bit. They are abandoning quote unquote professional
(18:35):
fact checking, which is a phrase so repugnant I can
barely get it to come out of the same mouth
I used to kiss my wife and going with community notes,
much like Twitter does. I refuse to say X, here's
Berzerkerberg yesterday clip ad Michael.
Speaker 6 (18:53):
We're going to get back to our roots and focus
on reducing mistakes, simplifying our policies, and restoring re expression
on our platforms. More specifically, we're going to get rid
of fact checkers and replace them with community notes, similar
to X starting in the US.
Speaker 3 (19:09):
So his new look is he wears a T shirt,
he's let his hair grow out, Yes, but he's wearing
a million dollar watch with his T shirt and his
long hair. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (19:21):
It was funny back when he was getting grilled by
the Democratic Congress and ordered to around by the White House,
which we'll get to in a minute, he was going
with a very close cropped suity look. But now that
the pro business Republicans are in charge and the pro
free speech types is like, all right, I'm gonna let
my freak flag fly.
Speaker 1 (19:40):
Interesting anyway, I don't want to spend too much time
on that.
Speaker 4 (19:42):
Here's his spokesman, Joel Kaplan, who's talking a little more
about the policies than we'll discuss eighty two.
Speaker 1 (19:47):
Michael, there's a number of changes we're making.
Speaker 7 (19:50):
But if I could and just highlight three, yep. First is,
as you heard, we're eliminating the third party fact checking system.
Speaker 4 (19:57):
You know, Michael said too much of what we've already covered. Apologies,
let's go with eighty four.
Speaker 7 (20:02):
So the second one is about the rules the governed
content on our platform. They've just become too restrictive over
time about what people can say, including about those kind
of sensitive topics that you mentioned that people want to
discuss and debate immigration, trans issues, gender. We want to
make it so that bottom line, if you can say
(20:22):
it on TV, you can say it on the Flora Congress,
you certainly ought to be able to say it on Facebook,
Instagram without fear of censorship.
Speaker 1 (20:29):
So we're changing those things.
Speaker 4 (20:30):
I would freaking say so, well, yeah, that is an
absolutely undeniably reasonable thing to say. Jack, would you like
to briefly characterize some of the mockery that's taking place
on the right on social media of all places around
this move.
Speaker 3 (20:46):
Well, it's the idea that now that there's a Republican Congress,
Republican government, the winds are blown that way, and Trump's
going to be president that all of a sudden, he's
a free speech warrior and wants the truth to come
out hilarious, and because they can do serious damage to
his business model, like could ruin him.
Speaker 1 (21:03):
Sure, right, Katie, did you have a thought?
Speaker 4 (21:06):
Yeah, Babylon b headline, guy who said Facebook was not
suppressing free speech announces Facebook will stop suppressing free speech.
Speaker 1 (21:15):
Yeah, I love that. Love that.
Speaker 4 (21:16):
So here's here's the deal. And lord knows, snark makes
my world go round. I'm not anti snark. Everything Cynical
said about this is one hundred percent correct. But there's more.
There's more, and the more, I think is more important.
Because Mark Zuckerberg is a force for evil on the planet.
(21:38):
He is a monster. I have called him satan, I believe.
Speaker 1 (21:41):
Wow.
Speaker 4 (21:43):
Watch The Social Dilemma, the twenty twenty documentary.
Speaker 1 (21:47):
I beg of you. I still haven't seen it. It's
a crime that I haven't seen that. Damn you sir,
I am I allowed to say that? Or will I
be censored?
Speaker 4 (21:56):
Michael, No, we allow free speech and talk radio anyway.
So watch that and understand how evil big tech is
and how and as Jack has said many times, there
could be no more effective indictment of them than these
tech giants won't let their kids use their own products.
Thing kidding me, sorry, folks, anyway, having said that, bind
(22:18):
yourself in the face, like Elon says, Oh no, no,
this has gone too far. You don't know when to stop.
We should have stopped anyway. So all of that snark
about Zuckerberg is one hundred percent true. But here's the
part that's missing. You've got to remember the enormous, unconstitutional,
unholy pressure these guys were under from the forces of
(22:42):
the progressive.
Speaker 1 (22:43):
Lat That's a good point.
Speaker 4 (22:45):
The government was trying to do an end run around
the First Amendment by strong arming guys like Zuckerberg, who again,
I got no love for Zuckerberg whatsoever, but I do
have a love for free speech and free enterprise, and
they were getting absolutely mobster style. It'd be a shame
of something happened to your social network. If you don't,
(23:06):
I don't know silence doctor Marty mckery. You don't silence
doctor Batticheria, who are saying, you know, I think young
strong people don't need the vaccine, you better silence them.
Speaker 1 (23:18):
That's the really unholy part. You're right.
Speaker 3 (23:21):
That would be the profile encourage that I'd like to
see out of Mark Zuckerberg. He come forward and say, Hey,
the reason we did what we did about not allowing
people to discuss Hey, kind of weird that the virus
came out of uh wuhan right next to the lab.
Speaker 1 (23:37):
Kind of weird. Huh.
Speaker 3 (23:38):
The fact that we wouldn't allow that conversation is because
the Biden administration hinted strongly they were going to ruin
us if we allowed that kind of talk.
Speaker 4 (23:47):
God, I wish he would say that out loud. That'd
be fantastic. And you know, I could give you a
long list. I'll touch on a couple of things. JOHNS
hopkinsurgon Marty mckery was talking about the pace at which
Americans would develop her community that was flagged taken down.
They targeted the Wall Street Journal's review of a book
by a guy who's a climate contrarian and like suppressed
(24:09):
that you couldn't even hear the review of that guy's
opinion because of the progressive censorship by proxy. And that's
the really really ugly part of it to me. So
and actually interestingly, Zuckerberg prior to that said some great
stuff about free speech. I mean, like he stole it
(24:29):
out of my mouth. And again, I'm not a fan
of the guy at or all. Don't think he's particularly smart.
That's been my take for a very very long time.
I think he's probably a great computer programmer and that
sort of thing.
Speaker 1 (24:41):
I just don't think he's that smart guy. I don't
think he.
Speaker 3 (24:45):
Understands the big issues on a lot of this stuff,
or cares he cares.
Speaker 1 (24:50):
I think this possible. I've always felt he kind of
got lucky. Oh hell, yes he did. Absolutely.
Speaker 3 (24:56):
If you build a this is how we're gonna get
laid app college and it turns into what Facebook is,
that's an accident.
Speaker 4 (25:03):
Yeah, but I wouldn't I wouldn't go that far to
underestimate the guy. To assemble a great team and help
it function is a gift.
Speaker 3 (25:13):
Okay, maybe this is the wrong word. I know a
bunch of very successful business people. They have no knowledge
about issues like free speech and that sort of thing.
Speaker 4 (25:24):
Zero.
Speaker 3 (25:25):
I know so many really successful business guys that have
never read a.
Speaker 1 (25:28):
Book and are proud of it.
Speaker 3 (25:30):
I know a handful of millionaires who are proud of
the fact that they've never read a book. They've got
one of our talent that is about business, but they
just have no like And I don't know what word
you should use, smart, knowledgeable, wise, I don't know what
it is, but yeah, it's broad ranging knowledge.
Speaker 4 (25:48):
Yes, that characteriziction, the characterization of him. I will sign
on to Here's the part I wanted to get to. Oh,
this is still the Is that still the editorial? Yeah,
which is excellent. In the Wall Street Journal, the editorial
board is saying all the right things, and they go
into detail how the so called fact checking became a
(26:09):
tool to censor it was just a way to get
your preferred political outcome. Is completely funny. But so it's
funny because often the editorial board and a paper is,
you know, there's a high wall between them and the reporters,
at least when papers function the way they're supposed to.
But I'm looking at the Wall Street Journal's coverage of
the story and they go through the fact but then
(26:29):
who are these I would like to personally it's a
list of journalists who worked on this piece. But they
quote all sorts of different people in this story about
whether there's a good move or a bad move. And
then they quote Alex Mahedeven, who's director of Media Wize,
a digital media literacy project at the Points Are Institute.
Speaker 1 (26:51):
Hang on, I'll reveal something in a moment, he says.
Speaker 4 (26:55):
The generalists say, researchers say the program has shortcomings and
should not report professional fact checkers. Notes take time to appear,
blah blah blah. And this guy says, since it's based
on finding consensus, it can't work at scale. This is
the guy who runs the outfit that runs PolitiFact, a
fact checking website quote unquote that is one of Meta's partners.
(27:17):
There could be no more divorce from fact partisan hack
outfit in the world than PolitiFact. The idea that the
Wall Street Journal is quoting of his experts quote unquote
is hilarious, Well.
Speaker 3 (27:29):
Fact check the term professional fact checker is hilarious. How
do you say that with the straight face? M Okay,
who's paying you to do this? And what are their
wants and needs?
Speaker 1 (27:42):
Okay?
Speaker 4 (27:43):
Exactly you've got a child's perception of what fact is
and is not, particularly when you're talking about controversial issues.
That's the whole point is different people are sure they
know different things from the other people. Anyway, I found
this so interesting, and this is the perfect time to
drop this in because the Wall Street Journal, which is
(28:05):
my favorite big paper publication website these days, along with
the Free Press and a couple of others, but among
your traditional outlets, I should say Wall Street Journal is
my favorite. Quoting quote unquote experts. I'd come across this earlier.
It's it's uh, and I'll just briefly summarize it. This
story and Twitter thread makes the point that so called
(28:27):
experts are drawn wildly disproportionately, not entirely, but mostly from academia.
Speaker 1 (28:36):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 4 (28:38):
And they make the point that, for instance, in we're
talking about communications now right and on you know, well,
communications in short, one hundred percent of professors and communications
that were polled, and they polled thousands of professors were
Democrats one hundred percent in communications. Likewise, in anthropology, in
(28:59):
real life religion, it's just under ninety nine percent.
Speaker 1 (29:03):
I could keep going.
Speaker 4 (29:03):
Sociology is ninety eight percent not surprisingly music theatre classics
ninety six and a half percent Democrats.
Speaker 3 (29:11):
Yeah, we did this a couple of weeks ago. I
think you were out for an hour and I did
this topic. But it is everybody should know this, right,
It's obvious once you hear it. But of course all
of the views you hear are left leaning when they
go to the expert. When you look at who's an expert,
and the fact that they're in some cases, as you
(29:31):
pointed out, one hundred percent one direction politically.
Speaker 4 (29:34):
And as I'm sure you pointed out, you've got to
get down to engineering to get to a modest Sixty
two percent of the professors are Democrats. So if you
ever hear a quote unquote expert quoted, the chances are
overwhelming they're going to be a lefty man.
Speaker 3 (29:52):
That'll change my perception of that for the rest of
my life. It's obvious in that Dan wall Street Journal Arm. Yeah, yeah,
I had never thought of it before. Speaking of experts,
how are you doing on your diet? We're eight days
into the new year. Uh, experts say the four signs
that you're not gonna make it. You're gonna fail on
your diet. Oh, I thought you meant not gonna make
(30:13):
it at all. No, you're gonna fail, and you've got
to get my affairs in order. Here are the key
the key things to watch out for us. We'll have
that coming up. I was just watching a video of
them loading seniors onto buses at the Senior center that
burnt down in Pasadena. Uh, with the flames, you know,
(30:34):
coming down the hill really fast. Wow, that had to
be a pressure situation. Wouldn't be easy to do to
move people in that age group either. The most common
New Year's resolution is to either eat better, exercise more.
Combination of those two things generally lose weight, get tracked together,
(30:56):
that sort of thing. And I saw this thing in
the New York Post, red flag for you know, the
fact that you're going to fail, And I thought this
would probably be kind of jivy and stupid. It's actually
pretty good. It's the sort of stuff we've been saying
for a long time. It's like more common sense than
anything else. It says here eighty percent of people fail
in their New Year's resolutions. I don't know if that's
true or not. Probably close to right.
Speaker 1 (31:19):
Sure.
Speaker 3 (31:20):
One of the things that says, if there is one
pill or ingredient or something like that that you're using
to change everything that's probably not gonna work. Doing sense,
take a look of whether or not you have time
to do what you're planning to do. Like how you
know you're going to start going to the gym or
(31:41):
running or whatever it is you're going to do.
Speaker 1 (31:43):
Do you have free time? Now?
Speaker 3 (31:45):
If you don't, then you got to pick something specific
that you're going to eliminate to allow time, which is obvious,
but maybe you don't think about that.
Speaker 4 (31:54):
Well, no, I don't have time, which is why I'm
taking massive doses of turmeric. It's all about turmeric bills.
Speaker 1 (32:02):
But it makes sense.
Speaker 3 (32:03):
If you're already like busy every single day and now
you're gonna start going to the gym, there isn't gonna
be magically another hour added to the day.
Speaker 1 (32:11):
You're gonna have to cut something out.
Speaker 4 (32:13):
Yeah, Yeah, which strewing around wasting time.
Speaker 1 (32:16):
Watching TV pretty damned obvious. Get down to business.
Speaker 3 (32:20):
Also said, uh, and we've talked about this for years.
You got to kind of ease into modest expectations as
opposed to you know, I'm gonna lose fifty pounds by
by January twentieth, I'm gonna start working out an hour
and a half every single day. Oh my god, nobody's
gonna change your life that drastically.
Speaker 1 (32:38):
Nobody. He's into it gradually.
Speaker 3 (32:40):
I thought that was a good idea, but that that
time of thing really struck me as.
Speaker 1 (32:44):
So incredibly obvious. But I don't know.
Speaker 3 (32:48):
At least, it's something I've never thought about many times.
If I'm gonna start anything like my playing the piano, Okay,
how much do you want to practice? You're already busy.
What's gonna give to allow this to happen?
Speaker 1 (33:02):
All right?
Speaker 3 (33:02):
Whether it's watching less TV, sleeping less, I don't know, eliminated, Yeah,
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (33:07):
But it's got to come from somewhere.
Speaker 4 (33:10):
Right and at some point you although actually I was
going to say, you have to rest your brain in
your body, although I think most of us get plenty
of rest for our bodies, and if you're working out,
that is.
Speaker 1 (33:19):
A good rest for your brain.
Speaker 3 (33:20):
But yeah, I don't know this speaking and working out.
I had the classic trying to quit a gym thing
happen over the last couple of weeks. We had a
gym that we started like, well, it was the last July.
I happened to know exactly because they claim I signed
up for a year, even though I know I didn't.
And the hardest thing to do in the world, everybody knows,
is quit a gym. They've come up with all kinds
(33:41):
of different ways to make sure you can't quit and
they can keep you around. And I went to quit
this gym. I went into the first of all, they
said you have to come in to do it.
Speaker 1 (33:49):
Oh, that's funny.
Speaker 3 (33:50):
I could sign up on the phone, but to quit,
I have to come in. So I drive to where
it is, fill out the papers, all that sort of stuff.
Then credit card thing shows up in my email. I
got billed again for another month. I called them up
and they said, well, we have you here that you
signed up for a year. No I didn't. I would
have never signed up for a year. There's no way
I knew I wasn't gonna be there for a year.
There's no way I signed up for a year. Well,
we have you down is signing up for a year? Well,
(34:11):
whoever was there when I came in, Let me quit.
They said I could quit, and I signed a piece
of paper. Oh, we don't have any record of that.
Here's the number you call for the main office, and
it's a big national compan Same thing happened to me
yesterday with a coffee company.
Speaker 1 (34:25):
And I won't mention the name because I don't want
to be sued.
Speaker 3 (34:27):
But they I was on there automatic send me the
pods thing, and I decided I didn't want those anymore
and I quit it. And then I got sent more
pods and I contacted them and they said, well, it.
Speaker 1 (34:38):
Takes forty five days for that to go through. It's interesting.
Speaker 3 (34:41):
I can sign up immediately to spend money and get pods,
but if I want to star send them out the
next day. The fine print is it takes forty five
days to process your ending your commitment.
Speaker 1 (34:53):
How do you like that?
Speaker 4 (34:55):
How sad is clearly what it is. Yeah, I mean
everybody knows what's going on there.
Speaker 1 (35:01):
Yeah, we'll let you. I tell you what. We'll let
you quit without argument. You take one more shipment, that's
what they're saying.
Speaker 3 (35:06):
Yeah, yeah, we can get We know we can get
one more shipment out of everybody this way, and so
we do.
Speaker 4 (35:11):
Now the health club is saying, you're gonna burn a
thousand calories to get out of this deal.
Speaker 1 (35:16):
We're doing you a favor.
Speaker 3 (35:17):
If you miss a segment or no howur get the
podcast Armstrong and Getty on demand Armstrong and Getty
Broadcasting live from the Abraham Lincoln Radio Studio the George
Washington Broadcast Center. Jack Armstrong and Joe Ketty, I'm strong
and Jay and he I'm strong and Getty.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
We have fires almost almost three sixty around us here
are different properties just on fire for hours. These winds
definitely from when we first came here have picked up
a lot. It seems like this has been burning just
I think, I believe since last night. And so fire
writers trying to do their absolute best. But as far
as a reporter's perspective, out here, while we are safe
(00:48):
and we do have protective gear, it is very difficult,
very smoky out here, a lot of ash. You know,
we have protective gear to cover our eyes and our mouth,
but it is just impossible to be out here if
you do not have here.
Speaker 1 (01:02):
That makes it tough.
Speaker 3 (01:03):
Thirty thousand people evacuated their homes so far in the
LA area, starting yesterday morning and going all throughout the day,
in the night and expecting the one hundred mile an
hour winds to continue.
Speaker 1 (01:13):
Throughout the day.
Speaker 3 (01:15):
It says there on Fox, as I look at the
TV screen with some giant mansion burning behind the guy,
I mean an enormous house that looks to be burning
to the ground.
Speaker 1 (01:27):
That's quite a deal.
Speaker 4 (01:28):
Yeah, I don't know where Fox is getting that number.
The winds are very high and there are some extraordinary gusts. Anyway,
Joe downplaying the thread of the fire in La No.
Just the idea that they're one hundred mile for hour
winds all day is just I don't think that's so.
Speaker 1 (01:45):
I don't know.
Speaker 3 (01:46):
I'm not there with a measuring thing, but I've heard
it on like four different outlets so far today because
I know it's.
Speaker 1 (01:52):
It's going to be very, very windy.
Speaker 3 (01:53):
Yes, So maybe you missed this during the two week break.
Speaker 1 (01:57):
This was.
Speaker 3 (02:00):
The moment that a whole bunch of MAGA people turned
on Elon, and from what I can tell from when
I dip into those circles, it has continued. And that's
an interesting thing, and it's all around the whole immigration thing.
As you know, Elon himself is an immigrant, came to
(02:23):
this country as a rocket engineer, and he has talked
at length about this and many many interviews and how
he came here because it's a land opportunity where he could,
you know, start a business and do its thing in
a way he can't anywhere else in the in the world,
and that's why the United States is the greatest country.
Blah blah blah blah blah. And the guy that's working
with him on Doge, vivivive Aramaswami, has got a very
(02:44):
similar story. Also became a billionaire. And when Trump was
talking about deporting people in the immigration situation and everything,
Elon was talking about how we need, you know, talent
here in the United States, so let's, you know, let's
come up with a way to make sure we have people.
And then there was a big pushback from some of
the MAGA crowd because they want they don't they want
(03:04):
to really restrict immigration a lot. So Vivek puts out
this tweet, this really really long tweet that I won't
read all of and then we'll discuss it a little bit.
Speaker 1 (03:12):
But it came out, I don't know, two weeks ago.
Speaker 3 (03:16):
The reason top tech companies often hire foreign born and
first generation engineers over native Americans isn't because of an
eight American IQ deficit, a lazy and wrong explanation. A
key part of it comes down to the C word culture.
Tough questions demand tough answers. And if we're really serious
about fixing the problem, we have to confront the truth.
(03:37):
Our American culture, I like him calling it our Our
American culture has venerated mediocrity over excellence for way too long,
at least since the nineties and likely longer. That doesn't
start in college, it starts young. I gotta say before
I get back to Viveks, we've been talking about this
for a long time. It bothers me a lot. I
think that's a huge problem we've got in the United States.
(03:59):
Don't don't know how at least that part of it
is controversial at all.
Speaker 4 (04:04):
Right, and part of it's the whole equity crowd that
or disparate impact. If anybody does better than anyone else,
that's absolute, irrefutable evidence that somebody cheated or wronged somebody,
or there is racism afoot. And so that turned very
quickly into demonizing or being suspicious of any sort of
excellence or success, which is a terrible way to look
(04:25):
at life.
Speaker 3 (04:26):
Back to Vivek, A culture that celebrates the prom queen
over the math Olympiad champ, or the jock over the
valedictorian will not produce the best engineers. A culture that venerates. Now,
you're not going to get all these references. I only
get some of them. A culture that venerates Corey from
Boy Meets World, or Zach and Slater over Screech and
Saved by the Bell, or Stefan over Steve Erkele and
(04:47):
family matters will not produce the best engineers. Fact, I
know multiple sets of immigrant parents in the nineties who
actively limited how much their kids could watch those TV
shows precisely because they promoted media I and their kids
went on to become wildly successful STEM graduates. Then he
mentions a couple more movies, TV shows and cartoons that
(05:10):
he doesn't think is good for our culture. We need
more weekend science competitions, fewer Saturday morning cartoons, more books,
less TV, more creating, less chillin', more extracurriculars, less hanging
out at the mall. Most normal American parents look skeptically
at those kind of parents. More normal Americans could view
those kind of kids with scorn. If you grow up
(05:31):
aspiring to normalcy, normalcy is what you will achieve. Now
close your eyes and visualize which families you knew in
the nineties or even now, who raise their kids according
to one model versus the other, be brutally honest. Normalcy
doesn't cut it in a hyper competitive global market for
technical talent, and if we pretend like it does, we'll
have our asses handed to us by China. This could
be our spotnik moment right for Vacan, then I will stop.
(05:54):
We've awakened from our slumber before and we can do
it again. Trump's election hopefully marks the beginning of a
new golden era in America, but only if our culture
fully wakes up, a culture that once again prioritizes achievement
over normalcy, excellence over mediocrity, nerdness over conformity, hard work
over laziness. Tremendous amount of pushback to that, I mean,
(06:14):
people went crazy interesting. I didn't really follow the pushback
over the criticizing of American culture that way. And then
it got into the H one B visas and all
that sort of stuff, and then you get down to
the nitty gritty where it's very, very complicated, and I
don't know much about it, but we have had many
people tell this over the years whenever this topic has
(06:35):
come up. Hey, businesses, hire these people from other countries,
because there's all kinds of tax advantages to hire in
the foreigner over the American with the same qualifications, and
you can't get rid of them where they can't leave,
so you have all kinds of leverage over them because
of the way the visa system works.
Speaker 4 (06:52):
And I remember it was about a decade ago there
was a big controversy over this in Silicon Valley and
we got the word directly from a bunch of people
who worked in that Look, these guys will work for
half what an American engineer will work for, and they
will live in a dorm with eight of their fellows
and sleep in a bunk bed and blah blah blah.
That's whither so attractive. It's not that they're better or
(07:13):
work harder, it's that they're cheaper. Now, that was a
while ago. I haven't heard directly from anybody for some time.
That is certainly a factor. Yeah, an EH one B thing. Yeah,
and I just found this out yesterday.
Speaker 3 (07:24):
Part of the agreement with the H one B thing
as you stay with your employer for a certain amount
of time or something like that, so you're stuck there,
so you know they don't have to give you raises
or whatever. Another advantage you can't quit.
Speaker 1 (07:35):
You can't. So that's a separate question from a separate question.
Greater point.
Speaker 3 (07:40):
Yeah, so they all got tied together and just a
lot of people being butt hurt, I guess over American
culture being disparaged.
Speaker 1 (07:46):
It doesn't bother me. I think it's absolutely true.
Speaker 3 (07:49):
I worry about it with my own kids, and and
I know plenty of my kids have friends who are
growing up with parents from other countries, and they are
way more serious about edge than I am with my kids,
and I am embarrassed by that.
Speaker 1 (08:05):
Yeah, you know, it's funny.
Speaker 4 (08:07):
I was thinking about this in a different context, specifically
the Mark Zuckerberg Facebook fact checker censorship thing, and how
everything's either got to be entirely good or entirely bad.
I'm either for it or against it. In our politics
a lot too, there's very little recognition that everything is
(08:27):
a trade off. Everything in life practically and in this
deal in Vivex screed, there's a good deal of truth there,
a whole lot. Now, is that some sort of I
hate America and every kid should be a hard driving
tech student. Well, no, of course, not take it with
a grain of salt. Seek the truth that's in his statement,
(08:50):
and the part you don't like you can toss, but
you don't have to hate him for saying it. I don't, Well,
everybody's so mad all the time.
Speaker 1 (08:57):
I don't have any way of knowing how true that is.
Speaker 3 (08:59):
I do know some people from Asian countries where it
is absolutely completely true. They've explained it to me on
how you are the rock star of the school, if
you're the math kid, the science kid, to whatever, you're
the coolest person in the school. We all know that's
not true in the United States for the most part,
but I don't know is that true in Europe or
(09:19):
is that limited to like Vietnam and South Korea in
places like that. I don't have any idea of that.
Speaker 1 (09:26):
I don't either.
Speaker 4 (09:27):
I'm thinking about Europe probably Europe has its own problems
culturally speaking, certainly don't want to imitate them.
Speaker 3 (09:33):
A high school in France. Are you better off being
the soccer star than the math nerd or like the
United States?
Speaker 1 (09:39):
Or is it more like in.
Speaker 3 (09:42):
Other countries I was mentioned were it's an academic thing.
I don't know the answer to these things.
Speaker 1 (09:47):
But.
Speaker 4 (09:49):
It is odd that that's what we have gravitated toward.
And I wasn't familiar with some of those pop culture
references either. I didn't watch that stuff very much. I
was too busy studying my physics and computer sign learning
to code.
Speaker 1 (10:03):
But I tell you what does ring true, and it's
food for thought. At least.
Speaker 4 (10:09):
What rings true is the idea that in popular culture,
the quick witted, wise acre guy and I do it
for a living. So believe me, I'm not denigrating communication
ability or certainly leadership ability, the ability to draw people
around you, the ability to charisma. In short, it's not worthless.
(10:31):
But in popular culture that person is revered, and the
fairly shy may be socially not as capable technical wizard
is an object of mockery. I don't know how much
that means, but it does mean something.
Speaker 3 (10:48):
Yeah, it bothers me a lot. Like my son, my youngest,
we play chess a lot. He's pretty good at chess,
and I've been really pushing him.
Speaker 4 (10:55):
It's actually not pronounced chess to Michael. There's no tea there,
and I've been pushing him to try to like get
into chess.
Speaker 3 (11:01):
And I happen to live in a town where they're
like chess coaches and stuff like that. And he said, dead,
every TV show you ever watch, every movie, the chess
kid is the nerd. I'm not gonna do that. And
I just I hate that that's the culture. I've been
trying to talk him out of that, but I just
I just hate that that's the case.
Speaker 4 (11:19):
Which brings us back to my grand unified theory of
the modern world, and that is that ninety nine percent
of everything we observed which formed our thoughts and beliefs
in all of human history up until like ten minutes ago,
was direct personal experience, your eyes, your ears, your senses.
(11:41):
And then once in a while you'd get a letter
from your aunt in New Jersey and that would be
the only significant input. Maybe maybe maybe you'd watch the
evening news and you'd flip through a newspaper, But the
vast majority of your experience was your personal experience. Now,
the vast majority of it is virtual, it's elect And
so how I think about different sorts of people and
(12:06):
where they are in the pecking order is affected in
an outsized way, in an unhealthy way, through the very
stupid pop culture we're talking about, in a way that
it wasn't in you know, the twentieth century, even.
Speaker 1 (12:21):
All I know.
Speaker 3 (12:22):
Is this the idea of a meritocracy? I am one
hundred percent for I want the smartest, best people to
be on a different track. And who cares if that
makes your kid feel bad or my kid feel bad.
My kids aren't going to be that at least so far.
Take the best talent prize them from all countries and
(12:43):
in our country, anybody that wants to come here, that's
the best, smartest people, let them come.
Speaker 4 (12:49):
I can't imagine being against that. Yeah again, you get
back to the visa thing. It gets a little commentated. Yeah,
but yeah, excellence. We've got to get back to saluting
and respecting excellence of this country or we will be doomed.
We will become, as we've been saying for a very
long time, Europe.
Speaker 1 (13:07):
We don't want to be Europe.
Speaker 3 (13:08):
If anybody wants to weigh in on that with your experience,
our text line four one five nine five KFTC.
Speaker 5 (13:17):
Well, guys, the country is still dealing with freezing temperatures
as millions of Americans are getting slammed by an.
Speaker 1 (13:23):
Arctic blast alcohol.
Speaker 5 (13:25):
It's so cold this morning, President Biden had chains put
on the tennis.
Speaker 1 (13:28):
Balls of his walker's should. Chain them up.
Speaker 3 (13:34):
Yeah, so I left something out of the big dust
up that happened over the last two weeks that most
of you probably didn't even know about, over immigration and
top talent from around the world coming here. And some
of you, I don't know if it's you, but some
people on the right seem to be anti anybody from
(13:54):
other countries coming here. And I definitely not with you
on that. I want the best talent from all countries
to come to the United States.
Speaker 1 (14:01):
That's the way we dominate.
Speaker 3 (14:02):
You gotta sign on to our beliefs though, Yes, and
you got to have a fair playing field for competing
for jobs. You can't have some sort of advantage over
You know, my kid who grows up wants to be
an engineer. But Elon a different attitude on the H
one B visa. This tweet is what turned a lot
of people on Elon a week or so ago. The
reason I'm in America along with so many critical people
(14:23):
who built SpaceX, Tesla and hundreds of other companies that
made America strong is because of the H one B.
Take a big step end in all caps after yourself
in the face. I will go to war on this issue.
The likes of which you cannot possibly compremend comprehend. And
he spelled out the word so it was spelled out
yourself in the face and all caps.
Speaker 1 (14:45):
Wow, that's you know what, that's rude.
Speaker 3 (14:49):
So a lot of people are a lot of the
maga wites split on that, and it was all f
you in the face, elon over this, no more, blah
blah blah blah blah.
Speaker 1 (14:58):
So it's it's that's some harsh rut rick.
Speaker 4 (15:07):
Right right, Yeah, online is just not where you go
for Well, that seems harsh and I don't understand his
point of view, but I have respect for him, so
I want to find out.
Speaker 1 (15:19):
What he means. I mean, that's just that practically doesn't
exist on Twitter. No, no, it does not.
Speaker 4 (15:25):
And all anger hitting back to the thought of you know,
excellence and that sort of thing, and this, I guess
this has something to do with race, I suppose, but
not at its core. I came across these statistics medical
school acceptance race. These are your doctors who are going
to be trading you. Okay, trust me. When you get
a little gray in the the hair, it becomes a
(15:47):
bigger part of your life. But these are and I
won't tell you the actual MCAT scores. That's the grad
school score for getting into medicine. But in the below
average range, only six percent of Asian people and eight
percent of white people in that range get accepted six
(16:09):
percent and eight percent Black folks in that range, fifty
six percent get accepted. In the average category. If you're Asian,
twenty one percent you get in, twenty nine percent of
white people, eighty one percent of Black people get in,
and it actually continues in a lesser way in the
upper ranges. Of course, my problem with this always is
(16:33):
that this is a band aid on the terrible wound
of lack of black achievement in schools and the reasons
for it, and the idea that you attack it at
the level of medical school as opposed to in neighborhood schools,
kids sociological problems which exist. You want to blame it
on racism or slavery, fine, let's talk about the sociological problems.
(16:55):
The idea that you solve it at the end by
promoting people who are clearly not qualified is idiotic.
Speaker 3 (17:02):
Well, that's bad for society. And then just on the
level of we want the best people, we want the
best people. I don't care where they came from or
what color they are. It's crazy.
Speaker 4 (17:13):
Mark Zuckerberg censorship fact checkers.
Speaker 1 (17:16):
We will discuss next day, Armstrong and Getty.
Speaker 5 (17:20):
Mark Zuckerberg announced that Meta will no longer fact check
posts on Facebook and Instagram, and users will now have
to correct any false posts themselves.
Speaker 1 (17:31):
I'm a little concerned.
Speaker 5 (17:32):
I mean, this is like Chipotle announcing that it's ending
health inspections.
Speaker 1 (17:35):
You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 5 (17:37):
If you're keeping tracks, fact checking is gone from Facebook
and Twitter right now. Wikipedia's like, how did we become
the responsible one?
Speaker 1 (17:43):
I mean, yeah, Joe didn't. Don't like that joke? No,
I didn't. Last part was all right, But yeah.
Speaker 3 (17:50):
Before we get back to the Facebook thing, one stat
we've left out of.
Speaker 1 (17:56):
The fires.
Speaker 3 (18:01):
In the LA area that are completely out of control,
and we personally know people who have had to flee
and their homes may have burned down already. All of
those fires are zero percent contained, zero percent.
Speaker 1 (18:14):
Yeah, and growing.
Speaker 4 (18:14):
Yeah, whipped by the winds at least through today and
probably endo tomorrow. It could be cataclysmic. Let's certainly hope
it's not. At least the lives are spared, If not,
the structures. So, yeah, getting back to Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook.
Maybe you heard the announcement yesterday. Probably we talked about
it a little bit. They are abandoning quote unquote professional
(18:35):
fact checking, which is a phrase so repugnant I can
barely get it to come out of the same mouth
I used to kiss my wife and going with community notes,
much like Twitter does. I refuse to say X, here's
Berzerkerberg yesterday clip ad Michael.
Speaker 6 (18:53):
We're going to get back to our roots and focus
on reducing mistakes, simplifying our policies, and restoring re expression
on our platforms. More specifically, we're going to get rid
of fact checkers and replace them with community notes, similar
to X starting in the US.
Speaker 3 (19:09):
So his new look is he wears a T shirt,
he's let his hair grow out, Yes, but he's wearing
a million dollar watch with his T shirt and his
long hair. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (19:21):
It was funny back when he was getting grilled by
the Democratic Congress and ordered to around by the White House,
which we'll get to in a minute, he was going
with a very close cropped suity look. But now that
the pro business Republicans are in charge and the pro
free speech types is like, all right, I'm gonna let
my freak flag fly.
Speaker 1 (19:40):
Interesting anyway, I don't want to spend too much time
on that.
Speaker 4 (19:42):
Here's his spokesman, Joel Kaplan, who's talking a little more
about the policies than we'll discuss eighty two.
Speaker 1 (19:47):
Michael, there's a number of changes we're making.
Speaker 7 (19:50):
But if I could and just highlight three, yep. First is,
as you heard, we're eliminating the third party fact checking system.
Speaker 4 (19:57):
You know, Michael said too much of what we've already covered. Apologies,
let's go with eighty four.
Speaker 7 (20:02):
So the second one is about the rules the governed
content on our platform. They've just become too restrictive over
time about what people can say, including about those kind
of sensitive topics that you mentioned that people want to
discuss and debate immigration, trans issues, gender. We want to
make it so that bottom line, if you can say
(20:22):
it on TV, you can say it on the Flora Congress,
you certainly ought to be able to say it on Facebook,
Instagram without fear of censorship.
Speaker 1 (20:29):
So we're changing those things.
Speaker 4 (20:30):
I would freaking say so, well, yeah, that is an
absolutely undeniably reasonable thing to say. Jack, would you like
to briefly characterize some of the mockery that's taking place
on the right on social media of all places around
this move.
Speaker 3 (20:46):
Well, it's the idea that now that there's a Republican Congress,
Republican government, the winds are blown that way, and Trump's
going to be president that all of a sudden, he's
a free speech warrior and wants the truth to come
out hilarious, and because they can do serious damage to
his business model, like could ruin him.
Speaker 1 (21:03):
Sure, right, Katie, did you have a thought?
Speaker 4 (21:06):
Yeah, Babylon b headline, guy who said Facebook was not
suppressing free speech announces Facebook will stop suppressing free speech.
Speaker 1 (21:15):
Yeah, I love that. Love that.
Speaker 4 (21:16):
So here's here's the deal. And lord knows, snark makes
my world go round. I'm not anti snark. Everything Cynical
said about this is one hundred percent correct. But there's more.
There's more, and the more, I think is more important.
Because Mark Zuckerberg is a force for evil on the planet.
(21:38):
He is a monster. I have called him satan, I believe.
Speaker 1 (21:41):
Wow.
Speaker 4 (21:43):
Watch The Social Dilemma, the twenty twenty documentary.
Speaker 1 (21:47):
I beg of you. I still haven't seen it. It's
a crime that I haven't seen that. Damn you sir,
I am I allowed to say that? Or will I
be censored?
Speaker 4 (21:56):
Michael, No, we allow free speech and talk radio anyway.
So watch that and understand how evil big tech is
and how and as Jack has said many times, there
could be no more effective indictment of them than these
tech giants won't let their kids use their own products.
Thing kidding me, sorry, folks, anyway, having said that, bind
(22:18):
yourself in the face, like Elon says, Oh no, no,
this has gone too far. You don't know when to stop.
We should have stopped anyway. So all of that snark
about Zuckerberg is one hundred percent true. But here's the
part that's missing. You've got to remember the enormous, unconstitutional,
unholy pressure these guys were under from the forces of
(22:42):
the progressive.
Speaker 1 (22:43):
Lat That's a good point.
Speaker 4 (22:45):
The government was trying to do an end run around
the First Amendment by strong arming guys like Zuckerberg, who again,
I got no love for Zuckerberg whatsoever, but I do
have a love for free speech and free enterprise, and
they were getting absolutely mobster style. It'd be a shame
of something happened to your social network. If you don't,
(23:06):
I don't know silence doctor Marty mckery. You don't silence
doctor Batticheria, who are saying, you know, I think young
strong people don't need the vaccine, you better silence them.
Speaker 1 (23:18):
That's the really unholy part. You're right.
Speaker 3 (23:21):
That would be the profile encourage that I'd like to
see out of Mark Zuckerberg. He come forward and say, Hey,
the reason we did what we did about not allowing
people to discuss Hey, kind of weird that the virus
came out of uh wuhan right next to the lab.
Speaker 1 (23:37):
Kind of weird. Huh.
Speaker 3 (23:38):
The fact that we wouldn't allow that conversation is because
the Biden administration hinted strongly they were going to ruin
us if we allowed that kind of talk.
Speaker 4 (23:47):
God, I wish he would say that out loud. That'd
be fantastic. And you know, I could give you a
long list. I'll touch on a couple of things. JOHNS
hopkinsurgon Marty mckery was talking about the pace at which
Americans would develop her community that was flagged taken down.
They targeted the Wall Street Journal's review of a book
by a guy who's a climate contrarian and like suppressed
(24:09):
that you couldn't even hear the review of that guy's
opinion because of the progressive censorship by proxy. And that's
the really really ugly part of it to me. So
and actually interestingly, Zuckerberg prior to that said some great
stuff about free speech. I mean, like he stole it
(24:29):
out of my mouth. And again, I'm not a fan
of the guy at or all. Don't think he's particularly smart.
That's been my take for a very very long time.
I think he's probably a great computer programmer and that
sort of thing.
Speaker 1 (24:41):
I just don't think he's that smart guy. I don't
think he.
Speaker 3 (24:45):
Understands the big issues on a lot of this stuff,
or cares he cares.
Speaker 1 (24:50):
I think this possible. I've always felt he kind of
got lucky. Oh hell, yes he did. Absolutely.
Speaker 3 (24:56):
If you build a this is how we're gonna get
laid app college and it turns into what Facebook is,
that's an accident.
Speaker 4 (25:03):
Yeah, but I wouldn't I wouldn't go that far to
underestimate the guy. To assemble a great team and help
it function is a gift.
Speaker 3 (25:13):
Okay, maybe this is the wrong word. I know a
bunch of very successful business people. They have no knowledge
about issues like free speech and that sort of thing.
Speaker 4 (25:24):
Zero.
Speaker 3 (25:25):
I know so many really successful business guys that have
never read a.
Speaker 1 (25:28):
Book and are proud of it.
Speaker 3 (25:30):
I know a handful of millionaires who are proud of
the fact that they've never read a book. They've got
one of our talent that is about business, but they
just have no like And I don't know what word
you should use, smart, knowledgeable, wise, I don't know what
it is, but yeah, it's broad ranging knowledge.
Speaker 4 (25:48):
Yes, that characteriziction, the characterization of him. I will sign
on to Here's the part I wanted to get to. Oh,
this is still the Is that still the editorial? Yeah,
which is excellent. In the Wall Street Journal, the editorial
board is saying all the right things, and they go
into detail how the so called fact checking became a
(26:09):
tool to censor it was just a way to get
your preferred political outcome. Is completely funny. But so it's
funny because often the editorial board and a paper is,
you know, there's a high wall between them and the reporters,
at least when papers function the way they're supposed to.
But I'm looking at the Wall Street Journal's coverage of
the story and they go through the fact but then
(26:29):
who are these I would like to personally it's a
list of journalists who worked on this piece. But they
quote all sorts of different people in this story about
whether there's a good move or a bad move. And
then they quote Alex Mahedeven, who's director of Media Wize,
a digital media literacy project at the Points Are Institute.
Speaker 1 (26:51):
Hang on, I'll reveal something in a moment, he says.
Speaker 4 (26:55):
The generalists say, researchers say the program has shortcomings and
should not report professional fact checkers. Notes take time to appear,
blah blah blah. And this guy says, since it's based
on finding consensus, it can't work at scale. This is
the guy who runs the outfit that runs PolitiFact, a
fact checking website quote unquote that is one of Meta's partners.
(27:17):
There could be no more divorce from fact partisan hack
outfit in the world than PolitiFact. The idea that the
Wall Street Journal is quoting of his experts quote unquote
is hilarious, Well.
Speaker 3 (27:29):
Fact check the term professional fact checker is hilarious. How
do you say that with the straight face? M Okay,
who's paying you to do this? And what are their
wants and needs?
Speaker 1 (27:42):
Okay?
Speaker 4 (27:43):
Exactly you've got a child's perception of what fact is
and is not, particularly when you're talking about controversial issues.
That's the whole point is different people are sure they
know different things from the other people. Anyway, I found
this so interesting, and this is the perfect time to
drop this in because the Wall Street Journal, which is
(28:05):
my favorite big paper publication website these days, along with
the Free Press and a couple of others, but among
your traditional outlets, I should say Wall Street Journal is
my favorite. Quoting quote unquote experts. I'd come across this earlier.
It's it's uh, and I'll just briefly summarize it. This
story and Twitter thread makes the point that so called
(28:27):
experts are drawn wildly disproportionately, not entirely, but mostly from academia.
Speaker 1 (28:36):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 4 (28:38):
And they make the point that, for instance, in we're
talking about communications now right and on you know, well,
communications in short, one hundred percent of professors and communications
that were polled, and they polled thousands of professors were
Democrats one hundred percent in communications. Likewise, in anthropology, in
(28:59):
real life religion, it's just under ninety nine percent.
Speaker 1 (29:03):
I could keep going.
Speaker 4 (29:03):
Sociology is ninety eight percent not surprisingly music theatre classics
ninety six and a half percent Democrats.
Speaker 3 (29:11):
Yeah, we did this a couple of weeks ago. I
think you were out for an hour and I did
this topic. But it is everybody should know this, right,
It's obvious once you hear it. But of course all
of the views you hear are left leaning when they
go to the expert. When you look at who's an expert,
and the fact that they're in some cases, as you
(29:31):
pointed out, one hundred percent one direction politically.
Speaker 4 (29:34):
And as I'm sure you pointed out, you've got to
get down to engineering to get to a modest Sixty
two percent of the professors are Democrats. So if you
ever hear a quote unquote expert quoted, the chances are
overwhelming they're going to be a lefty man.
Speaker 3 (29:52):
That'll change my perception of that for the rest of
my life. It's obvious in that Dan wall Street Journal Arm. Yeah, yeah,
I had never thought of it before. Speaking of experts,
how are you doing on your diet? We're eight days
into the new year. Uh, experts say the four signs
that you're not gonna make it. You're gonna fail on
your diet. Oh, I thought you meant not gonna make
(30:13):
it at all. No, you're gonna fail, and you've got
to get my affairs in order. Here are the key
the key things to watch out for us. We'll have
that coming up. I was just watching a video of
them loading seniors onto buses at the Senior center that
burnt down in Pasadena. Uh, with the flames, you know,
(30:34):
coming down the hill really fast. Wow, that had to
be a pressure situation. Wouldn't be easy to do to
move people in that age group either. The most common
New Year's resolution is to either eat better, exercise more.
Combination of those two things generally lose weight, get tracked together,
(30:56):
that sort of thing. And I saw this thing in
the New York Post, red flag for you know, the
fact that you're going to fail, And I thought this
would probably be kind of jivy and stupid. It's actually
pretty good. It's the sort of stuff we've been saying
for a long time. It's like more common sense than
anything else. It says here eighty percent of people fail
in their New Year's resolutions. I don't know if that's
true or not. Probably close to right.
Speaker 1 (31:19):
Sure.
Speaker 3 (31:20):
One of the things that says, if there is one
pill or ingredient or something like that that you're using
to change everything that's probably not gonna work. Doing sense,
take a look of whether or not you have time
to do what you're planning to do. Like how you
know you're going to start going to the gym or
(31:41):
running or whatever it is you're going to do.
Speaker 1 (31:43):
Do you have free time? Now?
Speaker 3 (31:45):
If you don't, then you got to pick something specific
that you're going to eliminate to allow time, which is obvious,
but maybe you don't think about that.
Speaker 4 (31:54):
Well, no, I don't have time, which is why I'm
taking massive doses of turmeric. It's all about turmeric bills.
Speaker 1 (32:02):
But it makes sense.
Speaker 3 (32:03):
If you're already like busy every single day and now
you're gonna start going to the gym, there isn't gonna
be magically another hour added to the day.
Speaker 1 (32:11):
You're gonna have to cut something out.
Speaker 4 (32:13):
Yeah, Yeah, which strewing around wasting time.
Speaker 1 (32:16):
Watching TV pretty damned obvious. Get down to business.
Speaker 3 (32:20):
Also said, uh, and we've talked about this for years.
You got to kind of ease into modest expectations as
opposed to you know, I'm gonna lose fifty pounds by
by January twentieth, I'm gonna start working out an hour
and a half every single day. Oh my god, nobody's
gonna change your life that drastically.
Speaker 1 (32:38):
Nobody. He's into it gradually.
Speaker 3 (32:40):
I thought that was a good idea, but that that
time of thing really struck me as.
Speaker 1 (32:44):
So incredibly obvious. But I don't know.
Speaker 3 (32:48):
At least, it's something I've never thought about many times.
If I'm gonna start anything like my playing the piano, Okay,
how much do you want to practice? You're already busy.
What's gonna give to allow this to happen?
Speaker 1 (33:02):
All right?
Speaker 3 (33:02):
Whether it's watching less TV, sleeping less, I don't know, eliminated, Yeah,
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (33:07):
But it's got to come from somewhere.
Speaker 4 (33:10):
Right and at some point you although actually I was
going to say, you have to rest your brain in
your body, although I think most of us get plenty
of rest for our bodies, and if you're working out,
that is.
Speaker 1 (33:19):
A good rest for your brain.
Speaker 3 (33:20):
But yeah, I don't know this speaking and working out.
I had the classic trying to quit a gym thing
happen over the last couple of weeks. We had a
gym that we started like, well, it was the last July.
I happened to know exactly because they claim I signed
up for a year, even though I know I didn't.
And the hardest thing to do in the world, everybody knows,
is quit a gym. They've come up with all kinds
(33:41):
of different ways to make sure you can't quit and
they can keep you around. And I went to quit
this gym. I went into the first of all, they
said you have to come in to do it.
Speaker 1 (33:49):
Oh, that's funny.
Speaker 3 (33:50):
I could sign up on the phone, but to quit,
I have to come in. So I drive to where
it is, fill out the papers, all that sort of stuff.
Then credit card thing shows up in my email. I
got billed again for another month. I called them up
and they said, well, we have you here that you
signed up for a year. No I didn't. I would
have never signed up for a year. There's no way
I knew I wasn't gonna be there for a year.
There's no way I signed up for a year. Well,
we have you down is signing up for a year? Well,
(34:11):
whoever was there when I came in, Let me quit.
They said I could quit, and I signed a piece
of paper. Oh, we don't have any record of that.
Here's the number you call for the main office, and
it's a big national compan Same thing happened to me
yesterday with a coffee company.
Speaker 1 (34:25):
And I won't mention the name because I don't want
to be sued.
Speaker 3 (34:27):
But they I was on there automatic send me the
pods thing, and I decided I didn't want those anymore
and I quit it. And then I got sent more
pods and I contacted them and they said, well, it.
Speaker 1 (34:38):
Takes forty five days for that to go through. It's interesting.
Speaker 3 (34:41):
I can sign up immediately to spend money and get pods,
but if I want to star send them out the
next day. The fine print is it takes forty five
days to process your ending your commitment.
Speaker 1 (34:53):
How do you like that?
Speaker 4 (34:55):
How sad is clearly what it is. Yeah, I mean
everybody knows what's going on there.
Speaker 1 (35:01):
Yeah, we'll let you. I tell you what. We'll let
you quit without argument. You take one more shipment, that's
what they're saying.
Speaker 3 (35:06):
Yeah, yeah, we can get We know we can get
one more shipment out of everybody this way, and so
we do.
Speaker 4 (35:11):
Now the health club is saying, you're gonna burn a
thousand calories to get out of this deal.
Speaker 1 (35:16):
We're doing you a favor.
Speaker 3 (35:17):
If you miss a segment or no howur get the
podcast Armstrong and Getty on demand Armstrong and Getty
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Jack Armstrong
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