July 23, 2025 • 35 mins
Hour two of A&G features...
- The New Ai tool used by the FDA is freaking out...
- How Kamala's claim of having worked at McDonald's caused concern...
- Why need need some degree of intolerance...
- Mandatory tipping!
Stupid Should Hurt: https://www.armstrongandgetty.com/
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Broadcasting live from the Abraham Lincoln Radio Studio the George
Washington Broadcast Center, Jack Armstrong, Joe Getty, Armstrong and Jetty
and he Armstrong and Hetty. Guys need to see this.
(00:24):
A new report found that the fittest city in America
is Arlington, Virginia. Well, once again, the least fit city
is man boob Iowa and man boob Iowa. That's unfair.
It's hurtsful. Elsa is a liar. Stay tuned. It's all
(00:46):
about Ai. Speaking of Ai. Ah Yeah, so Llawyer listener
Mike sent us an email with an intriguing link to
chat GPT. He was trying to remember specifically how I
worded something the other day about swimming in a pool
of Saytan's sulfurous boiling hot urine or something like that,
and uh, and he couldn't remember. He talked about us
(01:08):
replacing Rush Limbaugh as his favorite. You know, Klay and
Buck never talk about waiting in a sea of urine.
This least, as far as I've heard, they do not
have my flair for wordsmith ory anyway, So he asked
chat GPT, hey, what did Joe say exactly? And it
told him immediately and then uh, then he says, uh.
(01:31):
It continued to I decided to train it by saying,
this is my exact sense of humor, and it continued
to come back with more and more quotes from the show,
but amusing to Jack and myself. It also came back
with comments like, uh, we had a conversation about Putin
being a war criminal. I said, I trust this guy
like I trust gas station sushi. They don't hold back
on blunt global judgments and those instantly memorable visuals. Okay,
(01:57):
Jack Armstrong riffing on political caution, boarding up my house
when I see you're wearing a helmet as well, That
absurd is twist on paranoia is pure A and g
and then this is one of my favorites. On flights
packed with wheelchairs and as Joe says, they're magically heltering
the flight. It's a miracle. They lampoon the system while
(02:18):
staying hilarious. Thank you, chet GPT, Oh my god, but
they lampooned the system while staying alarious. That's chat GPT's
review of our show. Well, so I agree with you
that AI does have ways to go, or it's hallucinating completely,
(02:39):
which is the problem. We've got here with ELSA. So
ELSA is the new AI thing they're using at the FDA.
One of the most concrete claims that anybody who's pro
AI has been making since its inception is what it
could do with like medicines and healthcare and stuff like that.
(03:00):
They could just figure out all kinds of health complicated
health things fast, especially yeah, diagnosis, figuring out drugs, all
kinds of different things way faster than human beings could.
And so this ELSA has been working on some of
this stuff at the FDA, and they just have discovered
(03:20):
that it is doing a lot of hallucinating in the
way that AI does, and nobody's exactly sure why or
if it can be stopped. But for some reason, like
my one kid used to be when he was six,
if you ask him a question and he didn't know
the answer, he would make something up because he felt
like he just had to give you an answer. He,
(03:42):
for some reason, why my son is a little kid
couldn't say I don't know. He would make something up.
But I finally caught on to that, and I'd say,
you don't have to do that, just tell me I
don't know. It's perfectly fine to say I don't know. Yeah,
kids are rewarded and praised for knowing the correct answer
to a question. So I get why a six year
old would do that. Why's Ai do it because he
gets a cookie or you say, man, you're smart. Anyway,
(04:05):
Elsa was making stuff up and it took him a
while to figure this out, and some within the FDA
so say, it's really really not as helpful as they
were hoping in that you have to double check everything
to the point of your practically doing the research anyway
to like replicate what Ai said. And it goes so
(04:26):
far as to like make up studies with all the
data you know, and it you know, we tested eighty
thousand islands and sixty percent of the islands over the
age of forty five who had smoked to blah blah,
And it just makes this I almost dropped it as bumb.
It just makes this crap up. This is audio, so
you don't know, I'm making my what face And I'll
(04:48):
bet a lot of y'all are too. That's crazy, all
the details and like the scientist names and stuff. Oh yeah, yes, exactly. Well,
it's not that surprising given the fact that what we've
heard this stories of it making up legal cases where lawyers,
you know, go to a legal case and there are
names in an instance and it cites the law. Different
(05:08):
sort of stuff it Google v. Tennessee. It's not completely
made up. What an interesting thing that just seems to
occur apparently across multiple AI platforms. It's not like it's
just grow or just open AI. They all AI does this.
It's got some need to create an answer. Sometimes. You know,
(05:34):
it's funny, you just anticipated my point, especially when you
have the greatest geniuses in this field on the planet,
asks you know, why does it? Why does your system hallucinate?
And they'll say, I don't know, we have no idea.
It's practically impossible to explain technically, and you find yourself
(05:54):
going to you said it has a need, and you know,
I don't know about you. My coffee machine doesn't have
any needs whatsoever. It's a mindless automaton. I mean, it's
just a machine. What is it that drives it? There's
another cheat. I've used a human emotion to try to
explain this phenomenon. It's just nuts. So the speaking of nuts,
(06:17):
before I forget, I brought to you yesterday the article
about the guy who was having manic episodes in Borderline
Psychosis and chat GPT just kept egging him on. I
read further into that and it's it seems to have
a need and I'm sure it was programmed into it
in one way or another, but to be agreeable and enthusiastic,
(06:42):
which is kind of fun if you're using it for something.
You know, I'm going to London. I'm really into history.
I'd appreciate your recommending this. And it does and says
we can tell you more Winston Churchill sites if you like,
and I say yes, please, and it says great, and
it's kind of endearing. But evidently it goes way too
(07:03):
freaking far. It does do that. Yeah, I had never
really noticed it until you said it. It is cheerful
and enthusiastic, which kind of gets you all psyched up
for it. I am including when you're delusional and heading
toward amental breakdown. I know you're right, you are smart.
It's the other people who are crazy. Oh boy, that's
not helpful. No, I haven't had a hallucination yet where
(07:26):
I like, you know, I'm in a town and it says, hey,
this is where, hey, chat GPT, this is where I
am one. It's the best, great breakfast place. And I
end up going to forty third and H Street, and
you know, it's a tire shop and it just completely
made up a place that serves French tole Mos pancakes.
You gotta go to Mos pancakes if you're in Seattle.
Maybe that'll happen someday. Uh. Anyway, briefly, just to get
(07:48):
back to this, so, the agency was already using ELSA,
their their AI chat thingy to accelerate clinical protocol reviews,
shortened the time needed for scientific evaluations, identify high priority
inspection targets, blah blah blah. They're at the FDA, but
now they've had to pull way back because of the hallucinations.
And they talk about how it's still very very handy
(08:09):
for organizational stuff like summarizing all the notes from a
meeting into a handy short thing that everybody can read
and digest much faster than human beings and all that.
So AI is really good at that sort of stuff.
But that's wild. If this wouldn't it be something If
this all gets stymied by you can't figure out why,
(08:30):
it just lies sometimes out of nowhere. Yeah, we read
to you that list of instructions one of our beloved
listeners gave to whatever AI system he was using, and
it was it was damn near a dozen different instructions
about if you do not know, say so, do not
create anything, do not make anything up, if you are
(08:51):
speculating or based on insufficient information, tell me that you
are speculating. It was again, it was at least half
a dozen, and I think closer to a dozen different
very specific instructions on that level. It's weird that that's necessary.
But I wonder whether that sort of thing can be
(09:12):
introduced into systems and they can, you know, rectify this
pretty quickly. I would guess they can.
Speaker 2 (09:22):
I don't know that.
Speaker 1 (09:23):
It's certainly one of those you remember that robot whirling
out of control and it would have taken off somebody's
head if they got within range, right, I think AI
may be at that stage at this point. It's good
at putting the rivet there in a bumper, but stay out, arranged, Jim.
You hear if you hear the thing, if you see
the overheating light, come on, step back. It's just not
(09:44):
quite ready for prime time. As they say, what prices
are going up already or about to go up because
of combination of things changing in the world, including tariffs.
We can get to that, and I want to get
some of the best writing I've ever come across on
the topic of when tolerance is taken too far, societies
(10:08):
become totalitarian and utterly intolerant. Wow, you've got to have
a limit on tolerance. I definitely want to get to that.
Brett Stevens, New York Times, Israel is not committing a genocide.
I want to read a little from that, just so
you have some ammunition in case you run into some
of these people that are pushing that narrative hard and
(10:29):
a lot of people are, including the soon to be
mayor of New York. Any who stay here lots on
the way.
Speaker 3 (10:43):
The new study finds the pandemic may have aged our
brains whether you had COVID or not, they say. Researchers
say brain scans actually show COVID the stress involved may
have sped up brain aging by more than five months
during that period. They believe it's reversible with exercise, diet
and of course staying engaged.
Speaker 1 (11:00):
It aged my brain how much five months? But whether
you had COVID or not, Yeah, yeah, just the boredom
and stress and whatever. You got to test Blue states
and red states. Yeah, I don't know. I doubt it aged.
If it's because of stress and boredom, I don't think
mine aged, then I well know. But we didn't curl
(11:22):
up into the fetal position. In my life pretty much
exactly the same. So yeah, yeah, I mean I did
almost precisely exactly the same to whatever extent I could.
Being reasonably young and reasonably healthy, I could read the
statistics and knew that it would probably not hurt me
very much. Made me feel miserable. But anyway, enough on that.
So you may remember during Kamala Harris's brilliant campaign for
(11:47):
the presidency, they leaned heavily on how regular person she
was that she worked at McDonald's when she was going
to a historically black college. By the way, I grew
up in a neighborhood where people cared about their yards.
That's right. In fact, we have a lovingly prepared montage
(12:08):
Clickonine Michael of various politicians and newspeople talking about how
incredible and wonderful and endearing it was that she worked
at mcdee's. Have you served to all beef patties, special sauce,
let us cheese take those onions.
Speaker 3 (12:23):
One working at a McDonald's, yes or no, that's it
I have.
Speaker 2 (12:27):
Isn't it amazing that our presidential nominee can tell those
real stories of working at McDonald's When she was young,
she worked at McDonald's.
Speaker 1 (12:38):
Now she worked at McDonald's. But I worked at Wendy's.
One candidate worked at McDonald's at a summer job at McDonald's.
I never knew you worked a McDonald's.
Speaker 4 (12:46):
If you worked at a McDonald's, you can see yourself
in Kamala Harrison.
Speaker 2 (12:49):
You greeted every person without a thousand watt smile and said,
how can I help you?
Speaker 1 (12:54):
Ch up in very middle class circumstances. Worked at McDonald's,
working at McDonald's, who worked at mcd worked at McDonald
so god said. She wrote to McDonald's.
Speaker 5 (13:03):
Share share this, and then a pro Trump website sorry
to talk about. Well, hey, is there evidence? Is there
proof that she worked at McDonald's. There's no records, there's
no receipts. But this has been seized upon by Trump
allies to say, maybe she's making it up. And I
find that bewildering which inappropriate when somebody puts down all
over the place that she worked at McDonald It was
a big part of her resume that she worked at McDonald's.
Speaker 1 (13:24):
How tough a job it was, I decries, Yeah, And
I do remember saying at the time, I doubt I
could come up with any records of a lot of
my early jobs, right, I mean, and I'm the same
age as Kamala. I don't think I could prove any
of the early jobs I had. Well. A new biography
is out twenty twenty four, How Trump re took the
White House and the Democrats lost America by a handful
(13:45):
of journalists, a couple of whom you've probably heard of
if you're news junkie. But it includes the fact it
has been ascertained now. She worked at McDonald's in the
summer of nineteen eighty three for two weeks, worked a
couple of shifts. Apparently didn't like it. They didn't like her,
and she she quit. She hardly hardly wrinkled her paper hat.
(14:10):
She tried to grab the friar with both hands and
burned herself. That would actually kind of explain why they
never came forward, like with any data, I mean, if
they could have dug it up themselves, because they didn't
want that stat to be out that she worked there
for two weeks. Well, here's the part that amused me
the most. Her very short stint on the job meant
(14:32):
most of her advisors did not want to lean into that.
They thought, no, no, no, no, let's not draw attention to it.
And then, of course, Trump, brilliantly, in one of the
great political stunts I've ever seen, actually worked you know,
a little time at McDonald's, handing foods through the drives
through window and were in the hat. I'm chuckling as
I think about it. Yeah, we're in the hat and
blue suit and his red tie. But anyway, her her
(14:54):
aides were saying, you know, this is probably not a
good thing to lean into, but Harrison insisted on it.
Harris's aids debated for weeks after that whether they should
respond to Trump's attacks about McDonald's, spent weeks agonizing about decision,
according to the book, which asserts, without it blah blah blah.
At one point the campaign, Oh so, the advisor said, now,
(15:18):
let's not lean into this. I mean, you barely worked
there at all. I mean, in fact, the story is
you started working there and you quit quickly because you're
you thought who knows it was beneath you or you
hated it or whatever. It's really the story is anti
the way it was portrayed, but Harris insisted on doing it.
At one point the campaign caught wind that quote. At
least one major mainstream news outlet was investigating the McDonald's
(15:41):
employment claim, which caused alarm inside the campaign. Well, there
could be lots of reasons. My brother worked for a
very famous national burger chain for a very short period
of time because he dropped one of the patties on
the floor and was going to throw it away and
the manager said, hey, hey, don't throw that away, and
they put it on the bun. Oh boy, And he
(16:04):
quit because he couldn't be party to that. But once again,
I quote Bill Clinton. When she was young, she worked
at McDonald's and greeted every person with that thousand WATTSWI,
how can I help you? And Bill, being the master politician,
he is, how can I help you? And he looks
(16:25):
at the audience, Oh, oh, she's still helping people. I
get it, Bill get it. I was in the room
when he said that, and I almost vomited. Wow. Probably
McDonald's because you're a big fan. I am. Yeah. So
coming up, if you want a tolerance society where you
(16:47):
can express yourself, have I don't know, free speech, you've
got to have a certain level of intolerance. An explanation,
an eloquent one. Coming up next segment to some of
the things. The prices that are going up on because
of tariffs are inflation or whatever's causing what but a
number of things are going to get more expensive tarifflation.
(17:09):
Let us be the first to coin that term. What
economists are calling teriflation? Are they? Are they calling it that? Okay,
all that's on the way, stay here, Armstrong and Getty.
Speaker 3 (17:23):
Should I we have breaking news as we come on
the air? Ozzy Osbourne has died.
Speaker 1 (17:28):
There you go. That was the lead. That's how ABC
News started last night.
Speaker 3 (17:31):
Played again, Michael, should I we have breaking news as
we come on the air? Ozzy Osbourne has died?
Speaker 1 (17:36):
How is that possibly? But the situation we're in that
is unintentionally hilarious. I know, I laughed out loud. I
almost spit out well, I think I was set in Cereal,
almost spit it out when I heard that.
Speaker 3 (17:49):
What is should we have breaking news as we come
on the air? Ozzy Osbourne has died?
Speaker 1 (17:55):
Good lord, what is the evening news anymore? I don't know.
So on a completely different topic, if we did an
hours long Roganesque podcast, I would flesh out each of
these headlines at a fair length and then get to
the ultimate point somewhere around the dawn of our three.
(18:16):
And that's not the way we operate. So I'm going
to move a little more quickly. But I have a
handful of stories that are centered around the same theme,
all of which have come out just in the last
day or two, all of which are being covered in
major publications, and quite responsibly. Number one India's I'm Sorry
Inside Syria's sectarian cauldron, kidnapping, Trigger's cascade of violence, blood
(18:37):
soaked weak between Sunni Bedouins, Sunni Muslims, and the Druze
minority in southern Syria, slaughtering the hell out of the
Drews because of their religion and their tribe, et cetera.
Isn't sectarian politics, Grant and the Drews are? Are they
Christian adjacent? I forget I read this one. They're like
(18:59):
an abraham religion or beliefs. All of the prophets are cool,
and trust me, I'm not a Druiz theologian, but it's
kind of a universal Abrahamis religion anyway, and it's absolutely horrifying.
These are not that it matters, but you look at
these people. They are thoroughly modern, normal people living their lives,
(19:19):
hoping to get a career, going raise their children, blah
blah blah. And they have armed gunmen storming their houses
and shooting them all dead in the streets because of
their religion. Moving along, this is an interesting story from Texas,
of all places, Epic City replacing Old Glory with the
Crescent Moon. Picture this a Muslim only city governed by
(19:42):
Sharia law, beyond the reach of democratically elected officials. Officials.
Something like that is happening in Texas, and its founders
call it Epic City. The East Plano Islamic Center EPIC
is the largest mosque in Texas and one of the
largest in the US. Last year, several members of the
mosque formed Community Capital Partners LLC or CCP and announced
(20:03):
the formation of Epic City, a master planned Islamic development
project that caters to the evolving needs of families in
the Muslim communities. And again, we could get into this
idea in depth in what is wrong with it, but
I don't really have time. Josh Hawley's called for US,
the US to condemn the persecution of Christians in Muslim
(20:27):
majority nations, including several that were kind of friendly with
these days. But whether it's Africa or the Middle East, Yeah,
there's wholesale persecution of Christians going on, frequently slaughtering them
by machine gun fire or machete And Hawley is he
grand standing? He often is? Or is he sincere about this?
(20:49):
I don't know how weird is it that the US
doesn't condemn that? Oh right, If my main thing politically
is standing up for Christianity around the world, I think
those are better stories to latch onto than putin trying
to help Christianity out by taking over Ukraine or something
(21:09):
or something. Yeah. The resolutions that are co sponsored with
several other Republicans urged the President to prioritize the defense
of persecuted Christians in America's foreign policy, including via diplomatic
engagement with Muslim majority countries, as well as efforts to
stabilize the Middle East. Urges the President to leverage the
diplomatic tool kit to advance the protection of persecuted Christians
(21:33):
worldwide and within Muslim majority countries. So I certainly applaud
that effort, and all of those headlines bring us to this,
and it's a piece I came across by Paul Freesen.
Paul is with Cornell University. He is one of the
scholars with the let Me Get This Right the Center
for Global Democracy in the Brooks School of Public Policy
(21:56):
at Cornell. Didn't really know his work, but I found
this to be extremely persuasive. He talks. He starts this
article talking about the Maldives, which is a chain of
islands by not far from Africa. I think, I actually
I didn't even look it up on a map. But
they're idyllic beautiful. It's infinity pools, bioluminescent beaches, you got
(22:20):
your bungalows over the water. It's the stuff straight out
of a sandals ad or you know, like Fiji has
resorts that are just like this, And he writes, few
imagine that this archipelago of honeymoon bruchers and influencer backdrops
is governed by a constitutionally mandated Sunni monoculture where apostasy,
(22:42):
that is, rejecting Islam is punishable by death. Wow, and
children are catechised not in the arts of critical thought,
but in the compulsory admiration of Shariah. And all non
Muslim religious practice, no matter how discreet or devotional, is
prohibited by law. You cannot silently pray to Jesus Christ
in your living room alone in the Maldives, or it
(23:04):
is punishable. There are no churches, no synagogues, no temples,
no tolerance. This is a theocracy with a customer service department.
And he says here the word Islamic republic does not
mean Muslim majority democracy means what it says on the label.
A legal architecture erected not to protect freedoms, but to
restrict them. Islamic education is mandated in every grade, every year,
(23:27):
et cetera, et cetera. Oh, any descent, whether whispered by
a secular blogger or typed by an ex Muslim on Twitter,
can earn you one hundred lashes twenty years or a
cemetery plot. Welcome to Paradise. And then he says this
is not uniquely Maldivian, or even uniquely Islamic. What's on
display here is the metastasis of a broader pathology, the
(23:47):
suicide of liberalism through the intravenous drip of unchecked pluralism. Right.
There are a lotisms there, I'll explain, but this is
the point of what he's writing. The Maldives is not
just an outlier. It is a bell weather, a warning
of what happens when civilizations that once separated church from
state begin importing ideologies that merge the two, like Siamese
(24:09):
twins sharing a judicial spine. This is not a clash
of cultures. It is a conquest by bureaucracy, and we
are funding it for the umpteenth time. Read Michael Hallibeck's submission.
Novel came out a few years ago about how it's
an imagination of how Trump Trump I'm reading while I'm talking,
how France becomes an entirely Muslim country and freedom of
(24:32):
speech and religion are stamped out and pretty plausible when
you read it. Oh that's the thing. Would you how
would you describe how the takeover goes? How it works
in that novel? Uh, little by little with a lot
of decent people not wanting to come off as racist,
or islamophobic, and then just over time losing and as
(24:56):
mister Friesan points out, like through bureaucracy, bit by bit,
through the tentacles of government. Anyway, here's his main point,
and this is the part that I said, I found
so eloquent, and I wish we had time to just
do the whole thing. But maybe we'll talk to him someday.
It was Carl Popper, he writes, who warned that a
(25:17):
tolerant society must be intolerant of intolerance, or it would
cease to be tolerant at all. Obviously, that's where it's
the way we're always mocking the coexist bumper sticker, coexist, coexist.
A couple of those symbols on there want to dominate
the other symbols, so you can't coexist with somebody who
(25:39):
wants to take over. A tolerant society must be intolerant
of intolerance or it would cease to be tolerant at all.
Can you think of any other modern movements that punished
you even disagreeing with them, or even asking them hard
questions at a training session, for instance, that they made
you go to at work at your university's orientation, you
(26:03):
weren't even allowed to question it anyway. He goes on,
It's a delicious paradox, too often quoted and too rarely heated.
For we have taken the first half of the dictum,
the imperative to tolerate, and chiseled it into law, into policy,
into university mission statements and NGEO pamphlets. But the second half,
the requirement to draw a line to say no further,
(26:26):
has been treated like garlic in a vampire movie, and
teque and anathema unfashionable. The paradox has become pathology. Here's
what he means. Our courts allow Sharia arbitration councils to
function in British cities. He's a brit obviously, adjudicating matters
of family and inheritance with standards that would make a
twelfth century canon lawyer flinch. Our schools include faith based
(26:49):
curricula that require jobs for seven year olds and teach
that homosexuality is satanic filth. Our public broadcasters will era
documentary about the importance of free speech, followed immediately by
a segment about why cartoons of Muhammad are unhelpful. This
is not multiculturalism, it is masochism. It is the belief
(27:09):
that liberalism must be so open minded that its own
brains are spilled out to the prayer mad. It is
the fetishization of identity at the expense of liberty. It
is the ideological pacifism of a society too terrified to
assert its own values lest it be accused of racism
by those who mistake ideology for ethnicity. We have enshrined
(27:31):
the right of the theocrat while criminalizing the instincts of
the secularist. The result is not harmony, it is humiliation.
And then he goes into let's dispense with the ritual disclaimers.
Not all Muslims or Islamists, not all believers who wish
to impose There are believers who wish to impose their
theology on others, of course, but neither are all white
(27:52):
people racists. Yet no progressive chokes on the phrase white supremacy.
When was the last time you heard a progressive set Now,
of course, not all white people are racist. A lot
of white people are good, honest, decent, hard working people
who try to treat everybody well. Blah blah blah. But
still there is white supremacy. But anytime you talk about Islamism.
(28:16):
You have to throw in the long list of disclaimers, right. Well,
the first one, though, is not seen as true by
you know, your local school. Quite possibly spent a lot
of money getting Ibram X Kendy to come speak at
the school, or list bought all the books. And his
whole theme is you are automatically racist if you're white
(28:37):
by definition. Right, So that's one reason you wouldn't say that.
He goes on, why must we say religiously motivated extremism
instead of naming the doctrine that inspired the bomb? Why
do we hear of Asian grooming gangs instead of Pakistani
Muslim sex trafficking rings. Why do we refer to the
Maldives as a challenging democracy rather than a theocratic prison
(28:59):
with beaches? Because the liberal West, having abolished blasphemy laws,
is now enforcing them in reverse. The new heresy is
criticism of faith, at least of one faith. To mock
Christianity is edgy. To mock Islam is hate speech. To
question Jewish nationalism is a principled resistance. To question Islamist
imperialism is bigotry. This is not diversity, It is double think.
(29:24):
It is a sacred exception carved out in the name
of peace, which is to say, in the name of fear.
And then he goes on to make the point more
at greater length. Fear is the root of all of this.
And he's absolutely right, especially about Europe. Britain, France are
humiliating themselves and twisting themselves into bizarre quasi legal knots
(29:48):
to try not to anger the Muslim folks. And I'm
telling you to return to the main theme. If you
take away nothing from this, take this away tolerance. Society
must be intolerant of intolerance, or it would cease to
be intolerant, I'm sorry, or it would cease to be
tolerant at all. Yeah. Pretty obviously, but obviously not obvious
(30:13):
enough to keep it from happening the way it's happening. Yeah,
those of you who don't have the courage to say
this sort of thing, we suggest you try to find
it if you can. Those of you who do, we're
with you. Some really good news about journalism, and I
rarely say that. Some big changes coming to uber And
what was the other one? Oh man, good God. The
(30:35):
asking for you to tip whenever you get your card
to anything is so completely out of control. All of
that on the way. Stay here from.
Speaker 4 (30:50):
Coca Cola made with American cane sugar instead of high
fructose corn syrup coming soon.
Speaker 1 (30:55):
Coca Cola already.
Speaker 4 (30:57):
Uses cane sugar in it's Mexican version, but hi, those
corn syrup and what you usually find here in the US.
This version isn't going anywhere. But the new product they're
adding will feature only American cane sugar, but ounce for ounce,
both versions are roughly the same number of calories and
the same amount of sugar in a standard bottle, about
as much as you'll find in two and a half
(31:18):
full sized chocolate bars.
Speaker 1 (31:20):
Did you know that? Now? What was driving the Mexican
coke thing was taste more than health, but it got
turned into a health thing recently. The equivalent of two
plus candy bars when you drink a can of coke.
Think about that. Yeah, wow wow. By the way, she
was clearly an Upper Midwesterner. I had a flashback to
(31:41):
my childhood when she said syrup. I don't think I
ever heard anybody say syrup until I was close to
an adult. So we got a good text about host
nations and AI, particularly with this story about the FDA
is having troubles with AI. Just makes up studies about
various drugs and stuff like that, and somebody that's the
(32:02):
entire study. It makes it up to answer a question.
But somebody texted, maybe you know, because we were talking
about the language learning thing with AI the other day,
and will it overtake journalists if ninety five percent, if
ninety nine percent of journalists suck, And that's probably true,
and it takes in all that journalism, won't it suck?
So I was wondering that question. But if it takes
(32:24):
in all the studies that are done, many of them,
if not bogus or bogus adjacent, they're very preliminary, really
over stretching their results. It's just picked up on that
well in the soft sciences quote unquote especially they're a joke.
But even in medicine frequently you can't replicate results, right,
(32:48):
What an interesting point. So maybe it figured out nobody's
replicating these things in any studies. So yeah, I'll make
them up too, as if it's a thinking beast. Okay,
I'm so be fuddled by that different story. We've all
experienced the omnipresence, the ubiquitousness of tipping being foisted upon
(33:09):
you in the modern world. You pay for everything with
your card or I use my watch, and it gives
you the choice of do you want to tip fifteen percent,
eighteen percent, twenty two percent? What would you like to
tip for what? The convenience store person just rang up
my case of water? I mean, what I'm tipping for that? Now?
They used the favorite was I ordered something online and
(33:32):
paid for it online and they just had to hand
it to me. That's a new one. They had this
hotel website where you book your hotel and it's all automated.
It's all computer program and then it asks for a
tip at the end. I'm tipping a computer for doing
what the website is designed to do. I don't even
understand what's going on here. But the most interesting thing
I thought about found out about this is that tipping
(33:55):
is down at restaurants from around twenty percent on average
to down around depending on where you are, fifteen to
eighteen percent on average. And they think some of it
might be just psychologically. When they hand you, you know,
if you're at a super fancy restaurant, they do this,
but they don't do this but below that. Now they
just kind of They take your card, they stick it
(34:16):
to the thing, and they hand you the thing, right,
and you're supposed to think the little handheld or the machine. Yeah,
the little handle hand held happened, gadget. They hand it
to you and you press whatever. And this person writing
in the New York Post thinks there might be something
about them staring at you while you do it, and
(34:37):
the pressure of holding the piece of equipment as opposed
to when you're alone with the check. And I don't know,
it does have a different feel to it. See, I've
noticed the places I've gone that actually hand you the
little machine, and I like that because it eliminates a
step of a level. Yes, time fast. When I'm done eating,
I want to get up and go. It is kind
of weird that way. But I've noticed the server will
(34:59):
look gaze into the middle distance, right, so as not
to have that vibe going. Yeah. I don't know if
that's the reason tipping is down. The other theory is
it just I just think it's fatigue tipping fatigue tipping
fatigue is what they're calling you, and they're just being
asked to tip for freaking everything, well, right, exactly, So
the server at the restaurant instead of being well, of course,
they're expecting a tip. That's what happens here. It's oh great,
(35:22):
another person with their hand out right everywhere I go
all day long. So yeah, yeah, you poured a cup
of coffee and I'm supposed to give you a twenty
percent tip. That didn't used to be the case, but
it is now. Okay, Well, I'm sure this will shake
out over time. We got a lot more in the
way Armstrong and Getty
Broadcasting live from the Abraham Lincoln Radio Studio the George
Washington Broadcast Center, Jack Armstrong, Joe Getty, Armstrong and Jetty
and he Armstrong and Hetty. Guys need to see this.
(00:24):
A new report found that the fittest city in America
is Arlington, Virginia. Well, once again, the least fit city
is man boob Iowa and man boob Iowa. That's unfair.
It's hurtsful. Elsa is a liar. Stay tuned. It's all
(00:46):
about Ai. Speaking of Ai. Ah Yeah, so Llawyer listener
Mike sent us an email with an intriguing link to
chat GPT. He was trying to remember specifically how I
worded something the other day about swimming in a pool
of Saytan's sulfurous boiling hot urine or something like that,
and uh, and he couldn't remember. He talked about us
(01:08):
replacing Rush Limbaugh as his favorite. You know, Klay and
Buck never talk about waiting in a sea of urine.
This least, as far as I've heard, they do not
have my flair for wordsmith ory anyway, So he asked
chat GPT, hey, what did Joe say exactly? And it
told him immediately and then uh, then he says, uh.
(01:31):
It continued to I decided to train it by saying,
this is my exact sense of humor, and it continued
to come back with more and more quotes from the show,
but amusing to Jack and myself. It also came back
with comments like, uh, we had a conversation about Putin
being a war criminal. I said, I trust this guy
like I trust gas station sushi. They don't hold back
on blunt global judgments and those instantly memorable visuals. Okay,
(01:57):
Jack Armstrong riffing on political caution, boarding up my house
when I see you're wearing a helmet as well, That
absurd is twist on paranoia is pure A and g
and then this is one of my favorites. On flights
packed with wheelchairs and as Joe says, they're magically heltering
the flight. It's a miracle. They lampoon the system while
(02:18):
staying hilarious. Thank you, chet GPT, Oh my god, but
they lampooned the system while staying alarious. That's chat GPT's
review of our show. Well, so I agree with you
that AI does have ways to go, or it's hallucinating completely,
(02:39):
which is the problem. We've got here with ELSA. So
ELSA is the new AI thing they're using at the FDA.
One of the most concrete claims that anybody who's pro
AI has been making since its inception is what it
could do with like medicines and healthcare and stuff like that.
(03:00):
They could just figure out all kinds of health complicated
health things fast, especially yeah, diagnosis, figuring out drugs, all
kinds of different things way faster than human beings could.
And so this ELSA has been working on some of
this stuff at the FDA, and they just have discovered
(03:20):
that it is doing a lot of hallucinating in the
way that AI does, and nobody's exactly sure why or
if it can be stopped. But for some reason, like
my one kid used to be when he was six,
if you ask him a question and he didn't know
the answer, he would make something up because he felt
like he just had to give you an answer. He,
(03:42):
for some reason, why my son is a little kid
couldn't say I don't know. He would make something up.
But I finally caught on to that, and I'd say,
you don't have to do that, just tell me I
don't know. It's perfectly fine to say I don't know. Yeah,
kids are rewarded and praised for knowing the correct answer
to a question. So I get why a six year
old would do that. Why's Ai do it because he
gets a cookie or you say, man, you're smart. Anyway,
(04:05):
Elsa was making stuff up and it took him a
while to figure this out, and some within the FDA
so say, it's really really not as helpful as they
were hoping in that you have to double check everything
to the point of your practically doing the research anyway
to like replicate what Ai said. And it goes so
(04:26):
far as to like make up studies with all the
data you know, and it you know, we tested eighty
thousand islands and sixty percent of the islands over the
age of forty five who had smoked to blah blah,
And it just makes this I almost dropped it as bumb.
It just makes this crap up. This is audio, so
you don't know, I'm making my what face And I'll
(04:48):
bet a lot of y'all are too. That's crazy, all
the details and like the scientist names and stuff. Oh yeah, yes, exactly. Well,
it's not that surprising given the fact that what we've
heard this stories of it making up legal cases where lawyers,
you know, go to a legal case and there are
names in an instance and it cites the law. Different
(05:08):
sort of stuff it Google v. Tennessee. It's not completely
made up. What an interesting thing that just seems to
occur apparently across multiple AI platforms. It's not like it's
just grow or just open AI. They all AI does this.
It's got some need to create an answer. Sometimes. You know,
(05:34):
it's funny, you just anticipated my point, especially when you
have the greatest geniuses in this field on the planet,
asks you know, why does it? Why does your system hallucinate?
And they'll say, I don't know, we have no idea.
It's practically impossible to explain technically, and you find yourself
(05:54):
going to you said it has a need, and you know,
I don't know about you. My coffee machine doesn't have
any needs whatsoever. It's a mindless automaton. I mean, it's
just a machine. What is it that drives it? There's
another cheat. I've used a human emotion to try to
explain this phenomenon. It's just nuts. So the speaking of nuts,
(06:17):
before I forget, I brought to you yesterday the article
about the guy who was having manic episodes in Borderline
Psychosis and chat GPT just kept egging him on. I
read further into that and it's it seems to have
a need and I'm sure it was programmed into it
in one way or another, but to be agreeable and enthusiastic,
(06:42):
which is kind of fun if you're using it for something.
You know, I'm going to London. I'm really into history.
I'd appreciate your recommending this. And it does and says
we can tell you more Winston Churchill sites if you like,
and I say yes, please, and it says great, and
it's kind of endearing. But evidently it goes way too
(07:03):
freaking far. It does do that. Yeah, I had never
really noticed it until you said it. It is cheerful
and enthusiastic, which kind of gets you all psyched up
for it. I am including when you're delusional and heading
toward amental breakdown. I know you're right, you are smart.
It's the other people who are crazy. Oh boy, that's
not helpful. No, I haven't had a hallucination yet where
(07:26):
I like, you know, I'm in a town and it says, hey,
this is where, hey, chat GPT, this is where I
am one. It's the best, great breakfast place. And I
end up going to forty third and H Street, and
you know, it's a tire shop and it just completely
made up a place that serves French tole Mos pancakes.
You gotta go to Mos pancakes if you're in Seattle.
Maybe that'll happen someday. Uh. Anyway, briefly, just to get
(07:48):
back to this, so, the agency was already using ELSA,
their their AI chat thingy to accelerate clinical protocol reviews,
shortened the time needed for scientific evaluations, identify high priority
inspection targets, blah blah blah. They're at the FDA, but
now they've had to pull way back because of the hallucinations.
And they talk about how it's still very very handy
(08:09):
for organizational stuff like summarizing all the notes from a
meeting into a handy short thing that everybody can read
and digest much faster than human beings and all that.
So AI is really good at that sort of stuff.
But that's wild. If this wouldn't it be something If
this all gets stymied by you can't figure out why,
(08:30):
it just lies sometimes out of nowhere. Yeah, we read
to you that list of instructions one of our beloved
listeners gave to whatever AI system he was using, and
it was it was damn near a dozen different instructions
about if you do not know, say so, do not
create anything, do not make anything up, if you are
(08:51):
speculating or based on insufficient information, tell me that you
are speculating. It was again, it was at least half
a dozen, and I think closer to a dozen different
very specific instructions on that level. It's weird that that's necessary.
But I wonder whether that sort of thing can be
(09:12):
introduced into systems and they can, you know, rectify this
pretty quickly. I would guess they can.
Speaker 2 (09:22):
I don't know that.
Speaker 1 (09:23):
It's certainly one of those you remember that robot whirling
out of control and it would have taken off somebody's
head if they got within range, right, I think AI
may be at that stage at this point. It's good
at putting the rivet there in a bumper, but stay out, arranged, Jim.
You hear if you hear the thing, if you see
the overheating light, come on, step back. It's just not
(09:44):
quite ready for prime time. As they say, what prices
are going up already or about to go up because
of combination of things changing in the world, including tariffs.
We can get to that, and I want to get
some of the best writing I've ever come across on
the topic of when tolerance is taken too far, societies
(10:08):
become totalitarian and utterly intolerant. Wow, you've got to have
a limit on tolerance. I definitely want to get to that.
Brett Stevens, New York Times, Israel is not committing a genocide.
I want to read a little from that, just so
you have some ammunition in case you run into some
of these people that are pushing that narrative hard and
(10:29):
a lot of people are, including the soon to be
mayor of New York. Any who stay here lots on
the way.
Speaker 3 (10:43):
The new study finds the pandemic may have aged our
brains whether you had COVID or not, they say. Researchers
say brain scans actually show COVID the stress involved may
have sped up brain aging by more than five months
during that period. They believe it's reversible with exercise, diet
and of course staying engaged.
Speaker 1 (11:00):
It aged my brain how much five months? But whether
you had COVID or not, Yeah, yeah, just the boredom
and stress and whatever. You got to test Blue states
and red states. Yeah, I don't know. I doubt it aged.
If it's because of stress and boredom, I don't think
mine aged, then I well know. But we didn't curl
(11:22):
up into the fetal position. In my life pretty much
exactly the same. So yeah, yeah, I mean I did
almost precisely exactly the same to whatever extent I could.
Being reasonably young and reasonably healthy, I could read the
statistics and knew that it would probably not hurt me
very much. Made me feel miserable. But anyway, enough on that.
So you may remember during Kamala Harris's brilliant campaign for
(11:47):
the presidency, they leaned heavily on how regular person she
was that she worked at McDonald's when she was going
to a historically black college. By the way, I grew
up in a neighborhood where people cared about their yards.
That's right. In fact, we have a lovingly prepared montage
(12:08):
Clickonine Michael of various politicians and newspeople talking about how
incredible and wonderful and endearing it was that she worked
at mcdee's. Have you served to all beef patties, special sauce,
let us cheese take those onions.
Speaker 3 (12:23):
One working at a McDonald's, yes or no, that's it
I have.
Speaker 2 (12:27):
Isn't it amazing that our presidential nominee can tell those
real stories of working at McDonald's When she was young,
she worked at McDonald's.
Speaker 1 (12:38):
Now she worked at McDonald's. But I worked at Wendy's.
One candidate worked at McDonald's at a summer job at McDonald's.
I never knew you worked a McDonald's.
Speaker 4 (12:46):
If you worked at a McDonald's, you can see yourself
in Kamala Harrison.
Speaker 2 (12:49):
You greeted every person without a thousand watt smile and said,
how can I help you?
Speaker 1 (12:54):
Ch up in very middle class circumstances. Worked at McDonald's,
working at McDonald's, who worked at mcd worked at McDonald
so god said. She wrote to McDonald's.
Speaker 5 (13:03):
Share share this, and then a pro Trump website sorry
to talk about. Well, hey, is there evidence? Is there
proof that she worked at McDonald's. There's no records, there's
no receipts. But this has been seized upon by Trump
allies to say, maybe she's making it up. And I
find that bewildering which inappropriate when somebody puts down all
over the place that she worked at McDonald It was
a big part of her resume that she worked at McDonald's.
Speaker 1 (13:24):
How tough a job it was, I decries, Yeah, And
I do remember saying at the time, I doubt I
could come up with any records of a lot of
my early jobs, right, I mean, and I'm the same
age as Kamala. I don't think I could prove any
of the early jobs I had. Well. A new biography
is out twenty twenty four, How Trump re took the
White House and the Democrats lost America by a handful
(13:45):
of journalists, a couple of whom you've probably heard of
if you're news junkie. But it includes the fact it
has been ascertained now. She worked at McDonald's in the
summer of nineteen eighty three for two weeks, worked a
couple of shifts. Apparently didn't like it. They didn't like her,
and she she quit. She hardly hardly wrinkled her paper hat.
(14:10):
She tried to grab the friar with both hands and
burned herself. That would actually kind of explain why they
never came forward, like with any data, I mean, if
they could have dug it up themselves, because they didn't
want that stat to be out that she worked there
for two weeks. Well, here's the part that amused me
the most. Her very short stint on the job meant
(14:32):
most of her advisors did not want to lean into that.
They thought, no, no, no, no, let's not draw attention to it.
And then, of course, Trump, brilliantly, in one of the
great political stunts I've ever seen, actually worked you know,
a little time at McDonald's, handing foods through the drives
through window and were in the hat. I'm chuckling as
I think about it. Yeah, we're in the hat and
blue suit and his red tie. But anyway, her her
(14:54):
aides were saying, you know, this is probably not a
good thing to lean into, but Harrison insisted on it.
Harris's aids debated for weeks after that whether they should
respond to Trump's attacks about McDonald's, spent weeks agonizing about decision,
according to the book, which asserts, without it blah blah blah.
At one point the campaign, Oh so, the advisor said, now,
(15:18):
let's not lean into this. I mean, you barely worked
there at all. I mean, in fact, the story is
you started working there and you quit quickly because you're
you thought who knows it was beneath you or you
hated it or whatever. It's really the story is anti
the way it was portrayed, but Harris insisted on doing it.
At one point the campaign caught wind that quote. At
least one major mainstream news outlet was investigating the McDonald's
(15:41):
employment claim, which caused alarm inside the campaign. Well, there
could be lots of reasons. My brother worked for a
very famous national burger chain for a very short period
of time because he dropped one of the patties on
the floor and was going to throw it away and
the manager said, hey, hey, don't throw that away, and
they put it on the bun. Oh boy, And he
(16:04):
quit because he couldn't be party to that. But once again,
I quote Bill Clinton. When she was young, she worked
at McDonald's and greeted every person with that thousand WATTSWI,
how can I help you? And Bill, being the master politician,
he is, how can I help you? And he looks
(16:25):
at the audience, Oh, oh, she's still helping people. I
get it, Bill get it. I was in the room
when he said that, and I almost vomited. Wow. Probably
McDonald's because you're a big fan. I am. Yeah. So
coming up, if you want a tolerance society where you
(16:47):
can express yourself, have I don't know, free speech, you've
got to have a certain level of intolerance. An explanation,
an eloquent one. Coming up next segment to some of
the things. The prices that are going up on because
of tariffs are inflation or whatever's causing what but a
number of things are going to get more expensive tarifflation.
(17:09):
Let us be the first to coin that term. What
economists are calling teriflation? Are they? Are they calling it that? Okay,
all that's on the way, stay here, Armstrong and Getty.
Speaker 3 (17:23):
Should I we have breaking news as we come on
the air? Ozzy Osbourne has died.
Speaker 1 (17:28):
There you go. That was the lead. That's how ABC
News started last night.
Speaker 3 (17:31):
Played again, Michael, should I we have breaking news as
we come on the air? Ozzy Osbourne has died?
Speaker 1 (17:36):
How is that possibly? But the situation we're in that
is unintentionally hilarious. I know, I laughed out loud. I
almost spit out well, I think I was set in Cereal,
almost spit it out when I heard that.
Speaker 3 (17:49):
What is should we have breaking news as we come
on the air? Ozzy Osbourne has died?
Speaker 1 (17:55):
Good lord, what is the evening news anymore? I don't know.
So on a completely different topic, if we did an
hours long Roganesque podcast, I would flesh out each of
these headlines at a fair length and then get to
the ultimate point somewhere around the dawn of our three.
(18:16):
And that's not the way we operate. So I'm going
to move a little more quickly. But I have a
handful of stories that are centered around the same theme,
all of which have come out just in the last
day or two, all of which are being covered in
major publications, and quite responsibly. Number one India's I'm Sorry
Inside Syria's sectarian cauldron, kidnapping, Trigger's cascade of violence, blood
(18:37):
soaked weak between Sunni Bedouins, Sunni Muslims, and the Druze
minority in southern Syria, slaughtering the hell out of the
Drews because of their religion and their tribe, et cetera.
Isn't sectarian politics, Grant and the Drews are? Are they
Christian adjacent? I forget I read this one. They're like
(18:59):
an abraham religion or beliefs. All of the prophets are cool,
and trust me, I'm not a Druiz theologian, but it's
kind of a universal Abrahamis religion anyway, and it's absolutely horrifying.
These are not that it matters, but you look at
these people. They are thoroughly modern, normal people living their lives,
(19:19):
hoping to get a career, going raise their children, blah
blah blah. And they have armed gunmen storming their houses
and shooting them all dead in the streets because of
their religion. Moving along, this is an interesting story from Texas,
of all places, Epic City replacing Old Glory with the
Crescent Moon. Picture this a Muslim only city governed by
(19:42):
Sharia law, beyond the reach of democratically elected officials. Officials.
Something like that is happening in Texas, and its founders
call it Epic City. The East Plano Islamic Center EPIC
is the largest mosque in Texas and one of the
largest in the US. Last year, several members of the
mosque formed Community Capital Partners LLC or CCP and announced
(20:03):
the formation of Epic City, a master planned Islamic development
project that caters to the evolving needs of families in
the Muslim communities. And again, we could get into this
idea in depth in what is wrong with it, but
I don't really have time. Josh Hawley's called for US,
the US to condemn the persecution of Christians in Muslim
(20:27):
majority nations, including several that were kind of friendly with
these days. But whether it's Africa or the Middle East, Yeah,
there's wholesale persecution of Christians going on, frequently slaughtering them
by machine gun fire or machete And Hawley is he
grand standing? He often is? Or is he sincere about this?
(20:49):
I don't know how weird is it that the US
doesn't condemn that? Oh right, If my main thing politically
is standing up for Christianity around the world, I think
those are better stories to latch onto than putin trying
to help Christianity out by taking over Ukraine or something
(21:09):
or something. Yeah. The resolutions that are co sponsored with
several other Republicans urged the President to prioritize the defense
of persecuted Christians in America's foreign policy, including via diplomatic
engagement with Muslim majority countries, as well as efforts to
stabilize the Middle East. Urges the President to leverage the
diplomatic tool kit to advance the protection of persecuted Christians
(21:33):
worldwide and within Muslim majority countries. So I certainly applaud
that effort, and all of those headlines bring us to this,
and it's a piece I came across by Paul Freesen.
Paul is with Cornell University. He is one of the
scholars with the let Me Get This Right the Center
for Global Democracy in the Brooks School of Public Policy
(21:56):
at Cornell. Didn't really know his work, but I found
this to be extremely persuasive. He talks. He starts this
article talking about the Maldives, which is a chain of
islands by not far from Africa. I think, I actually
I didn't even look it up on a map. But
they're idyllic beautiful. It's infinity pools, bioluminescent beaches, you got
(22:20):
your bungalows over the water. It's the stuff straight out
of a sandals ad or you know, like Fiji has
resorts that are just like this, And he writes, few
imagine that this archipelago of honeymoon bruchers and influencer backdrops
is governed by a constitutionally mandated Sunni monoculture where apostasy,
(22:42):
that is, rejecting Islam is punishable by death. Wow, and
children are catechised not in the arts of critical thought,
but in the compulsory admiration of Shariah. And all non
Muslim religious practice, no matter how discreet or devotional, is
prohibited by law. You cannot silently pray to Jesus Christ
in your living room alone in the Maldives, or it
(23:04):
is punishable. There are no churches, no synagogues, no temples,
no tolerance. This is a theocracy with a customer service department.
And he says here the word Islamic republic does not
mean Muslim majority democracy means what it says on the label.
A legal architecture erected not to protect freedoms, but to
restrict them. Islamic education is mandated in every grade, every year,
(23:27):
et cetera, et cetera. Oh, any descent, whether whispered by
a secular blogger or typed by an ex Muslim on Twitter,
can earn you one hundred lashes twenty years or a
cemetery plot. Welcome to Paradise. And then he says this
is not uniquely Maldivian, or even uniquely Islamic. What's on
display here is the metastasis of a broader pathology, the
(23:47):
suicide of liberalism through the intravenous drip of unchecked pluralism. Right.
There are a lotisms there, I'll explain, but this is
the point of what he's writing. The Maldives is not
just an outlier. It is a bell weather, a warning
of what happens when civilizations that once separated church from
state begin importing ideologies that merge the two, like Siamese
(24:09):
twins sharing a judicial spine. This is not a clash
of cultures. It is a conquest by bureaucracy, and we
are funding it for the umpteenth time. Read Michael Hallibeck's submission.
Novel came out a few years ago about how it's
an imagination of how Trump Trump I'm reading while I'm talking,
how France becomes an entirely Muslim country and freedom of
(24:32):
speech and religion are stamped out and pretty plausible when
you read it. Oh that's the thing. Would you how
would you describe how the takeover goes? How it works
in that novel? Uh, little by little with a lot
of decent people not wanting to come off as racist,
or islamophobic, and then just over time losing and as
(24:56):
mister Friesan points out, like through bureaucracy, bit by bit,
through the tentacles of government. Anyway, here's his main point,
and this is the part that I said, I found
so eloquent, and I wish we had time to just
do the whole thing. But maybe we'll talk to him someday.
It was Carl Popper, he writes, who warned that a
(25:17):
tolerant society must be intolerant of intolerance, or it would
cease to be tolerant at all. Obviously, that's where it's
the way we're always mocking the coexist bumper sticker, coexist, coexist.
A couple of those symbols on there want to dominate
the other symbols, so you can't coexist with somebody who
(25:39):
wants to take over. A tolerant society must be intolerant
of intolerance or it would cease to be tolerant at all.
Can you think of any other modern movements that punished
you even disagreeing with them, or even asking them hard
questions at a training session, for instance, that they made
you go to at work at your university's orientation, you
(26:03):
weren't even allowed to question it anyway. He goes on,
It's a delicious paradox, too often quoted and too rarely heated.
For we have taken the first half of the dictum,
the imperative to tolerate, and chiseled it into law, into policy,
into university mission statements and NGEO pamphlets. But the second half,
the requirement to draw a line to say no further,
(26:26):
has been treated like garlic in a vampire movie, and
teque and anathema unfashionable. The paradox has become pathology. Here's
what he means. Our courts allow Sharia arbitration councils to
function in British cities. He's a brit obviously, adjudicating matters
of family and inheritance with standards that would make a
twelfth century canon lawyer flinch. Our schools include faith based
(26:49):
curricula that require jobs for seven year olds and teach
that homosexuality is satanic filth. Our public broadcasters will era
documentary about the importance of free speech, followed immediately by
a segment about why cartoons of Muhammad are unhelpful. This
is not multiculturalism, it is masochism. It is the belief
(27:09):
that liberalism must be so open minded that its own
brains are spilled out to the prayer mad. It is
the fetishization of identity at the expense of liberty. It
is the ideological pacifism of a society too terrified to
assert its own values lest it be accused of racism
by those who mistake ideology for ethnicity. We have enshrined
(27:31):
the right of the theocrat while criminalizing the instincts of
the secularist. The result is not harmony, it is humiliation.
And then he goes into let's dispense with the ritual disclaimers.
Not all Muslims or Islamists, not all believers who wish
to impose There are believers who wish to impose their
theology on others, of course, but neither are all white
(27:52):
people racists. Yet no progressive chokes on the phrase white supremacy.
When was the last time you heard a progressive set Now,
of course, not all white people are racist. A lot
of white people are good, honest, decent, hard working people
who try to treat everybody well. Blah blah blah. But
still there is white supremacy. But anytime you talk about Islamism.
(28:16):
You have to throw in the long list of disclaimers, right. Well,
the first one, though, is not seen as true by
you know, your local school. Quite possibly spent a lot
of money getting Ibram X Kendy to come speak at
the school, or list bought all the books. And his
whole theme is you are automatically racist if you're white
(28:37):
by definition. Right, So that's one reason you wouldn't say that.
He goes on, why must we say religiously motivated extremism
instead of naming the doctrine that inspired the bomb? Why
do we hear of Asian grooming gangs instead of Pakistani
Muslim sex trafficking rings. Why do we refer to the
Maldives as a challenging democracy rather than a theocratic prison
(28:59):
with beaches? Because the liberal West, having abolished blasphemy laws,
is now enforcing them in reverse. The new heresy is
criticism of faith, at least of one faith. To mock
Christianity is edgy. To mock Islam is hate speech. To
question Jewish nationalism is a principled resistance. To question Islamist
imperialism is bigotry. This is not diversity, It is double think.
(29:24):
It is a sacred exception carved out in the name
of peace, which is to say, in the name of fear.
And then he goes on to make the point more
at greater length. Fear is the root of all of this.
And he's absolutely right, especially about Europe. Britain, France are
humiliating themselves and twisting themselves into bizarre quasi legal knots
(29:48):
to try not to anger the Muslim folks. And I'm
telling you to return to the main theme. If you
take away nothing from this, take this away tolerance. Society
must be intolerant of intolerance, or it would cease to
be intolerant, I'm sorry, or it would cease to be
tolerant at all. Yeah. Pretty obviously, but obviously not obvious
(30:13):
enough to keep it from happening the way it's happening. Yeah,
those of you who don't have the courage to say
this sort of thing, we suggest you try to find
it if you can. Those of you who do, we're
with you. Some really good news about journalism, and I
rarely say that. Some big changes coming to uber And
what was the other one? Oh man, good God. The
(30:35):
asking for you to tip whenever you get your card
to anything is so completely out of control. All of
that on the way. Stay here from.
Speaker 4 (30:50):
Coca Cola made with American cane sugar instead of high
fructose corn syrup coming soon.
Speaker 1 (30:55):
Coca Cola already.
Speaker 4 (30:57):
Uses cane sugar in it's Mexican version, but hi, those
corn syrup and what you usually find here in the US.
This version isn't going anywhere. But the new product they're
adding will feature only American cane sugar, but ounce for ounce,
both versions are roughly the same number of calories and
the same amount of sugar in a standard bottle, about
as much as you'll find in two and a half
(31:18):
full sized chocolate bars.
Speaker 1 (31:20):
Did you know that? Now? What was driving the Mexican
coke thing was taste more than health, but it got
turned into a health thing recently. The equivalent of two
plus candy bars when you drink a can of coke.
Think about that. Yeah, wow wow. By the way, she
was clearly an Upper Midwesterner. I had a flashback to
(31:41):
my childhood when she said syrup. I don't think I
ever heard anybody say syrup until I was close to
an adult. So we got a good text about host
nations and AI, particularly with this story about the FDA
is having troubles with AI. Just makes up studies about
various drugs and stuff like that, and somebody that's the
(32:02):
entire study. It makes it up to answer a question.
But somebody texted, maybe you know, because we were talking
about the language learning thing with AI the other day,
and will it overtake journalists if ninety five percent, if
ninety nine percent of journalists suck, And that's probably true,
and it takes in all that journalism, won't it suck?
So I was wondering that question. But if it takes
(32:24):
in all the studies that are done, many of them,
if not bogus or bogus adjacent, they're very preliminary, really
over stretching their results. It's just picked up on that
well in the soft sciences quote unquote especially they're a joke.
But even in medicine frequently you can't replicate results, right,
(32:48):
What an interesting point. So maybe it figured out nobody's
replicating these things in any studies. So yeah, I'll make
them up too, as if it's a thinking beast. Okay,
I'm so be fuddled by that different story. We've all
experienced the omnipresence, the ubiquitousness of tipping being foisted upon
(33:09):
you in the modern world. You pay for everything with
your card or I use my watch, and it gives
you the choice of do you want to tip fifteen percent,
eighteen percent, twenty two percent? What would you like to
tip for what? The convenience store person just rang up
my case of water? I mean, what I'm tipping for that? Now?
They used the favorite was I ordered something online and
(33:32):
paid for it online and they just had to hand
it to me. That's a new one. They had this
hotel website where you book your hotel and it's all automated.
It's all computer program and then it asks for a
tip at the end. I'm tipping a computer for doing
what the website is designed to do. I don't even
understand what's going on here. But the most interesting thing
I thought about found out about this is that tipping
(33:55):
is down at restaurants from around twenty percent on average
to down around depending on where you are, fifteen to
eighteen percent on average. And they think some of it
might be just psychologically. When they hand you, you know,
if you're at a super fancy restaurant, they do this,
but they don't do this but below that. Now they
just kind of They take your card, they stick it
(34:16):
to the thing, and they hand you the thing, right,
and you're supposed to think the little handheld or the machine. Yeah,
the little handle hand held happened, gadget. They hand it
to you and you press whatever. And this person writing
in the New York Post thinks there might be something
about them staring at you while you do it, and
(34:37):
the pressure of holding the piece of equipment as opposed
to when you're alone with the check. And I don't know,
it does have a different feel to it. See, I've
noticed the places I've gone that actually hand you the
little machine, and I like that because it eliminates a
step of a level. Yes, time fast. When I'm done eating,
I want to get up and go. It is kind
of weird that way. But I've noticed the server will
(34:59):
look gaze into the middle distance, right, so as not
to have that vibe going. Yeah. I don't know if
that's the reason tipping is down. The other theory is
it just I just think it's fatigue tipping fatigue tipping
fatigue is what they're calling you, and they're just being
asked to tip for freaking everything, well, right, exactly, So
the server at the restaurant instead of being well, of course,
they're expecting a tip. That's what happens here. It's oh great,
(35:22):
another person with their hand out right everywhere I go
all day long. So yeah, yeah, you poured a cup
of coffee and I'm supposed to give you a twenty
percent tip. That didn't used to be the case, but
it is now. Okay, Well, I'm sure this will shake
out over time. We got a lot more in the
way Armstrong and Getty
Hosts And Creators
Joe Getty
Jack Armstrong
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