1930: Thank you Elon Musk, The Biggest Problem Facing Humanity, Apple's Tim Cook, Twitter, Fakebook

Welcome to the show. This is Jason Hartman, your host. And every 10th episode we do something kind of special, kind of different. What we do is we go off topic. So regardless of which show it is on the Hartman Media Network, whether it be one of the financial shows, economics, real estate, investing, travel, longevity, all of the other topics that we have, every 10th episode we go off topic and we explore something of general interest, something of general life, success, value. And so many of our listeners around the world in 164 countries have absolutely loved our 10th episode shows. So that's what we're going to do today and let's go ahead and get to our guest with a special 10th episode show. And of course, on the next episode we'll, we'll be back to our regular programming. Here we go. This show is produced by the Hartman Media Company. For more information and links to all our great podcasts, visit hartmanmedia.com.

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Welcome to the Creating wealth show with Jason Hartman. You're about to learn a new slant on investing, some exciting techniques and fresh new approaches to the world's most historically proven asset class that will enable you to create more wealth and freedom than you ever thought possible. Jason is a genuine, self made multimillionaire who's actually been there and done it. He's a successful investor, lender, developer and entrepreneur who's owned properties in 11 states, had hundreds of tenants, and been involved in thousands of real estate transactions. This program will help you follow in Jason's footsteps on the road to your financial Independence Day. You really can do it. And now here's your host, Jason Hartman with the complete solution for real estate investors.

Welcome to episode 1930. 1930. We got some stuff to talk about. A lot has changed in the world since I talked to you last week. What has changed, folks? Maybe the biggest event in Internet history possibly happened just a few days ago. Maybe one of the biggest events in modern American history happened just a few days ago. Maybe it will change everything because in so many ways, we are doomed. How's that for optimism? We are doomed. No, I'm not talking about the real estate market. No, I'm not talking about the recession. That is not official yet. But it's coming. Don't worry, it's coming. I promise you'll get that no, what I'm talking about is culture and society and the biggest problem facing humanity. And I said this in January of 2000. And you all know what happened in January of 2000. We had the results from the erection. I can't say the words because you know what happens. So I got to use another word. And kind of funny too, you know, why is it that as humans we are so funny about sort of normal biological acts, right? It's just, I don't know, we're just funny about it just the way we are. It's our nature. And I stated that this thing that came out in January of 2000 was the biggest problem facing humanity. It wasn't that surveys of sickness that was going around. It was this. This is the biggest problem. And it is none other than. You've heard me, if you've been following me. Censorship by big tech companies. Big disgusting tech companies. And look, you all know, because you've heard it in the news, what happened with Apple. Apple, really? Tim Cook should be ashamed of himself. I mean, he is like a tech dictator. I used to like him a lot. I thought he was doing a great job when he took over the. But that company has become extremely dangerous to humanity. I mean, just think of what they did to those Chinese protesters. They disabled Airdrop, which, because the Internet is censored, it's the only way for people to really effectively communicate electronically on their phone. And this is probably the last time I'll buy this brand of phone. Look at that cute dog on there, huh? On their phones. If they use the Internet, you know, that's impossible. Do you know that this company, this shameful company, took all the VPNs out of their App store in China? So Chinese people cannot put in any normal way a virtual private network which would allow them to, you know, go basically have a location in another country so that they could have free speech and see the free Internet, right? Which was the way it was designed. Beautifully. They took those out of the App Store. And now to add insult to injury, literally something that is killing people. Killing people like blood on his hands. Okay, they have disabled Airdrop. And if you're an Apple user, you know what that does, right? It basically sets up a peer to peer Internet. In essence, it can't be censored. And then they kind of backpedaled a bit, I guess, and they sort of made it so it would kind of work, but it would have to be reset all the time, so it just wouldn't work effectively at all. I mean, literally a Tool for the oppressors is unbelievable amount of human greed and evil. And I just really hope and pray that they. They reverse their ugly, ugly, evil behavior. Because I used to love that company. I mean, you know, I thought they were like the most ethical big tech company. But you know the saying power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Right? Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. And we see examples of that over and over. So let's, of course talk about Twitter and Elon Musk, who might be. And listen, folks, if you've been following me for any length of time, you know, I purchased two Teslas. The first one, the Model S, was pretty good. You know, I was happy with it. You know, it had some issues, but overall it was, you know, a good experience. And then I bought the Model X and that car was a total lemon. And I criticized Elon Musk a lot. And that company acted very arrogantly and they finally refunded my money and allowed me to return the car after 10 months. You know what's funny? The folks, this is a huge irony. I was just thinking about this this morning because after 10 months of arguing with Tesla, I asked them to take the car back. I said, this car is a lemon. It's got so many problems. You know, those doors that, those Falcon doors just. It just had tons of problems. It was terrible. Finally, one day I got a phone call from a higher level person at the company and he said, you know, Jason, I know we've been going back and forth on this for a long time. We're going to do the right thing and we're going to refund your money. And, you know, when can I pick up the car? You know, we'll just terminate the lease and refund the money you've paid so far. And I thought, wow, that was a turnabout. And I said, thank you. I'm surprised. He said, yeah, it's just, you know, not worth a hassle for us. If you're not happy, we're going to give you your money back. Then he happened to mention in the conversation that he started following me on Twitter. Yes, I kid you not. You can't make this stuff up. He started following my Twitter. Now, the company owned by Elon, who has become maybe the superhero to humanity, right? He's like the true Iron man, right? Not Robert Downey Jr. Who, by the way, is an awesome actor. I Love Robert Downey Jr. Funny. Just, gosh, some actors are just naturals. He's one of them for sure. But anyway, he says, I Started following on Twitter and I'm like, oh, that's interesting. And at the time I had about 26,000 followers on Twitter. Now I got about 60,000 followers on Twitter. And he says, yeah, I started following you on Twitter. And I realized I connected the dots on that. I don't know why he mentioned it, but I was posting videos of the car malfunctioning on Twitter and they obviously didn't like that. Right? So anyway, that worked out and you know, I forgive them, okay, for being so difficult. I don't, you know, I'm not like mad that, you know, their product was bad. I can live with that. I mean, look, it was a new product. It was a, you know, new, pretty cutting edge design to have those falcon doors on that car that, you know, look really cool opening. But I was upset with the way they dealt with it where they just didn't want to take responsibility. And folks, we live in a world, sadly, where people just will not take responsibility for their actions. I am glad that at a very young age I was taught to be self reliant and responsible. Part of it, just because I had to be because I was an only child and I only had one parent, right. And you know, she wasn't around very often. So I kind of had to figure my way out in the world. Right. And you know, I say this to all of those friends of mine who are helicopter parents and you are disabling your kids. Be really careful. Let your kids struggle a little bit. I didn't like it at the time, but I think it made me a better person. But then I had a male role model who was the father of two of my friends and he had two girls as children and no boys. You know, he really taught me a lot of responsibility. He was a blue collar guy. You know, his family sort of adopted me a little bit, not formally obviously, but really taught me a lot of things about responsibility. His name was Jack. And by the way, I'll tell you, I remember helping them. The family was having a garage sale one day, back in the day when people used to have garage sales. Okay. You know, I remember him saying something to me that really impacted me. And this was back in the era where, you know, when you had a garage sale, you made up signs and you nailed them to telephone poles. I know you can't imagine doing that today, but that's the way it used to be in the old world. Not that I'm even that old, but you know, that's sort of pre Internet era, right? And you know I was a kid and I remember after the garage sale was over, he said, okay, well we gotta go remove all the signs. And I remember, you know, seeing signs for things that happened forever ago on telephone poles when I was a kid. Nobody ever removed the signs, right? So he said, get on the motorcycle and we'll, we'll go. And so I jumped on his motorcycle. You know, he drove me around and we removed all the signs. And he said, that's just the proper etiquette, right? You clean up your mess basically. And he was just like that. I can't think of other examples. It was always take responsibility for your actions, clean up your messes, be accountable. If you mess up, fess up and make up, fix it. Sadly, these big tech companies that rule the world are just rolling over the human population. Why is it different? Why is it different than the era of the robber barons and the industrial revolution and the Carnegie's and the Mellons and the Vanderbilts and you know, all of them, right? All of, all of them. J.P. morgan, right, well, they did it too, right? They, they did bad things, took advantage of people. But tech is different because tech has so much inexpensive scale to it, where it just scales around the world so quickly. And it's so inexpensive for these tech companies to so many people, right? Like the saying goes, software is eating the world. And it really is. Software is eating the world. That should be a good thing. That should be a service to humanity. But instead it has become a massive oppressor. You know, who all these big technology companies are that are oppressing people, but hopefully there's one now that will do the exact opposite, and that's Twitter. It's my new favorite platform. I'm not very good at Twitter. I don't really relate to it. I don't like the way it's structured very much. It's just never been my thing. I personally like Fakebook better. I think that is sort of like a very natural software. But the leadership of that company is just pure evil. I mean folks, you just can't put it any other way. I mean, the abuses that Zuckerberg has committed against the human race are absolutely disgusting. And their stock is down like what, 72% or something? Great. Sounds good to me. I'd love to see that company under new management because it should be a great company. And it was great. You know, I loved it for a while. You reconnect with old people, you know, it's all the awesome things about it, right? But censorship is the biggest problem facing humanity. There is no bigger problem, period. Because if we have censorship, we cannot fix things. You can't fix the cerveza sickness if you've only got one narrative from, you know, this guy who's made all this money off it. You know, the name's Anthony Fuckey, okay? I won't say his real name because if I. If I do, that'll be a keyword that the algorithms will censor, right? You know, you only get one narrative from the mainstream media, which obviously now we know. There were so many lies about that it was just a power grab. Like I said at the time, it checks all the boxes for evil dictators. It just checks all the boxes. Okay? All right, so here's the thing, folks. Here's the distinction we must understand. And this is a really important distinction since I've litigated two big, big cases that involve First Amendment rights, okay? And I've been on both sides of this issue, right, where both parties, myself or my companies and the other party, claimed First Amendment rights. And you all know, you heard the story when I had my lawyer on the show about how we fortunately won that big verdict in a recent case, which was originally a $50 million plus interest verdict totaling about, you know, potentially $62 million. And then it was cut down because, of course, the other side, the defendants, they went to court and they got the judge to cut it down, and they're still fighting. And, you know, it currently stands at a $28 million judgment in my favor and the favor of a couple of my companies, and then there' adds to that, and, you know, there'll be other fees that'll add to it. Hopefully, you know, it'll stand as it is. Right? And it won't be hacked down anymore, but whatever happens, right? I'm very familiar with the way this works, right? And here's the thing. You've got to distinguish when it comes to these tech companies, okay? Look, the First Amendment does not protect us from censorship of private parties, okay? If a radio station and Ayn Rand, years ago. I mean, she's been dead for a long time, long before any big tech companies existed or the Internet. She probably. I mean, the Internet technically was there when she was still alive. I think she died in the 80s. You know, Ayn Rand probably never heard of the Internet, right? It was just a military application back then. And, I mean, I never heard of it. Right. You know, until. Until, you know, the early 90s. Anyway. You know, she made this example. I remember reading in one of her books about this. She said, you Know, if I own a radio station, I don't have to give you a microphone on my radio station so you can say what you want to say. That's not what the First Amendment does. Right. What it does is it prevents the government from censoring your speech. Not a private company. And that's what all these big disgusting companies have hid behind. And in principle, they're right. But we are living in a different era now. We are living in an era where these companies, as I've Talked about for 10 years, I've talked about this, folks. What you're hearing today is really nothing new. I've been saying this for a decade on this show. These companies have unprecedented scale. Facebook has a gdp. Their revenue is equivalent to several South American countries. Okay. I think when I looked it up and I talked about this on the show before, I don't remember exactly, you know, what the stats were, but I think Facebook, you know, there's about 200 countries in the world, give or take, you know, and Facebook would be number 72. Now, when your company is that big and that far reaching, are you a company anymore or are you essentially a country or a government? And I would argue that you got to play by different rules when you have that much scale, because the premise of a private company can't censor your speech is that you'll have a competitive market marketplace where you'll be able to go elsewhere and speak. Right. If, you know, if you don't like what Facebook does, then you can just go down the street and go to the other competitor of theirs and maybe they'll hear your case. Right. And you can pitch to the media and maybe they'll. Some reporter will grab your story and run with it. Right? That's the idea of a free marketplace and a free press. Right. And these companies claim they hide behind something called the Communications Decency act. And they got this huge exemption in the 90s because back then the lawmakers thought that tech companies had a disadvantage. Can you believe that? Yeah, we needed to get the Internet thing off the ground. They have a disadvantage. So, you know, they shouldn't have liability for controlling speech or not controlling speech. Like if someone, you know, says something malicious or untrue about you, and this is the case, I just litigated. Right. On, you know, one of these platforms, they'll claim, and we're just a platform, we don't make editorial. We're just a platform. They hide behind that. Right. But if the New York Times wrote something about you and it was untrue, or malicious or whatever. You could sue them and they would be liable. Now that's not fair. It should be the same for these, these big tech companies as it is for the New York Times. Right? It should be the same kind of thing. Because by controlling who gets to speak and who doesn't, they basically do create editorial content. That's the way they create it. Yes, they let other people put the content in there. True, but so does the New York Times on the op ed page. Okay, but they can still be sued for that, right? Why do they have to be very careful about what they publish yet Google and Facebook and Amazon, and look at Amazon, Airbnb, all of these companies are censoring you. I mean, Airbnb, when there were rallies for the presidential candidate that they didn't like, they revoked all the guest reservations so they wouldn't have a place to stay. I mean, these companies are disgusting. Amazon, you know what books don't get ever published on Amazon, right? You know that you don't see. You can't hear the dogs that don't bark. You don't know what you don't see. Like I said, this is like Ray Bradbury's first Fahrenheit 451. We're living in this dystopian world where we have a combination of Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451, 1984 by George Orwell. Obviously not his real name, that's a pseudonym. Aldous Huxley and his Brave New World and Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged. And there's a couple just classics that like, we're literally living in that world now. I mean, the world should be getting better and better and better, and yet there are these power hungry, maniacal, evil people. You know, there's this great saying, I think it was by Voltaire a long time ago in the 1800s probably or something, right? And he said, I disagree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it. And that's what we all have to live by and what we all have to believe. This is not a right wing or a left wing argument. This is a freedom of humanity argument. Because you know, you know how it goes, the slippery slope, right? You know, today they, they're coming for someone else. And you don't care because you're not in that group, right? So you're. Who cares, right? It's not. Doesn't affect me, right? I'm just gonna go live my life and then tomorrow they're coming for Another group. And then you say, ah, that didn't affect me. It's. I'm just, I don't care, you know, doesn't. It doesn't affect my life. But then after that, they come for you and it does affect you. And we've seen that throughout history, over and over, folks. And by the way, this is the 10th episode show, so we're not talking about financial topics today, but this is a big deal, folks. It's a big, big deal. And let's hope that Elon Musk is the hero to humanity. He might be. And Matt Taibbi, who, the reporter who's been on the show before. He's been on a couple of times. I could only find one episode. Just quickly this morning as I was looking, he was on Creating wealth, episode number 11, 1111, talking about bubble machines, griftopia, vampire squids, and the long con that is breaking America with Matt Taibbi. So he's the one who's really putting a lot of this, this Twitter release together and assimilating all of this massive data dump of all of the censorship that Twitter has engaged in. Right? So it's great that we get to see what happened here. Right? We're going to know a much closer version to the truth than we ever have over the next several days. Oh, but here's the connection I want to make for you. The government doesn't have the right to restrict your speech. Right. And by the way, you know, obviously I'm in the U.S. and I'm talking about the First Amendment, the U.S. constitution. But this affects you in other countries, too. We have listeners in 189 countries worldwide. So I understand that we have a lot of non American listeners. But the American Constitution was such a liberator for humanity, for every human on Earth, because it was largely the sentiments of the American constitution from the 1700s were echoed around the world in so many countries. Fortunately, now, obviously not everybody caught on because there are evil dictators who want to oppress people and steal from them. And that's just the unfortunate reality of the human race. Right? But here's the thing, okay? The government and I accused them of this a decade ago. They are using these tech companies as a proxy to control your speech. See, they're not doing it directly. Right. And we're seeing this already in the Twitter data dump. This has come out, folks, that the government is basically. Well, the right word is colluding. They're colluding with these companies to control your speech and oppress you and deny you Your First Amendment rights to free expression, that's what they're doing. And look, probably my liberal listeners think that this is some like right wing argument I'm making. But I said freedom of expression, didn't I? I didn't say freedom of speech that time. Because the First Amendment is much more broad than speech. It's about expression. So if you want to express yourself, maybe your sexuality, maybe other choices you make in your life, maybe something about yourself, right? You have the freedom to do that under the First Amendment. This is important stuff, folks. This is the biggest issue facing humanity. There is simply no bigger issue than this. It's not a virus, it's not the temperature change of the earth, whether it's warming or cooling or who knows, That's a whole other discussion. It's just the ability to have a discussion about it in the public square. That is now all of these big giant companies, corporations rule the world. They're bigger than many governments and they need to be reined in. My prescription for this has always been the same. We got to do a few things. We either need to bust them up under antitrust laws, we need to regulate them under common carrier laws and basically say, look, they are liable, just like the New York Times or the LA Times or any other publisher for what goes on their platforms. And you know, what they're hiding behind also is, look, our services are free. We're Google, we don't charge anybody. We're Facebook, we don't charge anybody. You're paying with your information and your data. That is the way you pay these companies, okay? And make their algorithms public and open source so everybody can see them. I mean, folks, Google is extremely secretive. None of us knows why when we search something. And hopefully you don't even use their disgusting search engine. Right? But you probably do because basically they control about 70% of the world's Internet traffic. Can you imagine some company with that much power? That's what we have. So the algorithm, we have no idea why we see the search results that we do. And what we don't see is a form of censorship, obviously, and it's a form of speech control. So why is it you get the results you get? Nobody knows. Right? You know, there's probably no one person at that company that knows, right? It's a big secret. Those algorithms on Amazon, Google, Facebook, all of this needs to become public. And I know what you're going to say, well, that's not practical because these are those companies trade secrets. And you know, they spent lots of time developing that, okay, then give them a patent and let it expire in a certain number of years because then at least the information will be public. But it can't be copied. Okay, that's the answer, folks. I've got the prescription right there. Those three things, those three major things would make a giant difference in solving the most critical issue facing the human race. That's it. All right. Join us in Scottsdale end of January. We look forward to seeing you there. It's going to be a great event. Get your tickets@jason hartman.com or@empoweredinvestor.com live. Either place you can get your tickets. We've got the last Early Bird special that is going away soon. I can't remember exactly when, but soon. How's that for the takeaway? Close. So get your tickets today for Empowered Investor Live. It's going to be an awesome event. Oh, and by the way, way, we just confirmed Sharon Lecter will be speaking as well. She's the author of many, many great books. Sharon Lecter will be speaking at Empowered Investor Live. We'll make a more formal speaker announcement later, but I just wanted to confirm that quickly here.

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