The Scott Adams School - 09/16/26 Iran. AI. Impeach Trump? Scott Helps Us. Jeff Callahan Joins

be paying attention. But all right, so we are live.

Morning everyone.

Good morning everyone.

Are we live? Okay, yay, um, live.

We're live. We are live now. Okay, YouTube, Rumble, the Beloves on Locals, X, Spotify. I can't see you, but if you can hear us, good morning Spotify, special shout out to you. Um, You guys, did you see the thumbnail today? I'm kind of laughing because it has Owen in it. I was in a hurry, so I had to grab one that had Owen. And man, oh man, did Chester make Owen buff! I was like, you go, Owen! He's probably like 6'8 and like, you know, buffed out and stuff. I was like, damn. Um, but he's not here to enjoy it, so guess who's here? Cousin Jeff. Jeff Callahan. In the house. We missed you. It's, you know, like we try to circulate and get around to everybody that we miss, but sometimes just we, we take longer than others. But Jeff's back.

I'm back.

I'm here. All right, you guys, just waiting for a couple more seconds for you guys to filter in. And, um, this show is going to be interesting today, I tell you, because I don't know how it's going to go. I, I, I'm a little bit all over the place, but it'll be a variety, a plethora of topics.

Yes, it will be a smorgasbord.

A smorgasbord, if you will, a buffet. Okay, I think we've had enough time to come in and I am parched. I know you are too. Let's do it.

The simultaneous sip will get you going like nothing else possibly could. And all you need to participate, well, you don't need much. No, not much. All you need is a cup or mug or glass or tank or chalice or stein, a canteen, jug or flask, a vessel of any kind. Fill it with your favorite liquid. I like coffee. And join me now for the unparalleled pleasure, the dopamine hit of the day, the thing that makes everything better except for the photos on your laptop that you left at the shop. It's called the simultaneous sip, and it happens right now. Right now. Sublime.

Sublime.

Oh, Hunter.

Always pick your laptop up at the shop. Never forget. And don't do crack.

I mean, do you drop off your laptop if all that's on there?

Depends on how much crack you've had, really.

I mean, all right, all right. Let's say, let's say you have Hunter Biden's laptop, but it's yours, Jeff, and you're not on crack, but all that stuff's on there. Do you drop it off?

Well, I do drop it off, but I drop it off at the center of a body of water.

There you go. Boiling acidic water. Yeah, I'm with you. Oh my goodness. So you guys, welcome. I am Erica. I am joined today by our beautiful Marcella, our esteemed journalist, co-host, attorney, opinionator. You know, we've got it all. And our author, our— I, I mean, like, author, farmer, animal lover.

All-around Renaissance man, maybe.

Renaissance man. And, um, always up for a good time at the Scott Adams School, Jeff Callahan.

Woohoo!

Happy to be here.

Happy to have you here. Um, okay, you guys, so, so much today, and I didn't know which direction to go in, but the one, the one thing I'm going to start with, um, it's not like a fun clip, although where is my Where's my aggravated cat demanding chicken with a bell? Hmm. Oh, I know. Maybe I'll go find him during this clip. But we have not had an update on Iran in so long because the AI is going to murder us. Conversation's been so loud. So I thought we'd have an update from our favorite Trey Youngst. And we'll do this. And then Marcela, we'll kick it off with you on the other side. But let's take a listen.

Over the Strait of Hormuz are met.

Well, we didn't ask for new talks. Meanwhile, the Iran-backed Houthi rebels reportedly telling the U.S. they do not plan on attacking American and Israeli shipping interests as they ramp up operations against Saudi Arabia. But they're shutting down the strait over in the Red Sea, so that's not good.

All right, so Trey Yinks is live in Tel Aviv with the latest for us.

Hey, Trey.

Yeah, hey guys, good morning. Tension remains high around the Strait of Hormuz as reports indicate multiple explosions were heard there overnight. The Iranians claim they shot down an MQ-1 Predator drone belonging to the United States. And we do know that U.S. forces targeted a number of small Iranian boats that were reportedly trying to steal a U.S. sea drone earlier this week. Vice President J.D. Vance discussed the threat to this shipping lane on Tuesday.

Despite the fact that we did accomplish a substantial destruction, not just of their nuclear program, but also the Iranian conventional military, we've seen the Iranians shooting at commercial shipping even in the midst of of peace negotiations. And I think the president has actually done the responsible thing here, which is to try to ensure that world energy markets, despite Iranian terrorism, continue to get that flow of oil and gas.

Iran's Supreme National Security Council released a statement around the same time saying, quote, don't get distracted by the U.S. president's mixed signals from no negotiations to we're ready to talk. The stakes around oil and the Straits have changed. Damage control won't stop what's coming. No talks until Iran's conditions are met, period. With a focus on Iran, one of the country's largest proxies, the Houthis in Yemen, are ramping up their attacks on Yemeni government forces and neighboring Saudi Arabia. The Saudis intercepted a Houthi drone overnight near the holy city of Mecca as these attacks expand in range. Now, the key thing to remember here is that the escalation is linked to the situation with Iran, and the Houthis are receiving direct orders and support from the regime in Tehran.

So the Saudis are conducting strikes.

They have requested U.S. support. President Trump has not granted that yet.

But, Larry, let me give you a different perspective on this.

Why are the Houthis doing it?

Because Iran is paying them cash and offering them material and operational support. But this Iranian escalation is evidence of the pain that they are going through economically.

Axios reports that CENTCOM Commander Admiral Brad Cooper convened a meeting of top military commanders from regional countries, including Israel, this week. to strengthen security cooperation needed to address the ongoing threats from Iran and its proxies. There are a lot of moving parts right now, but more than 6 months into this conflict, currently there is no end in sight. Guys?

Hey, Trey, does it seem like leaving the Saudis— the Saudis out to dry? They're reaching out now to Egypt.

Oh, we'll never know.

Okay, we'll never know.

I mean, once again, you still feel like Why are we even reporting on this? I mean, you know, I, I do want to say that when Trump was— President Trump was recently asked about the war, he said it'll wrap up after the midterms. Um, you know, and I, I happen to agree that I'm sure the Iranians are like, well, let's wait out their midterms also because they know this isn't good for Trump. Um, so, you know, they're being strategic as well. But, uh, after all this, Marcella, things do seem a little bit shaky. What do you say?

I love how Iran tries to do persuasion games with Trump, the persuader-in-chief, because they're basically right now what you just showed is like, oh, we don't want any talks. We are not going to have any talks with you. We're going to have talks with you until you do what we tell you in the Hormuz Strait. Or the street. Anyways, I won't go there. But you know, it's kind of like a girl saying— oh, I shouldn't use analogies, that's gonna kill me— but it's like a girl saying, I won't date you, even though nobody's asked her on a date. So, um, as you saw at the beginning of the story, they indicated— I don't know which host indicated— that US has not asked for new talks, and Trump has not said there's new talks. Yet they're like, ooh, we're not talking to you. So exactly in that voice. But the issue becomes, um, that they have no— they don't get to decide what we do. We get to decide what we do, you know. So I don't feel any issue. The, the, the one of the things that, um, I don't know, the commander, whoever was the naval chief or whatever, the Whoever showed, I don't recall what the name of the person that showed. And what one thing they failed to mention is that the Houthis are fighting Yemeni. They're in Yemen, but they're— how would I say it? They're separate from the Yemen people. And guess who is supporting Yemen? Saudi Arabia. So that's one of the reasons they're really fighting Saudi Arabia, not just Iran, not just because Iran is giving them, I guess, beaucoup bucks to do this. Um, so, you know, it is what it is, but there's different interests there. And isn't it, isn't it interesting that they are actually attacking Mecca? So it's like, you know, it's like divide and conquer. We're sort of— Trump is sort of dividing the Muslim world, um, in a way. So maybe 5D chess, 6D chess. Do you think It sounds like it. I mean, to attack the holy site is like unheard of, at least in— it's never happened before, right?

Interesting. All right, so Jeff, do you have a take on this? Do you think things are escalating, or is Trump playing 6D chess?

Well, all I know is, uh, a couple weeks ago— I don't know if this is accurate or not, I don't think it was— but, uh, there was an image that was circulating of Basically us creating another waterway underneath the—

Cutting through the tip.

Yeah, yeah, cutting through the tip of, of, uh, the area around the Strait of Hormuz.

Just the tip.

I know, only the tip. Uh, and it was like, man, that's the perfect idea. Like, that's the perfect idea to shake up the box. Because, uh, as we've heard Scott say, uh, over many, many years, is, is Trump's really good at shaking the box. Um, And I know somewhat recently he had said something to the effect of, hey, we're not going to be doing much more militarily. We're going to strangle them economically. And here's what we're going to do. And it's like you have to change the paradigm of how you're approaching the Iranian regime because every time we've had talks, we talk, we tentatively agree on the framework Of, of the plan. And then some dude with a rocket launcher like goes off and pops off like it's fireworks, um, you know, in the 4th of July or something like that. And, and you can't, you can't have negotiations with an adversary that doesn't seem to play by any rule.

Uh, yeah.

And like, and probably, and admittedly I'm not as well versed on this, uh, but from what I understand, there are several factions inside Iran, you might be negotiating with one faction and then another faction who doesn't care anything about who's negotiating what. They're just like, I'm going to start shooting at ships because it's fun.

And then there's Israel, by the way. Like, you don't know. You have to have everybody stay calm. Like, here's the plan.

It's a fight. Trump gets everyone to like stop hitting each other for a second. And then somebody like smacks the other person or slaps the other person. It's like, what are you going to do with that? You just have to wash your— at some point you have to wash your hands of it and say, look, We've, we've eliminated the nuclear threat. We're— you want, you really want to go in and get that nuclear material for sure. But then you, you want, you want to start digging. You want to start digging so that you can just be like, hey, I actually don't care anything about the strait. The strait is immaterial to me. Like, build a railway, build a channel, something like build it, and then just route your stuff through, through that.

Build a bridge, build a railroad butterfly bridge.

A giant bridge.

California could build that speed rail for them.

Um, I'm sure they can take the money though.

What do you think about what Jeff's saying, Marcella? Do you think, um, I don't know, I, it is hard. I mean, you can even think about like a fight with your siblings, right? Where it's like, everybody calm down. And then one person just pops off and like your mom's gotta freak out to be like, you know, everyone just be quiet. But you can't, it's, it's hard to make everyone, you know, in concert to do things like that.

Oh, it, it would be impossible to do that, especially in the Middle East. But I think what we're looking for, what the United States is looking for, is, you know, to control the regime, which we don't have control over.

Yeah.

You know, so basically to either have a pro-US regime or to put in our own guy or our own girl. Um, I'm for it. Uh, and if I can ask President Trump, we do need a change to the name Strait of Hormuz. We need to call it maybe Straight of America or whatever other name, because it always messes me up when I—

Oh, all right.

Let's just— just for me, just for me, you know.

Straight of Marcella.

Yeah, I like it. So it is, so it shall be.

It shall be Straight of America.

Oh my God, that won't piss anyone off. Not a problem. Um, all right, so, you know, again, you guys, that's, that's the latest. And, um, There's something—

keep an eye on Israel because they're having elections soon.

Oh, can we discuss that for a second?

Sure.

I mean, uh, just the bare minimum. So is— what is it, like mid-October?

I believe so. I, I would have to, um, confirm it with my—

Is this where Bibi's on the ballot?

Well, you know, they would have to elect— his party would have to elect him again. Um, Because he's prime minister. So yeah, it would be either he goes— there is another person that wants to, that is leading, um, and he was over the, the defense forces of, you know, of Israel. But he does disagree with the way Bibi— like, I know him, you know— Bibi is doing things.

Bibi.

Uh, so if, if there's another power structure that gets there It, it, it might change the equation on everything. So we'll see what, what happens.

So I think we need to watch too, because this, this is me off the cuff here, you guys, cuz I, I, I wasn't planning on discussing this, but, you know, Bibi could be in a lot of trouble and potentially, uh, all right. So he, he could be in a lot of trouble. Yeah. He's got issues that he could face. So, you know, some people believe that these wars are dragging out because he's trying to avoid perhaps jail. So, you know, hopefully we won't have to escalate things to delay the elections. And I do think, you know, the Israeli people, they need their voices heard. And, you know, Bibi was on his way out before this all started. So it'll be interesting to see if the mind process of the Israeli people, the Jewish people changes now. Like if they're like, okay, like we're in a couple of wars, Now, and he's helping negotiate with the United States to keep us safer. Like, let's keep him around and keep him in power. Or if they go back to why they didn't like him and trust him any longer to begin with, and they want someone new in power. So it's going to be interesting to see how this shakes out. So either look for an escalation, perhaps due to Israel escalating things. Which, God, I hope not because, you know, again, we also have our midterms and we also need this to stop. And, you know, the reason why it's affecting so many people here is these wars. I mean, have you guys seen the price of diesel? I saw in California—

It's going up.

It was like $8.49. So when you're like, oh, I'll pay more at the pump, okay, but unless— so what you have to understand is diesel is how everything gets delivered to us, okay? So all of the trucks and shipping and everything rely on diesel. So imagine your car Was $8.49 a gallon, you would not be saying, I'll pay more at the pump at $8.49 a gallon. Now, for— I can tell you, for me, I own a business and my entire business runs on diesel. So my cost of doing business now has just like doubled and, and then some. Okay.

You can't put it all on the customer either. You can't be like, well, now—

Right. I can't double my customers' price.

I will double my, my attorney fees for sure.

But, um, Of course, you don't want to double your fees because, you know, so when you're wondering why the things that you buy every day are so expensive, it's because the people bringing it to you have now some doubled and some tripled prices. So this is the problem.

So, and the reason— I was listening to an economist. The reason that oil hasn't gone up in price compared to diesel is that oil, we've like, we have our own oil. There's oil in Venezuela, there's oil different places that we're getting it from. Yeah, but diesel, certain diesel, certain ways of making diesel product comes from Iran and comes from certain places in the Strait of Hormuz, is needed in order to transport all of that. And that's the one of the main things that, that is, that is being very much affected.

Yeah, so all of your like, um, Your farmers, your manufacturing people, anyone driving a truck, right, Jeff? Is it more diesel?

Yeah, like I have friends that, that are in agriculture out here and, and like they'll just tell me like, oh my God, you know, it's, it's, it's crazy because you fill up your car, maybe you got a 12-gallon tank or 24-gallon tank. Like, uh, let me tell you, the, the people who are filling up with diesel, their tanks are bigger, much, much bigger. And so like that, like that cost is just Uh, it is one of the things that it doesn't matter what side of the political aisle you happen to be on. If it's ex— if it's really expensive and your monthly cost just doubles over, over a month, like, yeah, that's, that's a really tough thing. And it's, and it's a tough thing for, especially at this point going into the midterm, it's like, man, we, like the old wrap it up box when people would speak too long at the Oscars, like people, like we're tapping the wrap it up box. Like let's, uh, let's get out of this thing as much as we can. Wrap it up. And do what we can to alleviate prices on just your middle-class people in America.

Yeah, I mean, it's insanity, the prices that things have gone up. I mean, I understand why it's happening, but like, okay.

Or, you know, if, you know, the other thing is, if we can't resolve the war because Iran is crazy, then figure out another way to— let's build a bridge, or let's, let's create— let's get the diesel out of somewhere else. You know, that's one thing that, that Trump always has indicated and I loved about him is that he doesn't want all the control, all the oil to come from one, one area of the world, which has never been stable ever. So, you know, let's look to technology. Let's look to other places where we can get this from and maybe destroy their control and their, their only leverage.

On the world. Yeah, I know because back in the day somebody mentioned it here. But yes, back in the day if you had a diesel vehicle, you were paying so much less than people buying regular gas. It was like you know you were you were like sucker to the people with the cars. Now we're like oh my god! But you know all of our industries run on diesel. So you know that's where we're at. So anyway, good talk, good talk. Let's see how the let's keep our eye on the elections in Israel and see what happens. But oh EJ. I look at you with that big smile on your face. Okay, so you guys, I found such an interesting Periscope of Scott. It's so evergreen. So it's not too long. I don't remember. I think it's like 9 or 10 minutes. Okay, this is from back in the day, but oh my goodness gracious. So I want you to think about the AI catastrophe happening, catastrophe, and I want you to listen to Scott. And he's so— I was saying to Jeff before the show, like, his clips are just somehow so evergreen. It's amazing. So let's kick back, grab your cups, and we'll see you in about 9 or 10 minutes. Okay. And I'm going to— oh, and you guys, if we're still on view, let's just turn off our cameras so they can just see Scott. Okay, here we go.

I'll give you a climate science hypothesis you've never heard before. And I will sell this to you with at least as much certainty as any of the other hypotheses, which means not very good. All right? Here we go. You know, regular readers of my blog and followers of my Periscope, that I sometimes talk about philosopher Nick Bostrom's idea that we are a computer simulation, literally just a software simulated world created by some civilization of, let's say, humans who learned how to make simulations and they made characters who live their lives in the simulation believing they are real. The reason this is compelling is that for every civilization that learns how to make some— make a simulated world that believes it's real, and our civilization is right there. You know, we're right on the cusp of being able to create a simulated world where the characters act and think and believe that they're real. I'm sure we'll do that in my lifetime at least. So if that's the case, then here's the fun part. I have teased in the past that you could determine whether we live in a simulated world or a real one, whether we're an original species that just evolved in the normal organic way, or we're one of the what could be infinite copies that are simulations, that there actually is a way to tell. So you would look for ways that a programmer would program this world for the tells. You know, you'd look for the little, you know, hidden tags and the The seams in the reality, metaphorically speaking, seams. Now some of the things you'd look for is that you can never find what your world is made of, like what's the stuff you're made of, because if you're simulated, you're not made of anything real, right? And sure enough, when physicists burrow down into the tiniest of little things, all you get is probability. We're not really made of anything. anything. We're not made of anything. There's just probability and waves and particles may be there, but only until you look. The other thing you'd look for is that for resource constraint reasons, you would have— you would not create a simulated world with a real history because it would be infinite and take up all your computing resources. Instead, what you'd do is create creatures that have cognitive dissonance on a regular us so that as they discover things in the present that require a history to understand them, the history is created when needed. So in other words, if we're simulated, history is created on demand. And it turns out that the physicists have determined that's actually what happens, that reality doesn't really exist until somebody observes it. In other words, our history, this We already know this. It's proven. Physicists can demonstrate that it's not until the observation that you know what was happening in the past.

All right?

So those are the first little clues that we're more likely— oh, and the other clue would be you would also create your simulation so you couldn't get out of it. And right now we have that constraint in the laws of physics. Because the universe is presumably expanding at the speed of light because the light itself becomes part of the universe that's expanding. So you can't ever get to the edge of the universe because it's already moving at the speed of light and a rule of physics is that you can't move faster than the speed of light. So you can never get to the edge to look back on it and say, okay, now that I'm on the outside, I see that this isn't what I thought it was. All right. Now let's talk about climate science. This is where I was going to. On this. If we're a simulation, imagine that you're the creator of the simulation and you have a couple of ways to go to create your simulation. You're first going to make sure that you create a world that is compatible with the life of the creatures you're putting in the simulation. So far, so good. Now, that doesn't prove anything. Because evolution, as we understand it, would get us to the same place. But if we were evolved to this place and we just got lucky that we happened to be the ones, you know, the one thing that was evolving in a place where the conditions were right. But of course there's a survivor bias, right? The only people who get to ask the questions, like me, are the people who evolved in the lucky, lucky, lucky, lucky, lucky, lucky way where were just right for me to survive. But, you know, chances are that would happen to somebody, maybe more than some. So just the fact that we exist in this perfectly balanced environment, that's not enough to tell you we're simulated or real because we could get there either way. But here's the dangerous idea. And by the way, I'm totally cognizant of the fact that somebody's going to take this out of context and further destroy my reputation as a crazy person. But here's the idea. If we're a simulation and you're the programmer and it's your job to build the simulation, would you build a world in which the simulations, the creatures that you put in it, Could be all destroyed by the world just going to hell. You know, like the sun exploding, for example. Would you build a simulation in which the sun could explode and just wipe out all of your creatures? Would you build a simulation where, you know, they had a good run for a couple hundred years on the Earth and then the Earth, the ecosystem just all went to hell and it killed everything? Would you build that simulation? As a programmer, you probably wouldn't, because it'd be so much work to make this thing that, you know, just kills all its creatures. What would be the point of that? If we're a software simulation, I think more likely than not— no guarantees to this— but more likely than not, one of the tells, and not a confirmation by itself, just something you'd see as part of your— Your total evidence. One of the tells would be a self-correcting environment, right? Think about this. Well, I'll just put the question to you. Let's say you're the creator of the simulation. You have all the skills to create a world which is stable, and then you're going to put creatures in it and they're going to evolve and interact and stuff. Would you as a creator— and this is an actual question, so answer this question— If you were that creator, would you build into it the ability for the natural environment to just sort of go haywire and kill all the people? Or would you make sure that's the one thing that didn't happen? You just build into your code, well, if things get out of balance, rebalance them. Because things are always getting out of balance, right? The atmosphere is always getting out of balance. So wouldn't you add in a little bit of code that says, Check the balance once in a while. If you're getting out of balance in this way, maybe you need to add a little over here, subtract a little over here. I was thinking about this because I just saw an article somebody sent me that those big gigantic continents of plastic that we think is floating in the ocean are maybe 1/10 or 1/100 what it should be. I don't know how they determined what it should be, so I guess there's some credibility question there. But apparently, we thought the oceans were just like, just filled with miles and miles and, you know, gigantic, you know, plastic floating garbage things. And there's some of that, too much, but not nearly as much as we thought. And part of the reason that people are thinking it's not what we thought Is apparently some microbes— this is not confirmed— but apparently some microbes have evolved to eat the plastic. Now, is it a— yeah, like the BP spill. Good example, right? The BP spill was supposed to be, you know, a scale of 1 to 10, it was supposed to be a 10. If you look back at it 100 years from now, you'd say, well, in the big scheme of things, it was closer to a 1. You know, I mean, it was terrible while it happened, but in the scheme of things, it didn't last very long, and nature corrected. The microbes adapted so quickly that they just fixed it. Likewise, I saw an article today that said one possible problem with the climate models, and everybody has heard this before, that when you increase the CO2, you're also increasing the vegetation because because CO2 is a good fertilizer. And so it's a natural rebalancing mechanism that CO2 makes it hotter but it also makes more plants. And, you know, there's some— not enough to necessarily compensate, but you can see that there's, you know, 2 different variables that interact to balance each other out. Now, probably there's all— there are all kinds of those variables all through our environment. So the tell, the tell for being a simulated world, no guarantees, right? Just, you know, it would just feel like that's what it was, is if you saw the world, our environment continually adapting to keep us alive in ways that we didn't anticipate.

Okay. I'm obsessed with that clip because it's so what's happening today between You know, you know, like saying, like David Sachs saying to, oh my God, what's his name? Dario. You know, if you're creating something that's so dangerous, either stop or get out of the way and let someone else take over. And I don't know, I just love that. Like, would you create something that's gonna destroy everything? No. So this is where we could go into the hoax of it all. And I have clips about that too. But Jeff, I mean, you listen to Scott, like he's just, he's so thoughtful all the time. And do you see the correlation to what's happening now?

Yeah, I look at, it's funny, whenever Scott talks about the simulation, I always think about like when you see 2 people that sort of look alike and I'm like, oh, that's just the simulation having to reuse a face. They couldn't have infinite faces. There's just no way. But I— and it's been really interesting to watch the past week or so how all the, Scott would say, the usual players come out of the woodwork to say, oh, AI is going to do this and AI is going to do that. And it's like, look, the story of history is the civilization that builds the best technology the fastest wins.

Yeah.

That's always been the case. It's never not been the case. Uh, we, we wouldn't, we wouldn't hear about civilizations that they started to build spears and they were like, oh, you know what, I don't know, these spears are really too powerful, maybe let's not do this. And so they stopped building the spears, right? They got wiped out long ago, right? And so the only way out is through— we, we need to keep building and keep building and keep building fast and fast and fast because We don't want to be in a position where one of our adversaries, probably China, builds an AI that wins, right? Because they successfully psyoped us into protesting against data centers and all this stuff. That's not good. And I selfishly want more compute because I think it's going to lead to massive breakthroughs in health and things like cancer and things like that. We have to keep going. We have to keep going and we have to go faster. That's what I think.

Okay. So Marcella, do you mind if I play a clip first and then have you react? It is Jensen Huang. I love saying his name. But Sandy had sent this to me today saying like, oh my God, this is so Scott-coded and it fits perfectly with what Scott just said. And then I'll have you react. Let's take a listen.

We have been seeing an incredible debate for the last day on pacing and safety and the future of these models. You've had some time to think about what everybody is saying and kind of bring it all down to us and explain, you know, how do you see that?

Well, safety is paramount. In a lot of ways, it's job one. However, safety is an engineering problem. We're developing software after all. We're developing computing systems after all. It's a complicated computing system, but it's ultimately a computing system. And so, the first thing is to make sure that we create the test environments for testing these complex systems. And those test environments have to be built in a good way, built in a safe way. And then the second thing is we have to test these products. If we're not confident about the safety of the products, like all companies, like you and I, Any, any, all the companies here, if you build a product or a service and you're not confident in its functionality, capability, or safety, then don't release it. And so that's a very obvious thing to do. You pace yourself until you are confident you're releasing something that the market would appreciate. The market forces are already there. We don't need any new laws. We don't need new regulations. We just need companies to decide that when it's, you know, run as fast as they can. I think innovation speed and safe products are not— it's a false choice. You could definitely have both at the same time. So run as fast as you can. But if you feel at any given point in time the company's out of control or the product's not going to be safe, you know, take a pause and make sure you get it right.

Pivot. So yeah, pacing, right, Marcella? I think it's a really, uh, duh idea just to remind these people creating these products, hey, pace yourself. If it's getting wacky, don't release that part of it, you know, pivot, change, you know. So Scott-coded, yes.

Yes, but also he, he makes a good point too that, you know, it, it would be a Scott point. Like he was thinking like Scott would have thought, um, it's a false choice. Why do we have to choose A or B? Well, it's, it's like they're, um, they're, uh, they're making us think past the sale. Um, the, these like, oh, we're gonna get destroyed by, by AI. And then the other side's like, no, you're not. And so he's like, no, don't think past the sale that they're trying to sell you. Realize you don't really— it's— you don't have to choose that. Um, I mean, again, I'm using analogies, but like, if you're building a car or if you're building anything, you're gonna test it. You're going to— nobody's like saying you can't do these things, but if you're gonna put it out in the world, you're gonna figure out that there's certain things that, you know, that is safe, or there's certain, uh, parameters. He knows more than we do about these things, but he thinks it's where it's possible to find a safe medium, you know. I think what Dario's point— gosh, I'm making Dario's points. What Dario's point is, and I think Sam Altman's point is, that AI is such a technology that maybe you think it's safe to release, but in the wrong hands it could be misused. And you don't know what you don't know until you know it kind of thing. But that's, that's everything in this world, you know, the— how many things are like that, you know, like, how safe do you want it to be? Um, so I, I don't know.

I know it, it's, it's a new industry. Did you want to say something, Jeff?

Well, I, I was just thinking in terms of anytime there is fear around Something. Could be climate change, could be AI. Fear, as Scott has taught us, is one of the most powerful persuasion levers. And it's where if someone is in a state of fear, they are unable to think critically. And so when I see fear being drummed up around anything, I usually take a step back and say, well, who wants me to be afraid and why?

Exactly.

Uh, and the more they, they sort of pump the fear toxin into the populace— and let's be honest, the, the half of the, the country that, that has a harder time with critical thinking, they're going to be a lot more susceptible to it, right? Uh, and so it's always worth taking a pause, be like, why, why do they want, want me to, to be afraid? And what is their endgame? Uh, and as soon as you start asking those questions, then you're like, oh well, now I can question every other assumption that's around that, because it's like, I don't actually have to be afraid. Scott's Law of Slow-Moving Disasters tells me that probably we're going to figure out a way to do AI and do it safely. You know, I was just reading something where they had one of the new models play Minecraft and the model got depressed. It was like, like the future is just going to be sad Terminators who are berating themselves because they couldn't play Minecraft correctly. It's like, look, there's going to be a lot of avenues where we can control AI. It's going to be like I, Robot, except A bunch of mopey, mopey robots.

Oh, right. Nobody wants a mopey robot. All right. So I agree. Like yesterday, I was referring to it as fear porn. And a lot of people can't get enough of it either, because they, you know, again, it's like you want to wallow in the bad stuff, and you want to believe the doomsday stuff. And believe me, we all get caught in it. It depends what the topic is, like what you're more susceptible to. But it is true. I mean, Follow the money. Follow who's saying it. Follow who would benefit from you being afraid. Critical thinking. So no one was better at teaching us about hoaxes than Scott. I mean, he literally is the master of it, and thank God he has put put that into us so hard that I think majority of us now sorry, like call it a conspiracy theory, but we are just we smell it right away. Yeah, we you know we're just like no everything is. It's not as it is. So, but no better student of Scott's than Greg Gutfeld. I mean, that is for sure. And I mean, I was a fan of Greg's before I knew Scott, and then Greg and I both found Scott at the same time, and it only made Greg that much more impactful. So I have a clip of Greg, and I think he puts it in the perfect Scott Adams way. So let's take a listen.

This should anger you. There's no verifiable demonstration of data. If there was, they would resign. It's all choreographed. The CEO essay followed by the so-called whistleblower, then the national media lines up segments. You have Obama and Kamala posting nearly identical tweets. You have the Netflix movie that comes out. It's a laundered narrative. You can see it. Synchronized language. synchronized timing. All the players are so amateurish. And the reason why Anthropic did it is to freeze, uh, the AI race at the moment they're ahead. That's all they want, because they know there's trouble ahead in the future, and a coordinated slowdown will stretch the life of the models they have out now that are already deployed. They can build up inventory, and they won't go under in case the Okay, so it went on from there, but that's the gist.

And I think he's dead on with this. And, you know, if you can— if you need to replay listening to Greg saying that, just do that to train yourself. And, you know, just to show— so, all right, so I have one more clip I'm gonna play and then we're gonna discuss, but this is gonna fall into 2 categories. One, I had to see it, so now you have to see it. It's one of those clips. However, I put a sprinkle of Scott Bassett on it to make it all better. So it kind of evens itself out. But Greg is right. Obama did come out. Obama did come out and basically scripted all the Democrats to start pushing this narrative. And they are. And here is Maxine Waters being Maxine to our beloved Scott Bassett. Let's take a listen.

Say, did you hear about Anthropic? Did you hear about Amodei? They all said stop it. Watch it. AI is dangerous. You got to be careful. Did you hear any of that? Yes or no?

They could stop anytime they want to.

Did you hear any of that? Yes or no?

They could stop anytime they want to.

Reclaiming my time. Did you hear what your friends had to say? What the big billionaires had to say? Did you understand that they said we're moving into a dangerous period of time? We need to watch it. We need to slow down. Did you hear that?

This administration has been at the forefront of examining the models. We began model examination. We have more than 5 or 6 models now.

Your friends said watch it. Be careful that we're moving into a dangerous time on AI. And if you don't admit that, it means that you're not willing to stand up to the truth because you heard it. You know they're saying it. These are the guys that you all work with. These are the guys that you have to be more billionaires and trillionaires.

These people, you know what they're saying.

People want you to give them regulatory—

You don't have any more time.

I would not, I would not take her advice on technology personally.

Personally, the wig has spoken. All right, so what you guys— you guys would die if you could see Marcella and I when these clips are playing. We're, we're back there going, We're like mimicking her. Then she took off her glasses. I was like, oh no. There is nothing more aggravating for me when someone goes, and if you don't admit it, that means XYZ. Like, oh, okay, so you're just writing the script now. But I mean, man, little Maxine there, she took her marching orders from Obama and she's like, I'm gonna, I'm gonna rail on AI now and the billionaires. So Marcella, just take it away.

Well, it's funny she has this question and that she doesn't even let him answer because she doesn't want to hear the answer. She's just there to posture and, you know, her, her 15 minutes or whatever it is to use it all on her own. But it's like, who listens to Maxine? Um, but she is the audience that, you know, Anthropic is searching for, the, the non-AI users that are going to hear the fear, like Jeff said, and not going to critically think. And that's what she's doing because Scott Bassett was trying to tell her that we're on top of this. We already knew this before Anthropic came out. We're reviewing these models and all those things. He didn't want to hear any reasons.

No.

So it's just, I mean, she brings in the fun with her hands and her hair and Well, to be fair, like, she, she—

it would be difficult for someone born in the 1800s, like, it would be difficult for that person to understand what AI is, you know?

Like—

She was born in the 1800s, you could tell.

You know? Yeah. Uh, and it—

But wait, Jeff, don't you want Mitch McConnell's take on this?

Uh, you know, the thing about Mitch McConnell is that he's, he's so, so old that, like, we can't understand his language. Like, he speaks some sort of earlier version of English, and so we've got to get translators and the Rosetta Stone and all that. kind of stuff. I'm a fan of term limits in Congress because good Lord, just you look around, you can like smell the Bengay and you're like, oh my God.

Yeah, yeah.

The Senate chamber, like, ooh, creepy.

And when you're talking about AI and technology now, and these people were like, you know, listen, no shade, we're all getting older. So, you know, I wouldn't want to have to be talking about AI in Congress and trying to state a case. I don't know enough about it, but like the younger people do. So To be like 900 years old in Congress is not helping us. But go ahead, Jeff.

Yeah, and you're right when you say all, all the— like when, when Gutfeld brought up all the usual players, like all the usual players are doing the usual player things. And he actually brought up a really good point that I hadn't considered that deeply, which is like, yes, it would be great to pause when, when you are ahead so that you can build out the infrastructure because I don't know what kind of compute is on the backend of these models, but my goodness, it has to be an insane amount of compute. Just maybe a year or so ago, Jensen Huang sold something like a billion GPUs, like a billion units, I think. I might be making that up. We might need to fact-check that.

So I—

But it was some kind of insane amount of just infrastructure to run these models. I think he sold it to— OpenAI, if I'm not mistaken. And so just the build-out of technology, like, I bet all these AI companies would like nothing more than a pause to assert control, number one, but number two, just build out the infrastructure so that they can actually get a handle on the compute that's needed with this stuff, which is an insane amount of compute.

Yeah. Okay. So Marcella, You know, it, it's amazing to me that Obama's still giving marching orders to these people, um, and they all are falling in line. I thought, you know, we were done with him. I'm wondering if that is a signal that the DSA section of this party is, uh, scaring people and they're falling back to more of the Obama way. I, I feel like there's something in there where if he's giving marching orders and they're marching That I'm reading into it maybe, but I feel like that's a good sign for the DSA not having so much clout. What do you think? That was a left turn.

Well, Obama is not— so the Obama section of the asylum is not the same as the DSA section, right? On the same page. So, um, I think the Obama section is trying to take control over the DSA section. And Bernie Sanders is like the bridge between— and AOC is the bridge between the DSA and the, uh, left extremist, uh—

So that's a good one, Marcella.

And left extreme.

All right, so Bernie's the bridge from DSA to the establishment. Yeah. And AOC is the, uh, establishment to the DSA.

There's establishment, then there's crazy, a little bit crazier leftist. Like Nancy is the establishment establishment. Then there's Obama. And so Clinton is more establishment, Obama. And then there is the DSA.

Yes.

So, so it's like 3 different heads to the, to the devil.

Bill Clinton, by the way, now would be a Republican. Just, that's just how far left the left went. I mean, literally.

Yeah. I was hosting a space the other day. And I refer to myself as a 1996 Democrat, and I'm like, yeah, that's about right, you know. Uh, but you bring up a really good point, which is I, I wonder—

I need a whiteboard.

Like, how much stuff is a psyop? Maybe all of it, right? So if China wanted to slow down US AI production, then what would they do? They would co-opt the DSA, most likely find ways to co-opt the DSA. I would expect to see a lot of DSA in that wing of the party. I would expect them to evolve into a militant anti-technology standpoint under the guise of AI is going to kill us all, so therefore we should stop building AI. Meanwhile, China is just rubbing their hands together like the guy in the yellow suit meme where they're like, yes, okay, this is exactly what we want. Because I think history has proven that people in that sort of DSA sort of camp, like, they're big fans of communism. They love that. And they probably wouldn't need to be persuaded much to aid and abet communism. They could be told directly by China, please, please do this to data centers. And they'd be like, yes. But they wouldn't even need to be told directly. Like, they would take any excuse to fall on the militant Luddite side of the, uh, equation here.

So then you'd have the— if anyone doesn't know, DSA is the Democrats Socialism of America. Okay, so if we're saying destroying society altogether, yes, or destroying society altogether. Um, so the DSA then, and the crazy— so the crazy part of, um, the Democrat Party, that's where like AOC is. So, and then you have— and Obama's like on the fringe of that, going more toward the establishment. He's between establishment and crazy.

Yeah.

So now you can have the Obama fraction fighting with the DSA. So because if you're so crazy like the Democrat Socialists of America, you want everything about America to be destroyed. Okay, now I'm hoping that the majority of Americans don't want that. And that's what my belief is. I think at the end of the day, we want, you know, we want our liberties, our freedoms, and just kind of leave us the hell alone. So they're determined to say, no, we're going to abolish everything. Police, law and order, let everyone out of jail. I guess China is communist, so they're our heroes, and so we'll do whatever they want. And China wants us to lose the AI race. Okay, so this is where it came down to yesterday when we're saying, why is it so important, you know, that we get there? Okay, so like we're still putting it all together, you guys. So I hope it becomes clearer every day because I'm like a newbie. So if a lot of you are like, I'm not a tech girl or a tech guy, that's me. So, you know, this is why it's important because there's part of the part of this country, the DSA, that would love to destroy our country just for shits and giggles, just because. And the Chinese people are like, yeah, great, you're our people. So if we can put out some fear porn to all of you and maybe pay you for some protests, you know, that are quite organized, let's put the fear out there about data centers and AI and we're all gonna die if we don't stop it. And like Greg had pointed out the other day, you're putting targets on the backs of people that are creating the AI, like the Luigi Mangione effect. So do we really want that out there? You know, so, so now these crazy people could perhaps hunt down the people creating the AI It's very dangerous. It's, um, it's a very dangerous trajectory we're on, Marcella.

I, I actually defer from Greg. I think that the target is being put on the Republicans again because they— the Anthropic, OpenAI, even Elon came out saying, oh, that's correct. They're kind of— I think that it's the Luigi Mangione thing is persuading them to act like, oh yeah, we need, you know, we need kind of regulation. So all these DSA crazies aren't going to attack them. They're going to attack what is continuing it. And in their mind, it's the Republicans, you know. So again, we go back to Scott and his prediction that Republicans are going to be hunted, and that's basically what they're putting the target on.

Yeah, I feel like we've had that target for years now, but now it's like, look, They didn't want you to get vaccinated.

Now they want you to get destroyed by AI because they want to control you.

Well, we were right on the vaccine. So let's see. Okay, Jeff, final word on this?

Yeah, so I just looked up, this is from Global Government Affairs account on X. This is an official X account. They found a bot farm of approximately 200,000 accounts that were primarily centered on sort of anti-data center and anti-AI narratives, right? And so these things are being uncovered and they suspect that the bot farm was sourced in China, right? And so there is like—

Can you break that down, Jeff, for people? Like what's a bot farm? What does that mean?

Yeah, so picture a person in a chair at a desk and they have in front of them what looks like a wall of phones. So it is a wall of phones. It's an actual person. Now, they may even be able to do some of that with AI these days, potentially, where it is just a person typing out like AI anti-data center, anti-AI sort of sentiment and injecting it into conversations that are happening on X. And so what happens is if you get enough of those people, Then just your average person who could go either way on it, if they read enough opinions, uh, and these likely would not be big accounts, but they, but they see like, oh well, it seems like a lot of people are against, against data centers, maybe I should be against data centers too. That opinion was assigned to them by a Chinese bot farm. I guarantee you 100% certainty there's at least one person, probably a lot more, uh, that has had their opinion assigned to them because of a Chinese bot farms. So these are real things, they are being caught. So there are nation-state level actors that are doing things to manipulate US opinion. And so if that's true for a bot farm, what else might they have their hand in? You know, it stands to reason that China would not want to go toe-to-toe with us militarily, and so they might do opinion warfare where they use non-kinetic opinion manipulation to get people to protest their local data center that might go up. And like, I'm— I understand that people probably don't want to live near data centers. I think that's understandable.

Valid.

I think soon we are going to put them in space and it will be a non-issue. But we also can't lose the AI race to China because that's going to make for a very sad rest of the century. And so The last word I'll say on it, I did see the other day where I think that they were able to, they maybe made a prototype of a nuclear reactor, very small one that could fit on what looked like a trailer, like the back of a trailer truck. Maybe you saw this. And it's like that kind of stuff will be able to be deployed to data centers where the energy cost will be negligible, right? And so And I think the, the data center conversation would go down a lot easier, to quote Cernovich, like if data centers paid for local energy consumption or, you know, local infrastructure and really did a lot of pot sweeteners for the local community. I think that would go a long way too.

Okay, so my final word on all of this is I— it's totally valid you wouldn't want a data center near you. So, you know, those things, we're not saying like you should like just Yeah. There's plenty of open space in this country that you could throw a data center into, and I wish that that would happen more. And I think that today's form of data centers are going to be so prehistoric within like 2 years that they're not going to be built the way they are now, like Jeff is saying. Also, if there was a way to make them quiet, that would be nice. And if there was a way to like subsidize a town and like, you know, that they'd really benefit from it, And then also it's like when those data centers close down become because they become obsolete. Now you're left with like this factory thing. So I would love to see an exit plan for the data centers. Like we're going to remove it and pay to remove it, and we're going to plant a forest there. Like something like tell us something's going to happen. If you liked any part of this show, you guys, please click the like, the thumbs up, the heart, the the ring the notification bell. To those of you on the locals chat talking about Homeland and you didn't get past season three, go back and watch it and finish. It is so freaking good. Um, one of the best, uh, series I've seen. I know one season gets a little— just get through it, keep going. It's amazing. Um, also, um, did I mention to you about a chicken— a cat ringing a bell for its chicken? Here it is.

Bring me chicken.

They would just ring it all the time. It's so funny.

His little piece they give him.

Oh.

I'm trying. It's good.

It's hot, you know. He's trying to cool it.

Sure, blowing on it.

Excuses.

Come on, hurry.

That's all Stella would need is a bell. Oh yeah.

I'm not gonna teach my cat the bell because be hearing bells all day.

That is such a cat thing, it's not even funny.

Um, they would stay in a chair and not on the table, I might, I might be willing to listen to a bell conversation.

Oh my God. Oh no, you wouldn't. Trust, you'd be like, all right, give me the bell.

Earplugs.

Stella would just be like, hand on the bell nonstop. Um, all right, you guys, thanks Jeff for joining us today. That was fun. That was so fun. I think this was informative, and I hope it was Useful, and again, you guys, you know these are our opinions on you know different subjects. So I I hope you know maybe you took something from that. We'll be back tomorrow. Marcella and I will definitely be back tomorrow. Owen is still on assignment, and but we will be here. And you guys, let's have a closing sip to Scott and Shelley for you know allowing this show to continue. I just always say it that way because if it wasn't for Scott, you know wanting to do this and Shelley. Being a willing participant, this would never have taken shape the way it did. And it did. And we're here and we're so happy. So thank you to them both. And then let's have a closing sip to our beloved Scott, who just is our evergreen mentor and we miss him so much. To Scott.

To Scott.

To Scott. If anyone has to bounce, So you guys, Akira—

We're gonna see Jeff dancing.

Oh.

Don't leave, Jeff.

Jeff, will you be dancing?

I'll be dancing.

Jeff's—

oh my God. Okay, so listen, you guys, meaningwave.com is where you can find and support Akira's music. meaningwave.com. And his name is Akira the Dawn. And you know, Jeff, why don't we go with the mating process today? Let's take a listen.

Okay, fire it up. Spicy, spicy.

You should know that the mating instinct is the base of pretty much all of your impulses. So if you haven't learned that pretty much everything from the the way you talk. The way you walk, present yourself, hold yourself, dress— everything you do is some kind of expression of your mating instinct, whether you like it or not. Whether you like it or not.

Let the beat rock.

Everything you show off about that you don't want to show if you have a flaw— pretty much everything you do comes back to wanting to look good and present yourself well for mating purposes. When you understand that, you start to understand where the buttons are, because you'll say, oh, that's why that's happening.

It's an extension of the mating process. Are you dancing at home?

Oh, that's why that's happening. It's an extension of the mating process. Oh, that's why that's happening. It's an extension of the mating process. Once you see it, you can't unsee it. You'll see it everywhere. Oh, that's why that's happening. It's an extension of the mating process. It's like the veil will come off and you'll start seeing everybody's actions as, wait a minute, why is it everything is compatible with that showing off for mating purposes situation? Showing off, you know, For mating purposes situation.

Let them be in love.

Oh, that's why that's happening. It's an extension of the mating process. Oh, oh, that's why that's happening. It's an extension of the mating process. Once you see it, you can't unsee it. You'll see it everywhere. Oh, that's why that's happening. It's an extension of the mating process.

Post your pics, you guys. It's on YouTube.

Well, that was short but sensual. I get to see—

YouTube gets to see I see locals in their pictures.

Yes. See, you're seeing what we see back here. And come on over to Locals if you're sweet, kind, and lovely. We want you over here. It's scottadams.locals.com and it's 19 cents a day. Isn't that amazing?

For 19 cents a day, you can join scottadams.locals.com.

You could become a part of the beloved. You know, Metal Seer moved over and I think he's enjoying it thoroughly. He's putting in pictures and having a great time. Metal Seer, I see you blended right in with everybody. Everyone's, you know, good morning everybody. It's nice. It's nice.

The picture they put up there.

They've been posting the McConnell picture the entire time. It's just nonstop McConnell all the time.

You guys, Locals is a good time, I gotta say. Um, all right, so thanks you guys. We will see you back here tomorrow. Be useful today. Say your goodbyes so we don't hang up on you. Mid, mid goodbye. That's just the worst. It's like getting thrown out of a bar. But alcohol is poison. Remember that.

Coffee's good.

Everybody.

See you guys. Take care.

Take care. Thanks, Jeff.

Bye. Bye, guys.