The Scott Adams School - 09/17/26 Erica & Marcela Crushing It Today

Ta-da!

Oh, what is that picture? The many looks of Erica. Well, that was amazing to see. Well, thanks, Petal Seer. Lordy, that's a lot of looks. That's a lot of looks you captured there. And here's another one today. Look at Marcela and I are coordinating. I have pink on my shirt here. It says salty.

Mine doesn't say anything, so Oh lordy.

So you guys, Owen is still on assignment today, but he will be back tomorrow to finish out the week with us. I mean, thank God. We miss him when he's not here. We had a great time with Jeff yesterday, as we like to call him, Cousin Jeff. So thanks so much for being back again with us today. We have so many little news stories for you, so we're going to see how it goes. And we'll just wait for a few more people to come in.

We see they look so good. They they dressed up for us.

Tomorrow I'm gonna post the many looks of the simultaneous sippers.

Watch out, world!

Jim Courtney, what's up? Good morning, everybody. Saying good morning to us. It is. September 17th, 2026. Chunks, I got you. I was waiting for you. There we go. There we go. Everybody here? Okay. YouTube, are you here? Okay. So you guys, as always, you know. Oh God! Look at this mess. I do write like beautiful. I do write a description, you guys, for each show of like what we're doing. But I've dropped the link today. In the show notes or like the description of the show. So I did drop the link for the Scott Adams merch. We had ordered another batch of the swaddle, simultaneous swaddle blankets so we could get through the fall and winter. So, but there's only 3 of the black beanies left. There's only 2 hoodies left, one in a small, one in a large. And I can tell you they fit true to size. They're not like oversized. They fit true to size. Right now there's 80 mugs left. There's, ooh, one medium t-shirt left in black. There's 2 crewneck sweatshirts, oh, and an extra large left in white, um, and a couple of long sleeve medium t-shirts, um, and a couple of trucker hats. Okay, so the link, I know a lot of people ask me, is in the description. Okay, if you want to grab it of the show. All right, now we need to do the thing. Here we go.

In order to have the maximum amount of pleasure, And to make sure that this is the launch of your day, the part that makes all of it better, you don't need much. It's really easy. All you need is a cup or mug or glass, a 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 dopamine hit of the day, the thing that makes everything better. It's called the simultaneous sip. It's gonna happen right now. Go. Ah, yes, I feel the civil discourse in this country improving 1%, and that was just one sip. Imagine if I finished that whole cup. It's hard to imagine, isn't it?

All right, so chug a lug, everybody. If we can fix this civil discord with each sip by 1%, let's go. Good morning, BJ. Uh, you guys, so welcome. I am Erica. You are at the Scott Adams School. I am with my co-host Marcella, and we are— we're ready, right?

We're ready to take on the world.

Let's go. Uh, so, all right, so Marcella, I did not show you this clip yet, but I was like, okay, let's go. I was like, what? Listen to this. So, you know, Victor David Hanson, our, our wise sage man, you know, I mean, the ladies love him. Okay, so he was on The Afterparty with Emily Jashinsky. That's another podcast called The Afterparty, different from Owen's space is called The Afterparty. But check out this little tidbit he dropped on us.

And you can see it in California. Almost every week there's somebody who's arrested for acquiring technology or sending things back to China. And you know, Fang Fang was a Chinese. She wasn't at the consul's office in San Francisco. Well, I wrote a critical article about Japan. The next thing I know, she called me up. I didn't know who she was. Are you serious? Yes, about 8, 10 years. Showed up at my office. Something warned me about her, and my assistant was there. I said, you better stay here. So he and I were there. She came in with tight Levi's, boots to her knees, low-cut blouse, with a very thick Chinese fake accent. I think she went to Cal State, Edward, and was screaming at me about what I wrote about Japan, and then wanted to know if I want a gift from her. Tea set, and would I go out to a very expensive restaurant with her that night? And I said no. And then she changed to her a valley girl accent. Hey man, you guys are weak, man. You let us walk. Obama doesn't even know, man. That kind. So they're everywhere.

And I Fang Fang tried to get her Fang Fangs into VDH, but he was. Too sly for her. Isn't that crazy? Of course Swalwell fell for it, Goldie.

Yeah, and it's a common thing in, in Silicon Valley that— I think there was this— I don't know who said it, you guys, but somebody said if, if she's a 10, she's a— she's an agent or something like that, right? Um, if she's asking you out, like, there's a lot of—

I—

my brother and my sister live up there and Yeah, there's a lot of questionable relationships that you look at and it's like, hmm, you wonder.

I mean, honestly, no shade on anyone in particular. I won't even name names. But when you see some of these politicians and their leaked footage of their videotaped romps with people, you're like, oh, like, you guys really think you're studs? I mean, stop it now. Yeah, but Swalwell, He fell for everything, and, um, I just love it. I was like, ooh, VDH dropping the tea on the little fangster.

So, um, who else did she call? That's— that would be the other question.

Of course.

Did she call you in the chat? Maybe.

She called Mike Burt. Um, Mike Burt wouldn't fall for that. He's too—

Sean.

Sean would fall for it. Sorry, Sean.

He would know better. He would know better, but he'd still go out with her.

Oh my goodness. So that was just interesting. When I heard that, I was like, oh my gosh, VDH. Okay, so on to more serious news, you guys. Once again, we're gonna give you an Iran update. Okay, so we'll give it a shot. We'll see if we can parse out what's happened since yesterday. And, uh, of course we go to Trey Yanks. Now, why do I go to Trey Yanks? He seems to have the most comprehensive updates. of all the networks, you guys. So if anyone's like, why is she picking Fox News? I'm just picking the clearest, most concise clip I can find for all of you that we can talk about. So let's turn it over to our buddy Trey.

Reports indicate President Trump will hold a meeting with Gulf leaders on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly later this month to discuss the war with Iran. We do know this comes after President Trump said on Wednesday He hopes the war will end soon, adding that Iran wants to make a deal.

Well, hopefully we're toward the end of the war. They want to make a deal, and we'll see how that works out. They're very much wanting to make— Iran is very much wanting to make a deal. We'll see how that works out.

Sources tell Fox News that a U.S.-contracted vessel was hit with an Iranian projectile earlier this week, causing minor injuries to some on board. The president maintains a variety of military options if Iran continues to provoke. continues attacks around the Strait of Hormuz. And earlier this week, Fox News visited the USS George Washington that is currently operating against Iran in the Arabian Sea. We got a firsthand look at the weaponry on board that vessel. What you're looking at right now is a GBU-31 Victor 4 bunker buster bomb. We are in one of the magazines on the USS George Washington, and you can see a variety of weaponry here. Including missiles and different bombs. These are the ordnances that are attached to the F-35s and F-18s that take off from that flight deck that we saw earlier. A different variety of bombs here at the end. These are 2,000-pound bombs. Again, all of this to be used if the president orders additional strikes against the Iranian regime.

It's a large effort to orchestrate. And particularly for the blockade mission, it's, it's about accountability of all the vessels that are out here and making sure that we understand who is doing what and going where. And you mentioned also the transit of vessels that are authorized through the Strait of Hormuz, both in and out. We're providing overwatch for those, those transits and defending them actively when necessary so they can go through unimpeded.

With a focus on Iran, the country's proxy forces in Yemen, the Houthis, are ramping up attacks against Yemeni government forces and neighboring Saudi Arabia, expanding yet another front in this war.

Okay, so my first question is, first of all, shout out to our military first, because I mean, my brother was in the Navy. I have a lot of family that were in different branches of the services. And, you know, I think about the drones and the missiles and the bombs and like, I just, I would feel like a sitting duck sitting on a ship that's just sitting in one place like that. And I know that we have technology, but man, that's scary. So Marcela, my question is when, because they haven't done this before, but when Trey went beneath and showed all of the missiles and bombs, did that feel like propaganda to you? Because they talk about our depleted weapons all the time. Like, do you think that was them showing like, look, we have stuff ready to go? It felt weird.

I mean, everything's persuasion. You're, you're, you're going forward. Yeah, it, it, you know, visual. Yeah, shows, uh, the weapons, but it's also maybe a message to Iran that, hey, we're armed and we're ready to use it.

Yeah.

Um, I don't think it was a message more to the US, but more, more to Iran. But I would say, like, wouldn't they have to be careful what they show? Because if they show certain things, well, you know, it's known that this ship has these things. So, um, I don't know, propaganda.

Persuasion.

Persuasion, propaganda. But I mean, I think you want to show your enemy— like if someone broke into your house and like you first do the cha-ching, like in the— in the— is so they could hear the sound. But if that's not enough You show the big old light, it's usually enough. It should be. Run away. So it's kind of like a deterrent, I think.

All right. So the Iran thing just goes on. I mean, what's there to say? There's really nothing to say.

As Iran turns, as the world turns, it's like a soap opera. You know, it's somebody yesterday, I don't know who put it in the chat, said this is a slow-moving war, a slow-moving disaster, but it's affecting Americans everyday Americans, uh, for the cost of everything, especially farmers and, um, even, um, airlines, you know, for jet fuel.

Oh, totally.

They also use the same thing and diesel and all that. And I think we're gonna talk about it, but, but, you know, I, I think Iran knows it and they're gonna push something in October, um, and they're, they're aware of it. That there's weakness there, there's leverage there with President Trump. So, you know, it's— yeah, he's on an unpopular footing, but I don't think he cares.

Well, he's out of here in 2 years, so he's just like, you know, let me do the best I can.

Let me explain.

Let me, let me just, uh, let me just rephrase that. It's not that he doesn't care about America, it's just that he doesn't want to play into their— this is leverage hand.

Right. And he's just like, listen, I'm not up for reelection. Yes, the Republicans do need to win again. And, you know, and he'll focus on that and push that hard. But as for his popularity personally, I know normally he cares about that stuff, but I don't think right now he does because he knows he's going into lame duck territory. So he's like, you know, full steam ahead and just get things done. It is very important we win the midterms, so I cannot say it Enough. So I see JD out there a lot now talking. Trump is, you know, doing as much as he can do. I don't know where he gets the energy. I really don't. But I can't stress it enough. The midterms are, you know, we always say it's the most important election, but it is so important with these lunatics out there. I think I'm actually going to jump around a little bit because speaking of lunatics, And what's out there in the midterms. Um, you guys, Texas, I don't even know. I honestly— okay, this is my opinion, holding up my sign, but I think Talarico really needs to be investigated. Because if you are watching this race between Talarico and Paxton, every question and answer with Talarico is Concerning. Like, not, not that he's even running, but it's just concerning that an adult male answers these questions the way he does. And, um, you know, we were laughing at the Trump video the other day where he's like, you know, first he doesn't eat meat, now he likes meat, and now he's eating meat. And it's just like, yeah, like he's like a vegan who's now eating meat, who's driving a truck. But when you said, what's— you know, they asked him, what's the One thing that you think about that's not related to politics? And he's like, trans kids. And you're like, what? And then I just watched somebody ask him, who's your favorite drag queen in Texas? Okay, now, first of all, I don't have a favorite drag queen, and I couldn't tell you the name of a drag queen in New Jersey. Okay, I have no idea. I can tell you the names of a couple of drag queens. Do I have a favorite? I don't. But he immediately answered who his favorite Dallas drag queen was. And then when you looked into who that was, this queen is teaching 9-year-olds how to be drag queens. And I'm just like, what is your fetish? So again, these are my opinions. But Marcel, just off the bat, like, like just out of the blue, do you have a concern about The way he answers questions and the things he's— oh, and also, did you say— did you hear him just say, um, we should treat everybody like they're kindergartners because aren't we all at heart just kindergartners? I'm like, what? It's really freaky to me.

I don't know why they picked him to be, you know, to be a candidate for the Democratic Party, but it says a lot about the party if they had only this person In Texas. But, you know, obviously he has support because he won the primary and is now going to, you know, the final election. So I'm wondering why Texans have voted for him.

It was him or Jazzy Crockett, and she lost.

I would have voted for Jazzy Crockett.

She would have been better, honestly.

Yes, and she was already there, so I, I don't know. I just think people just, you know, it's like they rolled the dice and it's like, oh, let's try this person. I'm like, don't, don't just try this person, you know?

I know.

And I think if he has liberal views, keep your liberal views, you know, live to it. Like, if you really believe drag queens should be everywhere, you know, say that. But the thing is, now he's trying to pivot to the center. And that to me is hypocritical. If you're not really anywhere near the center, to me it's just like another, you know, who, who are you? Then you're confused because you talk to the drag queens and you're like, oh, I'm so for you. And then he talks to the middle ground and he's like, I'm not for drag queens. So he's all confused and stuff. So I just like, be who you are, uh, as honest as possible. And which is like Well, he's not counterintuitive to a politician.

Yes. So he's not. Um, here's a hidden video of his minister— hidden video of his minister saying that his political makeover is a lie. And basically, um, he's gonna pull a Spanberger. So if you don't know, Abigail Spanberger lied to every constituent in Virginia until she got elected.

Former CIA agent lied.

Former CIA agent lied. And then once she got in, she Did a huge about-face, and now Virginia's like, "Oh my God! What do we do?" So let's not Virginia Texas. But look at this little hidden footage, hidden footage, hidden footage video. Trump people are attacking Talarico for saying that God is non-binary.

What do you think about that?

That's literally what what he is.

Yeah.

He went on Fox News and like walked that back. Did you see that?

Yeah, he's getting some advice that I don't think he should be following.

Yeah, because that's why—

that's, frankly, something that attracted me to this church was like—

And I can guarantee you that once he gets elected, he'll change his tune back to where he was.

Okay, but he has to kind of play this game.

Yes. That's what his campaign has convinced him of, is that the Democratic Party is backing off on their stances on trans and all of this. And so his staff is encouraging him to kind of do the same thing just for the next 50 weeks.

Right.

Whatever days or whatever it is. Days, I guess. I think it's bad advice. Personally, but if it helps him win, okay.

Really?

I mean, if it helps him win. I mean, Marcel.

Babs, come on, Babs. Don't do that. God, we don't want you to lie.

This is bad. I mean, everybody needs to see that in Texas. And of course he's full of it. He can't make a decision. He's so inauthentic. Marcella, you just take it for a minute.

He's able to capture attention because of his stance on different things. We're just so appalled that he could win Texas of any place. you know, part of it I think is— sorry, you guys in Texas— like, a lot of Californians have moved there, um, and they— Californians, I guess, haven't learned, uh, that the reason they left is because of their own policies and politics and all sorts of things. So, and yikes, you know. Yikes.

So I think it's important, you know, you guys send that clip to people that you know in Texas, like, let them know. I mean, so she's like, it's just for the next 50 weeks. It's like, oh, he's just gonna lie for the next— it's just a lit— just to get him in there. Oh, okay, that's great. And she's his minister. There you go.

Yeah, some people were saying in the chat that Paxton is unpopular. Regardless of what you think of Paxton, you know, he's an actual politician that, that, that, that says what he means, you know, and is going to— you know, he's not pivoting to the center. He's not pivoting anywhere. He's just This is— he's been in politics for quite a while in Texas, so we know where he's at. You know, this is not—

They'd be lucky to get Paxton. He's, he's really good. You know, you don't like his personal life or whatever, it doesn't matter. You're not dating him or marrying him. You don't have to invite him over for dinner. Um, but he knows how to work and get things done, and he's like Texas true and true and will fight for, actually fight for, like, Texas and their beliefs. So, you know, if you have to hold your nose, you shouldn't have to, but if you have to, that's your guy right there, um, in my opinion, is Paxton. So, all right, so we have, um, a bunch of other fun stories. So this one I'm categorizing as just for fun. I'm playing this clip because it made me feel good. Ready?

Dana, would you like to ask me questions and then let me answer them, or would you like to debate me Uh, on, on these topics. I noticed that when you had Kamala Harris and Tim Walz, you gave them multiple choice answers to the questions that you asked, and you allowed them to answer the questions. I'm happy to hear— to be here to talk about policy, but if you're going to interrupt me every single time that I open my mouth, then why am I even doing this? So please ask a question, and I'd ask you to be polite enough to let me answer it.

Yes.

Yeah, Dana. I just wanted to play that because I liked it. Did you like that, Marcella?

You know what, her face, uh, seemed like she was back in grade school and she was told she had detention, you know? Like, she took it seriously because I guess JD's tone was like, oh, the Vice President of the United States of America is telling me to just like back off. So she kind of, uh, had those Eyes, deer-in-the-headlights kind of eyes.

I mean, she is ridiculous. It's like when you watch the difference, which we all do, we've all been trained by Scott, like just pay it— just pay attention and watch like their demeanor, the way they deliver. Like he said, you asked the others multiple choice questions and basically fed them answers. You know, it's just so funny. So I, I do like it when they, when they get razzed back. I don't think we do it enough because—

But he was respectful, so, you know, So one of the things is like you wanna like be able to be sassy but respectful.

Yes, today's lesson is be sassy and respectful and then it's perfect. So I love that. I just had to put that in there. Thank you for your attention to this matter.

JD bashed Dana.

I know.

Dana bash. I even wrote JD Dana bash just for fun. Okay, so that was for me, you guys. Okay, so in a little bit more serious news, Kevin Warsh, the Fed, Reserve Chair. So Trump could not wait to get rid of— what was his name? I already forgot. Powell.

Too late, Powell.

Too late, Powell. And now we have Kevin Warsh in there. So part of us feel like maybe this was like, oh, I have to do this so people don't think I'm a simp for Trump. But also, if that's why he did it, that would be messed up. But I think he had a good reason for doing what he did. What did he do? He raised the rate, the interest rate, a quarter of a point. But let's just take a look at what he says and why. The decision we made today was the right decision.

The Fed's rate-setting committee voted unanimously today, 12 to 0, to hike interest rates for the first time in 3 years.

The plain fact is that inflation is too high and has been for too long.

The move is a bid to slow rising prices. It's also likely to anger Trump, who threatened to fire the last Fed chair over high rates.

We should be paying the lowest interest rate anywhere in the world.

Trump's new hand-picked Fed chair, Kevin Warsh, blamed what he called geopolitical landscape, a euphemism for the prolonged war with Iran, which has driven the U.S. cost of diesel up from $3.67 a gallon in February to $6.31 a gallon today.

We're just getting to the point now there's nothing left to cut. You can't— you cannot run without fuel.

Matt Bell farms corn, soy, wheat, and cattle on 1,000 acres in Kings Mountain, North Carolina.

So it's costing twice as much to run these machines. But once we're done harvesting, they leave here on trucks. The trucking has doubled on us also. So it's hitting us on both ends of it.

And you have to pay for that.

Absolutely. I can't pass that on.

Bell voted for Trump but says he and fellow farmers now plan to send a message in the November elections.

We are in a position now we're mad and we're ready to be heard. Something's got to give.

That's the environment Trump is walking into tonight here in ag-heavy North Carolina. And yet GOP Senate hopeful Michael Watley tells me He's glad Trump is here to campaign with him because it fires up the loyal base, which could be crucial in a swing state like this one, Tony.

Nancy, thank you.

Well, yeah, so this goes to what we were saying yesterday, Marcella. So I was saying, for example, for me, for one of my businesses, so our fuel costs have doubled, right? And now I can't pass that on to our customers. Like, that just would be insanity. So, you know, he's saying, as a farmer, it's costing me double to farm. And now the trucking that takes what I farm and brings it somewhere has doubled for him also, because they're like, well, if we're transporting your goods, you're kind of stuck. So you're gonna have to pay us more money because it costs us more to do it. So that's the problem. So, you know, I know we want, we want the war, we want to win it. And All of that stuff. But it's a huge economic burden for everybody in this country. So, Marcella, your thoughts?

I disagree with the Fed completely. Like, the fact that he gave that as a reason— so if that was his reason to, uh, raise rates, you guys, then follows your raising rates is not going to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, is not going to open Russian diesel to us. It's not going to make Gulf refineries— if the reason that groceries and inflation have gone up is not because of inflation, it's because of the Iran war and the diesel issue and oil issue overall. So them hiking up the interest rate creates stagflation because stagflation would be less money in the market with a missing commodity, which is the You know crude oil. So for them to do this because of that, it makes absolutely no sense. It's not the right move for the right. Like the move of increasing at a quarter will not make a difference. It'll just make it more expensive for everybody. So the reason you usually increase interest rates. Um, is because the increase of the interest rate will solve the issue. It will not. It'll just make Trump lose the midterms, which is why he was upset. But it was unanimous vote, uh, by the feds. But I mean, hey, they're allegedly the experts, right?

So allegedly they should get you in there, Marcela, be like, hey.

But I mean, they— if nobody ever, uh, questioned, um, him at the press conference, it's like, okay, Okay, so you're saying that this is why you're worried, um, but your increase in the interest rate did not— does not, um, unless, you know, it pushes Trump to, to find peace because his— the rates are increasing and there's a pressure, political pressure on him. But other than that, there is no, um, there's no relief in sight just because you increased the percentage. So I don't know, you can put it in the chat what you're thinking, you, you economists out in the chat.

Um, yeah, I saw somebody say that the market dipped after that, but then it corrected today to where it was before. So that's good, that's good. Um, I haven't even checked the market at all, you guys, so you can tell me how my— tell me how my Tesla stock's doing and SpaceX and all of that.

Um, So we'll see how all your billions are doing.

Yes, yes, all of them, all of them. Um, all right, so when are you going to do the crypto? Oh yeah, we're gonna do it, Andy. I know time has been eluding me, but we'll do it. Um, okay, so I found an interesting tidbit from Mike Rowe, who we love, and you know I'm a huge advocate of Trades, learning, learning a trade, learning a skill. Um, you know, for me, it's like, forget college. Like, we need people working now to keep the machine going. And so this was interesting. I, I just love people who are innovative. And this is a guy, his name is Chris Powers. He's from Australia. And he just, he came to America, like got a hotel room, $6,000, and just started cold calling. Um, well, you'll hear his story, but he, he just started doing some cold calling to solve a problem, and boy did he solve a problem. But let's take a listen. Um, I don't know how long this is, but we'll see you on the other side. Marcella, you're gonna hear this for the first time. You're gonna love it. Here we go.

I think people really forget at the end of the day that America is America because everyone's like a nutcase cowboy. And kind of one of my framings of America is just like It's still the Wild West and we just all wear suits now. Yeah, I was going to ask about that jacket. But you got to remember, Americans are incredibly good at moving at light speed against problems only after they get punched in the face. Have we been punched? I think we've been scared enough that everyone's moving really fast, which is honestly a good thing because the system is now being tested. And in a kind of peacetime, I think one of the things you lose in manufacturing is that people staring in front of computer screens, I think it's like a very unserious thing at the end of the day. forget that we're here because there's chips and there's machine tools and there's 3D printers and there's planes and missiles. And the outsourcing of that, I think, is a big reason why the culture is kind of fragmented, because your hands aren't dirty anymore. You know, we're disconnected. You're disconnected.

Yeah.

How interesting that an Aussie is helping reconnect. The best way to help Australia is to reindustrialize America. This is the only chance we got. If you said that down there to Movers and the shakers and the—

Yeah, they know.

Yeah?

They sometimes get a little bit grumpy with me. Yeah, the best way to help the entirety of the West is to reindustrialize the country so that we have a resilient deterrence and an economy that actually works for all Americans instead of just the people who happen to live on the coasts or got lucky.

Are you bullish?

Are you optimistic? I am scared to death. I'm optimistic because the federal government and everybody is moving in a direction now. Everyone knows what's going on. And I'm also optimistic because at the end of the day, like, it's fucking America. Like, it'll be fine. You know, we were all in a direction very fast. 2 things are going to happen. It's going to look like complete chaos. There's no plan and it's going to get done. And now that everyone's fired up around this, like, I genuinely think it'll be fine. Now, there's a lot. There's 10— there's a decade at least of hard work to do here.

Yeah.

And a lot of traps along the way and a lot of bruised egos and bruised eyes. I mean, we're getting after it now. Uh, as like a whole of nation vibe and effort. And at the end of the day, like, would you ever, ever bet against the average American?

Probably not. Ugh, I love that. So I love— so what they're doing is just pulling kids right out of high school. I mean, not out of high school, as soon as they're done with high school, instead of going to college, they're like, Come on, let's, let's see. Like, just work hard. I'm going to train you. This is what you can do. And, you know, solving problems. And so I, I love that because, I mean, anyone could, if your, if your motive is fixing a problem, solving issues, like, I mean, Scott's whole mission was solving problems. Like, I want to solve problems. I want to help people solve problems by being useful. And, you know, of course he did that and then some. So this guy was like, okay, where's the bottleneck in your factories? Like, what's the problem? What's holding you up? Because we do forget how many companies and jobs and automation and factories you need to build the things to make that one thing. So, you know, I don't know, Marcel. And this guy now, I think he's like a— I think he might be at billionaire status at this point, but crazy, right?

I think, yeah, I think trades should be pushed from an earlier age than high school. The idea is that when you're, you know, when you're— most schools, when you're in school, you're always told, you know, it's for, you know, your GPA to go to college or, you know, to get a job outside. But nobody ever kind of— it's kind of like they got away from doing woodshop and mechanical work. Some schools still do it. And it's kind of, uh, interesting that they— that education hasn't pushed that. Instead, they push, uh, DEI and all the other things, you know. Um, what is it? I forget what other— yeah, push historical justice or whatever they call it.

Um, whatever it is. Yeah.

Um, revision of history. But, um, other countries do it differently where you are, um, kind of you figure out what you're going to do really from like 12 years old. Um, not that you can't change from there, but it's kind of like if you have a certain tendency to want to build things and don't want to just sit down and you're, you know, just write or read, you, you know, they see that in you and they like ask your parents, okay, maybe put them into this trade school. Yeah.

Like a vocational—

Vocational school. Um, in, in Germany they do that. And you also have apprenticeships too. Once you graduate from the school, then you have to go through a long apprenticeship where you do get paid, but you're sort of learning on the job. Um, you know, carpentry or, you know, building, um, different, uh, chips, uh, for not the ones you eat, but the ones for computer, computer chips. Different things that need a trade, but also need building besides like actual practice.

Oh yeah.

And I think one of the things— I could go on tangents all day long, but one of the things that I don't like about schools— I used to teach, so I know that one of the things I don't like about schools is how, and maybe society as a whole, is like when they grab a kid and it's like, oh, the kid can't pay attention. Can't sit down. HD, HD, whatever.

ADHD.

Yeah.

And well, maybe that is because one, you're a boring teacher, and two, um, maybe their, their, their talent is in another type of, um, maybe not in just sitting around and reading something. You know, an office job, for sort of speak.

Right.

But use that talent stack, talent stack it. As we know, Scott loved talent stacks. Use that skill or ability or the ability to play, the ability to build is a different ability than the ability to just like analyze economics or analyze law. You know, so the fact that you're pushed down as a parent that has a kid that has these issues and you're told that there is a deficiency in them, but I could go on and then they drug them and blah, blah, blah.

Oh yeah.

Yeah.

So, um, I want to come back to that too, Marcel, but I just wanted to, uh, see here. So it said his company Hadrian has scaled rapidly to a multi-billion dollar valuation with facilities in California and Arizona. Achieving 10 times faster production and over 40% greater efficiency than traditional shops while developing fast-track training programs that prepare high school graduates and others for manufacturing roles in a matter of weeks. So, you know, in a matter of weeks, you can get, get these kids up to speed and they're off and running. And now they've got a career. They're not in college bogged down with debt for 4 years and indoctrination. They are, yeah, multi-billion, um, valuation. So yeah, so that's pretty good. And Marcella, you're right, because back in the old days when I was in high school, um, yeah, I—

Oh boy. I mean, old days, but okay.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Back in the days when I took my horse to school.

She's only 25.

Yes, seriously.

Come on.

Okay, thank you. Um, you know, I am like a can't-sit-still type of person. I don't know if they would've said like, oh, she has ADD today, because I mean, I don't have ADD.

Probably.

They say that to everybody. And I don't have ADD or ADHD, and I don't think half the kids that are diagnosed with it do. And I think they're just kids and maybe their food is messing with them and change their diets. But that's a story for another day. But the teachers would say to my parents like, oh, Erica can't pay attention. She doesn't pay attention. She's wandering off. And I'm like, yeah, you know what? Looking back at it right now in this moment, thinking about it, because I really never thought about it now as an adult. Um, yeah, I, I had a lot of thoughts in my head, and like someone would be talking about something and it would make me, make me like think and start to process things and whatever. And maybe that's a creative mind or a curious mind. It wasn't like something bad. It's the way I learn. And, you know, every kid learns in a different way. So they used to make these vocations a negative. So they would say to my parents, you know, she's really she's really not like an academic. She's not going to go far. You know, maybe you could put her in beauty school. Maybe just put her in beauty school and da da da da da. And by the way, my friends that are in this beauty industry are crushing it. But anyway, and it was like, oh, because I don't think the way these kids sit here and learn, like because I don't do it that way, like I should be pushed aside and you know, like. Tell me I'm less than, and they would do the same thing with the boys, like put them in auto mechanic class, you know. Now that can be true for a lot of people, that, you know, they, they would rather be working with their hands, especially men. Men are more physical by nature, by biology. So yeah, but, you know, to put a stigma on it or to say like, because you're—

Exactly.

Yeah, now you put— so we've had this multi-decades-long stigma on vocational jobs. And I'm just here to tell you that those are our future millionaires that take those jobs, that get into those apprenticeships early. That's your wealth. That's your wealth coming down the pike. So, it's up to us to say, stop this stigma of people wanting different experiences or having different interests. I mean, If you're sitting in college and like your goal in life ends up being that you're a mechanic or a construction worker or whatever, and you have been tortured sitting in college, probably getting bad grades, and now you're like wandering off, maybe you're partying too much or whatever, and your parents are like, we're wasting our money. Well, you're wasting your money because like it's the individual you should be catering to, not this system of what people tell you you should be doing. So, I'm just frustrated with that because I watched in real time blue-collar jobs get stigmatized. And I'm in a very blue-collar business and I've seen people be like, oh, and I'm just like, yeah, oh, good luck. So, when the world was shut down, we were still essential workers and oh, you needed us, didn't you? So it's just funny. We have to stop the stigma of these things and encourage— I would really encourage friends of yours who have children or your own children or nieces and nephews, go out there and learn a skill that you can keep with you forever. You cannot cancel a skill. You can't fire a skill, a trade. You can take that with you worldwide. So that was my TED Talk on that subject.

Yeah. And bringing trades back into The, the conversation can help these kids that may not be like, oh, I want to discuss physics ad nauseam like I did. Yeah, right.

It's not for everybody.

But, you know, and you notice they're, they're just as smart, but they're— they have a different skill set. It's the idea that not all of us are built the same, and there's different skills, and you just kind of, uh, Let that prosper.

Yes, so that that's I feel so obviously so strongly about that. Okay, so moving on a couple more things I want to get to. Okay, so that All In Summit, you guys, the I saw somebody asking what was the podcast we were talking about the other day is called All In. It's the All In Podcast, and they so they recently had a summit where. Like everybody who has, uh, one cell on tech was there. Um, but we didn't get to hear from JD Vance, and there's a lot of JD going around. So, um, I have a clip of him speaking there, but it's on a different subject, so I'm gonna hold one second. And J-Cal— I really didn't play J-Cal yet, but, um, it's now his turn to explain why we shouldn't be so, so worried about AI murdering us in a few years. So here he is on Jesse Watters last night.

Are these computer programs going to create a bioweapon?

How are they going to launch a nuclear missile at Seattle?

How?

Yes, this is where you need to get some science fiction authors in a room to make like 3 or 4 or 5 jumps. Yeah, the jump you would have to make to get to the nuclear missiles is those are air-gapped. You would have to create an incredible thriller where somehow the AI programs a thumb drive. That thumb drive makes its way into the missile silo and uploads it. Right. It's just not possible.

Okay.

Now, and to take the airplanes out of the sky, those are also what we call in the industry air-gapped. We also have human-in-the-loop systems. So, right, people are getting a little excited about this. We were all trained on science fiction to get excited about it. The pernicious thing here is— and you alluded to this with Bernie Sanders getting into this and other folks— people, when they see a crisis like this, want to jump on it. And they have agendas. And one of the agendas here is to do what's called regulatory capture, create a bunch of rules so maybe these 1 or 2 companies can win the market. And then the smaller companies coming up, or open source, where anybody can own the technology, maybe they get regulated out of existence.

Right.

And so there are some nefarious forces at work here. And it's our job, you know, All In Podcast, you know, you here as a host here in the mainstream media, to kind of debunk this a bit. President Trump came to the All In Summit, or he phoned into the All In Summit and said, listen, nerds, get back to work. Janssen knows what he's talking about. Satya Nadella, Elon Musk, they all to a point said, sure, there are— could be some concerns. But let's just not release broken software. And Elon had a just perfect solution. Why don't we build software that tests these large language models, ChatGPT, Anthropic's Claude, and then we just test each other's models and look for vulnerabilities and then we'll publish the vulnerabilities. That's a perfectly reasonable next step. But I can tell you something, the Chinese are going to speedrun to get to superintelligence. So President Trump's correct. We can't slow down, but we just need to be careful.

You can't.

And the people that—

look at Jesse going with a little side part now. It looks good, Jesse. We like it. Um, okay, so Marcella, do you feel better now knowing that you'd have to like get this thumb drive over there into the—

now I know what to do, Jason. Jason looked good too. Um, he, he would—

oh.

My love for Jason came out. Okay, I need to, um, but it's, it's funny how you say it. Oh, it's the All In podcast. It's like the number one podcast in the world. So yes, which is why they get these people, um, like the vice president, like the president. Um, but his explanation was very quick, to the point, easy. You know, it's And he used the word, uh, debunk. Why? Because it's a hoax. We have the hoaxbuster-in-chief and Trump on top of it. So thank goodness for, for the explanations from them. Yes, I broke someone's heart.

Yes, you did. You broke Dr. Von Hardy's heart by showing your love for J. Cal. Okay. Oh, Sandy. Um, so listen, that's a good explanation. I mean, it just kind of summed it up quickly. That's J. Cal's— I don't know if it's like his opinion, but it's his opinion. You know, we don't, we don't really know. We're never gonna really know. But what I do know is Elon has been very consistent. Um, I like how they reference him, you know, again saying that, you know, he thinks you know, some safeguards should be put in place. And I think one thing I heard was they were suggesting that the CEOs of each one of these companies allow each other to, um, just use it my way, like play with each other's AI thing and then show any vulnerabilities to each other. So I mean, I doubt anyone's going to do that. Nobody's going to give away the secret sauce.

But they could do that without making this whole hocus-pocus, uh, come out. Like, they're private companies, they can talk to each other and create this without making this big old propaganda for it. So it just makes you think, like, why did they do it? They did it because the Anthropic IPO is coming out, uh, follow the money, and they want to do, uh, some things with Congress, some kind of regulations that will not allow, like, um, like Jason said, will not allow open source or new companies to get into the market. You know, I disagree. I feel like no guardrails, let them go. Because there's no guardrails in China. So let's go.

All right, Marcela is like the Wild West over here. Okay, so I have one more clip I want to get to, and I will have achieved everything I wanted to do today. Can you imagine? And they said I should go to beauty school. Um, anyway, and by the way, I was a manicurist for a while.

Fun fact.

Yes, yes. Okay, so here is JD at the All In Summit. Um, I just thought this was an interesting clip. We were mentioning, you know, trying to have everybody keep their shit together for this war to end. And, you know, I mentioned yesterday, you know, like if Israel pops off, it like blows the whole thing off. If this one— and if Iran's shooting a missile at Egypt, and who knows. So Let's just take a listen to JD.

JD, before we wrap here, I want to ask you another hard question. This one about our relationship with the state of Israel and the president's relationship with Bibi Netanyahu. Many people in the Republican Party, MAGA, are now moving to a new party, America First, America Only. There's a rise in antisemitism, and there's a persistent belief amongst a lot of the people on the right that maybe our foreign policy is too influenced by the state of Israel or Bibi Netanyahu. Can you take us into the relationship right now, where it stands, and the administration's position on collaborating with Israel on a lot of these military activities?

Yeah, you know, what the president has said, Jason, is obviously Israel has been an important partner when it comes to military technology, when it comes to intelligence sharing. But also, sometimes the United States doesn't always agree with Israel. And I think that more than, frankly, any president in the last 40 years, he has shown a willingness to actually part ways with Bibi Netanyahu when he feels like the interests of the American people are different from the interests of the government of Israel. And I find it a little ironic, Jason, that you have Democrats criticizing Donald Trump for his relationship with Bibi when Donald Trump is the one president of the last 40 years who's been willing to say, you know what? Yeah, Bibi's a good partner, but also Bibi and I have a different opinion on this, or Bibi's wrong about this, or maybe Bibi's right about this from the perspective of Israel, but the American people need us to go in a different direction. So I just think that rooting this relationship, like all relationships, in America's interests is the way to actually have a rational conversation here. Because when you're talking about whether a given policy is in America's interests, And you keep yourself laser-focused on that. I think that's how you make sure that the American people know that you're fighting for them. But I also think that it allows us to actually rationally focus and force ourselves to have a conversation about when something that maybe sounded good or maybe has become a cliché or a slogan for the past 20 or 30 years, well, maybe we have to do something different now. And I think that that's how we have to approach not just this relationship, but all relationships. By the way, you see a similar pushback when the president makes the argument that he's made about NATO, which is, yes, obviously a lot of important relationships, a lot of important partnerships in NATO. But that doesn't mean that we're going to completely make our European foreign policy subservient to NATO in the same way that we cannot let our Middle Eastern foreign policy be subservient to the state of Israel.

Okay.

We're going to work with people when we work with them. We're going to disagree when we disagree, and we're going to pursue America's interests. That's the only way to have a rational foreign policy.

I know.

Okay, so, Sean, I'm not picking on you, but, you know, you said that was a loaded question. You know, he's the 2nd most powerful man in the United States and has a high potential of becoming the next president. If he can't handle a loaded question, Um, then what are we doing? So you gotta load a question to get like all the answers you want from all different directions. So, um, Marcella, you know, JD's walking a tough line and, um, I think he's doing it well. A lot of people are giving him crap for it, but you know, what else is new in the world of politics?

Yeah, he has to walk a fine line because he's, you know, the vice president under President Trump. He can't show any kind of uh, you know, separation from President Trump. But I think that question should have been answered, uh, for America first.

Mm-hmm.

Right away. Like, when I heard him, I said, why didn't you just say that? Why did you make a— if you have to make apologies for Israel and any other country, then it tells you maybe you're— you need to re-examine Your policies, but we were talking about this yesterday about Israel having elections. So that's the 27th of October this year, and it looks I looked into it, and it looks like the Likud Party, which is Bibi's party, Benjamin Netanyahu's party, is the the seats that you know they're the polls. You know their polls are polls, but. They're not—it's not looking too good to get the majority in order to have the majority government in order for them to decide who the prime minister is. But the Jasar Party is the center party. Some would say left the center, but I—you know—I don't know that much about the politics there. But Jasar is led by a former general, former. you know, um, defense forces, part of the defense force of, uh, Israel. So he's also, you know, but he wants less war, right? Um, so it's— it would be important that right now when Bibi Netanyahu is in power as we know it, that there's some kind of deal made with Iran, because right now he has a working partnership with Israel, as we know. President Trump does. So it'd be especially important to see next week. I believe it's next week that they're going to talk to the different countries like Bahrain, Saudi Arabia. They're part of the UN, some part of the UN Council. Like I think President Trump was talking about it earlier that they're going to see if there's going to be talks. But going back to JD, JD did as well as anybody can. Uh, I just wish he would have right off the bat said America first.

I know, I know. But you know what, and then that would have made other people mad. So it's like, you know, like we want to hear what we want to hear, and everybody feels the same way about what they want to hear. But you know, he, he is in a tough spot. Like Marcella said, he has to stay basically in line with President Trump while differentiating himself a little bit because he does have a political future, he hopes. So it's tough. And I am very America first. And I think that that actually makes some Americans mad too. It's just like, I can't help you. Like, this is my country and I'm America first. Sorry. So I don't know. That summit, that All In Summit, I think you guys could probably find it on YouTube and you can watch like all of the clips and the extended versions of things that we were showing here. Um, so I— you could probably search All In Summit on YouTube if you wanted to really like kick back with a, with a beverage of your choice and get into it. Um, let's see. Yeah, right. Sandy said, if only they lined up J-Cal questions ahead of time as Dana Bash did for Kamala. So true. Like, it's so true. If that was an All In Summit the Democrat version, they would have just been like, tell us why you love Venn diagrams. I mean, like, literally. So, you know, it, it does seem like Republicans hit a little harder, like, because we all genuinely want to know, like, what are you going to do with tough decisions? And I want to know that from everybody. Um, okay, so Marcella, we did it.

We did it.

We did it, you guys, with 2 minutes to Spare. Um, oh my gosh, you guys. All right, so let's do a little quick housekeeping here. Please hit the like and subscribe, the little heart, share it with your friends. And let me once again, now while I have a minute, say thank you, thank you, thank you so, so much for being here. Um, we really love it, and you know, we take it very seriously, and it's all within, you know, the spirit of Scott and the things that he taught us. And of course, we're not him, but we have access to all of his videos and his lessons. And, you know, just, I just feel like sometimes we can like channel the subjects in a way, like, you know, things that— so sometimes people are like, why aren't you talking about this? Or why aren't you— you know, there's just certain things Scott probably wouldn't talk about, and we have a pretty good feel for that too. So if we're missing stories that you want to see, there might be a reason why. And also, we can't do everything all the time. But I look just like him. Thank you, Chunks, that's so sweet. Thank you. I look just like Scott. Thank you so much. Your hair is just like Scott's, right? Yeah, totally. But, you know, so, you know, Marcella and I were planning for the show today, and we were just like, let's just, you know, make it fun and fast and do different clips and hit a lot of different subjects. And, you know, so we're just We love thinking about the show. We love being here. I always say, you know, thank you to Scott and Shelley. And like I said yesterday, you know, if Scott didn't want to do this and put something together, and Shelley didn't agree to do it, we would never have gotten this together. And so I'm so thankful to both of them and miss them both so much. We all do. And so, you know, so the show goes on and. Um, we love it. All right, so that being said, Owen will be back tomorrow. I am doing a little mini interview later today that I will be showing you next week, and you're gonna be like, what? No way! So I have a surprise coming. Um, so that'll be fun. And Marcella and I are working on a couple of things too for next week. We might even have an extra Show for you. We'll see. But thank you so much for being here, you guys. So let's do a closing sip to our beloved Scott, who keeps us here together, and we'll do an Akira song and the whole thing. Okay? So you guys, let's do a closing sip to our beloved Scott. We miss you so much, Scott. And let's go out there and be useful today. To Scott. To Scott. Get Uncle Walter again, Frank. Give me a minute, Frank, for the love of goodness. My gosh, you guys.

So you get— so you get someone's uncle that's named Walter. It's not even Walter Kern.

Oh my gosh. Okay, we're gonna do— let's do—

are you guys ready for the song? You better be ready to dance.

I feel like I, I feel like they're all not showing up here, so let's do How to Program Reality. I'm not sure the last time I did it, but let's go. Ready?

Oh yeah.

Oh, well, Erica, thanks, Crusher.

You guys want to watch the chat?

Let me show you my path toward figuring out the user interface. It's important that you know how I got there so that you could have some trust that there's something to it. When I was a kid, I was influenced, as was my mother, by the book The Power of Positive Thinking by Norman Vincent Peale. This suggested that you could somehow change your life Or maybe you were changing reality if you could simply think positively. Think positively. Think positively. Think positively. So this was my first introduction to the light sound, and he says that maybe reality was not fixed and something that you were a victim of, but rather you could do something. There was some mechanism, some technique, some tools you could use to get some control over your environment and your life, as opposed to having it control you. And that was my first thought, that reality could be programmable in at least some In some simple sense. But of course, I embarked on a lifetime of exploration to find out if I could find out more about how to program reality. Think positively. Think positively. Think positively. How to program reality. Think positively. Think positively. Think positively. It led me to learn meditation. I became a trained hypnotist. Of course, mushrooms let you see the world in a completely different reality. And all of these things, from studying all the different religions to doing affirmations, which is really just visualizing what you want and writing it down every day— visualizing what you want, writing it down every day— and then learning persuasion, these all had the same cumulative effect of teaching me that reality Reality was indeed far more subjective than you're led to believe. And when I say reality is subjective, I don't mean that there isn't some base reality that's real. What I mean is that we don't have access to it. In other words, you just take religion. 2 people with completely different religions People of different religions can go into a store, they can shop, they can get married, have children. They don't really need to reconcile the fact that they live in different worlds. One thinks there's an afterlife, one thinks there's reincarnation, one thinks there's nothing, and yet we, we all survive and thrive and reproduce. There's nothing to suggest that our brains are the kind of brains that can understand reality. Instead, all of the evidence suggests that we can put filters optionally and somewhat subjectively on our reality, and the thing that we deal with is a filter. We're not dealing with the underlying reality, but our filter on it is the thing that's real to us. And you can change those filters, so that's the important part. And you can change them fairly easily. And if you find a filter that Predicts better and makes you happier. Well, that's the better filter, even if it isn't a better approximation of reality. What matters is you're happy. What matters is you're getting what you need out of life. Think positively. Think positively. Think positively. How to program reality. Think positively. Think positively. Think positively. Program reality. You can change those filters. Change those filters. Change those filters. How to program reality. Think positively. Think positively. Think positively. So once you accept that there's a subjective reality, you're starting to get ready to accept the user interface for that reality.

Love it, love it. Can't get enough. I know I just played you guys. I don't know why, but all the songs. They look like they're listed and then they're not all there. So we repeat a bunch, but you know what? Who cares? It's just a closing time for us to say goodbye. Um, and I, I love jamming out with Akira, so I message with him frequently. I told him to come check us out. I sent him, Marcella, the clip of you and I the one day we're like doing this. I'm like, we have so much fun with your songs. So he'll love that. Oh my God. But anyway, you guys, thank you so much for being here today. Owen returns tomorrow. We'll have another amazing show for you. Thanks for being here, and thanks for everybody on the replay too. All right, guys, see you later.

Bye bye.

Oh, I like that. I like this. I'm covered up. All right, guys, see ya.