Tesla order to pay $243 million, DC is becoming the new Caracas, there is a new podcast King in town

Elon Musk's Tesla company ordered to pay $243 million because of an autopilot error really harming some individuals. Also in the news, Coca Cola with real sugar, with fake sugar, Pepsi. You think you can tell the difference, but can you? Also in the news, new information about exactly whose name is appearing frequently in the Epstein files and what name is being redacted on a regular basis. And the biggest news of all out of Washington that relates to communication, it has happened. This was predicted by the likes of Paul Krugman and others in January that people who are nonpartisan in charge of giving out free factual data on the economy are now being muzzled. One was fired yesterday. All that and more today on Filtered with TJ Walker. I'm your host. Every day I look at the top news, tech and culture stories filtered through the lens of communication skills, all designed to boost your personal success. So thanks for joining me. If this is your first time here, this is a little different show. I'm doing this on my cell phone. I have just moved and the Internet at my new home and my new home office studio. I'm here in a clubhouse. It is a beautiful, sunny, very warm day in South Florida. So we'll be back, I hope, by Monday or Tuesday, up to our normal production standards, audio standards and everything else. But if you are joining me today, thank you so much for joining. Certainly appreciate if you can weigh in with your own opinions and analysis on the top stories of the day. Let's dive in with story one, which is Elon Musk's Tesla company is being fined $243 million in a deadly autopilot crash. This happened in South Florida, not far away from where I am. And the car was powered with Tesla's technology. It's autopilot technology. So here's where it gets a little fuzzy in a lot of ways in terms of communication. Apparently all the official communication from Tesla is you still need to be there. You still need to be watching it. You need to have your hand on the steering wheel. Yes, it will do automated and do most things right, but you can't just assume. Well, this particular driver was assuming was not paying attention at all. And it just mowed into a couple who had parked near the road. And it went through stop signs, stoplights, plowed into them with disastrous consequences and now huge fines for Tesla. I'm not so much interested in the impact this has on the Tesla company. It will survive. I happen to think Tesla is wildly, wildly overpriced in the stock market. And that investors still think of it as something that is so much bigger than every other technology company and every other automobile company. But I'll leave that for another day. The reason I'm fascinated by this is it really plays into, in some ways, the flaws of human beings. How our brains process information, how we assess risk, how we deal with numbers. So when one person dies, it's a tragedy and there's stories about it. This is unique, it's special. It's so rare for someone in an autopiloted car to kill someone. It's big headline news. Not just because Trump attracts or not Trump. Musk attracts a lot of attention, although he does. It attracts attention because it's so novel, it's so new, it's new, so interesting. So it captures our attention as human beings. You know what doesn't Capture attention? The 1.2 million people a year who die in car crashes. In fact, I dare you. If someone in your community, a family member, a friend, dies of a car crash, my condolences to you. I hope it doesn't happen. But if that happens, I dare you to try to get your local newspaper or the most prominent website that covers local news in your area to even do a story on it. They'll say, hey, I'm sorry, but what's the news angle here? It's not news because it happens so frequently. So I don't want to seem like I'm an apologist for Tesla or Musk. There's plenty of things. I think it's a wildly overrated stock. I think Musk is, with his actions, political actions this year, doing more to cause death than almost any other human being, with cuts he did to usaid, all separate from this particular issue. I happen to think that automated driving will be the best thing that ever happens to tens of millions of people over the course of 20, 30 years. Why do I say that? Because they won't be dead. If we really get to the point where virtually all automobiles, trucks, cars, are powered autonomously and they've got the sensors everywhere, 360 degrees, and they're not distracted by being drunk, being high, fiddling with the radio, turning around behind them to beat their bratty kids, you're going to see deaths plummet from automobile deaths. That's a good thing. So, again, the problem is we, as human beings, we can see this one story always in an ashamed. This one person in Miami was killed, and indeed, it was a shame. But when we're presented with evidence that 1.2 million million human beings die every Single year in car crashes. So ho hum. Our brains can't process a number that big. It's, it's basically got like a 911 every Monday through Friday, every, every weekday of the year. People around the world who die from car crashes. Now am I saying cars should be abolished? No. I'm saying we all as human beings need to process risk in a more rational way if we purport to value human life. Now, I value human life. I assume you do too. But you can't say you value human life and then turn around and say autonomous cars are too risky. I'm not getting in line. I want to drive because I'll be in control. That is hubris. It's delusional. It's lack of self awareness. To think that because you're driving the car that you can somehow magically avoid other cars coming in and killing you. Or that you somehow are more gifted with two sets of eyes and human frailties and ears that can be distracted and playing music or sound on your car that you're really going to be a better driver than an autonomous vehicle. Maybe in some situations you might. But look at the numbers. A handful of people a year die in autonomous vehicles versus 1.2 million. Now I realize it's not an apples to apples comparison yet because there's nowhere near the number of miles driven each year by autonomous vehicles versus actual humans. But the trend lines are very, very clear. AI, autonomous vehicles lidar, all the other technologies are such that they're getting better and better and better. Human driving are not getting better, not at all. Humans, if anything, are getting worse because there's more distractions than ever in cards. Speaking of distractions, I'm out in a clubhouse, it's not my house and music is coming in. So I hope that doesn't mess up your ability to hear this. I also hope that in places like Facebook I don't somehow get zapped for violating somebody's copyright. I'm certainly not intending to do that. So I will try to just muscle along until we get knocked off. So that's the big takeaway I think for me with this Tesla story is this sounds horrible, but the best thing that could possibly happen for Tesla and all self driving cars is that they have so many wrecks in the first few years, so many injuries. And yes, I hate to say I'm not asking for anyone to die, but if you actually care about long term reduction of death, probably the best thing would be for autonomous vehicles to go out and kill a bunch of people to the point where it's no longer a news story. And then as autonomous vehicles take over from human driving vehicles, we're going to see overall deaths go way, way down. Now, you can twist my words in a way to make me sound crass and harsh and cruel if you want to. But I would ask you to reflect what's so noble about someone who says, I'm perfectly happy with the carnage of 2,3000 people dying a day on a Monday through Friday basis around the world. Because that is, in fact, exactly what is happening right now. You know, the music seems to be getting a little bit louder. I'm going to see if I can get to a quieter place so that this does not disrupt our ability to have a functioning show today. Again, my name is TJ Walker. I appreciate you joining me today. This. And there we go. This show is really about helping you understand in more depth the top stories of the day. Analyze through the prism of communication skills and personal development skills, all with the hopes of making you more successful, your personal life and your professional life. So that is the conclusion of issue one. What I try to do typically on this show is go through the top five stories of the day. And it is based on my own selection, my own editorial discretion. There's a mixture of top business stories, technology stories. Okay, you're back. Okay. The next story that really grabbed my attention was this story about Coca Cola. Because there's so many states that Coke simply tastes better with real cane sugar and not. And many people claim that it tastes awful, tastes weird, tastes oily, all sorts of other things. So the New York Times did a fascinating test. That author there went Julia Moskin. It's on the front page of the New York Times today. Went to their wine critic, someone who's really used to tasting liquids taste like mostly wine, obviously, and did an elaborate, elaborate double blind taste test, which is the only way of really telling how something tastes versus your perceptions based on marketing, packaging, price, the style of glass, and who you're with. All of those factors include your perception and the joy you receive when drinking something like wine. But does it have an impact on something like cola? So here's the study, and this is why I'll explain why I think it's so significant. They did a double blind taste test with four different types of drinks. Coca Cola Classic, sweetened with high fructose corn syrup, Mexican Coke, imported and sweetened with cane sugar. Pepsi, sweetened with high fructose corn syrup, and then Pepsi Cola, made with real sugar, which contains both beet sugar and Cane sugar. So a double blind taste test, meaning the person drinking it doesn't know what's what. They're just given a glass of a drink with no label and they're asked to rate it which one they like the most, which one they like the least. The person giving it to them also doesn't know. Because sometimes if you know what it is without realizing it, your eyes will get bigger, something will change with your tone, your eyebrows. So you really need both the person who's being tested and the person handing out the test item. This applies to drugs, wine, other things if you want a true double blind test. So that's what they did. So which one actually won? Well, it's a little surprising. It wasn't the one I would have picked, but they did this and it was tasted a couple of times. So to make sure there was no distortion in any one thing. So here's what came out as the overall choice and believe it or not, it was. So I'm going to share this with you, so I share with you the four types of drinks. Now, when it came to the winners, it was the Pepsi with the fake stuff. Believe it or not, it was the fake. It was the Pepsi, and it was the Pepsi not with the cane sugar. It was the Pepsi with the fructose. Go figure. The presumed favorite, which was Coca Cola with real sugar, did not finish first. Now, people who follow these wars, these cola wars, have long noticed the fact that many years ago, decades ago, Pepsi did the Pepsi challenge, the blind taste test. And what they found is when consumers don't know what they're drinking and they drink a Pepsi and a Coke, they prefer Pepsi. But those very same people will swear to you they prefer Coke. Now, traditionally, Pepsi was sweeter than Coke. And as human beings, we are biologically programmed to enjoy sweetness and to like sweetness. So why do I bring this up? Why is it relevant to you and to me? It's because if you want to be successful in the modern world, you have to know not only your strengths, but your weaknesses. And we as human beings all have biases. And the biases include self delusion. We think we know what we like, we think we know what we want. We think we have immense powers of discernment to figure out one thing or another. And quite often it's just marketers playing with us, manipulating us to get us to buy their product or to pay more for a product. Coca Cola has spent so many billions of dollars over the last hundred years associating their drink with Santa Claus and Christmas Time and celebrities we love and holidays and movies and nice packaging and nice labels that it's virtually impossible to disentangle those images, those feelings, those associations from the actual drink. I rarely, rarely, rarely drink a Coke. I don't think I've had one in the last year, but certainly had a lot of positive associations with Coca Cola as a child going to the movies. There's just something about that popcorn and a Coke, which I still will occasionally indulge in. I try to bring water and bring my own popcorn without all the garbage on top that movie theaters put on. But every now and then, it works on me, too. So no one's immune. Knowing that knowing that you have these biases that you can easily be manipulated, paradoxically makes you less likely to be manipulated. And that's why I want you to focus on this. So when someone tells you they just know, you know, real Coke with real sugar is so much better than the fructose stuff. My advice, you can sort of nod and don't pick a fight because they'll hate you if you tell them they can't tell the difference. But don't buy into it. Don't buy in the hype, because we live in a capitalistic, materialistic world, and, hey, I'm a part of that. I like stuff, too. But the modern marketer has to differentiate. And sometimes the differentiations aren't based on real things. They're based on pretty colors and packaging and price and ambiance and association with celebrities. And it profoundly affects our judgments, and it makes us think we see the world with clarity in ways that we really don't. So keep that in mind the next time someone tries to sell you a particular brand, saying, it's so much better than all the others. You know, aspirin. I mean, aspirin is a commodity, and people pay more for. For a certain brand like Bayer, and for something like a drug. There is the placebo effect, where if you actually think it's more valuable, even though you know it's the same, it can have an impact on you. So there's a very fine line there. But once you really know, if you have a true intellectual understanding of how this is playing out on your brain, it gives you power so that you are less likely to be manipulated. And if you want an aspirin, you can get a generic aspirin and feel just as good, or it can relieve your pain if you need something like that. I'm going to try to walk over here a little further away. I hope I don't lose my Wi fi. I want to thank those of you for joining me today. If you have posted comments, I'm on my cell phone and it's much more difficult for me to read. I'm kind of juggling my iPad screen for notes. It's a beautiful day here. I'm in my new community having just moved in to South Florida to a new place in South Florida in Palm beach county with my family. So still trying to get our bearings and do not have Internet yet. We had Internet for about 12 hours in our new house in my new TV studio and then it poof, it went bye bye. Hoping to have it restored as quickly as possible, but we'll see. I've had a nice stable Internet situation for a while. Issue 3 A new podcast has hit number one. It's political and shocker of all, it's not Joe Rogan. It's not one of the comedy bros from Austin where everyone now has sort of the same politically correct attitudes, where everyone is pro the current administration. It isn't someone like that and it is someone that frankly I had not heard of until about two, three months ago and I started watching them regularly. It is the Midas Touch podcast. It's Midas spelled M E I D A S and that's a play on the name of the three brothers who started it. Their name is spelled M E I S E L A S and they were just given an award on the annual Webby Awards at Cipriani's on Wall street recently. They now have the number one podcast. Now they have, according to Podscribe, 124 million 124 million views in the last month. That's crazy here. I mean that's a lot larger than a lot of so called news networks. And it's not slick production. I don't say that in a way to disparage them at all, but their core production is just Here's a video clip of what someone of prominence who has a huge impact on your life said today. And here's what this means. And here's where they lied. Or here's where the contradiction was. It's pretty honest, straightforward news analysis and it does therefore come across as stringently anti Trump. So be it. I think they call it the way they see it. I would urge you to check this out for several reasons against the the Midas touch. It's a YouTube channel, but it's also an audio podcast. I would check out their YouTube first. I think it's relevant for a couple of reasons. When you look at a lot of podcasters who are wildly successful. The Joe Rogan's of the world, the Megyn Kelly's of the world. These are people who were already famous from other fields, traditional cable or broadcast tv. You know, Joe Rogan was in sitcoms. Megyn Kelly was hugely successful on the Fox News Channel. So when she went from there to ABC and then to her own podcasting empire, she had such huge, huge name id. But as far as I can tell, nobody had ever really heard of these Midas brothers before. They sort of just sprung up new and original to the platform of YouTube and social media and podcast, and they are killing it. They're making plenty of money. Their audience is growing every day. What's the lesson for you and for me? Stop giving ourselves excuses as to why we can't have a podcast or why you can't have a YouTube channel. You're not famous. It's too hard to start. They started with zero viewers, just like everybody else. Now, it is true, some people, like Tim Ferriss will start a podcast, but he's already famous because tens of millions of people had bought his book, the Four Hour Workweek. These guys didn't have a natural base like that. They just started. So it's not too late to get into podcasting. It's not too late to have a big impact. I can't guarantee you're going to have 124 million viewers every single month, because I don't even have that. But it is, I think, a fantastic example of how the guardrails are down, the gatekeepers are gone. The gatekeepers do not have their power. We don't live in a world where Roger Ailes gets to anoint who's going to speak for half of the world. And whoever's the head of MSNBC or NBC gets to pick a couple of other voices and the rest of us have to passively sit back and listen to the world filtered through them. It's not like that anymore. It's a new world. And the other thing about the Midas touch, when you see them sa.