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photograph cars on public roads, identify their plates, and put that information into searchable databases. Flock says its network is now used by more than 5,000 law enforcement agencies and processes billions of plate reads every single month. Critics on both the left and right call this mass surveillance. They worry police can reconstruct where innocent people travel, that officers can abuse the databases, that outside agencies can gain access, and that eventual billions of individual observations become a detailed record of people's lives. Those concerns aren't imaginary. There have been documented cases of police misusing license plate reader systems because they thought some woman was hot, and critics have raised concerns about ICE So, that's the argument against FLOC. This is one case where there is consensus from left to right across America that FLOC is bad, bad, bad, bad. It's got to go. And I stand firmly in the camp of, that's crazy. I don't think the problem is having FLOC everywhere. I think the problem is we're not using its full powers. Now, bear with me. Let's, let's look at the facts here. Yes, there can be abuse. There can be situations where ICE can use this to harass poor innocent people. There are creepy police officers who see someone they think is a hot woman, and let's face it, it's, it's the men police officers tracking women, following her every move so they can just conveniently bump into her at the 7-Eleven. That's creepy and weird, but there are ways of checking that. There are ways of preventing abuse. I think the benefits of the technology of Flock far outweigh any negatives. The problem is we're just not using it at full force. Right now, it's just taking pictures. It's not attached to radar. It's not tracking whether people speed. It's not tracking whether people go through red lights. It's not tracking— whether people tailgate, but it could. Why would that be a good thing? Now, let me put my cards on the table because some of you are going to think, well, TJ must have stock in this company. I own no stock in Flock. I don't know anybody who works there. I have no vested interest. I'm not paid by them. They're not a sponsor of this show. I'm giving it to you like I see it. And you can feel free to give your comments as you like it, as you see it below as well. But this whole idea of, okay, you see someone come to your house, mug a family member, attack a family member, perhaps violently attack a family member. You see them drive off and you see their license plate. What's happened for the last 100 years or so is you would call the police. Tell them the license plate, and maybe it would kind of filter out. Meanwhile, the person could just drive away, be 2 blocks away, pass a police officer, no one would know. They wouldn't get caught. Now, boom, their location can be ascertained almost instantly. It's so much harder to commit crime and drive away in a car where you have the license plate shown in any community that has this. So the argument is basically it's too good. Let's do the old-fashioned way. It's almost like saying, okay, I don't like paying taxes, therefore let's not use— let's not let anyone at the IRS use a calculator. Let's just hire 1,000 more IRS officials so they can manually count, go through and add, you know, get a little paper and pen and add up. Because then they wouldn't ensnare us for tax violation. Now, I realize some people might say, hey, you're onto something, but that would expand the number of IRS officials needed dramatically. So, here's the part that I think everyone always forgets because it's so normal that we don't notice it. 1.2 million people a year die in car crashes around the world. Technically, 1.19. I want to give you the facts. 39,000 die on average in the United States. If, for example, we could connect these flock cameras to radar and automatically give a ticket to people speeding or tailgating, even the most conservative estimates says that should reduce deaths by a couple of thousand people. So imagine yourself, you're at a city council meeting and you're saying, I want the right to speed. We don't— we shouldn't have a flock camera attached to radar in our community. And you know what, if we have to have the equivalent of 9/11 every year in terms of death toll, I'm willing to murder 2,000 American citizens every year, so I have the right to run a red light and speed. That's essentially the argument you're making. Now, I haven't seen anyone willing to say that for fear they would look like complete absolute jerks, which they would be. But let's make no mistake about it, that is essentially the argument. Again, if someone were saying, okay, Here is a certain president's enemy list. So the government's now going to go put a flock camera in their home and a recording device on their cell phone just because they voted against the president. Believe me, I'm all in on banning that, but that's not what's happening. We're talking about public roads. Now, this is done in other countries. I've been to Qatar and I've seen it where it says you're now being monitored and you're going to get a ticket automatically if you speed. Guess what happened? A lot fewer people went speeding. This happens in Singapore. And where it has happened, they're seeing quite often a 25% reduction in traffic accidents that result in death. Call me old-fashioned, but the idea that the government could pass a regulation and prevent thousands of people from dying I think that's a good thing, especially if it's not requiring some onerous, onerous burden on the rest of citizens. And I'm sorry, but following the speed limit isn't an onerous ask. It's just not a big ask. Between the opposition to these flock cameras and red light cameras, we have a real problem in America. We have people saying, Laws are good for other people, but not for me. I shouldn't have to follow the law. And hey, I get it. Have I ever gone speeding? Yes. Have I ever had a speeding ticket? Yeah, one ticket 35 years ago. And it's not because I'm perfect. But if I knew every single time my car is monitored and I would automatically be emailed a ticket and it would automatically be deducted from my bank account, Believe you me, I'd stop speeding. I'd somehow figure out a way to go the speed limit, and so would you. The result— I'm not saying there would be zero traffic deaths in America, but no serious person thinks that we would still have 39,000 deaths a year. Whether it goes to 37,000 or 30,000 or 20,000, isn't that a good thing? I want you to think for a moment. Surely, If not in your own immediate family, a friend of a friend at least has someone in their family who's died in an automobile wreck. And I want you to ask yourself seriously, if you had gotten a ticket for speeding automatically just because of one of these cameras, but that person could live, would you be willing to— Maybe slow down a little, maybe pay a $50 ticket if it could save the life of a family member or friend? I think when you personalize it like that, it's all of a sudden not so crazy to think this technology should be warranted. Would you like to be the sort of successful person who is dominating news, at least in your industry? Well, if so, it's time to up your skills. At ultimize.com, I've created online courses to help you do that. Now, here's the thing. No obligation. You can get a free course on communication skills, a free course on how to build better habits. All you have to do is go to ultimize.com. That's ultimize.com. No obligation. Go there now. You know what gets me is so many people love to bash government waste. Oh, isn't government wasteful? And yet they demand that government be wasteful. We somehow think it's great to have more and more police officers sitting in a car with a radar gun, drinking coffee, and frankly having a boring job pointing that gun so that they can one at a time do speed checks on 0.0001% of the people in that town. That, that's somehow okay. Very few people say that that really shouldn't be allowed. But oh my gosh, putting up an automatic radar gun, um, call back the British, uh, that's tyranny, let's have another tea party. It's hysterical. It's just technology. If you believe in the radar gun of a police holding it, why wouldn't you have the thing automated to use technology? Well, It's like tollbooth operators. Why do we automate tollbooths? Because it was wasteful and stupid to have people on the payroll doing something that a machine can actually do better and 1,000 times cheaper. And that's the case with these flock cameras. Yeah, believe me, if someone kidnaps your kid— not that that many kids are actually kidnapped by anyone other than family members, but bear with me. Someone kidnapped a family member of yours, and flock technology could instantly tell the police, okay, the kidnapper is 12 blocks away, we have 3 police cars in the vicinity, and we can go ahead and capture that person, bring them in, and arrest them in about 2 minutes. Are you okay with that, or should we turn off the flock cameras and just— put out their pictures in the post office? Is that what you want? I don't think you'd want that. I don't want that. Think of it this way. I mean, we use the best technology to solve problems in every other aspect of life, private sector and public sector. But I guess in theory, some cheap airline could say, oh, if the federal government gets rid of requirements for planes to have radar, we'll save a few bucks and we'll just start selling tickets to our airline on a plane without radar. And if every so often we crash into another skyscraper and everyone dies, oh well, at least we have government freedom. At least we don't have a surveillance society. We're not surveilling every building or every plant. That's I mean, if you take this to the logical extreme, someone could say, well, I don't want radars having— or I don't want airplanes having radar, because what if I want to put my own drone above my airspace of my house? I don't want Eastern Airlines, or their defunct, or United Airlines to have their radar see my drone. Obviously a ridiculous, absurd argument, but really no different than the argument against FLOC. And believe me, I'm sensitive to the idea that FLOC can be used to harass people. It can be used by ICE, all sorts of nefarious things. There are other systems that can be put into place for that. Guns can be abused. Do we really want to go back to a time when no police officer can use a gun? I mean, I guess it works. In Great Britain, where they have clubs, but average people don't have guns over there either. Guns are a powerful technology. They are sometimes abused. But I would still like police in America to have access to guns. I want them to have access to all sorts of tools and technology that will save my life, my family's life, my friend's life. community's life and your life. That's why this idea that flock is somehow the end of the world and the biggest evil. No, it's not. One of the things that many people who are advocates of cameras point out to, and I'll be right upfront with you, it's correlation, it's not causation. But what they have noted is, The last 20 years, other than a blip up during the pandemic, crime has gone dramatically down. Really, the last 30 years, crime, especially in big cities, crime has gone dramatically lower and lower and lower. One of the theories is there are cameras everywhere. If you know any crime that you could commit is going to be on camera and you're going to get caught and you're going to get convicted and you're going to say, Serve time, it is a real disincentive. Ideally, we live in a world where people just morally don't want to commit crime. But you know what? I'll take the next best thing. If someone wants to commit a crime, but they're afraid to do it for fear of being caught because they're captured on a flock camera or surveillance camera or a red light camera, then I'm all in favor of that deterring them. I recently had a friend who served on a grand jury and New York City, and she said it was kind of the easiest thing in the world. The prosecutor came forward and said, "We think this person assaulted this person." Oh, and by the way, here's eight different video cameras showing every angle and the person's face of the person punching or raping the person in question. They had no choice other to other than to indict every single time. And guess what? You conservatives out there won't believe it, but New York City has the lowest crime rate it's had since. The early 1960s. Oh, well, TJ, what about that? I saw someone get pushed off the subway. Yeah, you saw it because of a camera. So any one crime gets more attention, but you as an individual and any policymaker needs to look at the entire society. Crime is lower in New York City than it's been in 60 years. Violent crime is lower in New York City than it is in most Republican congressional districts in America, certainly more so, or certainly lower than Speaker of the House Mike Johnson's Louisiana district. But that's not a politically correct fact that offends too many people, so we won't talk about that. Anyway, Flock, my biggest beef with you is you got to figure out a way or get various political entities, cities, towns, states, to combine your technology with radar. And let's just automatically send people tickets when they're speeding. Let's automatically send people tickets when they're tailgating. And yes, if you're at a red light, red— sorry to tell you folks— doesn't mean slow down. Red means stop. And forgive me for seeming pedantic here, but stop means there's no more forward motion. I've gotten into countless arguments with friends and family. Oh, I just stopped. Well, no, you didn't stop. This car never stopped going forward. You'll feel a car actually kind of lunge backwards for an 8th of a second if you stop. Oh, but teacher, I'm in a hurry. There's no one around. I don't care. If we're going to have laws, then it can't be everyone gets to choose. Oh, there's no one on the road. I decided to drive on the left-hand side because I fantasize about being in the countryside in Great Britain. Nobody cares about my fantasy of driving as if I'm in the countryside of Britain. You catch me driving on the left side of the road, I deserve a ticket. You run a red light at a stoplight, you deserve a ticket. And that's my thoughts on Flock. I realize this isn't going to make me very popular, but I'm not here to be popular. I'm here to tell you the truth as I see it. What do you think? Go ahead and post your comments. I'm TJ Walker. This is Filtered. Ultimize. Today on Ultimeyes Discover, you're getting a short practical sample from the Ultimeyes universe. Use this on its own, take one idea and apply it today, or go deeper at ultimeyes.com. Ultimeyes is the world's largest personal development podcast, audiobook, and online learning network. Ultimeyes. Most people think a crisis destroys reputations because of what actually happened. That's not necessarily true. Reputations are destroyed because of how a 10-second clip makes it look like something happened. That is the world you're living in right now. A single sentence taken out of context can spread faster than your full explanation ever will. A shaky phone video can define you before your team even knows there's a problem. And once that narrative starts moving, you're no longer in control of how you're perceived. This limited series podcast is about how to survive that reality. You're now entering Crisis Media Training for the Social Media and AI Era, produced by Ultimize, the world's largest personal development podcast network. I'm your host, TJ Walker. In this limited series, you're going to learn what to say in the first moments of a crisis, how to avoid statements that make you look guilty, how your words get clipped and weaponized, and How to communicate in a way that survives social media, viral outrage, and artificial intelligence. If you've ever wondered why smart, capable leaders lose everything in one interview and why others come out stronger, you're about to understand exactly why. And more important, you're going to know what to do if and when it's your turn. A crisis used to begin when the press showed up. Now it begins the moment something happens, often before you even know there's a problem. Someone records a video. An employee posts a comment. A customer shares a complaint. Within minutes, people are reacting, judging, and forming opinions, maybe forming lynch mobs. By the time you're thinking about what to say, the story is already moving without you. This is the biggest shift in crisis communications. You're no longer stepping into a conversation. You're stepping into a narrative that's already underway. That means you are behind from the very beginning. And if you treat this like an old-style crisis where you gather facts, draft a careful statement, wait for the right moment, running by legal and the IR team, you're going to lose control of the story quickly because there is no perfect moment anymore. There's only the moment when the public starts paying attention. And that moment almost always comes before your first official response. Your job is no longer to just communicate. Your job is to catch up to a story that's already forming in real time. That changes how fast you move. It changes how simply you speak, and it changes what you must be prepared to do before a crisis ever happens. Most people still act like the crisis starts when they begin talking. It does not. It starts before you speak. The first thing you say in a crisis has always mattered, but today It matters far more than ever before because your first response is no longer just the beginning of the conversation. It often becomes the reference point for everything that follows. In the past, you could correct yourself later, you could clarify, you could expand your message over time, and people would eventually hear the fuller version of what you meant. That's no longer how it works. Now your first statement is captured, clipped, sliced, diced, and shared almost immediately. It becomes the version of your message that most people will see, and for many people, it will be the only version they ever hear. That means your first response is not just important, it's defining. If you sound evasive, people assume you're hiding something, and you're hiding it because you're guilty. If you sound defensive, people assume you're guilty. If you sound unprepared, people assume you're overwhelmed and not really up to the job. And once those impressions form, they're extremely, extremely difficult to reverse, even if your later statements are stronger, even if you provide more facts, even if you eventually tell a much clearer and more thorough story. The first impression tends to stick. That's why preparation matters so much more today. Not preparation in the sense of writing a perfect statement in the moment, but preparation in the sense of knowing how you're going to respond before a crisis ever happens. You need to know how to sound calm when you're under pressure. You need to know how to speak simply when the situation gets complicated, and you need to know how to deliver a message that will still make sense even after it's been shortened, chopped, sliced, diced, and shared because your first response is no longer just a starting point. It's often the version that the world remembers. By the way, quick question for you. Have you ever noticed how easy it is to consume content and how hard it is to actually do anything with it? I mean, you can listen to 100 episodes, read 10 books, and your habits are exactly the same. That's the gap most people never close. So if you're listening to this and thinking, yeah, I want to actually improve, go to ultimize.com. We've got free courses there for you either on communication skills or building better habits. And it's designed to get you to actually use what you're learning, not just hear it once. No cost, no catch. Just go to ultimize.com and start. Ultimize. Ultimize. A New Mexico judge just ordered Meta to pay $567 million for harming children, on top of the $375 million a jury already hit them with in March. That's nearly a billion dollars. One state. And Meta's official response? They work hard to keep people safe. Right. Trusting Meta with your kids' safety is like hiring a babysitter who asks your kids, would you like Frosted Flakes for breakfast or a giant bag of M&M's? And when your kid picks the giant bag of M&M's, the babysitter says, great choice. Now, how about we dive into a tub of Nutella and guzzle some Red Bull? And then this babysitter charges you by the hour. The judge found Meta's platforms are helping drive a youth mental health Crisis. Meta's plan: appeal the ruling, deny everything, and keep pinging your 10-year-old's phone at 2 in the morning. Now, the full story. Judge Brian Beitsheld in Santa Fe issued the ruling Thursday night. The $567 million goes into a fund for the damage, including treatment for harmed kids. Add the March verdict, where jurors found Meta misled users about safety and enabled sexual exploitation of minors, And Meta now owes New Mexico $942 million. That's enough to buy every kid in New Mexico a bicycle, a therapist, and a flip phone from 2004, which might be the best mental health plan on the market. The judge wrote that Meta's platforms are a significant contributing factor to the youth mental health crisis among New Mexico's young people. And Attorney General Raul Torres said Meta knew knew for years its platforms were harming kids, connecting predators with children, and it, quote, chose engagement and profit over their safety. That's not a blogger in a basement. That's the top law enforcement officer of an American state. When the attorney general and the guidance counselors agree, you have accomplished something special. And New Mexico is just the opening act. Meta faces thousands of lawsuits from teenagers, school districts, and attorneys general, and this month it goes to trial in Oakland against the attorneys general of California, Colorado, Kentucky, and New Jersey. Meta says it disagrees, plans to appeal, and remains confident in its record of protecting teens. Meta being confident in the record of protecting teens is like BP being confident in its record of protecting pelicans. Or Godzilla being confident in his record of protecting Tokyo. The judge also ordered changes to the product. In New Mexico, Meta can no longer push notifications to underage users between 10 at night and 7 in the morning. Think about that sentence. Until this week ago, part of the business model of one of the richest companies on Earth was buzzing a 12-year-old's nightstand at 3 AM. That wasn't a bug. That was the product working exactly as designed. Somewhere in Menlo Park, an engineer got a bonus, and his performance review literally said, exceeds expectations at keeping 4th graders awake. Here's my favorite detail in the ruling: children in New Mexico are now legally limited to 90 hours a month on Meta's apps. 90 hours? That's 3 hours a day every day, and that's the court-ordered improvement. 3 hours a day is not a hobby. It's a part-time job with no paycheck where the entire benefits package is anxiety. If your kids spent 3 hours a day practicing violin, you'd be booking Carnegie Hall. 3 hours a day on Instagram and you're booking a therapist. When a court has to cap your product for children the way we cap nicotine and gambling, You're not a social network anymore. You're a vice. Congratulations, Mark, you're in the same regulatory category as cigarettes, but with worse customer service. And let's talk about this company. Even setting the kids aside, Facebook has been getting worse and worse and worse for everybody. Try using Facebook groups lately. Groups used to be the one good thing left. Your running club, your school parents, your guitar nerds. Now it's like holding a neighborhood meeting in the middle of a casino while a guy in sunglasses keeps interrupting to sell you crypto and miracle gummies. And your feed— wall-to-wall pop culture landfill. I have no idea what any of my friends are up to anymore. I haven't seen an actual post from a real friend since the first Trump administration. As far as Facebook is concerned, everyone I know vanished in 2019. And was replaced by AI-generated Shrimp Jesus and strangers screaming about celebrities I've never heard of. And God help you if your account gets hacked or deleted. You're simply out of luck. Meta has 3.5 billion users and roughly the customer service operation of an abandoned lemonade stand, which is unfair to lemonade stands. At least there's a kid you can talk to. Your photos, your business page— gone. No phone number, no human being, no appeal. 15 years of your family history held hostage by a chatbot that keeps asking if you've tried logging out and logging back in. A company fined nearly $1 billion for failing to protect children can't even protect your login. And how's morale inside Meta? Every employee I've talked to hates it there, and I finally understand why. The boss keeps going on podcasts explaining how excited he is to use artificial intelligence to eliminate their jobs, all their jobs. Mark Zuckerberg may be the first CEO in history whose employee retention strategy is a countdown clock. The official team-building exercise is updating your resume. Would you like to be the sort of successful person who is dominating news, at least in your industry? Well, if so, it's time to up your skills. At ultimize.com, I've created online courses to help you do that. Now, here's the thing. No obligation. You can get a free course on communication skills, a free course on how to build better habits. All you have to do is go to ultimize.com. That's ultimize.com. No obligation. Go there now. Now, let me be fair because fairness makes the criticism land harder. Zuckerberg deserves real credit for one thing. He took what MySpace and Friendster and all the early social sites were fumbling, and he actually made it work. Early Facebook was a glorious thing. Old classmates reconnecting, far-flung families sharing photos, lost friends finding each other. For that, sure, he deserves to be a billionaire, I guess. Maybe not $200 billion, but one Absolutely. But for the last 10 years, this man has been locked in a personal competition with Elon Musk to see who can be the biggest jerk in the history of the world. And folks, it is a photo finish. He burned $80 million with a B on the metaverse, an idiotic digital ghost town nobody ever asked for, where legless cartoon executives held meetings in an empty virtual conference room. $80 million and the avatars didn't have legs. A kindergartner's refrigerator drawing has legs, and those are free. Then he pivoted to sucking up to Donald Trump, tossing out the fact-checkers and every last shred of decency standards like they were expired condiments. And underneath all of it sits the basic algorithm. If somebody wants to spread a lie, Meta will build them a giant audience. It used to be that Nazis and flat earthers had a distribution problem. A mimeograph in a basement, shouting at strangers at a bus stop. Now, somebody posts that Hillary Clinton is a transsexual who secretly murdered JFK while poisoning your local water system, and they've got 200,000 new followers by lunchtime and a $5 million brand deal by dinner. And by breakfast the next morning, they're on a podcast being introduced as a free speech warrior. The lie doesn't need to be true, it just needs to be engaging. Truth doesn't trend. Decency doesn't scale. Outrage does both. And outrage is the only god this company has ever worshipped. And here's the deeper truth. Mark Zuckerberg is not an evil genius twirling his mustache. It's worse than that. It's indifference at industrial scale. The algorithm doesn't hate your children. The algorithm doesn't even see your children. It sees inventory. To that machine, your daughter is a billboard with a heartbeat. Whatever you measure is what you maximize, and Meta measures exactly one thing: minutes of human attention. It will harvest them from a lonely 12-year-old at 3 in the morning just as happily as from anyone else, because the machine can't tell the difference between connection and addiction. And the man who owns the machine stopped caring about the difference Somewhere around his second $100 billion in net worth. So here's where I'll land. Whether you have kids or not, a court can fine Meta $1 billion, but no judge on earth can order Meta to care about you. The only person who controls your attention is you, and your attention is the most valuable asset you will ever own. Every hour you hand to the feed is an hour you didn't give to your health. Your skills, your family, or your actual friends. So tonight, do something radical. Pick up your phone, skip the apps, and call one friend Facebook has been hiding from you since 2019. It's free, and Zuckerberg can't sell an ad in the middle of it. Yet, because this man built a machine that promised to connect the world, and instead he built the loneliness business, stop being his best customer. I'm TJ Walker. This is Filtered. Ultimize. Ultimize. Donald Trump's billionaire Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has announced that the K-shaped economy is over. That's fantastic news. Can someone please tell literally everyone except Scott Bessent? Because my grocery store didn't get the memo. My insurance company didn't get the memo. The guy asking $950,000 for a starter home definitely didn't get the memo. Apparently, the only person who thinks affordability has been solved is the billionaire in charge of telling us affordability has been solved. That's like a guy on a private jet saying, I don't understand why everyone's upset about baggage fees. Now, to be fair, Scott Bessent actually has an argument. And unlike cable television, we're going to give him the strongest version of that argument before we disagree with it, because that's what honest people do. His argument is simple: workers at the bottom of the income scale have recently been seeing wages grow faster than the workers at the top. If that's true, that's genuinely good news. Every American should celebrate that. But here's the problem. People don't experience the economy through spreadsheets. They experience it through receipts. Nobody walks into the grocery store and says, honey, these prices are outrageous, but before we panic, what did the Treasury Secretary say quarterly wage growth was among the bottom income quartile? No, nobody says that because people don't live inside economic statistics. They live inside economic reality. And that's what we're going to talk about here today. Let's separate the statistics from reality. To be fair to Secretary Bassett, let's begin with his actual argument. Economists call it a K-shaped economy. One line goes up, one line goes down. People who own appreciating assets like stocks, businesses, and expensive real estate get wealthier. People who depend primarily on wages struggle to keep up. That's the downward part. Secretary Bassett says the picture is changing. He says the economy is becoming more C-shaped because wage growth for lower-income workers has recently been stronger than wage growth at the top. If that's true, great, fantastic. I sincerely hope it's true. If lower-income workers are finally getting meaningful raises, that's something every American should be happy about. But wages are only one part of the story. Purchasing power is what people actually live. A family doesn't grade the economy with an economist report. Every family grades the economy with exactly 5 questions: grocery test, gas test, rent test, house test, college test. If those 5 answers are getting worse, people don't care what letter economists decide to use. Now, let's talk about inflation. For most of his professional career, Scott Bessent understood something that almost every mainstream economist also understood: tariffs generally increase prices. They're taxes on imported goods. Businesses absorb some of those costs, but many get passed directly to consumers. Then Donald Trump made tariffs the centerpiece of his economic agenda. Suddenly, many people who spent decades criticizing tariffs became enthusiastic supporters. That's quite a conversion. I've seen people change religions with less enthusiasm than some people change their opinions on tariffs. The real question isn't whether tariffs increase prices. The real question is who pays the price. If you're worth billions of dollars, paying a little more for appliance, clothing, or electronics Doesn't change your lifestyle at all. If you're living paycheck to paycheck, every extra dollar matters. Inflation is unequal. It always has been. The same percentage hurts different people very differently. The same thing applies to gasoline. Higher oil prices don't affect everyone equally. Many affluent professionals work from home several days a week, or like I do, every day of the week. Construction workers don't. Delivery drivers don't. Nursing assistants don't. Electricians don't. The people who physically keep America running are the very people who have to buy gasoline week after week after week. When gas prices rise, they're effectively taking a pay cut. Would you like to be the sort of successful person who is dominating news, at least in your industry? Well, if so, it's time to. Your skills. At ultimize.com, I've created online courses to help you do that. Now, here's the thing. No obligation. You can get a free course on communication skills, a free course on how to build better habits. All you have to do is go to ultimize.com. That's ultimize.com. No obligation. Go there now. Now, here's where I think both political parties miss the biggest story. This didn't begin with Donald Trump, and it won't end when Donald Trump leaves office. The 2 biggest expenses most families face are housing and education. Both have risen dramatically, faster than overall inflation for decades. Politicians spend all day arguing about the price of eggs. Eggs matter. Milk matters. Gas matters. But groceries aren't the reason so many young Americans believe they're falling behind. Housing is. Education is. Those are the purchases that determine whether you ever build wealth. Groceries hurt this week. Housing changes your next 40 years. If you bought your first home 25 or 30 years ago, congratulations. You probably feel pretty smart. Well, maybe you are, but maybe you were also born at exactly the right time. Luck deserves a lot more credit than politicians ever admit. And I include myself in that. I'm fortunate. I bought my education in a different America. I bought housing in a different time. That doesn't make me wiser than today's 25-year-olds. Makes me luckier. I've reached a point in life where gas prices don't really determine whether I can go out to dinner this weekend. Good, lucky for me. But it also means I have an obligation not to pretend my situation is typical. When a young couple tells me buying a home feels impossible, My first instinct isn't to argue with them. It's to believe them because the numbers back them up. Housing has become dramatically less affordable. College has become dramatically less affordable. Meanwhile, politicians keep pointing at the stock market. The stock market can be doing wonderfully while millions of Americans feel like they're falling behind because— little secret— 90% of Americans own little or no stock. So most Americans don't live off stock portfolios. They live off paychecks. Politicians celebrate GDP, gross domestic product. Families celebrate finally saving enough for a down payment. Those aren't the same thing. This is why politicians keep getting surprised by elections. They tell people the economy they should be experiencing instead of listening to the economy people are actually living. Scott Bessent may be right that one economic indicator has improved, I hope he's right, but one improving statistic doesn't erase years of rising housing costs, rising tuition costs, rising insurance costs, rising gas prices, in part because of this imbecilic war in Iran, and the rise of so many other everyday expenses. So here's my new rule: stop telling Americans they're better off, make them better off. Because if a teacher, a firefighter, a nurse, an electrician, and a young couple working 2 full-time jobs still can't afford a modest home, I don't care whether economists call the economy K-shaped, C-shaped, or shaped like a pretzel. The American dream is still out of reach for far too many Americans. And until ordinary working people can once again afford a home, build wealth, and believe their children will have an easier life than they did, Don't be surprised when people trust the price tag at the grocery store more than they trust the talking points coming out of Washington, especially from this administration. I'm TJ Walker. This is Filtered. Ultimize. Ultimize. Remember when politicians used to resign? I know if you're under 35, this probably sounds like something your grandparents made up. Back in my day, when a politician got caught doing something sleazy, he'd actually leave office. Sure, Grandpa, and gasoline cost a quarter. But it actually happened today. Republican Congressman Chuck Edwards dropped his reelection campaign after the House Ethics Committee concluded he had repeatedly, repeatedly engaged in inappropriate conduct toward 2 young female staffers. And my first reaction wasn't another politician in trouble. My first reaction was remarkable. Somebody still knows when the show's over. Because for the last 10 years, every political scandal has followed exactly the same script. Get caught, deny everything, attack the investigators, attack the media, attack the accusers, raise money, write a book, start a podcast, run for higher office if you're not already in higher office. Office. Chuck Edwards skipped seasons 2 through 7. He went straight to the season finale. I almost didn't know how to process it. It felt like stumbling across a Blockbuster Video store and realizing it's actually open. You almost want to go inside just to make sure you're not dreaming. I'm not here to praise Chuck Edwards. The Ethics Committee painted a picture of behavior that was creepy, immature, and completely inappropriate for someone serving in Congress. Lavish gifts to attractive young female employees, compliments about appearance, personal notes, private dinner invitations, vacation invitations— basically every item on the list titled Things Human Resources Told You Not to Do During Orientation. What impressed me wasn't how he behaved, it was how he behaved after he got caught. He's leaving. That shouldn't be remarkable. That should be ordinary. For most of American history, that's how accountability worked. Not perfectly. Sometimes innocent people resign. Sometimes guilty people survive. But there was an understanding. If your own party abandoned you, if donors stopped returning your calls, if the polls collapsed, if the voters had made up their minds, the career was Politics has something we don't talk about very much anymore. Shame. Healthy shame. Not the kind your parents gave you because you wanted to major in theater. The useful kind. The kind that says, you embarrassed yourself. You embarrassed your office. You embarrassed the people who trusted you. It's time to go. That's actually a healthy immune system for a democracy. Now notice everything Chuck Edwards didn't do. He didn't spend 6 months calling the women liars or prostitutes. He didn't declare the Ethics Committee corruption. He didn't insist the investigation was a witch hunt. He didn't claim the whole thing was election interference. He didn't tell everyone that he was actually the victim. He didn't say, these women aren't even attractive enough for me to harass. He didn't say, if I were to abuse my office, I'd pick somebody hotter. Think about how low our expectations have fallen. The absence of those statements actually feels refreshing. We've become so accustomed to narcissists that basic human embarrassment now feels like an act of courage. That's not because Chuck Edwards suddenly became George Washington. It's because our standards have sunk so low that someone quietly leaving office feels like watching a documentary about a lost civilization. Would you like to be the sort of successful person who is dominating news, at least in your industry? Well, if so, it's time to up your skills. At ultimize.com, I've created online courses to help you do that. Now, here's the thing, no obligation. You can get a free course on communication skills, a free course on on how to build better habits. All you have to do is go to ultimize.com. That's ultimize.com. No obligation. Go there now. The truth is politicians have always lied. Politicians have always cheated. Politicians have always had affairs. I'm not nostalgic for some imaginary golden age where every elected official was a choirboy. That place never existed. What did exist, though, was consequences. The old system wasn't politicians never behave badly. The old system was when enough evidence piles up, when enough allies disappear, when enough donors disappear, and enough voters stop believing you, your political career ends. It wasn't perfect, but it worked often enough to discourage the next guy. And it was usually guys, let's face it. Today we've almost reversed the incentives. Every accusation becomes a fundraising email. Every investigation becomes proof you're important. Every scandal becomes campaign merchandise. Every indictment becomes another television appearance explaining why everyone is out to get you. We've somehow turned public disgrace into a business model. And that's one of the biggest changes in American politics over the last decade. The objective isn't proving you're innocent anymore. The objective is convincing your own supporters never to believe anyone but you. Once you accomplish that, shame disappears, facts become optional, reality becomes negotiable, and every scandal simply becomes another episode in an endless television series. No wonder nobody ever leaves. Why would they? Their audience keeps renewing the show. When people say, make America great again, they usually start talking about manufacturing or immigration or tariffs or trade. Here's something from old America I'd actually like to bring back: the ability to feel embarrassed. Not woke, not anti-woke, not left, not right— just shame. Because shame is one of civilization's greatest inventions. It keeps people from cutting in line. It keeps you from wearing flip-flops to a funeral. Keeps most of us from sending that 3rd text after midnight. And it used to keep politicians from clinging to power after everyone knew the game was over. Chuck Edwards doesn't deserve applause for the conduct that got him here. He deserves only a very small measure of credit for remembering one tradition that actually did make America better. When everyone knows, when your own party knows, when your donors know, when your voters know, and most importantly, when you know the office no longer belongs to you, you leave. That isn't weakness, isn't surrender. That's accountability. For generations, that was one of the unwritten rules that helped keep American democracy healthy. Not because our politicians were better people. But because enough of them still understood there comes a moment when the honorable thing isn't to keep fighting, it's to exit the stage. I'd like to live in a country where that isn't considered extraordinary. I'd like to live in a country where that's simply how grown-ups behave. I'm TJ Walker. This is Filtered. Ultimize. Ultimize. Remember when turning 50 meant you were supposed to retire, buy a rocking chair, and start yelling at squirrels? Morgan Freeman is 89 years old, about to be 90. He's still memorizing scripts, starring in Lioness, and taking on new acting challenges. LeBron James is 41. Instead of retiring, he's packing for Philadelphia, hoping to win one more NBA championship. Aaron Rodgers is in his 40s, apparently still thinks being chased by 300-pound defensive linemen counts as a healthy hobby. And just a few weeks ago, 28-year-old Josh Kerr— I know that's young— but he ran the fastest mile in human history, 3 minutes 42.66 seconds, breaking a world record that had stood for 27 years. Notice the pattern? The biggest limits in life usually aren't biological. They're psychological. Somewhere along the way, millions of people started saying 4 of the dumbest words in the English language: I'm too old. Well, I'm 63 years old. The past month, I've done 20 stand-up comedy open mics. No, I'm not announcing my Netflix special. Let's first see if I consistently make 12 people laugh who got in for free. But I refuse to let the phrase I'm too old decide the rest of my life. Now, before anyone misunderstands me, biology always wins. Nobody has yet defeated aging. Nobody's defeated death. No matter how many supplements you're taking or how many podcasts you listen to, eventually nature sends you the final bill. But here's what has changed dramatically. We've stopped confusing aging with quitting. Those are not the same thing. For most of human history, people assumed there was a certain age where you simply stopped doing difficult things. You stopped learning. You stopped competing. You stopped creating. You stopped dreaming. Today, we've discovered that many of those limits were never really imposed by nature. They were imposed by culture. Morgan Freeman is a perfect example. The New York Times just profiled him as he approaches 90 years old. He's returning for another season of Lioness. He's still taking on demanding acting roles. He's producing blues projects. He's preserving American musical history. Most impressive to me, he's still memorizing pages and pages of dialogue. I had trouble memorizing scripts when I was 20. He's doing it at 89. People constantly ask him about that legendary voice. He says he doesn't understand the fuss. His secret? I just try to speak clearly. That's what he said. Now, that's wonderfully disappointing at some level. No magic crystal, no secret vocal exercise, just decades of speaking clearly. Another part of Freeman's story gets overlooked. His career didn't really explode until he was around 50. Imagine if he decided, well, I'm 50 now, better slow down. No Driving Miss Daisy, no Glory, no Shawshank Redemption, no narrator's voice that somehow became the official sound of God, documentaries, and half the commercials on television. Then there's the body. For years, people acted like Tom Brady was some once-in-a-century medical miracle. Maybe he was simply the first member of a much larger generation. Aaron Rodgers is still competing in his 40s in the NFL. LeBron James is 41 years old and preparing for a new chapter with the Philadelphia 76ers. Quarterback isn't exactly a desk job. Neither is NBA basketball. These athletes aren't succeeding because they discovered unicorn vitamins. They're doing incredibly boring things. They exercise, they stretch, they recover, they sleep. Oh wow, do they sleep a lot. They eat well. They repeat every single day. There's no off-season. Everyone wants to know the miracle. The miracle is consistency. Sleep is free. Walking is free. Broccoli is still cheaper than Ozempic. Would you like to be the sort of successful person Who is dominating news, at least in your industry? Well, if so, it's time to up your skills. At ultimize.com, I've created online courses to help you do that. Now, here's the thing: no obligation. You can get a free course on communication skills, a free course on how to build better habits. All you have to do is go to ultimize.com. That's U L T A M I. No obligation. Go there now. Now let's talk about limits. For centuries, everyone knew the 4-minute mile was impossible. Doctors actually claimed the human body couldn't survive it. Then Roger Bannister ran it at 3 minutes 59.4 seconds in 1954. The truly fascinating part wasn't that one man did it. It's within a few years, other runners started doing it. The barrier had been as much psychological as physical. Today, elite college runners regularly break 4-minute miles. Hundreds of high school runners have done it. What used to define the absolute limits of humanity has become almost a prerequisite for elite competition. Then just a few weeks ago, another reminder. Josh Kerr, only 28 years old, Ran at 3 minutes 42 seconds, breaking Haikam El Guerrouj— and forgive me, I know I'm botching his name— but the previous record holder had had a record for 27 years. 27 years. An entire generation looked at that number and assumed maybe that's as fast as humans can ever run. Then one person proved otherwise. Records don't simply measure speed; they measure imagination. The same thing happens outside of sports. Think about the movie and Broadway show Sunset Boulevard. Norma Desmond was portrayed as the tragic, washed-up former movie star. Do you know how old she was supposed to be? Fifty, and that's how old Gloria Swanson was when she portrayed that role. Today, 50 is when people are training for marathons, starting companies, learning new languages, raising teenagers, and sometimes having abs better than their own children. Our expectations have changed much faster than our biology, and that's wonderful. Now, let me make this personal. I'm 63. This month, I walked into 20 stand-up comedy open mics. That's intimidating at any age. Most of the comedians were young enough to be my children, or dare I say it, grandchildren. Some looked young enough to need permission slips to stay out after 9 o'clock. Am I going to end up with a Netflix comedy special? Probably not. Could I? Maybe. I honestly don't know. But here's what I do know. I'll never find out if I stop myself with a sentence, I'm too old. That sentence has probably killed more dreams than arthritis ever has. Now, obviously, there are exceptions. If you're 90, maybe don't become a coal miner. If you're 85, downhill motorcycle racing might not be your ideal next hobby. Use common sense. But wanting to paint, wanting to write, wanting to learn the piano, wanting to speak another language, wanting to start a business— Wanting to finally get healthy? Age is not the thing stopping you. Fear is. Comfort is. Habit is. The calendar is usually innocent. The real prison isn't built by biology. It's built by vocabulary. So, today, I'd like to suggest retiring one phrase forever: I'm too old. Replace it with something much more honest. I haven't started yet. Because those 2 sentences create 2 completely different lives. One sentence ends the story. The other begins it. And as long as you're still breathing, I think I'd rather keep beginning. I'm TJ Walker. This is Filtered. Ultimize. Ultimize. Flock Safety has become one of the most controversial police technology companies in America. Its automated license plate readers photograph cars on public roads, identify their plates, and put that information into searchable databases. Flock says its network is now used by more than 5,000 law enforcement agencies and processes billions of plate reads every single month. Critics on both the left and right call this mass surveillance. They worry police can reconstruct where innocent people travel, that officers can abuse the databases, that outside agencies can gain access, and that eventual billions of individual observations become a detailed record of people's lives. Those concerns aren't imaginary. There have been documented cases of police misusing license plate reader systems because they thought some woman was hot, and critics have raised concerns about ICE access. So that's the argument against Flock. This is one case where there is consensus from left to right across America that Flock is bad, bad, bad, bad. It's got to go, and I stand firmly. In the camp of that's crazy. I don't think the problem is having Flock everywhere. I think the problem is we're not using its full powers. Now bear with me. Let's let's look at the facts here. Yes, there can be abuse. There can be situations where ICE can use this to harass poor innocent people. There are creepy police officers who see someone they think is a hot woman, and let's face it, it's it's the men. Police officers tracking women, following her every move so they can just conveniently bump into her at the 7-Eleven. That's creepy and weird, but there are ways of checking that. There are ways of preventing abuse. I think the benefits of the technology of Flock far outweigh any negatives. The problem is we're just not using it at full force. Right now, it's just taking pictures. It's not attached to radar. It's not tracking whether people speed. It's not tracking whether people go through red lights. It's not tracking whether people tailgate, but it could. Why would that be a good thing? Now, let me put my cards on the table because some of you are going to think, well, TJ must have stock in this company. I own no stock in Flock. I don't know anybody who works there. I have no vested interest. I'm not paid by them. They're not a sponsor of this show. I'm giving it to you like I see it, and you can feel free to give your comments as you like it, as you see it below as well. But this whole idea of, okay, you see someone come to your house, mug a family member, attack a family member, perhaps violently attack a family member. You see them drive off. And you see their license plate. What's happened for the last 100 years or so is you would call the police, tell them the license plate, and maybe it would kind of filter out. Meanwhile, the person could just drive away, be 2 blocks away, pass a police officer. No one would know. They wouldn't get caught. Now, boom, their location can be ascertained almost instantly. It's so much harder to commit crime and drive away in a car where you have the license plate shown in any community that has this. So the argument is basically it's too good. Let's do the old-fashioned way. It's almost like saying, okay, I don't like paying taxes. Therefore, let's not use— let's not let anyone at the IRS use a calculator. Let's just hire 1,000 more IRS officials so they can manually count, go through and add, you know, get a little paper and pen and add up, because then they wouldn't ensnare us for tax violence. Now, I realize some people might say, hey, you're on to something, but that would expand the number of IRS officials needed dramatically. So, here's the part that I think everyone always forgets because it's so normal that we don't notice it. 1.2 million people a year die in car crashes around the world. Technically, 1.19. I want to give you the facts. 39,000 die on average in the United States. If, for example, we could connect these flock cameras to radar and automatically give a ticket to people speeding or tailgating, even the most conservative estimates says that should reduce deaths by a couple of thousand people. So imagine yourself, you're at a city council meeting and you're saying, I want the right to speed We don't— we shouldn't have a flock camera attached to radar in our community. And you know what? If we have to have the equivalent of 9/11 every year in terms of death toll, I'm willing to murder 2,000 American citizens every year so I have the right to run a red light and speed. That's essentially the argument you're making. Now, I haven't seen anyone willing to say that for fear they would look like complete absolute jerks. Which they would be. But let's make no mistake about it, that is essentially the argument. Again, if someone were saying, okay, here is a certain president's enemy list, so the government's now going to go put a flock camera in their home and a recording device on their cell phone just because they voted against the president, believe me, I'm all in on banning that. But that's not what's happening. We're talking about public roads. Now, this is done in other countries. I've been to Qatar, and I've seen it where it says, you're now being monitored, and you're going to get a ticket automatically if you speed. Guess what happened? A lot fewer people went speeding. This happens in Singapore, and where it has happened, they're seeing quite often a 25% reduction in traffic accidents that result in death. Call me old-fashioned, but the idea that the government could pass a regulation and prevent thousands of people from dying, I think that's a good thing, especially if it's not requiring some onerous, onerous burden on the rest of citizens. And I'm sorry, but following the speed limit Isn't an onerous ask. It's just not a big ask. Between the opposition to these flock cameras and red light cameras, we have a real problem in America. We have people saying laws are good for other people, but not for me. I shouldn't have to follow the law. And hey, I get it. Have I ever gone speeding? Yes. Have I ever had a speeding ticket? Yeah, one ticket 35 years ago. And it's not because I'm perfect. But if I knew every single time my car is monitored and I would automatically be emailed a ticket and it would automatically be deducted from my bank account, believe you me, I'd stop speeding. I'd somehow figure out a way to go the speed limit. And so would you. The result, I'm not saying there would be zero traffic deaths in America, but no serious person thinks that we would still have 39,000 deaths a year. Whether it goes to 37,000 or 30,000 or 20,000, isn't that a good thing? I want you to think for a moment. Surely, if not in your own immediate family, a friend of a friend at least has someone in their family who's died in an automobile wreck. And I want you to ask yourself seriously, if you had gotten a ticket for speeding automatically just because of one of these cameras, but that person could live, would you be willing to maybe slow down a little, maybe pay a $50 ticket if it could save the life of a family member or friend? I think when you personalize it like that, It's all of a sudden not so crazy to think this technology should be warranted. Would you like to be the sort of successful person who is dominating news, at least in your industry? Well, if so, it's time to up your skills. At ultimize.com, I've created online courses to help you do that. Now, here's the thing, no obligation, you can get a free course on communication skills, a free course on how to build better habits. All you have to do is go to ultimize.com. That's ultimize.com. No obligation. Go there now. You know, what gets me is so many people love to bash government waste. Oh, isn't government wasteful? And yet, they demand that government be wasteful. We somehow think it's great to have more and more police officers sitting in a car with a radar gun, drinking coffee, and frankly having a boring job pointing that gun so that they can one at a time do speed checks on 0.0001% of the people in that town. That that's somehow okay. Very few people say that that really shouldn't be allowed. But, oh my gosh, putting up an automatic radar gun, call back the British, that's tyranny, let's have another tea party. It's hysterical. It's just technology. If you believe in a radar gun of a police holding it, why wouldn't you have the thing automated to use technology more effectively? It's like toll booth operators. Why do we automate toll booths? Because it was wasteful and stupid to have people on the payroll doing something that a machine can actually do better and 1,000 times cheaper. And that's the case with these flock cameras. Yeah, believe me, if someone kidnaps your kid— not that that many kids are actually kidnapped by anyone other than family members, but bear with me— someone kidnapped a family member of yours. And flock technology could instantly tell the police, okay, the kidnapper is 12 blocks away. We have 3 police cars in the vicinity, and we can go ahead and capture that person, bring them in, and arrest them in about 2 minutes. Are you okay with that, or should we turn off the flock cameras and just put out their pictures? In the post office? Is that what you want? I don't think you'd want that. I don't want that. Think of it this way. I mean, we use the best technology to solve problems in every other aspect of life, private sector and public sector. But I guess in theory, some cheap airline could say, oh, if the federal government gets rid of requirements for planes to have radar, We'll save a few bucks and we'll just start selling tickets to our airline on a plane without radar. And if every so often we crash into another skyscraper and everyone dies, oh well, at least we have government freedom. At least we don't have a surveillance society. We're not surveilling every building where every plant is. I mean, if you take this to the logical extreme, Someone could say, well, I don't want radars having— or I don't want airplanes having radar because what if I want to put my own drone above my airspace of my house? I don't want Eastern Airlines or their defunct— or United Airlines to have their radar see my drone. Obviously, a ridiculous, absurd argument, but really, No different than the argument against Flock. And believe me, I'm sensitive to the idea that Flock can be used to harass people. It can be used by ICE, all sorts of nefarious things. There are other systems that can be put into place for that. Guns can be abused. Do we really want to go back to a time when no police officer can use a gun? I mean, I guess it works in Great Britain where they have Clubs, but average people don't have guns over there either. Guns are a powerful technology. They are sometimes abused. But I would still like police in America to have access to guns. I want them to have access to all sorts of tools and technology that will save my life, my family's life, my friend's life, community's life, and your life. And that's why this idea that, you know, Flock is somehow the end of the world and the biggest evil— no, it's not. One of the things that many people who are advocates of cameras point out to, and I'll be right up front with you, it's cause— it's correlation, it's not causation. But what they have noted is the last 20 years, other than a blip up during the pandemic, Crime has gone dramatically down, really, in the last 30 years, especially in big cities. Crime has gone dramatically lower and lower and lower. One of the theories is there are cameras everywhere. If you know any crime that you could commit is going to be on camera and you're going to get caught and you're going to get convicted and you're going to serve time, it is a real disincentive. Ideally, we live in a world where People just morally don't want to commit crime. But you know what? I'll take the next best thing. If someone wants to commit a crime, but they're afraid to do it for fear of being caught because they're captured on a flock camera or a surveillance camera or a red light camera, then I'm all in favor of that deterring them. I recently had a friend who served on a grand jury in New York City, and she said it was kind of the easiest thing in the world. The prosecutor came forward and said, we think this person assaulted this person. Oh, and by the way, here's 8 different video cameras showing every angle and the person's face of the person punching or raping the person in question. They had no choice other to— other than to indict every single time. And guess what? You conservatives out there won't believe it, but New York City has the lowest crime rate it's had since the early 1960s. Oh, well, TJ, what about that? I saw someone get pushed off the subway. Yeah, you saw it because of a camera. So any one crime gets more attention, but you as an individual and any policymaker needs to look at the entire society. Crime is lower in New York City than it's been in 60 years. Violent crime is lower in New York City than it is in most Republican congressional districts in America. Certainly more so, or certainly lower than Speaker of the House Mike Johnson's Louisiana district. But that's not a politically correct fact that offends too many people, so we won't talk about that. Anyway, FLOC, my biggest beef with you is you got to figure out a way or get various political entities— cities, towns, states to combine your technology with radar, and let's just automatically send people tickets when they're speeding. Let's automatically send people tickets when they're tailgating. And yes, if you're at a red light, red— sorry to tell you folks— doesn't mean slow down. Red means stop. And forgive me for, for seeming Pedantic here, but stop means there's no more forward motion. I've gotten into countless arguments with friends and family. Oh, I just stopped. Well, no, you didn't stop. This car never stopped going forward. You'll feel a car actually kind of lunge backwards for an eighth of a second if you stop. Oh, but teacher, I'm in a hurry. There's no one around. I don't care. If we're going to have laws, then it can't be everyone gets to choose. Oh, there's no one on the road. I decided to drive on the left-hand side because I fantasize about being in the countryside in Great Britain. Nobody cares about my fantasy of driving as if I'm in the countryside of Britain. You catch me driving on the left side of the road, I deserve a ticket. You run a red light at a stoplight, you deserve a ticket. And that's my thoughts on Flock. I realize this isn't going to make me very popular, but I'm not here to be popular. I'm here to tell you the truth as I see it. What do you think? Go ahead and post your comments. I'm TJ Walker. This is Filtered. Ultimize. Today on Ultimize Discover, you're getting a short practical sample from the Ultimize universe. Use this on its own, take one idea and apply it today, or go deeper at ultimize.com. Ultimize is the world's largest personal development podcast, audiobook, and online learning network. Ultimize. Most people think a crisis destroys reputations because of what actually happened. That's not necessarily true. Reputations are destroyed because of how a 10-second clip makes it look like something happened. That is the world you're living in right now. A single sentence taken out of context can spread faster than your full explanation ever will. A shaky phone video can define you before your team even knows there's a problem. And once that narrative starts moving, you're no longer in control of how you're perceived. This limited series podcast is about how to survive that reality. You're now entering Crisis Media Training for the Social Media and AI Era, produced by Ultimize, the world's largest personal development podcast network. I'm your host, TJ Walker. In this limited series, you're going to learn what to say in the first moments of a crisis, how to avoid statements that make you look guilty, how your words get clipped and weaponized, and How to communicate in a way that survives social media, viral outrage, and artificial intelligence. If you've ever wondered why smart, capable leaders lose everything in one interview and why others come out stronger, you're about to understand exactly why. And more important, you're going to know what to do if and when it's your turn. A crisis used to begin when the press showed up. Now it begins the moment something happens, often before you even know there's a problem. Someone records a video. An employee posts a comment. A customer shares a complaint. Within minutes, people are reacting, judging, and forming opinions, maybe forming lynch mobs. By the time you're thinking about what to say, the story is already moving without you. This is the biggest shift in crisis communications. You're no longer stepping into a conversation. You're stepping into a narrative that's already underway. That means you are behind from the very beginning. And if you treat this like an old-style crisis where you gather facts, draft a careful statement, wait for the right moment, run it by legal and the IR team, you're going to lose control of the story quickly because there is no perfect moment anymore. There's only the moment when the public starts paying attention, and that moment almost always comes before your first official response. Your job is no longer to just communicate. Your job is to catch up to a story that's already forming in real time. That changes how fast you move. It changes how simply you speak, and it changes what you must be prepared to do before a crisis ever happens. Most people still act like the crisis starts when they begin talking. It does not. It starts before you speak. The first thing you say in a crisis has always mattered, but today it matters far more than ever before because your first response is no longer just the beginning of the conversation. It often becomes the reference point for everything that follows. In the past, you could correct yourself later, you could clarify, you could expand your message over time, and people would eventually hear the fuller version of what That's no longer how it works. Now your first statement is captured, clipped, sliced, diced, and shared almost immediately. It becomes the version of your message that most people will see. And for many people, it will be the only version they ever hear. That means your first response is not just important, it's defining. If you sound evasive, People assume you're hiding something, and you're hiding it because you're guilty. If you sound defensive, people assume you're guilty. If you sound unprepared, people assume you're overwhelmed and not really up to the job. And once those impressions form, they're extremely, extremely difficult to reverse, even if your later statements are stronger, even if you provide more facts, even if you eventually tell a much clearer And more thorough story. The first impression tends to stick. That's why preparation matters so much more today. Not preparation in the sense of writing a perfect statement in the moment, but preparation in the sense of knowing how you're going to respond before a crisis ever happens. You need to know how to sound calm when you're under pressure. You need to know how to speak simply when the situation gets complicated, and you need to know how to deliver a message. that will still make sense even after it's been shortened, chopped, sliced, diced, and shared because your first response is no longer just a starting point. It's often the version that the world remembers. By the way, quick question for you. Have you ever noticed how easy it is to consume content and how hard it is to actually do anything with it? I mean, you can listen to 100 episodes, read 10 books, and your habits are exactly the same. That's the gap most people never close. So if you're listening to this and thinking, yeah, I want to actually improve, go to ultimize.com. We've got free courses there for you either on communication skills or building better habits. And it's designed to get you to actually use what you're learning, not just hear it once. No cost, no catch. Just go to ultimize.com and start. Ultimize. Ultimize. A New Mexico judge just ordered Meta to pay $567 million for harming children, on top of the $375 million a jury already hit them with in March. That's nearly a billion dollars. One state. And Meta's official response? They work hard to keep people safe. Right. Trusting Meta with your kids' safety is like hiring a babysitter who asks your kids, would you like Frosted Flakes for breakfast or a giant bag of M&M's? And when your kid picks the giant bag of M&M's, the babysitter says, great choice. Now, how about we dive into a tub of Nutella and guzzle some Red Bull? And then this babysitter charges you by the hour. The judge found Meta's platforms are helping drive a youth mental health Crisis. Meta's plan: appeal the ruling, deny everything, and keep pinging your ten-year-old's phone at two in the morning. Now, the full story: Judge Brian Bycheld in Santa Fe issued the ruling Thursday night. The $567 million goes into a fund for the damage, including treatment for harmed kids. Add the March verdict, where jurors found Meta misled users about safety and enabled. Sexual exploitation of minors, and Meta now owes New Mexico $942 million. That's enough to buy every kid in New Mexico a bicycle, a therapist, and a flip phone from 2004, which might be the best mental health plan on the market. The judge wrote that Meta's platforms are a significant contributing factor to the youth mental health crisis among New Mexico's young people. And Attorney General Raúl Torres said Meta knew, knew for years its platforms were harming kids, connecting predators with children, and it, quote, chose engagement and profit over their safety. That's not a blogger in a basement. That's the top law enforcement officer of an American state. When the Attorney General and the guidance counselors agree, you have accomplished something special. And New Mexico is just the opening act. Meta faces thousands of lawsuits from teenagers, school districts, and attorneys general, and this month it goes to trial in Oakland against the attorneys general of California, Colorado, Kentucky, and New Jersey. Meta says it disagrees, plans to appeal, and remains confident in its record of protecting teens. Meta being confident in its record of protecting teens is like BP being confident in its record of protecting pelicans. Or Godzilla being confident in his record of protecting Tokyo. The judge also ordered changes to the product. In New Mexico, Meta can no longer push notifications to underage users between 10 at night and 7 in the morning. Think about that sentence. Until this week ago, part of the business model of one of the richest companies on Earth was buzzing a 12-year-old's nightstand at 3 AM. That wasn't a bug. That was the product working exactly as designed. Somewhere in Menlo Park, an engineer got a bonus, and his performance review literally said, exceeds expectations at keeping 4th graders awake. Here's my favorite detail in the ruling: children in New Mexico are now legally limited to 90 hours a month on Meta's apps. 90 hours? That's 3 hours a day every day, and that's the court-ordered improvement. 3 hours a day is not a hobby. It's a part-time job with no paycheck where the entire benefits package is anxiety. If your kids spent 3 hours a day practicing violin, you'd be booking Carnegie Hall. 3 hours a day on Instagram and you're booking a therapist. When a court has to cap your product for children the way we cap nicotine and gambling, You're not a social network anymore. You're a vice. Congratulations, Mark, you're in the same regulatory category as cigarettes, but with worse customer service. And let's talk about this company. Even setting the kids aside, Facebook is beginning worse and worse and worse for everybody. Try using Facebook groups lately. Groups used to be the one good thing left. Your running club, your school parents, your guitar nerds. Now it's like holding a neighborhood meeting in the middle of a casino while a guy in sunglasses keeps interrupting to sell you crypto and miracle gummies. And your feed— wall-to-wall pop culture landfill. I have no idea what any of my friends are up to anymore. I haven't seen an actual post from a real friend since the first Trump administration. As far as Facebook is concerned, everyone I know vanished in 2019. And was replaced by AI-generated Shrimp Jesus and strangers screaming about celebrities I've never heard of. And God help you if your account gets hacked or deleted. You're simply out of luck. Meta has 3.5 billion users and roughly the customer service operation of an abandoned lemonade stand, which is unfair to lemonade stands. At least there's a kid you can talk to. Your photos, your business page— gone. No phone number, no human being, no appeal. 15 years of your family history held hostage by a chatbot that keeps asking if you've tried logging out and logging back in. A company fined nearly $1 billion for failing to protect children can't even protect your login. And how's morale inside Meta? Every employee I've talked to hates it there, and I finally understand why. The boss keeps going on podcasts explaining how excited he is to use artificial intelligence to eliminate their jobs, all their jobs. Mark Zuckerberg may be the first CEO in history whose employee retention strategy is a countdown clock. The official team-building exercise is updating your resume. Would you like to be the sort of successful person who is dominating news, at least in your industry? Well, if so, it's time to up your skills. At ultimize.com, I've created online courses to help you do that. Now, here's the thing, no obligation. You can get a free course on communication skills, a free course on how to build better habits. All you have to do is go to ultimize.com. That's ultimize.com. No obligation. Go there now. Now, let me be fair because fairness makes the criticism land harder. Zuckerberg deserves real credit for one thing. He took what MySpace and Friendster and all the early social sites were fumbling, and he actually made it work. Early Facebook was a glorious thing. Old classmates reconnecting, far-flung families sharing photos, lost friends finding each other. For that, sure, he deserves to be a billionaire, I guess. Maybe not $200 billion, but one Absolutely. But for the last 10 years, this man has been locked in a personal competition with Elon Musk to see who can be the biggest jerk in the history of the world. And folks, it is a photo finish. He burned $80 million with a B on the metaverse, an idiotic digital ghost town nobody ever asked for, where legless cartoon executives held meetings in an empty virtual conference room. $80 million and the avatars didn't have legs. A kindergartner's refrigerator drawing has legs, and those are free. Then he pivoted to sucking up to Donald Trump, tossing out the fact-checkers and every last shred of decency standards like they were expired condiments. And underneath all of it sits the basic algorithm. If somebody wants to spread a lie, Meta will build them a giant audience. It used to be that Nazis and flat earthers had a distribution problem. A mimeograph in a basement, shouting at strangers at a bus stop. Now, somebody posts that Hillary Clinton is a transsexual who secretly murdered JFK while poisoning your local water system, and they've got 200,000 new followers by lunchtime and a $5 million brand deal by dinner. And by breakfast the next morning, they're on a podcast being introduced as a free speech warrior. The lie doesn't need to be true. It just needs to be engaging. Truth doesn't trend. Decency doesn't scale. Outrage does both. And outrage is the only god this company has ever worshipped. And here's the deeper truth. Mark Zuckerberg is not an evil genius twirling his mustache. It's worse than that. It's indifference at industrial scale. The algorithm doesn't hate your children. The algorithm doesn't even see your children. It sees inventory. To that machine, your daughter is a billboard with a heartbeat. Whatever you measure is what you maximize, and Meta measures exactly one thing: minutes of human attention. It will harvest them from a lonely 12-year-old at 3 in the morning just as happily as from anyone else, because the machine can't tell the difference between connection and addiction. And the man who owns the machine stopped caring about the difference Somewhere around his second $100 billion in net worth. So here's where I'll land. Whether you have kids or not, a court can fine Meta $1 billion, but no judge on earth can order Meta to care about you. The only person who controls your attention is you, and your attention is the most valuable asset you will ever own. Every hour you hand to the feed is an hour you didn't give to your health. Your skills, your family, or your actual friends. So tonight, do something radical. Pick up your phone, skip the apps, and call one friend Facebook has been hiding from you since 2019. It's free, and Zuckerberg can't sell an ad in the middle of it yet because this man built a machine that promised to connect the world, and instead he built the loneliness business. Stop being his best customer. I'm TJ Walker, and this is Filtered. Ultimize. Ultimize. Donald Trump's billionaire Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has announced that the K-shaped economy is over. That's fantastic news. Can someone please tell literally everyone except Scott Bessent? Because my grocery store didn't get the memo. My insurance company didn't get the memo. The guy asking $950,000 for a starter home definitely didn't get the memo. Apparently, the only person who thinks affordability has been solved is the billionaire in charge of telling us affordability has been solved. That's like a guy on a private jet saying, I don't understand why everyone's upset about baggage fees. Now, to be fair, Scott Bessent actually has an argument. And unlike cable television, we're going to give him the strongest version of that argument before we disagree with it, because that's what honest people do. His argument is simple: workers at the bottom of the income scale have recently been seeing wages grow faster than the workers at the top. If that's true, that's genuinely good news. Every American should celebrate that. But here's the problem. People don't experience the economy through spreadsheets. They experience it through receipts. Nobody walks into the grocery store and says, honey, these prices are outrageous, but before we panic, what did the Treasury Secretary say quarterly wage growth was among the bottom income quartile? No, nobody says that because people don't live inside economic statistics. They live inside economic reality. And that's what we're going to talk about here today. Let's separate the statistics from reality. To be fair to Secretary Bassett, let's begin with his actual argument. Economists call it a K-shaped economy. One line goes up, one line goes down. People who own appreciating assets like stocks, businesses, and expensive real estate get wealthier. People who depend primarily on wages struggle to keep up. That's the downward part. Secretary Bassett says the picture is changing. He says the economy is becoming more C-shaped because wage growth for lower-income workers has recently been stronger than wage growth at the top. If that's true, great, fantastic. I sincerely hope it's true. If lower-income workers are finally getting meaningful raises, that's something every American should be happy about. But wages are only one part of the story. Purchasing power is what people actually live. A family doesn't grade the economy with an economist report. Every family grades the economy with exactly 5 questions: grocery test, gas test, rent test, house test, college test. If those 5 answers are getting worse, people don't care what letter economists decide to use. Now, let's talk about inflation. For most of his professional career, Scott Bessent understood something that almost every mainstream economist also understood: tariffs generally increase prices. They're taxes on imported goods. Businesses absorb some of those costs, but many get passed directly to consumers. Then Donald Trump made tariffs the centerpiece of his economic agenda. Suddenly, many people who spent decades criticizing tariffs became enthusiastic supporters. That's quite a conversion. I've seen people change religions with less enthusiasm than some people change their opinions on tariffs. The real question isn't whether tariffs increase prices. The real question is who pays the price. If you're worth billions of dollars, paying a little more for appliance, clothing, or electronics Doesn't change your lifestyle at all. If you're living paycheck to paycheck, every extra dollar matters. Inflation is unequal. It always has been. The same percentage hurts different people very differently. The same thing applies to gasoline. Higher oil prices don't affect everyone equally. Many affluent professionals work from home several days a week, or like I do, every day of the week. Construction workers don't. Delivery drivers don't. Nursing assistants don't. Electricians don't. The people who physically keep America running are the very people who have to buy gasoline week after week after week. When gas prices rise, they're effectively taking a pay cut. Would you like to be the sort of successful person who is dominating news, at least in your industry? Well, if so, it's time to Up your skills. At ultimize.com, I've created online courses to help you do that. Now, here's the thing. No obligation. You can get a free course on communication skills, a free course on how to build better habits. All you have to do is go to ultimize.com. That's ultimize.com. No obligation. Go there now. Now, here's where I think both political parties miss the biggest story. This didn't begin with Donald Trump, and it won't end when Donald Trump leaves office. The 2 biggest expenses most families face are housing and education. Both have risen dramatically, faster than overall inflation for decades. Politicians spend all day arguing about the price of eggs. Eggs matter. Milk matters. Gas matters. But groceries aren't the reason so many young Americans believe they're falling behind. Housing is. Education is. Those are the purchases that determine whether you ever build wealth. Groceries hurt this week. Housing changes your next 40 years. If you bought your first home 25 or 30 years ago, congratulations. You probably feel pretty smart. Well, maybe you are, but maybe you were also born at exactly the right time. Luck deserves a lot more credit than politicians ever admit, and I include myself in that. I'm fortunate. I bought my education in a different America. I bought housing in a different time. That doesn't make me wiser than today's 25-year-olds. Makes me luckier. I've reached a point in life where gas prices don't really determine whether I can go out to dinner this weekend. Good, lucky for me. But it also means I have an obligation not to pretend my situation is typical. When a young couple tells me buying a home feels impossible, My first instinct isn't to argue with them. It's to believe them because the numbers back them up. Housing has become dramatically less affordable. College has become dramatically less affordable. Meanwhile, politicians keep pointing at the stock market. The stock market can be doing wonderfully while millions of Americans feel like they're falling behind because, little secret, 90% of Americans own little or no stock. So most Americans don't live off stock portfolios. They live off paychecks. Politicians celebrate GDP, gross domestic product. Families celebrate finally saving enough for a down payment. Those aren't the same thing. This is why politicians keep getting surprised by elections. They tell people the economy they should be experiencing instead of listening to the economy people are actually living. Scott Bessent may be right that one economic indicator has improved. I hope he's right, but one improving statistic doesn't erase years of rising housing costs, rising tuition costs, rising insurance costs, rising gas prices, in part because of this imbecilic war in Iran, and the rise of so many other everyday expenses. So here's my new rule: stop telling Americans they're better off, make them better off. Because if a teacher, a firefighter, a nurse, an electrician, and a young couple working 2 full-time jobs still can't afford a modest home, I don't care whether economists call the economy K-shaped, C-shaped, or shaped like a pretzel. The American dream is still out of reach for far too many Americans. And until ordinary working people can once again afford a home, build wealth, and believe their children will have an easier life than they did, don't be surprised when people trust the price tag at the grocery store more than they trust the talking points coming out of Washington, especially from this administration. I'm TJ Walker. This is Filtered. Ultimize. Ultimize. Remember when politicians used to resign? I know, if you're under 35, this probably sounds like something your grandparents made up. Back in my day, when a politician got caught doing something sleazy, he'd actually leave office. Sure, Grandpa, and gasoline cost a quarter. But it actually happened today. Republican Congressman Chuck Edwards dropped his reelection campaign after the House Ethics Committee concluded he had repeatedly, repeatedly engaged in inappropriate conduct toward 2 young female staffers. And my first reaction wasn't another politician in trouble. My first reaction was remarkable. Somebody still knows when the show's over, because for the last 10 years, every political scandal has followed exactly the same script. Get caught, deny everything, attack the investigators, attack the media, attack the accusers, raise money, write a book, start a podcast, run for higher office if you're not already in higher office. Chuck Edwards skipped seasons 2 through 7. He went straight to the season finale. I almost didn't know how to process it. It felt like stumbling across a Blockbuster Video store. And realizing it's actually open. You almost want to go inside just to make sure you're not dreaming. I'm not here to praise Chuck Edwards. The Ethics Committee painted a picture of behavior that was creepy, immature, and completely inappropriate for someone serving in Congress. Lavish gifts to attractive young female employees, compliments about appearance, personal notes, private dinner invitations. vacation invitations, basically every item on the list titled Things Human Resources Told You Not to Do During Orientation. What impressed me wasn't how he behaved, it was how he behaved after he got caught. He's leaving. That shouldn't be remarkable. That should be ordinary. For most of American history, that's how accountability worked. Not perfectly. Sometimes innocent people resign. Sometimes guilty people survived, but there was an understanding. If your own party abandoned you, if donors stopped returning your calls, if the polls collapsed, if the voters had made up their minds, the career was over. Politics had something we don't talk about very much anymore— shame. Healthy shame, not the kind your parents gave you because you wanted to major in theater. The useful kind, the kind that says you embarrassed yourself, you embarrassed your office, you embarrassed the people who trusted you. It's time to go. That's actually a healthy immune system for a democracy. Now notice everything Chuck Edwards didn't do. He didn't spend 6 months calling the women liars or prostitutes. He didn't declare the Ethics Committee corruption. He didn't insist the investigation was a witch hunt. He didn't claim the whole thing was election interference. He didn't tell everyone that he was actually the victim. He didn't say, these women aren't even attractive enough for me to harass. He didn't say, if I were to abuse my office, I'd pick somebody hotter. Think about how low our expectations have fallen. The absence of those statements actually feels refreshing. refreshing. We've become so accustomed to narcissists that basic human embarrassment now feels like an act of courage. That's not because Chuck Edwards suddenly became George Washington. It's because our standards have sunk so low that someone quietly leading office feels like watching a documentary about a lost civilization. Would you like to be the sort of successful person who is dominating news, at least in your industry? Well, if so, it's time to your skills. At ultimize.com, I've created online courses to help you do that. Now, here's the thing. No obligation. You can get a free course on communication skills, a free course on how to build better habits. All you have to do is go to ultimize.com. That's ultimize.com. No obligation. Go there now. The truth is politicians have always lied. Politicians have always cheated. Politicians have always had affairs. I'm not nostalgic for some imaginary golden age where every elected official was a choirboy. That place never existed. What did exist, though, was consequences. The old system wasn't politicians never behave badly. The old system was when enough evidence piles up, When enough allies disappear, when enough donors disappear, and enough voters stop believing you, your political career ends. It wasn't perfect, but it worked often enough to discourage the next guy. And it was usually guys, let's face it. Today, we've almost reversed the incentives. Every accusation becomes a fundraising email. Every investigation becomes proof you're important. Every scandal becomes campaign merchandise. Every indictment becomes another television appearance explaining why everyone is out to get you. We've somehow turned public disgrace into a business model, and that's one of the biggest changes in American politics over the last decade. The objective isn't proving you're innocent anymore. The objective is convincing your own supporters never to believe anyone but you. Once you accomplish that, shame disappears, facts become optional, reality becomes negotiable, and every scandal simply becomes another episode in an endless television series. No wonder nobody ever leaves, would they? Their audience keeps renewing the show. When people say, make America great again, they usually start talking about— manufacturing or immigration or tariffs or trade. Here's something from old America I'd actually like to bring back: the ability to feel embarrassed. Not woke, not anti-woke, not left, not right, just shame. Because shame is one of civilization's greatest inventions. It keeps people from cutting in line. It keeps you from wearing flip-flops to a funeral. Keeps most of us from sending that 3rd text after midnight, and it used to keep politicians from clinging to power after everyone knew the game was over. Chuck Edwards doesn't deserve applause for the conduct that got him here. He deserves only a very small measure of credit for remembering one tradition that actually did make America better. When everyone knows, when your own party knows, when your donors know, when your voters know, and most importantly, when you know The office no longer belongs to you. You leave. That isn't weakness. It isn't surrender. That's accountability. For generations, that was one of the unwritten rules that helped keep American democracy healthy. Not because our politicians were better people, but because enough of them still understood there comes a moment when the honorable thing isn't to keep fighting. It's to Exit the stage. I'd like to live in a country where that isn't considered extraordinary. I'd like to live in a country where that's simply how grown-ups behave. I'm TJ Walker. This is Filtered. Ultimize. Ultimize. Remember when turning 50 meant you were supposed to retire, buy a rocking chair, and start yelling at squirrels? Morgan Freeman is 89 years old, about to be 90. He's still memorizing scripts, starring in Lioness, and taking on new acting challenges. LeBron James is 41. Instead of retiring, he's packing for Philadelphia, hoping to win one more NBA championship. Aaron Rodgers is in his 40s, apparently still thinks being chased by 300-pound defensive linemen counts as a healthy hobby. And just a few weeks ago, 28-year-old Josh Kerr, I know that's young, but he ran the fastest mile in human history, 3 minutes, 42.66 seconds, breaking a world record that had stood for 27 years. Notice the pattern? The biggest limits in life usually aren't biological, they're psychological. Somewhere along the way, millions of people started saying 4 of the dumbest words in the English language. I'm too old. Well, I'm 63 years old. The past month, I've done 20 stand-up comedy open mics. No, I'm not announcing my Netflix special. Let's first see if I consistently make 12 people laugh who got in for free. But I refuse to let the phrase, I'm too old, decide the rest of my life. Now, before anyone misunderstands me, biology always wins. Nobody has yet defeated aging. Nobody's defeated death. No matter how many supplements you're taking or how many podcasts you listen to, eventually, nature sends you the final bill. But here's what has changed dramatically. We've stopped confusing aging with quitting. Those are not the same thing. For most of human history, people assumed there was a certain age where you simply stopped doing difficult Thanks. You stopped learning. You stopped competing. You stopped creating. You stopped dreaming. Today, we've discovered that many of those limits were never really imposed by nature. They were imposed by culture. Morgan Freeman is a perfect example. The New York Times just profiled him as he approaches 90 years old. He's returning for another season of Lioness. He's still taking on demanding acting roles. He's producing blues projects. He's preserving American musical history. Most impressive to me, he's still memorizing pages and pages of dialogue. I had trouble memorizing scripts when I was 20. He's doing it at 89. People constantly ask him about that legendary voice. He says he doesn't understand the fuss. His secret? I just try to speak clearly. That's what he said. Now, that's wonderfully disappointing at some level. No magic crystal, no secret vocal exercise, just decades of speaking clearly. Another part of Freeman's story gets overlooked. His career didn't really explode until he was around 50. Imagine if he decided, well, I'm 50 now. Better slow down. No Driving Miss Daisy. No Glory. No Shawshank Redemption. No narrator's voice that somehow became the official sound of God, documentaries, and half the commercials on television. Then there's the body. For years, people acted like Tom Brady was some once-in-a-century medical miracle. Maybe he was simply the first member of a much Larger generation. Aaron Rodgers is still competing in his 40s in the NFL. LeBron James is 41 years old and preparing for a new chapter with the Philadelphia 76ers. Quarterback isn't exactly a desk job; neither is NBA basketball. These athletes aren't succeeding because they discovered unicorn vitamins. They're doing incredibly boring things. They exercise. They stretch, they recover, they sleep. Oh wow, do they sleep a lot. They eat well. They repeat every single day. There's no off-season. Everyone wants to know the miracle. The miracle is consistency. Sleep is free. Walking is free. Broccoli is still cheaper than Ozempic. Would you like to be the sort of successful person who is dominating news at least in your industry? Well, if so, it's time to up your skills. At ultimize.com, I've created online courses to help you do that. Now, here's the thing, no obligation. You can get a free course on communication skills, a free course on how to build better habits. All you have to do is go to ultimize.com. That's ultimize.com. No obligation. Go there now. Now let's talk about limits. For centuries, everyone knew the 4-minute mile was impossible. Doctors actually claimed the human body couldn't survive it. Then Roger Bannister ran it at 3 minutes 59.4 seconds in 1954. The truly fascinating part wasn't that one man did it. It's within a few years, other runners started doing it. The barrier had been as much psychological as physical. Today, elite college runners regularly break 4-minute miles. Hundreds of high school runners have done it. What used to define the absolute limits of humanity has become almost a prerequisite for elite competition. Then, just a few weeks ago, another reminder. Josh Kerr, only 28 years old, ran at 3 minutes, 42 seconds, breaking Haikam El Guerrouj— and forgive me, I know I'm botching his name— but the previous record holder had had a record for 27 years. 27 years. An entire generation looked at that number and assumed maybe that's as fast as humans can ever run. Then one person proved otherwise. Records don't simply measure speed, they measure imagination. The same thing happens outside of sports. Think about the movie and Broadway show Sunset Boulevard. Norma Desmond was portrayed as the tragic, washed-up former movie star. Do you know how old she was supposed to be? 50. And that's how old Gloria Swanson was when she portrayed that role. Today, 50 is when people are training for marathons, starting companies, learning new languages, raising teenagers, and sometimes having abs better than their own children. Our expectations have changed much faster than our biology, and that's wonderful. Now, let me make this personal. I'm 63. This month, I walked into 20 stand-up comedy open mics. That's intimidating at any age. Most of the comedians were young enough to be my children, or dare I say it, grandchildren. Some looked young enough to need permission slips to stay out after 9 o'clock. Am I going to end up with a Netflix comedy special? Probably not. Could I? Maybe. I honestly don't know. But here's what I do know. I'll never find out if I stop myself with a sentence, I'm too old. That sentence has probably killed more dreams than arthritis ever has. Now, obviously there are exceptions. If you're 90, maybe don't become a coal miner. If you're 85, downhill motorcycle racing might not be your ideal next hobby. Use common sense. But wanting to paint, wanting to write, wanting to learn the piano, wanting to speak another language, wanting to start a business. Wanting to finally get healthy? Age is not the thing stopping you. Fear is. Comfort is. Habit is. The calendar is usually innocent. The real prison isn't built by biology. It's built by vocabulary. So today, I'd like to suggest retiring one phrase forever. I'm too old. Replace it with something much more honest. I haven't started yet. Because those 2 sentences create 2 completely different lives. One sentence ends the story. The other begins it. And as long as you're still breathing, I think I'd rather keep beginning. I'm TJ Walker. This is Filtered. Ultimize. Ultimize. Flock Safety has become one of the most controversial police technology companies in America. Its automated license plate readers photograph cars on public roads, identify their plates, and put that information into searchable databases. Flock says its network is now used by more than 5,000 law enforcement agencies and processes billions of plate reads every single month. Critics on both the left and right call this mass surveillance. They worry police can reconstruct where innocent people travel, that officers can abuse the databases, that outside agencies can gain access, and that eventual billions of individual observations become a detailed record of people's lives. Those concerns aren't imaginary. There have been documented cases of police misusing license plate reader systems because they thought some woman was hot, and critics have raised concerns about ICE access. So that's the argument against Flock. This is one case where there is consensus from left to right across America that Flock is bad, bad, bad, bad. It's got to go. And I stand firmly in the camp of that's crazy. I don't think the problem is having Flock everywhere. I think the problem is we're not using its full powers. Now bear with me. Let's let's look at the facts here. Yes, there can be abuse. There can be situations where ICE can use this to harass poor innocent people. There are creepy police officers who see. someone they think is a hot woman, and let's face it, it's the men police officers tracking women, following her every move so they can just conveniently bump into her at the 7-Eleven. That's creepy and weird, but there are ways of checking that. There are ways of preventing abuse. I think the benefits of the technology of block far outweigh any negatives. The problem is we're just not using it. at full force. Right now, it's just taking pictures. It's not attached to radar. It's not tracking whether people speed. It's not tracking whether people go through red lights. It's not tracking whether people tailgate, but it could. Why would that be a good thing? Now, let me put my cards on the table because some of you are going to think, well, TJ must have stock in this company. I own no stock. In Flock. I don't know anybody who works there. I have no vested interest. I'm not paid by them. They're not a sponsor of this show. I'm giving it to you like I see it, and you can feel free to give your comments as you like it, as you see it below as well. But this whole idea of, okay, you see someone come to your house Mug a family member, attack a family member, perhaps violently attack a family member. You see them drive off and you see their license plate. What's happened for the last 100 years or so is you would call the police, tell them the license plate, and maybe it would kind of filter out. Meanwhile, the person could just drive away, be 2 blocks away, pass a police officer. No one would know. They wouldn't get caught. Now, boom, their location can be ascertained almost instantly. It's so much harder to commit crime and drive away in a car where you have the license plate shown in any community that has this. So the argument is basically it's too good. Let's do the old-fashioned way. It's almost like saying, okay, I don't like paying taxes. Therefore, let's not use— let's not let anyone at the IRS use a calculator. Let's just hire 1,000 more IRS officials so they can manually count, go through and add, you know, get a little paper and pen and add up, because then they wouldn't ensnare us for tax violence. Now, I realize some people might say, hey, you're on to something, but that way— expand the number of IRS officials needed dramatically. So, here's the part that I think everyone always forgets because it's so normal that we don't notice it. 1.2 million people a year die in car crashes around the world. Technically, 1.19. I want to give you the facts. 39,000 die on average in the United States. If, for example, we could connect these flock cameras to radar and automatically give a ticket to people speeding or tailgating, even the most conservative estimates says that should reduce deaths by a couple of thousand people. So, imagine yourself, you're at a city council meeting, and you're saying, I want the right to speed. We don't— we shouldn't have a flock camera attached to radar in our community. And you know what? If we have to have the equivalent of 9/11 every year in terms of death toll, I'm willing to murder 2,000 American citizens every year so I have the right to run a red light and speed. That's essentially the argument you're making. Now, I haven't seen anyone willing to say that for fear they would look like complete absolute jerks, which they would be. But let's make no mistake about it, that is essentially the argument. Again, if someone were saying, okay, here is a certain president's enemy list, so the government's now going to go put a lock camera in their home and a recording device on their cell phone just because they voted against the president. Believe me, I'm all in on banning that, but that's not what's happening. We're talking about public roads. Now, this is done in other countries. I've been to Qatar and I've seen it where it says you're now being monitored and you're going to get a ticket automatically if you speed. Guess what happened? A lot fewer people went speeding. This happens in Singapore. And where it has happened, they're seeing quite often a 25% reduction in traffic accidents that result in death. Call me old-fashioned, but the idea that the government could pass a regulation and prevent thousands of people from dying, I think that's a good thing. Especially if it's not requiring some onerous, onerous burden on the rest of citizens. And I'm sorry, but following the speed limit isn't an onerous ask. It's just not a big ask. Between the opposition to this, these flock cameras and red light cameras, we have a real problem in America. We have people saying, Laws are good for other people, but not for me. I shouldn't have to follow the law. And hey, I get it. Have I ever gone speeding? Yes. Have I ever had a speeding ticket? Yeah, one ticket 35 years ago. And it's not because I'm perfect. But if I knew every single time my car is monitored and I would automatically be emailed a ticket and it would automatically be deducted from my bank account, believe you me, I'd stop speeding. I'd somehow figure out a way to go the speed limit, and so would you. The result— I'm not saying there would be zero traffic deaths in America, but no serious person thinks that we would still have 39,000 deaths a year. Whether it goes to 37,000 or 30,000 or 20,000, isn't that a good thing? I want you to think for a moment. Surely, if not in your own immediate family, a friend of a friend at least has someone in their family who's died in an automobile wreck. And I want you to ask yourself seriously, if you had gotten a ticket for speeding automatically just because of one of these cameras, but that person could live, Would you be willing to maybe slow down a little, maybe pay a $50 ticket if it could save the life of a family member or friend? I think when you personalize it like that, it's all of a sudden not so crazy to think this technology should be warranted. Would you like to be the sort of successful person who is dominating news, at least in your industry? Well, if so, it's time It's time to up your skills. At ultimize.com, I've created online courses to help you do that. Now, here's the thing. No obligation. You can get a free course on communication skills, a free course on how to build better habits. All you have to do is go to ultimize.com. That's ultimize.com. No obligation. Go there now. You know, what gets me is so many people love to bash government waste. Oh, isn't government wasteful? And yet they demand that government be wasteful. We somehow think it's great to have more and more police officers sitting in a car with a radar gun, drinking coffee, and frankly having a boring job pointing that gun so that they can one at a time Do speed checks on 0.0001% of the people in that town. That, that's somehow okay. Very few people say that that really shouldn't be allowed. But oh my gosh, putting up an automatic radar gun, um, call back the British, uh, that's tyranny, let's have another tea party. It's hysterical. It's just technology. If you believe in the radar gun of a police holding it Why wouldn't you have the thing automated to use technology more effectively? It's like toll booth operators. Why do we automate toll booths? Because it was wasteful and stupid to have people on the payroll doing something that a machine can actually do better and 1,000 times cheaper. And that's the case with these flock cameras. Yeah, believe me, if someone kidnaps your kid— not that that many kids are actually kidnapped by anyone other than family members, but bear with me— someone kidnapped a family member of yours and Flock technology could instantly tell the police, okay, the kidnapper is 12 blocks away, we have 3 police cars in the vicinity, and we can go ahead and capture that person. Bring them in and arrest them in about 2 minutes. Are you okay with that, or should we turn off the block cameras and just put out their pictures in the post office? Is that what you want? I don't think you'd want that. I don't want that. Think of it this way. I mean, we use the best technology to solve problems in every other aspect of life, private sector and public sector. But I guess in theory, some cheap airline could say, oh, if the federal government gets rid of requirements for planes to have radar, we'll save a few bucks and we'll just start selling tickets to our airline on a plane without radar. And if every so often we crash into another skyscraper and everyone dies, oh well, at least we have government freedom. At least we don't have a surveillance society. We're not surveilling every building or every plant is. I mean, if you take this to the logical extreme, someone could say, well, I don't want radars having— or I don't want airplanes having radar because what if I want to put my own drone above my airspace of my house? I don't want Eastern Airlines or their defunct or or United Airlines to have their radar see my drone. Obviously a ridiculous, absurd argument, but really no different than the argument against FLOC. And believe me, I'm sensitive to the idea that FLOC can be used to harass people. It can be used by ICE, all sorts of nefarious things. There are other systems that can be put into place for that. Guns can be abused. Do we really want to go back to a time when no police officer can use a gun? I mean, I guess it works in Great Britain where they have clubs, but average people don't have guns over there either. Guns are a powerful technology. They are sometimes abused. But I would still like police in America to have access to guns. I want them to have access to all sorts of tools and technology that will save my life, my family's life, my friend's life, community's life, and your life. And that's why this idea that, you know, Flock is somehow the end of the world and the biggest evil— no, it's not. One of the things that Many people who are advocates of cameras point out to, and I'll be right upfront with you, it's correlation, it's not causation. But what they have noted is the last 20 years, other than a blip up during the pandemic, crime has gone dramatically down. Really, the last 30 years, especially in big cities, crime has gone dramatically lower and lower and lower. One of the theories is there are cameras everywhere. If you know any crime that you could commit is going to be on camera and you're going to get caught and you're going to get convicted and you're going to serve time, it is a real disincentive. Ideally, we live in a world where people just morally don't want to commit crime, but you know what? I'll take the next best thing. If someone wants to commit a crime, but they're afraid to do it for fear of being caught because they're captured on a flock camera or surveillance camera or a red light camera, Then I'm all in favor of that deterring them. I recently had a friend who served on a grand jury in New York City, and she said it was kind of the easiest thing in the world. The prosecutor came forward and said, we think this person assaulted this person. Oh, and by the way, here's 8 different video cameras showing every angle and the person's face of the person punching or raping the person in question. They had no choice Other to— other than to indict every single time. And guess what? You conservatives out there won't believe it, but New York City has the lowest crime rate it's had since the early 1960s. Oh, well, TJ, what about that? So I saw someone get pushed off the subway. Yeah, you saw it because of a camera. So any one crime gets more attention, but you as an individual and any policymaker needs to look at entire society. Crime is lower in New York City than it's been in 60 years. Violent crime is lower in New York City than it is in most Republican congressional districts in America, certainly more so— or certainly lower than Speaker of the House Mike Johnson's Louisiana district. But that's not a politically correct fact that offends too many people, so we won't talk about that. Anyway, Flock, my biggest beef with you is you got to figure out a way or get various political entities, cities, towns, states, to combine your technology with radar. And let's just automatically send people tickets when they're speeding. Let's automatically send people tickets when they're tailgating. And Yes. If you're at a red light, red, sorry to tell you folks, doesn't mean slow down. Red means stop. And forgive me for, for seeming pedantic here, but stop means there's no more forward motion. I've gotten into countless arguments with friends and family. Oh, I just stopped. Well, no, you didn't stop. This car never stopped. Going forward, you'll feel a car actually kind of lunge backwards for an eighth of a second if you stop. Oh, teacher, I'm in a hurry. There's no one around. I don't care. If we're going to have laws, then it can't be everyone gets to choose. Oh, there's no one on the road. I decided to drive on the left-hand side because I fantasize about being in the countryside in Great Britain. Nobody cares about my fantasy of driving as if I'm in the countryside of Britain. You catch me driving on the left side of the road, I deserve a ticket. You run a red light at a stoplight, you deserve a ticket. And that's my thoughts on the flock. I realize this isn't going to make me very popular, but I'm not here to be popular. I'm here to tell you the truth as I see it. What do you think? Go ahead and post your comments. I'm TJ Walker. This is Filtered. Ultimize. Today on Ultimize Discover, you're getting a short practical sample from the Ultimize universe. Use this on its own, take one idea and apply it today, or go deeper at ultimize.com. Ultimize is the world's largest personal development podcast, audiobook, and online learning network. Ultimize. Most people think a crisis destroys reputations because of what actually happened. That's not necessarily true. Reputations are destroyed because of how a 10-second clip makes it look like something happened. That is the world you're living in right now. A single sentence taken out of context can spread faster than your full explanation ever will. A shaky phone video can define Define you before your team even knows there's a problem. And once that narrative starts moving, you're no longer in control of how you're perceived. This limited series podcast is about how to survive that reality. You're now entering Crisis Media Training for the Social Media and AI Era, produced by Ultimize, the world's largest personal development podcast network. I'm your host, TJ Walker. In this limited series, you're going to learn what to say in the worst moments of a crisis, how to avoid statements that make you look guilty, how your words get clipped and weaponized, and how to communicate in a way that survives social media, viral outrage, and artificial intelligence. If you've ever wondered why smart, capable leaders lose everything in one interview and why others come out stronger, you're about to understand exactly why. And more important, you're going to know what to do if and when it's your turn. A crisis used to begin when the press showed up. Now it begins the moment something happens, often before you even know there's a problem. Someone records a video, an employee posts a comment, a customer shares a complaint. Within minutes, people are reacting, judging, and forming opinions, maybe forming lynch mobs. By the time you're thinking about what to say, the story is already moving without you. This is the biggest shift in crisis communications. You're no longer stepping into a conversation. You're stepping into a narrative that's already underway. That means you are behind from the very beginning. If you treat this like an old-style crisis where you gather facts, draft a careful statement, wait for the right moment, run it by legal and the IR team, you're going to lose control of the story quickly. Because there is no perfect moment anymore. There's only the moment when the public starts paying attention, and that moment almost always comes before your first official response. Your job is no longer to just communicate. Your job is to catch up to a story that's already forming in real time. That changes how fast you move. It changes how simply you speak, and it changes what you must be prepared to do. Before a crisis ever happens. Most people still act like the crisis starts when they begin talking. It does not. It starts before you speak. The first thing you say in a crisis has always mattered, but today it matters far more than ever before because your first response is no longer just the beginning of the conversation. It often becomes the reference point for everything that follows. In the past, you could correct yourself later, you could clarify, you could expand your message over time, and people would eventually hear the fuller version of what you meant. That's no longer how it works. Now your first statement is captured, clipped, sliced, diced, and shared almost immediately. It becomes the version of your message that most people will see, and for many people, It'll be the only version they ever hear. That means your first response is not just important, it's defining. If you sound evasive, people assume you're hiding something, and you're hiding it because you're guilty. If you sound defensive, people assume you're guilty. If you sound unprepared, people assume you're overwhelmed and not really up to the job. And once those impressions form, they're extremely, extremely difficult to reverse, even if your later statements are stronger, even if you provide more facts, even if you eventually tell a much clearer and more thorough story. The first impression tends to stick. That's why preparation matters so much more today. Not preparation in the sense of writing a perfect statement in the moment, but preparation in the sense of knowing how you're going to respond before a crisis ever happens. You need to know how to sound calm when you're under pressure. You need to know how to speak simply when the situation gets complicated. And you need to know how to deliver a message that will still make sense even after it's been shortened, chopped, sliced, diced, and shared. Because your first response is no longer just a starting point. It's often the version that the world remembers. By the way, quick question for you. Have you ever noticed how easy it is to consume content and how hard it is to actually do anything with it? I mean, you can listen to 100 episodes, read 10 books, and your habits are exactly the same. That's the gap most people never close. So, if you're listening to this and thinking, yeah, I want to actually improve, go to ultimize.com. We've got free courses there for You're either on communication skills or building better habits, and it's designed to get you to actually use what you're learning, not just hear it once. No cost, no catch. Just go to ultimize.com and start. Ultimize. Ultimize. A New Mexico judge just ordered Meta to pay $567 million for harming children. On top of the $375 million a jury already hit them with in March. That's nearly a billion dollars. One state. And Meta's official response? They work hard to keep people safe. Right. Trusting Meta with your kids' safety is like hiring a babysitter who asks your kids, would you like Frosted Flakes for breakfast or a giant bag of M&M's? And when your kid picks the giant bag of M&M's, The babysitter says, great choice. Now, how about we dive into a tub of Nutella and guzzle some Red Bull? And then this babysitter charges you by the hour. The judge found Meta's platforms are helping drive a youth mental health crisis. Meta's plan? Appeal the ruling, deny everything, and keep pinging your 10-year-old's phone at 2 in the morning. Now, the full story. Judge Brian Beicheld in Santa Fe issued the ruling Thursday night. The $567 million goes into a fund for the damage, including treatment for harmed kids. Add the March verdict, where jurors found Meta misled users about safety and enabled sexual exploitation of minors, and Meta now owes New Mexico $942 million. That's enough to buy every kid in New Mexico a bicycle, a Therapist and a flip phone from 2004, which might be the best mental health plan on the market. The judge wrote that Meta's platforms are a significant contributing factor to the youth mental health crisis among New Mexico's young people. And Attorney General Raul Torres said Meta knew, knew for years its platforms were harming kids, connecting predators with children, and it quote. Chose engagement and profit over their safety. That's not a blogger in a basement. That's the top law enforcement officer of an American state. When the attorney general and the guidance counselors agree, you've accomplished something special. And New Mexico is just the opening act. Meta faces thousands of lawsuits from teenagers, school districts, and attorneys general. And this month, it goes to trial in Oakland. against the attorneys general of California, Colorado, Kentucky, and New Jersey. Meta says it disagrees, plans to appeal, and remains confident in its record of protecting teens. Meta being confident in the record of protecting teens is like BP being confident in its record of protecting pelicans, or Godzilla being confident in his record of protecting Tokyo. The judge also ordered changes to the product. In New Mexico, Meta can no longer push notifications to underage users between 10 at night and 7 in the morning. Think about that sentence. Until this week ago, part of the business model of one of the richest companies on Earth was buzzing a 12-year-old's nightstand at 3 AM. That wasn't a bug. That was the product working exactly as designed. Somewhere in Menlo Park, an engineer got a bonus, and his performance review literally said, exceeds expectations at keeping 4th graders awake. Here's my favorite detail in the ruling. Children in New Mexico are now legally limited to 90 hours a month on Meta's apps. 90 hours. That's 3 hours a day, every day, and that's the court-ordered improvement. 3 hours a day is not a hobby. It's a part-time job with no paycheck, where the entire benefits package is anxiety. If your kids spent 3 hours a day practicing violin, you'd be booking Carnegie Hall. 3 hours a day on Instagram, and you're booking a therapist. When a court has to cap your product for children the way we cap nicotine and gambling, you're not a social network anymore. You're a vice. Congratulations, Mark. You're in the same regulatory category as cigarettes, but with worse customer service. And let's talk about this company. Even setting the kids aside, Facebook has been getting worse and worse and worse for everybody. Try using Facebook groups lately. Groups used to be the one good thing left— your running club, your school parents, your guitar nerds. Now it's like holding a neighborhood meeting in the middle of a casino. While a guy in sunglasses keeps interrupting to sell you crypto and miracle gummies, and your feed wall-to-wall pop culture landfill. I have no idea what any of my friends are up to anymore. Haven't seen an actual post from a real friend since the first Trump administration. As far as Facebook is concerned, everyone I know vanished in 2019 and was replaced by AI-generated shrimp. Jesus and strangers screaming about celebrities I've never heard of. And God help you if your account gets hacked or deleted. You're simply out of luck. Meta has 3.5 billion users and roughly the customer service operation of an abandoned lemonade stand, which is unfair to lemonade stands. At least there's a kid you can talk to. Your photos, your business page— gone. No phone number, no human being, no appeal. 15 years of your family history held hostage by a chatbot that keeps asking if you've tried logging out and logging back in. A company fined nearly $1 billion for failing to protect children can't even protect your login. And how's morale inside Meta? Every employee I've talked to hates it there, and I finally understand why. The boss keeps going on podcasts explaining how excited he is to use artificial intelligence to eliminate their jobs, all their jobs. Mark Zuckerberg may be the first CEO in history whose employee retention strategy is a countdown clock. The official team-building exercise is updating your resume. Would you like to be the sort of successful person who is dominating news, at least in your industry? Well, if so, it's time to up your skills. At ultimize.com, I've created online courses to help you do that. Now, Here's the thing, no obligation. You can get a free course on communication skills, a free course on how to build better habits. All you have to do is go to ultimize.com. That's ultimize.com. No obligation. Go there now. Now let me be fair because fairness makes the criticism land harder. Zuckerberg deserves real credit for one thing. He took what MySpace and Friendster and all the early social sites were fumbling, and he actually made it work. Early Facebook was a glorious thing. Old classmates reconnecting, far-flung families sharing photos, lost friends finding each other. For that, sure, he deserves to be a billionaire, I guess. Maybe not $200 billion, but one, absolutely. But for the last 10 years, this man has been locked in a personal competition with Elon Musk to see who can be the biggest jerk in the history of the world. And folks, it is a photo finish. He burned $80 million with a B on the metaverse, an idiotic digital ghost town nobody ever asked for, where legless cartoon executives held meetings in an empty virtual conference room. $80 million and the avatars didn't have legs. A kindergartner's refrigerator drawing has legs, and those are free. Then he pivoted to sucking up to Donald Trump, tossing out the fact-checkers and every last shred of decency standards like they were expired condiments. And underneath all of it sits the basic algorithm. If somebody wants to spread a lie, Meta will build them a giant audience. It used to be that Nazis and flat earthers had a distribution problem. A mimeograph in a basement, shouting at strangers at a bus stop. Now, somebody posts that Hillary Clinton is a transsexual who secretly murdered JFK while poisoning your local water system, and they've got 200,000 new followers by lunchtime and a $5 million brand deal by dinner. And by breakfast the next morning, they're on a podcast being introduced as a free speech warrior. The lie doesn't need to be true, it just needs to be engaging. Truth doesn't trend. Decency doesn't scale. Outrage does both. And outrage is the only god this company has ever worshipped. And here's the deeper truth. Mark Zuckerberg is not an evil genius twirling his mustache. It's worse than that. It's indifference at industrial scale. The algorithm doesn't hate your children. The algorithm doesn't even see your children. It sees inventory. To that machine, your daughter is a billboard with a heartbeat. Whatever you measure is what you maximize, and Meta measures exactly one thing: minutes of human attention. It will harvest them from a lonely 12-year-old at 3 in the morning just as happily as from anyone else, because the machine can't tell the difference between connection and addiction. And the man who owns the machine stopped caring about the difference Somewhere around his second $100 billion in net worth. So here's where I'll land, whether you have kids or not.