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Speaker 1: When I was a kid, there these pranksters, and they

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were very sort of kid friendly pranksters on children's television

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in the morning. And there was one thing that they

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did that just sticks with men out because it was

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just so funny where they would go into a supermarket

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and they would open cereal box and they would start

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eating the cereal in the supermarket, and eventually a supervisor

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would come over and say what are you doing, and

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then they would point to the box which set at

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the top twenty percent extra, and say, we're just eating

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the free bit.

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Speaker 2: Ask not what your country can do for you, ask

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what you can do for your country.

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Speaker 3: Mister Gorbuchaw, Tear down this wall.

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Speaker 2: It's the Ricochet Podcast with Cherald C. W. Cook and

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Stephen Hayward Hunt James Lilex. Today we're going to talk

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about fires, Carter and baseball crankory with Dan mcglomla.

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Speaker 3: So let's have our selves a podcast.

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Speaker 4: Despite what you have heard from Caruso, no firefighters have

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told us that they are running out of water.

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Speaker 2: And let's go out to Gigi Gracia.

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Speaker 5: She is live in Pacific Palisades. I know your signal's

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not the best, but gigib can you tell us?

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Speaker 2: Well, firefighters have told me they have no water on

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this block, and you may be able to make out

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the ember storm that we're in the middle of right now.

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Welcome everybody. It's the Ricochet Podcast, the first of the

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year of twenty twenty five. A quarter of the way

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through this century, a quarter of the way through that

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my tempest, fugitive, et cetera. Times wag at chariot and

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all that. What number is it, Well, it's seven hundred

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and twenty two, it seems, and we look forward to

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giving you fifty more this year. I'm joined by Charles CW.

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Speaker 3: Cook And who's this other guy we got here?

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Speaker 2: Hey, you you can show the hardy chuckle. It's Stephen Hayward. Gentlemen, Welcome,

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Happy New Year. Although that sentiment is a bit old

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by this point, we're into it. But again, we've all

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been enjoying our lives away from the microphone.

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Speaker 3: Here.

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Speaker 2: However, world affairs demand that we comment, don't they just

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not just world affair has been national. There's something that

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is different, it seems, about this particular set of California fires.

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We get used to them every year, at least I

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do news horrible fires scenes of immense conflagration, people fleeing.

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Speaker 3: All the rest of it.

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Speaker 2: But there seems to be an inexhaustible supply of houses and.

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Speaker 3: Wood and stuff out there, so we're kind of used

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to it. At this is different. Why is it different?

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Speaker 4: Well, I guess having grown up in southern California and

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seeing a lot of fires up close over the years,

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this one's just so much bigger. And there's the Hollywood factor.

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Let's face it, when Malibu and Pacific Palisades burned down,

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we're getting the list of all the celebrities whose homes

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have been lost, and the cost to insure is going

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to be and the state is going to be enormous.

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By contrast, now I was only two years old or whatever,

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but the bell Air fire of nineteen sixty one, which

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might be as comparable. When bell Air burns down, that's

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also a lot of rich people who lose their homes.

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There's a great pick sure, by the way, James of

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Richard Nixon standing on his.

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Speaker 2: Roof with a hose in his shiny shoes right.

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Speaker 3: His beach his beach shoes.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, right, So that was about five hundred homes were lost.

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I think we're now up to five thousand structures or

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more in the Eaton Canyon area. It may be have

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some interest to Ricochet listeners that I think. I have

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recorded three episodes of this podcast from one of my

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best friend's homes right on the edge of Eaton Canyon

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with a spectacular view of the mountains. His home survived

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in part because he's been aggressive about brush clearing on

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his perimeter, but a lot in his neighborhood are gone,

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and he tells me his house smells terribly of smoke,

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so it's going to be a while before it's inhabited,

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even once they get the power back on.

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Speaker 3: But you know, the old saying is California.

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Speaker 4: Has two seasons, fire season and mud slide season, and

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all we need is a big, heavy rain in the

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next well really anytime this winter, and we're going to

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have massive mudslides along Pacific Coast Highway and elsewhere. So

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this is what's the old Churchill line. This isn't the

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beginning of the end, it's just the end of the beginning.

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We're in for some rough times.

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Speaker 2: I had the great thing about all that rain, of course,

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or the capacious reservoirs that California has built to contain

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them to get into the dry times, Charles, does this

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seem like it's different because it's bigger, or is it

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different because something that we've been talking about for the

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last five years, which is the revelation that our betters

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and our leaders may not actually be as competent as

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we believe, and that the investments in the institutions in

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which we have invested so much faith and trust turned

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out to be hollow and just simply mechanisms for people

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who don't deserve the position to get to get ahead

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in life. Is that part of it or am I

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just reading some cranky political take into it.

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Speaker 1: Well, I didn't know, And I'd like to ask Steve

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about this. As the Californian on the panel, I have

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seen absurd attempts to blame this on Trump. Yes, often

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promulgated by people who are simultaneously telling others not to

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politiciz the disaster.

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Speaker 6: That seems obviously silly.

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Speaker 1: Then I've seen a lot of arguments that California, although

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this is a natural disaster and is no one's boult

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in a legal sense, has not prepared well for this.

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Now here's what I do know, Steve, and you could

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tell me to what extent you think the governor or

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the mayor or anyone else is to blame her. I

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have over the years written probably fifteen thousand words in

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National Review magazine on California's water woes, especially in the

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Central Valley. The protection of the Delta smells at the

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expense of agriculture, the pushing of millions of tons of

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water every year out into the sea, the failure to

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build new reservoirs despite Californians telling their government build new reservoirs,

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and so on and so forth. So I am predisposed

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here to think that California has screwed this up. And

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then I see that now viral Fox News local Fox

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News segment in which the post says, despite what always

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just said, there's no evidence that firefighters don't have any

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water to work with. And then they cut and the

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lady on the scene says, firefighters tell me they have

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no water to work with, and you just couldn't write it.

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But of course I want to think this because while

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I love California very dearly, it's the most beautiful state.

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I am a very pro California person. I grew up

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going to California. I really think it is astonishing and wonderful.

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I also think it is horribly disastrously mismanaged. So to

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what extent is this a fault of the government.

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Speaker 4: Very largely, it's not so much that the water isn't

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available in the quantity is necessary for something this large.

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It's the fact that we have not been taking steps

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for years to reduce the risk from this kind of conflagration.

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You know, there's lots of people have written about this,

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about the delays and obstacles to just clearing brush, clearing trees,

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doing control burns. The environmentalists soue and block and lengthen

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every proposal of the Forest Service or the State Board

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of Resources to manage this problem.

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Speaker 3: And so we have this dry tinderbox.

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Speaker 4: I think, by the way, I mean, I really do

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have to say that there has to be not just

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niavete and ideology, but actually some malice among some environmentalists.

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I think they want these disasters because for them, they

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think it's more fuel so to speak, for their climate

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change mania.

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Speaker 3: Of course, this is all being blamed on climate change, right.

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Speaker 4: So I could point in lots of great analyses, but

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one of the best, from three four years ago from

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all unlikely places was Pro Publica, that very left wing

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news outfit.

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Speaker 3: That's in their headline of their long report was we

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know how to reduce wildfire risks?

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Speaker 4: Why aren't we doing it? That they wouldn't identify the

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real culprit, but they had exact the right, the correct

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take on the subject, and you know, there you go.

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It's we're just because we're morons.

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Speaker 2: That's why it's inexplicable to the rest of us that

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they're part of government that is responsible for forest management

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says well, we need to manage the forests. Forest management

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is what we do, so let us do management of

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the forests. I assume that the people who are empowered

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to do so have some expertise in the matter. But

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yet when they're confounded by people who stand up and

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say no, you can't do that, it's inexplicable to the

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rest of us that they can delay and delay. We

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don't understand why they would say no, you cannot get

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rid of the dry tinder. Now to ascribe as you did,

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the motives to them that they want the fires because

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it it gives them more fuel, so to speak, fire away,

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as Joe Biden said, for their climate change stuff, it

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seems too Machiavelian and smart and cattling and the rest

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of it. There has to be something else. They can't.

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Speaker 3: I mean, what argument do they use.

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Speaker 2: They don't get up in court when they're making their

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argument and say no, no, you can't take that brush

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away because that will deprive us of a very photogenic

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opportunity to advance our agenda.

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Speaker 3: What do they say, What are their reasons?

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Speaker 4: Well, the superficial reason is well, this really represents and

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by the way, this goes back to the horrible Yellowstone

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National Park fires of nineteen eighty eight. What they said

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was is got's overdid fire suppression for decades. There's a

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little something to that. There's actually a decent, abstract argument

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that we should let forest fires run their course. But

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when you had then but then you do a one

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hundred and eighty degree turn, and you do know, brush clearing,

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no clearing of down trees for several decades. First you

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turn the Yellowstone into a tinder box? Was at that

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and now what thirty five years ago, whatever it was,

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and now we're doing it to all of California. In

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many parts of the West, this is true in other

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states like Colorado, which occasionally has terrible fires.

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Speaker 3: In the mountains there.

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Speaker 4: So I think it's again a superficiality of an awful

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lot of environmental dogma.

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Speaker 2: Charles, would you agree that it's sort of like saying, well,

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you know, we must let nature take its course. We

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cannot intercede too much because that destroys the delicate balance

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of nature. Therefore, we should not develop a ballistic missile

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shield against meteors that are coming to, you know, to

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crash into the ocean and demolish our civilization.

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Speaker 3: Anyway you're going to see.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, And it's in some sense indirect in that,

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although they would never say this, and I don't think

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they actively want people to die, but the fundamental position

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of those who take that view is that the houses

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shouldn't be there in the first place. I think it

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really does matter where you start. Again, I don't think

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this is a literal debate between people who want fires

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and people who don't. But I do think that if you,

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like me, think that we should build in the United

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States and that the earth is here for us to

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use so that we can increase our standard of living

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and bring people out of poverty and generally have a

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good time, Rather than that we are a cancer on it,

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and it will be better if we weren't here, and

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we probably stole the land anyway, Then you come to

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different conclusions, and I think Steve's onto something with that

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that they, yeah, they don't care as much as I

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do about this destruction.

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Speaker 4: Well maybe the proof of that's, James, is I know

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that you're a fan quote unquote of the fifteen minute City.

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I guarantee you that two things are going to happen

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that will be the next scandal. One, it's going to

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take people three four years to get building permits to

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rebuild their houses on the same footprint where they existed.

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They're going to do all the permit reviews and new

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building standards. Some of that makes sense, building standards do.

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But along the way you're gonna hear the visionaries say,

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you know, this is really an opportunity.

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Speaker 3: It's like the old.

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Speaker 4: Paul Krugman argument that hurricanes stimulate the economy, right who

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Charles remembers that, And they're gonna say, gosh, you know,

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I mean, it is true that you have a lot

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of old neighborhoods with old construction up near Altadena that

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completely wiped out block after block and they're gonna say, gosh,

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we just redesigned that whole urban area, and it's a

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great place where East plan a fifteen minute city. I

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guarantee that op ED is probably in the hopper at

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the Los Angeles Times right now. I have seen tweets

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already saying about Malibu, well, gosh, you know all those

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houses right on the beach, maybe we shouldn't allow people

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to rebuild there because of climate change and rising sea

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levels and this and that. And at least they propose

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to buy out people there, although that would be expensive.

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You know, I I'm shocked seeing these pictures because I

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drive up and down that road when I'm down at Pepperdine,

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and you know, even the most humble old shacks starts

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around three four million dollars, right, and it goes up

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from there. So that'd be a big price tag to

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tell people they can't rebuild there. But I expect that's

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going to be a great difficulty getting those houses rebuilt too.

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Speaker 2: Well, when you talk about rising ocean levels, that this

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is the position we must do something about global warming

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to avoid rising ocean levels. Also, we're going to dump

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the runoff water into the ocean, right and of course

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they would it's a matter of scale, to which I

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would say, all right, well, if it's a matter of scale,

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then let's talk about Britain going carbon zero to bankruptcy, yeah,

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versus China doing exactly whatever it wishes to do.

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Speaker 3: Seven. You may be right.

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Speaker 2: I mean, some of these communities were already fifteen minute communities.

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California doesn't abound with them. But I was looking at

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Pacific Power and some of the little commercial nodes. That's

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what people talk about. The idea that you ought to

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be able to walk or stroll or bike or whatever

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to get what you need on a daily, regular, weekly

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basis is a fifteen minute city and having a sense

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of place. And you know, urban filia is one of

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the terms that they use. I get all that, and

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I approve of that, and that's what it was. And

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if it comes back as that, great. The problem with

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the fifteen minute city is designing it explicitly so that

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it depresses the ability and desire to leave it. That's

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a whole different set of social engineering we can talk

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about elsewhere.

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Speaker 3: But you're may be right.

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Speaker 2: Part of the problem I think with this is that

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a lot of these houses demonstrate a level of inequality,

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and if you have inequity in the system, that is

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proof that the system has no moral standing and therefore

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should be dismantled. So it'll be interesting, yes, to see

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how they would like to revitalize these things.

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Speaker 3: And it really does.

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Speaker 2: I tell you, it is, it is, it is, It

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is what it is. But on the other hand, I

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got to tell you this being twenty twenty five, as

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I said before, a lot of people have already cast

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off their resolutions.

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Speaker 3: You may be one of them.

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Speaker 2: I guess they last about two weeks or so. And

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you know, I can see why, because there's really nothing

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to keep you doing what you do except for willpower.

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Sometimes you need something to help your willpower. Something you

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need to tell you what to do. Now, I'm not

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saying you need a personal trainer to walk around a

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nag you all the time, don't eat that, go.

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Speaker 3: To the gym and the rest of it. But what

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if there was one thing that every.

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00:14:29,320 --> 00:14:31,639
Speaker 2: Day you could use and it'd fit in the palm

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of your hand like the most well engineered little device

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you'd ever seen, and it could give you a guide

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for how to.

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Speaker 3: Eat the rest of the day.

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now we welcome to the podcast. Dan Dan McLaughlin senior

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writer at National Review Online and a fellow at the

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National Review Institute. You can find him hanger on Twitter x.

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He's baseball crank. You know the avatar.

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Speaker 3: You love it.

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Speaker 2: It's the flying baseball with a peevish expression yelling about

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00:16:48,919 --> 00:16:52,600
something or other. That's right, that Dan's the crank. But

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he's a great guy and a sensible fellow too.

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Speaker 3: You really get down to it, Dan, Welcome, Thank you.

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Speaker 2: So we have many things to talk about, but everyone's

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been toting up the accomplishments of Jimmy Carter, History's greatest monster,

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as the Simpson is called. You had a you provided

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a not uncharitable evaluation of the fellow, and you you

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titled it Conservatism's debt to Jimmy Carter. And this is

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not because it's like he was. He was so bad

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that we had to go for Reagan. Remind us some

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good words to say about Jimmy Carter.

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Speaker 7: Yeah, I mean, one hates to talk about Carter's accomplishments

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without air quotes, but but there are some I mean,

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I and as I said, yes, it is one of

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those obviously, is just the argument that you know, he

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gave us Reagan. But he in some ways prepared the

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ground for Reagan. He started some things that I don't

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think that Carter necessarily would have had the you know,

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the guts and the backbone to take as far as

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Reagan did, but he did. He should get some for

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starting them. He started the defense build up, Now that

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was a reversal. He had tried to cut the defense

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budget his first year in office. You know, he definitely

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did take a harder line on the Soviet Union, if

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perhaps misguided in some of its applications.

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Speaker 5: In his final year in office. You know, he.

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Speaker 7: I mean also was big on using like the nineteen

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seventy five Helsinki Accords to begin the process of building

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a case against the Soviet Union as an abuser of

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human rights, which was key not only to US propaganda abroad,

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propaganda in the positive sense, but also to building more

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liberal support at home for an aggressive stance in the

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Cold War.

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Speaker 5: You know. On inflation, Carter was completely unable to handle

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inflation while.

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Speaker 7: He was in office, but he did midway through his

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term appoint Paul Vulker to head the FED, and it

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was really Vulker, who did you know. Vulker was absolutely

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essential working later in tandem with Reagan, but he started

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to work under Carter to stopping inflation.

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Speaker 2: You know.

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Speaker 5: And I think the biggest accomplishment.

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Speaker 7: That Carter can take pure credit for, that's a really

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conservative accomplishment, is deregulation. He signed quite a lot of

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Bill's deregulating trucking, air travel, you know, trains, and you know,

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perhaps nearest and dearest to many hearts beer, you know,

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he did a lot to deregulate brewing in the United States.

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There are only forty four breweries when he took over.

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Billy Beer, of course, became the icon for those of

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us old enough to remember that era. Yes, the beer

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put out by by Jimmy's near do well redneck brother,

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which I suppose we should be nostalgic for the days

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when the president's near do well relatives simply sold embarrassing

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beer rather than you know, selling out to China. But

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you know, Carter's deregulation did a lot of good in

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a lot of directions, and that he should be he

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should get uh, you know, unqualified credit for doing that.

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Speaker 2: Well, I know the guys want to leap in, but

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I just want to ask this why, I mean we

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why did Carter towards the end, was he actually affected

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by the results of his previous policies and had a

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Saul on the Road Damascus moment?

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Speaker 7: I mean, I think on on on the Soviet Union. Yes,

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he was mugged by reality. And and again I don't

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know that Carter ever fully. You know, he never went

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sort of the full evil empire route that that Reagan

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started off with. But I think he realized that his

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policies towards the Soviet Union had failed, and that that

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something you know, that we were entering into a a

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new era of confrontation in which, you know, negotiation alone

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was not going to get us anywhere.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, Dana, Steve Hayward out in California. As you may know,

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I wrote a very critical book about Carter twenty years ago,

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about mostly his ex presidency, where I think he was disgraceful.

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I agree with you about his domestic record, and his

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foreign policy accomplishments like the Camp David Accords were genuine

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accomplishment for which I think, by the way, he should

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have shared the Nobel Prize with began and Sadat and

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they didn't give it to him until what two thousand

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and two, when it was used to kick George W.

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Bush in the rear end. I think the answer James

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question quickly is I think that is one difference between

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Carter and Biden that people are comparing him a lot

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right now is there was a growing consensus for deregulating

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the economy back in the seventies. I mean, one of

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the sponsors of deregulating the trucking industry.

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Speaker 3: Was Ted Kennedy.

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Speaker 4: And by the way, the staff member did the work

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on that was a guy named Stephen Bryer, later known

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of course as Justice Bryer. And so Carter was sort

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of swimming with the mainstream. And of course you can't

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point to a single thing that the Biden administration has

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wanted to deregulate or ease up on. Quite the opposite.

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They're back to the old sixties style regulate everything. And

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so there's the problem is, at the end of the day,

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one of Carter's problems was he was, aside from the

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regulation story, he was out.

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Speaker 3: Of step with his own party.

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Speaker 4: You know, he was actually kind of a tight one

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on spending when the Democratic Party then wanted to spend

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like crazy. He wanted to reform welfare and they didn't

455
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want to do that, and so he gave up on it.

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He had a lot of crazy energy policy ideas that

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he also later reversed. But the biggest problem with Carter

458
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is that he was kind of an odd duck in

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the Democratic Party in the seventies, wasn't he.

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Speaker 7: Yeah, yeah, I mean he was always an odd duck generally.

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I mean, another distinction between him and Joe Biden is that,

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you know, in you know, before nineteen seventy seven, Jimmy

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Carter hadn't served in Washington and Joe Biden had already

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been there for five years.

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Speaker 5: But yeah, I mean Carter Carter. And by the way,

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I was at the Federalist Society convention back in November

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and they had Briar there.

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Speaker 7: Chatting chit chatting with with Neil Gorstach, and knowing his audience,

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Briar played up his deregulatory uh brief moment of his life.

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But yeah, I mean, I I think that, uh, And

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you know, Carter Carter was also a because you know,

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following sort of the principle that everyone is most conservative

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about that which he knows best. Carter was actually a

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proponent of nuclear energy. That was sort of one of

475
00:23:35,319 --> 00:23:37,519
his things that he was kind of right on about

476
00:23:37,599 --> 00:23:43,079
about energy. But uh yeah, I mean his post presidency

477
00:23:43,240 --> 00:23:45,759
and and you know, my my editor Phil Klein did

478
00:23:45,799 --> 00:23:50,799
a tremendous demolition of Carter's post presidency, uh, particularly the

479
00:23:50,920 --> 00:23:53,680
you know, sort of the foreign policy aspects of that.

480
00:23:55,039 --> 00:23:58,119
I mean, I think Carter, you know, on the issue

481
00:23:58,160 --> 00:24:00,079
of one thing I touched on on the issue of

482
00:24:00,119 --> 00:24:04,720
like election integrity and whatnot. On the puzzit positive side,

483
00:24:04,799 --> 00:24:08,440
we have Carter participating in the Carter Baker Commission in

484
00:24:08,440 --> 00:24:11,839
two thousand and five with James Baker supporting things like

485
00:24:11,920 --> 00:24:16,359
voter ID and other common sense election security things. And

486
00:24:16,519 --> 00:24:18,799
some of that goes back to Carter's own personal history

487
00:24:18,799 --> 00:24:22,039
of having been wrecked basically robbed in election. On the

488
00:24:22,039 --> 00:24:26,079
other hand, you know, I think he was uniquely toxic

489
00:24:26,599 --> 00:24:30,440
in bringing the prestige of a former president into branding

490
00:24:30,960 --> 00:24:33,640
both the two thousand election of Bush and the twenty

491
00:24:33,680 --> 00:24:38,039
sixteen election of Trump as illegitimate and stolen elections. And

492
00:24:38,079 --> 00:24:41,200
I think that that you know, we don't really have

493
00:24:41,279 --> 00:24:44,240
to go into a hypothetical scenario to imagine what sort

494
00:24:44,279 --> 00:24:45,559
of slippery slope.

495
00:24:45,200 --> 00:24:47,079
Speaker 5: That might lead us to by twenty twenty.

496
00:24:49,440 --> 00:24:51,279
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, you're right.

497
00:24:51,640 --> 00:24:53,799
Speaker 4: I think it was his very first election at Georgia

498
00:24:53,839 --> 00:24:56,200
and I want to say nineteen sixty two or something

499
00:24:56,640 --> 00:24:58,519
where he had to go to court to get some

500
00:24:58,599 --> 00:25:01,720
obviously phony ballots out and he succeeded at that, I think,

501
00:25:01,759 --> 00:25:05,039
as I recall, but so that memory did stick with

502
00:25:05,119 --> 00:25:07,839
him that you can steal elections, especially things like house

503
00:25:07,920 --> 00:25:11,359
races and state legislative offices and stuff like that. It

504
00:25:11,440 --> 00:25:14,400
is funny that that report that you reference quite correctly.

505
00:25:14,440 --> 00:25:16,680
It's a very good report, still very much worth reading.

506
00:25:16,920 --> 00:25:19,000
It didn't update I think a couple of years ago.

507
00:25:19,160 --> 00:25:21,599
Some of the staff of it essentially said we were

508
00:25:21,640 --> 00:25:25,559
right all along. It just disappears from the mainstream media

509
00:25:25,599 --> 00:25:28,359
discourse about elections and election security. It's like a non

510
00:25:28,440 --> 00:25:33,119
report thrown down the Orwellian memory hole. I will mention

511
00:25:33,240 --> 00:25:36,559
that a couple more things about his post presidency. You know,

512
00:25:36,640 --> 00:25:40,799
he loved Yasser Arafat, He cozied up to Hafez Assad

513
00:25:40,880 --> 00:25:43,319
in Syria at the same time our country was calling

514
00:25:43,400 --> 00:25:46,559
him a state sponsor of terrorism. In the eighties, and

515
00:25:46,599 --> 00:25:49,440
it finally led to your guy's fearless leader, Rich Lowry

516
00:25:49,519 --> 00:25:50,319
saying he's the.

517
00:25:50,279 --> 00:25:53,799
Speaker 3: Former president of which country. I mean, he took the

518
00:25:53,839 --> 00:25:54,440
side of all.

519
00:25:54,359 --> 00:25:58,519
Speaker 4: Of our enemies as relentlessly as say Ramsey Clark used

520
00:25:58,559 --> 00:26:00,000
to do back in the seventies and eighties.

521
00:26:00,839 --> 00:26:05,480
Speaker 7: Yeah, and I would say that carter skepticism of stolen

522
00:26:05,519 --> 00:26:07,720
elections definitely stopped at the water's edge.

523
00:26:08,039 --> 00:26:09,799
Speaker 3: Yeah, ah, yes, that's right.

524
00:26:10,079 --> 00:26:14,319
Speaker 6: Why did he win? Was it Watergate seventy six?

525
00:26:15,039 --> 00:26:19,000
Speaker 1: Yeah, his own party wanted someone else, it was the

526
00:26:19,079 --> 00:26:25,039
ABC movement, anyone, but Carter. The Republicans closed that election

527
00:26:25,240 --> 00:26:31,440
quite well. I'm tremendously that he did win. I sometimes

528
00:26:31,440 --> 00:26:34,640
think about how different the world would be if, instead

529
00:26:34,640 --> 00:26:38,279
of conceding with that great speech in nineteen seventy six

530
00:26:38,680 --> 00:26:41,960
at the RNC, Ronald Reagan had been accepting the nomination

531
00:26:43,880 --> 00:26:46,839
and were still if all of the things that led

532
00:26:46,920 --> 00:26:50,039
up to that hadn't happened. It's a blessing in disguise.

533
00:26:50,160 --> 00:26:58,039
But four lost just about and Carter won. Why, Yeah,

534
00:26:58,079 --> 00:27:00,640
I mean, certainly there is. I mean, when I you know,

535
00:27:01,559 --> 00:27:03,960
I've done some studies of the years on sort of

536
00:27:04,000 --> 00:27:08,400
the powerful historical snapback that you get after a you know,

537
00:27:08,440 --> 00:27:10,799
at the end of basically a two term presidency, when

538
00:27:10,799 --> 00:27:14,160
you've gotten a president reelected. Right, So it was inevitable

539
00:27:14,240 --> 00:27:17,400
the country was going to move back towards in the

540
00:27:17,440 --> 00:27:21,200
Democratic direction after seventy two, although seventy two was such

541
00:27:21,200 --> 00:27:25,680
a huge landslide that you know, it's certainly not inconceivable

542
00:27:25,720 --> 00:27:29,279
that had Nixon second term gone better, that what you

543
00:27:29,440 --> 00:27:32,880
get in you know, in seventy six could look like

544
00:27:33,000 --> 00:27:38,000
nineteen eighty eight or like you know, nineteen forty or

545
00:27:38,039 --> 00:27:40,680
forty four or forty eight, where you've got a large

546
00:27:40,720 --> 00:27:43,720
coalition that is shrinking, but it's still big enough to win.

547
00:27:45,799 --> 00:27:49,839
But I mean, look the Democrats. You know, the Democrats

548
00:27:49,880 --> 00:27:53,880
won two popular majorities, two national other than FDR, they

549
00:27:53,920 --> 00:27:57,880
won two national popular majorities between eighteen fifty two and

550
00:27:57,960 --> 00:28:01,240
two thousand and eight. Right, Carter was one and LBJ

551
00:28:01,559 --> 00:28:02,000
was the other.

552
00:28:03,039 --> 00:28:05,519
Speaker 7: And I think both of those were kind of reactions

553
00:28:05,559 --> 00:28:09,640
in a sense to you know, exogynous events and the

554
00:28:09,680 --> 00:28:13,160
fact that Carter just he just postured himself differently as

555
00:28:13,279 --> 00:28:17,039
like this uniquely honest man. And also you know, he

556
00:28:17,200 --> 00:28:19,559
was the first I wouldn't say Carter was the first

557
00:28:19,559 --> 00:28:23,200
evangelical Christian president because I think that gets into some

558
00:28:23,240 --> 00:28:26,960
real definitional issues about what kind of religion was practiced

559
00:28:26,960 --> 00:28:29,079
by a lot of our nineteenth century prisons. But he

560
00:28:29,200 --> 00:28:31,519
was the first kind of modern president to speak the

561
00:28:31,640 --> 00:28:35,599
language of the modern you know, born again Christian as

562
00:28:35,640 --> 00:28:39,119
he put it at the time movement, and that definitely

563
00:28:39,200 --> 00:28:41,200
had a big and is a reason like people like

564
00:28:41,240 --> 00:28:44,319
Pat Robertson right, people forget that Pat Robertson and a

565
00:28:44,319 --> 00:28:47,039
lot of fundamentalist Christians supported Carter because that was a

566
00:28:47,079 --> 00:28:50,440
big moment of seventies for the evangelical revival.

567
00:28:50,880 --> 00:28:54,640
Speaker 4: My reading on that is complimentary, which is the irony

568
00:28:54,720 --> 00:28:56,519
is by the way, is what you may know is

569
00:28:56,559 --> 00:28:59,599
Carter panted after being George and Govern's rubbing mate, and

570
00:29:00,480 --> 00:29:02,440
he really wanted to be on the ticket because he

571
00:29:02,480 --> 00:29:04,880
was ambitious to run. And it was lucky for him

572
00:29:04,920 --> 00:29:07,839
that he wasn't, I think, because what he represented by

573
00:29:07,880 --> 00:29:10,960
seventy six was the anti mcgovernor inside a Democratic party,

574
00:29:11,880 --> 00:29:13,440
and it was his genius.

575
00:29:13,480 --> 00:29:14,839
Speaker 3: I think to see two things.

576
00:29:14,880 --> 00:29:19,200
Speaker 4: One is, after Nixon and LBJ and the Nixon pardon,

577
00:29:19,279 --> 00:29:22,920
under Ford, American wanted somebody who taught Sunday school in

578
00:29:22,960 --> 00:29:26,799
the Oval office. And second, he understood the first to

579
00:29:26,880 --> 00:29:30,720
understand how the new rules of the presidential nomination process

580
00:29:31,039 --> 00:29:34,400
favored someone who was going to aggressively run everywhere. As

581
00:29:34,440 --> 00:29:37,160
his campaign manager put it, it's like running for sheriff

582
00:29:37,200 --> 00:29:41,200
in fifty states. And he just outflanked everybody in campaign organization.

583
00:29:41,440 --> 00:29:44,319
And he was able to claim every Tuesday that he

584
00:29:44,359 --> 00:29:47,359
won somewhere, so you'd always say I won this week,

585
00:29:47,400 --> 00:29:49,000
even though he might have only won one out of

586
00:29:49,039 --> 00:29:51,400
three primaries or caucuses or something, and so it really

587
00:29:51,519 --> 00:29:53,559
wasn't work a political genius, but it all seemed to

588
00:29:53,559 --> 00:29:55,000
evaporate when he got into office.

589
00:29:55,599 --> 00:29:55,799
Speaker 3: Yeah.

590
00:29:55,920 --> 00:29:59,400
Speaker 7: I think the other thing that maybe is almost seems

591
00:29:59,440 --> 00:30:03,799
surreal today in today's world, but mattered a lot in

592
00:30:03,880 --> 00:30:07,079
nineteen seventy six was the sense that the South was

593
00:30:07,119 --> 00:30:12,680
being legitimized again, right that that particularly after a sort

594
00:30:12,720 --> 00:30:16,680
of two decades of civil rights fights in which the

595
00:30:17,359 --> 00:30:19,920
you know, the Deep South in particular, seemed to be

596
00:30:20,880 --> 00:30:22,640
at odds with the rest of the country in a

597
00:30:22,640 --> 00:30:25,000
lot of ways and was kind of cast out of

598
00:30:25,039 --> 00:30:28,799
polite society. And of course there's nothing that makes you

599
00:30:28,880 --> 00:30:31,880
more polite society than electing not only your own president,

600
00:30:31,920 --> 00:30:35,160
but a Democrat who is, you know, beloved by the

601
00:30:35,240 --> 00:30:38,000
national media and all of the liberal cognizanti, at least

602
00:30:38,000 --> 00:30:40,839
as he was in the fall of seventy six. And

603
00:30:40,880 --> 00:30:43,519
so I think there was a real, very real sense

604
00:30:43,599 --> 00:30:49,480
that Carter was bringing the South back into respectable America.

605
00:30:49,599 --> 00:30:51,680
Speaker 4: And then, I mean one of the great jokes, which

606
00:30:51,680 --> 00:30:54,799
I'm sure everyone knows, is at least Carter only lusted

607
00:30:54,799 --> 00:30:57,200
after women in his heart, unlike Bill Clinton, who put

608
00:30:57,200 --> 00:31:01,240
the South back into disgrace. Okay, and we could talk

609
00:31:01,240 --> 00:31:04,720
about Carter all day, Charles, you elend Carter question or

610
00:31:04,720 --> 00:31:07,119
something else, because I want to ask Dan some sports questions.

611
00:31:07,319 --> 00:31:09,200
Speaker 6: No, go for it, sports it is.

612
00:31:09,799 --> 00:31:10,000
Speaker 3: Yeah.

613
00:31:10,079 --> 00:31:14,119
Speaker 4: So, since your Twitter handle is baseball crank so and

614
00:31:14,160 --> 00:31:16,799
I grew up in the LA area, so I'm used

615
00:31:16,839 --> 00:31:20,119
to two things. Lots of fires like we're going through

616
00:31:20,200 --> 00:31:23,960
right now, and listening to your uncle every day called

617
00:31:23,960 --> 00:31:26,559
Dodger baseball. I mean that was a ritual in my house.

618
00:31:26,720 --> 00:31:28,799
And I mean, I know you writ some nice tributes

619
00:31:28,839 --> 00:31:31,119
to your uncle Vin Scully when he died. None of

620
00:31:31,200 --> 00:31:32,799
us knew this, right, I think you could have kept

621
00:31:32,799 --> 00:31:38,440
that private information and I don't know say something about that,

622
00:31:38,480 --> 00:31:41,039
because I mean I was chastised for once calling him

623
00:31:41,039 --> 00:31:43,359
the Homer of baseball announcers, because you're not supposed to

624
00:31:43,359 --> 00:31:45,920
say homer and broadcasting. But say to me he was

625
00:31:46,000 --> 00:31:46,559
a poet.

626
00:31:47,400 --> 00:31:51,440
Speaker 7: Yeah, yeah, well, yes, a homer in the homeric sense

627
00:31:51,640 --> 00:31:55,720
and not in the while being the opposite of the

628
00:31:55,799 --> 00:32:00,440
stereotypical homer, the announcer who is all in for his right,

629
00:32:00,559 --> 00:32:03,279
you know, a partisan of his team and his fans.

630
00:32:04,160 --> 00:32:05,799
And that came out of, you know, growing up as

631
00:32:05,799 --> 00:32:08,720
a New York Giants fan, uh in a city divided

632
00:32:08,759 --> 00:32:11,039
between three teams, and then going to broadcast for their

633
00:32:11,119 --> 00:32:15,000
arch rivals, and knowing that you know, everywhere in town

634
00:32:15,400 --> 00:32:17,359
people were listening to you who were not fans of

635
00:32:17,400 --> 00:32:20,119
your team. So which is good, great training for a

636
00:32:20,200 --> 00:32:21,119
national audience.

637
00:32:21,200 --> 00:32:25,880
Speaker 5: So but yeah, and I mean, you know, he lived

638
00:32:25,880 --> 00:32:30,039
for many years in Pacific Palisades, which is a place

639
00:32:30,039 --> 00:32:33,559
that is very much under siege from from the farms.

640
00:32:33,799 --> 00:32:38,039
Speaker 3: So right, right, But I'm told that you're now a

641
00:32:38,079 --> 00:32:39,279
Mets fan, So.

642
00:32:40,799 --> 00:32:42,640
Speaker 5: I am life, I am lifelong.

643
00:32:42,720 --> 00:32:46,880
Speaker 7: You know, when the Dodgers left town, you couldn't really

644
00:32:46,960 --> 00:32:50,440
be functionally a Dodgers fan in New York in the

645
00:32:50,519 --> 00:32:53,880
sixties and whatnot, because technologically you just couldn't get the

646
00:32:53,920 --> 00:32:56,359
games very much. So my mom became a Mets fan

647
00:32:56,440 --> 00:33:01,880
and so so so inherited all of us as Mets fans.

648
00:33:01,920 --> 00:33:05,680
So you know, so I've been a lifelong Mets fan.

649
00:33:06,680 --> 00:33:10,200
Speaker 3: Yeah. So one of the who's this guy? They Soto?

650
00:33:10,359 --> 00:33:12,160
Speaker 4: Was that the guy they just paid a billion dollars

651
00:33:12,200 --> 00:33:14,519
for something to try and rid themselves with the stigma

652
00:33:14,559 --> 00:33:16,000
of the Bobby Bunia day.

653
00:33:16,119 --> 00:33:17,400
Speaker 3: Is that the way to think about it?

654
00:33:17,640 --> 00:33:21,839
Speaker 7: Yeah, well, of course they're They're still paying Bania and

655
00:33:22,279 --> 00:33:25,759
for more than half of the Soto contract, they'll still

656
00:33:25,799 --> 00:33:27,839
be paying Vania through twenty thirty five.

657
00:33:28,559 --> 00:33:30,079
Speaker 5: And yeah, I mean, there is actually a.

658
00:33:30,039 --> 00:33:32,680
Speaker 7: Long history of the Mets bringing in some of these

659
00:33:32,720 --> 00:33:36,160
sluggers who have a lot of difficulty adjusting in at

660
00:33:36,240 --> 00:33:39,400
least in their first year to New York. Bania, Carlos Beltran,

661
00:33:39,960 --> 00:33:43,759
George Foster. But you know, one advantage of bringing in

662
00:33:43,799 --> 00:33:46,000
a guy who's just coming straight from the Yankees is

663
00:33:46,039 --> 00:33:47,559
he doesn't have to adjust to the city.

664
00:33:47,599 --> 00:33:49,960
Speaker 5: He knows the city, he loves the city.

665
00:33:50,039 --> 00:33:54,400
Speaker 7: And Soto is a guy who brings a tremendous intensity

666
00:33:54,400 --> 00:33:56,400
of focus to the game that I don't think is

667
00:33:56,440 --> 00:33:57,000
going to be.

668
00:33:56,920 --> 00:34:01,039
Speaker 5: Distracted by moving from the Yankee Stadium to see.

669
00:34:02,200 --> 00:34:02,319
Speaker 2: It.

670
00:34:02,359 --> 00:34:04,559
Speaker 1: Was that a good shade? So I'm a Yankees fan

671
00:34:05,480 --> 00:34:09,199
and I loved so too. Last year. He was instrumental

672
00:34:09,239 --> 00:34:11,320
in getting us to the World Series. He was not

673
00:34:11,480 --> 00:34:16,159
the reason that we lost the World Series. He's infectious,

674
00:34:16,320 --> 00:34:21,079
he can rally the team. He's obviously unbelievably talented, patient,

675
00:34:21,159 --> 00:34:23,800
a student of the game, and I wanted him to stay.

676
00:34:24,360 --> 00:34:28,960
Speaker 6: I'm also open to the idea that.

677
00:34:28,880 --> 00:34:31,079
Speaker 1: He ended up getting paid too much for what he is,

678
00:34:31,119 --> 00:34:34,199
and that choosing to spend all of those resources on

679
00:34:34,199 --> 00:34:36,280
one person would have been a bad move for the Yankees.

680
00:34:36,320 --> 00:34:37,480
Was it a good move for the Mets.

681
00:34:37,800 --> 00:34:39,199
Speaker 5: I think it was a good move for the Mets.

682
00:34:39,199 --> 00:34:40,400
I think it was a great move for the Mets.

683
00:34:40,440 --> 00:34:45,119
Speaker 7: I have no question that the Mets probably overpaid a

684
00:34:45,159 --> 00:34:47,719
little bit. You know, they paid a premium over what

685
00:34:47,880 --> 00:34:51,760
is probably his best market value at this point. But

686
00:34:51,920 --> 00:34:55,239
I'm a big believer partically in baseball, you know, and

687
00:34:55,280 --> 00:34:57,800
I think this is maybe not true in football because

688
00:34:57,800 --> 00:35:02,039
you have so many such large rosters, but certainly in baseball,

689
00:35:02,400 --> 00:35:05,360
and to the extent that it's also you know, applicable

690
00:35:05,400 --> 00:35:09,400
in basketball. You'd always much rather overpay for premium talent

691
00:35:10,320 --> 00:35:13,280
at the top of the market than overpay a bunch

692
00:35:13,280 --> 00:35:15,079
of people at the middle of the market, because some

693
00:35:15,119 --> 00:35:17,920
of those people, if they don't quite live up to expectations,

694
00:35:18,199 --> 00:35:21,679
you end up wasting the money right whereas here maybe

695
00:35:21,880 --> 00:35:23,840
maybe you've wasted some of the money, but you're going

696
00:35:23,920 --> 00:35:25,760
to get a lot of a lot of value out

697
00:35:25,760 --> 00:35:28,400
of Sodo. I mean, you look at the Yankees contract

698
00:35:28,519 --> 00:35:30,960
with a Rod, which they signed when he was about

699
00:35:31,000 --> 00:35:33,679
the same age, which is another guy who was very

700
00:35:33,800 --> 00:35:36,280
unusual in going on the market, you know, before he

701
00:35:36,320 --> 00:35:40,000
was in his late twenties. There's no question that first

702
00:35:40,039 --> 00:35:44,519
contract that the Rangers and later the Yankees signed with

703
00:35:44,679 --> 00:35:46,800
a Rod, that he was worth every penny of that,

704
00:35:47,920 --> 00:35:50,119
you know, and people thought it was a ridiculous amount

705
00:35:50,159 --> 00:35:52,360
of money at the time. But you know, as the

706
00:35:52,599 --> 00:35:56,000
as baseball continued to you know, values went up across

707
00:35:56,039 --> 00:35:58,880
the board, you know, by the end of the deal,

708
00:35:58,920 --> 00:35:59,960
it looked like a bargain.

709
00:36:00,599 --> 00:36:02,719
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think I read that Ted Turner bought the

710
00:36:02,760 --> 00:36:05,280
Atlanta Braves in the early seventies for I think the

711
00:36:05,320 --> 00:36:08,840
figure was twelve million dollars, which nowadays that's a minor

712
00:36:08,920 --> 00:36:10,760
league contract for one player.

713
00:36:11,599 --> 00:36:13,480
Speaker 3: I have one general question about the game, Dan.

714
00:36:14,199 --> 00:36:17,480
Speaker 4: You know, I was very skeptical and maybe even opposed

715
00:36:17,519 --> 00:36:20,280
to the rules changes, you know, the pitch clock, limiting

716
00:36:20,280 --> 00:36:23,360
the number of frows to first base, putting the run

717
00:36:23,360 --> 00:36:24,840
around second, and extra innings.

718
00:36:24,840 --> 00:36:26,760
Speaker 3: And it looks like I was wrong about that.

719
00:36:26,840 --> 00:36:29,519
Speaker 4: The games are much quicker, the tendance is up, interest

720
00:36:29,519 --> 00:36:32,519
seems to be higher. I guess maybe I don't know

721
00:36:32,559 --> 00:36:34,280
how you measure whether the games are better or not,

722
00:36:34,400 --> 00:36:36,599
But what did you think of the rules changes, and

723
00:36:36,679 --> 00:36:39,599
you think it's worked right, and any additional rules changes

724
00:36:39,599 --> 00:36:41,239
that you think ought to be considered.

725
00:36:42,000 --> 00:36:43,639
Speaker 5: I would draw some real distinctions.

726
00:36:43,800 --> 00:36:47,000
Speaker 7: I'm you know, I'm very much a traditionalist, but also

727
00:36:47,079 --> 00:36:49,800
a I like more baseball in my baseball game guy,

728
00:36:49,960 --> 00:36:53,079
and not a I want less baseball in my baseball game. So,

729
00:36:53,480 --> 00:36:55,360
you know, the pitch clock, it seems to me, is

730
00:36:55,719 --> 00:36:59,159
pretty good. It is somewhat of a restoration of tradition

731
00:36:59,280 --> 00:37:02,159
because the you know, I mean, the game used to

732
00:37:02,199 --> 00:37:06,519
have a clock called the sun right and so and

733
00:37:06,559 --> 00:37:09,880
so there was a certain restoration there of speeding up

734
00:37:09,920 --> 00:37:13,280
the pace of play. You know, I was in favor.

735
00:37:13,360 --> 00:37:16,119
I was writing twenty five years ago about, you know,

736
00:37:16,239 --> 00:37:19,239
having why they should have required the relief pitchers to

737
00:37:19,280 --> 00:37:20,440
face more than one batter.

738
00:37:21,440 --> 00:37:22,840
Speaker 5: So I think that's reasonable.

739
00:37:24,079 --> 00:37:26,280
Speaker 7: You know, I was a little bit agnostic on some

740
00:37:26,320 --> 00:37:29,400
of the base running changes, but I'm very opposed to

741
00:37:29,480 --> 00:37:32,360
the whole the ghost base runner and extra innings. I

742
00:37:32,360 --> 00:37:35,159
think that's designed to shorten the games. Extra inning games

743
00:37:35,159 --> 00:37:38,440
are great, they're more baseball, they're bonus baseball.

744
00:37:39,519 --> 00:37:41,760
Speaker 5: You know, if you've got to work tomorrow, you can

745
00:37:41,800 --> 00:37:42,239
go to bed.

746
00:37:42,320 --> 00:37:45,039
Speaker 7: But but but if you're if it's a really you know,

747
00:37:45,079 --> 00:37:47,760
if it's a game worth your time, they can be

748
00:37:47,840 --> 00:37:50,800
tremendously rewarding and often the most memorable games.

749
00:37:50,519 --> 00:37:54,159
Speaker 5: That that that you ever see. So and I think

750
00:37:54,199 --> 00:37:56,679
like the golden at bat idea that they were proposing

751
00:37:56,920 --> 00:37:59,000
this year is just absolutely heresy.

752
00:37:59,639 --> 00:38:02,159
Speaker 3: Yeah, that was my next question, right for listeners.

753
00:38:02,159 --> 00:38:04,760
Speaker 4: That's the idea that once a game, a manager can

754
00:38:04,800 --> 00:38:08,039
send up any player to bat, So theoretically you could

755
00:38:08,119 --> 00:38:10,480
have a Soto or Shoheyo Tani.

756
00:38:10,280 --> 00:38:11,159
Speaker 3: Bat twice in a row.

757
00:38:11,599 --> 00:38:14,760
Speaker 5: Yeah, and they actually crazy, but yeah, they passed a

758
00:38:14,880 --> 00:38:17,159
rule in Oh I'm not.

759
00:38:17,159 --> 00:38:19,360
Speaker 7: Sure exactly when it was formalized as rule, but they

760
00:38:19,480 --> 00:38:24,119
basically they basically changed the rules in the Rand eighteen

761
00:38:24,159 --> 00:38:27,519
eighty six or so to prevent this kind of thing,

762
00:38:27,960 --> 00:38:31,159
because up until la time, you weren't required to submit

763
00:38:31,239 --> 00:38:35,519
your batting order before the game, and so what would

764
00:38:35,519 --> 00:38:38,840
happen And a lot of teams followed a standing standard

765
00:38:38,880 --> 00:38:40,679
batting order at the beginning of the game anyway, but

766
00:38:40,760 --> 00:38:42,639
what would happen on some teams if you had like

767
00:38:42,639 --> 00:38:45,840
a single slugger who was your your best hitter. Cap

768
00:38:45,880 --> 00:38:48,719
Anson would do this because he was the big slugger

769
00:38:48,760 --> 00:38:51,519
and the manager, a good combination to have if you

770
00:38:51,519 --> 00:38:55,280
want to rack up a lot of RBIs. And Anson

771
00:38:55,320 --> 00:38:57,679
would wait and see is the first inning developed, to

772
00:38:57,719 --> 00:38:59,679
see if the Cubs got a couple of men on base,

773
00:39:00,159 --> 00:39:03,679
and decide when he would send himself up to hit. Now,

774
00:39:03,679 --> 00:39:05,880
once the batting order was set, it was set for

775
00:39:05,920 --> 00:39:07,760
the rest of the game. But I mean Anson led

776
00:39:07,760 --> 00:39:10,000
the league in RBIs like six times and seven years.

777
00:39:10,000 --> 00:39:12,079
It drove in like one hundred and forty seven runs

778
00:39:12,079 --> 00:39:14,239
in like one hundred and twenty five games one year,

779
00:39:14,599 --> 00:39:17,400
and they put a stop to that after that.

780
00:39:19,159 --> 00:39:23,679
Speaker 1: Yeah, Dan, who's going to win the World Series next year?

781
00:39:25,559 --> 00:39:28,800
Speaker 7: You know, nobody knows. As a Mets fan, I know

782
00:39:28,880 --> 00:39:30,880
better than to trust my own hopes. So I mean,

783
00:39:30,920 --> 00:39:33,519
obviously you start with the presumption that the Dodgers are

784
00:39:33,519 --> 00:39:34,599
the favorites, though I.

785
00:39:34,639 --> 00:39:35,280
Speaker 6: Think so too.

786
00:39:35,960 --> 00:39:39,599
Speaker 1: Do you think the Yankees getting that was a one

787
00:39:39,679 --> 00:39:41,960
off or do you think they have a chance to

788
00:39:41,960 --> 00:39:42,519
be good again?

789
00:39:43,559 --> 00:39:46,360
Speaker 7: I mean, we won't know until their roster is fully set,

790
00:39:46,400 --> 00:39:50,320
but I think it really is hard to replace the

791
00:39:50,800 --> 00:39:53,360
production they got last year from Judge and Soto. I

792
00:39:53,360 --> 00:39:55,639
don't know that you get quite the same year. I

793
00:39:55,679 --> 00:39:57,280
don't think you're going to get a year like that

794
00:39:57,360 --> 00:39:58,599
out of Judge every year.

795
00:39:58,639 --> 00:39:59,280
Speaker 5: You might get.

796
00:39:59,159 --> 00:40:01,800
Speaker 7: Another one and the the you know, in the course

797
00:40:01,840 --> 00:40:04,960
of this contract. But that's you know, that's not his

798
00:40:04,960 --> 00:40:06,920
his baseline.

799
00:40:06,320 --> 00:40:09,599
Speaker 5: Level of ordinary production. Okay, it was a good year

800
00:40:09,639 --> 00:40:10,039
for him.

801
00:40:10,360 --> 00:40:12,760
Speaker 2: I hate to jump in with something completely irrelevant here,

802
00:40:12,760 --> 00:40:15,440
but what were Obama and Trump?

803
00:40:15,440 --> 00:40:17,320
Speaker 3: What were they talking about at the funeral? Oh?

804
00:40:17,920 --> 00:40:21,760
Speaker 2: Is this not proof that it's just all one big

805
00:40:21,880 --> 00:40:24,800
unit state and that this idea of divisions between them

806
00:40:24,840 --> 00:40:29,639
is simply a fairy tale? Feel to us like sugar

807
00:40:29,920 --> 00:40:32,960
porridge when actually, you know, I mean you would you

808
00:40:32,960 --> 00:40:36,039
would think perhaps that there might be some cold friction

809
00:40:36,119 --> 00:40:38,159
between them, but they didn't seem to be. So were

810
00:40:38,199 --> 00:40:41,400
they discussing the necessity of coming clean.

811
00:40:41,159 --> 00:40:42,599
Speaker 3: About the orbs? Dan?

812
00:40:43,000 --> 00:40:44,639
Speaker 2: Is it the Orbs, because that's what a lot of

813
00:40:44,639 --> 00:40:45,960
people online are saying.

814
00:40:45,920 --> 00:40:48,320
Speaker 5: And not the uh not the Martians?

815
00:40:49,880 --> 00:40:53,039
Speaker 3: Well, no, the Martians are a cover story. Yeah, it's

816
00:40:53,119 --> 00:40:53,480
the news.

817
00:40:53,559 --> 00:40:55,599
Speaker 7: I mean, you have to think, first of all, obviously

818
00:40:55,639 --> 00:40:58,800
Trump is not you know trum. Trump is not a

819
00:40:58,800 --> 00:41:01,320
guy who has like never in his life hung out

820
00:41:01,360 --> 00:41:05,320
and socialized with you know, Democrats. Obviously he's a little

821
00:41:05,360 --> 00:41:09,400
more bitter these days, but you know, he has that ethos.

822
00:41:09,679 --> 00:41:12,079
I mean, some of this, obviously is just the kind

823
00:41:12,079 --> 00:41:13,480
of civility we ought to have.

824
00:41:13,840 --> 00:41:14,559
Speaker 5: I always love to.

825
00:41:14,480 --> 00:41:17,679
Speaker 7: Tell a story about the Hampton Roads Peace Conference in

826
00:41:17,719 --> 00:41:21,280
eighteen sixty five and Lincoln sort of warmly embraced some

827
00:41:21,320 --> 00:41:24,760
of his old friends from Congress, and then as he

828
00:41:24,840 --> 00:41:28,320
explained to them his position on you know, what he

829
00:41:28,400 --> 00:41:30,800
felt the South was doing, at one point one of

830
00:41:30,800 --> 00:41:33,360
them was like, so you're basically saying you would have

831
00:41:33,360 --> 00:41:35,800
the right to hang us as traders and Lincoln's like, yes,

832
00:41:36,960 --> 00:41:39,559
you know they were still his old friends, but he

833
00:41:39,639 --> 00:41:42,199
was absolutely willing to tell them to their faces that

834
00:41:42,239 --> 00:41:45,440
he was willing to hang them. So but you know,

835
00:41:45,760 --> 00:41:48,000
maybe they were just talking about something they have in common,

836
00:41:48,159 --> 00:41:52,559
like you know, Joe Biden's limitless capacity to have things.

837
00:41:52,360 --> 00:41:56,480
Speaker 3: Up indeed possible.

838
00:41:56,559 --> 00:42:00,719
Speaker 2: Indeed, Charlie, anything before we leave, because we've just Danis

839
00:42:00,760 --> 00:42:04,239
to go and we have to skibattle and other things.

840
00:42:05,480 --> 00:42:10,519
Speaker 1: No, I think I've been exhausted by this excellent podcast.

841
00:42:10,880 --> 00:42:12,719
Speaker 2: Good as well you should be, and we hope the

842
00:42:12,719 --> 00:42:15,960
readers feel the same way, but yet revitalized to hear

843
00:42:16,000 --> 00:42:18,159
the next one. Dan, thanks for stopping by today, and

844
00:42:18,320 --> 00:42:22,440
as ever, National Review and on Twitter Baseball Crank you

845
00:42:22,440 --> 00:42:25,280
can find all sorts of interesting, fun, pequent things to

846
00:42:25,320 --> 00:42:25,800
read there.

847
00:42:26,199 --> 00:42:27,760
Speaker 3: I appreciate it mostly.

848
00:42:27,880 --> 00:42:32,480
Speaker 2: Again, Well, one of the things we haven't talked about

849
00:42:32,760 --> 00:42:34,719
for a long time is Canada because it's just kind

850
00:42:34,719 --> 00:42:36,559
of up there and just sitting up there. You know,

851
00:42:36,599 --> 00:42:38,440
it's got some people, some of them speak French and

852
00:42:38,480 --> 00:42:40,280
the rest of it. And I don't know about you,

853
00:42:40,480 --> 00:42:45,800
but I have watched Canada turn into something of concern,

854
00:42:46,079 --> 00:42:48,280
shall we say, and I find myself at a Mexican

855
00:42:48,280 --> 00:42:50,480
resort about twice a year talking to a lot of

856
00:42:50,559 --> 00:42:53,480
Canadians because for some reason, a lot of Canadians go

857
00:42:53,519 --> 00:42:56,880
to Gankun and they are of a certain demographic slice,

858
00:42:56,960 --> 00:43:00,800
I'll admit, and they're loath to credit size their government

859
00:43:00,880 --> 00:43:01,920
because they're Canadians.

860
00:43:01,960 --> 00:43:04,719
Speaker 3: But when you wind them up and get them going, oh,

861
00:43:05,400 --> 00:43:05,960
I tell you.

862
00:43:07,440 --> 00:43:12,159
Speaker 2: Justin Trudeau is out. And it took a while, but

863
00:43:12,559 --> 00:43:16,639
there you go. And it looks as if you're not

864
00:43:16,639 --> 00:43:19,559
going to be the fifty first state that's gonna be Greenland.

865
00:43:19,679 --> 00:43:21,000
But it looks like they're going to have a new

866
00:43:21,079 --> 00:43:23,679
leadership and there may be a new day doming on

867
00:43:23,760 --> 00:43:26,480
the horizon for our friends to the north, for our

868
00:43:26,519 --> 00:43:29,599
maple scented, pine scented friends to the north. What do

869
00:43:29,639 --> 00:43:33,400
you think, hope part of a global wave of sensible

870
00:43:33,519 --> 00:43:36,559
populism and nationalism coming back or just.

871
00:43:36,679 --> 00:43:43,639
Speaker 3: Usual ebb and flow of politics both? Thank you, Steve Well.

872
00:43:43,760 --> 00:43:48,079
Speaker 4: I was hoping our authentic Commonwealth when Charles would say

873
00:43:48,079 --> 00:43:48,960
more about that.

874
00:43:49,039 --> 00:43:52,639
Speaker 1: No, I'm happy to please do.

875
00:43:53,880 --> 00:43:54,280
Speaker 6: Wow.

876
00:43:54,440 --> 00:43:57,679
Speaker 1: The Liberal party that has been in power for a

877
00:43:57,679 --> 00:44:01,480
long time, so there's a certain degree of ebbing and flowing.

878
00:44:02,679 --> 00:44:07,159
But Trudeau has been a disaster in pretty much every aspect.

879
00:44:07,360 --> 00:44:13,199
And his presumed replacement, the leader of the Conservative Party,

880
00:44:13,360 --> 00:44:16,599
how do I say this? Pierre Pollieve his name is

881
00:44:16,719 --> 00:44:21,000
really impressive, Yes, and has impressed me for years. In fact,

882
00:44:21,639 --> 00:44:23,920
remember first seeing him two three four years ago.

883
00:44:24,119 --> 00:44:25,519
Speaker 6: He made an.

884
00:44:25,440 --> 00:44:29,000
Speaker 1: Address on YouTube when he became the leader of the

885
00:44:29,039 --> 00:44:31,599
Conservative Party and I texted Rich Lowry and said, this

886
00:44:31,639 --> 00:44:32,519
guy is amazing.

887
00:44:33,280 --> 00:44:33,440
Speaker 6: Now.

888
00:44:33,480 --> 00:44:37,119
Speaker 1: Often when you do that, you realize that they're actually

889
00:44:37,159 --> 00:44:40,079
not the first time you see them, they're on the

890
00:44:40,159 --> 00:44:43,199
best behavior, and then over time they disappoint you.

891
00:44:43,239 --> 00:44:44,559
Speaker 6: They are politicians after all.

892
00:44:44,599 --> 00:44:47,760
Speaker 1: But this guy has just put up a series of

893
00:44:48,039 --> 00:44:51,199
solid performances, the most famous of which I think is

894
00:44:51,760 --> 00:44:52,159
when he.

895
00:44:52,360 --> 00:44:57,840
Speaker 6: Ate an Apple Apple report, destroyed this journalist.

896
00:44:58,920 --> 00:45:02,159
Speaker 1: But it seems that this is one of those rare

897
00:45:02,400 --> 00:45:05,599
occasions on which at the same time a country is

898
00:45:05,639 --> 00:45:08,679
going to get rid of someone who is genuinely per

899
00:45:08,760 --> 00:45:12,719
se terrible and bring in someone who is genuinely per

900
00:45:12,760 --> 00:45:16,719
se fantastic. It's out with Carter, in with Reagan situation,

901
00:45:16,880 --> 00:45:19,440
not just the turning over of the years.

902
00:45:20,000 --> 00:45:23,239
Speaker 2: Is it too late for Canada, Stephen Well?

903
00:45:23,320 --> 00:45:25,719
Speaker 4: I mean, look I would have said that about Argentina

904
00:45:26,400 --> 00:45:29,199
until Milay came along and suddenly the place is turning

905
00:45:29,239 --> 00:45:32,679
around really fast. By the way, they just had somebody

906
00:45:32,679 --> 00:45:35,519
I think it was Dan Mitchell. The economists reminded us

907
00:45:35,559 --> 00:45:37,840
that something like one hundred and ten economists around the

908
00:45:37,840 --> 00:45:40,480
world signed some statement saying Malay is going to crash

909
00:45:40,519 --> 00:45:43,559
the Argentinian economy. Reminds me of all the economists in

910
00:45:43,639 --> 00:45:46,079
nineteen eighty one who said Thatcher was going to crush

911
00:45:46,119 --> 00:45:47,159
England's economy.

912
00:45:47,559 --> 00:45:48,719
Speaker 3: Wrong in both counts.

913
00:45:49,480 --> 00:45:53,239
Speaker 4: So it is true, though that the Canadian economy relative

914
00:45:53,280 --> 00:45:56,559
to the US has stagnated badly for the entire time

915
00:45:56,679 --> 00:45:59,239
Budeo has been in office, and I haven't followed closely

916
00:45:59,280 --> 00:46:00,760
with the policies are to drive that, but.

917
00:46:00,719 --> 00:46:01,599
Speaker 3: It has to be something.

918
00:46:03,719 --> 00:46:06,519
Speaker 4: I do think though, that there's an odd confluence here.

919
00:46:06,559 --> 00:46:09,719
People say, oh, Trudeau is a casualty of Trump. I

920
00:46:09,760 --> 00:46:12,079
think that is true in one sense, but I think

921
00:46:12,159 --> 00:46:14,960
really what's happened here is Trump gave the Liberal Party

922
00:46:15,039 --> 00:46:18,000
the excuse to give Trudeau the boot because it's the

923
00:46:18,039 --> 00:46:20,800
only chance they have of not getting wiped out of

924
00:46:20,800 --> 00:46:23,280
the next election. So I think there's a confluence of

925
00:46:23,280 --> 00:46:27,880
opportunism here on both sides of the border. Well, we

926
00:46:27,920 --> 00:46:28,360
will see.

927
00:46:28,519 --> 00:46:32,719
Speaker 2: I am hopeful, but just talking to Canadians there is

928
00:46:32,760 --> 00:46:36,960
a there is a sense of, oh, how to put this.

929
00:46:37,119 --> 00:46:39,239
I don't want to use the word malaise, because, of course,

930
00:46:40,960 --> 00:46:46,199
am I correct in assuming that I heard that they

931
00:46:46,239 --> 00:46:50,039
played John Lennon's Imagine at Jimmy Carter's funeral.

932
00:46:50,079 --> 00:46:50,760
Speaker 3: Did I get that right?

933
00:46:50,800 --> 00:46:53,239
Speaker 6: If you heard that, guys, it did?

934
00:46:53,800 --> 00:46:54,000
Speaker 3: Yeah?

935
00:46:54,199 --> 00:46:57,239
Speaker 1: It did you know that bit in Hot Days and

936
00:46:57,320 --> 00:47:02,079
Night when they're on the train and they all is

937
00:47:02,159 --> 00:47:04,360
talking about how he fought in the war for the Beatles,

938
00:47:04,400 --> 00:47:08,679
and Lennon says, I bet you wish you lost. I

939
00:47:08,840 --> 00:47:11,719
thought of that when they played Imagine that Jimmy Carter's funeral.

940
00:47:11,760 --> 00:47:15,280
On thought, I bet he's pleased he's dead. He was

941
00:47:15,320 --> 00:47:18,360
the luckiest man in that room.

942
00:47:19,159 --> 00:47:22,079
Speaker 2: It is an utterly meritricious song on just every possible

943
00:47:22,159 --> 00:47:25,000
It is so philosophically bankrupt, and as a matter of fact,

944
00:47:25,519 --> 00:47:29,920
the just the spiritual nihilism of it is dreadful. It's

945
00:47:29,519 --> 00:47:33,199
a it's anybody who subscribes to that as some sort

946
00:47:33,239 --> 00:47:37,199
of anthemic embodiment of a particular era and way of thought.

947
00:47:37,599 --> 00:47:38,639
Speaker 3: Is revealing themselves.

948
00:47:38,760 --> 00:47:41,920
Speaker 2: Imagine there's no religion. I don't think that Jimmy Carter,

949
00:47:42,079 --> 00:47:45,599
actually known famously as a as a as a man

950
00:47:45,639 --> 00:47:50,440
of a certain spiritual situation, would agree to that.

951
00:47:50,480 --> 00:47:54,760
Speaker 4: Well, beyond the beyond the immediate offense of it that

952
00:47:54,840 --> 00:47:57,599
you both point out, it seems like it's an old term.

953
00:47:57,639 --> 00:48:00,000
I mean, shouldn't the term shouldn't the song We're waiting

954
00:48:00,079 --> 00:48:03,519
for now from Taylor Swept or somebody be reimagine that's

955
00:48:03,519 --> 00:48:06,559
the current phrase of the progressive left. We're imagine that, right,

956
00:48:06,679 --> 00:48:09,880
reimagine that. So why haven't we got reimagined yet as

957
00:48:09,880 --> 00:48:11,000
a top ten pop song?

958
00:48:12,039 --> 00:48:16,400
Speaker 1: Well, said James, Imagine that Possessions is a good tribute

959
00:48:16,400 --> 00:48:17,159
to the Cots.

960
00:48:17,880 --> 00:48:23,119
Speaker 2: Yeah, yes, yes, I imagine indeed because you couldn't afford them,

961
00:48:23,199 --> 00:48:25,400
or because the ones that were being offered was sheathed

962
00:48:25,440 --> 00:48:30,000
in a in a an avocado green or a harvest

963
00:48:30,079 --> 00:48:34,760
gold color or something like that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,

964
00:48:34,880 --> 00:48:35,320
I do.

965
00:48:35,519 --> 00:48:36,599
Speaker 3: I do remember that.

966
00:48:36,719 --> 00:48:39,480
Speaker 2: I remember that that when Lennon was shot and that

967
00:48:39,559 --> 00:48:42,159
song was played and everybody wept to it that we

968
00:48:42,199 --> 00:48:45,039
had lost such a thinker, in such a such a

969
00:48:46,079 --> 00:48:50,719
deep philosophical, poetic embodiment of our age.

970
00:48:51,079 --> 00:48:53,440
Speaker 3: And I don't know who chose that.

971
00:48:53,880 --> 00:48:56,400
Speaker 2: I think that it's almost I mean, it's it's like

972
00:48:56,440 --> 00:48:59,119
the leftist version of Born in the USA in a way,

973
00:48:59,400 --> 00:49:01,039
because you will you will find people at you know,

974
00:49:01,239 --> 00:49:03,639
the at conservative rallies who love that song and you

975
00:49:03,639 --> 00:49:09,159
want you want to tell them check the lyrics on that,

976
00:49:09,519 --> 00:49:11,800
if you would please, because this really is not the

977
00:49:11,840 --> 00:49:14,880
sort of anthemic hoorah for the US sort of thing

978
00:49:14,880 --> 00:49:17,559
that we should talk about. Let's see one more thing

979
00:49:17,599 --> 00:49:22,599
before we go, Perhaps the parade of change agents continues

980
00:49:22,719 --> 00:49:26,639
with Mark Zuckerberg, who, of course is, if not a

981
00:49:26,880 --> 00:49:29,480
lizardoid overlord from the center of the world, at least

982
00:49:29,559 --> 00:49:37,000
is their humanoid ambassador. Intermediary said that all those fact

983
00:49:37,039 --> 00:49:41,079
checkers that we were using, I fired them all, and

984
00:49:41,079 --> 00:49:43,880
it turns out there like forty thousand of them, and

985
00:49:43,920 --> 00:49:45,800
they're going to go with community notes. They're going to

986
00:49:45,840 --> 00:49:49,119
go with community notes, which is like Twitter x where

987
00:49:49,159 --> 00:49:54,159
people anybody can append to a statement something to the contrary,

988
00:49:54,159 --> 00:49:56,719
additional information and the rest of it fact checkers. In

989
00:49:56,800 --> 00:49:59,760
other words, an army of fact checkers, an army of

990
00:49:59,800 --> 00:50:02,599
days zis. Glenn Reynolds would have called it.

991
00:50:03,559 --> 00:50:05,000
Speaker 3: This is good? Is it not?

992
00:50:05,320 --> 00:50:10,159
Speaker 2: Or does this just mean that one more plywood strut

993
00:50:10,280 --> 00:50:14,320
keeping the whole thing from falling down into a debris

994
00:50:14,360 --> 00:50:18,440
strewn massive disinformation has left us and we are again

995
00:50:18,599 --> 00:50:23,760
to swim in in lies and in Russian inspired.

996
00:50:25,559 --> 00:50:28,159
Speaker 3: Uh well, look, I think this is a big deal.

997
00:50:28,559 --> 00:50:32,400
Speaker 4: Uh now, maybe it's Zuckerberg has realized he needs to

998
00:50:32,400 --> 00:50:34,239
make accommodation with the zeitgeist.

999
00:50:34,239 --> 00:50:35,519
Speaker 3: As Buckley used to like.

1000
00:50:35,480 --> 00:50:38,119
Speaker 4: To say, I do know a lot of people close

1001
00:50:38,199 --> 00:50:40,920
to the Facebook world in Silicon Valley, and I'm hearing

1002
00:50:41,000 --> 00:50:44,000
lots of incredible reports that there's lots of rending of

1003
00:50:44,000 --> 00:50:45,639
garments going on behind the scenes.

1004
00:50:45,960 --> 00:50:46,400
Speaker 2: A lot of.

1005
00:50:46,320 --> 00:50:48,519
Speaker 4: People the end nashing of teeth, all the rest of

1006
00:50:48,519 --> 00:50:50,119
the stirm and strong, if we want to use the

1007
00:50:50,199 --> 00:50:51,159
German phrase.

1008
00:50:51,840 --> 00:50:53,400
Speaker 3: A lot of people are very upset about this.

1009
00:50:53,960 --> 00:50:55,960
Speaker 4: I have to say, the most satisfying part of it

1010
00:50:56,000 --> 00:50:58,239
was seeing the New York Times headline, the greatest one

1011
00:50:58,280 --> 00:51:01,280
ever that said face This book says fact checkers were

1012
00:51:01,320 --> 00:51:06,119
the problem. Fact checkers say it's not true. They wrote

1013
00:51:06,159 --> 00:51:09,039
that headline without any sense of irony here or self awareness.

1014
00:51:10,159 --> 00:51:10,920
Speaker 3: It made my day.

1015
00:51:11,719 --> 00:51:15,880
Speaker 2: Yeah, Charles, I know that You're an avid Facebook user,

1016
00:51:16,039 --> 00:51:17,559
so how do we expect.

1017
00:51:17,239 --> 00:51:18,880
Speaker 3: This to affect your experience?

1018
00:51:18,880 --> 00:51:21,159
Speaker 1: Well, I don't use Facebook. I do have a Facebook

1019
00:51:21,199 --> 00:51:24,159
page which I put my writing on, but they don't

1020
00:51:24,280 --> 00:51:27,760
use it day to day because after Brexit, which I supported,

1021
00:51:27,960 --> 00:51:30,039
I just didn't want to see all of my friends

1022
00:51:30,039 --> 00:51:32,599
from school screaming at each other. That's the problem with

1023
00:51:32,639 --> 00:51:35,559
Facebook relative to Twitter. The people who scream at each

1024
00:51:35,559 --> 00:51:39,280
other are not generally in your family. But I think

1025
00:51:39,320 --> 00:51:42,480
it is good because although it is not real life,

1026
00:51:42,519 --> 00:51:45,519
Facebook and Instagram are closer to real life than Twitter is,

1027
00:51:45,840 --> 00:51:49,039
and they're more widely used. There are three billion people

1028
00:51:49,079 --> 00:51:51,760
on Facebook. There are one hundred and ninety to two

1029
00:51:51,880 --> 00:51:54,760
hundred and fifty million Americans on Facebook, depending on how

1030
00:51:54,800 --> 00:51:58,119
you count it, and that's the reason that they're left

1031
00:51:58,199 --> 00:52:02,840
so relentlessly and ruthlessly went on. They wanted to control

1032
00:52:02,880 --> 00:52:06,320
that information. And this is a good development. And even

1033
00:52:06,360 --> 00:52:08,920
if it is true that Zuckerberg is being cynical, I'm

1034
00:52:08,960 --> 00:52:12,280
less convinced of this, but I don't know. The outcome

1035
00:52:12,400 --> 00:52:13,920
is still good and maybe it will lead to a

1036
00:52:14,000 --> 00:52:16,519
habit that then assists.

1037
00:52:16,559 --> 00:52:18,599
Speaker 2: I'm perfectly fine with a happy outcome if it comes

1038
00:52:18,599 --> 00:52:22,599
from cynical motives, I'll take it. The problem with Facebook,

1039
00:52:22,639 --> 00:52:24,920
of course, is that it is aging out. The people

1040
00:52:24,960 --> 00:52:26,880
who are there who are camped on it all the time,

1041
00:52:26,960 --> 00:52:30,119
yelling at each other are generally boomers around that area,

1042
00:52:30,239 --> 00:52:32,599
and the young people could have nothing to do with it,

1043
00:52:32,599 --> 00:52:35,880
couldn't care less about it. The grammar is where it's at,

1044
00:52:36,559 --> 00:52:40,239
and so Meta they have so wonderfully called themselves after

1045
00:52:40,239 --> 00:52:42,920
they're immensely expensive and as far as I can tell,

1046
00:52:43,000 --> 00:52:45,639
utterly unsuccessful move to move us all to the metaverse.

1047
00:52:45,639 --> 00:52:47,800
Remember that when we're all by now, we are all

1048
00:52:47,800 --> 00:52:50,320
supposed to be strapped to have vision Quest goggle strapped

1049
00:52:50,320 --> 00:52:53,480
in our faces, like Remoras or something from the alien

1050
00:52:53,519 --> 00:52:56,559
Face Hugger movies, in which we'd be moving around, floating

1051
00:52:56,599 --> 00:53:00,280
in spaces torsos without legs, talking to each other, having

1052
00:53:00,360 --> 00:53:03,239
a meeting with a giraffe who is actually the avatar

1053
00:53:03,360 --> 00:53:07,400
for our boss, while the rhydo you know madness and

1054
00:53:07,480 --> 00:53:10,480
nobody wanted it and nobody's there, but Meta is still

1055
00:53:10,519 --> 00:53:13,800
their name anyway. Metas said that they're going to be

1056
00:53:13,840 --> 00:53:18,360
introducing AI models into the stream so that some people

1057
00:53:18,440 --> 00:53:22,519
will be conversing with and getting posts from utterly constructed individuals,

1058
00:53:22,559 --> 00:53:26,119
people who do not actually exist but embody an AI

1059
00:53:26,239 --> 00:53:29,960
generated set of ideas. So eventually it'll be robots talking

1060
00:53:29,960 --> 00:53:32,719
to robots just as so. I mean, I was on

1061
00:53:32,800 --> 00:53:35,639
YouTube the other day and I came across I was

1062
00:53:35,679 --> 00:53:38,800
reading the comments on YouTube, and I know that sounds

1063
00:53:38,840 --> 00:53:40,719
like I have absolutely no life and too much time,

1064
00:53:41,639 --> 00:53:46,320
but I was keen because I spotted two comments that

1065
00:53:46,400 --> 00:53:49,199
said virtually the same thing with very little variants in

1066
00:53:49,239 --> 00:53:49,760
the language.

1067
00:53:49,800 --> 00:53:51,159
Speaker 3: I mean literally it.

1068
00:53:51,159 --> 00:53:55,079
Speaker 2: Was copy and paste but tweaked as if you told

1069
00:53:55,159 --> 00:53:59,440
AI to do, you know, just say it again. And

1070
00:53:59,719 --> 00:54:03,119
one exactly why this was who made these comments? There

1071
00:54:03,119 --> 00:54:06,000
are bought accounts, they have no followers, they've been around.

1072
00:54:05,800 --> 00:54:06,280
Speaker 3: For a while.

1073
00:54:06,320 --> 00:54:11,920
Speaker 2: They exist to do what, to prove engagement, to create

1074
00:54:12,159 --> 00:54:16,280
a personality that's been around for a while that can

1075
00:54:16,320 --> 00:54:17,519
be sold or leveraged.

1076
00:54:17,559 --> 00:54:18,280
Speaker 3: What what what?

1077
00:54:18,360 --> 00:54:22,119
Speaker 2: I don't I don't understand. And when you find these

1078
00:54:22,119 --> 00:54:25,519
websites that consist of nothing but reposition stories AI written

1079
00:54:25,920 --> 00:54:27,800
that have a million links to another sites that are

1080
00:54:27,800 --> 00:54:29,920
identical of the same, you have the idea of just

1081
00:54:29,960 --> 00:54:33,639
this vast matrix of bots chattering to each other. It's

1082
00:54:33,679 --> 00:54:36,000
not dead Internet theory, but it's close, and I get

1083
00:54:36,039 --> 00:54:37,599
the feeling that Facebook is going to end up the

1084
00:54:37,639 --> 00:54:41,039
same way, that eventually it will be nothing but Ricochet.

1085
00:54:41,280 --> 00:54:44,039
That is real in the world. Because Ricochet is full

1086
00:54:44,079 --> 00:54:47,239
of real people. You can meet with them, you can

1087
00:54:47,320 --> 00:54:49,440
drink with them, you can argue with them, you can

1088
00:54:49,480 --> 00:54:51,639
go to the member space, which you should and talk

1089
00:54:51,679 --> 00:54:56,480
to them and realize that these are real, actual human beings.

1090
00:54:56,639 --> 00:54:58,880
Except for Katy Davis. I think he's a bot.

1091
00:55:00,039 --> 00:55:00,960
Speaker 3: Anyway, you should go there.

1092
00:55:01,119 --> 00:55:05,199
Speaker 2: Go there and sign out that I will, well, he's

1093
00:55:05,239 --> 00:55:07,880
programmed to do, so go there, sign up and enjoy it.

1094
00:55:07,920 --> 00:55:10,320
We'd like to thank Allwin for sponsoring this show. We'd

1095
00:55:10,360 --> 00:55:12,079
like to thank you, of course for listening to us,

1096
00:55:12,119 --> 00:55:14,719
and we'd love it if you would go to one

1097
00:55:14,719 --> 00:55:16,800
of the podcast places and rave about us, because that

1098
00:55:16,960 --> 00:55:20,400
surfaces the podcast gets more readers, gets more listeners, and

1099
00:55:20,480 --> 00:55:24,280
Ricochet thrives and thrives into another quarter century. After all,

1100
00:55:24,960 --> 00:55:27,480
one quarter of the century down, next one coming up.

1101
00:55:27,639 --> 00:55:29,599
I'm James Lolox said. It has been Charles CW. You

1102
00:55:29,639 --> 00:55:31,360
Cook and Steven Hayward, and we thank you all of

1103
00:55:31,440 --> 00:55:33,519
us for listening to this the Ricochet podcast and We'll

1104
00:55:33,519 --> 00:55:36,199
see you in the comments at Ricochet four point zero.

1105
00:55:36,360 --> 00:55:42,280
Next week, guys, Next week, Ricochets

1106
00:55:44,239 --> 00:55:45,199
Speaker 3: Join the conversation.