10/15/25: Israel Threatens Ceasefire, Trump Blackmails Argentina Voters, Voters Turn On Data Centers

26:54This is exactly what happened in the occupation of Iraq, this exact same story, right? We came in. We overthrew Saddam. We pursued stupidly this policy of, quote, de-Bathification. Dumbest thing ever. The dumbest, worst, genuinely, the only big mistake that's secondary to the invasion in the first place. took away the weapons, confiscated them, created a power vacuum, which sheikhs and tribal warlords and all these other people were able to move in, and it created a complete sectarian breakdown and a literal civil war that killed hundreds of U.S. troops, not to mention who even knows millions probably of Iraqis either killed or wounded in the interim.

27:34This is the exact scenario we're staring down because if we want Hamas to give up all their weapons, which, yeah, okay, But then somebody's got to have some weapon. Somebody's got to have some level of control. Who's it going to be? The UAE, the United States, Saudi? Does the UAE really want to put itself in the place of prosecuting victims of crime? I mean the United Arab Emirates is not a big nation. It's really not. Even Saudi Arabia, these are not professional militaries with counterinsurgency experience. So this is the nightmare that awaits whatever occupying force that will eventually come into Gaza.

28:07And that's the big question. That's why we highlighted this because this is the story now. Who's going to control this stuff? Trump actually seems to be okay with it. He's like, yeah, I was okay with it, to be honest with you. It's like, well, if you are, then you also kind of tacitly are acknowledging or recognizing some sort of level of Hamas political control of Gaza. You have to be able to fill that vacuum. If you don't, which he also says at the same time they'll disarm, it can collapse into chaos immediately. Right. And it shows that it has to be a political solution, because if Israel, with its endlessly supplied army in two years, can't debilitate this this armed force, the Emiratis are going to do it like the Indonesians.

28:54Like, who are you going to? And Trump's claim that we're going to go in there and violently disarm Hamas. We are. Who do you mean we, buddy? Like us? Like the American troops are going to go into Gaza and try to disarm those guys when Israel had two years and couldn't do it? Yeah, I don't I don't think that's going to happen. So what you could see is is what Hamas is floating here. Like, OK, look, rockets like heavy weapons that can be used for offensive projection. we will get rid of those we need a police force rename it i mean it's already it's it's they're not hamas it's a it's a police force hamas is the overall government okay this is the police force and then they have also said if there's a technocratic palestinian run government that government is the one that is armed like they they they said we recognize the kind of sovereign monopoly on violence that a government has.

29:51You give us a government, we're done. We're a national liberation movement. The nation's liberated. We're finished. Here's the weapons. Those guys, some of them 15, 16 years old at this point because of the two years of slaughter, you know, they're going to, first of all, put them in high school and college. but then people can move over into the actual army. There's a path forward for this whether or not and it seems like Trump sees it but whether or not how will that come about is exactly the question. On the way out I know you guys talked about this yesterday but just incredible story over the weekend from Yunus Tarawi and Yaniv Kogan it drops out.

30:35You can put up A8 and IDF actually claims to be looking into this and because they claim they're looking into it, it's picking up some other coverage around the world. BBC covered it, Times of Israel covered it. Israeli soldiers basically burned everything that they could on their way out of Gaza City, including the biggest sewage treatment plant in Gaza, which was built with basically German funding.

31:06we've been in touch with the German company, the German investment groups, like this is, you know, serious amounts of money that European countries put into this sewage treatment plant, the Canada well down in southern Gaza was burned about a year ago, which we reported on too. Obviously, it's called the Canada well because Canada paid for it. So Israel is going in here and burning all of this infrastructure that European and other foreign governments invested in and paid for. And the result is that unless something dramatic happens, raw sewage is just going to have to be pumped into the Mediterranean.

31:41The Mediterranean runs, its current runs in a counterclockwise fashion. So picture the Mediterranean, you know where Gaza is, you know where the rest of Israel is. So for no military purpose whatsoever, only to act out some bizarre sadist impulses, they effectuated a situation where raw sewage is going to be pumped into the Mediterranean at a large scale and then float up onto Israeli beaches. Like, what are you guys doing? Sick. Sick indeed. Real quickly before we move on, I did want to talk about our second correspondent who was on the most recent flotilla. So there was the Global Samud Flotilla, and then there was a flotilla right behind it.

32:32The main ship was the Conscience. And we had a correspondent on there, Noah Avishag Schnall, who was just released a couple days ago from Israeli detention and was treated utterly horrifically. Wanted to just roll a little bit. This is her, just show you a clip of her final dispatch for DropSite from the conscience and then show you what she looked like after she got out of Israeli detention. Hi, I'm Noavishag Shnal giving another update from the ship The Conscience, part of the Freedom Flow Telecoalition for DropSite News. The brutality began immediately. We were taken through multiple levels of administration and the first of many strict searches.

33:14At least one woman has reported being physically penetrated by guards who laughed at her pain. Many flotilla members reported watching their valuables being looted by guards during bag searches. All of us had our hands violently shoved towards the ground and arms held in stressed positions behind us, many with zip ties, and were led through processing and sorted into groups of men and women, then blindfolded. Several of the 150 total flotilla members, including me, were targeted for extreme brutality throughout imprisonment. I was kicked out during the Americans' turn with the judge for translating the events into English.

33:53Any flotilla member who upset the Israeli guards was subjected to twisted and tightened handcuffs, and some received beatings. I was hung from the metal shackles on my wrists and ankles and beaten in the stomach, back, face, ear, and skull by a group of men and women guards, one of whom sat on my neck and face, blocking my airways. During the evening, the men were tormented by guards with attack dogs and guns. The women were threatened with pepper spray. Our cell was awoken with threats of rape. Wow. Yeah, so if, because I think it's just impossible to believe, those two videos that we just showed you are eight days apart.

34:32So you can just scroll this video back. Yeah, you can see how she looks, you know. And then the eight days ago, that's after being on a ship, you know, for a significant amount of time. Right, yeah, which is not fun. Which kind of beats you up. But so it's, you know, hopefully she'll be back pretty soon. We've only been able to be in touch with her a little bit through email. She sent that video. She sent that video. And she's actually born in L.A. So, you know, she's American as well. She's Jewish of Yemeni descent. I wonder if, like, the fact that she's Jewish, like, angered them more. because her treatment was worse than a lot of the other activists got.

35:14And a U.S. citizen. And she was on this non-activist boat. They were like, we don't want any activists. So the one she was on, it was just journalists and medics. Wow. That's it. She's a photojournalist, a great photojournalist. Look her stuff up. I don't know if it's that. It's the fact that she has of Yemeni descent. They felt like they could be rubber. I just think it was a betrayal. They feel betrayed, and so they wanted to treat her badly. They know that the U.S. consulate and the U.S. embassy won't do anything about it. And she was in the, she was in, this was all happening while the ceasefire is getting agreed to.

35:48And I think there was probably some taking the anger out of the fact that they're being forced to do the ceasefire on the people that they had in their detention. Really sick. Sick. Well, thank you for the update, Ryan, and in particular for explaining some of the post-war Gaza stuff. It is very useful. Welcome to the A-Building. I'm Hans Charles. I'm Menelik Lumumba. It's 1969. Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr. had both been assassinated, and Black America was at a breaking point. Writing and protests broke out on an unprecedented scale. In Atlanta, Georgia, at Martin's alma mater, Morehouse College, the students had their own protest.

36:26It featured two prominent figures in Black history, Martin Luther King Sr. and a young student, Samuel L. Jackson. To be in what we really thought was a revolution. I mean, people were dying. 1968, the murder of Dr. King, which traumatized everyone. The FBI had a role in the murder of a Black Panther leader in Chicago. This story is about protest. It echoes in today's world far more than it should. And it will blow your mind. Listen to The A Building on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is Ryder Strong, and I have a new podcast called The Red Weather.

37:09It was many and many a year ago in a kingdom by the sea. In 1995, my neighbor, Anna Trainor, disappeared from a commune. It was hard to wrap your head around. It was nature and trees and praying and drugs. So no, I am not your guru. And back then, I lied to my parents. I lied to police. I lied to everybody. There were years, writer, where I could not say your name. I've decided to go back to my hometown in Northern California, interview my friends, family, talk to police, journalists, whomever I can to try to find out what actually happened. Isn't it a little bit weird that they obsess over hippies in the woods and not the obvious boyfriend?

37:48They have had this case for 30 years. I'll teach you sons of bitches to come around here and my wife. Boom, boom. This is The Red Weather. Listen to The Red Weather on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

38:26It makes for some pretty entertaining episodes. Listen to Legally Brunette on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

38:38Argentina, which, oh man, there's just so much to say here. Javier Millet got a king's welcome yesterday at the White House. He appeared in a joint meeting with the president in the cabinet room where he was treated to all of the pomp and circumstance. A reporter comes in and asks Trump, what's the benefit in the United States bailing out Argentina? Here's what Trump had to say. What's the benefit for United States in helping this way Argentina? Just helping a great philosophy take over a great country. Argentina is one of the most beautiful countries that I've ever seen. And we want to see it succeed.

39:16Very simple. I mean, we don't have to do it. It's not going to make a big difference for our country. But it will in terms of South America. If Argentina does well, you're going to have others following. OK, so it's a great philosophy over the country. Ryan, if it's a great philosophy and that philosophy is about making money and in particular, it's about saving the economy, then why do we need to bail out said philosophy for 20 billion dollars? Can anybody riddle me that? What's up with that? I think socialism in Argentina with an endless financial backstop from the United States would also probably be pretty great for Argentina.

39:54Well, that's called the Israeli model. The Israeli model is you can provide free health care and you can literally pay a significant portion of your population to not work and to study the Torah. As long as the United States government provides you an endless blank check to allow you to do whatever you want. Argentina has figured out the Israeli model. where you can claim rigid and individual capitalism and the savior of your economy, as long as you always have the fallback of a bailout from the United States of America. Argentina is going to have to go occupy Venezuela. Oh, yes. That's part of the deal.

40:31Well, Argentinian occupation. They're going to be our aircraft carrier in South America. Argentinian occupation, of course, in no way fits with their history. I just pissed off a whole lot of people down in South America, didn't I? In particular, though, what I liked here was Trump also making it explicit that if Malay loses the election. So this is an existential question now for the Argentinian people. If he loses, he will stop bailing out. Argentina, let's take a listen. If the president doesn't win, I know the person that he'd be running against, I believe, probably. We probably have the person.

41:05A person is extremely far left and a philosophy that got Argentina into this problem in the first place. So we would not be generous with Argentina if that happened. If he loses, we are not going to be generous with Argentina. So if he loses, we will not be as generous. Now, this entire thing, I know we've covered it in the past, but it is just still so crazy. And I actually don't think that the White House press corps is pressing Trump enough on this. is in what world, in the middle of a government shutdown, where you're slashing different programs, fine, some of the programs, fine, I have no issue with it, would like it to go through Congress and all that process, but fine, we could talk about that.

41:45But in what world are you going to do that and also live in this environment where the healthcare premiums are about to go up? It's complicated, as we discussed yesterday, but how can you say that while also bailing out Argentina for$20 billion. It just, it doesn't fit at all, except if it's about, you know, being Trump's friend. Let's put this up here on the screen. Millay vowed to fix Argentina's economy, then came a new crisis. Quote, President Javier Millay slashed inflation and spending, but it wasn't enough to stave off an economic crisis. President Trump has offered him a lifeline. Quote, Millay has surfed a major wave of optimism and that, you know, out of control inflation, slashed a bloated budget.

42:27Quote, even his painful fixes made life harder for people. His popularity was built on the hopes that he may finally succeed where his predecessors had stumbled, which is pulling Argentina out of crisis. But he now finds himself in an economic meltdown so severe that investors panic-selled the peso, ditched Argentine assets, fueled panic over a default on the nation's enormous international loans, prompting Trump to throw his ally a$20 billion bailout. The U.S. Treasury said it was, quote, ready to do what is needed to stop markets from derailing Mr. Malay's agenda. Secretary Scott Bessent says that President Malay is restoring economic stability after decades of Argentine mismanagement.

43:09So in order to help Javier Malay, economic philosophy, we have to bail out Javier Malay. It doesn't square. Right. Well, let me help swear it. It's not about bailing out Argentina. Okay. All right. That's right. It's about bailing out Scott Besson's friends. You guys ready to just be like, are you effing kidding me? So as you may have heard, Scott Besson used to work for George Soros. Yes. You might be like, well, that doesn't sound possible because I've been told he's the devil. He's responsible for everything wrong that goes on in this world. How is it possible that George Soros' deputy is Treasury Secretary under Donald Trump?

43:49Sorry that's so confusing to you. It's a fact. Besson's colleague at that time was Rob Citrone at this hedge fund. Rob Citrone, Besson, and Soros all went in together on some massive trades together. Citrone, we talked about it last week on this recent podcast. He talked about how he made like a billion dollars for Soros and Besson on this yen trade that they pulled off. It's very famous. One of the most famous trades in history. Yeah, and so this guy helped make Besant fantastically rich on this yen trade that he did within Soros. George Soros, yes, the George Soros. Besant went long on Millet.

44:31He was like, oh, not Besant, sorry. Well, Besant too, but yeah, Citron. Citron is still a hedge fund guy. Besant now ex-hedge fund guy, but probably not ex. he he bets heavily that argentina is going to surge because of mille's genius that chainsaw is going to yield profits yes for citron turns out that wasn't happening so now citron is staring down massive losses luckily for citron the guy he helped get rich under soros is now the treasury secretary. And so Besson is coming in, giving a whole bunch of money to Argentina to bail out his friend. The fact that Argentina gets a bailout, they're just, they're collateral, what would you call it?

45:20Not collateral damage. They're collateral victors. The collateral damage are the American farmers, because Millet immediately uses this lifeline that the U.S. gives him to cut all their export taxes on soybeans. China comes in, buys up a ton of Argentina's soybeans instead of buying American soybeans. Americans can't sell their soybeans because Donald Trump is in a trade war with our biggest soybean buyer, China. So yeah, that's actually how it squares. Because if you're like, wow, I didn't know Trump was so passionate about the virtues of libertarianism in Argentina. It's like, no, he's not. This is about enriching his cabal of buddies.

46:02Right. And the thing is, to underscore what you said, is that in September 2025, Argentina suspended export taxes on all goods, including soy, corn, wheat, meat, and poultry. That's through October to set an export volume that it is reached. China then books a massive portion of Argentinian soy at the exact same time that China refuses to buy any soy from the United States. So you have the soybean farmers in America who are getting screwed over by the tariffs, in particular because China is retaliating, saying we're not going to buy any soybeans. But at the same time, Argentina says, oh, we'll sell you the soybeans.

46:43Hey, listen, we need money. All right? We need money right now. And then the United States gives the$20 billion to the country, which is at the same time selling the billions of dollars of soybeans to China. So not only is it a shit deal. We also are not getting anything out of it. At the very least, it's like, hey, man, you're going to have to buy some soybeans or something. You've got to stop selling soybeans. Something's got to square here. We've got to get something out of this deal. So in the most strategic area, which has had its highest pain point for the US soybean farmer, we are doubly screwing them.

47:18And that was actually the point of a soybean farmer who recently went viral. We played him here on the show. He's like, so I'm getting zero. And Argentina gets a$20 billion bailout. And the best part, Ryan, if you can remind the audience, is Scott Besson is aware of all of this. We know from his text messages, because you showed everybody his text messages. Yeah. Brooke Rollins, who's the agriculture secretary, texted, it looks like Scott Besson and JG, who I'd love to think is Jeffrey Goldberg, but it's probably Jameson Greer, the U.S. trade representative, and says, hey, Scott, really unfortunate, really unfortunate here.

47:55Just FYI, China just bought enormous amounts of soybeans after you announced this bailout for Argentina because Argentina was able to cut their export tariffs because we're subsidizing both Argentina and China. She didn't mention so that your hedge fund buddy can get bailed out of his stupid trade and also like we talk about this financial system these geniuses as if it's some meritocracy they they saw this chainsaw wielding maniac and we're like that's where we're putting our money that's a moron that should lose his money not get bailed out by his friend right he got the economics wrong but he got the politics right and in in this era it's more important to have the politics right than it is to uh actually be right yeah and i think what is so what's so crazy about it is the China angle, the fact that we're just giving a blank check to a guy because Trump likes him for basically no reason other than vibes, right?

48:55Like he came to the White House and just did his like high energy show. It's like, dude, you failed. Like at the end of it. And listen, it's, you know, the defenders are like, well, decades of, yeah, they're right, okay? I mean, yeah, Argentina has been a mess for what? Since the 70s? Like it's just never had stable governance or stable economy. It's like the proof case for why Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies need to exist because of the mess that they have down there. So I'm not saying it's all entirely his fault, but the point remains that the philosophy was built entirely on slashing and on sovereignty.

49:32And what you ended up needing is a complete bailout from the United States at the same time when you're not even really giving us anything. So it's probably one of the most direct violations of any like America first agenda. And explicitly saying you're doing it to boost his party in the October 26th midterms. Right. And that if they don't elect the right coalition, you're going to take the money back. Like, all right. Yeah. It's like, again, we're in this moment, like what is the point of investigative journalists if they just say all this stuff out loud? Yeah, they say it out loud. They're just making us obsolete.

50:10Well, my suspicion is that Argentina has long been a hotbed for crypto, and a lot of venture capitalist guys really love Javier Millet. Oh, for sure. And so I personally think that there's some sketchy stuff going on with Millet because, I mean, you know, he was courted by – I mean, Elon, right? The entire kind of tech right ecosystem suckered up to Javier Millet. I think they saw big bucks to be made down there with the leveraged debt and with everything. So my personal suspicion is that those people are also making a buck out of this somewhere or had an investment which would have gone to zero based on some sort of leverage bet with the Argentinian peso.

50:48That if it did go to zero, it would screw over their fund. I cannot prove that. I'm just saying that's my personal suspicion. Yeah, I think this crew sees in Central America and Argentina areas where capital slash crypto can actually completely triumph over the state and just have sovereignty. Yeah, I mean, I'm trying to do in Honduras. I'll tell you, I'm a Bitcoin guy. Some of the OG proof cases of Bitcoin is Argentina, is that people had no—because the currency is constantly deflating. They use dollars. Exactly. It's like deflating or inflating or any of that. Booking a real estate transaction in Argentinian peso is a fool's errand.

51:26Right. 30-day close. Exactly. They're like, who knows what the price is going to be? And so some of the original real deals on houses or real estate were settled on Bitcoin because they were like, well, at the very least, yes, it's fluctuated. It's fluctuating, but it's subject to a different market than whatever the hell is going on down here. So, I mean, look, I understand that in particular with the way that their economy is running. Argentina needs a constitutional convention. Their system is incapable of— I wish I knew more about it. I need to go down there. I need to go down there. I do love Argentina.

52:00They have like eight factions that all have veto choke points, and nothing can get done. It's a disastrous system. All right. And it's almost no— I need to go investigate for myself. In particular, I want to go down in December, whenever it's summer down there, and then also need to go down to Patagonia. Okay, let's go over to the data centers. Welcome to the A-Building. I'm Hans Charles. I'm Menelik Lumumba. It's 1969. Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr. have both been assassinated, and Black America was at a breaking point. Rioting and protests broke out on an unprecedented scale. In Atlanta, Georgia, at Martin's alma mater, Morehouse College, The students had their own protest.

52:42It featured two prominent figures in Black history, Martin Luther King Sr. and a young student, Samuel L. Jackson. To be in what we really thought was a revolution, I mean, people were dying. 1968, the murder of Dr. King, which traumatized everyone. The FBI had a role in the murder of a Black Panther leader in Chicago. This story is about protest. It echoes in today's world far more than it should, and it will blow your mind. Listen to The A Building on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is Ryder Strong, and I have a new podcast called The Red Weather.

53:25It was many and many a year ago in a kingdom by the sea. In 1995, my neighbor, Anna Trainor, disappeared from a commune. It was hard to wrap your head around. It was nature and trees and praying. I'm in drugs. No, I am not your guru. And back then, I lied to my parents, I lied to police, I lied to everybody. There were years, right, where I could not say your name. I've decided to go back to my hometown in Northern California, interview my friends, family, talk to police, journalists, whomever I can, to try to find out what actually happened. Isn't it a little bit weird that they obsess over hippies in the woods and not the obvious boyfriend?

54:04They have had this case for 30 years. I'll teach you sons of bitches to come around here and my wife. Boom, boom. This is The Red Weather. Listen to The Red Weather on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey everyone, it's Emily Simpson and Shane Simpson from the Legally Brunette podcast. Each week we're bringing you true crime through a legal lens. Whether you want all the facts on the disappearance of Nancy Guthrie, or you still need to wrap your head around the ditty verdict, we're breaking it all down step by step. And we're not just lawyers. We're also husband and wife.

54:43It makes for some pretty entertaining episodes. Listen to Legally Brunette on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Turning on data centers, there is some grassroots political energy against the rising deed centers across the entire nation, which is sucking up electricity and driving up power bills. Let's put this up here. on the screen. This is from Dave Weigel over at Semaphore. He writes, quote, as electricity bills rise, candidates in both parties blame data centers. And he in particular, he highlights a few local incidents, which kind of show you where the major grassroots energy is.

55:18And this is entirely bipartisan. So for example, this was a Friday night dueling candidates for a board of supervisors seat in a suburban county in Gainesville, Virginia. And this was in the middle of a debate. A candidate, Patrick Harters, who is the Republican, says, I think we should personally block all future data centers. His Democratic opponent then agrees. The quote, the crushing and overwhelming weight of data centers is a crisis with massive companies, quote, having us as residents pay for their energy. As electricity bills rise, a growing number of U.S. candidates in both parties are pointing to high energy costs of data centers, booming thanks to tech companies' AI investments.

55:57And here in Virginia, or where we live in Virginia, which is where we have off elections in 2025, it's actually becoming a live issue. And they point specifically to how the more establishment-like candidates, like the current governor, Glenn Youngkin, has called data centers, quote, an immense opportunities for localities across the Commonwealth, and actually vetoed a bill. It was a May veto of a regulatory bill, which would have tried to look at data center energy demand. But now there is actually a fight in the gubernatorial election where the Republican candidate, who is the GOP nominee, is sticking with him on the issue.

56:36But Abigail Spanberger, the more establishment CIA, literally CIA. Literally CIA. It's not a joke. Actual CIA, which I guess is a good representative for Northern Virginia. And what they say, what she said is on the issue is she's kind of wishy-washy and tried to make it more about building power, but she's actually facing some grassroots from the Democratic Party. So one senator, local state senator, said, quote, my advice to Abigail has been look at where the citizens of Virginia are on data centers. And she specifically says there are a lot of people willing to be single issue split ticket voters based on this.

57:13the Republican candidate sidestep the issue, but this just demonstrates how the data center issue, I've seen the city of Tucson just rose up against one. There's this in the state of Virginia. They point actually to Fahz Shakir, the former campaign manager for Bernie Sanders, who has been funding or helping efforts across the nation to rise up against data centers. This, in my opinion, is the sleeper populist issue across the entire nation. Whoever wants to grab it by the horns and rip, you're ready to roll. Nobody wants to pay 267 % more for electricity bill for AI pornography, which I'll get to here in a little bit.

57:50Yes. And the way this works is that the data centers come in, they don't bring their own energy supply with them. That could be the solution to this. Hey, you want to build a data center? You are a multi-trillion dollar company. Go figure out how to power it. Go build a solar farm somewhere. Go build a gas plant. Do whatever The requirement needs to be, if you're going to build it, you have to pay for it. And not just in terms of driving up electricity price. You have to prove to the county or to whatever the locality or the state that in exchange for coming here, you will build a power source that will at the very least power.

58:25Now, in my opinion, it shouldn't even be that. It should be you need to build a power source that also give back to the community. But we can cross that bridge a little bit later. Instead, they want tax breaks. Yes, exactly. And they want giveaways. Which is what they're getting. By and large, that's entirely what they're getting. They're not paying anything. And the way your power bill works in general is that the utility goes to the regulator, because it's the most highly regulated thing in the country. The utility goes to the regulator and says, look, here's the demand that we are facing currently.

58:53Here's the demand that we are projecting out over the next 10 years. Here's the supply of power that we're projecting out over the next 10 years. Supply and demand. And here is the price that we need to charge the rate payers in order to make our mandated by law like 3%, 5%, whatever their profit is by law. So therefore, the two factors that go into what the regulators tell the utilities they can charge you is the amount of supply and the amount of demand. And the big, beautiful bill took something like 10%, roughly, maybe 10 % is a conservative estimate of future power production over the next 10 years offline.

59:37So 10 % less supply coming in. And it also supercharged the AI boom and everything else. So these data centers, like you said, 40%, eating up 40 % in Virginia. Yes, 33 % in the state of Oregon. That's where I'm like, Oregon, wake up. Where are you guys? You're a Democrat-run state. Theoretically, you shouldn't be wanting 33 % of all power generation to be going to data centers, which they're probably – I have no proof of this, but just off the top of my head. Oregon's here. Northern California's here. Why are Northern California companies, which are technology, building a data center in Oregon?

1:00:15My guess is something to do with regulation and or tax break. It has to be, right? Why else would we be sucking up 33 % of power? Do something about it. You know, you're a small state. You can't afford for one third of all your power to go to a single industry. It's nuts. And it takes, if you wanted to build a gas turbine, Trump wants to do fossil fuels. If you want to do a gas turbine, it would take at least seven years to get it online if you started right now. Nuclear power plant, 10, 15. I mean, the most hopeful case. Solar, you can get up in like two years, you know, wind like two years. And just getting it in the pipeline actually changes those two kind of graph lines because now your projected supply is higher in the future.

1:01:02So the amount that they can ask the regulators to be able to charge you is less. So even if the power is not online yet, your price still goes down, assuming that it's going to come. So that's why Trump taking all of this clean energy offline is driving up prices like right now, especially as the supply crunch is hitting. Yeah, it's so important. A little bit of AI porn. Yes. So let's get to that now. And I haven't been more worried about this than anything in a long time. I knew it was coming. I knew it was coming, but I didn't expect it to be announced like this. Let's put it up here on the screen.

1:01:38Long-winded, proud announcement from Sam Allman. I'll read it in full. We made ChatGPT pretty restrictive to make sure we were being careful with mental health issues. We realized this made it less useful and enjoyable to many users who had no mental health problems. But given the seriousness of the issue, we wanted to get this right. Now that we have been able to mitigate the serious mental health issues and have new tools, we are going to be able to safely relax the restrictions in most cases. In a few weeks, we plan to roll out a new version of ChatGPT, which will allow people to have a personality that behaves more like what people liked about one of the original models.

1:02:14If you want your ChatGPT to respond in a very human-like way or use a ton of emoji or act like a friend, ChatGPT should do it. But only if you want it, not because we are, quote, usage maxing. In December, as we roll out age gating more fully as part of our, quote, treat adult users like adults principle, we will allow even more like erotica for verified adults. Okay, let me sit with this. Because he says, we have to be careful with mental health issues. Now that we have put into place some restrictions, we are going to allow and say, chat GPT, to act more like a friend and particularly like your girlfriend.

1:02:57And that's why it won't do anything for mental health issues, right, Ryan? And famously, people who want ChatGPT to talk to them like their girlfriend and produce personalized pornography have nothing going on in terms of their – and that definitely won't do anything about their mental state. And then second, just the casual nature of personalized erotica for verified adults. Combine that with Sora, okay? AI porn, it's here. We all knew it was coming. But this is what we're all paying this extra money for to this data center to crunch all of the GPU power source so that literal – so that teenagers and others can be sitting around producing personalized AI porn.

1:03:46Also, this – if you wanted to say like – if you wanted to design something that was going to destroy America, you would start with something which is a quasi-useful technology. and you would get everybody on it. Like a better Google search. Right, better Google search. And you would get everybody on it. And you'd say, yeah, this isn't that. But you can't do certain things, right? And then what you would do is you would make sure that every teenager and young person is using that technology. And once they're using the technology, you say, hey, by the way, you can also use it for pornography purposes.

1:04:19And so now all of a sudden you have a vast surveillance machine which you use for your finances, for your Google search, and to produce your highly personalized, disgusting sexual fetishes. And it creates the greatest blackmail machine known to mankind. That's number one. Number two is what would you design to deracinate and to destroy the American male more so than something like ChatGPT, which is to decrease social interaction, to increase time on platform, then personalize AI pornography, and at the same time, roll up billions and billions of dollars in profit and use that profit to make sure that you lobby against any social force that tries to restrict this type of technology in the hands of children, of teenagers, and of young people, and to make sure that the time on platform is maximized to win.

1:05:13This is what it looks like. So, you know, we had a theory we talked about with Crystal yesterday. AGI, the theory was, is AI would win by producing artificial general intelligence. What if AI wins by just taking over your entire life, all right? They don't have to create AGI if they can poison your mind with pornography and they can poison your mind with – I'm sure you can be able to game in ChatGPT. And by the way, the best part is you already know where this is going. ChatGPT has already said they're floating the ability to put ads in the feed. So while you're designing your perfect girlfriend who will talk to you and who you will continue to stare at, you'll just get a few ads.

1:05:53An ad read. Here or there. The girlfriend does an ad read. One or two, yeah. And soon there's going to even be an AI robot or some sort of device or something like that, which you can use to enact more of your AI fantasy out on. I mean, this is out of a movie, but this is real life. Like, this is actually happening. I cannot think of a single like and what really gets me, I don't see a single lawmaker doing anything about this. I don't see a single lawmaker even reacting to this proud announcement. We're doing porn. We're doing such a layup, too. Yeah. No. How about no? How about actually? No, it's not happening.

1:06:32It's actually not happening. And I love how they frame it as like treat adults like adults. I'm like, well, how has that worked out with all of these other extractive industries, porn, weed, video games, all these other things? I just – I genuinely – this is the stuff that makes me turn into like a conspiracy theorist. I'm like maybe this is part of the plan, man. This is the plan. I can't think of another thing that would be better designed to neuter the entire country and to make you as addicted as humanly possible. Soon there's going to be gambling in there. It's going to be like a video game, literally.

1:07:07Your entire life is going to be Ready Player One and you're going to be living in a fucking trailer. And Sam Altman apparently drives like a multimillion-dollar car and he's going to be rolling around with children's blood being – With a nonprofit salary. Yeah, nonprofit salary rolling around as a multi-billionaire getting transfusions of blood to live to the age 250. That's what's going to happen. And then on top of that, it destroys critical thinking skills. Of course. There's plenty of studies plus your own intuition. If you drove around this world before Waze and Google Maps, you had a better sense of direction.

1:07:47You could get around better. And studies are definitive on this question, that once people start using this assisted driving, like you can go left here, go right here, your sense of direction diminishes overall. all. The exact same thing is going to happen to your general ability to think. The more you outsource the work of thinking to these chatbots, the less you're going to be able to think. So on the one hand, we've been wondering, when is this superhuman AI going to become smarter than average people? Actually, maybe it doesn't have to because we're just going to keep getting stupider and stupider.

1:08:29We're making it easier for them to win the race because we're going backwards. I'm trying to think what the, in a show where we should be having like both sides here, like what's the case? The case is the same libertarian case. Well, frankly, no offense, Ryan, it's the same case you've been making about drugs is let people do, let people do what they want. All right. People are adults. But that is, but that's only the case as a libertarian would say, you know, you're, you're like right to swing your arm ends at my nose. Uh, yeah. And if, if this is driving up everybody's energy costs. It's going to create rolling blackouts.

1:09:03Yes. And yeah, then when I say, well, it's going to destroy everybody's life, it goes back to the That's my thing about drugs. Everyone's like, oh, I have a right to do what I want. Really? You have the right to drive high on weed? You have the right to shoot heroin in the street? I'm with you on that. It needs to be heavily regulated. Yeah, but it all ends at legalized weed. And then after that, the conversation ends, right? And, oh, it turns out, oops, Ohio news study shows that 40 % of all car crashes involved excessive amounts of THC in the system to cause impairment. 40 % of fatal car crashes had people with excessive amounts of THC to cause impairment.

1:09:40And you know what the most of the replies I got to that was? Is I drive fine high on weed. Allow my tangent. A lot of people drive fine. Does anybody defend drunk driving? Not publicly. Drunks. Nobody has the balls to say, actually, maybe in the 90s they used to, but in the age of Uber, nobody has the balls to say, actually, I'm a good drunk driver. You know, I proudly drive drunk. It's only weed, only weed, is the only drug where people are going, what's the issue? The only thing you're going to see is people slowing down at a red light. Well, it didn't work out for the 40 % of people who died in a fatal car crash, did it?

1:10:17Okay. And so this is the same thing. And I'm glad you made that point. The socialized cost of degenerate behavior is one that all of us have to deal with. When we allow mass sports betting, we are de facto creating a financial system which screws over all of us through credit markets, through credits, everything, right? Also, the amount of social services needed to deal with the rise of gambling addicts, the amount of domestic violence, the highest suicide rate of literally any addiction that's out there. That's drugs. That's gambling. Video games. That's another one we talked a lot about with the discord or TikTok addiction, critical thinking.

1:10:54I mean, what is the mass social cost of an entire generation that loses the ability to critically think and to hold an attention span for more than 10 minutes? And now you add AI pornography. And I mean, think, it just, anyone can imagine. Ryan, you and I have been 13, 14 years old before. Probably were social out. I could speak for myself. I don't know about you. But anybody involved in this job probably was at some point of that. What if this AI shit was around then? Talk to me as a friend. I'm having trouble at school. It's, you know, listen, it sucked. But part of it is it forces you to actually be like, okay, well, I got to figure this out.

1:11:27You know, got to live my life. But this gives you an exit option. Everyone in middle school struggles. Right. Exactly. Everyone. You're developing into your personhood. Of course. And it can take a long time, right? And this is no shot at anybody who is out there. But I'm saying, hey, maybe a little bit of friction that forces you to actually socialize or go do something, figure out who you are. That's probably a good thing. But this is the exit option. And I mean, the internet already kind of was that way, the Gen 1 internet. But this is taking it to a whole new level. And I think that's what's so scary about it.

1:11:57And so that's just the social cost. I don't know. If you're a parent out there, please keep your kids away from this stuff. Please. Like I, I, that's all we can say because the, the politicians, the regulators, they're doing nothing about it. There is a phone free movement right now with schools, which I think is amazing. I know Denmark is looking at banning school, uh, phones in school, but for every Denmark, there's, I don't know, there's so many school administrators and others. And it was just like, Oh yeah, it's just the fact of life. And parents defend it. Um, I don't know. I mean, read the Jonathan Haidt book and do what you can.

1:12:29And I don't know what else to say. But it's hard to swim against the tide. It's very hard in a world where something like 50 % of people, 50 % of children, I think it's like under age of 12, have access to an iPad. Like their own iPad. Not good. Yeah, because the libertarian argument I get, it's a thing that's been around, but I don't actually understand how that argument leads you to conclude that actually it'll also be good for us. Yes, yeah, that's right. I get that, okay, you just love freedom no matter what the costs. I'm trying to think of any possible way that that that only that unleashing AI porn on top of all the gambling that we've got going on everything else reducing the amount of power supply that we have at the same time jacking up everybody's electricity bills that how that leads to a better country.

1:13:22Well, let's double click even more on the energy risk. So let's put this up here on the screen. There's study after study and all this stuff is starting to come out. And actually, credit, some mainstream media people are actually waking up. So for example, they highlight this more recent case. Google recently courted the township of Franklin, Indiana, where it would construct a giant campus to house computer hardware that powers its business. But the company needed to rezone 450 acres of Indianapolis suburb. Residents, quote, were not having it, mainly because they thought the facility would consume huge amounts of water and electricity while delivering few local benefits.

1:14:04A lawyer representing Google confirmed at a September meeting the company was pulling its data center proposal and cheers erupted from sign-waving residents. This is now a trend which is happening across the country, and almost all of it comes back to electricity. Because what they point to exactly is that the computing power, a typical AI data center, uses as much electricity as 100 ,000 households. The largest data center under development will consume 2 million households worth of electricity. That's according to the International Energy Agency. They, quote, also suck up billions of gallons of water for systems to keep all of that computer hardware cool.

1:14:52Hmm. Then you also have McKinsey out with a new study. Can we put C4, please, up there on the screen? Here is the same thing. There's actually this new McKinsey study, which looks specifically at driving power demand across the country. And they cite the exact same statistics where what they do is they look through the growing amount of power demand forecasted relative to data center. And they find the exact same thing, that across the nation, the single most driving force of power usage will all come from data center construction across the nation. Now, to split the difference here, you have two options.

1:15:32One of the reasons why there is no controversy over data centers in China is they have a shit ton of electricity. So that would be great. I would love to live in that country. I'm not really sure. People are not going to complain if they're – Yeah, nobody – if the power bill is low, no one cares. That's the ideal. They don't even block the view. Yeah, whatever. All right, yeah. Build them in the middle of nowhere. Go for it. Everybody's got no power. as long as you're not stealing anybody's land, we're cool. Here's the issue, as you just described, with the buildback or whatever, the OBBB, not only cutting solar and wind, which, look, I have a lot of problems with solar and wind, but if you're not going to back it up with new oil refineries, new LNG plants, new nuclear power reactors, then the interim state is where we are right now, where everybody just has to pay more, okay?

1:16:18And it's still going to take a decade or so to get there. So the data center construction is going to go like this, whereas the new power demand is basically flat and eventually goes up a little bit in 10 years. What's going to happen 10 years from now? So then the other is what we have proposed here. It's like, okay, you want to build it? Fine. You have to prove, prove to the county, to the state and everyone that you are not only going to have enough power that you're going to build to supply yourself because the profits are so great, right? And you're already investing all these billions. Then you're going to have to do that.

1:16:47In my opinion, you also have to be able to supply the rest of the grid to make sure that not only are you powering yourself, you're also helping out the community and providing some set benefits. But instead, what's happening is like Virginia and the rest of these state localities, they get fooled into, oh, there's going to be some jobs. What jobs? A few jobs? The vast majority of the profit is going to Silicon Valley into Google stock. Maybe you get to clean the data center as a janitor. That's basically where we are. I'm worried about it. I'm worried about it, Ryan. I think it could be one of the central political issues of our time.

1:17:21and the White House doesn't care. No state and local politician has come out with a forceful demand yet. And I just don't get it. I'm like, why are you people so asleep at the wheel? And I think it also stands in for who governs us. Yes, yes. Do we govern ourselves? Are we a democracy that wants to chart our own course? Or are we just governed by these AI overlords and they just tell us what we have to eat and how much we have to pay to eat it? I think we know the answer to them, at least now currently.

1:18:08Over the last couple of years, didn't we learn that the folding chair was invented by Black people because of what happened in Alabama? This Black History Month, the podcast Selective Ignorance with Mandy B unpacks Black history and culture with comedy, clarity, and conversations that shake the status quo. The Crown Act in New York was signed in July of 2019, and that is a bill that was passed to prohibit discrimination based on hairstyles associated with race. To hear this and more, listen to Selective Ignorance with Mandy B from the Black Effect Podcast Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

1:18:44In 1995, my neighbor, Anna Traynor, disappeared from a commune. It was nature and trees and praying and drugs. No, I am not your guru. Back then, I lied to everybody. They have had this case for 30 years. I'm going back to my hometown to uncover the truth. Listen to The Red Weather on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey everyone, it's Emily Simpson and Shane Simpson from the Legally Brunette podcast. Each week we're bringing you true crime through a legal lens. Whether you want all the facts on the disappearance of Nancy Guthrie, or you still need to wrap your head around the ditty verdict, we're breaking it all down step by step.

1:19:30And we're not just lawyers, we're also husband and wife. It makes for some pretty entertaining episodes. Listen to Legally Brunette on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed human.