Laura Rozen and Sonny Bunch: War and Dystopia

I'm Theresa and my experience in all entrepreneurs, started with Shopify at full-time.

I'll be doing my first day of shopping, and the platform will do my best. I have a lot of problems, but the platform is not one of them.

I have the feeling that Shopify has their platform continuously optimized. Everything is super, easy to integrate and balance. And the time and the money that I can't invest in it, at the end of the day. Now, cost-lost test on Shopify.de. Welcome to the board podcast. I'm your host Tim Miller. We have a double header for you today in segment two. My colleague, Sunny Bontra, a newsletter about how every day we're inching closer to dystopian parody.

So I want to chew that over with him and do a little pop culture and AI and tech and talk with the elephants. So, stick around for that in segment two. Also, it's kind of a little bit of a preview of something else I've got cooking up for you guys. Starting tomorrow night, Wednesday night. Once a week, I'm going to pretend like I'm a live streamer. We're trying out the streaming platforms. You can still get us on sub-stack and YouTube wherever you get us, but it's just going to be me. I'm going to be taking your Q&A. We'll talk about politics. We'll talk about other shit that's on my mind too.

I'm going to try to copy the other streamers and take what they do well and then do some Tim stuff and we'll see how it goes.

“It's kind of like what we did on state of the union night, but without having to watch Donald Trump. So seems like you should like that. Come check us out.”

The first one's going to be Wednesday night at like 730-ish my time, central time eight 30-y.

So up first, we got to get serious now. She's on sub-stack at diplomatic and she's a member of the editorial board of just security, long time foreign policy writer. I've been following you on social media for like a decade now. Good to finally meet you at the lower rows and how you doing. That's so great to meet you. Maybe even longer. You're a political. You give us a little bit of your backstory. During the Bush administration, I was freelancing for like the American prospect and I went to foreign policy during the Obama administration and political.

And then I was at home monitor for eight years covering the Iran negotiations and and then I've been in sub-stack for about four years. Okay. That's great. Yeah. I was following you back in the foreign policy day. So it's been a minute. I wanted to grab your getcha because, you know, it's the nature of the Donald Trump's, you know, Steve Bannon flood the zone was shit.

“Element is that sometimes it's hard to figure out signal and noise and figure out what is happening and what matters and what's not.”

And I was following your reporting and like, I mean, what was happening in Iran early this year. Drives those negotiations were happening in January and February, but didn't really like having a video in the podcast because there's a lot of other shit going on. You know, we're killing people in Minnesota and there's other stuff to cover. And I was like, well, wait and see if this actually becomes a thing before we start to dial in on it and and so I went back and looked at your reporting. And I was like, I thought it'd be valuable to just kind of take the lens back for people a little bit to how the where the started.

And I was looking at your sub stack February 12 Trump signals interested in Iran deal February 17th Vance said Iran talks went well February 24th Iran wants to make a deal.

How did we go from that period in February to bombing a girl school? Like, can you walk us through basically what happened?

So I think one of the elements is that, you know, since the protests in January when Trump started to talk about sending the cavalry to help the Iranian protesters. Yeah. You know, Israel called him the Gulf States called him Israel said don't do it until you have more force in place to protect us. The Gulf States said don't do it. So I think Trump was either keeping his options open while he moved the Armada, you know, to Iran and was doing negotiations. It could have been a.

“That's why to get the forces in place or he was trying to test out with Jared and Steve Woodcroft. If he thought there was a good deal available. I've been on a couple.”

Backgrounders with them since the war started. Backgrounders with Jared and Steve. Senior Trump administration officials and they were describing the negotiations. The three rounds that they held before two Saturdays ago when Trump started bombing.

It wouldn't be tomorrow.

And secondly, by how much senior Trump administration official won in two missed understood the Iranian positions. They, you know, are not experts on the nuclear issue.

They did not bring experts with them. One of the officials was describing things about the Iranian program that are not threatening. Maybe they not only could have gotten a deal, but they didn't understand sort of the Iranian position very well, which is not crazy because it takes time. And they didn't have time. I have a couple of follow-ups in that. So initially the Arab states didn't want them to do it.

Because that's something that's it's been hard for me to kind of tell because, you know, there's been some reporting that NBS was kind of back channeling to him that he did want them to go after Iran.

“And it feels like U.S. position is like different privately and publicly like what, what's your sense?”

I don't know on NBS if he was privately lobbying. I mean, all those countries except maybe except Oman and Qatar. I think they hate Iran and they don't like the Islamic Republic. And if it wasn't going to blow back on them, I think they're not sad to see Iran pound it. But it does blow back on them. They knew it was going to blow back on them. I think they've seen the U.S. intervening in the region before and then leave the region to clean up the mess. And I think there are also different outcomes that are not a good for them that might be good for Israel.

And I think they're very sensitive about that. That to the negotiators are pals, Steven Jared. Jared isn't in the administration, right? What is Jared's role exactly? You know, it's interesting because on you saw when Trump was trying to get the ceasefire on Gaza and get the hostages out. You know, Wikaf was going and going and going and I think that the Kushner did play a successful role

and helping organize an effort that, you know, when Israel finally hit Qatar, Trump saw an opportunity that he could force Israel to accept the ceasefire.

They tried to get this 20 point plan. But I think that what Trump has misunderstood about Wikaf and Kushner's success on that is that they speak for Trump and Israel will ultimately do what Trump insists. And I think we've seen as Kushner and Wikaf have tried to apply their 20 point model to Russia, Ukraine and Iran. They don't have the same, you know, magic, silver bullets, right? And so that it seems like Trump's not expanding his negotiating.

There's only like five people involved in these decisions.

“Even if you wanted to have Jared and Kushner and Wikaf do all the negotiations, you should have a small team of people they trust.”

Right. You know, Iran expert, a nuclear expert, right? Because you can't, no one could know it all. Particularly the Iran situation, for example, Jared is business partners with MBS who is hostile to Iran, right? And so it's like, you don't have expertise, but you also have conflicts.

I'm from Kushner's the backgrounders that they wanted to give Trump the option. Trump was looking for the option. These guys, you know, we're doing their best. They didn't totally understand the other side. They weren't bringing the team with them who could help them.

They were doing the Russia, Ukraine negotiations in the middle of the last Iran negotiations. They met with the Iranians, you know, monies. They did three hours meeting with the Ukrainians and their, their Premlin friends. Carol to meet, we have in Geneva, and they went back. And then they were to watch it.

And it's a crazy way to, to do, you know, matters of war and peace. So when Vance was thinking that the talks went well, does it seem like there were, you know, misunderstandings inside the White House or that the, the these guys, you know, Kushner and and Whick-Coffre kind of out on their own, did the negotiation. We'll see what happens.

Vance was, you know, more interested in that. And like meanwhile, the war planning was happening over here on a different side of the operation.

“I think all of the principles are always low to say anything that would box Trump in.”

And you even see that. I go to the State Department gagels and, you know, there are experts in the department. They could bring down the talk to people about Iran and that they're afraid to do it. Because those guys might say something that the president will contradict the next day.

So they never want to get out ahead of them.

And you see even on the State Department tweets and stuff that they basically just retreat,

And that was partly why you saw them be caught.

So flat-footed on helping Americans get out of the Gulf when this war started. It was totally an afterthought. And this walk is not because it's presumably nobody that, for whom, you know, if you had an interagency system, you'd the State Department, you'd the system's agritarius. Like traditionally, you know, the system's like very state and the meeting.

“So I'm like, well, if we're going to do this, we also got to remember.”

We've got this, that and the other thing in the region. And like that wasn't happening or didn't care. Kushner and we've come back from Geneva on the Thursday. Friday, we know Trump made the decision to do Operation Epic Fury Saturday morning. You know, overnight Israel killed Common A and the U.S. started bombing.

They wanted an element of surprise. Maybe to give the Israelis the element of surprise. They were relying on the military to do all the planning. And somehow it just got, was an afterthought. You talked about how these guys didn't really understand the Iranian mind set.

That continues to kind of be the case. It seems like as we kind of now push to forward looking. And what we might want to come to the table on, you know, you wrote that. That you think that there's a fundamental misunderstanding of the Iranian thinking. There was a Reuters report that the IRGC is firmly in control.

And they intend to continue launching drones and missiles. And to cut out vital energy routes. Meanwhile, Trump is trying to act like this thing could be over tomorrow. What's your sense of the Iranian thinking? You know, for instance, for those of us who are trying to figure out what Trump was doing a couple weeks ago.

He kept saying the Iranians just have to say they never want a nuclear weapon.

Right? He kept saying they won't say the magic words. So the Iranians came to the last negotiation and their, their five page proposal. How to cover letter that said, you know, Iran will never get a nuclear weapon. And they've said it over and over again. But somehow Trump doesn't hear it.

But they've seen your Trump administration officials for then kind of market that Iran had put that declaration on the front of their five page proposal. There's, you know, the Iranians were trying to understand this administration. These guys don't really understand the Iranians. The, the two negotiators misunderstood. You know, the last Iranian proposal, for instance, say we won't enrich for five years.

And then they had various things they wanted to do after five years. That's a really good deal.

But, you know, and they said that they would never accumulate enriched uranium again.

And by the way, the Iranians thought they were going to negotiate. And these guys basically seem to be under instructions to bring Trump back a, take it or leave it deal. And which is a really hard way to reach a deal. And so you think that Mr. Sineen was based on the fact that there's nobody in the room who, like, could really level with them. That it was a language barrier history barrier that they didn't actually care.

They didn't really want to deal. It was all KFA been Trump just wanted to, like, if I was going to do whatever BB wanted. I think there's cultural differences. I think that they didn't have time.

“I think it takes time, you know, a few more rounds.”

But I think they didn't bring experts who could have advised them, even though they have them in the US government. If they wanted to, you know, avail themselves of them. And I think that, you know, Trump is listening to Netanyahu is listening to, to other voices. So maybe, maybe there wasn't a sincere interest on the US side and getting a deal. And also by the time you move in our motto, you know, to the region.

It's maybe becomes harder to just say, we got a good deal and we're going home. I think he's tempted. Well, and then you have Israel that maybe didn't want to deal at all, right? I talked a little bit about that. And one of the problems I think one of the potential issues is from my perspective, you tell me,

is that, is it, like, on the surface level is real and Trump really aligned, like you said at the start, like they, you know, kind of want to do what the other wants. But now, as we get into the more challenging kind of questions about how to go forward, it seems to me, based on my reading, that Israel would be happy with, like, a really desecated Iranian state and that has infighting and whatever.

And Trump would rather have a delsy Rodriguez type Iranian come forth. And so part of the situation here might have been just kind of a lack of alignment on what you've said once. I think that's right.

“I think that they probably were aligned on degrading Iran's missile capabilities.”

And, you know, Israeli analysts have been on Twitter and writing publicly that for Israel's realistic security needs, they want Iran to be so consumed with what's happening internally that they can't export threats externally, right?

bombing the oil facilities, having kind of tumult inside Iran might be an outcome for Israel that is better than the status quo before January.

“I think that Trump's Gulf allies remember Syria and how much, you know, how many refugees, how many drugs,”

how much ISIS terrorism can come from a civil war. So, I think that they're not going to want to see Iran to send into total, you know, failed states. So, and today, you heard Defense Secretary Hagset at the briefing. He started re-asserting this kind of, we don't like democracy, promotion, no more. He said mission three, he was really walking it back to just we're going to hit the missiles, the defense staff, and then we're done.

So, I think they're starting to signal that they're adding for the ISIS. So, Trump sounds different. I mean, Trump is just all over the place. Within the same answer to a question, he'll be like, this is almost over, we're way ahead.

We've already won basically, and then he'll ramble, and then the end of the question he'll be like, you know,

but we do want to control the straight of our moves still, and, you know, we want to see who we're going to put in power,

“and I get to pick who's in power, and so it's in coherent, right?”

So, again, the one hand, you've got Hagset talking about how he doesn't want to do nation building, and then you've got Trump saying he's gets to pick who the next leader is. How do you make those two things so line? They've been all over the place, they have, but there was a line from what Trump said yesterday that stuck out to me. We want a system that can lead to many years of peace.

And if we can't have that, we might as well get it over with right now. And I think this may be wishful thinking on my part. But combined with some other things, Hagset was saying, and some other things, Trump has said, in the past 24 hours, I get a sense that they're going to finish this military mission, and they might leave Iran to sort out its internal governance itself. The guy that Israel killed, Khamene, was 86 years old, this Supreme Leader, very hard line,

but his son, by all reports, is worse. And the one thing about Khamene, the father, who's dead now, he was the one who said we're not going to get nuclear weapons. It's like a fatwa, even if that's not good enough for the US, that was his public line. And we don't know about much of Khamene, so to have this intervention, and you get a Supreme Leader who has the same, you know, from the same family who's even more extreme. This is not Delcy Rodriguez.

This is not a softer regime. This is not what the Iranians who were on the streets in January wanted. But it doesn't sound from the recent statements from Trump that they're going to be the ones to try to, you know, bring it. A democratic regime to Iran. You know, it's just not a different part of the JBL, and he's talking about how he relies on dependable clothes.

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You use code Bullwork at checkout that 20% off your first order at AmericanDashGiant.com. Code Bullwork. Like maybe Trump ends up just pulling the plug on this. I'm a little skeptical that Israel would want to younger harmony in there. And obviously Israel has a lot of intelligence assets.

“And I think it seems pretty likely that they'd be able to figure out how to kill them.”

If they wanted to. And so that's a wild cart out there. Meanwhile, Israel is saying they expect to expand their offensive against Lebanon.

that we were going to march through the world, getting rid of the bad guys.

You mentioned Cuba. He also threw Lebanon in there.

“So there is potentially something there. What do you see?”

Yeah, I mean, that's been a little bit lower on my radar, but you know, Israel because Israel has started to attack Israel again. Israel used that as an opportunity to start attacking Lebanon again. And you know, they told all of South by route to evacuate. You know, if you're on zooms with Israelis, for these think tank events,

in recent days, people are going to the shelters. Sometimes from Iranian missiles, sometimes from, you know, missiles coming from Hezbollah and Lebanon. So I would be surprised if the U.S. gets directly involved. What do you think is happening with Graham? I mean, I've been slightly confused about who Graham is speaking for it.

Let's play a little Lindsey Graham. I've got some audio. I don't know what you can listen to. We're going to blow that hell out of these people. This regime is in a death row now. It is going to be on its knees.

It's going to fall. And when it falls, we're going to have peace like another time.

But America first is to kill people who wish us ill with a record of trying to destroy us

and the region to take them off the table. I mean, he seems like a rabbit animal with blood in his mouth right now.

“I think he's very excited about his success in persuading such manipulating Trump.”

There's another clip that's too long for me to play. He talks about basically treats Trump like a nine year old, and he just like about the games that he was playing with him to try to manipulate him into wine to do this stuff. But you hear in that last clip, he's trying to redefine America first. I think he feels like as long as Trump thinks that he's winning in these situations,

Venezuela, Iran, etc., that he can keep him focused and going on that, and that that's going to appeal to him more than the boring JD Vance. I mean, and yesterday, I don't know if you saw that Graham was really lobbying the Saudis to start attacking Iran, and it was very strange because I was happy to be on a zoom

with the Saudi analyst at the same time and it did not go over well.

You know, they're defending them. They are defending themselves militarily from some incoming from Iran. And one analyst was very divisive about Graham sitting, aching them on 15 hours away. And the other thing is, I don't think the Pentagon needs Saudi Arabia to help that they are having no difficulty finding things to bomb and Iran,

and they have plenty of planes and munitions to do it. So I don't understand Graham's obsession with getting the Saudis to declare that there are offensively going to attack Iran, except perhaps that Israel might see that as vindication for their strategy and their vision. You know, you do serious coverage.

You know, you listen to diplomats, you read diplomatic cables. Can I offer the everyone as 12 theory of politics? Lindsey Graham likes things to blow up. Donald Trump likes to feel like he's winning in the game. And rebuilding the hollowed out cities in the industrial Midwest is a lot of work

in challenging. And helping the forgotten man find work again is challenging. Waiting for Jared his son-in-law to negotiate with some Iranian takes time and patience, killing people, and saying that you took out bad guys is something that appeals to the inner 12-year-old.

“I really think that it was kind of as simple as that.”

I think that's right. And you know, Graham's had to kind of suppress his inclinations on Trump, on Russia, and Ukraine. He keeps talking about his sanctions on Russia. He's going to do his talking about forever.

Trump's going to kill Putin. Right. Like, you know, he can't get him on both of that. Well, just he's not even going to do his things. Yeah, we've either used their sanctions.

You just, this has been a huge win for Russia actually, this war. And a gas price is going up his helping them and release sanctions on them. I mean, they're in economic tough streets. And this is, this has really helped them. Right.

And then also the, you know, the West, you know, depleting their supply of things they would have been giving Ukraine or under Trump selling to Europe to give to Ukraine. So there's a competition for patriots and error defense and interceptors. And it's all going to to the Middle East. And you could see that some of these panic unofficial's

Aldrich Colby's testifying last week having to kind of. We will don't know. Aldrich Colby is kind of like the, I would say, like the bureaucratic JD Vance of the administration.

at a pivot to Asia wing. Yeah, at a staff level. Right.

“What does your sense for how he's processing, you know, bombing Iran?”

You know, you can see that this is probably not the policy they would have chosen. But that, you know, they work for the person who is doing it. So they're. Yeah, no. I mean, it's a, it's a complete opposite of the policy.

Now, JD Vance, I think is associate path. So he's whatever, he'll figure it out. But Colby, it was a mission. Right.

Colby, basically, was fighting for decades.

And there are a couple other people in the administration that we're fighting against the more interventionist Lindsey Graham. And you know, okay, whatever you want to call it, wing at a staff level. And they felt like they'd won that fight. Maybe that's Graham's exaltation.

Yeah. Is that he won the internal policy. Yeah. Last thing. I wish I had my, I mean, Sean McCreech at the New York Times,

who is at the press conference yesterday that Trump had. I don't love playing Trump's voice on the pot. I usually don't.

“But in this case, I think it's important to hear their back and forth on the attack”

on the girl's school. Let's listen. You just suggested that Iran somehow got its hands on a Tomahawk and bombed its own elementary school on the first day of the war. But you're the only person in your government saying this.

Even your defense secretary wouldn't say that when he was asked standing over your shoulder on

your plane on Saturday. Why are you the only person saying this? Because I just don't know enough about it. I think it's something that I was told is under investigation. But Tomahawk's are are used by others as you know.

Super question. And do you remember when the Saudi-than-Cronference Mohammed bin Salman had the Saudi-journalist with Keshachi? Yeah. And do you remember Trump saying, "Oh, you know, they told me that didn't do it?"

Yeah. There's a certain kind of lie he has when he knows that nobody believes him. And he doesn't mean anyone to believe him. But this was in that category of lie. But you know that you saw John Kennedy the senator from Louisiana show how you can answer

it. I don't know if you heard him. But he sort of said it's terrible. We didn't target it. It was a mistake.

And you know, you was kind of modeling how you could own up to having done this thing that was

a mistake. Yeah.

“Anything else out there that you're watching that we're not?”

Do you think people should keep their eye on as we monitor how this is going to develop? The one thing I was thinking about overnight is do you remember when Greg Bovino got fired at Minneapolis in this September home in? They didn't say when they were doing that that we're getting out. This was a mistake.

But then you saw they know we're taking out 200 people. We're taking out a thousand people. I kind of got the sense that that's the pivot. It's happened in the last 24 hours on the Iran war. They've decided to we're going to finish the going after the missiles.

Blah blah blah blah. And then we're going to wrap up the military part. That's the sense that I have here. That's Laura Rosen, her sub-stack is diplomatic. She's been following this for a while and listening to the senior administration officials trying to

decode the criminology of the Trump administration. And we appreciate that. Thanks for coming on the pot. Thanks, Adam. Up next, any bunch.

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All right. We are back. He is the culture editor. Here at the Boa Work. He's a man of culture.

“He also hosts the podcast across the movie.”

I'm the boy who goes to Hollywood. It is sunny bunch. What's up, brother? Tim, thanks for having me on.

I always love the on the Tim Miller show.

And we're going to get to see you. And Dallas will be together March 18th. We've got show coming together. We also have a show in Austin, March 19th. There's still tickets for that one.

So go to the blog.com/events. We're going to come hang out with us in Austin. I wanted to chat with you about a couple of things. The first thing I'm going to say is in your newsletter on Friday. It wasn't a Friday.

You wrote every day we inch closer to a dystopian parody. It's something I've been feeling. You mentioned a few things. You start with only fans, hundred millionaires. I'm throwing a top AI mega girls that have millions of followers.

You talked about AI George Washington. Glenn Beck is having a weird conversation with him. We can gamble on nuclear war now. There's a big government fight over whether sky net is okay. Yeah.

Like that's basically the fight.

Like should we have a sky net or maybe not? It's even better than that, Tim. The government's like, we want sky net. We need sky net. The AI people are like, I don't know about sky net.

I'm not sure if that's great. Yeah. Can we maybe have like a sky net minus? You know, something that can spy on people, but doesn't have like total power over the entire Populous.

You know, the time of just living daily life, you know, the video scroll that is now being taken over by like AI sloped and like people going through things. You're on this very YouTube now. I'm kind of offended. There isn't been an AI Tim Miller yet that I've seen.

But there's AI George Conway, Rachel Maddow, George Will. And I've had real humans tell me that they've been tricked by this. And you go to these YouTube feeds and some of them are getting more views than me. So anyway, combination of a lot of things, but a lot there. But where are you on the dystopia beat?

“The question here is, are we just getting older, right, Tim?”

Like this is like things just feel weird because we're getting into middle-aged. We've got kids. We're trying to figure out life and navigating it. What's it going to be like for them? But I think we're actually we're pretty close.

Like every time I see a Palmerston movie. Pretty close to the dystopia. We're pretty close to the dystopia. So like every time I watch a Palmerhoven movie. And he's the guy who made Robo Cop, Starship Troopers,

the total recall are kind of the movies in those veins. He also made basic instinct and showgirls less relevant here. But every time I watch the videos and later in the episode. Well, we could, yeah, we'll come back to showgirls. Every time I see one of these movies,

there are things that happen in them that are patently absurd, for instance, just like the news reports in the Robo Cop movies about, you know, nuclear explosions in the Middle East and South America, whatever, that could easily happen. The board games that these people are playing are like nuclear war.

I attack your camp chakra or whatever. Like it's, it's just insane stuff, but it does feel, it does feel very much like something that could happen today. There are other things. I, you know, I am a big booster of the Terragilian movie Brazil, which is a movie about the ways in which faceless bureaucracies

destroy the human spirit. I am, I am a big squish on immigration. I have complicated thoughts, but one thing I really don't like is the idea of masked government agents grabbing people off the street and taking them to hidden prison camps and moving children around the country

and not telling folks where they're going. Like shipping people overseas without telling them, and that is, that is dystopian shit, man. That is like, that is absolutely, you know, again, Brazil, 1984, whatever.

That is, that is not, that's not the world I want to live. Yeah, I agree. There's, so there's two elements of this. I want to kind of tease out. Like the fact that like the Trump administration has some dystopian qualities,

“I think that can, that can just be kind of stipulated.”

The mass demand in the streets, as you mentioned, the weird, edge at prop coming from DHS, you know, about how families should act. I mean, there's the 1984 elements to it. Then there's also just kind of like the way that technology and society is going with AI and with the prediction markets and, you know,

with the way that the people are consuming information on their phones. That side of it, you know, back to your point about whether or not we're just getting old or whether this is something that people should be deeply concerned about, that something that I like have been trying to think a lot about. And I think about there's a madman scene where the executive assistant dies

and the writing are a bit. And the guy says, uh, she was born in 18 something in a barn. And she died on the 37th floor. She was an astronaut.

But like it's that we are not the first generation of 45 girls to go through,

like some dramatic change was like, you know, in that person, if you're born 1898 or whatever, you like, road horses.

At the time you died, like there was television, you know,

“beaming stuff in from the other side of the world, right?”

You know, so other people have gone through dramatic change before and drag change. It was net positive generally. I don't think anybody thinks we should go back to the 1890s, not even the Mac or a van chest, right?

So like, are we just going through that, like a particularly dramatic change in technology, then we come up the other side and go, oh, man, look at all the human flourishing that's happening, or or not. And I kind of fall on the side of not, but it's it's interesting thing to to noodle over.

I honestly don't know. Because that look, there is a counter argument to what I all of my doomsaying here, which is like, look at the utopian science fiction.

Look at Star Trek, right?

You know, they have all this technology and it leads to a society where nobody actually needs anything and, you know, they can travel to stars, whatever, maybe that's where we're headed. Maybe that's where we're headed.

“But I think two things have happened kind of simultaneously.”

One, everybody has a super computer in their pocket now. You know, they you have access to all of the world's information. And they use that super computer to sit there and mindlessly scroll through Instagram watching. Sometimes just funny videos, but like oftentimes videos that are

designed to trigger actual chemical responses in your brain that keep you angry, addicted, going more and more. And this is my, my big, my big theory of the moment is that putting, um, putting a magical endorphin box in everybody's pocket

and tying it to their news feeds, tying it to their bank accounts.

We could, we can debate the nature of sports gambling and the markets and whatever, but I think I think all of this, all of this is very bad. Having some friction would be, would be good. Yes, like I'm for having the right to gamble on things, but

having this friction, like versus being out of the instantaneously, you know, we are you and I and the rest of the board, people are very often accused of changing all of our beliefs on many things. And you, I mean, you, you, you have changed everything. You're big.

Me, I've changed nothing to him. I've changed nothing except for, no, I'm just, I'm kidding. But I, like, the one big thing I have changed on in the last five years is online gambling. I used to be like, yes, people should be allowed to gamble on their

phone. That's great. Do it. It's, it's fun. People should have the right to do that.

And now I'm kind of like, now I'm like, I don't know. This seems. Yeah, for all of the ads everywhere. The, the, again, just the addictive quality of it. And the fact that you are playing against the house in ways

that the house will take away your right to play if you win too much. Like, that drives me a little bit bananas. Like, I want to check my priors on this. Like, I don't want to be a doomer. I really don't.

Like, I, my nature, I'm not a doomer. I know people listen to this show. They've found that hard to believe. Like, I was, like, really technical optimist. I was early adopter to a lot of stuff in the 2000s.

And, like, thought it was all very cool. And, like, was very excited for the future, you know, where we would have, you know, access to all these social tools. And I just, like, I've seen what has actually happened. You know, and, you know, if you read the science on this,

like, people that are using JetGbD or Claude, the brain waves are not functioning at the same level as they are, if they're actually, if they're, if they're reading or doing other things. So you can just kind of see people getting stupid over time as they rely on these things. And, you know, you tie that to the risk profile of the stuff that you have.

You probably hit you tie that to the lonely net. Right? Like, there's just a lot of things coming together right now. Like, I don't, I don't want to sound like the old guy. But it's like, don't use the new tool. But I do think that, like, the evidence is pointing us towards a place.

Like, this is very, this is damaging to the culture.

“Look, I think objectively speaking people are more isolated than ever, right?”

Like, every study shows fewer fewer friends, less time out of the house. Fewer, you know, interactions with large groups of people, belonging to fewer organizations. And they have kind of paper that over by being like, no, look, I'm friends with all of these people online. I, you know, I can, I think the, the real danger of the AI stuff,

aside from the fact that we don't entirely understand how it works or why it is telling certain people that they should probably kill themselves. And like, go on, you know, shooting rampages. Like, what happens is you create an illusion of community and friendship with this thing that doesn't exist. And that's, that is even worse than just being lonely and isolated. Yeah, that's creepy.

Funa, I am an Euro-Promona, of Shoppy 5.8, let's record it.

You mentioned David Foster Wallace, the entertainment, and the calm riff on that for a second.

If I can go full lip row for a second, which is a thing that doesn't exist, that's not a thing. So David Foster Wallace writes this massive book in the mid-1990s called "Infinite Just" and lots of people buy it and then don't read it, because it's very long. It took me like five months to read. It's a real project.

You have to sit down and commit to it. But one of the elements of this book is a character in the book creates this thing called the entertainment, which is basically a movie that is so addicting that people watch it compulsively to the exclusion of everything else. They stop eating, they stop working, they stop, and they whither away and die, because

they're so obsessed with the entertainment. This is, you know that joke, tech company builds torment, nexus from story, don't build the torment, nexus, right? That is kind of what it feels like the entertainment is. All of these companies are racing toward capturing people's attention fully all the time.

This is the goal of TikTok, it's the goal of Instagram, reals, it's goal of all of the short video content that exists to capture attention all the time.

“I think the downsides of this are fairly obvious.”

And that's before you get into any of the misinformation, that's before you get into any of the, you know, agitation, focusing people's attention on their phone all the time is bad. I'm convinced this is bad, you will not convince me it's not bad. That's my prior. Your point that the downsides are pretty obvious are, I think it's interesting to look

at polling on this, because I feel like a lead opinion is a little, particularly a lead opinion in kind of D.C. New York circles is a little bit more anti-technology and lead, anti-technology company than the general public, right? Like the opinion of Amazon and meta among like New York and D.C. journalists and commentators is like 2% support 98 to pose, right?

I can just overwhelmingly opposition, most people like Amazon, it's a useful product for that, right? So there's this disconnect, that disconnect isn't showing on AI. There's an NBC news pulley came out that I wanted to grab. They tested what people's favorability is with a bunch of different things, politicians

and, you know, issues, topics, organizations, underage of the bottom 4th. Ice has a 38 approved 56% disapproved, so pretty, pretty bad for ice. AI has a 26% approved 46% disapproved, so a lot of people aren't sure yet, but other people who have an opinion 20% more disapproved, worse than ice, the Democratic Party, 30% approved 52% disapproved, so Democrats probably work on that.

Iran, 8% approved, 61% disapproved, like AI is really basically only more popular than Iran.

And so, you know, to me, that is telling. There's some part of this that's like scary, there's an unknown, I don't want to take my job and worried about that, but there's another part of it that I did to people sense say, like, looking at the product, they're seeing what they're getting and they're like, there's something we're off about this.

“I think AI has some positive uses, I feel like the, you know, people who use it to,”

you know, vibe code, right, are, are, you know, doing interesting, some interesting stuff. I saw my buddy, who's a lawyer, yes, and I did it, just over the weekend. And he does, he's like a white hat lawyer, so he's kind of like a more serious version of better call Saul, you know, he's going to the old folks home and he's like, you people are getting screwed over by the management of the old folks home and we're going

to get you a class action loss, like that's, in short of it, his gig. AI's unbelievable for him, right, because like you can grab all of this information, you know, like, where he would have had to go higher, like, for legal assistance, so sorry for those people. It didn't get those jobs, it would have taken them months to go through all the documents

and the basement of the, you know, old folks home, like, so, you know, it can be used for good, medical on medical side people say that, right, like, they're obviously a good example. Well, let's, but let's drill down on that, right, so you have one guy who's like, yes, I love AI, it makes my job easier, but then you have three people who aren't getting

a job and you have 10,000 people who are getting harassed by AI, spam text, phone calls,

“emails, who are like, what am I, why am I getting this?”

I don't want to sign up for a lawsuit. What am I doing? I think that is a lot of people's interactions with AI, and just consider, for instance, going to Google.

If I go to Google and I type into Google, whatever information I'm looking for, the first

thing at the top is an AI thing and, like, four out of ten times when I look at that, and I know the subject and question, I'm kind of like, I don't think that's 100% right. I need that, what's the sourcing on this? Sometimes I'm wrong, but a lot of the times the AI is not right. It just is, like, I think people have enough experience with AI doing things wrong, and

This is bad.

Maybe killing people, in the case of the Iranian Girl School, to the last, like, my time.

We don't know that for sure, but it does seem like potentially could have been AI targeting on that. Okay, I want to go into a couple of topics. We're going to go rapid-fire through a couple of other things in the, and what I consider the son of you, one of those discovery, getting bought by Paramount, just a couple of

things that in the news have cut my eye on that lately. Ellison said that he promised, quote, CNN will remain independent on a panel recently. I noticed that later in the panel, though, he talked about how it will remain independent

“the same way that CBS's independent, and so I think maybe his image in his head of what”

independent looks like is, I'm going to hire a lot more mag of people, and then let them

do it over they want, rather than I'm going to tell people what they have to report, which

is, you know, that's a difference. It's a category difference, but it's still something worth being concerned about. China's back in the DL 10cent is in the DL, and, you know, we have the Arab nations in the DL. Where are we at now on this?

The Tencent and Arab kind of wealth fund things is really interesting, because Tencent and Paramount's guidance have kind of a weird, fraught relationship. Remember during the Top Gun Maverick rollout, there was this big fight about the Maverick's jacket doesn't have the Taiwan flag on it. They took it off to, you know, to play Kate the Chinese, and then there was such a backlash

to this that they actually put the patch back on the jacket, they probably like CGI it

“back on after CGIing it off, and then, and then Tencent pulled out of that DL, like Tencent”

like stopped being a co-founder of that film, which probably cost them like $100 million.

And they were excluded from this DL because they were national security concerns. People didn't want Tencent involved in this DL, you know, on the Paramount side of things. So if they're getting back in, that suggests that there is some real concern that the Arab wealth funds, which are, you know, obviously that their money comes from oil, the price of which a skyrocketing right now, but might not be able to get out because of the straight

or four moves, the Iran War torpedoing a large portion of the funding of the Paramount Sky Dance Warner Brothers deal would be one of those weird quirks of history, one of those weird unintended, you know, consequences burning a, burning a MAGA supporter. Is this like a deal's not done, but deal's done situation, or there's still major potential hurdles? As we have seen with the Ticketmaster live nation thing, the Trump administration

has no interest in fighting like real monopolies, like Ticketmaster live nation, that's a real monopoly, they control 80% of the market there, they have, you know, vertical monopolies, horizontal monopoly, like they are, and they don't want to break that up. I don't think the anti-trust division even set aside all of the, you know, MAGA Donald Trump doing favors for people stuff, like I just don't think they have any stomach for trying to break it up. I don't think

the state attorneys general will be able to do anything either. I get the sense that it's probably just going to go through, it may take a little while, it may take the beginning of next year, but I don't think, I don't think it's going to fall apart for regulatory reasons, and I don't think it's going to fall apart for money reasons, because Larry Ellison has said he is backstopping the whole thing with his money, and he's got a lot of it. So it's corruption all the way down. I mean,

there's corrupt finance in the Ticketmaster deal, big donations happening to the Trump war. I'm particularly annoyed about the ticketmaster thing. I mean, I'm not like a few just anti-trust guy,

“I think sometimes, you know, we'd lean a con on here, and I know it's interesting conversation,”

because I was like, whenever Lena was talking about like small stuff, like, hey, there's a little monopoly in this niche area, and she's explaining it. I'm like, yeah, that's exactly right. You know, the anti-trust is called for this situation. It's obviously called for the ticketmaster, such as people are getting screwed left and right on stupid fees, as, you know, I know it's freaking counter-car. A lot of times the trend is in the big, there's like also then a utopian

side of anti-trust, just like if we just break up meta into three smaller terrible companies, and everything will be okay. I'm not really sure that's true, but anyway, that's, that's sort of a longer day. One other on the corruption thing. Do you see the story about how Trump bought Netflix bonds in December? Well, all this was happening? I did. What is the deal? I did. I don't, I was, he said, I don't actually understand that story, because I don't understand

the difference between stocks and bonds. That's a cap of rampal question. Okay. But, but like, it definitely, it's one of these things where like, why is anybody involved in the administration buying these bonds? My favorite part was the quote, did you see the quote from the White House spokes who was like, no, no, Donald Trump did not buy this. It's a blind trust that his children run. His children run it. So there couldn't be any corruption here, and I was just, I, my head

exploded, because I was like, they just children are neglecting, but all this shit. A couple more things than this. The people are upset about two different topics. I want to get your take on on my social media feed. One is people are really mad about the great Timothy Shalamei. Yes, I will broke no criticism of Timothy Shalamei on any topic, but particularly on this one. Let's listen. And I don't want to be working in ballet or opera or, you know, things where it's like, hey, keep this

and opera people. I think I just lost 14 cents in viewership, but, um, I just took shots for no reason.

“That was so shot. I heard you saying, yeah, yeah. So people are mad. He just saw he”

was obviously just a little opera singer there. I forgot about that part. People are mad at him about that. I was in my social media feeds. I saw influencers. I don't know who seemed actually upset. Like one thing I promised to my viewers is I get upset about a lot of things. I don't ever pretend to be upset about anything. I don't. So I don't know if these people were pretending to be upset or if they were genuinely upset, we can just join together right now. And so the Timothy

Shalamei did nothing wrong, right? It's fine to make like little jokes about the fact that that people don't go to the opera anymore. It's just really, it's just reality. Timothy innocent, the 100%. I will say the outrage here is ridiculous because everybody takes everything in the

worst faith possible. It is very obvious what Timothy Shalamei was saying in this interview, which is

I am a film maker. I act in movies. I like being in big movies, on big movie screens, in big movie theaters. And I do not want to be in an art form that is died. So worry for movie actors. People are worried that movies are dying. It's a real worry. I look. To go back to the paramount, Warner Bros thing, the paramount Warner Bros deal is kind of contingent upon paramount saying that they are going to continue to put 15 movies from each studio into the marketplace. And I

like nobody actually believes that's going to happen. And cutting out another leg of the theatrical experience, the content that goes into the theaters is going to be disastrous for people like Timothy Shalamei. And he is right to worry about this. And he's right to say, I don't want to be part of a niche art form that has to beg for its own survival all the time. If you like opera and ballet, that's fine. There's niche, I have niche interests.

It doesn't mean anything bad about opera. He's not like, I hate popcorn ballet. I don't want to be like those losers doing their, when they're tight. So doing their plays and stuff. If you're really mad about the ballet, go to the ballet. Go to the ballet. They're the best part of it. Tell me your favorite ballerina is, okay, um, here's another outrage. It was out there and then you are going to have a discreet on this. I know some of my private messaging.

The NBA canceled Magic City night next week at the Atlanta Hawks game for people don't know Magic City is a strip club. And Atlanta does very well. It's doing good capitalism. A lot of people are going there. Of their own volition. Totally. A lot of people are working there. Of their own volition. It is a cultural touch. Don't in Atlanta. They wanted to have a basketball game where they gave out merch. Magic City merch would have made a lot of money.

And the NBA came in and said, no, you can't do this. And I said, this is in part, because this was left-wing puritanism. You know, we do plenty of attacking on right-wing puritanism on this five castor. So this is left-wing puritanism. The complaints did not come from the churches in

“Atlanta. It came from lefty activists who are like, this is maroon to women. I think that the”

women that work at Magic City are doing so of their own volition and should be honored for their art form. And I don't think that this is a big deal. I wasn't keen on canceling drag queen story hour. If people wanted to take their kids to that, and I'm not keen on canceling Magic City night at the Atlanta Hawks. Nancy Pelosi's dawner attacked me if I'm so sure. Yes, I'm in that song. It's sunny bunches on the side of Nancy Pelosi's dawner. Where are my wrong?

Well, Tim, I, as you know, I'm not really a right-wing puritan. But I will say that I, you're insane. This is, I texted my, I texted my buddy who is a, who's the commissioner of my fantasy sports leagues. And I was like, hey, what do you think about Adam Silver doing this? He's like,

it's the first thing that commissioner got right. He is, you cannot have at a family sporting event

a strip club night. I'm sorry. That's insane. That's just an insane thing to do. What? It's not a stripper. It's not going to be stripping at the game. It's a fucking ship. What are the,

“are the kids going to like wear to the Magic City t-shirts and take them where I'm into school?”

Like a fair pair as well. But I got it the game. It's the game teacher. That's crazy. It's crazy. It's crazy. Come on. Come on. Wait, this has been a problem in Europe now. That's fine. People have a little bit of problem in Europe. You know, we were talking earlier about friction. I think it's fine that strip clubs exist. I think if people want to go to strip clubs and indulge their appetites, that is totally, that should be legal, as long as you're

of legal age, that is totally fine. But you know, I don't think having it kind of out, like in a in a public family setting, it's not ideal. That's where I come down on this. Whatever. Call me, you know, a decadent. I don't know. Well, G, what would be your insult of me? Call me an evidence that you had. That's a very New Orleans thing. I think that's a very nice affair. Well, love on tell. Really. I'll let you get time to tell where a magic city

sweatshirt is showing to it. It's fine. It's not a big deal. It's also two cares. Okay. Anyway, I thought we weren't doing cancellations anymore. It's all I'm saying. We're out. Well, I thought

sugar's Dean Pelosi, and look, we're not. Nobody was saying that they should shut down

the strip club. You just don't do it in the basketball arena. Final topic. We're over. I need one hot take about the Oscars coming up. And you just, your newsletter today is about a perfect

“movie that you saw. I need 90 seconds or less on that hot take on the Oscars. I think sinners”

might pull off best picture. This would be a big upset. I don't think I don't think it's 100% for sure. And it comes Sunday night. I will probably be proven wrong here. There's a real sinner's momentum building. I think a lot of people really like that movie. It's a lot of fun. The woke vampire movie set in the south. The woke anti-racist vampire movie will possibly win at the Oscars. I think it's entirely possible. It was my favorite of the movie's nominated,

so I'm proud of this. But yeah, I liked it. You're a one battle after another. Not Marty. It

“does Timmy get another one. So I think Timothy Schallem may probably get the Oscar for Marty”

Supreme. He's very good. We can do a great thing this segment on this. This is the thing that I feel like this about every big actor and actress that I care about. It's like you with AI.

You actually know about their career. I feel like they always get the Oscar for their fifth

best performance. Because momentum builds over time. It's like, why didn't he win for calling about your name? Why didn't he win for Bob Dylan? Why didn't he win for this? And now it's like,

“okay, we're going to give it to them for their fourth best. Well, I don't, I think that does happen.”

That absolutely happens. Usually it happens with older actors. This happened with Al Pacino

in set of a woman, right? Kind of famously he wins set of a woman is amazing. Well, it's, it's fine.

It's not as bad. It's fine. But it's like his tenth best movie. Like it's his tenth best. Listen, I thought I interrupt you. I already said we're over talking to the perfect move. The, the perfect movie. Project Hail Mary. Go see it. You'll love it. You'll laugh. You'll cry. You'll be thrilled and exhilarated. Great movie. Go see a perfect popcorn entertainment. Project Hail Mary. That's good. Get a break from your phone from your doom scroll from your

dystopia. Sunny bunch. That was great. It's a little preview of what people are going to get to see in Dallas March 18th. I don't think we sell after market tickets. So you might be blown to what we'll put it online and March 19th come. See us in Austin, the board dot com slash events. Appreciate Sunny very much. We're going to have a little something different tomorrow. Okay. So everybody buckle your chin straps. And I think it's going to be enjoyable. We'll see you all back.

The board contest is produced by Katie Cooper with Audio Engineering and Editing by Jason Brown.