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You are listening to the Joe Rogan Experience Review Podcast. We find little nuggets, treasures, valuable pieces of gold in the Joe Rogan Experience Podcast and pass them on to you. Perhaps expand a little bit. We are not associated with Joe Rogan in any way. Think of us as the talking dead to Joe's walking dead. You're listening to the Joe Rogan Experience Review. What a bizarre thing we've created.
Now with your host, Adam Thorne. This might either be the worst podcast or the best one of all time. One, go. Enjoy the show. Yeah. So you were, like, initially, I know there were some talks about you purchasing OpenAI and which started off non-profit and then stopped being non-profit. Yeah, I mean, it...
The whole idea of creating open air was was my idea. I mean I named it open AI is an open source artificial intelligence That's what it's named after now. It is closed source and for maximum profit So it's like I mean some degree. I think reality is an irony maximizer The most ironic outcome is the most likely especially like the most ironic entertaining outcome is the most likely and
I wanted to start something that was the opposite of Google because I was concerned about Google's... Google wasn't paying enough attention to AI safety, in my opinion. So I was like, what's the opposite of Google? It would be a non-profit open source AI. Yep. But sadly, ChatGPT decided they're not going to go that way. And they've gone for profit. So here we are.
Doing the Rogan review for the Elon episode. Joined today by my brother from a different mother, Trevor. Thanks for being here. What's going on, man? And we wanted to introduce a new show that we had made together called The Doge Report.
So there will be a link in a bio. It's up now on Apple and Spotify. We're just getting the first few episodes down. This is a perfect time to have Trevor on and break down some of Elon's message and what's going on with Doge. But the idea of that show is just that I didn't find another show that was really summarizing what Doge was up to. And Trevor was up for the task. And we're going to try and
makes sense of what's happening and create a weekly breakdown of it for everybody. So if you're into that sort of thing, if that's interesting to you, check it out. We'd appreciate it. And yeah, we're going to do our best to make it a good show. Yeah, so let's get into it. A lot to unpack on this episode. It kicks off with...
Elon just trying to, you know, he's showing off some grok AI sexy and unhinged modes. Quite funny. I don't know how useful, but pretty interesting to have like these different personalities that are coming in with AI. One of the ones that they said was a therapist AI, which I think could be quite useful, potentially. Yeah.
Yeah, I like that they're giving it kind of different personalities. You can apply it to different purposes. It's going to be pretty cool. Yeah. What did they call that one with the bad attitude? Unhinged. Unhinged, yeah. Yeah, unhinged. It gives you a little bit of shit. And then they were saying probably that in the next five years we're going to have full-on AI sex bots.
I mean, I think we've been saying the next five years for many five years. It's almost like when Al Gore is saying we're going to be underwater in five years if we don't recycle our cans.
We've been saying that for everything. Like whenever hoverboards are going to come out next year. When I was 14. Flying cars. They're on their way. They're on their way. But you know those things are coming. Jesus is going to be back. The end of the world is coming back next year. Yeah, there are some groups that do that for sure. For sure. The sex bot industry is going to be...
a huge industry though once they get past a certain point it's I feel the same way with with like VR and AR stuff it's like right now it kind of works there's some cool stuff you know they had a go at it in the 90s it was really clunky but there's gonna be this point where it's just undeniable when it's a bit matrixy
And as soon as they have these robots walking around looking, I don't know what the number would be, like 80% accurate to a human. But obviously, still a super hot lady. It's going to be it. You're going to win. Women are going to be out of work completely. It's going to flip things on its head real fast.
Yeah, there's a show about that where the technology gets good and then they just hire a maid. A good-looking maid to start cleaning the house because everybody's busy. And you know that one thing leads to the next. And your robot maid is pregnant. Exactly. And it all falls apart. Is that cheating? Good point. I mean, it probably feels like it.
Yeah. But, uh, yeah. I mean, to be fair though, like, you know, I've heard of girlfriends of friends of mine getting mad that they were caught looking at some porn or, I mean, I guess there's, there's elements that any non other human interaction that could be seen as not necessarily cheating, but disrespectful maybe to some degree. I don't know.
Yeah, who knows? They kind of warm this whole thing up with what's going on at Fort Knox.
So, you know, this is a lot of talk today. I don't really know if what Doge is trying to do is get in there and prove that all the gold's gone. I think maybe that's just a good headline and a good talking point. It seems like it's had an army around the building for 24 hours a day for the last 60 years. I can't imagine that anything is missing. But...
You know, when you haven't had any kind of audit of it for however many years, a long time, I think before we were born, it's probably a good idea to go in there and do that. It's probably a good move. Yeah. Maybe it was never even there. Oh, the gold? Yeah. That'd be wild. Do you have proof that it was ever there? I've never seen a picture.
Yeah, do they have pictures of inside Fort Knox? They just, like, roll that clip of Indiana Jones. You know, that's all they do. It's just, like, it just shows DuckTales, the cartoon. Like, wait a minute. This isn't facts. Yeah. I liked how the AI called him out on it, though. I thought that was pretty funny. Oh, calling him conspiracy theorist? Yeah. Yeah, that was good. Where's all the gold? There you go.
That is good. I mean, it's like, what are you, a conspiracy theorist? To be fair, even if it turned out to be very correct to even think it, you definitely are. Yeah. I mean, and Joe, Joe owned it. He's like, yes. Yeah. I'm a bit worried these days when I talk to my friends and they don't have conspiracies for me. I'm like, are you guys not thinking? You just believe everything that you hear. Like, it kind of scares me a little bit. I'm like, oh, no.
Oh, dear. Yeah, I think people like sensational ideas, right? Yeah. And if you don't get it from your soap operas, you've got to find it somewhere. Well, don't come at me with flat earth, but if you're questioning things, I'm like, yeah, I'm into it. I mean, especially now that we can break down parts of history and go back to things that are like the Bay of Pigs stuff, the...
I mean, even Pearl Harbor things. It's like stuff that has been proven. There's been communication about it. There were notes written. It's like, oh, these things really happen. If it was all of time, every conspiracy is just like it never went anywhere. I'd be like, yeah, it's a bad move to believe in conspiracies. Right. I mean, you know. And then you start watching 9-11 videos again. You're just like, oh, here we go.
Got to turn it off, dude. Confusion. I worked in the industry a little bit when I was in the military. And, you know, one thing that the government is definitely really good at is psychological warfare and denial and deception. And we put a lot of money into it just to little cookie crumbs, you know, just to keep people on the wrong path. Just reasonable enough to make you doubt it. That's all I got to do. You think that's the case with like UFOs and shit?
I don't know, man. I can't put my finger on that. Because, I mean, the Pentagon is coming out and saying, yes, there are these things. We don't know what they are. We also have been denying them and working hard to deny them for about 50, 60 years.
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But now here they are. I kind of don't trust it. Now I think it's not even aliens anymore and it's shit they made. Yeah. I mean, that would be, that would, that seems the most reasonable to me. Right. But that's a conspiracy. That's a conspiracy theory right there. But it also is kind of reasonable. Yeah. Yeah. I think it's more likely the government has some secret program and that they're
Just trying to throw us off the trail. Well, Elon talked about that. He doesn't think so. He doesn't think that they're like... Oh, yeah, what did he say again? Well, he was like, we're not... I don't... Like, we're not reverse engineering anything. I would know about it. Yeah, he's like, where's the tech? Like, if it's true, right? We have tech. Why aren't they... Why do... Why does SpaceX have the biggest...
uh the biggest government contract for getting materials into space yeah he's like we're the best at it if other people had this they'd use it and be that's a good point space yeah i mean it is it's a good point for why the government's not working on technology or some other like foreign state that has better technology than us it seems to me that eva he knows
Like, absolutely for sure that something's here and he's seen a ton of it that he's just like, I'm just going to deny it for now. Or there isn't anything. I mean, with the amount of satellites that he has, you're telling me they don't have like a camera on them? He could put just like a Galaxy S25 on each one of those just to snap some shots. I mean, if something is somewhere he'd know, he'd be the guy that would know.
You get some good high-def imagery of a UFO off one of those satellites, the U.S. government's going to be so far up his butt collecting all that information that he's never going to be able to get it out. Right. They might say, if you release this, you're a terrorist. Or take every contract. He's like, okay, I won't say anything, I promise. Yeah. Yeah, I don't know what to believe from him when...
When he just keeps denying it like that. Either he's right or wrong or whatever, but it ruins my day a little bit. I'm like, come on, dude. You got to give us some alien hope. So boring. That was Joe's take on it, too. And they also said, oh, maybe Elon is just one of the aliens. Yeah.
Yeah, for sure. Well, let's get into the Doge stuff. One thing that you've said to me before, Trev, which is interesting, and why doing the Doge report with you is something that, like, you're the person I wanted to do it with. You were like, well, they're trying to run the government like a company. And the government isn't a company. Can you just differentiate that?
those things? I mean, it clearly isn't. It is court of government. But what elements of it aren't? And you don't have to spend too much time on it, but just to kind of break that down. I mean, yeah, our police force, our fire department, our public education, none of that's run for profit for a reason, right? It's to try and provide basic services to the majority of the populace, right? And we all pay for it with our taxes.
It's socialized services that we all rely and depend on. Let's say you take a large warehouse, like a giant Amazon warehouse. They have their own private security there. They may have on-site fire departments, sprinkler systems. It's all paid for by the company to protect the lives of the individuals in there.
They probably do have their own training programs, which could be seen as education, right? Yeah. I mean, it's not directly the same thing, but those distinctions aren't big enough. Is there something that government is doing that companies don't to where you couldn't bring in somebody that can run...
a company very well and a very large company and make it more efficient because even companies do a lot of charitable work and obviously it's often for tax write-offs and the rest of it but you know the governments do that too in a different way they do it because it looks good
And it makes us look decent in the world. And to say that there's no care on either end, I mean, even companies will donate for things that they believe in. It's not just for the tax write-offs.
Yeah, sure. Yeah. I mean, I think that there's probably elements of government that you can run as a business to make it more efficient. Sure. I think that that's probably good. I think since I've worked in the federal service that you do see agencies starting to bring in more business practices and business process and their budgets and how they execute budgets. And so I think there's elements that you should bring into it, but I don't like, like I wouldn't want Apple to be running a
our healthcare system or, you know, I don't, I don't, I don't want the company's objectives that are for profit that are just trying to get more money to shareholders to be setting the agenda for services that are needed for most Americans. Yeah. That's where we get a slip here. I mean,
Imagine if governments had shareholders. And maybe in a way they do. And maybe that's part of the problem. Yeah, yeah. We kind of are. The taxpayers should be the shareholders. But anyway. Yeah, it's... I'm not...
Probably as informed about it as I could be to really go into depth about it, but there's something about it that doesn't pass the smell test for me. Yeah, and I brought it up because I thought it was a good point too. I mean, I didn't have it well defined either, and I had a bit of pushback to it, but I was like, yeah, they're not the same thing.
And where could this get us in trouble? And obviously this leads into kind of what they're up to and where they're looking. What's your feel with the USAID stuff? Yeah, you know, I think that I'd like to dig into it a little bit more. I'm hoping, you know, we're going to do that with our podcast on the Doge Report. It's kind of hard to gather...
the research for it though you know it is yeah I think I think there's there's probably ways to do what it has it's been tough I think you know there's probably some investigative journalists that are going to dig into it but um you know I think ultimately it comes down to
like the idea behind usaid is uh exerting government american influence around the world right without it always being just a hard military action where we just move in take over governor governments right and build build countries right um it's it's the soft power idea and it's it's easier to uh to get what you want out of other countries when they like you
That's the idea behind it. It sounds like the hype that I'm hearing out of the media and from Musk is that there's some real wacky shit that they've been doing. And I think it's good to put some light on it.
Yeah. Put all the light on it. Shine every bit of light. Find out what's there. And if it really is the situation that USAID or a lot of the programs really are beneficial, there's got to be groups out there that can justify it and make it make sense. Yeah. As long as people are being reasonable about it. Right now it feels like Musk is just running the chainsaw, right?
And I think I said it on our other podcast that they're in the break it now and maybe fix it later kind of mode. The issue of it is whenever you're breaking things, you're breaking – let's just say it's all altruistic. It's all for good things, right? Then people's lives are at stake. People's livelihoods, people's survival are at stake. And it's not something to take lightly. Right.
And then on the other end of that coin, it's like there kind of is this ticking time bomb of national debt that eventually gets to a point that no one's even quite sure of where we just all completely run out of money. And that's a tricky one too. Why haven't we been doing anything about it? Yeah.
We definitely should have been. Yeah, I mean, Trump added a ton to the deficit. And typically, I think, if you look at it, Republicans tend to. But, yeah, I don't know what the long-term effects are. It's kind of interesting that it's been tackled in this way with a Republican in. It seems like that would have been... I think he's not really a Republican. That's probably part of it. Probably true. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. And neither is Musk. You know, these guys. Yeah, I don't think so. I mean, I wouldn't say Tulsi or RFK are either. No, it's like a kind of oddly fringe Democratic party. Which, you know, to me is actually kind of interesting. That's one of the things like if if they weren't just like just taking a chainsaw to all kinds of shit that I think is important.
Uh...
I would be really curious to see how they do it because they are
Not just traditional politicians. And then you can't put them into a box. I mean, they say a lot of stupid things sometimes, but it's definitely an interesting time for sure. I mean, for that reason, definitely. I think it's interesting. Yeah. What did you think about Elon saying there may be like a trillion dollar scam being undertaken, like the biggest fraud undertaking in history?
i think it's going to be tough to put all the pieces together for that but but mine so he's saying that was about ngos right where yeah he's saying that people are just just starting up ngos they're they're they're fresh and just have their like accounts set up and then they're getting billion dollar grants and um you know i don't know anything about that world really um i what i guess i know a little bit about kind of the non-profit world and
I could see how something like that might be true, but also it just seems like somebody should have been watching. And maybe nobody has. I don't know. And you know what? I want to see those receipts. If he's saying trillions of dollars are just going to these...
enrichment schemes for NGOs. Put your money where your mouth is. Let's see it. Right. Roll them up, man. And, you know, at what point can... I mean, because this is so heated, right? There are people that are going to be on his side, people adamantly against it. At what point...
Can you say that something is proven? That's where it gets slippery, right? So let's say we pull up an NGO. They've taken $10 billion over these years. This is how the grants were picked up. Legal forms exist. They're very long. They're all covered by lawyers. All the I's are dotted. The T's are crossed. It makes sense for where the money should be going. Well, now we have to cross-reference everything.
from this thing to places. And who knows how far the rabbit hole goes. I mean, when I first heard this, I thought to myself, okay, so if there was a system like this that you knew wasn't really being looked at, but you're still going to cover your bases because this is entirely the thing, the task that you've been given. Hmm.
So you would have all the documentation together, everything to apply for this thing, this grant. You'd have a name that fit, you know, like the something activist aid, put all those words in, patriot, like all the stuff that really sells you. And then, you know, you could just set up one account after another, make payments to it.
make it look like you were just paying into this other aid organization that then had it. It's just that it could get very, very difficult to prove that it's like you've been planning this out. Well,
That was just me listening to this podcast. So if you put very smart people that know how to funnel money into something and also know the process for investigation, they're like, oh, this will be impossible to prove. It will look like we did all of these things. And maybe they did. Maybe they're following all the rules, like you said, did all the paperwork. Is anybody breaking the law? No.
But it's not – I don't think this is a question of what the law is. I don't think that the law may have been being broken. It's just like that's not what taxpayers' money is for. It was never supposed to go that way. And if there are these systems in place that are allowing this to just be wasted and fraudulently taken, we need to get a hold of it.
Yeah, if that hypothetical is true or his claims are true, yeah, we've got to get control of it. I agree. Right. Yep. Musk's social security stuff, right? So he's looking into that. There's reports that there are very old people that are still shown as being alive mainly because they're using this super old crappy system.
um this computer system that just i guess what is what is it doing it just doesn't realize people are dead or you can't even input that like 1950s uh programming language yeah yeah yeah yeah um
Yeah, I don't know if it was identified, but before all this went down, in 2023, there was a GAO. So inspector generals are going around and doing audits of these systems. So in 2023, there was an audit of the social security system, and they did find that there were issues with deceased individuals still being in the system. I don't remember. I mean, I haven't pulled it up and looked at it.
um, in depth, but you know, that's not that outrageous a claim because there is already some audits that were taking place before this administration took over. So, um, yeah, there's probably just not an easy way to, uh, try to do quality control on it. Maybe, I don't know. Hopefully they can get in there and use some of those,
young programmers and come up with a better system to do it. But it's, you know, it's a massive database. Right. And, you know, from what I'm hearing, it doesn't seem like a lot of payments were made to the people that
were seen as 150 plus years old. But Elon suggested that there could be an underlying issue where they could be qualifying for other benefits that somebody could be pulling on. And again, it's like that multi-layered deception. That is a good move for fraud. It's like, why make it direct? Just have this person be seen as alive.
Don't create a red flag by taking Social Security payments when you're 140. But as long as you're registered somewhere, maybe disability checks come in or just some other type of money benefit. Get in there and clean that shit up, man. Sneaky, right? I mean, yeah. Are people doing it on purpose? If they are, that's fraud. Or is it really just...
Just a clumsy database management. Maybe. I don't really know. That's definitely something that seems like it's probably easy to...
to highlight, to show the receipts on. So hopefully they do. And it kind of makes sense that we should modernize these systems. I mean, there is something to be said. I mean, I know they've been in the nuclear silos and stuff. They still use floppy disk to set up some of these things. And that sounds insane, but at the same time, good luck trying to hack into a computer that is never going to be on the internet.
because it can handle it yeah yeah it's just like super old so maybe maybe there is a value to it being kind of a little disconnected but if it's so old that it can't differentiate people's age and i mean that's tricky that's tricky we've got to cover the elon nazi salute
You want to? Well, he did. They did. Yeah, that's true. They talked about it. You know, I mean, people have feelings about it. I thought that it was not the best thing to do when I saw it. I was like, Elon, shit. Come on, man. That's going to be a conversation I'm going to have. For such a smart guy, he does some stupid things sometimes. He's certainly pretty goofy.
No, yeah. You know, he tried to just blow it off, I think, in this podcast with Joe. But, you know, I've seen images comparing like other people at CPAC that did the exact same thing. I was like, well, it was clearly planned, but why? Is it really just to like...
create a headline and they're okay with like the things that people infer about it? There's so many ways to create a headline when you have a stage that I just, that one just doesn't, it doesn't make sense to me. Three or four people at CPAC did it.
Like almost identically. And here's the thing. It's like, okay, is there like a very powerful group out there that are pro-Nazi that have a ton of money and this is some sort of very secretive signaling process? Because it doesn't seem like there is. I mean, of all the nefarious players, I'm like, it's not like there's just one spot where Nazis are still pretty powerful.
I bet you it was all the real high-profile, useful Nazis that got rolled up at the end of World War II and in the Nuremberg trials. And all the really smart ones, all the ones that were managing all the business and money, they all snuck away. So they probably never really went away. They just went undercover. Yeah.
So they're probably still around. Yeah, but well, they're dead now. That's a conspiracy theory. They're dead now. No, it's not really. There was Operation Paperclip.
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Yeah, well, no, that's true. That was well documented and they brought all the Nazi scientists over. Yeah. You know, in fact, like Werner Von Braun wrote a book in the 1950s about somebody called Elon that became the president of Mars.
Oh, really? That's wild. Crazy, right? Yeah, so Elon really is just like the heir apparent of this Nazi regime, huh? Well, it's... They're going to set up like a Nazi utopia on Mars. Oh, God. Now that's a conspiracy theory. Yeah. Yeah, well, either way, I'm not going to Mars.
I'm not going up there. One, because it's Mars and it would suck and be really difficult to live. And two, now I think there might be Nazis. Exactly. Just another check. Not going to do it. It's not worth the risk. No, we got it. We got it easy here. Yeah. So, yeah, not a good salute, dude.
Yeah, they definitely played it down. But I don't know what else you do other than either tell the truth or I don't know. He didn't have any other options besides playing it down, I think. Yeah. Or just say, I screwed up. I shouldn't have done it, I guess. That would have been... That's kind of a good move, actually. It's just it seems to be in the politician playbook that you don't do that, though. For whatever reason, no one ever takes any...
responsibility for being wrong. If they do, they're Democrats. It's definitely not a Republican thing. Just keep moving. I've never seen Gavin Newsom do it, though.
No, I don't know. But like, you know, Al Franken, right? He fell on that grenade. Oh, I screwed up. That's true. And he's gone. They shouldn't have got rid of him. Democrats hold themselves to their ethics. Oh, yeah, really? Nancy Pelosi? Don't stop. Apparently.
Apparently she's doing everything by the book, right? Misses insider trading. Yeah. Technically, that's not illegal. It's legal. Yeah. Unfortunate. They got to fix that, dude. That one seems bad for sure. But yeah, you might be right. There might be some more accountability in that direction. I just don't get it. I think more people could do it and it would give even strong, perceived strong individuals, like it would make them look better.
I don't assign it to weakness. Maybe a lot of people do. Maybe they know something I don't. And statistically, if you are that vulnerable, you're destroyed. But I don't think so. I see it as a sign of strength, personally. And maybe it's just on the individual level. But if a person says, you know what? Shit, I was wrong. I know better now. To me, that's hard to do.
Yeah, unless because you're the only one doing it and all the rest of the politicians are not. Every time that you take a stand on something, they'd be like, remember when he was wrong that time before? And that's the whole story. That's true. Yeah, it could be some of that stuff. I don't know.
I don't know. They talked a little bit about Biden and that whole shop as attack reference that was kind of like all over the news. And I think this, what they were mentioning is like, it seems like,
Often, the news gets given these talking points because they say the same thing. Have you ever seen those videos where they line up like a hundred screens? It's all from the Murdoch family media.
Murdoch, right? Rupert Murdoch? Are they always connected? I mean, they're obviously connected because it's the same thing that they're saying, but is it easily traceable back to one network or one family? So that example that you're talking about where they're lining up all the panels of all of the different local...
uh news anchors and stuff from around the country during like a two-week period is like 50 or 60 of them they are all saying the same thing verbatim right right yep like they got a script clearly um yeah that's all tied to uh like a family of media and it gets tied to murdoch somehow but there was one recently that was like congress people elizabeth warren was one of the people
And she's saying the exact same speech as these three other very well-known people. I have to send you the clip, but it's like they're reading a thing.
I bet so. Yeah, I believe it. I think that there's probably within the political parties, you know, Kate, everybody, this is our line. This is the company line. Go out there and say it. We want to see you on Fox saying it. We want to see you on CNN saying it because we just want to get this line heard as many times as possible. I'm sure they do that. That sounds bad. I don't like any party or any group that does that. I'm against it.
Yeah. It's just, I think it's their strategy. Hmm. Yeah. Well, they bring it back to like what they were saying about Biden over and over. It was like a news thing. Like all the different channels were like sharp as a tack. Well, number one, that is not a very common phrase generally. Yeah. Like we've heard of it. We know what it is for a couple of media outlets to say it. That's descriptive. Right. But using the same thing,
and like having that be the piece when look now we all know he clearly wasn't they were all lying dude he was sharp as attack he still is dude nobody nobody was thinking that was true nobody was ever thinking that was true they just said it hoping it was going to be true he might have been in like the 90s i think probably
I mean, still lying about... He was sharper than he was last year, 100%. Yeah. Still lying about being top of his class and having four degrees, but that's general politician stuff. If you've been in for your whole, whatever, 30, 40 years kind of stretch, I mean, if you were around before Google, you were saying some things because you just assumed they were never going to be able to check it.
Or you didn't care if they did. Yeah. Now people can QC that, I guess, a little bit. Yeah, politicians are bad at it. I think they're just circling it back to the idea that... Some of them are. Some of them are. If there are groups out there that are making these talking points, and then we're looking at three or four news sources thinking that they're separate pieces of information, it's really not true. And also the real question is who...
Is creating this narrative and is it helpful? And if anything is created that way, should you believe any of it? It's a little tricky. Yeah, no, it is. I think believing anything that you see from talking heads on any of them, like most of the news agencies, I think you got to fact check yourself, right? Mm-hmm.
Yeah. And that I've heard this, we've had this conversation before. We is like people, right? Whenever that video came out on YouTube of all those media outlets verbatim saying the same thing.
It's hard. It's getting hard to validate information these days. There's so much misinformation out there. Sure. It's tricky. What's your take on the controversies over Elon's team and the type of access that they have? Now, this really plays into a lot of what we're talking about in the first couple of weeks on the Doge report.
But yeah, just for the JRE review version, what were your initial thoughts? Were you concerned about access? Those sorts of things. Yeah, I think anywhere we can minimize how much of our personal data getting out there, anywhere we can minimize that I think is a good thing. So yeah, it happens. Data breaches are left and right and
I think it's a bad thing. And I think what's interesting is... Wait, wait, you think it's a bad thing for a team that's designed to investigate things to have access or data breaches? Well, yeah. So I guess what I'm thinking is that...
I don't know what their motives are with the data. Like if they have access to it and they don't use it for ulterior motives or, you know, what I don't really want is like them to be plugging all of our data into like an AI and using it to train an AI. I think, you know, right now they're using, you know, public accessible data.
I think there's something wrong with using all of our personal data, like your health records or social security payments for maybe potentially gain for a private company. Like that's that I don't want to happen. Right. Right. I don't know if that's happening, but that would be my concern.
With them having access. I don't know what they're doing with it. And if they tell us and somebody – we have some sort of watchdog that says, you know what, they're just using it to improve efficiency and for official purposes. A big push that was reported was that they have access to employees' –
of the government, their personal information, and it's not like where they go shopping. It's like their address, the date of birth, and then their social security number. What was interesting when I heard that is I used to run a cell phone store
And it was an interesting one. It's on the military base. And the ones on the military bases in the BX, they had access, we did, which is kind of unique to all of the major carriers. We had AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile, I think Boost. So we would have, we had to learn each of their systems. So it was more complicated than just one carrier. And we often hired from
Like you needed previous services, one of the carriers before you get on there. Otherwise the systems, it would just take too long to train you. But what was wild about it is when you think of having all those carriers, we literally had everybody on there somewhere. Like I could look you up without knowing which carrier you have because I only have to check with like four people.
What kind of information do you have? You had maybe a social security number and then like a bank account number or what was it? No. Maybe it would have the last four of your bank account. It would have your social on there, which I always thought was wild, but it was just in there in the system. It would have your address. It has your date of birth. It has your...
code or pin number for like how you access the account because we would use that code to check you in, which could tell you, it just felt like that's telling you a lot. And I did nothing with it. Nobody was. There's regulatory. So,
Congress has decided, we've decided that what you do with that data is what matters, right? So we have regulatory bodies, I don't know, some consumer protection board or something like that.
I don't know who it is, but that monitors and we have laws that say you shall not use that data for anything other than business information. For sure. I would have gotten in a ton of trouble if I ever did that. But you had access. But I'm just saying it was right there. You guys have access. It depends on how they use it is what it comes down to. Right. What is their intent? Yeah.
Yeah, I'm just saying I'm not some MIT super genius that's been tasked with trying to find fraud. I was a guy that sold cell phones, and I had all of that data. Yeah, gotcha. So I'm just saying we could slow down a little bit on, oh my goodness, this will ruin everyone's lives type of energy. But also maybe that's just how I see it.
Maybe it is massively dangerous for it to be that way. I just don't know. Yeah, I'm not a specialist on it either. I don't know for sure. I think it should be protected and it should be used appropriately. Fair enough. And if they do that, I'm okay with it. What about...
This kind of, and this has to be considered a conspiracy theory, but Elon's idea that the Democrats were basically importing immigrants to fast track them, uh, into having the capability to vote, um, as some sort of ploy, just to win all the elections. Sounds wild. It is. It is. There's no, uh, I mean, it,
He says it because it is sensational. Would it be a difficult thing to prove? It is illegal for somebody who's here illegally and is not a citizen to vote in any national election. Right. But if they're getting fast-tracked,
Through their immigration status. Google, what is the average time for us to get citizenship? If you come here illegally. If you come here legally, you've been through the process. I don't know how long it would take you to get your citizenship. A long time. It was difficult. It takes a long fucking time. Nobody fast-tracked me, though. What is that word, and how could we see if that's actually happening? I don't even know how you do it. You just speed it up, I guess. But our states can't fast-track it.
Right. So you'd have to have some sort of like special list of people who are getting fast tracked into citizenship if they wanted to for them to matter in any type of election. Right. And I think it's illegal in all states for any like statewide election for I think there are some states that have local election where people can vote if you're not a citizen for local like school board elections, those kinds of things. Right. But I don't think there's any like broad.
But I could be wrong. What about all this not requiring voter ID for voting stuff? How is that even a thing? Because it just seems to me like that should absolutely be a thing. Why would you not have ID? You can't even get into the events that we put on locally for the magazine we make unless you have your ID.
To show that you're over 21 and a ticket to get in. And then all you do is watch snowboard videos for two hours. Right? Yeah. I don't know. I don't know what arguments against it are like other than like.
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Hi, I'm Chris Gethard, and I'm very excited to tell you about Beautiful Anonymous, a podcast where I talk to random people on the phone. I tweet out a phone number. Thousands of people try to call. You talk to one of them. They stay anonymous. I can't hang up. That's all the rules. I never know what's going to happen. We get serious ones. I've talked with meth dealers on their way to prison. I've talked to people who survived mass shootings.
Crazy funny ones. I talked to a guy with a goose laugh. Somebody who dresses up as a pirate on the weekends. I never know what's going to happen. It's a great show. Subscribe today. Beautiful Anonymous. Not everybody has access to an ID. I mean, you're required to in your states. I think most states, if not all states, have a requirement to have some sort of ID. I don't really know what the arguments are against it. To me, it passes the sniff test. I mean, you just go to the DMV, right? And then get one.
They're like 40 bucks. What do you have to have to get a license at the DMV? What are your documents that you have to have? Well, I just got my license the other day. I needed two forms of my address.
So I had my lease and I had something from the bank. And I had to go to the bank because I just moved. So I was like, can you just, I just changed it, but can you print the thing? So it didn't even look that good. That wasn't even difficult at all. I basically could have just printed that myself. That's how clunky it looked. They took it. Next to that, I had my old license. But if you didn't have that, I guess they could look you up with a passport or your social ID.
You know, you'd have to have your card. It just wasn't a lot of stuff. And you should probably have those things. So all those things, to me, like if you're a citizen, you should have them, right? So, yeah, I don't know what the arguments are against it. Like, I guess I would want to know more on the face of it. It's like, sure.
Carrier ID. Like, this is me. I'm voting. Right. I just wonder how they figure out who the heck just voted if you don't have it. Just because you wrote a name on the thing? Are they cross-referencing all the names to make sure they're also citizens? They're referencing signatures, right? You sign it and they compare that to your signature on your voter registration. Okay.
I think that's the only verification, other than, like, you've got to know your address. That's how they do it where I live. I don't know. Oh, gotcha. That is every state, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I don't know. I don't vote. I probably should. I just need some candidates I like, dude. I just need some... Yeah, of course you are, because you're worried who I'll vote for. Well, at least I'm not voting for clowns, bro. Nazis on Mars. Nazis on Mars.
all right dude you voted for a dude with alzheimer's or at least dementia probably that was the thing you did you did you not you didn't vote in this election no wow no whoever did and voted for the current president voted the oldest man into
Into the White House. Good job. That is true, yeah. They are getting older and older. We could definitely get some young ones in there. That generation just needs to hang it up. I would like to see limited terms for Congress and Senate. I don't think that there's necessarily a huge advantage to quote-unquote experience when it comes to that. I think they just get potentially more crooked as time goes on. Um...
And, yeah, but I guess going back to running the government like a company, then it would make sense to have people with experience just stay in. But some type of checks and balances on term limits would be useful. Yeah, I agree. You know, maybe shuffle them around, do something. And then also age limit stuff. Yeah.
I mean, aren't you in forced retirement at 65 or 70 for most jobs? Right. Yeah. No, we got to do something there. There's got to be cognitive tests and make sure that you're capable of making solid decisions and
I'm good with some terminal term limits to some extent. I do think there's value in having people that know that make relate form relationships with other lawmakers, you know, and able to like, you know what, you, you help me out on this. I'll, I'll, I'll, uh, I'll give you a little bit here. You know, I think there's some value there. Right.
Yeah, and there might be. There might be. One thing I wanted to finish up on, we're kind of wrapping up. There were a few other points, like making, getting his rockets to space cheaper and how useful that will be. I mean, obviously for the U.S. government, wanting to get things into space, it's a good idea. Yeah.
um we could eventually get some rare earth minerals from space who knows what they could do right yeah there's some good stuff going on there concerns about ai um we've kind of gone over those stories a few times but um towards the end he was elon was talking about how he feels his life might be in danger yeah and that one that one was kind of a change of tone
for a second and I don't know if Joe really knew how to take that obviously Joe has his own security probably encouraged by Elon and other big players that he knows so he understands the value in it but really seeing it as like people might be so worried about him uncovering something that the best move for them might be
assassination. Now, I'm sure he has an army. He's the wealthiest man in the world. I'm sure he's protected probably like the president is or maybe better. Well, I'm sure better after the complete debacle of the Trump assassination where they couldn't even get on the slopey roof. I wouldn't want that team working for me, would you? No. I'm not showing.
But yeah, what's your take on that? Do you think that he could be close to assassination? And if that is the question, why would he be doing any of this? He clearly doesn't need more money. True. Yeah, because he wants the... I think the answer to that question is because he wants our democracy to succeed, right? I do think... He believes that to be true, right? Yeah, yeah.
And I think he should be careful. Like, and he, you could tell throughout the episode and now that he's kind of, now that he's got like some sort of role with the government, he's going to be a little bit more careful than he has been in the past on what he says, you know, like he's, if you're going after a corruption, I'm sure there's, you know, there's movies about it. I don't, I can't think of any like real world cases, but if you start,
cutting into people's power and taking away their power or their money, they're going to come after you. You know, like they, you know, they talked about the Epstein files, like why the hell aren't the Epstein files out?
That was another thing. Freaking powerful people are on that list. That's why it's not coming out. Yeah, and that's very obvious. Even though Trump said, oh yeah, I'm going to release him day one. He kind of says, oh well, maybe I will. It's because he's on that list and they don't want to say it, Joe and Elon. Because they've got to be careful. Well, he's on the flight logs for sure. That's been proven. There's not much of a connection with him and
and Epstein after Epstein's first charge. So that's like back in 2004. I don't know if he had that island then too. I mean, the list is one thing, but really the list I'm looking for, and I think everyone is, is like who went to the island, right? Yeah.
It's like flying around with somebody in those circles. It's like, I'm sure there's a lot of flying around that goes on. Now, it doesn't look good that Clinton definitely flew with him 26 times. That sounds like maybe too many times to be flying with anyone. I haven't flown with my wife that many times, and I know almost everything she's doing.
To claim that you're not tied to it in any way and you're like, if you hop into a car with a drug dealer and you just drive by, pull up, hop in their car and then get out, it's a reasonable suspicion that you're probably buying drugs. Yeah, I mean, if you also get caught going into their car 26 times, then... It's not going to come out. And if it does, how can we trust it? Right?
I don't see how you could. It's true. It's going to be redacted. It's going to be black lines and it's going to like, they're going to, all their names are going to be blacked out for some people. It's just going to be another lame uncovering. And I mean, you know, it feels like that's what's happening with the JFK files. If anything, I think that they gave the good ones to RFK. That's part of his deal. He gets them. But then they're like also,
Look on page four. That's why we can't talk about this. Are you cool with this now that we've given it to you? What else do you need? Here's $200 million. We should know, man. Don't hold that back. Whoever is breaking the law and doing things they shouldn't be doing, whether they're on the left or the right,
Let's hang them up, man. Let's give them their day in court. Do you think that if it was just like an overall plot by the CIA, that there would be a big push to just disband the whole agency? Even this many years later? No, if they killed JFK, straight up. Oh, okay. And that's what the files had. I mean, that's not a good look, dude. I don't know if you recover from that.
Yeah. Yeah, I don't either. And maybe they're like, we can't afford to get rid of them now. Yeah, back then, the FBI, they were rogue, man. They were doing some crazy shit that we know about now. Yeah. They were up to all kinds. If your purpose is to ensure that our government continues on, that's going to be a tough thing to swallow for everybody. Mm-hmm. Yep.
Yeah. Look, there's a lot to uncover. There's a lot to work through. It was great having Elon on. I like that he has this platform and he can come in and just kind of throw his pieces down. Again, what we do on the Doge report is we look at the Doge.gov site. We look at what the government releases. We're trying to reference that with pretty much centrist news.
sites as best we can and you know see if things line up or what doesn't and ultimately time will tell right what's nice about this is there's some quantifiable pieces they're talking about gotta take out a trillion dollars
So that should bring inflation flat for a period of time. All of that stuff we can monitor. You can't put a lot of spin on that. I guess you could make excuses for it, but they either do that or they don't. And we get to see where the national debt is. And it's like, are we able to stop that number consistently?
Going up because it's all well and good making these claims that we're cutting all these programs and potentially saving all this waste and money All right prove it on that massive number that keeps getting bigger that we're all potentially pretty terrified of right I mean That's gonna be what shows us and I think also in time
you know we're gonna see if the team is effective uh if they can actually get anything done if everything just keeps getting locked up or they make massive blunders and they lose public support um it's going to be difficult for them too any final thoughts no I thought you know the the must conversation with Joe I thought it was it was interesting they covered a lot of ground and um
It's definitely worth listening to and get out there and listen to our new podcast, The Doge Report. We're going to dive into it. Nice. I like it. All right. Thank you, Trevor. And thank you, everybody, for tuning in this week. And we will talk to you next time.
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