Full Transcript for Political Extremism RISES, Mamdani Bans AI, and Trump’s Controversial Childcare Plan

the affordability crisis, we need to attach the rich. But then it's like, okay, but well how? And it's like, well, maybe you could raise tax rates. And then you you'll be like, well, what if raising the tax rates actually doesn't increase the government revenue because we're already at the laptop curve optimizing rate? And it's like, ⁓ shit, that might be true. And it's like these are like complicated issues. ⁓ so the more I talk about them and the more I think about them, the more I'm just like, ooh, I actually like, you know, there's still so much more to dig into. Jake, what would you say are some Like w what would success look like for you with the podcast? What are what are some goals that you have? What what what would make this successful? Yeah, so my highest level goal is to convert you into being an Austrian economics person. That's your main goal? ⁓ yeah, yeah. That either that or a Christian. I have to convert you to one of those two. If I get you praying to Christ and, you know, reading Mises is when I've, you know, done my done my job. The audience Read and loving it. That's what I gotta get you doing. And if I can drag the audience along with you, you know, that's when I've I've done my part. What about you? I wonder which one you'll have more success with. I I I can't I the I don't know. I don't I don't know which one you'll have We'll see. We'll we'll have to check in periodically on your progress with that. Yeah, right. Pull the audience and pull you on your favorability on both Christianity and on Austrian economics. Yes, and and and how cruel. How ⁓ how I'm moving on those things. Yeah. We'll ⁓ well we'll we'll see about that. My goal is to amass as much wealth and power as possible in as short amount of time as possible. That's I think that's what I want to do. I want I want to just have just massive amounts of political and cultural influence and and leverage that influence. That's what I want to do with the split ticket podcast. So yeah. The Anakin Skywalker meme and leverage that power for good, right? You're gonna use that power to do good things, yeah? Yes, exactly. ⁓ I wanted to ask a ⁓ before we jump in, a self-reflective question. ⁓ what is one thing you think I can learn from you, and what is one thing you're hoping to learn from me based on our brief time knowing each other? Yeah, yeah. Brief as in almost five months now or so. But yeah, no, I think what I would like to learn from you most is how to sort of present as less autistic, like how to be more empathetic in the way I approach problems. I have a tendency to like look at a thing and you're like, yeah, but people are suffering. And I'm like, well, what are you optimizing for? And you're like, ⁓ my God, I don't care. Like I just want to help people. And I'm like I don't think the chart seem to reflect what you're saying. And it's like, you know, Like th there's a time and a place for what I'm doing there, but there's also moments where you just gotta empathize with people, man. And so I think what I'm trying to learn from you is how to be like a nicer person. ⁓ yes. Yes. I think that's a great one. I actually really do. I think I think that I think that would make you a lot more effective with different audiences who might not resonate with that super numbers brain. And on the contrary, it's like my answer is essentially the inverse. Like what I'm hoping to learn from you. is I want to learn how to kind of like get off these kind of like these like grandiose philosophical ideas, always starting with, okay, well, what do you want society to look like and then reverse engineering from there? But then starting to integrate a lot of the stuff that you've taught me, which is, you know, looking at the the the mathematical side of things and being a bit more methodical in that way and a little bit more regimented and digging into the number side of thing instead of just always looking at the human toll of it. Which is interesting because it does seem like That's a very kind of like liberal thing to do. Like I think that that liberals and conservatives have very different ways of conceptualizing empathy. I think conservatives are like, you know, you have personal agency and I have empathy for the fact that you have personal agency and therefore you control your own destiny. Whereas liberals just kind of look at it as like, ⁓ my God, people are suffering. What do we do? We need to fix these problems. And it's it's it's weird. Like I I don't identify as a liberal, but I feel like sometimes the way I think about and understand empathy is like kind of liberal. And I actually think that that way of thinking about it can get in the way of effective policy prescriptions because you get clouded by just the fact that people are really fucked up. But you gotta you gotta be able to do both, man. You gotta be able to do both. Yeah. But how'd you get into politics? What was your well tell the audience your starting moment of like, was it a stuttle kind of I've always been in it or did something happen or like how did how did you decide? I've always loved it. I've always just been really interested in people. Like I'm just a super extroverted person. Like on like you know, big five personality, I'm like a ninety-eight, ninety-nine percent extroversion. And I'm also like a ninety-eight, ninety-nine percent agreeable, particularly the subcategory of agreeable compassion, which is your interest in other people and your desire to prioritize the needs of other people over the needs of yourself. So I'm super excited to talk to other people, and I'm also super interested in other people and want to hear what they have to say. So that was always the the sort of undergirding principle of my interest in politics was never like partisanship or kind of like obsession about policy, but it started with just a curiosity around people, culture, and society and like what people liked. Like I loved the the McCain Obama election. I think it

was like six or seven at the time. ⁓ but I I didn't have like political opinions and my family's not political at all. I I think my mom voted for Obama, my dad voted for McCain or vice versa, but neither of them are really political. But I was just really interested to hear like why people liked one of the candidates over the other. And that's what motivated me to care about that race. And I remember that very vividly. And then ever since then, it's always been that. I really am not a partisan. All of the classes that I took in politics to fulfill my politics major at MYU were mostly in political philosophy and political psychology. That's what I love. And now I've started to get more into you know developing my own political identity and and and trying to think about prescriptions to improve American life. But it really boils down to a curiosity about people, why they do the things they do, and what are the factors that influence their votes. One of the classes I took is called Biology of Politics, which I think is really interesting. It's actually a genetic component to why you vote the way you do. There's environmental factors, there's all this stuff. So that's really what what drives my interest. How about you? Yeah. So I've always been sort of a like a business conservative. I've always thought about the world in in numbers and e in efficiency and just trying to kind of build out What I think would be not like in a utopian sense, but just in like an efficiency sense, in a freedom sense, of trying to let people, when they're free, they will select what they want for themselves and just kind of operating under that assumption. And I had a lot of things in my life that kind of shaped me in that direction towards becoming what I am now, which is a Christian, a capitalist, and a nationalist in that order. And we'll get into all three of those things, which you know, the first one you don't agree with, but you like. The second one, you like, but I don't you say you like, but I don't really think you do. and the third, I do. I I I know you keep saying that. And then the third one, nationalism, you and I have slightly different views on immigration, but we're pretty close actually on that's probably our closest of the three views there. But I, you know, I lived in Malawi for a while growing up, and I was in Puerto Rico more recently, and I had a lot of experiences that really shaped who I was and what I thought. But kind of building out my my worldview on reading books and experiencing people and interacting with the world versus deciding to do something about it. I had a very clear moment where I was like, I have to do something. And that was the I had always been a fan of a lot of commentators. I liked Ben Shapiro. I liked Dave Smith, which I know is like a a fairly like wide end of the of the thing. Yeah. I love Dave Smith. I didn't love Charlie Kirk, but I saw a lot of his videos and I really like respected. his like free speech approach, same thing with Steven Crowder and all that. And I will never forget the day that Charlie Kirk was murdered. And I I was fully convinced in that moment because I I I had this worldview that people people weren't like fundamentally good, but that people did care about each other. And although we may have different ways of getting there, we kind of wanted a good, stable, happy America. It's what I really, really believed in my core. And so when Charlie Kirk was murdered, my first thought was, ⁓ my God, he has a family. Like, what's gonna happen? And then, you know, my next thought was, you know, the country's gonna unify together. You know, we have the summer of love with the mostly peaceful protests. We had ⁓ like, you know, the attacks on Tesla, and you know, there's been a huge amount of just intense, you the Luigi Mangion, it's been a huge amount of intense left wing violence that have been having for a very long time. But I kind of thought we reached a boiling point and we'd all go, whoa, like Like that that's too far and we'd have this moment. And some people really did do that. But on mass, I mean, I saw people who I personally knew, people not good friends of mine, people who I thought were friends of mine, like celebrate the murder of Charlie Kirk. And I said, I no more. I am done sitting. I was gonna be in like an investment bank guy or maybe a private equity or something. I had worked in consulting for a couple of years, like that was gonna be what I was gonna do. And I said, fuck it. And I applied to Jubilee that week and you know, started doing debates and commentating and launching Instagram. And I was like, no, like I cannot just be some banker guy. Like I have to fight against the people who want to murder me and murder my children. But I I have never been so angry and so terrified about something as I was the murder of Charlie Kirk. And it like launched me into action. And now, you know, I'm I'm fully committed to winning the culture wars. And I think economics are part of the culture wars. And I think foreign policy is part of the culture wars. But I think, you know, Breitbart that politics is downstream from culture. And I think it's all about protect frankly protecting children. And I I need to make sure that more people don't have to suffer the way Charlie Kirk's children did just because of my views on economics or guns or trans issues. Yeah. Yeah. So Charlie Kirk is actually our first topic. So we have a lot to talk about with him. ⁓ just to go over what the sort of framework for the show will be is we'll always start with a little bit of banter and then we'll have three topics that you and I will discuss. ⁓ so today obviously it was the ⁓ you know, ⁓ we just ⁓ you know, passed the year after the assassination of Charlie Kirk. ⁓ so yeah, so let's let's kick off with the show. Today we'll be discussing Political extremism a year after the assassination of Charlie Kirk, which we've gotten into a little bit already. ⁓ we're gonna

talk about Zoran Mamdani's AI moratorium in schools. We'll talk about Trump's proposal for a childcare subsidy that allows married couples to receive a payment only if one parent stays home. And finally, we'll end with a discussion on the state of terrorism in America today, in the wake of the twenty fifth anniversary of September eleventh, two thousand and one, which was just a few days ago. ⁓ so yeah, first year anniversary of the assassination of Charlie Kirk. Obviously, Jake, you've already told us a little bit about what Charlie meant to you and what that moment meant to you. Political polarization and extremism are worsening problems in America. ⁓ with one in five saying political violence may be necessary to save the country. ⁓ and that was ⁓ from a recent PRRI poll. ⁓ obviously, look, Charlie Kirk had a tremendous impact on both of us. I don't think anyone has done more to engage young people in politics or model the importance of free speech than him. And I also just think he was such a good role model for young men. He was married, he had children, he worked so hard so that his wife could take care of those children. He was always civil and respectful in his interaction with people, ⁓ even those who that he had massive moral and political objections to. ⁓ in that way he was kind of the personification of anti political extremism. ⁓ which makes it all the more ironic and appalling that it is political extremism and political violence that ended up taking his life. So, Jake, you've told us about your feelings about Charlie Kirk and the impact that he's had on you. What can you say just about the state of political extremism and political violence in the country right now and and what to make of it? Yeah, I mean by polling data, the more conservative you are, the less likely you are to support political violence. Like Far left is the most likely, and then left, and then moderate, and then center right, and then very conservative. Just the you gov polling, it's like a perfect like straight line. There the the the amount of violence that we are seeing from the far left, from these various, you know, transgender shootings against Christian communities, from the fact that I mean this is gonna go on for a very long time. What was it, 2015, when Berkeley campus lit themselves on fire to try to chase Myeliganopoulos out? I mean, Michael Knowles and Ben Shapiro, you know, they they wear like bulletproof vests when they go speak on campuses. They're the we're dealing with like a a scourge of intense, intense violence for a very long time. And I thought the Charlie Kirk thing would be this moment where we'd go, Whoa, okay, that's the breaking point. They've lost it. And we would see some crackdowns, we would see some reforms, we would see some convers some shifts. But we still have like members of Antifa on like sitting on the faculty of Rutgers, like this guy Mark Bray. That we like we we've done nothing about it. We saw like when Elon Musk came into office and they started burning down Teslas and the response was to put a sticker on your Tesla to like, Please don't burn my car. Like, how did how did we get to this point? And it's there's There's nothing about what's happening that's vaguely appropriate, like not even remotely acceptable. And it it it's one of those things that, you know, I've always been mad at Trump for, you know, for a very lot of a lot of things. But one of the things that most upset with him is just like destroying the movement and destroying the momentum. I mean, he Charlie Kirk died in vain. He could have been a martyr and he could have galvanized so much to achieve the goals that Charlie fought for in his life. His there could have been a silver line to his death. And instead, what did we get? We it's it's it's I'm like I'm I'm w like shocked and speechless about what's happened. And it's it's nothing has ever made me more angry outside of like my personal life. But like in the news, it's the most devastating story I've lived through. Yeah. Yeah. I I honestly would agree. It took me a long time to recover. It's one of those things where it's like I'll never forget where I was when I first heard it. ⁓ I think you make a lot of solid points about political extremism and violence on the left. Anyone who claims that political violence or extremism is a bigger problem on the modern political right in America is simply lying. That does not come from a partisan place, at least not from me. One thing that our viewers will s quickly learn is that Jake, you are much more kind of like classically conservative. You identify much more strongly with the Republican Party. I really don't. I I I voted for Kamala Harris. I may vote for a for a Republican or a Democrat, depending on ⁓ who the candidate is. So I I I don't identify with one political party. ⁓ it's just an indefensible position to say that it's not a larger problem on the modern political left. With that said, it may be a bigger problem on the left, but it's not a problem that's exclusive to the left. We have a political violence problem brewing in this country. And it's really serious and scary. ⁓ so I don't know, some people might not know this about me, ⁓ but one of my major political ⁓ interests is political polar polarization as part of my broader interest in political psychology. ⁓ so just to talk about what political polarization is. ⁓ it's a few different things. ⁓ one is elite polarization. Which is the extent to which elected officials have sorted into increasingly distinct ideological camps. ⁓ then you have ideolog ⁓ ideological polarization, which is how far Americans are actually are when it comes to policy. And then you have what is perhaps the most interesting and the most disturbing level of polarization, which is effective polarization, which is how much people personally dislike and distrust the people on the other side. Nothing to do with their policy positions, just has to do with how much you

actually hate somebody or think somebody is less worthy of life or of conversation just because of their political affiliation. And there's a few different ways to measure political polarization. So when it comes to elite polarization, one way that ⁓ political psychologists ⁓ like to to do it is with the DW nominate score graph, ⁓ which essentially measures the political ideology of members of Congress on a liberal to conservative scale. ⁓ so each dot on the graph will represent a member of Congress and their position end indicates where they fall on the liberal to conservative ideol ⁓ ideological spectrum. And over time, what you'll see is those dots ⁓ for Democrat and Republican drift further and further apart, which essentially indicates that members are voting more consistently along party lines, which is why our Congress has gotten consistently less productive. ⁓ because as the distance between those dots increase, the gap between the two parties widens. Which makes bipartisan cooperation extremely difficult. And then things just end up getting progressively worse. Effective polarization, which like I said, is the measure of how much people dislike each other, is the worst it's ever been. In 2026, 93% of Republicans have an unfavorable view of the Democratic Party, 94% of Democrats have an unfavorable view of the Republican Party. We hate each other at record levels. ⁓ and yet the perhaps something that's really interesting to me. Is that when you actually poll people, we don't disagree on policy, which is that other piece of of polarization, the ideological polarization I was talking about. We don't disagree on policy nearly as much as you would think when you look at the data around elite polarization and how much we hate each other, effective polarization. ⁓ so ⁓ there's a political scientist named Luigi, and he did a s ⁓ a study where he asked a couple of people about their social views and a couple questions about their economic views, and then he plotted those points on an axis, ⁓ on the social conservatism axis. And an economic progressivism axis. And he found that there are large swaths of Americans who agree on a lot of stuff. And they tend to be conservative around issues like race and immigration, but more progressive on things like tax breaks for billionaires. So it was really insightful to me because it it showed that A, there is a political middle. There's a political middle that's alive and well. And B, that despite polarization being so high, that middle is actually really heterodox and takes from conservative and liberal ideas. So we currently have this population that's super polarized, super entrenched in their ideology and partisanship, and yet their personal views tend to be a little bit more heterodox. So you have a population that agrees broadly on the direction for the country, and yet is at each other's throat. ⁓ it's just a weird, it's just a weird dynamic. I was just do you have any thoughts on on any of that data

there? Yeah, I mean, on all three points. ⁓ first, the idea of this elite polarization. I think people The the when you see these charts, they very frequently show both parties diverging, or even sometimes show the Republican Party kind of diverging off to the right faster. And it's it's one of those things where you just know the academics are lying. I mean, take any actual issue. Take gay marriage. Like the the Republican like Donald Trump, A, was the first repo president to support gay marriage when he entered office. And he even went so far as to say that he would lick Caitlin Jenner into the women's bathroom. And so the like shift to the left on these issues have gone from has gone from we shouldn't have institutionalized marriage for two men to you can change your gender to men versus women. And the debate is not even about whether that can happen, but whether or not we should surgically or chemically do that on minors. I mean, Donald Trump is to the left of Bill Clinton on basically everything. Like like Freaking everything. Or even the Republicans, some of them are saying safe, legal, and rare on abortion. And Democrats have gone to shout your abortion. Like every single thing, we've moved to the left. And so the difference between Dems and Republicans has gotten wider because the Dems have moved so rapidly to the left. But this idea that the polarization is happening both ways, I don't think that's true on the elite level. Then on this level of social polarization of like what do we view about each other, you also notice that based on polling data. Republicans basically say they're all okay with having Democrat friends. And fact and very few of them say that they've dropped a friend for politics. Whereas it's somewhere between like eight to twenty percent say that of Democrats say they've dropped a friend for politics. And depending on the poll, up to thirty five, forty percent say that they would be okay with dropping a friend over politics. And just on a personal level, I mean you sit in the middle, I'm sure y you'll notice that like Right wing guys are all like, hey, he's one of us. And left wing guys, if they find out that you're not one of them, they flip out on you. And so there's this very clear the social polarization is very one directional. The classic joke, I forgive you for being stupid, you forgive me for being evil. It's like that's a very different thing. Where I think the right tends to think of the left as naive, they tend to think of them as, you know, ⁓ the bleeding heart, liberals, blah, blah, blah. Whereas the left tends to think Republicans have, ⁓ you want to kill grandma. ⁓ you know, like when Joe Biden said that Mitt Romney wanted to put black people back in chains. It's like the most milkedast, like chill guy, like fucking Mitt Romney that he's gonna put you back in chains. It's like no, no, that's not vaguely appropriate. And then on this third level of this policy thing, which I think really does get into the

systems of how we do primaries a little bit, where you tend to get some radicalization. But I also I I I think that I think that a lot of those questions where you look at like, ⁓ we're not that far apart, it's like, no, actually, we are pretty far apart. Like a huge number of people, like like the Democratic Party, the people who are voting for Democrats, are voting to trans your children. They are voting for open borders. They are voting for I mean, Kamala Harris said that she was going to try to illegally ban essentially all guns when Joe Biden, the moderate, said You know, I think it's unconstitutional, we can't do that. And she says, Come on, Joe, how about instead of saying no, we can't say yes, we can? Like, and when you just you look at the actual policies that are happening. And sometimes you poll people where you ask a question and you're like, you know, what do you think about this? And you can kind of frame questions to get people to think the same things. But it's one in five Democrats thought the murder of Charlie Kirk was justified. We do not have the same worldview anymore. And I it's It's it's I I really do think we are living in two vastly different universes. And there is a moderate person. And I'm not claiming, I certainly would never say that all on the left have lost their minds. There is a moderate person. But the moderate person is shrinking and shrinking rapidly. Yeah. One ⁓ just clarifying point I want to make about the pol about the elite polarization is I agree largely with your point about the ⁓ the differences between the parties. But what I was particularly referencing with that polarization there is that the data indicates that Republicans and Democrats are increasingly voting along party lines at records that we haven't really seen before. Like you don't see a lot of Republicans ever voting with Democrats or Democrats voting with Republicans. You just kind of see both parties kind of digging their heels in and voting with their party and with their party only. ⁓ and you know, the other stuff, you know, I think that. In terms of why we hate each other so much, I hear what you're saying about that, you know, we we are different on a lot of things, but there's also a lot of manufactured outrage, and there's a lot of megaphones that are given to the most radical people in our society. Obviously, big tech is a huge component. The algorithms want to keep you on this platform so they pump content that is incendiary and fements rage and anger and hatred because that keeps people much more active than the alternative. So I think that we we can see these things online where the most radical amongst us are the people with the loudest voices and the biggest megaphones. But there is still a large percentage of this country that is not ass backwards crazy. ⁓ but before we go and we have to move on to the next thing, I I'll say that I think the best way to fight against political extremism is is to fight against what I see as an

encroaching culture of obedience. I mentioned the Rwandan genocide, which is a really interesting story about the dangers of political polarization. And I will tell the story on this podcast at some point. ⁓ but a lot of analysts claim that Rwanda was ⁓ especially fertile ground for genocide because it had such a culture of obedience. So I think we need to fight against that. We need to fight against tribalism, we need to not conflate morality and human worth with somebody's opinion or identity. ⁓ you know, try to be friends with people who disagree with you. I mean, I'm friends with people from all over the ideological scale. As long as they treat me nice and they don't do something like support the murder of Charlie Kirk. ⁓ I'm I'm happy to be friends with with anybody. ⁓ I I I don't think that normalizing or excusing dehumanization on the basis of a political identity is ever appropriate under any circumstances. Political extremism is evil and on the rise. ⁓ it's scary and fucked up. And ⁓ yeah, what happened with Charlie is is disgusting. It's saddening. A year later it's still affects me heavily and deeply. ⁓ any final remarks before we move on to Zoran Mamdani's policy there, Jake? Or shall we ⁓ kick it off? Yeah, I mean all are made in the image of God and remember Jesus ate with the prostitutes and the tax collectors. You know, always there's that Jesus smuggling. I like it. I like it. So it w what's the etymology of Jesus smuggling? Could just briefly explain that because that that's going to be a a word on the podcast for sure. The idea is that you explain how the Basis for that belief, especially in the West, really comes from a Christian ethic. And so Michael's talking about how you know you should love your neighbor. And I go, wait a second, where did I hear that first? And you know, and my my goal is to slowly convince Michael that he's actually a Christian. I like it. Jesus smuggling. Okay, so here's what's going on in New York City. America's most famous mayor, Zoran Lamdani, happens to be the mayor of our largest city. And last week he announced a moratorium on AI in schools. Let's listen to what he had to say. City Hall's answer to those questions. It is the most comprehensive of its kind anywhere in the country. And it begins with a simple principle. Children need their teachers and human connection in order to learn and in order to grow. So beginning this school year, we will implement a one year moratorium on generative AI. For students in 2K through eighth grade. I want to thank Governor Hochel for helping pave the way with her efforts to ban cell phones and social media platforms in our schools. This moratorium is a commitment to getting the future right. A six year old child is too young to slice an onion, to fry an egg, or to use a s stove safely. But once that child is sixteen, that knowledge becomes something they are mature enough to learn. That same principle applies to AI. So the policy bans AI in schools up to eighth grade in New York. ⁓ Jake, you hate the Capital S state. ⁓ you think most things the state does is bad. Do you think a moratorium on AI in schools is one of the rare examples from your point of view of an appropriate use of state intervention? Or does a policy like this just make it harder for kids to leverage AI and it's another example where the government should just get out of the way? Yeah, so I I think there's kind of there's no like my pie in the sky dream world and there's the the what should we do pragmatically. And so I am anti public school. And you know, I can go on my whole rant about how like my public school spent nineteen thousand dollars per student per year. And people don't realize how much these schools are spending. Nineteen thousand dollars per student per year. Like imagine the amount of good that your family could do if we just like left that in the market or gave it to you as some kind of charter or voucher program or whatever. Like the you know, these public these private Catholic schools typically charge a lot less than that. And so I could go on my whole rant about how like the ideal thing would be for the state to remove its intervention in education at all. But that's kind of a different conversation. In the world where we've accepted that the state is now going to run education. You then I am more happy when the state is doing it well and less happy when the state is doing it poorly, like almost by definition, like duh. And so one of the things that I really like about the sort of concept of subsidiarity or of federalism, a sort of localness, is that you can test theories in regional locations. And so the if we had a federal policy, which to the sense that we have like this no child behind policies, and the the further up we go with education, like The worse I think it becomes. And so testing this particular idea in New York City, I don't think is a bad idea. I think AI is very new, and I don't think we know how to handle it. And I think approaching it in different ways and having some cities which go hardcore, like crazy style in AI, and they've got kids learning how to prompt Claude and all that, and they've got other schools that are like no AI at all, and some others that make it optional. I think that we're basically running this experiment. And it sounds a little almost draconian to like we're to experiment on children, but like, sorry, you kind of have to. And so I honestly, I am not I I'm not predicting that this is going to be the ideal policy. I think that a small amount of AI integration is going to be the correct system. But I'm terrified. You know, I have a brother who's 18 years old and he was fifteen, sixteen when the AI started coming out. And I see his friends and all that, and they are not learning how to write. They're like it's because AI is writing for them. People are not learning how to research because AI is researching for them. And it's becoming this like this this crutch, which I

think is robbing a lot of people of their brain power. And so to inc to sort of force children to act as though it doesn't exist, I don't think that's the ideal long-term policy. But the degree to which it's going to get integrated properly, I don't know. Yeah. Yeah. I think it's a super coherent policy position from Mayor Mam Dani. I'm really happy he's doing something about it, you know. You could say, like, you know, maybe it's not the perfect policy, but he's actually the first person to come up with a policy. ⁓ now obviously banning AI throughout high school and college would be silly because that's when you start figuring out, okay, how do I leverage this tool such that it helps me in whatever career I end up going in, ⁓ so I don't fall behind and ultimately not get replaced by AI, but by somebody who knows how to use AI better than me. The fears around AI replacing millions of jobs are very real and it very well may happen. But the best way to prevent that ⁓ is to learn how to leverage the technology, which is why AI literacy courses I think are gonna be so important to add to high school curriculum and things like that. But up until eighth grade, I I don't really see a need for it. So I I really like the policy. I think kids need to be off screens, they need to be having fun, they need to be interacting with each other, they need to be playing outside, and they need to be forging human connection. Do you know what's more important than AI literacy? Would be social desirability. The way that you learn how to become socially desirable is through repeated human interaction. That is the skills that kids need to be learning these days. How do I not get ostracized from society? How do I not be a fucking weirdo? Kids need to spend less time on screens and in front of computers and more time figuring out the boundaries for a big game of hide and go seek tag on the playground. ⁓ so in short, I love the policy. I'm a big booster of Jonathan Heid's work ⁓ with the anxious generation. I'm not sure if you're familiar, Jake. ⁓ seem seems like you are, you're nodding. ⁓ I think that that's essential reading for anyone who has ⁓ a child or is thinking about having a child. ⁓ so I think that a great use of the federal government would be things in this domain. ⁓ you know, Jonathan Hyde talks about age-gating social media prep platforms. I would agree with that. ⁓ you saw Australia implement a federal policy that does something like that. ⁓ Jake, what are your thoughts just on screen time in general when it comes to children, parenting, and what's your attitude around the role technology should play in the modern childhood and what extent on a broad level the federal government should have on helping unwind a lot of this. sort of increasing screen time that you see children face. A lot of the obviously ⁓ you know addiction levels are at all time high. The effects that technology has had on on girls is detrimental, eating disorders, all this stuff. ⁓ do you

think the federal government should have any role in in in modulating this? I mean you see like, you know, the the the the tech CEOs and billionaires, the Mark Zuckerbergs of the world, they don't let their kids have it. You know, they they they're like absolutely not. ⁓ they talk about that very freely. ⁓ so, you know, what what's the ⁓ what what's your viewpoint on that kind of stuff? Yeah, I mean, it's certainly the case that if your kid has access to the internet, then the internet has access to your kid. And there's something about that that's just terrifying. That parents, you know, are losing control of their children to the algorithm. And you do not want an algorithm raising your child. Mark Zuckerberg should not be your kid's daddy. That's not okay. And so certainly on an individual level, I am Very, very opposed to iPad kids and parents who lit their children beyond all these technologies. But I ⁓ and and sort of the first wave of this, I have a lot of like I'm not angry at those parents. When the technologies first came out, we didn't know how bad it was gonna be. We didn't know what was gonna happen. These kind of like sec like late Gen Z iPad kids, I I don't think those parents can be faulted too hard for because we didn't know. I think the Gen Alpha and Gen Beta parents. who are much more screen age or much more addicted than even the late Gen Z were, I think those parents failed tremendously. And I do think that there's an element there's an there's a that children do not have the ability to consent. And that the state does have a compelling interest in protecting the interests of children, even from their parents. And so I'm very pro liberty for adults. Because I think that adults, you know, are you know, capable of consenting to their own actions generally. ⁓ although I actually I do have an authoritarian streak with some some things for adults as well. But particularly that I'm not a libertarian. I'm an Austrian, but I am not a libertarian. And that's kind of a rare combination. ⁓ Buterodox. But particularly for children, I think the state has a compelling interest in intervening. My my Federalist s self wants to say that the Ninth and Tenth Amendments Which are the amendments that limit the ability of Congress to do basically anything that they were not explicitly granted the power to do, defers the powers to the people individually and to the states, respectively, and the 9th Amendments. I think that the state in principle, like in concept, has a compelling interest in protecting children and that they should ban these platforms from children. I don't think the federal government should expand to the ability where it has the power to do that. And as an individual parent, Do not give your kid a phone. Like that's the simplest solution is don't give your kid a phone. Yeah. I'll w I want to get into the nitty-gritty constitutional aspects of this with you, ⁓ definitely another time. ⁓ but on a you know that's something you guys will hear a lot. We'll have to debate that one later. ⁓ but broadly speaking, I I I agree with some of what you said. ⁓ but I think that conservatives who are serious about preserving tradition ought to get a little bit more comfortable. With leveraging the state to ensure the traditions that have built Western civilization do not die in the face of modernity. Progress is not always progress, folks. In fact, a lot of what gets characterized as progress are often steps in the wrong direction. We should all be skeptical of sweeping social change. And most problems that we have would be best solved by going back and reinstating the things that were. ⁓ so on that same note, I would want to see. more initiative on the federal level around this issue of what the hell to do about AI. I think the lack of initiative from the federal government on this issue has been really shocking and appalling. I don't know you saw the letter go viral from the anthropic CEO saying that he feels that it's an existential threat and we need to do something to rein in AI progress. And Trump sent out a tweet that was like absolutely not whoever wins AI wins, you know, full steam ahead. ⁓ but you know I've been saying this for about two years now that I believe that we need A government regulatory agency to model to monitor AI. In 1958, the FAA was created in response to the rapid growth of commercial jet aviation and several catastrophic mid-air collisions. That was during President Eisenhower's tenure. Eisenhower's a top three president for me, by the way. But the government responded to a technology that was advancing faster than the institutional, than the institutions governing it. And it worked. So I would want to see an FAA style regulatory agency that was tasked with monitoring the growth of AI, which is different from deciding what kinds of AI should exist, right? The FAA doesn't tell United Airlines which routes it could fly. So I think that when you have Sam Altman and Elon Musk and Dario Lamodi, you know, three guys who are not exactly known for their altruism all coming together and saying that AI is advancing way too quickly and we need to pump the brakes, and this could potentially lead to the death of humanity. ⁓ an anthropic CEO just quit over concerns that this technology might wipe out humanity. So it can't just be left to them. It can't just be left to to to Elon Musk. ⁓ I think that one of the greatest dangers is what happens when AI gains the capacity to improve itself on its own and we're unable to stop it from doing so. This is one of the things that Dario writes about in the letter. So, like this could go really bad really fast. and I think that, you know, in capitalism, share, you know, tech giants and CEOs are. are incentivized to prioritize shareholder value above all else. And I think that when you're faced with a threat like this, a potentially civilization ending threat, that's a moment where I would say we need something done on the federal

level. ⁓ Jake, your thoughts on that before we move on to child care. I I was seeing you quiver. I I I I have a Yeah. But my my my my quiver and and shock and dismay is mostly at your FAA comments. We'll have to debate that later, but I hate the FAA. I saw your TSA post about how you hate TSA. You you might have convinced me on that actually. ⁓ fuck yeah. Yeah. We're we're rolling you one step back towards you know, you talk about like the Rwandan obedience idea. It's like if I have to take my shoes off to visit my grandmother, that's submission training. I thought that was really c a compelling argument. I I never thought ⁓ yeah, I I agree. Mm-hmm. Yeah. But so, you know, I I'm I think that I'm I'm very sympathetic to the idea of AI regulation. it i much in the way and I I would I would liken it to like they have like a nuclear proliferation regulation that I think that someone like the FAA I I don't think is a comparable example. I don't think we needed any r really that that institution to exist at all. I think that you know like the highway transport systems haven't gone very well. I think the government is really, really, really bad at transportation. You know, just ask California how much high speed rail they've built. Like yeah, we are not good at transportation. But I think the government is the one thing the government does is destroy. It's like exceptionally good at that. And the we didn't need to destroy airline proliferation, but we might need to destroy certain aspects of AI. The in the same way that we need to like destroy certain aspects of nuclear proliferation because it's just like a civilization ending threat. And we need to just take like a sledgehammer to the threat and be like, nope, can't do that. Can't be happening. Not allowed. I I think that there are very good arguments for using this government sledgehammer against AI. But I I I I don't think I think like airlines needed a r a you know, a wrench and a you know, tiny tweaks, which is why the airlines, you know, really blew up in the s the sort of late seventies because we rolled back a huge number of our ridiculous regulations that Eisenhower and whatnot put in. And so I'm you know, I think that the the the screwdriver of the market to kind of adjust really fast and moving as we go is is It's worthwhile for efficiency at building new technologies. It's just when we're like, maybe we need to like destroy this thing. Like when we're like, we need to destroy violent crime. Like the the free market for like private security is not the way to do that. We want to just like not have violent crime. The state's the way to do that. The state is the monopoly on violence, not gonna have that. You know, I might say, I don't think we should have marijuana. And so we're just the state's gonna come in and just not have that. It's like I think that's like a system that you can do. Same thing, like certain aspects of AI, we probably need to just not have. Yeah, yeah, I would agree. All right, let's go to child care. ⁓ so the Trump administration has released a proposal that directs existing federal child care funds to married couples with a stay-at-home parent. The proposal draws from the Federal Child Care and Development Fund, which subsidizes external daycare for low and moderate income working families. This plan is divided to conservatives, with some arguing it promotes traditional family structure. While others are arguing it diverts critical resources away from families where both parents work and it ultimately makes childcare more expensive. ⁓ Jake, I have a feeling you and I are just gonna both completely agree on this, but why don't you tell tell me what you think? Do you think this is a good idea? Should we subsidize child care cost and only give the money to parents ⁓ where one parent already stays home? Subsidies are almost always bad. I am like near universally opposed to subsidy. Partially because we can't afford it. We're forty trillion dollars in debt. What the fuck are we doing subsidizing everything? Like, come on. Partially because subsidies almost always drive demand vast disproportionate to what they do to supply. And so they end up just jacking up prices. They they're if you're going to do a subsidy, you can like something like a farm subsidy where you're subsidizing the farmer to then go and produce more rather than subsidizing at the cash register to go and buy more. Like there are ways that you can Try to drive supply with subsidies. And there are kind of like vaguely, but broadly speaking, you shouldn't subsidize stuff. It's a bad idea. But if you're going to subsidize something, if you're going to use the power of government to do something to incentivize a particular behavior over another behavior, paying to have one parent in the home is a phenomenal thing, is a phenomenal goal to have. And so if we have to have the state intervening in some way, this is the kind of intervention that I think is at least vaguely reasonable. Incentivizing single single f yeah. Yeah. Just the idea that you send your kid off to daycare when your kid is one and a half and the state is gonna raise your baby from two years old to eighteen or from five years old to eighteen, that's not vaguely appropriate. The I like the like your teacher spends more time with your child than you do probably. Yeah. And you you wonder why these children don't feel a connection to their lineage, to their family, to their nation. It's because they're being indoctrinated in their school. The state owns your child. And the idea that we would have two parents working, you know, 40 hours a week or more than that, unfortunately, we increasingly might need that because we devalued the currency, debased our money, like and subsidized everything from housing to education to childcare to all these things and made everything like really expensive. And so now you kind of might. Need to some degree two parents, and Elizabeth has a great book on the

two-parent trap. But overall, if we can subsidize nothing, that's great. If we have to subsidize something, incentivizing keeping mothers in the home, or fathers for that matter, but pragmatically speaking, probably mothers in the home, like children should be with their moms. Like, I don't know how on earth we reached a point. Or that sounds sexist or that sounds like I hate women or I'm trying to oppress them. Like, no, I just think children deserve to be around their mothers. And if we can make that easier, and I don't think this policy overall really does, but I I have a tremendous amount of sympathy for the people who are advocating this kind of policy. And if we're gonna subsidize something, waiting it in a particular direction, where we are going to incentivize keeping one parent home, I And that's not even like it's not I mean it it makes sense on a cultural level, but it also makes sense on an economic level. I mean, the basic argument of the two income trap is that although the typical American family went from having one income to two, families did not become twice as financially secure. In many cases, the opposite happened because once both families entered the workforce, families then needed to build their lives around needing two paychecks while simultaneously taking care of these fixed costs associated with two working parents. Most importantly, of those costs would be childcare. So you need the second income in part because raising a family has become so expensive for a lot of the reasons that you talked about the devaluation of the currency and the national debt and a lot of these other things. But in order to earn that second income, you now have to pay somebody else to take care of your child, which is very expensive. Childcare is a very difficult business. It is extremely expensive, but it's also very labor-intensive. So you have this weird paradox where families can't afford it, but it's also not a very profitable bull business because you need one person for like seven or eight babies. The turnover rates are ridiculous. So it's like really hard to. I mean, I think there was an analysis done that like one of the biggest costs associated with childcare is the turnover rate. I think that there are a lot of things that you could do here. I think instead of handing every parent ⁓ ten thousand dollars. You could put that ten thousand dollars towards startup grants or towards facility assistance. So overall I think it's awful. I think it makes the problem worse. ⁓ I think it's completely misguided. I think Trump's a total fucking more. I mean, this guy is really economically illiterate. Like it's really shocking. Like I mean the five thousand dollar checks, the the we're not gonna get into the tariffs 'cause we don't have time, like the fucking trade war though with tar with with Canada now. I this guy's a complete moron. I mean, and also like traditional values might ask. Trump does not care about traditional values. He has no traditional values at all. Like just just so stupid. ⁓ okay, we are we are doing pretty good on time, but let's quickly go to 9-11. ⁓ so we started with a conversation on extremism. We'll end with a discussion on extremism. ⁓ last Friday was the twenty-fifth anniversary of one of the darkest days in modern history, September 11, 2001. It's been twenty-five years since that horrible day. But perhaps What was even worse than the attacks themselves was what happened after. The United States entered two decades of war in Afghanistan. We invaded Iraq. ⁓ we lost thousands of American service members, and we saw hundreds of thousands of civilians killed across the region. We spent trillions of dollars. We're still paying for that war in the form of inflation today. ⁓ and we dramatically expanded the national security state. ⁓ we seemingly still have not learned our lesson from those failed regime change wars as the war in Iran drags into its seventh b seventh month, sixth month. and ⁓ you know, here at home, thousands of Americans die due to the cancers and illnesses ⁓ caused by the toxic air, which the government hid from us. We'll talk a little bit about that as well. ⁓ but as we reflect on this twenty five year anniversary, Jake, what are some of your thoughts on, you know, the the geopolitical dangers that currently face the United threat the United States and some lessons from nine eleven that could help us overcome those dangers, hopefully in a more pragmatic way going forward? Yeah, I think I think two things can be true at once. And I think some people insist that the lesson of nine eleven is the danger of radical Islam. And that's true. Like holy crap. Islam is a problem. True. Islam is a problem. Big problem. And also other people and this is the kind of tact that someone like a Ben Shapiro will often go on, you know, like, look how big of a problem night you know this was, you know, like you know, Islam is this is a great threat to the to the country. You know, it's Charlie Kirk's perspective that Islam is the sword that the left is using to cut the neck of the West. And, you know, there's there's this very like Islam is the problem. And that's true. And then on the other side, you see people like Dave Smith, like Tucker Carlson, Carlson's lost his mind recently. I know you saw that like algebra thing. He's like claiming that algebra is like Jew science or something. But like this kind of perspective, you know, the Sank Uger perspective, you know, where it's like the the that that nine eleven and our response to it, you know, kind of like it hurt itself in confusion Pokemon meme, where like we manage to that argument. Bankrupt our country in response to this idea. And I think someone like you know ⁓ like a Carlson Is so deep in that idea that he's like starts to favor Sharia law and whatnot. And someone like a Shapiro is so deep on the radical Islam is a catastrophe that any war against radical Islamists, well, you gotta fight the terrorists.

And it's like, I I I don't know if you have like both of these things could be a disaster. We can say we need to not be allowing more Muslim immigration into this country. We need to seriously question. the fact that like George Bush went out there just out of 9-11 and said like relig Islam is a religion of peace. Like you can go read like like I've done debates with a lot of Muslims on social digital hour with Sean Kelly and whatnot. And these people are talking about like defending the rape of a nine year old, Aisha. They're talking about beating their wives. You know, feminists sometimes say like, ⁓ we if we don't need feminism, go look at Afghanistan. It's like, yeah, actually they do need feminism there. Yeah. Because Islam is like really, really fucked up. And so we don't need feminism. They they do, right? So they need it there. And so it's really true that the first lesson, like not like step one lesson, radical Islam is a serious problem. The second lesson is the government responds to problems badly. And the two answers we had to this were the TSA and mass wars in the Middle East. And the TSA, A, does not protect lives, because as we were talking about just like conceptually, it doesn't make any sense. you only have to do is secure the cockpit. If you wanted to just like kill everyone on the plane, you could just kill everyone in the line for TSA. The only reason a plane is special is because you could fly into a building. So you need to secure the cockpit. You don't need to have this like draconian security system. The draconian security system doesn't even work. They've done studies where they've put like ⁓ like people through with fake or sample weaponry. And sixty-seven out of seventy sample weapons made it through TSA. Anecdotally, I have friends who have brought knives in like hunting knives in their backpacks and they get back on the plane, they ⁓ oops, I shouldn't have this. And more than any of that though, it's just a submission training. You couldn't have had COVID if you didn't have this. So that was our first response. And our second response was to bankrupt ourselves with wars. And that's what bin Laden said. He one of his plans was to trick the middle to trick America into destroying themselves with the Patriot Act, with TSA, with mass war. Like we have sacrificed ourselves on the altar of getting Islam. Fight them there so we don't have to fight them here. No, actually, we don't have to do that. We can just not let them in here. Like it's really easy to close the border. It turns out we didn't even need Congress. Trump just did it with an executive order. Like it's so easy to fix and our leaders are so incompetent. And so the 9-11 story is first, terrorism is evil, Islam's a problem. Second, holy shit, the state ducks at everything. Well, I mean, look at what Hamas did to Israel. Obviously, October 7th was terrible, but the Israeli response in the aftermath of of October 7th, whether or not you you agree that it was a justified response or a genocide or not a genocide, whatever, putting all that aside. What is pretty inarguable is that, you know, Israel went from a country where the vast majority of the country, certainly everybody on the right, was just like, yeah, it's the only democracy in the Middle East. I think they're great. We should continue to support them. To now you're starting to see this rise on the left and the right. I mean, support for Israel is at record lows. And that is exactly what Hamas wanted. ⁓ because Hamas does not have the capability to destroy Israel through traditional. means of warfare. So I mentioned that I studied acting at NYU in addition to politics. So I I took a lot of theater study classes. One one way to look at terrorism is essentially as a display of theater. ⁓ you know if you think about what terrorists do, their primary objective is to spread fear rather than cause material damage. Whereas in tr conventional warfare, fear is a byproduct to massive loss. But with terrorism, fear is the main objective. So those planes going into the World Trade Center, the pictures of people jumping out of those buildings, it was so shocking, it was so horrifying, it was so outrageous that it instilled this reaction in us and it moved us in in a way that a piece of fear might move us or provoke us, and it provoked us. Into essentially self-imploding. Because Afghanistan and Osama bin Laden is no match for the American military. They're a terrorist organization. They cannot fight us. It would be it would be literally impossible. It's just not possible. They cannot go to war with the United States. Al-Qaeda cannot go to war with the United States. So what can Al-Qaeda do to destroy the country? It could put on this display of theater, it could arouse this emotional response. And it could essentially trick us or or manipulate us into spending trillions of dollars and killing all of our own citizens and essentially self-imploding. And that's exactly what the Al-Qaeda terrorists did to the United States. And that's exactly what, in my opinion, Hamas did to Israel. So for me, one of the lessons of 9-11 is when you are being provoked in that manner, you need to take a step back, you need to let the emotions subside, and you need to think pragmatically and intelligently. And not let the emotions guide the decision-making process. The threat to terrorism is not terrorism itself, it is our response. Islamism is a problem. We cannot be importing radical Islam into this country. But when it comes to what to do about terrorism, the answer might not be trillions of dollars spent blowing up piles of sand in the Middle East. That's what they wanted us to do. so to me that's ⁓ that's one of the the Main lessons there. I don't know if we're gonna heed any of those lessons about regime change war. ⁓ unfortunately, Israel did not heed that lesson, and it it certainly doesn't seem that the Trump administration has either with the ongoing war in Iran. ⁓ the

only other thing I want to say too about this before we go on to segments, ⁓ is Zoran Mamdani is ⁓ you know, obviously a a Muslim mayor. I've seen a lot of people kind of talk about how weird it is for the for the city of New York to have a Muslim mayor. I am Pretty impressed and happy that Zoran Mamdani has released these pages. so essentially what happened there is it turns out that the city knew about the toxic air and asbestos that was present in the wake of the 9-11 attacks and never told anybody, never disclosed this information. And 25 years later, Zoran Mamdani, our Muslim mayor, ⁓ was the mayor to have released this hundred and seventy page record. ⁓ and you know, there was a John Stewart who's really done a lot for for nine eleven victims and survivors, ⁓ was seen talking about this with mom Donnie right behind him. ⁓ so I mean, you know, my dad was in New York and downtown at the stock exchange on that day. It's a very personal issue. ⁓ and it's really appalling to me to have learned that the city knew. ⁓ I mean, I know people who have had nine eleven related cancers. ⁓ and and I'm I'm grateful to Mam Dani for releasing those records. Any thoughts, Jake, before we move on to our segments? Yeah, I'm not sure how Muslim Mandami is. And I in some ways, I think Mandami is a pretty good reflection on because we're we're not gonna get some like mass remigration or something. Like it regardless of whether you think like in theory we should or whatever, it it's not gonna happen. We're not gonna get like an ethnic cleansing happen. Right. And so but I think Mandami is actually a pretty good reflection of what I would like to see out of the Muslim community. I mean and I'd rather see him integrate into sort of stereotypical right wing person. But what he really is is Mandami is a very American person. He is fully assimilated into the sort of the DSA like college white girl. Like he is like a nineteen year old college girl. Who's like taking her like intro to philosophy classes? He's a fucking sophomore at Cornell. Like that's what Mandami is. And while that's not an aspect of America that I particularly love, it is deeply American. You know, he's at gay pride parades and whatnot. Like Islam, but Islam doesn't really like gay people very much. If he was really an Islamist, he would not be out there protesting and you know, doing the whole like gay thing. Like He is an element of America. I don't like this element, but he's not really like a I think that's a great point Muslim anymore. And I'd like to see the this sort of Middle Eastern fan warfare culture assimilate, ideally into more of a right wing patriotism. But if it has to assimilate into something, I'd like to see them assimilate into like a left-wing DSA college white girl. He is a college white girl. Right. And just can't be Islamism in America. You know? That's that it can't be. Yeah. I mean I I I I totally I totally agree with that, you know, 'cause then when you start to just criticize somebody because they're brown or because they're they're a practicing Muslim, then you start to just venture into just like racism. It has nothing to do with the fact that maybe Mam Dani is from Uganda ⁓ and and he practices a Muslim religion. That's not the problem. I don't hate people for the religion. I hate people for what they use the religion for. And so if you want to be a Muslim but you integrate into our society effectively the way Imam Dani has, no problem. But you can't come here and you cannot wear burkas and you cannot im it you cannot do the things that you do in Afghanistan that have completely obliterated those countries and then say it's Islamophobic when we in the West point out that no, actually all cultures are not created equally. ⁓ I don't need to be sympathetic of your culture. It doesn't make me a bigot to to call you out for the oppression that you impose on women and girls and gay people and all of these other things. It just makes Just makes your culture inferior and worse, and a culture that we do not want to import into the West, which is materially better in every single facet. ⁓ so I I I talk about every single facet. Exactly. Yep, no exception. ⁓ all right. So then the last 10 minutes of the show, ⁓ the structure is that we have a surprise segment. So Jake essentially surprises me with a question or a game, whatever the hell it is. And then I do the same for him. So, Jake, what do you want to do? Me first, or should I give you yours first? Good either way. You know, you're the de facto host. You're take it away, lead it. You pick. Okay, all right. I will do I will do my segment for you first. ⁓ okay, so it th this one's a little bit heavy. ⁓ so one of my intellectual curiosities is ethical philosophy. I think one way to understand ethical philosophy is a spectrum in which you have utilitarianism on one side, deontology on the other. ⁓ and one of the best way to test where you fall on that spectrum is the trolley problem. So here's the trolley problem. ⁓ you're imagine a trolley is barreling down the tracks towards five people who are tied to the track and will certainly be killed. You're standing next to a lever that could divert the trolley onto another track, but there is one person tied to that track who will be killed if you pull it. So you only have two choices. You could do nothing and allow the trolley to kill five people, or you could pull the lever, dilute deliberately diverting it. And then kill that one person instead. Now the purebred utilitarian will say to divert the trolley, because utilitarians believe in maximizing for total good and killing one person to save five yields for more total happiness, it yields a better result. But the deontologist would say do not pull the lever because as a rule, we have a duty to not use people as a means to an end. We do not sacrifice one to save a few ever, period, in no circumstance. You have said that your moral code does not come from Kant or

Sidgwick or Aristotle or utilitarianism. It comes from Christianity. So I'm curious, what is the Christian response or answer to the trolley problem? What what would you do? ⁓ well. I don't know if I can give like the Christian answer. Like I don't You're not the spokesperson for but as a Christian where somebody whose morality comes from Christianity, how do you understand how do you understand the problem? Yeah, yeah. So I as a Christian, not speaking for all Christians, but as a Christian, I think it really I I think the devil's in the details, and it depends on how involved the situation you already are. And it to t to take another light of this, like if you I I was standing in a hospital and I was aware that this person right in front of me, or I, you know, I've got a s a sniper rifle pointed at a hospital, and I'm somehow fully aware that I will not get caught for what I might do. And I know. That that guy right there has signed his donor card. And so I could just shoot this guy in the head. And then he's got two kidneys, he's got two lungs, he's got a heart, he's got a bunch of like organs. Yeah. And so I can save five to ten people exactly by just like execute. We're the middle the hospital. Like you know those organs are getting used. Fresh. And so but but but that that seems obviously immoral. Even if you're a utilitarian, you gotta go, I don't know about that one. And sometimes I kind of use this example to argue against utilitarianism, which I think is is frankly silly on its face. I I I don't think there's anything really vaguely appropriate about utilitarianism, ⁓ as sort of like a presuppositionalist defense of Christianity is best to use against someone who's utilitarian, because you could just show how deeply incoherent that perspective always is. It's it's just silly. If I am somehow at fault or I am committed to the situation, I've somehow done something about this. I am aware of the situation. It's the or the train is currently heading at like neither track and it like I'm the guy who has to just like pick one of the two. In this case, I'm gonna pick the one because I think that you can fall back on the utilitarian idea. But in the world where like this is already happening, and then some like sadistic fucker just like dropped me in and is like, here is your thing now. Like I am not part of this. And to pull the lever is the equivalent of executing the guy in the hospital. And so in the world where I am disconnected and I am acting as this sort of omnipresent God figure deciding, I am going to not choose not to decide. I am going to opt against it. The and the means does not justify the ends. But if I am part of it already, I am a player in this game. I am a systematic ease of this. And it's more like this idea of like we can fit three or one people on this life raft. Well, obviously we put the three people on the life raft. Got it. All right. Great answer. What do you got for me? Mine's ⁓ you could choose to take it heavy or you could choose to take it light. If you could convince every single American of one thing, like they believe this one thing. And they might be unconvinced of it later. It's not like they're like enslaved to the idea. But you could make a damn good argument that just overwhelmingly convinces them in the moment of one thing. What is that one thing you want everyone convinced of right now? ⁓ wow. Okay, that's actually a really interesting question. One thing I think that okay, one thing that I would want to convince everybody of is it's similar to the conversation that we were having earlier, is that Western values are superior, all cultures are not created equally. And American systems and values are worth safeguarding and protecting. I think one of the things that I am most scared of is this notion that maybe Western civilization as a whole, on the whole, should be scrapped, done away with, el eliminated. ⁓ I think that that is a really scary development that's encroaching. As part of this postmodern world in which we do not have an objective standard by which we can adjudicate right and wrong. So there is no ability to say the West is better than Islam, and I can say that objectively. No, it's actually we can say that because all forms of objectivity are a power higher hierarchy. I think that that's a really pernicious idea. ⁓ so I think that's the thing I would wanna bel I would want everyone to believe. And I think when it with everybody believing that, there's still plenty of room to have radical left wing ideas, radical white right wing ideas. I don't want everybody to think the same way. I still want to have a debate about socialism, democratic socialism, communism, ⁓ you know, ⁓ capitalism, ⁓ l libertarianism. I still want to hash out all those ideas, but I just want to work on the framework that the country should not be thrown away ⁓ and destroyed and that the United States has done nothing except be ⁓ Be a an enforcer of power hierarchy. ⁓ I think that it would just make the political discourse much easier if we could all agree on that. So that's my that's my gut instinct answer, but I'm sure there's ⁓ more things I'd want to make everybody believe. You wanna know an exceptionally reliable and stable way to enforce Western morality? Become Christian. Become a Christian! There you go. There we go. All right, on that note, I'm gonna go read my Bible. Thank you all for tuning in to the first episode of Split Ticket. I hope you enjoyed and please catch us again next week, Wednesday, nine AM. Amen. God bless. Cheers all.