Laughter, Legacies, and Looming AI Ethical Questions

 Starting the show off with a warm welcome and some laughs as we discuss winter blues, late-night social stamina, and the thrill of skydiving with seasoned veterans—a reminder of the vibrant lives we lead outside the studio.

Navigating from the highs of personal adventure to the sobering realities of global politics, this episode doesn't shy away from confronting the gripping story of Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny. His tale is a stark reminder of the sacrifices some make in pursuit of justice and the echoes of historical political silencing. We then pivot to the geopolitical chessboard, where NATO's support for Ukraine, and Denmark's bold commitment, signals a seismic shift in international dynamics. Through this lens, we analyze the delicate balance of power and the resounding message sent by nations banding together in a time of crisis.

But in a world increasingly shaped by ones and zeros, we're also peering into the digital abyss that AI presents. Ethical dilemmas abound, from the creation of synthetic media to the AI-powered scripts turning the film industry on its head. How do we embrace the medical miracles brought forth by AI while safeguarding against the darker potentials of this rapidly evolving technology? As we close out this episode, we offer a genuine thanks to you, our engaged listeners, and to the folks at Shoot Angry Inc. for inspiring this rich tapestry of topics. Strap in for a ride through the complexities of our time, the laughter and legacies of our shared experiences, and the profound questions shaping our future.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Well, good evening my friends. How are you tonight? We are doing fantastic. I'm technically assuming that we're both doing fantastic. I know I'm doing fantastic. Are you doing fantastic, clay?

Speaker 2: 0:12

Yeah, always I'm bright, I'm breathing and nobody's shooting at me. So yeah, I'm good.

Speaker 1: 0:19

Any day like that is a good day, right, always a good day. All right, good, we're going to get the intro out of the way and then we're going to chitchat. Ok, well then, what's up, my friend? What have you been up to? Anything exciting?

Speaker 2: 0:48

You know, mostly quiet weekend here in Eastern PA, Not a whole lot going on. It's a little bit of crazy weather kind of move through A lot of windy, a lot of cold. You know it's stuff that just keeps you inside. It did enjoy the federal holiday on Monday. That was very nice. You know local to me, you know the barbershop right, atmosphere right. It's kind of very similar to the beauty shop atmosphere, I guess. Sure, I have a local gun store that has a very like counter, bar stools, go in there guys, go in shoot the breeze kind of thing. And I spent probably a couple of hours yesterday at a place called Shoot Angry, incorporated Shoot Angry Inc. Right around the corner of my house.

Speaker 2: 1:37

Yeah, great little place, great gun shop, good people, and spent a lot of time, you know, just in there kind of shooting the shit, I guess. But it's great it is. It's one of those, you know I'm not a drinker anymore, so it's not like I go to the bar and hang out with the bartender or whatever, but, yeah, shoot Angry. Right around the corner from my house is a great place that I just kind of go and hang out with the guys and talk shooting and guns and world events and all that good stuff.

Speaker 1: 2:04

That's so cool. It's like, instead of like the coffee shop or whatever, or the barbershop, like I said you guys, that's a better, I don't know. To me that's like an even more fun place to hang out.

Speaker 2: 2:16

Yeah, it's, you know people you know because it's a retail place like anything else. People come in and out, you know, and they join in the conversation and then they fade out of the conversation and so you spend a couple hours down there and you get a handful of people to pass through. It's a lot of fun, that's awesome.

Speaker 1: 2:29

I love it. I did not do what I normally do during this time of year. I you know, as I've probably mentioned a thousand times, I hate the winter, when, when, when, and I I hibernate as much as possible, like during the week I barely leave the house, like there's been days where the truck hasn't moved for you know two days, three days even, and it's I make like a contest of it, like how many days can I go without leaving the house? You know my husband's like this is a problem. It's probably not normal, but I do. I guys don't, don't worry, I do leave the house.

Speaker 2: 3:01

I'm not a.

Speaker 1: 3:02

you're a shudder, elsa I have a shudder, I have like that little little bitty and I got my my little house code on. All I need is like 20 cats and I'm all set, right. Oh, but this weekend we were out every night. You know, we're, we're at that like stage of life. I don't know if it's an age thing, I don't know what it is, but if we go out like normally, if we go out on, say, friday night, we act like that, that's it. Okay. Well, we've been out. I mean, we did it, we went out. We're not going out again.

Speaker 1: 3:30

We're like we just got to recover from that and it's not like we go crazy or anything. We go out to dinner, we have a nice dinner, we maybe go see a band or something. But you know, then after that we're like, oh well, we went out Friday, so we're good. And then, if we have plans any of the other days, we were so mad about it and we're like, oh, why do we have plans? This is terrible, and but they were all great plans. Now I'm I'm panicking a little bit, because people that we were out with are probably like, wow, that's really nice, really nice.

Speaker 2: 3:58

So taxing, so taxing.

Speaker 1: 4:00

Right, like oh, I'm sorry we're such a burden to you. Yeah, but you know it's bad, because I'm not used to. I'm not used to socializing as as much as as we did and, honest to God, it was so much fun. But you know, sunday after church well, no, sunday, we were busy too. So it was Friday night. We went out Saturday Do we catch her in the day? I don't know, it's all blur now, but Friday, saturday and Sunday we were out every day like just young party animals we were, and even closing places down. We were out until midnight. It was crazy.

Speaker 2: 4:35

You know it is. It is a little bit of the of the age thing, right. I mean, you know we talked about it last week. You know, a couple of weeks ago I was out, you know, down in Florida jumping out of an airplane and it's a super social atmosphere. I'm you know it's all veterans, but you know it's one of those early days that ends early, right.

Speaker 2: 4:52

So you know, I'm up at 430, get dressed, you know, get some food in the belly, that kind of thing, and then and then get there and we go through all of our prep and all that stuff. And then, you know, you jump in and you're done by like you're on the ground and everything's kosher by like nine o'clock, nine, 30. Wow. And then we're back and we kind of, you know, shake out parachutes and we, you know, we pack them up and we put them away and you know you rolling into lunchtime and early lunch, you know, and we kind of hang around and shoot the breeze and everybody talks about the jump and you know just comradery and all that stuff, and you get done about 30 or so and by that time I'm like I need a nap.

Speaker 2: 5:31

I am done for the rest of the day Like I, you know, back in the old days, I hate to say this. Not that long ago I jumped out of a plane and that was like first activity of a two week training exercise. Wow, it's for two weeks after that. Now I do it. Okay, I gotta go lay down Like I'm.

Speaker 1: 5:46

No, you need a nap. Yeah, oh yeah. I don't know. There's something about I used to like be so resistant to to naps, like I thought it was like oh my God, how could you sleep during the day? That sounds horrible. That's like you're wasting your life. Now I'm like you mean, I can take a nap right now. Oh my God, like the excitement is like if somebody says I have a million dollars for you, here it is, and that's how I feel about you know, realizing that I could actually take a nap. Oh it's.

Speaker 2: 6:15

I don't know if it's sad or good but it is drifting back into being toddlers like oh, it's nap, it's not. Yeah, okay, nap time, yeah.

Speaker 1: 6:24

Yes, oh my God, those little stinkers don't know how good they have it. I mean, you get a nap and cookies, like come on. What is better than that? I pass on the animal crackers there's never a fan of those. But you give me a cookie. I'm a happy girl.

Speaker 2: 6:39

Nap in a cookie. Elsa can be bought for a nap and a cookie.

Speaker 1: 6:42

So simple, so simple. Yeah, I'm like, yeah, no, that's, that's right up my alley Food. I'm very food driven. I'm like, you know, like a dog in training. How do you train your dog? How do you train your Elsa? I, just you just offer her food and she's just you know she'll do whatever. Yeah, treat so sad.

Speaker 2: 6:58

Anybody want to treat, do it for a treat, yeah.

Speaker 1: 7:01

Yeah, it's sad. I should be embarrassed by it, but it is what it is, man, I'm cool for that. Oh, oh, my goodness, all right, anybody watching is sitting here going. Are they going to? Are they going to get on with the show? Are they going to? They're just going to sit and talk about themselves all day. Come on, you guys love it. I don't know if you do or not, but if you do, let us know. We can talk about ourselves all day. Why not? Not really, we can talk about each other.

Speaker 2: 7:24

That we could probably do Right.

Speaker 1: 7:25

That would work. That would be good. Let's see. So what are we talking about today? Where are my little banners? Oh, okay, so, yeah, so let's start off with Alexi. I'm not going to say it right, it's Navalny.

Speaker 2: 7:39

Navalny, navalny, I can't see now.

Speaker 1: 7:41

Yeah, I said it like five times before and I said it perfectly, and all of a sudden, now, when it counts, I've just froze. That's sad. I'm glad you got it though.

Speaker 2: 7:52

I think it's Navalny. You're right, it is For those. You know, everybody knows I think it was in the headlines all over the place health has been failing. But to go backwards in time, you know he was a opposition leader to Putin, an act political activist, blogger, lawyer, among other things. You know he got, I think it was 2020. He got poisoned. Yes, yeah, big, big surprise. There, right Right, he got poisoned, almost died and then went to. I think they moved him, they got him out and got him to Germany.

Speaker 1: 8:30

He got him to Germany?

Speaker 2: 8:31

Yes, and then for some, I mean, you want to talk about a guy who's dedicated to trying to improve his country. He turned around and went back to Russia.

Speaker 1: 8:40

Right back and, of course, got arrested.

Speaker 2: 8:43

Got arrested and he's basically been in jail. Been in jail since then and yeah, here's a picture Right From there, yep.

Speaker 1: 8:52

Yeah, and yeah, I agree with you. I mean, that's pretty amazing, like to you just been poisoned. You've just recovered from getting poisoned and you're going to go right back, right back into the thick of it. It's, yeah, dedication or crazy, a little bit of both. I'm going to go with dedication, though, you know passion and for the cause that he believed in in the country that he loves and loved. And very sad, sad for his family, sad for everyone. And yeah, I'm looking at his, I'm looking at the all the info now is 40, he was 47 years old. Yeah, so how long was he actually in prison when Sony came back? Was that 2021? Is that right?

Speaker 2: 9:36

Yeah, I think it was 2021. So he got poisoned in 2020, rapid health decline, almost died, got him out, went to Germany, got treated in Germany. That was a pretty long recovery and then, I think, yes, somewhere in 2021, he returned to Russia and then immediately back in. So he's been in prison for three, three plus years or three ish years, and you know everybody, you know the term of Russian prison, right, or you know the Siberia kind of a thing. I mean, that's essentially what happened to this guy and it's you know, it's no secret. I don't even know if Putin's ever really denied that. You know his people were behind at the KGB or whatever the KGB is now, but but I mean, it's, it's not a secret. I don't think anybody, I don't think anybody in the world believes that it wasn't. You know, the Russian state responsible for this entire thing and it was the removal of a political opponent.

Speaker 1: 10:34

Yes, hmm.

Speaker 2: 10:37

It sounds strangely familiar, right.

Speaker 1: 10:38

Hmm.

Speaker 2: 10:39

Yeah, and and by, you know, okay, so the poisoning failed. And listen, you know the United States is, you know we, we tried to, we tried to kill Castro with exploding cigars. Right, we're not a bunch of people like this, we haven't been. But but you know, the poisoning failed, you know, and for whatever reason, he decided to give them another opportunity and and they arrested him, as you know, shortly after he got back to Russia. So, political opposition out of the way in jail, right. Right, assassination attempt failed and then they just put him in prison.

Speaker 1: 11:14

Hmm, yes, Gee, I wonder there's somewhere else. I can't think of where it is that they're trying to put their political opponent in prison. I just I can't think of, I can't think of where that's happening. It can't be, can't be anywhere that we would live in. That wouldn't happen, right.

Speaker 2: 11:30

And let's be fair. Right, there is. There's one candidate who's got 91 counts against him and we're going to talk more about some of that here shortly. Yes, but let's be fair and honest both sides of the aisle, like President Biden's, under some pretty serious scrutiny right now, right.

Speaker 1: 11:49

His brother.

Speaker 2: 11:51

His brother paid him $200,000 after taking a $600,000 payment for some, you know, out of the country, medical something or something. They were trying to court a, I think, company out of Saudi Arabia. So that's being investigated. You know, obviously you've got all the Hunter stuff, you've got the Ukraine stuff, you got the China stuff, it's all. So we've got. No, we have a lot of room to talk about jailing political opposition, because it seems to be going on just about everywhere.

Speaker 1: 12:24

Yeah, I, you know, am I crazy to think that this is a relatively new, new as in 2016? I mean, were they doing this before to each other, everybody trying to get each other in prison? I mean Clinton, I guess? Well, oh, nixon, well, okay, all right. Well, yes, this has been going on for a long time. Yes, that does seem to be the answer, right.

Speaker 2: 12:46

I mean they were legitimate things.

Speaker 1: 12:48

I'm not saying that they were, you know, inconsequential or trivial or silly or anything like that, but yeah, I guess that is part of the whole political game.

Speaker 2: 12:59

Well, and then, depending on what conspiracy theory you, you know prescribed to, you've got Kennedy even before that they got him out of the way right.

Speaker 1: 13:08

Yes, that's right. That's probably that might be the biggest one, right?

Speaker 2: 13:12

Right. So again, we're not, we're not above any of this, but this is being played out on an international stage, under an international lens, and there's very little denial going on. You know it's. You can't believe it's a coincidence that he got poisoned, he got cured and then he got put in jail and then he just stayed there until he died. Like that's not, you know.

Speaker 1: 13:35

Yeah, so the official word was that he I don't know, he just came back from a walk and he was, and then he was unconscious, and then I don't know, I guess he just died. Like that was basically the official word from the prison officials. Right, the gist of what happened he went for a walk, came back and was unconscious and that was it. This guy's 47 years old, you know, I mean certainly probably, given the conditions he was probably in, he was probably not in the best of health, you know. So could he have died of natural unnatural causes or natural causes caused by unnatural circumstances? Certainly possible, but it's a little bit inconceivable, right?

Speaker 2: 14:23

Hey Epstein hung himself. So I mean there's that, you know so you know removal of political opponents while in jail or political threats while in prison, also not above. You know potential within the United States. So we're not. You know you can make as many comparisons and parallels as you want with this thing because you know all over the media people, oh Putin is horrible and this and that and they, you know, and yeah, a little bit of internal.

Speaker 2: 14:55

Take a look inside first before you start saying stuff, because we are not above the exact same things that are going on over there. As much as we like to point fingers at Putin and he's a crazy man and everything else, but there's plenty of evidence that that kind of stuff goes on right here and has been going on here for decades. So, yeah, it's bad, it's horrible. I feel terrible for his wife who, truthfully, has been super outspoken right and she's putting herself on the chopping block. If she keeps running her mouth, you know and don't make I mean not to sound terrible but she keeps speaking out against Putin and the Russian government she is going to end up in the same place, it's not going to go well?

Speaker 1: 15:38

No, no, they don't really well. Like you said, putin is not denying it. I mean, I don't even think he's saying much of anything at this point, right, I think he's kind of like whatever, and you know. So, yeah, it's not like here, where they at least have to pretend to be good guys. You know a little bit different, correct?

Speaker 2: 15:57

Yeah, yeah, and that's you're right. It's everybody you know pretending hiding behind. You know things like well, he took an oath, oh okay, yeah, okay. He took an oath.

Speaker 1: 16:10

Okay, yeah, I was like you know, you know, I remember back with the Olympics, when they were in Russia. I remember a story about the rings that they were supposed to light up at a very specific moment in time and they didn't. And literally the next day or within two days, the guy that was responsible for that job mysteriously was found dead. So they play by very direct, different rules. I guess they're not different rules, they're just way more direct. I guess is the only way I can come up with off hand. But no, my question I guess is and I don't know if you have the answer or not, but my question is like why now? So let's say that they did, it wasn't natural causes, just not a freak thing and they got rid of an opponent. Like why, right now? Is this a specific reason in this moment? Are they sending a message? What do you think?

Speaker 2: 17:12

That's a good question. I'm not as up on you know current affairs in Russia as I probably should be. I don't think it has any direct relation to what's going on in Ukraine. I don't know if maybe the impression is that the Tucker Carlson interview went better than is being portrayed like. Well, maybe Putin's not crazy, Maybe you know, maybe he isn't, and then they're like well, everybody thinks he's normal. So let's take care of this thing now. I don't know, it's a good question to ask and, again, I'm not as up on current affairs in Russia as I probably should be to make that determination, but that's definitely not, as we well know, but yeah, and nobody over there is asking the question.

Speaker 2: 18:00

So, you know, some international journalist who is outside of the Russian borders is probably the person to start asking those questions. Sure Cause, you certainly don't want to do it from inside Cause you don't want to do it.

Speaker 1: 18:14

That's a good question.

Speaker 2: 18:15

Why? Why in timing is a that's a great question to ask.

Speaker 1: 18:19

Yeah, I'm very excited that I asked that question. I'm very proud of myself. I'm gonna pat myself on the back for that one.

Speaker 2: 18:28

You would jump on Van Damme with that, she would tell you that we'll circle back to that.

Speaker 1: 18:32

Yeah, they would have to circle back and just don't have any answers for you for that right now. And yeah, kick me out of the room, you're even asking it. Yeah, that too, oh man. So we've got some crazy times going on over here as well, of course. What do we talk? Oh no, we're not on that yet. I'm going out of order. I was trying to.

Speaker 2: 18:54

No, we're staying.

Speaker 1: 18:56

It all rolls together, it's okay. It really does. It really does you wanna talk about?

Speaker 2: 18:59

Denmark, yeah. So just continuing on the Russia-Ukraine thing. So, with the war going on, continuing to go on in Ukraine, right, the Russian invasion, yep and NATO as a whole continuing to back Ukraine, as you know, is probably in their best interests. You know, and I've said this from the beginning, I think Ukraine is a NATO problem. So I think they should, you know, they should be the ones contributing. Oh, by the way, just as a side note, before we talk about this, the you know, nato nations contributing.

Speaker 2: 19:37

Their requirement is to contribute 2% of their GDP to defense, like that's in the NATO charter. Okay, whatever your GDP is, you have to dedicate 2% of that to defense, to requirement. For years it was like us and England, and then it was us and England and Romania. There was like three or four or five countries max. This year, for the first time maybe since NATO stood up, I think it's 13 countries. Wow, okay, are over the 2% mark, right? So when the threat is real, right, people start taking this stuff seriously. So, talking about Denmark, I guess Ukraine put in a request to NATO, and maybe to Denmark specifically, but I think to NATO in general. They said we need more artillery, we need more cannons, we need more artillery. To you know, continue this fight against Russia. We've lost enough, or maybe what we have isn't sufficient enough, so they asked for more artillery. Denmark, which doesn't necessarily have a huge military, but they have turned around and they are giving every single cannon that they have to Ukraine.

Speaker 1: 20:47

This has to be unprecedented right Like nobody's ever done.

Speaker 2: 20:52

This isn't Lend-Lease right. This is not like us sending shiploads of rifles and machine guns to England and to Europe. That's not what this is Every single piece of artillery they are giving to Ukraine. Now, I'm not an expert at geography, but I am pretty well-versed in, you know, geographical geography when it relates to warfare, all right. So Russia, ukraine, poland, a little bit of water, denmark. If you are really really worried as NATO, as Europe as a whole, if you are really worried that Putin is going to take Ukraine and then continue West right, I think the last thing you want to do is give away every single piece of artillery that you have.

Speaker 2: 21:49

Seems like a strange choice. I don't, you know, it's a gamble is what it is right? It's a strategic decision that either they'll have time to get more or somebody else will cover for them, or I don't know. But I thought it was very odd that the decision was we'll just give them everything, We'll just give them all of it and leave ourselves with nothing. I can't, like you said. I think it's unprecedented. I can't imagine another nation giving every single piece of anything, An entire capability, to another country. I just I don't get it.

Speaker 1: 22:28

No, I am baffled and I have no military training expertise, anything. I watched a few movies and I'm married to a guy that you know. That's the extent of it, and even I'm sitting here going. That doesn't sound like a very good idea.

Speaker 2: 22:48

Now, and it's, you know, desert storm for all of us that are old enough to remember, skewed how most people viewed modern warfare. Cause it was. You know, most people don't realize or remember that. You know, iraq had the fourth largest army in the world when that kicked off. Okay, and they were. They were modern, they were trained, it was a professional army. They did have some conscript but it was professional army.

Speaker 2: 23:14

That war lasted 100 hours, that ground war, 100 hours, 100 hours. We, we, the, the, the coalition, mostly American rolled through there and smoked everything that they had Right, and we saw it, we all, you remember, we all watch it on TV and we were putting bombs through, you know, air shafts and it was the coolest thing in the world and we all thought that that was how war was going to be forever. Well, you know, there's some principles to warfare that don't change and and having artillery is is part of that Right, that is not a capability. That is not a capability that you give up because now you think, well, drones and airplanes are going to take the place of that, maybe, maybe, to an extent, they're going to take some of it, but you don't ever give away your artillery, like that's been since they, just since they started launching catapults, that became like the best thing around.

Speaker 2: 24:11

Sure, and, and you know they're referred to, artillery is referred to as the king of battle. It's a chess reference. They're referred to as the king of battle for a reason. Right, it is the one of the least mobile but absolutely the most powerful thing on the battlefield. And that's the chess reference, like the, the the king piece on a chess. And and Denmark was like here you go, just take, take, take everything we've got.

Speaker 1: 24:39

I don't get it. I don't understand it. There's certainly no strategy there. I mean there's, you know there's, it's a gift, basically right. He's not saying they're not getting it back. There's no exchange. Yeah, like you're never getting it back. That's, you know, that's a gift. Yeah.

Speaker 2: 24:57

Yeah, and it's. I guess it's a you know belief in in NATO as a whole by Denmark, like they just believe with their whole heart that you know, if anything bad happens, that they've got NATO to back them up. But if, if, if I'm Danish, I'm I'm not buying that, Like I'm just I'm not, I'm not buying it.

Speaker 2: 25:16

So yeah very, very interesting by their. I think they have a ministry of defense, if I remember. Yeah, I think they have a ministry. So if they have a ministry by their minister of defense or by their president, I think it was a very interesting decision.

Speaker 1: 25:31

Yep, it definitely is. I'm sorry I'm playing around with our, our, our, our things here, sorry you guys. So, yeah, I I don't. This is going to be interesting, as as everything that is going on in the world right now. You know, it's yet another one of those grab your popcorn moments and just sit back and and see how this is all going to play out in the world, and I feel like that.

Speaker 1: 25:56

We are, are just spectators to the most bizarre circus show on earth, and it just gets wackier and wackier Every single day. And of course, you know, center ring. Center ring is, of course you guys can guess it, our guy, our guy Trump. He's center ring always, you know. I mean, well, they take turns, in fairness, they all kind of take turns taking that center ring, but he certainly gets a lot, of, a lot of time up in that center ring. And of course, yeah, what was the number 300 and the number 350, 350, 350, yeah, over, it's going to be actually over that. I guess, by the time it's all said and done, I have on here like 350 million. He was fine, they barred him from running. We're telling you, of course, the New York trial that he lost and they are barring him from running businesses in New York for three years, and that goes for his sons and several business partners, associates, partners, associates as well.

Speaker 1: 27:06

I think the word of the night is unprecedented, right, I mean, this is yet another. Are you kidding me? Wow, moment. And you know in the obvious. Of course he's going to appeal. But this, what's his name? Judge Arthur and Gorin, is that how you say his name? He's quite a character, quite a character, to say the least. Leticia James. I mean, this is.

Speaker 2: 27:36

I think I'm not a business real estate guy, so I had to get smart on this and really understand kind of the nuts and bolts. So I watched and listened to quite a few people who work and live in this realm and the best explanation that I heard was this so the charge of fraud was based on the fact that, in an attempt to borrow money to continue to buy real estate and build on real estate, what President Trump did was he essentially overvalued his assets to the bank. Right Now, every business analyst, every business person that I saw talk about this, all said the same thing. Everybody does this.

Speaker 1: 28:31

I was just gonna say I almost finished the sentence I'm like doesn't everybody do that?

Speaker 2: 28:37

Yes, okay, and it's a negotiation essentially with the bank. Right, when you say, well, I wanna borrow whatever $250 million, and they say, okay, well, you've gotta have X amount of assets to back that up. And you say, well, I've got this and it's worth, you know, $140 million, and they go we value it at 110. And then it's like, okay, well, let's settle at 125. You know what I mean. And then, and so you go back and forth and it's a negotiation, so that they know and understand what you have and what you can back it with when you get the loan, if we're gonna give you the money and all. But again, commonplace happens all the time. Everybody does this.

Speaker 1: 29:25

And now correct me if I'm wrong, but the kicker is, he paid everything Like he didn't default on anything.

Speaker 2: 29:31

He didn't default on anything.

Speaker 1: 29:32

Yeah, right. So there's no crime, there's no injury. No one's hurt by this, no one lost anything. The banks didn't lose anything. Everybody walked away winners. Nobody got hurt and he is being fined for doing nothing wrong. Fraudulent practices.

Speaker 2: 29:52

Fraudulent business practices is what it boils down to. Now, okay, let's say letter of the law was wrong. Okay, I'll concede that he was. Even the business guy said that, yes, by the letter of law he's wrong, but by common practice everybody does it. Totally accepted, not a thing. So there's that. But the aftermath, outside of just him appealing, I learned a lot more and again, this is a great one, I really did learn a lot on this one is so the three year ban of him doing business.

Speaker 2: 30:32

The repercussion of that is that he is going to most likely close down everything that he has in New York City. Trump towers, all of it. He is going to close it all down so that real estate will get sold that nobody can really afford to buy Nope, or if they can afford to buy it, they can't afford to do anything with it. All the employment, everything that goes along, everything that's got Trump all over it in the city of New York. They're saying he is going to move it if he loses the appeal. In the meantime he will continue to do business as usual, but there is the threat of all of that. Everything that he owns, every business that he operates in New York, is going to get shut down and moved because they've said it, they banned it three years, right, so that's potentially huge.

Speaker 1: 31:29

So now?

Speaker 2: 31:30

so so, while this is his tax revenue, that's the thing they lose tax money and everybody says, oh well, he cheats on his taxes anyway. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Yeah, he might cheat on his taxes, he's still paying hundreds of millions of dollars you know all of his assets. You know it's crazy.

Speaker 1: 31:49

And by, you know, by what they think is cheating is is taking advantage of all of the things that are are available to take advantage of.

Speaker 1: 31:59

You know that most wealthy people do business. You know anyone who knows anything about money. They are going to look for every loophole, every, everything. So he's not doing anything different than anyone else. It's just because he's Donald Trump and they hate him. You know, to the expense of, or to the detriment of, the city of New York yeah, the people of New York. You have any jobs? Just Trump Tower alone. How many businesses are in there? How many jobs? How many are there residences in there as well? I can't remember Besides his yeah.

Speaker 1: 32:35

Well, yeah, besides his yeah.

Speaker 2: 32:36

I don't. I think, so I'm not positive. I'm not positive either.

Speaker 1: 32:39

But but let's say, let's just say, you know, an insane amount of people are going to be affected by this. And then the audacity of it. I don't know if it was Hochel, hochel, I don't know how to say it Hochel, hochel or one of the other ones, but somebody came out and said you know business owners, you know wealthy business owners in New York City are kind of like whoa, hey, how's? What does this mean for me Is you're going to come after me? And they're like you don't have anything to worry about. Nothing to worry about. Okay, sure, we don't.

Speaker 2: 33:12

So Nobody is taking out. Nobody is taking out a loan like that in New York ever again. It's not happening, because they know that they can't do what has been the common practice, which is the you know haggle back and forth with the bank and a little bit of overvaluing and and those kinds of things. They know that they can't do it.

Speaker 2: 33:32

One of these other business guys and I should have got his name down and I didn't he said that there's New York has now, with this, solely with this decision, new York has turned into a loser city and and he said that he grouped it with Southern California, specifically Southern and Central Los Angeles and San Francisco, right, the Bay Area itself, because nobody is opening a business in San Francisco and nobody is opening businesses in LA. They're all moving. So those are both loser cities and now New York has just joined that crowd because of this decision and because of what you said, which is all these business owners are like I'm not going there. What are you crazy? Right, and I risked that. So the repercussions of this, not just to Trump and not just to his assets, but to future assets is just going to get worse.

Speaker 1: 34:25

Yes, yeah, the very idea and real possibility that New York City could become essentially a ghost town. Now, is that an exaggeration? Sure, but not by much. Not when you're talking about the amount of people. You know, tourists and businesses and just everything that's there. You know they're overrun with migrants all over the place. Those curfews, I'm sure, are working out very, very well, no doubt. You know like we joked about it last week, or like, yeah, I'm sure, at 10.59, they're like rushing back to the shelter so they can be all in their bed tucked in with their cookies and their milk.

Speaker 1: 35:12

But oh man, it's bad. And I'll tell you what. I haven't been to the city. I don't know it's been a long time it's been. It's been quite a few years since I've been here. We used to go all the time. We used to go, like we used to do our four times. It was seasonal. We'd go four times a year, each season. We'd go to New York, to the city, and make a day event, just have a great time. You couldn't catch me there for nothing. Nope, not, not, not, unless I have to. If it's business and I'm in and out of there, fine, I won't be happy about it, but I'll do it. And yeah, but for pleasure, no, you see the videos. You see all the things. They have destroyed that city to something that's almost unrecognizable.

Speaker 2: 35:59

So two more things for context. One of them is, you know we said we talked about this is obviously it's politically motivated to go after Trump, right? No question, nobody's even being shy about that either. Right, you've got that. You've got all the poor decision making by. You know, mayor Adams. That's all going downhill. Even he's back peddling and trying to you know course correct and get things back on track. But if you go back and you go back, I think probably what's it been five years now? The Amazon miss driven by AOC herself.

Speaker 2: 36:34

Right, yes, so go back those five this years when she was so adamant about the tax break, because that's what it was about. It was about them not paying their fair share of taxes. Right, and that's why that whole thing got tanked was because she wanted them to pay their taxes, not taking it to account the amount, sheer amount, of jobs and revenue that was going to come through the city, but because they weren't going to pay their fair share of taxes, amazon said, fine, we'll go somewhere else. And they did Right, yeah, so a couple of key Democrat moves in the last few years have really, really taken a toll on New York, whether people want to acknowledge it or not, or if they want to draw those lines and connect those dots.

Speaker 2: 37:18

But those that between that move that Amazon, you know sabotage, you know, mayor Adams and all his and all the stuff that you know defunding the police and that, and then all the migrants and everything, and then now this thing with President Trump in the aftermath that's going to come out of that. Put those three things together and now you're starting to get even diehard Democrats in the city of New York, very much like diehard Democrats in the city of Chicago are going. What in the world did we allow to happen? Why this leadership is screwing us. It's all going bad and you're starting to get a lot of, you know, shaky people living in the city. The last thing, and I don't know if this is going to come to fruition or not, have you seen this thing with the truckers?

Speaker 1: 38:01

Yes, I did.

Speaker 2: 38:03

I did. Yeah, it happened. And then now the guy's kind of backpedaling typical. He's a Chicago guy. I think they call it Chicago Mike or something like that.

Speaker 1: 38:11

You know I did hear a couple of things about his reasoning for backpedal. I heard two different things. I heard one and I'm sorry I don't know the guy's name. Do you happen to know it? I?

Speaker 2: 38:20

think it's Chicago, mike, this is what they call it.

Speaker 1: 38:23

Yeah, it's like yeah, that was like trucker or something, I think. Yeah, so, okay, yes, so I heard two different things in the span of hours, and I don't know which, if even either are true. One that his it was upsetting his grandson and so that's why he kind of took it down. I don't know that. You know that would seem you didn't hear that. I saw it on X. Let's blame Twitter. And the other one was because he, he's something to the effect of that he didn't want it to affect other people's livelihoods by pushing, pushing that on them. I don't know if any of that is true, if any of that was the reason, but for whatever reason. Oh, and then I also heard that he only took it off of like one platform, like he only took it off of Twitter or something, and it's still active. So I don't know, I don't know. Do you have more intel on that?

Speaker 2: 39:17

Well, those that aren't tracking. So this guy's Chicago Mike I think that's what they call him or that's what he goes by he is a truck driver and has, you know, tried to mobilize very much in, like the French farmer, you know kind of thing. Yes, over there, right, he's trying to mobilize the truck driving force of the United States to stop making deliveries to the city of New York. Yes, now, you know, I think he was kind of playing to the independent truck drivers. Obviously, for the big companies they're not going to stop. And you know the other, the companies that have their own fleets are not going to Amazon and others are not going to. That, that's not going to stop.

Speaker 2: 39:58

Sure, right, I think he was really trying to play to the independent truckers to say, listen, we're not happy. You know, we're all conservatives, we're all Trump lovers, we all, we all think this is garbage, the lawsuit is treblis, they're just screwing with him because he's Trump. So screw the city of New York, let's just stop making all deliveries to the city. And that was his, that was his, his play. But then he came back and I don't even know if it was 48 hours it might have been less than 48 hours because it was a traction. It gained traction very quickly Very very quickly, yeah.

Speaker 2: 40:31

And then all of a sudden it was like, well, um, maybe I think your point of you know, I don't think he thought through the impact of the you know the small bodegas and and the. You know the mom and pop places, or you know stores and shops that really need those deliveries, and how much it was going to affect them. And then, oh, by the way, the consumers in New York, right.

Speaker 1: 40:56

It's not just going to hurt the city.

Speaker 2: 40:58

It's going to hurt the people that live there. While I admire his gumption, and the fact that it did gain traction very quickly was pretty very cool, yeah, I, you know, I suspect this guy was misplaced, I think that was bad?

Speaker 1: 41:12

Yeah, definitely. I suspect that he was just angry about the verdict and expressed his feelings and it grew legs. It grew legs and ran, and I don't think he was expecting that to happen. He probably figured, you know, maybe, maybe I don't know what his following is, you know, but maybe I'd like just a, you know, modest following, and he figured he was just venting and throwing out an opinion and yeah, and it, like you said, it was definitely under 48 hours, let's put it that way.

Speaker 2: 41:48

So yeah, michael famous, real fast.

Speaker 1: 41:51

Yes, he did, yes, he did.

Speaker 2: 41:53

Yes, he got his 15 minutes, that's for sure.

Speaker 1: 41:56

And he was like, oh, whether he wanted it or not. So, yeah, and you do feel bad, because when these people get thrust in the spotlight like spotlight, like that and they're unprepared for it, you know you get. You get both sides of the spectrum, people that are telling you that you know a lot of expletives and not very nice things, and you're just sitting there like all I did was give my opinion on something and so this was going to happen, and then other people are bolstering you up and, and you know, trying to make you basically their mascot. So I feel for the guy, because that is a alarming position to be put in when you're not looking for it or expecting it, right. So yes, social media man, it's crazy. I mean, I guess it's one of those cautionary tales of like always assume that if you put something out on social media that it'll go viral. Now, chances are obviously it will not happen, but if you go into it, always assuming that it will, you better make sure it's something you really want out there.

Speaker 2: 42:57

Yeah, and again, if you're not like, I'm sure that the first time it happened to you that you got a little bit of hate traffic, you were like Whoa whoa oh yeah, like whoa oh yeah absolutely yeah. And then I hate to say you get used to it but you do you do.

Speaker 2: 43:15

Yeah, I mean this guy, you know, when it was Chicago, mike or whatever, probably wasn't expecting, because he got both sides of it, I'm sure, right Like you said, he got people that were cheering him and then people that were probably you know, wouldn't surprise me with that guy had threats against his family. I mean you know, oh, I bet you know.

Speaker 1: 43:29

People are bonkers man.

Speaker 2: 43:32

Yeah, I'm sure, like you said, he wasn't prepared for that. He just threw it out there and it went nuts. So yes, I don't end being there.

Speaker 1: 43:39

I know, and I, you know, I would put money on that. That is exactly how that whole thing went. Just, you know, here's how I feel about this and just spoke off the cuff, threw it out there, not expecting it to grow legs, and it did. Poor guy, yeah, but yeah. So I wish him well, you know, hope, whatever. If he just can't, you know, quits all his social media and says I'm done with this nonsense, or if it pushes him into, you know, who knows, maybe maybe a spotlight position, who knows? Maybe that'll work out really well for him.

Speaker 2: 44:12

No idea, but maybe he is from Chicago and maybe he'll run for governor of Illinois. That would be interesting, right. That would be a nice. It would be a nice change of pace for that state.

Speaker 1: 44:24

Yes, oh, my goodness, but talking talking social media and things.

Speaker 2: 44:29

You know technology and things getting out of control. I mean, you know this topic, ai. You know I had a little bit of a wake up call. My best friend, you know we, we, we commiserate all the time. He works in. He works in Hollywood and you know he's, he does a lot of things in Hollywood. He's a TV writer, he belongs to the GIL, which they just went through the whole strike, and then you know the SAG strike afterwards and everything else and, and you know a lot of that or that, a lot of that was based on revenue from streaming right, because for years and years and years, they, they all relied on residuals. Contracts were based on residuals from reruns and replay right. So if you wrote for a TV show and it aired, you know, prime time, you got a certain amount of money. And then when it was shown in rerun in prime time, you got a certain amount of money. And then every time, like you know the people who you know, like the, the cast of friends, is still getting money off of reruns.

Speaker 1: 45:27

Oh yeah, they will. Right, and they will, and they will.

Speaker 2: 45:32

But what was never being accounted for or not being accounted for well, was when somebody went to Netflix or they went to Amazon or they went to Hulu or they went to whatever, and they streamed something that you did, they weren't getting compensated for that, right, right. And streaming's been around for a decade plus, right yeah? I remember my friend talking about this quite a few years ago, like, I think, two, two contracts ago for the writer's guilt, right yeah. And then this time it finally came to a head. So the new scare they just settled the streaming thing and now it's this, right Now, it's this.

Speaker 2: 46:13

And you and I have talked to AI a couple of times, just casually between the two of us, but this is like AI is really, really coming to the fold in every way that you can imagine.

Speaker 1: 46:25

Every possible way, and the way that it is and has been affecting actors and those people is that in a lot of different ways. But just for one example, when they want to do, either say, reshoots or, you know, change language or words, or they want them to say things that the actors don't want to say, they'll use AI software to simulate it to. You know, basically take their place, use their likeness, but use AI software to have them speak what they want them to say, and that's creepy and crazy. So you know they're taking that away from them. But AI man, it's, it's in everything. It's. It's their people are using it for book writing, people are using it for, you know, for everything that you can think of, and you know there's no, you know, and hence the, the Wild West, there's, there's no regulation of this. They don't know what to do with it.

Speaker 1: 47:27

It's, it's so fast. It's. It's infiltrating every single aspect of life, including your doctor's office, you know, robotics and and all of these things. It's taking the, the job of People. It's taking over, yeah, it's literally taking over the thing that everybody. You know. They made all those movies of the.

Speaker 2: 47:49

You know the AI is gonna take over the robots are gonna take over the world Skynet on Terminator. Yeah.

Speaker 1: 47:55

It's all AI, yeah, exactly, exactly. And here we are and we're you know, it's not like the, the Terminator, where we're fighting it we're, we're saying, oh good, oh, you're making my life so much easier. Write my book for me, write my you know my scripts for me, do everything for me.

Speaker 2: 48:14

And it's crazy so our, our lawmaking process is Eocratic and cumbersome, which is part of the problem. Right, we are not moving fast enough and we will never, as it stands right now, move fast enough to, you know, set laws in place, protections in place to protect against AI. Right, there are nefarious people, horrible people in the world that will absolutely use AI in the worst possible ways that you can ever imagine. Yes, people suck and and that's our reality, right?

Speaker 1: 48:51

Oh, yeah, and the lowest form of that is the these like spoof calls. You know these, you know, we have your, we have our Mama. I've been kidnapped and it's an AI generated voice and you know, and people are falling for it and terrible things are happening. I mean, that's just one of the many things.

Speaker 2: 49:09

But yeah, there's, I mean it and it. You know it can get a lot darker, a lot quicker, and I'll only make what I'll make, one reference and you guys can jump to all kinds of Different places from that. Um, with AI, it is possible to Develop, without ever having a human being involved, child pornography, mm-hmm, okay, yeah, and you know there is some sick son of a bitch out there who's gonna do it if they haven't already? Right, right now, is that legal? Is that not legal? It's not a real child, right, you know what I mean. Like you get into all these gray areas and again, our legal system is not Agile enough to to, to put protections in place, to protect right and right now.

Speaker 1: 49:54

They're right. There is no answer for that right now. There's no answer for that of what do you do, and I think you know, not child pornography, but there was a big splash about Taylor Swift, her likeness being used in pornographic content. You know, and it is a. The technology is so advanced now that people can't tell you know so it really does. It's not like you know, I don't know. I can't even think of any of the. The shows were. You know back in the day, when it was so obviously you know, animatronic or whatever, I don't know screen and all yeah.

Speaker 2: 50:31

Exactly up and all that stuff. It was always readily apparent. But right, I mean in every horrible way possible that you think somebody can use AI. They will use AI and it is gonna develop so quickly. And again back to the conversation with my best friend you know he's. He said that the one of the scary things in Hollywood right now is, you know, if you take a script for a movie, whether it was written by a human being or written by AI itself, you will be in the next 12 to 24 months, you will be able to take that script, dump it into AI and it will generate a full-length feature film with not a single actor in it. Done, and it'll do it in a matter of no time.

Speaker 2: 51:16

Right, so then even if there's something bad in or something wonky or whatever, like they watch it, they say, ah, let's they just go in there and it's all digital and they just change it right, right, it's not difficult. So you know, again, every possible way that you think somebody's gonna exploit this. They're going to and it is going to affect and and we are, in a lot Of cases, we're welcoming it yes, unbelievable. All the telltale, like all of the cautionary tales, are out there. We joked about Terminator and Skynet, but that's right, you know, that is a cautionary tale, that is an extreme cautionary tale, but it is out there. Um, yes, this is we collectively. You would have thought that our, our consciousness, a nation is, as human beings would have slowed this down, right, you remember cloning? You remember cloning?

Speaker 1: 52:06

Oh, yeah, yeah, dolly dolly in the world.

Speaker 2: 52:09

Everybody, I won't say everybody the vast majority of the world looked at that went this is a horrible idea, like we need to stop. But there was a handful of scientists that were like, yeah, oh think what we can do next. We did a sheep, let's do a cow, and you know what I mean. What's next? Yes, right, um, and you're gonna have the same thing with AI. You're gonna have a group of people, people out there that are gonna jump on it. I will tell you now as a substitute teacher it's love chat GPT.

Speaker 2: 52:39

Oh yeah, I'm sure right yeah schools right now are having a hard time protecting Themselves from kids writing things on chat GPT right, I was just, I need another. Tomorrow morning.

Speaker 1: 52:52

Yeah, gee, that's gonna be so hard. Here you go, just drop in a couple of lines, you know and you can't, what are you gonna do?

Speaker 1: 53:00

How do you? You know, if they go in and change a few words and dumb it down a little bit, or I think even with that stuff you can there's different categories of you know summarize, I've seen it. I know somebody who uses it for stuff. They plug stuff in there and if they want it to, you know, they can choose whether they want the, the language to be casual, conversation style or professional. You know, business, professional, casual, blah, blah, blah. And it's like I, you know, listen, I, I get that the love and appreciation for, uh, convenience and ease and and fast stuff. When it's a fast-paced world, we want everything five minutes ago and this is how we get it. But you know, now that this box has been open, pandora's box here Is open and how the heck do you get the lid on that? I, you know. I mean, I guess that's the million dollar question, or I guess, now you know, with inflation, the billion dollar question.

Speaker 1: 53:57

The million dollars right as nothing chump change. But that's the billion dollar question right now, like how do you undo or or pump the brakes on this now that it's already so huge and it's infiltrated so much of our everyday lives, so much so that we don't even realize how much we're already using or engaged with AI? So, whoo, somebody has the answer to that question.

Speaker 2: 54:27

I don't have a billion dollars for you do have a billion dollars, okay, so forget the billion dollars, guys, and the hard part is we're balancing because there are some things that are coming out of AI that are amazing, some medical breakthroughs that AI is coming up with that people could not have Put the pieces together, and certainly not as quickly as AI has. There's been some leaps already because of the use of AI, so You're in that like, well, if we shut it down now, then we like this was awesome, we want to do more of this, and it's like well, yeah, the problem is this awesome stuff is offset by this really crappy stuff over here that some dirtbags doing and and there's no in between. So, yes, it's the billion dollar question. Um, we, we. We can't move quick enough on protective laws and I, for one, do not trust the united states government to be in charge of AI.

Speaker 1: 55:23

Absolutely not, absolutely not. Yes, that is literally the last thing that we, anyone, should want to happen, and you know. But there are going to be, just like everything else, people are going to be, you know, pounding their fists and saying what are you going to do about it, government? You know, how are you going to fix this problem? Well, they're going to fix it the same way they did the social media, um, you know, with the, the tech Hearing you know, it's the same way.

Speaker 2: 55:51

It was so successful grandstanding. Yeah, they haven't done anything. By the way, that was not three. You know, three weeks ago we talked about this. Nothing has changed zero nothing's changed.

Speaker 1: 56:02

I'm shocked.

Speaker 2: 56:04

You're right, it'll nothing. The us Government will waste more time and money and effort and they won't control anything and it won't matter. Um, and some smart guy like you know Zuckerberg or Bezos or somebody's going to capitalize on it and they'll be in charge of everything within a matter of a couple of years.

Speaker 1: 56:20

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I think the only answer for right now, guys, for all of us, is that we need to be more diligent, more aware, um, more man. Many to you know I hate to sound like the, the survivalist doomsdayer, uh, but we need to build a bunker and we I'm just kidding, just kidding, but we do need to become a little bit more, go back to being Self-reliant and not so dependent. So I think the change, the only way you can start, is like in our own homes, with our own lives, with our own technology and all that stuff, and and, uh, I am going to make a conscious effort, um, because I am definitely technology attached, for sure. So, uh, I don't know where, I don't know where my, my changes are going to come, but there's something I don't know. We'll see. I tried, man, I tried.

Speaker 2: 57:07

Listen, I'm the guy who can still sleep outside and kill my own food, so I'm, I'm okay.

Speaker 1: 57:11

Oh, I'll tell you what I. I actually, you know, there's a weird part of me and I hate to go over here, we're okay. Um, there's a weird part of me that like kind of loves the idea of everything getting shut down. Like, I'm a camper, I love camping, so and I, I'm hardcore, I do the tent camping. I'm not, you know, I'm not. So what's that called glamping? I don't do the glamping, I don't care. Um, yeah, there's a weird part of me that would love for everything to get shut down. Don't hold me to it, because I'll be the probably the first one complaining, but well, you know it's funny because Manual or, you know, rudimentary.

Speaker 2: 57:48

Is this solution in a lot of cases, like when we talked about school Mm-hmm? Um? The answer is give the kids a pile of paper and make them write a paper like here's the final exam no chromebook, no computer, no tablet, no, nothing Right. The problem is is that most of the kids can't physically write. It's not that they didn't like. Their handwriting is atrocious and they don't know. Yeah, and all those other things. But to you know, keep them from using AI, chat, gpt and all these other things. Make them write out of their own brain.

Speaker 2: 58:21

Yes so you do like that, the, the converse of the, the tech explosion, is to go back to rudimentary. But you know, there is some Romantic kind of you know notion in that. I think it's pretty, pretty awesome. But uh, yeah, I that's. That may be the way we got to go.

Speaker 1: 58:41

Yeah, I think so. I think so in the meantime, guys, um, after you watch the show well, no, you're gonna be watching in the evening, maybe if it's state time and you're watching this or listening to it. Um, go outside, get some fresh air, get out in nature, like that. I feel like that is the answer to so many things, like turn off the, the phones and the All of the distractions. Go outside, get out in nature, breathe that air in and and just disconnect from it all, even if you could do it for like an hour or two a day, just just that Time to like let your brain regenerate, right.

Speaker 2: 59:18

Yeah, no, for sure, outside's important.

Speaker 1: 59:21

Yeah, all right guys, that is our, our, our healthy living tip for for the week. We are so appreciative of you guys hanging out with us. We look forward to your comments. You've been absolutely phenomenal engaging in that comment section and we love it. Keep it up and we will see you next week. Clay, as usual, you get to close them out.

Speaker 2: 59:41

Hey, just a one last shout out to jeff and the folks over at chute angry. You know my local gun shop, great people and uh, I always enjoy going over there. They're good folks. But uh, as always for me, keep moving, keep shooting.

Speaker 1: 59:53

Take care guys.