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AUDIT 306: Why Pragers Go Wild for Bill Maher

You last listened May 21, 2023

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Transcript

Bill Maher is all the rage over at PragerU. On this week’s episode of The Audit, Dave and Josh look at why PragerU regularly uses video clips featuring the comedian and host of HBO’s Real Time with Bill Maher for their more hard-line conservative screeds on race, culture, and economics. 

They are joined by special guest Gareth Reynolds, a comedian, writer, and co-host (along with Dave) of The Dollop podcast. The crew discusses the “Bill Maher bubble,” cranky old men, reanimating Martin Luther King Jr., North Korea, and Mr. Potato Head.

PragerU videos discussed this week:
A transcript of this episode is available here.

[Auto Generated Transcript]

Josh Olson 0:00
You know it's just insane to me to live in a world where where there's just nothing there are these factions and no amount of facts will sway either of them from there well

Dave Anthony 0:13
we can talk about that I think that

Josh Olson 0:16
is why we are talking about it

Dave Anthony 0:19
we recording Oh, I didn't know you start

Josh Olson 0:26
it's my best chance of catching you in one of your racist tirades. Oh, that's so easy to do. You and your George Soros turn on the camera in my in my computer at any time and it's just Detroit. Just yeah, you wanna you want to tell people what they're listening? Yeah, this is this is

Dave Anthony 0:47
Josh and that we're Josh and Dave. First of all, it's

Josh Olson 0:50
correct. Good. Good. And it's I know it's your first time on the audit and we're on the lever that is correct.

Dave Anthony 0:58
Or the lever do we figure that out to lever

Josh Olson 1:00
I call it the lever

[MUSIC] 1:14
you see those fools as a bag? of grains or if they fail fast? They're just here to get wild you got

this agent Jamshed David this is a yacht

Josh Olson 2:06
I can't What is a throat had some other idea way back when or like, it was a really good one no matter what. And he was either that or this. And I was like everyone's gonna call it the lever and he was another one. I vowed from that moment on that I would just call it the lever. Sure. So yes, you are this. If you want support a few ways you can do it. Do it. Now before we start talking because we are probably going to alienate a few of you in the next few minutes.

Dave Anthony 2:33
We have a change cup,

Josh Olson 2:34
but go to Laverne news.com/audit. And that way you can support the incredible investigative journalism done by lover and you can get our bonus content as well, which this week is particularly tasty. We'll tell you about that later, unless you're actually listening to the subscribers episode. And you can also go to our tip jar which will take you to our Venmo page. It's also libre news.com/audit. Or you can go directly to Venmo. We are at the audit under businesses. Follow us on Twitter, the podcast. Email us the other podcast@gmail.com. Russia.

Dave Anthony 3:19
Yeah,

Josh Olson 3:20
here's the thing. Now when I was debating whether to discuss this and I think Dave's right it doesn't. It doesn't make much difference. But the same time it does make a difference. I mean, we are living in a time where there are and this is the way man it's like the hardcore absolutely cartoonishly bonkers. People enable, enable the almost equally insane folks who don't think lizard people are selling babies out of the basement of pizza parlors? They are. Because you go no, I'm not crazy. I don't believe that lizard people are selling babies. But for sexual purposes, of course, on the basement of a pizza parlor. Therefore, I am not insane. I just believe that somehow Vladimir Putin figured out how to overturn the results of an American presidential election by using tweets or something.

Dave Anthony 4:20
He funded some social media and did some stuff.

Josh Olson 4:28
You didn't know. Yeah. Yeah. Well, here's the thing.

Dave Anthony 4:34
I just can't I don't know why people just can't live here and go,

Oh, Americans could do that. Like I over the fact that we're like, we're, we've done it to me in countries. We can do it to ourselves. Why don't we see the outside bad guy when all the bad people are Americans? Well, it's also I mean, there was and then you know, a couple of months ago there was was it in my use? Center for Social Media and

Josh Olson 5:00
Politics. Not exactly one of your more right wing Trump loving organizations did this massive report and they basically you can actually prove this shit with data that the overwhelming like 99% of the online stuff, the Twitter, Facebook shit. That allegedly at one point people now pretend they never believed this, but at one point was alleged to have changed the outcome of the election was seen 99% of it was seen only by people who already hated Hillary Clinton supported Donald Trump.

Dave Anthony 5:36
Right? It doesn't change minds. It's just a thing.

Josh Olson 5:40
It's Yeah, exactly. And then also the notion that everything else on Twitter and Facebook was perfectly reasonable and aboveboard, but somehow Russia was was putting out Russia was disinformation via tweets and there that stuff was actually altering hearts and minds was so it was so transparently bonkers, as was the idea of Vladimir Putin. I figured out a way to install my own puppet as President of the United States. I think I would choose someone who's not a complete moron who can't keep his fucking mouth shut for five seconds.

Dave Anthony 6:15
Yeah, the guy has something wrong with his brain like it. He's not the guy that you pick to do whatever it is, they think was done. Also, I remember reading I lived here reading this story. I think it was at a Moldova, Moldova, Moldova. And it was just a bunch of fucking guys who lived in a factory town the factory closed they needed something to mow or use any free article. Yeah, it's a great article. And I started and he they just started fucking making up fake bullshit online and getting paid to do it. And they were like, you know, drinking Cristalle and driving BMWs around this little tiny little tiny dead factory town

Josh Olson 6:53
intercepts or somewhere wasn't it was a great article feel like

Dave Anthony 6:57
it was. It wasn't the intercept. It was something else. It made me fuck, it was. It was really good. And it's really more what it is just some fucking guy trying to make some money. Like, that's where that's where all the misinformation comes with the vaccines. All the misinformation is coming from some guy, it's got a grift. Like, it's all this shit is, you know, like to think that there's some giant state and then to think of there's a giant state behind it. And your first thought isn't, oh, well, that would be nefarious American organizations like the CIA, or fucking whatever, David Brock is up to this moment. Like, you know, that's who these that's who they are. That's what they've always done. They've been doing that for decades. They're just doing it now on social media. Like it's all I can just never get past that, how people always want it to be this. I remember saying like, someone was like, Putin is the most evil man in the world. And I was like, well, the cokes have killed more people. And they're like, no, they have it. And I'm like, Absolutely. The cokes are the reason that the Republicans stopped supporting reducing co2 Like it was the Koch brothers. And that's the the level of death they already have on their hands is astounding. Because how many people die from you know, that pollution every year? Like, and you just like, there are evil people here we have many evil people in America. If you can't see that by now, I don't know what to tell you. And I just can't comprehend. People just need an outside. It's I remember that outside thing that's like when when there's that shooting in Riverside. And it was like, there, too. They look like they're from the Middle East. And all these people are flipping out like that was somehow worse than a homegrown shooter. And I'm like, is this like a matter of the gun? shooting people? Like what are you doing? It's just also fucking bizarre.

Josh Olson 8:52
But Russia with the Russia thing was like, I mean, I completely understand Donald Trump was an up ending of the norms for a lot of people. Yes. No. Should not that he can possibly win. Yeah, good.

Dave Anthony 9:04
I would disagree because we did Reagan already once. Yeah. But But

Josh Olson 9:08
Reagan was presented. Well, he got this is the thinking went on camera was genial. And he said the nice things, you know, yeah.

Dave Anthony 9:19
But now you're misremembering? Because if you paid attention to me, as you knew he didn't know where he was most of the time. Very Don situation character in a fucking movie. Like he, he was batshit fucking crazy. Those of us who paid attention, we're like, this is insane. Yeah, this is what he presented.

Josh Olson 9:37
He could go on TV he could talk for you could watch 1800 hours of Ronald Reagan. And and he would come across as a bit Dottie and if you didn't apply it to an understanding of any reality if you didn't get that he's lying through his teeth that these policies are murderous and racist. Like it seems genial. Trump comes on and he is what he appears to be. He says insane shit. He contrasted to contradict himself constantly.

Like, he's like, he's telling people in an audience to like, you know, go go beat the shit out of somebody. I mean, it's just overt. And people were appalled by that the same people, Democrats even who will embrace Oh, well, I didn't love Reagan or he didn't agree with his policies, but he was a good man. No one says that about not at all. No one says that about Trump and he broke their brains somehow. And because he just exposed how cartoonish the whole thing was, and we now live in a world where I have to follow it up by saying, I hated Donald Trump. In case you don't understand what I'm

so does Dave, we hate

Dave Anthony 10:35
it's so funny when you if you criticize Democrats and was ago your Magga like No, I'm not Maga. Like I look at your party that you love so much. And I see now today I see Nancy Pelosi, his daughter is propping up essentially a potato at this point, and you're keeping her in office and meanwhile, we're losing judges, we're losing again, once again, we're losing all of this important shit. Because you have one person you want to put in a place and they want that they want they want Adam Schiff don't want her job. Don't want the black woman who was right about Iraq. You don't want that woman in there. You want wanting another one of your fucking dumb assholes to be in office that is a cookie cutter corrupt piece of shit. He's just straight out of Boeing. That guy that's that's what he is. And it's just like, for people who

Josh Olson 11:25
don't know or haven't read this. The what seems to be going on is the Democratic establishment is propping up Feinstein, so she can make it through her term. And then they can run Adam Schiff, who is the party, the one the party wants, if she has to run out, the governor appoints somebody and they're going to appoint someone who's not Adam Schiff, who was in fact,

Dave Anthony 11:48
I would disagree with you that it's the Democratic Party. I would say it's a sect within the Democratic Party. You know, people within Democratic leadership however you want because they're trying to stop Newsom from picking a black woman. That's what they're doing. So it's a very, who is, by the way, their step son and steps brother like it's a fucking family matter. But yeah, they're so it's the old the old people in the Democratic Party are really really one of the biggest problems that this country has ever fucking had. They are disturbingly fucking everything up on a level that has I don't know if it's ever been done, because you're talking about climate change. We're talking about COVID We're talking about fucking all this shit. They are fucking everything up completely.

Josh Olson 12:39
And yeah, yeah. And just just a perfect example that I mean, he spent you know, he built a career by waving around the listing never show you have all the all the all the proof he had of Russia gate that we still haven't seen. And now there's a Durham report and show people Oh, he was constantly going way I have I have evidence, you know, we have there's things you haven't seen yet. You know, there are 57 communists in the United States at it,

Dave Anthony 13:05
though. Yeah, it's so good. Also like, like if there is a guy who is from Southern California, and within his district are Boeing and Raytheon. Then anything he says about foreign anybody to make them seem bad is so he can get paid and they can get paid? It's about cashing checks for those companies. And when you can, when you keep screaming, Russia is interfering. You're getting money.

Josh Olson 13:29
Exactly. But it's interesting. This Durham report drops that we've been waiting on for years. Are we the special counsel and basically concludes that the FBI shouldn't have launched a full in depth investigation into connections between Trump's campaign and Russia and the 2016 election and some people lost their mind. I was amazed to see what you're seeing. So like, did you like here's here's Jake, first you see Jake Tapper.

Speaker 4 13:56
But no, there we go. Regardless of the report is now here, it has dropped, and it might not have produced everything of what some Republicans vote for. It is regardless, devastating to the FBI. And to a degree it does exonerate Donald Trump. Of course, Kathleen

Josh Olson 14:11
Wynne wants him fired.

Dave Anthony 14:13
First of all, I would Does he really? Yeah, I mean,

Josh Olson 14:17
that's a fascinating acknowledgement from somebody in his position.

Dave Anthony 14:20
I would just like to point out I'm of the opposite viewpoint. I think we invest. The FBI shouldn't be investigating every politician all the time.

Josh Olson 14:29
That's that should be the fucking one that's

Dave Anthony 14:33
investigating every single one of them.

Josh Olson 14:35
I'll go a step further. I think Hoover was onto something. He just should have gone farther. I think they should be sending anonymous letters to every politician urging themselves to commit suicide

Dave Anthony 14:48
it's, yeah, I mean, look there. There's no There's no truth anymore. Right. So you can't because because you Okay, so what's the first thing that they say? Well, that special prosecutor has a point and about Trump, is that the first thing that that? Yeah, of course, like, so there's no, there's no basis in anything anymore because they can just go like, well, that's not that because of this, you know, it's just like, you know, we live in a world now where people like masks don't work. Like it's just just basic shit. That's just like not even, like, it's just crazy that nobody would believe that. And yet there's a massive group of people out there, it's just

Josh Olson 15:23
wasn't there's one article that people are taking to say masks don't work. And within that article is that there a section that says, By the way, this should not be taken to assert the masks don't work. It's a Cochrane

Dave Anthony 15:35
study. And it basically says, it's basically mostly pre COVID to two of the studies are, are after COVID started. And basically the point of it is like, we don't think mask mandates work. But this is before the pandemic. So that could have changed. It's not no point doesn't say mass don't

Josh Olson 15:54
work, right, that limit that's like the one source of

Dave Anthony 15:56
this thing. And yeah, so they're all

Josh Olson 15:59
wish, I just wish I lived in a world where all this stuff could be assessed reasonably and with skepticism by

Dave Anthony 16:07
that's why we have snopes.com couple in Florida, who apparently are the arbiters of truth.

Look, at the end of the day, when the printing press came out, it led to just turmoil all over the world, because people could not handle that access of information, that much information, somebody put in, they believe stuff that was just printed. And now it's the same thing happening the internet, people just believe whatever they see, particularly older people, like if it's in print, it's got to be real. So you're just living with this just mass chaos, like no one's been educated on, like, one of the classes they should be taught in schools now is how to process information. That should be taught in schools, just like how to deal with your your finances and credit and all that stuff should be taught in school. None of this is taught in school. So you have people that just can't function out there, they're not able to, like discern actual news from not real news. And then also on top of that, like, you know, we're talking about this story. I will never forget, I've wanted to do a dollop on it. But like, every single day, when this Russia shit was going on, a big story would come out. And then three days later, it will be proven false. And it was just a pattern that went on for months. Big groundbreaking story three days later, yeah, that didn't actually happen. And it was just

Josh Olson 17:34
our closing in was the line.

Dave Anthony 17:38
But it was, it was just relentless over and over again. And to the point that it was just laughable. I read a story and go, I wonder when this is going to be, you know, dismissed. And it always would be it was just like clockwork. Yeah. But the thing that they put out there first is always the thing that everybody, it's the same thing with COVID. It's the same thing with climate change, they drop a big story, and then everyone believes it. And then three days later, people go no, that's not what's happening. But it's too late.

Josh Olson 18:06
It was bizarre, and people seem to have memory hold it and under almost want to write a movie or something set in this brief era. But at the peak of it, it was almost like you couldn't go outside. I couldn't be around most people in my own industry, because all they wanted to talk about was this stuff. And they devoted so much time to reading all this shit. And you know, they would they would rewatch Rachel Mattos episode each night over and over. And they had their own language. I mean, my God, it was like, if you could go five minutes without hearing the word compromise. And you know, 2017 it was a blessing relief. And I remember going out to lunch with with two friends of the business, we're talking about a project and they just spent half an hour talking about this stuff. And I it was insane. At one point, they just like, oh, yeah, Josh doesn't believe this shit. Oh, oh. And then they go back to you know, look, a lot of people wonder how to rush it. I guess that's an upside.

Dave Anthony 19:01
But I mean, it's so it was so easy. You know? It's so detailed. That seems real. You know what I mean? Like,

Josh Olson 19:07
yeah. Oh, yeah. No, it's way more complicated than anything. We're saying here. It's way more complicated. It requires you requires you to dive in and do all this

Dave Anthony 19:17
gibberish. And I guarantee you, there's people listening right now think we're crazy.

Josh Olson 19:21
Right? So one of the people that people stopped listening five minutes ago. It's

Dave Anthony 19:29
what you can't say, but you still look at people that you know, and you go, and I've seen like, journalists who I think are good journalists. Like they are totally tied up in the stuff in you. And if you say to people there it's like saying vaccines don't work. Yeah, like it's the same thing to them. Like they just hear this and they go Oh, this guy's a conspiracy nut. And it's just it's just wild to live in this like I don't like I don't know where this goes because it's just You know, I lost like, there were people I was, you know, somewhat friends with with the Russia thing. And then like one comedian was calling me a Russian puppet. And I was just like, Why? Why? It's because I, it's because I supported Bernie. And I'm just like, it's because it aligns with my ideals more than anybody else. That's actually why I support them, not because Putin has been feeding the information. Like, it's just so fucking crazy.

Josh Olson 20:27
Yeah, I mean, there was the weird thing too, is this stuff gets debunked, but it sort of gets, you know, they stopped talking about it in slowly, the stories in the mainstream media will change to adapt. And almost like a year ago, the Washington Post did a quiz, you can you can Google it, look it up on conspiracy theories. And just an article about how many Americans believed them. And they had a little quiz and they would be like, you know, is this they give you this story? And you could, which one is true, which one isn't. And one of them was a Russian collusion, helped Donald Trump get elected president in 2016. And if you greet with the Washington Post, you would click on it, and they go, nope, they actually didn't. This is just a conspiracy theory, you're wrong. These are buried after years of pushing this stuff. They're like, they're slowly erasing it and slowly, sort of like, we never believe that.

Dave Anthony 21:24
What are you going to do? Like they, they were one of the perpetrators of it, it's just like Iraq War, you know, it's just like, then they'll go about their business as if they didn't

Josh Olson 21:32
do it. And I wonder no one's really held accountable words.

Dave Anthony 21:35
And you're like, Well, I don't know why anybody doesn't believe anything. The media says like it's genetic. Well, cuz it's just fucking shitshow. Like, it's a total disaster. It's, it's hard to like, like, the people who read the New York Times, are some of the most ill informed people about COVID in the country. Yeah, because you have just you have just just peep the people that right, there are just fans of unscientific nonsense. Like one of the main COVID writers is a is an economics guy. Like it's just, you know, so what's your source? Who do you, you have to like pick journalists that you trust, all from all over the news and kind of stick with them and not have like, one. Like, I think the lever the lever does a really good job.

Josh Olson 22:26
I get asked that as well, where you get your news, and it's a really tough one. And it's like, well, I track a bunch of fucking journalists on social media who I have come to trust, by the way, not on everything. I don't agree with everything. And, and you also learn how to read with skepticism. You also learn how to check in on stories a few days later to see if they're still being reported the same way. And you realize it's fucking work, man. You know, where you're we are, we are paid slackers, you and I, we have jobs that allow a certain amount of time, at least for you know, extended periods. Yeah. Where you can do this, if you're trying to work two jobs and raise a family. It's like, I don't even know how you have time to watch half an hour TV news, let alone parcel tracking, verify. It's,

Dave Anthony 23:11
you don't want to like you don't want your off time to be trying to figure out what's going on. Because no one's saying anything. It's truthful, like, like, that's, that's just a lot of work to have to. And you just want to go home and hang out with your friends and family or your dog or whatever. Like, I get you know, I get it. But it's amazing when I talk to people that I'm just like, no one knows anything about like, because I can have tons of time to read this shit. And nobody else does. You know, I mean, it's, I mean, who knows where it goes from here. The the Russia thing is especially just like, like, I just can't believe that there's people that just still dug in on this thing. I would love to do you know, like I said, I would love to do adult and just go through it day by day. and break down. How many of day by day of Russia gate? Yes, from the minute that's a separate podcast

Josh Olson 24:01
that would run for five years. Yeah, I know. But you could just bigger ones and you would go insane.

Dave Anthony 24:09
Yeah, you would go insane because I'm I mean, yeah, then the number of like, also, like so you believe the Russia stuffs true. Like I get like, you get this with other subjects where people are like, Well, don't do that. Because that's not the truth. And you're now you undermine people who are telling the truth. And it's like, Well, why don't you do that and Russia gate? Because so many of those stories were so batshit fucking crazy and not true. But everybody just jumped on every single one. There was no point usually unverified. Unfair, always. It was Yeah. And so now you have an FBI guy, or sorry, plus a prosecutor who's like, Yeah, this isn't a thing. And people like Yeah, but where do you come from? And I just at that point, you just told You have to like, totally check out of this shit and just let them run off and scream about their thing. Plus, what does it matter anyway?

Josh Olson 25:08
Give me your sweetheart Dave I hold a grudge. I just think of all the people who screamed at me that I was a Russian asset and I just I died. You know,

Dave Anthony 25:15
it's like mother for not holding a grudge.

Josh Olson 25:20
But it was weird because I remember watching this remember, like a report a couple of days after the 2016 election on CNN, and I've been trying to find this video forever, and I can't but it is in this book, at least. It was just really Yeah, the Clinton team got together and they decided that they're gonna make Russia the focus of old thing. And I'm watching him go, what the fuck? And now, you know, months later, there's gonna be there's a book called shattered inside Hillary Clinton's doomed campaign by Jonathan Allen and Amy Parnes, who are. Obviously, they're both with Newsmax and they didn't know their New York Times reporters. It's a really interesting breakdown of the Clinton campaign which was catastrophic. You want to blame someone for losing to Donald Trump trying blaming the campaign that lost to him, because that was just an astonishing that would make a good TV movie. But here it is. The strategy had been set within 24 hours of her concession speech. Moog and Podesta assembled her communications team at the Brooklyn Brooklyn headquarters to engineer the case that the election wasn't entirely on the up and up for a couple of hours with Shake Shack containers littering the room, they went over the scripted they would pitch to the press and public already Russian hacking was the centerpiece of the argument. And here we are now 2023. At least they stopped using the word hacking or these descriptors hacking the election. Yeah. Which implied to people that Russia was just you know, that Putin just sitting there flipping switches and turning yes votes. Yeah, no, you know, yeah. Oh, my God, it's broad daylight, because because you can't you twice, two people you think you should have beaten.

Dave Anthony 26:57
It's the simplest explanation, someone fucked up and covered their ass. That's all they were doing. They ran a terrible campaign, they completely fucked up. It was embarrassing on so many fucking levels. And they didn't go to states to try to get you know, votes. They just didn't go. They went to states that a Republican to camp like it was just a shitshow of a campaign. And they realized they fucked up and they went, who can we? Who can we Russia? You can always blame Russia? Yeah. You know,

Josh Olson 27:24
that's the simplest explanation. It gives you an excuse to sort of not only call your opponents, your political opponents like liars, you can actually call them, you know, assets of a foreign government, which, yeah, they didn't really love keenly. Yeah, yeah, I think I'll never get over, I'm watching Joy and really try to paint the ADOS movement, American defend African descendants, American descendants of descendants of slaves, which actually know some of the people involved at the top as being Russian assets. Because here are, you know, a bunch of black folks who are standing pretty far to the left of the Democratic establishment. So how about we How about we call them Russians? It was it was brutal. It's funny. This is a random thought. And it's just I've been thinking a lot lately. It's like as a kid, when the song came out, I was always baffled by the lyric in the BG staying alive. Do you remember the we can try to understand the New York Times effect on man. And now here I sit spending an extraordinary amount of time trying to understand the New York Times effect on persons. It's very,

Dave Anthony 28:30
it's a very fascinating thing, because I have, you know, liberals in my family and in the New York Times is the the ultimate source. And if you try to counter it, they just think you're crazy. And you want to go like Do you remember the Iraq War? Yeah. Do you remember any of this stuff? Does that any of that stuff? Ring a bell, like, The New York Times has a horrendous track record of just ain't

Josh Olson 28:58
good. But there's some good there's some good reporting in there sometimes. And it's like, you can't just ignore it. And you have to learn how to it's a nightmare. Speaking of up is down and down. He's up on it. Let's let's let's get into this week's This is a fun one. Because David, I have wanted to do something on this guy for a long time. And you wouldn't think the Prager u would be an excuse. But it kind of is. There's an extraordinary number of videos on the Prager U website that show clips of Bill Maher, who they really are really like so we want to talk about the Prager Bill Maher intersection, and we brought it a guest he's some guy Dave vouches for him. You want me to tell him a little bit about Gary.

Dave Anthony 29:41
Gareth Reynolds is a podcaster. American actor and writer and he he's my co host. And the one thing I can never understand about him is how every week he watches real time with Phil More every week he hate watches it which is I think the only only way to watch healthy thing to do but to watch it. He watches it every week every week and he just hates everything that comes out of his mouth. But you know some people put them I watched I watched Ally McBeal because I just couldn't believe what I was seeing. So I mean, I get it, you know, I get it. Yeah. And I just watched I just watched the Star Trek Discovery so everyone needs to give me some props for watching terrible stuff also.

Josh Olson 30:34
i By the way, Dave You seem to have traumatically erase the fact you've also seen every episode minus one of the West one

Dave Anthony 30:42
I tried to think about that that's sometimes your your your be you yourself block out these things to your sanity? Yep. You know it's just like within a mash when he's you know, wasn't a chicken No, it wasn't a chicken Was it

Josh Olson 31:05
just one tip before we go cuz I hope I hope all of our listeners for the Westlake have come over I know a lot of them have Aaron Sorkin was did an interview this past week on the writer strike in which this time unlike the last time he refrained from bad mouthing the union at all and mostly talked about AI in a way that kind of sounds like my grandfather talking about it or at least my and but my favorite moment in it is where he basically he said he didn't really have anything to worry about because there was no way a I could ever write a West Wing episode. You could I honestly that is one of the first pocket calculator that could write a West Wing. Yeah,

Dave Anthony 31:49
I mean, honestly feed that into AI. Got a script so fast.

Josh Olson 31:56
Anyway, here's here's our buddy Gareth, my sister wife and our Praeger you episode on Bill Maher.

[MUSIC] 32:11
If you finally had enough of him being college, left wing, get yourself a real degree from Prager University.

[VIDEO] 32:31
It's not me who's changed. It's the left.

Josh Olson 32:35
Yes. That's that's our subject this week. On Prager, you, you'll just astonishing first of all, do you want to introduce I don't know this guy. We have a guest. Gareth

Dave Anthony 32:46
is my co host on my better podcast called The dollar each This is that other podcast is better is because on that podcast, my other co host is better than this one. That is happening. I remain the same. I'm a I'm a constant.

Josh Olson 33:05
So you suck up the plays on both of them and then the other. Really,

Dave Anthony 33:10
I'm always I'm always trying to be nicer, nicer to the guests when there's other guests on mine and Garis podcast then I act like Gareth Gareth is the problem.

Gareth Reynolds 33:19
Yeah, it's really weird to be in this position. I feel uncomfortable.

Josh Olson 33:25
Yeah, it's lovely to have you my friend.

Gareth Reynolds 33:27
I feel like when Dave's dad probably hugged him

Josh Olson 33:33
so we've been doing some heavy stuff lately and we thought it'd be fun hopefully a lot of it's gonna get pretty dark here to get to lighten up but one of the things that really dazzled me that I discovered because we go through this hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of these goddamn Prager U videos and we want to break them up and you've been listening he's you know by theme and then we try to bring in someone who's you know conversant or even expert on that said theme you know, race world history. We got some good ones coming up too. And I was startled define an extraordinary number of these things featured Bill Maher not working for Prager you, but they love to run clips of him and not to bag on him either. That's the interesting thing. We're gonna get into it. And David, I've always wanted to do one on Bill Maher. For reasons that should become clear if they aren't already. And we're like, we should do an episode on this. We should talk about these friggin Bill Maher videos. Who can we get in who's who's an expert and Dave goes, Gareth. So what do you guys want to tell our listeners? Why Garrett is you get out yourself here?

Gareth Reynolds 34:46
Yeah, I mean, I for what I my my buddy. Luke was saying to me the other day when I can't remember what it was that I was gonna watch. But he was like, Do you ever watch things that you like? And you

And I was just like, I thought about it. I'm like, not that often. Most things I watch I hate and real time has remained a constant. But it's funny because I used to like Bill Maher. And then while I started to grow disdainful towards Bill Maher, I still kept watching. And I've watched pretty much the whole time and now I watch and I just, you know, I'm like, just like an old man who wants to throw his his sneaker at the TV. I just sit there and I'm just like, What the fuck is he talking about? Like, he's so gone. He's so out of touch. He's just become. It's become ludicrous. It's I've watched him, chastise his audience into always applauding for what he says they used to be, like, skeptical of things. Now his audience, everyone just feels like they have to laugh and have to clap like they're just trained seals waiting for fish to you. Cuz I, to me, it's to me, it's unbelievable that you watch it every week just because of how to like, I think it's I think it's gotten exceptionally worse over the years. Like I always found him grating. I've never found him to be funny. I don't think he's funny. I've met him personally. He's, he was a dick. I think he's not a nice person. But I also think that he doesn't have the charismatic personality that a lot of comedians do. Have. I watched him perform in clubs. I did not think much of him then. And I think that he only got where he is because he had a show on in which he allowed other people to come on and be the entertainment. And he was sort of the circus ring. Yeah, it wasn't a terrible idea, especially politically incorrect when he it wasn't a terrible idea. You know, and, but it also it also wasn't what was insane, but as it was, it was just laying there. You know what I mean? It wasn't it wasn't like the twist ending of sixth sense. It was like, hey, you know, we should do a show we're gonna bunch of interesting people and some entertainers and let them sit around and talk about the way talk shows us to work back end. But hold on, hold on. Yeah, not quite. Because what did he what little clip did you play of him? What did he say? Oh, yeah, I haven't changed the left. Okay, what was the name of his show? Politically Incorrect. Right. His entire show was based on the backlash to political correctness,

Dave Anthony 37:25
which he had to endure and comedy clubs. And I apparently he's forgotten that, that this is what the left has been doing, which is telling people who they find offensive, that they find them offensive, and telling them to shut up. That's, that's what he's talking about. With a lot of his

Gareth Reynolds 37:45
now it's called real time.

Dave Anthony 37:46
That was the name of the show. Now it's real.

Josh Olson 37:52
This has been going on forever. The thing if you

Dave Anthony 37:54
are if you are a comedian, nothing has changed this. This was here in the early 90s. When I started, especially where I'm from San Francisco. This has always been here the guys like Bill Maher have always been complaining about it. He has never not given the only differences. Now there's more people that can talk to you. There's millions of people on Twitter that can yell at you, as opposed to just going into the punch line in San Francisco and hearing a couple audience members yell at you now. It's just a giant wave of now you find out how many people really don't agree with you and you don't like it. That's that's what the deal is. So

Gareth Reynolds 38:31
well. I would say also, it's like for me, it's almost like his, he he has heated he has stayed the same. And which is like he's just been like a classic Democrat the whole time. And personally, as I've been watching the show, I've gone so much further to the left. And I've just watched him and he's also so rich. You just keep watching people who are so rich. Wonder why people are upset like It's like Ron Rob Reiner's like guys the the vote is obvious it's like for you For you it's obvious

Josh Olson 39:13
yeah, there's also there was no functioning left really? Yeah. When when he was starting out you know it was Yeah. Yeah, but yeah, it's just interesting because all of these things the pattern is the same the same thing it's they show the show clip of him and we're gonna play a few of these ranting and raving and then one of Prager us amazing commentary commentators comes in and goes yeah baby see what see what this noted liberal icon or leftist icon or what have you, but I want to like let's pick up where we left off because I want to hear all of these these rants and build those but what he says in this one is particularly telling you the audience's response is wild.

[VIDEO] 39:59
You It's not me who's changed. It's the left, who is now made up of a small contingent who have gone mental, and a large contingent who refuse to call them out for it, but I will. That's why I'm a hero at Fox these days

which shows just how much liberals have their head up their ass because if they really thought about it, they would have made me hero on their media.

Dave Anthony 40:26
It's okay stop

Josh Olson 40:28
up here. So he's serious.

Dave Anthony 40:31
Yeah, he's serious. So just so everybody knows. Liberals are constantly calling out the left. Yeah, go read. Cheat, go read Iglesias go read all the liberal writers are constantly telling the left to shut up just like Bill Maher is right here. He's acting like he's all alone. And liberals aren't saying this. This is Obama came out during BLM and like, put the kibosh on that, like that's what they do. That's what they're doing. So it's a very what he wants to put himself out. Like, I'm the only guy who can say it. And it's like, no tons of people are saying, yeah,

Gareth Reynolds 41:08
get onto it gives the game away a little bit because he's talking about he makes it about himself, but just just like, well, you should be celebrating beyond MSNBC. That's why Fox News loves me.

Josh Olson 41:24
It's interesting, though, because remember, he did that thing about 911 That that got Yeah, deep water. And he said, I agree. Really? Yeah, totally. Right. About how like, yeah, people keep calling you people cowards. They are not cowards, and oh, how dare you? And he clearly he's the kind of person we all know one or two people like this, I'm sure. Who enjoyed that. He enjoyed the heat. Yes. And, and the notoriety and everything else. And it was like, Yeah, you're actually being a truth teller on media. Bill Martin, you know what he wants to coast on that? And it's like, sorry, saying something like that shortly after 911. That takes a certain amount of especially in that environment. But the left is out of its mind, not the same thing. And he seems very annoyed that he's not getting the same response.

Dave Anthony 42:13
Yeah, I think you're right. He I think he is annoyed. He's not getting the same response. It's upsetting him.

Josh Olson 42:18
But he feeds this kind of self righteousness that you see so often on all sides, I guess. But it's really like, Yeah, I told them to go back and learn something before you tell me what to do.

Gareth Reynolds 42:33
His bubble is just it's I mean, you this is what happens is like, you get your bubble, and you get enough money. And you fortify it with the you know, and he's got his audience and he's got his producers even when you watch Bill Maher show, I swear to God, there is a laugh Stoker, a guy who's probably one of his writers, who stands in the back and almost like an applause sign gives the big belly slaps when they should come out. And other people know than to laugh. And he he's just surrounded by that. And so he's, he does feel abandoned by people. Because people have abandoned him because he's a fucking rich dick. You know, but he frames it as the the I'm the resistance. You're, you know, you just aren't resisting properly. And it's like, dude, like when, during, during when they when people weren't allowed to shoot their shows in studio Bill Maher's version of the at Home show was by far the worst version. They all were garbage. But his do I never saw it. What was his his monologue was on like, first of all, he would show off his house and it was just like Jesus Christ. And then he would do his monologue like in a gazebo. And he would cut in old footage old movie footage of like people applauding like as a bit, but it was, it was just, it was horrendous. It was like really the worst one not like I said, like, it was awkward for all of them. But his was by far the biggest swing and miss. And a lot of times he would just be like, in a tree. Just he is just full of the bravado of this guy who believes that he's never wrong. And in his little world, he is never wrong.

Dave Anthony 44:22
Yeah, yeah, look, you you you get to like you can be a super popular comedian and tore theaters. That's 2000 people. So all you need is 2000 people in a city that you go to once every 18 months and then you think you're hot shit. Yeah. But that's just 2000 people in a city million you're not actually. So you can really sort of crank up the ego and think you're this amazing thing and you're really not like most people don't know that there are

Josh Olson 44:55
people who like it. I mean, there are definitely yeah, there aren't there aren't there are people you know

Dave Anthony 45:00
But there's no Brian or Josh there that that's a shrinking shrinking group of people. Yeah. Where he's picking them up is on the right.

Gareth Reynolds 45:07
And I think he's also Yeah, it's a lot of the, you know, he talks about how he goes to the red states all the time and stuff like that. And I think the fact that he was early on weed has helped him tremendously, because that still seems like while that issue has grown in popularity, it still feels like a resistance issue. And like, pot should disavow Bill Maher at this point, like it has made him It has allowed him this sort of verification, you know, it's given him the blue paw check. Like people do think oh, well, he has to be like, fighting for the right things. He smokes blunts with Snoop Dogg and it's like, no, Snoop Dogg voted for fucking Rick Caruso, like, weed has now been co opted. And it is no longer like the resistance. It used to be.

Josh Olson 46:01
Listen, I have I have a joint framed hanging on my we both have been here. It's like you probably seen it when I first moved into this house. I think I had it even before that. And the first time I winning to a pharmacy, I have my prescription. And you could actually buy weed legally. And they would make joints for you. If like it was your first time in here. We'll give you a free joint. And the joint was perfect at nursing anything so beautiful. And I framed it got a little stupid thing it says break here in case of emergency. It was funny in what year was that? I mean, for Yeah, I mean,

Gareth Reynolds 46:37
if you're talking like early on Yeah, like right around then. But I was

Josh Olson 46:40
just so believable, because my entire life. You know what I was like? Now here we are in 2023 People like what's that? I'm like, I gotta take that down. Smoking weed in Canada. That's, that's my sign that says I'm old. Smoking weed in California

Gareth Reynolds 46:54
now is like it has been the independent grower. It's just like California is a great example of how capitalism swallows everything. You cannot find the independent weed growers in California anymore. One of the states that like launched all of this shit. And Bill Maher is like a perfect example. He's like a manifestation of that.

Dave Anthony 47:22
Yeah, he also, you know, he did I think he made his bones on was being an atheist, right? Yeah. But now when he talks about religion, it's mostly just to talk shit about Muslims. Like he knows who is he know who he knows who he's courting. He's courting the right wing Christians he knows it or else he wouldn't be doing that he would hit him on all levels and across the board, but he does True. True

Josh Olson 47:47
he also to be religion. He goes on. Oh, sorry. Good.

Gareth Reynolds 47:50
Oh, well, I was just gonna say he had Benjamin Netanyahu on as a satellite guest and it was one of the craziest things Oh, my

Dave Anthony 47:57
God.

Gareth Reynolds 48:01
It was nothing recently. Yes, like it within the last two and a half months. It was nuts.

Josh Olson 48:11
Jesus Christ. Well, he then goes on to list a litany of sins that the left is responsible for before we get into commentary.

[VIDEO] 48:19
It's not my fault that the party of FDR and JFK is turning into the party of lol and WTF.

Members of Congress tweeting things like cancel rent, canceled mortgage and no more policing or incarceration, declaring that capitalism is slavery, canceling Lincoln and Dr. Seuss teaching children their oppressors and math is racist. Making Mr. Potatohead gender neutral. And now an emoji for pregnant men. Real I'm not making it up.

Gareth Reynolds 49:05
You can hear the laughs You can hear the laughs Stoker in there. He's been there. The guy who's got the big Satan belly laugh

Josh Olson 49:14
I mean, it just it's also but he is he's playing to an ancient audience, you know? Yeah. Lol. to an audience, I'm guessing they know what it is. They just don't know what it stands for. I see that. I see that of the kids. Were there. My granddaughter texted me is lol. I don't know what it means, but it's annoying.

Dave Anthony 49:35
But look cute. He also was, you know, you know, he came up in the 70s. Right? You know, he's probably a teenager in the 70s. And, like, you get to be an older person and you go alright, the younger generations don't think like I do. And they have a different perspective. And there's two ways you can handle that. Like, I think you and I Josh handle it by going okay, well, let's hear what they have to say, Oh, that's interesting. Oh, I'll try to take that into account and be and maybe change the way I talk and things like that. And then there's this which is just cranky old man screaming that the world is changing. Yeah, absolutely can't handle it. It is. It is so bizarre that this is on television. This is such stuff we saw in you've seen through the years of, you know, as we grew up, like you saw these old guys, cranky old men, and now he's the cranky old man. These things he pointed out are crazy. Like, I don't Why would I care about Mr. Fucking potato?

Gareth Reynolds 50:42
It's amazing. It is who gives a shit he but Why would Mr. Pinto it'd

Josh Olson 50:47
be gender neutral gives a shit.

Gareth Reynolds 50:52
That's why she hates potatoes. They're a potato, potato. But that's what he does keep the reason why he's popular with Fox News is because he's right there is exactly why. Because he cherry picks small issues and inflates them while minimizing enormous issues and downplaying. So he's saying, He's saying capitalism, slavery, free rent of a potato head? And you're just like, Well, yeah, those are actually massively important, you fucking

Josh Olson 51:25
prick. And we should discuss and

Gareth Reynolds 51:29
look at the absurdity of all of this stuff that's being talked about. And that's why he's been that's what Fox News does. Fox News does the dog. All that stuff. And that's why he placed them so well.

Dave Anthony 51:41
Yeah. And the cancel read thing. This is during COVID That he's saying this, right?

Josh Olson 51:45
No, this is before? No,

Dave Anthony 51:47
this is before. Yeah, I

Gareth Reynolds 51:49
don't I don't. But But either way, either way. It's it. I mean, when you talk, I mean, we when you talk about winning issue.

Josh Olson 51:59
Yeah. There's video of this, the Prager video series from 2017. So before then,

Gareth Reynolds 52:06
yeah, but again, I mean, he was the guy, but he's like, Oh, go ahead.

Dave Anthony 52:12
Well, I was just gonna say like, you make these comments without any. This is the big problem with Bill Maher is that he has no class consciousness, he has no understanding of the socio economic things he's talking about, and he just gets mad about them will rent is is annihilating people, people are paying 50% of their, their income on rent 70% A lot of people are that's not sustainable. And then, you know, the, he brings up BLM and it's like, Hey, dude, black kids are getting fucking shot everywhere. And just straight up murdered by cops. You don't get to just blow that the fuck off and go they want to abolish a thing. Yeah, right, because they're getting fucking killed. They actually want to stop the people who are killing them from killing them. And then there's the debt, the debt thing, which is like they are essentially, it's like having loan sharks give give kids college loans. It's no different than loan sharks. And so but but again, he just throws them out there and makes them Sanam. Oh, you want to Can't you want to cancel a debt? You want to? You want to get rid of rent? Yeah, cuz they're being predatorial. Yeah,

Gareth Reynolds 53:25
he also does a lot of the pick yourself up by your own bootstraps shit, like he does? Yes. Which which happens when it is the when you are, you know, when you made it in a generation from a few decades ago, it's a lot easier to be like, well, this is how we did it back then. But he is has no relationship with today's reality. So he's just like, Look, you might have to get a couple jobs. You know, he just doesn't view he doesn't understand that 40 hours a week doesn't do it. He really doesn't. Yeah,

Dave Anthony 53:57
so let's talk about where bookmark came from. Because he came up in the 80s comedy boom, of the 80s comedy boom was essentially when disco places turned into comedy clubs. Because all of that generation or the boomers suddenly had a ton of money. They were all on blow. They wanted to go out all night and watch comedy. They're having four and five, five shows a fucking night at some of these clubs. Set just quite like seven clubs in the city itself. Like there was comedy everywhere. You could suck so hard, and make a living and get on TV at comedy. So he essentially came up in the easiest era to make it Yeah. So easy. And and that helped to fuel this attitude that he has, which is it's easy to do. You just need to work hard or whatever, when he just got carried by the tide of cocaine and laughter essentially And so it's always been this this the thing of these this generation of comedians very entitled, very entitled and very think it's a very easy thing to do. Yeah. If they had, if he had to had to start what I did in 90, when all of a sudden there was a recession, no one's going to conduct because he wouldn't have made it. Bill Maher would have never made it if he started when I did, or when patented. Or you know, Greg Baron and all these people, we all started a time when comedy died, it completely crashed.

Josh Olson 55:30
Well, let's jump in, I want to like because this is the fun part with these videos, they open with these clips. And then one of their networks comes on and this week, we haven't talked about him before he, this is the first appearance I believe in the show of Dave Rubin. From The Rubin Report, which he will he'll tell you a little bit about himself. But yeah, here's your here he is on the subject.

Dave Anthony 55:51
Do you believe in free speech? Do you believe that people should be judged by their character, not their skin color? Do you believe in freedom of religion? If you believe these things, you're probably not a progressive. You might think you're a progressive I used to think I was my show. The Rubin Report was originally part of the progressive Young Turks Network. Progressives struck me as liberals. But louder, progressives were the nice guys, they looked out for the little guy they cared about women and minorities, they embrace change. In short, who wouldn't want to be a progressive, but over the last couple of years, the meaning of the word progressive has changed. Progressives used to say I may disagree with what you say, but I'll fight to the death for your right to say it. Not anymore. Banning speakers whose opinions you don't agree with from college campuses, that's not progressive, prohibiting any blinds not approved of as politically. Stop making that trigger warnings

like look, this thing where you create a world that never existed and then argue against it is just so tiresome, that that's never been a thing. You know, the beginning of our country, Alexander Hamilton was for the Jay Treaty, and people literally stoned him on the street with stones, they threw stones at Alexander Hamilton, this thing that they think has been always has not been ever, people have always tried to shut other people down from saying shit. I mean, Gareth and I have done a ton of podcasts about someone coming to speak, and then all the people in the town show up and and stop them from speaking and cause a riot, like it is the most American thing possible is to cause a riot because someone is saying something you don't like. But the other thing is, is like, that's not free speech that he's talking about. The free speech is when the government cracks down on it. That is not happening here. What you're getting is people not liking your idea, and telling you to shut the fuck up. That's not the same thing. That's their free speech countering your free speech. That's all it is.

Gareth Reynolds 58:04
Yeah, I think that's completely you know, yeah, I, you know, if you're Bill Maher, I mean alarm. But like, if you like the fact that you're being featured on this website, and the Dave Rubin is jumping in for the tag team should just, it should be setting off alarm bells that, you know, again, you are the one who is you're the outlier. You're the old crotchety shit that you used to think you were rebelling against? Yeah, but

Josh Olson 58:33
I'll say is there's a million things where we've talked about in the shell before two or one of the, you know, models of argument they use on Prager you is you start off with, here's some things liberals do that make me crazy, and most people would sit there and go, Yeah, okay, that's true. And then they just make this great leap. They skip the these guys great leap, therefore, that's why I became a conservative. Yeah, so there's the only

Gareth Reynolds 58:57
right, right, right, right. Right.

Josh Olson 59:00
So you know, it's inevitable that every now and then somebody who's you know, I'm surprised they haven't found a video, Bernie Sanders, Hillary Clinton. Everybody has said things that they'd be like, You got to see even this person thinks this. So you know, once or twice but the fact that Bill Maher pops up on this site, so often they are so happy to point to him as like, look, look, this is this is our real progress. He would they agree with this? You get a cut. Exactly. Exactly. And I just want to play his one thing that Rubin says because it's oh my god. Ah, Gareth has spent too much time. There is there is these guys I've talked about Martin Luther King a lot and as far as they're concerned, only ever said one thing here we go.

Speaker 5 59:44
Martin Luther King Junior's dream that his children would be judged by their character and not their skin color was a liberal idea. But these days, it's not a progressive ideal.

Josh Olson 59:56
I mean, that sounds right. They think that's all they think that You asked what what did Martin Luther King do? Oh, well, he, he said that we should be judged by the content of our character. The course can go. Yeah. Cool. Why did he be shot up? The war on poverty that he was working on when they killed up do you know about I mean, it's just like, Yeah, the one thing they got a kid's cartoon about him, and it's like him, kids go back in time. And he tells them about the content of their character. I mean, it's just like, No, it wasn't a liberal idea. You

Dave Anthony 1:00:27
fucking I know that. That's the thing that gets me it was a liberal idea. No, it wasn't. Yeah, it's not a liberal.

Gareth Reynolds 1:00:32
You know, watching both, all two of our sides, embrace Martin Luther King, Jr. So improperly has become amazing. Like it would it just to be able to reanimate him and just give him like one week in government to just get his thoughts because it's, everything is basically what he was totally opposed to. And the idea that either side is trying to be like, see validates what we want. It's like, man, he would fucking hate you, and he would hate you.

Josh Olson 1:01:06
And you would hate him the way you and he was wildly unpopular,

Dave Anthony 1:01:09
wildly unpopular. I will never forget reading that when Martin Luther King went to do give a speech in Chicago, people in Iowa, were freaking out and arming up because they thought that after the speech, all the black people would come driving to kill them in Iowa. Like that's where they're, it's no different than the trans freakout today. Except it was it was it was black people. Like that's what it was all the same. They

Gareth Reynolds 1:01:41
with BLM it was that was happening with BLM to where they were saying like, they're gonna come to our neighborhood next, and Kayla is just like Jesus Christ. You need to relax.

Josh Olson 1:01:54
Yeah. Oh, let's move to another one. This is a great one. I won't even tell you. I want to tell you the titles of these because they sort of give away his game. But here's another Bill Maher rant that. Prager, you loves

[VIDEO] 1:02:07
have a little perspective about the stuff we How about here? I'm sorry, your professor said something you didn't like, that won't be a problem with the Taliban because you're not allowed to go to school. And Saudi Arabia, grown women can be jailed for doing the kind of things we think of as routine without the permission of a male guardian. China rounds you up if you're the wrong religion, and puts you in camps and

Dave Anthony 1:02:32
stuff. Have you heard of America, we are the number one prison nation in the entire world and who are most of the people in those prisons. We like to put our black people in prisons, we love to put our it's the same fucking thing. And guess what? Slavery is still legal in prisons. When we got rid of slavery, we just switched it over to the prison system. And the 13th Amendment says prisoners can still be slaves. They are fucking slaves doing

Gareth Reynolds 1:03:07
work. It's a great loophole.

Dave Anthony 1:03:10
So the insanity of saying anything about China having camps, that's what we have.

Josh Olson 1:03:16
Well, it's also it's this terrible. Like, it's not even a valid argument. It's like not my wife complains that I beat her and I go, Oh, yeah, well, Charles Manson murdered Sharon Tate.

Gareth Reynolds 1:03:30
Yeah, actually, you know what it really is. It's it's, it's it's what it's what it's basically the Democrats pitch every four years or every two years, which is eat the smaller bowl of shit. Kinda. Yeah.

Dave Anthony 1:03:47
I mean, and the thing about the thing about handing a baby the Taliban to say that in America, by the time it I don't even know when this is recorded, but it doesn't matter if it was just in the past 10 years. Now, abortion is illegal. But even before that, you couldn't get an abortion in a lot of states. Like what the fuck are you talking about?

[VIDEO] 1:04:05
More children in Burkina Faso work that are in school. Only 5% of Burundians have electricity,

Gareth Reynolds 1:04:13
that one. Okay, one. All right. Okay. So crazy.

Dave Anthony 1:04:20
Why would you? It's like, yeah. Oh, really? Okay. Well know that then we have a great new who else has 5% of electricity? Palestinians. Are you talking about that?

Gareth Reynolds 1:04:31
No. Benjamin Netanyahu on my show.

[VIDEO] 1:04:37
The homicide rate in Honduras is eight times what it is here. They know right in Venezuela.

Dave Anthony 1:04:43
No. Let's talk about why it is that way in Honduras, because we created gangs in America and then we deported them to El Salvador, Honduras, and destroyed those countries with violence. We exported weapons and violence.

Gareth Reynolds 1:05:00
He honestly when stuff like that is said to him on his show, his mind genuinely breaks he can he just is unable to take it. He will go like why? What are you talking about even really

[VIDEO] 1:05:15
is for a role

Gareth Reynolds 1:05:18
and that's insane like well, he's about to to the people starving it's it's insane I mean he just he like he's not even in like only a rich bubble he's like in a rich Hollywood bubble he's in what the the, you know the Goodwitch in The Wizard of Oz comes down. He's just like the only people starving or doing it for a role. It's just it really is genuinely like bro What the Fuck no, let's let's

Josh Olson 1:05:47
get specific and explicit. I live in a rich Hollywood bubble. My wife can walk down the street to go to work at the Hollywood food coalition she can walk there where they have feed 300 people a night who are I believe the word is starving. Yeah, in America. Yeah, it's starving. It's like there's no excuse man. It's like there's no excuse. He can't get from wherever the fuck he lives to where he records yeah show and not be aware of that I city.

Gareth Reynolds 1:06:19
But he he's one of the guys who will say shit like, a lot of these people want to be there like he's that guy.

Dave Anthony 1:06:28
Okay, well, let's let's talk about North Korea. Because the reason North Korea is the way it is because of this country called America. You know, we wanted to stop the march of communism. So we backed a very right wing, terrible leader in South Korea were the one who draw drew up the the was the 38th parallel. We created that fake line. We we help tried to assassinate the leader of North Korea leading to the war between the Koreas and a Forever War essentially, we also just completely bombed the shit out of the country in a way that every single leader should have been brought up on charges at The Hague. We are absolutely 100% responsible for North Korea. So when you say North Koreans are starving, look in the mirror motherfucker.

[VIDEO] 1:07:19
The Philippines in the last five years has put to death 27,000 low level drug dealers in North Korea. I

Josh Olson 1:07:27
love the fact that some of the morons in the audience cheer at that low level

[VIDEO] 1:07:30
drug dealers in North Korea people starve to death. The only people who starve here are doing it for a role. And the only people who have no water live in California. Stock

Gareth Reynolds 1:07:46
crazy Flint, Michigan, what is he talking? What is he talking about? How is it that it's crazy? It really is what it is he's How is it this?

Dave Anthony 1:08:00
It's just it is it's what's so what's so vile about it is that he's doing it for comedic reasons, which allows the information to just waft over everywhere, right, as opposed to it being stopped and being like this is total horseshit which weighed in the fact that he says California he's talking about the drought. But we have like a million people in California who don't have water, because their wells are dry and their towns don't have water. We have a giant group of people that cannot access.

Gareth Reynolds 1:08:29
He does that. He does that all the time, too. He really does. He makes fun of things where you like that's actually a genuinely unfortunate situation. But it's also it's not as if he's doing these amazing jokes that are doing that. They're just bad. They're not good. Judge so so it's the worst of both worlds. It is this attitude of fuck you. But the joke doesn't even work. It's just and it's all that is basically the whole show is that

Dave Anthony 1:08:59
he's no different than the guy who just died. The guy used to sing and play piano in in DC. Right? whatever his name was. Yeah, right. He's like that, but without the piano, right?

Josh Olson 1:09:10
Oh, but he was gentle mark.

[VIDEO] 1:09:17
If you think America is irredeemable, turn on the news or get a passport and a ticket on one of those sketchy airlines that puts its web address on the plane. What does that mean? There's a reason Afghan mothers are handing their babies to us.

Dave Anthony 1:09:31
Okay, so hold on, hold on. Let me see if we understand this. I'm going to leave America because I don't like it. I'm not going to Sweden or Denmark or Spain or Portugal where drugs or legal or Hey, even Bolivia where it's socialist, and I think I'd enjoy it. I'm gonna go to Afghanistan. Is that what I'm to understand? Yeah, and you're gonna fly on them. As the guy go right wing and the guy or leave it if you don't love it go to the horrible place and this

Gareth Reynolds 1:10:05
by the way the the get on the shitty airline and get out of here Bill Maher did this whole bit recently about how Yeah, I fly private because I can like this is again from a guy who has has not been on a commercial flight in a long time. Yeah.

Josh Olson 1:10:26
I mean, who can blame him but still,

Gareth Reynolds 1:10:28
yeah, that was kind of his point.

Josh Olson 1:10:32
So, um, it just so so. So who they're commenting who they hold them up to this time it's the big dog himself, it's dead. And he goes on about traveling the world who is in college and how much it made him love America, which like, just right there, you know,

Dave Anthony 1:10:49
I don't, I can't.

Josh Olson 1:10:51
I lived in England, I did a year of high school in England, it was not just been worked out. My folks were academics and I got to go and, and get to do some time in Europe. And, you know, I didn't have the experience that it was like they should is great. I wouldn't say they're gone. America is terrible. I'll give you some perspective that was really interesting. Much needed. It's important to see how the rest of the world looks at your country. But I'm always deeply suspicious of people who spent a lot of time away from America, supposedly encountering other people and come back and just go wow, just made me realize how much better we are than everybody else.

Gareth Reynolds 1:11:25
That's never happened. Well, if

Dave Anthony 1:11:26
you're from if you're from a right wing family, right, I've never actually looked into where he came from. But you know, you you you go around the world, and you just meet other right wingers, like that's kind of how these things work. If you know people in other places, your father knows someone or whatever, then you're introduced to that little pocket of people. And that's, that's a you know, but I have never understood the concept of loving a country. I love my dogs. My wife, my kid. I don't give a fuck about my country, like, Okay, I live here. It's like, I don't love my house. To fucking house.

Josh Olson 1:12:02
That's my house. It's my house. It's got my stuff in it. Like my stuff. Now you're doing great. And I like the fact that my friends know where to find me when they want to, you know, it's but yeah, that's not the same thing. But I didn't want to play any of Prager except for this end and it sort of goes off and because he goes on and on about all the wars we've won. Which has very little to do with Bill Barr, but it's like, we want this why we went that way. Like okay, yeah, great. But there's one part of it, there's just worth calling out and discussing it eventually

[VIDEO] 1:12:35
became the least racist multiracial country in history.

Dave Anthony 1:12:43
What the talking about just Can you can you like the, the level of crazy you have to look it up to look at America and say, That statement is astounding. It's crazy. And also I live next to the town he lives in. He could not live in a whiter place. His his town is so white.

Gareth Reynolds 1:13:11
I bet you he went he put that in the copy. He was like it'll be hard to disprove that is so crazy.

Josh Olson 1:13:23
What's a multiracial country? What is he is that? Right? Oh, I understand that. I've been to other countries they have the cities there. Yeah. A lot of different races.

Dave Anthony 1:13:36
They don't but they don't view other countries like that. You know, when they when when they bring up like Sweden, they'll go Yeah, but it's all homogenized white people that's why you can't have healthcare. And it's like it's not though. Like there's a there's been a big large influx of immigrants they're inviting people in and it's not as homogenized as you're saying like, but they that's how they view when they look at Europe, they see those are the England inside them or Englanders over here are the Spain inside them are spanners seeing all these people. They don't see it as anything else. They see only America like that.

Speaker 4 1:14:10
It remains the only white majority country to have ever elected a black leader and Africans know how good America is. Which is why by the 1980s more black Africans had come to America voluntarily as immigrants seeking freedom and opportunity

Dave Anthony 1:14:28
I get shit all the blood out of my body. I just like I want I don't want to be a person anymore because I don't want to be associated with this person. I like I get you're spinning things I get you're trying to make right wing arguments. But what you just said is so fucking dumb. I'm surprised your head didn't collapse halfway through. So

Josh Olson 1:14:53
it's just a bizarre. Yeah, people are coming here because it's great. No, they're coming here.

Gareth Reynolds 1:15:00
Do you want to know how great this country is? Africans are no longer forced to come here? How great is this place?

[VIDEO] 1:15:16
Oh, God, then every came as slaves.

Josh Olson 1:15:19
Does someone need to explain how populations grow to this cloud? It's absolutely. It's the old days to drive me nuts when people like Britney Spears is sold five times as many records as The Beatles. And like, there's 50 times as many people on the planet. Also like it well, yeah, I think it was,

Dave Anthony 1:15:40
I think it was Pat Paulson who had the joke of like, I don't want to move out of America because I don't want to be a victim of our foreign policy. Yeah, the reason a lot of these people are trying to come here is because we fucking ruin other countries. We ruin them. Just look at Haiti, like the shit we do is astounding. And of course, they want to get out and come here, because they're safe from us. Yeah,

Gareth Reynolds 1:16:05
you'd rather be behind

Dave Anthony 1:16:07
from America. Yeah, getting psyched on

[VIDEO] 1:16:09
Wall carnage we have wrought. Three. Americans are decent people ask visitors what they think of Americans, they're likely to tell you how friendly Americans are. There are mean and bad Americans and there are kind and good people in every country. But having traveled abroad every year of my life since college, and to all 50 American states and being sensitive to people's goodness and happiness. I have been continually amazed at the essential decency of most Americans.

Josh Olson 1:16:43
This is anecdotal. And he's lying.

Gareth Reynolds 1:16:45
Yes. And he's lying and he's definitely

when I use looking at any bar in Ireland I was

Dave Anthony 1:16:53
just just this is coming off of Bill Maher saying everyone's intolerant

Gareth Reynolds 1:16:59
right when I my whole family's English and I mean I remember watching the you know the warm turn on this country in 2003 extend in a way that we will never get but most most countries now don't go I really like Americans most countries now we're like what the fuck is going on over there?

Dave Anthony 1:17:18
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, if you gotta remember the first time that Australia everyone was just like, what's happening what the fuck happened to your country like what I think that's why people are astounded they want they wanted explain to them because that's that's why happening here is so crazy.

Gareth Reynolds 1:17:33
And that's why we the dial up is big in Australia is because I think people it contextualize is the madness that we now just embrace.

Speaker 4 1:17:43
It fell in love with America at the age of 20. And given the freedom, the opportunities and the religious tolerance I have experienced I realized all these years later that America has loved Me too.

Gareth Reynolds 1:17:59
I'm desperate shot us.

Josh Olson 1:18:02
Oh, trans people should be stopped transgenderism and ideology. Yeah. I love America. Thank you. I'm just Prager.

Dave Anthony 1:18:08
Yeah. And Muslims. Like what? Like, what are you talking about? The country that was attacking Sikhs after 911? Like?

Josh Olson 1:18:21
Here's another here's another one from Bill. This one is? Bill Maher blasts Gen Z and Millennial leftists. Your ideas are stupid.

[VIDEO] 1:18:33
36% of millennials think it might be a good idea to try communism. But much of the world did try it. I know Millennials think that doesn't count because they weren't alive when it happened. But it did happen. And there are people around who

Dave Anthony 1:18:49
move on. Can you stop it? So the two countries that pulled people out of poverty more than anybody in the history of the world, or a country called the USSR and a country called Communist China? Nobody. Nobody has pulled as many people out of poverty as quickly as those two countries. Now the people he's talking about, are living in borderline poverty and cannot get ahead. So what the fuck does he think they're gonna do? Yeah. Because he said, He's saying capitalism works. They're saying, No, it doesn't. Well, he's

Gareth Reynolds 1:19:23
the success story of capitalism. So it's like, right, that's again, I mean, he, he is, by many metrics, a sociopath. He has no ability to actually relate or connect to the reality of most people. He just simply says, I have a big house and a big yard. You can try to do that too. And he doesn't recognize that there is, you know, that that is not possible. He just he literally hasn't been told that but he also

Josh Olson 1:19:56
he's got countless videos and speeches. is an hours on the radio in which he explains that if it weren't for laws and consequences, men would just be sexually assaulting women all the time. No Prager work for was Prager says this. Yeah, if it weren't for laws, you know, we'd all be murderers. It's like it does not. He's like, if we're for God, you know, God is gives us these rules that we follow. And he's like, No, it's called empathy. You don't understand. Yeah. Yeah. But it's yeah, no, it's horrifying. It's genuinely horrifying. They team and play the rest of this. They team this with a video of Prager again, talking about the evils of communism that we actually decided last week on our episode of professional Wolf. So you should go back and listen to that one again with Richard Wolf. But let's Yes, correct. Yes. I'm

Gareth Reynolds 1:20:44
falling Richard Wolf. This is this is bad booking. Is really, you want to talk to the booker soon.

Josh Olson 1:20:55
The Villas here, but let's hear from our from Dennis Prager on stupid kids and their stupid ideas.

[VIDEO] 1:21:01
20% of Gen Z agree with the statement society would be better off if all property was owned by the public and managed by the government. And another 29% say they don't know if that's a good idea. Here's who doesn't know, anyone who wasn't born yesterday.

Josh Olson 1:21:16
I would love to see that survey. I mean, I think a lot of times are there that is the Prager it in excess of socialism is, I don't see anybody actually answering that question in that manner. Do you have you seen this study? I would like to see it.

Dave Anthony 1:21:31
Um,

Josh Olson 1:21:33
talking about how like a with socialism, the government will own everything and you will own nothing?

Dave Anthony 1:21:37
Well, maybe but I do think there is a there is a 30%. To me, sounds right. I don't know about the 29. But the but the the number of younger generation people who are simply saying this doesn't work change everything is

Josh Olson 1:21:51
for sure. Yes. No, absolutely. No, I'm talking about the specific way he's phrased it.

Dave Anthony 1:21:56
Yeah, okay. Yeah, I'm sure it's not true based on, you know, everything else we've heard of him. He's like, do

Josh Olson 1:22:03
you think Socialism is good? And they're like, yeah, they're gonna Well, socialism is about the government taking everything. So 30% of you think that also, I believe that number is higher now. I'm sure it is of them kids who think that socialism is worth a shot.

[VIDEO] 1:22:19
So when you say you're old, you don't get it? Get what? Abolish the police and the Border Patrol and capitalism and cancel Lincoln? No, I get it. I get what you're saying or that I'm old. The problem is that your ideas are stupid.

Gareth Reynolds 1:22:37
Right. Totally. Look at the keys jingling keys.

Dave Anthony 1:22:42
Is there? Has there been a cancel Lincoln movement? Or did like one person tweet, they're

Gareth Reynolds 1:22:47
probably exactly. You know what it's like. It's like when a movie sucks. And they just start throwing up random tweets from people with 34 followers. That's essentially like he's the cherry picking of like, they want to cancel link and it's like, no, wait, sorry, dude. Wait, so you're telling me they want to get rid of it. They wanted to transform the police or get rid of them. They want to get rid of capitalism and cancel link like that is your little like

Josh Olson 1:23:14
they're crazy when they did the first the first one the new Star Wars trilogy and they had cast a woman in the lead remember this and it's like for a month and oh my god, the fans are an upward trend. It'd be like one kid in his parents basement. Yeah, right. I'm on CNN. Right. Right. It's just It was absolutely amazing. Yeah, but I want to go through there's there's one here or last one this we live in an arrogant society and actually want to play the whole Prager you video. And so let's let's stop, stop when we feel like it, gentlemen, and let's go through this entire thing. But this is, this is the model. They start with Bill and then they slap on one of their own videos. And the commentator in this case is a guy named Victor Davis Hanson. He's a right wing historian, writes about the evils of progressivism and terrorism and so forth. Angele unlike a lot of the Prager University clouds he's actually done some stuff

Dave Anthony 1:24:06
on the bad end can we just say like, this is the great use of propaganda. So you find people who are let's say center right? And they enjoy Bill Maher and you put up a Bill Maher video and then you tag it with the crazies right wing nonsense. And now you're sucking people into that right wing world Yeah, that's what they're doing with Bill Maher and that's why Bill Maher is a problem

Josh Olson 1:24:31
it's interesting and I don't know the answer this and I wish I did because every now and then I'll be watching someone they'll talk about on like a youtube program that we talking about like a Bill Maher thing something he said, It's like we can't show you the video. We can just read you the transcript. I don't know how the fair use would seem to cover it. But But So there they are. But here's Prager, you just throwing up all these videos willy nilly without any problem. They've been up for years. I've won. Yeah. I would genuinely like to know. Go Martin nosa. I suppose people know about this and they're okay with it or yeah, here we go, why we live in an arrogant society.

[VIDEO] 1:25:08
The way people talk about slavery these days, you think it was a uniquely American thing that we invented in 1619?

Josh Olson 1:25:16
No. specifics. How do we talk about slavery that gives you that impression? Like, what is he talking about? We live in America. We talk about slavery in America, because we live with the residual impact of slavery. I don't hear anybody. Have you ever heard anybody claiming that? We're the only people who did this? And we invented it?

Gareth Reynolds 1:25:33
Did it best? Yeah.

Dave Anthony 1:25:33
We Yeah. Because? Because we did, because we did do it differently. He He's, this is a right wing point. So the 16 I think 19 thing comes out of the 1619 New York Times project, right? Essentially, that's when the first I believe was like 20. African Americans were brought here are Africa, sorry, Africans were brought here as slaves. Previous to that, that it was a little bit differently. They were indentured slaves. But it wasn't pure, total ownership in this way. So we did. Its chattel slavery. Right. So it goes from being a little more I want to say, murky as far as ownership to absolute ownership to I own your children and your grandchildren. And I own you know what I mean? Like,

Josh Olson 1:26:27
is there those people that he's saying are claiming America invented it or not? They're pointing out the fact that American just fine tuned it? Yes, but that goes to 11 not the same thing is we invented it,

Dave Anthony 1:26:39
but not but we did invent this version of slavery. That's where the idiots get confused. Does that make sense?

[VIDEO] 1:26:48
Sure. But slavery throughout history has been the rule. Not the exception being woke is like a magic moral time machine where you judge everybody against what you imagine you would have done at 1066 and you always win

Gareth Reynolds 1:27:02
the i Sorry. I like this. The man we got to get rid of the word woke. I mean, we got to figure out a way to just like remove it. Oh, trust

Dave Anthony 1:27:13
me they're they're getting rid of it on their own there is no I

Gareth Reynolds 1:27:18
hope because this to the idea that you are now somehow throwing like the woke time machine into slavery judgment is just it's it's a bridge to Maher

Josh Olson 1:27:34
sitting on that for an hour.

Dave Anthony 1:27:39
It's so late,

Josh Olson 1:27:40
Gareth. Bill Me Later.

Gareth Reynolds 1:27:43
I'm gonna charge you more than you expected.

Josh Olson 1:27:47
What come up with these jokes in real time, folks?

Dave Anthony 1:27:53
I'm gonna read something by Kelly Fanta Dietz, who is a lecturer in American Studies at the University of Virginia one would guess, Virginia University has an interstate of slavery. The old world slavery was characterized by a more fluid status, the enslaved could own property and legally marry and their children were not automatically enslaved slaves are often criminals, or victims of religious wars, more specifically, slavery in Africa was not a life term. Nor was it inherited. Old World models were more like an indenture where there was a term of labor to be paid, and then freedom would be granted. Nothing. This was nothing like the race based chattel slavery that grew with the transatlantic trade, which guaranteed a life time term and further enslavement of one's children. So are slavery more far more race base as opposed to socio economic based? Religion? Criminal, you know what I mean?

Gareth Reynolds 1:28:56
And violent to right. I mean, it would be like the wildly violent the level of violence administered is just also

Dave Anthony 1:29:05
off the charts. Once you own them, you could just kill them. Yeah,

Gareth Reynolds 1:29:08
that's well, and it wouldn't be like message killings, you know, of like, yeah, you do this. We cut your arm ah, or whatever, you know? Yeah.

[VIDEO] 1:29:20
presentism Yeah, this professor is right. It's just a way to congratulate yourself about being better than George Washington, because you have a gay friend, and he didn't

Josh Olson 1:29:30
know that's not presentism. And it's a thing and I get driven. There's an element in which Yeah, you need to judge people from the era. You know, where they grew up, how they were raised. You You What is it a couple of years ago, remember Morgan Freeman got in some trouble because he was lately flirting with a woman, you know, a 25 year old woman who was interviewing him for the press. And I remember hearing it I was like, He's a 75 year old black man from the south, right Chris Paul? line did what she did. It would be like, yeah, he should know better. This is a guy spent most of it this is like just how it's like me a little, you know, give a little give a little but, but he's not sitting there owning slaves. We knew we're owning slaves. People did. We may not have had we been around them. Yes, we very well good but people knew it was. Well, people were against it. It wasn't. Yeah, I'm saying there's an entire abolition movement. Yeah. Yeah. Like,

Dave Anthony 1:30:28
that's, that's, that's sort of the key to what he's saying here is that he he's sort of, it's twisting what this means and but it's, it's, it's washing away all of the people who were saying slavery was wrong, of which there were many fucking people. Like, it's not like the abolition movement was small. There were a lot of people who noticed slavery. Yeah, yeah. Aaron Burr, Aaron Burr was like, Hey, we shouldn't have slaves and try to put it in the New York constitution like this was this wasn't like some crazy idea that was out there. And when you present it like this, now you're fucking lying.

Gareth Reynolds 1:31:10
Can we just did it?

Josh Olson 1:31:11
Can we just use it with George Washington is not that he was homophobic.

Gareth Reynolds 1:31:14
Can we just be honest, though, at how nice it is to finally see someone not hold the argument that if I were around in that era, I wouldn't have slaves to see a guy be like, if I was around in that era, I would absolutely be a slave owner.

Josh Olson 1:31:30
Fresh preggers got a pretty great video where he points out that there are plenty of really slave owners who are really nice people. Hey, go.

Dave Anthony 1:31:38
Don't Bill Maher. You know, Bill Maher is Bill Maher is a ham radio guy in an am radio, you're taught to just pick an argument and make it as strong as you can, whether you believe in it or not. And that's essentially what he's doing. He's just driving into these arguments, which are just so simplistic and stupid. And that's why Prager loves it, because it's the simplicity and stupidity of it. And he's just going full bore into it with this attitude that I'm bright and condescending. And it's very ham radio. Yeah.

Josh Olson 1:32:14
And it doesn't do obliterate any real conversation about a real thing. Because it is, it's like people do have to be a little more, my grandfather worked at a life insurance company in the 50s. And he actually worked, he put his job on the line, and he worked to get them to hire black employees at the company, like actual insurance people, not janitors to actually like, you know, give these folks real jobs that were meaningful, and so forth. And it cost him you know, and it was it was a ballsy move at a time when that kind of thing could really screw up your life. And to the day he died, my grandfather would happily sit you down for half an hour. And explain how the light skinned ones are smarter than the blacks. Yeah, okay. And, you know, yeah, I mean, today, that's a problem, isn't it? 50? You know, you go, yeah, let's balance it against what you actually did, the culture he lived in. And the fact that, you know, he did this amazing, ballsy thing that, you know, you adjust for inflation. You know, none of us would have the courage to do. Like, that's presentism is just like writing that guy off. Yeah. ship that he believes at. But you know, presentism is not going the founding fathers were kind of gold.

Gareth Reynolds 1:33:24
Yeah. That's I mean, that's the other thing is like, Yeah, completely. I think that, that we've normalized that you've normalized that so much now that they are these geniuses and that there were these amazing thinkers, and they were ahead of their time and all that. And it's just like, that's just not the case. I mean, these were like, awful fuck, a lot of them were awful, had awful practices, did awful things. And you actually see, you know, the fruits of that today, in many, many ways, you know?

Josh Olson 1:33:54
Yeah. In fact, we did an episode two weeks ago with Jared he texted all about

Gareth Reynolds 1:33:58
Christ. How am I on the show? What is happening with

Josh Olson 1:34:04
West who dropped out at the last minute and we're like, Oh, my God.

Dave Anthony 1:34:09
We go up and down, we go up and it's

Gareth Reynolds 1:34:10
really bad book. It's not I don't know what you're going for. Yeah. It's just like a prank on me.

[VIDEO] 1:34:32
But if he was alive today, he would too. And if you weren't alive, if you were alive, then you wouldn't.

Every generation none more than our own, suffers from a pernicious presentism. The arrogance that those now alive have created the most prosperous period in history. The result is that too often we judge a materially poor or past by the same contemporary standards of an affluent leisure present. Those who study history can avoid Read these fallacies, aside from the fact that the President is the beneficiary

Josh Olson 1:35:04
say boys, don't you to have another podcast? The kind of study history,

Dave Anthony 1:35:12
the fact that it's so crazy to me that what he calls the present? For whom? Yeah, you know, I mean that right there that just sums it all up like so you're going into this telling me that everyone has a leisurely and a fluent present life? And should we go to walmart or amazon and talk to the people or work there? What about the people in factories who's just fucking arms are getting cut off? I mean, and it's horrifying what's happening out there to the worker, and it always has been horrifying what's happening to the worker?

Gareth Reynolds 1:35:45
And also I think that, okay, let's, let's say, let's, let's grant the, okay, let's say yes, presentism is, is what we're experiencing. Wouldn't it be better to have a society of people afraid of how the future is going to judge them when they look back? Versus just be like, Hey, do whatever and we can blame it on the era? Yeah, okay. Yeah. Just want to make sure you know, I mean, Richard Wolff say anything that asked, it's always

Josh Olson 1:36:18
gonna be it's always been this and it's always there's always been that thing of looking back. You know, Harlan, Harlan, Ellison said to me once, sort of towards the end of his life, he said, we are trying to build a future in which the people who come after us look at us and think we were monsters. Yeah, like, Yeah, perfect. That's exactly it. That's exactly it. Yeah, I'm okay with that.

Dave Anthony 1:36:42
On our past podcast version, on our past podcast, you brought this up, and that's like, the west wing was was horribly misogynistic. And people will say, that's just the way it is. And no, it wasn't in 2000 That's not just the way

Josh Olson 1:36:54
it was way back away in 2002. Yeah,

Dave Anthony 1:36:57
not at all like that was that was people gave him a pass, but you can't look back and go Yeah, and that's what you know, like some things some things you can like the the example of your your grandfather, like, okay, but there's, there's like George Washington, like we brought up before resets the clock on his slaves when they should have been freed by taking them out of state like, right. He knew what he was doing he there are things you don't give them a pass for. And there are things you do like if this is just a giant broom, like No, but it's all fine, because you can't, it's basically saying you can't judge anybody from the past is absolutely not true. Yeah. Can we judge Hitler? Can we I mean, he gave

Gareth Reynolds 1:37:39
it was a different time. It was a different time. You're not listening, ever eat? We eat? Do you think he'd do that? Now? Come on.

[VIDEO] 1:37:51
Here we have the accumulated intellectual, moral and scientific contributions of the past. proper knowledge of the hardship of prior ages, teaches us the value of humility to take just one possible example, it might be an easy thing to chronicle what seems to us prejudices recorded among the wagon errs on the Oregon Trail in the 1840s. It is quite another to imagine how the trailblazers struggled to survive one more day and an age without effective medicines, labor saving machines, or adequate shelter. studying history also can so

Dave Anthony 1:38:27
so like the people who are in those giant immigrant caravans coming up from

Gareth Reynolds 1:38:37
different Sorry, I'm gonna jump in, it's different. It's different,

Dave Anthony 1:38:41
who's literally can't, can't get medicine and are being attacked by towns that they go through and not as an Oregon, all the exact same things. Basically, again, it's this white perspective of like, in America, everything is totally normal and fine, I have it fine. But this is still going on. For people all over the world. People are trying to get out of the situation. They're in and get somewhere else. And it's very hard.

Josh Olson 1:39:06
And I bet he's not going to talk about how sexist those people were in those caravans.

Gareth Reynolds 1:39:12
It's amazing. It really is astounding to watch him be like, fat are four people from the 1800s in this country were amazing. And just like, well, that story is playing out and a lot of other put Well, that's not amazing, or a problem, get them what keeps them away from us.

[VIDEO] 1:39:30
studying history also confers much needed perspective. It's neither fair nor wise to attempt to apply the moral standards of today to say the far more deadly 17th century, when life in the words of English philosopher Thomas Hobbes was solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short stop.

Dave Anthony 1:39:53
Doesn't that sound like happening people? Yeah, this is America. I mean, you know, I was in Italy. A little while ago and one thing that struck me is every Saturday and Friday night, the whole town goes to the town square and hangs out. We don't have that America we are purely solitary living a brutal existence trying to get by everyone's has no fucking money. Like he just he just described what's happening. It depends where you live, right? But even saying this like so you don't know what's going on in America at all, you don't know how many people are actually literally, the poverty level is insane. Here,

[VIDEO] 1:40:29
the COVID 19 pandemic seems to many like a public health crisis without precedent until we take time to learn of the global outbreak of the h1 in one influenza virus. In 1918, the Spanish flu killed nearly 600,000 Americans in a nation of 100 million, with a worldwide toll of perhaps 50 million dead. And yet our nation and planet survived and learn from it.

Dave Anthony 1:41:02
We definitely did.

Josh Olson 1:41:03
He kind of lost me. What did I learn? What have we learned? What?

Gareth Reynolds 1:41:13
Did he just need more time to get? I don't know, is he stretching?

Dave Anthony 1:41:18
It's such a weird thing to bring up other pandemics because they're not the same. Because you know that one, you could get immunity to this one, you can't. So the, the it'll be like, maybe it's a little bit more like HIV in that, you know, you you you don't get it once and then you're fine. Like things change after that. Like, it's anytime someone compares COVID to the flow, you can completely ignore them because they're there. They're an idiot. I mean, that's just a dumb, dumb person. So this guy's whatever ideology is pushing, which we know right there. He just shot himself in the foot because it's dumb.

[VIDEO] 1:41:59
One of the ways that I used to endure the tedium, dust and noise of tractor driving, was to remember that my farming grandfather covered the same ground with a team of horses. It took him two days of backbreaking labor to cultivate four acres of land. I could do it in an hour sitting down what's happening right now.

Josh Olson 1:42:20
Well, it's like every time I have to remember my friend Dave's name to call on my phone. I remember the days when I had to use to remember his phone number.

Dave Anthony 1:42:31
But also, like, Can you can you go back and go eat? You know, and before that his his great, great, great grandfather would you know do it with on his hands and feet? Like it's just fucking?

Josh Olson 1:42:42
Yeah, yeah, it's more evolution. Logical advances have made some things easier.

Dave Anthony 1:42:48
It's just

[VIDEO] 1:42:49
well, technology improves human nature does not. That means we have if we bother to look, a timeless connection to those who went before us. There struggled to make sense of life is our struggle. In this regard, there's still much to learn from King David, the Roman emperor, Marcus Aurelius or Elizabeth the first. And we can draw strength and courage when all seems lost from inspirational figures, like George Washington, Frederick Douglass, for the Wright brothers. Honestly,

Dave Anthony 1:43:26
well, no, hold on guys. I'm certain I'm kind of with him on this. Brothers, I can really draw inspiration from

Gareth Reynolds 1:43:34
Frederick Douglass, the guys who invented the play quarterback.

Josh Olson 1:43:37
They love Frederick Douglass too. They keep bringing this whole cartoon, you know, where are we talking about where they keep anything? Like he was just this gentle soul who worked from within the system to slowly over many generations. They never mentioned the fact that like, he probably beat his last owner half to death. Well, they violated any laws. I mean,

Dave Anthony 1:44:00
he's like, he's like Martin Luther King to them. And yeah, because for a long time, he did preach nonviolence, but then when the civil war came along, he was like, Yeah, let's go baby. Yeah, yep.

[VIDEO] 1:44:10
Finally, the study of history teaches us to value caution over certainty. We should avoid making judgments about who's good and who's bad. As if we were watching a morality tale in the present.

Gareth Reynolds 1:44:23
Crazy. Crazy. I mean,

Dave Anthony 1:44:26
that also does is to it doesn't it? Just it just services people who were bad? Yeah, it all this does. Yeah.

Gareth Reynolds 1:44:36
Yeah. It allows it just allows you to, I mean, again, it's like it. It gives you the leash to be a prick, essentially.

Dave Anthony 1:44:48
Yeah. It brings you back to my point if we had after the Civil War, enslaved all of the slave owners and then you know, just made them slaves until they all died off, then we'd be in a better place.

Gareth Reynolds 1:45:03
Wow. I've never heard that theory. It's pretty good.

Josh Olson 1:45:06
I'm sure Leonard Skinner would have something to say about that.

[VIDEO] 1:45:11
Major historical players like Julius Caesar, Robert E. Lee, and Napoleon were complex men who had points in their lives did some good things, that these efforts ultimately lead to bad outcomes.

Gareth Reynolds 1:45:28
What's happening? Like even Prager might even be like, we should stop filming.

Josh Olson 1:45:37
One time Adolf Hitler helped a little audible blind lady crossed the road.

Gareth Reynolds 1:45:42
I feel like she made great salads is he is I feel like he's the writer of Bill and Ted.

Dave Anthony 1:45:53
Why would you ever want to be like No, Robert E. Lee was pretty cool. Yeah. Okay, stuff. The Polian it's fucking Napoleon man, like, what do you talk? Why? I mean, I'm the you know, they had to they had a conversation about Hitler. They had to open this. Yeah, they've been like, I want to do Hitler, because he came up with like, there's no way they didn't. I'm sure that a whole list of these guys have who who? Who's a really bad person that we could

Gareth Reynolds 1:46:23
say Genghis Khan, if you around a day would probably be

Dave Anthony 1:46:29
invented the budget

Josh Olson 1:46:30
weird, because Prager himself a man which this esteemed learning institution is named after he's constantly going on about pure evil. Yeah, this is evil, and that is evil on the left is evil. And then here he is, clearly he's slapping his name on this video where this guy is gone like to begin with the bit

[VIDEO] 1:46:52
that these efforts ultimately lead to bad outcomes made far worse by their own outsize talents, is one of the many tragedies of history. So why study history? Nobel Prize winning American novelist William Faulkner summed it up as well as anyone. The past is not dead. In fact, it's not even past. I'm Victor Davis Hanson, senior historian at the Hoover Institution at Stanford, for Prager University.

Dave Anthony 1:47:22
Let's talk about the Hoover Institution at Stanford. It is where Reagan's brain lived. They are that's where you know, all of Reagan's ideas, he that was his Think Tank. That's where all the shit came from. They're the most right wing abhorrent monsters. They're the ones who created our COVID policy, have let it run, let it fucking Have at it. We're living in their COVID world, it's not going well, they are. They're about as bad as it gets.

Gareth Reynolds 1:47:57
I don't know that. But then you hear a guy like, but then you hear a guy like this speak and you sort of you get to hear the other side. And I kind of

Dave Anthony 1:48:02
I mean, that that was just a video which, you know, again, this is why Bill Maher has a problem because Bill Maher says what he says and then a guy like Professor like guy comes on and goes, That's right. We should not critique people from the past, no matter how bad the man.

Gareth Reynolds 1:48:16
But then, and then that also what that does is I mean, it's it's essentially, it's essentially what the Democrats concept was in order to beat Trump was then Bill Maher goes, Oh, well, the heats over here now. So I'll keep kind of going towards that light a little bit more and one hand washes the other. And then Bill Maher is still considered a Democrat. Yeah. You know, and the audience is still laughing at these jokes. Like, you know, it just it continues. It does definitely feel like the you know, in a marriage where the person cheating is telling the one who didn't do anything. Yeah.

Josh Olson 1:48:55
Yeah. Yeah. So your your years into this right, Gareth. I mean, you've been you've been watching them ever since the like, how long? How long? Have you been watching the show?

Gareth Reynolds 1:49:06
I really don't even know. I mean, probably, you know, probably since around 2009, or 10 is really when I started, you know, because there was a time where I thought Bill Maher made sense. I mean, he, you know, he got me with pot. He got me with atheism, you know, those things were outliers. And those to me were like, oh, yeah, well, this guy makes sense. And, and again, it was a lot easier to sell, at least me on the Democrats, you know, 15 years ago or whatever. And, yeah, and then it just has, I don't know fully when it became a cartoon to me, but that, you know, it's been, I mean, slowly but surely, but now it is like I probably took a little bit of a break where he was kind of losing me, but then he's gone so far in the other direction now that I find it really comical. I mean the way that truly the way that he gets this audience to react to him, I watched him berate audiences, booing his material, not laughing at his material, disagreeing with his material for a long time. And it was actually one of the things that I kind of respected about him a little bit was that he would, he didn't seem to screen these people. And now he clearly does. Yeah, it's very clear that you need to find him learn and write. Funny, poignant, brilliant, even the guests he has on our, you know, for the most part, you're, you just, you know, you go Oh, of course, of course, that guy, you know, is on here, that MSNBC contributor or that, you know, Candace Owens, whatever it is, like he Benjamin Netanyahu, you know, he, he definitely handpicks people who he thinks are going to fit more into his argument versus not. And when, and when he has people who maybe don't fit into his argument, he makes sure he has another, you know, good cop sitting next to him to berate that person into seeming incorrect or seeming crazy, you know?

Josh Olson 1:51:21
Yeah, I have not been able to watch them for a long time. Teva. Can't do it. I don't remember when he just finally, you got to watch and watch for me. And I remember religiously in the film, and it started sort of tickling me, like just tickling. It was like there's something you know, as an atheist, agnostic, whatever the hell. You know, it's not like I was being challenged or confronted or having my views attacked by that film. But there's some of the way he did it started making me a little bit uncomfortable. And it's interesting. Not a good movie. Yeah, it's, it's in the way that whole movement has become as ugly as it has.

Dave Anthony 1:52:06
And he was always he was that movie was just very condescending and dickish.

Josh Olson 1:52:12
Yeah, you know, and it's like, their notion

Gareth Reynolds 1:52:16
and his approach now it's his approach now to atheism is what bothered me about religion prior to that was the 100% ism. Yeah, yeah. And that, to me, is where, you know, it always kind of loses me when Bill Maher tells me he's 100% he, you know, again, I mean, first of all, the dude should take more mushrooms. But, you know, I'm like, you cannot tell me what happens. There's just nobody who I think can tell me exactly what this little odd situation is. You know, there's nobody and Bill Maher, vilifies religion for what he seems to also do all day.

Josh Olson 1:52:57
Yeah. And it's it takes it takes the focus off the problem, which is people imposing religious doctrine on you. Yeah, right. What we all have friggin beliefs, We all tell ourselves strange things to get up in the morning to go to bed at night. And it's like, if you're not doing bad things to be or if you're not trying to force other people to think that way. Who cares? What you you know, believe in this this? You know, and I know we all like this and they are just they just have nothing but contempt for people who believe in some kind of supernatural worldview. And it's just like, well, who cares? You know? So yeah, but a lot more on Martin Luther King. You want to put that in the soul in his place, right? Yeah, it's Yeah. You know, what is what is the point of it? It's uh, Ron Reagan Jr. Does those ads for his atheist group and it's just like, he's so damn smug in them and like, women I agree with you the prick and it's like, yeah. And make me want to go to church. Just Gareth, man, thank you for for coming on this journey with us.

Gareth Reynolds 1:54:02
Thank you.

Josh Olson 1:54:03
It's I didn't think we could find a living expert. Honor so it was nice to find one so close to home.

Gareth Reynolds 1:54:09
You got one right here. I really just ended You know what's crazy. I will still watch this week's episode when I'm home. I'll watch it when I get back.

Josh Olson 1:54:19
So before we jump into this, just since we recorded this like about a week ago, Elon Musk is said he's stepping down from being Twitter's executive chairman and CEO and he's replacing himself with we should do research I can't remember her name but this woman who apparently is politics that as far as I can tell her about as bad as he is. But of course, but a lot of the eels supporters are pissed off cuz I guess they think it's it's Is he being woke by replacing himself with a woman?

Dave Anthony 1:54:53
Oh, yeah, yeah, that's probably they're probably upset that he is replacing was with a woman. But yeah, I think there were a couple of things she had said in the past that they just their brains broke that were you know,

Josh Olson 1:55:04
I don't remember right when kuko I thought she was.

Dave Anthony 1:55:08
I mean, she's got to be if she if she picked her I would imagine I mean, this whole thing is the you know, the fight against wokeness

Josh Olson 1:55:15
or war has Elon succumbed to the woke mind virus since

Dave Anthony 1:55:19
Oh, wow. That's

Josh Olson 1:55:20
interesting thing possibility. It's kind

Dave Anthony 1:55:22
of hard. I think you'd have to take his brain completely out of his head because he is if you were to describe a boy from a race in a 1970s emerald mind family, you would you would you would pick all of his beliefs later on anti semitism, racism, just all the good stuff.

Josh Olson 1:55:40
Well, that's the other thing is yeah, he's been going off on this tirade against George Soros with some of the most insane gibberish imaginable. And you see the interview with him talking about Princess Bride his

Dave Anthony 1:55:52
bride? No, I saw him twice. So

Josh Olson 1:55:55
on CNBC last week, he was asked if there's like, basically a downside, if there's consequences to him just sort of spouting off whatever he wants on Twitter. It's pretty interesting. Hang on a second, I'm gonna play it.

Speaker 6 1:56:06
You know, do your tweets hurt the company or their Tesla owners just say I don't agree with his political position because and I know it because he shares so much of it. Are there advertisers on Twitter that Lindy ocarina will come and say, You got to stop man or you know, I can't get these ads because of some of the things you tweet.

Josh Olson 1:56:27
Long, incredibly uncomfortable silence Wow. He goes on. You know,

[VIDEO] 1:56:35
I'm reminded of

a scene in The Princess Bride. Great movie, great. Where he confronts the person who killed his father. He says they've offered me money off of me power. I don't care.

Unknown Speaker 1:57:07
See, you just don't care. You want to share what you have to say?

[VIDEO] 1:57:14
I'll say want to want to say and if the consequence of that is losing money, so be it. Okay.

Dave Anthony 1:57:25
Okay, I just love when rich guys act all tough like this thing when they're like, I sleep four hours a day, two hours a day? No, you don't. You're just this. He's just so full of shit. Without money and power. You'd be working in a fucking Park, trimming the hedges. And you could not handle it rich guy because then you'd be like everybody else. And that's your fucking nightmare. Your nightmare is being like everybody else. Yeah, what a lying sack of shit.

Josh Olson 1:57:57
But it's also that he calls up that scene cuz

Dave Anthony 1:58:03
remember, it's very it's very psychologically Interesting.

Josh Olson 1:58:07
Yeah, I mean, look, I'm a giant fan of the book in the movie. I remember reading there day one and you can spot all the other fans of the book in the audience because we're all lip synching with Mandy Patinkin the first time he goes out Oh, my name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. But that seems like almost as burned into our consciousness and he's got those killed his father he does offer me money. Because yes, he has offered me power because all I have I have more please he has offered me everything I asked for like I got anything you want. And because I want my father back You son of a bitch of the stabs him. Yeah, it's he's not doing it because he just wants to be free bad. Right? He's asking this guy to beg for his life because he killed his father and that's the see this weirdo who my understanding is it's pretty badly abused by his dad right? Yeah, which downstairs I think it's it's like that

Dave Anthony 1:59:01
he's doing instead that But currently, it's alleged he beat his mom in front of the kids and like, I had to move away and

Josh Olson 1:59:09
so not not a healthy. Elon doesn't go to a pining for his dad,

Dave Anthony 1:59:14
but just a weird a baby with his stepsister that kind of Oh fun.

Josh Olson 1:59:17
It's just a weird quote to pick.

Dave Anthony 1:59:22
It is very weird. It's also like, his his his brain freeze or whatever that was when he was trying to come up with some sort of some sort of comparison that isn't actually valid. Because the problem is he does say, say stuff that advertisers don't want associated with them. I mean, at the end the day you don't want a guy saying, hey, top Jew in the world is trying to kill us next to your coke ad. That's actually really bad. And that's what he's doing. Yeah. So it's just like, like he is now bringing in a woman from advertising who's supposed to really get advertising. But the only way she can fix it is to get rid of all these people that Elon wants talking. Yep, it. It's free speech and advertising don't go together. They never have they never will. They ever people want to you want to sell stuff. You don't have racist and anti Semites and misogynist all over the place. That's just how it fucking works. And that's what she has to contend with.

Josh Olson 2:00:42
Yeah, so all that has happened since we had this conversation about Elon interview with Bill Maher. Oh, yeah. So let's let's just rock let's get into it. After we recorded our episode, why are you doing that jerath is

Gareth Reynolds 2:00:59
sited about this idea. Tennis we have going on Josh. I mean, while we've got the ball boy sitting over there, nothing to do because it's hitting the net.

Josh Olson 2:01:13
But shortly after we did this Bill Maher had the electric eel. Elon Musk on his show. We're patenting that name. Yeah, and we thought this would be a great opportunity not only to use Prager using excuse to bag on Bill Maher for a while but a twofer now we get the bag on Elon we get to use Bill Maher to bag on Elon Musk.

Gareth Reynolds 2:01:34
It was an amazing again i on the last one I talked about how he interviewed Benjamin Netanyahu and it was just disgusting. You know, authoritarian porn. And and this was just this was crazy. This was like it was just some next level shit.

Josh Olson 2:01:56
I've I've trimmed out some of the boring parts I promise you all sort of so there's nothing

Gareth Reynolds 2:02:00
to play. Yeah, II

Josh Olson 2:02:03
there's a couple of things I cut out that that are just absolutely pointless and have no interest. But we did. We did cut it down a bit. We're gonna we're just gonna walk through this thing. Have you watched it yet? Dave? Are you coming in like Nick, you know, I haven't seen anything. Oh, this will be fun. That's great. I should point out just at the very beginning Elan Musk is not a tech innovator. He is a prolific securities fraudster. That's what

Dave Anthony 2:02:25
and he he's just a rich guy who comes in to buy stuff. He didn't invent Tesla. He came in and bought it. But even at PayPal, PayPal, he but at PayPal, he was just a big problematic guy like he with other people. He made it and then but pay like that again. But that that isn't a thing he invented banking online. That's not an invention. And he didn't even invent that. Right? Right.

Josh Olson 2:02:50
So I just I don't want to play it. But like Bill, Bill opens up with a joke about like, Hey, man, I know Joe Biden may not be as weird as he used to be, but I don't care if he's your head in the box. I'm voting for him over Trump. You go 2023 And we're still

Dave Anthony 2:03:09
I don't that's the best slogan I've ever heard. I don't care if he's a head in a box

Gareth Reynolds 2:03:13
which he basically is he's my guy but also that has the last two elections have been that gearing up for the third three in a row. Yeah, where it's going. I may be a big pile of diarrhea, but I'm glad this guy.

Dave Anthony 2:03:31
Yeah. Yeah, you just so you know, just so you know where your party is. Your party just lost the House of Representatives to fascists because you can't offer something better. Pretty cool. That's where the parts are.

Josh Olson 2:03:48
You got that? Right. Gareth. What's your Yeah. What's his name? Again? Jose. Jose, Jose could be Trump.

Dave Anthony 2:03:56
Not Yes. Fucking sleep. Yeah, totally. Yeah, I bet if he ran hat against Trump, the cat would win. That's what I just said. Absolutely. Yeah, no, but any cat anywhere.

Josh Olson 2:04:09
Wow, not true. My cat has a long history of drug abuse.

Gareth Reynolds 2:04:12
Yeah, there's a specific

Josh Olson 2:04:16
Jones is a lazy fucking Stoner. He just sits around doing nothing. Yeah, no. Anyway, let's let's get into it. I like I'm I'm pushing this man. I'm gonna make fetch happen. This is Bill Maher and the electric eel. But the only one who loves that

Gareth Reynolds 2:04:31
I love I love it. We love it. Yes. Testing very high between us. Okay,

Josh Olson 2:04:35
good. Good. Good. Here we go. Here we go.

[VIDEO] 2:04:42
But I don't know if I've ever been so excited to have my first guest here. My first guest is the man who made electric cars a thing and is currently working on.

Josh Olson 2:04:51
I mean, what is that? No, he

Dave Anthony 2:04:52
did he he he bought Tesla because it looked good. And then they forced the guys out who had made it a thing. He's he's up What he realized was that you could make money by taking all the government you know, all the stimulus they were giving to electric cars and make money.

Gareth Reynolds 2:05:12
Yeah, but he did he but I mean, this is classic Bill Maher bullshit where it's like Elon Musk did do something. He made Tesla, a more profitable popular company. But Bill Maher is like he invented the electric car.

Josh Olson 2:05:27
No, but he's gonna He's edging around that I mentioned, Elon told him to say it that way. And by the way, we're going to talk about the profitability of Tesla a little bit later. And what's going on there. It's gone. But yeah, no, it's great. It's going good.

[VIDEO] 2:05:40
It's great. Cities with electromagnetic bullet trains, the starling satellite system that's so important to the war in Ukraine. And then on Tuesday, can I see

Dave Anthony 2:05:51
electromagnetic bullet train? That's what I was just laughing. Like, what do we do you guys know what that is? That actually is what is it? So I think he's talking about the boring company. And the boring company is a real company, it's a company he goes and they sell to cities who are about to pass a light rail system and they tell them they have a better system that they won't have to take people's property to put in and disrupt the city and we can just bore through the ground with our drills. And it's not a real company it's just exists to get them to stop trying public transportation so we can sell cars that's what the boring company is

Gareth Reynolds 2:06:30
cool. Yeah, but they don't find that out till Wednesday.

[VIDEO] 2:06:33
Traffic he also tweets a lot Elon Musk, right. Well, I'm so thrilled you're here because you know, we do a show where we talk about what changes happen in the world and but we just talk there's a very few people who actually make change happen. Newer No, no, those people probably know.

Dave Anthony 2:06:51
This is the classic robber baron sucking off the government that's all he fucking is.

Gareth Reynolds 2:07:01
What I also like here is that while musk, you know, tip his hand that he likes this show or whatever, he you can tell at the beginning, this is making him go like Oh, okay, it's going to be a super softball interview. Like because Mark just comes out of the martyrs and even kiss or fiddle with the nipples he just gets the dip in the mouth right away

[VIDEO] 2:07:37
I suppose I suppose I love this audience

you're likable guy.

Gareth Reynolds 2:07:46
That just happened as crazy. In everything that just happened was crazy. I mean, it really was he was he's just Musk is like, oh, okay, I really liked this audience. The dumb audience is like, Oh, we're good. And then you're funny guy. Crazy or you're likable, likable guy, but sorry. It's crazy.

[VIDEO] 2:08:12
I mean, they attack you a lot better. And you seem to laugh

Gareth Reynolds 2:08:18
starts to you could tell Ilan now's like Oh, okay. This will be super easy. Oh,

Josh Olson 2:08:23
I think he knew going in

Gareth Reynolds 2:08:24
I know but it's the difference between like, you know, hearing it and then feeling it now he's like,

[VIDEO] 2:08:32
which I think is fantastic. I love it that you have a sense of humor because a guy as important as you who makes changes could use your powers for evil and not good.

Josh Olson 2:08:42
I feel like there's things that you have to Ilan makes you say to him if you want him on your show.

Gareth Reynolds 2:08:47
I think you are under estimating the level that Bill Maher will go to with some people I he just Yes. Philmont this jar with Bill Maher?

Dave Anthony 2:08:57
Yeah, I absolutely jiving Josh, you're way off base. I don't think he did any of that. I think this is all Mar for two reasons. Number one, he just likes him and thinks he's got all the right things going on. But the other one is that he knows that Bill Maher is now just pure punch the left make the left mad. He knows this is making the left mad. So that's why he's so excited to have him there and write this stuff. Just Elon,

Josh Olson 2:09:25
so it's so important to him that people perceive him as being very, very funny.

Gareth Reynolds 2:09:30
Which is why this interview is the fucking worst because it really does it actually. It really is. It's just a stretch of Bill Maher who is considered a comedian and him telling Elon Musk that he is very funny. And you can see Elon starts to go oh, let me tell some of my jokes that are horrible. Yeah.

[VIDEO] 2:09:52
Genuinely. The fact that absolutely you could

But, of course I would never use them for evil. No, no, I

know. But, but the way I know that is because you have a sense of. Yeah, you really like laughing you like

Dave Anthony 2:10:12
everybody has a good sense of humor. Yeah, like everybody has one. He has a bad sense humor. But here's the thing. Sodas Mar Mar is no does not have a good sense of humor he never has. No one's ever thought he was funny. He's just got this interesting show. That's all he's ever been. But no one has ever been like Bill Maher's fucking

Gareth Reynolds 2:10:31
Yeah, he was he was he was had it. He had a provocative show at one point and that was like, interesting and different. But nobody was ever like, man, these jokes, right.

[VIDEO] 2:10:48
As opposed to somebody like Zuckerberg, who I'm not even sure was a real boy. By the way,

Gareth Reynolds 2:10:53
that is the top for that what we were just saying Biden, Trump, like Bill Maher's like you're hilarious compared to Mark Zuckerberg. Great compared to Donald Trump

[VIDEO] 2:11:14
I actually love comedy and and I feel you know, like, many years ago, I actually was in the audience here. When was

Gareth Reynolds 2:11:20
when a blow job becomes a 69. Oh.

Josh Olson 2:11:29
blushing.

[VIDEO] 2:11:30
Let me get back to you being a genius. But that is always been my view is that as I was a history major when

Josh Olson 2:11:37
you'd like me to? Yeah.

[VIDEO] 2:11:40
study history, what you realize is that, you know, there's the great man theory, and they talk about kings and princes and queens and presidents. It's really the people in tech, who changed the world. They're the people who deal the cards, whether it's fire or electricity, for good or bad, or the cotton gin, or the iPhone or the atom bomb. Those are the cards and the rest of us just play it. I love so. So you are one of these

Gareth Reynolds 2:12:08
dealers. Like only he's just glossing over like the brilliance of the he's like the atom bomb. What a fucking cool thing. Well imagine where we'd be without the atom. imagine your life without the atom bomb.

These people who deal the cards

[VIDEO] 2:12:24
and steal some names to

Josh Olson 2:12:28
some deals, games,

Gareth Reynolds 2:12:32
steals memes.

Dave Anthony 2:12:33
I mean, such he's such a fucking dork. It's just ridiculous. Ideally, memes. I mean, Elon Musk only wants to be a comedian. That's all he wanted.

Josh Olson 2:12:46
He just wants to give a lot of likes on Twitter. I've like we've all been there. I mean, I had a first week of the writers strike. I tweeted out I just want to give my President Joe Biden a deep and heartfelt thank you for his wonderful and supportive words for the Writers Guild and our strike. You can't be that subtle, because I like five people. Like we're like, Oh, what did he say? I missed it. Or like five other people going? Yeah, you go Joe. And I'm like, okay, and I feel bad. I had that feeling. I feel like Elon Musk has that feeling like every five minutes every day for years, and now he owns Twitter. So like people have to like his stupid fucking memes. It is an and it's like, I mean, here I went back I look. I forgotten I had done this. I realized I blocked Elon on Twitter. Yeah, so I had to go into the audit account. But here is he retweets it's a picture of the main woman in bed. Her I bet he's thinking about other women. Him why is Batman one word, Ironman, two words and Spider Man two words with a dash. And Elon added to it. Also, which kind of bad fruit eating bad or insect bad?

Gareth Reynolds 2:13:58
It's crazy. It's like four words.

Josh Olson 2:14:05
A picture of a racecar. Zoom everywhere zoom edge. And I'm so happy Formula One started using subtitles. Here we go. Good. You guys sit back and learn how many minister? It was me. I let the dogs out.

Gareth Reynolds 2:14:21
It's God. It is like a joke book your grandpa would give you that you'd reject. Yep. came to life.

Dave Anthony 2:14:30
There's no it's worse than that. Because it's a guy. Like it's you work at a bank. And your boss thinks he's funny. Yeah. And he keeps coming in and read jokes out of the joke book. And you have to be like, Okay, that's what Twitter he brought

Gareth Reynolds 2:14:46
a saint when he brought a sink in. That was like, that was his. That was he was like, here we go. Buckle the fuck up. I'm holding. Here's a joke. I have jokes.

Dave Anthony 2:14:57
He genuinely thought that was gonna get a huge response. And yeah,

Gareth Reynolds 2:15:03
and like most things it did, but it was people like hey, dolt.

Dave Anthony 2:15:08
Yeah

Josh Olson 2:15:10
Well the best thing is when imagine he actually did that I mean for at least a minute imagine like having to like haul a sink. He's gonna be that's like one of those like dreams where you're naked in high school, you know, your halls sake you walk in and I was just looking at you like, You're a fucking idiot, like, everything

Gareth Reynolds 2:15:25
back stitching up like, we gotta end this meet. I can't talk too much.

Josh Olson 2:15:37
So happy about

Gareth Reynolds 2:15:40
and they're clapping.

[VIDEO] 2:15:43
So I think a lot of people thought when you bought Twitter that this is kind of an outlier. Like, how does this what doesn't fit

Josh Olson 2:15:49
with? Let's leave out the fact that he was forced to buy Twitter?

Gareth Reynolds 2:15:52
Yes. Yes, yeah. Because he's an idiot. Because he

Dave Anthony 2:15:59
he didn't want to pay the billion dollar fine than he would have had to pay for saying, you know, he'd buy it. So instead, he's gonna lose $40 billion.

Gareth Reynolds 2:16:08
And he even says it right here. He's like, Twitter wasn't profitable. So I had to figure out a way well, why the fuck did you buy it? Why did you buy it? Yeah, it's still not. It's no, it's

[VIDEO] 2:16:18
even worse. Now the things you're doing. I never thought that. Because I think you're dealing with big civilizational issues and problems. And I was right on your page. I think Twitter is one of them. I mean, you have talked about this woke mind virus? Yes. And really apocalyptic terms.

Dave Anthony 2:16:36
Oh my god, you

[VIDEO] 2:16:37
shouldn't explain why you don't think it's hyperbole to say things like it's pushing civilization towards suicide. First of all, what is the woke mind virus? And if we don't deal with this, nothing else can.

Josh Olson 2:16:50
He never explains what it is.

Gareth Reynolds 2:16:55
But it's like what the fact that he seriously? Now what is Elon? What is the woke mind vibe like we're talking about?

Josh Olson 2:17:08
Yeah, it's just people sick Shut up. On Twitter telling you to sacrifice because

Dave Anthony 2:17:15
that's all it isn't some 13 year old

Gareth Reynolds 2:17:18
book you nerd to your dumb Batman meme that you stole and these been declassified? It's amazing.

Dave Anthony 2:17:27
This is this is all about the scope. Shini sense of humor. That's all about

Gareth Reynolds 2:17:31
Dave it's the woke bide virus.

[VIDEO] 2:17:36
Tell me why you think that

so serious. So I think we need to be very cautious about anything that is anti meritocratic and anything that is that that results in the suppression of okay. Yeah. What?

Dave Anthony 2:17:54
Okay, so he he with what's the what's the fascist guy from Portland, the news reporter that calls himself the milkshake thrown in Yeah, so that guy works with fascist like the worst fascists, the terrifying Nazis in America. He works with them to help tell those people who the anti fog members aren't protesters are and stuff. So they'll get fucking killed like that's what he did. He literally gave a list of journalists who were exposing fascists and reporting on fascist lists like Chad loader down in Orange County. And Musk banned the reporters who cover fascism.

Gareth Reynolds 2:18:39
Yeah, that's free speech. It's not only free speech, Dave he's trying to stop the loac mind virus it's airborne

Dave Anthony 2:18:48
it's not free speech. It's that they want their ideology Yeah, the the only thing and they're using the exact excuses to kirpan yeah, that's all.

Gareth Reynolds 2:18:59
Even the musk bootlickers are saying, hey, how do you like it now that you're getting site like it's they're not right. It's not that right. Like nobody, nobody is actually buying this. It's just that people now feel like their team is getting revenge.

Dave Anthony 2:19:17
But imagine imagine living in America and turning to a leftist who were extinguished during world war one in America who were put in prisons who were killed massive amounts, whose leader Eugene Debs was put in prison for giving a speech imagine turning to those people and go How do you like it now? They are so fucking stupid. They are they are and the fact that Bill Maher just said I am a historian and now he's gonna allow this shit is fucking remarkably from

Gareth Reynolds 2:19:50
I'm a historian to walk me through the woke mind virus Dr. Carr.

[VIDEO] 2:19:59
So You know, those are two other aspects of the work mind virus that I think are very dangerous is that it's often anti merit meritocratic at you can't you can't question

you can. Even the question why do so?

Dave Anthony 2:20:10
What's he talking about?

[VIDEO] 2:20:12
You know another way to almost none of us would we would we canceled culture and obviously people have tried to cancel you many times

many times. Every week. Yeah.

Dave Anthony 2:20:24
Trying what is that? Yeah, he's still on the air. Is he not still there? There is no canceled culture, there's a point where you become unprofitable. He and then you're cancelled? Because it's capitalism. At the end of the

Gareth Reynolds 2:20:38
day, he actually does. He actually Bill Maher in this interview actually does to that point, what a remarkable thing, which is that he frames Kancil culture as this woke mind virus that will push us to the brink, and then also scoffed and laughs at the idea that canceled culture works and says that it doesn't, right. He does both. So it's like, well, what is it? Are we fighting this enormous war to save civilization from the woke mind virus and canceled culture? Or like you just said, I get cancelled every week? And it doesn't do anything?

Josh Olson 2:21:16
Yeah. Right. You do something even more bonkers? In a minute or so?

[VIDEO] 2:21:21
Right? I've had it from both sides. Yeah. And it's people. You and I are both like in that little group of people. Maybe it's a bigger group. Yeah. Who we who are called conservative who haven't really changed. See, think of you as a conservative.

Definitely. Yeah. Like, I at least think of myself as a moderate, you know? Yeah.

Dave Anthony 2:21:42
Yeah. You're like, this is what this is what the Nazis told themselves. I mean, this is this is literally what far right authoritarian people think that they're just bringing, you know, reason into things.

Josh Olson 2:21:56
It's also a kind of posting Wow, or interesting after straight up white supremacists tweets about black on white, white on black crime that uses completely bogus numbers. And Elon wrote like, Gee, why would the media misrepresent this to such a degree? It's like you're a diesel, fucking white supremacist, sorry. Yeah.

Dave Anthony 2:22:14
And that's the exact same stuff that Bill Maher does with Muslims. And his and his fucking language leads to the Christchurch shooting like, that's who they are they these guys are merchants of fucking hate in parts of their lives, different obviously different, you know, one guy hates Muslims, the other guys just hates, you know, leftists. And obviously, Elon doesn't like black people, as we know through the history of his factories and whatnot. But they just want to be able to say shit like that and you're like No, right?

Josh Olson 2:22:44
Without criticism, because criticism is the same as bridging their First Amendment rights. And it's like they're doing right now. Dave is like the government throwing him in jail for a mean, no difference between Dave Anthony calling Elon Musk a racist. And the United States Government throwing Elon Musk in jail for posting dopey memes.

Dave Anthony 2:23:08
Or Eugene Debs. Yeah, he had a car. They are complete. I mean, I It's so dumb that it's it's amazing to me that people you know, can't like grasp the shift that's coming out of their mouth, but they but they live in these little tiny bubbles. And everyone just nods their head and they all agree with them. And that's

Gareth Reynolds 2:23:28
well that's why this is so you get two idiots doing this is why it's so outrage inducing is because it is these two fucking rich morons just validating each other. But then it's the audience. The fact that everyone in the audience just keeps clapping and the way that it makes Ilan feel good. Like what the Chappelle Show did when they brought him out and everyone booed. This is this is the opposite this is making Ilan go I am funny. I am charming Bill Maher. It does like me, we do have to fight the woke mind via like, it's just bubble on bubble on bubble.

[VIDEO] 2:24:07
So, I mean, at least the like, I've spent a massive amount of my life energy building sustainable energy, you know, electric vehicles and batteries and solar and stuff to help save the environment. That's that's, that's not an

Josh Olson 2:24:22
industrialist who built cars and blows up rockets. He's not an environmentalist.

Dave Anthony 2:24:26
He created he has admitted that he sold this idea called the Hyperloop to stop the bullet train in California and Hyperloop because again, it's not a real thing. He's not doing anything of the sort trying to save the planet. He saw Wally and he thought this is great. I want to live in a spaceship with other people who don't do anything. That's all he is. He wants to get off the planet with a bunch of dorks like himself and fly around in a spaceship eating food. That's it. That's all he wants to do.

[VIDEO] 2:25:02
got exactly far right,

you drew that diet. You drew that diagram once where you're here, I related to that and like the world has changed. But I feel the same way. I feel like very often wokeness is not building on liberalism. It's the opposite of liberalism. I couldn't met Yes, exactly many examples where it's the opposite, including free speech, if free

speech is extremely important, and

Dave Anthony 2:25:25
they don't know what we're like. They don't know what ideology is, they don't understand that the left isn't the same as a liberal. And so they can't comprehend what's happening. And, and just from a worldwide perspective, years and years of oppression, and economic suffering have caused a larger group of people to pop up on the other side of conservatism. And so that's what you're dealing with. And they can't wrap their heads around it, but they neither one of them understand the ideological spectrum. They're completely ignorant. Also,

Gareth Reynolds 2:26:01
again, they seem to be able to just walk the contradiction of, okay, the woke mind virus is coming after you for things that you say, and we need to uphold free speech. Like, which is right, which is Am I allowed to say that you're an old fucking dork who steals memes? Or am I not?

Josh Olson 2:26:26
No, yeah, you're not. And he's about to get into that polarity. That insane contradiction

[VIDEO] 2:26:33
in free speech used to be a left or liberal value. And yet we see from, you know, the courts left a desire to actually censor. And that seems crazy. I mean, I think we should be extremely concerned about anything that undermines the First Amendment. This

Josh Olson 2:26:56
is incredible. What he's about to do is now list how in a bunch of other countries that don't have the First Amendment, what actually happens to people who say things that are unpopular, okay, in somehow in a way that I don't even understand the logic here. This is great

[VIDEO] 2:27:11
reason for the First Amendment. The First Amendment is because people came from countries where they could not speak freely, and were and were saying certain things would get you thrown into prison. And they were like, well, we don't want that here. And by the way, in many parts of the world, including possible that people might think are relatively similar the United States, the speech laws, or draconian, England is quite different. I won't name any countries, but

England, why are we protecting them? They have no first. It's very easy to prove libel in England where he's here. But I wouldn't want to say the wrong thing. Or yes, you can be sued easier there. I mean, there are a lot in in France, I think if you deny the Holocaust, which I think is abhorrent, but I also think it should be part of free speech, why you can be thrown into jail. Okay, so this,

I really can't emphasize this enough. We must. We must protect free speech.

Josh Olson 2:28:12
But it's like, here a bunch of completely they were they're taking our free speech away. Here's some countries really don't have free speech. Yeah, we kept free speech here. You fucking idiot. You're just listing a bunch of examples. I want a country that doesn't have free speech looks like.

Dave Anthony 2:28:26
Yeah, but here's the problem. So they're, they're listing in some cases, countries that are far better off, because they have restrictions on free speech. You don't want to make that argument. Because we can go there. Like these countries, there is actually no benefit in your society, to allowing fascists to speak, because fascists undermine free speech by using free speech. So it's a problem. It's also it's a big fucking problem. And it's something these idiots never talk about. It's also amazing, there is a genuine concern.

Gareth Reynolds 2:29:03
His first one is just like, look, people say the Holocaust doesn't exist, okay? It's like, that's your first. That's the first one that comes to mind for you.

Dave Anthony 2:29:12
Right? If you're again, they're not the free the Free Speech thing is so you can critique, critique your government for doing bad things, and they're bringing up superfluous. But just bullshit things that aren't that like, you get to critique Obama, you get to run around saying Benghazi was a terrible thing, and no one goes to jail. That's what fucking free speech is for. But in actuality, that's not happening because Obama put more fucking journalists in jail than anybody did. Like that. That's the real that's the real thing about free speech. It's about journalism and people you know, going through it's not some fucking guy who can stand up and go dude, there was no Holocaust. That's not the fucking that's not what it's For

Gareth Reynolds 2:30:00
love for someone to just ask what do you think of Julian Assange here too? And right, what what is their opinion of that? I would I would feel like, I mean, I guess you would think that Musk would probably be against it, because

Dave Anthony 2:30:15
but you get it. That's a real problem that you don't know. Yeah, maybe Mr. Captain free speech. You don't know about Julian Assange? Oh, yeah. And how he feels

Gareth Reynolds 2:30:23
totally. So he's saying woke mind VI. Meanwhile, it's like, okay, yeah. Because to what you're saying. It's like, Yeah, okay. So truth to power. Where do you stand on that? I mean, I don't really know. I mean, I feel like it's a complicated, two different sides, we need to just kind of let the government's figure it out.

Dave Anthony 2:30:43
And look, we know this is a guy who, you know, we can't reveal. We can't say how we know this in some cases, but there are also many documented cases. Look, Elon Musk is one of the biggest fucking bullies and litigious assholes, and everything else out there. He fucking goes after people. When they say things he doesn't like, he goes, especially Tesla. He fucking goes after people. He always has. And now he's gonna sit here and talk about free speech. He's just a fucking giant baby billionaire, which they all are. All billionaires have giant babies at the end of the day.

Josh Olson 2:31:19
There's a there's a great bit a little bit later on. But I want to get ahead to the AI. But there's a he mentioned the one point. This is unscientific survey of experience of somebody new in school, who he asks the students what they learned about George Washington, and all they learned in school about George Washington is that he owned slaves. And this is a problem. And i I'm willing to wager, yes, saying that there is no school in the United States. That only teaches you that George,

Gareth Reynolds 2:31:51
it would be crazy. It would be

Dave Anthony 2:31:53
crazy about it. As a matter of fact, they barely teach that the way they should like it like that. They they teach it like, well, everybody owns slaves. And it's like, no, he was the richest man in America. And that's why he had all those slaves possible.

Gareth Reynolds 2:32:06
Elon suffers from loake mind virus.

Josh Olson 2:32:16
He does spend a lot of time in wet markets. Some of these go on and on about this stuff forever. And the two of them are just, it is just the same thing. They are so bent out of shape. And it's not just that they're called out by people regularly publicly criticized by them, because you know what, that's life. You're in the public fucking high. It's, I get the sense to that. It's like, they're outraged that younger people don't just embrace and accept them. Yeah. Yes. I think you used to be the 20 year olds thought I was really funny and hip, and now you don't. Right wrong with you.

Dave Anthony 2:32:57
But that's such like, you know, I've had to you have to grapple with that as a comedian that you have to go like, Okay, well, you know, I remember like, I enjoy the shit at a Tim and Eric. But also, I'm not a Tim and Eric type of comedy guy. And I remember that was the point where I was like, okay, so comedy has passed me by a little bit like, I'm not going to produce that anymore. I'm older. That's who I am. That's what I am. I just stick with this. But these guys can't handle that. They can't handle that idea that that there's this whole generation that don't think they're funny. They're not supposed to. You're supposed to get old and boring. And nobody cares. Now. Now you're a dad comedy guy. Get the fuck over it.

Josh Olson 2:33:33
Yeah. Just grew up, move on. You know, I've learned to live with the fact that long time ago that 19 year old girls are particularly interested in talking to me at parties anymore. Yes. Man, it hurts.

Gareth Reynolds 2:33:48
Yeah. Because you would go up to him, you go, what's up with your ticket in your pocket? Turn a hat backwards, doesn't work.

Josh Olson 2:34:03
Jabra has some of the AI stuff a little bit later.

[VIDEO] 2:34:07
Okay, so you were in Congress. Congress the other day talking with Chuck Schumer about hey, I'm very interested in this because you've been on this for years. I've always thought you were right about this. I think you're right about almost everything. I mean, let's have more babies and raise them on Mars. I don't get that but okay. Well, I

think we should be cautious about some of the civilizational decline with with and we have plummeting birth rates. Most places. Yeah.

Right. And also plummeting resources

and resources will be fine. No,

they're not. I know a lot about I'm fine. Now that

look, I'm not suggesting complacency. But we do want to move to a sustainable energy economies as quickly as possible, but we're not in any danger of resource collapse.

Dave Anthony 2:34:49
But no, lots of people don't have enough food. Hey, just so he knows. Today, I read a really long story about how whales are starting to starve in the ocean. So yeah, buddy. There's a big resource problem. It's called food. Go water. Well, yeah, like this

[VIDEO] 2:35:04
water we will run out of water. They've run out. We're running out of sand

70% water.

Josh Olson 2:35:10
You know why he knows they're running out of sand?

Dave Anthony 2:35:14
Because he owns a house on the beach. There's a whole subplot

Josh Olson 2:35:17
this easy to bury about these guys. looking sad because they're running.

Dave Anthony 2:35:21
Oh, really? Sorry.

[VIDEO] 2:35:22
You can't drink that.

Desalination is absurdly cheap. Why don't we do it? We do. It is a lot of free time. It is done. This there is a lot of desalination done. Okay. But there's plenty of water. This is not an issue.

All right. So

Gareth Reynolds 2:35:40
now the whales will have less water to and Elon is plan. Also, I've ever is there. D microplastic. plasticizing. Do we have that technology figured out? Desalination used to be like alright, sure. Let's give it a shot. Now. It's like that. I'm sorry. There's a lot of other shit we're going to need to figure out. Yes, not just get the salt out now.

[VIDEO] 2:36:03
Yeah. You were on this tip 10 years ago when nobody else was that and I always thought he's right. Why? Because I've seen so many movies, everything that happens in movies that happens in real life. And, you know, if you make things that are way smarter than you, why wouldn't they become your overlords? So what did you say to Chuck Schumer and what are we doing about this? I know you want to pause in AI because in the legend, the last six months with chat GPT, which came from a company you started? Yes.

Josh Olson 2:36:35
Oh, a couple of things. First. A friend of mine. The other day, Elon Musk will be the first person to kill someone with AI with one of his that's exactly one of its full self driving cars.

Dave Anthony 2:36:49
Oh, well. It's self driving cars. Yeah, maybe. But I think like one of the things about AI is if one person does get control of it, we're all fucked. And the first time I heard he was opposed to AI, I was like, oh, so he can keep working on it. Yeah, but if

Josh Olson 2:37:02
anybody believes that he has stopped development on this, he's a fucking idiot. But here's where it gets really fucking weird. Because so we're doing some digging into this. And the only Tesla plant that turns a profit is in China. Tesla owns plants there. And normally foreign companies require a joint venture agreement with a Chinese company over there, but Tesla somehow doesn't. So their Shanghai plan has lower cost and exports to Europe, in addition to selling into China, Chinese state owned banks financed it. It's a very weird arrangement. What and yeah,

Dave Anthony 2:37:40
what is he doing?

Josh Olson 2:37:41
Yeah, so he's obviously so he's here arguing for the US to pause AI development, right? While China continues with AI development. This is a guy who's also pushed publicly for Taiwan being handed back to China. Like, I don't be that guy. But but I'm not entirely certain he's working with the best interests of the United States market. So like his net worth is dependent entirely on Tesla. And

Gareth Reynolds 2:38:08
I asked that question just depended on China. Josh, can I just ask you a question. I don't mean this in an offensive way. But when was the last time you were tested for woke mind virus? As I do, I just there's a lot of symptoms that you're displaying. And I'm saying this from the best. I just want you to I want you back. I want to see you better. But a lot of the stuff you're saying is that sounds like a WMV

Josh Olson 2:38:33
I got I got bitten by a monkey last week is all I'm

Gareth Reynolds 2:38:35
sorry. Well, my virus came from a lab to be

Josh Olson 2:38:41
but it's like he just said your spelling and stuff you like Dude, you're transparent. It's yeah, of course. He's not stopping development. And it's just it's a little bit creepy. His relationship with China? Sorry.

Dave Anthony 2:38:52
Yeah, no, there's there's some there's much more there because of how China treats everybody else. Yeah,

Josh Olson 2:39:00
yeah. I just like all these other companies run at a loss. So Tesla, everything's Tesla with him, and if they pull out of that easy as fuck. Interesting.

[VIDEO] 2:39:10
I mean, if a friend of mine has a sort of modification of Occam's razor, you know, instead of the simplest thing being the most likely that like the most ironic outcome is most likely, right. So, with respect to AI, I just think we should be we should have some sort of regulatory oversight. So you know, for anything that's a danger to the public. If it's sort of aircraft, cars, food and drug and whatnot, we've got some regulatory oversight like a referee making

Josh Olson 2:39:41
driving cars that burst into flames and then lock the doors can't get out. I mean, that's it's such a car existed. Imagined should be regulated. Yeah.

[VIDEO] 2:39:51
Companies don't cut corners. I think that if, if one agrees that AI is potential risk to the public then there should be some regulatory body that oversees what companies are doing. So they don't cut corners and potentially do something very

Josh Olson 2:40:08
poorly. You know, who's also saying that every buddy, yeah. Random child off the street should be regulatory and regulations of AI development. I think everybody thinks that this is

Dave Anthony 2:40:24
he just, he's, he's not alone in this. Like, there's a bunch of top AI guys who just said we need a PA,

Gareth Reynolds 2:40:31
the guy who left Google. Yeah,

Josh Olson 2:40:34
yeah, yeah, a bunch. Some of them are even sincere.

[VIDEO] 2:40:38
So are you are you optimistic? I read in your Rolling Stone article back in the day that you said, you can never be happy unless you're in love.

Well, you can be half happy, I suppose. Why are they laughing? I mean, there's two things I think, to be to be to be to be most happy if you're happy and loved because

Josh Olson 2:40:56
he doesn't sort of wiggly head.

Gareth Reynolds 2:40:57
I know. But it's like the dumbest it's but it's just like, it's like someone like laughing because an orangutan has a chef hat on. I mean, that's

Josh Olson 2:41:08
it's a Pavlovian response, kind of because I know and you hadn't done that you'd be going oh my god, this is so out there that

Dave Anthony 2:41:17
Yeah, but there's a guy

Josh Olson 2:41:19
making a joke. Now there's

Dave Anthony 2:41:21
a guy standing up to the side who's willing his arms to tell him to laugh the right by the guy there's literally a guy off stage going this is when you laugh and yelling at them. They're all fake laughing like what

Josh Olson 2:41:31
do you get for a lie?

Gareth Reynolds 2:41:32
I also think that these people are in or I think they are so just in that they don't it's they're just like, like, it's just like what the fuck it nothing's

Dave Anthony 2:41:45
happening. Yeah. Yeah.

[VIDEO] 2:41:48
And and you'll love your work then then you will be I think fully happy if you like either of those two. If you have one of those two things we have happy you know, roughly

I feel like the theme in a lot of your work that connects all these different things is connecting like you want to connect things you know you want to connect on the Hyperloop and you want to connect this to Mars and even predict for Oh, it's so bad

Josh Olson 2:42:20
that's great. It crashes so bad even bill doesn't know what just

Gareth Reynolds 2:42:23
then connect for but I think I think is recovered because the audience would keep playing it for a second Josh let's be

Josh Olson 2:42:36
laughing is like yeah, they just dropped the bomb and Bill's even like bells going What the fuck.

Gareth Reynolds 2:42:42
But that also it's like Elon right now is like you know, when Leslie Nielsen in the Naked Gun realizes that he just needs to say strike and everyone will love him. And then by the end like moonwalking and spinning around, like Elon has that Leslie Nielsen umpire confidence strike three right now. And he's like, now it's like he's really showing his and it's just like, bro, what are you, you know, connect for when you connect the four. It's like, sorry, what's click, and he's laughing. He's like, Oh, man. Yeah, it's crazy.

Josh Olson 2:43:14
He's turning beet beet red. He's laughing. So

Gareth Reynolds 2:43:17
connect for Joe connect delegates who has the woke mind via

Josh Olson 2:43:28
comedy to connect what he did connect his mind connect people. You want to connect things. I mean, you know, you build cars, cars, famously, do not connect people, they disconnect people. You want to build this tunnel that's going to that's going to destroy public transportation, I guess. You want to take us to Mars

Gareth Reynolds 2:43:44
superconductor that's really going to connect us. For lack of community, let's all die on Earth and go to Mars and consider that a connection

[VIDEO] 2:44:00
it's hard.

Josh Olson 2:44:00
Gotta throw some comedy in there. He's now he's still referencing the clerk for a thing. And he lost the audience last

[VIDEO] 2:44:07
night. So your biggest when you bought Twitter, you kind of doing what you did when you took over. When you started Tesla. You lived at the factory, right? I feel like that's your that's your, your, your pattern. You get into this thing. And then you got to live at the factory to make it work. You've been back in you moved to Texas, then you went back up to San Francisco because of Twitter.

I was living in the in the library of Twitter for a while. Yes. But I think things are reasonably stabilized right now. It was just on the fast track to bankruptcy after the acquisition, so I had to take drastic I do buy

it. I'm just saying

Gareth Reynolds 2:44:46
Why did you buy your fucking genius? Why did you buy a thing that was and I know it's because he was an idiot. But why the fuck? Like is it that an admission fee is covered. They're

Josh Olson 2:44:56
just not going to they're just not going to acknowledge that here's the crazy thing with the times we live in. It happened in broad daylight.

Gareth Reynolds 2:45:02
Mari Stoudemire frames it earlier. And this is why it's this like not of just insanity, because Bill Maher frames it earlier as he's trying to save free speech. He's trying to say free speech. Free speech is what is the woke mind virus. He bought Twitter to save free speech, a company that was going bankrupt. It's just like it is the cork board with the pushpins and the yarn. But it would be it's an unsolvable conversation. There is ag there's so many things they're saying they're saying the opposite. And he's a genius. Who is the person who's killing people with the AI car? And is the person who is the genius who bought Twitter when it was bankrupting itself as he just admitted.

Dave Anthony 2:45:51
There's this is also two guys who are talking about how great it is. That you're such a shitty businessman. You have to sleep in your fucking building to constantly keep things from falling apart that you have a shitty fucking business and you haven't hired other people around you. Yeah, well to help you know, run

Josh Olson 2:46:12
quitter offices where the guy's like your memes are great. And he's like,

Gareth Reynolds 2:46:15
Oh, the worst. Also, why this is what I would do. I would bring out a therapist and show that picture of his nightstand and be like, what's going on with him?

Dave Anthony 2:46:25
What's the picture of the night?

Gareth Reynolds 2:46:26
What do you have? Like he had like a like revolutionary time to pistol? A bunch of like diet? Oh, yeah. And it was like the satis weird and yeah, we were just like, sorry, this guy's what's caught this is our fearless leader.

Dave Anthony 2:46:39
Well, the thing they never say is like, if you're sleeping at the factory, and you're working that much, it's because you're on cocaine. Or like you're not just getting up and going to work you're on blow. That's what you're doing.

Josh Olson 2:46:53
Could be a ledge. But it really it would pose it just it happened in broad daylight. It is like Elon Musk. Somebody put a gun to his head forced him to fuck a pig on national television. And he has since been going on going. Yeah, well, I decided to fuck a pig because I wanted to make a commentary about the nature. Like they pointed a gun to your head because you did a stupid fucking thing. And you were forced to buy genius. And now it's crashing, burn it

Gareth Reynolds 2:47:20
or the genius or the people at Twitter who were able to get out. idiocy.

Josh Olson 2:47:26
Can you imagine though being in their situation that happens? You're like, Are you fucking like, holy

Gareth Reynolds 2:47:29
shit. He legally has to buy it now. He tried to get out of the deal. This genius.

Dave Anthony 2:47:35
Yeah, this genius.

[VIDEO] 2:47:36
Yeah, it's hard for a woman Yeah. To like when the guy lives with the factory. Yes. That could be a stumbling unless you're

Gareth Reynolds 2:47:48
fucking him, then you like stay there.

[VIDEO] 2:47:50
But overall with you know, my concern with Twitter was to that. It is somewhat of the digital town square. And it's important that there be both the reality and perception of of trust for a wide range of viewpoints. And there was a lot of censorship going on. Excuse

Gareth Reynolds 2:48:10
me, this is this is from the guy who just said if you pay $8 Your voice gets elevated. That's who is interesting.

[VIDEO] 2:48:22
So covered a lot of that with

Dave Anthony 2:48:24
yesterday. So Twitter, he's he's essentially I think it's he's ruined like I'm barely going there anymore now. Because I guess his his version of free speeches is I have to go somewhere every day. And a bunch of people I don't like are there and they just keep telling me things that I don't want to hear. I'm I'm an old man at this point. I've lived a long time and I actually don't drive down to a place where all the right wingers hang out to listen to what they have to say because I fucking know what they have to say about everything now because I've been on the earth forever. I get what they are. I know what they're doing. I know what they're getting. So

Josh Olson 2:49:00
we've spent the last two months watching Praeger you video.

Dave Anthony 2:49:04
Right? There's that. But it's like, I don't need to I don't need to have all those voices elevated. They turns out in America, I hear them all the fucking time. And he's essentially ruined Twitter. Not because it's free speech. But because I have chosen what I want to hear and what I don't like I've I've set up my system. This is what I want.

Gareth Reynolds 2:49:25
Also, I mean, again, he's allowed the pay lane for it's it's just the way that voices got heightened and elevated on Twitter before was because they said interesting things that people wanted to hear and they were shared. He's essentially at at minimum fucked with that and at maximum ruin.

[VIDEO] 2:49:48
Yes. Between her files, including a lot of government driven censorship which

Gareth Reynolds 2:49:55
clap you idiot. Would you just throw

[VIDEO] 2:49:59
it seems like that It's got to be a constitutional violation what was going on there? But so and I can since I'm like an avid Twitter user, I can detect that like, something's not right here. And so that's that's really why I ended that petition. It wasn't it wasn't because I thought this was an easy way to make money or something like that. It was a random bullshit. Me being mayor, Twitter, tweet town or whatever it is. It's definitely like, there's a lot of arrows pointing at you. flying at you.

But you You seem to handle that. Okay. I hope you do. Because, yeah, you're lucky. I mean, geniuses are going to be a little quirky sometimes. But your heart is always

Gareth Reynolds 2:50:36
goes out of the mouth and it starts getting jerked.

[VIDEO] 2:50:39
Look, I could talk to you. Today, I'd love to get high with you. I know a great place. I know you have a lot of choices in places you can go.

Dave Anthony 2:50:52
Could you imagine getting high with either one of these fucking guys. Just a waste of

Gareth Reynolds 2:50:57
as they're talking, you just like take both of your eyeballs out and put them next to the bong

Dave Anthony 2:51:07
I mean, these guys love themselves so much. And that's what they see in each other's how much they love themselves. I just, I The amazing thing is how much of a void that interview was for actual information and actually about anything. Well, it's why

Gareth Reynolds 2:51:22
muscles, it's why Musk thrived in it. Because there was actually there was there was really nothing of substance discussed or any follow ups published. It was just and Somebody

Josh Olson 2:51:33
just sent me to on I want to posit a theory. I think he says at the end like I'd love to get high with you. I know a place. So he's got this other video podcast, where he has people come over and smoke pot and they sit around and talk. Now I've never again, I don't watch him again at this. He invite people normally on the air. I bet he doesn't

Gareth Reynolds 2:51:50
on his podcast show. Oh, no. On the show. No. No, no, I think you're right. He's doing it because this isn't an opportunity for that. Yeah.

Josh Olson 2:52:00
Well, no, but I'm also because there's no communication between them after the show. Yeah, right. Yeah, this is one out of the room and never talk to him again. He doesn't have his email. He doesn't know that. And he's like, Oh, I gotta get to see come come to my place. I got a place.

Dave Anthony 2:52:16
It's only it's only shot at having his Joe Rogan moment with Bill Maher. I really I truly believe he set that up because he thought he could be the next Joe Rogan. He really thought that he would take off and be this massive, massive, yeah, hit with this little podcast thing. And it turns out he's boring as shit.

Gareth Reynolds 2:52:33
And one of the things you cut out of that the interview Josh? Not and I'm not complaining. But he dealt with what Bill Maher does again, is he brings up the he again tries. I think in our last conversation, we talked about it how he does the thing where he talks about how stop being upset about slavery. This new talking point he has he's just he's very confident.

Josh Olson 2:53:00
We're you know, he does he does the thing. I should throw it in at the end. Just just some folks in here. He does the thing where he's like, you know, by the way, I hate to break it to you. Slavery existed a long time before we did it here. And it wasn't just white people.

[VIDEO] 2:53:14
Slavery is obviously horrific institution. But we should still know more about George Washington.

And by the way, one that was practiced all over the world forever since the beginning of time by every race, including people of color. I'm sorry to tell you that

Gareth Reynolds 2:53:28
black people had slaves.

Josh Olson 2:53:30
It's it's Yeah, it is a Prager, you it is a right wing talking point that is designed entirely and he thing where they tell you something that everybody fucking knows.

Gareth Reynolds 2:53:39
But what's so alarming about that, to me is that he's been he said it once he did a whole spiel on it. And he wasn't he didn't hear enough of the the reality of why what he was saying was sort of ridiculous. So that now he's like, cool. It's in the repertoire. Yeah, it's in the act.

Josh Olson 2:54:02
Yeah. And he probably got cheered for it.

Gareth Reynolds 2:54:04
Yeah, well, of course, because his audience is a bunch of fucking white liberals who want to feel better about themselves.

Dave Anthony 2:54:11
I don't I don't think I think that it's shifted pretty significantly to the right at this point. I think there's still some white

Josh Olson 2:54:17
liberals left, but he's still getting stuck in the boomer lives.

Dave Anthony 2:54:21
Well, it's, but he's got a lot of right wingers,

Gareth Reynolds 2:54:23
like he essentially has subscribed to the Chuck Schumer, Chuck Schumer. This is how we'll beat Trump theory. For every left leaning human we lose will pick up one to two Republicans in these blue collar like that is what Mars doing Mars.

Dave Anthony 2:54:39
Like when does that not work? Yeah, it

Gareth Reynolds 2:54:41
was great. It worked out great, obviously. Yeah.

Josh Olson 2:54:46
Well, Gary, thank you for coming back, man. One more, one more walk down. Bill Maher lane. Always

Gareth Reynolds 2:54:52
a pleasure. It's an honor. I feel

Josh Olson 2:54:55
to watch him again now. Right?

Gareth Reynolds 2:54:57
Well, I mean, the best part about the writers strike because that Bill Maher's off the air strike forever.

Dave Anthony 2:55:05
It must be, it must be kind of wild to think to be like, you're, you're this, you're this rich dark in high school from a very racist place and you come to America and you just want people to like you, but you're not really a likeable person, no personnel and then you get, and then through this, you know, essentially acquisitions and other things you get to this place where you've put yourself out there and now you're like the most famous man. Oh, and you don't you don't have the personality for it like it's very it's sort of a fascinating thing to watch. But he's not KB you

Gareth Reynolds 2:55:41
know, how people buy followers and that was a big thing that he was again. I mean, could he be doing it on a grander scale?

Dave Anthony 2:55:51
100% I mean, yeah, he essentially is the companies right? He's the face of the companies but he doesn't have the magnetism that nobody what like a Tony spark version of person that you know,

Josh Olson 2:56:03
oh, my God. He doesn't have this is how bad things are they live in. He doesn't have the charisma of Donald Trump.

Gareth Reynolds 2:56:09
No, no,

Dave Anthony 2:56:10
at all. At all. Oh.

Gareth Reynolds 2:56:15
Joe Biden. He doesn't have the charisma. He doesn't have the charisma of Marjorie Taylor Greene.

Dave Anthony 2:56:29
It's really

Josh Olson 2:56:30
up. I bet you Bill Maher's less charismatic this week than he was last week just from having been in a room with him.

Gareth Reynolds 2:56:39
It's remarkable. Whoa.

Josh Olson 2:56:44
I'll bill you for that.

Dave Anthony 2:56:48
Well, everybody lost. Yes. I feel about that. Cut this out. Thanks.

[MUSIC] 2:56:54
Good morning class. Today we're learning all about socialism, deviant sex and devil worship. And how cool

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Josh Olson 2:58:09
We want to thank our incredible support team. Brian siano, our free floating agent of chaos aka research guy

Dave Anthony 2:58:18
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