Based Camp - The White House Declares War On Effective Altruism (Right After Our Episode on It ... Curious)

00:00:00.420 Hello, Simone! I'm excited to be here with you today. Today we are going to be talking about two interconnected issues.

00:00:06.240 One is the Trump administration looking to put people who are against AI on terrorist watch lists.

00:00:13.320 Oh, yes.

00:00:14.180 And or who are against AI on terrorist watch lists, which I am 100% for.

00:00:18.840 Appropriate.

00:00:19.900 Appropriate, and we'll get into this.

00:00:22.020 And where they've already made action against terrorist groups like Antifa.

00:00:25.200 uh and the second thing that we are going to be going into is a very much an i called it thing

00:00:32.140 a look who's winning the culture war now buddy thing it is that the trump administration's

00:00:38.760 department of war has repeatedly made very specific attacks against a group that you may

00:00:46.700 never have heard about in your regular day-to-day life except if you're a fan of this show and you

00:00:52.560 hear us talking about it all the time our mortal enemies the effective altruists and to give you

00:01:00.920 an example of how direct some of these have been okay i will do two here one is trump putting up

00:01:08.420 his fist and saying americanism not effective altruism and then this is by the department of

00:01:17.360 war cto by the way okay and then the second from the department of war cto love that they changed 0.98

00:01:24.940 it from the department of defense we're not pussies we kill people when they annoy us okay 0.82

00:01:28.460 um is the they said americanism not effective altruism the united states will be ai dominant 0.71

00:01:37.060 and then it's a picture of trump saluting saying ai first war department in cool uh font uh very

00:01:44.480 very edgy font which i like and i want to note that this isn't just something that we are seeing

00:01:50.400 with the twitter account we are also seeing this from a number of levels within the administration

00:01:56.420 and one of the things i decided to hunt down before filling this episode was where is this

00:02:00.820 coming from like do do we have someone's ear in the administration is our regular screen i think

00:02:07.720 they're just getting the truth you know what that's um well i don't have to side with us

00:02:14.280 they just have to be right i'll give you the the well and and aware of like where the actual

00:02:19.300 cultural battles are and everything like that so the actual out of the can is it's been a few

00:02:26.360 figures that have really made this happen the biggest is emil maiko who is the cto and um can

00:02:33.600 you guess what he did before this he was one of the lead at ftx you know he was one of the lead

00:02:39.840 people at uber for a long time grew most of his career in san francisco his name was familiar

00:02:45.180 and led a bunch of investing um and so he became a very very big figure uh and um if you have lived

00:02:53.920 in san francisco running a company in the tech sector you would be very very aware and likely

00:02:59.900 annoyed by the effect of altruists the second faction that really got pissed off with the

00:03:05.140 effective altruists was pete hegseth specifically the effective altruists when he was trying to do

00:03:11.000 the deal was anthropic apparently he was very aware of who anthropic was signaling to when

00:03:17.580 they refused to do that deal and he got pissed and so he now sees effective altruists as one of

00:03:26.280 the key enemies of the united states um and then a final big person the ai czar was david sacks

00:03:35.120 And David Sachs, again, not a big fan of effective altruists because he's very much in our tech nerd circle.

00:03:42.400 So what we are seeing is that this tech nerd type of republicanism that we represent, whether you want to say it's infiltrated the White House or it's what's led the White House to greatness in this administration, because they've done some pretty awesome stuff.

00:03:58.660 that is a faction that we are increasingly seeing gain dominance in our factions fights

00:04:06.840 which matter like i'm pointing out when brian chow goes out there and he finds out that like

00:04:12.200 at a bunch of major news websites they have entire editorial boards and the things of articles

00:04:19.980 written by people who have gotten millions of dollars from shady organizations all of those

00:04:26.440 organizations are part of this offensive altruist network, right? Like this is, they are controlling

00:04:31.400 things behind the scenes. Well, yeah. And he also recently did coverage showing how effective

00:04:35.760 altruist associated organizations were funding the salaries of congressional staffers, staffers for

00:04:43.000 senators, as well as people working even in the Trump administration. So it's not as though

00:04:49.020 they're not trying to infiltrate it, which is interesting. Yeah. Let's get started.

00:04:56.440 Okay, so Emile, Secretary Emile Michael, he has said EA ideology is pretty dystopian and a brave new worldview in which machines decide, quote, the perfectly rational and best thing for everyone on Earth, end quote, which isn't a bad description of them, honestly.

00:05:16.200 He said it involves a coordinated campaign and psychological operation by people and nonprofits to scare the public about AI capabilities that those same people control.

00:05:26.440 Some EA-linked voices want, quote, transitional governments, end quote, on AI that puts companies, quote, on par with the president, end quote.

00:05:36.180 And he's right about that.

00:05:37.380 They do.

00:05:38.380 Like, Eliezer Garkowski has said, essentially, he wants to be the king of the world.

00:05:43.020 He's like, that's the only way we can stop everyone from dying.

00:05:45.240 AI is going to kill everyone, and you can only stop it by making me in charge of everything or my organization.

00:05:51.340 You know, he adds a few steps there, but it's make me king of the world with extra steps.

00:05:56.440 Um, to continue here, uh, from Pete Hegsess, uh, we saw one tweet where he said, uh, of

00:06:06.420 Anthropoc, cloaked in the sanctimonious rhetoric of effective altruism, was trying to strong

00:06:12.400 arm the United States military into submission.

00:06:14.820 He designated Anthropoc as a quote, supply chain risk to national security and directed

00:06:22.040 no military contractor supplier or partnership do commercial business with them which is

00:06:29.920 probably not smart they're significantly above the other things in coding right now

00:06:34.740 that's the problem yeah people have told me codex is up i tried

00:06:39.460 buying some codex to see i don't i haven't even used all my subscription it's so bad

00:06:43.760 oh gosh ouch okay no i don't i don't know who thinks codex is up to anthropic right now fables

00:06:51.100 just destroys it in fact i codex i have found is worse than the next one down like the anthropic

00:06:59.420 sort of budget one for when you're doing lots of that's so bad ouch and the other thing i've been

00:07:05.600 finding about fable recently is fable while it crumbs out on me i built a feature recently that

00:07:11.280 allows you to turn any mawa or comic book you have access to into uh or manga into a video

00:07:19.640 where it gives different voices to all the characters

00:07:21.860 and it shows what's happening as it's playing

00:07:23.900 and it can also translate for you.

00:07:25.820 Simone, you watched one.

00:07:26.540 It's a pretty solid feature, actually.

00:07:29.300 Leachian sat at the edge of a great canopy bed.

00:07:32.460 But why did I wake up inside that romantic fantasy novel?

00:07:38.040 It looks and sounds, importantly, a lot nicer

00:07:41.620 than the ones that you listen to.

00:07:44.660 Yeah, and you don't even need to use our site to do this

00:07:47.000 if you don't want to.

00:07:47.420 You can use our API to do it.

00:07:48.680 So you just give the API to your own clawed Fable agent and it'll like handle this.

00:07:54.300 But anyway, one of the things I found is because we also made a feature for making comics.

00:07:58.300 And I was like, oh, I'll flood some sites with like not safe for work comics that were made by AI.

00:08:03.160 And I'll be able to use that to advertise our website.

00:08:06.040 We got that up and I found that Fable is actually really good at doing not safe for work stuff.

00:08:09.880 It's like super unrestricted on that.

00:08:11.260 The one area where it kept getting restricted, it was like, I don't want to copy comics.

00:08:15.220 That's illegal.

00:08:16.300 and i was like come on they're already out there and free right like what

00:08:21.220 very annoying what's you gonna do anyway so um

00:08:28.300 palantir cto shamir shalak a trump ally wrote about ea comparing it to marxism there was a

00:08:37.320 white house memo that circulated september 24th 2026 that said ea was a fringe cultish collective

00:08:43.800 and that it's, quote, built the AI doom pipeline.

00:08:48.000 And it singles out Anthropic CEO Darai Amadell

00:08:51.720 and family ties as a central figure.

00:08:53.920 And you can see that the same group

00:08:55.900 that's trying to get you scared of AI

00:08:57.140 is the same group that runs all the AI companies.

00:09:00.160 And why is that the case?

00:09:01.940 It's because they want to put up barriers to entry

00:09:03.540 is the key reason, right?

00:09:05.180 They want to restrict their competition 0.90

00:09:06.740 and put up barriers to entry.

00:09:08.200 And they don't particularly care

00:09:10.140 about American long-term flourishing

00:09:11.840 if they can milk more money out of you

00:09:14.640 and prevent other companies from competing with them.

00:09:17.060 Well, I think the maybe internal reasoning that you'll see,

00:09:22.160 especially at companies like Anthropic,

00:09:24.760 people who work there and listen to this can correct us,

00:09:27.240 but I imagine it's, well, we have to be the frontmost player

00:09:33.220 because we're the good guys and we can't let the bad guys be the leader.

00:09:37.640 I think there are some people at Anthropic 0.92

00:09:39.560 who are dumb enough to believe that that's what leadership thinks but let me tell you what right 0.90

00:09:43.520 now the largest donors on earth right now to environmental causes are big oil companies 0.98

00:09:51.360 specifically the climate emergency fund is run by aileen getty the granddaughter of oil tycoon

00:10:00.520 paul getty who founded getty oil um and this is one of the largest they fund groups like

00:10:10.600 stop oil extinction rebellion and the a22 network by the way that's the same anti-natalist

00:10:17.580 extinction rebellion that wants to eradicate humanity from the earth through low birth rates

00:10:23.220 so thank god we'll replace them the people who run a lot of the um i think it's the person who

00:10:29.920 runs one of the largest non-profits in the environmental space, is literally the daughter

00:10:34.720 of the largest or second largest oil company.

00:10:37.620 And arguably, possibly, maybe the biggest donor to white nationalists or the Southern

00:10:43.720 Poverty Law Center.

00:10:45.360 Yes.

00:10:46.560 I get you.

00:10:47.340 I get you.

00:10:47.820 They're trying to control the situation.

00:10:49.140 Well, it's a bit different.

00:10:50.380 With the Southern Poverty Law Center, it's that they're trying to make it look like there's

00:10:52.820 actual threat.

00:10:53.760 With the oil, it's that they're trying to put up barriers to entry and prevent the movement

00:10:58.620 from ever saying nuclear is a good idea um yeah like thanks to all that you know now germany's

00:11:04.840 heavy on coal hooray good job guys yay uh well i mean they achieved their goal so actually good

00:11:13.660 job for them yeah no genuinely good job you did it you did it you feel good about that

00:11:20.800 now let's talk about this new order i'm really excited about it let's start arresting some of 1.00

00:11:26.380 these AI doomers. 1.00

00:11:27.500 I got to, 0.99

00:11:28.180 we got to call up our friends in the white house and be like,

00:11:30.100 Hey buddy,

00:11:31.620 I got this guy,

00:11:32.340 Elias,

00:11:32.700 are you casky?

00:11:33.780 Let's let's,

00:11:34.280 let's, 1.00

00:11:36.540 I actually want to see them start arresting some AI doomers. 1.00

00:11:39.620 I think that'd be a lot of fun. 1.00

00:11:41.560 Um,

00:11:42.080 uh,

00:11:42.500 you'd,

00:11:42.960 you'd see a lot of,

00:11:44.200 um,

00:11:44.960 the reaction that,

00:11:46.280 that we would see in the EA space would just be hilarious because they

00:11:49.040 immediately go apoplectic about it.

00:11:51.320 Um,

00:11:51.760 and treat it like it's the biggest thing ever.

00:11:53.800 and then if i was the white house and i was doing it um the what i do to like really freak them out

00:11:59.300 is i'd be like look like internally we weren't sure about it so we asked an ai whether it was

00:12:05.080 the right thing to do and it said that we should probably arrest this list of people well you know

00:12:11.780 that ai wouldn't and also i mean the arrests i i don't know exactly but you've got to freak them

00:12:17.240 out that's the funny thing they believe but also it's important to protect people's first amendment

00:12:22.740 rights. I'm all for that. I'm curious to know if you got any additional information on exactly

00:12:28.720 what they're designating as terrorist activity. Is it like the active funding of organizations

00:12:35.180 that are trying to cause unrealistic fear about data centers, for example? What does it look like?

00:12:43.440 Yeah, let's go into this. All right. So this comes from investigative reporting that WIRE did

00:12:50.940 in an article called u.s law enforcement warns of anti-tech extremism so reading from wired more

00:12:58.620 than a thousand pages of unpublished reports from the department of homeland security fbi

00:13:03.040 and fusion centers obtained by wired show a national shift taking place to surveil this

00:13:09.000 new and worryingly broad category of people and activities deemed as an emerging threat

00:13:14.760 these new effort follows from president donald trump's national security presidential memo 7

00:13:20.480 which instructs the department of justice to target anyone holding anti-american anti-christian

00:13:25.900 and anti-capitalist beliefs earlier this month trump's counterterrorism czar sebastian gorka

00:13:31.640 released a public counterterrorism strategy claiming that left-wing extremists are one of

00:13:37.360 the top three counterterrorism priorities facing the united states i just had a realization and i

00:13:43.200 want to check something i want to see how long after one of our anti-ea episodes that memo went

00:13:49.940 around the White House. Well, keep in mind that was also after Brian Chow dropped bombshell after

00:13:57.440 bombshell related to EA manipulation of media narratives. So even if there is a timeline

00:14:05.920 that implies perhaps that we were upstream, Brian was as well. To step aside from the Wired article

00:14:12.900 for a second here, in mid-September 2026, Trump posted that there is a quote-unquote

00:14:19.200 SICK CONSPIRACY, with SICK in all caps, of course, against AI and data centers that makes China happy, called opponents, quote, revolutionaries for a bad and evil cause, end quote, and warned, quote, conspiracy theorists, treasonous, traitors, and leaks, end quote.

00:14:37.020 The Justice Department issued a FARA-related warning that public demonstrations furthering a foreign power goals can trigger criminal or civil actions, and fighting AI would be seen as advancing a foreign power goals. 0.77

00:14:54.460 I mean, well, they are. It's what China wants. So, okay, yeah. Fine. I'm fine with that.

00:15:02.920 okay uh yeah so it does appear to line up with our episodes um so we did a a sort of a a few

00:15:12.320 episodes tied to ea uh specifically the over 300 plants found controlling the media episode

00:15:17.800 and the buddhist cult at the nexus of the tech elite episode and it came out right after those

00:15:22.720 nice uh which lines up more with us somebody somebody at the white house watching our show 0.97

00:15:29.280 being like we need to do something about these bastards we do need to do something it's disturbing 0.97

00:15:35.620 because these people have more influence and agency there are a lot of people for example 0.99

00:15:44.080 who have money which the ea people do but they kind of just blow it all on like they just drop 1.00

00:15:50.080 it all with the dnc or the rnc and it's just quite pointless yeah wasted on their stupid 0.99

00:15:55.400 bureaucracy and dysfunction yeah no ea's as much as they get caught up in things that are 0.99

00:16:01.500 we'll say maybe kind of not as productive as you and i would think like most recently people

00:16:07.100 on x are going on about ea obsession with insect welfare for example so as much as sometimes they

00:16:13.100 get caught in little holes they are they obsessed with insect welfare again uh

00:16:18.120 can you go into it just so people know who they're dealing with here

00:16:23.040 let me pull this up might have passed already i don't want to dig it up but yeah people are

00:16:30.140 going on about it um you know the shrimp welfare thing too existed but anyway people

00:16:38.020 regularly will find some posts on less wrong and freak out about it my favorite thing that 1.00

00:16:42.940 ever happened with that community was when limestone who's sort of like a fuddy-duddy

00:16:50.200 doesn't really keep up with modern you know political battles or anything like that he does

00:16:54.180 too he's terminally online he's he's not he's not a culture warrior guy he doesn't yes he is he's

00:16:59.940 not on one of the teams i mean he would argue he is he's on boomer conservative and boomer

00:17:06.560 conservative isn't one of the online battle teams give up trying to um on this but but so the

00:17:12.760 typical boomer conservative even if sort of online publishing decides to go after the ea shrimp

00:17:18.060 welfare people for being illogical and crazy and they went the off on him like uh oh you know

00:17:27.540 and he's not older than us it's just that his brand of conservatism is just not really represented

00:17:33.340 in i hate effective altruism let's take him out like i don't even think he particularly realized

00:17:39.100 how large their movement yeah i mean i think yeah he's not he's certainly not like a someone who

00:17:44.680 came from the Bay Area rationalist community. I mean, before he went into work as a demographer

00:17:50.180 by trade, he and his wife were both in Asia engaging in missionary work. They're very

00:17:57.760 religious Lutherans who are living a more traditionally conservative life. And I imagine

00:18:03.200 that one day he just came across EA shrimp people and was like, hold on, this is stupid. I'm going 0.99

00:18:09.000 to write all about it. And they just bit his head off. So I don't think he cares because he still

00:18:12.900 thinks, hold on, no, this is stupid. But anyway, that was a very amusing moment. This is all to 0.99

00:18:17.800 say that even though the effect of altruists sometimes fall into these little side quests

00:18:23.300 that go a little bit too far, they are very results oriented. And if their desire is to

00:18:29.960 manipulate perceptions on an issue, even if they're less efficient about going about it,

00:18:34.900 as say we are with moving the Overton window about demographic collapse, they're still more

00:18:38.980 effective than pretty much any other movement behind nonprofit efforts. And so it is important

00:18:45.780 for people to see what they are doing and take their, their agendas very seriously, because if

00:18:52.640 a group of like, if mainstream effective altruism is obsessed with an issue, if it's their new

00:18:58.540 hyperfixation, they will make waves in some way. They will. Absolutely. I'm sure that shrimps

00:19:05.820 live differently today no they don't they don't they've made no inroads they've made no significant

00:19:12.480 inroads well maybe that's because only and the way that shrimp are raised actually it's quite

00:19:16.160 horrific they cut off their eyeballs and then like they have to like singe those parts of them

00:19:20.920 that gets them to go into a cycle at a specific time that doesn't seem plausible because you

00:19:25.300 shrimp are raised at scale and you would have to do that to every single it is done at scale 0.96

00:19:32.380 After finding this out, shrimp farmers started removing female shrimp's eyes in a process called eye stock ablation.

00:19:42.020 I mean, I know they do that to chicks. 0.60

00:19:44.020 They will cut off their, like, beaks so they can't peck each other, right?

00:19:47.260 Yes, it's done at scale, Simone.

00:19:49.300 Every little shrimp?

00:19:50.740 Yes.

00:19:52.920 And keep in mind, a lot of shrimp are raised in very poor countries.

00:19:55.700 You can do this at scale.

00:19:56.900 I'm really glad we did not buy that shrimp farm in Nicaragua on behalf of our investors.

00:20:01.500 because that would have sucked the soap factory looked so fun though this was when we were trying

00:20:06.460 to on behalf of investors buy and then run a business i bet the soap industry has done really

00:20:10.680 well since like covet and stuff i don't think so because keep in mind that many of the soaps that

00:20:15.080 the factory was selling were two hotels oh true so i think they just like the travel business we

00:20:21.000 ended up with the soap factory would have also been screwed and remember we couldn't even buy

00:20:26.040 it because they were in so much debt like this is it would not have been it would not have been

00:20:30.180 ideal. And I would have loved was, do you remember the, the company that made components for weapons

00:20:37.580 manufacturers? Oh, that was such a depressing company. It was so depressing, but it would

00:20:43.400 have done. Oh, it would have done so well. Yeah. Yeah. But like the key bet we weren't willing to

00:20:49.200 make was like, well, I don't, I don't think we're going to have a lot of wars in the future. We're

00:20:53.940 not gonna do a lot of defense spending oh sweet my sweet my past self anyway well next someone

00:21:04.880 was listening is autonomous drones right yes somebody was listening and well i think it's

00:21:09.880 this cultural movement that we represent really matters in terms of national politics i was on

00:21:15.260 another show recently that's just on youtube it only has like 300 views the youtube version

00:21:19.280 was Vance Crow. I mean, he's a more traditional boomer, you know, Midwest conservative type guy.

00:21:25.600 And he had all these- He's younger than us. He just, his political and reality orientation is

00:21:31.960 more grounded in people who work in the agricultural industry. So obviously you're

00:21:35.460 not going to be obsessed with effective altruism or the tech right.

00:21:38.300 Right. But it showed how far like that group's political interests have drifted from what the

00:21:45.160 republican senators congressmen and and presidency is actually doing well right because if you

00:21:50.980 if you're a farmer you're actually going to care a lot about tariffs and subsidies because you are

00:21:58.640 like you are the canary in the coal mine of that and if you're just going to vote with your pocket

00:22:03.700 book then you're going to hate the trump administration right now and i don't that

00:22:08.260 and that's the thing that's boomer conservatism all i care i don't care about america's place

00:22:13.040 in the world. I got mine. I don't care about the next generation. I don't care about, and that

00:22:18.960 sort of a mindset, that sort of a conservative mindset is not the mindset of the politically

00:22:24.440 active class anymore. And I really appreciate that. And this is why people watching the show

00:22:30.840 is useful. You see this coming from the white house. You hear us talking about it, right? Like

00:22:34.940 this is the fight that's happening. And it is through influencing this fight, the fight that

00:22:41.440 we represent on this channel right here that you end up representing the larger political game

00:22:46.540 now we are not the loudest or most powerful people in this particular fight um that there are voices

00:22:54.280 that are bigger or more influential than us uh probably the two most distinct voices are as

00:23:00.800 magold and nux um with as magold being the biggest uh now people would be like tectone gets a lot of

00:23:07.100 views tech tone does get a lot of views but the problem is is tech tone doesn't really push new

00:23:11.760 policy ideas he's more just like about he spends fewer hours engaging in in direct political

00:23:18.220 commentary and therefore that that leads to a proportional reduction in political influence it's

00:23:23.780 it's i would argue that simple if he chose to suddenly like in his streams watch a lot more

00:23:29.600 political coverage then he would gain political influence that's how it works yeah yeah um but i

00:23:36.700 actually i'm trying to think like within our wider community after asma golden knocks like

00:23:42.040 are we the next most influential people leaflet obviously come on malcolm leaflet is very

00:23:47.180 influential yeah she probably yes she's extremely influential um and uh kirsha beats us um and

00:23:54.840 maybe smuggalana doesn't really do new political angles so not really um but then i think desu does

00:24:01.080 plenty of political commentary rev says desu is bigger than us but he does not do political

00:24:05.660 commentary he has a political angle but he he doesn't like not in the way that like nux or

00:24:10.840 asthma gold or we do or leaflet yeah yeah fair okay fine um yeah i guess most of the political

00:24:16.720 commentary i see him do is like him commenting on something leaflet did or something um they

00:24:21.520 i mean bigger than us now i'd say in terms of influence is basic logic um we had him on before

00:24:27.400 he got really big uh but i really like his content like the thing is i don't when i think

00:24:31.820 about these other players who are like moving the the goal in in specific directions none of them

00:24:37.680 are moving it in a way that i wouldn't be moving it if i had their platform right like there's there's

00:24:42.020 very little um sort of directionally that i would be moving things that i had uh revs platform or

00:24:50.360 if i had leaflet's platform or if i had you know some of the other big players are like yellow

00:24:54.160 Flash or a actual Justice Warrior or Trigonometry or Sargon of Akkad or yeah, but I probably

00:25:03.880 wouldn't be doing, I'd be doing different than Sargon of Akkad. Sargon of Akkad is probably 0.58

00:25:06.900 the most orthogonal to my actual politics. Mostly because I think his politics around

00:25:13.240 stuff like censorship is disastrous long-term. And I don't think that he's aggressive enough

00:25:19.660 in in his politics which is you know probably i don't know would people recognize us as is as

00:25:26.520 being that way uh at least he's had an impact in britain right like that the the political

00:25:32.500 factions that represent our ideology have grown a lot there and in germany right so you know we

00:25:38.080 have a lot of german viewers like it's to say we're not moving the window on that you've heard

00:25:41.320 about the big afd wins no oh yeah afd has had some major wins recently oh sorry i i thought

00:25:49.140 you weren't saying afd yes no i am very but yeah the state level elections it is fantastic

00:25:55.640 but the the point being is like this what's so also interesting about this movement is while

00:26:01.680 it is kind of older than dirt at this point right like if you look at the representations of it from

00:26:08.320 people like tectone asthma gold sort of nuck scene like that's been around for a long time right like

00:26:13.240 that's 10 years old at this point um but they weren't really focused on politics in the sort

00:26:20.840 of cohesive community way that we are now i'd say until really a year ago maybe is when we really

00:26:26.660 all began to come together oh jake jason monroe jake jake monroe jake monroe um uh i don't know

00:26:34.160 if he's the thing is i never get recommended him so i don't know like what i'll go i don't i don't

00:26:39.420 either which is weird because there there have been points at which i've like binged multiples

00:26:44.400 of his videos in a row to catch up on what he's been saying you'd think the algo would

00:26:50.900 i mean he's he's on message but he doesn't really advance anything for me oh it's you know what

00:26:56.000 because i think his channel got demonetized so well that's true but i still get nux and his

00:27:00.340 channel's demonetized that's because we we like concertedly watch so nux so much i guess but

00:27:05.240 you're right i'd get him too oh well no well i know i think jake is actually genuinely a different

00:27:11.520 youtube loop than us because his content like before you had actually checked him out i told

00:27:15.980 you like he's very artsy in the way he films do you see what i mean by that well i mean he does

00:27:20.540 the gel lighting i don't i don't think he i mean he's not doing like natalie winn style

00:27:28.300 stuff i mean i love the effort he puts into his his face it's it's it's flawless it's perfect i

00:27:37.760 think it's i really enjoy that but then i want him to be a little bit more respectful of viewers

00:27:42.740 time but then he's streaming so he he doesn't need to be so i also get it yeah that's that's

00:27:48.380 one of the things i i i get annoyed at him is he's very slow to get to the point but he's streaming

00:27:52.560 you kind of have to fill time.

00:27:53.680 Anyway.

00:27:55.540 Okay, so among the documents,

00:27:57.900 tranche, obtained by Wired

00:27:59.240 is a New York Intelligence

00:28:00.760 and Counterterrorism Bureau report

00:28:02.300 that warns of widespread upheaval

00:28:05.540 in response to AI adoption.

00:28:07.540 Of particular note,

00:28:09.740 a term for what the Bureau reports

00:28:12.100 is an emerging extremist threat.

00:28:14.940 Quote,

00:28:15.500 the chaotic atmosphere may result

00:28:17.500 from emergent AI technology

00:28:18.960 in the next five years,

00:28:20.440 may fuel large-scale,

00:28:22.360 protests that devolve into civil unrest and anti-tech violent extremist activity especially

00:28:29.520 in large urban areas such as new york city the report reads the term anti-tech violent extremism

00:28:34.720 does not appear in any publicly available dhs or fbi domestic extremist reports or guides

00:28:40.460 and represents a novel grouping of a wide range of ideologies under a single extremist category

00:28:45.920 in the same intelligence assessment analysts describe the novel threat in the wake of the

00:28:52.000 arrest and trial of the zizians an extreme rationalist who allegedly led a small allegedly

00:28:58.720 led they were a trans murder cult that killed more people than the manson family he didn't

00:29:03.660 allegedly do anything um look until you have a conviction three members of which have been

00:29:09.760 charged with murder and more of which were likely involved in murder tied to an obsessive ideology

00:29:14.440 focus on the existential risk posed by AI.

00:29:16.860 And this group is very similar to the Buddhist group

00:29:19.440 that we did our episode on as well,

00:29:21.280 but it is still operational.

00:29:23.300 So keep in mind, these people are still out there,

00:29:26.440 still planting people in major organizations.

00:29:28.640 See our episode on that if you're interested. 0.99

00:29:30.760 Look up Buddhists, effective altruists, 1.00

00:29:32.460 Malcolm, Simone, crazy people. 1.00

00:29:34.860 Kill everyone. 1.00

00:29:35.920 I don't know. 1.00

00:29:36.580 Yeah, I like trying to kill everyone. 0.99

00:29:38.980 Because the founder had said 1.00

00:29:41.900 that his core life focus for a large chunk of his life was crispering a disease to kill all human

00:29:48.040 life on earth and he only turned away from that at 19 maybe he turned away from it he never really 0.98

00:29:54.200 denounced it he's just like i decided to kill all their souls instead um with uh oh no they're

00:30:03.820 getting millions a year and they have a private compound in the woods of vermont that sounds like

00:30:08.800 a concerning thing see our episode if you're concerned okay so the nypd intel assessment

00:30:14.380 follows from the department's collaboration with the fbi last year to monitor the signal chat of

00:30:19.680 an activist group coordinating volunteers to monitor public hearings on immigrant courts in

00:30:25.980 new york according to documents obtained by the guardian the fbi surveilled activists as part of a

00:30:30.820 larger investigation into the anarchist violent extremist actors one of the threat categories in

00:30:37.260 the new counterterrorism strategy so the point here being is this isn't exactly about the ai but

00:30:42.640 we do know that they are moving forwards was actually putting things through to monitor

00:30:46.480 activist groups um now i will note to capstone all of this there have been dangerous ai extremists

00:30:54.920 already like the trump administration is absolutely valid in doing this oh yeah in april 2026

00:30:59.520 daniel monroe gamma allegedly threw a molotov cocktail at sam altman san francisco residence

00:31:05.540 tried to attack open AI headquarters. He carried an anti-AI manifesto calling for violence against

00:31:12.180 AI CEOs and investors. Prosecutors said they would treat this as domestic terrorism. The goal was to

00:31:18.360 coerce policy. Other incidents include a shooting of Indianapolis officials' home after a data

00:31:23.840 setter's vote, arsons at AI-related infrastructure in Europe, and online manifestos mixing AI

00:31:30.320 doomerism with old older anti-tech eco-extremist ideas some eco-fascist attackers have also called

00:31:37.320 outside it ai slop and palantir vance ties as being why this is happening like the point being

00:31:43.380 uh ai is like the anti-ai faction as we have said is a real faction i'm glad the trump

00:31:48.540 administration is in power right now i'm glad that they are expending political capitals deal

00:31:53.240 with this call out our country's real enemies uh yet at home and abroad um and uh attempt to

00:31:59.620 address them what are your thoughts on this wider moment i think it's incredibly positive and i am

00:32:06.460 glad that it's recognized that ai deceleration deceleration deceleration whatever is a national

00:32:16.200 threat a threat to national security because it is it we are i mean it like definitionally is yeah

00:32:22.980 this is one of the most existential i mean this is the next nuclear arms race ultimately and

00:32:28.860 And these are anti-nuclear hippies.

00:32:31.060 Yeah, don't develop nuclear power when we're one of the few people who are countries that is able to do this.

00:32:39.560 It's very frustrating.

00:32:44.300 And I'm glad it's being treated with the threat level.

00:32:49.740 I mean, I would say a lot more should be done.

00:32:53.340 But while protecting free speech, I understand that there are limits.

00:32:58.860 that are very real i i don't know what it's going to take for example um to deal with the data center

00:33:07.660 hate that's a very difficult challenge yeah they've been very effective with that and completely

00:33:13.540 cooked some people's brains like a moist critical who used to be largely on topic um and i was very

00:33:19.740 surprised to see him get so cooked by this uh and i i don't think um yeah this is one of the most

00:33:26.020 effective and powerful propaganda campaigns i've seen in my lifetime it's it's also one of the

00:33:31.920 things that i i do not tolerate like there's very few things where i'd say like it makes sense to

00:33:37.160 kick somebody out of the right-wing alliance if they go in a specific direction on a topic right

00:33:42.060 or aggressively publicly attack them if anyone in our wider circle went aggressively anti-ai i would

00:33:48.660 absolutely publicly attack them because i think that that is a direction that leads to the

00:33:54.100 destruction of our people we will not win long-term human civilization why yeah that's that's putting 0.99

00:34:01.960 us under the boot of the chinese or some other group and it's completely not caring about american 0.99

00:34:09.040 exceptionalism or western ability to move forwards with our cultural project um and and so uh you 0.87

00:34:17.000 know you're as much of a threat as anyone else if those types of voices are being just surfing on

00:34:22.320 our waves right absolutely yeah but fortunately we just don't have that problem none of the

00:34:27.560 none of the major players in our space are anti-ai right the one thing i do kind of worry

00:34:32.260 about though is we're heading into midterm elections in the united states and not only

00:34:40.500 are democratic candidates really playing up the data center fear the the concern trolling around

00:34:48.280 AI, that we have to stop it messaging. Sorry, Republican candidates just to try to maintain

00:34:57.120 political viability going into the election are starting to adopt many of those talking points

00:35:03.380 and removing Trump from any mention on their websites, their campaign websites, for example.

00:35:09.360 This is a very meaningful trend with the upcoming midterm elections.

00:35:14.220 all we can do is grow as wealth and power right i just there's a little bit of a too little too

00:35:21.600 late element that that i'm a little bit concerned about with the department of war stuff and the

00:35:27.140 you know open framing of anti-ai sentiment and inactions as threats because

00:35:34.860 there's so much effort on the other side at this point and momentum being gained with the election

00:35:42.740 And I think we could have a blue wave, a lot of Democratic wins in this coming election.

00:35:48.340 I kind of want it to happen because I think that gives us better odds of a Republican, major Republican wins in the 2028 election will count extra.

00:35:57.800 Like, I would rather win that one than this one.

00:36:00.260 So, you know, let them have this one so we can have enough backlash.

00:36:03.960 But it is concerning.

00:36:05.160 And so this is nice, but it falls into a, that's nice development and not a, oh, phew, I guess we're going to be okay now. We've won. It's more just like, well, at least they understand this is a big problem.

00:36:18.880 Well, no, I think what you're missing is there are two battles being fought here. There is the left versus right battle, which you are right to be concerned about the direction that that could go. But the other battle is within the right. And within the right, we have reached a stage where it appears that we have largely colonized the right.

00:36:39.400 this is this is now a movement that goals are in alignment with our goals which is

00:36:47.360 american exceptionalism and long-term human flourishing even if that means technology

00:36:52.900 right which it didn't necessarily things didn't have to go in this direction and yet they have

00:36:59.660 And I think that that victory was actually the more risky victory for us.

00:37:07.800 The left versus right battle is one that in America we're going to have until one side

00:37:14.120 takes total power, okay?

00:37:16.460 That's always going to be a thing, right?

00:37:18.720 So trying to win that culture war and putting your efforts towards that culture war is often

00:37:24.800 less important than the interpolitical culture war.

00:37:29.660 yeah um yes roughly yes i agree yes roughly yes all right love you simone i love you too

00:37:41.400 quite appreciate that our squabbles aren't over things like money or our kids but like

00:37:47.100 how are we gonna practice the sabbath how are we gonna it's very funny because we have very strong

00:37:53.420 distinctions as to i'm like well read but what's even funnier about it is because essentially

00:38:01.240 we're starting like a sect of a religion or something like that when we're having an internal

00:38:06.640 fight about this or an internal debate around what the bible means on this stuff it could end

00:38:11.960 up affecting a lot of different people um okay so yeah i mean it's not like i should just cave on

00:38:17.720 stuff where i think you might not but you're wrong and we'll do a whole episode on how wrong

00:38:23.760 fantastic welcome to my life ladies and gentlemen i'm so wrong to give people but we start we're

00:38:32.700 going to be doing our first one to tonight tomorrow night um uh and the day after is we

00:38:38.940 haven't found there's a few lines that could argue this but we haven't found very strong evidence in

00:38:43.080 the bible that christians should not be practicing the sabbath as the ten commandments commands you

00:38:48.180 to uh you should just be practicing in the way that jesus recommended uh which is very very

00:38:52.960 different from the jewish way specifically in the whoa whoa whoa you're acting like christians think

00:38:58.740 they shouldn't be practicing the sabbath a lot of christians do the lord's day which is sunday

00:39:04.440 and not the sabbath or they get confused right but that was because some pagan roman emperor who

00:39:09.640 pretended to cosplay as a christian said so that no that that's not okay there was other reasons

00:39:16.580 they had mostly moved the day to sunday before constantine not really they were celebrating the

00:39:21.960 resurrection but that doesn't change that jesus was like look you want to you want to be okay

00:39:27.420 practice the 10 commandments what's one of the big 10 commandments the sabbath this is not hard

00:39:33.440 this is not rocket science i wish that it were because i'd love an out i want to work seven days

00:39:39.960 a week yeah you're really pissed about having to do it really don't like this um and no man you

00:39:46.540 don't you don't get to be proud of yourself for thinking approaching it wrong okay the way that

00:39:51.700 jesus had us do the sabbath right and people can be like well jesus christ is the sabbath or every

00:39:56.640 day is the sabbath and it's like no like clearly if it's one of the ten commandments if it's one

00:40:00.720 of the 10 commandments this way and jesus practiced it as well you can't get an out on that easily

00:40:05.360 right like you can't be like jesus didn't think it was a big deal if he was doing it every week

00:40:09.380 but the key difference that i'll be arguing in that episode is that jews practice and relate

00:40:16.320 to god contractually um e.g this is why jews will do little things to try to get out of rules

00:40:21.900 it's why you know he'll say they'll say women need to cover their hair and then they wear a wig

00:40:25.760 and so functionally they've done nothing um it's because if you're technically following the rules

00:40:29.960 in the same way as if you had a contract with a person or a deity that deity then is beholden to

00:40:36.200 you whereas christians because this is the way that christ frame god see god much more like a

00:40:41.160 father figure who gave us rules to help improve us once again deontology versus consequentialism

00:40:49.740 and i'm with you on that i am with you on that but you keep trying to implement it in ways that

00:40:55.880 clearly just add work and that's not i know i'm trying look i'm trying to wrap my head around it

00:41:02.920 and because i hate the idea of not working so much and maybe part of it's because our work is

00:41:08.440 so ideologically aligned anyway i'm like you know how am i could how am i making the world a better

00:41:14.520 place how am i contributing to the improvement of humanity if i'm not allowed to work because

00:41:18.200 our work is all about that well and what's worse is the type of work that you're explicitly banned

00:41:23.120 from is creative work yeah great great great great great great well you can teach and you can

00:41:32.720 learn so it's a little a little different actually you know you can't it's not productive work you

00:41:39.540 can teach you can learn if it's like sort of religiously oriented well no not just religiously

00:41:46.500 oriented that's the way jews interpreted it but not um and the the regulation that simone by the

00:41:52.020 for the big regulation debate that we're having is she thinks that you should have

00:41:56.960 restrictions against entertainment and i do not think you should have restrictions against

00:42:02.860 entertainment even the rabbinic system only built restrictions against music because they were

00:42:09.240 afraid that you would break an instrument and try to fix it not well religious music makes sense

00:42:13.040 but like just doing as you please um and worshiping your father's idols and stuff that sounds like

00:42:19.780 not a good idea that doesn't sound like entertainment your father's idols is a very

00:42:23.060 look okay do you think it's okay to go to a taylor swift concert assuming she's volunteering and

00:42:27.400 everyone else there is volunteering no it's not okay to go to it's not she's a false idol okay

00:42:32.380 so like just there's nuance there's nuance to it i'm i'm trying i'm trying so hard anyway i love

00:42:39.720 that this is what but that doesn't move human civilization forwards there's no way that that

00:42:43.360 for watching movies with your kids or your spouse is very different than going to a taylor swift

00:42:49.160 concert um a a football game with all of your friends okay yeah but like watching pop patrol

00:42:56.020 slop is not going to move our family forward either like watching family canon is and talking

00:43:02.280 about it as we go through it with the kids is absolutely fine if you make an effort to talk

00:43:07.760 about it okay if you're like i guess oh yeah anyway well okay we'll be okay we fight over

00:43:17.060 Yeah, this is what we fight over. Welcome to our family, our lover's quarrel.

00:43:24.900 You're amazing.

00:43:26.460 I love you. I love you so much. You drive me so nuts, but I love you so much.

00:43:33.940 When this happens is so interesting because it's just like when we were going over the Bible and

00:43:37.660 seeing how many Christians just don't take it seriously at all. And I've been very surprised

00:43:41.940 by this contradiction, right? When it's like loud and proud.

00:43:45.060 Well, look, we've been trying to think seriously about the Bible for a long time, working seven days a week, just like Doreen Virtue, who we talked about, the famous, you know, cult spellbook card creator, you know, made tons of money from the witchy world. 0.97

00:44:01.860 And then finally realized that it was the end. 0.93

00:44:04.320 Oops.

00:44:05.680 What was it?

00:44:06.340 Deuteronomy?

00:44:06.860 She read it.

00:44:07.300 She's like, oh, and that was her moment.

00:44:10.260 She fell to her knees that moment and was like, I am so sorry. 0.85

00:44:14.000 the other big one that a lot of christians break that i have noticed um and i a lot of jews break

00:44:20.120 this one as well um is uh the don't talk to dead people one this this would include for example

00:44:27.320 talking to a dead parent or something like that right like trying to do an intercession prayer

00:44:32.780 to them instead of directly to god would be seen as that's talking to dead people and i think a lot

00:44:38.640 of people just see that it's like a cute endearing little thing they do um that's that's you know

00:44:44.360 what harm could come from it and it's like uh well it's it presumably it's there for a reason right

00:44:50.240 yeah and i'm not buying intercession at all anyway this idea that like well no no no i'm not

00:44:57.080 i'm not worshiping the virgin mary i'm asking her to pray for me no you're no you are kneeling

00:45:04.440 get a statue but i didn't realize how many groups did that the jews i was looking up because

00:45:09.720 apparently the orthodox jews do this thing where they write letters to dead people to intercede on

00:45:16.160 their behalf with god and they do this so frequently that when i was looking for pictures

00:45:20.840 of it it was two graves entirely covered was like a foot and a half of little notes okay well and i

00:45:28.040 was like so it's not just that the christians do the jews do this too they're like well you know

00:45:32.700 Well, the one thing I'm cool with with the dead people is the Mormons baptizing them. 0.70

00:45:36.820 I'm like, okay. 1.00

00:45:38.160 Yeah, that's...

00:45:38.920 That's wholesome.

00:45:39.680 I like it.

00:45:40.260 Yeah, that they think they're being moved by dead people, but they don't talk to the dead people directly.

00:45:44.220 Yeah, they're not trying to talk to the dead people.

00:45:45.900 They're just making sure they can, you know, be okay.

00:45:48.160 Well, no, but they believe the dead people influence their actions.

00:45:50.520 That's fine.

00:45:51.440 And maybe they do.

00:45:52.680 I don't know.

00:45:53.100 You know, like, you know, they're not trying to say, yeah, that is important.

00:45:58.460 Also, a lot of people are telling us that we need to research the Indian death cults.

00:46:02.420 I don't know if I'm ready to stomach this.

00:46:04.280 Someone sent me.

00:46:06.960 I don't.

00:46:08.060 Did you know the whole cult of Kali was real?

00:46:11.540 Like Indiana Jones, like Kali Ma, like that.

00:46:14.520 Yeah, of course.

00:46:15.420 What?

00:46:17.100 I didn't know it was still that active.

00:46:19.420 Is it still active?

00:46:20.280 No, I don't think it's active.

00:46:21.520 Well, great.

00:46:22.280 You know, we're going to look it up and find that just like with the Aztecs, it never went away.

00:46:26.280 But they were very different from the Aztecs because their entire society wasn't based around it.

00:46:30.920 the cult of Kali was typically seen as like weirdos yeah but then I just someone just sent

00:46:36.720 me on twitter on x wait hold on they weren't weirdos it was closer to like the cult of Dionysus

00:46:42.700 in ancient Greece or something like that like you know they were a faction in society but they

00:46:48.600 weren't you know like Zeus or Hera or something yeah but someone sent me today an image from some

00:46:59.400 kind of indian festival that was okay so if you were wondering does this still happen it does

00:47:06.980 still happen it looks like it happens to about six to let's say 12 people a year although you

00:47:13.100 know it's been up to 24 people in a year in india where people are sacrificed it's not specifically

00:47:18.880 the kali it's actually uh interestingly usually just like a self-styled tantric or family member

00:47:26.440 says that a human bali or offering will fix some problem a person has um and then it's often a

00:47:32.000 child or a stranger that they find it's it's bad but it's not nearly the numbers we're talking about

00:47:38.900 in mexico with the the murders that happened there um for for human sacrifices to the uh

00:47:46.560 the suenta muerte uh folk catholic saint and and and so this is just totally especially when you

00:47:55.100 look at the number of people in india versus mexico it's not the same um if we're talking

00:47:59.900 about at the height of it uh there was maybe around a hundred thousand people killed by these 0.97

00:48:05.480 uh travelers who would pretend to be it's like the 1830s they pretend to befriend somebody and

00:48:13.140 then they'd strangle them to death with a rumble or scarf and then robbed their bodies and then

00:48:18.240 the british put on a big campaign to shut this down and arrest all these people and it was

00:48:23.720 successfully mostly shut down uh we it doesn't even look like it was necessarily an ancestral

00:48:29.980 thing in the region it might have been completely opportunistic again making it very different from

00:48:34.740 the aztecs if you're looking at the numbers of people who are sacrificed in this even at its

00:48:38.680 very height

00:48:39.300 you need to come right back buddy friend

00:48:52.640 let's check on your salamander and then go on inside

Based Camp - September 25, 2026

The White House Declares War On Effective Altruism (Right After Our Episode on It ... Curious)

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