Best of The Program ｜ Guests： Tristan Harris & Danielle Rabkin ｜ 9⧸11⧸20
Episode Stats
Words per minute
165.52963
Harmful content
Misogyny
5
sentences flagged
Hate speech
12
sentences flagged
Summary
Osama bin Laden's niece, Kayleigh McEnany, wrote an open letter to America. She says that with President Trump at the helm, she stands a chance of restoring her principles, pride, independence, and true place in the world as a beacon for liberty and hope for all.
Transcript
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Hello America and welcome to the Glenn Beck Program. Today, a lot on our plate. It revolves
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around 9-11, who we were and who we are. What are the problems? Why are we so divided? We look
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at a new documentary that is out, The Social Dilemma. It's a movie that you should watch
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with your kids from Netflix this weekend. It's a powerful, powerful documentary with the people
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who invented the thumbs up button on Facebook, the people who brought advertising to the
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internet, and they explain how you're being watched, monitored, how the numbers are being
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crunched, and how we're actually being divided intentionally, no matter what Zuckerberg or
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anybody says, oh no, we're trying to stop it. No, you're not. No, you're not. Because your
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whole model is built on that. We have that and so much more. You don't want to miss a
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second of today's show, the Glenn Beck Program.
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You're listening to the best of the Glenn Beck Program.
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I want to make a small correction. Earlier, I was telling you about the words of Osama bin
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Laden's I said sister, it's actually niece. She wrote an open letter to America. And I
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want to read more of it because I find this amazing. Now, this is Osama bin Laden's niece.
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The bin Laden family, you know, they are very successful. Osama bin Laden was really the black
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sheep of the family. I don't know if I would still carry around the bin Laden name myself,
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but that's such a Western perspective. But she's written this letter and she lives in Switzerland.
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She is known in Switzerland as somebody who wears a MAGA hat all the time. So she's wearing really
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yeah, this letter says in full with President Trump at America's helm. She stands a chance of
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restoring her principles, pride, independence and true place in the world as a beacon for liberty and
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hope for all. To me, this is what makes America great again. Looking back at your country's foundation
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and preserving what truly made it great, but also knowing that the best is yet to come.
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All of the achievements will be torpedoed with a bin Laden Harris presidency and the dream of
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America's enemies to see her weak and on her knees will be fulfilled. Probably a Biden Harris
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presidency, right? Yeah. Yeah. Sorry. Yeah. Yeah. Biden Harris. She said, stand for your flag and your
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anthem. Defend your fist, your history. Don't relent in the face of those who seek to rewrite it and serve
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their narrative and justify the destruction of your nation. You have so much to cherish and protect
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for your sake and ours. She said, Trump has made the world a safer place since taking office.
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I'm quoting to name a few achievements. He stood up to China. He's kept us out of new wars,
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made Europe comply with their NATO requirements, solidified ties with Israel, overturned the disastrous
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Iran deal, obliterated ISIS, took down other key terrorists and facilitated a historic peace deal
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between Israel and the UAE. Now, if anybody in the media would ever report this story, they'd say,
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yeah, well, look, of course, Osama bin Laden's niece, his family is all for Donald Trump. What is she
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saying here? She's saying obliterated ISIS, got out of the Iran deal, has ties with Israel,
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made historic peace with Israel. And that doesn't sound like her brother at all. I mean, her uncle.
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She said his administration has also made Christian persecution worldwide a top priority with the
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State Department instituting the ministerial to advance religious freedom, the first of its kind.
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Trump shows that he protects America and us in Europe by extension from foreign threats by
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obliterating the terrorists at the root before they get a chance to strike.
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Wow. I mean, it's amazing. That could have come from Kayleigh McEnany.
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Yeah. Amazing. Yeah. It's really amazing. And I, I honestly, I, I, I want to try to reach out to,
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to, you know, liberals and Democrats, not progressive Marxists, but liberals,
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people who, who believe in the constitution. They just may believe in a bigger welfare state than,
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you know, a typical conservative. Um, somebody that feels the country is in trouble and you don't
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like Donald Trump. I get it. I get it. And even if we vote differently, I get it, but I, I, we,
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we have to have conversations, uh, with liberals and with Democrats and, and just say, how are we
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missing each other on this one? How are we? Because the, the, the country is, is being sold down the
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river. I can't believe it's only conservatives that still believe in the flag and the military.
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Did, did you hear what happened in California? In California? I think this is, this is who we are.
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300 campers were out in one of the state parks and they were trapped by the fire and the California
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fire said, there's no hope. We can't get in. It's way too dangerous. There's no way for us to rescue
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you guys. 300, 300 campers. And they said, jump in the lake to survive. You've got to just go into
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the lake, put your head underwater. It's the only way you guys are going to make it. Well, then army
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pilots found out about it. And so the U S military said, we'll go in. California fire said it was too
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dangerous. The, the military crews go in. There was zero visibility in the Canyon, zero visibility.
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The, uh, the overload with people on these helicopters was also really, really dangerous.
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Are people going to overload it? Is it going to crash in the, none of it happened. They went in
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with zero visibility. They went to the lake and they rescued 300 people. They went in
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and then they got survivors and went out and then went back in again, got more survivors and got out.
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This is who we are. We are people that we don't care. They didn't card people who you voting for.
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They didn't care. They didn't care. We're Americans. And we have such little pride right now that we're
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not even talking about the heroes like these guys, absolute heroes that remembered we're all Americans
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and Americans don't leave Americans behind. We don't say, Oh, it's too dangerous. I don't, I don't hold this
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against the fire. You know, the California fire because they don't have military experience and
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helos like the federal government does. So I'm not saying anything bad. I'm not calling the
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firefighters anything bad. I'm just saying we do things in America. We do things. We've spent a lot
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of time, a lot of money, and we have a lot of, we've, we've shed a lot of blood to be able to do
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amazing things. Can we step and just recognize it for a minute?
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That's a great idea. I mean, I kept coming back to that thought today as, as we sit here on 9-11
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and the 19th anniversary, all this, uh, anti-cop stuff we've been taking in lately is it puts kind
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of puts you in a different place on that, doesn't it? And obviously I think this audience is, you know,
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generally pro police and doesn't put up with that nonsense, but it's been so commonplace
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over the past few months to just basically say all cops are bad, all cops, A-C-A-B.
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We made the other, we, we went too far the other way on September 11th. We said all cops are good.
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No, not all cops are good. Not all cops are bad. Cops, uh, military, everything. It's a section
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of society. All cops are us. They're us. Some are good. Some are bad. You root out the bad ones
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and you elevate the good ones. We're not doing that anymore. Instead. It's just all cops are bad.
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All cops. I mean, remember people all over the country were wearing like NYPD t-shirts and hats.
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Couldn't keep them in stock. Yeah. And now we're told they're just these evil people that basically
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just show up everywhere and just try to kill minorities. Well, now people are losing their
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job just for supporting cops online. What? Yeah. Uh, there's been a couple of professors
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who have said good things about, uh, police officers and got fired for it. Well, wow. It's,
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have we come that far that you can't even say anything good about police? You can't, uh, I remember
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the, the 4th of July celebrations that, that, uh, people were pissed off about. You can't celebrate
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the nation anymore. Uh, it's no, no, no. I'm saying no. Yet I know you believe this too. No,
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not on my watch, right? Not on my watch. And it's look next week. We are going to tell you an outline
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how America could very well be in civil war by Christmas. Uh, it is being plotted and planned
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and either side could start it. The crazy right wing, uh, groups, which I think there's maybe
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12 members of. Um, but they are, they are just as interested in destroying America. I mean,
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Richard Spencer is a socialist. So he is just as in, uh, motivated to destroy America as the far
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left is. So, uh, there are all kinds of people and all it needs is just a little shove, but we have
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got to find the people who we don't agree with that we can actually talk to and say, we've got to keep
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our heads. We've got to keep our heads and remember who we are. Eric Weinstein, you know,
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he is, right? He's the lefty professor up in Oregon. That was, I mean, he's as left as they come.
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He tweeted after the fire, uh, story. He tweeted, I miss heroic official behavior.
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I miss heroic official behavior. I also miss rule breaking for the greater good.
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Good. Can you imagine being an abandoned, abandoned in a lake
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and seeing a chopper with an American flag coming to pick you up, highlight, uh, piloted
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by actual Americans who remember what the hell that even means rather than whatever it is that's
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tearing us apart. That should be our goal. I, I call on you to reflect on the last 19 years
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and where we were and who we were and what we knew to be true.
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And then look at what has torn us apart. And are there things with people that you don't vote the
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same way? Are there neighbors that are just afraid, just as afraid of talking to you as you might be to
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them because they think you're an extremist that's just going to yell at them or you think they're an
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extremist is just going to yell at you. Well, some of them might, but we're all feeling how close we
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are to the edge. Reach out to anybody you think, and don't try to win. Just say, we got to keep our
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heads. I don't care how you vote. We got to keep our heads because if it's a fair election, we'll be okay.
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But the way this is being set up, it is being set up to cause people on both sides to feel like it was
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unfair. And this will be our undoing that this election will be our undoing if we don't remember
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who we are. So take today to remember where we were, what we went through, how many lives have been
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lost to protect this country and to save our principles and our constitution. The treasure
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that we have spent and the blood that we have all spent over the last 19 years, it cannot be for not
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today because we're all pissed and not talking to each other. Remember who you were on September
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12th. Remember the 9-12 project. Remember who you were the next day. You were kind. You were
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generous. We were in it together. Race didn't matter. Status didn't matter. Religion, politics, none of it
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mattered. Because in the end, we all realized we're Americans. Find those Americans that still
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That's R-E-C-T-E-Q.com. You know, we're just talking about the difference between coming together
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at 9-11 and coming together over COVID-19 and how it's not happening. There in and you know,
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our guests said, well, there's a couple of reasons, uh, the masks and social distancing of
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being, uh, being locked up, you know, where we're not with each other. And Stu and I were talking about,
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we, we have a few new people that have joined us here on the stage. I have met them. I work with
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them every day. I would not recognize them on the street if they didn't have a mask on because
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they're wearing masks the whole time. And I have no idea what they look like. I mean,
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you don't know people in the mask. You lose that connection. But I also seem to think there's a
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big difference in our media than there was in 2000. Social media was not a thing. Uh, and that's
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ever so destructive. Uh, and the other is we're an election. We were three years away from an election
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and gee, when did that unity start going away? Hmm. About the election time. Um, all right. I want to
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talk a little bit about, uh, what's happening in California in California. You know, we know the
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Nancy Pelosi, uh, you know, blow my hair out, uh, scandal where she just called up a salon and said,
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Hey, I need you to, you know, blow dry my hair and, and, uh, make me look nice. And the owner of the
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salon was so upset because wait a minute, I can't open my salon, but you can just come in and get a
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haircut. And we've got another situation like that. This is, uh, Danielle Rabkin. She is the owner of
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the CrossFit Golden Gate gym. And I want you to hear her story. She's got this unbelievable gym
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where she could social distance people by 30 feet and have them wear masks. She's not allowed to open,
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but the state has opened the state gyms. Welcome to the program, Danielle.
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So tell me, tell me what's happening in San Francisco.
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It's been pretty unbelievable. It's been the hardest six months of my life. Uh, we have been
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pretty closed still. I don't know that the rest of the country realizes we're almost still entirely
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on lockdown. The only things open are outdoor dining, indoor retail. I think that's pretty much
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it. Um, San Francisco has incredible COVID metrics. When I checked yesterday morning, we only had 88
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COVID deaths since March. We have never had more than 38 COVID ICU patients at a time since day one.
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Our hospitals were so empty in the early days waiting for the surge that never came, which is
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wonderful, but we were cutting back nursing hours, doctors shifts, giving salary cuts because hospitals
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were bleeding money. So we've been in really good shape, uh, to flatten the curve and somewhere along
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the line, flattening the curve turned into flattening the local economy because we've just kept everything
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closed. Um, and, uh, I, my personal life and livelihood has just been completely burned to the ground. I've spent
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over eight years building this business and I'm watching it just completely fall apart before my eyes. Uh, San
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Francisco has experienced a mass exodus. People are leaving left and right. If they're going to be locked down, they want
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more space. They want cheaper rent, but as other parts of the country continue to open up, why do people
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want to be here? Of course they don't. Uh, tech can work remote. Uh, there's no reason to stay somewhere
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where you can't get a haircut or go to the gym. Um, you know, it's just been so extremely frustrating.
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Even the Tony Fauci's of the world say that prolonged closures will cause irreparable damage. So it's just
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been mind blowing to me why this has been going on. Okay. So, so tell me first, the, the state has
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opened their gyms. Are these, are these publicly financed gyms or are these gyms for state workers and city
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workers? These are publicly financed taxpayer dollars. So I know with certainty that at the
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end of the, sorry, at the end of June, police station gyms were closed. Uh, a good friend of
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mine is a police officer. Um, and I know that his gym was shut. So I really hesitated to build an outdoor
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gym in my neighborhood. The streets are not clean here. Uh, the air is smoky. Uh, it's just not a great
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setup for outdoor activity, which is what we're moving towards. But I finally bit the bullet and
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did it. And recently I saw a couple of police officers at the end of my block. And I'm thinking,
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all right, I know that their gym is shut. I got this. I'm going to get them to come work out on
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at my outdoor gym with me. So two weeks ago, I go up to them and I chit chatting and I say,
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Hey, what are you guys doing for workouts these days? And they tell me that their station gym has
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reopened and I about fell over. I couldn't believe it. Here I am suffering with prolonged
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closure. And I find out that their gym has reopened. So I immediately reach out to a friend
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of mine who, uh, is an attorney and works out of a courthouse in the city. And I say,
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does this set a precedent for me? What does this mean? They've told me Cal OSHA has inspected
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their gyms. Can I get a Cal OSHA inspection? And he says, Oh yeah, I know that paralegals have
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been working out at the hall of justice. And I couldn't believe it. Glenn takes me everything
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to not drop 20 F bombs right now. I could not believe it here. I am business owners like me
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still shut and paralegals are working out at indoor gyms funded by taxpayer dollars.
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So I actually go down to the hall of justice to check out these gyms. And I see notices on the door
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saying that they've been reopened since July 1st, limited occupancy, new COVID rules,
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new sign-in sheets. So, uh, we send it to the press. Um, I was trying to reach out through a city
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attorney, through my supervisor's office, through the office of economic workforce and development.
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Why is this happening? Why am I still closed? Does this mean I can reopen? Does this set a precedent
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for me? Um, I want to be very clear. I don't want to see these gyms shut down,
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but what are the implications for gym owners like myself? Right. Cause the PPP money, the PPP
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money is long gone and it probably didn't help San Francisco. I can't even imagine what you are
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paying in rent for a 4,700 square foot gym. No, you don't want to know. I know it was unbelievable
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to me to see articles about people throughout the country, having windfalls with the cares act,
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$600 a week. And, uh, you know, there being debate over them, uh, wanting to incentivize people to go
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back to work. And I'm thinking $600 a week doesn't even pay for the rent at my one bedroom apartment.
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And there are people, you know, gathering savings from that. This isn't right. San Francisco is
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extremely expensive. There are businesses across the country that got the same PPP loans that we got.
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They weren't ever closed. Maybe they were closed for one month and we've been closed for six months.
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Where's our help. If the city wants me to stay closed, they can start paying my rent. Cause as you
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said, it's not cheap. Um, I'm many, many tens of thousands of dollars in debt to my landlord now
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because of this. So, so if I, if I may voice what I think some Americans may be saying, and that is
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why would we pay for, why would we take my tax dollars that I'm working hard for and send them
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to a state that is absolutely out of control in fire on fire, literally and figuratively,
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and they're screwing their own people. I don't know why, but they're screwing their own people. And I,
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I, I think Americans really feel for people who, um, are trapped in this, but it's kind of like,
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you know, this is what everybody in San Francisco voted for.
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I get it. And I've heard that a lot, but the reality of the situation is that small business
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owners like myself, we are where we are. People voted in who they voted in. This is the situation now
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and we need help. Uh, I've never admittedly, I have not followed local politics and that's my own
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fault. And you sure as well better believe it's a learning experience, but the decision makers right
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now aren't just the local politicians. It's the department of public health. And well, I don't know
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how your department of public health can say that working outside and working out outside is safer for
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you. I mean, the entire, the entire state is on fire. Smoke has to be, I mean, California wildfire
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smoke was at my home in Idaho last weekend, Idaho. It's got to be in San Francisco.
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Glenn, I completely agree with you. And I've been trying to push that up the chain for weeks.
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I have human feces on the sidewalk next to my outdoor gym. We are dealing with extremely poor
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air quality. I've been trying to push for an indoor reopening for a very long time. And my voice just
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isn't loud enough. Um, and an interesting turn of events, um, two weeks ago, of course, as soon as
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I found out about these courthouse gyms reopening, uh, you know, we've been pushing this up the chain
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to supervisors, the office of economic workforce and development just yesterday, public health
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officers announced that they were shutting down the city gym. And I want to be very clear. That was
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not the goal, but within minutes they've announced that gyms, hair salons and tattoos can now reopen
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on Monday. It is unbelievable to me. Maybe it shouldn't be so unbelievable, but it took something
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like this to get it to happen. So wait, wait, wait. So they are letting you open on Monday
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because of the discovery of these city gyms. They just announced yesterday that they're letting
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open on Monday. Well, congratulations on that. Uh, I mean, I don't know. I mean, we're, we're living
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in a time now where, uh, many of these people are rulers. They're, they're not, they're not just
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politicians. They're not people that were protecting our rights and they're just rulers. And this Nancy
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Pelosi thing at her, you know, hair salon, it did, are people in San Francisco waking up
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and saying, wait a minute, this is, this is, or are they still just as crazy?
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It's a good question. I can't answer for you, but it certainly has not felt like a democracy to me
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lately. Uh, it's, it's very difficult to feel like your voice isn't heard. Um, I'm curious to
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know if, if the mayor has been using these gyms, these public, these police station gyms, if her
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name is in the log books, um, we put out a records request and I don't know if they'll try to keep those
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names public, but I think it'll be very interesting to see if her name is, is on there between, uh,
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Danielle, I, I, I, I feel for you. I mean, I live in Texas and things are still crazy here. Not like
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that, but even in Texas, uh, and there is, there is, uh, you know, when you have about 600 people in 10
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days in a, in a country of 350 million dying in those 10 days, that's the last 10, I think has been
00:28:05.400
about 600 people nationwide, 350 million. And we are shutting and destroying our economy. It makes no
00:28:14.440
sense. And you have to ask yourself, what's the real agenda here? Because it, this is doing far more
00:28:21.780
damage to our children, uh, to our psyche and to our economy. People like you, I mean, how long is it
00:28:29.680
going to take for you to recover? Yeah. I don't know if I will, to be honest, and it's devastating
00:28:35.040
to me. I can tell you that San Francisco is letting the local economy burn to the ground. I don't know
00:28:42.200
that anywhere else is as severe here where reopenings can be done safely, slowly, and cautiously. They need
00:28:50.840
to start moving forward. Thank you so much, Danielle. I appreciate you, uh, speaking out. Thanks for
00:28:56.440
coming on. This is the best of the Glenn Beck program. And don't forget rate us on iTunes.
00:29:11.240
There is another, uh, uh, video or documentary out right now that is so well worth watching and
00:29:18.420
watching with your kids. Um, and it really kind of stars Tristan Harris. He's the, the best one in it.
00:29:25.020
Um, I think, uh, he's called the closest thing to Silicon that Silicon Valley has to a conscience.
00:29:31.380
He is a, uh, uh, former Google design ethicist. He is now working on the problems that are being
00:29:40.360
caused by social media. Welcome to the, um, welcome to the program. Uh, Tristan, how are you?
00:29:45.660
Glenn, it's great to be back. Thank you for having me. So in the social dilemma, I mean, it,
00:29:51.200
it is really quite clear, uh, that they are profiting off of the divide, even though they're
00:29:59.420
saying they're trying to heal us. That's exactly right. You know, I'm really concerned with the
00:30:06.680
fact that, you know, how can you do anything when our fellow countrymen disagree vehemently across
00:30:11.760
all topics that matter, right? I mean, how can you fix anything if at least half of the world
00:30:16.160
violently opposes the idea and I'll counter every strategy that you do. This film is the first time
00:30:22.120
that the, you know, the people who built some of these products, you know, the inventor of the
00:30:26.000
Facebook like button, the person who built the YouTube recommendation system, uh, the guy who brought
00:30:30.900
the advertising business model to Facebook, uh, Jaron Lanier, the father of virtual reality are on
00:30:36.560
camera saying, look, these are the harms that it's causing first to children and the problems of
00:30:41.340
addiction and the breakdown of the family that we all know that I'm sure that so many parents are
00:30:45.900
struggling with, especially in COVID times when you have your kid on zoom calls, right? I mean,
00:30:49.860
I know how, how deep this is, uh, and, and the mental health issues there, but then the second
00:30:54.580
is on the polarization. And that's what I'm really most concerned about because as you just said,
00:30:58.620
they profit from the divide because no matter what topic that there is, social media will take the
00:31:04.520
most, um, egregious and extreme and worst part of that topic and show it to your out group,
00:31:09.520
to the other side in the least charitable way, which means that we're all biased in a worse way
00:31:14.960
about each other. Right. And it's driving us crazy and it's actually killing our democracy.
00:31:19.160
Um, if we don't actually fix it. And I'm really hoping is that if enough people see this film,
00:31:24.960
we'll have a new shared truth about the breakdown of our shared truth in reality. Uh, and that's,
00:31:31.260
that's really what we're hoping for. Okay. So by the way, if you don't know what we're talking
00:31:35.380
about, it is a new movie on Netflix called the social dilemma. Uh, I think you, you break it down
00:31:42.400
really, really well. And it is very credible, um, in its approach. And because everybody who's in it,
00:31:49.840
uh, is pretty much legendary. I mean, they were there, they invented it. Um, however, the, the problem,
00:31:57.420
uh, is, and I, I mean, I, I try to listen to, well, I do, I listen to two podcasts every day,
00:32:05.180
uh, that disagree with me. I don't necessarily listen to anything that agrees with me. I read a lot,
00:32:12.120
but I read all sides and, um, I'm surprised on both sides. How many people don't know how a story was
00:32:22.760
covered by the other side? A lot, a lot of people on, let's just take on the, the right. A lot of
00:32:28.040
people say the New York times never covered that. Well, they did. They did. They may have covered it
00:32:32.540
differently. They may have covered it one day or on page 18 where the right was saying, this is a
00:32:38.520
front page story, but they did cover it. Um, and I'm shocked at how many people, uh, on both sides
00:32:47.360
don't know what the other is side is being fed. Yeah. Well, it's because, uh, as you said at the
00:32:57.100
beginning of the hour, the, um, you know, these companies profit by showing you a, your own Truman
00:33:02.940
show, your own affirming view of reality, because imagine there's two news feeds at Facebook, right?
00:33:07.180
One called the everything you believe is right feed, right? And it just shows you more and more
00:33:11.800
news from your side that basically gets you to click on it more. Right. And there's another feed
00:33:15.960
called the everything, you know, might be different than what you know, right? We're
00:33:19.460
going to show you news that like challenges your views constantly, right? You can imagine
00:33:23.020
they could easily find two different sets of stories to show you which one is going to do
00:33:27.600
better for their business model of capturing your attention. The one that you like, the one
00:33:32.740
that affirms your view of reality, the one that you like. And so the problem is each of us
00:33:36.540
have been given our own Truman show, our own reality, right? Where it's not that everything
00:33:41.520
that we're believing is wrong. We've just been seeing a tiny, tiny, tiny sliver and it's
00:33:45.580
actually infected the rest of the media because even cable news or radio news, where do they
00:33:50.400
get their news from? Well, they get their news from Twitter as well, right? So Twitter
00:33:53.840
is, is, is the basis. It's this divisive force is the basis that's feeding into all forms
00:33:59.280
of media. Uh, and it's making us all bias in a worse and worse, uh, a way. That's what
00:34:06.820
So we, we've talked about this many times that we don't want to get news off of Twitter
00:34:12.000
because it seems like journalists, um, are not doing real journalism. They're reacting
00:34:19.640
Um, that's right. It's turned all of us into little monkeys that react, um, you know,
00:34:23.980
impulsively to the latest thing and whatever media ethics or journalism or training that
00:34:28.140
we might've had in a previous generation. That goes out the window. When I win, the faster
00:34:32.800
I make an assertion about what the other side did and I say something without, without actually
00:34:37.660
stopping and holding, because if I don't do it, the other guy will. So it's a race to
00:34:41.240
the bottom of the brainstem, a race to the immediate who can say it first, but that just
00:34:45.640
means that exponential hearsay, exponential gossip. Uh, and it doesn't lead to good sense
00:34:50.500
making, right? And if we cannot agree and it just leads to violence and, and really
00:34:54.600
escalating towards levels of violence that I think people are worried about civil war, that's
00:34:58.920
not actually productive. And by the way, our enemies are, are using this right
00:35:02.640
now, um, against us. Right. I mean, they actually want us to just sit here fighting
00:35:07.040
with each other after world war two, you know, with the big powers with nukes, you can't
00:35:11.020
actually wage a conventional war anymore. So you want to use subtler methods with plausible
00:35:15.360
deniability proxy wars. But if you're Russian, China, Iran, Turkey, or North Korea, you know,
00:35:21.720
you're not going to launch a nuke against us. Right. But you might want to take the existing
00:35:24.920
tensions and turn the enemy against itself. And that's what Sun Tzu exactly would say to do.
00:35:29.180
That's what the Chinese military strategy is. And Facebook makes it a trillion times easier.
00:35:34.360
Uh, so if I'm China, I want the, you know, the extreme right and the extreme left to proliferate
00:35:38.300
and fight each other and would be stoked about the rise of extremist groups on all sides.
00:35:42.540
So, so let me ask you, Tristan, because, because here's the problem, uh, from the right point
00:35:48.240
of view, from the conservative point of view. Um, and that is, um, we don't have any billion
00:35:55.900
dollar, hundred year old institutions like the New York times, um, uh, Fox news. A lot of
00:36:03.140
conservatives are just not even, they're not even watching Fox news anymore. They're tired of
00:36:07.400
a lot of the stuff. Um, and, uh, when you have a group of people, let's say the blaze where we,
00:36:16.140
we really not, I'm not saying all of our stories are perfect or anything else,
00:36:20.020
but we really try to look into things. And for instance, I'm saying right now about civil war.
00:36:27.220
There are people that want civil war. They do want to tear the country apart. I can tell you what
00:36:33.400
the groups are. I think they have, they are on the left, but there are also, as I said yesterday,
00:36:39.760
um, there are also people who like Richard Spencer, you think the Nazis and the white supremacists
00:36:45.780
don't want a civil war. They don't want freedom either. Um, and, and same with the outside. But
00:36:52.300
if I say what MSNBC is now saying about civil war, and they're saying that it's all coming from white
00:37:00.180
supremacy, but I say, well, yes, there might be some white supremacists that want that, but there's
00:37:05.820
also these organizations that want it. Antifa is in the street calling for the destruction of America.
00:37:11.260
America, I'm somehow or another, uh, unreasonable. How do we, how do we bridge that?
00:37:18.440
Well, this is the thing. So, you know, are there reasonable versions of each of each thing going on?
00:37:23.660
You know, are there new Patriot movements where people are learning the constitution, learning how
00:37:27.100
to do homesteading? You know, absolutely. But then there's also acceleration is orienting towards
00:37:32.100
civil war and which side is social media going to expose? They're going to take a tiny percent of
00:37:36.480
the worst side. And they're going to expose them in a statistically much bigger and greater way,
00:37:41.640
uh, of the evil parts, uh, missing the good parts to the other side. Right. And that's going to
00:37:46.660
disproportionately create a counter response by the other side that says, well, if they're going to do
00:37:51.320
that, then we're going to escalate this. And then that's also going to take the least represented,
00:37:55.280
most extreme view, uh, on say the left on Antifa. Right. And so, and I'm not saying that,
00:38:00.300
that there's, there's, there's real legitimate problems on, on, on both sides here,
00:38:04.020
but the problem is that it's selecting for the worst of us and making us hate each other.
00:38:08.400
And by the way, we're not going to get anything done as a country, uh, you know, when that happens,
00:38:12.480
I mean, and do you think that when we're sort of devolved into conflict with ourselves,
00:38:16.000
that our adversaries just sit around and, you know, handle things and drive their own
00:38:19.420
countries or they want to take advantage of it? And, you know, I think, you know, there's this line
00:38:23.620
that, you know, while we've been obsessed with protecting our physical borders, we left the digital
00:38:27.500
border wide open because if, if Russia trying to try to fly, you know, uh, a bomb or cruise
00:38:33.020
missile into the United States, we'll get shot down by the department of defense. But when they
00:38:36.980
try to fly an information missile into the United States, they're met by a Facebook algorithm that
00:38:42.280
says, yeah, exactly. Which zip code or personality do you want to target? And they make it as easy
00:38:46.440
as possible because the digital border is wide open. So they say, all of them say they're trying
00:38:53.520
to stop and suppress hatred in the division, et cetera, et cetera. So is any of that true?
00:39:00.100
Well, I think that they've, they've been very slow on waking up to these problems, Glenn. And that's
00:39:06.260
actually why I think, um, and I'm not saying this as a self promoter, I think the film is important
00:39:10.200
for this reason, because at this point, the tech companies can't just fix what all of us are
00:39:15.040
thinking and believing we're 10 years in to this social media washing machine that spread that split
00:39:20.780
us apart into these two different, almost like a, what do you call the centrifuges? You know,
00:39:24.260
you spin them around, right. And then split us apart on two completely different sides.
00:39:27.780
I think the only way to actually reverse that is to have a new cultural understanding about how this,
00:39:34.160
this, this hypnotic induction took place. And I don't mean we've each been hypnotized to believe
00:39:38.240
something is wrong. I mean, each of us have been hypnotized into these different bubbles
00:39:41.960
of reality that are not compatible with each other. And I'm really hoping that the film can actually,
00:39:47.440
again, create a shared truth about the breakdown of our shared truth. And so far, it seems to be,
00:39:52.540
you know, working really well at having people say, you know, I want to have a conversation with my
00:39:56.140
family. And the best thing, by the way, you can do if you see the film is watch it with your family
00:40:01.040
members, especially who might have different political beliefs than you. And after you watch
00:40:05.020
it, exchange, open up Facebook on both your phones and exchange your phone and look at the other
00:40:09.780
person's newsfeed. And you will be surprised that even with the same friends, because you're probably
00:40:14.260
your husband or wife or, you know, whatever, you have many similar friends, you will see a completely
00:40:18.960
different feed, which will show you, imagine if I was living in that world for the last 10 years.
00:40:24.180
Well, of course, that person would be, say, concerned about climate change because their
00:40:27.620
entire feed is so good climate change stories. Or on the other side, of course, that person would
00:40:31.740
be like, we got to do something about Black Lives Matter because they just see infinite evidence of
0.92
00:40:35.700
just people looting and rioting on the streets. Right. And that's the thing is we can't really see this
00:40:40.160
because we've been so narrowly trapped in these realities. And it really is an issue that can unite
00:40:45.160
us because the whole thing is meant to divide us.
00:40:47.400
Tristan, I'm I'm very glad that people like you exist. I've I've talked to Ray Kurzweil about
00:40:55.960
ethics in Silicon Valley for a while. He scares the hell out of me. And I had been praying for 20
00:41:06.420
years that ethicists would wake up and start to really guide these companies. I hope it's not too
00:41:12.920
late. I don't think it is. But thank you for everything that you're doing. The documentary
00:41:18.020
and you should watch it with your family. Watch it with your whole family. It's called The Social
00:41:23.580
Dilemma. It's not only going to show you how we're being divided, but it'll show you if you
00:41:29.020
aren't convinced you're being watched and spied on, boy, you will understand why and what's really
00:41:35.660
going on. It's The Social Dilemma and it's on Netflix now. Tristan, thank you so much. We'll