The A&G Replay Thursday Hour Two

Summary

Armstrong & Getty On Demand: The A&G Replay Thursday Hour Two

Date: August 28, 2025
Podcast: Armstrong & Getty On Demand
Host: iHeartPodcasts

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Overview

This episode of Armstrong & Getty On Demand dives into the latest developments in education controversies ("Campus Madness"), the societal impacts of artificial intelligence, the endless quest for personal fulfillment, and a scathing look at today's party politics—delivered in the duo's trademark blend of humor, skepticism, and social commentary. The hosts unpack topical headlines and philosophical questions, offering impassioned takes, wry anecdotes, and memorable listener food for thought.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Campus Madness & Education Degradation

[00:22–09:58]

• Rising College Costs:
  • The New York Times discusses the doubling (or more) of college tuition since 1980, focusing solely on government assistance without examining the underlying reasons for cost inflation.
    • Quote:
      • "They don't spend a single word... in asking why." — Joe Getty [01:15]
• NEA & Holocaust Education:
  • The National Education Association (NEA) is criticized for new Holocaust education materials downplaying Jewish victimhood by focusing on “different faiths.”
    • Quote:
      • "It was mostly Jews. As we all know... but so they're just going with different faiths. Okay." — Jack Armstrong [03:18]
• DEI & Public Schools:
  • NEA’s 2025 handbook emphasizes “dismantling white supremacy” as a top teaching priority, prioritizing institutional racism over basic academics.
    • Quote:
      • "Our public school system is completely broken." — Jack Armstrong [04:37]
• School Choice:
  • Homeschooling, private schooling, and vouchers could drive people away from public schools, leading to potential system collapse.
    • Quote:
      • "It should. It has to." — Joe Getty [05:09]
• Campus Anti-Semitism and Lawsuits:
  • UCLA paid $6M to settle a suit over their handling of anti-Semitic protests ([05:44]).
  • George Mason University’s president under federal discrimination investigation.
• Affirmative Action in Medical Schools:
  • Despite Supreme Court rulings, race is allegedly still considered in admissions. Data shows rejected Asian/white applicants had higher MCATs than accepted black applicants at many schools.
    • Quote:
      • "There's a name for it. Racism." — Jack Armstrong [08:51]
• Duke/Cornell Discrimination Claims
  • Ongoing legal disputes allege overt racial preferences in hiring and publishing.

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2. AI, Universal Income & The Future of Work

[10:29–17:32]

• AI’s Societal Disruption:
  • Sam Altman (OpenAI), Elon Musk, Marc Benioff tout “Universal Extreme Wealth” or Universal Basic Income (UBI) as AI potentially eliminates most jobs.
    • Quote:
      • "They're just blase about restructuring society in ways nobody has ever done in like six months from now." — Jack Armstrong [10:59]
  • Skepticism abounds:
    • "Man was meant to be useful, productive, proud..." — Marc Andreessen, paraphrased by Joe Getty [13:26]
    • "That's the world's biggest understatement. Serious challenge." — Jack Armstrong [13:44]
  • MIT economist David Autor:
    • "...distributing the majority of income from a few sources is frightening in a political fantasy land." [13:05]
• AI Influencing Everyday Language:
  • Study claims words like “delve” are spreading due to people mimicking chatbot outputs—hosts doubt the effect’s prevalence.
    • Quote:
      • "I just don't buy this at all." — Jack Armstrong [16:34]
      • "I just find that impossible to believe." — Jack Armstrong [17:03]
  • Chatbots use language based on statistical prediction, not genuine reasoning.
    • "It's not intelligence at all. It's just a glorified mad lib." — Joe Getty [17:32]

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3. The Myth of Fulfillment: Life Satisfaction and the "Payoff"

[17:54–29:15]

• The Myth of the Rational Voter:
  • People repeatedly believe faulty economic ideas (rent control, etc.) across generations ([17:54]).
• Scottie Scheffler on Fulfillment:
  • The world’s top golfer reveals in a press conference that peak success and the “euphoria” of achievement are fleeting, and deeper life satisfaction comes from family and daily routines.
    • Quotes:
      • "You work your whole life to celebrate winning a tournament for like a few minutes... then it's like, okay, now what are we gonna eat for dinner? Life goes on." — Scottie Scheffler [20:15]
      • "This is not a fulfilling life... but it's not fulfilling from a sense of, like, the deepest... places of your heart." — Scottie Scheffler [20:54]
      • "I would much rather be a great father than I would be a great golfer." — Scottie Scheffler [24:11]
• Hosts’ Philosophical Take:
  • Process vs. payoff—lasting happiness is in daily life and relationships, not achievements or “winning.”
  • Woody Allen is referenced as another example: he enjoys movie-making, not the finished product ([25:15]).
    • Quote:
      • "You have to enjoy the process of life. If you're waiting for the payoff, it ain't coming." — Jack Armstrong [26:58]
      • "The payoff is there's no payoff." — Joe Getty [27:21]
      • "There's no end to the movie. Your part is just written out." — Joe Getty [27:39]
      • "Today is the payoff. This is the payoff. Today is my payoff… Is that motivating? It's hard.” — Jack Armstrong [28:35]
      • "The great philosophers... have concerned themselves with this very question." — Joe Getty [29:08]

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4. Disgust with Contemporary Politics

[29:40–36:13]

• Congressional Sausage-Making:
  • GOP's tax and immigration bill passes the House Budget Committee after "ultra-conservative" Freedom Caucus members abstain.
    • The terms “ultra-conservative” now apply to what used to be mainstream GOP positions.
    • Quotes:
      • "It was, it was a term you would have used to define the party." — Jack Armstrong [31:00]
• U.S. Credit Downgrade:
  • Hosts debunk narratives blaming Trump-era tariffs; root problem is decades of bipartisan debt and overspending.
    • Quote:
      • "You just spend more than you make. That's what happened." — Jack Armstrong [32:00]
• The “SALT” Deduction Hypocrisy:
  • “Fiscally conservative” Republicans from high-tax states push to let rich constituents deduct more state and local taxes on their federal returns—effectively subsidizing blue-state tax policies with everyone else’s federal tax dollars.
    • Quotes:
      • "You get a giant subsidy from the other states... as a conservative/Republican... that's a plank of the Republican Party? I'm done." — Joe Getty [33:17, 34:28]
      • "You can't defend it." — Jack Armstrong [34:15]
• Parties Have No Principles Anymore:
  • Only personalities and cycles dictate what “the party” stands for.
    • Quote:
      • "There are no political parties. There's just whoever emerges as the candidate, cycle by cycle." — Sarah Isgur (via Jack Armstrong) [34:42]
      • "Do you have... Time has passed." — Joe Getty [35:29]
      • "She's not the person she was... Forget it. It's over... Get an AI girlfriend like a normal person." — Joe Getty [35:51–36:04] (satirical sign-off)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• "We are not cherry picking. It's more like we're standing in the midst of a cherry orchard and you're accusing us of cherry picking." — Joe Getty [00:58]
• "Our public school system is completely broken." — Jack Armstrong [04:37]
• "This is like heart surgeons... Oh my God, it's obscene!" — Joe Getty [08:03]
• "It's just a question of government grants. Talk about a different mindset." — Joe Getty [01:43]
• "Man was meant to be useful, to be productive, to be proud." — Marc Andreessen (paraphrased by Joe Getty) [13:26]
• "This is not the be all, end all. This is not the most important thing in my life." — Scottie Scheffler [24:17]
• "The movie doesn't end; there's no end to the movie. Your part is just written out." — Joe Getty [27:39]
• "My wife of 40 years, when she's not turning tricks, she's killing people for the mob. She's not the woman I fell—This is, by the way, a fictional illustration." — Joe Getty [35:31] (comic relief)
• "Get an AI girlfriend, like a normal person." — Joe Getty [35:59] (satirical closing)

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• Campus Madness & Education: [00:22–09:58]
• AI, UBI & the Future of Work: [10:29–17:32]
• Life Satisfaction, Scheffler & The Myth of Fulfillment: [17:54–29:15]
• Politics, Debt, and the Disgust with Parties: [29:40–36:13]

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In Summary

If you missed this episode, you missed Armstrong & Getty at their most engaged—tackling the absurdities and ironies of campus culture, the risk and promise of AI, and the hollowness of chasing end-of-the-rainbow happiness (in both life and politics). Blending factual reporting with impassioned commentary, personal anecdote, and deadpan humor, the hosts shine a light on why some societal trends infuriate and confound them—and warn listeners not to expect a “payoff.” The journey, not the destination, is where both trouble and (maybe) contentment are found.

Transcript

[Jack Armstrong]

This is an iHeart podcast.

[Joe Getty]

Broadcasting live from the Abraham Lincoln radio Studio at the George Washington Broadcast Center. Jack Armstrong and Joe Getty.

Armstrong and Getty. And now here's Armstrong and Getty. It's a campus madness update. Oh, madness. There's the madness.

[Jack Armstrong]

Oh, oh, that's the madness part.

[Joe Getty]

He's not digging it. Can't remember. Is there more of that?

[Jack Armstrong]

Okay, here we go at the end. Okay.

[Joe Getty]

Handful of headlines for you, Jack. And we could really spend a significant amount of time on any one of these. But. But it definitely goes to the fact that Crusaders against the Rot on our college campuses, and actually our primary and secondary educational systems, too, we are not cherry picking. It's more like we're standing in the midst of a cherry orchard and you're accusing us of cherry picking. That's. I mean, we're surrounded by cherries. Anyway, I'm going to start with this, which is a little different than the other headlines, but it was the New York Times doing a story on how the federal policy changes changed on Pell grants and the big beautiful bill and higher education grants and federal loan caps and the rest of it. And what was interesting to me about this, and I'm sure you'll appreciate this too, Jack, is that they mentioned that the reason this discussion is so important is that the average cost of public higher education in the United States has, adjusted for inflation, more than doubled since 1980. And they don't spend a single word. Not, not, not no less. I'm sorry. Certainly not a sentence or a paragraph in asking why.

[Jack Armstrong]

Is that?

[Joe Getty]

Right?

[Jack Armstrong]

Doubled since 1980 sounds low to me.

[Joe Getty]

By a lot. The only thing they talk about is why government is not doing more to hand people money to pay for it. Because it's more than doubled.

[Jack Armstrong]

It's way more than doubled.

[Joe Getty]

Absolutely nuts. Yeah, yeah. This is public colleges.

[Jack Armstrong]

Well, right.

[Joe Getty]

Anyway.

[Jack Armstrong]

But like, I know a couple of specific examples of it's doubled since people I know went in the 90s.

[Joe Getty]

Well, right, right. But the point, obviously is that the New York Times doesn't even ask the question.

[Jack Armstrong]

Right.

[Joe Getty]

It's just a question of government grants. Talk about a different mindset. A bunch of headlines here. This is something else as it reloads. Three, two, one. And we're back. The largest teachers union in America is pushing Holocaust education that erases Jews. The NEA now describes the Holocaust as having 12 million victims from different faiths without mentioning the attempted extermination of the Jewish people. Wow.

[Jack Armstrong]

It was mostly Jews. As we all know, the chunk of Catholics and Gypsies and other people too, but it's mostly Jews. But they're so they're just going with different faiths. Okay.

[Joe Getty]

Yes. In fact that was the plan all along. You may have heard of Hitler. He wrote a book about it in which he expelled. He spelled out exactly what he's going to do. But not to the NEA. Speaking of the NEA, they just scrubbed their 2025 handbook from their website. But the Internet is forever. And various school choice advocates have preserved all of it for all of us. And the nea. This is this year's handbook says educators must acknowledge the existence of white supremacy culture as a primary root cause of institutional racism, structural racism and white privilege. And educators must work to prohibit institutionally racist systems and to bring them down. And it. It's a chapter in verse of the whole DEI critical race theory stuff. But the biggest teachers union in America says that needs to be the top priority of teachers is to dismantle white supremacy in. In our schools and our country.

[Jack Armstrong]

Our public school system is completely broken.

[Joe Getty]

Yeah. It absolutely.

[Jack Armstrong]

How long will it take? Can it be fixed? Will just so many people have to pull out and homeschool or private school. I don't know.

[Joe Getty]

Yeah. And school choice that Republicans are pushing right now will so many people will leave the government schools in favor of these schools that educate children that the. The system will collapse. And it should. It has to.

[Jack Armstrong]

Your number one priority should have been the entire time and should always be for all eternity teaching math, science and reading. The end.

[Joe Getty]

The NEA will push strategies fostering the eradication of institutional racism and white privilege perpetuated by white supremacy culture. And school districts must provide training in cultural competence, implicit bias, restorative practices and techniques and racial justice. More on this another time. But let's click on a few more headlines. We didn't mention this and it was an oversight. We just got really busy. That ucla who we're absolutely hammering for their treatment of Jewish students including the establishment of a Jew exclusion zone. UCLA agreed last week to pay more than $6 million to settle a lawsuit brought by Jewish students who said the university allowed anti Semitic demonstrations. I'm sorry, discrimination during spring 2024 encampments. The anti Israel encampments. Good for them. Just absolutely hammered ucla which is deserving of everything it gets. George Mason University on the other side of the country. The president facing an array of federal discrimination probes has tapped the ex Maryland Attorney General as his personal attorney as an act of self preservation. This guy Gregory Washington is a DEI woke crusader and has sanctioned and demanded racial discrimination in practically everything George Mason University does. And if you're not familiar with George Mason, it is an enormous university in the Washington, D.C. area. It is the biggest university in the University of Virginia system. So coast to coast all over the place. Medical schools quietly maintain affirmative action. According to Jason Riley in the Wall Street Journal, some still use race to make admissions decisions, even though the Supreme Court said it's illegal.

[Jack Armstrong]

I just heard a story yesterday of somebody who's apparently some sort of medical school star who has a whole bunch of options to go to different colleges for medical school and interview has interviewed a couple where the first question was, what your. What's your pronouns? And this person does not swing that way politically. And thought, I'm not going to this school. Question number one, to decide if you want this star student to be in your medical school, what are your pronouns? How crazy is that? Prioritizing that higher than prioritizing that at all. Having it be part of it at all is crazy. But making that like the top thing are you are kind of people rather than whether or not you'd be a good doctor.

[Joe Getty]

Right. I mean, if it was like some sort of plumbers college, I would be thinking, well, that's stupid because, like, there will be leaks and bad plumbing if you make that a priority. This is like heart surgeons.

[Jack Armstrong]

Yeah.

[Joe Getty]

Oh, my God. It's obscene. Do no harm. A watchdog group that opposes racial preferences analyze the last year's admissions data from 23 public medical schools. It found that at 22 of the 23 Asian and white applicants who were accepted had higher medical college admission test scores than their black peers. And the data showed that more than half of the schools, the average mcat, that's the big test score of Asian and white applicants who were rejected was higher than that of the MCAT score of black applicants who were accepted. And let's call there's a name for it.

[Jack Armstrong]

Racism.

[Joe Getty]

Yeah, exactly, exactly. The Trump administration has launched a probe of the Duke Law Journal and warns their medical school is up next as they are promoting racial preferences and racial standards for who gets to publish, who gets to be on the staff, who gets to earn the accolades. No white people need apply. Honest to God. This is Duke University, both the lawn medical schools. And then finally, it's a story in the Wall Street Journal by a fellow by the name of Colin Wright who was excluded at Cornell University from a job for which he was eminently qualified, maybe the most qualified guy in the country. They eliminated him purely because he was a white Man. And behind the scenes memos which were issued or found during the discovery process for this suit said, yeah, no, we're not going to hire a white guy. Absolutely overt racism at America's universities coast to coast, Minnesota to Miami. It's unbelievable. It needs to take it apart, be taken apart. It's campus madness.

[Jack Armstrong]

Oh, my God, what happened there?

[Joe Getty]

I love that little exclamation point.

[Jack Armstrong]

Stepped on a nail or something.

[Joe Getty]

She saw the madness around her, you fool. Okay, Wake up.

Jack Armstrong and Joe Getty. The Armstrong and Getty Show. The Armstrong and Getty Show.

Sam Altman of OpenAI, he's been making the rounds talking to various folks about how AI is going to create just ginormous amounts of wealth, but also put scads of people out of work. And so he's pushing something. It's like Universal Basic Income, but he calls it universal extreme wealth, that everybody will just get the outflow of wealth from this technological marvel that he and others are designing.

[Jack Armstrong]

I like how blase they are about restructuring society in ways nobody has ever done in like six months from now.

[Joe Getty]

I mean, yeah, turning us all into the idle rich. And then it'll just be grand and marvy. Think about the rich kids, you know, that have been on trust funds their whole lives. They've all got wonderful lives of happiness and productivity. Right? Elon Musk touts Universal High income, the concept that AI will automate most production and the public can share in the revenue. Mark Benioff, CEO of Salesforce, says up to half of the work at the company is now done by AI.

[Jack Armstrong]

Oh, my God.

[Joe Getty]

He is an evangelist for Universal Basic Income and said during the pandemic that he sees COVID 19 stimulus checks as a model for broader income distribution. Wow, Mark, do you even read the news?

[Jack Armstrong]

But. So you emphasized the you and universal. I wasn't picturing that. So we're all going to get a chunk of the money. Well, then how about it's not going.

[Joe Getty]

To be welfare, it's just going to float everybody.

[Jack Armstrong]

But. Well, fine, but if you don't have a job that was affected by AI, I'm assuming this is enough to live on is the point they're making. I mean, right? So if, if you don't have a job affected by AI, why would you keep working your job? Won't everybody quit?

[Joe Getty]

Well, see, that's the thing. Benioff actually sees it as more of a welfare program. He wrote that automation will drive income inequality, one of the most overused and stupid terms anywhere, and necessitate supplemental Income, quote, for those who cannot be retrained and even those traditionally not compensated for raising a family or volunteering to help others. In other words, a massive amount of wealth will be available and politicians will decide who gets what. They will route it to cronies and keep a fair amount for themselves. It will just be, you know, uncountable scads of money. Now, there are critics. Not all of Silicon Valley is on board. Here's David Autor, labor economist at mit, said the hypothetical society in which the majority of income is distributed from a few sources is frightening in a political fantasy land. AI leaders support universal income because, quote, they think they're going to put everyone out of work and they don't have a better idea for what to do about that. He said this.

[Jack Armstrong]

Yeah, this is a. That's a. This whole thing you've described is completely unworkable in any realistic sense. So I. Is anybody thinking about this? Is Congress thinking about this? They should be, if they're not.

[Joe Getty]

Interestingly, venture capitalist Marc Andreessen is my man in this. He says that man was meant to be useful, to be productive, to be proud. And if AI transforms every job, that's going to be a serious, serious challenge.

[Jack Armstrong]

That's the big world's biggest understatement. Serious challenge.

[Joe Getty]

Yeah, I'd say.

[Jack Armstrong]

Again, I don't know if I buy this story in the Washington Post today. It's happening. People are starting to talk like. Talk like Chat GPT. Actually, I don't believe this at all. And I use Chat GPT probably more than the average person. It says here, if you use Chat GPT, Claude, Gemini or other AI powered chatbots. So, Claude. Which one's Claude?

[Joe Getty]

That's. It's a big one. I can't remember whose that is, but I always start. It's always on the list.

[Jack Armstrong]

I need to try that. I try. I try Chat GBT and I do grok, but I haven't done the other ones. Anyway, it says you're probably operating under the assumption that you're both speaking the same language. You input English, it outputs English. Except that's a misconception. You actually been speaking different languages. I find this fascinating. Rather than processing text like a human, the chatbot turns your prompt into an embedding, a group of numbers represented in a vector space, kind of like coordinates on a map. But just as a map is a representation of representation of territory, this embedding is a flattened representation of language. The chatbot then formulates a reply, making a word by word prediction based on how it was trained to answer past inputs. It sounds like it's thinking and talking, but it's not. So this prediction the chat the chatbot is making draws on biased training data. The specific texts it learns from, biased reinforcement learning, the feedback it receives. Ultimately, what looks like English to you is really just, you know, trying to take human speech and make it sound real. But it's using the predictions based on all the inputs that can be flawed, which we all need to recognize like immediately. I think it's too late already. But the examples they give in here about how we're starting to talk like Chat GPT, which again, I don't think is happening. Chat GPT uses the word delve at higher rates than people use when writing or speaking English, according to a study.

[Joe Getty]

And well, we should examine comma, further study, comma, look more into that.

[Jack Armstrong]

But now people are starting to use it more often, according to this researcher in articles and speech, because Chat GPT used it more often. So it's pushing the way we talk more towards the way it talks. And the checkers say that delve has become more common in speech since ChatGPT launched and Delve is just one example of words that he uses. Do you buy that at all? I just don't buy this at all.

[Joe Getty]

I don't know. I read the same piece and it says that part of it is that the people who look over these systems that are like the employees of the large language model companies are often low wage workers from like Nigeria and Kenya, where delve is used at a higher rate than in American or British English. I don't know. I don't think other examples intricate, commendable and meticulous, but I don't think I've.

[Jack Armstrong]

Picked up any sayings or words from the chat bots that I just find that impossible to believe. I do think that we all need to recognize that it's all about. It predicts the next word based on all the inputs it's been getting from all these different sources. And it's not actually thinking.

[Joe Getty]

Right, but. Right.

[Jack Armstrong]

You know, especially if you're using the audio one. It sounds like a person and it calls me buddy. So.

[Joe Getty]

Well, and if it predicts the answer that I'm looking for, great.

[Jack Armstrong]

Right, Right.

[Joe Getty]

It's not thinking, it's not intelligence at all. It's just a glorified mad lib.

Armstrong and Gettysburg. The Armstrong and Getty show.

One of my favorite books I've ever read about politics is the Myth of the Rational Voter. In the first chunk of it, the Main argument of it is, and it's indisputable by the data, that there are certain economics ideas and principles that people get wrong in much greater numbers than they get right for some reason, like rent control. Like that con man, communist. The communist, if you will. Zoran Mumdani in New York is trying to pitch you hit people, young people with rent control. They will, in overwhelming numbers, say that's a great idea. But then a little education, a little life experience, they understand, oh, it's a terrible idea. It's like the worst idea. But generation after generation, people fall for certain economic arguments over and over again. It's kind of interesting. Anyway, I'm reminded of that when, when thinking about what we're going to play for you, believe it or not, it's a golfer at a press conference, what, Scotty Scheffler, who is the greatest golfer on the planet. And more on that in a minute. But when it comes to what will make me happy, I think a lot of human beings, most of us, are like those youngsters who think rent control is a good idea. Generation after generation, we chase the wrong things. Yeah.

[Jack Armstrong]

This segment is about life satisfaction, not about golf.

[Joe Getty]

Yeah, yeah. Oh, it's not. Oh, my God. I was going to go into a long discourse over the draw versus the fade. Anyway, those are golf terms. Anyway. Yeah, it's about life satisfaction. And so Scott Scheffler, who is the greatest golfer on the planet currently and very, very well liked because he's very normal as a dude, happens to be a fairly devout Christian and a family man, as you're about to hear, very much. Not like Tiger the Assassin. He's. He's a great competitor and the rest of it, but he's kind of a different guy. Anyway, they were asking him about his super achievements this year and previous years at a press conference, and this is what he said. We'll start with 16, go from there.

[Scottie Scheffler]

Michael, you know, I think it's kind of funny. I think, you know, I think I said something after the Byron this year about, like, it feels like you work your whole life to celebrate winning a tournament for, like, a few minutes. It only lasts a few minutes, that kind of euphoric feeling and like, to win the Byron Nelson Championship at home. I literally worked my entire life to become good at golf, to have an opportunity to win that tournament. And you win it, you celebrate, get to hug my family, my sister's there. It's such an amazing moment. And then it's like, okay, now, now what are we gonna eat for dinner? You know, life goes on.

[Joe Getty]

Go ahead, roll on.

[Scottie Scheffler]

Is it great to be able to win tournaments and to accomplish the things I have in the game of golf yet? I mean, it. It brings tears my eyes just to think about, because it's literally worked my entire life to become good at the sport and to have that kind of sense of accomplishment, I think is. Is a pretty cool feeling. You know, to get to live out your dreams is very special. But at the end of the day, it's like, I'm not out here to inspire the next generation of golfers. I don't. I'm not here to inspire somebody else to be the best player in the world, because what's the point? You know, this is not a fulfilling life. It's. It's fulfilling from the sense of accomplishment, but it's not fulfilling from a sense of, like, the deepest, you know, places of your heart. You know, there's a lot of people that make it to what they thought was going to fulfill them in life. And then you get there, and all of a sudden you get to number one in the world, and then they're like, what's the point? And, you know, I really do believe that.

[Jack Armstrong]

I think. I think most everybody has had that experience or has that experience at some point. You get the. Whatever it is you've been wanting to get. And, okay, h. The satisfaction of that didn't last very long, and you have to wrestle with, what am I. You know, what. What am I doing? Or what do I enjoy? Or why am I. Why am I getting up every morning?

[Joe Getty]

Right?

[Jack Armstrong]

And it's the process and just the daily life. My dad was always really good at this. It just, you know, he's using the example of taking out the trash. People don't like to complain about doing this and that. And that's what life is. Life is taking out the trash and doing the dishes and getting up and going to work and raising your. Only things that you do that seem like they're in the way of you.

[Joe Getty]

That's what life is, right? Right. Let's throw along.

[Scottie Scheffler]

You know, what is the point? Like, why do I want to win this tournament so bad? That's something that I wrestle with on a daily basis. It's like showing up with the Masters every year. It's like, why do I want to win this golf tournament so badly? Why do I want to win the Open Championship so badly? I don't know. Because if I win, it's going to be awesome for about two minutes, and then we're going to get to the next week. And it's going to be like, hey, you won two majors this year. How important is it for you to win the FedEx cup playoffs? And it's just like, we're back here again, you know, so we really do. We work so hard for such little moments. And, you know, I'm kind of a sicko. I love putting in the work. I love being able to practice. I love getting out to live out my dreams. But at the end of the day, sometimes I just don't understand the point, you know, because.

[Joe Getty]

I don't know if.

[Scottie Scheffler]

I'm making any sense or not. But am I not? It's just one of those deals, you know, I love the challenge. I love being able to play this game for a living. It's one of the greatest joys of my life. But does it fill the deepest wants and desires of my heart? Absolutely not. I mean, I love playing golf. I love being able to compete. I love living out my dreams. I love being a father. I love being able to take care of my son. I love being able to provide for my family out here playing golf. And, you know, every day when I wake up early to go put in the work, you know, my wife thanks me for going out and working so hard. And when I get home, I try and thank her every day for taking care of our son. It's just. That's why I talk about family as being my priority, because it really is. I'm blessed to be able to come out here and play golf. But if my golf ever started affecting my home life or it ever affected the relationship I have with my wife or with my son, that's going to be the last day that I play out here for a living. This is not the be all, end all. This is not the most important thing in my life. And that's why I wrestle with. Why is this so important to me? Because I would much rather be a great father than I would be a great golfer. At the end of the day, that that's what's more important to me.

[Joe Getty]

So, just to summarize, I think a lot of us, and I mean us. Oh, let me put this aside. Yeah, the money's pretty good. He's made a hell of a lot of money. He lives a great lifestyle. He doesn't have to worry about money ever again, which is a big deal if you've ever or are currently worried about money. I get that. But having said that, I think all of us think happiness is the, like, the triumph or that's what we're looking for or the falling in love or the big win or the fame or the congratulations from the crowd or your contemporaries, your colleagues even, but it's. It's not there. Right.

[Jack Armstrong]

So one thing that popped into my mind is it reminded me of Woody Allen talking a lot in his book. Woody Allen is a movie director, one of the most famous movie directors of all time. If you don't know who he is. Anyway, in his autobiography that he wrote a couple of years ago, he. He loved making movies the way this guy loves practicing and, you know, the process. But like, he'd finish the movie and be like. He just say he's done and move on to the next one. He's like, no enjoyment in the finished product. He'd never watch them. He would never pay any attention to the reviews. It was just the process was the only thing that there was an enjoyment. The, the, the thing that most. Well, I don't know if most people, but a lot of people think would be where you get the enjoyment. The finished product or the winning the tournament or becoming the top salesman or whatever is not what you think it was going to be.

[Joe Getty]

Yeah, you can get quiet satisfaction out of it, like he was talking about. But the idea of like constant joy. Is that the right word? You know, happiness, slash euphoria slash cheerfulness slash excitement. That's just. That's not what we need to chase because it's illusory. It goes away so quickly. You know, it was kind of. It passed by so quickly, but I can relate to. And it's a great description. So he wins a super giant golf tournament that, that millions of people around the world just dream of being good enough to win that tournament, having the acclaim, getting the check, blah, blah, blah. And then, you know, half an hour later, it's like, what do you want to have for dinner? That's pretty good description of the way life really is. Yeah, it's about the people you care about. I mean, isn't that just the bottom line?

[Jack Armstrong]

Yeah. So. And I get, I get. Well, I guess the ultimate point would be you have to enjoy the process of life. Not making a movie or becoming a golfer or whatever, or whatever it is you do. Just process a life. The daily grind, which is what it feels like a lot of times, is what life is. And you gotta find if you're waiting for the payoff, it ain't coming.

[Joe Getty]

Oh, folks, that was the payoff. The payoff is there's no payoff. Kirk Bluey.

[Jack Armstrong]

That should be taught more. I think that's Not. I think that's the opposite of what our culture tends to tell us.

[Joe Getty]

Right, right, right. The movie doesn't end. There's no end to the movie. Your part is just written out. Now if you want to get metaphysical and talk about religion and life after death or whatever, that's a completely different topic. But no, you don't win. You never. You never win. You just keep playing. Maybe that's how I would sum it up. And if you so enjoy it the best you can.

[Jack Armstrong]

Well, I think part of the reason that a person like Ian not to bring it back to golf. But you could apply this to anybody. A guy like Tiger woods goes off the rails. I think he was probably convinced that the payoff was going to be the payoff and the thing 100 and it wasn't enough. And so he needed all the women and the. And whatever all other weird things he was doing to try to get the high that he needed.

[Joe Getty]

Yeah, he wanted that fist pumping yelling moment to like last.

[Jack Armstrong]

Yeah.

[Joe Getty]

That was the goal.

[Jack Armstrong]

So to the idea that there is no payoff. Here's. Here's the. You know, here's the key thing to know about life. There is no payoff. Can. How many of us can you look at the day to day And I've got a very mundane routine day work. Got an appointment with something, somebody's gonna come fix something on my car, blah, blah, blah. Take care of the kids, meal for Sam. Can I. Can you get up every day and think, today is the payoff. This is the payoff. Today is my payoff. Is that motivating?

[Joe Getty]

It's hard.

[Jack Armstrong]

That is hard.

[Joe Getty]

Yeah.

[Jack Armstrong]

I don't know. I blew my own mind.

[Joe Getty]

The great philosophers of the world have concerned themselves with this very question and they've come up with different answers.

[Jack Armstrong]

I may have immobilized myself. I may no longer. I might not be able to function the rest of the day. I'm gonna lock up and they're gonna carry me out of here on a gurney.

[Joe Getty]

Ironic.

[Jack Armstrong]

Yeah. That would be unfortunate.

[Joe Getty]

Jack Armstrong and Joe Getty. The Armstrong and get the Armstrong and Getty show.

And this is the reason I am disgusted and embittered. This is the most sausagey of sausage making. If you're familiar with the. The old reference to politics. Here's your headline from the WA. Paul, I'm going to read you just a little bit because it's kind of revealing of at least a couple of things. Trump's Tax and Immigration Bill clears hurdle after late Night vote the House Budget Committee passed a Massive tax and immigration package central to President Trump's agenda. Late Sunday, overcoming opposition from hardline conservatives, overspending four fiscal conservatives, all deficit hawks aligned with the ultra conservative House Freedom Caucus changed their vote to present allowing the legislative monstrosity. I injected that package to be recommended favorably to the House by a vote of 17 to 16. But their hesitants to vote for the one big beautiful bill act out of committee is a reminder that the far right flank of the Republican conference remains skeptical.

[Jack Armstrong]

It's interesting they call these people ultra conservative of right wing when not very many years ago you would have been the center of the Republican Party. I mean, that would have, I mean that's like what the Republican Party was. It was, it was, it was a term you would have used to define the party.

[Joe Getty]

In fact, it was so intrinsic to the Republican Party, you'd feel silly even repeating what you just repeated.

[Jack Armstrong]

Right.

[Joe Getty]

There's no need.

[Jack Armstrong]

Fiscally conservative. But I suppose in reality, given where most of the party is, they are ultra right wing or ultra conservative because the bulk of the party doesn't care, apparently. And apparently not voters.

[Joe Getty]

So spending your children, grandchildren into tax and spend oblivion. Well, all right.

[Jack Armstrong]

Well, this story got repeated a lot over the weekend that we got downgraded on one of our credit scores by one of the major organizations that does that sort of thing.

[Joe Getty]

Organization, yeah.

[Jack Armstrong]

And over the weekend it kind of got put out there that it was like a Trump thing because of tariffs or whatever. It was basically around the fact that.

[Joe Getty]

Our debt is just so high.

[Jack Armstrong]

It's just like what happened to you if you go to the bank and, and, and they take a look at your, well, you've got, with your car payments now you bought like eight cars and two houses and you're just, you're just over maxed.

[Joe Getty]

So we have $80,000 in credit card bills and you only make 90 a year.

[Jack Armstrong]

Right, right. So they just downgraded because you just spend more than you make. That's what happened. It's, that didn't happen just in the last hundred days under Trump. We've been building this for a long time.

[Joe Getty]

And the final reason I am completely embittered about the Republican Party and politics and America and democracy and life on earth is the fact that. And it's a two part horror show. Part number one is that there are a bunch of swing district Republicans from big blue states, California and New York, most notably, who are not only trying to defend the idea of the salt deduction, the state and local tax deduction, they want to raise it from $10,000 to at least $30,000 and maybe $50,000. Meaning if you live in a tax and spend lunatic state like, say, California, all of those incredibly high taxes you're paying you can deduct from your federal tax return. So the other states will subsidize the tax and spend lunacy of New York and California.

[Jack Armstrong]

So my brothers in Kansas pay some of my taxes because I live in California. That makes sense. Yeah.

[Joe Getty]

You get a giant subsidy from the other states, you pay a lower federal tax rate, significantly lower, depending on, you know, how much money you make than folks in fiscally responsible states as indefensible. Morally, it's indefensible as a. For Republican reason, not the party. But the idea of we have a federal system than states and the states can do what they want and they should do what they want. It's fine. If Massachusetts wants to have a 65% income tax, go ahead. I'm not living there, but go ahead. But then to transfer that profligacy to the other states is. It's a horror. And as a conservative slash Republican, he says, trying not to vomit because of my embitteredness, the idea that that is a plank of the Republican Party, I'm done.

[Jack Armstrong]

It's. It's hard to swallow. I mean, it. You know, it would help Joe and I if this happens financially, but it's awful. Absolutely awful. You, I believe you can't defend it.

[Joe Getty]

No, it's, it's, it's, it's. I am horrified. I don't care how much it would benefit me. God bless me, I have principles. It's really held me back in life. Jack, too. I just, I. I'm done. I'm done.

[Jack Armstrong]

Yeah, it's. Well, like I said last week, Sarah Isger of the Dispatch, I heard her on a podcast. They're having this discussion about parties and she said there are no political parties.

[Joe Getty]

What are we talking about here? Yeah, I need to seek that out because I think she nailed it absolutely 100%.

[Jack Armstrong]

There are no political parties. There's just whoever emerges as the candidate cycle by cycle, and then whatever they believe the party goes along with. And it's true on both sides. So the idea that there are parties that stand for something, we need to all move past that.

[Joe Getty]

From my hero, H.L. mencken. Every election is a sort of advance auction sale of stolen goods. It's always been true. There was a time when a certain party had certain principles that I admired.

[Jack Armstrong]

Do you have.

[Joe Getty]

Time has passed. You know what? My. My high school sweetheart college sweetheart. My wife of 40 years is. When she's not turning tricks, she's killing people for the mob. Okay? She's not the woman I felt. This is, by the way, a fictional illustration. Has nothing to do with my beloved bride, Judith.

[Jack Armstrong]

She's not the person she was.

[Joe Getty]

Forget it. It's over.

[Jack Armstrong]

So move on. Get up.

[Joe Getty]

Get an AI girlfriend, like a normal person. And a love bot or something.

[Jack Armstrong]

A high girlfriend, like a normal Jack.

[Joe Getty]

Armstrong and Joe Getty. The Armstrong and Getty Show.

This is an iHeart podcast.