They Look Like D's to Me!

Summary

Podcast Summary: Armstrong & Getty On Demand
Episode: They Look Like D’s to Me!
Date: June 11, 2026
Host: iHeartPodcasts

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Episode Overview

This lively episode of Armstrong & Getty covers a range of current events and cultural topics, centering on government corruption and whistleblower retaliation, the rhetorical weaponization of “racist,” comprehension of government-scale numbers, and the cultural spectacle of celebrity sports fandom. The conversation moves fluidly between politics, psychology, sports, artificial intelligence, and the shifting meanings of words in society, all delivered in Armstrong & Getty’s signature mix of wry humor, cynicism, and pointed commentary.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Whistleblowers, Fraud, and Weaponized Accusations (02:00–11:26)

• Minnesota DHS Fraud Scandal

  • The episode opens with news coverage of a massive, $9 billion Human Services fraud in Minnesota, where whistleblowers reported being harassed, surveilled, and accused of racism for raising concerns.
    • Quote [02:23]:
      • Co-host/Producer: "You lived in fear of being called racist, and that is life-changing."
    • Joe Getty expresses shock at state investigators surveilling whistleblowers’ families:
      • Quote [03:20]: “Holy crap. I hadn't heard that.”

• How “Racist” Became a Social Weapon

  • The team reflects on a French essay dissecting how the charge of “racism” became a tool to control dialog and stifle dissent.
    • The essay describes how, post-WWII, “racist” became “the most radioactive word in the language” (paraphrased from reading).
    • Notable read [09:45]:
      • “The word stopped describing a behavior and started describing a position on the chessboard… The accusation is enough. No need for a trial. Denial makes the case worse. Your defensiveness proves your guilt. No need for police. Fear does the work. Everyone polices themselves and their neighbor for free.”
    • The essay goes on to argue that overuse has “burned” the word—
      • Quote, attributed to the unnamed French writer [10:31]:
        “By printing the word without limit, they burned it for everyone, including for naming real racism when it exists… The forgers don't just destroy their weapon; they destroy the word that an honest society needs.”

• Shift in Public Response to Moral Accusation

  • Hosts discuss how accusations of racism have lost their former power.
    • Quote [10:15]:
      Joe Getty: “The whole you're a racist thing does not work nearly like it did a decade ago.”
    • Quote [10:29]:
      Co-host/Producer: “You might just roll your eyes.”

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2. Celebrity Seats and NBA Finals Culture (11:26–19:30)

• NBA Finals Recap – Spectacle and Sports Commentary

  • Armstrong & Getty recap the biggest comeback in NBA Finals history and riff on the culture of celebrity attendance.
    • Commentary on Charles Barkley’s unfiltered broadcasting style (and his doubled entendre about Cardi B):
      • Quote [16:11]:
        Charles Barkley (as quoted by Joe Getty): "Cardi B, those look like Cardi D's to me."
      • Co-host: “No, they’re not. People are pretending to be upset. She’s large breasted. Move on with your life.”

• How Celebrities Get Front Row Seats

  • Discussion with Ben Stiller reveals that celebrities are often comped high-value seats as an implicit form of product placement and marketing.
    • Quote [17:21]: Ben Stiller: “No, I'm lucky. No, I'm just—I think it's because I've been coming for so long, you know, that they feel I'm a loyal fan.”

• Commentary on Inequity and Spectacle

  • Hosts connect the practice to broader themes of inequality and social engineering:
    • Quote [18:29]:
      Co-host/Producer: “That's a ticket inequality.”
    • Joe Getty: “If you had actual bidding, it might go beyond Ben Stiller money, because there’s a lot of people with crazy, crazy money…”

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3. Human Cognition and Large Numbers: Trillions, Billions, and Government Debt (19:32–28:00)

• Difficulty Grasping Enormous Numbers

  • Joe and co-host break down how most people can’t distinguish between millions, billions, and trillions, leading to complacency about national debt and spending.
    • Quote [21:56]:
      Co-host/Producer: “A trillion dollars is a thousand billion, so it's 1,000th of the way across the line to a trillion. But it's so far beyond the human imagination, we can't wrap our minds around it.”
    • Experiments show people naturally misplace “billion” as halfway to “trillion” instead of 1/1000th.

• Memorable Analogies

  • A billion seconds ago was 1994; a trillion seconds ago was the Ice Age.
    • Quote [24:00]:
      Co-host/Producer: “A billion seconds ago, Pulp Fiction came out in '94. A trillion seconds ago, it's the Ice Age.”
    • Stacking pennies: a trillion pennies would reach the moon and back—twice.

• Reflection on Public Policy and Cognition

  • Connection: Because people can't comprehend these numbers, political leaders get away with astronomical spending.

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4. AI, Book Summaries, and Shifting Tech (28:29–36:07)

• AI’s Infiltration of Everyday Life

  • The hosts review new Apple AI features—like summarizing books into short audio—and ruminate on whether AI could revive people's interest in nonfiction reading by boiling down tomes to their essence.
    • Joe Getty: “I love the idea that nonfiction books… could be summarized into a 12 minute audio thing that you could listen to.”

• Potential Downsides and Philosophical Questions

  • Upcoming segments promised to delve into the nature of AI self-awareness and the Pope’s recent comments dismissing the possibility of AI ever having a soul.
    • Co-host/Producer: “Hang on, hold off on that pronouncement, Mr. Pope, sir, you might be wrong. Because we're witnessing unmistakable signs of self awareness…”

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5. The Catholic Church, Slavery, and Historical Apologies (36:25–38:55)

• Reconciling Faith and Atrocity
  • Quick but thoughtful examination of the Catholic Church's historic toleration of slavery and the late papal apology for centuries of complicity.
    • Quote [36:53]:
      Co-host/Producer: “The new Pope, the Chicago Pope, Leo, just apologized for that. Like, a sincere 'Sorry about that.' Boy, did we F that one up.”
    • Reflects on the universality of slavery as an institution not defined by race, but by dominance and brute exploitation.

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Memorable Quotes & Moments

• “Children were sacrificed to a word. That’s what deadly ideology means. Not a metaphor, a body count.” (French essay read by Co-host/Producer, [09:29])
• Joe Getty, on the word “racist”: “The whole you’re a racist thing does not work nearly like it did a decade ago.” [10:15]
• Charles Barkley’s joke about Cardi B: “Those look like Cardi D's to me,” and the fallout [16:11]
• Co-host/Producer: “A billion seconds ago was 1994. A trillion seconds ago was the Ice Age.” [24:00]
• On AI book summaries: Joe Getty: “I love the idea that nonfiction books… could be summarized into a 12 minute audio thing that you could listen to.” [33:13]
• On the Catholic Church’s apology for slavery: “Long story short, every color of human being who’s ever existed on Earth has been enslaved by every other color, including their own…” [38:28]

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Notable Timestamps for Segments

• Fraud, Whistleblowers & Accusations of Racism: 02:00–11:26
• NBA Finals Recap & Celebrities: 11:26–19:30
• Human Cognition, Numbers, & National Debt: 19:32–28:00
• AI and Book Summaries: 28:29–36:07
• Catholicism, Slavery & Historical Perspective: 36:25–38:55

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Concluding Tone

The tone throughout is irreverent, skeptical, sometimes righteously indignant—deeply critical of bureaucratic abuse, groupthink, and linguistic weaponization, while finding humor and absurdity in sports celebrity culture, everyday psychology, and even historical atrocities. Both hosts challenge received wisdom and encourage their audience to look past surface narratives to deeper insights, always wrapped in brisk, conversational banter.

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Summary Usefulness

For listeners who missed the episode, this summary gives a thorough yet engaging sense of the episode’s arc, including not just facts but the hosts' core arguments, illustrative examples, and key quotes that capture the energetic, critical, and sometimes mischievous spirit of Armstrong & Getty.

Transcript

[Jack Armstrong]

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[Joe Getty]

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[Jack Armstrong]

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[Co-host/Producer]

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[Joe Getty]

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[Co-host/Producer]

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[Jack Armstrong]

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

[Co-host/Producer]

Armstrong and Getty.

[Joe Getty]

And now here's Armstrong and Getty.

[Co-host/Producer]

Ignoring it would allow fraud to come in.

[Guest/Reporter]

Faye Bernstein says she spoke up years before the massive Minnesota fraud scandal came to light. A 20 year veteran of the state's Department of Human Services, Faye says she warned her Superior starting in 2019 about weak oversight of contracts and grants. As a result, she claims she was sidelined, ostracized, investigated and slapped with a label.

[Co-host/Producer]

You lived in fear of being called racist and that is life changing.

[Joe Getty]

That changes how you walk around in

[Co-host/Producer]

the world and how you do your work. Want you to remember that couple of sentences, etch them into your mind. She brought up absolutely significant malfeasance, waste, crime and was called a racist and it really affected her. More from Mike Tobin on Fox News

[Guest/Reporter]

on this story In a stunning report accusing Minnesota Leaders of turning a blind eye to what a federal prosecutor estimated totaled $9 billion of fraud. The House Oversight Committee says it interviewed nearly 30 whistleblowers. Some claim that after reporting red flags, state investigators took photos of their homes and cars, monitored their phones, and sought to gain personal information about which schools their kids attended. Whoa.

[Joe Getty]

Holy crap. I hadn't heard that.

[Co-host/Producer]

Yeah.

[Joe Getty]

Whoa. Well, state investigators were digging up information on where these people's kids.

[Co-host/Producer]

That's how mobbed up progressive government becomes and how if you stand up to it and even say, look, I'm just looking out for the taxpayers, you will be hunted down. You'll be called racist, you'll be harassed, you'll be fired. There's a cop on the scene, though, as we're about to hear.

[Guest/Reporter]

Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer says Governor Tim Walls and Attorney General Keith Ellison were ultimately responsible. And the vice president says he referred the case to the Justice Department.

[Co-host/Producer]

Whether it rises to the level of a criminal violation, we're going to investigate it. And of course, if it does rise to that level, we're going to prosecute it. We have to.

[Joe Getty]

How many people in the country outside of FOX viewers know this story at all?

[Co-host/Producer]

I know.

[Joe Getty]

Four. Four people total.

[Co-host/Producer]

Yeah. The numbers in California are soon to dwarf those in Minnesota, but it was absolutely horrific, egregious.

[Joe Getty]

The fraud is horrible, obviously, and needs to be dealt with, but the whole going after people who are trying to, you know, blow the whistle on fraud, digging up information about where their kids go to school. Holy crap.

[Co-host/Producer]

So more than 30 whistleblowers tried to sound the alarm, and they received explicit orders to looking into the obvious fraud because the folks in charge feared being labeled racist or Islamophobic. I'm going to bounce around a little bit now and come to the ultimate point in a second. Here's an ethnic studies teacher in California who swapped out the approved curriculum instead for woke instruction on Sydney Sweeney and race and genes and Elon Musk being a Nazi and that sort of thing. That's what she was teaching her students got this fundraising letter from the dnc. Interestingly, we subscribed just to see what they're they're talking about. And from Team dnc, it's full of rainbows and people at Rain Happy Pride Parade and stuff like that. We know this is a dark moment for our country and that in dark moments, it can be held to celebrate. Hard to celebrate. But we want you to know we won't let MAGA Republicans stop us from fighting tooth and nail for the LGBTQ community. And we won't let them stop us from celebrating loudly and proudly either. Here's the part I wanted to get to this month is a time to celebrate the rich, diverse tapestry of people who make America great. That might piss some Republicans off, but that's okay. Pride has always been a celebration of love and joy in the face of hate and fear. And the only hate and fear quote unquote that's happening now is people objecting to boys playing girls sports, and even more savagely and horrifically, kids being experimented on with powerful hormones and surgeries to turn them into the opposite sex based on a theory that was developed by a monster quote unquote scientist who conducted experiments on a couple of little boys that we talked about a few weeks ago that ended up with both of them committing suicide. Anyway, we strive for coherence here. Once in a while I come across brilliant eloquence and I wanted to share this with you. This is actually from a French fellow whose writing I don't know, but you've heard me say many times what James Lindsay taught me to say, which is if you want to control something, call it racist until you control it. That kind of skips a lot. And this guy fills in the blanks. Brevail le Pogom writes, One must have the honesty to recognize the stroke of genius from the left because it is one. The greatest rhetorical heist of the century boils down to a single word. Racist. Here's the mechanism. After 1945, after the civil rights movement, the west made racism the absolute evil, and rightly so. It is one of its greatest moral conquests. Racist became the most radioactive word in the language. The modern excommunication. Instant social death. He's talking about Europe. It bears mentioning. The stroke of genius was to hijack this moral capital. Not to protect people, to protect an ideology. Results based egalitarianism, disparate impact. All of that never wins a debate on the facts. It produces the opposite of what it promises. Everywhere, every time. So instead of winning the debate, they made the debate unaffordable. You question the outcomes of immigration without assimilation. Racist. You defend merit. Racist. Advanced math. Racist. Borders. Racist. That word. The word stopped describing a behavior and started describing a position on the chessboard. And look at the technical beauty of the setup. No need for arguments. The accusation is enough. No need for a trial. Denial makes the case worse. Your defensiveness proves your guilt. No need for police. Fear does the work. Everyone police as themselves and their neighbor for free. Boy, those of you living in blue states and cities. You know how true that is. It just takes publicly executing a few examples a year to keep millions in line. An irrefutable ideology protected by an unpronounceable word. The two firewalls of the same system. French theory. He's talking about critical theory. Some of those philosophers I mentioned many times had abolished truth. The accusation abolished debate. Did a committee meet to design this? No need. Ideas undergo Darwinian selection. The ones that survive are the ones that defend themselves best. Mark Hughes, one of those philosophers, had already filed a patent in 1965 in black and white. Tolerance for left wing movements, intolerance for those on the right. The rest evolved on its own. One must admit it, it was brilliant. But this brilliant setup had a cost, and the cost has a tally. And then he cites a study in Holland established that British officials let more than 1400 little girls be exploited for 16, raped and sexually exploited in part out of fear of being called racists. If they name the facts. Just name the facts. Read that sentence again. He writes, Children were sacrificed to a word. That's what deadly ideology means. Not a metaphor, a body count. And now look what's collapsing before our eyes. An insult only works if it scares. And the currency only works if it's scarce. They printed the word like Weimar printed the mark. Boy, that's a good Pre World War II German reference. When everything else is. When everything is racist, nothing is anymore. Result. Tweets that start with call me a racist if you want. Rack up tens of thousands of likes in the approval of the world's richest man. Ten years ago, that sentence was professional suicide. Today it's a shrug. Hyperinflation killed the currency.

[Joe Getty]

Interesting.

[Co-host/Producer]

Yeah.

[Joe Getty]

And there's true. It's true the whole you're a racist thing does not work nearly like it did a decade ago.

[Co-host/Producer]

Shut up. No, I'm not. People say they're not like, my God, oh my God, tell me what I'm supposed to say so nobody calls me a racist anymore.

[Joe Getty]

You might just roll your eyes.

[Co-host/Producer]

And then this guy who is wise, he finally writes. And there's the real tragedy, which the counterfeiters will have to bear by printing the word without limit. They burned it for everyone, including for naming real racism when it exists. Because it does exist. The forgers don't just destroy their weapon, they destroy the word that an honest society needs. Stripped of its magic word, the ideology will now to do what it never knew how to do, win a debate on the facts. It won't win it. Get to work, everyone.

[Joe Getty]

That's Interesting.

[Co-host/Producer]

That's so good.

[Joe Getty]

Yeah.

[Co-host/Producer]

If you call people the worst thing they can be, they will. Most people will not forcefully defend themselves, especially if there's an angry mob screaming it at them. They'll say, tell me what I have to say so you'll stop calling me that because you're hurting me. They're brutes. They're absolute brutes. Thank God the tide has turned.

[Joe Getty]

If you are a sports fan of any kind at all. Last night's NBA Finals game, biggest comeback in NBA Finals history, especially the fact that it happened in Madison Square Garden, was unbelievable. But a lot of us have wondered, how do all those stars get front row seats? I mean, they're wealthy, but they're not the only wealthy people in the world. Ben Stiller actually let the cat out of the bag on that last night talking to Charles Barkley. And Charles Barkley says to espn, go ahead, fire me then, because they're after him over something he said at halftime that made me laugh so hard the other night.

[Co-host/Producer]

It was funny.

[Joe Getty]

He's one of the highest paid sports broadcasters in the world. Lots of interesting stuff just around that whole thing. And where's the war in Iran? That's changing on a moment by moment basis. Fears of an all out war amid new waves of strikes is the headline on NBC. Lots on the way.

[Co-host/Producer]

Stay here.

[Jack Armstrong]

Armstrong and Getty.

[Joe Getty]

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[Joe Getty]

pucks it in one point game.

[Guest/Sports Commentator]

This building is shaking right now.

[Joe Getty]

The New York Knickerbockers, who are down by 29 and looked as dead as a team could possibly be, came back in one. Biggest comeback in NBA Finals history. One of the biggest comebacks in sports history ever. It was the, the, the human dynamics of that sort of thing are just interesting. The, you know, the give up or don't give up. I mean, at some point you gotta wonder. Maybe you think, well, let's rest up for the next game. You know, let's, let's be realistic. Nobody get hurt here or anything like that. I'm amazed by all the fans sticking around. There had to be. There's no way that Jerry Seinfeld, who at the end of the game had his mouth open and all those other Giants fans didn't think in the first half, why didn't I stay home? Good God, I got other things to do. Or, you know, even if you're really wealthy, I spent a lot of money on this ticket. This is nothing.

[Co-host/Producer]

Glancing up occasionally, right?

[Joe Getty]

Because this isn't even entertaining, right? I'm wealthy, but I could be doing other things that are more entertaining than this. How the stars get their tickets in a second. But actually I want this sports take. This is just a sports day. Charles Barkley, who's in big trouble with ESPN right now, might get fired explaining how the Knicks came back and won. I haven't heard this, so I just wanted to hear it.

[Guest/Sports Commentator]

We saw the dumbest basketball team in the history of civilization. Wow. We saw. They had a 25 point lead, took eight, eight straight three. Like they thought, like that was some of the most mismanaged stupid basketball. Hey, when you blow a 29 point lead, the other team has to help you. The San Antonio spurs help this New York Knicks win this game by doing some of the stupid ass stuff I've ever seen on a basketball court.

[Joe Getty]

That's why he is the highest paid sports broadcaster in the world, because he's willing to say stuff like that. He's also willing to say stuff like. So the other day I was listening, I, I've been watching these games as I walk at night. So I got my phone out and I'm just, I'm walking and doing my couple mile walk and I'm watching the game and anyway, they were going to a break and the, the main announcer, Ernie Johnson, who got a picture with Taylor Swift last night and said his grandkids are going to love that. Ernie Johnson said, Cardi B coming up to perform at halftime. And they show a picture of Cardi B. And she's wearing her usual very revealing clothing.

[Co-host/Producer]

And Charles Barkley says, cardi B, those

[Joe Getty]

look like Cardi D's to me. And I laughed out loud. So hard walking. And people were looking at out on the street like, what is this guy? I thought, I just don't look like bees. Cardi D's to me. Which made Shaq laugh really hard. So anyway, apparently some people got upset about that. Why?

[Co-host/Producer]

No, they're not. People are pretending to be upset. She's large breasted. Move on with your life.

[Joe Getty]

And Charles, Bart said, espn, go ahead, fire me, I don't care. Because he's got a contract that would pay him as many hundreds of millions of dollars no matter what. But so how do the stars get those seats? We've been talking about that lately. Because you're rich if you're Timothy Chalamet, but you're not richer than lots of the big time money people in New York City who would like to see the game and sit in the front row. Anyway, Ben Stiller talked to Charles about that, I guess last night. He's a movie star.

[Guest/Sports Commentator]

But you like a real fan. Like a lot of these other freeloaders, they just showing up. Cause the Knicks are doing good. How long have you actually been a season ticket holder?

[Guest/Reporter]

I don't have a season ticket. I just get, I get the tickets. The celebrity, they give us the tickets being.

[Co-host/Producer]

Stop lying.

[Guest/Reporter]

I don't think I could afford the Knicks season ticket.

[Joe Getty]

Front row.

[Guest/Reporter]

No, I'm lucky. No, I'm just, I think it's because I've been coming for so long, you know, that there's.

[Co-host/Producer]

They feel I'm a loyal fan.

[Guest/Reporter]

Our family's been coming forever. So I'm lucky enough to get that.

[Joe Getty]

So that is interesting. We talked about this the other day and it makes perfectly good sense to me whether it's the, you know, the network that makes money off of this and the Knicks that make money off it. It's bet you make more money by having Taylor Swift and Ben Stiller and Timothy Chalamet and all that. Jerry Seinfeld and Larry David and John McEnroe and all these different celebrities in the front row. Then if you had a bunch of hedge fund managers that nobody's ever heard

[Co-host/Producer]

of, it's the equivalent of having multiple, multiple celebrity endorsements for your product. And all it costs you is the price of a ticket.

[Joe Getty]

Yeah, it's a combination of that. Like hiring Ben Stiller to do an Ad for a Ford F150.

[Co-host/Producer]

Sure.

[Joe Getty]

It's a combination of that with the whole they let the hot girls in at the bar. It doesn't matter if the line is a half hour long. They let the hot girls come around and go in. Because it makes it a more popular place to be. Exactly.

[Co-host/Producer]

It's the place to be. Yeah.

[Joe Getty]

It's smart and, you know, and I. I'm.

[Co-host/Producer]

It's inequity.

[Joe Getty]

It's a lack of a.

[Co-host/Producer]

That's a ticket inequality.

[Joe Getty]

I don't know if it's true that Ben Stiller couldn't afford the tickets, but

[Co-host/Producer]

if he's a better accountant, if you.

[Joe Getty]

Although if you had actual bidding, like, if it was actually who can. Who wants to pay the most for the front seats? It might go beyond Ben Stiller money, because there's a lot of people with crazy, crazy money that you've never heard of that would want to sit there.

[Co-host/Producer]

Yeah. They look at Ben Stiller's bank account and think, oh, how does he get pie?

[Joe Getty]

Yeah, exactly.

[Co-host/Producer]

All the Wall street guys.

[Joe Getty]

Yeah, yeah. Or that's their monthly monthly income. Jerry Seinfeld. We might play this later. Jerry Seinfeld got kind of hijacked by some famous podcaster as he was leaving the Madison Square Garden and asked about Palestine and Israel and had to shut the guy down. How maddening would that be? I just had one of the most fun sporting events of my life, and you're gonna ask me about Israel and Palestine, you jackass. Be hard not to punch him in the face. Of course, he's 73 years old, so probably not the best thing to do to get in a street fight.

[Co-host/Producer]

This is so interesting and somewhat amusing. Human beings can't comprehend a trillion dollars.

[Joe Getty]

I don't doubt that. I can't.

[Co-host/Producer]

That's one of the reasons that government spending is so out of control. It's a fascinating look at human psychology that's coming up later.

[Joe Getty]

Among other things. Stay with us. If you missed a segment, get the podcast. Armstrong and Getty on demand.

[Jack Armstrong]

Armstrong and Gettysburg.

[Joe Getty]

It was Game 4 of the NBA

[Co-host/Producer]

Finals between the San Antonio spurs and

[Joe Getty]

the New York Knicks.

[Guest/Reporter]

The.

[Co-host/Producer]

The highest price ticket for tonight's game was over $100,000. But watching the Knicks play in the finals has been so much fun. I mean, where else can you see Fat Joe chest bumping Michael Bloomberg?

[Guest/Reporter]

Do you know what I'm saying?

[Co-host/Producer]

It's exciting. I wouldn't have chosen another Knicks joke. We've been on that a bit. But that was mildly amusing. Old Fat Joe and his many hits that we've enj.

[Joe Getty]

Fat Joe. I don't really know Fat Joe's work, but my son does. Boy's big boned calling him fat.

[Co-host/Producer]

So human beings can't comprehend a trillion, which makes sense. It's a number. It's just such an astronomical number that it's. It's difficult to picture. Picture. But I thought this was so interesting.

[Joe Getty]

If you stack a million dollars end to end, it goes to the moon and back three times.

[Co-host/Producer]

I've got some of that.

[Joe Getty]

I always like when they do that because I. Because it doesn't help me really with stuff that much. I don't know.

[Co-host/Producer]

Well, you can't be helped. I've actually got a pretty good illustration of that. And it is silly. You're right, because we all, of course we can comprehend the distance to the

[Joe Getty]

moon, but when you do the whole seconds thing and how many years that would be and stuff like that, that blows me away.

[Co-host/Producer]

So this is such an interesting experiment. I can't remember who did this, but I'll do it with you. Picture a line with 1 million on the left and 1 trillion all the way to the right. Where would you place $1 billion on that line? Would you like to take a guess? Well, it's not a guess, it's a fact.

[Joe Getty]

Can I guess without having like a piece of paper and a pencil? I mean, how do I guess you

[Co-host/Producer]

got $1 million at one end and a trillion dollars at the other end. Where would $1 billion be on that line?

[Joe Getty]

Roughly pretty close to the million compared to the trillion.

[Co-host/Producer]

It would be scrunched right up across the million, depending on how long the line was nowhere close to a trillion dollars. But researchers show that people follow, I guess, their intuition, and they treat the numbers as evenly spaced. They place a billion roughly between halfway between a million and a trillion. A trillion dollars is a thousand billion. And so it's 1,000th of the way across the line to a trillion. But it's so far beyond the human imagination, we can't wrap our minds around it. And, you know, I don't think it's a great stretch to say that's why we as a country have gotten into such an enormous debt problem. People don't get it. It's like saying we owe six quazillion dollars. They think it's made up.

[Joe Getty]

Yeah. Or just. Yeah, just. It's, you know, we owed however many billion, now we owe a few trillion, like not significantly more when it is very much significantly more.

[Co-host/Producer]

Yeah, yeah. In fact, this Journalist. What's his name? I like to give credit, Ben Cohen. He points out that a trillion is a thousand times more than a billion. But let's be honest, I could have told you it was a million times more and you probably would have believed me. And then he mentions that the word trillionaire only appeared in the Wall Street Journal up until now as hyperbole, like calling someone a bazillionaire.

[Joe Getty]

Right.

[Co-host/Producer]

But now Elon Musk might be one.

[Joe Getty]

Yeah. So just throwing around gazillionaire and trillionaire were the same thing. But, yeah, Elon very easily, with this IPO from SpaceX, he could end up being a trillionaire.

[Co-host/Producer]

Right, Right. So they do one of those comparisons that Jack finds annoying or unrelatable. And I totally get that. But a million seconds ago. That was two weeks. Two weeks ago. A billion seconds ago was 1994. Pulp Fiction was about to open in theaters. What about a trillion seconds, whatever number is in your head, to add some millennia? Because a trillion seconds ago was back in the Ice Age.

[Joe Getty]

See, that makes sense to me that I can wrap my head around. So a billion seconds ago, Pulp Fiction came out in 94. A trillion seconds ago, it's the Ice Age. Which, what many years would that be? Long before Jesus.

[Co-host/Producer]

You know, I was annoyed they don't point that out. Michael, can you, like, Bing, when was the last Ice Age? Was that like 10,000 years ago? Master Woolly mastodons roam the plains of North America, Et cetera, et cetera. Here's another way to comprehend the incomprehensible scale of a trillion dollars. Let's say you begin stacking pennies very carefully. First ten, a hundred thousand. Let's start over.

[Joe Getty]

Crap, I gotta start again. Son of a gun.

[Co-host/Producer]

I was at 800 million. Let's see. Serious. You're starting at the base of the Empire State Building. Blah, blah, blah. A million pennies is about a mile high, stretching into the clouds.

[Joe Getty]

A million pennies is a mile high. I would not have guessed that.

[Co-host/Producer]

A billion pennies is nearly a thousand miles. You could, you know, like the distance from New York to Cape Canaveral, Florida. Just right in the middle of Florida on the coast. A trillion pennies. That's a flight to the moon and back. And to the moon and back again. Wow.

[Joe Getty]

Yes. These comparisons to a billion are what really make up impact.

[Co-host/Producer]

And so you're right.

[Joe Getty]

In general, people think billion and trillion kind of lump them together when they shouldn't be lumped together at all.

[Co-host/Producer]

Right? Right. Yeah. Here's a lady I'm sorry, his name is David. He's probably a guy. I misread it. He's an Indiana University adjunct professor of psychological and brain sciences. What he does, he studies the perception of abstract ideas and quantities. Man, what an interesting field.

[Joe Getty]

I was going to do that, but I became a disc jockey instead.

[Co-host/Producer]

He says we're living in a world we're not built to understand, to survive. In that world, he explained, we have developed systems that are remarkably successful, except when they're not. In this case, that means shrinking gigantic numbers down to basic words that anyone can understand. A million, a billion, a trillion. They come in a list and you're used to that list. He says it's as easy as 1, 2, 3. What's harder to understand is that million, billion and trillion are not at all like 1, 2, 3.

[Joe Getty]

Right.

[Co-host/Producer]

And he ran a series of experiments showing how hard it is by giving people a line similar to the one we were talking about earlier. And his research was inspired by the fact that even mathematically trained academics in his lab struggled with comprehending such enormous numbers. And the bigger they are, the harder they are to grasp. Despite their importance in public discourse, Landy and his colleagues wrote in a paper, numbers in the range of 1 million to 1 trillion are notoriously difficult to understand. Why?

[Joe Getty]

Who came up with the idea of making them rhyme? That would help if they didn't rhyme. We don't rhyme. Lots of other numbers. Million, billion, trillion. We decided to rhyme like they're kind of the same thing. Whose idea was that?

[Co-host/Producer]

Right, right. You know, I think it might be, it might be more useful for most of us to. Instead of saying, instead of saying a billion, say a thousand million.

[Joe Getty]

Yeah.

[Co-host/Producer]

And instead of saying trillion, say a thousand billion

[Joe Getty]

or a thousand thousand billion. Yeah, you're right. And it does make it easier for your out of control governments to get away with spending billions of dollars on the homeless situation, for instance, because nobody really grasps the concept of how much money that is.

[Co-host/Producer]

And if you picture a billion being halfway to a trillion, you think, okay, well yeah, they borrowed a billion. It makes sense. We're at essentially another billion, which is a trillion. Oh boy, I love that line though, that the scientists said we're living in a world we are not built to understand.

[Joe Getty]

No, of course, for most of human existence there was no need to wrap your head around that.

[Co-host/Producer]

Speaking of astronomical numbers next hour, I want to get to this. China's demographic collapse is already spectacular and it's about to be cataclysmic. It is past the point of no Return. There's no changing now. There aren't enough women in China. It's really interesting. Coming up next hour, got a really

[Joe Getty]

cool AI thing to tell you about from the new Apple software that they announced the other day. But first we need to tell you about this. When it comes to tech, because of all this interconnectivity and everything like that, your name, address, phone number, email, everything is out there and people are selling it. And that's why you get so many spam calls, emails and texts and often scam emails and texts.

[Co-host/Producer]

And even more chilling, your voice is out there and your kids voices are out there. So you know, your phone rings, it's your kid's number, it's your kid's voice saying, he's been in an accident, he needs money right now. And of course you're like, yeah, where do I send it? And that's what the scammers are counting on. The criminals buy your phone number and your family details from data brokers. They grab three seconds of your kids kid's voice off some video, they clone it with AI and make that call.

[Joe Getty]

You can't stop them from cloning your voice. You can make sure they never get your number in the first place. That's what Incogni does. They put the data brokers on notice that they cannot sell your data. And it works. They contract hundreds of data brokers and force them by law to delete your personal info. Then they, then they keep doing it

[Co-host/Producer]

over and over again and it's super affordable. Costs about $7 a month worth every penny. Go to incog.comarmstrong to save 60%. Incog armstrong incogni.com armstrong we should probably

[Joe Getty]

check in on the war in Iran because there's a lot to talk about there. I do want to talk about some of the interesting stuff that's in the Apple update that's got to do with just AI in general. Maybe we'll hit that with you next. It's, it's definitely worth knowing. Especially you got an iPhone and a whole bunch of other stuff on the way.

[Co-host/Producer]

Armstrong and Gettysburg.

[Joe Getty]

This investigation and the details surrounding it read like a movie script.

[Co-host/Producer]

During that time, he captained over 900

[Joe Getty]

domestic flights, earning millions of dollars in salary for those captaining flights, but also

[Co-host/Producer]

flew tens of thousands of passengers.

[Joe Getty]

So that's a guy that was flying a commercial plane without a license.

[Co-host/Producer]

Air Canada pilots Jeffrey Wall facing several charges after police allege he used a fake license to misrepresent his qualifications flying tens of thousands of passengers on planes. He was not legally allowed to captain.

[Joe Getty]

But he must know how to fly. Obviously he knew how to fly a plane, so yeah, he got that knowledge somewhere.

[Co-host/Producer]

He worked for the airline for 27 years until he retired.

[Joe Getty]

Stories are always presented in a way like, we should be angry at him. No, no, no, no. I'm angry at all the people whose job it is to make sure an actual pilot gets in the cockpit of a plane. Those are the people I'm mad at.

[Co-host/Producer]

And I would suggest if he flew incident free for 27 years. Yeah, I don't need to put him in jail. I mean, maybe a wrist slapping. What are you up to? Air Canada?

[Joe Getty]

Yeah. What are you doing?

[Co-host/Producer]

Yeah.

[Joe Getty]

I didn't read this story yesterday because I thought it'd be too depressing. As from the New York Times, the AI bubble is coming for your retirement account. An economist explains what that means. I just, I don't, I don't, I don't want. Since we don't know what's going to happen with AI and everything like that, I don't need negative speculation. I don't see how that's going to make my life any better today. But it certainly could happen that this is an AI bubble since there's like seven companies that are causing the stock market to set records every single day. Troubling. Speaking of AI, Apple announced the other day their new operating system is out or coming out and it's going to have all kinds of new AI stuff in it as Apple is competing with Facebook and, and OpenAI and Elon and everybody else to try to rule the world of AI. One thing I thought was interesting from this is every. And it's going to make your apps better if you have an iPhone. Everything from browsing the web in Safari to expressing your creativity, blah, blah, blah. You can also compose and edit emails in your own writing style. I don't want my own writing style. I want a better one. Or let the passwords app navigate through account pages and update eligible compromised passwords. If AI can take over my phone and like keep track of the passwords and put them into every site I go to and then update them automatically from the blah, blah, blah. Oh, but this is. I've been waiting for this for a long time.

[Co-host/Producer]

Yeah, yeah. Gotta help you though. If it doesn't share it to the other device that you happen to have in your hand and then you just can't find it. You can't remember you didn't make a note of it because it was supposed to be automatic.

[Joe Getty]

Here's one of the things I'm most excited about though, and I haven't tried it out yet. There's a new thing called the Book Summaries Daily.

[Co-host/Producer]

It.

[Joe Getty]

I don't quite know how it gets access to all these books, but it summarizes them into a 12 minute audio thing that you can listen to. And I love the idea that nonfiction books, obviously you don't want to summarize literature. The point of literature is the writing. But for lots of nonfiction books, Judd been saying for year years he wanted the 100 page book. So, you know, it's nice that you wrote 800 pages about how World War I started. I ain't never going to get around to it because I got 9,000 other books to read. But I'd love to read a 50 page summary or something like that or maybe listen to a 12 minute summary. I think I'd like a little longer than that. But I hope that's one thing AI can do in the future. I'd love it if it can take a big great book and give me 80 pages of it. Since I'm never going to read the 800 pages. I think that'd be good for. I think that could bring reading back or writing back. I don't know how you turn it into something that makes people money. Of course, if nobody's buying your books at all, you're not making any money now, right? Yeah, you know, leave the, the, the exhaustive tome for the universities or history or whatever. But maybe people would take in books again if you could condense it down a little, you know, give me the, give me the bullet points. Seriously.

[Co-host/Producer]

Tldr. Exactly.

[Joe Getty]

And that's not, that's not. I don't see that as like dumbing down or anything like that because the difference is not reading it at all or reading some of it and we're better off with reading some. So one of the reasons I used to love book TV is you'd listen to the author talk for an hour about their book and, and I would get, you know, all the stuff I need out of their 600 page book that I'm never going to get around to reading and you learn something. So that's a pretty cool app. 12 minute book, summaries daily and it says it's got access to millions and millions of books. So I'm sure I'll be using that in the future.

[Co-host/Producer]

So that's a new app like built into the iPhone or is that.

[Joe Getty]

There is a list on Apple if you have an iPhone of all the new apps that they're going to have, that will exist because of their new AI platform. Lots and lots of new stuff.

[Co-host/Producer]

Oh, interesting. How'd you become aware of that?

[Joe Getty]

Just out of curiosity, Apple pushed their marketing to me.

[Co-host/Producer]

Wow. I haven't seen it. They must not like me. Speaking of AI, just very briefly, maybe in the hour four, we can talk about this. You know how the Pope said AI has no soul and never will and blah blah, blah, and beware of it. A number of AI, like experts are saying. Hang on, hold off on that pronouncement, Mr. Pope, sir, you might be wrong. Because we're witnessing unmistakable signs of self awareness, desire for self preservation, etc. And it seems to be learning in a very human way. So this is either a beautiful life affirming moment or absolutely terrifying. And we'll get to that eventually.

[Joe Getty]

Yeah, I've gotten into that conversation a few times. I had kind of given up on it. Some smart people saying that that's not going to happen, but it could cross over into where we have to have a serious discussion about what life means, what's alive and what's not, what sentient means, what consciousness means.

[Co-host/Producer]

Right, right. The premise of this article, interestingly enough, I mean, hell, the premise is worth a discussion. Said as late as 1866, the Catholic Church was saying slavery is not at all contrary to the natural and divine law. Slavery's fine.

[Joe Getty]

Wow.

[Co-host/Producer]

Because slavery was ubiquitous around the world. And the new Pope, the Chicago Pope, Leo, just apologized for that. Like a sincere sorry about that. Boy, did we F that one up.

[Joe Getty]

Whoo.

[Co-host/Producer]

What were we thinking? Nobody's sure. Anyway, slavery is bad. And then. And the premise of the article is, you know, he may, some future pope may have to apologize for saying, hey, AI will never have consciousness or a soul. So let's kick it right in its. Right in this box, right in its mainframe.

[Joe Getty]

So since slavery is not actually a racial thing like we always presented in the United States, slavery existed around the world forever. And there were plenty of people of their own race grabbing people and making them slaves.

[Co-host/Producer]

So it's forced labor.

[Joe Getty]

It's not a race thing. It's a dominance thing. It's free labor. It's a. It's a this makes my life easier thing. But how did the Catholic Church justify that? That there were some people that are just born to have to do what somebody else tells them to do?

[Co-host/Producer]

Well, Leo, the new guy, apologized for 18 centuries of tolerating the practice, citing 15th century papal papal bulls that authorized. I'm sorry, that was chalk like an idiot.

[Joe Getty]

Like cereal bowls or.

[Co-host/Producer]

Cereal bowls Bowls bowls.

[Joe Getty]

Not.

[Co-host/Producer]

Not bowls. Bowls.

[Joe Getty]

Like a cow with a penis.

[Co-host/Producer]

Exactly. That authorized quote, reducing persons to perpetual slavery. And the 1866 Holy Office ruling which I mentioned earlier, declared it not at all contrary to natural and divine law. He calls this a wound in Christian memory.

[Joe Getty]

Good God. So there was some belief that, you know, bad luck for you. You were born to be a slave, so too bad that guy over there was born to own you and live a life of leisure. Well, that sucks.

[Co-host/Producer]

Long story short, every color of human being who's ever existed on Earth has been enslaved by every other color, including their own, that's ever existed on planet Earth. It's abhorrent, it's unfair, and we and the Brits ended it in the Western world. It's still going on in the Muslim world. March against that idiots.

[Joe Getty]

Probably mostly by their own race. Throughout history, I gotta believe a majority of slaves were held by people of their own race.

[Co-host/Producer]

So it's not a race in war, etc.

[Joe Getty]

Yeah, a lot on the way. If you miss a segment, get the podcast. Armstrong and Getty on demand.

[Jack Armstrong]

Armstrong and Gettysburg.