Will The Peace Last? | Lemonade Stand 🍋

Summary

Lemonade Stand 🍋 | Episode: "Will The Peace Last?"

Date: October 15, 2025
Hosts: Aiden, Atrioc, DougDoug
Network: Vox Media Podcast Network

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Episode Overview

In this episode, the Lemonade Stand crew—the self-proclaimed lemonade stand business experts Aiden, Atrioc, and DougDoug—dive into several headline topics at the intersection of politics, international relations, and global economics. The hosts focus on ongoing global upheaval: the extended U.S. government shutdown, the hotly-debated awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize, escalating conflict and tentative ceasefire in Israel/Palestine, and rising tensions from the accelerating U.S./China "rare earths" trade war. Alongside sharp analysis, they keep up their trademark sardonic, off-the-cuff banter.

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Key Discussions & Insights

[00:00] U.S. Government Shutdown: Updates, Confusion & (No) Progress

• Shutdown Duration: The government remains closed for 14 days running ("14 days, folks. Two weeks."). The trio recap a bet on how long it'll last (Atrioc: 45 days, Aiden: 33, DougDoug: 34).
• Layoffs & Fallout:
  • Trump/Republicans are moving forward with plans to lay off federal workers as leverage, with more efficiency than past efforts after earlier cuts in the year.
  • Law enforcement, military, and "critical functions" still operate (e.g., airports, albeit with delays), but real pain expected after 30 days without pay.
• Air Traffic Control Woes: Understaffing and increased sick days ("They're already ramping up a bit... people are taking more leave" — DougDoug, [08:09]).
• Government Pay: All furloughed workers are supposed to be paid post-shutdown, so it doesn’t "save money":
  • “We’re just not running the government, which is just a crazy solution that we’ve come to.” – Aiden [06:20]

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[09:27] Nobel Peace Prize: What Does "Peace" Even Mean?

• Trump’s Campaign for the Prize:
  • Hosts discuss how the Nobel Peace Prize is "vibes-based" rather than action-based.
  • Notable past winners cited: Mandela, Mother Teresa, MLK, Gorbachev (surprising to some), and controversially Barack Obama nine months into his presidency.
• Obama's Award Examined:
  • Recognition was "more about hope and the vibe than policy". Even Obama said he didn't deserve it yet:
  • “I am at the beginning and not the end of my labors. I haven’t done very much.” – Obama, paraphrased by Aiden [11:39]
• 2025 Winner:
  • Maria Karina Machado, Venezuelan opposition leader, wins for her fight for democracy against dictator Maduro.
  • Donald Trump, a frontrunner, is discussed via a tongue-in-cheek 'pros and cons' list created by the hosts.
• Trump's Achievements:
  • Involved in Venezuela democracy advocacy, helped mediate Israel-Iran ("12 Day War"), involved in Pakistan-India ceasefire, but claims are disputed or marred by contradictory actions, e.g., bombing before peace ([15:34]).
• Not Enough for Trump:
  • Ultimately, Trump's "aggressive" international style and tariffs cost him:
    • “His vibes are atrocious.” – Aiden [17:59]
    • “Trump decimating the vibes.” – C [18:15]

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[19:00] The Israel-Palestine Ceasefire: Fragile Peace on a Razor’s Edge

Background & Recent Escalation

• Over 68,000 killed in Gaza since conflict reignited (mainly civilians).
• UN and global opinion has shifted strongly against Israel’s actions — declared genocide by UN this year.
  • “It feels different than it was a year ago...a distinct turn.” – Atrioc [20:15]
• Isolated geopolitically:
  • “Israel has become more and more isolated geopolitically. On its one major ally, the United States.” – DougDoug [21:05]
  • UN mass walkout, broad European recognition of Palestinian statehood.

Ceasefire Brokered: The 20-Point Plan

• Prompted by an Israeli strike in Qatar that angered its few allies.
• Trump orchestrates ceasefire talks: 20-point plan, heavy emphasis on Israel's withdrawal; U.S., Egypt, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Qatar involved.
• Hamas agrees, despite stipulations seen as unfavorable.
• Public prisoner and hostage exchanges occur ([26:57]).
• Highlights from the plan:
  • Hamas must have "no role in governance of Gaza".
  • Israel cannot "occupy or annex Gaza".
  • No forced expulsion of Gazans.
• Netanyahu forced, in a White House photo op, to phone Qatar and apologize (“like a parent scolding a child” – Aiden [24:24]).

Uncertainties & Skepticism

• Israeli compliance is doubtful; Netanyahu hasn't declared war over; Gaza rebuilding contingent on fragile follow-through.
  • “It all feels so precarious... confusing.” – B [32:43]
• U.S. pressure is the thread holding peace together.
• West Bank ignored by agreement.

On Trump's Role & Nobel Hopes

• Ceasefire could bolster Trump's Nobel chances if it holds, but credibility is an open question.
  • “If this held... I wouldn't mind him getting the Peace Prize for that.” – DougDoug [33:39]
• Critique: Trump excels at “grandiose declarations” and then “moving on“, leaving problematic details to others ([34:09]).

Why Does the U.S. Still Support Israel?

• Both Aiden and Atrioc note confusion/growing opposition even within the U.S.
• Answers: historical alliance, “unsinkable aircraft carrier” for U.S. in the Middle East, but relationship increasingly frayed ([35:45] to [40:47]).

Notable Quotes

• “America needed a strategic military intelligence ally... The tail began to wag the dog.” – DougDoug [37:13]
• “You need a little bro in that region... to make sure that your interests are protected.” – C [37:13]
• “Little frictions that are the result of this conflict existing add up over time.” – B [41:41]

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[47:20] China’s Rare Earths Trade War: Leverage, Shortages & Global Panic

China’s Dominance

• China produces 50% of mined rare earths; 90%+ of global refining.
  • “If you make anything that uses rare earth metals, you will be working with China.” – C [49:22]

Restrictions Escalate

• China restricts export of 12 strategic rare earth elements to everyone but promises to approve most uses not related to defense or U.S./high-tech competitors.
• New system: buyers must apply to Chinese government for right to use (and resell) anything using their source material.
• “They have declared total authority over these minerals.” – C [53:57]

Not Really 'Rare'—The Bottleneck is Refining

• “Rare earths are a misnomer. They’re not that rare... The hard part is refining them.” – C [55:02]
• Environmental devastation is the main reason most countries, including the U.S., rely on Chinese processing.

The West Scrambles

• Panic among Western economies, as almost all tech and defense manufacturing depends on China’s supply chain.
  • France, Australia plan investments in local refining, but:
  • “All that expertise is located in China. You can't just throw money at it.” – C [59:14]
  • China can undercut prices to eliminate new competition, having planned dominance for a decade.

Implications

• U.S. retaliates with 100% tariffs on all Chinese imports (start date: Nov 1).
• Upcoming Trump-Xi summit in South Korea could see a de-escalation, or not.
• “China may have played their hand too early... everyone is now reacting with panic.” – C [64:07]
• Worries Taiwan could be a bargaining chip in a resolution between U.S./China ([71:09]).

Notable Moments/Quotes

• “They’ve like trademarked rocks.” – B [53:57]
• “Strategic Smut Initiative.” — (on government priorities during shutdown)[85:18]
• Long-running banter about mining helium on the sun:
  • “The sun be making helium.” – B [66:49]

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[73:07] Rapidfire Topics & Banter

• Sudan Preview: B is preparing a deeper-dive explainer after discussion with an on-the-ground contact about the scale of the Sudan civil war ("The scale is just so far beyond me." – B [74:15]).
• Ads & Patreon: Show is now on Vox, more ads coming—but they aim to make them entertaining ([00:58], [03:19]).
• Fact Checks: Corrections on SNAP figures and green card quotas from previous episodes ([89:00]).

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[74:44] AI, Erotica, and the Great Porn Arms Race

OpenAI Eases Restrictions

• Sam Altman announces ChatGPT will soon allow adult-only erotica and more personalized (friendlier) responses; part of sweeping back from recent over-censorship.
• Reason: response to competition (e.g., Elon Musk's “Grok” AI leans into this market), user complaints over sterility, and the massive potential of AI erotica as a use case.

Debate: Safety vs. Functionality & Profits

• DougDoug expresses skepticism at OpenAI’s motives, seeing it as chasing profits over “higher callings”:
  • "This post would be written exactly the same if they were giving up." – DougDoug [82:11]
• Aiden offers a more charitable view:
  • Product improvements go hand in hand with profitability.
  • Personalization and more adult features make products more useful for regular users, not just for profit “grifting.”
  • “Every new technology—people abuse it, then safeguards swing back and forth.” [79:23]
• Both agree it is a cat-and-mouse game between product features, abuse, and regulation.

History Repeats:

• VHS vs Betamax and Blu Ray: porn often determines tech winners in consumer adoption. Elon Musk "making the business case" for AI porn ([86:09]).
  • “There’s a bit of a business case. I wonder if there’s a connection to Elon Musk.” – C [87:17]

Memorable Quotes:

• “What happens when you don’t need a real human being to write about how Sonic fucks Tails?” – B [84:44]
• "Gooning is holding up the entire S and P [500]." – B [87:36]

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Notable Quotes by Segment

• Nobel Reflection:
  • "His vibes are atrocious." – Aiden [17:59]
• Ceasefire Character:
  • "It's like a parent scolding a child." – Aiden [24:24] (on Netanyahu's apology)
  • “If this held...I’d say Trump actually earned [the Peace Prize].” – DougDoug [33:39]
• Trade Wars:
  • "They've like trademarked rocks." – B [53:57]
  • "Rare earths are a misnomer. They're not that rare. The hard part is refining them." – C [55:02]
• AI and Humanity:
  • “Every new technology—people abuse it, then safeguards swing back and forth.” – Aiden [79:23]

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Suggested Timestamps for Key Segments

• [00:00] – U.S. Government Shutdown
• [09:27] – Nobel Peace Prize “vibes-based” discussion
• [19:00] – Israel/Palestine: Ceasefire, U.S. role, geopolitics
• [47:20] – China’s rare earths escalation & supply chain panic
• [74:44] – Sudan war preview
• [74:44] – AI and erotica (ChatGPT/Grok/industry race)

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Tone & Style

This episode is equal parts informed global politics debate and irreverent, meme-fueled podcast chaos. Hosts challenge each other's takes, indulge in lengthy comedy asides (e.g., "the sun be making helium"), but tie it back to big-picture implications for listeners. They maintain an informal, conversational style ("So Trump decimating the vibes," "...the trade war with no guns," "Gooning is holding up the entire S and P"), with a rhythm of deep dives interrupted by digressive jokes and audience engagement prompts.

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For Listeners Who Haven't Tuned In

This summary provides the critical context and opinions aired in this Lemonade Stand episode—from why peace prizes seem so "vibes-based," to how U.S. foreign policy is (and isn't) changing, and why everyone's suddenly obsessed with rocks from China. You'll find clear breakdowns, hosts' stances (and skepticism), and the mix of flippant humor and basic explanations that make this show a unique take on global headlines.

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Community Question:
Aiden invites listeners to weigh in: Do you want highly personalized (including erotic) AI, or would you prioritize safety and restrictions?

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For further reading:

• Gaza Peace Plan: Wikipedia's straightforward summary of the 20 points ([44:33])
• Isaac Saul’s “I Think I’m Leaving Zionism”—a personal reckoning from an American Jew ([45:43])
• Breakneck—a recommended book on global rare earths and supply chains (discussed in segment)

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The show closes as always with plans for more Patreon content, teasers for international travel episodes (China and Japan), fact checks, and the ever-present sense that, as DougDoug puts it:
“...our broad point was still correct. And that’s all that matters.” [90:16]

Transcript

[A]

Ladies and gentlemen, we're starting this episode with the number one story. Is the government still shut down? Yes. All right, moving on.

[B]

It is still Shut down, Doug.

[C]

14 days, folks. Two weeks. We're headed towards. I remember what our bet was, but we're getting. We're halfway.

[B]

Do you remember what each of our numbers were? I picked 45.

[A]

33 days. I think it's gonna be 33 days.

[C]

And I was like, with 34 or something. I tried to one up. You.

[A]

Yeah, you tried to one up. That's. I think you're.

[B]

You guys are really in the pocket there.

[A]

Yeah, there's. Government's not looking great. We're going to be giving a little update on that. We're going to be talking about the Nobel Prize. We're going to talk about the updates with Israel, Palestine and the ceasefire there and the progression of that, as well as rare earth minerals and tariffs with China and all sorts of other fun things. And maybe if we got time. Erotica.

[C]

Yes, Ideally some erotica from Chad.

[B]

Before we get to the erotica, we have a little announcement that you may have already seen. We are officially partnered with Vox Media as of last week.

[A]

Yeah. And this is sick. This does mean there will be ads on the show, but to give you guys context for what specifically that means, as a typical podcast, we're going to start to do brand integrations that'll kind of ramp up over the next three months. As part of that, to sort of compensate, we're going to be phasing out the ads that are built into the YouTube video. So if you're on YouTube, that way you aren't getting served a bunch of YouTube ads. Instead, it'll be like, us delivering the ads, and we are going to try to make them entertaining and fun. And honestly, Vox is like a great partner that we're really excited about. This was our number one choice of people to work with. And it's not just people serving us ads to make money. It's like, this is a group that has a ton of connections with other creators with, like, interesting news and journalist development stuff. They want to support us with our trip to China that we're going to do and other things like that. There's events that they run that we're going to be able to be a part of a ton of support. They're offering other stuff as well, but we are like, this wasn't the most lucrative option we had. It's the option we were most excited about. So I'm genuinely stoked that this happened.

[B]

To give you guys, some context. We always knew that ads were going to be a part of the main show eventually, but we took our time picking a partner that we really liked and had a lot of confidence in, and that's why it took so long to get to this point to begin with. And I, yeah, if you want to hear maybe a longer winded explanation behind the changes that are happening right now with the types of ads that'll be on the show, the way they're gonna be rolled out, the way this interacts with like the Patreon, other questions you might have. Very understandable. We released a little like 15 minute video on the Patreon that anybody can watch. You can, you don't need to be a member. You can just load the page and watch it. And it's basically like a 15 minute frequently asked questions on everything that people have been asking and related to this. So go check that out if you, if you have more questions about this.

[C]

Is it you?

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

You recorded a 15 minute direct to Cam video.

[A]

Yeah, I just learned about this because.

[B]

Everybody was 10 minutes ago, everybody had so many of the same questions. I was like, I'll just answer them. And we're not going to spend 20 minutes on the podcast episode talking about it.

[A]

Well, apparently we are now because you have to explain yourself. There's a mystery episode that went up without us. You're just upset because we talked to Gavin Newsom. You have to jam in some Q and A.

[B]

So I need some time for myself. I need some time because I'm getting slowly pushed off of the show for Gavin time.

[C]

Gavin, wait. Not yet.

[A]

I, I, I honestly think this is great. I'm, it's like the best partner I, I could have asked for. I think there's a lot of great stuff is going to come out of this. So thank you all for supporting the show, otherwise it, it wouldn't happen. And like a lot of guests, like Steve Iseman for example, is somebody who we were able to connect with through this con, these conversations. Like there's going to be a lot of cool opportunity through this partnership. So we are stoked.

[B]

Yeah, I have to say it's pretty surreal coming from like the more gaming and Twitch space to even get the opportunity to work with a company like this. And yeah, so supporting the show up until this point is.

[A]

Dude, I was sending that asked for examples of ads I've done and I sent one where I went into my like, friend's room naked and tried to sell them. Factor.

[C]

We'll see. Guys, this, this deal Might not last because they've seen now Aiden's yard ads and your ads, and they're getting, they're getting cold feet already.

[B]

I sent, I sent the dud. I sent the team at Vox. I send them the, the Factor ad read we did at the yard where slime is Hannibal Lecter and I'm Jodie Foster, and I'm like, yeah, we want to do it like this. So anyway, so shut down, watch. Shut down, watch that.

[C]

Watch. Two weeks in. Is there any updates you guys have heard about? I mean, it sounds like it's still will they, won't they?

[B]

I mean, the big. I don't know about this ending or not. I have not heard anything on that front. But the Republicans, Trump specifically, have started to follow through threats of laying off huge portions of the federal workforce in retaliation of the shutdown. And if you could maybe quickly Google the departments affected because they're not coming to mind right now. But this was the, the threat on the table from that side of the aisle. Like, if you move forward with this, we're going to, we're going to cruise through and cut more agencies and federal, federal jobs. And my understanding is there is an efficiency in this process now because of the amount. They already did it earlier in the year, I think. Yeah. When we were hearing about the Doge cuts. Right. There was this big air of confusion around how these are going to be executed. You know, what, what is legal to do and what is not legal to do. But now, because they went through that process earlier in the year, getting rid of federal employees is a little, unfortunately, perhaps they're a little more familiar with the process now and this action is.

[C]

A little less great.

[B]

Easier to take.

[C]

Yeah. The White House is saying it's going to ride out the shutdown by continuing layoffs. But troops and law enforcement.

[A]

It doesn't make sense. Whatever. It doesn't make sense. It's not like you're saving money right now because you're not paying anybody anyways. It doesn't, that doesn't make sense. You're not riding out the shutdown by doing this.

[C]

I will say it has gotten more confusing to me over time. How. And we were, I was reading some of the comments on our last one as people were like, yeah, it is just a mismatch of things. There's a bunch of rules that don't fit together, that have been pushed together, and it just happens.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

We should just clarify based on the last episode that, yes, it is the case that everybody who is furloughed right now, the government employees who aren't working are going to be paid.

[B]

But they're supposed to be.

[A]

Yeah, yes, yes. Barring some sort of breach of protocol, which that wouldn't happen under Trump. Like they're, you know, they're supposed to be paid. So we're not saving any money. We're, we're just not running the government, which is just a crazy solution that we've come to.

[C]

Trump did say on Truth Social, quote, we have identified funds to pay military troops. I assume it's just the tariff basket. I don't know what he's, he's found an extra source of funds and 8.

[B]

Like in the couch, have you noticed? He finds tariff revenue. Like it's in the, it's in the cracks of your car.

[C]

It's like a rich kid finds money.

[B]

Digging it, Digging in between the backseat of your Jetta and finding 10 billion in tariff revenue that is just laying.

[C]

Around, found 8 billion of unobligated research, development, testing and evaluation funds that will be used to pay the military. All right. Yes.

[A]

Oh, look, last week we talked about the critical functions of the government that would really hurt people. Day to day. That stuff is still running. You know, airplanes are still running. There's been delays, but I know a bunch of people have still been flying. Nobody's died. So it's, it's functioning right and none of the really painful stuff has happened. But like we talked about, the one month mark is when the pain really ramps up. And that's why I think all of us are of the belief that this is going to last at least 30 days. Like, no, there seems to be no traction whatsoever in the last week, which means probably it's going to the 30 day mark. And then tensions really rises. People don't get paychecks and they can't afford rent.

[C]

Yeah. Again, everything I see, there's, there's been absolutely zero progress on any sort of negotiation. Like nobody's given an inch. It's just not moving. I do have somebody in, in my community who is an air traffic controller, confirmed it for me. Really, who talked about what it's like going on there. And you mentioned, I think during the, the shutdown maybe in the Reagan era.

[B]

Or something, where the shutdown in 20, the last shutdown in 2018, which was the longest one, still is the longest one.

[C]

Right. That around the 30 day mark, whatever, they started taking more sick days and like trying to find ways to. He said they're doing that now. Like it's already, it's already ramping up A bit where people are taking more leave, more time off, more. You know, the things are a little bit understaffed. People are. Because they're not getting paid. So they're. So I assume that will ramp up heavily, like you said, around 30 day mark, at which point people will have to do something because they got to fly still.

[B]

And air traffic controllers are already famously understaffed.

[C]

Can we replace controllers with ChatGPT? Doug, tell me.

[A]

I'm gonna open it up right now.

[C]

Like, if you put a screenshot of a radar thing, can he just tell JGBD what to say?

[A]

Perry, if you could pull this up, it's looking like, no. I have no body and cannot operate physical machines. But I think a lot of ChatGPT is just about convincing it. So I'll work on this in the background.

[C]

Yeah, yeah, you can hammer it out. Hammer that out.

[A]

No, no, you are an air traffic. All right.

[C]

Okay, perfect.

[A]

I think we're gonna hear more about this in the next week. Oh, it said understood. I can simulate air traffic controllers. Actually, we're good. I just said it was qualified. Like driving. Air traffic control is mostly about confidence.

[B]

Yes, people do say that.

[A]

Let's use the Nobel Peace Prize as a kickoff point for some interesting discussion. Donald Trump has famously this year, been campaigning for the Nobel Peace Prize, which, to be clear, is not a thing you campaign for, but he has been talking about it a whole lot. So the Nobel, you know, Academy Foundation. There we go. Has been around for about 100 years, five different categories. Peace is the one that isn't quite as like, science grounded. But the Nobel Peace Prize includes such legends as Nelson Mandela helping to end apartheid in South Africa. Mother Teresa, who was a now a Catholic saint, founded the Missionaries of Charity and did all this work with the poor in Calcutta and India. Martin Luther King Jr. US Civil Rights Movement. Mikhail Gorbachev, who I didn't actually know before looking into this. Wow.

[B]

I didn't know that.

[A]

Yeah. In 1990, before the Soviet Union collapsed for his reforms, that he did like glasnost and perestroika to ease tensions and help reduce threat of conflict. And then somewhat a little controversial. Barack Obama in 2009.

[C]

So this was really piloting the drone extra.

[A]

Yeah. For being the air traffic doing a.

[C]

Sick 360, no scope with the drone.

[B]

Yeah, it was like. It was. Cause like he was just so good at it. He did it in the most peaceful way possible.

[C]

He had an Xbox controller one hand and a PlayStation control in the other hand.

[B]

I. I will say this, even. Even when I was younger. I was like, this doesn't feel like it takes a lot of years.

[C]

Wasn't it like his first.

[B]

Yes, it was super early. And he presided over a lot of war.

[C]

Yeah, yeah.

[B]

Which doesn't feel super compatible with the Nobel Peace Prize.

[C]

Like, I don't know. He didn't even. Foreign policy wasn't even a thing he was working on because it was like, during the height of the recession, like that. Yeah, it was like, it was weird. It was a weird thing to get that early without doing very much of anything.

[A]

So he, nine months into his presidency, won the Nobel Peace Prize. Donald Trump was trying to do the same thing here. So there is a precedent. And like you guys said, so the Nobel foundation, their words were like, only very rarely has a person to the same degree as Obama captured the world's attention and given its people, hope for a better future. But both in the actual war, like, if you pull this up and the way people talked about it, and even what Obama then said, which is that he was like, literally in his acceptance speech, he's like, I am at the beginning and not the end of my labors. I haven't done very much. Like.

[B]

So he do like the idea of, like, him getting the award and him being like, this doesn't even. This does any sense quote.

[A]

And yet I would be remiss if I did not acknowledge the considerable controversy that your generous decision has generated and then listed other people like Nelson Mandela or Martin Luther King Jr. And said like, I'm not in that camp yet. And so he was like, this is not something I deserve. And so what did he actually do? He, as he became president, he went to Cairo, in Egypt and was like, talking about restoring relations with Muslim countries, with the west, because, you know, that is sort of fractured over the Middle east wars. He set in plan a motion to withdraw the US Troops from Iraq. Technically, Bush did that, but he also then reaffirmed it.

[C]

And then you can't give it to Bush for Iraq. You can't start a war and then make a plan to get out of it and then get the Nobel Peace Prize.

[A]

Yeah, he also, just to be clear.

[B]

He'S done it again.

[A]

He then sent them back in for isis, called for nuclear disarmament, you know, broadly set the tone for global peace and cooperation. But he. Oh, and then also sent 30,000 more troops into Afghanistan. Yeah, but what.

[B]

The only thing I can really credit him with that would is years later, the Iran nuclear deal. He, he. That was his.

[C]

I mean, I'm reading this right now, and it seems very much about, like, the vibe. Like, it's like it's vibes.

[A]

It's vibes.

[C]

He, he advocated dialogue, he helped, you.

[B]

Know, look, no disrespect to the campaign, but it's like he put hope on a poster and then he got the Nobel Peace Prize.

[C]

Strengthen international diplomacy and cooperate, but yet nothing actually physically happened.

[A]

Yeah, so this one was a little weird. And because of this and because of how much Trump has, let's say, pushed himself into all these different situations that have been going on, he real, I think there's a real legitimate shot that Trump would win it. And instead, as of last Friday, he did not win. Instead, the winner is Maria Karina Machado from Venezuela. Quick primer. Venezuela is currently, currently being led by a dictator. Oh, my God. I'm blanking on the name.

[B]

Maduro.

[A]

Maduro. And Maduro has not exactly been doing fair democratic elections. They've been hiding the results. And so Machado is basically one of the leaders of the resistance who is trying to push for actual democracy. She is like in hiding. Her life is threatened, but she hasn't left the country because she's there fighting. Like, really, really impressive woman. Somewhat interestingly, Marco, Marco Rubio nominated her in 2024 for the Nobel Peace Prize. Yeah. So you can nominate people. And so before he became, you know, part of Trump's team, Rubio even was like, called her like the Iron lady of, of Venezuela is badass. And so I actually, so I did some research and I found the actual top secret document that the Nobel Laureate foundation made to analyze Donald Trump's candidacy for Nobel Peace Prize.

[C]

Right, Some research.

[A]

So they did, they just did a classic pros and cons here. All right, so pros, Venezuela, democracy. Trump has been very pro democracy in Venezuela and he's been talking about Maduro and his abuses. And they even put out a bounty on Maduro to try to like get him arrested. So the, the actual winner, this woman, Machado, she called him out and said Trump deserves part of the honor of this. Like she personally.

[B]

Thanks.

[C]

He has the best thing he could get. Right. The closest the getting it.

[A]

So he loved that. Now the cons of the Venezuela things, he keeps blowing up boats without any evidence.

[B]

So I was going to bring this up.

[A]

Right, yeah. And so they're saying it's drug boats, but they haven't said any evidence. And so he keeps blowing up. Okay, but that's like a small thing. There's a couple of boats. Israel, Iran, cease fire. Remember in June, there was a War between Israel and Iran. It's called the 12 Day War now because it ended thanks to Donald Trump and the US mediating an end to it unironically. The problem is that he did also bomb Iran first.

[C]

It's a give and take with the Nobel Peace Prize.

[B]

You know, people do say that about.

[C]

Yeah, it's not about always peace.

[B]

No, but the name is misleading.

[C]

Is misleading. It's a misnomer.

[A]

It's very, it's very vibes based.

[C]

You have to have some peace in there.

[A]

There's a lot of peace at the nuclear facilities after the bomb. Right. After.

[B]

Well, you bond them to keep the peace.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

I mean, technically, yes. Yeah. Ukraine, Russia.

[A]

He's made a big deal about how much he's going to solve the Ukraine, Russia day one. And he's been talking a lot to Putin. Unfortunately, the war is still going, but Pakistan, India, ceasefire. Remember this?

[C]

Yes.

[A]

A couple months ago, Pakistani group basically killed, did this horrific terrorist attack in Indian Kashmir, killed 26 people. India starts responding with missile attacks. These are two gigantic world powers who are about to go to war. And Trump actually gets in there and negotiates a ceasefire. He apparently, according to his own words, threatened a 200% tariff on the countries unless they would go to the table.

[C]

And negotiate the arrow in the.

[A]

Which is a sick way to do peace, which is that you threaten them with tariffs on your country unless they behave. And that's like, actually like a pretty sick achievement. Except then India came out and said it wasn't Trump. They just talked directly with the military leaders.

[B]

Yeah, I did, I did see that too. Wow.

[C]

To be clear, I mean, this is an interesting one. You know, he claims full credit for ending it. India says he had absolutely nothing to do with himself. Himself. And then Pakistan, who kind of wants to drive a wedge between India and America is like nominating him. Right. The Pakistani leader was like, he was great.

[B]

So help. He's like, he threatened us so hard.

[A]

And then we get to Gaza ceasefire. We're going to be talking about this in a lot more detail in a second, but this is a huge development where the US has mediated this 20 point peace plan. Hostages were exchanged. A huge, huge development, which is incredible and honestly amazing and I think this does deserve some flowers. Obvious downside here. Too early to tell. It's like we're a couple days in and so we're going to talk more about this as well as the fact that arguably a lot of all of what's been happening has been funded and supported by the United States up Until now. And so as they looked at this, apparently it was dead even. But then the final thing that pushed them into the not awarding it to Donald Trump camp, he has pissed off the entire world with tariffs and threatening them, constantly pulling out of NATO and generally being extremely aggressive across the entire world. When did he do that?

[C]

He almost clutched it.

[B]

It's just that one thing.

[C]

He almost clutched it at the end.

[A]

And I do unironically think he has done more than Barack Obama did in his first nine months. Sure. His vibes are atrocious.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

And so clearly that is a bad thing when it comes to winning the Nobel Peace Prize.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

Trump decimating the vibes.

[C]

That's why I would say Obama had like a. Basically an empty pros column and an empty cons column. So you go off vibes if you have this many cons. It's hard to be like, this is the guy, though I do want to say the God of ceasefire. We're going to talk about it. He, you know, Trump had a speech about Machado's win where he's like, hey, they should have given it to me, but, you know, she's pretty good. And then he says, you know, they gave it for what they did in 24. So who knows, Nick? Like, he's like talking about.

[B]

Right, right.

[C]

He could, theoretically, if this ceasefire were to hold for a year, not only could he win it, he might deserve it. Like, given this is the one he's been. Of the seven wars, I looked into him. There's really. It's very circumstantial on the seven. This is the one where he has the most actual impact, which is the God of ceasefire. So I'm interested in hearing more about it from. From your research, Aiden.

[A]

But yeah, let's. Let's get into it. So this is a huge development. And the Gaza Israel situation, I mean.

[B]

It'S a ceasefire deal. That is the potential end to this. This war. Right. And I wanted to recap a little bit of the past month and a little bit in the past year. So, you know, the war has been going on since October 7th, a couple of years ago. In that time, Israel has killed 68,000 people in Gaza, mostly civilians. And over this time, many people have called for a stop to this violence. Right. Over the course of this two years. And a lot of people or organizations like Human Rights, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, have called it a genocide. And then most recently, the UN Commission of Inquiry in September of this year released the first definitive statement from the UN calling it a genocide. As well. And I would say at a personal level, the vibes in the past six months to a year, just, just reading news and like seeing people's broader opinions about this, I think as this has dragged on, there's been a pretty distinct turn in terms of the collective view of Israel having gone too far. It feels different than it was like a year ago or a year and a half ago when you look at like the percentage of people who are saying that. And I think this pressure and this context of more and more countries and people feeling that way is sort of building up to the moment and the past month and a half that we're in now. So the big developments that have like, led to this ceasefire, specifically on September 9, Israel launches a strike in Qatar targeting some Hamas leadership that they are currently negotiating with. There's an ongoing, like, hey, worked in Iran. There's an ongoing negotiation between Hamas and Israel to sort of figure things out for the future. Right. And as they're negotiating with them, they attack them in Qatar.

[C]

Same representation again. You know, I think what you said before about, about the opinion shifting is important as context for this because Israel has become more and more isolated geopolitically.

[B]

Yes.

[C]

On its one major ally, the United States. And the United States is ally with Qatar. So this strike is like, you know, I don't remember the exact thing, but Trump himself, who's been a pretty pro Israel guy and still is, was like pretty furious publicly about this attack in Qatar because it crossed a line of, you know, we're the only ones on your side and you just, you crossed a barrier.

[B]

Absolutely. It's crossing a significant line. And, and, and it's like if we.

[A]

Went to Vox's headquarters and threw bricks through the windows while we were yesterday.

[C]

But only just to keep them on their chest.

[B]

Just to keep them on their chest.

[A]

And then you call for peace, and.

[C]

Then I call for peace and I asked them to raise our ad rate.

[B]

And then in, in reaction to this, or I imagine it was getting organized or spoken about prior to this as well, a bloc of Arab countries, including places like Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Qatar, present a peace plan to the US in New York ahead of the UN General assembly that happened in September. And the US is like, all right, this looks good. This is our chance to create a ceasefire, potentially end the war. Let's, let's bring this to the Israelis in New York and they go through all of these negotiations and they come out with this like 20 point plan that Israel agrees to that admittedly at first the Arab countries aren't happy with. But after this, these negotiations play out, one more thing happens, which is there's a public photo shoot with Netanyahu in the White House where Trump gets him to phone Qatar in front of the media and apologize for the strike. In this sort of. Yeah, the pictures are pretty crazy, honestly.

[C]

And he's kind of like sulky. Yeah, yeah.

[B]

Netanyahu doesn't look happy.

[C]

Netanyahu looks like a yelled at child, to be honest. I mean, and I say one thing about the U.N. because you mentioned the U.N. i think that was a pretty key moment that you in meeting, because that was like a public display of how isolated they had become when Netanyahu got up there to speak and talk about.

[B]

Yeah, there's two things happening in tandem at that UN assembly, right. When Netanyahu goes up to speak, almost all of the room steps just walks out of the building, right. Symbolically, like, we will not tolerate Israel any longer. And then the other big thing that happened was France, Canada, the uk, Australia, Belgium and a few other countries recognized Palestinian statehood for the first time publicly, which is this gigantic public recognition of, hey, we, Israel becoming increasingly isolated on the world stage. Right.

[C]

These are major economies, like almost all the major economies of the world were.

[B]

Yeah, yeah. And the. And at this point, right, Israel really has only the US as a significant player on its side, albeit the US is the party with the most sway and influence over which direction like Israel goes on these things. And with this deal that they had negotiated with Israel at the time, they, they agreed this 20 point ceasefire, which is seen broadly as something that favors Israel more than the, the Gazans and Hamas here.

[A]

If you pull up this, I hadn't seen this before. This is. It's like a parent scolding a child. They like gave Netanyahu fucking corded phone and make him read a script in.

[C]

Front of the public, in front of the cameras.

[A]

That's insane. It was crazy, man.

[B]

So there's a note here in that there's kind of a theory that Israel agreed to this 20 point plan because they didn't think Hamas would agree to a lot of the details of it. Like the idea that there's aspects of this that Israel wasn't super happy or Netanyahu isn't super happy with, but it was so, from their perspective, so unlikely Hamas would agree to the stipulations around disarmament and no longer governing the Gaza Strip.

[A]

Point 13, they cannot, Hamas cannot have any role in the governance of Gaza in any form. And they have to Shut down all military and like they need to agree to this for this ceasefire to hold.

[B]

But Hamas follows up and does agree. So this begins to take shape. In a reaction to both sides agreeing to this and Trump announcing that this is officially agreed upon. Hamas releases. This was as of Sunday. This week, hamas releases the 20 remaining live hostages that they have to the Israelis. And then there's a prisoner exchange that also happened earlier this week of about 2,000 Palestinians, prisoners and detainees being released back to, back to Gaza. And then the other beginning stipulations of this are aid is allowed to like flow freely in and out of Gaza again. There's going to be increased like economic support to Gaza to like help them rebuild. Hamas has an opportunity, like Hamas officials have an opportunity to decide whether or not they're going to like stay or leave and be like set up residence in like other countries. Gazans also, like Gazans broadly are like free to return to their like cities and towns where they used to live in. You're seeing like a lot of pictures right now, right? People walking long, long distances back to their homes that are now destroyed from what happened. And can I.

[A]

Two other ones I thought were interesting in this 20 point plan. One is no one will be forced to leave Gaza, which sounds obvious, but months ago Trump had been floating this idea of like moving Gazans to a different country or something. And so that is like baked into this peace plan that that is not happening. And then point 16 is that Israel will not occupy or annex Gaza. So it's a very explicit, like they have to leave.

[B]

Yeah, and I want to. So I want to come back to that specific point and also a few other of these. The two other things that has happened like over the course of the weekend is Trump flew to Israel, makes a speech and then Israel. And then Trump goes to Egypt for this like Gaza peace summit where they're with a bunch of other countries from around the world showing their approval for this agreement, announcing what the future is gonna be like and how this plan is gonna play out. But I think one important thing is that Trump in the build up to this or around these things has said that he's saying the war is over, but Netanyahu has not said that at any point. And also at this Egypt summit, Israel wasn't there, Israel didn't go. And neither was you know, Hamas or like any form of like Palestinian representation from, from what I saw. So it's weird to have this like giant summit around this deal, but not have either party present and just have it be all the other countries that like help negotiate said deal. So where does this like leave things right now? Right there is absolutely an immediate sense of relief from you know, whether or not you're like Palestinian or Israeli for maybe different reasons. A relief of just the violence being over. Right. For Gazans to like no longer be under attack in this war and for presumably this genocide to be over, you can like return, you can safely return home.

[C]

I mean aid is now allowed to flow in.

[B]

Aid can flow in. There's some relief there no matter what. But now we're at the rest of this where the beginning stages of this plan are being put into place and Israel is like falling back their lines of occupation on the Gazan territory, but the territory is still currently occupied. And this 20 point plan has a bunch of stipulations of the follow through both on Israel's end and Hamas's end that need to be like continued to be followed through with. And Netanyahu's lack of recognition of the war being over sort of indicates that you know, Israel might just start this up again because there have been previous ceasefire agreements where Israel like agreed to a ceasefire for a period of time and this just launched, you know, launch.

[C]

A missile and then if the geopolitical situation is such that it would be tougher for them to break it than they have in the past.

[B]

Exactly.

[C]

Because the reason they negotiate to begin with is because they're so isolated, they're defending on the United States and I said it's finally stopped backing them or at least pushed them into doing something.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

And now they don't have the hostages. As a, I don't use the word excuse but like as a, as a cause they can't, they can't be like.

[A]

We have to go save our citizens.

[C]

If there's no more hostages under, they can't begin rebombing Gaza and try to just further isolates them. And it would be violation of what is a publicly recognized pretty good, not a pretty a positive peace deal.

[B]

There's also weird, I mean maybe just weird from my perspective of reading it, stipulations in the plan. So point nine is Gaza will be governed under the temporary transitional governance of a technocratic apolitical Palestinian committee responsible for delivering the day to day running of public services and municipalities for the people in Gaza. And then one of the people that it says who's going to assist with this is Tony Blair, the former Prime Minister of the UK And I think there's just what I have been reading because there's so many different ideas and opinions and sources and even the way this was agreed to feels like, feels like they're. There may not be a follow through or a full agreement with all the aspects of this plan. It's very, it feels like there's a lot of details that won't be committed to.

[C]

If there's one thing the Palestinian region has needed, it's more British influence. We need to bring that back. Okay.

[A]

Everything was so good.

[C]

They drew the borders well. They set this all up. Well, we need to bring Tony Blair.

[A]

Actually. Tony. What you might not be aware is Tony Blair is, he's knighted, he's a sir. So we actually need to do another crusade.

[B]

He's like, I'm going to run that. I'm going to, I'm going to fix this situation just like I fixed the nhs.

[A]

We're going to send him Sir Patrick Stewart, Sir Elton John. We're going to send a new crusade.

[C]

Over as many British people as we can.

[A]

Peaceful nights to solve problems.

[C]

I do want to say, you know, you talk about the tenuousness of this deal. It's only been a few days.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

Or a day, four or five or something like this early. And Israel is already threatening to re blockade because they did not get the bodies of the, the deceased hostages which.

[B]

They'Re supposed to get from.

[C]

They are supposed to get. And I guess they've been, they've been trickling out. They got four additional deceased ones today, but they haven't got them all. So they're threatening to cut the aid. So I mean it's on a razor's edge of like. Yeah, but that's, that is a.

[B]

And I feel like the primary thing maintaining this is just the US's pressure and influence. The fact that they have finally caved to like a small degree and pressured for this deal to be the case. That's like the biggest thing that makes this different from anything in the past. But it's still a question of whether or not it will hold together. Like the, you know, just because the 20 point plan says the occupation is supposed to end doesn't mean that it's going to end. And then one thing I was thinking about is even if it did. Right. Yeah. None of this has anything to do with the West Bank. The West Bank's not mentioned at all. The settlements in the west bank aren't mentioned at all. Like there's a whole nother section of this issue that even if everything in this agreement was fulfilled perfectly. Right.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

It's not like Israel, Palestine as a You know, as the issue is like solved. Right. Palestinian liberation, the worst. Yeah, it's, it's so, it all feels so precarious. That was what I walked away with. It feels confusing, precarious. And I'm happy that the violence is over in the short term. But is this something that is followed through with?

[C]

That's what I want to say is like, obviously I've been a bit of.

[B]

A critic of Dollar Tree for a.

[C]

Lot of episodes and a lot of big egg clips, but if this held, let's say, through a full year of next year, it would only be because, yeah, he has to keep his attention on this thing. Like, oh, it would require Donald Trump to actually continually think about this, put pressure on it. If he turns his attention and gaze somewhere else and stops caring.

[A]

This is Tony's job.

[C]

So if he did it, I would actually say that is more than what Obama did. It could be earned. Like, I wouldn't mind him getting the Peace Prize for that. This is going to take significant focus.

[B]

Imagine Tony Blair gets the Nobel Peace Prize next year.

[C]

Fucking crazy.

[B]

So what you're saying, I think a critique I've seen pop up a lot is Trump has this way of doing business, is he announces a change that he sees himself as involved in. And to his credit, he is involved here. Right. And then he makes it very grandiose. He's like, the war is over. It's one of the great moments in civilization.

[C]

He said he ended 3,000 years of, of war in the Middle east.

[B]

But he has a history on day one, he said that, of doing something or saying something like that and then kind of moving on and going to the next issue or the next toy and leaving the follow through and the details to others. Right.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

And I think with a situation like this that seems like an approach that isn't going to be sustainable. That's my opinion.

[C]

Yeah, I mean, we don't know. I, I agree with you. I, I, it seems tenuous. It seems like there's a lot of things that could break it. Any, any small action, even by an individual actor could, domino effect could escalate. I mean any, anything could cause someone to feel like they don't need to do their up into the bargain and then escalate and then goes back.

[A]

Okay, so I, I have a question that follows up on this. I feel like you guys follow this more deeply than I do, so I would like to think I somewhat represent the average person who is, I think it's safe to say the average person also doesn't like what Israel's been doing and is not happy about what Israel's been doing and thinks this is a shitty situation and that Israel shouldn't be supported with the way they've handled this, why is the USA the only one still left supporting them? Do you guys understand like every other. Because it's like you said it was in the past couple months, it went from other countries being like, we really don't want this to like full on Palestinian statehood. This is a genocide. I mean, it's a major ramp up. And this is like France and Germany, right? And like what, what is happening in the US that we are so steadfast with this? I don't get it.

[B]

Hi. So my girlfriend also asked me this question and I'm a 28 year old podcaster. I'll give it my, my best shot. And before I answer this, please, it's just relax. I'm just, just, just relax. My understanding is that Israel has spent a long, long time like crafting support within America and the American government. And they are trying like they need like one big party to exist as they are now, like in the safe or stable fashion that they are. And then in the US's interest. This is a country in the Middle east that's like a relatively unstable region for U.S. relations and has other threats like Iran. So it's important to have a deeply tied US ally in the region in order to combat that potential threat. That's my very loose understanding is there's a mutually beneficial arrangement here and deep historical political ties between the two countries. Now that are hard to just snap a road because you can see, I would say especially this year and past two years, a huge disparity in the level of like political support for Israel in like the political establishment versus the support for Israel for the, from the average citizen right now.

[C]

Right.

[B]

That's what's deviating like around the world.

[C]

Yeah, I want to give the same caveat, but older podcaster, but same thing, but I want to talk about it. So my understanding is that, have you ever seen that old clip of Joe Biden from like literally 40 years ago? He's like early term senator and he's like, if Israel did not exist in the Middle East, America would have to invent an Israel for its interest. Like, well, general idea is that it's like an unsinkable aircraft carrier in the Middle east and because of the conflict there, because we did a previous episode where I kind of showed the, the trade routes that go through the Middle east and the, the abundance of oil is that America needed a strategic military intelligence ally. The same way that Russia got really deeply in bed with Syria, in the same way that China is getting close ties with Iran. You just need, as one of the big bros, you need a little bro in that region to make sure that your interests are protected. And that's how it worked. But then the tail began to wag the dog over the past decades, as Israel used focused political pressure and you know, they have political lobbies in America to sort of, instead of becoming the. The thing of America's interest, America became sort of subservient to Israel's interests. And they flipped it, which has been kind of going on until really this Qatar bombing. This Qatar bombing is like the first time I've seen a big shift where it felt like even in the Trump administration, they were set. Even like Tucker Carlson was like, this is not like Netanyahu was playing us like a fool. And so they flipped on that. That front is my understanding, from a pure geopolitical standpoint, I feel like that is what's been happening was Israel was kind of flipping the relationship to their benefit. And then now after Qatar, Trump kind of.

[A]

Yeah, it's like the left politically, I mean, not even the establishment, the left outside of the political establishment has been obviously extremely vocally critical. And then it feels like recently even politicians who are elected are starting to be like, ah, not a fan of this. You know, just such a massive butcher.

[B]

Yeah, the actions, the actions they've taken and also the level of media that you have to display them. Right. There's so many cascading little things that have shaped opinion outside of in a way that could never exist before. I think also one interesting point I saw come up is Netanyahu was meeting with, I think it was like a Christian religious group in the US and he was talking about how they could maintain support from Americans. And he was talking about like moderating TikTok or moderating American platforms, like censorship, censorship on American media platforms to help shape people's view of Israel. And I think when you're a Tucker Carlson. Right. You hear that and I, you know, not a Tucker Carlson fan. Well, but he.

[A]

You don't say well.

[C]

You listen to it a lot.

[A]

Don't say well.

[B]

But even like Tucker is somebody that hears that and is like foreign government influencing my free speech and media consumption.

[C]

Yeah, for their benefit.

[B]

For their benefit. I don't fuck with that. So I think this, this past two years is this. Israel has taken a bunch of actions and said a bunch of Things where people are, like, revisiting the, like, cultural or, like, historical idea of their country's support for them, and they're like, wait a second, I don't like this.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

And that's. And so they're kind of paying the price for their own actions here outside of the, you know, the moral implications. Yeah.

[C]

You know, on a moral front, too. It's like, you know, October 7th is a horrible attack. But. But I don't know how many people died. 2500 something. I don't actually remember.

[B]

It was like. It's like a little over a thousand, I think.

[C]

But so if you're immediate retaliation or whatever for defense, okay, you get that. But if it's two years later and you've killed or starved 68,000 people, it.

[A]

Becomes more and more placed. A million.

[C]

It just becomes more and more apparent. Very obvious to the rest of the world that this is not an act of defense. It is not. You know what I'm saying? It's so. It's so clearly beyond that. And so. And. And I think they were willing to put up with that until it became so isolating economically. I think now that, like, I think a lot of deals were getting cut off with major European Union countries and things that made them very dependent on America. And then America flipped, and once Trump flipped, that's it. They have nobody left to. Yeah, they just won't work.

[B]

A friend mentioned, like, there's. There's little things that add up over time, too. Like, you know, Netanyahu flying on his plane. He doesn't get to. He has to do, like, a weird route that takes longer to get to the UN now. Or, like, I'm an Israeli citizen and, like, when I travel abroad, I have to lie about where I'm from because everybody hates me.

[C]

Oh, true.

[B]

Like, and I. I'm. I think little frictions that are the result of this conflict existing add up over time. The inconveniences have to be addressed at some point because they affect, you know, Israel has to reconcile with, like, all of the reactions of the world around them and how that affects, like, not just their government, but their citizens.

[C]

I like the idea of Netanyahu stopping a genocide because he wants no layovers.

[B]

It's just I can't that two extra hours.

[C]

By the way.

[A]

You know, it's funny, I didn't mention it. Two of the most prominent people who nominated Trump and said he should have won the Peace Prize prize, Netanyahu and Putin.

[C]

Wait, Putin. Putin.

[A]

Putin said he deserved it for his work in Gaza.

[B]

Wait, no, about Trump said Donald Trump.

[C]

Deserves a Nobel Peace Prize. That can't be true.

[A]

I don't believe it says Donald Trump. I mean, I'll.

[C]

Let's fact check. Putin praises Trump's peace efforts as really doing a lot to resolve global crises. Putin, okay. Maybe he said it after he didn't win and said, well, sorry.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, sorry. He did not. He did not officially, officially nominate. But both Netanyahu and Putin both express support for him being a advocate for peace.

[C]

That's your advocacy group, which is awesome.

[A]

Right? Like, you're. Both of them are doing war.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

They're active.

[C]

Like the two people causing the most war and destruction. Yeah. Outside of Sudan.

[A]

I guess that's even like, the thing is, like, I get what you're saying or not you. I get the idea that you communicated, which is that America needs some sort of, like, base of some kind of safety that in this giant region where there are antagonistic countries like Iran. But then if the base you set up pisses everybody off all the time, that's not actually helpful. Like, that makes everything worse, man.

[C]

I think that's what they figured out, I think. I mean, Trump was probably the last. Took him the, you know, he got there the last possible second. But I think that is what it's.

[A]

Again, it's like the bombing Iran before doing the peace deal type of thing. It's like, you know, at some point, proactively doing all this violence.

[B]

One thought I want to close this out on is if you are interested in hearing more about this, like, I encourage you to read more, encourage you to look out more than like, just listening to the show. I thought reading through the full 20 point plan was particularly helpful. So if you have some time, just look it up. Like, just Google it. Full 20 point plan. And I think it's very illuminating of what, like, the goals are, at least. And it gives you a framework of how successful this is as it plays out.

[A]

Yeah, I want to, I want to add on to this. You can just. On Wikipedia, it's just Gaza peace plan is the thing. And then it has the 20 points listed there. It's a pretty quick read. This is not, you know, tons of pages.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And then the second is an article that I think is phenomenal. And this is if you're somebody like me who has tried to follow this conflict, but feels like, holy shit, there's so much going on, is so hard to parse what's going on, what's exaggerated there. Isaac Saul is the lead of a publisher publication called Tangle, where he like puts out daily newsletters. I think it's phenomenal. It was turned, I was turned onto it by a friend. So he made an article called I think I'm leaving Zionism or Zionism is Leaving Me. So he's an American Jew that then went to Israel as birthright and spent I think like a decade living in Israel and is now back here, longtime staunch supporter of Israel. And then he basically talks about his reckoning and frustration with this over time and how he has now basically views this as a legitimate genocide and goes into detailed explanations of why you could classify it as that. This is by far the best thing I've read and it's very much like tries to understand both sides. So if, if you want to hear more from somebody who's really participated in both sides of this excellent article, highly recommend.

[C]

One thing I really do want to learn more about and I didn't have time to read more about it was the internal political situation of Israel. Because my understanding is that Netanyahu is like part of a farther right group within Israel who also was being investigated, you know, that he, he was able to declare like emergency powers for this conflict that allowed him to extend his term as leader of Israel and avoid persecution for things that he had done before in the past. So I, I don't fully understand that line and I understand the other factions within Israel who are trying to do different things and what they are their chances of winning or. Yeah, I don't know that.

[B]

I tried to follow that actually a bit more because I think my understanding on that was really foggy as well. What I found out is he is struggling a bit politically within Israel. Like he isn't well liked by a lot of people. But it's not for, it's because of those corruption reasons rather than, rather than the genocide. Rather than the genocide. Like nobody's like most, most people in Israel are not like he's committing these like human rights atrocities. And this is why I don't like him. They like him for different reasons. And there is, I mean I don't have it pulled up right now. I was going through some like public polling in Israel and how they view like the war and how they view Palestinians in general or like how Palestinian, Palestinians are being treated in the war. And it's pretty heavy handed in one direction of like they think it's fine that it's this way. Not literally everybody, of course, but I think with stuff like this you can, you can read, read, read. You know, there's, there's more and more to learn about it.

[C]

So they want to learn more about. Well, interesting. You know, what else is a war? The trade war.

[A]

Let's go to a lighter war that doesn't involve.

[C]

Let's go to war with no guns. But, you know, who knows? We're gonna.

[B]

The thing is it could get some guns involved eventually.

[A]

Do not. That's. That can't be our lemonade.

[C]

World War III aided you. Bite your fucking tongue. I'm. I'm wearing this as a message of peace to Xi Jinping. All right. I'm wearing my G shirt.

[A]

Wow.

[C]

To bring the American Xi Jinping inside of you.

[A]

There are three GS.

[C]

Yes. Yes, there are. And the trade wars escalated. And I just want to give an update on, you know, a real line has been, I would say crossed in the trade war recently that is leading to massive movements on both sides. So I brought this special top secret container of rare earth metals that I shipped in from China, which is the only place. No, you can't look at it.

[A]

I can't look at the minerals.

[C]

No, you can't look at SR for. Show you there. We all know that there's been a trade war between the United States and China. Pretty much kicked off by the United States. They were the ones that first put on the tariffs and have been trying to reshore manufacturing from China. And they've also been doing restrictions on AI chips and data center chips and you know, top, top level technology stuff to prevent it from getting to Chinese hands. Okay. So that was, that was the impetus, but it's been sort of at a standstill. They've had negotiations, but nothing's really changed recently. China, like a few days ago, China announced what is a massive, massive escalation in this war, which is a restriction of rare earth metals to everyone else in the world. You know, I'm going to get into it. So this is a rare earth bombshell. Now, if you don't know a little context. China accounts for half of the global rare earth mining and 90% plus of processing, which means essentially in. In effect, if you make anything that use rare earth metals, you will be working with China. It will be going through.

[A]

Yeah, I have a question.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

They're called rare earth minerals. Are they rare?

[C]

We're going to get to that. Thank you for setting that up. But you do it in three slides.

[A]

Set me up again later.

[C]

Ask it again. Ask it again. The United States, for example, we have one rare earth mine in California, Mountain Valley, and no rare earth processing. So this is how The United States gets rare earth metals from its own California. They mine it out of the ground. They get big lumps of dirt and rock, and they ship it to China, who then processes it and then ships it back. That is how we do it. That's how most countries do it. Yeah, sure.

[A]

They're called rare earth minerals. Or is it actually rare?

[C]

Okay, I want to look at this graph. You can see very easily that China is dominant in global output of rare earth minerals. United States.

[A]

And this is after refining, right?

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

Okay, so this is 70% of the actual usable stuff.

[C]

Yes.

[A]

Okay.

[C]

Yes, yes, yes. Okay. So there are a number of rare earth minerals, actually 12 that China have put import or export restrictions on. But I want to talk specifically about these seven. They have absolute leverage, absolute dominance over these, these minerals. But you basically cannot build things that use them. So this right here, Doug, is samarium. Okay. Do you know what samarium is used for? That's right. Nuclear reactors, electronics, magnets. Okay. This is gadolinium. You can't eat them. Okay.

[B]

Did you just lick it?

[C]

This is used for data storage. Again, nuclear reactors, mri, high frequency contrast agents, and of course, defense like sonar and sensors. This is terbium. It's used for fuel cells, LED lights, smartphones, TV screens. Again, requires China. This is dysprosium. Can they have 99% market share in this Dysprosium. Used for electric vehicles, for wind turbines, for again, nuclear reactors, EV transition. It's critical for DV transition for any country. And you cannot do it without dysprosium and you can't do that without China.

[A]

So they put one of these in my car.

[C]

That's right. They just. They stick it in there. In the surge, it turns off like the. Yeah. Reactor and back to the future. This is loot. Tushium. I don't even know loot. Etiom, lutetium. Medical imaging, catalyst high electronics atrium, LEDs, superconductors, medical ceramics.

[A]

I can see why this one is worth a lot. This is a cool looking mineral.

[C]

And of course, finally we have the one everyone's trying to get into, scandium. Okay. This is for creating light aircraft, like, like light high tech aircraft. It's used for, again, fuel cells, 3D printing, a lot of high tech stuff. Okay, Strategic takeaway.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

You want to raise your hand is.

[A]

They'Re called rare earth minerals, but I don't understand why so many people are trying to get into scandium but not the others.

[C]

That's a great question. First of all, all of these rocks are not What? I said they were just rocks from around the town.

[A]

Oh, dude. Wait, what's the one?

[B]

I sick of you.

[A]

Can I say?

[B]

Can I, can I, can I derail for a second? I'm sick of you two making long winded presentations where you rug pull little bait and switches.

[C]

Yeah, this is just a box full of rocks that I found.

[B]

Just fully believed him.

[A]

Yeah, no I did, I did. Yeah.

[C]

However, however, come to think about how.

[A]

You would have gotten all of this.

[C]

Trying to get these is actually very difficult. You can only get them in like school level sizes because China will not export them to you via Amazon.

[A]

To prove my point about how China won't export this, here's a box of rare earth minerals. Yeah, yeah.

[C]

But all the things I said were correct. So obviously this has thrown western companies and basically anyone who's not in China into chaos. This is what a rare earth mine looks like. And these are the elements. Ok. So again these are actual elements that are fundamental to the earth around us. China has restricted the world from using these elements without their permission and then recently added five more. So now there are 12 elements that essentially China has declared sovereignty over. Which means. I want to explain, I write through the mofcom announcement. If you want to make anything that uses these and has even 0.01% from a Chinese source, which they pretty much all do, you must send an application to the Chinese government, get it approved. You cannot resell what you make to another country without proof from China. They're not just selling you the rare earth, they are selling you the right to use it in anything. And anything you make with it, you cannot sell to someone else. They have, they are declared total authority over these minerals they have 90% control over.

[B]

They've like trademarked rocks.

[C]

So it's a bitty, pretty big line in the sand. Like it's got people freaking out. Now where did they learn how to do this specific plan and idea? Let me show you an example. So this is ultraviolet technology developed in San Diego and it happens to be used at ASML in the Netherlands to make their gigantic lithography machines that are used to make chips because they use this tiny part from San Diego in this massive machine. America has said you cannot export to anyone else in the world because you have a point, you know, you have a 1% American product in it. And so we will ban you from selling it to any of these countries in red and we will make you get approval for any countries in blue or in yellow. I'm sorry, this is the exact model that China is now rolling out for their dominance of rare earths. It is between America and high end tech and China and rare earths. And they are both restricting how anyone else in the country, in the world acts based on their original input. So ask me a question, ask me a question, Doug.

[A]

Rare earth mineral name is it?

[C]

Great question, Doug. That's a really wise question. So rare earths are a bit of a misnomer. They're not that rare. In fact, every single day you will see a new announcement from some countries saying, oh, we discovered millions of tons of rare earth minerals. Kazakhstan found 20 million tons. Even China just found another million.

[A]

It looked like barely any.

[C]

They're really heavy. They're really heavy. Sweden, you might talk about this. Aidan said they found the largest deposit of rare earth metals in Europe. And then right after that Norway said, no, we found the largest deposit of earth metals. And I was thinking, are these the same deposit? You guys are right next to each other. But no, they are a 15 day walk apart. Okay, there's Aiden right there saying wow, wow. So every country does it. Wyoming has said they just found a massive. Everyone does it all the time. And the comments in all these videos are like, oh well, get fucked China. Now we have our own. But the truth of the matter is they've never been rare. They exist in huge quantities all over the world. The hard part is refining them. Okay. And countries that do manufacturing like Germany are realizing how risky it is because they use this stuff all the time and now have to go apply to China for everything. And if it has any defense impact, China automatically denies on principle. That's what they said.

[B]

So yeah, and the is the initial concern with why a lot of these countries didn't want to refine them in the first place or develop the supply chain to do so was environmental, right?

[C]

Yeah, it's two part. One part is environmental. This is, this stuff is pretty rough on the environment. You have to get massive quantities of essentially dirt and then you filter them through with like very dangerous chemicals that often seep into groundwater. And then that brings out the tiny trace amounts of the rare earth metals that you then refine enough to have enough to use. So it's like, it's really raping the environment. I don't know the better word. It's like bad. It's like really bad. Like every area that does this has problems with like rivers getting tons of toxic chemicals in them. The land looks completely ravaged. But like this is how you get rare earth minerals. And you just need to find a Mine that is far enough from human activity to do it because it is required for literally all the latest tech and defense stuff. There's, that's how it works now. Okay. And so most people just offshore their refining to China. They just like, they don't look at it but they get the dirt and they send it there. And it's now become concerning not only to Germany but all of Europe. Europe's entire manufacturing base is dependent on this and China can cut it off at will. Now I want to say that China is not currently threatening to just cut it off. They're basically saying you apply to us, we're going to approve pretty much everything. If it has anything to do with defense, we're going to say no on principle. If it has anything to do with high tech AI stuff we're going to say no. If you're touching America. That's sort of what they've said. And it's put, you know, everyone at high.

[A]

That guy looks like he's going to go burn down the navi's tree.

[C]

Pop a blood vessel. I can't getting some scandium.

[A]

He look upset that there's any trees left near the rare earth minerals.

[C]

So in response to this high tech threat, the you know we talked about before, America closing its grip on on high end AI chips has caused, you know, things to slip through their fingers as in China is now full speed ahead trying to get outside of building their own AI checks. This is exactly what's happening in reverse with China. They have chosen this moment to, to draw the line and make their stand. But they are sowing the seeds of their own undoing because everyone is working full speed now because they know the risk. So France which has huge nuclear power capabilities and deposit rare earths is investing a ton in making their own rare earth refining plants. Australia has seen that. You know, their President Albanese Prime Minister came out and said like this is our greatest opportunity. We're going to do a trillion dollar deal with America. We have a ton of rare earths. We have the ability to work on it. This could be a huge growth industry for Australia.

[B]

That would probably be huge for Australia too because their mining sector is so gigantic and it's sort of a drag in the sense that it's. They are so reliant on that sector for like economic growth. So if you could develop the supply chain a little more and add on to that. Yeah, long run for Australia. That probably has to be so.

[C]

Exactly. So the big thing, it goes back to the book we read. Breakneck is that this stuff is hard and it requires a lot of expertise. All that expertise is located in China. You can't just one off, throw money at it. You really have to build up this process knowledge of doing it a lot for a long time. And if you try to just half heartedly do it or throw a factory here and there, not only will you not be good at it, but you will be uncompetitive compared to China who can do it at a bigger scale and cheaper. And in the past, every time someone's tried to set up a competing rare earth production facility, China just lowers the prices, undercuts them, makes them non economical and they go out of business. So they've been, it's been a multi, almost a decade long plan to set up this total control of rare earths that they are now like putting into play as a way to like punch back in the trade war. Which you know, they have a right to because they're being attacked and they're trying to like, but it's what's happening.

[A]

So real quick, do you know it, it sounds like because so much of the world sends their rare earth minerals to China for refinement, that in theory a country like Australia could set up a ton of refinement plants, for example, in the desert because they have so much open space. Right. So in theory, countries that are willing to, I don't know, designate a lot of land that doesn't need to be like that, environmentally maintained, it could in theory get very successful.

[C]

In theory, of course, like there's nothing unique about China that makes them able to do this, but they have just done it so consistently for so long and have such a dominance that it's hard to break in. But that's why this move is big. Because before this move, everyone that tried to do it was like, guys, this is important. China has too much done with me to do it. Everyone's like, yeah, okay. But then when push came to shove and it wasn't profitable, they were like, yeah, well you lose.

[A]

Yeah, yeah.

[C]

But now it's like seen as a strategic threat. So governments are willing to prop up companies that aren't yet profitable to make sure that the rare earth supply chain works outside of, of China.

[B]

It probably helps that all of these countries are interested in doing this around the same time as well.

[C]

Right?

[B]

A wave of them doing it at once rather than one country trying to break in on its own.

[C]

Yes. It's kind of becoming public. Everyone is now realizing at once what a threat this is, what risk they cannot have their Own fighter jet program. They can't have their own high. You know, there's a lot of high end EV program. They can't do that anymore without China's approval. And they can cut it off at any moment.

[A]

And to be clear, also semiconductors, which power AI, which is powering our entire stock market and economy 100%. Like yeah, everything.

[C]

I mean it's the same thing that like China and Russia and a lot of those red countries are realizing about semiconductor. Semiconductors, which is that American cut off at any moment. Okay. And so they have to get out of that thumb. So what does this mean? It means number one, that stupid Aiden is going to win our slot competition for sure.

[B]

I was about to tell you guys, I don't know if you've checked the metals company. That shit has broken. $10. Yeah, I bought this at 1.

[C]

Yeah. 948 gain this year. And it's because companies like the metals company, and I'm not talking about just yet, like literally 150 different companies that are in the rare earth space are all skyrocketing because everyone around the world in the past five days has realized all at once we need our own rare earth minerals. And money is flowing from governments into this.

[B]

ATRIA actually took this presentation from my personal hard drive from nine months ago.

[C]

You planned this?

[A]

Why did you invest in, in tmz?

[C]

He saw a Vice documentary.

[B]

Deadass. I watched, I went, wait, is this.

[A]

One about undersea mining?

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

God damn it.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

It's not even the right reason.

[B]

I went back and found the video of the one I watched. It's like a 10 minute like MSNBC piece about the company or something. And it just really stuck with me because I saw follow up articles and, and then when we did the draft, I was like, I can only think of one company that I've actually researched. And then I just picked it and because in my head it was like energy, electric cars, minerals, surely. And then. And, and you just backed me up.

[C]

And it fucking did. All right, this, this has become the most important thing in the world this year for almost every developed economy. And so it's happening. So in response, you know, we talked about the follow up where Trump. But you can take that off the screen. Trump is doing 100% tariffs on China because of this escalation. And now he's counter escalating and he walked it back a bit after the market reacted poorly. And there's going to be a meeting in South Korea between Xi and Trump in a few weeks where they hopefully talk this down from the ledge because it's now getting insane. But I wonder what you guys think, because I, I actually think China may have played their hand too early on this one. It feels like they had this dominance and they might still have it for the, for years to come. They will have it for years to come. But this is because they, they're even walking it back. China's like, hey guys, we're going to approve almost everything. Like the first thing they said really was tough. And now they're like, don't worry, it's unless your American defense will be fine. But everyone is now reacting with panic.

[B]

I know we have this show.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

But it feels awkward as the guy who played Counter Strike for five hours last night to step up to the plate and be like trying to play their hand to it. You know, it's hard for me, it's.

[C]

Hard for me to say I think that's fair. But you have read, you read the book Breakneck and you seem to come to the conclusion that America's attempt to restrict China's AI stuff is kind of backfiring. Do you. Is that where you're at or no?

[B]

I think, yeah, it backfires no matter what. Right. It doesn't matter when they make this play. Maybe there's a more critical moment, you could argue where the short term benefits you in some sort of higher stakes conflict, like say we were actually at war or something. Right. And then you play these cards because the stakes are so high. Maybe there's a more opportune moment. But regardless of when you do it across all of these issues, as soon as you make a move like this that is heard so widely, everybody is going to react and start developing the tools to like combat the leverage that they have over you. It doesn't matter when it's leveraged.

[C]

That's what I'm saying is you, it will always praise the warrior. Dominance entrenches. And the more you can have that leverage unsaid, you know, use it when you actually need it. I think the podcast, I guess what.

[B]

I would ask is how much more entrenched do they need to be? Like if you gave them five more years, ten more years? I don't really know the answer to that question, but it seems like from what you were walking through, their strategic position is as powerful as it basically could be.

[C]

I think that's a fair point. I mean, they think so. As in, like, this is not an ad hoc plan. Is didn't just come together. They have been planning for this. In fact, there's one mineral, one element, helium, that America had a dominance on. America was like the primary exporter of helium. And China needed a lot of helium. And before, I think years ago, they were thinking about pulling this trigger in 2020 and they realized that America could counter stop helium, you know, as a. And they plan for this. They said, we're going to, we're going to completely get off dependence of American helium over the next few years. And they did. And now there is no, you know.

[A]

They can have birthday parties all they want.

[C]

Yeah, they can. Yeah, exactly. Xi Jinping wanted to have this huge balloon birthday party and he was worried that Trump could cut him off, but now he can't.

[B]

I have a question about the helium. Forgive me.

[C]

Yeah, I might not know this one.

[B]

Isn't helium really common? Why is it so. Isn't helium the next most common one or.

[C]

I don't.

[A]

It's like a limited amount. I don't know if.

[C]

I don't know. Yeah, I hope there's a limited amount of helium.

[B]

The sun be making helium. But I know that sounds silly.

[C]

It's like, maybe we just can't get it, bro.

[B]

Maybe we just can't get it. I don't know enough about this topic to know, like, how we could, like, collect.

[C]

I used fake helium. I don't understand how elements truly work on a fundamental level. I just know that they're naturally occurring. And China says they own 12.

[A]

Yeah. There's a finite amount of helium on Earth. It's not. It's not a thing. You just have an infinite amount of.

[B]

Shouldn't we just go to the sun.

[C]

And get it, scoop it up?

[B]

Should we just be scooping it up at this time?

[A]

I'm asking ChatGPT.

[B]

Sometimes on this show, sometimes on the show, I have to let my inner child run wild and ask the questions like, shouldn't we just go to the sun?

[C]

I have to explain. Israel, Palestine, Gaza.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

Ask if we can scoop up a helium from the source.

[B]

I think this juxtaposition is important because it means if you're listening to the show, it's like you should go. You shouldn't just be listening to this show.

[C]

Nah, you're good.

[B]

Because in my head, it's like helium, the sun be making that. A lot of it.

[A]

No, hold on, hold on. I'm gonna push back. What are you suggesting specifically? That we go to the sun.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

The sun doesn't deliver it here.

[B]

The sun disperses it.

[C]

Stop saying the sun be making it. That last time.

[B]

You should say that. That's true though. That's true. You know, that's how it works, right?

[A]

This nuclear 150 million kilometers away.

[B]

Yeah, but it's going to make it to us, surely. And then you can scoop it up.

[C]

I feel like the sunny scene where he's talking about stars. I don't know if. About stars to dispute it. Like I know for.

[B]

Look, I, if I know anything, I know for a fact that the sun be making it. You're.

[A]

No, that part is, is Korean.

[C]

From the other hand, not reach Earth in usable form.

[B]

That can't be true. That can't be.

[A]

Well, Chad's lying. That's. You can't trust AI.

[C]

Come on.

[B]

Okay, so any, any. Anything else you wanted to, to wrap this up?

[C]

I want to say this is just beginning. It feels like this is, like this is gotten everybody, both in China and in the rest of the world on high alert as to this trade war being. You know, it feels like it goes like a, it's like a, a heartbeat or something trending down. You know, it gets a little better and then something happens and it gets like the tensions are clearly deteriorating between these two countries.

[B]

Well, if I were, if I were to reach back into the Israel Palestine section, we just did. Right. I was talking about how all of these things that you do add up into these little layers of friction that compound on each other over time for your, for citizens of your country. Right. Or maybe for your government's ability to take action. And I think here, right. The beginning of this trade war, as it continues to play out, as these things pass over time, they affect our lives individually in like little inconvenient ways that add up and add up and add up over time that put pressure on presumably the American government to, to make a decision of whether or not they can continue to hold strong or if they need to cave in order to make the political base happy. Right. And this is the same thing. I don't. I need enough time to play out and see how is this going to affect me in my day to day life. Because it surely will with enough time passing.

[A]

Well, the immediate thing is the tariffs. So again, the way it immediately affects people is that Trump in response to this said 100% tariffs on everything from China. Yeah. Starting November 1st.

[B]

And like for normal people, you might have ordered 12,000 mugs.

[A]

Right, right. And the average, again, speaking as like the kind of everyman on the podcast. I have $100,000 in mug arriving in a few weeks and I might be fucked because what am I going to do when the when they're like, hey, come get your mugs at the border and give it. Anyway, I. So this is, this is problematic. And then you might have already said this when I was researching whether we can go to the sun is. So there's this APAC summit. So Trump and Xi are meeting on October 31, two weeks. So in theory this is saber rattling from both sides where they will then go meet in person in South Korea at this yearly summit. And then they will both go, oh, we've come to an agreement. Because they've already done that like five times this year. Right. They keep doing this up and down heartbeat like you said. So in theory this all goes away and it was just a whole bunch of dick swinging. But it's concerning.

[C]

That's the last part.

[B]

I have a big question for you, so maybe you go ahead.

[C]

Okay. I will say is that, you know, I was read, I was researching for this last night and I ended up on a rabbit hole on what Taiwan has been saying about all this, which is very interesting because they're kind of caught between the two again. They make chips they can't export because America says so. And they import rare earths that China says you can't make things with it. They go to America. Like there's, they're, they're really caught between two worlds. And Taiwan is extremely afraid that at this meeting there is going to be a deal. We kind of talked about this before. There's going to be a deal where Taiwan is used as a bargaining chip to get rid of these rare earth. Like America is going to withdraw support from Taiwan, you know, you know, maybe not publicly but like ease back from any protection as a way to get out of this rare earth thing. And a de escalation in tariffs and a normalization that is like on Taiwanese news they are talking about this pretty regularly. It is something that is like worried. And that's an interesting angle going into this because it feels like China's ultimate goal is not dominance and rares, it is to reunify China and Taiwan. And that is they're willing to throw some things around to get that. And so I don't know. That's interesting. Yeah. I don't know if that was your.

[B]

Question or what, but you Almost exactly my question. We had touched on the idea of the US and China positioning themselves to actually get along and kind of not deal with these disputes anymore. Where does that stand? But I think this is the exact answer.

[C]

And again, I don't know. This is just what's speculated In Taiwan. Of course they're going to say that in Taiwan. It's like, very refreshing, relevant to them, but there's some credibility to it, especially given recent actions. So again, like, a Taiwanese leader wasn't able to land in America recently. Like, yeah, like they were going to have a meeting and they blocked it. They say just keep going. Just as a way of simmering tensions with China. And then obviously Trump blocked the sale of some arms to Taiwan that were supposed to be sold. So it's like, clearly something's being discussed and this could be a part of it. What else is going on?

[B]

Well, I figured we could pivot to something light.

[C]

Okay.

[B]

I could give you my Sudan. I could give you my 10 minute explainer on the Sudan civil war.

[A]

Dude, this episode's been so. Okay, hold on.

[C]

Is that good?

[A]

That or AI erotica. Okay. Which is. That's light hearted. You could write and you could have ChatGPT write erotica about the Sudan war.

[B]

I'll tell you things I won't do.

[A]

Yeah, I think.

[B]

You know what, actually, I think this deserves maybe a little more airtime in the future. I've been following up and maybe just to preview, I had a really good call with someone who's been living in Sudan, still lives in Sudan for 20 years. And we had talked about the war on Patreon, and I just did like, preliminary research, reading articles of what's going on, and then talked to him for an hour. Very enlightening. I think it's a massive conflict that a lot of people either forget about or flat out don't know about. I've stressed this every time I've brought up. It's not a. These wars are not a competition. But the scale at which the Sudan civil war is unfolding at and the number of people who have died either of famine or directly from the war is just at a scale that I was so far beyond me. So I'm putting together some things on my end to, like, bring it up on the show, explain it as best I can, and talking to people who actually live there. So I want a little preview for the future. Why don't we talk about something light, a little AI erotica.

[A]

Yeah. So in equally important news. Sex is fun. Sex is fun. Is this gonna be.

[B]

Is this like Sora erotica?

[A]

Kind of. I mean, this isn't so like, the. The actual story itself is. Is interesting, but not incredibly impactful. If you pull us up, Perry. So Sam Altman, head of OpenAI, said ChatGPT is going to soon allow erotica for adult users. So the, the main point of this is not really about being able to write cool porn. It's more that there is a general question about how restrictive these AI models should be. And as most people are aware, especially recently, ChatGPT and Sora, the hot new video model, right. Are both incredibly restrictive as they currently stand. When ChatGPT 5 came out, one of the big criticisms is it stopped feeling like a kind of personal type of friend and became a much more clinical, objective person. And they've talked about how that was essentially to avoid the challenges they were having, like people being told to commit suicide by character AI or you know, these other things where, where people become really deeply emotionally dependent on this thing to an unhealthy degree. So they essentially, there's a pendulum that is swinging where they release a product and it's either way too overly restrictive or not restrictive enough. Case in point, last week they released Sora, or two weeks ago they released Sora. Tons of copyrighted content out the gate and then they swung it way back. And everybody's pissed off because it barely makes anything without getting upset at you.

[B]

I can't make my full spongebob episodes anymore.

[C]

Yeah, people are actually saying that that's what on the Sorrow Reddit, they're like, I made last week, I made spongebob. It was fucking great. Now I can't fucking say I'm going to kill yourself. I hate you. Yeah, that's unironically what is being said. Okay. And this is a response to that.

[A]

Yeah. So he is basically acknowledging in the last few months we have been too much on the side of censorship over control. It's not going to help you, it's not going to personalize. We are aware of this, we're swinging it back and we're going to pair that with more verification of age. So if you verify that you're an adult, we're going to allow you to make sexual content, which if it's not abundantly clear already, this is going to be an absolutely enormous use case for, for ChatGPT and for all these AI companies. Right. There's gonna be so much AI porn and AI erotica and all this stuff, right? And so far nobody's really known how to navigate it. But what they're suggesting is okay, if we allow adults to verify that they are adults and then it's okay. We're also going to be trying to stricter around, trying to find kids and try to gate how the AIs will actually act with them and not make them this sort of like, tweet, though.

[C]

It's like, I found this tweet to be so insane because we talked about. Maybe a week or two ago, we pulled up the Sora blog and we showed like, their, their mission statement and how we're going to be. We're going to be safe and our number one priority is creativity and not. And, you know, made the case on that episode was that like, on that sounds good until there's a profit motive or there's something else that you need to do. And this post basically just says, like, we made it very restrictive to be sure. We were careful with mental health issues. We realized it's made this less useful or enjoyable. People who have no mental health problems. But given the serious of the issue, we wanted to make it get this right. And now that we basically say, now we've solved the mental health problem, but they haven't. They're just going to bring it back because people are mostly upset. It's not. The idea that they've mitigated it or have new tools is crazy. It's just going to be. They just realize that the competition is heating up. Grok, you know, Elon Musk is tweeting about AI erotica all day, every day.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

And Grok is coming, you know, for part of their lunch, and they just want to head that off. So I don't know, I, I can.

[A]

See the other side to this. I mean, so these, these models are being updated all the time, having safeguards in place to make sure to be able to pick up on the idea of, okay, somebody is now talking about suicide in a way that clearly relates to them. You can train the models to learn how to identify this stuff better. So they've been fine tuning this and doing this work. You can update models substantially after the core foundation is in place. So if you take him at his word, they have, behind the scenes, they started really restrictive and they've tested internally and shown, okay, we feel confident that this is actually not going to do weird things to mentally vulnerable people. I don't think it's. It needs to be as cynical as what you're saying. It. It might.

[C]

Are you confident that it's not going to do that to mentally vulnerable people?

[A]

I think it'll be better than it was and it'll still be bad. And it's going to be an ongoing pendulum forever. Because everything is. That's like, that's what the Internet is. That's what video games. That's what everything is.

[B]

I sort of agree with that part of it where I think all of the Internet and all of technology is sort of preying on the vulnerability.

[A]

Everybody is going to find a way to abuse the new thing. You have to make adjust sometimes you overcompensate for the abuse and then people find out how to abuse that new thing. I mean this is, this is how, you know, hacking and this is how everything works, right? With scams is like, it's this never ending battle between things like banks and hackers or your fucking, you know, AIM bots in csgo and Valve trying to push back against AIM bots. And so it's always changing behind the scenes. You just don't see it. I'm not saying you're, you're wrong but I absolutely could see a world where they just are improving it.

[C]

I don't know, I mean I just, I have a hard time not seeing this. You know, it feels like there's a new announcement every week and if you read it through the lens of we are going to do whatever is most profitable for us to get the money we need to pay for all of the things we've promised, then it makes sense. But everything else, it feels very.

[A]

But this isn't necessarily, I mean, do.

[B]

You think it's, I would ask, do you think this is preying on anybody's vulnerability in like a really a new way? I would argue if we're talking about the use of it for sexual content then is that any different than the way people are treating this as like their boyfriend or girlfriend, like their emotional or like romantic confidant?

[A]

Already these are lumped together. It's going to do both of those things. Right. What they're really saying is here is we have, we have sterile, sterilized the chatgpt. We have made it bland and lack of personality and extremely restrictive on what it is willing to do. We are going to pull back on that in a variety of ways and that's going to include it. You can be more parasocial with it. It's going to include sexual stuff. The sexual stuff that's probably for money. Like I'll concede on that.

[B]

I want to make a joi.

[A]

Yeah, I read this far more as we are, we are allowing this to become a personalized thing that feels like a friend again and take on the weird mental health challenges around that rather than we're trying to lock in on porn. And here's another way, just real quick what you said of like they're trying to make money. Like yes, but also that is that's hand in hand with make a better product. Like, this is what they're describing as a product that I, as a normal person will enjoy more. I'm fucking sick of current ChatGPT. It's. It's not fun to use anymore and feels overly restrictive. So if from their perspective of how do we make a better product, this will do that. It's just whether they are actually mitigating the mental health or saying they are.

[C]

Yeah, I just feel this is them waving a white flag on even trying to stop that. That this is them realizing that, like, the cost of customer satisfaction is not worth them trying to protect people from the most dangerous aspects of what this can do. So they're saying fuck it, but, like.

[A]

They should never try. Like they should just be overly restrictive forever. I'm reading this as them saying we're making another attempt to allow it to do these things and we think it'll be better this time. I feel like they should keep trying to.

[C]

Well, are they. What I'm saying is like this post would be written exactly the same if they were giving up on that fight and just go, that is.

[A]

Yeah, that's true.

[C]

So I.

[A]

We just don't know.

[C]

I got you. We don't know. But I just. I have a hard time trusting him because I don't think he's earned it. I don't know. I don't. I don't think the actions of open AI have been anything deeper than trying to maximize their own power in the AI because it's a profit, which is fine to do for a company, but they keep putting out these posts where it's like aiming for a higher.

[A]

Yeah, it's very aspirational.

[C]

Aspirational. But I don't think it's what they're doing.

[A]

I hear you. And I can very much understand that perspective. I think part of why I lean the other direction is because I have watched as this company over the past three years has made my life better. Every couple months as these models have improved and just continue to do bafflingly impressive things. Like last week I used their new coding model, Codex, to program this chess app where I had every chess piece controlled by an actual twitch chatter. So it's 32 individual people on the board yelling at each other, telling me what to do. It was fucking awesome. And one of the more complex apps I've done. And almost it was like 90% vibe coded and it did it phenomenally well. And it couldn't have done that six months ago. So I'm like Seeing these progressions of wow, this is really. Or the way it helps me like practice a new language or something.

[C]

Yeah, I mean I use it too but I. Those. Those features are. Were fully capable within the. What you might call safe version that like it not acting like a friend. I find to be like I was kind of annoyed when it was a very sycophantic. You know, you're so fucking great. Bringing that back feels like a cave to people that really wanted that thing. And I don't know I'm. I found it to be useful for like if it's something that's on Wikipedia. ChatGPT is incredible to talk. You can like talk to Wikipedia. It's awesome. But the idea that it needs to be your boyfriend or girlfriend and giving you erotica sounds like dangerous and it's something they don't care anymore because they're on a full speed mission. Because They've made now $1.3 trillion in promises for money they don't yet have and they need money.

[A]

That is true. I definitely, definitely acknowledge that. That is a yeah, absolutely factor. I would like to believe it's both. I would like to believe they. They want money and they're genuinely making it better.

[B]

There's going to be a lot of. There's going to be a lot of Harry Potter fan fiction writers that are out of a fucking job. Think about that. Thinking about that.

[A]

There's going to be.

[B]

What. What happens when you don't need a real human being to write about how sonic fucks Tails?

[C]

What?

[A]

How is the industry going to absorb these seven people?

[B]

You watch out in the next jobs report. You'll see it.

[C]

You'll see.

[B]

You'll see it. You'll be sorry.

[A]

The worst part is since the government shut down, it's just me. One big category of erotica. We won't know if it's sonic and Tails. We won't know it's Halo Master Chief Mario. Not while it's shut down. There's. There's a team and they're all furloughed right now.

[C]

Oh, our government. The Strategic Smut Initiative. I mean interesting story. I. Yeah, we'll see how it plays out.

[A]

I would actually be curious. This is a comment farming. I really sincerely am curious for people in the audience what your take on this is. Presumably a lot of you engage with AI tools in some way. I'm more talking about ChatGPT. Right. The ones you're using on a daily basis for helpful things. Not meta AI jamming random shit in your feed. Right. If you are a ChatGPT user, do you find the at least option for it to be more personalized, to be more human to and potentially erotica doing, you know, going all to that, to that height. Does that sound appealing to you? Is that something that you want or do you feel like this. I'm fine with this not even being an option for the sake of safety. I would be curious, like what people's use case.

[C]

Do you guys know the. The story of VHS and Betamax? You heard that?

[B]

I don't think so. Yeah.

[C]

Do you grow up with VHS tapes you watch? Yeah. So VHS was a standard and there was a better standard called Betamax that was headed by Sony, which at the time was like the biggest tech company in the world, was like one most powerful tech companies in the world and well beloved by the American people. And people thought Betamax was going to win. There was a better technology, it was better for movies, it ran better. And the story goes that VHS won because these early Betamax players and VHS were very expensive and VHS had porn. So the early adopters were people that were like, I'm going to spend a lot of money to get a VHS player so I can watch porn. And Betamax was banning porn and that allowed VHS to become the standard early and then eventually take off even if it was the worst format. And that apparently repeated with HD DVD and Blu Ray where Blu Ray, Sony learned their lesson, made sure porn was allowed and Blu Ray players were bought. So I think there is an idea on the Elon Musk side that I am grok. I am behind OpenAI and I'm going to lean all in on erotica because that will give me early adopters that make grok better than ChatGPT. And this is Sam Altman trying to head that off by saying, oh, we're going to have poor dude. I want you to worry about that. And there's a bit of like a business case.

[B]

There's.

[C]

And I wonder if there's. You know, I feel like there's a connection to Elon Musk here on Sam Altman side where this is so clearly a response to what he has been constantly hammering home. And now we're in like this weird porn race because they don't want to be the guy that doesn't have porn in this.

[A]

I don't know. That's a good point. That's a good point.

[B]

In a weird way, Gooning is holding up the entire S and wow, that's time.

[C]

Isn't it a great wacky world?

[B]

Oh, thank You. Thank you for joining us on Lemonade Stand. If you want to check out that frequently asked questions about our Vox Media partnership and the ads in the future, you can check that out on our Patreon for free. You can watch that for free. If you want any of the extra content we do, we do extra shows every week. You can go to patreon.com lemonade stand. We're planning our trip to China for next year.

[C]

Hit the 10,000 patrons. We're going to China. We have a pretty cool guest. I'll keep it a secret now lined up. Thanks from people box and. And we also are doing. Can we talk about Japan or no?

[B]

Oh, yeah, I'm down. Yeah, we're going to Japan. Doug's going to Japan on vacation. And we were like, let's ruin Doug's vacation. Let's follow him and make him work. Let's make it work while he's.

[A]

Guys, I need some time here.

[B]

Oh, well, go with you.

[A]

We'll go.

[C]

That's the thing, dog.

[B]

You don't have to worry. But we're going to have a few guest episodes in Japan where we're going to get to talk about the political and economic situation unfolding in Japan right now, which I think are going to be really good. So you have a lot. I'd say you have a lot to look forward to.

[C]

We're pretty excited about the coming weeks.

[A]

And we're going to do a Patreon episode this week where I jam an entire lemon in my asshole.

[C]

Yes. And then we're going to actually.

[A]

Wait, wait. The new lemon party fact check from last week. Cause I do want. It's in the comments, but I was off by a factor of 10. It is not $1 trillion on snap a year. It is a hundred billion. And I. What I realized is I got that wrong. I was pretty embarrassed by that because I went. I saw a number by ChatGPT and Google Gemini's thing and I was like, I don't want to trust these numbers. Let me go to the actual source. I went to the actual source. I found the government website, looked it up, saw the document. I was like, cool, I know this with a hundred percent confidence. And I fucking got it wrong. And I did the math because it was 100%. Hundred thousand millions. And then I multiple. Anyway, so 100 billion a year on SNAP tariffs at the same time is closer to 200 billion. So I mean, while the points remain. But do want to correct that number because that was pretty off.

[B]

I also, I totally forgot about this I also had a correction from last week. I had said that there was a quota on, like, green card transitions to citizens. And that whole block that people experience off their H1Bs, it's not, you're stuck on your green card. It's actually worse than that, you're stuck on your H1B. There's a limited amount of green cards that can be given out to each nationality per year. So you can be stuck on your H1B for decades, potentially, if you're Indian. So I just wanted to correct that really quickly. It was a small thing I saw pop up.

[A]

But the important thing is, even though we got it wrong about those things, our broad point was still correct. And that's all that matters.

[B]

And that's all that matters. And in fact, the small details, they don't matter at all.

[C]

I mean, the sun do be making helium.

[A]

Right?

[B]

Right.

[C]

We don't need.

[B]

Now that I think about it, never correct me again.

[A]

Small details getting to the sun.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

You guys are watching.

[A]

Oh, thanks, everybody. Bye.