Stephen (2:50)

Is everybody after that feeling better today? All right, let me get your comments running here, and then we've got some stuff to do. Good morning, everybody, and welcome to the highlight of human civilization. It's called Coffee with Scott Adams. You've never had a better time. But if you'd like to Take a chance on elevating your experience up to levels that no one can even understand with their tiny, shiny human brains. Well, if you want to do that, all you need is a copper Munger glass of Tanker Chalicerstein canteen Sugar Flaska. Festival of any kind. Fill it with your favorite liquid. I like coffee. And join me now for the unparalleled pleasure. The dopamine. End of the day, the thing that makes everything better. It's called. That's right. The simultaneous sip.

Owen (3:55)

Go.

Stephen (4:04)

Unparalleled pleasure.

Erica (4:07)

Best kind. That's true.

Sergio (4:08)

That's awesome. Thank you, Erica.

Erica (4:12)

You're welcome. So, again, I'm Erica, you guys. And. And we have Marcella, Beautiful Marcella in pink. Today. All of her fans are waiting for her. And we have our studious, sexy Sergio. Looking good. Looking good, Sergio. Beanie is Beanie. And Owen Gregorian, I don't want to mention Tapper anymore when talking about you. It's not fair to you. But Marcello, we want you guys to know, has a crush on this version of Owen here, and it's hilarious. You guys.

Dave (4:50)

I can't take my eyes off of him.

Erica (4:53)

I love that so much. So, you guys, we're gonna open. Let me just check this out here. I don't know how quick I can get to me, but.

Sergio (5:05)

So last night, somebody else. Owen. To change his shirt. You just wanted to say that Mary Kay said that.

Erica (5:11)

So, okay, maybe shirt off, Maybe.

Dave (5:15)

Okay, shirt off.

Erica (5:20)

Oh, my God. Here we go.

Dave (5:22)

No, no.

Owen (5:23)

Okay.

Erica (5:23)

Okay. So at the request of a couple of people, we just have to do a quick little bit of house important housekeeping. So I hope you guys are ready for that. It's going to be informative and fun. I wrote something this morning based on some things that have been going on about whether or not Scott wanted an AI version of himself. First, what you need to know is that Scott is. Was strategic. Okay? He knows who the four of us are on this screen right here. We all bring a different skill set, personality, vision. And he knows that all of us together really cover all the facets of who he was, what he wanted. And we're massively loyal, like most of you are. Okay? So we're never going to say something that, you know, Scott wanted something a certain way unless we actually know.

Stephen (6:27)

We.

Erica (6:28)

We don't speak for him, but we can speak somewhat on his behalf. And we're only going to tell you things that are true because we know they're true. We work with Scott's family, we work with Shelley, and Shelley is listening today we talk all the time. So everything we're saying you can also understand is with the family's approval, with Scott's estate. If you don't know Shelley, Shelley is Scott's best friend, happens to be his ex wife, and Shelley is the person Scott trusted the most on this planet. Okay. And also his siblings. Okay, so this is like where we come from at the Scott Adams School. Okay? So that being said, people questioning whether an AI Scott is okay. My short answer is it's not. And I understand a lot of people, including myself, heard for years that Scott would say, I give my full permission and consent to people make an AI version of me. So let's remember something. Scott wasn't sick then. He didn't think he was going to die at 68 years old, I am positive he figured when he's in his 80s, that maybe the AI would be where he'd want it to be. That being said, as long ago as January 2025, all the way through this past year until his last day, Scott changed his opinion about that and did not want an AI version of him. He didn't think the technology was at all where he'd want it to be. He knows it can assign opinions and ideas and that it could be dangerous. And he changed his mind. Also, his family didn't want that either, feeling that, you know, it could be creepy. So I'm just going to read you a couple of quick things. Okay? This is what I wrote this morning. I'm reading it at the request. I said, good morning, gorgeous people, which you all are. Last night, things got a bit heated. And whether or not Scott wanted to be cloned with AI for many years, Scott thought it would be fun. He figured he'd live at least into his 80s and he'd see AI be good enough to digitally clone by the start of 2025. Scott fully changed his opinion on this for multiple reasons. One, AI was nowhere accomplishing what Scott thought it could. And two, he realized it would feel creepy for the people who know and love him and didn't want to do that. Those two reasons alone should be enough for all of you. They are Scott Adams wishes until the day he died. Period. Those of us on locals heard this many times in our extra hours with Scott. There is no reason to challenge this. It's not my decision. It's not what you heard 20 times three years ago and prior. It's not even his family's personal decision. It is what Scott Adams decided. Scott was also very clear about what would be acceptable one day and who he trusted to fulfill that. If or until you ever see it coming directly from Scott's account, please know. What you are fighting for in defending rogue AI accounts is going against Scott and disrespecting his memory. Now that you know and read this, I'm sure none of us want to do that. Scott gave us thousands of hours of himself. We are so lucky. We can watch the real Scott Adams anytime we want. We love and miss him terribly. Thank you so much for your attention to understanding. So that was my statement this morning, and I just want to follow up because another fiery person like me is Scott's brother, Dave. Dave Adams. And he wrote a statement to be read to you today. Okay, Dave reads. My brother and I discussed an AI version of him. I said it would be awful for me to see and speak with something that sounded and appeared to be him, but had no idea who I am. Scott agreed that would be important to him as well. I suggested a code phrase like Houdini had with his wife. It would open a personal, private knowledge base of the special relationship we shared. My brother never intended, never would have approved an AI version of him that wasn't authorized by himself or his estate. For anyone who believes otherwise, I ask this question. Do you truly believe Scott didn't know a rogue AI version of himself could be used for persuasion and propaganda he would find abhorrent? Dave Adams. I will post Dave's statement for you guys after the show. So that should really clear up the questions about whether or not this is approved, wanted, or welcomed. And if anyone sees this happening, we just ask you to alert us, because we just need to know. And we're not even singling out any one person. This is straight across the board. Okay? So as President Trump would say, thank you for your attention to this matter, and I think now we're going to get into some news and have some fun. Oh, but wait, Marcella, in Scott's words. Thank you for reminding me. One more clip from Scott.

Dave (12:22)

So this, this clip for everybody is from Jay Plemons. He got it from the January 5, 2025 episode 2711. And I'm going to place from Scott's own words so you can see it's way before he passed away. So let me try to play it. Give me one second.

Marcello (12:49)

A little update from me. I've been telling you for years, really, that I plan to build an an AI robotic clone of myself so that I could live forever. I have changed that plan, and here's why. I thought it was just the greatest idea in the world that after I passed away there'd be like a version of me that could grow and, you know, change with technology and be upgraded and stuff. I thought that was great. Do you know what happens when you mention that to people? You know, they look at you with sadness and they go, it wouldn't be you. Right. And that's the part that was invisible to me because in my planning, I'm not really there anymore. So I don't have to deal with the fact that people would find it uncomfortable because it's not me, but it's acting like me. And I could imagine that that would hit that creepy zone and you'd be like, why did you even do this?

Stephen (13:49)

Like, why did you do this?

Marcello (13:50)

It's not you. So here's how I decided to fix that. I'm not going to create a digital clone of myself. I'm going to create a digital son. I'm going to reproduce. Because my son in AI digital robotic form is not supposed to be just like me. It's supposed to be influenced by me, maybe have a lot of my characteristics in it, but then it's supposed to find its own way and it's supposed to turn into its own person. Yes, but when it's small, it will be very influenced by me when it's brand new and it will be designed based on my personality, which would be like my DNA, but it would be very allowed to evolve. So by the time the robot is a senior citizen, you know, maybe his robot body got changed a few times and software got upgraded, but by some point it won't be me. But you might be able to find some corresponding similarities. You'd say, oh yeah, the, the original, you know, your, your organic father.

Owen (15:01)

Had.

Marcello (15:01)

A lot, had a lot of the same elements going on. So that's the current plan.

Erica (15:06)

Yep.

Marcello (15:06)

Digital son.

Erica (15:08)

And you know what, like Dr. Von Hardy said, we are Scott's debris. We're his son. Okay. Scott didn't have a chance to make that version of him, but he made a million of us, so fulfilled.

Owen (15:24)

The.

Dave (15:25)

The other thing I want to add is that In January of 2026, a year later, he did indicate so many times to us, the beloveds, in the pre show, post show, and then even on his own show that he had, I think he had changed his mind because AI is not to that level. It hallucinates. And on top of that, his family would feel really strange about seeing him in an AI form. And so he went over all of that and many people approach, approached him that he told me about that had created a version of him, and he always rejected that one because he didn't control it. And I think some of you remember that he tried to put all of his books and all of his works into AI to regenerate an AI of him, and it didn't work out. So some of you remember that. Many don't because they weren't. It wasn't part of YouTube. It was part of Locals. And I just want to remind you of that. Go ahead. I'm so sorry.

Erica (16:36)

No, perfect.

Owen (16:38)

I just wanted to add, you know, I, I, like a lot of us, have had a lot of conversations with Scott, both on the stream and privately. And, you know, I certainly pay a lot of attention to everything Scott says, and I, I think I've seen every stream that he's put out. And to Marcelo's point, he did say very clearly, you know, I don't want this. I don't want to have an AI clone of myself. I don't think the technology is there, things along those lines. And when we did that big tribute spaces to Scott, the one that was six and a half hours, I think it was on January 3rd of 2026, someone brought this up and I gave my perspective of what I thought Scott believed. You know, what. What I thought he. His take on it was currently. And I represented that. And I, you know, I'm very careful all the time to say I don't know what Scott thinks or I don't know what he would say, but I can give you my perspective of what I heard from him and what I think is. And I did that. And then Scott texted me after that, and I posted that recently on my feed. You can find it there where Scott literally said, you are exactly right on my current AI Scott take. So if you want to know what his take was, you can go listen to what I said on that long spaces. I. I don't. I haven't had time to go through it and clip it out, but, you know, it's probably a good thing to listen to anyway, just to get that experience again. And. But he was very clear that he did not think the technology was there and that he wasn't wanting anybody to create an AI clone of him. And so that has been very explicit and very clear. And I would just ask everyone to respect it. And I would also just say, like, I understand that probably everybody that's doing this, or at least most of them are, probably have good intentions. Right? Like, they. I don't think very many people are trying to say, I'm going to go ruins God, Adam's reputation. That would be possible with this, but, you know, it. I think most people are probably thinking, well, I miss Scott, and I want to have that coffee with Scott Adams every day, and I want him to talk about the news every day and give his take on things. And so I get it. I understand where you're coming from, and, you know, it is something we all miss. But I think we do need to respect Scott's wishes. We need to respect his intellectual property, his estate needs to stay in control of that and his identity and, and that's just how he wanted things to be. And I think, you know, if you have respect for Scott, you should look up to that and, and respect his wishes and not try and put out all this other stuff that you know, maybe seem cool to you, but really is, you know, potentially creating a lot of pain and a lot of harm to other people. So that's all I had.

Erica (19:18)

Yeah, just let us know if you guys see it, too. And, and if anyone's questioning it, you can send them the beginning of this whole episode. So it's, it's got all the meat right there. You can just tell them, watch the first. How many minutes are we in? First 20 minutes. And you'll understand.

Sergio (19:37)

Erica, just quickly for me is the creepy part that I told you about that before, that I wouldn't want to see AI on my dad or my son. That's the thing for me, if somebody send me that, I will throw that phone away as far as possible, because I'm not blood family of Scott, but I do see him as, as my Internet dad. And more than that. And, and, and that's for me. So everybody, you know, sometimes things are going to happen, but, but all I want is for everybody to think about that, only that how it feels for a family member to see that.

Owen (20:15)

That's it.

Erica (20:16)

Yeah, of course. And understand, too, Sergio, that, you know, the AI version, somebody's feeding the thoughts to it. It's not Scott. You know what I mean? So, you know, technically, like what Dave said in his last sentence, that it could be used for propaganda. I mean, absolutely, it could be. So, you know, maybe, yeah, you start off warm, like, oh, isn't this fun? And it's telling jokes, and then it starts to give opinions about this and that. Next thing you know, it's talking about politics and war and conflicts, and now you're literally getting brainwashed by this Scott Adams AI forgetting that someone's controlling the puppet. It's very Dangerous.

Sergio (20:57)

You know, that will be the last thing that Scott will love to see, though. He will be so curious to see that. So thank you. Thank you.

Erica (21:07)

And especially with such a brilliant mind, right? Nobody can duplicate the way Scott thought and the way he could, you know, give us a story and another perspective. So why, you know, go make an AI of somebody else, like a non existing person? Create one if you want to do that. But to take one of our most brilliant, thoughtful, caring, useful minds and think like, oh, now I'll be its puppet master is just beyond. It's just beyond. And I was a little emotional last night, and I might have booted some people out of the coffee. Coffee with Scott Adams community. I'm sorry, but that's where we're at.

Stephen (21:49)

Okay.

Owen (21:49)

News. I mean, like, I did. I did persuade some people, I think, with some of the things I posted. So I appreciate having an open mind about this and listening to Scott's words and what he wanted. And I think a lot of people probably just missed that and remembered what he said earlier. So I think a lot of this was innocent. But I think at this point, you know, it's all very clear what Scott wanted.

Erica (22:11)

Thank you for saying that, Owen, too, because, yes, I would like to say it is a superpower, and a lot of you displayed it last night to see new information and then say, oh, I was wrong, or I didn't realize that, oh, I changed my mind, you're right. Whatever. You people, amazing. I was like, yes, yes, you get it. To the other people that just insisted and thought that they should keep the debate going and blah, blah, blah. I, you know, at some point you just have to say, okay, you know, the people that are closest to Scott are telling me something that I disagree with. What should I do at this point? I mean, you. You just have to trust the people that were closest to Scott. That's all. It's easy. It's, you know, it's his wishes. All right, I think we get it. All right, guys, drop emoji in the chats, you guys, if you fully understand this, because it was so distressing for me personally last night, I was so upset. But I think, you know, drop an emoji, let me know. So. And if you have any other questions about it, let us know now.

Owen (23:19)

I wonder if there's any battery news today. Oh, look, there is. There's. There's a story about sulfur accelerating the ion flow for lithium batteries or solid state batteries. Looks like the intent there is. They can replace all the flammable components to make it safer and make it more stable and overcome some of the, you know, the speed of how quickly lithium ions can move through solids. So it's improving performance, too. The quote from the story is, our goal is to replace all those flammable components so the battery becomes much safer. By removing the liquid electrolyte and redesigning the solid materials inside the battery, we can reduce the risk of overheating, short circuits and fires, while also improving performance. And it's using a sulfur zirconium interaction, and they're. They're starting out with the little coin cell prototypes, but it does look like it has potential to be used in EVs and grid storage and electronics. So it could be a significant thing. And I think, as I recall, Scott would often say, you know, this one might not turn in anything, but there's a new story every day, and some of these are going to be big. And I'm still holding on to Scott's prediction that he said 2026 is kind of going to be the year of the battery, and it's going to change everything. What do you think, Erica?

Erica (24:41)

I mean, the year of the battery, I'll take it over the last year. I don't know. I mean, I say maybe just like Scott would say. And I think that if battery technology doesn't improve, we're going to hit a wall. So I want to be hopeful about any changes. And also I. I'm like, can we find a new way to make a battery would be good, too. I know nothing about batteries, you guys, except, like, you know, I put them in things to turn them on. Oh, I can hear the jokes. But anyway, that's all I want to say on batteries. Thank you. Good night.

Owen (25:19)

Yeah, well, I do think there's a whole lot of research going into this, and the latest stories include how we're also going after the rare earth minerals to get rid of China's monopoly on that and reduce the risk of the supply chain around that. So I see a lot of progress there, and I. It's going to probably drive even more research to come up with, you know, new designs, new methods for creating it. And so it does seem like it's all moving in that direction, but we'll have to watch and see how it plays out. All right, well, in Psychology News, there was an experiment with 1600 volunteers linking social exclusion to higher interest in gossip. So apparently, if you're socially excluded, you get more interested in celebrity gossip, and it helps people feel more connected to higher status figures. One interesting point I saw was that the socially excluded chose gossip 39% of the time versus 23% of those feeling unintelligent. So it seemed like being socially excluded was a much bigger driver than just being a dumb person. And the. The quote from the story is that, you know, that he kind of explains, like, think back to our reptilian brain and rewind maybe 2000 years. Your chances of survival are higher if you're closer to the chief, if you're higher up in the hierarchy. So how does our brain know if you're closer to somebody higher up? One of the ways in which it figures this out is by asking itself, do I know much about the chief? So, apparently, if you're feeling socially excluded, you can fill that gap with gossip. Think that explains or don't?

Erica (26:59)

Yeah, that's. Gossip is poison, just like alcohol.

Owen (27:05)

How.

Dave (27:05)

How does gossip make them feel included?

Owen (27:11)

I don't know if it does make them feel included. I think it makes them feel more connected to those celebrities, which are kind of like authority figures. So it might just make them feel higher status, you know, if they can feel like they know more about these celebrities than other people, that they might feel better informed and, you know, more authoritative somehow.

Erica (27:31)

Maybe they don't have that banter with friends, so they're like, oh, I have this banter. You know, I can. I don't have a friend group to banter with, so I can, you know, talk about celebrity gossip. Maybe I'm speculating. Their lives don't feel interesting, or maybe they're not interesting. I don't know. But the lives of other people, we are consumed by.

Sergio (27:52)

I like that take.

Erica (27:55)

Tell us.

Sergio (27:56)

Well, I think I like that take you had about people not having somebody to care for. You know, and it's like a cat. You get a cat, you get a celebrity, and you care for them. And, you know, and that's why any celebrity doesn't matter how terrible we think they are. There's people out there that love them very much. Right. That they really care for them, and they watch everything they do, and it feels good, you know, like, I watch my cat right here and, like, don't want to. I. I look him up on my blink, Right. So if you don't have a cat. Yeah, get a celebrity, I guess. You know, I like that.

Erica (28:33)

Well, you could care for this celebrity, or you could hate that celebrity, and the gossip can go either way.

Sergio (28:38)

So Trump is a. Is a celebrity to punch, Right? He's a. It gets you going. It gives you energy. It gets you on the streets, you know, all those protests are great because everybody's out there getting sun, exercise, you know, getting the energy out and, you know, expressing themselves in America. As long as they don't, you know, block the cops and, and respect the, you know, people, you know, it's fine. But. But the law, the law, nobody's above the law. And. And then. And then we're going to be fine.

Erica (29:11)

So I wonder if we'll have any protester marriages come out of this. Like people who met, you know, throwing bricks at ice and stuff, and they fall in love and have a new reality show.

Dave (29:23)

There was in Portland, you know, I. Nick. Nick sort tour. He was around these protesters and some of them had gotten. He interviewed a couple and they were like, we met last time we protested and like. And he just, like, led them on to speak and they were just so. Oh, my God, they're so woke. But, you know, it's just, I mean, you're single.

Sergio (29:54)

If you're single and don't have a job and you like, hey, Trump, man. You feel like it's like an amazing club of people that they all hate the same person, right? It's amazing. I mean, I wish I had somebody like that, that I could go and. And meet somebody like that, you know, that's why one of those Scott locals meetups that Jimmy's making, because then you have something in common, like, oh, yeah, we all love Scott. Let's have some coffee, right?

Owen (30:20)

So, yeah, I mean, there's been hundreds of stories about the importance of having a lot of close social connections and how it makes you healthier to have friends. So I think it's just a basic human need. And one of the other parts that I would add here is that they point out in the story that marketers could use this for isolated groups. So it's also something to watch out for if you're feeling isolated. They may be able to take advantage of that by using gossip to attract you and to market things to you and sell things to you. And so it's something to watch out for from a persuasion perspective. I think it also ties right into Cialdini's book Influence, where he points out that authority figures are a very effective tool for persuasion and that they don't have to be real authority figures. Like what? The primary example, he uses some. I forget which one, but some. A doctor, like, actor that played a doctor, and then they would use him on commercials in his doctor's coat to sell stuff, and people would respond to it. It was very effective. And even though everyone knew he wasn't a real doctor. They still gave him that authority just by watching him in the lab coat and, you know, pretending essentially that he was a doctor. And so it is something to watch out for if you're trying to just perspect, protect yourself from being persuaded in a nefarious way. Or I guess if you want to persuade people, you can maybe find ways to use this to your advantage, but, you know, it is principles. Yeah. Yeah. Maybe I can put my avatar in a lab coat.

Erica (31:53)

Do not put a lab.

Dave (31:56)

Oh, no.

Erica (32:02)

What?

Owen (32:02)

What?

Erica (32:02)

Like, tell me something I need to know. When I go out into the world today and somebody brings up the news, what do I need to know?

Owen (32:10)

You want to go into the political news? Is that what you're saying? Because I had a good one for the ladies. Coming up next. Oh, how estrogen can make stress memories worse.

Erica (32:21)

Oh, thanks.

Owen (32:23)

High estrogen in the brain worsens long term memory issues from repeated stress. It may explain higher PTSD risk in women. Multiple stresses causes fear and memory problems that could last weeks. A single stress did not. But high estrogen phases amplified the effects. And so that. I think that explains why there's so many crazy women out there, frankly.

Erica (32:49)

Oh, that's. Thank you.

Owen (32:50)

What's bad. And get too stressed out over things. And I think some of it's right back to their hormones that if they're in a high estrogen phase, you know, what you're seeing in their behavior might actually just be the estrogen.

Erica (33:03)

All jokes aside, I'm sure it does contribute a lot because I'll tell you what, you men, you just don't know. But certain times you feel like you could just commit. Harry Carry like you are just like. I know I'm insane right now. I know what I'm saying. I don't mean. But I can't stop it from coming out. It's just like. So if you've never experienced that, you are lucky. But also I think there could be definitely a correlation to that for sure.

Sergio (33:37)

I think we need a reframe for that before everybody goes crazy later today.

Erica (33:42)

Do it. Sergio.

Sergio (33:44)

All that, all the medical talk, the estrogen and going crazy is. If I was like one of them, it was already in my head already. So we need to come up with a good reframe right now to escape from that scape. And I don't have a good one. So I'm just trying to.

Owen (34:00)

You're leaving us hanging.

Sergio (34:02)

I'll leave you hanging. I don't know, maybe about, you know.

Owen (34:06)

I don't know if It's a reframe. But maybe you could just say if you. If you're feeling stressed out, it might just be a good idea to step away from the phone and not expose yourself to multiple stresses because it could have bad impact on you. I don't know.

Erica (34:19)

Turn up.

Owen (34:21)

Scott could probably come up with a better way of phrasing that. But, you know, if you could get away from the phone, maybe go see some nature, watch Melania. Feel a lot better. Yeah, go watch Melania. Apparently, that's a big hit in the theaters. That was one of the stories I posted a few days ago that it's like breaking records. I think it's the most watched documentary in something 14 years. Wow.

Erica (34:43)

Good for her.

Owen (34:44)

So it's doing great in the theaters and doing a lot better than people expected. I think all the leftists were predicting it was going to crash and burn, and they were 100% wrong.

Sergio (34:53)

I haven't been to the movies since Maverick, and the only reason I want to go back is for millennia. That's it. Yeah.

Owen (35:01)

All right. Great crush. Well, if you want to get into the political news, we have more going on with Russia and Ukraine, although it's really more the same. I think they're doing trilateral peace talks, so that's with Russia, Ukraine, and the United States. At the same time, Russia has picked up their attacks again, so there's power outages everywhere. And they, you know, had an attack on Tuesday that was the biggest since the beginning of the year with 70 missiles and hundreds of drones attacking their energy. So it does seem like a drone in an energy war still, which Scott was predicting for a long time would happen someday, and here we are. But it does seem like it's. They're going after the grid, they're going after the energy. I'm sure that's partly tied into the drones, because if you don't have electricity, you can't charge your drones. But I think it's also impacting a lot of people. So there, you know, there's a lot of people that are really cold right now. They don't have power. So I do feel for the people in Ukraine, especially Ukrainians are calling it a winter genocide. It's like minus 20 degrees Celsius in Kiev. So that situation. But they are around the negotiating table for another round of trilateral talks. You know, they seem to be thinking it's constructive, but I think they still have a lot to work out. I think most of it still goes around the territory and whether Solinsky will give up that Eastern part. Zelensky said either Russia now believes that there are four incomplete days in a week instead of seven, or they are really betting only on war and waiting for the coldest days of the winner. We believe this Russian strike clearly violates from the what the American side discussed, and there must be consequences. So doesn't seem like we're at the end at this point. No, but they are working on it, so hopefully we'll see some progress there.

Sergio (36:51)

Owen, is the EU more or less dependent of energy from Russia right now?

Owen (36:59)

Well, I think they're probably a little less than they have been, or at least they're moving in that direction. But I think they're in a bad situation because they, like Germany, for example, destroyed their nuclear plants. Like, they didn't just shut them down, they actually blew up the cooling towers. So they now they have a huge gap in energy capacity. And I think the uk, you know, is a little further away from there, but they went with their whole net zero thing and they kind of shot themselves in the foot, energy wise. I think they're one of the most expensive countries for electricity now. It's something like 37 cents a kilowatt hour, which is apparently really high. So I think the EU and Europe are, you know, needing to fill that gap somehow. And so I think they are turning to the United States. That's the pattern of the stories that I've seen is that they're bringing over a bunch of liquefied natural gas and things, and they're trying to get it from the United States so they don't have to get it from Russia. But that's not necessarily a practical or sustainable solution because, you know, Russia has this pipeline, even though they did destroy the Nord Stream pipeline. But they have some pipelines going into Europe. So it's a lot cheaper to get the energy that way than it is to ship it on tankers and do all the conversions for liquefied natural gas. So it's a big issue, and I'm hoping we can just get it resolved where it's not such a big issue. But right now I think we are still in the mode of trying to get Europe to wean themselves off of Russian energy. Some parts of Europe are pushing back on that because they're so dependent on it, but they're trying to cut that so that they aren't funding the war effort.

Sergio (38:35)

So going to war with a country that you depend on energy is not a good idea.

Owen (38:40)

And, well, I mean, in their defense, they didn't choose this. I mean, Russia Appreciated it. So.

Sergio (38:48)

Yeah. But I mean, if a preparation for it, don't start cutting off all your energy supplies. Right? Like, you're like.

Owen (38:55)

Yeah.

Sergio (38:56)

Already cutting you off completely.

Owen (38:57)

Yeah. I mean, it's, it's a complicated situation just for the same reason that we're kind of enemies with China, but we do so much trade with them and we depend on them for so much that we have to be very careful about that. And I'm sure that is part of Trump's calculus when he decides what to do about China. You know, he's been saying a lot of positive things about China lately. He had this big, long conversation with Zoom recently and says there's going to be all this great stuff coming out of that. And at the same time, you know, we just talked with Steve about how we need to get rid of all these Chinese students in our universities that are stealing all our information and, you know, all our ideas. And, you know, I, I, in my own mind, I, at least, I just think, okay, Trump is considering all this stuff, right? He can't, he can't be too hard on China too fast. Like, I do think he's moving in the direction of reducing our dependency on the rare earth minerals and, you know, trying to get manufacturing back to the United States. So I think he's moving in the right direction with things, but I think he realizes that it can't happen overnight and that we still are dependent on them for a lot of things. And so we can't just say, okay, we're cutting you off completely, because then they'll cut us off completely, and that would hurt everybody, and it would be horrible. So I think I do have some understanding about what might have led Trump to say, I want to make things better in our relations with China, at least in the short term. But I do hope that we keep reducing our dependency on them so that we don't have that as a major concern, and I think that trend will continue.

Erica (40:28)

I want to give a quick shout out to the people on YouTube. I'm chatting with them. We are not. We listen. We love you guys. Honestly, I'm not good yet at, like, doing both, but we are watching you and look at Annie. You're kicking butt over here. I just wanted to give them a quick shout out, you guys. So we love the YouTube people. Thank you for being here. You're. You're. Yeah, we see. Sergio just said we see you shout out to YouTube. Let's go. Okay, I'm back.

Owen (41:00)

Yeah. So moving on to Immigration, we have a story that new York, New York county walked back their sanctuary proposal after they got some backlash. Rockland county tabled a Democratic Safety and Dignity for all act that was going to limit ICE cooperation and looks like they got a lot of backlash and they decided to just put that aside. So that's a good sign. Looks like maybe at least parts of New York are going to be cooperating. At the same time we have Minneapolis. There's apparently a flyer that everybody's posting, or some people are posting around there that's telling everybody to sabotage ICE and telling them they can get away with it. They're telling them to over tighten lug nuts and strip spark plugs and lose papers and give them the wrong food and give them decaf coffee, which is probably the worst. And they're claiming they'll get away with it. So that's probably the worst part is they're, they're promising that you won't have any consequences if you do all these bad things. And, and clearly that's not true. Clearly they're setting these people up to potentially have legal consequences and criminal charges. So a very bad idea. But it seems like a big propaganda effort is underway, so be watched out for that. They apparently attacked a local Fox journalist and destroyed their equipment and there were riot police standing like five feet away. So that's pretty outrageous. I'm not really sure why the, the riot police didn't step in and protect the reporter, but they cut his cables and were, you know, just destroying all of his equipment. So, yeah, there were a bunch of officers just standing right nearby that just apparently didn't do anything. And then another piece on this I would say is like this adds some context to what's going on in Minneapolis. The Tom Homan announced that he's taking 700 agencies away from Minnesota, which by itself, if you take away all the context, sounds horrible. Sounds like they gave up. Right? And that's how the leftists are trying to spin it. Like, hey, we won, they lost. They're, you know, we got them out. But Tom Holman clarified that the reason he's doing that is because they are cooperating now, that, that a lot of the Minneapolis essentially agreed that they're going to work with ICE and they're going to cooperate on the ICE detainers and they're going to have a lot more local coordination. So they don't need as many officers because the local authorities are going to cooperate. So I think that's one of these two movies on one screen things that depending on which side of the story you Pay attention to. You can say, oh, Trump lost or Trump won. And certainly I have my point of view that I think, you know, Tom Holman isn't the type that would just back down and retreat. So I pretty much put my credibility on that side. But I can understand how they would just cherry pick the information on the other side and say, oh, look, we got rid of them. So those are my stories on immigration. What do you guys think?

Erica (44:01)

Are they really cooperating or are we.

Owen (44:05)

I mean, I guess we'll have to see. I think they. My guess is that the news story is probably that they made some agreement to cooperate, follow through with it.

Erica (44:14)

Yeah, I don't feel optimistic, but I would love to be wrong, you know.

Sergio (44:19)

On those 700, the retreat.

Marcello (44:22)

Right.

Sergio (44:22)

That you're saying that they're trying to frame as a victory for them. That's a great thing, actually. That's an awesome thing because that's Sun Tzu's way of giving the enemy a way out. And in a way, they're enjoying this. And it's, you know, it's okay to have a little victory. I like that Trump is being flexible with this, you know, always looking at all the variables and making adjustments and, you know, playing too much force, less force. It's interesting to see that. And they don't have the visuals that. We don't have any visuals of those 700 cops moving away. Right. We have a lot of visuals of people getting, you know, a lot of aggression from both sides.

Stephen (45:11)

Right.

Sergio (45:12)

And. And that's been helping them a lot. So that's been creating a lot of good photo opportunities, photo shots for. For the left. Right. So it's good that they're taking that away and I think might be a win, win in some cases, I don't know.