Michael Knowles (3:55)
It goes on. I encourage you to watch the whole video goes on for minutes where he's just describing how neuralink works. He says, you know, it doesn't read my deepest, darkest thoughts. Don't worry. If you're in the market for a neural link, it's not gonna just sort of blurting out what you think about that jerk, your brother in law who you don't like, or that your colleague who you think is hot or whatever. It's not gonna start blurting that out. It's done in a more controlled way. But it is this absolute marvel of technology and it raises questions for people. Is this ethical? There are very, very serious questions about technology like Neuralink about transhumanist technology. Very serious ethical questions that could compromise human dignity, potential abuses, ways in which this could be profoundly immoral. However, I think it is pretty clear that this use of this technology is pretty morally sound. And I'll have a real moral philosopher or theologian weigh in if I'm getting something wrong here. But the key distinction would be in this case, the technology is being used to rectify a defect. So we all have various defects. It's a fallen world. We have imperfect bodies and we live in an imperfect society and imperfect environment. So if you use the technology to rectify a defect, that is to say, to restore something like your speech to its proper functioning that would be, generally speaking, morally licit. Where it would become immoral is if you used this technology to augment human capability. So if you use the very same technology not to restore human powers that had been lost, but to surpass human powers, you get a computer chip in your head so you can reason a million times faster than the average human. Where we cease to be Homo sapiens and we become something like Homo deus, to use the language of the liberal writer Yuval Harari. The transhumanists who are looking forward to shuffling off this mortal coil and uploading our consciousness to the cloud, or something like that. That would be immoral. That would compromise human dignity. That would. That would be terribly unethical. However, in this case, if we use the technology to help people who are sick to restore their functioning as humans, I think we're in relatively safe territory. It's a little spooky. It's kind of Brave New world, but that is just a marvel. The ability for this man to communicate with relative ease with his family, with his own voice. Not even the Stephen Hawking like beep, boop, beep boop kind of voice. That's. That's pretty amazing. The question is, do we have the moral guardrails anymore to prevent abuses? Do we have the moral guardrails and discipline to say, all right, we will go this far, but no further. We will go this far toward rectifying imperfections. We'll go this far toward just treating people with Lou Gehrig's disease, for instance. But we won't go further into augmenting human potential and seriously compromising human dignity. Now, speaking of human potential, there's one story I have to get to very quickly because my producers are making me. Would in a fight, would one gorilla defeat 100 human beings, or would 100 human beings defeat a gorilla? A stupid question, a stupid Internet meme. And my producers are making me waste precious time on this show discussing apparently the most important question of the week. But this is not a difficult question. It hinges on only one aspect of the hypothetical. Do the humans get to use weapons or not? If the humans use weapons, then you don't need 100 men to defeat the gorilla, you just need one man. Really? A four year old could defeat a gorilla? Look at Harambe. Assuming in this hypothetical that the men are not allowed to use weapons, that is to say, human beings are not allowed to use our distinctive advantage, that is to say our faculties of reason. The very thing that makes us children in the image of God in the abstract. Okay, if you took that away, I don't know why there's some stupid TikTok playing of a gorilla just wrestling men right now. This is the degradation of this show. Makes me wonder if we have become guerrillas ourselves. Brutes without faculties of reason. But if the men don't have the weapons, the gorilla would win every time. It's not even close. This should not be debated. The strength differential between a gorilla and a human being is roughly the same as the strength differential between a human being and. And a dachshund and a little tiny 20 pound puppy. A little French bulldog. So ask yourself. Even me. I'm not exactly captain of the football team. If 100 dachshunds came at me, would I defeat them? Or would the dachshunds rip me to shreds? I would win every time. It's not like 80% versus 20% of the time. It's not 99 versus 1 every single time. I would win. Now the objection that's raised is, well, what if the humans coordinate? Yeah. What if they do? What if the dachshunds coordinate? If they don't have tools and weapons, the things that make human beings strong physically, we're like a reed. But I think it was this Pascal. I've been quoting Pascal a lot recently. Pascal, one of the great geniuses of modernity in the pensee, says we're interesting because we're like a reed, but because we have reason, because we're a rational creature. We're both the weakest creature and the strongest creature. Well, yeah, if you take away our ability to use tools, then we're the weakest creature and the gorilla would win every time. This isn't really a debate. Are you satisfied producers? I don't know. Have I been able to penetrate your brow ridges? Have I been able to get deep into your rational faculties? You as dignified creatures made in the image and likeness of God to make it clear that this is a stupid deb. The gorilla would win. You are flattering yourself if you think you and 99 buddies could defeat the gorilla. I have much, much more wisdom to dole out to you for free. But first you gotta go to manokora.com knowles are you looking for something simple and delicious to add to your wellness routine? Well, I have the answer. And it's delicious. Sometimes wellness stuff, it tastes bad. But this is a delicious addition to your wellness routine. That is Manukora honey. Truly exceptional because it offers both wonderful flavor and remarkable health benefits. This rich, creamy honey is ethically produced by master beekeepers in New Zealand's remote forests where bees collect nectar from native Manuka tea tree. What makes this special is its impressive nutritional profile. It contains three times more antioxidants than prebiotics than ordinary honey, provides powerful support for your immunity and gut health, even has mgo, a special antibacterial compound that comes from tea tree nectar. I love it. Sweet little Elisa loves it. She's a real expert too. When it comes to food. It is easier than ever to try Manukura honey. Go to manukora.com that is M A N U K O R-A.com knowles to save up to 31% plus $25 worth of free gifts with the starter kit which comes with an MGO 850 plus Manuka honey jar, five honey travel sticks, a wooden spoon and a guidebook. That is manukora.com knowles Save 31% plus $25 worth of free gifts Very excited. Also to tell you about okay, it's Easter time. Lent is over, we're moving into spring and we are launching the new Michael Knowles Candle Wildwood days. Go to thecandleclub.com Michael Wildwood. It's a town down the Jersey shore. Here's a little tmi. It's where I was conceived. I discovered that at one point in my teenage years and stuck in my head. And now you have to think about it too. I had my first cigar down in Wildwood. Oh those wildwood days. Wild, wild wildwood days. Nice nostalgic trip down to the shore during the height of the American empire. Great time for you to stock up on your Wildwood Days. A nice little saltwater taffy kind of candle. Thecandleclub.com Michael get it right now. It's got a little bit of orange, got a little bit of that salty sea air. Thecandleclub.com knowles has your tax money been used to fund George Soros? George Soros, billionaire hedge funder, broke the bank of England. George Soros is the most prominent left wing donor on planet Earth. He's got enough money of his own and yet your taxpayer dollars have been used to fund his leftist organizations that have in turn used that money to destroy your country. This is not my discovery. This is the discovery of the Media Research Center. Great work here showing that the US government has given $11 million directly to George Soros groups, not just indirectly. Remember when Elon went into usaid? Elon and Doge go in and they find a lot of corruption. They see things like the US Government giving money to the Tides Center. The Tides center, which does work overseas, but the Tides center, which also funds Black Lives Matter, Black Lives Matter in the United States, which then extorts money and political concessions from politicians and extorts corporations and burns your neighborhood down. So there you saw a really clear example of the government taking your tax money, laundering it through some ngo, sending it right back into your neighborhood through the most radical, explicitly Marxist activists of blm, burning your neighborhood down, screwing up your political order, taking more money from you so that they could do it all again. Rinse and repeat. Well, here we don't even have an indirect link. We have a direct link to George Soros. 11 million bucks. So the Open Society foundation, which is George Soros big organization, they said back in February 12, the claims that the Open Society Foundations founded by George Soros, received funding from USAID or direct the funding of a multi billion dollar US government agency are manifestly false. Okay? MRC looks into this, discovers that the State Department and USAID, USAID, which is now part of the State Department, committed $11 million, $11,091,856 to be precise, in grant money from 2007 to 2014 for the open Society Institute and the alliance for Open Society International, which is the legal operating name for Open Society Institute Baltimore, which, which later announced that it was closing down. A couple years ago, over $8 million of that money was from the State Department to the Open Society Institute International for the purpose of administering the Muskie Freedom Support Act Graduate Fellowship Program, blah blah blah. All these little grants, all these little programs, all these little. Upshot is your tax money was going directly from a US agency to George Soros. Now you're gonna look at this and say, well, it's only 11 million bucks. To some of us, $11 million is still a lot of money. But you say, well, for the US government, that's not a lot of money. We live in the era of multi billion dollar presidential campaigns. So $11 million is not a lot of money. What I'm pointing out here is MRC did one investigation into one agency and found $11 million going straight to George Soros. You think that's it? You think that's the whole story? I think that's the tip of the iceberg. I was having lunch with a friend of mine who is very intelligent, very well educated, very plugged in to political realities. This was a week or two ago. He says to me, michael, I gotta Know, do you think, are we just, are we just funding the Democrats, our tax dollars? I said, what do you mean by that? Well, I just. The Democrats have had a fundraising advantage at the presidential level since 2008. Since 2008, Democrats have been out fundraising Republicans by hundreds of millions of dollars every cycle. Now, sometimes we win the election, 2016, some would say 2020, but certainly 2024. Sometimes we win the election, sometimes we lose the election. But the Democrats have been outraising the Republicans every cycle by hundreds of millions of dollars. Is it just that they have more billionaires than we do? Maybe, but we have billionaires. Is it just that they have more fired up grassroots activists? I don't think that's really it. We won the popular vote this year, we the Republicans. Or is there some funny business going on with the money? At the time I said, gee, I really don't know. I mean, could be. There's a lot of corruption, there's a lot of graft, especially in usaid. Elon just showed that. But then I look at something like this. 11 million bucks just straight to George Soros. George Soros, the biggest left wing election funder on earth, private citizen. $11 million. That is scandalous. But the real scandal is the open question, how much more of your taxpayer money was going straight to the Democrats? Now, speaking of Democrats taking money that they shouldn't, Nancy Pelosi has become a very wealthy woman while a member of Congress. She's been a member of Congress since I think 1794 at this point. And she's just making a public servant salary, but she's worth a ton of money. How? Well, because her stock portfolio seems to outperform some of the top guys on Wall Street. That's amazing. Nancy Pelosi, she picked the wrong career. Why did she get involved in the government when she's clearly one of the shrewdest investors on earth? Well, maybe her portfolio is performing so well because she's got a little bit of insider knowledge and maybe because the laws are a bit lax when it comes to Democrats. Well, comes to both members of Congress, both sides of the aisle, insider trading. So Senator Josh Hawley has just proposed maybe my favorite favoritely named act ever in Congress. You know, members of Congress love a good acronym or initialism. The Patriot act, the SAVE act, this act, they always fill it in with some great acronym or initialism. Well, in this case, Senator Hawley is proposing the Pelosi act, the Preventing Elected Leaders from Owning securities and Investments Act. When I was in college, I didn't have a lot of money, and I wanted the school to pay for my cigars. So I started a club called the Society for Intellectual Growth and Reinvigoration, or cigar. And this, the Pelosi act, really puts my acronym to shame. The Preventing Elected Leaders from Owning securities and Investments Act. Pelosi act would amend Chapter 131 of Title V USC to prohibit transactions involving certain financial instruments by members of Congress. And this would go pretty far. This would ban lawmakers and their spouses from. From holding, purchasing, or selling individual stocks for the duration of the lawmaker's time in office. Now, it seems from reading the summary of the bill that it wouldn't necessarily prevent members of Congress from being invested at all in the stock market. That would seem too onerous. Members of Congress deserve to have 401s too, don't they? They deserve to have some investments. What it would prevent them from doing is holding, purchasing, or selling individual stocks. So, okay, you buy a fund, you buy some index, you buy, okay, that's one thing. But you don't want Nancy Pelosi going in there, buy, buy, buy, sell, sell, sell from the floor of Congress because she just got some insider info and she wants to make another $50 million. That seems quite reasonable. This is really important because of the seriousness of public corruption. What distinguishes good regimes from. From bad regimes is not necessarily the form of the government. It's not that monarchies are bad and democracies are good, contrary to liberal popular belief. It's not that government by the many is better than government by the few, but worse than government by the single individual. It's not that there are good monarchies, there are good aristocracies, there are good democracies. What distinguishes good from bad government is whether the government is conducted for the common good or for the private interest. That's what distinguishes monarchy from tyranny. That's what distinguishes aristocracy from oligarchy. That's what distinguishes democracy from mob rule. So it's really important, and we focus on all sorts of scandals in politics. We love a good sex scandal, don't we? Oh, boy, that's juicy stuff that makes the front pages. But Nancy Pelosi and other members of Congress, though she's notable among them, get to engage in transparent public corruption for decades, and no one seems to really shrug a shoulder at it. Really important. That's really, really. That is much more corrosive to the body politic than a sex scandal. Sex scandals are bad, too. But that kind of public corruption that rots the whole regime. Great stuff from Hawley and I hope it gets passed. I have much much more to say. First though, go to PureTalk.comKnowles as Doge continues to cut the f decades of bloated government spending and Corruption, PureTalk Cell Phone Company that I use all the time is cutting the fat from the wireless industry. That's right, PureTalk says I don't think so to $100 a month cell phone plans. That is wasteful. That is irresponsible. Instead they're offering America's most dependable 5G network and America's most sensible prices. Listen to this Unlimited Talk, text and 15 gigs of data plus mobile hotspot for just 35 bucks a month. Best part right now you'll get a free one year membership to Daily Wire plus that includes access to the entire library of Daily Wire movies and documentaries, uncensored ad, free daily shows, daily Wire kids programming and as always, your free leftist ears Tumblr with PureTalk's US customer service team you can switch hassle free in as little as 10 minutes. You don't need Doge to cut the fat from your wireless bill. You need PureTalk. Okay, I love PureTalk. People hear me when I say it's the most dependable 5G network. They think I'm saying it's a very good 5G network. I'm saying it is the best, the most dependable one. The same one. You're just going to save a lot of Money. Go to PureTalk.comKnowles Switch to PureTalk.comKnowles today. Get a year of Daily Wire plus for free with a qualifying plan PureTalk Wireless by Americans for Americans. Speaking of unpopular Democrats, there's a poll out here from the economist in YouGov shows that most Democrats want Kilmar Abrego Garcia brought back to the us. Kilmar Abrego Garcia is that guy who is probably a member of Ms. 13 and has weird gang lookin tattoos and had a court protected order filed by his wife because he beat her allegedly. And sorry in the words of Democrats, he's just a Maryland dad. Illegal alien found by multiple judges to likely be a member of MS.13, has gang looking tattoos alleged to have beaten his wife or as the mainstream liberal politicians say just a nice Maryland daddy. You know he's dropped out of the news because the leading Democrat politicians realize this is bad. This is not a good issue. Senator Chris Van Hollen from Maryland flew down, had a nice romantic lunch with this gangster in El Salvador and it didn't play well in Peoria. So The Democrats at the national level have dropped the Kilmar Abrego Garcia thing. However, according to this poll, most Democrats want him brought back. 87% of Democrats want him brought back to the United States. Only 6% say that he should not be. Most Republicans of course say he should not be brought back to the United States. Independents are split and the lion's share of them, or sorry, 27% of them are unsure because they don't know. So the ones who believe what the establishment media have been saying about Kilmar Brego Garcia, they're more on the fence. Maybe he should be brought back. The ones who know the facts of the case realize this gangster should be stuck in El Salvador even if he hadn't beaten his wife, even if he hadn't been a member of Ms. 13, he's an illegal alien and he shouldn't be in the country. But when you add in all these other factors, the guy obviously should stay in a prison in El Salvador. So where does that leave the Democrat politicians? They're torn between what most people want, what common sense says, what the median voter says and what their base wants. The Democrats, they just have this problem, they have lost the common sense. Most people don't want husky fellas going into the girl's bathroom, most Democrats do. And if you're a Democrat politician you could say it's very easy for Republicans and independents and moderates to say, well look, obviously the Democrat should just do what most voters want and what common sense says. But it's not so easy cuz that Democrat politician has to answer to the donors and he's got to answer to his base and he won't get through a primary if he opposes the Democrats on issues like migration, on issues like crime, on issues like transgenderism, on issues like Israel, Palestine, which is another issue where the Democrat base is, not where the median American voter is. So the Democrats, I sympathize with them, I'm glad they're in this terrible position. They put themselves in that position by being part of a lunatic party. But I do pity them a little bit cuz it's not clear what exactly they should do. Some of the more moderate Democrats so called are saying hey guys, let's stop defending the tattooed ms.13 wife beating gangster. Can we please, can we find a slightly more sympathetic figure? Henry Quellar, a so called moderate Democrat has come out explicitly and said we should not focus on bringing this gangster back, this alleged gangster back.