10.20.25 Louisiana’s racial gerrymander case, a future with AI, and the Great Barrington Declaration

Summary

The World and Everything In It: Episode Summary

Date: October 20, 2025
Main Topics: Louisiana’s racial gerrymander case, a future with AI, and the Great Barrington Declaration

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Episode Overview

This episode of The World and Everything In It delivers a comprehensive exploration of current events intersecting law, economics, and recent history. The show spotlights the Supreme Court case involving Louisiana’s congressional maps and the legal complexities of race-based redistricting, examines the economic and social implications of AI-driven change with investment expert David Bonson, and revisits the controversial Great Barrington Declaration on COVID-19 policy.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Louisiana’s Racial Gerrymander Case

[07:27-15:45]

Background

• The Louisiana case centers around whether the state’s creation of a second majority-Black congressional district—mandated by a federal court to address a Voting Rights Act (VRA) violation—now constitutes unconstitutional racial gerrymandering.
• The legal dilemma: Can a state be sued first for not using race enough, and then for using it too much?

Major Arguments & Courtroom Exchanges

• Individual vs. Group Rights
  Chris Keezer (Pacific Legal Foundation):

  “The Equal Protection clause and the 15th amendment are individual rights. They are concerned with have you been discriminated on the basis of your race? ... Groups don’t vote just because they are a particular race...” (09:10)

• Race vs. Partisan Preference
  Justice Alito’s hypothetical:

  “If registered Democrats overwhelmingly vote for Democratic candidates regardless of the candidate’s race, is that block voting?” (10:10)

  • Reasoning: The debate hinges on the difficulty of disentangling race from partisanship in modern voting patterns.
  • DOJ Position: Block voting under Section 2 refers specifically to racially polarized voting, not just partisan divides. (10:18)

• Remedy and Duration
  Justice Kavanaugh questions:

  “Is there anything you can point us to that would not allow [using race] to extend forever, the intentional use of race, which you acknowledge?” (08:24)

• Double Bind for States
  Chris Keezer:

  “It puts the states in really an impossible position... They drew a map with a second majority black district. And then it got hit with the racial gerrymandering lawsuit... There’s very little play in the joints between the way that Section 2 is interpreted and the way that racial gerrymandering is interpreted under the 14th Amendment. It’s a very fine line.” (15:03)

Memorable Moment

• Justice Sotomayor’s challenge:

  “If you can’t separate out the two [race and party], it’s impossible.” (12:59)

Broader Implication

• The Supreme Court’s decision will set guidance on how far states can go in complying with the VRA without overstepping constitutional boundaries on race.

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2. Supreme Court Case: Ballot Receipt Deadlines in Illinois

[15:45-19:38]

Issue

• Challenge concerns Illinois’s rule allowing mail-in ballots postmarked by Election Day to be counted up to 14 days after.
• Congressman Mike Bost claims this imposes undue costs and creates uncertainty, seeking standing to sue.

Core Legal Question

• What constitutes sufficient “injury” to grant standing to sue in election law cases?

Key Quotes

• Justice Kagan:

  “It’s not enough to just walk in and say, hi, I’m a candidate and I’m suing... you have to show some kind of substantial risk doctrine...” (16:55)

• Justice Roberts:

  “What you’re sketching out for us is a potential disaster... we’re not going to know [who has standing] until we get very close to the election, right? And so it’s going to be in the middle, the most fraught time for the court to get involved in electoral politics.” (18:21)

• Justice Kavanaugh:

  “If there isn’t standing for these kinds of challenges... and they’re all forced post-election. What if looks like next November or December?” (19:14)

Takeaway

• The outcome could determine how—and when—candidates can challenge mail ballot rules, with repercussions for numerous states.

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3. Monday Money Beat: Navigating the Future with AI

[20:50–33:18] Guest: David Bonson, financial analyst and advisor

Are AI Fears Overblown?

• Bonson argues that historic fears of technology-fueled unemployment have repeatedly proved exaggerated (referencing the Industrial and Digital Revolutions).

• Key Point: Net job loss is unlikely, though individual sectors may see upheaval.

• David Bonson:

  “I have made the point that net massive unemployment is overblown... It is entirely possible a lot of jobs are lost, but the question is what jobs are lost that are not replaced?” (22:12)

The Christian Perspective on Work and Technology

• Bonson calls for “robust dynamism”—workers should adapt, retrain, and remain mobile rather than cling to old jobs.
• David Bonson:

  “Christians need to be vigorously advocating for robust dynamism in this moment.” (27:56)

Human Value in the Age of AI

• Some tasks may be automated, but “wisdom, judgment, virtue” can’t be replaced:

  “There will never be a time in which wisdom comes from a machine and not from a human.” (28:30)

• Key Principle: The fallacy of limited work—AI creates more opportunity by freeing human skill for new, currently unimagined work.

  “The fallacy at play here is that because AI can do more work, that it means that there’s a less need for human work. I think there’s an infinite amount of work to be done.” (30:45)

Advice for the Next Generation

• Prioritize education in wisdom, virtue, and sound judgment.
• David Bonson:

  “Your focus does not need to be in teaching people how to do vocational tasks that AI is about to do. The focus needs to be on raising men and women to be people of virtue, to be people of wisdom, to be people of sound judgment. These are things that cannot be displaced by computers.” (31:56)

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4. World History Book: The Great Barrington Declaration and COVID Lockdowns

[33:52-40:03] Reporter: Emma Eicher

Story Recap

• In October 2020, three prominent epidemiologists drafted the Great Barrington Declaration, opposing general lockdowns and advocating “focused protection” for the vulnerable while allowing others to resume normal life.
• Authors: Sunetra Gupta, Martin Koldorff, Jay Bhattacharya (Harvard, Oxford, Stanford).

The Declaration’s Arguments

• Lockdowns ignored broader public health, hurt society, and were unsustainable.

• Sunetra Gupta:

  “It doesn’t seem to be a sustainable strategy and it doesn’t seem to be one that recognizes that there are other things to consider...” (34:52)

• The logic behind focused protection:
  Jay Bhattacharya:

  “Herd immunity is not a strategy. Herd immunity is a fact about most infectious diseases... it’s less of a strategy than a recognition of a biological fact.” (36:50)

Response and Results

• Faced harsh criticism, especially from figures like Anthony Fauci, who labeled the proposal “nonsense.”
  Anthony Fauci:

  “How are you gonna protect the people in society who have diabetes, obesity, hypertension, chronic lung disease? ... We get to herd immunity from a vaccine. That’s how you get to herd immunity. Not by letting everybody get infected.” (37:30)

• Sweden as a Case Study:

  • Sweden avoided widespread lockdowns; five years later, had fewer deaths and stable educational outcomes.

Lasting Impact

• Public trust in health authorities eroded due to one-size-fits-all policies and overreach.

• Martin Koldorff:

  “Both the public health community and the scientific community is now in dire straits because they have lost integrity and trust among the public. And that’s easy to lose in one pandemic. But it will take at least a generation to build back.” (39:34)

• Hope for the future:

  “The next generation will learn the lessons from this pandemic. My belief and my hope is that they will do a lot better than we did this time.” (39:54)

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Notable Quotes

• “The Equal Protection clause and the 15th amendment are individual rights.” —Chris Keezer, 09:10
• “If you can’t separate out the two (race and party), it’s impossible.” —Justice Sotomayor, 12:59
• "There is only one thing to do if the AI moment wasn't happening. Everything I just said still applies. … Christians need to be vigorously advocating for robust dynamism in this moment." —David Bonson, 27:56
• “There will never be a time in which wisdom comes from a machine and not from a human.” —David Bonson, 28:30
• “It doesn’t seem to be a sustainable strategy and it doesn’t seem to be one that recognizes that there are other things to consider …” —Sunetra Gupta, 34:52
• “Both the public health community and the scientific community is now in dire straits because they have lost integrity and trust among the public.” —Martin Koldorff, 39:34

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Important Timestamps

• 07:27 Louisiana racial gerrymander case overview
• 09:10 Chris Keezer on individual vs. group rights
• 10:10–12:59 Justices on race vs. party in voting
• 15:03 Chris Keezer on the double bind for states
• 16:00–19:38 Illinois mail-in ballot deadline lawsuit
• 22:12 David Bonson on net job loss and AI
• 27:56 Christian dynamism in the labor market
• 28:30 Human wisdom vs. AI
• 31:56 Preparing youth for an AI economy
• 34:52 Sunetra Gupta on the sustainability of lockdowns
• 36:50 Jay Bhattacharya on herd immunity
• 37:30 Anthony Fauci’s critique
• 39:34 Martin Koldorff on loss of trust in public health

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Summary

This episode masterfully weaves together current high-stakes legal battles over race and voting rights, practical and theological responses to AI-driven transformation, and the continued debate over pandemic responses. The discussions are grounded in a Christian worldview, with a heavy emphasis on discernment, wisdom, and humility in both policy and personal adaptation. The intersection of past policies (COVID-19), present dilemmas (voting rights, AI), and future guidance (education and work) is highlighted throughout, offering listeners both critical analysis and practical application.

Transcript

[Mary Reichert]

Good morning. Can a state be sued twice, once for not using race and then again for using too much of it?

[Attorney / Legal Expert]

It's essentially being used as a reverse partisan gerrymander on purely racial grounds. And that is a constitutional problem.

[Nick Eicher]

The future of the Voting Rights act ahead on legal docket. Also today, the Monday money beat and later, the world history book. Looking back on the COVID lockdowns and a heroic scientist who push.

[Attorney / Legal Expert]

The premise is not to do something reckless. The premise is to take account of all of public health, all of the harms.

[Mary Reichert]

It's Monday, October 20th. This is the world and everything in it. From listener supported World Radio, I'm Mary Reichert.

[Nick Eicher]

And I'm Nick Eicher. Good morning.

[Mary Reichert]

Time for news. Here's Mark Mellinger.

[Mark Mellinger]

A bloody weekend in Gaza put the Israeli Hamas ceasefire to the test. But despite the violence, the truce remains intact. Hamas militants ambushed Israeli troops in southern Gaza early Sunday, killing two soldiers. In response, Israel launched air attacks targeting Hamas, killing dozens of Palestinians. Israel also temporarily suspended aid to Gaza prior to the strikes. In an interview last week, President Trump said he expects Hamas to disarm and implied the terror group will face action. If it does not, we're going to find out.

[Various Interviewees / Experts]

So it's not a hard timeline, but it's a line in my own mind. And at a certain point, if they don't do what they're supposed to do, then we'll have to do it for them.

[Mark Mellinger]

Following the retaliatory strikes, Israel's military says it resumed enforcing the ceasefire. It also says aid deliveries to Gaza are resuming Monday. Meantime, Vice President J.D. vance is expected to lead a US delegation to Israel this week to discuss implementing phase two of the Israeli Hamas ceasefire. White House special envoy Steve Witkoff and the President's son in law Jared Kushner will ACcompany Vance. Phase two involves establishing new governance in Gaza and disarming Hamas. But sticking points for moving on to a new phase remain. For instance, the Israeli government is frustrated Hamas has not yet kept its promise to return the bodies of all deceased hostages. The US Is considering a major step to boost Ukraine in its efforts to fend off Russia's now three and a half year old invasion. The White House is weighing the possibility of sending Ukraine long range deep strike capacity Tomahawk missiles. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky says the mere threat of Kyiv getting the missiles may pressure Russian leader Vladimir Putin to finally get serious about negotiating an end to the war.

[Various Interviewees / Experts]

Now everybody knows now about Tomahawks.

[Nick Eicher]

And Putin calls to President Trump. I think One of the reason because.

[Various Interviewees / Experts]

He'S afraid that president will give us tomahawks.

[Mark Mellinger]

Zelensky on NBC's Meet the Press Sunday. In a meeting with Zelensky Friday, President Trump refused to commit to providing the Tomahawks. He explained his hesitation to Fox News Channel's Sunday morning Futures with Maria Bartiromo.

[Various Interviewees / Experts]

We can't give all of our weapons to Ukraine. We just can't do that. You know, if we're going to be short, I don't want to do that. I can't jeopardize the United States.

[Mark Mellinger]

Trump is aggressively working to broker a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine. His next scheduled step is to meet with Putin in Hungary in the coming weeks. The US Government shutdown is now almost three weeks old and it is showing no signs of ending. Democrats are demanding health care subsidies be extended in any deal to reopen the government, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries tells ABC's this Week. Republicans won't negotiate.

[Attorney / Legal Expert]

We have repeatedly made clear that we want to sit down, find a bipartisan path forward to enacting a spending agreement that actually makes life better for the American people.

[Mark Mellinger]

On the same broadcast, House Speaker Mike Johnson said the Democrats demands to restore funds cut earlier this year was are a non starter.

[Various Interviewees / Experts]

They want to reinstate free health care.

[Nick Eicher]

Paid for by taxpayers to illegal aliens, they want to give money back to.

[Various Interviewees / Experts]

The Corporation for Public Broadcasting and they want to engage in all sorts of.

[Nick Eicher]

Spending on foreign projects around the globe.

[Mark Mellinger]

Republicans say they are willing to negotiate with Democrats on soon to expire health care subsidies, but say lawmakers need to pass a spending bill to reopen the government first. The disgraced former congressman George Santos is now a free man. The New York Republican was just a few months into serving a more than seven year federal prison sentence after pleading guilty to fraud and identity theft. But Friday, President Trump commuted his sentence, saying it was too harsh. Santos tells Fox News, I've made some.

[Attorney / Legal Expert]

Poor choices in my life, but nothing would warrant an insane, arbitrary sentence.

[Various Interviewees / Experts]

But on top of that, a sentence that no one else would have gotten.

[Attorney / Legal Expert]

A treatment that no one else would.

[Mark Mellinger]

Have gotten, Santos admitted to deceiving campaign donors and stealing the identities of 11 people, including members of his own family. He says he has a lot to prove to a lot of people and insists he won't disappoint President Trump. Thieves managed to break into the world's most visited museum over the weekend and got away with priceless Napoleonic era jewels, including tiaras, necklaces and brooches. The theft at the Louvre in Paris took only a few minutes to pull off and happened in broad daylight Sunday while the museum was open. Investigators say the thieves wrote a basket lift up the Louvre's facade, forced their way through a window and smashed display cases. Christopher Marinello of Art Recovery International says the thieves care about converting the stolen items into cash, not the pieces importance to cultural heritage. Which means there's a race going on.

[Various Interviewees / Experts]

Right now with the French local police to recover these items before they get broken up because they will melt down the precious metals. They will recut the the stones with no regard for the piece's integrity.

[Mark Mellinger]

The thieves did fail to get away with one piece they were after. After the crime, French authorities found a crown belonging to Napoleon III's wife and containing more than 1300 diamonds outside the museum. It had been broken. I'm Mark Mellinger. Straight ahead, using race as a factor in drawing lines for voting districts in today's legal docket. Plus, looking back at the COVID lockdowns and one scientist who pushed back in today's world history book. This is the world and everything in it.

[Mary Reichert]

It's the world and everything in it for this 20th day of October 2025. We're so glad you've joined us today. Good morning. I'm Mary Reichert.

[Nick Eicher]

And I'm Nick Eicher. Time now for legal docket for today. Two recent oral arguments before the U.S. supreme Court. And we begin with a case out of Louisiana that could reshape how states draw congressional districts. At issue is whether using race to draw a second majority black district in Louisiana violates the Constitution.

[Mary Reichert]

A federal judge record after ruling the earlier map containing just one majority black district violated the Voting Rights act, specifically Section 2, which prohibits racial discrimination in voting.

[Nick Eicher]

But a group of non black voters say this new map goes too far because it explicitly sorts voters by race. They call it a racial gerrymander. And they argue it violates the 14th and 15th amendments, ratified after the Civil War to protect the rights of Americans freed from slavery. Justice Brett Kavanaugh wondered just how long remedies based on race can last.

[Attorney / Legal Expert]

Is there anything you can point us to that would not allow it to extend forever, the intentional use of race, which you acknowledge.

[Nick Eicher]

In response to Justice Gorsuch, the attorney for the black voters, Janae Nelson, pointed to Congress saying that's a political question and not one for the courts to address. Local conditions change, she argued, and lawmakers are best positioned to respond. But we're still left with the question, what is the end point?

[Mary Reichert]

One amicus brief caught my eye from The Pacific Legal foundation lawyer Chris Keezer filed it in support of the non black challengers to that second map. He argues the constitutional issue here is that these are individual rights, not group rights.

[Chris Keezer]

The Equal Protection clause and the 15th amendment are individual rights. They are concerned with have you been discriminated on the basis of your race? And then your equal protection rights and your 15th amendment rights may come into play. Now, when we talk about group rights, we're talking about a system of proportional representation, which actually Section 2 specifically says that we're not going to have that. But really, when you get into the concept of group rights, you have to assume that groups have preferences when really individuals are the ones who vote and individuals are the ones who have their rights protected by the 14th and 15th Amendments. Groups don't vote just because they are a particular race, just like any other characteristic. That doesn't mean that they are going to have particular politics.

[Mary Reichert]

Returning to the argument before the court now, Justice Samuel Alito pressed the lawyer for the black voters with a series of hypotheticals. He was trying to find out whether what is being labeled as racial block voting might actually be partisan politics.

[Attorney / Legal Expert]

If registered Democrats overwhelmingly vote for Democratic candidates regardless of the the candidates race, is that block voting?

[Mary Reichert]

If you're looking at it simply from a party perspective, no. We don't judge block voting based on party. We judge it based on race. Racially polarized voting is measuring racial performance and voting behavior.

[Attorney / Legal Expert]

And likewise, if we registered Republicans overwhelmingly vote for Republican candidates, that's not block voting.

[Mary Reichert]

That's not how we measure voting. We measure voting based on race for purposes of Section 2 because the Constitution forbids race discrimination in voting, not party discrimination.

[Attorney / Legal Expert]

All right, so if it happens to be that people of one race or another race overwhelmingly prefer one of the political parties, does that transform the situation into racial voting or is it still just partisan voting?

[Mary Reichert]

No, you look at how different races of voters vote and whether they vote in a way that is polarized. Louisiana Solicitor General Benjamin Aginaga pushed back. He argued there is no way to separate race and party and trying to do so amounts to racial stereotyping with no clear endpoint. Justice Neil Gorsuch took it further, pressing the lawyer for the black voters.

[Attorney / Legal Expert]

Sometimes federal district courts order maps.

[Nick Eicher]

And you're saying sometimes acceptable for a federal district court to order a map.

[Attorney / Legal Expert]

That intentionally discriminates on the basis of race?

[Mary Reichert]

I disagree with that formulation. So states and plaintiffs cannot put forth maps that discriminate and that use race in an excessive fashion.

[Nick Eicher]

But what counts as excessive? Justice Department Lawyer Hashim Moupin put the shoe on the other foot.

[Attorney / Legal Expert]

White Democrats in West Virginia, they don't get districts drawn for them. White Democrats have zero representation in West Virginia, even though they're a significant percentage of the state. The reason why Section two as it's been construed as a problem is it's saying that you have to create a district for black Democrats that you would never create for white Democrats in a Republican state. It's essentially being used as a reverse partisan gerrymander on purely racial grounds. And that is a constitutional problem.

[Nick Eicher]

Even some of the liberal justices had to acknowledge how difficult it is to separate race from politics. Listen to this exchange with the DOJ lawyer and Justice Sonia Sotomayor.

[Attorney / Legal Expert]

I agree. They drew a very pretty rectangle. The problem is that in the very pretty rectangle, the blacks lived in the south and the north and they took two very different groups of black people and put them together.

[Various Interviewees / Experts]

The problem is that all of this.

[Attorney / Legal Expert]

Map is that way, north and South. They did it for racial reasons and the state did it for non racial reasons.

[Various Interviewees / Experts]

Well, if you can't separate out the two, it's impossible.

[Attorney / Legal Expert]

But you can separate out the two. You can control for party and you can require them to draw a map that meets the political objectives.

[Mary Reichert]

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson offered a striking analogy, comparing section 2 of the Voting Rights act to the Americans with Disabilities Act. Her point that Congress can require fixes even when no one intended to discriminate so long as inequality persists. But in making that comparison, Justice Jackson seemed to cast black voters not as political actors with agency, but as people needing special accommodation. Here's her exchange with John Grime, another lawyer for the non black voters.

[Various Interviewees / Experts]

And it didn't matter whether the person who built the building intended for them to be exclusionary.

[Attorney / Legal Expert]

That's irrelevant.

[Various Interviewees / Experts]

Congress said the facilities have to be made equally open to people with disabilities if readily possible. The idea in Section two is that we are responding to current day manifestations of past and present decisions that disadvantage minorities. So what Congress is saying is if it is happening, which Section 2 gives us the tools to determine, you gotta fix it.

[Attorney / Legal Expert]

The difference is that the remedy under.

[Various Interviewees / Experts]

The ADA and other anti discrimination laws.

[Nick Eicher]

Is not stereotyping grime, pushing back and arguing that unlike the ada, voting rights law is not about modifying the environment to help the disadvantaged, it's about avoiding racial stereotypes. Justice Jackson conceded the point, but not the premise. If there is no remedy, what's left to do? And that's the tension. And to critics, the tell an admission that the Voting Rights act is being interpreted not just as a shield against discrimination, but as a tool to engineer racial outcomes. Chris Keezer, whom you heard from earlier, says Louisiana is now stuck in a double bind.

[Chris Keezer]

Well, it puts the states in really an impossible position because in this case, Louisiana lost a Section 2 preliminary injunction in a previous case. And so that's why they drew this district. And so they drew a map with a second majority black district. And then it got hit with the racial gerrymandering lawsuit. And so you can see that there's, like very little play in the joints between the way that Section 2 is interpreted and the way that racial gerrymandering is interpreted under the 14th Amendment. It's a very fine line the states have to walk.

[Nick Eicher]

The court's decision will clarify how far states can go to comply with the Voting Rights act without crossing into that unconstitutional racial sorting.

[Mary Reichert]

All right, onto our Last case, Bost vs. Illinois State Board of Elections. It's about mail in ballots, but not whether they are good or bad. The issue is who has the right to challenge them in legal terms, who has standing to sue?

[Nick Eicher]

Illinois allows ballots postmarked by Election Day to be counted up to 14 days later. That's been the rule since 2005. Congressman Mike Bost says that drags out the count and forces campaigns to keep staff on payroll just to monitor the results.

[Mary Reichert]

In order to show standing, Bost has to show a specific personal injury, something directly caused by that 14 day rule and fixable by a court. His lawyer, former US Solicitor General Paul Clement, argued that a financial hit is injury enough.

[Attorney / Legal Expert]

Then Illinois is counting unlawful ballots. Those unlawful ballots could cost Congressman Bost the election or at least reduce his margin of victory. And he has to pay his campaign staff for two extra weeks. All of that means that Congressman Bost has standing three times over.

[Mary Reichert]

But Justice Elena Kagan was not convinced.

[Various Interviewees / Experts]

It's not enough to just walk in and say, hi, I'm a candidate and I'm suing. But what you have to show is some kind of substantial risk doctrine that the new rule puts you at an electoral disadvantage relative to the old rule, and say something. Not a lot, but something to suggest that that's right.

[Attorney / Legal Expert]

So I could live with that rule. I don't know that it's the ideal rule. I actually would prefer a rule that says no. Congressman Bost is coming in and he's saying there are going to be unlawful votes cast and there'll be ballots with his name on it in his election. That's enough.

[Mark Mellinger]

We're done.

[Nick Eicher]

Clement also argued the 14 day rule creates a competitive disadvantage, meaning late arriving ballots can erode margin from votes already counted and potentially flip the outcome. That line of reasoning made two justices uneasy, worried that courts could end up playing political odds maker. First, Justice Gorsuch if a probability of.

[Attorney / Legal Expert]

Loss needs to be shown to secure standing, what's that probability?

[Nick Eicher]

Is it 50%? Is it 60%? Is there something unseemly about federal courts making prognostications about a candidate's chance of success immediately before an election that itself might influence the election? Then? Chief Justice John Roberts what you're sketching.

[Various Interviewees / Experts]

Out for us is a potential disaster. In other words, you're saying if the candidate's going to win by 65%, no standard standing. But if the candidate, you know, hopes to win by a dozen votes, and there are places in the country where that happens over and over again, then he has standing. But we're not going to know that until we get very close to the election, right? And so it's going to be in.

[Attorney / Legal Expert]

The middle, the most fraught time for.

[Various Interviewees / Experts]

The court to get involved in electoral politics.

[Mary Reichert]

That's when on the other side, Illinois Solicitor General Jane notes, she argued that extra staffing time is just an ordinary campaign expense. It's not the kind of harm federal courts recognize as injury that would give someone standing. Justice Kavanaugh foresaw courts flooded with election challenges after the fact. Here he is in an exchange with Justice Department lawyer Michael Talent in support of Bost.

[Attorney / Legal Expert]

If there isn't standing for these kinds of challenges to ballot receipt deadlines for U.S. house elections and they're standing pre election and they're all forced post election. What if looks like next November or December? Because if we're not thinking ahead to that, we're going to walk into something. I mean, I can't imagine it be easy or good.

[Mary Reichert]

However the justices come down on this, it'll affect dozens of other states that also count late arriving mail ballots. And that's this week's legal docket.

[Various Interviewees / Experts]

Additional support comes from Covenant College, where Christian faculty equip students for their callings through hard ideas, deep questions and meaningful work. Covenant. Edu World from Missions Upside Down, a.

[Mark Mellinger]

Free OH award winning video series about.

[Various Interviewees / Experts]

Christian missions past, present and into the future. Missionsupsidedown.com and from the Peace of God Bible, inviting you to experience God's peace with notes and devotions from Dr. Jeremiah Johnston. PeaceOfGodBible.com.

[Mary Reichert]

Coming up next on THE WORLD and everything in it, the Monday money.

[Martin Koldorff]

Beat.

[Nick Eicher]

Time now to talk business, markets and the economy with financial analyst and advisor David Bonson. David heads up the wealth management firm, the Bonson Group, and he is here now. Good morning to you, David.

[Various Interviewees / Experts]

Well, good morning, Nick. Good to be with you.

[Nick Eicher]

Well, David, as we talked last week, you have been unpacking a lot from that recent meeting with your team at the bonds. And this week you're writing about the AI revolution in your dividend cafe. And I'd like to read just a brief section from that to set this up. The fear at hand concerning AI is quite simple. You write, generative artificial intelligence can do so much that over time it will severely diminish the need for human beings in various economic tasks. Functions like data entry, customer service, content creation, and that one hits close to home, as well as administration and bookkeeping and financial modeling. These are most frequently cited as highly vulnerable to the improved efficiency that AI represents. So, David, you've made the case, though, that fears of mass unemployment from AI are overblown. Why do you think that narrative has gained as much traction as it has?

[Various Interviewees / Experts]

Well, first of all, I want to be clear that I have made the point that net massive unemployment is overblown. And that's different in the sense that it is entirely possible a lot of jobs are lost, but the question is what jobs are lost that are not replaced? A net substantial increase in unemployment, because that's very different than someone loses one job but gets another. And I think that where a lot of this hand wringing comes from is incredibly common, as there is progress and evolution in technology and whatnot. There's a lot of historical precedent, and I would be willing to say, even though I don't say this kind of thing very often, that I can understand why, on top of the historical normalcy of fearing job loss from technological advancement, that this is happening at a different speed than we've seen. So it also causes people to believe that this time is different. So I make the historical argument that the Industrial Revolution eliminated a lot of jobs. And I actually believe that was more profound, the basic displacement of so much of the agricultural economy because of the ability of machines to do things that previously human hands did. That was a more substantial change in society than even this is, and yet it more than doubled the net new jobs that came out of it. But I think a lot of people can look to that data point. I make a similar point, by the way, about the digital revolution, what has happened since the advent of computers over the last 40 and 50 years. And I think some people are willing to Accept the historical case for how the Industrial Revolution and digital revolution did not decimate job holding for tens of millions of people in America, but then would say, however, David, you're wrong on this one, that the AI moment strikes us as so profound and so different that a lot of the aforementioned sectors you brought up will unfortunately see a total lack of employability within them. And this is where I believe the Christian anthropology becomes so important a Christian understanding of the human person. And I also believe for Christians to understand some basic realities of economics that are themselves biblical and rooted to our understanding of creation. And I avoid hand wringing here in some of the same panic that many others have in this AI moment because of those principles that I'm sure we're going to get into.

[Nick Eicher]

All right, so you're optimistic long term, but what about that short term pain when jobs are lost before new ones are created? Does that not also create real dislocation? And is there anything that we can do to kind of prepare for that?

[Various Interviewees / Experts]

Well, I don't know that anybody can predict that it will be very serious dislocation, partially because right now we've seen virtually none of it. The estimates from very serious private data analytics firms are that we were talking about somewhere between 17,000 and 27,000 jobs that have been displaced because of AI year to date in an economy with 160 million plus people in the labor market. So I do not believe that those numbers are going to hold. I think the numbers will go higher. But when we say something is going to get very serious, it's important to note that we're moving from describing a reality to predicting a reality. And these predictions are going to be filled with fallibility. So I'm a little cautious of the hubris that goes into some of the predictions. But that is not to say that I disagree with being cautious and being preparatory. However one can get in front of this. Nick. Now, whether or not we're going to is outside of my purview. But speaking to the listeners that world has and what I happen to believe ought to be done, it's really important that we tell the truth about it. That we speak to mobility and dynamism and retraining and vocational flexibility as very, very important things and not speak to nostalgia that no, you have a birthright to the thing you were trained in and that public policy must be geared to protecting the horse and buggy, so to speak. To use the old Industrial Revolution analogy, it' a moral point of view, but it's also not anywhere near a social, political or economically coherent point of view either. And I have no choice here, Nick, but to probably make a few enemies along the way because there's a real misunderstanding about the difference or where the line is between sympathy and sensitivity and speaking hard truths. There is only one thing to do if the AI moment wasn't happening. Everything I just said still applies. There are moments in which one's job becomes obsolete and their need for continued employability requires them to adapt. And that's the term we use called dynamism. And that dynamic adaptability is either geographical or connected to their own skill sets, their training, their education, their preparation. And sometimes it can be both. Christians need to be vigorously advocating for robust dynamism in this moment.

[Nick Eicher]

All right, well, let's talk now about what cannot be replaced. David, you've written about the importance of wisdom, judgment and virtue. And these are things that AI cannot seemingly replicate. What you call the really human things. What does that mean practically in the AI moment?

[Various Interviewees / Experts]

Well, it means that there is a total dishonesty from many who have have been pioneers and leaders in AI about what machines are doing and not doing and where the human is necessary and not necessary. But on a go forward basis, there are decisions that are made when a lot of data comes that are then requiring this time tested idea of implementing wisdom. The Proverbs makes a distinction between knowledge and wisdom. The Proverbs talks about discernment. Yeah, I do not accept at any level that there will ever be a time in which wisdom comes from a machine and not from a human. Nor do I accept that there will ever be a time that wisdom is not needed in a specific amount of economic calculus. Now, very quickly counting how many widgets are on a shelf at a warehouse in Sheboygan, Wisconsin, that's not a wisdom calculus, that's a knowledge or data collection. And I think humans are not going to be as needed in doing some of that, and computers are going to do it quicker and better. But then making decisions around some of these things, that's what I'm referring to. To the extent certain things are done quicker and cheaper, it adds to labor productivity, which then adds to the ability for there to be production of more goods and more services. This is the economic principle that pains me that more Christians do not understand that God made us out of the Garden of Eden with infinite needs and wants. And the way in which our needs and wants are satisfied are with this thing called work. And that work is a verb of production. The production of goods and services meets human needs and wants or it dies you know, we cannot produce things that don't meet human needs or wants sustainably. I believe those needs and wants are so infinite that the ability to produce things is infinite. And that the fallacy at play here is that because AI can do more work, that it means that there's a less need for human work. And that fallacy is zero sum, that it believes there's a finite amount of work to be done. I think there's an infinite amount of work to be done. And in fact, 68 million net new jobs, net being the keyword here, were created out of the computer moment. And about 57 million of them are in various forms of services, all but 11 or 12 million. Those are a lot of jobs that didn't ever exist before. That greater efficiency, greater productivity, greater technological advancement created new opportunity. Sometimes it required new training, sometimes it didn't. It could be a horizontal move, but that is what's going to happen out of AI. Will it happen quicker than it's happened before? I think it might. It also might not happen as quick as some people think too. And what I want to encourage Christians to do is have faith that the immutable laws of creation have not changed and the human person has not changed. And out of that we find vocational opportunity.

[Nick Eicher]

All right, one quick last question. How do you think we should be preparing the next generation for an AI shaped economy? David, in other words, what should schools, parents, even churches be doing differently to help young people thrive?

[Various Interviewees / Experts]

This needs to be an entire book. It needs to be an entire series of lectures. It needs to be elaborated on with much, much more than we have time and space to do now, but at a very high level. Nick, I can't say this enough to Christian educators K through 12, and certainly at higher education. Your focus does not need to be in teaching people how to do vocational tasks that AI is about to do. The focus needs to be on raising men and women to be people of virtue, to be people of wisdom, to be people of sound judgment. These are things that cannot be displaced by computers. And now higher education should have been doing this. Even apart from AI. This should have been the bigger priority in terms of the moral formation of capable men and women. But all the more so in the AI moment to go compete, we need to be rethinking how we train young people to be professional, vocational, employed adults. And I think that this is the starting point, but I acknowledge it requires a lot more elaboration.

[Nick Eicher]

All right. David Bonson is founder, managing partner and chief investment officer at the Bonson Group. He writes regularly for us at World opinions [e-mail] David, thanks so much. We'll talk to you next time.

[Various Interviewees / Experts]

Thanks so much, Nick.

[Nick Eicher]

Today is Monday, October 20th. Good morning. This is the WORLD and everything in it from listener supported World Radio. I'm Nick Iger.

[Mary Reichert]

And I'm Mary Reichard. Up next, the world history book. It was five years ago now when governments put nations into lockdown in response to Covid, a handful of experts spoke out against that and other policies. Here's World's Emma Eicher with the story.

[Nick Eicher]

New tonight, a group of more than.

[Mary Reichert]

40 epidemiologists and public health scientists from around the world say they reject closing.

[Various Interviewees / Experts]

Economies to slow the spread of COVID.

[Mary Reichert]

And they're calling the idea the Great Barrington Declaration.

[Emma Eicher]

October 4, 2020. Eight months into the COVID 19 pandemic, three epidemiologists gather in Massachusetts to discuss the harm the lockdowns might have on the population. And they propose a solution. There they host a press conference with just a few journalists in attendance. One of the epidemiologists, Sunetra Gupta, says lockdowns don't take all of public health into consideration. Audio here from the American Institute for Economic Research.

[Various Interviewees / Experts]

It doesn't seem to be a sustainable strategy and it doesn't seem to be one that recognizes that there are other things to consider in implementing any kind of control strategy, which is what is it going to do?

[Emma Eicher]

The three authors, Gupta, Martin Koldorff and Jay Bhattacharya, have extensive backgrounds studying infectious diseases and they teach at universities like Harvard, Oxford and Stanford. Koldorff, also a biostatistician, organized that October meeting.

[Martin Koldorff]

Then we decided also very spontaneously to write a one page declaration. And then we called it the Great Barrington Declaration because we were meeting in Great Barrington, which is in the Berkshires in western Massachusetts.

[Emma Eicher]

Together, the authors represented a wide spectrum of knowledge in medicine, vaccine development and health policy. And the document's co signers included reputable medical practitioners ranging from England to India. Koldorff says that meant people couldn't ignore the Declaration's proposal and it sort of.

[Martin Koldorff]

Spread like a wildfire. And a lot of people signed the Declaration both among scientists, like tens of thousands of scientists and medical professionals, as well as hundreds of thousands among the public. I think it reached almost a million signatures.

[Emma Eicher]

The declaration said that shutting everyone inside their homes and closing schools was a recipe for disaster. Instead, the declaration advocated for herd immunity, where healthy people, people would resume their daily lives to build up in immunity to the coronavirus. Those who are vulnerable to disease would be protected until scientists developed a vaccine. The idea was called focused protection. Audio from a 2020 unherd interview with Jay Bhattacharya, co author of the Declaration and a public health policy expert.

[Various Interviewees / Experts]

Herd immunity is not a strategy. Herd immunity is a fact about most infectious diseases, the course that they spread through the population. It's less of a strategy than a recognition of a biological fact.

[Emma Eicher]

But other medical experts were skeptical. Critics accused the Declaration of not laying out thorough guidelines, saying it advocated for doing nothing in the face of a deadly pandemic. Former chief medical advisor to the United States Anthony Fauci went as far as calling the declaration nonsense, saying it was dangerous to follow its proposal. Here's Fauci in a 2020 interview with JAMA Network.

[Various Interviewees / Experts]

But how are you gonna protect the people in society who have diabetes, obesity, hypertension, chronic lung disease? You're just gonna let them get infected. We get to herd immunity from a vaccine. That's how you get to herd immunity. Not by letting everybody get infected.

[Emma Eicher]

But the Declaration did have guidelines for vulnerable populations to protect themselves from the disease, such as minimizing staff rotation at nursing homes, bhattacharya said. Many critics seem to gloss over that part.

[Various Interviewees / Experts]

The premise is not to do something reckless.

[Attorney / Legal Expert]

The premise is to take account of.

[Various Interviewees / Experts]

All of public health, all of the harms.

[Emma Eicher]

Some embrace the Declaration's practical solution to the pandemic. Martin Kolldorf says people recognized that children were the least susceptible to the disease and it made sense for them to go back to.

[Martin Koldorff]

It was the public who stopped these lockdown measures. It made it unintenable for politicians to continue with the lockdowns because the public was smarter than the scientific establishment, because the public was living all the all the harms.

[Emma Eicher]

One Western country put focused protection into practice. Sweden. It kept their schools open and lockdowns at bay. At the time, Swedish officials were fiercely criticized for their more liberal approach. But five years later, Sweden reported much fewer deaths from the coronavirus. They also maintained steady test scores in schools. While other countries saw a downturn after the lockdowns, Koldorff says he feels vindicated.

[Martin Koldorff]

The fact that among Western countries, Sweden has the lowest all cause mortality is the ultimate proof of that.

[Emma Eicher]

In the aftermath of the pandemic, Coldorf says public trust in health systems has fallen. Part of this is due to the push for vaccines, which may have helped an aging population, but forcing it on healthy people with prior immunity made no scientific sense and put many at needless risk of vaccine related injuries.

[Martin Koldorff]

Both the public health community and the scientific community is now in dire straits because they have lost integrity and trust among the public. And that's easy to lose in one pandemic. But it will take at least a generation to build back that.

[Emma Eicher]

Koldorff is optimistic that we might learn from our mistakes in the future, but.

[Martin Koldorff]

I think that the next generation will learn the lessons from this pandemic. My belief and my hope is that they will do a lot better than we did this time.

[Emma Eicher]

That's this week's world history Book. I'm Emma Eicher.

[Mary Reichert]

Tomorrow, the beige baby boom and the pushback against it. That and more tomorrow. I'm Mary Reichardt.

[Nick Eicher]

And I'm Nick Eicher. The world and everything in it comes to you from World Radio. World's mission is built biblically objective journalism that informs, educates and inspires. The Bible records Jeremiah saying, lord God, behold, I do not know how to speak, for I am only a youth. But the Lord said to Jeremiah, do not say, I am only a youth. For to all to whom I send you, you shall go. And whatever I command you, you shall speak. Do not be afraid of them, for I am with you to deliver you, declares the Lord. Verses 6 through 8 of Jeremiah, chapter 1. Go now in grace and peace.