Social Media Lawsuits Start, Controversy Surrounding WHO Withdrawal, & Major Shifts Happening In China & Japan | Tom Bilyeu Show Live

Summary

Impact Theory with Tom Bilyeu: Episode Summary

Episode: Social Media Lawsuits Start, Controversy Surrounding WHO Withdrawal, & Major Shifts Happening In China & Japan
Date: February 11, 2026

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Overview

This episode of Impact Theory, hosted by Tom Bilyeu with recurring co-host Drew, provides an unflinching, clear-eyed look at chaotic headlines: social media lawsuits in the United States, the reality behind rumors of sudden cancer cures following WHO withdrawal, seismic political and social shifts in China and Japan, and the breakneck progress of generative AI technology. Tom and Drew break down the real incentives and dangers underlying today's news, challenge social media-fueled conspiracies, and explore the intersection of economics, policy, and technology that will shape the world in the near future.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Cancer Cures & WHO Withdrawal: Fact vs. Fiction

• [02:55–13:06]
  Tom and Drew tackle the viral claim that “Big Pharma was hiding cancer cures, now unleashed because the US left WHO.”
  • Tom outlines the actual process:
    • Recent cancer breakthroughs are real—especially in immunotherapies and targeted treatments.
    • The FDA—not WHO—decides what’s allowed in the US.
    • The timeline of recent advances predates US withdrawal from WHO by years; technology and research, especially around mRNA and genetic therapies, have roots a decade old.
  • Tom emphasizes the difference between healthy skepticism and conspiracy thinking:

    “We run the risk of the second something comes out that somebody says ‘this is all fake,’ that we just go ‘yeah, everything is fake.’ And now... saying everything is fake is equally low utility.” —Tom [03:21]

    • Suppressing a real cancer cure would require near-impossible secrecy (714,000+ people).
    • The FDA’s incentive structures and alignments are the bigger problem, not shadowy WHO control.

2. Pharmaceutical Incentives & Socialism

• [10:32–13:06]
  • Drew brings up the uncomfortable fact that treating diseases is more profitable than curing them. Tom distinguishes between good public investment and socialism:

    “Socialism is confiscation of the means of production. That's evil. That's bad... But us all saying collectively, hey, you know those tax dollars... here's where I would like to allocate some.” —Tom [11:06]

  • The pair discuss how government spending, when targeted at the right innovations, can produce societal leaps (Apollo program, cancer research), but top-down mandates rarely work as intended.

3. Social Media Lawsuits & Child Mental Health

• [17:46–31:28]
  • Landmark lawsuits in CA and NM against social media giants allege intentional harm to children.
  • Tom’s blunt advice—don’t let your kids on social media until at least 16, ideally 18 or older:

    “At a headline level it does not appear to be good for the brain... The period of hyper brain plasticity is like up through 11 and then every day after that it gets less. And so what changes would have been easy until you're 11, become a little bit harder. And by the time you're 18 you're kind of baked. By the time you're 25 it’s really game over.” —Tom [20:04]

  • They debate the role of government vs. parents:

    “Government shouldn’t be in your house, full stop, period, end of story... I trust the parents infinitely more to know what's right for their kids than I trust the government.” —Tom [24:25]

  • Tom and Drew both acknowledge harsh truths:
    • Not all parents are responsible, but government prescriptions have done real long-term harm before (e.g., the food pyramid and sugar).
    • Tom lauds parents’ experimentation over broad top-down rules.
    • Cultural trends will likely shift as harmful effects become clearer—expect social media bans to proliferate in schools and homes; parents who limit tech use will gain an advantage.

4. Geopolitical Shifts: China & Japan

• [35:00–45:24]
  • China reportedly reducing US debt exposure—Tom explains why this matters:
    • China’s true population may be exaggerated by 100–300 million; their manufacturing dominance is real regardless.
    • The US economy is now 70% driven by debt and spending, enabled by reserve currency status.
    • China’s likely play is to back their currency with gold and eventually challenge dollar dominance.
  • On Japan:
    • The new right-wing PM wins 75% of the Parliament—an unprecedented mandate.
    • “Sushification of Japan”—Xenophobic policy and deportations of foreigners making headlines.
    • Tom contextualizes: Japan is swinging back from decades of stagnation and anxiety about China, now prioritizing national identity and security.

    “Japan is the dopest ever. You have to go, are they racist? 100%... They don't play. If you don't abide by their culture, they don’t have garbage cans… Japanese don’t play. You drop trash... people are going to shame you.” —Tom [44:02]

    • “Liberal” in Japan doesn’t mean what it means in America; political terms aren’t universal.

5. AI Breakthroughs & Content Creation

• [45:25–54:30]
  • Tom details the explosion in generative AI for video and creativity:
    • China’s Sea Dance model can swap characters, camera angles, and edit scenes effortlessly.
    • He predicts: “If all AI progress stopped right now, within five years, 25% of the content you watch is AI generated. You don’t think about it, you don’t discern. You're just like, yeah, dope.” —Tom [48:33]
  • The challenge becomes not production, but interface: who can create tools that let everyday users direct AI videos at granular control.
  • Tom reflects on the diminishing anticipation and satisfaction as content becomes instantly accessible and “summarized”—a warning about addiction to quick dopamine hits and skipping the struggle necessary for fulfillment.

6. Moon Colonies, Elon Musk’s Pivot, and Human Endurance

• [54:30–66:00]
  • Elon Musk pivots SpaceX focus from Mars to the Moon for a self-sustaining colony—Moon is closer, faster, and better for iteration.
    • “Moon is faster… it's a two day trip time. This means we can iterate much faster to complete a moon city than a Mars city.” —Drew reading Musk’s rationale [58:43]
    • Space makes quantum computing and large-scale solar easier.
  • Hardship and “meaningful struggle” are foundational to the human spirit:
    • Tom highlights Ernest Shackleton’s Antarctic expedition as a parable of leadership and grit, imagining similar pioneering spirit for space colonization.

    “Men wanted for hazardous journey... Safe return doubtful. Honor and recognition in event of success. I want more energy like this.” —Tom [63:02]

  • Dangers of “shortcuts” in life and tech, and why real progress requires risk and sacrifice.

7. Miscellaneous: Sports/Culture

• [66:52–69:07]
  • Brief reflection on the Super Bowl, Bad Bunny’s half-time show, and cultural symbolism
  • Tom is less engaged personally, but Drew summarizes the Latin American pride and record viewership.

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Memorable Quotes & Moments

• On conspiracy thinking:

  “As dumb as it is to say nothing is fake, saying everything is fake is equally low utility.” —Tom [03:21]

• On the balance between incentives, innovation & government:

  “The incentive structure in healthcare is terrible. It is genuinely misaligned in ways that absolutely hurt all of us as patients.” —Tom [08:23]

• On children, brain plasticity & social media:

  “By the time you’re 25, it’s really game over… the fundamental wiring of your brain is forever set.” —Tom [20:40]

• On generational cultural swings:

  “Anything that offers an advantage will be pursued. So that’s game theory.” —Tom [32:23]

• On AI-generated content:

  “If all AI progress stopped right now, within five years, 25% of the content you watch is AI generated.” —Tom [48:33]

• On fulfillment through struggle:

  “Progress is a foundational pillar of human happiness. I think we have an algorithm in our brain that wants struggle to equal ‘I got better.’” —Tom [52:28]

• On human exploration and risk:

  “People wanted for hazardous journey... safe return doubtful. Honor and recognition in event of success... I want more energy like this. Where do people go that would respond to some shit like this?” —Tom [63:02]

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Segment Timestamps

| Topic | Timestamps | |----------------------------------------------------|-----------------| | Cancer cures & WHO conspiracy | 02:55–13:06 | | Social media lawsuits & youth mental health | 17:46–33:01 | | China reduces US debt, reserve currency dynamics | 35:00–41:21 | | Japan’s shift right: nationalism & social cohesion | 41:21–45:24 | | Breakthroughs in AI video tech | 45:25–54:30 | | SpaceX: Moon colonies & big leap exploration | 54:30–66:00 | | Super Bowl/Bad Bunny halftime reflection | 66:52–69:07 |

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Episode Tone

• Unapologetically direct and skeptical, pushing listeners to question simple narratives and meme-driven panic, but without closing off the complexity of real-world incentives.
• Practical optimism: Tom threads the line between celebrating scientific and social progress and warning about its misuse.
• **Colloquial, irreverent, and humorous—**especially in Tom’s anecdotes (“They don’t play!” re: Japan), willingness to swear and call out stupidity, vivid summing-up of the “vibes” behind policy debates.

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Bottom Line:
This episode is a sharp, idea-rich journey through the most pressing tech, health, and geo-political controversies shaping the world, with Tom’s signature blend of candor, skepticism, and hard-won optimism. If you want a clear, nuanced view on what really matters beneath the swirl of headlines and memes, this is a must-listen.

Transcript

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[Drew]

Drew, there's been some speculation. I don't know if you realized, um, the last like two or three weeks there's been a lot of breakthroughs and a whole bunch of different medicines and stuff like that. People are saying that allegedly once the US left the who, they were kind of Big Pharma was holding the, the floodgates and now that we're gone, all these cancer cures have just popped out.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Um, this, this is my concern that we become conspiracy brained.

[Drew]

Yeah.

[Tom Bilyeu]

And listen there, we obviously weren't conspiracy brained enough, so fair enough to, uh, Bill Maher said, where does QANON go for their apology? I think it's a, you know, it's an interesting question, but we run the risk of the second something comes out that when somebody says this is all fake, that we just go, yeah, everything is fake. And now we can't just as dumb as it is to say nothing is fake, saying everything is fake is equally low utility. So we've got to be a little bit careful. So in looking at this, yeah, I think that things are very different than what's being portrayed. There's a narrative that's picking up steam online. Basically Big Pharma is burying cancer cures because they're bad for business. Now listen, in all honesty, I'm sure there are plenty of people in Big Pharma that have said will continue to say things like we discover industries or business models. We're not necessarily in the business of coming up with a cure. But people think of legacy often before anything else. And the pressure to not pressure, the, the victory that would be to be the one to cure cancer is so extreme that I think that assuming that that can be shut down by Big Pharma is a mistake. But the rumor that's circulating goes like this. The US pulled out of the World Health Organization because of that, Big Pharma lost its enforcement arm and now suddenly all these cancer cures are pouring out because they can't be suppressed any. From looking at it, the breakthroughs actually appear to be real. That part people really are getting right. Like, all of a sudden, we're getting a lot of really exciting breakthroughs. 2025 was a landmark year for cancer treatment. The FDA actually issued 52 cancer drug approval announcements. But the important part is that over 70% of them were immunotherapies and targeted therapies, the very thing that people are saying they're never going to let through. So a ton were coming out in 25. A ton were being approved by the FDA, which is actually what matters. So, again, like, it doesn't square with what people are saying about the who, the things that are coming. We're talking about personalized MRNA cancer vaccines that train your immune system to attack your specific tumor. So these are CAR T cell therapies that are now moving into outpatient clinics. You've also got crass inhibitors, which are drugs that target a gene mutation responsible for a quarter of all cancerous tumors that scient has spent 30 years calling undruggable. Okay, so these are all the things that we've been hoping and wanting for, but they've been going on for a long time, coming out largely in 25, long before what Trump just did. Now, in January, the FDA granted breakthrough therapy designation to the first drug ever to specifically target one of those mutations. It's a blood test that can detect multiple cancers before symptoms even appear. Those are also entering clinical use. None of that's hype. This is all genuine acceleration in cancer science. But where the narrative that this is all part of the US pulling out a WHO and that big pharma was able to so successfully pin all this down, where that falls apart is that none of this has anything to do with the who. I'm not going to bat for the who. Just assume the WHO is terrible. But the who, the World Health Organization, they don't approve drugs, so they don't regulate what treatments American patients can access. Has zero authority over the FDA, which does control what Americans can access. The WHO's role is recommending international health standards, coordinating disease surveillance, and helping developing countries build health infrastructure. It's not and has never been the gatekeeper standing between any of us here in the US and cancer treatments. So the US formally exiting the WHO on January 22nd of this year seems very unlikely to be the thing that is leading to these breakthroughs coming out. Now. The crass research that produced these new drugs started way back in 2013. The MRNA cancer vaccine platform was built on technology developed during COVID menin inhibitors for leukemia, went through over a decade of clinical trials. So these aren't things that were just sitting, waiting for policy change. And again, the WHO is not responsible for the policy change that would impact this. So they're the output of thousands of researchers working for years across universities, hospitals, biotech startups, and yes, of course, pharmaceutical companies who I trust about as far as I can throw them. And so for that reason, because, again, I'm not going to bat for any of these institutions, I understand the instinct behind people distrusting them and thinking that there must be something funny going on and that the timing is really controversial. My goal would be to get people to focus on the real thing, which is fda. Man, FDA is a problem. Like, if you want to bang on somebody's doorstep, bang on the FDA's doorstep. Now, people obviously have reasons to not trust Big Pharma, largely because the incentive structure in healthcare is terrible. It is genuinely misaligned in ways that absolutely hurt all of us as patients. But the specific claim that a cure for cancer existed and was being hidden doesn't really survive contact with basic math. A researcher at Oxford actually ran the math and estimated that suppressing a single cancer cure would require at least 714,000 people across the major pharmaceutical companies. And it would require to stay silent. If I remember right, he said that the math would. It would like, crumble in four years. I don't quite understand why he said four years. But anyway, he claims to have run the math that doesn't include even academic scientists, the fda, again, where your focus should be health journalists, things like that. So the conspiracy would collapse just based on the sheer number of people that would have to be in on it. And if the. If we've learned anything from the Epstein files, it's that it's a distressingly small group of people that can keep these things moving behind the scenes. But a cancer breakthrough when it's controlled by the FDA and not the WHO us pulling out of the hoop. I. I don't track that. So if we want to say that the FDA was doing something, hey, I'm glad to look at that because as somebody formerly from the food industry, I do not trust the fda. I certainly don't trust them to think clearly. And if you've watched any of the stuff on Oxy, Oxycodone, cotton, oxycontin, oxycontin. Sus.

[Drew]

Sus.

[Tom Bilyeu]

I don't know if that. If anybody was ever charged, but man, some of those documentaries, pretty damning in terms of the FDA's involvement. So that's how I'd see it.

[Drew]

That's been wild I'm not gonna lie. When this first came out, I thought this was part of the Peter demon. As longevity, AI is gonna start rapidly increasing the rate of breakthroughs. So I was excited that a lot of these things were coming that really may be true.

[Tom Bilyeu]

By the way, I don't know how much of that is tied to why all of a sudden so many so fast people in the medical industry. The more like when we had David Sinclair on episode Coming Soon, I think he was saying the amount that AI speeds them up cannot be overstated. It's radical. Radical. And given how much it speeds me up and like, normal stuff, I would not be shocked.

[Drew]

Yeah, it'll be nice. But I do think we have to have a reckoning about incentives because there is right now, pharmaceutical companies are incentivized to have diseases. They're not incentivized for cures.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Yeah.

[Drew]

So there is something that when all these cures do rapidly break, is it going to be okay? You could cure cancer, but it's a $10,000 shot now because they have to front in all their profits or. You know what I mean? And I know we don't like talking about the S word, and we don't like when government gets involved with certain things.

[Tom Bilyeu]

What's the S word?

[Drew]

Socialism. So, you know, I just feel like there is going to.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Hold on. If you're saying, hey, there might be some things that the government should pay for and we should all want our tax dollars to go to 100%. Let's remember, socialism is confiscation of the means of production. That's evil. That's bad. Trying to make everything free, that's evil. That's bad. Just because of the outcomes. But us all saying collectively, hey, you know those tax dollars of mine that you're taking balance the budget. But now that the budget's balanced, here's where I would like to allocate some of my money. I would like it to go to things that the private sector is not equipped to do well, and this would be one of them. So find a cure where it's like, there's going to be a ton of money going into it and then no money that comes out of it because it just makes the thing go away. It's a good, great use of money. I wasn't alive at the time, but I love that I grew up in the afterglow of the US Government. JFK giving a speech saying, we're going to the moon, not because it's easy, but because it's hard doing it because we want to dunk on Russia. That's dope. Like people don't understand those things are dope. They are good. You want to rile your team up. You want your team to believe in you, what you're about, and that you guys are going to be the best on the block. Russia should be saying the same thing Azerbaijan should be saying. Everybody should like be going to bat for their team. We want to live in a world where people play fair. We don't want war. But you want people like doing the raddest shit ever because they want to show that they're the best. And so us putting dollars behind the space program. Hell yeah. Like, let's go. To excite, to thrill, whatever. Like there, there are very good reasons, even beyond the science of all that, to do that. You can obviously get into the military aspect of. You don't want your biggest rival to own space. But even without that, I think that there are incredible reasons to do it. So I for one, as the most aggressively anti socialism, recognize that 52ish percent of my dollars are being taken. So I would just like them to go to something that actually makes sense. And that would be one of them.

[Drew]

Yeah, so it's, it's just going to be interesting to see how that incentive reckoning happens across industries, because it's going to start happening.

[Tom Bilyeu]

It won't, it will happen poorly. We, I mean, look, maybe all of this are like the, the final death throes of a system that needed to be dramatically overhauled and maybe something beautiful and wonderful comes out the other side. And maybe we really do get rid of the Fed or at least dramatically alter the way that it works. As we unwind it slowly over time, maybe we really do get to a point where we can balance the budget and people accept a certain level of austerity. Maybe AI really does grow so much and makes so many things possible and yet remain in our control that like we're able to grow our way out of the big problems and there really is enough for everybody and enough people can understand how assets work that it's just not a good way to take advantage of people anymore. Because if once people understand finance, they can't be abused by it. So, you know, those are all the things that we can hope, but they're right now we do not show any inclination that we're going to shut the, the perverse incentives down.

[Drew]

Yeah.

[Tom Bilyeu]

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[Drew]

Well something else is on the cusp of getting shut down. A landmark big tech case is coming to America. It already played out in Europe and it played out in Australia where they have social media bans at 16. Now there are two simultaneous lawsuits happening in California and New Mexico and opening arguments started today.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Today opening statement set to begin in the landmark social media trial against the world's biggest tech companies accused of harming children and fueling addiction. Top CEOs like Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg expected to testify but his company is already playing defense releasing this statement. Quote, we strongly disagree with these allegations and are confident the evidence will show our long standing commitment to supporting young people. For over a decade we've listened to parents, worked with experts and law enforcement and conducted in depth research to understand the issues that matter most here. To break it all down for U.S. attorney and MRC vice president. Yeah positive for a sec. This is where the incentives really become a problem. So if you have a model where you want people to spend as much time as humanly possible on your platform and you see that data is coming out that says spending extraordinary amounts of time on your platform are causing cognitive issues, you're in a bad spot because you really can't from a public company. This is another reason I don't want to be a public company. You've got so much pressure from investors to do that thing that it's good luck getting a man to understand something that which is paycheck insists he does not understand. Right. So it's I'm not going to buy anything that Meta says you're you're in a position of you've got motivated reasoning of nothing else. If I were a parent I would not let my kids on social media until they're 16 if I could push it 1825 like it's it is at a headline level it does not appear to be good for the brain. The brain's what I'm worried about even more than I'm worried about like the psychological impact I'm worried about when your brain is developing it is going to adjust down different pathing depending on the environment that it grows up in. And if you're in an environment where you're just constantly scrolling scrolling scrolling scrolling like get these hyper rapid dopamine hits, your brain adjusts to that. And so now you get to the point where your brain is designed to work in a way where you're getting that constant stimulus. And when you don't get it, then it's not operating as usual, it's going to squawk. And that's kids getting agitated, irritated, freaking out, got to have it throwing tantrums, kicking, breaking, all that stuff. And so the bad news about brain development is as you get older you can change, you can create new neurons until the day you die. All of that stuff is very real. The problem is that the period of hyper brain plasticity is like up through 11 and then every day after that it gets less. And so what changes would have been easy until you're 11, become a little bit harder. And by the time you're 18 you're kind of baked. By the time you're 25 it's really game over. And you can adjust behaviors and things like that, but like the fundamental wiring of your brain is forever set. And the difference of people who, you know, go one way, let's say get addicted to drugs and alcohol just to make something really easy. It's not like, oh, when they're 30, they're completely normal because they started working on themselves in their 20s. It doesn't work like that. They're going to have behavioral problems forever. There are studies that show that if a kid isn't socialized properly, meaning knowing how to cooperate, give and take, by the time they're four, they're going to be a behavioral problem forever. They never back out of that by three or four. So that kind of stuff terrifies me. And I mean shout out to any parent who grew up with, I wouldn't have expected this. And so I would have, if I had had kids, I would have like given them an iPad because it makes them quiet.

[Drew]

Mm.

[Tom Bilyeu]

So. And then I probably wouldn't have watched a lot of Cocomelon, so I wouldn't have realized that the way that it displays is like ah, like just constantly trying to gauge, engage, reengage, re engage, re engage. Um, so the kids are never meant to like engage themselves. So when you think about this is just my frame of reference, I'm gonna bring it up all the time. When you think about why I think Minecraft is the greatest video game of all time, it's because it's entrepreneurial. It doesn't tell you what to do. You just get dropped in, you're in a rules based world, have fun and that's it. And the game steps back and it will be hard for me to put into words, but the first time I played it, I almost rage quit. I wanted to throw my controller through the TV screen because I didn't understand what they wanted me to do. And I was so angry and I was like, they expect a 14 year old, a 12, 11 year old to be able to figure this out. As a 40 whatever year old, bro, I've got to be able to figure this out. And I was like, I'm never playing that again. And then the next day I was like, I want to figure it out. Like there's. And so it stuck with me. And then once I got in, it was like, oh, I get to set my own goals and all this stuff. It was awesome. So kids need that, the brain needs that. And if you don't give the brain that, you're going to be in trouble. And so we're. Things like this have to happen. We've got to at a minimum, because if we want to let meta exist, fine. But at a minimum, we've got to bang the drum. Like, no universe in which schools are allowed to let kids fuck around on their phones. So just like at school, hard pass, no way. And if that means that kids have withdrawal symptoms, then they have withdrawal symptoms. Like, you have to address that. You can't just give in and let them be little psychopaths. Like, we've got to educate our nation.

[Drew]

Okay, I'm split. And there was somebody in the chat that mentioned it out. So I kind of want to like see what they say. No one worth mentioning, I'm not seeing their comment, but they basically said on one side, I do understand that this is doing harm. So let's call it, this is the cigarettes of our time. Should doctors be smoking in the exam room? Should we be smoking inside all these other things? And then on the other side, it's the individual rights. The government shouldn't tell me what to do with my kid. It's my kid, I could do what they want. Where do you see that line is specifically in this lifetime with social media? Is this something that the government should step in on?

[Tom Bilyeu]

I think the government should leave it out of government things. Government shouldn't be funding it. The government shouldn't be allowing in schools like all of that, like 100%. But you don't want the government in your house, full stop, period, end of story. Barring, like abuse. You don't want the government. They're too fucking stupid. Like I will reiterate, for people for decades, they Told us sugar was fine, that it was at the top of the food pyramid. You should eat the ass end out of. They won't say sugary cereals, but breads and all that stuff to your body. It's just sugar. So they were like, yeah, this stuff is good for you. Oh, and by the way, you know what's bad for you? Fat. That is a hundred percent the opposite of what is true. And they didn't do it for a little while, they did it for decades. And they did it in the face of people getting sicker and sicker and sicker by the day. Chronic obesity, like crazy shit. And they didn't adjust course. So there's no world in which I want them telling me what we can and can't do. Like, they're already fucking with AI and that's where I'm like, yeah, no, that hard pass. So I am not for that. But at the same time, there are things where, even if it's like just a question mark, where they're like, we're not going to engage with this. Perfect. Don't buy fast food and put it in the schools. Love it. Don't let social media exist in school, full stop. Don't let kids bring phones, full stop. Let them bring a flip phone, but not a smartphone. Great. All that stuff. Wonderful. That way if parents are like, they've got to be able to reach me.

[Drew]

Cool.

[Tom Bilyeu]

But yeah, we're, we're not going to let people engage with that. But then the government telling parents, you can't let your kid have a social media account. No way. Like, imagine for a second that you have a kid and you're like, your kid is, is advanced. And so you're. I want you to be able to go and engage with like, I had a kid on the show who at like 13 or 14 built a nuclear reactor in his garage, like to the point where he was collecting uranium himself. Plutonium, one of the two. He would walk in the mountains because he knew where you could find it. He would take it back home. It's crazy. So I don't want. And that is one of a million examples that you can make of like your average kid. You do not need this just for super geniuses, but like, you want people like that to be able to engage with the community of other thinkers and be able to tap into all that stuff. And social media is one of the easiest ways to do it.

[Drew]

Some people are definitely pushing back, saying like, we don't allow our kid to drink, we don't allow them to Smoke. Social media is that thing. Should there at least be guardrails? For example, Australia, you can't do. I think YouTube was on that list. But let's take YouTube off for a second. But you can't do Snapchat, you can't do Facebook, you can't do Instagram. But YouTube is okay, or something like that. Like, is there a way we can kind of.

[Tom Bilyeu]

I don't trust the government at all to do that. I think parents should do it. This comes down to a base assumption. Do governments run your kids or do you own is maybe a more accurate word. Does the government own your kids or do you own your kids? I believe you decentralize that. And there's no doubt that there are going to be bad parents and kids will suffer because of that. But I trust the parents infinitely more to know what's right for their kids than I trust the government. That's one of those base assumptions. If you think the government is an agent of good, then you're going to think I'm crazy. If you think the government is an agent of good, I think you're out of your fucking mind. And for you to look at what's going on with all the things that they've gotten wrong, including the Epstein files, and you still think they have your best interests heart. Fuck you. That's so retarded. That's full retard, that is. Short bus, that is. You need medication. No way. So, yeah, I don't trust them. I'm not saying all parents are good. They're not. There's gonna be horrific parents. But boy, oh, boy, do I. From a law of averages, I trust the parents to understand their children. And how many times do I have to hear from parents with multiple kids? What works with one kid doesn't work with the other. And so the government's gonna do blanket fucking policies. It's like at the parent level, they should be deciding yes or no for their kids. Like, there are some households. Hey, say what you will, there are some households, like, I was allowed to have a sip of my dad's beer. That was it. Should my dad be in trouble for that? Right? I didn't grow up to drink. I didn't have my first, like, proper drink till I was 26 because it was. I saw what alcoholics look like. It did not look fun. And then my parents let me taste it. Tasted like ass. So it was like, man, it just wasn't like some big thing. Same with my wife. Grew up in a culture where drinking by the age of 18 was fine. So by the time they're 16, they're drinking, wife's doing okay. So, yeah, I don't want the government. I want to limit the government's involvement as much as is wise. Now, are we going to agree on where it's wise? No. But. Ooh, buddy, I do not trust them.

[Drew]

No, that makes sense. And it's actually interesting, too, because I lucked out growing up raising Lynn, because when she was 2, she had an iPad. And this was back in 2012, when iPads were still, like, 400 bucks. And she was playing Tom the cat. That's a cat that used to poke his belly, used to make the noise and all that. And she, like, rage quit and, like, tossed the iPad, and it, like, dropped. I didn't have a case or nothing on it. It dropped and shattered. And me, like, getting triggered from my parents, like, oh, you broke it. I'm not buying you another one. You're going to learn your lesson. I never bought her iPad again. So she never got back on an iPad, thank God. And that's what I'm saying. I was like, God works in mysterious ways. Because this whole time now I'm seeing, like, iPad kids and addiction and all that Haitian culture.

[Tom Bilyeu]

One iPad, sinister zero. Let's go.

[Drew]

Definitely would have been an iPad, baby, but because she broke. And I was like, you're never getting an iPad again. And she was 2, so she was like, okay. She was mad for that afternoon. And then I was like, all right, read me a book. Or I remember there was one day where we were. She was just climbing up and down the stairs for, like, three hours. And it was like, all right, you're entertaining yourself, and it didn't cost me money. And cool. And that's just what it is. So it's interesting how sometimes, specifically, I can understand how directionally you want to intervene, because social media, there's a bunch of suicides. There's unrealistic beauty standards, especially having a daughter she's a little bit more sensitive to. I need to have makeup, and I need to get this beauty product. And there's certain things that, as a young man, I didn't have to go through. But I do agree, like, it's just a slippery slope of saying, your kids can't do this, your kids can't do this. What else are they going to tell my kids they can and can't do?

[Tom Bilyeu]

So I love parents telling their kids, you can't do that. You can't have an iPad. You can have. Nope. Be as draconian as you want to be. And some parents will run the experiment of like, absolutely no sugar. Never get to touch an iPad, all that stuff. And those kids will go on to be like, the most sugar eating the most iPad using 20 year olds. It is what it is. But yeah, at the level of government policy, it has proven over time to be terrible. The worst person to solve your problems is the government.

[Drew]

Yeah, it's wild. There was that study, though I didn't pull it up. That Generation Z is a first generation that technically is like dumber putting air quotes than the millennials. They're blaming social media, they're blaming iPads, they're blaming AI and all these things are we going to see in like 20 years? I'm like, okay, holy crap, you can't touch a screen until you're 10. Like, is there going to. There has to be some now.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Yeah, now. So we tried to find a way shout out to Jonathan Haidt, who just doesn't fit the channel anymore, but love his work, love that he's banging this drum. And yeah, I think that more and more schools are going to outlaw it. I think that more and more parents are going to put the kibosh on it. And this goes back to at the individual level, you guys don't have to worry. You educate your kids. You can make sure that your Gen Z is as sharp as any generation has ever been at the individual level. This is an easy problem to solve. As you zoom back out, it becomes more and more scary. But I. People always react. The pendulum always swings. And if people see this is a problem, also remember, anything that offers an advantage will be pursued. So that's game theory. So any parent who realizes, oh, my kid can be guaranteed life success if I adopt a more Chinese model, I get them studying all the time. I don't let them play too many video games. I don't let them engage with their iPad too much. Yep, cool, I'm on. And so you're going to get American parents that are going to do that same exact thing. So China wasn't like this for a hundred years. They were getting their ass handed to them because culturally they weren't sharp. They weren't like, thinking in the right ways. And so then they're like, all right, cool, we're going to run a new playbook. Ding Xiaoping turns everything around in the 70s and boom, you've got the modern era China. So, yeah, expect it'll start in pockets and then over time it will spread to culture, broadly speaking.

[Drew]

Yeah, yeah. This is opening arguments. We'll see. But this is definitely one of those legislation legislative defining court cases because it's happening both in California and New Mexico. So depending on how that turned, what ramifications that would happen with Meta, they're not just going to do in that one state. It's going to end up being a blanket policy. So we'll see what their second and third order consequences are.

[Tom Bilyeu]

We're hitting pause for a moment, but there's plenty more ahead so don't go anywhere.

[Drew]

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[Drew]

Let's go across the seas for a second. There's two stories that are kind of interesting because on one side, China is limiting its exposure to US debt. There's been some reports about that. I we've heard so many conflicting like reports about China, I don't even know what to believe anymore now. So kind of frame, what does this actually mean? How can this affect the US markets and what do you think the implications will be?

[Tom Bilyeu]

So the way that I am thinking through this is you've got two countries that are both in trouble to Varying degrees and in different ways. You've got China that has a massive demography problem. So they had the one child policy for so long that their population is dramatically declining. You also have an incentive structure in China where they're going to lie. And a lot of their dollars come from basically self reporting things. And so the number of injections that you give to kids, for instance, is how a doctor gets paid. So you're going to inflate the numbers of the injections that you give to people. So because of the incentive structure they don't have like good reporting. And Xi is now purging everybody. So all he's getting is propaganda on propaganda on propaganda. However, they are the world's manufacturing hub, full stop, end of story. Nobody disputes that. And while it does look like they've dropped back down in terms of total exports because of all the trade battle between the US and China, they're still the place that you go for manufacturing. So they've got a huge leg up and they are a gigantic economy. Regardless of whether they're numbers are being inflated. Some people are saying somewhere in fact China is openly discussing are our population numbers inflated by a hundred million or three hundred million. So they're saying it's a range somewhere in there. So it's this massive range. They've got the demography thing looming, but economically, because they are the world's manufacturing hub, they've got ongoing revenue that they can count on. The US on the other hand, has an economy that's essentially 70% predicated on debt. So our GDP is 70% spending money. It's wild. How are we able to spend money? Because we are the world's reserve currency so we can export a lot of our inflation. So that allows us to run these deficits, which is crazy. And we basically have some absurd percentage of the American populace on the dole. It's wild. I forget the exact number, but it's massive. And so China knows that we're in a debt trap. And so if China wants to win, then they've got to focus on the areas where they're strong manufacturing, lessen their reliance on US debt, begin to back away. And while everyone will tell you that the digital or the yuan is never going to be the world's reserve currency, gold already is held by more central banks than US dollars. That's a change, that is a radical change that is happening before our eyes. And if China can pull off actually backing the yuan with gold in a way where they're working with some other country that holds the physical gold, a country that's large enough and that's trusted enough, then they really could back the digital yuan knowing that it's redeemable for gold and that again, as long as China doesn't control it and people have faith in that, like you could see that really happen. And China is making strides in that direction. Now people are going to tell you that this is impossible. They're going to tell you like Peter Zion. I loved my time with Peter Zion. There are few people that will directly refute my beliefs. With the succinctness with the data. Then Peter, he's very gracious, he's very intelligent, he's very well educated. It was absolutely wonderful. But it basically comes down to what are the base assumptions that you believe? One of my base assumptions is that China got to where they are for very good reasons. It is a country full of extraordinarily intelligent people, that they are a gigantic nation. Even if they're only a billion people and not the 1.4 that we've been told, that's still massive. Massive. And when you get a country as focused as they are on education and winning, homie, you turn a blind eye to that at your peril they are on the come up and Xi can be ousted if the country's going in a bad direction. So this is one of those where as we extend life. Yes. Are they having a demographic problem that is spilling over? Yes. Is robotics proving to be advantageous in Japan? Yes. Do I see any reason why China that outmanufactures everybody couldn't spin up their own robotics factory? No, I do not. Who is the second biggest player in AI China. So who's spinning up more energy than anybody on the planet? China. So whenever somebody's like, Matt, China's like over and done with. We just don't share a base assumption. Okay. It's not that I don't understand the argumentation, it's not even that I don't understand the data that they're looking at. It's just it all rides on the back of what base assumptions do you believe? And I have a huge base assumption around AI robotics that some of these advanced nations are going to be able to deal with their productivity problem, which is what it is. Using AI and robotics. We all. I don't hear anybody disagreeing with that in Japan, but I hear somehow people disagreeing with that in China where they've proven that they adapt very quickly. Even if by stealing the tech, they still adapt very quickly. So I don't write those guys Off. I think it's very serious now. One thing Peter has convinced me of is that they're not as militarily flexible as I thought. I thought they had broader reach. That's something that he's made me reconsider. So the spheres of influence thing takes on greater importance. But it does say that US is going to have a hard choice as to whether we want to go sweat them in their own backyard where they can fuck with us militarily or whether we want to say, you know what, we're just going to stay here. You guys take Asia. That, that is a big. That would be an earthquake felt around the world if the US just writes them off. So that means that there is a chance that we actually do force a military conflict in their backyard. So I don't think we're out of the woods with Thucydides trap. That's his pitch, is that no, no, you don't understand. These guys can't go far enough. We'll see.

[Drew]

And then in Asian news, continuing new right wing PM PM Taka Takachi.

[Tom Bilyeu]

I think it's said exactly like that.

[Drew]

Well, just won a landslide in their parliamentarily. Our parliamentarity like words. She's anti illegal immigrant, wants to maintain Japanese core culture and is a China hawk. Japan has gave her a sweeping mandate. This ushers a massive tax cut that she's been wanting to push through. And this vote is the way to solidify that.

[Tom Bilyeu]

For anybody that wants to compare this to the US this is as if the US had a super majority, either Republican or Democrat. Well, I mean it's like having a Republican super majority.

[Drew]

Yeah.

[Tom Bilyeu]

So there is nothing filibuster or otherwise. There is nothing the other side can stop you from running through. That's wild. So expect rapid change in Japan. So this is going to be very interesting to see. My. So when I was a kid Japan was like, look at Die Hard, who's the boss?

[Drew]

Japan. Correct.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Look at Back to the Future Japan. It's just like in the 80s it was like, oh, Japan's about to take it all. Like they were the future. The whole concept of Neo Tokyo and all that, that they were just so much more advanced than we were in the west. And we used economic games to shut them down. And so they've been held in like stasis for 40 years. And so now this is them going, fuck all that. Like we're coming back with a vengeance. We can feel China breathing down our neck. We have like centuries long hostility with China. And so we know if we're not able to defend ourselves. We've got a problem. We also know that we have a demographic problem and so we've got to deal with that. They spent, I don't know, like three years importing foreigners only to be like hard pass. Yeah, they, they, they do not play. They want Japan to be Japanese. And so I don't know how real this is, but what I was saying at the top of the show is the sushification of Japan where they are wrapping up migrants that are acting a fool. They literally swaddle them and then just load them up. Gotta go. Okay. I took my mom to Japan. First of all, Japan is the dopest ever. You have to go, are they racist? 100%. But like my mom and I were there and my mom smokes and they don't play. Like you can't even smoke outside. They're like, they're designated smoking areas and they have people wandering around with like little pouches to make you give them your cigarette. They put it out and then like tell you to like, there are only certain areas. So like in a hotel where my mom and I were saying my mom smokes. And so we had to go into this tiny. Like you shorten your life every time you go in this little. A thousand percent. It was the craziest shit I've ever seen. Thick gray cloud because you can't go outside. Imagine that. Japan so does not play. You can't go outside to smoke. You have to go in the tiny ass little death box inside the hotel to smoke. That's where Japan's at. They like, if you don't abide by their culture, they don't have garbage cans like you. If you eat something or whatever, you have a package left in your. You're going to carry it for hours. Hours. Because there's no trash cans. And in Japanese culture, I would have thought no trash cans. Garbage is going to be on the floor everywhere. Nope. Japanese don't play. You drop trash. You don't have to wait for the authorities. People are going to shame you. Like they're, they are. They don't play, man. So listen, it is a wonderful place. I highly encourage people to visit, but it is Japanese. Like that is not like they're not trying to homogenize with the world.

[Drew]

Also going back to the pm, I think it's hilarious and very telling of just America in general that she's the leader of the liberal Democratic Party and she's the one who's anti immigrant.

[Tom Bilyeu]

This is their liberal.

[Drew]

This is, this is Their liberal.

[Tom Bilyeu]

That is the wildest shit ever.

[Drew]

Just a level set us. It's not all about America.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Liberal in Japan is a whole, whole different scene.

[Drew]

It's a whole different meaning.

[Tom Bilyeu]

So that's hilarious.

[Drew]

That's crazy. All right. AI has been going crazy. I don't know if we want to start with the moon. I don't know if we want to start with these AI filmmaking things. This Dragon Ball Z anime was kind of crazy.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Yeah, I think so. Let's start with the AI videos. Let's set the stage with how rapidly this is evolving. Okay. So we recently had somebody on the show who. And I'm ashamed of myself because in the video, I did not push back hard enough. But they were saying basically that when was the last time the AI really made a big advance? And I was like, okay, yeah, admittedly, 4 to 5 on chat wasn't that great. And then the very next day, I experienced chat, like Pro Pro, and was completely blown away. I've since migrated mostly to Claude, and that has blown me away. And I realized, like, there. So what's his name? Yann Lecun. So Yann Lecun sort of got chased out of AI circles because he kept saying, like, this stuff just isn't that good, and large language models are never gonna get us there. It's just not the right technology. And so by the time he would say that and the podcast would come out, somebody would do something that would just break that. Same for me. Right. So since doing that podcast multiple times now, I've been completely blown away by some new AI thing. And so with that in mind, I just don't see where we're running into a wall, like, even as regulators. And we'll get into this more with the trip to the moon. As regulators try to curb data centers and things like that, people are finding ways around it. So while it seems like every technology does eventually hit some sort of wall, it doesn't feel like AI is anywhere near that. And even just fully integrating what already exists in AI would take years. Will Smith eating spaghetti. Progression over the years, it's just. It looks completely natural. It's not 100% there. And you can tell in the voice more than the visuals. Sea Dance, which I believe is an offshoot of Bite dance, which did TikTok. So this is out of China, and supposedly they're not letting people outside of China use it, but you're able to prompt, like, scenes off of a single image and make edits and changes, swap characters, swap camera angles. This is unbelievable. Now, from a game perspective, I'm like, okay, like, this is getting now. So Kaizen will start doing what I think will be limited cut sequences. But what people have to remember is a lot of the improvement isn't just going to be more and bigger data sets and training and all that, because people are going to say, well, you're going to run into a data problem, which we're really already at. But even just giving it feedback and saying, okay, this one's better than this one, you need to make this change. Creating better interfaces so that you can edit different elements and not have to, you know, just one whole shot at a time. Being able to get consistency of characters, things that will propel this forward dramatically. You don't need more advancements in AI. You need advancements in you ui. So just getting the user interface better, giving people more control. So it's like, if all AI progress stopped right now, I would say within five years, 25% of the content you watch is AI generated. You don't think about it, you don't discern. You're just like, yeah, dope.

[Drew]

And I'm gonna be honest, it's like these latest breakthroughs were the first time I was like, okay, that is kind of cool. I can see stories that I had buried in here that just were too expensive. Can't make it happen. All these other things that I would love to prompt. But to your point, I think ui, there needs to be a shift between, hey, make a Coke fight scene like Dragon Ball Z Enter, and instead, this is my script. This is the scenes. These are the characters. Let me upload it. Okay. This character does this move and that, that control. So it's almost like, you know, when you're growing up and you have little action figures and you're modeling scenes. If there is something that had that level of control where character one does, this character B responds like this, and you can get to that level of it that where I think we'll really see a takeoff, like the prompt thing. It's easy, I get it. It's cool. But I would like to see that second layer of control somewhere. So I'm waiting for whatever system to kind of lean into that first.

[Tom Bilyeu]

So there is. So that stuff is coming. There's a movie coming out, I think, in roughly 14 or 15 months. At the time they made the announcement, I believe it was 18 months. OpenAI is a part of it, and it's going to be, I believe, entirely done with AI, but with, like, a real film crew behind it. So you've got a film crew using AI to do concept art. You've got a film crew behind it doing cinematics or cinematography and all that stuff. And so it will still take them, like I said, roughly 18 months to do. But I'm sure it's going to be a much smaller team. So when you start talking about, okay, it's still like a Hollywood system, it still requires like very talented writers. It still requires people to have incredible taste to really get something that works. But like, imagine if you can reduce the cost of a film by 80%, so it's still millions of dollars, but a blockbuster instead of being $300 million, let's say $30 million. Bro. That is gigantic. Yeah, so that's where I expect the sort of next, call it three to five years to play out, where we've just so dramatically reduced the budgets. And then north of five years, I think it starts to really just be what you're talking about, which is people can make their own stuff. So now there's just such a flood that I worry what people are telling us is that when there's that much content, you just always want a tldr. Make me make me a reel of Dragon Ball Z. Don't make me watch like the whole thing. And so it's just reels and reels and reels and reels. I'm an old fuddy duddy when it comes to that. Like, that makes me sad. Like, the emotional depth that you can get on a long series is just incredible. But if your brain wasn't developed to think of that, to respond to that, you don't have any context for it. You don't seek it out. Cause I'm sure there are people who are like sitting with a fiction book, which I never do once a year is so amazing. Anybody's life who doesn't have that every weekend or whatever is just like, I weep for them, but I don't miss it. It's like I've got so many other things that I find engaging, so the world just moves on. So anyway, that's one that'll make me sad.

[Drew]

And it's interesting that you brought that Dragon Ball Z point up, because somebody on Twitter did a super cut of all of Goku's Super Saiyan. And I remember growing up, it literally took years for him to get Super Saiyan one. Like, that was like a two year arc. And just now kids are like, oh, yeah. One, two, three, four, five, six. Oh, and then now he's eight. And now that there's blue hair now he's God mode. And it's just like you just skipped all of the. Tomorrow's. The episode where he finally did, like, all that anticipation just kind of gone. So I do also kind of reminisce with that. But I mean, it's just now there has to be something on the other side.

[Tom Bilyeu]

I do think that we will eventually run into a problem with the way that the human mind works. There are just certain things that the mind is architected to expect to want to thrive in that environment. And progress is a foundational pillar of human happiness. So I think we have an algorithm in our brain that wants struggle to equal. I got better. And that getting better at this thing matters and that I do a thing that makes people praise me. I think that's effectively the loop.

[Drew]

And.

[Tom Bilyeu]

And so if you don't have that and you're always shortcutting to the end, you'll get there faster and you'll get that brief dopamine hit, but you'll never get the substantive, like progress. This is why people get addicted to drugs. Because all of life, I am convinced, is about neurochemical manipulation. Like, we are just trying to manipulate our neurochemistry. Whether that's sex, whether that's progress, whether it's food, whether it's drugs and alcohol. We're just trying to manipulate our brain chemistry. And when it's done in the context of a full human life, it feels awesome. But when you short circuit that to drugs and just give me the drug, then all of a sudden people spiral and their life becomes addiction. And like, we know the outcome there. Like when all the other things, the hard work, the just being plugged into the way the society is structured, like, all of that stuff assumes you're working hard to progress over time to, you know, get the money and to get the accolades from your community, like, that's what everything is built for. When you eject out of that to get it super quick, it leads to devastation. Like, it actually tears your life apart. And so I think we have to remind ourselves that addiction does not only come in the form of an exogenous chemical that you take. It can be many things. And if one of those addictions is skip to the punchline really, really fast so I can pull the dopamine to right now, that doesn't stack in the way that your brain expects it to. So you might get the dopamine hit, but it will erode your life in the same way that a drug addiction erodes your life.

[Drew]

Yeah, it's interesting and I'm queuing up the Hard Mode thing with the SpaceX colony. But this weekend I had a volunteer event that I got roped into with my daughter's step team. And it was like, oh, we're volunteering at the supercross thing. We're gonna do like a concession stand.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Supercross, Motorcycles.

[Drew]

Yes. So me, I'm like, concession stand. I'm thinking high school. I'm thinking it's gonna be like a small booth. But no, we were inside the stadium in one of those actual things. I did a nine hour shift. Like, they helped me into, like, working. Yes. I was a little bit frustrated than that. But the interesting thing was, like, I was on the cash register. Lynn was behind me. She was like the runner. So I'm like, they need nachos. She'll go get the nachos, fill it up with cheese and give it to the customer, whatever, like that. But then we got so swamped, I guess it was halftime for supercross. I didn't know, like, whenever it was just a bunch of lines, we opened up all the other lines. We started running out of food. So the guy next to me had to go in the back to start making food. And Lynn was like, dad, teach me how to work the register. So I like, taught her real quick. And then she started like, holding her own and was taking customers and stuff like that. And when I tell you I had to drag her out the bed that morning, she didn't want to go, this is stupid. I don't want to do it. I hate it, I hate it, I hate it. And then by the end of the day, she's like, yo, I was kind of killing it. I like doing it. So there is that thing that, like, we need, we need to have this like, approval feedback loop. Like, it is fundamental. And a lot of that is on the other side of things we don't want. So now I'm queuing up this Elon thing because when I first heard, like, there's going to be a growing city on the moon, like, hard mode, I guess. But there is gonna be a portion of people that are like, computer is easy. This is easy. I can't do sports, all right? I need to just go blow something up. I need to hit a rock really hard and break it into two. And that way I could feel like I accomplished something today. So it's like that hard mode thing is starting to actually come, I think, into fruition, especially once that meaningless crisis happened. When AI does hit that asymptote, it just kind of goes crazy.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Yup. Yeah, yeah. This one is for me. This is thrilling. The fact that we're going to build a colony on the moon is one of the most exciting things that I can think about actually happening in my lifetime. And when you really break down what the motivations are, I think that this is economic. And the reason I bring that up is you can trust that it's actually going to happen like once, you know, oh, I'm just aligning myself to somebody's selfish desires. Perfect. I think Elon is looking at the moon. Well, first he's looking at Mars and he's saying, okay, I want to make us multi planetary. I built this incredible business doing that, launching things into space. I want to get us there. But he realizes that given how it's like an 18 month trip, given that it is narrow windows where you can actually get there in the first place, that iterating on things that happen on Mars is going to be a very slow process. And so, you know, he's not a spring chicken. Obviously we all have limits. And so I imagine he looks at that and goes, I'm not sure how quickly we're going to be able to do that. That he maps out what is happening from a regulatory standpoint here with AI. He obviously understands whoever wins AI wins full stop. So he's in that race. He knows that he's faster from an engineering perspective, from a build out perspective, than literally any human alive. And he goes, okay, wait a second, we've got two big beats, we've got cooling needs. And so being able to get the power that we need to a data center is becoming increasingly difficult given regulatory problems. But space is effectively infinitely cold. And so we can go into space no problem. And then the other is quantum compute, which also requires things to be really, really cold. And he's talking about putting them inside of craters on Mars where there's effectively no weather. I don't know if it's. If you protect yourself from the dust particles there or not, that may or may not be part of this, but basically you don't have to deal with sunlight, you don't have to deal with having to cool these things. And so now for effectively free, I mean, let's put that in quotes because you have to go to the Moon, they can build out quantum centers, data centers, either in orbit or on the Moon itself while practicing for Mars. Now he has said we're not going to the Moon because we want to build a base and then launch things from there. We're still going to launch from Earth. So he's doing something else. And I think it's those two things. I think it's doing the dry run, being able to iterate much faster. It's a three day trip, you can go anytime you want. Well, I think there's like, like I forget how long, but it's a very.

[Drew]

Very limited amount of time. Oh, perfect, here we go. For those unaware, SpaceX has already shifted focus to building a self growing city on the moon as we potentially achieve that in less than 10 years. Whereas Mars will take 20 plus. The mission of SpaceX remains the same. Extend consciousness and life as we know it to the stars. It is only possible to travel to Mars where the planets align every 26 months and it's a six month trip time. Whereas we can launch to the moon every 10 days, it's a two day trip time. This means we can iterate much faster to complete a moon city than a Mars city. That said, SpaceX will also strive to build a Mars city and begin doing so in about five to seven years. But the overriding priority is securing the future of civilization. Civilization and the moon is faster.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Yeah, very interesting. So it's a 12 month trip to Mars, not 18. My apologies. Yes, that is, that all makes sense to me. So the Mars thing always felt a little more like I'm excited, like it's really going to happen, but it always felt kind of far away. The moon feels like something I think he's talking about in 2027.

[Drew]

Yeah.

[Tom Bilyeu]

So that would be incredible because just landing somebody on the moon or just landing them on Mars is not the exciting thing I want to see. I want to see like the domes being built and like actual people living on the moon. That would be so wild. Like that really gets me excited.

[Drew]

I just, I need to figure out the power dynamics, like how we're connecting everything because I know it's dumb, like we don't have outlets, but like how are you going to have all these data centers connected to that to beam into a satellite?

[Tom Bilyeu]

Like let me. You. Yeah, so you're in outer space, which means there's no atmosphere stopping the sun from being captured. And so as solar cells get better and better, you'll, I mean you'll already be able to do everything you need to do just from sunlight. But what people I don't think understand is in our galaxy, the sun is like 99.99% of all the energy. So you could literally burn every fossil fuel ever. It's a rounding area, like, like it's a rounding error. On the rounding error, on the rounding error of the amount of energy that's being kicked off by the sun. So we're confusing a current difficult time with harnessing that energy with the energy not being present. So even nuclear, we're like, why are we thinking about solar? That's so dumb. We should be thinking about nuclear. Nuclear again is a rounding error and a rounding error and a rounding error of what you can get if you just harness the amount of energy that's already coming from the sun. And so being outside of our atmosphere already allows you to capture a lot more. Now it's a, a 24 hour cycle. There's not only does weather not matter, but you know, positioning in terms of the Earth being at night and being faced away from the sun doesn't matter. So you can just capture it around the clock. And then the amount of energy being captured by solar is going up. It's not like a vertical line, but it's going up, up, up, up, up. Like if you look at China. Yeah, it's crazy. So if Elon is right and I don't see any reason why he isn't, if the sun is like the whole game, then yeah, get outside of the atmosphere, capture from the sun and you can have all the outlets you want effectively for free.

[Drew]

Gotcha. And then this is reminding me of that movie Elysium with Matt Damon. Yeah. Where they kind of built like this whole like space colony and stuff like that. Is that a viable future for civilization? I'm not even going to say for America.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Right.

[Drew]

But do you think that that's something that we should strive for?

[Tom Bilyeu]

Should strive for is. I think that being multi planetary is wise given that we are prone to self destruction. The thing that always makes me hesitate is. I don't know, I don't know enough of the engineering to know if we're better off on the surface of a moon or Mars or, or if we're better off building like these big, I think there's a name for them but.

[Drew]

Like these big floating space shuttle, space station type thing.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Yeah, I don't. Just from an engineering perspective, I don't know what's more viable so I'd have to do some research on that. But getting off of just planet Earth. Yes.

[Drew]

Gotcha. This is going to be, it's, it's. I'm curious to see how this all plays out because there is going to be that, that I don't want to say crash test done but like there is going to be that experimentation.

[Tom Bilyeu]

There's people are going to die.

[Drew]

Yes.

[Tom Bilyeu]

That's like a super easy way to put it. And how many? That's why this is. Beware of corporations as, as much as you're wary of the government. But I would rather see this in the hands of a corporation that I know if there's actually an advantage, they're going to press it. And so they'll keep doing it now as long as they're open and transparent about the risks and all that. It just makes me think of Shackleton. So for people who don't know, Ernest Shackleton wanted to be the first to, I don't remember if it was like cross the Antarctic or what, circumnavigate it, whatever. He was going to the Antarctic and, or the Arctic, one of the two. I don't know if it's north or south. And he put out this ad that was like, men wanted for hazardous journey. Small wages, bitter cold, long months of complete darkness. Constant danger. Safe return doubtful. Honor and recognition in event, in event of success. Okay, that's a real ad that actually got people to do it. And it's like, I get it. Some people are going to say that's crazy, Tom. Fuck you. Like, we don't want that. I want this. I want more energy like this. Where do people go that would respond to some shit like this? Like I want these like hard ass guys that are like, yeah, I want to go to the moon. Fuck yeah. And do I get that we might die in the moon? Yes, a hundred percent. But this, this dude, if we pull this off, like we are going to be remembered forever. I love that, that adventurous spirit. The men who had set sail on the ocean not knowing, dude, they didn't know if they were just going to fall off the edge or if they were going to get eaten by sea demons. And they still did it. Like there's something in the human spirit like that that I find so like motivational.

[Drew]

J is not biting for this. They be like hazardous journey, small wages. Nah, I know, I'm with you. No cell phone service.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Here's the thing. Read it. The, the book is called Endurance, I believe. And it is so good when you read how long these guys were trapped. Spoiler alert for anybody who plans to read it. So Shackleton gets every one of these motherfuckers back alive.

[Drew]

Nice dude.

[Tom Bilyeu]

There I think it was two years. Two years trapped on the ice. Imagine that, two years. And he had to like find ways basically to keep him from killing each other and to keep him fed and eventually they like have to split up. So You've got to now leave the team behind to make sure they don't kill each other. And of course, you always have some asshole, right? So there was this guy in the group everybody fucking hated. And so it's like, how do you get them all back safely? It is this incredible tale of leadership and endurance and people just like, like, gutting it out. Oh, my God, it's such a good story, man. It is such a good story. People need to read it. And it is non fiction. This actually happened. It's wild.

[Drew]

Somebody said, would you rather do the Shackleton experiment or go die in Flanders? Which were the two choices back there. And Flanders 2 is like a World War I poem.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Yeah. I mean, what would I rather do? I'd probably rather do Shackleton saying, but they were both rough. Rough. Now, watching your friends get their heads blown off, that one probably leaves a bit more trauma. But I just can't imagine the desolation you would feel never knowing if you're gonna make it a level of cold none of us understand.

[Drew]

Yeah.

[Tom Bilyeu]

That if you got wet, it was basically you were going to die.

[Drew]

Yeah.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Because there's. There's no drying you off. Like, they spent effectively two years, like, slightly damaged. And so. Yeah, it. Oh, God, the book is so good. You gotta. You gotta read it. That one will make you go, oh, I've never done anything hard in my life. Got it, got it.

[Drew]

Heard I left this for the very, very, very, very end. I know you're not a big sports person. Did you have any comment on.

[Tom Bilyeu]

So, yeah, so the Seahawks one. So my family was very happy. That's very exciting. I didn't watch it at all, but I am excited that other people had fun. I was preparing for this episode right here instead of watching the show and the. I saw a little bit of the Bad Bunny thing and I am aware of the sort of Bad Bunny V. Turning Point. Turning Point USA halftime show.

[Drew]

Yeah.

[Tom Bilyeu]

So. But I don't know what the general vibe of, like, what people are saying. I saw a little bit of the Bad Bunny thing. Obviously, all ice, all the time. So it's. In terms of being controversial and getting attention. Great play. I'm curious to know how fans of the NFL responded. It doesn't feel like their demo. So I can't figure out if they just have the demographic information that I don't. And so they know that they actually have a huge contingency of people that are really into that messaging and so they loved it or if they're trying to push in that direction. That I don't know. That's a pure demographics question. Because they're going to pander to their audience. So anybody who thinks that they ought not, like, they're either going to pander to the audience they want and that's how they're going to draw them in, or they're going to pander to the audience that they have. These are not like people who have some strong stance, I promise you. Did you watch the whole thing?

[Drew]

I did. I was locked in.

[Tom Bilyeu]

What did you think of the Bad Bunny fan?

[Drew]

Bad Bunny thing was dope. I think that how he chronicled one, like, it was like a love letter to Puerto Rico, which I thought was just very specific. And how he chronicled all, like, the immigration jobs, kind of like slight, starting in, like, a crop field to a taco stand, to a bodega, had Pedro Pascal and all these Latinx. And then when he shouted out all the Latin countries and then he said God bless America and named every country in America, Central America, South America and North America. So I kind of like the unifying aspect of it.

[Tom Bilyeu]

What's the Internet's response?

[Drew]

Numbers don't lie. 155 million watched it. 5 million watched Turning Point USA. People who loved Turning Point loved it. People who loved Bad Bunny loved it.

[Tom Bilyeu]

It.

[Drew]

I like two Bad Bunny songs. He played the two songs I like. So. Hey, I was.

[Tom Bilyeu]

There we go.

[Drew]

So.

[Tom Bilyeu]

All right, everybody, thank you for joining us. Be legendary. Take care. Peace.