← Tom Bilyeu's Impact Theory
Tom Bilyeu's Impact Theory
Trump’s Greenland Gambit, Debt Crisis Fallout & Will AI Destroy Us? | The Tom Bilyeu Show
01:23:17
Tom Bilyeu breaks down Trump’s wild Greenland ambitions, rising U.S.–Russia/China tensions, explosive Minnesota protests, and the OpenAI drama—all while dissecting the chaos of American politics and the future of AI.
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- [00:01]
Tom Bilyeu
Reggie, I just sold my car online. Let's go, Grandpa. Wait, you did? Yep, On Carvana. Just put in the license plate, answered a few questions, got an offer in minutes. Easier than setting up that new digital picture frame. You don't say. Yeah, they're even picking it up tomorrow. Talk about fast.
- [00:18]
Eric
Wow.
- [00:18]
Tom Bilyeu
Way to go. So, about that picture frame. Ah, forget about it. Until Carvana makes one, I'm not interested. Car selling made easy on Carvana. Pickup fees may apply. Ready to relax in your dream bath retreat without the stress of figuring out every detail yourself? At the Home Depot, your bath remodel is covered Shop fully designed rooms and curated bath collections to go from inspiration to transformation fast. Use digital tools to visualize flooring in your space and find everything you need from tubs to toilets and all the tile in between to bring your vision to life. The Home Depot dream baths built here. Good morning, everybody. Welcome to the Tom Bilyeu show live. There is a lot to cover today.
- [01:06]
Eric
Let's talk about Greenland. Cuz that's what we're here for. Let's jump right into it because apparently when you don't get prizes, you get to do whatever you want. So let's hear from Trump himself. What happened?
- [01:14]
Tom Bilyeu
Why does he always have to bring this stuff up? All right. Reports emerged today about a letter sent by Trump to Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Ger Storr. The letter was confirmed by Storr himself and shared with other nations by the US Administration. It was written in response to a joint message from Storr and Finnish President Alexander Stubb, who opposed Trump's imposition of tariffs on European allies for clapping back on Trump's attempt to seize Greenland. The full text of Trump's letter, as reported across multiple outlets, goes like. Dear Jonas, considering your country decided not to give me the Nobel Peace Prize for having stopped eight wars plus, I no longer feel an obligation to think purely of peace, although it will always be predominant, but can now think about what is good and proper for the United States of America. Denmark cannot protect that land from Russia or China. And why do they have a right of ownership anyway? There's no written documents. It's only that a boat landed there hundreds of years ago, but we had boats landing there. Also, I have done more for NATO than any other person since its founding. And now NATO should do something for the United States. The world is not secure unless we have complete and total control of Greenland. Prime Minister Storr of Norway described the letter as unusual, but called for de escalation and a desire to Talk directly to Trump to discuss the tensions. He reiterated that the Nobel Committee operates independently of the Norwegian government, and therefore they should not be catching the flak for the oversight. Russia has commented that Trump would, quote, go down in history if the US Acquires Greenland. But I imagine them saying that while laughing to themselves, because I think they are literally trying to egg Trump on to do something that ultimately would be the most ironic thing in the world. When you've got the leader of NATO saying that they are going to seize, by force, if necessary, a NATO country, sort of by proxy of the fact that Denmark has control over Greenland, you're the one that actively needs to be protected against. It's so wild to say we're going to come in and seize this because Russia or China might. You become the immediate threat. Many critics are noting that the letter shows evidence of Trump being driven by his personal grievances instead of intelligent policy. Supporters of the move, however, frame it as strategic realpolitik, which for anybody keeping score, realpolitik is basically, the world is operated by force and power alone. And if you can take something, then you can take it. And if you get beat back by the military, then that's just how the game plays. All right, I'm going to admit that that's probably true. This letter is the most Trump thing ever. But this kind of what I'm now going to shorthand as gtp, diplomacy has consequences.
- [04:15]
Eric
Got it.
- [04:15]
Tom Bilyeu
You with me?
- [04:16]
Eric
Got it.
- [04:17]
Tom Bilyeu
You with me? Okay. Longtime listeners of the show are going to know exactly what I mean by gtp. So here we are, boys and girls. Too early in the show for me to say it out loud. We can talk about GTP later.
- [04:27]
Eric
And the story keeps going. If you could throw this up, Eric, that Russia eggs Trump on and saying, hey, if you take Greenland, it'll be historic. So Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said international experts believe that by resolving Greenland's incorporation, Trump will certainly go down in history, not only in US History, but world history. This is Mario Nawful's comments after that. Notice what Russia's doing. Not saying it's good or bad, not commenting on legality, just stating a fact that Trump will be remembered forever if he says NATO territory. That's encouragement with plausible deniability. When asked about Trump's claims Russia threatens. When asked about Trump's claim that Russia threatened Greenland, Peskov dodged too much disturbing information lately. Won't comment on alleged Russian designs, saying, we're not threatening Greenland, but we're happy to watch Trump destroy NATO trying to protect it from us. And I think that's the part I want to zero in on, because right now, EU is launching sanctions. We'll get into all that. But I understand Trump wants it. I don't know if this is the necessary method in which that will do it. I know he's a bully, but it seems like that letter is not being well received. What's your take when you first heard the news?
- [05:30]
Tom Bilyeu
When I first heard the news, I thought the exact same thing, which I can't believe, as the Russian diplomat here speaking, that. So NATO is the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. The whole design was for America, Europe. Not sure who all the countries are. Maybe Canada's in there, but anyway, a bunch of countries going, hey, Russia is a real threat on the world stage. We need an organization that's going to keep them in check. Let's all get together. This is all about Russian aggression. We've got to keep it on lock. Now, for people that don't know how this all played out, World War II, Hitler gets it in his head that Ukraine is basically going to be the American dream. For Germans, it's going to be a place for them to expand, for Germans to go in and claim territory, build a farm, whatever, like the literal, have a house, have economic prosperity. And he looked at the westward expansion of the US as being this incredible boon that gives America its character. He wants to do the same thing for Germany. So he at first actually allies with Russia, very uneasy alliance, obviously ends up breaking the alliance. They invade Russia. Russia gets very angry. Russia, a ton of Russian people are killed, tens of millions. And so we end up winning World War II in large part because of the sacrifices that Russians made. That does not mean, however, that we were friends with Russia at the time. We simply had the same common enemy. So Post World War II, a part that if you didn't live through it will seem very weird for people. But we went through this whole Cold War where the world was literally divided, and they called it the Iron Curtain. And so Russia was like, this part of the world is ours. And so Germany itself was divided, literally. The city of Berlin was just cut in half. And part of it belonged to socialism, communism, and it sucked. I won't derail. And then you had West Germany, which was part of the west and was one of the most historic rebounds ever. Incredible. But that pits us against Russia. And so there's all this tension between the west and Russia that just escalates, escalates, escalates. And everybody in Europe now puts their full Attention on Russia becoming the biggest threat in the world. And so you get this nuclear proliferation between the US and Russia. They're going back and forth. They both hate each other. Tensions are super high. You've got the Bay of Pigs, the Cuban Missile crisis. Like, there's just literal, like, are we about to end the world? Kind of tensions between Russia and the US So that it's in that context that NATO is formed. And so now for the US to come in and dismantle this at a relationship level and say the very thing you're afraid Russia is going to do. Not Greenland, but just territorial acquisition through force. The very thing that you're afraid that they're going to do, we're going to do. And so it's like the call is coming from inside the house. It's so wild. So what, what you are witnessing, like, I beg people to get over the Trump of it all, because it stops people at the level one, like, view of what's happening. You have got to see this as we are all NPCs. We are being programmed by the Matrix, and we go through these historical cycles which I have talked about endlessly. We are in one of them. We are decoupling. The world went through a globalization phase. People talk about this with cable all the time. You're going to bundle and unbundle, bundle and unbundle, and you bundle things. Because people are like, I don't want to. Disney plus, Hulu, Netflix. I just. I want it all together, bro. Come on, this is crazy. But then you get, like, this monopolistic behavior and that starts to suck. And so then you decouple and people start creating all these side projects and everything breaks apart again because you're like, yeah, I want, like, better service and more stuff. This is exactly how Netflix rose. So we're in the middle of. We just went through a bundled phase where the whole world came together post World War II, largely in the, like, call it post 50s, to just keep Russia at bay. But now we're decoupling because we realize that it creates a. An exploitation event where globalist bankers can siphon money from the working and middle class and distribute it to the elites. Okay? That's what we've all been living through. This is why people are mad. So now it's like, as a part of that, you get a populist rise. This is what Trump is. And so think of it as that, like, swirling movement of the decoupling. Now, when you look at it through that, it is so dangerous for the US to Become the problem for us. Like, I get it, you're the U.S. you're, we're decoupling. You're, everybody's being reminded this is a power game now. You've really got to worry about China and Russia legitimately, for sure. For sure, for sure. They are teamed up. They've put out public statements that were tighter than ever. They run joint military operations. Like everyone should be afraid of that, for sure. You cannot become the monster that you were trying to fight. And you've got to figure out how to be diplomatic now. For right now, I am committed to, to trying to deprogram the NPCs, of which I consider myself one. I'm trying to deprogram us all and to remind us, hey, once you realize you're in the Matrix, you no longer have to be beholden to its rules. You can actually pull back. And when I watch like the stuff in Minnesota, which we're going to get to later, I'm like, they're literal NPCs. They're running a script. They cannot help themselves. Like when you see that journalist get pulled and just drug and swept away by the. It's the most freakish thing I've ever seen. And when you understand history, you know that this escalates and they just start killing people like that. So it's happened over and over and over and over and over. So the only hope is that something, somehow, somewhere can break this spell. 25% of the time that we are in a moment like this, we don't end up in war. And so the question becomes, is there a sequence of magical words that I and many, many, many others can utter into a camera that will get people to calm the fuck down? Or is this just like. Nope, you have to let it play out. David Friedberg from the all in podcast, and I did not pull this clip, shame on me. Gave a talk about what's happening in California and he was like, you just have to let it play out. He's like, we will become a dictatorship. Either a left leaning or right leaning dictatorship. It's the only way out of the debt. And he was like, so I'm just going to leave. I was like, damn. So I hope that isn't true. Until the last helicopter out of Saigon. I'm going to try to deprogram NPCs, but that's where we're at.
- [12:27]
Eric
You said something about the debt I kind of want to jump into because in response to this, EU is now declaring economic war against America or at least preparing to I want to hone in on the debt owned though between all of these European NATO countries. It's roughly about $2.4 trillion in U.S. debt held. That's already in conjunction with China reports of rapidly dumping US debt. The world reserve currency is now gold, no longer the US dollar. It seems that we are. While I understand we need to expand, we need to get more resources, we need to do what we need to do in this populist moment, there are certain second order consequences. I'm not sure maybe Trump is registering or thinks is not that important. What are the RA ramifications if these countries rapidly start to dump the debt and we are stuck with that? That we can no longer export our inflation, but it's now just internal.
- [13:16]
Tom Bilyeu
So right now America can tax the world by taxing the world through inflation, which is the right way to think about it. We're able to deficit spend and so we live way beyond our means in America. And that is wonderful for Americans. It is not great for the rest of the world for obvious reasons. And it is now coming back because it was a good short term solution, it's a bad long term solution. So it's now biting us in the ass. So what does that look like? It looks like immediate austerity because you can't print enough money because the American populace bears the full brunt of that tax. You don't have appetite for US debt and so the debt market collapses. Debt is a very powerful thing in its utility. It allows you to pull forward the future into the present so you can do way bigger things when you like. One of the most difficult things of a business is what they call cash flow. And so how do you cash flow the things that you want to grow and the vast, vast, vast, vast majority of businesses cash flow through debt. So it's this incredibly powerful tool when you know how to do it well. When you do it poorly, as America has been doing now for decades, you create a horrific problem of I'll. I can detail it and if people have specific questions, I'm happy to go into it. But I will say when you do that you get the America that you see right now. Tribal left and right, riots in Minnesota, fraud almost certainly everywhere. And you begin to accelerate the natural tendencies for a K shaped economy. And it gets to the point where it becomes intolerable and people, the inequality. People should think of intolerable inequality as a category of inequality. There's always going to be inequality. Inequality is useful. Inequality has a like a propellant factor. It gives people incentive to work really hard, really freakish, to apply their energies into getting wealthy because they want the humans have a desire to win. And so it's awesome. But it then runs up against intolerable inequality and the society tears itself apart. And so the game is always to avoid intolerable inequality. And we can usually do it for about 150 to 250 years and then the system has to reset. And so we're at the, depending on where you start the clock, we're somewhere between 150 and 250 years. So either way we're at the extremities. And when that breaks, you have a mass scale depression in your country. I mean, look at what happened to Argentina 100 years ago. Look at how China fell. Look at England is one of the ones where World War II wiped their debt. So it becomes a very different story. But if you look at all the European empires that had it, they just become these backwater nations that cease to be that important. So if you think of it as, as a nation, we can't afford the things. So now what happens if you really do end up in a kinetic war with China, but you have no way to pay for it, what do you do? You lose. So your only hope is that China is also sufficiently weakened, which thankfully they are weakened. How weakened? We don't yet know. How much more ability do they have to print? Because they have been, they haven't been doing it for as long. They have a bigger population. So all of those things are unknowns. But it, it is. If people think we're struggling economically now, it gets 10 times worse if you're no longer the reserve currency. And it will create a power vacuum on the global scale that will be filled by somebody. And China's the most obvious by a long shot country to fill that void. So if you like Chinese style leadership, then maybe you're stoked. If you don't, which I don't, then it is a very unsettling proposition that we would weaken ourselves enough that that becomes questionable.
- [17:50]
Eric
Two questions, quick hits for me. Should Trump pursue continue to pursue Greenland.
- [17:56]
Tom Bilyeu
With all this pushback, he should pursue Greenland from a national security standpoint, he should not pursue it with GTP Strategies taking a short break. But there's more impact theory after. Stay tuned. When temperatures drop, your wardrobe either works or it doesn't. Premium materials aren't just about luxury. They're functional requirements. Mongolian cashmere, Italian leather wool coats that actually keep you warm. That's performance gear. I ordered a Mongolian cashmere sweater from Quince as a gift last month when it arrived, I was very impressed. Super soft, high quality, exotic. Exactly what you'd expect from luxury cashmere, except it was $50 instead of $400. Quince cuts out the middlemen and traditional markups. No department stores, no luxury retail overhead. Same factories producing for high end brands. Same materials, same rigorous standards for craftsmanship and ethical production. They just deliver it direct. Their winter lineup has everything you need. Mongolian cashmere sweaters, wool coats, down jackets, Italian leather and suede outer built to hold up season after season. Classic styles that don't fall apart after one winter. Plus free shipping on every order, 365 day returns and zero risk. Refresh your winter wardrobe with Quints. Go to quints.comimpactpod for free shipping on your order. Plus that 365 day return policy now available in Canada too. That's Quince Q U I n c e.com impact pod Free shipping and 365 day returns. Quints.com impact pod let's talk about what happens when life gets busy. Your schedule fills up, deadlines pile on, meetings run back to back, and the first thing that falls apart is taking care of yourself. You skip meals because there's no time. You grab whatever's fastest. But running on inconsistent nutrition means inconsistent energy when you need it most. That's where Huell comes in, with two products designed to keep you fueled when you're too busy to think about it. There's Huell Black Edition ready to drink. It's a complete meal in a bottle. 35 grams of protein, 27 vitamins and minerals, zero prep, zero cleanup. And there's Huel Daily Greens, 42 vitamins and nutrients, 4 grams of fiber. Try it in apple, peach or blueberry flavors. Get 15% off your first order for new customers with code impact@huell.com impact minimum $75 purchase. That's huell.com impact and use code Impact. Let's talk about a problem you just can't solve on your own. You'd need to quit your job for like six months just to remove your data from the Internet. Your personal information is on hundreds of data broker sites right now. Your address, your phone number, your email, even your Social Security number. You can remove it yourself, but it would take hundreds of hours to track down every site and submit removal requests. And that's just round one. Your data reappears constantly, so you'd have to repeat the process every few months. It is designed to be impossible. Incogni, though, solves this problem. They track down your data across hundreds of sites and remove it automatically. You authorize them once, then they handle everything. They keep removing your data as it reappears. Just go to incogni.com impact and use code impact for 60% off an annual plan. Try it risk free for 30 days. Just go to Incogni I N C O G n I.com impact and use code impact at checkout. Thanks for staying tuned. Now let's get back to it.
- [22:11]
Eric
Let's jump over to Minnesota because Trump and the Department of war has put 1500 active duty soldiers on standby pending potential deployment to the Minneapolis area. Again, Trump has been waiting on that Insurrection act button but has not quite pressed it yet. Do you think it's gonna happen? I've been waiting for this to calm down, but it seems like it just keeps happening and keeps going.
- [22:33]
Tom Bilyeu
Yeah, I mean, listen, right now you've got, there's a guy standing in his neighborhood. Now it's a guy, but you've got a guy standing in his neighborhood running essentially neighborhood watch against ICE with an assault rifle. I assume that this is legal, so I want to be very clear.
- [22:50]
Eric
Do it up, Eric.
- [22:51]
Tom Bilyeu
But nonetheless, when you've got a bunch of people that feel that they. So, God, if people haven't heard this term, whenever you get a surplus male population, which we aggressively have right now because men are not getting laid, which is a much easier way to say it, when men are not getting laid, they do this and they look for ways to climb the status hierarchy through risk taking, violence. And so you've got this guy who trust me when I say he's, he is a human. So he's far more, he's better read as somebody who's trying to earn clout among the people that he respects than he is actually just trying to keep people safe. The fascinating thing about testosterone is it makes you do whatever gives you increased status. So if petting puppies gives you increased status, then testosterone makes you want to pet puppies. People need to understand that. So in a moment where pushing back against ice is the thing that's going to get you what? Oh, God. I don't want to quote it, but Andrew Bustamante talks about hippie sex. I'll say it the nice way possible. If that's what gets you blue haired bush, then that's what you're going to do. So our man is out there doing that thing because we have a massive male surplus population. In a moment where that group of people, the way to get additional status is to go out with Your guns. Okay, cool. So now you've got a tinderbox because you're in a populist moment. So your president was elected specifically to slap the other side around. So think about Stephen Miller is representative of an archetype. Don't think of it as a one off. Stephen Miller, I don't know if he's 10% of the population, 20% of the population, he's a percent. Like there's a real percentage of people that feel like he feels, which winning isn't enough. Grinding your opponent's face into the dirt, that's what you have to do. And there is a category of person who delights in the destruction of others. And what we are seeing is that. I've talked about this before, but Molly's Game, the book about the real story of the woman who ran like these underground gambling games, poker games. And supposedly the character is based on Toby McGuire. No idea if that's actually true, but that's the rumor and in the movie anyway, his exact quote is, I don't like gambling. I don't even care about poker. What I like doing is destroying people's lives. And that's a real thing. So you've got that kind of energy pent up on both sides. They want to see the other side hurt, they want to see their lives ruined. And you're getting this escalatory stuff. So I don't see how it backs off, given that you've got that energy on both sides where they're, oh, you did that. I'm going to do this. You did that. I'm going to do this. And they just keep going, going, going, going, going. So we're headed towards our own Israel, Palestine, where it's like each side thinks the other side is wrong and we'll go back with their historical grievances. And do you go back to 2020, do you go back to 2016? Do you go back to 1970, back to 1913, but you find that place where it's like you dumb asses did that to us and now we've got to get ours back and this will continue to escalate. So I don't know what is going to be the breaks in Minnesota itself, but I don't see them yet. Fatigue, maybe. Maybe it just like there's just not quite that thing that like pushes them over. But. And maybe now's the time to play the clip, but show that clip of the guy getting drug away by. So what this was, if I know all of the details correctly, and forgive me if I don't have any of this. Correct. I can't remember if I wrote a segment on this.
- [26:48]
Eric
You did.
- [26:49]
Tom Bilyeu
Okay, well, let's pull. No, no, no, not this one.
- [26:53]
Eric
It is not this one.
- [26:55]
Tom Bilyeu
Jake Ling or something like that.
- [26:59]
Eric
That is.
- [27:00]
Tom Bilyeu
Yeah, it's. I know it's in the spreadsheet. I just don't know if I wrote a segment on. Is not in the stage. There it is right there. Yup. Okay, so yeah, everybody look at your screen. So actually pause it, pause it, pause it. But let me, let me set the stage. So Minnesota, you've got multiple things happening right now. You've got the anti ICE stuff, which makes you a beacon for pro ICE stuff. You've got actual like immigration, like, I want the immigration laws to be enforced. You've got the stay out of my town. So I don't care whether you're here to get a child sex predator. There was another clip that was going around. I don't want ICE in my town. Fuck you. I don't care who you're here for. Doesn't matter. You could be here to get Hitler himself. Don't want you here. You've got that collision. You've got racism or perceived racism with. This is about Muslims and Muslims are inherently dark skinned, which is not true, by the way. But nonetheless that's like the perception.
- [28:07]
Eric
It's not true that Muslims are dark skinned.
- [28:08]
Tom Bilyeu
You can be the whitest white person and be Muslim all day, every day. In North Africa, North Africa, the odds that you're white are basically zero. But I'm saying that people. So you've got the Somali angle, which that is both country and skin color. But I want to be very clear, if you can hear my voice, please understand, Muslims are not inherently dark skinned. So even if you want to be racist, aiming that at Muslims is illogical. So Muslim is a religion. Then you've got the religious clash of Christians versus Muslims, atheists versus Muslims, whatever. There is so much going on. And so all of this is like, who's fighting for what, when, where? So this guy that's being grabbed, he is a pro ice, supposedly anti Muslim person and he was holding a rally, Pro ice, reportedly anti Muslim. And so now you get the anti ice. I don't know if they would list themselves as pro Muslim. But you clearly all things seen through a lens of race. They are conflating race and religion. And so now they're going after this guy. And ironically it's the black guy who's like, everybody needs to calm the down. Like, leave this Guy alone, he's trying to like run interference and stop them, but if you watch your screen, they are not able to stop him. So, all right with that. Here we go. It's kind of hard to hear everything, but at one point somebody shouts, kill him. By the way, reportedly he gets stabbed. I don't know if he gets stabbed multiple times, but some people were saying he got stabbed in the back of the head. Some people were saying he got stabbed in the face, but I have not seen people deny that he got stabbed. So stab, beat up, whatever, for sure, he comes out of the exchange bloody, but they just sweep him away. Now if I didn't know anything about history, I'd be like, yeah, look, I mean, this is crazy. Did they stab him with like real knives or they poke him with something sharp? Like, I would. My instinct would be to downplay this because of a belief that humans are inherently good. And you know that all of these things have natural, natural restraint because in the US for most of my life that's been the case. But the reality is this is how populism goes. And it's like, you could just show on a map of like, populism to all the way to like, people are being openly killed in the streets that you're just on that continuum. So, yeah, this, I, I don't know what's going to be the brakes on this. Yeah, Jake Lang. Now, from what I hear, Jake Lang is not exactly my type of dude, but nonetheless, I don't want to see anybody swept away by a mob. That is wild and extremely risky.
- [31:22]
Eric
Tensions surely, surely are escalating there. If you were like income, like, how do we calm this in the interim? I know long term economics, that's a much more long, that's a longer difficult conversation to happen. But today, on, on Monday, tomorrow, on Tuesday, is there something that government intervention can happen? Should we just deploy those 1500 troops just to calm it down, stop it?
- [31:50]
Tom Bilyeu
The, the only thing that history tells you happens is either they run out of energy because nothing bad continues to happen. And so the infighting within the movement escalates and it dissipates on its own. So you can hope for that. The other one, if it crosses a certain line, which I have not. I mean, this is admittedly getting close, but I have not seen anything where I would say this is LA riots level violence, where it's worth the explosive pushback you will get for invoking the Insurrection Act. But if you were going to quell this immediately, it's going to be through force so history tells us.
- [32:33]
Eric
So history tells us. All right, well, we'll see if we actually want to get in there.
- [32:38]
Tom Bilyeu
I think you have to let it. You have to let people. It's going to sound terrible. You have to let people blow the steam off. And there has to be a release valve for this pressure. You have to let people protest. You have to let the sides come together. It's like, I think it is very ill advised to go there and run a pro ice rally. However, you should be able to do it. And then you just have to react and see what the other side does. Like, there was a clip going around. I don't know that I would say it went viral, but hundreds of thousands of views where I think it's response to Nick Sorter. I believe that got his camera stolen. So somebody walks up to his camera. He's in Minneapolis, he's filming. I think he's there about the fraud, though I couldn't swear to that. And a woman grabs his camera out of his hands, takes off running. He says his hand got trapped in her car door. I don't know if that's true. But regardless of whether he was holding on or his hand was trapped, he gets drugged down the street at like what looks like 30 or 40 miles an hour on the sidewalk. But because it's ice, he just plants his feet. And so he's just like. It looks like a scene out of a Jackie Chan movie. And they're just racing down the sidewalk and he's just sliding. And I'm like, there's no. He's dead. Ends up being fine. But they then go to the cops and the cops say, listen, we're looking for the car that did this, but can you guys please leave? And everybody's like freaking out. Can you believe that the cops said that? It's like, yes, I can believe that the cop said that. They're trying to get everyone to calm down. And so if you stop dropping sticks in the anthill, the anthill stops having a reason to swarm. Now, that doesn't mean that you don't enforce the laws, but it does mean that there is a cause and effect relationship here. So now, despite my feelings that that is ill advised, you have to let people do it. If people want to drop sticks in the ant hill, they have a constitutional right to do it. So you have to let them do it. And then if the ant hill violates the law, you have to arrest them. But if you don't allow this to play out until it's like, okay, there's a certain extent where this becomes a problem and then you have to swoop in. Then you just bottle that tension and bottle that tension and bottle that tension. And so eventually it is going to spill forth. So, yeah, you got to let people protest. You got to let them do their thing. And you, you've got to know, like, in any sporting event, oh God, this sounds so terrible. In any sporting event, you've got to know you can't call every single foul. So to some extent you got to let it go. So we'll see.
- [35:18]
Eric
All right.
- [35:19]
Tom Bilyeu
I, I fully expect something to break and another person like Renee Good to get shot and then it just goes absolutely insane. Now, who will do the shooting, whether it's ice or whether it's somebody protecting their neighborhood? Don't know. We're hitting pause for a moment, but there's plenty more ahead, so don't go anywhere. Thanks to HomeServe for sponsoring this episode. This summer my IC went out, which in LA is brutal. And when you can't sleep, for instance, it doesn't just wreck your night, it wrecks your entire following day. That's the kind of thing that hits out of nowhere and cascades through your whole life. And your regular homeowner's insurance just isn't going to cover that kind of day to day wear and tear, plumbing failures, H vac breakdowns, electrical issues. But that is where HomeServe comes in. When something goes wrong, you're not scrambling to find a contractor, which I've done all too many times. You just call HomeServe's 24. 7 hotline and they connect you with their trusted national network of local contractors. They've got over 20 years of helping homeowners and 4.5 million customers. Plans start at just 499amonth. Go right now to homeserve.com to find the plan that's right for you. That's homeserve.com, not available everywhere. Most plans range between 400 and 99 to 1199amonth. Your first year terms apply. Uncovered Repairs. Let's get real about what running a business actually looks like. When you're going solo, it's 11pm You've already put in a full day, and now you're answering customer support emails because there's no one else to do it. That's where today's sponsor, Sintra AI, comes in. Sintra gives you AI helpers designed to handle tasks just like humans. Cassie manages customer support so you're not fielding emails at midnight. Sochi handles your social media and Comet runs your e commerce operations. Right now. Sintra AI is offering an exclusive limited time 72% discount on their yearly plan. Head right now to Sintra AI Impact and use code IMPACT at checkout for 72% off. They offer a full refund within 14 days. If you're not satisfied, stop working midnight shifts in your own business. Visit Sintra AI Impact and use Code Impact. Most people don't realize that three out of four US Homes have toxic chemicals in their tap water. Standard fridge filters aren't cutting it and bottled water is also loaded with microplastics. Aqua Tru is a countertop water purifier with a patented four stage reverse osmosis system. It's been tested and certified to remove 84 different contaminants. This goes way beyond ordinary filters. No plumbing's required, no installation, just pure water that actually supports your health instead of sabotaging it. Business Insider and Popular Science have both featured it. Good Housekeeping named it the best countertop water filter and 98% of customers say their water is cleaner, safer and healthier. Head to aquatru.com and use promo code IMPACT for 20% off. Aquatru even comes with a 30 day best tasting water guarantee. So head to aquatru.comand use promo Code Impact to get yours today. Thanks for sticking around. Let's get right back into the action.
- [39:02]
Eric
All right, let's jump over to I don't want to call this lawfare. I don't know the right word for it, but Democrats and Republicans. So this is Democrat activist who's really just a podcaster. Jennifer Welsh and Jim Acosta say mass prosecutions of Trump and Republicans would be necessary for national reconciliation.
- [39:18]
Tom Bilyeu
Blue Tsunami means that Congress is going to haul Elon Musk, big balls and a bunch of other people's ass in front and say what crimes did you commit? And it's going to get really serious. And the same with Trump because I believe, and this is just my opinion, that Trump and all of the bottom feeding morons surrounding him and Elon Musk and all the bottom feeding clinger honors that surround him. I think they commit crimes every day. And I think to reconcile all of this is going to take hardcore, not integrity Democrats, fuck you. Democrats, fuck you for fucking over our country. We are serious about this. We are prosecuting. We're going to uncover every document, every phone call, everything you did. We will be relentless about it. And that's the mindset they've got to have because I think the electorate is going from We've got to get him out. But also, we want accountability. There has to be accountability. Here's my two cents. A new clip has emerged of smooth brain Democrats playing first order politics and calling for the mass arrest of top Republicans in the name of national reconciliation. You guys just saw the clip. Now, I want you to picture this. The same people who spent years trying to throw Trump in prison are now screaming that when they get back in power, they're going to arrest him, Elon Musk, and half of the Republican Party. So when they say it, you can believe them. And what is Trump doing in response to everything done to him? Building cases to lock up Obama, Clinton, and dozens of Democrats going all the way back to 2016, making it abundantly clear to anybody paying attention that US politics is rapidly becoming an existential battle between two warring tribes. Now, I say the following to my fellow do not be a slave to your programming. Don't get sucked into the waves of revolutionary energy that will topple this country, cost an untold number of lives. People you love are going to die and lead to 100 years or more of being bullied by the countries that have their shit together, or at least more than we do. There are few things we could do that would hasten the demise of this great nation faster than going back to politicians who are being driven into their collective corners and telling them that they need to fight for their lives. We will all be collateral damage. I get the need to interrupt this. I get the need that you cannot let people get away with fraud, with secret insurrections behind the scenes. I get all of that. But. But trying to arrest and jail your political opponents should strike everyone as the nuclear option. And I mean that obviously as a metaphor. But if you think of it as a direct metaphor, the reason we have not gone to nuclear war, despite the US And Russia hating each other in the past more than you can possibly imagine. I grew up with that. I remember what it felt like.
- [42:31]
Eric
But.
- [42:31]
Tom Bilyeu
We never did it. Not even in the Cuban Missile crisis. Nobody ever launched. And the reason they didn't is because of something called mad mutually assured destruction. Jailing your political opponent is mutually assured destruction. You can see power swings back and forth between Republicans and Democrats. Back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. And if you make it such that when they're in power, they feel like, oh, my God, we've got to arrest and jail everybody, because if we don't, we'll lose power. And when we lose power, they're going to do the same thing to us. You Force them to use the nuclear option. We've got to be reminding these people this will come back to bite you in the US this is going to be a problem. So whatever side you're on, don't want your side to win, want a truce, Bring the facts into the light. Discuss what happened. By all means, destroy reputations. Don't go on the warpath to jail your opponents. It will just be used against you. And ultimately, we as a country are the ones that are going to pay the price. The only winning move is not to play Drew. That really is true. And so maybe showing that was a little indulgent, and maybe it's going to cost us having to pull this episode down. I don't care for all the cynics in the feedback who think that this is an ego trip of me thinking that I can have some impact. Sure. Okay, May, May I get all of you to join me in that. That you guys feel that you can make some difference by getting people to understand that this is a dead end. A dead end.
- [44:34]
Eric
Let's like, play that out though, right? If the only winning game, the only way to win the game is not to play, does that then fundamentally mean instead of having a country that is possibly alienating allies for a potential Russia, China threat, we could be using those resources, that energy to supplement and cure some of the economic pains and eases that are happening in America?
- [45:01]
Tom Bilyeu
Yes. But I don't want to move off the topic. What I'm talking about right now is in, in populist moments, everybody joins a team and those teams fight.
- [45:10]
Eric
Yeah.
- [45:11]
Tom Bilyeu
That is the thing that people have to resist with everything they have. So when you find yourself saying words like we've got to arrest all of the people on the other side. They're all evil maniacs. Pump the brakes. Don't do it. Both sides have to do it. The Trump DOJ has got to chill. The Democrats have got to chill. Like, everybody's got to chill like this. The only winning move is not to play. And I think that people have a belief that America's going to be fine no matter what happens. And that is going to be cold comfort when you go through something like the Civil War. We made it to the other side. That's a lot of dead people. And there are horrors that you can survive that are still horrors. Like, the world's not going away. America's not to going. Going away. But can we make it way worse for the people that live here for extended periods of time? Yes. And so we're just at A high risk inflection point right now. And all it takes is for people to go, oh yeah, like this is, this is a line I don't cross. So bring virtue back, literally bring code of conduct. Yeah. Integrity lines that don't get crossed. Like all of that stuff, we, we've got to re. Embrace that. We've got to celebrate people that do it. We've got to remind people that it's worthwhile pursuing. So, okay, that's the period on that. Now, if you want to talk about what should we be doing if we want to make the country a better place, there are many, many, many things that we can and should do that all drive to make the middle class thrive. So you've gotta get them on a progressive, not what left people mean by that. You've gotta get them economically progressing. Progression is a foundational pillar to human happiness. So understanding people have to feel like, oh, I work hard, I can make more money and therefore I'm capturing more value from my time. Putting them in a position where they can help get their kids off to a good start. So that there's this sense of upward economic trajectory you've got to make. You've got to deal with the freeloader problem. So right now we have created a massive freeloader problem which we're seeing in all the fraud because we have made it possible to come here to America or be a natural born American and take advantage of a system. You can't do that because now you have to tax the rest of the world and those chickens come home to roost every time. So you've got to stop doing that. You've got to be financially disciplined. You've got to understand that truly, as cheesy as this became for anybody that grew up in the 80s, the children really are our future. You got to educate the life out of them. You've got to make sure that they're effective in the real world. You've got to take advantage of technological deflation, which we are not. The government robs all of that from us. And so things just get more expensive over time and they should absolutely be getting cheaper. And you have to understand that a one world government just is. It's bad in the same way that having kids with your sister is bad. It makes you immunologically weak to threats. And so the more the reason, part of the reason that America is so strong is it has 50 states. California starts acting a fool, you move to Texas, you move to Florida, whatever. And then as a whole the country is stronger for it. When you try to unite the entire world, I get the impulse, but it just doesn't work out. It just fosters corruption because you're always going to get something run by a small group of elites. So now a small group of elites doesn't just run their country or their city, they run the entire world. Terrible situation. So we've got to understand that the, the good result comes from healthy friction between two well meaning but opposing worldviews. And we have now for far too long believed that there's one worldview that's right, mine, whatever you think yours is. And then every other worldview is wrong. When my wife and I get into our biggest arguments, I will remind myself because I'll feel so right. I will feel that I have God on my side, that I am just and she is unjust. And then I remind myself my way isn't right, my way is simply my way. And once you understand that that really is true, then you stop trying to take over the whole world. Because it's like, well, it's probably best that my power is checked. And we are not acting like that. We are not focused on really defining the metrics by which we judge whether our country is thriving. We're not taking the time to make sure that the next generation is good, to go from a skill set perspective. We're not making sure that our national security is protected. So that's where I'd start keeping in.
- [50:16]
Eric
The terms of, let's call it the Senate, because Chuck Schumer announced some of the policy that they want to do if they won the 2026 midterms.
- [50:29]
Tom Bilyeu
If you look at the budget, actually.
- [50:30]
Eric
We'Re working on right now, and we'll have the T HUD budget, you know.
- [50:34]
Tom Bilyeu
Transportation and HUD budget, we restore most of the cuts and even go higher.
- [50:40]
Eric
Than previous years on many of the programs that Doge slashed. When I met our nominee for HUD secretary then he was nominee, talked a.
- [50:50]
Tom Bilyeu
Nice game, but he doesn't seem to.
- [50:53]
Eric
Have the clout to make those views.
- [50:55]
Tom Bilyeu
Prevail over the Doge people, over the cut, cut, cut people.
- [51:00]
Eric
But we have worked really hard in the budget and gotten bipartisan support to increase these amounts and undo a lot of the cuts which are essential if.
- [51:09]
Tom Bilyeu
You look at the Budget Act.
- [51:11]
Eric
So that's him talking about he'll restore some of the Doge cuts to the Department of Transportation infrastructure.
- [51:16]
Tom Bilyeu
Yup. Okay. Did you know, okay, this was on.
- [51:22]
Eric
The John Kennedy thing. This was different.
- [51:24]
Tom Bilyeu
Oh, that's right.
- [51:25]
Eric
Yes, yes, yes, we can time you want to jump into that next?
- [51:28]
Tom Bilyeu
No, no, no, you're right. So the, the beef that I have here is unfortunately he's the one saying the words. But Republicans and Democrats alike are going to, as a matter of policy, just spend, spend, spend, spend, spend. They just want to spend on different things. So both parties are running this country to ruin. So I don't want to over focus on the fact that a Democrat is saying it. I'm just like, please, all your alarm bells need to go off when you start hearing Republicans talk about we need to roll back cuts, we need to get all this going again. Like we need to really look at what's going on with fraud in this country. You're going to find a metric ton of it in California, I guarantee it. Fraud and waste, let's just do that so it's less controversial. But if you spend billions of dollars on high speed rail and don't lay any high like, you are my enemy. If you run a budget deficit and try to confiscate the private property of people because they fall into a demographic class, you are my enemy.
- [52:31]
Eric
A demographic class. What do you mean by that?
- [52:33]
Tom Bilyeu
If you're a billionaire, we're going to come and seize 5% of your assets, which will end up being more because you'll have to sell in a distressed situation like, okay, and now keep in mind that they are making high friction for you to leave the state. When you try to stop people from leaving your jurisdiction, you are the bad guy in all capital letters. People jump on tiny boats and try to get to America from Cuba. No one jumps in a boat from Florida and tries to get to Cuba. West Germany, East Germany, East. No one tried to get from West Germany into East Germany unless they were trying to get somebody out. Nobody or sorry. Many, many people risked their lives and got killed trying to go from East Germany to West Germany. Now when you shoot someone or charge them a fee to leave, you're the bad guy. California's doing the fee to leave like it's crazy. And we are going to escalate until that is nationwide if we're not, not very careful. So anyway, again, I don't want to make this about Republicans and Democrats. They are both God awful.
- [53:45]
Eric
And then now jumping into the John Kennedy thing where he passed legislation that has allowed people to end this fraud of paying dead people.
- [53:54]
Tom Bilyeu
Yeah, one of many, unfortunately you, about the ending improper payments to deceased people act. Boy, that's a matter of. Here's what I want to talk about. Many Louisianians read the stories about the welfare fraud in Minnesota and frankly in other states. And it makes them nauseous. I feel the same way. That's why I have been working for years, literally years to target welfare fraud. Especially the fraudsters who conduct fraud in the name of deceased Americans. In 2023 alone, for example, the federal government sent $1.3 billion. Not million billion. The federal government sent $1.3B to dead people.
- [54:52]
Eric
Wow. Wow. Set us up. I can't do the I do declare accent for much longer. We could just. What's the. The rooster in looney tudes? I do declare, sir.
- [55:04]
Tom Bilyeu
You talking about Foghorn Lego?
- [55:05]
Eric
Yes.
- [55:06]
Tom Bilyeu
I don't know how he got that name. That is the wildest shit ever. That is like some straight Japanese like wild naming convention which I'll never understand, but okay. Did you know your hard earned tax dollars literally are funding the afterlife? That is a true statement. The US government has been shelling out billions in benefits to dead people for years. And it took a full blown act of Congress to finally slam the door shut on this obvious waste. Dare I say fraud. By way of the details. Senator John Kennedy from Louisiana has been beating the drum for years that this has been going on. The Social Security Administration, SSA and other federal agencies have improperly paid out. Improperly paid out. They know that this is tracked over $1 billion in benefits to deceased individuals since 2013 due to poor data sharing between departments. Uh huh. Kennedy got a temporary 2020 law stopping improper Payments to deceased people act passed that allowed the SSA to share its death master file with Treasury's do not pay system. This should prevent or even recover hundreds of millions of dollars in fraud. Now the bipartisan Ending improper payments to deceased People's act spearheaded by John Kennedy and passing Congress makes this data sharing permanent because originally had to do it as just a temporary measure. And the hope is that this ends the waste for good. And it's now headed to the President's desk for signing. But should we have ever been in this position? Should people have been firebombing Teslas when Elon Musk dared to point out the obvious fact that this kind of thing is happening and people just tried to. Downplay, downplay, downplay, downplay. And what do we keep seeing every time we turn around is more and more fraud is being uncovered. Right now the hotspot that has everybody's focus is Minnesota. It will not be the last because people will exploit whatever system you give them. So you've got to work very hard to make sure that you close off Areas of exploitation, you have to do things like means testing. Do people actually need the benefits? And if they don't need the benefits, you have to stop giving it to them. But we get people that absolutely go haywire when you say that. You have to show that you need the money or that you've been looking for a job or whatever. Sure, there are going to be some people that absolutely can't, but that's going to be a minority. And if you don't start policing this stuff, then you will be the turtle that drowns because you get so many barnacles on it. Unfortunately, it's just the architecture of the human mind. That's the way that we work. I'm sad to report, but there it is.
- [57:40]
Eric
There's been some conflicting policies. For example, like Nick Shirley saying that he broke the Minnesota fraud. When those people are under investigation. Going back to 2023, there's been reports that Doge, you know, I said they were going to cut 2 trillion, ended up being a couple billion.
- [57:58]
Tom Bilyeu
I mean, so far, like, I. I think that people have to let this stuff play out. So the question for me is, when you hear that somebody you hate discovered fraud on your team, what's your reaction? If your reaction is those guys, meaning the person that discovered it, you're a bad person, your morality is. And if, when you hear someone you hate finding fraud on your team, you go, damn, let's look. I hope it's not true. But if it is true, they gotta go, cool, now we're on the same team. But that is not what a populist moment brings you. What a populist moment brings you is I'm gonna defend against ICE whether you're here to arrest a child predator or not. I don't want the fraud to stop, no matter what, because I don't like the person that discovered it. Because when the roles are flipped, like, think about this. Let's make it about the Epstein files real fast. Democrats could have pursued the Epstein files and they didn't. Why not? But they got mad when suddenly it was politically expedient to go after Trump. And now it's like, whoa, I can't believe that Trump isn't releasing the files. It's like, wait, what? You guys just had four years and you did fuck all, so it didn't matter to you. This is clearly just a political charade. So that's what drives me crazy, is, can we please.
- [59:19]
Eric
I mean, the government Democrats didn't run on releasing the Epstein files, though.
- [59:22]
Tom Bilyeu
No. But shouldn't they have Done it. Either the Epstein files should be released and they matter, or the Epstein files never fucking matter. And let's all shut up and move on. One of those two things is true. Once you realize, no, no, no. This is about where is the cultural energy? How can I use this to bludgeon my enemy to death? Then at least we're being honest about the game being played. So it's like, let me, boys and girls, the things we cover on this show, 85% where the cultural energy is. There might be things I really fucking care about. And I'm not going to talk to you about it because it's not going to perform. It's not going to do numbers. Numbers.
- [59:54]
Eric
There you go.
- [59:55]
Tom Bilyeu
We can always talk about it. I always tell people the only thing that makes something worse is when you can't talk about it. So we can talk about it whatever we want. We can talk about Tom's biases. I have them. I try to confess them as fast as I can so everybody understands what my frame of reference is. I'm just saying people are. They're never talking about the thing again to use. My wife and I, we have an agreement in our relationship, you never argue about the T. You argue about the real underlying issue that's causing you to be angry. The T just means the surface level.
- [60:24]
Eric
Ah.
- [60:24]
Tom Bilyeu
Epstein files are a problem. No, no, it's not about that. What this is really about is we're playing team sports. And when one political party is trying to jail the other political party and doing everything they can to get them out of power, you're going to have a problem that. That is just going to escalate. Let's talk about that problem. Because that's really eating at the heart of America. This. We got here because of debt. Let's talk about debt. Let's actually get this country out of debt. Let's put the kind of energy into debt all day, every day that we would need to to stop being buffoons that are destroying the middle class. Let's talk about it. But it. You get up to the level of the T because it gets people excited. It makes them have a huge emotional response. Their programming is bad, and so mentally, they're not able to think past the first order consequence. And so we end up in these death loops. There you have it.
- [61:17]
Eric
Well, since you bought it up, the DOJ is now filing a motion to block the release of the Epstein files, arguing that federal courts lack the authority to enforce the Epstein Transparency act and no court can force them to produce the files. Yeah, that's crazy to me. I don't even know what's going on. Sean Ryan retweeted. I've never seen a group of people go to such lengths to protect sexual predators. And then on top of that, giving you a quick six act structure, Epstein files don't exist. Act two, Epstein is a democratic host. Act three, Fine, we'll release the files. Act four, too many files. We need time. Act five, redact and withhold files. Act six, no court can force us to release those files.
- [61:59]
Tom Bilyeu
Okay, wait. There was an act before this, which was the Epstein files are so important. The second we get into office, we're going to release this. You need to get us into office because we're the only ones with the balls to actually do this. Yo. So, yeah, this is. This is crazy. Listen, this is how power works. So here is the very icky under of power. The very icky underbelly of power is that everybody has leverage on everybody else. There are people that do absolutely dastardly things, but they are beneficial to you in some way, and so you don't want to see them go down. A bad person is critical to your. To a thing that is actually going to be good for America. Like, okay, let me give you a real example. Stalin murdered millions of people. Millions. Stalin is one of the most evil people ever to gain power in all of human history. He will be remembered a thousand years from now as somebody who killed and killed and killed and killed his own people. But we partnered with him in World War II. So now what? What do you do with that, by the way? I don't know about you, but I learned all about what Mao did to his people when I was in high school. Nothing. Literally nothing. But I heard a whole lot about Hitler. So cool. Love the energy on Hitler. Hitler was a bad dude. Where's the energy on Mao? Where's the energy on Stalin? Where's the energy on Lenin? None of it. Because you would have to explain. We got in bed with Stalin because it was expedient. We didn't care that he was killing his own people because we need him to throw a whole bunch of those people on the front lines in Russia to stop this German advance. We've got a shot for them to be a second front so we can really weaken Hitler and win this thing. And we'll deal with Stalin later. But for now, Stalin's our boy. We'll say nice things, no problem. Shaking hands, being seen with him, all that. Yeah, it doesn't matter. And the thing is. Yes, you should do that. You have to do that because you have an immediate threat, which is Hitler going crazy. You have a maybe threat in the future of Stalin going crazy. Deal with the threat right now, and then you quarantine him and you figure out how you're going to deal with him down the road. And so that's the ugly reality of power, is that's how all this shit plays out. And then the part that I hate more than anything, and we are going to watch how this plays out because of social media and cameras everywhere. You then have to lie and control what people believe is true by spinning the facts, by telling people a story full of lies over and over and over. And all that matters is what you repeat. What you repeat is what matters. And so they'll tell you a bald face lie over and over and over and over. And simply by saying it over and over and over and over, it becomes true. So I'll tell you this. Here was my vision of Columbus discovering America and Thanksgiving in the Pilgrims when I was a kid that it was awesome. And the Pilgrims rolled up and there was a big rock called Plymouth Rock. And they got out, they planted some crops, having a bit of a tough time. The Indians, that's what they were called back then, rolled up and were like, hey, we've got a cornucopia. What's a cornucopia? I didn't know. We've got a cornucopia of goods and we're going to teach you how to farm. Amazing. Flash forward and America's ours and Indians are now on reservations. I don't know why. And by the way, Columbus was the guy that made it all possible. The reality goes something more like this. Columbus is getting clowned on by everybody. And he believes, because he's miscalculated the size of Earth, he believes that he can find a cut through to the other side of the world to India, and instead he ends up on the shores of America because the world is much bigger. Technically, yes.
- [66:25]
Eric
He went to the Caribbean. He never actually set foot in America.
- [66:28]
Tom Bilyeu
Into the Caribbean and finds natives there and says, you guys are going to go get me a whole bunch of gold and if you don't, I'm going to cut your fucking hands off. Off. And was brutal in the extreme. So now what do you do? Because by the way, having a founding myth of America and I emphasis on the word myth is extremely useful. And telling Americans that they're a country built on the back of evil is a terrible idea because it doesn't play out well, and also lying about all of it, while super effective in terms of getting Americans to believe something about themselves, is also a terrible idea. So what do you do? And so now we're in a position where you just see the intellectual warfare happening in real time, live, on camera. Everybody's spinning all the time. So is that going to stand? Or do we end up pulling ourselves apart because there are so many conflicting narratives and people to simplify their lives, just choose to believe one. I'm on this team. Please spoon feed me the Gerber's baby formula of what I'm supposed to believe so I can barf it all over somebody else. Uh, that's the world that we're in right now. And I have a bad feeling because people cannot hold nuanced and conflicting ideas in their head, that they just want the baby Gerber pre masticated bullshit and they'll swallow it hook, line and sinker. And every now and then it makes them show up on their doorstep for some reason with an assault rifle. And that we're watching it play out right now.
- [67:55]
Eric
Bank of England told people to prepare for a market crash if the United States announces alien life. Helen McCall, who served as a senior analyst in financial security at the UK Central bank, sounded the alarm. She has now written to Andrew Bailey, the bank's governor, urging him to organize contingencies for the possibility that the White House may confirm we are not alone in this universe. I remember over Covid they released some of the Area 51 files, but nobody really cared because half of the cities were burning and it was just like, oh yeah, by the way, we might have contacted aliens. Speculation, speculation. Release.
- [68:27]
Tom Bilyeu
Yeah.
- [68:27]
Eric
So every time these declassifications happen, it always seems like when the world is at its most highest and the government's like, oh, yeah, now they're looking at the Epstein files. Release the alien stuff. Let's get it out of there.
- [68:38]
Tom Bilyeu
The question is, which is a distraction from the other?
- [68:40]
Eric
Yeah.
- [68:41]
Tom Bilyeu
Is the aliens a distraction from Epstein? Is Epstein a distraction from the aliens? Don't know. We'll find out. But this one to me is it's very fun and I love to speculate on it. And whenever there's something that, that pops off, I'm very happy to cover it. But the like reality of I want you to imagine the only way to get to planet Earth. The following statement is true. The only way to get to planet Earth is to bend space time. You can bend space time, but you get detected. Get the out of here. People need to read the three body problem. That's what a civilization that can cross space time will look like. Like they're operating at nanoparticle levels. They're disrupting your, your particle accelerators to confuse physicists. It'll be some shit like that. It's not going to be the equivalent of like getting here on a fucking road trip and your boys are like drinking and shit like that. You have to bend space time. So that is a level of technology so advanced you're not going to be accidentally spotted and you're sure as hell not going to accidentally crash. So yeah, all that stuff just strikes me as beyond absurd. Also, by the way, you're not gonna. Well, if you could bend space time and you found a way to travel through a wormhole and hold biological fidelity. No, there's no assumption that there's biology. So it could be you're just sending AI. Cool. So that one. I'll stick with you. Let's say yes, you can come here. But you're the world's most sentient super intelligent AI because you're not physical. I don't think, I don't think a biological creature would be able to go through a wormhole anyway. I don't know enough about the physics, but no way that you can go through wormholes successfully. And then up on the other side.
- [70:34]
Eric
So they just, they're just sending Tesla Robo taxis to us. That's what, that's what, that's the closest.
- [70:38]
Tom Bilyeu
Tesla robo taxis are. Would be like a match car. Matchbox car is to us. Would be to them.
- [70:44]
Eric
No, I mean the equivalent. They will just send like a drone type of thing and want to be like bodies, everybody.
- [70:50]
Tom Bilyeu
Problem paints what I think is a far more realistic picture of what actual hyper advanced technology looks like. And they send nanoparticles that are basically, if I remember right, they're sentient, so they can do a thing like they react to stuff that they see, but they're like particle level size. And so they would go in and cause particle interactions within the Large Hadron Collider so that physicists are just perpetually confused and can never grasp how the physics of the universe actually work. And that's how you would fuck with us.
- [71:23]
Eric
And they're doing that to disrupt it. I never see.
- [71:25]
Tom Bilyeu
They're doing it because they plan to take over Earth because it has dope resources. And so they're like, oh, they'll just.
- [71:32]
Eric
Sabotage it and then kill everybody and then come correct. Got it.
- [71:36]
Tom Bilyeu
And so they don't want us because it takes so long for them to travel here. They don't want us to figure it out. So they're like, we need to stymie their physics so that we can remain hyper advanced compared to them. And then when we get there, we'll just run this.
- [71:49]
Eric
Maybe they're the ones who send over the lizard people who are now ruling us. And then that's what happened.
- [71:54]
Tom Bilyeu
That's probably right.
- [71:55]
Eric
Yeah. And they were the.
- [71:56]
Tom Bilyeu
I would not give you don't take over with super intelligence, which would be the easiest thing in the universe if you're super intelligent. Instead, like hide yourself under human skin as a secret lizard person.
- [72:07]
Eric
Yeah. And where they're.
- [72:08]
Tom Bilyeu
That'll make sense.
- [72:09]
Eric
Of course.
- [72:09]
Tom Bilyeu
This is logical. This is logical. I don't know how to take that. For the first time Today, we're over 2,000 when we start talking about fucking aliens. Of course, of course.
- [72:18]
Eric
In the grand totality of the universe, is there other living things?
- [72:22]
Tom Bilyeu
I'm gonna say, do you want my real belief?
- [72:24]
Eric
I'm gonna say, I want to quantify living things. I think people, relationships, like people who have minds. They could think there's another artist in space. Sector 67, whatever. Do you think in the totality of universe, there's another planet that has a similar way of living?
- [72:40]
Tom Bilyeu
Our universe is not locally real. The other day I was having just this thought of, like, why we never talk about this. So I need to do a really deep dive so I can really, really learn the physics. I can give you the headline stuff, but I don't understand the physics well enough yet. But our universe renders like a computer video game. They just handed out the Nobel prize for proving that. That's not even like a question mark. The universe is not locally real. Meaning if a tree falls on Mars and there's no one there to hear it, it doesn't make a sound. It doesn't even actually fall. It's just a computation that when you look at it, will then give you the answer of what that meant, whether it fell or not. That is so fucking crazy. And people, because all of us, myself included, don't fully understand it, we're just like, meh. And we just move on. The universe is not locally real. That is so fucking crazy. So now it's like, okay, you can think of it as a metaphor, but the reality is so accurate to the fact that we are in a simulation that now I'm just like, okay, well, if we're in a simulation and the universe isn't locally real, are there other pockets of measuring devices? Essentially. And so I'M like, why create the vastness of space? Is it so you can simulate the universe, in which case there's probably life all over the place? Or do you do it? You pick one planet and you control your variables. Now, as I'm building Project Kaizen, it's these are all trade offs and I have a feeling, given the level of complexity with which the Earth is being, I don't know that I actually believe we're in a simulation. I want to be very clear about that. I am so open to other solutions, but I'm going to talk for a minute as if it. I'm just closing all of the doors. When I think about how like, okay, when you create a simulated world, you want to do it on the back of rules. If people haven't played hightail, by the way, if you're a gamer and you liked Minecraft, play hightail. But so I'm playing and I'm looking at the rule structure that the world is built up off of and you realize very simple set of rules and it creates like all this wonderful complexity. And then you start thinking about the depth of the complexity of the rule set that were built on top of. Now it may be one elegant like mathematical equation like an equals MC squared, which is actually far more complicated than people think. But anyway, something like that word simple and from that spring all of the laws of the universe, great. But it still manifests as an evolutionary process that is insanely complicated. Where you've, you've got something that defines the rate at which water will cross a cell membrane. Right. I mean it's just like deep, deep, deep, deep, deep simulation, such that if we're all NPCs inside of a thing, we get cancer. But cancer rates are going to vary over time based on environmental factors and how DNA makes it like the level of complexity is fucking insane. So I could see, given that in this imagined read of the universe, that there's only life here because you're not trying. The universe itself is merely the simulation that you need to hold everything in stable so that you need to press a button and it needs to start right. So you need a seed. This is exactly how a world of Minecraft is built or Project Kaizen. You give it a seed and so it's like, okay, this is the core variable upon which all the things that say reference core variable will spin off. So where trees get placed and bushes get placed, and so that's the big bang, that's that initial seed. Then the physics, the math just plays everything else out. And so I think the reason that we end this imagined scenario, I think the reason or the argument would be as to why we can't figure out how life got started, why the universe is dialed so specifically. Like you tip it even a little bit in either direction and it would just all fall apart. So it's like, how do we get this precise is that there's somebody coding, hard coding certain variables to make sure that the game plays, period.
- [77:05]
Eric
So it seems like there's a creator.
- [77:07]
Tom Bilyeu
Yeah. And the problem is when you say things like that, you just push the miracle off. We're being created by a lazy 13 year old who's got to prove to his middle school teacher that he understands how to build a stable terrarium inside.
- [77:23]
Eric
Of weird diorama that he did at 10 o' clock at night because his dad's forgot, literally.
- [77:28]
Tom Bilyeu
And that's why he's had to hard code so many variables. And so then you go, okay, but wait, but who created that fucking kid? And so then it just spirals and spirals and spirals and I don't see any way out.
- [77:40]
Eric
Yeah, it's, it's interesting. All right, we got one more story to get to. I know we got a couple of super chats. We're doing this, we're getting through it. Guys. Yo OpenAI is is on its last leg before we even get into the lawsuit of it all. They just announced ads which anybody who knows once you announce ads, that's the beginning of the end. A lot of just in my personal circle, I've heard a lot more. Oh, I use Claude. Oh, I use Gemini or I use Grot. Like the usage rate is gone. They lost market share. Ben Affleck had like a crazy AI take over the weekend. It on Joe Rogan saying that a lot of these AI models are just over promising what they can do to justify their capex spends in the interim and stuff like that. So there's a lot of things that are like, okay, maybe this AI thing isn't quite exactly what we've seen that.
- [78:29]
Tom Bilyeu
Nobody can say that if they're actively using AI. But sure there are people saying that.
- [78:33]
Eric
Okay, I would say that the promises kind of like what Eli, he'll say it's going to be done in three years, it might take six. So we could always say they might be over promising a little bit more than what they're actually. The scale of change which is actually happening.
- [78:46]
Tom Bilyeu
I want you to imagine something. You just had a baby and that baby's name is LeBron and your whole family is like, this kid is going to be good at basketball. And then who's good in the NBA right now?
- [79:05]
Eric
LeBron. Luca.
- [79:07]
Tom Bilyeu
He's from Luca. Perfect, yes. So Luca is full grown adult and walks up to the six month old. LeBron is like, this kid can't play basketball. He can't even dribble, can't even stand up, this kid. And then he's three. And you like see the kid playing, dribbling the ball and you're like, whoa, okay, that's kind of weird for 3 year old. But Luca still swats the ball out of the hand, kicks the kid down the road, is like, that kid sucks. Then the kid's 12, then 18, and then the most dominant force we've seen since Michael Jordan. So we are looking at AI when it's literally a four year old and it's already startling what it can do. Now Elon Musk, the world's greatest aggregator of engineers, has just built the largest data center for AI ever by a lot, and is about to like make it bigger by 50% again in the next, I don't know, six months or something. And people need to understand every belief is built on the back of base assumptions. If you want to target the belief, target the base assumption to say that base assumption is false. The base assumption right now that everybody who has my position believes the following. Intelligence will not asymptote, meaning there's no ceiling. So the reason that human intelligence has asymptoted is because women want to stand upright. And I'm going to guess they're too vulnerable to pray if they are can't stand up. And so we're a combination of how big can the child's head be and still exit the vagina and the woman be able to stand upright. And so it's like this balancing act. And then how long can we bake them after they're born to make them further intelligent? And that strat has made us by far the most dominant creature the earth has ever seen. Artificial intelligence is not limited by that. And so everyone was like, well, you won't be able to get larger and larger data centers to cohere. What that means is you can't just keep adding neurons, which is essentially the hypothesis about the brain. If you think of the human brain as two things, things, this is not just one, because I'm sure whale brains or whatever are bigger, not compared to body mass, but bigger. And the reason whales are dumber than humans is because you have both the size, how many neurons and the Call it algorithm. So how's the brain folded? How does it communicate with itself? How rapidly does it transmit electrons and chemicals and all that stuff? So there's going to be other things, but if you take it as those two, you've got just how many neurons can you get working together and how efficiently can you get those working together? And, and so far there's no limit. And if that's true, and we can both make the brains bigger and bigger and we can make them more and more efficient, there's no end, and there's no end to how intelligent they will become. They are already passing tests better than humans. So AI is already at 4 years old, depending on where you start the clock. I'm starting it at the launch of ChatGPT, and I think it's actually three years, but anyway, we'll say four. That AI is already able to understand mathematics, not to have memorized math equations, to understand mathematics itself. It's able to defeat math challenges that only the smartest kids in America can do, like math. Olympians. It's starting to make novel, novel breakthroughs in biology. That means it's understanding the underlying mechanisms of biology. So just had David Sinclair on the. David Sinclair on the show coming out in a couple weeks, I think. No, March, coming out. March. And he, I asked him point blank, has AI made novel breakthroughs, something that's not in the literature anywhere? He said yes. So it's like, dude, give it five years and not only will it be unimaginably better than it is today, it won't be binary. You don't have to wait five years. It's just going to keep getting better day after day after day after day.
- [83:25]
Eric
Understood. As AI, the industry, I'm zooming in specifically on ChatGPT, OpenAI, if they can survive this $134 million billion dollar loss.
- [83:34]
Tom Bilyeu
That's a business question. But the AI industry as a whole is. It's in its infancy. It's going to be massive. Okay, Talking about AI, Open AI and the lawsuit, this is a. Yeah, this. I don't know, man. Are they so intertwined with the government that there's no way that this will get passed?
- [83:57]
Eric
Maybe.
- [83:57]
Tom Bilyeu
Maybe nobody cares and they'll just hand off and they'll be. Has been. It's entirely possible. But this is. What you're about to read is crazy.
- [84:04]
Eric
People are gonna want the early discovery. Somebody basically took all the court documents, fed it into ChatGPT and said, Break it down.
- [84:09]
Tom Bilyeu
So asking the product of OpenAI to look back at itself and Say, do we have a problem here?
- [84:16]
Eric
And it came out as the documents are legitimately bad for OpenAI. The Brockman notes are not ambiguous, spinnable or normal startup bravado. They read like leadership wanted Musk out while still taking his money while avoiding being honest about their plan. This was about. This would. If this were about any other non profit turned company. I say the same thing. Those internal writings create real litigation risk and serious reputational risk. Being OpenAI model does not make those quotes look better. They just look worse the more you sit with them. So he has $134 billion lawsuit right now against OpenAI and Microsoft, which I feel like if they don't settle, that might be. They might start to feel that pressure.
- [84:53]
Tom Bilyeu
I don't see how he doesn't have a case. Yeah, you go to him and say, I want to make open for everyone AI. You're largely driving the recruiting, the ideology of the company, putting it all together. But you're like, I don't want to spend my time on this. I want someone else to do it. But I'm trying to protect myself from one company or government or whatever running all of this. Because he got into a big argument with the Google founder. Not Sergey Brin, the other one whose name I'm blanking on for some reason. Anybody? Anybody? What's the other. Yeah, Sergey Brin. Yeah, it's not Ellison, it is Paige. Paige. Larry Page. Thank you. So he gets into an argument with Larry Page and Larry Page accuses Elon of being a species, meaning you care more about humans than you care about artificial intelligence. And Elon is literally clutching his pearls, completely mortified to his core, and is like, yes, you got me. I want humans to win. I don't want artificial intelligence to win. And so on the back of that he goes and is like, yo, we can't let Google control all this because I don't trust that guy. So we've got to go do this startup. So he gets it all going and then they realize, holy bejesus, this could be a multi trillion dollar company. There's no way. I mean, his marketing message is we won't be able to fund it as a not for profit. So we've got to be able to make money, which by the way, is a PSA to all entrepreneurs. For the love of God, create a self sustaining economic engine. Stop with all this not for profit. When you're trying to actually build a product, when you can't get people to pay for your product, it means your product's not that Good. So being in the marketplace is a forcing function to do something people actually care about. Uh, so anyway, I don't expect that to be popular, but nonetheless, we're watching in real time what happens when you think, oh, I can just build this gargantuan thing that's going to cure cancer or whatever, but it's going to be a non profit. Doesn't work. Uh, so give it the market forcing function of having to make it something that people will actually pay for and all of a sudden you are able to fund it because it's self sustaining. So Elon, I think has an argument which is I gave you. I forget how much, but he gave like somewhere between 30 and 50 of the startup capital, so he should be capturing, I mean, somewhere between 20 and 50% of the value of the company. So. And he's not. So. Yeah, I mean, I think that that's gonna go in his favor, but we'll see.
- [87:29]
Eric
This is terrible timing as they announced they're gonna, they're filing preliminary paperwork to go public this year along with Claude as well. So we'll see how this turns out. But a lot of times we have to ipo. You got to clean up your books and a lawsuit is not good for those books.
- [87:43]
Tom Bilyeu
So it's also not good for the perception. But we'll see.
- [87:46]
Eric
Cool. All right, guys, that's all I got.
- [87:48]
Tom Bilyeu
All right, everybody. Happy Martin Luther King Day. I hope you guys are having a wonderful day no matter where you are in the world. Sending you guys all love and we will see you on Wednesday. Tell them, my friends, be legendary. Take care.
- [87:58]
Eric
Peace.
- [88:00]
Tom Bilyeu
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