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The Optimists Died First: What POW Camps Teach Us About Positive Thinking

Episode 88 · 26 August 2026 · 1 hr 6 min

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The Stockdale Paradox: Why the Optimists Died First

The Stockdale Paradox comes from James Stockdale, who survived seven years as a POW by pairing unshakable faith with brutal honesty about the present. Randy Lorensen, Dr. John Oberg and Anthony Marino ask whether positive thinking works, how the WOOP method turns wishes into plans, and how to practice grounded optimism.

The optimists in the Hanoi Hilton died first — not from torture, but from a broken heart. James Stockdale survived 7 years as a POW by doing two things at once: unshakable faith that he'd get out, and brutal honesty about how bad today actually was. A Harvard and Boston University study of 83,000 people found that the most optimistic group lived 11–15% longer. But there's a catch — it's not just any optimism.

Does Positive Thinking Work? The WOOP Method and Grounded Optimism

What you'll discover:

  • Why the optimists in Stockdale's POW camp died before the realists — and what that means for your goals
  • The WOOP method (Wish, Outcome, Obstacle, Plan) and why Harvard-backed research says it works
  • Scott vs. Amundsen: one planned for every obstacle, one trusted to luck — only one came back alive
  • Why visualization alone backfires — and what you have to add to make it actually work
  • How to be genuinely optimistic without being a Pollyanna — the science of grounded hope

Timestamps

  • [00:00] The Stockdale Paradox — optimists died first
  • [01:09] Harvard study: optimists live 11–15% longer (but there's a catch)
  • [03:00] The WOOP method: Wish, Outcome, Obstacle, Plan
  • [07:04] Victor Frankl and Man's Search for Meaning
  • [10:54] Scott vs. Amundsen: planning vs. trusting to luck
  • [15:20] Can you be a realist AND an optimist?
  • [16:26] Why visualization alone backfires
  • [17:40] Plan for the best, prepare for the worst — real world examples
  • [19:15] The danger of analytical paralysis
  • [23:02] Bitcoin and grounded optimism: solving problems people don't know they have
  • [32:07] Elon vs. Dario — the abundance optimist vs. the AI doomer
  • [36:29] Being a positive person: the impact you don't see
  • [41:10] Abundance Briefing: $40 trillion in U.S. debt
  • [51:12] Balance vs. bench press — what matters for aging
  • [55:26] Your friends are your best medicine: 200k people, 22 countries
  • [1:00:01] Trillions of tons of clean hydrogen found underground
  • [1:02:01] The first AI-made feature film — made for $2 million

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About the hosts

This is a hosts-only episode with no guest: Randy Lorensen, Dr. John Oberg and Anthony Marino.

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Meet the hosts: Randy Lorensen · Dr. John Oberg · Anthony Marino

Transcript

A full transcript is below. It was generated automatically from the episode audio, so expect some spelling errors in names and terms.

[00:01] 1965. A concrete cell, no windows, no timeline. Vice Admiral James Stockdale has been shot down over enemy territory. He's in what soldiers call the Hanoi Hilton. He's there 7 years. He watched men break around him, but not what you'd expect, not who you'd expect. It wasn't the skeptics that died first. It was the We'll be home by Christmas, they said. Christmas came. Christmas passed. We'll be home by Easter. Easter passed. Stockdale watched them die, not from torture, but from a broken heart. He survived by doing two things at once. He had unshakable faith that he would get out. But he also had brutal honesty about today. He called it the discipline you can't skip. Faith without honesty kills you. But so does honesty without faith. Gentlemen, today we're talking about positive thinking. Does it work? What does work? John, you want to There's a Harvard and Boston University study that you got some insight and done some research on. Yeah. 2019, uh, Harvard and Boston University had 69,000 women and,400 men. And when they studied this, the the they based the groups into cortiles based on optimism. And the most optimistic group lived 11 to 15% longer than the least optimistic group. And they had a 50 to 70% chance greater chance of reaching the age of 85. And and there's a lot of caveats in here that we know based on the science.

[01:36] It's not just optimism. So that type of optimism won't work with just anybody. And and it's not baseless optimism. It's optimism with a plan. — That sounds pretty good to me. They live longer, right? I mean, that's what I hear, right? the most optimistic group lives 11 to 15% longer more than a 50% chance of living to 85. Like that that I mean that seems like a pretty good reason to be an optimist. I mean it's true but they like know thyself, right? Like there's other stories that were in science behind the fact that if you know there are people that have kind of a more pessimistic view on the world and that pessimism drives them to plan and execute more effectively. When researchers have tried to get those people to be more optimistic, it has actually lowered their effectiveness, lowered their uh all of the same markers in ways that it wasn't actually a good thing to make someone who who uses that pessimism to their benefit. I think knowing what's going to work for you matters a ton and being able to kind of, you know, in a cognitive behavioral way find the best output for yourself is really important. Generally speaking, I think optimism is better when it's grounded optimism, not baseless optimism. That's where we were talking before the show about Whoop, which is the the idea that you go through and you make a plan. That's the P in Whoop, right? We'll talk about that maybe a little bit later.

[03:00] — You know, you know, I love your acronym. Tell me what this Whoop is. — Well, Whoop is wish, outcome, obstacle, plan. And and to be fair, you're the one that sent Whoop to me. — I sent it to you, but Go ahead. — Yeah. Wish outcome obstacle plan was in the 2026 uh journal of social and personal relationships just uh last month and it was 105 couples and it was a it was a behavioral observation and you know when you look at this kind of field of research with behavioral observations which is a scientific method for looking at at at optimism I mean it is it's the the the data is very strong right now it's not a double blind study it doesn't have the same rigor as that but but it's really really strong observational evidence that shows like generally speaking being positive you know having an optimistic outlook is I don't think anyone would deny that living your life with some with a fair amount of optimism is better than you know we were talking earlier about doomerism where in in today's society we have enough dumerism that people actually know what it is and is is perhaps spiraling people in a direction that is not the healthiest are healthy for one thing for sure to be depressed is obviously not healthy But having a doomer mentality kind of sucks the life out of you and sucks your initiative out and wo is me type of thing. But you know we were going to talk about you know the Antarctic expeditions of Scott and Armedson and the two the two vastly different approaches and and building on the Whoop.

[04:41] Scott was a an admiral in the traditional English sense in the early 18 early 1900s. you know, a, you know, a vicious and strong leader, you know, command and control, you know, we're going to we're going to get this done. You know, we'll fight through anything. And was far less he was prepared, but far less strategic in his thinking in terms of what he was undertaking versus Amenson who really when you when you it's interesting, we all discovered this whoop today, you know, they they both had the same wish, which which was to get to the South Pole. They they knew what their outcome was going to be. They they had the the the vision of the outcome. We're going to get there. We're going to get there healthy. We're going to get and we're going to be be able to come back, right? But when planning it, Armenson really planned for the obstacles. He used a different type of clothing. He picked a shorter route. He built numerous supply depots on the way so that when they left, those supply depots would be there on the way back. He was primarily focused on reaching the pole first.

[05:52] Scott, on the other hand, wanted to get to the pole, but he wanted to do mapping and exploration. He had this different set of distractions. The leadership style was, you know, Amenson was pragmatic. you know, he would be the type of leader today that was kind of an all-inclusive person that, you know, that took feedback well and worked as a team where the other guy was more dictatorial and so forth. But the point of all this is there are different ways to leverage your optimism and a polyiana approach. It's been scientifically proven. And if people want to dig in a little deeper on Whoop, they can go to the whoop.com website. There are a number of double blind studies that they've done since this was published with people trying to lose weight with young kids taking tests and so forth. There's a lot to be said here about having, you know, a kind of a linear outlook on accomplishing the goals that you want to accomplish and not just sitting back and saying being being a cheerleader on the sideline of the Texas Ohio State game and thinking that Texas is actually going to win.

[07:02] Doesn't doesn't work that way. There needs to be a plan. — But let's go back to P camps. I think you know Victor Frankl wrote a really famous book man's search for meaning and he talked about the optimist died. He also talked about the pessimist died. He talked about it was the realists that got through the people who were going to make their suffering meaningful. That's a different form of optimism maybe right where you say you know I'm optimistic that my suffering here is going to mean something afterwards whenever that happens to be. the the baseless optimism has to be kind of separated from the optimism where it shows an actual goal and and then I think you you know having that plan matters a ton right and and Victor Frankle was really really clear about that and I think you know Colonel Edward Huard in the Hanoi Hilton not he was not the hill he was in North Vietnam somewhere else but he was in captivity for 2400 days in Vietnam told a fascinating story when I met him 30 years ago when we talked about it wrote a book escape from the I think it's really about whether that optimism is baseless or not baseless. And if it's a grounded optimism in a plan and in reality about the obstacles and a sober view of the world, I think it really helps a ton.

[08:09] — Yeah. I don't want Hang on. Hang on. No, no, no, no. You hold on, Randy. I just don't I what John said about the Frankle book, I don't want to handwave over that. Every single person that I that in my life I have given this book to, I think I even gave it to our peer group at one time. I think it's one of the most important reads a a human being should undertake. I don't care if you listen to it on tape, read it on a read it on a train going to work or whatever. There it is so substantive in terms of its messaging that it's it should be required reading multiple times by everybody on the planet. So I just I just want to take a second there because — now that we can get you off your soap box, can you finish your Antarctica story, please? cuz we don't know who lived and who died and who made it. — Well, okay. Amenson got to the pole first. His ship was destroyed in the in an ice flow. The the the the entire ship sank. They were able to get the dogs and the whatnot off the off the boat. Scott, on the other hand, got to the pole but died on his return. Amenson did in fact return. And it was an incredible story of trials and tribulations to do so where four men got in a rowboat and traveled several hundred miles to what they were hoping would be a bit of civilization which they did in fact find and were able to send ships back to where the they had left the original crew members.

[09:41] It's a fantastic story and again all I strongly recommend people read about read about them. An interesting thing about Stockdale, you know, an optimist who, you know, kind of was kind of looking was being brutally honest about his circumstances later on in life. I don't know if you guys know this, but he ran for pre for vice president on the ticket with Ross Perau. And and the reason I bring that up, Ross Perau, in retrospect, was was a real character. and people kind of made, you know, a little bit of fun of him. He was one of the first technologists of of his time. He was the guy who said at the passage of na of NAFTA, you'll hear a great sucking sound south of the border as all our jobs move to Mexico. But anyway, Stockdale was such an optimist and he believed in the future of you of the country and and of himself and what he could bring to the table that he ran for vice president which I think is really interesting. You know, from a from the Hanoi Hilton to, you know, the presidential stage, something else of a of an individual.

[10:49] Anyway, just a sidebar on on him. I think the implication is that Scott was a optimist and Odman Amenson was a pessimist, but I don't really see him as a pessimist, right? Like he started out with the hey, I'm going to make it right and we're going to do it, but I have to prepare for all these different things and and it's just a different approach. — Well, right. He he would he he he outplanned Scott. Scott used traditional everything, the same exploration techniques that got him around the the Horn of Africa and all the other wonderful accomplishments that he had, but he didn't adjust his thinking around the different obstacles he was going to face going to Antarctica. a very different mission where Ed Armenson and others by the way there are others who who made it to the South Pole and the North Pole who used the same techniques as Armenson to prepare to go there. It was thought out in a different way. Now he could have thought it out in a different way and got it wrong but he got it right. He picked the right He did the right research. He he took his time.

[12:02] He was slower. He left after Scott. It's very different approach but you know it obviously worked out. — Yeah. I I don't think I think historians as I kind of took a look at how historians looked at Amenson it they called it defensive pessimism but he was a planner and and he didn't believe in luck and and and Scott wrote in his journal I shall trust to luck I think that really is maybe not a any kind of notice about optimism or pessimism but about the lack of a plan versus a plan you know you know brought three times the amount of food he thought he would need this is a different type of planning you can be a pessimist with a plan which has proved to be fairly productive and you can be an optimist without a plan which has proven to be counterproductive. I think optimism and pessimism are one variable but I think you got to look at the planning variable — Yeah, I think it it moves past the the uh the title optimism versus pessimist. You know, I have a wish as in the W and whoop. I have a wish. I have I know precisely or I have at least a a vision of what my outcome is. But then I'm going to stop and say, "Okay, in order for this to happen, what's going to get in my way? What what do I need to prepare for?" You know, you could use there's a hundred military generals that had similar concepts to Whoop in terms of planning. You go back and read about General Patton and the way he prepared for battle and how he took took things on is very similar to what we're talking about. There's there's more to it. You know, there's a I I read a book a long time ago. God, it must have been 20 years ago that that juxtaposed several generals. But I'll never forget the difference the striking difference of General Eisenhower who became a president of the United States and Patton and a couple more generals.

[13:52] Who was the guy that the famous general of the of the Asia Pacific of World War II? Anyway, his name slipping shouldn't slip my mind. Anyway, the difference was — MacArthur, I think. So, you're looking — MacArthur. Thank you. Thank you. MacArthur and Patton were very similar in the way they approached things. And Eisenhower was basically a CEO. You know, he was you MacArthur and Patton, they were on the front lines. They never expected their men to and women to do things that they wouldn't do. Um their structure was at at all times be ready to fight. Whereas Eisenhower was a planner, you know, kind of a strategist and it served him well to become president, but it was he wasn't the best field general on the planet. So, there's nuance in everything you do, and it's the same thing in in running a business. You know, we've we've talked a lot about running a business, preparing a business to be sold, what, you know, do you even want to be in that business? And if you do want to be in that business, what have what are the obstacles to you being successful in that business? and what do you have to do to to prepare for that?

[14:56] What are the contingencies that you need to have? What's your floor in terms of your expenses? All that is so important. And it applies to the each of the five Fs, you know, you know, we could we want to be healthy. What's our fitness goal? Well, okay, have a fitness goal and then what are the obstacles to getting there? What are the options to achieving it? And so on and so forth. It applies to John, if we're going to get clinical here, it's, you know, there's optimism of I will prevail in the end, right? Positivity, everything is fine right now. There's delusion. Everything will work out. I don't need to prepare, right? Can you be a realist and an — Does one stand from the other? — Yeah, I think I think you can. I think that, you know, this is where it's really easy to get tied around the axle in definitions. You know, what is an optimist? What is a realist? What? Those are all characterizations, Randy. And you've heard me say many times like let's get into the grounded data rather than the label of optimist, pessimist, realist, whatever. It's like what do you do? Do I have a goal, right? Do I have a plan for that goal? Do I look at the obstacles and am I sober about the obstacles or do I ignore the obstacles?

[16:07] I had this conversation with someone just last week where was like, you know, I I understand the world as you want it to be. That's not the way the world is. It's 105 degrees outside and you run the risk of heat stroke and so that's I mean that's just the temperature outside. referenced some of these things about like the weight loss study and some of the people that visualized and did the best job of it actually had the worst results because their brain actually all of a sudden it's like, "Oh, I don't need to lose weight. I've already done it." Right? Is that the basic that's oversimplification, but I don't know. This is this is you know we've always heard about positive thinking but now they're saying too much positive thinking can be a negative and actually slows you down. I don't think I don't think it's yeah it's not I don't think it's about too much positive thinking and I do believe that visualization is important but when visualization isn't followed by planning and execution like it's got to be all those things and that's where I talked about kind of the defensive pessimism that that people talk about not my term but where people perform better by planning for the worst and so which I you know I wouldn't characterize that as pessimism I would say that's preparedness and I think there's a But but defense of pest is a term of art. I think that positive thinking and wanting the best possible outcome of being ready for different circumstances makes people better in that crisis.

[17:40] — So from from an advice perspective, what I would say is this to anybody listening, it's it's going to sound so trit, you know, plan for the best, prepare for the worst. Right? If you're see you're on a health journey as simple as a thing is quote unquote simple not easy to lose weight you know the plan is I'm going to be I'm going to eliminate this from my diet. I'm going to focus on more fruits and vegetables. But I got a Christmas party coming up and I know I'm going to have a problem there. That's okay. I'm not going to quit after I have a you know a piece of cake or something at a party. I'm not going to let that derail me. And that's what happens a lot of times. It happens. You see it in I I saw it running a business. You know, we ran into where you run into a streak of our competitors are running some kind of offer that just we're having a tough time overcoming it. And you know for a week or two or a month our you know our sales efficiency dropped dramatically and the the sales team is you know getting a little antsy or you know depressed a little bit. Thank God for paro because the top the top 20% of our our group were able to overcome that more quickly than the 80% and eventually drag the 80% back up. Right? Because they were they're prepared. their their their understanding and and they came up with an obstacle killer, you know, for whatever the compet the competition was — But there's a downside to that, Anthony, that people have to be like I hear you, but like the the problem with with planning for everything is there's also people that want to plan for every bridge they might ever cross and it leads to analytical paralysis. You know, that's why I didn't just say planning is important. I said planning and execution. Like I I've told people like my bias is towards movement, right? My bias is not towards not movement. I think that when we try to boil it down to one variable, which people often want to do for understanding, we miss the picture. Why the whoop thing was so great, right? It's wish, outcome, obstacle, plan. I wish they'd put execute at the end of it, right? Do like do. Whoopee. Oh, yeah. I like it.

[19:53] — we're doing a new Yeah. Excellent execution. We're going to make a new plan called Whoopi. You know, we we talk about though the people that plan, but there's something that and we can't track this, but my gut tells me most people that get caught up on all the obstacles, it paralyzes them. And I watch this all the time. People, my experience is that yes, there are people that go, "Okay, I'm going to do this and here's all the things I have to overcome." And that is sort of the best of both worlds. And most people go, I have to do this, God, but then I have to go to school for this and I got to do this and I got to figure out how to do this and and they just they just don't do it right. And I think there's a little bit of a survivors bias here. And I think for most people being more gets them in the game and there's some value to just being in the game. And it's different stakes. Going to Antarctica and having the freezing to death, starving to death have different stakes than even starting a business, which is scary enough for people. But — I think that's the thing, Randy. It's people people often times look at risk as being one thing. And you know, there's risk stratification, right? The risk of someone living or dying is a different risk than someone not drinking water for 3 hours, which is different than not drinking water for 3 days.

[21:17] understanding those risks and giving them their due is an important part of decision-m that you know people hopefully learn as they as they mature their you know the mind that they need to make their professional and personal — Yeah. I don't I don't want people to think that I'm saying in any way that being maintaining a positive desire to reach your final is really important. that if if you lose that when when faced with an obstacle, an unforeseen obstacle, which in every anything you try to accomplish in life, you are going to run into an unforeseen situation that you were not planning for. No matter how much planning you did on the front end, but maintaining that yeah, I I I still I still want to get to Antarctica. I still want to lose 20 pounds. I still want to graduate and get my master's degree even, you know, I didn't expect this. I didn't expect to run out of money going to school, right?

[22:23] Whatever whatever that obstacle is will help you get over that obstacle. It it it may be insurmountable. You know, it could be and you might have to quote unquote give up on that that wish for a bit, right? Or deviate from it a bit, change it up a little bit. But you got if you if if you lose that positively, you become a doomer. Okay, check out. I mean, it's you're you're you're a burden on society. As far as I'm concerned, you're not advancing humanity in any way by by, you know, quote unquote giving up entirely. I want to take that, Anthony, and give some real world examples. Right. I Let me start with one that hits really close to home. I have a dilemma that I think Bitcoin is a solution and is one of the most positive things in the world, right? Like it you want to talk about something that gives hope. The people I know that are Bitcoiners, they're having kids like crazy. They're expanding. They're growing businesses.

[23:25] They're doing like they have hope. Yet, we've talked about on this podcast many times, most young people don't have hope. They they say, "I can't afford to have a kid. I can't afford to buy a house. I can't all I can't I can't I can't. Right? Yet that doesn't mean anything to anybody and it doesn't convince or help anybody and it starts like I come across as doomerism a lot because I get into we're 40 trillion in debt and there's this and these people in Washington they get to print money and give it to their friends and buy votes and all of these problems. Well, that is kind of doomerism. However, if people don't understand that that's the real problem and they can't do the math of what means at 40 40 trillion and growing in debt and the interest on it and everything else, right? They don't they're never going to get around to Bitcoin because they're not going to see that there's a need if they don't see that there's a problem.

[24:28] Right? While I see it as the most positive thing in the world, it's hard because I don't know how to promote it without focusing on sort of I consider it the negative or the dumerism like to get people there. Maybe you guys can help me. But how how do you do that? Right? Cuz one is necessary and I look at it as the planning thing, right? I look at it as okay, here's what's happening and thank God we have a solution. Here it is. But nobody's going to take it. They're they're not going to grab the Bitcoin unless they understand that it is a solution to a problem that they don't know they have. What would you tell me? — It's a it's a three-sided, four-sided dilemma, right? The people in power want to stay in power. That in order to stay in power, they have to bring back to their constituents gifts and goodies, right? The the new power plant, the new factory, the new whatever, the new social program, whatever the case might be. the people receiving those things aren't going to want to give up those things. You know, I mean, the the the economic fix is relatively simple, right? You know, our social programs have to be, you know, governored, if you will. They have to stop growing. Our defense spending is literally off the charts. It does and it doesn't need to be in terms of our the percentage of GDP. You know, we've I mentioned Eisenhower. He said, "Beware of the military-industrial complex."

[25:54] That was 50 years ago. We have not learned that lesson. 60 years ago, we have not learned that lesson. So those things are standing in the way of of what you're what you're talking about. — If go ahead doesn't Yeah. With all due respect, I mean those problems are real. I I don't I don't argue with any of those problems, but telling people those are the problem they have to solve is the reason they have no hope. My entire professional career for the last six years in particular has been about finding hope in broken systems. And what I can tell you is that if people focus on what they can control versus what they can't control, they can find ways to start finding wins for themselves to move them toward the wishes and goals and hopes they have that are well grounded with a plan instead of waiting for the system to be right for them to fix themselves. By the way, the system hasn't been fixed in the last 5,000 years. Everybody complains about the system they live in. Even in the golden age of the 80s, 15% inflation, the 90s problems, 2000s problem, like there's always some sort of problem where the system is imperfect. I accept that. I accept that there's been better times and easier times and harder times and and less good times. But the reality is that that a plan for an individual can work with inside of any broken system because at any point in history, you've had people that have learned how to thrive in that broken system. To Ry's point, Bitcoin is one way that people can learn to thrive. In my world, health, inside of a broken health system, you can find ways to learn how to thrive. So, if you focus on the thing that you a ready to change and b can control, there's a way to move your life — it's not. And I have all the research to show. I'm I'm publishing papers about it. I have data about that. We can I can walk you through and tell you that it's not polyiana. You can find small enough wins for people where they have things they can control. It's not polyiana at Like like you tell me the circumstance and I can help someone find the way through it. Now it might not be easy but but people have more agency when they give up their agency to a larger system. That's a choice too. But when you take something like Bitcoin, most people don't even know this is a problem. If you go out on the street and ask people how much are we in debt and just last week we hit 40 trillion in debt, right? They don't know that. And if they do, they've never really stopped to think what does 40 trillion mean?

[28:15] Like the enormity of that number breaks their brain. It breaks my brain, right? And I've thought about it and I'm good at math. It's like people aren't going to work or even know that they have to solve a problem unless you can convince them there is a problem or they understand it or at least have a basic — That's where people fix problems that are hurting them. Right? When you have people in the world and there's lots of people who are trying to inflict pain so that people change behavior versus discovering pain and helping people get to their desired outcome. Like this is a part of the problem, right? We're in a world where lots of people are trying to kind of inflict pain so that you want to change versus discovering what's important to people and where those where those motivators are. I did a whole TED talk on this like you find what someone wants to change. you you get an expert plan so you have a grounded sober plan not just a polyiana plan and then you help people work together to those ends in very small steps and things can get done but I don't think we're going to fix 40 trillion in debt to to Anony's point a smaller port is we got to fix spending and then you've got to fix it in smaller chunks and you just have to keep breaking down you know these seemingly intractable problems into smaller smaller smaller problems until the problem becomes tractable or solvable versus insolvable or intractable. And so that's how how you address these things.

[29:38] But when it when you just throw your hands in the air, that's a position. It's not a position that I happen to agree with, but it's not polyiana either. You just have to keep unwinding the b the ball of twine one knot at a time. And that means you have to work really hard to find the end first. And it can be really hard to find the end of that ball of twine. And for some people in the world, it is a way messier ball of twine than for others. Well, for for most people for for most people, — yeah, for most of the population of the world, they are unable to participate in this the solution to the problem. They aren't they're unable to, you know, to to save money and buy Bitcoin because they don't have the money to do that. They don't have the political control to elect people that are going to be fiscally responsible and make the hard decisions. And and my my fear is Ry's right that eventually there's going to be an economic collapse worldwide in in many ways because we're not the only ones who are overspending. Japan is out of control. Europe's out of control.

[30:48] England's out of control. It goes on and on and on and on with the the burden of debt on all of these these countries. It there will be an economic collapse and the only people that will benefit from that are people in the top 50% or more who own some Bitcoin. — No, top 10% or more. But but I think but — might be what whatever the number is. — I think I think and look I think I think the problem is this isn't one problem for all of mankind, right? Like there's there's the problems for you know my children which are different than the problems for people that don't have any money different than the problems who do have money but choose to spend more than they earn. Like there's a series of issues. Back to my ball of swine, right? It's not a problem, right? It's a whole bunch of separate problems caused by like this $40 trillion thing doesn't cause a problem. It causes a cascade of problems. And that problem shows up differently for different people. that problem is what it is for me. That's very different than what it is for, you know, people who don't have my my means.

[31:51] I think that's the first part of it is like you've got to you've got to enter into the problem where that one person is and handle it from their perspective, but it's not a single problem and and handling it systemically is the long-term answer, but it's not the right answer for most individuals today who need to do something about it today. Let's talk about where else this is showing up in the world. Let's start with AI. What would you guys say as an example of somebody that that So, the Frontier Labs, what do we hear from Daario and Sam and and a lot of those people, right? Positive or negative? — Well, Daario is a is the is the America's greatest doomer, you know, in terms of, you know, he said a year or so ago that 50% of all jobs are going to entry- level jobs are going to be — in a year. — In a year. Yeah. And he he you know he released a a version of I think it was Mythos. Yeah, it was Mythos that they had to pull back because you know it had vulnerability cap it had the ability to hack just about any system on the planet. You know I no one knows if that's actually true or not but nonetheless he's a doomer. Yeah he he's a doo he's scaring people and now you know we can get into details about why but that's that's not important for this discussion. I just don't know if that's pessimism or marketing, Anthony, and trying to generate.

[33:11] — That's why I didn't want to get into — get into a mode. So, I think that's probably not like that. That's why off topic for like optimism versus pessimism because now you're talking about moving consumer sentiment, which is a different — But there's a but I agree that I think that it is maybe even beyond marketing. He's trying he's shooting for regulatory capture. But let's talk about that negative message. There's a reason more people would rather have a nuclear power plant by their house than a data center. And there's something like I don't know 70 80 85% of people are against data centers. They're against power. I mean it's insane the like all of the push back and all of the FUD about the water usage, right? People don't understand — FUD would be fear, uncertainty, doubt since Randy loves acronyms. — There you go. You got me. That that's well played. All of that is out. I didn't even know what it meant, by the way. It's good now. I know what the acronym means. But all of that dumerism is making their job harder. People don't want the data centers. They don't want the power plants. They're like it it's creating a society that's scared that they're going to take their jobs instead of creating allies. And if we look at Elon on the other side, he talks about this abundant future and everybody's going to have their own personal robots and the robots are going to make things and they're going to provide things and we're going to have unlimited energy, blah blah blah. I mean it's a completely different approach right I would consider I would consider Alain to be really really optimist optimistic and I would Daario in particular I would consider to be really pessimistic — I think one one group is trying to get regulatory modes built for them and one group doesn't worry about regulatory modes because they have more of a free market bias which is again we're away from optimism and pessimism right so optimism pessimism is like if I'm inside of a broken system and I'm generally optimistic I believe that I can go find a path forward even in the darkest of times. There's a path forward. By the way, the vast majority of wealth is created in downturns in an economy. Like that's just that's a part of our economic cycle. If you look at technology, when these things have wiped out job categories, other job categories have opened up. And there are people who've not chosen to retool or not been able to retool their their careers. But but the reality is the society grows through it and the individuals can get left behind or they can choose to kind of move through it. I just I I want to make sure like if this is tales of abundance like there is opportunity at every downturn. There is opportunity for defensive pessimists. There is opportunity for planning optimists. But pessimists who don't plan doesn't work out very well. Optimists who don't plan it doesn't work out very well. And so if you want abundance the real lesson here is what can you control? What are the obstacles you personally face? What are the plans you personally make? And what can you do about it today? And if you can't do anything about the system today, then start to do things today so that if you want to impact the system, you can start to impact the system down the line. Like there there's ways to grow into that for sure, right? So there want to take care of their individual selves, their families, their communities, the system more broadly, and those things can all be stairstepped into. But the whole throw your hands up and we're all like, "Fuck it. the system's broke. Like I just I don't think that's a responsible message, especially for a group that's, you know, purported to give tales of abundance.

[36:29] — Yeah. There's there's a world out there, a a world of people that are using optimism as a tool for good, you know, and and Randy mentioned, and there there are other there are others that are doing some some really good things. You know, the I mentioned Jim Farley from Ford. He's he's revolutionizing that that company by, you know, literally being optimistic about the future and the things that he's trying to do inside that that company to to make it a better company. But I, you know, I know this is about abundance, but I, it just has to be said. the the people that are pessimistic about data centers and you know the the the AI guys taking running up electric bills, they're actually victims in a way because they're being manipulated by the pessimists who are using the you know information or the fear of these things as a political means. you know, whipping people into a frenzy over data centers and Medicare for all and and whatever whatever other thing that they want to do on on both sides of the aisle is politically expedient for them to retain power or to gain even more power.

[37:50] — Well, there's that. There's there's international players that that we could say maybe are a part of that that's way more nefarious than what you're talking about. There's the oversimplification so I can keep power as a politician story line. There's the I don't understand it so I'm going to spew what I'm hearing somewhere else. There's so many story lines and to all those story lines, Anthony, to all of them, what I would say is this. Everybody in in in America at least, we get a lot more choices than most people. It's like what do you control versus what don't you control? I recognize other cultures don't have as much of that available to them and and that's not I mean we can certainly get into that in a separate episode. But you know this is where I think the through line for me on this episode that I didn't realized when we did the prep for this episode was that planning is the real thing. Like having a sober view of where you are and where you want to go and how to have a plan and then you know from a cognitive behavioral perspective once you know what you want to do and you start paying attention for other people that have that belief systems. It's like when you buy a purple car, the next day you recognize how many purple cars are on the road, but you don't recognize it the day before. Like that's a thing. If you want success, look at the people who are navigating it successfully. And if if the criteria is I want to have success with a certain level of ethic, a certain set of set of morality, those people also exist. You can mirror all of the criteria you're looking for if you're willing to look for it versus being a naysayer. That's I think that's — I also one of the things that we haven't talked about is pretty much everybody would rather be around positive people than than negative people, right? Like you know being around negative people it's draining on your energy level. Some of this is the five that you surround yourself with.

[39:28] just being a better member of society and spreading abundance. If you're just out with a smile and a positive attitude, I feel like you're adding more abundance to the world simply by doing that. You don't have to be Elon Musk trying to go to Mars or trying to solve the newest AI math problems. If you just go out and are generally a happy person that other people want to be around, who knows what impact you can have, you know, second and third level just, you know, spreading it. — That's a great that's a great message. You know, in the spirit of abundance sometimes, you know, we get overwhelmed with, you know, the again the dumerism. But to John's point, if you if you uh to your point, if you remain upbeat and and confident and then you put together a plan and it and then expect to have setbacks, but not let them turn you off, you can make a better life for yourself. You can take that one step forward. Uh you're not going to go from, you know, a college college graduate with a $50,000 job to Elon Musk in any, you know, 20 minute interval. It's going to it's a it's a journey. It t it could take years. It could take decades. It may may never get there. But being positive is such a a a great influence on society in so many ways and on your on yourself from a health perspective, from a relationship perspective. It just it all it all fits together. There's there's just no downside to having an optimistic view.

[41:06] Again, not Pauliana. An optimistic view with a plan. There's just no downside to — All right, that's as positive as we get Anthony. We are locking that in. We're going to go to break on that. Download, subscribe, follow us. If you don't follow us on YouTube, go on there, subscribe, follow us again on social media, Facebook, Instagram, whatever. We will talk to you after the break for the abundance briefing. — Awesome. Here at Tales of Abundance, we know that fitness is just as important as money or milestones. It's one of our five Fs. For me, taking care of my body while I build my life is one of the more time-consuming and difficult goals to chase. Along with a good night's sleep and exercise, you need the right balance of nutrients for good health. That's why we're partnering with AG1. It's a daily drinkable habit. Takes less than a minute. It's formulated with all the vitamins and minerals you need, including probiotics. designed to support energy, digestion, and immune defense. And if you want to try it with our affiliate link, you'll receive a free AG1 sampler plus vitamins D and K2 with your welcome kit. That's when you first subscribe. That's a $72 value. So, do it now. Go to take care of a lot of your needs first thing in the morning. Well, gentlemen, we're going to start out with the abundance briefing. A little bit of a abundance blocker that will have a solution, but $40 trillion in debt. The US just passed last week. When you hear 40 trillion, what does that does that even register with you? What do what do you what do you even think when you hear a number that big?

[42:41] Well, I you know, I've been around a while and I remember in the 70s a billboard going up on Route One in outside of Boston where they were tracking the federal debt and I remember when it went over $10 billion in the 70s. People were worried about it then. We obviously haven't taken any action to slow it down because I don't know what the multiple is of that. But here we are at 40 trillion. It's been a problem for a long long time and here we are. — But John, 40 trillion like like does that number even like you know we hear one, we hear 10, we hear 100. It means something. Does 40 trillion even mean — Yeah. I mean if you I think it's all about understanding like the the relationship, right? Because how much tax revenue do we bring in in a year? about five trillion. — I thought it was closer to seven, but yeah, what it's less than 10, right? And — we spend we spend it it's five five trillion and we our budget is about 7 7 1/2 trillion about 2 trillion more, but then we spend another half a trillion to a trillion offbudget where they'd throw us in jail if we did our accounting like that, but the US government doesn't count that in the budget.

[43:57] — Yeah. That's like if if you just relate that to like, you know, if if someone made, you know, $50,000 a year, right? And they had $400,000 in debt, like that's pretty problematic, right? Because you have a hard time paying paying interest on that. That means $10,000 in interest payments, right? It's a pretty big number. You — it's it's not just making 50,000. is making 50,000 and spending more like 70 or 75,000 while you have 400,000 — and and having repeating bills of 60,000, right? So you have $60,000 in repeatable bills, you have $10,000 in debt service, you know, or whatever the number there's, you know, and and this is where I think, you know, the Buffett amendment was a really interesting thought experiment that, you know, was never really proposed, but Warren Buffett talked about like if you couldn't balance the budget as a house or senator, you know, a member of Congress, you wouldn't be eligible for reelection. And and there was a number of other things he talked about as well, like, you know, the the House and the Senate had to have the same health care as Medicaid and or whatever it was. And I I just I just think that, you know, the the question is, are we going to hold our our leaders accountable? And so and and this is where I can't remember who said it, but there's a famous, you know, writer that wrote about like things cease to become democratic in any way when the majority understands they can vote the the money out of somebody else's hands. Effectively, that's what's — Yeah. It's the interest payments you're talking about, by the way, they have they have now crossed $1.4 trillion a year. 1.4 trillion. And to I was asking how big a trillion is. One of my favorite things with this, a million okay, is about 11 1/2 days, basically a week and a half for a million seconds. A billion seconds to think how much it is is 31.7 years. We go from 11 days to 31 years. A trillion seconds.

[46:03] 30 almost 32,000 years for a trillion seconds. That's how big a trillion is. And what's worse is we're we're paying that debt and people in Washington can just actively print that. Well, Secret Treasury Secretary Besson came out last week and has also started saying we're doing bond buybacks. Well, everybody thinks of QE and printing money, and this isn't exactly QE because QE comes when the Fed is buying the mortgages or buying the bonds or buying whatever. This is the Treasury Secretary. But in either case, it's the US government. And what that tells you is there is not enough demand for our debt. And when this happened last week, despite Besson came out and said, "We're going to start buying supply and demand." The thought was the interest r going to go down. And that's not what happened. The market is coming back and the market is saying, "We don't want your debt." Not everybody. It's not like nobody wants it. But in order to sell the US government or get give the US government money, people want a higher interest rate despite our own government taking away some of the supply. like that doesn't end well. And interest rates again, if we're at 1.4 trillion, the debt's growing. I mean, it's it's going up every hundred days basically.

[47:33] Right now, we're adding a trillion and it's been happening getting worse and worse regardless if there's a Democrat or Republican. And the interest rate is only going to go up. Boy, there's a people should do a lot of research on Japan. Like what's happening in Japan right now and their debt is out of control and we are just letting them because Japan is the biggest holder of US securities and we don't want them to dump that back on the market. We are basically printing money and giving it to Japan so they don't have to sell dollars. I mean there's — that's a whole topic onto its own. — The the abundance angle here is like what do you do in this set of circumstances if you're concerned about this? And I think people who are paying attention to it rationally are concerned. The question becomes what do you do about it? Like what's the trade? What's the thing? What's the professional movement that you make? And that's the that's a good it's a fair question for people. — You you buy you buy assets, right? You buy things that last. For me, that's Bitcoin. I think gold works. I think even buying oil, buying companies are a version of buying assets. — Yeah. Real estate. There's all kinds — Let's step back. Let's step back from the doomerism here for a second and and think about what Elon said, okay? Go to go down that path. You know, everyone has their their view of the future. You you know, if you're DSA, you have a view. If you're a MAGA, you have a view.

[48:49] If you're in between, you have a view. If you take Bessant and Elon's view, they believe you can grow your economy out of this situation, right? You can through productivity gains you can create a bigger economy. The bigger economy will exceed the ex will generate revenue that exceeds the expense and that's the way out of this. And frankly, I hope they're right because whether whether you have 50 or 200 rational people in Washington who believe we've got to do something that that amount won't overpower the people who are going to want to continue to spend. Any that's not really what Elon said. Elon, if you remember during the last election, he was all about Doge. He was all about cutting. He was all about controlling spending. He was going to cut a trillion here and a few hundred billion here. And then he went to Washington and found out that was much harder than catching a rocket with a pair of chopsticks and gave up on it. But he only went to we can grow our way out when that his real solution was to cut spending and cut the debt and get rid of the debt. He saw this as a real problem. When he realized that was going to be impossible in the current political system, he then pivoted to, well, the only other solution is to grow our way out.

[50:17] — Got an economist on. Let's turn this into an episode and let's keep going. — Anyway, buy real things that they can't print. And I would just spend time educating yourself. By the way, real estate is great. And John, you've talked about international real estate, but historically when a money collapses in a society, and you know, Berlin and you know, before Nazi Germany is a great example, real estate does not always do very well and doesn't tend to stay doesn't keep up with gold historically is a much better place. And I just think Bitcoin is a much better version of gold. But real estate is better than a piece of paper that they can print out of nowhere. Let's move on. And we'll have chances to re to re-energize this at 41 trillion and 42 trillion and 43 trillion, but I would start doing something now to to protect me and my — And let's get a whole episode in that thing, too. I mean, this is a great — John, let's talk about balance and exercise versus the bench press. What's more important, balance or the bench — Yeah. I mean, when you're talking about balance, you're not talking about life balance, you're talking about physical balance here. And so, aging, the things you need for aging are strength, balance, and mobility. And the reason they talk about balance being so important, more people die as a result of complications from falling in older age than we talk about. Like it's just not a topic that's talked about kind of widely in society, but it certainly is talked about between doctors and aging populations. Like Richard Simmons, the fitness guru of the 70s and 80s, he died as a complication to a fall, right? And so balance, mobility, which mobility leads to better balance, and then strength, which leads to a whole lot of good things as you age. Those are things that matter a ton. As people start to think about age, like with my trainer, even in my early 50s, like we we work on primarily those three things, balance, mobility, and uh strength. My my trainer has me doing gymnastic uh not routines in the way you do like in the Olympics, but like I do handstands for balance. He has me doing forward somersaults occasionally. I do balance exercise on, you know, one foot on a bench and like all types of these types of things to actively work on improving balance. And I'm, you know, fairly athletic as it is, but it's a really important set of exercises. I think balance, mobility, and strength. If you're thinking about aging and you want to have longevity, those are three really important criteria for exercise.

[52:45] — Anthony, are you on handstands? — No, no handstands, but we can't have this discussion without talking about the strength of your cardiovascular system and your V2 max and your the ability for you to absorb oxygen. It's really it's it — this is an and discussion. You know, the all these things work together. The one that bothers me the most is the ability to to get off the floor. — There's a there's an exercise where you stand up, cross your ankles over each other, try to sit down on the floor, and then try to get up — without using your hands. — Without using your hands. Everybody should go try that and then start working on getting better at it. I'm in pretty good shape. I'm a pretty strong guy. I cannot do that. And it just it I I'm working on it. You know, I'm doing some other things that are a bit embarrassing like going to Pilates classes and things like that to try to work on all this stuff. But yeah, all of these things are really, really important. Walking speed. I read a study the other day that there's a correlation between heart disease and the speed at which you walk. And it doesn't mean you have to be a race walker, but I guess if you're a lumberer, you know, someone who just kind of goes at one or two miles an hour versus someone who walks at three, four, two and a half to three and a half to four miles per hour. There's a big difference in all cause mortality between those two groups of people. And again, I don't know how big the study was. I don't know if it was a randomly controlled study. Just again, we we run into a lot of words as we as we chase longevity. And you know, I read that the other day as well. I I will say this though, like like the baseline for our patients in our medical practice is 150 movements of just regular old lumbar walking without stopping, you know, for 10 minutes. So it's like if it's 10 minutes three times a day or 30 minutes all at once. Don't have to break a sweat. Don't have to breathe hard. Just get moving 150 minutes a week. Better if it's after eating than before than before. But but like even just a little bit makes a huge difference. Yeah. I I I was on vacation with a guy who was in his, you know, mid-7s and I was watching him get on the floor and get off the floor like he was a 30-year-old father and like it was amazing to watch and it was like new life goals. Like I was just totally inspired. So I was I was hiking in Europe several years ago and I watched people who were probably 80 85 years old that could have run circles around me. It's it's all possible.

[55:16] — All right. My my takeaway from this is be like a ninja. Get get be be like a ninja and start jumping on buildings and doing doing your ninja workout. — The ne Yeah, the next the next one is right up your alley as well. Study 200,000 people in 22 countries confirmed your friends are your best medicine. And I know this one hits home to you. Talk us through this. — I mean the three of us have been talking about this for more than 10 or 15 years, right? like lonesomeness or or or loneliness is you know is an epidemic according to the surgeon general and where you know in 40 50 years ago men in particular purportedly had a dozen people they could talk to about any level of intimate subject where it was bothering them. Today that number is less than two according to kind of more recent data that I still am looking for like the scientific studies. These are more anecdotal heruristic things, but if you talk to people around, it's it all bears out. Like people are talking to less people. They're they're not talking about the layers of intimacy. And when I say intimacy, there's like the how's the weather stuff that's followed by like getting into like how you think about things. Then you get into like the opinions about things. But there's, you know, how's the weather, there's the facts, there's the opinions, then you get into like feelings and then hopes and dreams. Then you get into like fears. Like we don't talk about that stuff as much as we could or should. And we don't have the skill sets to listen like we used to. And we don't have the the patience to wait six hours to process information and then come back to the topic once the information is processed and we're not dealing with it in the height of the emotional energy.

[56:53] And I think these things impact our health and and well-being mentally and physically both. — Yeah. in my life journey. I I I what I see has happened is it doesn't appear that there's as many community gathering places growing up on the east coast anyway there were the elks the sons of Italy the veterans admin you know the veterans used to get together veterans of farm work — BFWs there was I think a higher proportion of people worshiped than do today and where wherever they are there were these There were much more communal gatherings which you know from inside that there might be 300 people in the church but you probably had 3 to 10 acquaintances of a sort and the same thing at at these gathering clubs and they don't seem you know the Masons are still out there. There's a VFW hall down the street from me. I don't know that it's in practice the same thing. They seem to rent the hall out more than they gather there. And that's part of this that and I don't know if this is true in all countries and so forth just it's true in my experience you know survey of one but I mean I remember my uncles and my friends my father's friends they all they seem to always be doing something together and I don't know if it's our society that has taken us into these holes I mean sports are still there where dads and moms take their kids on you know to soccer and so forth. But people move people move around more.

[58:30] Jobs move you around. People change jobs more often. People change jobs and move cities more often. It's easier to move from state to state, city to city, country, you know, county to county. So, it's a much easier it's much easier to pick up stakes and go, right? Where that used to be limited, I think, you know, 60, 70 years ago, that was common amongst military families, but maybe not amongst a lot of other people. And if you did move once, you stayed in a career for decades. That's a lot different today. I think I think a lot of the societal fabric is different than it used to be. Also, — yeah. I don't know. That's that boy, that's a good we we could we should research do some research on that. I mean, why would people want to leave a community that they're really tied to? I know I did. I mean, I I I personally ran away from family and friends because I I didn't like I didn't like where I was. But you know what what was the was it the ease of moving the the the fact that you know opportunity presented itself in another I I have friends that haven't moved a mile from where they grew up.

[59:39] You know a lot of well most of them are dying now but they they didn't they never left and I'm sure Randy in your town where you grew up there's there are people that never left Southern California a lot of reason not to leave John where you grew up. I don't know that's a good one. We I I I'd like to prove that people move more more more easily or — more than they get used to. Interesting — A question worth answering and we might come back to that in a future episode. We got we got two more quick ones to get through here. The first one, we have trillions of tons of clean fuel that's buried underground. Uh from the MIT Technology Review here just a couple days ago, you they found that the US Geological Survey estimates trillions of tons of hydrogen exist underground. again, another clean energy. We we've talked about solar and nuclear and all these different things and different batteries. I just I think it's exciting that there is more and more and more just we're finding other alternative energy and I'm a yes and guy, right? Like we should we should be pursuing all of them to create abundance in the And then the last one, actually doing research for this, I watched this movie.

[1:00:51] The Cully Hillboys is the fir is the first ever AI made feature filmed with licensed celebrity faces. And it had the only person I knew was Rampage Jackson, who was an a UFC guy, but evidently there was another UFC person and a couple of influencers that they put in this movie, but they weren't actors. They just took them took their presence and built the movie. And I got to tell you, the movie's not that bad. It's a I just thought it would suck and it doesn't. It's sort of a Guy Richie type movie. It's they're English mobsters like they're these rappers and they kind of It's a It's a crime thing, but it's absolutely watchable. And my intention was really just to watch the first five or 10 minutes and I started while I was working on something, but I just kept it on in the background and kept watching If that's where we are right now. By the way, here's the part that's really interesting. $2 million. They used a million dollar of AI compute and spent another million dollars on licensing and other things. They made a 2-hour movie for 2 million bucks like that. And it's the worst it's ever going to be. And it's watchable right now. Have you guys seen any of these or looked at any of these fulllength things? But I did talk Go ahead, John.

[1:02:10] — I I did talk to a guy who's a, you know, kind of known known personality in California who makes makes films and, you know, they were talking about all the different work they could do with AI to like have all the different production workflow going through and how they had a backlog of some huge number of ideas that they just could never get to before AI. And now they're producing, you know, storyboards and all these and it's just it's coming through so fast. And so I I don't know they've had like fully produced films yet necessarily, but what they're seeing is that all the backlog is now actually being handled and moved. And I just I I think look, the way that computers impacted the world, the way the internet impacted the world, like we're just we're seeing it again. And so people are going to make the changes that are not. — Yeah. Let's keep this a little lighter. I don't see a difference between this and the evolution or deevolution of music. You know, m most of the music today that's being produced is synthesized in a in a room with overdubbing and you know electronic instruments as opposed to a steel guitar or electric guitar and drums and piano and so forth. It's really it it's really AI before it was AI. This is this is a natural evolution of what's to come. And because it's so easy and so inexpensive, I think you're going to see a lot more of it. I I think the statistics on Spotify were it's over 50% of the music being uploaded now is AI music. That might I it may actually be much higher than that. This horse is out of the barn, so good luck distinguishing it from from anything else as long as it's Um, and it can hold my attention for 30 120 minutes. You know, I don't really care. I — think what's coming is there's going to be a day where you instead of going on Netflix and searching through that stuff might still be on there, but there will be it will learn your personality, right? And what do you like and you will it will be able to create a show specific for you and you may like a different type of hero than I like. You may have a different type of love interest or a you want more comedy or different type of comedy. And I think that personalized entertainment is coming just like it is with a lot of other things. And I think that's pretty exciting, right? Cuz — I I don't know about that. And the reason I don't know about it is you normally aren't doing watching this stuff on your own. And depending on, you know, the the different personalities, is this going to create a more insular universe where, okay, honey, you go watch your show. I'm going to go well, I'm going to put my headphones on and I'm going to watch and listen to mine. I don't know. I don't know if it's good. I don't know if — it's it's a challenge for the news cycle, right? Like the one danger we got to be careful of and this is not something that needs to be regulated away, but like what happens when news programming becomes your own personal echo chamber and it's all about having you feel good versus getting you really well informed. Like I got I got into a into an intense conversation with my older son this last week. He was home from college and we had this intense conversation and the whole point I was making with him was like, "Hey man, you just need to hear both sides of the argument and it's clear to me you don't understand the other side because of the way that you're arguing. So until you go learn the other side, it just sounds uneducated to me. And so I will respect your opinion more if you actually and he went and did the research was like change and and to his credit, he helped change some of my positions too. And we had a deep conversation on what it means to have strong convictions loosely held.

[1:05:46] And so I just I do worry that with AI that's personalized to people, we run the risk of much more thick echo chambers. So we'll just be careful of that. I just want to watch a show that I like. Right. So, to your point, Anthony, there's things Julie and I that she likes that I don't like and vice versa. But we both really like historical dramas, right? And things that we can it's entertaining, but we also learn a little bit of history at the same time. I would love to have it make historical dramas on the things that, you know, I find interesting, for example, that I could watch it whenever I want. — We never we never controlled content, right? it it got created by Scosesei and whoever. We don't control content now if it's created when it's created by couple of strokes on a keyboard. So what's the — Listeners, thank you for spending this time with us. Until next week, go out and spread a little abundance.