Has the Fourth Turning Arrived? AI, Collapse & What Comes Next

A strange AI intro sets the tone for a conversation about power, myth, and the cracks running through our civilization. We start with Tucker’s claim that some believers try to force God’s hand, and that secular boosters dream of a tech-ruled future. From there we pull the lens wider: the Bretton Woods order is threadbare, NATO expectations are stale, and a managerial class that once kept the peace now leans on slogans no one believes. Whether you see him as a disruptor or a danger, Trump becomes a prism for realism—treating Europe’s security habits, Ukraine’s symbolism, and great-power hedging as signs the old narrative no longer binds.

Then we enter the thicket of AI. Not sci-fi hype, but concrete pressures: law firms cutting junior roles, back-office “email jobs” vanishing, and a narrow set of labs racing for an advantage that could snowball. We weigh the fear of a winner-take-all “singleton” against the possibility of AI fragility, closed-loop error, and a financial bubble built on scarce chips and shaky energy. Either way, the labor shock seems real, and the blow will land hardest on Gen Z and Gen Alpha. That lands us in the heart of the meaning crisis: social media frays trust, the dating market corrodes goodwill, and the institutions that once turned information into wisdom—churches, schools, civic bodies—feel absent when we need them most.

We don’t retreat into mysticism or denial. Instead, we argue for recovering thick stories and practices that hold under stress: moral limits, local bonds, real sacrifice, and the courage to say no when power dresses up as destiny. We also warn about importing religious wars we barely understand; others see sacred stakes even when we insist it’s just policy. If this is the end of a world, not the world, then our task is to stand upright in truth, steward what’s still good, and build the scaffolding for what comes next.

If this resonates, follow the show, share it with a friend, and leave a review—your support helps more curious listeners find these conversations.

Transcript

Cold Open And AI Intro Banter

SPEAKER_01 1:33

Wow, these two ladies are absolutely amazing.

SPEAKER_04 1:45

I started I started laughing in the green room thinking at first it was uh I thought it was like Katie Prashan McGrady and and Christine Harrington, and then I'm like, wait, that's me and Rob? What is he doing?

SPEAKER_03 2:01

I've had to watch it a few times because at one point he instead of that little crossbow, he had a gun, and I'd be like, no, no, no, that will get us kicked. Like I had to watch it like four times, and it got more and more uncomfortable each time.

SPEAKER_04 2:14

My wife hates the AI intros, she hates them, she hates the thumbnails, she hates it all.

SPEAKER_02 2:22

She might like this one though. That's so good. And the front tag. I mean, honestly, that's like I mean, I don't even know what to say to that.

Tucker Clip: Faith And End Times

SPEAKER_04 2:31

That was the most that was the weirdest three minutes I've ever sat through. Um, all right, so Kale Zeldon. Um, it's uh I don't even I'm like so screened from that. I don't even know where to go with it because you I sometimes I'll screen them ahead of time, and Rob's like, oh, you're in for a treat tonight, you're gonna hate this. I'm like, oh boy, what are we watching? So all right, um I uh I've I've been speaking with Kale a lot behind the scenes. Um, and we've been talking about a bunch of different topics, and I figured I was like, you know what, let's just get on and let's just talk. Um, I wanted to start off the the episode with a Tucker clip because this Tucker clip, Rob, it sounds like a conversation we had on our show. And like it's it's it's really interesting where Tucker goes with it. So it's it's a pretty it's like a two-minute and 20 segment, 20 second clip. Pause it in between and like break down each individual thing, but I think it's a good jumping off point for the discussion that I want to have that we we should have tonight.

SPEAKER_03 3:38

Okay, here we go.

SPEAKER_00 3:41

Earn the status quo to usher in a new age. That's the point of this war. This is a pivot in history, and a lot of the people supporting it know that. Now they're really in two groups. One are people motivated by religious impulse that would include some Israelis, some religious Jews, not all, but some. And that would include some Christians, Christian Zionists. And both groups believe that they're helping to accelerate the end of history, uh Armageddon, the end of time, the return of the Messiah, whatever, you know, however you want to describe it. But both groups believe that history is linear, it began in one place and arrives at another with the return of God to earth, and then history ends, and we are redeemed or damned, depending. So that's the that's the basic idea. And both of these groups seem under the impression that they can force God's hand, that they can bring this about through an act of will or violence, which is to say both groups believe on some level that they are God, which they are.

Religious Fervor And Political Mythmaking

SPEAKER_04 4:45

You can pause it there. So that it that that's what's so distorted about like when you get into the Christian Zionist thing, and we had that's that's part one. Don't lose the your spot on that, Rob, because the next part gets into the the tech oligarchs, and then the the final piece is what sounds a lot like things that we've said, but that that piece is like pretty integral to what's going on right now. Like we discussed the other day how even Netanyahu, who's a secular atheist, like Netanyahu's not a religious guy by any means, even he uses that language of the Amalekites, and he's doing it to whip up this religious fervor in the in in Israel because he he knows what he's doing when he does that stuff. And it's the same thing on the Christian end, but this idea that we can force God's hand is the twisted part of that. You want to play the the next part, or I will jump into because oh, did you is your mic on, Kale? Yeah, I'm fine. I'll just do that. Okay, okay. Now play the next part because I know Kale's gonna have a lot to say about this part.

SPEAKER_00 5:51

They're not in charge of history, and you can't force God's hand. He's in charge, you are not. But both groups have lost sight of that, so that's their motive. And then there are secular boosters of the war, promoters of the war, planners of the war. And their vision, while not strictly speaking religious, is not really so different. They would like to usher in rule by technology, whether that's mass surveillance, whether it's transhumanism, the merging of man and machine, but the rule of the earth by technology. And there are a lot of people who want this, and a lot of people who think it's inevitable. And this is the moment where that age of history begins with this war. So, again, this is not a war that is confined to the region. This is not a war between the United States and Israel and Iran. This is not a war designed to prevent a rogue state from getting nukes. It was never that. This is a war designed to usher in a new age of man, a new period in history, a new world. And so wars like that.

Tech Oligarchs And Rule By Technology

SPEAKER_04 7:08

That's all I wanted to get to because we've we've talked on this show about this, and like, yes, Rob and I have disagreed about like what that means, but we've generally when Rob and I started seeing even all the talk about like the accusations of anti-Semitism and stuff, we started seeing that the post-war consensus was wearing off, and the myth that was the the world created by the you know what happens after World War II, that that foundational myth starts to shape, and it's very it it it's um, I'm sorry, I can't get my words out. But Rob and I had had thought about it, and we were like, okay, well, they're going to need a new myth. And along with a new myth, usually comes a giant war because they need some grand narrative to pull out. So if you look at a world ending as in the flood was the end of a world, and Rob said the Tower of Babel was the end of a world, and then you look at the destruction of the temple as the end of a world. What we're coming up on now is the end of a world, not the world, but a world. So this is something Kale's been talking about a lot too, right?

SPEAKER_02 8:17

Yeah, you know, I so I think I have a slightly different Tucker lays out sort of two options for us there, right? He talks about uh, you know, the sort of the religion, religionist, the Zionist sort of portion of things, and then there's a kind of like a transhuman, you know, tech oligarch thrust to this thing. Um, I think there might be a third there, honestly, because neither of those passed my sniff test. Um, you know, I think that in a weird sort of way, I think Orangeman is kind of a realist in a in a strange sort of way. And I don't think he's a Zionist, you know, the way that's either like a Mike Huckabee is a Zionist. And I and I think I think the whole tech thing just honestly, my read on him is that he thinks those tech guys are just kind of weirdos. Like, you know, just like full stop. Like Elon's a weirdo, you know, clearly Amadei and and and and Altman, they're all like weirdos. Like he's not gonna go play golf with these guys. You know, they're they're they're just they're just weirdos, right? So I I think I think he's a realist. I could be wrong here, of course, but I think that I am looking at this with the idea that Trump, that the post-war consensus is in fact done, and it's actually been done for you know a few years. Um I think I think that the the the sort of the Biden experiment was its last gasp. It's almost the perfect distillation of post-war consensus, like boiled into like this flabby, you know, walking dead man uh of a president. And the you know, if you recall, I mean Trump has been banging the drum about NATO since, gosh, his his his first his first um, not even his first term, but his first um when he was running for the first time. And and I I think that the the it's thread, I think the post-war consensus has been threadbare for a really long time. I think it's being propped up um for a really long time. And I think this is just him, again, I'm not saying I agree with what he's doing. I'm just trying to read the the tea leaves like like anybody else. I think he's just much more of a realist, and he's like saying, Europe, you don't matter anymore. Um, you're not, you're not, you you haven't stepped up the plate in you know 75 years, essentially. And we're tired of paying your bills, and we're tired of of all the mess. And I so I just don't I just don't see him being anybody's B-I-T-C-H. Like I just don't, I just don't. And again, and I'm not a he can do no wrong kind of guy. I I I really mean Anthony, you and I have talked a lot offline about this kind of thing. So it's not, I'm not trying to storm in here being some sort of you know Trump Trump stan. Um, but I don't think he's a Zionist, nor do I think he's a tech oligarch. Because look, if Tucker lays it out that, you know, they're trying to push forward some sort of transhuman thing or mass surveillance state, like, hello, we live in a mass surveillance state. Like, that's already here.

SPEAKER_09 11:33

We have for decades.

SPEAKER_02 11:35

Right. For I mean, it's it's really been for a really long time. And um, there's a book coming out at the end of this month by Jacob Siegel called like the The Age of Surveillance or something like that, or the the surveillance state or something. Anyway, I highly recommend it. Really lays out in painstaking detail just how much we made this turn toward data and this turn toward tech, you know, really going back into the late 50s. And we live in that world, this sort of this compl this this net of surveillance tech. And so if Tucker's worried about that, I think his date is a you know, he needs to move that date.

Post‑War Consensus Frays And New Myths

SPEAKER_04 12:15

I don't think he's saying that Trump is on either of these teams, though. Like, I think that these like Rob and I have talked about even how you had uh during Trump's first term when they uh did the Russia hoax to try and you know Russia gate came up. Like you do have these warring divisions within the Intel agencies and within with within the oligarchs and stuff like that. And I do think you're right that Biden's term was like the last gasps of that. But what I actually see happening is almost beyond Trump's control. That yeah, I don't think I don't think he's behind it, but I do think because that narrative wore off, whether whether that's I don't know if you call that the fifth, the fourth turning or something like every 80 years or so, kind of got into it a little bit with EMJ when he was on how you have he called it the the what was it, the third American Republic or something. So it starts at the American Revolution, then it goes to the Civil War, then you get World War II, and now we're at another 80-year period and you need another thing. Um I just think the way technology is advancing, and I think that the desires of of these religious fanatics is pushing things in a direction that I think is beyond even Trump's control.

SPEAKER_02 13:32

Why I'm just curious.

SPEAKER_04 13:37

I I just think that's the way human history plays out. Like I don't, I don't it it is bizarre some of the things that Trump does, because for a guy who isn't one to be told what to do, and in some ways, I don't I don't think Trump's motives are any of those things. I don't think that they have blackmail material on him. Part of me thinks he wants another term in some way, and he thinks this is his ticket to getting it. And like Trump Trump acts like an emperor, like he's not going anywhere. He acts like he's going to live forever, and uh, you know, it's almost like Emperor's age.

SPEAKER_02 14:11

It's possible. I mean, you know, you you know, you mentioned the fourth turning, you know, the whole the Strauss and Howe book, you know. Um, and you know, they would they would say that that's very much like in play. Like what we're what we're playing out right now is that we're we've been in the death rattles of a of a dead consensus, right? And so um, and and it's interesting because as as we Gen Xers are sort of aging up and you millennials are really kind of like settling into the to, you know, neither of us care about the rules the way that the boomers care about the rules. Now that's a little bit ironic because of the sexual revolution and all that, but you know, if if you look at the way that like old conservative Inc. reacted to Trump, right? In part they were reacting to the kind of he's not being decent, like he's not following the rules, you know, he's not doing these kinds of things. Um, and I think I think that most people who are not boomers kind of were like, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 15:16

It was a bit refreshing.

SPEAKER_02 15:17

Because the rules don't work for me, yeah. You know, and so so anyway, I think I think that that that it's very possible, you know, that we could be living in a post-constitutional um era.

SPEAKER_03 15:29

Yeah, I I agree that that I think the way that the world is going to end up going is a third direction besides what Tucker lays out there. And it's you know, when we talk about the post-war consensus, we're really talking about like the the the liberal Bretton Woods style world order that was created after World War II. And Ant, you're right, like uh uh an unnatural constructed world order like that needs a narrative behind it to survive because it is unnatural, right? And that world order is falling apart, the narrative is falling apart. I don't know if we need I I would say the the way we're moving now is the world is moving back to political realism. And I don't know if you need a narrative so much so much for that, but you definitely do need a driving force, you know, nationalism, um, you know, something like that, populism, things of that nature, um, can be the driving force.

Trump, Realism, And NATO Fatigue

SPEAKER_02 16:28

I mean, you you all have talked about, you know, um Fuentes before. I mean, I think one of his superpowers is he can spin a narrative like few people you and I have seen. Uh, he's really good at spinning this kind of narrative of discontent, um, which you know resonates in part. Number one, he's just talented, uh, even if I don't care for him, he's talented. Um, but number two, um, you know, he's pulling together a bunch of threads that signal that the myth of the post-war consensus is over. Um, I was talking to you guys earlier. I wonder if you could get this in. It's a book by R.R. Reno. He's actually the editor of First Things, and it's called Return of the Strong Gods. And he says this. He says, Um, if you don't mind if you'll if you'll watch it. Um he says, um uh and this is so this is all these people who are saying, like, oh, we're we're gonna we're marching into the next Hitler or the next Stalin. And he says, this is absurd. It is not 1939. Our societies are not gathering themselves into masses marching in lockstep. Central planners do not clog our economies. There is no longer an overbearing bourgeois culture bent on exclusion. Bull Connor isn't commissioner of public safety in Birmingham. Instead, our societies are dissolving, economic globalization shreds the social contract, identity pollux disintegrates civic bonds. A uniquely Western, anti-Western multiculturalism deprives people of their cultural inheritance. Mass migration reshapes the social landscape, courtship, marriage, and family no longer form our moral imaginations. Borders are poor us, even the ones that separate men from women. Tens of thousands die of heroin overdoses, hundreds of thousands are aborted. You know, and that that to me, that is the fall of the mythology that all of us were born into. And somebody like Puentes is really sharp because he recognizes all of those things that the myth tells us is not possible. Right? The social myth, you know, the social imaginary tells us that none of those things are possible. We can be open and we can be free, right? And you know, the the the left wing loves sort of openness um and and and and you know loose bonds, and you know, the the so-called conservatives like freedom, freedom, you know, economic freedom, and all these kinds of things. But the problem is the thing in the middle got burrowed out, and I think that's where we are. And and in a weird sort of way, again, I don't think Trump is clearly not an intellectual, right? But I think he gets that something's done and dead and gone. Yeah, I don't know. I just think he's all right, push back.

SPEAKER_04 19:17

I just think he's a narcissistic idiot.

SPEAKER_03 19:19

It's interesting because well, yeah, but a lot of I I don't disagree. Caesar, you could describe as that. Uh Robespierre, you could describe as that. All these characters that end up tearing down systems tend tend to be exactly that.

SPEAKER_04 19:33

Yeah, they're not no. I think that I think he's here to destroy the system for sure, like whatever that system is. But yeah, I I I'm even thinking about the the homily the my my priest told this uh this past Sunday, where he was uh talking about the woman at the well. He he he says both forms this priest, and he was like, I gotta kind of talk about my novus ordo homily a little bit because but he was talking about how uh the woman at the well and how like the story of the Samaritans and how the Romans, how they would um how they would disperse peoples throughout the empire to disintegrate their culture, right? Like you wouldn't put large groups of people together, you would put like these small groups of people and disperse them randomly to and it would do that to the to destroy their culture so that they wouldn't have a cultural identity anymore and there wouldn't be any revolutions, things like that. And I feel like that's what this whole um experiment of open borders and openness by the liberals is really about. It's about destroying our national cohesion and our natural culture so that it's easier to take control of this entity. Like, I I can't separate all the things we're talking about from the Christian story, whereas I feel like when I talk to Rob about this, Rob Rob sees it on a political uh view, which is not wrong or anything, right? Right. Like he's looking at it from like a political perspective, and all the things he says make total sense to me. And then, but when I put it into the grand narrative of the Christian story, I'm like, yeah, this doesn't end well. Well, this doesn't end well a breaking up of things.

SPEAKER_03 21:10

Like, I feel like right now we're because because like someone could have said that about the fall of Rome, you know, in the fifth century, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 21:19

But it that that was Augustine Augustine is writing exactly in that time frame, right? Yeah, the world's blowing up. He you know, he certainly felt the world was ending.

SPEAKER_04 21:30

But didn't the church see itself as the new Rome in that like Peter and Paul with the new Romulus and Remus, and they were planting a new thing. Like I I I mean, that's how we see it in hindsight at least.

SPEAKER_03 21:44

That I mean, yeah, that's how that's that's why you get something like the Holy Roman Empire, right? But yeah, right, right. But they there was definitely a sense of at least a type of apocalypse going on, you know, a type of army going on.

SPEAKER_04 22:00

Yeah, because like the the the the the collapse of the roman empire and the falling apart of the Roman Empire is kind of like the end of the way the church originally so like when the church originally starts converting the Roman Empire and then and then and then you have Constantine converts, like the church sees the Roman Empire as Christendom, and the church thinks that there's gotta be one empire, and that's the idea of Christendom, that the Roman Empire just becomes Christian and that there's that's Christendom, and it winds up breaking up differently after the fall of the Roman Empire, and it becomes more of a subsidiarity type uh you know.

SPEAKER_02 22:37

I'm not I'm not sure. Honestly, I I I would defer to uh someone who's a better historian than me, but I I I don't think they think of Christendom really like that until much later. Could be wrong. I always think of Christendom as being largely a uh a medieval concept, but I don't think so.

SPEAKER_04 22:56

I think they like when they were reading the Danielic prophecies about about the the final the fourth kingdom crumbling and God making one that covers the earth, like I think the early Christians really saw Christendom as the Roman Empire converting, and then that but maybe I'm wrong, you know. I'm I'm not I'm not an expert in this either, but but either way, like we're going to like world's ending and stuff like that. So for me, when I see this whole thing playing out now, like I feel like we're marching towards the battle of Armageddon, and it feels like Trump is some kind of a forerunner laying the stage for something to come. That's what it feels like.

Surveillance State And The Old Order

SPEAKER_02 23:35

All right, like again, you don't have to like this guy, you know, but but it's undoubtedly the case that he is a big president, yeah, right? You know, he is not a manager, you know, he is deeply consequential, and whether he has a sense of that or not, like who knows, right? Um, but he is he's I don't know, he just strikes me as so consequential because you know think about how small his predecessors look in relation to him. Yeah, I mean, you know, and it's not that they were powerful, but they very much saw themselves as work working in, you know, the that system.

SPEAKER_04 24:22

But um Trump seems to be taking the system himself. This is what I mean by like I see Trump as like a Roman Emperor type figure, like you're coming to the end of the republic and you're going to have something different. Like like the republic's been over for a long time, but what's coming next seems like I I see Trump as maneuvering to stay in power.

SPEAKER_02 24:47

I mean, I I don't I don't know if I'm crazy for thinking that it's just a just like a feeling I get, but when I see him building a triumph arch in Washington, I mean, I mean you you and all my uh resistance friends would be uh in you know 100% agreement, Ant.

SPEAKER_04 25:01

But it's so weird that I'm thinking like this because I was a I was a MAGA guy. Like I really I really did buy the Kool-Aid.

SPEAKER_02 25:09

And I wasn't, and I wasn't, and now I'm kind of like, yeah, he's kind of interesting.

SPEAKER_04 25:14

I don't know. It I I bought the Kool-Aid, I was on board with the Trump train, and then I it was just the way I watched the first few months of his presidency play out that I was like, what whatever's happening, he's not attempting to fix anything. There's no attempt to fix the financial situation. I actually really wanted Trump to win. Fix it how fix it how yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_02 25:35

We in terms of in terms of bringing us back to normal, you're right, he's not doing that, right? And so this is what I mean that that he's not acting in the system because he it's almost like he has a kind of again, I can be wrong, but like a gut instinct that the system itself is totally sclerotic. So why try to fix you know it's like trying to fix an engine that you blew a head gasket?

SPEAKER_04 25:58

So, in other words, something new must come, so there has to be a death for their direction.

SPEAKER_03 26:02

The only, yeah, the only way out is through, basically.

SPEAKER_04 26:06

Um, well, the the the reason I really wanted Trump to win, especially during when he was running, was that he was promising to end the Ukraine war. And all I kept thinking was I have a 20-year-old son, and I don't want my 20-year-old son getting drafted into some crazy thing over there, and all he's done is amplify things, and everything I've seen since that moment where it clicked for me, where I where I saw how he was behaving, and I said, I I just think the world will be at war by the end of his presidency, right? And I think that is his ticket to staying in power.

SPEAKER_02 26:38

But see, I don't think I don't think Ukraine was ever I I totally agree with you. I've got a teenage son too, right? So just want to get that out there. I never felt, however, that Ukraine was was real, right? Uh it's real, it's a war, people are dying, it's awful. I have Ukrainian friends. Okay, full stop. Okay, so um, but but you know, Ukraine is such a symbolically important country for the old regime, right? Both symbolically important and for the old world order, yeah. Oh, right, right, right, for the post-war consensus, right? It's vitally important because you know all the eggs were thrown into that basket. And part of the reason why he offends the normies so hard is that he's not he's not, you know, he's not gonna put Don Jr. in barisma. Yeah. Right. And there's a reason there's a reason why Biden was in barisma in Ukraine, right? And it's all kind of caught up with you know all the finances and economics. So no, I I don't, I don't know.

Cycles Of History And Narrative Power

SPEAKER_04 27:45

I I the whole Union says it was uh a deep state plot that they had concocted and they were 20 years deep, and there's no way they're letting go of it. But the upside to Ukraine was we get to see what modern warfare with Russia would look like. So we're expending Ukrainian lives, not American lives, and we get to see what a modern battlefield looks like because we've been in the freaking mountains of Afghanistan for the past 25 years, and we have no idea what a conflict with a major world power would look like versus some you know bunch of gorillas in in the mountains, right? So it's the same thing with this Iran thing where I think a I I mean, I think a lot of people had this impression that it was, you know, like the way people are talking about it is silly to me. I'm I'm listening to the libertarians go about talking about it like it's like this is Iraq all over again. It's like we're in such a different world now, man. Like all of the things they're doing in Iran are strategic against China, and what happened with Venezuela was also strategic against China. So part of me is like, yes, let's wall off our hemisphere, let's cut off their their ability to you know have energy and things like that. Because if we do hit a world war, I want our side protected as much as possible. Yeah, of course. So I see it that way. I see it in in terms of that, and I'm I'm really hoping that if war does come and it's a and it's of these big powers that the theater of war is is Europe and not here.

SPEAKER_02 29:13

It'll never be here, it'll never be here, it can't, like just like physically can't be here. Like there'll be terrorist crap, of course. But there's there's not gonna be a war here ever.

SPEAKER_04 29:23

Not not in our lifetimes, not in our gun behind every shade of grass.

SPEAKER_02 29:28

How are they gonna get here?

SPEAKER_04 29:30

Yeah, you have the you have the Colorado Rockies blocking you on one side if they try to come from that side.

SPEAKER_02 29:34

I mean, it really is a disaster to come and and and like I don't know, like huge bodies of water that separate us from you know, you know, is Canada coming? Mexico, like not bloody likely, right? So I just no, I I so you know, so maybe again I'm I'm just riffing here off the top of my head, but if if you if you look at what he did with Venezuela, what he seems to be doing with with Iran, like I think I think this is like I don't know, there's some weird reset going on, and I don't understand it. I'll just be blunt. But I don't think it's I don't think I I guess where I would part is I just don't think this is like some sort of Zionist plot. I just don't, and I know I'm gonna do that.

SPEAKER_04 30:14

I don't think I don't think all right, so the Zionist plot stuff. I I don't Israel is its own thing, like that's a that's a separate thing from what's going on around like I don't think Trump is doing it because he's a Zionist or anything. I think that I think that things are happening regardless. The but the like but the the the the Jews in Israel do have their own their own designs on things, like they just do.

SPEAKER_02 30:45

You and you could I would if I were a Jew, damn great, damn straight, but yeah, because I don't want to make this show about that.

SPEAKER_04 30:55

I know I know I know I don't know. I talked about that ad nauseum. It's just I I'd rather talk about because some of the things you seem to think about AI, I don't agree with either. Okay, um, and that you really seem to think that there I do I okay, so I do think there's going to be a major economic shift in the way things are done coming very soon, right? So, like AI is going to be very capable of taking a very significant portion of the jobs that we see as you know, uh especially women's jobs, right? Like most most women's jobs are basically daycare for women. Those are the first jobs that are gonna go, that that stuff like that, which is going to be an interesting thing to watch happen. Like email jobs, you mean you're just talking about email jobs, things like that, like things secretary work, things like that. All that stuff is gonna be able to be handled by AI, I think. So I don't know what what's going to happen in that aspect when all these women are basically left not having their daycare anymore.

SPEAKER_02 31:52

It'll be generational too, right? Because it's gonna be really good for Gen X folks, it's gonna be really good for the remaining boomers and and older millennials. It's gonna really suck for Gen Z and Gen Alpha because they're gonna hire like a like take a like a uh you know a high-end law firm, maybe not the best of the best, but uh, you know, a good, good, solid law firm in one of the major metropolitan areas, you know, they're just not gonna they're gonna hire half the amount of junior associates, and then they're gonna hire a quarter of the junior associates, and then they're not gonna hire any. That's that's how that's gonna work.

SPEAKER_04 32:27

Yeah, you'll still need the top lawyers at the firm because you actually have to have a a license to practice law. So you'll still have the prosecuting attorneys and things like that, like those will still exist, but it's the junior partners and and and the clerks and things like that that are just gonna be obsolete at that point because you could just do all your research right through right through AI.

SPEAKER_02 32:48

I mean, I mean, Rob, do you in in your in your work, do you see this? Do you see the encroachment coming in your work? There are are definitely ways it could, yeah, for sure. Um, I mean, I think you know, of the three of us, I mean, Ant, you're you're the safest for the longest term.

SPEAKER_04 33:06

I don't see AI ever being able to do my job. That's absurd. Like, I don't even see it in 30, 40 years being able to do what I do. I don't, I mean, it may make my job simpler, there may be better technology to do my job. The my job requires too much intricate thought for like, oh, this went wrong. I have to do, I have to problem solve. You know, it's not something you can just set in an algorithm to go, it's just not possible.

Ukraine, Geopolitics, And Great Power Moves

SPEAKER_02 33:32

Yeah, I I don't know if that's true. Um, but I I think the time horizon, if we're talking time horizon, I think you're the safest for the longest. I'm toast.

SPEAKER_03 33:43

I I think uh a lot of healthcare is gone. Yeah, yeah. Besides surgeons, you know, anyone actually doing the have you seen robot surgeons?

SPEAKER_02 33:52

But yeah, you're yeah, you're you are correct there, too. It's insane. They they they they can they can sew up a suture on a corn kernel, yeah, like remotely. It's it's it's utterly insane. It's utterly insane.

SPEAKER_03 34:05

I I think there's also the possibility it all collapses in a huge bubble, though, too. Because right now, every single AI firm is operating at such a loss, right? Like all this money that's behind them, you know, they've bought the world supply of RAM in graphics cards for the next five years with money that they've you know invested, you know, for data centers that aren't built yet, using electricity that can't be produced yet. You know, I mean it's it's all a house of cards, and if if one thing comes down, it could all come down.

SPEAKER_04 34:38

Rob, I popped a clip in the telegram, the the thing I just popped in. I want to play that real quick. Let me let me hear what you guys think about this. You gotta put it on screen, it's not on.

SPEAKER_03 34:48

I know I'm trying to get to the video. The man is the man is working, Anthony.

SPEAKER_04 34:52

Give him a no well sometimes he plays it and he and he doesn't realize we we can't hear it. So Rob does not care about your back talk.

SPEAKER_01 35:02

Where the AI specifically focused. The AI guys is really basically four guys. You got OpenAI, Microsoft, Saudi Arabia, Japan. You got Anthropic in the cluster around them, you've got Google in the cluster around them, and you've got the House of Musk in the cluster around him, potentially including Peter Thiel's resources in China. That's pretty much it, in the whole world. So it's actually kind of nice. You don't have to have a scorecard. You can you can you can remember the out of your hands? Those guys have for years been very clear that this is plausibly, most likely, a winner-take-all game. Meaning if you can get escape velocity on AI, because AI, one of the things the AI can do is it can make better AI, which we're already seeing happen. This is important. Remember, the the payload of the Manhattan Project was not the atomic bomb, it was the Manhattan Project. Well, the payload of AI is AI because AI is the Manhattan Project. Does that make sense? Yeah. And already Anthropic has talked about the fact that their most recent version was like 70% built with their previous version. Of course, right? If you're getting a hundred X improvement in software development by using Claude Code, Anthropic's going to be using Claude Code to build the next version of Claude Code. And there's only a matter of time before that starts to become closed loop by hypothesis, where the AI closes its eyes, focuses on itself for what us appears to be two days, and does two years worth of work and comes back out the other side so much more powerful that it's just, whoa, what happened? And so, if any, and so this is what's happening in the Department of War, this is very important, is a negotiation between what are effectively peers at the level of power. The United States government, Department of War, is negotiating with one of the four major players in AI. Because guess who's not a major player in AI? The United States government is not on that list. They are not a major player. Now they're trying to figure out maybe how they could become a major player, but that's gonna be hard for them. Because it's democracy, it's an inefficient bureaucracy, it gets shifted all the time. And by the way, the four major players are strategically aware of what's happening. They're not dummies. So Sam looks at that and says, ooh, I could use the advantages of the Department of War to accelerate my ability, but he's not really, at the end of the day, that worried about competing with even China. Maybe, but maybe probably. I mean, China's on the board, so China's there. But he's really worried about Google. He's really worried about Elon. That's where the real game is being played because they they're not necessarily certain, but they're confident enough that whoever wins has won Big T tyranny, capital T. They call it a singleton. A single dominant AI that is so smart that it can absolutely extinguish all competitors forever.

SPEAKER_04 37:53

So and then he basically goes into saying how all of these guys all think they are the only one who is uh like they are the only ones who can hold this power because anybody else would be a tyrant with it. But they're so morally uh, you know, like the power won't corrupt them, but it could corrupt anybody else. So they're all fighting for this power. But whoever really does get this thing to pop off is going to pretty much control it, right? I mean, if it's possible, it's a little nonsense. I don't know, I don't, I don't know how much of this is not I go I talk into my phone, and the stupid thing doesn't understand what I'm saying. I don't know if that's my accent or or Apple is just ridiculously stupid.

SPEAKER_03 38:36

The the idea that it's they're using AI to build the next gen of AI, sure. Maybe maybe that works in the the closed loop they're thinking, but it could also destroy itself in a closed loop, right? If if it's got some issue in it and it builds its next version with that issue, and then that version builds the next version, and it's just always just regurgitating itself. Any errors like in like in genetic code, yeah. Any error that gets that gets copied time after time, it just gets worse and worse. It's genetic entropy, it's AI entropy, is what it what it could be.

SPEAKER_02 39:10

Cancer, yeah. Actually, um uh yeah, I listened to that show. I thought it was a good show. Um well, I mean, what what what is your what is your beef with it, Anthony?

SPEAKER_04 39:25

I mean, what I I just think whoever I don't know. I see all the things that I'm seeing happening on the world stage just seem like it's it's all like we're building to the crescendo of a story, and I want to I don't know what's on the other side of that story, and I don't want to stay locked into my own uh you know, where I think I'm the only one who sees it and nobody else does. So I'm always open to hearing other people's perspectives so that I don't get stuck in that in my own internal loop where I'm like because I I do want to see some hope here, and when I and you know, bringing other people on is how I try to try to see if I could bring some hope out of that.

AI Disruption, Jobs, And Generational Shock

SPEAKER_02 40:04

I mean, if if you if you're looking for hope, you invited the wrong guest in, Anthony. Uh I'm as I'm as sort of doom-pilled as anybody about this stuff because um, you know, I I think it is going to be powerful enough, you know. I don't believe that it'll be sentient, I don't believe any of those kinds of things. You can't, no. But but you don't have to believe that, right? All you have to believe is is that does it work? Right? Does it work? And I think it'll work for lots and lots and lots and lots of things. And e even the the jank you know models that we have access to um, you know, work. Um, you know, if the people in the comments who are saying that it, you know, it doesn't work, you're just wrong. Um, I'm not saying it's perfect. I mean it's it's a hot mess unto itself. But no doubt that the versions that they play with in their own labs behind, you know, locked doors are way more powerful than the stupid ones we could buy a subscription, you know,$20 a month, you know, to Claude. You know, no, there's no way. The ones that they're playing with are way more powerful. And there's just there's just, I don't know how we're going to avoid massive disruptions. If we think that the social contract has been uh nullified or it's been a lie, and I think the three of us probably agree on that score. Um, you know, um you look at our kids and the world that they're facing, you know, everything's broken, right? And and you know, I I think that these disruptions are going to just just push it all off, just like bye bye.

SPEAKER_04 41:42

And what happens to the like we're already dealing with a meaning crisis, right? Like you see the reason so many young men feel like they don't have a sense of purpose now because they can't buy a home, they can't like all of that stuff is going to be amplified to a degree that we can't even comprehend right now. And that I like how does that not lead to civil war within our own country? How does that not and then once you have something like that happen, you have all these foreign entities trying to fuel the flames of that? Because the whole world would love to see America eat itself from the inside, then they don't have to worry about fighting us from the outside. Well, what's the I don't I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 42:18

I don't I mean, yeah, if if America goes under under these conditions, they there's nowhere to hide. We we built we built this globalist world, like there's nowhere to hide.

SPEAKER_03 42:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 42:31

I mean, I don't I don't say that with any kind of relish, of course. Um, nor nor with it in a kind of like jingoistic, like, you know, you know, America F yeah, kind of way. It's just like it's just true. Um, you know, and so are we gonna see like a massive constriction? Is the the sort of the standard of living gonna plummet? I mean, is this the equivalent of a kind of depression that or worse? Oh, worse, uh uh, you know, uh a non-die-off gubonic plague.

SPEAKER_04 43:01

Man, it's scary stuff. Um, all right, before we get to Bobby's super chat, we gotta do knickknacks and uh shoplobster.com, guys. Shoplobster.com while it's lent, if you guys want uh to get yourselves something good for Friday and you can't have that meat, shoplobster.com is awesome. They uh Rob and I have have agreed to take lobster as payment, it's that good. Dang, it really is amazing. So we're gonna we're gonna have them send us some stuff to decided decidedly on kosher.

SPEAKER_02 43:32

Just gonna put it out there. Put it out there.

SPEAKER_04 43:36

Yeah, people were saying people were saying it's like too fancy. It's like you can't, you know, it's definitely not kosher. You can't have shellfish if you're Jewish. It's a very Catholic Wenton meal. So uh shoblobster.com, use code AB10 for 10% off. Very much worth it. Uh, and we hope you guys checked them out. It's always good to support our sponsors. The other thing, before we even get to Knickknack, Enoch. I can't believe I forgot this.

SPEAKER_03 44:00

Come on.

SPEAKER_04 44:00

Enoch's got a fundraiser out, guys.

SPEAKER_03 44:02

Let me find it real quick.

SPEAKER_04 44:04

Find Enoch's fundraiser. Enoch uh does one. He's this is his last album, and I told him that we would help push his fundraiser over. Enoch is our brother. We got to get this guy's fundraiser funded. He has uh features on this album that like some of the guys that came on charge like two grand for a feature. Like Enoch's not making money with this fundraiser, he's literally covering costs. I really want to see, especially our audience, jump in. Guys, if you got 10 bucks, 20 bucks, whatever you got. Enoch's got he's probably got a pin to his profile on X. Throw something his way. The guy really does put his heart and soul into his into his music, and it would mean a lot to us if like our show was the show that pushed him over the edge. He's uh he's at around a thousand. I think he set it at four. We're gonna be pushing this next episode too. I want to make sure we get this guy over the edge. So um, you got it, Rob? Yep, it's in the live chat. It's in the live chat. If you guys can, just go go throw 20 bucks to him, 10 bucks to him. I mean, instead of throwing us super chats, go support Enoch. Uh, and then knicknack.com. Knicknacks, our uh biggest sponsor. They uh look out for us, they're sticking with us. Nicknack.com. Nick Knack is a nicotine product, it is addictive and it's definitely not a smoking cessation device, but we love Nick Knacks. Uh, Rob and I both like the citrus flavors, but the original we tried on air, we like that one too. So go check out nicknack.com. Use code AB25 for 25% off your first purchase.

SPEAKER_03 45:31

And uh they they did come to me today with another option potentially. We can continue doing 25% off for the first purchase, or if enough of our audience has already bought from them, they're willing to do 10% off of all purchases. I think we should do that. You think that?

SPEAKER_04 45:50

Yeah, I think so because it it's expensive to have this stuff shipped. So tell them, you know, the people that were gonna try it, they they they bought their first time, but and then he they don't know where the the promo code's coming from because they can't use it for their next purchase.

SPEAKER_03 46:04

True, that's a good point.

SPEAKER_04 46:06

So, like anybody that bought it for the first time from us, we don't get credit for it after that. So let's get that 10% up. So, all right, yeah, now um yeah, so um Bobby had a super chat. We'll jump over to that. Can I say something first? Yeah, yeah, go ahead, Kev.

SPEAKER_02 46:22

So somebody in the chat was asking me what I was drinking, and I tried to type into the YouTube comment Negroni, but it would not let me type in Negroni. I think they thought they I think they thought I was being racist, but this is a lovely Negroni. I highly recommend them. It's a great cocktail, it's a classic.

Singleton Fears And AI Arms Race

SPEAKER_04 46:40

Ironically, the only reason to black pill is if you don't think it's the end. If it is the end, Christ is coming back and we win. If it's not, he's not. It's about to get really evil, and we'll need men to save us. That's scary. Yeah, Kale, where do you where do you put this on the apocalyptic scale? Because when me and you spoke privately, you you you you're a little more uh willing to go with me where you aren't really willing to go with Steve. So because you Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 47:06

Um, I look I I think this, I mean, things are bad, man. Things are bad. So I tend look now. I tend to be a little apocalyptic, so I'm I'm trying to like keep myself curve that trying really hard to do that. I mean, I went, you know, when I was a young man, I went down the the the hardcore marin apparition route, and you know, I just played all that game, and um I think it's a it it can be uh it can be a little bit twisted, but um just things are really lining up in very disconcerting ways, and on multiple fronts, right? I mean, because we've got the political situation, we've got the economic situation, we've got the AI situation, um, you know, we've got the the the men and women situation, which is absolutely massive and huge. I actually think that's the most important one personally because um it's not at all clear to me that we are going to be able to figure out how to get along again. And you know, it it's it's a it's a huge mess, as you both of you know, you know, it's just like it's it's a it's like an impossible conversation to have. And you know, I teach boy, I teach at a co-ed school, and I can just kind of see it like right in front of me. It's really tough.

SPEAKER_04 48:20

It's rough because like my son will go out, he'll go out with his friends, and he'll come home and he'll go, Dad, I could talk to a girl within five months, five minutes. I know I there's no there's no possible way to this girl. Like she's just she's just so caught up. It's it's the internet has really destroyed the brains of a lot of people, man. And it's both men and women, so I don't want to put the blame on either one, they're both just so jaded, and you know, like the the the whole red pill movement served a purpose where it was like waking people up to the dangers of feminism. But like a lot of the young guys today have lit let a couple of Muslim guys tell them how awful women are, and they're just total black pilled. Yeah, it's not a red pill, it's a black pill. They just think it's impossible. Every girl's a hoe, and there's nothing it's like, yeah, yeah, man. I'm raising daughters, and I want to have hope that they're gonna be able to find a good man. I'm actually more hopeful for my daughters because if they bring a guy home, I'm going to help mold that that young guy who probably lacked a father figure in his life. But more worried about my son meeting a girl because these girls are just so destroyed by the internet, man, and the nonsense that's being fed. I was at my I was at I was at a family event over the weekend, and this conversation of like girl needs to provide for now. I was like, guys, this is not gonna go well. We've had this fight several times, and I'm asking you, please, let's just change the subject because it's going to get really ugly if we continue down this road. And they were kind of just like, yeah, all right, let's just let's change the subject because we've been down that road. Anytime I'm I'm out with family and they start talking about this stuff and asking my daughters what they're doing, and they need to be able to provide for themselves and this and that. And I'm like, I I just I don't have an I don't have the bandwidth right now, so we need to change it. But yeah, the the women question and the and the men question, the two of them together, that's a huge problem. I don't know how we're going to have a next generation if men and women hate one another, and they seem to right now.

SPEAKER_02 50:22

It's pretty bleak. Yeah, and you know, I think the you know, this is gonna be my bias showing up here, but you know, we are not in we are not we are living in a world, you know, a fire hose of information, right? We have loads and loads of information and we have access to tons and tons of information. I mean, all of us carry around, you know, the the the 10x equivalent of the Library of Alexandria in our pockets at all times, right? And and yet um we don't need information, actually. You know, we need wisdom, and we don't have any all of our our all of our wisdom institutions are crap in the bed, and I include the academy and I include the church there, you know, and and um the very moment in which the church needs to um speak with clarity and depth and and insight and wisdom is the very moment where she's chosen to be um a really pathetic NGO.

SPEAKER_04 51:31

Silent and worse than silent, almost almost feeding into it, right? So it's you're still seeing more reports of these sonatal reports coming out, and they're like, Oh, what are we going to do with women in positions of leadership and all this stuff? And it's like, man, the church really just needs to tell these women, look, we're never ordaining you, you're never going to be deacons, stop it. Like they should just say knock it off, stop it. That's it. But there's something going on in the church, and it's like the church is just impotent right now. That's what I if the church was healthier, and even if we had a figure like uh John Paul II, or if we had a figure like Benedict, I would not be nearly uh as as far along my my thoughts as I am. It's the fact that you you had Francis and now Leo just seems to just like he I don't know, I don't know. He just doesn't seem to do nothing but whatever.

Fragility Of AI And Closed Loops

SPEAKER_02 52:30

So he's he's certainly not a he's certainly not a pope of grand gestures. Yeah. And and I'm okay with that, honestly, if if if if he's gonna be doing some work behind the scenes cleaning up governance issues, which is a huge important, it's a big issue for me. Um, I think it could be a good thing, but I don't have high hopes. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 52:52

Yeah, it's uh that yeah, that's that's that's kind of where I go with it.

SPEAKER_02 52:56

But and it's um but but so the question is like why are young why are our young people so susceptible to the spells of social media, you know, and and and I think it's because we've cut ourselves off from any sense of wisdom and the wisdom tradition, you know, which clearly obviously includes the church, um, but also, you know, education. You know, we just we don't, you know, we don't have a very thick story. You know, you were talking about the story of the of the post-world consensus and all that, and that's going by the wayside, but it was such a thin um weak story to superficial story, yeah, like really superficial.

SPEAKER_03 53:40

We we've deconstructed everything, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 53:42

I mean, we we really have. And and now I think we're finally seeing the the the rotten fruits of that, you know, come to pass. I mean, because even like I know I was in high school in the late 80s, and in and even like most high schools, like you know, you read a little Shakespeare and you read some American novels, and you know, you had some of the basics, but all that stuff's been completely evacuated. You know, there's there's no tapping into the deeper roots of our culture. It's all lateral and superficial. Um, it's identity stuff, you know, it's all the crap. I mean, you both of you know this. Um, but I think it bears repeating because you know, there was at least a kind of narrative of the West that we all, you know, basically shared, um, but that's been evacuated. And I think we're finally seeing what happens when you raise people without a story, you know, without a without a deep story.

SPEAKER_04 54:39

Um, and to go sending$10 in hope to CKL speaking tongues at some point in the interview, the front's tuning in. Um to go back to to go back to um the marrying apparition stuff from when you were younger, like I I did that too. Um my my mom before Y2K, my mom like had the basement stocked. Yeah, um, they my parents had gone to Majigori when I was a kid, and my mom was very apocalyptic when I was younger, right? And it destroyed the faith of my brother when nothing happened in 2000 because he was like he had this anxiety thinking the world was going to end, and then nothing happened, right? And I I I kind of like I had like a little sense of that stuff, but it never scared me. Like I never thought the world was like I just I I saw our ladies' messages and I was like, man, I never saw it as like definitively happening in 2000. I always saw it as things are escalating, and I and I I did think we got kind of a reprieve there for a while. And now I it's almost like our lady's fall and silent, and that's kind of what scares me because she did come to give us warnings earlier on in the 20th century, and then once again in the 1960s, and now it seems like she's kind of full and silent, unless you buy into Mejigori's daily apparitions, which whatever. But um, I do think it is dangerous to go apparition chasing, which is why I've kind of stuck to the church fathers and the story of scripture itself to kind of see this stuff through. But like, if this isn't the great apostasy, what the hell does the great apostasy look like? I mean, you basically have the entire church falling away from the faith right now. So, what would the great apostasy look like if not this?

SPEAKER_03 56:26

Could be worse, potentially. I don't know.

Meaning Crisis And Civil Strain

SPEAKER_04 56:29

Yeah, of course, but could always get worse. I mean, things can always escalate, but you know what I mean, right? Like where the where it's people are saying because people are saying that uh Vincent Amuso said it. Uh, he said, Dare I say that JP2 and Benedict were also uh bad, but that's a in hindsight, it's easy to say it's a retro group.

SPEAKER_02 56:50

Yeah, it's a retro fit. I think it's a retrogate.

SPEAKER_04 56:53

It's easy to say that in hindsight, but at the time, these men were like pillars of of the you know moral clarity.

SPEAKER_02 57:00

Uh, just beside, you know, because we didn't know and they were hated, they were hated by the left. I mean, like truly, both in the church and outside the church. I mean, they were hated, loathed, retrograde, disgusting creatures, you know. Um, I mean, I I worry, I worry about the the Marian Apparition thing as being a kind of form of um Catholic Gnosticism. Yeah, um yeah, and it was for me. I got I I just just just to speak, you know, I don't want to make too broad of generalizations there, but it it certainly functioned that way, you know, for me, almost like a kind of Catholic left behind type thing. If you remember that from from gosh, two decades ago now. Kirk Cameron, yeah, yeah, you know. Um so you know, but but the the the the gist, of course, is repent, pray, offer sacrifice, fast, you know, go to the sacraments, you know, those are good things, like those are those are perennially good things.

SPEAKER_04 58:00

But the Catholics that apparition chase, like they get into things like even like the three days of darkness, where like your candle, if you don't have blessed candles, you won't be able to see anything. And it's like, well, how do you even light the match to light the candle if nothing but the blessed candle will light? And it is a very rapture type way to think. It's like, well, I have my blessed candles, I'm gonna survive this thing. It's like that's not really how Catholics have ever viewed this scenario. We we are to embrace suffering and things like that. Look, the the reason for shows like this are to kind of prepare people for the coming calamities that are coming, whether they're apocalyptic in nature or not, like just the on a natural level, when you're talking about the the shift that is upon us on the world stage and in our own country, the the hostilities that we're I mean, I'm in New York, we just had three attempted terrorist attacks over the weekend. Like things are going to get really, really rough over the next couple of years, especially us picking picking fights and they're framing it as a religious war, even if we're not seeing it as a religious war, the Muslims are seeing it as a religious war. So that's the kind of stuff that is dangerous. I think that's what Tucker was getting at in his monologue, where whether or not we see it that way, because we're just Americans and we're pretty, you know, we're we're nominally Christian for the most part. When when we're going and attacking Iran and and and the narrative is we have to defeat these evil Muslims, and we welcomed all these Muslims into our country. It's a dangerous situation, no matter how you look at it.

SPEAKER_02 59:37

I saw Katie McGrady was in the um, yeah. I doubt that's really that's like when we get Jimmy Aiken in the chat. Go where's where's your AI? Man, I was hoping to have a conversation with AI Jimmy Aiken.

SPEAKER_04 59:52

Um all right, so we're gonna take this over to uh locals. We did our hour on YouTube. Um locals, I'll give you guys some inside some inside baseball on locals tonight.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:03

I can't wait to argue with you about your Twitter habit. It's gonna be great. Let's do it.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:08

I'll give you guys I'll give you guys a little inside baseball. We got we got some conference updates. Uh we got we got a couple things we we we got to discuss over on locals. So uh if you guys are not locals members, uh Rob will put the link up. But also before you guys go, please go support Enoch. We want to see uh we want to see Enoch's fundraiser get bumped. Um he's uh a great friend of the show. He's a great friend in person. He's uh one of the best people I've met in this space. So if there's anybody that we can throw something to, I hope it's him. So all right, yeah, we we got some tea and drama over on locals tonight. So join us over there. Take us out, Rob.

SPEAKER_05 1:01:13

Like the like baby tools, move on the line on this stuff, too. This is just a way to do the floor on the crafting.