Speaker 1: Now broadcasting live from the Abraham Lincoln Radio Studio at
Speaker 1: the George Washington Broadcast Center.
Speaker 2: Jack Armstrong and Joe Getty.
Speaker 1: Armstrong and Getty. And now. We have the same two
Speaker 1: rules for the Armstrong and Getty show that Dolly Parton
Speaker 1: had for clothing, she said. Sparkly and tight. That's what
Speaker 1: we are. Sparkly and tight. Welcome to the live presentation
Speaker 1: of the Armstrong and Getty program. Deeper than the bowels
Speaker 1: of the Armstrong and Getty communications compound. And today we're
Speaker 1: toiling under the title of the show. I struggled with
Speaker 1: how to express this most succinctly and persuasively. Title number one. Mom,
Speaker 1: the flag, apple pie, and Dolly. On a less life-affirming note,
Speaker 1: I hate politics. Oh, I hate politics so much. I'm
Speaker 1: sure we'll get to that soon enough and for the
Speaker 1: next however many years. As long as we live in
Speaker 1: this godforsaken system. So what's your explanation? I can't wait.
Speaker 1: I'm going to go through all of the different people
Speaker 1: and entities that That came out with their, you know,
Speaker 1: tip of the hat to Dolly Parton. I mean, they
Speaker 1: vary more than any crowd I've ever seen in my life. Agreed.
Speaker 1: It's unbelievable. Like, from the Parliament of Ireland to Eminem to,
Speaker 1: I mean, it's just incredible. What's your explanation for that?
Speaker 1: And I feel like I haven't heard that discussed much.
Speaker 1: People keep talking about how many hits she had. Okay, fine.
Speaker 1: And she was a good musician, no doubt about it.
Speaker 1: But there's lots of good musicians that pass along, and
Speaker 1: they don't get a hundredth of this sort of attention.
Speaker 1: So what was her thing? Yeah, accepting, stipulating, as they
Speaker 1: say in the courtroom, that she was a very well-known
Speaker 1: and successful entertainer. I think it was that she radiated
Speaker 1: goodness and kindness. I think so, too. And people respond
Speaker 1: to that, even as they go about their cynical lives
Speaker 1: in their snarky 21st century ways. There is something called riz, charisma,
Speaker 1: and maybe she just had it on a level that
Speaker 1: one and a Two billion and a half as opposed
Speaker 1: to just like lots of charisma. She was utterly disarming. Yeah.
Speaker 1: It's hard to imagine the kind of human being that
Speaker 1: wouldn't like her. Right. What you'd have to be. Right.
Speaker 1: She was just so about kindness and generosity and an
Speaker 1: enormous star while being completely unassuming. I mean, if that
Speaker 1: doesn't appeal to humans, you have a different point of
Speaker 1: view than me. And we cannot be friends. I mean,
Speaker 1: she gave away hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of millions
Speaker 1: of dollars to charity over the many, many years. She'd
Speaker 1: be a billionaire if she hadn't given away so much
Speaker 1: money to charity. So that'll, you know, that'll buy a
Speaker 1: lot of goodwill. And I don't mean that in like
Speaker 1: a cynical way that just makes, you know, makes people happy.
Speaker 3: Sure.
Speaker 1: Fair enough. Yeah. A great deal of it devoted childhood literacy,
Speaker 1: which is. it's difficult to surpass as a wonderful idea,
Speaker 1: given that if a child learns to read, A, and B,
Speaker 1: becomes capable at it, that changes their life. Unfortunately, as
Speaker 1: a nation, we've decided to give up on that. But, yeah, well,
Speaker 1: she's old. So she grew up in a time and
Speaker 1: place where that was really a big thing. I mean,
Speaker 1: her dad couldn't read or write. So one of 12
Speaker 1: in a one-bedroom shack? Holy crap. No electricity or running water. Yeah.
Speaker 1: To global superstardom and stayed normal. Yeah. That's not easy.
Speaker 1: And got there pretty fast. So when she was graduating
Speaker 1: high school, she says right before they left. And the
Speaker 1: day she graduated high school, she moved to Nashville. But
Speaker 1: before she graduated high school, like right before they did
Speaker 1: the whole, you know, what do you want to be
Speaker 1: when you grow up? She said, I'm going to be
Speaker 1: a star. Very matter of factly. And everybody laughed. She's
Speaker 1: just one of those people that just knew, you know,
Speaker 1: that's what I'm going to do. I'm cut out for
Speaker 1: that sort of thing, you see.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: As a hack musician, and I don't want to focus
Speaker 1: on this, but her public image with the rhinestones and
Speaker 1: the hooters and all that. And the hooters! Well, that's
Speaker 1: the first not completely respectful comment on the Dolly Parton memorials.
Speaker 1: Nor was she. I'm echoing her failures. She used the
Speaker 1: term hooters, though. It's the term. It's not the body part.
Speaker 1: Half the world has the body part. All right, breasts,
Speaker 1: for God's sake. Memory glands. What do you want out
Speaker 1: of me? I like the term figure. Oh, bosom. Her
Speaker 1: prodigious bosoms.
Speaker 2: Yes.
Speaker 1: No, I always found it mildly annoying. Because I thought
Speaker 1: she was so wonderful. And, you know, as a songwriter,
Speaker 1: as a musician, as a thinker and a businesswoman and
Speaker 1: the rest of it, I was like, you could be
Speaker 1: wearing anything, looking like anything. But, you know, she had
Speaker 1: her thing. She had her, you know, her groove and
Speaker 1: she stuck with it. So I got to respect her.
Speaker 1: I have to read from one of the New York
Speaker 1: Times articles that I got into because they kept hyperlinking
Speaker 1: to various things. And one of them was about her look.
Speaker 1: And how they tried to change her look, and it
Speaker 1: became a real problem. She had to break with the
Speaker 1: management company that was launching her. She said, I'm not,
Speaker 1: I just can't. I can't. Because she kind of broke
Speaker 1: right when the woman thing was changing to, like, tight
Speaker 1: slacks and a different kind of shirt and flat hair
Speaker 1: and just a different look. And she did that for
Speaker 1: like a day and said, I, this is not me.
Speaker 1: I can't do this. And went back to the giant
Speaker 1: hair and they said, well, we can't market you that way.
Speaker 1: And okay, I guess we're not, I guess we have
Speaker 1: to agree to disagree. So she really was looking for
Speaker 1: a more Helen ready-ish approach to exactly. You're old enough
Speaker 1: to remember that. That's exactly what they're trying to do.
Speaker 1: Google it. As usual, the people that run these kind
Speaker 1: of show business industries having no imagination whatsoever. We'll just
Speaker 1: do exactly what everybody else is doing it. I hate them, too,
Speaker 1: along with politics, but go on. And assume nobody with
Speaker 1: the talent can possibly figure this out on their own.
Speaker 1: They need the suits to tell them how to be
Speaker 1: good at what they do. Yes. Even though they've never
Speaker 1: done it. No. They've watched other people do it, so
Speaker 1: they think they know, but they don't. How much money
Speaker 1: do you suppose she made off of I Will Always
Speaker 1: Love You? Just that one song. If that's all she'd
Speaker 1: ever done was written that song and Whitney records it,
Speaker 1: I wonder how much money she would have made. That
Speaker 1: was back when people were still buying physical media, so zillions.
Speaker 1: She would have been insanely wealthy with just that one song.
Speaker 1: It was number one for 11 weeks, 13 weeks, something
Speaker 1: like that. It was a number one hit for her
Speaker 1: and then for Whitney Houston, so it made a lot
Speaker 1: of money. Number one hit for her twice on the
Speaker 1: country charts. Right. Yes. And it was on the same
Speaker 1: album as Jolene. That was a good album. She said,
Speaker 1: I must have something going that night. Holy crap. She
Speaker 1: wrote those two songs in the same night. That's funny
Speaker 1: how that works with the artists, isn't it? That's incredible. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I know it is. Yeah, but we got some more
Speaker 1: flashbacks and retrospects and all that sort of stuff. I just,
Speaker 1: I think, I used to say this should be, this
Speaker 1: should have like a PhD level study, but that's back
Speaker 1: when I used to have respect for PhD level studies
Speaker 1: of any kind. Third thing I hate, yes. There should
Speaker 1: be some sort of study on her ability to, to
Speaker 1: appeal to everyone. That's an incredibly rare thing. Right, right.
Speaker 1: And I think people know this about us, but I
Speaker 1: want to make clear, as a cynic, a celebrity passes.
Speaker 1: I don't, I generally don't have all that much interest
Speaker 1: in showing out about that. I just, I don't. I
Speaker 1: admired their work. They lived a good life, I feel,
Speaker 1: for their family. It's that. But as we started to
Speaker 1: discuss at the beginning what it is about dolly and
Speaker 1: her life and her manner that was so universally beloved
Speaker 1: i think is i think it's important and i think
Speaker 1: it's worth contemplating for a minute particularly in a world
Speaker 1: where we're surrounded by you know hateful divisive politics bizarro
Speaker 1: movements everybody's angry everybody's distracted constantly by the internet It's
Speaker 1: one of the few common, well, my title was, my
Speaker 1: proposed title, Mom, the Flag, Apple Pie, and Dolly. This
Speaker 1: is one of the few commonalities we have left. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And it's worth, anytime we run into one of those,
Speaker 1: it's worth everybody saying, I like that, and you like that,
Speaker 1: and I do too. Let's think about that. That's exactly
Speaker 1: why I wanted to get into that. That is a
Speaker 1: very unique thing. Katie is nodding her head along. I'm
Speaker 1: glad to hear we have your agreement, Katie. She was
Speaker 1: a woman. If we're having the argument about what a
Speaker 1: woman is, Dolly Parton. Oh, I see. Yeah. You know what?
Speaker 1: I love that because, you know, a guy will say, no,
Speaker 1: that's a man. Or in Yiddish slash German, mensch means
Speaker 1: that's a complete man. That is that is somebody worth
Speaker 1: admiring yeah yeah she she went with that cartoonish hair
Speaker 1: and uh breast augmentation but she started from a base
Speaker 1: of Very attractive. But through all of that, she remained classy. Yeah.
Speaker 1: She was.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: How she did that. Right. Without ever being smutty, slutty, trashy. Right.
Speaker 1: How do you pull off that line? I don't know.
Speaker 1: We've left out her fantastic sense of humor. Right. And
Speaker 1: her refusal to take herself overly seriously. Which helps a lot. Wisdom,
Speaker 1: in short. She had a ridiculous smile. So that helps, too.
Speaker 1: That helps, too. looked sincere to me.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think she's just like really digging, you know, whatever
Speaker 1: she was doing or whoever she was talking to, which
Speaker 1: I never worked a day in her life. Right. I
Speaker 1: can't pull off for an hour enjoying who I'm talking
Speaker 1: to her. If you don't look homicidal for five minutes,
Speaker 1: it's a victory. Yeah. Um, Yeah, well, if you look
Speaker 1: at where she came from and what she went through,
Speaker 1: that will give you wisdom. That will give you perspective.
Speaker 1: Do we know anything about her other 11 brothers and sisters?
Speaker 1: Are they all really cynical, angry, troll-like people? Exactly. She
Speaker 1: got all the joy. All the joy went to Dolly.
Speaker 1: That's right. Well, let's start the show officially. Got a
Speaker 1: good clip for you. I'm Jack Armstrong. He's Joe Getty.
Speaker 1: On this, it is Wednesday, August 26th, the year 2026.
Speaker 1: We're Armstrong and Getty, and we approve of this program.
Speaker 1: Let's begin the show officially then, according to FCC rules,
Speaker 1: regs at mark. Okay, the category in our top ten
Speaker 1: Dolly Parton pet peeves. Dolly, are you all set? Here
Speaker 1: we go. Number three.
Speaker 4: Okay, smart-ass emcees who introduced me by saying, and now
Speaker 4: here they are.
Speaker 2: Dolly Parton. Number two.
Speaker 4: When the Super Bowl is over, winner never says, hey,
Speaker 4: I'm going to Dollywood.
Speaker 2: That's right.
Speaker 1: And now, the number one Dolly Parton pet peeve. Nobody
Speaker 1: notices I've got a great ass, too. Wow. That is
Speaker 1: not a person who takes herself overly seriously. How do
Speaker 1: you get a shout out from John Fogarty and Eminem?
Speaker 1: Heavy D and Steven Pinker. I mean, the list I've
Speaker 1: got here is absolutely amazing. Heavy D and Steven Pinker.
Speaker 1: That may be the first time those two have ever
Speaker 1: been mentioned in the same sentence. Wu-Tang Clan and Larry Gatlin.
Speaker 1: For those of you who know who that is. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's just, it's insane. Wow. Robert Reich and every living president.
Speaker 1: I don't know. There's something going on there. The only
Speaker 1: time you will hear this sort of outpouring again from
Speaker 1: the world of music, well, from the entire world, will
Speaker 1: be when Paul McCartney passes. But he was a foreigner.
Speaker 1: On the other hand, you know, he had similar attributes
Speaker 1: of just disarming, you know, not taking himself seriously, etc.
Speaker 1: And monumental talent. What Dolly Dye of? I didn't get
Speaker 1: into that. I didn't read or watch any of this
Speaker 1: stuff where they got into the last days. Officially a
Speaker 1: brief bout of cancer. Okay. We got headlines on the
Speaker 1: way and lots to talk about today. Lindsey Graham's sister.
Speaker 1: I hope she's smarter than I think she is, and
Speaker 1: I hope she is willing to learn. You hate her?
Speaker 1: You hate her. You're a hater. I don't hate her.
Speaker 1: I just don't think she probably should have been a U.S. Senator,
Speaker 1: but she's going to be, so let's get over it.
Speaker 1: Headlines on the way. Stay here.
Speaker 3: Armstrong and Getty.
Speaker 2: The Armstrong and Getty Show.
Speaker 1: Shaboozy, Brooke Shields, and Motley Crue all weighing in with
Speaker 1: their tributes to Dolly Parton. I mean, what? Never thought
Speaker 1: I'd hear that combo. I know. I got many of those.
Speaker 1: It's unbelievable. Well, I'm going to that festival, by the way. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I know. And then outside the world of music, like
Speaker 1: you said, Steven Pinker, the great defender of enlightenment and humanism, blah, blah, blah.
Speaker 1: More to come on a million different topics, but let's
Speaker 1: figure out who's reporting what. It's the lead story with
Speaker 1: Katie Green. Katie.
Speaker 3: So not to waste time, all the alphabet networks, Dolly Parton.
Speaker 1: Non-stop.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Apparently a brief battle with cancer. Man, it seemed to
Speaker 1: happen fast, which is. Well, you know what? She canceled
Speaker 1: a bunch of shows like six months ago. Right, well, yeah,
Speaker 1: but they put together that whole residency thing in Vegas,
Speaker 1: which she would have been huge. Right. And, you know,
Speaker 1: they booked that. She booked that thinking she was healthy, obviously.
Speaker 1: It wasn't that long ago.
Speaker 3: From the Wall Street Journal. Years late, billions over budget.
Speaker 3: California's high-speed rail hasn't laid a track.
Speaker 1: Who's reporting on that? Wall Street Journal. Yeah, we'll get
Speaker 1: into that. Yet another... I mean, it's like retrying John
Speaker 1: Wilkes Booth for killing Lincoln. There's no need. The state
Speaker 1: is guilty of enormous theft, and yet the punishment is
Speaker 1: not forthcoming. USA Today.
Speaker 3: Shopping malls are charging for prime parking, and it's not
Speaker 3: going well. Wow.
Speaker 1: All right. First of all, shopping malls are still open
Speaker 1: in various places, apparently. Are they talking about big box
Speaker 1: hell shopping malls or traditional malls?
Speaker 3: Like traditional malls. But I know that a lot of
Speaker 3: people use them as a safe place to walk.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, true. That's what my parents used to do. That's
Speaker 1: the fact that they're charging us now. Park farther away,
Speaker 1: you numbskulls. Heartless Joe. What?
Speaker 3: New York Post, Chucky Masked Sicko, who terrorizes Philadelphia citizens,
Speaker 3: is captured in Vegas.
Speaker 1: Oh, they caught him in Vegas. Wow. After a two-week manhunt.
Speaker 1: I don't know if you saw in those videos. They
Speaker 1: were chilling. Just a sick effort. Thought he was being
Speaker 1: funny or something. Well, as someone who loves horror, did
Speaker 1: not love this. No, no, no. Nobody loves that stuff
Speaker 1: in real life.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: Right. Study finds had a sleepless night.
Speaker 3: Study suggests that exercising protects your memory as much as
Speaker 3: a nap.
Speaker 2: Hmm.
Speaker 1: Cool. Babylon B.
Speaker 3: Apocalypse draws near as last remaining universally loved human passes away.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I wonder about that. Was she the last universally
Speaker 1: loved human? We'll see. We ain't going to have many more.
Speaker 1: I was thinking about various titles we could give the
Speaker 1: show today, and one I was toying with the idea
Speaker 1: of here comes the Civil War. The last thing that
Speaker 1: held us together has passed. Yeah. Thank God she never
Speaker 1: weighed in on Trump or anything. No, she's too smart
Speaker 1: for that. Yes, she was. I sure would love to
Speaker 1: have seen her behind closed doors making business decisions. There
Speaker 1: had to be that side of her.
Speaker 4: Oh, yeah.
Speaker 1: You don't become a billionaire by accident. Nope. Nope. We
Speaker 1: got a lot of the news of the day that
Speaker 1: we need to get into and some other interesting stuff
Speaker 1: about Dolly Parton that is worth talking about, too. If
Speaker 1: you miss a segment, get the podcast. Armstrong and Getty
Speaker 1: on demand.
Speaker 2: Armstrong and Getty. The Armstrong and Getty Show.
Speaker 1: What would you tell your younger self?
Speaker 2: Well, that's a tricky question.
Speaker 4: It was my dream to do it. But I would
Speaker 4: just probably, looking back, I would just say, girl, you
Speaker 4: better buckle up because you're in for the ride of
Speaker 4: your life. You're going to have to take a lot
Speaker 4: of stuff. You're going to have to give a lot
Speaker 4: of stuff. And you're going to have to stand by
Speaker 4: your guns, believe in yourself, stay true to yourself.
Speaker 1: I heard some interview, this just popped into my head,
Speaker 1: where she's talking about, I created a persona which is
Speaker 1: mostly not me. And I thought, well, that's really interesting.
Speaker 1: Because one of your appeals is coming off so insanely genuine.
Speaker 1: And you're saying your persona is mostly not who you are.
Speaker 1: I don't know. I'd love to know more about that. Yeah. Anyway,
Speaker 1: we can talk more about that later. We got a
Speaker 1: couple of texts, a conversation about the passing of Dolly
Speaker 1: Parton and the amazing variety of different people that spoke
Speaker 1: out about that yesterday in positive ways. And somebody texted,
Speaker 1: don't forget big boobs. Everyone likes those. So thanks for that.
Speaker 1: Good point. Yes. But we got this. You have any
Speaker 1: idea what this means? This is about. The Hooters comment
Speaker 1: was not even close to the holy crap moment. You're
Speaker 1: a seriously disgusting person, Jack. I hope you get to
Speaker 1: taste holy C word. And for that matter, you have
Speaker 1: no idea what the word holy means or what holy is.
Speaker 1: I hope you get a mouthful of holy C dot
Speaker 1: dot dot. You jerk. I think they're accusing you of
Speaker 1: being blasphemous by saying holy crap. What? As far as
Speaker 1: I can tell. I don't know. The rantings of the
Speaker 1: kooky are often difficult to interpret. If I'm going to
Speaker 1: spend eternity in hell with a mouthful of holy sea,
Speaker 1: I should know why. Probably burning hot, holy crap, yes.
Speaker 1: I should know why.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, that would be nice. Maybe it's on the
Speaker 1: forum somewhere. Also, let the revolution begin, or not the revolution,
Speaker 1: the Civil War, as my, our old friend, Mike, the
Speaker 1: attorney points out, um, when Trump posted that the flags
Speaker 1: would be flown at half mast in honor of Ms. Parton, uh,
Speaker 1: and her life, uh, the online world exploded with anger.
Speaker 2: What?
Speaker 1: Of course, because, because it was Trump, I guess, but
Speaker 1: it online, anything is just, it's a, it's a cesspool
Speaker 1: of radioactive effluvium way to spend your life. I thought
Speaker 1: it was cool. Flaming sewage. How about the fact that
Speaker 1: the Empire State Building turned itself whatever color in honor
Speaker 1: of Dolly Parton last night? I like that. Rhinestone-y. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's amazing. So on a slightly more serious note, golly gee,
Speaker 1: this is something. Bill Gates has issued the occasional messages
Speaker 1: on how he sees AI and its development and what
Speaker 1: it might bring in the future. And his latest is
Speaker 1: a 12-page humdinger, by golly. Gates issued a stark warning
Speaker 1: about AI's risks to employment in the human condition, saying
Speaker 1: that companies were barreling ahead with the technology and with
Speaker 1: no larger plan for the massive upheaval it would cause. Quote,
Speaker 1: even under the best circumstances, the transition to this new
Speaker 1: AI era will be one of the most turbulent times
Speaker 1: in human history, he wrote in a 12-page essay. Right now,
Speaker 1: we are not preparing for it. I don't see evidence
Speaker 1: that leaders, experts, and communities are confronting the challenges adequately.
Speaker 1: One of the most turbulent times in human history is
Speaker 1: a heck of a thing to throw around. He decided
Speaker 1: to weigh in now, apparently, because he believes that there
Speaker 1: is not much time to prepare for the transition. That's
Speaker 1: what I was wondering when he says that. What's he
Speaker 1: feel like the horizon is? I don't think he was very,
Speaker 1: very specific. If he has been, I haven't come across it.
Speaker 1: But he's going to D.C. like now. He says he
Speaker 1: wants to talk to lawmakers. Quote, you have a chance
Speaker 1: to act now. Before unemployment rises sharply, communities are hurting
Speaker 1: and public trust has eroded. Eroded further? Yikes. That's interesting
Speaker 1: what he said there about the companies having no plan.
Speaker 1: That's not really their job or arena. I mean, how
Speaker 1: could they? So I'm trying to think of an example,
Speaker 1: but like when the car industry came along, you know,
Speaker 1: when cars became really popular, there was a very big
Speaker 1: concern that all of a sudden we had mobile bedrooms
Speaker 1: and people were going to be able to make out
Speaker 1: and have sex in cars. For the first time ever,
Speaker 1: you got a mobile bedroom. You used to have to
Speaker 1: either get a hotel or be at home. Uh, and
Speaker 1: that was just like swept the nation. I've read a
Speaker 1: bunch of articles about that from way back. I think
Speaker 1: it was forties and fifties. It's really kind of hilarious
Speaker 1: in retrospect, but it wasn't the car industry's duty to
Speaker 1: come up with a plan for that. That was a
Speaker 1: by-product of this new invention. Isn't it the same with AI?
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I'm vending this AI. It's a, it's a computer thing.
Speaker 1: It can learn itself, whatever like that. What's that going
Speaker 1: to do to people working? I don't know. You figured out. Well, right.
Speaker 1: And boy, this is a, this leads to a, incredibly
Speaker 1: important tangent that I'll try to keep kind of brief,
Speaker 1: but yeah, let the companies pursue their self-interest because it's
Speaker 1: when government gets involved and mixes some politicians view opinion
Speaker 1: on what the public interest is with the private interest
Speaker 1: that all of a sudden the free market gets completely skewed.
Speaker 1: Government itself becomes screwed up and, and you just, you're
Speaker 1: better off letting the free market function and, And then
Speaker 1: government stepping in where government should. Yeah, I like Bill
Speaker 1: Gates weighing in on this because I think we've all
Speaker 1: gotten bamboozled a little bit on this, including myself. Like
Speaker 1: the AI, the people making these things, like Altman and
Speaker 1: Elon and Emodi, it's their job to figure out how
Speaker 1: humanity is going to adjust to it. No, it's not. Right.
Speaker 1: And the only reason they're spinning it positively is so
Speaker 1: people will continue to invest and support it. But they
Speaker 1: don't need to come up with a plan. A few
Speaker 1: more specifics, because it's good to start the day with
Speaker 1: existential angst. Much of his essay focused on jobs, noting
Speaker 1: that entry and mid-level jobs are most at risk of
Speaker 1: being eliminated. He argued that AI will soon also affect
Speaker 1: blue collar work and the breadth and speed make it
Speaker 1: different from other workplace transitions.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: And he cites the move from agriculture to office work.
Speaker 1: And that took generations. But that sectors like law, customer service, software,
Speaker 1: and manufacturing will feel AI's impact over the course of
Speaker 1: a single decade. And when AI can produce error-free work,
Speaker 1: if ever, it will be able to function on its
Speaker 1: own without a human checking in on it. And companies
Speaker 1: will have very economic, I'm sorry, every economic incentive to
Speaker 1: let it. Need a strong, much stronger safety net. And
Speaker 1: he points out when factories closed, many locals saw more
Speaker 1: opioid deaths. Imagine similar pressures on both white collar and
Speaker 1: blue collar workers nationwide. And then one more note. Both
Speaker 1: of my kids are going to be living in my
Speaker 1: house for the rest of my life. That's correct. Get
Speaker 1: a bigger house. If you can afford it. Gates stressed
Speaker 1: the risk of cyber attacks on the grid, hospitals, and banks.
Speaker 1: Fraud and surveillance will be widespread. AI will also enable
Speaker 1: governments to use deadly force without a human's input. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's funny. We have a tendency to talk about AI
Speaker 1: and the Chinese robots in warfare. Then we talk about
Speaker 1: AI and what it's going to do to the workplace.
Speaker 1: Then we talk about AI and criminals' abilities to hack
Speaker 1: into everything and act like those all three aren't going
Speaker 1: to be happening at the same time. It's not like
Speaker 1: those aren't separate entities at separate eras. They're all going
Speaker 1: to be happening at the same time. It's not a checklist.
Speaker 1: It's a flood. Yeah. One more thought on relationships. Gates,
Speaker 1: and I think he's right, stressed that AI can be
Speaker 1: an echo chamber. which could have profound effects on children.
Speaker 1: Chatbots are addictive and can be a source of friction-free companionship,
Speaker 1: unlike humans, and can worsen critical thinking. This would be
Speaker 1: the worst possible time for humans to lose their critical
Speaker 1: thinking skills. In an era of deep fakes and misinformation
Speaker 1: that can be tailored to you individually, the ability to
Speaker 1: tell what is true from what is not becomes an
Speaker 1: essential life skill. Well, that's easy for you to say.
Speaker 1: He's a super genius. He's called for taxes on AI tokens.
Speaker 1: Are you familiar with the term token? It's a unit
Speaker 1: of computing power. So I've got my little AI company,
Speaker 1: and I pay one of the many companies that is
Speaker 1: building the data centers for a certain number of tokens
Speaker 1: so I can do my AI stuff. Okay, Bill Epstein Gates.
Speaker 1: And this money the government gets from these tokens, what
Speaker 1: are they going to do with this? What's the genius
Speaker 1: plan for that? Well, these tokens, these taxes could delay
Speaker 1: companies rush away from human labor. And those taxes could
Speaker 1: also fund a social safety net for restraining people whose
Speaker 1: jobs won't exist. Retraining, not restraining. So part of it
Speaker 1: is a punishment to slow them down. Nobody's slowing down China.
Speaker 1: And then the other end is a safety net, which,
Speaker 1: you know, I don't have a lot of optimism on
Speaker 1: crafting safety nets. So that part I didn't like of
Speaker 1: the Bill Gates spiel. yes, I'm not sure what the
Speaker 1: alternative is and neither does anybody else. Well, when the
Speaker 1: robot apocalypse comes, you and your dog will still have
Speaker 1: each other, right? I got another comment on that, but first, yes,
Speaker 1: Rough Greens. A wagging tail and a lolling tongue and
Speaker 1: a tennis ball thrown will still bring joy to our hearts,
Speaker 1: won't it? But you want your dog to live as
Speaker 1: healthy and as long as possible, and that's where Rough
Speaker 1: Greens comes in. It's America's number one dog supplement. You
Speaker 1: know who liked dogs? Dolly Parton. I'm going to tie
Speaker 1: her into everything. And that's why she would probably appreciate
Speaker 1: you using Rough Greens. Can her estate sue me like
Speaker 1: she's endorsing this product? Yes, indeed, yes. Rough Greens is
Speaker 1: something you sprinkle on your dog's current food. Live probiotics,
Speaker 1: digestive enzymes, omega oils, over 20 vitamins and minerals, all natural,
Speaker 1: made right here in the United States. And you can
Speaker 1: try it for nothing, which is really, really cool. Try
Speaker 1: it for free. Just pay the shipping. Go to roughgreens.com
Speaker 1: right now. Grab your free Jumpstart trial bag. You only
Speaker 1: cover shipping at ruffgreens.com. You've got to use the code ARMSTRONG. Again, roughgreens.com.
Speaker 1: That discount code is Armstrong at checkout. Roughgreens.com code Armstrong.
Speaker 1: Roughgreens doesn't replace your dog's food. It makes it better.
Speaker 1: I don't know why this hadn't occurred to me before.
Speaker 1: Maybe I'm the only one, but it's almost... Funny that
Speaker 1: the industry, the heavyweights discussing how we're going to handle
Speaker 1: the problem of AIs or the people that are making it,
Speaker 1: they didn't need to do that at all. Bill Gates,
Speaker 1: when you invented the Internet, I don't remember people putting
Speaker 1: out big pieces, you putting out a big piece about
Speaker 1: how the Internet was going to destroy people's lives. Maybe
Speaker 1: you didn't understand that. But it made all kinds of
Speaker 1: stuff bad and good. But you didn't. Wasn't your job
Speaker 1: to figure out the bad stuff? Why is it AI's
Speaker 1: job to figure out the bad stuff? That's an interesting
Speaker 1: philosophical and governmental question because if you are putting out
Speaker 1: a product that is just patently dangerous, then yes, you
Speaker 1: need to figure out how to make your product less dangerous.
Speaker 1: But if it's dangerous because of how productive it is,
Speaker 1: we're into a weird gray area. And again, dislocation, and
Speaker 1: a lot of you I know, and I want to
Speaker 1: tip my cap to your opinion, think, dudes, this is
Speaker 1: like the steam engine and the cotton gin thing. And
Speaker 1: everything else, it will create jobs. It will not remove them.
Speaker 1: I hope you're right. I don't think you are. I
Speaker 1: am voicing that, so they are part of the discussion.
Speaker 1: I pray they're right. And I always thought I have
Speaker 1: a pretty good imagination, but maybe I just lack imagination
Speaker 1: as to how that will look. But fortunately, here is
Speaker 1: the rub. Even if you believe that, that in spite
Speaker 1: of the massive amount of change. We can adjust and
Speaker 1: reallocate resources and labor and the rest of it. It's
Speaker 1: the pace of change that will be so mind blowing.
Speaker 1: And it's the sort of thing governments have never had
Speaker 1: to deal with. I mean, hell, slow paced demographic change.
Speaker 1: They suck at. I mean, great piece, Holman Jenkins, Wall
Speaker 1: Street Journal today, he was talking, his message was essentially, hey, socialists,
Speaker 1: we've already run out of other people's money to spend.
Speaker 1: Look at the United States. Look at our budget. The
Speaker 1: budget is the safety net. Everything else is a minor
Speaker 1: part of the budget. With rising interest rates, we've already
Speaker 1: run out of money for our social safety net. Tax
Speaker 1: the billionaires, the oligarchs, yeah, we know. But anyway, if
Speaker 1: they're that bad at adjusting to the very slow graying
Speaker 1: of america picture of all that s happens in a
Speaker 1: month and a half so is all this talk from
Speaker 1: elon about we won't need money in the future and
Speaker 1: it'll we'll have 10 times the economy or 30 times
Speaker 1: the economy or whatever and the same thing from the
Speaker 1: other big leaders is that all just to try to
Speaker 1: have a some positive news out there about ai because
Speaker 1: without that it would be all negative Oh, well, to
Speaker 1: your question specifically, Elon is absolutely brilliant, but he has
Speaker 1: huge blind spots, too. And this might be one of them,
Speaker 1: the socioeconomic reality he's talking about. One of his biggest
Speaker 1: blind spots is everybody ain't like you, dude. We're not
Speaker 1: all super geniuses who only care about, you know, working
Speaker 1: and getting to Mars. Right. I work really hard on
Speaker 1: that because as an iconoclast, also known in some quarters
Speaker 1: as a weirdo, I've tried to understand that, okay, my
Speaker 1: perception is different than a lot of people's.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 1: I have a completely new perspective of this whole thing
Speaker 1: now because of that Bill Gates piece, and I can't
Speaker 1: believe that I didn't notice this. It's not the industry's
Speaker 1: job to figure out the downside. When has it ever been? No,
Speaker 1: we need to depend on government.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: Well, we need to depend on us. We're the government.
Speaker 1: But the idea of taxing them to the point that
Speaker 1: there's too slow that we can figure it out. That's
Speaker 1: a terrible idea. That's a terrible idea, Bill. Sorry. You
Speaker 1: think I spent too much time on the island? Oh,
Speaker 1: that was out. I recuse. We got mailbag next. Stay here.
Speaker 2: Armstrong and Getty. The Armstrong and Getty Show.
Speaker 1: Both Dan Sullivans won up in Alaska? Is that going
Speaker 1: to be the race? No, but they've advanced to the
Speaker 1: final X number in the ranked vote choice system. So
Speaker 1: still both Dan Sullivans are competing against each other? Both
Speaker 1: in the game, yes. The real Dan Sullivan and the
Speaker 1: fake Republican Dan Sullivan. Yeah, beautiful. Here's your freedom-loving quote
Speaker 1: of the day. I chose this because I've got a
Speaker 1: lot of information on this topic. I hope we'll get
Speaker 1: to it. But it was said not by Christopher Hitchens,
Speaker 1: who is often credited with this, but writer Andrew Cummins. Quote,
Speaker 1: Islamophobia is a word created by fascists and used by
Speaker 1: cowards to manipulate morons. Hmm. Pretty good time. Islamophobia is
Speaker 1: a word created by fascists and used by cowards to
Speaker 1: manipulate morons. God, I wish Christopher Hitchens was alive today
Speaker 1: to take on this DSA crowd. Particularly the Islamofascist part.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: He'd be so good. Yeah, a valuable voice.
Speaker 2: Lost!
Speaker 1: Shouldn't have smoked. Mailbag. Drop us a note. Mailbag at armstrongandgetty.com.
Speaker 1: On the topic of Dolly... MR writes, one of the
Speaker 1: correspondents on TV said Dolly was the only entertainer in
Speaker 1: his lifetime that always led with love. A lovely tribute
Speaker 1: and so true. Very simply true. Thank you for writing.
Speaker 1: On a totally different topic, JT in Livermore. Jack's chatbot
Speaker 1: told him that Jack had earned the chatbot's honesty? Right. Um, WTF?
Speaker 1: Did the chatbot just admit that it isn't honest with
Speaker 1: the rest of us? And or is it saying that
Speaker 1: we have to earn the honesty we assumed was supposed
Speaker 1: to be there? Troubling. Greg from Sunnyvale with quite the
Speaker 1: note on, uh, abdul al-saeed's appearance on the jesse waters
Speaker 1: show he also put out a tribute to dolly parton
Speaker 1: last night al-saeed did that oh my god is he
Speaker 1: dangerous uh and and he points out a number of
Speaker 1: different ways that jesse was just a terrible interrogator and
Speaker 1: or expresser of you know the view that a lot
Speaker 1: of what al-saeed believes is abhorrent he really did a
Speaker 1: poor job um But then he says, lastly, I was
Speaker 1: further disappointed with Jesse when I saw him on the Foxes,
Speaker 1: the five. After the panel discussion about Al-Said, Jesse said
Speaker 1: he liked Abdul. which had agreements by all the others
Speaker 1: on the panel. This is concerning because he is so dangerous.
Speaker 1: He's using his charm to minimize his true goal or
Speaker 1: to mask it. Once he and others get control, they
Speaker 1: will no longer be charming to those who disagree with them.
Speaker 1: They will no longer show friendship to you and others
Speaker 1: in their way. And I think it's a mistake to
Speaker 1: verbalize to anyone like you like him. He's lying and
Speaker 1: using his charm for deception. I would agree completely. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Let's see. Yeah, trust me. The DSA put out a
Speaker 1: statement about Dolly Parton, one of the great, we love her, blah, blah, blah.
Speaker 1: The DSA did. And George Bush. I mean, like I said,
Speaker 1: the range of people is quite amazing. Yeah, I believe
Speaker 1: one of them was sincere and one was not. Joe
Speaker 1: in Manteca writes on the topic of McCarthyism, interestingly. It's
Speaker 1: interesting how during the Cold War, Senator McCarthy was so
Speaker 1: concerned about communists infiltrating our government country at the same
Speaker 1: time People seem much more aware of the threat of communism.
Speaker 1: Today it seems like we don't care as much. What
Speaker 1: do you think? Well, A, we clearly don't care as
Speaker 1: much because we have forgotten the horrific lessons of communism.
Speaker 1: But I think more importantly, and I didn't realize this
Speaker 1: until later in life, the left in education, which is
Speaker 1: a lot of education, really hammered McCarthyism and made that
Speaker 1: the face of anti-communism, trying to teach children that anti-communism
Speaker 1: was irrational, it was bigoted. It unfairly hurt a bunch
Speaker 1: of people, and there was certainly some truth to that.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: When you think about that era and the communist scare,
Speaker 1: it's all about the overreach as opposed to the fact
Speaker 1: that there were actually lots of communists that had gotten
Speaker 1: into our government and our press. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, they
Speaker 1: were absolutely teeming in the State Department, especially in our media.
Speaker 1: So that was an intentional strategy to make Joe McCarthy
Speaker 1: look like anti-communism. No, he was a self-aggrandizing nut job,
Speaker 1: but the communism part was absolutely real. So the 60
Speaker 1: Minutes reran their segment on the California bullet train. Wall
Speaker 1: Street Journal has an article about it today. It's one
Speaker 1: of the great government awfulnesses of our lifetimes.
Speaker 2: Armstrong and Getty.