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What are your thoughts about today’s show? We’d love to hear from you!
Absolutely disgusting how Andy totally steam rolls Alex when Alex has a dissenting viewpoint. Just like the prior administration did during Covid. Lost all respect for Andy.
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I listened to this episode live and wasn’t focused as much as when I watch VOD; but I have to say: that doesn’t sound like Andy to me… Do you have a timestamp?
I feel like usually it’s Alex doing the steamrolling over Andy so I’m genuinely curious what you’re referring to.
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To be honest, I find the VisionPro fascinating and can see where it is going, on the other hand, I just can’t see the appeal of the Meta glasses, probably because I need prescription lenses and the thought of having to spend another 1,000€ for the corrective lenses, on top of the glasses, for a product that will probably need replacing after a year or 2 just doesn’t appeal, but also due to privacy laws, it would be almost impossible to wear them anywhere - I couldn’t wear them in public without handing out waivers to everybody I encounter, I couldn’t wear them in cafés, restaurants, gyms etc. so I would always need to carry a normal pair of glasses (the other 1,000€) around with me - or rather I would have to wear them 99% of the time and carry the Meta/Apple AR glasses in their case, and my wife wouldn’t let me wear them at home, or in her presence…
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In the past Alex has suffered the same ailment, so perhaps turn-about is fair play?
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I feel your pain. I’ve just updated the prescription in my sunglasses, which was £700+. I also have my normal specs and glasses for sport to keep updated - so three pairs with my prescription in and my prescription seems to need updating every couple of years now 
I must admit I was tempted as they had the meta glasses in my opticians. Surely if you did go for them, you’d just not record in public spaces, no need for multiple glasses. That makes them pretty pointless, though. We have the same restrictions here in the UK.
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I renewed my prescription last year, after about 5 years. Last time the difference between left and right eyes was so great they refused to correct the right eye fully, so everything was a little blurry through that eye and caused eye strain. This time I said I wanted both corrected fully, they said most people have problems with such a high diopter difference and get headaches or have balance problems, but it was like a breath of fresh air, to be able to see clearly with both eyes again.
But I have varifocal lenses, which are very expensive for the ones that provide a wide field of vision.
I would assume that the lenses for the VisionPro would be fixed focal length, so cheaper than varifocal lenses and that they should work from one model year to the next… So they wouldn’t need replacing as often. Glasses tend to have a style that is in fashion and the next ones have a different style, so the lenses can’t just be taken from one pair to the next, which would be made even worse by the quickly changing technology in the smart glasses themselves.
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Alex often goes off on one, or won’t see others viewpoints, especially when it comes to Apple company politics. He often has some indefencable viewpoints and won’t budge and steam-rollers the others.
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The whole conversation is +/- a couple of minutes on either side… but here it the time mark: https://youtu.be/4SGB5C2_Lj8?t=3041
Similar here, I’m almost +7 in one eye, +3 in the other, and for years the opticians wrote off my worst eye and said it wasn’t even worth correcting as my brain was ignoring its input anyway. Then I found a great optician who thought the opposite. It’s hard work at times, I do suffer from eye strain and headaches if I’m not careful but it’s def worth having the input from that eye.
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This is a good example. I don’t think Andy does that a lot, I think it’s nice to see someone challenging Alex. I don’t think Alex felt steamrolled by Andy in this case. Andy is really gentle, I don’t really see him capable of steamrolling.
But thank you for coming back with a timestamp, I do see what you mean and I appreciate you. It’s easy to complain, but not everyone will follow up with an example.
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One of the actors in Apple’s BSOD advertisement looks like Jeff Jarvis.
It’s a very funny&cute ad for sure. Not built for TV haha.
The homeless Leo Sora video reminded me of a comedian I am familiar with: Derek Drescher
If Andy steamrolled Alex for repeating a demonstrably false, completely debunked right-wing talking point about COVID, I’m not seeing the problem here.
Which the whole “Biden censored those poor COVID freedom fighters” fantasy is.
I posted this on another show thread recently, but a huge part of the reason the US is in our “My First Dictatorship” era is because most Americans seem to be incapable of having a political position other than “Both sides are equally bad.”
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What exactly do you think is “a completely debunked right-wing talking point about COVID”? The AIs categorically disagree with your assessment!
The real disappointment of the conversation is @Leo‘s “That’s not true.” @50:19 into the podcast – in response to Alex’s comment “We had an administration before this one telling everyone what they were allowed to put on Facebook and YouTube.” Here’s what ChatGPT has to say about that claim:
Q: Did the Biden administration censor and otherwise restrict what could be posted about the pandemic and COVID vaccines in 2021 and 2022 on Facebook? Did the Biden administration censor and otherwise restrict what could be posted about the pandemic and COVID vaccines in 2021 and 2022 on YouTube? Please provide references to both questions.
A: Short answer — there was extensive, documented communication in 2021–2022 between Biden-Administration officials and major platforms (including Facebook/Meta and YouTube/Google) urging them to act on COVID-19 and vaccine “misinformation,” and the platforms changed policies and removed or downranked content. Whether that conduct legally counts as government censorship was litigated and remains contested in the courts. Axios+3House Documents+3Reuters+3
Below I’ll summarize the key facts and link the most important sources.
What happened (evidence)
Emails and internal documents released in discovery for litigation show repeated White House / HHS / Surgeon General / CDC / FBI contacts with Facebook/Meta, Twitter/X and Google/YouTube about COVID-19 and vaccine content — asking platforms to identify, label, reduce, or remove material the agencies considered false or harmful. (House committee / discovery PDFs). House Documents+1
Platforms changed policies and enforcement. For example, YouTube expanded policies in 2021 to remove content that questioned the safety or efficacy of approved vaccines; platforms like Facebook implemented new removals/demotions of specified COVID claims. These product-policy changes happened the same period the government was communicating with platforms. Axios+1
Admissions/claims from industry. In 2024 Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said senior Biden-Administration officials had urged Meta to remove/suppress some COVID-related posts (and that in hindsight Meta would have handled some things differently). Reuters
Legal and constitutional outcome
A federal district judge (in the case originally filed as Missouri v. Biden) issued a July 4, 2023 preliminary injunction that, in part, found the government had “significantly encouraged” platforms to suppress protected speech and temporarily barred certain communications. The court’s order relied heavily on the discovery emails. Justia+1
The Fifth Circuit modified and narrowed that injunction on appeal. The case reached the U.S. Supreme Court (argued as Murthy v. Missouri). On June 26, 2024 the Supreme Court did not rule on the broad question of whether the government’s conduct was unconstitutional on the merits; instead the Court concluded the plaintiffs lacked Article III standing to obtain their requested relief and accordingly vacated/modified aspects of the injunction. The Court did, however, describe the proper scope of injunctive relief language (warning defendants not to “coerce or significantly encourage” platforms to suppress protected speech). Supreme Court+1
How to read this
Factually: There is strong, contemporaneous documentary evidence of administration-platform coordination and of platforms’ policy changes and removals that targeted COVID/vaccine misinformation in 2021–2022. House Documents+1
Legally: Courts have debated whether those communications amounted to unconstitutional government censorship. A district court initially found significant encouragement; appellate and Supreme Court proceedings narrowed the scope and ultimately the Supreme Court’s June 26, 2024 decision dismissed the case on standing grounds (so it did not issue a sweeping, final ruling on the constitutional question). Supreme Court+1
Key sources (read these for the original documents and court rulings)
House documents / discovery showing emails between government officials and platforms. House Documents+1
The July 4, 2023 district-court opinion in Missouri v. Biden (pdf of the ruling and record excerpts). Attorney General of Missouri
U.S. Supreme Court opinion (Murthy v. Missouri, 23-411), June 26, 2024 (explains standing and modifications to injunction language). Supreme Court
Reporting on Mark Zuckerberg’s statements acknowledging White House pressure on Meta. Reuters
Reporting and platform policy notes on YouTube’s 2021 expansion of vaccine-misinformation removals. Axios
If you want, I can pull and quote the most relevant email excerpts (from the House/discovery PDFs) and place them side-by-side with the specific platform policy changes and the relevant passages from the court opinions so you can see the primary evidence and the legal reasoning in one view. Which of those three — emails, platform policy changes, or court opinion — would you like first?
I don’t know why anyone would dispute this. You can chase the references by opening the ChatGPT query link in a web browser and asking for the references. Alex is completely right.
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I suggested this to Leo/Paul Holder, but it’s been long enough where I just think I should say it in a thread publicly: I’m really over people quoting LLMs and pasting them into threads on forums.
Whether it be in a Let Me Google That For You fashion, or just trying to prove your point. It feels vapid and empty. Forums are one of the last places online where you’re mostly free from LLM generated content and it’s human focused. That and Reddit. I don’t think anyone is interested in what an AI has to say on a thread. Use your own words. Maybe use AI on your own side to forumate your stuff. I’m just really tired of seeing AIs quoted. Whether it be in this thread, or the countless times Jeremy has asked for help and been given a “here’s what AI has to say” to the point where he now mentions in all his threads “I asked my AI and it said XYZ”. Which isn’t a bad thing; it’s good to know how to help yourself. But it feels like he was beaten over the head with it.
Thank you for listening to my Ted Talk. I’ve been harbouring these feelings for a long time.
No hard feelings. I know it’s not malicious. But I hate it. I know I’m not the person in charge, and it’s not your goal to please me. But I don’t know if anyone would speak up about if if they were also feeling something similar.
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Why? I asked ChatGPT to provide specific links, and it did. Just like Alex, I have no idea why @mattand08 wouldn’t already know this.
To me, the strangeness was the Government’s message to solely rely on a Vaccine. That never made sense. We’ve known for ages that our immune system – fueled by abundant amounts of Vitamin D – is quite capable of significant positive impacts on all viruses. I had listened to the Security Now! #209 way back in 2009. I didn’t immediately embrace Steve’s recommendations, but I did well before the pandemic in 2020.
Thanks to Dr. John Campbell’s YouTube Channel, we knew that 40ng/ml (or 100nMol/L) was a good low bar for healthy blood levels of Vitamin D. I started taking 5000 IU/day and pestered my doctor to give me a Vitamin D test. My level was just north of 60ng/ml. This amount served me well during the pandemic. I kept reading the stories of people hospitalized and dying with 10-15 ng/ml; that was a dangerous level. Sadly, the government never ever talked about this; the responsibility was shifted to individual doctors and people who did their own due diligence.
At the same time, there started to be stories that red and near-infrared light were beneficial to good outcomes from COVID. The 2019 paper Melatonin and the Optics of the Human Body notes that red and near-infrared light indoors has been cut by over 80% (!!!) in the 21st Century in America. That paper notes the strong free radical defenses created by melatonin in our mitochondria, and that red light facilitates that melatonin production. The message was clear: get outside – daily, early, and often. I live in the country; that is easy. OTOH, I individuals in cities and retirement homes during the pandemic were sequestered (and infrared-starved) indoors. We did terrible by the general population with our health recommendations. Getting vaccinated was a good recommendation, but vaccination alone was insufficient for our overall health.
We keep getting great great YouTube videos from Dr. Roger Sehult . His most recent video See Infrared Light with Your Own Eyes is excellent. It allows us to graphically see both the vast abundance of infrared light outdoors (especially near plants) and the great lacking of infrared light indoors. The film that can be purchased and used to make smart phones and tablets “see” infrared light is amazing! We have been blind for a long time to infrared light. History will view our decision to make lumen-only LED lighting as a terrible one; the vast photobiomodulation database shows just how important read and infrared light is to our health and well-being.
Am I pissed? Yes. I never understood why we put all our emphasis on the the “Get vaccinated” horse. Why didn’t we look at Vitamin D levels – and insist on testing for everyone? Why didn’t we simply tell people to get outside frequently? Why didn’t we look at RLT appliances or covering the coating on LED bulbs with special stokes-shifting films that would shift their spectrum to the red and infrared side for those sequestered indoors? Why was nobody looking at the “big picture” of the pandemic?
People who paused and listened to the science found some amazing things. What they found goes far beyond surviving the pandemic. It’s starting to address our systemic health – our mitochondrial health – in an entirely new way. In hindsight, we as a society were sitting ducks for a disease that would exploit our predilection towards metabolic disease and high inflammation. Maybe COVID will kick-start our collective ….. towards greater overall health. Maybe not.
Does that make you happy, @iFish? I see no problem with starting with AI summaries – as long as they are a starting point for a discussion. They are never in and of themselves a conclusion.
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Something I explore a lot in therapy: will anything ever make me happy?
But I do appreciate you, Phil.
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The crux of the debate is whether the Biden administration ordered the content to be taken down or merely informed the platforms of the nature of the content (the latter happens all the time).
When there’s a legitimate public health concern it seems completely reasonable for the government to inform platforms of content that endangers people. The first amendment prohibits them ordering a take down, and there is no evidence that ever happened, but no one denies that the Biden administration did tell the platforms there was an issue and the platforms took the responsible action.
I suppose you could say that the Trump DoJ merely informed Apple that ICEblock and its ilk were dangerous for ICE officers and that Apple and Google did the right thing. We’ll never know what would have happened if they hadn’t. Maybe the tariff exemption for the iPhone would have been lifted. Maybe Bondi would have indicted Tim Cook like she has James Comey and Letitia James. It’s pretty clear the current administration doesn’t have any reluctance to punish people who don’t bend the knee.
Honestly the debate is mostly a litmus test on one’s political beliefs. If you think Covid was harmless then Biden and the platforms definitely over reacted. If you think ICE is acting as Trump’s anonymous secret police, then Apple caved.
I, for one, wish Apple had shown more spine and told Trump and Bondi to pound sand.
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You’re splitting legal hairs, Leo. Did they officially “order” them to take down posts they didn’t like? No, but the companies have said they were strongly pressured to do so. That’s close enough that you have to admit it crossed the line. They should have stayed out of it.
So, asking social media to look at whether misinformation should be removed or not is wrong, yet putting pressure on Apple and Google to remove ICEblock is ok?