Hello, I'm Jesse Hirsch and this is Metaviews, recorded live in front of an automated audience.

And today's show.

Boy, we got a burner.

What the hell is going on with Cameron Cowan.

Yeah, that's right.

Now you know, every Meta Views, we like to structure into a number of different segments that allow us to both serve our audience, but also bring the best out of our guests, put them on their back feet, perhaps get some really interesting insights out of them.

So, Cameron, every episode we'd like to start with the news.

And you know, in this case, normally I throw to our website, but I wanted to start by showing that you too are also in the news business.

But at Metaviews, what we're really into, and this is someone who, where both of us, I think, share a passion for the news.

I think we also share a belief that the news has become far more accessible, way easier for people to get into it now.

Meta Views, we do a daily newsletter and today's issue looks at the UK's AI plan.

It's been heavily criticized as being essentially all hope and no substance.

And even though the labor government thought that they'd be able to use it as a way to give them credibility, it's kind of achieved quite the opposite.

And Cameron, this is where I like to throw to our guest and say, do you have any news that you would like to share?

Could be personal news, could be world news.

I've had, unfortunately, some guests on this podcast, podcast who've offered some fake news that I ended up having to correct after the fact.

But hey, it's the Internet, why not?

So, Cameron, welcome to Meta Views.

What kind of news would you like to share with our audience?

I don't think I have any breaking headlines other than the last New York Times news alert I saw was Rudy Giuliani was able to keep his house in a settlement with Georgia election poll workers.

Which I laugh because everyone's like, oh, the 2020 election was stolen and there was fraud and blah, blah, blah.

And I'm kind of like, please tell that to Rudy Giuliani.

Please tell him it's please, right wing media pundits, please explain to him as he's losing everything, how fake all of that is and how much it's lawfare.

Because he, I think, would have some words to say with you about, about that.

And honestly, I think he's probably, I think of all the people Trump has victimized next to the contractors he never paid to work on his casinos, Rudy Giuliani, Paul Manafort and Roger Stone.

Are probably Trump's worst victims.

And Cohen as well.

Michael Cohen is up there.

Everyone who is around him ends up paying a lot of money to somebody in jail, whatever have you.

And yet people keep hanging out with him.

That's the part I'm amazed by.

If I knew someone, if I was in that sort of realm and that I was around someone like that and that kept happening to people, I wouldn't be in the same room with that person.

But yet you still have the Marc Andreessen's, Peter Thiel's, Elon Musk, Vivek Ramaswamys flocking to him.

Although those last names, those last names, they do have much to lose.

So unlike our friend Giuliani, who now has nothing to lose, you know, perhaps they don't see the train wreck ahead of them.

Although I will push back and say I'm not.

I don't know if Rudy would have learned.

I wouldn't be surprised if given the opportunity, he would still make those same mistakes again.

But you're right, there is this paradox where the closer they get to power, the more likely they are to get to.

The more likely they are to be burned.

And yet there's a full line of rich idiots behind them ready for the same opportunity.

So I think that's an excellent example of news.

And it kind of brings us to our second segment called what's the Future?

And, you know, as a future centric show, this is where we ask our guests, is there something about the future that you've got your eye on?

Maybe good, maybe bad, Bad, maybe imaginary.

But we like to suggest that the role the future plays for all of us is a kind of a target.

Right.

Kind of something that we're calibrating based on.

So, Cameron, is there something about the future, aspects of the future that you would like to share with our audience?

I think 2025 is going to be the year of what is AI going to actually do?

Where is the application going to make sense that adds value?

I did an appearance on a popular Indian streaming show last night for Indian television.

And not only it was very awkward because I talk about the whole H1B immigration thing, which that was a huge issue, I'm sure.

Yeah, that was not awkward at all.

And, but also, you know, the work, there's a lot of hype.

We've seen a lot of possibilities.

I think what's frightening to me is nobody on the hype train is really concerned about the, okay, what is this actually going to do?

I think this year in 2025, we're going to answer that question.

What actual business use case is there for AI?

Where is the value it's going to add?

And I think this year we're going to answer that question.

I agree with you on a logical level, and I would have said I've been telling people that had Trump not won the election, I was convinced the AI bubble was gonna burst in the first quarter this year.

Nvidia stock already is starting to show signs, but I kind of felt the bubble burst.

The problem is, with Trump winning the election, bullshit is on top.

Right?

Right.

Lies have been emboldened.

And so to bring us back to today's meta views, the two arguments we make is Sam Altman has made this proclamation that AGI will be achieved during Trump's term, which I thought was poetic, cuz Trump's a big liar.

So if you're gonna lie about something, it's in the Trump term that you're gonna make such a big lie.

But to your point, about the AI, the rubber hitting the road, I agree it has to happen.

But my fear, and maybe this isn't a fear, my hunch is that it's the military that's gonna bail the industry out.

It's the military that's gonna be the biggest customer.

Right?

Because they're framing AI as a kind of cold war, as a kind of arms race where, you know, if they don't do it, it'll be China.

And that makes me think that because I, I see an illogical business model to what they currently have.

They are spending way more money than they're bringing in.

And to your point, I am skeptical as to whether the product is going to be ready for prime time and really allow people to do stuff with it.

And that's why I'm speculating it could be the military who have often subsidized technology, could do so again.

Go ahead.

Yes.

I mean, there's a case, especially given the competition we're seeing in the drone situation.

Supposedly China has nicer, better, faster drones than we do, and this is a huge security risk.

Although I only heard that from one lesser known backbench congressperson.

My question would be, okay, we've been using drones since Afghanistan and Iraq and for several years.

And if we're not the top in the world, and what the, what on earth do we give Raytheon and Lockheed Martin money for there?

It's like you have a budget of 900 billion.

Your job is to be first in everything.

And we do mean everything.

So.

So I kind of wonder what the veracity of that really is.

But I mean, yeah, an AI powered drone storm which China demonstrates, those lovely dragons in the sky for celebrations and all, this type of thing.

Yeah, I could definitely see that.

But on the business side, I think we're going to see it deployed in customer service a lot.

So it's not just going to be, you know, talking to a voice in the phone, listening for a keyword.

It's going to be something smart enough to actually parse out what you're trying to say and come up with an answer for you, I think, you know, especially as it gets into enterprise.

I'm looking for innovations in accounting, budgets, things like that personal computer started there and all, and all this.

So I'm looking for all of that.

I think what's frightening is, yeah, I was kind of thinking the bubble was going to burst as well, but nobody seems to think so.

I interviewed someone yesterday who is a former Fortune 500 tech executive and that interview was probably one of the most depressing I've done because he basically was like, look, this stuff is going to be fully deployed by the end of the decade and two thirds of people will have no jobs and there's going to be a tremendous social people.

No one is prepared for this, no one is talking about this, this.

And I think it's going to be, I mean, as Thomas Piketty said in his work on capital, as I've written About capitalism, the 21st century economically is for those who own assets.

Yeah, that's 1% of people of any given country and a very small minority of people on the planet.

Everyone else ends up in what we call techno feudalism.

Great book, by the way.

And, and I was kind of like, I mean, you know, if I'm toward, if I'm my dad who's retiring in two months, I care much less about this stuff.

But I'm 37 in April.

I have a couple more decades, potentially three decades at least, maybe.

Yes, at least three decades of working life and life beyond that to actually have to deal with an address and address this.

What on earth are we to do?

And nobody has an answer for that.

And I think that's genuinely frightening and I don't understand why.

Honestly, that in my mind is the only conversation right now.

Yeah, you know, this is coming.

People are being laid off, their companies already saying they frozen hiring.

It's here and nobody's talking about what we do afterwards.

Let me push back on two points there because I think people are having this conversation.

But to go back to the language of my episode, my appearance on your podcast, which I will be having linking in the show notes because it's kind of the Part 1 to today's discussion is this is happening at the periphery.

Like everyone I know is having this conversation.

And to your point, I think there are a lot of people who are having this conversation at the dining room table, right at the bar, you know, on zooms, on social media.

But this conversation is not happening in the AI discourse.

It's not happening in policy circles, it's not happening within the mainstream kind of, you know, look, there's a squirrel kind of news cycle.

And I think that that's, that's really.

Dangerous 72 hour discourse about it on Twitter.

I mean, right now everyone's still mad about H1B visas and big accounts saying that young men should be happy to manage a Pand Express working 60 to 70 hours a week for people they have nothing in common with.

That's where the discussion is at right now.

The bar just keeps getting lowered.

And I'm kind of like, hey, everybody who thinks that they're going to be safe from all of this if this proceeds at even half the rate they're saying it is, you know, violent revolution is going to be on the table and not just here.

Or at least be in every industrialized nation who can afford the servers that make this stuff work?

Or at least violent upheaval.

And violent upheaval is often much worse than violent revolution because you get the violence and not the change.

But the other thing I was going to push back on is I would advise you, friend, not to bank on three decades of work when you've described, when you've projected techno feudalism, you should expect to work until death.

That is very much the model of feudalism historically.

So, brother, we've got much change to do.

Which fundamentally brings us to our feature segments here on Meta views.

And the way I structure each episode is I sort of take three themes that I like to wrap the conversation I have the guest with today.

In our case, it's MAGA Madness.

Automated media and podcast ecosystems.

And you know, the reason I wanted to start with Maga Madness is I'm from Kanakistan and most of our listeners are from Kanakistan.

And while we are certainly watching the Maga madness because we it impacts us directly, right?

The guy is literally threatening our country and our economy.

But I would love, given that, I really appreciate your perspective and you as a news producer are really kind of putting an effort to pay attention to ask, what was our title Again for today, which I will come back to.

What the hell is going on?

I'm curious, Cameron, without getting too deep, without getting too anxious, can you let us in Kanakistan know about this MAGA madness?

How concerned do we need to be when this guy is literally saying he's going to invade us and install a washed up hockey star as our governor?

I mean, I had a similar question.

The Indians were asking a similar question last night because of the tariffs that would affect them because most of our pharmaceutical manufacturing is in India and all this sort of thing.

And so they've poor India's kind of been under the Trump gun lately between the H1BS and the tariffs and everything.

I mean, Trump has said, I mean, I don't necessarily see troops marching across the border, but Trump has said in very plain language, economic pressure is, is coming.

And I think given that Trudeau's leaving in March and the Conservative Party in some form, maybe Polever, maybe somebody else will sweep into power with no problem whatsoever.

I mean, I think it's kind of going to be in a situation where there's going to be a lot of capitulation, at least on the economic front at a minimum.

But I will tell you the same thing I told the Indians last night.

One of Trump's strategies that is a strength but makes everybody else's life a lot more difficult is we never really know what he's going to do.

And so it's something where.

But I think by and large we'll probably wrest Greenland from the Danes before we annex Canada.

But I definitely think in terms of economic pressures on Canada to basically kind of sell the farm.

I mean, at some.

Here's what I think the kind of worst case, the most likely, but somehow yet worst case scenario is going to be there's a lot of economic pressure.

You know, Canada will try to resist it first, but it won't be economically possible because your country's so small in people, not in land area, but in people, all this type of thing.

Ottawa's kind of forced to give in to every Trump demand possible and you become basically a de facto 51st state.

All the responsibility with none of the benefits, sort of.

And you sort of, you alluded to the power dynamics because part of what'll happen is the federal Conservatives, they won't resist.

They'll from day one be like, hey, yeah.

They'll be like, we should submit.

These are our neighbors.

We should like a dog, roll over and show them our belly and make sure that we get what we want.

I wrote a post in the early days of when this started saying, all right, let's talk terms, because we're not going to be the 51st state.

We should be 51 through 65.

Right.

Because we've got a bunch of provinces.

In each one of those provinces is as distinct as, you know, Montana and Georgia.

Right.

Or New York and Montana.

No one is even looking at that.

So to your point, I think it would be the.

I'm not even sure we'd be the 51st state.

I think we'd be like Puerto Rico.

Yeah, I know, but that's what I'm saying.

But part of the problem with Puerto Ric as a territory is they have lots of burdens.

They're subject to the Jones act, all this type of thing, and they have none of the.

A lot of the privileges that come with being a full part of the country.

I think, unfortunately, that's probably where this is going for Canada, which means life for your average everyday Canadian, and I do a lot of business in Canada, is going to get a lot worse.

And here's where I think, maybe not necessarily during Trump's term, but long term, down the road, I can see a scenario where people are standing in Parliament, Ottawa, being like, you know what?

We should have a plebiscite and apply.

Because you can do that.

You can apply.

Our Constitution allows anybody to apply to be a state sort of thing.

And it's like, we really should have a plebiscite and perhaps adopt the US Constitution and come to terms with Americans.

I mean, I think if the economic pressure works out and Canada ends up with a lot of burden and responsibility with no privileges, I think in five to 10 years, somebody's going to come along and say, let's just get married.

Like, you know, living together is awkward.

You know, the finances are separate and we're ven.

Mowing all the time.

Let's just get married and join the joint bank account.

Well, and where.

Where I.

And I don't.

I want to be careful with my words here, because there's a lot of Canadians right now pissed off, and rightly so.

But where.

I see.

I don't blame them.

I'm so sad we're having this discussion, by the way, Let me be clear.

But we have to be having these discussions if, you know, there's nothing inevitable as long as you're paying attention, is a great slogan.

And I see two silver linings here.

One is the opportunity for solidarity across the board.

This is why I think our conversation and the way in which podcasts as a grassroots level of media are connecting Canadians and Americans the way that Redbook, aka RedNote, is currently connecting Americans and Chinese.

I also think on the other side to that, you may or may not be aware of Canada's relationship with its first nations, which is highly contentious at best.

And this could be both a positive and a negative.

There.

There are certainly a lot of first nations who would love the opportunity to renegotiate, renegotiate their relationship with settler governments.

And having a weakened Canada would very much put them into such a position, even though negotiating with Trump in America is a fool's game.

But then the flip side to that is your earlier point about revolt.

Right.

Because revolting in Canada is a lot easier than the United States because there's a lot of places to go underground, there's a lot of places to hide, there's a lot of places to kind of get out of the way.

And so while you're right, I think the Canadian establishment, the, the part of Canada that owns the mines and owns the, the oil and owns the natural resources, they'll be like, we love you, Lady Liberty.

But I think there'll be a lot of people who will be like, fucking no.

And, and, and, and, and that could as a virus of rebellion, a spread back into the United States.

No, I think that is definitely possible.

I don't know if Canada's first nations are going to have any better luck with our, our Bureau of Indian affairs.

And it's quite the opposite way.

Yeah.

And it's still called that, by the way.

We haven't changed the name.

It's still called the Bureau of Indian Affairs.

I don't have any better luck with them, especially under a Trump administration.

But yes, I mean, I think there, I think, and here's kind of the nice thing about Trump.

Trump's political instincts are unmatched.

If anywhere along the way, he gets a little too much resistance because he has no ideological values, he's gonna fold like a wet paper bag.

So my advice to the average Canadian.

Cuz your establishment's not gonna help you.

They would.

You're right.

They probably would.

Welcome this marriage is don't be quiet.

Don't wait for Ottawa to decide or for them to say, no.

Our sovereign.

Blah, blah, blah, blah.

No, no, no, no, no.

Get.

You have an election coming up too.

Get loud.

Don't let anybody get into power that's not committed to Canadian sovereignty if you don't want to be annexed.

Now, here's the paradox of the strange times we live in.

And this is where I have to take a moment to go back and say, what the hell is going on?

Because I don't know how closely you followed convoy that occupied Ottawa around the same time that the January 6th event happened.

And right now there are, right across the country, the Canadian far right is organizing a trucker convoy 2.0 for the sole purpose of demand.

Well, I shouldn't say the sole purpose because they're always selling stupid shit.

For the primary purpose of demanding that Trudeau step down immediately and call an election immediately.

Because what he's done is he's resigned as the leader of the Liberals, right?

So he's still the Prime Minister functionally.

And he's given the Liberal Party three months to have a leadership race so they can then pick a leader and then call an election so that the election is run under the new leader.

And Jon Stewart sure interfered in Canadian politics by having Mark Carney on his show because that instantly put Mark Carney at the front of the pack.

But this trucker convoy, this freedom convoy, is going to basically disrupt traffic across the country, organize.

They're not going to do occupations like they did last time, but they are going to do kind of slow moving protests, rings around cities and blocking key arteries.

So the paradox here is Canada's always seen itself as a modest, friendly, polite country where making loud noise, protesting loudly is kind of always seen.

Again, this was part of the colonial mindset to keep the population passive and kind of in line, Right?

And now it's the far right that are the one raising a stink.

And these fuckers are exactly the ones who'd be like, we love Trump.

Let's be a vassal state to Trump.

We would be honored to be his feudal servants.

So it's this paradox where the protest space has been occupied by the people with the least moral high ground to occupy it.

And a lot of people are scared.

And this was your point about no one knows what to do.

A lot of people are scared.

They're looking for someone to give them guidance.

They're looking for someone to kind of wade into it.

Are you in the United States?

We talked about this in part one of our conversation on your podcast.

Do you think the Democratic Party, do you think there's anyone on the left in the United States who's, you know, starting to realize, shit, we, we gotta stand up, we gotta start giving people a sense of hope.

We gotta start giving people a belief that there's an end to this and other side to this.

Are you seeing any of that?

No.

And you won't flat out, you won't.

The left in this country has been completely and thoroughly defeated.

We are raising the white flag.

It's over.

It's 1980, you know, it's, it's 1920 in a lot of ways.

Aren't going to elect Walter Mondale.

Surprise, surprise.

No, I mean the left is completely in disarray and entirely in retreat.

We're completely out of power everywhere, in every branch of government.

In most states, Democrats are structurally locked out of power.

Looking at you, Wisconsin, looking at you, North Carolina, looking at you, Ohio.

There is nowhere in this country where there is a beacon of hope for the left.

I think even in California, thanks to the fires, we're going to see probably the biggest rightward shift we've seen in about 40 years.

No, everything Democratic left leaning and whatnot is in complete and total retreat and disarray.

And so because there's all this disorganization right now and nobody has a message no one wants to do, no one wants to do, no one knows what to say, all this type of thing.

There's no one offering a message of hope because no one even knows what to do next.

And I think also the average, and I saw this immediately after the election and we've seen this in TV ratings and news engagement across the board.

The average center left, far left person is simply disengaging.

I've heard people say, I'll check in on this stuff again in two years.

A lot of people are saying we're not paying attention to everything he does this time or resisting or anything like that.

The national mood is just not there.

There has not been a single major protest since his election.

Not one.

And a handful of kind of low level things.

But no, no big marches, no pink hats, no no nothing.

His confirmation went through in four hours without so much as a buyer leave.

And certainly no, no riots or anything like that.

It's, it's a complete retreat here and no one probably wants to hear that.

But that's the sad state of affairs.

Well, and I think you're right and I think the other historical analogy here was, was the end of the 60s because, you know, there were a number of incidents and in the pop culture sense, Altamont was, was a big one.

Right.

Where Altamont was kind of considered the death of the optimism of the 60s.

And what a lot of radicals did.

Yeah, exactly.

And what a lot of radicals did, my parents in particular was they went back to the land, right?

They all retreated to kind of intentional communities and communes and experiments.

Almost all of which failed.

But it was, to your point, a retreat of going inward, of saying, I can't handle the shit show.

I'm going to try to make a difference on my own.

But that was equally self defeating because then you're retreating and you're sort of seeding the political stage, ceding the political space to your opponents, your enemies.

I want to.

But it also gave us the computer revolution.

A lot of those people moved to California, moved to Silicon Valley and began building the personal computer revolution as well.

And let's make money.

And they started building businesses.

I mean, it's kind of interesting how that all shook out.

I, I disagree.

I've actually dug into that only because, you know, the whole, the well and the whole Earth electronic link, like that whole, you know, the whole Earth catalog was kind of connected to my parents and their extension.

And I dug into that.

And the truth of that story is the nerds and rich people who did invent the computer revolution used the kind of hippie world as a cover, right?

Stuart Brand was, was, was true.

Stuart Brand was someone who was genuinely a hippie and part of the electric Kool Aid acid test and like, you know, part of the, the Haight Ashbury scene.

But most of them were not.

And he was like the mascot, the way John Perry Barlow was kind of a mascot, right?

They were tokenistic amongst these rich fucking nerds, right?

And they like the idea of hippies.

But no, they weren't.

They were culturally appropriating the hippie culture and using it as part of the Silicon Valley origin story.

And I say this only because I've gotten to an age where fucking I was there.

And it's interesting to see how everything, the stories are being changed.

I totally, I know that the origin story of Facebook, if it wasn't in a movie, would have already been completely revised by now.

I appreciate that, but I think there's especially as I did, I grew up in Denver, Boulder area.

And Boulder got on the map during that time.

And I'm old enough to remember the old Boulder, which was aging Volvos and aging VW bands and all this sort of of thing.

I don't think, I think if the 60s had been successful and Kent State hadn't happened, Altamont hadn't happened, all this type of thing.

I think a lot of very smart, intelligent, college educated people which by that time, in the late 60s, that's who was in the movement.

The earlier business owners, people out of the beat movement kind of moved on this, the college kids, now Vietnam protests, all this sort of thing.

I think a lot of them took all that education, Bill and Hillary Clinton, for example, took all that education, all that knowledge.

They moved to Boulder, they moved to Northern California, all this type of thing, and they decided, you know what?

I think we like money.

Let's start building some businesses, let's start doing some things.

I don't think you would have gotten that culmination of talent and capital in those locations that would then enable someone like Bill Gates, who was a rich nerd, to have the infrastructure necessary to buy DOS from Xerox in order to make Windows.

I agree with you, but I think the argument you're making is a cultural one where I'm suggesting this technology would have happened, but it wouldn't have been as cool, it wouldn't have been as usable, it wouldn't have been as friendly.

And I'm curious to throw a perception at you which you can push back.

I always found the Colorado strains of, of this particular social movement heavily influenced by the.

The figure and legend of Hunter Thompson.

Right.

Because he, he was a, an archetype within this social milieu that I know I was attracted to as a young person.

Yes, yes, yes.

But he was also arguably on the right side of the spectrum.

Right.

Like, he was kind of right wing libertarian, as Colorado does have a lot of right wing libertarians.

And there was a time in the 60s and 70s where the left and the right had a lot of overlap because they were both rejecting the kind of Nixon establishment.

Right.

And saying, you know, we want to have freedom in the country.

I want to get to the part of our discussion talking about automated media, because it's kind of been coming up and it's something I want to pick your brain about.

But before we get there, we've got the inauguration coming up on Monday, and I've sort of been joking that Mother Nature is providing us with a very dramatic backdrop as the polar vortex at about that exact time is gonna plunge North America into darkness and cold.

We've just had, I think, a very sober but critical assessment of the state of the American left.

What do you think's gonna happen on Inauguration Day?

And I don't mean this in terms of action, I mean this in terms of narratives.

What kind of tone do you think the Trumpists, the MAGA crowd, are trying to set as their regime?

And I say this only because it feels like there's a lot of hype.

It feels like there's a lot of innuendo.

But as a journalist, as someone who really pays attention to kind of the news and the general sentiment out there.

What's your take?

What do you think?

The tone or the start to this regime?

How's it going to.

How do you think it's going to play out come Monday in the week?

Well, I think as far as the inauguration goes, I think it's going to be very interesting who isn't going to show up.

We found out today that pretty much nobody's going to the inauguration lunch.

And it'll be interesting to see kind of who shows up on stage.

I think the crowds will be even smaller than they were eight years ago.

Especially if it's cold.

Yeah, the stands are going to be even emptier than they were eight, eight years ago.

And I think that's going to, you know, kind of piss Trump off.

I think the day of, it's going to be a flurry of activity.

You know, Melania will get paid a quarter million dollars to touch him for five minutes at the dinner, you know, which will be all MAGA people and Republican people and all this sort of thing.

And then probably beginning that evening and into Tuesday morning, we're going to see an avalanche of executive orders and there's going to be a lot of photoshoots, mobile office as they start doing stuff, and all this stuff is already queued up.

They already know exactly what they want to do.

It's already been typed out.

They just got to put it on letterhead as soon as someone gives them the boxes that it's in.

And so it's.

So there's going to be a lot of stuff happening very, very quickly that's going to kind of be the day of, in the week following, it's going to probably be recovery from that.

And if anything, if we know anything about Trump, he's going to do it so fast, we'll have barely had time to think about thing one before thing two comes along.

So I imagine it's just going to be as it was eight years ago.

You know, our every two hours, new thing, new alert, new this, new that, new the other thing.

And that's going to be the pace of things, at least for that first week, because they've got a lot of stuff on tap.

However, there's confirmation hearings happening now and into next week, and they're not going well.

And so I think, I think, surprise, surprise.

So I think while Trump is going to write a lot of stuff in executive orders, the other half of the narrative is going to be good luck getting any of your people through.

Tulsi Gabbard, her confirmation Hearings have been delayed indefinitely because she's a security risk.

Everybody knows it.

It's not even a secret.

Republicans know that.

It's not a secret.

Yeah, the Hegseth hearings are hilarious.

And they're already a joke.

It's.

And it's just going to get worse as we, I mean, Marco Rubio will probably sail on through because he's senator from Florida.

Everybody knows him.

He's probably the only person that's reasonably qualified for what he's been appointed for.

So his will be drama free.

It will be drama for everything else.

We also don't know what Trump is going to do with Doge.

Yeah.

Is that, is he going to executive, you know, form a new department, appoint Eli Elon Musk the secretary of IT and they'll have to be confirmed by the Senate.

What does that look like?

I think it's going to be outside of government.

I think it's going to be some extra para again, the way the Gestapo were meant to be a regulating effect on the government as a whole.

But I got to ask you a follow up there because I think you nailed it right on the nose in terms of the queue of executive orders that they have ready to, to blitz.

And I'm curious, generally speaking, if, like, what's your sense of how the media is gonna handle that?

Cause I'm anticipating chaos.

And my question is, is that sufficient distraction from the shit show that's happening in the nomination hearings?

Right.

Will it allow him to kind of destabilize the public narrative and maybe push a Tulsi Gabbard through, maybe, you know, try to again, get all eyes away from the democratic process, the confirmation hearings, and instead be kind of focused into the spiral of outrage.

I think that's what he's going to try to do.

But the reality is the Senate who has did the confirmation hearings is run by a not Trump person named John Thune from South Dakota.

I'm familiar with John Thune.

I've only met him once.

I don't know him personally.

Personally, some people I do know from my time in Republican politics, but I've known Jonathan for a long time.

He's not a MAGA person.

He's not a Trumper by any stretch of the imagination.

And so he's gonna want to respect the process and the independence of the branch.

So while Trump may try to do that, the reality is they still have to get the votes.

Now Trump's gonna try to get them to adjourn, to do adjournment appointments so he can have people in for almost two years without Senate confirmation.

Whether John Thune goes along with that remains to be seen.

And let's also not forget Trump didn't get a mandate.

He won by 1.5%.

They control the House by two seats.

They control the Senate by three seats.

Very minimal.

Mm.

Which kind of gives power to.

To your point, those individual senators or individual congresspeople who may be the linchpin on some of these votes.

Yes.

And there, I think, will be opportunity for Democrats to get some of the stuff they want by, as they did during Trump 1, filling in the votes the Republicans are always unable to whip up in their own caucus.

And we already saw that with the budget continuation bill and all this type of thing.

But, I mean, we're interested in terrible fights.

You know, Elon and company want to try to cut things out of the budget.

Elon managed to kill an entire piece of legislation with a tweet, and they weren't even in office yet.

Now they're going to be in office, and that's organized.

Everything we've experienced in the interregnum between November 5 and now is going to go into hyperdrive starting Monday at 12:01.

Well, and to your point, it is a kind of snowball effect with where the more they get away with, the more that they'll keep pushing it and building momentum down speed.

So.

But I'm curious to sort of pivot the discussion, but also not because I think politics, it will continue to be the context of what we're talking about.

You're a journalist.

You're someone who, like myself, is passionate about making media, passionate about getting stuff out there.

I wanted to talk to you kind of for selfish reasons today about what I call automated media, which is using tools to help facilitate media production, to make media production more accessible.

What are your thoughts on using AI, on using automated tools as part of your operations, as part of your day to day?

And I say this because, you know, on part one of this discussion, we sort of got into it.

And here on my podcast, I've had a few conversations with other guests about how potentially empowering it is, how we're really lowering the bar in terms of giving people a voice, allowing them to make media.

So given the political conversation that I've been enjoying so far, where does automated media come into this?

Because I think you're right.

Come Monday, there's gonna be a lot of silence on the left.

Can there be new voices?

Do these tools enable new voices?

Are you gonna be one of those voices, especially over the next Four years.

Well, I will say this.

I'm not looking forward to The Cameron Journal NewsHour on Monday.

I've been compiling some other stories that I want to talk about, but obviously we all know what the big story I'll be talking about will be, and I'll be talking about quite extensively.

And I haven't decided I'm going to livestream the inauguration or not.

I'll decide on Sunday if I care that much.

But yeah, I mean, it's going to be, you know, a lot of, a lot of stuff, kind of a fire hose of things.

I think one of the things we're moving into now, and we talked about this before, so for more, hit the episode I did with you earlier.

It's on the camera.

Journal.com is we're yes, AI is very helpful.

AI made clips of our segment together.

Those are already out and they've done very well.

I have an AI tool that takes conversations and turns them into articles.

I've been towards playing around with AI for different things and purposes.

And when I get into SEO and all this type of thing, it can be very helpful to help fill in gaps, fix problems, because a lot of my traffic comes from Google.

I rank very well.

But it's always a game.

You can always do better.

So I think that type of stuff is here and here to stay.

I think there's going to be a lot of that.

But I think it also, you know, we've seen a huge media shift, at least in this country, away from traditional media, which is all but collapsing and to independent media, independent voices.

And there's, you know, even today, I was just before this, I was watching Vosh, who's a left wing YouTuber, talking about a segment Hassan Piker did with Bernie Sanders.

And you know, and kind of being like, the Democratic Party, at least in this country, needs to understand times have changed.

The influencers are on YouTube, they're on Twitch, they're on podcasts.

I mean, I was just even reading this morning the New York Times had a thing about, you know, it's like how these podcast listeners move to the right.

It's like, oh, my Goodness, is it 2012 Times Headquarters?

I was about to take a train into Manhattan.

I'm only in Connecticut right now.

I was gonna take a train to Manhattan, be like, is it 2012 here?

Are you in a time anomaly?

This has been a thing.

Joe Rogan has 100 million listeners.

That is one third the population of our entire country.

I will say almost on a naive level, it still blows me away that A, people want to listen to Lex Friedman and B, that they'll listen to him for eight hours.

Right.

Eight hour episodes.

Like, oh, my God, as the culture and the discourse shifted.

Right.

Yes.

I mean, the energy is.

Is in Joe Rogan, it's Lex Friedman, it's Andrew Tate, and even on the left, which is a much smaller ecosystem, it is bosh.

It's David Pakman, it's Hasan Piker, even me.

I podbean rated me top 50 news and politics podcast last year.

You know, it's.

It's, you know, all this sort of thing.

I mean, it is.

You know, I'm also one of the few podcasts that reviews books, but, you know, sort of thing like that's where.

No, no, no.

Let's verify you're one of the few podcasters who reads books.

You know, let's get that statement accurate there.

But, yeah.

Yes.

I mean, that's.

Yeah, that also can be true.

That's where the energy is at right now.

And we're going direct to the audience.

You know, my newsletter goes out every Saturday.

The NewsHour happens every Monday.

There are hundreds of people that visit cameraman.com every single day for news.

I know for a fact that for many of my superfans, I am the only place they get news.

My videos are watched on six different platforms.

All this.

So I think that's where it is now.

And the Democratic Party and the leftist establishment in this country got caught with their pants down on that, which is funny, because we're usually the ones who are ahead of this stuff, not the Republicans.

And for two, even after the election, there's been no rush into embracing us.

They're not calling up Every.

The top 100 podcasts, which would include me in this country, and saying, hi.

So we're having a meeting at the Watergate Hotel, which is where they're ironically headquartered, still at the Watergate Hotel in D.C.

can you come down?

Can you come in so we can figure out how to work with you?

Those calls haven't come yet.

The money to support this hasn't flowed in yet.

They're still clinging to msnbc, which is a sinking ship.

And you're quite generously helping me transition to our conversation on podcast ecosystems, because this is kind of similar to where we ended our conversation last time with me asserting I suspect they will.

I agree they have their heads up their ass.

And I think at a certain point, to use my metaphor, the polar vortex is gonna make that chill so deep that they are gonna have to figure this Out.

And to your point, they are gonna have to look and say, who are those hundred podcasts?

As an aside, this is why I really love having you on the show and having this conversation, because you have that kind of sharp perspective that used to be in the newsroom of the Washington Post, used to be in the newsroom of the New York Times.

That's gone.

And you don't have to reject me now, but I would love to have you on, on a semi regular basis to kind of help us kind of understand what's going on down in the United States and help us kind of dissect this.

But I do want to talk about podcast ecosystems, because you said this last time of, you know what I love about what you're doing?

And this is why I wanted to throw in the automated tools, right?

Is you as an independent media producer, an independent media voice, are really producing some phenomenal stuff at a scale that younger Jesse would not have imagined possible.

But now I'm like, wow, you're a trailblazer, right?

You're creating a model for, especially on the left, how we can be getting out community news, how we can be doing local news, how we could be platforming voices and authors and activists who should be part of this public discourse.

But you're also right, and I had a conversation yesterday with someone in public broadcasting that it's cash strapped, right?

It's resource constrained.

And I think that we need to articulate a new kind of funding mechanism, a new kind of funding environment so that we can channel this kind of money to producers like yourself, right?

And to other producers and local communities so that we can really have this kind of media renaissance, a kind of media revolution.

Now, you know, again, in part one of this conversation, I was sort of saying, if you start creating this narrative, it'll happen.

But given that you've had some time to kind of meditate since we last talked, I'm going to throw the question at you a little tighter.

Let's say you all of a sudden got an invite from the dnc, from a chair of the dnc, and they said, okay, Cameron, how much and how many.

How much money do you need?

And how many people do you think we should be funding?

Is it 100?

Because you've been bringing out that number a few times, and I think that's a decent kind of start.

But what's it going to take, I guess is the question I'm getting to, because you're right in the sense that the Republicans are so ahead of the game, the fascists are so ahead of the game in terms of the grassroots media that they've built up that is swaying public opinion.

So if we're going to do this right, and again, this is not the end of our conversation.

This is just the second installment of what's going to be an ongoing series of, you know, Cameron and Jesse getting the big box and spreading it around the ecosystem.

So, you know, how much and how many, how much money do you think it would take and how many people do you think should be funded so that the ecosystem has the strength, diversity, and vibrancy to truly kick ass?

Yeah, I mean, I think you need to look at probably, you know, at least the top 100 to 150 podcasts by any, you know, any metric you want to pick.

Traffic, listeners, reach, all this sort of thing.

I mean, unfortunately, the nature of the long tail is it probably wouldn't be hard to figure out who they are figuring out who's in the back 150, that's, you know, six of one, half dozen of another.

But the top part of the long tail is so thin that it's, it's, it's not difficult.

I mean, yeah, the top 10 are easy to pick.

The other hundred and forty will probably take a little bit of time and consideration.

But I mean, honestly, very seriously, I think, especially when you have to, you know, you want to start paying top talent, top talent wages and all this type of thing, that conversation starts at about $50 million, but that's also given celebrity money, George Soros, all this type of thing, that's not, you know, that's not a huge, A huge lift for wealthy people on the left.

I mean, I mean, you know, I mean, that's, you know, we can probably pull that together in a few dinner parties in the Upper east side of New York without a whole lot of.

Overhead or just asking people to check their sock drawers.

Right?

Like it's obscene the amount of money that exists on the coastal part of America.

In terms of the left, in terms of progressives, unfortunately, they keep thinking it should go into the center when really where it needs to go is to the left, because we're the ones who are going to bring America back from the far right.

Well, I mean, I think, I think there's definitely an appetite, especially among the urban professional class, which is a huge base of Democratic Party, for a more centrist view of things on certain issues, especially when you get into, like, law and order, city safety, all this type of thing.

That's all fine and well, but I think if you Want to counterbalance the Joe Rogan, Lex Friedman, all this type of thing, which is huge, has been well funded, has a great business model because they have so many people.

You need to juice the left wing version of that.

And that price tag starts about $50 million.

And it.

But it also means you're also going to want to find brands and companies that want to align with that to have that secondary wave of funding.

You're going to want to make sure that there are, you know, spaces available, studios available, all this type of thing, you know, organization.

And that's where, you know, partnering with legacy media, forging those partnerships, which New York magazine, the New York magazine has done, New York Times has done somewhat.

All this type of thing.

There's kind of multiple layers to building that out and back.

That I think is very important.

And so, yeah, if the DNC calls, I will 110% hit the Acela down to DC.

I agree 100%.

And I think where there's potential overlap is the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, because they are shitting bricks right now.

I'm a big fan of WNYC's on the Media podcast and they've been doing a couple of episodes anticipating that this is going to be a huge battle for public broadcasting.

And I think if they were smart, they would ally themselves with us, right?

They would recognize that they're not, you know, fighting for themselves, they're fighting for a media ecosystem and that on their own, they're not going to win.

But if they align themselves with podcasters, if they align themselves with wherever the TikTok refugees go, because there will be a bunch of creators that will, you know, all of a sudden have an audience, but not necessarily a platform.

I think that is part of the path to victory.

And I say this because, again, this is only chapter two in Jesse and Cameron's ongoing conversation on the podcasting ecosystem.

Because I think we got a campaign here.

I think we've got a narrative, especially as things go further to shit in the next couple of months, you know, we will continue to kind of walk the walk, right, and put the content out there.

And I suspect that that will give us.

I don't want to use this word, but it seems apt a mandate to be arguing for a different media ecosystem.

So I'm curious what you think.

No, I mean, I think that is good.

I mean, I think to start that conversation now is healthy and positive.

I think to, you know, get people excited about that and to start to bring in the, the money and the funding required to make it Happen and to get, you know, a lot of, quite frankly, media dinosaurs who don't necessarily understand this stuff.

And quite clearly, based upon what I read in the New York Times this morning, still don't take us seriously, which in my mind is crazy, given what's just happened.

I think.

I think hopefully that conversation will start to happen.

I'm kind of worried it hasn't already, but I agree.

Perhaps, maybe if you and I are talking about it, we can spark something.

Other people are talking about it.

We can kind of get leadership who has the.

You know, who can call 10 people and raise $50 million in the space of an afternoon.

So here, you know, make that.

Make it happen.

I mean, someone get that MacKenzie Bezos woman.

She has billions and he doesn't want the money.

Well, I was gonna say bankroll this whole thing.

Although as.

As a sign of respect, she may have spent, like, she's been spending so much so fast.

Like, she's just like, I don't want this.

It's evil.

I'm getting rid of it.

But.

But you're right.

So here's.

Here's my pitch to you.

Let us reconvene maybe a few weeks from now, at most a month from now.

If you want, we can have it here on my show.

If you prefer, we can have it on yours.

But let's have chapter three in the Cameron Jesse podcast ecosystem conversation, a brainstorm on strategy.

Because Your point about MacKenzie, I think, is spot on.

I think chapter three.

So chapter one, we floated the idea.

Chapter two, we kind of had a conversation today about the political context, you know, the fact that we're in this media revolution where anyone can make stuff.

And we've come back again to, you know, this is a good campaign idea.

Chapter three.

So we will now both go off on our owns.

Let this idea meditate and percolate.

Chapter three will come down.

We'll brainstorm a strategy.

We'll be like, here's what we should be thinking about.

Here's the kind of pitch.

Maybe here's some of the people we should be hitting up.

And then I would say that chapter four is we convene a community meeting, right?

You reach out to some podcasters you dig.

I'll reach out to some podcasters I dig.

And so we'll discuss that in chapter three.

We'll discuss who should we reach out to.

We'll discuss should it be an open call or should it be a curated call.

Right?

Should we, like.

And I'm saying this now because I'm excited, but I'm proposing that we both go away, we both think about this, and then we both reconvene on one of our shows to then further this conversation together so that we build momentum, our own little snowball.

Right.

To try to achieve this future that I think we are passionately starting to evoke.

No, I agree.

And a couple names already jumped to mind of other people I've already had this conversation with.

There's another great guy, Mr.

I forget his first name, last name of Drucker.

He does a really great outcast podcast.

He's a big.

He's big in Hollywood.

He was a film documentarian, all this sort of thing.

He and I have already had this conversation way before the election and that sort of thing.

He might be the first person I reach out to say I, you know, and also he would, when it comes to a strategy sort of thing, he knows the right sorts of people in whom we should be in touch.

So.

So maybe to your point, maybe Chapter three, if you want to host it, maybe chapter three is on your podcast on the Cameron Journal and.

And you decide who you want to bring.

I would say Chapter three should still be a relatively small group so that we can brainstorm and have a conversation.

But maybe it's more than just you and I.

Maybe there's one or two other people and allows us to build that momentum and kind of move this conversation forward.

No, I think that's an excellent.

That's an excellent idea and an excellent plan.

I think that's a good way to do it and start to garner the attention and start to gather the type of people, the type of voices, all this type of thing that could make this.

We don't want this to turn into an Al Gore Air America thing.

Right, Right.

Or Current tv.

But I think that, I mean, but I think there's also.

I mean, I think in organizing all of this and funding it, you have to maintain the uniqueness that makes each show have its appeal.

Yes.

And where I see an interesting parallel, and how much this analogy fits, I think depends on our next conversation.

But social media is having a moment, right, with the free Our Feeds initiative announced in the last week, in which they're doubling down on the kind of Blue Sky Mastodon active threads protocol.

So the metaphor is we're not trying to create an Air America.

We're not trying to consolidate podcasts, but we're trying to create a protocol, a funding protocol, a cooperation protocol that allows for a federation of podcasts, us that operate independently, that do their own fucking thing, but together all boats are raised because we're creating that protocol to kick ass, for lack of a better phrase.

Yes.

And that also is, you know, that also can be, you know, how we stream, where it's at, how we cross pollinate, you know, stories, messages, things like that.

Access, that's honestly probably the biggest thing is even the biggest podcasts on the left have trouble, trouble with access.

They literally tried to focus on out of the Democratic National Convention because he dared to talk about Palestine, which as it turns out, was a bigger issue than I think any of us.

We thought it was sort of thing.

I mean, also getting in those access, bringing in the people.

I mean, the fact that we went a whole election cycle and not one surrogate for the major Democratic party candidate went on a single podcast.

Kamala Harris said that Call Her By My Name podcast.

But no one was on Hasan or David Pakman.

I didn't get a surge.

All this type of thing.

That's criminal.

I mean, the Republicans sent all of their people on all the right wing podcasts, but for me, it's the access is not just the Democrats, it's also the Republican side.

Sure, yeah.

Send Marco Rubio to my show, would love to chat with him, you know, sort of thing and send some of these people over.

And I think getting.

Becoming big enough, aggregating these audiences and being together and say, yeah, we are, you know, 50, 100, and we speak with one voice and here's the one email and one number you can call to get booked on all of these shows and have all of these conversations, all this type of thing.

That's, that's when you.

That's a lot of power.

Yes, absolutely, absolutely.

So, you know, this is the part of every episode where to, in the spirit of what we've just been describing, I like to pay it back.

I like to bring it back to the community in terms of doing shout outs.

Right.

Of letting our audience know if there are people, podcasts, thinkers, living or dead, that you would like them to know about.

You know, I'll go first.

I'm going to give a shout out to Bob Lewis, who is a retired journalist here in Canada.

May not be the Bob Lewis that you know, but I've been thinking about him today in terms of the future of journalism and kind of what we've been describing in our conversations.

So, Cameron, is there anyone that you would like to shout out and bring to the attention of the Meta Views audience?

If you're into philosophy and aesthetics, there's a very interesting French philosopher by the name of Gaston Bachelard.

And I would recommend reading his book called the Poetics of Space.

And he describes the home, the city, how we experience these things, all this sort of thing.

And I think if your philosophy minded at all.

Excuse me, if you're philosophy minded at all, I would, I would pick up Gaston Bachelard.

I'm currently actually working on a series about him for planksip.org, which is a Canadian philosophy publication in Vancouver.

I'm working on a thing for him, but I would recommend Gaston Bachelor.

Right on.

That's amazing.

And for other great reading, you can go check out my official book list@cameronjournal.com.

Under the official and on that particular note, do you want to tell us about any other than cameraljournal?

Cameronjournal.com is there anywhere else that our audience can connect with you and learn more about your ideas and your work and what you're publishing?

Absolutely.

So you can find me on Twitter, X, Instagram, amroncowen, YouTube.

Cameron Journal is where you find all the videos for Facebook.

It's Cameron L.

Cowan, which is just my name.

Follow me on.

I'm on all your favorite platforms.

You can follow me there.

And all the links are@cameronjournal.com right at the top.

You can't miss them Blue Sky.

I'm on bluesky Cameron Journal.

So find me in all those places.

Right on.

Thank you very much.

And you know to our conversation about AI, one of the reasons I get guests at the end to kind of list off their socials or where people find them, the AI converts it instantly.

It helps it put it into the show notes.

So it certainly makes my job easier in terms of organizing.

We've come to the end of another fantastic episode of Meta Views.

Big shout out to Cameron for joining us.

I do hope and expect that he will be joining us again soon as I hope to join him.

And we advance these really pressing conversations around really the future of our democracy, the future of our public discourse, the future of journalism, the future of media.

So yeah, give us any feedback you thought on this episode of Future Episodes.

We'd love to hear from you.

And yeah, hope to see you soon.

All right, thanks again.