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Unknown A
So Jeff Bezos is exerting more direct control over at the Washington Post, and I want to go over his statement and let's jump right in. So this is from Jeff Bezos, and he says here, I shared this note with the Washington Post team this morning. I'm writing to let you know about a change coming to our opinion pages. Okay. So this is not necessarily the news that we know of, just the opinion pages. We are going to be writing every day in support and defense of two pillars, personal liberties and free markets. And that's the key line right there, right? So basically saying, you know, I talked to the opinion people, we're talking about the opinion page, and I guess they're gonna force people over there, which is kind of ironic considering that to say, hey, we're all about personal liberties and free markets, yet you have to follow what I, what I say.
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Unknown A
So I just want you to hope you see the irony of this. I'm writing to let you know about a change in coming our opinion pages. Right. We are going to focus to be. We're going to be writing every day in support. Every day, I guess. Wow. Every day in support of. Of two pillars, personal liberties and free markets. We'll cover other topics of two, of course, but viewpoints opposing those pillars will. Will be left to be published by others. Right. So you have to agree with these things and I want to finish this and I'll express more my own opinion. First I want to hear what Jeff Bezos has to say. There was a time when a newspaper, especially one that was a local monopoly, might have seen it as a service to bring to the reader's doorsteps every morning a broad based opinion section thus sought to cover all views.
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Unknown A
Today, the Internet does that job. I am of America and for America and proud to be so. Our country did not get here by being typical. And a big part of America's success has been freedom in the economic realm and everywhere else. Freedom is ethical, it minimizes coercion, and practical, it drives creativity, invention and prosperity. Honestly, I'll fish me here, but I'll just say it's hard to take this stuff seriously when you're literally saying you have to write about these two things. And then he goes on and on about freedom, which doesn't really sound like freedom to me. So I don't know if Bezos can hear the irony of his own letter, but also says, here I offered David Shipley, whom I greatly admire, the opportunity to lead this new chapter. I suggested to him that if the answer wasn't Hell yes. Then it had to be quote, no.
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Unknown A
After careful consideration, David decided to step away. This is a significant shift. It won't be easy and it will require 100% commitment. I respect this decision. We'll be searching for a new opinion editor to own this new direction. I am confident that free markets and personal liberties are right for America. I also believe these viewpoints are underserved in the current market of ideas and news opinion. I'm excited for us together to fill that void. And that's from Jeff Bezos. You know, obviously it depends on how you want to define these things, right? So, you know, generally speaking, this is sort of the way that you promote certain views. You'll say, so, for example, and this would be a thing that Elon Musk will do right all the time. But these kind of people, these billionaire class, they'll say, hey, how could you possibly against personal liberties and free markets?
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Unknown A
Which, and I just want to make it clear, if you just take that language on the surface, how could you be against free markets, etc. But the stuff that chances are they want to promote isn't exactly a free market. So, for example, I, I'm actually for free markets. And so in my opinion, that would include letting the Washington Post to take whatever opinions they like. And if they sell more newspapers, you know, saying these things or sell more newspapers saying those things, you know, I think a free market then would include various points of views. And actually, whenever I go to a publication, you know, I actually like to see more than one point of view. And you know, for maybe from Bezos point of view, free market just means that big businesses should be able to have monopolies because therefore we're, we're more free and big, big businesses should be able to, you know, merge whatever companies they want.
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Unknown A
And I guess that would be more free. That is that considered free markets. And I'm going to guess Bezos is going to say yes and that. So you can already tell my, my point of view. I'm not into monopolies. I think that's damaging to the system. That's kind of where we're going these days. You know, simple example, do you want Walmart to be able to buy every single mom and pop store out there and everything just becomes Walmart? Or do you want every grocery store in USA or world or whatever just to be owned by one company? Is that really a free market? And you know, we know this from history that unfettered, just, you know, no rules, no regulations kind of stuff leads to consolidation of power at the top. People often ask, and I tell you about it because I live here in Korea, we call it the chaebol.
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Unknown A
It's basically these conglomerates that own everything. And if you don't know this, the joke here in Korea is you can be born in a Samsung apartment, you can be born in a Samsung hospital, go to a Samsung school, right? Live in a Samsung house, drive a Samsung car, have a Samsung phone, have a Samsung computer, have a Samsung tv because it was going, right, work for Samsung, die in the Samsung funeral home. That's before you, you know, are sick in the Samsung hospital, et cetera. And you know, it's, it's not a healthy system where you have these conglomerates that, that control everything and then have exert massive influence on, on politics, right? You know, and this is sort of where the US is going in that route and I've warned you guys and, and, and you know, there are different, there's different versions of how businesses take over, right?
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Unknown A
So here in Korea is not the same as what it is in China, not the same as what is in Russia, not the same as what it is in USA or, you know, London or France, etc. Every country is going to be a little bit different on how they treat the intersection between business, politics, culture, etc. Right? So we do have freedom of speech here in Korea. It does exist, but. But under various administrations, it is, it has changed. I left Korea actually. This was back when park took power. I was teaching at that time Hongdae, which is one of the top universities in Korea. It's kind of considered to be like an NYU of Korea, so kind of, you know, more art focused. I was in film and tv, right? So a lot of my students were graduate students working in industry that also included news.
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Unknown A
So I'd have camera people and producers and anchors and these kind of things in my classes and we would cover local industry events and all the things and the time. Actually I was working on a project where I was really interested in foreign journalists working with local Koreans. Back in the time of Gwangju, if you know anything about Korean history, ultimately someone beat me to that script. It's called A Taxi Driver because at the time you were not allowed to make that kind of film. Essentially, President park had outlawed that. She ultimately was corrupt, involved with cults and these kind of things, and was impeached and then imprisoned and there is corruption here. And the current president, President Yoon, he was impeached, arrested, and he's on trial. I'm sure he's Going to go to prison or not? He should be. That was for the martial law.
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Unknown A
I'm just saying that it's interesting how you have a couple different extremes here, but we still do have courts that work and we still have justice here. In some ways, I say, in some ways is our life completely ruined if Samsung controls everything? It's a tricky thing because Samsung actually makes pretty great projects. Duper de Frank. But I say, but it is unhealthy for the system to where, if you're a small company, a small inventor, these kind of things, and your only, you know, real avenue for true success is to sell out to the big company. And that's a similar thing in USA to where Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, these bigger companies are buying out the small ones. And actually we see it with the AI stuff because I know we talk about AI quite a bit in the channel that's sort of the hot industry right now to where, for example, OpenAI can make a deal to be on, you know, Apple iPhones or be on whatever, you know, Android device or be embedded in Microsoft Windows and other smaller AI companies then have no shot to get those deals right, which to me is
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Unknown A
a real big problem in the system. And so we have that issue here in Korea. So we still have innovations, we still have free market in the sense that I can still buy and sell whatever I want, but the variety of products that may be available may be different and certainly affected by lack of competition. So I just find it ironic with the way that I'm not against free markets at all. In fact, I would argue I'm more for it than, well, it depends how you want to find it. Right. So does that, the personal liberty one is an interesting one? Taken on the surface, I think people say, yeah, generally I support, you know, free speech. Generally I support, you know, right to choose whatever, you know, and stuff like that. The free speech issue is an interesting1 in USA because according to Elon Musk, his version of free speech is going to be different than mine.
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Unknown A
Elon Musk or, you know, Jeff Bezos, I mean, he's joined into that camp, into the Donald Trumpy camp. But for Elon Musk, I'm using the Musk example because I follow that story quite a bit. Elon Musk would say, you know, false advertising is free speech because there are limits to free speech. Right. And I'll just pose that question to you. Do you think false advertising by a big conglomerate is part of free speech? Do you think it's okay for a company to say, hey, my Products can do these amazing things even though it's not true, right? But they're going to say, hey, that's free speech. I can say whatever I want about my. About my amazing products, right? Meaning that Elon Musk lies about his cars and the capability. He even instructs engineers to lie about the cars in terms of, like, range. For example, if you get into a Tesla, it'll say, hey, you can go, you know, 400 miles or whatever.
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Unknown A
And I've actually experienced this myself, where you actually use the thing in practice, like you have a full charge or whatever. It'll say 400 miles. And then in practice, suddenly it'll just drop from, like, you know, as you're driving along 300 to suddenly 100, and you're like, wait, where'd my range go? And they would actually refer that to Elon Mode, to where the indicator would. Would show you a more aggressive range than it actually was. Basically, the car lies to you. Is that free market? Is that personal liberty? Kin must tweet out whatever nonsense the other personal liberty stuff is. You know, I'm sure you guys know this. It's a contentious issue in usa, but you'll have people out there who are not scientists, you'll have people out there who are uneducated, you'll have people out there that just frankly, make stuff up, right? And it could be about any number of issues.
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Unknown A
And it's a very, very tricky world that we live in because unfortunately, in the usa, people are financially rewarded for not being ethical. People are financially rewarded by just giving audiences what they want, even though if it's not true, and it's a real shame, to be perfectly frank, and all this stuff, and I'm sure you guys understand this stuff. Like I said, on the surface, I'm not against free markets. I'm not against personal liberty. I think you should promote these things. Yes, I agree with Jeff Bezos on the surface, but it depends how you want to define these things and sort of, you know, on each individual issue or whatever, are you forcing people to say certain kind of stuff? I still think the Washington Post is probably still going to, you know, report the news. They have very good reporting over there. They're good reporters.
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Unknown A
Many journalists want to do the right thing, just report, you know, the news. The news, meaning that you have sources at various companies, you have sources within the government, etc. Tell us the inside story of what's going on, which is going to be different than, say, what, you know, a politician might say or CEO. And so if you notice on my channel, and this is very, very different than the most popular channels out there. They'll just bring on whatever politician from whatever position that they support, meaning the challenge supports a particular party or a particular company and then just let them talk without challenging them. And our system is constructed that way because, for example, these. Example Jeff Bezos, okay? So if I want Jeff Bezos to come on my channel, and here's Jeff Bezos here, right? If I wanted to come on my channel, he would, you know, want a friendly conversation, which I completely understand, right?
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Unknown A
I'm not going to be mean to him. I'm not going to call them names and say, why'd you get divorced? That kind of stuff and be mean, you know, and they want a friendly platform. But then you start to lose the veracity, you start to lose integrity there. And you'll see that with the most popular podcast use example of Joe Rogan, or if you're going to go on the left side, the Midas touch, whatever, you lose the integrity of like, I'm just going to let whatever person say anything and not challenge them at all. So, yes, your friendly platform, yes, they're going to keep coming on your platform, yes, you'll make more money, but. But you definitely lose integrity. And it's a tricky issue because for a lot of people, they still want to have access. That's the world that we live in. Because in the past when there were only like a few networks, abc, NBC, cbs, right?
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Unknown A
If you know American history, if you want to get some exposure, and they would say, no, was it? No. Press is bad press, right? Bad press is good press, right? Like, just get exposure. That's what you would do, right? You would take that tough interview. You take that thing. But these days, people, because I have so many options for media outlets, I just go to the one that's friendly, that's not gonna challenge my things at all. And so then you have this world today where people just make stuff up, people just blatantly lie, People go unchecked, right? So if you wanna watch the Fox News interview with Sean Hannity and they interview Trump and Musk, they just say whatever they want and they can just make up whatever they want. And Hannity's just like, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. And in fact, it's even worse to where Hannity is in cahoots with Trump and Musk.
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Unknown A
They have the questions already hand and they'll do retakes and stuff like that and whatever. There's that thing and this again, this is only the opinion Piece of Washington Post. So I'm still going to read them. The Washington Post is not the only thing out there. I look at Politico, Washington Post, I look at Bloomberg, I look at New York Times, I look at Wall Street Journal, I look at Financial Times, look at Business Insider, I look at actually several publications. I look at Wired, which has been doing pretty good stuff these days. And you know, that's, you get different things. Generally speaking, the way this game is played, you'll have different sections, right? So you have the hard news where their job as a reporter is just literally, you ask, you know, insiders of what the story is. You try to get three or four opinions on that from insiders.
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Unknown A
Like people say, work at a company or people who work at university, people work at company, working in government. And then you throw that together with, with the, with the facts, meaning that something happened. This is when it happens, right? Like this, general facts. And then the articles generally, you know, there'll be opinions sort of embedded in there by what you preference as running your headline or, you know, what you put first, et cetera, or what you leave out. But they're generally just good reporting and just gives you a bunch of details and facts that are key to the story. And then, you know what I try to do on my channel, right? I try to do both because it's hard if someone doesn't have education or have facts to even understand your commentary at all. The issue though, is that in this day and age, you know, many channels out there, and Elon Musk is the leader of this stuff, where you just make up the facts, twist the facts have no integrity.
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Unknown A
And then you have commentary based on stuff that's not even real. And so that's where kind of where we are. And as a general audience, and I completely understand, I completely understand as a general audience, most people just, they just, hey, what's going on? What's the truth? Right? I think that would be a reasonable thing for people to want to just tell me the truth, what's going on, right? And I think most people should be, should be adult enough to hear that, but most people aren't. I, you know, when I, when I make videos telling you the truth about stuff, giving my, you know, opinion, you know, telling you, like, how the complexities of the world, those videos actually aren't that popular. That's not, that's not what audiences want at all. They just want their views reinforced. And in fact, the people who need to hear this particular video, the one I'm making right now, probably won't listen to this video.
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Unknown A
It's too slow for them, too complicated for them. They don't want to hear it. Right. They just want to hear me say, like, how evil Elon Musk is and Trump is all day, every day. Right. They don't want us to necessarily hear that. You know, maybe someone. And just, for example, the Democrat Party that I don't like, for example, or certain issues that I don't like, they don't hear that. So, so, you know, and, and I don't. And you'll notice my platform. I don't just tell you all day, every day that I love Democrats. I don't you ever hear me say that? No, I don't say all day, every day I love Republicans. I don't. I don't. I don't think that way. I think that's disingenuous. I think that lacks integrity. I think a reasonable person, and I was professor for years, will let you decide what you think is good.
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Unknown A
But I'll tell you me, in a reasonable way, logical way, these are the facts. This is how I came to my conclusion. I want to hear your opinion because I know that not everything that I say in my opinion is 100% the most awesomest opinion of all time. That's not how the world is constructed. The world's constructed of all kinds of people. And that goes back to, say, the opinion section in Washington Post, which is, I'm fine with having, hey, you know, there's a particular issue. We'll use the grocery store merger again. Where should all, you know, grocery stores in USA be one company? I'd like to see a column that says, yes, they should all be one company. And I like to see a column that says, no, they definitely shouldn't be all one company. And you might have a couple different professors that have various points of view on that.
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Unknown A
So many issues with this stuff, you know, and then you get to the part to where, like, say, people on the musk camp, I'll just use the must camp, or Trump camp, say, oh, you know, all professors are just all liberal and blah, blah, blah, blah. When I hear people say that kind of nonsense, I just feel like they're saying, okay, I hate educated people. I absolutely hate people who, you know, have dedicated their life to a particular field of study. I hate it when people study and read books. I hate that. I just want people who are completely uneducated, don't know how to read, illiterate, and just take whatever point of view to promote whatever stupid ideas to Stupid people. And then you have a dumbed down. Society is where we are today. Because I'll tell you the truth, right? Any professor, any academic, and I'm talking about from the academic side, it's different than business, right?
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Unknown A
Because we're not here to sell you something, we're here to educate you. It's a different point of view. But anyone who's gone to a quality program, right, I'm talking about education. You're required to read like a massive amount of material. And you know, and people ask me sometimes, Chris, how do you put out so much material every single day if you don't know? I do three videos a day. I work by myself. I'm one person, just me and my wife occasionally comes on. But I do all the editing, do all the reading. I don't have any scripts. Like I don't have any script right now. I just. Hey, that's what Jeff Bezos said. These are my thoughts. Most other channels out there, they're a team. They have an editor, they have someone who does the thumbnails, they have someone who writes their script and then the person ends up just being an actor and they're just going for ratings, right?
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Unknown A
Hey, I just got to say something that makes my audience happy. And you know, if that's what audiences want, so be it. But I think it lacks integrity. And how do I also do things, you know, so quickly and so well? It's because I don't have to make any crazy stories up. I literally just give you my opinion from a regular person. I mean by a regular person, I don't have to be like some fake personality, you know, you guys know this. Hi guys. Welcome to my YouTube channel. I'm going to tell you exactly what you want to hear. You're all going to be rich and your opinions are the best. And if completely ignore the facts and blame other people, right? That's what general audiences want to hear. So I think the whole personal liberty stuff, they're probably going to be equating free speech with saying whatever nonsense and they're going to promote more, we'll just call it right leaning kind of views.
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Unknown A
I don't like to say necessarily Republican or Democrat in that way because I think, I think there are several people on the say that we'll say the right leaning or Republican leaning that will say hey, I'm all about fiscal responsibility, stuff like that. But I'm uncomfortable with say the whole Trumpy stuff, which basically means monopoly, corruptions and those sort of things. But for whatever reason, people don't stand up for any integrity anymore. They just go with what audiences want and kind of feed into which I would say, I guess, primal, primal desires and that kind of stuff. There's lots of complicated stuff to talk about with the world, and there's multiple issues. And, you know, I'll give you one very simple thing, very basic thing, and this is something that a lot of people don't want to hear. But I'm just telling you the facts, okay?
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Unknown A
Go to any major network, go to any big of the YouTube channels right out in the news space. And. And do you see any Asian males in that space? And the question then remains, is it really a. Are they really searching for talent? Are they really searching for the best people? If most of these programs and stuff like that is more entertainment focused and they're really concerned about getting, you know, and concerned about getting people who look a certain way. And you'll see very quickly, look at any major network, any major channel on YouTube and you'll see there are not that many Asian male out there. And I'll just say this. People aren't interested in quality or anything like that. They're interested in the way people look, and they want them to look a certain way and they want them to appeal to an audience who will also look a certain way.
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Unknown A
And they want to promote ideas that the audience wants to hear. It's nothing to do with quality of interview of ideas or quality of information. It's about promoting particular points of view that make people happy and smile and keep them in the dream world. So I know a lot of people won't understand what I'm talking about, but I'll just say this. I wrote a book, it's called Positive Angle. I write about this stuff, how I deal with it, and that's my thoughts on this stuff. And Bezos, I get it, he's the top. He's rich. He's going to control the paper and you're going to promote, according to him, in his opinion page, two things. But it's not all doom and gloom. They still put out pretty good news reports. I still read all this stuff. I tend to skip over a lot of the opinion pieces these days because of that.
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Unknown A
And I understand why people may be attracted to more independent stuff because you can say whatever you want. But again, the most popular independent stuff isn't going to be necessarily independent as you think it is. But people want their ideas reinforced and don't necessarily want to be challenged or don't necessarily want to hear the truth. So all this. I'll leave it at that. And I want to hear your opinion. And I do appreciate watching. And I'll catch you all in the next video.