December 6, 2023; Newsom-DeSantis Debate, Truth in Media, Musk Loses Twitter Advertisers, Mark Cuban and Gambling in Texas, Doctrine vs Policy in the Church

Matt (00:01.496)
Hey, welcome listener to another exciting episode of the Latter Day Lens. We have some stuff in the mailbag, but instead of going to the mailbag this week, we're gonna just talk briefly about what I like to call the WWE version of the presidential debate, which is the DeSantis and who's the other guy? Oh, Gavin Newsom, the debate they had on the Sean Hannity show. Sam did you?

shawn (00:22.086)
You have a newsome.

shawn (00:26.924)
He's my beloved California governor.

Matt (00:30.02)
So I have to admit, Sean, this is just being totally honest. I don't know a lot about Gavin Newsom, but from what I watched, and I watched a lot of YouTube videos of the debate, I came away liking Gavin Newsom more than I did before.

shawn (00:41.545)
Of course, of course you did. Of course you did. Look, I sat there watching the whole, you watched clips though. You didn't watch the whole thing. You watched like highlights.

Sam (00:43.199)
Mmm.

Matt (00:46.116)
Um...

Matt (00:49.728)
Right, I want, right, it was, I couldn't watch, I don't have Fox News, so I couldn't watch the thing.

shawn (00:54.413)
And you, what I admire about the way you look at news is you first go on one side of the spectrum and watch what they say about it. Then you go on the other side of the spectrum and see what they say about it. And I admire that. I think that's the best way to look at news. In fact, we're gonna bring that up later. My opinion was that, I thought the whole time, Newsom, what the crap are you doing going on a conservative talk show against a conservative host against DeSantis? To me, he looked like a buffoon because all they were doing was saying,

Matt (01:07.929)
Okay.

Matt (01:18.03)
Yeah.

shawn (01:23.365)
Here's a statistic that shows how bad California's doing and how good Florida's doing. And then they'd go to Newsome, what do you think? And all he could do is avoid those questions because they were facts and he just didn't look good at all.

Matt (01:29.378)
Yeah.

Matt (01:36.82)
Yeah, but he made a lot of talking points that liberals like to make, right? So he's critical of, he made some statement about how the Republican party is trying to go back to the 1960s. Uh, he talked about, um, DeSantis being anti LGBTQ on immigration.

shawn (01:40.934)
Yes.

shawn (01:52.665)
The most heated moment was when DeSantis accidentally called Kamala Harris Kamala Harris and boy knew some god mad. How dare you! This is disrespect to the utmost! It is Kamala Nuck! It was funny.

Matt (01:59.408)
Oh, I saw that. Ha ha ha. Ha ha ha. Ha ha ha. Mm-hmm. And it's Madam Vice President to you, Ron. Well, so he also, I think, hurt Ron DeSantis on the topic of immigration, where he said that Ron DeSantis is the person you should trust the least on immigration. So my take on, yeah. My take on this is, like, the question people ask is why would Gavin Newsom do this?

shawn (02:10.762)
Yeah.

shawn (02:21.445)
Yeah, but, no, go ahead, go ahead, go ahead.

Matt (02:28.544)
It's because what I've been trying to say all along, the Democrats want Donald Trump to be the Republican nominee. So what do you do if you're the Democrats and you're trying to like help the Biden campaign? You go on Fox news, you weaken the person who is the primary competition to Donald Trump right now. And you say things like, look, you're trying to out Trump and he's beating you in your own state and things like that. And then.

shawn (02:54.169)
Yeah, but Matt, the few people that watched this on the conservative side overwhelming were like, raw, DeSantis murdered him, he killed him. So it didn't weaken DeSantis for the conservatives. No, not at all. He looked great compared to this crazy liberal left-wing guy. He looked awesome. So I think on the conservative side, that was a, yeah, oh yeah, he looked amazing. Yeah, it was a slaughter.

Matt (03:04.224)
Oh, it didn't.

Matt (03:14.4)
To the Fox News crowd, right? Ah.

Sam (03:18.938)
Hey, Sean and Matt, I just have a question. Was, was Trump in this debate at all? I wonder. Cause cause.

shawn (03:22.797)
Oh my gosh, Sam. Sam, your Trump propaganda has become as equal to Matt's propaganda about, no, universal basic income.

Matt (03:24.237)
Haha, you know...

Matt (03:31.376)
Chris Christie.

Sam (03:32.802)
So, so, so sometimes people will ask me a question. They'll say, Hey, if a tree falls in the forest and no one's around to hear it, what noise does it make? And I say, it doesn't matter because no one's around to turn that noise into. And, you know, if, if Trump's not there, it doesn't matter. This, this debate doesn't matter.

Matt (03:34.225)
Oh.

Matt (03:39.172)
Hahaha

shawn (03:43.365)
You're wrong, Sam.

shawn (03:47.409)
Sam, the reason you're, the reason.

shawn (03:52.005)
Sam, the reason you're wrong is because Trump won't be with us forever. And once he's gone, they're like, you always say there will be a dramatic push back to the center. And the voices that need to be talked about are these voices in the media.

Matt (04:01.174)
No.

Sam (04:01.222)
Okay, so this is a debate for eight and 12 years down the road, not this election.

shawn (04:08.269)
It's a debate for showing who the alternative Trump people are. Yeah.

Sam (04:11.651)
way down the road. Fair enough. I'm just

Matt (04:13.952)
I think that Gavin Newsom, at one point he said, the one thing Ron and I have in common is that neither of us will be the nominee for our party in 2024. Ha ha ha.

Sam (04:20.506)
I heard, I heard, I heard that quote and that's absolutely right. And he actually asked if he, if he was okay with this, if the Santas was okay making way for Nikki Haley, which is also kind of funny. Right. Because when, when you think about this upcoming election, Nikki Haley doesn't have a shot against Trump. DeSantis doesn't have a shot against Trump. A real true shot at this point.

shawn (04:22.285)
Yeah, yeah, which is so true. Absolutely.

shawn (04:41.917)
See, but Sam, the reason this is such a good debate and why I think more of this should happen is because it wasn't even framed as a presidential debate. It was framed as a, hey, what a good exercise. Let's look at two extreme states that are opposite in governance. One is conservative, one is democratic. And it was fascinating to hear all the, I mean, I would love to see DeSantis go on a liberal talk show now hosted by someone and have the same kind of debate because they're gonna

Sam (04:58.295)
No, that's good.

Matt (05:10.537)
Nobody wants to hear what DeSantis has to say. Nobody cares what DeSantis, nobody cares.

shawn (05:10.97)
Present stats.

Sam (05:13.41)
That's absolutely true. Actually though, Sean, from a sales standpoint, what a great strategy. They could call it the takeaway tour and they could say, Hey America, this is what you could have had. Had you actually chosen better, you could have had someone other than Trump, other than Biden had two other people come to the primary election. That actually be fun. The takeaway tour. I like it.

shawn (05:23.124)
Hehehehehehehe

Matt (05:24.183)
I'm sorry.

shawn (05:28.192)
Eh.

Matt (05:33.919)
Ha ha ha!

shawn (05:37.773)
Nice! That's good branding!

Matt (05:37.936)
Hey, I'm going to ask you this question because what I saw in the debate was it all comes down to do people want to live in Florida or do they want to live in California? And wherever people want to live, you choose Florida, Sam.

Sam (05:46.35)
Florida, Florida. Oh, there's not even a question. Florida, Florida. Would you really, why?

shawn (05:50.589)
Of course you would! Of course you would!

Matt (05:53.037)
I would choose California every time. Best education system in America, probably in the world.

shawn (05:55.138)
Matt, Matt.

shawn (05:59.513)
Not a, oh, that's ridiculous. That's ridiculous, Matt.

Sam (06:01.182)
Do you know how I make my decisions on where I want to live? Between Christmas and New Year's, I'm more likely to find 80 degrees in Florida on a beach than I am in San Diego on a beach. That's how I choose.

Matt (06:12.688)
Okay, but you're gonna pay for it in the summertime, right? So you go to Miami in August and you're gonna wish you were someplace else, but go to Los Angeles.

shawn (06:12.806)
Hahaha

Sam (06:20.814)
I'll fly to the mountains somewhere and enjoy cooler weather. I just want 80 degrees Christmas to New Year's. That's my standard.

Matt (06:24.813)
hahahaha

shawn (06:25.938)
Hey Matt.

Hey Matt.

Matt (06:30.744)
I forgot that I was asking a billionaire where they would run. I want a home in every place. Well.

Sam (06:33.331)
Oh gosh.

shawn (06:35.451)
HAHAHAHAHAHA

Sam (06:37.567)
Not California.

shawn (06:40.313)
Matt, the education system here is not as grand as you think it is. But listen, that debate got five million live views. Five million is not too shabby. And then obviously afterwards, all the clips, you watched the clips, millions and millions of people watched clips and it got a lot of attention.

Matt (06:48.717)
Yeah, that's pretty good.

People like me.

Sam (06:58.74)
Sean, I've heard Utah's education system is better than California. So I mean, that's what I've heard. That's the rumor I've heard. Yeah.

Matt (07:02.532)
Oh geez, oh geez, that's right. All right, well let's move on to the... Oh my goodness. All right, let's go back. Let's do the Thought Provokers, Sean, you're first.

shawn (07:07.006)
call back to a podcast episode where we discuss that in detail.

shawn (07:14.353)
Alrighty, okay, so this is, I've debated what to talk about. This one is, so did either of you watch the documentary 20 Days in Mariupol?

Matt (07:23.744)
No, I couldn't watch it. I have it, but I can't do it.

Sam (07:23.786)
Not yet. I need to watch it. I've had an ear infection. Haven't been able to watch things. Go ahead. Sorry.

shawn (07:25.651)
Oh guys, I don't know if I should.

Yeah, I don't know if I should promote you guys to watch it or don't watch it because you both served there you opened up Mariupol and if and you love that city and if you want to be absolutely devastated absolutely shocked Graphically then don't watch it man. It was it was so well made and so moving and so emotional so powerful yet Just the sad and painful as it can be so I Wouldn't watch it fire you guys. I mean it was so

Sam (07:36.447)
We love that city.

Matt (07:36.548)
Yeah.

Sam (07:43.undefined)
Yeah.

Matt (07:45.997)
Yeah.

Sam (07:52.93)
So tragic. So I'm not gonna watch it. But you should tell us about it.

Matt (08:00.472)
Yeah, tell me about it because I'm curious, but I really, I can't watch it. I have it recorded so that people I know can watch it, but I really can't because it's like, it's a place I've lived, a place I know, people there that I know and love. And so watching that happen, like just the news of it caused me like distress. And so watching more of it, I don't think I could do it.

shawn (08:02.477)
Okay. Okay, so this.

Sam (08:02.815)
I wanna know.

shawn (08:20.781)
Matt, if you ask my wife how many times I've cried in our 23 years of marriage, she would say three times. I just don't cry, I'm not a crier. But I cried twice or three times during this documentary. So here's the summary. A journalist, this guy who's from Kharkov, who is just a fantastic journalist and videographer, he and his crew entered Mariupol the moment the war kind of rumblings were starting. And they decided we're gonna be here to just document as much as we can.

Matt (08:27.416)
Whoa.

Matt (08:31.148)
Yeah, see? I don't want to watch that.

shawn (08:50.297)
and then we are going to send that content, the video content to as many news outlets as possible so that there can be a live read on what's going on, right?

So it was amazing, the documentary, because he would take the footage in the documentary and show all the context around a piece of footage that actually made its way to the AP, to the worldwide news outlets. And there's about seven of those events. So seven events of his footage that made it through the initial war news outlets. And he showed all the context around them. Yep, the hospital, the children's theater.

Matt (09:14.724)
Mm-hmm.

Matt (09:21.432)
Like the children's theater and the hospital. Yeah.

Sam (09:24.563)
hospital was early on. Yeah.

shawn (09:28.642)
The moment that the tanks came in, odds of stall, all of it. So he was there, he was there and shows the background context through video and commentary. And then he would show the clips that made its way into the news. And so you got to see the behind the scenes. So for example, in one of the famous clips, you see this woman at the hospital who is pregnant, unconsciously being taken out. And it was so graphic because her hips got crushed and you could see it. And

Sam (09:29.262)
The cause of stall, the steel plant, yeah.

Matt (09:33.242)
Oh man.

Matt (09:54.116)
Mmm.

shawn (09:56.097)
So it shows that on the news and the headline is obviously that Russia's attacking civilians in hospitals. Well, for 30 minutes around that event, he shows how they tried to track that woman down to see if she made it. And she did not. And she did not make it, she died. And they follow about five stories of what happened to the kids that were shown and the people shown in the news. All of it was just tragic and devastating, all of it. Awful, horrible, just showed.

Matt (10:09.532)
Oh.

Matt (10:19.152)
Mm-hmm. Ah, that's horrible.

shawn (10:24.785)
the brutality and the wickedness and the evil approach that Putin and Russia are taking. I mean, it convinced me more and more that they are one of the world's highest threats because of the amount of just wickedness that they are.

Matt (10:38.432)
Yeah, right. They violate international law. They don't have regard for human life. They just do whatever it takes to destroy people and win.

shawn (10:46.797)
And that leads to my question. So my question is this, this is all about the information war that Russia seems to be winning, which shocks me. Maybe they're not winning, maybe you guys disagree on that, but I'll ask my question, yeah? All right, so since 2008, there's been a remarkable evolution in Russia's approach to propaganda. So I've linked an article that kind of goes through this in detail, but what they focus on is high numbers of channels and they use rapid, continuous, and repetitive messages that...

Matt (10:57.848)
Okay.

shawn (11:16.389)
don't even have consistency to them. So it's like using a rapid fire shotgun just going all over the place as opposed to like a very specific targeted sniper rifle type of thing. So they use text, photos, videos and audio on many, many multiple, multiple channels. And when I say channels, you know what I mean by that? I mean by Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, news outlets, hacking into news outlets, tons and tons of different channels. So it's...

Matt (11:35.002)
Yeah.

Right.

Yeah. Telegram, anything they can use, right?

shawn (11:45.121)
anything. So multiple channels and in very high volumes. Now, they employ huge armies of internet trolls and hackers to execute their strategies. In fact, according to a former paid Russian internet troll, the trolls are on duty 24 hours a day in 12 hour shifts, and each has a daily quota of 135 posted comments of at least 200 characters. What that does is it saturates the search engines. And it feeds like crazy, it feeds like

Matt (12:10.222)
Yeah.

shawn (12:14.045)
companies who are trying to get their messages out there, they pay thousands and millions of dollars to execute a campaign like that, because it saturates the search engine. So my question is this.

Matt (12:21.044)
Yeah. They could do it for cheaper with Russians, by the way. Use that Russian labor, it would be way cheaper for them to do it.

shawn (12:30.597)
And weighed and very trustworthy.

Matt (12:33.58)
Also, if you could put people in prison and make that be part of what they do with their prison sentence, that's free labor.

shawn (12:38.581)
Oh, good point. Sam, you're for that, right? So over the holiday, I had three or four discussions with close friends of mine. And the common topics when we talked about the Ukraine-Russian War were, isn't Zelensky a Nazi? One person even told me.

Matt (12:54.12)
Oh geez. Where are your friends? Where are they getting their information from?

shawn (12:59.129)
I don't know, Matt, but guess where they live? Utah. So a few months ago, there was, you know what deep fake is? Deep fake is the AI generated facial transfer. You can basically make fake videos. And so a few months ago on the Ukraine websites and news outlets and throughout social media, Zelensky made a video and said,

Matt (13:01.164)
Where? Well, OK, now I know where they're getting their information from. Ha ha ha.

Matt (13:13.294)
Yeah.

Matt (13:19.129)
Yeah.

shawn (13:29.049)
We're ready to surrender. Everyone put your arms down and go home. Did you see that video? But it was a deep fake, but there were thousands and thousands of likes and comments about it. So it's Russian propaganda getting through telling lies. So anyway, so my question is this, you guys. What, how, has this strategy, this propaganda strategy become pervasive source of information in America?

Matt (13:32.72)
Well that was a deep fake, right?

Matt (13:52.256)
Yes. Yes, that was a really easy question. Yes. Have you heard of Breitbart? Have you heard of Breitbart news? Have you heard of Alex Jones? Have like there are so many right wing media outlets that all they are propaganda arms of some individual, some group and

shawn (13:54.085)
So is it Sam? So you do think so. You think that it's pervasive. Okay, yeah. Yeah.

shawn (14:12.321)
Alright, now be fair and balanced. Give us some left wing as well. Come on. Oh, Matt, you're exposing your bias.

Matt (14:15.988)
I don't know any left-wing ones. You can tell me the left-wing ones. I read yesterday that Alex Jones, $1.5 billion, he has to pay to the families of the elementary school shooting or whatever because of misinformation, disinformation on his own platform.

Sam (14:17.405)
Haha.

Wait, so sh-

shawn (14:28.386)
Uh huh.

That's right.

shawn (14:34.981)
Propaganda in order to get power and likes and views and money and

Matt (14:37.088)
Yeah, that was that's Alex Jones whole platform, right? Alex Jones is not conservative.

shawn (14:41.445)
Yeah, but he's not conservative. That guy's a nut.

No, he's a right-wing extremist. He's not like a traditional conservative.

Matt (14:48.744)
Okay, well, right wing implies conservative. Oh, okay, I see what you're saying. But yeah, so right wing, we can just say right wing instead of conservative. But yeah, Breitbart, same thing. I spent the last, I don't know, I spent several years with my father-in-law regularly telling me, have you heard about this? Have you heard about this? And I'm like, no, this stuff is insane and crazy. No, I haven't heard about this. And they're like, you're not getting your news from the right sources. You gotta go to the right sources and then you'd find out.

You would know that all of these refugees that are coming into Idaho are just terrorists that want to take over the country.

shawn (15:18.254)
Oh my gosh, Matt, are you serious?

Matt (15:21.272)
Hey, even on the debate, the Gavin Newsom debate, did you see Sean Hannity put up that graphic that said the people coming into the country and which countries they're coming from? But it was like.

shawn (15:32.349)
But he sourced, hang on, hang on, hang on now, but he sourced that graphic as the AP. Huh.

Matt (15:36.896)
Did you see his source? No, his source was information leaked to Fox News. Yeah, that's right. Sean Hannity is, that's right. Sean Hannity puts up a weird graphic and then implies from that, oh, 500 people from Iran were apprehended at the border. They must be terrorists trying to come into our country.

shawn (15:42.971)
Oh yeah

Sam (15:44.622)
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha

shawn (15:46.501)
So they're the source.

Well, so that's...

shawn (15:57.385)
Right. No, no, but the question there is, so is that Fox News deploying this Russian-style propaganda or is that, or is that, okay, this is a great part, this is a great anecdote to introduce the question. Is that Russian-style propaganda perpetuated knowing that it's a lie and propaganda by Fox News or is it a piece of information that was loosely put out there and referenced slash kinda qualified

Matt (16:07.258)
Yes.

shawn (16:26.833)
but they're like, hey, it exists, so we're gonna publish it, right? Or do they fullheartedly believe it and they're preaching it? Like that's the problem with this question is discerning what is deceitful lie, what is truth, and then what is just information that we may not know, right? To presenting it in a way that isn't fact, but saying, hey, look, we have reports. So that's the real question to you both. Like, okay, if you, Sam, do you agree with Matt that it's pervasive in America, this kind of propaganda?

Sam (16:54.454)
Well, I think propaganda is pervasive anywhere. You go back to world war II, the U S had, that's where propaganda began, right? So Hitler started it. Russia did a phenomenal job of it. We saw it back the world war II stuff, all the metals and the posters. The U S had a strong propaganda response, especially using motion pictures back in that day, and it's evolved to today where AI makes it very

difficult to distinguish in some cases between that and the truth. How many times I get on TikTok or somewhere else and I see Warren Buffett offering to pay everybody a billion dollars in crypto, you know, and, and it's, it's not real. I mean, that, that truly is the challenge of our day is trying to decipher and delineate between what is real and fact and, and what's not, you know, Fox, Fox news kind of went there a little bit and you know, you, that

Matt (17:31.44)
hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahah

Sam (17:48.302)
that the meshing of performance art from Glenn Beck and some others versus, you know, entertainment news versus real hardcore vetted news. And then, you know, Alex Jones is a good example, you know, does he believe it or is he intentionally propagandizing? I'm not sure it even matters whether he believes it or not. If it's not true, you know, it's harmful.

shawn (18:07.849)
Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

Matt (18:14.481)
Well, in court he testified he didn't believe the things that he said about Sandy Hook. Yeah, when he was under oath. Yeah. Well, and so... So...

Sam (18:18.342)
Oh did he? Okay, okay, yeah, yeah.

shawn (18:19.275)
Yeah.

So straight up lied and put an issued propaganda and now he's paying the price for it. But we can't do that with Russia and we can't do that with the millions of other sources, right?

Sam (18:27.094)
Well, he'll never actually pay it. Yeah.

Matt (18:29.796)
But in our world, credibility is, so this is the weird thing, right? Credibility comes from likes, it comes from reviews, it comes from, so if you're gonna establish your credibility or whether or not you believe a source based on the number of retweets or how many people liked it, then you're gonna get misled because that stuff is easily manipulated by trolls.

shawn (18:50.777)
So that's great. So that's a great, I wanted this to be a productive discussion about how to solve this. So you just offered one, Matt. You're saying instead of trusting any source, be skeptical of all of, especially the ones that have high volumes of evidence that they are popular. Is that what your advice is?

Matt (19:07.7)
Yeah, I think it's not that hard. I think that if you care about the answer, then you would just, you would subject that to the same scrutiny you would about something that matters a lot. So for example, if my child got cancer, I'm going to do what? To find out how to help my child with cancer. I'm gonna look for somebody who's trained, I'm gonna look for somebody who's had experience doing it. Maybe, yeah, that's right. It wouldn't be just the...

shawn (19:17.809)
Yeah, well said.

shawn (19:30.885)
You'll talk to multiple doctors, multiple, multiple.

Matt (19:35.564)
I mean, if I only have one person, I only have one person, but I know a lot of people that will travel a long ways to get treatments for medical conditions because they wanna have the best person treating their medical conditions. And so I think that what happens is it's just too easy to, people say, I don't really care that much about Ukraine. I don't really care that much about global affairs. So I'm just gonna go with the stuff that like makes me feel good or that like reaffirms that my existing beliefs. But if it really matters, then you do owe it to yourself to like,

figure it out. And I think everybody has the cognitive tools to figure it out. I really don't think that people can't find accurate information if they want to. I just think that they don't have the motivation to most of the time.

Sam (20:16.81)
But it is super easy in our day and age to allow a lot of that news to feed our worst fears and our worst suspicions. And I think that's why, especially as people become increasingly isolated, if somebody has a crazy idea and the algorithms catch on to that crazy idea, you can find news that will feed that and feed you all the way down into the closet of complete and utter paranoia and disconnection. Right. We've seen that in all areas of life, particularly, you know,

Matt (20:24.334)
Yeah.

Matt (20:41.079)
It's true.

Sam (20:45.442)
during, during COVID lockdowns and even coming out of it. Right. There's a greater fracture between people that seem to believe sane, rational, reasonable things and people who truly think somebody's out to get them or out to get us all or whatever.

shawn (20:59.249)
Sam, do you think Matt's solution is a good counter to that emotional approach to informing ourselves? Like Matt's idea.

Sam (21:06.446)
Well, the solution is you've just got to be smart about watching what you watch and analyzing whether or not it's good and it makes sense and it's logical. Occam's razor says the simplest solution is probably the answer. And, you know, a lot of these, you know, crazy theories just, you know, unless I'm completely wrong, they're all going to turn out to be bunk, right? Like,

Matt (21:29.788)
Right. Yeah. So, um, I forget Doris Kern's good one. She wrote a biography of Abraham Lincoln. It was called Team of Rivals. And she talked about how Abraham Lincoln stacked his cabinet with a bunch of political enemies because he came to office right at, as soon as he was inaugurated, the civil war happened like two weeks later. And he's like, I can't win this if I've got a whole bunch of yes men surrounding me. So her, his idea was

I want people with all these different perspectives in the room so that I can hear everything that's going on and then make my best decision. And I try to do things like that with information on, I don't have a team of rivals, but I say, here's something I came across, who's somebody that would not ever agree with that? And then I asked them, hey, what do you think about this? Team of rivals? Everyone should have a team of rivals, right?

shawn (22:06.229)
Awesome. What a great example.

shawn (22:15.941)
You nailed it, Matt. Preach it.

shawn (22:22.381)
I think that is the wisest approach. Did you know that in the scriptures, I found 65 or so references to the word deceive? So the Lord is clearly preaching to us, look, the opportunity to be deceived is abundant in this world. And I think you've nailed step one in trying to discern what is truth and what is not. It's question everything, and look at the other side of what you think is the truth.

Right? Look at the evidence on both sides. Always.

Matt (22:50.287)
Yeah.

Well, but there is some caveats with that, right? So I try to find somebody who's going to be a positive advocate for the side as opposed to somebody who's just going to tear down a site. So for example, right? If I want to know about evangelicals, I don't find somebody who hates evangelicals to tell me about evangelicals, right?

shawn (23:03.013)
Yeah, nice.

shawn (23:10.393)
Why'd you have to go there, dude? Now my neighbor, my friend is going, oh.

Matt (23:13.164)
No, no, well, I could say the same thing about our church, right? If I want to know about, so I can go on YouTube and I can like Google, tell me stuff about Mormons, right? And then there's people that are like, honestly trying to understand Mormons and how they do things. And I could like, like go to them to try to find out what's going on. Or I could go to the people that are like, I hate Mormons and let me tell you everything that they won't tell you. Right. So I.

shawn (23:33.617)
Okay, but this is, but this is a hard year by evidence of your example. This is an extremely hard thing to do because my evangelical friend would accuse you absolutely of just going, he's just got the Mormon bias and everything. He says about it is a hundred percent from the Mormon bias. He doesn't see it from my perspective, but in your mind, you've done a good job at looking at from their perspective. Is that correct? Oh,

Matt (23:53.908)
No, I don't think I've done a good job at looking at it from their perspective. No, so that's what I'm saying. If I wanna know about evangelicals, I go to an evangelical to ask about evangelicals, right? So if I hear something like new and secret and hidden about evangelicals, maybe I have a bias that says, yeah, I believe that because maybe they're your enemies or something like that. So rather than just saying, let's talk to all of my Mormon friends about this mean stuff about evangelicals, I say, let's talk to an evangelical and see what they say about it, right?

shawn (24:22.577)
Good, okay, yep.

Matt (24:23.736)
That's what I'm saying. I'm saying you look for people that will, will defend their perspective rather than people that are going to just tear down.

shawn (24:31.019)
My friend's admonition to you is do more of that, Matt, because you were wrong on those issues of evangelicals being less Christian. Anyway, so, okay, so I love it though.

Matt (24:38.542)
Oh, okay. Hey, it's possible that in Utah, I don't have as wide a circle of evangelical friends as you might have in California. It's possible. Ha ha ha.

shawn (24:46.041)
That's his point. That's he made that point and wondered why you had such a strong opinion when that may be the case, but that's okay Sam is Sam's getting annoyed. Okay, so Sam this is real life Sam. This is real life. We've got real people real listeners take an issue So so Matt so Matt your point is I think the solution We need to make sure that everyone who listens to news never take it on face value Even your favorite news sources do your own studying left and right

Sam (24:46.102)
Huh.

Sam (24:51.036)
Ugh.

Matt (24:51.888)
I'm out.

Sam wants to give me the points. That's what he wants.

Sam (24:56.761)
I'm not annoyed.

Sam (25:01.55)
That's awesome.

Matt (25:03.106)
I'm out.

Matt (25:06.998)
Yes!

shawn (25:14.745)
And then the scriptures say the next step is if you really wanna discern, there's a gift of discernment that comes from the Holy Ghost. So that's obviously a step we should take, right? It says that all through scripture. That's hard with every single thing, but I think your approach is the first piece, right? When he told Oliver Cowdery to study it out in your mind, that's what he meant.

Matt (25:23.95)
Yeah.

Matt (25:29.168)
But I don't think that if I...

I don't think if I kneel down and say, heavenly father is Zelensky a Nazi, I don't think that, right? But I could be prayerful and say, help me figure out the truth of this maybe.

shawn (25:40.869)
Well, no, but I'm not saying do it on everything. I'm saying your approach of working it out, studying it out in your mind and looking at both sides is gonna help us discern mostly. And then those are very important things that are left over, take it to the Lord.

Matt (25:43.125)
Oh, okay.

Matt (25:53.92)
I like it, Sean. So Sam, do you agree with Sean that I deserve the points on this one?

shawn (25:58.253)
Hahaha

Sam (25:59.575)
I Sean, I or Matt, I think you deserve the points, except I think you quoted the wrong Lincoln book. So I'm inspired to say that the Lincoln hypothesis is a better example of the historical, the historical fact. And it's not a team of rivals. It was President Lincoln actually meeting, uh, Nephi, Lehi, Shadrach, Abednego, and somebody else.

shawn (26:09.329)
He he he.

shawn (26:22.471)
Oh!

Matt (26:23.122)
For listeners who don't understand Sam's sarcastic reference, that's a Tim Ballard book. Tim Ballard wrote the Lincoln Hypothesis. And you can no longer find it on the shelves of Deseret Book.

Sam (26:33.918)
It is still on Amazon though, if you want it, I'm seeing here. So yeah, no great, great points. Yeah. I think that's the challenge of our time is discerning truth, but it hasn't always been that way. There's just different gradations of that being a challenge. So when we were kids, it was a challenge, but it was in a different format and today it's a challenge and it's everywhere. So nice job, Sean.

Matt (26:38.232)
It'll be a collector's item someday.

Matt (26:50.401)
Yeah.

Matt (26:56.876)
All right, Sam, you're next up.

Sam (26:59.882)
All right, so many of us may have seen this past week, news clips of an event that never makes the news. So once a year, CEOs from companies meet at a summit called the Dealbook Summit, sponsored by the New York Times. And it never makes news because if there's one thing CEOs of large companies do, it's they meet with their media handlers, they form their messages, and they're super careful about how they execute and craft that message when they.

get together because they're defending stock price, they're defending market share and other challenges. Well, they all gathered in a room for a Q&A and on this one particular session, Bob Iger, CEO of Disney was there as Elon Musk took the stage and the interviewer talked to Musk a little bit about a boycott that his social media platform Twitter, now known as X is undergoing. So Elon Musk made some.

anti-Semitic comments a couple of weeks ago on X in a post when talking about the Israeli war, people were frustrated and upset by it and companies lined up to boycott X. There's about a hundred large companies right now. And truly the advertising dollars lost X could threaten its viability down the road. So the interviewer asked Musk if there was an issue or if he had a problem with these companies, many of whom were in the room pulling their advertising. And guess what Musk said.

Anybody saw it? He said, go, uh, four letter word yourself. And he said, go four letter word yourself. Yes. And then he said, is that clear? I hope it is. And then turning to the audience, he said, Hey, Bob, if you're in the audience, go blank yourself. And. Yep. And, and he, he went on to talk about the interviewer said, well, hey, so you don't want advertising dollars. Musk said, well, no, we want it.

Matt (28:24.028)
what i didn't see

shawn (28:25.712)
four letter word four letter word warning

Matt (28:32.068)
Find yourself. Go find yourself. Go find yourself.

Matt (28:44.121)
Go find yourself.

Sam (28:53.294)
But he said, if they think they can blackmail me with money, he went back to his former statement and he said, ultimately the boycott will kill the company X or Twitter. And he said, I'm going to make sure everybody knows that they killed that platform. What do you make of that? Isn't that fascinating that a CEO of a large privately held company in this one who has so much money takes that approach in front of other CEOs?

shawn (28:59.453)
find yourself.

Matt (28:59.8)
Hahaha

Matt (29:05.2)
Good.

Good. Yeah, it's their fault. It's their fault.

shawn (29:16.773)
Well, just.

Well, just to insert one piece of clarity, in that same interview about five minutes before all that happened, the interviewer did directly ask him, are you anti-Semitic? And Elon Musk's response was, I regret that comment. I'm not anti-Semitic. Yeah, he apologized for it. He says, I wish I wouldn't have said it. It caused a big problem. So that's an important element of it, right? Because it's not just about, well.

Sam (29:35.286)
He did, yeah. Yeah.

Sam (29:41.578)
He, Andy went on an apology tour of sorts. He actually went to Israel and sat down and, and supported the Israeli people. So yes.

shawn (29:53.433)
Right. So is what he is when he says to go find yourself, is he basically saying even so, I mean, his whole mantra for X is free speech, apparently. And so even if I say something stupid, you can't boycott me or bribe me with money to say something else. I mean, I didn't quite understand what his point was there.

Matt (29:58.823)
Hahaha

Matt (30:04.832)
Yeah, yeah.

Matt (30:12.472)
He's such a hypocrite, such a hypocrite, right? Yeah, because this is what, he comes out there, oh, right, I wanna own Twitter because I wanna make it a truly free marketplace of ideas. I'm not gonna censor anything. Everything you wanna say can be on Twitter. But what does he do when it's his own personal life? There's a guy on Twitter who tweets the location of Elon Musk's plane, and Elon Musk would sue to try to get him, he'd try to block him from Twitter.

Sam (30:14.386)
Oh really? Why is he a hypocrite? I don't think he is.

Matt (30:41.252)
Tried to sue him to get him to take it down so that this guy wouldn't post like where Elon Musk's location is. He's in the.

shawn (30:44.717)
Matt, that's... Matt, that's... Matt, that's illegal, though.

Sam (30:47.754)
But, but, but he allowed, but he allowed him to post it on the Twitter platform. So he, he defended the free speech of it. He took them to court to try to stop it, but he didn't limit it on the platform.

Matt (30:52.559)
Yeah?

Matt (30:57.124)
Mm-hmm. And right now he's going through like a custody hearing, right? There's a woman in, I think it's, so they're fighting if it's gonna be in California or in Texas, and she's fighting for custody of their three kids and she wants him to sit for a deposition. He won't do it unless he gets all kinds of privacy guarantees from the courts that these things that are normally public records could never become public because he doesn't want to have the public view looking at his life, right?

shawn (31:23.537)
Matt, that's, no, Matt, that's called, but that is a specific legal term called doxing. When you go on social media, if I were to go on social media and be like, hey, Matt Miles loves, I don't know, Trump, he's a MAGA guy, and here's where he lives, and here's his phone number, go let him hear it. That's doxing, and that's not technically illegal, but many companies have policies against it because it can lead to violence, it can lead to.

Matt (31:44.408)
Yeah, yeah, but he doesn't-

Matt (31:50.004)
Right? But on, and on Twitter, they used to not allow you to do that. But Elon Musk is all in favor of doxxing on Twitter. He's all in favor of people putting other people's business on Twitter. But he doesn't want his own personal life out there in the public eye, because then he would be subject to the same kind of problems that other people are subject to. So that's why I'm saying he's a hypocrite.

Sam (32:09.466)
See, I don't see that hypocrisy at all. I think he uses the courts and other things to maintain privacy in areas where he needs it. But the way he has defended free speech on Twitter, I think is probably remarkable. And I think, you know, the point he tries to make in that platform is don't allow your worst comments to define how everyone else engages in you. We talked about it last time. You know, cancel culture can be negative. It can have a negative consequence to it.

And when someone responds to one tweet by him that they perceive as antisemitic and they refuse to accept his apology and they withhold advertising dollars and try to kill an entire company based on someone's worst comment. That's, you know, I'm not sure that's right. Free speech should be allowed to prevail. And, and, and somehow there, that there should not be an ultimate consequence for one comment. Now, if he's truly antisemitic and he has a trend of it.

And, and, you know, that's got to be dealt with. If he made one stupid comment that he later retracted, why should that define the platform?

Matt (33:14.596)
They pulled their advertising not only because of his comment, but because people were taking screenshots of a Disney ad next to an anti-Semitic post. So Disney is seeing, oh, our advertising is being linked because it's right next to anti-Semitism. So it's not just the stuff Elon Musk says, it's how he manages Twitter.

shawn (33:32.049)
Right, but Matt.

shawn (33:35.773)
But Matt, that's the point that I think he's making very effectively. He's saying, go ahead and cancel me. If you don't agree with the way that Twitter is being run, go ahead and leave. Find yourself. That's consistent. That is consistent with his message. Let the free market.

Matt (33:46.54)
Yeah, people are, but people are leaving.

Matt (33:53.801)
He's not swearing at Bob Iger because he's happy. He's upset that they're pulling their advertising and that he's going to lose his platform.

shawn (33:59.501)
No, but he's making a point that by pulling your advertising, you're making a decision to censure me. And he's saying, go ahead, do it.

Matt (34:07.64)
Yeah, but that's just the free market. We talked about that before, right?

shawn (34:09.509)
I agree. I think that's his point is, go ahead. If you disagree with my attempts to make this a free speech marketplace and you don't agree with that, go ahead and leave.

Matt (34:14.991)
It's...

Sam (34:19.181)
kill it.

Matt (34:19.676)
I loved Twitter. It was such a great place. And then Elon Musk bought it and ruined it. Like literally ruined it. I can't-

shawn (34:25.713)
By the way, Matt, to fact check your earlier comment, doxing has never, the policy of doxing has never changed on Twitter, not when it became axed. The doxing, real-time location info of anyone will be suspended as it is a physical safety violation, and has never changed.

Matt (34:42.104)
the real time physical location, but you could put their address out there.

shawn (34:46.566)
That's doxing.

Matt (34:48.356)
Well no, that's not the real-time physical location.

shawn (34:51.897)
No, I don't think you can put, I think doxing, I think addresses are under doxing.

Sam (34:52.558)
That's just, that's just publishing, publishing their personal information, right? That's publishing personal info, not, not the moment they are where they are when they tweet.

Matt (34:58.671)
Right.

Matt (35:02.644)
Right, right, so those are two different things I think. But anyhow, you know, Elon Musk purchased Twitter. Yeah, okay, I'll give Sean the points for that because he told us what doxing is. Okay, so Mark Cuban recently announced that he's selling part of his ownership in the Dallas Mavericks to Miriam Adelson for $2 billion.

Sam (35:05.758)
And you can turn off location on Twitter on X. Anyway, it's just kind of interesting.

Sam (35:16.174)
Sean, I give you the points too. I learned doxxing. All right. Matt, it's up to you now.

shawn (35:20.588)
Hahaha

Matt (35:32.172)
What was not as widely reported is that this is part of a larger plan that Cuban announced last year to build a new arena for the Dallas Mavericks in the middle of a Vegas-style hotel, casino, and resort complex in Dallas. The problem is that gambling is illegal in Texas, and so this is why Cuban is selling majority ownership of the Mavericks to the people who own the Sands Casino Corporation.

The Adelson family are big donors to the Texas governor and lieutenant governor, and this infusion of cash will help pave the way for a campaign to legalize gambling in the state of Texas. If Cuban gets, can get the law changed, he and Adelson then get to, they'll play a large role in deciding what the laws are and how to regulate gambling in the state of Texas. So to me, this seems like another example of a billionaire.

exploiting the system to give themselves an unfair advantage in the capitalist economy. What do you guys say?

Sam (36:31.478)
Wait, what are they exploiting? What are they exploiting?

Matt (36:34.532)
Gambling is illegal in Texas. They're gonna make a law apparently, right? They've got, well, this is what Mark Cuban has said publicly, right? There's a link to the story in the show notes.

Sam (36:36.802)
Right?

shawn (36:41.373)
There's a lot of assumptions there, Matt.

Sam (36:43.341)
Yeah.

shawn (36:46.381)
He, hang on, Matt, Mark Cuban never said, I'm selling it to this company to give them enough money to go lobby to make gambling legal. Okay, we should have the discussion based on that hypothetical. It's a hypothetical, it's an opinion piece. It's not true.

Matt (36:51.853)
Yeah!

Okay. That's right, he said I'm going to partner with them.

Matt (37:02.868)
article. Uh huh.

Matt (37:07.776)
No, he said that. And there's...

Sam (37:10.45)
So I have a question. I have a question.

shawn (37:10.821)
He didn't say the money is being used to lobby to legalize gambling. Yeah, so that's an assumption.

Matt (37:14.848)
Okay, he didn't say that's why he's using that money.

Sam (37:17.182)
Is it a risk? Is it a risk to Mark Cuban? If they do all this lobbying, they try to change the law, which requires a process to happen. Is it a risk to him if he goes through all this effort, expends all this money and the law doesn't get changed? Is it a risk? Yeah. Is he at risk of losing a lot of money? Absolutely. So, so I don't know that it means that someone who has a lot of money

Matt (37:34.436)
Of course.

Matt (37:39.981)
Yes.

Sam (37:46.566)
It has a better opportunity that he's just taking a massive risk relative to his wealth. He's willing to make that bet. No pun intended. Right. And if it pays off, he'll actually do really well. I what's the problem with that? I don't get what the issue is.

Matt (37:54.308)
I'll ask you.

haha

Matt (38:03.296)
If I'm Mark Cuban and I'm taking this risk and I get to help write the legislation that regulates gambling in the state of Texas, might I write the law in such a way to give myself a competitive advantage over everybody else?

shawn (38:18.038)
Okay, Matt, Sam, watch this. Sam, hang on, Sam, hang on. Sam, no, Sam, he...

Sam (38:18.582)
Well wait, how's he writing the law? He's not writing the law.

Matt (38:23.532)
Well, he's going to talk to the governor, the lieutenant governor, the legislators. You as a donor, you say this is the legislation, this is the language. Yes, that's lobbying. That's right. And it also can lead to a competitive advantage for the billionaires.

Sam (38:25.514)
Yeah, well, that's lobbying.

Sam (38:32.631)
Yeah.

shawn (38:36.781)
Matt, how is that any different? Matt, how is that any different from the billionaire union organizations lobbying to change laws in their favor? How is it any different?

Sam (38:36.97)
Yes. And it could also fail. Yeah.

Matt (38:50.076)
It's not any different. It's just that the billionaires the unions aren't billionaires. They don't have billions of dollars in the unions Are you talking about like the teams you're making you can't make this about unions Sean. We're just talking about billionaires

shawn (38:54.629)
The organizations have billions of dollars. Yes, they do.

Sam (38:55.118)
Oh no, oh no. Yeah, they do.

shawn (39:01.433)
It's about lobbying. This is about lobbying. This is about campaign finance, right? This is about.

Sam (39:06.059)
The, the, the U the UEA and the state of Utah is the largest lobby entity in the state, aside from the church, maybe.

Matt (39:15.484)
So to me, this question is about the myth of a capitalist society that exists without government intervention in the United States, right? People say we have a capitalist system. We want the government to stay out of things, but we actually don't have that because the wealthiest people in the United States use government laws and regulations to create competitive advantages for themselves relative to the rest of the marketplace.

Texas announces, hey, guess what? We're open for gambling. If you wanna start a casino here, you can start a casino here. You're already gonna be behind the game because Mark Cuban and the Sands Casino Corporation have already had a role in writing the regulations determining who can and can't have a casino. And maybe I say, well, I have a gas station and I wanna put a casino in it. And they say, sorry, you gotta have like 1.5 million in cash reserves in order to start a casino because those are the rules we wrote.

shawn (40:07.965)
So.

shawn (40:12.189)
So what, Matt, what happens if Mark Cuban decides with all of his money to run for political office and uses his same, that influence to then change those laws? How's that any different?

Matt (40:27.16)
Because that's illegal. You're not allowed to write laws to benefit your own company when you're an elected official.

shawn (40:32.345)
You can't prove that would be his intent. He made you just say that it's better for the state. It's a tax increase to the state.

Matt (40:36.992)
Okay, I'm just saying that.

Sam (40:39.186)
Oh, wait, that's, that's an even more far-fetched hypothetical. I mean, here, here's the challenge. I think he has a right to pursue his business interest in a lobby fashion where everything's fully disclosed. This is early in the process and he's already saying, or it's already known in the marketplace, what he's attempting to do. I just don't see the challenge. I mean, an answer to your question, do people who are extremely wealthy have an advantage because of their wealth? They can generate additional wealth. The answer is clearly yes.

The place you can go look at first of all is sports. If I can buy an NBA team like Mark Cuban has for billions and there is no better way to earn a better multiplier on a return on money, a team one day could be worth a billion, it could be worth 5 billion the next day. So whether you go into the NBA and invest that money or the NFL, or you go into a major league hockey, those are investments that maybe started in the millions.

And they end up in the billions. The multiplier on that is enormous. And now it's interesting. I think the biggest news is the trend line says I can get out of the NBA in the billions and get into gambling. I mean, the multiplier on that's got to be just astounding. And so can anyone else just do that? No, absolutely they can't. Uh, but I'd love to learn how I'd love to follow that path. I don't think he has an unreasonable benefit.

Matt (41:48.604)
Hahaha

Matt (41:52.534)
Right.

Matt (41:56.336)
Sure, I'm a-

shawn (41:59.325)
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha

Matt (42:02.645)
I'm not, I'm not opposed to the idea that people with lots of money have an advantage at making lots of money. I understand that. What I'm opposed to is the idea that people with money change laws, change regulations, change the rules of the game to give themselves a competitive advantage. That's the thing that I don't like. I don't like when people buy up.

Sam (42:22.536)
How's he doing that?

shawn (42:22.585)
Matt, that's Matt. Matt, what you're talking about is, spoken about in scripture a lot, it's called the secret combination for personal gain, right? You're saying when people do things that are immoral or illegal, right?

Matt (42:34.072)
I'm not saying it's illegal, I'm saying it's unethical. It's immoral, it's not capitalism. It's not a free market. It's not a free market if I change the laws to give me an advantage over you.

Sam (42:44.502)
You, you, you have not clearly shown in this case how Mark Cuban magically changes the laws to benefit himself in some way that's not competitive or not fair. Like that doesn't make any sense. Right. Well, any, anybody can go at, I know, but it's like, you're saying like Mark Cuban has the magic wand to change the law. He has to go through a process to do it. He has to lobby to do it.

Matt (42:56.76)
Well, right now gambling is illegal. Let's see, let's see what happens if suddenly Texas legalizes gambling and let's see who's the first casino. Ha.

Matt (43:12.948)
He does. And two billion dollars perhaps. Yeah, wouldn't it be nice if I had two billion dollars I could go lobby with him.

Sam (43:13.974)
That takes money. That takes time. That takes influence. Right. So like, yeah. So, so if he, if he spends $2 billion to change a law and it happens and he's able to benefit from that change, I, I fail to see how that's not, I mean, that's a lot of money to risk to change a law.

shawn (43:18.141)
Hehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehe

Matt (43:35.232)
Yeah, yeah, there must be a lot of money in gambling in the state of Texas, don't you? There must be a

Sam (43:38.51)
There's a lot of money. I have a friend that owns a casino. Actually, you wanna know, I have a friend that owns a casino. Do you know what he says he makes some of the most money out of in the casino? ATM machines. Isn't that interesting? So the fees and charges on the ATM machines. The gambling does well, but the ATM machines, as people are trying to get out more money, pays really well. Isn't that weird?

Matt (43:52.982)
Oh, yeah.

shawn (43:54.045)
That's fascinating.

Matt (43:58.753)
makes a lot of cash.

Matt (44:05.449)
Okay, Sam gets the points for that. That right there. That was something that's thought provoking. I'm in the wrong business. I need to get into the ATM business.

Sam (44:14.376)
I'm here to tell you we're all in the wrong business, but instead of being resentful against billionaires, what we should do is sit and look at them and understand what took them there and then try to replicate it. Too many people spend their time being a little bit jaded and a little bit resentful, learn from them. Actually, I have a serious question. When in the history of the U S like when we were kids.

Matt (44:25.632)
Yeah.

Sam (44:37.558)
Like you looked up to people who are wealthy and successful and you wanted to emulate them and learn from them. I feel like in our day and age today, we look at people that have been successful and we either resent them, we think they cheated their way there and we feel like there's nothing to be learned, right? What is that? Is that pride? Is it jealousy? Is it what? Matt, tell us your view because I feel like we have a lot to learn from you on that.

shawn (44:54.365)
Jealousy. It's jealous, jealousy, Matt.

Matt (45:01.828)
I really can't say the answer because I feel like I don't really respect anybody. There was never a time when I looked up to rich people and wanted to be like them. So I don't look up to poor people. Yeah, I've never. So I'm not a good person to ask about that. I'm really not. Yeah, I'm the kind of person like somebody like that's important or interesting. I have no interest in them. I just don't care. Like, yeah.

shawn (45:07.601)
Hahaha!

Sam (45:07.603)
Okay that's fair.

Sam (45:13.292)
Really?

You're no respecter of people. Okay. That's fair.

Sam (45:28.846)
So you don't like, he doesn't.

shawn (45:28.913)
Sam, when we got back from our missions, Matt kept saying to me, you know what? I wanna be poor. Like, I'm just gonna be poor. And I was like, well, if Matt, my good friend, is saying it, maybe I'll think about that. And then I mentioned it to my future wife, and she's like, that's the stupidest thing I've ever heard. Ha ha ha.

Matt (45:36.268)
Yeah.

Sam (45:46.692)
I, that's like, yeah.

Matt (45:47.703)
Yeah. You know, there's research out there that shows that when men are looking for a spouse, they look for physical attractiveness. That's what men are into. Women are into money. That's what women care about. You can be unattractive. You can look like Donald Trump and have a lot of cash and Melania Trump will be into you. That's what research shows matters. Okay. Well, still Sam still gets the points even after.

shawn (45:58.942)
Hehehehehehehehe

Sam (46:10.734)
Ha ha!

Matt (46:11.58)
taking us down that odd path. All right, the big question this week. So in the most recent general conference, Elder Pingree of the 70, he talked about the difference between truth, doctrine and policy. He said that when seeking truth, it helps to understand the difference between doctrine and policy. Doctrine refers to eternal truth, such as the nature of the Godhead, the plan of salvation and Jesus Christ's atoning sacrifice. Policy is the application of doctrine

Sam (46:13.134)
uh...

Matt (46:39.46)
based on current circumstances. He says that policy helps us administer the church in an orderly way, and he says that while doctrine never changes, policy adjusts from time to time. He also said there's a danger in confusing policy and doctrine. So, previously we've talked about activism towards the church, but this really got me thinking. If policy really is simply the application of doctrine based on current circumstances,

Doesn't that suggest that it might be appropriate for members of the church to engage in some lobbying or activism to change policies? When would that behavior be appropriate?

Sam (47:15.84)
Well, we're about to see that because in news this past week, Stakes and I think the San Francisco area, a stake president or an area president came out and gave direction to the wards in the stake that they were no longer allowed to have Relief Society or female leaders sitting on the stand behind the bishoprics. And it was a big, big deal. And in fact, I've listened to a couple different podcasts where

shawn (47:34.546)
What?

Matt (47:34.788)
Yeah, I saw that. I saw that.

shawn (47:37.069)
What the crap?

Matt (47:38.86)
Yeah.

shawn (47:40.741)
Yeah, that is it.

Sam (47:42.79)
leaders from those wards are a little bit offended that they can't sit up on the stand. And it's creating a pretty healthy conversation. Now, it'll be interesting to see what ends up being the reaction. Oh yeah. And in fact, the church came out with its own policy statement saying they support the area presidency. And there's nothing in the handbook that allows relief SETI leaders to sit on the stand, but they will be

shawn (47:55.357)
Did it get squashed?

shawn (48:06.331)
What?

Sam (48:10.882)
viewing the meeting from the pews for the moment. And that's policy, that's not doctrine, right?

Matt (48:15.684)
Yeah.

Matt (48:19.232)
Yeah, so when is it, so is it appropriate then if you're in one of, if you're in a stake presidency, let's say, right? And you've been having the stake relief society presidency sit on the Stanford stake conference. Is it appropriate for that stake leader to say to the area of leaders, you don't get to tell me what to do in my stake. I'm going to do this if I want to do this.

shawn (48:38.461)
Ha ha ha!

Sam (48:39.255)
Oh, only if you say the word Neener afterwards. So,

Matt (48:43.99)
Well, it is interesting if you look in the history of the church, it used to be a lot more that way, right? Like stake leaders, they were very territorial and they're like, do not tell me what to, I have the keys for this stake. I'm in charge of this stake. Area presidency doesn't have any keys for my stake. So don't, oh, it used to be.

Sam (48:48.866)
Yeah.

shawn (48:58.245)
I've never seen that. I've seen most stake presidents, he's humble and willing to take the top down leadership, but you've seen the opposite, huh?

Matt (49:05.356)
No, no, I'm saying like a hundred years ago, Sean, or 150 years ago. Like the idea that you would just kind of go along with whatever they told you from above, it wasn't always that way. So would that be inappropriate then for a stake president to say to that area presidency, you know what? I appreciate your counsel, but respectfully, I disagree. And I'm gonna set policy for this stake and you can release me if you think that I'm wrong.

shawn (49:07.445)
Oh, okay. Okay, okay.

shawn (49:16.259)
I see. OK.

shawn (49:31.033)
Well, the scriptures say it depends on the intent of the heart, right? I mean, if they truly see that something is wrong and then they have a faithful, humble, contrite heart, then sure. Pursue what you think is right. No.

Matt (49:34.573)
Yeah.

Matt (49:44.78)
Hmm. I don't know because elder Corbett said activism towards the church is wrong. So I just don't know. Well, and did you hear about the saints in, we talked about this before the saints in the UK that, um, fought to get policy changes through a letter writing campaign. So it just seems interesting to me. Like this would be one general conference. You hear activism towards the church is wrong. The next general conference you hear

Sam (49:45.73)
Who? I.

shawn (49:49.881)
Don't call it activism, call it, why would you call it activism?

Matt (50:11.448)
Policy is just temporary stuff. It's just application of doctrine. It's not doctrine itself. And so it really kind of leaves the door open to be like, okay, so what is it I'm supposed to be like exactly obedient to? Is it policy? Is it doctrine? Like where am I supposed to do all of this stuff?

shawn (50:26.293)
It's, Matt, I think it's scripture, I think allows us, it says, I don't wanna, I'm not gonna command you in all things. You should exercise your agency, do things of your own free will and choice, include the Lord and pray. That's the one scripture, right? And then on the other side, it says, check yourself and the intent of your heart. Now, obviously we have a prophet. So if the prophet from the top down corrects some of that, that's a challenge. We have to keep that.

Matt (50:42.063)
Mm-hmm.

shawn (50:52.549)
We have to be obedient and faithful to that. But I don't think there's anything wrong with what you, I don't call it activism. You like to call it activism because you're a political science guy. I just call it doing good works and trying your best to effect change. There's nothing wrong with that.

Matt (51:07.204)
Hmm. What do you say Sam? Where should I draw the line?

Sam (51:11.53)
I think you should draw the line at whatever point the church decides to take action against you for not coming into compliance. And it'll be, it'll be interesting to see with these sisters up on the stand, if, you know, they're obviously mounting a campaign to get back up there and they're pretty passionate about it. And it'll be interesting to see if anything changes. You think about general conference. You know, the young women and young women.

Matt (51:17.732)
Hahaha

Sam (51:40.582)
Uh, uh, relief society and the primary presidencies are all on the stand and they've changed positions even on the stand based on, on some feedback. So it'll be interesting to see, uh, who, who wins that, but you know, it, our history has plenty of examples where people have pushed and, and the church has had a challenge with that, even if a change gets made after the fact. So I don't know. Here's what I would say. I would say probably the most inspired leaders often.

Matt (51:46.382)
Yeah.

Sam (52:10.358)
will understand the difference between gospel principles and policy, and they'll be more lenient on the policy and more firm on the principles. But maybe that's a talent of leadership is understanding the difference between the two and holding the line on the one and not on the other. And I think in the state where we live, sometimes we have a tough time delineating between those two. Sometimes we see pushback on policy as obstinance and a threat to the church, and it gets people nervous and makes them.

shawn (52:26.075)
said.

Sam (52:39.806)
lash back out. But isn't it true in all things we've said this so many times in history things tend to kind of come back to where they need to come. So, but it'll be interesting.

shawn (52:43.037)
Well said, Tim.

Matt (52:49.712)
Do you remember this? It would be maybe, maybe it's like 10 years ago, maybe not quite that long ago. The church came out with a policy that said that if you're a child of same-sex, of a same-sex couple, you can't get baptized, right? And then, yeah, right? So that was policy, right? And don't you imagine there was maybe some lobbying that happened to get that policy changed?

Sam (53:01.89)
Yeah, that was quickly reversed.

Yeah.

Sam (53:15.466)
Yeah. Well, and, and I think there was a lot from even outside the church. I think that as a policy was pretty untenable to the church publicly. So there was, ain't there was anger and frustration inside, but then there was also just, I think the heat was pretty heavy outside as well. But this San Francisco thing is not a lot different, right? Like we've been, I mean, it is different on policy.

shawn (53:15.473)
Yep. For sure. Yeah.

Matt (53:17.692)
Yeah.

Matt (53:26.957)
Yeah.

shawn (53:33.501)
But this is why, but this is why you get.

But this is why I think the main message from our prophets has repeatedly is feast upon Christ. Like read your scriptures guys, because in those scriptures we're gonna find doctrine and principles. And then it's easy, like Sam, can you find anything in scripture or doctrine that says who should sit on a stand or not? No, you can't. Therefore, it's gonna be concluded that this is a policy issue. Yeah, so lobby if you want.

Matt (53:37.678)
No.

shawn (54:03.101)
Change it if you want, like fight for it, and let's see what, like you said, the burden is on the prophet or the president of the church to decide. But we should know scripture better. We as, yeah, why not? If it's not located in scripture, canonized scripture, if it doesn't say clearly, thus saith the Lord, this is who sits on a stand. If it's not doctrine, then it's clearly policy. So yeah, fight for what you think is right.

Sam (54:10.43)
Really? Did you just say fight for it?

Matt (54:27.713)
That's a lot of stuff, Sean. There's a lot of stuff that fits under that in the church.

Sam (54:29.47)
Yeah, that was a lot of stuff. You know, it's interesting. I heard some of the ladies that were frustrated with this, they had actually talked to priesthood leaders saying, Hey, look, this should be changed. And they were told things like, Hey, sitting on the stand is a burden. You don't want to be on the stand anyway. Right. Or, Hey, sitting on the stand, isn't something anybody wants to do. They'd much rather be sitting with their families. Well, that betrays a lack of understanding and empathy of the significance of being there, right. Being.

Matt (54:44.232)
hahahaha

Matt (54:49.016)
That's right. Yeah, what's wrong with you?

Matt (54:56.422)
Right.

Sam (54:56.862)
seen as a leader and being able to impact the people and being seen as an example to the people that you lead and serve. And you know, you think about leadership, leadership is, it's important to be seen as a leader. It's also important to be kind of recognized as the wrong word, but that a leader sets the standard and to young women to be able to see someone like them up on the stand. I think that is super, super important. And so, you know,

Matt (55:13.444)
Well, it is. Right.

Matt (55:22.861)
Yeah.

Sam (55:24.466)
I would have a tough time telling them they've got a lobby for that because I think that may cross the line and might bring some action against them that would be tough to deal with. But over time that has to change. I mean, they, they can't allow that to that, that I'm shocked that they decided to draw a line or none was really needed. There wasn't a reason to come out with that policy change to that stake out of nowhere and I'll bet they're surprised by the backlash.

Matt (55:49.679)
So Sam, you're saying if your ecclesiastical leader puts your membership in the church on the line, stop fighting. But up until that point...

shawn (55:55.421)
Oh man. Wow. Thanks for watching. I hope you enjoyed this video. I'll see you next time.

Sam (55:55.998)
Well, well, I mean, it doesn't do you any good if you're not a member anymore.

Matt (56:01.728)
No, no, but you're saying it's okay to go up to that point, right?

Sam (56:06.137)
I don't even know if that's okay. I think you've got to understand in your own mind how to impact change in the best, most effective way possible.

shawn (56:10.106)
math.

Matt (56:10.294)
Right, I don't...

shawn (56:17.437)
Can I give you another example? It's not as serious of an example, but you tell me how you would respond to this. So many years ago, we had gone to a newly converted sister's house to give her a blessing, me and my, someone from the elders quorum, the elders quorum president. And as we're talking to her ready to give the blessing, and we pulled out the oil, she says, hey, stop, I actually would like for you to use some frankincense, I have some frankincense and myrrh. I would prefer that you use this. And so we were like,

Sam (56:41.71)
That's awesome.

shawn (56:46.821)
We were like, I freaked out. I was like, oh crap, what do I do here? But the elders' corn president was kind of wise. He was like, let me explain to you what this oil is about. And then what we'll do is we'll use this oil and then we'll put some frankincense and myrrh on your head as well and give you the blessing. And at first I was like, what the crap, dude? You're gonna bless her with some frankincense and myrrh? But in the end, I thought about it and thought, wow, what a great way to handle that. Now, what a...

Matt (57:01.464)
Hehehehehehe

shawn (57:12.401)
The prophet have an answer to that? Yeah, the prophet would have to say, the policy is we only use blessing and oil. There's some scripture about that. But so, but in a real time situation, was any harm done? I don't know, what would you do in that situation?

Matt (57:25.048)
Well, now I'm going to tell you a story that Richard G. Scott told me at a state conference and he said we could never repeat it, but he's no longer, he's no longer with us. Richard G. Scott is no longer alive. Right. He's like, this isn't, well, whatever people can take whatever they want from this. So I, uh, so from time to time, cause I lived in rural Kansas, from time to time, somebody would be sick and need a blessing and the nearest other priesthood holder would be like a 30 minute drive away.

Sam (57:30.722)
Ha ha ha!

Yeah.

So you'll share it.

Matt (57:54.56)
And I was like, Elder Scott, like, do I have to have a different person anoint and then seal the anointing or can I just do both of them? And he's like, let me tell you a story, but you can't tell other people that I shared this story. But he's in a state conference.

shawn (58:08.097)
Real quick, real quick, Matt, you have an opportunity to ask an apostle who's got a question and this is what you choose to ask.

Matt (58:14.892)
Yeah, I ask all kinds of weird questions, but yeah, this one was, it actually mattered a lot to me at that time because I didn't like every time someone was sick. I had to have someone drive 30 minutes. Right. And he said, this one time I was on an assignment and I was driving down the road in Argentina and I started feeling really, really sick. And I was like, he's like, I was near death's door. And so I took out the oil and I gave myself a blessing. And I was like, okay. He's like,

Sam (58:15.106)
Good question. Yeah, that's a good question.

Yeah.

shawn (58:21.069)
Okay. Bring someone with you. Okay. Alright, sorry, go ahead.

shawn (58:39.261)
Fascinating.

Matt (58:42.468)
That's the answer to your question. So I think with, right? So I think with your story, Sean, even like a prophet of the Lord would be like, whatever. You gotta do what feels right in this situation. Like there's the handbook stuff and try to follow the handbook, but yeah.

Sam (58:44.034)
Hahaha.

shawn (58:46.639)
I love it, that's amazing.

shawn (59:00.997)
That's kind of my point is that you've, my feeling over time has been, and maybe this doesn't apply to the two of you because you've both been in bishoprics, but I've found that many bishops are called and the personality type is rule follower, rule follower, rule follower, because you need some order and organization, right? And so when it comes to what is the answer to these questions, you give the rule book, you know, question, but in reality, I think, like you said, the Lord is okay with us.

Matt (59:13.684)
Yeah, that's me. I'm definitely like that.

Sam (59:14.447)
Oh, I don't think this.

shawn (59:28.781)
making our decisions using our agency and especially if we're humble and contrite and trying to find doctrines and principles to support it.

Sam (59:35.842)
You can do your best after all you've after you. What's the quote after everything you can do. Yeah.

Matt (59:41.028)
Do your best, do your best and leave the rest to God. Yeah, that's a beautiful way to end the podcast this week, you guys, good job. Hey, listener, thanks for joining us for another week of The Latter-day Lens. We'll talk to you again next week.

shawn (59:43.677)
You'll be...

Sam (59:48.418)
Ha ha ha.