Matt (00:01.23)
Hello and welcome to the Latter Day Lens. It's good to have you with us this week. I'm your host, Matt, and with me as always is Sean, the fearless and trusted co-host of the Latter Day Lens. How are you doing, Sean?

Shawn (00:14.366)
Hey, you say it like that and I was just looking at a picture from our mission where we're in Kiev on their way home in front of a picture of stall or a statue of Stalin. And you're this just giant menacing superhero of a figure. And I'm like this little pipsqueak underneath you. So maybe sidekick. What was the word you used?

Matt (00:33.868)
I said fearless and trusted co-host or something, you're not a sidekick. I saw a t-shirt when I was in Florida, it said, I'm not saying that I'm Batman, I'm just saying that Batman and I have never been seen in the same place at the same time.

Shawn (00:36.846)
Sidekick. Yeah, let's do sidekick.

Matt (00:53.09)
Hey, we got a fun little, actually some of our listeners were quite angry in their things that they sent into the mail bag and so I'm not reading. I don't read angry stuff listeners. You gotta be nice and kind and then I'll read your stuff. This one wasn't angry, this one was just sort of, okay so this person writes in and says, the information about deportations or removals of immigrants from the United States under Trump, it's hard to get good accurate numbers.

Shawn (01:07.806)
Nice.

Matt (01:21.838)
But from what we can see, Joe Biden deported or removed from the United States immigrants at about twice the rate that President Trump has done so far. And if you look overall, Biden deported more people by far than President Trump did. If you look at early, like if you look at 2021, on average, Biden was deporting about 120, 130,000 people a month.

A year ago right now, Biden was deporting in the 15,000 range and Trump right now is deporting less than 10,000 people a month. Wait, no, they have the numbers wrong. Trump deported 37,000 people in his first month in office and Biden deported 57,000 this time a month last year. So the question from the listener is,

Shawn (02:03.174)
You

Shawn (02:11.156)
Cheers.

Shawn (02:17.052)
Matt (02:19.982)
If you get more deportations under Biden than you do under Trump, wouldn't it be better to just use Biden's approach than to use Trump's approach since Trump seems so mean?

Shawn (02:30.216)
the better question be to Matt. Does this make you like Trump more or like Biden more this information?

Matt (02:33.998)
Mm-hmm.

Matt (02:38.67)
I think I said before how I don't even care about immigration. Like for me, it's not an issue. So like the number of people they deport, I don't care. Like I assume the number of deportations is a function of the number of people that are trying to cross the border. And as I recall, like there was a time a little while back where I was like, wow, there are a lot of people crossing the border right now. And you and Sam were like, yeah, tons of people crossing the border. And so it wouldn't surprise me if at that time,

Shawn (02:39.485)
Hahaha!

Matt (03:07.384)
there were a lot of deportations because there more people crossing the border.

Shawn (03:10.42)
so you're saying it's a percentage of how many are coming in. if you did a per capita comparison, Biden's numbers would be way low and Trump's numbers would be way high.

Matt (03:15.79)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Matt (03:22.808)
I mean, I don't know for sure, right? But I would imagine, cause I think, so if you look at election day, November of 2024 or the month of October, 2024, I think Biden deported like 80,000 people that month. So if, if, if right now Trump is only deporting 30,000 people, doesn't that suggest that it's because there aren't people trying to come into the country right now? Yeah.

Shawn (03:25.119)
I see.

Shawn (03:46.206)
That makes sense. Yeah, that does make sense. Yeah. And that's the metric that most people are not most many people are going to point to is yeah, but look how many were coming in compared to now. And that's what makes half the country really happy.

Matt (04:01.228)
It's not about deportations. It's about people crossing the border illegally. Yeah, I mean, honestly, Trump never really gives you good data, right? One of the first things he does is he cuts off access to data because then it makes it easy to debunk some of the things he says, right? So I, my preference, because I political science, I just want data. I don't care. Like deport more, deport less. Just make sure we have good data that we can compare.

Shawn (04:06.068)
I think so.

Matt (04:29.388)
and see like who's doing a better job, who's doing a worse job, but.

Shawn (04:32.692)
You don't think that the press secretary, what's her name? Caroline? What's her is, an object. Levitt is an objective reporter facts.

Matt (04:36.941)
Love it.

Matt (04:41.278)
Or the former governor of South Dakota who's walking around like an Instagram model all the time, like posing in front of prisoners. She's the head of Department of Homeland Security. Yeah, I don't think she's trying to give me accurate information about what's happening at the border.

Shawn (04:48.775)
You

Shawn (04:55.668)
It's a little bit of spin there. Yeah, I think you're right.

Matt (05:00.046)
Looks like he's hired some spokespeople.

Shawn (05:02.612)
It's so crazy,

Matt (05:04.142)
All right, well Sean, our first topic this week is the Pope. The Pope Francis died. The Vatican says stroke and heart complications. I have two questions about the Pope that I think we should discuss. The first question is, well first, should we care as members of the church about the Pope? And then I actually after that have two other questions. So first, should we even care at all? And then we'll ask my other questions.

Shawn (05:34.676)
I mean, from the standpoint of his son of God and he affects his family and all that, yeah, we should care. obviously we believe that the Catholic Church is... I mean, we're friendly with them, of course. Like, look at our leaders, right? They're all friendly because they're big superpowers. But yeah, it's not the restored gospel. So I don't think we should care in the sense of no one authoritative has left the earth, right?

Matt (05:45.878)
not the Restored Gospel.

Matt (05:58.902)
Yeah, but for most of the world, he represents Christianity, right? For most of the even non-Christian world, if you said to a Muslim, like, who represents Christianity? They'd probably say the Pope, right? So in some ways, he's a reflection of like how people think about Christianity. Like when you have a bad Pope, it gives Christianity a bad name. So it's important, I think, to have a good Pope in that regard.

Shawn (06:19.676)
Okay, okay, okay, okay, that's a good way to look at it.

Matt (06:24.248)
The question I think is a little more interesting is, does you ever see the movie Conclave? okay, well then I won't spoil it for you. I loved Conclave, like that's very rare that I love a movie. I loved the Minecraft movie, I loved that one. I loved, loved it. Like you have to set aside any kind of like analytical, you just say like I'm going on a ride at Disneyland.

Shawn (06:30.364)
Not yet, but I want to. You can spoil it.

Shawn (06:42.046)
No you did not, did you? Why?

Matt (06:51.692)
And then Minecraft movie is like the most fun you will have in a movie. And then Conclave would be the exact opposite, right? There's no fun in Conclave, but it's really like intellectually stimulating kind of move. Anyhow.

Shawn (07:04.55)
As you said before, you just, really you just look at facts and data. I'm sure what you found was the most triggering movie in the world was the Minecraft one and you're like, okay, I'm gonna tell everyone I liked it then.

Matt (07:15.894)
No, like, okay, so in primary, all of the kids talk about Minecraft, and then my son who just turned 18, I could tell that he likes to play Minecraft. I could tell there was this thing in him that wanted to go to the Minecraft movie. So we went for his birthday, we all went to the Minecraft movie. And it's the guy that wrote Napoleon Dynamite, wrote the Minecraft movie. And I'm telling you, Sean, like, yes, Jared Hess. Yeah.

Shawn (07:36.68)
He did? Jared Hess? he's a member of the church.

Matt (07:44.492)
Seriously, Sean, every single joke lands, lands good. It's like really good, solid fun. you'll go watch it and then you'll see, you'll be like, my goodness, cause you like the Nacho Libre movie, right?

Shawn (07:51.604)
Are you kidding me? I didn't know that.

Shawn (07:59.582)
Dude, Jared Hass, a member of our church, directed the Minecraft movie. I didn't know that. No way. Alright, well maybe I'll go watch it just to be supportive of the members of the church, of our brethren.

Matt (08:03.264)
And he wrote it, he wrote and directed it. Yeah. Yeah.

but also because it will make you laugh so hard. It is so, so funny.

Shawn (08:14.068)
I can, he's like, he's like 80 20 80 % of his movies are fantastic and 20 of them 20 % are like just potty humored ridiculous dumb.

Matt (08:23.63)
Yeah, this one instead of potty humor, it's like Minecraft sort of stuff, right? That it's like this. Oh my goodness, so funny, so funny. And I didn't, I didn't even realize like I didn't know there were all these memes about where you throw the popcorn at the screen and stuff until after I saw the show. But then after I saw it, I saw the people throwing the popcorn. I was like, yeah, yeah, yeah, I get it. I know why they're doing that. That's so fun. How fun.

Shawn (08:29.778)
So you liked it because it was funny?

OK, all right, I'll try.

Shawn (08:49.734)
Look at you, insider, into the culture.

Matt (08:52.526)
Anyhow, Conclave, because a lot of people in the news are talking about this with the Pope is the politics of selecting a new Pope. And the movie Conclave is all about the politics of selecting a new Pope. And I, I wonder like, do we think that there's anything like that in our church? Like there's the kind of isn't right, but

Shawn (09:08.168)
Right. Yep.

Shawn (09:19.038)
Ha ha!

Matt (09:20.302)
We sort, yeah, I don't know, I was talking with my son about this today because I think that some people believe that God can work through political processes. So even if you're being contentious and you're fighting, as long as you're all fighting for what you think is the right thing and you're being genuine in your arguments, God can use that process to lead to his ultimate will. It doesn't have to be this process where everybody's like being quiet and praying and being humble and stuff. And so like God could use,

politics to select a leader of his church. But we don't think of our church that way, right?

Shawn (09:53.918)
I don't We definitely don't, no way, right? At that level, no, but I think at levels down the ladder, probably, right? think I've been in part of Bishoprics where it's just pray and try and feel the answer, and I've been a part where it's like, well, what makes most sense? And let's see who wants to do this more and let's make decisions on that. And I've seen both wards function just fine. So I think at the lower level, but at the highest level, no way.

Matt (10:03.662)
Mm-hmm.

Matt (10:17.922)
Yeah.

Don't you think there's politics in who gets chosen to be a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles?

Shawn (10:26.366)
That's a great question, I mean, listen, I've seen area authorities do politics, they're vying. I've seen a lot of members who are vying for positions. They aggressively go after it. But I often think, who cares? That doesn't matter. The Lord is calling at those levels and I don't think so. Do you think so?

Matt (10:29.198)
Yeah, I don't know.

Matt (10:33.816)
Yeah. Yeah.

Matt (10:39.886)
Mm-hmm.

Matt (10:49.855)
I think ultimately it doesn't work in the end because I do think that in the end the Lord just picks who the Lord wants.

Shawn (10:52.627)
Yeah.

Shawn (10:56.072)
I'm gonna go with that because that makes me feel good. It validates my bias and my belief that Joseph Smith said it, the Lord is at the helm, right? He's the one making the decisions.

Matt (11:07.318)
Yeah, there's a guy who lives in my neighborhood and I pass him, we jog at five in the morning. So there's not a lot of people out there jogging the same time as us. So in the summer months when the sun's up, we can see each other and we say hi and chit chat and stuff. But other months it's dark and we don't see each other. But he was recently released as an area authority 70. So he's one of those that was announced in general conferences being released. I...

Shawn (11:14.473)
Shawn (11:32.348)
Okay, just to pause you in the middle of the story, now I get what you're doing. You're playing politics here. You just name dropped someone and you're like, I run with this guy. So I see what you're doing. Okay, you're playing politics to try and get your way up there. Okay, I got it. Okay, go on.

Matt (11:40.046)
You

Matt (11:48.014)
Well, so no, I was running by him the morning that I read that he had been released as an area authority 70. And he didn't get called as a general authority 70, right? Like a handful of them had been called as general authorities and he wasn't in that group that got called to be a general authority 70. And I thought about like stopping and talking to him about like, how do you feel about that you didn't get picked to be a general authority 70? But it didn't feel right. So I never had that conversation with him. I think some of them feel disappointed.

Shawn (12:14.516)
You

Matt (12:22.008)
Do think they get disappointed?

Shawn (12:37.746)
What do you base that on? Why do you base on people you've known? Is there evidence or do you just think that when you get to a certain, guess, I mean, there's no doubt. Okay. Terrible story, but I don't say who was in it, but one day someone I knew was talking to someone in their ward and the wife said to the wife, Hey, you know, my husband's been in the elders corn presidency for a long time now. And I think your husband is just a primary teacher. Does it? What does it feel like to not have?

Matt (12:53.07)
I'm

Yeah.

Matt (13:07.394)
Yeah, for sure. Yeah.

Shawn (13:07.474)
an important calling. was like, what the crap? I like, that is, I can't believe that kind of discussion happened. So I suppose at some level in some people, there is a kind of a status, it's status signaling to have certain callings. And I see that. Okay. But you're saying it happens at that level too, potentially.

Matt (13:12.866)
I mean, I don't know, but my only personal experience with it was Elder Bednar came to BYU-Idaho maybe like 10, 12 years ago, and he just had a Q &A with faculty members. Anyone could raise their hand and ask him a question. And so it was a small group, right? Maybe like 100 or fewer people in this gathering. And this person raised his hand, and I was new, so I didn't know who it was. And he said, his question was, Elder Bednar, I've served faithfully as a stake president for

like nine years or whatever. And about a year ago I was released and I expected to get called to something different, like more important, and I never was. And it's been very hard for me, like what counsel do you have for me to help me deal with this? And then Elder Bednar gave an answer that I don't remember what it was, but at the time I just thought, okay, this is clear, like Elder Bednar regularly has questions like this come up because he's got a very good answer ready to go.

to this kind of question. So I just think that there are people that like, was clear Elder Bednar never felt that way. Cause he actually said something along the lines of, I wish I didn't get keep getting called to things with more responsibility. I would prefer to not have had that happen to me, but I understand how ones could feel this way about stuff.

Shawn (14:11.174)
Wow. Wow.

Matt (14:37.944)
Yeah.

Matt (14:41.55)
Yeah.

Shawn (14:44.606)
So I guess, mean, if it does exist, that would lead to a further question of, you think the Lord calls people who don't aspire to serve, right? He chooses the weak, we know that. He chooses to do his work. He chooses maybe, I don't know, mean, but then again, he says, be anxiously engaged in good causes. But that doesn't necessarily mean seek a calling. That just means serve without the calling. Don't be slothful and wait to be called.

Matt (14:48.813)
I know.

Matt (14:54.606)
I hear this, I think because I'm at a church school, I hear this phrase all the time that I never know what it means, but it's called, they say appropriately ambitious. And I'm like, I don't even know what to make of that. I don't know. don't know. it's like on the one hand in our church, ambition is a good thing. Like people should be ambitious. Like you're saying, anxiously engaged in a good cause. But then there's some ways that you're not supposed to be ambitious. And

Shawn (15:18.856)
Really? Yeah, what does that mean?

Matt (15:21.342)
I just think it's fascinating that in the Catholic Church, they don't look down on a cardinal who's ambitious to be Pope. They don't look down on somebody seeking that and trying to put together a coalition to make that happen, whereas we would strongly look down on that.

Shawn (15:44.372)
Interesting.

Shawn (15:52.966)
I agree with that. And I would say I feel very comforted and I love our faith. I love the restored gospel that we can have trust in scripture, we can have trust in prophets and priesthood that the Lord is calling. Like I have a belief in that. I feel it in my bones, man. When President Monson was called as prophet after President Hinckley, I have to admit I was a little disappointed. Is that fair? Is that okay? I shouldn't say that. okay, good. He just wasn't my style.

Matt (16:03.896)
Yeah, that's okay. It's alright.

Shawn (16:22.196)
Right, Monson? He was like for grandmas and you know what I mean? So I was like, I kind of felt at one point like I'm going to give a talk to the youth about something. I'm like, you know what? How about I practice what I preach? If I have questions or concerns about anything, I should take it to the Lord. I mean, accept him as the prophet without question. But I decided at that moment to start fasting and praying just to get a conviction. And man, I got a powerful spiritual conviction. And he still wasn't my favorite prophet or anything, but

Matt (16:47.362)
I liked President Monson's phrases like, do your best, leave to God, all the rest, those sorts of things. Or he would always quote some show Shenandoah and we would, you didn't love that kind of stuff, Sean? That wasn't for you? All right. Yeah. All right, we're gonna move to the next topic. So Utah recently passed a law called the App Store Accountability Act.

Shawn (16:51.654)
It's so beautiful to know that we can. We are being led by the spirit of God, like it's powerful. So I don't think it matters who's vying for what, does it?

Shawn (17:07.938)
hahahaha

Matt (17:16.046)
The governor of Utah who's also a member of our church wrote an op-ed in the New York Times talking about how awesome this law is What it does is it forces app stores to give apps real age ratings? Apparently apps can kind of lie about their ratings on their their apps it would also stop kids from making deals to buy or download apps without their parents permission and It lets parents sue if the let apps lie or hurt their kids

Shawn (17:18.484)
He just wasn't a Hinkley. I loved him though.

Matt (17:46.134)
So my question Sean is, because you're always talking about the market, the market, the market, but it seems like in this case, the market is allowing children to do things that are harmful. So is this a good idea to have the government step in and make rules on app stores?

Shawn (18:17.076)
So it's a great question, but we can apply free market and capitalism and Adam Smith to this because it's only free market if it's consenting people and children can't consent. Children aren't adults.

Matt (18:17.646)
Sean, someday that's gonna come back to bite you, right? I mean, sure legally they can't consent, but my kids that recently became adults have been telling me for years how they should be able to consent if they want to. That there should not be parental controls over the things they do in their lives and all that sort of stuff.

Shawn (18:35.666)
Why? What do mean?

Matt (18:43.756)
Yeah, yeah

Shawn (18:46.312)
Hahaha

Matt (18:48.792)
Bill Clinton.

Al Gore.

Shawn (18:52.104)
But that was the message in the 90s when, who was it that brought forth for music labels putting the parental advisory and explicit lyrics? Who was that? That was your Democrat heroes. was, no, it was his vice president. It was Al Gore, his wife, wife Tipper, right? And same thing, every kid was like, this is, this is censorship. This is stupid. We don't want these stupid stickers. And what's funny, Matt, is it's completely.

Matt (19:06.326)
I I know.

Matt (19:13.71)
It's like the ratings on video games, right? Like if I limit it to whatever 14 or whatever, I don't know what it is. E10, my kids don't want anything that's everybody or E10. It's gotta be like teen or mature.

Shawn (19:18.898)
gone the opposite direction. It's like a badge of, want that album now. If it has explicit lyrics in it, I want it. Thank you for putting that, that telling me that the music is more cool.

Shawn (19:30.386)
Yeah, same thing.

Matt (19:33.966)
Sean, here's my current dilemma, and it's not exactly this topic, but I read recently, no, watched, again, I watched C-SPAN more than I should, but there was a whistleblower from Metta testifying before Congress, and she said that Mark Zuckerberg lied to Congress a little while back when he told them that Metta was not working with the Chinese government to help them spy on protesters, and she...

Shawn (19:43.376)
Isn't that funny how that backfires when the government gets involved Matt?

Matt (20:02.498)
She described how in fact Metta created algorithms that made it easier for the Chinese Communist Party to spy not just on Chinese citizens, but on people in Taiwan and people in Hong Kong, that if any post got more than 10,000 views, it would automatically go to these censors so that they could find out who was posting the content. And so when there were all those democracy protests in Hong Kong,

they would round up all of these social media influencers. And I was like, how are they finding these people? Well, this lady testified that Meta created the software that allowed them to identify all of these people. And so then this created a huge dilemma for me, because I'm like,

Matt (20:46.326)
What China said to Metta, you cannot be in China unless you agree to create this tool for us. And there was a person with a position within the Chinese Communist Party who Metta had to hire that person to work at Metta. And that's what this person did as part of their job was monitor all of that content or get the important content to the people who needed to know in the Chinese Communist Party.

Shawn (20:56.948)
The idea was that China was paying metaphor that

Shawn (21:06.125)
okay. Okay, okay.

Matt (21:15.63)
So it's the same kind of thing where it's like you think that you have an app that's doing one thing, right? Because what they tell you in public and then you find out, wait, they're just lying to us. Like at first they're saying, well, we're not selling your data, right? And then they say, we're not spying on you. we're not like intruding or invading your privacy. But it takes like some whistleblower to like tell people, right? So I don't know.

Shawn (21:19.292)
Okay. Okay.

Shawn (21:27.412)
Okay, how does that tie in?

Matt (21:43.736)
Well, Mark Zuckerberg lied.

Matt (21:54.46)
Shawn (21:54.612)
I kind of disagree. I don't think I

Shawn (22:02.768)
So I tend to, and it's stupid, but I tend to read any contract that I sign up for, not all, but I'll, I'll read apps that I sign up for. And nine out of 10 times it says, here's what we do. I mean, it's called a privacy policy. Here's what we're going to do with your every website has it. You're going, and since I make websites, I'm always creating privacy policies. There's always consent. You're always consenting to sell your content and to do this or that. That's what I like about this app store accountability act that Utah is passing is that.

Matt (22:04.875)
in

Shawn (22:32.7)
It's basically saying app providers and the app stores, Google and Apple, you're off the hook. You're not going to be held accountable. We want to make parents accountable for their children accessing data or content they shouldn't. So it's.

Matt (22:33.432)
Hmm. But what if they lie to you? Cause there's no way that people in Hong Kong when they were signing up for Metta or Instagram were being told, by the way, we're going to, we have this spy in the Chinese communist party that will have all of your data. If you go viral, there's no way they were saying that.

Matt (22:58.286)
If it said that, there's no way that Mark Zuckerberg would have gone before Congress and testified that that didn't happen.

Shawn (23:01.948)
I mean, I mean, do we know? Could you not read the huge long terms and conditions and maybe it says there? I bet it does, Matt. I bet you anything that if you read through your terms and conditions, it's gonna say stuff like that.

Matt (23:10.67)
The whistleblower's Yeah, yeah. I dunno.

Matt (23:19.758)
I like giving parents more. I just personally feel like parents have no idea what's happening out there on their kids phones or in these app stores. And even parents who want to be vigilant about protecting their kids really have no idea. What I've noticed with my teenagers is as soon as parents start to have some tool where they can monitor one form of communication, another app pops up that they all start using that. Right. So

Shawn (23:21.96)
he was countering the well then maybe it didn't happen.

Could be. But you don't think that it's this is do you like this this act that's being passed in Utah?

Matt (23:50.318)
If you can read their text messages and they know you're reading text messages, they'll all move to like Instagram Messenger. And then if they know that you're there, they're gonna all move to like GroupMe. And then if you're in GroupMe,

Matt (24:06.764)
Yeah.

Shawn (24:14.74)
I think it's human nature to want that privacy and to want your own world, but I think this is a good solution. Active, involved parent, I think, is the only solution. And I know it's not gonna be perfect ever, and kids are smarter than you, Matt. I know that. But this is a step in the right direction. It does put technological steps in place that make it harder for kids to access anything without their parents.

Matt (24:15.928)
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.

Matt (24:33.016)
Listen what I noticed that scared me, Sean. So this last week, my seven month old granddaughter, she came out to Florida. We were all visiting in Florida. So it's the first time I'd seen her since her baby blessing. So you know when little kids cry, you like give them a rattle, you like do things with your hands or whatever to sort of amuse them. She got a hold of my smartwatch, or I would just hold my smartwatch in a place where she could see it, and she would.

Shawn (24:44.596)
needing to approve it. That's a good thing, I think.

Matt (25:02.35)
take that little baby finger of hers and just start scrolling on my smartwatch. Seven months old. Like, it's like this addiction is, I'm just scared for like what this technology is gonna do to kids. Cause it's like as young as seven months old, like she is ready to scroll. She figured out so, she can't figure out any kind of motor things with her fingers, but she figured out real fast the swiping on the watch and what it does and tapping with her finger.

Shawn (25:06.241)
no. no.

Shawn (25:19.881)
my gosh, amazing.

Shawn (25:43.038)
So then why wouldn't you be behind this App Store Act? This is helping. Our policy with our kids was, and I admit, we kind of had an easier road because both of our kids, they're like my wife, they just wanted to be obedient. So was a lot easier. But look, our policy the whole time was you cannot get any apps on your phone without the technology. I have to prove it. mean, they're 18 years old and I'm still doing it. They can't get apps unless I prove it. The Apple Store allows that. This phone does.

Matt (25:56.002)
Yeah, no, that's true. But when that request comes through for the app, it's hard for me to figure out what that app actually is. So I just ask them, what's that app? And then they tell me, but.

Matt (26:13.006)
But the apps have such deceptive names. You think that it's like some kind of like utility that's gonna, I don't know, like help them edit photos or whatever. And it ends up being something.

Shawn (26:21.264)
You are a political science professor. Professor Matt, you can do it.

Matt (26:36.854)
All right, all right, you win, Sean. All right, next topic. So there's a guy named Bernard Marantelli. He's one of these guys that I would call him a professional gambler. And they kind of look around, they have algorithms that they use or math or whatever, and they look for opportunities with lotteries or jackpots to kind of like win the jackpot. So it happened in Texas recently.

Shawn (26:39.848)
Matt, you watch seven hours a day of C-SPAN and you follow the legal arguments. You understand things. You can figure it out.

Matt (27:04.974)
where they're like, where the pot of the jackpot was big enough in Texas that they said, okay, if we just purchase one ticket with every number, we can double our money. Because I think the jackpot was around $500 million and they spent 250 million buying tickets with every single number. So as long as nobody else had the exact same winning lottery ticket, they would double their money. Well, it turns out, what's that?

Shawn (27:30.651)
You

Matt (27:36.088)
Yeah. Yeah.

Shawn (27:45.5)
And it's a scheme that had to be bankrolled by some pretty wealthy people, because that's a lot of money they're dumping into that. Like they set up shop, was it in Arizona or so? No, Texas. They actually like rented some spaces, set up a bunch of employees. Like this was bankrolled. This was a strategic money-making investment.

Matt (27:50.614)
Yes, and Texas has a law that says that you can purchase a ticket online and then print it at a shop. they bought a whole bunch of printing machines. There was an online lottery company that was going out of business and they're like, hey, you wanna sell us a couple million lottery tickets? And they're like, yeah, yeah, sure, of course. Well, so then they won, right? Obviously, if you have every number, you win. And so this has made Texas politicians really angry.

One politician called it a huge theft from the state. So my question, Sean, is this clever and it should be rewarded or is this cheating and theft? It should be punished.

Shawn (28:23.376)
I love this story, Yeah, it sure did. Yeah.

Shawn (28:43.668)
This is clever, this is clever, they earned it. That bonehead politician who says this is theft from the state. If he's willing to admit that a state run lottery system is theft from the people, then I'd be willing to be like, yeah, it's theft from the state. Okay, fine, they stole. I think it's clever, I think it's fair, they didn't break any laws. Good for them. I wish this was done in every state. I so wish that they would do this in every state. I would love it so much.

Matt (28:46.51)
Ha

Matt (28:57.646)
So how do they do it on the billion dollar ones that they just have more numbers, right? Texas just didn't have enough numbers on their lottery tickets. I think that's what it's got to be is like the mega millions or whatever, they have enough digits out there that you can't possibly buy every combination. that's not often that I will say that government does something stupid, but in this case, the Texas lottery, that's stupid, right? If you're giving away $500 million,

Shawn (29:20.799)
I don't know.

Matt (29:28.174)
How hard is it to make it so your lottery numbers are more digits than what you could just print out? There should be at least more than 500 million permutations and combinations of numbers that you could have on your lottery tickets, so you can't do that.

Shawn (29:36.884)
good man. Good man, Matt.

Shawn (29:42.034)
of the people's money, right?

Matt (29:50.146)
Well, you just have to like, it's really.

Matt (29:57.742)
you

Shawn (30:00.37)
Yeah, but these guys would be smart enough to figure out whatever system they put out there, right? So, whoa, wait, you're upset with the government because they didn't do it right? You're not upset that they offer gambling? Is that what I'm hearing?

Matt (30:01.102)
you know, I

Matt (30:14.414)
Boy, it's a tough one, Sean. I'm gonna say no. So let me tell you why it's tough, because again, I watch weird stuff. Have you heard of the Seminole tribe in Florida? So the Seminole Indians, it's a Native American tribe. They're from Florida, but at one point like 150 years ago, the US government tried to kick them out and have them move to Oklahoma, but they were able to hide out in the swamps in a way that...

Shawn (30:17.0)
I mean, answer that, Matt, answer that. Should government, which they all are in our country, should they be in the business of lotteries?

Shawn (30:30.246)
Why is that tough? Yes. Yes.

Shawn (30:39.977)
No.

Matt (30:42.882)
the US government never conquered them. So the Seminole tribe has their original territory that they had in these spots in Florida. Well, in the 1970s, they're the first tribe to figure out gaming and they did like high stakes bingo and they started all these casinos. So do you know who they own right now? Hard Rock, they own Hard Rock Cafe, Hard Rock Casinos.

Shawn (31:11.55)
Yeah, it started there. I see, I see.

Matt (31:12.13)
Yeah, so this Native American tribe is so wealthy that they have to put all these limits on like who can identify as a member of the tribe because everybody wants to be a part of the Seminole Nation because it's run so well, right? So to me, so this is why I'm torn, Sean, because like they found a way to use gambling to create freedoms and like to preserve their culture, to preserve their way of life.

Shawn (31:16.7)
I see.

good for them. Wow.

Shawn (31:37.032)
Yeah, that's right, that's right.

Matt (31:40.738)
They found a way to use greed in a way to benefit their community. And so I don't wanna say governments shouldn't do that because there are so many Native American nations that are struggling financially. And the Seminoles have said to them, hey, let us show you how to do gaming and then you guys can have money too. And then once the Native American tribes are making all this money with gaming, now all the states wanna be like, well, we should do gaming too. So I don't know, it's like...

Shawn (31:51.326)
Ha ha ha.

Shawn (32:15.316)
Yeah.

Matt (32:20.43)
Hmm

Shawn (32:22.696)
Yeah, I'm okay to draw the line between private, like if it's legal for private citizens to do it, if that's what the law is, I don't like it on principle, but it's legal. But for government, it just makes me sick for government to take, to manipulate almost the citizens by saying, you're gonna strike it rich, now pay us up, give us more money. It's like, that's not another tax. I know it's not, but it's just so dishonest. You're preying on them. Absolutely disgusting.

Matt (32:32.376)
But you are praying, you're praying on people's inability.

Yeah, well, but the state of Utah sells alcohol, right? You can only buy liquor at a state government-owned store in Utah.

I mean, their argument is the government has to pay for all of the social ills that are caused by alcohol, so they should be the only people to profit from alcohol. But it is weird when you're like, let's go to the government store to buy liquor.

Shawn (32:57.16)
Do they?

Shawn (33:00.884)
Matt, did two wrongs make a right?

Matt (33:09.878)
Yeah, yeah. I am opposed to lotteries. hate in Idaho. I don't know how it is where you live in Idaho. Every school for fundraising will have a raffle of some kind and you just buy raffle tickets and you hope to win the car and you kind of prey on like the these people that have an inability to say no that wants something for nothing and I don't we shouldn't promote that as a society.

Shawn (33:21.204)
That is so weird, especially Utah, man. Man.

Matt (33:44.608)
Okay, Sean, now it's time for the big question. I actually really proud of my big question topic, but. Alright, so I think I'm on a social like an anti social media kick today. The constant stream of lavish online lifestyles juxtaposed with economic worries in the news can trigger something called money dysphoria.

Shawn (34:10.738)
is a good one, Matt.

Matt (34:12.822)
making young people question their own financial standing and make them feel inadequate. This constant exposure to seemingly unattainable wealth contributes to this feeling and can lead to impulsive spending followed by guilt. So it's not technically a mental disorder, but it's a term that they're using to describe the stress caused by this comparison. And my question is,

Shawn (34:18.58)
You're good at themes.

Matt (34:39.796)
Is this just a new name for something that's been around forever, like the love of money, which is the root of all evil? Or is this something new and unique to our particular time and place?

Shawn (35:09.544)
Well, first, Matt, let me thank you for finally referring to that scripture in the correct way and saying it's the love of money that's the root of all evil, not money is the root of all evil. Because it's pretty clear and for 3,000 times before you and our friend Levi, calling out Levi, you constantly quote, the Lord hates money. Money is hate because it's money that is the root of all Nope, but so thank you. Thank you for finally admitting.

Matt (35:19.074)
Well, but just to be clear, Sean, the scripture does say, money is the root of all evil. It does say that exact phrase. But if you leave off those first three words,

It does say money. It's just where you decide to start the verse.

Matt (35:41.026)
haha

Shawn (35:43.496)
Now doesn't. No, it says the love of money is the root of

Yeah, I see how your mind works politician. Geez, man, this what a fascinating topic.

I mean, there's three good scriptures that talk about the effect that riches and money have on our souls. Like the Lord has blessed, he blessed everyone so long with riches, that the riches of the world, that they had not been stirred up to anger or wars or bloodshed, therefore they began to set their hearts upon their riches. Okay, so it's the moment when they set their hearts upon their riches. It's not the riches themselves, that they began to seek to get gain, that they might be lifted up one above another.

Matt (36:19.896)
Mm-hmm.

Matt (36:28.654)
It's fake. It's so fake. Yeah. Yeah.

Shawn (36:38.888)
And that sums up exactly scrolling through Instagram and seeing these lifestyles that are mostly probably inaccurate, right? And then for some, I don't understand how people can look at that and go, man, they're really good. I'm really bad. Wow, they're successful. I'm a loser. Like how do they conclude that? I don't understand that. Is it because like you're saying, is it because their heart is

Matt (36:52.258)
Here's what I think is happening. And this is just, again, it's just based on what I observed with my kids. So when I go, I also saw this when I was at Busch Gardens, Okay, so you'll see parents or at the aquarium, you see parents taking pictures, right? Like everybody wants to take pictures with their phones now. Me and my wife, we just sort of like stand there. We're like Ukrainians. We don't smile, we don't do anything, we just stand there, right?

Shawn (37:06.866)
They want so badly to be rich, powerful, successful.

Matt (37:19.928)
kids generation, they all have these poses. And I remember saying to like my kids, was like, wow, that's a really clever pose. And they're like, everybody poses that way. And then I would see it down to like the three, four, five year old kids when they're taking a picture of them with some like octopus or whatever. They're also like posing and like, like they're super models or something like that. And I think that what happens with social media, especially Instagram is like you see something there.

Shawn (37:41.876)
You

Matt (37:48.556)
And then you want to imitate it, right? And I think human nature is like you see something and then you want to imitate it. And I think that's what's happening with the money is they see it, then they want to imitate it.

Shawn (38:18.068)
But how do you not separate, so here's a quick story. My son will allow me to tell this story. So when he was in sixth or seventh grade or so and they all started getting their first phones, or he did, they would go, they decided one day, all the boys decided, hey, let's go do a photo shoot. Because like you're saying, they're looking at Instagram for the first time and going, wow, there's a lot of people posing here. Let's just go have an evening or a weekend and let's just go pose. And I was like, man, I gotta say something, man. That's just stupid.

Sorry, that's terrible. I didn't though, right? They're my kid. You go learn on your own. They go out and they do this like cheesy photo shoot, making the faces and the poses. And because our rule is, okay son, if you're gonna have Instagram, I get the account, your account as well. So I get to see everything. And he was fine with that. So that night, I'm just going through the comments of all these things they post. And this one glorious girl in their class, this amazing, smart, wonderful girl said this comment that destroyed these guys.

Matt (39:03.82)
Shawn (39:15.868)
and their desire to ever do this again. And it said, she says, OMG, when did boys today become so basic? And they all were like, what? Wait a minute, I thought we were supposed to do this. Instagram says we're supposed to do this. But then reality came in and someone in the real life said, that is pretty lame what you're doing. And they listened and they never did it again.

Matt (39:17.431)
Yeah.

But nobody's doing that on these money posts, right? It's like, think people our age love Dude Perfect, right? And we watch them take all those shots or whatever. And we want to imitate that, right? We want to be able to shoot the basketball from the stratosphere or something like that. We kind of know it's fake, but we still want to do it. I think that it's the same thing with that money stuff. You see it, and then you want it. You want to do whatever they're doing.

But here's what I think, Sean.

Matt (39:58.208)
I think that this money dysphoria thing isn't a new thing. Like Instagram just gives us a new way to see it. It's like what you were saying in the scriptures. People started to buy nice things in the Book of Mormon and then that led to pride, right? Or there was a manifestation of their pride. I think that money and shiny thing, anything that you can see to set yourself apart from other people or to bring esteem to yourself. I don't.

Shawn (40:07.604)
We are more than

Matt (40:26.358)
Like this particular thing perhaps is new, but the idea that somebody would, because when I was a kid, when I would go to high school, there were really rich kids and there were really poor kids. And this distinction of rich kid, poor kid, I saw that in high school every day. And I think it had the same effect on me. You want to buy what the rich kid has and avoid being looking like the poor kid.

Shawn (40:49.906)
and above others. Yep, that's right.

Matt (40:55.395)
Yeah.

Matt (41:06.604)
Yeah.

Shawn (41:18.132)
I mean, I guess there's nothing wrong with wanting to build a self-confidence and self-esteem, right? There's nothing wrong with wanting to build an identity. And obviously we're in a community and in a society where you're comparing and comparing and comparing. But it is wrong if we're trying to be better than to me, right? Like I read this week throughout scripture where God first and foremost, when he's dealing with his prophets, he first and foremost helps them establish an identity, right? Moses, you're my son.

Matt (41:38.275)
Yeah.

Matt (41:46.284)
Yeah. Yep. But I think that I think that that's timeless. That's not a current thing, right? It is different because when I'm on a plane and when I sit next to strangers, especially women, I noticed that all they do with the internet on their phone is look at Instagram, then go shop for that. Look at Instagram, then go shop. They'll spend hours on a flight during look at Instagram, then go buy it. So it's easier now. But I think that the impulse is as

Shawn (41:47.442)
Moses, my son, Joseph in the Liberty Jail. Joseph, my son, right? He's establishing this relationship and identity of, yeah, who I am. What makes me who I am is that I'm a son of God or I'm a disciple of Christ. And that requires a lot of humility to take that stance, that position, right? And I think when we walk away from that, our identity is in crisis and we're just trying as hard as we can to be better than the other. Yeah, yeah.

Matt (42:14.806)
It's just human nature. It's as old as humankind.

Matt (42:30.06)
Yeah, but I agree with you about the solution, Sean. The solution is the better we get to know the Lord, the more he helps us see who we really are, and then the less we care about that comparison with other people. Yeah, hey.

Shawn (42:33.358)
Really? Really?

Shawn (42:44.52)
Okay, so you think that this is no new phenomenon. I agree with you. You're getting the points because you're right. There's no way that human nature has changed just because of the technology we've got. It just exposes it a little bit more,

Matt (42:47.694)
Hey, good job, Sean. Hey, listener, thanks for joining us this week. It was good to have you with us. again, reach out to us if you want us to read stuff in the mail back from you. You gotta be nice. You gotta be kind. No fault finding. Like if you lift us up, praise us, those will always make it through. But if you're a little mean, I don't like to read that. Okay, talk to you again next week.

Shawn (43:11.9)
Yes, that's such a good message.

Shawn (43:26.982)
you