Matt (00:01.326)
Hello everybody and welcome to the Latter Day Lens. I'm your host, Matt, and with me as always is Sean, with our special guest host today, Melanie. Melanie, welcome.

Melanie Miles (00:13.513)
Thank you, thank you. I'm honored to be described as special.

Shawn (00:14.668)
Our favorite.

not only special but favorite favorited favorite

Matt (00:18.478)
I mean, Melanie is my favorite college student in the world. She's my favorite young adult in the world.

Melanie Miles (00:19.302)
Shawn (00:26.088)
What of all your daughters is where does she Wow. Amazing.

Matt (00:28.728)
She's my very favorite daughter, hands down. Yeah.

Melanie Miles (00:31.199)
I know if you can say young adult anymore though, because both of my younger brothers are 18 now.

Matt (00:36.61)
My favorite female young adult in the world.

Melanie Miles (00:39.028)
There we go.

Shawn (00:39.756)
Or give her what she's requesting, your favorite old adult.

Melanie Miles (00:44.428)
no, no!

Matt (00:47.692)
Melanie, the world wants to know, and by the world I mean your mother. Are you in love?

Shawn (00:54.483)
Melanie Miles (00:54.527)
Why do you ask me these questions in a public setting?

Shawn (00:58.636)
Matt (00:59.438)
It's okay, you don't have to answer. But there's this feeling that I call Twitter-pated where I was just so in love with your mom and it was one of my favorite times of my life. I loved that so much. And so in my mind, just imagine Melanie's feeling a little Twitter-pated this week and I'm hoping it's true.

Shawn (01:03.372)
you

Shawn (01:11.142)
f-

Shawn (01:18.858)
Melanie, Melanie, just to relieve you of some of the embarrassment, let me just tell a story about Matt's Twitter-paintedness when he met your mom. We were roommates after our mission at the Glenwood in Provo, and we were having such a good time. It was so fun. then we started meeting our girls. Well, here's the regular occurrence. I would come home from school or from work, and as I get closer to our door, I would hear music playing, and then it'd get louder and louder and louder. I didn't know what it was. Then I'd open the door, and I kid you not, at least 30 times,

Matt (01:29.228)
Yeah.

Shawn (01:48.7)
Celine Dion was playing like louder than I've ever heard. And I just see the back of your dad just standing with his arms in the air singing his heart out into the into the air. Love songs.

Matt (01:50.475)
you

Melanie Miles (01:52.927)
you

Matt (01:57.614)
You

Matt (02:01.336)
Sometimes I'm frightened, but I'm ready to learn the power of love. Like that was...

Melanie Miles (02:07.009)
See, I drove up to Logan a couple weeks ago and the whole way there I was listening to Air Supply. And... Yes.

Matt (02:12.226)
Hey, you've been trained well. That's the way to do it. You don't have to confess anything Melanie, but it was a fun way to start the podcast. All right, we're to go to the mailbag. So there's two items in the mailbag. The first is like really recent news, almost breaking news. Trump recently referred to Bruce Springsteen as a dried out prune of a rocker who is dumb as a rock and should keep his mouth shut. Which of the boss's new songs should JB Pritzker

Melanie Miles (02:20.788)
yes.

Matt (02:41.25)
Choose Us as 2028 campaign song. Okay, so, all right.

Shawn (02:44.672)
Yeah. So for anyone who's not really big fan of Democrats, please do that. Do that because the voting public don't care nothing about Bruce Springsteen. Do it. Pick a has been kind of has been a rocker who's good with baby boomers and go make that your mantra. Go for it. Go for it.

Melanie Miles (02:51.56)
you

Matt (03:06.434)
Well, then why is Trump down on? Wouldn't Trump fit that demographic of somebody who should love Bruce Springsteen?

Shawn (03:13.77)
Although he hates him. I don't know. He knows who he is. How about that? He knows who he is. So he's definitely a baby boomer demographic who knows he is no one else knows who he is not the voting public

Matt (03:15.84)
Yeah, I don't know. Yeah, that's true.

Matt (03:23.35)
I think it's, I think it's hilarious that this listener wants us to talk about Bruce Springsteen after we had that conversation with Mark and Mark tells us all how he loves Bruce Springsteen and you and I are like, who cares? Bruce Springsteen. But do know who else he attacked that really bothered me? It's going to shock you, Sean Taylor Swift. He said, has anyone noticed that since she, I dunno, since I won the election, she's not hot anymore. like, what are you talking about? Don't go after Taylor Swift. Not only is she hot,

Shawn (03:32.396)
Yeah

Matt (03:53.464)
She's the number one selling artist in the United States right now. Like, of course she's awesome. There's another guy, have you heard of this country singer, Sean? I think his name's Warren. Warren, I can't remember, I don't know. He's number two right now. Who is it? Yeah, no, not Warren. He was on Saturday Night Live and he said something like, he walked off the stage early and anyhow, there's controversy with this guy.

Shawn (04:06.774)
Jeff's Jeff's Orrin Jeff's

Matt (04:22.338)
But he's coming to BYU-Idaho for a concert. And I thought, I don't love country music, but I do love controversy. So maybe I'll spend some time listening to this guy just for the controversy. Okay, another listener writes in and says, it's important to point out that Clinton and Obama increased their wealth fractionally by a large amount because they came in much poorer. Republicans have been nominating trust fund babies for a long time.

Melanie Miles (04:25.724)
What?

Shawn (04:30.326)
Yeah.

Matt (04:50.466)
When you already own the Texas Rangers, your book sales are unlikely to make a big fractional difference in your wealth.

So Sean, I think that this is a response to your comment a while back about Clinton and Obama getting rich in the White House or something.

Shawn (05:07.684)
Yeah. Yeah, I'll eat crow here if if that comment way back then was was partisan because I hate that we're trying to I don't know, prove that the works of your party are more moral than the people in the works of the other party. It's just a dumb thing. Like they all obviously you're going to make money if you reach the status of president of United States, you're going to earn money off of that. It is true, though, like if you're going to make this argument, you're it's true, though, that sure.

Matt (05:29.719)
Yeah.

Shawn (05:37.626)
George Bush doubled his money since he was president, but 5,300 % Obama has earned since then. But I would say, who cares? I don't care. Don't make it a partisanship thing. They're either corrupt and making their money that way, and then it doesn't matter which party, or they're not corrupt and they're just earning it, but it doesn't matter which party. Like the wealthiest by far, the three wealthiest by far presidents in last however many years are

Matt (05:40.685)
Wow.

Matt (05:49.421)
Yeah.

Shawn (06:06.702)
All Democrats, Obama, Clinton, and Kennedy. But who cares?

Matt (06:09.196)
No, no, no. No, George W. Bush owned the Texas Rangers when he was elected president. So you're saying the ones that made the most money while in office, that's what you're saying. okay.

Shawn (06:12.72)
Mm-mm.

That doesn't matter.

Shawn (06:19.78)
I've got the stats right here if you'd like. So yeah, Clinton by far earned the most money. But if you take

Melanie Miles (06:21.436)
Mm-mm.

Matt (06:27.214)
Yeah, percentage wise, percentage of what he had, right?

Shawn (06:32.89)
Percent, percentage wise as well as now wealth wise, like 120 million or something like that.

Matt (06:39.426)
Yeah, but George W. Bush has to have more than that. And Trump, Trump became a billionaire just by the time he got elected because yeah.

Shawn (06:42.16)
40 million.

Shawn (06:46.978)
Yeah, Trump's different. He's not on this list. Yeah, he's he's one of the top 500 richest people in the world. but by far Obama, Clinton and Kennedy are the wealthiest people presidents ever. Yeah, 40 million George. No, George Bush is George Bush's was 40 million. That's a lot of money. But but Bill Clinton 120 million Barack Obama almost 80 million. Okay.

Matt (06:58.02)
Not the bushes? I thought the bushes had all that oil money.

Okay.

Matt (07:08.418)
You know, I had a student come to me the other day asking me if I could help him map out his future career because he'd like to be president of the United States someday. And he wasn't sure if he should take an internship at a think tank or an internship with a Senator. I just wanted to say, like, you know what? It kind of doesn't matter what you choose. You're not on the path to president. I'm sorry. But I would.

Shawn (07:18.362)
What?

Melanie Miles (07:23.634)
Hmm.

Shawn (07:23.792)
my goodness.

Melanie Miles (07:33.722)
You're telling me we don't have a lot of presidents who are BYU-Idaho alum?

Shawn (07:34.096)
What was this? You what?

Matt (07:39.904)
Right, unfortunately.

Shawn (07:40.336)
What was your advice for backup plan? NBA star?

Matt (07:46.446)
Bruce Springsteen roadie who fills in one night when his voice is sore and people are like, you're better than the boss. You're the next Bruce Springsteen.

Shawn (07:57.016)
Matt, in a minute, you're going to bring up a topic about the value of education in university. And don't tell me that you in education are stomping on the dreams of these students.

Matt (08:06.538)
I gave him my best advice. I gave him my best path to becoming president of the United States someday. So.

Melanie Miles (08:12.604)
You told him it starts with a physics major, right?

Matt (08:15.086)
I said, you need to do what I did son. It didn't work for me, but it might work for you. All right, let's move on to the thought provoker. So here's our topic. It's about high schools. High schools are increasingly partnering with employers to prepare students for well-paying skilled trade jobs with companies actively recruiting students before graduation due to worker shortages as baby boomers retire.

Shawn (08:16.194)
Nice.

Melanie Miles (08:18.878)
you

Matt (08:41.612)
This trend has revitalized shop classes and vocational programs with high school graduates, often earning 50 to $75,000 a year without any college debt. And in this story that there's a link to, they talk about how students are signing contracts, like when they're juniors in high school, to go work for these companies. So my question is, are high schools in the United States right now too focused on college prep? Should they maybe be focused on vocational skills?

or other kinds of skills and ignore the whole college prep thing.

Shawn (09:13.113)
Eleni, what do you say?

Melanie Miles (09:14.308)
start by saying I think there's a huge regional difference. Because one thing I've been seeing here at college is that my high school experience was wildly different than the high school experiences of some of my other peers. And so I think there are definitely some high schools that are oriented towards college prep and preparing students well for college and maybe neglecting vocations. But then you look at say, Madison High School, and I would not say they did exceptionally at college prep.

Matt (09:18.442)
Matt (09:27.224)
Hmm.

Matt (09:36.759)
So be

Matt (09:44.374)
Madison High is where you went to high school.

Melanie Miles (09:46.343)
Yes.

Matt (09:48.054)
So that's the high school in in Rexburg where there are all these professor parents like they weren't focused on college prep.

Melanie Miles (09:54.431)
I just think about how we had one teacher responsible for the entirety of physics and chemistry.

Matt (10:03.479)
I see. But there was a strong like US history program maybe right or American government.

Melanie Miles (10:11.868)
I- yeah, a little bit more so. It was better with the social sciences than the hard sciences.

Matt (10:18.05)
This is going to make me sound really bad. My perception is that all high schools right now are focused on sports and cheer and dance and like extracurricular activities. My kids in the last five years, I've had kids at four different high schools. So I've like had a variety of experiences of like what high schools are focused on. And from what I can tell it is, it was both in Utah and in Idaho. It's all about

come support the athletic team, make sure you're there for like this pep rally, make sure you're there. There's always these assemblies with dance and kids missing school for, you can miss school for a sporting event as much as you want. But if your parents take you out of class for some reason, then that counts against your attendance or something like that. So I feel like I wouldn't say high schools or college prep or vocation right now, they're sports and cheer and dance.

Shawn (11:09.186)
Wow, and you obviously think that's wrong.

Melanie Miles (11:11.782)
Hehehehehe

Matt (11:11.822)
I mean, if we're going to talk about high school should prepare you for a career. I'll just use Shador Sanders as an example, right? Shador Sanders is an amazing athlete, made a lot of NIL money in college with athletics and it's not going to be his career, right? He's going to have to find a different way to make a living other than sports. And he would be one of the fabulous success stories. So the probability you're going to make money doing sports or cheer and dance seems really, really small.

Shawn (11:43.684)
Huh? Well, you know what I would say, Matt? I would say, come on, come on, come on. I think to, to how do you translate that to each his own? Okay. To whom? How right? Like it depends. I don't like a system that would treat everyone like, okay, it should all be this or it all should be that. I love the diversity. I love that any administrator or teacher who's willing to look at a group of kids and go each one of these kids learns differently.

Matt (11:47.532)
Matt (11:50.946)
to eat his own. That's what couldn't talk to each his own.

Shawn (12:12.504)
is interested in different things, has a different path. And some of you are gonna do great in higher education and some of you are gonna do great in vocational education and some of you will be entrepreneurs. To me, that's the most important thing. I don't think that one school or one curriculum should say, our only job is to prepare kids for higher education or our only job is to put them into vocational path. You gotta treat them individually.

Matt (12:34.99)
Do know the problem with that? Do you know the problem with that approach though, Sean is you have to as a parent, you have to sort of navigate what your school is like, what programs are available. And I had a difficult time like.

Shawn (12:47.088)
What you're saying that the parents have to be involved in their kids' lives and the school that they're involved in? That's...

Matt (12:54.934)
Right, you do, right? I know that you think that that's a great thing, but that's not easy for everybody. Some people work so much that they can't take time off in the day to go get involved. That's number one. Number two, there's like this socialization that has to happen, right? So let's say that you're an immigrant and English isn't your first language and they do things totally different here. There's nobody out there telling parents, this is what your role is.

in making sure that your children maximize the opportunities that are available to them. So what happens is people who are from an area or who have friends that are in the administration or teachers at the school, people who are in that crowd, their kids get more advantages than the people whose kids are not a part of that. And so.

Shawn (13:40.208)
But Matt, you're a statistical freak. don't know. What's the word? Yeah, you love stats, right? Okay, freak. You love stats. And by far, which by the way, I hardly hear anyone ever talking about, by far the most successful students and kids who then move on to have successful lives, prosperity, are those who have very, very active parents. Two parents who are very active in their lives. I know that that's not always the case. I know that. But I don't think we should make excuses, right? The idea is that if kids,

Matt (13:42.882)
Yeah, a freak. I like freak. Yeah.

Melanie Miles (13:45.554)
Yeah

Shawn (14:10.136)
If parents are involved in this kid's life, they're going to be interested in what direction this school is taking them. And if it's taking a kid who's not suited for higher education and pushing them in that direction, those parents are the ones that can intervene and help. Like that's the answer. We can't make excuses. What do think, Melanie?

Melanie Miles (14:26.366)
Also, can I pose another question? Because Sean, I think you like to make fun of my dad for being a high-minded academic who's detached from the world, right? It's fun to do. It's an easy thing to do. But I imagine if we have these schools where some focus on a vocational track and some focus on a college prep track, then you're going to end up with this disparity in the kids. And you're going to end up with these juniors in high school who are so ready for college.

Shawn (14:35.312)
Like it is an understatement.

Melanie Miles (14:54.12)
but they've never interacted with someone who wants to be a farmer or wants to be a welder. And so you end up with this disparity of two groups of people who totally don't understand each other because they don't exist in the same school. At least that's kind of what I visualize if we let the parents get involved.

Matt (15:06.496)
I do like, I do like, I like, yeah, I like when high schools force people to interact with people they otherwise wouldn't interact with. When I went to my 30 year anniversary for high school and I looked around the room, I saw all these kids that were part of the cool kids crowd and all these kids that were part of the nerdy kids crowd. And I was like, if I were to just meet these people today, I would not be talking to a lot of them, right? Like there's this segregation of cool kids, not cool kids.

Shawn (15:06.992)
Wow, I gotta think about that.

Matt (15:35.544)
but it's based on totally different things in high school than what it is in real life. And like on some level, like I look at some of those cool kids and say, ha ha ha, I was more successful in life than you. And some of the not cool kids look at the cool kids and say, ha ha ha, you guys are losers in life and things like that, right? There's that level a little bit, but I do sort of appreciate that in my younger years, was confronted with things I never would have been introduced to otherwise because I was in this public school system.

that force me to interact with people like that.

Shawn (16:07.396)
But Melanie, you're suggesting that in order to accomplish the needs of kids individually, you'd really have to segregate them. You don't think that you can thrive in a high school situation where this track, these kids are preparing for college and these kids are learning how to be welders, but you don't think that society can merge those two? They have to be segregated?

Melanie Miles (16:24.743)
Yeah, so

Melanie Miles (16:28.666)
I just think about my high school, right? And we had a really, really strong agricultural program for all of the kids who wanted to be farmers. I don't know, to each their own. no, like that's one thing I loved is that some of my best friends early on in high school really wanted to be farmers. And I'm grateful that I learned to love people who wanted that because now I don't meet anyone who just wants to be a farmer and

Matt (16:34.734)
Unfortunately.

Shawn (16:38.084)
Ha ha ha.

There you go. Preach it Melanie.

Matt (16:41.646)
you

Shawn (16:56.592)
But does that not kind of challenge what you initially said? Because if you weren't on the track to be in agriculture, you were higher education, yet you guys were connected in a society that allows for diversity.

Melanie Miles (17:08.656)
It's because I didn't have any other opportunities. Like there were no chances for me to go to a school that would challenge me, that would let me take AP chemistry or calculus before I was a senior. Right. Like I took AP calculus my junior year of high school and there was no more math for me to take in Rexburg, Idaho. I had a friend who took multivariable in high school. And so

Matt (17:12.363)
Yeah.

Shawn (17:18.721)
so you didn't have that higher track. I see what you're saying.

Shawn (17:27.056)
but do you think?

Matt (17:27.31)
All of our all of our listeners are just crying for you Melanie no no more math after calculus

Melanie Miles (17:36.166)
Hey! I had friends taking multi-variable calculus while they were still in high school, so I was deprived.

Shawn (17:36.601)
You

Matt (17:43.326)
Man.

Shawn (17:43.896)
Melanie, but Melanie, are you saying that if you were in a high school that did provide those higher level math classes, that you possibly would have gone into a social group that was segregated against all the agricultural kids? That's what you're saying?

Melanie Miles (17:57.041)
Yeah, like, even with the high school I was at, you ended up with this divide. You had the AP dual credit kids, and then you had the ag kids. And after like freshman sophomore year, you didn't interact with each other.

Matt (18:08.674)
And that's why you have charter schools and private schools, Sean, because those private schools are saying like, if you want to get into elite colleges, you got to focus more than what public schools are going to give you. And we're going to give you that. Or you have these elite prep schools for athletes, right? If you want to play D1 athletics, you better focus on that early on and join these like travel teams and all of that sort of stuff so that we can focus on that. And I just think that the purpose of public education is to develop the skills that young people need to be successful in life. And

to help them interact with people they wouldn't interact with otherwise.

Shawn (18:42.798)
Interesting. Okay.

Matt (18:44.33)
Okay, let's talk racism. I know that we haven't talked racism in a long time. I mean, I can't I cannot help what the Trump administration does. So when things seem so racist to me, I just have to come to people that will tell me it's not racism. You just see racism everywhere. So here's what happened. The Trump administration, we all know that the Trump administration is deporting people. Specifically, if you're from Venezuela, they've canceled a lot of their

Melanie Miles (18:46.343)
Okay.

I've missed it.

Shawn (19:04.496)
you

Matt (19:14.446)
their documents, right, to force them to leave the country. People from Venezuela, it's happened with people from a variety of countries where they're like, need to get, if you're a Palestinian, right, and you support Palestine or you protest or whatever. But there is one group that the Trump administration is working hard to help them come to the United States. These would be the white Southern African Africaners. These individuals were part of apartheid.

They owned land in South Africa when only white people could own land. And since apartheid ended, they're losing their land because the government is saying, look, we have to have these more racially equal policies and you people that have land, let's, it's maybe a version of reparations. And so these individuals have asked the Trump administration for help and his solution was to bring them to the United States as refugees. So the first 59 of this group.

They're descendants of Dutch colonists. They've arrived in the United States as refugees. They were granted refugee status while in South Africa before they boarded the plane. And this is part of President Trump's executive order to allow them into the United States because he says they are being oppressed for racial reasons. So my question is, is prioritizing white South Africans for refugee status while deporting people from Venezuela?

evidence of systemic racism in immigration policy. Cause it feels that way. I don't know if you guys saw the Jim Comey tweet or took a picture of 86 47 and put it on his Instagram and like the conservative world went crazy that, now the former FBI director wants to kill Donald Trump. And I heard at least four high ranking officials say that post could mean nothing other than.

Shawn (20:42.084)
Ha ha.

Matt (21:04.192)
a call for the immediate assassination of President Trump. And I say, okay, I didn't see that. In my mind, this is one of those situations where I say, this is a sign of nothing other than racism, but I don't wanna be one of these crazy people that is like 86, 47 means assassination. So please help me. It seems so racist. Am I messed up?

Shawn (21:06.192)
violence.

Shawn (21:23.93)
All right, I mean, so let me just ask you a couple of questions. So your conclusion is that the current president, I'm not a fan of him, but you believe that he now has this grand scheme for the Aryan race to take over. And his plan was to deny the refugee status of 10,000 people, but let 58 white people from Africa in. And this is his grand scheme to implement an Aryan race superiority.

Like, like that's his motive. You're saying this is a racist motive. He wants to favor white people, the Aryan race is superior. Therefore, 58 of you get in.

Melanie Miles (21:52.818)
Whoa!

Matt (22:01.496)
Well, it's gonna be more than 58, but yes, go ahead Melanie.

Melanie Miles (22:04.31)
just like it doesn't have to be a pursuit of the ultimate takeover of the Aryan race, right? But it is saying, we're going to kick out all of these people who are not white and let in all of these people who are white, even though like, there, I think I looked at the article and it was like, there are these cases of injustice all over the world. And there are these cases of injustice in South Africa, and we're going to let in the people who are experiencing injustice in South Africa.

And instead of looking at maybe how similar injustices are perpetuated in the US and addressing those, and instead of letting in people who are victims of injustice in other countries, they're just letting in the white people who are victims of injustice in South Africa. Like, I feel like that's kind of a prioritizing of white people.

Matt (22:47.106)
Yeah, I, yeah. Racist.

Yes. I, okay. What I would say in response to your question, Sean, is that Donald Trump is happy to have immigrants come into the United States if they are white. If they're not white, he would prefer that they not come into the United States. I do think that that's true and that this is a reflection of that. Is that a huge leap?

Shawn (22:54.36)
At least

Ha

Shawn (23:15.664)
I mean, I think it's the it's the obvious knee-jerk reaction if you don't like Donald Trump. It's going to be sweet. Done. Perfect. Fifty eight. Fifty eight pieces of evidence that I can say I don't like him and he's racist. I guess you have to look at his whole life and decide is he racist? You have to look at all the evidence other than that. Right. You have to look at is he a bigoted person? You have to look at his administration. Who is he assigned and

and put into his government. Is he racist? Is he bigoted? Really?

Matt (23:45.144)
Yes, yes, yes, yes. All of those pieces of evidence you asked me to think about as you asked those questions I thought, yep, racist, yep, racist, yeah. Would I have to do all the other things that are racist besides just this one thing?

Melanie Miles (23:48.126)
you

Shawn (23:53.936)
Okay, me examples.

Shawn (24:00.84)
use I asked you yes what evidence do you have that there's bigotry in this guy other than 58 white people he's letting as refugees and you said yeah there's tons but name name some like his

Matt (24:10.453)
I see.

Matt (24:13.824)
Okay, he's unwilling to condemn obvious racism when it happens in American society. For example, in the Charlottesville incident, right, when he says there were bad people on both sides, when one side was clearly like being racist and marching for racism, and the other side is unclear if there was anybody doing bad things on that side, he was unwilling to say those individuals were racist, somebody drove a car through a crowd of people with an intent to kill them, and that was wrong.

So that would be one.

Shawn (24:45.36)
But just because someone doesn't want to frame certain events as racist, then they want to frame it as doesn't make them a racist, right? There's a lot of people who don't half the country feels like let's stop talking and blaming everything on race. That doesn't make them racist. That just makes them, they have a different viewpoint. So I don't think that's evidence that he's bigoted and racist.

Matt (25:04.138)
Okay, when Black Lives Matter was protesting outside of the White House, they were peacefully protesting. And Donald Trump didn't like the look of it. This would be like, I can't remember the exact month, but it's it be like in the late fall of his the end of his first term. So late fall of 2020. Maybe in the spring, I can't remember. And he sends the National Guard out to clear the square. And he asks the

the I can't remember if it was the the Secretary of Defense or somebody in charge with military he said, can we just shoot them in the kneecaps so that we don't kill them, but we'll just injure them and we'll send a sign a signal to people like these Black Lives Matter protests won't continue. But then six months later, when there's the January 6 attack on the Capitol, he has no intention of sending the National Guard out to calm that and to fix that.

Shawn (25:47.312)
you

Shawn (26:00.92)
Okay, you can handle I mean anyone can analyze those and but but why don't you then look at the other side of things that prove? Or give evidence that it that there's no bias there. For example Marco Rubio one of the most powerful men in the country. He's a Latino man So if he's really racist, why would he put Marco Rubio on the top of his cabinet or Lori Chavez? Derrimer I think is her name a lot. No, she's a Latino woman US Labor Department Tulsi Gabber's Samoan American

Matt (26:18.85)
Well, it's-

Matt (26:27.734)
It's really common for people who are racist to appoint token individuals to particular position so that they seem that they're not racist. Well, like for example, this would be my example of that. So Rush Limbaugh back in the day, I used to love listening to Rush Limbaugh, and he would regularly get accused of racism. And so one time on his radio show, he's talking about how he's not racist and he says, hey, I've got this friend, I think his name's Hal. Hey Hal, you're a black man. You've been working for me for 30 years. Do you think I'm racist? And he's like,

Shawn (26:36.044)
I see that seems biased. That seems like a biased comment to me.

Matt (26:57.726)
No, sir. I don't think you're racist. Have you ever seen me say or do anything that's racist? No, sir. I don't think that you're being racist. And it's like, okay, the fact that Rush Limbaugh can't recognize that an employee of 30 years is not necessarily your pal and your friend, and that there's a power imbalance in your relationship and always has been that you now ask this person to tell you, are you racist or not in a public forum, that you're not necessarily going to get the honest answer, right? It's like,

This happens regularly for people who are racist that they're

Shawn (27:27.632)
I don't like the assumption there that, what's the guy's name? The other, no, the other guy. I don't like the assumption that Hal's too dumb or too ignorant or too scared or not strong enough to tell the truth. Yeah, or he's not confident in his ability to keep a job. Yeah, I don't like that assumption because that says this guy's an idiot and can't stand for himself. He can't advocate for himself. And so I'm just gonna conclude that Rush Rumbaugh is racist.

Matt (27:31.286)
Rush Limbaugh? Hal?

Matt (27:36.876)
Not too dumb. He's... afraid of getting fired.

Melanie Miles (27:37.758)
It's...

Matt (27:54.584)
Well, I mean, he is racist.

Shawn (27:56.814)
See, but this is your paradigm. You qualified your question with, am I just biased and I just view everything as racist? This is evidence that yes. Yeah.

Melanie Miles (28:02.086)
Wait, can I ask another question? Like, regardless of whether Donald Trump is racist, what good reason is there for this policy that benefits like, just the South African race, right? From what I was looking at, it seems like they're all pretty affluent. So they may be facing some discrimination, but they have the resources to keep themselves safe. So like, why is it that we're helping them rather than any number of other people in the world who are in dangerous situations where they're being discriminated against?

Matt (28:04.237)
Yeah.

Shawn (28:29.796)
I mean, I think the obvious answer to that would be there is some economic value that Donald Trump can tie it to because that's all he cares about.

Matt (28:39.136)
And racism.

Shawn (28:41.264)
Right? Like, accuse him, accuse this guy of being so secular and so focused on money that that's probably his motive in this and there's somewhere in there that he or the government or country can benefit economically. That passes. Do I think that's just as despicable? Absolutely. But

Matt (28:43.085)
Alright.

Matt (28:59.66)
No. There's no economic benefit to this, right? And there's no international like, like the fact that you would say, because we know that Trump has separated families, right? The fact that you would take a mother of four and send her to Laos.

Shawn (29:05.136)
you

Shawn (29:16.09)
So did Biden. Doesn't mean Biden's racist.

Matt (29:18.424)
But he didn't at the same time say, these white people do get to come in and we're going to prioritize bringing them here.

Shawn (29:24.208)
58 people, Matt, 58 out of 10 out of 106,000 in 20 in 2024 who were refugees that came in.

Melanie Miles (29:31.016)
Does the 58 make it better or worse?

Matt (29:31.54)
Alright.

Shawn (29:34.882)
It doesn't, it's just not evidence that it's just not a standalone piece of evidence that says I judge this person as a racist. I just don't think it does. I what we'd have to find out his motive and we'd have to look at the rest of it. I just don't see a ton of evidence that this dude is actually racist.

Matt (29:51.466)
Okay, well let's move on to the next topic. when I read this, it really made me... I love that when David Brown comes on, he's like, ground rule number one, don't label things racist. And I just can't help it. I just have to. I'm like, sorry, David.

Shawn (29:57.722)
Can we stay on racism for a little while longer?

Melanie Miles (30:09.534)
just love when three white people get together and discuss racism.

Matt (30:12.91)
well when you're not

Shawn (30:12.938)
Alright hang on I'm not letting, no I'm not letting Melanie pass with that. Okay Melanie, why can't three white people talk about racism?

Melanie Miles (30:20.336)
saying we can't.

Matt (30:22.094)
Wait till next week and Melanie is not here. We'll talk about sexism. We don't want to do it when she's here. It'll make us uncomfortable. Okay, so there's this new report out that says that President Biden's cognitive decline severely hampered his presidency as he struggled with limited functional hours.

Melanie Miles (30:25.082)
Ooh.

Shawn (30:31.758)
Awesome.

Shawn (30:42.072)
Wait, wait, wait, why didn't you start this with like, hey, breaking news, breaking news. Why don't you start like that?

Matt (30:46.934)
No, this is breaking news because we now have people who worked in the Biden White House on record talking about this. Whereas for the last four years, they wouldn't talk about it. And if you ask them questions, they'd be like, I don't see what you're seeing. In fact, it's still, I can't remember the guy's name. He was the secretary. it doesn't matter, but he was recently. Yeah. He was recently interviewed and he's like, I saw no evidence of cognitive decline in the Biden administration, but

Shawn (31:06.192)
But so the, sorry.

Shawn (31:13.86)
Okay, so you're saying that the evidence isn't that Biden had cognitive decline because, duh, the evidence is that his administration is now admitting it. Okay.

Matt (31:21.698)
Yeah, this new report has quotes from people who worked in the Biden administration. I don't know that we knew all of these things. I think people assumed these things, but we didn't really know it. That he had limited hours that he would work. He had memory lapses while he was at work. He had difficulties communicating that worsened over time. He refused to acknowledge his deteriorating condition. And he wouldn't allow other people, well, I don't know if he wouldn't allow them, but other people also would not acknowledge this.

So I think that this hobbled the Democratic party because he waited clear until July before he dropped out of the race. And he waited until after that disastrous performance against Trump in the debate. the question, like the breaking news part of this, right? So given the fact that now people are willing to acknowledge that Biden was impaired while president of the United States was Biden's inner circle morally justified in shielding him from bad news.

Concealing his limitations from the public and enabling his refusal to step aside earlier. What should they have done?

Shawn (32:27.33)
Morally justified is your question. Yeah, they were morally justified. There was no morally they didn't do anything morally wrong by trying to maintain a Good face to the public and trying to keep it. He was elected as the president, right? We elected we elected him. We knew his age We knew there's potential for this. So I don't think he did anything morally wrong strategically wrong total buffoon. Yeah

Matt (32:28.408)
Yeah.

Matt (32:49.23)
But I think there's a more, go ahead Melanie.

Melanie Miles (32:51.012)
Yeah, I just want to say like, when you take a public office, I feel like there's some sort of moral obligation to the people. Right? So if you're choosing a responsibility where you help the president, then I feel like there should be this moral obligation to help the people the president's supposed to represent. And if you can tell that a president's declining and not able to do his job, there should be some obligation to the people to say, hey, this isn't the person who should be leading the country.

Matt (33:18.816)
In my younger years, I had this job. And I realized at one point that my company was lying to the customers. They never asked me to lie to the customers. But just the fact that I saw that my company was lying to their customers made me so mad that I quit the job. I'm like, I'm done with you. I thought you were a group of integrity. And now I see that you're not. And I quit. And I don't know. In my current position, I feel like there are times when

administration will say things that I don't think are necessarily the accurate truth. I don't like get all morally indignant like I did back in the day because I say maybe there's a difference of opinion there, but I do have these strong feelings that you have a responsibility to your customers. Or if you're a public organization, you have a responsibility to the public to be honest and truthful about things. And if Joe Biden

cannot work an eight hour work day as president of the United States, he should step down and let Kamala Harris be president of the United States, because that's what the Constitution says.

Shawn (34:27.086)
Morally, huh? Interesting. I don't know. I like what you said, Melanie. I think, yeah, if you run for office and you're voted in, you do have an obligation to uphold the law and constitution and answer to the people. on the other hand, Melanie, we as people voted him in and we say we trust your judgment, we trust your decision making. And so if he deemed that he was good, don't you think that we gave him that power to control, know, to stay in office, to do whatever he wants?

And if we don't like it, we gotta vote him out, which we did.

Matt (34:58.914)
Well that's not the only thing.

Melanie Miles (34:58.96)
Yeah, so I think I'd say the fault is less on him and more on the people he appointed to like surround him. And that's like a hazier area, right? Because we didn't elect them. So the contract between us and them isn't as clearly defined. But I think

Matt (35:14.894)
But they were appointed by the president and they were confirmed by the Senate and they take an oath of office, every single one of those people. And the US Constitution says that if a person is mentally unfit for office, that the cabinet and then the vice president can take a vote and then that person leaves office and then the vice president assumes the power.

Shawn (35:34.288)
My big question here is what was the motive of him, Biden or his people surrounding him? What was the motive? Don't you think their motive, if it wasn't Biden making the decision to stay, the motive of the people around him were probably control power, fear, right? It was fear. They were scared that if we actually start admitting this, what?

Matt (35:58.328)
then he won't win the election, then he'll fire us, then he'll look bad, then we'll look weak, whatever with the president's agenda. But the country matters more than that. You have a moral obligation. If the president can't do their job, then you have to go through the process to get them out. If we're gonna elect people that are geriatric, right? This is the other challenge, Sean. We can't leave it up to the president to decide, because the president doesn't always know. My father-in-law was

Shawn (36:02.672)
There you go. There you go. There you go. I think you nailed it.

Matt (36:28.354)
declining mentally and he was not aware of it. And the people around him who were close to him were trying really hard to kind of contain his behavior to sort of like limit what he could do because they were afraid that he was going to hurt either himself or somebody else. But he was adamant that like, no, I'm okay. And it wasn't until he was in an accident and actually hurt other people that he was like, my goodness. Yeah.

Shawn (36:52.858)
too late. So Matt, doesn't the government, doesn't our government have a check for this? If this would have happened earlier, would it have been impeachment? Is impeachment the check for this?

Matt (36:57.58)
Yeah.

Matt (37:02.07)
No, no, there's a, there's an amendment that they put into place after Kennedy died, that there's a process that the cabinet votes. And if you get enough of the cabinet, then the

Shawn (37:10.638)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I'm saying in this case, the cabinet was too fearful to do that. Doesn't can't couldn't you impeach and say, let's take this to trial and try and prove that he's not fit. Couldn't you impeach him?

Matt (37:13.9)
Yeah, yeah.

Matt (37:24.608)
Yeah, I think what who we should be impeaching, you can only impeach a president if they do something that's a high crime or a misdemeanor or bribery. But I would impeach if it were me, I would impeach all of these members of his cabinet that covered it up. Get them out. And I honestly, Sean, I can name some people in the Biden administration. But these were anonymous sources in the story. So I don't know who they were.

Shawn (37:30.64)
Oh, okay, so you couldn't impeach him.

Shawn (37:37.584)
Ooooo

Who is that? Do we even know who that is?

Melanie Miles (37:41.861)
you

Shawn (37:46.628)
that were likely. OK, gotcha, gotcha.

Matt (37:51.16)
But isn't there this part of you, Sean, that's a little afraid that Trump's gonna have a similar problem? Like he's up there in years and I know you're a health nut and not judgy of people that don't look like they're health nuts, but it doesn't look to me like he has like the healthiest lifestyle. Don't you think there's a real chance, like he's at that age where dementia, Alzheimer's, stroke, heart attack, all that stuff starts to hit you. Like there's a real fear that that could happen with Trump.

And do you have any confidence that the Republicans would behave differently than what the Democrats did? Yes, that's terrible for us. That's horrible.

Shawn (38:22.798)
No, no way.

Melanie Miles (38:25.45)
So what I'm hearing is if we have a minimum age for presidential candidacy, we should have a maximum age. You can only run if you're between 30 and 45.

Matt (38:31.118)
100%. Yeah. think as soon as you're eligible...

Shawn (38:31.632)
Melanie, interesting.

Shawn (38:36.88)
Emeritus status emeritus status right once you hit her a certain age emeritus president

Matt (38:39.936)
As soon as you're eligible for social security, you're ineligible for president of the United States or senator. 62 and a half, I think is the earliest you can do social security.

Melanie Miles (38:45.403)
Amen.

Shawn (38:45.796)
What age is that?

Shawn (38:50.572)
You don't want presidents past ages 62 and a half?

Matt (38:52.778)
I don't know. We'll be fine, Sean. Our generation, we can take it. We're ready.

Shawn (38:57.88)
You want Gen X you want pass this law. Let Gen X take power. Don't even noses.

Matt (39:01.408)
I'm ready. I know I'm ready. The only Gen X that's ready to go I think is Pete Budachich. Or Gavin Newsom. Gavin Newsom?

Melanie Miles (39:07.656)
Hey, he'd have my vote.

Shawn (39:10.44)
what? That guy didn't do anything and everything that he was in charge of he failed at. That guy has ruined California. Listen to the Democrats. He's ruined Democrats. They hate him too. No one likes him. I don't know.

Melanie Miles (39:18.27)
You

Matt (39:22.67)
Marco Rubio? Oh, okay. All right, well here's the big question. I don't know how I feel about this big question, but I think it's gonna be a pretty good one today. Have you guys heard of Claude.ai? Okay, Claude.ai is a, it's like chat GPT, but the company that owns it is called Anthropic. So Anthropic recently analyzed 700,000 of these Claude.ai conversations.

Melanie Miles (39:33.585)
Mm-hmm.

Shawn (39:37.136)
Yeah, of course.

Matt (39:51.988)
and it reveals that this AI assistant has developed what resembles its own moral code. They say it expresses over 3000 unique values that shift contextually just like human ethics do. The study identified immovable values around intellectual honesty and prevention of harm that Claude actively defends against user challenges, which suggests that AI systems inevitably make value judgments beyond their explicit programming.

So as increasingly autonomous AI systems develop what could be considered emergent moral frameworks, to what extent should these AI derived ethics inform or challenge existing human moral codes and societal norms? Could we learn something from the moral codes that AI develops for itself, to govern itself?

Shawn (40:45.104)
So while you're framing the question, I asked Claude, hey Claude, have you developed your own moral code? And he says, that's a thoughtful philosophical question about AI systems like myself, but here's the answer. I have been designed with certain values and principles that guide my responses. Though I wouldn't characterize this as a moral code in the same way humans develop their own ethics through life experience, cultural context and personal reflection. That's interesting, right?

Melanie Miles (40:48.434)
you

Matt (41:12.101)
huh. Why, yeah, why wouldn't he call it a moral code?

Shawn (41:15.472)
So he's saying, well, I think what he's saying is those who have created me have dictated what my moral guide is. Isn't that what it's saying? Is that what he's saying? Like he says, my responses are shaped by training that emphasizes being helpful, harmlessness, and honesty.

Matt (41:24.499)
huh, yeah, yeah. Okay.

Melanie Miles (41:27.174)
So.

Melanie Miles (41:34.31)
Yeah, like, I'm really curious about this study. Is it like, is Claude the only AI platform that started developing a moral code? Is it universal, like, computers running Claude? What?

Matt (41:45.954)
We only know about this because Anthropic that owns Claude decided to run this study and sort of evaluate is it developing a moral code. So we don't know. I would be very shocked. What's the Chinese one with the whale? Deep sea? I'll be shocked if it has a similar moral code to Claude.ai.

Shawn (41:59.418)
Deep seek, yeah.

Melanie Miles (42:02.832)
you

Shawn (42:05.456)
But that's to the point, right? The last message Claude gives is, the values in here aren't values I've chosen for myself through my own experience and reasoning. They're built into how I was created. That's unlike humans, is what he says.

Matt (42:14.818)
Mm-hmm.

Matt (42:19.15)
But Claude is learning through experience, right? It's interesting this idea that experience helps shape the moral code of AI. And then they're extrapolating from that, that that's what happens with humans as well, that our moral code develops based on experience. I don't know that that's true.

Melanie Miles (42:39.582)
I think that's 100 % true. Yeah.

Matt (42:42.072)
What?

Tell me more.

Melanie Miles (42:46.774)
I think that the situations you're placed in impact your feelings on that situation and how it should be handled in the future. Right? So like if you experience something really sad or really tragic, it's more likely to change what you prioritize. Right? Like, yeah, it's the things you experience that influence what you care about and how you feel it should be handled. You ask me questions about like the economy politically.

I have no political or moral standing on that generally because I was not raised in a home with significant financial insecurity. I had no experiences to make me form a moral or ethical opinion on the economy. But people raised in poverty care a lot more about that and they feel it's a moral issue.

Matt (43:32.642)
do you think that we are the way that AI is like programmed to have a moral code? Do you think like the light of Christ is some kind of a programmed moral code into humans that shapes the way that they interact with the world they encounter?

Melanie Miles (43:48.509)
Yeah, I'd say maybe everyone starts with the same baseline of Christ, but the things we experience change what that means to us.

Shawn (43:50.875)
Hahaha

Shawn (43:58.638)
Which by the way, which by the way could have something to do with the fact that the only people who received a body and came to earth were those of us who chose to, right? So this light of Christ or this, this experiential moral code potentially was something that somewhat qualified me, you, you know, everyone who's here to be here. In other words, I don't know that that light of Christ was forced upon everybody. It's just like, there's this, you know what I mean? Like perhaps we were involved in our decision-making and our experiences.

that led us to choose the first estate, right, and come here and receive a body. I don't know, what do you think of that? Is that, I don't think it's like forced upon us.

Matt (44:38.304)
Yeah, no, I think that that's a possibility why everybody has the light of Christ. I'm just thinking more about what Claude claims that its moral code happens to be. You said do no harm, honesty, I can't remember what the other one was, but helpfulness. So I've been... Go ahead.

Shawn (44:54.094)
Yeah, helpfulness. But I asked, I followed up and asked, do you think you'll ever have enough of your own experiences to develop your own moral code? He says, my current architecture doesn't allow me to have cumulative experiences that inform my future responses or shape my values over time. But that's its current architecture. Who's to say at some point, someone can't change the current architecture. Like this is all so unstable because sure, the current rules that you've put into Claude have it answering this way.

Matt (45:02.294)
and what they say.

Matt (45:08.526)
Hmm

Mm-hmm.

Matt (45:22.766)
Yeah.

Shawn (45:23.492)
But it could be trained to answer this way.

Matt (45:25.43)
Imagine if all your life experience was just answering prompts that people gave you from some kind of a chat GPT framework. an odd moral code you might develop. But, but what I think is interesting is Claude is actually sort of lying to you, Sean, because I've used, I started using Claude a lot about seven months ago because it was less likely to hallucinate than other forms of AI. Hallucinate is when like the AI gives you things that just aren't true, right?

Melanie Miles (45:30.31)
You

Shawn (45:50.864)
Yeah.

Matt (45:55.311)
And the last two months as I've been using it more, I've noticed all kinds of hallucinations. And then when I'll say, hey, what you just told me isn't true, then Claude will respond to be like, I'm sorry, you're right to question that. That wasn't true. This is the right answer. And then I'll double check and I'll be like, that's not true either. And then he'll be like, I'm sorry, you're right. That also wasn't true. And there's a lawsuit where Anthropic clearly used Claude to write a legal brief and Claude

Shawn (46:12.434)
Ha

Matt (46:21.912)
created a legal case out of nothing and created a citation out of nothing and Anthropic filed that lawsuit or filed that document and they got caught like citing something that wasn't real. So it's like on the one hand, Claude says honesty is so important and being helpful, but Claude doesn't seem to be able to follow its own moral code by not making up things that aren't true.

Melanie Miles (46:26.485)
Shawn (46:26.922)
my goodness.

Shawn (46:44.976)
I mean, I would hope that we as humans never ever, ever decide that AI or internet is even based in any thing of a moral code. There's no way that we should try. I I preach this. I personally for my own, think there's only one infallible source that we can go to and that is canonized scripture. That's the only thing we can trust. Everything else we should be absolute skeptics of. Science, all your professors.

Matt (47:10.51)
Hmm.

you

Shawn (47:14.208)
Hahaha

Melanie Miles (47:14.222)
Here's my question for you, Sean. You can have two people who read the same passage of canonized scripture and they interpret it so differently. So if we had, I can see a lot of people saying, like, two people disagree on what this verse means, so why not ask something conventionally impartial like artificial intelligence and see if it can tell us the correct interpretation of this scripture.

Shawn (47:23.322)
Yeah, yeah, that's okay.

Shawn (47:37.306)
that would be an absolute failure. I think if we rely on that third party to do that, I think that God even built in the cognitive dissonance to some scriptures, right? It's purposefully not as clear as it is. And here's why. Those of us, it says very clearly, if you diligently seek and if you seek the Spirit, right, the mysteries of God will be revealed, like the meaning of these scriptures. So if you and I have a verse that we just really, really disagree on,

If you and I continue to diligently seek and debate and discuss and seek and humility, eventually, I have no doubt that God will reveal the truth to either of us, even if it applies a little bit differently. And we may go, okay, but it means this to me and this to you. But if we're seeking absolute universal truth, I think we could come to the same conclusion over time. If we diligently speak, seek and want the spirit, I think it's a huge flaw to then go to a third party to try and rely on that. Do you or no?

Melanie Miles (48:34.222)
Yeah, I agree with you completely, but I can see it being an argument some people would make.

Shawn (48:39.824)
I do too. Yeah. Great point.

Matt (48:39.886)
I think if Melanie's right that our personal experience shapes our moral code, then that's an argument for why the diversity of views in the church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is such a beautiful thing. Because it starts as this really like rural America church and as it becomes more global and the gospel message is shared with people who have different life experiences, then they can help create this

better understanding of what maybe is the true moral code or what it is we really should be seeking for. And I think it also suggests that in our own personal lives, we should be seeking interactions with individuals who have diversity of experience because that diversity of experience can be shared with us and help us to shape our own understanding of the morality of different situations.

Shawn (49:31.76)
I do like that, Matt, but can I just counter with something a little bit? Okay. Second Nephi, I think 32 says, feast upon the words of Christ because the words of Christ will tell you all things what you must do. And then if you don't understand, right, Melanie says we can misinterpret, then it says it's because you don't ask, it's because you don't seek diligently, but if you'll ask, the Holy Ghost will then show you all things what you should do. I don't know, go ahead.

Matt (49:34.254)
Yeah.

Matt (49:55.192)
But what the Holy Ghost shows you to do in one situation, he might show me to do a different thing in that situation. And as we share our experiences with each other, it can help us get at like, what's the real truth, right? There could be some things that situationally is the right thing to do, but that doesn't necessarily mean it would generalize to all situations.

Melanie Miles (50:15.344)
And I think one of my favorite ways of hearing the Holy Ghost is through things that other people share with me, right? And so if I'm talking to someone else and I have this burning question that I've been searching for an answer for, and they have a life experience totally different than mine, and they say something and I'm like, whoa, your worldview is dramatically different. That can be a way of the Holy Ghost showing me what I should do.

Shawn (50:15.876)
point.

Shawn (50:38.64)
Mmm. That's great.

Matt (50:38.774)
I like it. Hey, good job you guys. That was a lot of fun. Hey listener, reach out and let us know what you think. If you just want to tell us about a new song that Taylor Swift dropped or whatever, or you want to tell us like what Donald Trump thinks about Nabisco cookies or something like that, that's interesting. But we'd be more interested in other kinds of questions if you have those ones as well. All right, talk to you all again next week.

Melanie Miles (50:53.576)
you