Matt (00:01.592)
Hey everybody, welcome to the Latter Day Lens. It is so good to have you with us this week. I'm your host, Matt. With me as always is Sean and nobody else. It's just you and me, Sean.

shawn (00:13.559)
That's okay. That's okay. You don't have to say it with such sadness. It's all right.

Matt (00:16.844)
Yeah, it's all right. this is our final episode. And in honor of that, I'm gonna read one item from the mailbag from our co-host David. So it's as if he's with us here for the last episode because he gets to ha say something in the mailbag on the final episode. He wrote in and said, Thank you to Sean, Matt, and Sam for starting this discussion. Many of your topics were current events, but enough of them were just good timeless questions that I'll be able to listen on repeat for years to come.

I don't think I piled up as many points as some other co-hosts, but if this is anything like redeeming arcade tickets, I'd like a plastic slinky, three Tootsie rolls, and a BYUI branded eraser. But seriously, thanks, David. Hey David, that's awesome.

shawn (01:00.538)
David, shout out to David. That's one smart, wise man.

Matt (01:05.385)
I I cannot give you a BYUI branded eraser, David, but I can give you a loss to Utah because that happened today. So Yeah.

shawn (01:13.131)
That did just happen. Now, Matt, for cl for clarity, for clarity, for people who want to continue to listen to the Latter Day Lens, because the brand Latter day lens is continuing. So for those who want to can can continue to engage, maybe we ought to I mean, maybe it's the last question that we'll kind of give the dis definition of, but when people show up next week looking for this podcast, will it be here or will it not be here?

Matt (01:39.709)
it's uncertain whether there will be any content on the podcast next Wednesday. There might be. I'm laser focused on the new idea, and I promised listeners that the podcast was ending. So it is ending. but yeah, we're gonna have a new focus, a new brand. And but we will be on all the socials. You can follow us at LatterdayLens on X, formerly known as Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, YouTube Shorts.

So you'll see content from us posting there every single day. if I have time, then there will be stuff on the podcast. And the podcast isn't going away. Like if you if you go on your podcast app, you'll still see all the old episodes and maybe every so often we'll dump some stuff there. But it's unclear because editing audio is different than editing video. And it's so the the higher priority is the short form content.

shawn (02:27.7)
Ha ha ha ha.

Matt (02:36.61)
That sounds fair, right, Sean?

shawn (02:38.57)
Yeah, and just for listeners, the idea of the latter day lens continues because I mean the idea was what is the lens through which we should look at when it comes comes to k political, you know, everything everything in politics today and current events. And the idea was, well, shoot, we have the latter day lens just means we have scripture, we have living prophets, we have God who speaks to us. So we should have lots of wisdom and insight to inform us and how we should try and tear those things apart. So we've tried to, we've tried to

Matt (02:50.606)
Current events.

shawn (03:06.592)
Do you like here? Now that same concept applies over into this other category that the that we'll be going into. So it is still the lens that scripture and prophets give us just to look at a few different things a little differently. Not so much politics.

Matt (03:20.93)
Well, I'll tell you this. And we'll talk again, it's our big question, so we'll address it much more at the end. But this is what Sean has been asking for for four years. So Sean couldn't be more excited about the next steps for the Latter-day Lens brand. But yeah.

shawn (03:28.863)
Yeah.

shawn (03:35.754)
You know what it feels like, Matt? It feels like we're in the MTC again. Okay. This is nineteen ninety four. We're in the MTC. And you and I get put as companions. And we're sitting there for the first time. And I'm going, Matt, I'm so excited to be with you. I don't know you. But let's just kill this man. Let's learn the language. Let's speak Russian like all day long. Let's study our scriptures all day. Let's testify to everyone. Let's go. And you're like, What are you like? Go ahead.

Matt (03:58.403)
We're in the MTC, man. I'm not wasting my time with that stuff.

shawn (04:01.482)
Yeah, let's go throw some s let's go throw some soap at someone's head or let's let's tell jokes for four hours. And I'm like and I'm like, Matt, no, man, let's get to work. Come on. And you're like, that's boring. Let's go fun, have fun.

Matt (04:07.614)
man, I loved the MTC.

Matt (04:12.726)
I'm like, it's it's been forty five minutes since we had an all you can eat meal in the cafeteria. Let's go see if there's more food.

shawn (04:18.934)
So that's what it feels like because the latter day lens with the politics and the current events has has been your version of the MTC for the last few years. And so it's been great.

Matt (04:30.082)
Man, I've loved it so much. yeah, we'll so we'll save it for the big question. We'll talk more about that. So let's get into the stuff our listeners have been waiting for. The blue wave. It was a huge, it was a huge blue wave that happened.

shawn (04:38.134)
Okay, let's go. The what?

Why did something what, did something happen? What?

Matt (04:46.486)
Yeah, huge, right? Democrats had a huge, huge victory. So I've noticed the discussion about because we talked last time about realignment, right? And whether this means the Democrats are going to just keep winning forevermore. I noticed in the news, Democrats love realignment theory. Everybody who's on podcasts or TV or whatever who talks about the blue wave, if they're a Democrat, they love to talk about realignment theory, which I do think I argued for last time.

but I do think that Republicans have a very different perspective on this. Republicans I've seen are like, look, this is just a blip, like this happens sometimes. We'll be back in two years. Don't you worry. But this is the question. Rather than talking about realignment theory, this is what I want to know. What should Democrats do with this control that they've got of the House and the Senate over the next two years? They have strong majorities. so what should they do? There were there were 435 different

elections for the House of Representatives. And there were about thirty-three different elections for the US Senate. And each of those had a different focus. So is there anything we can definitively say Americans expect from Democrats? Like what would we say is their mandate? And if we don't want to talk about that, like what should the Democrats do with their majority?

shawn (06:02.74)
Well, Matt, my first question to you would be this isn't a new phenomenon, right? Like you you look at during Bill Clinton, he lost okay

Matt (06:10.702)
Correct.

Matt (06:14.914)
You can go even more recent than that. Yeah, so people like to talk about this is the biggest change in the election in 50 years, they'll say, right? Or some people will say 30 years. No, no, this happened to Democrats in 2010. Barack Obama was elected in 2008. In the 2010 election, the Obama's approval rating was like 50%, and he lost 60 seats in the House of Representatives. Yeah. So this has happened.

shawn (06:39.465)
Sixty three, yeah.

Matt (06:42.966)
It's true, like in the Trump era, the Republicans haven't lost this much in a while. It's been a while for the Republicans to lose like this. But it's not like historically unprecedented, something that never happens. But I will say this, Sean. I will say that a lot of people s believe, Elon Musk in particular, they believe that it's just a turnout question. They say, the Republicans didn't turn out to vote. So I looked at the numbers. If you look at turnout in the elections,

There were actually fewer people that voted in Texas. Now, again, the numbers are preliminary. There were fewer people that voted in Texas in this election than did in 2018 when the repo when the Democrats lost all that stuff in Texas. So it's not it's not a turnout question. It's not that the Democrats all went out to vote in the Republicans stayed home. It really is that you can go state by state, all across the country, any demographic group you want. More voters voted Democrat this election.

than voted Republican. And people changed their minds. People who voted Republican two years ago voted Democrat this time.

shawn (07:45.056)
As well it was the independence that swung it pretty heavily.

Matt (07:48.461)
Yeah, yeah. That's so I would say it was ninety-seven percent of Democrats voted for the Democrat, and only eighty-seven percent of Republicans voted for the Republican. And if you look at the actual votes in some races, there were some races where some Republicans voted in one of the races, but not in another, right? They maybe voted in a House of Representatives race, but didn't vote in, say, a governor's race. So there were some there were some people choosing not to vote for Republicans that maybe they didn't like on the Republican side. But

shawn (07:58.551)
Mm.

Matt (08:18.616)
But s this is what I hear, Sean. I hear people saying, Well, in nineteen ninety four, when it was the contract with America, Republicans came in and they told everybody what they were gonna do. And Democrats haven't done that this time. So Democrats are gonna who even knows what they're for? This wasn't a pro Democrat vote. This was just an anti Republican vote. Maybe there's

shawn (08:32.391)
shawn (08:40.15)
I mean, it's true. Look, I mean, I think that's true. Do you not think I think it's true? And I actually blame the Democrats just as much as I bra bl blame the dumb Republicans for running with this whole Donald Trump thing. The Democrats have put forth nothing good. Nothing like I was absolutely during the Donald Trump era willing to, for the first time in my life, vote Democrat. If they would have put someone out there just slightly better than Kamala Harris or Joe Biden. Just give me this much. Just teeny. Someone who's who's got who has common sense, someone who wasn't.

so bad that I just I had to not vote. And so they they continue that.

Matt (09:14.178)
Well so then so then do you want Democrats to do that? Well so then Matt that's your answer of what the Democrats should do for the next two years. What should they do for the next two years to win you over and say, Okay, I actually like Democrats rather than I just hate Republicans and I have no other choice?

shawn (09:29.416)
Yeah, I'd like for them to have some clarity and message that isn't that isn't just they're fractioned, right? You've got the the the the social the social democrats. And then you've got the is it Chuck Schumer's like a typical Democrat, right? And he has still has a lot of power and influence in the Democratic Party, doesn't he? Yeah. So you've got

Matt (09:47.18)
Yeah. Or James James Talerico or the guy that just won in Kansas, they're pretty conservative. Yeah.

shawn (09:50.773)
So he so he's is he the he's the Christian guy? Well he's not very conservative, but he is he is very Christian for a Democrat, gotcha. But he's a whole different message, right? He's not democratic socialist and he's not the traditional stuff. So that's what I'm saying. You've got all these fractions. You have no clarity of message. So I think what I want the Democrats to do is yes, show me your message. Get get aligned. Show me a message. I mean, I I hate to say it, the Republicans were able to do that. It just was not a great message. So

Matt (09:56.793)
C for a Democrat. Right? He he'd be conservative for a Democrat. Yeah.

shawn (10:19.108)
I would like to see that. Now, however, Matt, the it doesn't really matter that much because there's there's Donald Trump just gonna veto everything, right? And they don't have a majority enough to overturn his veto, right?

Matt (10:30.06)
Yeah. Okay. So I I have some things that I'm going to say I think they should do, and then I'm going to have some moral dilemmas that I want you to tell me if they should do these things or not. Okay. So so my take on this election is that if I go back two years, there were a lot of Americans that were concerned with illegal immigration because they felt like undocumented workers were taking jobs from Americans. And I think that in this election

Americans are not as worried about undocumented immigrants taking their jobs as they are about AI taking their jobs. And I feel like the Democrats have an opportunity to unify the working class in opposition to artificial intelligence and to say, we're going to put guardrails on artificial intelligence. We're going to regulate it in a way so that it doesn't threaten jobs, right? Like, sure, it can take over some tasks, but like, but I think that the Republican message was.

AI no guardrails. And so I think the the Democrats have a real opportunity. If they were to say this is the AI election and they're saying, We're the party in opposition to AI, or at least the billionaire trillionaires version of AI, and say we're gonna make it work for America instead of compete with America, I think that could win.

shawn (11:43.329)
Think, I think you're right, they're gonna do that and it will backfire terribly for them. Because the people, because the people in the United States, sure, everyone's nervous about look what's happening to my to my industry because of AI. But the truth is, little by little, they're discovering, wait a minute, if I apply AI, it actually enhances my ability to rise in my industry or to enhance my industry. And eventually, little by little, most people are going, I need to use this, not be afraid of it.

Matt (11:47.572)
Okay. I

Matt (12:06.466)
Sometimes.

shawn (12:12.64)
This is just an opinion, obviously. So I think that if Democrats start fighting against it and saying AI is the enemy, AI is the enemy, I think the majority of the people are that's that's like that's like baby boomers talking to to a twenty five year old, being like, this AI is so scary. So if the Democrats become baby boomers and have that message, it's gonna backfire big time.

Matt (12:31.83)
Okay. All right, here's another thing. I think that a lot of Americans are concerned about affordability of healthcare. So now I know that the Democrats want to have some kind of a single payer system, but but I think that you could do something like this where you say Medicare for all, where you say everybody who wants to buy into Medicare, you're welcome to buy into Medicare, which would create a lot of Republican opposition. But this is the moral dilemma that I want you to help me with, Sean.

Because you and I agree that Trump is a transactional kind of president. So, and we you and I, I think, also agree that Trump does not want the Epstein files released. So if the Democrats were to say to Donald Trump, we agree to not release the Epstein files, if you agree to not veto Medicare for all, not the like all the crazy Bernie Sanders way, and we'll even call it if you want Trump healthcare.

And all we're gonna do is let everybody just buy into Medicare insurance if they want to. Would that be a wrong thing for the Democrats to do?

shawn (13:30.73)
Matt, Matt, if Matt, I I I wouldn't be a wrong thing, though. I think your moral dilemma is not there because you have to play that dumb political game. But I think that you are smart enough to to know that your opponent is a transactional human being and that should be the right approach. I don't think the Democrat Party's smart enough to recognize that. They are absolutely not. And so I don't think they're gonna do that.

Matt (13:52.185)
But don't you think it's isn't it morally wrong to say there is a law that says this information needs it's the latter day lens, Sean. The latter day lens is of course transaction. So that's the question. Is it the greater like I'm just imagining if Levi were here, he'd be like, my goodness, that would be so awesome to get Medicare for all in some kind of a way or reduce health. And I could get Trump's vote just by promising not to release the Epstein files? And if I'm Trump.

shawn (13:57.899)
You're a political scientist. You're a political scientist, Matt.

Matt (14:21.91)
I would love to put it on the Democrats that they're the ones not releasing the Epstein files. Like there's a win-win there for both sides. But it feels morally wrong to make a trade like that.

shawn (14:26.986)
Ha ha ha

I mean you're not gonna get it released anyway, so you why not make that trade? right? Like there's too many powerful people.

Matt (14:36.174)
Well, of course they could. Senate, no way. With the with a House and the Senate, they they have the Epstein files. The House of Representatives has the complete Epstein files. They can just release them. They just have a vote. Yeah, they can.

shawn (14:49.93)
can they? Okay, okay, I gotcha. So okay, so you're suggesting they'll use that or they if they're smart, they'd use that as a negotiating tactic because but Trump is transactional. But but I don't think they will. They're not smart enough. But but I d I I I don't know. I I my guess would be that it's i it's it's to get for the greater good. If they believe that's their moral greater good is to get everyone healthcare, then I don't think it's immoral for them to

to leg l logistically look at what what's the outcome if it gets released versus what do we gain if we can get use it as a negotiating tactics. No, I don't think it's a moral dilemma. That's politics. You have to play those games in politics, right?

Matt (15:26.38)
I I Well so then this is my prediction. Again, it's hard to say what Democrats will do because there's a lot of them in a lot of different elections, but

shawn (15:34.923)
If it's a smart thing, they won't do it. I and it drives me nuts, man. I would be happy to vote for them if they would just knock it off. It's so dumb.

Matt (15:44.901)
there's a number of things like that, right? There's things you could say to Trump, we're not gonna investigate this, or we're not gonna go after maybe your family members, or we're not gonna like there's things like that you could do, right? So would it be morally wrong for the Democrats to have a a handshake agreement with Donald Trump? These investigations are off the table if you agree to vote to not veto certain pieces of legislation that we really care about.

shawn (16:10.272)
That would be smart and I don't think it would be immoral because you're just trying to go use what leverage you have to to for the greater good is what they'd be trying to do. So I don't think that's immoral. Do you think it's immoral?

Matt (16:21.816)
Kind of feel like it's immoral. I'm I'm the bad guy in this. I again, I think the Democrats hurt themselves by doing all those investigations during the Biden administration. They hurt themselves politically, but I was so grateful to have somebody investigate this stuff because I want bad people to be held accountable for the things that they did. And I feel like Democrats this time were saying.

shawn (16:39.624)
Matt, but but but you're a political scientist. Whenever do politicians get held f accountable for the bad things they did unless it's extremely like yeah, they never do.

Matt (16:46.41)
Never. Never. It never happens. And this is what makes me sad. And so this is why my moral compass is just I don't know what to do. Because I what I want is justice. I really want justice. And I really want like there there are people who have done illegal, immoral, bad things because of the positions they hold in the American government. And I think a lot of Americans are tired of that corruption.

And so I so badly want the Democrats to go after the corruption. But I think what they learned with the Biden administration is Americans aren't grateful when you go after corruption. They don't thank you for that. They don't they'll thank you for policies that bring the cost of goods down or policies that make the economy better, but they don't thank you for policing the government and being a watchdog. And that makes me sad.

shawn (17:38.486)
That's why Doge was great, Alivi. Cause they policed the government. They policed the government.

Matt (17:41.071)
Doge. my goodness. So there's this book I'm I'm working on. So I actually, Sean, I went through you know what GitHub is? Okay. So one of the guys who was working for Doge, I don't know why, but he put his large language model prompts that he was using to use AI to make the government more efficient. He put all of those prompts into a GitHub file. So you can go and read. And so I'm reading the prompts that Doge used.

shawn (17:50.71)
Yeah.

Matt (18:09.442)
To decide which program should be cut. And I was like, these guys are morons. Like, seriously, one of his one of the L one of the large language model prompts he used to in the Veterans Affairs administration is like, number one, the first thing they say is anything that looks like DEI, we're gonna cut that program. And then it's like, and if it's not specifically tied to saving lives, we're gonna cut that program. And so it comes back like you need to cut internet service to all veterans.

shawn (18:13.182)
No no, no.

shawn (18:35.824)
Ha ha ha.

Matt (18:37.91)
Because that's not tied to specific healthcare outcomes. And the guy didn't understand that what it was saying was cut the internet program. It just said cut the name of he didn't know the name of the program, right? So it's like you need to cut this. And so then the new Doge slash thing is like, now there's no more internet at VA at the Veterans Administration. They're like, why would you cut our internet? And he's like, What are you talking about? And it's because he didn't because the people writing these large language model prompts didn't understand the agencies.

Where they were trying to cut funds. Anyhow, it's just whenever you say doge, I think about those sorts of situations where I'm like, you can, I do I want to cut government spending, but you gotta be a little smart about it. And not just have

shawn (19:18.144)
Sure. I mean I mean that but that you've just summarized pol politicians for me all across the board. It just seems like it's good that you're trying to do X, Y, and Z, but why are you so dumb about it? Like

Matt (19:28.78)
You're the one that supported those dumb people. When I told you when I told you the Trump administration was putting a bunch of morons in charge of our government, you're like, they're all morons. Who cares? I'm like, they're not all morons. Some of them are smart. I'd rather have smart people than the morons.

shawn (19:44.789)
Who's smart? You asked the this question before we move on is about what should the Dems do? What do the Democrat what's what do the American people expect of them? What's the so who who just give me two names that you like in the Democrat Party that we can go I can p I can hope that they're gonna start doing smart things and good things. I'd rather do that than focus on what are they gonna do collectively, because I don't have a lot of trust that they're gonna do anything good collectively.

Matt (20:06.976)
Well, I have hope that so I this is gonna be maybe difficult for some of our listeners to think about, but the Democrats are the first party to have a senator who is a Muslim and a Jewish person, John Ossof in Georgia, and Christians, right? So I actually have hope that the Democratic Party, these newly elected senators who come from different religious traditions, will come up with legislation protecting religious freedom in America that will be not so evangelical in its approach.

But will be more let's protect all of religion in America because these are three groups that are being targeted and let's find ways to protect those groups.

shawn (20:45.268)
That would be the smart thing to do, Matt. And Democrats don't do the smart thing. So

Matt (20:49.698)
Well, so you're saying who should I look for? I would look at Abdul al Sayyed in Michigan. I'd look at John Asaf, and I'd look at the two new seminarians that were elected, one in Kansas and one in Texas, for religious liberty legislation. I really like some of the new people that have been elected, just in terms of the way they talk about helping the helping the poor and helping the middle class. And all I really want, I don't have like huge pie in the sky dreams.

shawn (20:54.806)
Mm-hmm.

shawn (21:02.902)
That'd be cool. Okay. Good answer.

Matt (21:19.596)
I just want Obamacare subsidies restored to the poorest Americans because as healthcare is getting more expensive, people who can't afford health care have nowhere to go. And if they have nowhere to go, they're gonna go to a hospital who's gonna provide all of that for free, and then it's gonna cost more, and then they're gonna pass those costs on to everybody else. So to me, Obama

shawn (21:39.456)
Who's the who's the physician woman that won?

Matt (21:43.306)
In n South Carolina. Yeah. I don't remember her name, but yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah. So I'm ho Yeah.

shawn (21:44.744)
Yeah. Do you remember her name? Anne something, maybe? She seems great. Like she she seems like she would champion things like that. And so I I don't know. Yeah, there's a few Democrats that I got some some hope in.

Matt (21:58.551)
Yeah. I hope they don't go too far. I mean I remember listening to Levi's wish list thinking, boy, if the Democrats do that, th like this might not be a lasting realignment. But if they listen to the

shawn (22:09.792)
But that seem tends to be what they do. Why that's what they do. Why do they do that? That's what I'm talking about. If they wouldn't cross the lines into just wacky, crazy non, non common sense things, then I would be happy to vote for Democrats. I would love to vote for Democrats. Just stop crossing the line over into extreme, crazy ideas.

Matt (22:32.322)
Yeah. Okay, here's the next stuff. By the way, Sean, you get the points on that one. Good job. Take those points. We're all out of slinkies because David bought the last slinky, but hang on to them. All right, here's the next story. A covert Russian disinformation group known as Storm fifteen sixteen targeted Texas Democratic Senate Senate c candidate James Talerico with AI generated deep fake videos, making fabricated allegations of misconduct.

shawn (22:42.111)
Matt (23:01.41)
During the Senate race with Republic against Republican Ken Paxton. Intelligence researchers and US officials noted that the Operation Recycled tactics previously used against Tim Waltz in 2024, utilizing newly created social media accounts and bot networks to amplify the smear. While national security officials emphasize that Moscow's overarching goal remains sowing general election chaos and undermining public trust rather than helping a single party.

The campaign marked a sharp escalation in foreign online interference during midterm elections in the United States. Ultimately, James Tallerico won. So here's a question Should the US government take steps to prevent this kind of behavior in the future?

shawn (23:46.418)
No, they shouldn't. But the American people should and the companies should. But the government should not, no.

Matt (23:48.574)
Hmm.

They won't. They won't unless they're they have to. The companies only do what they have to do.

shawn (23:58.219)
That's not true. That's not true. That's not. There's plenty there there like Meta, for example, is notorious for f getting freaked out over small little things. Like regular Americans get their stuff blocked and kicked out all the time. you didn't keep our rules. All the time. Like it it really does police the use of it. Does it cap ca Meta does, yeah.

Matt (24:17.474)
Really? Meta does? If you put something that violates their terms of your service or whatever, they'll block your content.

shawn (24:22.704)
all the time. All the time. They'll block your accounts. all the time. I so I think yeah, they they do. They like for example, being able to get a a meta ad account, there's a bunch of loop loops you have to go through in order to get it approved and then to to work it.

Matt (24:39.438)
To verify you're real, to verify you're not a bot. But don't you think that X, because Elon Musk owns X, don't you think that he has it a little more wild, wild west? And he he allows these bot things to get put on his social media platform so that they can amplify content of like I I would I don't know because I haven't been on X since Twitter since Musk purchased it, but I would imagine that he allows stuff that he likes to kind of proliferate.

shawn (24:41.663)
Yeah. Right.

Matt (25:08.78)
And stuff he doesn't like, he polices it a little bit more.

shawn (25:10.676)
No, that's not true at all. That's that's dead wrong. He allows all the garbage from every from each side to go. He he believes or his the the X platform allows extremism on both sides because he believes it's free speech. Now there are they do try to police the the the rules if it breaks rules. So if it is

Matt (25:31.032)
So a bunch of bots amplifying content. Like if if these guys can identify that bots are amplifying content, can't Musk notice look, these are new accounts that are bots probably amplifying content?

shawn (25:42.657)
That's I think they are I think they are trying to do that. Is it a hundred percent accurate? No, but I think they are definitely doing all that. The companies have all these companies have a self interest to be credible and to be y to to safeguard content against hacking. So they're trying. I think it's it's definitely

Matt (25:49.207)
You don't

Matt (26:02.606)
So you you don't think a law would make them better at it?

shawn (26:07.742)
Laws would definitely make them better at it and it would also strip from them lots of freedom and it would also put bureaucracy and regulation in in place in in a way that makes us less safe, less free, less able to to to have rights in this country. So I don't think it's a good idea, yeah.

Matt (26:26.51)
This this is the only law I want, Sean. I just want to be able to sue ex, meta, whoever, for libel if somebody says something bad about me on the one of those platforms.

shawn (26:28.852)
Yeah.

shawn (26:32.36)
I know, I know, I know.

shawn (26:38.538)
That's right, I know you want that. You've preached that for years.

Matt (26:43.382)
And and wouldn't that make it a better place?

shawn (26:44.916)
But but but you don't you don't need new government laws. You've got liable laws. You just can't I'm

Matt (26:49.932)
Libel laws only apply to certain forms of media.

shawn (26:53.354)
That's because if I choose, if I choose to engage with social media, I'm choosing their terms and conditions. And I'm choosing to not hold the platform rela liable for for things that other people do that are wrong. And that's okay. That should be the place, right? That should be the the atmosphere in which I can go self publish stuff. Right? Another one of your questions is gonna be about this. It's not about it

Yeah, the I don't want the government going in and setting more and more and more rules that that take away Matt's freedom. Like you're a big boy, Matt. You decide to get on X, you're a big boy. You decide to get on there. You expose yourself to whatever's on there. Don't get on there if you're nervous about it.

Matt (27:35.104)
Is this is this not the first time that I said I want libel laws to regulate social media?

shawn (27:41.642)
Maybe the three hundredth time?

Matt (27:45.715)
there are laws. This is actually what this question is more geared towards. There are laws that prohibit foreign interference in elections. So you're not allowed to buy ads. You're not allowed to like get involved in campaigning if you're a foreign government. But they are the there are no laws regulating that stuff on social media platforms. So should

shawn (28:00.407)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

shawn (28:06.696)
Right, but if they trick but if a foreign government tricks an American company and is able to get some content on there doing breaking this law, yeah, it's not the platform, it's the the government's law that should go after the foreign foreign government that's breaking the law.

Matt (28:20.674)
You're saying you're saying if the foreign government tricks CBS so that there's an ad in the Super Bowl funded by the Chinese or Russia or whatever, and they don't know, then they can't be held lia they shouldn't be held liable for foreign interference in an election for an ad that they ran on their platform because they couldn't possibly know that it was foreign.

shawn (28:41.108)
It'll embar it'll embarrass them. It'll hurt their business. It's bad free market, you know, practice. It's gonna hurt Like we don't trust, I don't trust you anymore. So I'm gonna stop engaging in your thing. So yeah, they should be vigilant and they should try and block it. But to get the government suing CBS because they got bamboozled, no, that's not good at all.

Matt (28:56.654)
No.

All right. Well, I'll give you the points on that one too, Sean. Because I said nothing original. I said nothing our listeners haven't heard before. All right. Here's here's our last thought provoker. So Gallup's twenty twenty six report on global emotional health examined survey data from adults across ninety seven countries to understand how social media connects to daily feelings and overall life satisfaction.

shawn (29:02.72)
Yeah.

Ha ha ha ha.

Matt (29:27.328)
After controlling for things like age, income, and education, they found that social media use is not purely harmful or beneficial. Instead, its impact depends on how heavily the person spends using the platform. Moderate daily use between 30 minutes and two hours is linked to the healthiest emotional profile. High use of two or more hours per day is tied to greater feelings of stress, sadness, loneliness.

and anger. So this isn't a question about the government. This is a question about how should people use social media? What's the latter day lens on how we should use it?

shawn (30:06.87)
It's great topic. It'll be fun to discuss. But first, I'm curious in your opinion. Do you do you believe in that survey data? Do you believe that the findings are accurate? Because that's really interesting.

Matt (30:15.584)
Yeah, I think so. I believe that Gallup does a really good job in selecting people to participate in their surveys. I think they do. It's just Gallup. It's just and I believe that Gallup does a really good job of finding good survey questions. So as much as I believe any survey, I believe this. I can a person's can can a person accurately self-report how often they use social media?

shawn (30:21.849)
stop stop kissing the butts of pollsters and sh mad dear.

Mm-hmm.

shawn (30:35.279)
what a what a polit what a politician answer.

Matt (30:42.782)
Maybe. I think people underestimate how much they're on it. So that part I'm maybe isn't super accurate. Can they accurately express how much sadness, loneliness, anger, and stress they're feeling? Can they say that in a survey? Sure. I think we can measure that with survey questions. Yeah, well, so you can look, yeah, you so that I believe in the statistics you can do for sure. So I think I trust this pretty I'm I would say I'm 75% sure this is accurate.

shawn (30:56.222)
And can it be causal? And is it causal, right? Can you link

shawn (31:05.992)
Okay. That's interesting. I'm gonna I'm gonna say it's accurate anecdotally. Like in my own experience. So I'm gonna go and trust it so we can discuss it on that basis, maybe. Okay. Well, really really what you're asking is

Matt (31:11.918)
Mm-hmm.

Matt (31:16.246)
Okay, yeah. So

shawn (31:25.108)
Are you talking about the way people is this talking about the way people consume it or the way people engage in it as far as expressing and mac mass publishing? Like does it apply to both?

Matt (31:34.623)
as a consumer, not as a not on the content creation side, right? How should everyday people use social media? Yeah, consume it.

shawn (31:41.302)
Consume it, not use it. Your question isn't how should we use social media to like, cause cause if that was the question, it'd yeah, it'd be obvious. You'd be like, well, we should then do good continually and we should create wholesome entertainment, right? You're not asking that. How should we consume it?

Matt (31:47.32)
Promote a brand or whatever.

Matt (31:52.749)
Yeah. No, no, this is like Yeah, so I would say f as an as an example, television is neither good nor bad. It depends on what you're watching. Movies are neither good nor bad. Yeah. And so I would say social I'd say the evidence, this is cross-national, ninety-seven different countries. The evidence suggests that social media is neither good nor bad. It depends on how you use it. So then how do you use social media so that it's good, a force for good in your life and not a bad force in your life?

shawn (32:01.95)
And how much and how much and how much you watch.

shawn (32:20.758)
I mean, I think from the latter-day lens, the scriptures in the temple and the prophets teach us this, right? We're taught moderation. We're taught to fast because what that fasting does, one thing that it does is it causes us to fight against the flesh, what the flesh wants, right? I I'm gonna go with Elder F. Enzil Boucher, the German Area Authority 70 in the 90s. He talked a lot about how there's two parts to us: there's the spirit that is eternal, that has always existed, that will always exist.

And then there's this flesh. And mortally, it's just a temporary flesh, eventually will be our permanent flesh, right? And he says there's immortality, part of the test here is this constant fight. Your spirit, will your spirit win over your flesh, or will your flesh win over the spirit? Because the flesh has a will. And this fight is constant. And so things like fasting, things like repentance, moderation, these principles of the gospel teach us: try to gain control over the flesh and the temptations that the flesh are subject to.

And so yeah, I think that the way that we ought to use it is limit it. Yeah, limit it what what I don't know if this poll says one to two hours a day. Thirty minutes to two hours a day. Fine, I can go with that. Fast from it every every now and then, put it down, put it away. Absolutely. Yeah, I think the same gospel principles apply.

Matt (33:29.389)
Mm-hmm.

Matt (33:38.093)
Mm-hmm. This is something I've thought about a lot. maybe six or seven years ago, I decided I was going to use social media just to kind of it connect with my friends, connect with family. And I would post a lot of what I was doing in my life. And I travel a lot. And what I noticed as my kids were getting older is that they were consuming social media different than I was. And for a lot of people, social media was like this comparison game that they were playing, either on how a person looks or how a person spends their money.

And I decided that some of the stuff I was sharing was actually doing more harm for my friends on social media than good. And so I stopped all of that. Also, I didn't want my bosses to know how frequently I was traveling during the pandemic. I was like, this is no good if the during the pandemic I went on 12 cruises in one year period of time, right? While I'm teaching classes and things like that. And I was so

shawn (34:32.16)
Hey, and you had and you and you had Joe Biden to protect you so that you were safe throughout that those twelve cruises, which is great news.

Matt (34:38.326)
Well, they were like, so what's funny is the cruises were free, but you had to do a COVID test like within three days of the cruise. And those COVID tests were like 150 bucks. So my wife was like, Look, I know it's a free cruise, but you're spending a lot of money on every single person getting a COVID test. yeah. So so part of it was like I people I don't want people I work with to know how much I'm traveling. But then I did notice like, like so I s I said, I'm gonna be more careful about what I post because

shawn (34:52.114)
On COVID tests. that's awesome.

Matt (35:08.48)
I don't want to to like contribute to somebody feeling like, his life is so amazing. His life is so good. And I did try to post like more honest stuff about challenges I have or things like that. And I noticed people don't want to hear that either. And so I I'm still at this place where I don't know exactly what I should be posting on social media anymore and what I shouldn't. but I do think that you have to be intentional about whatever you use. And

To me, social media, and everyone's different, but to me, social media is where I try to connect with people rather than products. And I try to build people in social media, but as a result, I'm not on there very often because that's a hard thing to do on social media. The algorithms don't reward that sort of behavior.

shawn (35:46.999)
So you're you're so you're delving into the whole w how should we use it as far as not just consuming it, but how what kind of content should we create? And I know you're bringing that in because you're thinking about well, how does the content I create affect other people? So you you your solution isn't just okay, we should moderate and we should follow their rules 30 to minutes to two hours a day, but you're also saying we as a society need to think through obviously what we're posting and is it for the better.

But I just you're never like it's a self-publishing platform. And we live in a free country. So you're never ever gonna persuade people to just focus on doing what is good. You will have just as much or more people freely publishing so much bad. But I think that my rule and the the finding here w is different for kids under the age of eighteen or sixteen. I don't know. I think that the numbers should go. I mean, we didn't give our I mean, I felt like

Matt (36:20.097)
I know.

Matt (36:25.879)
I know.

Matt (36:39.374)
Should they have it not at all?

shawn (36:43.742)
I feel like we did a good job with our kids because we didn't give it to until like social media until like sixteen. And and and and one of our kids just decided at sixteen, he's like, Look, I haven't had it to this point. I don't need it going forward and just decided not to have it.

Matt (36:50.626)
We didn't give it to at all until they were adults.

Matt (36:59.138)
Then he went on a mission and they made him have it and it ruined his life. That's I really am concerned. I'm concerned about missionaries because they that's what they're allowed to have is meta. They're allowed to have all that Facebook stuff. And they are not. So this is the challenge. If you say I'm going to do it 30 minutes to two hours a day, it sucks you in. Like you're just looking at a couple of friends, and then the algorithm is showing you maybe some other content you like from people that are creating content.

shawn (37:02.234)
No, that's the other kid. No. So y so you didn't

shawn (37:12.938)
Yeah. Yeah.

Matt (37:27.532)
And then before you know it, like two hours has just flown right by. And I think that for missionaries that happens a lot.

shawn (37:34.368)
That's sad. Like I don't know when they could possibly do that. It in the evening? In the morning? When?

Matt (37:35.501)
Mm-hmm.

Well, so what they're supposed to do as missionaries is you're supposed to do calls, right? You've got your you've got your referrals that come through social media. You've got your people you're messaging through social media. And so you just start with, I'm gonna do this task, and then the algorithm comes in and says, Wouldn't you rather do this instead? And you're like, Yeah, I would and then you never get back to the task because it just sucks you in.

shawn (37:57.523)
I see. I'm gonna ask our our mission president here in the Carlsbad mission is in our ward. I'm gonna ask them, is there monitoring software that kind of measures how much kids are spending on those phones? That'd be an interesting question.

Matt (38:09.782)
Yeah, I asked my son about it on his mission and he doesn't know the answer to that. I think what I think actually what the church does is they audit your phones at district meeting or they call a district council. Yeah, but then all it takes is missionaries who say, I'm not gonna tell on you, you don't tell on me, and then there's nobody looking at stuff. Yeah. Yeah. Well

shawn (38:14.388)
Uh-huh.

shawn (38:19.786)
That's right. That's right. Yep. That's right.

shawn (38:27.38)
Well then you've then you've got a deeper problem than just if you if you've got secret combinations happening on missions, you've got a deeper problem. And and I'm sure it exists. And yeah. The answer to that the answer to that, if we've switched from how much should we use social media to how do we save our missionaries is they need to be prepared better and they should go listen to mission stories podcast by Sean Record, because that helps them get prepared more.

Matt (38:50.336)
I totally agree. I totally agree. All right. So here's the big question, Sean. After four years of the podcast, we're changing our focus. So instead of talking about politics, current events, and other kinds of contentious issues, I actually think our podcast was really important to model to people. You can disagree about politics, but we have their faith that unifies us. And that's matters more than politics. So I loved that our podcast would show people.

You can disagree about this stuff and it doesn't matter. And I actually think for a long period of time, the last four years, that was a really important message. But there's a bigger, more important message, Sean. And that is the answers to life's big questions, like why are we here? How do I find happiness in life? I call them the questions of the soul. And so the latter-day lens is transitioning from talking about current events and politics to answering the big questions.

But it's also not going to be just Sean and I talking. We invite everybody, listener, if you want to join us, we'd love to have you. I believe, I think we both believe, that everybody has important stories to share, conversion stories, answers to life's big questions. And so we're just going to get get together with members of the church all around the world. Hopefully, I hope it's in multiple languages where people can share their personal stories in their own language and just talk about like, hey, here's some questions, here's some challenges that people face in life.

How did you get through that? And so we're gonna take each week, we're gonna have a story that somebody shares that addresses one of those questions. And we're just gonna split it up into little 90-second episodes. And so an episode will drop every single day. And at the end of the week, you'll have a full story of like how a person dealt with a challenge that they faced in life. And I think this is what Sean always wanted us to do from the beginning.

shawn (40:40.874)
I mean, it's different a little bit. Like the beginning I thought, what a great idea for us to discuss current events and and politics, but it's gonna be ninety percent of us just talking about scripture and and and prophets' voices telling us what to, you know, helping us know what to do. It ended up being more ninety percent politics, ten percent scripture and doctrine and stuff. And that's fine. Now this new I like the the the new direction is so exciting because it i listen it

Matt (41:00.024)
Scripture.

shawn (41:09.728)
Being able to provide this good content about the questions of the soul or religion, answers to these things, it does require in our busy social media age, it does require some entertaining content. And the idea that we are going to be able to capture storytelling, people's fascinating stories, and share principles of the gospel of Jesus Christ in that format is really exciting and it is really good. And maybe there is some stuff out there like that, but nothing really that.

Well, we're gonna be another one out there, let's just say, and it's gonna be fantastic content.

Matt (41:40.877)
Yeah. I would be thrilled if there were five thousand people doing the exact same thing. So, so listeners, this is a little bit an opportunity for you to see how revelation and inspiration works for me. Like I told you back in August, I'm done with the podcast. I have no idea what I'm doing next. And over so that's kind of like how God works with me. He's just like, This is done. And then I'm like, that's interesting. I didn't expect that to happen, but okay.

And then once I commit to the idea of something being done and I start asking the question, well then what's next? Then my mind's open to consider different sorts of things. And so over the last several months, Sean and I have talked a lot of times as I'm like, I think maybe this is next. I think maybe this is next. I think maybe this is what it should look like. And so slowly over the last few months, I think I've gotten clarity about it. We actually recorded some content for our first stuff.

And at the end of it, Sean's like, wait, so this is what you're doing? He's like, You're really bad at communicating what what we're doing here. But I think so I've got clarity. I think Sean's almost I haven't explained it as well to Sean as I should have.

shawn (42:47.574)
Well, after the first after our first recording, now I have good clarity on exactly what it is. And it also confirms that you're really bad at explaining and describing what vision you have in your head. Really bad. But now I know because we we went through it. And I know you long well enough to be like, we just gotta try it. But your question, this last question about like let's just reminisce a little bit on the latter day lens. I'm so grateful, Matt, that you for you and for us doing this, being able to hear things like in the beginning, like Sam surprised me every time he gave an opinion.

Matt (42:54.382)
Yeah, I'm really bad.

shawn (43:17.098)
And it was i extremely eye-opening. And I disagreed with some things, but I love Sam and I know his heart's in the right place. And so I learned. And then when Levi came on and went, wow, dude, I I I think I disagree with you, Levi, on so much, but I love you so much. I know you as a true, like one of the best disciples of Christ that I've ever met. And so I opened my eyes and my ears and my heart to listen to what he teaches me. And I've changed my opinion on so many things because of him.

And I've read so many different books or different authors because of him. And I consider things in a different way. For the better, Matt, for the better. So I hope our listeners were able to see that us modeling these kinds of love, loving discussions, peaceful discussions, it's good to open our eyes and to to hear other perspectives. And yes, we should laser focus on principles, but sometimes people apply principles differently. It's interesting.

Matt (44:12.354)
Yeah, my wife will tell you that I don't stick with things for long. I'm I'm terrible at sticking with things. And over the years, I can't tell you how many times I was like, I am so tired of this podcast. And by the way, listeners, it's not easy to come up with topics every week on things that are in the news. Like, I mean, I I'm a little bit gifted at that. I kind of do it for my job. So it wasn't as hard for me as it would be for other people, but sometimes it was like trying and it was difficult. And

shawn (44:16.64)
Ha ha.

shawn (44:35.953)
Very

Matt (44:42.038)
I think the thing that made me the most happy about number one, reconnecting with Sean and Sam and Levi in ways that I wouldn't have because I'm just not good at keeping in touch with people. That's super, super important to me. But the other thing is the number of listeners, either through text message or people that I know personally who came up to me and have over the years, said, I never would have thought of it like that. Like in my head, somebody who says what you said is like a heathen.

An atheist hates God. Like the and for me, and the same thing would happen to me when Sean would say something or Sam would say something. I was like, in my head, like those are just the hateful people, the racist, bigoted, awful people. Like, why would they say that? But to but to see that it wasn't just them saying repeating talking points from like mean people, but like it was from a position of love and it was from a position of the values and the things that they care about. Like, I feel like this was super important for us, especially.

The last four years have been a very contentious time in politics. when we first started, Biden was president. And I loved, loved Joe Biden. But at a certain point, it got a little difficult to defend him. And it was nice for me to have people who I love and respect to kind of like check my views, where it helped me in my profession to not be too pro-Joe Biden because I could understand other perspectives. And then the transition to Trump, I have to tell you, like when Trump won the election, it was.

Personally, very hard for me, like emotionally. Like I don't know if listeners remember, but we took a little bit of time off, also because Sam was sort of leaving the podcast at the time. And it's been very helpful for me and in the first two years of Trump to just be like, let's hear the other side. Let's talk to people who I love and care about and hear that other perspective. And I know from listeners that that's what's happened for you guys too. And so thanks for staying with us over the years. Thanks for being a part of it. I hope that you guys will join our new effort. Like

you're gonna see some of the first content is just gonna be Sean and I. We really want it to be way more than just Sean and I because all of our listeners, like you're all over the world. I'm not joking. We have listeners on every single continent in the US that tune in every single week. We want your stories. We want to hear how you answer these big questions of the soul with your everyday experiences that you have in the gospel of Jesus Christ. And we want you to share it from your perspective. And we don't want to like

Matt (47:06.466)
Constrain you. So I think what's been great about this podcast from a political perspective is people have felt open to say whatever they feel. We've never had a filter, and they can say whatever they want to say about politics. And I hope that that carries over as we talk about things that matter so much more than politics. Right? Some things matter more than politics, Sean.

shawn (47:25.59)
What? But and I just want to add that Matt, you have a great gift. You always have. Since I've known you, you think deep I I like the scripture where was it King Solomon? Like he could have asked when he was praying one time in the in the Bible, he was asking God for things. And God was so pleased that the thing he was asking for most of all was wisdom. God give me wisdom to be able to judge things, to be able to discern things, choose between wrong and right.

Matt (47:29.827)
Yeah.

shawn (47:55.889)
And you've always had that gift, Matt, to think deeply about things and to seek God's counsel so that you have wisdom. And you do have a unique way of looking at both sides of things and being willing to just let yourself consider both sides, even though sometimes, man, does it sound wacky. But I know what you're doing. You're you're allowing your brain to partake of the f the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. You're allowing yourself to

Look at the opposition of things. And I've always loved that about you. And that is such a a a powerful voice. So when you announced to me that hey, I think I'm it's the spirit's telling me we gotta end this thing, my heart sunk. But then when you came back and said, Hey, we're continuing to do bigger, better things, I I can't wait to hear your your your way of bringing in both sides of things when it comes to the spiritual things of the soul.

Matt (48:50.68)
Thanks, Sean. And listeners, podcast episodes will still be there. So feel free to reach out through the link in the show notes if you ever want to reach out to us. We're on all the socials now. so you can subscribe Latter day at Latterday Lens. It's on TikTok, it's on X, it's on YouTube, it's on I don't, all of the socials that I can possibly imagine. You can message us on those. Reach out to us. We want to hear from you and we want to share your stories.

shawn (49:14.42)
Well, and when we record our stories with each other with other people, there is a rhyme and reason to it, right? We're telling these stories consecutively. They tie into themes and topics. And it's possible that that entire what we do is we record an an an entire, you know, forty five minutes to an hour, and then we chop it up and serve that through the social media platforms. But it's possible that that full episode can get posted on this this podcast channel and you can hear the whole stories. And they're really they're gonna be really powerful, great stories.

Matt (49:39.533)
It won't be as well produced as the podcast is now. But yeah, I do hope to just drop the full, the full interview content on the podcast. And I hope everybody, I'm gonna ask them to share their conversion story. I hope on our YouTube channel it'll just be a whole bunch of conversion stories because they're longer, right? YouTube allows longer content. And so if you want faith-inspiring conversion stories, come to that, come to our channel on YouTube. I have to be honest, my strongest motivation for this is I want missionaries around the world.

To have good content that they can, when they're scrolling through social media, something really positive and faith promoting shows up on their feed that they can share with other people, they can share with other missionaries. They're, I just think the younger generation as well. They're consuming a lot of this content. And I want to flood that space with testimonies of Jesus Christ in our own way. And again, if all of you started doing your own podcast and competed with us, that would make me the happiest person on earth. I certainly am not trying to own this space.

shawn (50:29.747)
Awesome.

Matt (50:38.2)
But I invite everybody to be a part of it with us. We'd love to have you.

shawn (50:41.642)
But as Matt just is a a pr a plug and a promotion to come and consume the Latter day Lens, the new version of it, Matt will be telling stories about how on our mission in Ukraine he he'd he he would do crazy things like be a pallbearer for

Matt (50:56.675)
that is a good story. Yeah. Yeah.

shawn (50:58.91)
Where you where a a woman died and you were asked to go through this crazy Ukrainian funeral and you were carrying this b body around, right? Th

Matt (51:05.154)
Uh-huh.

My life stories are insane. Like it's so true. And we could probably fill a year's worth of content just of my personal stories of things that have happened in my life. I used to think that God gave these experiences to everybody, and now I've learned no, he doesn't. Not everybody has these kinds of experiences. And I'm happy to share them with you. And just like I've been on this podcast, I'm completely open and honest. Some things are deeply, deeply personal, and I try not to share them if they're not a hundred percent my story.

But anything that's all my story, I'll share it with anybody because I think that we can learn from each other. And so I don't have a filter and I don't think I will on the new podcast either.

shawn (51:46.514)
Well, and one of the things I hoped that the Latter day Lens political version would do would allow us missionaries to share the amazing, amazing, credible stories that we all experienced in Ukraine in the nineties post-Soviet fall. And it wasn't it wasn't really that kind of podcast. So I'm looking forward to sharing things like w like we got we got kidnapped. I got kidnapped from the mafia once. And that was a crazy story in escaping the the Russian mafia. We got beat up multiple times. We got put in jail twice.

And then there's all these spiritual miracle stories. So I I'm looking forward, Matt, to hearing and you sharing more and more of your Ukrainian mission stories as well as my own.

Matt (52:22.978)
I watched a man, the mafia stuff a man in the trunk of their car once. There was a football game where a mob boss got blown up at the stadium in our area.

shawn (52:26.742)
Ha ha ha.

shawn (52:32.116)
Like the day one that we get there, we're driving past that and the mission our mission president was like, Yeah, and and the mob boss that blew them up was probably President Kuchma of the country of the country. We're like, What the what? Look, it killed his bodyguards, it killed his wife, I think, or his kids or something.

Matt (52:41.449)
Ha ha ha.

Yeah.

Matt (52:49.42)
It was a crazy time. Okay. Hey everybody, thanks for listening to us this week. Thanks for joining us. There are no more episodes, so go back and consume the old yeah, signing off. Thanks for the ride. It's been a great time. Take care, everybody.

shawn (52:56.894)
Signing off.