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Encore!
Welcome to Encore!—where hope takes center stage. We talk Scripture, culture, and real life with one conviction: God always has more. More grace. More purpose. More life. Lean in—because with God, the encore is always better than the opening act. Encore: the best is still to come.
Encore!
Episode 7: David & Tim Take the Citizenship Test, War Update, & An AI Primer
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In this Extra episode of Encore!, Tim, David, and Donna-Jean discuss "America 250" and some ways to celebrate it. Donna-Jean quizzes Tim and David on civics and gives them the US Citizenship Test. The three review what has been happening this week in the war on Iran. And they launch a conversation about AI -Artificial Intelligence - what it is, where it's headed, and what is good and bad about this pervasive technology.
Music credit thanks to SunSmileMusic.
Welcome to Encore.
SPEAKER_04All right. Yeah, new voice. A new a new opening. People were expecting to hear this this loud brash uh voice, and yeah, this nice feminine sweet voice came across. And uh so thank you, Donna Jean Breckenridge, and uh also with uh Donna Jean and myself, Tim Chicol is David Churchill over in uh down in uh North Palm Beach. And uh David, what's the weather like in North Palm Beach today on this uh this Monday that we're recording? Oh, about 85 degrees. That's nice. I don't I'm not as disgusted with him saying that like he like a couple weeks ago. When he used to say stuff like that, I would I would get like get a little disgusted because it's like 60 here now in New Jersey.
SPEAKER_00I was outside, I taught my granddaughter school outside, I took a walk.
SPEAKER_03The difference is my my nose is sunburnt and yours isn't. Yeah, but you're out of the time.
SPEAKER_04You're out every day. You're uh you know, playing playing pickleball, which football. Yeah, by the way, which needs a better name. Weren't you uh weren't you in a tournament or something, Dave? You you'd mentioned something. Do we have to talk about it?
SPEAKER_00Do we have to talk? We can just talk about what you do every day, not not the tournament.
SPEAKER_02This didn't go as the uh podcast planning session thought it would. Yeah, yeah, I I showed up. That's about all I did.
SPEAKER_00That's good.
SPEAKER_02Must have held my racket in the wrong hand because it didn't go like it usually does.
SPEAKER_00Oh yeah.
SPEAKER_04But you but you play what is you didn't play well, or you did you play doubles? What what this was a this was a bona fide tournament, right? I mean, this wasn't just a couple guys getting together.
SPEAKER_03This is a great event. People came from uh at least the county. It was uh kind of word was circulated through South Florida. Uh a local buddy just on the street, uh entrepreneur moved here from Tennessee, just took it on. Uh first, first, I'm sure it'll be an annual thing. Uh just has a real heart for the community. Guy just got it done, got politically connected and good sponsors and food trucks. And I I thought I was gonna sing the national anthem. I got bumped last minute. Oh yeah. Did someone else? How many players? How many, how many people were involved? Like a hundred, maybe. Oh, that's all your players. That's really good. Yeah, I knew I knew um at least half, but uh then yeah, people came from further away. And uh yeah, my buddy and I uh should have been middle of the pack. Yeah, we got pounded. Really?
SPEAKER_00All right, when is the next one? When is the next, oh dear Eve of never. Oh gosh. It was so we're talking just small tea trauma here.
SPEAKER_03Or or disappointment, which we're having therapy with David. So I had an excuse. Oh, that was a good one.
SPEAKER_00But you still love it. You still love it.
SPEAKER_04He was hours a day. Yeah, he loves it.
SPEAKER_00Or you can't talk about it yet. We'll see you next time.
SPEAKER_03I what when I got I was I got the copper medal, I think this time.
SPEAKER_00Or the coin that you peel it and there's chocolate inside, which would be the one I don't.
SPEAKER_04You know, pickleball is was um, it's only been around since 1965 because I went and I looked. It was invented on Bainbridge Island in Washington. 65. So it's uh it hasn't been around that long. It's a pretty new sport, but it's man, is it taking over? I see everybody playing uh pickleball courts everywhere. So it's uh it's a good thing. It's uh hey, it's getting people out, right? Bobby Kennedy, would he uh would he approve of uh I bet he would. I bet you he would. He'd probably go out there and he'd he'd smoke everybody.
SPEAKER_03You know there's there's one there's one study out that says um uh racket sport will increase longevity about about nine or ten years add to your life. Isn't that true? Of course, that you know that's hard, that's hard to quantify because um like how many hours, how often?
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_03Well, yeah, and you don't know is it the is it the cause of longevity, or do people prone to longevity know to stay active and should they begin playing cookball? But the point is it we certainly know the relatively it's uh surprised some people to find out that it's far out distancing playing soccer, jogging, biking, and even swimming. Isn't that interesting?
SPEAKER_04That's interesting. So I guess if if you don't drop dead on the court from a heart attack, then it'll probably prolone your life. I I've tried to do.
SPEAKER_03I've tried to go cross uh statistics.
SPEAKER_00Stop.
SPEAKER_03I'm trying to ruin trying to ruin it the number. Trying to mess it up. But so far I have not self-imolated.
SPEAKER_00My sport my sport is walking. That's as much as I can do.
SPEAKER_03No pickleball, none. You won't see that in the Olympics.
SPEAKER_00I don't think so. Olympic walking.
SPEAKER_04You know what I forgot to say? I forgot to say that this was a special edition of Encore. This is. Can you tell we're already rambling? We're out of order. It's like, you know, we so we were going to do Encore every other Thursday, right? Release a release an episode. And now we this is our this is like is this?
SPEAKER_00This is our second, this is our seventh and our second Encore episode.
SPEAKER_04Our second, our second special edition of Encore. No, I know. It's like remember at the beginning we were going, well, if we start this thing, uh you okay, I want to talk about this subject, I want to talk about this subject. And then we said, then what are we gonna talk about? We're gonna run on the subject. That's what I thought. I think Dave immediately started writing films.
SPEAKER_00No, no, you have volumes.
SPEAKER_03Our next step is just to tape every conversation the three of us have. Yeah, that's true. Because that's what this is. This is what happens when we get together. That's how it started.
SPEAKER_00That's how it started across the table in the diner where we had this conversation.
SPEAKER_03It was brilliant.
SPEAKER_04Well, this is a big idea, was it? Yeah, I don't know. Regrettable. This is a big year. Uh uh 2026. Um uh lot happening, obviously, you know, in the news, but also uh uh we got the the world, we had the Olympics, we got the World Cup coming, right? Yeah, the the world is coming to us, and then uh this July is what what do they call it? It's a America 250 Blue.
SPEAKER_00Well, we should have known the semi-sesquitennial or something. That's not right.
SPEAKER_04It's like I never hear anybody's I never hear anybody using the the proper name, but it's 250 years old, yay us, right? 250 years birthday. And um uh Donna Jean, you've been thinking a lot about this. Um uh you uh you you have some personal stuff that uh I know uh you want to share and uh about citizenship and you know American government and all kinds of stuff like that. We talked a little bit briefly about it, but uh you know, get us it's gonna be fun. It's gonna be a great great celebration going on for weeks. Setting up the octagon and uh on the front lawn of the White House, guys are gonna be beating the heck out of each other, right?
SPEAKER_00That's a celebration.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, because that's a celebration.
SPEAKER_00Oh my goodness, there's gonna be all kinds of things. But I found myself thinking, you know, I had a chance to um speak this weekend at a retreat, and uh one of my topics was American history, teaching it to children. And it's a passion of mine. But honestly, I think a lot about America 250, not as what are you gonna be doing on the Fourth of July, but what are you gonna do all year? You know, what are you doing this year as an American citizen? Um out of gratitude. I I often think like, when was the last time you read the Declaration of Independence? Have you read the Declaration of Independence? Have you ever read the Constitution? Maybe pull out a copy of uh Thomas Paine, you know, or if you want something a little a little weightier, maybe David McCullough's 1776. That's one of my favorite books. That's a great book. I think uh we can visit places too, you know. This is the year. Take a family member to, depending on where you live, a nearby um uh you know, a battlefield in New Jersey. Every you every time you turn around. George Washington slept. He did a lot of sleep in that guy, I gotta tell you. I don't know how he won the war. But um there's so many places to go. But also, if you don't live near, there's something called the Freedom T Freedom Plane. There was the Freedom Train in the Bicentennial, but the Freedom Plane is a Boeing 737 that took off from Reagan National, I think on the second. And it's bringing nine of our founding documents to eight different cities, which I I mean it makes me a nervous wreck. Like, please take care of these things. Don't anybody mess it up. One of the things I thought this was wild, it's um there's an engraved edition of the Declaration of Independence. There's the Treaty of Paris, there's um a Senate markup of the Bill of Rights, but also George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, and Aaron Burr's oaths of allegiance that they signed at Valley Forge in 1778.
SPEAKER_04The original, these are original documents, right?
SPEAKER_00They're originals, or or you know, like the the um the declaration of independence. That's an engraving from 1823. But still, you know, these are these are huge important things. So I think a lot about citizenship, but I didn't used to. You know, I didn't think about it too much until an afternoon in May, and I think it was 2017, when my youngest son uh was had administered to him the oath of allegiance to the United States, and he became an American citizen. Then I don't know if either of you guys have been to a swearing-in, but it's kind of a moving um uh uh ceremony. The situation for us was because he was born in a different country, born in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the visa he came to America on did not immediately confer citizenship. So that had to be done separately. And we didn't do it immediately. There were a couple of years that passed, but then we heard that the fee was going to be raised and you know, uh money being tight, even a few hundred dollars, was gonna make an issue. So we went ahead and sent put in the documents and so on for this. What was interesting was because he was our son, he didn't have to take the test. And I remember seeing other people, I mean I've known of other people studying for it, people in my church. In fact, we went in and there was a whole room full of young people. And the guy in charge who's about to administer the oath says to them, You didn't have to take the test because of your parents. Go back and find them. We're all standing around the edge of the room. Go back and give them a hug before we do this oath and thank them. But since that time, I've thought, especially in my homeschool, that it might be a good idea for my kids or any of the kids I'm teaching grandchildren to see if they know the answers to the civics questions on the American citizenship test. How many people in this country couldn't answer them? Well, I thought maybe we're about to find out. I thought maybe I could ask these questions to these two knowledgeable gentlemen here and see if you know the answers to, and I hate to, I don't want to embarrass you. So here's the thing there are a hundred questions. In sometimes they say 128, but then on the one right now, there's a hundred. I just thought you had to answer all of them. You don't, you have to study them all. But apparently they'll ask you like ten questions, and if you get six right, you're in.
SPEAKER_04That's not bad. So that's not too bad.
SPEAKER_00So I'm gonna go back and forth here and see which one of you which one of you becomes a citizen first. Phone a friend. You can do that, or you can ask for like a different question. So I'm just gonna pick some I don't have the I don't have them in front of me. I'm just gonna pick some random numbers. All right, so Dave, I'm gonna pick number 28. Seriously, this is number 28. This feels this feels an unfair question. This is hard.
SPEAKER_03What's behind door number two?
SPEAKER_00This is hard. What is the name of the president of the United States now?
unknownThis is tough.
SPEAKER_02Oh Donald Trump.
SPEAKER_00There you go. All right, you get that. Or I should find an equally easy one. I gotta answer. Oh gosh, there you go.
SPEAKER_03His son listens to our podcast.
SPEAKER_00I'll do number 14 for Tim. That's right, he does. Number 14.
SPEAKER_03Thanks for these when you like me better.
SPEAKER_00Okay. Oh dear. What stops one branch of government from becoming too powerful? Tim, that's for you.
SPEAKER_04Um checks, separation, uh, separation of powers.
SPEAKER_00Both checks and balances and separation of powers. All right, you're both at a yes. All right, so far, so far. All right, Dave, I'll do eight.
SPEAKER_03But I have I have more difficulty points. Oh yeah.
SPEAKER_00Oh yeah. All right, Dave. Go ahead. Number sixty-six. When was the Constitution written?
SPEAKER_03Oh, that's a good one. Uh the Constitution.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_04You know, this is the declaration.
SPEAKER_03Not the declaration. Um, this isn't fair, because it's this isn't the original one, isn't it? Wasn't there Articles of Confederation? Good.
SPEAKER_00See? You're showing your knowledge and the fact that we're going to have this date.
SPEAKER_03You know, and George Washington wasn't our first president. He was the first president of this constitution, am I right?
SPEAKER_00He's just going, going, going to try not to.
SPEAKER_04See how I'm not answering you? I'm trying to run for office. Give it an educated guess at least. You know it's not 1776 because hey, this is audio for them.
SPEAKER_03It's visual for me. Put some fingers up. Put some fingers up. 1787.
SPEAKER_00Yes. Very good. Very good. That's very good. He's right. All right, Tim. Name one of the two longest rivers in the United States.
SPEAKER_04Oh, Mississippi and Missouri?
SPEAKER_00They're both very nicely done. All right. All right, Dave. 89. Number 89. What ocean is on the west coast of the United States?
SPEAKER_04Okay. Boy.
SPEAKER_00This is rough. This is rough.
SPEAKER_04Pacific.
SPEAKER_00Pacific. Wow. All right, Tim, I'll go back to the towards the beginning. Number 30. Oh, if the president can no longer serve, who becomes president? Oh, jeez.
SPEAKER_04Vice president.
SPEAKER_00You're annoyed if you get easy ones. You want the hard ones. No, no, no. That's right. All right, Dave. What is one reason colonists came to America?
SPEAKER_03Religious freedom.
SPEAKER_00Religious freedom. That is one of the reasons. Yep. They have listed freedom, political liberty, religious freedom, economic opportunity to practice their religion or to escape persecution. All right, Tim. Number, oh, that's too easy. I can't give this to you. Number 26. We elect a president for how many years?
SPEAKER_04Oh, geez. Four.
SPEAKER_00Very good. All right, Dave. I'm gonna go. I'm gonna zoom in.
SPEAKER_04How many is that now? We both got four, right?
SPEAKER_00We both have four. All right, we gotta move.
SPEAKER_02All right. I'm breaking out in a cold sweat. Okay.
SPEAKER_00Dave, why does the flag have 50 stars?
SPEAKER_02Because as of this date, in March 26th.
SPEAKER_00Not counting Greenland. I'm gonna be 51.
SPEAKER_02Please, please don't attack anyone before Thursday.
SPEAKER_04We'll have 52 within a year.
SPEAKER_00Very good. They have oil. They have oil. All right, Tim. Why did the colonists fight the British?
SPEAKER_04No taxation without representation. That's right. No taxation without representation.
SPEAKER_02I'm used to hearing that drilled into me. We lost that dream a while ago. Yeah, we did.
SPEAKER_00We have the representation. We definitely have the taxation.
SPEAKER_02More taxation, less representation. Yes, we'll take it.
SPEAKER_00Because of high taxes, taxation without representation, because the British Army stayed in their houses, boarding and quartering, and because they didn't have self-government. All right, let's go to some more in the beginning here. Let's see. David, I'll give you number 11. What is the economic system in the United States?
SPEAKER_03Well, that's a good one. Um market capitalism. Very good. Capitalist economy or market economy. You've got okay.
SPEAKER_00All right, Dave, you are at six. He's a citizen. If Tim gets six, you're even and we'll have to keep going. But if not, if Tim messes this up, no, then we'll I think you both are about to become citizens. All right, I'm just scrolling, scrolling. I'm landing on the call me if you need help. Okay. Tim, what is the capital of your state?
SPEAKER_04Oh, Trenton, New Jersey.
SPEAKER_00Very good. You are both officially American citizens. All right. But you know what? If you go to USCIS.gov, United States Citizenship, Immigration, what does that all stand for? I I knew that and I forgot.
SPEAKER_02Um you failed.
SPEAKER_00If I failed, I'm not a citizen. This the 100 questions are there, and some of them are are challenging, some of them are obviously very easy, such as, you know, how many amendments are there, um, who becomes president if the vice president can't step in. But it's important. It's they include it on their name a Native American tribe. There are a lot of good things. And it might be a fun thing, seriously, to ask some of your family members and think this year on what you can do. We're we're citizens of heaven, but we're citizens of this great country of ours, and we need to be thankful and learn some stuff about it.
SPEAKER_04So I got I uh in in the interest of full disclosure. I I you had said in in our pre-meeting uh a few days ago what we were going to talk about. You said, I may ask you guys some questions about citizenship. So I went and looked at all a hundred questions.
SPEAKER_02I looked at all a hundred questions. No, there's a movie that came out about the quiz show.
SPEAKER_04I recommend you watch the movie about the I I looked because uh I said, you know what? I've never I don't even know. I don't even know you know what the questions could be.
SPEAKER_02So let's so let's declare a winner because I pulled 1787 out of 1990. That was a good one. That was very good.
SPEAKER_00That was a good one. That was that was like I always worry on those man on the street things that I'll be asked something that I should know and I'll just feel like a total idiot, like these people that think we procured our freedom from you know China or whatever they say.
SPEAKER_04So anyway, but uh good that's good, it's good. And and it is uh, man, I'll tell you, uh we we we take our citizenship very lightly, but you know what? Uh when when when the borders are open, people flow into this country. We have a lot of problems, uh, but you know what, there's a reason why uh why people want to be here. That's why they want to be here. It's it's the freest. I I believe that uh our constitution is uh a uniquely uh genius document. I think those young men um back in the uh uh third uh quarter or uh second half of the uh of the eighteenth century were I think they were just brilliant. They were brilliant, brilliant men and uh uh endowed with their by their creator with great wisdom. And uh so we we owe a debt. And 250's coming up, and that's that's a great thing. And it we're gonna we are gonna celebrate. And you know, um our our kind just a little uh little backing up. Last time we talked uh about uh what's going on uh uh in the Middle East right now. We are in day eight of uh uh this big conflict with uh with Iran, and it had just begun when we talked last. And now it's uh it's it's uh continued. And um by all accounts uh uh this is this is uh for for the United States for Israel, they they have complete air supremacy, I guess. Now it's going very well. We have lost at this count seven American heroes, and uh six of them were brought back uh just in uh the last uh over this this weekend, last couple days, and they just announced uh the name of the seventh uh this morning, and our our hearts are broken, our hearts go out to this family, and as uh Abraham Lincoln said on the uh battlefield of Gettysburg, they have given the last uh measure of full devotion. And uh we we owe them a great, great unpayable debt. So uh all all the men and women who are in the armed forces, this is uh they all lay their their lives on the line. These people weren't even on the front lines, they were uh they were situated back. I think all of them were weren't they all in Saudi Arabia.
SPEAKER_00I guess on this last one. He was injured several days ago.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, so it's uh but what I I guess I just want to you guys have been watching it for uh a week now, better part of a week. And um I just want to get your impressions on what's w what you think is uh how the how how it is, how it's going, the national discussion, any impressions that you've had, and just just as a little uh I guess a little uh update on uh on on what's going on. Let me let me state let me start with you. You you're watching things go on. What uh what questions, comments, uh observations uh coming to your mind?
SPEAKER_03Uh I I have a sense of some ironies that I'll get to uh if we have time, but um initial impressions um first of all uh I don't know is Kid Rock in the studio right now um taping Bomb Iran to the tune of Bomb Barbara Ann? I don't know. I think so I don't think so this is um to me this is since World War II when we kind of post the con the political consensus was uh economic independence so we even rehabilitated our enemies Germany and Japan uh since then you know then we were involved in a Cold War which is many wars involved but they're proxy wars under the aegis of United States versus Russia but so to me there's you know wars have never subsided but to me this has the chance of being one that gets out of control in that it affects global that economic independence that we thought was going to be the era of peace. What I mean by that is proxy wars were like in Korea Vietnam you know underdeveloped undeveloped third world countries United States Russia trying to gain footholds but now because of the you know the great enrichment of the Middle East and Iran spilling over now we we've done a we've done a relatively good job of confining Middle East as many as there's been they've also been confined or contained is a better word but this one has already lost containment Iran has hit various countries so it's not United States and Israel versus Iran strictly Iran is lashing out when we cut when we cut the head of the military off it's like it's like the blood sprayed um and it's almost like Iran's first immediate um act of war was to be terrorists you know to hit countries that were innocent that's what they do you know by reflux. So I think this is interesting because um you know you you hit third world or African countries or developing Asian countries there's geopolitical concerns but this is the Straits of Hormuz is is now a financial or uh so would we say capital or trade economic dependent linchpin to the planet.
SPEAKER_04And so this has a chance of uh not just raising oil prices temporarily I mean this this is a global concern that you know a lot of uh power and wealth is going to be affected in that I think that's why I think that's why one of the things they wanted to do immediately was destroy the Navy destroy Iran's Navy because that's look it's what is it 21 miles at it at its most narrow point it's 21 miles. China receives between 13 and 15 percent of all their oil. Now that would be my concern. So I think one of the things they're thinking of is we we got to keep the streets open because what we don't want to do is uh throttle China and and take away you know uh I I think we want to control it but we don't want to put them in a position where they need to strike out. So I your your point about it maybe spilling over I think they've thought this through pretty closely. In fact uh I was just listening uh a tanker has gone through you know some of these comp companies they their insurance companies are saying we're not going to insure you that's the problem so that's why uh uh Trump a few days ago said we're gonna insure your tanker is going through the United States government is going to insure because they gotta they gotta start bringing them through and and honestly the um uh you know the the the possibility of of of a tanker getting sunk is very extremely low at this point extremely low but you know I get it uh and and and I to your point Dave I think it's a good point uh you know what we need to be careful so let me let me ask you and I ask Donna Jean too let me ask you this question all right we're we're we're at war now would you consider this um and we talk a lot about this uh would you consider this a righteous war?
SPEAKER_00I think as much as I understand that and I don't pretend to be an expert on any of these things I think as much as we can understand it I've heard many people say yes that it is I've heard that expression on the news even it can sound like you know just war or a righteous war. For many it can sound like a contradiction in terms of just the phrase but I contend that Trump didn't start a war. He is the first president in a string sends Carter who's made a decision to finish this war. And therefore it's something that has gone on I I read a statistic that said from the Pentagon that said something like one in six of American combat um deaths in recent years has been at the hands of Iran or one of their proxies. And this has this has gone on too long and I think the case is is a legitimate one that this has to stop. So based upon you know listen to our last episode when you guys talked about a just war you gave the different criteria for it and as you were giving it to me it made sense. That doesn't mean I think yay this is great and cheering it on like it's some kind of um you know basketball game. It's it's terrifying the thought that these families are being told about the deaths of their family members it's unfathomable to me but at the same time it's also a terrifying thing that this bully of the world was about to get was about to go so far beyond that I think we literally were approaching an existential crisis.
SPEAKER_03Yeah I would I understand we can all misspeak I just in the last couple weeks I've misspoken and called to account we we all misspeak but you know at the highest levels we have to be very careful with verbiage. So I let me give you a couple quotes and and then make the case if it was just this quote and and I mean if you if you miss miss misspeak and take it back then we're good but if you misspeak and your policy is determined by your misspeak then I'm gonna call unjust. One quote Carolyn Levitt press secretary quote the president had a feeling that Iran was going to strike the United States unquote that I mean say say I misspoke or or pull it back and restate it. If we if we go by that that quote the president had a feeling that's not a just war. So I'll allow you to retract then the Secretary of State who should be you know even more precise and have the principled backing.
SPEAKER_04I think what he said was Israel is going to attack Iran and so because we thought Israel was going to attack Iran we preemptively attacked Iran because we thought Israel was going to attack Iran and then if Israel attacked Iran then we kind of knew the fallout was that Iran would hit some of our bases well I know what he's trying to say is a preemptive principle but doesn't that does that justify a just war or does that beg the question which is this if Israel's going to attack Iran and you're worried about the fallout how about you go to Israel and tell them not to attack Iran Well I think I I think we I I I know that argument and I think we had been gathering uh ships and uh we had two carrier uh uh carriers and and and their support uh uh ships in the in the area for for weeks and weeks I mean we've been building up to this there there is they're trying to make the case now that well you know what on the morning the Saturday morning they hit it's like we followed the leader. I I really think that that uh what Donna Jean had said that this is kind of uh a final ending hopefully of of a war that's going on since 1979. I I I understand you know what you're saying about about verbiage and uh it's very important to make a clear uh case to the American people especially and it's such a divided nation that we have such a divided nation that we have but I I think you know what when you have someone who has said for decades death to Israel death to the United States who after we obliterated basically most of their nuclear capability started redigging in the same spots to recover um uh the nuclear material so that it could reuse it uh to to try to make a bomb and who sat down with uh Jared Kushner uh and uh uh what's his name? Uh who's the other guy the main Steve Whitkoff Steve Steve Whitkoff and said we have enough material to make eleven nuclear weapons they said that they just admitted it we have enough to make eleven nuclear weapons we just got to get the the delivery systems i in place.
SPEAKER_00And they were offered even you could still have nuclear power and that wasn't enough.
SPEAKER_04It wasn't even well we said we were going to supply supply uh you know uh the material to you know to to be able to make reactors and stuff forever forever so I think um I I think it's important how how we say things but as far as facts and as far as what we know about uh you know this country has uh been the uh uh the heart of terrorism uh worldwide they had been supplying you know fighters all over the world to destroy and I said I think I said last time we it was just under 900 Americans did a little bit more study on that it's been it's been well over a thousand Americans that have been killed by Iran um since 1979. So um I you know to me uh sooner or later uh time for peace and a time for war um I I think peace comes uh sometimes through war and you just watch now if this thing doesn't drag which we're all praying it doesn't you watch the Abraham Accords who's gonna come on board the Saudi Arabia was on the very cusp of signing the Abraham Accords several years back and uh and then they you know they they they they they pulled away I think you're gonna be I think you're gonna see uh an a a an era of peace in the Middle East if we can eliminate uh this state sponsor of terror and in the form of uh the country of uh of Iran and there's somebody in there who doesn't not necessarily need to be all pro-Western but who just will not be exporting terrorism and will care about their people more than they care about you know destroying Israel.
SPEAKER_03I don't know um yeah I think um I said what I said but I'm also I'm I'm sure you could reconcile what I'm about to say that I am all in favor of uh the Islamic radical reign over Iran fall tonight.
SPEAKER_01Right.
SPEAKER_03Um you know you hope there's a global strategy here. If there is if you connect the pieces and if you're playing um three tier chess it could look like Venezuela that's oil to China.
SPEAKER_01Right.
SPEAKER_03Russia's exhausting itself in the Ukraine. Right China now the Straits of Hormuz has an oil interest. So I'm gonna be all about it if our world strategy was keep intact the Western hemisphere, don't don't encroach upon it. Russia gets exhausted without being destroyed utterly and China gets impeded in its progress and its in its rate of power grabbing. And so Iran is a cog to that to me because because of the the richness of the oil based area but to me they are they are the pivot point of the axis of evil to me. And I I would like nothing more than people that call us the great Satan who are themselves the great satan if they would fall. Now I I I will express this concern. So again I uh just war like I can I be in favor of this uh policy and positioning yes um but but again I I think it's wiser to have as your goal again that kind of uh impeding of the net the nuclear progress the the elimination of the arm the navy and the air force but regime change is a different thing because look if regime change change is your goal look what we've accomplished so far we just changed the next generation for the last generation the 87 year old it if that's and it's not all we've accomplished with with American blood but if this was all we accomplished was Khomeini gets replaced by Khomeini then what we just did was an 87 year old dying on his own deathbed of natural causes just calling in his son and saying okay you got this buddy so you know it so regime change I'm I'm I'm sensitive about but yeah knocking out uh but then of course I would say one last thing I thought I thought um was it last June that we claimed to have knocked out the nuclear possibilities I mean it's February I know that this might be something we have to keep doing but yeah I would uh I think we did mostly but I I think this was they were going after ballistic missiles and they were going after the Navy I think that was their main targets for this and as I said they were starting they were starting up the program again it's like a it's like an anthill and you knock it down and then you see the answer immediately they just they don't even stop they just go right back to doing their doing their thing it's it's and again it's because they think they're doing God's work.
SPEAKER_04And and you know what they they have a much bigger focus. It's not like North Korea uh it's it's completely different. So um uh but anyway so we're gonna we're gonna come back to this I said we were in day eight and you know by God's grace this is gonna end end soon and uh you know we don't and there's gonna look there's gonna be things that happen that we're gonna just be sickened over um uh you know through in in this war already that it's happened and but so you know we continue to pray that God would just hasten the end bring the end it's a moment of opportunity uh some I think a lot of our listeners know this but let's remind them and and maybe help the few I think we lose track of how much the Sunnis hate the Shias.
SPEAKER_03Yeah this is is is like an Islamic civil war the Saudis hate the Iranians so if if Iran can stop being the main exporter of heroism worldwide there's an opportunity to bind that even as you know Tim and Donajin even Sunni people can get in an agreement with Israel yeah they can yeah they can you know you you would start it off Dave we're gonna we've got to end this um but you'd start it off by saying that uh there's a uh there's a possibility for greater conflagration I mean this thing could could it could break way out of its borders you know what it it it's almost unexplainable but it's it it was almost like a gift that you can't even believe when they started bombing when Iran started sending missiles to these other countries these other countries I think that were were were like hey we're not going to support the U.S.
SPEAKER_04we're gonna say then it it's almost you know what immediately came to mind it was it was Germany during World War II breaking their treaty with the Soviet Union and turning east and I that was it I I tell you what if they didn't do that it was almost unexplainable it was almost as if Adolf Hitler had an aneurysm or something and he made the dumbest the most unbelievably bad decision because we pro we might be speaking German right now if it if it wasn't for that one decision. And he he what they did in Iran they they did something that turned the entire Middle East against them. They literally are all alone right now.
SPEAKER_00No one thought the Gulf states would turn on Iran no one expected that at best we thought they would stand down and do nothing. But the thought that they are they're against this that's amazing.
SPEAKER_04Amazing hey well we're going to come back to this obviously yes uh but you know what um of the three of us Dave has been on top of uh this next subject uh uh right right along and be when we started talking about doing a podcast that was one of the first subjects he said he he really wanted to talk about and that is AI AI um I I listened to CNBC you know it's it's the uh financial network I I I kid you not if if they go 10 minutes without uttering the letters AI on CNBC uh it's it's it's a lot they talk they're talking about AI continually obviously in the context of how it's going to uh uh rattle or improve or whatever how it's going to affect the uh uh you know the the the financial uh health and wealth of the nation but let so what we want to do for just a few minutes and this is another one we're gonna be coming back to which we're I guarantee you we're coming back to this one so consider this uh a primer on AI and I guess I you know what we want to do is do a 35,000 foot flyover and I'm just gonna ask you two guys when you think of AI um uh what do you think of uh let me I'll go first and then we'll go to Dave. I love AI for one reason. Baby Trump the the videos that are coming out of I I think are the funniest things I just laugh out next only to the baby videos of Senator Kennedy of the back just history it's like you're looking at the unbelievable toddler voice makes it it's just incredible. So some of the things that they bring out now are so dang funny.
SPEAKER_03But anyway I I uh that's uh silly let's go to uh more the sublime Dave what about you when you think about AI what do you think about um uh the baby trump videos is okay end of discussion in down between I'm in I'm investing fashion in all my other stocks no uh it it's interesting because you you know way back in the 1990s I had in uh IBM wasn't I think wasn't their main headquarters in Purchase New York um I was in Westchester County I had a buddy I won't say his name uh very dear friend he was from France and he came over to IBM headquarters um and I I'd get invited over to have lunch with him because he's the best cafeteria in the county and one one time he he said hey um I was pastoring him and he goes hey David if if if your family's okay with that I want to take you down to Fort Lauderdale and put you up for a week just so you can have a study break and he goes I got to be down there for work. This is the 90s like early 90s and I I was poolside pretending to write sermons and he'd come and then we'd go get dinner and I go what'd you do today? And he goes well I just did my IBM work and middle of the week he just goes hey um I forgot to do something at work let's just drive by work before uh we go get dinner sure we I in the 90s I walked in this building and robots were working 24 hours a day are you serious? Not a human in the building and he said my project is I'm managing this entire factory this is 35 years are you serious? I walked into robots I never heard that not not like robots like how long my name is no I know John but but the the the arm you know the the arm like like machinery like just going and doing like an intricate like filling this and moving it and putting it over there and yeah so I mean it it's uncre is that what prompt your interest or were you already sort of fascinated by prompt my interest I had I had no idea what I was seeing. Yeah what is no no but uh but yeah it we cannot deny the positives that's why it's bread in circuses we're we're gonna we're gonna take this because in the short term the positives are gonna outweigh so they're gonna catch they're gonna catch cancer fine sooner and more precisely um we already know uh almost immediately take take not up not middle of the road but take the greatest eye surgeon in the world ai is about to equal and then surpass the ability to perform intricate surgery so there's tons of reasons why we will do this health uh increased human productivity um 247 labor 247 labor without salary benefits um retirement plans 401ks um maternal leave you know it's it's gonna revolutionize employment um that could also be a negative though so so then obviously yeah I mean so you know medical stuff employment stuff first of all just optimizing optim like social media was supposed to remember when the internet was supposed to give us all Ivy League education in two years but what we did was we just took pictures of our our cats and dogs instead dumber yeah it's true yeah that's true but you know but the promise the promise is still extended to us that we're gonna be brilliant what but but brilliant For what reason? Because we don't have nothing to apply it to because we don't work anymore. So yeah, we're we're it's breads and circuses, you know, please us, but yeah, there's there's plenty of positives.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Traffic control, uh, all logistical things, air traffic controllers, it's everywhere.
SPEAKER_04It's the growth is exponential. Donald Jean, what do you think? When you hear the words artif hear the word artificial intelligence, what do you think my initial and and I'm willing to learn.
SPEAKER_00I'm very I'm you know, you guys know every time we talk about this, I'm I'm listening. I don't want to be the resident Luddite, you know, who who just is against. I'm not anti-technology. I'm not uh truly. I mean, I've technology has a massive part of my life and my work. But I find myself concerned over creativity. I find myself concerned, for instance, I'll take a very specific example. The idea of someone using AI to do a creative work that should go through their mind, their heart, and their soul, and instead run it through ChatGPT, that worries me. That worries me for what it will do to our very souls. I think about pastors doing messages that way and not experiencing what God has for them. I think about young people losing what it is to discover, to read, to explore. Um, I I just read a study today, it was on Wharton's website, it was a study in which it showed that uh what the effect of AI was on human creativity, and that those that used, for instance, I think it was ChatGPT was the one of choice for that, but there were only about six percent that they determined came up with unique human creativity as opposed to those who only used human resources in a sense, and it was all human creativity. These are concerns I have. That's not to say absolutely, you know, discoveries as as AI scrapes the internet of all the information humans have poured into it. It's going to put things together and come up with things faster and better than we can. Absolutely, that's not something I'm going to say is bad. But I worry about the human aspect of it. I worry about the data centers, taking up farmland. Um, I've come to greatly appreciate the earth and stewardship of it, and worry about people who live in a place where a data center is gonna go, and the ambient noise is gonna be 24-7, it's not gonna bring jobs, it's going to take over a lot of the grid for the electric, for the water, and I know the president spoke on that recently. But these are the sorts of things that I think about as a balance to this. And because I mean, once a data center is there, what's gonna happen? Are they gonna get slapped a fine because the noise level of the decibel for the people that live there is too high? Nothing's gonna happen once it's there. So I think it's it's it's it's there's an inevitability of it, and I get that, but I also am the one kind of concerned for the children, for our spirits, for the earth. And uh it's probably because I don't know enough, and I I assume that's my reason, but I worry. I just have a worry.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, okay. Well, I you know, when Dave, you you mentioned to me uh yeah a couple months ago, you said pick up the book Nexus by uh Yuvil Noer Noah Harari is his name. He's Israeli, and you said start in the middle and and and read to the end. And I'm I'm just about done with the second half of the book. I'm just about done. And it's been um that's been uh a primer for me in in AI, and it's very, very interesting. And I as I'm looking back, and I knew we were just gonna talk very briefly about AI uh today. There there are two things, and I I've looked in some other places too now, studying some other areas. There are two areas of concern that are popping up to me right away. Number the the first one is that bots are literally taking over the internet. Uh, you know, a bot is um uh what is it? It's like a uh it's an application, a software application uh that runs uh tasks on the internet. Now, um it's very, very interesting. In his book, Nexus, uh and this is I think it was 24. I think the uh copyright is 2024. So it's not that old, but it's you know what, in two years, when you're talking about this stuff, it's like it's kind of old. It's middle age. But he started in this one section on uh digital anarchy, he talked about, and he said, for the first time ever, democracy, and he's it's in the section on democracy, for the first time ever, democracy must contend with a cacophony of non-human voices. And you think about that, it's really true. On many social media platforms, bots can constitute a sizable minority of part of uh participants. One analysis estimated that out of the sample of 20 million tweets generated during the 2016 U.S. election campaign, 3.8 million, 20% were generated by bots. And it only got worse from there. Four years later, 2020, 43% of the tweets were bot generated. And I went just um in the last day or two and I looked at as many sites as I could. And if you go the most conservative, the most conservative, which is it's not no longer Twitter, it's uh it's now X, so uh, which has a vested interest, and whether whether they're getting you know snookered or not, um they said they said it's at least between 9 and 15 percent of of uh everything that comes across is generated by a bot. And you got you got other uh sites though that um uh are citing all the way up to 64 percent could be bots. High, high volumes. And they're trying to purge these these sites, but you they're only you know, they're not perfect. I mean, there's one uh uh group in Perva, in Perva, uh it's a French-based cybersecurity firm. They said, and they're they're they look like they're pretty reliable, that bad bots uh made up 51% of all global internet traffic. 51%. I mean, that is AI-driven content, and it's not even from it's not originated from people. I so that I have a really big concern about that because if look, if that happens, what does that mean for elections?
SPEAKER_01Exactly.
SPEAKER_04What does that mean for democracy? What does that mean for our enemies who want to steer the American electorate one way or another, or the the the entire uh culture? Uh let me really quick, let me read this one paragraph. He said, So what happens to democratic debates when millions and eventually billions of highly intelligent bots are not only uh composing extremely compelling political manifestos and creating deep fake images and videos, but also are able to win over our trust and friendship. If I engage online in a political debate with an AI, it's a waste of time for me to try to change the AI's opinions because a non-conscious entity, it doesn't really care about politics and it cannot vote in the elections. But the more I talk with the AI, the better it gets to know me so it can gain my trust, hone its arguments, and gradually change my views. Political parties now and foreign governments, he said, could deploy an army of bots that build friendship with millions of citizens and then use that in intimacy to influence their worldview. Which brings me to my second big problem, and that is AI approaching consciousness. Did you see the report yesterday out of Anthropic?
SPEAKER_02Yes.
SPEAKER_04Anthropic, which is an artificial intelligent research uh technology company, their president, their CEO, said uh what's his name? Dario Amode. He didn't definitively state that AI has achieved consciousness, but he said that the company, this is a quote, the the company can no longer rule out the possibility of consciousness in its AI model, Claude. You know what Claude is?
SPEAKER_00That's right.
SPEAKER_04I mean, and then he talked about self-assessment, uh uh anxiety. It started, it was uh Claude gets uh filled with anxiety when we start talking to it about trying to uh to modify it. And they went through a whole bunch of uh reasons why they think that the border may have been, you know, the two toes may have been put over the border of consciousness. I mean, the musk, Elon Musk immediately came in and said uh uh it's it's it's really not that. It's uh sophisticated pattern matching, uh I AI is mimicking emotions that they learned because it's very good at learning from their training data. But those two things, and uh where it's where's it gonna go? I mean, what is I find massive problems with this, and unless governments uh somehow uh modify you know how we are handling the technology, we could be run into something that we're not even ready for. Dave, what do you think? What do you think of it?
SPEAKER_03Well well, just what you last said about governments because we trust their abilities. So let's just let's just um let's just stand back and approach it a different way. How allow for me without opening the can of worms, allow for me to just imagine for a minute that we could agree that climate change is caused by humans. So let's just take that as a premise. How are governments doing about that? Even though your climate, climate patterns are not, do not respect borders, so you'd want to cooperate on this because something happened in the you know in the Saharan produces dust that comes over to the Caribbean and creates terrible storms. So you'd think we could work together on that, right? Well, of course we're not going to work together on AI because China and the United States have to win this war. They have to defeat the other one. That's not a cooperation competition here. So uh one of the things we'll promise to talk to you about in the future is the interaction between the capitalist market system of the West and Chinese authoritarianism in the consequences of who wins this battle. Because it even affects warfare. We're building soldiers out of this stuff. So um I'm gonna as we continue to talk about this in further segments, I'm gonna be pretty skeptical of the future. I'm gonna be pretty um dystopian about it. Um we can also promise you a couple other things. We'll we'll distinguish for you the difference between AGI, which we're which is imminent, and ASI, which would be the next step, between general artificial intelligence and superintelligence, where AGI is basically um the sum total of the most intelligent human being. We're there now, but ASI is basically approaching this the sum total of the entire human race will be contained artificially. That's a description. At that point, that's mastery, that's game, set, and match. You know, we'll we'll talk about its effect on revealed religion, we'll talk about its its its effect on democracy, we'll talk we'll we'll talk about um um the theologically, what we're doing right now is we're making an idol slash god and we're asking it to take mastery over us. Yeah, I mean that's exactly what happened in the Garden of Eden to ill effect. How do how have we not learned this? And by the way, it's it's gotta be completely offensive to God. And and you you wonder this is the point where I'm not an alarmist, but over this issue, you'd you'd almost say, how does God not God not intervene? Because he'll be mocked.
SPEAKER_00Well, we're creating a Tower of Babel. This is just another version of the world.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, redefine love, it'll redefine social interaction, it'll redefine what's the purpose of your life if you're not employed painfully anymore.
SPEAKER_04There's enormous power being concentrated in a very few hands. And you know, I again, like we just said with all the bots and stuff, they are deciding and they are influencing people and telling them what truth is. Really, they they're redefining truth. And and you know what? John 17. This is why your word is truth. This is why Christians more than ever need to be in the word. There's so much we could talk about this. Um uh I never thought we could ever be in a position where a very few people could really rule, I don't want to say rule, well, yeah, rule the world in a in a sense. I mean, uh, but you know what? We're we're kind of getting there. We're kind of getting there. I think it has a lot of theological implications.
SPEAKER_00We're getting to the unimaginable and we're getting to things that we could not agree.
SPEAKER_03One last thing is um it's interesting how the people that are with leaders in this movement and then left it because they became against it because they knew it was gonna happen. They've jumped back in. Now, notice the ethics of somebody like Elon Musk who was against it, but then said, if I'm against it, then I'm not gonna make the money, and also China's gonna win, so I better at least jump back in and have my say and make the money and kind of guide it. So the we're we're this thing's escalate, uh accelerated change from people that a few years ago knew better.
SPEAKER_04That's one of the scary things.
SPEAKER_00It also then leaves it just for the bad guys, so you have to try to we want the good guys involved too.
SPEAKER_03And you could you can understand why you have to jump back in, even if you know what's gonna happen. Of course.
SPEAKER_04Unless we somehow, and Dave, I know you gave a very uh dark uh opinion as to you know uh governments uh working together and people working together, but unless we s we figure out some sort of uh ethics and and and rules to this game, uh this could be uh and I think I think we can. I I I think we can, but uh it'll it's gonna this is gonna get out of hand. I think things will I think things will happen that we don't anticipate.
SPEAKER_03I really yes. Okay, so I would agree that there there we will come up with guardrails. For instance, why wouldn't every country agree on under 16, you can't get you can't use it yet. Yeah. But that's not sufficient guardrails for the accelerated change we're seeing. It's not.
SPEAKER_00It's not.
SPEAKER_03No, it's not.
SPEAKER_00I find that when we first were talking about this, you know, you guys know I have uh individual views and you know, not wanting it to enter a certain level into my own life, not using these tools unless I think it's just for something trivial. But I found that my first thought, not my last thought, not even though I'm saying it last, my first thought had to be that to remind myself that AI is not bigger than God. And that sounds trivial, but I I had to kind of come to that place where I reminded myself this is infinitesimal compared to the creator God of the universe, because this gets so big and so daunting and so scary and so smart, I don't understand it, and I can feel very small and very confused and even frightened by it. But I I come to this place before the conversation, not just at the conclusion that I can rest in him, but because of that rest, I can maybe more boldly than I want to engage in the conversation and not be afraid of it because God's beyond this. So I can I can talk about it. I'm not as freaked out as maybe I was.
SPEAKER_04And we're gonna and we're gonna talk about it more. We're gonna talk about it a lot more. But we are actually 16 seconds over right now, and uh so we have enough time to just everybody say uh thanks for joining us on this special edition of Encore. Encore.
SPEAKER_00We'll be back in two weeks this time.
SPEAKER_04We're gonna be back in two weeks, right? Two weeks from from from uh today. So thank you, David. Thank you, Donna Jean, and uh thank you, everybody who listens to us. Uh it's a privilege for us to come to you like this. And uh I hope you have a have a good two weeks, and we got some good stuff planned, don't we? For next one. We got some good stuff planned. So join us again. All right, God bless you, and we'll talk to you very soon.