Episode 577 Scott Adams: Thorium Reactors Saving the World, Border Funding

Date: 2019-06-25 | Duration: 1:04:30

Topics

Healthcare cost transparency EO (cost reduction) by President Trump Whomever is willing to torture border children the longest…wins! Solutions to REDUCE or ELIMINATE kids being tortured CNN does multiple interviews of newest nutty accuser Iran spokesman says “White House is afflicted by mental retardation” President Trump asks…why are WE paying to protect others countries? Guest: Kirk Sorensen, Nuclear and aerospace expert Startup company, developing a thorium reactor BENEFITS of a thorium reactor versus uranium Follow Kirk: @KirkSorensen Project Veritas has confirmed Google CAN affect things…if they want In the long-run, algorithms WILL evolve to contain political bias The problem with Bernie’s“free education” plan Elizabeth Warren’s “gay reparations” plan based on prior tax policies

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> [!note] Rough Transcript
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## Transcript

[0:04]

I'm pumpin pumpin pumpin hey everybody come on in here it's time again for coffee with Scott Adams I'm Scott Adams I've got my coffee if you would like to join in the simultaneous sip if you would like to feel the unparalleled pleasure you want to feel that dopamine just rushing through your body making you alive for the first time today alive I say well then you want to join me now all you need is a cup or a mug or glass you could have a tanker to chalice or a stein you might have a thermos possibly a flask but whatever kind of vessel you have fill in with your favorite liquid I like coffee and join me now for the simultaneous up if you don't do the ahh part at the end you're missing a lot of the good stuff so I have a special guest

[1:05]

the good stuff so I have a special guest on I'm going to try to bring them on at around 15 minutes from now Kirk Sorensen a nuclear and aerospace engineer and thorium evangelist we'll ask a few questions about the future of thorium nuclear but before we do that we'll wait for you people to pile in here and talk about a few other shorter topics you all know that trump signed this major I think it was an executive order to to create healthcare transparency you all heard about that right you heard about the big story one of the biggest stories in the country oh oh you didn't hear about it maybe there's a reason you didn't hear about President Trump lowering health care costs I'm just gonna take a stab at why maybe you didn't hear about it one of the biggest stories in the country could it be because your major new sort of news

[2:07]

because your major new sort of news sources are healthcare companies
that's that's the problem right is FoxNews a news organization or a health care organization who pays them where's their money come from Fox News money comes from pharmaceutical commercials mostly right what about CNN or do they get their money pharmaceutical commercials healthcare commercials all right so can we expect that our news sources will tell us what we need to about why the healthcare industry is ripping us off there's not a chance there's not a chance now I think only a president Trump could simultaneously have Fox News as his best friend while chipping away at their major source of income which is

[3:08]

at their major source of income which is healthcare profits so I don't know if that's the only problem but it looks like one of the biggest stories in the country that almost disappeared upon arrival so you can ask yourself do we have a news business or do we have a health care business that tells us a little bit about the news sometimes that's a big problem I think it's at least as big a problem as the social media companies having any alleged bias let's talk about border funding everybody wants to save the children who are being kept in these detention camps slash concentration clinic camps slash whatever you want to call them yes we all care about the children let's say if the children but meanwhile the children are suffering in these facilities and Congress doesn't seem to be able to pass

[4:09]

Congress doesn't seem to be able to pass some money for it and the reason it looks like is because these bills people pile on unpleasant things with the things that people agree on to try to get some unpleasant things through the system on the coattails of the thing agree on but of course the two sides can't agree on anything so it means that we can't get anything so in a real sense border funding has become a contest wait for it it's a contest I wish I were making this up I'm gonna say something that's true that's horrible and I wish it weren't true but the process of making laws in this country has turned into a process of who is willing to torture children the longest that's who will win whoever is willing to abuse children the longest in this case the children that are on the border and knowing don't have as much care as we would like them to have and I'm thinking

[5:11]

would like them to have and I'm thinking how could you fix this how could you have a better system I'll give you some ideas number one you should change the name of whatever this law is or whatever the bill is whatever the bill is for giving money toward taking care of those children we should change it to something like the border children protection bill something like that because you want people to vote for or against protecting children if you give it any other name the public doesn't really know what's in the bill and then I really get involved yeah yeah if the tortured children Act that wouldn't be bad I would that wouldn't be wrong it wouldn't be wrong to call it the torture children Act and see who votes against it all right suppose we introduced a bill to withhold Congress's pay until the children at the border are safe how about that one just there's just two

[6:12]

about that one just there's just two points in the bill give money to protect the children at the border or your own pay is without I'll just put that out there how about that would that get us somewhere how about this instead of torturing I don't know how many children involved hundreds would you say hundreds of children involved thousands I don't know the numbers but there are a lot of children involved and they're all being tortured I would suggest a way to greatly reduce the discomfort instead of torturing all those children for a long period of time let's just get one kid to volunteer put them in a little hot box in Congress and see you can keep them there the longest in other words you've got Congress you've got you know both sides are there and you've just got a little hot box you put one kid in there volunteer and you just start turning up the temperature and you can't get out and you know you get up to like 110 and he's like oh the

[7:13]

get up to like 110 and he's like oh the child is being tortured and the Republicans are like mmm nope not enough and the Democrats are like it looks like he could take a little bit more and the Republicans say turn it up they go 120 the kids dying in the box and the Democrats will be I don't know we'd like to get a few more things in this bill few more things we could let let that kid go a little bit longer and the Republicans would be like he's barely sweating turn it up turn it up now all of you were saying my god how could you even say that Scott your thought is so dark people are saying here in the commets that is a dark thought is it is it is is making one kid very uncomfortable worse than whatever we're doing right now I don't know doesn't seem like it seems like it would be 1% as bad because if there are a hundred people being tortured and you could make that stop

[8:14]

tortured and you could make that stop just by having this one kid a little bit you know more tortured is that worse I don't know obviously I'm not literally suggesting this I am just using it as a way to point out that torturing children is not a fricking government it's not a government it's not a system if if who couldn't torture children the most is all we're trying to do is that's the contest seriously fire every one of you idiots every one of you idiots in Congress needs to be fired if torturing children is now the new system for making laws come on you can do better than that alright maybe you can do better than that next short topic before we get to our guest I hope Kirk is signing on and lining up in the queue here to be a guest did you all see the video of trumps accuser who

[9:17]

all see the video of trumps accuser who says that he raped her in Bergdorf Goodman department store in the 90s well you know when you first heard that story you probably said to yourself you know that story doesn't quite track because it's hard to believe that this assault happened in the middle of the day between two people who just ran into each other in the lingerie area of Bergdorf Goodman's and nobody saw it just a lot of it didn't make sense what have I taught you about hearing a story where a lot of it doesn't look like it's true if that's the only thing you know it's a story listen it's not this story just generically let's say you hear a story and you hear the details and you go well that doesn't even sound true I mean that I mean maybe maybe but just the details sound so unbelievable what did I teach you is the likely outcome if

[10:20]

did I teach you is the likely outcome if you wait a little while what is he a likely outcome of that story well by a ratio of probably 20 to one you'll find out it's not true sometimes it might be true because there are weird things happen in the real world but by a factor of about 20 to 1 if a story sounds that on the nose it's made up now I'm not saying she made up a story I'm saying that as a general rule when you hear a story that's that unusual 20 to 1 it's made up so CNN made the huge mistake of interviewing the accuser now at first I was gonna say to myself I don't want to try to diagnose somebody's mental health at a distance when it's just somebody on television I don't know them I'm not a medical professional I I don't have those skills

[11:21]

professional I I don't have those skills it would be irresponsible it would be a bad bad social practice to diagnose somebody's mental illness I complain about it when people do it to Donald Trump the president why would I do the same thing when I'm one of the biggest critics of that practice but but I would say to you there's probably some line beyond which you don't really have to be an expert would you agree with this general concept that if somebody is let's say has a mental problem but they're sort of within the normal range of human behavior that you know your friends are sometimes crazy do you get a little crazy sometimes or maybe you had a bad day there's a pretty broad range of things that are normal and a little abnormal and maybe a little bit of mental illness that you can't tell the difference unless you're a professional unless you've actually worked with them you've really you've really you know put

[12:22]

you've really you've really you know put in the time and investigation but I think you'd agree there is some level of craziness where everybody can see it would you agree with the general statement that has some level you don't have to be a professional it's just right there
uh I think CNN made the mistake of putting somebody on the air who was sort of up there and I feel sympathy because she doesn't look well and she doesn't look healthy now it could be because of all the things that happened to her so you can't rule out the fact that maybe she's the victim of a bad life and and that's what happened but I will tell you that almost nobody who sees it the interviews on CNN believes that she's telling the truth it is the least credible thing you'll ever see in your life maybe literally the least credible

[13:23]

life maybe literally the least credible story you'll ever hear which doesn't mean it's not true I wasn't there I'm just saying that of all the things you've ever seen it might be the least credible one you'll ever see and you could tell from the comments on Twitter then it's pretty much universally true that people go what the heck happened there's something this is not right and this should not have ever been in the news so CNN found their new Michael avenatti the person that they can talk to endlessly and and turn nothing into news all right and she actually said and I think I have to say this because it's part of the story now when talking to Anderson Cooper the accuser Trump's accuser said that she thinks that most people think of rape as being sexy I don't know I'm not even gonna comment on that I mean that's just you know right I don't have to say anything about that she said that on TV I this is a lot

[14:25]

that she said that on TV I this is a lot all right let me see if I can find Kirk who should be waiting for me any moment but I don't see him yet so Kirk if you have a mobile device it only works on a mobile device not a laptop you would be looking at the little icon of the smiley faces down at the bottom of your screen if you press that little button you will be eligible for me to add you on but I don't see it yet so I'm gonna I'm gonna do something else and then wait to see if you come on so I ran a spokesman for and said that he's president president rouhani of Iran he mocked the White House and said that it is quote afflicted by mental retardation now the first thing I asked about that is did he say that in English

[15:29]

about that is did he say that in English because if he said it in English I'd want to hear it but I don't think he did I think it was translated who translated whatever rouhani said into the word retardation you're not supposed to say that right so I would I would wonder is there some other word in English that maybe would get the same sense of it without being at the most one of the most offensive words in the English language I mean did we really need to have this story translated into an in like the one word that I'm not supposed to say in public I mean the only reason I would say that word I would never use that word except that you know the president of Iran are allegedly said it but I interpret this as a good sign why because it's exactly where we were with North Korea where the the leaders started insulting themselves about their intelligence and their mental health and and all that they did say that another official said

[16:30]

they did say that another official said there's close the door forever on negotiations as a close is yeah closed door permanently on negotiations now is that true do you think that's true doesn't seem like it would close the door forever on negotiations if you ask me all right now the president has asked the president has asked why is that we're protecting the Straits of Hormuz is it when the the local power should be doing that and and then of course he then turned it into a Pompeo says it's an international thing we have to all protect the shipping lanes and the president saying why are we doing this are they in conflict that's not really the story what Pompeo was saying was not in conflict with what the president said Pompeyo was saying internationally we

[17:30]

Pompeyo was saying internationally we all have to protect these international waters the president saying why is it mostly on us those are not really in conflict because you could still want to protect international waters while saying maybe other people should pay a little bit more than we are maybe they should put a few ships in the water maybe they could take a few few missiles so the president is asking exactly the right question and only the way the this is this is exactly why people voted for him I think he's the only one who can ask that question the question is why are we paying for it we were exporting more energy than we're importing can't we just sort of keep our own energy where it is and you keep your energy where it is what why do we even you know why is the United States even care so much pretty sure Saudi Arabia and the other countries there could take care of it all right let me see if Kirk is here so Kirk I do not see you unless you're trying to come in on some different name

[18:31]

trying to come in on some different name let's see if you have emailed me to you right all right Kirk says he's standing by on periscope and that would mean that one of these people who does not say Kirk's name is actually Kirk but Kirk you're gonna have to tell me if you're coming in under a different name so I'm gonna just send a little message here but I can't I can't write this because autocorrect keeps changing it
all right Kirk trying to find out if you were coming in under a different name than your real name and then I'll have you on all right we'll talk about Project Veritas if I don't get an answer on this right away
no boom and I will get an answer on this right away I think all right well

[19:33]

right away I think all right well there's only one way to find out he says he's standing by there's one name on here I don't recognize I'm gonna select it and I'm going to at least eliminate the question of whether this is Kirk is this Kirk hello but yeah doesn't sound like Kirk so we're gonna turn that off all right I guess we'll do Kirk another time because we have some kind of technological problem here apparently let's talk about Project Veritas if Kirk comes on later I'll I'll try him let's see yep not there yet
Project Veritas sir you know how I always tell you that I think I'm talking about the news and then suddenly I am the news this is one of those things that it's the weird thing about being me so yesterday I did my periscope about project Fair TAS and their undercover

[20:34]

project Fair TAS and their undercover video of the Google executives talking about talking about addressing the Trump situation with their algorithms and the next thing I know my periscope a a clip from it or a few clips are being retweeted round by James O'Keefe as part of Project Veritas now the part that they that project Veritas and O'Keefe retweeted was where I was saying that regardless of what the exact details are of the undercover video whether that undercover video is telling us what we think it is or whether it's out of context I'm not telling us what we think it's saying either way it tells you the same story which is that Google can manipulate the the algorithm they're talking about it and they have a situation they're trying to fix with fairness which is subjective and even if

[21:35]

fairness which is subjective and even if nothing on the video from a project Veritas was exactly what we think it is it's still the same problem we can't tell if Google is manipulating things and they explicitly tell us that they can it's possible so you know we should have the same amount of worry either way all right we have Kirk let me get back to project Veritas in a minute because I've got more to say about we'll bring Kirk on first whoops Kirk are you there I'm good so glad to have you on here my apologies I've never used periscope before so uh I I just turned on the app and I didn't know what else to do well there you go you figured it out I would expect no less from somebody who is a wait don't tell me as I look through my notes which are all in the wrong order now huh I managed to have four pieces of

[22:39]

now huh I managed to have four pieces of paper and lose oh come on seriously here it is Kirk Sorensen you are a nuclear and aerospace engineer and a thorium evangelist is that right that's right that's right and the name of your company that you work for is say the name of the company Flibe energy how do you spell that F L IBE energy and you're a start-up are you trying to create a thorium reactor that has never been created right yes yes we are startup and we are trying to create a thorium reactor that has never been created for the benefit of the audience who is very prime to hear about nuclear because most of the people watching this understand that nuclear energy is really the only practical really the only solution to climate change if climate change is the problem that the scientists say but it's also the only solution if there's no

[23:40]

also the only solution if there's no problem with climate change because we need a lot of energy we needed to add a good price and it's going to be nuclear would you say those two statements are true absolutely I feel exactly the same way and then the but those of us were non-technical we get lost very easily in the nuclear world and so I want to see if we could help break it down I want to just give this little framework and then I'm going to ask you some questions most of the people know there are four generations of nuclear technology broadly speaking the fourth generation isn't really up and running yet it's more more in the devil we'll talk more about that generation 3 there are 80 some plants of the world do I have that right - the generation three nuclear no there's just a handful of generation three plants most plants are considered generation two plants and and I've always kind of smiled a bit at this characterization of these generations it was like kind of a retcon on the whole thing because almost all of our nuclear reactor technologies even the ones that are consideration consider generation

[24:41]

are consideration consider generation four were invented back in the 40s and 50s in fact the very first reactor we ever had in the United States that produced electrical power was a sodium fast breeder reactor it was a so-called generation four reactor I was 1951 but let's let's keep it easy so that the generations are very broad arguable categories but would you say the generation three we're arguably a lot of a lot of the current plants are if you were going to build one today most likely to be a generation three would you say yes yeah yeah the plants that are being built in Georgia right now are that ap1000 they're considered generation 3 points right and they and this is a non thorium what is the technology called that's most of the generation 3f pressurized water reactors I see a comment says sodium equal salt no sodium as a constituent of salt all right is so those plants have had correctly if Iran there's no generation 3 plant that's ever had a nuclear event right no

[25:43]

that's ever had a nuclear event right no no meltdowns nope nope all right but they have some other problems in terms of waste etc proliferation so give us the quick the the quick benefits of thorium and and for the layperson without the technical details where do you get thorium versus where'd he get plutonium which fuels the generation 3 that we know about give us the era that I mean the big picture is this is billions years ago there was a supernova and all kinds of things got made and most of them decayed away but two of them had really long half-lives and we're still radioactive that's thorium in your idea for the benefit that the the tough thing for this audience is that there most of them are not tactical so talk to us in terms of the like user important stuff such as there's lots of thorium where do you get it well yeah that's why we have

[26:44]

you get it well yeah that's why we have we have three times as much thorium on earth is uranium it's pretty much everywhere very evenly distributed some places we have higher concentrations of it one of the richest deposits of thorium in the Western Hemisphere is in Idaho but it's not hard to get it's in your front yard it's in your back yard it's in scoop of dirt you go pick up if you had a Geiger counter you could detect it it's not rare it's a common material it's about as common as as 10 now I did see somewhere I was just looking before we talked there's somebody who's saying that there's no more or less thorium than there is plutonium when you when you consider how hard it is to actually get to it does that ring true or no well there's no natural plutonium every speck of plutonium on earth we made in nuclear reactors but thorium is naturally occurring and and you go and and you can you can make it into a nuclear fuel called uranium 233 in an analogous way that we turn uranium into plutonium thorium isn't directly a fuel just like most uranium isn't directly a fuel very

[27:46]

most uranium isn't directly a fuel very tiny sliver of uranium is directly a fuel but all uranium all thorium can be turned into nuclear fuels and can produce the energy we need for billions and billions of years we'll never run out of energy if we utilize these materials now would it also be true we'll never run out of energy with the older technology in the real sense well with the with the way we use uranium today we're only using about 1/2 of 1% of the energy content of the uranium so we use uranium exceptionally and efficiently if we use uranium efficiently than yes we'd never run out but we're not using it efficiently in today's technology ironically that's what that very first reactor was for was to try to use uranium more efficiently but so there are people who think that lutonium could be could last us as long as we need but maybe thorium would be a little easier to have enough is it a really a problem that will run and of the fuel for any of these technologies is there really a problem that will run out well we're using uranium inefficiently

[28:47]

well we're using uranium inefficiently now if we use uranium efficiently then yes it would last forever thorium would last forever we'd never run out the big question would be what's going to be the basis of your nuclear fuel in the future is it gonna be plutonium or is it going to be you know uranium 233 and and there's a couple of technical reasons why it's harder to use uranium and plutonium and a reactor then it is use thorium and that has to do with but whether it's a thermal reactor or a fast reactor if you want to use uranium efficiently it has to be a fast reactor now when I do my 10 seconds of reading on thorium the the pros and the cons in the cons are that we've we have built a number of the existing technologies so we have a good idea how to do that but there there are only startups and sort of developmental people working on thorium including yourself would you say that there's an extra engineering risk for thorium or is it something that in the normal engineering course of things is quite solvable it's quite a look it's

[29:49]

is quite solvable it's quite a look it's very so but I've spent my entire career in technology development I was at NASA my first 10 years of my career doing advanced propulsion development so I've always been working on how to bring good things to life you know how to bring new things out and as I learned about this technology I thought my goodness compared to what it's going to do this is so doable this is so tractable you know I mean there's very few things where you think this could actually power the entire world 4 million billions of years and it's not that hard to develop guys you know we can do it so I mean it's what's what are the obstacles to iterating you know did the normal iteration until you've got something you feel good about what what is what is slowing things down what's what yeah we're exceptionally funding constrained you know everything we've done has been privately funded until very recently when we went our very first do we award but you know the the amount of money that has gone into this since 1974 has been almost zero so you know don't be surprised when things

[30:49]

know don't be surprised when things don't happen when there's no resources to work on them you know originally my understanding is that was it back in decades ago there was a contest between a thorium reactor and more traditional reactor and the traditional reactor one for whatever reason what what's changed since then so there was a point in which thorium was considered and rejected what's changed oh that's happened several times what's happened since I mean the first time was in 1945 right at the very end of World War two you had reactor designers working on the idea of a thorium reactor and they were told by General gross the Manhattan Project you know stop doing that we're focused on weapon material but think about thorium so they quit for a few years then a few years later you know they kind of came back and they tried to pick up the thread again and then again they were told in the early 1950s you know don't go after that we need to focus on things that make weapons-grade materials and so they put it down again only to pick it up later and then in the 70s they were stopped again by saying hey you know this other plutonium

[31:49]

hey you know this other plutonium technology is more mature we're going to put all resources on that you can't have money to work on thorium and they were shut down yet again but in no case where they shut down for solid technical reasons it was always something that has now obsolete like we don't need weapons great materials anymore we haven't been making weapons-grade materials in this country since you know the 80s and and and so that's the away in the rear view mirror in fact we're trying to get blood of weapons-grade materials now not make them but it but it does matter that we have experience with one technology and less experience with other how do we get as much experience or at least generate car you are you building test sites in the United States that's what that was what we'd like to do we're not building at the moment but we'd like to and do you have one and out of the country anywhere no no we don't have anything out of the country other for startups doing stuff like this there are other startups doing molten salt reactors but there's no other startups doing molten salt reactors for the thorium fuel cycle we're the only one and why are the other people not loving it and you and you guys do what

[32:51]

loving it and you and you guys do what what do you see that they don't see well they think they think well they think that what we've been off is too challenging they think that our ambition to have an efficient nuclear fuel cycle that closes all the gaps that you know uses the fuel hi see they think Matt's too hard we don't want to do that so they're designing reactors that are going to use uranium just as inefficiently as we use it today in pressurized water reactors I find that pretty unambitious I find that like well what's the point of doing that so so so we just see things differently what part is ambitious there must be some part of the engineering for thorium that you have some unknowns about so we're taking it we're taking on an entire nuclear fuel cycle in one machine if you see a nuclear reactor today you're actually seeing a very small part of its entire nuclear fuel cycle it's just the part that takes the fuel and it radiates it get some heat and then discharges it there's a whole lot more in the front end in the back end our machine is actually going to take in this entire concept and internalize it

[33:51]

this entire concept and internalize it into one unit so that you'll feed it thorium and out will come out energy and fission products and that'll be it so can can thorium be used at existing power plants is there a way to retrofit them or attack it on they could but it's not it's not efficient you wouldn't be able to get you would even be able to do as well with thorium as you're doing with uranium today with today with the pressurized water technology it's been tried before you know there was the the Indian plant point in New York actually began on a thorium uranium 235 core so other places have tried it but if you're not using its like button diesel in a gas car you know you're gonna go wow this is terrible fuel look how bad my car is running and you're like no you put it in the wrong kind of car I watch I'm watching the comments and people are getting a little lost in the technology so let's let's see if we you take it up a level to something simpler or simpler and more accessible can you describe the engineering challenge with thorium in a way that the the audience would

[34:52]

way that the the audience would understand in other words is there a specific thing you haven't done yet they need to see if you can do is there is there any way to simplify what is it that you you need to solve with thorium can you simplify that for us I can try think of it like digestion you know we need to build a digestive system for the reactor a chemical processing system inside the reactor that handles the material at different stages moves it from one part to the other and and make sure everything's taken care of all right Lou stop you there have you completely developed that on paper but you need to build it in the real world we have sketched it out on paper I did a report with the Electric Power Research Institute in 2015 where we describe the parameters of that system and how it would work but again that was preliminary there are pieces that we need to do in the real world and this is this this contract that we got with the Department of Energy is to begin working on part of one of those pieces well conjunction with the let me say

[35:53]

well conjunction with the let me say that again cuz I need a specific answer to this on paper is a fully designed no it's not fully designed on paper okay and that's because is that because there are some things that would need to be tested in the real world before you could know to put them into your design yes okay and there's a stuff that could be tested without building the entire plant yes okay so how much funding would it take do you imagine to get let's say just your company how much money would you need to know that you could get to a design this worth building mmm 50 million dollars 50 million and how long to know that we have a design worth building two or three years two or three years and then you'd have to actually build a test site somewhere safe etc to know that you could really scale it up right yes and how long would it take to build the test site even even let's say if you had instantly improved how long gonna take five or six years but it might take five

[36:56]

five or six years but it might take five or six years to get it approved as well wouldn't you say that's possibility yes okay so we're looking at a you know 10 15 year best-case to have a thorium reactor up and running no best case is better than that you're talking more of a median case okay so best case under 10 yeah best-case 7 median 10 pessimistic 15 would you ever be able to build one of these in the United States or do you think it's so hard because of approvals we would just have to find some other country to host this thing no quite the contrary right now we can only build in the United States okay that's good and how would you handle is it true that there's a uranium 233 that's generated by the thorium reaction and you'd have to do something with that would that become a waste product or that's exactly that's the fuel of the thorium reactor uranium 233 is generated

[37:57]

thorium reactor uranium 233 is generated from thorium and that's what fission's and creates the energy and the ideal of the reactor is that all of that uranium 233 is consumed in the system it's not part of the waste so you're sure advantages are well what about proliferation so can somebody turn anything that happens in the thorium reactor can anybody turn that into a weapon with some extra processing well any fissile material can theoretically be turned into a weapon there are three fissile materials uranium-235 plutonium 239 in uranium 233 two of those have been made into operational weapons they tried to use uranium 233 in weapons in fact I wrote my master's thesis about the attempt to do that during the Manhattan Project and they decided not to because of some very realistic problems with it at practical problems it throws off a lot of radiation that makes it difficult to handle ironically

[38:58]

makes it difficult to handle ironically uranium-235 and plutonium 239 throw a very little radiation you can hold them in your hands people have this idea that they're deadly they're really not they're actually quite benign but that was why uranium 233 was rejected as a weapons material now we've had lots and lots and lots of countries that all could have done this over the last 80 years and none of them did not because they're nice people or because they have altruistic motives but because there are very real engineering problems with using uranium 233 for a weapon and those problems sound like they're big enough that maybe if you were a nation-state you could figure it out with enough resources but if you were Isis and you're trying to make a bomb it would be on a reach would that be fair to say it would be absolutely impractical for any terrorists to attempt your any important thing the uranium-233 would be broadcasting its existence to anybody looking for it satellites could look down and go yep it's right there you know you can't do that with plutonium or uranium 235 now I saw one mention of thorium that said

[39:58]

saw one mention of thorium that said that it would be potentially cheaper do you make that claim cheap well then the other older nuclear technologies when you say thorium remember thorium some material it's how are you gonna use it it's like saying diesel is cheaper than gas you know well it depends on what car I'm gonna put it in in the reactor we want to put it in the yes we believe it will be much cheaper but that is not a blanket statement you can't say that across the board for all reactors so you have a design that you think it'll be cheaper independent of the well not independent off but they use this thorium yeah but it's not it needs thorium to be cheaper but how much or how much cheaper are we talking are we talking 10% cheaper or 90% cheaper in the best-case scenario well I like to use an analogy Scott that I think you might appreciate having worked for the phone company you know will you remember when we used to get charged by the minute for things right well we don't get charged by the minute for things now is that because the phone companies are really nice people and decided to give us free stuff it's cuz it's so cheap

[40:58]

us free stuff it's cuz it's so cheap well they've figured out other ways to monetize you actually spend more on your phone now than you did back then but you're happy because you're getting more stuff you know we want to create a nuclear technology analogous to that where electricity is not the primary economic product anymore so we're doing other things well that's part of our that's part of our business plan but we're doing other things so that you know we're not super worried about what the electricity costs in fact the first order it's almost a waste product of our reactor so that's really up ends and economic series people say you know is it cheaper than now and I'm kind of like it's different than now it's not like now all right so there's some other economic benefits beyond electricity which you hope to monetize there are a number of more than one like cancer treatments what are other things that's one of them yeah all right you probably can't tell me all the all the secrets though you'll probably figure most of it out you're pretty clever guy the point I'm trying

[42:02]

pretty clever guy the point I'm trying to make though is it's not today's reactors only monetize electricity that's the only thing they make that they sell to people and so it's all about racing to the bottom on the cost of electricity what if you had different products to monetize what would you do okay all right got it so we all have details in that but I will accept that that's that's a path what is the design you guys are working on is that the one with the the liquid fluoride or no that's right it uses a liquid fluoride salt mixture and and that's lithium fluoride beryllium fluoride that's where the word flyed comes from fluorine lithium beryllium let me give you some some help on the marketing of this idea what I read about this design you see if I'm right there's there's some kind of a liquid fluoride plug then that will melt under certain conditions and that's the

[43:04]

under certain conditions and that's the safety valve am I saying that right can you say that in other words there is there's this idea of a freeze bugs like a drain on a bathtub and the notion being and they tested this back in the 60s the notion being that if all power is lost to the plant that this hot salt will simply melt this plug and the plug is being actively cooled it's being kept frozen intentionally by active cooling systems so that when all power is lost all controls lost you know everything goes dark well those active cooling systems stop and that plug melts and the salt drains out of the reactor into a passively cooled configuration all right let me tell you the marketing problem with that I I will I'm willing to accept that that's an easy to engineer safe thing I'm not not gonna complain about the actual safety of it but when you when I hear it or read about it and I hear wait a minute the thing that is keeping this nuclear plant from blowing up or at least melting down under the worst-case scenario let's say it loses power is that a plug has to melt and as soon as I

[44:06]

that a plug has to melt and as soon as I hear that that sounds low-tech I'm thinking wait a minute a plug has to or do it I think we lost Kirk a plug has to melt that feels like that feels like not technically safe enough even though it probably is so just in terms of the way the public perceives it the requirement that the only way you could protect something bad from happening is that a plug melts just immediately makes me go oh we really have a handle on this because waiting you know if the only safety is something has to melt maybe it's completely safe but it just doesn't feel safe it's got something about that plug melting thing that is more scary than it needs to be just the way it sounds to human beings anyway uh I think we lost Kirk and but I was getting ready to close out that conversation so we've got we've got

[45:07]

conversation so we've got we've got these technologies that are brewing fifty million dollars per startup might give things going so if anybody wants to follow Kirk you could follow him at at Curtis Sorensen ki RK SOR en s a.m. so don't put an O and at the end it's Sen at the end Kirk Sorensen at Kirk Sorensen and you can check out his his Twitter all right I was talking about Project Veritas let's get back to that so I said I became part of the story because James O'Keefe from project Veritas they retweeted part of my periscope and
here's what I wanted to talk about so my first take when I saw the undercover video of the Google so called Google

[46:10]

video of the Google so called Google executives was you know the way she's saying this stuff sounds like it could just be out of context it looks like and cooked by the way if you sign back on thank you very much or the audience appreciated this I could tell by the number of audience members watching because it has stayed very high which is unusual so thank you so much for that the audience appreciated it and so did I anyway the I thought this project Veritas thing was potentially somebody taken out of context it took all of one day for the person in the video to write an article on some blog site in which she said wait for it I was taken in a context it looked like she was taken out of context she said she was taken out of context but she also did not directly refute the way it was interpreted it's one thing to

[47:11]

way it was interpreted it's one thing to say I was taking in a context but the part that was missing was what I meant was but I don't know that that means anything that she didn't go that far because I think what she meant was maybe just simply talking about it again would have just created more of the same problem it's entirely possible probable I would think that Google lawyers executives got involved and told her keep it to the minimum right if a lawyer is talking to you they say don't say anything more than more than the minimum so it looked like she wrote a blog post that a lawyer approved because I think if a real person without a lawyer writes a blog post themselves they explain themselves why would you write a blog post to explain yourself and then leave out the explaining yourself part well it's because a lawyer looked at it and the lawyer probably said look if you try to explain yourself you're just gonna say

[48:12]

explain yourself you're just gonna say more stuff that can be taken out of context it will you know the way you say it will open you up to worse problems so say the minimum what's the minimum you could say I was taken in a context Google would never do such a thing that's what the blog post said I was taking down the context Google would never try to buy us stuff here are the other things you need to know she she pushed back on the idea that she was a top executive so she's she has some job that was fairly important but maybe not a top executives she was the head of Google innovation at the moment but she used to work for Google's trust and safety team and she said that the 2020 presidential election had been top of mind for the team all right does Google's trust and safety team are they the engineers that program the algorithms I don't know I'll bet not

[49:16]

algorithms I don't know I'll bet not I'll bet the trust and safety team are probably mostly non-technical I mean I would imagine they work with the technical people but the only people who know what Google's algorithm is doing are the people who program it am I wrong there is literally nobody at Google who knows what their algorithms do unless they program them so there and and even the programmers might be only handling a small sliver of the algorithm I don't know that there's one programmer who handles all of the you know the algorithms it seems unlikely it would be a complicated thing I imagine there are lots of Engineers they each have their little piece but here's my point how much does a Google executive know about Google zone algorithm let me tell you that as much as you do have you ever worked at a big company let me tell you about a big company

[50:19]

let me tell you about a big company however many tens of thousands hundreds of thousands people work at Google how many of them executive or non-executive how many of them actually know what the algorithm is doing almost none I'm not entirely sure there is even one Google employee who knows what the algorithm does there are lots of people who know things about the algorithm and they're probably people know more about it than other people but I don't know that there's anybody who can actually penetrate all of the complexity of it knows all the inputs and knows how those inputs will flow through it and there was what the outputs will be they know they know that they can suggest things and they know they could borrow people and they know they can do some things but probably nobody knows the details completely people know parts of them so the first thing I'd say about this in undercover video is they could have been an undercover video of you or me because we probably don't know any more about

[51:21]

we probably don't know any more about Google's inner workings than this executive did I don't think she was programming things I think she said something like there was a Trump situation whatever that means and and it's top of mind for Google to create an unbiased and fair platform do you do you basically that's what anybody would say so I don't think that this was the smoking gun that people imagined it to be I think that this is somebody who didn't know much more than you or I know and they were saying some generic things about Google it's not the person who's programming the the algorithm all right and also not the person who is ordering the people to program the algorithm so I don't think she was even in the right chain of of knowledge to tell us anything Charlie Worzel who's in New York Times opinion writer said this about the video

[52:21]

opinion writer said this about the video he tweeted he said so it seems to me that this in quote investigation about Google's bias is really just a bunch of non-technical people mixing up algorithmic bias with political bias am I wrong could one of you smart technologists who follow me explain now that's a pretty good take it's a pretty good take because it was exactly what I thought when I first thought I first saw it I thought I know it feels like feels like she's talking about the fact that the algorithm just can naturally bias things whether you like it or not and they don't want to do that because why would you introduce bias for no reason and let the algorithm do it on its own so that there was top of mind to create something that was fair which is probably which is problem right because fair is subjective but here was my take so let me say it again what Charlie Worzel said he said it looks like he

[53:22]

Worzel said he said it looks like he said it looked to him like it was maybe non-technical people us mixing up algorithmic bias which is just something that happens because the algorithm it's nobody's intention versus political bias which would be somebody's intention and I said my take is an algorithmic bias and political bias are only different in the short run and that we're already in the long run in other words in the short run you could certainly have the algorithm doing things you didn't quite intend and your intentions about politics could be separate and over here in the long run the people who have intentions about politics will get a handle on what the algorithm does and they will control it better if the people who have political bias which is every human being every human being is political bias if those human beings get more control over the thing that didn't have any intentions it was just doing

[54:22]

have any intentions it was just doing its stuff the thing that was just doing its stuff before will acquire the attempt the intentions of the good people who thought they were fixing it and I think most of the times they actually are trying to make the world a better place it's just that it has a free-speech kind of implications so I would sort of agree with that except that I would say that's only the short-run that the algorithm can do its own thing and separately people can have their own biases in the long run those biases start guiding and adjusting and modifying the algorithm until it is political bias which the people who have that bias would describe as trying to make things more fair what is subjective what you think is more fair isn't gonna be what I think is more fair and you can never solve that problem which is why there needs to be some kind of judge or

[55:23]

there needs to be some kind of judge or court to look at the algorithms and and and have some at least people who are paid to be objective try to figure out if we're being compatible with our ideals of free speech and those were oh so so Bernie Sanders playing about student debt let's talk about that for a second
student debt so Bernie floated the idea of taxing Wall Street transactions you know the big money buying and selling of financial assets to tax that some tiny little bit far less than 1% per transaction and it would create so much money that it would make all college free and it would pay off everybody's loans now my first take on that was huh I'd like to hear what the economists say I needed to like think about it a little bit more but it turns out I don't need to hear what the economists say about it

[56:25]

to hear what the economists say about it because I've got this thing called Twitter and I found out what Twitter thinks about it well it turns out that fairness is subjective as anybody told you about that and that if you pay off all the loans of these people who have loans all the people who paid off their own loan want to start a revolution I didn't quite see that coming since I've never had a student loan so I was I had a little blind spot in my first impression my first impression was huh wouldn't it be great to have free education that could be good for everybody right on a concept level free education is amazing and if you can find a way to pay for it with just the top 1% and their financial transactions they're not even going to notice the difference in fact they might make a profit from it because a more educated population is good for the economy and the people at the top who paid for it in the first place would be the beneficiaries they would they would gain

[57:26]

beneficiaries they would they would gain more for a good economy than somebody who just got a job but there is literally no way to implement this plan it is completely divorced from how humans work the humans in this country who have paid for their own college no way in hell are they going to let the other people get a free pass especially the people who just finished paying off their their student loans recently now I personally have paid off some student loans for loved ones and I can tell you I would certainly question why I had to pay a very large amount of money to pay off a student loan it wasn't mine and other people don't that's a pretty good pretty good problem and then other people were saying well what about the people who worked all through college so they didn't have to have a student loan such as me I worked all through college

[58:28]

such as me I worked all through college so I didn't have to have a student loan should I get reimbursed should I be reimbursed for all that work I did so there what about the people who went to expensive colleges when they didn't need to should we should we rescue them from their bad decision what about the people who took out tons of loans instead of getting a corporate job and then having you or your business pay for it while you go to school at night or something what about that do you know how I paid for my do you know how he paid for my MBA at Berkeley Berkeley's pretty expensive do you know I paid for that MBA I work two full-time and went to school at night and I would get up at like 4:00 in the morning so that I could do stuff and get yet to work and then I would be done at 10:00 or 11:00 at night by the time I got home I would fall in bed for five hours and wake up and do it again I had three years of absolutely hell so that I

[59:28]

years of absolutely hell so that I wouldn't have a student loan what dude and and so people who made all the wrong decisions and did not work twice as hard I'm gonna give them my money I'm gonna reward them for not working twice as hard I don't think so i doesn't sound so good anymore all right so the point is that Bernie's plan sounds great on paper but like many of the plans that commander Bernie completely impractical I hope somebody can come up with some way to slice this thing into something practical but I don't think so now the funniest story is that Elizabeth Warren has loaded the idea of gay reparations you almost can't say that you almost can't say gay reparations without laughing because I don't know why it's just those two words just don't go together for some reason now the idea is and by the way the idea is solid it's impractical but it's solid the idea is

[1:00:31]

impractical but it's solid the idea is that gay folks who could not get married had to file as individuals instead of file as married couples and therefore they stay paid more money than they needed to because the government was discriminating against them and now that they can get married they can they can file jointly and they would save money but they need to be repaid for all the money they overpaid
sorry there's probably a few more of those coming so what I love about this story is that it makes it makes slavery reparations basically impossible for the same reason that the Bernie plan can't work yes sounds good on paper wouldn't when she makes that argument I say that's a completely logical argument gay people paid more taxes than they needed

[1:01:33]

people paid more taxes than they needed to because the government was discriminating against them that's just true but you know what else is unfair turns out that tall people make more money than short people is that fair is it fair that I live in the country where at my height I am discriminated against all the time and it almost certainly influenced my income over my life shouldn't I get some reparations for being short shouldn't I wouldn't that be fair well no not really but the point is everybody has a reason that they need some reparations there's nobody who doesn't have an argument for reparations yeah everybody has an argument for reparations which means nobody can get any that's why I say that if if the african-american community and and the people have good intentions were working on slavery reparations if they're smart

[1:02:37]

on slavery reparations if they're smart and clever what they will do is they'll come up with a plan that helps everybody who's in the same situation so if the african-american reparation plan is a general plan that helps people in the lower economic situation and it helps them all white or black or whatever they are then I think that would be not only a healing situation because because the country would have listened to their concerns taken them seriously found the best action that they could to address them it would be the healthiest thing that this country ever saw as long as the african-american community is reasonable and so far it looks like that's where they're having it looks like they're heading towards something that is not specific to african-americans because there's no way you could figure out who really is a descendant of slaves and who really was the people who should be paying there's there's no practical way to do it unless you help everybody in

[1:03:40]

to do it unless you help everybody in that situation if the african-american community is does something that helps everybody in that situation and maybe help some of the most because they're more of them in this situation it would be one of the greatest things that any community ever did for this country you could say that the african-american community would be the most productive most helpful most morally fit a group in the country they would be contributing in a way that would be amazing and I think that I would respect that tremendously so they do have a path to something that's just purely good and really amazing if they do it right but we'll see if they can do it right all right that's all I got for now and I will talk to you later