BLOGMay 18, 2017

End of Medical Dark Ages: Entrepreneur Predicts When We'll Have Cancer Under Control

Serial entrepreneur, historian and dreamer Jay Walker joined Glenn on radio Wednesday for an epic conversation about the future of America.

"If you are a dreamer and a doer, this is going to be a fantastic hour. I have wanted to sit down with this guy for quite some time," Glenn said Wednesday on radio.

Walker --- labeled the Edison of his age by Forbes in 1999 --- is a modern-day Renaissance man. While his day job involves creating cutting-edge companies like Priceline.com and Upside.com that provide a patented, buyer-driven experience, his obsession is finding the connectedness . . . in everything. The breakthroughs he sees coming in the fields of health and medicine are of particular interest.

"For 3 billion years, life on the planet has followed a very simple system," Walker said. "We all share the same DNA --- a tree, a dog, a human. We have so much in common. For the first time in human history, in the history of the world, humans have control of the operating code. We are now manipulating the DNA, which means, for the first time, it's as if we had the software of life."

Walker explained how scientists are at the cusp of operating down to the instructional layer, which creates the proteins that create the tissues, systems and organs of the body.

"It's almost as if we're inventing printing, reading, writing and thinking all at the same time in forms of medicine," Walker said.

In effect, we're living in an extraordinary time in the history of the world.

"We're at the end of the medical Dark Ages," Glenn offered.

So passionate is Walker about the field of medicine he helped launch TEDMED, an independent health and medicine edition of the world-famous TED conference.

"How far do you think we are away from curing the majority of cancer?" Glenn asked.

According to Walker, it's not so much curing cancer that's around the corner, but being able to manage it as a livable disease like AIDS.

"How far do you think we are away from that?" Glenn asked.

"If you're saying leukemias and blood cancers, we're probably five years, maybe 10," Walker said.

"Holy cow," Glenn responded.

Walker's belief in the systematic, connectedness of everything even applies to his remarkable library which holds 25,000 books.

"People come to my library and they say, 'How are the books organized, Jay? How do you organize the books? You have 25,000 books. Is there a card catalog?' I say, 'Absolutely not. They're organized randomly by height,'" Walker laughed.

The library, Walker says, is one of imagination.

"They were all written by humans. They're all connected. You figure out why this is connected to that. The act of imagining is the essential act of creation. Nothing happens if you don't imagine it, whether it's who you're going to marry, the children you want to have, the kind of country you want to live in, the kind of job you want to have. It's all about your imagination. Everything happens here first. It happens in your head."

Enjoy the complimentary clip or listen to this segment for details.

GLENN: I first talked to Jay Walker -- I've known about him for a long, long time. But I first met Jay Walker on the phone -- this is the first time we've actually sat in the same room together.

And immediately, I felt connected to him and the way he thinks. He's an optimist. He sees a massive change on the horizon. But he knows it doesn't have to be bad. It probably is going to be a little rough getting there. But it doesn't have to be bad. And he sees the future unlike most people do. And he sees it through the eyes of history, which is so wickedly important. Just full disclosure, he is the guy who started upside.com which is an advertiser on this program. But I do want to ask him one question on something he told me about Upside when we first spoke. But this is not an advertisement. We're not even going to talk about that. You need to meet this man.

He's just started something called Ted MD, which is TED talks -- no, I'm sorry. Med Ted. Sorry. Med Ted. Yeah, TEDMED.

Jeez, how many times am I going to get this wrong?

STU: You only asked him three times before you came on the air.

GLENN: I know. I know. What am I thinking?

So he started this, and I want to start here. I hate to bring it to a cheesy TV show, but I've been watching a show -- and now I can't even remember the name of it. It is --

JEFFY: Pure Genius, which was just cancelled.

GLENN: Pure Genius. Was it cancelled?

JEFFY: Yes.

GLENN: Oh, crap. That was such an optimistic show.

JEFFY: I know. I know.

GLENN: Have you seen that?

JAY: I have not.

GLENN: Okay. So the premise is a guy who is a billionaire, you know, a guy like you . . . just a serial entrepreneur, tech guy. He's in Silicon Valley. He's like, I'm going to start a hospital. And it shows --

JAY: Oh, boy. You'd be better starting a government.

GLENN: But it shows all the -- it takes all the red tape out and shows all the tech that is coming and how optimistic life really looks when you look at what's on the horizon and the breakthroughs we're about to go through.

As you're doing this, what are you seeing for --

JAY: Well, Glenn, the way to think about it for health and medicine, is that for 3 billion years, life on the planet has followed a very simple system. It's very simple. There's one -- you know, there's DNA. We have a common ancestor. And it's been evolving for 3 billion years, give or take depending on your beliefs. And I'm not picking on anybody's beliefs.

But the fact is, we all share the same DNA --- a tree, a dog, a human. We have so much in common. For the first time in human history, in the history of the world, humans have control of the operating code. We are now manipulating the DNA. Which means, for the first time, it's as if we had the software of life. That's never happened in history before.

It means for the first time, we're going to be able to operate down at the instruction layer, which creates the proteins, which then creates the tissues and the systems and the organs of the body. So we're right at the cusp.

It's almost as if we're inventing printing, reading, writing, and thinking all at the same time in forms of medicine. And so we are living at the beginning of an extraordinary time in the history of the world.

GLENN: We're at the end of the medical Dark Ages.

JAY: Exactly. It's as if we had just gotten the microscope for the first time, and we saw there was a tiny world that nobody knew existed. In 1665, Hook looks through his microscope, and he sees that the fly is composed of thousands of little eyes. And he says, "What is this micro world? What are these little things swimming around?"

And he can't even see bacteria. He can't even see the smallest things. And yet, an entirely new world opens up. Galileo looks into the heavens and sees that there are planets, but also sees that there are moons around Saturn and Jupiter. And suddenly, the notion that the earth is in the center of the universe drops away. The telescope and the microscope were the great changes of the 17th century. And now we're in the 21st century, and we're now seeing for the first time the actual code that brings things to life.

GLENN: We're seeing things -- Ray Kurzweil, I've talked to several times. I am --

JAY: The singularity, right? Ray talks about, we're about to hit this point at which everything breaks free and goes on an extraordinary compounding effect, and whether or not you agree or disagree with Ray, there is no question if you back up and you look at where we are in history, in medicine and health, we are about to exit the Dark Ages.

GLENN: So he said it's as if -- he said, the human body should last a lot longer than it does. It shouldn't wear out. He said, it's as if there's a switch somewhere that's just been turned off. And he said, we just have to find that switch. Are you -- when you look at the DNA --

JAY: Yeah, I wouldn't agree with Ray on that, but I understand where he's coming from.

The human body isn't a thing. The human body is a system. Think of the Amazon rain forest. It's composed of enormous different things. It's got trees and insects. It's got birds. It's got animals. It's got leaves. It's got photosynthesis. It's got fungi.

It's got all these things, and we call it the Amazon. It's constantly changing. You are an Amazon rain forest. You have trillions of --

GLENN: I think that's a fat joke --

JEFFY: It certainly was a fat joke to me.

JAY: So we don't switch on or off the Amazon rain forest. No, the Amazon rain forest isn't going away, despite, you know, our efforts to cut it down for lumber or to grow grass. But that being said, it's about a system.

What we're learning is how all the different systems of the body, including many that are not even human, we're learning about the microbiome. These are bacteria that we need to survive in our guts and all throughout us, for which without them, we can't make it.

GLENN: How far do you think we are away from curing the majority of cancer?

JAY: I think we're far from curing the majority. But we're not far from turning a significant number of cancers into a manageable, livable disease, like we did with AIDS.

We figured out not how to cure AIDs, but how to slow it down so you could live with the rest of your life with it, much like all men have prostate cancer. We just don't die of it.

But literally, 100 percent of men, if you do an autopsy at age 75, are going to have prostate cancer. They simply are not going to die from it.

Cancer is essentially a natural byproduct of having multicellular organisms. Because in the process of duplicating at the cellular level, you're going to have some mistakes randomly, and some of those mistakes are going to be so damned good at not being killed, that they're going to reproduce in a way that's bad for the organism as a whole, but good for the cell. So we don't eliminate cancer. We eventually figure out how to manage with it.

GLENN: How far do you think we are away from that?

JAY: If you say 50 percent of -- if you're saying leukemias and blood cancers, we're probably five years, maybe ten.

GLENN: Holy cow.

JAY: If you're saying soft tissue cancers, more like ten to 20. But a lot of it depends on whether or not we get better at finding them sooner. Today, we cannot detect cancer until it's about seven years old. So when somebody comes from a doctor and they say, "I've been diagnosed with cancer," you've had it for seven years. We can't see less than 100 million cells, which is less than the tiny point of a pin, 100 million cancer cells.

So cancer is a system disease of which we have many in our bodies, most of which will never come to the point where they hurt us. Cancer isn't like an infection where it's binary, you have it or you don't. Cancer is a symptom of the system. And the system learns to cope with it for most of your life.

GLENN: What's the most amazing thing you seen on the horizon in medical tech?

JAY: The most amazing thing is probably the mapping of the human protyle. So we call all the -- the proteins are the workhouses of the body --

PAT: That's what I was going to say.

JAY: They're the things that do all the work in your body. Your DNA codes for proteins. Proteins are the worker bees of the body at the simplest level. We really have never mapped them all. And it turns out most of the diseases, if not nearly all of them are dysfunctions of protein operations. Proteins are very complicated organisms. They're very, very small, but they're very complicated. We are now at the cusp of mapping them all.

And forget about mapping the human genome, which is great. It's the protium where all the action is at, and we're right about to map it.

GLENN: What will that change?

JAY: Well, it will allow us, for the first time, to understand what's really going on with disease. Up to now, we've actually not understood what's really going on.

GLENN: What does that mean?

JAY: Well, it means that the proteins are malfunctioning. When you have a disease --

GLENN: Hang on just a second. I just want to -- you know you're in the room with someone who is smart when you're -- I'm now in three levels deep of asking what the hell does that mean, and really --

JAY: I'm trying -- I'm trying to keep it broad for the audience. I'm not an MD or a PhD. I'm really not a doctor. I just talk to them all day.

GLENN: No, it's amazing. Right.

JAY: And, by the way, that's my spare time job because my main job is building a great company in Upside. So ironically, we're off on the side here.

But the -- basically, what it means is when we learn how proteins behave badly, we will recognize that your arthritis may be very similar to the fact that you have a sleep apnea, that they are the same proteins, just misbehaving.

There is a map of all the proteins.

GLENN: Wow.

JAY: And once we start to look at where the proteins are behaving badly, we now have the tools to finally figure out what the hell is going on with these diseases. We don't know anything about Alzheimer's. So much of that is a protein --

GLENN: So that's why sometimes you'll go in and things are absolutely not connected. Doctors will tell you, that's not connected. Well, but they're all happening at the same time.

JAY: Right.

GLENN: And, yeah, I know they're not connected. But I've never had these before, and now they're all happening.

JAY: Everything is connected. Okay? So anybody who tells you something isn't connected -- you don't go into the Amazon rain forest and say, well, the fact that the toads are dying is unconnected to the blight on the trees. No, everything is connected. The question is, at what level?

GLENN: Right.

JAY: Does it have a common cause? Or is it the result of common external factors? We're learning all that.

GLENN: You know what I'm amazed, talking to people like you, A, I feel really average. That's being very kind.

JAY: This isn't your area of expertise, in all fairness.

GLENN: I know. But, still, this is -- this is not your job.

JAY: It's not my day job.

GLENN: And the people I meet like you, have they always been around? Because I look through history -- and you'll see the people like Tesla and Edison. You'll see these people who are really quite bright in a million different things. We used to call them renaissance men.

JAY: Yeah.

GLENN: But there is something about this new group of entrepreneurs that they are -- Jon Huntsman Sr. is a friend of mine and started the Huntsman Cancer Center.

JAY: Yeah.

GLENN: And he said to me -- I asked him, teach me how to be charitable. I've been poor my whole life. I don't know how to be charitable.

JAY: It's an art. You have to learn how to do it.

GLENN: Yes. And he said, first lesson, you have to care about everything. Not just -- you have to care about everything.

And that kind of goes to --

JAY: It's very American. So this is a nation of insatiable curiosity. It's always been that way. It's because we've had the West. We were founded by a group of people who were fleeing somewhere else, with the handful of exceptions of the people who were here, right?

We've all come from somewhere else. We've all left a world behind, in order to come and build a new world in America. Nobody even knew it existed until 1500.

So the beauty of the American spirit is it's a spirit of insatiable curiosity. That's why we're a nation of tinkerers, a nation of inventors, a nation that's always trying to change. We don't look back as a nation. It's a weakness and a strength both at the same time.

But the fact is, this is -- the country -- America looks forward. People like that are insatiably curious about everything. And you find whether it's John Muir or Thomas Edison, these people recognized that at the deepest level, it's all connected.

So I have a great library in the history of human imagination. About 25,000 books.

GLENN: Love this.

JAY: Right? Now, it's a library about imagination. People come to my library. And they say, "How are the books organized, Jay? How do you organize the books? You have 25,000 books. Is there a card catalog?"

I say absolutely not. They're organized randomly by height. And he goes, "You have a library of 25,000 books organized randomly?" I said, "Yes. It's about imagination. You connect them. They were all written by humans. They're all connected. You figure out why this is connected to that."

The act of imagining is the essential act of creation. Nothing happens if you don't imagine it, whether it's who you're going to marry, the children you want to have, the kind of country you want to live in, the kind of job you want to have. It's all about your imagination -- everything happens here first. It happens in your head.

GLENN: We're having a great debate now between the legal and business side and the creative side of this company, of what -- who is the creative? And I keep saying, everyone is.

JAY: We all work for the customer. We all work for the customer.

GLENN: It's not even that, I am, fill in the blank. I am happy or I am sad. What are you going to create at the basic level? And everyone has the same power in a different way. Just, what are you creating?

JAY: Yeah. And we've taught, unfortunately, in so many ways, we live in a society of specialists. We've taught, specialize. Focus on one field. Do the best. Your economic result will be highest if you specialize.

And that's true. But it's generalists who integrate completely, unexpectedly. When you look at Steve Jobs and his life, you see a generalist. Not a specialist. You see a guy who was happy to go to India, happy to learn about type fonts, happy to understand the aesthetics of design. And yet, he was a technologist. Why? Because, really, great leaps forward are made by people who integrate from multiple fields. And that's why we call them polymaths, when they happen to be geniuses. Leonardo was a polymath. He was a genius in five fields. That allowed him to be a bigger genius in any one of them. And we see this throughout history.

GLENN: We're going to run out of time so fast. Jay Walker, a serial entrepreneur. A founder -- cofounder of Priceline. And many other things -- 900 patents. We'll continue our conversation with him in just a second.

[break]

GLENN: Let's talk a little bit about the -- the future and what you're seeing in things like Priceline and Upside.

JAY: So one of the great futures is we're living in this digital world, right? And everybody is saying, look at all this data. Okay. What does that mean to me? What does that mean to a person sitting out in the audience, and just listening and saying, okay. That's nice. The world is filled with data.

Here's one of the things it means. It means your flexibility, which right now you don't get paid for, you're going to start getting paid for.

Look, when you're walking down the supermarket aisle and you see an item on sale, next to one that isn't on sale, you can be flexible and say, I'm going to buy the brand that's on sale today because I normally buy that brand.

But that's just a small case. What happens every time you're shopping online and somebody says, "Hey, are you willing to be a little flexible? I'll give you $50, if you do this instead of that." I'll give you $90 if you do this instead of that."

Imagine a smart piece of software that offers you options that gives you personally more money for being flexible. And, by the way, gives your boss something too.

So the key idea behind one of the things I'm working on is, how do you turn flexibility into an asset? How do you turn it into something where I have my phone -- hey, look, I want to go to New York on a trip. But if I leave 15 minutes earlier, you'll give me $50. If I leave -- if I go into a different airport, you'll give me $100. If I stay at a hotel across the street, that's worth $200 to me.

I can't find all those choices. There's too many choices. But software can.

The beauty of the world we're living in, with this new big data software, is it can evaluate tens of thousands of choices for you. Show you just a few that makes sense.

GLENN: So when we come back -- can you talk a little bit about that? Because you've demonstrated that in Upside. And that's -- I got to that with you because I said, okay. What's the catch? And you explained it to me. And I'm like, holy cow, that's brilliant.

And you said to me, now, imagine that with everything.

So let's talk about that. And also, I want to talk about the -- the world that is going out and examining all these things, but then putting us into little teeny boxes, where we don't see the big picture anymore.

RADIO

Is THIS why Trump sent CIA and B-52 bombers to Venezuela?!

President Trump is cracking down even harder on Venezuelan cartels. He has bombed boats carrying drugs, flown B-52 bombers off Venezuela's coast, and just recently authorized covert CIA operations in Venezuela. So, why so much focus on Venezuela? Glenn and Stu discuss their theories, including Maduro's mysterious island with connections to Iran and Hezbollah...

Transcript

Below is a rush transcript that may contain errors

GLENN: How do you feel about this kind of flying under the radar. We have B2 bombers flying over Venezuela. We're blowing boats out of the water.

STU: You know, how under the radar is it when we're blowing up boats in the international waters?

GLENN: Well, it's not under the radar. It's like, nobody is really talking about it.

STU: It doesn't seem like the highest priority, I will say.

And usually, when we're in the middle of what seems to be a conflict. By the way, the only way we would be able to do this, legally. Is by basically saying, we are in some sort of conflict with them. Right?

Like, we have to -- Andy McCarthy had a long write up about this, a read about a couple weeks ago. When it comes down to justifying a strike like this. We have to be able to sort of say, we're in some sort of conflict. You don't just do that typically. Now, the question, of course, the --

GLENN: The War on Drugs.

STU: Right. He broke it down. It might be worth explaining this at some point.

GLENN: War on terror. Yeah, yeah.

STU: But he's concerned about what's the process to get to the decision. Not, of course, whether we want drug dealers here. Nobody wants that. But there is a legal process that has to happen. And at his seem like it also has to escalate beyond just the cartel situation. Remember too, Trump's first term.

GLENN: Tried to get Maduro out.

STU: Very clearly. The Peace Prize winner, right? Someone from Venezuela, who dedicated to Donald Trump, knowing that Trump has fought really hard for the people of Venezuela, whether you agree with what he's doing or not. He does really care about the situation.

GLENN: He also knows something.

And, you know, I'm -- I'm -- I'm not surprised, the press isn't talking about Margarita Island, but I think that's one of the main reasons why he's --

STU: You're talking about Margaritaville?

GLENN: No Margarita Island. It's just off the coast of Venezuela. It's run by Maduro.

STU: Jimmy Buffett.

GLENN: No. Jimmy Buffett has nothing to do with it. Not involved at all. The Iranians have a lot to do with it. It's a Hezbollah-Hamas training island. And Maduro has been sending Venezuelans and gangs to that island, just off that coast, to train for terrorist activities.

They train there, and then they fly over to Iran, to finish their training. They come back to Venezuela, and then they're unleashed, wherever Maduro wants them unleashed.

So there is actually a terrorist camp that is part of this. And we have been talking about it, you know, on my show. Television. I don't even know.

Five years. Six years. We found this out. And kind of been wondering, why are we not going after this?

Why -- why are we not at least talking about this terror island?

You're looking it up right now, aren't you?

STU: Yeah. Looking at it, just how, first of all, very close to the coast. But you look at the islands that are around it are massive vacation destinations, like Aruba.

GLENN: That's not.

STU: What is that?

GLENN: Margaret Island is not a vacation destination.

STU: No, that's what I'm saying. It's fascinating. Like, you book a trip to Barbados, and you're, what? A couple hundred miles away from a terrorist island.

GLENN: A terrorist island. Yeah. Did you even know that?

STU: I didn't.

GLENN: That's Hamas, Hezbollah, and Iran --

STU: Hmm.

GLENN: -- in bed with Maduro.

And I'm convinced that this is one of the main things that he's going for. I mean, yes. He is -- I mean, this is Tren de Aragua. Or whatever the hell that thing is. That -- that's part of this.

The unleashing of the prisons. That's also part of this. I mean, this is Maduro trying to unleash along with the Iranians, unleash chaos on our streets.

And I don't know why we don't talk about it. Because I think that's a better case, that's a cigar boat that has drugs in it.

You know.

STU: Yeah. I mean, that seems like it. How -- what's your feeling on the drug boat thing?

Have you spent a lot of time thinking this one out?

And isn't it interesting --

GLENN: I know as an American, I should. I haven't.

STU: It's kind of -- well, it's sort of --

GLENN: That's what I mean flying under the radar.

STU: It's sort of commentary of what you're just saying. It has flown under the radar for a lot of people. Mainly because I think we all recognize there's a real problem with obviously, not just illegal immigration. We always summarize it as illegal immigration. These are people oftentimes that are criminals, drug dealers. Gang members that are coming across the border and committing --

GLENN: Terrorists. Terrorists.

STU: Yeah. It's not just the mom who is trying to get a job here, that's better for her children. That's a separate economic issue associated with that.

But when you talk about drugs coming in. First of all, this is something Trump has been very clear about. Does not want this going on.

And I think we all -- the ends are there. For sure.

The means, I guess are the question. And, you know, what's interesting about this is, you feel like, it's all about a message being sent.

Right?

There's no reason why in theory, we could be the not just stopped these vessels. You know what I mean?

We could pull. We could get the Coast Guard over there. We could get the Navy.

There's all sorts of different things we could do to stop these boats. We're blowing it up, and telling everybody about it, for a reason. And I think quite clearly, this has caused a maritime decrease in traffic, if you will.

From Venezuela. To here.

GLENN: Oh, yeah.

STU: This is seemingly working quite well.

The question is, process-wise, is it aligning with what we should be doing?

GLENN: Here's my guess.

Because you know how much Trump hates war. He hates war.

He'll use military force.

But he likes to use quick force. And getting things done.

And he likes overwhelming torso.

STU: And public.

GLENN: Yeah. He likes -- he's sending a message. Not just to Venezuela. He's sending it to the whole world.

And after this last week, where he has walked around like the victor of the world. And all of the other nations coming to him. And bowing knee. And going, okay.

Yeah. Thank you. We're good. We're good.

He is sending a message to three countries, I think.

He's sending a message to Iran. Which is tied right directly to Russia.

And also Venezuela. Which is also tied to China! And Iran.

STU: Hmm.

GLENN: And I think -- I think he's -- I think he wants this week, especially to be a week that Maduro goes, "You know, things might be changing. I don't know if this is the right" -- and I think he's just using very strong images and power.

STU: Hmm.

GLENN: He's using it the right way, to say, back off, buddy. Don't do it right now.

And also, I don't like this. Sending the CIA in.

I just don't trust the CIA in anything anymore.

STU: That's a new development, as of the last 24 hours, that we found out about it. Can you explain that? What are we doing there?

GLENN: Don't really know. Don't really know. Trying to go after the drug lords is what we're saying, but this is also what we kind of do with regime change, you know.

STU: And we've attempted literal regime change with this country. And we've not --

GLENN: Correct. He's a bad guy.

STU: Oh, yeah.

GLENN: He is part of -- he is a drug lord. Maduro was this bus driver. He's now the head of the drug crime syndicate called the sun or something like that. So he's actually a drug lord himself now. So he's not the sweet little bus driver he used to be.

STU: Moving on up.

GLENN: Moving on up. And making friends with all of the wrong people. At least on our hemisphere.

STU: I will say this. If you were a Venezuelan citizen, would you take a boat outside of your territorial waters for --

GLENN: I wouldn't put a boat in my bathtub.

STU: Yeah. They -- they -- they really need to come up with a new way to get their drugstores here.

I think that's probably been a big focus of these networks now.

Because it's difficult to do by land.

GLENN: This is -- this is kind of what I expected him to do in Mexico.

And that's -- that might be another thing.

If he's -- if he's going after the drug lords. If you start to see these trucking lords just show up dead. He's sending that message to Mexico. You know, I'll do it. I'll do it.

You're not safe wherever you are. And it might have been easier for him to do it in Venezuela. Or so he thinks. Than in Mexico.

And so he's sending that message. Because the drug lords in Mexico are sending big messages to him.

STU: Yeah. I mean, they're putting bounties on ICE members.

GLENN: Oh, yeah. Up to $50,000. Yeah. You kill a certain rank of ICE or politician. And they'll give you 50 grand.

I mean, this is the wild west. When it comes to these -- these drug runners and these cartels. It's become the Wild West. And I think that -- I think that play plays a role.

RADIO

Is a Manhattan-sized ALIEN SHIP hurtling towards Earth?!

A mysterious object about the size of Manhattan is hurtling through our solar system. Is this object, called 3I/ATLAS, an alien spacecraft or naturally occurring comet? Harvard University professor Avi Loeb joins Glenn Beck to explain what’s so weird about this object …

Transcript

Below is a rush transcript that may contain errors

GLENN: Professor Avi Loeb is with us. Avi, how are you, sir?

AVI: Doing great, thanks for having me.

GLENN: It's great to have you on. So can you just please explain, are we just seeing these things more than we ever have, because we have the eyes now in space to see this?

AVI: Yeah. Over the past decade, the astronomers constructed the new survey from the sky. Or for computers. But the motivation for building those -- I thought that Congress gave to NASA and the National Science Foundation, in effect, to survey the sky for any objects that are near earth, that could collide to earth because that poses a risk. And they all pose the challenge of finding all of this bigger than a football field. That may collide with earth.

Near earth objects. And there were two major observatories constructed back, a decade ago.

It was in Hawaii. And there recently, in June 2025.

And a new observatory in Chile was inaugurated called the Reuben Observatory. Founded by the Department of Energy and National Science Foundation. And those allow us to see objects that are the size of a football field and have a complete survey.

And amazingly, in 2017. And objects like that were slagged. And then the astronomers realized, it's actually moving too fast to be bound by gravity by the sun.

So it came from outside the solar system from the sun. It couldn't be around.

So that was the first. It was given the name 'Oumuamua, which means scout in the Hawaiian language.

GLENN: Hold on. Hold on just a second. Because I remember this. And I think I talked to you around this time. Explain what you meant. It was moving too fast.

AVI: Oh. Well, you know, the planets orbit the sun. For example, the earth moves around the sun, at the speed of -- about 30 kilometers per second. You know, which is faster -- it's 300 times faster than the fastest race car we have. I'm talking about 30 kilometers in one second.

That's about 20 miles in one second. That's the speed by which the earth orbits the sun. But imagine boosting the earth and just giving it -- attaching their rockets to it. Once it would reach a speed of about 42 kilometers per second just divided by the square root of two. 1.4 times the current speed that it's moving, it would be able to escape the solar system.

So it just needs a high enough speed to escape from the gravitational potential from the sun. And we know what the speed is. And so if we see objects moving near the earth, at more than 42 kilometers a second, we know they cannot be bound by gravity into the sun. They must have originated somewhere else. And so 'Oumuamua was one of those. And since then, we found two more with telescopes. I actually identified with my students, a fourth one which was found by the US government satellites that are monitoring the earth. That was a meteor that came from interstellar space. But, if anything, the most recent one, was found by a small telescope in Chile. Called the Atlas and again, to identify risks for earth. And that one is -- was different than the 3I/ATLAS.

GLENN: So help me out on this. Because we didn't have these telescopes. This is obviously a relatively new thing that we're doing. How much damage does a football field sized comet or -- or space debris, what would that do?

What was the size of whatever killed the dinosaurs, if that is indeed what happened?

AVI: Right.

GLENN: What is an earth killer size?

AVI: Right. Well, the size of a football field, and objects like that, that collide with earth, can cause regional damage. Much more you know, like older, a thousand times the Hiroshima atomic bomb energy output --

GLENN: Kind of what happened with Russia, back in the turn of the last century?

AVI: Yeah, something -- no, that one was actually much smaller than -- that was a thousand times less massive.

GLENN: Oh, my gosh.

AVI: So, you know, these -- these big ones are really rare.

And that's why I would say, as we continue this discussion. I would mention this nuance.

It's estimated to be, you know, older. The one that killed the dinosaurs. And these are extremely rare. And so question is why are we seeing an interstellar object that is that big, just within the last decade. Coming to your question. The size of the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs was roughly Manhattan Island. Okay? So compare the size of a football field to Manhattan Island. It's a very different scale.

GLENN: Jeez. Yeah.

AVI: So what the Congress wanted NASA to do was identify those that caused just regional damage. Not catastrophe like happened with the dinosaurs. Where there was a nuclear winter.

You know, the earth was covered with dust.

GLENN: Yeah.

AVI: And, you know, 75 percent of all species died. And we owe our existence, because after the dinosaurs died. You know, the more complex animals came along.

And we are one of those species.

GLENN: So you say they're only looking for the small ones.

I'm sure if a big one shows up. You will ring the bell.

AVI: No, that's much easier to see the big ones.

GLENN: Right. And do we have any technology that can move these things out? Or is this just something that -- just another thing on the -- by the way, this could happen. And it's coming our way. And there's really nothing we could do. Is this just a big worry? Or is there things that we could actually do?

AVI: Yes. We can. Because if you catch it early enough, before it comes close to earth. You can nudge it a little bit to the side, and then it will meet the earth.

There are all kinds of proposals for how to do that.

You know, the most aggressive one is to explode the nuclear weapon on it.

GLENN: But wouldn't that break it up, and then we would have all kinds of little meteors coming our way.

AVI: Exactly. That's why it's not a good idea.

The missiles were doing just that. They created. When they were operated, back a decade ago.

You know, they created much more damage, than help, actually. But you can do it in a more intelligent way.

Maybe explode the weapon close to the object. So that it doesn't disintegrate, just a part of it. Then you get the rocket effects from the ablation pushing it. But there are other ways.

Some people suggested painting it on one side. So it reflects more sunlight on one side. Then it's getting nudged a little bit.

You can imagine shepherding it, by the state craft is massive enough.

It shepherds it.

It basically gives it a gravitational nudge.

There are all kinds of methods that were produced. Proposed.

And, by the way, NASA just a year ago, they -- they tried one of these methods with the emission called Dark. Where they collided with an asteroid. To see how much it gets. The result. What happens to it.

And it's quite surprising. Because some of these asteroids were not really rigid.

They're porous. And you get all kinds of dust drawn out of them in ways that they were not anticipated. In any event, the people are thinking about, you know, rocks -- rocks are easy to deal with because in principle, you can tell what their path would be. However, one thing that was never discussed, and the kind of thing I'm trying to advocate we do, is, what if there is some alien technology out there, then you -- you know, if it was designed by intelligence, you won't be able to forecast exactly what it would do. It's just like finding a visitor to your backyard. But they enter through your front door. You have to act immediately. And you have to engage in ways that are much more complicated than dealing with a rock.

GLENN: Okay. So let me -- another thing. Here's something else you can worry about.

So let me -- let me start there.

Because there's some things that I have been reading.

I don't know what's true. I don't know what's not true on this 3I/ATLAS. And I want to break that down, including the Wow! signal. Which I think you had something -- you were there, weren't you for that in '77 or whenever that was?

AVI: Yeah.

GLENN: Okay. So I don't know what's real. What's not real. I don't know who has credibility. You know, we've heard so many things. You know, extraterrestrial technology.

We had, you know, all of the drones in the sky. That everybody was thinking aliens were going to I object invade us for a while. And the world is on age. We're very 1938. '39. War of the worlds territory in America. And I think in the world. We're freaked out about everything.

So tell me about 3I/ATLAS. And why you say, it -- it may have alien technology.

AVI: Right. So let me give you the facts. The whole point about doing science that we can collect evidence, data from instruments.

And we don't need to rely on stories that people tell.

So what are the facts that make it really unusual?

Well, first of all, it's besides.

As I mentioned in the beginning, we expect many more small objects than big objects.

And the previous two interstellar objects. Were roughly hundreds of meters in size.

The first one 'Oumuamua, was a football field, a hundred meters. And this one, I wrote a paper two weeks ago that shows that it's bigger than 5 kilometers. You know, comparable to the size of Manhattan Island.

And that means it's -- it's a million times more massive. If you take solid density, relative to the first one, the 'Oumuamua. And medium-sized. So how can it give a third object? We should have seen millions, 'Oumuamua-like objects before seeing a big one like that.

GLENN: But we didn't have -- wait. Wait.

But we didn't have the technology to see it, right? I mean, these things have been passing us.

AVI: No, no, no. It's easier to see the big one, because they reflect much more sunlight.

So in fact, especially as they shed mass. 'Oumuamua did not shed any mass. There was no gas or abductor on it. We just saw the rare object.

And it was already puzzling because of that. It was pushed away from the sun, based on exterior force. It was there -- it was most likely flat. It had an extreme shape.

GLENN: And it -- it accelerated, right?

It didn't just whip around the sun. It accelerated, which does not naturally happen.

AVI: Yeah. Well, it happens, if the rocket --

GLENN: Correct.

AVI: If it's losing mass in one direction. And getting recoil in the opposite direction.

But there wasn't any mass observed from 'Oumuamua. Nevertheless, what I'm saying, is an object that was that is a million times more massive is much easier to see. When we talk about the -- it being within the distance of the earth from the sun.

And so we could have seen that easily. Many of those small ones before we see a big one.

And then the second one was a comet. Very similar to the size of natural comets we see. And that one is a thousand times less massive than -- than this new one, 3I/ATLAS. So the size is -- it's just surprising that we would see a giant one like that. There is not enough rockets here in interstellar space to supply such a giant one, once per decade to the inner solar system. We expect it once for 10,000 years or something. Anyway, that's the size anomaly. Then there is the fact that the Hubbard Space Telescope observed it.

And not in the image. It displays -- low that is towards the sun. Pointing towards the sun.

Instead of what you usually see for comets, where you see them pointing away from the sun. The reason you see them pointing away from the sun. Is because dust and gas are being pushed by the sunlight. And the solar wind.

GLENN: Yeah. That's what gives it -- the economy the look of a tale.

AVI: Exactly, that's the definition of a comet.

The other experts say, oh, no.

Here's a comet. Because we see the extension of the globe.

But what they didn't realize -- so they were just like seeing an animal in your backyard.

And everyone says, oh, it must be a street cat. Because it has a tail.

But then you look at the photograph of this animal, and you see the tail is coming from its forehead. And you say, well, how is that -- a common street cat does not have a tail coming from its head. So, anyway, the first one, you know, that shows such a thing, and unlike, a regular comet. And then in addition, so these are two anomalies so far. In addition, the -- the trajectory of this object is aligned to within 5 degrees with an ecliptic plane of the planets around the sun. And the chance of that is one in 500. So basically, it comes in the plane where all the planets are moving around the sun. And, you know, that could be by intelligence planning. Because if you wanted to do a reconnaissance mission. You know, coming close to planets. That's the way to do it.

And the previous one came both -- 'Oumuamua and the second one came at a very large angle. So this one came straight. And you ask why. Why would it come in a plane?

And, by the way, all these anomalies. No one who is calling himself or herself a comet expert. They just say it's a comet. But if you ask them, why is that?

They would not have an explanation. Why would they come in a plane? "Oh, it's by chance."

Why is it so big?

"Oh, it's by chance." Why does it have this glow towards the sun rather than away? "Oh, it's something we don't fully understand."

So they would say that, but they would not admit that it could be something else.

Then there's the arrival time of this object.

You know, with it arrived two days, at the special time, because it's very close to Mars, Venus, and Jupiter. And these planets are moving around the sun.

And you have to be at the right time, at the right place in order to come within tens of millions of kilometers within each of them.

So that's another coincidence. That, you know, might indicate fine-tuning. But there is some reason that it's coming so close.

And then --

GLENN: On hang on just a second.

I want to clear some stuff up. And then I want to take a break.

All of these things could be chance, right?

But you're saying now, they're just all --

ERIC: Yeah, but the probability for each of them is very strong.

GLENN: Right. So it's all stacking up.

AVI: You need to multiply -- you need to multiply each likelihood by another, and you get something like one in a million chance.

THE GLENN BECK PODCAST

How to Make Men DANGEROUS Again | The Glenn Beck Podcast | Ep 270

It’s time to make men “dangerous” again. Father and son Matt and Maxim Smith join Glenn to break down their epic alternative to a college education. While most young people descend into debt to prepare for jobs already threatened by the rise of AI, 19-year-old Maxim has spent what would have been his college years becoming an EMT, wrangling horses in Wyoming, sailing the Falkland Islands, earning a pilot's license, learning Muay Thai in Thailand, and more as the first beta tester for “The Preparation,” an adventure designed to make young men “confident, competent, and dangerous.” In a culture that drives young men away from masculinity and toward unlimited pornography and video games, our sons can still become “Renaissance men” by bucking the system of radical leftist-dominated academia and instead becoming financially savvy men of virtue and real-world skill.

Order a copy of “The Preparation: How to Become Confident, Competent, and Dangerous” HERE

RADIO

What Antifa gets wrong about the founding fathers—Glenn breaks it down

Ahead of the second round of “No Kings” protests, Glenn Beck takes on an argument from Antifa defenders: they’re just protesters standing up to tyranny, akin to the Boston Tea Party patriots, who also destroyed property. But Glenn takes a look at history to reveal why Antifa is NOTHING like our founding fathers.

Transcript

Below is a rush transcript that may contain errors

GLENN: So is it enough to say, no kings!

Because that's the big movement from the left. They don't want kings. And they're saying Donald Trump is a king.

Well, what is it you do want?

I'm so tired of being against something. I want to be for something.

So, you know, on my website, I've adopted something, and it's been a logo of mine forever.

And it's -- you know, it's -- it's on my -- you know, shirts and different things. That I have personally, forever.

And it is a skull and -- skull and cross bones. But the -- the -- there's a crown that floats above the head of the skull.

And this comes from colonial days. When they would say, no kings!

But they follow that, with no kings, but Christ.

Meaning, the only king they serve is Christ.

Everybody else, and that's why there's the skull and cross bones

The readers of the country are mortal. They die. They turn to dust.

But the crown of Christ doesn't. So my leader is really Christ. And I will -- I will have somebody lead us on earth.

But I serve Christ.

And I will always recognize, they don't have the power of Christ.

They're not gods.

And so that changed everything in America.

Because kings were considered to be appointed by God.

And that changes everything.

So when you say no kings. What exactly do you mean?

By the way, you get the no kings T-shirt and merch, at GlennBeck.com.

You can shop right now. They're really great.

But it's important to ask, no kings, but what?

Well, they'll tell you a democracy.

But a democracy gives you kings!

It gives you dictators. It gives you authoritarians. We know this. Because that's why the Founders wrote the Declaration of Independence. And the Constitution, the way they did. And these guys, unlike anybody who is around today, these guys studied this forever.

And they were honestly looking for what is the best way we can get people to rule themselves.

And they didn't do it, I mean, the reason why our declaration lasted as long as it did. Is because it starts with almost an apology.

It starts like, look, we owe it to you, the king. We owe it to the people of earth. We owe it to God to say why we want to separate.

That's the way it starts. Unlike Antifa, it doesn't start with a list of demands. Look, we don't understand us.

We've tried to explain this to you. But you really don't hear this. We hold these truths to be self-evident. That all men are created equal.

You don't believe that, as the king. You are more equal. You are appointed by God. But we believe that God gives every man, certain rights. Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. You don't believe that.

So they were explaining what they were trying to create, what is it that they're trying to create?

What is it that you're hearing articulate, that is a better idea than all men are created equal?

What gets us closer to that?

I haven't heard it. I've heard no kings. They don't want kings. And they don't want democracy.

But they never go into, what does that actually mean?

And historically, what happens when you have a democracy? They fail, every single time.

So now, they go out and you have Antifa. Now, let me tell you the difference between our Founders and Antifa.

Because, you know, our kids are being taught that, you know, what happened in the Boston harbor, in 1773 with the Boston Tea Party was the same that Antifa is doing!

So let me tell you that story. Small band of colonialists. They're farmers. They're shopkeepers. They're artisans. And they board three ships under the cover of night. Now, they're not faceless anarchists. They're husbands. They're fathers. They're sons of liberty. And they're not out to burn their neighborhoods. They're not out to burn ships themselves.

What they want to do is make a statement against the king that have refused to listen to them.

And so their protest is very targeted, very deliberate, and very symbolic. They abort the ships, and they actually go to the captain of the ship and say, our argument is not with you. We don't want to hurt the ship. We just want the tea. And he says, look, just let me deliver it on board.

Then you can do whatever you want. And we said, no. You can't. You can't deliver it.

We have to throw it from your ship. Because once it's delivered. Then the taxes. He said, yeah. But then I have to get paid. I have to get paid.

And so how do I get paid? And so they talk to him and he said, okay. If you throw it into the water and it's -- it's an attack, then I can get the insurance money. Right?

They swept up the ship. After they put the tea in. Did you -- have you ever been taught this? They swept up.

They got the permission from the captain, unbeknownst at the time to the king, and they swept up.

And it was non-violent. Completely non-violent. Nobody was hurt, nothing was destroyed, except for the tea.

And they dumped that in. Because the king was saying, you have to pay taxes on it. And they were like, no. We're not paying any more taxes. We don't have a voice at all.

You don't listen to us. You just keep taxing us. So we're not taking your tea. They left. No looting. No torch businesses. No innocent citizens bloodied in the streets.

Property was destroyed, yes, but destruction was purposeful, singular.

Squarely at the political agreements of taxation without representation.

And nobody lost anything, except for the insurance companies.

Okay. Now, fast forward 250 years. And look at what we have on the streets. The streets of Portland and Seattle are ablaze. Minneapolis, they set it on tire.

Store fronts are smashed, in their own communities! Federal courthouses are under siege. Neighborhoods turned into war zones. You have federal troops, that are -- are being attacked.

These are not citizens demanding accountability from a king.

They're saying, no king. He's turning into a king.

But, well, is he? Is he?

Because so far, everything that he's done, he's going through and you're trying to stop at the courts. And when the court overturns it. That's when he goes in.

And he's doing it, exactly the way the Constitution is asking him to do it.

Now, these groups are flying the black flag of Antifa.

They are not dismantling attacks. But the entire American system. The target is not representation. The target is, I want to be more free. The target is, America itself.

They're trying to destroy America itself. Our Founders, so you know, they liked the king. They begged him, please, listen to us.

They didn't want to be divorced from England. In fact, when we won the war, I think it was Hamilton who said, "You should just be a king. And maybe we should just go back to the king, because I think they learned the lesson."

No!

Here's the bright line here. The Boston Tea Party was all about restraint.

It was the language of very last resort, when every petition. Every plea. Every legal pathway, had been slammed shut by parliament.

And Sam Adams himself said, it's the last rational step.

Do you see anything that's happening on the streets of Portland. And can you describe that as rational?

Can you see anything that is happening when they're calling for, I want to see that politicians wife, hold their babies, as they die in her arms. Because they've been shot. Do you think that's rational?

John Adams wrote, it is so bold. So daring. So firm. So intrepid.

So inflexible. It must have important consequences.

They wanted liberty.

But they also wanted order, and justice.

And the rule of law. Antifa, contrast, they don't want any of that. They're not seeking reform. They seek destruction.

Their own manifesto declares it. It's abolish capitalism. Abolish police. Abolish the very republic that the guys in Boston were trying to build.

One side is destroyed. The sons of liberty disguise themselves as mohawk Indians. And they were making the symbolic strike against the British economic tyranny there.

And they were doing it, because they had to be able for the ships purposes and everything else, they had to be able to say, it wasn't -- it wasn't this. It was, you know, Native Americans, et cetera, et cetera.

But everybody knew it was the Americans. They knew it was the sons of liberty. Antifa is hiding behind masks. And these masks are to inflict terror on you.

To sew chaos. They target small business owners. People have to beg, don't burn my building down.

Ordinary Americans who have nothing to do with their grievance. If you get on to their side. Quote, their sidewalks. Do you think the Founders ever said that these were their sidewalks?

And what's the result? The Tea Party led to a constitutional republic. Okay? It was designed with checks and balances. Designed for ordered liberty. Designed to protect the individual and their rights.

It wasn't perfect. But what happens when you have Antifa? What does that leave behind?

Shattered glass. Boarded up windows.

Billions in damage. Fear, chaos.

We're living in a point where we are really lucky to be alive.

We're really, truly lucky to be alive.

Because we're being tested on, who are you really?

I've thought about this for a long, long time.

My dad grew up in a relatively good place.

You know, he was -- it was at the end of World War II.

He saw the moon shot.

He saw all the great times of America. Getting stronger and stronger.

Then he saw bad times. And good times again. But generally, with an exception with the rough time of the '60s, he wasn't pushed up against the wall. He group in, you know, Seattle. We didn't have the race riots or anything else.

And so he wasn't really pushed up against the wall ever, in his life. And I wonder, I wondered who he would have been, had he been pushed up against the wall. I think I would know. But I don't know. For sure.

You're pushed up against the wall every day, in every thing you do.

You're pushed up against the wall. What do you believe, that we're standing for? You're going to open your mouth, you're going to shut up and sit down?

What are you going to do? And that's getting hard and harder to do.

But history demands clarity. And we're seeing that clarity now.

The American Revolution was about creation. Antifa is about tearing down.

One birthed the world's longest standing constitutional government by far. The average constitutional government in the world lasts 17 years.

We're approaching 250.

17 years!

That's what -- that's what our Founders created. What has Antifa or anybody else on the left, have they created anything that is lasting?

Or is it all coming undone, and -- and more and more chaos?

Think about. We're going to heal the streets. We're going to reduce the cops. Has any of that worked?

We're going to -- we're going to do transgender surgery. Has that worked with your kids? Are your kids getting better or worse?

All the way along, has any of it worked? Is anything of it going to be anything, but ashes in the end? This is why we have to draw a very clear line. And you are going to see it this weekend. Hopefully, there's not going to be any bad things that are happening. But a passionate protest. A peaceful protest.

Is protected and sacred in this country. But violent anarchism. Whether it calls itself Antifa or any other banner, has no place in the tradition of dissent here in America. Our Founders would have recognized it immediately. Not as liberty. But as tyranny. And as a mob.

So when somebody tells you that Antifa is just like the Tea Party, remember the Boston Tea Party. Remember Boston harbor.

Remember the restraint. Remember clarity. Remember the purpose.

When you look at the fires of Portland. The difference is not subtle. And the differences between building a nation and burning one down. When they say this weekend, no kings!

What are they actually asking for?

What are they for? I know they're not for a king. I'm not for a king either.

I don't want a king.

But I'll follow that no king, but Christ.

My first citizenship is to the kingdom of God.

And I will serve that, because me serving that, makes me a better citizen.

Because I love my neighbor. I want my neighbor to prosper.

I don't hate my enemies.

When I actually serve in my first kingdom, my first passport, and I serve that king. I look for somebody that can help manage all of the rest of it.

Can -- can listen to the people. And start to move in a healthy direction, to make people more free, and to make our country a more perfect nation.

What are they for?

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Transcript

How to Make Men DANGEROUS Again | The Glenn Beck Podcast | Ep 270

What Antifa gets wrong about the founding fathers—Glenn breaks it down

Transcript