The holidays start here at Ralph's with a variety of options to celebrate traditions old and new. Whether you're making a traditional roasted turkey or spicy turkey tacos, your go-to shrimp cocktail, or your first Cajun risotto, Ralph's has all the freshest ingredients to embrace your traditions. Ralph's. Fresh for Everyone.

Choose from a great selection of digital coupons and use them up to five times in one transaction. Check our app for details. Ralph's. Fresh for Everyone. Your tough Tacoma is here. Your powerful 4Runner. Your stylish Camry. Your versatile RAV4. Even your fully electric VZ4X. Your new Toyota car, truck, or SUV is available now.

So see your Toyota dealer today. We make it easy. Toyota. Let's go places. Give me your thoughts on TikTok. I know that you dug into some of the research around that, the way that it's been weaponized, and also the impact that it's having on young people. So let me just start off by saying I love TikTok.

I think it's an extraordinary product. I think it was genius to take a platform and say it shouldn't be social. It's not about what your friends think about you. It's not about choices. It's not about finding anything you want, like YouTube. It's not about feeling bad about yourself because you don't have a six-pack or you're not as rich as your friends on Instagram.

It's about a streaming media platform where there's no choice. You have one choice. You tap the logo, and it immediately starts calibrating based on what you like, what you swipe up, swipe down on. And before you know it, you're in the ultimate, tailored, individualized, singular streaming media network that is just addictive.

I could go on to TikTok right now and for a couple hours just watch it. I think my 12-year-old boy, if he had his way, would disappear into his room with his phone, put diapers on so he could watch TikTok for 72 hours straight and not have a bathroom break.

I think this thing is an amazing product. The issue is if I were a member of the CCP and I saw that we had vested interests in diminishing America's standing strategically in the world and that the easiest way to do that was not with kinetic power because we don't have the capital that the U.S.

has to spend on aircraft carrier fleets or even through corporate espionage, and they do a great job of that, I would just take my thumb and very elegantly and insidiously put it on the scales of content that reflects America in a bad light. So whether you're Kim Kardashian or Joe Rogan or Jonathan Haidt, a lot of your content reflects America in a very positive light.

And a lot of your content highlights the problems we have. It would be very easy. I believe they're doing this now. I think they'd be stupid not to do this and put their thumb on the scale of content that says our elections are being weaponized, racism in the U.S.

has not gotten better, it's gotten worse, that capitalism does not work, that you can't trust your leaders, and slowly but surely raise a generation of Americans, of civic leaders, military leaders, business leaders, that feel bad about America and also aren't focused on the human rights violations in China. But basically, if you think of geopolitics as a horror movie, it's not outside threats right now.

We are stronger than we've ever been, I would argue, competitively. No one's lining up for Chinese or Russian vaccines. Our GDP growth hasn't matched China's, but it's more consistent. The smartest, brightest, hardest-working people in the world all have one thing in common, and that is they like the idea of either getting to Europe or getting to the United States especially.

So we're the football team that gets the top draft choices every year from every high school in the world. So we're doing really well. But the horror movie would be that horror movie where they say the call is coming from inside the house. We're eating each other in the U.S.

internally. A third of Republicans and Democrats see the other party, members of the other party, as their mortal enemy. 25% of America is comfortable with an autocrat as long as the autocrat represents his or her ideals. 54% of Democrats are worried that their kid is going to marry a Republican.

And so the fastest way to atomize, or the fastest way to defeat an enemy is atomize them. And I think TikTok, when you have kids under the age of 18 spending more time on TikTok than they spend on every streaming media company combined, would we be comfortable with Netflix, Hulu, Disney+, HBO Max all being owned by China?

And I don't think we would. So I think there needs to be a separation between ownership and the product. I think that Meta was the ultimate espionage product. I don't think the Mossad, the NSA, the GRU, MI6, and their wildest dreams could have come up with Meta. And I think we're going to find out that our ability to take out some of these Taliban leaders has been a function of their niece being on Instagram with GPS drone.

And I also realize this sounds paranoid, but it doesn't mean I'm wrong. I think after the senators and elected leaders in America have their photo ops berating Mark Zuckerberg, they go into a confidential hearing and he says, "Do you want us to continue help killing Taliban leaders?" And they say, "Yes." And he says, "Well, back the fuck off." I think that's why we haven't had any meaningful legislation against the big American platforms.

But anyways, the ultimate propaganda tool is TikTok. I just don't-- I think they would be stupid not to do this. And I think we're naive to think that they won't be able to do it easily. And I think we should-- I think it presents a real national security risk.

The wild thing is that TikTok content that is disintegrating America or reducing patriotic feelings towards it is generated by US citizens. In America. Yeah, this isn't the Chinese creating content. But because of the dynamic of audience capture and the reinforcement mechanism of getting that status response, you can press your hand on the scale that rewards creators that create a particular type of narrative, and that-- it turns every individual TikTok user that cares to talk about politics to be more likely an unwitting, unwilling CCP agent.

It's so brilliant and insidious at the same time. And by the way, let's wrap all of this in really joyous dance videos, which makes it all feel really benign. Even optimistic. It was done to a Justin Bieber-- the catastrophe and the apocalypse will be done to a Justin Bieber soundtrack, so it doesn't really matter.

It all feel good. And you don't even have to put your thumb on the scale of certain individuals and not others. It can be the content from the same individual. In this podcast, I will talk about very hopeful things for America. I don't think there's anything wrong we can't fix.

50% of the world's philanthropy originates from U.S. institutions. If you were to have one global headline, news headline for the last 100 years, it would be that British, Russians, and the Americans turned back fascism. The one headline for the last 50 years would be unprecedented global prosperity led by America.

I'll also talk about failing young men in the U.S. and how they're struggling, and they've never done-- young men have never followed-- that cohort has fallen further, faster in the U.S. than in history. If you're TikTok and you have a series of 30-second clips and you're with the CCP, which narrative do you want to see rolling more often?

And it's just super, super easy. They could just take-- they don't need to produce their own content. They just need to tweak the algorithm to say, "In the same 60 minutes, an individual will have pro- and anti-American content, and we're just going to slowly but surely dial up the anti-American content." It's from someone you trust.

It's from someone who also has pro-American content, so you think their content is credible. Let's create a lot of doubt about the efficacy of the vaccines when there's thoughtful discourse on both sides. I would argue 90-plus percent of the thoughtful discourse about vaccines says on a risk-adjusted basis, "You should get a vaccine." And then 10% or less is doctors saying, "It alters your DNA." If I'm the CCP and I want to create controversy and I want to get us hating each other more, let's make that content 50/50.

Let's have everyone go at each other over the vaccines. So I would say just, quite frankly, if I were them, that's what I would do. Why spend money on aircraft carriers? Why compete on 11 playing field when we have this Trojan horse the size of Montana residing in the US and we have this vehicle that the upcoming generation of Americans love in just a few small tweaks and slowly but surely-- They won't even know-- The movie "The Sting," I don't know if you saw it, with Robert Redford and Paul Newman, but the key to a great con is the mark never knows they were conned.

We're all victims of propaganda right now. We all see con on the left and on the right that sways our view, but we don't think we've been fooled. It's much easier to fool someone than convince them they've been fooled because to acknowledge you've been fooled is like saying, "I acknowledge I'm an ass.

I acknowledge someone's gotten the better of me," and people don't like that. So I think it's happening now, and I don't think we know what's even happening to us. We also don't know what's happening in China. I don't know how much truth is behind this, but I've heard that the Chinese algorithm on TikTok shows a very different sort of world.

It's young Chinese people doing engineering and being smart and conscientious and admirable and patriotic. Another consideration is 9.6 trillion minutes of Netflix watched in 2021, 22.6 trillion minutes of TikTok watched in 2021. Given the fact that a TikTok video at most can be 60 seconds and probably the average Netflix thing is 30 minutes, that blows my mind.

It's staggering, and to your point, the Chinese version of TikTok, and it's Douyin, it's all aspirational. Look at this kid from Shenzhen who's a concert pianist. Look at the incredible research we're doing. Look at these kids, what they're building in their high school. It's all uplifting. No politics. None at all.

So this is what the Chinese have decided they want their youth to see. - Could that not be an argument that in China, talking about the CCP in any way that's not positive would be difficult to do, no matter how you put your finger on the balance of the platform?

They have a broader structure that stops people from doing that. - 100%, and some people would argue they shouldn't be our role model. But even if you take the societal issues and the complicated conversation around censorship in media, because whenever you hear the words "ban" and "media" in the same sentence, you should understandably have a gag reflex, because I think one of the keys to a productive democratic society is that pretty much anyone can say pretty much anything about pretty much anyone else.

I do think that's super important. But take that, push that aside. Should Chinese sectors and companies have unfettered access to our markets when we have absolutely none to theirs? Twitter, Google, Meta, what's our access over there? Zero. We have limited access. We have just enough access initially, and they create body language and a head fake that they might let us be in there, just long enough so they can steal the intellectual property.

They then prop up a local entrepreneur, fund that local entrepreneur, and their attitude is, "We can steal the Google algorithm, "or create a reasonable facsimile." And there's probably a $200-300 billion company, a search engine, that can just feed off the domestic market. What do you know? It's Baidu. Why on earth are we going to go the Western way and do what Italy or South Korea does and let our newspapers go out of business and let all of the shareholder value transfer to California?

I mean, you've got to admire them. From a Chinese standpoint, it's smart. - It's really, really... Meanwhile, they're limiting the amount of time that their children can play video games. One hour between 8 and 9 p.m. Friday, Saturday, Sunday per week. That's it. The only way that you can play games is through a streaming service.

The streaming service just-- Just flick the switch. It's just not on. You can't do it. What's happening, people? If you enjoyed that, then press here for the full unedited episode. And don't forget to subscribe. Peace. The holidays start here at Ralph's with a variety of options to celebrate traditions old and new.

Whether you're making a traditional roasted turkey or spicy turkey tacos, your go-to shrimp cocktail, or your first Cajun risotto, Ralph's has all the freshest ingredients to embrace your traditions. Ralph's. Fresh for Everyone. Choose from a great selection of digital coupons and use them up to five times in one transaction.

Check our app for details. Ralph's. Fresh for Everyone.