The “Big Worm Energy” Edition

Rational Security

The Lawfare Institute

Foreignpolicy, Nationalsecurity, News, Government, Politics, Middleeast

4.8 • 2K Ratings

🗓️ 1 August 2024

⏱️ 72 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

This week, Alan and Quinta were joined by Kevin Frazier to talk through some of the week’s biggest national security news, including:

“KOSA Nostra.” An overwhelming majority of senators voted to pass the Kids Online Safety Act, also known as KOSA—a bipartisan piece of legislation that would impose new responsibilities on online platforms in looking after their underage users. Despite the 91-3 vote in the Senate, KOSA has faced strong opposition from a number of civil rights and internet freedom groups, and its path ahead in the House remains uncertain. What’s next for the bill, and what does its success so far say about the state of tech policy in the U.S.?
“Herding Llamas.” The company formerly known as Facebook announced the release of a new AI large language model, Llama 3.1. Meta described the model as “open-source”—but is it responsible to release such a powerful model that way? And what does this mean for the AI arms race in Silicon Valley?
“Keeping the Nine in Line.” Fresh on the heels of the Supreme Court’s ruling granting presidents broad immunity from criminal prosecution, President Biden announced his support for a slate of reforms aimed squarely at the Court: a constitutional amendment ruling out presidential immunity, along with 18-year term limits and a binding code of conduct for Supreme Court justices. But any of these proposals would face a difficult road toward implementation. What is the White House’s aim here?

For object lessons, Alan suggested that listeners might enjoy homemade cucumber agua fresca as a cooling summer beverage. Kevin is enjoying a new song by Kelsea Ballerini and Noah Kahan. And Quinta recommended the movie I Saw the TV Glow.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	The last few years have been tough on all of us, not least on our finances.
0:04.4	On the Pension Confident Podcast, we talk about money matters in a simple and honest way
0:09.3	to keep your finances on track even when money pressures are getting you down. Maybe money worries are
0:15.2	affecting your mental health or maybe you're curious about the impact your relationship
0:19.7	might be having on your bank balance. So download the Pension Comfort Podcast on your
0:24.5	podcast app today to hear all our episodes so far and subscribe so you never
0:29.5	miss an upcoming episode. Quintera, while I'm delighted to hear that you finally saw Dune, I am appalled that you saw
0:39.0	it on an airplane screen and therefore the climactic scenes with the sandworms was like the sandworms were two inches.
0:46.8	How could you? I will say I watched Oppenheimer on my phone on an airplane.
0:52.0	Oh wow.
0:53.0	So this is not the first of my crimes against cinema.
0:56.0	I will say as with Oppenheimer, I feel like it allowed me to identify
1:00.0	some of the flaws with the film, which I otherwise might not have noticed such as the
1:04.6	script sucks. Wow that is a terrible script.
1:08.6	It is just as you know Bob straight through the visuals amazing the politics possibly the weirdest thing I have ever seen
1:16.8	the script is bizarre was the problem the script or the source material I don't know I haven't read the book
1:24.7	who wait this is important who has read the actual dune series? I mean I read the first so okay my
1:29.9	probably okay my god I I started off by by roasting Quinta and I was going to say, yeah, that is an
1:35.4	Alan calling the Quinta.
1:37.7	So I think of Dune, like I think of Lord of the Rings, which is to say, I read the first 200 pages of the first book and then got so bogged down in it's just
1:48.0	turgidity like just the sheer kind of molasses like quality of the detail after detail that I never finished it.
1:56.5	So yeah, I'm an asshole I think in conclusion.
	...

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