rant · moment 17 of 20
Threatening to Defect to China
from The D.C. Plane Crash & RFK’s Hearing | The Tim Dillon Show #429 · #429
6 min
Tim goes on an extended rant threatening to defect to China and start a podcast there if American tech companies don't regain AI dominance, riffing on being 'in awe' of tech dystopia and the culture of Stanford students.
- Tim apologizes to Vic for not realizing how bad Stanford's AI researchers are at their jobs.
- He argues the U.S. elite are so incompetent they might as well bring in Chinese workers, but warns against it anyway.
- Deep Seek's R1 AI cost $5.6 million to train versus Anthropic's $100 million, prompting Tim to announce he's defecting to China.
- Tim plans to wear a Chinese lion costume on the next episode and defect to start a podcast in Shanghai.
- He'll bring his podcasting expertise to China and say positive things about the Chinese Communist Party despite disagreeing with them.
- Tim reframes the current era as one where people either admire technological power or they don't—agreement versus disagreement is obsolete.
- He describes living in a tech dystopian era where you're either the drone or the person on the ground looking up in awe.
- Tim threatens to defect to China and take other podcasters with him if the U.S. tech community doesn't improve immediately.
ChinaMark AndreessenStanfordChinese Communist PartyDeepSeekNetflixAnthropicDonald RumsfeldTamarindMasonic Theater