001 Just Two Good Old Boys

Gene: 0:12

Welcome to just two good old boys. Ben, how are you today?

Ben: 0:17

I'm doing good. Gene,

Gene: 0:18

You, you ready for our first official episode?

Ben: 0:21

I think so. I'm actually on the right mic today.

Gene: 0:24

Hey, that's a, that's a good thing. See, now that's important to keep in in mind.

Ben: 0:29

yeah, what happened since Gene didn't go into the full context last time is we, I had some browser issues with Chrome, so I switched to Brave and as a result, I didn't notice that the wrong mic was, Mike was selected. And regardless, once we got into it and were recording, there was no way to switch the mic back to the good one without stopping the recording. So, sorry about that, guys. I'll try not to have that happen again.

Gene: 0:55

Yeah. Well, anybody that's listening on the speaker on their iPhone probably didn't hear any difference but people that are listening on actual headsets probably did.

Ben: 1:05

Probably. And, you know, there was some noise for me bumping the computer and you're, you were at one point like, Dude, what are you bumping the mic? I'm like, literally, I'm not bumping the mic. But it

Gene: 1:15

Yeah. You're like banging on the computer while saying you're not bumping the mic Uhhuh.

Ben: 1:19

Anyway, sorry about

Gene: 1:20

Exactly. Oh, that's

Ben: 1:22

Gene, what's been going on? I've been I've been traveling, man. I've been all over the place

Gene: 1:27

you have been traveling. So that's, Well definitely want to hear about that. Let's see on my end, what do I, what do I have? Didn't get any guns. I just got a stock or sorry, an arm brace finally that I bought like a month ago and finally showed up. And I'm still planning on doing my build out of the 300 blackout as my final acquisition of that. I completely didn't need to diversify my ammunition supply,

Ben: 1:56

will this be the final purchase of 2022?

Gene: 1:59

man. I hope so. I really don't need any more guns. I, I, I literally, like, I watch Brandon Herra, who's out here from Texas while who's the AK guy on YouTube, and he, along with a bunch of the other guys tend to do their shows in front of their gun wall, which is a pegboard basically much like gun stores have with guns sitting there. And I looked around my living room, I'm like, I got enough for a pegboard right now. Fuck,

Ben: 2:30

But I, I've never understood that because I'm just not gonna show off my guns. I'm, you know, I'm not gonna,

Gene: 2:35

Yeah, you're one of those crazy people.

Ben: 2:38

Yeah.

Gene: 2:39

The only guns I wouldn't wanna show off are the ones that you can't have

Ben: 2:43

Indeed.

Gene: 2:44

else. I have no problem showing.

Ben: 2:46

Yeah.

Gene: 2:47

you know, when, if there's some super secret gun that's like, there's three copies of in the US and you happen to have one Yeah. That I probably wouldn't show off, but you know, anything you can order, Well, why would you not show it off?

Ben: 3:02

I, you know, it's just like a friends of mine who posted pictures with their firearms or whatever on Facebook. It's like, Eh, why do that? You know? I just, I've never been that kinda guy. A,

Gene: 3:16

I don't understand why you have friends that are on Facebook. That's a bigger question, but, Okay.

Ben: 3:21

this was also back in college before, you know, we really knew what Facebook was and, you

Gene: 3:26

Those

Ben: 3:27

was back when you had to have

Gene: 3:28

picking up girls. Mm-hmm.

Ben: 3:30

Well that and campus politics and everything else.

Gene: 3:33

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I forget how young you are.

Ben: 3:37

Well, yes. Well, not that young

Gene: 3:39

Yeah. Whipper snapper. Yeah. So yeah, we wanna catch up what's going on your end, but before we do that so let's take care of some of the, the show related stuff. So if you're hearing this, that means you successfully downloaded the new RSS feed. Congratulations. I suspect there's a good chunk of people that are gonna need to be reminded several times. From me and Jean speaks and in posts on No, on Social, that if you wanna listen to Ben and Jean, you should download the new show on the new RSS feed. But by listening to this, by hearing this right now, clearly you have done this correctly. Congratulations.

Ben: 4:22

Yes. And you know, we do need to do some redirecting and make sure that we are handling that as well as we can. I think we set the stage some last week, but, you know, just continuing. We'll, definitely after we get out of this episode, I'll post on my notes into social. I'm sure you will too. But you know, I'm sure there will be a downturn for a little bit here but that's okay.

Gene: 4:44

Well, I, yeah, I mean, I don't, I I suspect I'm just gonna get some messages either on the agenda or directly on the my email that's tied to the, So Gene Speaks that are saying, Hey, are you not doing any more episodes with Ben? But

Ben: 4:59

Mm-hmm.

Gene: 5:00

that's right.

Ben: 5:01

Well, I, you know, again, I, I think it it's not gonna be a bad thing. I don't think either of us are too worried about numbers of listeners. I mean, this is kind of a

Gene: 5:11

money off the

Ben: 5:12

you and I anyway.

Gene: 5:13

It really is. It's everybody who's subscribed is really just to voy.

Ben: 5:18

Mm-hmm.

Gene: 5:19

It, it's, that's really all it is. They're just listening in on our, our personal conversation that we'd be having anyway. Even if the mic's, Well, I guess we'd have the mics. We just wouldn't be recording.

Ben: 5:30

Yeah. Yeah. Well, that we might be on our phone or

Gene: 5:33

Yeah. Or, you know, that, that's why I always said I wish you could just like do a I request from the NSA to just to get your conversations so you don't have to record the

Ben: 5:42

yeah, exactly. Hey, nsa, I need a fo you I need, I need this conversation from this date and time.

Gene: 5:48

Imagine if the government provided a service for a few bucks. I'm not saying for free even where if you can't, like, think of something or you neglected something and just, just send them the, the time, the date and the time that you need and they'll be happy to provide you with whatever was the conversation that in that room at that time.

Ben: 6:12

Yeah, but that would, that would, that would be admitting to the dystopian world. We live in

Gene: 6:17

but that's the world we live in. We just don't have the convenience of being able to request that.

Ben: 6:22

Right. But you know what, Then the sheephole might wake up a little bit and then

Gene: 6:27

I don't know, man. I think people would see that as a benefit and I, I, I wanna get into this, like I've spent a lot of time talking about this. Super awesome. Called Cyberpunk 2077 that I've been totally sucked into, but oh my God, is that game exactly going down the path of the No agenda listeners?

Ben: 6:48

Yes. And a certain someone wanted it to be pointed out to you that that game is made in Poland,

Gene: 6:53

Oh, it is. I know we talked about it on the show that you didn't listen to yesterday.

Ben: 6:57

Yeah. But I mean, it just, it's okay. And

Gene: 7:02

Yeah. And I mean, I like Polish food. I, yeah, I like Polish chicks. I, I like Poland in general.

Ben: 7:08

Yeah, the funny part of, of this is that it's

Gene: 7:11

I'm not the racist around here.

Ben: 7:12

exactly. And you know, I, you know, I poke, I, I enjoy poking the Pollock, you know, I, I've come close to making a few Pollock jokes, but I won't. You know, it's just one of

Gene: 7:23

only work in the US like the rest of the world does not do Pollock jokes.

Ben: 7:27

well, yeah, it was the Polish immigrants coming in and

Gene: 7:31

Yeah, exactly. It wasn't the, the Polish people that

Ben: 7:34

but there are,

Gene: 7:35

jokes were about it was

Ben: 7:36

part is, there's the same jokes about the Irish and everyone else. It's all the

Gene: 7:40

those, those aren't really jokes though. Those are just observations.

Ben: 7:43

Uhhuh for those of you that don't know, I'm very scotch Irish, so,

Gene: 7:47

Yeah. And, and Darren's like completely Irish.

Ben: 7:49

Yeah.

Gene: 7:51

Yeah.

Ben: 7:52

Yeah. Yet he can't be completely Irish though. He's way too tall.

Gene: 7:56

He is very tall. But yeah, he's re ridiculous. He's like six, eight or nine or something.

Ben: 8:02

mm-hmm.

Gene: 8:03

But no, he's on his, I think his mom's side, he's a hundred percent Irish, and on his dad's side, he's like 20% Irish.

Ben: 8:09

Yeah. Yeah. My, my lineage is very, very Scottish on my dad's side up until my great-grandmother or yeah, my great-grandmother.

Gene: 8:19

you nor he redheads, which is interesting.

Ben: 8:22

I've got a lot of red in my beard.

Gene: 8:23

You're the red, red beard type.

Ben: 8:25

yeah. And then so the interesting thing is my great-grandmother was her last name was Okreal. She was Swedish, and that's where some of the blonde and all that comes in. And then on my mom's side, very, very Irish, short Irishman. Like my tallest uncle was five seven,

Gene: 8:43

Mm. Mm-hmm.

Ben: 8:44

you know, And like my mom's four foot 11. So short Irishman, No, no I'm

Gene: 8:50

Oh my God, I didn't realize that.

Ben: 8:52

Yeah. My mom's four foot 11 and my dad's six foot three

Gene: 8:55

That's interesting.

Ben: 8:57

I'm happy to be as tall as I am

Gene: 8:59

Uhhuh, No, it's all good. All right. Well enough lolly gagging. What what have you.

Ben: 9:05

Well, dude, I've been to a couple security conferences this week and definitely got to overhear some interesting content on the geopolitical front. Talking about you know, the, the war that Russia has started and what it means. And, you know, the interesting thing was that some of these people who were talking have some interesting pedigrees

Gene: 9:26

Mm-hmm.

Ben: 9:27

and they were definitely talking from the NeoCon esque geopolitical worldview. You know, they

Gene: 9:37

these government related conferences or private industry conferences or

Ben: 9:41

well so interestingly enough, quasi-governmental on the first one and public on the other one, but any, anyway, the interesting take here from this lady who is very much in different think tanks and so on, and her co-presenter was that Russia is. And that we can absolutely win this and push them out of the dobos and even potentially crime, which I think is just farcical at best. And that US hegemony is insured. And to which after the talk, one of the things I immediately went up and said was you know, what do you think of the, Yeah, well, that, but, you know, Hey, what, what do you think of the moves of Saudi Arabia and potentially, you know, selling oil in a different currency? Don't you see that the US hegemony is pegged to the petro dollar? Well, not necessarily. I mean, we still have our military. How, how do you pay for that military without the ability to print? It was also interesting because they more or less admitted to the de to current policy de industrializing Europe. And I think it's interesting that it's at the rate that it is. So,

Gene: 10:51

Well, this achieves cloud Schwab's goals. And I think, I think that the, the whole idea of using sanctions, they, they can't possibly be stupid enough, or at least not all of'em, to think that after doing sanctions for 12 years, which didn't work, that somehow magically sanctions would work. Now, I think this really was always a calculated move to force Europe further down the same path that Covid started but didn't finish, which is turning Europeans into surfs. It's always been the goal. It, it's just gonna happen a lot faster. This.

Ben: 11:37

Well, and quite frankly, Europe has always been in that surf mindset. You know, they've never broken out of that. Europe is still very

Gene: 11:47

Oh, some people would say that about China as well.

Ben: 11:49

Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. I think the only nation in the world that really has no real class structure where classes can move so rapidly and change so rapidly as the United States,

Gene: 12:04

Yeah. I

Ben: 12:05

one generation, the wealth, I'm sorry.

Gene: 12:07

I thought you were gonna say Mexico.

Ben: 12:09

No, no, no. The, the Mexico is definitely a surf and repressive regime. All you have to do is look at the Mexicans are very much colorists, so the lighter skinned Mexicans are the ones who end up in politics and ruling, not the darker skinned ones. There is definitely a racism thing in Mexico, very much like India. India is still plagued by its class

Gene: 12:31

Oh yeah. India always

Ben: 12:32

much still has the

Gene: 12:33

that mean that it's, It's official in India. I mean, it's not hidden.

Ben: 12:39

Yeah. I mean, to an extent Modi's definitely

Gene: 12:42

He's a darkie.

Ben: 12:43

Yeah. He, he's moving stuff around and changing it up, but there's still an underlying racism, you know? So,

Gene: 12:51

Yeah.

Ben: 12:51

it, it was interesting. I'm sorry.

Gene: 12:54

He's a good friend of Putin.

Ben: 12:56

Well, he is also a good friend of Trump. He's a nationalist. And I

Gene: 12:58

Mm-hmm.

Ben: 12:59

that's, I think that's one of the reasons why Trump and Putin got along to any degree, is they're both nationalists seeking what is best for their nations.

Gene: 13:08

Yeah, exactly. And then finding common ground, That's how you succeed, is you, you look at what's best for somebody else, not just for yourself. And then you compare that with what's best for you. And you don't bend over backwards, but neither do you find a, a solution that leaves the other person completely without anything either. This is what compromise is. It's finding common ground.

Ben: 13:34

Well, and you know, it's how you transition from this artificial unipolar world that has existed since, you know, post World War ii to a back to a multipolar world.

Gene: 13:45

Mm-hmm.

Ben: 13:45

And I say since World War ii, because while yes, the US s r was there and so on, given its economy and everything else, it was going to collapse regardless of what the West did, in my opinion. So I don't think we forced the USSR to collapse.

Gene: 14:01

yeah, we've, we've talked about that. I, I don't have a strong opinion on this, but I tend to disagree with you. I do think that the US did a lot to really bring the US Sr. To that collapse by by having good marketing and good propaganda and

Ben: 14:20

and by adopting the tenets of the Communist Manifesto and the Nazi party

Gene: 14:24

Yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean, it's, it's amazing to me how almost it's not daily, but certainly on the weekly basis. There's some video I'm watching on YouTube and I watch quite a bit of video on YouTube. A lot of cat videos as everybody knows. A lot of raccoon and bear videos too. But there's at least a video once a week that mentions some Nazi scientists original contribution to whatever the topic of the video is that were brought over by the United States after World War ii. We're not just talking about rocket science or nuclear science, we're talking about biology. I mean, like, you name it, you could probably trace anything scientific in the US you could probably trace back to Oh, yeah. There was a Nazis scientist working on it.

Ben: 15:12

it, whether major or minor contribution.

Gene: 15:15

Yeah. And it, it doesn't mean that the US is Nazi. I'm just saying that that World War II was a humongous bo for the United States. It really created the modern United States.

Ben: 15:25

Agreed You know, part of the reason why it created the modern United States is because, you know, we, we did not suffer the destruction that Europe did, and we were able to create the Marshall Plan to, you know, rebuild Europe. And if we look at the economic sanctions and the way they're impacting Europe today, we may have that same opportunity, but, you know, that will require us maintaining our hegemony to be able to afford that. And I don't see how we, I don't see how we do that unless Europe is just totally unwilling to trade with, you know, the bricks, nations, and, you know, we divide on those grounds. I don't know. But

Gene: 16:04

I think Europe's.

Ben: 16:05

enough economic alliance to support that.

Gene: 16:08

Yeah. And I, I think that it's gonna be hard for Europe to get any kind of energy without training with somebody who's wanting to trade in a different currency.

Ben: 16:21

Well, I mean, Europe is not without its own energy capacity, you know? I mean the, you know, Germany has coal.

Gene: 16:31

Yes. Germany has coal and they're gonna be working by oil candle amps. Yeah. Or can candles and oil

Ben: 16:38

can build coal power plants and burn coal. The Netherlands has natural gas that they can, you know, turn certain things back on and continue to

Gene: 16:47

Norway's got a bunch of stuff up there. They've got oil and gas. They do. But I don't think that Europe has a sufficient amount of energy production compared to the energy needs in Europe.

Ben: 17:02

N no, well, let me rephrase. They are not currently producing that energy. Do they have it in the ground where they could get it? Yes.

Gene: 17:10

Do you think they've got, and I look, I I'm happy to you know, let you be the expert on this cuz you, you are a lot more than I am, but are you sure that they've got enough in the ground to be fully self sufficient? Cuz I, I think this is the reason that Saudi Arabia exists is because Europe has grown at a pace that is way outpaced their ability to provide energy for themselves.

Ben: 17:35

Well, I'm not saying they can wholly provide all the energy they would necessarily need, but they can do a hell of a lot more than they are.

Gene: 17:44

Well, that everybody, I think would agree with. But if you look at like the us, which we have a shit ton of available energy in the ground and we're better barely teetering on being self-sufficient, mostly due to political issues. But even under Trump, it's not like we had tremendous amounts of excess. were still utilizing majority of the energy we were pumping out.

Ben: 18:06

yeah, but the, well, I mean, we were a net energy exporter under Trump, but we could have done even more. So first of all, we've shut down a lot of our coal have we not shut down that coal or if we were exporting that coal, we would definitely have a lot more access. Also, we don't really use our own the US geopolitical stance has been we're gonna use other people's resources, not our own. We're wealthy enough to buy it. Well, I mean, yes and no. But re regardless, here's the

Gene: 18:35

I, I know where that comes from. It's this mentality that, you know, as long as we can afford cheap gas from somewhere else, we'll use that and then we'll save ours for when the prices go up, cuz everybody else will have used up theirs. Two problems with that. One is, this is proven to be not so much a finite resource as people once thought. And then number two is invention happens, which means that you're gonna end up hoarding a resource that you no longer need.

Ben: 19:04

Yep. Well, here, here's the thing. We have enough coal for hundreds of years worth of energy here in the US or

Gene: 19:13

other, we have the biggest natural gas supply in the world or something.

Ben: 19:17

Yeah. The shale gas in the US is tremendous.

Gene: 19:20

I think it's the biggest in the world.

Ben: 19:22

Well, and quite frankly, if Aramco ever actually goes public and we get a good look at the Saudi books, my guess is their oil fields are far closer to depletion than they would like to admit. And they don't have the technology that we do. You know, there have been export bands on a lot of the fracking techniques and things that the, that have been utilized successfully in the United States. So when you combine that, when you combine our potential nuclear resources yeah, we have a lot of energy here in the US and there's no reason why we shouldn't be using it. And when you look at the Chinese steel industry nearing bankruptcy who knows, You know, maybe it's time for a comeback of steel production in the US which requires coal.

Gene: 20:01

Yeah. Well you can make steel with any kind of carbon though, can't you?

Ben: 20:05

Yeah. But the easiest way to do it's with Coke.

Gene: 20:08

Mm-hmm.

Ben: 20:08

And when I say Coke, I mean the type of coal,

Gene: 20:11

not the cola.

Ben: 20:11

stuff.

Gene: 20:13

What? Cocaine

Ben: 20:14

Yeah.

Gene: 20:15

with co. Wait, there's cocaine and steel, right? What did I miss?

Ben: 20:19

No, never mind Gene. Anyway, it's just interesting because do you know why the Chinese steel industry is near bankruptcy?

Gene: 20:27

wait.

Ben: 20:29

Because, you know, some of the resources that were raped from them during War II during the Japaneses war is those, those are kind of coming home to rouse that and they're using so much coal for power production that the cost of coal and the import of coal, because they have to import it is really jacking up the price to them.

Gene: 20:50

Hmm. Yeah, I, I haven't looked at all into what Russia's got for coal, but I'm sure that with the current climate being the way it is China will have a lot more opportunities to get other Russian things. Like, one of the things recently I, I've heard about was because Biden has decided to ban imports of titanium from Russia into the United States which has been providing almost half the titanium that's used in US production. Russia's gonna start selling it to China, and China will be selling Russia and titanium to the us, which I guess is okay,

Ben: 21:25

Yeah. At a markup.

Gene: 21:27

of course.

Ben: 21:28

You know, the, the outsourcing of our manufacturing to China is so inexcusable. So, a perfect example of this is a while back I got I got my son's a set of army men, you know, off of Amazon. Right. You know, just a little plastic army

Gene: 21:44

Are those still legal? I didn't realize they were still legal.

Ben: 21:46

right. And anyway, I just got notice from Amazon this week that, hey, yeah, those are being recalled because of fall and lead content.

Gene: 21:57

Oh my God. Who gives a shit? When I was a kid, we played with Lead Army, then they were literally made of lead. Cuz it's soft and easy to work with.

Ben: 22:04

Yeah.

Gene: 22:04

Whatever. Same difference. It's, it's like they're still not good for you.

Ben: 22:09

Yeah. It's, anyway, so it's just like, but the, the point is it's a good being sold in the US that is supposed to be made to a certain specification to meet us, regulatory and everything else. And the Chinese just are, yes, they are capable of decent manufacturing, but they cut corners. It's just a cultural thing with'em, you know? John makes the joke all the time, Best price, you know,

Gene: 22:38

Mm-hmm.

Ben: 22:39

It, it's just,

Gene: 22:40

Well, I'll tell

Ben: 22:41

no pride in workmanship.

Gene: 22:42

this is a good a, a good transition into talking about the the first new product coming out that, that I'm getting done in China. Of course.

Ben: 22:52

Okay, so we're, we're pimping.

Gene: 22:55

Yeah. We're gonna start pimping this on every episode, I think

Ben: 22:58

Okay. So when, when do I get my kickback?

Gene: 23:00

Yeah. Well, you'll, you'll get a free sample, ah, free sample for you. Free sample.

Ben: 23:06

Best price. Price.

Gene: 23:07

Yeah. Now so that, so I've kind of hinted about stuff. I haven't gotten into any details and I've really tried not to talk too much about it yesterday, On, on Thing, just to save it for this show. But I've got the first batch of products now in my garage,

Ben: 23:22

Woohoo.

Gene: 23:23

yeah. Which is pretty cool. It's it's not a huge amount, but it, you know, because I can't wait cuz I don't have patients. I had this stuff air shipped from China which is in itself funny because you know, that added like 50% more to the price of the product per each item. Cuz air shipping is fucking expensive compared to normal shipping. But here's the, the really funny thing is with air shipping, it still took a month

Ben: 23:51

How? Just because of logistics and getting in

Gene: 23:54

Uhhuh, Uhhuh, it took overnight to get the stuff actually shipped right by plane. And then it sat for about a week in customs, and then it sat for another week at the importer. And then finally got shipped from them using what FedEx ground, the cheapest shipping method. So, I was like, if I'm importing shit via plane, guys, do you think it makes sense to then ship it ground when it's in the us? Geez, it's fucking Christ. So yeah, this is not a super fast process by any means.

Ben: 24:32

well, and I think that's why you see the such a lag in the supply chain that a lot of people don't realize, is that it? It does take a long

Gene: 24:39

it takes a while. It takes a while. And here the, the history of this product too is this is sort of, this is our test product, meaning this is seeing how well the factory can manufacture everything to spec, blah, blah, blah. And if everything's good, then we'll make our next product in the same factory. So this product is gonna be totally useful and it's you know, it's got some interesting features on it, but it is not a completely from scratch designed set of products. Like the next few are gonna be, this is, this is as much of a test of the capabilities of them manufacturing this stuff as it is anything else for us?

Ben: 25:25

Are you going to tell us what the product is?

Gene: 25:27

yeah, I mean, I can, I guess, I was trying to decide whether I want to go full blown into details about it or wait until I can post something on the agenda and then talk about it on the following episode.

Ben: 25:38

Well, then wait if you want.

Gene: 25:40

Yeah, I mean, I, I think it'd be easier if I wait one more episode to talk about it and then I can refer people with photos and I can actually include some photos in the podcast metadata as well. So if you're using one of them, Newfangled Podcasting 2.0 apps, which everybody should be podcasting. What, what's the website? Adam says all the time

Ben: 26:02

New podcast apps.com

Gene: 26:04

the one new podcast apps.com. For anybody using one of those apps, you'll actually see the photo on your iPhone screen when you're listening to the podcast.

Ben: 26:12

or your Android, and that's if you're looking at your screen and Gene does the chapters, right?

Gene: 26:18

I'll do the chapters right. I, the only reason I don't do chapters much these days is because we switch topics a lot and I don't track what topic we're on, so I don't really bother.

Ben: 26:27

it would have, You'd have to

Gene: 26:28

We're not doing a news show. Yeah. We're not really doing a news show, so I don't feel like chapters are as important. You're just getting entertainment here

Ben: 26:37

Yeah,

Gene: 26:38

or quasi entertainment.

Ben: 26:39

yeah.

Gene: 26:41

a little bit of news, I guess, but anyway, so you went to your conferences. Sorry, we kind of sidetracked all off off of all this stuff. Oh, one more comment before we go back to your stuff. It, so we're talking about Coca-Cola and cocaine. So in this video game, I think this is absolutely brilliant, is they have Nicola. That's the brand name of the cola, which is a, a cola with nicotine.

Ben: 27:05

Okay.

Gene: 27:06

It's not just absolutely next level. Brilliant to put nicotine into cola.

Ben: 27:12

I, I guess.

Gene: 27:14

I mean, I think, I don't understand why they're not doing this in the real world, honestly, because it's one of the most addictive substances that we've discovered, and the bad parts of cigarettes are not the nicotine. It's all the other crap that comes from the, the fact that it, you're, you're burning a plant in front of your face,

Ben: 27:38

I mean, Oh, well, actually I would say that it's the additives in the cigarettes that are the harmful thing. I

Gene: 27:44

but it's not the nicotine is my point.

Ben: 27:46

Right. But I think if you look at like cancer rates of cigar smokers or pipe smokers or, you know, lots

Gene: 27:53

they're lower now.

Ben: 27:54

phenomenally lower. It's what cigarettes are the problem. And,

Gene: 27:58

clearly.

Ben: 27:58

The paper, the bleach, the from aldehyde, the 120 some odd chemicals that are added for flavor and preserve.

Gene: 28:06

keeps you young.

Ben: 28:08

Yeah. Anyway I've never been a cigarette smoker though, so that's just me. Just not, but I, I, I, I do enjoy tobacco and, you know, it's never been very addictive to me,

Gene: 28:19

Oh, I don't know about that. You seem to be sucking down that shit all the time,

Ben: 28:24

Yeah. But also I walk away for a week and I'm not like, Yeah, I gotta have it. So,

Gene: 28:29

I guess. Yeah, that's probably true. But nicotine is pretty addicting. I mean, if you're sucking down, it doesn't matter what form of the tobacco you're getting, some of it,

Ben: 28:38

Yeah. Yeah. But my, my point is it, it.

Gene: 28:41

Wait, are you breathing that shit in or are you just puffing it with your mouth?

Ben: 28:44

No, you're breathing it in.

Gene: 28:46

Oh, that's disgusting.

Ben: 28:47

Why?

Gene: 28:49

Ah, I just don't want anything in my lungs that that isn't air.

Ben: 28:53

Okay. Anyway, regardless. The point is it's, you can be addicted to, you know, sugar. You can be addicted to heroin, you can be addicted to nicotine. It's more about the personality than it is the substance in my mind.

Gene: 29:06

I don't think that's true. I think the addiction to heroin and nicotine is a physical, not a physiological one. So your, your addiction is chemical and I think that putting nicotine into cola would do wonders to get people even more addicted to cola than they have been on sugar.

Ben: 29:26

But Jean, it all comes down and maybe part of it's genetics cuz some people can

Gene: 29:29

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. Totally.

Ben: 29:31

and walk away and be fine.

Gene: 29:33

yeah, no, that's absolutely right. Genetics plays a, a large part of it, but as far as the addiction of the substance nicotine is pretty high up there and. As far as I'm aware, like any cancer or any other risks associated with smoking is not true of just nicotine itself. So you can like stick a nicotine patch on yourself and get a buzz, and then you're gonna need that patch for forever. Or if you stop using the patch, it's gonna be really difficult for you for a while until your body gets used to not having it. But you're not increasing your odds. Observating kind of,

Ben: 30:11

Well, California and other states would say that it's carcinogen, but I think

Gene: 30:16

it's not a carcinogen.

Ben: 30:18

Well, lots of,

Gene: 30:20

California thinks that that carbon dioxide is a carcinogen.

Ben: 30:24

exactly.

Gene: 30:25

They literally do. They label carbon dioxide installations as carcinogenic.

Ben: 30:30

Yeah.

Gene: 30:30

They're idiots.

Ben: 30:32

Well, a lot of people are, but,

Gene: 30:35

You know what the biggest carcinogen is? Oxygen. And that's scientifically true. If you put somebody into pure oxygen atmosphere, their odds of getting cancer just skyrocket.

Ben: 30:46

well, lots of things go wrong because you're not made to live in a pure oxygen atmosphere. But yeah, cancers are definitely, you know, oxid, oxidization is part of the problem with cancer. That's, you know, why we say antioxidants are good for

Gene: 31:00

Mm-hmm.

Ben: 31:01

Those sorts of things. But anyway, we're getting way off topic here, but yes, your game has nicotine in the Coca-Cola.

Gene: 31:07

It's brilliant. It's fucking brilliant. All right. Anyway, talk about your conference thing.

Ben: 31:13

I, The, there was just the, the first one was way more political and way more spooks and everything else. The the second one was more public conference. Ran into a lot of lot of old colleagues that I hadn't seen really since Covid.

Gene: 31:27

dude's name Ben.

Ben: 31:28

Yeah. Yeah. A lot of dudes named Ben. Lot of, lot of, lot of people from the black hat days and you know, a lot of other conferences. So it was good. It was good. Had a pretty interesting debate with this guy who's got a startup that's he's trying to solve some of the authentication issues and, you know, the, started describing his solution and I said, You know, I, I don't know if this'll piss you off or not, but it sounds like you're modifying GRCs, squirrel,

Gene: 31:53

Mm-hmm.

Ben: 31:54

you know, and, you know, grc, he's a, he's an interesting character cuz he's, he, he's full of FUD a lot of times, but every now and then he gets a few things right and people shouldn't ignore him on everything. And I think squirrel's actually not a bad solution with a few tweaks. So anyway, it was just some interesting stuff. It was good to get back out in the community.

Gene: 32:16

So, for those of us, myself included, who don't know what the fuck Jrc squirrel is, what.

Ben: 32:22

So GRC is Steve Gibson?

Gene: 32:24

Oh, oh, oh, the, Yeah.

Ben: 32:26

Yeah. Steve, Steve Gibson. I mean, that he just has always gone by GRC in the community. And squirrel is s ql. It's a

Gene: 32:34

Yeah. Secure, quick, reliable login.

Ben: 32:36

right? Right. And it's using basically TLS and Aons to authenticate you cryptographically. And this guy's doing something similar except he's commercializing it and adding a few other features that are pretty interesting. So yeah.

Gene: 32:51

So what do you think of Steve Gibson?

Ben: 32:54

It from what standpoint?

Gene: 32:56

Well, my opinion, I'll tell you my take and, and, and keep in mind, I've been out of that community for like 15 years. So, But as

Ben: 33:05

said, I basically said that you may take this as an insult to the guy, so that should tell you a lot of what I think.

Gene: 33:10

But as, as of what I recall of Steve from the early two thousands timeframe and before is I think he's a a brilliant developer, but he's not a security guy.

Ben: 33:21

So, I mean, define security guy, you know, he.

Gene: 33:25

he did not ever have a job working with security. He never had a clearance. He never had anything that was associated with with ensuring the CIA of information.

Ben: 33:39

Okay.

Gene: 33:40

He, his big product was spin. Right? He, he's,

Ben: 33:43

which a lot of people would, oil would argue is snake oil. But

Gene: 33:47

Yeah.

Ben: 33:47

you're not old enough.

Gene: 33:49

But I've used it. But I've used it. It's, and I would say it is mostly snake oil, but it

Ben: 33:54

for modern

Gene: 33:54

something that's, Yeah. But it is something that back in the day did give you a holy shit,

Ben: 34:02

well, when you were,

Gene: 34:04

up and give you a second chance.

Ben: 34:06

you were fixing sector alignment on a drive or, you know, doing things like that back when that was a thing on hard drives. Today,

Gene: 34:13

In the nineties,

Ben: 34:14

Yes. That, that's a whole different set of

Gene: 34:16

It's all SSDs these days.

Ben: 34:18

Oh, please. Hard drives are still a

Gene: 34:19

Nah, nobody uses hard drives. I haven't seen a hard drive in 10, 15 years.

Ben: 34:24

I use hard drives,

Gene: 34:25

Oh my God.

Ben: 34:26

for raw storage in my na why would I not? Anyway.

Gene: 34:30

SSDs are so cheap right now.

Ben: 34:32

Yeah. But they're not as reliable. And if you, if you get the reliable SSDs, then you're paying out the ass.

Gene: 34:38

Yeah. Yeah. You can do an SSD raid.

Ben: 34:42

You can, But anyway, the failure rates on SSD are anyway, regardless. My thoughts of GRC are you know, he, he takes tries to take credit for finding the first malware. We can debate that, but.

Gene: 34:55

It did not.

Ben: 34:56

Yeah, but he, he, he, he did you know, notice a few things and get some things out there. The raw sockets argument that he made on bringing raw sockets to windows is absolute fud and asinine that he ever went down that road. You know, I think that he does have a security mindset, but he's never, he's never made his living off of security until he started doing security now with

Gene: 35:22

podcast. Yeah, exactly.

Ben: 35:23

And he, he can read and observe, and sometimes his commentary is good, sometimes it's not. You know, I think s QL is a decent attempt at something. I think it didn't get adoption, but I think the underlying protocol is actually a pretty interesting thing. And I think with someone like this guy that I met, taking it and running with it is not a bad thing. You know, I, I think some of this takes on Fido and other things are, anyway, he's a mixed bag at best.

Gene: 35:52

But he is a very good developer. I mean, I will give him that because writing driver level stuff is something that very, very few people get

Ben: 36:00

Well, I mean, first of all, he still develops in

Gene: 36:05

assembly.

Ben: 36:06

Assembler. Yeah. And, you know, he, he's down at the machine level and doing things, you know, hell, even his website you know, he, the menu he created you know, without using JavaScript at the time was tremendous. You know, he, he has a mindset and does do a few good things here and there. Absolutely.

Gene: 36:26

He is very much in the line of the old school developers that I remember from the eighties and nineties. And and it, you know, that, like I said, I, I absolutely think that he's good at and

Ben: 36:41

Mm-hmm.

Gene: 36:42

he, he needs to be given the kudos for it. But I've just heard way too much bullshit from him when it comes to security to ever consider him. This was literally, I remember talking about Steve Gibson on a, a security focused podcast that I did in the early two thousands, like not long after Adam created podcasting. We had a podcast called sec, this, s e c, this, and it was you know, it was a round table of a bunch of us that were all certified security professionals. And Steve Gibson came up a few times on there and in every instance pointing out where he is wrong.

Ben: 37:23

Yeah. And, you know, I'll say this like, I'm on his website right now just looking at things like, you know, shields up. Hey, hey. Okay. The password haystacks work that he did, I thought was pretty good. You know, the perfect passwords that he did, Okay, that's decent. The perfect paper passwords as a methodology is pretty solid, but you know, when you get past that, you start falling off pretty quick. So, you know, like I said, you've got S Q L, which is pretty cool in a lot of ways. But again, it starts falling off pretty quick. Some of his arguments around Nat I don't think he really understands how full stateful firewall works fully, but that's neither here nor there, especially when we, his arguments around Naing and what your firewall should look like and everything else, you know, anyone who's not doing opt in, you know, block by default bidirectionally is just not in the modern era.

Gene: 38:18

Can you not do that even,

Ben: 38:20

I'm sorry.

Gene: 38:21

like, how do you not do that?

Ben: 38:22

I Exactly. Well, generally, most, most residential routers and everything allow anything outbound. It's just inbound. That's, you know, using a staple firewall connection for you to establish, you'd have to open up ports coming in to allow something in that, that said, you know, Break and inspect exists. There are lots of ways of doing things. So,

Gene: 38:45

There's all kinds of crap that you don't know. It's like, for example, I just noticed yesterday, cuz I was looking through some logs that Adobe is responsible for like 60 gigs of traffic to my computer. Or actually I don't even even know which computer on my network. And I'm like, I don't have any Adobe software installed. And so I started tracking things down. Turns out I do have Acrobat installed and fucking Acrobat is like talking back to mothership all the time.

Ben: 39:13

Oh yeah. Lots of stuff does, but you know, that's why you've gotta control the outbound

Gene: 39:19

Yeah, yeah,

Ben: 39:21

So,

Gene: 39:22

absolutely.

Ben: 39:23

Anyway, so my thoughts of GRC is that he jumps to conclusions and is often wrong and has brought a lot of ridicule on himself. But I, you know, here's the thing. I don't throw the baby out with the bath water cause he's done some good stuff too.

Gene: 39:41

Oh totally, absolutely. And I'm sure he, he's a nice guy. Seems like a nice guy.

Ben: 39:46

I wouldn't have never met him.

Gene: 39:48

He's a buddy on Leo, so he is gotta be a nice guy.

Ben: 39:51

Yeah.

Gene: 39:52

I've never met him either though. But I met Leo a few times. He's a nice.

Ben: 39:56

Y. Yeah, Leo's definitely. I mean, I don't know. The way Leo turned on John on a few things, it's like,

Gene: 40:03

Yeah. Well,

Ben: 40:04

John, John helped make your career

Gene: 40:07

Oh, totally, totally. He was, John, John got Leo to go into radio

Ben: 40:12

Mm-hmm.

Gene: 40:13

and that was a led to all the, Of course, now I think Leo's kind of hit us peak a few years back. I think that, that they've, their empire is not where it once was. They're media empire, but I don't know. I, I, I do think that he was a dick in the way he acted towards John. You know, he banned Adam very quickly.

Ben: 40:34

Yeah. Adam flashed a gun and it was like, Oh my dude, he's remote. What difference does it make? Why are you afraid

Gene: 40:43

and even if he wasn't, who cares? So what is he a criminal that's not allowed to have guns? What's the problem?

Ben: 40:50

guns are bad? Gene, don't you know,

Gene: 40:52

Yeah. Well, did you see, speaking of guns, that, that the the Grand Emperor of Canada just banned all guns?

Ben: 40:59

I did not see this. How

Gene: 41:00

Well, you didn't see this. Yes, Yes. Trudeau just announced that all sale transit. and there's a whole bunch of stuff. Shit, I wish I would've had the page up so I could tell you exactly. But effectively he has declared that guns are illegal in Canada now.

Ben: 41:19

It's all handgun.

Gene: 41:21

All handguns, all hand. Well, in Canada already has got

Ben: 41:25

He, he was making moves towards that to begin with already, so

Gene: 41:31

Oh, yeah,

Ben: 41:31

we kind of knew that

Gene: 41:32

he actually, Well, I didn't, I didn't realize it was coming. I didn't realize it was coming yesterday.

Ben: 41:38

Yeah. I didn't know it was yesterday either, but What's her name? The Canadian broadcaster. Shit

Gene: 41:44

I mean, when you,

Ben: 41:45

Anyway,

Gene: 41:45

when when you have somebody that's done, but he's done with C

Ben: 41:49

Mm-hmm.

Gene: 41:51

and is now just declared essentially a ban on sale of all handguns, all transfer of guns,

Ben: 42:00

Canadians already have to have all guns registered and transferred and so on and

Gene: 42:04

and they can only have five rounds in the magazine.

Ben: 42:06

yeah, I mean the, the, the Canadians have allowed such restrictions on themselves that it's not even funny and the only hope a country ever has of preventing that is to never go down that road to begin with. Sometimes I think the US has gone too far, but then I look at Canada and I'm like, Yeah, no, we've still got a little wiggle room here,

Gene: 42:23

Yeah. But I mean, when you, when you disallow allow handguns, this is. I don't know what, what you can call it other than tyrannical.

Ben: 42:34

Well, I mean, handguns are the primary mode of protection, right? They are inherently a handgun is a defensive weapon.

Gene: 42:41

it is. Cuz if you're gonna be offensive, you'll find something better like a rifle

Ben: 42:45

Yes.

Gene: 42:46

or a shotgun.

Ben: 42:48

Anyway Well, I mean, Canada has got to deal with their Trudeau issue. They have to, they have to have a come to Jesus moment and figure out

Gene: 42:58

I don't know who votes in Canada, dude, because it, they've literally elected an emperor.

Ben: 43:04

Well, I, I don't know about an emperor, but I

Gene: 43:07

You think he's ever leaving? He's never leaving. He's there permanently now.

Ben: 43:12

Why do you say that?

Gene: 43:13

Ah, it's pretty obvious. The guy has got like he's not worried about anything. He can do anything he wants.

Ben: 43:19

Yeah. Well, I, I don't

Gene: 43:21

You see, you see him and remember their system is not like ours where there's a four year

Ben: 43:26

I understand it's a

Gene: 43:27

He can literally be

Ben: 43:28

can

Gene: 43:28

the emperor for the rest of his life.

Ben: 43:30

No, there, there's a limit on how long? I think

Gene: 43:32

Are you sure?

Ben: 43:33

Yeah. I think it's the same as Great Britain.

Gene: 43:35

All right. So 10 years. And then he changes the law before, right before that happens and decides to make it 20 years. I mean, I don't trust this fucker. I think if the, He is dangerous.

Ben: 43:48

Yes,

Gene: 43:49

just bad politics. He is in a dangerous level.

Ben: 43:53

but he's dangerous only because of his own stupidity. I wouldn't say that he's

Gene: 43:57

I don't think he's just dangerous to

Ben: 44:00

believes what he's doing.

Gene: 44:01

He does believe what he's doing, but I think he, I, I think he's not just dangerous to Canada.

Ben: 44:07

How so?

Gene: 44:08

I think that Canada, How's our border with Canada doing, man? Is it, is it any better than Mexico right now? I think there's all kinds of shit coming in from Canada. Yeah. It's totally unguarded. I don't, I don't trust that. I don't trust those fuckers. I think we need to start looking at getting Canada short up.

Ben: 44:30

What was the parallel that the war of 1812 was over that we ended up not getting to 45 or fight, Wasn't that it

Gene: 44:39

I don't know. What do you I'm, I'm lost.

Ben: 44:42

for 44 or fight? Yeah.

Gene: 44:44

Parallel.

Ben: 44:45

Yeah. 44th. Yeah, 44th or fight was the slogan, which we didn't quite make it to, but you know, hey, maybe we should have, maybe we should renew that.

Gene: 44:57

44th is still in the US though. It's not.

Ben: 45:01

54. Sorry. 54, Not 44. 54. Yeah. 54th.

Gene: 45:07

Well, you gonna give away Minnesota.

Ben: 45:09

Well, I mean, it's pretty useless anyway.

Gene: 45:11

Hey, now that's, that's where all the Somalis are sent to. There's gotta use

Ben: 45:15

Exactly.

Gene: 45:17

mm-hmm.

Ben: 45:18

man. Well, shit, man. With what we're about to do in Haiti and

Gene: 45:21

Dude, this is, Yeah, let's talk about that. We haven't talked about any of these eps, Haiti, the, the, the occupation of Haitis.

Ben: 45:30

about to

Gene: 45:31

I think, I think it's gonna be pretty bad. And I think, here's the other thing.

Ben: 45:36

Well, we're starting by sending arms to the government.

Gene: 45:39

I don't think this will be sat out by China or Russia. I think that this is the, You wanna talk about Ukraine? How about we have a little conflict in Haiti, Lot closer to the US

Ben: 45:52

Yeah,

Gene: 45:53

because if I'm either one of those two countries right now, hell, if I'm even a few of the countries in the Middle East, I will be providing everything that I can get away with to Haiti. Right now,

Ben: 46:07

I mean, the difference is, you know, there's a land bridge to, from an ally to Ukraine. So we drop

Gene: 46:14

far is,

Ben: 46:15

in

Gene: 46:16

is Haiti from Canada? Or sorry, Canada from Mexico?

Ben: 46:19

I don't know the nautical distance, but you still have international waters in between and you have

Gene: 46:25

They're international waters. What is the US

Ben: 46:27

you ha Yes.

Gene: 46:30

Oh, I'd love to see that happen when the

Ben: 46:32

US absolutely will, No, the

Gene: 46:35

good luck to

Ben: 46:36

block the, the blockade of Haiti could happen.

Gene: 46:40

Yeah. Yeah. That could happen. And I think that will have a great result in having even more of the countries of the world see the US for what it's actually is today, which is a tyrant. It's a, it's a monopolar tyrant. If the US is blocking Haiti, I mean, I don't think there's any better marketing you can have against the US in that

Ben: 47:03

Why is that?

Gene: 47:04

because it, it demonstrates the fact that for the US it is about occupation and control and not about any kind of freedom or diversity or any of that bullshit that they talk about.

Ben: 47:16

Well, we could also make the argument that we're not going to allow China and Russia and anyone else interfere. You know, we could sit there and claim them un Monroe doctrine and

Gene: 47:26

no doctrine that went out the window with Ukraine. No more mineral

Ben: 47:30

Well, you know,

Gene: 47:31

know you have a hard time accepting this, and I've talked about it before, but my prediction is still that Mexico is gonna end up belonging to China

Ben: 47:39

Well, with the Belt and Road Initiative, they're certainly on their way.

Gene: 47:43

because Mexico is getting benefit from China that it's not getting from the.

Ben: 47:47

Agreed.

Gene: 47:49

So I think the US is gonna end up losing any kind of real control in the western hemisphere that it's enjoyed for a hundred years politically not through warfare,

Ben: 48:01

I,

Gene: 48:01

but once that happens,

Ben: 48:03

the North American Union being a goal of a lot of globalists and, you

Gene: 48:09

Oh, it's a goal of the globalist. But remember when, when there was a an what do they call it? America's conference that was held recently where the US uninvited Cuba

Ben: 48:21

Mm-hmm.

Gene: 48:22

and then Mexico and a bunch of other countries didn't go because they think that's bullshit.

Ben: 48:28

Yes.

Gene: 48:29

Yeah. The US is not the leader of the Americas anymore.

Ben: 48:33

Well, Mexico's a failed narco state, so

Gene: 48:37

that like it means something. It failed. Naco State apparently is now in a better position to determine the future of Americas than the United States is.

Ben: 48:46

I disagree. I don't think it was I don't think it was consequential that the Mexicans didn't go.

Gene: 48:53

Well,

Ben: 48:54

I'm being dismissive of that.

Gene: 48:56

you're being dismissive. But it, that's, that's like saying, well, we don't care if, if Saudi Arabia doesn't sell oil to the US anymore because we don't care. Okay, well you don't care, but the rest of the world care.

Ben: 49:08

different stance, but yes.

Gene: 49:10

I, Mexico is the you know, it's, it, it's bigger than the vast majority of other countries in North and South America. There's just a handful of countries that are bigger. So I think Mexico is pretty significant.

Ben: 49:24

it to an extent, yes. The manufacturing basin, Mexico has been diminished greatly over the last couple of decades.

Gene: 49:31

Not as much as the US US has been diminished in terms of

Ben: 49:36

I, yes, in, in absolute numbers, 100%. You know, the US manufacturing capacity still exceeds that at Mexico. It's just cost of goods and, you know, things like that. But I don't know, man, I, I think if China really

Gene: 49:52

the third largest country in, in the Western hemisphere.

Ben: 49:55

Are you sure?

Gene: 49:56

Yep.

Ben: 49:57

I would think Brazil would be

Gene: 49:59

Brazil is second US is first.

Ben: 50:02

Canada should be Canada's

Gene: 50:04

Now Canada has no population. I'm talking

Ben: 50:06

I'm not talking about population, I'm talking about area.

Gene: 50:08

area is irrelevant. It's the population that matters.

Ben: 50:11

Okay. I Why is that?

Gene: 50:13

Why is that? Because population is, is what the productivity of the country is tied to. It's not the size of the country.

Ben: 50:20

Well, the

Gene: 50:21

way smaller than the United States, but it's got way more people and it's got way more productivity.

Ben: 50:26

China is geographically larger than the United

Gene: 50:29

No, it isn't. It's smaller.

Ben: 50:31

Okay.

Gene: 50:32

All right, keep talking.

Ben: 50:33

While I know I'm gonna have to Google this, so you

Gene: 50:35

Okay. Go ahead Google. Oh, you want me to talk? Okay. Well, the point is I think I've been predicting this and I I'm not the only one that China is gonna be the big foothold that America doesn't recognize is actually there. China, Mexico is gonna be the Chinese foothold

Ben: 50:53

okay. Only because of Alaska is the US larger

Gene: 50:57

So if you stick China on top of the United States, China's physically larger.

Ben: 51:02

than the continental us.

Gene: 51:03

Are you sure about that? How many square

Ben: 51:05

it right now.

Gene: 51:06

Yeah. How many

Ben: 51:07

So China with, with Alaska is 97% of the US.

Gene: 51:13

Really? Well, that's surprising. I thought China was smaller than the us just the

Ben: 51:18

I mean, so comparable land masses, if you count Alaska,

Gene: 51:23

Hmm. Well,

Ben: 51:24

which according to you is going back to Russia,

Gene: 51:26

yeah, that's gonna end up in the Russian hands eventually.

Ben: 51:29

huh.

Gene: 51:29

Yeah. Holy shit. You're right. I thought China was smaller. I, that's my, my bad. So China is basically the US plus Quebec

Ben: 51:37

Mm-hmm.

Gene: 51:39

if you overlay am cuz the, the shape the way China looks.

Ben: 51:42

Sorry, I wasn't trying to derail. I

Gene: 51:43

No, no, no, no. That's a good, No, that's a good catch. I, I see, I always thought that China just looked bigger on maps because of the projection,

Ben: 51:52

Right, right, right.

Gene: 51:52

And that it was actually about the same side. I didn't think it was smaller, but I thought it was about the same size as the US but yeah, no, you're right. It is actually significantly bigger than the continental US for sure.

Ben: 52:03

Yes.

Gene: 52:04

Well, in that case then China is really even more stronger, cuz I, I thought they were crowding in more people in the smaller space, but they're really

Ben: 52:13

Well, they are, and part of which you have to realize is how much of the country is desert. And you, you know, also, you know, Mongolia and all that. So the, the, their, their, their population density where they, you know, have population density is pretty damn high. You know, their cities are way,

Gene: 52:32

so Za is, if you look at a population of us, the vast majority of the people live within the hundred miles of coastline,

Ben: 52:37

Yeah, absolutely. But still we, the, they, we have more large cities than they do

Gene: 52:45

Yeah. Oh yeah, yeah.

Ben: 52:47

Yeah. Anyway, so the overall population density is pretty dense. When you look at natural resources though you know, China, the, you know, it's kind of like, it's kinda like Australia. You've got that great inland desert that really is not usable area. Right. There's not much you,

Gene: 53:03

there,

Ben: 53:03

I'm sorry.

Gene: 53:04

until they find something there.

Ben: 53:06

And then do a geoengineering project to be able to, you know, make it hospitable enough to go in and do something. Sure. But the US has a great deal of resources and the majority of the continental US is habital habitable land. You know, without, you know, you, you've got some desert area that's pretty inhabitable. But other than that you know, there aren't many

Gene: 53:30

whole Rocky Mountains that are not horribly habitable, but

Ben: 53:34

the Why do you think the Rocky Mountains are not habitable?

Gene: 53:37

too fucking cold and high and stuff in there. The Appalachians are okay, but the Rockies are, they're too jaggedy.

Ben: 53:43

I lived in the Rockies, and you could, I, I disagree with that statement very wholeheartedly,

Gene: 53:50

Yeah. I I don't think they're meant for human consumption there.

Ben: 53:53

Mm-hmm. says the guy from Minnesota

Gene: 53:56

Exactly. Exactly. People need to, people need to live in places with just water everywhere.

Ben: 54:03

Yeah, that gets very cold. No, thank you.

Gene: 54:07

I What? It doesn't get cold in the Rocky Mountains. Come on. Whatever.

Ben: 54:10

it I mean, depends on where you're at. So,

Gene: 54:13

Were were you were what, in Idaho?

Ben: 54:15

yeah, North central Idaho,

Gene: 54:16

That's cold. How cold did I get?

Ben: 54:20

the coldest it ever got when I was, the 10 years I lived there was 15 below for a brief period of time. But, you know, we rarely, we rarely got below zero. You know, we'd get down into the teens and tens for a period of time, but that's about it. We would only average about four foot of snow or so a year 30 some odd inches of rain, fall total. So somewhat of a high

Gene: 54:46

dry. Yeah, definitely. No, Menlo did get colder. I mean, it's usually 40 below every year.

Ben: 54:52

Yeah,

Gene: 54:52

But

Ben: 54:53

So let's talk habitability.

Gene: 54:55

yeah. I mean, but it's, you know, it's, it's, it's a dry cold.

Ben: 54:59

Okay. Anyway, the, the, the purpose of this conversation was to talk about the resources that can be brought to bear and I don't think Mexico can utilize the resources that they have. One, because of, yes, they may have the population, but they do not have the skilled labor. So when it comes to like the oil extraction that they need, they have to import labor to do that. You know, it's kind of funny because there is a labor exchange between Mexico and the us. It's skilled labor going down there to help, and it's unskilled labor coming up here to help. it's kind of an interesting trade.

Gene: 55:32

Yeah. I think if Mexico was part of the, not that it should be, but if it was part of the United States, I think that the United States would be even more self-sufficient.

Ben: 55:44

Agreed, because they do have a lot of natural resources, but not the educated population in order to extract them.

Gene: 55:50

Well, but the, the reason is because they, they could have been agrarian for a lot longer than people in the United States. Is that there there's, you know, the, the skilled labor that you talk about comes from a need not out of randomness. And the need for more of that was in the United States, whereas in warmer cl client countries in warmer climates, including Mexico like you can just get away with being an Arian.

Ben: 56:18

Yeah. And, and you also have the political history of Mexico, right?

Gene: 56:23

But I, Well, yes you do, but it's, it's not horribly different. It's just that it was Spanish conquered territory instead of English conquered territory.

Ben: 56:32

Well, I mean, you also had the Emperor Maximilian, and I mean, there, there's lots of stuff with that. The, the, the Mexicans didn't get their, I would argue the Mexicans have never really gotten their freedom. You know, they, they have never had really a true democracy or democratic republic of any kind. It has always been a either monarch or absolutely corrupted government

Gene: 56:59

Mm-hmm.

Ben: 57:00

I don't think that they, I don't know Mexican history enough to state it flat out, but I cannot remember or have ever had the impression that Mexico had a stable government.

Gene: 57:11

When's the last time the United States didn't, didn't have a corrupt government.

Ben: 57:15

Hmm. Well, it depends on the level of corruption you're talking about. I would argue that the level of corruption in the Mexican government far in a way, exceeds the level of corruption in the US government today.

Gene: 57:25

Do you, Do you prefer a corruption that's fully acknowledged or corruption that is pretended not to.

Ben: 57:31

Well, the Mexican government's corruption is only fully acknowledged because it is so blatant that it cannot be denied. Right.

Gene: 57:37

Yeah. I, I think the view of the corruption in the United States by the rest of the world is much greater than it is by people that, that are living here and, and are buying the lie.

Ben: 57:47

Well, I mean, I don't think I buy the

Gene: 57:49

You can't have a government that's not corrupted with politicians that have been in office for 40 years.

Ben: 57:56

Well, yeah, and you could say that you can't have a, you know, a politician in office for 40 years if they can't do insider trading and become wealthy off of it.

Gene: 58:06

It's just one of the elements. But you, But also, I just don't buy for a minute that somebody can be in office for that long without elections being completely called

Ben: 58:18

I can, I I, I think if you look at Nancy Pelosi in the district, she's in, I, you know, Anyone with a dean next to their name in that district is going to win. And

Gene: 58:30

because they can't lose.

Ben: 58:32

Right. But I don't think that's because of it being called. I think that's because of the lunacy of the district.

Gene: 58:37

regardless of what the people there would actually want, that, that d guarantees still a. And as much in the United States as anything, it's ensuring that the people that are in power in office, stay in office. You don't have somebody within the party rising up to challenge another, you know, person that's not doing a great job for the people of the district.

Ben: 59:03

Well, and so that's, that's a whole nother thing is the amount of money that's in politics that is

Gene: 59:09

Yeah. We call it money. Other countries call it corruption.

Ben: 59:11

I mean direct bribes versus insider trading versus, you know, there's lots of things. I'm not saying that the US isn't a corrupt country. We very much

Gene: 59:20

the way that the the parties control who gets to run under their logo.

Ben: 59:26

well, I mean, party affiliation should be banned from the ballot. The problem there is, you know, we have freedom of speech and freedom of association, and do you want to sacrifice those things for potentially a more educated voter? So this is the whole thing.

Gene: 59:41

I, it might,

Ben: 59:42

if you are only voting Dr. R, you should not be.

Gene: 59:46

Totally agree.

Ben: 59:47

it's wrong.

Gene: 59:48

I, I've said this before, I don't think it'll practically is doable, but I still think it's a good idea is that the ballot that you get should be blank with just the positions and you write in. Who you want for that position. So anybody that doesn't know who the fuck to vote for leaves it blank and it doesn't count.

Ben: 1:00:08

Well, and you know, in the state of Texas, one of the things I personally do is I refuse to vote for anyone who's running Unposed.

Gene: 1:00:16

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I do the same thing. And I,

Ben: 1:00:18

part of that's

Gene: 1:00:19

I also don't vote for anyone that's an incumbent. Anybody who's got an eye next to'em, I just don't vote for them.

Ben: 1:00:25

So I, I, I don't care if they're the incumbent or not. I'm gonna vote for who I think I should vote for. But what I would say there is I never vote straight ticket. You know, I don't go, Oh, Republicans, yes, no, I'm going name by name. And

Gene: 1:00:39

know, some places just have

Ben: 1:00:40

I don't know about, I won't do it. I won't vote in it.

Gene: 1:00:44

I'll vote for the guy usually, but other than that, yeah. If there, if it's an incumbent, I'm not gonna vote for him.

Ben: 1:00:52

What if it's an incumbent versus a woman

Gene: 1:00:55

Oh shit. Well, yeah, that's a tough one. So, man, I gotta think about that one.

Ben: 1:00:59

Oh,

Gene: 1:01:01

Yes, Gene, That's sur gene

Ben: 1:01:03

Gene,

Gene: 1:01:04

com. Uhhuh Uhhuh, you know, we give out that address. Nobody ever sends.

Ben: 1:01:08

I, You know what's funny is I get more to mine and

Gene: 1:01:11

You

Ben: 1:01:11

to hunt for it.

Gene: 1:01:12

You probably do. Yeah, no, that's true. But yeah, I, I think that, well, everybody knows that, that obviously if I'm saying this shit, I've got a big smile on my face. Like that comes through I think in my communication. But but I don't know, man. I, I just, I think that there in some ways it doesn't really even matter what you vote for because the the results are in before the elections take place.

Ben: 1:01:39

Hmm.

Gene: 1:01:39

I just don't trust the whole system. The whole system is fucked up. And, and the more you hear about it, including the move to the machines that we had, the voter machines, it just makes you more and more suspicious in thinking that it is all bullshit. The, the vote really does not matter.

Ben: 1:01:56

Well, you know,

Gene: 1:01:57

been determined pre, pre-event.

Ben: 1:02:00

here, here's the, I'm good with voting machines, but the voting machines I like are the ones with the scan tron, where it's a Scantron ballot that you fill out with a pencil and you run it through the machine. The machine can tally it, but there's a paper ballot to go back to.

Gene: 1:02:16

Well, the, the last time I voted here in Austin, it was a computerized machine

Ben: 1:02:20

Yep.

Gene: 1:02:21

and it spit out a piece of paper. That was coded that you then picked up and brought over 10 feet to a different machine that sucked in your piece of paper and then actually tallied your vote.

Ben: 1:02:34

Yep. But here's the thing. So what's interesting is the machine that's, so, the system that you're using there, the system that's counting the votes is supposed to be isolated.

Gene: 1:02:45

Mm-hmm.

Ben: 1:02:46

The machines that are, you're actually placing your votes on are less isolated. And the argument is, well, the system that's actually doing the tallying is the one that matters from a security standpoint. Well, except, you know, again, it's coded on there and not necessarily human readable. So,

Gene: 1:03:03

I just think it's, it's, it's about time. We just have an iPhone app that lets you vote.

Ben: 1:03:09

Oh God, no, Gene,

Gene: 1:03:11

Yeah. Only people with iPhones. No Androids. And

Ben: 1:03:14

Screw that.

Gene: 1:03:15

you have to write in, you have to type in the name of the people you're voting for. You can't you don't see'em in the app.

Ben: 1:03:21

yeah, but then when you misspell something or whatever, what I would say, what I would say here, here's what I would say, I would be willing to give up the you know, the secret ballot in order to have the elections, you know, more verifiable. So, Ben, or these are the people who you voted for? Yes. I would give up a secret ballot for.

Gene: 1:03:42

Yeah. And I think that's fine until you get into a government like Canada where you're not allowed to say that you voted for anybody other than Justin Trudo

Ben: 1:03:51

Our crew chef or whoever.

Gene: 1:03:52

or whoever. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Yeah. I, The, the secret ballot thing I think only makes sense if people

Ben: 1:04:02

Well,

Gene: 1:04:02

would vote differently. Yeah. If they would vote differently. If it was public. You and I, it's not gonna matter cuz we're go, we don't give a shit. So we're gonna vote the same way, whether it's secret or not. And I have no problem telling people who I voted for. You know, it, it's, And I've voted,

Ben: 1:04:19

I have no problem telling people. Donald Trump was the first and only Republican I've ever, ever voted for, for president.

Gene: 1:04:24

Yeah. And I, I am no problem saying I voted for George Bush. But it's

Ben: 1:04:28

Depending on which one. I may ree you for that.

Gene: 1:04:31

No, it's worse than that. I voted for both of'em. But I also voted for Ross Pro.

Ben: 1:04:37

there you go. You've redeemed yourself some,

Gene: 1:04:39

exactly. So,

Ben: 1:04:41

my, my God. Has there ever been a presidential candidate that was more accurate in his predictions?

Gene: 1:04:48

Yeah, I, He just, too bad. He was goofy looking and he

Ben: 1:04:52

looking than the charts, you know.

Gene: 1:04:54

But the charts were good. I like the charts. I

Ben: 1:04:56

you hear that sucking sound coming out of Mexico?

Gene: 1:04:59

Mm-hmm. Yeah. Ross, it, Ross Perro was what I think John thinks all Texas sound like.

Ben: 1:05:06

Hey. Very smart individual

Gene: 1:05:08

yeah.

Ben: 1:05:09

made his

Gene: 1:05:10

built fucking Eds.

Ben: 1:05:12

Yeah.

Gene: 1:05:13

So owned pretty much all the land back when I lived in Dallas that I was on Plano and Frisco.

Ben: 1:05:19

Yeah. Well, not only that, but the Fort Worth airport still named after him.

Gene: 1:05:23

Love Field. Oh, Fort Worth. Fort Worth, Okay. Yeah. Yeah. No, he was an interesting character. I, I definitely thought that. But the, the problem is because I voted for him, we got Bill Clinton.

Ben: 1:05:37

I, you know, you say that, but I, Daddy Bush was just such a bad president

Gene: 1:05:43

I agree. That's why I didn't vote for him cuz he lied. Motherfucker lied about taxes.

Ben: 1:05:46

Oh, yeah. And that,

Gene: 1:05:47

Read my lips. No new taxes.

Ben: 1:05:49

Yeah. Well, he's from a family that tried to overthrow the US government. What do you expect? He's

Gene: 1:05:55

but that's not a bad thing. I mean, a lot of people may end up being from families that overthrow the US government. In fact, your family kind of tried to do that in the Well, I guess you could say a a succession is not an overthrow.

Ben: 1:06:07

Correct. We just wanted to be left alone.

Gene: 1:06:11

Yeah. Potato pat potato, I think in the overthrow of the US government would've been a good thing during the Civil War.

Ben: 1:06:17

During the Civil War Sure. During the, you know, 1930s, I don't know.

Gene: 1:06:22

Maybe. I mean, I didn't really like who was in the government in the 1930s.

Ben: 1:06:25

Right. But the people they were wanting to support, I like less,

Gene: 1:06:30

Mm-hmm.

Ben: 1:06:32

I mean, seriously, the, you know,

Gene: 1:06:35

Well, I don't even know Who were

Ben: 1:06:37

the American

Gene: 1:06:37

Who were they? Oh, Nazi party. Yeah. Well, maybe they would've kept us outta World War ii,

Ben: 1:06:43

Or gotten a sin on the side of Germany and don't think that would've

Gene: 1:06:46

that would be equivalent to keeping us out of World War ii. I mean, without the US support England and the rest of Europe would've been completely flipped, like within a year.

Ben: 1:06:58

I mean, again, I think if you take away Churchill, World War II probably doesn't happen.

Gene: 1:07:05

Yeah.

Ben: 1:07:06

I, and I don't think that Hitler would've tried to be as expansionist as he ended up being. Maybe that's my naive today. People would say, Oh no, he wanted to rule the world. He never said that.

Gene: 1:07:20

No.

Ben: 1:07:21

You know, show, show me where in any of his writing speeches or anything else that he say that the third right will rule the world.

Gene: 1:07:26

Yeah, yeah. No,

Ben: 1:07:28

that was never a stated goal.

Gene: 1:07:30

yeah, I agree. I agree. I mean, it's great. We, we get to a point in the episode where we're talking about the benefits of Hitler. Awesome.

Ben: 1:07:37

No, I'm not talking, not saying he's a good guy. I'm just saying it is propaganda to sit there and say that the Nazis just want to take over the world.

Gene: 1:07:47

Yeah.

Ben: 1:07:47

they, where'd they say that? Where was

Gene: 1:07:49

really, we outta blame Churchill for the 20 million Russians that died in World War

Ben: 1:07:55

yeah, I mean, and

Gene: 1:07:56

because if he would've stopped in Poland, then Russia would've not been invaded.

Ben: 1:08:03

there's a great, Well, and it wasn't even all of Poland. He was not trying to take over all of Poland. You know, there, there was a German contingent in there. There was, there, there is no such thing as a innocent nation. And that's what people need to realize. It, there's just not, and there are varying degrees of evil and everything else. And I think that then the Nazi party, I would never want to live under that. I don't think they're good guys. I

Gene: 1:08:28

Hey, let

Ben: 1:08:28

any

Gene: 1:08:28

ask you this.

Ben: 1:08:30

is bad.

Gene: 1:08:30

From a alternate history perspective, What if we had Hitler, just like Hitler, but he didn't associate his mom dying with a Jewish doctor being the cause of that. And he didn't have this whole hangup about Jews. He was just pro Germany and not about anti Jew. How much would that have changed the perspective on who Hitler is?

Ben: 1:08:56

Well, but you have to realize that the antisemitism that he exerts that was not really controversial at

Gene: 1:09:06

Yeah. It wasn't unique at all. It was convenient, but

Ben: 1:09:09

Ford was a major

Gene: 1:09:11

Oh yeah, absolutely. Yeah. There's no Jews working at Ford Motor Company back in the day. Absolutely. Same thing with Wal Disney. Walt Disney, Major Nazi,

Ben: 1:09:20

well, yeah. I mean, I mean, Ford even published in some of his publications, the protocols of the Elders of Zion, which, you know, there's lots of different takes on that. And the fact of the matter is the world was antisemitic at the time

Gene: 1:09:35

It, it totally was. But let's say that, that he wasn't, that he, like literally, I don't wanna make him pro Jew, but let's just say that he was less antisemitic. Than many other people. And like this idea of the Jews being responsible for anything never came up. It was, it was more, he, let's say he was more honest or he saw more of what we see historically now, which was that it was England and a lot of the

Ben: 1:10:01

the Rockefellers

Gene: 1:10:03

the, the, Yeah, well, exactly. The United States and, and UK that was more responsible for what Germany ended up having to deal with post World War and that Germany deserves better. It's, people deserve better. And oh, by the way, we'd like our country back that was stolen from us after World War I

Ben: 1:10:22

Yeah. And there are lots of, we could do lots of alternative histories here. I think if you did not end up with the war, if you didn't have Churchill needing to solidify his power. And basically the way a lot of us modern presidents need a war to solidify their power. Pretty much everyone in my lifetime. But Trump had you not had the personal side of Churchill pushing him towards that I think you would think very differently on what transpired. I, I think you can read books by, you know, and people will say David Irving for instance is a Holocaust an I.

Gene: 1:10:59

Mm.

Ben: 1:10:59

extent he is, but you know, he makes some interesting points, and I don't know the truth. All I know about World War II is that the propaganda on both sides is so thick and the history is so convoluted, and I am so many generations removed that I will probably never know the truth about what.

Gene: 1:11:17

Yeah, the truth is always complicated. It's more complicated than, than the propaganda leads you to think. But if it, it, it wasn't enough that Hitler was antisemitic. It was that the environment that existed in Germany at the time was ripe for somebody who is a nationalist to bring the country out of that super.

Ben: 1:11:43

Well, the, you know, the Weimar Republic and the hyperinflation that they had gone through, the, the amount of suffering that the German people had gone through. And this is a fairly orderly people that are now thrown into chaos

Gene: 1:11:58

Yeah. Which we're about to do right now.

Ben: 1:12:01

Yeah,

Gene: 1:12:01

Ready? Go

Ben: 1:12:03

yeah, yeah.

Gene: 1:12:04

Already, I watched a couple of videos coming out of Germany talking about the listing. All the companies that are declaring bankruptcy, a lot of these are like 60, 70, 80, a hundred year old.

Ben: 1:12:15

Yeah. Well, according to one study the majority of BMWs are now gonna be built in the us.

Gene: 1:12:23

Yeah. Yeah. I think that's the only way that BMW survives because they don't have, they won't have the energy to do it, and they, they're not gonna have the raw materials to do it, and they're gonna probably not have the labor to do it, frankly.

Ben: 1:12:36

Well, but I mean, if you look at most of European manufacturing, those companies also have a presence in the United States, and right now, out of the Western countries, the US is still the strongest. So if you're the CEO of Volkswagen or BMW, or insert name here, boy, the US manufacturing base is looking better and better. This is why I say we're de industrializing Europe.

Gene: 1:13:02

We are, And, and my favorite European car company, Fiat they do a lot of work in Mexico.

Ben: 1:13:08

They do. And why the hell is Fiat your favorite European car

Gene: 1:13:12

I always had Fiats. I love fiat.

Ben: 1:13:15

Hmm.

Gene: 1:13:16

Yeah. I mean, I think when they bought Chrysler, that was a great move. It, it greatly improved stylistically what Chrysler vehicles look like. I mean, I've, I've had multiple fiat cars. I've got a,

Ben: 1:13:29

gonna tell me

Gene: 1:13:29

a Grand Cherokee. Oh, like the what? Poche.

Ben: 1:13:33

Yeah.

Gene: 1:13:34

Yeah, And then I'm, I'm not a fan of their design language. I, I think the Pazos have always been like, they were very good at certain things, but I've never really liked their design language. Yeah. I always liked

Ben: 1:13:48

the only European cars that engine outside of like the hyper cars and the sports cars and stuff like that, you know, actual everyday utilitarian cars. The only decent ones historically have been German.

Gene: 1:14:01

Yeah. German cars are good. I mean, they, they make,

Ben: 1:14:04

Well, I like Jaguar. Jaguar has never been good. Like

Gene: 1:14:08

no, but it looks pretty.

Ben: 1:14:09

yeah, but they're crap

Gene: 1:14:11

I mean, I don't know if I would go that far. Here's the thing, both Jaguar and BMWs have the same problem, which is that you never wanna own, like, older than five year old of either one of those cars. The, the reason is slightly different, but the end result's, the same German cars are built to extremely high specs, and you have to maintain them with a lot more consistency than you do other cars. German cars are more like the the air 15, whereas you know, American or even Japanese cars are more like an ak, Like even if you get some crap in there, they'll still run just. Not so much with the German cars, the, the Jag, I mean, that thing ships from the factory already needing maintenance and needing to get fixed all the time.

Ben: 1:15:01

Well, you, you hit a bump and your entire electrical system is screwed.

Gene: 1:15:05

Well, exactly. Now why did you hit that bump? you know, But it's a pretty looking car. Ford owned Jaguar for quite a while. But I'm not a huge fan of Ford either. My, my dad was a big Ford guy, so I'm, I'm definitely not.

Ben: 1:15:20

Yeah. My, my current daily

Gene: 1:15:23

Ford, don't you?

Ben: 1:15:24

Yeah, I've got a Ford F-150 that's a paid off. It's 2013. I like having a paid off vehicle.

Gene: 1:15:31

Yeah. I'm big fan.

Ben: 1:15:33

yeah. I'm, I'm one

Gene: 1:15:34

thing to do is buy the car for cash. That's You're

Ben: 1:15:36

Well, and, and you know, I'm not a huge Dame Dave Ramsey fan, but one of the practices that I started actually after I bought this truck was I just started after it was paid off. That just goes into a savings account. I never stopped that car payment as

Gene: 1:15:50

Exactly. Exactly. So what's your next car gonna be?

Ben: 1:15:53

I don't know yet, but I, I actually, I'm at 187,000 miles on this truck.

Gene: 1:15:58

I thought you said$187,000 in the car savings account. I'd be like, Whoa, you can afford the new Ford F-150 Then

Ben: 1:16:05

Yeah. So I've got 187,000 miles on this truck, and I'm starting to have a weird glitch that apparently is related to a known issue with this generation of F-150. And it, it's weird. I'll be going down the road and all of a sudden my tachometer and speedometer drop out and the transmission down shifts.

Gene: 1:16:26

Ooh

Ben: 1:16:27

And I turn it off and turn it back on again and it comes back up. But apparently the wiring control harness has has a known issue. But because of where the wiring control harness goes into the transmission, you have to replace the entire valve assembly for like the the transmission or cooler and all that.

Gene: 1:16:47

There's no way in hell you would be driving a Beamer with 187,000 miles. No way.

Ben: 1:16:52

I don't know. I drove Audi with probably 190.

Gene: 1:16:56

is not as not as prone to needing service services. BMWs there.

Ben: 1:17:01

Okay. Yeah. Well anyway, I mean this has been a great truck for me. I haven't had any major issues with it. This will

Gene: 1:17:07

Now, how much usage of the bed have you gotten since you bought it? Have you used it quite a bit? Have you, I've always vacillated between a truck and a sport ute, and I've typically gone for a sport ute because I just keep thinking that I'm more likely to want to have the space that I can leave shit in locked up ever, versus a space that's just open that I'm gonna haul stuff that's.

Ben: 1:17:31

Well, you know, I have a bed cover which I can, I, I'll, I'll

Gene: 1:17:35

Now, Does that make it waterproof or not?

Ben: 1:17:37

Semi.

Gene: 1:17:38

Yeah, that's what I thought. Semi

Ben: 1:17:40

So the reason why I

Gene: 1:17:41

what every chick wants to hear.

Ben: 1:17:44

the reason why I ended up getting the bed covers actually cuz of Covid.

Gene: 1:17:47

Yeah.

Ben: 1:17:48

So,

Gene: 1:17:49

to have a bed cover for Covid.

Ben: 1:17:50

No. What happened was when the pandemic first started to hit, I was in DFW at the time, you know, we were splitting between DFW and College Station, and most of my guns were in DFW with me because, you know, go wanna go shoot or whatever. And I was like, you know, if shit hits the fan and I have to get out of this city, I don't want to have to haul on my shit. Huh?

Gene: 1:18:14

the guns. You didn't have'em Room enough. Room in the backseat for the guns.

Ben: 1:18:17

Oh, fuck no. Not for the guns in ammo. Like, so I was gonna, my parents and I was like, You know what, I'm gonna just take a bunch to them. So literally the bed of the truck was

Gene: 1:18:26

Yep. Yep.

Ben: 1:18:28

I'm riding low, right? And I've gotta tarp over it, and I've gotta tie down. I'm almost out of Dallas. I'm on the southeast

Gene: 1:18:34

Oh, you told me this. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Cop stopped you or

Ben: 1:18:37

No, no, no, no. So the tarp started flapping, and I'm like, Ah, fuck. So I pull over and I fix the tarp. Well, I'm about to get back in my truck, and a cop pulls behind me and he is like, Can I help you, sir? And I'm like, Well, I was just fixing the tarp, you know, da da. Well, what's in the back of the truck?

Gene: 1:18:51

Uhhuh.

Ben: 1:18:52

None of your business? And anyway, we went back and forth and he tried to use his baton to lift up the tarp. And I had to, id myself between the vehicle and him and say, you know, am I being detained? You know, are, do, are you gonna get a warrant? And so on. He tried to call in a drug dog, held me for 45 minutes waiting on a drug dog. And I said, Look, if you're not gonna get a fucking warrant to search my vehicle, I'm leaving. And unless you want to detain me illegally, I'm gonna go. So I left and it ended up being okay, but after that it's like bed cover

Gene: 1:19:27

Yep, yep.

Ben: 1:19:28

Yeah.

Gene: 1:19:29

No,

Ben: 1:19:30

by the way, everyone in, in a cargo area, if they cannot plainly see, they cannot search a cargo area of your vehicle, I e your trunk without probable cause you know, without probable cause or a warrant. And he hadn't neither. So

Gene: 1:19:43

yeah. Never never put your window down any more than about an inch when the

Ben: 1:19:48

never consent to a search.

Gene: 1:19:50

Mm-hmm.

Ben: 1:19:51

Anyway,

Gene: 1:19:51

Yeah. And I, I think that, you know, it used to be cops were very bothered by people videotaping them. Now pretty much everybody's got cameras and cops got their little camera running. What I've done in the past, which works very well, is I if, I mean, if it's a normal traffic stop, there's no point in doing this. But if the cop is starting to get belligerent, call 9 1 1. Get them on the phone right away. Cause you wanna have that second line of, of recording happening and, and let the cop know. I want him to be aware of the fact that not only you know, is he being recorded on his little video device, but he can't spin this shit because 9 1 1 calls they can't hang up on you unless you're genuinely doing something belligerent. So all you gotta say is, I'm at a traffic stop and I'm concerned that this may not be a real police officer. I would prefer to stay on the line during this incident.

Ben: 1:20:50

Yep.

Gene: 1:20:51

And that's it. And now they're recording and the cop is gonna be way more self-conscious about his actions than he would be if it's just his word versus your word.

Ben: 1:21:00

Well, you know, one of the so with dash cams, this, this predates body cams. But when I was in college, my grandfather was ill and I was on my way to go see him in Beaumont. And they're right outside of cut and shoot. There was, you came around the corner and it went from 70 to 55, no warning. And I'm in a little blue Pontiac sports car and I started hitting my brakes as soon as I can cuz I had forgotten about this.

Gene: 1:21:28

like in a sunfire or what the hell can a Pontiac Sports car

Ben: 1:21:31

A gram pre gtp.

Gene: 1:21:33

Grand Prix. Okay.

Ben: 1:21:34

Yeah, Daytona 50th anniversary Pace car edition. They made 1500 of them. It was fun little car.

Gene: 1:21:40

Yep.

Ben: 1:21:41

Nothing special, just a turbo char or actually supercharged v6. So the worst part of that car was that was front wheel drive. I mean way too much horsepower for a front wheel drive vehicle, but it was still fun. You know, under steer aside. Anyway, coming around the corner and I'm hitting my brakes as fast as I can and a fucking minivan passes me when I cross that line. You know, the minivan's going faster than I am, but of course the cop pulls me over cuz I'm in the little sports car. You know how fast you were going? Yes sir. I do. I've got a heads up display, you know, he's like, you were doing 75. I said, yeah, in the 70 I was doing about, you know, 62 when I hit the line, but I was decelerating as fast as I could. And anyway, it goes back and forth and wants to, we, you know, we sit there and I'm like, I'm on my way to Beaumont, gonna see my grandfather. And then he goes, Well, can you step outta your vehicle? I said, Why? I said, Well, I'd like to search your vehicle. I said, Well you can if you get a fucking warrant. You know, very similar. Anyway, I actually took that cop I challenged a ticket and took it to court and the dash cam video indeed showed the minivan going faster than me. And the judge threw.

Gene: 1:22:52

Yeah. Well, that's good. That's good.

Ben: 1:22:55

You can't let officers get away with shit, man.

Gene: 1:22:57

No, no, that's and look, I'm, I'm perfectly willing to pay a ticket that was genuinely just me doing something stupid.

Ben: 1:23:05

Yeah

Gene: 1:23:06

I, I just don't like getting called in or caught in a revenue generating scheme.

Ben: 1:23:12

well, revenue generating and just, you know, like he saw a little sports car then he saw a college student and he's sitting there thinking, Okay, this guy got a little bit of pot on. What else can I get him on?

Gene: 1:23:25

Mm-hmm.

Ben: 1:23:26

That's what he was thinking.

Gene: 1:23:27

No, that's true.

Ben: 1:23:28

you know.

Gene: 1:23:29

When I, when I have my little bmw convertible, I, I got pulled over for dark windows more often than anything else.

Ben: 1:23:39

Yeah.

Gene: 1:23:40

And it's literally factory

Ben: 1:23:43

tent, Yeah.

Gene: 1:23:44

It, it's they, they have this ceramic window coating on the beamers, which I have not seen any other cars. But the, the ceramic tint does a very good job of reflecting but still allowing light in, I, I don't know how it's different from normal vinyl, but there's clearly a difference

Ben: 1:24:05

Mm-hmm. So it looks darker from the outside than it

Gene: 1:24:08

Like it's, it's not even so much that it looks darker, It looks like you can't see through it.

Ben: 1:24:13

Right.

Gene: 1:24:14

Like there's more reflection. Like instead of a black window, which just looks black, this looks like it's reflecting a lot more light back out. So, which makes it, you know, if light is reflected back in your eyes from the window itself, you can't really see what's underneath that. And I, I think that's what the cops didn't like is

Ben: 1:24:34

but

Gene: 1:24:35

they didn't like not being able to look through the window.

Ben: 1:24:38

right, but the laws around tent aren't about the cop being able to look in, It's about you having enough visibility to safely operate the

Gene: 1:24:45

And that's why obviously as factory windows, it passed the little, little test gadget that they have. But I've never, in any other car I've had, had as many instances of being pulled over for dark windows

Ben: 1:24:59

In Texas, I don't think you can be pulled over for that alone.

Gene: 1:25:03

twice in Texas on the same trip.

Ben: 1:25:06

interesting because I, I, I was always under the impression that it was like your registration, it's a fix it ticket if you're pulled over for something else, not a actual cause for being

Gene: 1:25:15

you know, I have a Valentine one, so I would know the cops are around way before they saw me. And so I would be always going the speed limit, but then the cop would still pull me over. And I think, I think you're right. I think their prejudice against very sporty looking cars. And that, that was a very fun little car that did zero to 60 in about four, four seconds, just over four seconds. And you know, but then how many, Like, I always drove it like a grandma because I like the capability of doing that, but I didn't like the shitty mileage that you got. So I generally drove that car more like a Prius, which you know, maybe that sells more about me, but it's, I, I swear to God, I drove my fucking Fiat 500 more aggressively than I drove the Beamer.

Ben: 1:26:03

Hmm.

Gene: 1:26:04

but it was it's, yeah, it's so weird. I mean, I, I was driving out to the Grand Canyon of all things from Austin and on a trip twice I got pulled over while still in Texas for dark windows.

Ben: 1:26:17

Hmm,

Gene: 1:26:18

That's a weird thing.

Ben: 1:26:20

very.

Gene: 1:26:21

What else going on? So you, you sent me a link to some chick, then you'd said, we'll talk about it, and then you never talked about it.

Ben: 1:26:28

Oh, well that was the that was part of the conversation. I should have mentioned her in reference to the into the the conference. But, we'll, we'll skip, I don't wanna belabor the point too much just because of some of who she works for is investors that are kind of interesting in what they're investing in. But

Gene: 1:26:47

She looked like she's about our age too. Well, my age too. Right.

Ben: 1:26:50

Yeah, yeah, yeah. She's, she's kind of in

Gene: 1:26:53

total like Middle Eastern, overachiever.

Ben: 1:26:56

Yeah. Yeah. But definitely a spook, you know, in my

Gene: 1:26:59

well, I mean, yeah. If, if you went to Harvard as a first generation Iranian American Yeah. You're probably a spook

Ben: 1:27:09

Yeah. Yeah. So, trust, Trust didn't last very long.

Gene: 1:27:14

10 days. 10 days, yeah. I don't know, man. I mean, I, I didn't know much about her in the first place and I was, I guess, figured I would find out more as her rain continued. But apparently not that long.

Ben: 1:27:31

Well, I mean, how long was it? It wasn't 10 days,

Gene: 1:27:34

It was 10 days. It was literally 10 days. I just read a

Ben: 1:27:37

No, because she was she was recognized by the Queen before she died. So it's gotta be over a month.

Gene: 1:27:44

Nope. Well, I'll look it up right now. But what about her? So other than do well, so who's gonna be next?

Ben: 1:27:51

Oh, shit, man. I have no idea. I mean, you could talk about hunt, but I don't think that That that's really, he's in, I don't think he's really into running. Yeah. Liz Trust

Gene: 1:28:01

days. 45 days it says here.

Ben: 1:28:03

Yes. Not officially out yet. She's just announced her resignation.

Gene: 1:28:08

Right, but there was 10 days from something else. There was 10 days from some official thing that happened.

Ben: 1:28:14

Probably the declaration of the mini budget or the resignation of the X Checker would be the only two events that

Gene: 1:28:20

Okay. All right.

Ben: 1:28:21

But re regardless. It's definitely interesting timing. The Bank of England has been pulling some shenanigans. I think it's a little bit of a coverup for that, and it'll be very interesting to see if the UK has another Prime Minister.

Gene: 1:28:36

Well, what did another ones go with that one for over a year?

Ben: 1:28:40

Well, I'm more thinking about the history of Charles the first and Charles the second.

Gene: 1:28:45

Hmm.

Ben: 1:28:46

You know, they, they suspended parliament and took back the monarchy and backed the powers for a period of

Gene: 1:28:51

Oh, you come on, man. There's no way that the current King of England's gonna do that.

Ben: 1:28:57

I don't know. there is precedent.

Gene: 1:29:00

It'd be worse if he did. I mean, if he did that, then the UK would basically shut down all power plants and, and go to Pure Solar.

Ben: 1:29:09

Okay. And then we would end up with

Gene: 1:29:11

You know,

Ben: 1:29:11

revolution moment

Gene: 1:29:13

Charles is the biggest greenie out there.

Ben: 1:29:16

Yeah, I thought, Yeah. And apparently apparently, you know, he's having some health issues. That means that

Gene: 1:29:23

I'm really

Ben: 1:29:24

monarch pretty

Gene: 1:29:25

Yeah, exactly. I'm really surprised that he didn't just skip over and give us thing to the, to this kid.

Ben: 1:29:32

Yeah. Well, why would he do that? He's been waiting for all of his life to be

Gene: 1:29:36

Yeah. But at a certain point you need to get over this shit and just move on.

Ben: 1:29:41

Yeah. He's not the type of personality to do that. I mean, my God, didn't you see him throw the fit over the inkwell?

Gene: 1:29:47

No. What happened?

Ben: 1:29:48

Oh my God. He there. The inkwell wasn't where he wanted it on the desk. So he is screaming at the servants to come move the inkwell.

Gene: 1:29:55

He couldn't move it himself.

Ben: 1:29:57

Exactly. That's the kind of person you're dealing with.

Gene: 1:29:59

Jesus

Ben: 1:30:00

yeah, I can totally see him saying, You know what? Fuck it. I'm gonna take the monarchy back, keeling over and dying, and then we'll see what William does.

Gene: 1:30:08

Yeah. Well, I think William, from what I heard actually go the opposite direction and the monarchy. He'd be the last king of England.

Ben: 1:30:15

Which I could totally see that too. And that would be, that would be interesting because if he's to spin parliament and then William says, I'm going to abdicate all power. We're not gonna be a part entry system any longer. We're actually gonna be a representative republic.

Gene: 1:30:28

Yeah.

Ben: 1:30:29

How

Gene: 1:30:29

the powers that be wouldn't, wouldn't allow'em to do that.

Ben: 1:30:32

Why not?

Gene: 1:30:34

They wouldn't allow it cuz they like their system where they can stay in office forever.

Ben: 1:30:38

Eh, Yeah, I don't know. I, I, I think that I think there are a lot of people in the UK and in Europe in general that are the unrest in Europe. We don't see a lot of it in the US media, but is becoming very palpable.

Gene: 1:30:53

I wa yeah, I watched them, but, but I, I guess I'm just not very convinced that Europeans have any power at all in their own countries. Think that the globalization has got'em to a point where they are literally just surfs.

Ben: 1:31:07

well, Yeah. But surfs can still revolt

Gene: 1:31:11

They can, but it, it takes, I think it takes more surfs today than it did when the, the US revolted with only 15% support.

Ben: 1:31:20

well, okay. So he, Yeah. I mean, you're much more towards the Middle Ages, right? So the disparity between the surfs and the Lords at the time was really the night. Right? And quite frankly, drones are the modern night. You know, you, you do not have the ability to compare arms to a drone. You don't e even if you have a rocket launcher and everything else, you get that eye of sore on on you, and you're kind of fucked.

Gene: 1:31:47

Oh, yeah. Yeah.

Ben: 1:31:48

There is a disparity in armament during the American Revolution that disparity was much more narrow than it is today, or it had

Gene: 1:31:57

Mm.

Ben: 1:31:58

in history. And Europe is disarmed, right, including the uk They are largely disarmed. And I, again, that's why I use the reference of the French Revolution, not the US Revolution because I, I, I do think it would be a very bloody and costly revolution.

Gene: 1:32:16

yeah. I don't think the, the people that are running Europe right now are in at all keen to leave.

Ben: 1:32:23

Okay. I, I, I, I, that's fine. But I, I don't think,

Gene: 1:32:28

I guess what I'm getting to is I, I see a lot more probability of there being revolts put down with ammunition by the government than I do of any kinda success of revolts. You know? It, it's all, it's all fun until somebody gets shot, and I think they're more willing to shoot people in Europe than they are in the us.

Ben: 1:32:53

yeah, and I don't think King Lou the 16th was expecting his head to get chopped off either, but, you know,

Gene: 1:33:01

I don't think he was, but I think. Well, we'll see. We'll see. But I, I, I really, I, I think that the current militarization of Europe for quote unquote defensive purposes will provide plenty of weapons to be utilized for population control.

Ben: 1:33:20

Yeah. But a, again, so let's say there's a revolt in the uk and the UK armed forces goes, You know what? Half of us agree with the people who are revolting.

Gene: 1:33:30

Mm-hmm.

Ben: 1:33:32

Then what does the UK then say, Hey, you know, France, Germany, Netherlands, we need your support. You know, who's legitimate government Does

Gene: 1:33:41

legitimate government is a legitimate government.

Ben: 1:33:43

does this dissolve into an entire European conflict in Civil War?

Gene: 1:33:48

It could, it could. I think that, well, the, the idea that it wasn't enough to have one layer of monarchies in Europe, which is the quote unquote elected governments, but they had to create a second layer, which is the European Union government, which is wholly unelected. Like this is, if you, if you take out the pretense of having elections what's been happening in Europe is exactly what Europe looked like in the middle age.

Ben: 1:34:20

Well, and I mean, I mean, you, you have the EU really starting to build up the defense forces of the European Union, which, you know, should be member nations and their militaries. But hey, we're gonna start spending money on our own naval powers. We're gonna start spending

Gene: 1:34:38

Well, and, and before the whole Ukraine situation, Poland looked like it was actually one of the countries kind of leading the, the charge of anti eu because the, the EU held back a, a large amount of money from Poland because Poland refused to put in laws relating to you know, sexual normalizations that all the other European countries are okay with. But Poland is a lot more of a Catholic country, and so they, they tend to have more socially conservative views.

Ben: 1:35:19

mm-hmm.

Gene: 1:35:20

Europe. Europe didn't like that. You didn't like that? And they decided to

Ben: 1:35:25

Well, and Hung Hungary's another major one that was very much in the

Gene: 1:35:30

Hung should not be in the uu I mean, there's no way. I think a lot of those countries shouldn't be in the u I would love to see Italy leave the EU with its current administration.

Ben: 1:35:40

Well, I mean, Italy and Greece from an economic standpoint would be far better off

Gene: 1:35:46

But they hate each other. I mean, that's the, the one thing is to us, they're like both nice vacation places, but the Greeks hate the Italians. The Italians think the Greeks are Mexicans.

Ben: 1:35:57

Well, yeah. I mean, so the Greeks are only dark skin because of, you know, the, the, the more, the more invasions that happened. Right,

Gene: 1:36:09

Oh, the Italians are darker skinned than the Greeks dude.

Ben: 1:36:12

right. But both of those are because of some of the invasions from Africa

Gene: 1:36:15

Yeah. Yeah, totally. Well, obviously they didn't just get Mattan.

Ben: 1:36:21

I'm just saying, I mean, it's interesting cuz when you look at a lot of the destructions of historical records that happened in the church burnings because of, you know, the crusades.

Gene: 1:36:30

Mm-hmm.

Ben: 1:36:30

Yeah.

Gene: 1:36:32

I, I think that there's a a lot of people, I, I bet you if you did a poll in Europe, and I'm, I'm basing this purely off of conjecture of the, the gut feel I'm getting from watching videos, so I could be totally wrong, but I bet you if you did a poll today in Europe of do you think that being in the European Union has been beneficial or not for you personally, not for your country or leadership, but for you personally? Like, are you better off today than you were or you would've been 20 years ago? I think most Europeans, I, or it's, I bet you at least half of Europeans would say, Like, it's not better.

Ben: 1:37:08

well, I think I def definitely the, the French, the Italian, the, the Greeks. I, I think, I, I think the only country that might vote in the affirmative would be Germany.

Gene: 1:37:21

Yeah. Well it's cuz the European Union was the fourth break and that's, I've been saying that forever. It's like, this is clearly an idea to make Germany conquer Europe because they're the ones that are, that want it. And they're selling it to the other Europeans. The other European countries aren't clamoring for this. They're being sold to bill goods. And, and you remember all the jokes. So I maybe, I don't know if you were listening to No. In the back then, but like, when they had to do the, all the redos of the votes, I was like, come on,

Ben: 1:37:49

Yeah. Oh yeah.

Gene: 1:37:51

it's ridiculous. It's like, Oh, we didn't get the result we wanted. Let's redo the vote.

Ben: 1:37:54

Ireland great example.

Gene: 1:37:56

Oh yeah, Yeah. But it wasn't just Ireland. I think the Netherlands had a re vote situation. A couple other countries did too. So, I don't know man. I just, I, I think that Europe has been in a lot of ways post World War II living on this idea of the Once greatness of Europe, which really hasn't existed since World War I. But yet, know, it was

Ben: 1:38:24

what you mean by greatness.

Gene: 1:38:26

Well, Europe leading the world in

Ben: 1:38:28

Europe hasn't led the world in anything but historical culture for a long

Gene: 1:38:34

Yeah, exactly. That's what I'm talking about. Le Europe leading the world, certainly up until the well, if not World War I certainly up until the American Civil War.

Ben: 1:38:45

Yeah. I mean, there's some wars afterwards that we can point to, but Yes. You know, Europe lost its status as world leader, you know, during the world wars. You know, the Austria-Hungarian War and things like that definitely damaged global sentiments and economic power. The problem that Europe faced, Europe would still be the leader of the world, had World War I and World War II not happened, but the amount of destruction that was wri across Europe for both of those wars, that's just such an economic cost.

Gene: 1:39:19

Yeah,

Ben: 1:39:20

The cost of lives, the everything so

Gene: 1:39:23

yeah. And, and that's the thing is that the, the lesson I think that should have been learned from World War I and certainly World War II is don't fight countries that are right next to you. Figure out a way to get along with them.

Ben: 1:39:37

well, or if you do don't, So there are going to be border disputes. There are going to be items that arise, especially in neighboring countries. But what I would say there is, you know, the lesson of World War I was these entangling alliances that cause a greater conflict than needed to be. Yet we didn't learn that lesson because, you know, we generated NATO and the Warsaw

Gene: 1:40:02

Uhhuh. Yep.

Ben: 1:40:03

you know, we've got that one of which is dissolved, the other is not. Anyway, you just go down the line. And, you know, the other lesson for World War I that led to World War II is you, don't, you, you have to be somewhat of a benevolent winner. You can't just put crushing sanctions on a country without it escalating into a further

Gene: 1:40:22

Yeah. What the US did in Japan, I think is the perfect model for what you do when you win a,

Ben: 1:40:27

Oh boy, do I disagree with that?

Gene: 1:40:29

Really? Why?

Ben: 1:40:30

Well, for one the US Occupation of Japan was a very long process.

Gene: 1:40:38

No. No. Okay. Okay. You're, Hold on, hold on. You, you're getting, you're getting what I'm saying. I think off a little bit. What I mean is it's the best thing for the U United States to have done because you didn't just cripple the economy the way the World War I did with Germany, but you just simply insert yourself into running Japan for a long.

Ben: 1:41:00

Mm-hmm.

Gene: 1:41:01

And building up the economy to benefit your country.

Ben: 1:41:06

y Yeah. I mean there and very much at first there was a lot of hatred towards the gis that were

Gene: 1:41:13

Oh yeah. There was hatreds towards Americans when I was there,

Ben: 1:41:17

Yeah. I mean, you, Japan is

Gene: 1:41:21

but not enough to get'em to attack

Ben: 1:41:24

Well, I mean, first of all, they, up until extremely recently, their constitution that the US imposed upon them during that reconstruction period prevented them from having anything but a defensive force. They've currently changed some

Gene: 1:41:40

even when's the last time you heard of some American getting killed by the Yao?

Ben: 1:41:44

You don't.

Gene: 1:41:45

You don't exactly, but you get Americans killed all the time by the failed narco state that you dislike.

Ben: 1:41:53

Yeah. Okay.

Gene: 1:41:56

Yeah. So they're not afraid of, of kill Americans, but Japan, Japanese are,

Ben: 1:42:02

Well, I think the ECU are just a little bit more sophisticated than the Mexican cartels.

Gene: 1:42:07

they're in the same business.

Ben: 1:42:09

Yeah. But one's a lot older than the other.

Gene: 1:42:13

Yeah. It's, it's older, it's more traditional. They've got more rules, but you know, they're both outside the.

Ben: 1:42:20

Well, yeah. But the ECU restrain themselves as to not draw too much attention. They play the game of we're gonna slip under the line here and not get too crazy. It's like, it's like the, the mob. The mob did the same thing to a large extent. You rarely had mob wars, like real mob wars

Gene: 1:42:37

I still remember that in New York.

Ben: 1:42:40

huh,

Gene: 1:42:40

I remember some of that from the eighties in New York.

Ben: 1:42:43

Yeah, Yeah, yeah. But that, that, that was, that was, But it's not like the cartels today.

Gene: 1:42:50

Mm-hmm.

Ben: 1:42:50

Right. The cartels go to war with each other all the fucking time.

Gene: 1:42:55

Well, the c the, I was gonna say ca it's not the ca it's the fbi. FBI has a fairly substantial budget and task force to do exactly that, to get the cartels to war with each other.

Ben: 1:43:09

Right.

Gene: 1:43:10

Did you ever watch, I, I know I've recommended this. Do you ever watch Ozark?

Ben: 1:43:14

yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Gene: 1:43:16

Okay. All right.

Ben: 1:43:17

Yeah. I haven't seen all of

Gene: 1:43:18

If, if anyone

Ben: 1:43:19

I was, I started watching it when it came out.

Gene: 1:43:22

it is one of the shows that I think actually managed to stay good all the way through the end. Most shows after two or three seasons just start sucking cuz they're on the autopilot. I think Ozark is one of those rare exceptions where the last season is, Yeah, it's done. But the last season, which was out I think beginning of this year I think it's still very good and it, it ties up a lot of loose ends.

Ben: 1:43:49

Cool. I'll have to watch it. I stopped watching a lot of tv, so I

Gene: 1:43:52

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Ben: 1:43:53

I watched the first couple

Gene: 1:43:54

And Ozark is not one of those shows. You need to have a nice system to watch. You know, you don't have the massive shots. Most things are indoors, so you can watch it on laptop. You're traveling all the time. What do you do after you get done with work at a hotel? You don't watch anything. You just read books.

Ben: 1:44:10

Well, usually you

Gene: 1:44:11

Oh, I was gonna ask you, you finished reading that one book that dude recommended, right?

Ben: 1:44:15

Yeah. We talked about last

Gene: 1:44:17

Yeah, we did. So I haven't started it yet, but you, you think I should.

Ben: 1:44:22

Yes,

Gene: 1:44:22

Okay.

Ben: 1:44:23

Yep. I, I, I think it's very, it is well worth a good read. I think the, you know, not to spoil anything, but the primary takeaway is Technology can be a detriment to you. Especially as, you know, you, the disease, which I can't pronounce that word ever trap is

Gene: 1:44:41

Well, Nuclear

Ben: 1:44:43

Okay. Gene. Anyway it, it's an interesting book. It's an interesting take. It's interesting, you know, that he predicts this war to be between China and the us and then India is gonna come in and settle the matter. So, you know, it, it's, it's, it's got some great things in there. It's got some topical things in there. It talks about the Iranian general that we assassinated, which I'm blanking on his name right now. It talks about Modi and how he changed Indian culture a lot, which I think he's doing. So, I mean, it takes a lot of current politics and makes a projection into the future, which I think has some validity in, you know, but it's just interesting insights from from an an admiral, so

Gene: 1:45:26

mm-hmm.

Ben: 1:45:27

who ends up being very politically interesting in himself, so,

Gene: 1:45:32

So I'm on like page 35 of 380 pages. In the, that book that I mentioned, I was starting to reread the company, which was, in my opinion, the best book about spying and, and CIA and stuff that I've ever read. So I'm, I'm reading in a much slower, much slower pace obviously than you, but curious to see if anybody else is reading either one of these two books. What, what's the one called that you just finished?

Ben: 1:46:00

2034. A novel of the next World War.

Gene: 1:46:03

Yeah. And this one's called the Company by Lael.

Ben: 1:46:06

Yeah. Well, I mean, it was, it, it was a recommendation by belly bones and it was one of those books I picked up and go, Okay. I started reading and the, it got me enthralled and,

Gene: 1:46:16

Judge sucked in.

Ben: 1:46:17

Yeah. So, I mean,

Gene: 1:46:19

So if anybody else is reading'em, let us know. It'll be, you know. So what are you reading now? If you're done with that one?

Ben: 1:46:27

I, I'm back to slowing down a little bit. Right now I'm going through finishing up the Red Rising Trilogy. The second half of the trilogy, or the second half of the six books is not as good, so it's, doesn't get me, but I, it's

Gene: 1:46:41

Well I bought'em, I just haven't started them.

Ben: 1:46:44

Yeah. The first three books are excellent. The first three books are excellent. The, I'm, I'm, the, the other downward half of this I'm working on, I still enough to interest me, but I'm not as voracious about the first three books were great.

Gene: 1:46:58

I think I'm done with buying books now for the rest of the year. My audible, well, no, my audible is out of points and is gonna reset in December.

Ben: 1:47:07

Oh, you, you do it yearly.

Gene: 1:47:09

Yeah. I do a yearly audible points thing.

Ben: 1:47:12

I,

Gene: 1:47:12

I found that because the yearly points they don't expire the way that the monthly ones do.

Ben: 1:47:17

well, the monthly one, depending on what, I mean, it all depends, but

Gene: 1:47:20

Well, I forgot about it for like a year and I realized all my points expired

Ben: 1:47:24

Uhhuh

Gene: 1:47:25

and that sucked. Cause I was pretty pissed I was gonna cancel it. And I saw that they had the yearly thing that you just get all the points up front and then you got a year to use'em up, or actually more than a year. So I just went that route.

Ben: 1:47:37

Well, I may do that too. I've just I've been on Audible for so long, it's not

Gene: 1:47:41

Oh yeah. It's like 20 years.

Ben: 1:47:42

Yeah. Yeah. But I like going back and forth between the Kindle and all that, but to answer your original question, what do I do? I, I have a Roku streaming stick that I take with me that sometimes I'll plug in and watch a movie or something, but that's, you know, not very often.

Gene: 1:47:58

Like on a hotel TV set.

Ben: 1:48:00

yeah. Yeah.

Gene: 1:48:01

Oh, okay.

Ben: 1:48:03

Yep. The other thing I'll, you know, most of the time I'm with a group or we're doing something, so we end up going out to dinner and, you know, maybe go grab a beer or something. And, you know, it depends. Sometimes I'm taking out clients and, you know, then that's a whole thing, and by the time you get back to the hotel, it's just time to go to bed, you know,

Gene: 1:48:19

Yeah, that's true.

Ben: 1:48:20

it all.

Gene: 1:48:21

Yeah. I, I forget that you're there to work, not just to sit in Mexico the way I was.

Ben: 1:48:25

Yeah. So, yeah, it, and you know, if I get, if I get off, if I get done with whatever I'm doing and I've got a break between now and we're going to dinner or doing something, it's usually talking to, you know, wife and kids and doing all that before I go off. So it's not like I just go out into the ether and exist.

Gene: 1:48:45

Yeah. So let me ask you a question here. Do you think it's worth upgrading my ethernet at home to two and a half gig?

Ben: 1:48:53

I, as a single person, no, I cannot imagine doing that.

Gene: 1:48:59

Yeah, cuz I just realized that my, one of my computers, actually two three of my computers already have that. I just don't have a hub for it. Or router? Well, I guess the hub itself, not, I don't, Router is still one gig, but

Ben: 1:49:11

You say you're talking about your home ethernet,

Gene: 1:49:13

Yeah,

Ben: 1:49:14

not even the internet coming in. I, I don't see, I mean, if you're doing major video editing across and transferring large files across your network, sure. If you want to go to cat six and do all that termination and then you've gotta have a switch that can support it and all that.

Gene: 1:49:30

yeah, yeah. I, I, Are the prices down at all for those switches or are they still expensive?

Ben: 1:49:37

I mean, you can get used Cisco, like 29 60 s with s s SFP ports that have, you know, sufficient enough SFP plus ports and back plane. Sure. Especially for your use.

Gene: 1:49:48

Mm-hmm.

Ben: 1:49:49

I mean, I, but do I, I'm a pretty heavy user and one gig is plenty for me.

Gene: 1:49:58

Yeah. Yeah, I guess, I

Ben: 1:50:01

what do you, what do you, what do you envision the use of it as? I mean, nine times outta 10, I'm on

Gene: 1:50:06

better latency for gaming.

Ben: 1:50:08

No, it's not gonna affect your latency.

Gene: 1:50:10

If you double the speed your latency should go

Ben: 1:50:12

No. Nope. Bandwidth has nothing to do with latency.

Gene: 1:50:15

Bet to differ. What do you mean? It has nothing to do with latency.

Ben: 1:50:17

Latency is the time it takes for a single packet to go from your computer to the other end

Gene: 1:50:22

Yeah. And if it's moving

Ben: 1:50:23

packets you are sent, No, no, no, no, no. Bandwidth has nothing to do with latency. Latency is basically speed of light and processing. Delay bandwidth is how much data you are pushing at a given time. I guarantee you, you do not have a gain that is pushing more than probably 50 megabits per second up.

Gene: 1:50:44

if that,

Ben: 1:50:45

Yeah. So, no,

Gene: 1:50:46

Yeah. But going well, I can tell you going to gigabit of fiber connection made definitely an improvement in latency.

Ben: 1:50:54

Yes, absolutely. Because you have different latency a in routing and the, you know, you're not going through copper nodes moving from fiber, a fiber optic network off of like a dosis cable network. Absolutely. But that's a function of the way the DOS three and so on protocols function and versus, you know, you know, fiber's not a magical thing. But latency, I mean, how, what

Gene: 1:51:18

is why I moved to Austin, is because this is where a lot of the gaming company data centers are.

Ben: 1:51:22

Yeah. But what, what latency are you trying to get to? What are you at?

Gene: 1:51:25

I'm at like between 12 and 18 milliseconds.

Ben: 1:51:31

Yeah. I mean, getting sub 10 millisecond latency for anything is pretty damn difficult.

Gene: 1:51:38

Yeah.

Ben: 1:51:39

I mean, just a speed of light delays and then b, any processing overhead you have at all.

Gene: 1:51:46

Well, that's always, that's always been my, my sort of ace in the hole is that, like back when I competitively played video games you know, I was physically as close to the data center as possible and had a T1 connection to minimize latencies back in the two thousands

Ben: 1:52:05

Yeah. Well, I mean,

Gene: 1:52:07

Lowy wins.

Ben: 1:52:09

Oh, absolutely, absolutely. Trust me. I remember playing shit, What was it? It was the Half life first person shooter online. What was that?

Gene: 1:52:18

I, I'm not sure which one. Crouch.

Ben: 1:52:21

No, I'm trying to remember. Hold on, let me open up steam and I'll tell you. Anyway, yeah, I, I was playing on a dial up set up back

Gene: 1:52:31

Oh, yeah,

Ben: 1:52:32

yeah, it was terrible. It was terrible. I mean that's, that's why we used to do land parties all the time is cuz you know, doing it doing it actually online

Gene: 1:52:39

Mm-hmm.

Ben: 1:52:40

not a thing. And of course Steam's gonna install an update, but anyway,

Gene: 1:52:46

you haven't played anything for a while?

Ben: 1:52:47

Counter strike. There we go. Counters strike.

Gene: 1:52:50

Oh, sure, sure, sure. Yeah,

Ben: 1:52:52

Back in the day.

Gene: 1:52:53

that was a fun game. I remember that.

Ben: 1:52:55

Yep. That and Quake. And then Unreal.

Gene: 1:52:59

Mm-hmm.

Ben: 1:53:01

Yeah, I remember the first Cisco class I was ever taking was at the high school and we had an hour for lecture and an hour for lab. And when we had the hour for lab, we, the, the, the, the teacher would always go in and break the lab and then we'd have to go through and do troubleshooting and as soon as we got the network back up and we could play quake across it, we had the remainder of the time to play quake. So it got us to get into troubleshooting and teamwork mode really quickly so that we could play a game.

Gene: 1:53:30

I, I love the fact that you were taking this in high school, cuz that was not even a concept when I was in high school.

Ben: 1:53:38

Yeah. So it, it, the last two years of high school, I went to a public school and I graduated high school at 16. So, we had a pretty advanced computer program for the day at that high school, especially considering it was in rural Idaho. But we had a Cisco CCNA program, which I got my CCNA before I graduated high school. And I also that we had a Solaris program. I got my CELIS admin cert before I graduated high school. And, and you know, we also had a web design stuff that I never got into cuz I'm not gonna ever be a web developer.

Gene: 1:54:13

Yep.

Ben: 1:54:14

But yeah, so I mean, it was, it was pretty cool. And we had a hell of a lab in fact, the guy who was teaching had retired from Cisco. So he had actually gotten a lot of the lab equipment and everything for Cisco donated it,

Gene: 1:54:27

Nice.

Ben: 1:54:27

and yeah. And the school had really pushed, and this is in the early two thousands, a lot of grants, like there were smart boards in every classroom in the early two thousands, which a lot of the inner city schools couldn't have ever said that, you know,

Gene: 1:54:40

Yeah. No, that, that is awesome. I mean, it's, I love hearing that that was the case then. I'm sure it's even better now. Although now, you know, I don't know

Ben: 1:54:48

now it's probably

Gene: 1:54:49

if the teachers are actually teaching anything. I think they're mostly just teaching people how to, or kids,

Ben: 1:54:55

had

Gene: 1:54:55

How to have sex with Yeah, exactly. How to have sex with, you know, dogs and things. I think that'll be the next thing. Like what, what is coming down that pipe of like, the next thing to try and be normalized is bestiality.

Ben: 1:55:09

No, it's definitely pedophilia.

Gene: 1:55:12

Yeah. But after pedophilia, what's next after pedophilia? Bestiality

Ben: 1:55:16

Probably

Gene: 1:55:18

is, I mean, you know, I've been to Tijuana. I know a little bit about Bii, but

Ben: 1:55:23

Oh, gene.

Gene: 1:55:25

Uhhuh, Well, if you don't get, if you, if you go to Tijuana and you don't go to the Donkey show, you really haven't been to Tijuana.

Ben: 1:55:32

I That's okay. I'm good with not going to Tijuana.

Gene: 1:55:35

Right, Right. Just, you know, it's a rite of passage, but I don't know, man. I'm, I'm like, I'm trying to think of what is the next thing, because there is no end here. As soon as one thing becomes normalized, they move on to the next thing.

Ben: 1:55:50

Yeah. But I think there's gonna be a backlash. I think we're already seeing the backlash.

Gene: 1:55:54

definitely seeing a backlash, but it doesn't mean that they're going to stop normalizing things that were at the way they have been.

Ben: 1:56:01

I, I don't think there's going to be much of a choice given. I think you're gonna see a fracturing and I think that I, I think

Gene: 1:56:08

There's still a lot of people in the pro pedophilia community,

Ben: 1:56:11

Oh, yeah. I mean, the, I mean, we

Gene: 1:56:13

the entire government of the US

Ben: 1:56:15

Well, we're already seeing the changes in language and people, you know, saying, Oh, they're not pedophiles, they're maps, they're minor attracted

Gene: 1:56:22

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Ben: 1:56:23

it's an orientation. They can't help it. Okay. You know, and, but this is, this is the slippery slope.

Gene: 1:56:30

That's why I'm saying what's next. I mean, they're gonna be like animal attracted persons

Ben: 1:56:35

I mean,

Gene: 1:56:36

apps,

Ben: 1:56:37

I, I I think there already are people in that community in the, in, in the underground, you know, zoo

Gene: 1:56:43

Well, there's always, these things have always been underground. It's not like these are new concepts. Pedophilia is not a new thing that just. Emerged. It's

Ben: 1:56:51

No. But it, it was

Gene: 1:56:52

the normalization of it that's new. Yeah. Although, again, depends how far back you go. In Rome was in Greece, it was in Africa, It was even in some Caribbean countries. It was not that long ago.

Ben: 1:57:07

I mean, again, it depends. Like we've talked before about my grandparents on my mom's side

Gene: 1:57:12

Mm-hmm.

Ben: 1:57:14

you know, the age difference between my grandmother and my

Gene: 1:57:17

Mm-hmm.

Ben: 1:57:17

You know, she was 16. He was 22 today, that, today that would be considered pedophilia.

Gene: 1:57:23

That's not Phi

Ben: 1:57:24

But it would be considered weird and not okay. Back then, that was pretty common, especially in the south.

Gene: 1:57:31

Oh yeah. Absolutely. Or the Vatican where the age of consent is 13. Yeah. But, but that's, but I'm even, I'm not even referring to that. I'm talking about an actual phi like 7, 8, 9 year olds. But in a lot of countries, a couple thousand years ago, this was like a normal thing.

Ben: 1:57:50

yeah. That, that shouldn't be a normal thing. Anyway, I,

Gene: 1:57:54

not saying it should, I'm just saying that these are new, but also old.

Ben: 1:57:59

Yeah, but I, I, a couple things there. One, we've vastly extended adolescence, therefore, that decision making capacity has been pushed out further. I think that you know, I, I think that people should be stronger and the definition of, you know, when you're an adult should actually contract based off of you know, the society we live in, not be extended. But regardless I think we have to get back to a moral standard. This moral relativism and this idea that identity is whatever you say it is, and it is non-negotiable, is insane. You know, there, there, even if you don't want to say that there are objective truths, well, if you have two subjective truths that clash, i e my worldview and your worldview, how do you ever reconcile those without at least negotiation, you know,

Gene: 1:58:57

Well, I'm right. You're wrong. We're done.

Ben: 1:59:00

okay, and I feel the same,

Gene: 1:59:01

Exactly. And that,

Ben: 1:59:03

but then we get

Gene: 1:59:04

should think.

Ben: 1:59:05

but then we get in, We, but then we get into this society that sits there and says, Violence is never the answer. Well, if you say you're a woman, and I say, You're not, and you say, Yes, I am, and I say, No, you're not. And it deeply hurts you and offends you. At some point you're going to be willing to engage in violence to correct my opinion,

Gene: 1:59:25

Mm,

Ben: 1:59:26

but the society says violence is never the answer.

Gene: 1:59:29

Yeah, Yeah. No, that's

Ben: 1:59:30

So the

Gene: 1:59:31

Oh, I sent you a video. Actually, this reminded me. I sent you a video. It was a, I think I sent you, It was a made by the vet tv and it had a, a clip clip there of a I guess he was a priest in the you know, Iraq or something in the, on the military base. And so he's gonna do confessions and, and this guy comes in, sits down and, and he says, So, Goldstein, so you're, you're Jewish, aren't you? And, and the guy says yeah, how'd you know? I says, Well, I, I heard the coins jingling in your pockets there and like, there, That's funny. That shouldn't be, that shouldn't be banned. You know what I mean? Like, we, we need to get back to a time where you could make fun of people based on stereotypes and not be afraid of being cancel.

Ben: 2:00:26

Well, I forget who said it, but someone made the point recently that you can't be canceled without your own consent. And there's some truth to

Gene: 2:00:35

I agree with that.

Ben: 2:00:35

You know, like you and I I don't know who knows this or not, but by I guess ethnicity, you, you're Jewish definitely not a practicing Jew, but

Gene: 2:00:44

Nope.

Ben: 2:00:44

Yet we can sit here and make fun and make jokes and be politically incorrect because, you know, hey, I'm joking around with a buddy of mine when we're, we're stating our opinions

Gene: 2:00:55

And I can make fun of your retarded pronunciations.

Ben: 2:00:58

eh, Yeah.

Gene: 2:00:59

not a big deal. Nobody's hurt. Nobody's offended,

Ben: 2:01:02

Yeah. By the way, since you used the retard word, would you think a Kanye calling Biden the fucking retard?

Gene: 2:01:10

I didn't hear it. So he did. That's that's nice. That's

Ben: 2:01:13

it on a podcast

Gene: 2:01:15

yeah, I'm getting to like Kanye more and more. I mean, I've never been into his music, I will say that, but and I think he was kind of a dick to Taylor Swift when she won the thing, Ma Jiggy. But I, I, Here's what I like, I like a guy who just doesn't give a shit enough to be able to voice things without worrying about the consequences. I like that. That's what I like about Trump. Just didn't give a shit.

Ben: 2:01:41

Yeah. You know, Conway Con Conway, Kanye yay.

Gene: 2:01:45

And ye's, a billionaire, my understanding is right.

Ben: 2:01:47

he is, and he says self-made billionaire. And he didn't just do it over his music. He's a pretty smart person. He,

Gene: 2:01:54

has some of those guys with coins working for him.

Ben: 2:01:57

he tends to talk very much like Trump in that you can take snaps of what he says, and it sounds like he's a moron. But when you listen to him in context, he makes perfect sense. So, for instance, some of the comments he made about repealing certain amendments you know, that theoretically abolished slavery except for prisoners, and then

Gene: 2:02:18

It defines, what's it, It actually co codifies slavery.

Ben: 2:02:21

Caught. Yes, exactly. And you know, pe people were so stupid as to go, oh, he, he, he's pro-slavery and all. No, he's pointing out that prisoners can be slaves and that that's not okay, and that we need to change that. He's actually talking about prison reform. You more on

Gene: 2:02:38

I don't see what's wrong with somebody being forced slavery either, but that's just me.

Ben: 2:02:43

Well, as long as it's the individual selling their selves, then that's

Gene: 2:02:47

Mm-hmm.

Ben: 2:02:48

Anyway, I mean, how, how free are you if you can't sell yourself into

Gene: 2:02:51

that's what I've always said. Exactly.

Ben: 2:02:53

Someone owns you If you can't do it yourself, then it's that you're owned by someone else.

Gene: 2:02:58

then somebody else can. Yeah,

Ben: 2:03:00

Yeah, yeah. Anyway I I, I, I'm not a huge fan of his music, but he's definitely I, I like that he's found Christ and that he's started kind of his own religious awakening for a lot of young men who listen to him. And, you know, my stepson's a fan of his

Gene: 2:03:21

a Jordan Peterson guy or not?

Ben: 2:03:24

Who,

Gene: 2:03:25

Connie? Have they talked at all? I haven't, like,

Ben: 2:03:28

No, not that I'm

Gene: 2:03:29

I have no idea if he's had any interaction. But it, it'd be interesting to see if, if those two were like, if

Ben: 2:03:36

Well,

Gene: 2:03:37

Jordan Peterson interviewed him or something.

Ben: 2:03:39

I, I would love to see that. So one of the things that, you know, when he was being quote unquote canceled one of the things that I love that he said is, you know, they just don't like a free man talking

Gene: 2:03:50

Mm-hmm.

Ben: 2:03:50

Amen. 100%. And you know, the chase deaking him the way they

Gene: 2:03:57

that was so crazy.

Ben: 2:03:59

Well, and I mean, he made a great point. I've got$120 million in the bank with them, and they can do this to me. What can they do to

Gene: 2:04:05

Yeah. Yeah, exactly. That's his checking account. 120 million's. Pretty good.

Ben: 2:04:10

I mean, yeah. Not 120 million under investment. 120 some odd million in the bank.

Gene: 2:04:16

Uhhuh, you're making 0.7%

Ben: 2:04:20

Great. This is his liquid funds

Gene: 2:04:22

you're right. Right. Exactly.

Ben: 2:04:24

you know. Yeah. hell, I'd like to have that in overall assets.

Gene: 2:04:29

I know, right? It's I, I think that well, I've said for a long time what I've observed, not from myself. Obviously I'm nowhere near anywhere near as rich as a lot of these guys, but I've worked with enough people that have had high net worths that the the biggest difference in terms of spending is how people seem to get a lot more comfortable with the extra zeros when it comes to the values of things. Like

Ben: 2:05:01

Mm-hmm.

Gene: 2:05:02

something that is, like, let's say you, you look at a Rolex, right? Expensive watch. Most people would consider this an extravagance and like, Holy shit, I can't believe you're gonna spend 10,000 bucks in the watch. That's crazy. Or even like 20 years ago, I can't believe you're gonna spend 4,000 bucks in the watch. That's crazy. But to the people that are multimillionaires, like the Rolex is a Casio, so. Really what you're looking at is those Philippe Patek$180,000 watches. You know, stuff that makes what most people consider to be luxurious extravagance seem like a not a particularly luxurious thing.

Ben: 2:05:47

Mm.

Gene: 2:05:49

And I think that happens across the board. So you may still drive a Tesla, but your Tesla costs twice as much because it's been super customized. You know, there's a stuff like that. Is that the, the when, when spending 250 grand on a Tesla doesn't really move the needle whatsoever on your bank account. You have a very different set of what is normal. And that's why also I think a lot of people, if they want to try and demonize rich people, they'll say stuff, Oh, well you don't even know what the price of a gallon of milk is, because it's true. They don't You know, it's,

Ben: 2:06:28

because it's not something that they're having to worry about. It's,

Gene: 2:06:31

Yeah, yeah,

Ben: 2:06:33

I mean, I, I, I will admit that I can't tell you exactly what a gallon of milk costs, but I can tell you that my grocery bill I've noticed, is up probably almost 30 now, 30 to 40% on average.

Gene: 2:06:48

Yeah.

Ben: 2:06:48

From, you know, last year. So, you know, and that, and

Gene: 2:06:52

took about,

Ben: 2:06:53

and here's the thing. I, and this is something this has been a conversation between my wife and I more than once, is I am very thankful to be in the financial position that we are in, because the inflation that we are seeing is, you know, we, we are in that threshold where it's, it hurts us, it diminishes what we're doing in other areas, but we're not struggling. You get too far below us and people are struggling.

Gene: 2:07:21

Oh, absolutely.

Ben: 2:07:23

I mean, even people who make over a hundred grand a year, this is a significant enough inflationary amount that it's hitting people, especially people who live paycheck to paycheck and are strapped with debt.

Gene: 2:07:35

I've got, I mentioned this on, on under Lent as well. I was talking to a buddy of mine and he works at Amazon and he was trying to hire a developer for his team. And guys got, you know, good experience, good, good solid development experience in the specific area they're looking for, and they ended up giving him an offer 460,000. And so this guy was, you know, he was, he was all

Ben: 2:08:01

160 or 460? God

Gene: 2:08:05

460 thou. Amazon pays a lot for developers. They're they. Their brand new hire right outta college for development is 135,000. And then it just goes up from there. Anyway, so this, this guy it looked like he was going to get him. And then guy comes back to him like a week later and said, Hey, I got bad news. And the bad news is that when he told his boss that he was leaving they came back with a counter offer and the counter offer he got was for 710,000

Ben: 2:08:39

God.

Gene: 2:08:40

because they didn't want to have him leave for the next five years.

Ben: 2:08:44

Yeah. I mean, I'm sure there was a retention bonus capacity, part of that and everything

Gene: 2:08:50

And and at this point Amazon's like, Yeah, we're, we're not gonna match that That's too much. But when you're in a world where literally developers are making half a million a year and like, I'm sure it's not just at Amazon in other companies as well they're keeping up with inflation. I don't know what the people that are the project managers can do, cuz the project manager and I like even their salaries have gone up. I've never paid more than a hundred thousand dollars for a project manager in 20 years. And then this year, I hired one and I interviewed for probably, I don't know, two months, three months for that role. The average asking price was 120,000. I ended up bringing one in for 130,000,

Ben: 2:09:36

Mm-hmm.

Gene: 2:09:37

Because she had really good qualifications, but a lot of'em with more experience, like she had six years of experience. People with more than 10 years, they were looking for 150, 160. It is literally one and a half times higher than what I would've paid for that exact person than what I had paid for that exact person 10 years ago.

Ben: 2:09:58

yeah. Well,

Gene: 2:10:00

that job never was over a hundred k

Ben: 2:10:03

well, I'm trying to remember the, it's a Dallas based company, starts with an S, but basically all they do is Project Mana, No. Starts with an S.

Gene: 2:10:13

Well, close enough.

Ben: 2:10:14

Jesus Christ. It's not Serrano, it's something like that. But anyway,

Gene: 2:10:19

Yeah.

Ben: 2:10:19

We had contracted with, my last company had contracted with them for all the project management and everything. And the most junior Pearson they would bring in for project management for us was making, you know, 95 K. The managers that were also doing project management and managing people were making 165 K. And, you know, that's for essentially a clerical role, right? This is not a technical person, this is a clerical person.

Gene: 2:10:50

Yeah, this is, this is not a difficult to obtain skill set

Ben: 2:10:55

Well, I I will say that a good, hardworking, industrious project manager can make or break your team though. And, you know, if they're lazy about it, then that can be a problem. So it, it's one of those things that you're, you're paying to avoid that problem.

Gene: 2:11:13

you are, but it didn't used to cost as much. So you, what you just told me was sort of the in between timeframe and of between when I was hiring a bunch of these people for Fortune 500 and what I've done recently and I mean these, these are, you can be an English major go work as an assistant PM for a year, take your PMI PMP cert, and then be making over a hundred thousand dollars. And that's just wrong. English majors should never make over a hundred grand. I don't care what they're doing. You need to punish that decision.

Ben: 2:11:53

Okay.

Gene: 2:11:54

So anyway, there's

Ben: 2:11:55

Sendero Cera is the name of the

Gene: 2:11:57

Never heard of'em. Okay. Sounds Mexican.

Ben: 2:12:01

Anyway, we had some good people

Gene: 2:12:03

consulting company.

Ben: 2:12:04

and now it's an

Gene: 2:12:06

I used to get mine from ibm. I had back when I was doing a lot of the InfoSec stuff we'd bring in our PMs from ibm.

Ben: 2:12:13

Yeah. This was a general business decision, so we had PMs in it and in cybersecurity and they were also providing project managers for, you know, accounting and

Gene: 2:12:24

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Ben: 2:12:25

source provider sort of deal. The same sort of thing you do with like an Accenture or something like

Gene: 2:12:30

Mm-hmm. Yep. Yep.

Ben: 2:12:31

it you know, big company deals. Which means that for your little project or whatever, you're stuck sourcing from this source, but whatever.

Gene: 2:12:39

Yeah. Yeah. The master agreements that you gotta deal with when you're working Fortune 500 sometimes are counterproductive.

Ben: 2:12:48

Well, and they, they drive out innovation. You know, there are lots of companies right now with the recession and everything else that Microsoft's gonna be the defacto winner in this in lots of ways because, oh, you know, you don't need Splunk as your sim, just use Sentinel One. You know, it's covered under the master services agreement. Okay. You know, so, yeah. What, what it, what economic situations and contract situations like we currently have in the Fortune 500, they, they bias towards the large incumbents more than anyone else, which inherently stifles innovation,

Gene: 2:13:26

Well, but it,

Ben: 2:13:27

stifles the economy further, because that means that, you know, Splunk, for an example, not the, it could be, could be any program, it could be authentication program, X, Y, Z. If you're a CIO and you're looking at a reducing budget and how you can cut and save money, man, those big company agreements that you have where you can just tack on features at a much reduced cost while it's not as capable, but it covers the bases and checks the box for the board, what are you gonna do?

Gene: 2:13:56

That's exactly right.

Ben: 2:13:57

Yeah.

Gene: 2:13:59

That is exactly right. The problem with them usually is they require multi-year commitments. There's nothing wrong with doing a short term commitment, one of those, but when you are locked in for five years, that's where you start running into

Ben: 2:14:12

well locked in and it's usually a use it or lose it sort of scenario, meaning, Okay. Even if you're not using this, we're still gonna charge you for it.

Gene: 2:14:21

of course. Be an idiot not to. Yeah. All right. You got anything else though? I just noticed we're running over two hours and you know, I'm trying to hit right around two hours. We're past that now.

Ben: 2:14:32

Well, no man, I'm good. I

Gene: 2:14:34

I mean, we could talk longer if you got got stuff. Yeah. So, hey,

Ben: 2:14:37

we still need some music.

Gene: 2:14:39

we do need the music.

Ben: 2:14:40

secret agent Paul was gonna help us out and

Gene: 2:14:43

Yeah. Yeah. Well, he got busy. That happens. That

Ben: 2:14:45

it does. Tell, tell everybody what you're, you were wanting for the theme song

Gene: 2:14:50

well, I

Ben: 2:14:51

in your own words,

Gene: 2:14:52

ob obviously what I would prefer for a theme song is the Wayland Jennings version of just the good old boys, whatever

Ben: 2:14:58

But short of licensing, that what we

Gene: 2:15:00

But short of licensing that

Ben: 2:15:03

know,

Gene: 2:15:03

something with that, some kind of a country rock feel that, that has the words. Just too good old boys. Maybe not in that order. for, for li for,

Ben: 2:15:15

two old boys, good

Gene: 2:15:17

Yeah. Yeah. Right. Or maybe just in a different language. That'd be all right too. I mean, if you wanna do it in Spanish or Polish, I more, more than welcome to

Ben: 2:15:27

Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Gene: 2:15:29

Uhhuh.

Ben: 2:15:30

Uhhuh. All righty, Gene. Well, it's good talking to you, man.

Gene: 2:15:33

Yeah, man. So, we'll, we'll talk again next week. Again, if you're listening to this, You figure out how to make the switch and make sure you let other people know about us. And remember, it's a new podcast, so we're gonna ask you to really make sure to leave those reviews on your platform of choice, whether it's Apple or Google or whoever, because while it's great getting people that have already listened to Sir Seine Speaks, coming out here, what we really need to do is focus on getting people that have never heard of this show to be recommended, this show. And the only way that happens is if we get some good reviews posted.

Ben: 2:16:11

Yep. Post the reviews, post the social media contents. Anyone who you think might like the show passing around you know, we're always good for an opinion at least

Gene: 2:16:21

All right, Ben, we'll see you next week.

Ben: 2:16:24

Bye.