Gene 0:24

This is Gene and joining me today again, as usual is,

Ben 0:29

Hey, it's Ben

Gene 0:31

Hey, it's Ben. How are

Ben 0:32

to you rolling in saying a dude named Ben name. You just stopped on me. I

Gene 0:36

I'm, I'm gonna let you introduce yourself moving forward. Now the good thing is the editing software will take out that long pause, so

Ben 0:42

I think you should totally leave it in

Gene 0:45

That's more work actually, cuz my default is to take out all pauses.

Ben 0:50

Okay.

Gene 0:50

No pregnant pauses here, Godammit.

Ben 0:53

Well, no pregnant anything here right now. Thank you.

Gene 0:56

That's a good thing. That would be a shocker for me.

Ben 1:00

yeah. Trump's back

Gene 1:02

yeah. I didn't realize he left.

Ben 1:04

well, I'm talking about on Twitter.

Gene 1:06

Oh, right, right, right, right. Yeah. So the, the God Musk decided to give Trump his place back because the people spoke, uh

Ben 1:15

Uh, v Populi V day.

Gene 1:18

mm-hmm.

Ben 1:19

Yeah. Which I don't

Gene 1:20

he was gonna do it anyway.

Ben 1:22

I don't think Trump's gonna tweet though.

Gene 1:24

I think he will. Don't, I don't think

Ben 1:26

he, he's been back for several hours and

Gene 1:28

I don't think he can resist because not only it's his account like a hundred million people,

Ben 1:35

And going up actually.

Gene 1:37

yeah. But it's, it's gone up by a million people in the first five minutes of it being back.

Ben 1:43

Which is hilarious in and of itself.

Gene 1:46

Well, it's all the, all the bot subscribing, obviously

Ben 1:50

Bullshit. As soon as, as soon as Musk tweeted that out, it was immediate.

Gene 1:57

Mm-hmm. Yeah. Well, there's some AI running bots out there, I'm sure. What else could it be?

Ben 2:02

Okay. Actual voters, people su support. Trump wanna hear what he has to say.

Gene 2:08

No, I don't know about that. I mean, I don't know anybody who sports Trump at this point.

Ben 2:13

Yes, you do.

Gene 2:14

do

Ben 2:15

I mean, did you, did you listen to his speech? Did you listen to his announcement?

Gene 2:19

of course.

Ben 2:20

It was fantastic.

Gene 2:22

I listened to the whole thing is is pretty well written. I think he was a little bit, he wasn't his usual excited Trump on the execution. I thought.

Ben 2:31

Well, I think that was on purpose, so I think it was definitely right there. I mean, Jeb Bush treated out low energy and

Gene 2:39

Yeah. I would. Yeah, I'd agree with that. Mm-hmm.

Ben 2:42

Well, I don't know if it was low energy, but definitely. Definitely was not bombastic, was not just off the cuff, it was, to your point, a written speech. But I think he hit on all the right topics. There was a meme going around. It was a flowchart that said Republicans thinking about running for the presidency. Is your name DeSantis or Trump? Yes. No. And the answer was yes or no, Right? That was it. That was the one step in the flow chart. And I hope DeSantis runs, and I hope at the end of it you know, we end up with the best candidate. But I, I don't see how anyone, the Republican party beats Trump right now. I just don't,

Gene 3:21

Yeah. But the problem with that is he's gonna get beat by the Democrats.

Ben 3:25

I don't think so at all. Who, who are they gonna put up

Gene 3:28

how many It doesn't matter, dude. It really doesn't matter.

Ben 3:32

It does

Gene 3:33

it does not at all. The, the, what counts are the mailin ballots.

Ben 3:38

I

Gene 3:39

That's the only thing that

Ben 3:40

get that. And I understand. But here's the thing. A lot of people who voted for Biden last time around are going, my gas prices are what? I lost my job. What Hell look at how many people Facebook and Twitter have fired in the last

Gene 3:57

you, you keep talking about these mythical people. I'm talking about votes. What, what makes you think after the last two elections, the Democrats won't have enough votes?

Ben 4:09

Well, first of all, I, okay. Everyone's, you know, Maha, no red wave. No red wave. We won. New York is a great example. Every county in New York shifted Republican, every single county. It was a positive pickup for Republicans in New York.

Gene 4:32

Mm-hmm.

Ben 4:33

The sentiment of the country is shifting

Gene 4:36

and by every county, New York gained three seats that are Republican.

Ben 4:41

ye Oh,

Gene 4:42

That's it. There's three more seats.

Ben 4:44

But that doesn't, the sentiment is what matters. We just had

Gene 4:48

it's not. What matters is the votes and the Democrats have printers.

Ben 4:53

okay, well if, if that occurs, if that occurs again, then the 66% of likely, likely voters in Texas that want to succeed probably will.

Gene 5:05

Okay, well now you're putting a good silver lighting on this, so Trump will lose, but at least Texas will succeed.

Ben 5:11

Dude, I'm serious. A, a, a poll of Texas likely voters said 66%. Want to see it on the ballot.

Gene 5:19

I know I'm one of, of those so

Ben 5:22

you're in the poll.

Gene 5:23

Uhhuh. Yep. Yep.

Ben 5:25

Cool.

Gene 5:26

I, yeah, I'm on a lot of lists, dude, because as, as one of these older people that seems to stay at home a lot.

Ben 5:33

Mm-hmm.

Gene 5:34

I, I get, get on a lot of lists.

Ben 5:38

Oh, the jokes that could come out of

Gene 5:40

Oh, they're not even jokes. That's the sad part. Hey, at least I'm self-effacing. Speaking of video games since we're talking about people that are sitting at home even past covid, the because I've mentioned this game and because I have a link to it in every episode of Seine Speaks, although not this show right now is the biggest annual convention slash sale in Star Citizen going in,

Ben 6:06

Cool.

Gene 6:07

what I mean by convention is it is literally like a virtual car show except it's for spaceships instead of cars or an RV show. Whatever your reference point that you've actually been to is it's that, but online and for spaceships instead of instead

Ben 6:26

people are paying real money for

Gene 6:28

oh, yeah. Yeah. So this is one of the differences in this game, which I think probably most people know, but maybe some people don't, is that unlike most video games where you pay for the game either one time, which used to be normal or monthly, which is more normal these days. The way their funding model works is you pay, it's a fairly small amount the first time through, but the way that they make money is by selling the game spaceships. Both. So it's not one or the other, but it's both. You can buy'em in game for, in game money by, you know, earning money in the game, ie. Grinding or you can buy the spaceship for real world money, for real US dollars during a sale of an event. Or a lot of the smaller ones are actually for sale all the time year round. But right now, during this event, literally every spaceship they have, which is a little over a hundred and every spaceship that they don't have, but they're working on, which is about 40 is for sale.

Ben 7:34

And how much money have you spent?

Gene 7:36

That is not. So even without a wife, that is not something I'm gonna disclose publicly. Let's just say a sufficient amount.

Ben 7:44

Yeah, and what most people would deem probably an obscene amount to spend on video game

Gene 7:50

fair enough.

Ben 7:52

Just think of the guns. You could have bought Jean

Gene 7:54

I bought those, right? Yeah, it's it's interesting because. While it is absolutely, the way to look at it is you enjoy the game, you wanna support the game studio, and this is how you do it by giving them free money, donating it, and then they give you back a spaceship as a thank you. So it's, it's really the NPR model is, the way to think about it

Ben 8:21

It's your virtual to bag.

Gene 8:23

yeah, it's your virtual toll bag and umbrella. Exactly. That's really the best

Ben 8:28

donated enough to get the umbrella. Wow.

Gene 8:31

I think thinking of as any other way just skew things in the bad direction. But if you, if you like what they're doing, and just think of it as a donation,

Ben 8:41

well, I mean this is how you came, the Barren de Marriott, right? The Sheriff de Marriott

Gene 8:47

what do you mean?

Ben 8:48

on no agenda.

Gene 8:49

Oh, oh, by donating? Yeah. No, the way I became sheriff is because that was when there were no titles other than sir, and I kept donating, even though I was already a sir. And Adam impromptu on one of the shows just came up with the title Sheriff, because you notice there are no other sheriffs in the United States or well anywhere. I'm literally the only titled sheriff on the no agenda period system. And yeah, it's, it's kind of a unique title that, that literally just came about when Adam was spur of the moment.

Ben 9:29

you were a early donor.

Gene 9:31

I was very early

Ben 9:33

Well,

Gene 9:34

only was I the early donor, I was the guy that kinda came up with a appearance system.

Ben 9:38

yeah, I, I started donating, I forget when, but I started with five bucks a month, a long, long time ago. I'd

Gene 9:46

You were one of those guys, okay.

Ben 9:48

I, I, so, you know, I mean, when the, when the show started and everything, which I started listening pretty early on. Within the

Gene 9:57

were you in high school still

Ben 9:58

within the, no, within the first probably 20 shows I started listening Cuz of John you know, Adam, I'm, I'm old enough or young enough that Adam was never mtv and that

Gene 10:12

heard of him? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Ben 10:14

But John, I had followed for a long time because of Cranky Geeks and, you know, ZDT V and all that. I mean, I grew up on the screensavers. I actually have a signed photo.

Gene 10:26

On one of those shows as a guest once, weren't you?

Ben 10:28

yeah, yeah, yeah. But I have a signed photo from Leo and Kate going back to the screensavers, which Leo's lost his damn mind, but that's neither here nor there. Anyway.

Gene 10:37

But it, now you've seen the own person.

Ben 10:40

Mm-hmm.

Gene 10:41

and I, I obviously have his well here, but there, he, he really has a head made for being on camera. His head represents about 40% of his body weight.

Ben 10:54

it's a little outsized to,

Gene 10:57

Uhhuh, I don't know if the guy can find a hat anywhere in a

Ben 11:01

I mean, he's got the federman neck just from keeping the head stabilized.

Gene 11:06

Uhhuh, And you know, it's not to say that he thinks about, while he does think of himself pretty highly, but even before this more recent turn like most people say that people on the radio have a face not meant for television, which is generally true. But even though he started in the radio days in a lot of ways thanks to John he actually transitioned very nicely into video. Just not television, but you know, online.

Ben 11:35

Well, I mean, he, the, the screensavers was a, I know a lot of

Gene 11:39

Well, I guess that was television. That's true. I'm, I'm like stealing his television. He probably has imdv credits for that.

Ben 11:46

yeah. The, the screensavers was big. And then, you know, Kevin Rose and some of the hacker stuff that he started, which then led to stuff like hack five and all that. I mean, that's influenced a generation of cybersecurity professionals.

Gene 12:03

that's true. Although I, back at the time, I always thought Kevin was a opposer. I mean, cuz he was not a real hacker,

Ben 12:10

Well, define hacker, you know, I mean,

Gene 12:13

Somebody that ought to be in prison.

Ben 12:15

I mean, that could be most of us.

Gene 12:18

Fair enough. Maybe used to be most of us.

Ben 12:21

Yeah.

Gene 12:22

But no, I always thought he was a lightweight. But he has done tremendously well. Mostly thanks to Dig and Google done paying him like up the Wazo

Ben 12:34

why

Gene 12:34

he married

Ben 12:35

up the Wazo?

Gene 12:37

Well, when he sold Dig, he became a Google fellow running a tech fund.

Ben 12:43

Okay. Yeah, that I knew he was running the tech fund, but I didn't know

Gene 12:46

For Google.

Ben 12:48

I, I thought

Gene 12:48

How much do you think you get paid when you run a tech fund for Google? Dude, come on.

Ben 12:53

I don't know. I would think it would be based off of how well you do,

Gene 12:56

Yeah, exactly. Exactly.

Ben 12:58

I would think it would be return on investments,

Gene 13:01

and he did quite well and he did quite well well enough that he retired before he was 30

Ben 13:08

Well, that's

Gene 13:08

and he married a

Ben 13:09

do that?

Gene 13:10

which I find his biggest accomplishment right there.

Ben 13:14

Who would wanna retire before you're 30?

Gene 13:16

Hand up right here. Hello.

Ben 13:18

No, man. I see. I don't, I don't think I'll ever retire. I will work until they make me

Gene 13:24

Yeah. I, I'm in agreement with that, but thinking you won't retire and thinking it'd be cool to retire 20 or under 30, those are two separate things. If I, if I could have made

Ben 13:41

So I mean

Gene 13:42

figures before I was 30,

Ben 13:44

Huh?

Gene 13:45

I'd probably be doing a podcast right now.

Ben 13:48

You are doing a podcast.

Gene 13:49

I know. And you know, that's the counter-argument is say, well, what's the difference? You're not retired, you're just not working. But I think that's kind of the re like early retirement is a combination of not working in freedom.

Ben 14:02

So here, here's the, here's the, I think the semantic difference. Would it be cool to be financially and sufficient to never have to work a day again in your life?

Gene 14:18

If you didn't want to. Yeah, and that's, that's what I'm

Ben 14:21

Would that stop me from working?

Gene 14:24

No, no, no. And he's been working, I mean, it's not to say that he's been lounging by the pool, I think started multiple companies. He's, he's on a whole bunch of boards, directors. The, the retired part just basically is referring to the fact that if he didn't want to, he doesn't need to make any money for the rest of his life.

Ben 14:42

Well, fair enough. And you know that, that, that would be fine. That would be fine and dandy and fun. But yeah, there's also something about being hungry enough to keep going, you know?

Gene 14:54

Yeah. I, I think there is something, and whereas humans tend to operate based on stress we're built that way.

Ben 15:03

Well, and we are built that way in such a way that a lack of stress becomes a problem.

Gene 15:09

Yeah. Yeah. In fact, somewhere, I think it was probably on Tim Kakis, the show since the most. But they had guest on that was a psychologist,

Ben 15:19

Mm-hmm.

Gene 15:19

Not, not a psychotherapist, but like an actual scientist

Ben 15:23

PhD.

Gene 15:24

and. She actually, she dropped out right before be out of her PhD program. Actually. She talked about that. But one of the things that she talked about on that show was yet another experiment with rats where they were, they had little electrode implanted into their brain to stimulate the production of what's the chemical? That's the feel good one. Well, endorphins, anyway, I can't remember where the actual chemical

Ben 15:51

Serotonin.

Gene 15:52

probably. And and then all they had to do to get this production going, so it was to push a button. So there's no tricks to do, there's no mazes to run. It was literally like, you push this button, you feel good. And what they found in the experiment, which should be not surprising to anyone, is that these rats effectively became drug addicts to this button. They stopped doing almost everything. They, they didn't socialize, didn't run around they didn't look for food. They just kept pressing the button because they wanted more of that feeling. And they lost weight. They, they were not eating. They were barely going off to get a drink. They were. You know, I mean, they, they literally did the same thing that rats do when you give them a lot of, a lot of drugs. I mean, it's, whether you're providing the drugs or whether you're doing it directly via an electrode stimulation the end result that is happening for them seems to be about the same. And the danger from this experiment, or that it sort of predicts is like, so Facebook losing its market share and kind of becoming obsolete is pivoting towards being metaverse. And what they're finding is if that Metaverse provides the same kind of stimulation that TikTok videos or YouTube shorts or used to be from Facebook or, or, you know, any of the variety of the social media sites are providing, except you're fully plugged into it where you're, you can't see anything but the meta people will pretty much act like these rats where you're gonna ignore everything in life. Spouse, relationship, friends you know, food, everything, just to get the next high from the connection to the.

Ben 17:52

What could possibly go wrong?

Gene 17:54

Well, if you buy a spaceship using jeans code, nothing will go wrong. I'll have a code in the end of the episode. Uh

Ben 18:03

I mean, now, so, you know, when you look at the video game culture, video game culture is a great analogy. And the way kids get sucked into that being their reality and how much they ignore the rest of life.

Gene 18:21

I've got friends bitching about their kids all the time about that.

Ben 18:23

Oh man. I mean, it's insane. And

Gene 18:28

How did, how did I, I, I'm wondering, I was gonna say we, but we grew up far enough apart. But how did I have a balance of this stuff? Because I loved video games when I was a kid. I had a clico vision. I had a you know, I guess, a lot of, a lot of free time. I was, I was, as most kids were back then, a latchkey kid, meaning I came home from school to an empty house, do whatever I want. And more often than that, what I chose to do was go outside and ride my bike to meet up with friends, even though I had a video game sitting there at home.

Ben 19:03

Yeah.

Gene 19:04

And I would play video games, you know, usually on the weekends more often than that. Or if somebody came.

Ben 19:10

I think the big difference is the internet. So when we grew up, we would play video games with our friends, but we wouldn't play'em necessarily as much by ourselves. At least I didn't, you know, I, I, it was a social thing for me. Not a per,

Gene 19:24

Although beating Donkey Kong was kind of a OSD thing for me.

Ben 19:29

Yeah. I, I never had that. I, you know, I did go through and beat all three Marios, that sort of thing, but, you know,

Gene 19:36

Well, how's that different? It's like you're saying I never had that, but I did the same thing.

Ben 19:39

because it wasn't an OCD thing for me, it was just what

Gene 19:42

Well, how do you know if you beat it?

Ben 19:44

What do you mean?

Gene 19:45

Well, I mean, you took the trouble and time to beat the video games, so you know it's not ocd.

Ben 19:50

Because I, you can look at my office. I am not a O C D. My

Gene 19:55

no, no.

Ben 19:56

very much tell you that

Gene 19:57

OCD is selective. Dude. If you're ocd, it doesn't mean you're like super clean. It means that you have tendencies that, and I think you are ocd frankly, but most, no, most people that end up in in security in it sec ro cd, I don't think you cannot be OCD and be in information security.

Ben 20:18

There's def I am definitely very particular about certain things.

Gene 20:23

Mm-hmm. Yep.

Ben 20:24

I don't know that it raises that level. But anyway, the point I was making was that I think the big shift was with Xbox and PlayStation and the online multiplayer gameplay. So, what I've observed is it is social because they're playing with their friends and people they know, or relationships that start online, but they're in that game and it's, it's, I don't even have to go over to your house. It's, we, you know, we don't have to set up anything. It's just, boom. There it is. And I think that's somewhat problematic to be frank.

Gene 21:00

I think you're right. There is probably more of a, like, certainly thinking of from a kid's standpoint, like none of the games I played really felt like I owned anything or I had to maintain anything. Like, I remember when those tache things came out that my, my niece had one of those, and I was like, how stupid is this? It's literally a electronic gizmo that you have to push buttons on, otherwise it's gonna make you feel bad cuz you killed it.

Ben 21:29

Mm-hmm.

Gene 21:30

What? Why would you want one? I mean, that sounds stupid. That's, that's worse than a pet dog. At least a pet dog will come and, you know, interact with you and lick your hand and bark and do other activities. But like the, the dog will end up releasing endorphins in you. This is a, and I don't know if you remember the time. Good. She literally a black and white. LCD

Ben 21:54

Yep.

Gene 21:55

and it, it's got a little speaker that makes trippy noises, but essentially you're like, oh, it's time to feed my virtual pet. It's like, oh my God, that's got awful. That's horrible. But now most video games are like that. They're like, oh, you gotta log in and do this, otherwise you'll miss something.

Ben 22:12

Well, yeah,

Gene 22:13

I'm literally doing it right now. I'm looking at, oh, new spaceships came out at 10:00 AM let's see what they are.

Ben 22:18

God, yeah. So I remember playing Counterstrike and stuff like that online and you know, the early online stuff, whether it was you know, quake or any of it. But, and you know, me, warrior, one of my one of my teachers in high school met his wife playing me Warrior, you know, and I've got a friend of mine who him and his ex-wife met playing

Gene 22:45

Mm-hmm.

Ben 22:46

Gears of war, you know, and I, I, I personally have never just been that deep into a game where I'm spending that much time in it, but I think that's pretty average in gaming culture today.

Gene 23:02

I think it's no longer a. Wild and crazy thing. I, I agree with you. I, I never met a spouse that way, or even the girlfriend, but I've certainly met friends that way that I had remained friends well with, well past the video game. So in fact, one of my oldest friends, we didn't meet playing video game. We met on a bbs, a Bolton board back in the days where you used modems.

Ben 23:28

Oh, yeah. And, and you know, I've, I've never had a friendship that's really been that established that way, but I've had friendships be maintained that way. It's just different. I don't know.

Gene 23:43

Yeah.

Ben 23:44

I mean the,

Gene 23:45

in the end, I think it just comes down to the amount of time that you spent. You could meet somebody at a bowling alley if you bowl a lot. It could be somebody playing call of Duty if you play Call of Duty a lot.

Ben 23:56

yeah, well, I guess what I think I'm saying, I think what we're saying is the internet has changed to where. A, it's not the wild, wild west. It was, I mean, the nineties of the, the internet of the nineties was really the wild, wild west.

Gene 24:11

it really was.

Ben 24:12

I mean, people think there's bad stuff on the internet now. You have no idea.

Gene 24:17

Yeah. You, you could still find really bad stuff right now.

Ben 24:20

oh, absolutely.

Gene 24:21

in the nineties,

Ben 24:22

not in popups, flashing in your face,

Gene 24:26

exactly.

Ben 24:27

I mean, there's a difference. You know, aim is no longer a thing

Gene 24:32

Right?

Ben 24:33

But anyway, I, I guess went from that to much more curated and addictive, I think.

Gene 24:41

Just come on. That's true. Ignore that noise in the background.

Ben 24:43

Was that a exo

Gene 24:44

Maybe,

Ben 24:45

in Russian

Gene 24:46

maybe it's got different voices you can turn on. Yeah, cuz I don't, you know, the stupidest thing you could do with Alexa is leave it named Alexa and speaking English. Come on. That's, you're just asking for trouble at that point.

Ben 25:00

Oh man.

Gene 25:01

You know, the one last camera about Alexa is they had a problem initially with it reacting to TV shows that you're watching when somebody used you know, in the TV show or movie, we're controlling an Alexa. But their solution to that was to learn every TV show that uses that particular clip of audio and then put that into the ignore list.

Ben 25:31

Yeah.

Gene 25:32

So they literally know what you're watching at all times, which not a surprise to anybody, hopefully. But like the Alexa will know when you're watching a TV show. So even if that TV show or movie has what seems to be Alexa trigger commands, it's not going to respond because it knows that's what you're watching.

Ben 25:52

Well, and this is something that a lot of people hopefully realize is that those are, Ray Mike's a amazing technology,

Gene 26:00

pretty fucking good. Yeah.

Ben 26:02

B always on, always recording, always analyzing.

Gene 26:06

I've had multiple instances, again, to the point where it's not even surprising anymore where I will be talking to somebody on either on the phone or like this, or we're recording a podcast. So all I'm doing is just talking about a particular topic and lo and be how old in hour later I get a, an ad on some random website. Or even more commonly, it's not an ad. I'll just go to Amazon because I wanna reorder toilet paper or something and it'll pop up with like, oh, are you interested in this? And it's literally from a topic because I've never done a Google search for it.

Ben 27:06

Hm, Jean, you do not order toilet paper off of Amazon, do you?

Gene 27:12

Sometimes, I mean, depends. If they're running a good deal, yeah, why not? Why wouldn't you do that?

Ben 27:17

I don't know Sam's,

Gene 27:19

Okay, so you're saying, yeah, let's pay somebody a yearly membership to drive to the store and pick up toilet paper instead of having it home delivered.

Ben 27:29

Sam's will do home delivery.

Gene 27:30

Okay. Well, whatever. I mean, okay, so then what's the difference? Amazon or Sam's, you're getting toilet paper or home delivered? I don't understand the inquisitive

Ben 27:40

I, I, I, I don't do the home delivery stuff very often. I, I typically go to the store and pick stuff out and get stuff

Gene 27:48

There's for stuff that is large size but not necessarily heavy, most of the time Amazon does not have the best pricing because they still pay for the bulk of it. It's not the weight. And so generally I find that the pricing in stores on things like toilet paper, paper towels is about 20% cheaper than Amazon. But occasionally Amazon will have deals where their pricing actually beats local store pricing.

Ben 28:20

Yeah, I, Amazon is an evil, evil corporation

Gene 28:25

Yeah.

Ben 28:25

we all use and it's, yeah,

Gene 28:28

For everything, including data centers.

Ben 28:31

the data center side is the worst. Did you see

Gene 28:34

where I have most of my friends are working.

Ben 28:36

Hmm. Yeah. Did you see Glen Bs documentary that he just put out on resisting tyranny?

Gene 28:44

no, I, I'll only watch Glen be if somebody sends me a specific link to something cuz I mean, I don't mind him. I just he's one of those guys that, that will talk for an hour and could have shrank it down to about five minutes.

Ben 28:56

yes. But at the same time, he was one of the first people to really expose George Soros in

Gene 29:03

Was he

Ben 29:04

Yeah. When he was on Fox doing his blackboard sections. And spooky dude, as he called Soros he, he was very early on the Soros bandwagon as far as calling him out as a not great guy. Anyway, he's

Gene 29:18

a literal Nazi,

Ben 29:19

yes, and described the times under the third R is the happiest days of Bill's life.

Gene 29:25

right? Yeah. Which a Nazi would do.

Ben 29:29

Yes.

Gene 29:29

Absolutely. Yeah. No, I've known of source forever and I think, no, Jenna talked about him for a long time.

Ben 29:35

yeah, definitely. But anyway, he's got a little documentary on Resisting Tyranny, and I've only watched the first portion which is, it is, and it's about a Amazon employee that Amazon tried to frame for federal crimes in order to get out of a contract. So yeah.

Gene 29:53

that seems like a good way to get out of a contract.

Ben 29:56

right? Anyway, it's it's very enlightening to say, at least

Gene 30:02

Yeah.

Ben 30:02

while we're talking about things that we're watching ancient apocalypse or whatever it is on Netflix you need to watch.

Gene 30:10

No, dude, I'm, I got rid of Netflix when they started pedaling pedophilia. I'm not about to resubscribe.

Ben 30:16

Do you really feel that strongly about Cuties?

Gene 30:20

Yes. That should not

Ben 30:22

I wouldn't,

Gene 30:22

that. I didn't either. But I don't need to watch it because everybody on the internet seems to have watched it and gotten clips off it and talked about how bad it was. You know, I've said this for a long time and I try to stick to this principle, which is don't spend money with people that are trying to ruin your life. And that company was one of the first on the woke bandwagon, and I just don't need to support somebody that's moving in the wrong direction. And you can say, well, what about Amazon? Well, yeah, Amazon's pretty damn bad too. Luckily there are alternatives to Netflix and there are fewer alternatives to Amazon. And incidentally, you know, Walmart is selling more shit than Amazon.

Ben 31:08

Yeah.

Gene 31:10

Which most people are surprised by.

Ben 31:12

Walmart, Walmart's website is literally a copy of Amazon with third party resellers and everything. Yep.

Gene 31:21

Took'em long enough. They should have done that right off the get go. They could've killed him.

Ben 31:24

Well, they should have beaten Amazon to that punch, but

Gene 31:27

Well, or even after the Amazon started going in the direction of 30 party sellers, they should have immediately done that. And they would've completely just toasted Amazon

Ben 31:38

Yeah. But how often do we sit there and hear, you know, comp stories of companies not pivoting the way they should?

Gene 31:46

all the time. It's the most common thing is to not do it, you know? Target used to be run by Amazon. Back in this would've been in the

Ben 31:54

Target was run by Amazon,

Gene 31:57

Yeah, the online target store. In the late two thousands, so like 2007 timeframe. Back when I was working on some contract stuff at Target, their, their entire online store was managed by Amazon. So it wasn't just hosted by Amazon, it was a full managed project of Amazon. So Amazon was the outsourcer, the target used for their online sales. You kinda think about it, it's like, well wait a minute. Aren't they competing as well? Cuz they sell the same products? Well, yes they are.

Ben 32:33

Yeah. I mean, target Right. Has always had the targe aspect of it. Right.

Gene 32:40

Mm-hmm. Oh yeah.

Ben 32:41

It's, it's, it's got a bougieness to it.

Gene 32:44

Well that was created on purpose. Yeah, absolutely. Because they were, they were basically competing with Kmart and then later Walmart. But their, they're effectively, their, their lighting, their packaging was all supposed to be slightly more refined, even though the cost of the products was the, the wholesale cost of the product they're selling was about the same.

Ben 33:09

But they definitely take that mark up. Do you remember the old nickname for Kmart

Gene 33:13

Nope.

Ben 33:14

came Apart?

Gene 33:16

Oh yeah. It's been a long time.

Ben 33:18

Yeah.

Gene 33:19

You know,

Ben 33:19

Wally World.

Gene 33:21

having grown up in Minneapolis where Target is headquartered I don't think I went to Kmarts passed about 1982.

Ben 33:33

Well,

Gene 33:33

because Targets, targets, well now they are, but Targets, there were plenty of Kmarts back then. There was more Kmarts than Walmart. But Target was popping up stores everywhere and they were certainly perceived as nicer stores. So the default place to go to was always Target. It wasn't, you know, Walmart or Kmart.

Ben 33:54

Yeah, Kmart was kind of that in between, right? Walmart was always the budget brand and Kmart was kind of in between. And then Target was seen as the higher.

Gene 34:03

well, Kmart started before Walmart. They were the original Buck Store. And then shortly thereafter, Walmart popped up and they were pretty heavily competing against each other. And depending on where you lived in the country, there were more Walmarts or more Kmarts.

Ben 34:20

Hmm. You know, it's interesting because Walmart has very rarely ever closed a store.

Gene 34:27

Mm-hmm.

Ben 34:28

And,

Gene 34:28

I know, man. I've seen a bunch of'em that are close.

Ben 34:31

well, that's a recent trend, but historically, it, it was not that case. But yeah, there, there was a Walmart grocery store in here in Bryant that closed, ended up closed. But yeah, it's, it's, it's interesting to see how they're rebalancing things. Got a question for you.

Gene 34:50

Mm-hmm.

Ben 34:51

I need some tips.

Gene 34:53

and video, video games.

Ben 34:54

No. On international travel.

Gene 34:56

oh, International Travel. You know, I haven't really traveled internationally for a few years. This fucking covid thing.

Ben 35:03

well, I don't think anybody really has, but my only international travel experience is driving to Vancouver, so

Gene 35:11

Oh, okay.

Ben 35:12

It,

Gene 35:13

a passport,

Ben 35:13

I, I, I did that before passport was required, so,

Gene 35:17

Okay. So you, you're definitely gonna need a passport if you trial these days.

Ben 35:21

Thank you.

Gene 35:22

Even to Canada. The assholes never used to need that. I used to. Dude, I, it is actually funny. So my, my ex-wife was Russian shocker. And when she was visiting before we were married one time, I said, Hey, let's drive up, let's drive up to Canada.

Ben 35:39

Jean, did you get a mail order bride?

Gene 35:41

You know, it sure seems that way. Actually. Did not. I met her in Russia, but no. But anyway, so she was visiting.

Ben 35:48

so you could have been on the show 90 day fiance that my wife likes

Gene 35:51

I'd never seen that. That might be a show I would like, I don't know. But I said, Hey, let's, let's go to Kim that cuz we're not that far from the border anyway, so we actually went into Canada with, I mean, not a big deal for me. Right. Cuz from the US you could do that anytime. But she is not a US citizen. She's supposed to have a visa to go to Canada, and I just snuck her in and I was like, eh, it's not gonna be a big deal. Just let me do all the talking and, and just nod your head. We're good to go. And you know, snuck her into Canada and snuck her back into the us.

Ben 36:28

Oh, gene.

Gene 36:29

It's hilarious. I mean, like, this is pre nine 11, obviously, when you could still do that.

Ben 36:35

Did I ever tell you about my Canada story?

Gene 36:39

No.

Ben 36:39

So this is post nine 11. One of my buddies, the, you know, the Iraq war was just heating up and he volunteered for the army and before he was gonna go, we decided to go to Vancouver because the drinking age was 17. So, you know, hey, let's hop in the truck, we'll go, we'll go drink, have a good time before you leave for war.

Gene 37:01

how far is

Ben 37:02

Six, seven hours for us.

Gene 37:04

For a drink? Holy cow.

Ben 37:05

Well, we went and stayed the weekend and had a, a fun

Gene 37:09

A few drinks. Okay.

Ben 37:11

Yeah, well, a lot of drinks. And anyway, we we we're driving over there and it's, you know, like I said, it's a fairly long drive. So I'm, I'm driving my buddy's truck when we get to the border. Which mistake, number one, letting me talk to the border guards. This was not a good idea by way. And the Canadians, you know, first of all, everything's a question. They don't know how to make a declarative sentence, right? So in, in, in Western Canada, a is a real thing. And anyway, the border guard gets to the port about, do y'all have any, do you have any illicit substances or anything like that? And I dead pan said, oh yeah, my buddy Kuski, he's got an eight ball of Coke up his ass.

Gene 37:52

Oh God,

Ben 37:54

They did not take that as a joke.

Gene 37:56

That's not a joke. No, no, that's, you might as well have said, oh, and I've got a a bomb I'm wearing right now.

Ben 38:02

anyway, a few hours later, we finally got to leave, luckily, without anybody Cav searches. But needless to say, I was buying a lot of beer that weekend.

Gene 38:13

Mm-hmm.

Ben 38:14

Yeah. Yeah. Anyway, it

Gene 38:17

Even without a Coke in his ass, he probably was shitting himself.

Ben 38:20

My God. It was. No, no. He was joking.

Gene 38:24

Uhhuh

Ben 38:25

And I'm like it. Sense of humor. Anyone? Anyone? No. Yeah.

Gene 38:31

no, no, no. Not not Border Patrol. They don't have a whole lot of sense of humor, man.

Ben 38:35

But it's Canadian. It's Canada.

Gene 38:38

know it's Canadian. I know. You know, I used to, I used to photograph a lot of birds flying and I remember going up to Canada wearing some photography gear. And they held me back at the border crossing to ask a bunch of questions. What am I photographing? Why am I here? What project is this for? And I'm like, ah, it's just for fun. I'm just, you know, I just like to take pictures. And it was like 20 questions from the Canadian border patrol because I had cameras, although that was right around nine 11, I guess.

Ben 39:13

Yeah. Huh. Well that's fun

Gene 39:16

Yeah, I mean it's mostly drugs moving from Canada to the us, not the other way around. And, and it was mostly illegals moving towards Canada. So those are the two main things that they should have been looking for because those were both transit ways.

Ben 39:34

Yeah.

Gene 39:35

Vancouver supplied a lot of drugs, man. A lot of shit that came from China came via Vancouver. I dunno if it's still the case, but back in the day when I had access to stuff, that was a big problem. And there were a lot of people getting moved to Vancouver through the border from the United States.

Ben 39:54

Yeah. And Vancouver's a very liberal city. I mean, it's, it is, it is right up there with like San Francisco. And one of the things we ran into on that trip was a lot of hatred towards US citizens. Because of the war in Iraq and because of what was going on you know, it quickly became obvious. Okay. Yeah. Your army hat that you got on,

Gene 40:19

The war, you mean the invasion of Iraq? The completely unfounded and the unprovoked invasion of Iraq you're talking about?

Ben 40:29

Okay, so here's one area where I, I struggle with this. So I don't think we should have gone into Iraq or Afghanistan. You know, the, the painting Epstein Yeah. The, the painting Epstein had of George Bush playing with Jenga Towers, and the paper airplane is a perfect example building seven, the fact that it was all Saudis, et cetera. That said, I think we can both agree that the US installed Saddam Hussein, right?

Gene 40:57

yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. As a counter to the, at that point, newly found hatred of Iran

Ben 41:05

Yes. And

Gene 41:06

our installed man and Iran got kicked out.

Ben 41:09

the, yes. So we, we have this case where the US intelligence agencies played. God installed a dictator who was, you know, horrible. I mean, you can look at all the stories of,

Gene 41:26

I don't mind that part of it that much. I, I don't like the, we fucked up and now we have to get into a war stuff. That's the part that I don't like.

Ben 41:35

well, at the very least we had a moral obligation to remove him.

Gene 41:40

Ah, I wouldn't go that far. I, I think, and whether it's Noriega or whether it's the SH Iran or it's you know, Zelensky and Ukraine all these places, I don't think that, well I'm, and I may be in the minority, but I don't, I don't really see it as a problem for the US Intelligence Services to be doing nation tinkering. Like that's part of their job. That's what they should be doing, is making sure that conditions from a governmental standpoint are proactive towards the United States and hostile towards enemies of the United States. The problem that I have is when things don't go well when things go sideways and then they decide to get involved militarily, Because what they should do is just take the loss and move on and try again later. And that's what should have happened in Ukraine. That's what should have happened in, you know, all these places, is that you just, you move on. Like you, you gave it a good shot, you lasted a few years, you got your guy in there for a while, and then when you know, when he gets kicked out of there, okay, that was the duration. It is not the time to then shift gears and then commit to not just massive spending, but also to loss of American lives in support of what was a failed action.

Ben 43:14

Mm. I mean, I think that there, if so, I would say we need to, part of the reason why the US is so hated and we have the problems we have around the world is because we go in and metal and I would rather just see us not metal.

Gene 43:31

But everybody medals, Russia, metals, Israel medals you know, anybody that's got a

Ben 43:38

beyond reproach.

Gene 43:39

UK has been meddling like crazy. And I think that that's, I don't know. I personally, I have a lot less of a problem with that than I do with the follow up. Oh, we fucked up through our intelligence. Now we're gonna have to use the.

Ben 43:55

Mm-hmm.

Gene 43:56

Because the point of intelligence is to, honestly, to nonviolently help ensure that you're, you know, you're winning. Your side is

Ben 44:06

Yeah, the, your wanted outcomes are happening. I understand that, but I mean, at the same time, I would rather see our intelligence in gather mode only and, you know, have a mandate not

Gene 44:19

point of gathering data if you're not actually affecting anything?

Ben 44:24

I

Gene 44:24

You know? Gotin isn't just omnipotent. He's or isn't just Omni, he's also omnipotent

Ben 44:32

Right. But here's the problem. Power corrupts and when you allow organizations like nsa, cia, DIA to exist, they can't help but metal at home. Oh God, yes. Amazon. Perfect example. You know, people underestimate the Amazon web services presence in their life. And the intelligence gathering appra, that, that is,

Gene 44:53

It is the intelligence gathering system of the United States.

Ben 44:57

there's a reason why CIA and NSA

Gene 44:59

They've replaced ibm.

Ben 45:01

Oh, way more. Way

Gene 45:04

used to be that function in the United States

Ben 45:06

to an extent. Yeah. I mean,

Gene 45:08

about back in the seventies.

Ben 45:09

every company was running on an ibm mainframe and whether it was owned by themselves or they were time sharing or

Gene 45:17

oh, even the company was running ibm.

Ben 45:20

Yep. But that's changed Now. It's Amazon, Jeff Bezos.

Gene 45:25

It's a, it's a fairly substantial division there.

Ben 45:28

Yeah.

Gene 45:28

Speaking of billionaires or No, you had a question. Go ahead. You were talking about

Ben 45:32

what do you, what do you think of Bezos's Rocket and the shape and design

Gene 45:37

the, the penis rocket.

Ben 45:39

Yes. I mean, is this just him screaming out, you know, compensation or what

Gene 45:45

he's not a, you know, he's not a tall man. He's he was generally more of the nerdy type and then until he retired from Amazon, he started taking something cuz he's looking very bulky right now. Looks more and more like Lex Lure was muscles,

Ben 46:01

God, dude, he, he is a, he is a evil villain, you know, bond villain looking guy, there's no doubt about it.

Gene 46:11

Oh yeah, yeah. No, I think, oh dude. CLA Schwab is literally from the cash sheet of James Bond, like the, during the early days of James Bond, every villain was CLA Schwab. And he's like, he doesn't have to work at it. His, his Nazi accent just fits perfectly to a.

Ben 46:33

Oh

Gene 46:33

Oh my God, that cla I would love if somebody could dig up some early video footage of CLA Schwab, like before he got old or was he always old? Is he actually somebody that was alive during World War ii? I wouldn't be surprised. But if somebody could find like a, a 20 or 30 year old CLA Schwab, that would be very interesting to see. What was he like back then? Because he's one of those guys that looks like he was born 60.

Ben 47:01

Hmm.

Gene 47:02

Can you imagine? I mean, are you even and what I mean literally, like I can't imagine what a young Schwab looked like or talk like.

Ben 47:11

I, I, I don't know. I've never even had that thought.

Gene 47:15

Yeah. And like was he wearing an East German uniform or a Nazi uniform or what? Uniform, because he clearly used to wear a uniform. The question is, which one? Oh, come on. Come on, man.

Ben 47:28

Come on, man.

Gene 47:30

He was, he was,

Ben 47:32

I mean, he was born, he was born March 30th, 1938

Gene 47:37

Okay. So he actually was alive during World War ii, so he was born 60 at 60 years old. He was born

Ben 47:44

He has

Gene 47:45

during World War ii. And how old are the children? 105. And.

Ben 47:50

I'm just looking.

Gene 47:51

Doesn't say. And also I can't believe you believe shit that's in Wikipedia about him though. Most of that stuff's made up. But in Wikipedia it says John is five two,

Ben 48:02

How tall is John?

Gene 48:04

Six two. At least

Ben 48:07

Okay.

Gene 48:08

he's a tall fucker.

Ben 48:10

Him and Adam,

Gene 48:11

No, Adam is crazy tall. Adam's like six five or six. Six

Ben 48:15

yeah.

Gene 48:16

or maybe even more. I mean, I Yeah. Watch me get a text that says, you said I was only six five. What are you nuts? No, it's yeah, I mean, yeah, I'm not, I'm like average, you know, for the planet and

Ben 48:32

five foot two.

Gene 48:33

Yeah, definitely not five foot two. No, I'm, I'm five, seven and a half ish right around there. But my proportions make me look like I'm shorter because I'm kind of a fat dude and and so, you know, if I was super skinny in the same height, I would actually look taller,

Ben 48:51

Yeah.

Gene 48:53

kinda like you.

Ben 48:54

I'm not skinny man. I need to lose

Gene 48:56

that's true. That's

Ben 48:57

I need to lose another 10 pounds

Gene 49:00

10 pounds. Yeah, there's probably some drugs you.

Ben 49:03

I, yeah, that I could just exercise. I'm actually gonna, I'm actually gonna start wrecking, I think

Gene 49:10

start what?

Ben 49:10

wrecking.

Gene 49:12

Wrecking what?

Ben 49:13

So just going around with a weighted backpack building. In case I need to carry my go bag any length of distance.

Gene 49:20

I thought all it people, and especially dude to name Ben, walked around with backpacks that had multiple laptops and you had at least 30, 40 pounds in there anyway.

Ben 49:30

Oh, absolutely. My, I'll, I'll take a picture and send you my my backpack, but I, whenever I travel, I carry two laptops. There's my

Gene 49:38

Oh, everybody does. Of course. Yeah.

Ben 49:40

Lots of cables, lots of things.

Gene 49:42

It's crazy. I remember those days, man. I remember like shopping for luggage based on how heavy duty it was to carry the shit that I wanted to carry and carry on.

Ben 49:52

Yep. Well, and you, you the cra like I travel with a Roku and everything else, you know, cuz when I get to the

Gene 49:59

Of course you do.

Ben 50:00

but,

Gene 50:00

Okay. I I, I got your beat though. When I used to travel for work, I actually carried a projector with me so two laptops, a projector,

Ben 50:10

you were presenting a lot. I take it

Gene 50:13

No. I like to watch TV on the ceiling when I stay at a hotel.

Ben 50:18

Okay. Right. In college I used a projector for TV a long time ago with, I had a windows PC running it with a video capture card in it and all that nonsense.

Gene 50:31

Yeah. The good old days. Well, I still do, I mean, I've got a projector in the bedroom that does I think it's about a 10 foot screen. I mean, it's, it's perfect for watching something in bed cuz it takes up the entire wall.

Ben 50:43

Yeah. But there for a while you were able to get better resolution on TVs than you were projectors for a while, and projectors finally caught back up. One of, one of my buddy's dad's one of my buddy's dad's was one of the guys who worked on D L P, which D L P, you know, the T I D L P chip is fascinating how it works. Literally, it's a chip processor with gates and everything for light. It's amazing,

Gene 51:13

it is. They, I, I could never have a DLP device because my eyeballs pick up high frequencies like that.

Ben 51:22

Yeah.

Gene 51:23

So when I look at a DLP projector, I see rainbows everywhere.

Ben 51:26

Hmm.

Gene 51:27

It's, it's something that, no, most people don't. But my, even though I try to, you know, emulate a human as much as I can, there are certain aspects that just would never quite be set up correct.

Ben 51:42

I try and emulate a human. So what do you say in their gene?

Gene 51:45

I'm not saying any, I'm saying DLPs. Show me rainbows. Novocain doesn't work on me. I mean, I've got a few

Ben 51:52

You know, given your height and beard and everything else, I don't think you're gonna like the comparison and odds of where it's gonna go to certain mythical creatures.

Gene 52:05

mythical creatures. What, which ones?

Ben 52:08

Well, you know, troll comes to mind. Or

Gene 52:11

has been really an underrated character. I think trolls really are responsible for building most things on the

Ben 52:18

all the time and

Gene 52:19

Uhhuh? Yeah. What Jews?

Ben 52:21

There you go.

Gene 52:22

You thinking of? Jews again.

Ben 52:24

No, I'm thinking of Dorse.

Gene 52:25

Oh, okay. Well, I don't know why you would insult Jews that way, but, okay. Oh man. I love Carman with his little, little Jew references

Ben 52:35

Oh

Gene 52:35

is really like the best character. That whole show is basically the Carmen show.

Ben 52:40

Oh, man.

Gene 52:42

Did you watch the, the, the South Park their future episodes where they went like into the future?

Ben 52:49

No, I haven't seen those.

Gene 52:50

I always came out like a year ago. It was during Covid, but it's, I can't remember the names of the episodes. It's the ones where they. It was the first batch that they changed the channel that they're on. So it kind of pissed me off cuz normally they were on HBO and then all of a sudden they were on something else. But it was the episodes where the episodes take place like 20 years later or 30 years later.

Ben 53:14

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I did. I did. And Carman's like trying to act like he's a good guy and they're like, no

Gene 53:20

has converted to Judaism and married a Jewish woman and has a couple of little yaka wearing kids

Ben 53:27

Mm-hmm.

Gene 53:28

and,

Ben 53:29

Ben Shapiro esque type

Gene 53:31

yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Exactly. And I, I just bought a lawsuit when I first saw it. I'm like, oh my God, this is perfect. Like, what could they possibly do to Carmen given everything that he's done

Ben 53:43

Yeah.

Gene 53:44

for the future? Yep. They they make him Jewish to where he's making fun of Kyle for not being Jewish enough.

Ben 53:52

Yeah. Which is hilarious. Which ends up all being a rouse, if I remember correctly.

Gene 53:57

Well, no, cuz they, they, they had to change something, change some incident in the past to change the way the future works so that without giving the whole plot line away, the basic summary was everybody's lives went for the worse. Except for. Really two characters, and that is Carmen, who had clearly a, a much better life. And butters ended up being like a big marketing successful guy, but everybody else kinda like, had pretty crappy lives, like not where they were planning on going. And so they ended up having to go back and change the past through, you know, a magical mechanism. And and then of course, you know, essentially erased Carman's, good future.

Ben 54:48

Which, you know, hey couldn't be more justified than anything else.

Gene 54:52

He always gets screwed. It's like every, everybody takes advantage of that per day.

Ben 54:56

Yeah, right. Speaking of erasing people's futures,

Gene 55:00

What, before you go there, did you actually have any questions about travel or was that just a lead off topic?

Ben 55:06

No, I actually, you know, I just thought since I'm gonna have some international travel apparently coming up that it might be a thing

Gene 55:15

I mean, there's not much to it. Just you have your password passport, you may wanna invest in global entry, which is probably free through your credit card.

Ben 55:25

Yeah.

Gene 55:26

You know, I mean, you're fingerprinted. Oh my God, that's so horrible, blah, blah, blah, whatever. It in some occasions it can greatly speed up your walking through the border.

Ben 55:37

Okay.

Gene 55:38

But not everywhere. I found that with Mexico, the line actually without global entry is shorter because almost everybody goes to Mexico, has global entry,

Ben 55:46

Okay.

Gene 55:46

But global entry probably worthwhile. TSA pre do you have that?

Ben 55:53

No,

Gene 55:53

Definitely get TSA pre same. You, you can get a combo pack. You actually get'em on the same website. You at least if they this, what they used to do is you prepay for both of'em online to the government and then they schedule an appointment to interview you, which is another way of saying are you a US citizen? Yes. Okay, great. Here you go.

Ben 56:12

Well, so I get priority access through United already

Gene 56:16

yeah, so

Ben 56:17

so

Gene 56:18

I think, I think this well, yes, but this would give you international travel version of that.

Ben 56:24

Right.

Gene 56:26

So those two things are useful. And then beyond that, especially for national travel, either have an Amex platinum card, so you could use their clubs or sign up for a one of the other club things because in, unless you're flying first, if you're flying first you get free club. But I'm assuming you're not flying first for work. So if you're not flying first, it, it, it is well worth having either through Amex or through somebody else access to the private clubs and airports. Cuz you're gonna be spending a lot of time waiting for things and you don't wanna do it in, in other countries where they're

Ben 57:05

in the public spaces.

Gene 57:07

in the public spaces. Yeah. Because they're, it's just pain the butt. It's in a club. Like everything's clean and simple and good internet speed and people will speak English. Yeah. In Europe, usually free boos. It used to be in the US I mean, my God.

Ben 57:23

too. Even United Club is still that way.

Gene 57:25

Yeah. But it's, it's cheap boost for free. I remember back in, before nine 11 I, there were times where I used to drive to the airport just to have a drink with my friends because I was, because I was a member of the Northwest Club, I, I could bring a large number of people with me because I had platinum access and in the Northwest Club you literally had alcohol bottles just sitting there next to glasses. It was self-serve, unlimited alcohol,

Ben 57:58

Hmm.

Gene 57:58

And free food. Right. But it was the alcohol that was made it well worth it price wise. Because that was one of the few clubs where you didn't even have to worry about a bartender. You're literally just pouring your own drinks.

Ben 58:12

Yeah. And you know, for anyone who has a long layover domestically the United Club, whether you have a pass or not, if you're gonna have a long layover, you can go same day, buy a pass for, I think it's$50 a

Gene 58:27

Yeah. They're all, all the clubs are that way. But the one thing is they'll look at your ticket. They'll only sell you a pass if you're traveling on their airline.

Ben 58:35

Yes, this is true. Traveling on their airline and, but anyway, if, if you're gonna go sit at a airport, restaurant and eat something and get two beers, it's cheaper to go to the club.

Gene 58:47

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Airport food prices are crazy high, and clubs have free food. They also have paid food which used to be like, literally everything was free, but then they kind of snuck in this like, oh, would you like to look at a menu? And then, you know, the stuff that used to be free 20 years ago, like sandwiches all of a sudden started not being free.

Ben 59:07

No sandwiches and stuff like that are still free. There's usually some soup, some cheese plates, so items, you know, snacky, things like that. And then like if you want a actual, let's say hamburger or up, you're gonna end

Gene 59:20

Okay. Well, fair enough. That's why I was, that's.

Ben 59:22

Yeah.

Gene 59:23

Because like I, in the American one, they, they usually also have a guacamole station which I always like those that, cuz I like guacamole. But they'll, they actually have a Mexican chick like making it, you know, just the way you like it.

Ben 59:37

Yeah. How, how weird is it that the two largest airlines in the US are based out of the same state?

Gene 59:43

Not weird at all. And I can't wait till they're based out of our country and not just our state.

Ben 59:48

Yeah. you know what? That, that has interesting implications because then the Jones Act takes effect.

Gene 59:55

What's, why, what's that do?

Ben 59:57

So if Texas were to succeed, the, literally, one of the consequences would be the Jones Act preventing American and united from operating in the rest of the United States

Gene 1:00:09

How's that? Why?

Ben 1:00:10

because foreign foreign foreign carriers cannot operate domestically, only internationally,

Gene 1:00:16

Oh, I see what you're saying. Yeah. Yeah. Cuz they all partnered. Yeah, that's a good point. So they probably would both leave the Texas at that point then,

Ben 1:00:23

probably. Yeah.

Gene 1:00:25

cause they're not gonna give up air travel in the US for just travel in Texas.

Ben 1:00:30

I mean better, you know, a modification to the Jones Act, but yeah. Yeah.

Gene 1:00:35

Well, I mean, there's gonna be bigger problems than that frankly.

Ben 1:00:41

Few. They Tim had the Texas guy on

Gene 1:00:44

I did see that episode. Yeah. Yeah, he was pretty good. Tim has had actually a lot of people from Texas, like a disproportionately large number. I'd say probably every 10th guest seems to come from Texas.

Ben 1:00:57

Hmm.

Gene 1:00:58

I, I think if it wasn't for the like I don't think Tim would be opposed to moving to Texas himself. I think that he's got some other folks that like the area that they're in. But I don't

Ben 1:01:09

But I can't imagine why the area he's in is just little

Gene 1:01:13

Yeah. But I think, well, oh, you can't imagine why they like it, because they're, they're less than two hours away from DC

Ben 1:01:19

Yeah. But who, okay. And

Gene 1:01:22

I think most of its cast is in their twenties and they like get going and drinking in the city.

Ben 1:01:28

Yeah. But DC and Baltimore are

Gene 1:01:31

Yeah. Both shitty. I know. I know. But, okay. But have you seen the people that work for Tim Cast

Ben 1:01:38

Yeah. I gotcha.

Gene 1:01:39

tattooed it up? Skateboarding types?

Ben 1:01:42

I gotcha.

Gene 1:01:43

I'm just saying they're not looking for nice places to go eat.

Ben 1:01:48

Yeah, I, I mean, there are nice places in DC there's yy, YPI areas, but.

Gene 1:01:53

definitely nice places in

Ben 1:01:54

in Baltimore as well. But my god man, when you look at, just watch the local news in the Baltimore, DC area and it is just insane.

Gene 1:02:06

Oh, it's, it's pretty crazy. You know, if I haven't told it at some point, I'll have to tell you this story. When I, I took a, a guy from the NSA to Russia house and he got drunk. That was hilarious.

Ben 1:02:18

Too smart.

Gene 1:02:20

no, no, no. It was, I, he, it was a funny, it was funnier listening to him describe the story later than actually my perspective on it, which was very like, yeah, well, we're gonna have a few drinks and eat some good food. And his perspective is, okay, what am I gonna get? Black bagged here?

Ben 1:02:39

Yeah. Uhhuh

Gene 1:02:41

fun times. But DC has a lot of crappy places for every nice place. It has

Ben 1:02:46

yeah. So are you familiar with the Israeli whatever, 500 and the companies that spin out of that?

Gene 1:02:56

no.

Ben 1:02:57

So there's an Israeli intelligence group, and I'm blanking on the name right now, but they've spun out a bunch of cybersecurity companies,

Gene 1:03:06

oh, yeah, yeah,

Ben 1:03:07

that have all been Israeli owned. I'm seeing the US start to do that out of the NSA slash cyber command. lot of founders of these companies are coming outta there.

Gene 1:03:22

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's, but I think that's been the case for a long time though. Intel investments in a lot of companies have well, Facebook's a big one, right? But there's a lot of security companies that Intel is missing.

Ben 1:03:36

Yes, and you know, it, it's not just an investment of capital, but there's what I see as information sharing going on like a large, large amount there. There are some malware analysis pieces that have come out fairly recently where I'm going, okay, the story you're telling me on how you got this information is bullshit. Utter bullshit. I don't know what the real story is, but this is not how you got this. There's no way.

Gene 1:04:08

Yep.

Ben 1:04:09

So,

Gene 1:04:10

There, there is a lot of sharing going on. I think that's absolutely the case

Ben 1:04:13

well the problem there is then the government is picking winners and losers. Even

Gene 1:04:18

now. Duh. Of course they are. Like, that

Ben 1:04:22

is not okay in our principled society.

Gene 1:04:25

which society.

Ben 1:04:26

right? That's, yeah. Anyway.

Gene 1:04:29

No, that's absolutely been the case. But again, I don't think this is new at all. I think this has been going on for a while. I think the only part of it that I would say has changed in the last 20 years is that they've stopped trying to deny a lot of these things. Like 20 years ago, there were a lot of denials of government involvement with private companies.

Ben 1:04:53

Yeah,

Gene 1:04:53

now, nobody's denying that the US government has been utilizing Twitter to control the population. Nobody. So that's a change.

Ben 1:05:03

Well, they're not admitting it to it either.

Gene 1:05:06

but they're not denying it. They used to deny it, even if they had to lie about it, which they lied all the time about it, even to Congress. But,

Ben 1:05:14

wittingly.

Gene 1:05:16

Wittingly, yes. You know exactly what I'm talking about there. Yeah. But it, it's like that's not even happening. They don't bother lying anymore. It's just like, yeah, I can't talk about that. Which is effectively admitting it.

Ben 1:05:28

Well I, I think there's no doubt that,

Gene 1:05:30

I think, so just to interject here, the, my suspicion is I have nothing that I can point to concretely here, but I. This is the really scary thing that I think I'm right about is it's not just that the government is very plugged in and in order to control the populace through Twitter and Facebook and which is less of an issue these days, but I mean, Facebook was in a lot of ways built with money coming from the federal government because they saw it for exactly what it was a great platform to voluntarily collect data on US citizens.

Ben 1:06:09

Yeah, everybody produced their own dossier.

Gene 1:06:12

Exactly. But so here's the scary part of it that we haven't really heard anything about, but I think is true, is I don't think it stops with information gathering. I think that when the covers are pulled back, what we're gonna see is that the US government, not either of the parties, has effectively been controlling US elections for the last 30, 40 years.

Ben 1:06:40

Well, I mean, Musk came out and said it earlier this week that right now it costs a penny to run a bot, a penny a month to run a bot on Twitter. And you know, he, his putting in that pricing structure fundamentally changes that, you know, and I think part of the pushback he immediately got for the, you know,$8 verification or whatever, was definitely governments going, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. You're gonna blow up our budgets.

Gene 1:07:09

yeah, that's not quite what I'm referring to. What I'm referring to is, you know how some conspiracy theorists would say that the 2020 elections were stolen because the Democrats sent fake ballots in. You may have heard that somebody saying something to that effect.

Ben 1:07:26

yes.

Gene 1:07:27

My point is that it wasn't the Democrats,

Ben 1:07:30

okay.

Gene 1:07:31

it, it was the government doing that because the government has a candidate that they would like to see win over the other guy and I, I think it was

Ben 1:07:41

that Trump, you know, latent, his candidacy there was talking about a plan to remove quite a few federal employees. So definitely had motivation

Gene 1:07:52

yet another reason he is not gonna get elected. But I think that it's not like Democrats working for the FBI did something to fuck with the elections. I think it's a genuine policy top down of these large bureaucratic organizations in the government saying What is good for us? What is good for us is to have this candidate instead of this candidate, and then leverage and utilize the tools at their disposal to help ensure that what's good for the. Is what happens regardless of whether it's good or not for America

Ben 1:08:32

yeah, but the problem with that is, you know, the elections in the US are decentralized. They are run by states and local elections, commissioners and so on. So the, the problem I have there is to really just totally control and sway an election would be difficult. Now, when you look at the 2016 election and you look at bellwether counties and versus the overall vote and how things happened, and you look at a few key states where Trump lost in strange circumstances, absolutely. That that sort of thing could be done. But Biden had to be at least close for it to work. And I think the reason why Biden was close was because there was so much hatred towards Donald Trump. I don't think it was people nationally voting for Biden as much as it was against Trump,

Gene 1:09:29

which is why Trump shouldn't be running this next time. It's at the core of my argument against Trump is that he, he actually motivates more Democrats to go out and vote against him and not just vote. When I say vote, I don't just mean cast the ballot. I mean, he motivates more. Democrats donate money, he motivates more Democrats to get involved. He motivates more Democrats. To do things to help people that oppose Trump, even in local elections, like you don't have to run nationally. You could just come out in a local election, say, I think the orange man is bad and you will get support and help and, and money simply by saying that.

Ben 1:10:15

I, I think that changes though. I think Biden has done such an atrocious job. There has been such a precipitous fall in the economy and in every, every aspect, you know, I, I think there will be a lot of people who voted against Trump in, you know, in 2020 that may vote for him in 2024.

Gene 1:10:40

Yeah. Well, I dunno.

Ben 1:10:42

We'll see.

Gene 1:10:43

We'll see what happens.

Ben 1:10:44

how, how cool would it

Gene 1:10:46

I'm so done with 80 year old candidates. Fuck everybody from both sides. I just, if they're over 50, I don't want'em as a candidate.

Ben 1:10:54

I tend to agree Trump being an exception, but, you know, how, how cool would it be to have Trump get in, blow up everything, cut the federal workforce in half,

Gene 1:11:06

Yeah. And unicorns would run around on rainbows too, because he sure as hell didn't do that the first time. He is not gonna do it the second time,

Ben 1:11:13

I don't know. Might be a revenge

Gene 1:11:15

know, re repeating things and expecting a different outcome. His definition of insanity, my friend. We tried that horse, we know exactly how it runs.

Ben 1:11:26

I still am worried about DeSantis and I'm not bought in on DeSantis. And he's

Gene 1:11:30

Pick another candidate. You know, I mean, I don't care. Tsi. TSI with DeSantis would be a good ticket.

Ben 1:11:38

to And the an extent. She is pretty liberal on a few things though, so.

Gene 1:11:42

So am I. So are you.

Ben 1:11:44

Yeah. Well, just different things. That's the problem. But hey, how cool would it be for a Republican ticket to actually take Hawaii? That would, you know, not that it really matters, but

Gene 1:11:56

It doesn't matter that Hawaii's, I mean, that's, I think one of her problems is that she brings a state that is inconsequential. Might as well be from Connecticut.

Ben 1:12:05

Yeah. So Pelosi is going to retire from Democratic leadership. Did you see that one?

Gene 1:12:12

I did. That's as expected though.

Ben 1:12:15

Oh yeah. I, I, part of me wonders if the whole Paul thing wasn't set up just to be an excuse.

Gene 1:12:24

that was just a little gay romp.

Ben 1:12:27

Yeah. You really think it was? Or do you think it was a drug?

Gene 1:12:30

No, no. I don't think it was a drug deal. I think it was a sex thing.

Ben 1:12:33

Yeah.

Gene 1:12:34

He's been, there have been a number of rumors coming out about him, just like picking up men

Ben 1:12:40

Yeah. Well, yeah. Interestingly enough, when he had his wreck where he got his dui, the passenger airbag was deployed yet officially no one was with him.

Gene 1:12:50

Huh. How's that happen? That thing doesn't go often unless there's a weight in the seat,

Ben 1:12:55

Yep. So

Gene 1:12:57

so, yeah. No, and who cares? I mean, honestly, I don't care if he's gay or bi or whatever you want to call it. He probably hasn't had sex with Nancy for 20 years.

Ben 1:13:07

probably,

Gene 1:13:08

Why would you want to? So it,

Ben 1:13:11

you see the bikini picture of her

Gene 1:13:12

no,

Ben 1:13:14

It, it, it's not something you wanna see

Gene 1:13:16

I, I will see, I will say that I have seen a picture of Nancy flirting with

Ben 1:13:22

Hillary?

Gene 1:13:23

his face? No, no, no, no, no, no. With John Kennedy. Did you see that photo?

Ben 1:13:28

No.

Gene 1:13:29

Yeah. That was, that was how she ended up in politics is she was, yep. She was a layover for John.

Ben 1:13:36

huh. Interesting.

Gene 1:13:37

Mm-hmm. and I think she was either 19 or 20 at the time in that photo. And it looked very attractive. Very cute girl.

Ben 1:13:46

Huh.

Gene 1:13:47

And John Kennedy was definitely swiveling his neck around to be looking at her and spending some more time with, But it's a tradition in the Democratic party for women to end up getting into politics by sleeping with somebody more powerful. Look at our vice president.

Ben 1:14:00

Exactly. Interesting. Yeah, the, there's that. And then what was the Homa Adeen and, you know, Anthony Wiener and all that.

Gene 1:14:08

Oh yeah. The Hillary's girlfriend. Yeah. Which again, I have nothing against that. I think that you know, it's, it's sad that they felt like they still had to marry Houma off to explain why she's on every single flight with Hillary.

Ben 1:14:23

Sharing the same room, all that. Yeah.

Gene 1:14:25

But, but yeah, but like, who cares? Whatever. You know, it was obvious given their relationship that Bill wasn't sleeping with Hillary

Ben 1:14:36

well, they were both beards for each other in many ways. You know, Hillary was covering up his rampages and inappropriate behaviors. Yeah. Well, I mean, more than that. I mean,

Gene 1:14:48

Mm-hmm.

Ben 1:14:49

Say what you want about the whole impeachment process,

Gene 1:14:55

I don't think Clinton should have been impeached. I've always said that.

Ben 1:14:58

I don't think he should have been for the reasons he was, but

Gene 1:15:01

Yeah.

Ben 1:15:02

it's pretty clear the man has committed some sexual crimes in his past

Gene 1:15:06

Eh, whatever, who hasn't, I mean, it's, it was a different day. It was a different time. People acted differently and it's not like they, the women didn't want it at the time.

Ben 1:15:16

Epstein Epstein

Gene 1:15:18

Yeah. But again, the thing with Epstein is, you know, that was a sting operation and I think that there was a lot more entrapment happening than people are willing to admit to,

Ben 1:15:30

100 very much so. I

Gene 1:15:32

you know, and you, you go, you go to a strip club and you really like the, the grinding action that a girl is doing, that you're paying. And then you find out like the next day that, oh, she was 16. Oh fuck, what are you gonna do about it? You can't take time back

Ben 1:15:49

Yeah, so interestingly enough, it looks like the Epstein Island operation just moved to The Bahamas.

Gene 1:15:57

oh yeah, well, shocker. But, you know, that's how you, it's it's guys like Prince Sandra that then when they find out she's 16 are like, okay, set her up for the next four nights for me. That's what you gotta be looking for. Not the guys that like, didn't think there was anything happening and then all of a sudden realized, oh,

Ben 1:16:17

Right. And I think the, the people who flew to Epstein Island once are in one category. Exactly. And then you have people like Bill Clinton and Bill Gates,

Gene 1:16:30

Oh, bill Gates was fucking,

Ben 1:16:31

Oh, 20 something times.

Gene 1:16:33

yeah. Yeah. mean, the fact that his wife divorced him as a result of this should say volumes about it

Ben 1:16:41

indeed.

Gene 1:16:42

put up with a lot,

Ben 1:16:44

Mm-hmm. Well, I mean, he was another pretty famous philander,

Gene 1:16:50

mm-hmm.

Ben 1:16:51

you know, and she didn't divorce him for years and years and years based off of that. But then suddenly does

Gene 1:16:56

Yeah. That's something happened that crossed the line in her mind.

Ben 1:17:00

matter. Or maybe she just got tired of Bill looking like he's pregnant.

Gene 1:17:04

I don't think they were around each other a whole lot.

Ben 1:17:07

Fair enough.

Gene 1:17:08

I mean, that's, he, he mostly traveled solo well, with an entourage, but not with her, not with his wife. Even when they were married,

Ben 1:17:16

I mean, they were together a long, long, long

Gene 1:17:20

I didn't think they would last past five years, honestly. But they did.

Ben 1:17:24

Well, I mean, I'm surprised that they lasted as long as they did, but I, I don't.

Gene 1:17:29

She probably had a a prenup with a vesting schedule, which is not, I'm not even kidding. This is not that uncommon for Rich.

Ben 1:17:36

A vesting schedule.

Gene 1:17:38

yeah. Yeah. If, if we're married for five years, then you get this much Tom Cruise had a death with all his wives. If we're married for 10 years, then you get this much, you know, it's, it's a, and if we have a kid this much and every additional kid adds this much, so it literally is a vesting schedule for wealth distribution, for marrying somebody that's very wealthy. And it's smart. I, I'm all for that. I think it's stupid to throw away billions of dollars the way Bezos did on basically your hormones on just, oh, I love this person. Great. You love'em. Doesn't mean they need to get all your money.

Ben 1:18:19

Yeah. Well, I mean, when you look at the number of female billionaires that are female billionaires via divorce, it's

Gene 1:18:28

It's the only kind of female billionaire that exists. There are no females. Nope.

Ben 1:18:34

no.

Gene 1:18:35

Nope. Well, two years ago I looked, there wasn't, maybe there is this year. I don't think so, but two years ago, there were none. The only female billionaires were inheritance billionaires,

Ben 1:18:44

Hmm

Gene 1:18:45

including Bezos ex-wife,

Ben 1:18:47

hmm.

Gene 1:18:48

Which to be fair, to be fair, She actually did an awful lot because she was like employee number four or something in that company. So she contributed greatly. I don't think that had they not been married, she would've become a billionaire.

Ben 1:19:05

huh? Okay. Well, I think that there are several that are self-made according to Forbes.

Gene 1:19:13

Okay. Like what, what business?

Ben 1:19:15

Number one is Roofing

Gene 1:19:17

The number one billionaire chick is a roofer

Ben 1:19:23

Well Owns a company. Yeah.

Gene 1:19:25

or a roofie.

Ben 1:19:26

Dana Hendrix,

Gene 1:19:28

Okay. And so she is built a roofing company.

Ben 1:19:32

Hendrix Chairs, abc Polite

Gene 1:19:34

What? Doesn't matter what she chairs. Have you looked at whether she was married or divorced?

Ben 1:19:41

I, I'm looking, but it, this is Forbes list of self-made

Gene 1:19:46

Yeah. But Forbes, in this day and age, like every other magazine, is run by a bunch of blue-haired people. And self-made in their minds is her husband built the company and then had a heart attack, and now she's running it. If she owns it, that would qualify. Self-made,

Ben 1:20:04

Okay. Well, I mean, I don't

Gene 1:20:06

I mean, I, I. I'm happy to be proven wrong on this count. I just saying statistically speaking, the fastest way for a woman to become a millionaire or a billionaire is to marry a guy that will ensure that that happens.

Ben 1:20:22

Yes,

Gene 1:20:22

It's not the only way, sir. Yeah, sure. It's not the only way, but it is the most common and the fastest way to do it. And this goes back to stuff that that what's face, so the lobster guy I was talking about,

Ben 1:20:38

Peterson.

Gene 1:20:38

Peterson, is that men are willing to do more to get paid more than women are. The drivers that are, are genetically built into men are different than the ones built into women,

Ben 1:20:55

Well, and you

Gene 1:20:56

and men are willing to

Ben 1:20:57

and everything else.

Gene 1:20:59

Yeah, yeah, exactly. So men are more competitive. They're willing to work longer hours, do jobs that are less pleasurable to take greater risks,

Ben 1:21:13

men's work generally scales better than women's because women wanna focus on the individuals they want to go into healthcare, for example, and so on, versus men who do engineering or build a widget that can scale.

Gene 1:21:25

There you go. So, bottom line, is it, it's. It's not an argument for why things ought to be that way, it's just simply saying that's the way things are.

Ben 1:21:35

Yeah. And you know, in the countries that have done the most to equalize opportunity and so on, aka Scandinavia you know, we've seen those trends continue not decrease. So it doesn't appear to be

Gene 1:21:50

I'll give you an exception to my rule right away too, because I think that it's important to acknowledge exceptions. Opera, opera, opera, Oprah Winfrey.

Ben 1:21:59

Hmm. Indeed

Gene 1:22:00

definitely not a billionaire as a result of attaching herself to a man. Now she may have had some people working for her that allowed her to grow her wealth tremendously and not just be a talk show host. Tons of talk show hosts, not a whole lot of them are billionaires, so something's happening correctly in that regard. So, and I, whatever you may think of Oprah and I, I'm not a fan at all, but I'll give her props for achieving financial success in a way that very few people in that medium have. And you know, my impression is she did it basically by creating a product that sold super well to white women. I've, I've heard way more white women talk about how much they love Oprah than black.

Ben 1:22:46

You think she's gonna run for the Democratic side?

Gene 1:22:49

Yeah, there you go. She might beat Trump,

Ben 1:22:52

Maybe?

Gene 1:22:53

which I think any name on that is gonna beat Trump. But yeah, if she runs, I mean, Trump should bow out if she runs, frankly, because she will get the entirety of the female white female vote regardless of political party

Ben 1:23:09

Hmm. So

Gene 1:23:11

It's the same, same way when Obama ran. It's like, well, there's no point in running against them because there are tons of re of quote unquote Republicans that think it's worthwhile to do their bit to have a black president.

Ben 1:23:24

Okay. I, you know, I,

Gene 1:23:26

He was the most popular president with white women

Ben 1:23:30

yeah. Which I, you

Gene 1:23:32

Jungle fever.

Ben 1:23:33

fuck I told you

Gene 1:23:35

know, they all want it.

Ben 1:23:36

costume, right.

Gene 1:23:38

No, no. What'd you do?

Ben 1:23:39

So, in college 2008 you know, I was in college, so I got an Obama mask and made some really ratty clothes and some signs, and I went as I, homeless Obama begging for change.

Gene 1:23:55

No, that's funny. I like that. It took a little while to get it, but

Ben 1:24:00

Cancel culture. And one, one of my friends who was dating a Vietnamese girl, he went as pow, John McCain

Gene 1:24:07

Nice. Nice. So he was well dressed and well fed then.

Ben 1:24:12

yeah. And she was walking around beating him with a cane. So yeah, it was funny.

Gene 1:24:16

Oh, that never happened.

Ben 1:24:18

well, she was dressed up as, you know, slutty Vet Kong, so, you know, yeah. It

Gene 1:24:23

Oh, okay. Okay. Okay. Well, there, yeah,

Ben 1:24:25

is college man, and this is a census of humor. And by the way, I would totally get canceled and it would be deemed racist for me to do that costume today.

Gene 1:24:35

what Obama

Ben 1:24:36

yeah, even though

Gene 1:24:38

were you in? Blackface.

Ben 1:24:40

well, I was wearing a rubber mask and, you

Gene 1:24:43

So you were in blackface

Ben 1:24:44

Yeah. But it wasn't racist at all. It was making fun of his policies and, you know, the Hope and Change candidate,

Gene 1:24:53

Yeah.

Ben 1:24:54

you

Gene 1:24:54

He's hoping for his change.

Ben 1:24:56

Exactly. One of my signs even said Hopi, hope, hope Change. Any change, change

Gene 1:25:01

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Ben 1:25:03

But yeah, I had a little tin cup walking around begging for change, And the funny part was, one of the parties we went to had an Obama Biden sign in the front.

Gene 1:25:13

Mm-hmm.

Ben 1:25:14

Oh. Anyway, it was just funny. So, FTX

Gene 1:25:19

Yeah. Which aspect? The money laundering aspect or the

Ben 1:25:24

Well,

Gene 1:25:24

the hell gives money and trusts? A guy that looks like that aspect.

Ben 1:25:28

or the girlfriend the sex parties, the condoms. You know, there's so much to this. This is why I was trying to

Gene 1:25:36

I, I haven't heard. You gotta gotta give, tell me more.

Ben 1:25:39

Yeah. This is what I said. The, the Epstein Island moved to The Bahamas, man, this is, that was the transition I was trying to go

Gene 1:25:45

Okay. Okay. So what's going on? No, she looks ugly as fuck, but

Ben 1:25:49

But apparently

Gene 1:25:51

she's crazy

Ben 1:25:51

all sorts of stuff going on there.

Gene 1:25:53

All right. All right. What's, what's happening? Phon.

Ben 1:25:56

they had condoms, ftx, Bitcoin, branded condoms, stuff like that floating around.

Gene 1:26:02

Well, that's not a big deal. Who hasn't had condoms?

Ben 1:26:05

No, no, no. Made branded and

Gene 1:26:07

Yeah. You've never made condoms when? Back when you were younger in college?

Ben 1:26:12

No, no. I, I, I didn't do that.

Gene 1:26:15

I had those, well, back in the day pre nine 11, back when things were legal. No, we had condoms. Which group was I in? It was one of my college clubs that I was in. We actually had condoms made you, you could run a batch of about 5,000. It's not that expensive.

Ben 1:26:31

Huh. Interesting.

Gene 1:26:32

And they came in like little gold foiled rappers.

Ben 1:26:36

Mm.

Gene 1:26:37

Yep. Anyway, go on.

Ben 1:26:38

Anyway, apparently there, there were many, many sex parties, things like that going on. And it was just this open secret that was happening. You know, Alameda, the, the deals that, how much money of depositor's money he was giving to Alameda

Gene 1:26:54

Mm-hmm. which is not her real name by the way, but yeah.

Ben 1:26:58

it's no, it's the company.

Gene 1:27:00

Mm-hmm.

Ben 1:27:01

What's the, not her real name, comment. Am I missing something there?

Gene 1:27:05

the, the, the chick's name?

Ben 1:27:06

No, that's not her name, but that's the name of the company that was getting the money.

Gene 1:27:11

Yeah. But I, some article mentioned her actual name. It's

Ben 1:27:15

Caroline Ellison. Yeah.

Gene 1:27:17

There you go. Yeah. Yep. Anyway, go on.

Ben 1:27:21

I mean, it's just this crazy, crazy Ponzi scheme fall apart that has ties to Ukraine, has ties to Democrat donors. Lots of crazy stuff here,

Gene 1:27:32

Or more like Democrat receivers.

Ben 1:27:34

Yes. So, you know, literally we have a circle of Democrats sending money to Ukraine. Ukraine dumping money into ftx ftx donating to.

Gene 1:27:45

Yeah. You could almost call it a circle jerk.

Ben 1:27:47

Yes. And it, it's, it's cr Well, and I, based off of the sex talk, apparently the sum of what they were doing. But you know, interestingly enough, you know, Bernie Madoff, all the other Ponzi schemes have gotten so much press. This is not, I mean, there's a little bit out there, but it is not the, oh my God, look at this sort of thing that it should be.

Gene 1:28:10

Hmm. So did you watch the sex tape?

Ben 1:28:14

No. Good God.

Gene 1:28:15

Yeah. Apparently that's out now.

Ben 1:28:17

Did you

Gene 1:28:19

Well, no, not yet,

Ben 1:28:22

It's on the

Gene 1:28:22

I will be. It is on the list for sure.

Ben 1:28:25

I have the fleshlight on the war already.

Gene 1:28:28

it's funny how they still call'em tapes, even though these haven't been tapes for years.

Ben 1:28:32

yeah.

Gene 1:28:34

Sex tape.

Ben 1:28:36

Well, you know,

Gene 1:28:38

yeah. But some some hacker group is not happy about this.

Ben 1:28:42

what do you mean not happy?

Gene 1:28:44

No, I mean, some hacker group is really going after these guys. Like they're, they were talking about how they're gonna be releasing material on them nonstop.

Ben 1:28:52

Yeah. Well, I, I think that they pissed a lot of people off because FTX had bought up a lot of exchanges. There was multiple times when he said, you know, oh, all these Cryp exchanges are secretly insolvent. And, you know, gee, no kidding. How'd you know that? You know, m m maybe is one of those things. What you say about me is what you say about yourself. Right.

Gene 1:29:14

Yeah, the hood

Ben 1:29:16

yeah. I'm not gonna do the Dutch, I'm not even gonna try.

Gene 1:29:19

Too funny. Yeah. I, I cannot pronounce that. That is

Ben 1:29:23

Yeah. But

Gene 1:29:23

difficult.

Ben 1:29:24

re regardless, you know, he bought up a bunch of exchanges and then, you know, has lost billions of consumer money. So, yeah. I'm sure a lot of people are pissed off. And not only that, but even legitimate exchanges that exist out there are very drastically hurt by this. And I think at the very least this is going

Gene 1:29:47

Coinbase has been doing CYA stuff

Ben 1:29:50

yeah.

Gene 1:29:50

Legit as you can get,

Ben 1:29:51

yep. Agreed.

Gene 1:29:53

like government run legit

Ben 1:29:54

okay. What, what do you know there?

Gene 1:29:56

Ftx, or sorry of Coinbase.

Ben 1:29:59

Mm-hmm.

Gene 1:29:59

Yeah, Coinbase. This whole model was that we're going to legally legitimize Trading in these currencies. So they, they like went to the IRS and other regulatory bodies and said, what would you like to see in the future if you could have an open hand in designing this stuff and we'll just make it our policies to do that.

Ben 1:30:19

Mm-hmm. Interesting.

Gene 1:30:22

Yeah. I don't think it's nefarious. It's totally legal and legit. It's just like they were one of the companies that took that approach where other companies was like, Hey, your privacy, no logs, we shred that shit.

Ben 1:30:34

Yeah. Well, it, so definitely Coinbase is not that way. It's, it is a, they follow the, know your customer laws, banking laws, and all that.

Gene 1:30:42

they follow laws, they're not required to follow. That was all I was trying to say.

Ben 1:30:46

Well, as far as ftx, I think this is gonna be used as an excuse to regulate crypto industry. I, I really think it will be you, you don't have a, you know, billions of wealth gone overnight. And you know, that not be problematic for someone.

Gene 1:31:02

Yeah, I guess I've been, I've been watching some Bitcoin shows lately just to catch up and you know, like guys that I'd known from years ago and I'd say the attitude for a lot of these people is very blase, is like, yeah, well it's not a really surprise, not that huge deal. I think the people that are the most panicking are the people that were part of the Ponzi scheme,

Ben 1:31:27

Why do you think that?

Gene 1:31:29

because just people in general, at least that I've been watching and talked to a couple of'em, but mostly watching videos of, they seem to be a lot less stressed out or panicked over this event.

Ben 1:31:42

Well, sure. And unless you were endorsing or, you know, lot, lots of things. So people are getting sued already. Some of

Gene 1:31:51

yeah. I'm sure that's the case, but I, but I think, I guess my point is I think a lot of the people that had little backroom deals with fdx are now pissed off because they lost those,

Ben 1:32:03

Hmm. Gotcha.

Gene 1:32:05

like the money laundering of American taxpayer money fee, Ukraine going to the Democrats has stopped, and so people like Nancy have to retire.

Ben 1:32:17

So what, what is your thoughts on that because it sure seems pretty blatant to me.

Gene 1:32:23

It is blatant. I, I don't know. I mean, I've talked, my thoughts are exactly what they were months ago, if not a year ago when, or years ago for that matter, when we found out that it wasn't just Biden's kid that had a job in Ukraine, it was. Kids of politicians both rhinos and Democrats, that all magically seem to have their kids working in Ukraine. And Pelosi's kid was one of'em.

Ben 1:32:52

Yeah. Romneys,

Gene 1:32:54

And ROMs. Yep. Mm-hmm.

Ben 1:32:55

so definitely, you know, not a single party, but

Gene 1:32:59

no. But same

Ben 1:33:01

I think, I think what shocks me is that this was the mechanism that was being used. You know, I mean, because this is,

Gene 1:33:08

is not a bad way. I mean, okay. Not that I know people that have done money laundering recently, but using crypto for money laundering started happening literally as soon as Bitcoin popped up.

Ben 1:33:23

but Bitcoin is not good for money laundering.

Gene 1:33:25

Oh, it's awesome for money laundering. What are you talking about?

Ben 1:33:28

How so?

Gene 1:33:29

Because you can, you can move money through what appears to be speculative actions. And in reality is you're, you're moving money from one entity to another entity.

Ben 1:33:41

Yes. But there is a perfect record of that. That's the problem.

Gene 1:33:45

It's a record that, well, yeah. There is a perfect record of it. So you, it's, you're not trying to obfuscate the record. You're obfuscating the ownerships.

Ben 1:33:56

Yes. But the

Gene 1:33:57

a record of Joe Blow selling 7 million Bitcoin to you know, Jimmy Smith,

Ben 1:34:04

Well, if Joe Blow has 7 million Bitcoin, I think that that would be recorded.

Gene 1:34:08

Seven years ago. Fuck no.

Ben 1:34:11

right. But today,

Gene 1:34:13

Today would be, yeah.

Ben 1:34:14

so, you know, if I sell a Bitcoin, for example, the R, the irs A can see that I did that, and B, especially with

Gene 1:34:23

Only if they know you own it.

Ben 1:34:26

fair enough. But the immediate question is, okay, where did that money originate?

Gene 1:34:30

Uhhuh.

Ben 1:34:31

So tracking, I mean,

Gene 1:34:33

But that's the beauty of Bitcoin. Oh, it originated by me making that coin,

Ben 1:34:39

cash. Heavy businesses are still the way to go for money laundering

Gene 1:34:44

cash heavy businesses have a history and a very good way of doing it. But I'm just saying money laundering using Bitcoin. Yeah, exactly. Laundromats will refresh your money in a good way.

Ben 1:34:56

Mm-hmm.

Gene 1:34:56

But Bitcoin

Ben 1:34:58

that my grandfather owned laundry mats?

Gene 1:35:00

Didn't everybody's grandparents own laundromats.

Ben 1:35:02

I don't know.

Gene 1:35:02

Yeah, so it's a. I think it's becoming less practical, but also with the number of cryptocurrencies that have popped up. Like you don't have to have a cryptocurrency that's gonna appreciate, you just need one so you can loan your money.

Ben 1:35:18

Yeah. And I think the, the rise of a lot of the shit coins has been fueled by that.

Gene 1:35:24

Uhhuh. Yep.

Ben 1:35:26

you know, that said I, I still think at any amount of scale, like, I don't know, I, it just, any amount of scale of movement on a blockchain that is recorded is eventually going to be scrutinized. Now, can you be the needle in the haystack? Sure.

Gene 1:35:47

but what you're recording I is the transaction amount and the addresses.

Ben 1:35:53

Mm-hmm.

Gene 1:35:53

What you're not recording is the ownership of the address.

Ben 1:35:56

but, but that is known at this point is my point.

Gene 1:36:00

Well, how's that known?

Ben 1:36:02

The same any, anytime someone thinks they're anonymizing themselves through a VPN or tour or anything else, most of the time they're leaking some information

Gene 1:36:13

no, no. That's, no, I, I can open up a anonymous Bitcoin account in Ecuador right now, and I can receive money at that account. How's that gonna get tied back to somebody living in the.

Ben 1:36:25

because you're either going to cash out, use that in some way, you're gonna buy a pizza with it, whatever.

Gene 1:36:34

No, you don't do well if you're an idiot, you do those things. No, if you're moving money, you don't fucking use the same account that you move money from illicit entities to go buy pizza. That's an idiot. That's, that's like a movie script.

Ben 1:36:47

So how do you get the money out eventually It to yourself?

Gene 1:36:51

well, you're going to need to buy actual currencies with that money on an exchange that's not regulated by the United States, which luckily Bitcoin has exchanges all over the world.

Ben 1:37:06

Yeah.

Gene 1:37:06

have a coin that's, that was originated in Ecuador being used to purchase Yong, what? There's nothing there that'll trace it back to any s d

Ben 1:37:19

Yeah. Mm-hmm. Okay.

Gene 1:37:21

just saying if you are like a casual, I wanna see if this works. Kinda dude, don't bother. Cause for the casual users, the, the regulations that are implemented already in the US will prevent you from being able to do that if you're, if you need to move a few million bucks around or more. It is really not that hard.

Ben 1:37:48

Well, it, it also, one of the things that Bitcoin does eliminates the government's ability to keep you from walking across the border with over 10 grand in cash.

Gene 1:38:00

Exactly,

Ben 1:38:01

by the way, do you know the history of that law and why it exists?

Gene 1:38:04

Don't think I remember what it, I did look it up one point in time, but I don't recall off the top of my head. But that number has not changed in many, many years.

Ben 1:38:12

Yeah.

Gene 1:38:13

But I think it, it had to do, I think it was having to do with some type of curtailing some kinda illegal sales activities.

Ben 1:38:24

Yeah. Which, you know, how, how do you stop someone from doing that when if they wear a Rolex or something

Gene 1:38:30

And incidentally, it's not illegal to bring more than$10,000 in cash. It's simply illegal to not declare it. Exactly. So now I've never had to do that in my entire life. I've never carried more than 10 grand on me traveling. But you know, you can have quite a bit of cash in your carry on and it's still under 10 grand even though it looks impressive. but why you would wanna do that? I know, cuz you're just asking to get robbed at the border.

Ben 1:38:59

Yeah. I just, I, yeah, that I, I would

Gene 1:39:04

my, my advice is when you're traveling internationally, don't have more than 2000 bucks on you. The rest of that money you can you can get locally, you don't need to do it. And the,

Ben 1:39:16

your credit cards and everything in one wallet. In one

Gene 1:39:19

oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Absolutely. No, that's, that's general good advice. Don't keep anything in your pockets if you are gonna be walking around the city, because you will be pick pocketed every place outside of the United States, literally every other country has way more pick pockets than the United States.

Ben 1:39:38

Why do you think that is?

Gene 1:39:40

What we used to have, you know, back in the, up until probably the 1930s, we had a lot of pick bucketts in the us, certainly in large cities. But I think, I think what changed is people stopped carrying things that are valuable with them. Like it's, it's, it's more lucrative to rob a store than to rob a single individual. Which is not to say that somebody who's meth out won't like, grab a knife and try and get money from somebody on the street in San Francisco or even in their house, and then have to get hit in the head with a hammer. But, but it's although I do think that was more sexually motivated, but but I think just empirically, people in the United States don't have to deal with pick pockets. Where in Europe, they're fucking everywhere. Especially tourist areas, but not just who serious. In Latin America, they're absolutely everywhere. Middle East, oh my God, they're at the airport.

Ben 1:40:39

Yeah.

Gene 1:40:40

you know, Mexico, I, I ended up having prostitutes picked back at me in Mexico many, many, many years ago. Not this recent trip.

Ben 1:40:50

Uhhuh.

Gene 1:40:51

I used credit cards these days, but no, back, like in the nineties, I had Mexican horse big pocketed me.

Ben 1:40:58

Yeah. So a, a buddy of mine is from Peru. He, he old family friend, and he's he interesting guy. His native tongue is Farsi, but he grew up in Peru. Or not Farsi. Flemish. Sorry. Flemish. Wow. Wrong F

Gene 1:41:14

that's a different country altogether.

Ben 1:41:17

yes. Anyway But he would told me a joke that this pilot was flying and lost all navigation and they were trying to find Lima. So he opens the window and the co-pilot says, what are you doing? He said, I'm gonna find out if this city we're circling is Lima. He sticks out his arm, pulls it back. Nope. Goes to the next one. Sticks in his

Gene 1:41:36

Still has watch.

Ben 1:41:38

Nope. Goes to the third one. Ah, we found Lima. How do you know my watch is gone? Yeah,

Gene 1:41:43

Mm-hmm. Yeah, that's exactly right. So don't, you know, don't go overboard and just like not have anything on you. But inside pockets are much better than outside pockets.

Ben 1:41:56

yeah. Front pockets on pants versus back, that sort of thing.

Gene 1:42:00

I, yeah, front pockets are super easy to pick packet though. It's really not that much. The whole, the way pick pocketing works in general I think most people know this anyway, but I'll say it is, it's all based on the fact that your body can only process one input at a time. And so if you want to just casually walk up into somebody, reach your hand into their pants and take their wallet, it's gonna be super noticeable. They're not just gonna not notice that. But if you do the exact same thing while bumping your elbow into their ribcage, They will not notice it whatsoever because the higher priority signal is the elbow in the ribcage. And that will completely negate the the any kind of feeling of their hand going into your pocket and taking your wallet that you're gonna have. So any time you get bumped, you're probably being picked back at.

Ben 1:42:58

So when someone bumps into you immediately check your pocket and turn

Gene 1:43:01

If somebody bumps into you grab their wrist. That's the first thing you do when somebody bumps into you is grab their wrist. Cuz that gives you time to figure out whether or not what they took is something that you don't wanna lose.

Ben 1:43:15

there you go.

Gene 1:43:16

There's this travel device right there if you, if you get bumped at all, grab the person's wrist immediately.

Ben 1:43:23

Yeah. My, my biggest fear with this upcoming travel is I'm gonna be over in the Middle East and I'm going get stuck there when World War II kicks off. That's

Gene 1:43:31

Oh, it's super safe in the Middle East though. I mean, that's one of the safest places you could be,

Ben 1:43:36

How so?

Gene 1:43:38

Because they punish crime severely.

Ben 1:43:41

Yeah, but I'm talking about World War II kicks off and I'm over there. That would not be

Gene 1:43:45

But what do you care where you are during World War three? You're gonna be dead anyway.

Ben 1:43:49

I don't know about that one, but.

Gene 1:43:51

Well, if you think you're not gonna be dead, Then first of all, there'll be rainbows and unicorns walking around too. But you're no worse off in the Middle East than you are in fricking Texas where the whole state is basically, you gonna get obliterated because we have four large cities, well, three of'em that matter, and one that doesn't matter so much.

Ben 1:44:12

Yes. Speaking of large cities in Texas, that may not be anymore. Austin, it looks like Austin's no longer going to be a city.

Gene 1:44:20

Well, I would love for that to be the case. I don't think it'll, it'll happen, but how cool, how cool would that be if Austin loses its city hood

Ben 1:44:29

Yep.

Gene 1:44:30

First of all, I didn't realize they could do that. Okay. I didn't realize that the state had the power to remove somebody's incorporation like

Ben 1:44:38

yeah. So what we have to go back and tell people is Republicans in Texas state legislature have introduced a bill to remove the incorporation of the city of Austin and create the district of Austin. That would be controlled by the state government, not

Gene 1:44:53

kinda like District of Columbia for the us So it's a unincorporated territory managed by the legislature directly,

Ben 1:45:01

yes. Which the DC is managed and

Gene 1:45:04

which is why by Nancy Pelosi was in charge of police that Trump requested and she refused.

Ben 1:45:10

Yep. DC Metro Police.

Gene 1:45:12

Mm-hmm.

Ben 1:45:13

Which yeah, but can you imagine

Gene 1:45:15

Which by the way, if, if that, So just to finish the, that thought, if that was the case and I was president in Trump's shoes, I would've mobilized the entirety of the Secret Service to provide that because she's got her police. I've got my police too. And the Secret report, secret Service reports directly to the president

Ben 1:45:36

Well, I mean, not only that, he's got Andrews right there. I mean, he's got lots of troops that could have been

Gene 1:45:43

but they're not troops is my point. Right? They're police, they're, they're not a militarization That would happen if you bring in actual National Guard or something. These are just highly trained suit wearing police

Ben 1:45:59

Well,

Gene 1:46:00

directly to the president.

Ben 1:46:01

secret Service is a little more than that, and they no longer report directly to the president. They're not in treasury anymore.

Gene 1:46:08

What do you mean they got moved when they get moved

Ben 1:46:10

They got moved after nine 11.

Gene 1:46:12

to DH dhss? Yeah. Well that's unfortunate, but either way. Well, he can still control them. They're not, yeah. The entire Department of Homeland Security is under him,

Ben 1:46:24

It, it is an executive branch function, as is everything, but it's not as direct. He doesn't have a secretary of dhs.

Gene 1:46:34

well, why not?

Ben 1:46:35

when, when, when it was Secretary of the Treasury, yes. He could go to the Secretary of the Treasury

Gene 1:46:39

Yeah, mobilize the, the troops. So that would be another thing I would change Then I was a give shuffle around departments big time.

Ben 1:46:49

Well,

Gene 1:46:49

I would, I would.

Ben 1:46:50

to just go away.

Gene 1:46:51

Yeah. Well, that's never happening again. But I think that there are, you need to have departments have less direct power and be more controlled by the administration. Because right now what you have, and we saw this very clearly with the the FBI are departments that are effectively completely outside the purview of the elected officials.

Ben 1:47:20

Yeah.

Gene 1:47:21

They're, they are in a real world sense, what the British TV comedy Yes. Minister and yes, prime Minister was demonstrating in the UK in a funny way, which is that the the permanent part of the government that actually runs everything are the administration. They're, they're the not the, what's the term from, they're the I can't think of the word right now, but they're the bureaucrats essentially. They're the people that have. Lifetime jobs, not lifetime appointments, but that they work for the government doing X, Y, or Z for their entire life. Whereas politicians come and go and that was kind of the whole point of that show is saying, look, politicians come and go. We're the ones that actually run the government. So it's up to us to convince the politicians that what they think is good is what we think is good.

Ben 1:48:18

well, and the whole deep state bureaucracy is a real thing. And

Gene 1:48:23

Yeah,

Ben 1:48:23

there, people talk about term limits for congress. No, you need term limits for federal employees. The federal workforce is the problem to a large, large degree. But

Gene 1:48:34

It's a problem because it's so big. If it was smaller, it wouldn't be the problem.

Ben 1:48:38

Here's the thing. The us, the us both in population and in the geographic size is too big of a country.

Gene 1:48:47

Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I, I've heard that argument from you before. I don't disagree with it. Makes sense, but nothing's gonna change

Ben 1:48:54

if you want, well, it's representative republic, right? If you want a representative republic, that has to be a fairly small country because, you know, to, to

Gene 1:49:03

No country wants to become a smaller country.

Ben 1:49:06

Texas leaving would be becoming a smaller country and

Gene 1:49:10

Well, but Texas, the state, becoming a country again. So what Texas did was crazy, which is you were a country and you wanted to become a state. That's just stupid.

Ben 1:49:21

Well, there, there were, there were movements that basically were headed that way from the very beginning.

Gene 1:49:28

I know. I know.

Ben 1:49:29

it, there's lots of things there. Texas should have never given up. Its independence. You know, hell, the land we sold off to pay our national debt when we came in, that could have been done and we could have stayed out. You know? There, there are lots of things that could

Gene 1:49:45

and why would we need to pay something to the United States anyway,

Ben 1:49:48

Texas turning over its parks to the federal government was just crazy to me.

Gene 1:49:55

Yep. Totally agreed.

Ben 1:49:57

Yeah, I mean, it, it's so people who don't know Texas used to have essentially zero federal land inside of it. Other than like Fort Hood and so on, there were no national parks and we, we decided to give that up so we wouldn't have to maintain them. Budgetarily. Yeah. Great call.

Gene 1:50:15

Yep.

Ben 1:50:16

to remember which governor did that. If it was I can't, I don't think it was Perry. I think it was

Gene 1:50:20

I think it was before

Ben 1:50:21

Yeah, I think it was Ann Richards. But regardless, I'd have to go back and look.

Gene 1:50:25

did Texas elect her? That's, that's another good question.

Ben 1:50:29

Well, here's the thing. She was a southern dog Democrat. It's the same way Clinton and Al Gore got elected, to be honest with you. It was the Blue Dog Democrats. Right. People forget, but Al Gore and Bill Clinton had a battle flag of the army of Northern Virginia on some of their campaign

Gene 1:50:51

Mm-hmm. Yep.

Ben 1:50:52

The term dixiecrat was around for a long, long time, so, yeah.

Gene 1:50:59

Yeah. Well, and it, it made sense because, you know, the, the really, the prominence of the Republican party started during the Civil War.

Ben 1:51:10

Kind of so people say, oh, it's the party of Lincoln, and so on. Kind of, first of all, there are several different SEC of the Republican party. Lincoln was not the only Republican candidate on the ballot. And, you know, the prominence of the Republicans really didn't come about until Eisenhower and then really Reagan those were the two prominent putting the party forward in a real, real way to me, at least

Gene 1:51:40

Mm-hmm.

Ben 1:51:41

both good presidents. So, but yeah, there, there was definitely a hatred of the Republicans, but really that, that wasn't about Lincoln, that was about grant and reconstruction. So what a lot of people have to realize the reason why the South became so embittered and we had the racism and the issues of the teens and the twenties and the thirties, which is the height of, you know, lynchings and race riots and you know, black Wall Street and all these different things that happened throughout the south. It really has its roots. Not in pre-civil war history, but in reconstruction.

Gene 1:52:23

Mm-hmm.

Ben 1:52:23

You know, the raping of the south was

Gene 1:52:26

Yeah. Well, and that's a good point is, is, and I guess it makes sense, but most people don't think about it's that the South wasn't raped before or even during the Civil War. It was raped after.

Ben 1:52:38

Yes. I mean, you, you have to remember that Mississippi went from being literally one of the wealthiest states in

Gene 1:52:45

Oh, absolutely.

Ben 1:52:46

to, to this day, still the poorest.

Gene 1:52:49

Oh, the Bel Architecture in Mississippi shows

Ben 1:52:51

so gorgeous. Yes. And, and you know, here's the other thing. People, you know, Tim, he's been talking about civil war quite a bit, and he's educating himself to an extent,

Gene 1:53:03

yeah. He's been reading

Ben 1:53:04

though. So when he says the north was rich, the south was this No, the south was the rich side. The, you know, the agrarian nature. Yeah, sure. But we were selling products internationally that the North couldn't do.

Gene 1:53:17

Well, the, the population difference is the biggest factor, I think.

Ben 1:53:21

the population difference was definitely there, there were some technological things. He's definitely right about the sharps car being, being a game changer, but there weren't that many of'em in service yet. So while yes, it was a thing, and yes, it affected the battle at Gettysburg it was not the game changer. The game changer was, The Navy you know, there, the South did not have a sufficient Navy to prevent its ports from being blockhead, so that means we couldn't get manufactured goods in as easily. Right. So there were, there's a whole history of smuggling during the Civil War. There's lots of different things there. The Port of Galveston was occupied by, you know, by union Soldiers. In fact,

Gene 1:54:02

Oh, I didn't know that.

Ben 1:54:03

Yeah, yeah, yeah. In fact, Juneteenth Juneteenth is a thing because June 19th was when Texas heard about the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation,

Gene 1:54:13

right. That I knew.

Ben 1:54:15

you know, by the way, didn't free any slaves because it said, you know, basically Lincoln was saying you down there in the south where you're in rebellion, you're all free. Well, you know, the union occupied territory was pretty small, like Galveston for example, you know, those sorts of things. But yeah, you know, the slaves in Maryland weren't freed.

Gene 1:54:37

Well, and then people Oh, of course. Exactly. Exactly. And then people forget that there were plenty of slaves, including free slaves that were fighting for the South as well.

Ben 1:54:47

Yes. In fact, ironically enough, people talk about the Buffalo Soldiers and things like that. You know, but the reality is there were slaves that were freed, that fought for the South. You know, oh God, what was he? They just dug him up and moved him recently. Hold on, I can't Forest General Forest. There we go. I blanked. So General Forest is famous. He went to his slaves and asked for men to volunteer to go with him to fight. And he said at the end of this, you'll be free one way or the other for we will have won and I will free you or we will have lost and you'll be freed. And a couple years into the war, this is a really interesting story. He said, our causes lost. We cannot win this war. There were still several years to go, I I y'all, y'all are free.

Gene 1:55:39

Mm-hmm.

Ben 1:55:41

They stayed with him.

Gene 1:55:42

Yep.

Ben 1:55:43

They've stayed and fought with him. Yet we are to believe that this is the man who founded the KKK and was incredibly horrible racist person.

Gene 1:55:55

Yeah, it's bullshit. There's no, the KKK was obviously founded by somebody from the north.

Ben 1:56:02

well. No, no, no. So there are two different organizations. One that was during reconstruction and the one during the thirties. Those are. And the one that exists today, the definitely a racist organization is we know it from the twenties, thirties,

Gene 1:56:15

the Ukrainian government, you mean there

Ben 1:56:18

It, the original purpose though, was to fight the carpet packers and the s scallywags,

Gene 1:56:23

Yep.

Ben 1:56:25

but it shows you how easily a cause and something can get

Gene 1:56:28

Can be subverted with government interviewing inside the organization. Yeah.

Ben 1:56:32

Yeah.

Gene 1:56:32

So I, I've got a question for you here. What are your thoughts on Teddy Roosevelt?

Ben 1:56:36

I don't like national parks. I, I don't think the government should own land.

Gene 1:56:40

He did create more parks than any other president. That's true.

Ben 1:56:43

Well, and you know, the only legitimate reason the federal government should own land is a military base, an armory, a post office, or government building. That's it. So when you look at Utah, Arizona, Colorado, you know, the four corner

Gene 1:57:01

Yeah. They're all owned by the federal government.

Ben 1:57:04

there's no reason for that. There's no excuse. In fact, I think we could solve the nation's debt problem.

Gene 1:57:11

to China.

Ben 1:57:13

I don't care. US citizen has to be the 51% owner, whatever, but sell all that land off and let it be.

Gene 1:57:24

Yeah, that I'm in agreement with that. I think that the, the federal government's land holdings whatever purpose they may have served in the past, and I think honestly, part of the reason for taking that land that was within the territories, but not with a recorded owner for the federal government may have been to ensure that there isn't any contention about that land. But either way, I, I like a lot about Teddy Roosevelt, and I do find it ironic that his, his party that he started was called the Progressive Party, even though it was an offshoot of the Republican Party.

Ben 1:58:05

Yeah go ahead.

Gene 1:58:07

well, and, and of course another instance where the Republican ticket was split, which resulted in Woodrow Wilson winning the election. A Democrat.

Ben 1:58:18

And getting us into World War I

Gene 1:58:21

Yeah.

Ben 1:58:21

and he was a progressive, by the way.

Gene 1:58:26

Mm-hmm.

Ben 1:58:26

I mean, Wilson's about as bad as they come. The only president that I think would be worse than Woodrow Wilson

Gene 1:58:34

Mm-hmm.

Ben 1:58:35

would be Jimmy Carter.

Gene 1:58:37

Jimmy Carter was horrible, but Biden's beating him on every record.

Ben 1:58:41

Yeah, but Carter, but Carter, but here, here's the difference though. Biden is in cognitive decline, so I kind of give him a little bit of a, okay. Carter, you know, he was with it. He, he, he was not in cognitive decline.

Gene 1:59:02

Yeah. I mean he certainly was much, much younger. But and he was a southern Democrat.

Ben 1:59:08

Peanut pharma from Jja.

Gene 1:59:10

Well, yeah, I mean, people say that he was a peanut farmer. He wasn't really a peanut farmer. But it's kinda like saying that you know, that the Georgia bush was a rancher. Just cuz you own a ranch doesn't mean you're a rancher.

Ben 1:59:25

Oh, yes,

Gene 1:59:26

Right. But he was the, the first president that we had that had seen space ships. Like he, he had reported UFO sightings and I don't, yeah, yeah, yeah. That there was a little bit of making fun of him at the time. But it wasn't really. I don't, I don't think it was used as a, as a cognitive test at all. It's like, do we want the president who's seen spaceships or not? Because, you know, whether they exist or not, you're gonna find out once you become president seeing them before you're president. That's a little bit of a warning sign,

Ben 2:00:03

I know he was in the Navy, but wasn't he a physics major?

Gene 2:00:08

Yeah. Yeah. And I think he's actually got a, a master, I don't think he got a PhD, but I think he does have a master's.

Ben 2:00:14

yeah. So anyway, he, he, my point

Gene 2:00:16

not a dumb guy. He was just completely a, i i, i, he probably wasn't apolitical, but he was not, he didn't, he wasn't good at it. He was not a student politics. He didn't know how to deal with people. He was the, a lot more of that sort of feminine energy type person where his first response to any kind of crisis is, well, can't we just talk to them and find a middle ground?

Ben 2:00:45

Well, and you know, it's interesting because the only reason Carter ever got in was because of Ford,

Gene 2:00:52

Mm-hmm.

Ben 2:00:53

which, if my memory is correct, he's the only president to not have won a national election.

Gene 2:01:01

Really,

Ben 2:01:01

Yeah, because

Gene 2:01:02

I, yeah, I guess I haven't,

Ben 2:01:04

spiritual Agnew resigned and he was speaker of the house at the time and was appointed vice president to Nixon. Then Nixon resigned. So, or he wasn't speaker of the house. He was majority whip or something. He was in house leadership and was appointed. So he had never won a national election? Yeah.

Gene 2:01:23

Yeah. And nobody previously had gotten in that didn't.

Ben 2:01:26

Not that I'm aware of. No.

Gene 2:01:28

Okay. Interesting. Yeah, it was a it was interesting cuz the, the entirety of Western United States voted against him in 76,

Ben 2:01:39

Yeah. I mean, it was a landslide. So, I mean, Ford was just not someone who was going to get elected president

Gene 2:01:48

I don't know how you call it, a landslide. The 76 election got, he got 51% of the popular vote,

Ben 2:01:54

electoral college-wise though, I think it was a landslide.

Gene 2:01:57

2 97 to two to 40,

Ben 2:02:00

Okay.

Gene 2:02:01

and he got basically the entirety of the south south of the Mason Dixon line, as well as Minnesota, Wisconsin, New York, Pennsylvania, and,

Ben 2:02:10

Hm.

Gene 2:02:12

But everything west of Texas and everything north of Texas voted against them.

Ben 2:02:18

Yeah. And Michigan as well.

Gene 2:02:21

Yeah. Michigan voted against them. And even like Maine and, yeah, Maine and Vermont and New Hampshire voted against them, which now are very strong Democrat strongholds

Ben 2:02:33

Well, Maine.

Gene 2:02:35

as well as Michigan,

Ben 2:02:36

Maine actually isn't. So, you know, if you take Bangor and what's the other big city?

Gene 2:02:42

Port. Portland.

Ben 2:02:43

you take those two out and Maine is, you know, pretty conservative.

Gene 2:02:48

But you could say that statement literally about any state. You take the big cities out and the rest of the state is pretty conservative.

Ben 2:02:53

And I think we should start doing that. Cities

Gene 2:02:56

Well, now you're going back to the land ownership Yeah. Going back to the land ownership. So instead of removing the government from Austin, they should just make it the Austin autonomous area

Ben 2:03:07

Sure.

Gene 2:03:09

and then have Austin do whatever they want, but get no tax money from the state.

Ben 2:03:13

Correct. And we can build a wall around Austin

Gene 2:03:16

Have a 30% sales tax in Austin

Ben 2:03:20

whatever, Matt.

Gene 2:03:21

Uhhuh.

Ben 2:03:22

I hope you get out before it happens.

Gene 2:03:24

Yeah, I, I know I gotta do that. I, I've been trying, I've been talking about leaving for like four years. What's

Ben 2:03:32

Haven't you seen an escape from New York?

Gene 2:03:34

I've seen Escape from New York. I haven't seen Escape from New York, but yeah.

Ben 2:03:39

Escape

Gene 2:03:40

Yep. That's the one.

Ben 2:03:42

Anyway, yeah,

Gene 2:03:44

Just, just, here's a good buoy title for you. Nuclear escape.

Ben 2:03:49

and on that note, screw you, Eugene

Gene 2:03:51

All right. Good enough. While it's probably enough chitchatting that we've done we can wrap things up. I can go back to looking at video game ships for sale Again. Any other last wrapping up thoughts?

Ben 2:04:02

no. But hopefully in a couple weeks I can open up about a few things. So some news to

Gene 2:04:08

Okay. Very good. That sounds like fun. And then we're still looking for music, and I've been just FYI, checking out some of the subscription based royalty music sites. Most of'em did not used to support podcasts because that was not a streaming medium. They were only doing YouTube and things like that. They were streaming Twitch. But it seems like now I've gotten responses back from a couple of these sites that are saying, yes, podcasts are doable now with our music. And they have huge, huge libraries in music. So, Hopefully we'll be able to find something that is kinda knock off of Dukes, of Haard owning

Ben 2:04:46

Okay, cool.

Gene 2:04:49

or just, you know, country in general. I guess

Ben 2:04:52

Yeah. I

Gene 2:04:52

would, why would you describe that? Like southern country or southern rock, or what would you call that style?

Ben 2:04:58

oh, I, I would just put it as country or, you know, Southern Rock might be okay too, either

Gene 2:05:04

That's literally the two things I just said.

Ben 2:05:06

right. But I think there's, those are, to me, very much the same

Gene 2:05:10

Whale and Jennings is what style of music.

Ben 2:05:14

country,

Gene 2:05:16

Okay. All right.

Ben 2:05:18

you know, it's, it's

Gene 2:05:18

Just not modern country. It's not modern

Ben 2:05:21

Well there's pop country that's

Gene 2:05:23

By the way, the rendition of of just a Good Old Boys by Willie Nelson that I sent you, I thought was very good.

Ben 2:05:29

Oh yeah. Yeah. That's great.

Gene 2:05:31

Yeah, I've never heard of it before. That's the first time I heard it. I always heard of the whaling version.

Ben 2:05:36

Yeah. To Texas country, you know, some of the Oklahoma stuff is pretty good, but people who point to Taylor Swift you know, and Toby

Gene 2:05:46

like my other co-host who's a fan number one of Taylor Swift, and he got me to get on her bailing list now, so now I'm getting all the junk mail.

Ben 2:05:55

God.

Gene 2:05:55

you know, her, her concert tickets are going for$20,000.

Ben 2:05:59

People are sick.

Gene 2:06:01

I mean, and I don't know if you saw that segment in Tim Poole, where one of the news chicks that works for Tim,

Ben 2:06:08

Oh yeah.

Gene 2:06:09

like clearly a, an elder zoomer. She's the oldest of the Zoomers. Not only is she into it, she's like, yeah, people in my generation, like we would follow Taylor Swift above any politician. Like if she says Do this, we'll do it.

Ben 2:06:25

Why,

Gene 2:06:26

And well that's a stupid mentality. There's nobody in the world that exists that I would just blindly follow that maybe just myself,

Ben 2:06:34

why Taylor Swift.

Gene 2:06:36

I know, right? Because she sings and that music connects with them and emotions drive 99% of the decisions of the populations rather than ration or rational thought. Rationality. So it,

Ben 2:06:51

weird looking.

Gene 2:06:52

she is weird looking. She has no, but she got a little bit more of a but than she used to. But that was one of the annoying factors about her that I never liked is the complete absence of an ass. Like it was just flat. It was flat, completely flat. She was never like super skinny, but she's real relatively skinny. I mean, you have to remember, she's six one, so she is not

Ben 2:07:16

she really?

Gene 2:07:16

yeah, she's six one, so she's a tall girl. And what looks like. Slim isn't actually as slim because you have to take into account that it just looks that way because she's tall. So my guess is she's probably around 145 pounds, 150 pounds right

Ben 2:07:35

I mean, yeah, there's a, there's difference though. The, you know, I, I, I dated a girl in high school that was six one, taller than me. And you know, she was skinny. But yeah, definitely, you know, you're not gonna get 115 pound girl at six one, and if you do, they're

Gene 2:07:53

no e exactly. Or model like back when I used to shoot do photography and shoot models and stuff, the if I wanted to have a size zero model about five foot eight was the, the height limit?

Ben 2:08:06

According to brave brave Search, she's five foot nine.

Gene 2:08:10

No, it's taller than that.

Ben 2:08:12

Okay.

Gene 2:08:13

That's incorrect. But you could ask Darren, he's, he's fan number one. He'd know for sure. And speaking of things you should ask Darren about if you have any interest, which I'm totally ambivalent on this one way or the other, but if you have any interest in actually being on the streaming,

Ben 2:08:28

Yeah.

Gene 2:08:29

you need to take that that step. Cuz I'm not gonna do it. He's not gonna do it unless.

Ben 2:08:33

Fair enough I will reach out to him because even if we don't do it as a live stream, but as a recorded stream or something, getting it playing on there, you know, there as a discovery mechanism, I think it's

Gene 2:08:44

Oh yeah.

Ben 2:08:45

something we should do.

Gene 2:08:46

And especially like right after no agenda when people haven't turned things off yet, that would be awesome.

Ben 2:08:52

Yeah. Hog story and a few others have that slot pretty regular. So

Gene 2:08:57

they do, they do indeed. But I'm sure there's somebody that can get, you know, blown in order to get our show in there.

Ben 2:09:04

I don't know that that'd be, that'd be kind of rude to do Jean

Gene 2:09:08

get on that. Well give somebody blowjob. How's that? Rude. That's what I meant. What did you think? I meant

Ben 2:09:14

Okay.

Gene 2:09:16

I didn't say blown away. I said blown.

Ben 2:09:18

get the,

Gene 2:09:18

Oh, no, no, no. That's, that's, that's all on you. That's all on you, buddy. My show's already in there. So we will see all in about a week or so.

Ben 2:09:28

I have a good one, man.