025 Just Two Good Old Boys

Gene: 0:22

Good morning, Ben.

Ben: 0:24

Good morning, Jean. How are you?

Gene: 0:26

I'm all right. I'm going on a little, little bit of a light sleep, but other than that, pretty good.

Ben: 0:31

Yeah, me, me too. I was up a little later than usual last night and yeah, but

Gene: 0:36

that juice mission on the Woods way to Jupiter. So, you know, stuff takes a while.

Ben: 0:42

See I was up late last night looking at land, but that's me.

Gene: 0:47

Yeah, I did that during the day, so,

Ben: 0:51

Yeah.

Gene: 0:51

And did you find anything interesting?

Ben: 0:53

Yeah, actually I did. So, yeah, I actually, the reason why I was running a little late this morning was cuz I was on the phone with my mother who's a realtor in this area, and asking her to take a look at a piece of property for me and see what she thinks.

Gene: 1:06

hmm.

Ben: 1:07

So,

Gene: 1:08

Now this is cow related property.

Ben: 1:11

Sure we'll go with that.

Gene: 1:13

Okay. Well, I mean that's, people know that you were looking at getting some cows at some point

Ben: 1:18

Yes. And we are progressing on that both with my parents' property and some other options too. So yeah,

Gene: 1:23

and it, what I was surprised by is you, we were talking about like how much land does a cow need

Ben: 1:30

it totally depends on what area in Texas you're at.

Gene: 1:33

Yeah, but it could be like a hundred acres. You said if it's out west,

Ben: 1:36

Oh, yeah. Easily.

Gene: 1:37

shit,

Ben: 1:38

Yeah. It hold on, let

Gene: 1:41

man. At that point you might as well raise kangaroos,

Ben: 1:45

Something a little more drought tolerant. Yeah.

Gene: 1:48

or camels. I don't know. Did they eat camels?

Ben: 1:50

I don't eat camels.

Gene: 1:51

I've never had camel meat. I wonder if they do eat'em.

Ben: 1:55

I'm sure the. I'm sure that some civilization at some ti point in time has eaten camel

Gene: 2:02

taste that good then, because you

Ben: 2:05

well, I mean,

Gene: 2:06

hear that as delicacy.

Ben: 2:07

I dunno, people say, you know, that shit horse, you know, people, some people love horse, but

Gene: 2:14

Well, I don't know about love, but it's definitely something you can get Mongolia.

Ben: 2:19

yeah, so the, there, well, and the, I believe the Spaniards as well, but

Gene: 2:25

Mm, okay. Yeah.

Ben: 2:27

I don't know. But anyway, it's just one of those things that's not a very popular meat cuz the animal has other utility.

Gene: 2:34

Right. But Camel, I mean, people don't really use'em anymore.

Ben: 2:39

You, you don't think,

Gene: 2:41

Well, not, I mean, other than for Photoshops mostly,

Ben: 2:45

hmm.

Gene: 2:47

I, I don't think anyone's choosing to. Spent thousands to buy a camel when they can buy a Toyota truck. You know what I mean?

Ben: 2:58

Sure. So South Texas Plains.

Gene: 3:02

Yep.

Ben: 3:03

Yeah. Anyway I'll have to find the I'll have to find the Texas land. Oh, here it is. Yeah. Depending on where you're at in Texas one cow per acre in East Texas up to parts of West Texas, 150 acres per cow.

Gene: 3:19

Okay.

Ben: 3:20

So basically four cows per perception per

Gene: 3:22

I'm trying to, you

Ben: 3:23

which is insane.

Gene: 3:25

I don't even know what the ratio was in the Midwest. I gotta imagine it's even higher.

Ben: 3:30

Mm. I mean, getting down to one acre per cow.

Gene: 3:34

Mm-hmm.

Ben: 3:35

Basically not, not feeding it is, I mean, you're really not gonna get much better than that. You know, in, in, you know, in, in Idaho you could, you could do, you know, about a acre per cow ish, but you're supplementing feed in the winter. You know, in Texas, if you're rotating the pasture correctly, you're not,

Gene: 3:56

that's a good point, is winter is definitely gonna be an issue, but in Texas it, it's almost the other way around where there's green grass in the winter, but there's brown grass in the summer.

Ben: 4:08

There's still grass, you know, and if you're doing improved coastal or something like that, it's not gonna be brown. It's not, it's not like that. It's still

Gene: 4:18

I lived in Dallas, it was pretty damn brown.

Ben: 4:21

Yeah. Well that's Dallas and we're talking about East Texas and Dallas would have a different cow per acre ratio than the area I'm talking about. That's the point.

Gene: 4:31

if. They like you in insulting they're women that way. Whoa.

Ben: 4:35

Oh, gene. Well, you know, hey if, if the Moomoo fits,

Gene: 4:40

Yeah, exactly. Exactly. All

Ben: 4:44

I got, I gotta tell you, I had a pretty special lunch yesterday.

Gene: 4:47

oh, what'd you have?

Ben: 4:48

You know, the restaurant I go to pretty often, Babylon over here. Yeah. So I, I go there and the

Gene: 4:54

where your Middle Eastern handler is?

Ben: 4:56

Yeah. Yeah. The, the owner was there and anyway, a couple of his buddies were there and they were cooking something kind of special for their lunch. And they had this big feast of different dishes and stuff that they had put together. And anyway, they invited me to join them and holy crap. Was it good? Oh man. There was this yogurt that they had made as a dipping sauces, and they had these beans and yogurt and then beans and oil that were fried, and then liver and onions and stuff. And just this

Gene: 5:26

my refrigerator.

Ben: 5:27

this this meat loaf, I don't know how, what you would call it, but it was sliced almost like lunch meat, but it was a compressed meat that had pistachios and olives and all this stuff in it. And oh man, it was just delicious.

Gene: 5:43

Olives. That's interesting.

Ben: 5:45

Yep.

Gene: 5:47

No, that sounds quite tasty.

Ben: 5:49

Oh yeah, it, it was definitely a how do I put it? A welcome surprise, you know, I was going there to eat lunch anyway, and they just, ah, come on, eat with us. Okay.

Gene: 5:58

Mm-hmm.

Ben: 5:59

Yeah.

Gene: 6:00

Yeah, that, you know, that is one of the things I do miss in being someplace that has more of a Russian community versus Austin. Is our, our one and only Russian restaurant shut down when the special military operation started.

Ben: 6:17

Mm-hmm.

Gene: 6:17

And, you know, that's, that's it. So the closest thing I can do now if I want some ethnic food is I gotta drive up to Dallas

Ben: 6:27

Well, when you say ethnic food, you mean Russian ethnic

Gene: 6:30

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Cuz it,

Ben: 6:33

of ethnic food

Gene: 6:33

there. Well there is a lot of generic ethnic food. Absolutely. But a particular type of ethnic food. It's and, and you know, there's grocery stores and there's Russian restaurants in Dallas and there's actually, well there used to be quite a few. I have

Ben: 6:46

that are surviving. Wow.

Gene: 6:48

Yeah. I don't know what's left. I do know

Ben: 6:50

going on Dallas? Why have you not shut this?

Gene: 6:53

yeah. Shut down the Russians.

Ben: 6:56

All Russian things. Ah,

Gene: 6:57

The one grocery store that I used to go to when I lived up there that's owned by a Beru dude. So that hasn't been shut down, which is good. But your story about eating when the restaurant just reminded me there was used to be a place well, it's probably still there. Called Moscow on the Hill in St. Paul, Minnesota. And they had pretty, pretty good food, but they also had homemade vodka. And in my twenties I guess my late twenties. But I used to go there pretty regularly. Got to be good friends with with the owners and the waiters and stuff used to party with them and quite often I would head out there around 10 o'clock get the restaurant, eat some pi, drink some vodka. And, and incidentally, those were always a if I went there with a, a friend or a, you know, some other people I knew were there we'd usually just get the vodka by the bottle.

Ben: 8:05

Mm-hmm.

Gene: 8:05

And the Americans were always freaked out about that. It's like you got a whole bottle. Because I think it's a lot less common to get liquor by the bottle than wine by the bottle.

Ben: 8:20

Yeah.

Gene: 8:21

you know, I mean, you, you typically drink at least half a bottle of person, so why would you not get it as a bottle? Plus, if you get it as a bottle, you can, when people ask you about it, you say, oh, would you like a drink? They're here. Let's get them a couple of shots. Because, you know, bottle of vodka has got, I don't know, 30, 40 shots, depends on the bottle size, I guess.

Ben: 8:43

Depends on the bottle size and depends on your pore.

Gene: 8:46

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So do that whole thing and then I would close out the restaurant, so at about 2:00 AM the the place would be closed, and then all the staff and the owners and me would stay after and then have like a family style meal because that was the best way to sober up before driving home. And so, you know, that was like the, the end of the night was having a meal with a dozen people that work at the restaurant. And I'd do that at least a couple times a week.

Ben: 9:24

well this, this was a, you know, it was just a neat experience and, you know, I've known the owner for quite some time and

Gene: 9:31

I view the

Ben: 9:31

got to meet some of his friends and people in from Chicago and, you know, it was just a pleasant surprise to be invited.

Gene: 9:40

I'm sure it's not the last

Ben: 9:42

Oh, I'm sure. But, you know, well, we're speaking about Russia,

Gene: 9:47

Hmm.

Ben: 9:48

dude. The leaked documents and the guy I arrested.

Gene: 9:52

Yeah. A 21 year old.

Ben: 9:54

Yeah. And you know, apparently a actual patriot and a Christian and believing what we're like and doing is wrong. So he, you know, people are like, why would he throw away his life? Well, you know, he stood up for his beliefs. I don't know. Seems like a pretty admirable thing to me.

Gene: 10:14

Yeah. And they're not treating him as a, a what do you call it? As a whistleblower,

Ben: 10:19

No, absolutely not. They're not treating him as a whistleblower. They're treating him as someone who violated his security clearance.

Gene: 10:26

likely to get death penalty out of this.

Ben: 10:29

I don't know about death penalty, but, you know, Bradley Manning esque

Gene: 10:33

the death penalty, I'm pretty sure this guy's getting the death penalty.

Ben: 10:35

I'm sorry.

Gene: 10:36

If Trump's getting the death penalty, I'm pretty sure this guy will.

Ben: 10:40

Trump's not getting to death penalty.

Gene: 10:41

We'll see.

Ben: 10:42

Mm-hmm. Anyway so it, it's interesting because as this story has unfolded, they've said, oh, well, some of the documents were doctored and so on. Ah-huh. But when you look at the death numbers on the Ukrainians versus the Russians, you know, it's all pretty damn, you know, right. In line with what kind of we've been saying this whole time. And,

Gene: 11:05

reports the numbers every week

Ben: 11:07

right. But I, I, I'm saying the Pentagons document backs that up,

Gene: 11:12

yeah, exactly. Exactly.

Ben: 11:14

you know, so, oh, you can't trust Russian propaganda. I'm not, I'm trusting, trusting the Pentagons and own internal documents. So it's pretty clear that I don't know. I, I think it's part of me wonders if this isn't part of just wrapping up the Russia, Ukraine narrative.

Gene: 11:31

Oh, you think it was a like an actual si up?

Ben: 11:35

I mean, that's what the Russian foreign minister said as soon as it happened.

Gene: 11:40

Yeah, I think that's, cuz that's what they're expecting. I don't, I don't know that they expected the actual numbers to be in there. It's funny cuz I don't know, man. I think there, there's a little too much of thes up pill, in my opinion, floating out there.

Ben: 11:55

Okay.

Gene: 11:56

what I mean by Sia pill is that I think I've heard somebody throw out, oh, it's just a siop about literally every single topic comes up in the news

Ben: 12:07

Fair enough.

Gene: 12:08

that that's typically like good news stuff, or at least not negative news for our side. And by our side, I mean, Of course the Republic of Texas. So every time I hear that, I'm like, oh, Jesus fucking Christ. Will you guys just take the w I mean, not everything has to be created just to fool you because no one gives a shit about most of these people. So could it be a siop? Sure anything can be, but is it likely? And I think so far what I'm seeing is, no, it's probably not likely because the typicals iop, while it does have some damage to the United States, all the F B I officer are usually closed and empty.

Ben: 12:57

Hmm. So what do you think about the way they arrested the young man? Because it's being reported that it was the F B I that arrested him. But it's pretty clear from the footage that they released that the military was there too.

Gene: 13:13

Yeah, well the, the FBI definitely was there. I do know that. Were they the only ones there? It doesn't look like it.

Ben: 13:19

No, and then,

Gene: 13:21

the actual arrests may very well have taken place by an FBI agent.

Ben: 13:26

yeah, and it's pretty interesting how it was the news media that hunted him down.

Gene: 13:31

Oh yeah. Well, that's, yeah. It's interesting in a perverse kind of way.

Ben: 13:37

Oh yeah. In totally. In a perverse kind of way.

Gene: 13:41

Yeah. This is literally like all the curtains are down and you can see the, the guy behind the curtain operating the machinery. There,

Ben: 13:51

there's just no e even illusion, right?

Gene: 13:54

Yeah. There, there's zero illusion left that as Trump accurately put it on the on the public radio, but frankly should put it on all the other American news channels, is they are operating as state media.

Ben: 14:10

Yeah. Thank you. Thank

Gene: 14:11

zero independence there.

Ben: 14:13

thank you Elon Musk for creating that tag.

Gene: 14:16

Oh, yeah. Well, he didn't create the tag. The tag's been around for a long time. It's just never been applied to American companies until now. So

Ben: 14:24

Well, Amer hold on. Hold on. He applied it to NPR and the BBC and both freaked the fuck out about it, which they are both state run media literally,

Gene: 14:37

I was watching the, the voice of America a few days ago.

Ben: 14:41

which is absolutely state run

Gene: 14:43

which is, yeah, it, it, it is literally a channel created by the State Department to combat the U S S R and

Ben: 14:52

Well to Pravda to combat Pravda. Yeah.

Gene: 14:57

well, what do you mean profit?

Ben: 14:59

Wasn't, wasn't that the U ssrs?

Gene: 15:02

The official newspaper? Yeah, but that was not for foreign market. The voice of America was created strictly for the foreign market. It was not for US domestic consumption. So it was, it was a it is similar to a dropping leaflets from an airplane campaign, except it was done through airwaves. And I remember back in the day, back in the seventies there was always a I guess it'd be a radio war going on in the sense that America would keep broadcasting Voice of America on different frequencies. And, and the U S S R kept trying to block those frequencies as quickly as possible. So there were, there were jamming transmitters around Eastern Europe and And so it was a constant ongoing battle because if you wanted to listen to The Voice of America, you weren't sure what frequency it's gonna pop up on it. It was gonna be on short wave, but you have to scan every day

Ben: 16:07

Hunt for it. Yeah.

Gene: 16:09

because it's not like it's gonna be on the same one as it was last week.

Ben: 16:13

You know, I remember growing up my parents had a short wave radio and I remember listening to lots of different things on short

Gene: 16:21

fun, isn't it?

Ben: 16:22

Yeah. I, I wonder, man, I wonder is, is, is short wave still has to be in use still and I, I, I kind of want to get a radio just to see what's out there.

Gene: 16:35

Yeah. Yeah. You should be able to. You know, I, I got a Hamra license a while ago, and in fact I think it's, I should have renewed cuz I'm, I'm pretty sure it's expired at this point. But,

Ben: 16:47

have a grace period?

Gene: 16:49

oh, do you? No. Well, clearly I've been so interested in doing it that I've completely forgot about it, but it's a, there's an awful lot of crap out there, but I just haven't found much interesting things. The, the most interesting sound thing, I think, is software defined radios,

Ben: 17:09

Oh yeah, I've got a couple of them.

Gene: 17:11

Oh, you do? For what?

Ben: 17:13

So I've had software defined radios for a few years, but usually. What I've played around with mostly is when the smart meters started coming out. And some of'em are on licensed and some of'em are on unlicensed spectrum. And the city I was living in at the time this was in 2000 and I wanna say 2008, 2000, between somewhere between 2008 and 2010. And you know, they, the way the smart meter was working at that point in time at this particular city is basically, it was a pole IO system. So the tower would pull the meter, the meter then would respond. And the response was very interesting because the way the packet was formed, basically you had the serial number of the meter, which was where you could see it on the meter as the address too, and the address from. On the packet going back and forth. And then the only variable was really, you know, the kilowatts used

Gene: 18:16

that mean? So

Ben: 18:17

I'm sorry.

Gene: 18:18

how often was it something?

Ben: 18:20

It was on a polled ratio, so it depended on how often they were polling it. They could pull it instantly, or it was on a scheduled pole. I forget the timing,

Gene: 18:28

The meter was listening the whole time.

Ben: 18:30

correct the meter just sitting there listening. It's not transmitting until it gets pinged with its serial number and then sends back. The interesting thing is now if they wanted to shut off your power, they would send a signal with the serial number and the power, and then if you wanted to turn on the power back on, they would send the signal with the, with your serial number and so on. And then you'd have to take a remote out and hit a little IR thing to turn the power back on.

Gene: 18:58

hmm.

Ben: 18:59

A TV remotes power button, basically some IR signal to at pointed at the meter so that, you know, it wasn't just turning on in, in unsafe

Gene: 19:06

need to put a little jammer next to the meter and you're done.

Ben: 19:10

Well, actually one better is. So none of this was encrypted. None of this was authenticated. So you could spoof and send different signals back, or they shut off your power. You could locally with a s you know, software defined radio, send the turn back on signal and power it back on.

Gene: 19:30

Yeah.

Ben: 19:31

And since it's not pulling out as far as they know, the powers shut off there.

Gene: 19:35

Mm-hmm.

Ben: 19:37

So anyway, it, it was a crappy design, but that was me playing around with software defined radios

Gene: 19:41

me ask you this, you're kinda in the power of business there. Why would you even need a smart meter? Why would you not monitor or put, put the, essentially the meter instead of on the house, put it on the distribution center

Ben: 19:55

because you want to charge per house,

Gene: 19:58

but how are the houses connected?

Ben: 20:01

What do you mean

Gene: 20:03

Okay. I guess my, my question is, so there's a power line that's coming underground to the house

Ben: 20:08

our overhead? Yep.

Gene: 20:10

and it comes in or overhead and it comes into the house, right?

Ben: 20:13

Correct.

Gene: 20:14

Why would you not have the meter at the very edge of that line to the house on the place that it breaks off from the master power delivery.

Ben: 20:26

I mean, you could, you could have it at either end, but there's no technical, there's no technical reason why you couldn't have it at either end. It's just a practical reason of really legacy. You know, you used to have people going around doing meter reading and you know, you didn't want'em have to climb a pole to read the meter. And usually where it came into the house was easier,

Gene: 20:47

but you would think you could put like the well, if it's over, if it's overhead. I guess it is kind of that style, but I was thinking,

Ben: 20:55

which is what the legacy was. And you know, underground is fairly new. And what a lot of people don't realize about underground power is it's great until something goes wrong. And underground is very, or you have to expand or change. Underground power is extremely expensive to put in. And for distribution, like here in my subdivision, it's all underground power for a subdivision that's built out, it's done. And you have a planned community, that's fine for distribution. Underground is plenty good in most cases. But when people start talking about transmission lines and things like that going underground, no, that's just the, the it is extraordinarily cost prohibitive.

Gene: 21:38

Yeah. I don't know. We, we ought to just all have Tesla coils at neighborhoods doing power distribution.

Ben: 21:47

Yeah. Well talk, let's not, you know, let radio waves, huh? Yeah. We don't, we don't need anything wireless. Why, why would we need that?

Gene: 21:56

Yeah. I just,

Ben: 21:57

I mean, you're basically talking about jamming pretty much everything.

Gene: 22:02

Well, not so much jamming, just you know, the, the all that should be going through fiber.

Ben: 22:09

Hmm. Yeah. Well,

Gene: 22:11

Just flip it. Flip it.

Ben: 22:13

do you use wifi in your house?

Gene: 22:15

Yeah. Use wifi of course.

Ben: 22:17

Okay. Yeah.

Gene: 22:19

But you know, that's cuz the houses should have a different build code that includes a

Ben: 22:24

Fairday Cage.

Gene: 22:25

cage in every house. Absolutely.

Ben: 22:27

Well it's funny because actually modern construction is somewhat doing that with the Mylar coded decking material that is being used in lots of houses now. Yeah, my, I mean my house that I'm in right now and the previous house I owned and outside of College Station the Mylar decking on the both. The walls and the roof create a fairly effective fairday cage. You can see that just from cell signal

Gene: 22:55

So, where's this Mylar? I, I don't, I don't think any of the houses I've been have that.

Ben: 22:59

so it's fairly new, but basically the plywood decking that they use for the substrate, for the roof one side is coded with Mylar

Gene: 23:09

Hmm.

Ben: 23:10

and then

Gene: 23:10

for heat reflectivity or what?

Ben: 23:12

Correct? Yeah, it, it's, it's basically just a part of the insulation of the house. It's energy efficiency, so when they use that decking on the roof and then the walls as well where you're putting your brick facade or whatever masonry facade it might be. You know, that again creates a fairly effective fair deck cage. Now your windows and everything else are penetrations into that, but you can just watch, like if I, before I install, I actually had to install a cell phone booster in this house. Not because where we live has weak cell signal, but just to bring the cell signal into the house. So if I'm standing outside, before I installed the booster, I'd have four or five bars full lte now 5g. And if I walked inside the house, I'd go to one bar, one x. So,

Gene: 24:01

By the way, I gotta say as a total aside here, but I'm very impressed with 5G speeds.

Ben: 24:08

Okay. I, I typically have it disabled, but Sure.

Gene: 24:11

I have, well, when I've done speed tests, it's running between 200 and 300 megs per second.

Ben: 24:18

Oh yeah. Especially like if you're down in Houston with the ultra wide band stuff and everything else, they can really get some stuff through. The problem with 5G has, isn't the protocol, the protocol's fine? The question is the frequencies that it's operating on and the the distance that those signals can travel because of the frequencies that it's being utilized.

Gene: 24:38

So you mean they're too short?

Ben: 24:41

Yeah, they're pretty high frequency.

Gene: 24:44

Yeah. Yeah, yeah. But isn't that what you want? You want shorter distribution of of those waves?

Ben: 24:51

I mean, it depends on what you want. If you're living rurally, then generally no, because you, you know, have the infrastructure that's required for it is significant,

Gene: 25:02

and I, I guess that's why I

Ben: 25:03

towers and everything else.

Gene: 25:04

literally making the argument for the opposite of that, which is the the more infrastructure they have to build, the fewer nodes there are per tower.

Ben: 25:15

Right, which allows you to optimize bandwidth if the towers have home runs back. But a lot of times what ends up happening is you have infrastructure to, for instance, one tower and then you'll have point to point links between the towers for back haul bandwidth, things like that.

Gene: 25:34

Okay.

Ben: 25:35

So in theory Sure. Does that always happen? No.

Gene: 25:40

Hmm.

Ben: 25:41

Depends on the design of the network.

Gene: 25:43

Sure. Yeah, that makes sense. That makes sense. And I

Ben: 25:48

get from Russia to this?

Gene: 25:50

I, it's a wave of consciousness going on four hours of sleep. I dunno.

Ben: 25:55

it's gonna be one of those episodes. Sorry guys.

Gene: 25:57

Yeah, yeah. No, they, they enjoyed this, these styles of episodes. I think It's a kinda episode where most of the time my eyeballs are closed and so I'm just sitting here in headphones talking into a microphone. But I'm not actually looking at a computer screen.

Ben: 26:12

Okay.

Gene: 26:14

It's is, you know, we we're podcasts, so we don't really need to look at pictures. Oh, my food deliveries here. So y'all won't have to wait for it. I'm gonna hit the pause and the record button and then be right back. All right. That's all set.

Ben: 26:30

Yep. Now that you got your T N,

Gene: 26:34

I know it's like my my groceries are over 50% iced tea, and I know people say, well, why don't you just make it a home? I do. I do. But as we get into the, the summertime, the warm period, I just find that the process of making iced tea takes you that long.

Ben: 26:55

Oh, so see, growing up, especially as it gets warmer, have you ever made sun tea?

Gene: 27:02

Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I have.

Ben: 27:04

Let's see, that's my, that's my favorite type of tea to

Gene: 27:06

Mm-hmm.

Ben: 27:07

It's just, but you know, that's, yeah. We used to have a special, you know, Caffe for it.

Gene: 27:14

Yep.

Ben: 27:15

Just put

Gene: 27:16

No, I remember

Ben: 27:16

jugg of water and tea on the back porch and

Gene: 27:20

yep.

Ben: 27:21

let it make

Gene: 27:23

Yeah, you can also make it in your fridge.

Ben: 27:26

Yeah, but the point is that, anyway, nevermind.

Gene: 27:30

No, I, I'm making fun of the fact that it's called sun tea, but you don't really need the sun.

Ben: 27:35

Well the point of the sun is that it does heat it slightly, right? It's not just cold brew.

Gene: 27:43

Right,

Ben: 27:43

just letting it soak and just cold it, it is heating it up to, you know, actually if you have it in direct sun, you know, well over a hundred degrees.

Gene: 27:53

Fahrenheit. Yeah. Yeah. It's, it, you know, it's lukewarm water tea.

Ben: 28:00

Luke, warm

Gene: 28:01

I'm making it. I used to make it, but I, I, I will tell you this. If you get well, depending on the type of teabag, but either one really large one or a bunch of smaller ones into a pitcher of water and preferably distilled water, you stick it in your fridge overnight, you will have really nice, completely bitterness free iced tea.

Ben: 28:26

Well, that's the entire point of sun tea as well.

Gene: 28:28

Mm-hmm. I'm just saying you don't need the sun to do it.

Ben: 28:33

Okay, gene.

Gene: 28:34

It works.

Ben: 28:34

Ah,

Gene: 28:36

But I am partial to the GU Peak brand of tea,

Ben: 28:40

mm-hmm.

Gene: 28:41

The zero sugar sweet tea. So it's pre sweetened with fake sugar.

Ben: 28:47

God, that's so bad for you.

Gene: 28:49

No, it's totally not.

Ben: 28:51

What do they use for sweetener?

Gene: 28:54

Let's see here. I think it's called liquid cancer, but I'm pretty sure it's good for you.

Ben: 28:59

Exactly.

Gene: 29:01

They use asam.

Ben: 29:04

Oh God, no. That's terrible for you.

Gene: 29:07

Eh, it's not that bad.

Ben: 29:11

It literally is, but, okay.

Gene: 29:14

but it tastes very good. I wouldn't use ASAM if I was making the tea, but this tea has a very nice, consistent real tea flavor to it. Like every other pre-made tea that you buy does not, so it's somewhat unique in that aspect. Now, aside from asam, there is one more sort of, annoying thing about it

Ben: 29:38

Mm-hmm.

Gene: 29:39

is it's owned by Coca-Cola.

Ben: 29:41

Mm-hmm. Yeah. Lots of things are owned by Coca-Cola.

Gene: 29:45

the most you know, consumer oriented, non-small batch thing you can drink.

Ben: 29:50

And that surprises you. I mean,

Gene: 29:53

it, it does, because I'm surprised they got the flavor so well.

Ben: 29:58

Hmm. We should talk about another beverage company.

Gene: 30:02

Yeah. Which one?

Ben: 30:04

Well, I would say InBev.

Gene: 30:08

So what?

Ben: 30:11

InBev,

Gene: 30:12

Yeah. So you wanna talk about beer? I

Ben: 30:14

well, in general. Yeah.

Gene: 30:16

don't know. Do they own any liquors too, or just, is it just

Ben: 30:19

As far as I know, they just own beers,

Gene: 30:21

Okay.

Ben: 30:22

but you know, could be wrong.

Gene: 30:24

So

Ben: 30:25

The whole Dylan Mulvaney thing

Gene: 30:27

yeah. Yeah. Why don't you go ahead and start us off on

Ben: 30:31

Well, I, I think, I don't wanna beat it to death because I think everybody's pretty. Aware of what's going on. They did put out a press release, so we're recording this on a Sunday. They put out a press release on a Friday basically saying, Hey, this was a mistake. This wasn't how this was supposed to happen. We did, you know, this was just an influencer campaign. This was not being spokesperson, you know, da da da, da da. So they kind of back down. But that's that's about where we

Gene: 30:59

that's for sure. They just basically said, oh our, our left hand wasn't sure what the right hand was doing

Ben: 31:04

indeed. And that is, okay. Do, do you accept that or not? That that's up to each individual person? The problem with InBev is if people do want a boycott, it's not just Budd Light, it's Melo Balta, it's, I think Shiner B is now owned by them. So you really have to go through as

Gene: 31:21

all the shitty beers,

Ben: 31:22

Shiner. Box's not a shitty

Gene: 31:23

right? It's pretty much shitty beer.

Ben: 31:26

You know, as soon as you move into real Texas, you're gonna have to. Change your opinions otherwise pitchforks might come out, gene.

Gene: 31:33

Dude, it it is, it is the, the Bud Light of Texas.

Ben: 31:38

Sure. But it's still a Texas beer. Anyway, there, there are better beers out there. But my point is InBev owns a ton of beers worldwide. And you have to consider that and if you're gonna boycott, boycott, but yeah.

Gene: 31:54

Well, and I, I would say, you know, just cuz it's made in Texas does make it good. After all, Tito's vodka is made in Texas and that's not even vodka. It's made outta corn.

Ben: 32:06

do you believe vodka has to be made outta potatoes?

Gene: 32:09

Yeah. And in Eastern Europe, either potatoes or grain. But it it, if you're gonna drink vodka, Don't buy something that wasn't made in Eastern Europe.

Ben: 32:21

Is Austria Eastern Europe?

Gene: 32:23

No, that's not a black country. It's basically the Slavi countries.

Ben: 32:28

Hmm. Well, there's a Austrian vodka that I like that's a potato vodka. That's pretty good. But

Gene: 32:34

Yeah. The potato is the Polish influence. The, the, the grain is the Russian influence. But, but it's not just Russia. Like Finland's got really good vodkas, but you know, Finland was also part of Russia for

Ben: 32:48

Anyway, back to the news story.

Gene: 32:50

Oh, I thought we were talking about other stuff now.

Ben: 32:53

Yeah, with that press release, their stock rebounded quite a bit. So it'll be interesting to see what happens come tomorrow, Monday if boycott and everything still continues and basically people don't accept that answer. What happens to the stock then? Because I, I think while they may rebound right now based off of, Hey, you know, we, we did put out a statement. We said this wasn't really the intention that a bigger deal has been made out of this than it should have been. You

Gene: 33:21

Of course they would say that.

Ben: 33:23

okay, fine. But the point is, if people just stay pissed off about it and continue to not buy Bud Light, let's say, you know, people are still buying Milo Bulter or whatever, but are really pretty serious about Bud Light. I don't know, man. I think that could severely hurt their stock price.

Gene: 33:41

You, you already saw what happened with this with the most Like in your face moment of this with the week, immediately after the Malini ads came out where everybody and their mother-in-law was making a video saying that they're pouring out all their Bud Light.

Ben: 34:00

Or kid rock taking a, you know, fully automatic to it.

Gene: 34:03

Right. Which is the more fun thing to do, obviously, but all of that, and it only dropped at about five points or 5%.

Ben: 34:13

That's a significant drop.

Gene: 34:16

Not really. It's, it's not the kind of drop that makes the company change its business decisions.

Ben: 34:22

I

Gene: 34:23

people are like, whoa, one down 4 billion. Here's the thing, people don't understand what the price of stock is. The price of stock is what speculators think your company's going to do by the end of the

Ben: 34:36

yeah. Hold on, hold on. The, the, the stock price isn't the thing, the distribution the places saying I'm no longer carrying this. I mean, there was a big backlash, especially in rural areas that they

Gene: 34:51

a 5% impact.

Ben: 34:52

5% to the stock price. Sure. We do not know what the impact was to actual sales.

Gene: 34:58

No. And until,

Ben: 35:00

it'll be a quarter before we do, and it'll be very interesting to see what the impact was.

Gene: 35:04

yeah. And, and I think that the impact will probably be similar to them coming out with a risky new flavor that doesn't sell well.

Ben: 35:17

Yeah. But you, you, you're thinking about this wrong, bud Light is the biggest beer brand in the world.

Gene: 35:25

You know, for soft drinks, I guess. Sure.

Ben: 35:28

No, it, it, it is the most sold beer in the world hands down.

Gene: 35:35

You.

Ben: 35:35

Like there's not a lot

Gene: 35:37

So what you're, what you're saying is it'll have absolutely zero impact because there are more people drinking Bud Light in China than there are in the us.

Ben: 35:45

My point is that the breweries and distribution here in the US that is feeling this backlash. I would not be surprised if they, if Bud Light takes a 10 to 15% hit on its sales for this quarter, would not be surprised at all.

Gene: 36:04

I think that's an interesting thing, and I'm all four people boycotting it, and I'm all for people just not drinking beer in general. It's a crappy way to spend your money, but unless you're

Ben: 36:14

my

Gene: 36:14

like good beer, but I just don't, I don't know how much impact it's gonna have, like you said. It's the most popular beer in the world, and the world is much bigger than the us.

Ben: 36:26

If the US sales drop by 10 to 15% in this quarter, they will notice and they will adjust their strategy based off of it.

Gene: 36:39

Well, their first adjustment was hiring this 30 year old chick to take over the

Ben: 36:43

Yeah. And clearly 100% should be fired. Like

Gene: 36:49

Oh, yeah.

Ben: 36:49

there, there should be no excuse right now. Fired on the spot.

Gene: 36:53

Mm-hmm.

Ben: 36:55

Did you hear the clips of her or that? I think Adam had where it took 41 years to get to here for a woman to be in this and you know, it's like, beer's been around a lot longer than that. And just cuz you're 41.

Gene: 37:07

to, to ruin it.

Ben: 37:08

Right. Well, I mean, it's just the, the narcissism.

Gene: 37:11

one. That's surprised.

Ben: 37:13

I hadn't look her up,

Gene: 37:14

Hmm.

Ben: 37:16

but I I did you see the so she said she wanted to change the frat boy culture. Did you see the leaked photos of her at a frat party?

Gene: 37:23

reposted those. Yeah. Uhhuh.

Ben: 37:24

Yeah. Drinking out of a condo. Like, who does that? Jesus

Gene: 37:28

Yeah. Who does that is right? I should as hell don't remember anyone when I was in college doing that. Kinda, that's

Ben: 37:32

I mean, it's just disgusting.

Gene: 37:34

But then again, these days, kids actually will like, inject vodka with syringes into their assholes, cuz that way you can get drunk without having to drink it.

Ben: 37:45

Yeah. Yeah. I guess you could pass a breathalyzer at that point too.

Gene: 37:49

I never thought about that.

Ben: 37:50

you wouldn't, because it's blood alcohol level that's measured,

Gene: 37:54

Well, the breathalyzer that's pulling shit outta your lungs, so,

Ben: 37:57

But the, the capillaries in your lungs are going to give off

Gene: 38:02

so you're gonna, you're gonna

Ben: 38:02

alcohol level.

Gene: 38:03

are you, do you think,

Ben: 38:04

Yes. That, that was a joke.

Gene: 38:07

hi, it sounds like a science experiment to me, man.

Ben: 38:10

Well, I You get a breathalyzer there.

Gene: 38:14

I've got one somewhere. I bought one a while ago. I

Ben: 38:16

Yeah, take, take, take some vodka and a syringe and let me know what

Gene: 38:20

I don't drink anymore. I'm gonna have to find a

Ben: 38:22

this wouldn't be drinking gene.

Gene: 38:24

a syringe and, and preferably one who's like 23 and female. That would be ideal for the typical candidates that we're talking about here. So that's the only reason I would go for that demographic. But so, bud Light does 7 billion worldwide.

Ben: 38:41

Yep. It's like 27 million barrels of B beer a year.

Gene: 38:47

It's 330 million cases.

Ben: 38:51

Right. I was measuring in barrels, not cases. It's an insane amount of beer.

Gene: 38:56

Yeah. Well, it's quite a bit of beer. And then Milo does roughly half that.

Ben: 39:01

Which Mc Lobe is owned by the same

Gene: 39:04

I know, that's why I said it. And then Bush is also theirs, right?

Ben: 39:09

Yeah. Anheuser-Busch.

Gene: 39:10

Yeah. So that's 1.7 billion.

Ben: 39:14

Yeah. Yeah. Anheuser-Busch in Bev owns a lot.

Gene: 39:19

I, I think the impact to these guys, while it will be an impact and it certainly should justify firing that whole department I don't, I don't think anyone's really gonna get punished out of this. That wasn't directly involved. It's not, I think this is, this is vastly different than going over after a niche company where if you can manage to boycott their niche, They're completely fucked. This is such a mass market company that the impact is gonna be very small.

Ben: 39:57

Well, time will tell. I think that that a lot of people are doing things pretty publicly held. Tim at his little event he held here in Aus there in Austin, didn't have any Anheuser Bush products available.

Gene: 40:10

You mean at the bar?

Ben: 40:11

Yeah, yeah. O obviously what's his face brought in one end, but Yeah.

Gene: 40:16

Yeah.

Ben: 40:17

Which, that, that, that bit he tried to do was just so, just

Gene: 40:22

Alex what both Alex's were there? So Alex Jones, but Alex Stein, I've been saying this for a while. He's just not that funny. He's gonna get canned off of his TV show probably within three months.

Ben: 40:36

Yeah, I don't think he's very funny either.

Gene: 40:38

He's not, he, he's not a sketch comedian, which is what you need if you wanna do comedy on a recurring basis, you need to do sketch comedy. That's what people like. That's what creates enough interest. And he is just all about what, what, what is that style called? It's, it's like shock jock, right? It's like what's the next crazy thing he's gonna do?

Ben: 41:04

Mm-hmm.

Gene: 41:06

But you can't do that daily. It just does not work. You, you can't maintain that level. He's not gonna go and chase down a o c every week. Right. So consequently, he, he either has to change and learn how to be a different type type of comedian, or he is gonna get his ass fired.

Ben: 41:25

Did

Gene: 41:25

And I,

Ben: 41:26

footage of a o c getting heckled in her district and she's just sitting on stage and

Gene: 41:31

No, I didn't see

Ben: 41:32

dancing around to it, like, fuck y'all. I don't care if you hate me.

Gene: 41:35

She doesn't really care. She's gonna be running for president now

Ben: 41:38

You think?

Gene: 41:40

or something. Maybe. Senator.

Ben: 41:44

I don't think she'd be brazen enough to run for president this time around.

Gene: 41:48

Old enough.

Ben: 41:50

Yeah. I would love to see a debate between Trump and aoc. I, I would say that I would love to see that,

Gene: 41:59

Well, if that happens, she would be talking about how Trump was instructing people to chase her down and rape her.

Ben: 42:07

like I said, I would love to see it.

Gene: 42:10

Yeah. From the entertainment value. I totally agree.

Ben: 42:14

Absolutely.

Gene: 42:15

Mm-hmm. So, anymore on beer or is this about it?

Ben: 42:21

Yeah, I'm, I'm good. I've said my piece.

Gene: 42:23

Okay. I'm not a beer drinker as most people know. I, not only do I not drink alcohol, but I hardly ever drink beer. It was just not my style of drink to begin with. So I am a little biased in the sense that I think that you know, drinking beer is, is 10 amount to drinking soda.

Ben: 42:42

Yeah. I, I like beer.

Gene: 42:45

Mm-hmm.

Ben: 42:45

a lot.

Gene: 42:47

But you don't drink shit beer, though. I hope

Ben: 42:50

It depends, depends on what's going on and what I'm doing.

Gene: 42:53

so. The, my shit beer of choice was Corona.

Ben: 42:58

Yeah.

Gene: 42:59

If I needed to go somewhere where there's a, like a two drink minimum or something like Joe Rogan's Club,

Ben: 43:07

Mm-hmm.

Gene: 43:08

Which I can't believe, how did they get away with having a, a minimum order of her drinks? That sounds somewhat illegal to me.

Ben: 43:15

I think they tie it to the ticket. It's an agreement. Same way Uber gets around legal tender laws, which I had an argument about that earlier to this week. We can talk about that.

Gene: 43:25

we should get into that. But either way, if I was gonna do something like that, then I would just order a Corona because I don't particularly like the taste of it. So it would take me about an hour per bottle to drink and it, it's a form of punishment because we're there not a minimum order. I would get something much more expensive.

Ben: 43:48

Well see. I don't mind Corona. It's, you know, I don't think it's a great beer, but it's.

Gene: 43:52

Well, of all the ship beers, it's my drink of choice

Ben: 43:55

Hmm. I I definitely, you know, for me, I really like IPAs, so,

Gene: 44:01

Yeah. Yeah. I don't like the bitterness.

Ben: 44:03

not really mass market IPAs. Well, it depends on the ipa, whether or not it's better, but I, I like a better flavor, so that doesn't bug me. But yeah.

Gene: 44:12

I just don't like hops. That's what it comes down to is like,

Ben: 44:15

Okay. So you don't like beer, Jean?

Gene: 44:17

if they don't put hops in beer, it would taste better.

Ben: 44:21

Then it wouldn't be beer.

Gene: 44:23

and that's the stuff that I like is malt liquor with no hops.

Ben: 44:28

No. No. Jean, just, no.

Gene: 44:30

Mm-hmm. It's, it's the only reason they put hops there. I remember watching a video that talked about this. It had something to do with preservation, not flavor.

Ben: 44:41

Okay.

Gene: 44:42

like hops wasn't there for the flavoring, but people are so used to it now.

Ben: 44:47

I mean, okay.

Gene: 44:49

German days. Anyway, so what was the other thing you, you mentioned,

Ben: 44:53

Oh, just the legal tender laws and you know, someone was saying how it's not, you know, it's not illegal for companies to not take cash. And I'm like, eh,

Gene: 45:06

Oh yeah.

Ben: 45:07

there's some ambiguity around that. So, you know, there's no federal prohibition, but

Gene: 45:14

Mm-hmm.

Ben: 45:14

you know, when you have a legal tender that is ha must be taken for any debts, public and private. You know, unless there's, this is the way Uber has gotten around it, by signing up for their app or whatever you agree that they will that you will pay through, you know, cashless payments through their app. But if you walk into, let's say a restaurant that doesn't have it clearly posted and you sit down and they come and give you the bill and you hand'em cash and they say, oh no, we don't take cash. Well, too bad sucks for you. So,

Gene: 45:53

Yeah, I've had that happen. I mean, you should do in Austin, I don't think any place takes cash anymore.

Ben: 45:58

yeah. So if they don't have it clearly posted, I would 100% be a dick about that.

Gene: 46:05

I think there's a little sign when you enter the city border.

Ben: 46:08

Austin is now a cashless city

Gene: 46:11

Something to that effect. Yeah. You are now leaving the state of Texas,

Ben: 46:16

in entering the communist republic of.

Gene: 46:19

Yes. The commonwealth of Austin and before Warren, that the legal tender currency of Austin is plastic.

Ben: 46:27

Yeah, I really hope that you know that this session, that our Texas state legislature does just dissolve

Gene: 46:38

That would be

Ben: 46:38

the city of

Gene: 46:39

funny.

Ben: 46:41

I don't think it'd be funny. I think it'd be actually useful legislation.

Gene: 46:46

Sure. But I, I think, can you imagine the butt hurt coming off of that?

Ben: 46:50

The what?

Gene: 46:52

The butt hurt?

Ben: 46:55

Y okay.

Gene: 46:57

Like, how many people would be saying that's so unfair that I can't believe they could do that. That's, that should be illegal to do.

Ben: 47:04

Well, it's not, and I

Gene: 47:06

stole my city. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Ben: 47:10

Jesus just makes me happy. are some pretty interesting bills out there. There are some succession bills. You know, so, yeah.

Gene: 47:20

So that's the other thing that where it kind of makes me think that either Alex Stein doesn't know what the fuck he's talking about, or he actually is paid opposition because in the conversation about succession, his take is that it's on the American succeed. And

Ben: 47:39

Yeah. Well, he's an

Gene: 47:40

America, you shouldn't be seeding.

Ben: 47:41

He's an idiot. This country was literally founded with succession. Like what, what the f do you think the declaration of Independence is? It is a declaration of succession, literally what it is.

Gene: 47:54

Yep.

Ben: 47:55

And, you know, and here, here's the other thing that pe people like him don't understand. Saying I'm an American, to me is like saying I'm European. I'm a Texan. I'm from Texas. That's where I was, you know, lived it. It. N I, my,

Gene: 48:12

or, and bread.

Ben: 48:13

l I'm sorry.

Gene: 48:15

Born and bred.

Ben: 48:16

Yeah. My, I, I, I would have no qualms over handing over my US passport for a Texas passport. None whatsoever. And I would have no problems using a Texas passport whenever I needed to go into Oklahoma, Louisiana, or Washington DC or anywhere else.

Gene: 48:35

I think Oklahoma's technically part of Texas,

Ben: 48:38

Well, you know, if, if if yeah, if, if we succeed, I have a, a sneaking suspicion that couple states would go with us,

Gene: 48:48

Yeah. I think there's definitely gonna be an inclination towards that. What do you think about Louisiana? Are they gonna stay or go?

Ben: 48:54

That would be interesting. I would, I would say parts of Louisiana might, parts of it might not. Depends. Louisiana kinda. It kind of vacillates because the city, the state of Louisiana is pretty torn outside of Baton Rouge and New Orleans. It's a pretty conservative place.

Gene: 49:12

Yeah, it's got you know, more gators than people.

Ben: 49:16

Oh yeah.

Gene: 49:17

Those

Ben: 49:17

So, so there's a there's an interesting bill in front of the Texas the Texas House right now on relating to the definition of a sexually oriented business.

Gene: 49:30

Oh, really? What did they talk about?

Ben: 49:31

They're modifying the, this, if past would change the definition US code or the Texas code. For now, this is normally what this portion of the code sexually oriented businesses would be, you know, adult shops strip clubs, things like that. And you know, we're currently in the code entirely unclosed and or showing parts of ariola, stuff like that. And buttocks and things like that are what requires a definition. So if you had a go-go dancer, it wouldn't be considered that in the state of Texas. It wouldn't fall under that. But now they're purposefully adding a definition around drag performances being sexual.

Gene: 50:16

They've always been sexual. This is a part of that I don't understand

Ben: 50:19

it, but but my point is it's classifying it in the code as part of the definition for a sexually oriented business.

Gene: 50:27

just adding in or drag shows.

Ben: 50:29

Pretty much.

Gene: 50:30

Yeah. Well that's, yeah, that makes sense. I, I have to say that they sort of libertarian leaning side of me is like who gives a shit? On the other hand, where I have a problem with it is, number one, kids have no business being in drag shows, but also secondly, This has always been an adult activity. Now, in some parts it may have been banned because of its homosexual leaning, but it hasn't been banned in everywhere because of that. But in all cases, it was assumed that adults and, you know, maybe not the most straight of adults would be going to see drag shows,

Ben: 51:11

right. But this would make it you know, require 18 and up. You couldn't have a seven year old at that.

Gene: 51:20

which a seven year old has no business being at a drag show and a drag performer, regardless of their sexuality, has no business performing in front of kids.

Ben: 51:30

Hmm.

Gene: 51:31

It's not a, I think there's a difference between and incidentally, this is, I'm, I'm. There's some stuff that seems to have gotten lost. We used to have transvestites anybody that's seen Tim Curry in what's that movie? Yeah. What the hell's that movie about the, it's the way everybody sings and they're in Trans Mania.

Ben: 51:57

Oh Rocky Horror Picture Show.

Gene: 51:58

Horror. Yeah. Yeah. Anybody that's seen Rocky Horror Show, which at this point I'm gonna assume everyone has at some

Ben: 52:03

Never watched it.

Gene: 52:04

except for you.

Ben: 52:06

It never interests me. I've seen enough about it to get the

Gene: 52:10

like transvestites. We get it.

Ben: 52:11

care. Yeah.

Gene: 52:13

But Tim Curry is playing a transvestite in there and you know, it's basically

Ben: 52:20

for everyone.

Gene: 52:21

a guy who enjoys dressing like women. Which a lot of the current generation of transgender folks I think

Ben: 52:31

what would today just be called a cross dresser.

Gene: 52:33

Yeah, that's another, that's another definition of a transvestite, but transvestite literally means trans different Tite clothing. So it's somebody that flips around their clothing. It could be theoretically could be like Camille Paglia back in the seventies wearing men's clothes. You know, that could fall into the definition of Transvestism as well. But there was a the idea of going to see drag in a lot of ways was, let's go watch some transvestites, because at least back in the eighties when I remember going to see drag shows back then there was at least half of the performers and probably quite a bit over half, frankly. We're not gay. They were definitely on the kinky side. They were definitely into wearing women's clothing and into putting on makeup and doing all that jazz to make themselves look amazingly passable as women, but they weren't necessarily fucking guys. Now, some of'em were, but that was always kind of considered like, like in every other group, the amount of people that are homosexual, that enjoy the company of people just like themselves is a minority. It's always been the case. It has to be the case. Otherwise reproduction doesn't happen. So drug drag shows have been around forever, but they've always been an adult thing. So I don't understand why or how they've been allowed to emerge into this. Hey, let's go do it in front of kids kind of mentality, which is just retarded. Well, it is groomers, but it, it's a.

Ben: 54:16

you know, you know, here, here, here's the effed up thing of this. So, back in the day when there was the Defensive Marriage Act that Barack Obama supported, Nancy Psi supported, everybody supported, I was lobbying Congress against that because I don't think government needs to be in the business of marriage at all. So, My entire point and stance was, you know, no. Get government out of marriage. And then there is no issue. You know, if people wanna get married for a religious reason, great, go do it. If you don't have a civil contract between the two of you that has the same legal rights as marriage does today, let's define that and move on with our life. And then who cares, right? And I've, I've never been against gay marriage because quite frankly, what someone else does, does not diminish me or change what I am doing. People can get offended and say, oh, well, it's not a marriage, it's not this from their own religious standpoint, but okay, I, I truly believe in, in a society where I am free to believe what I wanna believe, and you're free to believe what you wanna believe. So that's never impacted

Gene: 55:21

I think it's silly to have a conversation about being inclusive with marriage, without having polygamy be legal in all 50 states

Ben: 55:29

and again, what adults do, I don't

Gene: 55:32

with other adults.

Ben: 55:33

Correct. And here, here's the problem. Like I, I have no problem with polygamy, biy or whatever imy you want to go down the road. I personally, you know, group marriages, things like that, I personally, yeah. Not gonna work for me,

Gene: 55:48

Eh, don't knock it to a tribe.

Ben: 55:50

anyway

Gene: 55:51

the thing, most people don't think about it. It's like,

Ben: 55:54

a great book

Gene: 55:55

all the pressure off of you by giving your one wife another wife to fucking, you know, spend time with and, and bitch about stuff too.

Ben: 56:04

And other

Gene: 56:05

it easier

Ben: 56:05

potentially and so on. Yeah.

Gene: 56:07

Well, nobody said anything about that.

Ben: 56:09

yeah, well, a, a good book to read and get an idea of how something like that could work would be The Moon is a Harsh Mistress by Henline. He's,

Gene: 56:17

It's on my list.

Ben: 56:19

yeah, it's, he, he Highline's such a fantastic author. But anyway, Regardless. At the time a lot of the Christians were saying, oh, what's next? It's gonna be a slippery slope. And you know, e e even as conservative as I am, I'm sitting there going, oh, it's of course we're not going to accept, you know, this next horrible thing, but I'll be damn

Gene: 56:43

Well, I'm, I think of the paths we've been going down. We're gonna have bestiality performances for kindergartners before too long.

Ben: 56:50

well, you know, especially with this other kin stuff that people are going down. I mean, Jesus, if you identify as whatever, then is it even bestiality at that point?

Gene: 57:02

Yeah, well, the whole identifying

Ben: 57:04

identify as

Gene: 57:04

somebody's gotta put

Ben: 57:05

if I, you know, go screw, you know,

Gene: 57:07

And I don't mean the government, I mean like if there's any worth at all to churches being around. Let's start with that. Let's start by telling people like religious people or people not, not even religious, but at least are going to church saying that there, there is no such thing as identifying as.

Ben: 57:30

Well, and, and that's where I think Succession would really probably jumpstart a lot of that because I, I know people right now that are fairly liberal that feel like you know, the abortion issue is a great example. They feel like their rights have been taken away from them, and they, they're just a few steps away from Handmaid's Tale here in Texas, which I think

Gene: 57:58

And by the way, what's wrong with handmade tale?

Ben: 58:00

Hold on. They are literally moving out of the state,

Gene: 58:04

Well, that's good.

Ben: 58:05

and I'm like, great. You know, I mean, I, I, I, I, I, I like this person and

Gene: 58:11

me throw you a going away Purdy.

Ben: 58:13

Well, and it's, it's, it will drive that natural okay, well, we're succeeding. We're gonna run this country the way we want. And if you don't like it, then, you know, right now is a great time to leave and go to, you know, the United

Gene: 58:28

A where you can't drive an electric car, but you can't buy Nonelectric car.

Ben: 58:33

Anyway.

Gene: 58:35

Yeah. So, so I think Handmades tale is, is underrated. I think that that is not nearly a dystopian future that people make it out to be.

Ben: 58:45

What do you mean?

Gene: 58:47

But I think it, I think that it's, it's a it's a society that has figured out that in order to survive they need to change the rules and then so they've adapted and that that should be something that is congratulated not looked down upon.

Ben: 59:03

Yeah. Well, I, I think I, I don't think we're headed towards a Handmaid's Tale version of dystopian future,

Gene: 59:09

Plus, I kinda like the outfits.

Ben: 59:11

A the children the children of men sort of dystopian future, I think is far more likely.

Gene: 59:18

Yeah, I, you know, people have been afraid of a mass a mass in ability to have kids or a mass sterilization events for probably a thousand years. At least hundreds of years people have been writing about

Ben: 59:32

Yeah. But we are actually having that.

Gene: 59:34

Right. And that's my point is you're, you're, you're stepping on the the main point here, which is that as much as people have portrayed it as something scary in the future we sure as hell seem to be enjoying moving through. It actually happening. Like there, there is no, there's no pushback or very little to pushback. I mean, basically it's just like Tim. Pool telling everyone to get married and have kids versus the rest of the world saying, don't bother. And

Ben: 1:00:11

I think there's a lot of people saying

Gene: 1:00:12

well he's the main voice that I'm hearing on this topic, but it, it's a, it's something that people seem to have been afraid of for hundreds of years or if not thousands, but nonetheless are completely, don't want to do anything to prevent it from happening. And, and you're right, he's not the only one. Peter Zion's been on the march to repopulate the world by not doing it himself.

Ben: 1:00:40

Yeah, there's a, yeah. There's quite a few voices

Gene: 1:00:45

By the way, I think he's actually bi. I don't think he's actually gay, cuz

Ben: 1:00:48

Why do you say that?

Gene: 1:00:49

I have heard him flirting with chicks.

Ben: 1:00:53

Okay.

Gene: 1:00:53

I watch way more of his videos than you do clearly.

Ben: 1:00:56

Clearly. Anyway, the you know, there, there are plenty of voices out there. The Hoover Institute had some people talking about the demographic collapse, which I'll send you the video there. There's been, there've been

Gene: 1:01:09

I think you talking about the one from last year. I think I've seen that one.

Ben: 1:01:13

Maybe there have been plenty of people calling both academically and religiously for people to, you know, we, we need to stay above replacement rate. If we don't want to go the way of Japan. And luckily in the US we have fairly decent demography

Gene: 1:01:30

with the US though, and this is something Zhan and I agree with, is that if you subtract out the illegal and illegal, which is a bigger chunk, immigration out of the US we're absolutely crashing.

Ben: 1:01:45

Well, and a large portion of that is also right now with this trans stuff where people have pointed out you know, we, we went from body dysmorphia being less than a fraction of a percent of the population and almost entirely male to generation Z. Hitting around, well, no, it's not that high

Gene: 1:02:06

No, that's what, that's what the stats say.

Ben: 1:02:08

The stat

Gene: 1:02:09

of Gen Z say that they have body dysmorphia right now.

Ben: 1:02:12

Well, okay. Depends on how you classify it.

Gene: 1:02:15

haven't had surgery, if that's what you're

Ben: 1:02:16

Okay. So if you're saying the they thems and the queer identity and all that, sure. But actual Female to male, male to female, that sort of thing where it's defined and really going down the hormone blocker route and everything else. It's around eight and a half to 10%.

Gene: 1:02:37

Which is still way too high.

Ben: 1:02:39

well, and here's the other thing. It's almost entirely female, which is not historically what this actual disorder was. It was almost all male. In fact, other than Buck Angel, there were literally just n, the amount of male to female versus female to male is thousands to one under natural conditions.

Gene: 1:03:06

And, and I think part of it too, if you look at it like, who wants to be a girl? Right now, you look at all the, all the trophies that women have been winning for the last couple years. They've all been won by men, miss Universe the swimming, the weightlifting, the wrestling, like all the top athletes in the world, all the top women athletes in the world are all men. So, yeah, I mean, with that kind of pressure, It would seem that you, you'd be better off to be a man, wouldn't it?

Ben: 1:03:42

Yeah. Well, what I think is that fe women and people are gonna probably roast me on this, but women are far more susceptible to, especially teenage girls, are far more susceptible to social contagion than anyone else.

Gene: 1:04:02

Yeah. Do that name, bend that camera, or something like that.

Ben: 1:04:06

Dude named ben.com. Yes. And it's just a thing, whether it was bulimia or anorexia or cutting or whatever the contagions have been throughout history. It happens and it happens for a while. And then the next one comes up. The problem with this particular social contagion that it is, is when you have a large number of girls going on puberty blockers or hormone replacement, they are sterilizing themselves.

Gene: 1:04:38

Yeah,

Ben: 1:04:39

Same thing with men. The problem is men one dude can follow a bunch of kids through a bunch of different checks

Gene: 1:04:47

but let's, let's face it though, we don't need as many men as women.

Ben: 1:04:50

cor That's my point. And when you are talking about. A already going to be small generation in Gen Z. And then you have, let's say 5% of the girls end up sterilized because of this.

Gene: 1:05:05

Mm-hmm.

Ben: 1:05:07

That's a massive reduction in the next generation that it would otherwise produce

Gene: 1:05:12

Absolutely.

Ben: 1:05:13

It's a much larger impact.

Gene: 1:05:15

Well, and you combine that with the, the decline in religion and the decline in,

Ben: 1:05:21

likelihood to calf kids and everything else, it's just a snowball trend that's coming

Gene: 1:05:27

So the people that do have kids are gonna have one kid.

Ben: 1:05:30

maybe. We, we, I'm seeing some, you know, I'm seeing quite a bit of push out there. There's a documentary about childlessness that's pretty good and how women have been lied to, and that, you know, the, the, the statistics that I found that I, I had no clue on that was just shocking to me is if. A woman does not have a child by the time she is 30,

Gene: 1:05:54

Yeah.

Ben: 1:05:54

she is not likely to,

Gene: 1:05:56

Yeah.

Ben: 1:05:57

which is astonishing. But anyway,

Gene: 1:06:00

true.

Ben: 1:06:01

And it's not just about fertility, it's about finding people and everything else. There's a lot of information coming out about how hormonal based birth control screws up women's preferences. They don't care about masculine traits as much when they're on hormone based birth control. Their sexual preferences change and deviate because of it. There's lots of things. You know, the millennials, my generation, it's going to be interesting to see how many kids we have because the millennials are the second biggest generation. And we've got, you know, we've got one shot to really save this demographically. And that's, that's happening right now.

Gene: 1:06:38

and way more percentage of millennials are living in the gig economy than of previous generations,

Ben: 1:06:45

Right. And I mean,

Gene: 1:06:48

a gig economy.

Ben: 1:06:49

between my wife and I, we've had four, you know, we've had four kids, so we are doing our job. Others need to do theirs.

Gene: 1:06:58

Yeah. Yeah. It's It's gonna be interesting. I won't give a shit cuz I'll be dead. But it's gonna be interesting to see what kind of impact this has. And this is where I think China is better positioned to deal with this than the US is because that's command economy.

Ben: 1:07:14

Yeah, but

Gene: 1:07:15

they can actually do things like the government importing wives and having a government run structure built specifically around having kids.

Ben: 1:07:29

That's not how that's gonna work though, because even if they import wives and so on, I, first of all, I, I just don't think that's gonna work because you still have such an inverted pyramid of demographics. The only, the, now this is something China could do to save its economy and that's enforce a mandatory euthanasia program

Gene: 1:07:53

Yeah. Mandatory retirement.

Ben: 1:07:55

no, no, no euthanasia.

Gene: 1:07:56

No. Well, it's not gonna be called that. It'll be called retirement.

Ben: 1:08:00

Okay. But literally what they would need to do is kill off huge swaths of the old people in order to not

Gene: 1:08:08

I don't see a problem with that. I mean, they already know what to do with Covid.

Ben: 1:08:13

Yeah. Well, anyway the, the question also becomes,

Gene: 1:08:16

but I'm just saying they're a much better positioned to do it than the US is. While the US did surprise everybody, I think certainly surprised me into how compliant people were into clearly illegal government actions. When, when people start realizing the government's actually shutting people down and, and making them forcibly retire out of this particular life I think that that is gonna create an uprising that's not gonna be limited to Texas. It's gonna be. Across the entire country in China. That will create some resentment for sure, and there'll be some protests, but in the grand scheme of things, they could get away with it a lot better than the US could.

Ben: 1:09:01

Hmm. Well, you know, we will, we will see what ends up happening. I think there are limits to what the Chinese can do because I think that, you know, they have a control. But I, I, I, I don't know if they can really. Push it. I mean, Lindsey Graham was talking about blockading China's access to mid, mid east oil. That would be an act of war, but I think it would be an act of war that, you know, a lot of people might be okay with.

Gene: 1:09:36

Well, a lot of people clearly want to have the nukes take care of the problem rather than any other means.

Ben: 1:09:43

I don't know. Did you did you happen to see Vic's speech at,

Gene: 1:09:48

you sent it to me, but I have not read it. No.

Ben: 1:09:51

so you, you really need to watch Vic's speech at the nra. It's only about 17 minute speech. It is well worth well worth listening to. He's, in my opinion, on fire the entire time and he made a great su suggestion on how we How we handle Taiwan.

Gene: 1:10:11

Mm-hmm.

Ben: 1:10:11

And his, he, his suggestion was working with the government of Taiwan and shipping the Taiwanese citizens weapons and arming the citizenry and letting it be, huh

Gene: 1:10:25

gonna do shit.

Ben: 1:10:26

Okay.

Gene: 1:10:27

Yeah. They're gonna trade those weapons in for food. The only real solution that we have to Taiwan not becoming part of China, which is almost a notable, it's just a question of when is if Taiwan petitions the United States to become a 51st state? And then the United States approves of that. Essentially we do with Taiwan, what they're trying to do with Ukraine and Europe. Make Ukraine officially part of the U and then it's Russia versus the U instead of, versus Ukraine, a country. If we make Taiwan a 51st state, then it's China against the United States

Ben: 1:11:06

I mean, we could just make it a protectorate,

Gene: 1:11:08

no, that ain't gonna, that's

Ben: 1:11:10

class as Puerto Rico.

Gene: 1:11:11

It's, but it's maybe the same class, but no one's looking at absorbing Puerto Rico right now. And if they were, I guarantee you that'd be a, a big movement towards making it a state. It, it, it sends a very different message to when, like, the world has a history of seeing what happens when you attack a state of the United States. Even one that's freshly minted like Hawaii. What happens is retaliation in a massive scale, nuclear weapons that, that is not the same message that would be sent by a territory.

Ben: 1:11:49

you, when, when was the state of Hawaii attacked?

Gene: 1:11:55

Well, Pearl Harbor, so what? 41.

Ben: 1:11:57

Yeah. State Hawaii didn't become a state till 59. Dude.

Gene: 1:12:01

Oh really?

Ben: 1:12:02

only a protector at, at the time.

Gene: 1:12:04

Okay. Well nevermind that whole theory

Ben: 1:12:06

See, you made my

Gene: 1:12:07

we're, apparently we would go after the protecting a territory as well. I don't know. I I just think that

Ben: 1:12:14

Sorry, I just,

Gene: 1:12:15

No, you're right,

Ben: 1:12:15

going a newly when I'm like,

Gene: 1:12:18

yeah, it wasn't a state yet. That was totally not a state. So what the fuck? That was just a stupid move by the Japanese.

Ben: 1:12:25

Actually it was their only possible move to

Gene: 1:12:28

instead bomb, like, you know, one of the other US territories out there?

Ben: 1:12:33

it was about the naval base,

Gene: 1:12:35

Yeah.

Ben: 1:12:36

which, you know, in a, in a way actually because we had the manufacturing capacity, we did they basically cleared out the Deadwood for us.

Gene: 1:12:47

Mm-hmm.

Ben: 1:12:49

So yeah.

Gene: 1:12:50

Hmm. Yeah, I don't know. I guess it's, I just think things are so different with. With the world right now that, and I know that you, you and Darren are both on the other side of this argument. I just think navy's irrelevant right now when you have missiles that can fly halfway around the world. Navy is completely unnecessary except for submarines. S

Ben: 1:13:18

I,

Gene: 1:13:19

are extremely expensive. They're basically floating targets full of people that can all be killed with one hit.

Ben: 1:13:29

but they can't.

Gene: 1:13:31

Well, they can absolutely,

Ben: 1:13:33

Oh.

Gene: 1:13:35

the, the, if you look at the missiles that have been flying over Ukraine, and when that missile hits it, it takes out an artillery piece or a tank and if, if it's fired at a building, it'll take out a good chunk of that building. Those are fairly cheap missiles that have been Do you know, over 20,000 of them shot one of those missiles. Not anything fancier hitting the side of a ship, sinks the ship.

Ben: 1:14:04

Yeah. So just just to point out in I think it was what, 2005? Which, what class was that? Kitty Hawk. So yeah, 2005 U the US San, the aircraft carrier America in the Atlantic Ocean. It was a Kitty Hawk class aircraft carrier as part of the development of the Ford class, and it took over four weeks to sink a Kitty Hawk class carrier, which the Nimitz and the Ford are presumably better. This includes torpedoes, everything else, multiple direct hits you know, missiles, bombs, everything. So short of a nuke. Yeah, you're not taken outta aircraft carrier with one hit.

Gene: 1:14:49

Yeah. Or you could just say that shows the ineptitude of the Americans to actually sing something.

Ben: 1:14:54

It was literally deco. Dude. I think you're un you're overestimating the ability. An aircraft carrier is an extremely hardened thing. It is not lightly armored. And not only that, you're assuming that the entire air wing isn't capable of intercepting something before it gets there. You're assuming that the missile defense systems on the aircraft carrier and its fleet of ships around it, cuz it's a carrier group, can't take out

Gene: 1:15:25

Dude, I, I play this awesome simulator called The World of Worships, and I can definitely tell you that even the a wing with a dozen ships is not capable of taking out air attacks. It, it's a, it's a numbers game. One side has humans, the other side has missiles. Which side would you rather be on?

Ben: 1:15:46

So both sides have missiles?

Gene: 1:15:48

Yeah. Except one side doesn't have a navy. So what are you gonna shoot at those missiles? You're gonna have land targets. The other side has a navy and you're gonna sink that first

Ben: 1:15:59

How are you gonna sink it without a

Gene: 1:16:00

the missiles. Wow. You gonna sink it?

Ben: 1:16:03

Okay, so you're gonna fire a missile from several hundred miles away.

Gene: 1:16:07

No, I'm gonna fire a hundred missiles at the same time.

Ben: 1:16:10

Okay, fine.

Gene: 1:16:13

And out of that, let's say only 5% make it.

Ben: 1:16:17

Yeah,

Gene: 1:16:17

Yeah. Okay. There, there's one of two aircraft carriers dead.

Ben: 1:16:22

No. Read about the Kitty Hawk.

Gene: 1:16:26

Mm-hmm.

Ben: 1:16:26

Read about the Kitty Hawk class carrier, the, or the America, the Kitty Hawk class carrier that they sunk, and the amount of ordinance it took and the amount of time it took to sink it without any human repair crews or anything else going on, on deck. So, no, I, I think that, and look at the aircraft carriers in World War II that were far less survivable than what we have today. They were not easy to sink.

Gene: 1:16:50

Yeah. And we didn't have the munitions in World War II that we do now.

Ben: 1:16:54

Our munitions haven't really advanced short of nukes.

Gene: 1:16:57

They have tremendously the no, they're, they're using plasma. They're not using they're, they're literally melting through metal. They're, they're not using

Ben: 1:17:07

So the Tungston Penetrators and things like that,

Gene: 1:17:10

fertilizer.

Ben: 1:17:12

the explosives technology has not changed. Now you can talk about penetrators and things like that and so on, but again, that's. A a fairly narrow

Gene: 1:17:24

Okay, so here we go. First of all, you, you know about the effects of a what do you call those? The something barrack bomb you know what I'm talking about, right?

Ben: 1:17:37

Like the Moab,

Gene: 1:17:38

Yeah. Like the Moab, right? So first of all, that just kills everybody by ripping their lungs apart, right? So it's not a super fast death. It's not like being right underneath a nuke, but it is very guaranteed. With you. If you're within the radius, you all you need is one of those on an aircraft carrier and literally every human on that ship is dead.

Ben: 1:18:05

Again, sealed compartments. That's not necessarily true.

Gene: 1:18:09

Okay. Sealed

Ben: 1:18:09

we, we

Gene: 1:18:10

It's not necessarily true, but we'll see.

Ben: 1:18:13

Okay. We very well may. See that's the scary part.

Gene: 1:18:19

I'm just getting sick and tired of people not believing me. I'm all forcing it at this point. I'm like, you fuckers. You need to see exactly what I'm talking about. Demonstrated

Ben: 1:18:29

Okay. Anyway,

Gene: 1:18:31

remote detonating. Technology will always win. You wouldn't the, the thing is you need people to capture territory on land.

Ben: 1:18:42

Mm-hmm.

Gene: 1:18:43

You don't need people to capture territory et sea for submarines.

Ben: 1:18:48

Yeah. Again the problem you that China has is that they import pretty much fucking everything to survive,

Gene: 1:18:59

Mm-hmm.

Ben: 1:18:59

and they don't have the Navy to guarantee those supply lines. That's where a Navy is

Gene: 1:19:05

Okay. Peters ahan.

Ben: 1:19:07

It's not Han saying that it's the freaking facts, dude,

Gene: 1:19:13

Yeah.

Ben: 1:19:14

you, you go put one aircraft carrier group in the Straits of Malka and China is done. And what are they gonna do about it?

Gene: 1:19:22

We'll find out.

Ben: 1:19:24

Also on, on the currency bit. It's gonna be interesting to see what happens there as well.

Gene: 1:19:32

Yeah. Well, and that's the other option, right? Is that technically. China, which historically plays the long game. They don't need to invade Taiwan. They just need to keep enough pressure

Ben: 1:19:47

So where does this notion of China playing the long game come

Gene: 1:19:50

China's always played the long game.

Ben: 1:19:52

No, they haven't.

Gene: 1:19:53

8,000 year old history of the country.

Ben: 1:19:55

Yeah. History of multiple different empires and countries. And this is something that you have to remember, is that China is not a uniform group. It is an empire of different states cobbled together under a totalitarian rule.

Gene: 1:20:08

every other empire,

Ben: 1:20:10

Yeah.

Gene: 1:20:11

it's how you,

Ben: 1:20:11

they haven't been around very long. And you can't equate former dynasties and things like that to the ccp. Especially not Xi Ping, who

Gene: 1:20:21

is absolutely a dynasty.

Ben: 1:20:23

he is a dynasty, but he has collapsed all power into himself.

Gene: 1:20:27

Yeah.

Ben: 1:20:28

Yeah. And we'll see how

Gene: 1:20:30

Annie's a good friend of Donald Trump.

Ben: 1:20:33

So that's fine by me.

Gene: 1:20:34

Did you hear Trump's interview with?

Ben: 1:20:36

did with, with Carlson. Yeah. In fact, I think I sent you that

Gene: 1:20:40

G g nice, really smart, super bright guy.

Ben: 1:20:45

I fully believe it, but I don't care how smart you are taking full control of a country and basically everything running through you, and no one really having authority to do anything other than the will of the dictator.

Gene: 1:20:59

is sold the correct way to do it. If I was a dictator of a country, that is exactly the way I would do it.

Ben: 1:21:07

But here's the thing,

Gene: 1:21:08

Trump who

Ben: 1:21:09

you can't be right a hundred percent of the time if you're not right a hundred percent of the time. Those mistakes will have far greater consequences than if you had a distributed system of

Gene: 1:21:22

Yeah, I

Ben: 1:21:23

which is why, which is why communism ultimately will fail always cuz

Gene: 1:21:30

Communism will fail, but not because of that Communism fails because it, it

Ben: 1:21:36

doesn't work.

Gene: 1:21:37

it's a system where people's personal interests are at odds with communism.

Ben: 1:21:47

Because of human nature.

Gene: 1:21:49

in,

Ben: 1:21:50

cannot work

Gene: 1:21:52

Yeah. Well, communism works in, you know, in small small sizes. It works like a family,

Ben: 1:21:58

Sure.

Gene: 1:21:59

a family size unit can be a communist. It kind of is. Your kids don't really produce anything, but yet you give'em shit.

Ben: 1:22:06

They produce lots of things.

Gene: 1:22:08

Mm. I don't know about that.

Ben: 1:22:10

Trust me, the durge diaper supply around here is very

Gene: 1:22:14

Yeah. Yeah. That's the kind of shit that you don't, they produce shit, but they don't produce shit that's valuable. Bum pump. So,

Ben: 1:22:20

They themselves are value, though. So that, that's the thing about having Is it, it's a very long-term investment.

Gene: 1:22:29

for not necessarily a payoff

Ben: 1:22:32

you know, I, I. When I am old and invalid, like some people, I won't have to pay strangers to take care of me.

Gene: 1:22:42

Yeah. It's at least it's the hope, but your kids just likely hate you for whatever reason.

Ben: 1:22:49

I would hope not.

Gene: 1:22:51

You would hope not, but there's no guarantee of it. So my my point is simply that when you have a system where you're willing to do stuff and include your kids in the bounty that comes in, but even if you don't get anything back out of it, like that's the form of communism. And I think at that size, it, it can work. You could, you could make arguments saying, well, I'm actually only doing this because I think my kids will take care of me in the future. Oh, you can say that, but really, that's just a hope. That's not, you know, it's not an actual trade. You don't, unless you have a contract with your kids that say, Hey, by the way, Billy, I'm providing you food today. And in trade for that, you're gonna change grandpa's diapers or your dad's diapers when he's in his seventies.

Ben: 1:23:35

Yeah, so what I would say there is, again, communism. I will seed to you that, okay, if you wanna call a family communism, that it will work at that level as soon as you add in another family. I think it breaks down

Gene: 1:23:50

I agree. And I think the more people you add, the, the less possible it is. It's an, it's an inverse relationship to the number of people involved because it effectively requires that everybody be willing to to be, what's the opposite of selfishness? I don't even know what that word is.

Ben: 1:24:10

egalitarian.

Gene: 1:24:11

Okay, there you go. Yeah. It requires everybody to be that. And as disgusting as that may be that is what actual communism is going to need. And that's why there's really no communist countries never has been in the world. There are communist ideas, but there have never been a large communist organizations because people's nature gets in the way and people's nature is the opposite of egalitarian. It's actually very much in the self-interest.

Ben: 1:24:43

Yeah, then you end up with the looters.

Gene: 1:24:45

Yeah. And so you can't call it communism. I mean, you can't certainly, but it's not quite accurate to call China's the U S S R Cuba, any of these dictatorial countries as communists because while they may espouse communist ideas, their actions are certainly not communist.

Ben: 1:25:07

Yeah, so this is the idea that communism has never, that that wasn't real communism. Communism hasn't really been tried

Gene: 1:25:16

it's been tried and it's failed every single time because it doesn't work in a large group.

Ben: 1:25:22

because the very notion, yes, so let, let's, but let's not say it's not communism. It is communism. It's communism with humans, and guess what, until there aren't any humans

Gene: 1:25:32

it, no, it's not. It's, it's not really communism because if the humans are pretending to be communists, it's not really communism.

Ben: 1:25:42

it's communism.

Gene: 1:25:44

It's kind of like, you know, being, being around a, a group of people that call themselves Christians but are for abortion and have rainbows and you know, kid trans kid whatcha you call it, shows

Ben: 1:25:59

Hey, there's a church in Denton like that.

Gene: 1:26:01

That's not a fucking church.

Ben: 1:26:02

No, it's not.

Gene: 1:26:03

not a church. That's what I'm saying about

Ben: 1:26:05

well, I mean, it may be a Satanist church, but I wouldn't call'em Christian.

Gene: 1:26:09

No, but, so just cuz they call themselves Christian doesn't mean that they're actually Christian. Just like China can call itself communist. Doesn't make it actually communist.

Ben: 1:26:18

But it, it, it doesn't call itself coming. It's, it's a republic, the Republic of China.

Gene: 1:26:24

Yeah. It's the People's Republic of China.

Ben: 1:26:26

Yep.

Gene: 1:26:27

So it sounds like a you know, sounds like a, a corporation to me, actually.

Ben: 1:26:34

Anyway. Did you watch the wifis this Thursday?

Gene: 1:26:38

No. I, I did not. I was busy. I know. It's something that I've been posting a lot of. Did you watch'em?

Ben: 1:26:43

Yeah, I did. It's eh, an eh

Gene: 1:26:45

It was in the air. Okay. And this was on vampires or what

Ben: 1:26:49

No, it was on exorcism.

Gene: 1:26:51

Oh, that's right. Exorcist. Yes.

Ben: 1:26:53

No.

Gene: 1:26:54

So not as good as some of their previous ones.

Ben: 1:26:58

The ones that I think he does the best on are really the

Gene: 1:27:01

The government one. Yeah.

Ben: 1:27:03

I do like heckle fish, by the

Gene: 1:27:05

Oh, heckle fish is fucking awesome, man. He's great.

Ben: 1:27:09

It's funny.

Gene: 1:27:11

Yeah. I, I, I didn't get why he has to be a fish, but I've kind of gotten used to him,

Ben: 1:27:16

Yeah.

Gene: 1:27:16

Even though his mouth is upside down. I don't think the guy's animating him. I've ever have seen a real goldfish. But

Ben: 1:27:23

I don't think it matters, dude.

Gene: 1:27:25

I know it matters to me. I just, I, I prefer accuracy in my anatomics even with talking

Ben: 1:27:31

It's an

Gene: 1:27:33

Talking fish,

Ben: 1:27:34

talking fish.

Gene: 1:27:36

yes. That's why I never got into SpongeBob, but just

Ben: 1:27:38

Oh

Gene: 1:27:39

aren't square.

Ben: 1:27:41

yeah. Yeah. You know, all I can tell you is, you know, my kid, I, I, I've let him watch some SpongeBob and I've forgotten how weird and stoner esque that show is.

Gene: 1:27:52

I've heard that. I've never actually watched it, but I've seen clips obviously, but I,

Ben: 1:27:56

it is a, it's right up there with Ren and Stimpy level of weird, but not quite as gross.

Gene: 1:28:03

Well, rather than Stimpy was just a kind of a Tom and Jerry Takeoff.

Ben: 1:28:07

Yeah, but very Ren and Stimpy was not child appropriate when when it came out?

Gene: 1:28:13

I'm trying to remember. I think that was an M T V when it first

Ben: 1:28:15

No, it was Nickelodeon.

Gene: 1:28:17

Was that The Odeon Really? Holy shit. That is surprising. Well, there are a bunch of

Ben: 1:28:22

So was SpongeBob. So,

Gene: 1:28:24

What?

Ben: 1:28:25

so was SpongeBob.

Gene: 1:28:27

Oh, yeah, yeah. That was on the Colonial.

Ben: 1:28:29

Yep.

Gene: 1:28:29

Well, at least that pretends to be more of a kid show.

Ben: 1:28:32

Yeah.

Gene: 1:28:33

But yeah, all these things are, I mean, I think if I was gonna have a kid watching cartoons, I would just get'em started on South Park and just stick to that.

Ben: 1:28:45

Oh my God. Yeah. So I, I definitely, the older cartoons is is a thing. We've, we, we, we are very wary of what new cartoons are being watched just because of all the current issues.

Gene: 1:28:58

So you watching like Carmen San Diego?

Ben: 1:29:01

I, Hey, I, I did watch that as a kid, actually.

Gene: 1:29:04

Mm-hmm.

Ben: 1:29:05

We're in the world. Yeah. Yeah, we've he watches my, both my kids watch Dora. Some yeah. Peppa Pig is Elizabeth's favorite.

Gene: 1:29:16

heard of that one.

Ben: 1:29:17

It's a British one.

Gene: 1:29:19

Oh, that figures.

Ben: 1:29:20

It's been around for a while. It's pretty good for the most part. There's a couple episodes we skip.

Gene: 1:29:24

watching Chinese cartoons?

Ben: 1:29:26

I'm sorry.

Gene: 1:29:27

Winnie the Poo.

Ben: 1:29:29

No, we ha. But anyway, we're, we're, eh,

Gene: 1:29:33

I watched winning Depu when I was a kid.

Ben: 1:29:36

What's that?

Gene: 1:29:36

I watched it when I was a kid winning Depu,

Ben: 1:29:39

Well, I never watched

Gene: 1:29:40

the original Russian version anyway.

Ben: 1:29:42

yeah. I never was a fan of Win the p

Gene: 1:29:45

Hmm. Yeah, I kinda appreciated that. He was he had a lot of friends and he liked to eat honey

Ben: 1:29:50

Yeah. He and very timid and Oh no.

Gene: 1:29:55

but he had it, it was kind of a,

Ben: 1:29:57

the little boy's name?

Gene: 1:30:00

Don't recall, kind of an incidental character.

Ben: 1:30:05

The main character, but, okay.

Gene: 1:30:07

Nah, not, not a, I don't know. Well, who do you think is the main character in South Park?

Ben: 1:30:12

Stan?

Gene: 1:30:13

Carman, obviously

Ben: 1:30:15

No,

Gene: 1:30:15

Absolutely. The whole show's about Carman.

Ben: 1:30:18

no, it's not.

Gene: 1:30:19

It is, it is you, you just try watching it with a critical eye. You'll see.

Ben: 1:30:25

Okay.

Gene: 1:30:25

It's literally the story of Carman and how all these bad friends that he has keep getting him in trouble.

Ben: 1:30:32

Jesus. Okay,

Gene: 1:30:35

Mm-hmm.

Ben: 1:30:36

well, what else we got, Jean? Anything?

Gene: 1:30:39

I don't know. I mean, I guess,

Ben: 1:30:41

So.

Gene: 1:30:42

we did a recording like four days ago, so it hasn't been that long.

Ben: 1:30:45

Yeah, I will say that there are a couple other bills in anyone in Texas needs to pay attention to. So there's House Bill 37 32, which is would require voting machines to have a paper trail, a printed paper

Gene: 1:30:59

Why don't we just use paper? What's wrong with paper voting?

Ben: 1:31:01

I, the Scantron machines make the most sense to me, but anyway.

Gene: 1:31:07

That blank piece of paper makes the most sense to me.

Ben: 1:31:09

Okay.

Gene: 1:31:10

You wanna vote for somebody, you better know their name.

Ben: 1:31:13

okay. The other one related to voting, though, it's important 34 49 is related to restricting mail-in voting and requiring some you know, rationale and reasoning for absentee voting.

Gene: 1:31:28

have you ever done that

Ben: 1:31:31

What?

Gene: 1:31:32

mail-in voting?

Ben: 1:31:33

No, I always, I always vote in person.

Gene: 1:31:36

I haven't either. I've, I've always thought about doing it, but then I, I forget about it until the election day.

Ben: 1:31:41

Mm-hmm.

Gene: 1:31:42

But it seems like that would actually be a more convenient way to do it.

Ben: 1:31:46

Yeah. Well, anyway, if this passes in the state of Texas, you would have to prove that you'll be out of state essentially during that time period.

Gene: 1:31:55

Hmm.

Ben: 1:31:56

anyway if, if anyone's interested really good way to keep track of this is legi scan L E G I scan.com/texas. You can, they've got some RSS feeds on the bills and things like that,

Gene: 1:32:10

Nice.

Ben: 1:32:11

so, yep.

Gene: 1:32:13

Yeah, I, I don't know the whole voting thing. And so I was, I think I told you I've been having conversations on TM pool's, discord quite a bit lately. Umm, I'm kind of enjoying it cuz I get to be like the oldest guy in there and then I can explain how things actually are to everybody which is surprisingly enjoyable.

Ben: 1:32:35

Interesting.

Gene: 1:32:36

I was telling somebody about the this, this concept of knowing who you're voting for and people were all like, no one had ever heard of that idea before. They were all surprised.

Ben: 1:32:49

Wow. I, yeah, I, I've been on that bandwagon for a very long time.

Gene: 1:32:53

Mm-hmm. Yeah. And so it's,

Ben: 1:32:57

I, I don't know that I'll go as far as you with a fill in the blank sort of methodology, but I think that removing the d or the R next to people's names would be pretty useful.

Gene: 1:33:07

Yep. Ram, remove the deer there. But yeah, I think the, fill in the blank, it's, it's literally the least amount of effort that somebody should make in, in order to cast a vote.

Ben: 1:33:19

Well, then you have people's handwriting, then you have people's spelling and

Gene: 1:33:25

You type

Ben: 1:33:28

Okay, so you type it in. What about, you know, misspellings and so on and so

Gene: 1:33:33

They don't count easy. Don't have to worry about'em.

Ben: 1:33:38

a lot of people,

Gene: 1:33:38

People can't spell it. Correct.

Ben: 1:33:41

well, you'd be encouraging politicians to change their name to Smith.

Gene: 1:33:45

you would. Absolutely nothing wrong with that.

Ben: 1:33:50

The Vic. The Vic Ramaswami would be

Gene: 1:33:52

Vi Vic is fucked. He he should be Vic Ram. Vic. Ram. V i c r a m. That's his new name.

Ben: 1:34:02

No. Mm.

Gene: 1:34:03

Vic Ram Vikram. Vikram there. There you go.

Ben: 1:34:08

Yeah.

Gene: 1:34:08

just gave him a new name. Yeah, I just think it's a brilliant idea because I thought of it, but also I'm not the first person to think of it. I'm not gonna claim that title. But

Ben: 1:34:17

So,

Gene: 1:34:18

if you have zero test whatsoever for people to be able to vote,

Ben: 1:34:23

mm-hmm.

Gene: 1:34:23

then you get what we have right now.

Ben: 1:34:27

Well, you know, the Tocqueville real, have you ever read

Gene: 1:34:31

No.

Ben: 1:34:32

the, the Tocqueville's America?

Gene: 1:34:34

No.

Ben: 1:34:35

Okay. In there, he, he very much calls out that America will survive only as long as it takes for the people to realize they can vote themselves whatever they want.

Gene: 1:34:45

Mm-hmm.

Ben: 1:34:45

So,

Gene: 1:34:47

That's true of any country, I think. And this is, I mean, you, again, you're mentioning one of the problems with communism is that it, it's the, except it's not voting in what you want. It's using bureaucracy to get what you want and then making sure that nobody can come in through the same door after you're in. And it's just human nature. It's, it's human nature. And in a lot of ways, communist ideas they create a playing field where one side is trying to follow the communist guidelines, if you will. And the other side is just letting human nature do what human nature does. And that's the side that ends up winning.

Ben: 1:35:29

Well, I, I, I think a Texas is an order. I think it's what we should do. I think if we get out now, then it will be better for Texas. That said, I think the US in general in Texas, Needs to onshore, onshore, onshore and build out our manufacturing capacity as much as possible, because at the very least, the dollar may not be the reserve currency of the world. But you know what? I don't know what would replace it. I think we're going to a world where there is no such thing as a universal reserve currency. We're going back to imperialism.

Gene: 1:36:03

Yeah. Don't disagree with you on that at all. What was the currency of Texas? Was it just Texas dollars or what?

Ben: 1:36:10

That's a, actually an interesting question. I, I don't know. I don't know if it was a Texas dollar or if it was a peso.

Gene: 1:36:17

well, next time you're in town will, will have to get together. We go out to the Wizard Academy and meet up with the chancellor there whose great great grandfather was on the some denomination of Texas bills during the Texas republic phase.

Ben: 1:36:38

Hold on.

Gene: 1:36:40

I would hope it's not the Texas peso,

Ben: 1:36:42

I'm sorry.

Gene: 1:36:43

I hope it's not a Texas peso.

Ben: 1:36:45

Why?

Gene: 1:36:46

That would just be, that would devalue it immediately.

Ben: 1:36:50

No.

Gene: 1:36:52

I always like

Ben: 1:36:52

the so-called Texas Redbacks.

Gene: 1:36:55

the redbacks.

Ben: 1:36:56

Yes. And it was dollars.

Gene: 1:36:58

was dollars. Yeah.

Ben: 1:36:59

Yeah. It was a Texas dollar, but it, they were, they were red.

Gene: 1:37:03

would, does it say if they were tied to the US dollar at all or not?

Ben: 1:37:08

I would have to do some reading. It wasn't, I don't think,

Gene: 1:37:12

Hmm.

Ben: 1:37:14

yeah. Anyway. I mean, we could, the Texas dollar could tie itself to the American dollar or not.

Gene: 1:37:19

Or

Ben: 1:37:19

In fact, I think it would be very smart of us.

Gene: 1:37:21

rubble

Ben: 1:37:22

Well, no, no, no. And if the Texas wanted to have stable currency tie tower oil.

Gene: 1:37:28

Oil. Backed oil. Yeah.

Ben: 1:37:32

And anyway, what I, what I see, so I, you know, people are freaking out that, oh, the Chinese you know, are gonna replace us as the reserve currency. I don't see that at all. The, given the history and the way China devalues its currency, you would have to be insane. And I think that Saudi Arabia is gonna be a great experiment. We'll see how long they trade oil in me,

Gene: 1:37:55

I haven't bought any remin, but I think probably as if there's a big drop, I'll probably pick them up.

Ben: 1:38:04

Okay. Why

Gene: 1:38:06

It'll go back up.

Ben: 1:38:08

it show me when it has ever done that?

Gene: 1:38:13

It just did it in the last couple of years. If you look at the charts, you could see that it does go up and down.

Ben: 1:38:19

Okay. Well, I, I think China's facing a lot different problems than you want to acquiesce to. I think their real estate market's gonna be very interesting to see how they try and survive that one with a decreasing population when most of the wealth of the citizenry is tied into real estate.

Gene: 1:38:42

Mm-hmm.

Ben: 1:38:43

So,

Gene: 1:38:45

Well, there'll be folks that are losing money.

Ben: 1:38:48

Yeah. And that typically ends up in regime change.

Gene: 1:38:52

Not really. I. I don't, I don't see that happening anytime soon.

Ben: 1:38:57

Okay.

Gene: 1:38:57

got a good, long life ahead of him,

Ben: 1:39:00

Maybe

Gene: 1:39:01

we'll see what happens. But I just think there's an awful lot of bravado for, for the us which is unfounded

Ben: 1:39:10

I don't disagree.

Gene: 1:39:12

tempering that bravado and acting in the interest of the citizens of the United States and not in the interest of a bunch of multimillionaires that are running the country right now.

Ben: 1:39:25

Yeah. Well,

Gene: 1:39:27

Cuz they're all very globalist. They're globalist from a a NeoCon perspective.

Ben: 1:39:35

Yeah. I, I, I, I think we are headed towards de-globalization and I think we're going into a multipolar war world 40 and slip there.

Gene: 1:39:45

A little bit.

Ben: 1:39:46

Yeah. We are going into a multipolar world now. What that multi pol multipolar world looks like. I don't think China or Russia surpasses the US as the hegemon. I think it'll be regional hegemons. I think that China will have its fear of influence, but I think they're gonna butt up against the Japanese and the South Koreans pretty quick. Russia, I think, is going to have its swim

Gene: 1:40:12

Korea has a very big problem, which I learned about recently.

Ben: 1:40:17

its demographics of, compared to North Korea

Gene: 1:40:19

Uhhuh. Exactly. North Korea will way outnumber South Korea within the next 20 years.

Ben: 1:40:27

Yeah, the, you know, there's a very big technological disparity there. I think what you're gonna see in South Korea, if the Koreans can quite frankly get over their racism I think you'll see a Dubai slash Singapore esque model of immigration come to Korea.

Gene: 1:40:45

Oh, kinda like China.

Ben: 1:40:46

Huh?

Gene: 1:40:47

Kinda like with China.

Ben: 1:40:49

What do you mean with China? China has no immigration.

Gene: 1:40:52

no, but that's what China's gonna be doing, is you're gonna be importing wives, workers, everything else.

Ben: 1:40:57

Yeah. I don't think China can do that. Who wants to live in that system?

Gene: 1:41:01

People that live in Africa.

Ben: 1:41:04

Okay.

Gene: 1:41:06

Well, who wants to live in the Middle East? People that wanna live in India or don't wanna live in India. I mean, it's like if you look at, there's always places that are worse off than you are, and I don't, I don't care where you are. There's usually some place that's worse off

Ben: 1:41:18

Okay.

Gene: 1:41:19

You, you got a lot of different places to draw from. The thing that China has that most other countries don't, is they've made a lot of inroads towards trade and infrastructure in everywhere else in the world, not just the place everyone wants to be. So it's not just, you know, relationships with the big European markets or the United States. They have those, but they also have relationships with all the small markets, and I think that will translate into more gains for them.

Ben: 1:41:53

Uh uh. I think they're gonna have a real hard time, but we'll just have to see how it

Gene: 1:41:57

I think they will have a hard time, but I, I think that the average political pundit out there is completely discounting their ability to be able to do that whatsoever. And I, I think a lot of, there, there is a. Getting to be almost as much sinophobia as there is Russo phobia to where it blinds people from believing that that country can possibly at all win.

Ben: 1:42:30

I.

Gene: 1:42:31

And I'm not a fan of China. I'm just saying that I'm surprised by how many people are not giving it the the credit that it deserves for having achieved what it has and not more worried about what's gonna be happening in the future. It's, it's almost like we need to do something with China. We need to, you know, go turn off the spigot in China or something. Like, dude, China's gonna be in a position where you literally can't do that in this, this whole, oh, American Navy. American Navy. I'm sick and tired of cuz that's useless.

Ben: 1:43:04

Again, if China was a self-sufficient country, sure. But yeah.

Gene: 1:43:12

Well, we buy 10 times as much Chinese products as they buy our products.

Ben: 1:43:17

True, but China imports its food. China imports its energy. China cannot function without imports. The US can,

Gene: 1:43:28

Uhuh no way. This is, this is where I totally disagree as well. There's no way the, the amount of products that don't have a Chinese component in them is probably 1%

Ben: 1:43:39

and this is why Onshoring will be critical. But here's the thing. Our food and our energy is produced here. Everything we need

Gene: 1:43:49

Yep.

Ben: 1:43:49

can be produced here.

Gene: 1:43:51

Mm-hmm.

Ben: 1:43:52

China cannot say that.

Gene: 1:43:55

No, I, I agree. China cannot say that. But my point is that I think when you have a 10 to one imbalance in trade and all trade ceases, the country that is importing 10 times as much product is gonna feel a much bigger pain than the country that's importing one-tenth as much

Ben: 1:44:14

Well, we'll see.

Gene: 1:44:16

cuz any, anything that approaches a military action between China and the United States for any reason, whether it's, you know, our ships getting a little too close to their shore and then we get into a shooting war, whatever it is, however innocently it starts out there it is ridiculous to think that trade with China is going to keep going while the US is shooting bullets of China.

Ben: 1:44:44

No, of course not.

Gene: 1:44:46

Trade will all cease. We had slowdowns during covid and store shelves were empty.

Ben: 1:44:53

Not of food.

Gene: 1:44:55

Oh. Of food. But not because of China, but we don't buy that from them. But the actual shelves that the food is sitting on are made in China.

Ben: 1:45:04

yeah. Here, here's the thing, gene. You're right. When you say if war breaks out between the US and China, that there will be no trade with China, the part you're missing is that no one will be trading with China because the,

Gene: 1:45:17

completely wrong.

Ben: 1:45:19

lanes will be blocked.

Gene: 1:45:21

No, they won't.

Ben: 1:45:23

What's gonna stop the US from blocking shipping to

Gene: 1:45:27

The soon as the US actually blocks shipping, the ships that are blocking the shipping will be sunk

Ben: 1:45:34

How?

Gene: 1:45:35

with missiles. How many times do they have to say this?

Ben: 1:45:39

Please go read a about what it takes to say, get aircraft carrier please,

Gene: 1:45:43

God,

Ben: 1:45:44

please.

Gene: 1:45:45

dude, the US hasn't been in the naval war in a hundred years, almost 80 years. And yet there's this, this myth about American dominance with the navy. You don't need the Navy.

Ben: 1:46:01

Okay, well, we disagree. And on that note, I think we can wrap it up.

Gene: 1:46:07

All right. Long enough. I think we're about two hours. We'll be back next week. Hopefully. Everything going well and you know.

Ben: 1:46:16

as mushroom clouds don't pop up.

Gene: 1:46:19

Yeah. And that's the other, the other thing that I think goes without saying is that I think people have an amazingly unrealistic view of the improbability of nuclear war.

Ben: 1:46:33

Hmm. I think a limited, so tactical? Sure. Strategic. No.

Gene: 1:46:41

This is the cool thing that you can do when you're the, the sole dictator of a country. You don't have to consult with anybody before launching.

Ben: 1:46:49

Okay.

Gene: 1:46:51

So actions have consequences. And right now a lot of moves are being made with no regard to the consequences. So we'll see what happens, but meanwhile you know, we gotta deal with our own problems here.

Ben: 1:47:06

Meanwhile, I'm looking at property in the middle of nowhere Texas to move out to.

Gene: 1:47:11

Yeah. And that's, I think, a better place to be. And. As much as I can disagree with you on America being self-sufficient, at least in the short term I can definitely agree that individuals and family units that are communists can totally be self-sufficient.

Ben: 1:47:28

Well, I'm gonna work on it.

Gene: 1:47:30

All right, well, you enjoy your communism.

Ben: 1:47:32

Yep. We'll see you Gene.

Gene: 1:47:33

All right. Take care.