034 Just Two Good Old Boys

Gene: 0:22

Well, hey, Ben, how are you?

Ben: 0:24

Good morning, Gene. I'm doing great. Yourself? Pretty good. Yeah. How you been this last week?

Gene: 0:31

Things going good. Yeah. Yeah. I think so. More or less.

Ben: 0:36

Good. So you and my mother have something incredibly in common. What, her birthday? No, you both sent me the same interview saying the same thing. Really? You both sent me the Tucker Andrew Tate interview saying Andrew Tate for president.

Gene: 0:56

Clearly your mother is an extremely intelligent woman.

Ben: 0:59

Made so much fun of her for it, it's not even funny and I'm going to do the same for you. But anyway.

Gene: 1:05

Well, it sounds to me like we're in the majority here. So what are you talking about?

Ben: 1:09

Yeah, well, you know, the majority is not always

Gene: 1:12

right. Yes. Well, we're in the majority that happens to be right.

Ben: 1:16

Look, I actually looked that up just to

Gene: 1:18

verify, just turn 35 last year. So he's good to go. Yeah. Well,

Ben: 1:23

it never going to happen. And the thing I would say is while I agree with a ton of what Andrew Tate has to say. And like a lot of what he has to say, I think he is after vapid pursuits. I think that what he's looking at is worldly things instead of deeper meaning. And I think that's his Achilles heel. Oh, I totally disagree. The other thing I would say is that I think the sex trafficking charges against him are bogus in lots of ways. Mm hmm. I do. In every way. I do think he has used women. I do not think in an illegal way. And you know, it's one of those things that

Gene: 2:05

the way that they're defining sex traffic,

Ben: 2:08

I totally

Gene: 2:09

get literally telling a woman.

Ben: 2:13

Hey, come over here and do some work for me.

Gene: 2:15

It's like, Hey, did you cook breakfast yet? Yep. Oh my God. You just sex trafficked a woman.

Ben: 2:21

Yes, I understand that, and I don't agree with him facing charges. I'm just saying, I don't think Andrew Tate is that great of a guy. It's all I'm saying.

Gene: 2:29

It's like, hey, you look pretty hot. Have you thought about getting a Instagram account opened up? Oh, he just trafficked someone. Holy cow. You should

Ben: 2:38

totally do OnlyFans. We could get tens of thousands of viewers with you. Well,

Gene: 2:42

I mean, that's a little different. He wasn't accused of that. But, he's I don't know,

Ben: 2:46

some of the women who are quote unquote being trafficked do have OnlyFans. Yeah,

Gene: 2:52

and that's the other thing. It's like, trafficking has lost all meaning, if that's what we're gonna call it. It's kind of like the whole Me Too movement. Where accusing somebody of rape has lost all meaning because if at the time it wasn't rape and it later becomes rape, it ain't rape. Agreed.

Ben: 3:15

And I agree with what he's saying about being a more masculine man being more or less ungovernable. I, you and I both fall into that category. There's a lot to agree with there. The

Gene: 3:25

guy comes from lower class.

Ben: 3:29

His dad was in the CIA, I mean, him and Chuck

Gene: 3:31

O'Carl, so, lots of people's dads were in, so was Adam's, his dad was in the CIA, and, I'm just saying, a lot

Ben: 3:39

of people, I mean, you called me a spook, but, I don't have that background, Adam, Andrew Tate, you know, I mean, as far as I know, you might

Gene: 3:50

be one of the, you know, there's nothing wrong with the CIA, I said, it's one of the few organizations that's actually operated properly in the United States, You're insane

Ben: 3:58

for making that statement.

Gene: 4:00

No, no, no, no, I can justify that statement. I'm not saying people should agree with everything they do. I'm just saying they're effective. Huh.

Ben: 4:09

So, Gene, have you ever seen the TV show on FX, The Americans?

Gene: 4:14

Yeah, it was a pretty good documentary.

Ben: 4:16

Yeah. A documentary on your life.

Gene: 4:19

Well, it's not quite my life. I mean, it would have been, I guess, my parents life technically, but I was a good show. They actually had some good consultants on that show. So I thought they did a good job.

Ben: 4:30

Anyway. I'm just saying, man, I don't know.

Gene: 4:33

Oh, yeah. You watched the whole thing or did you watch one season? I

Ben: 4:37

watched multiple seasons when it was out. I don't remember what season I dropped off.

Gene: 4:42

I thought they had a very good ending. Most shows don't end well. And this show did not end by tying everything up in a nice little knot and making everybody happy. It was a, an ending that I think pissed off a lot of people. You don't want me to tell you what was, I mean, you can tell

Ben: 5:04

me, but I'll, that doesn't preclude me from watching it. I'm not 1 of those people who, Oh my God, spoilers. Don't tell me, you know, I can enjoy the process of getting to the story. You know, oftentimes people are like, Oh God, spoilers. I don't want to know how it ends or the twist or whatever. Well, if it's a good story, how you get there matters, and you're not going to be able to spoil all those details.

Gene: 5:27

So in the last episode, they, they'll die. No, no. They, they get the, the call to come home, go to Russia. Yeah. And they are very you know, there's mixed feelings in a lot of ways because working for Russia is one thing. It's a funny, anybody that hasn't seen. It's, it's a TV show that was, I thought, done very well about Russian spies in the U. S. And they're, they're undercover, deep undercover. They've got lives,

Ben: 6:02

They're acting like they're native born

Gene: 6:04

Americans. Yeah, they speak perfect English. They've got, you know, kids, blah blah blah. But I thought it was done quite well. I mean, they're born in the U. S., so no, the kids are American. Well,

Ben: 6:16

they know they're working for Russia. They don't even speak Russian. But they know they're working for

Gene: 6:20

Russia. Eventually. But not for the first few seasons. So that's one of the conflict points in the show. It's like, first the daughter who's older. Finds out and then eventually the son finds out as well, but but you know, they're well, I'll, I'll really spoil it for you then. Yeah, so the daughter ends up staying at the very last moment. Good for her. So she stays in the U. S. and is picked up by the F. B. I. Bastards. And the the parents and the son take a, a... And escape out through Eastern Europe back to Russia

Ben: 6:55

and CSB, it's going to be one of those episodes.

Gene: 6:59

Well, he's the, yeah, he's in for a treat. So it's, I thought they did a very good job. And again, it's not like they're looking forward to going back to Russia in the eighties or well, late eighties anyway.

Ben: 7:16

During the end times of the USSR. Yeah,

Gene: 7:18

exactly. Like, this is not, like, they're reading the American news already kind of talking about the, the confusion that's happening, the, you know, with the the multitude of leaders dying in Russia in secession prior to Gorbachev coming in, and clearly their, their standard of living is gonna go down the toilet. You know, running a, a company in the U. S. versus... Going to a, a Russia that is on the brink of a collapse. So, it's it's not what I would describe as a happy ending. I mean, it, it, there could have been a lot of paths taken, and I think the happy ending that everybody was kind of looking for would have been that they end up, you know, like, joining the CIA or whatever, or becoming flipping, effectively.

Ben: 8:08

That would have been my prediction.

Gene: 8:09

And certainly, certainly the father had multiple points of plot line where he was damn near flipping because he was very disillusioned in the Soviet Union, in, in communism. You know, he was like, he, she

Ben: 8:24

always seemed to be more of a true

Gene: 8:26

believer. Yeah, I think she was more as women tend to be, she was more emotionally attached to Russia. To the USSR, really to communism, not even, not even Russia per se, but to communism. I don't think it was cultural for her. I think it was political. She was a true believer in communism being the, the proper proper Russian wife. Yeah, I don't know about that, but you know, she was quite strong headed. She's the kind of woman that when given the order to kill her husband, wouldn't really think twice. Wouldn't most

Ben: 9:01

women.

Gene: 9:03

Heh. They would think about it. They'd still do it, don't get me wrong, but they would at least think twice about it. I don't know. I don't know. Huh. One of those episodes. Okay.

Ben: 9:13

This is one of the few weeks where we've actually talked before the show, so, so, yeah.

Gene: 9:17

Yeah. No, it was good. But Andrew Tate, I mean, in that interview, I think that was the best interview he's ever done because most of the questions had nothing to do with chicks. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, a few of them did, but most of them did not.

Ben: 9:29

Well, there was some level setting you know, there was some, hey, this is what you're accused of. This is what's going on and yada, yada, yada. But then there was a lot of much more in depth questioning and I'm about halfway through it. I didn't watch it when my mom sent it to me, but when you sent it to me and she had sent it to me, I was like, Oh fuck, I got to watch this interview

Gene: 9:48

two and a half hours. People. Yeah, it's a long interview that Tucker did and, and

Ben: 9:53

he flew, he flew there. He did it in person,

Gene: 9:56

which is, and they're wearing the same clothes, which I thought was hilarious.

Ben: 10:00

I didn't even notice that I was just listening to it, you know,

Gene: 10:03

ask your mom but, but they're both wearing like beige khaki pants and then dress, CIA

Ben: 10:12

thing. Yeah. Dress shoes

Gene: 10:13

with no socks, which I, I, I've always kind of got it for that look, the dress shoes with no socks thing. And then just a jacket. You don't like comfort, do ya? No, I, I like comfort. This is why I wear Crocs all the time. Oh God, you're one of those. Yeah, it's the best shoes on the planet. I even have Crocs dress shoes.

Ben: 10:35

Jean, that's an

Gene: 10:35

oxymoron. No, no, no, no. Crocs makes dress shoes. They're leather, but they have the entire insole is a Crocs material. That's the magic part. It's like that cushy rubbery kind of materials really good. I was told by a podiatrist who are Crocs.

Ben: 10:54

I've never worn Crocs in my life. And I don't think I'm going to start

Gene: 10:56

now. I had that what do they call it? Something plantar fasciitis. I think it's, it's, you get a pain every morning. When you stretch your feet and you kind of move your foot up, there's a pain in your heel and Yeah, my regular doctor is like, well, do you want to sign up and get surgery done for it? I'm like, not really. It hurts, so maybe I will. And then I talked to this alcoholic dude who happened to be a retired podiatrist. And I, I know him more as an alcoholic than a... Doctor interesting, but it, you know, I asked for about a specialty turned out. That was it. And of course being a typical person. I started asking him questions about his profession immediately. It's like, oh, you're in computers. Hey, I have this weird thing on my windows 11. I wonder if you can help me fix that. So did the equivalent of that. And he said, Oh, yeah, yeah. That's happened. So he says, here's the problem. Problem is you're wearing shoes with soles that are too hard and the pain, even though it feels like the pain is actually in your foot when you're stretching it. The actual problem is that the tendon that is tied to your heel is having too much pressure put on it. And that is causing irritation. The irritation is causing it to get inflamed and get. Bigger and thicker and that is what's causing your actual discomfort and you should try wearing Crocs And I did that it took less than 60 days for that to go away and it's never been back Interesting. So it was based on medical advice and at this point I think I own about 20 pairs of Crocs different colors, you know, including dress shoes including All kinds of variety things. I even have a Adidas version. Of course you do You know, to match the tracksuit.

Ben: 12:56

Yeah. Yeah. Sorry. I was having a little bit of a sneezing fit there. Yeah. Well, okay. Anyway so Andrew Tate, you know, a lot of his bringing it back. So a lot of his you know, statements about depression, for example, of, well, get up and do something before you decide you're depressed. Things like that. 100% agree with, you know, some of his comments about, you know, depression is a signal to change your life. Yeah. Absa fucking lutely. You're

Gene: 13:21

saying the same stuff that Jordan Peterson does, honestly.

Ben: 13:24

In many, many ways, but without the actual subtextual meaning. And that's... Where I think he fails, you know, Jordan Peterson has expensive suits. He's made millions of millions, tens of millions of dollars, and he enjoys his

Gene: 13:39

well, really cheap. What's that really cheap suits when he started.

Ben: 13:44

Well, I mean, you and I both go to men's warehouse quite often, and that's not exactly, you know, Armani. So

Gene: 13:52

no, no, but I do have an Armani suit. Okay, I don't. I mean, it's not, it's not gonna fit me anymore, but at one point I did wear one.

Ben: 14:01

If you were taller, I'd ask,

Gene: 14:03

would it fit me? Yeah, fuck you. No, no, it's, it's cut for a good lean 265.

Ben: 14:10

Lean 265.

Gene: 14:11

Anyway, the I thought that your main problem with him was going to be that he's Muslim. No, I don't

Ben: 14:18

care about that. Okay. Someone's religion really doesn't matter to me. It's the ethic that they espouse. You know, that, that's, that's what matters most is what do you really believe? Because, you know, people can say, oh, well, you're a Christian. You must believe X, Y, Z. Right. Maybe, maybe not. What, what is my actual ethic? Why don't we talk about that? Why don't we look at that? You know, that, that's the critical thing. And I would say that a lot of kind of

Gene: 14:43

making arguments in that video. Well, you get to him. Maybe you haven't hit him yet. Where he was making an argument for religious people being better than atheist.

Ben: 14:56

Absolutely. But I would say this, not all. Well, not all spiritual and or religious people are created equal. Like I was trying to say before you interrupted me was that, was that you know, there are a lot of Christians that don't agree with me. You know, they, they read render unto Caesar, what is Caesar's and just obey the government. I go, well, my freedom is not Caesars. Right. No, there's a difference between just and unjust laws. And I think that that derivation and that that change in difference between individuals, even among the same religion matters more than the religion itself. So I, I find more alignment with Andrew Tate than I do quite a few Christians. So him being Muslim doesn't matter to me.

Gene: 15:43

Yeah, and I, I think there would be plenty of Muslims that, that... Really buying into his Islam. Oh

Ben: 15:52

absolutely. No, but probably more than not.

Gene: 15:56

Yeah. Yeah But he's an interesting character. I I liked him Fairly early on but I was not like to me. It's the It seems like he was a very, a single topic, at least that's the way he was portrayed on YouTube. Mm hmm. Well, I think

16:14

that's

Ben: 16:14

the way he portrayed himself, largely, to be honest with you.

Gene: 16:17

Yeah, yeah, that could be. But, but the more I've watched the more interviews of him I've watched and the more I've heard of his backstory, the more I like

Ben: 16:29

him. Yeah, he him and his brother have an interesting backstory. I think it's interesting that they chose to live in Romania. I, I think there are lots of interesting components to this story. I, I still don't think he is. At all presidential material. In fact, I joked about my mom liking you know, JFK and the similarities there. So boy, you're really into womanizing. Yeah.

Gene: 16:56

Well, the whole JFK meme is definitely Newsome. I mean, that's why they want to run them because he

Ben: 17:01

has to look and Newsome's coming up in the predictive markets quite a bit. So I'm

Gene: 17:06

sure

Ben: 17:07

he will be, yeah. But so does RFK and holy shit. Did you see Mike Pence commit sebaku?

Gene: 17:13

I did, but I'm not surprised. Somebody else asked me this the other day and oh, it's actually one of our new listeners who I happen to play video games with. But I think he'd be actually really fun guy to interview. Or maybe we'll do a special or something cause we usually don't interview, but. It might be fun to get him and Josh because they're both students of history and this dude and I were talking about how horrible Lincoln was. I like him already. I know, right? I do. So, you know how you're like, Mr. like, I've been in Texas forever. My family's from around here. Yeah. So his family has been in Virginia since before the United States. Okay, cool. He's a and he still lives in Virginia. So he's one of those guys. He's very proud of his Virginia heritage and ancestry.

Ben: 18:06

Yeah, my, my family my family, my line of the came in and I almost said my last name there, but my family came in to the America's. There's

Gene: 18:16

nothing to be ashamed of the Tate last name.

Ben: 18:18

Yeah. My my family came to the Americas pre American revolution. The original settlements was in then the Spanish Feliciana AKA modern day, Louisiana. And 1 of my ancestors wrote in his diary that this was a revolution, not for the colonies, but for the continent. And he was Scottish and had given up quite a bit in Scotland to come over and not live under the British rule. Yeah, I was

Gene: 18:42

going to say, how much did he really give up though? Cause living in Scotland. Back then, it was not exactly a great experience.

Ben: 18:50

It depends on your status in life. Mm hmm. So...

Gene: 18:56

Well, your status is either to lick British boots or to live a miserable life. So which one did he

Ben: 19:01

come from? Well, let's put it this way, his family was definitely those that fought to the better end in Scotland, my family. And he was, you

Gene: 19:11

know, Bruce got it.

Ben: 19:13

No. First of all, that's kind of insulting in many,

Gene: 19:18

many ways. Bruce family unified Scotland. I don't think there's anything to be insulted about there.

Ben: 19:24

Yeah, but, you know, there was a lot of

Gene: 19:27

a little betrayal, but

Ben: 19:28

that aside, well, I mean, yeah, especially if you're going over the Braveheart version of history, but, you know, there's no evidence that William Wallace and Bruce the Bruce met but he definitely, definitely collaborated with Longshanks for a long period of time and that, that would be where that insult would come in. But actually in that war, my family is from the last castle to to surrender. So, we were the holdouts, but no my ancestor gave up lands and titles and everything to come over. And that's part of the reason why I landed in the Spanish, Feliciano, Scottish

Gene: 20:01

title right now. They're on sale.

Ben: 20:04

No, you can buy a one foot by one foot piece of land and, you know, clay, whatever, yeah, sure.

Gene: 20:11

Huh. That's such a scam.

Ben: 20:14

It's like, the, the, the, and so many YouTubers, especially the Guntubers, fuckin went for it,

Gene: 20:20

too. I know. I wanna be a Laird! Exactly. And the statement put out by the I think it was the Department of Tourism Scotland basically debunking the whole thing, no such thing, no you can't buy land in one foot increments here, no you will not have a title. Yeah, exactly. And yet, so many people went, so

Ben: 20:43

the company It's like naming a star after someone. I mean, it really is the equivalent.

Gene: 20:49

It, it is, but the way, like you said, the YouTubers portrayed it was quite different. It was a you know, it's even more on the legit, but the company that actually sold that offer to the YouTubers is a Chinese company and there's a Chinese millionaire who has done this type of thing in the past and had some investigated businesses in the past. And now this is their latest little scam. I guess, you know, ultimately if it makes people happy to pay a hundred bucks, do you have a piece of paper? That's fine. But

Ben: 21:27

just make sure you think it's a you understand that it's a novelty and nothing

Gene: 21:31

more. It's novelty. That has

Ben: 21:33

you can change your name I can change my name right now. I don't need that piece of paper. Thank

Gene: 21:38

you. Yeah. Yeah, exactly And yeah, I've been Duke now for ages jeans. Like I've

Ben: 21:47

changed my name multiple times. What are

Gene: 21:50

you your name's not a big deal but yeah, it's I don't know how we get talking about that whole scam, but oh, Scotland, right, right, right,

Ben: 21:57

right. You went, I was explaining something, you know, long, meaningful and you're just

Gene: 22:02

tangent squirrel. I mean, I, I do think it is kind of, kind of funny though, how America's got such a short history that it just takes a few hundred years to be one of the, like. Long surviving families of a particular area. It's well,

Ben: 22:20

Okay. Yeah. I mean, so I will say when I went to Europe, it was striking the difference in, you know, what is an old building and things like that said the Americas doesn't have that short of a history and what I would say is the history that it has is far more dynamic. There was a lot more happening in a much shorter period of time than most of Europe. I

Gene: 22:50

know you, you like, took a little physics in school and everything, but time doesn't run at different speeds in different continents.

Ben: 22:57

I didn't say that it did. I said that there was more happening in a shorter period of time, meaning there was more conflict, there was more, it was a more dynamic environment.

Gene: 23:07

Okay, did you take any European history by chance? Yes, quite a bit. Okay, because there was an awful lot happening in Europe during the time of

Ben: 23:15

the Americas. And there was awful lot happening for, or not happening for, you know, 500 years during the Dark

Gene: 23:22

Ages. Well, yeah, a lot less happened during the Dark Ages, that's for sure. But the Americans were discovered in the time of much happening in Europe as a result of that. Indeed. Yes. So, I don't know. I would not say that's... I, I wouldn't say that statement. I would say that the Americas had been the center of discovery and exploration a lot longer than, you know, most other places in the world, including the African continent and Asia and stuff. I think there was a lot more freedom certainly in the Americas than anywhere else in the world for most of its life up until now. But I don't know about less happening. In Europe during the last 200 years, that's I don't agree with

Ben: 24:08

less happening of longstanding significance. How about that? You know, there's a lot

Gene: 24:13

of wars in Europe.

Ben: 24:15

There are a lot of wars that ended up being more or less trivial and not. Globally impactful, especially from about, you know, what? Yes. Just go ahead. Okay. Well, you know, whatever my family got out, whatever. I'm not going back.

Gene: 24:32

Yeah. Well, now you haven't been to Scotland either. Have you,

Ben: 24:36

I have been to the UK. I've not made it to Scotland. That is on the list. And the reason why I didn't make it to Scotland is because. Europe does not have domestic air travel worth

Gene: 24:47

of crap. They have domestic flying bus travel.

Ben: 24:51

I'm no, no, they have trains.

Gene: 24:54

Oh yeah, they do have now that might be fun though. Oh

Ben: 24:57

no, I'm not gonna take it. Anyway.

Gene: 25:00

Have you ever been on a train? Yes. In the US, have you? Yes. Okay. I haven't for like 30 years, but In, in Europe you can get some really nice train

Ben: 25:10

cars. Yeah. Well, anyway, I, I was going to try and make it to fly into Glasgow and go make it to my family's ancestral home, but long story short, I couldn't make it work because there wasn't a flight from Glasgow to Manchester. Had there been a flight from Glasgow to Manchester? Is there a football team? See each other? I not a flight from Glasgow to London either, which is just, you're kidding. Nope. I am

Gene: 25:37

not. How do you not? Have a flight from

Ben: 25:40

Glasgow. No. Because they don't have domestic air travel.

Gene: 25:44

Glasgow doesn't have an airport?

Ben: 25:45

No, Glasgow has an

Gene: 25:46

international airport. That's just fine.

Ben: 25:50

There was no flights from Glasgow to Heathrow. Oh my god. There was no flights from Glasgow to Manchester. Which is where I needed to be to get back home.

Gene: 26:01

Anyway, long story. Okay, I'm looking it up. So, apparently all the Glasgow flights are to the London City Airport. They're not to Heathrow. Heathrow is the international airport. Okay,

Ben: 26:14

well, at the time I went, from city to city, when I needed there to be a flight, maybe they don't fly every day, but the day I needed it, there were no flights.

Gene: 26:25

Yeah, and I'm looking right now, you can book a flight BA from Glasgow to Heathrow for 29. Okay, well,

Ben: 26:37

that did not, it didn't work out. I looked, I looked, I looked. So, I don't know, Google flights did not show anything. Yeah.

Gene: 26:46

I mean, I I'm sure something was goofed up there, but well, I'm sure you have more opportunities to go visit the ancestral fish and chip shop or whatever you guys have. Yeah,

Ben: 26:57

yeah, yeah. Actually, it's looking more and more like my next trip might be to Southeast Asia. So, okay. Well, that would be, I got a interesting. Invitation so, Vietnam is becoming, becoming quite the industrial powerhouse very quickly and more than grow rice. Yes. And their, their power industry generation, transmission and distribution is struggling to keep up and it's becoming problematic. So mostly hydro. No, they are mostly coal and natural gas. They do have some hydro and they do have some wind and solar, but the three main components are natural gas and coal, colding the

Gene: 27:39

baseline realize that they have natural gas out there where they get from.

Ben: 27:44

I'm not sure, but they have natural gas power plants. I can send you the link. I haven't looked into their supply chain, but I believe you, but that's interesting. But they're, they're looking at how to build out their grid and the government has put together this power conference to talk about building a, you know, resilient grid, how they can do it, how they can have a world class electric system and so on. And I've been, I've been asked to come talk actually in Hanoi, which is odd. I hope I don't end up at the Hilton. Eh, that

Gene: 28:14

would be hilarious. I would totally love that. I mean, your people have always been going to places like that. Yeah, huh.

Ben: 28:19

Anyway but... Yeah, I've been asked to come talk about how Texas, the Texas grid and URI can be a lesson for for developing countries on let's

Gene: 28:31

use Texas as a bad example of what

Ben: 28:33

not to do. No, no, no, no, no, no. Actually, there's a lot of things that you can learn from that. You know, gas compressor stations not being rolled off it during load shed. You know, obviously Vietnam is not likely to have the freeze type event that Texas had. Yeah. However, you know, that doesn't really matter the systemic failures that led to what happened are lessons that any nation can learn any, any group.

Gene: 28:58

Oh, yeah, for sure. No, that totally makes sense.

Ben: 29:01

Anyway, depending on work and approvals I might be going. So,

Gene: 29:07

Very cool. I've never been, but I've seen. Some videos on Vietnam and it certainly looks

Ben: 29:14

very neat. Well, you know what? It's interesting because had and I was talking to a colleague of mine and in Singapore and we were discussing this trip and, you know, it struck me that if had we fought the communists to a standstill in Vietnam. Like we did in Korea, Northern Vietnam would resemble Northern Korea and Southern Vietnam would likely resemble South Korea, but instead what we have is instead of the entire portion of the peninsula being North Korea, we have Vietnam. Vastly distancing itself from China, not wanting to be China, the communists are very much still in control, but they're starting, because they're getting this economic influence, starting to turn the corner and I see early signs of South Korea in it.

Gene: 30:14

Yeah there are certainly, so Hanoi is very retro looking. For sure

Ben: 30:22

Hanoi is apparently where all the young people have flocked to because of the economic influence and it is a far more westernized city. Now, if you go to Ho Chi Minh City, apparently that is very strict and very communist. So it's interesting to see the dispersion and the diaspora that is happening

Gene: 30:43

is very, very communist looking, but they are certainly building more new Western buildings. That's for sure. Anyway, I sent you a link to a video you should watch in Vietnam. Okay. It's a it's a travel check that I watch videos from. Of course it is. Travels the redhead. But she, she has fun videos. She just came back from Australia and is now in Vietnam for a few months. Okay. Anyway. Well, good, good. That sounds like fun, fun activities, fun times, fun stuff. Let me ask you a actually let me do this.

Ben: 31:30

Well, first of all, did we finish on Tate? Is there anything else

Gene: 31:34

you want to say on Tate? Yeah, I think it's good. I think. Like I said, the more I've seen, like, long form interviews with Tate, where it's not just him talking about how women are sluts the more I like him and the more interesting he is. And I gotta give props to a guy that's done two activities that I did when I was young which is kickboxing and playing chess. And he was a much better kickboxer and a much better chess player than me. I was wondering what

Ben: 32:04

activities we were

Gene: 32:05

going for here. Well, yeah. Well, yeah, I didn't like be, you know, become a multimillionaire in my early 20 or my mid late twenties the way he did. But but he was a, no. He's, he is a good dude. He's got a good sense of humor. He has, I think, done a much better job of not getting all emotional and depressed about the whole situation that he's gone through. He where he, he was taken to Romanian jail. While not being accused of anything and then stayed there for 90 days. They kept him there. Mm hmm in jail

Ben: 32:43

And well the fact that he survived that under as good of a spirit as he did is testament. Yeah

Gene: 32:51

So, I don't know a lot about his younger brother, but he seems to be like the one with the better hair, but

Ben: 32:57

Considering Tate's bald.

Gene: 32:58

But yes. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Exactly but his brother hasn't caught that baldness thing yet. I don't know if he's got slightly different genetics or what, but yeah, they're, they're bad. Maybe it was the milk man. It could be. But their, their dad was a very interesting character as well. He was a professional, professional chess player.

Ben: 33:19

And by interesting character, you mean CIA

Gene: 33:21

show? Well, I mean, he did, he did work as a linguist in the CIA, but he's nonetheless you know, I think most people know him as a professional chess player. And he I have seen some of his tweets on

Ben: 33:36

Twitter. Yeah, Tate actually called out his Twitter in the interview saying it's still up. Go look at it. And

Gene: 33:43

in fact when Musk announced that debt accounts will start getting deleted, he got a tweet from Tate saying, is there a way where people can pay to keep old accounts up and running? I, he said, I still go back to read my father's tweets after his death which is,

Ben: 34:06

Which his father died pretty young in his fifties.

Gene: 34:08

Yeah. Dad died in his fifties. Let's just call it an accident. And it's interesting that there's a generation now of 30 somethings who can, who can read their parents tweets. That just seems so weird to me. It seems macabre. I can't imagine my, either of my parents, like, tweeting.

Ben: 34:30

Well, yeah I don't know, it's like going back and reading a diary in some aspects. Mm hmm. You know, and that's

Gene: 34:38

one thing I I think in aspects, because tweets are very time sensitive. Like they're usually an indicate a very short encapsulation of a thought in time. Well,

Ben: 34:47

you know, one of the things that I have done for the majority of my life, I've failed in the last few years that I've kept a diary and you know, some of the diaries from my teenage years, I definitely don't want my kids to see before I'm dead. You know, they're going to go Jesus dad, but you know, I, I, I'm trying to keep a journal again. You know, for my kids and to pass down some thoughts, especially in this political, what, what really inspired me to start writing a journal again was you know, the 2020 election actually, and what I saw going on there and, you know, whether you want to say there was cheating or they changed the system of voting or however I don't believe that I don't believe that you can say that it was a fair election, you know, whether that be, it be because of ballot harvesting and mail in voting or whatever you want to look at it. Yeah. And

Gene: 35:45

You can say that on YouTube now. Yeah, yeah. They've changed the rules.

Ben: 35:48

Luckily,

Gene: 35:49

we're not on YouTube now, but they, they, at least they've announced that you can now question the election again.

Ben: 35:56

Well, anyway, I just wanted my, my daughter wasn't born at the time, but my son was and I I wanted him to know history from my perspective and you know, January 6th happened and I, I wrote my opinions down of that. And

Gene: 36:09

what do you, what do you need to do a journal for? We already talk on the podcast. That's basically your opinions about this time in history. Yeah.

Ben: 36:16

Yeah, but, you know, more personalized to my kids and, and there's things I'll say in my journal that I won't say on here.

Gene: 36:24

Really? Yeah. I thought you were pretty open on here.

Ben: 36:28

I think I'm pretty open, but you know, there are limits. Yeah, there's always, you know, what if my job finds this podcast?

Gene: 36:36

Well, I've never been in journal or I was, oh, you know, I just knew from an early age that anything you write down can be used against you. So never, you never got into that. Yeah. Well,

Ben: 36:48

anything you say can be used against you too. I never said that. Show

Gene: 36:54

me proof. Proof, man. I'm not even doing a podcast. What are you talking about? Huh. Somebody's using my name.

Ben: 37:01

Yeah. It's, it's just AI. Someone's cloning my voice. You know, there's nothing I can do about huh.

Gene: 37:06

Huh. Huh. That's right. I have a nice baritone voice and that, that guy sounds nothing like me. Huh.

Ben: 37:14

I can confirm that Gene's voice sounds exactly like this in person. How

Gene: 37:18

would you know? We've never met.

Ben: 37:22

I have photographic evidence to the contrary. Oh,

Gene: 37:25

really? Yes. Nice Photoshop. Huh. Huh. Huh. Yes, that's the thing these days, it's actually easier, I think, in a lot of ways, to just blame technology on something, or something being created by technology rather than an actual event. Yeah. It's gonna be more and more difficult to actually submit evidence in courts, I think, because there'll be so many,

Ben: 37:50

Rittenhouse. Written house is a great example

Gene: 37:54

for which evidence,

Ben: 37:55

Some of the footage that they tried to introduce that had extrapolations in it. Yeah.

Gene: 38:00

Yeah, exactly. So that's, that's 1,

Ben: 38:02

which, which the extrapolations were not just that. That's 1 of those areas where if I had been the judge, I probably would have allowed it. Because I don't think the extrapolations were Harmful or changing than necessarily the narrative, but at the same time, the judge took what I think is ultimately going to be the right decision to say, hey, anything that is not concrete fact that has any extrapolation in it at all, because that could be potentially manipulated, cannot be introduced, which I think is the ultimately the right call

Gene: 38:35

it is, but it's going to be progressively more difficult to have things that can be

Ben: 38:39

used. Well, and provably not extrapolated and that needs to be the standards of the standard doesn't need to be. Oh, well, we think this is real. No, prove to me that it is absolutely positively not faked. Yeah, and if you can't prove to me that it has not been faked, which you can't prove a negative it can't be admitted, which means audio recordings, anything but witness testimonies out. And then, well,

Gene: 39:07

I think anything other than third party. Evidence has to be like, I would trust. A, a CCTV camera that is on the corner of somebody's building a lot more than I would trust a human. Remembering something I wouldn't necessarily trust the camera of the either of the people involved in the court case. Because there is certainly a motive there to tweak it. But if you get footage from a neighbor down the block or something that happens to have a camera pointing at what was a crime. I'd like that to me, it seems like, how do you

Ben: 39:51

know that that evidence that neighbor doesn't hate this person and is going through it? And you have,

Gene: 39:57

I mean, that's why lawyers get paid the big bucks. You have to do all that research before you introduce it. For both sides, you have to do that research because you don't want to introduce something that. That the other side can demonstrate to be false. You want to make sure that everything you introduce into evidence is very solid. But even if it's, you know, if what you shouldn't introduce things don't support your side, but of the things that do support your side, you don't want to be introducing evidence that. You know, isn't going to stand up to review in the court itself. So, so, so I was going to tell you that right after we record this, I'm actually going to be recording another podcast with with Ben Rose. So we're going to put it out as an unrelenting without Darren, which I think would be

Ben: 40:48

hilarious. Is Darren still alive?

Gene: 40:51

You know, I'm not sure he may or may not be, but luckily we can put up an episode. Yeah, no,

Ben: 40:57

I think you really even need Darren at this point you you can

Gene: 41:01

Some folks in the agenda social apparently he carries that whole show Which I don't think you'd have a show if it wasn't for me, but you know, it's just me

Ben: 41:10

I mean for the record he does have a few other shows

Gene: 41:13

without you Exactly. Exactly. So I don't think you would have this show without me

Ben: 41:19

Yeah,

Gene: 41:21

so what's going on with you?

Ben: 41:24

Well, a couple of weeks ago, I didn't talk about on the last podcast, but I'm finally doing better. I separated my shoulder.

Gene: 41:33

Oh, yeah, you did tell me, but we didn't talk about it. You're right.

Ben: 41:35

No, I, I separated my shoulder and it was that was a, that was a painful, painful experience. Let me tell you, the worst part was not really being able to sleep or finding any comfortable position, but, yeah, finally, finally starting to heal. And every time I go to physical therapy, it kicks my ass. But other than that, it's it's all right. What do they have you doing? Oh, just a lot of range of motion and then resistance exercises, you know, and things like that. So it was a minor separation, just a tearing of the tendon, not. Totally free and anyway, it's my shoulder's still taped up right now as we're talking. But which by the

Gene: 42:14

way, you tore it up by punching a wall, right?

Ben: 42:17

No, I tore it up by doing work in the garage. I've got tall ceilings in my garage. I put an overhead rack in and then I was lifting heavy objects to put on said rack above my head in an awkward way.

Gene: 42:28

That sounds very similar to how I, I popped my shoulder joint years and years ago. Well, this, this

Ben: 42:34

was not a dislocation. This was a separation, which is where you tear the tendon that connects your collarbone to the

Gene: 42:39

shoulder joint. I thought that's, that's how you Southern people would call it. This location, as you'd call it, a separation. No, these are different places. So you're actually being medically accurate. I am.

Ben: 42:53

Shocker.

Gene: 42:54

I, I definitely popped out my shoulder, my left one like, how many years ago? Probably 30 years ago. By doing something extremely stupid. I was pulling a canoe out of the water. And the canoe had some water in it and not like it had a hole or anything, but I was, I think in the process of getting on the beach, I tipped it over sideways and some water got in it, but I could still pull it in the water. Right. Cause it's floating still. Well, when you get that on land, that water weight really makes a big difference, because the canoe itself was like 65 pounds. It was not, it was not particularly heavy, but the water in the canoe was probably another 150 pounds. Well, and that

Ben: 43:40

doesn't take a lot. So, I

Gene: 43:44

started lifting it, and I did a jerk move, if people know what that is, to throw it up over my head. And while that was happening, all of a sudden I first hear and then feel my my shoulder joint become dislocated. Yeah. Well, and first then I dropped it and started swearing at how stupid I was for doing that.

Ben: 44:10

Well, I mean, it only takes you know, a little over 10 gallons of water to equal a hundred pounds. It's a point what three, four pounds per gallon. Doesn't take a lot of water.

Gene: 44:22

Yeah. Water is heavy, man. Water is dense. But as somebody that was used to picking up girls over my head. It seemed like the canoe shouldn't really be a big problem

Ben: 44:36

now for the listeners who haven't met you. That's not exactly a tall lift. Oh,

Gene: 44:41

fuck you. Tall enough. Especially when I thought

Ben: 44:47

that was a

Gene: 44:47

good one. I thought that was a good pod. Yeah. Especially when they don't want to be over your head. So it's it's takes a bit of effort, but yeah, that was not a pleasant experience. And it took a decade for that to fully heal up, meaning it's not like it hurt for a decade, but I could. Move my arms in a lot of different ways and not feel anything in one shoulder and in this shoulder it would always be a little sore whenever I kind of pushed it to Stretching position or even you know doing a lift because there was clearly some scarring in there So, it was joints are a bitch, man. Joints and tendons heal a long time.

Ben: 45:31

Yeah. Well, and, you know, I I did some, I would put some more stuff on the shelf after I started feeling better and lighter, light stuff, but just that overhead motion. And I went back to the to the doctor for, you know, the physical therapy and the follow up and everything. He's like, Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Fuckin don't do that.

Gene: 45:49

Yeah.

Ben: 45:51

Are you dumb? What do you mean you lifted? No.

Gene: 45:56

Although, what are you doing in physical therapy? You're kinda doing the same thing, aren't you?

Ben: 45:59

Well, yeah, but it's, it's different. You know. Anyway.

Gene: 46:05

I've been watching House MD. Yes.

Ben: 46:08

I'm aware of this. It's a good show

Gene: 46:11

up to season four now and one thing

Ben: 46:15

that it's

Gene: 46:16

repetitive, but it's very repetitive, including the list of prognosis and diseases that they're predicting is starting.

Ben: 46:24

It's never a lupus gene,

Gene: 46:27

But what I What I guess I, I noticed on the show is they're where's that going? I totally lost my train of thought. I was, it was related to what you just said. Squirrel! Oh, don't do that. Right, right. So House always makes the argument that he, he says do this, whatever this thing is. It's usually not a treatment. It's usually a test procedure and then inevitably his cohorts will say, but that might kill the person. It says, well, the best place for them to die in the hospital, right? We can get them revived and right back up. And I thought about it. It's like, you know, this is probably true. I don't think that's just creative writing in the script. I think that probably is how a lot of doctors feel like, well, what about a stress test? Like you've had one of those, right? I've had them. I need to get another one soon. I think their whole goal is to kill you. Push you right to it. Find that point at which you die and then say, okay, here's the limit. Let's not go beyond this. Yeah.

Ben: 47:27

So funny anecdote on that. Not so funny, but I was having some issues as a teenager and found out I had a heart condition. But the first stress test I did and you got to remember I ran track in high school and everything else, but my heart rate got up in the two tens for the sustainment of the the stress test. And yeah. You know, was able to sustain it and go through the entire thing and not tap out. So, no, actually so I have a condition called WPW wolf Parkinson white, and it's essentially, I have an extra nerve in my heart. And occasionally the signal goes down both pathways. So I ended up with a premature heartbeat. Basically my heart spasms during the middle, which causes in my heart to try and compensate for this beats faster and faster and faster. My heart rate on an EKG during an episode has been recorded over 250 beats per minute.

Gene: 48:25

Holy shit, that's, that's dead territory. Anything over

Ben: 48:28

220, you should be dead. You're not moving any blood. Oh, okay.

Gene: 48:32

Okay. So it's fluttering.

Ben: 48:34

It's sitting there spasming and your blood is just, it's not moving anything. So your blood pressure bottoms out and I pass it out. Now, luckily I didn't go through an ablatement or anything like that, like they wanted me to do. And I've kind of grown out of it. As life has changed which isn't common for WPW, but it is what it is. It, it's worked out. But yeah, I said no to heart surgery in my early twenties. Thank you very much.

Gene: 49:00

For sure. So anyway, what would they do to snip the nerve?

Ben: 49:05

So literally what they proposed doing was going in, opening my chest up and well, so they wanted to go in orthoscopically, but I had a loop recorder inserted for over a year while they were monitoring, trying to find exactly where the nerve was. And based off of the data, they had figured out that, okay, we can't really go in orthoscopically and anyway, they wanted to go in and take a laser and burn out the quote unquote extra

Gene: 49:35

pathway. Yeah, that makes sense. Do you

Ben: 49:38

want to do that? Would you? No. Okay. There you go.

Gene: 49:44

I've never, I've never had any surgery.

Ben: 49:47

I've had plenty of surgeries and I don't need any extras. Mm hmm.

Gene: 49:52

No, I just want to leave this body the way it was made. No, he got into it with no extra holes in it.

Ben: 50:00

Oh, wow. I've, I've had plenty of holes punched in my body over the years. Mm hmm. So, interesting story happened. I tried to buy a gun last weekend. Okay. And you said

Gene: 50:15

tried that implies something. Yeah.

Ben: 50:17

So for the first time in my life. The FBI delayed my background check. Oh, here we go. I have a extremely squeaky clean record. They delayed me and I'm like okay. Well, you know, go home. Well, you know, when they say clear, yeah, or whatever happens, we'll give you a call. If nothing else, then, you know, your Brady date's Thursday. Okay. Monday morning. Tell people what Brady

Gene: 50:45

date is.

Ben: 50:46

So Brady date is when you go to do an FFL transfer if the FBI delays you, they have three days to deny you. If they do not deny you de facto, you are allowed to purchase the gun after three business days. I was trying to pick up the firearm on a Saturday.

Gene: 51:02

It's so that they don't use a delaying forever loophole. Correct.

Ben: 51:08

Anyway. So Monday comes. Nothing. Tuesday comes. Nothing. Call up the gun store. Have y'all heard anything and just not told me? Nope. Still sitting there pending. Anyway, Thursday comes. Finally go get my gun. But first time in my life. Interesting fact that I was unaware of until just recently. If you are delayed, not denied, delayed, based off of a recent change that happened during an omnibus bill, shocker, the gun store has to turn over your name and address To local law enforcement, that sounds like pre crime it does. And here's the thing, like, if you're denied and you're a prohibited person, it's actually a crime for you to try and purchase a gun. So that I kind of get, even though I don't think that's a legitimate thing, but that at least makes sense. But when you're talking about someone who is delayed, I don't know that that just seems crazy to me.

Gene: 52:16

I'm trying to think of what would be the rationale for them doing that. Cause basically all that they might

Ben: 52:23

be a prohibited person. They're like

Gene: 52:25

conveying a potential suspicion, which is definitely pre crime because either the FBI is not going to prove it when they do the background. Or they will, and I wonder if they're just backlog, more people buying guns or what?

Ben: 52:44

No. So I talked, I talked to the gun store owner who I've known for years and he said, it's kind of gotten pretty bad. He said at least one in five, so 20% are delayed. And he said the way we've been seeing it. If you're delayed more than 30 minutes, it's for all three days.

Gene: 53:04

Yeah. But that still seems to me like the most obvious answer is just that they're understaffed for the amount of volume they're getting.

Ben: 53:12

Maybe, maybe, or they're in purposefully doing delays and saying to local law enforcement, these are gun owners.

Gene: 53:19

Never, never imply.

Ben: 53:22

Yeah. Huh. Okay. Sure. But if a delay equals local law enforcement now knows you have at least purchased a gun, I have a problem with that.

Gene: 53:33

Yeah. They have no, they have no business knowing that unless you volunteer that info. Anyway. But then again, so does your credit card. They know that you bought a gun as well.

Ben: 53:42

You assume I

Gene: 53:43

used a credit card. I mean the average person, I kind of do assume you used one as well, but yeah. Yeah,

Ben: 53:51

anyway, no, but I picked up another one of the XDSs with the crimson trace on it. Really? You like it that much? Well, Bud's had another sale and it's it's one of those that yeah, it's a nice enough gun. It's a cheap enough gun that, hey, I can throw that in a get home bag and leave it in my truck and if something happens to it, I'm not going to be

Gene: 54:09

that mad at it. That's a good point. I mean, having, I am a big believer for using what you practice with. Exactly. And if you always take a full size gun to the range and you have a small gun that you carry.

Ben: 54:22

Well, and that is a huge difference. You know, if I'm shooting a 1911 or I'm shooting my M17 or I'm shooting a compact a, your grip is different. Everything is different. The snap is different. Your time back on target is different. It, it, those are things to consider. And yeah.

Gene: 54:45

And that, and then also, I think it's important to practice with adrenaline. This is something you've said in the past. Yep. I think it makes a huge difference. And it, to some extent, also explains why we have these ridiculous numbers coming out of police departments, especially New York police departments seem to be the worst. Yeah. In Manhattan. Where they miss, they shoot 80 rounds and they miss every single one of them. Because they're, they're not practicing shooting under stress. Mm hmm. Now, you played paintball, as did I. Yeah, yeah. And I think that creates a much better conditioning than people that have never played paintball. Mm hmm. For maintaining, looking at your site under stress and, and really not letting big hand movements take your accuracy away.

Ben: 55:41

But it's certainly not 100% substitute. Yeah, and anyone who's ever played paintball, especially not without, you know, without pads or really much, paintballs kind of hurt.

Gene: 55:52

Yeah. Yeah. I, I've never played that new thing that all the kids are doing these days. Airsoft? Airsoft. Oh yeah, I did. Did you, how does that compare in terms of pain? Oh, not.

Ben: 56:03

Oh, really? No, they're moving faster, but there's so much lighter. You know, the, the amount of mass you know, 68

Gene: 56:10

caliber water filled projectile, and we talked about how heavy water is.

Ben: 56:15

Yeah, well paint, but yes, and one of the things that I'd water with other crap, but one of the other things there is because you're using a highly compressed gas, whether it be nitrogen or even CO2. It, it, it, it's also cold. Yeah. It's kind of a weird experience. Oh yeah. Well, I'm,

Gene: 56:37

I'm cold mornings. It's the worst. Cause they don't. Cause they're

Ben: 56:40

hard. They bounce. So you get hit by this ball and it's like getting hit by, you know, a super ball, you know, at a couple, you know, a couple hundred feet per second and it's going,

Gene: 56:55

Oh yeah. Yeah, that was the official limit back when I played it was 300. Well,

Ben: 57:01

and a lot of guys try to push that. Yeah. If you get much over the 300 feet per second, though, a lot of the, especially cheaper paint balls would pop and then you'd be cleaning your gun. So

Gene: 57:10

that is true. And that takes you out of the game for a while. And that's why I like the the open bolt design guns, because you could clean them by shooting through them.

Ben: 57:21

Yeah. I I've still got my old paint gun in the garage.

Gene: 57:25

And you had a, you told me once, I forget what, what, which one you had.

Ben: 57:29

Oh, I don't even remember. I'd have to go look. Okay. Not a expensive one. A couple hundred dollar gun. Yeah. Yeah. But I was a cheap high school student playing with friends. So.

Gene: 57:39

Yeah, I was in my twenties and I, I played with a mini mag and a nitrogen with a back tank in the back. So I had a braided hose coming off the tank on my back, down underneath my camo, through my shirt jacket, and out to my wrist, and with a quick disconnect. So the gun was basically, you know, tied to my, tied to my wrist. And I, I just sent the video to a buddy of mine that we used to go out and play with back when we were in high school. The other day, there was a clip from YouTube showing some paintball tournament or something. And my quote for the clip was, This is not the game we used to play. Because what you see in the clip is a dude standing next to an inflated barricade and then using his first two fingers alternating shooting continuously nonstop while with his left hand dumping about every five seconds, dumping another load of balls into the hopper. I mean, that's, that's pray and spray. That's not paintballs for you ask me.

Ben: 58:47

Well, we always used to play in the woods and, you know, we had barricades set up and things like that, but you know, we, we played tactics and

Gene: 58:56

yeah. Yeah. We played in the woods and strategy played a much bigger part than just the massive raw volume of balls. Which were not cheap because even back then, I remember, I,

Ben: 59:07

sorry, the mess. What? Oh, CSB, please clip that for me.

Gene: 59:13

What did, what did they say?

Ben: 59:14

The massive roll volume of balls.

Gene: 59:17

Yeah, it was a huge volume. I mean, there's, Oh, balls. Okay. Hey, he said balls. Yeah. Great.

Ben: 59:27

I'm a child. Yeah.

Gene: 59:30

It was still like a hundred bucks a weekend. I mean, it was a lot of money dumped into those balls. But man, I, I, I was, I remember crawling on my you know, my stomach through mud and sneaking around the back behind the enemy base and shooting people in the back. I mean, that's a fond memories. There's nothing quite like shooting somebody in the back.

Ben: 59:57

Oh yeah. I had some pretty good memories. I got hit in the throat. With a paintball right below my mask and it left this huge purple welt and it was literally just a few days before the hell of a hickey. Exactly. So I go to prom and everyone's like, Oh, y'all got started early. And I'm like, it's a paintball.

Gene: 1:00:21

Cause that's more impressive sounding than the girls giving you a hickey.

Ben: 1:00:24

No, well, no, no, no, no. So this was junior year and. I really didn't care about going to prom. I wasn't gonna go. Just cause it's just not my thing, you know, I just didn't give a shit. I thought you were homeschooled. Last two years were public high school. Oh,

Gene: 1:00:40

okay. It's like, wait a minute.

Ben: 1:00:41

Prominence. Yeah. Anyway no. So my junior year I was 14. Mm-hmm. anyway. Yeah. 14, 10 turned 15. Yeah. So my cousin who, oh, your voice just broke. Got it. Anyway, my cousin was. She had a friend that they were all going and didn't have a date and she was like and I'd love you forever If you take this girl and do it in and like, ah, she's so yeah, you took your cousin's my cousin's friend Okay, you're not listening. But

Gene: 1:01:16

it's like I'm just trying to picture like young Sheldon. I mean young Ben here

Ben: 1:01:23

Yes

Gene: 1:01:23

being the shortest

Ben: 1:01:24

guy at the prom not the shortest guy. I actually, by 14, I was almost my current height. Really? Yeah. Yeah. I stopped growing probably when I was about 16. Huh? Interesting. I haven't gotten any taller.

Gene: 1:01:38

Yeah. I think I stopped at about 12.

Ben: 1:01:40

That explains a lot.

Gene: 1:01:42

Yeah. Doctor said it was all the caffeine.

Ben: 1:01:45

Yeah. My my dad he was six foot in the sixth grade and you know, no, he's, he's six, three, but yeah. Okay.

Gene: 1:01:55

Yeah, and that's I mean, I don't know if I totally stopped, but I think, I think seventh grade was the last grade where I was taller than most of my compatriots. And then by eighth grade, there was more people that were taller than me. And certainly by, you know, senior year of high school I was, I was one of the shorter dudes. But well. I don't know if it's, I mean, I, I was about the same height as my dad, so I don't know if that played a big part into it or not, but, but one thing that, I don't know if it made a difference, but definitely the doctors were not, were, were saying contributed to it at least is that I'd been drinking caffeine since I was a little kid. Like, I had coffee with my parents ever since school. Yeah, maybe. I don't know. I, I, I'm sure there are studies out there that were done somewhere, you know, ethically, of caffeinating children and seeing what happens to them, both metabolism wise and general growth wise. Genital growth wise, what? General. God, you are on one track today, aren't ya? All right, Beavis. Have you seen the new Beavis and Butthead? I have seen a small clip. I'm not a regular viewer of them.

Ben: 1:03:15

I was never a Beavis and Butthead fan, so I haven't watched it, but I've probably seen the same clip that you have where the smart Beavis and Butthead come. No, I have not seen it. So there's a, there's a clip going around where there's a parallel dimension where everyone's way smarter and beavis and buttheads are still idiots. But in this dimension, the version of beavis and butthead from that dimension are actually smart.

Gene: 1:03:39

Wow. Okay. So, you know, the guy who did that still owns that property. I would assume is the guy who did the accuracy. Explains a lot. Same, same director. He I don't think he still does, but he used to live here in Austin. God, I'm blanking out on his name.

Ben: 1:03:57

Yeah. You've got to get Darren to watch

Gene: 1:03:58

Idiocracy. Oh yeah, Darren's got a lot of movies that he hasn't seen that are like America and their cult movies that I'm shocked that he hasn't watched, and that's certainly one of them.

Ben: 1:04:09

Yet he... Brazil's another one. I don't like Brazil. Brazil's an

Gene: 1:04:14

awesome movie. I don't understand that. It's a weird movie. Okay, weird does not equal bad. Okay. So, I don't know why you didn't like it. How many times did you see it? Once. Yeah. That's not enough. I think I've seen it 20 times.

Ben: 1:04:31

Now, was this a la Clockwork Orange, you know, where you're tied to a chair and your eyes held open?

Gene: 1:04:39

No, I probably watch it like once every couple of years. Which by the way, Clockwork Orange. in the theater when it came out. I did not see Clockwork Orange in a theater when that came out, but I've certainly seen that plenty of times as well. Have you ever read the book? Is the book significantly different? It,

Ben: 1:04:57

mm, the book is significantly more detailed and I would say more violent.

Gene: 1:05:04

I would expect that, for sure. Now, yeah, I've been reading Altered Carbon, or listening to it. And,

Ben: 1:05:14

Much different than the TV show.

Gene: 1:05:16

A lot more violent, a lot more in your face than the TV show. But overall, I think the TV show did a pretty good job season one season two suck. I didn't even watch season two. They don't bother.

Ben: 1:05:31

On the book notes I'm reading the sequel to Agenda 21 right now. It's, it's, it's a rough book to listen to slash read slash, you know, look at society today. First of all, I didn't know this until I really kind of started looking into it. Agenda 21. So the, the sequel, hold on, let me into the so the sequel is agenda 21 into the something, which I'm waiting on Kindle to load into the shadows. But it's all about, you know. Worshipping the earth and post agenda 21 being, or now agenda 2030 being implemented and everybody's living in camps and very communistic and so on and so forth. Everybody worships the earth and right now the characters have escaped out into the wilderness and the earth protectors are going after them. That sort of thing.

Gene: 1:06:31

Sounds a little Logan's

Ben: 1:06:32

runnish. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I, I would say Logan, you seen that movie, I assume? Yes. Yeah. Logan's World, Logan's Run, kind of meets Brave New World. Mm-hmm. but also communist dystopia. No, Tate

Gene: 1:06:47

talked about that, not about the book, but he talked about the the fact that all governments, regardless of whether they're on the right or the left, are in the process of becoming more commun, communistic.

Ben: 1:06:59

And dystopian. Absolutely. Yeah. Well, anyway, the the book is definitely worth reading. For me, it's a little difficult just because of

Gene: 1:07:10

English comprehension, I get it.

Ben: 1:07:12

No. So one of the main themes in the book is that kids aren't raised by their parents. So kids go to the children's ward, if you will, and they're raised by the state. And I think we're heading towards something like that in way too quick of a fashion, and it's disturbing to me. There are things like that that emotionally make it a little hard to read because it strikes too close to home, if you will.

Gene: 1:07:42

Yeah, I could see that. I think there's certainly... Echoes of that in Nazi Germany.

Ben: 1:07:50

Actually, I disagree. So Germany, while you had like the Hitler Youth and things like that, where you had camps for kids, number one, that was voluntary ish. You know, there was social status and things like that tied to it. But Nazi Germany actually paid women and men to have families and children.

Gene: 1:08:13

That's why I'm talking about that. The Lebensborn program. So, they were paying women to have children, but not families. These women were paid to have pure blooded... Area and children who would be then raised and taken care of by the state.

Ben: 1:08:34

Okay. Not my understanding. There was a lot of marriage stuff attached to it as well. Well,

Gene: 1:08:40

There may have been programs that paid families as well. I'm talking about the Liebensborn program, which was essentially a way to ensure that there was a, a bigger supply of repopulation of pure Germanic blood. Given that a lot of German men were dying in the war.

Ben: 1:09:00

Yeah, absolutely.

Gene: 1:09:02

Basically you had more women available than men. And so these men were effectively of pure race were used as

Ben: 1:09:11

studs. Yeah, so this book touches on selective breeding in that the authority has to choose pair bonds, right? Who's going to breed things like that. You have to work your energy board. Literally, you have to walk on this thing to produce electricity and energy for the state. You eat nourishment cubes, you know, you don't get a meal, you get your daily nourishment cube very, very dystopian. But anyway what I was saying though, is this book it's ostensibly by Glenn Beck, but it, and he even talks about this in the forward that it was 1 of his listeners that after listening to him and some others and doing some research, wrote this fictionalized book. And you know, he, he, instead of it being kind of ghost written or whatever, he put his name on it to sell it. But Uhhuh in the Forward gives her full author credit, which is, oh, I didn't realize he didn't write it.

Gene: 1:10:05

Pretty unique. I didn't realize he didn't write it. Well,

Ben: 1:10:10

I didn't either until I, you know, well

Gene: 1:10:11

read the book. That's interesting. So he basically, he had a ghost written, but then he de ghosted the ghost. Well, he, yeah. Or it was written and then he bought the rights to

Ben: 1:10:22

it. He bought the rights to it slash gave her royalty and

Gene: 1:10:26

yeah, but, but his name on it. So it would sell better. That's Charlton changing the name of the writer to have more sales. That sounds pretty Charltony to me.

Ben: 1:10:39

I don't know, it seems pretty smart to me, but, okay.

Gene: 1:10:43

No, I'm not saying it's not smart, it's just like, eh, I don't know. I'm not a, I'm not a huge fan of people putting their name on the works they didn't actually write. I know way too many people that have published books that they didn't actually write.

Ben: 1:11:01

Fair enough. Yeah. I've never published a book, so

Gene: 1:11:04

it only takes about$120,000 to have a New York Times bestseller. Only. Only only, yeah. Yeah. To have a New York Times bestselling book that you didn't actually have to write. So it's, and there are a lot more people that have a spare$120,000 than you would think. Yeah. I'm not

Ben: 1:11:23

one of them. You'll get there. Hopefully, I have confidence. Yeah, you

Gene: 1:11:30

know, if my earnings will be able to hire somebody to write a book with your name on it.

Ben: 1:11:34

Ah, those will be the days. Well, I will say an article I got published on a, petrochem cybersecurity journal well it was a chemical safety journal and it was on cybersecurity and process safety in the first month ended up with 500, 000 impressions, which is not bad. They actually made it their featured article. So, yeah.

Gene: 1:11:58

Yeah. That's pretty good. That's a bigger audience than I would have expected.

Ben: 1:12:03

Well, you know, it's a worldwide stuff ended up translated and things like that. And then oil and gas slash petrochem is a pretty big market,

Gene: 1:12:11

dude. That's true. That is a good point. Yeah. I keep

Ben: 1:12:14

thinking. I mean, you've got lubricants, you've got security. Well, and that's the, that's the thing is this was tying cyber security to process safety management and things like that. Well, that's cool.

Gene: 1:12:26

I dig it. I'm trying to think of what else is going on. So, we talked about the Tate stuff. That was the most recent.

Ben: 1:12:35

I still think it's funny how Pence just offed himself. Pence is a tool. Well, so, let's be fair, okay? We kind of glossed over it in the beginning. But, you know, Pence... You could take his statement to say that America is not his concern, or you could take it to say that prioritizing Ukraine over the US is not his concern because he thinks he can do both. So I think you could parse the statement where it's not this Oh my God. Sort of thing. But because he can guy's always been a tool, he's still a tool. Right, right. Totally. I, Hey, I, I, I'm not a Pence fan. I completely agree with you. Mm-hmm. I'm just saying. It's taking a sound bite out of context and not a charitable interpretation. That's all I'm saying.

Gene: 1:13:29

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, there are certainly people that were happy when he said that because they can make, make him look like a bigger fool than he actually is, but I think he is a fool to begin with. So I, that was one of the first signs in the Trump administration that hold up. What the hell is Trump thinking? And we saw that the entire four years of him making mistakes when it comes to hiring people. Well, yeah. Pence was not the guy that he needed

Ben: 1:13:55

to hire. Well, he wasn't, he wasn't. He was the guy he needed to hire to get the evangelical vote I don't think he was.

Gene: 1:14:01

Who is a, who, without Pence, who are those people going to vote for other than Trump? They'd

Ben: 1:14:07

still vote for Trump. I don't know.

Gene: 1:14:10

I don't know about that. What, they're going to

Ben: 1:14:10

vote for Hillary? No, no, certainly not. But they might vote third party or they might not vote.

Gene: 1:14:17

I, I, I'm not buying it, no. They're, they're gonna vote. Pence didn't

Ben: 1:14:23

bring dick. Well, we'll see who he picks for VP this time.

Gene: 1:14:28

Well, I mean, we know who would be smart for him to pick, but it ain't gonna happen. Who? Well, the two people that ain't gonna happen that would both be smart for him is either Ramakrishna, Or Kennedy

Ben: 1:14:41

Ramakrishna,

Gene: 1:14:42

who's that Vivek? What's his last name? Is that Rameshwami? Whatever. I think Rameshwami the Indian guy

Ben: 1:14:50

or the Hare Krishna. That's not his name. Same guy. Same guy. Slightly racist podcast.

Gene: 1:14:57

I'll bet you there's a podcast called that. Cause that's too good a name not to use, The Slightly Racist Podcast. Oh, if not, we should totally grab that domain quick. That's, that's worth checking out for sure. Yeah. But yeah, I think either Vivek or Kennedy would be an awesome veep that would stir the pot even more. And I mean, again, they ain't gonna ever happen, but can you imagine? The mouths, like the jaws falling, the mouths opening on the the libs out there. If Trump ran with a self admitted Democrat as his veep. I,

Ben: 1:15:36

I, he would win.

Gene: 1:15:37

Well, of course he'd win, but it would be, there, there would be nothing more to piss these people off. They hate Trump. But they had, they hate Kennedy almost as much.

Ben: 1:15:50

Well, I, I, so first of all, I don't think Kennedy's going to win the Democratic primary. As much as I want him to now that said, yeah, he, he's polling at over 20%. So if, if if Trump were to nominate him, sorry, I was looking at something. If Trump were to nominate him as a veep. If they get half of his polling votes, that's 10% of the democratic base, right? Exactly. You win by the way, slightly racist podcast. com is available. Oh, no

Gene: 1:16:25

way. Damn it. Yeah. I was going to say, that's too good. That is a great name for a

Ben: 1:16:31

podcast. Registration.

Gene: 1:16:35

Make sure you do anonymous. Oh, always. Yeah. That is hilarious. Isn't that a great name? I love that. That's,

Ben: 1:16:42

that's... I'm so gonna link it to us.

Gene: 1:16:45

Yeah, yeah, link it to us. But honestly, I mean, that's like, shit dude. That's... Almost asking for like a comedy

Ben: 1:16:51

podcast. We should we should consider that. Anyway so I, I think if he, if he were to nominate which I, I think this actually could happen. So one, Trump has already talked about RFK in a good way. He tried to bring RFK into the last administration, but. Some things happened and I think COVID gives him the perfect cover. And quite frankly, RFK's campaign gives him the cover to bringing him in now. That said, Vivek would be absolutely excellent. Vivek is, has said he's not running to be number two, which is what you say at this point. But that's, you know, that's okay. I think that

Gene: 1:17:33

I think Kennedy, either as veep or the, whoever heads up the department of, you know, health and human services or whatever the hell it is, like secretary

Ben: 1:17:44

of health and human

Gene: 1:17:45

services. Yeah, that would be a great, a great placement for him. And that can happen even if he doesn't, you know, obviously Kennedy's going to lose. So, yeah. He'll be available. Yeah. That would be a great, like, stretching of the arm across the aisle thing to offer that position to

Ben: 1:18:01

him. I think Veep is stronger. And I think Veep is a more winning position. Now that said, Vivek. You know, you could put Vivek in a lot of positions and I think Vivek is guaranteed a cabinet position at this point, regardless of who

Gene: 1:18:15

the Republican nominee is. I think the way he's come out for Trump while running against Trump, I think is what Trump wanted DeSantis to do. Yes. It's like, look, you want to run, run, but while you're running for yourself, talk about how good I am. You know, and that's literally what Vivek's gotten and done as well. I think he would be good in either head of the treasury. I would love to see that appointment. I'm sure as hell couldn't do any worse than the last few. Or, you know, something, if you want to be more more of a bull in a china shop put him into Department of Commerce and start regulating the big corporate woke movements.

Ben: 1:19:00

Yeah, there are

Gene: 1:19:00

antitrust, baby. There's been way too few antitrust lawsuits coming down on these big companies and they sure as hell should have been,

Ben: 1:19:09

well, I think the fake and RFK deserve to be in the next administration.

Gene: 1:19:14

Yeah, I totally think so. Now, unfortunately the next administration is going to be a Democrat one, so neither one will be in there. But it's

Ben: 1:19:22

fun to think I think there is no way in hell. The next administration is a democratic one

Gene: 1:19:27

I know I know and it's nice that there are people like you that that are true believers like that. I'm more of a realist

Ben: 1:19:33

Yeah. Gavin Newsom will barely carry California. If Gavin Newsom is the nominee, it's very unlikely that he's going to carry California in any meaningful way. And California is one of those states that splits up its electoral college votes. He'll carry New York. He'll carry a large portion of the Northeast. I don't know if he'll carry Oregon or Washington. I think he and his COVID policies will be hit very, very hard because of the tact he took in California. And I don't see him as a viable candidate. Biden is definitely not a viable candidate and the Democrats are taking him down. I mean, look at the cocaine incident in the white house.

Gene: 1:20:19

No, I think they are taking him down to get Newsome in,

Ben: 1:20:22

but again, Newsome is not

Gene: 1:20:23

the answer. What I've, but he looks presidential. What I've said is. And I, I'm going to stick to it is that unless the Republicans are willing to do what the Democrats are doing, they will never win again because you don't need voters. You just need dominion voting machines.

Ben: 1:20:43

Well, you need ballot harvesting.

Gene: 1:20:46

Yes, you need, well, you could do ballot harvesting or you could do electronic ballots where the machines are just tallying votes that were never cast. But companies like

Ben: 1:20:54

show me some evidence of that. I don't believe in that one now. Come on evidence of what machines telling votes I I so the whole Dominion thing and everything else I That that's a great theory, but I haven't seen any evidence of it. There's

Gene: 1:21:11

a quote attributed to Stalin, which I don't, I don't believe he actually said, because it doesn't sound like anything he would say, but it's attributed to him. I

Ben: 1:21:19

care not who votes. I care who counts the votes. Yes.

Gene: 1:21:22

Yes. And I'm pretty sure Stalin did not believe in counting any votes at all. So that would be, why are we counting to say what is the point the person with the, the biggest thuggery. Is in charge. The guy that, that everybody else is afraid of gets to be the one that runs things.

Ben: 1:21:40

You've watched the death of Stalin, right? Oh,

Gene: 1:21:44

I I've painfully sat through it. Yes. Painfully sat through it? Painfully. It's very painful to watch. How so?

Ben: 1:21:52

It's. Because of its accuracy and documentary like qualities.

Gene: 1:21:56

Yes, exactly that. Because it's like watching a high school production is what it's like. No,

Ben: 1:22:04

it's better than that. No, it's not. So it's like

Gene: 1:22:08

they're using Muppets to portray actual people. What do you think the

Ben: 1:22:12

USSR was

Gene: 1:22:14

like? Well, I happen to know because I live there. Huh. Huh. Huh. So, yes, it was not a bunch of Muppets running things. The, it, it reminded me a lot of Woody Allen's earlier movies. Oh yeah. Because you had the same kind of before

Ben: 1:22:34

he went all pedophilic.

Gene: 1:22:36

Well, pedophilic, before he went serious, I mean, they were kind of B buffoonish. They were, they were treating topics with a sense of, well, this can't possibly be the case. This is ridiculous. A lot of different topics and and I don't think Woody Allen went pedophilic. I think that's, that's a, that's a negative portrayal of, of him. That that he clearly has blurred lines along incest, but that doesn't mean pedophilia.

Ben: 1:23:08

Okay. While we're on the topic, I have a movie review. So, this last week, you know, my parents and I were talking and we hadn't gotten together in a while and we decided to wait. Is this on

Gene: 1:23:22

the topic of movies or topic of pedophilia? Oh, both.

Ben: 1:23:26

Okay. So we decided to meet midway between us. They live about three hours away from me, have dinner and go watch sound of freedom. Oh, sure. Yeah. So we went and watched sound of freedom on a Wednesday night in Huntsville, Texas, which is not a big town and a small movie theater, which was over half full on a Wednesday night, the last showing. Last showing even last showing. So I thought that was pretty impressive. Because a, it's been out a while. It's not like it's, you know, whatever, but yeah, over half full for the theater. So at least. You know, 50 plus people, you know, it's not some big thing.

Gene: 1:24:08

I know it's based on reality. Was it done as a fictionalized version of reality or, or like a nonfiction movie?

Ben: 1:24:16

No, it's, it's dramatized. It is dramatized. Yes. And they, they, they take some, and they take some liberties with the story. And if you watch Tim had Tim on and they talk about some of the differences between the movie and reality and it's good to watch the Mexican

Gene: 1:24:33

dude in there or wherever he's from, you know, a Spanish accent.

Ben: 1:24:39

He's one of the producers of the movie. Okay, okay. Yeah, he's, he's the main guy who made it happen. Now, this movie has been completed for over five years and was shelved. What? You're kidding. No. Disney had the rights. Oh my God. Another company had the rights. Why

Gene: 1:24:53

would Disney have the rights? They're the most pedophile company out there. Again. They're literally in the business of pedophilia.

Ben: 1:24:59

This movie has been completed for five years. Jesus Christ. Who, it. And movies get shelved, movies get shelved all

Gene: 1:25:07

the time. I mean, usually they're just not made then if they're, why was it made? If it was not, it was

Ben: 1:25:14

completed and then show that's crazy. And now comes out and is a, for the budget that it was filmed for a fucking blockbuster total success. Well, they spent 12 to 15 million in producing this movie. And in its first week, it made over 40 million. Hmm. And it's actually gaining steam, not losing steam. Well, this will be over hundred

Gene: 1:25:38

million before it's up. Watch it when it comes to video, but not in a theater. No,

Ben: 1:25:44

no. I guarantee you, before at money, at least theaters, this will have made over a hundred million dollars on a 12 million budget.

Gene: 1:25:48

Yeah, but I think I'm, my point is it's gonna make even more money when it goes video. Oh, absolutely. Because I, I would have no problem buying it to support'em, like if I buy it on Amazon or

Ben: 1:25:57

whatever. Well, I, I think you oughta take some time and go watch it in the theater. So I don't like theaters. Yeah, well, let me just say this. I'm not as bullish as Tim Poole on this movie or a lot of the other conservative commenters. It's not some phenomenal movie. It's not an A plus movie, but it's a solid B

Gene: 1:26:15

plus movie. Well, Tim made a, some kind of big donation to, to him after the

Ben: 1:26:20

movie though. Yeah, he did. Now, let me just say this. It's a solid B plus movie. It's well acted. The storyline is good. It's paced well. It's not a perfect movie. They could have done some things better. But that aside, if you have kids at all, or you have kids that are close to you at all, that you, you know, niece or nephew or someone you love. And you go watch this movie, and you're not touched, you are a dead person inside. Like, if you have any relationship with children, you can't watch this and not be affected by it. Do

Gene: 1:26:57

you go see the movie? Yes. Do you have no problems with the, the rating of it?

Ben: 1:27:04

So they don't actually show... There are a couple scenes that have violence, so when you say kids, I would say no one under like 12, but, you know, well, yeah, it's

Gene: 1:27:15

PG 13. This was

Ben: 1:27:16

3 and well, 13 year olds. Yeah, sure. Absolutely. But, you know, I put my place in the dad of the kids that are abducted in this version of the story and he ends up getting the kids back and things like that. Sorry, spoilers, but again, how you get watching him now, how you get there matters. But what I would say is how he, how his kids came to be abducted and. You know, everything I don't know how he lives with himself, even though he got his kids back because he let something happen to them. Yeah, it was his fault to an extent. It was his failing and man that that's rough. And anyway so, what's the guy's name? Tim. The, if the FBA guy, yeah, well, he was Homeland security, but yeah. Oh, okay. Timothy Ballard. That's right. Yeah. So Timothy Ballard ended up rescuing over his career over 120 kids, which is phenomenal because in the bucket, man, there's a drop in the bucket. But how many, you know what? Here's the sad thing. He's the most successful at rescuing kids of all us law enforcement.

Gene: 1:28:29

This is the

Ben: 1:28:30

part that is that's the terrifying bit.

Gene: 1:28:32

Yeah, the terrifying is a good word for terrifying part I think should be to most people is Just how many people are willing to turn a blind eye blind eye to events

Ben: 1:28:45

like this? Well, it's not something you talk about in polite company. Yeah,

Gene: 1:28:51

because Everybody knows somebody that has done something they probably shouldn't have.

Ben: 1:29:01

I'm not sure what you're getting at because, Hmm.

Gene: 1:29:06

Well, what I'm getting at is that the, the what do you call it, the range of things that are pedophilic or pedophile adjacent is very large. It probably represents more than 10% of the population, and about 90% of people that have grown in powerful positions. There's a, a certain cult of pedophilia and, and not necessarily to the extent of like having sex with kids, but it might be smelling children that falls into it completely. Okay. Joe, it, it's a, it's much bigger than people think it is. Yeah. It's, it's a it shouldn't be nearly as prevalent as it is agreed. So I guess the question from a psychological standpoint is. What is reinforcing that?

Ben: 1:30:05

Yeah, well, so I think we have this entire push in our society right now to accept minor attracted persons and add them to the lgbtqia plus plus whatever movement. And I. You know, no, thank you.

Gene: 1:30:19

And you speak for the movement together. Yes.

Ben: 1:30:23

As a very proud member. No, I, I just, I don't think that's acceptable. I think you're jumping the shark at that point. One of the things that

Gene: 1:30:30

You think it'd be illegal to have a sign on your, outside of your Your store that says no pedophiles allowed.

Ben: 1:30:37

I think it would depend on the jurisdiction. But yeah, I think unfortunately, in our society today, that would be considered discrimination. Yeah. Yeah. I think it ought to warrant investigation. Anytime someone espouses to be a member of or a minor attracted person. 1 of the things that the national association

Gene: 1:30:57

of Marlon Brando look like. Yeah,

Ben: 1:30:59

sure. One of the things that's covered in the movie that I had to Google and validate is when this movie was made, the year over year rise in pedophilic activity, whether it be online or human trafficking. Year over year was up multi thousand percent for years that made it the fastest growing crime syndicate in history.

Gene: 1:31:29

Now, let me take a contrarian view here for sake of argument and say, well, isn't it just simply that we're calling pedophilia now things that have been totally normal for most of human history? So like people getting married at 13.

Ben: 1:31:44

Yeah. So here's the thing. I think we, and I'm going to say something that could probably get me nuked in a lot of ways, but shocker, I do that from time to time. I do not have a problem with teenagers. Getting married my grandmother on my mom's side was 16. That was pretty common in the South back in the day. And I think we've infantilized our children and prolonged adolescence far too long. I think kids are not adults in their 20s. I certainly And that's a form of pedophilia as well. Yeah, it is in several ways because you're infantilizing someone to mold them into something you want them to be. It's related

Gene: 1:32:28

to that whole kink of, you know, wearing adults, wearing diapers and saying Gaga, Google.

Ben: 1:32:35

Yeah. Well, what I would say is my grandmother at 13 was probably ready to be married and was, and had kids and, you know, had a healthy relationship. He said 16. Yes. At 16. Yeah. You said 13 now. Oh well, whatever. At 16 she was probably ready for that at 13. Who knows. That said, today's 13, 16, 17, 18, 20, somethings probably aren't at the same level she was. And that's part of the problem there

Gene: 1:33:09

mentally. But yes, physically they're actually head, which is part of the problem. Girls, these days, girls get breasts at 10. Mm-hmm. Because of all the estrogen in the water. So physically they're actually more mature mentally. They're less mature. So it's a, I think there's a reason why the, that topic of pedophilia has been a taboo for a long time, because it's a very easy to get into the dark side of it. And and I think it's important for people to say what you just did, which is not inflate you know, marriage at 16. With pedophilia, there's a tendency on, I think, both sides that benefits the pedophiles to throw everything in the kitchen sink into that topic and call it all the same thing, which diffuses the true meaning of the word. This has happened with words like Nazi, which means literally nothing anymore. And it's important to keep the meaning of words

Ben: 1:34:20

accurate. Yeah, and one thing I'll say is barring anything like precocious puberty, I don't think anyone should be doing anything with anyone who isn't post pubescent at the very least. I don't think there's any arguments to be made for, you know, some I mean, NAMBLA, National Association of Man Boy Love, that's been around since the fucking nineties, trying to normalize this stuff. Oh yeah, I remember that, when I was in college. Had a saying, before eight, never straight. That's fucking evil.

Gene: 1:34:55

Yeah, it's, it's What do I always keep coming back to on every episode? You need to reopen the asylums.

Ben: 1:35:02

Well, I don't think asylums would help with

Gene: 1:35:04

that. No, they would, because it's a mental illness. And,

Ben: 1:35:08

No, it, it, Okay, it's

Gene: 1:35:10

deviancy. Which is a mental illness. It absolutely is. It's, it's beyond a it's not a choice or preference. It is a deviation from healthy norms that is not without harm. It's not a victimless crime thing. No, it, it, it, it, it is based around.

Ben: 1:35:36

Well, and, you know, even the people and the movie touches on this, who think that they're committing a victimless crime by looking at some pornography it's not because someone had to create that, especially

Gene: 1:35:51

snuff films.

Ben: 1:35:52

Well, and you know, the, the most disgusting thing about this and what people have to realize is number one consumer of this filth in the world is the United States. Oh, absolutely. And I, I, I just, I guess that there's not a better statement on the degeneracy and failure of our society and the late Roman empire status we are gaining than this.

Gene: 1:36:19

You're literally speaking the words that Andrew spoke in that video.

Ben: 1:36:24

Okay, again, I agree with a lot of what he has to say, the U.

Gene: 1:36:27

S. is going through the fall of the Roman empire

Ben: 1:36:30

right now. Anyway, to just kind of wrap up the talk on sound of freedom. I haven't done it yet, but I'm probably going to donate to some of the pay it forward stuff that they have for people to go get free tickets. I think everyone who can afford to go watch the movie should go watch the movie. There have been several instances where movie theaters have apparently tried to silence some of this.

Gene: 1:36:52

Is it more like your thought is to go watch the movie so that the guys that made it get some money, or is it more people will learn something new from this movie, or what's the rationale for watching it, rather than supporting, you know, the movement of getting rid of pedophilia?

Ben: 1:37:12

Well, I think that 1 or 1 and they're 1 in the same. So 1 of the things that the authors, actors and everyone involved in this movie have said is that they want this to be a new uncle Tom's cabin. Now, I have some historical problems with that given, you know, the lack of historical nature of uncle Tom's cabin, but that's neither here nor there. Let's say that they want to be a more accurate and modern day Uncle Tom's cabin, which Uncle Tom's cabin definitely pushed the the abolition movement forward by quite a bit. I've never read

Gene: 1:37:51

it, but I know what I mean. I know historically what it is. Have you read it? Yeah, well, I, I,

Ben: 1:37:55

I have. Yes. Okay. What's your book review show me a modern farmer that buys 100, 000 piece of equipment and totally tries to trash it every day. Yeah, that doesn't happen moving on. So I, I think that the movie has an important message. I think it is. Done in a way that is palatable enough that most people will watch it and come away with an understanding that they would not have otherwise had. I think it's palatable enough that a suburban housewife can go watch it and be woken up and started doing research that she otherwise would not have touched. Also I, you know, they're going to make a shit ton of money off of this video and as a capitalist. I think that's a good thing. And quite frankly, I want Disney and the other movie studios that shelved this to say, Well, fuck, why did we do that?

Gene: 1:38:52

Yeah, there's probably somebody already saying that.

Ben: 1:38:55

Well, when this 12 million, 15 million production breaks a hundred million dollars and becomes a blockbuster, which I think it will it's going to be more profitable than the current Indiana Jones it's going to beat the crap out of the little mermaid and it's got a good message. So, yeah, I, I think that this is a place worth going and spending. You know, 50 to go see a movie and it's, it's, it's a good story. It's entertaining. It's told. Well, it, the movie tears you down and builds you back up in a lot of good ways. There's lots of emotional moments. There's lots of different things. And I'll even say that one of the bad guys in the movie is somewhat made. Not sympathetic. But, you know, he refers to this little girl that he has as my little girl, he's abusing her, he's raping her, but in his mind, it's clear that he thinks he's taking care of her, which goes to your point about mental institutions. Yeah,

Gene: 1:40:03

totally, totally. Did you ever read Lolita? No. Have you seen the movie? No. Because the movie, I actually, I think both movies were very good. The, the second one was better. But you know, the story

Ben: 1:40:19

really, I just know the reference, the Lolita express.

Gene: 1:40:22

Yeah. Yeah. So it's a book by Novikov about a a relationship that a man develops with a 12 year old girl. And he originally is dating her mother, but ends up falling in love with this girl. And then they run away together. It's a psychological it's a very fun psychological book for people that like deviant psychology. But the thing that you really kind of have to struggle with in there is, is that, is there a point at which pedophilia stops being pedophilia when the child in this has. More control and more Oh, what the hell's the word? Like they're the, the mental adult, if you will, like, is it still pedophilia? And it really kind of pushes the boundaries on, on that topic.

Ben: 1:41:33

Okay. So let me ask you this. If you date a woman or a woman dates a man, either what direction, at what point does an IQ difference make it an abusive relationship? Yeah,

Gene: 1:41:47

exactly. And I think that it's, it's easy to just paint it with a broad brush and it's, you should avoid doing that at all costs because every situation could be unique, but I'm

Ben: 1:42:02

asking I think a legitimate question. Right. Well,

Gene: 1:42:05

that's kind of the situation here. And I wouldn't call it necessarily IQ, but you could think of it as IQ is what if a 12 year old girl has 150 IQ and really wants to see what it's like. To control a 40 year old guy and uses everything at her disposal to do so. Is it pedophilia? It's an interesting question because if you paint it all with a broad brush, then of course it is, there are certainly situations where the, what appears on first light to be the victim. In a deeper exploration turns out to be the actual person in

Ben: 1:42:47

control. Well, have you ever seen a God bless America? Hold on one second. Sorry, had to sneeze. Couldn't hit the mute button fast enough that time. Anyway God bless America is very much in the vein of idiocracy and you should watch it. Get on Amazon, buy it, rent it, whatever. You should watch it tonight. You'll enjoy it. It's a very dark sense of humor, but a teenage girl very much. It's very Bonnie and Clyde ish in a lot of ways.

Gene: 1:43:19

You ever see paper moon? No, there's a movie from the eighties,

Ben: 1:43:26

by the way. Have you ever looked at, and I'm going to get myself into trouble. Have you ever looked at a bell curve comparing female and male IQ?

Gene: 1:43:34

I probably have, but I don't remember off the top of

Ben: 1:43:36

my head. So, it's interesting because females distort right around the 100 mark. So there are more females with a 100 IQ. But there are fewer females that have less than a 90 IQ. But there are also much fewer females who have less than above a 110 IQ than males. So men tend to be either way dumber. Way smarter and the deviation is fairly substantial.

Gene: 1:44:05

Yeah, it's interesting. You would think that evolutionarily men should just have a higher IQ than women because they're exposed through their lifetimes to a lot more stressful situations. And so the ones that don't make good choices should die off.

Ben: 1:44:24

Well, yeah, and that that's kind of borne out by that statistic. There're, there're fewer, fewer men than women of average IQ but there are more male geniuses than female geniuses. Right. But there are also more male retards than female retard. Yeah. To use a politically incorrect term,

Gene: 1:44:43

oh, it might be politically incorrectly mental deficients, but it's accurate. It's mental retardation, where it comes from which is something that, that, you know, the definition of retardation, I think, has existed way before the, the word retard was seen as a negative word. Anyway, we still use that word in, in engineering. Yeah, it's interesting stuff, but again, this is not a simple topic and there are a lot of edge cases here and it's not, and this is why I don't like that. You know, painting everything with a broad brush in the same way. Neither do we not have a pedophilia epidemic and QAnon is just pulling shit out of thin air, which is what the media would say. Nor do we have a a society that is completely built around pedophilia and we need to make drastic changes in American. Laws in order to deal with it. I don't think either 1 of those is accurate, but what I think statistically can be demonstrated is that a much greater percentage of the population is exposed to pedophilia and willing to look the other way than 1 would think would be the case.

Ben: 1:46:00

Well, I, I think that there are, so here, here's what I'll say, and I've had some conversations recently on this. Transcribed We are in a degenerate society, we have people who are fantasizing and, you know, the first step into doing something is fantasizing about it. And it, when you look at the online. Sex stories, repositories, you know, of people writing fan fiction and stuff like that. Yes. When you look at toy manufacturers, adult toy manufacturers, the fact is we have degeneracy. Gene, have you ever looked at Bad dragon. No, what is that? Go to bad dragon. Google bad dragon.

Gene: 1:46:53

Okay, should I open up an anonymous window to do this? Probably. You could have said that before

Ben: 1:46:59

you told me. And look at their Rex toy.

Gene: 1:47:02

Okay, hang on. I don't even know how to, here we go. Forgot how you open up an anonymous. Private view, bad dragon. com. I believe so.

Ben: 1:47:14

Okay. But if you just Google bad dragon, it's yeah. That's

Gene: 1:47:19

not coming up. Okay. I'll just Google it. And it's bad, bad, bad dragon. They couldn't get the fricking domain. Jesus.

Ben: 1:47:27

Okay. Bad dragon. Yeah. Regardless. Yeah. And then look at their Rex toy.

Gene: 1:47:33

I'm looking at all their toys. Jesus

Ben: 1:47:34

Christ. So this right there, this being a apparently fairly popular brand and they've got, you know, chance and I'm behind

Gene: 1:47:44

the times apparently.

Ben: 1:47:46

So this is. Apparently very popular with women. This is one

Gene: 1:47:54

I'm not seeing a Rex in here. They got a whole bunch of sex toys, but I'm not seeing that particular one.

Ben: 1:48:01

Hold on. They're very colorful. Yeah. Anyway, the whole point is people are fantasizing about and a growing number are committing what are just used to be called crimes against humanity. Hold up. Did you get the link I sent you? Oh, no, let

Gene: 1:48:22

me look.

Ben: 1:48:24

Which one were you laughing about

Gene: 1:48:25

then? Just the fricking colors on these things are crazy, man. All right. So where'd you put the link? I don't see it. Zoom zoom on the chat. There we go. Oh, so why is the Rex? A dog dig. I don't know. They could have called it Rover. They could have called it something more.

Ben: 1:48:50

They've got a couple different versions of them. But they've got horses, they've got dogs, they've got all

Gene: 1:48:55

sorts of alien stuff. You're looking at the regular shit. I'm looking at the mythical ones. Like, there's all kinds, like tentacles

Ben: 1:49:02

and shit. Anyway, the whole point is this society is falling drastically into Really crappy deviance and that's the whole thing, you know,

Gene: 1:49:13

it's not deviance is everyone's doing

Ben: 1:49:15

it. Okay. I believe in certain social norms,

Gene: 1:49:20

right? But, but social norms are created through a very very egalitarian system. Like norms don't exist in the vacuum. They exist in the population. So if the norms is to have a lot of, Okay. Werewolf and lizard and alien dildos.

Ben: 1:49:41

Oh, and not just dildos, they have a couple of the fleshlights. Yeah, yeah, check

Gene: 1:49:45

out Duke's

Ben: 1:49:46

muzzle. What is Duke's muzzle? It

Gene: 1:49:49

looks like the alien from Aliens. And you insert your member into it. Yeah, no

Ben: 1:49:54

thank you.

Gene: 1:49:55

I mean, this is just funny shit. If it wasn't, you know. If disturbing, if it wasn't slightly to serve it and it's super bright colors, I've never seen plastic this bright. It's like fluorescent colors. It's

Ben: 1:50:09

anyway, so easy deviance man

Gene: 1:50:12

deviance when they have the fake come, they sell

Ben: 1:50:15

that. Yeah. So speaking of deviance, I did think of a really funny joke. Hey, at least they sell condoms, man. Yeah. So you want to hear my idea for a joke? Go ahead. Go ahead. Yeah. So I'm going to find a mother's day out program at some church. And I'm going to wait till it's time to drop off or pick up, or they've got something going on where a whole bunch of parents cars are parked outside and I'm going to get some pineapple stickers. Okay, I'm going to go randomly put pineapple stickers upside down on bumpers.

Gene: 1:50:46

I don't get

Ben: 1:50:46

it upside down. Pineapple is a sign for a swinger. It is. Yeah, apparently now I did not know it. I was unaware as well, but in after sound of freedom and going down some rabbit holes, this is where this leads me

Gene: 1:51:01

upside down pineapple. Yes. I always thought it was just like a little charm bracelet on the chick's left ankle. Yeah, well,

Ben: 1:51:09

regardless, I just thought that would be funny.

Gene: 1:51:11

Back in my day, that was the sign that was doing it. Okay, well, and I sent you a link to that other thing they have there. Where'd you send it? Well, to the appropriate place where messages are auto deleted every 30 days. Not to my company, zoom for fuck's sake, man, I have to go and prune that manually. I didn't even think about that.

Ben: 1:51:36

Huh.

Gene: 1:51:37

Send me pornographic shit to my business. Jesus. The woman who gave birth for Hitler. That was the first one that I was talking about that Oh, I sent it to the wrong person, great. Oh, that's even better. This is the link I just sent to somebody else.

Ben: 1:51:55

I'm sorry, that's so funny. What did

Gene: 1:52:00

you send it to? I'm writing an explanation message now, great. This is great. Listen to the podcast to get the full reference.

Ben: 1:52:10

Huh. Huh. The only way it would be funnier is if it was, like, to your mom.

Gene: 1:52:15

Yeah, no, my mom's dead. That would not be funny. That would be scary. But yeah, it's, it's a man, I do like the color palette. These guys will say that it is very impressive. Such a great,

Ben: 1:52:30

we know it we know where so, CSB, which bets do you think on which toy jeans currently putting in his cart? I'm

Gene: 1:52:37

not putting any toys in my car. That's ridiculous. You don't spend money on shit like that unless you're giving it as a gift.

Ben: 1:52:43

Anyway, I'm just saying the fact that some of these so the fantasy ones actually bug me less than the somewhat anatomically

Gene: 1:52:53

correct. Really? The fantasy ones

Ben: 1:52:55

are insane, man. There's some crazy shit there. Okay, so it's crazy, but it's not real. I mean, devil's foot. Okay, I think a, again, I, you have to be a very perverted person to use any of these. There's not one of these that is normal. But to be fair, to

Gene: 1:53:09

be fair. There are plenty of people that use the real thing and not a fake dildo of something as well. And I think that's why the dildos are probably a little more sane than the ones that are doing the

Ben: 1:53:23

actual things. Well, and that's my point and this is when we think of the degeneracy And we think of things like Sound of Freedom and everything else. There's this whole other side of suburbia that is full of this sort of shit It is

Gene: 1:53:41

a problem. Tell me about it. I've gotten several times. I've gotten by accident. My neighbor's Amazon deliveries and dildos. Yep. I think most

Ben: 1:53:53

people. Here, here, here's the question. Is your neighbor a female or a male?

Gene: 1:54:00

Yeah. Well, they tend to be couples. So, you know, most

Ben: 1:54:04

people, you know, Hey let me just say, there's no, no shame in sex toys.

Gene: 1:54:08

No shame in having a dog penis be utilized by a

Ben: 1:54:11

couple. Well, that that's a little different. Okay. Right. So if you've got a dildo, normal one vibrator, a plug. Beads, whatever restraints, I don't care. And I don't really care if you have any of these toys, but I think it says something about you if you do.

Gene: 1:54:31

Yeah, it's interesting. I don't know. I, I think that there's definitely been a, a shift in acceptability and what is cultural norms. Like I said one of the things

Ben: 1:54:41

I've noticed, my point is you're shifting into degeneracy of, you know, we're

Gene: 1:54:46

shifting into like, we're running out of things that are taboo is what's happening. And we're constantly having to move in the opposite direction. Like one thing I noticed, I don't know if you've noticed this or not how much time you spend on porn websites, but probably about five, six years ago, the amount of new, newly created porn videos on the topic of incest, brother, sister. Step step father, step daughter, thing, step mother, step son, whatever has gone insane. It's probably up a thousand percent in terms of production. It used to be a very narrow Nietzsche market that was not particularly

Ben: 1:55:35

popular. Same thing with the cuckolding stuff too. The

Gene: 1:55:38

cuckolding stuff was about 10, 12 years ago, I think, maybe even 15 the

Ben: 1:55:43

same trend. Yeah, yeah. Like, and what you see in porn, you end up seeing in real life, which is the problem. Eh, yeah.

Gene: 1:55:50

Well, but which leads though? That's the question. Because you could argue that, that porn just reflects the desires that people have. It

Ben: 1:55:58

doesn't create them. But I think when you see mainstream production companies, whether it be pornographic or otherwise doing something, they're driven by profit

Gene: 1:56:05

alone, they're not, they're not trying to push it. They're trying to do what sells. Yes, exactly. The real question is why does incest sell a lot more? Well, is it only because of Game

Ben: 1:56:18

of Thrones? No, I, so first of all, I think they tout the line between incest and step family very tightly. Yeah,

Gene: 1:56:27

I mean, yeah, they always mention at some point in the video that they're not actually related, but what the fuck's the difference? It's the same shit. You accused Woody Allen of pedophilia. Well, the, you know, the guy married his stepdaughter, but that's not pedophilia. It's not even incest. Okay.

Ben: 1:56:45

How old was she? 20? No, no, no. When their relationship started. 18? No.

Gene: 1:56:54

Yeah? According to her

Ben: 1:56:57

there.

Gene: 1:56:57

Yeah. Yeah. Okay. I'm not gonna believe me in this Mia is a liar like all women Women lie that that they're genetically programmed to do that because there's a Advantage to females line and it's been reinforced for millennia

Ben: 1:57:16

Many millennia. Okay. Well, I'm, I'm not gonna argue the point too much here, but my, my point is he knew the girl well before she was. Oh yeah. Well, he was stepdad. Yeah. Yeah. And to believe that nothing even remotely inappropriate happened until after she was 18.

Gene: 1:57:37

Well, a. We don't know. That's a good point. So may not have to or be you know, they ended up getting married. So clearly they're feeling feeling is mutual. He doesn't trick her and see you don't really know which of those two was pushing towards that. And like I said, if you haven't read the book or you haven't watched the movie, either read the book or watch the movie Lolita, Lolita, you know, To get a very interesting perspective where you start the story off assuming this. You know, dumb, poor girl that's getting, getting taken advantage of. And by the end of the book, you're feeling sorry for the guy. Oh, and I guess I'd be curious to see if you are as well. I certainly was feeling sorry for the guy, the main character. But it's in fact, there was a a stripper that I dated for a while that really reminded me of that attitude. She's extremely intelligent, probably got 140 IQ. But.

Ben: 1:58:38

Let me ask you this, because you're not the only one of my friends who has dated a stripper. In fact, there was a friend of mine in college that dated a stripper. I never understood why the hell he would date a stripper. Yeah. Because it's like, you, let's, let's say she is. As clean and as uptight of a stripper as possible. She's not, you know, going back into the champagne room or doing any of that. She's just out there doing her dance. Maybe a few lap dances here or there. Your girlfriend, significant other is literally enticing other men for a living. Why is that acceptable to you? Well, two things.

Gene: 1:59:20

One was she wasn't stripping while we were dating. Huh. The other is. Well, while I was dating her, I was dating another chick and we had threesomes. So do you need more details or is that sufficient enough for you as to why I was dating

Ben: 1:59:35

his tour? I mean, as long as you weren't serious about the girl, then sure. Hey, I, I took my, my college buddy ended up marrying her. So he gets what

Gene: 1:59:43

he gets. Yeah. He gets what he gets on that. Absolutely. No, no, I had fun with her. I took her out to celebrate her 21st birthday.

Ben: 1:59:51

You know,

Gene: 1:59:52

I was in my forties, which is appropriate. If we look at historical age differences between men and women. So, you know, and, and, and I'm sure in some people's eyes, it was like, Oh my God, you're a pedophile. And I was like, no, dude, she was 20 when I was dating her. That's not, that's not even close to a difference there. But she was a very interesting chick. I really liked her. I, I parted on good terms with her. And but she, man, she knew how to lie. She was so good at lying. She was very, very good at being manipulative. And these are things that make earning money as a stripper much better.

Ben: 2:00:33

Well,

Gene: 2:00:35

yeah, but, but I think there's a difference when you're, you know, going into it with both eyes open. Yeah. Yeah.

Ben: 2:00:41

And again, if you're going in to just date and have fun or whatever, it's not

Gene: 2:00:44

falling over your heels. It's just like, yeah, I like this chick. She's hot. Let's go have some fun.

Ben: 2:00:53

So, you know what, Jean, you know, one of our problems, I think with the podcast is. What's that? So we start off and we're chit chatting and we're, you know, whatever, nothing, nothing super interesting. And then here at the last, we probably give an hour of some actually really fucking good and compelling content and other than CSB, I don't know who gets to it. So,

Gene: 2:01:15

yeah, no, I think people do listen. The difference is CSB actually makes clips.

Ben: 2:01:19

Yes, he does. So

Gene: 2:01:21

good on him. And he also let's me know when my my what you would call a Bitcoin thing isn't working.

Ben: 2:01:29

Yeah. Well, he, he also let me know you are lower volume than than Jean talking

Gene: 2:01:34

to Mike Vetter. Okay. So that was my fault. I was gonna say level setting, I'll admit to it because on that episode that he's referring to mm-hmm. I neglected to do the normal normalization step. Mm-hmm. Which bounces the volume between our voices, so. Gotcha. You don't sound like you're low volume, but I think you are a slightly lower volume baseline, but normally in the course of creating the episode, I normalize the sound levels so that they're on the same level. Right. I forgot to do that.

Ben: 2:02:07

Which I, I am bad. I've got a, you know, re re three 20 is the microphone I use, which means I'm about a fist away from it and I need to talk directly into the diaphragm and I'm bad about turning my head slightly or doing this or that. I am bad about that, but generally, literally the mic sits between me and my computer monitor and it's on a stand right here, pointed directly at my mouth, about a fist away,

Gene: 2:02:34

half a fist away. I don't talk like I don't touch my lips to the mic, but it is, yeah, it was probably half a fist. It's

Ben: 2:02:42

well, I'm, I'm a little more worried about plosives than you are because I don't do the big foam ball or anything. Oh, if you got

Gene: 2:02:48

the foam ball, you wouldn't need to worry about the plosives, right? But I don't

Ben: 2:02:51

have the foam ball. It's like 12 bucks on

Gene: 2:02:53

Amazon. I don't

Ben: 2:02:54

like the foam ball. Why don't you like the foam ball? Because it reminds

Gene: 2:02:58

me of your goddamn mic. Jesus Christ. I'm actually one of those people that buys technical equipment based on how it looks.

Ben: 2:03:05

No, no, no. I, well, first of all, the re three 20 is a sexy microphone.

Gene: 2:03:09

It is very phallic. It is extreme. You're you're you're waiting. You're sending me to a dildo website. You're talking about how sexy your microphone is. Hold on, Ben. Maybe, maybe we're getting to something in this session. Can we delve deeper next time we have our session? Oh, wait, did you not realize that you've been counseling this whole time?

Ben: 2:03:30

Yeah, right, right, right.

Gene: 2:03:31

Huh. Oh my God. Well, and with this, we're going to wrap up because I literally in two minutes have to start another podcast recording. Yeah, you are more than welcome to be on it.

Ben: 2:03:41

You can be late for Ben Rose.

Gene: 2:03:44

If I'm late for Ben Rose, he's going to wait two minutes and then hang up and say, no, you never showed. All right, man. You know how he is. I mean, I don't

Ben: 2:03:53

know. All right, guys, so we'll be,

Gene: 2:03:55

we'll be back. I, I met him once. I had a sushi lunch with him like a year and a half ago. Yeah, well,

Ben: 2:04:02

you know, apparently he's a dude named Ben. I'm actually a dude named Ben. So

Gene: 2:04:05

you are a dude named Ben. He is, he would definitely argue that he's a dude named Ben, but I would say he's been ish as a former dude named Ben. I would say he, he worked for Microsoft for many years. But he was in product testing, quality control.

Ben: 2:04:24

Mm. Yeah, so I've actually been for the majority of my career in, you know, actual actual company infrastructure and cybersecurity and mm-hmm. Doing not policy work, but actual technical work. Yeah, technical work. Exactly. So yeah. Still to this day

Gene: 2:04:43

do a lot of stuff in advising. He does the audit program and he's. Definitely a a hobby developer, kind of like I am like game mods. He's, he, he's a lot more comfortable, frankly, in like scripting shit, like Perl.

Ben: 2:04:59

Well, let's wrap up so you can go to that. I will, I will close this out with an ask to our listeners, because I think we could use a few more. If you made it this far in the episode and you enjoyed any of this you know, what CSB is doing about clips. If someone could do it a little more seriously on some of the good topics and put them out there on no agenda, social for us, or just, you know, hit somebody in the mouth for us or

Gene: 2:05:20

Twitter platform. It has more than 10, 000 users.

Ben: 2:05:25

Yeah, well, let's start with what's close to home, but anyway, regardless recommend it to your friends. If you enjoy the conversation more than doing anything else, putting that word of mouth out there will help us. We'd appreciate it.

Gene: 2:05:38

All right. And with that, I will see you uh, next week. next week.