055 Just Two Good Old Boys

Gene: 0:22

How are you today, Ben?

Ben: 0:24

Oh, Gene, I'm doing pretty good. You know, better than better than the Biden administration right now.

Gene: 0:30

Hmm, well, there's so much shit going on right now.

Ben: 0:34

Yeah, you saw the Biden administration decided to stop LNG exports.

Gene: 0:38

I did see that. That seems

Ben: 0:40

Fuck Europe,

Gene: 0:42

I mean, fuck Europe by way of fucking Texas, sounds like.

Ben: 0:46

yeah, and I, for the record, I'm like kicking off and starting a big LNG liquefaction facility project, like next week.

Gene: 0:57

Like for work.

Ben: 0:58

Yes, so this is a very interesting timing,

Gene: 1:01

Yeah, yeah,

Ben: 1:02

but we'll see if that project continues.

Gene: 1:07

Yeah, it sure seems very coincidental that something that affects Texas more than any other state would all of a sudden come out of an executive order from Biden.

Ben: 1:19

Yeah, Texas and Louisiana, but yes,

Gene: 1:22

Yeah, but I mean, no one cares about Louisiana, let's be real.

Ben: 1:26

people who live in Louisiana do,

Gene: 1:28

Yes, but pretty much nobody else. Nobody watching them cares about Louisiana. They just think of it as a place to go party on Mardi Gras and that's about it.

Ben: 1:39

that and quite a bit of refining capacity. I

Gene: 1:42

Mm-Hmm.

Ben: 1:42

mean, Texas and Louisiana account for probably over 50 percent of their refining capacity.

Gene: 1:48

Yep. But they don't care about that. I mean, if anything they wanna shut down refining capacity'cause it's bad for Mother Earth.

Ben: 1:57

And that's the argument that the Biden administration is using is that this is to fight climate change by banning LNG exports.

Gene: 2:07

Now tell me Ben is LNG an

Ben: 2:09

burn coal?

Gene: 2:10

right? That's what I was gonna say. So LNG is a super dirty fuel, is that correct?

Ben: 2:15

No, it's actually a super clean field.

Gene: 2:18

You need all kinds of expect expensive cleaning equipment to burn algae. Right? You couldn't possibly just burn that out in the open. Right.

Ben: 2:25

I mean, you know, people do it every day in their houses with those evil gas stoves that they want to

Gene: 2:30

Oh, that's right. They want to ban those as well. Hmm. So they want to ban exporting and they want to ban the use of that gas in the United States. Huh?

Ben: 2:41

Sure. It sounds like it. And you know, this is one of those things that this is, this is one of those straws added to the camel's back. That's getting pretty close to that breaking point, man. So we we've all heard about what's going on at the border and everything else. And it is. At what point do you just say, okay. You know, it's time to do something different. And I, I don't know, man. I know there are a lot of naysayers out there. A lot of people who I talked to who, Oh, it'll never get there. It'll never do that. Biden will never nationalize the guard. He couldn't, he wouldn't do that. We will see.

Gene: 3:27

I don't see why he wouldn't.

Ben: 3:30

I mean, he would have to nationalize several states guard at this point.

Gene: 3:36

Yeah. The some of the rational I've heard is he, first of all, he can't nationalize the guard without the governor's permission. I think there's some

Ben: 3:45

War Powers Act but

Gene: 3:47

a war powers act gives him 60 days until Congress either calls a war

Ben: 3:53

Yeah,

Gene: 3:54

or doesn't. And unless the the, the house is completely run by the right o's, that ain't going to happen.

Ben: 4:05

But here's the thing if he does use the War Powers Act, he would literally be legitimizing and justifying what Abbott is doing he would have to recognize the quote unquote invasion at the southern border

Gene: 4:21

I don't think that's what the, if, if he uses the war powers act, it's not going to be based around the invasion of the United States.

Ben: 4:28

then what

Gene: 4:28

going to be a base, a war with the Hooties.

Ben: 4:33

that requires Texas National Guard to

Gene: 4:36

Oh, he's going to send all the national guard of the red states there. Might as well. Right. Get rid of those,

Ben: 4:43

see what happens

Gene: 4:44

that votes conservative.

Ben: 4:46

happens

Gene: 4:47

Yeah. But what would happen? Cause I mean, we've been saying, see what happens for a long time. And so far, nothing's happened.

Ben: 4:52

Yeah I don't know, we'll

Gene: 4:53

I'm still waiting for something to happen. And so far nothing's happening now. Maybe something will

Ben: 4:59

few, a few hundred thousand people gonna be showing up at the border.

Gene: 5:02

Yeah. Yeah. I'm going to be down there.

Ben: 5:04

Yeah, you and Adam.

Gene: 5:06

but we're going to be a minority compared to the to the Chinese crossing that border.

Ben: 5:11

Look, I am no statist, and I am actually for pretty, you know, open and liberal immigration laws in lots of ways. But what is happening is Absolute insanity. The Biden administration pushing people to cross. You know, if you are seeking asylum, go to a port of entry,

Gene: 5:36

Yeah.

Ben: 5:37

seek asylum. That's not what's happening.

Gene: 5:40

And something I read recently, or so I video on, I guess, is it's, it's yes, the Biden administration is, but. It's also very much the UN that is doing this. The UN literally has a campaign to advertise and provide funds for transportation of people all over the world to come to Northern Mexico. This is a UN program,

Ben: 6:07

Mm hmm. Well,

Gene: 6:10

which incidentally we pay for the biggest chunk of the UN.

Ben: 6:14

yeah. And you know, I hate to say it, but the John Burgers were right a long time ago saying, get us out of the U. N. Defund the U. N.

Gene: 6:23

Whoever that is. Yeah, I agree with that. So. There's a, it's, it can't even be called a conspiracy theory because it's so out in the open, but I would say there's a very coordinated effort to have a, an invasion of the United States by foreign powers for nefarious reasons, whatever those reasons are. That has little to nothing to do with refugees because I've never seen a genuine refugee caravan you know, a refugee line, if you will, that does not include women and children.

Ben: 7:08

And,

Gene: 7:09

every natural disaster that happens, every start of a war in Africa, we see some refugees crossing into neighboring countries. All of those videos, Africa, Asia, South America, you name it, they all have mostly women and children with a few men. What we see is the exact opposite of that. We see mostly men in their 20s, some in their early 30s, with very few women and even fewer children. That's not a refugee crisis, this is an invasion. Mm

Ben: 7:46

yeah I think a big portion of it is you have a lot of bankers and a lot of their People who, you know, love him or hate him really buy into what Zehan has said

Gene: 8:01

hmm.

Ben: 8:02

and they are trying to shift the American demographics. In a way that they think will be favorable long term economically and politically, because, you know, you bring in people from countries that have a lot more corruption historically and have more issues here or there or authoritarianism is nothing new or their system of laws as such that they're much more willing to capitulate and just go along. That's nothing but good for our overlords. They don't care about you and I. They don't care about the American people. They, they think that this will be a better surf class to rule

Gene: 8:44

Exactly. And, and there seems to be more more people posting about the likelihood of Biden dropping out after the primary seasons due to health issues and putting forth Mike

Ben: 9:02

2020!

Gene: 9:03

As a replacement post all the primary so that, and no other Democrats can get in there because this choice has already been made.

Ben: 9:11

Yeah, that makes complete sense to me.

Gene: 9:14

Yeah. And, and I, I have to say are, when did the American people decide that they enjoy being feudal serfs? Because we had Papa Bush, we had Bush Jr. We had obviously Clinton and then Clinton's wife.

Ben: 9:36

Cousin Billy

Gene: 9:37

she was going to run and you know, everybody thought she was going to be in charge and now we've had Obama and now they're talking about Obama's wife, right? What, how is this something that America is okay with?

Ben: 9:53

I mean, it kind of started with John Adams and Quincy Adams, but you know, hey.

Gene: 9:58

Yeah, no, that's true. And I think that John Quincy Adams from what I recollect was a one termer. And he he ended up going back to the house of representatives after being president because he was not all that popular with the electorate.

Ben: 10:13

Yeah, and, you know, I, there are parts of John Adams that I like a lot some of his speeches and everything are very quotable, but when you actually look at his politics and what he did as both president and as a founder, he's right up there with Madison as far as being an absolute status duck,

Gene: 10:31

Mm hmm.

Ben: 10:31

you know, just not, not people I'm very fond of.

Gene: 10:36

Yeah. Meanwhile, they're removing statues of Jefferson from New York.

Ben: 10:41

Yeah, that was that was, how did, I just don't understand how you can justify removing something like that. That's been there for, you know, over a hundred years has

Gene: 10:59

think it's pushing 200 years.

Ben: 11:01

yeah, exactly. From a historical standpoint, put a plaque saying, Hey, he was a slave holder that raped his slaves, which I think is bullshit, but you know, whatever.

Gene: 11:11

Yeah, they liked it.

Ben: 11:13

He, you know, just say whatever nasty thing you want to say about him, but why would you remove?

Gene: 11:20

Mm hmm. Good, because replacing history is part of their plan.

Ben: 11:25

And it's, it's mental illness in that you cannot abide anything, quote unquote, triggering. You cannot abide anything that upsets you. It's akin to violence

Gene: 11:39

should upset

Ben: 11:40

Yes, it's akin to violence for these people.

Gene: 11:42

Oh, it is violence as far as they're concerned, but this is the great, the great irony here is that none of these things upset these people until they were told that they needed to be upset about them. It's a, it's a struggle session type scenario which happens in China and it certainly, there's a version of it that happened in communist Russia as well. Where effectively there, it was a reinforcement of what the state wanted you to dislike as being shown as being bad and evil for you. It's the same thing that's happening in North Korea right now, where they're showing videos of the evil United States trying to grab North Korea for themselves. Which, you know, since the war never officially ended, as far as North Korea is concerned, the United States is still in the process

Ben: 12:31

It's an armistice.

Gene: 12:32

Yeah, it's an armistice, it never ended. And so, North Korea's position is that the United States is still actively involved in that war. It's just happening without bullets flying, but the war is still very much on. And so that's what, if you look at North Korean propaganda that, that is very much what their messaging is showing. It's the evil imperialist United States who wants to take over their country.

Ben: 12:57

Yeah, you know, but Going back to this woke ism that we have here in the U. S., and this ties into the border stuff, this ties into Jefferson, this ties into any form of communism that we see, or Fabian socialism and so on, this entire idea where you hear people say stuff like silence is violence, right, if you're not speaking actively for us, you know, it reminds me of the Communist Party right after you know, the death of Stalin, if you weren't communist enough, if you weren't actively party member enough, you were seen with suspicion, right, and you were to be purged. And it's the same thing we have now, exact same thing.

Gene: 13:44

Absolutely. And it's, I always want to make a distinction between communist and totalitarian, because there are totalitarian regimes, which are not communists that employ the exact same tactics most communist regimes. Are totalitarian or quickly end up being totalitarian, even if they didn't start out that way, because given the choice, a failed communist system would be replaced by a, a capitalist system, by the voting public. And so you can't allow them to change that if you're the one who's in charge of the communist system. And it's, it's virtually impossible to have. A communist form of government without totalitarianism. While it is absolutely possible to have both totalitarian and non totalitarian versions of capitalist systems.

Ben: 14:33

And here's the thing you can vote your way into communism, but you can't vote your way out. And that, that has been proven over and over and over again. And

Gene: 14:41

Mm

Ben: 14:43

You know, I, I, just to kind of bring it back to this border stuff, I think between the border, between some of the transgender stuff that's been going on, it's a big jump the shark moment because it is, hey, Texas is putting up barriers and funneling people to ports of entry to be processed, not allowing them to just cross anywhere. That's, that's the entire stated goal. And the Biden administration saying this is absolutely ridiculous. It's abhorrent. You're, you're, you're, you're not letting federal officials get to where they need to be to do their job. What do you mean? Their job is at the port of entry. Their job is maintaining immigration. And, you know, people who buy the Supremacy Clause and everything else, they miss the point. Because there is no constitutional border protection role for the U. S. government. There's immigration normalization, and that's it.

Gene: 15:45

And an army. Mm

Ben: 15:46

Yes not a standing one. But the point is Texas has a right to defend itself. Texas has a right to control its own borders. And you know, their job is not to interface with migrants outside of a port of entry. But beyond that, Texas is not going through and doing something egregious or harmful to humanity here. If anything, by preventing people from crossing a river that's dangerous and people drowning, they're encouraging them to go walk across a bridge that isn't going to collapse. So, you know.

Gene: 16:23

I think one of 18 crossing points. In Texas. Mm hmm. Mm hmm. Mm

Ben: 16:29

My, my entire point here is, I think that a lot of fairly normal people, even some fairly democratic leaning and liberal ones are going, hey, wait a minute. You have the border patrol union backing away from Biden and, you know, and endorsing what Texas is doing. You have the auto workers union no longer backing Biden. I think you're seeing a massive shift in this country. Where people are seeing the absurdity of what is happening, whether it's on the border or, you know, there was an article about the rare seahorse dad joining the ranks of the other seahorse dads, where this is a female male transit gender that ended up pregnant and it's somehow they're trying to say this is a pregnant dad, which is. The level of insanity and mental gymnastics and contortions, the best word I can use for it is the circumlocutions you have to go through to get to peas where the left is today is so far removed from reality that I think people are finally waking up.

Gene: 17:43

And the danger in where we are right now is twofold. One is the, the completely horrible decisions that are being made across a number of different areas that are immediately bad, but there isn't subtle. Second danger here, which historically exists and that is in an overcorrection due to this that results in too much of the opposite

Ben: 18:12

Mm hmm.

Gene: 18:13

and that overcorrection can end up stripping away an awful lot of rights, which we have left and a good example of that in recent times for the United States is 9 11, let's forget for the moment the actual You know, people responsible for nine 11, let's just focus on the event itself. So a couple of planes crash and more than two buildings fall down. And as a result of that, American citizens that have had certain rights for 200 years, over 200 years, have now a subset of rights, because a lot of the rights we used to have have been stripped.

Ben: 18:56

Mm hmm.

Gene: 18:56

In order to fight this criminal element. And I think that that is very much a more of the longer term subtle danger that can result out of what's happening right now.

Ben: 19:09

You mean the NSA admitting that they were buying citizens browser history through data brokers?

Gene: 19:14

What? No, I think that's well known, but I I'm here. Let me give a theoretical example. So this hasn't happened to my knowledge yet, but certainly could. So we could go from, it's up to the child at any age to decide whether they have Plastic surgery and castration and the parents have to go along with it to say that we can't trust the parents because they've made poor decisions. So all medical decisions will not be, it will now be under the ultimate decision making of the government so that we never castrate another child ever again. So this could happen 10, 12 years from now. See what I mean by overcorrection.

Ben: 20:01

Yeah.

Gene: 20:03

And so that everything that happens right now due to

Ben: 20:08

that's a huge example of an overcorrection, but okay.

Gene: 20:12

what would you like to lose your ability to decide what your children can and can't do?

Ben: 20:17

No, but I would not be mad at the loss of the ability to castrate a child.

Gene: 20:24

It's way more than that. It's saying it's not a parent's decision. It's going to be solely the decision of a government what medical care a child can and

Ben: 20:33

Which is problematic, I agree, but at

Gene: 20:36

made too many mistakes.

Ben: 20:38

but at the same time, should a parent be allowed to castrate a child?

Gene: 20:43

No, no, of course not.

Ben: 20:45

I mean, I actually believe they should because I think they own the child, but I still think it's an abhorrent decision. So it's.

Gene: 20:51

Yeah, I mean, I, I believe that whether there that act is done on an adult or a child, if it's done without consent, it, it is a crime. Even in today's laws, the problem is that the children aren't capable of providing consent. They're not of an age sufficient to be able to provide that consent.

Ben: 21:15

And this goes back to historical things on age of consent laws and everything else, which have been eroded and changed across Europe and the temps here for a long time. And, you know, I hate to say it, but it's not really a conspiracy to say that organizations like Nambla are behind those moves. You know, a lot of people say astonishing things like there have been proposals of rights to pleasure bills for

Gene: 21:44

and, and NAMBLA, of course, is the National Association of Marlon Brando Lookalikes.

Ben: 21:50

Okay, South Park. Anyway the fact of the matter is this is, this is not a, I, I, I, I'm of two minds of this. On one hand, I believe that we have extended adolescence far too long, right? When you have 21 year olds that don't know their ass from a hole in the ground and are not adults in any way, in any meaningful way, that is a problem. But to say that a Eight year old has full cognition and awareness of what they're doing is insane.

Gene: 22:29

hmm.

Ben: 22:29

So I don't know, I don't think we should postpone adolescence, but what I would say is the majority of kids that I see today in Gen Z at 21, 22 are not adults versus, you know, I have lived on my own. I've been out of my parents house since I was 16.

Gene: 22:49

be fair, just to put on the devil's advocate hat, I'm pretty sure that the great generation looked at us me, my generation, Gen X, and said the exact same thing because of course. Yep. They worked at 13, 14 to make money for their families, not to earn pocket money for themselves. So they looked at the super comfy lifestyle that Gen Xers were living in the 1970s and thought, they're so soft. So part of it, I think, is generational because with advances in technology and the ability to have to do less work. Every generation does less work, but I think where you're absolutely right is in the mental development side of it, which which is to a large degree, the responsibility of the boomer parents who were very much helicopter parents and I know I'm generalizing a lot, so fully aware that that's the case, but the end result is you have 20 year olds that have The independence of what used to be 15 year olds, like they can mostly do things, but not really,

Ben: 24:06

Or they can't, right? They don't know how to clean. They don't know how to do really

Gene: 24:10

don't know what to do if they get a flat tire other than to call a parent.

Ben: 24:14

yeah, exactly. And it comes down to optimal deprivation. Like you have to be deprived a little bit to grow. And if you're not, then you're not going to grow.

Gene: 24:29

Yep. Yeah. And I'll, I'll give you a real simple example here. Like when I was a kid in the early eighties, I was doing the oil changes on my parents cars. Now, obviously my dad was there and he showed me what to do and everything, but it kind of became my job and I never got paid for it.

Ben: 24:50

Yeah, I grew up helping or doing oil changes or doing my own oil change.

Gene: 24:55

and you know, it was, it was one of those things that. Need it to get done, and why would you pay an oil change facility, back then would have been 10 bucks, to do an oil change when you could do it at home for 50 cents a can of oil and a buck for the filter. And then obviously when, as I got older and I, I started making money, I'm like, I will never fucking do this. I will never mow the lawn. These are all things that I pay somebody else to do because I did them as a kid and I don't want to I didn't enjoy them then. I don't enjoy them now. However, having gone through that, I think was a positive experience and knowing what to do. If I had to change the oil in my car, I know how to do it. I choose not to, but it like that knowledge sticks with you forever. Mm-Hmm,

Ben: 25:44

Yeah, I, I, I don't change my oil, but the main reason why is I don't have a good place to dispose of it and you know, having

Gene: 25:54

it around your house,

Ben: 25:55

yeah uh, uh, the HOA might not

Gene: 25:59

let, let, let, I, I know, right? So let me just say there was, I, I think I asked you, I can't remember if it was on the show or not. It's well, I, I've got old gasoline. I'm not sure what to do with, right.

Ben: 26:11

Mm hmm.

Gene: 26:11

And it may not, it may have been you or somebody else, but basically they said how much do you have? I said, nah, you know, maybe five gallons, maybe a little more than that. I said why don't you just, you know, use it as ant killer.

Ben: 26:24

Mm hmm.

Gene: 26:24

We have ants in Texas,

Ben: 26:26

Fire ants.

Gene: 26:27

fire ants, bad ants gasoline tends to make ants die. Why don't you just pour a little gasoline in the, around the perimeter of your house. You know, not enough to light your firehouse, but but enough to kill the critters, the little bugs that, that may be living right in close proximity. And I thought, Jesus, I was going to just try and find a place where I can, you know, pay somebody to dump this stuff. And then I talked to another buddy of mine who works as an environmental engineer. And I told him my same exact issue. And guess what he said?

Ben: 27:03

What?

Gene: 27:04

Why don't you use it to kill ants or something? Jesus Christ, dude, you, I fucking work as an environmental engineer and you're giving me this is the advice you tell me for getting rid of a Carcinogen like gasoline. Oh my God.

Ben: 27:17

It's such a little amount,

Gene: 27:19

It is. I exactly, it's a little amount and I get it. It's, it's, it's the kind of thing I would think of. This is hence why I asked my friends who I imagine would then caution me and say, don't do that. That's dumb. Do this instead. And yet my friends are telling me the exact same thing.

Ben: 27:38

I, you know, it's, anyone who grew up in the country or anything like that, this is, you, you didn't go to the to the garbage dump to get rid of oil. You didn't go to the garbage dump to get rid of stuff because it was useful. So you used it for things. You know, it's, it's like Broken down spare parts, junk drawers and everything else, you know, I, I remember filing cabinets full of nuts, bolts, and every little knickknack thing that was left over from any project that when you were working on something and you need to go find a part, you go dig through until you find one that'll work, you know,

Gene: 28:14

And I, I remember after doing an oil change with. I don't think most people these days allow their kids to wash their hands with kerosene.

Ben: 28:25

I don't know that that's a bad thing, but yeah, I, I mean, I remember using, I, I used Dawn or some of the lava soap and stuff like that that

Gene: 28:34

got a lot of soap right now. Love that

Ben: 28:36

Yeah, yeah. But you know, you spill a little oil or something, you throw some cat litter on it, and then you scoop it up and

Gene: 28:46

Mm hmm. Yeah, yeah, it's a very different kind of mentality that I think a lot of people have and part of it is certainly city living, but part of it isn't really the city part. It's, it's just, you know, people have sheltered their children, I think, to a very large degree that they probably don't need to be sheltered

Ben: 29:13

But it comes down to if you're living in a neighborhood, if you're living in a city or a suburb or whatever and you've got people who are really close to you, let's say there was some guy who was a jackass and, you know, every few months was dumping gallons of gas on the fence line or

Gene: 29:33

Mm hmm.

Ben: 29:34

it's killing everything on the fence line and smelling and just being a problem. That, that, that's a problem. You, you have a couple year old gas, need to get rid of it before a storm so you can fill up. You know, go put it around your fence line or whatever, just get rid of it real quick. That, that's not going to harm anyone or anything.

Gene: 29:54

Yep. Except the fire ants.

Ben: 29:56

But it's this dude, fire ants like gingers don't have souls. It's okay.

Gene: 30:00

Ha ha ha ha.

Ben: 30:02

It, it, anyway you know, it's this, it's this balance between, You know, being out in the country, having to make do because you're poor, you gotta figure it out, or this is what has to be done. And then the posh city living that, you know, oh won't someone rid me of this problem, right?

Gene: 30:26

hmm. And certainly living in Austin, one of the things that I kind of make fun of is the fact that there's a whole bunch of these At this point, Gen Z, they used to be millennials, but a whole bunch of these couple of years out of college. So early twenties people, males, females who all work for the large companies. Facebook or Google or, you know, Apple or you name it, we've got them all here. They all have very large stores and stores, very large billings and they're all making six figures. Now some are making a hundred grand, some are making three hundred thousand. You know, if you're an AI developer working for Facebook right now, you're, you're 25 years old, you're making 300, 000 a year. But even the ones that only make a hundred thousand, which incidentally is, is higher than the national average by quite a bit. All of these youngsters, they all have Teslas because that's what all their friends have. So pretty much everybody gets a model three. But a lot of them, they maybe have about 200 hours of driving experience total. And they got the car because in theory, it's self driving. Now, it's not actually self driving because you still have to do quite a bit of driving unless you're on a highway with no other cars around you. And you still have to keep your hands on the steering wheel because it's checking that. And so

Ben: 32:05

Ish, there are many ways, there are a lot of YouTube videos on how to defeat that.

Gene: 32:09

Yeah, I'm sure. But what ends up happening is they all end up just taking Ubers anyway. So you have garages full of Teslas that are leased. And when those lease returns come in and two or three years. They have 500 to a thousand miles on them

Ben: 32:30

Oh, surely they'll have more than that.

Gene: 32:32

for three years. Not really a lot of them don't because I, I meet these people all the time because I live here and that, you know, whenever I go out, you know, I'm an extrovert, right? So I talked to everybody and that's what you realize is that there's a huge contingent of fairly well off Gen Z years working in tech, their intelligence. But they are somewhat not quite as developed both emotionally and practically as older generations were. And they just they can afford to take Ubers everywhere, which is what they do. It's more convenient. They don't have to drive. They don't have to think about it and they can drink. And so, but they also know that they're, they also make enough money and they know that there's a benefit to having your own car. So they get a car that can drive them like a Tesla, but they just don't use them much because they're just Ubering everywhere. Now, disclaimer, I say that, and I probably put on. You know, about 4, 000 miles a year in my car as well. So there is that

Ben: 33:43

Yeah, I, I put about 25 or so on mine. So

Gene: 33:47

2, 500. Yeah, that's

Ben: 33:49

no, no, 25, 000.

Gene: 33:51

That's even more. Yeah.

Ben: 33:54

I've got to get a new truck, but that's neither. I

Gene: 33:57

Everybody in the audience helped Ben find a new truck.

Ben: 34:00

Oh, Jesus, no, yeah, I, dude, I've this September, I will have had that truck for 11 years.

Gene: 34:07

Yeah. Yeah. Mm

Ben: 34:10

It's it's lived its life, but it's getting time.

Gene: 34:13

Yeah.

Ben: 34:14

No, I, you know, there, there is that segment of the population, then there's there's another set of Gen Z that's actually pretty, I think, on the opposite end of that spectrum, that loves their cars, drives a lot. You know, probably actually more than they really need to or should. Looks for excuses to stop in the car and even go for a round town, little commute drive. So, I don't know.

Gene: 34:40

I think that that's always existed. Certainly that's kind of where you have the 20 year old car clubs, meaning In the, in, in my day it was the Ricers with the Honda Civics and, and the you know, Accords and stuff.

Ben: 34:58

Kids seem to care about souping up their cars or going fast.

Gene: 35:02

they're just driving them somewhere?

Ben: 35:04

Yeah, they, they want affordable little grocery getter type cars, what you and I would call them.

Gene: 35:11

And, and that would be, I think they call them hot hatches in the UK.

Ben: 35:14

And the it used to be that, you know, you'd have it souped up, you'd have a stereo system, all that. Eh, no, as long as I've got Apple CarPlay or Android Auto, I'm okay.

Gene: 35:25

Mm

Ben: 35:25

You know, I mean, they just, the quality has gotten to the point where the customization of the vehicle is no longer needed.

Gene: 35:32

Yeah, the cars are fully commoditized.

Ben: 35:35

Which you know, when I was a kid I built a custom box for the subwoofer, I had the stereo system set up the way I wanted, I had air, you know, just, they don't do that anymore.

Gene: 35:46

Yeah, I remember replacing the head unit and putting in mb quartz speakers in my old Saturn when I was in my 20s

Ben: 35:53

Thank God, a Saturn.

Gene: 35:54

Mm hmm. That's an awesome car man. I don't I don't know why they don't make cars out of plastic like they used to

Ben: 36:03

suck.

Gene: 36:05

It was great. Yeah. Like you never have any dings in your car.

Ben: 36:08

yeah, you probably thought a Geo Metro was a good car too.

Gene: 36:11

No, those were shitty, but, but the Saturns, this, there's not, not everything about the Saturn was great. Don't get me wrong. But the thing that I do think was great, and I don't know why they stopped doing it for other cars is having doors. That people could literally, you know, open their door into yours, ding. And that would leave no permanent impression and not even really damage the paint unless you could see their paint scraped off on your door. I

Ben: 36:41

were also extraordinarily light and dangerous cars.

Gene: 36:47

eh, yeah, dangerous, yeah, whatever, dude. But, their engines were not big enough to be dangerous. Mm

Ben: 36:56

This is how light these cars were. A friend of mine had one of these little Saturn coupes.

Gene: 37:01

hmm. That's what I had, I had a sound recruit.

Ben: 37:03

and, fucking Kewski, man, he was 6'3 6'4 and he's in this little itty bitty car. It was hilarious. But we, we screwed with him one day at the high school parking lot. I remember a bunch of us got together. And picked up his car and he had parked between two trees

Gene: 37:18

Yeah.

Ben: 37:19

and we turned it sideways between two trees where he had six inches on either end and

Gene: 37:25

Christ.

Ben: 37:27

he walks out and Oh, it took him like two hours to get out.

Gene: 37:33

That would suck. Yeah.

Ben: 37:36

It only took four of us to pick it up and turn it.

Gene: 37:39

Yeah. And the reality is it was an extremely light car. 2, 400 pounds. So just over a ton. Most modern cars that size are a minimum of two tons now. So they, they just started putting in any kind of safety equipment back then in the early nineties,

Ben: 37:59

Oh yeah. There, there were no

Gene: 38:00

fairly minimal.

Ben: 38:01

that.

Gene: 38:02

No, I'd had airbags. They started doing airbags in 93. So

Ben: 38:06

maybe, maybe a single driver airbag or something,

Gene: 38:09

yeah, yeah. Yeah. Just a driver airbag. Exactly. They also had automatic seat belts. Which is a cursed thing because the idea being that that way you never forget to put on a seat belt. The problem is, it's only the shoulder belt, and so a lot of people ended up not putting on their, their lap belts, because that was manual, and then the, the chest belt was automated. And then what happens in the car accident if you don't have your lap belt on, but you have a chest belt? It becomes a neck belt. Because your body slides down and under and your head is

Ben: 38:45

it was in the fifties or sixties where they actually had the

Gene: 38:49

What, where they had started making them? What do you mean?

Ben: 38:53

neck belts.

Gene: 38:55

Oh, neck belts. Like literal neck belts?

Ben: 38:57

yeah, there's a whole joke of people driving around with neck belts on.

Gene: 39:00

Oh yeah. They, I mean, in the 50s they also had nooses around their necks the entire time they were at work. It was a, a different day. Different age. For sure. But anyway, car prices are crazy now, so I don't know how people can even afford cars.

Ben: 39:18

And the used car prices have not come down.

Gene: 39:22

No.

Ben: 39:23

I mean, they have to an extent, but not, not,

Gene: 39:26

Mm

Ben: 39:26

not to where they need to be.

Gene: 39:28

Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. That's true. There's a there's also a prediction that if there's any kind of inkling of a war with China and Taiwan, like beyond just shaper rattling, like it looks like it's going to actually happen. Then the price of used cars is going to skyrocket because the expectation will be that no new cars can be manufactured because all the car chips, or at least the important card chips all come from factories in Taiwan. And we saw that a little bit of that during COVID when simply the shipping delays. Of shipments of those chips from Taiwan affected the availability of cars where we saw videos of four trucks parked in, in a field with 10, 000 trucks all sitting there that could not be sold because the entire truck is finished and complete, but they're missing their ECM the engine control module. Mm.

Ben: 40:30

where.

Gene: 40:31

Mm.

Ben: 40:32

You know, incremental cost and changing out what processors being used and limiting some of the sub processors. So 1 of the things in car design and the reason why you have canvas and everything else is to reduce wiring and to reduce overall weight for fuel economy standards. And what they've done is instead of having a lot of things home run to one central computer, you have, you know, basically sub processors and control down at the component level, right? So this is pretty common in a lot of industrial. Applications, but especially on cars, you know, you, you're, for instance, your automatic rear view mirror that auto dims and stuff like that, that has a little processor in it that is controlled right there. You know, everything is done in that one little processor. Now could you put in a different processing unit and send it all back and reduce the overall number of chips? Absolutely. But that's not the design direction that's been going for over a decade now. And the problem is, you can't just replace that without a total redesign of the computer system and the electronic system of the vehicle, right? So all the chips that are manufactured here locally in the U. S. or by other allies outside of the Southeast Asian market. Are too expensive to do the decentralized model for right? You, you can't put a Intel Celeron processor 500

Gene: 42:10

all just use Raspberry Pi.

Ben: 42:13

That would be too expensive to do a decentralized. You know, we're, we're talking about little controllers that are a few bucks and so we, we either have to accept a stepped increase in the overall cost of the vehicle. Which we're already seeing because of inflation and everything else. And or we have to reconfigure to go to a more centralized processing unit that, you know, will have its own challenges and own shortfalls, right? Because now if a computer component burns out, the entire vehicle suffers versus one component here or one component there.

Gene: 42:57

Yeah, and I, and I think that we've sort of gone through an age of affordability is what I would call it that probably started in the late seventies and lasted through the mid two thousands or maybe late two thousands. Where the price of most things, not just computers, because computers historically is, is the thing you can point to that you get more bang for your buck every year, but an awful lot of products became much more affordable as compared to the average salaries of people, or let's say median salary, not an average salary. And so more people could afford more things. There, there was a point in time where most Americans could only afford a 26 inch TV set. You'd have to be financially well off to have a 35 inch TV set. Or when rear projection came out to have a 45 or 50 inch TV set. Yeah,

Ben: 44:05

you are very wealthy.

Gene: 44:07

I mean, these were things that were back then. So let's say I remember in the early eighties, so maybe 82, 83, the biggest TV I remember seeing was a 60 inch

Ben: 44:18

CRT rear projection.

Gene: 44:21

and those were selling for about 6, 000 now, 6, 000 then,

Ben: 44:26

set up to,

Gene: 44:27

Oh, you better. Yeah, absolutely. But 6, 000 in 83 is roughly 3. 8 times that right now. So it's like, what, like 23, 24, 000, 20, 22, 23, 000. And so, can you buy a TV set for 23, 000 today? Yes. A 110 inch plasma TV is about 20, 000 right now. Very few people buy them, but certainly there are people that have, you know, a house with. A dozen bedrooms can afford to have that expensive and that large a TV set or multiple ones in their homes.

Ben: 45:11

I'm surprised people would go with plasma still.

Gene: 45:14

Or, sorry, when I say plasma, I don't mean, I mean OLED. It's, my, my brain is just mis, mispronouncing the word I'm thinking of. Yeah, OLED. I don't

Ben: 45:23

and OLED,

Gene: 45:24

I don't think plasma has been, they, you know, they both have Vivid colors. That's I guess the commonality of the

Ben: 45:31

and that's one of the reasons why I absolutely loved plasma. In fact, my last plasma died last year and I was sad because it was, you know, black blacks and bright and just awesome. And what really pissed me off is, is, it's, it's, it's really, it's like It's like the compact disc or a cassette tape where the form factor and that being more convenient or better for whatever reason led to the determination of the technology instead of the quality of the technology.

Gene: 46:14

Mm hmm. Right.

Ben: 46:14

Because plasma was and has been way better than any. LCD TV out there, even today.

Gene: 46:22

Yeah, they're really close though. The micro LCDs are, they have really black blacks.

Ben: 46:28

They've gotten better, but, especially at the time, what drove people towards the LCD TVs is they were thinner, they were lighter. Ooh, look how thin the TV is. Who the fuck cares how thin the TV is? I'm not looking at the side of it!

Gene: 46:42

I was at Costco the other day, because I had a, a friend give me a Costco membership for Christmas, and so, because I, I haven't been there for years. And so I was walking

Ben: 46:52

not carry signs up all over the place.

Gene: 46:55

through it. Okay.

Ben: 46:57

carry. I, I, I'm a Sam's person. They, they, Walmart doesn't give a shit, ironically enough. Anyway, go ahead.

Gene: 47:05

Anyway, my point is I'm walking around where the TV sets are. And if you look at the side profile of these TVs, they're insanely thin and, and

Ben: 47:15

at the bottom.

Gene: 47:16

And also very light. No, no, no. There's ones that are super thin. So I was looking at these Sony TVs. I'll bet you the whole TV is about It's a half inch for most of it and three quarters of an inch in the thick part. And it is amazingly thin. There It looks you know, basically a laptop screen. Just really big. Or an iPad, but really big.

Ben: 47:43

I buy cheap TVs. Ha ha

Gene: 47:45

Shocker. So, and there are definitely cheap TVs there. Like they have the Heisen brand. I think those were the cheap ones Which sounds kind of German actually more than Chinese to me.

Ben: 47:57

yeah. My, my favorite of the cheap ones is the TCLs.

Gene: 48:02

Yeah. And I, I've got one of those. I use that as my computer monitor for a couple of years still works. It's just sitting in the guest bedroom. And I just replaced it with an actual gaming monitor finally. Yeah.

Ben: 48:17

are fairly inexpensive and they've got some, they've, they're a decent monitor and I like the built in Roku. You know, and they're, they're cheap enough. For instance, I've got a TV outside for football games and, you know, stuff like that when I want to sit outside I could get a TV, an outdoor rated TV for, you know, a couple grand, or I can replace the TV every few years at

Gene: 48:48

worry about it. Yeah.

Ben: 48:50

So guess which one I went with?

Gene: 48:53

Yeah. It makes sense. So you just have it like just underneath your porch cover.

Ben: 48:57

Yeah, I've got a box built for it.

Gene: 48:58

Mm hmm. Yeah. I think that makes a lot more sense. Because the outdoor rated ones. Yeah. By the time you're gonna replace this TV, there's a better version of that outdoor rated one anyway. So,

Ben: 49:15

So it just, you know, it doesn't matter. And you know, like the, the last plasma I had was outside for over a year before it died. And you know, it was already a 10 year old TV, so whatever. Right. I didn't lose anything. Doesn't bug me.

Gene: 49:33

I, I really I've got a, for the Mac, I have a Samsung 47 inch. And this is the Mac I'm on right now. And that

Ben: 49:42

makes good monitors

Gene: 49:44

that's, that's a OLED,

Ben: 49:45

nice. Yeah.

Gene: 49:46

so the blacks are frickin jet black and the colors are nice and bright. And what I like about it is is I can, I don't like turning off my monitors. I think it's annoying. So it, I just put a black background on basically for screensaver. So my screensaver is just a black picture. And that effectively shuts off the TV. Which is I mean, I, I guess it takes less power. I'm less concerned that I'm just more concerned about the longevity of the picture quality, but from everything I've read, like that is something you can totally do on a plasma and, or I keep saying plasma, I mean, OLED, that is something you could do on an OLED because it actually

Ben: 50:34

Turns off the

Gene: 50:34

Yeah, it just turns off the emitter, whereas an LCD, the same black picture, you know, just so I finished thoughts on the LCD in comparison, that same black picture would be actually completely covering the backlighting with LCDs that are going through Polarizers. Mm

Ben: 50:58

Yeah. And the, the, it, the similarity between OLED and plasma is it's a per pixel control, right? Of light and you know, what, what is being displayed versus an LED. Traditional LED TV has a backlight and then is either blocking out or coloring the light coming from the backlighting versus emitting its own light.

Gene: 51:24

Exactly.

Ben: 51:25

it's a blocking technology for LED or, you know, blocking the black light versus OLED and plasma are generating their own light per pixel, so it's different.

Gene: 51:36

Yeah. And the quality, I think, is good on both of them. The at least as of when I bought, so about, I guess, nine months ago, a year ago, whatever. When I got my main gaming monitor, the cost of the LCD with 144 Hertz refresh was quite a bit cheaper than a an OLED with 144 refresh. So I got the LCD version, but it was still a thousand bucks. The, the ole version would've been 1600 bucks.

Ben: 52:12

Yeah, these are just things that I think are commodities and not something that I think is worth spending. I will spend money on things that I think I need to.

Gene: 52:25

Mm-Hmm. Like guns.

Ben: 52:28

But, you know, even then, I I will buy The gun that I want, but if, depending on what I think the, the use case scenario for the gun is you know, I may get I may not spend so, so for instance, I haven't purchased, I've been looking at one of the Tabor's and I'm very tempted to buy the Tabor 7, but it's a 2, 000

Gene: 52:50

one. Mm-Hmm.

Ben: 52:51

it's a 2, 000 gun, and it's one of those that, that's hard for me to justify. Now I have, 2, 000 308s in bolt guns. I have 2, 000 or 1, 700 308s in my M1AA. And, you know, I don't mind spinning around that. It's just right now to, for what I want it for, it's, it's just a little more than I want it for. So for instance, with SHOT Show that was just this last week and looking at what PSA is likely to do with the

Gene: 53:24

They have way too many tempting guns, man.

Ben: 53:27

the, oh, that they're coming out with. Oh yeah, the dude, the Jackal 308,

Gene: 53:33

I would get one of those and I don't even need one.

Ben: 53:36

and the Jackal 308 is probably going to be in the same price point range as that Tavor 7.

Gene: 53:41

Yeah. A little cheaper. I think that,

Ben: 53:43

but not

Gene: 53:44

Yeah, like 1, 500 bucks is what they're saying. Mm hmm. Yeah, because the regular Jackal is 1, 100. So, with the, the difference in parts for the 308 version, it'll be a little bit pricier, but not that much pricier, because a lot of the components are exactly the same.

Ben: 54:01

Yeah, yeah,

Gene: 54:02

The lower, I think, is, yeah, I mean, it's a different lower, but

Ben: 54:05

a different lower,

Gene: 54:06

they've got they've got

Ben: 54:09

but since there's no buffer tube, all the stocks, all that, everything the, the, you know, a lot of the parks will transfer,

Gene: 54:16

Mhm.

Ben: 54:17

you know, the gas piston system is going to be interesting because they're, they're, they already talked about having to reinforce and change things for some of the pressures there, but you know, they're going to have this three eight version of the jackal and it's also going to be in six, five, which is fantastic for a lot of

Gene: 54:33

Exactly. Exactly. And, and I would say the,

Ben: 54:37

Although, you know, when you really look at the performance difference between 08,

Gene: 54:42

mhm,

Ben: 54:44

other than the ballistic coefficient, so basically how much the bullet's gonna get pushed around by wind and a couple of other things, or how far it's gonna walk because of Coriolis effect. Man, I, I can't just, as much as I would love to have a 6. 5, I cannot justify.

Gene: 55:03

Yeah. The price of the ammo is a lot higher.

Ben: 55:05

The price of the ammo and I already have three of it. I already have 30 cal.

Gene: 55:12

308 is kind of like a 45. It is my go to, it's my go to cartridge. Doesn't mean I don't have a 6. 5. Doesn't mean I don't have 300 blackout. I don't have, I bought all these guns because I don't know what the hell, I guess I was bored. You remember back like nine months ago when I was in gun shopping mode. I'd have a new gun every show. I still haven't shot a lot of those guns. They're just still sitting there packed in their packaging. And I look at them and go, I should probably go to the range at some point,

Ben: 55:44

I don't have a gun that I haven't shot.

Gene: 55:46

yeah, and that's the way that you should keep it. I'm all for not having guns. You haven't shot. I'm, I'm saying I'm not doing it the way I used to do it. So I'm a big fan of the 308 and that's when I started shopping around for a Sanwai automatic 308. And I ran across the Tavor, I was like, yep, that's what I want. It's basically a modern interpretation of an AK 47. Some would say an AR 180, but I think it's actually got more historical connection to the AK 47, but in a 308 platform.

Ben: 56:23

Yeah. I mean, there, there's several things. I mean, it is a gas piston system versus direct impingement, which I like gas piston guns for a lot of reasons. You know, the, the, the, there, there are benefits to both, but I tend to like gas piston. I like bullpups. I know a lot of people don't. First of all, I think way too much importance is put on triggers. Especially depending on what the purpose of the gun is. Okay, if you've got a bolt gun and you're trying to make long shots, and you are a good enough shot, sure, worry about the trigger.

Gene: 56:56

Yeah, two palm triggers would be perfect for that.

Ben: 56:58

if you're talking about a semi automatic gun, if you're talking about a philosophy of use, that sub 500 yards, if you're talking about someone who maybe has shot a few thousand rounds in their life, the trigger doesn't fucking matter to you. So what the hell? Right. And, you know, people complain about the take up and everything else. It's for a bullpup design, for what I'm talking about, I'm talking about a zero to three hundred yard gun, probably, is what I'm actually gonna use it for, because I want it for close quarters and everything else, and I'm worried about hitting a man sized target at those ranges.

Gene: 57:36

hmm, and

Ben: 57:37

The trigger isn't going to fucking matter

Gene: 57:39

the standard Tavor trigger is not bad at all,

Ben: 57:42

Right, but, but my point is, everybody on, all the Guntubers online bitch about bullpup triggers and they're full of shit.

Gene: 57:48

they are full of shit, exactly. Most of them have only shot bullpups for like a hundred rounds. They, they've not actually owned bullpups and shot them consistently. I've owned a number of bullpups and I will say the Tavor's trigger, every, every new bullpup I get, the trigger is better than the previous gun that I had. And that's certainly true with the Tavor. The only one that I haven't shot is the Hellion. So I don't, I can't compare it directly to the Hellion. But I've shot the Steyr. I've shot the FS2000. Um, those, those two had worse triggers for sure. And you can get a aftermarket trigger that is more of a, you know, a long range competition shooter trigger for the Tavor. I can't remember who makes it, but there's a company that, that makes a whole bunch of custom products specifically for the Tavor line. They ain't cheap. It's going to be like a 280 trigger, but you can get a trigger that's going to shoot in the three pound range with that gun that's going to have very light take up. So it is absolutely doable. It's just, I think any kind of conversion from a non bull pup design to a bull pup tends to have a very sloppy trigger. And that's what. Where that image comes from, I think.

Ben: 59:07

Yeah, and, you know, again, it, philosophy of use, right, it's, you know, it's like people who get an AR and immediately swap out the trigger cause they can't stand the mil spec trigger.

Gene: 59:18

Mm hmm.

Ben: 59:20

What are you doing that that's not good enough for you? What what's the problem?

Gene: 59:25

That's the same people that immediately slap on an infrared, infrared flashlight on their AR.

Ben: 59:32

It's it's this idea that oh, I and a lot of people like you are Guilty of it that they want the best equipment that far exceeds their abilities dude

Gene: 59:44

that an insult? I'm trying to decide if that's an insult that

Ben: 59:47

Exceed the equipment before you like, I just, I don't

Gene: 59:52

to look at it as I don't want the equipment to to make me worse than I could be. That's, that's the proper interpretation

Ben: 1:00:01

right. But the problem I have is the people who then say, Oh if you don't have this, it's just trash and who could be good with that?

Gene: 1:00:08

No, no, they say it's shit, not trash.

Ben: 1:00:11

yeah whatever. Um, you know, it's

Gene: 1:00:16

it's not Scottish, it's thrush. Yeah, it's shite. Mm hmm.

Ben: 1:00:21

you know, it's, it's people who get all pissy about night vision because I've been going down the rabbit hole on night vision and everything else. And people who, you know, if you don't have, certain spec white phosphorus dual tube that you've got junk. And it's like, no, no, there's a big way from zero night vision to panos. Okay.

Gene: 1:00:46

Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Ben: 1:00:47

There's a wide gap here. And for some people, the 300 NVG 10 digital night vision, which is actually pretty good. I played around with one recently.

Gene: 1:00:58

Oh, you bought one?

Ben: 1:00:59

I didn't. But I encouraged someone who I knew would never spend thousands of dollars on Night Vision to take a look,

Gene: 1:01:04

I had two different people email me asking for that link saying that you never posted it on your website.

Ben: 1:01:11

Oh, I didn't?

Gene: 1:01:14

That's the feedback I got is

Ben: 1:01:16

it will go up to, it will go up today.

Gene: 1:01:19

All right. I'm sure these two already bought it from the link I sent them with no affiliate code

Ben: 1:01:23

I don't think it counted anyway, so,

Gene: 1:01:25

Oh, okay.

Ben: 1:01:26

unfortunately. But no, I mean, that, is that Great. No. Is it serviceable? Is it something that if you need to go out and kill a beaver in the middle of the night can you? Yeah.

Gene: 1:01:41

And if, if I'm going camping and I'm going to take a shit in the woods in the middle of the night, I'm sure as hell bringing something like that.

Ben: 1:01:48

Yeah, it's fantastic for

Gene: 1:01:49

Mm hmm.

Ben: 1:01:50

And, you know, if you're using the IR illuminator, do you fluoresce and light up like an SOB? Absolutely. Know your situation. Know what you're doing. Know the compromises you've made. But that

Gene: 1:02:02

but that's the thing is, I don't, it's one of the things I really like about that particular As far as cheap night visions go is you don't need the illuminator. Like it's something that's totally optional on that one on my other two, you really need the illuminator. Otherwise you can't see shit.

Ben: 1:02:22

yeah, I mean, it depends on how much ambient light there is. Mm hmm.

Gene: 1:02:25

Yeah. But like I was outside under moonlight and it was plenty of light to see without using the illuminator.

Ben: 1:02:31

Oh, yeah, but you go into a dark room that's, you know, you know, anyway, there are scenarios but yeah, I was playing around with it and you know, they got a very cheap bump helmet off of Amazon and it's definitely not what I want, but it'll work for a mounting platform and by the way, it's shocking how just a little bit of counterbalance makes all the difference in the world on how comfortable those things are don't, don't forget counterbalance.

Gene: 1:02:57

Yeah, you gotta do that.

Ben: 1:02:58

But you know, I, I, I'm looking at,

Gene: 1:03:01

batteries in the back.

Ben: 1:03:02

yeah, I'm, I'm actually looking at the MVG 10 or the what was it, the Nightfox Prowler as an, as another option. There, there's kind of pros and cons of people going back and forth on those. The Nightforce Prowler actually has updatable firmware. So, there,

Gene: 1:03:19

Yeah, for, for a sub 300 product, I'm not too worried about it because the quality of these sensors probably a year to two years from now is going to be even closer to the analog ones. So it's kind of a, it's a, it's going to be a replaceable product.

Ben: 1:03:37

yeah, to an extent, sure. And again, this should not be, if you're a big prepper or something, this should probably not be your primary night vision, but if, if, if you're the kind of person who I have a Baofeng radio sitting right here on my desk. I have a cheap UV5R Baofeng radio. Why do I have this?

Gene: 1:04:00

Because you don't have a license.

Ben: 1:04:02

nor am I gonna get one, but because it's cheap, I can throw it in a bag, I can hand this to someone, and I don't care what happens to

Gene: 1:04:12

Right. Right. Right.

Ben: 1:04:13

That, you know, if I buy five, six grand worth of NVGs, I'm gonna be pretty fucking careful with them.

Gene: 1:04:20

Yeah. And you're not going to give it to somebody else. And that's kind of what I said, you know, I, I actually wrote a little review on Amazon for it. And I said, look, if, if you're gonna get a get a night vision that you want to have for. people who may not be preppers. This is a great to have multiple of these item. You're not going to buy multiple 5, 000. And the BS

Ben: 1:04:45

and if you are, can we be your friends?

Gene: 1:04:47

Yeah, right, right. But basically if you buy, if you buy 5, 000 units for your friends you're probably running with the quad tube 40, 000 unit for yourself, You're not going to get the same exact thing for people that aren't into your hobby as you are for yourself. At least I wouldn't. But I have no problem with buying multiple versions of this thing. You know, in case that I need to provide night vision for a few folks that just are not as forth, you know, thinking as I am and didn't didn't spend the money on anything themselves. This is definitely way better than nothing.

Ben: 1:05:30

And one of the things I'll say is you know, there are a lot of options out there and there are some people doing some pretty creative stuff. Have you looked at like the Jerry 31s or the Jerry 14s?

Gene: 1:05:41

Yeah. Yeah. And, and those are next level expensive after this

Ben: 1:05:46

right in the, the, but they're, they're gen two tubes. They're gen two

Gene: 1:05:50

they're two pluses, I think.

Ben: 1:05:52

Yeah. Yeah. But here's the really cool thing. Have you seen the thermal add ons that they're doing?

Gene: 1:05:56

I actually wouldn't mind getting the thermal add on to add to a high end night vision system.

Ben: 1:06:03

but what they're doing is saying, Hey, Hey, Hey, Hey, let's spend less on the tube. And so by the time, you know, by the time you would spend for a PBS 14 gen three white phosphorous unit, you're about five grand or so. We'll give you gen two plus binos with a thermal overlay for

Gene: 1:06:20

Mm hmm.

Ben: 1:06:22

Well,

Gene: 1:06:22

I do like

Ben: 1:06:23

of interesting.

Gene: 1:06:24

the thermal overlay that they have has a very cool feature that I haven't seen any other thermals. Like native thermals, which is really cool. It has a pulse option so that the, the, the high thermal temperature thing that you're looking at will pulse in and out. So it creates basically movement draw by and movement draws your attention. Exactly. So. Because it's an overlay, it can't have a colored image on it. So it has to still use whatever color night vision you have. So whether it's white or green, but it's a pulsing white or green at high intensity that distinguishes things that are that have a heat signature. But I wouldn't mind that same feature on just you know, native thermal vision, because that's ultimately what I want to do. And I still haven't committed to it. I've kind of found what I think I want, but I'm kind of waiting to see if anything new comes out at chat show. But it's still, it's, it's like basically a 5, 000 thermal unit. It's still not cheap. But having played around with the the NBS 14. And I ended up returning it because it

Ben: 1:07:37

You mean the MBG 10 or the

Gene: 1:07:40

and PVS 14. Yeah. Yeah. The one I sent you a link to it, the one that I got like back in

Ben: 1:07:46

Yeah, on OpticsPlanet or whatever.

Gene: 1:07:48

optics plan, which by the way, good return policy. No question asked. I think that's similar to Amazon as well, but they'll take anything back, but optics planets

Ben: 1:07:58

But not owned by someone with a micro penis.

Gene: 1:08:02

I don't know who owns a man for all I know. It's Amazon owns them. Who knows

Ben: 1:08:06

I don't know, I'm just trying to make fun of Jeff Bezos, dude.

Gene: 1:08:09

Yeah, I know, I know, but,

Ben: 1:08:10

Bald Bond villain with a penis shaped rocket, you know.

Gene: 1:08:14

um, there is another one called like Euro, Euro sites or Euro optics or something like that. Have you heard of them?

Ben: 1:08:24

Yeah, I have.

Gene: 1:08:25

Yeah, you're, I can't remember the name of them, but they're another one that's similar to optics planet with a slightly smaller selection and slightly better pricing. But yeah, a lot of this stuff is you know, we've been on gen three for a long time for analog night vision. And some people are saying there will not be a gen four. This is as good as we're going to have for analog to all the newer advances are going to come from digital. Mm hmm.

Ben: 1:08:54

And digital's a law The problem with digital is refresh rates, is lag, is artifacting, and is

Gene: 1:09:03

Mm hmm. Mm hmm. Mm hmm. Mm

Ben: 1:09:07

I, I will say this, power consumption becomes a problem, everything else is, I think a lot of what's going to, what I've seen that's kind of interesting, and I've been going down a pretty good rabbit hole is this thermal overlay is the use of. Analog to augment digital. So they're putting like gen two, gen three tubes in front of a digital sensor, that's then taking that and extrapolating the image out of it to make it more sensitive so that you're not having to use as much IR illumination. So basically a gen three tube that then has a CMOS sensor in front of it, that is then picking that up and making it brighter so that you can get to even lower light without having to use. An illumination system and that's huge. I also see companies like ATM that have their digital scopes and their digital night vision that are now adding in weapons, radicals and things like that. That is where it's going. Yeah, I think the, the thermal overlay, what Jerry is doing on the civilian side and then what the Chinese are quite frankly doing on the military side where it's an outline, you know, it's, it's, it's highlighting what is going on through thermal. That is a huge game

Gene: 1:10:23

The combo unit is obviously the best solution because then you do have full color and it's digital, but it's using the analog night vision preamplification. But also, that's 12, 000. There, there's The price point is prohibitive for most people, I would say, and I don't care how into prepping you are,

Ben: 1:10:50

countries.

Gene: 1:10:52

that's true. That's, it's prohibitive for most military, yes.

Ben: 1:10:55

I mean, even Gen 3, you know, if you're talking about decent white phosphorous Gen 3, first of all, most countries can't get it, right? It's export restricted. You had, there, there are very few countries that have the night vision capabilities of the U. S. They're, and they're all

Gene: 1:11:11

is restricted. So like you can't just make it on your own in another country using the same methods and techniques and materials. It's not like it's illegal to export anything to do with it from the U. S. and it's some even distributing the information about that is to some extent controlled.

Ben: 1:11:31

yeah, I mean, there's been less proliferation of night vision than there was nukes. I mean, let's be honest.

Gene: 1:11:37

that's true.

Ben: 1:11:38

And the only, the only armed forces in the, in the world that has the capabilities of night vision is the US really. I mean, everyone else it's spec ops. It's people here and

Gene: 1:11:49

it's yeah. It for every single soldier us is issuing night vision. Yeah, that's, that's true. Now I have seen some of the new Russian third gen stuff and it looks very good. It is basically the same shit that the U S has had for the last decade. They just got it now. And it's all obviously produced in Russia.

Ben: 1:12:10

I mean, Russia doesn't even have, every Russian soldier doesn't even have an optic on their gun though

Gene: 1:12:15

yeah, exactly, exactly. So this is, it's not, it's not mass distributed.

Ben: 1:12:20

different.

Gene: 1:12:21

It's not mass distributed it's gonna take a long time for them to get to the point where we are right now. Just, it's simply from the cost factor. Just cause it's made in Russia doesn't mean it's cheap to manufacture.

Ben: 1:12:31

No, and here's the other thing though, but my point is, let's say military contract, they're getting it cheaper than

Gene: 1:12:40

Mm hmm.

Ben: 1:12:41

and it costs, by the time they're issuing a ballistic helmet, everything out the door, it's three grand per

Gene: 1:12:47

Mm hmm.

Ben: 1:12:49

That's a lot of money.

Gene: 1:12:51

Yeah. Yeah. I think a full kit is probably closer to ten by the time you look at the, the weapon systems, the night vision systems

Ben: 1:12:59

I mean, I'm not even talking about the pack. I'm just talking about what goes on your head. Now you talk about a laser indicator and everything else and the strobes and the fluorescent patches that they wear for friend or fro everything. Yeah, okay. Oh, my, my point. Okay, let's say it's five, 10

Gene: 1:13:16

the helmets are about 1, 500 bucks apiece, as you know.

Ben: 1:13:21

Uh, that's for a civilian grade cheap one.

Gene: 1:13:25

That's ballistic helmets, yeah.

Ben: 1:13:27

Yeah, but I mean, you can get cheaper ballistic helmets, you can get some very expensive ballistic helmets. And, you know, the, the military contract ones actually run about 2, 500 a piece is what you can get them. On the surplus market for with any modern version. Now you can get them without mounts. You can get them without a lot of things like without a Wilcox mount and stuff like that cheaper, but then you're drilling and tapping and doing lots of things.

Gene: 1:13:53

Yep.

Ben: 1:13:54

You know, the, the cheapest, reasonable, non, just straight Chinesium ballistic helmet you're going to get is in the five to 600 range. The more realistic one is at that. Eight to 1, 200 range.

Gene: 1:14:10

Mm hmm.

Ben: 1:14:10

And you know, it's such an incremental bit of protection. I just don't understand why anyone would get a ballistic helmet for civilian use,

Gene: 1:14:18

Yeah, I tend to agree with you. It's

Ben: 1:14:20

because if you don't have the medical facilities to back it

Gene: 1:14:23

Right.

Ben: 1:14:24

I just don't get it.

Gene: 1:14:27

Yeah. Yeah,

Ben: 1:14:30

So I will go with a couple hundred dollar bump helmet

Gene: 1:14:33

yeah, those are much cheaper Exactly. Although

Ben: 1:14:38

order one, by

Gene: 1:14:38

they oh you did. Okay. Which one did you get

Ben: 1:14:41

I'll let you know after I decided to keep it or not.

Gene: 1:14:44

Okay, sounds good

Ben: 1:14:46

I ordered the hardhead veterans bump helmet

Gene: 1:14:48

you did yeah, so that

Ben: 1:14:50

the reason why It has had very good reviews and a lot of people like their chin strap system and some of their liner systems and everything else. It's available in camo versus just black or tan versus the Team Wendy. And it's after shipping, handling, taxes, everything, it's 120 cheaper than the Team Wendy.

Gene: 1:15:12

so it's 250

Ben: 1:15:14

280 ship taxes, everything, versus, you know, 400 plus for the Team Wendy. And again, it's a bump helmet. It's a glorified bike helmet.

Gene: 1:15:23

exactly. And it's

Ben: 1:15:25

already feel like I'm spending a ridiculous amount on it.

Gene: 1:15:28

the, yeah, the team Wendy ones are more expensive than motorcycle helmets that provide way more protection. Like it's just a bump helmet, but it costs more than the motorcycle helmet that'll protect your brain from getting smushed in a motorcycle accident. It's crazy.

Ben: 1:15:49

thing, man.

Gene: 1:15:50

Yeah. I had a couple of really nice Arai

Ben: 1:15:53

The hardhead veterans has a lifetime warranty. They have lots of good things. And anyway, we'll see if it, if I get it in the Wilcox mounts crap or whatever, it can go back. But again, I, I spending 200 and something bucks on a bump helmet is

Gene: 1:16:10

Mm hmm. Yep. Oh, I hear him.

Ben: 1:16:15

But I will say this

Gene: 1:16:16

you're contributing to LARPing.

Ben: 1:16:19

well, but here's the thing, like if you try and use a skull crusher, you know, just a strap system for night vision. It doesn't work. That is not a good mounting platform. The helmet is a good mounting platform and being able to counterweight it and everything else, if you're going to run night vision, you need a helmet. As much as I think it looks stupid and is not really needed in the world I live in, if you're going to mount night vision, it's the best way to do it.

Gene: 1:16:52

Mm hmm.

Ben: 1:16:53

Like there is no good alternative,

Gene: 1:16:55

Yeah. Yeah. It's. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. It's certainly, given the weight, and it's not a huge weight, but it's still some weight on the night vision system. Having it in that helmet format's the best. Now, here's something that I think would be cool. You can't do it with the the 300 night vision. But I, I could do it with the night vision system that I have for my rifle

Ben: 1:17:22

which is an ATN,

Gene: 1:17:23

is an ATM. It's like a thousand dollar unit. So it's, it's digital. It's got all the, it actually has a built in laser range finder in it that, that calculates

Ben: 1:17:33

the ATN scopes. Are pretty cool if you haven't looked at them,

Gene: 1:17:37

Yeah,

Ben: 1:17:38

you shoot and it, it, it sites, it sites in for you.

Gene: 1:17:42

Exactly. Exactly. It sites in for you and then it makes all the adjustments basically on its own and you can input the windage data. It calculates the angle of the shot. So if you're shooting downhill or uphill, it'll take that into account when it does the calculation and moves your point of aim over. And it is night vision. It's just not mhm. Analog. So the quality is meh. And it, it really does require to really work well. It does require an IR illuminator because that, that system without an IR illuminator looks quite a bit worse than the 300 one, even though it's a thousand bucks anyway, plus it's also really fucking long it's it's over a foot long, which is, it looks ridiculous on the bullpup rifle. So I took it off of there. It's not going to live on a bullpup. I, I just, I'm fine with just having my ACOG in the bullpup. But I was like, I started off talking about it because I wanted to mention something about it. I don't know. I can't remember what I started off saying, but ATN also has thermal image scopes that are not crazy price. Like a, if you want to get a really. You know, high end like military type, maybe not quite that spec, but effectively the same qualities scope. It's going to be around five grand four to 5, 000. If you want to get an ATN that will give you really nice thermal for hunting, you can get that for about two grand. So ATN is definitely a, a, a cheaper end of the thermal and night vision with good warranties. They're not just fly by night, you never heard of em kind of products, but they're also not going to be the highest quality products out there.

Ben: 1:19:44

Yeah, but they're not bad for what they are. And if you're using it for hog hunting, if you're using it for what a lot of guys do, or, you know, when one of my buddies for his kid, he had one of the ATN scopes and part of the reason why he got it. He disabled a lot of the smart stuff cause he wanted his son to learn to shoot. But one of the things he really liked was being able to have his phone and seeing what his son was seeing through the scope and being able to say, Oh, here's what you need to do.

Gene: 1:20:10

Okay, so this is, this is a very good reminder, this is where I was going with it. With the ATN, I actually can stream the video from the scope to my glasses with built in screens on them. So I can, I can literally be standing next to the rifle wearing sunglasses and be looking through the side of the rifle. That's pretty cool.

Ben: 1:20:38

Yeah, there's a, there's some cool stuff out there with the digital. Now I don't want things admitting RF if it's a shit hit the fan scenario, but yes

Gene: 1:20:47

reason that ultimately where I do want to spend the

Ben: 1:20:50

vision would be a problem.

Gene: 1:20:52

is with thermal because you don't need, nor in fact, can you use the illuminators with thermal it's a different frequency and it relies on the. The, the bands within the range of, of normal heat radiation. So you can use it during daylight. It doesn't just like white out the way that a night vision system would. It's usable day or night and you get the same kind of thermal image. Cause that all it's looking at is the, the frequency range that.

Ben: 1:21:28

differential.

Gene: 1:21:29

Yeah, temperature. Exactly. Temperature differential. So, and I can't remember which portion, like what nanometers that frequency is, but it's, it's not the same thing that the infrared Illuminators use when they work with night vision systems. There are two different frequency ranges. I think we beat that topic to death.

Ben: 1:21:54

I mean, it's a big investment, so it's worth spending a lot of and that's, that's a last thought on the subject. One of the biggest barriers to entry on any of this is the amount of research that has to be done to make an informed decision.

Gene: 1:22:10

Yeah. Because if you just start watching YouTube videos, you'll see that everything is really good because every product is liked by some YouTuber.

Ben: 1:22:21

And there's also the fact that very few people have the financial ability to compare. Devices very well, right? You're not going to have someone comparing 4 or 5 different 5 grand items.

Gene: 1:22:35

This Asian dude out of Canada who has a company that sells the products. In fact, they do like they, I like their videos the best cause they do drew multi unit comparisons and since they're in the business of building and selling night vision systems and they sell some of the cheaper ones as well as some of the more expensive ones. They, they have all the equipment to be able to calibrate and test the night vision system. So I just can't remember the name of that, but it's like a Canadian company that sells night vision, which I thought was interesting because I wasn't sure if they were allowed in Canada, but apparently they are.

Ben: 1:23:15

Cold harbor media?

Gene: 1:23:17

Yeah. I think that's them. Yeah. That sounds right. Yeah. Cause they're actually Canadian. I did check pricing on that and it's actually very similar to the U S based ones if you convert from Canadian dollars to us dollars. And then you add in all the shipping and stuff that they have there, their higher end system is still going to be just shy of 5, 000, which is about what you'd get it at OpticsPlanet as well.

Ben: 1:23:44

Yeah. And you know, you've got like nightline and some others that I, I don't know how trustworthy they are. But they've supported some of our. You know, our favorite YouTubers like Risky Krisky which he got banned. Did you see that?

Gene: 1:23:58

No, I don't, I don't normally watch them unless you send them to me.

Ben: 1:24:01

You are the one who sent him to me

Gene: 1:24:03

I said normally, occasionally I'll watch them because it pops in my recommended, but I'm not a subscriber to his stuff.

Ben: 1:24:10

Oh, I'm not either, but I was actually gonna show someone a video of his, and I go to YouTube and look him up, and he's banned.

Gene: 1:24:18

Wow. Why do you get banned for?

Ben: 1:24:20

I don't know, he finally got banned.

Gene: 1:24:22

Hmm. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Ben: 1:24:27

Not saying that there should be limits, not saying a lot of things, but

Gene: 1:24:32

I was watching one of your favorite dudes, Pinhead, and which, that's not the name he goes by.

Ben: 1:24:38

hmm. He's talking about Grantham. Mm

Gene: 1:24:40

Who I can't really even legitimately call pinhead anymore, ever since he grew out facial hair. He no longer looks like a pinhead. Like his head is now more proportional and his neck doesn't look as skinny as it used to.

Ben: 1:24:54

mean, people could call you a basketball head, so it's okay.

Gene: 1:24:58

I'm just a big bone, man. So, uh, he It's, it's kind of annoying because all of his videos have the same formula. It starts off with about four minutes of him LARPing where he's dressed in full gear, running around with the weapon, shooting it at targets that are like 10 feet away. And you know, being very serious about the whole thing. And then after those four or five minutes. There's about four or five minutes worth of ads that he thanks his sponsors. And that guy's got five to 10 sponsors. I mean, it is a

Ben: 1:25:37

I think you're

Gene: 1:25:38

amount of sponsors. Okay. He's got at least five sponsors. It's a ridiculous number of sponsors from Sonora Desert Institute to the the, the gun thing that both of us have for dry fire, like all these companies are all sponsoring him. Yeah. Mantis. And so the first 10 minutes of the video, just skip, skip through the first 10 minutes every time. Cause there's nothing interesting there. And then he actually starts doing,

Ben: 1:26:02

on this, but go ahead.

Gene: 1:26:03

he starts doing the actual analysis of the gun at about the 10 minute mark or so

Ben: 1:26:09

Did you watch his video on the Jackal?

Gene: 1:26:12

I did. Yeah.

Ben: 1:26:15

Do you disagree with him?

Gene: 1:26:16

I mean, I don't, I don't know that I can disagree with them completely, but I will say that having shot both my Jackal and the the 308 what do you call it? The, the German gun.

Ben: 1:26:32

The scar?

Gene: 1:26:33

The SCAR. Yeah, so I don't have a SCAR. I think that's a crazy expensive gun, but I have a good friend that has got one, so I've shot his.

Ben: 1:26:40

but the Jackal isn't in 308 right now.

Gene: 1:26:42

Right. I know. And my Jackal is not in 308, but I'm just saying from a build quality standpoint, the SCAR and the Jackal are in different categories. They're also in different price ranges. The Jackal was just over a thousand bucks. The SCAR four and a half thousand. So not, I wouldn't expect them to be in the same category, but like I said, I will happily buy the 308 Jackal because I think that that house. It'll probably be like 95 percent of what the SCAR gives you, with just slightly worse build quality. And that's good enough for me. I don't need to spend four and a half grand.

Ben: 1:27:20

You watched the, I sent you a video of the Palmetto State CEO since the last time we

Gene: 1:27:25

Yeah, he's a cool dude, man. I, I did not know anything about that company until I watched that video.

Ben: 1:27:31

You know, one of the things that I think is hilarious, Is early on, when, like he talked about 6. 8, because he was a big 6. 8 guy, and they did a lot of 6. 8 barrels originally, in fact I have some of their 6. 8 barrels and

Gene: 1:27:44

panned him.

Ben: 1:27:45

f

Gene: 1:27:46

People panned him. Yep.

Ben: 1:27:51

on them. Oh, it's trash. Is this that and the other come to find out that barrel that I have was made by FN, right?

Gene: 1:27:57

They basically contracted FN's entire manufacturing facility in North Carolina to make their barrels when FN lost the military order.

Ben: 1:28:09

and people, I remember this because I, I remember going, Hey, this is a great place to get a you know, not a custom six, eight barrel. This is fantastic.

Gene: 1:28:19

Mm hmm.

Ben: 1:28:19

You know, and I, I have some custom 6. 8 barrels, but anyway and I was very pleased with it. I still have that AR that I built with Adams Arms Gas Piston System and that 6. 8 barrel from Palmetto State, and it's been nothing but a good gun and people just railing and ragging and railing and ragging. I'm

Gene: 1:28:36

Cheap

Ben: 1:28:37

no, this is fine, I don't know,

Gene: 1:28:40

Yeah, if, if those barrels had the FN mark on them, they would have cost twice as much and been the exact same barrels.

Ben: 1:28:48

exactly.

Gene: 1:28:49

Yeah, no, that's true. But yeah, the CEO talked about how, when they found out that, that the FN facility there was shutting down, like laying people off because they lost the government contract, they thought let's see if we can kill two fish with one stone here or two, two birds with one stone and let's catch two fish with one hook and, uh. Uh, see if we can help them keep running by getting their production. And he ended up talking to the guy that was the head of the barrel department and, and said, yeah, we'll just take all of your barrels. And then when he didn't

Ben: 1:29:27

knowing how many barrels that would be.

Gene: 1:29:29

yeah. Like their production facility could output like a hundred thousand barrels a month or some shit. It's probably less than that, but it was a very big number compared to that number. That Palmetto was selling at the time. And so they ended up like having to build their inventory of barrels and write checks for products they hadn't sold yet. Because they didn't want to lose the ability to have FM manufacturer. They're like, ah, shit, we better just keep buying them while they're making them because as soon as we tell them, stop, they're just going to close the facility.

Ben: 1:30:07

Before we wrap up, we should probably move off gun talk and cover a couple of things. Both that will probably make Darren cringe and smile. So, did y'all, I haven't listened to yesterday's or Friday's Unrelenting. Did y'all talk about the Taylor Swift AI stuff?

Gene: 1:30:25

No, we did not cover it

Ben: 1:30:27

didn't? What? Darren, come on, man. So, you've seen what happened, right?

Gene: 1:30:33

I heard what happened, I didn't see any videos.

Ben: 1:30:37

It's not videos, it's pictures, and you should totally go look.

Gene: 1:30:39

Oh, really? Yeah. There's some good photos of her.

Ben: 1:30:43

I can neither confirm nor deny, but I think this is one of those jump the shark moments where all the Swifties are pissed off enough that this might actually drive some change in the way AI is being used.

Gene: 1:30:55

Good luck. First of all, I think AI and porn is much like most things in porn is going to be what's pushing the next generation AI image and video processing because the, all these, all these women that currently get paid for simply removing their clothes don't actually need to get paid. And if you can do it all on AI

Ben: 1:31:20

and you know, maybe this will remove a lot of the moral stigma of it, because there will not be any actual h Exactly. No one's, no one's even fucking anymore at this point. It's just AI.

Gene: 1:31:33

that's right. And,

Ben: 1:31:34

just my image. What do you mean? Why are you such a prude? I didn't do anything wrong. I'm still a virgin. What do you mean?

Gene: 1:31:40

That's exactly right. And there was a

Ben: 1:31:42

I don't think that's gonna fly with,

Gene: 1:31:44

to

Ben: 1:31:44

the, the moral police.

Gene: 1:31:46

is a comment that I sent you and I posted on X, talked about it from Vivek Ramaswamy, which probably was the first time that I could really disagree with the guy I was saying. Cause he tend not to say most things I agree with and this was a comment on some talk show he was on or maybe it was a podcast. I don't know, but, but the comment was in reference to abortions and Vivek, and this is just a summary and it's not a word for word what he said, but essentially said that a good way to deal with abortion. Is to make the man responsible for the child and the woman that bears the child for 18 years. Now, I think that might be a good way to keep more men from having sex with women. I would agree with that, but I don't see what it has to do with abortion because I guess in a sense, you're bribing the woman to not abort the fetus, knowing that she's got 18 years of free money coming in. But I don't, I don't think that's an ethical way of doing it. And I don't think it's going to work. And I also think that if there, if you want to get men to focus more on porn and things that don't cost them 18 years of salary,

Ben: 1:33:12

Yep.

Gene: 1:33:13

then keep pushing agendas like this.

Ben: 1:33:16

The, the other thing I would say is that there has to be there has to be a return. So I get where he's coming from and that there has to be a return to a moral structure where men are making active decisions and not just being passive.

Gene: 1:33:32

Yeah, but women are in control of that. Women are in control of morality if

Ben: 1:33:37

and I think his argument that they shouldn't be

Gene: 1:33:39

they shouldn't be. Okay get rid of the 19th, I guess. Uh, if, if women can't keep their legs together, and basically just want to fuck every guy that they think looks nice, or has a you know, a wallet that looks nice then the only, I guess, way to have morality is to get the men to be moral because the women aren't

Ben: 1:34:04

which is somewhat abhorrent to nature,

Gene: 1:34:08

It is completely important to nature because

Ben: 1:34:10

here's the thing. Women have historically had the consequences on them. If they got pregnant, they had a child that they had to see about taking care of. They couldn't just

Gene: 1:34:19

More importantly, the death of the mother was a very regular occurrence up until about the 1970s.

Ben: 1:34:27

without birth control or reliable forms of birth control, this was a big deal. That's why women drove, prudence drove,

Gene: 1:34:34

Yeah. Women didn't have sex until they got married, or if they

Ben: 1:34:37

were

Gene: 1:34:37

they were sluts. Yeah.

Ben: 1:34:40

They were, because they were risking something. Men were historically not. Now, what Vivek is saying is inverting that. Not from a physical standpoint, but from a financial one at least.

Gene: 1:34:51

And, and I do think that right now we already have a fairly asexual generation with the zoomers

Ben: 1:34:58

Jesus, which is just

Gene: 1:35:00

and you want to keep the birth rates even lower than put in policies like this. Because I'll tell you what, most of these guys will choose the AI porn over a real woman.

Ben: 1:35:14

And fucking, these women are seeing that they've got their fur babies.

Gene: 1:35:19

Mm hmm. Yeah, exactly.

Ben: 1:35:21

Oh? It just, it's insane. But you know, you know how we know that the world is coming to an end?

Gene: 1:35:28

How?

Ben: 1:35:29

Ben Shapiro is the number one rapper on iTunes.

Gene: 1:35:32

know, I, I think it's hilarious. I sent you his, his tune. I bought, I bought three versions of him just to support him. And

Ben: 1:35:40

called me an anti Semite when I said I can't

Gene: 1:35:42

you are an anti Semite, that's a proven fact.

Ben: 1:35:44

I already told you I like Arabs.

Gene: 1:35:46

yes, I, exactly. And and so, you've got

Ben: 1:35:51

I cannot be an anti Semite.

Gene: 1:35:52

No, anti semitism refers to European

Ben: 1:35:55

too much shawarma, dude.

Gene: 1:35:56

Mm hmm. Uh, so anyway, the, I think he's really bad at it, first of all, objectively speaking, he's not a good rapper. However, that hasn't stopped him from having the number one selling rap song along with Tom McDonald. It's really Tom McDonald's song, but Ben is the, you know, the rapper part of the song. And it is hilarious and the, the, the tweet that Ben

Ben: 1:36:27

I want to see the music video.

Gene: 1:36:29

Oh yeah, yeah, watch it. The tweet that Ben sent out is basically, you know, it's, it's, it's sarcastic. Like he's doing this as a parody on purpose because he knows what it looks like, but it's done in a very tongue in cheek style where he's basically, I, I just wanted to thank God and thank my parents for paying for 12 years of violin lessons. And you know, thank the, the listeners of the country for making me the number one rapper in the U. S. I mean, it's, I'm paraphrasing, it's along that line of sentiment though, where he's making fun of the fact that the guy like actually took 12 years of violin lessons and this is what he ends up having a number one record of. Not, not, not classical music or violin shit, but him basically rapping. And not very good, but no, it's, it's good. And I think the reason that it can happen consistently for guys like Tim pool for Tom McDonald is because. They are, they're, they're basically big fish in a small pond. They're not competing with a whole lot of other pro conservative people making music. And therefore a lot of people that may not even be concerned, like I'm not conservative, I'm libertarian, but I will support happily people who agree with me on more issues than not.

Ben: 1:38:00

And even if you don't necessarily like the song, you'll buy it

Gene: 1:38:02

Oh, I, I never listened to the song after I buy it. I've never listened to a single one of Tim Pool's songs because they generally suck, but I will support Tim Pool. And if a way to support him is, is helping him get the number one song for that week, I'm happy to do that. It only costs a buck.

Ben: 1:38:21

there's just some ego stuff there that I, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Anyway,

Gene: 1:38:26

Mm hmm.

Ben: 1:38:27

it's going to be interesting to see what happens. Um,

Gene: 1:38:32

Well, I'm planning on being at the border on, I think it's a second. It's when the the official trucker protest is, is when I'm going to drive down there.

Ben: 1:38:39

yeah, the, you know, man, the the big thing here though is what does Biden, so they gave Texas till Friday at 6 p. m. to capitulate.

Gene: 1:38:51

Mm hmm.

Ben: 1:38:51

Texas has not capitulated. In fact, Abbott and Dan Patrick and Kim Paxton have all said, basically, fuck off.

Gene: 1:38:58

much. Mm

Ben: 1:39:02

Hell, even Idaho is sending law enforcement agents to the border to support Texas. You have half the country and with some very interesting, notable exceptions like Kentucky supporting Texas. yeah, man,

Gene: 1:39:18

done lost their way.

Ben: 1:39:20

Don't get me started, but people need to understand and there was one post on Twitter that I saw that was the last time we saw language like this from one of Abbott's statements was South Carolina's declarations of secession of the 1860s, to which I replied, no, it sounds much more like Texas's declaration of secession, you know. Hey, go see this. We actually already talked about Mexico and issues with the Mexican border being one of the reasons why we didn't want to be in this country anymore. So. I

Gene: 1:39:52

Yeah,

Ben: 1:39:53

don't know, man. I, it, it,

Gene: 1:39:54

there's always the danger of the the agent provocateurs and whatnot.

Ben: 1:40:00

yeah, there

Gene: 1:40:00

that's to be expected. The thing is the agent provocateurs only work in the instance like January 6, which was a genuine no violence from any side event. And I think the reason that the, the federal government was able to get all those convictions is because in comparison to no protest or event, there was some illegal activity going on. People that walked between the ropes inside the Capitol didn't buy a ticket for a tour of the Capitol and therefore were breaking the law. If there are shots fired by anybody in South Texas right now, whether it's the, the border patrol agents or the Texas National Guard or private citizens, if there are shots fired and people die. I think that the fuse will be lit and no one will be able to put it back out. And what I mean by the fuse being lit is that a lot of people will realize that the government cannot protect them and that they have to protect themselves and their friends and neighbors. And then the law goes into the hands of the populace and out of the hands of the government. And there's not a goddamn thing the government can do about it. And whether that means that Texas actually organizes. Oh yeah, they can try, but they can't do anything about it because you know, it's, it's going to be an instance where if it happens, obviously nothing may happen and hopefully it's going to be totally peaceful. But if, if there are people that end up losing their lives I think that is. Going to be sufficient for a lot of people to say, there is no more choice. There are no more options. You pick a side and you're going to die in that side. You're going to either live or die, but you're not going to be waiting for somebody else to, to clean this up.

Ben: 1:42:18

What kind of American are you?

Gene: 1:42:20

Exactly. So that movie, even, even looking. Even looking at the map in the movie where we were all like, what, what the hell is this bullshit where you got like California and then Washington and Texas on the same side, how's this work? Then you look at the map of the state supporting is California is not on there for sure. But California, to be fair to them is extremely for states rights. Cause California dislikes an awful lot of things that the federal government. Tells it that they can't do. And California is on the forefront of ignoring federal law. Cannabis illegals. I mean, there's a sanctuary state. There's an awful lot in California that they've done. Opposition and in disregard of the federal government. So if you look at it as a single issue of federalism, California may be on the same side as Texas. Mm-Hmm.

Ben: 1:43:19

I don't think so, because of Gavin Newsom and the Democrats being allergic to any Here's the problem. Orange men bad. It's that, it's that visceral symptom of just, we can't agree. It's the exact same people who think this E. Jean Carroll. Decision for Trump is justice. Yes, they got Trump and any rational person looking at this is going This is absolutely fucking insane. This is this is alex jones

Gene: 1:43:49

Yeah. I, I don't understand

Ben: 1:43:51

is what they

Gene: 1:43:52

only got 87 million. I was looking for$870 million judgments for her. How is it this low? If they can do a trillion for Alex Jones? How are they only doing 87

Ben: 1:44:05

over yet. This is I mean alex jones first ruling was only You know a hundred and something million and it's gone up to what it has. Just wait

Gene: 1:44:15

Yeah. Maybe, maybe they'll, they'll revise it

Ben: 1:44:18

I don't think it's actually a trillion. I think it's more like a billion, but

Gene: 1:44:22

Oh, it's over a billion.'cause I remember it was bigger than the GDP of France. Mm-Hmm.

Ben: 1:44:26

which anyway, the, the, the point is this, this lawfare has to stop whether it's the Biden administration going to the Supreme court, getting, and if you look at the Supreme court decision, which I finally did,

Gene: 1:44:42

Yep.

Ben: 1:44:43

I get where, like my, my first reaction was, fuck Amy, hang her up by her tits. Like

Gene: 1:44:49

still think that's the case. I read the decision immediately when I came out and I still think that

Ben: 1:44:56

Well, technically, it's pretty narrow, dude, that the federal government can cut the barbed wire in an emergency situation to go do their

Gene: 1:45:03

I don't think they have the right to. Because you, you give them an inch, they'll take a mile.

Ben: 1:45:09

I, I get where you, I, I tend to agree, and had I been on the court, I would not have. I'm playing devil's advocate here, I'm thinking it through, I'm Trying to see where this is coming from. Now, all of that said, all this lawfare, what the Biden administration is doing with the LNG, what we see going on with Trump and Alex and the cancelization and this communist reflex of you're not woke enough has to stop and I. I am very worried about how far that pendulum is going to go in the other direction, and potentially violently so. And I don't think you're wrong by saying if something kicks off down at the border here next weekend, it's going to kick off. Because I think there is a powder keg. I think a lot of people are sitting there going, what the hell, right? There are a lot of people paying attention to this that A year ago would not

Gene: 1:46:08

when 3 percent of the population says to themselves, it makes no difference. I might as well risk my life. Like when there's no benefit to not doing anything anymore. For about 3 percent of the population, that's when you have a revolution happening. And that's true in any country, not, not specific to our country. Because the people that initiate a revolution are never the majority. If it was a majority, there'd be a fricking vote and things would change. It's always a small minority of people. You can't get to the point where. Even something as small as 3% of the population feels like they're living in a no choice scenario.

Ben: 1:46:53

Did you did you watch the Cultural War from Friday?

Gene: 1:46:57

No, no. You were asking me about it, but I I never got around to watching it on Tim cast either.

Ben: 1:47:03

Yeah, so, it's got who wrote Texit? Dan Miller.

Gene: 1:47:09

Oh, yeah. Miller. Yeah.

Ben: 1:47:11

he's the head of the Texit

Gene: 1:47:14

Texas movement. Mm-Hmm. Mm-Hmm.

Ben: 1:47:16

Daniel Miller, and he was on there, and I think the other guest that Tim had, I can't remember who it was, but who was very poo pooing, Oh, a civil war could never happen, Texas could never leave, Texas could never do Dude! Um, you know, I've got friends who I found out recently, listened to the show but

Gene: 1:47:37

Tim. Cast. You mean

Ben: 1:47:39

no, to us, who just moved down from New York that are very, you know, I wouldn't say they're Pro secession or anything by that. I haven't even really talked about it, but they're very much in the, Hey, I like Texas, Texas is being run way better than New York. This is a better place. Let's not go the route that we were in. And I don't know, man, I, I I've got other friends who are good old boys that aren't political, that don't think about any of this that are up in arms. And I, I just, I see it across the spectrum that this is a shifting moment and, you know, I, I think we are moving in, you know, you said it that, you know, this is going to kick off and that's going to be that and I, I think history is moving us to a point where we are fast approaching a moment where only, only violence or capitulation are options. We, we either have to totally capitulate or violence will ensue,

Gene: 1:48:47

yeah, exactly. And, and I think that ultimately it, that decision that.

Ben: 1:48:52

think either one of us want to see that,

Gene: 1:48:54

No, of course

Ben: 1:48:55

it.

Gene: 1:48:56

You know, it's always fun to talk about Texas secession, but the reality is if, if that were to happen. It would be a very difficult five to 10 years for Texas residents, because the, I'm not, and that's even if it happens in a friendly way, right? If the United States says, okay, it would still be five to 10 years of difficulty here because there would be a lack of free transport.

Ben: 1:49:27

There's lots of things like one of my, one of my friends was asking what's the government going to look like? I mean, I'm not a big fan of Abbott and everything else. What's it going to be like? Is this going to be a government that I want to live under? And I said I don't know. It's important that people like you and I are the ones who are helping to shape what that new government looks like. And we do that through our rhetoric. We do that through conversation. We do that by running for office, heaven forbid, if this actually kicks off.

Gene: 1:49:49

Elected to be a sheriff. I

Ben: 1:49:53

appointed governor by the military.

Gene: 1:49:55

by elected, I mean like the military elects you.

Ben: 1:49:57

Mm hmm.

Gene: 1:49:58

Huh.

Ben: 1:49:59

Uhhuh And that's a reference back to some of the going home books, by the way, which I picked back up, by the way. I, I had to

Gene: 1:50:06

Are you done now?

Ben: 1:50:07

No, I, I'm still not done, but I, I, I, I took a couple week break of just, I can't read anymore because it's getting way too real, way

Gene: 1:50:15

I know, right? You're, you're, you're having trouble differentiating reality from the fiction in the books.

Ben: 1:50:21

my God.

Gene: 1:50:22

it, it is true. There's and you know, I've got friends, I've got a lot of friends that have That are in the military or in the government positions and they're, it's stressful for everybody, you know, I've got one buddy that is an occasional listener to the podcast as well as got 20 plus years experience and he's currently serving and. You know, he's now has to think about what is going to be his action and the results of that action for his family. If he is called up to go fight Texas, right. If he's deployed on the border of Texas to fight Texans, most Americans never envisioned that day where you may be called with a an order from your commander in chief. To go slaughter Americans because no longer Americans, if you're a Texan and you secede, you're no longer an American. So it's technically a foreign government. You'd be fighting that. So that's, that sounds like a a legal order, but P people have to think about this stuff

Ben: 1:51:36

I, and I think we should leave it there by saying. You know, where, where is your line in the sand and what are you willing to capitulate to, and what are you willing to say? We pledge our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor.

Gene: 1:51:54

and don't forget how we got here the 19th.

Ben: 1:51:58

Gene at sergine. com or whatever the hell your email is.