061 Just Two Good Old Boys

Gene: 0:22

Hey, Ben. How are you?

Ben: 0:24

Doing all right, Gene. Hopefully we don't have the same audio issues. We got some complaints last time and to everyone I say, fuck off. It happens.

Gene: 0:33

Sorry. Yeah. It's a great way to treat people who don't donate us money. Tell you what to fuck off.

Ben: 0:39

You know what? It's just one of those things, man. We had some issues and it was definitely a distraction. And I apologize for that. But it was

Gene: 0:46

annoying, but hopefully it won't happen this time around. You got your original sound turned on and everything. Right.

Ben: 0:53

Oh, yeah. Yeah. I've still checked all the zoom audio settings. The zoom was the issue. Now I did notice that the volume level was a little lower and the new zoom update automatically puts the mic input at halfway. So there was that, but that's been changed, but no, the mo to losing sync with the computer was the bigger problem. And hopefully we've got that solved. And if we don't, I'll fall back to the Yeti,

Gene: 1:18

Right on the edge of almost being too hot. Okay.

Ben: 1:23

Bye. Don't yell. Well, God, as long as you don't turn it

Gene: 1:26

down, you could turn it down and then yell, but don't yell without turning it down just a smidge, like maybe two decibels or something. Two dog biscuits. Dog biscuits. Exactly. Right. So, we got a few things to chit chat about this time around.

Ben: 1:42

Just a few. Yeah, there's a few things going on. Do you want to start with the court case or civil war? Let's

Gene: 1:49

let's do the court case. All right. So there was a court case recently that I saw, which had a pretty good, that you may or may not have sent me that I had a pretty good end result which is. Essentially saying that somebody who was convicted of a felony cannot lose the right to own the firearm. Correct. Now, I think that's good because there's an awful lot of nonviolent felons out there. There's tons of people, whether it was related to, Oh, I don't know, your girlfriend brought pot with her and you had pot yourself and the cops pulled you over. And now the combined amount of pot you have is big enough for an intent to sell charge. Guess what? You're now a felon. You can't own guns. A variety of things like that. There's financial crimes. There's all kinds of crimes that could lead to a felony charge and a conviction. And for a lot of these people, there was you know, they weren't violent at all. There's no risk of them using a firearm in a manner that's dangerous. However what Ben and I disagree on, I think slightly here in this case, is the manner in which the judge relies on the supremacy of the second amendment. When it comes to changing or invalidating state laws, well,

Ben: 3:15

let's cover the whole decision first. So this is in light of Heller and saying, okay, you cannot impose restrictions that would not have been around in traditional circa when the second amendment was written. So you have to go within original intent of the second amendment. Well, that kind of falls apart immediately now. Again, I agree. I don't think felons, I don't think anyone should ever have their inalienable rights removed from them. You know, except under temporary circumstances. So if you're serving a sentence, yeah, exactly. So we are imposing a punishment upon you. If that punishment is for the rest of your life, then that punishment is for the rest of your life, but it's still a temporary circumstance. But to automatically remove something from someone is, to me, not In line with what jurisprudence should be now the heller decision says that you have to go with the original intent Which i'm all for the problem with that is the original intent of the constitution The original intent of the second amendment was to bar congress Not the states The incorporation doctrine that came in during the 14th amendment is the real problem here The constitution is the supreme law of the land where it has granted the You Authority to the federal government anywhere else. The 9th and 10th amendment make very clear is reserved to the people and to the states. This idea of the. U. S. Constitution applying to the states is a relatively new one and quite frankly, bullshit. What the judge should have found was based off of insert state here's constitution and the traditions thereof and the original intent of their equivalent of the second amendment. This cannot stand. It's a good decision for the wrong reasons and the wrong rationale.

Gene: 5:11

Let me ask you this, Ben. Why does the Constitution allow itself to be amended? What do you mean? Well, is, are we allowed to amend the Constitution at all? Yes,

Ben: 5:22

there are several ways of doing so.

Gene: 5:24

Why are we? If the original intent is the only thing that matters?

Ben: 5:27

Well, because the founders weren't so arrogant as to assume they got everything right the first time and foresaw everything right the first time. The point is, and the original intent argument isn't about, oh, this can never change. It's that if you're interpreting a law, you must use. The intent and the language behind it at the time. So

Gene: 5:49

if you're saying the 14th amendment, which was passed as an amendment to the constitution, not legally

Ben: 5:56

invalid, it's not a legal first of all, there, there are two problems with the 14th amendment. One, you can argue that past during reconstruction and so on, where the Southern states actually represented, there's that whole argument. But beyond that, Equal protection under the law has been interpreted to mean that the U. S. Constitution now applies to everyone. And this is where we get the incorporation doctrine. But the incorporation doctrine did not start and did not come into fruition until really the twenties. Actually, the probably the teens. So. Quite a while after it was passed the, the, the 14th amendment, had it been understood at the time to hamstring the state's abilities to pass their own laws and that the federal law would be the only Supreme law. It would have never been ratified even under reconstruction, even under the circumstances that existed at that point in time. And not only that the 14th amendment did not go in and remove the statements of the 9th and the 10th. So, if they, if the intention of the 14th amendment was to make us a union nation instead of a federation. Then they should have gone through and struck the 9th and 10th amendment immediately or modified them in some way, but they didn't. So now we have contravailing principles and non original intent of the 14th amendment.

Gene: 7:25

Yeah, so, I'm, I'm playing a little bit of a devil's advocate here, but I don't mind doing that one bit. So if, if your argument is that the 14th amendment was poorly written, does that invalidate the amendments?

Ben: 7:41

Yeah, this is why most contracts in business and everything else have what are called severability clauses. Whereas if we screw something up, we'll strike that portion of it, but that doesn't invalidate the rest of it. Severability does not exist in. Amendments, but, you know, that's not my problem. So, you know, if the intention was to say we narrow unination governed by one set of laws and the federal laws are supreme, no matter what it didn't do that adequately. And not only that, that was not the understanding at the time, nor the intent at

Gene: 8:17

the time. Could it be that the intent was for only the constitutional laws to be for everyone and laws passed by the federal government outside of the Constitution. No, again,

Ben: 8:32

this all comes down to seated by state laws. No, this is stupid. This is, this is a specious argument. I'll tell you why. This is the same argument that the Commerce Clause or the General Welfare Clause give the federal government infinite fucking power that they do not have. No, sorry, that was not the intention. You can't interpret it that way. Anyone who wants to interpret it that way is performing mental gymnastics and is being intellectually dishonest. The, the Equal Protection Clause under the 14th Amendment was designed to say, hey, You have to treat everybody the same. So if you're going to charge a group of people with a crime, and there's another group of people you're not charging with that crime, then you're not giving them equal protection under the law. Now, the quick, the devolution of that to the states is horseshit. The federal government cannot impose that upon the states, not constitutionally. This idea of a federal government that might makes right and, you know, post reconstruction, they were going to run roughshod over the South you know, was problematic.

Gene: 9:47

Okay. Well, if we have an amendment that says no state shall, and we agree on the meaning of the, the word no and shall which we use in other amendments. Then you would have to say that if this amendment passed poorly written or not, it is the law of the land.

Ben: 10:11

No, because the federal government has a preceptive power that they, that is written into the Constitution,

Gene: 10:17

and this is part of the constitution.

Ben: 10:19

Hold on. So if let's say this, for example what they're trying to get Trump on with insurrection and treason and so on, and therefore he can't run for office, the federal government can pass an amendment that bars. Insurrectionists or people who formerly fought against the U. S. from holding federal office, they cannot bar state office with a federal amendment. That's a violation of first principles. And if you do it, all you're doing is saying, okay, this government doesn't need to exist anymore. And, you know, we can move on from that. Which, by the way, I am quickly becoming in that camp quickly as a stretch. I've been moving to a more anarchist bent for several years now, but it's accelerating for sure.

Gene: 11:10

Right, but again, I go back to, regardless of whether I like the 14th Amendment or not, or parts of it, it does literally say, no state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens in the United States. So this case focuses on a state law that abridges The privileges of people convicted of felonies within that state. I'd say it's pretty clear cut case that this is a 14th amendment issue.

Ben: 11:45

Okay. But that's again, not the, the, not the track that the judge went down. So. Again, I think the, if we're going back to the original court case, I, I think the decision was the right decision, but his opinion and, and rationale was, I think it was the right

Gene: 12:00

decision. Exactly. So, yeah. But, but also there's more, we're in violent

Ben: 12:04

agreement on that.

Gene: 12:05

Well, we are, but, but we're also at a fork because we, while we both agree that the judge went down a less powerful argument and probably in a poorly argued incorrect one. There are two arguments here, one of which is I'm saying could have been relied upon the 14th Amendment, which I don't know any other way to interpret it, whether presently or as of the 18 fifties when The language hasn't really changed. No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States. The Second Amendment is in the Constitution. The right to bear arms is in the Constitution. The Fourteenth Amendment is in the Constitution. If we're not using that as the guiding law and the states can disregard amendments at will So what,

Ben: 13:01

let me ask you this. What do you think of the principle of nullification?

Gene: 13:08

You mean by juries? No,

Ben: 13:10

by state legislatures. So the federal government passes a law, let's say the federal government says we are going to tax the sale of every mouse. Sure. In, in across the country.

Gene: 13:23

Well, how are we supposed to feed our pet snakes then?

Ben: 13:25

Hold on. I, I was talking about a, like,

Gene: 13:27

computer here. I know. That's why I'm, that's why

Ben: 13:29

that's funny. Okay, so, and then Texas passes a law saying taxation of mice is illegal. Who wins? Well,

Gene: 13:41

Texas taxed the mice since they're following Texas law. The federal government can tax the mice with a federal tax because they're

Ben: 13:51

following federal law. So, see, this is where you get crossways against Jefferson and the rest of the founders. And I'll send you a great book on nullification.

Gene: 14:01

I tell you what, dude, I'm not crossways. They failed to adopt a constitution that had much less federalism in it. They adopted one.

Ben: 14:12

No, they, they actually did adopt a constitution that had no central power. They got

Gene: 14:18

rid of it once they introduced the amendments, didn't they? No,

Ben: 14:21

the problem is they decided to become traitors and ratify the constitution over the articles of confederation, which I would argue we'd be far better off today.

Gene: 14:30

That's a different argument. I'm not arguing which one's better. I'm just saying that given where we are, given where we stand, we either accept the constitution, including the amendments as the law of the entirety of the United States. Or we say that We can pick and choose the way that it was in the Federalist Times or pre Federalist Times. Yeah,

Ben: 14:53

again, you're thinking as an American versus a Texan. You're thinking of this as one nation instead of 50 nations. And that, that is the difference. And what I would say is that argument, that thought pattern is the very reason that and many other reasons why I. We'll not be sad to see this society burn.

Gene: 15:19

Sure. That again, that's fine. We're, we're not in disagreement on that. I'm just saying. If, if you say that the constitution is invalid and it doesn't apply and it doesn't exist, that's not what

Ben: 15:32

I'm saying.

Gene: 15:33

I, I, good luck.

Ben: 15:36

Yeah, no, what I'm saying is that the federal government, you know, something that Obama said that pissed off the left and not the left, the right. And I was going, what do you mean? He's absolutely right. Obama called the constitution, a document of negative privileges. Meaning it's a con it's a constitution of restrictions on the federal government. And that is correct. That is what it was.

Gene: 16:01

Correct. Until they started adding more amendments. How exactly is an amendment that balanced alcohol consumption and production? A restriction on the federal government. Tell me that.

Ben: 16:14

So actually, actually, it did not. No, you're wrong. So the, the, the prohibition era amendments did not make illegal the consumption of alcohol because they did not think they could do it. Yes, because it would only crossing state.

Gene: 16:35

So alcohol produced. And New Jersey was perfectly legal

Ben: 16:40

in New Jersey. It was out of the purview of the federal government and out of the purview of that.

Gene: 16:45

How that's definitely not what history bears.

Ben: 16:48

Okay, that because they further interpretation because they further interpret the commerce clause to say that that consumption of alcohol in New Jersey. Interferes with interstate commerce, which is bullshit. And it's this rabbit hole of mental gymnastics of those who want to take power, those who are better men who want to be in control.

Gene: 17:13

Okay.

Ben: 17:15

Yeah. So I used to think that even a bad government was better than no government. I, I disagree with that. Yeah. That's our government over the last a hundred and. 150 years, 160 years has become so destructive to the ends of liberty, which it was founded for as to, as to indoctrinate and restrain the individual to the point of absurdity. Even in Texas, our laws here in Texas have gone to the point of absurdity. You sent me a video of one of the sheriffs talking about the six reasons why you can fire a gun legally in Texas. That's horseshit. That's utter horseshit. If someone is attacking me and I fear for my life, Assault isn't on that list. So now it's up to judicial or, you know, judicial discretion, whether or not a prosecutor wants to bring that against me

Gene: 18:22

to, to be more accurate. That there's not a video of a sheriff. It's a video of my local gun store. He

Ben: 18:31

he's former law enforcement though. Oh, he's

Gene: 18:33

former, but he, he's vehemently anti government. Okay.

Ben: 18:38

Well, the point

Gene: 18:39

is. The reason I sent that video to you is because I knew it would get your goat.

Ben: 18:44

Yeah. Yeah. Well, and it does, and the, the idea that in Texas, if you look up the definition of assault in Texas, it's insanely broad. Mm-Hmm. And there is no defense of being goaded into it or anything like that here in the state. So if someone sits there and they can say anything they want to you and you don't dare touch them, right. Regardless of how bad it is, regardless of what it is. Which is insane. That's not reality. The reality is and society,

Gene: 19:18

you're not suggesting verbal assault is a reason to use deadly force.

Ben: 19:24

I absolutely am. Not deadly force, but forced what it comes down to is we have become a deadly force. Yeah, I'm talking. I was talking about assault here. So 1 of the things I would say is we have become a society where no 1 watches what they say. They can say anything they want. They can, which is fine. I think you should say anything you want and I think you should think anything you want. And when someone decides that you have crossed the line and it's time for your ass to be beat, you better be prepared to defend yourself.

Gene: 19:56

Yeah. The so as a, as a former firearms instructor, certified firearms instructor, the phrase that I used in the past, and this is Minnesota laws done, Texas is in fear of bodily harm. It doesn't have to be mortal harm. It it can be. An injury of some type that if it could be prevented by use of deadly force. Then deadly force is authorized,

Ben: 20:24

but that's not the way our laws stand today, which is a problem. We have restricted too

Gene: 20:29

much too far. It is different in every state. And I will say when I moved to Texas, I was somewhat surprised now, this is back how many years ago, it was like 15 years ago at how Texas was actually more restrictive than Minnesota was.

Ben: 20:44

Yeah. In many

Gene: 20:45

ways. Yeah. Like, you know, you guys had drunk driving laws that were crazy. Oh,

Ben: 20:51

did you, did you see the article I sent you on that one? Yep. Yeah, that they're talking about lowering the highway safety boards. Mm-Hmm. recommendation from 0.0 0.08 to 0.05.

Gene: 21:05

Yeah, I mean, it's, again, it's getting kind of toward that area of. Well, it's actually it's this. This is a good pivot point to say that it's the same argument that justified the original N. F. A. Taxation. Hey, if we can tax them at all, let's tax them a crazy amount, like a year's salaries worth, because we're just tatting a tax. We're not forbidding them from buying these things. Wink, wink, nudge, nudge. We all know who won't be able to buy them and who will.

Ben: 21:42

Well, and that's, that's the problem is we have a bunch of. Aaron's and our government and have for a long time of people who think they know better and that their will should be enforced and it's absurd and whether it's,

Gene: 21:58

well, I'm glad you brought up Karen and the 18th amendment. I know that a lot of people find it difficult to say this, but You know, giving women the right to vote should have never happened. You're talking about the 19th, but sure. Yeah. That's what I said. The 19th minute. What did I say? Ninth. You said 18th. No, I meant 19th because this all starts. The idea of acting parental to a populace is not an idea a man comes up with.

Ben: 22:32

I think you're wrong there, see Karl Marx.

Gene: 22:36

Karl Marx was a mama's boy. Okay.

Ben: 22:40

There, I said it. He's still a man that came up with the idea.

Gene: 22:44

There are, yes, but, but would he be considered one by his compatriots? That's what I'd like to know. What kind of a boxing record do you have? Yeah. Yeah. All right. Gene. We all know the background of Karl Marx. Yeah,

Ben: 22:59

we do. Yeah. And then the angles were something

Gene: 23:01

in a rich Jewish household resented his father had feelings for his mother and then wrote something that was a hate letter to his father that became. The banner cry for people with low IQ.

Ben: 23:19

You know, I will say that the basic precept of communism is somewhat of a noble one, if man were perfect, right? The

Gene: 23:30

idea is strike Star Trek universe where everything is provided for you.

Ben: 23:34

If the, if, if, if you could ever get to a society that really did do from each according to his means to each, according to his needs. Sure. But the fact is that isn't reality. The fact is that from each, according to his ability would fall off very quickly. So

Gene: 23:58

anyway, yeah, and it really infantilizes people when you say that because you're making, you know, Like, who gets to judge what somebody's ability is? Or needs. If you look back 100 years ago or certainly 200 years ago, the assumption would be that the peasants Can't possibly do anything that the higher ups can do. Because they're, they're incapable of that level of thought because of their station in life proves it. And you know, this was, this was the opposite of the illegal egalitarianism. So really. I think you have to do some, as you said earlier, you have to do some mental gymnastics to stretch communism into a framework, which is beneficial and acceptable. Agreed. What else we got?

Ben: 25:02

Well, all I can say is I, I am tired of living in a society where the vast majority prefers peaceful slavery over dangerous freedom. Yes, yes,

Gene: 25:20

we all know you're looking for gold skulls.

Ben: 25:23

Well, it's, yeah, we hear it every other week. I'm just ready for a change, but yeah.

Gene: 25:31

Yeah. Well, and again, this is, you know, there was a video that I, I forwarded to you that was put out by one of my favorite XCI agents and it, in that video, he talked about how given the path the country's taking, Mm hmm. That he's planning and recommending for people to leave before 2030, his, his timeline is 2028. Yeah. And everybody always says, but where would you go? And I said, well, there are a lot of places that you can go here. Well, part of it is anyway, but there are a lot of places you can go and certainly https: otter. ai like that former CIA agent who's traveled quite a bit of the world and has seen places that he wouldn't mind living you can find places that have the type of local government that you're perfectly fine with, that for the most part ignores the federal government. And there are places like that in a lot of countries. Not all countries and certainly not in, uh, totalitarian countries, but there are a lot of countries where the governments are coalitions. They're fairly weak on a countrywide level and really local laws. For the most part governed how people act.

Ben: 26:51

Yeah. I don't know. I,

Gene: 26:53

And I, if the question of guns comes up, they, in a lot of countries, I'm not, I certainly wouldn't say most, but in a lot of countries, the question of guns is again, similar to what the NFA imposed in the United States, which is. As long as you can pay the fees, you're allowed to have guns.

Ben: 27:13

Yeah. Except you have, yes, but they also

Gene: 27:16

have a registration. Yes,

Ben: 27:18

the registration is a problem. Now we have a,

Gene: 27:23

yeah, I mean, ideally, right. But the question is, do you want to have no registration and live in the U S? With the path it's

Ben: 27:32

taking. Yeah. We, we have a de facto registration here in the U S

Gene: 27:37

well, there's constantly articles about the subversion of credit card companies, a subversion of, you know, email, what

Ben: 27:48

we're going to have to switch to the different inputs. Oh, no. Yeah. We just cut

Gene: 27:53

out again. Okay. So one thing I don't want you to do, can you still hear me? Yes. That you did last time is that fuck things up is do not leave this call running and then call on a different, on your phone. If you're going to do something like that. I did. What? Okay. Well, somehow you ended up being on as two people on the same call.

Ben: 28:17

That wasn't the

Gene: 28:18

issue that was one of the issues I had to correct on my end. How was it? Something I had, I had two files called Ben and one file called

Ben: 28:27

Jean. One with audio, one

Gene: 28:29

without. Well, one of them. Yeah, one of them had audio and the other one had partial audio. Okay. Well, from your second

Ben: 28:38

call. Okay. So yeah, that wasn't what I was trying to accomplish

Gene: 28:42

there. Okay. All right. Well, if we need to hit the pause, just let me

Ben: 28:45

know. Yeah, go ahead and hit pause for a second. I'm gonna switch to the backup

Gene: 28:51

and we're back from Ben's break You know, you guys haven't heard any time pass. It's been about three hours Yeah

Ben: 28:59

more like three minutes, but I will say this anyone who Might have a clue on what's going on with the MO two. I would love to hear any suggestions'cause

Gene: 29:12

yeah's annoying. So the issue

Ben: 29:13

is it seems to lose, and I apologize'cause I can't get to the noise gate on the Yeti right now, so, right.

Gene: 29:19

It, it seems to lose clock is what's happening. Mm-Hmm. it's happening. And it takes what? A few seconds, a minute. How long does it take to get it back?

Ben: 29:28

Takes a couple seconds. Drops out. Mm-Hmm. loses clock comes back up. Then it loses clock again, then comes back up and it'll be good for 20, 30 minutes and then it'll do it again.

Gene: 29:37

And just a lot of people want you, this is a Windows machine or Linux machine? This

Ben: 29:41

is a

Gene: 29:41

Windows 10 machine. Windows 10 and fully updated to the current patches?

Ben: 29:48

More or less. Be pretty close. If not, let me, I

Gene: 29:52

can check that. Yeah, don't worry about it. Just as long as, like, you'd know if you manually disable that for the last half a year or something.

Ben: 30:00

No, it's a it's reasonably up to date. I don't install updates exactly when they come out. Then it depends. But yeah, it's, it's up to date. The last time I installed updates was actually yesterday when I restarted the system before we did all this. So yesterday when I was trying to avoid having

Gene: 30:21

audio issues. Right. One thing I would suggest is plugging the Motu into a different computer for a week or so and. Maybe use it for other Zen meetings. See if it works fine. Or if you're having the same issues, cause then you can at least isolate it as a computer or the Motu. Yeah.

Ben: 30:37

I just can't afford to have that happen during a you know, customer meeting or something like

Gene: 30:42

that. Well, not customer, but you've got to talk to people other than customers at some point. I mean, you're working. Or just, you know, we call me up if you,

Ben: 30:51

if you can, that, that, or I guess I could just actually sit down and take the time to get it working and Jack, you can do it that way. And I don't know, it sounds like a good excuse to try the road caster at this point. Yeah,

Gene: 31:05

yeah, sure. And then the other thing is that I was going to say is it's unrelated, but it goes in the category of weird things with the Motu. Um, when I first hooked up the Motu to the Mac cause it used to run on my gaming PC I was having the same issue. I was having a much more frequent same issue where it would lose clock about every three to four minutes, but it would get the clock back in less than a second. So it was a very quick loss and reconnect, but it was obviously impossible to do any kind of recording on it. And what I ended up doing are two things. One is I reflashed the Motu just to bring it back to factory and then install the latest. Operating system that it's got. I also forgot to back up all my audio settings. So I had to spend about two hours recreating those. But you know, a smart person would have just back all of those up first. And then the last thing I did is I followed the suggestion that Bandrew provided, which I cannot remember. What, what he told me to do, but it had, Oh no, I do remember what it was. And I already told you to try it, which is increasing the buffers. Yeah. Which I already did. Yeah. And then once I did that on the Mac that fixed it. So obviously this is a different issue. Yeah. That's something else going on there.

Ben: 32:34

Yeah. Well, we'll find out. But so, two episodes in a row, we had some issues. Hopefully since we switched to the backup, it won't be as distracting as time. So, yeah.

Gene: 32:44

People will just complain about how you sound differently. They'll, they'll complain about how you, you sound worse now, but that's all right. Huh.

Ben: 32:50

Well, you know, at least you can hear me.

Gene: 32:52

Yeah, that's true. So, what else could I don't think we got any new people supporting us since the last show or even two shows ago, but we do have, I think, three or four people currently that are supporting us. Monthly donators, right?

Ben: 33:09

We do. And you know, it's much appreciated. It takes some of the burden off of doing this because otherwise it is just straight out of our pocket. So, and,

Gene: 33:19

you know, with Ben having to buy a new multis all the time, that money goes, that goes a long way.

Ben: 33:27

Yeah. Huh. Huh. Buying new motives all the time.

Gene: 33:31

You never know. Maybe there's something physically wrong with it too. Although I kind of doubt

Ben: 33:34

it. Well, but even, even so they've got a pretty good warranty and ability to go in and fix stuff. So,

Gene: 33:42

yeah. And I, I'm hoping that they're, they're replacement for this device, which was, I believe last year, the estimate was the end of this year for when that comes out. So if it comes out around Christmas, I'll probably pick one up. If it doesn't, if it'll be. Beginning of next year that I might wait until Christmas of that year. Cause I obviously don't need one, but I, I do like multi and I don't mind buying a new device every five years or so.

Ben: 34:11

Yeah, well, if you remember when I was first trying to get mine there weren't any to be had because the chip factory that actually made the chips for the, that the Motu ultralight was using burned down, so they, they were having to rebuild. And by the way, we have four people who are monthly donors, so appreciate them.

Gene: 34:33

Thanks guys. You know who you are. And Yeah, we don't we don't do ads in this show, as I've said before, but if somebody does want to include a message with a donation, as long as it's a short message, we'll usually read it. That means no paragraphs. CSB. Indeed. Yeah. But do check out his artwork, even though he doesn't donate money to us at CSB on X, which is very easy to get to. And it's, I think it's csb. LL. This is website.

Ben: 35:10

Yeah. I'm not prepared for that, but I believe you're right.

Gene: 35:13

So I'm just going off memory, so if it's wrong, I, I apologize for that, but I'm pretty sure that's what it's'cause he does actually have pretty funny cartoons in there on a regular basis and and he likes to bitch about stuff and I, I have a soft spot for people that bitch about stuff.

Ben: 35:27

Yeah. So in interesting that you should bring up getting out of the country because I've got I've got some. Work opportunities that I'm sorry

Gene: 35:37

for sightseeing or, or like prognosticating potential

Ben: 35:42

natural go work for a company over in Europe. So I would have my choice between Poland and Denmark and neither one sounds great to me. So I don't know.

Gene: 35:53

I mean, they both have attractive women. I, I would say. They're a little taller in Denmark than they are in Poland, but they've both got fairly attractive women there. What else does it matter? The important things about looking for a job. Yeah, yeah. Are the chicks hot? That's the burning question. Yeah, I've never been

Ben: 36:23

well, if you're not careful, it definitely will be a burning question. I

Gene: 36:26

know. Right. I I've never been to Poland, but I've been through Denmark, although never really like spent time there, just traveled. But you know, it's supposed to be one of the happiest countries in Europe. Also one of the countries with the highest prescription drug Use more prescriptions given out. So maybe that's why they're happy. And they do have a fairly, fairly tall average height. So prepare to feel like a short person.

Ben: 36:57

Well, if anyone has spent time in either country significant amount and wants to tell me about it and encourage me to make that leap, you know, please do. Yeah.

Gene: 37:08

I mean, they are the ancestral homeland of Vikings. Yeah. Well, one of them is, well, yeah, one of them is. And the other one is an ancestral Slavic kingdom, first kingdom of Vikings. So they're kind of related. Yeah.

Ben: 37:25

Well, we'll see. European based power,

Gene: 37:28

one of them is Polish, I mean, Catholic.

Ben: 37:34

So there is that Polish,

Gene: 37:35

Polish, Catholic, I don't know gene. Catholic is a thing, I guess. I don't know. It's so hard to keep all your denominations in order, you know?

Ben: 37:47

I, no, I don't I don't think that it is, but okay.

Gene: 37:52

That's funny. Let's see. What else we talk about?

Ben: 37:56

So I I sent you a picture of a new stock that I put on one of my 308s.

Gene: 38:04

Oh, the black one? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay.

Ben: 38:07

Yeah. Yeah, that's all in a M1A. So I put one of the Archangel the Archangel CKB

Gene: 38:14

on it. Yeah, that makes sense. That does look like an area. So, that's why I was wondering, he's like, man, that That Ruger 10 22 is sure fat looking, because the Archangel makes stocks for that gun as well. And they look just like that.

Ben: 38:28

No, it is not a

Gene: 38:30

10 22. No, it's, well, now that you've said that it's an M1A, I can see it, that it's an M1A. But I was wondering, it's like, huh. What a fat looking 10 22. Yeah.

Ben: 38:40

And when a, so com 16, one of my favorite guns anyway. So I put that on there and it's a, unfortunately just a black stock. So I'm going to paint it. Okay. You're

Gene: 38:50

going to do a camo on it.

Ben: 38:52

I'm trying to decide what pattern. Yeah.

Gene: 38:54

Yeah. I I'm always been a big fan of digital, but a lot of people don't like it.

Ben: 38:59

I'm not going through the, the pain in the ass process to do digital. And if anything, I would do multicam or woodland, but they sell,

Gene: 39:09

Stick on things that then you stick them on, spray paint, pull them off, stick on the next one, spray paint. I mean, they make it easy. Yeah. Yeah. I

Ben: 39:17

understand. I understand how stencils work. Okay.

Gene: 39:22

There also is a company that I looked into that makes Wraps, just like a car wrap, but it's a wrap for your guns and they're heat tolerant. So they actually can be on fairly hot places. The

Ben: 39:35

only problem with those wraps is if you get moisture in between the wrap and the gun, it's problematic because you can't clean it, you can't oil it, you can't do anything. Yeah.

Gene: 39:48

Yeah. But I think they talk about it that the, the wrap actually breathes, it's not waterproof. So it's Well, regardless,

Ben: 39:57

I'm going to, I'm going to spray paint the stock and the forearm on this gun, because that covers the vast majority of the gun on the M1A. So com 16 and I've never rattled canned a gun before. And so this'll be my first one, you know, popping

Gene: 40:14

that you should do is you should paint a wood, fake wood stock on there and make a, turn it into a painting of an AK 47 on the side. That'd be hilarious. Yeah,

Ben: 40:28

no, I'm, I'm actually going to do the the, the making this blend in, in the woods sort of thing. I,

Gene: 40:36

I've never shot one of these guns. You've never

Ben: 40:39

shot in them, have you? No,

Gene: 40:40

I've handled them. I've had friends that have had them. And I picked one up at the store, but I've never shot one of them. It

Ben: 40:46

will change your life. The recoil impulse on an M1A is fantastic. And the, the M1A is one of those guns that people either absolutely love and get very religious and like, this is the best gun ever. Or they, this gun sucks. Right. I'm actually, I'm probably

Gene: 41:04

in the second category because. What I found when I was holding it is it's extremely nose heavy, and I don't like that in a gun.

Ben: 41:12

Well, pretty much all modern guns are pretty nose heavy. The ones I like. Okay, other than a bullpup,

Gene: 41:20

they're all pretty nose heavy. Which is like most of my guns at this point. Okay. Well, yeah. Shotguns, rifles. They're all bullpups. Yeah. Well,

Ben: 41:29

you know, the 16 inch barrel 308 is then with a gas piston system, the way it is, it's just a fun gun to shoot. Yeah, your buddy may not appreciate it with your ears. It's a

Gene: 41:41

great gun. I'm sorry. I said, I love my Tavor 7. It's a great gun. It's a, a, a short stroke piston 308.

Ben: 41:51

Yeah, well, I I don't have a Tavor right now. So,

Gene: 41:57

yeah, you'd like to get one though. I know that

Ben: 41:59

man, you know, so I'm, I'm torn between the Tavor or the Spear. The Tavor is about half the price of the Spear, but

Gene: 42:07

yeah, that's a big

Ben: 42:09

difference. Yeah, but the Spear is. Way nicer in so many ways.

Gene: 42:17

I don't know. I've never shot a spear. I'd have to shoot them side by side. I've never shot the

Ben: 42:21

Tavor either, but having handled both of them at the gun store and everything, I'm drooling over both. So I would love

Gene: 42:28

to have a very nice gun. I, I won't say anything nasty about it other than the price. And that's the problem with a lot of those European companies is that they, they still think that the Euro. Is what it was about 15 years ago compared to the dollar and how they price their firearms.

Ben: 42:48

Well, it's more than that. They're pricing it for military contract and don't really care about the civilian market right now.

Gene: 42:55

Yeah. I mean, that's probably their motivation, but you know, I like the year is worth barely over a buck. And I feel like paying 4, 000 for a firearm that probably costs around 400 to manufacture. Is excessive.

Ben: 43:13

I'm betting it's more than that, but Sure. You know, and they've gotta make their money back on the RD pressure. I don't think it's

Gene: 43:20

all that because Yeah, yeah. They, they certainly do on their RD, but I don't think it is much more because they've got the infrastructure, they've got the factories, they've got tooling, they've got all those things. It's a major company. It would be a lot more than that if it was one of these, you know, fly by night operations in the us like Palmetto arms or something. You know, somebody that, yeah, like, who the hell, who the hell can trust a company and barrels coming from a company like that, especially,

Ben: 43:49

You mean like FN?

Gene: 43:52

Well, yeah, but most people don't know that. Yeah. Well, yeah, I'm you know, I'm having a little fun here. Obviously Palmetto's also a very large company, but they don't charge in euros, they charge in dollars. And so their gun prices are reasonable.

Ben: 44:08

So. Well, and quite frankly, if they made a Jackal in 308, I'd be tempted to get that. And they

Gene: 44:14

will. They've said that already. No,

Ben: 44:16

they, they, they put that out as a, they put that out as a, go ahead.

Gene: 44:21

Well, I was going to say, yes, they did put that out. And one of their reps in talking to one of my favorite gun tubers, when I asked about it, said, yes, we're going to make it. So there will be a Jackal coming in 308. It's a question of how many guns before that come out though. Yeah. Yeah.

Ben: 44:38

Yeah, that's the thing. I want one this year, so we'll see.

Gene: 44:44

They may have them by Christmas, man. I think that the, I think that gun, in the the Jackal version specifically in 308, I think was fairly highly ranked, like a lot of people wanted.

Ben: 44:56

Well, I mean, it's it's a, It's a competitor to the SCAR heavy is what it really

Gene: 45:02

is. Yeah, it's a SCAR lookalike for half the price.

Ben: 45:06

I wouldn't call it a SCAR lookalike. It's a SCAR competitor. But it looks like a SCAR. In some ways, yeah.

Gene: 45:12

Yeah, and it's certainly more similar to the operation of a SCAR than the M16.

Ben: 45:21

Okay, yeah. The lower receiver operation is is a AR 15?

Gene: 45:27

Well, not really, because it doesn't have a a buffer tube in spring in the back. It's got it on top of the barrel.

Ben: 45:35

Right. But the, other than removing the buffer tube, the lower receiver trigger group, all that is AR 15. Yeah. Yeah. So it's, they've made all the magazine release, the bolt release, all that, that's on the. Lower is the site, so anyway,

Gene: 45:52

yeah, which I've got their which by

Ben: 45:56

the way, did you watch, did you watch pinheads I'm

Gene: 46:00

not even calling him dad ever since he's got a beard and then he's constantly, he constantly wears a helmet now. Yeah, I can't call him pinhead anymore. He fixed it. Yeah.

Ben: 46:10

Did you watch his torture test of a Palmetto's, their cheapest? I

Gene: 46:14

started to, and then I got a phone call or something. I only watched like five minutes of it. All right.

Ben: 46:19

Well, spoiler alert, the barrel did lose accuracy at around 5, 000 rounds, but this was suppressed and rapid fire full auto. Yeah. 5, 000 rounds. Full auto. Yeah,

Gene: 46:37

like a binary trigger kind of pull out or like actual, like

Ben: 46:40

they put it on a full auto, put

Gene: 46:42

a sear in there. Okay.

Ben: 46:43

Yeah. They put a full auto lower and we're doing mag dumps and crazy stuff suppressed which by the way, on the direct impingement gun, like they were running, which this is the cheapest upper you can get from Palmetto. Yeah, they're running it suppressed and full auto, which means you have a ton of back pressure, ton of extra heat. Yep. So yeah, it failed at 5, 000 rounds of really hard fire, you know, for a 400 upper. I don't know how you can be mad at that. Yeah. That seems like a great deal to me. And Palmetto state, since they have a lifetime warranty, send it back, get a new barrel. They do.

Gene: 47:23

I didn't know that. Yep. That's nice. Yeah. I mean, they're cheapest guns. Always on sale is 499 for an M6 or an AR 15 type gun.

Ben: 47:36

Right. But this was just the upper. So anyway, my, my point is yes, if you look at their cheapest firearms, you may have some reliability issues here and there, but I would argue that the person buying that as a intro gun or whatever, probably will never put 5, 000 rounds through that gun.

Gene: 47:54

Exactly. I put zero through mine and I've had it for a year.

Ben: 47:58

And you know what, as a emergency shit hit the fan type gun, you know, people go, Oh, well, I want the best reliable. Well, how many rounds are you going to store? How many rounds are you actually going to put through there? And by the way, if shit ever really does hit the fan. Yeah, upgrades will be available.

Gene: 48:16

Yeah, and it depends what kind of shit and what kind of fan we're talking about because Something that I'm definitely going to be picking up. I just haven't pulled the trigger on get it is a 30 caliber Air gun. Because I want to be able to, when I run out of my 25 there, there's a method to it.

Ben: 48:45

You're going to sit there with a hand pump. Hold on. Let me reach out.

Gene: 48:48

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. It's a break action.

Ben: 48:52

Oh my God. Okay. So going back to the old pump BB guns, but this time a 30 caliber.

Gene: 48:57

Exactly. It's, it's basically take your Daisy gun from when you were a kid and then magnify everything to 30 caliber.

Ben: 49:05

Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. Okay,

Gene: 49:07

so it's I think it's about a hundred and twenty pounds pressure, okay, but you know for serious shit like what after I go through 25, 000 rounds and run out of lead. I want to have something that I can keep shooting.

Ben: 49:24

Yeah, it's called a bow and arrow I have that

Gene: 49:27

yeah

Ben: 49:27

crossbow, you know bow

Gene: 49:29

and arrow. Here's the problem with the bow and arrow is the arrows are not cheap and they do break when they hit stuff. And so, and you can't fix carbon fiber. So, you pretty much have to throw them away.

Ben: 49:46

No, but eventually you'd have to make your own bolt or arrow.

Gene: 49:50

Yeah, yeah, or just make pellets.

Ben: 49:53

I think the making of the bolt and arrow would be easier than making of the

Gene: 49:59

pellet. Maybe. There is a really nice semi automatic crossbow that I've been looking at. Semi automatic crossbow.

Ben: 50:08

Yeah. Oh, Jesus gene. Yeah, it's,

Gene: 50:12

it's a really nice design out of Austria.

Ben: 50:14

No,

Gene: 50:16

no, no, no. This is just like serious shit hit the fan kind of scenario. And cause it holds a nine rounds, which is adequate and it comes with several magazines. Okay.

Ben: 50:31

Well, you know, maybe you should play a half life some and use the crossbow there and see how you like it first.

Gene: 50:39

Maybe. That's a good idea. Okay.

Ben: 50:42

The new the new renderings of half life are pretty interesting, beat it already and played it. Yeah. It's it's, it's a much improved graphics. And it's, it's good. They made some alterations to the storyline a little bit and it's great. As far as gaming goes. On Linux really can play through all the Halo Master Chief collection on my Linux laptop running in emulation. No problem. Like 60 plus frames per second. No problem. Nice. So, yeah. Now, I have to be using the NVIDIA GPU and stuff like that, but, you know, Hey, it's not bad. So, yeah, gaming in Linux is actually essentially become a thing since they've put this abstraction layer in that none of us were paying attention to except Linux gamers. Apparently.

Gene: 51:34

Well, and the 5 of you. Should pay attention to that because it's someday you'll be able to play games that we've been playing 10 years ago. No

Ben: 51:42

No, now you can pretty much play anything. That's what the point I'm trying to make to you They they built this for their handheld and stuff like that. Yeah Like I'm playing Windows only games on Linux,

Gene: 51:55

which is good. I'm just saying that beyond just being able to run stuff on Linux, you also need to have enough graphics horsepower to be able to play the modern games, right?

Ben: 52:07

But you can do that. So if you were to put Linux on your. Gaming machine and go run this. It may

Gene: 52:13

very well run stuff. Exactly. Yeah.

Ben: 52:16

And they have the they have the anti cheat stuff in so that you can join the web servers and everything else. It, as far as the world is concerned, you're joining from a windows computer.

Gene: 52:26

Yeah. And with future games, like I've mentioned in the previous episode, it's literally not going to matter because the, the two major game engines have So they're fully supporting Mac and Linux. So you'll be able to compile a game you know, for any platform right off the get go. You won't have to go through any ambulation bullshit, which will be nice, which will very nice. But the one game that I've replayed that I, I think you would enjoy greatly once you had a machine that's capable of running it. Yeah. Cyberpunk.

Ben: 53:02

I can run cyberpunk. Mm.

Gene: 53:06

I don't know. It's I barely run it on my machine. Okay. So I think you'd be hard pressed to Okay. You would, your performance level would not be sufficient for enjoyment is what I would say. Right.

Ben: 53:24

Well, anyway, to wrap up the gun and game talk, if the weather behaves today, I'm gonna paint. Oh, paint, paint. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Did you read the Fortune article I sent you on the Hertz CEO?

Gene: 53:41

I skimmed it. I got the impression that the guy made a big bet on Tesla's and it turned out to be a bad bet. And and so he is leaving the

Ben: 53:51

company. Yeah. So Hertz bought a hundred thousand Teslas, which sent the market cap of Tesla up over like a

Gene: 53:59

trillion dollars. Yeah. So they did a good job of raising the stock price. For

Ben: 54:03

Tesla. Yes. Yeah. The problem they ran into was the maintenance costs were actually through the roof compared to their fleet. And this is actually a great test for anyone who wants arguments against EBS. Yeah. Yeah. Like

Gene: 54:18

a non emotional arguments. Cause most people just use emotional arguments. Exactly. So, you

Ben: 54:24

know, the, the, the perfect point here is that. The Tesla's were more expensive to maintain than their fossil fuel fleet, and they also had such a lower resale value at the end of their utility, that this ended up being a huge cost to Hertz versus a gas car.

Gene: 54:48

And like most other rental places. Typically would sell a one year old car with about 35, 000 miles on it, usually

Ben: 54:56

20 to 30.

Gene: 54:57

Yeah. Yeah. And you know, you could pick one of those up for cheap if you don't care about the high mileage. Or at the very least, They're kind of keeping prices down on the used car market because you could get one that's high mileage that's coming

Ben: 55:10

And they're usually I wouldn't call 30 000 miles high mileage, but well

Gene: 55:14

high mileage in one year, you know what I mean? Yeah, and and you know It's actually a perfect car for me to get I generally will put on a lot less than 10, 000 miles a year. So over the course of several years like that, mileage would no longer be high mileage for the year of the car. It would slowly drift into normal mileage.

Ben: 55:34

Well, and what I would say is for instance, after last year when my stepdaughter got in an accident and her car was totaled she got very lucky that she walked away from that. But anyway We looked around and we ended up buying a used rental car, got a little escape SUV top line fully loaded for about 5, 6 grand cheaper than we would have gotten the equivalent. Just because it was a rental car and the. I had never purchased a rental car before, but quite frankly, after this experience, I would do it again because the car was maintained very well at all the records on the maintenance, everything else. The car was in very good shape. Hadn't had anybody worked on hadn't. I mean, it was. It was fine. It just had some miles put on it. And again, for her driving around town, she's not driving a whole lot like you. And it just, yes, it will always have that hit of having been a rental car, but that's okay. And that's, you know what to me, it's, I'm, I'm the kind of person, like, I'm, I'm still driving my 2013 F one 50, cause I'm going to drive a vehicle into the ground before I move on. So it doesn't really

Gene: 56:48

matter to me. And I. I've flip flopped between those two several times in my life. Like, I've, I'm now driving my car in its 9th year, and I had a previous car, like, 20 years ago that I drove for a decade. But, between those two, I got a new car every other year. So, I, I've I will definitely say that there's a benefit to just not having a car payment. That's the biggest thing. It's really nice, especially if you got the car brand new, so you know what kind of shape it's in. It's never been driven roughly. You know, probably nothing is going to break on it, even if you do keep it for a decade. But also if your disposable income is coming in nicely and you're not doing other crazy payments. It, it is kind of nice to just get a new car every couple years.

Ben: 57:46

Yeah. I just, I don't do that.

Gene: 57:48

So, but yeah, rental cars I think are as long as you inspect them well, I think could be good deals. They

Ben: 57:57

could be, or they could be bad depending on if it was someone who just decided to trash car. But Yeah. Anyway, the, the, the interesting point was that Hertz, a hundred thousand vehicles study essentially shows EVs do not work for. They, they are not cheaper. They are not less maintenance. They are not anything else. The things that they, I'm sorry, they're faster. Okay. But they also go through brakes and tires way faster because of the way. Yeah. So, You know, the, the the towing bills, that was another thing is people running out of juice and not being able to, you know, there were lots of things that added up to the cost, total cost of ownership that just made Tesla's not a thing.

Gene: 58:45

I think they made a mistake by getting Tesla's. I think they should have went with the cheapest electric car, the the bolt. That would have had a much lower service cost as well. Teslas are notorious for having expensive service. I mean, everybody that's got a Tesla knows that. It's kind of a Here's the thing, and this is, I think a slightly default of Tesla for their advertising, but also slightly default of media in what their perception is. I always have made the argument that electric cars are not for everybody. Electric cars are for people that like the latest cool stuff that are a little geeky, a little eccentric, and they want to have something that's a little more unusual and they're willing to pay for it because they've always been more expensive. What you're telling me is this, they're still more expensive, even in the mass market scenario. And they don't really provide any benefit. So why would you get one? Well, purely because it's different and you enjoy having things that are different. I had an electric car for three years. I had fun with it. I enjoyed it. And then when they started pulling out the dealer network, I said, I am not getting stuck with an electric car without a place to service it. So I got rid of it. But I think as long as you either plan on having it a short duration of time. Or you get it used cheap enough that you don't really don't care how long the battery lasts in both those scenarios. It's fine to have one, but if you buy a brand new for a hundred grand, you, you better not expect anything to get your money back out of it. It's not going to hold its value.

Ben: 1:00:38

Yeah. And, and I think that's people need to understand that there's a couple of reasons for that. One, it's still wheels. There's that. And then there's the, just the batteries. Sorry, I had to sneeze. The batteries are a wear item for them, right? So,

Gene: 1:01:01

first of all Yeah, they get old. Well, they're expensive. I mean, it's Well,

Ben: 1:01:04

and they are consumable.

Gene: 1:01:07

Yeah, well, they're consumable. I mean, it does take a while, okay? To be fair, it's not a It's not Like replacing nine volt batteries. You know, it's not going to die quickly right now. The current generations of the Tesla batteries that they're using those should maintain 90 percent of their capacity over a decade, but that's a lot better than like Tesla's five years ago, which were. Dropping down to 80 or even less percent of capacity over the course of 100, 000 miles, even if that 100, 000 miles was done in three years.

Ben: 1:01:49

Yeah, I mean, we will see when you looked at, for instance, the the Prius by 100, 000 miles, it had less than 30 percent of its battery capacity. Now that was a old. The totally different style battery that was nickel cadmium everything else. Yeah, those are horrible. Yeah, the point is the technology is changing and evolving at this point fairly rapidly. And the car is just not going to have a resale value. So if the argument is, I just want it sure. But if your argument is, this is cheaper, this is better. This is, this is better for the environment and all that you're lying to yourself. It's

Gene: 1:02:31

never been better for the environment. It's never been cheaper. It's never been even close to an ICE vehicle. Everything that points to those is always been a lie. And like I said, some of the blame goes to Tesla Advertising because they do mention all this shit. It's the same way they calculate the cost of the car. They take the actual cost of the car, they subtract the federal tax credit, 7, 500, and then they subtract out what you would have paid for gasoline in California over the course of five years, and then tell you that's the cost of the car. Well, no, that's not the cost of the car. So the car will have plenty of other expenses that you probably would not have had with nice vehicle. But if you want something that's more high techie there's nothing wrong with it. I mean, I think the, the torque. At zero, the acceleration that you experienced electric car is like nothing else out there. And I have no idea if I'm going to get it. I thought I was going to get a Tesla cyber truck after watching all the variety of reviews. No way in hell. Am I getting a Tesla cyber truck? Come on now, Jean. No, no, no, no. This thing is not ready for prime time by a long shot. But I'll tell you the one that I do like is the new. The, well, it's going to be both a Jeep and, and the the Ram. But it's basically they're electric with a gas generator. So they did it right in my opinion, which is there is no physical connection between the gas engine and the wheels. All that the gas engine does is it runs at a solid RPM. Yeah, you've got a Chevy Volt. That maximizes efficiency and it's it just provides electricity for the batteries which then actually run the wheels. Yeah, you've

Ben: 1:04:33

essentially got a Chevy Volt. Congratulations.

Gene: 1:04:36

I don't think the vault does it that way. I think the vault directly plugs in. Nope. It, are you

Ben: 1:04:41

sure about that? Yep. And you know, I will say this, the the US military, the US military did look at doing a next generation home, the, that they never ended up doing, but it was essentially a diesel electric hybrid. Yeah, there was a diesel engine and then that. Generated electricity to drive literally four wheel mounted engines. So literally it could have a zero turning radius. Lots of things. Exactly.

Gene: 1:05:08

Yeah. There's a lot of advantage to it. One of which is that this version will have roughly the same distance between Phillips as my current Jeep, which is 700 miles. So having something that. It's capable of going that long without having to stop. I think it's a big plus. It's not essential, but it's definitely a plus.

Ben: 1:05:37

Well, and here's the thing. You can lower the weight because you don't have to have the battery capacity. You can have some batteries so that you can do regenerative breaking. You can have some batteries so that you know, you're not losing. Energy at idle, things like that. But the, the, the cool thing about a diesel gas, diesel electric hybrid is you're marrying two technologies in that you, you lose some efficiency because you're translating between energy types. But one of the things that's nice is. A, you can refill and keep going, but B, the energy storage of liquid fuels, like gasoline or diesel is so infinitely higher than the battery that you're taking advantage of that, but you're still getting the torque and a lot of the other things that The advantage goes to the electric motor. So, yeah,

Gene: 1:06:33

yeah. By the way, I just looked up the volt. You're wrong about it, but that's as expected. The the, the wheels do directly through a transmission connect to the engine.

Ben: 1:06:43

Well, which generation

Gene: 1:06:47

Chevy, but, but it can, it can run itself in a charge only mode for the engine as well, but it's just that to get the maximum Power unless you disable that connection manually, it's going to actually couple the engine in as well. So

Ben: 1:07:05

I am opening a PDF on the drive train of the Chevy Volt right now.

Gene: 1:07:10

Okay. Yeah. So that, but the point is we're almost at where we should be. So like the train to me has always been the ideal scenario for an electric vehicle. Okay. You have large diesel generators that are running at a constant RPM. Providing power to electric motors with tremendous torque and having something.

Ben: 1:07:38

I don't know where you're looking, but the Chevy Volt drivetrain explanation off of Chevy's website says differently.

Gene: 1:07:45

I'm looking at greencarreports.

Ben: 1:07:47

com. Okay. Well, I'm looking at Chevy's website.

Gene: 1:07:50

All right. And it's, it's, you're saying there's zero mechanical coupling. I'm

Ben: 1:07:54

According to the PD and I'll send it to you shortly, but according to the PDF, I was just looking at if it goes directly to a generator that charges the batteries and it is an electric, there's only

Gene: 1:08:05

one car that did it that way that I'm aware of, which was to be in w I three, which is a crappy, crappy little car. But they had their extended drive option on that basically added like a two gallon gas tank and a tiny little motorcycle engine. And that charges

Ben: 1:08:23

essentially what the Chevy Volt did.

Gene: 1:08:25

Yeah, well, the, the engine in this Ram truck is their old Pentastar V6, which was 300 horsepower. And a crappy engine. Well, I, you know, if it's running at the same horsepower all the time in high efficiency mode, it's probably going to be just fine. So, the idea of, of not having the mechanics of a transmission, so you could literally, you take out the transmission weight and complexity out of the equation, if you run a car in pure electric motor, And then you charge it with a with a gasoline or preferably diesel, which unfortunately right now they're only doing gasoline, but diesel would be my preference. And like a, a much smaller motor than you would normally put into a car. So. I think it's total overkill for them to use the Pentastar. I suspect they have so many of these engines laying around that it's essentially free for them to put it in the vehicle because you can't get any more. Like that engine has been discontinued. As far as an actual drivetrain engine, but it's now going to be solely used as a generator.

Ben: 1:09:45

Yeah, we'll, we'll

Gene: 1:09:47

see. Yeah, we'll see. But, you know, having nearly 700 mile range combined with Super fast acceleration times. I think like three and a half seconds or something. It's pretty cool. Why

Ben: 1:10:00

not just go with the model S Roadster Plaid?

Gene: 1:10:06

What? You said like three different cars there. Ah,

Ben: 1:10:08

whatever. The new Roadster Plaid that is 0 to 60 in like 0. 9 seconds

Gene: 1:10:14

or whatever. Yeah, it's a sub one second. I think it's basically an amusement park ride. Yeah. And, and incidentally, I think that's pushing two G's or even though

Ben: 1:10:23

it's over three, actually three, so people are worried about you know, can you survive and shit like that, by the way, if you, if you buy a Tesla roadster and die from acceleration number one, thank you, thank you for removing yourself from our society. But

Gene: 1:10:43

man, what a way to die though, huh? How did he die? Yeah. Yeah, he was accelerating That's pretty fun. Yeah, I think that like two G's is probably fine for most people but you get into three G's I think you got to take a physical because before you drive that car, ah

Ben: 1:11:04

Well that or your life insurance should question your judgment.

Gene: 1:11:08

Yeah, it would it would not be kicking in if you die in that thing But, you know, there's a big difference between like three seconds, which is brisk, but reasonable. And one second that that's that's just crazy acceleration But you did see some videos that I think you sent me and then I replied back with another one of the the current Model s plaid which is a thousand horsepower and then there's somebody that was pitting it up against a nissan,

Ben: 1:11:46

Yeah, I was the one who sent

Gene: 1:11:47

you that. Yeah, you sent me that. It was

Ben: 1:11:49

in GTR. And it barely won.

Gene: 1:11:52

I think it won by, it won three races out of three and two of the three by quite a bit. Okay. They kept changing the conditions to try and get the GTR to win because what they realized is that from a standing start Not a rolling start. The Tesla beats the GTR by a mile with a rolling start that slightly shrinks with a 40 mile, 40 mile an hour rolling start. That's when it gets really close, but the Tesla, the plaid conks out at 163 miles an hour, which you're not likely to hit at a quarter of a mile unless you're in a supercar.

Ben: 1:12:40

Or at a 40 mile an hour starting speed

Gene: 1:12:44

or at a 40 mile an hour starting speed. Exactly. But that's always been an issue with Tesla's. If you remember the original. Top gear episode. I don't know if you watched that gear at all, but I did the original top gear episode where they put the, the original Tesla roadster through its bases and then got sued by Tesla for lying for purposefully fabricating. Conditions for the car to fail, like discharging its battery before doing the test, then saying the battery doesn't last more than one lap around the track. But they did also point out a lot of things like this, like that. It's a, it's a car made for straight line. It can't take corners very well because of the weight. It's a car that can accelerate very quickly, zero to 60, not nearly as quickly, 60 to 100 and kind of conks out at about 110, 115. This is the original one, not the current models. So there is, there was always a limited speed range that Tesla had. I, in fact, didn't even realize it went up to 163. Until I saw this video.

Ben: 1:13:58

Well, I think that's the newer plaid model though. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Right. So it depends on the model and what software options you've, uh, paid for Elon to enable,

Gene: 1:14:11

right? Oh, that's the beauty, which is just software

Ben: 1:14:14

enabled. Well, that's no, actually that's bullshit. Anyway, I, I would not want a Tesla. I think Hertz has given me plenty of ammo to say that I will never want an EV and fuck off you. You know, I don't, don't want

Gene: 1:14:30

that. I'll get another before too long. I am without EVs right now, but I see nothing wrong with EVs and especially if you own more than one car.

Ben: 1:14:39

I just, no, I, I don't no, thank you.

Gene: 1:14:43

Yeah. So let's see what, Oh, well, one of the other benefits of this this Ram truck that I was telling you about is that Pentastar can be used as a generator for your house. Okay.

Ben: 1:15:00

I'll Ford lightning. Not, not a, yeah,

Gene: 1:15:03

exactly. Same kind of deal.

Ben: 1:15:05

Yeah, by the way, did you look at the map, the Civil War map, the new one I sent

Gene: 1:15:11

you? Let me see. I don't know if I saw that one or not.

Ben: 1:15:16

You you sent it out as well, and I tweeted it at you saying let's

Gene: 1:15:20

talk about this. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yes, that's, I believe, out of a video game, but, Is it? But, we can certainly talk about it. What

Ben: 1:15:33

what video game is it out of since since you know?

Gene: 1:15:35

I, I don't remember, cause I posted a map out of Cyberpunk, and then this came up as a a reply map, or a map on the same topic that was recommended to me. But I'm pretty sure it's out of a video game cause I have seen it before. Well,

Ben: 1:15:55

I think the new Republic of Texas would be larger,

Gene: 1:15:57

but yeah, I think everybody thinks that because on this map, Texas is basically

Ben: 1:16:04

Oklahoma and a little bit in New

Gene: 1:16:06

Mexico. Exactly. It's like a bit of New Mexico a little bit of Oklahoma, but not even the whole thing. And then otherwise mostly Texas. And immediately a lot of the people with TX in their names on X started replying back with a picture of the original Republic of Texas saying, Nope, this is what we're taking, which while I agree with the sentiment and it's, it's sounds good and everything. Realistically speaking, Colorado, Wyoming, no way in hell. Are they going to be part of Texas?

Ben: 1:16:43

Wyoming and Colorado outside of Denver. Absolutely.

Gene: 1:16:47

If you, if well, but Denver controls Colorado, so there is no well,

Ben: 1:16:52

not if they are removed from their seat of power, no,

Gene: 1:16:56

okay. So if, if Colorado first has a revolution, That makes them amicable to joining Texas. Then

Ben: 1:17:04

Texas comes in and says, we're annexing this land. And the people who live there go, yay.

Gene: 1:17:10

I don't think that's a secession anymore. At that point, that's just war.

Ben: 1:17:14

Hello. That's what we're running towards anyway.

Gene: 1:17:17

But I mean, like a war of two different nations, not a secession.

Ben: 1:17:23

Yeah that's what we're running towards. So fuck it.

Gene: 1:17:27

Where, yeah, I mean, I think there's certainly a possibility that I think most people will try and avoid that, but it's hard enough to, to come up with a scenario where Texas can secede. It is more difficult for me to come up with a scenario where not only does Texas a seed, but it then occupies more of us territory.

Ben: 1:18:00

Well, I think most people, I think the, the best, if we're talking reality the best option is for Texas to leave with our current borders and just leave, start setting an example of where we are winning and doing well. And then as Louisiana, Oklahoma, Arkansas, and other portions of states decide that they want to join us, we enable them joining us. That that's the most realistic option.

Gene: 1:18:28

Yeah. Cause Mike, my question is always when it starts to like, okay, well, how, what other territory do we want to take? There's a lot of territory going South too, not just North. I don't see why I don't vacation in Texas in Cancun, for example.

Ben: 1:18:46

I don't see us annexing Mexico,

Gene: 1:18:48

sorry. Why? It's easier than annexing Colorado.

Ben: 1:18:52

I don't know that it is. It's going to come to their defense. One, the cartels. They don't have nukes. Okay, and Colorado does. Well,

Gene: 1:19:04

you know They literally have nukes in

Ben: 1:19:05

Colorado. Yes, and we do in Texas as well,

Gene: 1:19:07

what's your point? Yes, yes, but my point is that if we want a nuclear war, we should annex Colorado because there will be a nuclear war. If we don't want to liquidate the war, we can probably annex Mexico pretty easily.

Ben: 1:19:20

But do we want to annex Mexico?

Gene: 1:19:22

Yeah, it's a good travel destination. I go there every year.

Ben: 1:19:26

Okay. The corruption and the current failed state issues aside. But

Gene: 1:19:32

isn't that what we could fix?

Ben: 1:19:34

No, I don't know that we could fix it. That's

Gene: 1:19:37

the problem. You know what the problem in Mexico is? I'll tell you. The problem is Mexico. is you have to work for the cartel to own a firearm. If

Ben: 1:19:45

we annex Mexico With Mexico, is it full

Gene: 1:19:47

of Mexicans? I don't know. Oh my god, I can't believe you went there. Oh my god. It's a joke, I couldn't help it. Oh, the racism meter just shot all the way to the right. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. That is a famous saying though, obviously you're playing on something. I couldn't help it. What was the original? The trouble with blah, blah, blah is it's full of blah, blah, blah. I don't remember. Where's that from? It's from something. It is. Yeah. Yeah. But, no, I think annexing Mexico would be a good way to fix Mexico. Because again, like, all you got to do to fix Mexico is allow the peasants to I mean, citizens to own firearms, because right now Mexico has really crappy gun laws, but the cartels have a monopoly on firearms. So what are you going to do? How are you going to resist that as somebody who can't own firearms?

Ben: 1:20:46

Well, I mean that's, that's part of the problem, right? Is that it's part of the, is it's a failed state. So, but it's a fixable state. I don't know that it is. I, I don't

Gene: 1:20:57

know that I, they've got manufacturing, they've got mining there. I think Mexico would be a pretty good conquest for Texas. Yeah. Well, we'll see. I'm, I'm all for Texas annexing a part of Mexico that extends all the way out to Cancun. That would be great. And then we could have Belize as a neighbor. You'd like that because that's where you'd be blooming. Jesus Christ. Yes.

Ben: 1:21:20

Well, we'll see. We'll see where it goes. But I, I really think this new civil war movie, some of the maps that are coming out, everything. I think this is predictive programming on getting us ready for. I think what is coming? Yeah, I do. Yeah. I, I do think that I don't know how we continue down this road where Fannie Willis is allowed to continue her actions. It's where parents of teenagers that decided to go do something stupid are being held into account and everything else. I think we got to talk about that yet. I think we're at a point where society is fracturing and breaking apart, and we no longer live in the same realities, and we cannot live in the same country.

Gene: 1:22:09

Yeah, and I think physical proximity will become more of what dictates politics in the future. I agree with you on that. I think that we've gotten, gotten away from it. Like, that used to be the case, which is why people lived in Texas in the first place. Because they didn't like living with their neighbors out east. And so the, you move west to get more freedom and I continued it on up until the end of the 19th century. But and I think we're starting to move towards that as well. We just got to figure out how to get the Californians out of Austin. Cause right now they're, they're flooding in droves. Like that's the border we need to control. The Western border of Texas. I, you'd mentioned that, and I want to make sure we talk about it, is the conviction, Of the parents for the crimes of the kids or a son in this case, but could be children in general, because This brings an interesting precedent one that I think most people would not be comfortable with and, and I want to start off by saying that if you've heard me speak previously about any kind of shooters, high school shooter type kids with that, that have done stupid and bad stuff in the past. I'm always the first to point a finger at the parents. I'm like, where were the parents? What were they doing? How did they raise their child to think that they could do something like this? What kind of drugs did they allow a doctor to prescribe to their child that fucked up their head? The, these, historically, the school shooters are not. Wards of the state. These are not children living in a foster home. These are children that are living with their parents and somehow get to the point where they make a decision that they are going to go out there and take innocent lives. So I do blame the parents in a great way. However, this court case, which basically sentenced the the shooter in Michigan to lifetime. In prison and the parents to it was a 23 years, I believe each. Yeah. Something like that. Yeah. It was over 20 years each. For I don't remember what the charge was. I don't want to get it wrong, but it's, you know, obviously a charge that carries a sentence of over 20 years with it. So this whole family is basically going to be in prison now for the next. And if you apply, I think, the level of stringency that this court did to the parent's responsibility for the child, I think, well, you'll end up with Is basically taking all the youth currently in prison. We know the stats on that. They're about 80 percent black. And they come from homes with a single parent. So you're gonna put all these black mothers in prison now? Because they didn't raise their kids right? I don't think the Democrats are gonna go for that. I don't think the Republicans will either. I don't think most people will. Because it's a stupid president to parents into prison for something that the child does

Ben: 1:25:46

well, except if you do that, then you go back to the before women's emancipation from their husband and so on, you know, he was responsible for her. And quite frankly, this is where. The arguments of being able to legally beat your child come into play because if you're going to go to jail for them, you better have the ability to chastise them and control them in any way you see fit. Are you

Gene: 1:26:10

not allowed to beat your children though? Oh

Ben: 1:26:13

God, no. You, I mean, my God, spankings can be considered abuse. Gene.

Gene: 1:26:18

I mean, when I was a kid, it was like the belt man. It was a real weapon. Oh,

Ben: 1:26:24

I, I'm right there with you, buddy. Like a shoe

Gene: 1:26:26

would be. Good compared to a fucking leather belt. Oh my god. Does that sting?

Ben: 1:26:34

Yeah. Well,

Gene: 1:26:35

anyway to be a good kid pretty quick Let's put it that way

Ben: 1:26:39

Yeah, no doubt the the the point is that if we are going down the road of allowing Children to Control their parents destiny, because if I, if you as a child do something and your parents are blamed for it, the parents better have the ability to do whatever they want to that child. Otherwise, you just enter into a society that doesn't work, which I think we're already at. And I think that's kind of the, the downside of all this is we are quickly moving to a society. That that is no longer functional. And I don't know what we do about it.

Gene: 1:27:31

It's, it is not functional. And in a lot of ways, I mean, you know, if you want to sound a little conspiratorial, this is a perfect setup for a country to be taken over by communists because they will become your de facto parents.

Ben: 1:27:51

Well, that is what communism wants, is the state to become the parent. Why would you be allowed to raise your own children? You shouldn't do that.

Gene: 1:28:03

Yeah, it's really raising children is a duty that is put on the parents by the state so they can raise them to the betterment of the state. So, you may raise your own children, just don't think of them as your children. Because children all belong

Ben: 1:28:21

to the state. It takes a village, Gene.

Gene: 1:28:24

Exactly. It takes a whole village if you're a liberal. You're incapable of doing anything solo.

Ben: 1:28:31

Anyway, the, the, I think the greater point here is, this was a absolutely absurd ruling to hold the parents. Accountable the way they are. Now the reason why the rationale that was used was because the parents purchased a firearm and gave it to their kid. That's a normal activity from where I'm from, you know, I, I

Gene: 1:28:53

have to explain this to a few people yesterday or day before is that there's nothing wrong with a 15 year old having a gun. In fact, It used to be more of the normal, because you start off, you start off with a BB gun when you're like nine years old or whatever, and you get to graduate up to a 22 rifle. And then from that to something that can actually take down some game.

Ben: 1:29:17

Yeah, I had I had my first shotgun now I wasn't allowed to just have it freely, but I mean, I went hunting with my dad at a very young age far before the age of nine, I had my first semi automatic 762 by 39 rifle at the age of nine. Yeah, no, I, I, I, I think we, we are infantilizing people far too long and then to the other issue that we have here is that, you know, giving a kid a gun doesn't mean you give them free reign of the gun. Number 1. So I think that was a mistake, but I don't think it's a mistake. They deserve to go to jail over

Gene: 1:29:59

and also you would assume and maybe this was not the case with this couple, but you would assume that before you give the kid a gun. That you have the kid go through gun safety classes. First of all,

Ben: 1:30:12

I don't think the gun safety class, the parents have to have some responsibility there and teach the kids gun safety. But you know, here, here's the thing. The kid is old enough for this sort of crime to be tried as an adult and should be. And the, the point is what stops a mass shooting is another gun. It doesn't stop till then that are, they run out of ammo. So you have a choice there charging the parents. We'll have a very chilling effect. I think you know, it won't stop me, but I think it will stop a lot of parents and make parents think about what they're allowing their kids to do and to the chagrin of the kids because it's parents will have to be more draconian with their kids, which I don't know, is a bad thing. But, you know, on the one hand, we're saying kids should be raised by the state. In public schools and taught everything, their morality, everything from the state, the parents don't own the children, but the parents are now responsible for the children. Those two ideas cannot live together. They are not, they, they are not something that can coexist.

Gene: 1:31:24

Yeah. What, why aren't they charging the, and I'm not talking specifically in this case, but just hypothetical. Why aren't they charging the teacher that convinced this child that everyone who is against non binary, transsexual people must be killed? Like, someone's putting those ideas in their

Ben: 1:31:48

heads. Is that what happened? I don't even know the details of the case enough to say that. Yeah, in

Gene: 1:31:52

every one of these cases, Cases that we've seen recently, I think you're making an assumption. I'm going to make the assumption. You can call it an assumption. That's why I said not in this case in particular, but in generalizing most of these kids, but in fact, I'll even say all of these kids have mental problems. You can't go off and shoot a bunch of innocent people without having mental problems. In some of these cases, the mental problems have been aggravated by other adults. Who have convinced the kid that they're being wronged where what they should have been doing is notifying a Something that doesn't exist anymore, but in a better place notifying Medical professionals that this kid has mental problems probably belongs in an asylum. Yeah,

Ben: 1:32:44

okay So I'm of two minds on this. What I will say is that if someone is Is Not being heard, you're, you're trending towards violence. You, you have to hear people out. You have to hear their protests because when people speak and they're not heard, they tend to yell when they're yelling and they're still ignored. They tend to get violent. However, I think what we're seeing in a lot of these cases is a skip straight to violence. I don't think you have a whole lot of complaints or I'm being wrong here sort of conversation. Happening and some of the ideas that these people have on what is wronging them is just absurd. But I think anyone who sits there and says, oh, violence should never occur and is never the answer. Well, that that's historically and that's ignorant to the nature of humanity. Absolutely. Because, quite frankly, it doesn't matter if it's an interpersonal relationship or a governmental one. If you are not being heard, if you feel like you're being wronged, it will go to violence at some point in time. The question is only when.

Gene: 1:33:56

We gotta bring back the Psalms, bring back from the lobotomies. No

Ben: 1:34:00

to the lobotomies.

Gene: 1:34:00

Get rid of the women's vote.

Ben: 1:34:03

You know, I, I think we don't need to necessarily get rid of the women's vote, but I think we need to impose new requirements for franchisement. So, yeah, I

Gene: 1:34:15

mean, if you want to limit the vote to like. 40 and above year old males. I'm okay with that.

Ben: 1:34:23

I'm just saying that we need to fix our system a little bit more in some way,

Gene: 1:34:29

form or fashion. Well, we get to come up with whatever we want once there's civil war, right? We don't have to like, try and work it into the current framework. Yeah,

Ben: 1:34:38

you gotta get people to agree

Gene: 1:34:39

to it though, Gene. Well, I'll tell you what, in generally when there's actual violent conflict happening, the people with the guns are the only ones who get to vote, initially. And then when they create laws, they set the parameters who will get to vote in the future. That's what happened 250 years ago. That's what happened in most countries that have gone through revolutions. The people with the guns are the ones that get to vote first. Okay. Okay. With the caveat, little asterisk, the people with the guns on the winning side of the conflict Get to vote. Slight,

Ben: 1:35:18

slight slight

Gene: 1:35:19

asterisk there. Yeah, it's an asterisk. It's a minor one. But yes, you have to win first before you get to vote. Yeah. And you know, citizenship comes with service.

Ben: 1:35:32

I am not opposed to that. Now, that service should be in multiple ways. I don't think it necessarily has to be military service. I think it could be. Service in form of taxation or owning land or generating jobs or, you know, they're, they're, yeah, I think you're being really

Gene: 1:35:50

good at playing hell divers to, have you seen that game? You've got to have seen some videos for it. They, they literally made a game with beautiful graphics that is based on starship troopers. I mean, they're not paying for the name Starship Troopers, obviously, but in the game, you, you've got the exact same tenants politics, and you go to this planet to go kill bugs. Okay

Ben: 1:36:25

it's interesting because Helldiver makes me think of Red Rising, but sure.

Gene: 1:36:30

Well, I'll send you a video so you can see, but it's a super cute game. I've only played it for a few hours, but I bought it because it looked like it was really cool. And it's doing Gangbusters. It's probably the most popular brand new game out there right now. Interesting. Cool. Yeah. So there's one last bit of video game news.

Ben: 1:36:52

All right, so we covered the parental stuff, we covered some of the Civil War stuff, we covered,

Gene: 1:36:58

We covered damn near everything.

Ben: 1:36:59

Yeah. Anything else you want to

Gene: 1:37:01

talk about? No, I think we're good. I think we managed to jump around the topics and time together a little bit in a nice bow. Yeah. And even had a little interruption that we dealt with. Kind of offline for your audio, but hopefully people heard you find the same around and

Ben: 1:37:18

hopefully hopefully Now I I will say this one last thing. I I would encourage people who Don't understand when I say anarchism at this point That I mean a very libertarian bent anarchism There's some good books out there. And if you haven't read it michael malice's the white pill is a really good one

Gene: 1:37:42

Mm hmm. Yeah, your boy Mike. That sounds good. I've not read that book, but I may buy it at some point Oh, you should now I will warn you if you me at the grocery store. I would have bought it by now If you do

Ben: 1:37:55

the audio book, I will warn you, he, he narrates the audio book, which made it impossible for me to use. I had to go kindle him up on all like, he

Gene: 1:38:03

does have a little slightly annoying tones from,

Ben: 1:38:06

well, it's not just that, but he talks really fast while he's reading it. And it's like, Oh,

Gene: 1:38:09

does he really? That's hard to do

Ben: 1:38:11

actually. You should, he, he is not a good audio book reader because he doesn't spend the time to give inference to ideas and they're his own fucking ideas, which is

Gene: 1:38:22

hilarious. You know, I found that in this, I mean, this is a weird time, maybe for some people, but it's totally true because the exact same problem, I found that to be the case in some walkthrough videos for video games. To where the person has done this move so many times that when they're showing how to do something they just go at freaking hyper speed and then gloss over all the details and just say a few words about it and then move on. I was like, dude, the whole point of you showing this to other people and recording it is for those of us that have never fucking done this. And are having some trouble here Slowly. Yeah. Having trouble enough to look up the YouTube video to be able to see step by step exactly what all is involved. There are a few guys that are really good at doing the Step-by-step guys, but a lot of people just call their video walkthrough and you watch the video. It's like, I, I can't repeat this. I've learned nothing here. Mm-Hmm. So, and it sounds like Malice kind of did a similar thing with the read through.

Ben: 1:39:22

Yeah. I, again, I. Started listening to it on a airplane ride a long time ago, and I ended up not doing the book because of that, and having to get the Kindle and read through it.

Gene: 1:39:37

One last thing I just remembered, because we're talking about read through and watch through, is I remembered I watched a TV show that I thought you were watching. Now it sounds like you're not actually watching. Which is called The Curse.

Ben: 1:39:52

Yeah, no, I heard you say that on Unreal HD, and I'm like, no Gene, I'm not watching that.

Gene: 1:39:57

I, you know, the text message that got me thinking you were watching it is I got a text from you that said something to the effect of Oh, what's the chicken head show? Emma Stone. Yeah, Emma Stone does not look great without clothes. Yeah, well,

Ben: 1:40:12

that's because of the new movie that came out and the scenes around that, which, well, I was making a joke that fell about as flat as her chest. So,

Gene: 1:40:23

yeah, but you kind of get to see all of that in this TV show. Like, okay, there's a scene where she is being manipulated by her husband with a vibrating appendage. And you see a lot of it. And so I thought, oh, well, you must be watching the same thing I am. Yeah. I was like, yeah, she is kind of flat. I mean, she's probably somewhere between an A and a B cup. Most people don't realize how small a B cup is. Like generally when you see somebody that you think, oh, that's a nice perky set. That's usually a C. Or better. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Or better because we've been as American males kind of conditioned into between silicone being readily utilized and between male magazines. In the past, having mostly focused on non spinners technical term that's what most American males are kind of geared for is like, you know, bigger, the better. And the starting point for the bigger is usually a C cup. Yeah. I just, I, and Emma Stone's never gotten a boob

Ben: 1:41:33

job. And it's, it's funny because I've always found her pretty attractive in lots of ways, but Hey, this new movie she was in is just absolutely weird. And just the horrible, Oh God, I don't even remember. And you know, just her, her naked is not for me personally. So, yeah,

Gene: 1:41:58

well, she's also getting older. I mean, she's kind of like 33 years old.

Ben: 1:42:02

That's fine. She's around my age. It's not a big deal, but I, I just, I prefer a little more

Gene: 1:42:11

so, but I never really thought she was particularly attractive. I always thought she was very cute. Like she plays that cute quirky kind of chick,

Ben: 1:42:22

which I find attractive. So

Gene: 1:42:24

sure, sure. No, I, I. I can appreciate that, kind of like the, the, you know, the chick that's not beautiful. Like, she, she hangs with guys, she plays video

Ben: 1:42:35

games, she Beauty is very subjective, and beauty is very Not

Gene: 1:42:39

really. It's been defined very cleanly. There are objective beauty standards out there. Okay. You, you have preferences that are subjective, but beauty is objective.

Ben: 1:42:52

So she has the objective beauty of a symmetrical face and things like that. So, you

Gene: 1:42:58

know, I've, I've gone through with her face and I, I can, I'm more than happy to dive into this because I do like her. I like the character she's played. I'm sure she's a total whack job, liberal, like most people in Hollywood. But yeah, I

Ben: 1:43:13

think this new movie kind of shows

Gene: 1:43:15

that from a characters that she's played. I've enjoyed most of them that she's done. And she's gonna find, and in this particular TV show, she does a bang up, killer, very good quality job of portraying a rich 30 something year old Californian woman.

Ben: 1:43:39

Okay, well, maybe I'll watch the curse because I, it is, it's popped up on paramount plus for me. It's

Gene: 1:43:47

free

Ben: 1:43:48

on paramount. Yeah. Yeah. Now he, and by the way, the movie that just came out is poor things,

Gene: 1:43:54

poor things. I have not seen any ads for it.

Ben: 1:43:56

Yeah. And it's got some rather pornographic. I'll have to check out segments for her but the premise of the movie, and this is spoiler and we're at the end of the show. So if you don't want to hear this spoiler, turn it off. And I, I started to watch part of this just because of some of the controversy around it. I wanted to know about. It's kind of an artsy film, but the premise of the story is this woman's dying, and there's a baby in her, and to save her ish, this scientist takes the baby, takes the brain out of the baby, and puts it in the woman. So she's a grown woman with a baby brain.

Gene: 1:44:35

That feels like a very complicated way to save a baby.

Ben: 1:44:39

It feels like a very weird, pedophilic story, in lots of ways, because mentally, she's a child, yet Physically, she's not and it's just a weird, weird thing and she ends up being a hooker and lots of different aspects of it. And one does. Yes. Yeah. And just. Exploring sexuality from a infantile mind, and it's just a weird, weird fucking premise to a movie. And it's unwatchable as far as I'm concerned.

Gene: 1:45:10

Alright, I'll let you know what it's like. Well, I

Ben: 1:45:14

know what it's like, but it's not watchable. So, for me, at least.

Gene: 1:45:18

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I could watch that. I think that there's a really pedophilia I think has more to do with the physical body than the mind. Because there are stupid people that are adults, right? But children can be quite smart, but yet are still children.

Ben: 1:45:41

Yeah, and that, that's kind of one of the things that it comes down to is what, what is okay and what is not. And, You know, I, I don't know,

Gene: 1:45:53

one, one would even argue in the past that back in a time when most women were virgins until they got married and certainly did not work and did not vote that they were more infantile than men.

Ben: 1:46:08

I, yeah, I don't know, man. I think back then our entire society grew up way faster and harder. To a very, very large degree, so I don't and died sooner. Yes. And like

Gene: 1:46:21

in our late forties, early fifties.

Ben: 1:46:24

Yeah. That's why social security, if you made it to 60, it was a fucking

Gene: 1:46:27

miracle. Exactly. We managed to sneak that in right at the last minute. That's absolutely right. And that's as much as this personally affects me, I will absolutely go along that line that. Social security was created to essentially be the catch net for people that live too long.

Ben: 1:46:47

Well, and for everybody didn't have family, didn't have their own means of savings. And so if we were to age adjust social security for today, it'd be at 75 or better. Yeah, it'd

Gene: 1:47:00

be over the male average length of life expectancy. Although

Ben: 1:47:05

I wanted to take care of old women.

Gene: 1:47:09

I, I will say this. There's nothing

Ben: 1:47:11

sexist here at all, by the way. I mean, my God, why would we want to help or take care of men? Why would men get anything from our

Gene: 1:47:18

society? Exactly. Is the question with life expectancy, the, my understanding is I could be wrong on this, but my understanding is that when people talk about life expectancy, they're referring to how long a child born today is projected to live. And what I've always found to be inaccurate in that is People will use that measurement when referring to people that are elderly without going back and saying, well, when Joe Biden was born in 1931, the life expectancy for a male was backwards.

Ben: 1:48:01

Okay, tell me. So the life expectancy today is not my projected life expectancy. The year over year life expectancy is basically how old will be the average person when they die this year.

Gene: 1:48:15

Is it? Are you sure about that? It's not how long a child would live? That is my

Ben: 1:48:21

understanding. So, average age. Let's look it up real quick. Average age of the person dying this year.

Gene: 1:48:30

So, nope, that is incorrect. Life expectancy is the number of years an individual is expected to live as deemed by statistics.

Ben: 1:48:40

Right, but it's based off of who's dying this year. Based on the year of birth. Yes, based off the year of birth, coming from But you're, you're, it's not projected into the future. The most

Gene: 1:48:50

common used measure is life expectancy at birth. Which can be defined in two ways cohorts and blah blah blah blah. See this is where the confusion sets in So i'm not saying you're wrong. So i'm

Ben: 1:49:00

looking at the cdc's Explanation i've been right there.

Gene: 1:49:04

Yeah, read that because it's it's I think a lot of people use it the way you describe, but I've seen it used too many times the other way.

Ben: 1:49:16

So there are expected life expectancy, which is from birth to your expected death. And then there is current life expectancy, which is based off of current deaths and mortality for your cohort generation. Meaning if you were born during this cohort, so let's say 1980 to 1990, your life expectancy is X and someone else's life expectancy is Y based off of average number of deaths reasons and so on. And that is a rolling number. Your projected life expectancy from birth. Is at the time of your birth, what was statistically your estimated life expectancy? So there are 2 different numbers there. 1 is a rolling number. 1 is this is what your life expectancy was. So, when people say, like, Harvard health here, life expectancy is falling. That isn't necessarily the projected that's the rolling. For example, because we have

Gene: 1:50:20

a bunch of people dying. See, I think you're wrong about that. I think that when people say life expectancy is falling, that means a child born today is estimated to live shorter than a child that was born last year.

Ben: 1:50:33

Well, it sounds like a good research topic for both of us to do for the

Gene: 1:50:36

next episode or somebody to send us something that's already done it because it's but you see where I'm talking about that. This

Ben: 1:50:43

is a good few different numbers here

Gene: 1:50:46

is right, but they should have two different words for expressing those two different numbers because both are useful, right? It's useful to know that if you have a kid today, you're How long do they think that kid's going to live? But it's also useful to know that of all the people who died this year, what was the average age of the people who died? Like both of those are useful numbers, but they're clearly different because the people who died today were children 70 some years ago.

Ben: 1:51:16

Are they are they useful, both useful numbers? Are we sure about that?

Gene: 1:51:20

Absolutely for calculating different tax related things and not to mention payouts of life insurance. Okay. That's who you really need to ask, not, not the CEC. Check some life insurance website that, that tells you what is the definition of life expectancy. Indeed.

Ben: 1:51:42

Yeah.

Gene: 1:51:44

Anyway, let's wrap this up. We've been going a while here and hopefully everybody heard you and me at the same volume level

Ben: 1:51:52

this time around. Hopefully. And hopefully someone can chime in on any thoughts on related fixes. I guess I'll start with reflashing them out too, and see about that. And go from there. Cause I know the save your settings. Yeah. I know the Yeti is not the ideal mic.

Gene: 1:52:09

So yeah. And it's not horrible. It's just in comparison immediately, like people heard, you know, 20 minutes of the MOTU and then switch, everybody's going to tell a

Ben: 1:52:19

difference. Well, I mean, you're going from the RE320 to a USB and yeah, there's lots of things there. So

Gene: 1:52:26

I've been, we'll see you next week.

Ben: 1:52:28

We'll see you next week, Gene.