Gene 0:25

Hey, Ben. How are you?

Ben 0:27

Gene. I am well, I

Gene 0:29

I don't, I don't have a standard introduction thing to say, so I'm just asking how you're doing.

Ben 0:34

Well, we'll work on that. I'm doing better than Paul Pelosi. I can say that.

Gene 0:39

Well, let's hope so. You're not getting attacked by a bunch of radical nudists.

Ben 0:44

Yeah. Well, yeah. Hey, what can I say? When when you've got a hammer, everything looks like a nail.

Gene 0:51

Mm-hmm. Yeah, I I noticed all the news stories just disappeared about that real fast.

Ben 0:58

Yeah. Why do you

Gene 0:59

were all hoping that it was some crazy, crazy gun loving, you know, Republican that did the attacking.

Ben 1:09

Well, according to Vice he was way big into qan on, man. Come

Gene 1:14

Was he now? Mm-hmm. as a rainbow nudist. Okay.

Ben 1:18

Yep, Yep. That I, the, the, the whole thing, I

Gene 1:22

Well, that Huon is just such a diverse group, isn't that?

Ben 1:25

Yeah, the first thing that comes out is, Oh, this was an assassination attempt against Nancy. She's in DC I think everyone knows that she's in DC

Gene 1:34

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Ben 1:36

so I don't know, man.

Gene 1:37

But then again, her gay husband maybe is you know,

Ben 1:41

Well, I mean, if you're married to her, if that doesn't cause some issues, I don't know. What would

Gene 1:48

I know. That's why I give Bill Clinton the pass,

Ben 1:50

Well, Bill Clinton, you know, he has definitely been a beard for a while, but, you know,

Gene 1:56

Ever since he got married.

Ben 1:57

well, I mean, I don't know about that because clearly. What's the guy who can't remember his name right now? That's

Gene 2:06

The actual, The actual father of Chelsea? Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Ben 2:09

Webb, right?

Gene 2:10

Oh yeah. Yeah, that's right. Web

Ben 2:12

And yeah, Web Hubble. Anyway so obviously she has some proclivity

Gene 2:17

No, no, no, Nobody, Nobody ever made any assertions of Hillary having sex with a man.

Ben 2:21

Oh,

Gene 2:22

She just got sperm from Webb Hubble because she has always had a disdain for that hillbilly that she actually married to have as a beard.

Ben 2:35

Yeah. Well, Poor

Gene 2:36

No, I think Hillary's poor bill is right. I think Hillary's life story is pretty straightforward. You know, grew up in a conservative household and, and then in college realized that she likes girls more than boys.

Ben 2:49

well, you know, it's really interesting because she was a Goldwater girl.

Gene 2:53

That's what I'm talking about. Yeah, exactly.

Ben 2:55

so like I, I personally, I, Barry

Gene 2:58

the Nixon camping.

Ben 3:00

Barry Goldwater should have won and this country would be in a far better and different place.

Gene 3:05

it'd be different, but you never know if it'd be better.

Ben 3:08

Oh man, I don't know. I, I, I love Barry Goldwater. I really do. I actually have a Goldwater Miller campaign button. But it's interesting that she goes from that to where

Gene 3:19

guarantee you it was. It was the response to her becoming. Something that was not acceptable in that party.

Ben 3:31

Hmm.

Gene 3:32

I think it's her lesbianism early in life that steered her to a very different trajectory. And I think with Bill, she found somebody that was a good partner, just not a husband. In the traditional sense, it was somebody who had similar ambitions to. And somebody that would happily appreciate the freedom of screwing anybody that he wanted to

Ben 4:01

Yeah.

Gene 4:03

maintaining this sort of a happy family's look.

Ben 4:07

Well, I mean, it's so funny her, her reaction to the Lewinsky Lewinsky scandal at the time, you know, it was just absolutely terrible. You know, I mean, just trashing her and

Gene 4:20

Well, as she should, because Lewinsky blabbed, she talked the whole point that Bill was fucking people that are politically connected is that they would realize that talking would be bad for him politically. That's why

Ben 4:39

Well and them as well.

Gene 4:40

person. Oh, and them, Yeah, yeah,

Ben 4:42

I

Gene 4:42

But,

Ben 4:43

what, what has Lewinsky done?

Gene 4:45

I don't know, but I mean, she kind of got a little more of a blip recently and I guess a couple years back or a year ago during Covid where she's been more in the public eye running some non-profit or other for, for women who, you know, had relationships with politicians. I.

Ben 5:06

That's an interesting non non-profit to

Gene 5:08

You'd be surprised how big that organization is.

Ben 5:10

dude, I'm surprised they can they can put that many people on it, so, So one of my fa, one of the reasons why I liked Goldwater so much, just to close this out on the Goldwater thing, is during his acceptance speech, he had what I consider to be one of the best quotes ever, and it's extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice. And moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.

Gene 5:36

Mm-hmm.

Ben 5:36

just, and it's something that I don't know Like I said, I grew up in a pretty political family, and I've met Barry Goldwater son. And anyway, it's just, it's, it's interesting

Gene 5:49

Hmm

Ben 5:50

growing up my grandfather, you know, we didn't have YouTube obviously when I was a kid, but He would have me read different speeches, so different transcribed speeches, and Goldwaters was one of'em that always just stuck with me. That, and Reagan's a time for choosing

Gene 6:07

Mm-hmm. Yeah. You should find out who the speech writers were for those, cuz obviously they weren't written by the people the.

Ben 6:13

Yes, obviously. But anyway, and my parents, I, I had to watch Bill Clinton's State of the Union speeches and give my parents a report because they couldn't stomach it.

Gene 6:23

That's too funny.

Ben 6:25

Yeah, that, that, that was one

Gene 6:27

I still say, I think, you know, this is a Catholic question came up maybe 10, 15 years ago. Is,

Ben 6:33

Hmm

Gene 6:33

uh, whi which president? Well the two parts, so two question One is, which, Of the US Presidents ever. And then, which of the living US presidents would you most like to have a drink with?

Ben 6:48

ever.

Gene 6:49

yeah, ever. So I'll tell, I'll give you mine first. So ever, For me it was absolutely gonna be Jefferson. But of living, it was definitely gonna be,

Ben 7:00

So I would agree with you on Jefferson, but I you know, I would say Trump, but he, he doesn't drink.

Gene 7:07

Yeah. Well, I don't either these days, but yeah, it, it's but metaphorically, I don't know. I think, I think that Trump would be a lot less interesting than Clinton. Clinton's got some stories to tell.

Ben 7:20

Well, I've, I've met Bill Clinton. You know, he's definitely a very charismatic person. I remember, so I obviously don't really politically like him, but I was at a and m and he was there and student government got to do a little meet and greet. With him. And when he shook my hand, he did the double class thing. And he's a charismatic guy. I mean, it was like I was the only person in the damn room, you know? How been, how are you? You know? And just, it, it's, he, he's definitely a charismatic guy.

Gene 7:54

Yes, he could have been a preacher and done very well financially.

Ben 7:58

Oh, I mean, did, Yeah. I mean, he's the kind of guy that, you know, and again, going back to the whole Hillary and screwing whoever he wants, he's, he's definitely the kind of guy that can pretty much pull whatever he wants to pull.

Gene 8:11

Mm-hmm. Yep.

Ben 8:13

Yeah. So of the living presidents, the only the only one that I haven't Well, there's a couple that I haven't met at this point, but yeah, the Obama and Biden are the only

Gene 8:26

You met Jimmy Carter.

Ben 8:28

I have met Mr. Carter. Yes.

Gene 8:30

did you meet him?

Ben 8:31

A and m a lot of the presidents came in. I've met George Bush all the same

Gene 8:36

Well, yeah. Bush is in, He's basically lives out there.

Ben 8:39

I, well, his dad did, not him. I, I met Bush Sr. Which Evil mf. So there, there are three. There are three that I have met and three that I have not.

Gene 8:51

Mm-hmm. Yeah. I don't think I met any of'em. Closest I got to Clinton was, I got pushed outta the way by Secret Service. We were staying at the same hotel.

Ben 9:01

too

Gene 9:01

we're staying at the same hotel. And I came down in the elevator as he was coming in and I'm just looking around like, Oh, what's, this is interesting and secrets ares like, You need to step back, sir. I was like, What? And then he just kind of made me step back.

Ben 9:16

Yeah, security around presidents is.

Gene 9:19

That's no joke, man.

Ben 9:20

Yeah. No, not at all. So when it was right after the whole Haiti thing that Clinton, Bush and Carter, all three were at a and m at one point in time, and just to get into the venue where they were speaking and everything was a ridiculous amount of security. I mean, you know, I, I often. It's security theater at the airport. And it is, and when you go through something, for instance, to go see president speak three former presidents at that, you know, you're, you're going to you're going to see what real security is. So

Gene 9:55

So my fanny pack, where the word dominant probably wouldn't be a good thing to wear when I went there. Mm-hmm. I just always thought that was a funny thing to have in a fanny pack.

Ben 10:05

Hmm. Yeah. I, I, I wouldn't fly with it.

Gene 10:11

Lighten the mood light to just lighten the mood.

Ben 10:13

Yeah.

Gene 10:15

Well, this is back in the eighties. I, I haven't worn a fanny pack since the eighties. But

Ben 10:19

I don't know, man. I can see that in the Adidas tracksuit and being a right on fashion

Gene 10:25

I think, I think you're just thinking of a character out of Grand Theft Auto is what you're thinking of with a green, green track suit. Mm-hmm.

Ben 10:33

I haven't played Grand Theft Auto and I don't know how long,

Gene 10:37

Oh, yeah. Yeah. It's been a while. But speaking of, did you see the the link I sent you the other day from the Wikipedia about cyberpunk

Ben 10:46

maybe I.

Gene 10:47

well, you clearly didn't read it then. But it, it talked about the, in the game lore, the Republic of Texas, and the events that occurred at a and m.

Ben 10:57

What, what occurred?

Gene 10:59

Well, I guess you'll have to read it to find out.

Ben 11:01

Oh

Gene 11:01

That's why I sent you

Ben 11:02

Come on.

Gene 11:04

not gonna talk about it.

Ben 11:05

When did you send,

Gene 11:06

It was during the week. It was the last few days. It was in, in Signal, and I sent you a couple link. One was just on the, something about the game in general, and then the other one was specifically about the Republican, Texas. all

Ben 11:19

saw the YouTube one after you're

Gene 11:21

You can read it later. That's all right. I'm

Ben 11:22

Rosalind Meyers. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay.

Gene 11:25

it was the other link, not the Rosalind Myers. So, yes, I'm still playing the game. I still think it's super cool. Definitely got my money's worth out of it, given that I've got over a hundred hours in it now,

Ben 11:36

Yeah, you've actually gotten me to download and start playing the

Gene 11:40

which was not by intention. I, I was kinda surprised when you told me that. I was like, Really?

Ben 11:45

Yeah, well, I, I, I haven't spent very much time in it yet, but it is a the graphics are great. It's an interesting concept game. It's definitely straining my my laptop's a.

Gene 11:57

Oh God. Yeah. It's, it is one of those, I mean, it's not like the, the game that needs the best PC performance is still star citizen by a long shot. That game on a$5,000 computer, you'll get 45 frames per second. But this game, if you put everything on Max, which is why I'm. I'm getting right around 60 frames per second.

Ben 12:19

I'm not sure what I'm getting, but I'm on my personal laptop is a couple years old at this point, but it's a core I nine. Dell XPS with this one has 32 gigs of ram. I actually have another laptop that I'm moving to,

Gene 12:33

I think the, the Ram wise, I think the game only uses about 17, 18 gigs, so you've got plenty there.

Ben 12:39

Yeah. And I've got a

Gene 12:41

is the gonna be the biggest thing.

Ben 12:42

Yeah. And I've got a discreet in video graphics card, but the, the new laptop will be nicer and newer. But it's,

Gene 12:50

You get the

Ben 12:50

this is, this is not a this is my only Windows machine, so,

Gene 12:54

Yeah, I hear you. Everything else is Mac. Just the one Windows machine.

Ben 12:59

Yeah. No, actually not. Everything's Linux.

Gene 13:02

Mm-hmm.

Ben 13:04

But anyway

Gene 13:04

I don't think, I don't think Lennox says much Game support does

Ben 13:07

Well steam, you can run steam on a lot of different variants, so that gets you pretty much everything.

Gene 13:14

is fine, but what about the games themselves?

Ben 13:17

Pretty much any game that's in Steam can be run

Gene 13:20

You're kidding. How do they do that though? The games are using Direct X, which was a Windows thing.

Ben 13:24

Don't ask me. There's lots of games available on Steam that you can run in

Gene 13:28

Really? Oh, I had no

Ben 13:30

I would have to go back and look and see if I can't even do,

Gene 13:33

I know on the Mac I can run probably about 20% of my games that I've purchased on Steam. About 20% have a Mac version

Ben 13:40

I'd have to go look because I haven't, I haven't tried in a long time. I just know that STEAM is available and maybe I'm making an assumption I shouldn't.

Gene 13:47

mm-hmm. Hmm. Yeah, I don't know, man. I mean that's, that's good if that's true cuz I don't think it used to be true.

Ben 13:54

I mean, the driver support in Linux has really come a long way in the last couple of years. I mean, Like I'm running a version of Linux Mint on a surface because you

Gene 14:06

Yeah, go ahead.

Ben 14:07

the driver supports there. So if when you can run Linux on a surface and have pretty much all drivers supported, that's, that's a long way from where we used to be.

Gene 14:19

Hmm. Yep, that's true. I, I just thought I was closing up some tabs in the browser here and I noticed it had a comment, a reply to me mentioning that we're recording the next episode. One of the re replies was, You mean that show that had the bad audio last week? Yeah. Maybe I'll give it another, another shot.

Ben 14:38

Ouch. Well, I mean, luckily that was not our, That was not this show. That was your.

Gene 14:44

Well, fair. Well, was it though, or was it the first episode? Was it the last episode or the first episode that had bad audio.

Ben 14:51

No, the last episode we were good. It was the, it was the last episode of

Gene 14:56

Of the, Of the Surine speaks. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I haven't put out, I gotta put out next episode of that one.

Ben 15:02

Which we definitely, I, I need to take take advantage of the No agenda bogo you. Support right now and put out a, a need to do a donation. I haven't done one in a while and put out a call out for our show, but

Gene 15:17

Yeah,

Ben 15:18

seven days we're,

Gene 15:19

money in.

Ben 15:20

yep, we're we're the downloads were not bad for the first seven days and just shifting over the way we did, so I'm happy with it.

Gene 15:29

Good, good. Yeah, and obviously I'll just keep talking about it and, and linking the new show in every subsequent episode for quite a while here, but I think it'll take a little while for folks to start getting acclimated to doing the. The new RSS feed. That, and then I haven't, I don't know if you've submitted it to the other networks yet or I haven't done that yet. I want to wait till there's a few episodes

Ben 15:53

Yeah. Yeah. The, the only one we're on right now is Podcast Index.

Gene 15:57

So this is a episode two. And we might as well mention it in here for people that are listening you can of afforded the idea of adding some of the old episodes from Serge speaks of the two of us speaking into the RSS feed itself. We can totally do that. I just, I wanna, I wanna minimize confusion though for folks in case they've already been listening to us. Cuz they're like, Wait a minute, what is this stuff? I've already heard this. Are you guys just recycling? So what are you, what are your thoughts there?

Ben 16:28

I think we at, at the very least you know, have a blurb on the site about the episodes we did there, or we upload a couple At this point, based off of the way RSS is handled through our host I don't think we worry about it. If we were manually creating the RSS feed and it was easy enough to go put like 0.5 episodes back or something like that, then that'd be one thing. But basically right now to, with the features that the hosting company that we're using has, we'd basically have to delete and then re-upload episodes, and that's just, I don't think it's worth.

Gene 17:05

Yeah, no, I, I tend to agree with that sentiment. I think I think it's literally just a matter of getting to the fifth episode of this show, and it's just not gonna be at all an issue because there'll be enough of a back catalog that if somebody randomly listens to show number five or six or seven, or. And they go, Oh, this is really interesting. I want to hear more of these guys. They'll be enough in there for them to go back. They'll be at least another 20 hours worth of content in there, sufe of previous shows. So really this is just a short term issue and it's not a major issue. I think it's a kind of a minor issue, and anyone who actually has been listening to us for a while on Surine Speaks hopefully they'll make it over to the new Rs. And don't delete the old one. Guys, I'm, I'm gonna continue putting out episodes on there that'll probably do some more interviews I've been meaning to do. I really haven't done many ever since Ben and I started doing the content that were now shifted over to the new show. But yeah, that, that comments about the general leeman, I was kind of

Ben 18:07

Well, you know, it was, yeah, yeah, yeah. And it's fair the.

Gene 18:11

I just didn't think you could see it. I thought given the angle of the roof, like who the hell could even tell if there's anything on there? Because in the actual TV show in Dukes of Hazard, if you have a car that's about at the same angle as the car in our image you just barely see maybe two stars

Ben 18:29

Or just a little bit of

Gene 18:31

or just a straight line.

Ben 18:33

So, you know, the artist we had do that which was just some one off of five,

Gene 18:39

I did a pretty good

Ben 18:40

do it. And it wasn't something I was going to complain or make a point out of just because, well, you know, we, we can, the odds of us getting canceled already are pretty high, so why add to it? That said, if anyone wants to take the show art, Fix the error. I'll give you the original and

Gene 19:01

send you the original and have you add that in. Exactly. Yep.

Ben 19:05

that's what I'd say

Gene 19:06

Yeah, and, and for most people, the, the size at which they're gonna see the art is a, an image on their phone,

Ben 19:13

mm-hmm.

Gene 19:13

which you're not gonna see the, the top of the car in there anyway. It's too,

Ben 19:20

Yeah. And you know, again, we still need a theme song, so,

Gene 19:23

We do, we do. And one thing that I, I texted you about, but I want to encourage you publicly here as well and then to let people know that I think you oughta do whatever investigating work needs to be done to start doing our recording on no agenda social or sorry, on no agenda livestream. So that much like I do with unrelenting. This show can be heard while being recorded live. And guess what? If we do that, we can play the the, the song right before the show.

Ben 19:54

Yeah, the only problem I have with doing the streaming is like today we're recording later than our normal time. Part of that's because wife and kids are headed to a birthday party, and this was a more convenient time. And then like next weekend, I'm actually gonna be. In Maryland at a cybersecurity conference on Saturday,

Gene 20:14

Which by the way, doesn't mean you can't, you can't do a show recording.

Ben 20:18

Mm. It really does

Gene 20:21

If I can do one from Mexico, you can do one from Maryland.

Ben 20:25

Right. But it's my company's conference that's actually on

Gene 20:28

So you're gonna be doing stuff Saturday evening.

Ben 20:30

Saturday all day and into the evening. Yes.

Gene 20:33

Mm-hmm. Well, we could do it in the evening. And that's the thing is we, we have to figure out, and I know we're kind of getting into not interesting territory but I, I just haven't talked to you for a while, but we need to figure out like a long term, convenient time to try and standardize this. Right now I'm very flexible. I may be less flexible during business hours once I get my next client, but let's take advantage of the fact that I've got flexibility.

Ben 20:57

Yep, absolutely.

Gene 21:00

So what do we all gonna talk about? What's our actual political stories? I haven't bought any new guns. It's a miracle. Shocking.

Ben 21:07

Well,

Gene 21:08

I am tempted.

Ben 21:09

Did you see the latest ATF case that I

Gene 21:15

The California thing.

Ben 21:17

huh?

Gene 21:17

The California one or what?

Ben 21:19

No. So the, there was this guy that got charged with intent to manufacture a machine gun because he had a d milled AK from back in the day that had a, you know, saw band cut through it, which used to be legal. Now they want more D milled, you know, destruction.

Gene 21:36

what did, So a saw band cut through it, meaning what?

Ben 21:40

A saw band cut through the receiver. So you, to dal, like, let's say you wanted to get a, any, any classic any an M 16, anything that's fully auto and you wanted to

Gene 21:52

Oh, making a non weapon.

Ben 21:54

Correct. So back in the day, just a saw band cut through, it was sufficient

Gene 21:59

at which place you could saw, bend through it and do nothing to change its operation.

Ben 22:05

Right, but through the receiver now

Gene 22:07

part of the receiver?

Ben 22:08

now they want three torch cuts on the receiver and the barrel. So basically making it totally useless.

Gene 22:15

What the hell do they care about? The barrel? The barrel's not the gun.

Ben 22:18

well, it's just what they want. And here, here's the thing. You, you can.

Gene 22:22

you what to do.

Ben 22:23

You can re restore these guns and do a e formm and, you know, then be legal. He had the receiver and the barrel in different locked locations, which should remove the intent to manufacture. Yet they're still charging him. So it, the ATF is really. It is, and the, the thing that people need to note is how far we are straying from the intent of the law. How they are.

Gene 22:51

shouldn't exist. First and foremost, the ATF was made out of think cloth. It's. It's just air. There's, there's nothing at all that gives power to the federal government to have an agency like the ATF

Ben 23:05

Well, but the, the thing is, you know, they, they are these rifle kits.

Gene 23:10

be taxed. That was an original concept from the 17 hundreds that rights cannot be taxed.

Ben 23:17

Right. So here, here, here's the thing. The they by making the, by stretching the NFL to the point that they have. In this case, if this goes to the Supreme Court, this would be a very good case to potentially take down the a and i. I think we are all on the same page that that is something we would like to see.

Gene 23:37

Yeah. I think most people are, Anyone that has a gun these days realizes that they. The NFA is completely illogical and it's a shock that it's been allowed to exist. As long as it has.

Ben 23:52

Well, and part of that is, you know, we've talked about it before, that the ATF will get to the Supreme Court or something, and then they'll drop the charges, they'll back

Gene 24:01

Yeah. Yeah. That's their way of avoiding having any kind of precedence. That is when they feel threatened. They just dropped the case.

Ben 24:08

Right, and you know that the concept of standing in our legal system, I a hundred percent understand and appreciate why it exists the way it does. That said, we have seen several court cases recently where

Gene 24:26

Well, they, they just need to be sued more frequently for monetary damages when they do something like drop a case. And then let that get up to the Supreme Court, which can then determine, Yep, they acted in error and damages are awarded, and then set a president saying that, you know, they're doing things that are literally illegal. And if a government agency is doing things that are illegal, there are ways to get rid of that agency.

Ben 24:53

well. I definitely think that more people need to, who, who have any sort of standing need to stand up and sue. But that's a hard thing to do. It's a hard legal battle to do. You know, especially when you're talking with the ATF or anything, I mean, you're talking charges that would potentially change your life significantly. So to stand up and take that to court and fight for that is, is not an easy thing and I fully understand that. We have to start doing that as a society, if there's any hope of saving this country. Which man, the more I think about it, and the more I look

Gene 25:30

not worth saving, is it?

Ben 25:32

I, it's not just that I think we're

Gene 25:34

that not where you were going? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Ben 25:37

I've got a story. So my my truck was in the shop 187,000 miles and finally having a little bit of issues. My truck was in the shop and I went to pick it. And for many reasons, wife couldn't take me. So I Ubered from my house to the, to the transmission shop where it was getting worked on. And this woman had Beto leaflets in the back.

Gene 25:56

Of course she did.

Ben 25:57

So I couldn't help it. I had to fuck with her a little bit and talk with her. And apparently she went to law school. That, that was one thing and I I had to say, So what do you think of the incorporation doctorate? Totally didn't know what I was talking about, so it went down that rabbit hole. But just after talking to her and hearing her thoughts on lots of this and her her conclusions, like, you know, you know, profits corporate profits, you know, inflation and, you know, jobs and no one's paying minimum wage anymore. It's all 15,$16 an hour now. And I said, Yeah, well, that, you know, that feeds into it. It's a self self self-fulfilling prophecy. And her, her statement was, Well, corporations could just take less profits and that'd be the thing. It's. Well, they can't, They actually have a, you know, if you're a publicly traded company, for example, or even if you're not, you have a fiduciary responsibility to your stakeholders to produce as much profit as possible, So,

Gene 26:55

to get sued more. That's the problem is not enough people are suing companies right now.

Ben 26:59

Yeah. Yeah. Well, anyway, it, the, the whole thing is this woman was a, a moron and a communist, and it's just whatever. You, you can only go so far with people and yeah. Anyway, yes, companies do need to be sued. I think we were gonna see some very interesting lawsuits against Twitter at this

Gene 27:17

I mean, at this point there's a precedent for billion dollar payout. And for things that clearly companies like Google and Facebook and Twitter and, and many others have been routinely doing which is defaming people by saying that the, by calling people flyers effectively and that they're spreading misinformation, spreading the untruth on things that have been proven to be correct when they set him. I think each of those cases ought to be multibillion dollar settlement deals.

Ben 27:51

So, of course you're referring to the ludicrous Infowars, Alex Jones finding, which I, I think he's gonna win on appeal. And it will be very hilarious when we have the Alex Jones President. That gets cited a lot.

Gene 28:05

Uhhuh

Ben 28:06

Yeah. But no, I, I, I think it's actually gonna be the left going after Twitter here pretty quick

Gene 28:12

Oh dude, they're already doing it. It it is, it is pretty damn funny. I think I mentioned on Social, I talked about on Relenting is I, I rejoined Twitter the day that Musk bought it.

Ben 28:24

Mm-hmm.

Gene 28:25

I haven't been on it for almost three years, I think ever since I got kicked off of there.

Ben 28:29

Yeah, I've got my account that I've had for forever, but I don't post ever on Twitter. And no, it's funny. Did you see did you see how he walked into the building,

Gene 28:39

Mm-hmm.

Ben 28:40

carrying the kitchen sink?

Gene 28:42

Yeah. He's got a very much a dad sense of humor.

Ben 28:44

Oh man. It, it's hilarious. And I love that he brought the Tesla engine. Now here, here's something that really bugs me. Anyway, so one of the interesting things that I found odd about the whole Twitter thing was that he brought in the Tesla engineers post. Acquisition. So normally during any sort of merger or acquisition of a company like this, you would do your tech due diligence, you know, during the period of time that you're gonna be acquiring this company as part of it. So the fact that he is just now bringing in Tesla engineers seems rather odd to me.

Gene 29:25

Yeah, I, I don't know, man. I, I think that the reason that he brought in the engineers now is because they weren't giving him access. I think that there was financial due diligence that was done. There might have been some other due diligence that brought up questions that were not adequately answered, and this is why Musk tried to get out of buying this thing. But eventually, I think either he talked to somebody or just thought about it long enough and said, You know what? Fuck it. Even with the bullshit stuff in, at Twitter, I, I could turn Twitter into what it originally was before the crazies came in, which was a free speech platform that's sort of like the town square, which is I think the phrase he used. And I could just fix this stuff even though it exists Now, interestingly, After he bought it. So I found out yesterday like General Motors has pulled all of its ads off of Twitter. They, and now it's, they've decided that it's too controversial. And so I just started, you know, posted a tweet with GM Hates free speech hashtag

Ben 30:58

Yeah. So here, here's the thing. And I think Tim Poole has hit the nail on the head with some of this if he really does turn it into the town square sort of thing, and Tim used the analogy of billboards on Times Square and Hey, advertisers get over it. Yes, There's a naked cowboy running around. So what, this is still a valuable property.

Gene 31:21

he's also not naked, but Yeah.

Ben 31:23

Well, whatever. It's the metaphor.

Gene 31:25

Yeah. He's just not wearing a shirt or pants.

Ben 31:28

he's in underwear. Yes. But anyway

Gene 31:30

do you know how much that got? Makes.

Ben 31:32

I have no idea.

Gene 31:33

Yeah, I watched the video, a documentary about him about

Ben 31:35

why is there a

Gene 31:36

a year,

Ben 31:37

about this

Gene 31:38

cuz he makes over a quarter million a year.

Ben 31:40

Okay.

Gene 31:41

All right, so go ahead. What's your point?

Ben 31:44

don't, don't we all, I mean, just

Gene 31:47

Well, you wouldn't expect a guy that lives off tips to be making over a quarter million a

Ben 31:50

No, that is, that is rather extraordinary. Anyway I think Musk has the opportunity to a the fact that he's, the disheartening thing is that he's falling back on this idea that he's gonna have a governance board who's in charge of Bannings and

Gene 32:05

That's bullshit. I think he needs to get wise that

Ben 32:08

Well, I mean, I, I think that can be okay as a going forward sort of thing, but there are counts.

Gene 32:15

Yeah. And I tweeted my reply to that idea. As I said, unless Alex Jones is on this board, it's, it's not a real board.

Ben 32:21

Well, and amen. Alex Jones should be on there. There's a he, he should go. Really the opposite. Have both ends of the spectrum, you know,

Gene 32:33

right, you gotta have like a Louis Faron type on there,

Ben 32:37

Mm-hmm.

Gene 32:38

Jones on there. Have AOC should be on there.

Ben 32:41

Sure.

Gene 32:42

Who else? The only people I don't want on there are Hillary Clinton's people.

Ben 32:47

Yeah.

Gene 32:47

Else can be on there.

Ben 32:48

what's the guy's name from Young Turks? He would be a good one.

Gene 32:53

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. The Young Turks want Yeah. Chunk. Yep.

Ben 32:58

So,

Gene 32:58

Sink. The chunk.

Ben 33:00

yeah. Yeah. I mean, pick, pick a diverse board and have both sides represented and that's fine going forward. But you know, WikiLeaks Project Veritas. There are a bunch of accounts that just,

Gene 33:13

Yeah.

Ben 33:14

there's no excuse.

Gene 33:15

board.

Ben 33:16

Yes. James OEF would be a good

Gene 33:17

Yeah. Okie would be very good on there. He's pretty funny. I watched the comedy thing of his

Ben 33:22

Oh, he's got a sense of humor, man. I mean, the whole thing that God project Veritas on the board with the going into I think it was Planned Parenthood as a pimp and a, you know, sex worker was hilarious.

Gene 33:36

and the Bee has been just killing it lately.

Ben 33:38

Do you have a specific example you'd like to

Gene 33:40

The Babylon b well, their whole series about Texas is well produced right on the nose

Ben 33:47

Oh, about Californians moving to Texas?

Gene 33:49

Yeah. So they've got three episodes now. Have you been watching'em?

Ben 33:53

I have seen some of'em, yes. I don't know that I've

Gene 33:55

Did you see who's in the third episode?

Ben 33:57

No. Who?

Gene 33:58

Ted Cruz.

Ben 34:00

That's great,

Gene 34:01

Uhhuh. Yeah. Yeah. The the Californians are walking door to door. For Beta O'Rourke,

Ben 34:09

Oh

Gene 34:10

cuz you know, they're, they're trying to make Texas better

Ben 34:13

Well, you know,

Gene 34:14

and one of the houses they stop at, that's their neighbor happens to be Ted Cruz.

Ben 34:19

That's hilarious. Have you seen the memes about beta? Beta boy Beto?

Gene 34:25

No,

Ben 34:26

Oh yeah.

Gene 34:26

that, that

Ben 34:27

they've been mocking him and, and it, it's just the, the alliteration there and everything has

Gene 34:32

The Beta Boy. Mm-hmm.

Ben 34:34

Beta boy, Beto which, whatever man,

Gene 34:36

What the hell's Beto? Beto Bedo even mean, is that some kind of beans in Spanish or

Ben 34:41

No, Beto is you know, it's, it's, it's a Spanish short for Robert instead of Bob, essentially, you know, Robert Francis O'Rourke.

Gene 34:55

Somehow Robert Francis becomes Beto.

Ben 34:59

well, which, you know, Bob or Bobby

Gene 35:02

blood in him.

Ben 35:04

okay. I mean, he grew up in a very Hispanic area, so whatever. But he, he has taken that and used that as a

Gene 35:13

He's culturally appropriated. It is what he's done.

Ben 35:16

yes. Which

Gene 35:18

to be a minority that he's not.

Ben 35:20

which dude, if he wins, holy shit, I can't imagine it, but holy shit.

Gene 35:25

dude. If he wins, we might have to leave Texas.

Ben 35:28

if he the absolutely flee to Florida

Gene 35:32

Right. Although the, I don't know what's gonna end up in Florida because the governor of Florida's gonna be the president of the country.

Ben 35:38

From your lips to God's ears, man.

Gene 35:40

Uhhuh, No, I can't. I'm doing whatever I can to try and explain to people that are all Magma Mag, why Trump is the wrong candidate. Like the movement is great on board with all of it. The fact that he was initially like the on board with it,

Ben 35:58

Yeah.

Gene 35:58

but man, we need somebody that can actually get things done and aint Trump.

Ben 36:03

so here's the thing. Trump is gonna have a role of some kind, and Trump should be involved. I don't think he needs to be the president. One of the things that

Gene 36:14

to. Yeah. Yeah. Sorry again, I keep interrupting you, but it's cuz it's a hot topic and I'm, I'm passionate about is yeah, I think Trump should be the the head of the Republican party and he should get rid of all the renos.

Ben 36:27

Yep. And I, I applaud the work he has done thus far in that effort. I would love to see when the g o p retakes the house appoint him a speaker of the house. That would be

Gene 36:38

They're not gonna, they're not gonna do that. That would be hilarious from a comedy standpoint. I totally agree with you. Or maybe, you know, make him a Supreme Court justice. That would be another good one.

Ben 36:47

No, he's too old. He's too old.

Gene 36:49

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Ben 36:51

But

Gene 36:51

Speaker of the house. He would be pretty damn funny in,

Ben 36:54

at third

Gene 36:55

you, you imagine how long, how long the the house sessions would go on because he repeats everything three times,

Ben 37:03

Can you imagine During Biden state of the

Gene 37:07

Mm.

Ben 37:09

well just be great comedy man. And then when Biden drops dead

Gene 37:12

Dad, you'd, you'd, you'd basically have like a balloon of Trump's twittering live real time while Biden's talking with a big smirk on his face was like that. That's just a lie. Nope, he's totally wrong. Not, not correct. Not correct.

Ben 37:30

totally fouls, totally foul.

Gene 37:31

Uhhuh. I think that would be hilarious. Not gonna happen. He's not gonna take that, that role.

Ben 37:37

speaking of comedy, and I mean, to the point of it almost being sad, did you watch the Federman Oz debate?

Gene 37:45

Hell no. No. That, that, that. Why would I waste time on that?

Ben 37:49

Dude, it, You need to go back and watch it. It is so bad.

Gene 37:54

Yeah. Yeah. That what you're doing right now is, is what I think a lot of wives have done is like, Come here. What? What's up? Smell this. Why it's so horrible. I can't believe how bad it smells. Come here and smell this.

Ben 38:08

No, thank

Gene 38:08

Like, I'm not gonna smell that shit. I trust you, you, you don't like to smell fine. I don't need to experience it.

Ben 38:14

dude. I, I, I, I watched it. And

Gene 38:18

He's like a side borg now or something, right?

Ben 38:20

well, he, he can't process auditory language. So if you say something

Gene 38:26

Why does Federman look

Ben 38:27

has to reason it. have no

Gene 38:29

What's his background? Do you know anything about him? Was he on TV before?

Ben 38:32

life, never really

Gene 38:34

No, Really? Okay. All right.

Ben 38:36

he

Gene 38:36

He looks like he, He kinda looked

Ben 38:38

a black guy around with a shotgun.

Gene 38:40

I heard about that. So that's the only redeeming quality, I guess. Huh?

Ben 38:44

Good god. Gene. Gene ets sure. gene.com.

Gene 38:47

What? I mean, if he's trying to chase people that are like, you know, looting things and whatnot, that's a good quality.

Ben 38:55

Anyway,

Gene 38:55

he had a reason for chasing the dude with a shotgun.

Ben 38:59

so Oz definitely won the debate and it wasn't because Oz was all that great, actually

Gene 39:05

I'm not a big fan of Oz.

Ben 39:07

I'm not either. He's far too liberal for

Gene 39:09

He's a milk toast kinda dude,

Ben 39:12

Yeah. Yeah. But I, I, I definitely think he'll be better than Federman. But I mean, it, Federman just can't do the job at this point. How the hell are you gonna go to the Senate and debate and, you know, hi. His team blamed his debate performance on the transcription software saying, Oh, well it failed him and this, and the, Okay, so how's he gonna do his job?

Gene 39:33

Yeah.

Ben 39:35

He can't

Gene 39:35

Well, luckily he doesn't need to do anything other than just vote with whatever the guy sitting next to him tells him to vote for.

Ben 39:42

I mean, it's literally what was said about Joe Biden during the presidential

Gene 39:48

What

Ben 39:49

just need your capor form.

Gene 39:50

Pennsylvanians think these are good ideas.

Ben 39:54

Well, Pennsylvania, outside of, you know, Pittsburgh and Philly, when you get into, you know, Western Pennsylvania, aka Penn Hockey there's a lot of good people out there. So a couple jobs ago I was working for a oil oil and gas company, and we had offices out there and I, I had the opportunity to spend quite a bit of time in western Pennsylvania West Virginia and Ohio, and there's a lot of good people out there, a lot of common sense people.

Gene 40:19

Well, not enough to vote apparently.

Ben 40:21

well, the thing is, it's, it is if they would actually do it, The, the problem is when you get into those areas, they're the boom and bus towns, right? It's the same sort of thing as like o Odessa in Texas.

Gene 40:36

Mm-hmm.

Ben 40:37

When oil's hot and heavy, it's boom, it's rocking. Everybody's there. As soon as that pulls back and fails a little bit,

Gene 40:45

Yep.

Ben 40:46

You have a crash and you know it, you, you, it, it, it's Trailer Park City at that point, you know?

Gene 40:54

yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And I actually, I don't mind that, so.

Ben 40:59

Yeah. Well, shit, when when oil's hot, you know, it's, it's crazy.

Gene 41:04

Mm-hmm. I ended up project there for an oil company.

Ben 41:07

Which in interestingly enough,

Gene 41:10

few years

Ben 41:11

you see natural gas prices in the Permian Basin?

Gene 41:14

No.

Ben 41:15

They have, They literally this week dropped to zero,

Gene 41:20

How's that?

Ben 41:21

Because there's too much congestion, not enough pipeline coming out. So, you know, companies like the one I used to work for, we have power plants out there, and when natural gas is zero, it doesn't matter what the price of per megawatt is, you're making money because you're literally getting paid to

Gene 41:37

yeah, that's right. Yep. Interesting.

Ben 41:40

Yeah. And, and here's the thing. Texas on natural gas and electricity, there is not enough transmission from West Texas to the east because it's so abundant, whether it's wind, solar, or natural gas. The amount of power that can be generated out there, the amount of natural gas and oil that can be generated out there doesn't have the transport mechanism to make it east.

Gene 42:02

Why don't we just start, start producing hydrogen from this natural gas plant

Ben 42:09

So use the natural gas to generate electricity to then generate hydrogen,

Gene 42:14

correct?

Ben 42:14

Because it's really inefficient. And why wouldn't you just use the natural

Gene 42:17

Well, if it's free, might might as well do it.

Ben 42:19

right? But that's not a carbon neutral solution Gene.

Gene 42:23

Yeah. But the hydrogen is clean burning

Ben 42:26

Right, but you're burning natural gas to

Gene 42:29

B B B B B. But don't bring up the details. No, no, no, no. The point is we need more hydrogen cars.

Ben 42:34

Okay. I, man, I don't see hydrogen as ever being adopted. I really don't. The, the, here, here's the whole thing. You

Gene 42:45

I'd love to see hydrogen cars up in Minnesota.

Ben 42:49

Oh man, just water vapor coming out the rear end. Yeah.

Gene 42:52

When it's freezing outside,

Ben 42:54

well, I, I don't know that that would necessarily be an issue, but one of the things I'll say,

Gene 42:59

I think it would

Ben 43:00

when you look at, you know, people saying climate change, climate change, climate change, and co2, I want someone who, and I would challenge some of our listeners even to say, Okay, CO2 is a greenhouse. Explain why to me, explain why it traps heat and reflects it back down, but doesn't reflect it out. You can't have both ways. Not only that when you look at,

Gene 43:30

it is, I mean, it can be, it isn't a greenhouse gas, but it can be in a high enough percentage of atmosphere. It can actually act as a greenhouse.

Ben 43:42

okay, but here, here, here's the problem we have when, so if you have a large volcanic eruption or bad wildfire season and so on, you produce more quote unquote greenhouse gases than man has since the industrial revolution.

Gene 44:00

can? Yeah.

Ben 44:01

Okay? So how is man causing this problem? Again, climate changes, things shift. I think the solar output has way more to do with any shift in temperatures than any greenhouse gas effect. I, I, I just, people who want to cause drastic changes in our world and our world economy because of this are evil. They're gonna kill a lot of people. I sent you the Peterson thing he put out yesterday about literally this talking about global warming and the current Russia situation and what Europe is going to go through. He's dead on. You can't change this global economy overnight and not kill a lot of people.

Gene 44:46

But I, Yes, but I think the elite know this and therefore okay with it.

Ben 44:51

Okay. But the average stooge, I'll say, like Greta, Greta Thunberg really believes

Gene 44:58

the average sewage? Really?

Ben 45:00

Yeah, I do. I think she is nothing but a stooge. She, she is someone who

Gene 45:05

not an average stooge. She may be a stooge, but she's not an average

Ben 45:09

She's bought in. Okay. She's gotten some publicity, but she is of that generation that is just absolutely bought into this bullshit.

Gene 45:16

Yeah. Well, they've been preached about it, and I use that term explicitly.

Ben 45:22

Oh, it's absolutely religious

Gene 45:24

yeah, it, it really is. But, so here, here's what we're talking, I, I, I was curious, so I actually looked it up. So, CO2 has a thermal connectivity of 700 wat per meter, whereas nitrogen, which makes up the majority of our atmosphere is 0.02. So literally a thousand times or 2000 times less conductive.

Ben 45:50

Okay,

Gene 45:51

So I think that's, that's the issue, but that's pure co2 and I think the percentage of CO2

Ben 45:58

but you're making my point for.

Gene 46:01

Well, I know that's why I'm trying to make your point for you.

Ben 46:04

Okay.

Gene 46:04

just trying to do it with a little more numbers behind it. Because the percentage of CO2 in the atmosphere right now is 400 parts per million.

Ben 46:12

Okay. But here, here's the thing. When you're talking about a temperature rise, or loss, whether it's endothermic or exothermic, you have the coefficient, you know the thermal coefficient, and then you have the calories in. So we get our heat in this crazy world of ours from the sun, right?

Gene 46:30

Well, yes, but also from the, the planet itself.

Ben 46:35

There is some geothermal, sure. But the majority of the heat is from the sun. So the CO2 is in the atmosphere and it has its thermal coefficient. The radiation from the sun hits that matter that is in the atmosphere, and it has to heat it up. It's gonna heat it up at the rate of the thermo coefficient.

Gene 46:54

Yep.

Ben 46:55

You know, we're saying we're trapping heat while some, some heat reflects off the earth and goes back up. Sure. The dent of the atmosphere, it has a blanketing effect. Yes. But it has a blanketing effect. So, you know, if you raise a blanket between you and a fire, you don't feel a fire anymore because the blanket is absorbing it. So th there's a balancing thing that's happening

Gene 47:20

Oh, yeah, yeah.

Ben 47:22

and, and that, that's my entire point on global warming. And the greenhouse effect is that you're also reflecting energy as well.

Gene 47:30

but, but all of this also is sort of irrelevant because the CO2 in the atmosphere is not inert. The CO2 in the atmosphere is recycled more than every other gas except for oxygen. Because it, it is constantly being utilized in more complex chemical reactions in plants, in areas underneath the oceans. It is always getting utilized.

Ben 47:58

so funny story on that, and this is something that I've been joking about for since I was a kid. Do you know what produces the majority of the oxygen in the world?

Gene 48:07

Well that's, that's a trick question.

Ben 48:10

How's it a trick question?

Gene 48:11

Well, because the oxygen doesn't really get produced, it's, it's fairly consistent in the availability within the

Ben 48:21

So everybody talks about save the Amazon, Save the Amazon.

Gene 48:24

Mm-hmm.

Ben 48:25

The Amazon produces less than like 15% of the world's oxygen. The majority of the world's oxygen is produced by plankton in the world's oceans.

Gene 48:33

Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Absolutely.

Ben 48:35

absorbing that CO2 and

Gene 48:37

what caused the, the first mass kill off on the planet is the, the cyto, cerium in the water when they started liberating oxygen, which previous to that, the atmosphere of the earth did not contain. It was a very minute amount of oxygen cuz all the oxygen was actually tied up. In other Yeah, yeah. It was bound up. And when this reaction started there was a, a great die off that was recorded in the fossil records from tons and tons of different bacteria that were populating and not aerobic bacteria that ended up being destroyed by this hugely corrosive gas that was being released into the atmosphere, which of course was oxygen, which kind of also started off the progression of oxygen based life on earth.

Ben 49:30

So back to my joke. So all these, all these environmentalist, hippie dippy type people, you know, they always talk about the Amazon and everything else. Well, given that plankton produced the majority of oxygen and they're worried about this, I always wondered why it wasn't kill the whales instead of save the whales.

Gene 49:49

Because they're eating the plankton.

Ben 49:51

Exactly.

Gene 49:52

Well, technically it's not the plankton that's, that's producing it. It, it, it is plankton. Are, they're generally not photo active.

Ben 50:02

Yeah. Jean, it was just a silly joke.

Gene 50:04

I know it's a joke and I'm trying to deconstructed, but but no, it's algae and, and cyanobacteria and its relatives are responsible for producing the majority of oxygen for sure.

Ben 50:14

Yes.

Gene 50:15

And plants also utilize oxygen. They don't just use the sunlight to, to split CO2 and release oxygen. They also, when the sun isn't shining, they suck oxygen back in because it is part of their metabolic.

Ben 50:31

Yeah, regardless, the, the whole point is I don't think we should be shuttering and destroying our economies to try and alter the amount of carbon we're putting into the atmosphere.

Gene 50:43

It's insane. It's a fucking religion.

Ben 50:46

It is. Yes. Anyway did you see the Germany is starting back up some of their coal plants?

Gene 50:51

I, I heard about that. I didn't read any stories. I just heard somebody mentioning it.

Ben 50:55

Someone sent me an article the other day that shows a Germany literally tearing down a wind farm in order to open up a new coal mine.

Gene 51:04

well that's, that's progress. At least. I mean, it's good. I don't know if they're gonna have the tools necessary to even utilize cold burning soon because they're being de-industrialized at a much rapid pace and probably will get down to the point where they can't really even extract coal because they don't have any machinery that's capable of doing it.

Ben 51:24

The de-industrialization of Europe at this scale, dude, we're, we're getting close to like World War II numbers.

Gene 51:33

I think it's be, it's getting closer to World War I I think the, I had a breakfast with a a friend of mine from California, which should tell you some things. And I was explaining to him that the, with the, the move of a lot of large countries away from the petrol dollar the, the direction that things are going, where literally every month more countries announce deals for oil that don't utilize dollars is devaluing the US dollar. And the smartest thing to do for the US from a veian standpoint is to. Like, if we're slowly drowning, the best thing we can do is to push ourselves back up by leaning on Europe fuck them more and make us drown less. And that's exactly what we're doing. Yeah, so it, you know, I don't think it's a random thing that the US is doing everything it can to help push Europe into a deal in de-industrialization, into full collapse mode, into a point where Europe is effectively within a year of since the start of the the Russian liberation of Ukraine is gonna be at the same point as they were at the end of World War ii.

Ben 53:01

Yeah, so two things on that. One, have you been tracking the movement of Gold East

Gene 53:06

no.

Ben 53:07

so China, India, et cetera, buying gold like crazy? The, the treasuries aren't the ones moving the gold around, but a lot of traders and private money is selling gold

Gene 53:20

so more so than normal, cuz India and China

Ben 53:22

way more.

Gene 53:24

buy more gold than other

Ben 53:25

No, no, no, no, no. This is like orders of magnitude sh shift. So they are really buying up the gold out of private stocks. The US still has, theoretically, if we were to believe Fort Knox the largest stockpile of gold from a nation standpoint in the world, the Bank of England has started selling off their gold. This is a central bank, England, The UK

Gene 53:48

Wait, the Bank of England holds the gold of a whole bunch of European countries.

Ben 53:53

Yes. Which is interesting. The UK is going to collapse. This is it. It, it's gonna be the first one. Then it's gonna be Germany and France, and we're gonna be the safe haven. And

Gene 54:04

I think Germany's gonna do it first. Man, I, I think they're in the worst position.

Ben 54:09

I don't know, man. The Bank of England has really shot themselves in the foot

Gene 54:13

Yeah. I, It seems nuts.

Ben 54:16

We have the gold. Movement that's happening. That's really kind of a scary, okay, what the fuck is this sort of scenario. And it's really the traders that are looking at the US dollar as compared to foreign currencies and going, well, the, the, the dollar strong. Well, when you compare the, when you look at the inflation of the dollar and when you compare the dollar to real goods, no, no, no. The dollar is not strong.

Gene 54:38

no, it's just less shitty than the Euro. Yeah.

Ben 54:42

That said, so Europe Europe is really draining its gold reserves to the East, which is interesting. I, I think the only way out of this in the end, even with the de-industrialization of Europe and everything else, is you're going to see the Central Bank digital currencies come up the same way the Euro came up. I think in the next year or two, the digital dollar will be a thing. There will be an exchange rate to the digital dollar from the original dollar, maybe the manero, whatever, but it will originally be used for backend banking transactions only. And then it's gonna slowly evolve into what the Euro did into everyday money supply

Gene 55:24

I, I agree. I think that it is to the benefit of countries in Europe and the US to utilize the high inflation that is currently happening, that they're trying to hide, but eventually they're gonna have to admit to it and say Yes, but, We're going to save everybody by creating a brand new currency that is inflation proof and not tied to the inflationary dollar. And all you gotta do is just get on board and trade in your current dollars at the current prices for this new digital currency. And we have all these safeguards in place that prevent inflation.

Ben 56:06

And what people have to remember is currently the Fed can only control supply.

Gene 56:12

Mm-hmm.

Ben 56:12

control demand. That's why they try to control demand through raising interest rates and so on through to discourage and do demand destruction by limiting supply and so on. With the digital dollar that they're proposing, they can literally say, Hey, you can only keep this as long as you go spend it on this within this amount of time and saw it. It's very dystopian. It is absolute communism.

Gene 56:36

Yeah. Yeah. It's surfed them. It's, I've been saying this for a long time, is I don. I don't say surf as a, just a joke. It is kind of a in, in phrase and a jokey thing, but it's very true because we have been shifting further and further away from private ownership of yourself, of being free men to being closer to historical surfs. So the surfs, unlike slaves they, they had certain, I guess you could call'em rights, but essentially they had certain powers of control over their lives. But ultimately, all of it rolled up to the, the principalities that Yeah, the, the people that actually own their land.

Ben 57:23

this goes back to Kla Schwab and everything else. By 2030 you'll own nothing and you'll be happy about it. That is literally surf them. And anyone who hasn't read Hayek's book, the road just served him. Please, please go read it.

Gene 57:36

Yep. Absolutely. And God, that's somebody else I was talking about mentioned that that book as well. I think that there's a, a very it, it's, it's collusion in some sense, but it's also a similar goal for different movements that makes them, even without the collusion equally dangerous, which is this idea that if, if we want to have equity, then the only real way to achieve that is with state control. Equity isn't possible in a free market.

Ben 58:12

equity should never be the goal.

Gene 58:15

Yeah, it shouldn't.

Ben 58:16

Equity

Gene 58:17

man, equality shouldn't even be the goal.

Ben 58:20

well,

Gene 58:21

I believe in survival of the fittest.

Ben 58:23

equality should be the goal as far as opportunity, not outcome, and that's where we have to really look at.

Gene 58:30

but maybe not even.

Ben 58:32

Okay. Regardless, what it comes down to is you know, Kurt Vette not one of my favorite authors, but Harrison de Bergeron is an absolute great short story, slaughterhouse number five, good book. Other than that, not a great guy.

Gene 58:46

What else did he write? I, I think I read a few other of his

Ben 58:49

the stuff something of Saturn. I mean, he's, he's fairly pro prolific, but slaughterhouse number five should wake everyone up to that. In World War ii, we were not purely the good guys because of the fire bombing of Dresden. There's some great historical books about the fire bombing of Dresden. Anyway,

Gene 59:05

But do you think that that had an actual effect or do you think it was just a, an stupid idea all the way around?

Ben 59:15

the fire bombing of Dresden,

Gene 59:16

Yeah,

Ben 59:18

I think it was a w would be considered today a war.

Gene 59:21

but I don't care about that. I think the term work rhyme is bullshit. There's no such thing

Ben 59:24

I know. Okay, so what happened in Dresden, and I'll get back to my previous point about Kurt Vette and equality later, but we literally flew planes into Dresden, which was not a military target, was not a manufacturing target. Fire bombed. It waited six hours for all the surrounding areas. First responders will say to show up, and then we came back and fire bombed it again.

Gene 59:50

Yep.

Ben 59:50

Maximum civilian casualties. It was a civilian target. That was

Gene 59:56

But what do you think the rationale was for it?

Ben 59:59

demoralization. The, the rationale that was given and for the orders was the demoralization of the German

Gene 1:00:05

Right. And do you think it had

Ben 1:00:07

the same rationalization. It's the same rationalization that was used to bomb Hiroshima, Nagasaki.

Gene 1:00:13

Yeah. And that one I think actually had more of an impact, but do you think it had the impact in Germany that was intended?

Ben 1:00:20

not at all.

Gene 1:00:22

Yeah, I don't

Ben 1:00:23

at all. Anyway

Gene 1:00:24

and, well, before we wrap that up, the, I think the impact of Nagasaki and Oshima was that it was the threat of this is we, we do on day one now how, how long do you want us to keep bombing you with nuclear weapons? I think that was the intent, and I think that that intent is extremely scary for a country that doesn't possess nuclear weapons, is that we can literally burn your city's square miles at a time for the next, as long as it takes. We'll just be wiping out Japan to become a fireball. And I think the emperor had no choice at that point.

Ben 1:01:08

well, but we could have demonstrated to the emperor in different terms. There was no need to destroy cities.

Gene 1:01:14

Eh, I kind of tend to think that's the best way to demonstrate.

Ben 1:01:18

killed a lot of civilians,

Gene 1:01:20

ah, who gives a shit? When you're in war, there's no such thing. I, I, I'm sorry. My, I believe in total war when you are at war, no one is a civilian, and there's no such thing as a warm crime, mustard, gas, chlorine. It's all go. I don't believe in any rules in total war.

Ben 1:01:41

All right.

Gene 1:01:42

Everything else is just politics with a heavy hand. Real war has no rules. It is survival of the fittest, and you do whatever you must.

Ben 1:01:54

I think that there is, how do I put this? There is some wisdom and some moral virtue in being restrained. I, I think we've seen that in, in Ukraine on Russia showing a lot of restraint and up

Gene 1:02:11

Oh yeah. Yeah, they, they absolutely have. I'm more from the Goas Genus Con School of War.

Ben 1:02:17

yeah. But some restraint up front can help you buy the hearts and minds

Gene 1:02:24

I'll tell you what, Genus Con character Ukraine in less time than Russia's been there

Ben 1:02:29

Well, I mean, so Ukraine

Gene 1:02:34

crops, you enslave all the people. It's right outta corner in the barbarian.

Ben 1:02:38

Yeah. I mean, you can go salted earth too if you want, but that doesn't help anyone when the a when, when the fighting is over. Right?

Gene 1:02:47

Well, it depends. It depends. As long as the fighting is not on your land, it's all good.

Ben 1:02:53

Indeed.

Gene 1:02:55

And the only people that were fighting with Mongolia was China.

Ben 1:02:58

Well, I I think parts of Russia

Gene 1:03:01

joke. Go ahead.

Ben 1:03:02

in, were

Gene 1:03:03

Yeah, it wasn't Russia back then, then

Ben 1:03:05

No, no, no, no.

Gene 1:03:06

Greater Mongolia.

Ben 1:03:08

Jesus gene. Anyway. Hi. Hiroshima. Nagasaki, I think could have been done differently. The fire bombing of Dresden could have been done differently, but back to the original point of Harrison Bergeron, the idea of making people equal is nothing but dystopian. You cannot. We are not equal. So do we have equal value? This is some, this is something that I will go off on.

Gene 1:03:33

no,

Ben 1:03:34

Yeah. As a human, we all have intrinsic value. That

Gene 1:03:39

man. Some more

Ben 1:03:40

sovereignty is the, is the genius of the west. It is what allows people to be sovereign. It it is allow when, when the, when we talk about all men are

Gene 1:03:52

but, but it's, but it's all bullshit. Why do we put women and children on boats first? Because they have more value than

Ben 1:03:58

to society. Yes.

Gene 1:04:00

Yeah. Because if, if we didn't then we'd have a lot. Yeah, exactly. So that's the trade off. Do you want equity or do you want.

Ben 1:04:09

Okay. So, but regardless, when we talk about value, your value to run a company, you are probably better equipped than I am to do that when we are talking. You know, understanding the functions of a power plant, I'm probably better than you. There are measurable aspects of our lives where people are better than other people,

Gene 1:04:33

Mm-hmm.

Ben 1:04:34

that, to try and equalize that all you're going to do is drop to the lowest common denominator. You're not gonna build people up because people have a ceiling as to their capabilities.

Gene 1:04:47

I think they have a ceiling as to their aspirations, to their capabilities. I think most people stop way short of their true potential, but they do that by their own choice.

Ben 1:04:59

Yeah. But there are certain, there's a certain block of the population that isn't zero, that has an IQ under 85 that do not have the ability to do anything.

Gene 1:05:11

Right. No, I, I agree with that. There are, there are physical and mental you know, genuine handicaps that people have that would prevent that. But, but I would say anyone, even if their IQ is 90, can achieve something, if they put their mind to it, that plenty of people when it's an IQ of 110, just think is too much effort and too much work and not, not bother.

Ben 1:05:36

A and the two biggest the two biggest indicators of success in life are IQ and in the Big five model trait conscientiousness, which means doing what you say you're going to do. So if you set your mind to it and you're gonna do what you say you're gonna do, and you have a hierarchy, you're probably gonna be successful in life. So those are the statistically biggest indicators of success,

Gene 1:06:02

Yeah. So,

Ben 1:06:04

into what you're saying.

Gene 1:06:05

yeah, I, I totally I think that's exactly right. Yep.

Ben 1:06:09

That said,

Gene 1:06:10

success is not a measure of luck or of intellect. It's a measure of perseverance.

Ben 1:06:19

Well, absolutely. Edison Edison's famous quote is that invention is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration. Right.

Gene 1:06:29

And he didn't even invent anything. He just stole everything from other people.

Ben 1:06:33

to an extent. Right. The inventor of the light bulb was actually black.

Gene 1:06:36

Yeah. Well, it's actually I think a Russian guy, but Oh no, I'm thinking of television. I think, yeah, Edison is well known for both stealing and for hiring people to do things once he actually got some money. He was a good businessman. He wasn't necessarily a good engineer

Ben 1:06:53

I mean, he was a, what I would say is a mediocre engineer with good acumen the current wars,

Gene 1:07:00

he was definitely successful.

Ben 1:07:02

Right. But I mean, the current wars was definitely his downfall in lots of ways and showed the weaknesses. Which was all, you know, the reason why he was big, big, big on DC was because he didn't know how to make an AC motor

Gene 1:07:18

Right.

Ben 1:07:19

and Tesla was the one who invented the AC motor. And that's what made it all work.

Gene 1:07:25

Yeah. And now you were, I asked you this before, I think, I can't remember, but AC is less or more efficient at transmission than dc.

Ben 1:07:35

Okay, so th we've gone, th this is

Gene 1:07:38

I asked you this, but

Ben 1:07:39

this is a subject that goes round and round, and people argue this all the time, and it's mostly the greenies who, because solar and wind generate dc so they, they, they, they're all about, Oh, DC's more efficient at extremely high voltages. DC can be more efficient for transmission

Gene 1:08:00

Mm-hmm.

Ben 1:08:01

than ac, but the voltages that it has to operate at is extremely

Gene 1:08:08

talking about? Like a thousand or a million or,

Ben 1:08:11

I, I will google the number.

Gene 1:08:13

Okay. But it's a high number. The other problem with DC, if I remember correctly, is the corrosive factor is that you will actually have through electrolysis a an eating away of the physical transport layer where that doesn't happen with ac.

Ben 1:08:31

yeah. So where DC really bec and the, the Googling I'm doing here folks, is looking at the efficiency ratings versus ac where it becomes even feasible to o you know, overcome the deficiencies of not having AC is around 800 kilovolts. And

Gene 1:08:53

800,000 volts, almost a million.

Ben 1:08:56

Correct. That's where it starts to be more efficient. The, the transmission lines that China has put in that are high voltage DC transmission are even higher than that. But what it comes down

Gene 1:09:09

So you gotta step that shit up a lot from the from the dams and the power plants.

Ben 1:09:15

Oh, yeah, yeah. You, you're, you're stepping it way, way up. And, and, and here's the thing. You're right as far as anytime you have you know, in inconsistent metals, you're going to have an electrolysis effect things like that. A AC is much more efficient at decently reliable voltages. You know, four 80 and below 12 k anyway, there are DC transmission that is possible, but there are downsides to it as well. Thermal power plants, nuclear power plants all produce AC energy. The only things

Gene 1:09:54

I knew I could totally understand what you said there.

Ben 1:09:57

Thank you. The only, the only resources that are DC direct that where there's any efficiency. So here, here's the thing, if you have a coal power plant that's generating AC and you try and convert it to dc you have a loss there in the inverter. So that has to be taken into effect as well. So with solar and wind, yes, there's some efficiency because you're not taking the loss in the inverter batteries, same thing. That's it. That's not where the majority of our power comes from. So not only are you

Gene 1:10:28

still have to way step up wind generation to get to a million volts.

Ben 1:10:33

Yeah, but that's voltage. The, but you're, you're not taking wind and converting it into ac. And one of the things we've seen in a lot of these renewable projects that I've been involved with is the inverters, the digital inverters that we're using at scale

Gene 1:10:49

Yeah. They burn up like hail. Yeah. Yeah, I

Ben 1:10:52

I mean, we've seen companies go bankrupt. We, we are likely to see one of the largest solar fields in Texas be retired within 10 years of op Its initial operation because the inverter company

Gene 1:11:04

So what do you think of this, because I, I still love the water battery idea. What do you think of just taking that solar energy in DC running DC motors to pump water up and then having a a generator running through a dam that's then letting that water back out, creating ac.

Ben 1:11:24

Yeah. And if you have the geographic,

Gene 1:11:28

some loss, obviously,

Ben 1:11:30

you have to have the geography. There are some companies that are talking about making physical batter, physical batteries using a weight principle. So, you know, literally lifting a weight and then letting it down to spin a generator or things like that. and those inertia type batteries are possible. They would be better for the environment than the lithium ion ones, for sure.

Gene 1:11:53

I'm, I'm just thinking of like what, what you just said. With the weight ones of just like windmills, basically doing old school windmill work where all they're doing is have a conveyor lifting up metal, for lack of a better term, really large ball bearings, and then dropping them where all the windmills drop these ball bearings into a unified system. Which then they, the ball bearings go down the shoot into a much larger AC generation.

Ben 1:12:25

Yeah. And there are companies working on those sort of batteries, but the fact of the matter is they don't scale well. I mean, you're talking about a lot of energy that has to be, you have to

Gene 1:12:36

Or how about face shift battery storage?

Ben 1:12:40

What about it?

Gene 1:12:41

I mean, that's another, another way to do it is chemical face shifting. So it's a reversible effect.

Ben 1:12:47

Yeah, I mean, battery technology from a chemical standpoint really hasn't really, hasn't gotten much better in the last hundred years. I mean, there is no major breakthrough in battery technology,

Gene 1:13:01

would've thought when I was in, in my teens, that, well, within my lifetime, we would have super capa.

Ben 1:13:09

and that is where the game changes on a lot of things. That's where if you end up with a super capacitor, something that can be charged quickly, discharged reliably I mean, and when we talk about super capacitors, I'm talking a single capacitor in the multi farad capacity that does not exist today.

Gene 1:13:30

Yep.

Ben 1:13:31

If we could get there, then that would be great because then electric cars would be feasible because then you could charge and fill up just about like you do with a gas vehicle today. And I would feel very differently about electric cars if that was the case, but that's

Gene 1:13:44

If you could literally fill up your electric car in a matter of minutes and the electricity that's coming into that car was collected over a matter of a whole day from your roof. And you weren't having to build lithium batteries and the whole process that that involves,

Ben 1:14:04

and the strip mining that,

Gene 1:14:05

then Yeah. And yeah, then electricity totally works. It's a clean, I mean, I don't, I think I'm gonna take a wild stamp here, but I will bet you for cities in the southern states,

Ben 1:14:16

mm-hmm.

Gene 1:14:17

the amount of solar radiation hitting your roof on an annual basis generates well enough electricity to power a car for the whole year.

Ben 1:14:28

As long as you have the storage for it. The, the whole problem with solar, well, there's

Gene 1:14:34

Well, but here's the thing. It's if the storage could literally be your car

Ben 1:14:41

so there are two main issues. So to run a vehicle, if all you're talking about is running a vehicle, sure. If you're talking about running the household, there's more than enough solar energy that you know on your roof that you could run your house as long as you have the storage for it. That said, the solar panel you're going to put on your roof has diminishing returns from day one. So a solar panel, let's say it's at a hundred percent capacity, starts falling off on its production.

Gene 1:15:11

Yeah.

Ben 1:15:12

It has about a 20 year lifespan, and at the end of that 20 year lifespan, it is producing in modern solar panels about 30% of the original electricity that it.

Gene 1:15:22

Which, you know, the fact that our Voyager satellites from the seventies, at least one of'em is still sending signals back,

Ben 1:15:30

They're both,

Gene 1:15:31

pretty fucking amazing. I thought only one of'em was, I thought we lost one of'em.

Ben 1:15:33

but they're not solar.

Gene 1:15:34

No. They are solar, aren't

Ben 1:15:36

not

Gene 1:15:37

No, they're not. No, no, no. You're, you're right. They're done solar. They're nuclear. That's right. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. But, but those things also deteriorate and they're down to like 1% power or something

Ben 1:15:46

Oh, but you know what, Here's the cool thing. A manmade object is in inter stellar space.

Gene 1:15:53

Yeah. That is very, Although the concept of interstellar space kinda manmade too, but Yeah.

Ben 1:15:58

how, So there's the whole heliosphere, you know, effect and everything else that they pass through so

Gene 1:16:05

but the, where that boundary lies have been, has been redefined multiple times, just in my lifetime.

Ben 1:16:11

well, where that boundary has been defined, has changed based off of the measurements from Voyager.

Gene 1:16:17

Yeah. Yeah, exactly. I think that the more interesting stuff is the stuff that we're getting. Well, yeah, because clearly we were only doing it to beat the Russians and not because there was any scientific benefit.

Ben 1:16:31

Well, there's a lot of scientific benefit, but

Gene 1:16:34

Of course, I'm, I'm saying that in a angry facetious can way, because obviously I think that space explanation is. Is one of the keys to the survival's humanity, if it, if it was to ever happen.

Ben 1:16:46

And well, and it's the answer to this depopulation tome that the globalists are pushing is, Hey, you know what, Let's leave, let's expand. I, I do love that. Have you ever looked at the probe Russia sent to Venus?

Gene 1:17:00

The Eros or which one?

Ben 1:17:02

Yeah. It, it didn't last very long, but there's a lot of

Gene 1:17:05

they've sent a bunch of, I think they sent 16 probes to Venus. Most of them didn't make it

Ben 1:17:10

Right, because Venus is a pretty harsh atmosphere, but

Gene 1:17:14

well, but it, but again, I mean, Venus is one of my favorite topics because I think it's super misunderstood and it's poorly mischaracterized. got a lot of negative publicity. Venus should not be seen as a horrible, corrosive, gasier atmosphere, planet. It should be seen as a water world. Much like you don't look at Earth and say, Oh my God, who can live under a mile of water in the Marias trench? That's insane. That planet's inhospitable. What you need to look at is where on that planet can life exist? And the answer, we know, we know exactly where it is. That is 55 kilometers up and at 55 kilometers, the pressure of the atmosphere is roughly one atmosphere on earth and the sky is blue and there are no corrosive noxious gases at that height. Now you still can't breathe the atmosphere, but you can absolutely walk around in a space suit and it, it is cloud city it is.

Ben 1:18:20

you're missing the point here

Gene 1:18:22

What's the point?

Ben 1:18:23

since you know women are from Venus and men are from Mars, the corrosive nature of the atmosphere is absolutely appropriate.

Gene 1:18:32

Hardy, Hardy, Har. Okay. All right. Dad joke, man. You and Elon Musk. Yeah, fair enough. I just, it's one of the, like, you know, I'm a member of the CO2 Coalition. I'm a member of Project Viera. Like, all these things that seem like there's a very small percentage of us that understand how things actually are and, and it's just an uphill battle. It's like I'm ous or something trying to explain to everybody that no, you really need to see Venus as the future of humanity, not Mars. Mars is the inhospitable one. Venus is where humanity can flourish.

Ben 1:19:10

so I, I love that you used Sisyphus as a reference because it, for those who don't know, Sisyphus was in Greek mythology sentenced in Hades to roll a rock up a hill, and every time he got it at the top of the hill, it would roll back down and he would have to repeat the task. So, yeah

Gene 1:19:29

you rather do that or have your liver be pecked out every day by vultures

Ben 1:19:35

I'd rather be, I would rather my task be Sian. But you know, it's, it's funny because I, that's a reference that I use fairly often in that, and the sort of dam leaves.

Gene 1:19:49

All right. What else? We wanna cover

Ben 1:19:51

Man, we've been chatting for a while between the two recordings. I don't know how, what we're at,

Gene 1:19:55

hour and a half.

Ben 1:19:56

hour and a half. Okay. Well, I think we've shot my wad mostly.

Gene 1:20:01

What do you think about all the YE controversy

Ben 1:20:03

That's a good one. I'm glad you brought that up. Self-fulfilling prophecy.

Gene 1:20:08

Mm-hmm.

Ben 1:20:08

You know, I mean, it's hilarious that he sits there and says something that, you know, gets him canceled by the very people that he said would getting canceled.

Gene 1:20:16

How racist everybody who's canceling him is.

Ben 1:20:19

dude, the de banking of him and his, his lawyer dropped him, his agent dropped him. He is the, according, he's no longer a billionaire, you know, I

Gene 1:20:31

Yeah. Yeah. He is lost like$450 million

Ben 1:20:34

They have knee capped him.

Gene 1:20:37

Yeah.

Ben 1:20:37

Here's the funny thing

Gene 1:20:38

I still think he's okay.

Ben 1:20:41

huh?

Gene 1:20:42

I think he'll be do, doing. Okay.

Ben 1:20:44

Well, here's the funny thing. You know, like my, my stepson's a great example of someone who likes his music and likes him a lot and the, the generation that would normally be all about the cancel culture. And on board with this, the fans of Kanye are going the absolute opposite way.

Gene 1:21:05

Yeah. Which is great.

Ben 1:21:06

to see,

Gene 1:21:07

I, I can't say I even heard anything that he's done recently, at least under this name. I've certainly heard stuff he's done under Kanye West, but, but I, I've liked him more and more as I find out more of this stuff. And I, I think that the antisemitic thing that's been thrown around is, frankly, it's getting to the point kinda like the Nazi accusation. It is devaluing true antisemitism

Ben 1:21:37

Well, and it's, it's,

Gene 1:21:39

the term antisemitic. It's devaluing the term antisemitic because if he, if he says something funny, About producers who are mostly Jewish in the music business or lawyers or whatever, it should be taken as exactly that. It's like a ra

Ben 1:21:58

should be an ad

Gene 1:21:59

funny comment. Who gives a shit? It's, it's South Park. Right? It shouldn't be a, a reason for Adidas to drop'em.

Ben 1:22:08

Well,

Gene 1:22:09

Adidas, which by the way, is a lot closer to Nazis than Kanye ever has been.

Ben 1:22:15

Absolutely talk about antisemitic. Might as well be Hugo Boss for that matter.

Gene 1:22:19

Oh God, yeah. Hugo Boss, brilliant. Desirer, loved their stuff, made all the Nazi uniforms, all the Ss, I should say, The SS uniforms were designed and manufactured by Hubo boss and, and there's a reason that Nazis were sharp looking.

Ben 1:22:37

Yeah. Well, anyway, all I can say is, you know, you want to talk about antisemitic or, you know, white supremacists and everything else. Way to prove him. Right, Right. As soon as he says something totally shut down his life.

Gene 1:22:54

By the way, just, just for reference sake, Adidas, you know why it's called Adidas?

Ben 1:22:59

The different brothers. I don't.

Gene 1:23:01

The, the founder's name was Adolph Addie.

Ben 1:23:05

Ah, there you go.

Gene 1:23:06

Uhhuh.

Ben 1:23:07

Yeah. Not, not a relation to Hitler, but

Gene 1:23:10

Hey all Adolphs. I'm just saying. I'm just saying that's

Ben 1:23:14

Yeah. Did he have the mustache? That's the real question.

Gene 1:23:17

You know, I, I don't know if back in the twenties of mustache. Yeah, they probably did. Cuz I think in the twenties mustaches were very popular.

Ben 1:23:23

Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Twenties, thirties. That in the hat, you know, which, why have hats fallen so outta favor.

Gene 1:23:31

Hats,

Ben 1:23:32

Yeah.

Gene 1:23:32

Are, is, I don't know if there's a purpose to them anymore. They used, there used to be a purpose to hats,

Ben 1:23:38

What was the purpose To

Gene 1:23:39

When you didn't have a car hats covered your head and prevented sunburn. And when you were cold and in Europe, they provided a covering for your head, which is where most of your heat loss happens is your head. But with cars, with private vehicles, hats are a lot less important.

Ben 1:23:57

Interesting.

Gene 1:23:57

So my, my theory on that, and I'll take it, it's just a theory, is that the thing that's responsible for hats losing their status as a standard, normal thing that men wear is due to cars.

Ben 1:24:11

Okay.

Gene 1:24:12

What other questions would you like answered?

Ben 1:24:14

Life meaning in the

Gene 1:24:16

42. What

Ben 1:24:17

we go. So with the, with the backlash against Kanye, with the de banking, with all of this, where do you think he ends up landing? Because a, he's not backing down. If you, anyone who saw the Lex Friedman interview apparently the Daily Wire refused

Gene 1:24:36

was on the worst side of that interview

Ben 1:24:38

So Daily Wire apparently turned him down.

Gene 1:24:42

for an interview.

Ben 1:24:42

Yep.

Gene 1:24:44

Yeah. I,

Ben 1:24:45

He got kicked out of the Sketcher's office. Where does this land,

Gene 1:24:48

yeah, I think that the Daily Wire is a little more sensitive than other places

Ben 1:25:00

which you know Ben Shapiro obviously is Jewish, so

Gene 1:25:04

And Ben Shapiro is not, he's not. I, what I am, right. I'm, I'm a libertarian first and foremost, or I should say what I am is closest to libertarianism and has been pretty much since my teenage

Ben 1:25:21

and we should say that you're also Jewish

Gene 1:25:24

And I, well, I think everybody knows that, but but I'm also not practicing, you know, I'm, I'm like ethnically Jewish, Not, not, although I have at times, you know, try to go meet chicks at, at uh, synagogue. But anyway and the food's pretty good, you know, they actually, the food after service is usually pretty good. But Ben Shapiro comes from a very different kind of mentality. He is a religiously conservative guy,

Ben 1:25:51

Immensely

Gene 1:25:52

grew up in California, but he grew up in California. So he, he is religiously conservative, but not really from a libertarian bent. More from a. You know, religiously conservative, but sort of more liberal perspective on social things. So if, if, if religion doesn't talk about it, his view, like he's not, he's not for elimination of the atf for example, clearly you and I are

Ben 1:26:23

Oh, absolutely. The, the ATF and fbi, there should

Gene 1:26:26

and F b. Yeah. And Ben Shapiro believes that those are still rightful purviews of government.

Ben 1:26:32

Well, they're rightful purviews of government, just not the federal government, you know, show me in the Constitution where the federal government has any policing powers.

Gene 1:26:40

Mm-hmm. Exactly.

Ben 1:26:41

know, quite frankly what I've come to Gene is I think we are living in a post constitutional democracy. We are not

Gene 1:26:47

is that something you came up with or is that something that I should read up on

Ben 1:26:51

what,

Gene 1:26:52

post constitutional?

Ben 1:26:54

Well, I, I think many people have said it, but it really is to the point where, like the Uber driver that I had, and we'll tie this all back to the beginning of the show, you know, she was adamant that the states were just subdivisions of the federal government and the way that counties or subdivisions of the state. And I said, No, it's a capitalist for a reason. And you know, we But the fact of the matter is the way the government acts, the way the population acts, the constitution doesn't fucking matter anymore. And. We have two societies, one that is post constitutional and one that is trying to hold onto it. And dude, it's gonna be interesting to see what happens with the elections and who accepts what

Gene 1:27:44

Yeah. Yeah. It, it'll be interesting and. I have to say for my part, I'm mostly an observer and a reporter at this point don't really have a dog in a fight per se, I, I'm close enough to death to care less and less every year on what happens here in the us. I have opinions obviously about stuff, but I don't have kids and therefore I don't have a you know, a particular drive to try and leave them with a better world then than I had.

Ben 1:28:20

Yeah, I'm on the other end

Gene 1:28:21

that makes a large difference. Yeah. So if, if the policies that the American people have allowed their politicians to enact, bring about the downfall of America, it'll be interesting to me in the same way that the fall of Rome was interesting. but it, but it doesn't really, like, I don't have a burning desire,

Ben 1:28:45

which

Gene 1:28:45

but that's what, that's the part that makes it interesting is the getting to live through interesting times as the Chinese proverb

Ben 1:28:52

Chinese curse, But

Gene 1:28:53

I'm fine. You call it a curse. I call it a proverb. But the idea of I mean it's like living through any kind of adverse conditions is more interesting. Harder but more interesting than living through a time where nothing changes. And it's a monopolar world.

Ben 1:29:13

Well, so yeah, indeed. I think we are definitely headed towards some very hard times, totally global in nature. This is not just gonna be the us I mean, look at China. China is, and you know, you and I have had differing opinions on this for a while, but China is really teetering the, still the steel industry in China is damn near bankrupt. China's having a real hard time. There is a possibility. That the rest of the world sinks and the US has pulled out enough of the capital inequity in the markets to survive and we stay on top. I think that's a slim possibility, but I think that is what they're going for. China's fighting like hell, but dude, I, we, when the housing crisis in China hit, the mortgage crisis in China, hit, I've been saying for a while that there's a possibility China goes down the steel

Gene 1:30:08

how do you envision that happening?

Ben 1:30:10

financially.

Gene 1:30:11

But what does that mean? China goes down, it's a controlled economy. How does China go?

Ben 1:30:16

well, because the outside investors, so China

Gene 1:30:21

China need outside investors? I don't think so.

Ben 1:30:25

yes.

Gene 1:30:25

Mm-hmm.

Ben 1:30:26

Yeah. Look at their liquidity markets. That's absolutely the case.

Gene 1:30:30

none of these things matter. China is a control economy. What they need are buyers for their products. They don't need foreign companies owning businesses in China. What they need is buyers for the companies.

Ben 1:30:44

They have to have the capital to produce said products.

Gene 1:30:48

Well, they, Yes, to some extent because they, they can print the capital to produce those products.

Ben 1:30:57

Okay. I think that there is a chance that the bottom falls outta China.

Gene 1:31:02

If you look at China in the model of the United States, I would totally agree with you, but you can't look at China in, in my view, that way. You have to look at China as China Incorporated. It's one large company that has a whole bunch of divisions, and that company also happens to be able to fully control what it serves do and in what currencies the serves are paid. The fact that they have allowed international investment is more to do with that bringing in international buyers.

Ben 1:31:37

Okay. The problem with that is that that's fine as long as the surfs are happy and go along with it. When they don't, when they do the mortgage protests that they're doing, when you see people not showing up to work, when you see the Chinese people starting to revolt, that's when

Gene 1:32:01

Well then I'll believe it cuz at this point there's just none of that enough to make any difference.

Ben 1:32:07

I

Gene 1:32:07

we just had the, the the Congress of the communist, what do they called? The communi, The Chinese Communist Party Congress just

Ben 1:32:15

Yeah. Reelected Z

Gene 1:32:17

Yep. Elected'em, him for another term, a

Ben 1:32:20

now he's in for life until they kill him.

Gene 1:32:23

Well, yeah, but I just, I don't know man, I'm, I'm not seeing all the doom and gloom that you're talking about in China. I think China in a lot of ways, the only thing that can cripple China is if they don't have food for their population as long as they can feed their population. Which is amazing that they've been able to give the size of the population in general, but as long as they can keep feeding the population, even if there are not as many opportunities for increased living standards, China is much more capable of handling that than the United States is. If the United States were to get up to a level where you didn't have a choice about showing up to work, it was a government mandate that you went into work and you did your work and you got paid, whatever the government said, you're gonna get paid, that would destroy the United States within a year in China. They could do that for decades,

Ben 1:33:25

I don't know, man, I, So I think you're thinking of China in the way of the 1990s.

Gene 1:33:31

maybe Amy?

Ben 1:33:32

and I think that the Chinese people, you know, Tiananmen Square happened, there was a little bit of a spine starting there, but I

Gene 1:33:42

Yeah. What

Gene 1:33:42

was that 94?

Ben 1:33:44

Yeah. So I think the Chinese middle class has grown substantially in the last 30 years to the point where deprivation and going backwards is going to invoke a violent

Gene 1:33:56

Oh, 89. Yeah. I just think that they're gonna be able to control that much better.

Ben 1:34:04

Well, maybe we'll see. I

Gene 1:34:06

And what

Ben 1:34:06

we're, we're about to watch

Gene 1:34:07

what is the opportunity here? Like what would common place of the blended socialism that China currently has?

Ben 1:34:17

What do you mean?

Gene 1:34:18

Well, I mean, if you're gonna have these revolts, if you're gonna have people not supporting the government, what will be there to take up the vacuum? Like what party is gonna emerge to challenge the Chinese Communist Party?

Ben 1:34:33

Well, first of all, I think it's gonna be violent in nature and

Gene 1:34:37

sure? Okay.

Ben 1:34:38

Okay, so I I, I can see if China really starts to fall economically and Taiwan or Taipei is the Chinese like to say I, I, I could see very interesting reverse unification,

Gene 1:34:55

Yeah. But the Taiwan's government isn't exactly great either.

Ben 1:34:58

I'm sorry.

Gene 1:35:00

Taiwanese government isn't great either.

Ben 1:35:02

I never said it was, but I, Yeah, I don't think that you're going to go to you know, libertarian style capitalism overnight in China. I definitely think that would be the best system of government, cuz I think it's the best system of government in general. But I can see the Taiwanese Hong Kong ASCA models actually taking hold in China. The

Gene 1:35:23

I mean, a Hong Kong model was oligarchs. That was Hong Kong is you had.

Ben 1:35:27

Yeah,

Gene 1:35:28

people that were driving gold plated Rolls Royces.

Ben 1:35:33

you're making my point. For me, I don't think that the answer to the Communist Chinese party is, Oh, we just skipped straight to free market economies. I think you have the Communist party devolve and the same thing we saw in Russia. The oligarchs take.

Gene 1:35:50

just privatization of the country's assets? Yep. Mm-hmm.

Ben 1:35:54

In the Oli Gart model, same thing we saw after the ussr.

Gene 1:35:58

and the poor people get an apartment.

Ben 1:36:00

Yep.

Gene 1:36:01

Yeah. Yeah. Maybe. I don't know. I just think the mentality of the Chinese, and granted it's been over 20 years since I've been in China, but the mentality, or as far as you know, the mentality of the Chinese people is very different than Western mentality and even the Russian mentality. And I think. In China, the, the reason that the Chinese communist revolution happened wasn't because any style of revolution would've happened. It was because the communist revolution, I think even more so than in Russia, created a, an image for the average Chinese surf cuz they very much wore surfs of what this new model of government is and why it's so much better that you should join it. And by the way, burn all your books and ancestral historical stuff.

Ben 1:36:55

but we are a long way from the C Japanese war. We're a long way from MAs cultural revolution and we are a long way from, Here's the thing, for the majority of the Chinese people, this has been a good experiment for them. It has lifted them up. Agreed.

Gene 1:37:19

Yep. Yep.

Ben 1:37:20

The problem now is China, in order to stay relevant in international markets is having to further and further base their currency. Right To your point, printing the currency to do so.

Gene 1:37:34

Mm-hmm.

Ben 1:37:35

So now this increasingly large middle class that they have brought. And this is only a generation or so that this has even existed. They've gone from sedo to middle class.

Gene 1:37:47

Yeah.

Ben 1:37:48

They are hurting. They are hurting. Further and further, international products are harder and harder to get. The currency is being defaced and devalued. The middle class is the one that's going to revolt. And when the Chinese steel companies, I sent you a Reuters article, when those start to fall and those middle class jobs start to fall and they start doing these protests of, I'm not gonna pay my mortgage on my second home. You have to realize that the, the Chinese citizen doesn't have a 401k. They buy property. They have these ghost cities that are not finished. They have all this paper assets that are not real, that everything is tied up in. When those collapse in value on the international stage, you're going to see a revolt. At least that's that. Or maybe the Chinese people are not, Well, you know what we saw stand up to those tanks. Maybe they just fall over and take it. But man, I, I just can't see any group of people taking what's coming to the Chinese people. In the Chinese middle class.

Gene 1:38:56

Yeah. I don't know, man. I just, I don't see it happening. At least not in my lifetime. I think China is solidly exactly where they're gonna be for a nice, long time.

Ben 1:39:06

We'll find out.

Gene 1:39:08

Yeah, I mean, we'll, we'll, we'll get the answer That's easy enough. Just takes a little bit of time to, until that actually happens. But I think and I, I, I'm not trying to say that the system of government in China is good. I definitely think it's bad, but I just think that there's a very western lens that most people are looking through when they're saying, Oh, China's on the brink of falling apart. I think if the US was at where China is, I would be 100% in agreement. But this is China, not the us And in China, the expectations are vastly different. The customs of what people are accustomed to. Their government doing and not doing is vastly different. And frankly there's a lot more compliance and that compliance is constantly being reinforced. And in the US that compliance is kind of a new thing for us that we're bitching about. And some people are accepting, but a lot of people are pushing back against, It's not happening in China. In China that compliance has been around for a long time and is being reinforced constantly.

Ben 1:40:16

I, I, I actually think that China's zero covid policy is wearing that compliance. Then

Gene 1:40:24

I think that is purely a test that that is the canary in the coal mine for them

Ben 1:40:28

Mm-hmm.

Gene 1:40:29

is when that starts getting violent, they'll back off because now they know the limit.

Ben 1:40:35

Well, and I, I think that you've look at the fridges that are being put on people's, you know, balconies and things like that during this I think you, they, they have literally had to weld people into their apartments to keep them from escaping.

Gene 1:40:54

now you're making my point for me, they are willing to weld people into their apartments. They're not willing to do that in the US yet.

Ben 1:41:02

Not yet. But here, here's the thing. My point is that you can only push people so far until there's a general revolt, and maybe you can weld them in fast enough. Maybe you can't. And that's where we're, we're. I think we're getting to that tipping point.

Gene 1:41:15

I think it'd be interesting to look and compare, not on this episode obviously, but to look at where China is and what, what have been the revolts of the last hundred years that have led to a regime change? There are very few,

Ben 1:41:31

Mm-hmm. Well, look, China,

Gene 1:41:35

and I don't mean, I mean like in a whole world, there's very few revolts that have actually led to a regime change,

Ben 1:41:40

I, I understand that.

Gene 1:41:41

and half of'em have been orchestrated by the cia.

Ben 1:41:44

and China has went through mals, you know, cultural revolution, which purged a lot of people. A lot of people died.

Gene 1:41:54

Mm-hmm.

Ben 1:41:56

a hundred percent.

Gene 1:41:57

only the wrong people died.

Ben 1:42:00

I'm sorry.

Gene 1:42:01

to ask per mile. Only the wrong people died

Ben 1:42:04

Yeah, yeah.

Gene 1:42:04

like wrong for China.

Ben 1:42:07

You have a reverse of, for instance, the purge that happened in Scotland.

Gene 1:42:12

Mm-hmm.

Ben 1:42:14

Scottish people are generally boisterous. Easy to anger and so on because, you know, after a couple hundred years of war, only the Really, I'm sorry.

Gene 1:42:24

And Scotch.

Ben 1:42:25

Yes. Only certain people survived. Well, in, in the culture evolution you had those pe those same sorts of people killed off because, you know, didn't fit the mold. So there is something to the genetics there, but man, I, I just, and maybe it is my western bias. You could be completely right. I just, if I were in China, I would, I would be dead already because I would be fighting against this. But that's me.

Gene 1:42:54

Yeah. And you gotta remember that for literally 2000 years, the Chinese Empire has survived, not by being expansionist and going out and conquering other lands, but by maintaining a certain status quo.

Ben 1:43:12

Well, I mean they, you know, there were multiple Chinese empires that were unified at one point in time

Gene 1:43:19

Yeah, absolutely. But China was not a, like, they never did what many European countries did. They didn't do even what Russia did. They, they were not or, or Japan. They were not a a conquering nation.

Ben 1:43:37

And you know, it's interesting because China is the most xenophobic, racist nation there is. And followed shortly by the Koreans. But

Gene 1:43:49

I, I would say Koreans are a little worse than just cuz I've had more experience with Koreans, but Okay.

Ben 1:43:55

Yeah. The, it, it, it's insane how. Yeah, the very tribalistic in many ways. And I, I've dealt with both because of vendor issues and anyway, it's it's a different thing. Anyway, anything else, Gene, that you wanna talk about?

Gene 1:44:12

I'm sure there were things that I just, you know, forgot once we started talking and jumped

Ben 1:44:18

This episode, were on your end, not mine.

Gene 1:44:20

I didn't have any tick. I guess we had that, that disconnection thing. Yeah. I don't, I really wish I knew what caused that, but it looked like nothing was lost in zencaster. It like kept, I saw a little squiggly line that showed my recording.

Ben 1:44:33

Well, when you go to edit the two

Gene 1:44:35

I'll, I'll figure it out.

Ben 1:44:37

you.

Gene 1:44:38

I will figure it out. And I, you know, I may clip a little bit here, but I'll leave enough in so that people know that what we're talking about now, it's like, what the hell are they talking? I'm not gonna cut the whole thing out that there was like, no confusion going on. I don't know. I like to have a little bit of inside baseball and, and not simply completely just edit and wipe stuff.

Ben 1:45:00

Dude, you could some sew the two together and that'd be fine by me. I'm not too worried

Gene 1:45:05

Well, I don't wanna do that either. I'll make it clean.

Ben 1:45:07

Yeah, you gotta

Gene 1:45:09

right. Good enough man. So I guess we will catch up. In another week, hopefully we'll have some more subscribers from this episode. Keep talking about it. Keep pushing it. And you know, I, I, I try to post every few day, every couple days to mention the show. You might wanna start doing the same thing

Ben 1:45:28

Yeah. I need to be better about the social

Gene 1:45:31

or now I'm gonna start doing it on Twitter as well cuz I'm back.

Ben 1:45:35

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Gene 1:45:36

Of course I have zero followers now, so, you know, being back doesn't mean a whole lot.

Ben 1:45:41

Well, you gotta build that back up.

Gene 1:45:43

Uhhuh. Yeah cuz I think it took me about nine years to get to a few thousand and now I'm back to zero. And there's a lot of posts by the way. That was hilarious, obviously. Making fun of that cuz a lot of the conservative people are posting. Boy, now that Musk is in, I see he's turned off the filters. I'm getting 10,000 new subs every day.

Ben 1:46:05

yeah. Well then there's the people posting just random stuff saying, Test, test, test. You know,

Gene 1:46:11

But, but there's also people that are making fun of that and posting. Yeah. I just, I don't think the filters are working, cuz I haven't gotten 10,000 new subscribers every day. Like some people are, clearly the filters are still turned on and it's people with like, you know, 50 subs.

Ben 1:46:27

Yeah.

Gene 1:46:28

It's like, Yep. Good joke. Get it. Nice. Nice.

Ben 1:46:31

Uhhuh.

Gene 1:46:32

All right, well let's wrap up, man.

Ben 1:46:34

you stay safe. I'll stay free.

Gene 1:46:37

How come you get free? That's not fair. That's bullshit, man. I, I, I'd rather do it the other way around.

Ben 1:46:44

I'm sure

Gene 1:46:44

over safety any

Ben 1:46:45

Absolutely, man.

Gene 1:46:47

All right, brother. Talk to you later.

Ben 1:46:49

Bye.