Gene 0:25

Hey Ben, how are you to today?

Ben 0:27

I am doing better than you are.

Gene 0:29

I don't know what a Tuesday is. Today's not Tuesday, but I'm, I'm doing pretty good. It's all good. I apparently had

Ben 0:35

Tuesday come from?

Gene 0:37

don't know, I'm thinking, I was thinking today, but then I started thinking Sunday and then I just mixed those two up and it became a pit to Tuesday.

Ben 0:49

All

Gene 0:49

I don't know, dude, I've, I've been trying to figure out somebody, I don't think anybody's been hacking me or anything, but somebody seemed to have set up a Venmo account with my email and it's a bizarre thing.

Ben 0:58

Fun days. Fun times.

Gene 1:00

I know. So I, I, I think I've got it fixed, but I'm gonna have to take a look some more. The and, and the whole, like, I did nothing productive I feel today. I actually got up earlier than normal today

Ben 1:12

Mm-hmm. So

Gene 1:14

and then, and I was gonna play around with chat G p t cuz it's in the news, right? And I, I still haven't done that yet. And then in setting up my account to chat g p t, they are one of the companies that has this absolutely stupid requirement now that they need your phone number for some reason. Now I know what the reason is. It's called marketing. But all these fuckers are that you should just ask for email are now asking for phone numbers. And worse than that, they all check the phone number that you enter. Against VoIP number lists. So if it's Google Voice, if it's a known VoIP provider, they just say, oh, I'm sorry, this is a VoIP number. We need a real phone number. I'm like,

Ben 2:01

I mean, my VoIP number is my real number.

Gene 2:03

I don't what? Yeah. I mean, what's, what are people supposed to do that don't have anything other than the VoIP? I guess you're not part of the society anymore. We can't service you. It's ridiculous. I've been running into this a lot. I don't know about you, but more and more companies seem to both ask for a phone number when they have no business asking for your phone number. Like, this is an online relationship that does not require you sending me spam on my phone.

Ben 2:30

Well,

Gene 2:31

is why Google Voice was convenient, because you give that out instead. But now they all use, probably Google probably fucking sells'em this service called check to see if this is a Google Voice number and then telling you, oh, you

Ben 2:45

create a new Google account without tying it to a real phone number.

Gene 2:50

Yeah, I heard that. Used to be able to, I got a whole bunch of Google numbers that just don't tie into anything.

Ben 2:55

Yeah, same here. But I mean, even your Gmail account, they want to tie back to your phone number.

Gene 3:00

yeah, yeah. It's crazy. And then, and then the so I, I, I said, okay, well fuck you. Then I'm gonna set up a, a brand new number using some obscure service. No one's gonna heard of that you don't know is a voice number. So I did that, signed up for that, and then tried that number. And then same thing, oh, we're sorry, this is a VoIP number. You have to use a real phone number. I'm like, motherfuckers. So then I went online and I'm like, fine, I'll get a burner phone. I don't give a shit. I'll get a new SIM card that doesn't, you know, it's just, it's a number just for these assholes. There's no actual phone attached to it. So I did that and then the when I ordered phone, it looked

Ben 3:38

was not activated.

Gene 3:39

yeah, well, no, no, no, no, I didn't, you know, I obviously, I can't use it until the thing's activated, but I, I fill out all the info and and it had an option to pay with PayPal. I'm like, perfect. So then, you know, extra level of anonymization pay with PayPal and says, okay, you now have to enter a credit card in order for the SIM to be activated. Like it's prepaid assholes. That's, I don't need to give you a fucking credit card. The whole point of having a prepaid sim is I pay you, which I did through PayPal. You don't need to have a credit card on file cuz this is not a you know, a year long contract motherfuckers. I might just want this for one month. What do I need to give you a credit card for? I'm just, ah, the all morning long. I've just been like wasting time fucking around with shit. I don't need to fuck around with that result in nothing happening. So fuck chat G P T. I'm not gonna. I'm just not gonna bother having an accountant there. Everybody can talk about it. I don't give a shit. I'll wait till it's available without having to give them all the data in my life to some asshole company that Musk used to start, or Musk started and they're no longer with. So fuck that shit. Fuck providing phone numbers to everybody in their grandmother. I'm gonna find myself a nice provider out of the country. That will be my real phone number and I'll just go, I guess I'll convert my US number just for a shit number, which is about all it is at this point, cuz nobody actually calls me on that number. Everybody calls on Signal,

Ben 5:12

Yeah.

Gene 5:13

so

Ben 5:13

Which is tied to

Gene 5:15

clearly a rant morning for me, dude. How's your day going?

Ben 5:18

Better than yours.

Gene 5:20

That's not hard.

Ben 5:22

You know, one, one of the things I'd say on this is we really kinda lost the narrative on anonymization. Well before you and I were ever born. You know, when the social, when the Social Security Act was passed there was many debates and a lot said over that, never becoming a national id. Because people were worried about where that would go.

Gene 5:42

Yeah.

Ben 5:43

And here we are. Everybody gives out everything. Their social security number, driver's

Gene 5:47

care about the national id, honestly. I've never given a shit about this. I think it makes sense for every human to have a unique number that identifies them in the system. Like that makes sense to me from a organizational stand. Because otherwise, especially with common names, you're gonna have people get arrested because they have the same name as a criminal and the social security number. If that can prevent that by being utilized as a unique number, then great. Let's, let's go for it. That's, I'm also for a national driver's license id, whatever you wanna call it, because a photo of a person with a not unique name, cuz names are not unique. A photo that's combined with a, I don't know, social security or any other number, it doesn't matter as long as a unique number will prevent people from false arrest.

Ben 6:38

not really, because now what you've done is you've taken the abstraction of your identity to being who you are and who knows you to abstract it to this number that then can be stolen and falsified. Whereas if you are just you and there is no identification, you can only really trust someone to be who they say they are, if you know them to be that person.

Gene 7:01

Right. So what you're saying is for the 1e-06% of the people that this would negatively affect, fuck everybody else.

Ben 7:10

No, I just want my freedoms. But anyway, regardless.

Gene 7:13

That's not freedom. dude. Freedom is being able to do what you want.

Ben 7:17

It's like not carrying a cell phone and being able to go off into the ether and no one know where you were. That

Gene 7:22

Oh, you can, you can not carry a cell phone. That's fine. You don't have to, you don't have to carry a driver's license. That's fine too.

Ben 7:28

Mm-hmm.

Gene 7:28

You go off into the ether, but if you need to prove your identity, it's, it's nice to have something that proves it and not have the cops that have an IQ of a cuco pick you up because your name is John Smith. Yeah. That's about, it's about right, because your name's John Smith and you have a common name, and a lot of criminals are named John Smith.

Ben 7:50

Okay. So where I was going with this is we have been desensitized to giving out information to everyone. And you and I are weird, apparently. I'm a little weirder than you on this that I don't want to give out that information when my doctor's office says, I need a copy of your driver's license. They say, no, you

Gene 8:07

no, you don't. They totally don't. They don't even need a copy of your insurance card. They always ask for that too. I'm like, I'll give you the number. You don't need a fucking copy of it.

Ben 8:15

Yeah. And they say, well, you know, then you'll have to give us a copy of, you know, or Here, let us take a picture of you. Why do you need to take a picture of me? Well, so that way we can see that you're you. And I said, well, I will prove that to you every time. You know, no, you do not need, and here, here's the thing. And this is what a lot of the people who are affected by, you know, some of these data breaches need to underst. The more ancillary information you give out to random doctor's, office, hospital. So on the more vulnerable you are.

Gene 8:49

Now. Totally. Cuz people shouldn't be storing your information. That is somewhat of an argument for a centralized authentication model which I'm sure you've seen plenty of times where they say, create a new account or just log in with Google or Facebook.

Ben 9:04

Yeah.

Gene 9:05

there are downsides doing that because aside from just using Google as that authentication, Google is also selling that company your demographic data.

Ben 9:15

Yeah. Well, and you, you have the whole Phyto alliance thing and you know, there, there are some pretty neat signon methodologies. Not to say that I'm a big fan of grc, but even, you know, even a blind squirrel every now and then finds a nut. His and I use that methodo, that metaphor

Gene 9:34

now mention who you're talking

Ben 9:36

with with squirrel is pretty

Gene 9:39

Mm-hmm.

Ben 9:39

interesting and cool. It, it, it is. And that is

Gene 9:41

What's his last name? Steve? Gibson. Yep. Mm-hmm. Gibson Research.

Ben 9:46

Yep. So, hi. The squirrel authentication, the way he's using an S and then just signing it. I mean, it really isn't all that creative, but it's simple and. Could be a good way to eliminate password log ons. Now you, you, when I say that, I mean to a website or to an application, but then you have to be responsible and actually manage your keys so that that's, that's the downfall. I mean, it will work for those who will be responsible, but those who don't, you know?

Gene 10:23

Yeah, you're getting in the weeds bud.

Ben 10:26

Well, and what I'll tie this back to is like this last pass breach that, you know, people keep ragging on and just going off the deep end

Gene 10:34

Jesus.

Ben 10:34

huh?

Gene 10:35

What?

Ben 10:36

Who still uses last pass?

Gene 10:38

Uhhuh.

Ben 10:39

I do.

Gene 10:40

Oh, that's right. I forgot about that.

Ben 10:42

Yeah. But I do it securely. I have multifactor turned on. I change the number of hash iterations. I do things to make it where, you know, unless they have a fundamental flaw,

Gene 10:56

Mm-hmm.

Ben 10:58

I'm okay. So, you know, here, here's the thing. I think I'm in a better position than someone who just tries to use their brain to create unique passwords for each website because,

Gene 11:10

yeah, that'd be silly. You don't need unique passwords for every website. I've had this conversation already.

Ben 11:17

I, you do need unique passwords for every website.

Gene 11:20

do not. You need a unique email address for each website.

Ben 11:24

Okay? Disagree, but

Gene 11:26

Well, I'm empirically correct, so that's fine. You can disagree.

Ben 11:30

Okay. Well,

Gene 11:31

People, people don't try and hack into multiple emails with the same password unless your password's ABC 1 23.

Ben 11:40

I mean, you could,

Gene 11:42

Yeah. It's not, it's not a, it's, yeah, but except that

Ben 11:47

the username is usually not encrypted or redacted in logs and the, anyway,

Gene 11:53

Exactly. So you're gonna, you're gonna say, oh, I'll bet you this John Smith email address is probably using the same password as this George Foreman email. Cause they have nothing in common,

Ben 12:05

okay.

Gene 12:07

all right.

Ben 12:07

What you could do, what a, what someone could do is if they had a sufficient enough database of cracked passwords,

Gene 12:19

Mm-hmm.

Ben 12:20

do some correlation on that, especially if you have a fairly unique

Gene 12:23

Oh, yes. Yes. And how many script kitties are doing that?

Ben 12:26

I

Gene 12:27

And how many of'em are just pushing a button on pre-built tools that do the opposite?

Ben 12:31

Absolutely the vast, vast majority, 100% agree, but you know, in the era of big data and rainbow tables, I wouldn't be hard to do that sort of analysis.

Gene 12:44

This is the same reason that we've encouraged people to use past phrases instead of passwords,

Ben 12:51

Well, length, length trump's entropy when you're talking about breaking a password or trying to com pre-compute a hash and you know, rainbow tables, the whole thing about where rainbow tables break down is length. You know, you have to get a big enough length where storage of said rainbow table then becomes prohibitive. So, and that's an ever-changing position, by the way.

Gene 13:39

Exactly. So pick one really long phrase and then just use different emails.

Ben 13:46

Sure.

Gene 13:47

Mm-hmm. I'm just saying that's

Ben 13:49

Or you can have one really long phrase protecting your password vault that then

Gene 13:54

you trust a third party, I just don't trust anybody outside of my

Ben 13:58

authentication and yeah.

Gene 14:00

Mm-hmm.

Ben 14:01

Mm-hmm. Anyway, there, there are

Gene 14:04

one's hacking this shit. I have a, a kill switch in my brain

Ben 14:08

Mm-hmm.

Gene 14:09

if I die. No one's getting my passwords.

Ben 14:13

So see this is

Gene 14:15

you

Ben 14:15

between you and me.

Gene 14:16

can get

Ben 14:17

family, so if I die, people will need my

Gene 14:20

yeah, yeah. Exactly. Yeah. No, I'm, I'm definitely a lot more security conscious. That account. I don't want anybody getting my.

Ben 14:28

So, yeah, so the way I've done this is my lawyer has

Gene 14:34

Half a

Ben 14:34

half

Gene 14:35

Mm-hmm.

Ben 14:37

my parents have the other, and yeah. So

Gene 14:41

Yeah. I've got a similar thing to bank accounts, but not passwords, just bank accounts.

Ben 14:47

is a break glass methodology there, so,

Gene 14:51

there, there, there need to be collusion of multiple people that you trust.

Ben 14:56

correct.

Gene 14:57

Yep.

Ben 14:57

Yep.

Gene 14:59

Yep. What else did we get? Because this is, so far it's been 15 minutes of bitching

Ben 15:05

Well,

Gene 15:05

I am more animated because of this still, I'll say.

Ben 15:09

I talked about it a little bit last week in reference to the deal that my mom got on that XDS

Gene 15:15

Yeah. The little, little pistol.

Ben 15:17

yeah. After holding it in my hand with the extended mag, I I

Gene 15:22

you liked

Ben 15:22

one.

Gene 15:23

and, and you bastard had to order one, therefore I had to order one. Now your mom

Ben 15:27

good of a

Gene 15:28

more guns.

Ben 15:29

It's too good of a deal.

Gene 15:31

is a good deal. I will say, I don't want to advertise somebody that's not paying me, but Bud's gun shop is about a hundred bucks cheaper on this deal, on this gun than other places that are selling the same thing, which already is a good deal.

Ben 15:46

they're$200 cheaper than the local academy over here.

Gene 15:49

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So the the, and the reason, you know, the reason is because they stopped making that gun. That's a discontinued model.

Ben 15:55

Okay. I don't care.

Gene 15:58

Yeah. Yeah, exactly. So a friend of mine bought that when I first came out for like 500 bucks without the, without the extra site, just the pistol itself. And it was like 4 95 or something. And so getting it with the, the Red dot

Ben 16:15

the Crimson Trace Red dot, which is about 170 bucks.

Gene 16:18

which, which Crimson Trace. I, I've, like, I used to have a laser from them 25 years ago.

Ben 16:24

Yeah. They're a very well known brand.

Gene 16:26

Yeah. It's not a shit brand. It's not some Chinese knockoff and getting that on that gun and the whole thing was what, 3 79? I know it was 400. It was 400 bucks worth shipping. I don't have much.

Ben 16:38

Yeah. Shipping F Ffl taxes.

Gene 16:41

All that crap. So still for four, under your 400 bucks, basically you get a brand new pistol, two magazines and the red.site, which is a, a heck of a deal that even though I don't really need this gun, I couldn't pass up.

Ben 16:55

Yep. Same here.

Gene 16:58

So Yeah.

Ben 17:00

Mine comes in Monday.

Gene 17:02

Oh really? Yeah. Okay, good. You know, they shipped it overnight. I was shocked cuz I got a notification literally the next day after p putting the order in and I put the order in at like 8:00 PM or something next morning, gun shipped.

Ben 17:14

Yep.

Gene 17:15

So I've never bought it buds, but that's pretty damn quick. Usually

Ben 17:18

Well, the, the, the only reason why I even know about them is because of Hickock 45.

Gene 17:25

Okay.

Ben 17:25

He, he constantly gets a bunch of stuff from them, so,

Gene 17:28

I've, I've bought something from'em in the past. I can't remember what I think it was parts, but boy, speaking of parts, so the the, the crazy folks over at the ATF have now created new law out of thin air

Ben 17:43

Well, proposed. It's

Gene 17:44

designated well the final documents out what do it means. It's proposed, it's done.

Ben 17:49

it, no, it's in the federal register for comment. It is not enforceable for X number of days

Gene 17:54

days. 60 days. What? That's not what they say. They say it is enforceable today, but they will not start enforcing it for 60 days. It was out for comment three months ago. It's, it's, it's live right now. And there's a 120 day period of of

Ben 18:14

in your shooting brace. Register as an S B R.

Gene 18:17

Yeah. So the shoot, so what we're talking about is this new law that they created out of thin air. It's not really a law, but they're gonna enforce it as though it were a law. Is around shooting braces or what else, what's the other term for them? There's another word for them.

Ben 18:34

Pistol burs.

Gene 18:35

brace. I don't know, but the, but, but they're basically devices that allow people to shoot large guns single-handedly. Is that accurate?

Ben 18:46

the, the problem is they can also be shouldered and used as an sbr R and you know, the, the, the, the AR pistol has always been, let's just be honest with ourselves a way around some of the SBR laws, which what I would say is, yeah,

Gene 19:02

stupid. Yeah. SBR laws are stupid.

Ben 19:06

the whole S sbr R should not be an N F A

Gene 19:09

it shouldn't. Well, it shouldn't be anything. There's no such thing as a sbr R either. Either just call it a pistol or just call it a rifle. Regardless of length. There, there should not be a distinction for a crappy rifle, which a rifle with a short barrel is by definition, a crappy rifle.

Ben 19:26

Yeah. The problem is with this new rule change, they've also introduced a point system.

Gene 19:32

Nope. That's out. What? You're behind the times. You haven't kept up on this

Ben 19:35

No, that is not.

Gene 19:37

They trashed the point system. They, they said it was too complicated. People were asking too many questions. They got rid of it. Anything with a brace now is a short beared rifle. There's no points anymore.

Ben 19:49

No, no, no. Okay. Yes. That is for the, just the brace. But they also talked about other pistol like characteristics that could modify it regardless of the brace, including two grips. So if you have a vertical grip on

Gene 20:01

yeah, yeah, yeah. But that's old though. That's, that's that was in

Ben 20:04

but that's still in.

Gene 20:06

That's still in, yeah. That hasn't gone away.

Ben 20:08

Okay. Just so I'm not behind the times I understand the difference between what's going on with

Gene 20:13

had a worksheet that was a point thing that in the original proposal, the one that came out three months ago and, and there were plenty of videos on YouTube telling you how to add up the points and calculate and what, like what you need to tweak before this goes into place to have less points than are required to call an spr. They got rid of that. So now anything with a brace by definition is an SBR R. So

Ben 20:39

Well, they're just reclassifying braces as stocks.

Gene 20:42

They are. Yes. That, that's exactly right. So handicapped people, fuck you. People that can't hold a gun, that only have one arm, like let's say veterans coming back, fuck. That's what the ATFs saying, not me. And they've decided that this is now a stock, not it's, it's basically a crappy stock on a crappy rifle, a short barreled rifle with a stock that doesn't make very good contact with your shoulder. And it's probably too short

Ben 21:08

Yeah. All, all those cqb guys are sitting there going, you know, it's not a crappy rifle gene.

Gene 21:13

Mm-hmm. well, it's a, it's a designated crappy rifle, right? It's kinda like a designated marksman rifle has a heavy long barrel because it's meant to be more accurate. This is a rifle meant to be less accurate,

Ben 21:26

But more maneuverable.

Gene 21:27

but more maneuverable because you're too much of an American to actually get a, a gun that fills that role with a full length barrel, such as the iwi bullpups, same length,

Ben 21:38

I like bull

Gene 21:39

longer barrel. I know you do, but most Americans instantly make fun of bullpups. I swear to God. Bringing

Ben 21:45

know, man. The awe I e like even back

Gene 21:48

about Tim Pool. It's the same reaction. It's like, ha ha. Oh, you mean the bean? Oh, you mean, you mean that that toy gun that they use in movies

Ben 21:58

yeah, the, I, I have always had a fascination with bull pups going back to

Gene 22:02

Well, you also like Tim Pool, so what does that tell us?

Ben 22:04

I, I don't nec, I, I'm not a big, you're the pool boy fan. Not

Gene 22:09

Huh You're the guy that sends me messages at night like, Hey, hey, what happened in the Afterhour Show? Can you send me the episode? I wanna

Ben 22:14

occasionally he does have some interesting guests.

Gene 22:17

Uhhuh Yeah.

Ben 22:19

Yeah. And you know, it's the, the show is gonna lose all interest for me as soon as Luke is gone. So,

Gene 22:25

I know, I know. And that's happening, I think at the end of this week because he mentioned that he was driving back to Florida cuz he, you know, he is been living in his Winnebago, so he's heading back to Florida.

Ben 22:37

yeah. So he Tim had Matt Gates on and you and I had differing opinions

Gene 22:42

we did, we can talk about that as well, because somebody else mentioned a similar comment on no agenda social. And I said, we'll talk about it in the show.

Ben 22:53

Yep. So, yeah, I'm, I'm kind of, of the opinion that yes, Matt Gaetz is as likely as good as we're going to get for right now, but I don't think that's good enough is kind of the way I would say it. So he is definitely a

Gene 23:09

with that. I'm just, this is as good as it gets for the Republicans right now.

Ben 23:14

Absolutely. But, you know, I, okay. I'm not a Republican

Gene 23:19

Yeah. I'm not either. And that's the thing. Is it? But you're more of a Trump fan than I am.

Ben 23:24

I am. I am,

Gene 23:26

because to me it's like Matt Gates represents me more than Trump does.

Ben 23:30

yeah. And he, Matt Gaetz is all for Trump too.

Gene 23:34

because Matt Gates is not really a libertarian freedom guy. He's not really a Second Amendment guy. He's just kind of a, he's a Republican. What we used to call Republicans back in the eighties and nineties, early nineties, back when I ran as a Republican, that's what Republicans were more like Matt Gae. And what we have in, in the Federal Congress right now are basically 400 plus Democrats. Some of whom have the letter are next to their name for some crazy reason probably cuz they couldn't get elected as a D. But then it's the same person. It's the same fucking person that would be running as a D, but somebody tells'em, you should run as an R and then way you'll get elected. But their ideas are literally the same as the Democrats

Ben 24:20

Yeah. I think you're given the Democrats a little too much credit there because half of the people with a d next to their name aren't Democrats. They're communists.

Gene 24:29

Okay. Fair enough. So what we have are people that are Democrats that have both a D and an R, some of which some Ds are communists, and very few Rs are actually Republicans. So why don't we just have this middle party just fucking create its own letter so we can tell who they.

Ben 24:47

Well, I, I think we should abolish all party

Gene 24:51

I agree. I agree.

Ben 24:53

you know, the problem is that

Gene 24:54

abolish federal government. That's a good start.

Ben 24:57

Oh, yeah, yeah. But you know, the, the problem is that gets in the way of freedom of association is the only problem there. So,

Gene 25:04

I got everybody. I wanna associate you here in Texas. I don't need to associate with anybody else.

Ben 25:09

so, Peter Zhan,

Gene 25:12

yeah. Yeah. So you went down a

Ben 25:14

a little bit of a rabbit

Gene 25:15

Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Ben 25:16

so I am, let's

Gene 25:19

And who is this guy? Just to give a one sentence overview, how you describe him.

Ben 25:24

I, I would

Gene 25:25

got a political science degree. I can start with that.

Ben 25:27

yeah, so shill spook w e f Propagandist,

Gene 25:33

Have you found any links to WF from him?

Ben 25:35

Well, he's very adjacent. I have not looked at their website to validate, but

Gene 25:40

he in

Ben 25:41

that really isn't,

Gene 25:42

Weft Young Communist Club.

Ben 25:45

I, I haven't validated that, but what I've been doing is digging into his, some of his content and arguments. So I'm 90% through his latest book. The the End of the World is just the beginning.

Gene 25:58

Oh, you still haven't finished it? That's surprising. Usually read.

Ben 26:01

yeah, well, I, first of all, it's, you know, X length book and it's been busy at work. Okay. Geez, Anyway little bit's been going on around here. I'll summarize this really quickly. So he says a lot in analysis that I like, I agree with. So he has a whole portion of this book on why electrification of vehicles doesn't make sense. Talking about California's grid and distribution. Some of the very same arguments I've made actually talking to you, you know, that hey, this bill that California signed saying everything must be electric, you can't do it. It's literally trillions of dollars investment. He, he, he goes further.

Gene 26:46

you for one sec here though, cuz I just realized that where I know him from, he's, he was, he was here in Austin.

Ben 26:54

Yes.

Gene 26:55

Ah, I didn't, didn't realize that. Okay. Go on.

Ben 26:59

Yeah. Anyway, so he, he makes some statements that I agree with. He even talks about battery chemistry and lithium, and he, he makes the argument on why a Tesla isn't green based off of the, the the carbon that's required to mine and create the vehicle to power the vehicle and so on. So he, he does a lot of analysis that I'm sitting there going, yes, I agree with this as analysis. This is great. The problem comes in, in, first of all, he talks about the order in this book. Matter-of-factly, the order, the American order, the Bretton Woods Agreement, all these things that for, you know, most of my life I've been called a conspiracy theorist for talking about

Gene 27:45

Yeah.

Ben 27:46

Yeah. So here's the thing. He's coming out and going, yeah, the American order is about to end and it's going to end because of this reason. And the reason he gives is the global demographic shift. He, the reason why he says China is going to fall, the reason why he says, you know, the US is going to pull out of the Bretton Woods agreement and stop stop policing the seas and everything is going to be basically based off of demography,

Gene 28:12

mm-hmm.

Ben 28:15

which assumes A we truly do have a demographic collapse that affects our economy. And b we don't figure out ways out of that.

Gene 28:25

Yep.

Ben 28:26

But no, no, there's no way out of it. It's de facto this. So my analysis of him and his book is, he is flying cover for 2030. You know, you will own nothing and you'll be happy about it. Basically saying the collapse of the economy, the end of more, which he literally says in the book, and there's lots of reasons why he says it is because of this, not because of anything that was suppressed or done, or you weren't cajoled into this right.

Gene 28:56

you know, Baron's Magazine once referred to Strafford as the shadow cia.

Ben 29:01

Oh dude, the way this guy speaks and everything else. First of all, he didn't write this book by himself. 100%. The the amount of research and the statistics and the level of analysis that is done in this book, which a lot of it is good.

Gene 29:14

Mm-hmm.

Ben 29:15

I, I have to say there's a lot of detailed referenced information in this book, so I, I think it's worth reading for that alone because there's a lot of good information in there. You have to suss through the analysis to look at the, some of the information that's being presented and, you know, don't get in group think when you're listening to this book or reading this book, because that's really easy to do. You're, you know, it's easy to follow along with any, any analyst's position and just tend to agree and not be critical. You have to hold yourself to be critical if you do that. There's a lot of really good information in there, a lot of really good information on the shipping industry, how cross

Gene 29:54

good information, meaning new things or just good in terms of Yeah, this is shit we would agree with.

Ben 29:59

Ship we would agree with, and a represent a representation of the global, the globalized world economy that is very consumable for people that otherwise wouldn't understand it.

Gene 30:12

Mm-hmm.

Ben 30:13

So there, there's a lot of ammunition to take for lots of arguments that we have and to put out there and things like that.

Gene 30:21

Okay.

Ben 30:22

There, there's just lots of good stuff in there. I, I, I but yeah, he is, he is definitely a shill and I, I would not be surprised to find out in a few years that he worked for a three letter agency, and my guess would be c i a

Gene 30:39

That would be my, my sort of guess, but I've not done any of the research. That was just my kind of gut instinct. There's, it's just something a little off him like a few years back when I first started seeing his material pop up. It sounds pretty good and he's very articulate. But there was just something.

Ben 30:56

front man for the message.

Gene 30:58

Right, right. And that, that was the interesting thing. So, what, what I didn't even realize until I just looked it up was that he worked at Stratford for 12 years. So he doesn't need to be a spook because that company is 50% spooks.

Ben 31:15

Right.

Gene 31:15

he could be the civilian analyst,

Ben 31:17

he, he could be, and like I said, he, he, he could just totally be the fall guy for the message, whatever. But he did not write this book on his own. There's just no way. So maybe, you know, maybe the CIA while he was at Stratford or wherever, fed him a lot of information and this is the result that happens.

Gene 31:34

isn't using employees for a lot of this kind of stuff. They're using companies like Stratford

Ben 31:41

And general assets that they cajole. Yeah.

Gene 31:44

Yeah. Yeah. I mean there's and we've talked about it previously, that if you look at the the number of investments that Inq Tell has invested in, which is, which is the well-known legitimate investment arm of the cia. There are other shill companies that they use

Ben 32:00

It is not the black Ops side.

Gene 32:02

But, but just on that side, like they don't really need a budget from Congress.

Ben 32:08

Yeah,

Gene 32:09

They're, they are self-sufficient financially as an organization. So that, that's a huge benefit to them. I've always been a big fan of the cia. I'll just mention that.

Ben 32:19

oh my

Gene 32:19

you know, well, I have, I, I've always thought that they've done that. Look, you don't need to agree with what they're doing to be able to think someone's doing a good job.

Ben 32:28

there's such a thing as holding too much power,

Gene 32:31

Like clearly the Chinese government's been doing a pretty damn good job, in my opinion. Some people don't share that opinion. I don't think that they're the ideal government type that we should aspire to, but given the resources that they have, I think they've done a very good job.

Ben 32:48

So this book really outlines the Chinese economy. What they have done with their money supply and everything in a very interesting way. And that's the other thing about this. So he talks about modern monetary theory and how things work in a very interesting way. He talks about inflationary and so on. And he outlines the case why the US is going to be okay and good. And one of the things he talks about is scale matters and why the US dollar is more stable than the rest of the world's primary fiat currencies. Because scale matters and the Chinese money supply has, you know, they've, they've de based their currency so far that it's insane Singapore right after them, the Japanese some too. And he goes into some cultural and historical reasons why they've done that and why they can do that. And you know, that China is so over-building capacity that it's going to become potentially problematic for them. And he outlines a lot of reasons why. One of the interesting things that I think he conveniently ignores is the Bricks Alliance and their talk of creation of a new currency that would be backed by a bundle of goods.

Gene 34:05

Mm-hmm.

Ben 34:06

And, you know, I, I think that that definitely is a move away from the order as he puts it. And you. His level of analysis of how the order will break up. That's where I really find fault, because he's saying things in a very definitive way on how things will break up. And dude, there are way too many variables to even begin to predict that.

Gene 34:34

Mm-hmm.

Ben 34:35

And just using supply chain, just using demographic information is not enough to predict that.

Gene 34:43

Yeah. And you didn't get a sense that there's more data that he's looking at that he's just not sharing.

Ben 34:48

Well, there, there's always that possibility, but at the same time, I have, so here, here's the thing. I am looking at this book, not as a conspiracy theorist, but as someone who, if you hand this book to a liberal, they're just gonna nod their head and go, oh yeah, that makes sense. To an extent, I think. Okay. And I think this is, this person is really speaking to that. I don't really pay that much attention to politics crowd, but I'm somewhat intellectual and I want to hear it, right?

Gene 35:23

right. It's like you could totally see an NPR story about him.

Ben 35:29

absolutely. This is why he went on Joe Rogan, that sort of thing. Okay. S So anyone who is like you and I that paid a lot of attention, definitely going to ask that question.

Gene 35:40

Mm-hmm.

Ben 35:41

My point is based off of the information he has given, he does not have enough information to draw the conclusions that he does draw. Even though this is a very well researched book and has a lot of very interesting details. There are just some very convenient things that you and I have talked about and we know that are ignored.

Gene 36:01

Like, gimme one example.

Ben 36:02

I just did the bricks currency. Another one would be some of the conversation he has on power generation and, you know, how, how to make megawatts and you know, I, I have a little bit of a deep knowledge on that one. So, you know, it, it's, it's, it's always interesting to me. And I had this discussion with a, with a friend of mine the other day because I I, you know, I, it's interesting when you watch something in the news that you firsthand know is a lie, you know, the government is lying to you. You know that that is exactly not how that happened because you have firsthand knowledge of something and you know, it, it's, it's hard to then rationalize and realize that the average person trusts the government as much as they do.

Gene 36:51

Yeah. And that's just due to indoctrination. There's, it doesn't matter whether you have democracy or dictatorship or monarchy or any other form of government. If you don't indoctrinate your citizens, your your surfs or whoever you might have you're gonna end up losing power. So you have to have. Indoctrination program. And this country has one, it's called Department of Education, and then it has a bunch of freelancers that also indoctrinate now freelancers, they get paid for it, but they're not part of the government. And that is called the secondary education staff. So all the colleges. So what we have is e essentially a government whose job, whose main job is to stay in power. And we actually had a little more of a, a glimpse into that. Now, you and I may have known this, but many people don't in how Congress actually operates.

Ben 37:51

Mm-hmm.

Gene 37:52

And that effectively everybody is buying the votes of other people with money. Now. They're not using their money, they're using lobbyists money. So you, you have a war chest. And that's why they use these terms. Because the same terms that were used pre democracy, you have a war chest of funds that, that lobbyists are providing to you. You then utilize that war chest to give money to other senators, other congress critters in order for them to vote for the things that you want them to vote for.

Ben 38:32

Are to sponsor a bill.

Gene 38:33

yeah, you know, if you want to co-sponsor, I'll make sure that Raytheon adds you to their little. donation page to the tune of I dunno, a million dollars, 500,000 or several million, whatever it is. And how much money did he say that? The current speaker, what's his name?

Ben 38:50

McCarthy.

Gene 38:51

McCarthy. Yeah. How much did he ha He said he was extremely successful at getting funding from lobbyists. He had a war chest of like 2 billion or something. It was some crazy high number.

Ben 39:02

McCarthy has been a very, yeah, McCarthy has been a prolific fundraiser for

Gene 39:09

Mm-hmm.

Ben 39:10

a very long time.

Gene 39:12

Yeah. Yeah. So that's his skillset, right? So he does not, not necessarily doing what's good for America, but he is doing what's good for him. And he has a skill at raising money from lobbyists. And and due to that is, that's what earned him that spot of being. The third most powerful person in this country the speaker of the house is because he can dole out money to all the other Congress critters and thereby effectively by their allegiance. This is not horribly different from the feudal.

Ben 39:49

No, it's not, not at this point. You know, it's always interesting to me that, you know, we, we, we talk about domestic terrorism, we talk about people, how, how do I put this and not get a knock on the door. We talk about the violent right in this country in general, you know, people say, oh, the right wing this, the, the, no, the Nazis, this, that, and the other.

Gene 40:16

Mm-hmm.

Ben 40:18

The fact that have, that there has not been an assassination attempt against Biden, Kamala, or Obama I think really says otherwise.

Gene 40:33

Well, I, I don't know where this whole idea that Nazis or right wing came from. Nazis were always left-wing, and they still are left-wing, and the current Nazis are left-wing.

Ben 40:43

Well, The, political scientists try to say that they are the authoritarian wing of the right for some reason.

Gene 40:50

yeah. Authoritarian in the right is not the same thing. And that, that seems to be the message that has been taught in school. Is that a right wing, authoritarian, left wing democracy,

Ben 41:00

Oh, absolutely. That's a absolute, I, I, I agree with you. And it's absolutely taught in schools that populism is bad.

Gene 41:09

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Ben 41:10

100% that popula, I will say this populism is not necessarily bad and it is potentially very dangerous. You know, you can have populism go really bad really quickly, same way as you can have a democracy go bad really quickly, which is why we don't have a democracy. That's why we have a representative republic. But you know, the nuance,

Gene 41:31

actually a, a, a message I just saw on somebody a meme on democracy says democracy is 51% of your country deciding to put people into concentration camps.

Ben 41:45

yeah. Democracy is two rules in a sheep voting on what what's for dinner.

Gene 41:49

Mm-hmm. Yeah. So it's the, the rule of the majority has to be quenched in the rule of law. You have to have sufficient protections for the minorities and, and so yeah, I mean, when I hear Nazi uh, I, I think of what that word actually means. National socialist.

Ben 42:12

Yep.

Gene 42:13

Socialist is not on the right guys.

Ben 42:16

Not in my way of thinking. Anarchy is more on the right.

Gene 42:20

Yeah. And, and I think the current stream of, of Democrats are absolutely fitting that definition.

Ben 42:27

know, I, I guess instead of talking about right, left paradigm, what we should really be talking about is the poli of the political spectrum is on one end of the political spectrum is anarchy. True anarchy, no one in charge, and the other end is totalitarianism. And if we think of it that way, then socialism, communism all, pretty much all the isms, including capitalism, all bunch at one end. And anarchy is at the other.

Gene 42:53

Mm-hmm.

Ben 42:55

Really, capitalism is the middle of the roadway of doing things.

Gene 42:59

Well, capitalism I think is, is the primary focus on money makes right?

Ben 43:05

Boy, I wouldn't

Gene 43:06

being the driving factor. Oh, I, I think I would. Because in capitalist systems

Ben 43:11

Well, I, I would say this, wouldn't you rather it be money Makes Right. Versus might makes right.

Gene 43:18

Yeah. I'm not disagreeing with that. I'm just saying that capitalism is, is not, it's not a great system. Somebody, I can't remember who said the quote, but, you know, it's, it's, it's a horrible system. It's the best one we have. You remember who said that? I can't remember.

Ben 43:33

I couldn't find the tab to get unmuted again. No. I don't remember who made that quote.

Gene 43:37

Oh, okay. But It's speaking of unmuted. I'm gonna get a, a ring of the door soon, Mike. The only time they had available to deliver my groceries was right now,

Ben 43:48

Okay.

Gene 43:49

so we'll, we'll just do a quick pause once that happens, but it'll be magically deleted from the podcast, so. Mm-hmm. Yeah, I just, I, I think right now, and this ties back to the whole, everybody wants your phone number and then all kinds of other info about you. The problem with capitalism is what we've been seeing in the US developing over the last few years, which is your primary identification is that of a consumer.

Ben 44:19

Mm-hmm.

Gene 44:21

That's how everybody sees you first and foremost, not as a thinker or a, you know, creator, doer, whatever. It's, you're basically classifying any, everybody into the level of consumer that they are. And I think this is, this is unbridled capitalism. It's not totally unbridled, but it's fairly unbridled. I mean, the fact that so many companies are able to develop to a level where they have more power than the politicians do. And where the politicians feel like they have to deal with these private companies

Ben 44:56

let's say it a little differently because the power technically rests in the politicians' hands, but the money that the politicians use to wield that power is in someone else's hands.

Gene 45:14

you can buy a politician that's, they're for sale. You can't buy a Zuckerberg.

Ben 45:20

Okay.

Gene 45:21

He's not for sale.

Ben 45:22

I don't know that that matters, but, okay.

Gene 45:24

Well, what it matters is that the politicians,

Ben 45:27

lizard

Gene 45:29

I like lizards. I like reptiles. By the way, did you see that that Babylon b had a video I sent to a few liberal friends that, that say, you know, how to, how to how to debate or how to talk to your Libertarian friends.

Ben 45:43

No, I didn't.

Gene 45:44

It was pretty fucking funny. I mean, they make such great videos. They,

Ben 45:48

I know you like the bee. You're all about the bee.

Gene 45:52

Yeah. And you know, they're like, they're started by a couple of crazy right wing, you know, fundamentalist Christian dudes. And yet they're funny.

Ben 46:01

Well, I mean that just because you're a fundamentalist Christian doesn't mean you're not funny.

Gene 46:06

Well, right, right. No, I, I, but I applaud that. I'm like, yeah, this is, this is hilarious. They've got a great sense of humor. They're, to some extent, they're the reason that Musk bought Twitter, and he's acknowledged that

Ben 46:19

Okay.

Gene 46:20

because he only really got interested

Ben 46:23

so good.

Gene 46:24

he only got interested in Twitter when they banned the bee.

Ben 46:29

Uhhuh

Gene 46:29

He wasn't all that interested in Twitter before that.

Ben 46:33

well, I think he was interested in Twitter and I think he was pretty active on Twitter, but I

Gene 46:36

is, this is going above and beyond. Yeah. He got pissed off. He got, he wasn't interested in buying it. I shouldn't say he wasn't interested in using Twitter, but he was not interested in buying Twitter up until that point.

Ben 46:47

that fair enough?

Gene 46:48

yeah.

Ben 46:49

yeah.

Gene 46:50

But it, it, it was it was cute. So they, they have this, this chick that works for them who's a zoomer, and they've done a few things with her and she does a great job of portraying the stereotypical zoo zoomer mentality.

Ben 47:04

Mm-hmm.

Gene 47:05

It, it's uncanny.

Ben 47:07

Okay. I'll have to go watch it.

Gene 47:10

Yeah. Yeah. I'll send you a link if, if you don't see it on, not on the social, but I know that I probably post about a hundred items a day on there. So sometimes things get lost, like people

Ben 47:21

y you, you're being a little prolific, that's for sure. Yeah.

Gene 47:26

But I'm also one of the most subscribed to people on there.

Ben 47:29

Yeah.

Gene 47:30

I mean, I, I'm still way behind Darren, but Darren does five shows on the stream and does all the, the, you know, he's basically the fluffer for the no agenda show or I don't know, that's a technical term guys

Ben 47:45

Yeah. Yeah. And you know, gene he's a little bit more appealing in that way, I guess.

Gene 47:51

a more well, and some, I actually got comments on, on on Naz from people saying, boy, what's wrong with Darren? He's just seemed to be very argumentative with Gene lately. So, I don't know. I think, I think there's a lot of people that see things my way. They're just not, as I've noticed a lot of'em don't actually post, they just private message me, which is annoying cuz I really, I really want them to just post publicly instead of private messaging me.

Ben 48:19

Now. So you think people should out themselves for your gratification,

Gene 48:23

apps freaking lutely. Yes. Yes.

Ben 48:28

Well, you know, there, there is something about when you're standing up against society and saying something contrary to the prevailing thoughts, having having some people agree with you definitely helps

Gene 48:41

well, it.

Ben 48:42

it, it really is not easy to do, to stand against society and say,

Gene 48:46

I've been doing it for over 50 years.

Ben 48:48

Well, I've been doing it for most of my life

Gene 48:51

you too. Yeah. I'm just like, been a contrarian pretty much my whole life.

Ben 48:54

And, and you know that, that is, most people can't handle that and can't handle the scrutiny and pressure when pushed.

Gene 49:01

yeah. Well, it is a high level of stress. You have to have an extroverted gene for sure. You have to get energy from the discourse. If you don't get energy from discourse, you are gonna just, you know, fall down and, and cry like a little baby.

Ben 49:20

Well, you know, one of the things that was one of the most satisfying things for. I was at a cybersecurity conference that a and m hosted and on critical infrastructure. And they had a former director of the NSA up there. And he was talking through why the NSA data collection and everything is a good thing, how it's keeping us safe and protected. And in the q and i I stood up and this is, this you can find on a and m's website. And I questioned, you know, so what I'm hearing from you is we should all be afraid and the government is the answer and screw our rights. And I, I said it a little bit more eloquently than that to a chief course. He didn't really have an answer. And between sessions I was standing out, you know, in the hallway getting a snack, and he came over to me and started dressing me down, wagging his finger in my face. And it was funny because he started yell, yelling as we had this debate. And a group of people just kind of surround us to see what's going on here, ruckus, you know, and I just stand there and debate him on the issues. And I stay calm and he gets matter and matter. And you know, I, I wish it was recorded cuz I feel like I won the debate. But, you know, most people, when a former n s A director who, you know, obviously still has connections into the N S A starts getting that mad with you, the typical reaction is not to piss them off further, you know?

Gene 50:43

Yeah. I, I think most people are conciliatory. There is certainly a subculture of people on four chan that are not,

Ben 50:53

Indeed,

Gene 50:54

they're not just Fortune. Reddit is full of these folks as well. People that will for no reason and not having necessarily the right skillset, nonetheless, will always get in your face and always try and debate you.

Ben 51:06

mm-hmm.

Gene 51:07

And and then if they can't say anything reasonable, they'll just say, gay or fag, or some such Nazi or, you n word or whatever. They're, they'll just throw shit out just to try and get a triggered reaction rather than, Say something interesting or at least witty. Like if you can't win an argument through, through reason and fact, you can certainly win one through wit. I've done that plenty of times. I can be on the losing argument and still win by

Ben 51:41

a dick move, but sure.

Gene 51:43

if Yeah, it makes people that don't do it, feel like it's a dick move. Exactly. But it works. And this is, this is a, a common political way to win for the good politicians out there is that, you know, nine times outta 10, they don't know what the hell they're talking about. But if they can come across as being more connected to the people, to the audience, then the other guy, they can get a moral victory. And quite often that that is equivalent, if not even matters more to people that that are in the audience. So, but yeah, I mean, I don't know, man. I don't know it, it's, I'm less concerned about the, the quality of of work that the CIA's doing and more concerned about the what the non-SEC government is pushing people towards. Like, I've always, I've often. Yeah, well, not just that, but the, like, the A t F you know, creating law of thin air is a good example of it because we've had a number of decisions in the Supreme Court that have reversed and thrown back as unconstitutional laws in the number of of Democratic states.

Ben 53:03

mm-hmm.

Gene 53:04

And including the most recent case on bump stocks like that, that that was not a, a legal ban that Trump pushed through incidentally.

Ben 53:17

Well, he, he wanted the atf been, that was because of what happened in Nevada, and

Gene 53:23

I know why it happened. It's still not a good reason for it.

Ben 53:26

I, I, I don't, I, I don't, I have never said that Trump did everything, right.

Gene 53:31

No, no, no. And and so there's extremely high likelihood that the Supreme Court will reverse this or, or at least say this is unconstitutional. It it, you know, you can't do it to the atf, but

Ben 53:48

it gets

Gene 53:48

they know that, and they're still pushing through forward with it

Ben 53:53

and you know, th this is like what New York has tried to do with some of their laws where the courts strike it down and they make a slight change and go, okay, well, someone else has to file a lawsuit and do it. So this is where it comes down to the Jeffersonian principle of it is your civic duty to disobey unconstitutional and unjust laws.

Gene 54:15

Yeah. And, and the problem herein is this is not a law, but it can get you a, a felony which will remove you from ever being unable to own guns in the future.

Ben 54:24

Mm-hmm.

Gene 54:26

And this is, this is a tricky bit

Ben 54:29

yeah.

Gene 54:30

because your, your options now, sorry, I, we kind of circled back to this cause I don't think we finished the conversation. But your options with the new ATF ruling are basically three things. One you can take the brace slash stock off your rifle, short barrel, rifle style pistol, right? It's, it does have a short barrel. It's a pistol, but it's using a rifle caliber. You can take that that brace off and then it's, it no longer would qualify as an SBR R according to their new regulations. The other option is you can register it as an S B R and you can do it for free,

Ben 55:13

get a tag stamp.

Gene 55:14

but it's free right now. So that's the, that's their concession is it's an sbr. We're gonna make you jump through the hoop, but we're not gonna make you pay for. So that's kind of the way some people are looking at

Ben 55:27

there's a problem with

Gene 55:28

to do sbr, a bunch of guns, and this is my easy way to do it

Ben 55:31

Uhuh, that, that no, that's a problem. That's a problem for them right there. That is a court case

Gene 55:37

All right. Well explain that.

Ben 55:39

because the N f A, the entire rationale and the reason why the N F A has danced around the constitutionality of restricting the second amendment is because it is a tax.

Gene 55:49

right?

Ben 55:50

So if you're not taxing me, but you're putting this restriction on me, then how is that a, how is that a thing?

Gene 55:57

Yeah. Well, clearly it's not the, it's not why they're doing it, why they're doing it.

Ben 56:01

No, no, no, no, no, no. If if the, if the tax is not involved, then they cannot issue the restriction. That's the entire thing. The, the, the N F A and this is not, don't everyone out there, don't get me wrong. The N F A has never seen its day in court and it needs to,

Gene 56:17

it does need to, yeah.

Ben 56:18

But the entire rationale and the way the N F A got passed was that it was a tax, not a restriction.

Gene 56:26

But it was, that's fair enough. But the intent, even from the get-go was that it's a restriction

Ben 56:33

Yes, but the

Gene 56:34

because you remember when it got passed and why it got passed. It got passed with a Democrat, president, Democrat Congress, because there was a lot of violence in Chicago, which is a Democrat stronghold. Perpetrated by gangsters utilizing better quality weapons than the police were. And so they said, well we gotta ban this shit. Ah, the stupid pesky second madman is getting in the way of, of us banning Tommy guns altogether. What can we do? What can we do here? And what they came up with was the NFA National Firearms Act. And and that was the original intent was to ban fully automatic guns. But they realized if they just simply put a ban on them, the Supreme Court where a rule it, they would, they would throw it out. And so instead of doing a full-out ban, they said, fine, how about we just put an insanely high tax on it and anyone not paying the tax then is guilty of a crime.

Ben 57:38

Mm.

Gene 57:39

In fact, it's a felony. And at the time the tax stamp cost was roughly 20 times the cost of the weapon.

Ben 57:50

Mm-hmm.

Gene 57:51

Is that correct? I'm trying to do my math in my head real quick

Ben 57:54

Oh, I'm, I'm

Gene 57:54

cuz they've never changed the cost of the stamp. And right now it's actually not that expensive.

Ben 58:00

sh.

Gene 58:02

Yeah, I know, right. But originally, if you look at what the cost of living was in 1934, was it. I can't remember the original year. It was in the thirties that the, it was meant to, to be prohibitively expensive to normal people. And so the only people that would use fully automatic weapons would be criminals. And then the criminals you know, we can't ban fully automatic guns, but we can charge the criminals for not paying the tax on it. So that

Ben 58:29

Again, this is a

Gene 58:30

was the whole reason for

Ben 58:31

only really restricts law abiding citizens.

Gene 58:37

Yes. But in order to have something else to catch the criminals with,

Ben 58:43

Mm-hmm.

Gene 58:44

it's kinda like drug use laws, right? Like really, who gives a shit what people do with their own bodies? It's not any of our concern, but

Ben 58:53

It shouldn't be.

Gene 58:55

shouldn't be. Right? But what happens is they create laws that apply to everybody, not just criminals, in order to be able to use those laws against criminals. But in the process end up apprehending a whole bunch of really, you know, normal people. Bystanders not, not people engaged in, in the drug business. But if you happen to have more than, what is it? Two ounces of marijuana now you're, you have intent sell. So now you're using the same measure as a criminal. And why is it just simply the, the weight of the. Because they can't prove that the actual sellers are

Ben 59:37

prove intent, which is why the, the whole voting laws and, well, the reason why the Kerry Lake lawsuit was thrown out is so

Gene 59:46

Mm-hmm. it was totally s night. Yeah. Intent is to, to be able to use intent in court is effectively not, not having a barrier at all. It's, it's just saying it that there is no, no law here. There's, there's nothing we can do because you can never get into the mind of another person. Even if that person says, I want to do this for this reason, that is not sufficient to prove intent because they will have contrary statements that they're gonna submit as proof. Otherwise, they can say, what I say isn't what I mean. What I say isn't what I want. You can't just use what I've said

Ben 1:00:26

and you know,

Gene 1:00:27

taken outta context.

Ben 1:00:28

there, there are some areas of the law that do take into account a tent. Manslaughter versus murder

Gene 1:00:35

Drunk driving.

Ben 1:00:36

oh, good one.

Gene 1:00:38

your favorite.

Ben 1:00:39

don't get me started on that, don't

Gene 1:00:42

All right. You talk about drunk driving and I'm gonna go get my groceries.

Ben 1:00:45

Well, what I'll talk about is the current state of the US auto industry and everyone knows that unfortunately I have to purchase a car right now and.

Gene 1:00:56

everyone knows you have to purchase a car,

Ben 1:00:57

Well, we talked about what

Gene 1:00:58

all, all kidding. I just talk for a little bit and then when you're done, like if I'm not back yet, just stop talking and let, let there be a flat line cuz that's super easy to delete.

Ben 1:01:10

Okay,

Gene 1:01:10

Okay. Be right back.

Ben 1:01:12

so just to give everyone a summarization, it may have not listened to a previous episode. A family member was involved in a drunk driving accident. My stepdaughter she was not the drunk party at all. She was very responsible, but she was hit and the car was totaled. So we are in the process of replacing her car. So I am firsthand looking at the current state of purchasing a vehicle, new or used. And my God, vehicles that would've been$10,000 10 years ago are now going for 20. It's really gotten that bad. We looked at one Volkswagen Jetta yesterday, where a three year old with 30,000 miles on the vehicle was only$3,500 cheaper than the 2023 brand new same trim level. And that's the level of insanity we are at in the US auto market. So, needless to say, it's not a great time to buy, and the interest rates have gone up quite a bit in the last few years as well, which is unfortunate. But it is what it is. so you sent me an interesting set of year-end statistics for Sir Jean Speaks

Gene 1:02:23

Oh yeah.

Ben 1:02:25

top five episodes of last year and I thought it was hilarious that the, the the number one episode was number 69

Gene 1:02:33

Oh yeah. That was funny.

Ben 1:02:36

Yep. Swizzle enough.

Gene 1:02:37

Speaking of this podcast, got 1500 downloads now.

Ben 1:02:41

Yeah, we're, we're getting up there. the more that each episode gets and, you know, the better, that's kind of the metric I track more than overall, you

Gene 1:02:51

mm-hmm.

Ben 1:02:52

which everybody share, share links.

Gene 1:02:56

Yeah. And I keep harping on this, but it's true. People doing reviews is one of the best things you can do,

Ben 1:03:03

Yeah, it definitely helps. As far as the Apple or Spotify or wherever else algorithms, I don't think we're all on Spotify unless they've pulled us in without our permission. But you know, obviously Podcast Index doesn't do those same sort of algorithms, but Apple and Google Sure do. So,

Gene 1:03:20

Yeah. Yeah. I don't think, I don't believe Podcast Index has a review ability right now.

Ben 1:03:26

They, they are working on some reference stuff, not necessarily review, but, Hey, if you like this, you'll like that sort of

Gene 1:03:34

Right, right, right.

Ben 1:03:35

Or at least that was something they were working on at one point. I haven't kept up as much as I should. I did, I did after, after. Adam and Dave started that, you know, right after Trump lost and then January 6th happened, and I definitely sent them a, a few hundred dollars thanking them for what they were doing.

Gene 1:03:57

Mm-hmm.

Ben 1:03:58

Yeah,

Gene 1:03:58

Yeah. Yeah. It's it's a huge task. I'm, I'm super happy they're able to keep going with this. It's a huge volunteer effort.

Ben 1:04:08

it is. But you know, it's one of those things that they, they are doing a thinkless task that we should all a appreciate because it really does help us all out.

Gene 1:04:23

Yeah. And like, one of the stats that I looked at is how many people are using podcast 2.0 apps? Not very many. I'd say under 10%.

Ben 1:04:36

Yeah. But you know, what I would say to that is as first of all the, even the idea of knowing what podcasting 2.0 is is still very small. I mean, 90% of people are going to use their built-in podcast app, whether it's Android or a iPhone, which is unfortunate cuz they, they're terrible. But

Gene 1:04:59

Super basic. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. And, and what I mean by that, I wasn't implying that, man, these guys suck. They only have 10% market share. What I mean is, you know, they get some, at least some money coming into them from every streaming sat. Somebody has that feature turned on. And to have that feature, you need to use a podcast Podcasting 2.0 capable podcasting app. So at least they're getting, I don't remember what it was, like 5% or 1% or some percentage of all the streaming stats go back to them. But you know, if only 10% of our audience is listening, I gotta imagine that that's probably true for a lot of shows. Probably the more tech a show is more people are gonna use podcasting 2.0 apps. You know, ours is mainly politics, was a little bit of tech.

Ben 1:05:54

Yeah, I, I think that you know, there are some really good apps out there. I think there's some apps doing some pretty interesting and creative things. My daily driver right now, I don't know about you, is Fountain. I think that they've got some, he's got some weird bugs in there every now and then. He's doing some pretty decent development and adding in a lot of things. Like, you can see activity where people have boosted the shows. You can go in and see what those booths are. You can you know, have the chapters in there, you, the, the art changes a as the chapters change and so on. So, you know, and he's got the streaming stats and one of the unique features that they have on Fountain is he is actually taking, I guess, a fraction of his percentage that he's taking and streaming that back to his listener base.

Gene 1:06:40

Interesting. Okay.

Ben 1:06:41

So you can earn stats while listening to podcasting 2.0 podcasts?

Gene 1:06:47

Yeah. Yeah. That, that is kind of wild. I'm sure it's not much, but still

Ben 1:06:51

No. It,

Gene 1:06:52

I use pod verse mostly.

Ben 1:06:54

Yeah.

Gene 1:06:55

But I, I, but I see this is the other issue is quite often for no agenda, at least the show that probably has the most streaming stats going. I, I usually will catch it on the live stream, so I'm not really listening it through a podcast app.

Ben 1:07:10

Hmm. Interesting.

Gene 1:07:13

Mm-hmm.

Ben 1:07:14

Yeah. I, I have a life and I work, so

Gene 1:07:17

exactly. So you not gonna be listening in real time. The downside of that, of course is it takes real time to listen. You can't just go at two x speed, but

Ben 1:07:27

watch. Why would you want to.

Gene 1:07:29

well, that's normally how I read. Listen,

Ben 1:07:32

so you, so you want John to sound like a chipmunk?

Gene 1:07:35

no, it doesn't affect the pitch. Have you never played with the speed tools in your

Ben 1:07:41

I, I, it was just a joke, man.

Gene 1:07:43

Okay. All right. I, a lot of people haven't, so it's I just figured you wouldn't be one of those.

Ben 1:07:50

No, I, I've played around with it. I don't really, I don't, I'm not a huge fan of

Gene 1:07:57

compression. Adam hates it. I know. Every time we talked about it, he just thinks it's, you need to listen to the content like it was created

Ben 1:08:07

Well, I mean, I, I clearly don't believe that, but

Gene 1:08:11

Yeah. I, because I, I can't remember what I brought up, but I brought up a counter example for him on something. I can't remember what it was, but it, it was probably something to do with reading or, I don't know, whatever it was. It's just, if you're gonna go down the road of the audience always has to listen to the content or see the content the way that was created, then we're gonna be living in the not by our own choices, by, by the choices of a class of people that actually is create content. Whether that's artists, whether that's musicians, whether that's painters, writers, whoever,

Ben 1:08:54

a, a creator can want their art to or their content, however

Gene 1:08:58

they can want anything they want. They don't get to get it.

Ben 1:09:01

Well, exactly. I still have the freedom to say Fuck you and do something

Gene 1:09:04

E e, exactly. And that my, my argument has always been to treat creators as a sort of a lesser human simply because

Ben 1:09:12

everything they do, and by the way, we are creators right now, so

Gene 1:09:15

Oh, totally. Yeah. Absolutely. But it, I, I think there's a line in one of my favorite movies which was of course, I would forget the name of one of my favorite movies, Somebody in Gil and Stern are dead. What's

Ben 1:09:26

yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Or Yeah,

Gene 1:09:29

I can't

Ben 1:09:29

From Hamlet. Yeah. It's the parody From Hamlet.

Gene 1:09:32

Yeah. And in there Richard actor dude whose name I can't remember. He says he's got a line in there that says, you know, we're not people. We're actors And it, it's, it's, I think, absolutely true that people that create content are in the entertainment business. That's where we are while we're doing this, that's where every, it doesn't matter if you create it seriously or not, you're still in the entertainment business because you're not actually serving a purpose other than entertaining the listener or the audience, whoever they, it doesn't have to be a listener, could be a viewer, but you're entertaining the audience. If somebody comes to us and says, okay, we need you guys to write a report. For you know, the, the statistical projections of China's trajectory for the next decade. Like that wouldn't be entertainment because we're creating really a, a reference document when we're just talking about the exact same

Ben 1:10:35

of analysis. Yeah.

Gene 1:10:37

even though if we've done analysis, but what, as we're talking about that topic, without answering any questions other than the ones you and I ask each other, we're creating entertainment for somebody to be a fly on the wall, for somebody to listen in on our conversation and then get some form of pleasure out of it. It's the same reason I watched Tim Pool. I don't watch Tim Pool to get good analytical answers to political questions. I watch Tim Pool because it's entertaining. I get enjoyment, mileage out of it, not any other kind of mileage. If I'm, if I learn something new, that's great. It's kind of rare for that to happen. Usually I, I kind of know the topics they're talking about, but if I do, that's fine. But it's really just an entertainment show. But so, so are TV newscasts, those are also entertainment shows. So is every other pundit on TV or radio or podcast that talks about stuff? It's entertainment and I think entertainment has been given way too high a status in the United States. Look at the way that people worship actors, the way they worship sports stars, athletes, these are all entertainers. Any, any sport that has spectators is an entertainment. You want to be. You want to actually participate in a sport with no audience, then you're not creating entertainment. You are actually engaging in sport activity. When you are watching somebody doing sports activities, they're entertaining you, you're getting entertainment out of it.

Ben 1:12:17

Fair enough, but that doesn't diminish the sport activity that the actual athlete is engaged in.

Gene 1:12:21

Well, what it depends on what you mean by diminish.

Ben 1:12:24

Well, it, it doesn't take it away from a purely, you know, yes, it becomes more entertainment, but it's still

Gene 1:12:33

There should be no higher value placed on the sports activities of a football player making 50 million a year than your kid's soccer game. They're both providing

Ben 1:12:45

my kids won't play soccer. I refuse to let them play that communist crap.

Gene 1:12:50

uhhuh,

Ben 1:12:51

Uhhuh

Gene 1:12:51

Just the most popular sports in the world, but, okay.

Ben 1:12:54

but Okay.

Gene 1:12:56

and, and I'm not a fan of soccer. You know, me. I, I like curling. That's my sport. Curling and biathlon. Those are the, the best sports. But nonetheless, it's just entertaining people. That's all it's doing. You're, you have more money going into professional sports because the risks are greater, at least perceived risks because the you're, you're, you're looking at top physical shape competitors playing against each other, and there's fewer of them, so you're willing to pay more money to be entertained by them.

Ben 1:13:33

And, you know, one of the things I'd say is with football in particular, what we have done with the way we have really what we've done with the protective gear, you know, I, I really think leather pads and the helmets were probably safer than what we have today. And the reason why I say that,

Gene 1:13:52

yeah. I think Ra Rugby's safer than football.

Ben 1:13:55

absolutely. And yet rugby is a bloodier, rougher sport. But the reason why is because in football gear in those pads, you can hurl yourself at full speed at someone else and really do some damage. Whereas with rugby or anything else, yeah, you're gonna get bloodier, but you're not gonna have the same level of energy exerted on you. It's like the same exact reason why bear bear knuckle boxing is less dangerous than love boxing.

Gene 1:14:23

Oh yeah, totally. Absolutely. Because you'll break your fingers before you can damage the other.

Ben 1:14:28

Exactly.

Gene 1:14:29

Yeah, totally. Yeah, gloves are, are more dangerous for sure. And I think people that have not done martial arts don't realize that they're, they're like, well, they're putting gloves on for safety. Well, I mean, safety of fingers. Sure. I've broken a number of my fingers doing martial arts stuff many years ago, but it, it's the, what you can do with gloves is hit a lot harder

Ben 1:14:54

Well, and

Gene 1:14:55

with just your bare fist.

Ben 1:14:57

well, and let, let's say this differently. You can hit just as hard with a glove, fist as a bare hand. However you're going to, if you hit as hard with a bare hand as you would with a glove hand, you're gonna shatter your hand. And, you know, yes, it's gonna do the same amount of damage, but the, the thing is, because you can do it without shattering your hand, what ends up happening is the concussions, the, the brain trauma, you know, and that, that, that's, I think, what we're getting at.

Gene 1:15:25

Yeah. Yeah. Having pads prevents injuries that are I, how do I say this? They're, they're, they're not external injuries, but they're basically localized injuries. Like if you have two guys with no padding that end up running into each other, they're probably gonna both damage each other's shoulders.

Ben 1:15:42

Mm-hmm.

Gene 1:15:43

Right. They, they might break a clavicle or something. But they're gonna break that clavicle significantly, a slower velocity and energy level than they would if they're wearing pads. However, your brain is inside of a, a cage made up of your skull and the energy that you can put forth and speed and velocity in football with pads, it does not, you don't have pads on your brain, right? That's the one place you're not putting pads on, and that's gonna experience the full g forces of that head-to-head C.

Ben 1:16:24

Well, so your brain is suspended by, you know, a couple layers there, but Yeah, it's the, the problem is it kind of moves around It's not held tight. Yeah. So,

Gene 1:16:38

well, but it, but regardless, your brain is not meant to operate beyond several Gs. And in, in football with padding, you can prevent other injuries, but still have brain injuries happening because there is no pads on your brain. You can say, well, what about the helmet? That, that's a pad on the exterior, so you're preventing your skull from getting damaged, but the brain inside the skull is still experiencing the same G-force.

Ben 1:17:05

Mm-hmm.

Gene 1:17:07

And you know, it's, it's. The G forces that are specially susceptible to wet tissue, like your brain. It's, you know, your, your bones have a certain amount of rigidity and elasticity in them before they break. But soft organs, like your liver, your brain, they, they burst

Ben 1:17:35

Well, or they

Gene 1:17:36

they don't break.

Ben 1:17:37

and so on.

Gene 1:17:38

Yeah. But, you know, bruising is, that's not a good thing either. But potentially you're, you're just gonna have a you're gonna have liquid just coming out of you. You're, you're gonna have, well, in some ways, ways bruising is bursting, right? Yeah. No, seriously, if bruising is burst capillaries, that's what bruising

Ben 1:18:00

I understand. Huh?

Gene 1:18:02

So you're, you're, you're not able to withstand the psi that's generated in the course of a, a high velocity, high energy crash. But anyway I don't, I don't need to poo poo on football. A lot of people like it. I really don't care. I mean, I've gotten to a few football games. It's mildly enjoyable. It, it's

Ben 1:18:23

Football can be a very entertaining sport. And the reason why football is so popular in the United States,

Gene 1:18:28

though.

Ben 1:18:29

it is a, football is the ultimate and team tactics, right? It is very much a, the team has to work together. And B the other thing about it is that it's very, it, it lends itself to television very well, given the current set of rules. You

Gene 1:18:45

almost like it's tailor made for television.

Ben 1:18:46

Yeah. That said, I've always enjoyed en enjoyed baseball a little more. But, you know, baseball's the only place where the defensive the premier defensive player is the, the alpha male badass. Right.

Gene 1:19:02

Mm-hmm.

Ben 1:19:03

Versus for football, the quarterback, it's all offense. Well, yeah,

Gene 1:19:07

Yeah. Yeah. And football. I mean, baseball's got some problems. Like it's a full day event.

Ben 1:19:13

yeah, but that's not a bad thing.

Gene 1:19:16

Why Mr. Oh, some of us have a life. Okay,

Ben 1:19:19

Yeah. But I, I have a life that includes baseball. That's all I'm saying.

Gene 1:19:23

Well that's, that's probably why you can't be listening to podcasts cuz you're taking all your

Ben 1:19:27

says, the guy who listens to Tim Pool's five hours of content today.

Gene 1:19:32

I don't listen to the whole five hours.

Ben 1:19:34

Huh by the way, the way he's doing his morning segments and breaking things up is getting annoying.

Gene 1:19:39

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know you said that. I think it's easier for him to do it that way and it has less repetition. You have to admit that. I don't know if you watch any of'em now, but. His previous prerecorded canned stuff has about 10 minutes of content for a half hour episode because he basically repeats everything three times when he's doing it live like this. And it's a live read he doesn't tend to repeat himself nearly as much.

Ben 1:20:06

Okay.

Gene 1:20:07

I'm kind of curious to see if they got footage from Saturday or already available or not, cuz they did. Tim went to a skate park on

Ben 1:20:13

Yeah. Did he survive? Was there any drama?

Gene 1:20:15

Oh, I haven't heard that. He's dead, so I'm assuming he's arrived. But, but he was making fun of both Luke and the idiot guy because neither one of'em wanted to get up early enough to go to a 10:00 AM event.

Ben 1:20:26

Yeah. And I think you're talking about Ian.

Gene 1:20:29

Yeah, yeah. Ian's the idiot guy, but but yeah, like to both Luke and Ian, 10:00 AM was just way too early.

Ben 1:20:37

Yeah. They, they, they're kind of in your vein.

Gene 1:20:40

Uhhuh

Ben 1:20:41

Uhhuh.

Gene 1:20:42

hippie slacker vein.

Ben 1:20:44

yeah. Yeah.

Gene 1:20:45

Yeah, probably.

Ben 1:20:47

Did you get your B four Duran yet?

Gene 1:20:49

I, I put one in and then they, and then they needed to put you in, punch you in a credit card and I kind of forgot about it. Um mm-hmm.

Ben 1:20:59

Yeah.

Gene 1:21:01

I need to do that. I've been buying beef just at the grocery store and I need to start switching to a better source of beef

Ben 1:21:07

Well, you know what? I'd say cheaper. Well, it depends. So grocery store. Grocery store. If you're getting, if you're catching the sales, if you're actually shopping the way most people should and you show up smartly, then you know, hey. But being able to support a relatively, especially to you local farmer, you know, that has its own benefits.

Gene 1:21:28

Yeah. Yeah. And as long as it tastes good,

Ben 1:21:32

Oh,

Gene 1:21:33

assume it will.

Ben 1:21:34

yes. It, it will taste better than your general off-the-shelf beef.

Gene 1:21:39

Yeah. Hey totally unrelated. So our buddy Josh looks like he's finally got all his gear to do his podcast.

Ben 1:21:46

Yeah. They were doing a test run the other day, had some problems, but they're doing a

Gene 1:21:50

Yeah, but I mean, I think they're just about there. What the hell do, does he have a name yet or not?

Ben 1:21:55

I, I don't know. I haven't talked to him. I just saw the same thing you saw

Gene 1:21:58

Oh, okay. I think he mentioned the name in it, but I didn't remember what it was. So, Hey, just a shout out to Josh. We'll definitely let folks know when you get going. Josh is the I don't know what his official title is, but I think he's the no agenda historian or something like that. But his, his big thing is he's been getting his degree in history and is this his master's or bachelor? I don't even know.

Ben 1:22:21

Bachelor's, I believe.

Gene 1:22:22

Okay. So, but he is not a kid. He's like, you know, normal age. And he has just been totally fascinated with the history of all kinds. So anytime I run across something historic related, I always forward it to him either out of like, Hey, what do you think of this? Or just, you know, you may enjoy this. I have no idea But I, I definitely am looking forward to hearing their podcast episodes. I'm assuming it'll have a lot of talk about history, although I don't know who the other guy is, although I've already started making fun of the other guy.

Ben 1:23:00

Okay. I don't know the other guy. I

Gene 1:23:03

you listen to their clip at all, or not?

Ben 1:23:04

I, I listened to parts of it.

Gene 1:23:06

Okay. So here's why I made fun of him, is the, the other guy, clearly a white dude is using a lot of the, you know, the, the hip hop slang, Let's just say it's very urban sounding. So I asked Josh, yeah, so, you know, where is this, where do you know you're black buddy from? And Josh like, what? No, he's white. I'm like, oh. So he is doing cultural appropriations. I get it.

Ben 1:23:32

Yep.

Gene 1:23:32

And then I posted a video of a example of a white dude doing cultural appropriations, which was pretty fucking hilarious. I have to say, I laughed myself pretty hard.

Ben 1:23:43

A a as you tend to do. Yes.

Gene 1:23:44

I entertain myself, so. Well, I'm telling you, dude, there's not many other people that can entertain me as well as I can.

Ben 1:23:50

Oh, so many comments. So, little time.

Gene 1:23:55

I'm self-aware.

Ben 1:23:57

Uhhuh.

Gene 1:23:58

Let's see what else going on? Oh, you, you, so you talked about your car while I was gone. Right.

Ben 1:24:02

Yeah. Yeah. Some It's just, I'm sorry.

Gene 1:24:06

Did you buy one?

Ben 1:24:07

No, not yet. Still looking. Still trying to

Gene 1:24:09

I did look up your car that you were talking about,

Ben 1:24:13

I'm sorry.

Gene 1:24:13

the CR CRX or whatever.

Ben 1:24:15

Yeah, yeah,

Gene 1:24:17

So that should be$22,000.

Ben 1:24:20

yeah. Easily.

Gene 1:24:21

Yeah. According to Kelly Blue Book.

Ben 1:24:24

Well, I mean, places are raking you over the coals. I mean, places that are still trying to push over MSRP on new cars, and that's just.

Gene 1:24:33

fucking insane. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. And Ford, I think is one of the companies that's really kind of pushing back on that. They're basically have used I'm paraphrasing here, but basically they've compiled information on which dealerships are selling over M S R P and are only offering their electric vehicles to dealerships that are not selling over m s.

Ben 1:24:59

Huh.

Gene 1:24:59

they're severely limiting the distribution of their electric vehicles to the company or to the dealerships that are selling over M S R P, just to make it more painful for them to do that. And I get it. I mean, a dealership is taking a short term gain and thinking there's no long term consequence for it, but I think

Ben 1:25:21

I think Ford

Gene 1:25:22

they get one.

Ben 1:25:23

yeah. Ford's really pushing back on some things that I tend to agree with you on.

Gene 1:25:28

Well, Ford makes its money on volume

Ben 1:25:31

yes.

Gene 1:25:32

and higher prices at the dealer means less volume.

Ben 1:25:36

Well, you know, Ford has used its popularity of like the F-150 and so on to really drive, and, you know, part of the reason why I even own a Ford at this point was because of the 2008 stuff. You know, I, I, I

Gene 1:25:52

what was the car you traded in in 2008?

Ben 1:25:54

Huh?

Gene 1:25:56

Did you trade something in, in 2008.

Ben 1:25:57

Later 2013 is when I was

Gene 1:26:01

did Obama have all his, all his Obama buyback programs, which were stupid as hell.

Ben 1:26:06

Yeah. That was right after cash for clunkers.

Gene 1:26:09

Yeah. Yeah. So many good cars got killed then.

Ben 1:26:14

Part of the reason why we have the yeah. Part of the reason why we have the issue we have today.

Gene 1:26:19

Mm-hmm. Yeah, somebody, I, I don't know if this was sufficiently confirmed or not, but I, I've had several people tell me that now more BMWs are made in the US and Germany right now.

Ben 1:26:30

Yeah. The, there there was one, so ironically enough, the, the book talks about that. There, there are lots of analysts out there including you know, the guy you don't like here who basically have flat out said that Germany's never gonna bounce back from this,

Gene 1:26:48

Yeah. Who do I not like? I

Ben 1:26:50

shut down.

Gene 1:26:51

talking about?

Ben 1:26:52

I'm sorry,

Gene 1:26:53

Who do I not like?

Ben 1:26:54

Peter Zhan.

Gene 1:26:56

I don't dislike, I'm, I'm just suspicious of'em.

Ben 1:26:59

Oh, I am too. But I'm just telling you, he agrees with that analysis that, you know, Germany's done that they, because so much of their manufacturing base basically shut down over the Ukraine thing.

Gene 1:27:11

Yep.

Ben 1:27:13

Yeah. Which

Gene 1:27:14

eed out covid, but they, they couldn't survive Ukraine.

Ben 1:27:17

Yeah. And by the way, the addendums to this book are interesting. So he's published several addendums and hey, you know, when he was publishing this book, that was right at the beginning of the year when Russia invaded Ukraine. So he has very little in there and then he's got some addendums that, hey, this is the change, as it were

Gene 1:27:38

Got it. Okay. And then do those make sense? They're rational.

Ben 1:27:43

to a large extent.

Gene 1:27:44

Okay.

Ben 1:27:45

Yeah, again, there's a lot of his analysis that I think is good but I don't know that I agree with the conclusions he draws from it.

Gene 1:27:55

yeah, yeah. It's it is interesting. I think the biggest, the biggest factor for me is just how much benefit all the military contractors are getting right now in having real world field testing of their weaponry.

Ben 1:28:11

Well, there, there's some danger in that though too, right?

Gene 1:28:16

No, not at all. Because those weapons are already sold, and if there's some deficiencies that are discovered as a result of this, it'll be a great opportunity to sell version two.

Ben 1:28:27

Hmm.

Gene 1:28:27

And if you don't have version two, well then you're just fucked. It's not like they have to fix shit like a software developer for free. Once you've bought the weapon, if there's a, you know, the, the counter to that weapon ends up working really well, making that weapon not horribly useful. You don't give any money back. You don't give free updates. You sell version two and somebody will buy your shit twice.

Ben 1:28:57

the

Gene 1:28:57

it's a win-win for

Ben 1:28:58

design that I think you and I both think pretty poorly of. You know, the, the interesting thing is these drones that the Russians are using from Iran apparently is enough to, they're cheap enough that you can just overwhelm the battery.

Gene 1:29:14

yeah, yeah, yeah. But they're not, they're, that's a misnomer. They keep saying Iranian drones. These are not Iranian drones. These are Russian drones that have a different profile. If you're actually look at'em, they, they are very similar to the Iranian drones, but they're not actually Iranian drones. And both Russia and Iran have said this numerous times, but the US officials and media keep referring to them as Iranian drones. It's almost like somebody wants to just drag Iran into the Ukraine conflict, whether they are in it or not. I don't know. I mean, it's just bizarre. It's a crazy situation. the UK just did a shipment of of their their mobile howitzers. I don't know what the model number of those things is, but they're basically British mobile haitz. So I like everybody that can, every country that manufactures a military product either already has or is really itching to get their product into the. To get some of that real war testing because you, there's no downside. If your product does well, that's a great marketing. If it does poorly, it's an opportunity to sell version 2.0. So everybody's sending test samples to Ukraine for the theater.

Ben 1:30:33

Which is hilarious and ironic all at the same

Gene 1:30:37

and horrible because real people are getting killed. And I, I, I think that like 20, 30 years down the road, this will be reframed as the slavi war or the slavi civil war because

Ben 1:30:51

is, yeah,

Gene 1:30:53

it's literally what Germany wanted. Germany wanted Ukraine

Ben 1:30:59

is a strong word.

Gene 1:31:01

they were achieving it as well, but they definitely wanted it in World War ii. Not right now, I'm saying, but in World War II, Germany absolutely was trying to get Ukraine to be the southern attack flank against Russia. Like they were trying to rekindle those nationalistic ideals in that part of Russia in order to get them to turn against Russia and, and join with the, and then, and this is literally their hero to today. Was the primary German collaborator at the during World War ii. And this is in fact one of the, one of the things that I was shocked at how much Poland seems to be ignoring this because he was adamantly anti polish. And and at the time, of course, Germany had already conquered Poland when when they were trying to figure out a way to utilize Ukraine to you know, to, to be buddy buddy with,

Ben 1:32:02

Well, I don't know. I think the Ukraine war, the way it's going, I think the Russians have definitely lost more soldiers than they want to admit to. But I don't believe that the Ukrainians have lost as few as they claim to. So,

Gene 1:32:16

Yeah, maybe but you gotta remember, there's, there's quite a few mercenary units working on the Russian side as well.

Ben 1:32:23

okay.

Gene 1:32:25

the official Russian numbers of 16,000 dead at this point represent the Russian military deaths. They don't represent anybody in the mercenary units or in the. The republic's militaries that have been fighting the Ukrainian government since 2014.

Ben 1:32:51

Hmm. So

Gene 1:32:51

those are

Ben 1:32:52

their numbers only include proper Russian

Gene 1:32:55

That's what they've said. Their numbers only include. Yeah. So 16,000 actual Russian Army soldiers.

Ben 1:33:07

Then that may be actually something that's, you know, close enough to the truth.

Gene 1:33:12

There may be twice that number or even more total dead, but that would represent people that are not in the Russian Army because they're either in one of the former Ukrainian Republic National Guards, or if they're part of the the private military contractors or like the Chechens, like the Chechen numbers are not included in those Russian deaths.

Ben 1:33:40

Hmm.

Gene 1:33:40

And I don't think the Chechens make their numbers public.

Ben 1:33:43

Yeah. And you know, the Chinese don't make their demographic numbers public either, which is interesting.

Gene 1:33:50

Okay. But either way,

Ben 1:33:53

I'm, I'm saying that these governments keeping, anyway, go ahead.

Gene 1:33:57

Yeah, but I, I'm just saying that I think there probably are certainly more dead fighting on the side of Russia than the 16,000, but I do think 16,000 is a reasonable number of actual Russian Army soldiers dead given where we are. But Ukraine's estimate of 200,000 Russians dead is absurd. And I think two, you're right. And the Ukrainian's own estimate of their own only 20,000 dead. It's also absurd because they don't have nearly as many mercenaries working for them. They, they will soon because they're running out of actual Ukrainian men.

Ben 1:34:38

Well, all I can say is there are spec ops from the US in there right now that are doing various things,

Gene 1:34:47

yeah, yeah, yeah. And, and incidentally you can buy, this is a little morbid but you could buy war trophies on both sides. If you go to eBay, you can actually buy Russian soldier what would you call'em? Patches. You can buy Mozart or sorry, wag Wagner group patches. You can buy a number of different patches that have been cut off of dead soldiers.

Ben 1:35:13

Yeah, that is a little bit morbid.

Gene 1:35:14

a little bit, but it's like 160 bucks. I checked into it. It's not that expensive actually.

Ben 1:35:21

you're wanting one.

Gene 1:35:22

No, no, no. I mean, I I already got one that's not used, but,

Ben 1:35:28

I'm surprised you wouldn't want the, the Ukrainian one.

Gene 1:35:31

right. But that's the thing, right? So on the Russian version of eBay you can actually buy the Ukrainian ones.

Ben 1:35:38

Hmm.

Gene 1:35:38

like, they're both doing the same thing. They're, they're profiteering from not just the war, but deaths in the war. And there are certainly collectors for that kind of stuff. You know, there's, there was a lot of people in the US after World War II that had both German or

Ben 1:35:55

Japanese.

Gene 1:35:56

Japanese stuff. I, I know Adam's got some souvenirs from his grandfather

Ben 1:36:01

Yeah. I've got a Japanese bayonet from my grandfather.

Gene 1:36:03

yeah. Yeah. So I don't think there's anything,

Ben 1:36:08

he ga he captured it in Korea.

Gene 1:36:10

did he? Yeah,

Ben 1:36:11

Yeah. So the Chinese, when the Japanese left and the Chinese handed over a lot of the captured like Ara Sakas and things like that to the North Koreans.

Gene 1:36:22

Yeah. I, I honestly, I think it's kind of interesting, but I've never had any kind of desire for old shit like that. I just, I prefer modern stuff. one thing that I will say, you gotta, you gotta, no matter how bad they are, right? You gotta admit the fucking design on all Nazi shit was just next level. Like, their uniforms were done by Hugo Boss, they were gorgeously done, they were tailored, they were very nice. The the what'd you say?

Ben 1:36:54

The

Gene 1:36:54

Luer? Yeah. Luer beautiful firearm. The Mouthers.

Ben 1:36:58

a firearm.

Gene 1:37:00

Yeah, absolutely. The, the Mouser great rifle. The the, not the Binance, but like the actual Ss what do you call those knives? The they're like ceremonial daggers. The SS officers had some of the prettiest knife designs you've seen. Like, that's the thing is it's, it's not technically prop propaganda, but it's all kind of tied into it because having really well done nationalist symbols like that, uniforms, weaponry, et cetera, is utilized as part of propaganda. Now imagine if the Nazi uniforms look more, more like the uh, banana dictator republic types, you know, the green green stuffed shoulder looking. Uniforms with a giant hat and you know, more like the Italian ones actually. What am I saying? Banana Republic, the Italian uniforms looked a lot more like that, if you'll remember the Italian uniforms during World War ii, and I think there's like no contests there. Out of all the nations, including both Axis and Allies of World War II uniforms, the German uniforms and the the German paraphernalia were the best looking. Would you agree or disagree?

Ben 1:38:17

sure. I, I, I don't, I, I'm not as worried

Gene 1:38:21

think, think to the uniforms. Well, I am, I mean, if you look at the fashion that, that was worn by the British soldiers versus the Russian soldiers versus the American soldiers and the Japanese soldiers, the Chinese soldiers and then you compare that to the Germans, it's like, Jesus Christ, it's night and may.

Ben 1:38:40

okay?

Gene 1:38:40

So I'm just saying that, you know, there's, if you can, if you can make your your military look good, it gives you bonus points to the propaganda and I it, and in this country, the only guys that really have been using that, as far as I can tell, is the Marines. If you see commercials for the Marine Corps they're always wearing. They're black jacket, white pants full dress uniforms, and look sharp, you know, act sharp, be sharp. It like that goes a long way. And then you see the commercial for the US Army, and it's, it's, it's you know, a five foot three woman who was raised by two moms. That doesn't instill a lot of, a lot of confidence or a lot of patriotism

Ben 1:39:33

Yeah, why should it?

Gene 1:39:36

because it's a military, the military is supposed to do that because the, the pole point of showing your own military is propagandistic. And it's, it's to demonstrate the ability of the country to sufficiently protect itself and to encourage people that are capable of protecting the country to join that military. And I think the US is doing a shit, shit job for that right now.

Ben 1:40:02

Yeah, So, this

Gene 1:40:03

I don't know if

Ben 1:40:03

my, my analysis on the book and saying, controlled demolition,

Gene 1:40:08

mm-hmm.

Ben 1:40:10

a hundred percent controlled demolition.

Gene 1:40:13

Yeah. Yeah. A lot of these things are being dismantled. And I, I talked about this with Darren and I, I got my numbers a little bit wrong, but kind of right. Which is that the. The us I said it was the whole armed force. As it turns out, it was just the US Army. But the US Army is now at 470,000, I believe that is the, the active, the size of the US Army,

Ben 1:40:42

Yeah. The US military's traditionally been around 10% of the population at any given.

Gene 1:40:47

And so that's down by 30,000 since Biden took over.

Ben 1:40:55

Well, part of that's simply because of the mandates.

Gene 1:40:59

Sure. But it's not going up. The trend is in the downward direction. There, there are fewer people wanting to join the US military right now. Now, if you combine the, the other armed forces, it, it totals about a million, a little over a million, but just the US Army itself is down by about 30,000 in two years. And showing a trending in downward scale.

Ben 1:41:24

again, if you were, why would you want to join this military when you have you know, like Admiral Rachel Levine

Gene 1:41:34

Right?

Ben 1:41:34

literally being put out there as a representative,

Gene 1:41:39

Yeah. And they've got rid of, sir, they're, they're no more sirs in the army.

Ben 1:41:47

and you know, I, I always thought it was funny because I thought the way star Trek handled that was a much better

Gene 1:41:52

Everybody's a Sir. Uhhuh.

Ben 1:41:55

absolutely.

Gene 1:41:57

Yeah. I, I think, I think that was a star Trek Troopers did that too. I can't remember if that was before or after Star Trek. The, a few sci-fi shows have done that, where the, they handle anybody that's actual,

Ben 1:42:14

Troopers did it well, well

Gene 1:42:16

yeah. Yeah. Well, good point. Good point. Yes. But the idea of using SIR to report somebody that is of a higher rank than you, regardless of sex

Ben 1:42:28

I'm gonna have to look this up

Gene 1:42:29

whether Highland

Ben 1:42:30

I say that,

Gene 1:42:32

Yeah, yeah.

Ben 1:42:32

but when was the book published?

Gene 1:42:35

Oh, it was

Ben 1:42:36

no. Yeah, 59. Okay. Yeah. I'm, I'm good.

Gene 1:42:40

yeah.

Ben 1:42:40

Yep. The original story was 59, so,

Gene 1:42:43

Yeah. Because he had, yeah, I, I'm pretty sure that's in the book. It's been a while, but I'm pretty sure. So it's an interesting idea. I mean, I, I don't know. You gotta have

Ben 1:42:54

service guarantees citizenship.

Gene 1:42:56

Yeah, service energy censorship. And and that's been true of a lot of places. I mean, that was honestly, that was kind of true way, way back when of why a lot of pirates became privateers because it was a way to legitimize yourself when you no longer want to be a pirate.

Ben 1:43:17

Which by the way they the guy thinks that the days of privateers is coming back.

Gene 1:43:23

oh yeah. I, I agree. I mean, the large corporations are definitely in the rules, so why wouldn't you have large corporations be creating their own private militaries, which you would do?

Ben 1:43:38

Well, I mean, essentially they're going to have to, but one of his arguments is that the only nations that will still have international commerce

Gene 1:43:47

Yeah. Yeah. US and

Ben 1:43:49

is those that can actually convoy their ships.

Gene 1:43:51

But I think that's bullshit. I, I think that's completely missing the point because he's assuming that there's trade between North America and Asia.

Ben 1:44:01

Well, he, the, he, yes, because Australia and Japan,

Gene 1:44:05

and here's what I would say is that, and I, this is where I definitely differ from him, but I think also from some other folks, is that they keep forgetting that. Europe and Africa are connected by railroad,

Ben 1:44:22

Yes, but

Gene 1:44:23

been working on

Ben 1:44:24

he actually addresses that. He, he actually addresses that

Gene 1:44:28

Well, he can address it, but he clearly doesn't give it much merit.

Ben 1:44:31

No, because it can be easily taken out.

Gene 1:44:34

But he can't, I mean, that's a ridiculous thing to say. Can be easily taking out. I mean, that taking out railroad when you're not at war, when you're simply not friendly leads to war You know, it's one thing when you are fighting in active warfare like Ukraine and Russia, then they can bomb each other's railroads. And that's expected.

Ben 1:44:57

yeah.

Gene 1:44:58

But when you're just simply in dayan,

Ben 1:45:00

war. He's expecting war to break out.

Gene 1:45:02

but, but that won't last long because nukes absolutely will be used. I

Ben 1:45:07

Oh,

Gene 1:45:08

it's hard enough to imagine in a conflict like we have right now that nukes won't, I'd say we're at a 50 50 right now. There's a 50% chance that before the conclusion of Ukrainian war, nuclear weapons will be used.

Ben 1:45:21

by who?

Gene 1:45:23

well the, it doesn't matter because it's the end of civilization. It's a, it's, it's a superpower. Fighting a superpower. They're obviously going to be used and then retaliated, and that means the end of everything. I, I'd say we're a 50 50 chance

Ben 1:45:36

is not. It's just a proxy war. So,

Gene 1:45:40

That's why it's 50 50 and not 99%.

Ben 1:45:43

Fair enough.

Gene 1:45:44

But if that happens with China, China is a lot more likely to use nuclear weapons than Russia is. China has less be because China unlike Russia, is not part of Western culture.

Ben 1:46:00

Well, and even though, well, Russia is not super part of Western culture,

Gene 1:46:08

Oh, it absolutely is.

Ben 1:46:10

sits on the dividing line, man,

Gene 1:46:12

no, not really. Russia. Russia has been part of western culture since what was it, 17 17, 10 or so. I can't remember the exact date. But effectively, the ruling class of Russia, the sars not only did they take German brides, but the official court language was French. Russia was extremely uro, fillic. It, it was emulating everything that it could from Europe. The relationships with European countries were considered to be more important than relationships with parts of Russia, especially the far east parts of Russia. It was, it was only interrupted when the communists came to power. And it was interrupted, not by Russia, but by the non-communist Western countries being afraid that this will spill over, this revolution will spill over into them. And so for a majority of its, well, I can't say majority because that would be incorrect, but for a good chunk of its history, let's say it this way, for longer than the United States has been a country Russia had been extremely close to Europe and very much wanting to be European.

Ben 1:47:36

Mm-hmm.

Gene 1:47:37

It's part of the reason the Capitol was moved to St. Petersburg was to be closer to Europe, to, to have a lot more trade going on with

Ben 1:47:49

say there is Russia still has, and the point that I was kind of making is that the Asians, and I would say the Russians are included in this value life very differently than the Western Europeans.

Gene 1:47:59

Yes. Yeah, I agree with you on that. And this is this is where China values it the least. Russia less than the West, but a little more in China. And Europe generally values it the most. The United States is probably somewhere between Russia and Europe.

Ben 1:48:19

Mm,

Gene 1:48:19

ambivalent about life than Europe

Ben 1:48:21

well, let, let me say this.

Gene 1:48:23

abortion,

Ben 1:48:24

we're more ambivalent about other people's lives, not our own I think we value our

Gene 1:48:28

but also, well, I don't know about that. I mean, we, like European countries have instantly as soon as they get into a conflict along with the us like look back at Iran, Iraq, all that shit or Iraq Afghanistan, rather they instantly have a sizable percentage of the population demonstrating that they need to get out of these wars. This is a US war that we can't have our people dying or for these US reasons. This, there, there's a strong pushback within these countries enough to change election results. The US does not have that. The US is willing to be involved in the wars. The last war that actually had any political impact in the US was the Vietnam War.

Ben 1:49:11

oh, I don't know about that.

Gene 1:49:13

What do you, what do you think, which other conflicts since Vietnam has had a political impact?

Ben 1:49:18

Iraq?

Gene 1:49:20

I don't think it did. What, what impact do you think it had?

Ben 1:49:22

Well, a, I think it absolutely

Gene 1:49:26

We were in there for 16 years.

Ben 1:49:29

Yeah.

Gene 1:49:30

Yeah.

Ben 1:49:31

I, I So when you say

Gene 1:49:32

Oh, positive impact. Okay. I thought you meant negative.

Ben 1:49:35

against it.

Gene 1:49:36

Yeah. Yeah. I'm like, people not wanting Americans to die like that doesn't happen. People don't demonstrate to have a, fewer Americans die in wars. Americans are okay with

Ben 1:49:46

yeah. So would, what I'm saying is the political, IM, hold on, hold on. What I'm saying is that the political impact was Bush's second term. The political impact was Bush being seen as a wartime president and you know, being seen as going after the people who hit us. I mean, that's the, that's what started Afghanistan and Iraq. I think they both had political involvement that kept an asshole in power that shouldn't have been in power.

Gene 1:50:14

Yeah, fair enough. So you're saying the positive impact was from being in the

Ben 1:50:18

Well, I wouldn't call it positive.

Gene 1:50:20

well, positive for him,

Ben 1:50:22

Yes.

Gene 1:50:24

Not, not, not for us. Positive for him. Impact of being in the war as a war president. Yeah. There's probably truth to that, but my, my point in saying that America is somewhere between Russia and Europe in terms of their tolerance to losing people in the war.

Ben 1:50:41

Yeah. Well, let me just say,

Gene 1:50:42

at. Maybe I just didn't say it right.

Ben 1:50:44

Had nine 11 not happened. Bush would've been a one-term president.

Gene 1:50:49

I think that depends who they ran against them. Who did they run originally against them?

Ben 1:50:53

What policies from the Bush era would've been implemented that would've made him popular?

Gene 1:51:00

It's not about what policies he had, it's about who they would've ran against him. Who, do you remember who ran against him that term? I can't remember. Carrie. Yeah. I don't think Carrie would've been elected.

Ben 1:51:12

Well, I don't think had, so, had Bush been as popular not as popular as he was, I think someone else would've run against him other than Carrie.

Gene 1:51:21

Fair enough. Yeah. Could be.

Ben 1:51:23

part of the reason why Carrie ended up being the opponent was because they needed a sacrificial lamb. Right?

Gene 1:51:29

Mm-hmm.

Ben 1:51:30

Much like, MIT Romney against

Gene 1:51:32

Biden won. Yeah. Yeah. MIT Romney. Yeah. I said kinda like Biden, except Biden won. Yeah, it's candidates like Romney were an absolute demonstration of the Union Party. You're absolutely right. The there it was a way for the, for the

Ben 1:51:50

versus Obama was a di demonstration of the uni party

Gene 1:51:54

totally, totally. But it was, it was a way for the Republicans to ensure loss.

Ben 1:52:00

Just, just so everyone is aware, I never, never voted for a Republican before the 2016 election. Never did it. I voted, I never voted for a Republican. I always voted Libertarian 2016 when you know, Johnson got up there and said, what is Aleppo And I had to just be like, man, you smoked too much pot. Yeah.

Gene 1:52:26

Yeah.

Ben 1:52:27

I, I was hopeful that McAfee would've been the nominee for the for the libertarians in 2016. In fact, I even had his M 16 campaign shirt.

Gene 1:52:37

Nice. Nice. Yeah. I That would've been fun. He's a crazy fucker. But that would've been fun. I, at least I got to have drinks with a guy at least. I mean, that was one good thing before they killed him.

Ben 1:52:50

Did they?

Gene 1:52:52

Oh, you think he's still alive?

Ben 1:52:53

I don't know,

Gene 1:52:54

That's your two options. He's still alive or they killed him?

Ben 1:52:57

It, I agree with you, but I don't know if he's alive or not. You know, he, I, if you're me, I mean, he's the kind of guy who would fake his own death

Gene 1:53:06

Fake his on

Ben 1:53:06

and bribe the right people to do it.

Gene 1:53:09

I don't know about that because I think he's also too much of a, a big mouth. He just likes, he likes people to know how awesome and crazy he is.

Ben 1:53:18

Yeah. Well, didn't they

Gene 1:53:18

he's not a living under Iraq for years kind of guy. He's not, you know, he doesn't wanna live the life of Osama Bin Laden, you know, in, in

Ben 1:53:28

do you, do you think Osama bin Laden's dead

Gene 1:53:31

Oh, no, he's in Hawaii. Yeah, he's living in Hawaii.

Ben 1:53:36

Yeah.

Gene 1:53:36

yeah. It, it's Kauai is an interesting place. It's it, it almost seems to be not like a state, it's almost like a US territory,

Ben 1:53:47

Well, and there's

Gene 1:53:48

which of course it was illegally made a state because the people of Hawaii never actually got to vote.

Ben 1:53:53

yeah, there, there's a lot of stuff between the islands even. So the islands, I didn't really realize this cuz I'm not from Hawaii, but I've kind of gotten a history lesson on this because of a project I'm working on. But several of the islands were not unified. They were independent, they were not conquered. So there's that. And then yeah, Hawaiians are fiercely protective of, you know, the nativist mentality. So much so that a Hawaiian owned business is a special classification of a eight for the US government. So if you're a eight s are minority owned businesses, which give you an a, a bidding advantage when things are going out for competitive bid for the US government. Hawaiian, a eight s. Hawaiian owned businesses, certified Hawaiian owned businesses, literally can no contest go to the procuring officer up to a hundred million and say mine.

Gene 1:54:48

So I'm gonna connect you with a guy that I just had a conversation with that used to do that in Hawaii.

Ben 1:54:57

Mm-hmm.

Gene 1:54:57

He used to set up minority owned businesses for government contract procurement.

Ben 1:55:03

Mm-hmm.

Gene 1:55:05

Interesting character. He's got a a top secret clearance

Ben 1:55:09

Mm-hmm.

Gene 1:55:10

and he used to be used to be on a nuclear sub. I can't remember what he did on it, but that's a, there's a very few people, it's a small number of people that can say they served aboard a nuke,

Ben 1:55:27

Yeah. Well, I mean, they're a, aren't that many of'em, and B, their cruiser not exactly like an aircraft carrier.

Gene 1:55:33

right? Yep. But yeah, I'll, I'll I'll connect you. He might be a fun guy to have on the podcast too. I need to ask him about that as well. But if nothing else, I think you guys have a interesting conversation.

Ben 1:55:45

Okay.

Gene 1:55:46

he's basically retired at this point, but that's what, like he did a lot of, he was on the government side for. Processing those minority contracts. And then he went flipped around to be on the private sector side

Ben 1:56:03

Mm-hmm.

Gene 1:56:04

and then to help companies get those contracts. And then he also had his own company that did that.

Ben 1:56:11

Yeah. So I, I hate the way government contracts work personally. It's just anathema to me and, you know, evil empire shit, but whatever.

Gene 1:56:23

Yep. No, it, it's, it is true

Ben 1:56:27

So I I'm gonna recommend something to you

Gene 1:56:31

another

Ben 1:56:31

then we can kind of close it out. So the, the cross breed holster that I just dropped in the chat that's fairly comfortable

Gene 1:56:40

Okay.

Ben 1:56:41

because it's a, a leather back and then a Kit X front, so it's kind of half and half but not as

Gene 1:56:47

in the pants or out of the pants? In the pants or out of the pants.

Ben 1:56:52

Well, they have, they have both. I'm inside the waistband.

Gene 1:56:55

Mm-hmm.

Ben 1:56:57

But the one that I'm, I, so I just ordered two different holsters for the gun that we got. The tier one conceal carry is my favorite that I've found thus far. But they're expensive and they have a long lead time. So,

Gene 1:57:10

And why do you like that one?

Ben 1:57:11

The cons, the, the tier one,

Gene 1:57:14

Yeah. I don't see that listed here, by the way.

Ben 1:57:17

I, I, I, it's a second link I sent you.

Gene 1:57:20

Oh, okay. Mm-hmm.

Ben 1:57:38

also the wing that the one clip is on has some shot cord on it, so it kind of flexes to conform to your body more. And it's just one of the more you can select colors.

Gene 1:57:48

Okay, good. I was gonna say, why the hell would you want an orange

Ben 1:57:51

yeah. Draw attention. No.

Gene 1:57:53

Yeah.

Ben 1:57:54

Yeah. So another funny little story when we were out looking for the cars gene,

Gene 1:58:00

Hmm.

Ben 1:58:01

I walk inside one of the dealerships. So we went to a bunch of dealerships, only one of'em had any signage. And when I walked in, I was, and sat down and was talking to the guy. I looked over and I saw the sign at the door, and I was shocked because how did I miss that? Well, we walked back out, walked back in, and it's because they have the window tinted and they're 30 odd six sign, which is ironic you know, was tinted and to the point where totally not a legal sign. And again, 36 only applies to licensed ca licensed carry carriers. You know, if you're constitutional carrying, it doesn't apply.

Gene 1:58:36

Hmm. Got it.

Ben 1:58:38

anyway, just interesting tidbit there.

Gene 1:58:41

Yeah, no, that, that is that is interesting. Are you gonna do any mods to that gun?

Ben 1:58:44

What do you mean?

Gene 1:58:45

Are you gonna change any parts out? Have you started looking at what's available yet? Any

Ben 1:58:50

I've, I've looked at a couple things. First of all, I'm gonna get it and see how it shoots and we'll start from there. And then, you know, I may, so I'm not ever gonna modify the trigger on a carry gun. You know, it's just not something I'm gonna do, so,

Gene 1:59:04

I was I, I think I may replace the barrel with a threaded barrel.

Ben 1:59:09

okay.

Gene 1:59:11

I dunno. We'll see.

Ben 1:59:12

I mean, the barrels are pro prolific enough of a part, you know? There's nothing, I mean, there's lots of accessories for this gun available out

Gene 1:59:23

No. Yeah. Yeah. Springfield's probably second only to Glock in terms of volume of stuff's available. And I don't, Glock may have even surpassed 19 elevens at this point. Back when I first got in Glocks in the early nineties, 1911 was still very much leading by a long shot. Like people were still making, making fun of plastic guns.

Ben 1:59:46

well, I mean, shit you know, Wilson Combat basically built their business on 1911 parts.

Gene 1:59:51

Mm-hmm.

Ben 1:59:53

Yeah. The problem with the 1911 though, is everything has to be machined and fitted to the gun. Right. It's not a modular gun. You cannot take 1911 parts and just drop'em in and it fit.

Gene 2:00:05

Right.

Ben 2:00:06

So

Gene 2:00:07

Yeah. And Springfield actually makes a very nice 1911 if, if you want to go for that, but don't want to pay two grand for a custom, custom one. You can get

Ben 2:00:16

yeah, I mean,

Gene 2:00:17

Springfield 1911 as well.

Ben 2:00:18

I, I mean, you can get a Kimber Kimber Customs fairly basic one, but you can still get a Kimber Customs for 800 bucks

Gene 2:00:26

Yeah. Yeah. I, I'd still probably get the Springfield one over the Kimber, but yeah,

Ben 2:00:32

What's wrong with Kimber? Kimber has been an

Gene 2:00:34

Kimber's. I know a number of people that have had'em. And again, back in the day most people were shooting 1911 stall guns. I've just had too many jams in Kimber guns.

Ben 2:00:43

huh? So a buddy of mine. He is, he likes Kimber so much. His daughter, when she was born, he named

Gene 2:00:50

named her Kimber. That's fucked up. But okay. I mean, I guess that's one of the benefits you can do when you have a kid and your wife doesn't care.

Ben 2:01:01

Yeah.

Gene 2:01:02

Just come up with your own name. There was something you said that we should talk about last night. I, I've, I think I texted you something. He was like, let's talk about this tomorrow. What the hell was it?

Ben 2:01:13

I, I know there's one topic I said we didn't want to talk about.

Gene 2:01:15

I don't know what that is, but it wasn't hydrogen. Oh. The MIS universe is

Ben 2:01:20

Oh, yes,

Gene 2:01:22

owned by a trans woman.

Ben 2:01:27

Who has a very masculine voice?

Gene 2:01:29

who doesn't, he is basically a transvestite, not a transsexual, as far as I can tell.

Ben 2:01:34

Did you have the clip? I said, have the clip ready?

Gene 2:01:36

oh. Is that what you said? Have the clip. I've got the clip.

Ben 2:01:39

Have that clip for the show tomorrow,

Gene 2:01:41

oh, okay. I wonder if I can play it. Let me

Ben 2:01:44

because I think that'd be worth playing.

Gene 2:01:46

We'll, we'll know whether or not it's playable and you tell me if you can hear it,

Ben 2:01:50

Huh.

Gene 2:01:51

then it's gonna be playable, but I have to find it here real quick. And I just need to do this, I think, and then let's see if you can hear this.

Ben 2:02:04

Okay. I hear nothing.

Gene 2:02:06

You hear nothing? Okay. Let me try it a different way.

Ben 2:02:11

Audio routing issues.

Gene 2:02:12

I, it's not issues, dude. It's just that every time I do this, it's with a, it's a different setup. It's not like I have, like, I could just set up a virtual machine and just do all my audio in one box for everything. But I do other things on this computer, so I'm always switching back and forth. I don't like wearing headphones, so when we record this, I'm wearing headphones when I'm working, playing a video game, getting on a Zoom call or something. I'm not wearing headphones, so I, I switch

Ben 2:02:46

interesting cuz Zoom calls, I used my audio setup and I did wear headphones, but new company uses teams. And teams Does not like the MO too.

Gene 2:02:56

Really? What's it do?

Ben 2:02:58

yeah. But the the backup mic, the Yeti it works fine.

Gene 2:03:03

Huh? So what, what does it what does it do

Ben 2:03:08

What do you mean

Gene 2:03:10

well, you said it doesn't like the motu. In what way does it not like the motu?

Ben 2:03:14

it does not work with the MO two? Because the MO two has multiple channels and it doesn't know how to handle multiple channels.

Gene 2:03:22

Oh.

Ben 2:03:24

So when you select the mic and so on, it just says the mic is not working correctly and

Gene 2:03:28

Oh, does you, did I not send you the registry hack for the motu?

Ben 2:03:33

You, you did,

Gene 2:03:34

Okay.

Ben 2:03:35

And I

Gene 2:03:35

And it's still not working.

Ben 2:03:37

Yeah.

Gene 2:03:37

Okay. Because it, the, the hack just creates a bunch of discreet ports,

Ben 2:03:43

yes, I

Gene 2:03:44

app should be able to use any of those. But it's not, it's not doing it. You're putting it

Ben 2:03:50

does not like this. This is a known, documented issue, and it's not just it's, it's basically a lot of, any multi-channel external audio interface teams has a issue

Gene 2:03:59

Well, I get it. But, but there's the one dash 24 mo two interface connection, and then there's the, each individual, like out seven, eight out nine, 10. Yeah. So it just, it doesn't like the pairs either. That's strange.

Ben 2:04:16

Correct.

Gene 2:04:17

Hmm. So,

Ben 2:04:19

this issue on my Company laptop as well with teams, and I have it on my personal laptop with teams where I have the registry edit in place.

Gene 2:04:29

Hmm. Interesting. Well, okay, let me try one more thing to try and play this audio. I need to download it again, even though I upload it. Okay. So now I know which one it is. Let me stick in here, see if this comes through. Nothing. Right. Why isn't that

Ben 2:04:50

the, the whole point is that this trans person who now owns Miss Universe says that it is Miss Universe is for all women to embrace their femininity and the power of femininity and so on, right? And it's literally a dude. So,

Gene 2:05:04

Yeah. I mean, to be fair, the, the voice is very dudeish. The, the, the way that he, she looks is a lot more feminine than the way he, she sounds.

Ben 2:05:18

let's see if I can do it this way. And you can hear it. And the fact that the crowd just fawns

Gene 2:05:49

Oh yeah,

Ben 2:05:50

just,

Gene 2:05:51

It, it's, it's basically the voice is a typical Asian male voice

Ben 2:05:57

Mm-hmm.

Gene 2:05:59

standard

Ben 2:06:00

very ladyboy. Ask here.

Gene 2:06:02

Yeah. Not even, I've heard much better lady boy voices in this.

Ben 2:06:06

Okay. I wouldn't know to

Gene 2:06:08

I knew that was coming. I knew that was coming. But the yeah, the, like the voice is totally a dude voice. Asian dude, but still a dude. But if you look at

Ben 2:06:18

his friends woman.

Gene 2:06:19

yeah. Trans woman. It's basically a lady boy, right? It's an Asian, a small, petite Asian dude with breasts in long hair, which makes him look like an Asian woman.

Ben 2:06:31

And, you know, there's a longer clip there people can go find, but, or you can put in the show notes. But the whole point is the irony of Miss Universe

Gene 2:06:41

right.

Ben 2:06:42

Yeah. For all women in power of women.

Gene 2:06:44

of, of a woman that Miss Universe represents,

Ben 2:06:48

So how long do you think it's gonna be till this universe is is a tranny

Gene 2:06:52

oh, this year,

Ben 2:06:54

you

Gene 2:06:54

guaranteed 100% this year,

Ben 2:06:57

You think they'll be that brazen?

Gene 2:06:59

Oh, yes, absolutely. It's gonna be this year. The, the irony in all of this is, while this is hilarious to snicker at from the sidelines, because I also posted an image that as a meme social that had basically all trans people holding up trophies.

Ben 2:07:16

Mm-hmm.

Gene 2:07:17

And there was like nine of them, nine different ones, like including Bruce Jenner and a bunch of other ones. And and the, the caption on the meme was men being women better than women. and it's true. And, and my, my hashtag was just winning because when you start removing the. The separation of men and women for anything athletic. There's only one possible consequence. Women will not be winners. And this has been proven over and over and over. I remember a few years back when there's a big kerfuffle about how Venus Williams or the other one, her sister's not making as much money as male tennis players. And and then she was beaten by an amateur male.

Ben 2:08:08

Well, no, no, no. She wasn't beaten by amateur male, but he was like a hundred and 20th in the world or something like that.

Gene 2:08:14

I thought I was like an 18 year old.

Ben 2:08:16

But he had played and he was ranked,

Gene 2:08:19

All right. He's not an amateur. He's a,

Ben 2:08:21

highly ranked.

Gene 2:08:22

he's, he's a, a well ranked non-professional player

Ben 2:08:28

Sure,

Gene 2:08:29

or he is like, like he doesn't make his living playing tennis, let's put it that way.

Ben 2:08:32

sure.

Gene 2:08:32

Yeah.

Ben 2:08:33

Not good enough to make his living playing

Gene 2:08:35

right, right. Not good enough to make his living playing tennis could beat the best female tennis player. And it's, I mean, in swimming obviously we had that, that dude became a chick and he was a very average swimmer on the male team and is getting nonstop trophies on the women's teams. Best female swimmer in the world

Ben 2:08:55

and there are

Gene 2:08:56

world records.

Ben 2:08:58

Yes. And there are sports where, you know, a female may beat a male, I can't think of one right now,

Gene 2:09:05

I can't think of one.

Ben 2:09:07

gymnastics would be the only one that comes to

Gene 2:09:09

Males, males do better in gymnastics. Dude. They do more complex moves. They jump higher, they have more upper body strength, which you need in gymnastics.

Ben 2:09:17

Hmm. Okay.

Gene 2:09:20

I mean, the, the thing that women would win is like, how small of a box can you get into?

Ben 2:09:25

So Jackie's,

Gene 2:09:28

Yes. There you go. Female jockeys may have an advantage over male jockeys. That's a, that's an interesting one. Although I have predominantly seen male jockeys.

Ben 2:09:39

Hmm.

Gene 2:09:41

Not that I go to horse races all that often, maybe once every several years, but it seems like it's mostly male jockeys. Really. The, the horses are big and the dudes riding'em are tiny.

Ben 2:09:53

Yeah.

Gene 2:09:54

It's, it's, it's amazing how somebody that small can control a horse. Although the horses, I mean, they're big, but they're not like,

Ben 2:10:02

yeah, but it's how well the horse is trained is how you control the horse.

Gene 2:10:06

Yeah. Yeah. You, have you ever

Ben 2:10:08

I hate to tell you this, I don't care how big you are, if the horse isn't trained, it, you know, there's a whole reason why you gotta go through and break a

Gene 2:10:16

I don't know, dude. If I can punch a horse out, I'm pretty sure that I can train it.

Ben 2:10:20

Uhhuh,

Gene 2:10:22

I've seen that on tv. That's, it's a guaranteed way to train a horse,

Ben 2:10:26

Uhhuh,

Gene 2:10:27

just knock him out that he knows who's his boss.

Ben 2:10:30

So, Jean, have you ever ridden a horse?

Gene 2:10:32

I've never ridden a horse. I, I've always thought that it's a unusually cruel punishment for a horse. You have a fat dude riding it.

Ben 2:10:41

Well, I mean, it depends on the horse because some horses

Gene 2:10:43

Eh, it depends on the fat dude too. But nonetheless, I just, it, I know that's what they were built for, you know, cuz we took basically small Asian ponies and then turned them into this big lumbering beast. But still, I did, like, there's no reason to, I don't see a reason to ride a horse. I thoroughly enjoyed riding a motorcycle when I had a motorcycle for a while. It's a great feeling, but I just don't need something that, that has its own brain underneath me, even if I'm telling you where to go.

Ben 2:11:15

Well, all I can tell you is you bond with horses. It, it's, it's,

Gene 2:11:20

And I bonded with my motorcycle pretty well too.

Ben 2:11:22

it's as deep a bond, if not deeper than a dog. And horses can be way smarter than dogs. There's, there's lots to it.

Gene 2:11:30

Yeah. They don't eat their own shit for one.

Ben 2:11:32

And on that note,

Gene 2:11:35

Huh. It's time to wrap up. It's getting long. People keep complaining that these podcasts are too long.

Ben 2:11:40

eh, have they, I haven't heard

Gene 2:11:41

Well, my podcast, I

Ben 2:11:43

s B

Gene 2:11:43

one's three and a half

Ben 2:11:44

Thanked us for our well wishes of him last time.

Gene 2:11:47

Oh, I have nothing against him as a human. I just have something against him as an asshole.

Ben 2:11:51

Hmm.

Gene 2:11:53

So, you know, I don't, yeah, hopefully his shoulder gets better. All right, we'll see you next week.