Just Two Good Old Boys

104 Just Two Good Old Boys

Gene and Ben Season 2025 Episode 104

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This episode explores the intersection of emotion and logic in modern political discourse, emphasizing the pressing need for debate education in schools. The hosts reflect on how misinformation fuels emotional reactions that often overshadow rational discussions and analyze current events related to aviation safety while advocating for accountability in government agencies.  
• Examining the impact of misinformation in today's media landscape  
• The essential role of emotion in political reactions  
• Advocating for mandatory debate education in schools  
• Discussion of recent airline crashes and regulatory oversight  
• Encouraging open dialogue to foster healthier political discussions

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Speaker 1:

Howdy Ben, how are you? I'm doing Mojang yourself.

Speaker 2:

You know pretty good, although I woke up early today, which is unusual.

Speaker 1:

What's early?

Speaker 2:

6am.

Speaker 1:

That's early for you.

Speaker 2:

And well, especially given that I was watching TV till 2.

Speaker 1:

Uh yeah, it's not a good combination, dude.

Speaker 2:

Couldn't fall asleep, asleep, finally, I'm like fuck it, I'm getting up okay so what?

Speaker 1:

uh, so you just you didn't sleep, or you slept some, or what well, I guess I slept four hours, I suppose.

Speaker 2:

Okay, but uh, you know, I would have preferred to sleep eight yeah I don't know. It's usually if I wake up at night or something, I'll just fall back asleep within a few minutes. But I just wasn't, so I ended up watching some youtube. That didn't help still stay awake. And then I finally I'm like I guess I'm getting up, yeah Well hopefully it means I'll go to sleep earlier today.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I mean it happens to the best of us, so it's all good.

Speaker 2:

Well, I know, it just happened to me, but I'm pumped. Yeah, yeah, yeah, you think you're the best of us well, thankfully, I do think can't say that for a lot of other people out there, that's for sure this is true the uh I. I have to pace myself with reading stuff on X because if you just fall into that black hole, well I'm sure it is addictive. I'm not going to deny that. But the stupidity that you run across is just next level.

Speaker 1:

Do you have an example for us?

Speaker 2:

well, um, I mean, take any comment that doesn't have an american flag in the background.

Speaker 2:

Uh, about trump's um executive orders and and you can see right there, okay, it's uh uh, I pretty much executive orders have been exactly what we've been asking for a while right, exactly, and that's this is the bit that I guess the people that are suffering from trump derangement syndrome don't understand is that he didn't sneak in there in order to do what nobody wants done. He literally is doing what the majority of the country elected order to do what nobody wants done. He literally is doing what the majority of the country elected him to do. Okay, they don't. They don't get that. They they think everybody thinks like them and they think that there's no way that trump possibly could have been elected fairly. He just cheated better than the democrats cheated, and that now that he's in, he's basically completely disregarding what anyone wants him to do and just doing totally random evil shit that a Nazi would do. I think that's their position. But every time.

Speaker 2:

I send you an update on his latest executive orders. I get a thumbs up from you, so you know what does that mean.

Speaker 1:

We're apparently Nazi adjacent as far as they're concerned.

Speaker 2:

It's sad man. It's so sad, Especially now on the 80th anniversary of the spring of Poland from Nazis by the Russians.

Speaker 2:

And consequently the concentration camps that were in Poland. It's like you know for a fact that these same people that are hating on Trump would be the ones turning their neighbors in in the 1940s in Germany. Very likely Same fucking people, man, it's just so. I don't know. It's frustrating, is what it is. I guess in the past I would have said it's weird that there's so many stupid people out there. I'm beyond that. Now I understand that the average is stupid and only a small percentage of the population deviates from that to the right side, but still just the hook line and sinker that they've bought into, which makes no rational sense. I guess it just shows you that emotion is way stronger than logic.

Speaker 2:

Which incidentally is what my marketing classes have always said anyway.

Speaker 1:

Emotion can be stronger than logic if you don't catch the emotion, uh, immediately. So essentially, what has to happen is you have a visceral emotional reaction to something you need to think logically pretty quickly about it and respond logically, or you're screwed.

Speaker 2:

You're then set up to think emotionally I, I think that well, I, I don't know. I guess we we don't know. Until it was it would be tried. But I think we could solve a lot of these issues by having, like in probably junior high level, mandating debate, like an actual class that teaches people to debate, and the important part of that is that you are assigned the side that you will be debating for, rather than picking the side that you actually believe in.

Speaker 1:

If you don't learn to think.

Speaker 2:

Yeah if you don't learn to think and really strongman your opposition's positions, then you're very likely to have emotionally driven positions that don't think through of what the other side's positions actually are or think of a a horrible straw man's version of the other side. And then you know, because we haven't been doing that, we now have tons of videos of college students, uh, being completely sold on ideas that clearly they haven't thought through, but neither has anyone they've spoken to recently, because we all know how colleges work, uh. And then, uh, when they're challenged by somebody who actually is reasonable and rational and calm on these ideas, it always ends the same way it ends with them calling the person a nazi of not knowing what they're talking about and then storming away.

Speaker 1:

Yeah it, you know it's childish response well, what do you expect from people who are infantilized as long? As we do here in this country, you know, we we extend adolescence far beyond what it should be late 20s.

Speaker 1:

Right now, I think, is when it ends yeah oh yeah, easily, because you've got college and everything else, where mommy and daddy are still paying the bills and taking care of you and you know, even if you are successful in college. Then you know, do you, are you successful in getting a job? Are you successful in finding something that will pay your bills?

Speaker 2:

Hence OnlyFans, onlyfans, youtube lots of things, things. Man, it's not just women doing it. Yeah, fair enough. I just think only fans pays better than youtube.

Speaker 1:

But uh, well, that's because sex sells podcasting totally doesn't pay. Yeah, it's uh well, it might start. You saw that the Trump press room and everything is going to be.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, there's a lot of people on X that I follow that have said they're filling out the paperwork to be out there, which is very cool. It looks like my.

Speaker 1:

Surface Go is dead for some reason.

Speaker 2:

Oh, it's weird stuff happened while I was gone, apparently huh weird.

Speaker 1:

So for those who don't know, we're starting the show a little late because I walked upstairs to get on literally nobody except for me, knows that, because it takes like anywhere between 4 and 24 hours for me to publish it. So yeah, we need to start posting on X and doing stuff anyway. Regardless, the point is, I came up here and wifi wasn't working on my laptop and some other things are just being wonky, so look, but I've been gone for a few days, so there's that.

Speaker 2:

Gotcha. Well, hopefully everything can get back to normal operational order that's what I would like, that whole thing. What's up with all the the airline crashes? We had two in one week uh two in two days.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah, and it one was not an airline crash. So you had a passenger liner that went down over dc that you uh texted me about and told me about, which kind of freaked me out, because my uh, my boss, was actually flying into dca right then and uh should have been landing right about then and I was like oh shit, so I had to reach out to him make sure he was okay and he got diverted to BWI.

Speaker 2:

That's what I figured would happen to him.

Speaker 1:

And then the other one was an air ambulance transporting a patient.

Speaker 2:

I didn't even know that Really Okay, wow, it was a massive explosion.

Speaker 1:

They were going from Philly to, I think, somewhere in Nebraska, but well, I mean fully loaded, you know jet crashing.

Speaker 2:

No, no, no, I mean the other one In DC.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, that one was too.

Speaker 2:

Well, yeah, I guess both of them were yeah.

Speaker 1:

The American Airlines jet jet, though, had did have less fuel on board.

Speaker 2:

So there's that yeah, it was uh, it was landing uh, but had more people and and a couple of russians too yeah, yeah, which was somewhat interesting.

Speaker 1:

Um, you know, I I think both were just tragic accidents that occurred, but we don't know enough about the pennsylvania one to really opine other than took off and then crashed um, and there there's no real reason why the dc one we know that, you know, a black hawk helicopter was in the area was told to watch out for this passenger jet uh said he had visual on the passenger jet.

Speaker 1:

Um, there's some debate on whether or not he had visual on the right jet or a different one. Yeah, and regardless, the dc crash, that is congested airspace, but there is no reason why it occurred the way it did.

Speaker 2:

No, no. And of course I think Trump, at least by, maybe indirectly, is pointing the finger at traffic control and saying we need to get better people in there well he's.

Speaker 1:

He's not necessarily calling out that specific controller, but what he's highlighting and I think the the media is missing this is that you know the faa has changed their requirements to now allow for basically disabled people to as a push specifically. Well, and you know, if someone has depression, should they be an air traffic controller, Not while they have depression.

Speaker 2:

I don't know.

Speaker 1:

Well, but it's all. This goes all the way down to like ADHD.

Speaker 2:

So if you want somebody that's currently depressed, working as a CIA spy.

Speaker 1:

Yeah well, do you want your air traffic controller to have ADHD, Something that is one of the most stressful jobs and requires you to focus?

Speaker 2:

No, I want them to have.

Speaker 1:

It seems like a bad idea.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, only OCD and cocaine.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, okay, and that's the thing. Right Is, the drug test would prevent them from using such things.

Speaker 2:

Well, not if they're prescribed.

Speaker 1:

Well, that doesn't exist.

Speaker 2:

What? What do you mean? It doesn't exist. Of course it does.

Speaker 1:

You cannot get a prescription for cocaine Gene If you tell? Me. Your doctor gave you one.

Speaker 3:

I'm going to be very interested to find out who that is.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, most people want things stronger than cocaine.

Speaker 2:

But no, you can get a script for cocaine I don't believe you can you know it's um why? Why do you think you can't? Um, because it's a schedule one theS government literally used to prescribe it.

Speaker 1:

Sure, but with it being Schedule I you can't do that by. Schedule I, by definition, means there's no medical benefit.

Speaker 2:

Just like marijuana, right.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, but marijuana is federally still. Mm-hmm, yeah, but marijuana is federally still somewhat legalized.

Speaker 2:

You're dropping out, ben. I cannot hear you right now. I don't know if it's your computer or if it's the internet. So we get a pause until we figure out what's going on with connectivity guys, and then we'll be back as soon as that's done. Okay, we're back with Ben having hardware issues.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, it looks like I'm going to have to buy a dedicated mini PC for the podcast.

Speaker 2:

Well, what do you? I thought you were already on one of those.

Speaker 1:

No, I'm on an old laptop.

Speaker 2:

Oh, okay, got it. So the laptop's having issues? Yeah, apparently, yeah, well, luckily you don't really need much horsepower to do audio.

Speaker 1:

Nope, I do not. I just need Windows for the Motu driver, unfortunately, otherwise I'd have other things I could use.

Speaker 2:

Well, the other thing you can do, you know, is get that microphone that I sent you.

Speaker 1:

I don't know that it's fully Linux compatible.

Speaker 2:

It probably isn't, but you've got a Mac there.

Speaker 1:

Yes, that my work pays for that.

Speaker 2:

I'm not doing the podcast on. I mean it's Zoom. You probably already have it installed in there, right?

Speaker 1:

but it's just. I don't want any arguments to be ever made that.

Speaker 2:

Okay, fair enough, you can also pick up a Mac Mini for $500 or $599, I guess. Or can also pick up a Map Mini for $500 or $599,.

Speaker 1:

I guess, or I can pick up an AMD Ryzen 7 with 16 gigs of RAM and everything else here for $250.

Speaker 2:

What at Costco?

Speaker 1:

Amazon.

Speaker 2:

Where.

Speaker 1:

Amazon, oh, amazon.

Speaker 2:

Oh, okay, yep, Well, well, whatever works, I guess, just kind of keep your mouth close to the microphone, because you can't hear yourself now yeah, that's true, all right cool anyway so you've been watching community I have. I'm on season three yeah, which is good, and I just got to season three, so you're a little tiny bit ahead of me now.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I'll probably slow down as I start to read more again, but sure.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, so what do you think so far?

Speaker 1:

It's gotten way better.

Speaker 2:

I told you, first season is really just setting things up.

Speaker 1:

Right, but second season and even into the third season, they even referenced Doctor who directly. Lots of things Like the paintball episodes.

Speaker 2:

It nerds out?

Speaker 1:

Yes, very much so. And Annie has gotten way hotter. You know, speaking as a television producer, of course.

Speaker 2:

Yes, yes. Well, you know what they said in season one we don't like to sexualize Annie because she's young young.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, well, she's getting older yeah, she's 19 now easy gene. Pick your uh, pick your tongue up off the floor uh-huh no, I I've always liked the that character.

Speaker 2:

Uh, I like the actress in general, but that character is obviously is a stereotype, right, it's like no actual persons like that. But I will say that extremely successful gamer girls that are on YouTube and Twitch have figured out that that character works very well.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, well.

Speaker 2:

It's the sort of naive hot girl.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, it's definitely something.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, so I think I think you will enjoy the rest of the seasons. Like every other show out there, the final season is probably the worst.

Speaker 1:

That's disappointing.

Speaker 2:

I think I've yet to see a show where the final season didn't skew down in terms of quality, including Battlestar Galactica, incidentally, which we're talking about yesterday great show. They did an awesome job to one of the few rerun or re launches that did better than the original. Um, but there again I I feel like the final season was worse than the preceding seasons well, the ending of Battlestar Galactica was just not satisfying. Yeah, it felt like they had not actually gotten to where they were planning for this entire five year journey.

Speaker 1:

No, they were not. I think they assumed that they would be able to continue and anyway, lots of things.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yep, um so, uh, let's see what else. Uh, oh, we were talking about Trump, I think, when your audio started hiccuping uh, when my wife I dropped out again, that's what it was. Oh, it was wifi Okay.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah. And then now I'm having audio issues to boot, so your your your wi-fi dropped, causing the headphones to not work. That's bizarre no idea why the headphones stopped working, but when zoom came back up I was not getting audio out of zoom to my headphones that is nuts yeah, well, it's an old computer, but you know hey yeah, yeah, I get it.

Speaker 2:

Uh, so let me, let me scroll back and see what executive orders uh that were good trump was doing well, the firing of uh, the j6, you know attorneys is a good thing, especially if they're not replaced. Yeah, that's right, that was one of the last ones.

Speaker 1:

And FBI agents.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah, that, yeah, basically, people that were taking advantage of their positions to achieve political goals, which, ironically, is, of course, what Trump's being accused of doing by firing them. Yeah, indeed, when you're fixing the problem, it's not the same as having the problem. I think it's a good thing. Um, I, uh, I hope that uh cash gets in as well as tulsi in there, because I think both of those guys this is the, this is the bit that. Tell me if I'm wrong about this. I'm probably not, though. Uh, I feel like when the democrats or republicans, but in this particular instance the democrats go overboard on trying to bash the person, that's being confirmed, and then they're confirmed that all all those three days of bashing did is make the person more hard line to be against the people that were bashing him.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, in their views Agreed.

Speaker 2:

Like it doesn't. It doesn't help the cause. If, if you're a Democrat and you're going to be confirming Chelsea or Chelsea of Tulsi, right, I would think, as an intelligent democrat, what you would want to be doing isn't badgering her about uh, her support of um snowden which is what they were doing but instead I would be reminding her about all the things that she was fighting for as a democrat that she probably still believes and you hope she brings into this administration. That's what I would be doing if I was democrat.

Speaker 2:

Why aren't they doing that? Does that make sense? It does. It's like look you're, you've got a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity here. You were literally on the other side of the aisle four years ago and now you're going to be part of this administration. You have an opportunity to bring centrism or even democratic values into the Trump White House, and I would be trying to make sure that that's what you do, and instead they're trying to turn her into a hardline conservative. I don't get it like. Who does that freaking benefit? Not them, not the senators it's playing to their base.

Speaker 1:

It's really trying to say, hey, we're on your side, we're going down this road. We're fighting for the things you want us to fight for yeah, or like that.

Speaker 2:

There was uh with cash. I was watching yesterday where they're badgering him about his statements. Um, I guess on breitbart or somewhere he was being interviewed and they were showing video of the police escorting people into the building and then they're badgering him about how, like, so you thought this was a good thing that people were going in. You thought you know these, these people that are violating laws. They're breaking laws, were convicted of violating laws, that they that they did nothing wrong and you're supposed to be the head of the fbi. Well, no, no policeman's going to trust you.

Speaker 2:

And then, immediately after that, the, the next Republican senator enters into the record signatures of 312,000 police people that are supporting Cash. It's like, okay, what was the point of highlighting the stuff that he is uh, clearly just a normal Republican on and and trying to badger him and say that, like, essentially, what the argument Democrats were making is being a Republican disqualifies you from serving in the office of the head of the FBI. That was literally their argument. Mainstream republican thought that would disqualify him. It's crazy, I just. I mean, I guess I should be happy in a? Uh, in a sort of a what's that German word, schadenfreude?

Speaker 1:

That one.

Speaker 2:

I should be happy, in the Schadenfreude way, that these guys are digging a deeper hole for themselves, and only the extreme left, crazy lunatics, are going to be the ones that are nodding their heads and saying, yeah, take that. But everybody else has got to see this for what it is. At the very least, even moderate Democrats are going to be going well, yeah, I mean, the idea that somebody is disqualified by having a party affiliation would disqualify the person making that statement as well. It's insane.

Speaker 1:

Well, it's not just that, though. They're going after cash and RFK Jr hard and heavy over previous life things and previous statements, previous statements that, to me, are just par for the course. So, for instance, on RFK some of the statements around vaccines and questioning vaccine efficacy. You know that. And he says I believe that vaccines are a good thing, with the caveat of they should be tested and made sure that everything is right and so on, and cash his statements around. You know um the need for the fbi to be dismantled.

Speaker 2:

They're hitting him hard on that, but I mean, my god, we've seen the evidence of this, yeah well, and again, how is this a bad or controversial statement to say that we ought to have more reliable vaccines, to have better quality vaccines, to have better tested vaccines Like none of that should be controversial.

Speaker 1:

Well, we should have vaccines that are tested period right Vaccines currently do not go through double-blind placebo testing because it's considered unethical.

Speaker 2:

Well, yes, I mean, we do do that in Africa, but not for US consumption, but it's regardless. It just seems like his positions are not at all extreme. He's not saying ban all vaccines and make them unavailable, while, as Biden definitely.

Speaker 2:

He's also definitely saying, you know, vaccine should not be mandatory, which I think you and I both agree with yeah, but which I was going to contrast with biden, who took away my uh. What are they called the? Uh, the? What? Anti-clonal antibodies or something like that? What are they? Called monoclonal antibodies. Yeah who? Literally I was supposed to go in to get those when I had the COVID, had the appointment scheduled by the doctor and everything, and I got a call that morning saying your appointment's been canceled due to presidential executive order, Because Biden decided that everyone should be masking instead.

Speaker 1:

And taking the vaccine. I just I do not understand or get how we think a president has a right to dictate what medical procedures an individual can or cannot have mm-hmm yep, are you free? Do you own your body? No, obviously not but if you do, then this is what a man's only women on their bodies, not men.

Speaker 2:

Okay, did you miss that part of your training?

Speaker 1:

by the state training I don't have any training by the state uh well, your time in college, man, that's state training my time in college, I think, is a little bit different than uh most people's think is a little bit different than, uh, most people's and oh, that's right, you were 14 at the time. I forgot I had a very anti-state um uh upbringing, so oh, that's for sure.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, talk to your mom about that all the time god, oh, why did I introduce y'all? I was shocked when you did that. Frankly, You'd already known me for a while at that point.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, you know. So the demolishment of the FBI, the rolling back of some of this DOJ expansion that occurred under Biden all good things, I think RFK Jr and Cash or Muskets. You know we got Hegseth in, but you know, that's one Cool.

Speaker 1:

We need a couple more and I think the Trump base needs those wins and if we don't get it, it's gonna be pretty, pretty interesting. One of the things that I don't know if you saw the, did you see the post on X that some leftists had done? It was a cartoon sketch of Trump getting shot through the head at Pennsylvania instead of through the year and it said make assassinations great again. No.

Speaker 2:

I didn't.

Speaker 1:

Did it get reported? Well, there have been people saying hey, fbi and everybody, why aren't you? Investigating this yeah. Now one of the things I would say is here's the deal, free speech. Yeah, you have the right to say that, absolutely. You have the right to me if I say, gene, go do X, y, z and. I don't pay you to do it, I just say you should go do X, y, z. That's free speech, that is not something that should be any issue here.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, we're not in the UK yeah we're not in the uk right but you might want to go knock on the door and say, hey, you posted this. Do you have any plans, you know?

Speaker 2:

and they say no, and whatever else then you probably let it go yeah, you got to check their comedian's license. You know, are they a licensed comedian to make jokes like that or not?

Speaker 1:

you're funny there's no such thing as a licensed comedian, nor should there be well, I I'm glad you still think so I, I, I do, I do, I believe in free speech yeah I believe in it as an.

Speaker 2:

Oh, I get a I get a principle I bought you a hat. Oh what's the hat? It says something about free speech in it. What does it say? I don't have it in front of me, but next time I see you I got to give it to you.

Speaker 1:

We've got. We both have a. I've got a box in my truck.

Speaker 2:

I know right At this point it literally is a box. I've got crap to give to Ben.

Speaker 1:

Yeah and crap, I owe you money for yeah, it's uh.

Speaker 2:

Uh. I know you're not usually a beanie wearing guy, but uh, I just thought it was just too funny to pass up hey, when it's cold out, I wear and it was cold out in texas this year. Once again, I'm hoping this will be the last time.

Speaker 1:

I don't know that that's over yeah, I'm.

Speaker 2:

I'm hoping this will be the last time. I don't know that that's over. Yeah, I'm hoping it is because I don't like the cold weather man.

Speaker 1:

Well, you know, your snakes don't like the cold weather as well. None of us like the cold weather. Yes, snakes included. None of us Southerners like the cold weather, that's for sure, and my snakes are definitely us southerners like the cold weather, that's for sure.

Speaker 2:

And my snakes are definitely southerners uh, they're. They're both from southeast asia, quite a bit further south than we are right now, in fact southeast asia. You've got chinese snakes yeah, I got Chinese spies living in my house.

Speaker 1:

Well, Vietnamese at least.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and then the other one's probably more like from India, but yeah, yeah, the reticulated pythons are, I think, predominantly Indian.

Speaker 1:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

Or they eat monkeys we need to talk about the deportations too. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, so that's happening.

Speaker 1:

At a very rapid pace.

Speaker 2:

There's another good confirmation.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, Did you see that the Brazilians tried to, or Colombians maybe?

Speaker 2:

Colombians, Colombians that's right.

Speaker 1:

The Colombians tried to say, oh, we're not going to take them back. You can't do this.

Speaker 2:

That was hilarious man.

Speaker 1:

And Trump said, okay, 25% tariffs, and if you keep it up it'll go up to 50. And boom, what do you know?

Speaker 2:

An hour and 20 minutes later, that position was reversed and he was offered the presidential plane to come pick people up.

Speaker 1:

You know, even if you don't like or agree with Trump on some of this, you have to admit results. Yeah results.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, well, he still actually is. Uh just yesterday talked about, uh, how we're. We're probably likely to see both mexico and canada with a 25 tariff uh, yeah, I, I can, I can see it and I think the canadians are.

Speaker 2:

They can't believe this is happening because they're not like, they were not prepared for this at all. And the canadian I don't think he's the actual prime minister yet, but if he's the likely prime minister, the polio guy, uh, you know. His explanation is like well, of course we have a deficit with the united States. We sell them cheap oil. We wish we didn't, we wish we could like refine it here and not sell it to the US. But because the liberal policies in Canada we have no refineries, so we have to sell it to the US. We have no choice. But that also skews the trade imbalance right.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, the trade deficit.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, which I think Trump is using to his advantage, because it's really not a big deal to have a trade imbalance. There is no magic law in economics that says you have to sell as many goods to a country as you buy from a country. If someone's got cheap labor and you can use that cheap labor and then sell goods to other countries, that's actually a better use of your money than selling more goods to a country that has cheap labor and can't afford to buy much from you labor.

Speaker 1:

I can't afford to buy much from you. Well, I mean, but if you don't have labor in your country producing goods and if you do have a trade imbalance, that's wealth leaving your nation. So I don't know that. I fully agree with that.

Speaker 2:

It can be. It doesn't have to be, but yes, it can be. But utilizing cheap resources and cheap production facilities as long as the companies are actually owned by the United States. Even if you're not producing things, if your country owns the stock in the companies that are using cheap labor, then you're benefiting as a stock owner at that point, without having to produce anything yourself.

Speaker 2:

Okay, I think owning resources is important, but I've never really been a fan of using our resources. First, my position on oil and everything else is we should absolutely, you know, explore more territory and new methods of drilling oil. But there's nothing wrong with using cheaper production of oil facilities elsewhere, as long as you're doing it through a us owned company, like when we got into iraq and took over all their oil wells. I mean, I know I personally wouldn't have given the british any oil wells, but whatever, but at least the ones that were given to us companies. That was extremely cheap oil that all of a sudden we were able to get and that was reflected in the earnings of the oil industry well, I?

Speaker 1:

I don't think we exploited the oil from iraq or afghanistan, ir, iraq being the major oil producer, afghanistan being the poppy producer, but I don't think we exploited those countries in any real way. You know, had we gone in there like the Romans or anyone else, we could have said, okay, this is ours now, your rare earth, minerals, everything are ours.

Speaker 2:

Instead, we've allowed the Chinese to go into Afghanistan, for example yeah, and, and I think that we should have had policies more in place that forbade direct trade with anybody else while we're occupying. That would be the more common way to occupy a country not that we should have been occupying him, but since we were occupying him, let's not be stupid about it well I?

Speaker 1:

I think we shouldn't have been occupying them. I think we should have done lots of things, but regardless the. The point is, you know, we we have this oil, we have this uh multi-trillion dollar spend that we've done to liberate or do whatever you want to say to these countries and, as a result, we uh should probably recover some of that revenue yeah yeah well dude.

Speaker 2:

Remember we were shipping pallets of us hundred dollar bills to iraq at the same time and afghanistan, uh, because that's what? How? We were buying the local warlords off. So we were effectively paying during while we were occupying, we were also paying the local um, and depends how nice you want to be, so either the local politicians or or the local terrorist cells in that part of the world.

Speaker 1:

That's one in the same yeah, that's.

Speaker 2:

That's why I said depending on how, uh how you want to spin it. Um, it sounds like trump is also I heard some comments from him is interested in pulling out of Syria.

Speaker 1:

Okay, which I?

Speaker 2:

think both you and I predicted.

Speaker 1:

Yes.

Speaker 2:

So well, now I've heard him actually say that. I don't think we're actively doing it yet, but we're probably going to soon.

Speaker 1:

I think we've seen a lot of movement across the world in what the USs is and isn't going to do. I think we've seen the defunding of the who that pulling back yeah made bankrupt the who, I think the pausing of the majority of foreign aid, with a handful of exceptions that I don't know that.

Speaker 2:

I agree with the exceptions, but yeah, that is causing massive impact I don don't either, but I think that he was smart in having both the exceptions be right next to each other physically.

Speaker 1:

And the exceptions being Israel and Egypt.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah, because if it would have been just Israel, that just kind of you know it cements more of the hatred for America that already exists. You know it cements more of the hatred for America that already exists. But doing it with Egypt and Israel it's kind of like, look, we're pumping money into an area for stability's sake and, frankly, egypt you better start stepping up.

Speaker 1:

Well, and it's also in recognition of the current peace talks and everything that's happening there.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 1:

And I say, peace talks in quotes, but sure.

Speaker 2:

What would you call them? I mean, you can call them that, but nothing's going to come out of it. Okay. There's literally thousands of years of hatred there, so it ain't going to get fixed. It's always been a tinderbox. It's always going to be a tinderbox.

Speaker 1:

Okay, we'll see. I think the Abraham Accords are a good step.

Speaker 2:

Totally agree.

Speaker 1:

But remember there's as much reason for Saudi Arabia doing that, because of their hatred of Iran, in fact, more so than their love for Israel oh that I don't think anyone's under uh any illusions that, yeah, saudi Arabia likes Israel, but I think that you know, when you look at the Gulf nations, when you look at the Gulf nations, when you look at Saudi Arabia, qatar and Dubai, you have all three Gulf nations really trying to go through and modernize their, modernize their economies and move away from just an oil based economy.

Speaker 1:

You have Dubai setting up tourist destination for Europeans. You have Qatar trying to do the same thing. You have Qatar Airlines and Emirates, which are two of the top airlines in the world that you know they're competing. Then suddenly saudi arabia is like well, we're gonna build our new king solomon airport and we're gonna do the same thing do we really need three major international hubs in that area?

Speaker 2:

no, but that's what they're doing uh, yeah, well, I I don't see a reason why, frankly, we have more hubs than that just in our country.

Speaker 1:

Uh right, but the way these airlines work is very different than our domestic airlines and geographically I don't know that we would have this size international hubs that close together New York, Boston, I do believe Dubai and Doha are closer new york and boston.

Speaker 2:

Yep it'd be, well, either way, they got plenty of money, let's say you might as well use it for something. And and I think the point you're making on diversification is something you need to keep in mind when trump announces a 500 billion dollar investment by the Saudis into the United States, what does that actually mean? Well, it doesn't mean that they're doing us a favor. It means that they are now seeing a little more stability in the United States with Trump than they did without Trump and are willing to shift investments further into the United States, which they need to do anyway as part of their diversification strategy.

Speaker 1:

And what ways do you see that as a positive thing for us, though?

Speaker 2:

For us. Well, trump is definitely seeing it as a big positive for us. I mean, it's basically product purchases. It's product purchases Well, it's a combination, right. So it's investment in companies that make products which is increasing the activity on the stock market, which, theoretically, in aggregate, moves stocks up, but it's also part of it is the companies that are being invested into are going to be spending that money on something, so that's increasing the amount of spending happening, which should move the economy in the right direction as well. So I don't think it's a negative. I do think it's a positive. I think it's a little more nuanced in the way that Trump's trying to portray it. The way he's spinning is basically, they just gave the United States $500 billion. Well, no, that's not what's happening. But it is a positive step for, I think, both countries, and it's not something that they could have done rationally if Trump wasn't elected, because investing in unpredictable and unstable economies and contracting economies is a dumb thing to do. So this totally makes sense. They would do it after Trump's elected.

Speaker 1:

Well and remember, saudi Arabia is trying to take Aramco public. Don't forget that. And taking Aramco public is going to be a hell of a feat and it will be the largest IPO in history if they do it.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, but at the same time Trump is trying to push both the carrot and the stick with ending the war in Ukraine, and to do that the price of oil has to come down for the stick portion, and his first try at that resulted in a no, because OPEC said no, we're not going to increase production or lower prices, so it is going to be up to the increase in oil production of the United States before there's any impact on Russia there.

Speaker 1:

Well and you know there's some debate on whether or not US production will actually increase or not, because we're drilling as fast as we can. We're doing these things, but you know at what point is that law of diminishing returns coming in for the US oil market and so on.

Speaker 2:

Well, I remember when oil was 50 bucks a barrel.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, well, inflation, you know.

Speaker 2:

Okay so 75. Still under 100, though. And what about the Alaskan pipeline that was almost ready to flip on before Biden took over? What was that called? I forget the name of it.

Speaker 1:

I think you're talking about the Dakota pipeline. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that one. Yeah, but didn't that oil come from Alaska through Canada, good name of it? I? I think you're talking about the north, you know, the dakota pipeline.

Speaker 2:

yeah, yeah, that one yeah, but it didn't that oil come from alaska through canada uh, well I thought that came out of the oil sands and, I believe, some alaskan oil okay, I thought it was predominantly alaskan, but maybe not okay. But either way, like there was not just tons of jobs that were lost in North Dakota as a result of that, but it was also a large amount of oil that had to be transported more expensively instead of being transported through the pipeline.

Speaker 1:

Yes, and the transportation of that oil didn't stop. It just continued on rail and truck, which is far more likely to spill and cause issues and much more expensive.

Speaker 2:

And so if you can transport the oil, I don't know. Do you know off the top of your head what percentage of oil cost is transport?

Speaker 1:

I don't know. Off the top of my head I know that general goods cost is generally around 30%. Yeah, but that's general goods I don't know about oil.

Speaker 2:

But either way you got to imagine transport through a pipeline. It's got to be the cheapest right.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, well, it depends on the distance being traveled and where, because you do have the infrastructure, cost Depends on the distance being traveled and where, because you do have the infrastructure, cost. Waterways are another very, very cheap method because there's no infrastructure needed other than ship Like barges yeah. Yeah, exactly, barges and tankers are a big deal in. You know any In?

Speaker 2:

fact, you could argue that part of the reason why the US has had the economic success that we have is because we have so many waterways that navigable waterways inside the us to transport goods, although if you ever drive through any of the states, like, uh, missouri or arkansas or uh or, you know, louisiana, obviously, where the mississippi is um, you'll see just how crowded the mississippi actually gets oh, the mississippi is an extremely busy waterway it's a freaking highway man and you know where I was used to, in minnesota, where the mississippi originates seeing very little traffic some, but not a whole lot of traffic on there well, you get, the further south you go holy cow, I've done that.

Speaker 2:

I I actually um, when I was a kid I went up to the head waters of the mississippi where there's a just a little trickle and the sign literally you know it's like a take your photo kind of sign because I stepped over the mississippi is it? It's probably about six feet wide and about a foot deep you know something funny.

Speaker 1:

Um, one of the ways I uh remembered uh as a kid, and this goes back to just this is just kind of a funny story. So I was having trouble Remembering the name of the man who discovered the Mississippi, which was DeSoto my mom. Being the southerner she is and having the sense of humor she has. When she was trying to get me To remember it, she said just remember you. You soak the so-toe in the Mississippi. I don't get it your so-toe.

Speaker 2:

Oh, so-toe, okay, okay, okay.

Speaker 1:

De-so-toe. I got it. Yeah, the so-toe, de-so-toe.

Speaker 2:

That's funny Anyway. Ever since she said that and made me laugh. I've never forgot it. Yeah, it's, uh, that is one thing I will say um that there's a similarity between minnesota and california in extremely socialist, uh, politics, but also a similarity in the beautiful nature, and pretty much minnesota's pretty cold no, it is cold, I didn't say warm, I said beautiful.

Speaker 2:

And the uh, the forests in the northern half of minnesota are very wild, very beautiful and very. They're just like a shorter version of the redwoods in california. They don't get anywhere near as tall as the redwoods, but it's the same kind of piney forest, same smell, uh, same kind of um, um, just, you know, one of the things that pine needles do is they? They kind of provide a, a cover that kills off a lot of other plants underneath them and because the needles, you know, they're all when they're falling down there yeah, the tannic acid.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, there you go and so you, when you walk underneath pine trees, you're not really having to chop your way with a machete through a bunch of undergrowth. You could just walk there casually, because there's nothing really big growing next to those trees, which makes for very nice hiking.

Speaker 1:

You really should go to the Piney Woods in East Texas.

Speaker 2:

I've never been to East Texas. I know I need to to do that.

Speaker 1:

you've told me about that more than once now the the piney woods in east texas is one of the largest, if not the largest pine forests in, uh, certainly the united states, and definitely one of the largest in the world, and it's it's the piney woods extends from really northeast texas all the way into Arkansas and so on. It's a huge, huge forest.

Speaker 2:

And I've been in Arkansas, on that side of it, in a number of different places and it's very pretty as well, but I've just never been on the Texas side we have invasive species that have come in and changed that dynamic quite a bit like yaupon and so on.

Speaker 1:

Hmm. What's the border. What's the delineation for the piney woods in texas? Uh, you can google it, but I think it's really pretty much jasper and north okay, yeah, one of these days I'll make a trek out yeah, well, we, we need to, uh, we need to go visit my parents together and uh yeah, yeah shoot guns and take you out there.

Speaker 2:

Yep, show you the sabine and, uh, some of the lakes and stuff like that'll make you feel more at home well, I'm feeling pretty at home out here these days with the uh cedar shrub, but I, I definitely have fond memories yeah, dude come on.

Speaker 2:

They're not trees, they're shrub cedar is not texas cedar trees are not cedar trees. I mean they're. They're literally the exact same cedar that that that's in the middle east. They're kind of shrub bush cedar it's an aromatic cedar, but okay yeah, versus like 100 foot tall cedar trees okay, well, whatever so whatever good stuff um finding new guns, that seems to be always be a question people ask uh, I am, I have, I, I'm.

Speaker 1:

I have not purchased any new firearms. I have a few new firearm accessories that are fun yes you, you're on your uh pdw kick yeah, yeah, yeah. So I got the mK a little while back CAA MCK for my Glock clone and that's pretty neat and nifty and it's a little bit bigger than I kind of expected. And then I got the Strike Industries Bravo chassis for a P320 that I have and I got to tell you that Strike Industries Bravo chassis is awesome. I am glad I went with that instead of the Flux Raider.

Speaker 1:

It looks because of the modularity and cost difference. Yeah, you know, it's pretty significant and the. Flux Raider is not available, very well.

Speaker 2:

You know. So there's that. Did you watch the Strike segments from SHOT Show?

Speaker 1:

On which ones They've got a ton.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah, there's been a few of the guys, like all the regular youtubers, gun tubers we watch all over at shot show, and so, uh, a number of them.

Speaker 1:

Are you talking about their p90 chassis? What are you talking about?

Speaker 2:

yeah, just the new stuff coming out.

Speaker 1:

They were showing off the stuff that's not available in the store yet yeah, they've got a bunch of stuff uh strike industries is really stepping up the modularity on their yeah and they're gonna have a fully, fully self-contained gun now as well uh, what's it based off of it's? It's? I don't know. I saw that one.

Speaker 2:

It's based off the, the glock with the um removable uh. Serialized part.

Speaker 1:

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, the FCU. They're also going down the road of, you know, making it extremely modular, and everything that seems to be the theme from SHOT Show is modularity, modularity, modularity, like if you look at Palmetto State and what they're doing with their shotgun series literally once you buy the receiver, you can make it into a pump or a semi-auto now yeah, which is cool, very cool, and the the charging handle being up front, the way they are doing it and several other things is really cool to me someone who shoots shotguns and charging handle on the receiver is kind of interesting um you know, most shotgun charging handles are very ak like right they're reciprocating, and they're right there.

Speaker 1:

Yep, so this non-reciprocating forward, uh shifted one is kind of interesting yeah, it makes sense yeah, what do you think of the uh new guns palmetto state is looking at putting out?

Speaker 2:

they well it's. Are you talking about, like their, their index or array of which should we make guns? Are you talking? About the ones that are for sure in production uh, the ones of what should we make guns? Um, I think that. Uh. Well, first of all, I think they're kind of cheating, because they have two of them from last year on this year, that's okay. But including the one that you like. What's the one that I like? Gene, the 308. What's it called? It's the Scar Knockoff.

Speaker 1:

The Jackal. They already have made that Jackal.

Speaker 2:

No, no, no, They've got a 308. Well, yeah, I guess it is called jackal, but it's a. It's a different variant. Can you order that now? Is that available already?

Speaker 1:

yeah, it's okay, it's shipping. People are shooting it. I've sent you videos on it I well those.

Speaker 2:

Yes, but those people get pre, uh, you know their test guns no, most of these people have gotten production at this point. Okay. Well, if you watch videos with Pinhead or even the guy that I like, TFB, those guns are generally provided by the manufacturer. It's not like they're going out and buying guns.

Speaker 1:

Well, like Military Arms Channel and several others have gotten production guns and uh, you know that they did not. I thought you didn't like mac, I'm not a big fan, but you know he he does some decent reviews occasionally and you know all that I I think he goes off on philosophy of use and items a little too much, instead of just saying you know, determine your own philosophy of use, or whatever he's getting, old man, I've been watching him for 20 years right, but you know he, it took him a long time to admit that.

Speaker 2:

You know, five, five, six is, uh, maybe not the best gun yep, yeah he, but I remember when I first started watching him he didn't have any gray hair at all. It's it's like holy shit, can you see time fly when you're looking at other people?

Speaker 1:

yeah, I mean, are you looking in the mirror at all, jane?

Speaker 2:

as little as I can get away with as little as I can get away with Okay and ants no webcam either. Oh well, you know we're, we're all getting older, man it's all oh, yeah, yeah, but it feels like everybody else getting way older.

Speaker 1:

Yeah Well, I think we're all getting older, but it's all good so. So what were the guns you most wanted to see out of the Palmetto State Armory poll?

Speaker 2:

I like their P90-looking one.

Speaker 1:

They don't have a P90.

Speaker 2:

Well, it's not a P90, but it's a P90-looking one here. Let me bring up their thing Palmetto State 2025 Shot Show. What do they call it Matrix? No, they have one that has a. Let's see if I can find it here, Not videos. Show me the actual pictures.

Speaker 1:

There it is well, there was the vuk 9, there was the saber lancer. Yeah, the vuk is the uh.

Speaker 2:

That's the clone of the um, mp5.

Speaker 1:

Yeah the x9 is a clone of an uzi yeah, and then they got the saber uh 2011, which, that one, I'm interested in um, uh, that's a 1911 was that 1911 or 2011, it's a 2011 okay, yeah, that's better.

Speaker 2:

Uh, let's see is well, I only see four here. I think there were like six of them. Those are the four winners. Oh, those are the winners. Okay, well, apparently the one I like didn't make it to the winners so they're going to be making a 50 cal uh-huh yeah that said will be under two grand I guess it's interesting, but it's kind of useless useless Dude if they make a Barrett-style 50 cal, like they're showing for under two grand, I will buy one.

Speaker 2:

Okay, you wouldn't, I know. No, why not? I've had several friends that have had the Barrett 50 cals. I've shot one. They've spent like seven to 12 grand on these things, yeah.

Speaker 2:

I'm very proud of them, yeah and uh. To me that's like the guy that has the, the four 54 revolver, like, oh, you want to shoot this? No, fuck, no, I don't want to shoot that. Um, the. The one exception I would say is just from a, I guess, an interest standpoint. I would shoot the barrett bullpup. I don't know what model it is, but they've got a version that's a bullpup. But generally speaking, I just don't have an interest in shooting 50 caliber cartridges in real life. I'll shoot them all day long in video games. I won't do it in real life. I'll shoot them all day long in video games. I won't do it in real life because it's not pleasant uh, okay, I don't think it's.

Speaker 1:

Uh, I don't think it's that bad personally, especially when you've got a big well, that's good.

Speaker 2:

you also own the hardest hitting uh 30 cal as well, so your vote doesn't count. Okay, you know, I'm not a pussy, I don't know what to tell you I think the crank is probably going to be a much more fun gun to shoot.

Speaker 1:

Yeah Well the new Jackal line is pretty interesting. They're a 14, five pen and welded Uh. So you got to choose your muzzle device carefully, um, which I really just wish they'd make a 16 inch version so I can put whatever muzzle device I want on there. In fact, what's stopping me from buying one right now is they don't offer like a surefire muzzle device. So any you know, if I wanted a surefire suppressor I would have to buy a three to four hundred dollar hub adapter to go on there.

Speaker 1:

And you know that'd be an awkward thing, so not, not, not interested in spending an extra.

Speaker 2:

You know however much Yep Well, and I guess I have to decide if I want to keep my Jackal as is or convert it into a rifle.

Speaker 1:

Oh, you've got it as a pistol, yeah, well, you know, yours is a 5.56 Gen 1, right? Yeah, I mean, quite frankly, I would look at just selling it and get a Gen 2.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, maybe do that.

Speaker 1:

Because the Gen 2s will be coming out here first half of the year.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, maybe I will. That's not a bad idea. Yeah, yeah, they've got the 300 aac crank, which is good um well, who is? Doing who. I'm trying to think if somebody actually did have a different, a different version of a five seven, if it wasn't them, who would have done a five seven?

Speaker 2:

oh, there are several companies coming out with new five, seven pdws and everything else and palmetto state was one that was looking at a five, seven pdw okay, I think that's what I was, that's the one I voted for them, uh, and then obviously the jackal the other ones did, did you?

Speaker 1:

while we're talking about guns, did you watch brandon herrera's video on not dismantling the atf?

Speaker 2:

uh, no, I did not. I saw you sent to me. I haven't watched it.

Speaker 1:

Yet you, you should watch it, and I think everyone should, because he makes some pretty good points about making sure that you know, hey, dismantling the atf, but leaving these laws in place isn't a good thing. What can we do to make sure that when we are, you know, trying to reduce enforcement or at least remove some of these laws, how do we get rid of the laws, and not just the agency that's enforcing them and letting the FBI or someone else enforce it? You know what do we do there? And he makes some very good points. He talks about what an ATF director could do, and he's not just being self-serving and saying, trump, pick me.

Speaker 2:

I would love to see him in that position. I just don't think Trump's heard of him who he is.

Speaker 1:

I don't know. The point is, you know if he goes, if the ATF director actually goes through and changes rulings and says, for instance, hey, suppressors, there's millions of them out there, this is common use.

Speaker 2:

That would be a way of potentially getting them off the nfa well, the atf could certainly file a brief with the courts explaining that suppressors, even though they were included in the um 86 gun ban or whatever that bill was called, no, it was actually before that suppressor.

Speaker 1:

Suppressors have been listed as an nfa item since, I think, the 30s.

Speaker 2:

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, you're right, I'm thinking machine guns. Yeah, yeah, I think they could essentially say that in our examination of this, it appears that this law was unconstitutional. What do you guys think Like if the ATF was on the side of the gun owner? We wouldn't have to wait for a court case to challenge them, because they could actually file that directly.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, well, you know, I think there's a lot of hope and I think all the directions we've seen out of the Trump administration thus far, what we've seen the actions taken. Pete Hegseth is a great example of going in and removing DEI immediately from DOD. A great example of rolling back the name changes right of the bases, things like that.

Speaker 1:

We've seen an immense amount of action in the fucking two weeks that trump has been in office, man I know it's crazy right it's insane like I as even someone like me and, I think, like you who keeps up with politics the way we do, um I know there's stuff I haven't seen. Yeah oh they're, it's impossible. It is I. We're talking like.

Speaker 2:

Asmongold, who streams 12 hours a day, is streaming about eight hours a day about Trump right now and he's a gamer. He's a gamer streamer. It's nuts.

Speaker 1:

What is the executive order count to date?

Speaker 2:

Let me look that up up. I don't know the number is exactly executive order count. So he signed a whole whopping total of 220 in his first term um, yeah I mean he did that on the first day pretty much yeah, um, yeah, I mean he's doing like 40 a day right now yeah um and a lot of them will be challenged in court.

Speaker 1:

Okay, I think.

Speaker 2:

Wikipedia is probably keeping track. Let's see how many total we get here. Uh, executive orders? Um nope, they're not. They don't have the full, the full amount on Wikipedia yet.

Speaker 1:

Yeah that's disappointing, but I think that we've seen quite a bit that, uh, you know he he's putting out hundreds of executive orders and that's good and bad. And that's good and bad. It's not good in that we don't want executive authority to just be the be-all, end-all. But there's a lot of action that can be taken and I'm happy for that be taken. You know, and I'm happy for that, my concern is, okay, one how? Permanent is this if we don't follow?

Speaker 1:

it up with legislation and then be you know um again, just founding principles. Do we want a executive that powerful?

Speaker 2:

well, I think we do right now uh yeah, right now.

Speaker 1:

Right now is good, but you know he, he needs to be well it's.

Speaker 2:

Look, the answer is really easy. We need trump to crank out 40 to 50 every single day of his presidency, which will prompt congress to pass a law limiting the number of executive orders of future presidents. And then we get our cake and eat it too.

Speaker 1:

That would be fantastic. I think it would require a constitutional amendment, but that would be fantastic.

Speaker 2:

I don't know, you think.

Speaker 1:

Yes.

Speaker 2:

Well, no, that's not true, dude. There's plenty of laws that Congress passes that limited the president's ability. Such as Well, anything in USC isn't there by executive order, it's there because of congressional.

Speaker 1:

Right, but that's not directly limiting presidential authority.

Speaker 2:

So well, I mean like setting a number of executive order, a limit on the number of executive orders a president can write yeah would require a constitutional amendment yeah, probably just that way, but they they come up with some other method of limiting and probably I mean, here's the thing they can simply pass a law that says all executive orders that a president creates have to be tied to funding from congress, which is part of their authority. No, they can't.

Speaker 1:

I think they probably could okay, I think it would be immediately challenged and struck down as unconstitutional, but okay I mean they could just defund the presidency go for it, please defund the entire executive branch.

Speaker 2:

Yes, congress. That's the way to do it yes, and I'm gonna throw you in that, uh, in that briar patch too while I'm at it, which one you know in the rabbit getting thrown in the Briar Patch.

Speaker 1:

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2:

Anything but that.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, it's been a while since I was reading kids' books.

Speaker 2:

It's all good. It's been longer for me. I guarantee you that.

Speaker 1:

Well, hey, I'm glad to see unrelenting, didn't relent.

Speaker 2:

I mean after two weeks of being. I know it was actually it was two missed episodes, which is three weeks was the previous show was last year, so it was like the first time we did a show this year, that's that's a lot dude I know, yeah, well, you know what can you do? Darren's just sick a lot darren, feel better man I. I've told him I'm happy to find somebody to replace him and do the episode without him, and he does not seem to well.

Speaker 1:

He neither thinks that's funny nor does he want me to do it well, you know, I, I can understand, I wouldn't, I can't, I told them well, I, I sure as hell would I.

Speaker 2:

I told them, uh, to do that when we first started. I'm like dude, if I'm unavailable because I got a business meeting or something else, just grabs one of your other co-hosts. You got plenty of them. Have them step in, do a show what. I think it's better to have a show even if one of the co-hosts is missing, for regularity's sake, for maintaining consistency with people, than it is to just not do one for several weeks well, just like phil stepping in this week for tim, you know who's phil.

Speaker 1:

Phil levante, oh, the drummer dude.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, uh, lead singer, but whatever yeah, I've never heard his band, I don't know it's, it's grunge music.

Speaker 1:

Dude, it's not my style at all exactly, but I like him, I like his politics speaking of music, I do too.

Speaker 2:

I like phil um, speaking of you, were sending me some very interesting titles, so I I found a way to just have continuous playlists playing in the background of music created by Suno, and the beauty of that is none of that is copyrighted. Well, I mean, that's not true. It could be copyrighted, but it's not yet in the copyright system for YouTube, which means I can have it playing in the background while I'm doing a video.

Speaker 2:

Which obviously with any normal music, if you try doing that, usually gets copyright strikes. So in the process of playing a bunch of music in the background, some of the tunes jumped out at me, like whoa, hold on. So I have to send those to you so those weren't ones you were specifically generating. No, no those weren't mine. Dude, those other peoples that were in the stream, in the playlist.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah, wow that's like I thought you were creating some dark shit for fun.

Speaker 2:

No, no, no, no. Your mic is a wee bit hot right now, by the way you've been telling me to talk louder I know, but like monotonous, talk louder, but monotonously, so you don't sound excited and pop your mic but, yeah, there was some, uh some tunes in there about uh one way to say it could be a little bdsm. Another way to say it domestic abuse indeed definitely some creative topics that would not probably make it to mainstream media unless they were sung by black people.

Speaker 1:

Even then, I think it would be pretty rough yeah.

Speaker 2:

But you know, suno doesn't seem to be banning that yet. At least I'm sure they will. Eventually, like everything else, the more usage and people you have, the more tighter the controls get on what you're allowed to do. We probably won't even be able to make music. That's, you know, pre-civil War era eventually era eventually.

Speaker 1:

Well, you, you already saw that um china, apple and uh, spotify are working with china to remove podcast episodes that the government has asked them to remove.

Speaker 2:

Oh, yeah, yeah, absolutely, because you don't own the platform. So what are you gonna do? Well, I mean, you could say, no, china, we're not going to do that right, but apple makes more money in china than they do in the united states okay, so just make apple podcasts not available in china well, that's exactly what they're doing, except on a per episode basis anyway, I, I don't know man, I I wouldn't no, I don't think this podcast is particularly critical of china.

Speaker 2:

I'm actually, uh, generally speaking, well of china, because this one of the oldest civilizations on the planet and most people in america don't understand how chinese people think. But there are plenty of podcasts out there that really rail on china and I certainly wouldn't be surprised if those podcasts, or at least episodes from those podcasts, would not be available in china well, I think, uh, some of zayhan's stuff especially would not be available in China, but I would expect that to be the case, but but let's not just solo chat out here.

Speaker 2:

I would say they literally the exact same thing about the UK, which is now arrested over 1000 people for their views online.

Speaker 1:

Well, did you see the Tucker Pierce Morgan?

Speaker 2:

interview. Nope, is it worth watching. I'll check it out.

Speaker 1:

I've only seen clips so far.

Speaker 2:

It came up on my recommended list, but I haven't watched it.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I have seen the clips, but that's it.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, well, the UK does not have freedom of speech. They've never had freedom.

Speaker 1:

no, but that that was one of the clips that they were talking about and pierce was defending those arrests and you know saying oh no, those are people inciting riots and this that and the other it's like, uh, again go.

Speaker 1:

Going back to our free speech conversation, um, unless I'm paying someone to do something, I ought to be able to say whatever the hell I want to say up into you know, the a good example was the girl who was found guilty of uh talking her ex-boyfriend into committing suicide that him committing suicide is not her fault you know when she tells him fine, go jump off bridge. And he does it, and that's not literally what she said, or what he did. That's on him, not her. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2:

I agree. I think that there's a. I'm an advocate of free speech as much as you don't think I am, but I very much much am just with slightly different motives about it is I think it's insane to prevent people about speaking about controversial and even evil topics, because how else are you going to find out who those people are if they're not allowed to talk about it? I'd much rather them be exposed with flashlights than be hidden in basements.

Speaker 1:

So right, don't, don't suppress speech allows.

Speaker 2:

Allow the bad actors to speak out exactly, say whatever they want exactly, and that's why it goes for all the trans stuff or pedophilia, for everything. It's like I don't want to keep these people from talking, I want to make sure that they don't do illegal acts, but as far as talking about them, great, that just puts them in the spotlight more. Then we all know who they are. So agreed yep. So what do you think of Snowden being made kind of like the test case for Tulsi?

Speaker 1:

What do you mean?

Speaker 2:

Well, you know, a large portion of the Democrats were jumping on the bandwagon of like well Tulsi supported a traitor to the country. The bandwagon of like well Tulsi supported a traitor to the country. How can she possibly be in control of the military if she's a supporter of traders Cause?

Speaker 1:

clearly, that makes her a traitor. The intelligence apparatchik, not the military, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2:

Military intelligence Sure.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I mean, I think that I I think it's a ridiculous thing for them to do, because I think that Snowden isn't a traitor. I think he was a patriot.

Speaker 1:

I think he did the right thing. I've held that belief since everything happened, that there wasn't more of an outcry and damn near revolution in this country based off of the Snowden revelations. Because, you know, in my line of work the joke has always been I've heard the NSA can and you fill it in with some nonsense, and the fact of the matter is we knew they were spying on us. We thought that for a long time. But to have public confirmation of a lot of these programs that a lot of us kind of knew about already and they're not to be an overwhelming response, and to have the response of.

Speaker 1:

How dare snowden expose this? Yeah well, first of all, don't be putting your secrets like this on a fucking sharepoint site. Dude, you know snowden, and this is something that needs to be understood, as snowden was not some super secret squirrel dude.

Speaker 3:

He, you know he had a clearance. He's just a regular squirrel dude.

Speaker 1:

The point is, the information he pulled was okay from a classified server, but man, I just, you know well, he didn't go through the proper channels for whistleblower protection. Yeah, if he had, he'd probably be dead.

Speaker 2:

No, he did. That's part of the little bit that always gets missed is that he absolutely did run it up the flagpole and was told that it's all good, don't worry about it, but I'm talking about for the actual release of the information.

Speaker 2:

Oh yeah, but he also didn't do a full dump either. He selectively released info and he only dealt with the press for people that would agree to his terms, for people that would agree to his terms. So I think the guy tried to walk his final line as he possibly could, and this is why I've always said I think it is absolutely true that both things can be true at the same time. He may have violated his oath but at the same time, did the right thing.

Speaker 1:

Well, I don't care if he violated his oath.

Speaker 2:

But that's the point that I think these people are focusing on is that nobody who has ever violated their oath should be let anywhere near a military or spy operation.

Speaker 1:

Well, he's not Sorry.

Speaker 2:

Well, he's not sorry, well, and they expand that to nobody. Who thinks that he didn't do a bad thing should be allowed to run that right, but that's, that's ludicrous well, it's yeah I understand where they're coming from.

Speaker 2:

But the problem is that you really want both right, so you don't want somebody whose personal morals are going to get in the way of doing their job. For certain government jobs like the CIA Sure, the CIA you have to have somebody who you can trust, has the North Star deeply aligned with their job, not with contradictions to their job, and that's why in the initial days of the CIA, they strictly hired Catholics. They didn't hire anybody unless they were Catholic, and then obviously that changed over time. But the idea was that, whatever you're being asked to do, all you had to know is that somebody above you knew that it was for the greater good, and your part of it may make you do something that appears, on surface level, to be going contrary to the will of the Constitution, the will of the president, especially when you shoot him. You know things like that but that you had that belief that your superiors had thought this through thoroughly enough and that, frankly, you're part of the branch that gets to do the jobs nobody else is willing to do.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, well, you know, it's definitely interesting that Trump decided to open up some of that right and we'll see about the JFK files and what really comes out. But the JFK, rfk and MLK files are being released, supposedly, yep.

Speaker 2:

Well, I think, I think there'll be a lot of black pages, is my guess.

Speaker 1:

Uh, no, no, he the order actually says for full declassification at this point.

Speaker 2:

We'll see, we'll see.

Speaker 1:

I agree, Uh, but you know, um, I agree, but I think there would be a cause for some firings if you didn't. But we'll see.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, but you understand my point about your ideal hire for these organizations is going to be somebody that has more moral ambiguity than Snowden.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, no, I I don't concede that point because I don't agree with it. But I can see how some people might think that. Uh, I can see the argument being made, I just don't well, no, and your absolute ideal candidate is literally a robot.

Speaker 2:

It's not a human being, because a robot isn't going to have questions about whether what it's being asked to do is moral or not.

Speaker 1:

No, I want people questioning, I want those moral questions asked.

Speaker 2:

You really don't for those types of roles, because the things you're going to be doing often are immoral.

Speaker 1:

Then maybe we shouldn't be doing them.

Speaker 2:

Well, that's a different question. I'm not going to argue with you on that one. But if you go to the point of having a secret agency be doing them, well that's a different question. I'm not going to argue with you on that one. But if you go to the point of having a secret agency whose job includes murder, then you don't want people that are constantly going to be second guessing their orders.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, but I don't want an agency.

Speaker 2:

Well then, you need to get rid of the CIA, but that's not going to work out well for the country.

Speaker 1:

The CIA and NSA need to go away and we need to have only military intelligence operations.

Speaker 2:

Okay, in military intelligence operations, do you think that you want people that are second guessing? Orders Hell, no.

Speaker 1:

Well, but basically they should be pretty non-functional outside of. First of all, they should only operate outside the US and second of all, they should be pretty non-functional in times of peace. So unless we've declared a war, they should be basically idle.

Speaker 2:

Okay, so I know I have to be the devil's advocate on this stuff, dude Sure, because I may have a gut agreement with you. However, that would absolutely place the United States in tremendous jeopardy compared to other states that we're not currently friendly with.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, because.

Speaker 2:

China isn't going to do that, russia isn't going to do that, iran isn't going to do that. God knows Israel isn't going to do that. Russia isn't going to do that, iran isn't going to do that, god knows, israel isn't going to do that. We have a ton of countries that are perfectly willing to have these types of organizations with very strong moral ambiguity, and if we're the only country that doesn't have that, we will end up suffering as a result well, what I would say is I prefer dangerous freedom over peaceful slavery well, that's a nice platitude, but let's talk about the topic at hand it's not a platitude and it is something to consider is okay.

Speaker 1:

Yes, there's a risk that other countries might do something shitty to us, but that does not justify us doing something shitty ourselves. We have to take the moral high road and maintain our status well, regain our status you're the guy that wants to talk about the new american empire. You ain't gonna have that without the cia man well, uh, okay, first of all, I I am not pro the new american empire.

Speaker 1:

I just see that as you're very excited about it though I from an intellectual exercise standpoint, sure, but what I would say is, yes, you can totally have that without the cia. You can do it through soft power. Look at what trump just did to columbia. Look at, uh, what we're already doing in the panama canal. The panama canal uh, in the first two weeks of the trump administration has already started investigations into the chinese ports, which will likely end up in china getting kicked out of those ports and giving trump a victory there.

Speaker 1:

Um, there are lots of things that can be done and I I don't think the CIA was involved in any of those actions, but you know, to concede a point, I don't know that we would ever know Exactly.

Speaker 2:

Not if they're doing their job right. All we'd see, is all we know is the number of stars that pop up every year.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think that's so self-aggrandizing.

Speaker 2:

I believe that there definitely is a reform that needs to happen in the CIA, but historically I'm a big fan.

Speaker 1:

I think historically they've been absolutely atrocious and horrible I think that in a lot of ways, the cia was responsible for a lot of positive change out of communism and towards capitalism in the world over the last 60 years I think the cia has given us a lot of unintended consequences and if you look, at oh yeah, for instance afghanistan and charlie wilson's war and the fact that we um financed that war and went down the path we did and we allowed the um, the, the afghanis, to basically reduce their average age to that of teenagers and then did not spend any money on education or anything else it was a single American in the whole process. Yes, oh yes, we did later on. Well so, if you believe the official narrative, if you believe the official narrative, yeah, the Mojadine we funded, we trained, we did all this they caused terrorist actions around the world, including those you know, the USS Cole, and then, supposedly, 9-11.

Speaker 1:

And you know we had thousands and thousands of Americans die based off of the CIA's actions.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, but again, being a bit of a devil's advocate, I would say that the portion that the CIA were involved with they did exceptionally well. What happened afterwards was up to Congress and, because it was no longer a covert operations, russia had pulled out of Afghanistan, ussr pulled out of there, and so we then needed to decide what do we do with this country, with these people who were at the time very pro-American? And what we decided to do is congratulate ourselves by patting ourselves on the back saying, hey, well, we won that one without a single American death, and then walked away. And what those people were getting as a result of that was they got rid of the Russians, which were in no answer to them, but but they lost all of their American support as soon as they got rid of the Russians. And had they known that they would, that would be the end result. They probably would have kept that war with Russia going for a good 20 years and just never being so successful that it pushed Russia out, which is essentially what they ended up doing when we were at war with them.

Speaker 2:

So I don't blame the CIA for fault in their actions during that period of time. Um, you know, I mean it's I. I am perfectly willing to grant any country's secret service a success for actions that they took that went well, even if I disagree with the uh the end result of those actions. But but that's a different question, because what they're executing on is what the politicians told them to execute on. I'm just judging how well they executed okay it's not like the cia did something that you know that they did differently or wrong.

Speaker 2:

That led to where things went. It was just a complete abandonment of afghanistan, not just financially but in terms of, uh, trying to develop that country into at least the pakistan, into something a little more civilized. We literally did none of that and we should have we should have or alternatively, maybe we should have just stayed out of it completely and let russia do their thing. Oh that 100.

Speaker 1:

But I think we should have just stayed out of it completely and let Russia do their thing. Oh, 100%, but I think we should have stayed. But again, this is where the CIA and having these intelligence agencies automatically get you into foreign entanglements that our founders warned us about.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I agree, yeah, yeah, I agree. But once you create the cia, if you don't shut it down if it exists, what you want are people with moral ambiguity there all you're doing is making an argument that I agree with, that we should shut down the cia I'm not against shutting down the cia.

Speaker 1:

Okay, so cool, shut NSA, fbi.

Speaker 2:

What I'm against is just pretending like we're going to somehow manage it in a way that doesn't violate any moral. It's like, no, it's like you built an organization whose mission is such that it will violate morals.

Speaker 1:

Agreed In order to be competitive with the rest of the world which is why it shouldn't exist yeah, I mean that's fine.

Speaker 2:

I just I think that right now we're probably in a better position for it to not exist, because signals intelligence has gotten to be such a large percentage of all intelligence. Um to where the nsa can take over those responsibilities completely, oh man.

Speaker 1:

Well, you know what? I'd be okay with the NSA existing and even the CIA, existing as long as A, they do not operate on any collections on US soil. Yeah, and we remove ourselves from the five eyes that would be the only.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, the five eyes is okay with saying okay yes you know they can. It's a convenient workaround to have the five eyes it's atrocious yeah, yeah, yeah, but it, but it also is not unexpected. Like you knew, this would be happening.

Speaker 1:

We can't legally spy on this american citizen uh uk, australia, new zealand, would y'all mind? Uh-huh yeah, please, thank you all.

Speaker 2:

Right, appreciate it you know what five Eyes is run on right? What do you mean, Amazon?

Speaker 1:

That's who hosts the data for them. I don't know if that's true for all the Five Eyes nations, but fine.

Speaker 2:

Well, we've got contracts, man.

Speaker 1:

I know it is Okay. I mean the US federal government. Amazon was the first to do FedRAMPure, and others have come along as well.

Speaker 2:

So there's competition there now? Oh, there, absolutely is.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah, which fed ramp is such a fucking joke in so many ways.

Speaker 2:

Don't get me started yeah um, and you know there's, there's a uh, a handful of employees sitting at home pretending to work for every contractor that actually does.

Speaker 1:

Well, the work from home stuff is ending. I know I'm exempt from the current push, but you know, my company is pushing for a return to the office. You know, the main reason why I'm exempt is my team is spread out across the nation. It's not like I'm we're all in one regional office.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, you're just going to be driving to sit in an office on the phone. Anyway, exactly.

Speaker 1:

And then um, but dell has now retired work from home. All employees must return to find, so it's amazon office yep, so so it's who.

Speaker 2:

Amazon.

Speaker 1:

Yeah. So I think we're seeing a big push to say, hey, this is over, and I I think there's pros and cons. I think, depending on your job, working from home is a great benefit and really, if you have the right employees, it's fine. But the problem is, in most of these large corporations, you have hr departments, which makes firing people very difficult, yeah, and as a result, you know which which you have is, um, you know, uh, an inability when someone isn't producing, an inability to go in and say, hey, this person's not doing their job, they need to go.

Speaker 2:

And if you had that, then you know, um and and this is literally the only thing I've ever gotten in trouble in companies for is for being accused of being insensitive. Shocker, right, yeah, shocker, yeah you should definitely do the peterson personality test.

Speaker 1:

I'd be very interested to see what uh came out. Oh yeah, I'll do it because my, my politeness score is pretty low, dude, but I think yours might be zero, so uh, people love me.

Speaker 2:

It's just uh they're afraid of me keep telling yourself that gene no, no, this is not me telling you. This is from surveys that I've given to people.

Speaker 1:

Okay, uh, because it's very consistent yeah, were there names attached to the surveys?

Speaker 2:

well, obviously, how am I supposed to know who said what?

Speaker 1:

I wonder how that might skew the results um, I don't know.

Speaker 2:

I'm doing it right now, by the way, as we talk the big five you already paid for it. Peterson personality test.

Speaker 1:

Huh, the peterson personality test know thyself, or whatever it is. Yeah, make sure you're doing the right one I've done so many of these things I talked about it. I talked about this on um uh, did you pay for the one? You're taking right now no, well then you're not on the I don't know.

Speaker 2:

I think, yeah, I enjoy personality tests. I've talked about this on Unrelenting as well. I've always had friends that were like psychologists, psychiatrists, and so they could get me this shit for free and I sent you a link to it, by the way oh, okay, cool, um, and so they. They have done that. In fact, the story that I told on the other show I might as well just give us quick synopsis is I almost got to be the ceO of LaCroix Water, but the thing that derailed me was a personality test.

Speaker 1:

How did it derail you?

Speaker 2:

Well, they didn't give me the offer. I was on very good terms and this was literally the final step. After all the interviews and everything else um and um, it was, uh, obviously not the right result. Okay, so I don't know. Do you want more on that? You can listen to the episode. I talked more about it on there. Did we lose you again, ben?

Speaker 1:

uh, oh no, I'm here, sorry, did we lose you again, ben. Uh-oh, no, I'm here. Sorry, one of the vehicles is getting serviced and they were calling me, so the personality test and the IQ test for employment is borderline illegal.

Speaker 2:

I mean it's not for executive positions.

Speaker 1:

It's really a very common practice well, you know that, fair enough, it's common practice. But it also can be used for discriminatory action.

Speaker 2:

So you know sure everything could be, but I think, um, and I've taken, I've taken tests here. In fact I was. There was one company that had recommended a website that had a bunch of personality tests along with cognitive ability tests. Have you done those?

Speaker 2:

Oh yeah, and and so I went and I started you know cause I do have some OCD I started doing all those tests, um, and like really getting better at them, the cognitive stuff, um and uh, I ended up getting the top score in every single one of those, except for one which, which had um, just kept giving me errors that I was not doing correctly, and it was basically like stuff was flashing on the screen for a very short period of time and you're supposed to make a decision based on something you see for like a tenth of a second.

Speaker 1:

Okay. So you were trying to game these tests.

Speaker 2:

Well, I wasn't trying. I did game all the tests because I knew what I'm like trying to game these tests. Well, I wasn't trying. I did game all the tests because I knew what I'm doing and so I got, you know, absolute perfect scores in every single one, except for this one. And I was like this can't be right, because I'm actually good at this, because I play video games.

Speaker 2:

And so I recorded it with a high-speed camera and actually found that there was a bug in their test, which I then called the company to tell them and provided video evidence that their test is literally incorrect. And could they please fix my score to show that it's perfect? And, uh, they were at first. They're like well, you know, we'll send it to support. And then they they did reach back out to me and say, yeah, yeah, looks like you found a bug, uh, and they sent me a t-shirt that says um, uh, I I did these tests and all I got was a lousy t-shirt okay so it's cute you know if you're that ocd and borderline narcissistic to worry about getting a score to go to that point, man, I don't know what to say what do you mean borderline?

Speaker 1:

I work hard, man oh well, I wasn't trying to accuse you of being a narcissist.

Speaker 1:

You know I don't want to fall into that female trap you know, you know what we call people that aren't narcissists what um they're, uh, they have low self-esteem well, I, I think there there's some borderline there that you know like, especially when I look at myself and everything you have is being confident in your abilities. Narcissism, um, you know, it depends on your categorization and, like anything else, um I think it's is expecting other people to find you confident, your abilities, narcissism well, there's that, and then there's also the how is this affecting your life sort of test to any of this bullshit yeah, I think that's a part that I mean let's.

Speaker 2:

Let's face it somebody can become a narcissist because they do have low self-esteem yeah, as a coping mechanism absolutely yeah, it's.

Speaker 1:

It's like pushing in the other direction well, um, you know, it's oftentimes those people who have the least ability who try to think that they have the most. Really, the most dangerous person is that midwit who thinks they're more intelligent than they are. Oh you mean a redditor.

Speaker 2:

Yes there's that.

Speaker 1:

Which I don't know how to take that Gene You've compared me to redditors multiple times. Uh-huh, uh-huh, uh-huh, uh-huh uh-huh um all right man. Any other news we need to talk about?

Speaker 2:

well, I'm trying to think of what, as I mean, I've been spending so much time just watching trump signing things and he seems to do a press conference immediately after he's doing it. Yeah, like he's had more press conferences in his first two weeks than Biden did the entire presidency Hell, probably more than he's like that he himself has had in the first one.

Speaker 1:

Yeah well, he's definitely doing a lot. We've seen a lot of action. This is good. Most of the actions I pretty much agree with. In fact, I have yet to see something that I'm like oh my god, no, don't do that right. I haven't seen any of that yet, so yeah, yeah I don't know man I so far, so good.

Speaker 2:

Right, I got my fingers crossed, I'm liking what I'm seeing so far, but we got another almost two years to go until the first midterms and then, you know, that'll determine really what the rest of the two years looks like.

Speaker 1:

Well, you know, I think the midterms are going to tell a lot, because if Trump is successful, if things are turning around and we have an amount of action between now and then, if the midterms go against Trump, then I could see it slowing down, but if it's for him, I see nothing but a doubling down. Mm, hmm.

Speaker 1:

And I think we've got a really good shot at at least eight years of this sort of America first movement politics going pretty solidly. I think Vance is not necessarily the heir apparent, but he's quite possibly. I think there's still a lot of room for Vivek. I think there's a lot of room for a lot of people. So I think Tulsi will actually, especially if she gets into the administration and does a good job and what we want her to do in that position.

Speaker 1:

She will be a very strong candidate. I think if RFK Jr goes into the administration and does what we want him to do there, he will be a strong candidate.

Speaker 2:

So is this thing you sent me mostly about agreeability and disagreeability.

Speaker 1:

No, okay, it's the big five personality model, so it's statistically derived. It's not from a theory and then deriving a model to make it. It's looking at people's personalities and statistically deriving things. It's working in the opposite direction. You can go read about the history, but it's it's.

Speaker 2:

It's the most predictive of the personality models okay, so you paid 10 bucks to take this test.

Speaker 1:

I did more than that. I paid several hundred dollars to have tokens available for employees to take it. Hmm.

Speaker 2:

Why did you do this one? There are a lot of different personality tests.

Speaker 1:

Well, one I wanted to support Peterson, and then two this is probably the most comprehensive of the big five personality tests that I've seen.

Speaker 2:

How many questions?

Speaker 1:

A hundred, that's not bad.

Speaker 2:

The one I just finished is 50.

Speaker 1:

um so the the big five personality traits. You know you have agreeableness as a personality trait. You have neuroticism as a personality trait, um, conscientiousness and, uh, intellect. And then there's one other. I'm blanking on it, but the point is that you know, these traits are what make up your personality. So, like the intellect isn't an IQ test in this, it's. You know how do you use your intellect, whatever its capacity may be.

Speaker 1:

So it's not judging your capacity, it's judging your proclivity to use it got it okay and agreeableness is broken down into subsections, and politeness is one of those subsections, and um yeah, my score on politeness is like the third percentile oh, really that's hilarious extraordinarily low on politeness.

Speaker 2:

And you're kind of a polite young man, I'm surprised.

Speaker 1:

I'm sorry.

Speaker 2:

You're kind of a polite young man, so I'm kind of surprised.

Speaker 1:

Well, I mean, this isn't necessarily about social convention. It's about what is my personality, what is my inherent bias, not what I actually do, yeah Right, so my inherent bias is very unpolite, and so that should tell you something that I go above and beyond to try and be a polite person, for the most part because that is not my normal or natural instinct.

Speaker 2:

Either that or the test is wrong.

Speaker 1:

Okay.

Speaker 2:

See, I have that trait I'm suspicious of things, and for good reason what's your good reason? People tend to be, you know, very self-serving, and so unbiased data is almost non-existent. People tend to be very self-serving, and so unbiased data is almost non-existent.

Speaker 1:

Everything is biased, yeah, so let's see, here You've got agreeableness. In fact didn't.

Speaker 2:

Marcus Aurelius say that the only things that we hear are opinions, not facts. Yeah, that the only things that we hear are opinions, not facts.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, so my agreeableness score is a 32nd percentile, which is moderately low. My compassion, which is a subconcept of agreeableness, is moderately high. It's 77. But my politeness is exceptionally low and I was wrong. I was fourth percentile, not third, so that you know compassion I'm pretty high, but I don't you know, I'm willing to say F you.

Speaker 2:

Conscientiousness. You've taken your Myers-Briggs before right. Yes, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1:

I would have to go look it up. I've taken it several times. So conscientiousness 80th percentile, but industriousness 98th percentile, which I think you see in my personality Order. But what brings my conscientiousness down is orderliness. So do I care about stacks of papers on the countertop or something like that? Yeah Is 25th percentile, so no, I don't.

Speaker 2:

I don't have a single friend who does yeah is 25th percentile. So no, I don't. I don't have a single friend who does, Just statistically speaking. I literally don't have a single friend that cares about that. Everyone just has stacks of shit at home.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, so extraversion, exceptionally high 97th percentile Mine's gotten down.

Speaker 2:

Mine used to be higher, but I think post-COVID mine's at about 50%.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I just you know, to me, a space is meant to be lived in. It shouldn't feel sterile. And if it? Does. That's when I get itchy about it. You know, now I really should spend more time and clean things up and take care of things more, but I, I, just I don't.

Speaker 1:

I, I prioritize other things when I was an infosec, I always enforced a clean desk and, uh, some people hated me for it, but uh, I just think it makes things a lot easier well, a clean desk is one thing, and one of the things I'd say is, if you look at my computers and you look at my notes and everything else, and where I'm storing information or how I'm storing information is incredibly organized. In fact, in this role I've had for the last seven months, one of the things I'm doing is enforcing knowledge management as a key principle and making sure that we have consistency across projects and what we're doing and how we're storing that information. Yeah.

Speaker 1:

You know, and that that the main reason rationale for that is, as I move from project to project or anything else I need to, regardless of who's doing it, I need to be able to know exactly where to find the right things, and you know I shouldn't have to spend time searching for it. So you know, there's where my orderliness comes in, because where it matters to me for my work and my industriousness, that follows. But in my daily life a stack of mail on the kitchen counter isn't going to bug me.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, Yep, and I I definitely have plenty of those stacks of mail. But again, this was a differentiator for me between work and home. Is um at work? And especially when I was working in anthosec it it was more important to enforce that people um were not treating their work the way they treat their house.

Speaker 1:

Well, and some people you don't want them to treat their work the way they treat their house right. Some people you do. It depends on each individual's personality and I understand your clean desk policy. You didn't need to send that to me.

Speaker 2:

I thought you might find it useful for yourself, right, and if you're in an office building that to me, I thought you might find it useful for yourself.

Speaker 1:

Right, and if you're in an office building, that makes sense, but if it's your desk at your home, how relevant is that?

Speaker 2:

Are you going to be securing or?

Speaker 1:

locking those papers anyway.

Speaker 2:

Well, you already touched on what the equivalent of that for you and it is the same thing for me is to have a separate computer for work and for home yes, absolutely duplicate computers, which most people don't. You realize that, because then whenever you, whenever I've laid people off, it's always shocking to me what we find on their computers. But I'm sure it's not shocking to the average person because to them a work computer is just a computer you don't have to pay for it. But that's the only distinction.

Speaker 1:

They put all kinds of crap on there but see, I work in infosec and I know the monitoring capabilities and everything else and I'm just, I'm not going to put my personal life on a work computer exactly.

Speaker 1:

You know, that's exactly um now will I say if there's something going on and I'm out in the middle of nowhere and the only computer I have with me is a work computer and we want to do an update, will I do it occasionally or something like that? Sure, but it will be the exception and most likely what I'll do is I'll you know remote into something else.

Speaker 2:

That's what I was just going to say when I had to do that kind of stuff. If I had to use my only computer where I was was the work computer then I would just RDP into my own machine.

Speaker 1:

Right, and you know basically just yes, I used it for network transport you know, but that's it. Yep Exactly All right Gene.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, let's wrap it up, man.

Speaker 1:

Sorry, we had some errors and issues today, guys.

Speaker 2:

Hopefully you'll get that taken care of before next show Get everything working good and we'll see you next time.

Speaker 1:

See you, Gene.

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