Just Two Good Old Boys
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Just Two Good Old Boys
176 Building Sharp Satire With AI Video Tools
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A lot of people talk about AI like it’s either the end of creativity or a magic button for instant content. We don’t buy either story. We sit down with Dong P. Bongwater, a creator known for sharp political satire and internet-character cartoons, to dig into what it actually takes to make AI video content that feels intentional, funny, and watchable for more than 10 seconds.
We get into the craft behind crude comedy, why pacing and contrast matter, and how a “one person studio” mindset changes everything. Don breaks down his real workflow: generating short clips, iterating until a scene hits, editing as he goes, and even creating live on stream while chat throws curveballs. We also talk tools and tradeoffs, from local AI for privacy and uncensored experimentation to premium cloud models for cinematic quality and safer alignment with YouTube rules.
Then we zoom out to the creator economy. React videos can multiply exposure but not necessarily income, so we debate what fair support looks like, why creators hesitate to ask, and how value-for-value can keep the best independent work alive. If you care about generative AI, AI filmmaking, content creation, monetization, and the future of internet culture, this one is a ride. Subscribe, share this with a friend who argues about AI, and leave us a review with your take: should react channels pay the original creator?
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Cold Open And Guest Setup
SPEAKER_04Well, howdy Ben, how are you today?
SPEAKER_07Gene, I'm doing good. I'm doing real good. Better than some of the days. Well, yeah, we had the contractor's AC guy out here and he admitted fault on her recording. Well, that's good because you've been bitching about that AC for a while. For the last over four years since I bought this house. And I finally threatened to sue them and they're paying attention.
SPEAKER_04Hey, that's what gets motivation going.
SPEAKER_07I know I felt so Jewish though.
SPEAKER_04Oh my god, not that. Anything but that. You're such a goy, I swear to God. So we got a guest today. Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_07Last time you had a guest on, I was in my absence. You neglected to make it last time I had a guest on. At least this time I get to be part of the three-way.
SPEAKER_04Uh-huh. I'm sure that's what you're looking forward to. So our guest today is somebody that if you are on YouTube and you share our sensibilities for politics and humor, I'm sure you've seen his work. If you don't, then you probably haven't. But Don P. Bongwater, how are you today? Doing pretty good.
SPEAKER_03How about you?
SPEAKER_04Doing all right. Doing alright. So uh, you know, I think I forgot to tell you the name of the podcast where you're gonna be on when I invited you.
SPEAKER_03I think you did.
SPEAKER_04Did yeah, yeah. So the this is the just too good old boys podcast. Oh, there we go. Yeah. So we we are both in Texas, and you're just a little ways north of us. Just a little bit.
SPEAKER_03Mm-hmm.
SPEAKER_05Where are you out of, Don?
SPEAKER_03Oh, over here in eastern Oklahoma.
SPEAKER_05Oh, okay. What part? I I I love Tulsa area.
SPEAKER_03It's beautiful. I yeah. Uh it's you know, okay. I I moved here a while back, or right during the storms in 2019, when the the Arkansas were overflowed onto uh riverside, and that convinced me immediately to get rid of my old car and get a truck. So that's exactly what I did when I moved out here. But no, it's it's always been wonderful and big change of pace from living in LA.
SPEAKER_07Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, the people don't realize because they think of western Oklahoma when they think of Oklahoma, right? They think of Oklahoma City. But when you are, you know, right there in eastern Oklahoma, you're right there at the foothills of the Ozarks. It's very green, very pretty.
SPEAKER_03It's very dynamic. A lot of people don't appreciate it. I and you know, uh Oklahoma City does get a lot of the limelight, and to be honest, it it gets it deserves a lot of the hate that it gets, to be honest. I've driven there many times going out to Lawton to go shoot, and yeah, I I have zero desire to ever be anywhere close to Oklahoma City.
SPEAKER_07Yeah, so when I I work in cybersecurity, and when I was at uh Dragos, I had clients in Oklahoma City and Tulsa, and one of them I look forward to and one of them I didn't. Mm-hmm.
SPEAKER_04Well, Oklahoma used to be part of Texas, so it's all good. Parts of it. But what part didn't?
SPEAKER_07A big chunk, actually.
SPEAKER_04I don't know, man. I looked at those old maps.
SPEAKER_07That little panhandle. Yeah, the panhandle. That that's it. That was part of Texas.
SPEAKER_04Really? So what was the other? Just open territory? It was the Oklahoma territory. It was just territory. It was not correct.
SPEAKER_07Okay. Yeah. Texas snake.
SPEAKER_04Well, we went all the way up north of Colorado into Wyoming.
SPEAKER_07To Cheyenne, Wyoming. The Republic of Texas stretched from Brownsville to Cheyenne. Yep.
SPEAKER_01That's a good jog.
SPEAKER_04Probably longer than the East Coast.
SPEAKER_07Maybe. No, because of Florida. No, yeah, yeah. Florida's fucking function.
SPEAKER_04Florida's pretty long.
SPEAKER_07Florida and Maine, yeah.
SPEAKER_04Well, anyway, so let's not let's not waste Don's time talking about something from 200 years ago. So the reason I wanted to get you on here, Don, is I mean, there's a lot of people on the internet that have similar politics and stuff, but what is interesting to me, and I think interesting to Ben is the fact that you're using AI properly. What I'm what I mean by properly is unlike a lot of schlock that is getting created, you are using it
Why His AI Videos Stand Out
SPEAKER_04as a tool, a new tool, a tool that can do more advanced things and allow you to produce quality videos that are done with way fewer people than would have had to historically be involved in doing them. And unfortunately, like that quality and level of production is quite often grouped together with the 99.9% schlock coming from India. Yeah, well, I mean, like it's not even that.
SPEAKER_03Well, I mean, listen, all you gotta do is there is a video on YouTube called Pooh in the Loom. It is a video and a music video, mind you, that UNICEF paid for to get Indians to start shitting in toilets instead of the streets. That had no effect. So I don't think they really care because I don't think they're they they really understand it in the first place.
SPEAKER_07So and you know, one of the things that you have to understand though with that culture is there's there's a they use squat toilets over there, so it's already indicative of just squatting.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, and that's if they have a toilet. Most of the country does not.
SPEAKER_04And I'm not sure the concept of toilet paper exists out there either.
SPEAKER_03No, there's a reason why shaking uh with your dominant hand is considered a a bad thing in the Middle East.
SPEAKER_04It's better to just not shake, just you know, do the little hand triangle bow thing and stay clean. Alright, well, that's one one demographic we've sat at. Now, I've I've really enjoyed the videos you make because the characters in your videos are people who I've been watching Twitch or YouTube for a long time. So to me, it was kind of like not just some you know random, funny political cartoon, but like, holy shit, these are actually people I know being put into hilarious situations. Uh or people I don't I mean, people that are you know notorious, like Hassan Piker, who is a notorious anchor baby uh communist, you know, anti-American. And I thought your presentation of that character was hilarious.
SPEAKER_03Now a lot of people don't understand what it means to create content like that. Um because the problem that you have is if you look at most people that create AI, most of them are doing AMVs of the anime music videos, or they're doing short little things that are kind of just like, all right, they're quick little memes that someone just you know farts into existence and or they're uh current events, and too few people understand the art of crude comedy, and people think, oh, there's no art to it. There they're acting there really, really is. And you know, there there's there's quite a few other creators out there that just do glaze content, right? All they do is exist specifically to glaze somebody else, make somebody look good in order to get their attention. And that's never been something that's that I've I've wanted to do. And every single thing in what I create, at least so far, always has a positive and a negative that's tied to it. You know, for example, when you want to create a character like Nux that no one knows what he looks like, okay, so he's a people describe him as a troll, okay, and they say that he's the blue Jew. Okay, so he's a little blue Jewish troll. That's what I originally created him as, and everyone's like, Well, you can't do him dirty. It's like, okay, fine. Now I introduced a series of boxes that have a letter, then nobody knows what the K-box is stands for. But all of a sudden, now the ketamine is in there, he can snort ketamine and now becomes a good-looking character. So, like, there's a a negative that's a tri and a and a but it's not just or I'm sorry, there's a positive, but it's tied to a negative and it makes it funnier. And I think a lot of people don't understand that when you do crude humor, that you there's all negatives that you have to have in order to make it funny.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, well, and that's sort of getting- You're literally describing gene. Hey now. There there is a, you know, I've upped my potassium intake, not ketamine intake, thank you very much. But there's a there's a certain higher level of perspective, I think, that is needed in order to make humor be crude, but in a like it's not crude for its own sake, you know what I mean? It's like it's just it's it's what I would call guys talking to among themselves or buddies' humor versus just stuff that's meant to cause outrage. And that's that's the category I kind of put your stuff into. In in my view, that's where it belongs.
SPEAKER_03It can kind of be a mixture of both, because even if you look at something less like South Park, right? There's a lot of things in there that are meant to create outrage, but also be a comedic outlet for something. And people it it's kind of hard to deny. Like, there's there's a lot of intelligence that goes into something like South Park, and everyone just uh that doesn't understand
Crude Humor That Still Lands
SPEAKER_03the creativity that it takes to keep something like that. I mean, how many seasons is that? Like 30 seasons at this point? Like how many it's a lot to keep something like that going. Yeah.
SPEAKER_04I think that the only show that's had more seasons is The Simpsons Simpsons. Yeah.
SPEAKER_07You know, one of the things I was thinking about is if you think about your friends, right? The best friends are the ones you rib on the hardest, right? And there there is that element of it. But an example of this in art real life imitating art, uh, the two NBA players that just declared for the WMBA draft, right? Going out and wearing a wig, doing that, doing the absurd. It's yeah, uh it should offend a whole bunch of people that they're doing this. It's literally it's life that ha it it's the WMBA that has set this entire thing up, and I they get what they deserve on it.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, because it it's literally a real life mimitating movie that came out two years ago with Matt Walsh. And well, it can't well, I mean, I guess there's everybody that was at the Daily Wire was in that movie, but you know, their whole point of that movie was that they have these guys that aren't gonna be competitive playing against other guys in basketball, but they're way better than women, and so they figured out that all they have to do is say that they're women, and now they can play, they have a team of quote women that can play in the league for women. Well, it what was the name of that movie? Do you remember? What is a woman? No, that's not it. Oh, Lady Ballers, Lady Ballers, that's it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So literally the script of Lady Ballers from two, three years ago, whatever it was, is now just happening in real time in real life. That that's the crazy part.
SPEAKER_03It's I mean, the the uh yes, but the thing is is that even Daily Wire, man, and Daily Wire is such a letdown because they they could be so much more, but even that, like, was it funny? I mean, kinda, but it wasn't presented in in a way that because the the two NBA players doing it right now is a far funnier version than what the Daily Wire did. And it's I just I have such a problem with so many people in these corporate spheres trying to do humor, and it never lands because it doesn't matter if you're right wing or left wing, everyone does all these different little purity tests as the oh, is this going too hard? Are we gonna hurt the Christian base? Are we gonna like you know they they gotta think about all the little sensibilities? It's like, no, if you're gonna be do humor, then don't give a shit. Do your version of it and have fun.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, but to me, that movie was basically just a long form version of a skit that otherwise would be on X or wherever done by the Babylon B.
SPEAKER_07Well, that's the thing is if they it was just like a two-hour long Babylon B skit, basically. Right, but if they'd have done it like a Babylon B skit as a short, I think it could have hit way harder and funnier. Right, I agree.
SPEAKER_04Well, there's another element that that they had to have in there, which you guys are talking about, which is it was very financially successful.
SPEAKER_07Yeah, it was, but my point is to do the type of humor we're talking about, you need a somewhat condensed format because you can't get too lost in other story details. You've got to keep hitting hard pretty much the entire time, right?
SPEAKER_03I mean, yeah, I uh it it depends, it depends on on who it is that's telling the story. It it really does. But also it doesn't matter if it's financially successful, it can still be terrible. There's way too many things that are financially successful because of marketing or people that blindly consume it. Like there's people that blindly consumed that movie just because, oh, it's right-wing stuff. We got to support the right. It's it's it's there there's so many different facets as to to all of these different things that don't inherently make it a good comedy. There's not there's so much about it that that make it a dismal failure if you really like look further into it. But you know, I it it's it's the same thing as you know, anything that Ben, you know, obviously Ben Shapiro's ever done. It's always been like, okay, he doesn't go hard enough, and all he does is is talk fast. But I mean, I I don't know. I I just I have a problem with with how too many people do do memes and people just don't go far enough, or if they do go far enough, then it's super short because no one has the foresight for long-term. Meat Canyon. I don't know if you guys have ever seen Meat Canyon. Oh, yeah, yeah. I've watched them. So the the short where he did Asman and Hassan and Akaya speaking in Chinese, like that was hysterical, but that was also a short little bit, and it hit every single point that it needed to, or the pirate software one, like they hit every single point they're supposed to in the perfect amount of time.
SPEAKER_04People did really good ones on Pirate Software. I mean, that that was you being certainly in that group very much of just really showing him for what he was. Ben, you remember who Pirate Software is, the guy that just had a very smug, kind of like I know game development kind of attitude and made a shit ton of videos, especially shorts. But then everybody started. No, you've seen him. I I've posted a bunch of videos to our internal chat thing. I just think I watch what you post. Probably not. That's true.
SPEAKER_03He's a Nepo baby. He he he is just a Nepo baby. That's all you need to know. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_04He he's he's a son of uh a guy, uh one of the like small initial founding group of people that started whatchamacallit. Blizzard. Yeah, Blizzard, World of Warcraft. So he takes basically credit for being the kid of a early employee and has managed to make a lot of money off of that, off of just basically just being that. But it was I think it was a it was good to see the Schadenfreude happening as a result of that, because he always seemed a little off to me. Like, and I I never trust these people. I'm generally distrusting of anybody that that has claims of things they've done until I see some proof. And he was a perfect example of that.
SPEAKER_03But so many people just like you know, I think it's as soon as somebody says, My dad did this, and then that's what you latch on to, it's like okay, bud.
SPEAKER_04Well, and that's the thing. I think I think a lot of people waited until he said that phrase. For me, it was just literally the first words coming out of his mouth just did not make logical sense. I'm like, who the hell are you and why do you act like you know what you're talking about?
SPEAKER_07Because it certainly didn't that's a feminine energy, right? Like men it doesn't matter who your dad was. What have you done? What are you gonna do? What are you capable of? That's the question asked to men. But you know, the feminine side get a pass because reproduction. Boobs, you mean, yeah, exactly. Yes, the the the world's greatest stress balls attached to the world's greatest stress-causing source.
SPEAKER_04Well, it's a good thing they come in pairs, right? Indeed.
SPEAKER_03Most of the time. Uh-huh.
SPEAKER_07Well, I mean, if you found three on one, then hey, I'm all in.
SPEAKER_05Star Trek. No, total. No, no, no, no.
SPEAKER_07Exactly.
SPEAKER_05Oh, yeah, total recall.
SPEAKER_04That's true, that's true. Yeah. Oh, wasn't there a Star Trek chick that had three boobs?
SPEAKER_07I think we've had this discussion before.
SPEAKER_04We may have had it on the show before, too, even. Yeah. I could have sworn there was a Star Trek chick with three boobs. I don't think so. I'll have to ask Grok, the authority on Star Trek, see if that was the case or not.
SPEAKER_01But yeah, for sure in Total Recall, yeah.
SPEAKER_04Well, and watching your your process of making these has been fun too. So I I really enjoy it when people that are creating something, I don't care what it is, could be video, could be painting, hey Bob Ross, could be all kind of cooking, you know, cooking shows. Like I'm one of those people that watches cooking shows on OnlyFans, and
Learning By Watching The Process
SPEAKER_04and some people think that's that's weird. I don't think that's weird. There's some really good cooking shows on OnlyFans.
SPEAKER_05Ask him who the cooking show is about. It's a chick from Brazil.
SPEAKER_03Oh, oh, I was assuming you were watching a dude on OnlyFans if you were saying you were watching cooking.
SPEAKER_04No, no, no. I I understand why, because men are better cooks than women. I get where you're coming from, of course, but no, there there are some very entertaining cooking shows on there.
SPEAKER_07Speaking of, new recipe incoming for the audience.
SPEAKER_04Oh, yeah, yeah. For the next episode of Ben Cooks.
SPEAKER_07Yep. We've been doing this thing. I started talking about I sent Gene a photo of some something I'd fixed this summer. A photo?
SPEAKER_04You send me a photo every day of what you're cooking.
SPEAKER_07Yeah, anyway. And he's like, he brings it up on the show, and hey, that sounds good. And then we get fan mail saying, hey, we want the recipe. So it's become a whole little thing. Oh, there you go.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, created a theme song and everything. So it's kind of a fun little thing that Ben gets to do. Or well, it's really more work for me, but Ben's the one that's cooking. Putting it together. But so for somebody that I guess hasn't seen one of your videos, I've seen him on YouTube. Is that the best location to find him?
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. Okay. So YouTube and just search for Dong P. Bongwater.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_04And you'll you'll find his channel, and he's got all kinds of videos. What would be a good one you would recommend somebody that's not watched one to watch first?
SPEAKER_03All about the money or yeah, it's it's always been about the money, act two, unless, you know, until they get act three. I mean, it'll make sense if it like the story kind of makes sense. Episodic, right? No, it's so it was supposed to be one film. And I decided, you know what, I'm splitting up an hour-long film into three acts, so it's more digestible for people online, and it's also because I know that people like to react to it. Having it in you know, 20, 25-minute segments is a lot easier for people to be able to, you know, react to instead of setting an hour of their time aside. And there's also something that's pretty psychological about sitting down for a video, and if it's under 30 minutes, people are more likely to sit down and watch. But if it's over 30 minutes, then people are gonna make, man, this is too much of a time commitment. I don't have time for this right now. So it's the same thing I did with Ketamine Dreaming, because that was also another short film, and I put that into two parts. And the first part, just because it's nuts and it's it's about the Jews, I I released that on 9-11 at the same time when the uh the first tower got hit because it's funny.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, that was it was I think it's still to this day, it's one of my favorite videos that you've done. It's the wildest one. It's the one I've shared with the most people for sure. In fact, I had I had the what is it, eight hour, nine hour marathon running on my computer for a while. The song one, you know, where it's just nonstop. Well, you made it. I mean, I'm just watching it. I'm kinda in the background. But I thought it was great. I love the uh the song turned out great. I think you did really well with it. Uh most of your songs are really good. And that's really my main area of AI is music. It's not really video. Although I think I'm gonna be doing a little more video because I got that card coming. I'm gonna be both of my co-hosts. So Ben's one of my co-hosts on this podcast, I do another podcast with a different guy. Both of my co-hosts have now bought AI hardware. And I was like the last guy, and now I've got my V100 card, should be showing up tomorrow. So I'll also have capabilities to do local AI and not just credits. So I'm sure that'll be fun and frustrating. And but the idea of just being able to generate stuff locally with no fencing, and you know, I don't care how long it takes, I can leave it running for a day or two if I need to. It's whatever.
SPEAKER_07And you know, one of the things I've found really useful about local AI. Oh, here we go. Bible time No, no, no, I was gonna go somewhere else, but I'll include that. Okay. Um so is to be able to run uncensored models and let it let it go to the point of Hitler, right? And go, okay, let's pull this back. But uh no, go ahead.
Local AI Versus Censored Clouds
SPEAKER_03I mean, I I I do I I've done a lot with local AI, and then there's two problems that I I have with local AI, really. I mean, what I got a 5090 in this machine, so you know, I can run speech, I can run text all day long, but video, I I sure could I do video, yeah. But the thing is, is it takes so long that for somebody like me that iterates on it wants to get you know the a a scene that is in MVP instead of you know just absolute dog shit, it takes so much time locally to do. And you know, I'm I'm sure if I got like an A100 or whatever, I could probably blast through stuff a lot quicker. But it's still one of those things where I'm doing it live and I need to be able to get things done. But the other side to it is by using this service that is censored, right? I'm not here, I'm not promoting censorship in any way, shape, or form, but for me to be able to create live, having that censorship means that I am not going to accidentally show something on stream that is going to get me absolutely destroyed. So for me, I actually don't mind the censorship on these sites just because it means that I'm not gonna get slapped down by YouTube for something that I generate, but something I say or have in on the background, otherwise, fine. But I know that that's not gonna get me in trouble. And that's also the thing with when Veo came out, and I used VO3 for all of last year up until December, and that has the same exact terms and censorship values and everything that YouTube has, and also that was the AI model that YouTube was using, and so it's like, okay, cool, I'm using the model that is that abides by every last little bit of YouTube's guidelines. I know that this content is safe, and a lot of other people that were doing things that wasn't Veo, they were running into a lot of problems, and I never ran into a single one uh outside of one video where the end song was a bit too spicy. But outside of that, like I yeah, I I haven't ran into issues because I had there's I had censorship.
SPEAKER_05What was the lyric that got you censored? Nuclear engineers. Okay, you gotta give me some context there.
SPEAKER_04I see, dude, I post all this shit back there.
SPEAKER_03There's a there's a song that you can you can listen to seasoning and reasoning on my on my SoundCloud. I don't think that's pretty that's safe to really stream anywhere.
SPEAKER_07So one of the things, do you have an extra PCI 16x slot on your PC? Yeah. So you might want to look at some of the decommissioned Tesla cards because what it since you have the 5090, one of the really cool things you can do, especially with some of the Linux platforms, is you can go buy some of these decommissioned Tesla cards like Gene just bought that have like 48 gigs of VRAM on the card. They don't have as many tensor cores as your 5090, but they've got a shit ton of extra VRAM. And what you can do is you can say, hey, compute on the 5090, but leave context on this older card with a ton of VRAM. So you can run a ton of context there, and that can really speed up that process. Interesting. So like Gene just picked up this Tesla V100 card for what, Gene, 600 bucks?
SPEAKER_04750.
SPEAKER_07Yeah, there you go.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. And if the thing works, then I can get three more of them.
SPEAKER_03For me, the this I guess for what I do specifically, the speed is the most important thing. And so, you know, it I'm I'm stuck in with whatever that may be. Well, yeah, you can do run pod, you can do all sorts of other things. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, there's there's lots of ways you can do it.
SPEAKER_04But the the only thing that I don't know how long it's been since you looked at the the differences in costs, but you know, there's to two ways to do it. One is the way you're currently doing it on the cloud, where you're basically you're getting X number of what's I'm blanking out, I need my vitamin B. Generations. Tokens, yeah. You get the X number of tok token credits, right? The other way is to essentially be paying an hourly rate for a server that has X number of those cards inside of it that is 100% dedicated to you. And when I looked at that, it was way cheaper than I expected.
SPEAKER_03I mean, we're talking like RunPod, a buck an hour. It's it's really it is very inexpensive, but the problem that you run into, and this is also the other thing, and it's kind of, I guess, with a little bit of snobbiness, I guess, is that when I create, I want to have the absolute best cinematic model that I can possibly get. And we just got a huge upgrade for local with minimax H3 and then also LTX 2.5, which can do real time if you use reactors API, which is actually gonna create quite a few very fun things for a lot of people. But you have minimax H3, you have Flux 3, which is coming out. Don't know if it's gonna be open weight because the Germans like to lock things down, and then LTX 2.5, and they are way better than what we currently have, like above and beyond. The problem is they still don't compare it to the premium flagship cloud models like C Dance, C Dance 2, and now 2.5. And unfortunately, I just I have I care too much about quality, even though it's for you know stupid little shit post memes, I care way too much about what I'm creating to downgrade to something that's going to provide a lesser viewing experience. Again, even though I know exactly what kind of content it is and the niche crowd I already have, I just I don't want to do lesser, and also that's because I want to do my own original films and stuff like that, you know, starting here pretty soon. But I I I don't want to work with a system that I'm not gonna see an up, you know, we're not gonna see another upgrade for local until probably next year again, and between now and next year, the cloud-based stuff is gonna get tremendously better. I know the new Kling is coming out in a little bit. Grok 4.6 just came out over 4.5, which was already absolutely insane, at least for coding. Now you have I know that Seed Dance is working on Seed Dance 3, that's coming up pretty soon. Google doesn't exist anymore. Google isn't even close to being in the race, they are completely irrelevant, uh, which is actually really pathetic. And then I've also heard that Anthropic is working on their own video model as well. So I for cloud stuff, things are getting really competitive really quickly, and I just see local being the uncensored option, really.
SPEAKER_07Well, in the private option for things you don't want to have a record of. Yeah. One of one of the things while we're on AI, I in our little show notes signal chat, I sent Gene something. But have you tracked the Terrafab and what's going on there?
SPEAKER_01I have not. I gather you have not heard of the Terrafab.
SPEAKER_07The Terrafab is gonna be a massive chip production facility here in Texas, right 20 miles from me, right in my backyard,
Terrafab And The Compute Arms Race
SPEAKER_07that is going to be over a hundred million square feet. It's going to have a particle accelerator. They're gonna use free electron lithography, which has been demonstrated as possible in the university setting, but there's never been a chip fab using it yet, so it'll be the first of its kind. And they're the reason why it's called the Terafab is they're talking about putting out a terawatt of processing power a year. To put that into perspective, right now we produce about 115 gigawatts of processing power a year globally. So almost 10x the current global output of chips in one facility. In Texas.
SPEAKER_03And I, you know, I I do think that it's it'll it'll happen. I do think it'll be good. I think the biggest problem that we really have as a I don't I don't even know what to really call it, but there's too many people that are and people will fight me on this, and it's absolutely wild that people don't understand this. Elon doing that and trying to get more processing out there is so incredibly important, and we need more data centers in general, and it because the the China we've already seen the all of the uh the man, what do we call it, the studies and the fact-finding missions that people have already done to show that China is trying to get less data centers built in the United States. And the reason why they want less data centers in the United States is because the first country to house and have AGI or whatever you know new terminology for like you know real artificial intelligence instead of LLM tables and all of that, they win. If you achieve that, you win. Nothing else will compare, no one else will be able to compete. That model will then go out, will be able to wipe out any other competition, and you you win. Everybody else in the world is subservient to whoever that is. Now, whether that the people that create that decide that they're now in charge of the world, and it's not just the country that controls it. I mean, you know, that that's uh up for debate. But what isn't up for debate is that nobody there's really just China and the United States right now that are in that race, and the fact that they're trying to discredit and trying to get less data centers shows that we absolutely need more data centers and we need more compute. And I think that Terrafab is definitely the thing that's going to push that further, hopefully to have even more stuff.
SPEAKER_07So one of the cool one of the things that I that was a local story around on the local news here that a guy was selling his dream property because he held shared four 4,000 feet of fence line with the Terrafab property. He's selling over a hundred acres because he doesn't want to have them as a neighbor. I think that's absolutely insane because, you know, good neighbor. But anyway, one of the things, Don, that you may not know about me, but I work in cybersecurity. I work in specifically OT cybersecurity, so operational technology manufacturing, stuff like that. Everything from water treatment plants to ICBM manufacturing. And one of the projects my team is working on right now is Fermi America. Fermi America is going to be a the largest AI data center park in the U.S. They're building out anywhere between 11 and 17 gigawatts of generation to power those data centers behind the behind the meter in one location here in Texas over the next 10 years. So very involved with that. Very involved with Palantir. We do a lot with Palantir on the defense industrial base and stuff like that. So yeah.
SPEAKER_03Nice. Yeah, no, I've I've I've I've done my phase share and stuff in the defense, defense side. What is your background by the way? Ooh. That's that's that's a lot. Yeah. Okay. So I was a teacher. I taught programming, engineering, and robotics to kids K through 12. I did that for like five years. I worked at a law firm as a a uh paralegal for a bit. I worked at as a consultant for Boeing in order to reinforce their uh work order management systems because they were very much outdated and didn't know what the fuck they were doing.
The Guest’s Strange Career Path
SPEAKER_03So did that. I worked at a local gun shop that is the owner no longer is there and is essentially just I don't know if they're if they still do business, but I worked there for a bit. I did a a lot of stuff selling you know high-end stuff and what's up. Yeah, you know, when I say gun shop, I'm not talking about someplace that sells PSA ARs. I'm not talking about you know Bear Creek, and it's no no no, none none of that. Everything is, you know, if you walk in and you have a knight's armament, it's like, okay, that's kind of like the lowest level of thing that we kind of dealt with, knights, Niveskies, but you know, you also went up with, you know, doesn't HKs does doesn't really matter, but uh pre-bands, transferable machine guns, you know, the rares, uh, rare stuff, hard-to-find things, uh, the stuff that people dream of, prototype night vision systems and thermal stuff. I know that DARPA's you know gotten stuff from us before. We had some of the INOD block threes from Leonardo DRS. Uh, we had one of the first Teledyne His HDs on a Barrett. We had all sorts of cool shit. And so, yeah, I like uh all the a lot of testing for a lot of of manufacturers of suppressors and stuff. So, you know, there's there's there's a lot of cool shit that we did and I got to be a part of that was really awesome, but yeah, I don't really have a uh a unified background of sorts, and I think in part it's because I have such a unified background that I can't find work to save my life, but you know, tell me it is what it is.
SPEAKER_07Yeah, jeans in the same boat. Um we're both gun guys, by the way. And like I I've I do all my own gunsmithing. I have you know built out rifles for competition. And when I say rifles, I'm not talking an AR erector set, right? I'm talking about my 300 ROM Remington 700-based 300 rum that I went through, headspace, blueprinted, did all that, and do all my own handloads sort of thing. So, you know. We like good gun stories around here.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, we we like gun. We've kind of oscillated to a number of different topics. What are we on? Like fourth year or fifth year in the podcast, I can't remember. But whatever it is, there were periods in time where you know, for like a three-month stretch, there would be a gun purchase of the week story. Either one of us or both of us bought a new gun every week.
SPEAKER_05You know, it's it's funny.
SPEAKER_04Or night vision or thermals, which I gotta get rid of my last thermals I bought.
Gun Culture And Influencer Spending
SPEAKER_04Have you ever watched The Ranch?
SPEAKER_05I have no idea what it's a TV show.
SPEAKER_07It's a TV show, but anyway, the old man played by Sam Elliott on there. The this woman asked him, How many guns do you have? And he just calmly says, I find answering that question makes people uncomfortable.
SPEAKER_05I thought that was uh I I just I I've adopted that line.
SPEAKER_04Nice. Yeah, yeah. And you know, I mean, certainly it's nowhere near in the range of like uh a Brandon Herrera or uh Oh god, no. You know, I don't I don't make that. The gun tubers have way more.
SPEAKER_03Here's the thing all of these gun tubers, none of them want want want me to say this, but I don't really give a shit because they they they're they're kind of annoying. They're they're they're kind of annoying in how they handle their purchases and what they try and do to kind of scum around. So the perfect example of this is uh you guys are both familiar with Knight's armament and the master key, yes?
SPEAKER_00Oh yeah.
SPEAKER_03Okay. I had one that was brand new in the box with the original sticker for it, unf you know, just factory test fired, and Grand Thumb wanted it. So I was like, okay, cool, you want to pay for it? Here's a price. I think it was what 12 or 15 grand, something like that. And he kept dancing around it, whether that he wanted or not, all this sort of stuff. And I was like, okay, you know, do you do you really want it? It's like, eh, I don't know, what else do you got? Yeah, I I I I like HK stuff. I'm trying to find stuff for a video, and so you know, I sent him some SAS gear. It was a leather MP5 mag host mag pouch that you know goes on a thigh, all original leather with the SAS badge on it on the inside, and then also a shoulder holster that was used during in the 90s for an HK53, so you can have it slung under your under a coat in a holster, and then also for a mag pouch. And he ended up ghosting me on on all of that. And then I find out uh, you know, a few weeks later, he makes a video on that fake master key, the stupid clone, saying, Oh, it's just as good. It's like, no, no, no, buddy, it's not just as good. You just are too cheap to get the real thing. Or uh Brandon, I guess, uh one of his his purchasing guys, he pussied out on getting in a an actual fully intact. I think the the receiver was cut, but it was a fully intact PP90, which is a a folding tiny little submachine gun from Russia. They don't ex they they exist a little bit, but they all have like bolts and like the the bolt heads cut. This one was intact. It just needed the receiver welded back together, which Brandon's team can clearly you know weld a kit back together because he's in the AK business. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But but it's just it it's it's stories like or donut, right? Donut, he got an SR25, and what did he put on it? He put an EO Eotech Voodoo 1 to 6 on it. Like what what it's all these people that are that are influencers and are gun guys, they are some of the cheapest people when it comes to actually you know kidding them out properly.
SPEAKER_07Hey, hey now, you you haven't you you're just now meeting me. So yeah.
SPEAKER_03Well, we're gonna be able to do it. Would you have turned down?
SPEAKER_04He he's going for the so let me explain what he means by you're meeting me. Ben is the cheapest guy I have ever met when it comes to purchases. He's the guy that's gonna try and you know negotiate a five-dollar discount on a three-dollar item.
SPEAKER_05I'm not that much of a Jew, Jimmy. Not that much of a Jew. Uh-huh. Uh-huh.
SPEAKER_07No, but I I I am practical about my guns. Like, I don't need collector's items. I'm I'm not a collector. I want practical firearms and practical results. Right. Like I was a big Leopold guy for many, many years. You know, yes, there are better scopes. There are better scopes, but you know, I'm using it for hunting, I'm doing this, I'm doing that. But even on my thousand-yard guns, which I would put my 300 rum in that category, I'd put my Bagara in that category, which have all been tweaked and done. You know, at this point, they've both got Vortex scopes on it because Vortex has gotten so reasonably good as to be, you know, uh a viable option versus you know spending three times, four times as much on a night force, right?
SPEAKER_03I I think it it depends a lot. Like for me, I I loved the art of the deal. I loved chasing the deal. Like, you know, I would see somebody selling a I would be on tax swap. I knew it was the first of the month or around the first of the month, someone needed to pay rent. They needed to pay rent, they were offering something cool, I'd buy it and I'd flip it. And I was really good at making a lot of money on collectibles, or also knowing, like, okay, this is worth a lot of money. I know I know that I can make you know something good out of this. Or I knew that somebody was wanting it, and I knew, okay, I know you want this thing, and I know the size of your wallet. I'm gonna try and get whatever I can out of you. So, you know, I was pretty good about chasing the deal, and I that's what I really enjoyed. But for my personal stuff, I really care about what's gonna be durable because I'm not I'm I'm I'm I want something. I want things that I can knock around. I want, you know, a rifle I can just take, throw in the bed of a truck. I don't have to worry if it's in a case. I don't I don't care. I want it just to be good to go. And so on my Noveski N6, I had a Night Force NX8 two and a half to 20. And that's because that's the only glass that I was able to find that would withstand the rigors that I would put a rifle through because I see it as a tool, and I want the tool to work every single time I pick it up. And if you know I have tried I've tried Vortex, I've tried Loophold, I've tried March, I've tried quite a few others that Zeiss, Hensult. Like I've I've tried a wide variety of different optics, and for me, and and also accessories, it doesn't really matter what it is. If it's gonna hold up to you know it being, you know, beat around, you know, hit against things, whatever the case may be, I'm gonna go for it because I don't I don't want a bench gun. I want something that's gonna work no matter what. And it hey completely agree if things go go bad anywhere in the United States, I want to know that I don't have to worry about what that is or worry about necessarily having to replace it because I know it's gonna be durable enough to you know withstand being beat around. So this is the way I look at it, anyways.
SPEAKER_04Oh well, I was always told you since I was a kid is when you buy a rifle, make sure you got the same amount of money for the scope.
SPEAKER_03Yes.
SPEAKER_04And uh because most people don't think that way, dude.
SPEAKER_03Anyone that has a scar, a scar H or or it doesn't matter what scar it is, really. If you have a scar and you don't have an optic, what are you doing, dude? What are you doing?
SPEAKER_04Yeah, like well, I mean, is it it's like my okay, okay. It could be still in the box and sealed, okay? There's that's a legitimate reason not to have an optic on.
SPEAKER_07Yeah, Gene has guns that he's purchased and never shot. That to me is a nap.
SPEAKER_04I I made good money selling those FS 2000s that were brand new, never shot, never opened gun. No, it is a trash gun. It is not a trash gun. It is a beautiful gun. It is a shitty dolphin. By an actual yeah, uh-huh. Uh-huh.
SPEAKER_03That's exactly what it is.
SPEAKER_04It is the most cool, futuristic looking gun ever made. It didn't run very well, but it's exactly the desert tech, what is it, the RFB or RDB?
SPEAKER_03That's a lot better. But but also there is there is there's no bull pup that is ever worth a damn. And I stand by that as someone that has sold many different varieties of bullpups, and that is definitely one of them that is absolute dog shit. But even worse than that is there's so many. I don't know how many people have have tried to say, well, you gotta try out Famas, you gotta try a Tavor, you gotta try out No, no, no. They're all they're all terrible, they all suck. They're all they're all they're all they're all miserably awful guns.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, I think that's a good thing. Okay, well now we know you don't know anything about guns, so we can go into another touch. So I own everyone say that I every IWI gun manufactured, I I own at least one of those. And again, look, I'm not gonna say that they're the best quality guns, but I really like them. I like bulk pups for comfort. I think they're very, very they are like all guns should be bullpups as far as I'm concerned. If you fix the trigger, there's no reason that every gun shouldn't be in bull pup.
SPEAKER_05But one of the things I'd say if you fix it. One of the things I'd say that's the thing, is if you get an aftermarket trigger, they're really good.
SPEAKER_07One of the things I'd say, Don, is like my Tavor 7 with a 50-round drum of 308 and going hog hunting. That's a lot of fun, man.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, so is my 13-inch Navesky N6 that does the exact same thing. Oh, but wait, I can swap the upper out for an 8-6 blackout and have even more stuff. Oh, I can swap out the upper and I could use 6-5 Creedboard. I'm not stuck with some fucking piece of shit tiny thing.
SPEAKER_05Eh, I don't know.
SPEAKER_03I mean, it's it's just I don't know. I I just I just don't like bullparts. The only IWI gun that I've ever enjoyed using, vastly over the mil the US military adopted version that we had in the shop was the Negev. The Negev vastly superior in every single way to the 249. The 249 is a horrible, awful gun. Uh is awful. We definitely should have stuck with an M60, but no, or the 240. But no, the Negev, the Negev is the only IWI or IMI gun that I like. And also, you know, Razor Core 77 grain.
SPEAKER_07What's your favorite caliber? For what purpose? You choose.
SPEAKER_03I dude, I don't even know if I could end of the world cartridge. What's your stacking? End of the world cartridge. That's gonna be that's gonna be tough to choose. Because it would be 556, it'd be 762 by 39, or it'd be 308.
SPEAKER_04All three of those is my answer for that question. Those are the I mean there's also
Practical Calibers For Hard Times
SPEAKER_04neglecting 1022.
SPEAKER_03There's there's also nine, there's also nine millimeter. Like I I've had, dude, I don't even know how many times I've had this discussion in the gun shop. So, you know, 308, everywhere. 556 in the United States, everywhere. 762 by 39, going hog hunting with a basic, you know, PSA AK and using ball ammo, you're putting down, you know, hogs with you know single taps, no, no problem all day long. You don't need soft points, you don't need nothing. They just, you know, full metal jackets that go straight through with whatever garbage ammo you got, and they just work. Then for nine millimeter, nine millimeter is everywhere. Also, you know, 12 gauge, can't can't discount that. But for nine millimeter, you got your handgun. And then, you know, the end of the world guns that you really want. You know, ultimately, you know, you want a decent handgun, probably a Glock, to be honest, because they just they just work pretty damn well, and they're everywhere. You can find you know Gen 3 to Gen 5 stuff anywhere you want. But if you want some that does a little bit more work, then you would the the gun that I tell everybody that they should own, uh, even though it's out of everybody's price range, is a transferable MP5 SD, specifically an SD, because that you can use any 9mm you want, it's gonna make it subsonic and it's gonna work just fine. Uh 300 blackout, you don't really want there's some around, but it's not nearly as prevalent as everything else. But yeah, good bolt gun. You know, I I have had this discussion way too many times to really be like this is the only caliber I'd choose. But if I had to choose End of the World, 556, 762 by 39, and 308.
SPEAKER_07Yeah, for me, you don't want anything exotic. You want guns that are very plentiful, where even if you know capture a gun and it's damaged, you can strip parts, shit like that. Um, you know, that's I mean the easy answer.
SPEAKER_04I think I think in the US, the easy answer is gonna be 556 because of just the prevalence and availability of the city. Especially after the import ban on Amazon, right? Yeah, and everything else. Yeah, if you were going by price 30 years ago, it would absolutely be an AK. It'd be 760 by 39.
SPEAKER_03I mean, you know, the thing about 22s is in in semi-auto, they're they're okay. You know, they they they still jam a fair bit. It doesn't matter what you do, they they can still jam pretty frequently. They can be pretty temperamental. But in fully automatic, I haven't seen I I don't know how many different magazines, I don't know how many different you know, styles, how many buffers, how many bolt carriers, how many different styles I've shot that are fully automatic and nine and twenty-two that has ever been reliable in any way, shape, or form that hasn't caused a catastrophic failure.
SPEAKER_04Well, I for the shot of 22 and full auto, that's been fine. It was a Tommy gun. Tommy gun and twenty-two with I think it was either a hundred or a hundred and twenty-five round drum in that. It was a rental gun in a range that I was a member of, and we used to shoot it all the time, never had any issues.
SPEAKER_07So for me, for the end of the world, I don't ever want full auto because the ammo is now precious resource, right? And I can pull the trigger plenty fast for some suppressing fire if need be. But you know, full auto just burns ammo. And and that's one of the reasons why I kind of like the binary triggers over the force reset is because you can do bursts, right?
SPEAKER_03I okay. Listen, I have tried every binary trigger out there, and Franklin Armory does make the best one, in my opinion. But every single Franklin Armory binary trigger I've had, doesn't matter what it is, has always failed. It has always worn out and does not function in binary after 2,000 rounds. Every single one without failure. So like I I get the concepts, and I I don't inherently disagree that that function that functionality would be better, but for me, I I they're too unreliable for me to to really you know want to deal with. And even more to the point, there was a lot of people don't know about this. Geisely, and well, at least you know some people that watch, I don't know if you guys ever you know look read uh Soldier Systems website, but years ago at a shop show, they released what they called is the gas pedal, and it was the most unique and amazing thing that has ever existed. And if you actually used it, you would agree with me entirely. And what it is, is it's a selector selector lever, so it's a full auto selector lever, but when you flip it, it only goes to semi. And you're like, okay, I'm trying to get to full auto, but it's not really going, it's like stuck. Well, you have to actually hold it, so you have it and you have to hold it down in order to get full auto, and so when you let off, it the spring puts it back down in the semi-auto position, so then you're you're always in semi unless you at you know you put on the gas, so to speak. And uh the normal position, it's a 45 degree selector in order to get to semi. So it's not a it's not you know a crazy throw in order to get there, and it's not bad or ergonomically, but when after using it, it made a lot of sense. So you just thumb used to it. Well, it it's actually pretty natural, it is really natural to use because I think it's uh 75 degree maximum throw on it.
SPEAKER_07That that selector style with a force reset. If you could combine the two designs, that would be ideal. Mm-hmm.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. But they've never released it outside of that, which is actually such a shame. But then again, you know, it's there's no real market for full auto unless you're SOCOM. So that's who they were targeting, anyways.
SPEAKER_07Someone someone ought to go uh IBM BIOS reverse engineer that shit and make it an FRT.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, I don't I I like what they did on the uh the P90. I forget the name of the company, but they're like the the Was it P90 Engineering? What is it called? Uh I thought you were talking about so it's it there was a it the Grand Thumb had him on just recently.
SPEAKER_07The progressive trigger?
SPEAKER_04Yeah, the progressive trigger. So it's basically it is a two-stage trigger where the final stage is full auto, the first stage is singlifier.
SPEAKER_07Well, yeah, I mean fully semi-auto. It's a forced reset trigger for the PS90. Right.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. It it's been that way on what, the Aug, the P90, quite a few other.
SPEAKER_07I think there's a few other guns that it's been like that on, but so on the actual P90, it has a progressive trigger. Right. But that progressive, yeah, I guess I wasn't that progressive trigger is a full auto trigger. This is a progressive trigger PS90. Right, exactly. That is when you go through your progression, it's a forced reset trigger, so it's not a machine gun.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. Now, I know that we're all talking about NFA items, or at least getting dancing around around it, but the new NFA thing.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Oh, so Oh no, it's horrible. Okay, how do you figure? But all right, so let me let me explain. So right now I have the only gun I have, I have two guns left. I got my T S 2011 and I have a Novesky N4. And the N4 has a brace on it because you know it's a pistol, and because it's a pistol, that means it can it doesn't have to be in a in a case, it can be loaded and ready to go in a car because it's a pistol. So, okay,
The NFA Injunction And Privacy Fears
SPEAKER_03there's benefits to not SBRing it, even though I could have. However, because I did not buy that through PSA, and PSA does not stock Novesky, I can't put a stock on that. So if you want to bypass the new NFA restrictions, your purchase needed to have come from PSA in order for you to just be like, okay, yeah, cool, this pistol is now a rifle or an SBR or an SBS or something. And you have to be a member of the gun owners of America.
SPEAKER_07Well, that's not quite. No, no, no. No, hold on, hold on, hold on. So I've already talked to a lawyer about this. And the way the judgment is written, the way the judgment is written is if you are a customer of PSA, if you're a member of Gun Owners of America, or some of the other joined groups, then you are covered under that for items that you would buy outside of those groups. So you could put a stock on that gun if you're a member of Gun Owners of America, or you've ever bought anything from PSA. It does not have to come from PSA. It does not have to come from Gun Owners of America. If you are a member of that group, then you are covered under this injunction. And it also covers future members or future customers. So if someone out there hasn't bought anything from PSA, isn't a gun owners of America member, uh you can go buy a magazine from PSA and now you're enjoined under uh you you you're a part of the injunction. What's going to be really interesting about this is when the Justice Department and the ATF come back, if they sit there and try and say, Well, then we need a registry of these people who have bought and done this. The judge is just gonna throw that out. So if they appeal it at all, like it the the the the functional the functional the functionality of this ruling really is to destroy the NFA.
SPEAKER_03And I mean I so I underst I understand that uh the functionality is to do that, but the mere fact that I have to be a member of oh yeah uh GOA and you don't and the mere fact that I have to uh have bought something.
SPEAKER_07That's the second step because the ATF is going to come back and say, okay, how do we work around this injunction and make it work? Well, we need a registry of the people who fall into this class so we can know who needs a form for and who doesn't. And the next step is well, no one really needs a form four, and this needs to be a national injunction. Hey, Supreme Court. And by the way, it's Clarence Thomas's district that this was in. So Clarence Thomas can look at that when the question comes up and by himself, unilaterally from the Supreme Court, say universal injunction, no form four for these items at all.
SPEAKER_04Okay, just to clarify, guys, before you you're getting on this territories, the entire population of the state of Texas is part of the class. So neither Ben nor I need to worry about where we buy or when we bought, or even even though we both obviously are, we wouldn't have to be members of any gun rights groups. Because literally, as a resident of the state of Texas, we we are automatically covered.
SPEAKER_07Well, you know what what's funny is I was never a member of any guns rights group because I'm just not a fucking joiner until uh Gun Owners of America launched this lawsuit, and I was like, I want to support those guys.
SPEAKER_03Here's the way I look at it. I think that it's terrible. I I don't A, I I I'm not a joiner. I agree. I don't like joining things, but I also don't want to if like I need to be a member of something in order to buy whatever whatever it is, uh that that to me is is some scummy shit. Because I okay, I'm I I know that it's like you don't have to in order to buy it, you can still do a form four. It's like no no no, it's it's it's pushing, it's funneling people towards these towards these groups, towards these retailers. I know lots of people around here that don't use silencer shop as an example in order to stock suppressors, and a lot of them have relationships directly with the companies. So you still need a form four for everything there. Like it's it's it's it's pushing people towards PSA, Silencer Shop, and gun owners of America.
SPEAKER_04And I'll tell you why, because everybody else is a fucking pussy. And these two companies actually went and became defend or not defense, they became plaintiffs in the lawsuit. Anybody could have gunshot could have done that, but it didn't.
SPEAKER_03I get that, but why do I now have to why am I now forced to do business only with those companies? Oh, no, no, no, no. I think it is absolutely in order to get these new freedoms and protections, but you didn't get them. We got them.
SPEAKER_04You didn't get it. You see, so if you want to get it, I should have it. Then you have to do something to help the people that got it.
SPEAKER_07All right. So what I would say, Don, is this is just a step in the process. And when the ATF comes back and complains, how the hell are we going to be able to enforce this? The fact that Clarence Thomas can that can go to him and he can issue a national nationwide injunction, that's that's the step. And that's that's what's gonna probably happen here fairly shortly. The so from the time of the ruling, the Justice Department has 60 days to appeal. What we're hearing is they're not going to appeal. So if they're not going to appeal, then the ATF has to figure out enforcement mechanisms around this. And they're immediately gonna say, this isn't enforceable without a database. And the spirit of the injunction is gonna say, You're right. Clarence, what do you say? And I think we all know what Clarence is gonna say.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, and I do think I I think it will come down to this being upheld for everybody. But initially, I I don't have a problem with it being limited because that's how law works.
SPEAKER_07The judge only has the authority to grant the station for remember we had all these judges in inducing nationwide injunctions in the Supreme Court.
SPEAKER_04Which they don't have an authority to do. Correct. And that's what the the Trump Justice Department was also arguing. But it's it historically, this is the way it's supposed to work. A judge has an authority to issue a ruling that is only for their district, which is what this judge did, which is why in Texas in the lawsuit.
SPEAKER_07Well, and that's what I was getting to.
SPEAKER_04So it's for the district plus the plaintiffs or defendants, depending on who wins the case. But it it's basically the area that is within the purview of the judge and not some other judge, and the actual people involved in the actual lawsuit. So that's why anybody, any gun shop could have been involved in this. Any gun nonprofit, the NRA could have been involved in this if they wanted to. They weren't. Well, all they would have had a choice.
SPEAKER_03You are right that technically any gun shop could have done that. Yeah. Uh, but the vast majority of them can't, because a lot of them do not have the funding that PSA does. No funding's necessary.
SPEAKER_07Huh? No funding's necessary. All they have to do is write a write a letter to it.
SPEAKER_03To write a letter, yes, but but to actually follow through with it and actually have it upheld, because that those can get you still you would still have to fight it. No, no, you would still have to fight the war.
SPEAKER_07Gun owners of America and PSA were doing the heavy lifting here. Anyone who wrote in and said we want to be part of this would have been part of it. There would have been nothing else really required. From from the people I've talked to at PSA at least, like they would have they they solicited from a lot of their dealer network, hey, if you want to be a named plaintiff on this, we're fighting it. The legal cost has already sunk. You can do this. And some of them took them up on that, a lot of them didn't.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah. A lot of them, a lot of people, a lot of gun shops don't want to deal with the headache of a lot of that sort of thing. And especially and that's totally fair.
SPEAKER_04That's why they they currently deal.
SPEAKER_03Well, especially where I worked, it's one of those things where there's also a lot of shops that don't want to be public about stuff that they that they have, because as a lot of places, there's also a lot of places in Florida specifically that do not want to join anything like that publicly. They don't want to get on the radar, what they do specifically. Well, if it's it's not even about getting on the radar, it's about you know saying this is what we do as a business. And you know, if they do get public like that, then they might lose contracts that they otherwise have. There's a lot of people that that do not join something like that, but you understand very specific reasons.
SPEAKER_04Every one of us is making a decision every day of our lives on things that we want to do but don't do because we're Afraid of losing something else. Sure. It means that if somebody else, if so there's no forcing here. If if somebody else goes to the trouble of getting something that I want to get become easier to get, then how can you blame that group that actually took the time and effort and energy and money to go do it when your ass was too lazy to or didn't have the money or was afraid of losing business?
SPEAKER_03I, as an American consumer, should have the freedom of choice of where I can acquire things, and I should not be restricted and have to purchase from specific retailers and join specific groups in order to do it.
SPEAKER_04You're literally putting it backwards. Who is restraining you from buying what you want somewhere else? It's the US government. It's not the guys that just fought and won. It is the laws, either in your state or your district or national nationwide, that are restricting you.
SPEAKER_07And Don, I think Gene and I both are two A absolutists, right? I think you ought to be able to own a nuke, right? It's an arms. Yeah. Amend the Constitution.
SPEAKER_04I even have a down payment already paid on one in rubles. And I can't fucking import it. I'm so pissed right now.
SPEAKER_07Anyway. So we we're both two uh I I like I I grew up believing the constitution. I grew up studying from the original ratification debates. I I fully believe in what the founders' intent was. I think we've strayed very far from it. And I I agree with you, but with our current legal situation, I'm gonna take the W and say this is a step, but we're not done yet.
SPEAKER_03Yes, and I go. I think I think my problem, but the the the core of the problem isn't that there is a victory in any way, shape, or form. The the core of the problem is that this is now funneling people to make purchase decisions based on something like this. And I fully see this sort of thing being taken advantage of. And you can say, oh well, they did the hard work, they deserve it. That's the if you want to think that you can. My problem is I believe that, or at least I firmly believe that this is going to be used for I I don't think this is gonna go the way people think it it's going to, and I think that this is going to ultimately not result in the NFA going away, especially with a turn of I think that there is gonna I do not think this is this is going to be a good thing, especially when it's only named people specifically. I understand that you guys are saying I I understand that this is the way that things should work. I I get all of that, but when it's people are are now being funneled to these locations in tw in in order to get stuff. I I have a problem with it because I have seen this sort of thing many times, and I I j I I do not trust where this is going.
SPEAKER_07Well, we'll see, but let me just say this. So if you want to be protected by this judgment, all you have to do is go to Palmetto State. I'm in their clearance page right now, sorted prices lowest to highest. You can spend $1.99 on a holster and be covered by this decision.
SPEAKER_04Although I think you're better off doing $25 to GOA.
SPEAKER_07Well, whatever.
SPEAKER_04Because that that goes 100% to future lawsuits.
SPEAKER_07Right. But my point is you can go to Palmetto State, buy a $2 little soft-sided holster that you can then subsequently throw in the trash because no one should be using it. But you you can you can do that for $2. And I guarantee you Palmetto isn't making any money off of that. So the the point remains, whether it's $25 to GOA to join for a year, and now you've been a member, so therefore you're in the class, or you do this. This we're we're not talking a great barrier to entry. You don't have to buy from Palmetto, you don't have to you like once you're part of that class, you can go to any FFL in the country.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, but you're talking practical aspects here. I don't think he's necessarily no no and I get practical.
SPEAKER_07I get his point, but I'm I'm I'm being I'm being for the level.
SPEAKER_03So first off, I do not trust companies, and neither should anybody else for that matter. No one should ever trust any any company that that does online. I think honestly, Valve is the only good steward of data that I have ever seen. Hey man. Valve is the only people that I have ever like Steam getting a leak. I I when has that happened just just just talking cybersecurity for just a second, when has Valve had a leak?
SPEAKER_07It it's unreal that they are the only people to hide their game categories from their fruit. Correct.
SPEAKER_04But my point isn't called me in the leisure suit game.
SPEAKER_03So my point is I do not trust GOA to be good stewards of data. I do not trust Palmetto State Armory to be good stewards of data. I haven't bought from PSA. Well, no, I no, I ordered that through a gun shop. I didn't personally buy it. I ordered an an an AK off from a dealer because I didn't want to use the website because this is just me being super sketched out by shit, doing being on the internet for so long. When I see power, you know, secured by McAfee as a thing that's on your fucking checkout. I am not going to buy something from your website. You know, that's just that's just me being sketched out having to look at all this other stuff. But I don't I don't want to buy something from from a place that I don't trust.
SPEAKER_04Don, I you're literally repeating shit that Ben was telling me like six months ago.
SPEAKER_07Don, I I it's been in the last couple of years that I did my first FFL transfer. Everything else was bought at private centers.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, so you had like 30 years of buying guns directly, and then you finally I finally convinced you after years of telling you.
SPEAKER_07Because I wanted a gun and I couldn't fucking find it, and I finally popped that cherry and just said, oh well. But no, I I I agree with you. I am I am a very private person. I don't want records out there that I don't have to have. Uh like I'll give you an example. At my fucking doctor's office, dude, when they say, Can we have your driver's license? Sure, you can see it, but you're not gonna fucking scan it. You know, I like I'm I'm that kind of person. So I I fully agree with you.
SPEAKER_04And I just say which one. So anyway, the uh so this morning I I started driving out to uh Sounds or Shop. And I called them on the way there to shop. And when I called them what they told me was that I will be 89th in line in the queue because they're at fire marshal capacity at 9 a.m. You know, and they they're local here, right? I'm actually going to their store.
SPEAKER_03Well, as you said, Texas is exempt because it's it's it's as a whole, but for everybody else. But my my but but but the problem that I have is joining G O A. I I support their message, I can't support financially, but even if I could, I wouldn't want my I I don't trust them with my data. Uh I also don't I don't trust PSA with I don't trust a lot of people with my data. Whenever I've made gun purchases, I pay in cash every every single time from you know the the few dollar purchases that I've made to you know the the one you know 10 grand purchase I've I I made. It didn't matter what it was, it was always in cash because you know, sure I'm filling out a 4473 for some stuff, that's what I gotta do. But even the stuff that I were private sales, it didn't matter. I paid in cash because I didn't trust anything about the transactions, and I don't want anyone to be able to track what what those things are because it's none of their business. And it's the same thing with all of this. You know, you guys you can say that that this is the first step in that, but again, by corralling people to go to GOA, using Silencer Shop, and now using PSA as the primary vehicles in order to sell these things to places outside of Texas, you are now uh having a massive number of people going to these places, and you are now greatly, greatly you are making massive targets of all of the stuff that's happening. I just have a problem with that. I I have a huge problem with that because it's it's pretty anti-consumer, in my opinion.
SPEAKER_07So, Don, I I uh again to be clear, all you have to do is either be a member of GOA or purchase any an you can purchase a pocket knife from PSA and you then be covered. But regard and then you can go to anyone else to purchase your suppressor or SBR. But here's one of the things I would say, just so you have a bit of background on my mystery.
SPEAKER_03I'm fairly certain that the law was you have to buy the rifle or whatever the firearm was from PSA. And that's what they were saying on their YouTube video.
SPEAKER_07No, no, no. They they have a plan for how they're going to start rolling this out for your own.
SPEAKER_04Well, you're both you're both right. You're both right here. So they they what they talked about is the fact that right now we have a black hole that is formed where there used to be an actual step in the process, and that black hole is while silencers are fine right now, today, when you're talking about short barrel rifles, there is a hole because the law actually mentions a requirement to have the attorney general be notified. Because it's still covered under the GCA, because it's still covered, and there is no form that exists if you don't use the form 4. There's no form that exists that covers that leap right now. So what they've gone back to is they've actually asked the ATF for a formal response andor ideally a new form to be created that allows that to now happen.
SPEAKER_03Since since the ruling is you can't And I'm not even talking about form fours, I'm also talking about form ones, like me just going over there and just being like, here, here's a stock. Like that that's also that that's also what I'm talking about, is in in their videos that it has to have been something that you got you bought from PSA. That's my problem. It has to be like that. Is the entire issue.
SPEAKER_04But again, your problem is that your judge, your your district judge hasn't done the similar thing, nor has this rolled up to a federal level. So that it's it's a delay issue. It's not a well, these people are being funneled, but it's but it's they're not being funneled. There's first of all, they're self-funneling. No one is following. Everybody can keep waiting until this becomes national. It's just the people that want to do it sooner now have a new path to go down if they want to do it sooner.
SPEAKER_07Well, and I think we're getting a dead horse to a building. Yeah, probably. Yeah, move on to the show. Don, just to just to just to give you a little bit of background on me so you can understand where I'm coming from. When Sandy Hook happened, every week I was going to one of my local gun shops and I was buying primers, projectiles, and powder, all in cash.
SPEAKER_04Uh well, I I think more impressive was you know, tell them about your buddy up in uh Wyoming there. They got uh Randy Weaver out of the house.
SPEAKER_07Well, that was in Idaho, but yeah, um, so one of one of the one of the guys
Why The Ruling Could Expand
SPEAKER_07that had a big influence on my life was Jack McLam. Jack McLamb and Bo Grights were both family friends. They were the ones who talked Randy Weaver off the hill. You know, Bo taught me to repel, and I still use I still use I I still use the shit. Why am I blanking right now? I don't use minute of angle, I use mill mildot? Mill spec. There you go. Mill mill dot yeah, mill dot because uh Bo Greitz and his son, who's former Delta Force, uh taught me how to use it in the 90s, right, as a kid. I grew up in the Patriot community, lived in north central Idaho from 10 years for 10 years.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, he grew up on the compound, so that's not quite, but anyway.
SPEAKER_07I feel you, man. I'm right there with you. I just don't think we're there yet. I think hopefully we will get there. I get the dangers of what you're saying, but unfortunately, if you haven't noticed, our entire legal system is fucked and has been for a long time. And oh yeah, no way I agree. You know, that it's just a step in the process that the government makes us go through. To me, it I'll I'll just say it. Concealed carry is legal in 100% of places and 100% of states if you're not a pussy. Yeah.
SPEAKER_05So that's my attitude.
SPEAKER_03Well, I mean, you know, it depends if you're gonna get it. I think airports are one of the few places where you're very likely to get caught. But I mean, you know, hey, if you got the balls, you can try.
SPEAKER_07But no, until up until security, you're good. But what I'd say is I fly with a gun almost every time I fly.
SPEAKER_03I choose not to fly. I don't I don't like I don't like airports, I don't like planes, I don't like being able to, you know, being stuck in a box. I want to be able to, if I need to get out and do whatever I need to, I can get out and do whatever I need to. I don't need to sit there.
SPEAKER_04Oh, we just the way I we gotta ask Don if he's read that series of books.
SPEAKER_03Uh yeah.
SPEAKER_04But I think he'd enjoy it if he hadn't.
SPEAKER_03But yeah, no, it's the the the only the only thing I'm I'm I'm really getting at is I just I can see bad actors using this as a way of outing a whole bunch of people that believe they're doing something good. I see a bunch of influencers that are out there showing, hey, this is all good stuff. I see I just see too much noise and I see too much clout and I see too much going on that I am extraordinarily suspicious of everything, and also the fact that it's only you need to be a member of something or buy from a or your local shop has to specifically use Silencer shop or you have to buy from PSA. I am extraordinarily skeptical of anything that requires you to go through these places and everybody is promoting it because uh I know I know for a fact I know there is no way that people out there are not already trying to do what they can to out all everybody right now that's out there trying to do that. The Dolpsing campaign is gonna be huge. I do not trust any of this at all, and that that's that's my biggest problem is that I know that this is the path to the nationwide so that everyone can get whatever they want. I I understand that part of it. My my biggest thing is the constant promotion of you know, buying specifically from these vendors, and I can see I can see a future, I very much can see a future where PSA and Silencer Shop are now government-approved places where you can buy these things. I I I I could I can see some pretty horrific shit down the line with the way that this is constructed. I don't want it to happen, but I am so skeptical. And I and as you said, the legal system is fucked up, or the people that are in charge of the country are super fucked up. I can see this being misused in way too many ways that I don't trust any of it. And I don't see it as a victory until it actually becomes nationwide for anybody and everybody. Well, in fact outside of probably places like California or whatever, that are gonna say no, go fuck yourself and they're gonna ban everything anyways, but regardless.
SPEAKER_07Well, in two things, and then I want to move to a fun topic, but um, you know, one of the follow-on pieces of leg uh or lawsuits that has to happen after this is now that the NFA has basically been stripped from these items, just like what we were talking about with the SBRs, and there has to be another registration. The question needs to be asked under what authority? Because the law literally points to the NFA.
SPEAKER_04Hey Don, sorry sorry, let me just interrupt you for one sec. What state do you live in? Oklahoma. Oklahoma's covered. You can now go and buy it wherever you want. You're part of the the class that's also covered by this lawsuit. So quit your bitching, man.
SPEAKER_03I am still going to bitch because I see where it can go, but regardless.
SPEAKER_04But I mean, you literally you could go to any gun shop now as long as they're willing to be.
SPEAKER_07Yeah, when you actually read baseball bats ruling, we've beat the dead horse with baseball bats and blown it up with Tamar. All right. So, Don, I turned Gene onto a series of books a few years ago, and he and I both got hooked, and we've read all of them. Have you read the Going Home series or Charlie's Requiem series, which is a companion series by A American?
SPEAKER_03Nope. Okay. You have I don't I don't read, I don't read nearly as the audiobook.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, reading when we say reading, it means listening while you're doing other shit. But given given what we understand, I think better now what your
Prepper Fiction With Real Gear
SPEAKER_04perspective on the world is, you are gonna love this series of books because we both loved it, and uh, you are very much of the same feather.
SPEAKER_07DHS is the main bad guy.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah. I mean, so the thing thing about me and reading. Man, when I was a kid, I read all sorts of shit up until you know, um, what, 30, 30 something now, 35 now. Oh, yeah, when I was in, you know, huh?
SPEAKER_04You're old.
SPEAKER_03Well, yeah, yeah, I know. But you know, when I was uh in in when I was in my 20s and you know, in high school, I read a lot. I I read nonstop, you know, a lot of just a lot of various things, you know, also plenty of Warhammer shit. But you know, as I got older, I just I I haven't really found the time to read things, and a lot of people have tried to get me to get into audiobooks. I can't. I need paper, I need to actually have a book in my hands. But unf you know, for me, as much as I wish that I could, dude, I I have so little time for I'll spoil the story for you.
SPEAKER_07No, no, no, no. The guy who writes this is a prepper and he puts in actual gear and actually like shit he has obviously used.
SPEAKER_04Well, let me ask this have you read uh Tom Clancy when you were young? Plenty, yes. Okay. Do you know the thing that a lot of people, myself included, love about Clancy is that he went into insane levels of details about specific gear that these agents were using. So this guy that wrote this A American guy, uh which is obviously a fake name, kind of like yours name is a fake name.
SPEAKER_07By the way, A stands for Angry.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, there you go, Angry American. He uh literally tells you the model numbers of the shit of the characters are using to the point where Ben and I went and ordered a bunch of the stuff that was from the book because after doing some research, we realized you know, this shit's actually kind of the best. Yeah, it's basically a review of the product. Exactly.
SPEAKER_03So I mean the the thing that just talking about Clancy for just a second there. Clancy, man, I I get so frustrated because I read Tom Clancy books and they're so good. And then you look at the either movie show or video game adaptations, and it's like this isn't even close to what it's supposed to be. I think the one that frustrates me the most is probably uh Rainbow Six. And it's just it it's nowhere close to what and especially now with you know wheelchair operators and all this other shit.
SPEAKER_04Oh, we're gonna put bulletproof, you know, glass, you know, the one I love is that the walls you you can shoot all the male NPCs, but not the female ones. Oh, that was Halo.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, that was Halo.
SPEAKER_05Well, I mean fourth Halo, but yeah.
SPEAKER_03Uh-huh. Yeah, like Rainbow Six Siege is like is is terrible. Vegas was terrible. You had what's it called? You had you also had like what, Rainbow Six Three on PC specifically, where you actually could have your team, you assemble a little dudes, you actually had your little planning, so you could actually plan everything out. Yeah, your go codes, like okay, fine, this is Rainbow Six, this feels good to play, this is you know what he's writing about, and then you get into you know the modern stuff, and it's not even close. And I get I get so angry when I play modern games because they're just they they lose the the level of detail that you used to have in older games that were clearly from people that knew what they were doing. And it's the same thing that you're talking about with these books. It's people are writing about things that they fundamentally don't understand, or TV shows where they clearly don't understand what the guns are. And it's it's so annoying to see all of the and see, read, play anything that comes from people that fundamentally don't understand what they're talking about or what they're doing.
SPEAKER_07Halo 4 is a great example of that. Because if you look at the first three halos, right, it's a fucking Christian. An epic, right? It's a hero's epic. It's the redeemer. It it it is it is literally a religious story, and the the the aliens are Muslims, right? Then you get to Halo 4 and DEI is fully kicked in and you lose fucking the entire story arc, and they're the ones who ruined Halo.
SPEAKER_03Well, the thing is about Halo, well, dude, Halo, I can talk about that forever. I mean, Halo 1's the best game. Halo 2 was was a step up, but the multiplayer carried it. Halo 3, it ended it. I didn't really like Halo 3, uh, except for Forge. Forge is what saved the game for me. But Halo 3, the ending, it was perfect. I didn't want it to continue. It was, he's, you know, you get into the cryo chamber, you know, wake me when you need me. Clearly in the middle of nowhere, never gonna be seen by anybody again. But it was still just coming back, sort of arc, right? It it was so it was so well done. It's like, okay, you know what? I believe this being the ending. This is a fantastic ending. Like, I I don't need anything more more from this. I hated Reach, actually. I thought Reach was pretty shitty. And I had read the book before I played the game. So I I did not like Reach whatsoever. And that to me, that felt like the beginning of the inshitification of Halo personally, you know, having sprint, having power-ups, having all these things. Because Halo 1, I think, just growing up, and you know, all right, I got Xbox the Xbox original when it came out, played Halo when it came out, you know. I I played the the piss out of Halo 1. And so to me, you know, you have health and all you rely on is your guns and how you can deal with things, not power. I don't know. I I could go on for a long time about it, but the the the original three games are the only ones that are ever worth a damn. And after that, uh even including Reach, I just think they're all terrible.
SPEAKER_04Well, uh, all all I you guys are like closer in age, so you I you can definitely see that you're both way more into Halo than I was. That Halo came out at that stage in my life where I was actually fucking chicks and not playing video games.
SPEAKER_03I was in seventh grade.
SPEAKER_04Unlike now, where I mostly play video games and don't fuck chicks. So I'm I'm regressing, I guess. But but Ben talks quite a bit about Halo as well. So I know I know he was into that same kind of stuff. But my my kind of still recommendation to you is the way that you're kind of talking about Halo and what you were saying previously with just not wanting to trust anybody and you still rely on your own shit, and your general knowledge of brands and quality and functions and everything. Listen or read if you prefer, but I would say listen to these fucking books. I'll send you a link because you will you once you start, I'll say 15 pages, and you're not gonna stop until you finish the last book. Because you are gonna see exactly you're gonna see the brand name of the scope that he had on the gun that he had with him, along with a sort of a backstory of why he didn't have a better one. Like the the way this book is written is exactly for our kind of crowd.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I'll uh I'll look at it. I mean, for meme whenever I'm creating content on the second done, send me your email and I'll I'll gift you the first bit. Okay, I'll send it to uh I'll send it in the in the thing. But the thing is for meme I like right now my main focus is what am I gonna find in order to enhance the content that I already create. And you know, uh there there's quite a there's a lot of references that I have in what I do in humor styles and like beats and stuff that I have.
SPEAKER_04Is it Chef's Kiss?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, that it's Dota doesn't appreciate good stuff, so that's why perfect.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, so he's don't he literally.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, on a WA2000. Uh-huh. Um but like okay, heat, obviously. I I'm trying and I'm starting to reference that a lot more in action sequences. I wasn't really able to before because you know, action is actually very new for AI. I think action has really only been a thing for Jesus, three months. So, like, we've only been able to get hardcore heavy action for three months. Yeah, and my video is one of the first, is you know, released shortly after we got access to it.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, and you're doing some of the longest videos of anybody that I've seen, frankly. It's doing the same thing.
SPEAKER_07What editing do you have to do? Are you doing shorter clips and then stitching it all together, or is it one generation?
SPEAKER_03I I try and get one generation that's good enough from most things. Yeah, but sometimes I'll take two generations.
SPEAKER_04You would still call that a short clip, though. He would still like tell them how long the clips you're talking about.
SPEAKER_03Oh, every generation is between 15 and 30 seconds.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
Making AI Films Live On Stream
SPEAKER_04So I I would you would still call that a short clip, right, Ben?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, that's why I figured.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, it's it's all a collection of short clips. The editing isn't like when I how do I describe this? The way that I create is very different from a lot of people because everything is on the fly, right? I have a general idea of where I want to go with a story, but the the moment to moment everything I generate on the fly, and I'm editing as I go. So, like, okay, I we know we finit, we look at this scene, it's hilarious, great, let's put it in, let's work on the next one, right? I have an idea of where I want to be, but that scene and the next scene just always evolves based on what I'm going after and and where I want to be. It's it's not it's nothing simple, and it just and nothing is ever the way that I I originally start. But the editing isn't nearly as intense as a lot of people might think, just because I I'm not you know trying to sync things up to music most of the time, you know, I I'm letting the visuals speak for themselves, and I've more or less want the generations to be exactly what I want, more or less, like maybe I'll cut five seconds here and there out of something, or I'll take the first half of one thing and the second half of another one and put them together.
SPEAKER_04There's a difference in the in the film creation process between traditional film and using AI, at least the way you're doing it, in that in a traditional film you you start off with a story, then you create a script, then you fill all those roles, you actually shoot the thing where you're shooting multiple takes of each scene, and then you go through and the real fun work begins, and all that happens after everybody, most people go home, which is the editing bay. And that could be six months worth of work with two people sitting in there trying to create the what the actual end product is gonna look like. The way you're doing it, you're essentially doing the dailies on the fly with AI in the middle of editing.
SPEAKER_07Well, and reacting to AI, right? What it feeds you back is somewhat randomized, right? So you're you're taking that and then pivoting and going, oh, I like that. Let me enhance this on the next one, let me do this, let me do that.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, or if something doesn't work and we go uh I go a different direction. Like it's it's things like that that allow you to do it. Now, to be perfectly clear, a lot of people can't do that. And I'm not trying to say that I'm special or anything, but it it is very much a skill.
SPEAKER_04Oh no, we got that. You're you are a little special.
SPEAKER_03Well, yeah, but it's but it but it but it's all about it, it's it's it's about being able to pivot like that is a very hard skill for most people to master. And especially when you're doing a creative thing like that, like I do have a rough script of what I want. I don't have what people say or anything, I just kind of go off of it because you know the a production spans, you know, a week or two, depending on if like if I'm basing off of real, real people like Tectone or Asmongold or something, then some something stupid that they say maybe like, you know what? That's funny. I'm gonna riff on that now. And so then it allows me to be more dynamic with what I create. And you know, I want to make sure every time I do it, I make sure that it's something funny that's gonna be timeless and not something that's gonna be more of a pop culture like it only exists in this moment, right? If I try to do something, I don't know, that was pop culture in the 90s and no one remembers what the chia pets are, right? No one no one let's just say that no one remembers what that is. Yeah, but a lot of people aren't gonna recognize that off the back.
SPEAKER_07Uh-huh.
SPEAKER_05Good god, man. You feel old yet, Ben? Yeah. You're you're welcome.
SPEAKER_03Yep. But it's it's it's just a lot of thinking through through all this.
SPEAKER_07We have a listener who does an AI podcast, so I'm s you know, I'm just gonna say, don't judge us if he reaches out. We love you, CSB. We love you, but we know this is gonna happen.
SPEAKER_03No, okay. That's fine. Yeah. But it's it's it's just all about making sure that uh that you just work through things, you have a bunch of references. You know, I uh for example, like as I'm making this, I'm also you know, re-watching old shows that I really like, Better Calls All, Babylon 5, New York.
SPEAKER_04Oh, here we go.
SPEAKER_03Like, I just I just go through all of these different things as I create, and I'm I'm constantly getting reminded of, oh, that was a really good way that something got done. That was a really interesting conversation. I like how the the pacing of that was, and so it's all about keeping it fresh on your mind as you create. And one of the things that is a little unfortunate, but it's also you know, kind of baked into what I do, is that I don't have time to really think through and and and let things breathe when I do it live. And it's a bit more ad hoc and random than it otherwise would be for a film, but that's also partly because of the people that I have in there. Now, if it's a more original story, then I can allow for things to breathe and to kind of be their own thing because hey, we're trying to you know get something done from start to finish. That's an original concept. But when I'm doing something with all these other people, it's not just you know regular viewers of mine that are watching it, it's also people out there that are part of these other communities that are like, what is what's Don gonna do with this today? What's he gonna do? Like, you know, they're gonna think through all these and they're gonna come check it out, and it's a lot of fun. But yeah, it it's it's not easy to do. And also, on top of all of that, there's also chat that I'm engaging with the entire time. I'm you know engaging with everyone, I'm thinking through, okay, this is what we're gonna do in this scene. I'm thinking through to the next scene. Maybe that idea is changing because of what's coming out. Like, there's so many different variables that come into it that there's there's nobody else that actually does what I do live. Nobody else is creating AI video content live because it's hard. And there's people that have tried doing it and they maybe they stick with it for a week, but this is what I've been doing to make money for the past year now. Nobody else is is doing this, and it if people did try it, this is it's it's not easy to do.
SPEAKER_07Yeah. A lot of effort into what you're doing.
SPEAKER_03A lot of effort for for very little.
SPEAKER_04And that that is one of the things I I think a lot of people have on the back of their minds. This question is like you your videos of you know, from Asmundold to obviously Tectone, to a lot of the characters that play major parts, the guys from the the unsubscribed podcast, like they all have huge channels. They do react videos to your stuff, which you know should generate certainly plenty of views to your stuff, but I think a lot of people have a kind of an assumption of like you know, you're effectively making material to get these guys content themselves that involves like you're I don't want to be quite this crass, but if you just get what I'm trying to say, is you're you're essentially making marketing videos for these people, you're creating something that a lot of people back in Hollywood wanted, which is their their own sitcom show. You're effectively making a sitcom show that involves a lot of these, you know, frankly, my neighbors here in Austin, a lot of people from the surrounding area that are on YouTube because there's a lot of YouTubers in Austin here. Yeah, it totally benefits them.
SPEAKER_03Exactly. Because it's it's not just and I honestly I don't I don't give a shit if they if they watch it or not, but it's it's the the the dream that Hollywood has with that, and what they could never realize is that if they want to watch Tectone, they can go watch him live. They want to watch Donut, they can go watch him live, and they can hang out and they can see him and they can talk and they can do all of that. You can't do that with uh Keanu Reeves, you can't do that with any of these other people because they're not live, and you don't you can't get that level of interaction, which is so unique and special that you get by having these live streamers and all of this.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Whether they acknowledge you or not, it's a completely different thing.
SPEAKER_04Well, and that's where I was going with this point is they're obviously acknowledging you because they are doing the watch throughs. So I think the question a lot of people have is are you getting anything back from these guys? Are they saying, hey, you know, I made 180 grand last week from YouTube because I I was playing a video you made on my channel with millions of views. I'm gonna donate 10 grand to you. Like that doesn't happen. Nope. Which sucks because it should happen. Like I think somebody that well, I mean, well, you know, I joined your channel and I have no money. So you would hope somebody with a lot more money than me would do
React Culture And Getting Paid
SPEAKER_04something to say, hey, this guy's doing a good job. He's got me as a character, that's very cool. I want to support that. I want to help him make more of this kind of content.
SPEAKER_07Are you are you familiar with the value for value method?
SPEAKER_03No, but the the only person that actually has done anything, I think, is Tectone, because he's commissioned me to make a couple things for him. Okay, but outside of that, Asmund Gold thinks that I hate him for some reason, so he's never gonna watch my videos.
SPEAKER_04He looks totally in your videos, he looks almost exactly like he does in real life.
SPEAKER_03So he but he thinks I hate him and that I hate the Jews. I don't hate the Jews. I use it as a joke the same way as South Park does, because it's funny. But it's like all these people, you know, and you know, you got you got leaflet, you got leaflet looking at things, you got you know, everybody else that said these, you got Jake, you know, all these people that have these more followings.
SPEAKER_04Like, is probably the best version of an AI person I've ever seen of anybody. I mean you put them next to each other, you can't tell which which one's which.
SPEAKER_03It's pretty easy to do, all things considered.
SPEAKER_04Well, he yeah, he's wearing makeup, but still.
SPEAKER_03But the you know, the the the whole thing is that it's uh you know, the average views I get on a video is what five thousand, the occasional like fifteen thousand or twenty thousand, and then there's the uh absolutely abnormal, people love the original K Crusader, that's at 173,000, but that's been out since February. Like it's very abnormal for a video to you know go above 10 grand.
SPEAKER_04This is the thing that to me would be very frustrating in your shoes, is because when you get a video that's getting 15,000 views and you're feeling like, oh, that's decent, and then that video is you know viewed on a React stream, and that gets like 500,000 views.
SPEAKER_03Well, okay, so like Whale King is a great example of something like that. Whale King, I got 19,000 views out of that, which is uh almost as good as Axe 2, which is at 22, 21,000 views. And Tectone's version of that, he got 200,000 views.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_03I think powder got, I don't know, 40,000. He she got a shitload of views. Like all these other people got exponentially more views than I did. Yeah. But I just being salty about it. There's there's really as as far as I'm concerned, there's really nothing to be gained from being upset by it. I think for me, I I enjoy more that people are seeing my work than not, because if people weren't reacting to it, then you know there'd be a few thousand people that would have seen it. It's like, okay, cool.
SPEAKER_07This is why I brought up the value for value method as pioneered by two of our friends, John C. Dvorak and Adam Curry, on the No Agenda show. Basically, their set their ask is hey, if you like this content, if you like what we're doing, send us either your time in the way of a creative work, do something for us to help us promote your, you know, your talent, you know, something like treasure. Right. I'm going through the three. Time, talent, and treasure, you know, produce something, promote, produce, or give us some cash, right? And what I would suggest is adding that to your your repertoire of saying, hey, if you use this, if you find this funny, if you do whatever, donate and have a don't don't set an amount, just let people say whatever the value is. That tends to work out pretty well. Like we we don't really take a whole bunch of donations, we don't really push for our own. No, we're just trying to break it even because it because this is just fun. What this podcast started out as is me and Gene having a phone call a couple times a week, once a week, and going, you know, dude, that was kind of funny. We talked about a lot. I'm sure some other people would like to hear about it, so we started recording it.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. Like five years ago. Yeah, exactly. And there's nothing magic here, it's just the the thing that surprises me, and maybe it is a generational thing, I don't know. Because I'm I'm honestly I'm old enough to be your dad. But barely, but I'm I'm up there. But the the thing that surprises me is if you are somebody that is gonna do a a React video, and I don't care again what the topic is, just any React video. And that React video does well for you for you getting paid by whatever, whether it's Twitch or or YouTube or whoever, I would feel weird. I would feel bad if I didn't support the person that created the original work that I then showcased. Because it's kind of like you know, it with without somebody making that kind of content that I'm just reacting to, I wouldn't have this thing to react to. And so I don't do React videos, but if I did, I I can't imagine not wanting to financially support, or maybe not financially, maybe it's just you know, come up with a different way. Go get together for lunch and just talk about a way to make money, or you know, do a zoom or something, but somehow reach out and say, hey, I just want to thank you for what you're doing. And Don, this is coming from a Jew.
SPEAKER_03What's that got to do with it? You're so racist. The way the way that I look at things is I am very I've been very uh public about it. I'm pretty bad about marketing myself, networking, all that good stuff. But the other thing too is I say all the time that all I care about is I enhance one person's day. As long as I make one person laugh with what I create, then I have achieved my goal. You know, it is is does the money help? Yeah. Does it does it let me survive more? Of course it does. But at the you know, I'm I'm not gonna be out there demanding, you know, all this money or trying to get all this money from all these people. Because if I can get my if people are watching my content and my content is getting out there far more, then that's you know, it's it's it's making other people's days better, it's making other people, you know, get get through whatever. I've had plenty of comments about that. But you know, I if if people want to do it, then they then they they certainly can. I don't want to sit there, I don't want to ask for it, I don't want to make big, a big deal about it. Because that's not the that's not the reason that you sit down and you watch a stream or you engage with it.
SPEAKER_04You don't need to. We're gonna do that for you. We're we're gonna tell people to watch your content because it's fucking hilarious, and then actually hit the join button, you know, do something that reflects financially the pleasure that you got from Don's content. I've done that personally. Ben just offered to to buy him an audiobook. Like, I mean, it's kind of a bribe, frankly, but still there's no reason that you you can't do that for a couple of bucks. Like it's you're not asking for fifty bucks here. You're not asking even for a movie ticket price. It's all totally voluntary. And if somebody's like us unemployed and there's no requirement to give money, me and Don. We're both unemployed right now.
SPEAKER_07So what I would say is it's it doesn't even have to be monetary. It can be that note from a fan saying, dude, love what you do, that little bit of encouragement that lifts you up and makes you want to do it more. You know, the there's lots of ways people who are listening to you can give back to you to keep getting the content that they want. And the the entire point is, you know, at this point, with no agenda going for as long as it did, and everything else, literally, it took one of the co-hosts dying to kind of throw a wrench in the works, and one of uh one of our friends and Gene's other co-hosts, Darren and Larry, have picked it up. But, you know, we'll and we'll see what the end result ends up being. Yeah, they do. But literally, you know, those guys made a hell of a living off of this value for value model.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, and if if you haven't heard of Adam Curry, he he's actually the guy that invented that originally created podcasting. So the the whole thing called podcasting came about as a result of him. And he uh he during the iPod days had a meeting with Steve Jobs where he basically gave Apple the right to integrate it into their product. So fairly fairly important person in the field, but for the last how long has it been? Probably last 20 years almost? 18. 18, yeah, yeah, close to twenty. He's basically been doing a podcast that is totally free for anybody that was living off of just people making donations and doing a very very decent living off of purely voluntary contributions. But you do have to tell people that that's a thing. Like you you it's fine not to want to ask, but you have to at least tell them that there's a way to get you paid.
SPEAKER_03I mean, that's that it is already a thing in like a pinned comment that's always at the top. But I just I don't making a point about it. I I haven't seen anyone that I don't I haven't seen anyone that that does that that has that really takes off to an extreme level. There's a lot of people, you know, one of the things that annoys me more than anything, and because the again the con it it should be about enjoying the content instead of being reminded like, hey, pay for this thing. If you look at a lot of Twitch streamers, they have like, oh, it's like 94, 88 out of you know, 9500. You're like, what's that number for? Oh, it's subscriptions. Oh, you're getting five dollars per per sub. Oh, oh yeah, you're hurting for money. Oh, no, I don't think you're hurting for money. There it's just that that sort of shit just it pisses me off to no end that that sort of thing is there, or you have DSP Dark Side Phil, who is notorious for begging like a whore all the time for like, hey, if you you guys didn't give me $300, I'm not gonna keep playing this game for the 30 minutes. It's like it's it's I I just I haven't seen it. I'm right there with you.
SPEAKER_07But no agenda did it differently. They just put out the content and said, hey, if you like this, support us. And they ended up with a a listener base of over you know, two million regular listeners. And like weekly listeners, yeah. Yeah, yeah. And their their their support account was like two percent. Only two percent actually gave at any and on any given week. But in aggregate, and over the years, like both Gene and I have donated a tremendous amount of money to that show because we we we valued it.
SPEAKER_06You know, I like Jesus.
SPEAKER_04I'm almost almost as much as spaceships.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, let's not go there. Uh you know, like I oh, Star Citizen?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah, I I'm I fell very deep into that. Oh shit. Let me look at my account really quick. How far am I?
SPEAKER_05Oh my god. Oh, it's the one ship in the hangar.
SPEAKER_03I I'm I'm permanently banned on two accounts over there because I I talk shit about their fucking garbage management. Yeah, uh it's horrible.
SPEAKER_04Gene tried to get me into it. I get I got you into it. You just fell off.
SPEAKER_03$9,802. Nice and 60 cents. Multiply that by the way. No, trust me. The regret. Uh it's yeah, I'm very aware. Yeah, it's you want to know, you you know what? Just just uh as a uh don't want to go too deep into the stars that doesn't think but one thing just to mention the only reason why I even backed that shit in the first place is specifically because Total Biscuit had the interview with Chris Roberts, and because Total Biscuit, John Bain, he was such an advocate for consumer rights and consumers having you know choices. Uh that's why you know FOV sliders are such a big thing now, instead of you know getting motion sick from just terrible, you know, awfulness. A lot of it is championed because Total Biscuit did that. And since he had that interview with Chris Roberts and he never really promoted anything, I'm like, okay, fine, I'll give these guys you know $300. Fuck it.
SPEAKER_04And that's how it starts. And then it goes in the in a deep black hole.
SPEAKER_03If it was anybody else, wouldn't have even gotten into it. Yeah.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, my uh you know, I log in like twice a year just to see what's new. That that's essentially my gameplay these days.
SPEAKER_07So what do y'all think of the State Department video that got put out about the Monroe Doctrine?
SPEAKER_04I didn't watch it, so I I don't have an answer.
SPEAKER_07So, Don, are you familiar with the Monroe Doctrine? Um maybe. So the the Monroe Doctrine, we're talking 1800s here, was basically Europe, stay the fuck out of our hemisphere. America is the hegemon in this hemisphere. We we're gonna control the Americas, period. Yes. Okay, and then I've been talking about the Donro Doctrine, which Donald Trump has literally
Monroe Doctrine And Oil Reality Check
SPEAKER_07said this is our viewpoint since he got re-elected and what he was gonna do. And I've been pretty successful in predicting a lot of people.
SPEAKER_04Well, you were you were very early on this, which I remember pre-election. So I'm happy to give you the credit for that because you you definitely were talking about it way before things were happening.
SPEAKER_07Well, anyway, the the State Department put out a video talking about the Monroe Doctrine and the current doctrine and what has been and what is and what will be. And let's just say the map they show shows the borders. I've been talking about Gene. So we're talking America's sphere of influence that will not be allowed to be questioned, literally is gonna go from Greenland to the first island chain.
SPEAKER_01Yep. Good. I I think it makes a lot more sense.
SPEAKER_04And I mean it's kind of been ours for the taking, it's just no previous residents have really pushed for it.
SPEAKER_03You know, I am quite curious. Are you guys do you guys watch or listen or read S2 Underground's daily intel reports?
SPEAKER_00No.
SPEAKER_03Oh so S2 Underground, it's open source intelligence, so it's all you know based on community people putting stuff in. Uh, they get a lot of really good stuff. They are breaking things down in quite incredible ways. And one of the things that they're talking about, and there's another YouTuber and upper echelon that talked about it, is that it doesn't matter ultimately, whatever Trump succeeds at, and hasn't it doesn't it it literally doesn't matter at all if oil the the oil situation isn't resolved. And what I'm really looking at is because I I agree that we should have control over all that space, but oil is in such a horrible position right now, and it's not just it it's oh it's really really bad with the straight up horn moves the way it is, and then also the booth is closing the red season. Well, the fact that we are reliant on the petroleum reserve, and the petroleum reserve is a combination of two different types of oil, and they're both way lower than what they should be, and it's the point of collapse. And if it does collapse, well, that's gonna be a massive issue for the entire world and also for the oceans. That's gonna be a big problem. Again, not a crazy big, like, you know, climate person, like you know, really wanted to talk about it, but like that's gonna be a big deal if that collapses, and then on top of that, then you're gonna start having places run out of oil and the ability to process oil, and then you're just gonna have a tremendous domino effect. And just like in 2020, in Europe and Asia, it's gonna it it it's right now the the numbers are showing that it it's gonna happen here. Well okay. And so the from from what I have seen and what I've what I've read, and I have looked at many contradicting reports to try and you know, because I I want to look at all the different sides because there's there's no point in just looking at what suits your viewpoint, look at every side possible to figure out what works. Yeah, read between the lines of of what's being said and what's not being said and what people agree on, and you'll find the truth somewhere in there. And uh just like with 2020 and COVID being Trump's previous legacy, even though you know that you you can you people can say whatever they want about that, I think that the in a collapse with oil is going to be Trump's legacy, and I think his presidency might be short because of that specifically.
SPEAKER_07So so a few reasons why I don't believe that, and just again, I I know you don't know my background, so just to give it physics and math major in college, first big gig in OT Cybersecurity was for an oil and gas company working on pipelines and refineries and things like that. Um before Trump kicked off the Strait of Hormos, he kicked off Venezuela, and we have the Venezuelan crude, which is very similar to the tar sands crude, which our refineries are built for. It's uh it's a heavy crude versus the light, sweet crude we get from fracking. So that satisfies our refineries' needs. Number two, the Defense Authorization Act that Obama put through allows the president with an executive order to cease exports of any refined, unrefined product. We produce between what we are now getting from Venezuela and what we have domestically, domestically we can meet our energy needs, but we need some of that dirty shit, crude, to put into the refining mix to make the chemistry really work really well. Between those two things, the US is more than self-sufficient. We have more than we need. Europe is fucked. They and it's by it, it's and here's the No, Europe is done. Europe is dead. California is fucked. And here's why.
SPEAKER_03Well, it it correct me if I'm wrong, but I think that the other problem with California is it's California and China specifically. They have a very specific type of gasoline and oil processing that they need for their regulations and everything else.
SPEAKER_07California does, which is why they have still the refining capacity, but they China is the or China, it might as well be California and the West Coast is the only portion that is the net importer of crude from abroad and from the Middle East because there are no pipelines over the Rocky Mountains, and they're using that crude to refine to a very specific blend to meet their regulations. China has a completely different problem. China doesn't have the oil. China's in entire energy base is imported, whether it's oil, coal, or anything else, it's all fucking imported.
SPEAKER_03No, no, no, no. I I agree. What I'm saying is that China is the only other place that creates the oil or whatever that California and the West Coast require and what all of their refineries are set up for. That's that's that's what I was saying. I'm not saying you know, China, China is is isn't a whole different different thing.
SPEAKER_07China will burn bunker fuel if they can. They don't give a shit about their environment. But the the big geopolitical thing here, and what I won what I want to get to, is the closing of the Strait of Hormuz has reduced China's ability to import oil by over 40%. They have made a massive push towards electric vehicles. The other thing is Germany over the last three or four years has started literally taking chemical plants apart in Germany since the Ukraine war broke out and moving them to Louisiana and Texas. The German the German industry is fucked. Their entire industry is a very important thing.
SPEAKER_03From what I saw, they're going back to coal.
SPEAKER_04They're going back to coal, exactly right. But well, can I just chime in with the disparage coal?
SPEAKER_07Coal can be clean.
SPEAKER_04Well, jump in with the oil reserve thing, too. Because this is this is making a lot of headlines that the the U.S. strategic petroleum reserves are at the lowest level since 1983. We're totally fucked, everything's going out. So do you know, like outside of the percentages, do you know what the actual numbers are? Because the in absolute numbers is high. Yeah. Well, what we've got is 298 million barrels, which is 300 million barrels basically, which represents 43% of the possible reserve amount. So we're slightly below half of what we could have in reserve. But keep that number in mind, 300 million barrels, right? Do you know what the Texas reserves are for the state of Texas? So this is this is oil that has not been pumped out of the ground yet.
SPEAKER_03So the the actual number right now is in August is 272,000.
SPEAKER_04Okay.
SPEAKER_03603.
unknownOkay.
SPEAKER_03Not and, but the the the thing that's that's that's most concerning and when you look at it is it's not you you can look at you you can try and and and look at all that stuff, but when you actually see the graph and you see just how fast it's depleting over the course of uh since what since March and the just sheer drop-off that it's had in total capacity, and it's been growing. It they've been increasing it since what 2023, it looks like, and then uh this year in March just dropped off a cliff. And that that's the concern, right? That's the thing that people care about, right? And it's also the continual trend down. That's the problem.
SPEAKER_07Right now, Trump is still trying to prop up Europe and our allies and keep stuff at least somewhat reasonable for them while the Strait of I that's a different question.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, right. What we all think here is not necessarily what they're doing.
SPEAKER_07What I would say is the U.S. can close its doors tomorrow, say it is illegal to sell oil abroad or refined products abroad, and between the chemical imports we have from Venezuela, which the the Venezuelan imports are only needed to keep the chemistry correct for our current refineries. We could certainly build refineries differently and just work off of our own sweet crude, but we produce enough domestically to have $1.50 a gallon gas if the only market our companies can sell to is domestic.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. And that's that's where I was going with this is that $300 million just under that is the reserves. But the untapped reserves just for the state of Texas are $34 billion. So we are nowhere near running out of oil, and we have the refining capacity as well. But like Ben mentioned, the the reason you're seeing that depletion right now is because Trump is trying to both do both two things at once that are contrary, which is provide oil to Europe due to what's happening in the Middle East, and keep gas prices as low as they can be kept in the US. If you didn't care about the gas prices as much, then the reserves wouldn't be going down quite as much. Or if you didn't care about Europe and we go like, you know, we just stop trying to supply Europe, then we can have both the cheap gas prices and you start seeing the reserves get filled up again.
SPEAKER_07The US is the world's largest oil exporter right now. We serve we we are doing more barrels per day in export than Saudi Arabia was doing. Holy shit.
SPEAKER_03Sorry, I just Gene, were you the one that we were going back and forth specifically on Suno? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That was me. Okay. I just saw something that Minimax Music 3 just came out.
SPEAKER_04Really? Cool. Well, I'm looking forward. I get you know get my card tomorrow.
SPEAKER_03Sorry, it's just a competitor to Suno is insane. Yeah. Anyways, sorry.
SPEAKER_04And by the way, I'm glad you mentioned relating to Suno that I did try it, and it is pretty quick and easy to just export through the studio and just be exempt from that. But I'll also say, like just the other day, I was making actually for
Music AI Limits And Bad Actors
SPEAKER_04Ben. Ben wrote lyrics, I uh I produced some music for him, and I used up, you know, 10 or 11 downloads just for one song, just for one person. So it it's for anyone that's doing this for anybody besides themselves, this hits hard. This is like 60 is a very low number for somebody that's paying for a pro plan. And I think that they're gonna end up doing just they're gonna have another number.
SPEAKER_03I don't care. I am happy that they are limiting it just because the amount of people that will be like, all right, I'm gonna I'm gonna make some some scam shit for Spotify. Right. And they just go on and they generate 2,000 songs. It's like, oh yeah, yeah, people people like classical music. Okay, let's generate 2,000 classical songs, and then they upload them and then they make all the money. And for Suno, they're there it's not just the you know, all the the the hardware costs and the processing costs of making the songs, it's also bandwidth, and bandwidth is the most expensive component of what they do. So I actually don't have a problem with them limiting downloads if that means that the product is a superior product.
SPEAKER_04So I I don't know that one affects the other. I mean, I love their quality, I think they are the best quality music out there right now.
SPEAKER_03I it's I mean, I'm gonna give this, I'm gonna give this one a shot. But the but what I what the the point is is that I would rather, I would much rather, and it's the same thing that YouTube is changing where you need to get 10 million shorts views in order to be monetized on shorts.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_03I am so happy that these changes are happening because uh on one hand, for somebody like you, yeah, does it suck? Sure, of course it does. But the amount of people that are scamming the system and are hurting and burying people like me. I am so happy that these changes are being made because I can see that they're gonna be overly harsh with it, right? I firmly believe that they're gonna be overly harsh with it to begin with. They're gonna make some money off of people doing the download shit and wanting to buy more downloads, then they're going to loosen it up and be more generous. But I would much rather all of these bad actors be severely punished for what they're doing and not be able to continue with their griffs and their scams so that people that want to actually be creative can be creative.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, I I totally agree with all of that. It it's it was just it's one of those things where they didn't come out with the price, they didn't come out with how many credits. It's like maybe you know, it just takes existing credits that we already have. They it just sort of popped out of there, which was similar to what you've experienced recently with the video creation platforms of basically just like, oh, well, we sold you one thing, but now you're gonna have something different.
SPEAKER_03I think I think it's a little bit different because it's not you're not using credits for download. You know, I mean it's like I there's a but I still think there's a difference there because if you look at if you look at what in art in art list right the the scam company right there's two two great distinct examples so with Suno limiting downloads it's not limiting how many songs you can create, the fact that you can still listen to it, that there's no limitations on what you do there, or also where you can use studio in order to get whatever you need, right? So you still have all of that. And limiting downloads is was never something that was explicitly promised. And now changing that that's you know, is a little scummy. I mean, sure, but at the same time, it's not a disruption of the actual service that was provided, and the actual service that was originally provided was a generation of videos. I'm sorry, of um of music. Of music.
SPEAKER_04But if you there's no point in generating it unless you can download it.
SPEAKER_03Well, but Artlist and Udio and a lot of other platforms have already limited downloads. Yeah. So that's already been a thing that downloads have been limited. But here's the other side to it. With Artlist, it was fundamentally unsustainable what they were offering. Yeah, they have increased. I was fully taking advantage of it. Yeah, exactly. And they they chose that they didn't want to have have it around. And just so that Ben kind of knows what was what's going on.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, he's probably gonna get the hell man.
SPEAKER_03So C Dance C Dance 2.5 is the current best model. And Artlist was offering it as unlimited, and if all you had to do was pay $500 and you would get it for a year. Now, to generate a and it was 30 seconds at 720p, which is the highest quality that you can do for seed dance 2.5. Nobody did any of the math. All they did was they purely scammed people
The Artlist Unlimited Generation Implosion
SPEAKER_03because a single generation of seed dance 2.5 at 720p in 30 seconds is nine dollars and about three cents. And you were allowed to do 85 free unlimited generations as part of your plan. So let's say that you paid the $500 and you generated your $85 in a day, that means that you would have cost them $765 in a day, $22,950 a month, or $275,400 a year for just your $500 subscription. And that was above and beyond that. I was like, okay, fine, we're gonna do this because hey, we got you know $275,000 worth of free generations. These guys are insane for what they're doing. Like, what's going on? Obviously, it was too good to be true. I actually did end up getting my money back with the PayPal dispute, so that was excellent. They actually they did not offer that whatsoever. But if I you know, I have did a comparison of all the other model providers out there, and everybody is for any subscription model, you're anywhere from three to forty dollars under whatever their subscription plan is versus raw API costs. And then I looked at Artlist and I looked at what it was if you buy their credits. So for $70 a month, you got 80,000 credits, and each generation was 15,000 credits. So you can only do five generations a month, and five times nine is you know, that's forty-five dollars. So for $70, you were getting $45 of value. Yeah. So, you know, you look at all the numbers, it was all an absolute scam. And then my favorite thing about it is if you look at Artlist, they are based in Tel Aviv.
SPEAKER_05Not not even kidding. Oh, that's great.
SPEAKER_03So they know digital coins, but I I I did do the math on it, right? Yeah. And let's say that there's 15,000 people that were generating videos over the three days they had unlimited. They have a bill that's going to be outstanding. And that's just 15,000. I know that they got a lot more than 15,000 people to sign up with their promotion. But let's just just for sake of simple discussion, say 15,000 people were generating for three days, even though we know there's more. That means that to Byte Dance, which is the people that that you know own and operate the model, they owe them an API cost of $34 million over the course of just three days. So no wonder they pulled the plug, and they are they that's so much money to be in the hole for.
SPEAKER_04I guarantee you that somebody got fired over this. Because it's it's very likely marketing not using a calculator, coming up with something to attract people without actually doing the math with the accountant people.
SPEAKER_03I mean, all it took was me just taking a second to do. It's incredible.
SPEAKER_04It's not hard to figure out, but I'm sure that somebody got fired as a result of this. I I don't think this was a calculated, like, yeah, let's just do it for a couple days and trick a bunch of people and then we'll get them. I think this was somebody being an idiot who likely does not work at the company anymore.
SPEAKER_07Well, it's likely the marketing department that didn't know anything about the tech or the cost.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah, yeah. Exactly. Well, here's the funniest part about it is that literally the day before they rug pulled me, they said, Hey, come to our platform. Because I I had had a problem with Higgsfield, which is another aggregator. I had a problem with their with their service, and they said, Hey, come to our platform. You know, we have unlimited generations. And I'm like, Okay, great, fantastic. You're posting publicly with your company profile that you want me to come and check out your thing, and then you implode. Like you can't you can't have a worse PR clear than that. No. So but yeah, no, there's to me.
SPEAKER_04What happened with Star Citizen this uh last week?
SPEAKER_03Oh, the the the dude that they just hit the disco Lando dude said, Hey, this is your show, and the dude's like, I don't know what to do.
SPEAKER_04So yeah, just to give Ben another quick 30-second summary here. Yeah. So basically, there was one of the biggest YouTube slash Twitch guys doing mainly Star Citizen, uh, got offered a job to go work at Star Citizen, and he's obviously he's got a kid, you know, he's not he's uh in his 30s now, I think he was in his 20s
Star Citizen And The Sunk Cost Trap
SPEAKER_04doing this before. And so I think it seemed like a good opportunity for him to get a solid job now, right? So he's gonna basically be doing the same thing, he's gonna be making videos of Star Citizen, but he's gonna be an employee of the company. So he gets out there, he moves that the company is based in the UK. He moves out there, he's an American guy. No, he's not, he's a British guy, so it's actually not much of a move. But yeah, why anyway?
SPEAKER_07Why the hell is an American? Would you like to do that?
SPEAKER_04Yeah, yeah, no, no, no.
SPEAKER_05He goes there.
SPEAKER_07Like I I I I like I I was in Scotland earlier this year. Love it.
SPEAKER_04Okay, let me finish the point, Ben. But he goes there, and this they they decide what they're gonna do is something they used to do like 12 years ago, which is hey, we're just gonna pull like four developers who are gonna sit in front of the machines, and now we're we're gonna have the developers playing the video game, right? So they're gonna be playing their own game, and I or maybe it was six people, four to six people, and with this guy, this new creator guy that they just hired, kind of leading it, Disco Lando that he mentioned is their basically head of PR slash marketing. He's the the face of the business on YouTube. And so they start playing the game, and as they're playing it over the course of about an hour, all the bugs that everyone bitches about start becoming evident, and like they're running into problems. And keep in mind, these are four devs playing an internal build of the very latest code on a private server, not with hundreds of other people that we all have to play with, like literally a server made for them with four people on it, and yet still on this live stream, they're like crashing out, shit's not working.
SPEAKER_03And not only not only was it fucked in that regard, they also sucked at a lot of comments.
SPEAKER_04Well, like first time playing in five years, eh?
SPEAKER_03It's so and you know, it it it really it shows you everything that you that it shows everything that you needed to know as to why the ironclad came out fundamentally broken, even though it was the ship that was that was supposed to be the the tent pull thing of IAE or sorry of Invictus. And it's like, okay, cool. This ship fundamentally does not work on any level. You fall through it, the atmosphere is broken, everything about it is broken. It's like it works fine forever. You guys didn't literally didn't even test it. And it just it shows everything that that's wrong with it, and it's it's unfortunate to be so right.
SPEAKER_07And the and the guy's a game that's been in alpha for how long?
SPEAKER_03For 15 years. Yeah, it doesn't even have a finalized flight model, yes. Yeah, exactly.
SPEAKER_07So they're bitching about a game that it says it's an alpha and you're willingly giving it how much money? Right, but like well, that's their argument.
SPEAKER_04It's like, hey, it's an alpha, so don't expect anything. But the problem is that they don't know what they're doing. A billion dollars worth of spaceships so far.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, yeah. I get that. I get that, Gene.
SPEAKER_07But this is this is this is the stunk cost fallacy, really.
SPEAKER_04You see, Ben, they're steering people into this game, and and I like how people have a choice of where they buy their spaceships. And and instead, you get these people are just steered into this game that's still an alpha and they're lying to it. All right. It's it's time to wrap points. I'm starting to go.
SPEAKER_03The one thing I the only thing I'm gonna say about that is listen, Star Citizen is a piece of shit, but it's our piece of shit, goddammit. It is the only game of its kind that gives you the experience that you can get. And I'm not even talking, like, let's just it when it has worked fine, and it's pretty rare. It's it's not just that it's pretty, it's like, okay, you're at a space station, you get in a ship, you can go anywhere, you can get out, you can shoot anything. Like it that it had it is an experience that you can't get anywhere else, and it is so infuriating that it is locked behind a company that fundamentally doesn't understand it, and that it's and clearly can't even play the fucking game. But yeah, anyways.
SPEAKER_04Absolutely. Well, uh guys, we could keep going forever, but I'm gonna put the brake pedal down. Let's go ahead and wrap up. Don, it is question. That's fine. Ask it after I'm done saying that hey, we've loved to have you on. I think you fit very naturally in our little podcast here, and and we want to have you back on. I think it'd be fun to do this a few more times because again, you jumping topics like we usually do seems to be perfectly natural to you as well.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, absolutely. All right, Ben, what are you gonna ask? So, Don, are you on X? Yes. Have you gotten the X
Final Thoughts And X Money Card
SPEAKER_05Money invitation yet? Oh, shut up. Yes. Fuck you. I am roasting Gene on this hole.
SPEAKER_03And I did get my card already.
SPEAKER_05Cool. Mine's in the mail. I'm we're still waiting on the card.
SPEAKER_03Listen, okay, let me just tell you right now, just straight off the bat, that is the most when you open that fucking thing, that is the most premium feel that you will ever have. Like, you feel special when you uh when you open that fucking thing. I'm not it it is it is amazing.
SPEAKER_05I'm gonna literally call Gene on video, which I never do, as soon as it comes in, just to just to rub it in a little bit more.
SPEAKER_04I I have somewhere an X bank card because I was one of the original X customers of Elon Musk when he had X in the late 90s, yeah. Literally 27 years ago. And the fact that they still haven't given me this card, and obviously, you know, no one knows that I was a customer back then. No one would give a shit either, frankly. But I keep telling you credit score. It's an it has nothing to do with credit score. I I guarantee you, Don's credit score is no.
SPEAKER_03I promise you, I promise you, no matter what credit score anyone has, mine's lower.
SPEAKER_04Uh-huh. Uh-huh. So it it's a whatever it is, it's it's been a point of annoyance because literally everybody I know, including people that aren't doing anything to be, you know, content creator types, have gotten this thing already, and I still haven't.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I don't I don't know why I even got the invite in the first place, but hey, I'll take it.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. So all right, guys. Well, again, Don, we appreciate you being on. You were a hoot. We certainly was a lot of fun. Yeah. Yeah, I I think Ben, I think we can give them a standing invite, frankly. If you want to jump on it some week, just ping me ahead of time, say you guys cool if I come on, and we'd love to have you on.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, ma'am, absolutely.
SPEAKER_04And for everybody else, hopefully you enjoyed this episode, and we'll catch you next week.
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