Just Two Good Old Boys
We never mean any harm!
Just Two Good Old Boys
075 Just Two Good Old Boys
Ben and Gene discussed various topics including technical issues with equipment, the political climate, and the complexities of gender-related identities. They also explored the potential risks of acquiring a suppressor for firearms, the functioning of software, video games, and the news, as well as their experiences with academic programs in physics and philosophy. Lastly, they discussed their skepticism about the Patriot Front, the rising trend of obesity in the US, potential outbreaks of diseases, and the possibility of using a trust to transfer firearm ownership without tax stamps.
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Oh, hey, Ben. How are you today?
Ben:Dude, I am doing well. We got a hurricane coming.
Gene:Yeah, I saw it on the big weather map.
Ben:Yeah, some of my friends who just moved to Texas this last year, messaging them this morning, they're a little freaked out they're in the North Houston area, and I'm like, First of all, it's a cat one, at best. Second of all, you know, it's okay.
Gene:Yeah. Well, and it looked like it wasn't heading for Houston. It was more for.
Ben:Well, it's gonna hit Matagorda, which means Houston, Galveston will be on the strong side of the storm. And you'll get plenty of wind and rain, but that's about it. Hell, I'm going to get hit with here in College Station, it's going to get hit with you know, tropical storm level winds is what they're predicting. So we'll see.
Gene:Okay. Interesting. Yeah. It's well, so far at least in last what have I been here about 15 years? Austin's never really been affected.
Ben:No, you're far enough West and inland that it would be pretty hard for you to be affected. It has to be a
Gene:So is it,
Ben:cat five that just took a straight shot, you know.
Gene:yeah, cause, and, and the stronger winds are on the east side because of the spin of the rotation of the thing.
Ben:So, stronger winds, different than storm surge and, you know, rain push and stuff like that.
Gene:Which, which direction do these things rotate? I assume it's the same time. Okay. It's always counterclockwise.
Ben:Yeah, in the northern hemisphere.
Gene:Right, right, right, right. Yeah. Yeah. I guess I could have figured that out, but yeah, it makes sense. Okay. Okay. So. That also makes more sense why Houston gets hit more than like, Brownsville or something
Ben:Yeah, well, that and you know, it's pretty rare for the inside the Yucatan and below to get hit because, A, most hurricanes that are coming in that far south cross over the Yucatan, which means the Yucatan gets hit and Absorbs a lot of that energy, and then if it stays that far south, it's not over water long enough for it to build back up.
Gene:Two places the week before the hurricane managed to get out of there. So I didn't really get to watch it, but I was down in what the hell? Well, I'm blanking out as usual. You need my vitamin B. I was in a Cabo one year. This is probably 10 years ago, maybe eight years ago, whenever they had the big hurricane out there. And I literally left two days before the hurricane came in. And then the other one was down in, um, one of the islands, God, I'm totally blanking out. St. Martin. I was in St. Martin. Same kind of deal left one or two days before the hurricane completely ruined the Island and damaged the airport and everything.
Ben:Ah, so you're the Black Cloud Harbinger of Doom, huh? Heh heh
Gene:correct. Yeah. I,
Ben:it's been a week. You know, we've got this hurricane coming, company's sending me notes, and You know, hey, pay attention. I already was, thank you. It's we've got fallout from the debate, we've got Supreme Court decisions, we've got a lot of shit going
Gene:shit though. First.
Ben:Music.
Gene:So I've been stuck without a iPad for about a week. And so I have to resort to using. And Android tablet. Holy
Ben:Oh no.
Gene:shit. Does Android suck compared to iOS? Oh my God. I forgot how bad it was.
Ben:Well, you're wrong.
Gene:am so fucking right. This is firsthand experience immediately this previous week. So what happened is
Ben:how old was the Android tablet and what version are you running?
Gene:I'm getting to it. I had a an iPad that was. Five and a half years old. And I think I told you about it. What ended up happening is it just keeps rebooting over and over and over. So obviously it's a hardware issue. I tried connecting it to a Mac to get it to re flash it wouldn't, I mean, it sees it, but it just goes into that reboot cycle and the reboots happening prior to the system finishing to load. So it's like, it reboots probably six, seven seconds after you apply power to it. So not a good thing. So while I'm waiting for the new iPad to show up, I remembered I had an Android tablet that I bought two years ago. Then I got it because there was a piece of software that wasn't available on iOS. And I really wanted to use it. And I decided I'd be just going to buy a tablet. And before you ask, it's not some crappy, you know, Chinese, I mean, I guess it's Chinese, they're all Chinese, but it's not a crappy Chinese, but it's a, it's a Lenovo brand tablet. It is probably just under two years old is what I got it. So it would have been a 2022 late 22 tablet. I think it came with Android 10, got upgraded to 11. And for the most part, I haven't used it for about a year. And it was just a single use thing. I wasn't really using it for anything else while trying to use it for things that I typically use my iPad for, like watching YouTube, nothing complicated, right? Nothing exotic. Checking email looking at surfing the web, just generic stuff. Everything is just so fricking slow. Everything is.
Ben:sounds like you've got a shit tablet that's running an OS that's at least two major versions behind.
Gene:Oh, I'm sorry. So a five year old iPad is better than a two year old Android tablet? Okay, I'll take it.
Ben:It depends on what hardware you spent money you spent on the hardware, and
Gene:a no tablet. That was 400 bucks when I bought it.
Ben:yeah, so you bought a cheap tablet, and the, you bought a cheap tablet, and if it's not supporting at least Android 13 or 14, that could be a problem, but it, it just sounds like, to me, I, I have Android tablets. Some of them pretty old, and if I'm running a decent ROM on there, I don't have those problems. No, no,
Gene:So two years ago you would've had a problem with YouTube running. So this was a problem from day one, is what you told me. I've
Ben:no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. The apps have been updated and you're, anyway,
Gene:Yeah. I had to update'em because they're they wouldn't work until I updated them.
Ben:yeah. Okay. So I, I will admit Mac has good hardware, but the operating system itself, which is what we're discussing here, sucks.
Gene:Now what we're discussing is my Android tablet, I, I touch the screen. It takes probably a second. To realize that I
Ben:you've got a bad tablet. Something's wrong.
Gene:No,
Ben:yes, that is not the typical Android ecosystem experience. Trust me, I've lived in it a
Gene:absolutely is. It is a experience I just experienced last week. Did I have an Android phone? I have an Android tablet. These are all things that were purchased because I needed some specific thing that only ran on Android.
Ben:Okay,
Gene:And this, I mean, look, if I go out and buy a a thousand dollar what's the big brand, the So
Ben:Android,
Gene:yeah, Samsung. If I buy a thousand dollars, Samsung tablets was going to be better. I'm going to assume it is. Yeah, it probably is going to be better, but right now you could get an iPad for three 99.
Ben:Yeah, I have a 300 Samsung Galaxy 7 tablet that I use for the kids on long trips to throw on a video. Like, that's all that it's used for. Is just preloaded movies that we have approved for them to watch. It's fine. You know, it's not the fastest thing out there, but it's fine. It loads videos and plays. Videos and plenty good resolution, you know,
Gene:Yeah. I have no complaints on the resolution. Once something is going, like once the video starts, it's playing, but it's, Just the UI, it just runs so much slower.
Ben:So the other thing is I'm actually not a fan of Samsung, Lenovo, or any of the others that put a lot of bloatware on the UI. So one of the things that you have with Android manufacturers and why the experience can vary so much from my experience where I have, you know, custom ROMs loaded or. My phone running a locked down version of the pixel ROM and things like that is that companies put on their own overlays. They put on their own things and this is on top.
Gene:I'm sure there's backward, there's background processes that are running on this that are slowing things down. I'm sure that's the case.
Ben:so that can be an issue and the Android ecosystem, because of freedom is very fragmented and I'm okay with it.
Gene:Yeah. So, I, I, I recommend anybody that is curious get both at Costco or Sam's Club. And then return the one that you don't like and, and you'll really enjoy the iPad.
Ben:Ah, says the totalitarian of the, you know.
Gene:Yes. The guy who actually enjoys using good products, that guy.
Ben:Okay,
Gene:we got the important shit out of the money here. What else we need to
Ben:well, dude, there's been some music come out in the last few days, a few weeks that is got me kind of hopeful to be honest with you. No, no, no. I sent you three songs here in the last 24 hours. One was the Alex Jones song that I think we should be using for part of our theme song. I mean, the hook, Michelle Obama has a
Gene:the video did not exactly get me that, you know, when I have anything to do that, it's, it's a dude in lipstick sitting in the underwear, playing in piano.
Ben:With a tinfoil cowboy hat on, and it's ha The, the lyrics are great and hilarious. Like, one of the riffs is, I don't want to bring up 9 11, but what the hell happened to Building 7? Right? I mean, there's some really good shit in there.
Gene:I'm not sure this song is a, that it's on the side you think it is. I think it's actually making fun of conspiracy
Ben:No, no, no, no, no. It's making fun of the making fun. That's the entire point.
Gene:Okay.
Ben:Anyway then I, I sent you some others this morning. There are two songs out that both, one's very poppy and AI ish, the other's country and an artist has put out.
Gene:Hmm.
Ben:Both are, same title, I'm Voting for a Felon in 2024.
Gene:You did. I don't see those links.
Ben:Yeah, I sent them to you. In Signal.
Gene:really I'm looking at signal. The last thing I have from you is the note. The last time I grabbed a pussy became a national scandal.
Ben:Yeah, yeah. Go to
Gene:Oh, okay, okay, okay. Got it. Different thing.
Ben:Yeah, anyway. The anyway. The, the, the music and the general sentiment that has come across this nation in the last couple of weeks since the debate, really. the season of reveal, the veil being lifted, the folk music starting to kick up like it does right before revolution. And it has me hopeful.
Gene:Well, that's good, but I, I really also enjoyed when that song came out about a year ago. That was about the, the men north of
Ben:Richmond, north of Richmond. Yeah, that, that, that was kind of the start. And it, but you know, Oliver Anthony, He's actually pretty liberal, but he just sees the disgrace that this nation is becoming. And my point is, is it, it's accelerating and we're seeing more and more. And when you have people singing songs about literally, I'm voting for a felon in 2024. I don't care if they have to swearing him. No, no, this is country. I don't care if
Gene:I know. I'm just,
Ben:him in wearing a prisoner orange, move the Oval Office into his cell, post the Secret Service outdoors, don't care. You know, Biden hiding in a basement, let Kamala take the wheel. They, we are at a point where I think. I think what happened during the debate was they have drugged Joe Biden up so much for so long.
Gene:Mm hmm.
Ben:It finally just couldn't work.
Gene:Yeah.
Ben:And the world has seen through the veil. They can't write it off as a cheap fake. They can't say that, Oh no, this isn't a thing. And now they're screaming
Gene:How stupid are people that didn't think this was actually the
Ben:yeah, yeah. But that's the point, Gene, is it's no longer the tinfoil hat wearers. It's everyone sees this. Like the percentage of the population that are being honest with themselves that have watched that. And still think, Oh, no, he's fine, is nothing even in a poll on less than 30 percent of the nation thought, Oh, yeah, he won the debate. And even then the Democrats, Peter Zahon, everybody is coming out. Everybody is coming out with their knives for Biden. But the problem is, what the hell are they going to do?
Gene:Yeah.
Ben:I mean, really, for all the money that's been donated, the only person who can take it over is Kamala, and she's no better. And if they replace anyone else, A, they're going to be at a fundraising disadvantage, and B,
Gene:There's really no disadvantage in fundraising. You can actually take funds that are meant for a political campaign like that, and then re donate them to another non profit political campaign.
Ben:if Biden is willing to do
Gene:course, of course, yeah. But that's, I
Ben:All of this is predicated on Biden's acceptance and adherence to whatever the
Gene:was willing to become a VP, and he was then willing to become a president in name only. So, I don't think they're going to have a problem with Getting Biden to agree to step aside if they all decide that that's the best thing. I think right now there's probably at least one or two people telling Biden. No, no, no, you got this.
Ben:Yeah, I think Jill's saying I don't, you know, I don't want Michael to make it into the Oval.
Gene:Mm hmm. Mm hmm. Yeah
Ben:don't know. We'll see, man. I, I, I don't see Biden stepping aside willingly. If they go to a Broker Convention, I think it's gonna go bad.
Gene:Well,
Ben:now, I
Gene:Eleanor Roosevelt running the country for the last term that FDR had
Ben:yeah, but I don't know that I don't even see a path if Biden doesn't want it to happen for the Democrats to even get to a Broker Convention. He has enough votes to win on the first vote. Superdelegates don't come in till round two and it's pretty limited what they can do.
Gene:Yeah. Well, we'll see. I mean, there, there obviously is a reason they're going to do a convention over zoom.
Ben:Well, that was to do it early. They're also doing one in person. They were doing it early enough to make sure that their candidate could be on certain ballots.
Gene:So we'll, we'll see. And this is all not even talking about the fact that you've got another Democrat running regardless as an independent. So some people who can't bring themselves to vote for Trump. We'll vote for RFK. Mm
Ben:see RFK doing nothing but gaining steam. They have tried to assassinate his character. They have hit piece after hit piece out there. Vogue, I think it was Vogue, did a magazine article, you know, talking about a babysitter that he, you know, allegedly, yeah. And, you know,
Gene:You mean kind of like Jill Biden?
Ben:That was my thought, exactly. You know, when you see that picture of Jill Biden, when she was the babysitter, sitting in Joe's lap,
Gene:Mm hmm.
Ben:any doubt in anyone's mind that they were fucking?
Gene:Yep.
Ben:I don't know, man. I, look, everybody's got picadillos, everybody's got shit in their closet, and I'm not saying that you should support someone who has done something wrong or against your moral beliefs,
Gene:Mm hmm.
Ben:but at the same time, the veil is being lifted. We all see the idiots for what they are. And I would even put Trump in that category because he's got some idiocy about him too.
Gene:Well, and that's,
Ben:done something wrong in their life.
Gene:I think having a
Ben:have they done to move on? How have they, you know, acknowledged, admitted, moved on with their life?
Gene:yeah, how well do they play golf? That's an important thing.
Ben:Video of him on the golf cart?
Gene:Yeah. Mm hmm. Yeah. Somebody said, Oh yeah, that's totally fake. There's no way that somebody would have had this phone. Just in time to record something like that. No, no, no. There's an easy explanation here.
Ben:Was like a 15 minute
Gene:Yeah. Yeah. Trump fricking repeats himself over and over and over in any time you listen to him for an extended period of time. There's a ton of repetition. I guarantee you, he said this already. And then somebody pulled out the phone and they're like, Ooh, I better get, see if he says something else good. And then he said it again. And that's what we saw because it's anytime you watch Trump for more than half an hour. If it's just him talking right there, where I'm not talking about him reading a script or, you know, doing a speech at a in an event, but if you just listen to him talking, he's very repetitive. So that I think that's very likely is that somebody heard it once pulled out the phone and then we're able to record it.
Ben:Well, that or, you know, even if it is a quote unquote staged thing where he agreed to it and said, Yeah, record this. It'll be funny.
Gene:Mm hmm.
Ben:Okay.
Gene:Yeah. Well, the guy I've seen more campaigning lately than Trump is, uh, Elon,
Ben:Yeah. Elon is got his knives out for Biden. There's no doubt.
Gene:Oh yeah, not just Biden either, but that guy has been posting things that would have had people kicked off the platform two years ago.
Ben:Yes. But now he owns it.
Gene:Right. Right. So
Ben:So what you gonna do?
Gene:it's a good thing you bought it because you know, I still wonder though, if the automation shit, nah, it's probably just turned off for his name, but there there's stuff. He says that would still get people to get a warning right now.
Ben:Such as?
Gene:Well, what did I just had one like, two months ago. What was it for? It was something trans related. Cause you're still not allowed to call a man a woman or whatever they decide they are on Twitter.
Ben:Yeah.
Gene:It's so retarded. And that whole thing, I think we're seeing the snowball effect big time. Because more and more people who have not Historically been pointing out how ridiculous this is are starting to get on the bandwagon like I'm seeing more videos more posts from people that have just not talked about any opinions in the past all of a sudden saying how you know it's it's ridiculous that women have to be in a position to defend themselves from men or if like if you can't If you go into a same sex thing and there's men walking around, what's the point of having the same sex things? And I've said that for a long time. Like I've been to bars 25, 30 years ago. I've been to bars that just had bathrooms, not men's and women's bathrooms. It's just one bathroom area. And then, you know, it's all stalls. So if you want privacy, the only way you're getting is through a stall, but. Plenty of guys, don't close the door, cause guys are guys, but it's a it's something that I think we just have to make a decision on. I mean, shit dude, look at Star Trek. Where women are in every position that men are, and they're referred to as, sir,
Ben:Yes.
Gene:that came out how long ago? That was the late eighties, early nineties.
Ben:Well, really where that the sir thing really kind of got Cemented in Star Trek lore was Voyager in the first few episodes of Voyager because I think it was Harry Kim said, ma'am to Janeway and she corrected him like that was something that happened on screen.
Gene:But I think even before any kind of corrections, there were episodes where they're talking to Admiral bloody blah, and she's a sir,
Ben:Yes. And, but that was also the trend in the military at the time.
Gene:yeah, which is retarded. I mean, if anything, yeah, everybody ought to be a ma'am
Ben:Why?
Gene:because you treat everybody the same
Ben:And you go to the lowest common denominator?
Gene:Lutely.
Ben:I'm tracking you, man. I'm tracking you. Huh. Huh.
Gene:it's, it's, I think we're finally starting to be, and we should now I'm, you know, I'm an empiricist for the most part, but I will say that what I'm tracking right now in terms of trends. Going the other way does match up to the the timeline, at least in that book the what the hell is it called? The
Ben:turnings?
Gene:pendulum.
Ben:Yeah, the four
Gene:Yeah, it was, it wasn't the four turnings. It was
Ben:Right.
Gene:book. This was written by a couple of buddies of mine. Yeah. So it's, it's on the same topic, but it, you know, they essentially are talking about patterns that they've noticed in Western society. It's a little different than Eastern, but Western society going back 2000 years. And the pattern is an 80 year cycle and that 80 year cycle represents a 40 year swing one direction and the four year swing the other direction. So, you're, and it, the, the midpoint for it was like 1983 was at the very Peak of individualism and 2023 was predicted to be at the very peak of socialism.
Ben:Well, collectivism, but yes.
Gene:Yeah, exactly. And so now the prediction would be that we're starting to, the swing away from collectivism back towards, and we're in the first year of a 40 years. Push in that direction. So if that stays to be correct, then hopefully every year that we're doing this podcast. Is going to have more and more things that we would see as victories.
Ben:Well, I think we are at, we are at the moment of backlash. And I think if things If people keep pushing the way they have been I mean, man, it's a good way to see something like a Handmaid's Tale come to fruition.
Gene:Oh,
Ben:you need is that moment of crisis where, you know, I, the, did you watch The Culture War on Friday by chance?
Gene:I did not know.
Ben:Okay, it was actually a pretty good one, and one of the
Gene:Lately, you've been watching more Tim than I have.
Ben:yeah, yeah Well, I don't watch him that often, but occasionally, you know, a blind squirrel finds a nut. He, there was
Gene:case, is the squirrel you or Tim?
Ben:anyway there was a good quote on there. All the rights, all the privileges that women have is at the acquiescence of men.
Gene:Mm hmm.
Ben:Because monopoly on force, the only ones who can enforce it. And,
Gene:Well, I'm glad you brought this topic up because I would have forgotten to mention it. But last week I was, or a few days ago actually, I was Kind of flipping through different shows that I haven't seen yet and one of them that came out was One that I occasionally used to watch called Was it called naked and something
Ben:Naked and Afraid.
Gene:the one. Survival Show. And this, this was, this was Naked and Afraid XL.
Ben:Oh god.
Gene:it's better. And,
Ben:people?
Gene:no, no, it's not fat people. If it was fat people, there would be nothing to watch. They would all just lay back there and wait until the 21 days are up.
Ben:Yeah, they just, I, my body can consume itself. I've got plenty,
Gene:yeah, exactly. It's like, dude, I know I can go for a damn long time. I can outlast my neighbors. But well, and then I, you know, I did a 14 day fast just back in January. So it's and I do a one every year, but
Ben:should be like that guy that did the fast for a full year.
Gene:yeah, yeah, yeah. So, I'm sure. Yeah. Anyway, so this was all people that had previously won there or lasted through their 21 days and this was 40 days. Now this is getting more serious territory. Cause you can, I mean, anybody can last a week, almost anybody can last two weeks, three weeks is going to be really annoying, but it's certainly doable.
Ben:mean, it depends on where you're at and
Gene:Yeah. It's your,
Ben:right? Because dying of exposure is a real thing, even at like 60 degrees.
Gene:dehydration is a much more serious thing than not having enough food for sure.
Ben:Oh yeah. Well, just, not just that, just the you know, if you're literally naked and it's 60 degrees out, hypothermia can be a thing really quickly.
Gene:For sure. And most of them are in the other side and really hot climates, but.
Ben:Yeah, there's, there's a reason for that.
Gene:Yeah. Why the hell is Microsoft defender asking me to sign in? That's weird.
Ben:Because Microsoft Microsoft's trying to get everybody onto a Microsoft account, period, no matter what you're doing.
Gene:Sign in so you don't miss out. You need to sign back into your Microsoft account so you can send your parent requests for when you want more screen time or need permission for certain apps. What the fuck? Oh, they're getting desperate with their advertising. Anyway. So this Excel version of the show which. Is a longer term survival. It it's 12 people. They're all previous winners of the shorter term show. One of the obvious things that you see over the course of this show and six women, six men, and they start them off in four groups of three and the groups are three men, then the other group is three women, and then the other two groups are two women, one man, or two men and one woman. So it's, it's a combination of the sexes spread around. What you notice is if it weren't for the men, the women would be dead
Ben:Yeah?
Gene:because the women are less capable of surviving and they are more prone to letting their emotion drive their decision making. And it's not to say that some men aren't, there are certainly plenty of men that have the exact same issues and there are women that have, you know, over the course of a long time learned to control themselves, but, so this is more generalization, but when you're in a starvation kind of environment and an uncomfortable environment plus starvation, it's really hard to maintain logical sense. And I think it is extra hard for women.
Ben:And the point is,
Gene:Well, the point is that we're in society in the West, all of the West, not just the U S. That pretends that none of this is true. That pretends that men and women are fully capable of doing everything equally well.
Ben:Yeah, well, that's just, I mean Okay, I mean, you can tell a lie often enough that enough it Will be accepted, but it doesn't make it the
Gene:So that's my point, is the only way that this ends up being on television is as a docudrama. Rather than, you know, reality TV, rather than an actual scripted movie, because if you scripted something where the women had major problems and the only way they survive is because the men that would get shut down and never made,
Ben:Mm hmm.
Gene:because that's not allowed and reality or reality TV, which we all know is still not really reality, right? They all come up with problems and situations that they think the audience will enjoy, nonetheless. You, you can't get around certain things, like, like, you start letting your emotions control things, you go in the shitter. And the the most successful women in that show were very manipulative, like, they did what women do well.
Ben:Yeah,
Gene:They minimize the amount of work they were doing and then figure out how to annoy men so that it would be more difficult for them while utilizing other men with different personality types to do things for them. So it's a, it, it's a skill. Like this is not something to be discarded, right? So men figured out how to get stronger. Women figured out. How to get more able to control men. So it's definitely a skill, but you really see it in that show during the course of the 40 days of survival about how things work and the most successful groups, the groups that had the least issues were the ones that had no women in them, but even those groups ended up having women in them because the women show up with smiles on their faces and no clothes on. Yeah. And then next thing you know, the guys are like, Oh, hey, we got plenty of food here. Would you like some food?
Ben:Yeah, I mean, this is normal human course,
Gene:Right.
Ben:And one of the things I'd say is that there's nothing wrong with women being women but
Gene:right. I mean, it's the opposite of wrong.
Ben:but here here's the thing a You have to be thankful and grateful for men being men then.
Gene:Yeah. Well, there was plenty of backstabbing going on too.
Ben:Okay, so I, I'm just saying, what you have to have is, there has to be reciprocity for men doing what men do in our society,
Gene:what you're saying is, you would like to have that gratitude.
Ben:No, I'm saying if there, if there's not, then why should men continue?
Gene:but that's part of the I don't know if you want to call it a problem, because it's, I don't know if it's not a problem for the women. It's only a problem for the men, is that men are wired to take shit from women and still put up with it. Because women are men's only access to having sons.
Ben:For now.
Gene:Well, yes, for now, and holy shit, could things 20 years with genetics and robotics. When, when your, your life partner, to use that phrase is got metal parts in it. And and yet fully capable of giving you a clone child. Yeah. Women are fucked, but for now, meaning the last few thousand years the, the natural selection has been for men to become protectors and for women to become conniving.
Ben:So, on a different topic, and part of the great awakening that's happening have you watched the last couple episodes of The Y Files? Like, not the compilation episodes, but the actual episodes.
Gene:Yeah. I think I'm caught up. I also started listening to their podcast now. I finally got subscribed on that.
Ben:Yeah, so he did a podcast on Agent Orange, and then followed up with Operation Gladio, which anyone who's been paying attention for, Jesus, three decades now, is well aware of Agent Orange and Operation Gladio, which these are two separate subjects, by the way, please don't conflate them. This, all, all of the information that I grew up knowing, and Just watched Alex and others talk about and put out there that got ignored. No, that's conspiracy is Becoming mainstream, dude.
Gene:Yeah. Yeah. Well, it's, I think we're hitting that 60 year mark on a lot of this data.
Ben:Well Operation Gladio information's been around for longer than that. But yes
Gene:yeah, it's he, he does, well, he talked about it in the compilation. If you watch that in the intro to it, he said, you know, I'm putting out a lot of stuff. hits the government, the US government in a very negative light. So
Ben:Yep,
Gene:I need to start breaking it up with other content. So I'm just going to rerun old stuff to break this up. So I don't get categorized as the kook who shall become defunded. And it's true. I mean, it's that shows doing quite well. They've got. Three different revenue streams coming in. It's a real operation that and I've been watching that guy since he had about 12, 000 subscribers And I thought the first time I saw a babble fish. I was like, this is so stupid. What the hell just lose the fish Yeah, yeah, you're right. I literally I think I posted a comment saying lose the fish And now I'm like the biggest fan of the fish.
Ben:Hecklefish is hilarious.
Gene:Yeah. Heckle fish says all the things that you're thinking. Well, some of us are thinking
Ben:that's kind of the trope, right? Well, regardless, I I think we are at
Gene:for all the camel related stuff. Cause I have no interest in camels. Just putting that out there.
Ben:well the camel is a metaphor gene You Yes,
Gene:Gertie a metaphor? I thought it was a sex partner.
Ben:a metaphor for a woman in so many ways, but okay. Did you see Oklahoma and Alabama? The new vending machines going in?
Gene:Huh.
Ben:So, some grocery stores in Oklahoma and Alabama are getting ammo vending machines.
Gene:No way.
Ben:Yes.
Gene:That's hilarious.
Ben:I, I love this. I love this idea. I, if I ever see one at my grocery store, one, no, I will buy ammo from it to support the idea.
Gene:So back in the days when Minnesota wasn't run by a bunch of Somalis,
Ben:Well, you know, Whitmer is on the short list to replace Biden.
Gene:Well, anyway, back in that day so back when I used to be a firearms instructor, so over 20 years ago Walmart was self serve. Checkout for ammo. So you just go and grab them off the shelf and then you, you know, run it through the little conveyor belt scanner thing yourself and you walk out. There was, I was surprised when I got to Texas and there had to be a dude in Walmart that would let, you know, be allowed to give you ammo or sell you ammo and you had to pay for it at the counter. You couldn't just put it in your cart.
Ben:Yeah. Well, part of that is just Walmart becoming woke around the same time.
Gene:hmm. Mm hmm. So, yeah, I definitely remember not having.
Ben:still sells shotguns and things like that, but they've reduced what they what they do.
Gene:Yeah. I remember when they used to have rifles in Walmart and Sears and other stores like in the sporting goods section, it was normal to have guns. shit, dude, people, this is before my time, but people bought guns from Sears and robot catalog.
Ben:well, I've told the story before and I'll tell it again. I have a 410 breech load shotgun that was my first gun. It was my dad's first gun. And it was my grandfather's first gun that my great grandfather bought out of the Sears and Roebuck
Gene:you go. Yep.
Ben:Still have it.
Gene:Mm hmm.
Ben:That gun is over 100 years old.
Gene:And Sears doesn't exist anymore. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yeah, they were so stupid. They should have bought Amazon Before Amazon got so big.
Ben:Well, that or they should've I mean, this is the same thing Blockbuster ha Same thing with Blockbuster and
Gene:Yeah. Yeah should have bought Netflix. Yeah. Yeah,
Ben:Well, that or gone to streaming quicker. I don't I don't know if you Hold on. I don't know if you remember, but Blockbuster, right after Netflix started shipping DVDs, Blockbuster started shipping DVDs. And, you know, Netflix was building out the connections in the library to eventually do the streaming side and get rid of the DVD side. And Blockbuster just never caught on.
Gene:No, I I think that but there was a point in time where blockbusters valuation compared to Netflix was 100 to 1 And they, they could have easily bought Netflix and the same thing with Sears. Like Sears was worth easily a hundred times plus of what Amazon was at a time. And both of those companies and interviews, like with Bezos and I forget the Netflix guy, there were interviews with both of them where they basically said, had that happened, had they been approached, they would have totally sold. Because it would have been a, not just a cash out moment, but a moment where, you know, the number one in your industry acquires you, that's going to be a nice payday. It's not like trying to do a deal with number three competitor, you know. So that was a missed opportunity that, that was companies that thought that they were going to be number one forever.
Ben:Yeah.
Gene:And they didn't need to worry about competition. Well, it's, it's, you look at what Amazon's been doing and they've bought several thousand companies over the years.
Ben:Yeah.
Gene:They don't have that same problem of like, Hey, we're the biggest. So fuck all everybody. They, they're actively buying companies that could disrupt them.
Ben:I mean, this is, this is not new. This is what
Gene:Now this is business advice. It's not news. It's just business advice.
Ben:Right, but this is what Microsoft did in the 90s.
Gene:Yeah, they did. And Adobe did that. A lot of companies that are big now did that back in the 90s. True story. What else we got?
Ben:You caught me taking a sip of coffee.
Gene:Try tea. Mm.
Ben:coffee. I'm not British. I
Gene:Mm hmm. I
Ben:we just had the 4th of July, Gene. Why, why do you
Gene:what, you, you bring that up because the fourth? Well, because I am American, I can actually enjoy my tea without paying taxes.
Ben:well, are you American?
Gene:What? Of course I'm American. What do you think I am?
Ben:Russian.
Gene:Russian? Where'd he get that?
Ben:I don't know your origin story.
Gene:Huh. Oh, that's just for the podcast
Ben:Huh. Huh. Yeah. Yeah. Huh.
Gene:Hmm.
Ben:Oh, man. Did
Gene:Russians drink a lot of tea too, though. I won't say, I think anybody
Ben:you see, while, while we're talking about it, did you see Putin's endorsement of Trump?
Gene:I did. I think I even sent it to Adam Currie and said, yep. See, I told you Putin endorsed Trump.
Ben:Yeah, the media is
Gene:That was pretty
Ben:having a field day, man.
Gene:Yeah. And what, what Putin is pointing out is that Trump, unlike Biden, Actually, it's talking about wanting to have peace and
Ben:Wanting a resolution, yeah.
Gene:Yeah. Where Biden is like, until the last Ukrainian, we're going to keep fighting Russia and we're going to win and we're going to kick Putin out. Yeah. So Putin is like, well, yeah, one of these is actually intelligent. The other one's a, you know, Not so much. And that obviously translates into endorsement from from the media.
Ben:Alright, I've got a serious question for you.
Gene:Oh
Ben:so, should I get a tax stamp or night vision?
Gene:I think the tax stamp is going to be more useful. Like, like you're going to get use out of it immediately. Night vision is more for a. Fun tinkering around and or just in case, but also night vision is about 10 times more expensive than the stamp.
Ben:Well, I mean, actually, when you look at what I'd be getting, it's not ten times,
Gene:Well, you found the suppressor that's 5
Ben:it's over a thousand. Yeah,
Gene:I mean, there, there is a broad range. Like you can go as cheap as about 300 bucks and you can certainly go a thousand or more.
Ben:so, you know, you're looking at, let's say, Tax title, everything, 1, 300 ish. So,
Gene:Oh, you're going right up there. Okay. Which would brand, which one are you looking at?
Ben:Well, I've got a couple in mind, but I'm looking at Surefire. That's really what I'm looking
Gene:Sure. Fire's pretty good. Yep.
Ben:Yeah. Surefire is one of the top brands and it's
Gene:And it, it has a name price. You pay premium for anything with that brand.
Ben:There are some other brands that are compatible with, so, so what got me going down this road is I've sent you pictures of the Tavor since I've done some stuff to it. The flashlight. The way I have it mounted and where it feels good to me because I want a little bit more length to be able to have purchase is right, almost even with the muzzle, which the problem with that is because of the flash hider that was on there You know, gas would be hitting the flashlight, which would eventually cause the flashlight to fail. If not just, you know, blackening it for no other reason. So I'm thinking, okay, what can I do here? And I've never used a linear compensator or a blast diverter before, but I, anyway, I went with the surefire flash suppressor that has the QD amount for the blast warden, is the same QD amount as their suppressors.
Gene:That makes sense.
Ben:So, I don't know. I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm really, I, I hate the taxes. I've never done an NFA stamp. I don't like the idea of sending my fingerprints in for this, but at the same time, I've wanted a suppressor
Gene:Yeah, but do you not get fingerprinted at your job?
Ben:For my job, no.
Gene:Oh, really? I used to
Ben:Okay,
Gene:all the time. That's weird.
Ben:I don't, I don't submit to such things.
Gene:Yeah. Okay. So yeah, I, I've never gotten a suppressor either, but I've thought about it for probably 20 years about getting one. I've just never pulled the trigger. And Honestly, I think one of my sort of slowdowns in doing that was I always have this thought that if I'm going to get anything NFA, I really need to set up a trust first and I don't want one of those instant trust for one item. If I'm going to do this, I need to set up a trust so I can put all the NFA crap in there and really that trust should have all my buddies in it as well, because that way you've got a disbursement of the use of these things. You're not sure. Exactly. So, cause without doing that, you know, so if you're going to go to the trouble of setting up trust, you should do it correctly. But then the differences, of course, it's not just a check here. And if you'd like a trust sent to you as well, it's more like, okay, we, I gotta go see the lawyers, have them draft up a proper trust.
Ben:Have you looked at the trust that the Silencer Shop has basically well, I mean, they've, I mean, they, they have basically a LegalZoom esque version of that.
Gene:they do. But from listening to lawyers that do this kind of stuff. The legal zoom trust is perfectly fine if you're one dude, but if you get into multi partner trusts that is not going to cover all the bases for you. It just, it can't because you need to know who the people that are going to be in it to set up the trust properly. So that's, I guess I haven't wanted a suppressor bad enough to go through the trouble of doing that, but I've gotten close more than once. And you know, obviously you're one of the buddies that I'm referring to here that I've got a few other guys that. Would be in that trust as well, because it'd be silly not to because not only could you use each other's stuff, then it'd be a way to also, if you want somebody to know, let's say, how do I phrase this? If I no longer want to use a particular device on my gun, but one of my buddies wants to continue using it, that's a good way of doing it.
Ben:Yeah, absolutely.
Gene:So,
Ben:but, you know, one of the things that makes me hesitate is, if I want to go out of state, I have to notify the ATF.
Gene:Yes.
Ben:Like, th this is just Anathema to me in so many ways and I just, I, I'm hopeful that the laws change and I've been waiting for the laws to change and I just, I don't know how much I want to wait, but it's
Gene:the, the flip side of it is once you set up that trust, now you're, you can look at not just silencers, which incidentally from what I've been seeing, the approval times are literally a week now.
Ben:Yes,
Gene:They're, they're no longer a year.
Ben:reason why I've
Gene:It used, used to be nine to to 12 months was the average before. So now you can get'em pretty quick, which is good. But but again, I think that maybe I'm, since I haven't done it, maybe there's bits I don't understand here, but my impression is if you just go with the quick and easy trust that you can get from silencer shop, then transferring that to a different trust that you later set up is a much bigger headache than if you set up the trust to be much broader initially, and then just use that trust to acquire NFA items.
Ben:well, if you want to find a lawyer and look at setting up a trust,
Gene:Yeah, well, we, we watch these lawyers on it's one of the lawyers on, on the videos we send back and forth. It's that chick and the guy, they do
Ben:the armed attorneys. Yeah,
Gene:they do, they do trust in Texas.
Ben:Well, I'm just saying if we want to go in and set up a
Gene:Yeah, I'd be up for it. I'd be up for it. Let's do it. Now that we've publicly announced it.
Ben:So what? What difference does it make?
Gene:Yeah, yeah. No,
Ben:We publicly announced legal activity? What?
Gene:Well, we can't be talking about legal activities that some people don't like.
Ben:Oh my god. I mean, we're talking about going through and further background checking
Gene:Yeah, right. I
Ben:submitting our fingerprints to the government
Gene:Oh
Ben:may I have some more?
Gene:Huh. Yeah. Yeah, no, I'd be up for doing it. It, it's just, and I've shot guns with, with suppressors back when they used to be called silencers quite a bit, but it's a I don't know, I think I just don't shoot guns nearly as much as I used to, and it's less of a thing for me, and that's why I haven't gotten it. I'd certainly be up for it.
Ben:Well anyway. I
Gene:talk about it offline. But I, I think the beauty is once you get it, then, then there's gonna be a temptation right away to start getting more NFA shit.
Ben:agree.
Gene:And, and more NFA shit means shorter barrels and
Ben:I don't care about short barrels. I'm
Gene:I don't, well some guns look nicer with shorter barrels.
Ben:not worried about looks, but
Gene:Okay. Alright.
Ben:Anyway yes. And, but you know, like full auto does not really interest me in the
Gene:Yeah, full auto is a waste of money unless you have a YouTube channel that generates a whole bunch of money off guns and you do full auto which all the Texas gun tubers, which seems like most gun tubers seem to be in Texas. Uh, they certainly go through enough rounds, but they're also making money off them. So, um, yeah, full auto is not really, there are something like, I wouldn't mind. Um, um, you know, like, uh, Three shot kind of groups that would be way better than full auto.
Ben:did you not watch Pinheads latest where he
Gene:I haven't, I'm not caught up on him.
Ben:okay, you should, because he talks about the failure of the three round burst.
Gene:Really?
Ben:Yes.
Gene:I, what was the context? Was it Vietnam?
Ben:Uh, yeah. Essentially, and how the ratcheting mechanism works and everything else.
Gene:the, the biggest issue in Vietnam was a combination of a rifle, not designed for a dirty environment.
Ben:No, no, no, no, no, no. So, first of all, the first M16, the
Gene:We're not full out of it.
Ben:They were full auto. And then they went to the three round burst later. And they had already solved some of the issues with the chrome lined
Gene:don't think that's actually true
Ben:It
Gene:watching Eugene Stoner talk about how the, these were supposed to be single shot weapons and that the, the need for full auto was an anathema. Because full auto, as everybody knows is inaccurate as fuck. And that they added them, they added full auto to the M 16 based on the government requisition. But the original M 16 design was not full auto. It wasn't even triple burst. It was single shot fire.
Ben:Yes, but they added
Gene:Yeah. They added them.
Ben:and then they went to
Gene:Yeah. And that was the, that was like, he just, he was very anti full auto. He obviously not from a gun control standpoint, but from a, the other gun control standpoint, which is if you're using full auto, you're basically wasting lead. What you should be doing is shooting a whole bunch of controlled shots. And so, yeah, they, they, they did what the government asked for, but he was also outspoken about how retarded it was.
Ben:Yeah. Well.
Gene:So, and I'm, I'm kind of a similar opinion. The only gun that, and I've shot a lot of guns in full auto over the years. The only gun that I really had a big smile on my face shooting full auto was that that thompson 22 with 250 rounds in it that fucking thing was that was a blast to use I also burned my hand on it, but it was a really fun gun to
Ben:You're talking about the AM 180.
Gene:and it was
Ben:the way, I've been listening to a lot of Irish music lately, and,
Gene:Huh.
Ben:speaking of a different Speaking of a different AR stoner gun you know, yeah, the Irish song, My Little Armalite it's, it just hits my heart and warms my heart a little bit. I don't know why I've been listening to music about the Irish Troubles lately, but you know, hey,
Gene:So this is, you're talking about like NRA stuff?
Ben:NRA?
Gene:Northern
Ben:IRA?
Gene:Yeah. IRA. Yeah, yeah. Irish Republican Army. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I, you know, I, I went through a phase of a lot of Irish music back when the Pogues were still a fairly young band. Back in the 80s.
Ben:yeah. I'll send, I'll send you a link to a playlist.
Gene:I'm that guy.
Ben:ha.
Gene:Hopefully not on Spotify. I don't have Spotify.
Ben:it is not on Spotify.
Gene:Okay. Yeah. Hey by the way, Joe Rogan has had some interesting guests on lately.
Ben:Yes, he has. And you made me watch something that was long.
Gene:It was very long. It was over four hours. Yeah.
Ben:And I really, to be honest with you, need to go back to the original, but, You wanna set it up?
Gene:Yeah. So there was a probably about three weeks ago or so there was a black actor dude on Rogan. God, what was his name? I had it on tip of my tongue. I can't remember his name. Terrence something. He's been in a couple of black video things that were pretty popular, I guess. I mean, he's a successful actor. He's not like a
Ben:it's Terrence Howard, by
Gene:Howard. Yeah, yeah. Terrence Howard. I've seen him in a couple of things here and there as well, other than the big shows he was on. And, I mean, he seems to be a decent actor, you know, he's, he's doesn't come across as a bad actor, let's put it that way. So he comes on Rogan, and instead of talking about acting and shit, he talks about how he has reinvented a new math and a new physics that solves all the problems that exist. The other physicists have, and it's all based around geometry. And so he's got these shapes that he says he was told about in a dream. So they're his original because he has patents and all of them, but
Ben:meaningless, but
Gene:which is meaningless, but nonetheless you know, he does place the designer is not him, but actually it came to him in the dream kind of thing. So higher power. So, he talked about him, he's very excited, and I noticed in that original episode that He seems to be using words incorrectly when it's applied to
Ben:And,
Gene:a lot.
Ben:and I, I have not watched the original episode, but watching the one with him and Eric Weinstein.
Gene:Yeah, and I think that was a much more fun episode because the whole first episode with him, my mouth kept dropping lower and lower and I'm like, Why is Joe not saying anything? Joe's had a lot of actual good jokes. You know,
Ben:doesn't understand math.
Gene:but he's had a lot of these guys on. He could just at least say, well, what about this? Or, you know, why did you do that? And Joe was like, yeah, that's really cool stuff. And I have to admit the shapes that he comes up with, which are mathematically created. are very cool. It's kind of like if some people are into creating stuff on the Mandelbrot set, and then there's some awesome pictures that, that I've seen and that I've generated. And I, I like, I was into Mandelbrot set stuff literally from day one. I met Benoit Mandelbrot at a Nobel conference. And he gave me the software that he used to generate the Mandelbrot sets. Like I literally got a floppy disk from him. So, I am a little bit of a you know, math nerd in that sense. I'm not the best math student and my my school records would show that. But I've always been, like, I actually had to, you know, ditch school to go to the Nobel Conference to meet all these people that were doing, to what was to me, the most exciting math.
Ben:yeah, and you know, metal broadsets are more fractal in nature than this first of all, and really what his supposition comes around is, Putting math in reality and that imaginary numbers shouldn't exist.
Gene:Right. And, and his other big thing is one times one is not two or, or is
Ben:a one times one is two,
Gene:It's two, right?
Ben:And it, which part of that is based off of imaginary numbers because he thinks the square root of two should be one. Which, to, to be honest, I, this took me back to a, fuck, how old was I, like a ten year old version of me,
Gene:hmm. Mm
Ben:when I first started learning about imaginary numbers and irrational numbers. And, I remember struggling with those concepts, and literally crying over it, and, because it just did not click with me, it did not click, it did not click. And I, I basically got told you know, we were doing some correspondence stuff with Pensacola Christian at the time. And talking to one of the math teachers, Well, you just have to accept it and that's what it is. That doesn't sit well with me and never has. If I can't understand a why for something, I struggle with it. But what I would say is, He has some points. And it is a convention that we accept. And we can go through the proofs and you can get there. But really, to get there, you, you, you know, when you're first learning about irrational and imaginary numbers, essentially, you're asked to just accept it, because they introduce them before you're introduced to the techniques to which to derive them. And that is somewhat problematic. And, you know, I've had a lot of math in my life. I've gone through some very advanced calculus, nonlinear algebra, equations. I've. I've had some pretty advanced math for a very long time in my life. I will say when I listen to him, And this is what Eric kept harping on, is he's used, like, he used supersymmetry. Well, supersymmetry has a special meaning. So, the words that are coming out of his mouth do not mean what he thinks he means.
Gene:exactly. He, he's thinking it's kind of like,
Ben:using plain English.
Gene:Semitic.
Ben:Correct. It has a specific meaning that everyone wants to change and do something
Gene:Well, in this case, he's the only one that sees imaginary numbers is not what science expects to accept them as, but yeah,
Ben:No, he's not the only one. I, I, I think that there are problems with two being designated as a prime number and there are problems with, which I understand why it is. I understand both sides of this is what I'm saying.
Gene:yeah,
Ben:I, I think that there are some issues with our math. I don't see there's some conspiracy theory or anything
Gene:I, I will say I've never been able to derive two as a prime number, like unlike the other prime numbers.
Ben:Well, it's really simple.
Gene:What do you mean?
Ben:Why can't you derive two as a prime number?
Gene:Because even,
Ben:Okay, but it's divisible by one and itself.
Gene:yeah, I know, I know, but it, it like, That's
Ben:should, that should be enough for you to
Gene:well, memorizing it is enough, but it, it's, you know, one of the things that, that is the rule for all the other prime numbers is that they're odd, except for two. So I, I, I, my point is I get that two doesn't fit the mold, which is his problem with it. I get that part.
Ben:Yeah, and you know, he's autodidactic and very intelligent, clearly. He's gone a very long way teaching himself.
Gene:it does seem like he is probably in the wrong profession.
Ben:Absolutely. Like, he obviously, A, has a way higher IQ than you would have suspected of him before
Gene:yeah, if you watch his Rogan thing, it looks like he's a moron when you watch him with Eric, my opinion definitely changed a lot because,
Ben:Well, Eric is astonished by him, to be honest with you.
Gene:well, yeah, and Eric is one of the smartest guys that I, I mean, I was going to say, I know, I don't know Eric, but one of the smartest guys that I've seen discuss these types of topics He is very well versed in a lot of different topics where most people are going to be well versed in their specific little super nichey topic that have PhDs. Eric is very broad and what I, I didn't realize that or I, maybe I knew this and just forgot it that you know, Eric Started Harvard at 17 with a master's degree already. Like, he was started working on his PhD at 17. I was like, motherfucker. Uh, really makes his brother look like a total loser. Um, because Brett was you know, he, he was, he was a, not a hard science guy. He, he was a,
Ben:Well, I'm a biologist.
Gene:exactly. A biologist. Yeah, what do they know?
Ben:Okay.
Gene:It's, it's all empirical
Ben:is a hard science as well.
Gene:Mm hmm.
Ben:But no, as a math and physics guy, Eric is more intelligent if you ask me.
Gene:Oh, yeah. Yeah. But it's even beyond math and physics. It's just, I, I personally have had a very strong affinity to intelligent people. And what's the opposite of affinity?
Ben:What do you mean? Affinity,
Gene:the opposite of the word affinity?
Ben:or e finity. Affinity would be a fondness,
Gene:Yeah, I know what affinity is. What's the opposite of that? Yeah. I've been disgusted of stupid people. And, and so, this is not at all to be a compliment to you, but honestly, a big part of the reason that we're doing this show is because you're very intelligent. And I, I like intelligent people. I like to interact with intelligent people. I greatly dislike interacting with people who aren't intelligent.
Ben:Okay, I'm s I'm sorry.
Gene:Well, it's, you know, I mean, I, I'm sure this is a shocker to you knowing my personality type. But I, I fully admit it. I'm well aware of it. I, I have troubles dealing with morons and some people are, they don't like, they can be intelligent and they're perfectly fine spending their days, you know, dealing with morons and then making tons of money.
Ben:Well, you know, I I love that old quote, and I'm trying to remember who said it. It's very hard to win a argument with an intelligent person. It's impossible with a moron.
Gene:Yeah. Yeah. Totally true. So. Eric, the plenty of things he and I would disagree on, but I consider him to be one of the most intelligent people that's out there. That is out there. Meaning, you know, he's public, he's on YouTube, he's on shows, he's doing things. He's way more intelligent than guys like Bill Nye or who's the black dude?
Ben:Tyson.
Gene:yeah. Yeah. Like next level, more intelligent than these guys. These guys just start the average guys that you knew in college that, you know, went on and really enjoyed science stuff. Eric is a fucking genius. So having Eric take the sky seriously, or at least more seriously than I think the vast majority, because immediately after The Joe Rogan appearance, all the usual science, YouTube channels that I watch, and I watch probably way too many of them started just panning of what, what a moron this guy is. And we can't believe Rogan put them on literally all of them. There was not one exception. And then I watched the video that Eric did with, I can't remember the physicist dude's name out of Caltech that he's buddies with. Where Eric started kind of pushing back is like, well, are we just assuming he's a moron or is there more to this? So I was very happy to see that Eric ended up coming on Rogan directly with God, what's the guy's name again? The black did
Ben:Terrence.
Gene:Terrence, yeah. Directly with Terrence. And I think, I think Terrence just thought it was a good idea when they started from a exposure standpoint. But Eric would not let him get away the way that Joe was. Of just saying stuff that sounds wrong.
Ben:they actually, the problem with this is they also never got to some of the points. Like they kept skipping around and doing some things that, like I,
Gene:but, but
Ben:I, like I said, I've, I've had a lot of, I've had a lot of math. I'm pretty well versed in most of what they were trying to cover and following some of it as far as, okay, you're skipping around, you're not completing trains of thought, let me try and understand what both of you are trying to get out at this
Gene:Mm hmm.
Ben:was not easy, man. And the average person listening to that, who has no idea, all they're listening to is who's sounding more authoritative. That's literally 90 percent of the audience. Like that, that podcast was. I, I can't imagine that got very many views. Like, that had to have been one of Joe's worst performing episodes
Gene:with Eric? Well, I sent it to a whole bunch of people, so I'm sure it got some views.
Ben:yeah, but I'm, I'm talking about for general.
Gene:Well, I'm curious now, so I'm gonna look it up while you're talking here. See what kind of views it did get.
Ben:Well, regardless, the, the, the point is people don't understand that we do have some problems with math. You know, why have we not been able to find a better way of selecting primes, right?
Gene:mhm.
Ben:Why is there not some sort of pattern to primes that we've been able to do? deduce over this long a period of time, and it's pretty amazing. Why do we not have better ways of calculating pi? I mean, there's some
Gene:Yeah, 5. 7 million views.
Ben:that's shocking to me.
Gene:Which is actually, I think, low for Joe.
Ben:Yeah. Well, regardless, what I would say is there are some problems in math that when your first natural instinct is, how can that be, there's probably a convoluted reason and why we accept it. And I don't oppose someone challenging that. Like, square root of two.
Gene:But even, even,
Ben:a problem with opposing that.
Gene:yeah, but even the concept of imaginary numbers, it's, it's, It's only true because of definition.
Ben:Exactly.
Gene:Yeah, so it's, like, you can't, that I'm aware of, you can't derive it without adding the definition of imaginary number.
Ben:Well, you, that, okay. So, you know, there's the old joke between square root of two and pi. Get real. Be rational.
Gene:Mm hmm,
Ben:I and all of that, we have put in place these conventions to make shit work. The question is, is there a way to do it without having to have those conventions? I don't think Terrence is there yet, but again, they never really got to the meat of the matter and I would have liked it if they would have.
Gene:Yeah, and I think if if their interaction continues off screen, off Rogan show, There could be something interesting that comes out of this.
Ben:Agreed. Agreed. I, I think a lot of it, I mean, Terrence has got to get over one times one is two, but,
Gene:Yeah, well, and by the end of that episode, he kind of was admitting, well, it, it, you know, that there is, there is definitely a point to him saying that for shock value as much as anything else.
Ben:Yeah, and I get his point on, you know, if we're adding one to one, if we're following the strictures of
Gene:Mm
Ben:part of the convention of multiplication, I get how he gets there, got it. Good. I actually sent it to a friend of mine who's a PhD and was a math major when I was at A& M and known them for a long time and haven't heard back yet, but I wanted their opinion as well.
Gene:But it's not an easy thing to get into though. It's, and I'm, I'm happy to hear that you watched the whole thing because I sent it to a few other people including my dad, who is a physics guy. And he's like, you know, I'm 15 minutes in, I have no idea what the hell they're talking about. Which means, that's as far as he's gonna bother trying to get. I'm like, well that's too bad. You really should watch the whole thing. And then,
Ben:I had to pause, think, rewind, listen, pause, think. I mean, it took me probably a good six hours to listen to that dude
Gene:Mm. Okay.
Ben:because it was something that they were throwing out. A lot of things that, quite frankly, I haven't thought about since college, and I had to go back and think, and even Google some, to be honest
Gene:Mm hmm. Yeah, and the amount of data that is sitting in Eric's head is next level. Mm hmm. Like granted
Ben:he's also in it all the time,
Gene:He right. It's like I'm sure he would suck at video games compared to me
Ben:Right, and you talked to me about the strictures of 62443,
Gene:Mm hmm
Ben:know, insert DCS protocol here, or something like that, and I, you know, it's,
Gene:Yeah, yeah, it's it's his area of specialty, but well it is and it isn't it's his area of interest But his job has nothing to do with us.
Ben:what do you mean?
Gene:Well, his job is Finance.
Ben:Well, his original job was, you know, academia.
Gene:Yeah his original job and then he really got pissed off at a lot of people and then got hired by What's his face? Musk's old partner.
Ben:But in, anyway, he, he's still been deep in academia for a very long time, so, you know.
Gene:yeah, long enough to hate it.
Ben:But, you know, part of that episode that I think should, everyone should pay attention to is the cliquish nature of science
Gene:Yeah,
Ben:That, that is a great, more broad point that is not so
Gene:Mm hmm.
Ben:and it's exactly why I did not go through and get my Ph. D. and abandoned any thoughts of academia in my mind very early on. It's, I, I saw the political nature in the bullshit. You know, I, I was in the honors program.
Gene:Mm hmm.
Ben:honors physics program and we had to do a undergrad research paper and we did it with our professor and we had to come up with some theoretical constructs and math to prove things out. And it was not a thesis. It was not a. PhD level thing by any stretch. But the entire idea was to get undergrads thinking in that way so that when they go to their master's, when they go to their PhD, they have more exposure because we were all, that was the assumed track that we were all going on. And when I saw the, the basically thesis defense board, same sort of thing, but this was for an undergrad, grill us because of our professor, who is our advisor for this more than looking at the actual thoughts and research that we put forward, that was the straw that broke the camel's back for me.
Gene:Yeah. Yeah, it's, it's a tough thing. I don't know. I mean, I'm, I'm just thinking back cause I spent a lot of years in, in college. I was there for like six and a half years. And and did not graduate, and I think I've talked about it before. So actually it dropped out with no degree after six and a half years. But that makes
Ben:you're not alone.
Gene:that makes sense to some extent because I was a philosophy major. So that, that seems like not a unusual course for a philosophy person to go through. Uh, but a lot of my friends were in the PhD program. A lot of guys that I knew both from just my, I was originally an econ major, then I ended up a philosophy major. And got to know a lot of guys in the PhD program, both departments, and then also through the Libertarian Party because There was fairly few of us that were libertarian leading back then but the ones that were tended to be grad students. So, yeah, the, the idea of, and honestly, with a degree in philosophy, there's only two things you can do. One is go to law school and the other one is get a PhD and teach. And, it, like, the mistake I made, if there was a mistake, Is in not finishing and then immediately going to law school because I do enjoy that. I mean, I've been doing for a damn long time now things that most people, people find really annoying, which is spending months and months negotiating contracts. Like that is a cornerstone of what I do. And if I would've gotten a law degree, I probably could have been doing that longer and making more money out of it. Yeah,
Ben:for me, the, you know, what was I gonna do with an undergrad physics degree? I was either gonna go work for Intel or Wall Street, or go the legal route and go do patent law, which I didn't wanna do. I actually took the LSATs at one point because I thought, fuck it, I'll just switch and do constitutional law. And, you know, but ended up doing none of it. It's worked out alright for me.
Gene:and I, like, I actually took, because I was there a long time, I actually took quite a few classes out of the law school Without being a you know, on track for a law degree just because I didn't think it was interesting. And I took a lot of classes because I thought it was interesting. And that's the problem. Like if you approach college with a, it's something fun to do, and I'm not doing it for a career, as long as you've got a, um, I was going to say an expense account, as long as you've got a what the hell they call it when you've got enough money to not worry. I don't have, I don't have that. So, it's trust fund. If you have a trust fund and you go to college without college being the thing that you get a career out of, you're just going to college just to learn. I think that would be a much more fun experience than going to college with the thought of like, this is supposed to get me a career when I graduate. And college isn't for everybody. College was not meant. For the average person, the average person should be going to trade school.
Ben:yes, and we also should distinguish between college and the philosophy of, you know, I used the term earlier, the autodidact. So the person who can be self taught and learn that is there, you know, if you've ever seen what was the movie MIT, Matt Damon,
Gene:Yeah, beautiful minds or whatever, which one?
Ben:Goodwill hunting,
Gene:Oh yeah. That one.
Ben:you know, the, the person who can go to, you know, any source and learn exactly what they need to learn and teach themselves is a far more intelligent and capable person than the person who has to just memorize and learn by rote. So,
Gene:I totally agree. And I, I definitely think that it's a. An ability and a sign of intelligence when you can learn that way and a lot of people choose to versus just through formal education. And I mean, let's, let's be realistic here. Most people that go to college, most people certainly that went to college when I went to college. We're not great learners. They did not have inquisitive brains. They were not there to just absorb things as a sponge. They were there as a continuation of high school where you can party without your parents being around. And then you'll have a piece of paper when you leave that'll direct you towards starting a career path. That's it.
Ben:Well, all a, all a
Gene:the opposite problem.
Ben:all a bachelor's degree means right now is that
Gene:It's a high school education, yeah.
Ben:well, you're somewhat trainable. That's, that's all it that's all it means.
Gene:Yeah, exactly. So, I, I've never been a big fan of the way that the college system runs here. Uh, it's I think misnomer for a lot of things and I think it's part of the reason I ended up in the philosophy department is because there I found a lot of kindred souls.
Ben:Okay?
Gene:So I don't know, neither here nor there, but I think it was a very interesting episode. I definitely enjoyed it. A lot of my opinions about about Terrence Howard were changed in the course of watching that episode. Having somebody who's. Much more knowledgeable about these topics than me, Eric at like trying to, as he said himself, steal a man, the guy's arguments and points as best he could. Although he did say, you know, there, there's most of your stuff is bullshit. Some things are
Ben:I don't know if he would even say most,
Gene:Oh, he did. Yeah, I rewatched probably the last hour.
Ben:okay, well, the, the point is there were definitely some good points that Terrence made. There are some things that are interesting. I think the phrase that he used over and over again is, you know, not, trying not to throw the baby out with the
Gene:Right, right,
Ben:In dissecting what is bathwater and what is baby. And,
Gene:Yeah, but that's where he said there's a lot more bath water than maybe here.
Ben:Yeah, yeah, fair enough, which I don't disagree with.
Gene:Did you like the the hairy balls he brought?
Ben:I, I was listening more than watching, so what did I
Gene:Oh, oh, dude, no, no, no. He had a an example that he, he brought actually a lot of props. I was kind of
Ben:Terrence did, yes.
Gene:no, no, not Terrence. Terrence also, but Terrence brought his own shit. But Eric brought a bunch of props.
Ben:Okay,
Gene:Including hairy balls which was an example of a, um, this was to show the example that you can't have, I'm going to butcher the way I say it because I don't remember his phrase, but it's something like you can't have a alignment on a spherical structure. So if you, if you align everything, you end up with basically two colleagues at either pole. In a spherical structure, you can't have a sphere that is perfectly aligned
Ben:Okay.
Gene:or elements on the sphere. And then he pulled those out and it was interesting that he brought them to illustrate this, but It kind of came up almost randomly when they started talking about curvilinear space versus you know, traditional you know, linear geometry space. So, it was Eric, go ahead.
Ben:well, just, people have a really hard time when you start going into three dimensions and things like that,
Gene:Or more.
Ben:right, I mean, when you start putting radial coordinates into a system and
Gene:Mm hmm.
Ben:or you introduce time and the
Gene:Mm hmm.
Ben:well, two objects can be in the same spot, just at different times, I mean, these are concepts that people struggle with.
Gene:Yeah. Yeah, it is. It's fascinating stuff, for sure. And I know you, you've probably seen some of the videos that I post on X. One of them is Sabine Hosserfelder, who is a a physicist who has kind of transitioned to being a YouTuber. She's interesting for several reasons, one of which is she's German, but she does her videos in English. So you get a lot of those sort of stereotypical German reactions, which are always in, I've always enjoyed seeing those, you know, Germans being stereotypically people that don't really have a big sense of humor and they take things literally. She does have a sense of humor, but there are plenty of elements there that are very German in her attitudes and her behavior. And she, along with Eric, also bitches about how science has more to do with soliciting money in order to do a research project than it has to do with actual science.
Ben:Well, and his explanation of how peer review came to be was fantastic. And exactly what I think a lot of people need to hear.
Gene:Yeah. Yeah. In fact, you want to just talk about it?
Ben:Well, so, Glane Maxwell's father was part of the reason why peer review, part of the reason why peer review has become what it's become. And it's essentially a method of selling more. Scientific publications. You know, before your ideas were judged on merits and the problem he did not address that I think we need to address is when you look at Ph. D. factories, and I would say that every major university, that's what they are at this point. You have all these peer reviewed papers being published.
Gene:Mm hmm.
Ben:That when you actually go to replicate the quote unquote science, we have a massive replication problem, which means that peer review is fucking worthless. I think we have a lot of quote unquote peer reviewed science. It's absolutely meaningless and
Gene:well, because peer review is meaningless in and of itself. It's peer review. Means that other people that have an interest in similar topics have taken the time and interest to read over your paper and haven't dissuaded you from making major changes because of disagreements. I mean, if they look at your paper and go, yeah, I could kind of see that, like that's now peer reviewed positively. And it's I think you're absolutely right. And then a lot of people that really tout peer review as essential to science don't really understand the difference between peer review and scientific method.
Ben:Exactly. I mean, what we need to do is if you want to replace peer review with something meaningful replace it with validated replication of the experiment, you know, okay, because reviewing and reading a paper, you know, and for people who aren't aware I'll kind of put it into programming if you, if you've ever read through someone's code, whether there's comments or not, You kind of get in this mindset of following along with what they were thinking and what they were doing. And it's very hard to troubleshoot and read code and just, at least for me, and say, ah, there's your error. Because you, you're constantly trying to figure out exactly what they were thinking to follow along to get to the conclusion they got. And then you kind of go back and try and find the error. But because you get in that groupthink mode, which is, you know, I think natural for humans to do, to a large extent. That's kind of what happens unless you actually, really specifically, A, have the intelligence to, but B, take yourself out of it and put yourself in slightly different mindsets.
Gene:Yeah, well, have you, have you seen anything that Peter Boghossian and, or James Lindsay have talked about the experiment that they conducted in academia?
Ben:Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.
Gene:It's hilarious, and honestly, I was, I didn't realize James Lindsay had a PhD. I was like, holy shit, this guy's smarter than I'd give him credit for. Which again, just cause you have a PhD doesn't mean you're smart, but I think he is actually smart. He's just one of those guys that comes across very normal. You know what I mean? Very approachable, normal, and not like, Up on the ivory tower whereas a Bogosian definitely looks like an academic. There's no two ways about it.
Ben:some of the fake research papers they published, and everything
Gene:Oh, they were great.
Ben:Yeah. And when they came out to be fake, they actually had some PhDs coming out and saying, Well, no, but you're right.
Gene:Mm hmm. Mm hmm. Yeah. They, they're creating papers and submitting them to publications that were completely fictitious that had politically correct sounding titles.
Ben:Mm hmm.
Gene:Like something that could come out of a college. So I, I like the icon class, man. I've always been a fan of Icon Class and, and I certainly see all these guys that we've talked about today from Terence Howard to Weinstein to both these guys as being iconoclast. And they, they don't like where higher learning has gone to and they are. Um, they're very good at demonstrating that maybe you, you shouldn't give quite as much respect to the modern education system as a lot of people do. Uh,
Ben:you shouldn't.
Gene:yeah. And when you have a people, Bob, in this case, three out of the four of them have PhDs and then one of them in is, is an autodidact then yeah, it's, it's nice to see that there's agreement there. Although I do think Terrence Howard is a little, he had, he's clearly had too many yes men around them. Like he, he got a lot more humble over the course of the four hours.
Ben:He did. And I think it's you know, it's very possible that he stumbled across a few things that are very true and then extrapolated out because he doesn't have exactly a very rigorous mind. As far as the discipline of thinking through logically, he, one of the things that was very frustrating to me, and I think Eric was his, if this, then that without. Any actual rationale. It's just total supposition.
Gene:Yeah. He's just taking leaps of faith in quite a few of these things. And his, the other thing that was annoying to Eric and me for sure was that he is jumping disciplines in, in the course of making these suppositions. So he's, he's saying because the math looks good and generates this cool looking thing, then this is how electrons and photons behave. It's like, well, no, one has nothing to do with the other, like they might, but they also might not. You've not shown anything that would lead you to believe that this shape that you've come up with addresses actual behavior of photons and electrons.
Ben:I will say that, you know, when we really look at quantum mechanics and we look at the way the, you know, double slit experiments, a great example of this, the way light behaves. I, I've had my own theories for a very, very long time and
Gene:Mm hmm.
Ben:you know, it, it, it's, we, we should discuss them. At some point
Gene:Yeah. I think that's fine. I love talking about
Ben:we, we could nerd out, but realistically the, the interesting aspect of when light behaves as a particle and when it behaves as a wave is pretty, pretty damn interesting.
Gene:I would argue that from my standpoint, it always behaves as a wave and, and that the aspect of it seeming to be a particle is just a misunderstanding of reality. That's all.
Ben:Oh, that hurts something deeper.
Gene:Well, deeper than what?
Ben:It's not a misunderstanding. It's that there is a So we have an underlying idea of We'll get into it later. This is, we're way too late in the podcast and this is way too nerdy. But when you go back in history and you look at relativity versus special relativity, when you understand how things got introduced, you look at some issues that were there and you start thinking about, okay, well, what could this mean if we go a slightly different way with it? You know, I'll I'll bring up some math that I started when I was in the 8th grade that,
Gene:Oh,
Ben:you might find interesting.
Gene:Think the best description recently that I heard was actually on the Y files for why there's a, seems to be a difference between light and dark. In the double slit experiment behaving differently, depending on whether you observe the photons or not, which is well, that's the way that all software is written. That's the way all video games work is you, you only render the things that the player can view.
Ben:Yeah,
Gene:You don't bother rendering.
Ben:supposition was that this is evidence of simulation
Gene:a simulation. Like we are characters in the video game. We are, there is, we have no idea what reality actually is. What we're experiencing is exactly what video game characters are, would be experiencing. And that, that idea of things only solidify, they only become You know, a particular type of noble when they're observed in an Unless if they're not observed, then we don't know what their state is. That is 100 percent accurate to say about the way that rendering engines work in video games, because that's how you conserve memory and processing power is you don't bother rendering everything. You only render the things that are observed.
Ben:Yeah?
Gene:So it's, it's a, it's fascinating.
Ben:Well, you know, I, I think you have to assume that we're you know, not in a video game here, but
Gene:Do we though?
Ben:Yeah, I do. I do,
Gene:know. I, I, I'm pretty sure we are.
Ben:Alright, well, on Space News, did you follow the Boeing issues?
Gene:Barely, honestly, Boeing has been so uninteresting that I will, if I,
Ben:still up there. That's the problem.
Gene:I know, I know. And it's led a lot of people to start talking about the decommissioning of the ISS.
Ben:Oh, man. And replace it with,
Gene:Well, I mean, China's got their station and Russia is going to move their pieces to the Chinese station. So the U S will probably have SpaceX
Ben:I don't like this.
Gene:there. There is. At some point, I think there is an end of life to the, to the ISS. It's, it was never meant to
Ben:I mean, and it's, it's actually lived past its design life at this point.
Gene:Yeah. Not anywhere near as impressive as Voyager one and two.
Ben:Well, Voyager, Voyager 1 and 2 still operating. Them being able to bring him back. Yeah.
Gene:It's insane, man. They've reprogrammed it.
Ben:Well, and they've had to just from power consumption. You know, the reactor that's on board is a thermal reactor. So it's, it's losing power as well as while it does this. So we only have a few years of that being still anything
Gene:It is just insane because I remember these things when I was a kid and I was like, wow, that was so cool that they did that. We'll probably be flying to those planets before too long. Yeah. Right. We can't even get to the moon.
Ben:one of the things that I think is great is that we actually have functioning interstellar spacecraft.
Gene:Yeah. By accident.
Ben:I mean, how fucking awesome is that?
Gene:Yep. Yep. That's cool. I think I told you actually in one of the video games in Elite Dangerous, which is a space video game that is in the Milky Way galaxy that you can actually fly to Voyagers 1 and 2 and visit them because in that game you have faster than light speed travel and They're basically, you know, they're tourist attractions where you can fly to see them
Ben:Is this like the moon landing site on Futurama as a tourist
Gene:yeah, yeah, exactly. That's exactly the same kind of thing. In fact in a different game, it's in Starfield, the, there's, there are moon landing sites, and there's also monuments on Earth that you can visit. So I think it's, it's neat to see video games that utilize the actual solar system and even better to a greater extent, the the local portion of the Milky Way. Because you're adding a little bit of science in there. You know, you're, people are learning the relationships between the, our solar system and, and other solar systems out there.
Ben:So, changing subjects a little bit. I sent you a Rumble video, which is part 1 of 2 on the Vegas shooting.
Gene:Yeah, I watched it. I did. Yeah, man. Rumble quality just sucks.
Ben:The player sucks, yes.
Gene:as well be Android.
Ben:Christ. Anyway what'd you think?
Gene:Yeah, I mean, there's a lot of truth to that. We've been aware of those of us that bothered paying attention to gun shit at the impossibility of reality being anywhere close to what was described.
Ben:just the rate of fire was obviously not a bump
Gene:that was not a bump stock. That was not even the binary trigger. That was. Clearly a fully automatic weapon. The broken window thing didn't make any sense back then. Still doesn't make any sense. The I always just assumed there was a a mob deal gone wrong. Some people say it was a Middle Eastern deal gone wrong. I dunno, I don't, I've not heard or seen anything that really points to what it was, but plenty of things point to what it is not likely to be.
Ben:Well, his supposition on this video and posted on Twitter or something, but was that it was an assassination attempt against Ben Solomon.
Gene:Yeah. Yeah. And I think that there's it's just as likely as, as plenty of other explanations. It's the fact that there's a coverup I think is extremely likely it's hard to argue against.
Ben:Well, and it, it, it, it's kind of like what I say about World War II. I don't know the truth, I just know I'm being lied to.
Gene:Yeah. Yeah. Now you say that cause you're anti Semitic, but I get it. It's the same kind of
Ben:How am I anti Semitic?
Gene:I just had to get in to get that in there for the,
Ben:as I do my podcast with my, you know, Mossad handler.
Gene:that's right. That's right. I had to get that in there for the bingo card.
Ben:Uh huh, huh.
Gene:No, I, I don't know, man. I think like I was there about a week before that event. At the Mandalay Bay and I don't know, man, I, I just it seemed like it was a, like it was way more than the one person for one thing. And it seemed like there was an extraction that happened very efficiently and that quite a few people were either paid off or threatened or both or just died.
Ben:Yeah?
Gene:And and then the case was just sort of while being unresolved, just kind of put away.
Ben:Well, I mean, you have the case resolved without a motive. What the
Gene:Yeah, yeah, exactly. It seemed way too random, but yeah, I, I, I've stayed in Mandalay Bay a bunch of times when, when being in Vegas, cause I kind of liked being on that side of the strip. And the idea that, well, I mean, the one thing it did, I'll tell you the one really negative thing that came out of it is the Vegas strip hotels policy on firearms.
Ben:Well,
Gene:ban all firearms now,
Ben:that and room cleaning.
Gene:but they don't clean the rooms anymore.
Ben:No, they, if you don't let them clean the room more than two days in a row, then they come check on you.
Gene:Oh, right, right. Yeah. It's probably not a horrible thing. I mean, that, that I don't mind so much, but we used to go to back when I was in the firearm school out there in, in Nevada. You know, we used to fly to Vegas with suitcases full of guns. And then stay in the hotels on the strip. And now in the hotels in Pahrump, they actually started implementing rules for guns because they had too many shootings from people doing dry fire practice that wasn't so dry.
Ben:Yeah.
Gene:And so you didn't end up shooting your neighbors. That's no fun. No bueno. But
Ben:Always, always check the chamber.
Gene:Yeah. Yeah. But Vegas hotels, strip hotels never had any, any gun rules and, you know, I mean, I was literally,
Ben:don't.
Gene:yeah, but back, back in the mid two thousands in Pahrump I remember,
Ben:who travels with a firearm regularly, most hotels, it's not a problem.
Gene:yeah, exactly. But in Pahrump, we used to open carry all over town. Like, you go to dinner, about two thirds of the tables there are guys sitting with guns strapped to them and in holsters.
Ben:Yeah.
Gene:It was you go to the gas station, you go, you go to the casinos, guys walking around with guns. It was, it was something that I think to the average person would look like it's out of the old western movies. To me, it was like, oh, this is awesome. I'm home. I like being in a place where everybody's armed because there's no fucking crime.
Ben:Well, and if there is, it's ended quickly.
Gene:Yeah, exactly. So yeah, Vegas has changed. A lot of these places are changed and you know, when Vegas stopped being run by the mob and got picked up by the investment banks, I think it changed for the worse.
Ben:I mean, you, what you're saying is you just prefer one mob over the other, man. It's like you're,
Gene:prefer the family mob over the investment
Ben:yeah, yeah. You know, it's just like saying all wars are banker wars. Yeah, exactly.
Gene:yeah, no, there's, there's definitely something to be said. A lot of money is made in wars and, and that's why the whole Ukraine thing, yeah, there's a small sliver of money that is actually going to Ukraine in order to be stolen there and then divided up by the cronies. But most of the money that is going to Ukraine never leaves the US. It's going to the industrial military complex and the banks that organize it.
Ben:Yeah.
Gene:So it's just yet another money grab from the American citizens.
Ben:Well, you know, we will see what happens. This election this year is getting spicy. And I think this is just the start.
Gene:Yeah. Maybe we can have now Farage come and become president of the U S
Ben:Well, you know, his reform party didn't do so well, but
Gene:yeah. Yeah. Well, but he got he, didn't he get, he got some seed, didn't he?
Ben:the reform party in general, though, didn't do super well. It was all labor that won. Labor trounced the conservatives.
Gene:Well, to be fair, the, the current conservative party in the UK is basically Democrats. Yeah. It's.
Ben:very liberal Democrats, but yes.
Gene:Yeah, they're, they're basically Democrats. Whereas you know, they used to be more conservative. Yeah, it's
Ben:Yeah, Nigel Farage himself I think won.
Gene:yeah, I think he did.
Ben:Yeah. UK reform has won five seats in the House of Commons. Yeah, with a 14 percent share of the vote.
Gene:Well, if it was, if we put it in your plan, then we would probably what quadruple the size of parliament.
Ben:You mean Congress?
Gene:Well, yeah, but it's same idea, but for them
Ben:no, actually, the UK
Gene:yeah. What would you do in the UK if you were King?
Ben:uh, abolished the government that exists today and set up an actual constitution.
Gene:Okay, that's interesting. Yeah, I would probably do half of that. would abolish the government and bring in the actual monarchy rule.
Ben:Yeah. Okay.
Gene:Uh huh. Because, you know why? Because as the Bhagwan Sri Arjneesh said so eloquently, the people are retarded. Ah,
Ben:By the way, I went, I went back and I found that video predating you and I knowing each other and stuff that I had sent. So, yes.
Gene:It's a great, I was always a fan of the Bhagwan. I mean, I thought the guy had, aside from the various accusations around them, when I've watched him speak back in the eighties, I thought, I agree with this. Dude, he says good shit. It was very anti communist.
Ben:I was talking to a Canadian friend of mine earlier this week and we were discussing Canada and Canada's parliamentary
Gene:Oh, Canada.
Ben:and we were also discussing parliamentary systems in general and the representation that, you know, the U. S. has with members of Congress versus the U. K. The U. K. has gone from about. 68, 000 people per parliamentary elector to 92, 000. You know, the U S has gone from under a hundred thousand to over a hundred thousand per representative. That's not representation. So I don't know. I, I, I'm telling you, man, I think there is a coming groundswell and we are either ripe for a revolution one way or the other, or It's that simple.
Gene:Yeah, I have that feeling. However, I had the similar feeling all through the late nineties. And a lot of people that I knew that were libertarian minded were ready for something major to happen in 2000 and nothing fucking happened.
Ben:Yeah, well, the Pendulum wasn't ready to swing back
Gene:No, no. If I look at the pendulum, it was still going in the wrong direction that whole time, but I mean, like I knew guys that had bought planes in December of 2000 that were just ready to fly to Gulch Gulch.
Ben:Well, if it existed, I would love to be there.
Gene:It does exist.
Ben:Where?
Gene:It's wherever the appropriate people get together.
Ben:is
Gene:Which unfortunately, it doesn't happen all that much lately. Yeah.
Ben:Alright, man, well, anything else we need to cover? Or are we good?
Gene:No, I think we, we covered all the That I was going to bring up. So assuming you did as well, then I think we're good to go. I'll get the episode out. Are you still doing those things on Twitter or, or not Twitter? Are you still doing the transcription? What the hell were you doing? You were doing something with episodes
Ben:Yeah, uploading it to Rumble, and I haven't been lately. But, I need to pick it back up. You know,
Gene:Alright, cause I know we got, we got people bitching about the fact that we don't even post on X when we have a new episode up.
Ben:Okay, well, you know, we'll, we will make some adjustments, but what I would say to that is, show us some love then. If you want love back, show us some
Gene:Yeah, love, love is good, and it, it only costs like three bucks. I think that's the cheap level.
Ben:well, and you know, I will say this I should be getting my Motu back here next week, hopefully.
Gene:Oh yeah, for all the people like CSB that really dislike your voice and anything
Ben:Eh, well, they can, they can suck it, for now. So the, the Motu warranty because I had purchased the second hand was not extended and they did charge me to replace it. They replaced the motherboard on that, so it should be basically a brand new machine for a whopping 160
Gene:Well, that's super cheap. I would have expected them to charge you more than that.
Ben:Exactly.
Gene:So that's gotta be like pretty close to their cost
Ben:Yeah, yeah, I, I mean, and
Gene:for a 650 device.
Ben:They did it fairly quickly, and,
Gene:Yeah,
Ben:I don't know.
Gene:that's fascinating.
Ben:Hopefully the issue is resolved and we can move
Gene:Oh, I got one last thing. Did you check your Steam account?
Ben:I have not. I have
Gene:Well, you should.
Ben:I saw that you sent me a video game.
Gene:I sent you a video game, so. I've I've sent a bunch of people video games lately.
Ben:Why did you send me a truck simulator game?
Gene:because I've been playing it for the last few days and it's really fun. And,
Ben:would a truck simulator be fun?
Gene:there's nothing more fun than driving. And,
Ben:that's just objectively not true.
Gene:Silly, that's why I said it. But it's a really good game and I'll tell you, the cool thing is, The state of Texas, which I didn't send you, you could buy that on your own. The state of Texas is quite well represented and the closest truck garage is actually about a mile away from my house in the game on the actual street that I would take to get there on Montopolis. So it's a. It is pretty cool in the video game to drive out of the garage and get on the highway that is literally exactly what I do in real life.
Ben:Okay. I,
Gene:pretty cool.
Ben:I mean, a more fun game that I would enjoy more
Gene:built in.
Ben:Suit Larry, you know? I
Gene:Now, you'd think you'd enjoy that thinking back to your high school days, but you really wouldn't. It was kind of a crap game. There were better games back then than Leisure Suit Larry.
Ben:Yeah, Postal. Postal was good.
Gene:I didn't, I don't remember that one.
Ben:You never played Postal?
Gene:think so,
Ben:Oh my god, dude. In Postal 3,
Gene:Three.
Ben:You kind of, like, lose it, and you've got to go run these errands for your wife, and you're just this guy who's having a breakdown. And you can literally pick up a cat and shove it onto the end of an AR 15 and use it as a suppressor.
Gene:Yeah, that, that, mm hmm. Sounds like goat simulator.
Ben:Exactly! It's just hilarious. Except, you know, less, you know, less reality than the
Gene:with the appropriate amount of pot, I'm sure it is hilarious.
Ben:I was not smoking pot at the time at all, thank you.
Gene:Well, that, that's actually more concerning then.
Ben:Why?
Gene:What kind of childhood did you have that you make, you want to put a cat on? And to use as a suppressor on a rifle.
Ben:It's just hilarious, dude.
Gene:Mm hmm. Yeah,
Ben:Oh 1, 1, 1 last thing that we actually do need to cover.
Gene:What's that?
Ben:Did you see the Patriot front walking around in Tennessee?
Gene:Oh, yeah, yeah, I posted about that. Yes. So, I, I, here's, here's my post.
Ben:I think we need to make sure everyone is not confused. This is Feds.
Gene:Yeah, totally. But I, my post was like, How dumb are people That a group that is literally named a front is not seen as an obvious front. I mean, their name says who they are. They're, they are a front group pretending to be patriots as their name says. So, but yeah, the, the, the first sign of this, the first time I ever saw them when they popped up on the radar, it became apparent that this was a completely fake organization, because. There's not a single fat dude in this entire group and knowing the actual community of America loving and gun loving Government disliking people it is 50 percent fat dudes. So There's no way in hell that this could be a legitimate group
Ben:One of the things I would say is that. I'm sure there are some people who are useful idiots that are really in there,
Gene:Mm hmm.
Ben:the reality is, this is, this is AstroTurf at best.
Gene:Mm hmm. No, no, it's an extremely extremely There's a lot of, a lot of, how do we phrase this a lot of glowing lights around them. And the fact that, this is so funny, you see these guys, they go do their very organized march and then they all pile in a few U Haul vans and then drive off. That, that is so not what an actual group like that would be doing.
Ben:Well, so, one of the arguments, if you're on the other side of this, thinking that, They're real or whatever, they're trying to protect their members, that's why they wear the balaclavas, and
Gene:All the same balaclavas?
Ben:that's the thing, is any group like this that I've ever known, or been around, it's a bunch of individualists.
Gene:Exactly.
Ben:ever going to put on a fucking uniform and act
Gene:Yep, yep, yep. That's exactly right. It's like a freaking, you know, commune of libertarians.
Ben:well, exactly, it's not possible, and again, there may be some useful idiots in there,
Gene:yeah, yeah. No, it
Ben:ugh,
Gene:just smacks so hard of a fake group in order to orchestrate some kind of a fake event. It's it. Yeah, absolutely right. And no fat dudes matching balaclavas
Ben:everything,
Gene:matching pretty much everything. Yeah.
Ben:and by the way, it looks like Fed.
Gene:Yeah. It's, it's, it's the same uniform as yeah. As the FBI casual wear. I mean, it is pretty damn
Ben:Khaki's in a blue shirt.
Gene:Yeah. Yeah. It's like, okay. You want to be casual at this event? So, yeah. khakis in a blue shirt. Exactly right. So it, it does. If you were going to set up an actual group of Patriots, there would be zero reason to make it appear that you were a fake group. Like they're going out of, if this was real, right? Then they're kind of going out of their way to pretend to be a false flag group, which serves no purpose. Why, if you're an actual group of, You know, you, there's plenty of groups that you can look at, what do they look like if they're meeting in Michigan, in Idaho, in Montana there are a lot of people that, you know, hang out with like minded pro freedom folks in those states. At one point, I think they were called militias. And they don't look like this. This is, this is very, very different. Mm
Ben:Like, I mean, we talked last week about Jack and some of the Patriot stuff I was involved with in the early 90s, and what I grew up around, and All I can tell you is, this is just anathema to what I have been around my entire life.
Gene:hmm. Yeah, yeah, and like, you grew up in one of these, kinda, how do I phrase it communes.
Ben:It was not a commune. It
Gene:Not a commune, no, no. Compounds.
Ben:was not a
Gene:I know, but you know what I mean. So, growing up in one of these, kinda, Heaven's Gate type places, you, you kind of,
Ben:Jesus,
Gene:you have,
Ben:dude!
Gene:you have a
Ben:Did you not think I would get the reference, or what? God, no! Ouch!
Gene:I know I'm trying to be funny here but I would certainly Yeah. Take your your lead on what a group of these types of guys should look like. And it ain't that,
Ben:Yeah, no. I, not at all. And, I don't know, man, I Spot the Spook has been a game I've been playing for a long time. And You know, agent provocateurs and fed infiltration is a real thing in any group that is real. And I, I'll just tell you right now, this entire group, I don't, I don't think there's any genuine people in there other than useful idiots. And it's just something to Just something to watch for, and be aware of, and, you know, don't be the useful idiot, and your FBI handler is out there and going to tempt you at some point in time in your life if you're at all of the right mindset to be tempted.
Gene:that's definitely the case. And most people end up pulled into this that aren't actually working for the government because they're, they're, how do I phrase this? They're like, they're not. Paranoid enough to actually be in a group like this. Therefore they end up getting sucked into a group like that.
Ben:Agreed.
Gene:So if you're, if you're trying to portray somebody that is very pro freedom and willing to to defend freedom against all enemies, foreign and domestic you, you tend. not to associate with a bunch of random other people like that. You're going to be a lot more private, a lot more exclusive. You're going to only hang out with people you've known for years. You're not going to just say, Oh yeah, I read this thing online that says there's a big get together of of guys and I have to wear a particular uniform when I get there.
Ben:Well, and
Gene:But I've never met any of
Ben:here, here's the thing, man. Like, most, and this is the problem with our side. And people like you and I. We're not fucking joiners. We don't join groups and follow along. We have independent thought. And even if we'll go along with a group for a little while, eventually we go, you know what, I don't really like this, fuck y'all.
Gene:Oh, yeah.
Ben:that is the way that works. And when you see People literally marching in lockstep, like they think they're I've known people who took the militia idea fairly seriously, and to the point of actual training and so on, never that fucking regimented. It's just not in the ethos of the people who would normally, willingly participate. It's just not. And, you, you, again, I'm sure there are some useful idiots in there. But at least a third of those guys are feds.
Gene:Yeah, I
Ben:all of the leadership. In all of the
Gene:Yeah, exactly. And, and again, same thing. People that I've known that have been a lot more even into wanting to organize, like, you know, they don't just espouse the ideas, but they want to go out and train and organize just in case. There's, there's way more individualism way. less of a desire for conformity. There's more fat dudes. I mean, that's just reality in the United States. You're not going to find a group of people that look like they came out of the Marine Corps literally a year ago that all joined the organization like this, not enough old people, not enough fat people.
Ben:Well, and you have to realize, you know, and this is something Tim's brought up a lot, and it's an astonishing statistic to me, that the average male in the U. S. right now is like 5'7 And 200 pounds.
Gene:What's wrong with that?
Ben:Uh, that's pretty obese.
Gene:I mean, for a sedentary lifestyle in America leads, it's pretty normal.
Ben:Yes, which
Gene:It's not ideal by any
Ben:I'm 5'10 and 178 right
Gene:Mm-Hmm. Well, you lost some weight. You didn't used to be 1 78. Yeah.
Ben:The heaviest I've been is around 200 pounds, though. And that's 5'10, which is 3 inches of difference there, buddy.
Gene:Mm-Hmm. But That's what she said. Um, Sorry. Could you resist? But reality is that a, Americans are getting fatter. It's just,
Ben:Women included, unfortunately.
Gene:it's a lot more noticeable on women because they've got smaller
Ben:Shorter. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Gene:So it is not a good trend from a health standpoint. Absolutely. We have way too many people that have diabetes now. Um, it's, it's, Like things that should have been cured decades ago are actually getting worse.
Ben:Yep.
Gene:And that's because I think everyone looks at drugs and food as separate things, where in reality, they're kind of in the same category, the same, it's all inputs, physical inputs into the body, and they have a massive impact on what the body turns
Ben:Yeah, yeah. The problem isn't the amount of input we have. We have, or the type of input. We don't have enough output. That's the
Gene:I don't disagree that more output is good, but I will say The input that we have today is way worse than it was 50 years ago. The foods are all fake. They're using a lot of things that actually contribute to the horrible health. Including the seed oils and all the, the processed food ingredients that are meant to allow food to stay looking nice longer to preservatives and all these things combined together create a much less healthy diet. Intake of foods. Should people exercise more? Of course, but it exercise alone with a shitty diet is not enough. And
Ben:I completely agree. People need to, first of all, people need to really look at how much calories they're consuming. And what those calories are from. Absolutely. Secondly, you know, intermittent fasting is something that I've always done. I don't, I don't eat breakfast. Never really have eaten breakfast. Breakfast is not a big
Gene:it's funny how people used to bitch about how that's unhealthy are now coming to realize that's actually more healthy.
Ben:And anyway like I ate one meal yesterday. That's it. I feel good. So.
Gene:I think it's way better. I, when I started eating one meal a day, which is about three years ago. It really made me feel a lot more energetic. I think it's a, it's a very good way to go.
Ben:Did you get any lion's mane, by the way?
Gene:I have not, no, but yeah, I probably should order some of the Amazon. I know we talked about lion's mane.
Ben:It, I've, I've been doing it for a couple weeks now, and it's,
Gene:you enjoying it then did you tropic benefits?
Ben:I'm enjoying it with my coffee quite a bit.
Gene:I've got some other fun. Oh, you know what I had yesterday? I made burgers for the fourth and I had some leftovers. I made some yesterday too.
Ben:You do your burgers?
Gene:I mean, nothing exciting. The only thing that I was going to say about the ones I made yesterday, I put miso on them. So I coated the patties in miso before frying them, or not frying them before grilling them. Although I do like fried burgers as well, not just grilled burgers. You get that very crispy, you know, fried kind of skin on the outside when you fry them, pan fry them versus grilling. But
Ben:you're just not grilling at the right temperature, but okay.
Gene:well, no, it's a different kind of it's a different kind of thing when they're at literally sitting in their own fat and Getting fried in it. You end up with a different kind of a crust than you do from grilling in just hot air
Ben:I will say, you know, for instance, like, I like to smoke my burgers because I enjoy that flavor, but, like, I use my griddle an awful lot too. I love my griddle.
Gene:Mm hmm. Yeah, and I haven't had burgers for a while Not good burgers anyway, so that was nice to do that I also just You I have to admit that the, the 80 percent lean, i. e. 20 percent fat burgers do taste better than the 90 percent lean. Even though I typically buy 90 percent because I don't want all that extra fat, but like that 10 percent makes a difference in taste.
Ben:What kind of beef do you buy, though? Where do you get your ground beef?
Gene:HEB, just regular HEB ground beef.
Ben:you at least get their grass fed option?
Gene:I didn't this time. I've done it in the past. I've gone through phases where I only buy bison cause I, I like the taste of that. I bought elk, I bought a variety of different things, but I think probably the most thing I go back to after I kind of go out of a phase of a particular type of beat is just regular HEB sirloin.
Ben:Yeah, I like grass fed. Especially for ground beef. You get quite a bit of different flavor there.
Gene:Well, that's interesting. Cause I know I can definitely tell a grass fed In a steak, but I didn't really think you could tell as much in a burger. Cause the burger is usually, it's going to be slobbered on with something, whether it's ketchup or barbecue sauce, or in this case, me. So
Ben:first of all, you're, you're doing it wrong if you have to do all that, but yes. No, like, you don't ever just eat a grilled beef patty by itself.
Gene:now if I'm going to eat something
Ben:have a leftover burger, like, if I cook burgers or something and I have a leftover burger, It'll sit in the fridge and I will grab that and I will eat it just by itself.
Gene:Nope. Don't do that. If it's, if it's ground meat, I will always put something on it for flavoring.
Ben:Are you seasoning your ground meat appropriately?
Gene:yeah, I, I, my favorite is this Hawaiian rub that I have that my buddy who goes to Hawaii all the time sends me, which is pretty good. But that, but my whole point is I tried miso yesterday instead. And While miso, I think, has a pretty strong flavor when you mix it into wet things, I was barely noticeable on the burger.
Ben:Okay, well,
Gene:I was hoping for a stronger miso flavor, but didn't really get it.
Ben:well, I like I like good meat, period.
Gene:I mean, the stuff that I eat with, without sauce is a filet. Filet, I'll eat I'll never put anything on there. I mean, salt is literally the only thing I'll allow on a filet. But when it comes to hamburgers, like, my assumption is this is not gonna be the best meat to begin with. So, I'm gonna flavor it. Mm hmm. Mm
Ben:Okay, well, I, I like seasoning. Even on good meat, I will say, I go, on a steak, I season less than I do anything else, but one of the things I will do is, you know, like, for the fourth, I cook some steaks and some sausage for the kids and stuff like that. And I, I take beef tallow and some butter and
Gene:hmm.
Ben:some of the seasoning I use on my steak and I put that in the smoker while I'm smoking and I basically do a reverse sear on everything. So I started off around 180, 220, low, slow smoking as much as possible. When the steak gets to about 100, 105 degrees, I take it off. And I crank that smoker up at my pellet grill all the way up as high as it'll go, open the sear plate, get it going, and I've slathered it in that beef tallow and I just sear it real quick. And get a very good medium rare in there. And that's the way I like a steak, man. I, I really do. Because it
Gene:How about burger? How do you cook the burgers?
Ben:Same way. Same exact way.
Gene:So, you cook them slow first, then you crank them up.
Ben:Yep, I cook them slow with it smoking as much as possible. I use the beef tallow on the outside so it gets that really good crispy shell. And then I Hit it. And and I, I don't cook, overcook my burgers either. I'll do a, you know, a medium burger all day long. For some people, I have to cook a little more. I'm, I'm just not a fan of that.
Gene:I'm generally the type that if I'm cooking just for myself, when I bite into the burger, the juice that comes out of it is red.
Ben:Yeah, absolutely.
Gene:Like if the juice is clear, then it's overcooked. No,
Ben:Yeah. Don't people overcook meat all the time, including pork chops and everything else.
Gene:I agree. Yeah. If, if
Ben:who worry about trichinosis there hasn't been a case of domesticated trichinosis in the U. S. for a very, very long time.
Gene:Oh, we might have bird flu coming out soon.
Ben:Ah, yeah, okay.
Gene:Well, it's going to suck when all the Turkey farms and chicken farms get destroyed, I mean, destroyed by the FDA, not by the actual disease.
Ben:Dude, all it's going to take is one, one state to finally just say deuces and we'll be good.
Gene:Hmm. Yep. Well, at least, at least Chevron difference has gone.
Ben:Yeah, and we'll see what ends up happening with that, and where it goes.
Gene:Well, yes. But I mean, the good news is
Ben:I think you can rely on most of the agencies, including the ATF, to just ignore that, continue doing what they're doing, and
Gene:allow the court cases to go in.
Ben:yes, and be forced to do it.
Gene:Yeah, well, that's true. I, I would agree with that. I think it's, I think there's very little respect for the Supreme Court from any of the agencies at this point. I don't think they're, they give a shit, honestly.
Ben:Okay.
Gene:So, Yeah, they'll probably keep doing it and they'll probably have to keep being lawsuits, but at least the lawsuits are a lot more likely to go the right way now.
Ben:We'll see.
Gene:All right, are we done finally now after all the extra talking that we just did that we weren't going to? All right, sounds good. I will catch you next week.
Ben:you, Gene. Gene.