Just Two Good Old Boys
We never mean any harm!
Just Two Good Old Boys
077 Just Two Good Old Boys
President Biden has just dropped a political bombshell—he's not seeking re-election. What does this mean for the Democratic Party and the 2024 election? We're not holding back as we dive into the potential candidates who might step up: Gavin Newsom, Hillary Clinton, and Gretchen Whitmer. Is the party preparing a serious contender or setting up a futile battle against Trump? We speculate on the strategic moves behind the scenes and the possible far-reaching implications of this unexpected announcement.
Switching gears, we scrutinize the glaring vulnerabilities in cloud security, spotlighting CrowdStrike and its competitors. With nearly a billion computers affected by a recent global incident, we lay out the risks of relying on a single vendor and the catastrophic consequences of antivirus failures in critical sectors like power plants and manufacturing. This isn't just about software—it's about safeguarding our infrastructure from potential disasters.
From the resilience of CrowdStrike's stock to the shifting policies on YouTube and the intelligence of animals, we cover a wide array of compelling topics. Think we're done? Not even close. We tackle the delicate balance between freedom of speech and cancel culture, exploring how personal rights and societal reactions intertwine in today's volatile environment. Whether it's analyzing electoral strategies for 2024 or debating the consequences of public statements, this episode promises a riveting discussion that keeps you on the edge of your seat. Don't miss out!
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Howdy Ben, how are you today, gene? I am doing well, I'm doing alright.
Speaker 2:Well, you sound well, well, thank you. Yeah, I don't know if it's you or the Motu, but sounds good.
Speaker 1:A little bit of both. A little bit of both Like I actually don't do any audio processing really at all on the Motu, A little bit of a high filter and noise gate and that's about it so well you know, what else do you need?
Speaker 2:uh, well, if you're darren a lot of well, yes, if you're darren and your voice is horrible, then you need to add a whole kinds of magic.
Speaker 1:That's true I don't know if his voice is horrible or he just doesn't like it.
Speaker 2:Have you heard his voice unprocessed yes, okay yeah so first things first, ben, because it's just popped out um, you sent me because you noticed before I did that biden, just uh or no, he didn't resign, he dropped out of the race, right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, he sent a letter here on the 21st of July to my fellow Americans and is no longer seeking the Democratic nomination for president. He's dropping out of the race and to focus on being president.
Speaker 2:Okay, I'm skimming the letter. I don't even see where he says that Down at the bottom. Okay, because he talks all about his great successes and stuff.
Speaker 1:For now, let me express my deepest gratitude, Yep.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and while it's been my intent to seek re-election, I believe it is in the best interest of my party yeah, clearly and the country not really To stand down and to focus solely on fulfilling my duty as president for the remainder of the term. Okay, so they got him to resign, which?
Speaker 4:I mean, we talked about it. Well, to not seek re-election.
Speaker 2:We kind of saw this coming Right right To not seek re-election. We kind of saw this coming Right right To not seek re-election. We kind of did see this coming.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but the problem is he has. The problem is he has the delegates Right. The problem is the fundraising. So it's going to be very interesting to see how they do this.
Speaker 2:I think you'd mention, or somebody had mentioned, that you know that his campaign has tremendous amount of money in fundraising and that anybody else running is screwed. However, I just this morning saw a post and retweeted that 70 million of Biden campaign funds has been recalled by donors. That was before this came out, even just as of this morning. So apparently donors can recall their money. I don't know how that works, but 70 million is a pretty good size number and that clearly is going to go to and that may be of what pushed him over the edge.
Speaker 2:I think those people just had advanced knowledge of what's going to happen, and this was all just part of the deal yeah, that are again it.
Speaker 1:It depends on how you donate. So if you donate as a promissory note of you know, or a letter of intent, let's say yeah, um, I will donate. I I have donated this and you've pledged don't invite bucks. Three hundred thousand dollars or something right, but over the next x amount of time yeah that can be like okay, I'm not doing that anymore, but once that money is in the campaign, right now it's in the campaign account.
Speaker 2:There is, I believe, a way to transfer from one campaign to another, like legally legitimately as well.
Speaker 1:Um, well, that depends on if kamala decides to stay in because they are announced running mates or not right and that goes to also dnc rules and everything I think they'll buy her out.
Speaker 2:It's, it's easy enough.
Speaker 2:Well, my point is, if she wants to screw everybody over and stay in the campaign, she can get that money well, there's more 20 year olds out there, that I'm just saying I don't know what you mean, but I think if they were going to take out trump, they would happily take out kamala as well, if she doesn't follow what their direction is yeah well indeed, and I think she knows it, and I think she'll have a reasonable buyout price, maybe 10 million or something, and she'll walk away yeah, 10 million, and put me on the Supreme Court. Yeah, there you go, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1:And I think, at this stage, though, I don't see Biden fulfilling his term, do you?
Speaker 2:I mean what? The next three, four months, five months, five months, six months, whatever it is? Till january yeah yeah, I sure, why not? He doesn't have to do anything.
Speaker 1:Obama's running everything anyway okay, so who do you think the democrats put up? Who is the sacrificial lamb?
Speaker 2:so that's going to be interesting, because before the shooting of trump I would have said Newsom is the most likely candidate.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but whoever they put up is a sacrificial.
Speaker 2:I'm not sure Newsom wants to go up against Trump, given where Trump is right now. So you're right, I think it is going to be a sacrificial candidate. I don't know who they're going to get to put in, maybe. I mean, hillary probably doesn't want to be a sacrificial candidate either. But I've also heard rumblings that in fact alex jones I think two days ago was saying hillary will be the nominee. But you know you can't trust anything. Jones says, he's just full of fire yeah, but he's right a lot I know that's the.
Speaker 2:That's the joke I'm making here. It's like like friendship.
Speaker 1:That's his call on who the vp candidate was gonna be was right, yep, yep, yeah, it's.
Speaker 2:Uh, that's a good question. I don't know, man, uh I can see gretchen whitmer really yes, okay.
Speaker 1:so here's the thing If, if the Democrats think they're going to win, it will be someone like Hillary or Newsom. Yeah. If the Democrats think it's going, they're going to lose, gretchen Whitmer would be. That makes sense because she's never going to win.
Speaker 2:It wouldn't be bad for her anyway, Right, Because she could get a sense you know this by losing the ticket for her party.
Speaker 1:Correct. So, like a Gretchen Whitmer of what the is. New Mexico's governor. New Mexico's governor, who's a Democrat, who's been very pro-ground control and so on. She would be a good one. I'm blanking on her name right now be a good one. I'm trying I'm blanking on her name right now, but there are a few governors out there that want the national recognition right are never really going to be a yeah, that's a good point.
Speaker 2:So that's where. So who their pick is is going to tell us what they think the odds of winning are, because if it is hillary or newsom, those are in it to win. They're not in it just to screw around, correct?
Speaker 1:so but that doesn't mean they can't still lose. It just means that they think they have a legitimate shot and honestly I gotta say if you, if, if I'm gonna but if I'm newsome, I'm telling you fuck off, I'll wait four years. Right, hillary does not that option.
Speaker 2:She doesn't have that option. Yeah, she's done, but I think if I was to put on my Democrat strategist hat, I think that would be actually a brilliant move is to say look guys, this is basically a done deal. If we push too hard, we will not be able to even keep our media buddies from saying that there's election interference going on. So why don't we just do zero election interference this time around?
Speaker 1:Let it be a landslide.
Speaker 2:And say there was never any. You guys are crazy. We never did it with Biden and Trump. We never did it the next election with Trump. So you know you have nothing to point at. So it was kind of like, instead of trying to do it every year and then have increasingly more and more skeptical people. Yeah, just it was a one time deal. We got it, we got in, we got Barack's third term and that's it. And you know, maybe we'll do it again 10, 15, 20 years.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and if there is no election interference at this point, like no ballot harvesting everything else.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's going to look like it did for Reagan. It'll be a totally red map.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the only state that won't be red will be California. Like seriously, yeah, yeah, so Sacrificial lamb.
Speaker 2:California, like seriously, yeah, yeah, so and DC, dc, I don't know, I don't know.
Speaker 1:I don't know. I don't know it's. I think it's the case because the okay, well, regardless that work in DC, live in Virginia yeah, yeah, the the point is it will be a huge it'll be a landslide it'll be the thing that q predicted last time around, but didn't happen yes a red wave I, I mean that photo of trump. Yeah it like that will be in every fucking political ad from now to the end.
Speaker 2:It looks great on t-shirts. Looks great as a somebody made a the memes of it everything.
Speaker 1:It's really good well, and you know that, did you listen to part two of that secret service interview you sent me?
Speaker 2:uh, part two?
Speaker 1:no, yeah, they released a part two uh-uh, okay, yeah, this is secret service, former secret service sniper talking about this. He flat out says trump should not have been allowed to take that photo, like his secret service team shouldn't have let him do that and he's like, but part of it is, since you have these women and everything, he's physically just telling him no, and doing it, yeah, yeah, exactly which says a lot about trump man.
Speaker 1:I'm sorry, uh, if someone shot me in the ear and it came that close to ending my life. I'm a probably pissing and or shitting myself and b I don't know that I'm gonna have the testicular fortitude to expose myself yet again and do yes, he.
Speaker 2:He literally is acting in real life the way that we read about alexander and the great heroes of early history acting in battle george washington yeah yeah, yeah, exactly washington, uh, with all the alleged bullet holes.
Speaker 1:Uh, it's same kind of deal well, all I can say is anyone who doubted trump as a brave human being, he the dude I'm sorry he had.
Speaker 2:He has proven himself yeah, I mean, I'm only the, but the only more badass thing you could possibly do is to pull out a gun and shoot back yeah I mean that would be a jaw-dropping moment if uh trump actually shoots the assailant yeah, well, but regardless yeah yeah, all right, well, anyway, biden's out yeah, biden's out what else we got so I gotta correct the record man what's that?
Speaker 1:I mean you're going on other shows and saying shit, that's just wrong. But what? What about me about?
Speaker 2:you? What did I say about you?
Speaker 1:well, first of all, I didn't buy a macbook. I got issued a macbook for.
Speaker 2:I didn't say you bought a MacBook. No, no, no.
Speaker 1:But you alluded and allowed Darren to say oh yeah. Uh-huh. Yeah, and then on the MyPillow. I'm actually recently new to the pillows.
Speaker 2:But you did buy one, right? Yeah, I've got two of them, the sheets are great.
Speaker 1:The sheets and stuff like that I've been using for a long time.
Speaker 2:So what's wrong here? I don't see anything that I've said. That's incorrect.
Speaker 1:Uh-huh and fucking, but sure, uh-huh, uh-huh.
Speaker 2:Well, some people are precise about their words on purpose and some aren't.
Speaker 1:I guess yes what the out of context doesn't know. What they are led to believe is something else, but anyway, um I did not have sexual relations with that person yeah, with that woman, of course not. Yeah depends on what your definition of is. Mm-hmm yeah. So speaking of lack of precision, do you want to start with CrowdStrike.
Speaker 2:Sure man.
Speaker 1:So I have been really railing against CrowdStrike and their competitors for a long time, especially in my space, in the OT space, because you still have a MySpace page MySpace as in the space in which I work, not the website Ah okay, you know there are just times you are very. It's a good thing we don't do this in person.
Speaker 4:gene you might get smacked I knew you were gonna go there.
Speaker 2:Violence is never the answer, ben. Oh bullshit anyway.
Speaker 1:Uh, anyway, the the this risk has been out there for a long time. It's something that I've been railing against for well over a decade at this point that the dependence upon one vendor or the dependence upon the cloud and not having the ability to at least smoke test and control your own fate as far as patching, is a really bad idea. Uh, you know, even corporately, when you're running your own intune servers, when you're running hell, we can go back to wsus. You know microsoft has given corporations control over how they roll out their stuff and what they're doing for a very long period of time.
Speaker 1:I think Microsoft's tempted to go away from a lot of that is what I'm seeing. But, quite frankly, I don't have to deal with sysadmin stuff very much anymore. But this is exactly why you don't want that. This is why you want locally deployed patches. This is why you want locally deployed patches. This is why you want. You know, had had crowdstrike, just smoke tested this with 20 of their audience, right, you wouldn't have a billion computers worldwide affected, and that's what we're at is almost a billion computers worldwide.
Speaker 2:I just think it's karma.
Speaker 1:For the Ukraine stuff, Mm-hmm. Well, you know that's. The other thing is this is a foreign-controlled company that the vast majority of the world has allowed to control a huge portion of their commerce. Mm-hmm.
Speaker 1:Not exactly a bright idea. Nope, anyway, the and you know a lot of people would sit there and tell me in these arguments that I've had for a very long period of time, you know, oh, you just don't understand. You're a troglodyte and you know this is the way of the future. And well, you know I don't like the way of the future. Eh, well, you know I don't like the way of the future.
Speaker 1:I remember having a conversation with a CESA when I was at an energy company and they wanted to put one of CrowdStrike's competitors on HMIs and engineering workstations. You know, down at the power plant level, engineering workstations, you know, down at the power plant level. And I torpedoed it because luckily I could use sip at the time to be able to say, hey, well, there's regulations to say we can't. But here's also why it's a really bad technical idea, you know. But here's the thing I know of manufacturing facilities that were running crowd strike on our h thing. I know of manufacturing facilities that were running CrowdStrike on their HMIs. I know of not really Petrochem or US Power, but line manufacturing, some water plants, stuff like that, that were running CrowdStrike. Well, what happens when that operator looks over and all the HMIs are blue screened, they're hitting the emergency stop button and the plant is shutting down until they can figure out what's going on and get that restored. Right.
Speaker 1:So you know.
Speaker 2:That's the thing is that you don't need to compromise the systems if you can compromise the people.
Speaker 1:Well, it's not even a compromise of the people. They've lost visibility into the process. It becomes a safety issue right but that.
Speaker 2:But my point is that if you can make people think that there's been some kind of catastrophic event, they will follow through on the procedures of what they're trained to do in that situation, even if there is no such event. It's sort of like if you can convince a country that there's a nuclear strike against it, it is highly likely that it will launch a counter-strike.
Speaker 1:Yeah, except for the cases where we thought there was one coming in and didn't well, we're not pakistan, india, are we? Oh no, I know that that's a very different scenario so it's.
Speaker 2:That's the thing I mean in in a very broad sense. You could utilize this for social engineering.
Speaker 1:At the very least. Sure, I mean. But you could also sit there and say you know, hey, antivirus, which, by the way, if you understand how an antivirus system has to work, you have to have deep ties into the kernel. You know pre-modern Windows architecture. You had to essentially ties into the kernel. You know pre-modern windows architecture. You had to essentially reverse engineer the kernel and put in a lot of hooks and everything else just to have a functional antivirus well that's changed a little bit because microsoft has essentially allowed uh av manufacturers connections into the uh kernel that they're very privileged.
Speaker 1:But the problem is you have very privileged access.
Speaker 1:Um, you know, in a window system you essentially have system level access, which means everything and that's what a lot of people need to understand about a lot of different pieces of software the privilege level that they're running at. I don't care what your privacy settings are. This is what they fundamentally have access to and I think a lot of people don't necessarily understand that Yep Problem. But anyway, it looks like most of the Tier 1, tier 2 systems are restored. We've still got some at my company as of this morning. They're still working on Tier 3, and they haven't really gotten to the end-user computing yet. Wow yeah.
Speaker 2:So you guys are a big customer.
Speaker 1:Well, big customer and very widely deployed and used but, you know, that's most of the world actually.
Speaker 1:You know, I, in previous jobs I've worked with companies that have partnered with crowd strike. I've worked with crowdrike pretty closely over the last several years. All I can say is this is not a trivial, one-off mistake. This is a fundamental architectural problem. And you can sit there and you can say, oh, we can mitigate with this, we can mitigate with that, but you can't. There and you can say, oh, we can mitigate with this, we can mitigate with that, but you can't really even mitigate. You're really ameliorating, because the fact of the matter is someone has the ability to deploy software to someone else's computer across the globe. Those are the permissions that you're working with. Do, yeah, I think?
Speaker 2:that's just. It's training convenience for stupidity, because what you're, like you said, allowing it's essentially a global deployment of kernel-level software from the cloud.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and we do this for our cell phones quite a bit because we're lazy and everything else like well, I don't mind it being on an individual level.
Speaker 2:If somebody wants to hit a button that says, do you want to install software right now? Odds are not. Every other computer is going to hit that button at exactly the same time. So you at least have a little bit of a. So you at least have a little bit of a shifting window and you have early adopters that can be the guinea pigs, but when?
Speaker 1:it's done, the ability to roll back before blue screens and takes it down, and then you have to have permission to be able to boot into safe mode, and so on.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah exactly how many people don't have permission to boot into safe mode, right? Most?
Speaker 1:Yeah, in the large corporate environment.
Speaker 1:And you know it's not great. It's a less than ideal situation for recovery on this right now, and the real crappy setup, if you will, is that a lot of the backup systems were using the same thing. So one way we can ameliorate this is to use different software for different functions or overlapping functions and try and spread it out. But the problem is that becomes expensive. So you know, I don't know man, I think critical anything that is mission critical to you, like I cannot do my job, as you know. Let's take United, for example. We cannot fly planes if this system is down. Well, that system should probably get as much love and care as is possible, and that probably means it being hosted on-prem and run by a very specialized team that provide world-class service on keeping it up Right, like seriously.
Speaker 2:Well, as long as more than 50% of them are a minority, then you're sure. Okay, whatever, don't care.
Speaker 1:But my entire point is cloud systems or systems that are managed like this, that have the ability to impact your business outside of your control. I I don't know a cc, a ceo or cio who, if you really talk to them in those terms you are giving your business to the control of others want to accept that right.
Speaker 2:But the problem is, people don't put it in those terms, right oh, it's cheaper it's this, it's that transferring risk within infosec is a very common uh solution yes, I understand that, but you're not transferring a risk. You understand that right, because at the end of the day, you know the transference of risk.
Speaker 1:Okay, cool, getting a contract yeah, sit there, circle, jerk all you want, but as soon as you go to your cio and say, well, why did this happen to us? Why did we go down this road? Well, here's the piece of paper.
Speaker 1:Yeah, good luck no, I don't know, I I, I think we are. Look there, there is I I. I like interoperability, I like things working together. I think that there is a level of interconnectivity and interdependence that is good. I think we are well beyond that at this point and we are into the danger territory, where you know, one little break in anything here or there and we're done.
Speaker 2:Well, and I certainly don't think mission critical devices need to be updated on the same freaking schedule, as you know, devices that have zero mission criticality.
Speaker 1:Well, one would argue that, oh, they should actually be updated. More um here? No, absolutely not. Hold on, dude, I agree with you. I'm just telling you the arguments I have heard over the years, and you know well if the antivirus isn't getting updated, then it's not useful. Well, first of all, it is useful. Second of all, why are you, why is your architecture or what are your system, so dependent upon this one piece of software being up to date instantly?
Speaker 1:it's not, and if it is, then you're a shitty architect and you've designed a very bad system here right yeah, this is the defense in depth architecture point in its entirety right here right if you're doing what you're supposed to be doing yeah, that shouldn't matter, even on a very small scale, on a personal scale, I don't update all my apple devices at the same freaking time.
Speaker 2:I'll do an ipad that I hardly ever use first, then I'll do my iphone, then I'll do the downstairs ipad, the bedroom ipad, the kitchen ipad. You know I don't just do them all automatically. Nothing is set to auto update. Everything is set on manual update. It'll it can remind me I'm all for that.
Speaker 2:I don't want shit just updating on a schedule overnight by itself without me pushing a button and how many times have you been traveling when you get a security pop-up that says hey, would you like to update? Oh fuck, no, you never do any updates when you travel.
Speaker 1:Well, and that's the thing is, a lot of people got stuck, man, you know, and the airlines down, they've got their. They have to sign in to concur, for example, on their corporate machine to be able to rebook and guess what you can't and I I've got a. I think I mentioned this on uh and can I just point out one thing real quick. What's that Any corporation that was running CrowdStrike on its Active Directory servers totally, totally fucked. Yep, Because that's literally your entire corporate authentication schema.
Speaker 4:For all devices. You might have some SAML caching or something like that here or there, but reality yeah.
Speaker 1:You know this is a. I can't imagine CrowdStrike's stock is going to actually rebound.
Speaker 2:I was shocked that it only went down 12%. I was like Jesus. They did that and that's the small of a hit they take.
Speaker 1:Well, they are the biggest cybersecurity company in the world right now.
Speaker 2:That is insane man, that is insane.
Speaker 1:Yeah, don't get me started.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, exactly that's my thought on that as well. I really can't talk too much about it, but I think it does point out a weakness. So I guess the silver lining is hopefully some companies will actually change processes as a result.
Speaker 1:I hope Well and hopefully, you know CrowdStrike does what they need to do and actually you know segment out the admin consoles for like geographic areas and then put in policies so that when you're applying an update it can only go out to X percentage. You know again, but as far as I'm concerned CrowdStrike just got the biggest target on their head ever.
Speaker 2:In more ways than one.
Speaker 1:Yeah well I think that they have proven their ability to impact the globe. Mm-hmm.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 4:Oh, by the way, did I mention that this it's going to be a vector that's utilized more, moving forward.
Speaker 1:Yeah, did I not mention that this was also Ukrainian-owned and an active war zone, and you know who knows? If we don't want to pay Zelensky his extortion fee, that he won't, you know, shut us down again.
Speaker 2:Ukraine-owned and headquartered in Austin.
Speaker 3:Eh, won't you know? Shut us down again, ukraine owned and headquartered in austin.
Speaker 1:They're not the only ones here, man yeah, I know, I understand, but I mean as far as ukrainian companies but what I would say is I, you know, I I have, uh, I have friends that work for uh, a company that's headquartered, uh, that's headquartered in new york but was founded in israel, and nobody's fooled by it like okay, yeah, the official headquarters can be in new york, cool, it doesn't really matter. Yep, yeah, did you? Uh, so to anything else on the no, no, you can ramp it up on that. Did you watch the latest herrera video I sent you?
Speaker 2:when did you? Send uh when yesterday, when it came out uh, oh, oh, brandon, um, I did not yet no oh, you got to go watch it he did a recreation of the assassination attempt nice um went to deal with plaza to do it or no.
Speaker 1:No, this is like actually he me. You know he does these videos where he recreates the ballistics of what happened and he got the earshot. He did get the earshot. Okay, he got the earshot.
Speaker 2:Wow, and it's pretty amazing to see what happens to the ballistic gel. So all the conspiracy theories are right, then this is all fake. No, it was staged, wasn't it? No, no, it was staged, wasn't it? No, that wasn't his conclusion no, okay I.
Speaker 1:I don't think the shot on trump was staged. I think that that was.
Speaker 2:They were actually trying to kill him doing an ear shot of a moving target.
Speaker 1:I I know this was a stationary target, but he got it on slow-mo what happens to the ear when it gets hit like that.
Speaker 2:Oh, okay. Well, I'm sure Grand Thumb's going to do a similar thing, because he loves doing gelatin as well.
Speaker 1:The point is, though, dude, there is just no way, the more you, and Brandon shows it, because he was using the kid, was using iron sights, and uh at 130 yards he showed what that looks like iron sights.
Speaker 2:They literally talked about him having a scope I think he was using a.
Speaker 1:Um wasn't a scope, it was a red dot on there. So, okay, one x, it was not magnified.
Speaker 2:well, j Jesus had a hundred yards. What the hell, man? You don't really need that Well 130.
Speaker 1:And uh, actually I think a red dot would be worse, because your red dot is at best, let's say, a two in my way dot. You know you're not going to be super accurate with that dot. You just cover the whole head exactly but anyway the the herrera video is worth watching um they're always worth watching. Did you pay attention to what hickok and a lot of others have come out and said, though, about uh monetization and strikes?
Speaker 2:Yeah, basically and well, you got my comment on that, which is like, come on, it's about time you freaking move to Rumble. Yeah, youtube is continuing down its path of anti-gun policies, which is so ironic given that YouTube's biggest early YouTuber was FPS Russia. I mean, like you could argue that that made commercial success on YouTube.
Speaker 1:You won't get any argument from it. It was a different.
Speaker 2:It was a different time as a a more uh, innocent, pro-gun time a decade ago than it is today, that's for sure and you know, youtube back then was uh perfectly able to sell advertising to gun related content channels. Because what demographic is that? Oh, let's see, it's the 18 to 35 males.
Speaker 2:Hmm do they spend money well now I think fps russia was skewed younger. But yeah, I mean, does that group spend money at all? A little bit is there. Are there products that you can target to that group that have nothing to do with guns? Uh, yes but how about cars would be better. There's tons of products that you could target electronics, computers, video games. It's insane. They're pretending that nobody wants to buy ads on GunTube, which is crazy.
Speaker 1:Well, it's the social, it's just the socialism. It is the socialism when I say socialism. I do not mean the economic system, I mean the act of socializing, and I'm using the wrong word here.
Speaker 2:It's women. Let's just be honest about it. Well, if women didn't get a vote.
Speaker 1:This wouldn't be an issue you know I have come to believe very interesting things in the last few years but. I I am very convinced that the downfall of this world is because of women and weak men.
Speaker 4:Yep like if he would have just slapped, even said no we wouldn't be here uh-huh, yeah, exactly I.
Speaker 2:Is there a more historically old lesson than don't trust a woman?
Speaker 1:or don't let a woman sway you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, it's kind of same thing, but yeah unfortunately, I am getting more jaded in that realm. That's what happens with time, and it doesn't matter if you're married or not, that's just the. The reality of time, uh, passing and observing interactions, both your own and your friends, is you start realizing that uh and I don't want to sound like a, you know, no homo, I'm not advocating that we just get rid of women and everyone's a gay dude.
Speaker 2:But I will say, if you look at the stress caused in the world, jesus christ man, there's one place it all comes from uh, yet also the world's stress release well, the release happens right, that's uh.
Speaker 2:It's uh. There's a. There's a video that one of the animal youtubers I watch put up and she's this like 25 year old chick um that has a animal rescue thing like they all do. But she's did a video totally off topic about her grandpa and visiting and killing her grandpa. And uh, her grandpa's like the basest dude, like um, grandpa, if you were stranded on a desert island, uh, what three things would you want to bring with you, grandpa? Without taking any time whatsoever to think about this? A blonde, a redhead and a brunette. And uh. Then she said uh, you know, grandpa's got a, a pet cat, apparently. And he, he likes the pet cat more because he says, unlike, uh, his daughter and his granddaughter, uh, the cat's not a liberal it's like dude, but it it's one of those things that uh is funny because it's true.
Speaker 2:Uh, I've never met a liberal cat. They're all very much libertarians um, I don't know have you met a socialist cat?
Speaker 1:never man sure my cat wants me to feed it all the time.
Speaker 2:That's not socialism that's just good persuasive nature, man that's not socialism cats are not pack animals. The only social, the only socialistaning cats out there are, frankly, lions.
Speaker 1:Okay All the other cats are vastly independent.
Speaker 2:Okay, I think they're animals and you don't anthropomorphize too much. But you don't think animals can be communistic or anti-communistic.
Speaker 1:No, I don't think they have the cognition for that.
Speaker 2:Well, they may not call it that, but their actions can certainly be seen as being more similar.
Speaker 1:Yes, and that is, the human anthropomorphizing, not the animal making a conscious decision. Animals aren't that smart People overestimate, how intelligent animals are?
Speaker 2:Oh, I don't know when my snake learned to open doors. I was pretty impressed.
Speaker 1:Yeah cool, it's a nice trick. It's not self-aware.
Speaker 2:How do you know if it's not self-aware?
Speaker 1:Oh my God, I've had this. This is the second time this week I've had this conversation.
Speaker 2:Well, that should tell you something.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yes, this conversation, well, that should tell you something. Yeah, yes, uh, yeah, it does trust me, it does we don't know what's self-aware yes, we do how? Because if you display the ability to recognize yourself and awareness of your actions and be, able to say I did that let me and I'm going to be in trouble for it.
Speaker 2:Let me cover it up oh my god, cats are totally that. No, absolutely no. There's been tests. Cats are one of the few animals that recognize themselves in the mirror cats.
Speaker 1:Well, can or don't care that's some cats.
Speaker 2:That's certainly not all cats they certainly don't display the awareness of even a 18 month old right 18 year old kid will grab its face, will know that it's in 12 year olds that have less cognitive ability than cats, okay, well, have you gone to the mall lately?
Speaker 2:okay, but that I'm talking actual abilities here and actual in like levels of intelligence here, not just oh my god, look at this dumb generation that's following us uh-huh hey yes, on some levels I agree, but anyway just saying yeah I don't even own a cat, or at least I let me rephrase it I haven't allowed a cat to trick me into buying it so I can feed it for the rest of its life. But, um, but I still think cats are one of the more intelligent animals out there.
Speaker 1:Yeah well, I have a cat and I have a dog. My cat's getting pretty old. Yeah. Somewhere between 14 and 16. It's getting there.
Speaker 2:I'm trying to remember how long my cat lived. I think he was about 16 when he died. I had a big orange Maine Coon. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. It was a. Big cat. He was a cat. They used to bring home rabbits. He was an outdoor cat. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Do you want to do more stuff on the Trump assassination or no?
Speaker 2:Have you got more stuff?
Speaker 1:Will, did you hear about the drone stuff?
Speaker 2:Well, I heard some drone stuff. I mean, the more interesting thing to me is the water tower theory, but uh sure, let's talk about drone stuff okay, I I don't see anything to support the water tower theory.
Speaker 1:Well, there's a video that shows a person it's walking around very blurry, you can't tell shit and you just need to zoom in the hands yes, you go ahead and zoom in the hands to the black dot blur that you're gonna get uh, well, the report is that, uh, apparently hours beforehand the shooter apparently flew a drone yeah, a 20 year old kid with no training or friends or whatever, he can fly the drone. And but here's the interesting point, and some people have said oh well, the area should have been blacked out. Okay, well, maybe it didn't update like there's.
Speaker 2:There's lots of stuff that can happen there but the bigger question is why wasn't anybody else flying a drone for surveillance purposes?
Speaker 1:or why wasn't the the people on the ground going huh there's a drone over us. There's not supposed to be a drone over us there was.
Speaker 2:There was multiple drones. When I went down to the border with your parents, the border is different though.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but I'm I'm talking about over the remember. When we went to the trump rally, there were no, fucking no.
Speaker 2:There's definitely no drones. There was an airplane circling them.
Speaker 1:Yeah, his, that's true, the guy knows how to make an entrance. Trump's pilot. How does he still have his license? Well, because he's sitting there with trump telling him where to go and what to do yeah, but I mean he's violating rules all the time because he will do some crazy stuff, like he pushes that aircraft to its flight envelope. Oh yeah, totally, very clearly, like some of the banking turns that I've seen him do in that aircraft?
Speaker 2:well, it's trump force one. What do you want?
Speaker 1:right, but dude you. Commercial airliners don't maneuver. Well, I'm not to say that they can't, but they just don't you know right, yeah, I mean, what was it uh, you know right, yeah, I mean, what was it uh, the? Which boeing was it uh, the famous?
Speaker 2:guy in the 60s did the barrel roll with. I think there's somebody that did a barrel roll with the 747 even uh, no, this was predecessor to 747 yeah, so probably uh but it was one of boeing's very famous test pilots.
Speaker 1:They were at the air show and they told him to go sell some airplanes and so he decided to do a barrel roll because he knew he could do it and then did. And they're like what the hell? Were you thinking I just sold some airplanes? What do you want?
Speaker 2:yeah, like it's a pretty famous thing, so it's kind of neat yeah, the those planes well used to be, back when boeing was actually an engineering company.
Speaker 1:Uh, they definitely overbuilt their planes not so much these days well, I mean now, these days, you know, you've got, instead of the engineers that are really passionate about things and really capable, you, you've got to. You know, allow the uh, the woman to sit there, and you know put her design ideas.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly, but boeing was one of the companies by woman.
Speaker 1:I mean the you know half retarded guy that puts on a dress and calls himself a woman right, you don't want to offend anybody no, I don't. I want to be very clear about who I'm talking that there's a um.
Speaker 2:Back in the day, boeing was one of the companies that actually had a commitment to 10 percent uh r&d budget yeah there were a number of companies that stuck to that as a but I don't know of any companies today that put anywhere near 10 into r&d. Everybody's policy is basically let the startups do that shit and we'll just buy them, and that's that's our r&d is buying other startups yeah, and mean it used to be that companies would have this idea of uh, if it wasn't made here, it's crap.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and that's not a good thing either.
Speaker 1:No, but then Microsoft went on their buying spree and now it's eh, we don't have to make anything here.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, unfortunately, I think that's kind of taken over and I really think Microsoft was the company that changed that corporate culture a lot.
Speaker 2:Well, they weren't the only ones that really made that shift. I think Silicon Valley in general changed the landscape for all companies, even companies that weren't tech companies, because they were so financially successful that everybody started pushing companies that they owned into doing likewise. Yes, um, that's kind of my is my thing. What I just said when I said microsoft broke that trend. Well, yeah, buying spree the way they did in the night.
Speaker 1:I don't disagree. I just said, when I said microsoft broke that trend, well yeah, buying spree the way they did in the 90s. I don't disagree.
Speaker 2:I just don't think it was just microsoft. I think that there's a lot of the silicon valley companies were doing that at the same time as microsoft's.
Speaker 1:My point but yeah it was led by tech companies, for sure it was not coming out of any other sector well, before we get too much further into things, did you see the note that, uh, I got from sir snide. I said, I said uh did you?
Speaker 2:I did not know what to say uh, really nice note uh from him.
Speaker 1:We've been talking back and forth a little bit but uh, apparently I uh he's a fair, fairly uh similar guy and that he's been in the ot critical oh, I did see that that's right.
Speaker 2:Okay, now I remember.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, but apparently I impressed him and got him uh on board with some of the stuff around the freeze and being accurate around it. So, anyway, good guy to touch base with and talk to, good, good. And then, uh, we, we had the, you got some paypal stuff I did uh-huh, what did I get you?
Speaker 2:uh, you got some donations in paper. Let me look. I probably should log into that paypal probably yeah, um, all right, I'll log in and talk about that. What else going on?
Speaker 1:oh man, oh, I mean, it's I. I think it's been a pretty busy week with what we've covered, but let's see Sorry, I was looking at the note. You can't just leave me hanging here, gene.
Speaker 2:Well, I don't know. I'm trying to log into PayPal because I hadn't realized we got anything.
Speaker 1:Well, you, Huh, Our buddy Tom is the one who sent it and he noticed or noted it on Twitter that hey, he sent you some, so I just wanted to make sure we said thank you, tom, that's all.
Speaker 2:Okay, cool Um Tom's key. Mm, mm, mm, mm, mm see all transactions I mean, you don't have to do this live well, that's true, but yes, I guess, thanks down, we'll take a look. Honestly, uh, we get so little coming into paypal, uh, that I don't log in a whole lot right, but this is you should have got.
Speaker 1:Oh, this was such a fail.
Speaker 2:Anyway, I don't know it's just reality, um it's, uh, I'm, I'm being it's. Look, if more people sense shit, I would see stuff more.
Speaker 1:I don't know, man, I just do notifications on things, so if I get something in a account that normally doesn't get anything, I'd actually pay more to issue. Do it?
Speaker 2:yeah, well, if there was any mechanism in place to tell me there's something that came in and I would.
Speaker 1:It's called email alerts. You know that right does paypal that?
Speaker 2:yes, all right. Well, anyway, thanks, time. Well, I'll probably set up a system to better track that stuff in the future. There's been a lot of um, a lot of interactions, I would say, on x, um, partly as a result of the trump thing, but just in general, I think I'm I'm having more people like, actually, you know, point me towards things on X, which is great because, uh, not everybody can afford to donate financially. But I do certainly look at and appreciate anything that people will uh, do an at Sir Gene TX on Uh, and sometimes you, you find some nice little nuggets of info that I don't know, that I would have seen otherwise.
Speaker 1:Well, I think the Trump thing has definitely sped up, I think, a few people's adoption of it. I know that there are people who I had previously pointed to stuff that were kind of like eh, whatever on, uh, you know on.
Speaker 1:X, they, they didn't really want to set up an account and everything else to. People are, have accounts set up and are posting and I, I, I think there's a pretty good change in the volume of posts, the volume of interaction. Like, I think this is a huge, huge event that has kind of resubmitted, cemented twitter as back, because x as back. You know, when the shooting first happened, uh, there were some pretty graphic photos of people, um, that wouldn't have been allowed on twitter previously and aren't allowed on other platforms. Oh yeah, that were. You know, some people don't want to see. Okay, well, you know, like elon said, you can block stuff out using keywords pretty easy for yourself go do that, um, I find it useful in kind of my own desire for knowledge and to understand what's going on.
Speaker 1:Much less us doing this show that you know. Uh, for instance, if you saw the photos of the alleged shooter and you see the recreation video that brandon herrera did with a 300 wind mag, which is the least powerful caliber that the secret service would have been using, uh in their counter sniper fire, uh, it looks like they were doing four uh, 458s, uh on on what they had. But who knows?
Speaker 2:so let's assume I was doing 308s.
Speaker 1:I figured they were just saying 308s, no, no, no, they at the minimum had a 301 mag. So anyway, and if you look at what happens to the ballistic dummy's skull with a headshot and you look at the photos, it should raise questions, because at the very least probably not a headshot.
Speaker 1:I thought that's what they got. It pokes holes in the story and things you should know. And had you not seen that photo of this guy who was supposedly a shooter that got a headshot from the Secret Service? And then you look at what happens when the Secret Service or anyone gets shot in the head stuff with this ballistic dummies reaction. It makes you question things. It's all I'm saying. It's a good thing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah it's. I don't know where they hit him, honestly. I mean, I saw some blood, but I couldn't tell where he was hit.
Speaker 1:Well, it had to be a body shot, but supposedly.
Speaker 2:I've now again. I don't know, but I heard that he was wearing body armor trump, or the shooter.
Speaker 1:Another shooter? Uh well, they'll probably try and go after body armor which you know.
Speaker 2:when somebody's wearing body armor and flying drones and then walking around with a range finder and a ladder and nobody says anything except for, of course, people attending the event, how is that not suspicious? It's almost like a ignore. This person, Somebody did a meme. It's almost like a ignore. This person Somebody did a meme, I think, or a video of inept agents. But you know, they kind of talked about all these things where somebody is asking their boss like, oh, and then we got a guy doing this. It's like, oh, yeah, I'm sure it's just one of our guys. You know, it was that kind of attitude, like somebody whose job is to actually provide protection just was assuming all these suspicious things are most likely just perfectly fine do you, do you really buy that?
Speaker 2:by what?
Speaker 1:is that? Is that occam's razor to you?
Speaker 2:that what that people just said. Oh, that's probably one of our guys yeah uh, I find that extremely suspicious because, uh, everybody that I've known that has worked in protection details are they're, they're highly they're trained to be by nature, and I can't imagine that nobody saw this person. The real question is why nobody did anything about it, and that's the only explanation I can that is Occam's Ranger for that in my mind, is that there was a reply of we know about it and don't do anything about it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, or you know we're letting this happen on purpose, or you know, hey, yeah, that's one of our guys hush.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the one of our guys is a likely scenario, because, I mean, honestly, this is why people put on uniforms to get past security. It's because somebody that has an air conditioning repairman uniform doesn't raise alarms in the same way as somebody wearing other clothes does right. Wearing other clothes does right, or a janitor or some somebody that looks like they're probably supposed to be there, yeah, like they probably belong. But I, I just don't understand what, like somebody walking around with a ladder at any event had better be wearing a big t-shirt that says or a t-shirt that says in big ladders, staff on it, right? So if you go to any kind of musical event or anything else, you see the guys walking around with staff t-shirts. It's not that hard to duplicate that shirt, right, that's, that's not a problem. Usually. I told you, I think, once how I uh accidentally walked in backstage to penn and teller, uh, and then during their show allegedly and completely accidentally, allegedly because I happened to be totally randomly dressed just like all of the A fed.
Speaker 2:No, not a fed. I was randomly dressed like all the backstage people working their show while I was at the show, which is a very likely scenario that could happen potentially. So you know my point being that if people don't see you as standing out, they won't react to you as something that shouldn't be there. So what could possibly make things, make people think that this guy looked like he was supposed to be there?
Speaker 2:well, he, he didn't no, no not unless he was, not unless there was supposed to be known to the secret service that there were undercover people there that were also part of the protection detail who were undercover, and then that he was undercover wouldn't be crawling on the roof. Well, maybe he was specially trained for sloped roofs, unlike the rest of them.
Speaker 1:Or maybe he was the distraction.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, this is the thing. As much as I hate to look at the water tower scenario, the, it would be very convenient to have this guy be the Patsy shooter and not the actual shooter. I'm not saying that's what happened, but I'm saying that the scenario for that would be a fairly easy one to have an actual shooter that's capable of of taking that type of shot but from a longer distance, and then have this guy be the designated dead guy and he could be dead either before he shot anything, or he could be dead after shooting and then hitting some other people, or, if you're really lucky, he could be dead after hitting the target as well. But I don't know that anybody would trust him to be the primary shooter. I mean, there's so many ways that he could have gotten caught well, did you listen to thursday's no agenda?
Speaker 2:no, not yet.
Speaker 1:I'm usually behind on those there was an interesting theory of you know the six-week cycle sort of thing, and maybe he was just supposed to show up with the bomb and the detonator, and that be that. And then he went a little overboard. And yeah, we know he's there, he's, he's, he's our six-week guy, that's, you know, gonna detonate, try and detonate the fake bomb, but it's not gonna work, don't worry. And then, oh shit, he actually brought a gun. Oh shit, he actually fired yeah there's that as well. Which?
Speaker 2:which and if makes more sense to me than the lack of current story that we have well, it doesn't make any sense to me, because if he was not supposed to have been the guy that brought the gun and fired, then how was he not, by not following instructions, not caught immediately? I don't know Bruce or Sloby, they're afraid of him. It's both a rifle and a bomb. I mean, usually you pick one or the other, otherwise you're not escaping. Yeah, you pick one or the other, otherwise you're not escaping.
Speaker 1:yeah, it's like you're just adding more things that can incriminate you and the goal yeah but I mean, if you're going to do something like this guy was, you're not planning on coming back, right, not?
Speaker 2:planning on coming back, then you're going to be much more likely to use a suicide bomb I, I don't think anyone goes into any of this.
Speaker 1:To me, if you're gonna the, the entire thing about a lone shooter that has made it always very hard to um stop is that if someone is willing to trade your life for theirs, it's pretty fucking hard to stop them. Um, you know, and suicide vest only works in fairly close proximity and you got to get it through the metal detectors and everything else and I don't think that's a very good, viable option. I don't think any of it's really a viable option. Let me phrase it differently uh, yeah yeah, it's, it's a.
Speaker 2:It's a. It's a question of um, like you said, occam's razor, like what is likely here, and and and your choices include and lean towards ineptitude by the secret service, or a stand down by the secret service, or an incredibly lucky person I mean's dead, so he's not that lucky but somebody that managed to not do a particularly great job in hiding, who is nonetheless not discovered. I mean, I don't know what other Like this is not some ex-Special Forces guy that has PTSD and decides to shoot a former president. This is a lot more akin to a fan of Jodie Foster's deciding to kill a president. Yeah, you know the reference there, right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Sir Hans, or not?
Speaker 2:The.
Speaker 1:Reagan, shoot the Reagan one, it wasn't Sir Hans, sir Hans, but I can't remember his name.
Speaker 2:But yeah, that was a white dude.
Speaker 1:Sir Hans. Sir Hans, the one who killed Oswald right.
Speaker 2:But he wasn't white, is my point.
Speaker 1:Right, but I'm just just. I can't remember john hinkley jr hinkley, that's right, yeah, yeah took me a second to remember the assassin's name.
Speaker 2:I'm sorry I don't remember his name. I mean now I you mentioned that I remember it. But yeah, I, I remember that he was crazy and trying to get a lesbian to notice and like him.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I just like that Reagan speech after the assassination attempt. It was a couple of years later and a balloon popped. Oh missed me yeah, missed me.
Speaker 2:That was a very good one.
Speaker 1:Didn't even blink, you know didn't even blake you know like there's a lot of things I don't like about reagan, but that man had some oh yeah, gumption um, there's, I think, a lot, and it's the kind of thing trump would say too.
Speaker 2:There is a lot of similarity in terms of style trump's speech yeah what'd you? Think, uh, I think it was long. Um, you know, it was more. I think it was also more serious than less less of his typical kind of light-hearted stuff. Um, I don't know, I mean, what was the whole thing with that thing? 2025 or whatever Because I've never even tracked that, like I have not heard of it until a few days ago. What thing 2025?.
Speaker 1:What do you mean?
Speaker 2:Project 2025 or something.
Speaker 1:Agenda 2025, yeah.
Speaker 2:Well, probably that, then I'd never heard of it. So you tell me.
Speaker 1:What about it? It's not a thing.
Speaker 2:Agenda 47 is Trump's actual plan, right, right, but there are people online now on that all pissed off at Trump for disarming them, because they're all part of the whole project 25, or whatever the hell it's called yeah, you should go read it. I've never heard of it, so do I need to?
Speaker 1:yeah, should I bother?
Speaker 2:you really should well why do you think that's the case?
Speaker 1:because that is the propaganda that is being used to bludgeon trump. That's why he distanced himself against uh, away from it right, but it's like it's propaganda.
Speaker 2:But what's it actually say?
Speaker 1:because I don't know anything about it well, you should go read it if you want to know what it says, okay so you know, you're basically telling everybody that I'm gonna tell you jack shit.
Speaker 2:You should go read it. Well, no one's gonna go read it if you want to know what it says. Okay. So you're basically telling everybody that I'm going to totally jack shit. You should go read it. Well, no one's going to go read it because I'm not going to read it. Okay, what it comes down to?
Speaker 1:is. It is a and I would have to go look at which think tanks put it out, but it is a conservative think tank document that says, hey, this is what we should do in the next presidential term hey, this is what we should do in the next presidential term, and you know it's got some stuff in there as a policy paper that was written by committee. Over a large swath of the population doesn't have all great ideas in it.
Speaker 2:Is it like in a non-document or something?
Speaker 1:No, it's an official document, but the the the point is let me find out who did this. I think it wasn't heritage, um, I mean, it's a fairly long document, the.
Speaker 2:The liberals on X are talking about how it basically means Trump's going to put everybody in prison and the camps are coming, which I find ironic. It's a similar rhetoric to what the conservatives had a few years back with all the FEMA camps. Now it's the liberals saying that so clearly there's a market for building these camps. Now it's the liberals saying that so clearly there's a market for building these camps. And then on the conservative side you've got people disappointed in Trump. Clearly he's not going to be a true conservative. He's not standing with us on these agendas. He wants to be a wishy-washy, middle-of-the-road guy and that explains why he picked a liberal as a vice president. I mean, it's like you're getting the full meltdown going on on the uh, well, so here are the contributors to project 2025.
Speaker 1:1792 exchange american accountability foundation. Exchange american accountability foundation.
Speaker 2:Uh, let's see in looking for big names alabama policy institute, aclj, uh it is a heritage foundation thing.
Speaker 1:It is okay. Yeah, the american conservative, american Conservative you know AMC, which you know. They're a pretty good-sized pack, like it's a bunch of quote-unquote conservative packs, right? I don't see anything on here that just screams big name. Yeah, heritage foundation is one of the contributors they're not the primary, though.
Speaker 2:The gun gun owners of america hillsdale college contributed to this and, again, I don't find it as extreme as the left wants to make it out to be heritage foundation literally put it together, so I don't know how they're a contributor. It was their initiative okay, well documents. I'm looking at the project 2025.org website so good scroll all the way down. What's it say at the project 2025.org website? Good Scroll all the way down. What's it say at the bottom of the website? What about it? It's a Heritage Foundation website.
Speaker 1:Are you on the right website?
Speaker 2:Yes, Are you?
Speaker 1:Project 2025.org.
Speaker 2:Yeah, scroll all the way down, I am.
Speaker 1:The copyright is what you're looking for. Correct. Yeah.
Speaker 2:They own the website okay good for them again.
Speaker 1:I just don't see what the big deal is about this okay, do you?
Speaker 2:no, I'd never heard of it.
Speaker 1:I don't know jack shit about it, so I'm asking questions okay, so it's very much up your alley on how we should proceed Does it get rid of the female vote. Not quite, but it would go in that direction.
Speaker 2:Clearly not a true conservative project. Okay, what up, my alley is in there.
Speaker 1:What up, my alley is in there. The idea of training people, the idea of making this an entire movement across the board, and anyway, I don't see a lot of problem with Project 2025. But it is the boogeyman that the left is using right now yeah Well, that's right.
Speaker 2:I I don't know why people get pissed off. I guess I do know it's human nature, but this happens every time. Every time and it's not obviously just for trump, it doesn't it's aligns with a group of people. That group of people clings on to something that has nothing to do with that person, but that's something they like, like an on. And then they in their own heads, they make a connection between this thing they like and the person that they're supporting, and then they're greatly disappointed when the person that they've been supporting doesn't also like the thing they like. And this could be Israel just as easily. But it's like people in their minds associate things they agree with have to align all together.
Speaker 1:And that's very rarely. I think the Israel thing goes both ways there bud.
Speaker 2:What do you mean?
Speaker 1:Like I think there are a lot of people who Israel is always the boogeyman. Israel is always bad.
Speaker 2:That's why I used it.
Speaker 1:That's my point yeah, and I think there are a lot of people who think that israel is always the good guy.
Speaker 2:Israel is always the right one, absolutely, and should be defended and they have the right to do whatever the hell they want but my point is just because you agree on some issue or you like some person generally does not guarantee that that person's going to like that particular hot topic with you yeah, no, like gene and I get along on many things I think yeah, and you're in there every now and then yeah, and that's I mean I.
Speaker 2:I think that when you get into trouble is when you, when you start tying yourself and your self-worth to people talking about the jews, and then you're screwed well, keep it up and find out but uh uh, but but jews are not.
Speaker 2:My point is that this, this I see this happening all the time in the microcosm. I've seen it happen with adam curry, where people were very invested and were super supportive of adam and then he said something they didn't like, whether it was abortion or christianity, or whether it was not enough on Christianity or something else and they become these bitter enemies.
Speaker 2:And it's like oh, he's a total fake. He's just saying whatever to steal your money. It's like what, dude? You're going literally in the opposite direction. You went from a huge supporter to a huge distractor or detractor not a distractor to a huge detractor because you didn't like something somebody said. You know it, I expect people. Maybe that's why it's like I don't really have this issue, because I expect people to have opinions contrary to mine.
Speaker 2:It's always a shocker to me to find somebody, uh, which was and you saw this first because your opinions are so defensible, gee well, my opinions require a certain level of intellect that the majority of the population does not possess, because most people you know they're they're mostly driven by external forces in the, in the positions they hold. Um, and that that's fine. I mean, we, we need a, we need people to be able to be influenced. Otherwise, imagine what kind of a land we'd be living in if everyone there is like you, me and lukekowski yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 1:I think that there are lots of people who I I think we'd be better off if they would allow themselves to be swayed a little bit more and or just hold to their stupid opinions and, uh, let's make it very well known exactly what your stupid opinion is yeah, I'm all for that.
Speaker 2:uh, so I guess my point is that the first thing I heard about this Project 2025 came from the liberal media, and the second thing I heard was from people being disappointed that Trump isn't really a serious conservative and he's disavowing them, even though, I guarantee you, the people saying that were not the ones actually working on this document. They were just people that liked this document, or maybe that's not even fair to say.
Speaker 1:they probably just liked what they heard about this document well, and what I would say is what did they want him to do? Add it to his, his current platform no, they wanted him to follow it okay, and what? When? When does he have to start following it by?
Speaker 2:well, the sooner the better right.
Speaker 1:Why, because, uh, that document lays out what they'd like him to do yeah, well, and if you look at the black community and its reaction to project 2025 and the people like, that is being used as a thing to say. Why would you vote for trump?
Speaker 2:he wants this is there something anti-black in there? Not really, uh, but it's the interpretation the only thing that I heard that was specific was abortion.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there's things like that that are being said. They're putting us back in chains, and so project 2025 has got a lot of black eye to it. It's got a lot of how do I put this um baggage that comes along with it and like, literally, there are political commercials of one black guy going. I'm saying, no, that's not trump. Trump's agenda is agenda 47 and it's on his website and has nothing to do with project 2025. This is like. This is not new that he's been distancing himself from this in this speech.
Speaker 2:This has been happening for a while and then I think it's for political reasons. Some of these guys that are all now negative on trump, uh, I, I think they didn't like being well, they thought he was referring to them when he said, when he talked about how you know, some people are far left and there's also a group that's right-wing extremists. They're like oh so Trump's calling us right-wing extremists now Okay.
Speaker 1:That's not what he said.
Speaker 2:Well, he did. Actually, I saw that clip yesterday. He was talking about how there are some people that are left-wing extremists and then there are people that are right-wing extremists and the project 2025 is for coming from those right-wing extremists has nothing to do with him. Okay, you haven't seen that. That was. That was part of his speech I have seen what he said.
Speaker 1:What do you mean? Yeah it was a long speech, so there was a lot of details exactly I will say that the first part of his speech um I that's a very different trump than I'm used to seeing.
Speaker 2:I mean I agree with that, yeah like this assassination attempt obviously affected him I couldn't imagine how it couldn't. I mean it you're. Even if you're not hurt in the attempt, I think it would affect you. But actually being hurt as a result of it, it, it just places in into focus just how close you were to not being there.
Speaker 1:Well, and it may be a year or two before he's making jokes about it yeah, but he literally said this is the only time he's going to tell the story.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah and we'll see if he holds true to that, I I cannot imagine that he's not going to talk about this more he likes to talk. I know, but I mean, if he holds true to that, yeah yeah, I think he just wants to have people stop asking questions about it. That's the key thing I got from his comment. It's like he would prefer if every person he met didn't start talking about the assassination, which they probably are right now.
Speaker 1:And probably.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but what about his granddaughter's speech? Uh it was well done was it very effective yeah, yes, I thought it was very well done. My dad didn't like it and I thought that was interesting yeah it was like because he he said, yeah, she was not very polished, she should have practiced more. Didn't really say anything new.
Speaker 1:Your dad's a dick.
Speaker 2:My dad is a dick. Congratulations, you've discovered something I've known my entire life. I see where you get it. She's like yeah, my, you know I'm. I'm not Asian, but I clearly have an Asian parent, because the expectation level is like what do you mean? You got an A. What's the matter with you? What did you screw up?
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, I think she did extremely well, I think for a 17,. Is she 17? 17?
Speaker 2:right now.
Speaker 1:Yeah, right now. Yeah, so 17 year old, uh, high school student to get up and in front of that many people on national television and do as well as she did. Yeah, it was impressive. Anyone who's done public speaking knows how intimidating that can be and to not let it rattle you visibly, she did not.
Speaker 2:Pretty impressive at all with that size of crowd, and I I mean she's got a future in politics if she wants it. Yeah, exactly Because, uh, there were. There are tons of students and there were back in my day that were in debate their entire high school career and were on the debate team and stuff that would guaranteed fumble a lot more than she did.
Speaker 2:And, yes, she was reading a telepromp a lot more than she did oh yeah and, yes, she was reading a teleprompter, but still she did a very good job of conveying emotions, which is the important part of speaking and adding a little bit of levity to the situation as well. And really the key point which she accomplished, I think she set out to do, was humanizing trump, and she did a great job. Yeah, and and watching him on a side-by-side view oh yeah, with that smiling and super proud like this is the typical proud grandparent.
Speaker 1:Look, yeah well, and you know the the younger granddaughter running up to him and hopping in his lap and you know, obviously bored with it and everything else, but just very affectionate towards her grandpa.
Speaker 2:Yeah, totally no. It sounds like Trump is a very nice grandpa. He's not?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think if you compare and contrast Trump to Biden as far as their family lives, it's insane.
Speaker 2:Yeah, trump to biden as far as their family lives. It's insane, yeah. And I mean some people would argue biden was pretty close as well because he took showers with his kids.
Speaker 1:But you know, yeah, yeah and he smells other people's kids. Oh, I would shower late at night to to avoid him. You know I mean like if your daughter is writing that in her diary. Holy shit, dude.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, either she's got an amazing imagination or this is serious. Either she's schizophrenic or you're sick. Yeah, yeah, pretty much.
Speaker 1:Which is possible. I will not say that it's not impossible.
Speaker 2:Given what his son acts like, I'd say it's very likely that she was telling the truth. Because if you had one kid that was perfectly fine and the other kid was, you know, talking about stuff like this, you kind of wonder, well, is that just creativity? But when you got one kid talking about dad taking a shower with a teenage daughter and another kid who basically just has been trying to commit suicide for the last 40 years and acting in extremely self-destructive behavior, that does tell you something about the family, not just the individual. Yeah, I agree.
Speaker 2:Yeah, a happy, well-adjusted family does not have children like that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Speaking of Trump's granddaughter, though the number of comments about her age was a little troubling there.
Speaker 2:There's a lot of pervs online, that's for sure including including my co-host here, hey now hey, now no, she was like, she's not like drop dead gorgeous, even though her mom was a model. But uh, uh, you know, this is from don jr's first wife, and but she's reasonably attractive. She's not somebody that you know you wouldn't want to go on a date with when you're in high school. Um, she seems like she's pretty damn tall too.
Speaker 2:She's almost her dad's height it's pretty tall that's yeah, because I think don jr is over six feet right oh, yeah, yeah, I think he's like six, so she's probably like as tall as his dad so she's probably like 5, 11 or maybe even six foot, but um no, she did a very good job and I think she is creating a similar kind of uh, softness around the trump name that ivanka became less popular because of various things right because of her support for her dad.
Speaker 1:I think kai is kaiser name, right? Yeah, yeah. So kai coming out and doing this one because of her age, she's not going to draw the same criticism like that will. That will backfire badly if she gets the criticism that ivanka got right. Yeah, so there's that. There's that strategic bit to it, uh, but beyond that, um, she's not in politics, she's not in business, she's not anywhere yet so you can't.
Speaker 1:there's not the background that you can go. Oh, look at this, Shoot, shoot, shoot Right. So I think it's a pretty smart move in that way.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Well, we've got. Uh, we've got 10 months and six days till she's 18. So we'll find out.
Speaker 1:The fact that you know that so everybody knows that. I do not know that, so everybody knows that I do not know that I just knew she was 17 ish and that's now doesn't matter to me, yep, um. So, looking at the uh, looking at the map so let's assume Biden is going to hold Delaware and we're looking at the polls, I think there's a chance Biden or Trump can take Washington. There's no way he's going to get Oregon. I don't think he's going to get California. Yeah, no way he's going to get Oregon.
Speaker 2:I don't think he's going to get California. Yeah, no way he's going to get California. New.
Speaker 1:York. What do you think Possibility? I think the only state that he'll get for sure is Ohio. Anyway, no, I mean compared to last time. Okay.
Speaker 2:I disagree, but what you don't think he's going to get, it.
Speaker 1:No, I think he'll get a lot more than that.
Speaker 2:Well, let's assume he gets all the states that were red last time. He gets those. So of the states he didn't get, which ones do you think he'll get?
Speaker 1:Let me refresh and go to the 2020 electoral map, then. Okay, okay, all right. So I think he will take Maine. I think he'll take New Hampshire. Is that a disagreement?
Speaker 2:I don't know enough about that. I mean, Maine could go either way, I suppose.
Speaker 1:Well, Maine splits their electoral votes usually, so one goes Republican, one goes Democrat, I think.
Speaker 2:Maine just passed something crazy, didn't they Stack drink?
Speaker 1:voting yeah, yeah and one goes democrat, I think and he got one. Something crazy. Wouldn't they do this? Yeah yeah, which stack rank voting is just atrocious. But anyway, explain to the folks what that is, oh my god. So if I say this is my first choice, second choice, third choice, if my first choice doesn't get enough votes, then it goes to the second choice, and so on. Basically, it's a complicated enough voting scheme to guarantee that whoever the establishment wants in gets in.
Speaker 2:That's an interesting way to look at it oh I, it is rife for cheating, rife but but it allows you to do things like vote with your.
Speaker 1:Yes, I could vote trump as my number one choice, and if he doesn't get it, vote vivek, or I could vote vivek yeah, I wouldn't say around. You could vote vivek as your number one and trump is your number two right, but the permutations on this, though I I I think you have to trust the system if you you really have to trust the system.
Speaker 2:But if you, if you can trust the system, I actually kind of like that style of voting.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but we know we can't.
Speaker 2:Anyway. So the states that Trump did not get last time. You know, I think he can get New York. Oh boy, that's a tough one, because I think that he probably can get new york. But how much cheating is going to happen in new york is really the question, because he could literally get all the real votes from new york and there's so much corruption there that manhattan basically has everybody voting twice or 10 times.
Speaker 1:So that's part of the reason why he's going with this campaign too big to rig Right. Yeah, yeah Like literally make them show more votes than voters which by the way happened in 2020. Yeah, absolutely, and I think it's. It's insane that there isn't than voters, which, by the way, happened in 2020. And yeah, absolutely, and I think we ignore it.
Speaker 2:It's insane that there isn't, at the very least, an audit of the number of people that voted so you can compare it to the number of eligible voters, because, like that should be a part of the standard auditing process for all voting in the country is to at least compare the number of votes to the number of people in that uh district yeah because, there was some district that absolutely had more votes than than people living there so I think he has a shot at new york, though let's put it that way, I would agree I think he has a shot I don't think.
Speaker 1:I think he wins virginia.
Speaker 2:How close was he last time, do you remember?
Speaker 1:let's see if I can. God damn it 270. I I would have to go back and look at the the polls. I mean, he won everything except, you know, the surrounding dc areas, which is pretty typical. But, um, maryland, there's a good chance. Virginia and maryland go for trump. Maryland outside of baltimore is actually pretty conservative and anyway I I think that that that set of votes right there go with him. Pennsylvania, I think, goes with him. Delaware. Uh, biden keeps new jersey. I think there's a good shot there. So anyway, I I think he takes most of the eastern seaboard.
Speaker 2:I think georgia goes trump um pretty solidly at this point yeah, I think georgia should have gone last time as well, but yeah yeah, illinois man that I know corruption nope there's no way, no way just because of the corruption like outside of chicago and champaign illinois very, very conservative yeah, but they're gonna have like trucks pulling up with piles of ballots.
Speaker 1:Yeah, now Michigan, wisconsin and Minnesota.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no way he gets Minnesota. That's a Somali vote. I think he might. No, he won't. Okay. Remember, Minnesota is the only well, it was one of three states that didn't vote for Reagan.
Speaker 1:Yes, Well, it was one of three states that didn't vote for Reagan yes, and it's also one of those states that also voted any other candidate than Biden in the Democratic primary, so I think Trump could win Minnesota.
Speaker 2:But I don't think Biden's going to be the candidate. I'm still sticking to that Okay so who are they going to put up? Well, I've heard rumors of Hillaryary. Now okay, yeah he, he will win minnesota if it is hillary there's a lot of feminists in minnesota, man so feminists plus somalis is not going to be equals jihad.
Speaker 1:I mean, what's your point? Yeah, it's all right anyway so yeah, all right. Anyway. So I think he definitely could get one of the three.
Speaker 2:All he needs is Ohio and Michigan.
Speaker 1:No, I don't think that's true.
Speaker 2:I think those two states would flip it for him.
Speaker 1:So Ohio is 17 votes and Michigan is 15 votes. Let's do some math here. See what was Trump at he was at 235. While you're doing that? No, it does not quite get him there. Oh really.
Speaker 2:I thought, that's all you needed.
Speaker 1:No it gets him at 267.
Speaker 2:And he needs to 270. Oh, three out Okay. Now if he also flips Arizona or Nevada. He had Arizona last time. That was one of the most blatant deals ever. Oh come on Kerry.
Speaker 1:Lake and everything else, yeah well nevada too, but anyway that was ridiculous, he could get dc, and if he won dc, that would be the exact three votes he would need then dc gets three votes.
Speaker 2:Yep, dc gets three electoral. Yep, dc gets three electoral votes.
Speaker 1:They shouldn't. It's not a state they shouldn't get to vote. Well, I mean, it's a congressional district, it shouldn't be. Well, it is.
Speaker 2:When did that become a congressional district? I don't remember that it's been a congressional district.
Speaker 1:They just don't get an actual vote.
Speaker 2:Well, so if they don't get a vote, then how do they have three votes?
Speaker 1:I'm just telling you what the electoral map says.
Speaker 2:Man, they do have representation they should not okay, well, that was the whole point of dc is that you know, puerto rico has representation as well.
Speaker 1:Right, they don't get any votes.
Speaker 2:Oh my god, do they? They shouldn't. Territories aren't supposed to have votes, just states.
Speaker 1:I don't disagree with you. I'm just telling you what has happened over the last several.
Speaker 2:When the fuck did this change? I don't remember any of this stuff.
Speaker 1:This must be a new thing, okay it's really not, um, so what it comes down to is the, so like some of the territories will vote, but it's a meaningless vote because it's just a count of popularity without any electoral college votes going towards it um, so it's somewhat of a circle jerk move. The district of columbia actually has three votes, though three electoral votes. So new mexico has five, for instance, montana has four, idaho has four wyoming has three, south dakota has three, so they're the equivalent of.
Speaker 1:you know that for some reason, Now we can debate on whether or not they should have any representation at all or should exist at all.
Speaker 2:Puerto Rico does not get a vote. I just looked at it. Huh, they have zero electoral votes. Puerto Rico doesn't count.
Speaker 1:That's what I said, but they still vote. There's a difference.
Speaker 2:I don't care if they pretend to vote. If the votes aren't actually counted, then it doesn't matter.
Speaker 1:That's literally what I just said. It was a big. Do you listen at all?
Speaker 2:No, I'm completely listening to what you're saying here. Okay yeah, it's, 1964 is when they fucked it up. What do you mean? That DC didn't get to vote until 1964. Yeah, well anyway, and it still shouldn't be.
Speaker 1:Well, they should have never had representation in Congress, which? Goes back further than that. Anyway, my entire point here is I think we could be looking at a pretty good landslide if the election were held today, but we'll see what happens between now and then.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean. I can't imagine anybody wanting to vote for a man who has no brain. Provably so but um, like, I think. Well, I think it's it's fair enough to say that that biden didn't have the votes last time. He sure as hell wouldn't have the votes this time. How much they can supplement his votes to get him in is a different question than whether or not he has the votes.
Speaker 1:Again, I think it goes back to that. Too big to rig, though I think that's a great strategy.
Speaker 2:I think it's a good name, because I don't believe there's anything that's too big to rig. I mean, the fact that the last election turned out the way that it did is an example of like nothing being too big to rig. But I think that a lot more people are amenable to the idea that there is tremendous tampering going on in federal elections maybe not even just federal and state elections as well. Lately, there've been more and more videos popping up on X that show people doing clearly illegal activities, like signing ballots literally in their cars before taking them and dropping them off. Well, those signatures are supposed to be from the people voting, not from the person collecting the votes.
Speaker 1:There's also the whole Libs of TikTok craze about doubting the people who say don't miss next time.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and let's talk about that, because I'm curious to see what your thoughts are about doubting the people who say you know, don't miss next time. Yeah, and let's talk about that, because I'm curious to see what your thoughts are. I'm so fully on board.
Speaker 1:I actually started doing Takaya because of that. Did you see that Tenacious D apologized and then now has backtracked?
Speaker 2:He's backtracked the apology.
Speaker 1:Yeah, he deleted the post.
Speaker 2:Oh good yeah, fuck the apology. Yeah, he deleted the post.
Speaker 1:Oh good yeah fuck how gas deleted the post fuck yeah their career's over, they're done.
Speaker 2:Good, good, well, I'm happy about that let's, let's face it.
Speaker 1:I like tenacious d oh, I do too.
Speaker 2:It was out, went out, went, huh, but fuck them yeah, well, you know their song.
Speaker 1:Uh, fuck her gently, they're. You know the end. There is about to be what they're gonna get.
Speaker 2:So it's my, my take on this was because somebody mentioned that. Oh, okay, well, now that he oh, it was um tim tim post tim cast uh said oh, uh, tenacious d has apologized. And uh, I, I think now that we've had an apology, we should get back on board with liking him. And I was like, no fuck that You're totally wrong If the apology didn't come on stage at some point during that concert, like at the end, they said oh, and, by the way, I hope you all understand that we're just kidding and we don't actually want to kill the president.
Speaker 2:If it didn't happen that way and we know it didn't it's not a real apology. What it is is a letter or speech written by their PR team that basically said if you guys don't do this, your career is over because you're going to get your concert canceled, your agent's going to drop you and good luck booking after this. And so this was a hail Mary to keep them from blowing their careers up, and I don't count that as an apology. That's not an apology, and so I don't think anything has changed. I think there that there needs to be karma and people need to see that there's a reaction to the actions they take and, in this particular case, saying something so blatantly stupid is it deserves to have an action, which, thankfully, it seems like is the case. So will this affect, uh, jack black's ability to be in movies? Absolutely not, because hollywood's on board with that sentiment well, and jack black distanced himself from it.
Speaker 2:You know he didn't say it and he distanced himself from it, but tenacious d is a band is done yeah, I think so um which you know is somewhat of a shame but yeah, whatever opens up room for other bands yeah, dude, here's the thing I I get the vengeance aspect of this.
Speaker 1:I get where you and tim are coming from no, it's on the other side of this no, he's not. He's fundamentally not he. He's just more willing to accept apologies than you are. You both think that there should be some cancellation and some oh, absolutely consequences for I've never been against the cancel I.
Speaker 2:I just think I was jealous.
Speaker 1:I always have been I think you ought to be able to say anything you want, and I agree with you.
Speaker 2:You ought to be able to say I am a militant, militant free speech, absolute absolutely yes, me too and I think that when you say something, you should expect a reaction from people that hear it yes congratulations. When you say stupid shit, the reaction is going to be negative and if you don't understand that, you're a moron and I do understand that, but I don't think you should target people.
Speaker 1:I don't mean you're after their jobs people, and I do because I know is a privilege.
Speaker 2:your job is and I posted this earlier yesterday that people, people seem to forget that a job is not a right. A job is a privilege. It's a, it's a trade of value for value, but it is also a privilege. Nobody owes you a job. Nobody owes you to go to your concert, nobody owes you to buy your records. Your actions will determine how people treat you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I'm sure that if there were people who directly forwarded segments of this show to my HR department, I wouldn't have a job very longer.
Speaker 2:Well, that sucks for you, then it doesn't mean that that's a bad idea. No, I think karma is absolutely right, and this is this is why people should be careful about what they say. You can't just be.
Speaker 1:I had a good friend insecure do you think I'm careful about what I?
Speaker 2:say I think you're mostly careful I think I'm pretty careful.
Speaker 1:There are times when I agree there, like there are times when I have said stuff for shock that probably would piss some people off like the. Oriental comment almost a year ago. You know, man, we can't call that anymore.
Speaker 2:So fuck it Well. Anti-semitism, for that matter.
Speaker 1:But yeah. I think, Not an anti Semitism Anyway.
Speaker 2:I had a friend.
Speaker 3:Hold on. Hold, friend, but hold on hold on, hold on.
Speaker 1:Let's look about, let's look at my views on the south and the civil war yeah, do you really want that? Right, there would be enough to get me fired.
Speaker 2:Yeah, would you want to focus on those? I was going to move on and save your ass here, but you want to talk about.
Speaker 1:It's recorded and it's out there, and it's what I believe. So right?
Speaker 2:well, and that's the key thing, right? Do you think Kyle doesn't believe what he said?
Speaker 1:I don't know if he does or doesn't, I don't really care. I think that there has to be room for forgiveness. I think that businesses making stupid decisions about oh well, you said this, so we're not going to support you anymore, and the insurance companies are going to cancel, and so on, that's stupid. They should be able to self-insure. They should have options. Oh they can. Be able to say whatever they want and move forward.
Speaker 2:Nobody should be forced to do business or have interactions with people they disagree with.
Speaker 1:And, oh my God, bullshit. This entire cancel culture thing is bullshit. Whatever happened to the days of? I may disagree with what you have to say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.
Speaker 2:That's a stupid statement. No, it isn't. That is no, it isn't. It's platitudinous, but it means literally nothing. It's stupid, it's dumb. Defending somebody who wants to kill you is a bad policy, and I've said it before and I'll say it again that's one of those statements that is, the libertarian equivalent of the left. Statements that all sound great but have had very little actual intellect applied to them, because what you're saying is I will die helping the person who wants to kill me. Well, congratulations, you're dead. I'm not going to do that. I will never defend the communists.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so do you know where that quote originated? I don't remember now so voltaire is one of the guys who has been attributed to saying that okay do you think he's not a deep thinker, Dude?
Speaker 2:I know he is a deep thinker and it is actually you're making my point for me. It's a nice, pretty thing to say for a guy that was very controversial in the time that he was writing it and that he was putting down ideas that were not practical, they were theoretically. They were theoretical, they were like you know, this is what should be. So, yeah, it makes sense that it would be a Voltaire quote.
Speaker 1:Okay, I fundamentally disagree with that sentiment. Again, I grew up with that as part of the ethos that I grew up with dude you grew up with. It doesn't make it good uh yeah, it does in a lot of things you grew up with that are not practical okay, I don't know, man I I believe in maximizing individual liberty.
Speaker 2:Yes, and individual liberty does not require you to defend your enemies.
Speaker 1:It requires me to defend their liberty, because it's ultimately a defense of my own liberty.
Speaker 2:It's not though it is. It really isn't.
Speaker 1:Oh my God. Liberty is universal. Any power that can be used against my enemy can be used against me. It's not though it is. It really isn't, oh my.
Speaker 2:God Liberty is universal Any power that can be used against my enemy, can be used against me, and if I do not believe in that power or the justice of that power? No, it isn't. That's absolutely incorrect. It's fundamental.
Speaker 1:That's a disbelief in truth, if you say that this is a belief in fundamental truth. And what you're doing is. Not at all a belief in fundamental truth and what? You're doing is okay I I here's the cancel culture right here. You would be one of those nazis that walked on down the road and ignored the carts going past my argument.
Speaker 2:You just called me a nazi. I just won the argument, congratulations I didn't call you a nazi.
Speaker 1:I'm making a point here.
Speaker 2:You just did, you would be one of those nazis. You said, okay, you just lost.
Speaker 1:You would be one of those germans that ignored things because you didn't like the person. The point is just because a power is used against someone you don't like nice the holocaust okay I? When have I denied the holocaust?
Speaker 2:oh, how many times you said yeah, you know. All I know about history is um. Those numbers are all wrong no, I said.
Speaker 1:All I know about world war ii is that I was lied to. That is not denying the holocaust okay I'm saying there's a lot about world war ii history. That just doesn't make any fucking sense, and I agree there's a lot of, because we haven't been told a awful lot about world war ii.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there's propaganda on every side, on the russian side, on the us side, on the german side, absolutely everybody had propaganda anyway, dude, my point is we do not want to instill powers that are used against others because they may be used against us in the future. That's the yeah, and that's a pathetic attitude. No why?
Speaker 2:Because you're too vain.
Speaker 4:I just won the argument because you're going to a platitude versus actually talking about the substance here.
Speaker 1:Your argument is visceral in its reaction versus hey, I don't want to do that to that person because eventually it can be done against me. I don't want to be on, I don't want to be the the person in a glass house throwing stones when I know what the consequences are yeah, it's an attitude by somebody who thinks that they don't deserve to have the position they have.
Speaker 2:It's an attitude that assumes you will have no power, and it's an attitude that women have. It's an attitude very typical of Jewish people, frankly, that this idea that, hey, whatever we have right now isn't going to last. So we want to make sure that we always support the little guy and the people that will remember that, hey, we were the good guys, don't hurt us too bad in the future. That's wrong.
Speaker 1:The insanity of what you just said cannot be quantified at this point it's truth?
Speaker 2:No, it isn't. You don't like hearing things that oppose your childhood views, that's all.
Speaker 1:And okay, views, that's all and okay. Here I we're gonna stop with the uh perturbations here around name calling. But what? What I'll say here? Gene, gene, protecting minority opinions and minority rights is a protection of the majority, because all things come to an end and you cannot have freedom and believe in freedom if you're willing to trample on someone else's rights to ensure your own yeah, it doesn't mean you have to support them but me saying hey that shouldn't happen we shouldn't cancel people over stupid statements.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they should here's the leap of faith you're making you're, you're taking the concept that everyone it's a principle.
Speaker 1:Are you going?
Speaker 2:to interrupt me continuously.
Speaker 1:You do me you have interrupted me over and over again in this conversation.
Speaker 2:Not at all. I've been sitting here quietly waiting. You're taking the leap that goes from people are allowed to think and say what they want and I fully agree with that to then jumping to and others should have no negative reaction to it. Others should have no negative reaction to it. And that's bullshit, because all cancel culture is all canceling somebody is is a large group of people looking at somebody who just put their foot in their mouth and saying, no, you're a moron and we want nothing to do with you as a result of what you said.
Speaker 2:That is freedom. That is my ability to associate with people who I want to, to do business with people who I want to and to not do business with who I don't want to. It could be because I don't like what they said. It could be just as easily because I don't think that they're very good at what they do. But in either case, my ability to interact with them financially and remember money is just stored work. So the work I did that is stored in the value of money is my choice on what I do with it and I can make that decision because of other people's actions.
Speaker 2:I can even make it arbitrarily 's fine I think, I.
Speaker 1:I think the big difference here is your choice to say you know what I don't like, what the ceo of home depot said so I'm gonna go shop at lowe's. That's your choice, that's exactly. I have no problem with that. You to say, hey, this worker at home depot said something stupid and they should lose their job now fire them home, depot.
Speaker 2:It is not.
Speaker 1:It is Because what I'm saying it's fucking evil to do that to people.
Speaker 2:No, it isn't. This is how people learn. This is what's missing right now, and this is why this country is in the shithole. It is in the socialism freefall. That it is is because no one's willing to stand up and push back against bad ideas.
Speaker 1:I'm willing to push back. I'm willing to stand up and tell that person that they are wrong. I'm not going to go call their boss like a Karen and ask for their job. I'm not going to do that. I can have a debate and disagree with someone that has nothing to do with their living.
Speaker 2:I'm not going to shop there. I have no power to fire that person, but I cannot shop in home depot and guess what home depot is going to do. Home depot is going to say do we care about this person's stupid opinions or do we care about receiving money from this other person? And I I can tell you what's going to happen, because home depot is not a political msd. They don't want to have people that represent them, that work for them, that say stupid shit.
Speaker 1:And your opinion of what is stupid shit and what constitutes stupid shit is part of the problem, because, while you and I agree on what we consider stupid shit, this is the problem with DEI in corporations, because as soon as you say something that other people consider ignorant or stupid shit, you're fired.
Speaker 2:That should not be the case why do you think people shouldn't be able to make decisions like what is it about having the ability to fire somebody that disturbs you so much? Everybody's in the volunteer relationship here no, yes, that's not reality it is unless you're in a union. Are you a pro-unionist now?
Speaker 1:I have zero problem with people organizing a union. I have a lot of problems I have actualities of how unions have functioned over the years.
Speaker 2:Creating a special artificial protection for people from being fired is bullshit. I don't care if a college does it. Hold on.
Speaker 1:I wasn't done speaking, go ahead like you. It literally interrupted me after interrupting you, but you talk over me and like sit there and go back and forth. It's fine, we can have a discussion. What it comes down to is a voluntary association is voluntary association. People should be allowed to do it, and if that ends up in a union or political party, fine. Uh, now do we grant special things or say you, to take this job, you have to be a union worker?
Speaker 1:No, I don't think that's a reasonable thing and I think that should be barred. Do I think we should say political parties have to be listed on ballots? No, I think that they shouldn't be. There's several things there, but voluntary association is voluntary association and you can't get rid of it, unfortunately. I think that's Without sacrificing other principles.
Speaker 3:I think that's the entire point here is voluntary association and you can't get rid of it, unfortunately, I I think without sacrificing other principles I think that's the entire point here voluntary association, I think, is the very core of your rights I completely agree.
Speaker 1:So how do you get rid of unions if you have voluntary association?
Speaker 2:what it's, not the people donating money to a central cause. That's a bad thing about unions, the bad thing about unions. The bad thing about unions is unions have special rights that individuals don't.
Speaker 1:Which is what I just said. That shouldn't happen.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it shouldn't. And can you name a union that doesn't have that right? And if all unions have those rights that are different and special and better than individuals, then that's the problem in my mind and that's why I am against unions, because I'm not against people joining fraternal organizations, I'm against people having special rights as a result of getting legislation passed that allows this group to have exclusive rights.
Speaker 1:Let me ask you something. Person A and person B apply for the same job. Person A there are two positions open, so the company decides to hire both of them. Person A negotiates harder and gets a higher salary, more days off, better overall benefits yeah. Person B lacks self-confidence and doesn't negotiate as hard and thus gets a lower salary, fewer days off and has to work even harder yeah is that equitable or?
Speaker 2:not well equitable has no bearing on anything it does actually.
Speaker 1:I chose that word very specifically.
Speaker 2:It's a bullshit concept.
Speaker 1:You're missing my point it exists in nature.
Speaker 2:Yeah, your example is should a man make more money than a woman?
Speaker 1:I said nothing about a man or a woman there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was pretty obvious what you intended to say, though.
Speaker 1:No, it's your interpretation, but it could be two men, it could be a man and a woman, it could be a woman and a woman. It doesn't really matter. The point is two people have an opportunity. They're getting the same job. One negotiates harder and gets more. Is that okay? My answer is abso-fucking-lutely because it's the individual's ability to go and negotiate. Now if a group of individuals come together and say, hey, we'll come as a group and do this job. Here's what we want to do it. Should they be allowed to do that.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:But that's not what a union is.
Speaker 1:The union is, hey, a group of individuals. It's not what a union has become.
Speaker 2:It is what a union has become. It is what a union is. Can I tell you what it actually is? A union is a group of people that get together and then go to the government and say we want special rights so we can negotiate better, and the government says, yes, okay, we're going to pass some laws and these laws are only applicable to your as a group, and other groups and that's wrong.
Speaker 1:Get rid of the government tell him.
Speaker 2:A single union that doesn't have those rights? There isn't any.
Speaker 1:All unions have those rights get, get rid of the government I'm fine with the unions get rid of the government, keep the unions, keep, keep group negotiating power, get rid of the.
Speaker 2:It's not a union if it doesn't have those rights by definition. Oh my.
Speaker 1:God, you and I fundamentally disagree on this. And here's the thing. I come from this, from base logic and base principles, and say, hey, if we violate X, that makes me the bad guy, because I wouldn't want someone doing that to me. Yeah. Right? Do you understand that concept of you know doing to others as you would have them doing to?
Speaker 2:you. Oh, the golden rule. Do I understand that concept? Yes, longer than you've been alive, I understood that concept yes.
Speaker 1:But what you're espousing is against that.
Speaker 2:Not at all. You recognize it? No, it's not.
Speaker 1:No.
Speaker 2:So you think, if you say something and someone goes to your employer think that unions are the golden rule. Unions are the opposite.
Speaker 1:No, no, I'm talking more in general here. The the point is about individual freedom and, you know, someone's right to speak their mind and whether or not they should be punished for it and how many times have I said I support people's right to speak their minds?
Speaker 2:I think that most people want to avoid the consequences, the karma, of speaking their minds, and that's not how it works. You don't get to say whatever you want and then have zero consequences, because speech, by definition, is a communication medium with more than one person. What you say in your bedroom that no one hears, I don't give a shit about. You want to be a Nazi? Be a Nazi. You want to be a pedophile, be a pedophile, whatever. I don't care what you do in your own privacy, but when you're communicating with other people, you should expect that if you communicate as a pedophile, you would be treated as though you are a pedophile, because that's the way you're communicating. What part of that is hard to understand?
Speaker 1:Because we're talking two different things here and we're talking across each other and I don't think you're hearing me and it I mean yeah.
Speaker 2:It's not a matter of hearing them. Use language that better represents your position.
Speaker 1:I have used language. I think you're ignoring and actually belittling when there's no reason to do so.
Speaker 2:Saying I will support no, no, no, no.
Speaker 1:Saying that my view is childish, for example.
Speaker 2:When did I say your view is childish, for example? When did I say your view is childish? Uh earlier not at all.
Speaker 1:I said views that you acquired, oh my god send me an unedited version of the recording and we can go back on it it's you.
Speaker 2:We literally said this 10 seconds ago. I'm happy to send you the recording, but what I said isn't your childish views, and you got to get better hearing aids. If you think that's what I said, I said your childhood views, views acquired in childhood.
Speaker 1:People have a hard time everybody does, uh changing their minds about views that they acquired in childhood yeah, but see, I don't, and I have moved past a ton of views and I've really come to some interesting places based off of philosophy, and that's something I'm pretty proud of. That I, any view that I have, I'm willing to put on the chopping block and say is there evidence that makes me want to change this view?
Speaker 1:and I have changed my views over time, abortion not being the least of which yep and my views will continue to evolve because I learn and, you know, as I get more information, I will change my views, yeah and you.
Speaker 1:You may be right that it is more practical to avoid a communist, socialist ideologue revolution in this country to punish those people and get them back in line. You may be practically right on that and my fear is I think that is a dangerous precedent to set and as soon as the standard shifts, that may not be a society I want to live in.
Speaker 2:I don't disagree with that, absolutely Okay, but that's why I'm cautioning against it. Yeah, and that's why I said that it's a pussy attitude.
Speaker 1:It's not a pussy attitude, it's an intelligent attitude.
Speaker 2:No, no, it's a fear-driven attitude, rather than something that you're doing because it's the right thing.
Speaker 1:So you think someone being cautious to the point of saying, hey, maybe I want to make sure and tread lightly.
Speaker 2:Here is what is what If you're afraid of making laws because you're afraid those laws will be applied to you? I think that that is an incorrect attitude, because the application of a law to yourself should not play into whether something is a good law or not.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. You're totally incorrect here. This is exactly why jury nullification exists. This is exactly why we are fucked is because people have not thought oh well, what if the cops are turned on me? Well, guess what? You know, most people don't have interactions with our legal system and that's why they don't understand how fucked up and bad it is, because they have not had those laws applied to them.
Speaker 1:And the fact of the matter is, these laws that can be will, can be used against you eventually will so maybe you should absolutely think of it in that context and go well, maybe that's not a law that we should pass, maybe we don't need all these laws. Maybe we should back the hell off and let people just be.
Speaker 2:Well, maybe we don't need the laws, but I think going at it from the approach of like well, this might be used against me, I think prevents you from doing things that are actually just and right. Do you think that there's a possibility that you could run into somebody with your car, for whatever reason? You weren't looking. You saw a billboard that distracted you. Is there a small, tiny little possibility that could happen? Sure, okay. Should that mean that we should have no laws relating to punishment for actions that involve in homicide?
Speaker 1:First of all, it would be involuntary manslaughter. And no, actually, I think that most reasonable people would say, hey, accidental, this is what we need to be able to do, negligence and so on. And if I was the victim of this, there's multiple ways to think about that and come to say, you know, that's not that bad, that is what should happen.
Speaker 2:Well, there should. Yeah, I don't disagree with that, but I think that maybe it's not the best example that I could have brought up, but the idea that there is a possibility that each one of us could break not a bad law, but a good law during our lifetimes.
Speaker 1:Yeah, okay, let's go back to what is the definition of a crime, and if there's not a crime, there should be no punishment. It is harm to one's property, one's person or one's liberty. Anything that is not harm to one of those three things is not a crime. Therefore, speech by definition cannot, should not be a crime and should not be punished.
Speaker 2:And once again you're conflating speech with other people's reactions to their speech. How many times do I have to say you can say any goddamn thing you want, I don't care Anybody can say anything.
Speaker 1:And, I think, going and being a Karen and highlighting this, they're not immune from reactions to what they say.
Speaker 2:You don't get immunity.
Speaker 1:The flip-flop and embarrassing acquiescence to cancel culture is just shocking to me. So when someone says, hey, that dude's got a dick, I don't think he should be swimming in against Riley Gaines in this. Go tell his boss, he's fired. You think that's okay?
Speaker 2:yeah, I think that somebody should have told the US Olympic team that maybe it's not a good idea to have somebody with a dick on the women's team, you're, you're missing my point.
Speaker 1:You, this is a door that has been opened that should have never been opened.
Speaker 2:It's always been open. Social media allows it to be open.
Speaker 1:Amplifies it yes.
Speaker 2:Yes, exactly. Well, you think people have not been fired 20, 30, 40 years ago for saying stupid shit that makes their company lose money Less?
Speaker 1:so If their company lose money, less. So If their company loses money from it, that's very different.
Speaker 2:What do you think? People saying, hey, I'm not going to shop at Home Depot?
Speaker 1:It's generally meaningless and doesn't matter.
Speaker 2:I canceled Netflix four and a half years ago when it was obvious they were producing pedophilia. Now a lot of people laughed at me. It's like you think that'll make any difference. Who gives a shit? If you cancel Netflix, they're not going to change. Nothing's going to change. Well, enough people actually cancel Netflix and it will make a change. So just because there may not be a huge enough number of people to make a change within the company, that's fine. It doesn't mean I'm not going to act the way that I am. I absolutely refuse to support and spend money and this is a very Ayn Rand libertarian thing. I'm not going to be forced to spend money with people that make my life worse, People that are socialists.
Speaker 2:I agree with that you can't force me to do that and I don't, I'm not saying is exactly that if home depot employs people that want to kill donald trump, I will not spend money with home depot, and that is the message that Home Depot is getting and Home Depot's reaction. Let me finish, and Home Depot's reaction to that is to then get rid of the problem, which they did.
Speaker 1:Okay, something that I will say is especially someone low level like a cashier at home depot saying something on their personal social media that has nothing to do with home depot, until someone says, oh, they work at home depot. I'm going to tie this together. Home depot does you support? That is a chicken shit attack against that person. Instead of going to that, person and Is it legal? No, and nor should it be, except. It is harm to one's person in a way, because it is affecting your ability to feed your family.
Speaker 2:Well, maybe you should watch what you say then. Okay, I think these people are not innocent babes that are being led to the slaughter here.
Speaker 1:These are people that I think there's a lot of ignorant, stupid people who don't understand what they're saying and the consequences of it.
Speaker 2:These people? Somehow they should have a guaranteed job. These stupid people.
Speaker 1:Dude, no one is guaranteed a job. That's not my point. You're going after red herring, after red herring instead of saying let's go back to the principle.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 1:Do you believe people should be able to speak freely? Yes, okay. Do you believe that the way we progress as a society and as a scientific community, as any sort of progression, comes from the outlier ideas, not the lockstep ideas? Yes, okay.
Speaker 1:So if we promote a society where, as soon as you say something that is outside of the cultural norm and right now you're using some extreme examples, but it may just be, hey, there's a better widget over here that will work better no, no, no, we've always said this and done it this way Fire him, crucify him. If we have that, we will fail as a society. We recognize that.
Speaker 2:Sounds awfully soft for socialists. To be man, I'm up for the individual, not for the society here. An individual's right to associate and to determine where they spend their money is above any future potential social right that you want to discuss. This is a principled, uh, individualist issue.
Speaker 1:If you say that I very much am an individualist. I'm very principled on this. I think you're missing my point I think you are.
Speaker 2:That's why I think you're you're actually in congress on this point. I think that you're supporting something because voltaire said it and not because it's actually a dumb statement.
Speaker 1:It's not a dumb statement, this is so. You have this thing that I think is absolutely insane about people quoting things. So therefore, they, you know, are just quoting someone and don't really understand it. Let me put it to you this way I believe in protecting every individual's freedom of speech, regardless of its content, because I believe in protecting my own free speech, do you believe?
Speaker 2:in protecting it from the government, if I hear something that.
Speaker 1:I disagree with, I will debate the person and put it both out there for other people to decide. I think that there should be a free and liberal and I use that word very intentionally here and it's an original meaning exchange of ideas. We should be very liberal with our exchange of ideas and let the bad ideas die on the vine. They don't need to be excised from the vine, they will die on their own. Let them right.
Speaker 2:So the freedom of speech concept is a protection from government regulation. It is not a protection from other people disliking your speech.
Speaker 1:So this is where you're wrong and this is the fundamental disconnect. There is the Constitution and the Bill of Rights that says that the federal government shall not infringe the freedom of speech. But this is a difference. That document protects your freedom of speech from the government. It does not guarantee that freedom of speech. It does not create that freedom of speech Freedoms liberties. The freedom of speech is an not create that freedom of speech freedoms liberties. The freedom of speech is an inalienable human right. It is inherent. It does not matter if that constitution was never written. You should still have it.
Speaker 2:That is the fundamental cornerstone of western philosophy from home depot. Lose their freedom of speech. Explain that they can still say stupid shit they've done before they'll do it again. Is there a freedom of guaranteed work?
Speaker 1:it's a okay, it's an ad hominem attack. You and I are in a fist fight, okay, and we're fighting because we're mad at each other. Whatever it is, this is the lanes of combat and all of a sudden, someone over here decides to shoot one of us Because they didn't like that we were doing that. Yeah, is that moral and okay?
Speaker 2:Well, it depends, were we trespassing?
Speaker 1:All right, trespassing, you're all right, man I I think that this is a I think part of you is playing a little devil's advocate and b I think that this is just one of those areas where I get where you're coming from. I get the desire to yell charge when the enemy is in retreat and hoist them on their own petard. I get that as a desire. I am fundamentally saying be careful with it, because eventually that will be used against you again, versus saying you know I could fuck you over with this the way you fucked me over with it. I'm not going to. I'm going to be the bigger man, I'm going to be the more principled individual and I'm going to hold strong. And.
Speaker 1:I'm not going to do to you what you did to me.
Speaker 2:Yeah, holding strong, I think, is something that most people are afraid of doing because they're afraid of losing their jobs. Okay.
Speaker 2:And in this particular case, I am all for demonstrating to people that your job is not guaranteed, that the reason that you have a job is because your employer is getting something from you more than it's costing them. And when you start interfering with their business by making people say I'm not going to shop at a place that employs people like this, then you're worth less to them than the cost to them and the obvious, natural thing for their employer to do is to fix that problem. So I started this story earlier but you kept kind of moving on. I had a friend in the security space this is actually back when I was working at a project at Target and he was also a consultant out there in security Very, very smart guy, great sense of humor.
Speaker 2:I really liked him. Total liberal, but like kind of a Brett Weinstein type liberal, right so a liberal with a brain. Weinstein type liberal, right, so a liberal with a brain. And so even after I left that, that project, I kind of stayed in touch with them and, and you know, kept up the interaction. And then it was right about the time that Twitter came out that I started seeing posts from him on twitter and you know early days of twitter. Everything was very innocent.
Speaker 2:It was like, oh, I just want to get a coffee, and it was really good yeah, it was that kind of stuff, and and I started seeing this guy start tweeting more about his job and and and starting talking about how oh yeah, you know, we had a meeting about blah blah blah and my boss is a moron because he had this particular reaction and I don't see how he doesn't understand, and it was like I'm not even disagreeing with what he's saying, right, what he's saying was reasonably an intelligent thing and it's something that maybe he would have said to me if I was sitting next to him. The difference is he said it publicly and I I emailed him when I saw him starting to do that and said dude, what the hell are you doing? You're trying to sabotage your job or what? Because you're publicly stating things that are gonna get you fired? And and he, he totally disregarded. He's like ah no, it's, you know this, off hours. I'm doing this when I'm not at work, so they have no inclination about this.
Speaker 2:I'm like that ain't how that works, dude. If what you're doing is making people that determine who works for them. If it's making their lives more difficult, you will lose your job. And two months later, he lost his job and he was shocked. He was surprised. Oh my God.
Speaker 1:How could?
Speaker 2:I possibly lost my job. Well, you lost your job because you forgot about karma. You forgot about this concept that when you put something out there, other people see it and if your intention is just to vent and not to actually communicate, do it in a room where no one's going to hear you and vent maybe to your buddy.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and then your buddy records and puts it out there.
Speaker 2:Well, that happens quite a bit, as we saw with Trump's call, with what's his face?
Speaker 1:RFK, rfk Jr. Yeah, yeah, well, and RFK apologized for that immensely.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I took his apology. I mean, I think he'll still burn for it, but I think at least that seemed like a genuine apology, not a contrived one.
Speaker 1:Let me just put it to you this way, gene. I was on Twitter circa 2007 on one of my usernames so on there pretty early too. Yeah. What will be used against us, whether or not your job has the right libertarian idea for some is no borders, no controls, no nothing.
Speaker 2:That's the opposite of libertarianism for me. To me it's like.
Speaker 1:I agree with you.
Speaker 2:Hold on, don't fuck with it, hold on.
Speaker 1:I agree with you. I agree with you on a lot of things. My point is people take philosophies to different extremes. My entire point here is your buddy shouldn't have been fired.
Speaker 2:I think he was rightly fired.
Speaker 1:Why.
Speaker 2:Because he did something that was stupid, that he was warned he shouldn't do.
Speaker 1:Okay, so what you want is a society that pushes any controversial ideas underground.
Speaker 2:I want a society where I can make a decision about where I spend my money and whether I is an individual or I is the company I own.
Speaker 1:So you as an individual better go and vet with all your clients and all the people you are going to work with, that you agree and that you all agree for all of eternity. Because soon as something comes up today that you said 5, 10, 15, 20 years ago comes up out of a recording and now you're canceled over it, don't bitch well, absolutely.
Speaker 2:I mean I can bitch about disagreeing with them and their motives for canceling me, but the process of canceling I'm not going to disagree with, absolutely yeah okay, and I think this is just a absolute fundamental disagreement, then because, no, I don't think that you should and if I found out that you murdered somebody that I liked, I don't care. If you murdered somebody I didn't like, but if you murdered somebody I liked, jesus.
Speaker 1:Christ Right, there's a See. There's another problem there, gene, you're not applying things consistently.
Speaker 2:No, no, no, I am very consistent in this, because it only has ever gone around people I like. But anyway, if you murdered somebody I like, I reserve the right to cut relations with you.
Speaker 1:uh-huh, it's that simple, you do something I don't like, it means I don't have to interact, hold on any time and energy in you there's a difference between me doing something you don't like and me committing a crime well, okay, I'm using murder as an extreme example, not in the criminal sense but okay, I put sugar in my coffee and you don't think I should?
Speaker 2:um, I can probably imagine some variant. Let's say let's say you were a diabetic and you were putting sugar in your coffee, right? Because, then I might have an opinion about it, because I really don't care if you put sugar in your coffee right, I don't put sugar in my coffee, but I know and you're not a diabetic.
Speaker 2:But for the sake of argument, let's say you did something that I thought was just dumb, like, uh, like a diabetic putting sugar in their coffee, right? Um, do I have the right to not be in a relationship with you of any kind Because it's annoying me, it's costing me stress seeing you put sugar, or do I not have that right?
Speaker 1:You have that right.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 1:But I think it's short-sighted and absolutely stupid of you to do.
Speaker 2:Well, that's an opinion, but I do have that right.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:You're not denying, I have that right.
Speaker 1:Okay, again, there is a difference between what I think you ultimately have the right to do and what should be done, and that's where a lot of libertarian ideals come into conflict with each other. Yes, libertarian ideals come into conflict with each other. Yes, because do I believe that home depot has the right to fire any of their employees?
Speaker 1:for pretty much any reason yes, okay, good, we agree do I think that home depot should fire an employee that's being called out by karen because they said something stupid, especially if they've apologized back down or done anything else? Probably not. I think that's a very extreme worldview and will cause a lot of heartache down the road, and that's my entire point here.
Speaker 2:Right. But you realize, as you just separated, one is an opinion, the other one is a fact Home Depot does have the right to fire this person. Home Depot does have the right to determine what is best for their company. You don't like that.
Speaker 1:No, no, no, no, no, no no, what I don't like is that people don't apply standards consistently. That is my point. That is my point that no one liked it when it was being used against them, and now that they have something they can use against the liberals, they're all for it. I think you're misappropriating.
Speaker 2:No, I'm not, let me explain to you why I think you're misappropriating, Because you think that people didn't like it when it was used against them. No, no, that's not what we didn't like. What we didn't like is that it was unidirectional. It was only used against us. When it's bidirectional, that's fine. I don't see a problem with it. The problem was the inequity to use your word of it only being applied in one direction. So now that it's applied in both directions, I'm perfectly fine with it. It's literally democracy, Democracy.
Speaker 1:Yes, and democracy is a dog shit idea.
Speaker 2:Okay, that's fine. But it is democracy. It is determining that if you do X, then I'm going to do Y, and if there's more of me that do Y, then the company is going to say yeah, you know what. We're going to side with the majority here. We're going to get rid of the problem.
Speaker 1:Okay, I.
Speaker 2:Let me ask you this Just, and I know we're going over time here not that anyone gives a shit, but um that when you read in in school or homeschool or whatever or maybe you didn't read the book scarlet letter did you read it?
Speaker 1:oh yeah, what was your take? Uh, I'm not a big hawthorne fan, but uh, you know I. What do you mean? What is my take?
Speaker 2:well, I think the intended take is this poor woman has to bear the scarlet letter of adultery on her chest because, shocker, she was an adulterer. And um and that well, she had sex with a married man and had a kid with him. So I'd say she's an adulterer.
Speaker 1:But the story, the way it's played out, I think you need to go back and reread that.
Speaker 2:She's the good character. No, because when I read it the first time I was like, yeah, that's absolutely what should have happened.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think you misread the book Gene.
Speaker 2:No, I don't think so, okay, what was? The point? What was the point? No, no, no, you, you think there was a different point that was made that somehow exonerates her from her actions yes what was the point?
Speaker 1:um that the man she had a uh child with was her husband. No, he wasn't child with was her husband. No, he wasn't Okay. Well, we remember the book differently and we should go to the cliff notes and see who's right.
Speaker 2:Let us know, guys, because, granted, it's been longer for me than for you since we read that, but I'm pretty sure he was not her husband, it was somebody else's husband. Now, it may have been that they were in love and he married somebody else. That happens, but adultery doesn't take into account somebody else.
Speaker 1:He arrives in New England alive and conceals his identity, he finds his wife was forced to wear the scarlet letter on her dress. Boom, you were wrong.
Speaker 2:Well, hold up, he is. Why is he concealing his identity?
Speaker 1:It's the whole trope of the book, dude is that she is accused of doing something she did not do and has to wear this scarlet letter. That's the entire trope of the book. That's the entire point of this. In fact, a large portion of my point is she's falsely accused of something.
Speaker 2:Well, falsely accused is different than actually accused or accused for something that somebody actually did. We know Tenacious D did or Kyle did what he did. We have video of it. We have evidence of it.
Speaker 1:There's no false accusation possibility and you know again, I think he's a useful idiot. I think he's in.
Speaker 2:Do you think useful?
Speaker 1:idiot thought it would be okay, and therefore it was an off-the-cuff statement that I don't think he gives a shit about.
Speaker 2:I don't think he cares enough to mean yeah, yeah, and I get that like it was a joke, right, but do you think that there should be zero consequences for people doing stupid shit?
Speaker 1:I think the individuals who choose not to buy their concert tickets because, oh my god, I can't believe he said that that's enough of a consequence, I think, going to and getting their insurance companies to make a decision that's totally irrelevant to their business model, you know, I I think that's a bullshit thing.
Speaker 2:Well, the insurance company isn't going to do this out of the randomness. They're going to do it because they have actuaries. They're the least random companies of all.
Speaker 1:No, not anymore. And this is DEI. Principles run amok and it's the conservative version of it and it's a bad idea to begin with conservative version of it and it's a bad idea to begin with any sort of quota. I quota any.
Speaker 2:the risk factor for their concert selling out just increased greatly as a result of this okay would you disagree with that? Make the statement again the risk of their concerts not selling out, like what's the point of having insurance for them?
Speaker 1:if a venue burns down, if something bad happens, things like that yeah, so it has nothing to do with tickets no okay.
Speaker 2:Well then, I don't know what happened, but no it does not.
Speaker 1:It does not cover. Oh, we didn't sell out. Therefore, we get to file an insurance claim to say we should be covered for this.
Speaker 2:That's not what's going on. Okay, so it's well. I don't know what's going on with the insurance company what's liability protection for the venues?
Speaker 1:that's why I'm saying this is a chicken shit.
Speaker 2:Let me let me rephrase that maybe the guy who quote-unquote owns the insurance company is a chicken shit thing. Let me rephrase that Maybe the guy who quote unquote owns the insurance company is a Trump supporter. And when you hear somebody say that, hey, a guy that you support should be killed, do you not have the right to no longer do business with that person? I think you do. I think you can make a decision based on somebody's statements on whether you want to conduct business with them, a decision based on somebody's statements on whether you want to conduct business with them.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I believe in political, personal and and professional separation. I think there should be chinese walls in your life about how politics does not affect professionalism would you do business with a uh chinese company?
Speaker 2:yes, would you do business with a Palestinian company?
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:Would you do business with a company that's a pornography company? Yes. Would you do business with a pornography company that uses perfectly legal children in other jurisdictions where the age of consent is 13?
Speaker 1:I'm not in a business where I would have to make that call.
Speaker 2:So you're going to be chicken shit and just not make a call? Why?
Speaker 1:not. You're chicken shit and not address what I've said so sure.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and anyone listening knows that that statement is false. I've addressed everything you said and I keep making the distinction that it's not about freedom of speech, it's about the consequences of the speech. You have no right to zero consequences for your speech, because every person that hears you can then decide what their reaction is. And if that react and if you come to a store and you start talking about how the stone owner is an evil Jew and they're ripping everybody off, you're probably not going to be allowed to shop there anymore.
Speaker 1:That's fine.
Speaker 2:Right. It's private property rights Private property rights do not exist.
Speaker 1:All right, let's take this to the chase. Oliver extreme, you're my employee. Do I have the right to force you to get a vaccination or to quit your job?
Speaker 2:uh, you can absolutely fire somebody if they don't want to do something that you require for the job. I don't think anyone. I don't think that is not a reasonable requirement.
Speaker 4:I don't want to do something that you require for the job.
Speaker 2:I don't think anyone, I don't think that is not a reasonable requirement I don't think anyone hold on. No, no, no stop here.
Speaker 1:This is this is my entire point, and I think we found a, finally an example that might get you to understand okay, okay, go ahead. There is no contractual compensation. That can exist to say I want you to do an irreversible medical treatment. There is no compensation that is adequate for that.
Speaker 2:Okay, so the problem is compensation then.
Speaker 1:Hold on, no, no, no, hold on, hold on. There is no job requirement. Hold on, there is no job requirement. The requirements that the idea that a employer can require vaccination as a perfect example is asinine. No, they should not require that An employer can require anything that you're willing to do.
Speaker 2:There's no? Okay, I'll give you two examples.
Speaker 1:Again, this goes to the extremism of libertarianism. Let me talk now. This is the open border example ben, can I talk? I don't know. You've interrupted me multiple times gene and you've called me out on interrupting you but I haven't done the same, and now you're going to interrupt me because you've been interrupted.
Speaker 2:See, sounds to me like you actually are for doing this thing in both directions, right.
Speaker 1:I think that it's ridiculous that you're calling me out the way you are. I would rather just have a flowing conversation, but that's fine.
Speaker 2:Well, let me address what you just said. So you're saying an employer cannot require you to have to get a vaccination, and I would say no one can require you to get a vaccination, but an employer can absolutely fire you if you don't get a vaccination. I'll give you an example of this. There have been tons of companies way before COVID that have sent people to parts of the world like Africa or Southeast Asia, where certain diseases are prevalent, where there is a requirement as part of your job and if you're not willing to do this requirement and get vaccinated for those diseases, you will lose that job. That's existed way before COVID.
Speaker 1:Yes, and it's been bullshit. That's a perfectly reasonable thing, it's not?
Speaker 2:Because you're creating a risk for the company. It's not.
Speaker 1:You're creating a risk for me. How can you ever give me enough compensation for that? I can take that shit for you.
Speaker 2:Well, it's your job to determine how much the appropriate level of compensation is. For some people it's literally nothing. For other people it's like well, if you give me 10 grand, then I'll go do it. For other people it's an ice cream, as some people got ice creams for doing COVID shot right. So it all depends. Remember, I didn't get a COVID shot because no level of compensation is high enough to endanger my health All right, and all I'm saying is the world you're setting up is a very very dangerous one for yourself.
Speaker 1:You recognize that right.
Speaker 2:Yes, because I'm not willing to completely create a world that's beneficial for me. I'm looking for where do the? Rights of other people fit in here, and the right of somebody who owns a company to determine what they're willing to pay for is theirs what?
Speaker 1:yes, I completely agree. What they're willing to pay for is theirs correct what they are telling me I have to subject myself to is not so I've I've had as part of working in infosec and okay, for instance, I've had to do a drug test.
Speaker 2:I wasn't done talking. I had to do a drug test on a routine basis for 20 years. I would not have the contracts that I did if I wasn't being drug tested. That's fine. I think that's fine.
Speaker 1:I don't have a problem. It was an original condition of your employment.
Speaker 2:It was an original condition. It was certainly an assumption of my employment because I started working in fields that required drug tests and background tests pretty much since I was 20. So that was a normal part of what I didn't you know. I did know drugs of any kind for that entire period of time. That was the trade-off for me for having the types of jobs that I wanted to have. I don't see a problem with that. But there were people certainly that were bitching about how it's unfair that they're being drug tested and that's none of the employer's business what they do or don't do in the in in their own homes, in the privacy of you know off work hours.
Speaker 1:I completely agree with that statement.
Speaker 2:And a lot of libertarians very much jump into that side of it. My point was always no one's forcing you to be in this job, and if this job has a requirement you don't like, you're absolutely free to not work here All right requirements you don't like.
Speaker 1:You're absolutely free to not work here, all right, and in an ideal free market without crony capitalism, without the bullshit, fine, I'll agree with you. That is not the reality of the employment contracts and scenarios today. We can recognize that right.
Speaker 2:What do you mean by that?
Speaker 1:So, for instance, if there were unlimited competition and I could just jump and make a purely free market decision about my employment and my employer could make a purely free market decision about me, then fine, I can agree with your stance can we agree? There. Yeah, okay, can we agree that that does not exist today?
Speaker 2:I think you think it doesn't exist a lot more than I think it does. I think we're pretty close to that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, okay, we're not. As someone who works in corporate America and has more recently worked in large corporate America than you for a long period of time. We're not we are far, far, far and away removed from it as someone who.
Speaker 2:What does that mean?
Speaker 1:a job during covid over forced vaccination requirements and basically telling my ceo quite frankly to his face you can remove this requirement or you have till I find another job. And I found another job and I left willingly well, good, that's the way it's supposed to work. Agreed, and there were a bunch of us who did I still don't believe that that employer should have that right. I don't think that they should fire me.
Speaker 2:It's not a right, it's a request, and and they isn't. That's the fucking problem here, gene.
Speaker 1:That's the problem, that's the the use of osha, the way this is done, the fact that we do not have a free market of employment, we do not have a free market of ideas, the fact that that's the entire point here I.
Speaker 2:I fully think that the government has no right to prescribe this, but but private companies have private contracts. No osha boom, there you go okay, but not every employer is going to do that, because of ocean any employer of any size had to anyone over 100 employees right and that's wrong. However, plenty of employers would have done it even without the osha requirement, like by choice, because they had people that that were running the companies that were told no, they wouldn't, because they would people that were running the companies that were totally sold.
Speaker 1:No, they wouldn't have, because they would have gotten enough blowback Some companies would have, some wouldn't have. Well, and that's why this pendulum should not be what chooses the direction they go. What's going?
Speaker 2:to create this free market is having companies be able to choose, because some companies would have said, yes, everybody should get a vaccine. Other companies said that we don't care, and then those companies would have gotten people like you because they don't care, and other companies would have gotten people that are very into the whole you know vaccine thing. Working for companies that are also into that. Like that's the way it's supposed to work. You're supposed to be able to work at a company that you agree with, yeah, and that doesn't exist today.
Speaker 2:But that's a cop-out. That's a cop-out to say it doesn't exist. It doesn't exist because people don't care. People just want to have a job that pays bills and they make the most money at and then have zero consequences for anything that they do Aside from that. Okay, athletes and and people that are uh, I guess you know people that are, I guess you know public figures historically have had in their contracts a clause what was it called? Morality? Yeah, morality clauses exactly. Are you against those? Yeah, I'm not, because that, to me, is again the essence of libertarianism. It is free association, it is being able to have a contract that establishes a relationship that is mutually agreed to by both parties and the value of that is determined by both parties. If they don't agree on the value, they're not going to sign the contract.
Speaker 2:So if you want to give up your right to drink. Let's say, I work for a Muslim company and they require all their employees to not consume alcohol. Now, I may not, you know.
Speaker 1:Then you should pay me the equivalent of a 24 hour a day salary.
Speaker 2:OK, so that's an establishment of your price for other people Like say for me that would be a lower price because I don't value alcohol as highly as somebody else.
Speaker 1:Well, I mean, I haven't drank in well over a year.
Speaker 2:I'm not talking about you specifically. I'm a random person.
Speaker 2:But my point is, I haven't drank in over a year and I would still go into that and say yeah, you got to pay me a 24-hour salary if you want to be, if you want to control my behavior 24 7 you know they're, they're a saudi-based company and they have the money and they're like yeah, okay, that's fine, okay, cool, so, okay. So you're proving my point. So there is simply a cost issue here. You don't like, not that you're against companies having weird requirements. As long as you agree to the requirement, as long as the compensation is worth it, you're okay with it.
Speaker 1:There's a very big difference between telling me not to consume something and forcing me to consume something.
Speaker 2:I was referring more to the Home Depot situation, but sure.
Speaker 1:Okay, we were just Okay, squirrel, squirrel, we were just talking about vaccines.
Speaker 2:But yeah, well right, it's the same thing for vaccines too, but really not, though that's my entire point but do you wait? You don't think that there's a cost to vaccines for people and it's different? Okay, no, no, no gene hold on.
Speaker 1:This is the same equivalence and this this we'll go back to peterson. This is a great example. There is a difference between saying hey, be careful about what you say, you can cross lines there and compelling speech just like saying you shouldn't drink alcohol. We don't want you to drink alcohol, so we're going to compensate you to not drink alcohol is different than saying you must take this thing, you must do this thing. If you do not do this thing, you're fired.
Speaker 2:But so okay is your contention then? Simply that it wasn't discussed prior to employment. So if you are in negotiations with a company and they're saying oh, by the way, if there is a vaccine that comes out that is pandemic related, we will require all of our employees to take it.
Speaker 1:Let's put it this way Every company I have worked for since then, including my current one. I have had very frank conversations with HR about what my lines are before accepting a position.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I think that's great. I think that's exactly what everybody ought to be doing is having those conversations Totally, I have flat out told people that a vaccination will not be a condition of my employment. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Period yeah. And I have that on the record before accepting a position.
Speaker 2:Exactly, which is great. I think that's exactly, but that doesn't mean that companies should be prevented from having the conversation you had, and maybe somebody has a different opinion.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and if they change their mind and fire me over it, I'm going to sue the shit out of them, because I have that as part of the conversation pre-employment and what we agreed to yeah, although in texas they can fire you for any reason, but yeah no, and here's the thing um, at will, employment is fine, um, but it shouldn't be abused either direction. I agree, like let's be clear about that.
Speaker 2:this should not be abused either direction. I agree Like let's be clear about that.
Speaker 1:This should not be abused either direction and that would be an abuse of it, and you know uh well okay. Let me, let me put it non competes.
Speaker 2:Let me ask you this Um what if?
Speaker 1:do you think you can sign away your right to competition?
Speaker 2:Um, for money? Yeah, what if? Do you think you can sign away your right to competition For money?
Speaker 1:yeah, for a period of time.
Speaker 2:For money for a period of time, with certain limitations. This is a topic I've studied greatly, yeah, and.
Speaker 1:I think we agree on non-competes If you give me a specific compensation and we bound it correctly, a non-compete can and should be enforceable yeah problem is, that's not what happens.
Speaker 2:We have these blanket non-competes well, that's because they have no compensation. I I have not signed a non-compete against, you know, limiting my ability to compete for 30 years because I made the mistake of signing one 31 years ago and I ended up in a lawsuit. So it's a. A lot of people don't realize they can push back on that stuff and say, yeah, this is all great, except for this paragraph, or this sentence needs to be deleted.
Speaker 2:And then I'll be happy to sign. And guess what happens? Usually the person you're talking to is like, oh, I don't know if we can do that. They take it back to their lawyers. The lawyer's like yeah, we don't care. And then it comes back and you sign it and now you're the only guy in the company or the only guy in your department that doesn't have a non-compete and everybody else was just didn't realize you could opt out, Yep.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, they're done that yeah.
Speaker 2:So I agree with that, but I don't think that companies should be prevented from creating a non-compete Like if somebody wants to sign those rights away. A company ought to be able to buy those rights. Okay, think that the the contractual relationship between two independent parties, uh is one of the very core liberties that we have that.
Speaker 1:I think everything should be determined by contract law. That isn't criminal law, and we've already defined what a crime yeah, and we've agreed on that point before so it's a conversation for everybody when we agree. So this has been extremely fun, but what I would say, though, is, again, that only works in a true free market.
Speaker 2:Well, yeah, I don't disagree with you on that, but I also don't want to use that as a cop-out to then just never do it either. It's not a cop-out. It kind of is a cop-out because you know saying look, most people live with like not even a month of savings right. Yeah, that's a problem.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:You could literally fix what you're describing of not a true free market, had a year or several years worth of savings and they could be a lot more picky about the jobs that they take. It would literally take less than a year for companies to become a lot less um draconian and a lot more willing to compromise, because the the pool of available uh, people would not be so easily accessible like yeah well, uh you know, I.
Speaker 1:I did this during covid.
Speaker 1:I basically told them fuck you and I don't have fuck you money, but I've got enough money to say no to this yep. And the problem is at a large company, fortune 250 company, with, let's say, probably around 10,000 employees nationwide not kind of contractors and everything else, just actual employees. And there were, corporately, I had about 20 people co-sign my letter that went to the CEO at the time and it ended up about 18 of us left. The lowest ranked person was a senior manager, the highest ranked person was a VP, so you had, literal, a pretty decent chunk of corporate leadership. Say fuck you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but imagine how much stronger that would have been in the company of like a thousand people instead of 10,000, if that many people left.
Speaker 1:Well, so the company ended up back backing out after a bunch of us left and never mandated it. However, what they have done and snuck in and this is, I think, a chicken shit thing and where again this becomes a problem for if you go, just well, if I only care about what affects me what that company has done is made it a requirement of new employment that you be this and in a principled way, I'm okay with them doing that because it doesn't affect me.
Speaker 1:And we can have that conversation at the time of employment and, like the NDA, we can probably find conversation at the time of employment and, like the NDA, we can probably find a way around it, yep. But as someone who says you know, I think this is a really bad idea and this is a bad precedent. Yeah, I have a problem with it.
Speaker 2:And I think they're good, okay, I was just going to gonna say I think companies do a lot of stupid shit, just like individuals do a lot of stupid shit. But stupid shit shouldn't be uh, assumed to be illegal.
Speaker 1:shit like stupid shit holy shit, you just made my entire point that we've been arguing about for an hour and a half no, no, I don't think so.
Speaker 2:No, because if you remember the, the beginning, uh, of the argument was me saying that people that do stupid shit need to get some karma back. They that, when you, you know, fuck around, find out, you want to talk about something that is clearly going to be perceived negatively by the vast majority of people out there publicly. You want to talk about that publicly, not with your friends, then there will be consequences for it and there should be consequences for it. Companies can do likewise, like Netflix, which I mentioned is a good example of that. They went deep into pedophilia. That cost them subscribers, including me.
Speaker 1:So if something leaks out that you and I say during a conversation, should you be punished for it?
Speaker 2:Do you mean by leaks out like it wasn't recorded on a podcast? Do you mean it was just like a phone call or something?
Speaker 1:Correct, it was a phone call or something. Correct, it was a phone call.
Speaker 2:Well, yes.
Speaker 1:Something not intended for public consumption, I mean.
Speaker 2:I would probably not be happy with the person that leaked it, but is it something I actually said and it's not a deep fake? Who knows? At this point. I mean, if I actually said it, I would have two choices. I can either stand by it or I can refute it and then say that that was in a different context. I was joking, I didn't mean it, I was stupid. I meant it, but I was stupid. Whatever I mean. Like there has to be some explanation for it, right?
Speaker 1:Yeah, that brings in a whole other point of this conversation is this cancel culture idea. That is very dangerous in my opinion, as deep fakes get better and better. Holy shit.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because you remember that story about the principal getting uh deep fake by one of the teachers yeah, I don't think that was real, but well, no, it wasn't real. That's. The point is that the teacher apparently used a uh uh, a ai generated yeah, that's the.
Speaker 1:I don't think that's real.
Speaker 2:I think that you mean, the whole story is fake correct oh, I thought that was.
Speaker 1:I thought really I didn't see anything that said that was fake uh, I think that the claims that that was a quote-unquote deep fake ai is bullshit, is what I'm saying. I don't think that that was faked. I think that's what it actually said, but it opens himself up to a defense, right, and that that's why you can go both ways with this, it's's either. Oh well, I can play that off as a deep fake, and how well, the teacher was arrested.
Speaker 2:So if it's fake, you know I don't know what's going on there, because the teacher was arrested for for using AI to generate false speech.
Speaker 1:And what was the crime?
Speaker 2:I don't know, I haven't read the article, I'm just going off the headline, ok, I don't know, I haven't read the article, I'm just going off the headline.
Speaker 1:Okay, my point is if I create something that's fake and put it out there, like our theme song, for example, Right, what's the crime?
Speaker 2:Somebody emailed me asking hey, what's the name of that song? I'm like that's.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I replied. We don't have a title, but we're open to any suggestions. Uh-huh.
Speaker 2:Yeah, deshawn Darien, a physical education teacher and athlete, was accused of falsifying the voice of Principal. Eric. Hurwist. Yeah. Yeah, Authority said. Now we have conclusive evidence that the recording was not authentic.
Speaker 1:How do you have conclusive evidence? The recording was not authentic. How do you have conclusive evidence? Uh, well, that sounds like an opinion statement to me, and a contradictory one, because evidence, by its nature, is not conclusive um well, it's the chief police saying this, so you can take it for what it's worth yeah, he's an idiot, obviously, because exactly you know.
Speaker 2:Now you realize this thing is can we, our statements about the police can absolutely get us fired yeah, absolutely yeah yeah, I don't think it should well, and and maybe that's the difference is, when I say it, I know the risk associated with saying it I know the risk is willing to take the risk me too, absolutely.
Speaker 1:but that doesn't mean I should morally accept what this cancel culture is, and that's a difference between us. Yeah, you don't like it, but I will still risk it and I will still think it's an injustice if it happens. Just because something bad may happen to me doesn't mean I don't do something, but it does mean that I'm willing to say hey, you know, maybe that's not justice, maybe that's not okay.
Speaker 2:I think there's a difference between justice, which is supposed to be blind, and things you dislike, which are opinion based. Opinion based.
Speaker 1:So if somebody doesn't like what we say about police and, as a result of that, we mess out on some financial thing like money for whether it's work or something else, like I think it is just and it sounds like you don't think it would be just um, I will give you a very concrete example of this off the air that has happened to me in my life, where I will say that I don't believe action X that I took should have ended in consequence, why I will give you a very, very detailed explanation of something that happened to me that I find to be nice, if you tease that for the listeners, then not explain it, that's fine well, you know it's my privilege, exactly I know.
Speaker 1:but I'm just thinking well, now you've teased it to them and people are going to be. You know it's my privilege, it's my story and I don't want to put it out there. So there you go, I know, but I'm just thinking.
Speaker 2:Well, now you've teased it to them and people are going to be pissed at you. They'll cancel you for teasing it. They'll say you know, I used to like that show. You know everybody likes a good tease. They all tease.
Speaker 1:Well, maybe you know what, if enough of them donate enough to where this could be a viable out for me, then you know, hey, there you go, perfect. But we are nowhere near that today. So, actually, you know one of the things again, I did want to try and sorry for the pause there, but I didn't expect Gene to go the way we did. But thank you to Tom and some of the other people who have supported us. We do appreciate it.
Speaker 2:I want to make sure that, yeah, and we have people that support us monthly with small amounts but that nonetheless all add up and, like I said before, all that money goes into paying for the infrastructure. Anyway, we are a long, long way from actually making any money on this podcast. It generally costs us time and money to make it, but we enjoy it because, um you know, we like we'd be having this phone call conversation.
Speaker 2:Anyway, let's be real yeah, this would be a normal thing we do and in fact, uh, two weeks ago, when, um, when I was late, maybe it was three weeks ago getting to the uh, to the unrelenting podcast by about 15 minutes.
Speaker 2:You know we didn't record the episode but we did talk for about an hour and a half. Once I did wake up and gave him a call. So you know these things that we put out as podcasts whether it's this show or the one I do with Darren, they would happen anyway. The difference is you guys get to listen in or you guys don't get to listen in if we're just doing it on the phone.
Speaker 1:And you know, one of the things I'll also say is, notes from people like Sir Snide are very encouraging and appreciated.
Speaker 2:Or CSV.
Speaker 1:I'm sorry.
Speaker 2:Or notes from CSV complaining about your microphone.
Speaker 1:Well, any of it, though Interaction is good. One of the things I would do, though, is turn that around and say hey to some of your friends. Y'all listen to these guys. They've got some really cool opinions. They've got some things that they say. They're not afraid to say things, uh, you know, and they're, they're here's why I think they're smart or dumb or it's hilarious how stupid they are.
Speaker 1:Whatever you want to go out and say about us, go out and say it, but spread the word. We'd love to. You know we've been pretty flat on listeners for a little bit. We'd love to at least get not that we don't love y'all.
Speaker 2:Obviously we do this for y'all, but we would like to expand the audience if, if at all possible. Yeah and and look, we're going to do what we can as well, cause I know both of us have not been the best at promoting ourselves, whether it's on X or other platforms. Um, I absolutely suck at that. I'm I'm fully, fully able to admit something that's truth, which is I've always sucked at promoting myself. I'm much better at promoting other people. I don't know if some kind of deep psychological wound that I have or something that prevents me from doing self-promotion, but nonetheless, it is something I need to do more of, and we certainly both would appreciate any help in promoting us with the people that are listening.
Speaker 2:If you enjoyed it and do let us know if you did enjoy it. Look, I couldn't have a heated conversation with Ben If I didn't love Ben. Ben's a great friend, he's somebody that I take at an extremely high intellectual level. He's somebody that that really agrees with me or the other way. I agree with him on probably 97% of the time, and that's what makes it really fun when we hit those other 3% and we do have a disagreement and we can really just start pointing out to the other person where we think they're missing something, because really, you know, in my mind, ben and I agree with me on everything, because clearly, um, he's smart enough to know that 97 of the things we agree on, well, why can't he just bring himself to the other three? I'm sure ben thinks likewise in the other direction as well.
Speaker 1:So, um, yeah, one thing I would say that my grandfather always taught me and that I really truly believe in if two people always agree, one of them's not needed.
Speaker 2:Yeah or lying. Somebody's lying.
Speaker 1:Well, no, the point is, if you always agree with someone, then what purpose do you serve? I think there is a lot, and this is again what I would go back to on our conversation. I think there is value in having diverse opinions and diversity of thought. And that's why I think DEI and a lot of these things get it very wrong is because they're looking at the wrong level of analysis. The right level of analysis is always the individual and the individual's opinions.
Speaker 2:And they're looking at the wrong type of diversity Exactly Diversity of opinion, not diversity of.
Speaker 1:Totally what I just said. Thank you for reiterating.
Speaker 2:No, I'm just correcting you a little bit.
Speaker 1:And see, this is where I could also rely on Gene to always be a little bit of an ass and a troll and if you can't be good, human enough to take it, then you shouldn't be friends with gene yeah, and I think that's true.
Speaker 2:Anybody that's a friend of mine is that the ones that couldn't take it don't last as friends very long.
Speaker 1:Exactly, yeah, and you know I've out I've out, I've outlisted, most of your other podcast hosts you've done pretty damn good man. I've got thick skin. You got to admit that yeah.
Speaker 2:Well, and I think the other bit that is true of both of us. I've changed my mind on a number of issues over the years.
Speaker 1:It's a very slow process because as it should be, as it should be Very deliberate.
Speaker 2:It's a very slow process, because as it should be as it should, because I want to make sure that if I'm going to flip flop, I don't want to be flip flopping back and forth. I want to do it once. If I'm going to do it, and for a very good reason, and so it may take a longer period of time, but I've said this before. You know, I I've flip flopped on religion.
Speaker 1:I now fully support the idea that religion ought to be something that is in the culture, and, um, that took 35 years well, and here's the thing I have formed my and when I said I put my beliefs on the chopping block, I absolutely mean it, but that's why, when I sit there and I take a stance on something, I'm usually right, because I have had that willingness. I have had that willingness to sacrifice it. My beliefs and my thoughts have been forged over time in debates, in thoughts like this, where, when I'm'm done with this, this may be one of the few episodes I actually go back and listen to and really think about my views and self-reflect and go okay, am I right, am I wrong?
Speaker 1:where am I right? Where am I wrong? How do I? How do I strengthen my argument? Or not necessarily to defend it, but to convey my ideas. And that self-reflection is what I think a lot of people lack. They sit there and they spouse their ideas and they go through and they never think, they never stop to think am I right, am I wrong? Can I defend my ideals better? You know, and you have to be willing to sacrifice that bit of yourself, and that's that's a very hard thing to do because it is tied to most people's ego, and you have to be willing to put an idea out there and say this doesn't reflect on me, this is my idea, and if I am wrong, I need to be willing to cut it off and move on and do the right thing yeah, or just come up with better arguments.
Speaker 2:I mean, it's always good to re-listen stuff okay, we are an hour over gene yeah, I realized that that's right before we start another topic of debate. Yeah, let's save it for let's wrap it up. Uh and uh. Hopefully everybody enjoyed this episode. I know I did. Yeah. And I'm sure we're coming up to that time where not only do we need to wrap up, but we've got to start using the restrooms and all that good stuff.
Speaker 1:So, Ben, I will see you later. I'm sure people are going to look at this episode and go what the fuck happened?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I know right, it's not quite, but we've done a few of these. We've done a few of these over the course of and, by the way, we are slowly coming up to our 100th. We're in the late 70s, upper 70s right now. We got about 20 episodes left. We'll be hitting our 100th.
Speaker 1:Well, and it also depends on how you count.
Speaker 2:That's true. Yeah, we did do quite a few episodes as Sergine speaks as well.
Speaker 1:We're well over 100 episodes of talking together.
Speaker 2:But nonetheless, let's hype the 100th one, because if people have been holding off with a donation, here's your excuse. Guys, you could do it on the 100th episode. Make sure you do it before the 100th to get mentioned. On the 100th.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and you know, get Albie is listed um on name to bendcom. Uh, for both of us, stuff like that, um, we can. We probably need to make sure we've got better direct donations than you know we probably should, yeah, you know we, we probably should, you know like have a separate paypal account or something that we both have access to, or something so that it's against paypal terms of service how so you can't have an account that has two people that are associated with it you can't have a shared account you have can have a business account, but then you've got to pay the business fee.
Speaker 2:Oh, so I prefer to save the extra 6%, or whatever it is.
Speaker 1:Okay, well, we can figure that out, because anything that goes to Gene isn't ever going to come to me.
Speaker 2:Yeah, anything that goes directly through Buzzsprout, which is the main donation button, uh goes directly to paying for the service. So that way, you know that's like that I think that's the easiest uh way to do it anyway, because they'll take either credit card or some other method yeah, we have some people who don't want to give buzzsprout their credit card information though but you trust paypal, jesus, I would go the other way on that one well, you know, um, but either look, it may be a decision that was made a long time ago with paypal.
Speaker 2:We'll probably figure something out as well. Um, anyway, all right, ben, let's wrap up. We'll see you next week see you gene.
